Saturdays Child

TombstoneTues: Who's Buried in YOUR Backyard?

2011-08-09T18:02:00.005-05:00

Cinamon Collins' latest Tombstone Tuesday post at (Mis)Adventures of a Genealogist is a humorous reminder of how easily one can overlook a possibly long-lost ancestor in one's own neighborhood.

GUNTER is one of the many lines Cinamon has been researching for years. One day her husband jumped on his bike to make an ice cream run...and came back with photos of the tombstone of a Gunter she'd never heard of, spotted while passing a small cemetery near their home that she'd never bothered to explore.

(The photo here is one of a pair in Cinamon's Tombstone Tuesday-Felix Gunter post. The other is a close-up of the inscription.)

Cinamon doesn't know yet if the long-dead Felix is one of her Gunters, but is flabbergasted that she wasn't aware of a Gunter buried "practically in her own backyard". But her post reminded me that my mother's Only Other Child was...and still is, for all I know...similarly oblivious. For much different reasons...

For 40+ years, MOC (Mother's Other Child) has lived just outside the town where our SACK great-grandparents are buried under a large, elaborately engraved stone only a few rows from where he's been attending annual Memorial Day and Veterans' Day ceremonies in addition to the graveside services of recently departed locals.

Knowing he inherited most of his genes from the side of the family that's never been at all curious about family history unless it involves a very famous or highly-decorated ancestor (or an unclaimed fortune), I'm not the least bit surprised that even his own last name at eye level on a large tombstone escaped his attention.

The SACK stone is at least 6 feet tall, much bigger
than it looks here. This was taken from the road.
(Both photos above made by the author on 12 May 2007.)
Another nail in MOC's coffin...if you'll excuse the pun...is that SACK is not a common name in those parts, so I seriously doubt the possible connection has escaped the more curious citizens he inevitably comes in contact with at the feed store and the local cafe.

Nor, small town life being what it is, can I imagine he hasn't been asked numerous times if he's related to the couple buried under the SACK stone.

~ John L. & Zerilda Jane (Conn) SACK ~
Oakwood Cemetery, Baldwin City, Douglas Co, KS.
(Photo made by the author on 12 May 2007)
I don't know, of course, how he replies to such queries, but I can tell you he's never once mentioned the existence of the tombstone to me, or to anyone else in the family who might pass this tidbit along.

The upshot being I searched in vain for John and Zerilda's grave(s) for well over 20 years in towns and cemeteries hundreds of miles away. If not for an unexpected entry in the 1900 census, I might still be looking for it!

How I finally found John and Zerilda's tombstone.

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

Nuns Wear Hose and Heels??

2011-07-13T14:21:00.003-05:00

Well, of course they don't, silly! They're nuns!

But you can't help but appreciate the imagination that went into those
bar stools, and (unless it was staged) the luck of the photographer.

(This photo came to me in an email, so my
sincere apologies for not properly attributing it.)

Have a great day!

Wordless Wednesday: Say What?

2011-07-13T04:45:00.002-05:00

Apparently this stone carver's skills didn't include spelling,
punctuation OR working out the spacing on paper first!

It reads (and I quote):
"IN MEMORY. OF
joseph M. Buch.
anan .was Born.
aprile.the.9.1827
was killed BY
Confederates.
Mrach.the.5 1864
whilst.in.the.
service of. the
natianal.armey
as.a Recruiting
Officer"

Many thanks to Fastalkr for sharing
this fine example of how NOT to carve a tombstone
at Panoramio - Photo of Civil War Tombstone

Have a great day!

A Tale of Two Traveling Tombstones

2011-07-12T02:45:00.011-05:00

In The Lost Tombstone, Dennis L. Davenport recounts how the long-lost grave marker of Civil War soldier J. Milton Carr was finally returned to its rightful place in a cemetery at Columbia IL, 10 miles from the St. Louis backyard in which it was discovered on November 22, 1996.

That's Dennis and a friend in the photo at right, unloading Carr's stone at the cemetery. Definitely not the time to have to sneeze or scratch an itch!

"No one knew how it got there," he writes, "or how long it
was lying in the brush. Dirty, worn, and with the lower left
corner broken away, the St. Louis County Police Department
seized the tombstone and held it as found property."
It's a given that vandals removed it from the cemetery where Pvt. Carr had been lovingly laid to rest in the winter of 1861, and that they did so before January 1, 1939, the date someone - a member of Carr's family, most likely - ordered a replacement from the War Department.

The second stone, Davenport soon learned, had been duly delivered to the cemetery and installed on Carr's grave. However, he doesn't say mention its fate after he convinced the Palmier Cemetery Commission that the intricately carved stone originally purchased by the family should replace the War Dept's much plainer replacement!

Remember, this was when the internet was still thought to be a passing fad, not the instant access to genealogical information it is now. So Dennis and anyone else who assisted him in finding the location of Pvt. Carr's grave get a huge round of applause for the hard work and man hours that went into doing it the old-fashioned way!

We'll probably never know if the backyard in St. Louis was the only location Carr's original tombstone languished until its journey back to Palmier Cemetery began in earnest in 1996.

The same can't be said of the tombstone
of Civil War soldier William Lee Lyon.
I personally have knowledge of some
- but only some - of its travels!
Lyon was born in 1839 in Ohio, but in 1854, when Kansas Territory was officially opened to white settlers, his anti-slavery father moved the family to Lawrence.

Thus it was from there on 8 April 1862 that 22-year-old William enlisted in the 9th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, Company B. At that time, the 9th was only 11 days old, having been formed at Fort Leavenworth on March 27th by consolidating several units originally intended for other regiments.

Alas, Pvt. Lyon was destined never to "see the elephant" (a euphemism for participating in battle). By the time the 9th received its first marching orders in June, he'd been laid to rest in the Lyon family cemetery west of Lawrence, cut down on April 22nd in Atchison KS not by a Confederate bullet, but by pneumonia, exactly two weeks after enlisting.

Like J. Milton Carr's family, the Lyons purchased a stone befitting a fallen soldier. At 300 lbs, it's quite similar in size, shape and thin-ness to the one Dennis Davenport and friend are wrestling out of the back of that car in the photo at the beginning of this post.

I mention it's not as thick as most stones of that era only because the friends who had it at three different homes over a period of 20 years or so always marveled that it wasn't as fragile as it looked.

Their first home in Lawrence was in a brand new subdivision at what was then the west edge of town, but miles from the Lyon family cemetery. Nobody ever knew how William Lyon's tombstone came to be on the creek bank at the end of their street, but that's where their grade school-age children found it, and with the help of neighbor kids, hauled it home in a little red wagon and propped it up against the back of the house.

And that's where it stayed until they moved it to a different house years later. And to another one after that!

Why would anybody in their right mind, you ask,
not only keep but (twice!) move a 300 lb tombstone
of a CW soldier who's no relation to them?
Because at first, being new to the area, they didn't have a clue who to call to find out where it came from, and by the time they did, it'd become a member of the family. Something about it, the mother said, made it feel like an extra pair of eyes when the kids were playing in the back yard, and because it "glowed" in the moonlight, she suspected it scared off would-be burglars too. They did finally leave it behind when they moved back to Lawrence from a farm a few miles north of Tonganoxie.

But I knew nothing of this until April 11th, 1999, when the mother called and screamed "It's in the paper! Our tombstone is in tonight's paper!".

That would be the story in the Lawrence Journal-World reporting that Nancy and Bud Younger, the couple who'd owned the farm for the last 11 years, had finally located the cemetery where William Lee Lyon is buried and that they were making arrangements to return the stone. And just as my friends did, they too felt it had become a member of the family...

All well and good, but...

The article said "The Youngers still don't know how the marker ended up near Tonganoxie". Well, as far as I know, they still don't...unless they stumble across this post.

I intended to include a photo of Lyon's Traveling Tombstone, but would you believe there are none anywhere on the internet? Not even the photos that accompanied the newspaper articles from 1999! Never fear...I clipped those articles and as soon as I find the box they're hiding in, I'll share the pics here.

A local TV station interviewed a Lyon-Wood relative who was adamant that this would absolutely be the last time the stone would have to be returned, because the family was having it set in concrete.

With all due respect, I think they wasted their money.

William Lee Lyon was in the prime of life when he arrived at Fort Leavenworth, expecting a bit of adventure as a soldier before returning home to settle down, raise a family, and farm a piece of land in Douglas County. Pneumonia may have ended the farming and having children of his own, but I can't help but think it doesn't keep his spirit from going wherever the tombstone goes or that he never wanted to be stuck for eternity in that little country cemetery, so no one should be surprised when the tombstone goes missing again, as I'm absolutely sure it will.

Read the complete account of The Lost Tombstone
by Dennis L. Davenport

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

She's Got A Ticket To RYDE...

2011-07-05T16:24:00.023-05:00

Toward the far end of Ryde Pier, Isle of Wight, England.
Sign says "No Parking - No Fishing - No Swimming".
The wake is from a Wightlink passenger ferry just
arrived from or going back to Portsmouth on the
mainland, the land mass on the horizon.

(NOTE: Unless otherwise attributed, all images in this post
were made by, and therefore the property of, the author.)

Something about a heat wave with no foreseeable end makes me want to look at water. Lots of water. With the mercury hovering at 105 or so, no way am I leaving the house to drive to any lake. Instead, I dug out the photos of my trip to England in 2003, settled back in the AC, and wandered down Memory Lane. The new banner (sans Yours Truly as a baby...sorry...or in a hat) is the result.

After six days of sight-seeing in London, I reluctantly left what had become my favorite city in the world and boarded a train from Waterloo Station to Portsmouth on the southern coast. Specifically Portsmouth Harbour, from which a Wightlink passenger ferry carried me to Ryde on the Isle of Wight.

My ticket to Ryde, with combined train and ferry fares,
always brings to mind the Beatles' song "Ticket To Ride"
from which the title of this post is (loosely) borrowed.

To this day, I can't tell you if I was on Wightlink's FastCat or one of their hovercraft, although I tend to think it was a hovercraft since the FastCat was the more expensive option. A FastCat could get you from Portsmouth to Ryde in 5 minutes, hence the name and higher fare, whereas the same trip on a hovercraft took 18 minutes.

A Wightlink FastCat, 2003
One of Wightlink's hovercraft, 2003
But I can tell you the Solent, the body of water between the south coast of England and the IoW, was more open water than I've ever been on in my life.

Flying over parts of the Atlantic at 31,000 or 37,000 feet doesn't count. And according to my children, neither does flying over Canada, Greenland, and Ireland, so they say I should quit claiming to have been to those countries. Spoil sports.

Notice the ticket says "Ryde Esplanade". This is misleading.

Wightlink actually disgorges Portsmouth passengers at Ryde Pier Head, 2,250 feet (631 meters) from shore. That's almost half a mile! Ryde Esplanade is where you'll be after you drive, take the train, or walk (as I did) from the "wet" end of Ryde Pier to the dry end.

Mostly locals retrieving their vehicles after working or
shopping in Portsmouth or Southsea on the mainland.
The promenade connecting the Ryde Pier Head to
Ryde Esplanade is to the right of the photo.

Looking back toward the pier head...and wishing I'd had the
good sense to spend a few pounds on the train - the shortest line
in the world, I suspect - that used those tracks to the right!
Almost there! At this point I was extremely glad to have
heeded the advice of seasoned travelers to buy a Rollaboard
for this trip! Just past the enclosure on the right is where
I must've leaned out over that lovely wrought iron railing
to snap the photo you see in the new banner, although
I have no memory now of doing so.
Ryde Pier & Promenade circa 1960 as seen from Ryde Esplanade,
an avenue of hotels and other businesses geared to tourists.
From the Ryde section of Steve Holden's old Isle of Wight
postcards at http://www.ryde.shalfleet.net/ryde_pier.htm
Having successfully completed that unexpected half-mile constitutional, I boarded one of the island's ubiquitous local buses to Hulverstone.

The island may be only 26 miles long by 12 miles, but it's chock full of history and interesting scenery. My lodging for the next two nights was to be a combined working farm and B&B called Chapel Furlong Farm, which I had chosen specifically because it was just up the lane from the Sun Inn, a haunted pub. But that's another blog post!

Ryde Pier has undergone many changes since opening in 1814:

The National Pier Society's History of Ryde Pier

The Williams Family on The Isle of Wight
(Scroll down to the lovely old Ryde Pier postcard
for the brief history of the pier that comes after.)

Last but not least:
Steve Holden's vintage Ryde Pier postcards

Have a great day!

A Facelift for Sat's Child!

2011-07-05T04:43:00.004-05:00

No, not me. (I wish...) The blog! You wouldn't think Central Oklahoma
would be "wine country", but there are actually quite a few good
(great?) wineries in this part of the country. I haven't sampled
their wares yet, but it's on my "someday soon" list. Honest.

Really though, I chose the grapes theme because, thanks to our current
drought, it looks nothing like the parched landscape outside my door.
Rain? What's that? Been so long since we had any I can't remember.
The good news is the humidity is low here, which makes the 100+
temps much more tolerable than 100+ in northeast Kansas.

Anyway, hope you like the new look!
(Yes, the baby is moi at about 6 months.)

Have a great day!

Memorial Day 2011

2011-05-30T02:49:00.002-05:00

If you grow up in Kansas in "Tornado Alley", this is the time of year when tornado watches and warnings become so numerous that long-time residents rarely take notice.

Topeka's TV weathermen love them, though, because it's an opportunity to hog the airwaves, giving every detail of the storm or storms ad nauseum, details only other meteorologists can appreciate. Ten minutes of this and I'd change to a non-local channel or turn the set off altogether.

Not so here in central Oklahoma. On-air alerts are confined to the time normally set aside for commercials. Programs are only interrupted if cities or towns in the viewing area are in imminent danger. Nor are viewers subjected to endless, b-o-r-i-n-g loops of Doppler radar images. Oklahoma City stations have storm chasers sending live footage from the road, and in the case of News4, from a chopper.

This extended coverage, I think, tends to make residents take dangerous weather more seriously. It certainly makes me take it seriously, especially when it includes a FREE robo-call from the City that an alert is in effect. (There's a charge for this service in Kansas.)

And so it was last Tuesday evening when I turned on the telly at 5:30 to watch the NBC evening news. But instead of Brian Williams, News4's weather guy was on the screen, advising that tornadic activity had been detected in several storms southwest of OKC.

Then came live footage from News4's chopper showing funnels forming, dropping down, and ripping up homes and everything else in their path. Fascinating but very sobering after seeing the devastation in Joplin from two days earlier.

Still, I wasn't all that alarmed yet. This was all happening west of I-35 (the north-south interstate); I was a good 40 miles east of a system moving northeast, meaning it'd miss my town altogether if it stayed on its present course.

It didn't.

By 8:00, it had somehow looped east and south and was headed my way. Only then did I become concerned...terrified, actually...struck by the image of the family that News4's chopper's camera had caught emerging from a pile of matchsticks that only moments before had been their house with nothing but the clothes they had on. Everything else necessary to re-establish normal life was in the rubble or scattered to the four winds.

Having been in much the same situation only a few months ago, for the first time ever I took a tornado warning seriously. Even before the siren sounded I began gathering The Stuff I Didn't Ever Want To Be Without Again:

My purse, containing every form of ID needed to verify my identity
Several changes of clothes and underwear
Toiletries
My laptop and power cord
Cell phone and charger
A storage tub containing family photos

To prevent having to scramble around as I did, a post-disaster bag containing extra clothing and toiletries for all members of your family, along with copies of IDs, ATM and credit cards, should be prepared at the beginning of tornado season and stored somewhere other than your home. Not in your vehicle, but away.

Family photos and important documents should be scanned and stored online. If you don't already have one, set up a second email address...I recommend Gmail...and email the images to yourself. Or transfer them to CDs or a thumb drive and place in the post-disaster bag. (Emailing them to yourself is easier than remembering to add new items to the CDs or thumb drive...)

That done, all that you have to grab on the way to the basement, innermost room or the bathtub is your loved ones, your purse/wallet and your laptop (don't forget the power cord).

Have a great day and stay SAFE!

Where Oh Where Have I Been?

2011-01-10T06:31:00.009-06:00

It seems impossible that aside from the London's New Year 2011 post, I've been away from Sat's Child for 4 1/2 months!

Lest you think I was stretched out on the sofa in front of the telly 24/7, stuffing myself with junk food, here's the Short List of what happened during that time:

Shortly after uploading the photo tour of Davenport OK, my car broke down on the interstate and had to have major surgery (a new transmission).

While the car was out of commission, I packed up my treasured flat "in the trees" in KS to move to Oklahoma where I...

...became the live-in Granny Nanny (also cook, laundress and dishwasher) for Son and Family.

After getting the last of my things from storage in KS, we returned to a nearly-empty house (robbed!).

My non-driving Dau-in-Law landed a night-shift job in a town 28 miles away, so I then became Taxi Mom (28 miles X4 every night and pre-dawn for several weeks - exhausting!).

D-i-L was promoted, which required living much closer to her job, so we found a (seemingly) "perfect" rental house in that town and we all moved.

During the packing up, my laptop was dropped in shutting-down mode, requiring an expensive 2-day trip to the Computer Hospital for a new hard drive.

That house turned out to be a drafty, utilities nightmare so...

...we moved again 2 weeks later.

At the new house, thanks to an inept AT&T rep, we were (mostly) without internet access for 10 days. (NetZero dial-up "high speed" internet is a JOKE...a total waste of time to TRY to get anywhere online.)

So now you know. Keeping my fingers crossed 2011 will be much calmer and less eventful than the last few months of 2010...

How London Rang In 2011

Davenport OK on Route 66

Robbed! Pros and Cons
Have a great day!

How London Rang in 2011

2011-01-02T12:30:00.007-06:00

For this Brit-at-heart, the New Year really starts at 6:00 p.m. CST on Dec 31st. Thanks to the BBC and a fast internet connection, this year I was finally able to watch the entire fireworks show that begins a few seconds before midnight GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) on the Thames in London under, over, and around the London Eye.

In case you missed it, here it is in its entirety, complete with the music to which the displays were wonderfully choreographed.

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, London's New Year's extravaganza tops all but one of the dozens of 4th of July displays I've seen here in the U.S. over the years.

Enjoy!

Hoping 2011 is just as exciting for you and yours,

ThursdayDrive: Davenport OK on Route 66

2010-08-26T12:28:00.013-05:00

Sign next to the Early Bird Cafe on the curve of
historic Route 66 when approaching from Chandler OK.
(Photo snapped by JamaGenie on Wed, 25 Aug 2010.)

At the far right is a glimpse of Dan's Bar-B-Que Pit.

(Photo from Day 3 of Jamie Bradburn's vacation.)
Jamie is JB of JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

The street in front of Dan's is Broadway, Davenport's main street.
The draw for tourists is supposed to be the bricks made locally
until 1930 with which the street is paved. But having visited
Downtown Davenport several times, the murals on the
sides of buildings depicting the town's history
are the only reason to take a detour down Broadway.

While you're there, be sure to pull into the parking
lot of the Post Office and read about Nellie Davenport,
the first postmistress after whom the town was named.

But back to the real center of town...

The Early Bird Cafe is in the restored 1933 Texaco
gas station depicted in the Welcome to Davenport sign.
My Uncle Melvin's green Studebaker, btw, was a 4-door, but
otherwise identical to the one parked under the canopy!
(Photo from Route 66: The Neons & Signs!

Back on 66 heading north out of town toward Stroud,
on the left is the oddly named Gar Wooly's Food & Fun.
(Photo from Route 66: The Neons & Signs!

According to TravelOK.com:
"Gar Wooly's features some of the best chicken fried steak
along historic Route 66. This restaurant, also known for its
tasty Indian tacos, features a dance floor and an ice cream bar.
Come to Gar Wooly's for local color, Route 66 nostalgia and
homestyle food reminiscent of an old soda fountain."

But if you go back to Chandler instead...

...keep your eyes peeled for the only two
Burma Shave signs that aren't in a
museum or someone's basement rec room.

They're on the right side, about 2 miles west
of Davenport, but unless you're old enough to
remember the Burma Shave ditties, you'll
probably miss them. If you are old enough,
they'll be a fond reminder of one of
the few forms of entertainment for
children on long car trips in the
days before onboard DVD players.

Davenport OK's website

Route 66 murals in downtown Davenport

Dan's Bar-B-Que Pit

JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

Where are the Burma Shave signs?
(Ignore the claim that none exist on today's highways.)

Have a great day!

If You Were Never A Patsy Cline Fan...

2010-07-14T13:29:00.011-05:00

This video won't turn you into one!

Promise!

That said, any woman with a mind to can lip-synch
Patsy Cline's "She's Got You" at a high school
reunion, but what THIS woman does while
doing it is hysterical...and her timing is flawless!

I never caught Patsy Fever, but when a friend
sent this today I just had to share!

Have a great day!

David Suchet as Himself

2010-07-09T09:26:00.014-05:00

David Suchet from an episode of the
BBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?"
Fans of Agatha Christie and David Suchet are in for a treat Sunday evening when the latest adaptation of "Murder On The Orient Express" airs on PBS Masterpiece.

I never could warm up to anyone but Suchet as the finicky Belgian detective, least of all Albert Finney in the 1974 star-studded big-screen version of "Murder". Someone should've reminded him that "finicky" does NOT mean "buffoon".

Add to that that Miss Marple had been my introduction to Agatha Christie, so I didn't even warm up to Suchet's Poirot at first.

That changed upon learning his interpretation was the most faithful to Agatha's vision of the "extraordinary little man" whose quirks and physical appearance she based on second husband Max Mallowan.

Because David prefers to bring authenticity to a role, his preparation for "Murder" included a trip on today's Venice-Simplon Orient Express, a trip filmed as a PBS special called "David Suchet on the Orient Express".

In between snippets from the new "Murder" and how the train itself came to be the Venice-Simplon OE, we see David as himself, a charmingly awestruck Brit experiencing a slice of history.

In fact, the carriage (rail car) David traveled in was part of the train that became mired in a snowdrift for 10 days, an event Agatha Christie turned into "Murder on the Orient Express".

But for David, the highlight of the trip was actually driving the train!

"DSotOE" aired several times this week and will air again Sunday after the new Murder On The Orient Express. But if you missed it and can't wait til Sunday, watch the entire trip here (53:33 mins).

David isn't the only Suchet in show business, btw. His brother John Suchet is the well-known British newscaster. To learn more about their ancestors, David explored the family's history in the British version of "Who Do You Think You Are?".

Come along with David on that trip too!

More on David Suchet, Agatha Christie, and the Orient Express:

David Suchet on the Orient Express

Experience the Orient Express,
a Thursday Drive post that includes videos of
others' trips as well as links to the SVOE website

David Suchet on "Who Do You Think You Are?"

About David's brother, John Suchet

Have a great weekend!

A Crow as a Beauty Mark?

2010-07-07T11:00:00.001-05:00

Muriel Window circa 1913-14
From The San Antonio Light, 29 Nov 1914:
Muriel Window of "The Passing Show [of 1914]",
claims to be the originator of the silhouette
beauty spot fad. It is Miss Window's habit to
wear her favorite bird or animal, regardless
of size, on her cheek. One of Miss Window's
favorites is a crow in repose, the purpose
being, evidently, to keep crow's feet away
from her beautiful eyes. She occasionally
wears a faun on her cheek, the said faun
striving modestly to leap over a mole.

Muriel, the first Mrs. Robert Emmett Keane

Muriel appeared in "The Century Girl"

Have a great day!

Hazel Dawn as The Century Girl

2010-07-02T12:46:00.005-05:00

Hazel Dawn ~ The Century Girl
descending the Celestial Staircase in the
Dillingham - Ziegfeld extravaganza,
The Century Girl 1916-1917,
which opened 6 Nov 1916 at the
refurbished Century Theatre.

Our own Muriel Window from Burlingame KS
is listed in the 5th Nov newspaper ad announcing
the opening. (Note the best seats went for $1!)

"Little Muriel" was also pictured on page 6 of the opening
night program, but didn't survive cuts made to shorten
the 5-hour-long show after the second performance.
(Marie Dressler also didn't survive the cut.)

All images are from Historical Ziegfeld.

Wishing you and yours a safe and happy 4th!

The Other Tony from Joisy

2010-06-24T15:25:00.001-05:00

Can a girl O.D. from watching a long tall drink of water named Tony Bordain travel the world for hours on end?

Thanks to a Netflix membership and dozens of watch-instantly episodes of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, I'm doing my level best to find out.

Tough assignment, right?

Yes, I know the wildly popular Travel Channel program first aired in 2005, but I dumped cable in 2004, so I've only just found this modern-day Jack Kerouac.

A blessing in disguise, I'd say.

Instead of having to wait a week between shows and then go cold turkey at the end of each season, I can follow my new heartthrob from country to country with no interruptions save bathroom breaks and the occasional meal.

"Occasional" because a good part of each show has Tony chowing down on whatever the locals eat. Since he believes it'd be an insult to his host to refuse any dish set before him, "if you're offered puppy heads, you eat puppy heads".

I haven't come across that particular episode yet, but seeing him consume similar Third World "delicacies" did ruin my appetite on more than one occasion.

That said, other than having an iron stomach, the constitution of a 20-year-old, and an insatiable curiosity about cultures different from his own, Tony Bourdain is just a down-to-earth "regular guy" from New Jersey who for 28 years was the head chef of several New York City restaurants.

The 15- and 16-hour shifts ended after his witty expose of the culinary world called Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly became an immediate best-seller and led to his first food-travel show on the Food Network, which in turn led to a much better deal at the Travel Channel in 2005.

Eight more books followed, including A Cook's Tour, The Nasty Bits, No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach, and his latest (the sequel to Kitchen Confidential), Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook.

"Cooking professionally was work, but writing isn't", he says, and admits to feeling somewhat guilty that it isn't.

He'll lambaste the show's producer onscreen for picking less-than-ideal locations, but in reality Tony and the crew brainstorm where to go and when, then it's up to the producer to make it happen.

Photo credit: Travel Channel
In 2007, at the age of 50, Tony became a father and hands down the sexiest first-time dad on the planet. One who has no problem keeping up with a 3-yr-old when he isn't off in some exotic location filming NR, or promoting a book or the show, trips that keep him on the road for ten months a year.

Once filming begins, things don't always go as planned.

In July 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon the day after Tony and crew arrived in Beirut, forcing them to take refuge in the Royal Hotel on a hill miles from, but within sight and hearing of, the non-stop bombing across town in South Beirut.

It would be weeks before U.S. Marines from the aircraft carrier USS Nashville would evacuate them. With nothing in the can but a meal in one restaurant the day they arrived and no possibility of leaving the hotel for more, Tony had the bright idea to film the war from their vantage point high above the city, along with interviews of other stranded guests, and eventually their own evacuation. And so they did, footage that became an NR special episode which received an Emmy Nomination in 2007 for Outstanding Informational Programming.

Iceland was another episode that didn't pan out as Tony envisioned. (Note: offensive language is not bleeped out in the following "behind the scenes" versions of segments of the Iceland episode.)

The second video, btw, is funnier than the first, but the latter explains why this is one of Tony's least favorite episodes.

Tony's Time mag interview (video)
Anthony Bourdain: Medium Raw

Tony's all-time favorite restaurant, owned by
his friends Fergus Henderson & Trevor Gulliver:
St. John, Smithfield, London

Another restaurant Tony highly recommends:
The French Laundry, Yountville CA

NR's website and Tony's blog

Have a great day!

Miss Hanff and A Bookshop in London

2010-06-21T10:54:00.108-05:00

On 5 October 1949, 33-year-old Helene Hanff had no inkling the letter she had just posted to an address in Charing Cross Road was only the first of many that would one day not only make Marks & Co. London's most famous used bookshop, but bring her the fame that had so long eluded her as a playwright and author of American history books for children.

Helene (pronounced "helane") was born 15 Apr 1916, the daughter of a Philadelphia shirt maker. She won a scholarship to Temple University, only to have it evaporate at the end of her freshman year when funding dried up in the Great Depression.

Undaunted, she haunted the public library for books on the art of writing, eventually discovering five volumes of lectures that Arthur Quiller-Coach (commonly known as "Q") had given at Cambridge to young men fresh from the hallowed halls of Eton and Harrow, and who were already familiar with classics such as Milton's Paradise Lost.

Which Helene wasn't, so back to the library she went for Milton, and over the next eleven years, every other writer that Q's students had digested long before they ever set foot in his lecture hall.

Helene credits Q, John Donne and John Henry Newman (author of Idea Of A University), all of whom lived in the same rooms at Trinity College, Oxford although not at the same time, with teaching her everything she knew about writing English.

I haven't read Q's Legacy yet as it hasn't arrived from...where else...a used bookshop in the UK.

But after watching "84" and reading the book and its sequel, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, I couldn't help thinking this passionate, funny, self-taught classicist would've been at home at the lectern of any university in England.

Helene's books are sprinkled with tidbits that make history come alive, such as the note John Donne (pronounced "dunn") sent to his bride after her father, Lord Lieutenant of the Tower of London, imprisoned them in separate wings of the Tower for eloping:

John Donne
Anne Donne
Undone
Helene even turned their plight into an episode of Hallmark Hall of Fame with the working title "John Donne: eloping with the boss's daughter"!

When Helene mailed the first letter to 84, Charing Cross Road, she was living in a walk-up bed-sit on East 95th St., barely making ends meet as a $40-a-week script reader. To satisfy her craving for out-of-print English classics, she needed a less expensive source than New York's antiquarian (translation: over-priced) book dealers, and found it in Marks & Co.'s ad in the Saturday Review of Literature.

Included with the letter was a list of books she most desired, and the hope that "clean, secondhand copies will cost no more than $5.00 each". With the first two books she received was an invoice for $5.30, which included postage!

Outside Marks & Co. in the late 1940s or early '50s,
around the time Helene's relationship with it began.
(from 84 Charing Cross Road Revisited)
In February 1951, her fortunes improved five-fold when she was hired as a scriptwriter for the weekly TV series Adventures of Ellery Queen at "two bills per" ($200), raised to $250 a year before EQ went off the air in May 1953 at the end of its second season.

Which happened to be when she had intended to sail for England, in time for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. But thanks to extensive and expensive dental work begun the previous September, she wrote Frank Doel: "Teeth are all I'm going to see crowned for the next couple of years".

And so it went for almost two decades...crises in Real Life popping up to delay The Dream Trip.

"84" (the book) ends in October 1969 with Frank's daughter Sheila giving Helene permission to publish Frank's, Nora's, and her own letters.

The Doel family, early 1960s.
l-r: wife Nora, dau Mary, dau Sheila, Frank.
(from 84 Charing Cross Road Revisited)
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, the sequel to "84", begins on 17th June 1971 as Helene, now 55, is about to land at Heathrow, where her "dainty feet" will finally touch English soil.

84, Charing Cross Road, the 1987 movie, also opens in the plane as it wings its way to Heathrow. Had the movie been faithful to the book, the landing would've been at night (10 p.m. GMT) and Anne Bancroft would've been wearing a navy pantsuit. But no one else could've brought Helene's take-no-prisoners attitude to the screen with such style and elan, so the beige outfit she wore instead is fine by me. Nor can I imagine anyone but Anthony Hopkins as Frank Doel.

Ms. Bancroft owned the movie rights, btw, a birthday gift from comedian-producer husband Mel Brooks who perhaps recognized that his wife and Helene had much in common.

Even with the likes of Bancroft, Hopkins and Judi Dench anchoring the cast, it's no easy task to turn a slim book of letters into a movie that won't put an audience to sleep after five minutes. That English playwright and screenwriter Hugh Whitemore and director David Jones managed to bring the letters to life while feeding us slices of London and New York history between 1949 and the Swinging Sixties is nothing short of magical.

If this is your introduction to the world of Helene Hanff, I recommend "84" the movie be your first stop, so that you'll have faces to put with the names in the letters when you read the book. Do be aware that not all of the letters in the book were included in the movie, and that parts of some that were omitted to move the story along. Then read The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and watch the movie again, because "Duchess" contains the back stories of many scenes. Helene's affinity for Central Park's Dog Hill, for instance.

I was leery of reading The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street after many reviewers said they found it downright boring. On the contrary! If I'd had a copy in 2003, my own Dream Trip to London and the South of England would've been quite different. I doubt I would've stayed at the Kenilworth at the corner of Great Russell & Bloomsbury, as it's no longer the quaint, inexpensive B&B it was in 1971. Nonetheless, Helene's account of her five weeks in England is a marvelous guide for first-timers.

As for the photo in the movie of the Mysterious Man in Dress Uniform on Helene's dresser, his role in her life is never revealed. She never married, and although she weeps while watching Brief Encounter, the 1945 tearjerker starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, that photo is the only hint that she ever had a boyfriend or lover in real life.

But according to Leo Marks, son of Ben Marks (co-founder of Marks & Co.), Helene had a relationship "with a very famous American"....a story "even more amusing and touching than her letters to Charing Cross Road"....a love affair he believes "would have been an even better book". Alas, Helene started that book several times but destroyed each attempt, so the identity of her famous lover went to the grave with her (and Leo).

Helene died of complications of diabetes and pneumonia on the 9th April 1997, exactly one week before her 81st birthday, and is interred at Mount Lebanon Cemetery, Glendale, Queens Co, NY.

The trailer for 84, Charing Cross Road:

84 Charing Cross Road revisited, the definitive site
about Marks & Co., its history and real life staff.

Angela Garry's site devoted to Helene's life and books

Helene's memorial page at Find A Grave

Helene Hanff in Central Park, New York,
oil on canvas, by Elena Gaussen

Have a great day!

TombstoneTues: the USS Gherardi and Lester Franklin Harris

2010-06-15T10:08:00.025-05:00

29 October 1942
The USS Gherardi off Philadelphia Navy Yard
(National Archives photo 19-N-40021)
Named after Rear Admiral Bancroft Gherardi, the USS Gherardi (DD-637) was a Gleaves-class destroyer launched 12 Feb 1942 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard minutes after her twin, the USS Butler (DD-636).

Although both were laid in adjacent slipways on 16 Sep 1941 and launched within minutes of one another, outfitting the Gherardi took longer and she wasn't commissioned until 15 Sep 1942, exactly one month after the Butler. Trial runs and shakedown training followed in Delaware Bay and at Casco Bay, Maine.

On 30 Nov 1942, the Gherardi arrived at Torpedo Station Annex, Coddington Cove, Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, for torpedo training in preparation for her first convoy escort voyage on 1 January 1943 to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

One of approximately 26,000 26-foot motor whaleboats
manufactured for the US Navy between 1927 and the late 1950s
to be carried aboard every Navy vessel for use as a "shore boat"
and "man overboard" rescue craft. Top speed: 8 knots

Minutes before midnight on 1st Dec 1942, 17 mostly-inexperienced sailors from the Gherardi returning from shore leave in nearby Newport RI piled into a 26-foot motor whaleboat (like the one shown above) at Government Landing for what should've been a 30-minute trip back to the ship moored 4 miles north.

Instead, a sudden and violent squall swamped the small craft, then capsized it. Only two of the crew managed to cling to the side of the overturned boat and escape death in the frigid waters of Narragansett Bay. The bodies of five who weren't so lucky were found the next morning along the south shore of Conanicut Island, 2 miles north of Jamestown, RI.

Over the next eight months, the remains of eight more Gherardi crewmen would be recovered, one of whom was Fireman 1st Class Lester Franklin Harris, the 24-year-old eldest son of Charly and Georgia Harris of Dunlap, Morris Co, Kansas.

Dunlap, Kansas
(photo by Tom Parker of KansasPhotos.com)
Mr. Parker's photo brilliantly captures the prevailing perception of Dunlap...a forgotten backwater on a road rarely traveled. I've lived within 60 miles of it most of my life and have only been through it once, and only because I took the wrong road out of Council Grove. Some might call Dunlap a ghost town, but because people still live there, the correct term is "quiet", the designation for a town whose schools have closed.

Perched on the Neosho River and founded by Joseph Dunlap in 1869, Dunlap didn't become a thriving community until 1878 when African-American Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, who'd escaped from slavery in 1846, directed hundreds of Freedmen called Exodusters to relocate there from the post-Reconstruction South.

Because their presence made white residents uncomfortable, the Exodusters settled just beyond the edge of town. And so it went for the next fifty years, whites in one part of town, blacks in another, with separate schools and churches.

In its heyday, Dunlap had been an important shipping point for crops grown in the area, but by 1910 the population had shrunk to 333. The Great Depression only accelerated the decline. Undoubtedly from the need to pool resources, however, segregation evaporated in Dunlap decades before it did in other parts of the state.

By the time Lester Harris came of age in the last half of the 1930s, Dunlap was in its death throes. Most of its young men had already left to find jobs elsewhere, never to return. No doubt Lester saw the Navy as his once-in-a-lifetime ticket to far-off lands, never dreaming he'd get no farther than the coastal waters of the good old USA.

In Feb 1943, the USS Gherardi made the first of 10 transatlantic convoy escort voyages. In late July and early August 1943, she saw her first surface action along the northern coast of Sicily. Between August 1943 and Feb 1944, she made more convoy escort voyages from New York to Northern Ireland and England, touching at Belfast and Londonderry, Ireland and Swansea, Wales. Back to Northern Ireland in May 1944 for rehearsals for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, which took place on 6 June 1944. From Normandy to Malta in July, to train for the invasion of Southern France on 15 Aug 1944. Then back to New York to be refitted and reclassified as a minesweeper before steaming through the Panama Canal to participate in major battles in the Pacific that culminated in the surrender of Japan in 1945. In 1946, she was back in the Atlantic fleet, based in Norfolk, VA. For the next 9 years, she participated in routine exercises in the Atlantic until decommissioning on 17 Dec 1955.

Among the honors the USS Gherardi earned for service in both the Atlantic and Pacific in WWII, perhaps the most remarkable is the one for not losing a single crew member in combat.

Dunlap Cemetery, Dunlap, Morris Co KS
from Find A Grave Memorial# 51441899
Photo and memorial by Mae

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

Kathryn Whites Wear Many Hats

2010-06-14T07:33:00.007-05:00

Marché aux Fleurs by artist Kathryn White
from KathrynWhite.com

I first became smitten with artist Kathryn White's work after seeing her Scarlet Peony (left) at Maggie's Secret Garden.

Wanting to know more about Ms. White, naturally I googled her, but was disappointed that her one-page website only shows thumbnails of three paintings and an email address.

Nothing about the artist herself.
I could find no other site with information about her, only sites that sell prints of her work in various sizes and price range.

Why the mystery?

Doesn't knowing a little bit about the artist make you
more inclined to buy his/her work? It does me.

Turns out there are many Kathryn Whites
who are notable for one reason or another.
The following are only two of them.

According to her page at The Renaissance Gallery, Kathryn White, Folk Artist

"creates her wonderful, quirky folk art people from gourds, mica, handmade paper and other found objects"

which are inspired by living near the sea as a child. She now lives in Tuscaloosa AL and is a teacher at one of its schools.

The fellow at right is called "Shopping At The Bizarre", and can be purchased through the Renaissance Gallery link above.

But he's only one of Kathryn's creations, which are mostly happy, "snappy" and not so forlorn.

Kathryn White, Author writes books for children 3-8 years old at her home in Bristol, Somerset for Little Tiger Press.

That is, when she isn't visiting primary schools all over the UK organizing creative writing classes, or on holiday in places like Venice.

"Click Clack, Crocodile's Back" is her latest book, with wonderful illustrations by Joelle Dreidemy.

Read lots more about this Kathryn here and at her website.

Have a great day!

Grandma's Little Ham

2010-06-13T16:12:00.002-05:00

I'm Keegan, I'm 5 months old, and I approve
these photos Grandma took this morning, June 13th.
(What's "election year" again, Gram?...)

Seriously??? The bearskin rug is at the cleaners?

Grandma wants adorable?...
I can do adorable!

Have a great day!

ThursdayDrive: Toad Hollow Vineyard

2010-06-05T06:27:00.004-05:00

Thanks to being allergic to whatever "good" bacteria turns grapes into nectar of the gods, I'm not and have never claimed to be a wine connoisseur. The extent of my "expertise" is white for fish, red for lasagna, and only champagne produced in the Champagne region of France can be labeled as such. (Made anywhere else, it's simply "sparkling wine".)

However, I do love interesting labels.

At a political fundraiser some years ago, I couldn't help giggling at the frog on the label of a Toad Hollow Vineyard Chardonnay (1995). The bartender was kind enough to set aside an empty bottle which, until the other day, has been residing on a shelf in my dining room ever since.

Naturally I can't personally vouch for the quality of Toad Hollow's wines, but the fact that the vineyard was founded in 1994 and is still in business says it takes wine making seriously enough to have won several awards in spite of its whimsical labels.

Labels as whimsical (and enchanting) as the story of its founding.

According to the "history" on THV's website, Toad Hollow was the brainchild of two old friends named Dr. Toad and The Dancing Badger who had "retired, more or less" to a Hollow overlooking the Russian River near Healdsburg, Calif.:

"This natural pairing—Dr. Toad, a man known around the neighborhood as one who could sell sand to a Sheik, as well as a consummate storyteller…he would be in charge of marketing; while Mr. Badger, a gentleman extraordinaire, who had honed his palate during visits to chateaux, whilst dancing for kings…would craft the wine."

If you don't live in the Healdsburg area, THV wines are sold in stores in some U.S. metropolitan cities; they can also be ordered on the website.

If like me you aren't a wine drinker, you can wow friends and family with THV's funky labels via posters, T-shirts and caps available at the online General Store.

More about:
Toad Hollow Vineyard

The Legend of Toad Hollow Vineyard

TVH General Store

Have a great day!

ThursdayDrive: Severs House Update

2010-05-20T06:42:00.017-05:00

Photo from Spitalfields Life's The House of Silence
Last September, a Thursday Drive featured the Dennis Severs House, home to generations of the fictitious Jervis family of Huguenot silk-weavers, created by Mr. Severs to inhabit his step-back-in-time masterpiece at 18 Folgate Street, Spitalfields, East London.

Happily, I've just learned that the gentle author of the blog Spitalfields Life chronicled a November visit in "Dennis Severs, the house of silence", called thus because visitors are admonished at the door to refrain from speaking during a visit. Ignoring this will result in immediate expulsion.

Severs House itself is not silent. Thanks to strategically-placed
speakers, Jervis family members can be heard going about
their lives in other parts of the house. One expects them to
pop around a corner or through a doorway at any moment.
They never do, of course, but the impression is they might.

Exactly as Dennis Severs envisioned, the illusion so convincing that
house manager Mick Pedroli once had to apologise and refund
a visitor's money after Dennis "fell into a row with a guest
who claimed to be descended from the imaginary family
in question....a spat that met its conclusion when
Dennis threw the woman out in Folgate St..."

In March, the gentle author treated readers to the story
of the tiles in this magnificent fireplace
and their creator, Simon Pettet.
~ Inset of photo from Simon Pettet's Tiles ~

What appear to be old Delft tiles were actually crafted by
Pettet with such authenticity as to be nearly indistinguishable
from real ones. And what at first glance appear to be classic
Delft figures are residents of Spitalfields in the 1980s. If
you know where to look, there's even one of Simon himself.

The rest of the fireplace, individual tiles and
who they represent can be seen here.

Next came the amusing story of Isabelle Barker's Hat,
for 20 years thought to be an 18th century gentleman's
hat similar to painter William Hogarth's.

Dennis Severs and Isabelle Barker, original owner of
the oft-overlooked "gentleman's hat" in the Smoking Room
of Severs House, at her 80th birthday party circa 1980.
(Photo from Isabelle Parker's Hat)
No doubt Isabelle's 80th was quite an event if it was anything like the Christmas parties described by Anna Skrine, custodian:

“Dennis Severs' Christmas parties at his house in Folgate St were the most beautiful, magical events that I ever knew. It wasn’t only how it looked which was magic – but also the smells, because he used to clean the floor with lavender, so you had that mixed in with the other wonderful Christmassy smells of cinnamon and oranges with cloves. He was a master at it. It was just so beautiful.”

And last but by no means least, Mick Pedroli who with the
assistance of David Milne keeps Severs House running smoothly.
Read all about it at Mick Pedroli, Dennis Severs House.
~ Severs House manager Mick Pedroli ~
(Photo from Mick Pedroli, Dennis Severs House)

More about Dennis Severs House:

Thursday Drive: Severs House, Spitalfields

Dennis Severs, the house of Silence

Mick Pedroli, Dennis Severs House

Isabelle Barker's Hat

Simon Pettet's Tiles

Dennis Severs House website

More about Spitalfields from
the gentle author at
Spitalfields Life

Have a great day!

Flea Market Saturday: May Day

2010-05-01T03:43:00.013-05:00

As a child, the last school day before May 1st was devoted to making dozens of paper cones with handles out of construction paper.

These we'd take home to be filled early on May Day morning with whatever flowers were available. On my block, that was Bridal Wreath Spirea (above) from a kindly neighbor's yard.

We'd load a little red wagon with our creations and leave one at each front door on the block, ringing the doorbell where possible, knocking lightly if not, never waiting for the occupant to answer.

We naively assumed they wouldn't know who left the May Day "surprises", but of course they all did and looked forward to pretending to be surprised when they did open the door.

Well, all except the grumpy old man who'd come out shaking his fist and yelling "Those damn kids!" while behind him, his wife would be smiling broadly as she proudly carried the bouquet into the house. Far as we could tell, these were the only flowers she received all year, so we always stuck a few extra sprigs into her "surprise".

I don't recall ever dancing around a Maypole at school or
Sunday School, probably because it's a pagan tradition.

Therefore, I'm guessing the little girls
above didn't live in the Bible Belt!

May 1st hasn't always been a happy celebration of the beginning of summer. Tyler McClelland tells about the dark side of this day in Of Maypoles and Massacres: A Short History of May Day in America.

If you or a friend or relative has lost a camera, memory card, memory stick, or even a roll of undeveloped film, someone may have found it and is trying to reunite it with its owner at Found Cameras and Orphan Pictures. You can search by country or U.S. state.

If you recognize the couple at right, please go to Camera Found - Athens Greece and leave a comment to that effect so that the memory card that this and other photos are on can be returned to its rightful owner.

"Found Cameras" was in this week's Passing It On: Five We Like at the genealogy blog of Larry Lehmer, former senior editor, reporter and newsroom manager at the prestigious Des Moines Register who now runs When Words Matter, an editorial services company specializing in preserving personal, business and organizational histories.

Buddy Holly fans may know Larry as the author of The Day The Music Died: The Last Tour Of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.

Last but not least, genealogists and family historians might appreciate the following from the Family History section of the Mormon Times:

Have a great weekend!

WordlessWed: Latest Grandbaby Pix

2010-04-14T03:11:00.001-05:00

I've no idea what prompted this expression...

...but am fairly certain his mom or
Grandpa was responsible for this one...

...and this one!

Have a great day!

Yard Sale at a Funeral Parlor?

2010-04-13T01:36:00.005-05:00

A yard sale at a funeral home is definitely a Kodak moment!

Last Saturday, my son's family and I were passing through
Perkins OK, which was having a city-wide Yard Sale Day.
We couldn't resist stopping to snap the photo above.

Alas, a second look reveals that the Perkins
Assembly of God church doubles as a funeral parlor.

But the size and shape of the pile on the table in front
of the Palmer-Marler marquee sure looks like there
might be a body under that cast-off clothing!

Robert Emmett Keane and Claire Whitney

2010-04-06T06:41:00.003-05:00

~ ~ 1923 passport photo ~ ~
Robert Emmett Keane (1885-1981)
& 2nd wife Claire Whitney (1890-1969)

On 17th March 1923, "Emmett" and Claire sailed
from New York on the S.S. President Roosevelt
for a "pleasure trip" in the British Isles and France.
Emmett, a well-known and well-loved vaudeville comedian, had already appeared at the Hippodrome in London in 1916 with then-wife "Little Muriel" Window, who divorced him a year or two later to marry her "butter & egg man", Arthur S. Hanford, Jr. and temporarily retired to Sioux City Iowa.

Emmett would go on to become a character actor in Hollywood who, judging by his bio at imbd.com, was steadily employed practically until the day he died.

By the looks of actress Claire Whitney's bio at imdb, she was rarely out of work either.

They wed in October 1921 in Jersey City NJ, and remained married until she died in 1969.

Oddly, Claire's grave isn't marked, but Emmett's is. Only by checking the cem's records would one know Claire's final resting place is the "empty" space next to him at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).

Much thanks to Find A Grave's editor and photographer
A.J. Marik for this wonderful photo of their graves.
Robert Emmett Keane is Memorial #5902693 at Find A Grave, and Claire is #6102698. Additional information and photos of both can be found on their memorial pages.

SepiaSat: When milk was 7 cents a quart

2010-04-03T12:51:00.012-05:00

This ad is from the Mason City [Iowa] Globe-Gazette dated Thursday, 16th January 1936.

It was next to the announcement of the until-then secret marriage of Howard Chandler TURNLEY, head of the Kato Brewing Company in nearby Mankato, Minnesota, to Muriel Inetta (nee WINDOW) Keane Hanford, the former Ziegfeld Follies and Peacock Girl that the Muriel Cigar is supposedly named for, and formerly the wife of (1) actor-comedian Emmett KEANE, and (2) her "butter 'n' egg man" Arthur S. HANFORD, Jr., of Sioux City IA's Hanford Creamery family and founder of Hanford Airlines, which after his death became Mid-Continent Airlines for which MCI, Kansas City's international airport, was named.

Whew!

Muriel is a distant cousin of a very dear friend and two of my grandchildren. She was born in Burlingame KS in 1892 and died in Florida in 1965, six weeks after appearing on the Mike Douglas Show as the oldest living Ziegfeld Girl.

And that's all I can tell you about "Little Muriel" (as we call her). The dear friend above has first dibs on putting her story in Blogland, but when she does I'll be sure to link to it here.

Until then, have fun seeing how much groceries cost in Mason City IA at the beginning of 1936.

All cuts of steak: 18 cents a pound!

Coffee: 15 and 17 cents a pound!

Wowwww...

Even so, it took careful shopping to feed a family
well when our grandfathers only made $10 week.
"Store-bought" was reserved for food a family couldn't
grow in their own garden and preserve for the winter.
America was still recovering from the Great Depression,
so finding an orange in one's stocking on Christmas
morning truly was a long-hoped-for treat!

I'm guessing the Brazil nuts, peanut brittle,
ribbon candy and mixed nuts (still in the shell,
no doubt) were overstock from the holidays
that Diamond Bros wanted to be rid of ASAP!

Hope you're having a great Easter weekend!

Check out other Sepia Saturday entries

TombstoneTues: White Paper Gloves Signified "Virgin"

2010-03-30T12:45:00.016-05:00

Nicola, distant cousin of Fred Beckett of "Who Was Fred Beckett?", discovered that when his youngest sister, Lucy Ellen Beckett, by then 67, sailed from England to Canada and back in 1949, her home address was "The Haven, N. Marine Rd, Flamborough, Bridlington".

The same address Fred had given for their mother when he came from Canada for a visit in 1927.

Now convinced Catherine Beckett had not been on holiday in
Flamborough during Fred's visit, and because one passenger
manifest listed "C of E" (Church of England) as his religion,
I looked up Flamborough's parish church.
St. Oswald Flamborough, nr Bridlington, East Yorkshire
As many UK village church websites do, St. Oswald's has a photo gallery of objects of interest. Scrolling down past the requisite baptismal font and historic rood screen, my eye was caught by the framed white gloves you see at the top of this post.

Hanging on the wall of the Vestry, they are paper, and "were last used in an old custom at the funeral of a Miss Major in 1761,

though a more graphic illustration of their purpose, to local minds, is served by an incident that happened a century ago. Then, a young girl and her betrothed went in search of the 'White Lady', a ghost supposed to inhabit Danes Dyke.

The outcome is not recorded but within a month the girl died. Her coffin was carried by women and, as was the custom at the burial of a maiden, the procession was lead by a girl carrying a pair of white paper gloves."

Raised in America, I'd never heard of this custom, so naturally I was curious.

A girl carrying the gloves seems to have been the exception rather than the rule. In most cases, a pair of white paper gloves was hung inside a garland of flowers ("wreath" to Americans).

White roses were preferred, but any fresh white flowers would suffice to signify the deceased had been a virgin at her death.

It was also the custom in many villages to write the name and death date of the deceased on the gloves so that later when the "garlands" were hung or otherwise displayed back at the church, they would act as a memorial.

Feel free to accuse me of living in a cave since birth, for I've only just learned before embalming came into wide use, surrounding a coffin with elaborate floral arrangements was a way to mask the odor of decomposition. Back when a body might remain in the family home for several days to give out-of-town family members time to travel to the funeral.

It also explains why just as often, in the absence of flowers or the money to obtain them, the deceased would be buried the same day or the very next, before the body had time to become "fragrant".

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

Sepia Saturday: Shear Coincidence?

2010-03-27T04:53:00.022-05:00

Both my grandfather's brothers, their older
half-brother, and one nephew were barbers.
As in...'Shave and a haircut, two bits' barbers.

Why three brothers and a nephew took up the
same profession is lost in the mists of time.
But it made Grandpa Bert the "odd" one
for becoming a carpenter like his father.
The dapper fellow above is the half-brother, George Washington Hanson, only child of Great-grandma Zerilda's brief first marriage. We suspect George's father died toward the end of the Civil War, but can't verify it because we don't know his first name, and therefore have no clue which of the dozens of Hanson men in Indiana at the time might be him.

At any rate, we're certain the mysterious Mr. Hanson had no other children because when George died a widower, intestate and childless, his entire estate was distributed among Grandma Zerilda's other children (or if deceased, their offspring), each of whom received $1500. Not chicken feed in 1945.

The photo above was taken around 1899 at the A.P. Martin Photographic Studio in Victor, Teller Co, Colorado.

At that time Victor was a gold rush boom town, its mines containing more gold than the more famous Cripple Creek up the road. Victor residents liked to boast that "Cripple Creek may have the glory, but Victor has the gold!".

Thirty-something and still single, George appears to have been the first brother to leave Kansas for the Colorado gold fields.

But instead of filing on a claim, he opened a barber shop. Why get dirty and sweaty searching for gold all day when those who did were more than happy to part with some of it for a shave and a haircut when they came to town!

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~
The next family members to move to Victor were George's half-brother and barber, Edward E. "Ed" Sack, wife Katie, and daughter Viola, 7 years old.

By the spring of 1900, their mother Zerilda had joined George and Ed et al, for health reasons according to her obituary. I can't fathom how the thin air at 9700 feet was supposed to help a 59-yr-old woman already in poor health, but that's what the obit says.

Which leaves, besides my grandfather, the
youngest brother, Frank Leland Sack.

Frank apparently never caught gold fever.
He stayed behind in Douglas Co, KS,
to clerk in a grocery store and court
future wife Lucy "Orrel" Jones.

Frank and Orrel (Jones) Sack circa 1902
Sometime after their marriage in August 1902 but before 1910, they moved to Coffeyville, Montgomery Co, KS, where Frank opened a barbershop. By 1918, they were back in Ottawa and Frank was driving a truck for Standard Oil.

Meanwhile, by 1903 all of the gold in Colorado that could be extracted by current methods had been depleted.

Ed, Katie and Viola Sack moved back to Kansas, to Larned, where Ed opened the barber shop he would run until he retired, a shop he possibly sold to nephew Chester Toops around 1930.

ED & FAMILY 10 YEARS AFTER THE GOLD RUSH
Ed, Viola, now 17, and Katie on the porch of their home (below)
in Larned, Pawnee Co, KS, a few blocks from Ed's barber shop.

In November 1904, Zerilda, whose health had gotten worse, left Colorado and returned home to husband John in Baldwin City, KS, where she died the following Valentine's Day.

That same year, George Hanson married Ida A. Byers, moved to Los Angeles, and by 1910 was the proprietor of a cigar store. By 1920, they lived in Long Beach and he was barbering once again.

Frank and Orrel followed George and Ida to California, and by 1924 were registered voters in Inglewood, LA Co. Frank, too, took up barbering again until at least 1934.

Frank & Orrel in the 1930s on the porch of
(according to the caption) "our little cabin".

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
In 1921, George Hanson gave up barbering for good.

He and Ida moved to Alhambra CA...

...and started a very successful chicken ranch!

From 3-piece suits and bowler hats to farmer overalls.
Go figure!

More about Victor, Colorado's history and heydey as a mining town:

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Check out other Sepia Saturday entries

Follow Friday: ABT UNK

2010-03-26T18:10:00.000-05:00

The lovely image at left is known as an Oblaten or Lackbilder, and is only one of several scraps or die-cuts pasted into Gertrude Cramer Pape's Stammbuch, German for "book of friends" (known as an autograph book in America).

Zur Erinnerung translates to "For Remembrance".

Gertrude Cramer Pape was Amanda Pape's great-grandmother. Amanda tells us more about her in this post at her blog called ABT UNK.

ABT and UNK, of course, are the two abbreviations that family historians hate to see.

The first refers to an approximate (guesstimated) date that can be years off the correct one. The second means the original researcher didn't dig deep enough. Or worse, they did and learned no records exist about that person or event, if there ever were any.

Luckily, Amanda does know a lot about her and her husband's ancestors, and introduces us to his mother and three of her sisters [right] in (Not So) Wordless Wednesday: The Moore Sisters circa 1930.

Amanda's mother-in-law is at the far left.

In (Not So) Wordless Wednesday: Ivis Moore Mew, we meet a fifth sister, a nurse.

There are lots more goodies at ABT UNK, so do stop by, poke around, and perhaps become a Follower.

Follow Friday is a Geneabloggers daily blogging theme for
recommending another genealogy blog, post, website or resource.
TGIF!

ThursdayDrive: Who Was Fred Beckett?

2010-03-25T13:29:00.044-05:00

Each week, Alan Burnett of News From Nowhere randomly dips into his collection of vintage postcards and investigates what comes up.

This week's treasure was by Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the Gibson Girl.

This card, however, did not feature a Gibson Girl.

It was postmarked 1903 and addressed to a Fred Beckett in Worksop (in Nottinghamshire), apparently following a visit to his mother, who'd posted the card at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire.

"Dear Fred", she wrote, "Hope you got home safe.
Send me a Program of the Bazaar when they are out.
I will do something for it with love from Mother".

Grab your coffee and come along with me
to find the answer to Alan's burning question:

Who was Fred Beckett?
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
UK censuses reveal that in 1901, 16 yr-old Frederick E. Beckett was a student and boarder (street address not given) in St Cuthbert's College District, Worksop.

St. Cuthbert's wasn't a college per se, but a boarding school for 13-18 yr olds. Even though the census data was two years old, we can assume Fred was still there in 1903.

The census gave "Oughty Bridge, Yorks" [Yorkshire] as his birthplace. The correct spelling is Oughtibridge (or Oughtybridge), and it's a village near Sheffield, Yorks.

Because "Fred (or Frederick) Beckett" is a rather common name in the UK, Oughtibridge and the middle initial "E" would be the keys to tracking "our" Fred.

In the 1891 census, he was a 6-yr-old at home with his parents, John and Catherine Beckett, at 33 Elmore Road, Nether Hallam, a "borough" of Sheffield, Yorks, much like Brooklyn or Manhattan is to New York City.

John's occupation was "commercial traveller", and he and Catherine were born in Sheffield, as were all of Fred's siblings. Apparently Fred was the only child to enter the world in Oughtibridge, in the Dec Quarter (Oct-Nov-Dec) of 1884.

Luckily for us, Fred's older brother, John Smith Beckett, was still living at home in 1891. By 1901 he had left home.

In the 1911 census, Fred is shown as a 27-yr-old boarder in the home of widow Esther Jane Mortimer at 75 West St, Erith, Kent. We also learn his middle name is Ellis, that he's still single, and employed as an "engineer's fitter" (whatever that was).

Notice Frederick Ellis Beckett's birthplace is Oughtybridge!

(Click image to view full-size.)
At 27, a fellow is probably thinking about marriage, right?

The next stop was the BMD (Birth Marriage Death Index), which showed that in the Mar Q 1916 (Jan-Feb-Mar) a Frederick E. Beckett had wed Annie J. Lait in St Olave's Bermondsey, part of Southwark, London.

Kent being not far from London, Fred could've moved to London in the 5 years since the census...

Good thing I didn't assume this Fred was our Fred and stop there. A bit more digging revealed Annie Jane Lait had married Frederick Ernest Beckett.

A private named F.E. Beckett had entered the army in Mar 1916, survived combat in France and mustered out in 1919. But his post-service home address was Camberwell, a section of Southwark, meaning this was also "Fred Ernest", Annie's husband.

Frederick Ellis Beckett wasn't listed among the deceased
in the BMD either...so where was he?

Well, ever since Oct 1919, farming in Canada of course.
(I didn't see that one coming either!)
Specifically, on R.R. No. 2, Puslinch, Ontario,
with his brother, John Smith Beckett.

Below, Fred Beckett returns to Canada on 11 Nov 1927 after
visiting England. He sailed from Southampton on 3rd Nov.
The passenger manifest is two side-by-side pages, so
I had to split them up. Click to view full-size.

He went to England on the Empress of Australia, sailing
from Quebec on 31st Aug 1927, arr Southampton 7th Sep.

His address while in England was to be
"c/o Mrs. Beckett, The Haven, Flamborough, England".
Flamborough is a village on the coast of East Yorkshire.
I'm assuming "Mrs. Beckett" was Fred's mother Catherine,
then 77, and this was the last time he would see her.

Fred's brother, John Smith Beckett, had emigrated to Canada
in 1903, landing at Montreal from Liverpool on 5th June.

The following year, on 16 Nov 1904, he married Mary Minerva
Ruddell in Wellington Co, Ontario. He was 28 and she 19.
The marriage record stated he was the son of John Beckett
and "Kate" (Catherine) Smith. By 1911, John and Mary were
parents of two children, Frederick Joseph and Catherine.

As of 1927, "our" Fred Beckett had never married.
See the front of the postcard that inspired this post.

More of Alan Burnett's delightful musings.

Have a great day!

Tumstone Tuhsday: Say what?

2010-03-23T07:08:00.010-05:00

What better place than Tombstone Tuesday to announce the passing of the proper pronunciation of a word?

Specifically the word "to", which until a couple of years ago most people pronounced exactly like "tue" in Tuesday, but now "tuh", like in Tums.

Rather odd considering Tuesday has a "u" but "to" does not.

Yes, it's a little thing.

"Little" in the same way that listening to a wonderful symphony is ruined by a note played off-key. It interrupts one's enjoyment like fingernails on a blackboard. Trained musicians should know better.

The "trained musicians" in this case are newscasters, commentators, and other on-air personalities. Actors and actresses. Public officials and politicians. Our otherwise-articulate president. Even teachers. (Yes, teachers!)

All supposedly "educated" people who've caught the "tuh" bug.

Maybe you haven't even noticed on hearing:

We're going tuh the mall...tuh the weather/sports...tuh the movies.

We went tuh church...tuh dinner...tuh meet with constituents.

Granted, language usage never stops evolving, so now that "to" has inexplicably evolved into "tuh", it seems only fitting that the discarded pronunciation should have a tombstone.

Or should that be "tumstone"?

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

No Green Eggs and Ham This Year

2010-03-18T18:48:00.004-05:00

Even though the proceeds were going to charity (Easter Seals Capper Foundation), this year I opted not to fight the crowds at the annual Blarney Breakfast at a Texas Roadhouse.

Nor did I entertain the notion that I, a mere mortal, could find a parking spot within 10 blocks of the St. Patrick's Day parade route downtown.

The Blarney Breakfast used to be held in the lobby of the building where I worked. Back when dyed-green eggs and ham (and everything else on the buffet table) didn't seem as unappetizing as it does now. Parking for the parade wasn't an issue either - our building was on the parade route.

Long before that, in the spirit of 'everybody's Irish on St. Patty's', I'd consumed my fair share of green beer.

Ah, youth! Soooo wasted on the young!

But except for an occasional margarita, I gave up alcohol in any form years ago.

Truth be told, even when I did celebrate St. Patrick's Day, no amount of green beer, green food, green clothing or leprechauns dancing in the streets could make me feel Irish.

Because I wasn't.

Growing up I was told my roots were "English, German, Swedish and Welsh". Recited as a litany, but only half true.

The German part was actually Austrian, and one grandmother believed she was Welsh only because the rural area where she grew up was predominately Welsh. There's not a single ancestor from Wales in our family tree.

Then the day came that I found an 1880s history of McDonough County, Illinois that said my McClellans were descendants of Robert McClellan "of Edinburgh, Scotland" and Nancy O'Connor "from the North of Ireland".

Oh, happy day! I had Irish blood after all!

Well, never take information in a county history as carved in stone.

Yes, Robert McClellan born in Scotland in 1764 was our ancestor, but his one-and-only wife was Elizabeth McLORG (McLurg), b. 1766, birthplace unknown but most likely Scotland too.

Married on New Years Day 1784 at Calley Field, York Co, Pennsylvania, they were parents of my ggg-gf, James McClellan, pictured at left with wife Abigail Cornwell, both of whom you met in an earlier post.

The McClellans of York County were thought to be Scots-Irish...Scots who'd fled to Ireland and then made their way to America.

Close, but no cigar.

Not that I was ashamed of my "new" Scottish heritage. Far from it. But settling briefly in Ireland before moving on to America was not the same as being Irish.

So there it stood for a decade or two. It didn't count that Jonathan, a distant Gatchell cousin, had gone to Ireland and ended up running the Waterford Crystal factory, or that Gatchell's, its award-winning restaurant, is named after him.

Imagine my delight then on learning my father's grandmother, Zerilda Jane CONN, was a great-granddaughter of "Fayette George" CONN, who was born in Ireland!

Snoopy dance!

After arriving from Ireland and living briefly in Maryland, George settled in Springhill Twp, Fayette Co, PA...next to two other men named George. Georges Creek, which ran through all three properties, was supposedly named for them, the Georges.

George and Lydia (Flintham) Conn's eldest daughter Lydia married Caleb FOWLER; Caleb and Lydia's son married Martha LEWELLEN.

And that's how I came to be related to the Fowlers and Lewellens of Point Marion, Fayette Co, PA, and Stewartstown, Monongalia Co, WV.

My "Irish" Cousins circa 1910,
Point Marion, Fayette Co, PA
(back l-r) Jacob "Jake" Fowler, Margaret I.
"Maggie" Lewellen, and Joshua Fowler.
(front) Maggie's father, James Daniel Lewellen,
and David J. "Dave" Fowler

The Fowlers were Maggie's uncles, brothers of
her late mother, Susan Luvina (Fowler) Lewellen.

By 1880, James and Susan Lewellen had moved from West Va
to Agenda, Republic Co, Kansas, where Susan died in 1892.
In 1893, James remarried to Martha PENTICO.

At the time the above photo was taken, James' daughter
Maggie was living in Kansas City MO, where she owned a
dress shop. I'm guessing being financially independent
was the reason this handsome woman remained single
until age 53 and then married a 43-yr-old widower.

Have a great day!

TombstoneTues: Another Odd Funeral Pic

2010-03-16T09:52:00.017-05:00

Why would anyone want a photo like this??

Grave site of Jeremiah M. "Jerry" CUPP &
2nd wife Mary (Hummer) Whelan-Cupp,
Mount Hope Cemetery, Topeka KS,
after Jerry's funeral, 16 August 1936.

My mother's side of the family was, to put it
mildly, weird when it came to life's milestones.
Weddings or new babies rarely rated a snapshot,
but let a relative pass to the Great Beyond
and the word went out at warp speed:
"Don't forget your camera!".

No idea who snapped the pile of dirt next
to Grandma's uncle Jerry's grave, but it's
definitely her handwriting on the reverse
of two prints of the above photo:

The clipping above is a prime example why information
in newspaper obits should never be treated as fact.

According to marriage records in Lyon Co, Kansas,
Jerry married Ellen Morgan in 1894, not 1891,
and Ellen didn't die in 1893, but in 1895,
6 mos after the birth of daughter Phyllis
(put out for adoption after Ellen's death).
Jerry didn't remarry until 1897.

However, 1903 is when he would've
learned his mother really did only leave
him $1 in her will, not the farm he'd
evicted her from 4 years earlier.

"Taken Aug 16 - 36"

That caption is my grandmother to a "T".
Nowhere in the obits is Jerry's death date
mentioned, nor would it occur to her
to note it on the back of the photos.

But by golly, she wasn't about to forget
the date she made a 100-mile round trip
on a hot August day to attend the funeral!

Nor is the day Jerry died noted on the back of
a photo of Grandma at the old train station in
Topeka with cousin Robyn Cupp and wife Leila,
who'd come all the way from Tulsa OK. (Don't
know where that photo got to - sorry - only
that the occasion was Jerry's funeral.)

I finally determined from historical society
newspaper microfilms that he died Aug 13th.

More about:
Jerry throwing his mother off her own land
and
why she had no use for the Hummer sisters.

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

A Different Flea Market Saturday

2010-03-13T10:50:00.008-06:00

It's been awhile since I've posted a Flea Market Saturday, where I shine a spotlight on an assortment of noteworthy sites I come across while surfing Blogland.

Well, it's not quite warm enough (or too soggy) in the northern hemisphere for yard/boot sales or open-air flea markets, so just this one time I'm going to toot my own horn, bang my own drum, and point you to some of the pieces I did before (or shortly after) Sat's Child came into being.

A Couple Bubbles Off Center was intended to chronicle my ancestors' arrivals in America, beginning with the earliest, John GATCHELL (from my mother's side), born in England in 1609, "down" to my father's side, which includes the LEWELLEN and FOWLER cousins at right.

Well, I got the Gatchells to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, and as far as 1692 and their connection to the Salem Witch Trials, before realizing that posting their story in chronological order was NOT going to work. Painted myself into a corner as it were, and that's as far as it went.

I now know what needs to be done to correct this without ruining the flow, simply haven't got around to actually doing it. (sigh)

Even if I do say so myself, what is there is worth a read, not to mention the graphics and layout are the best I've done so far. (I warned you I was going to toot my own horn!)

But back to Sat's Child...

Scroll down the right-hand column and you'll see a HubPages widget which has links to four of my "best" hubs.

They are not the best, only those that, because of the keywords (tags), are "evergreen"...i.e. topics people regularly search for at Google or in HubPages' search box.

So unless you go to my HP profile, you'll never see the other two dozen hubs waiting in the wings like overlooked step-children. Here are the ones I consider the best:

~ ~ TRAVEL TIPS ~ ~

Be a tourist in your own town

How to pack when flying: DON'T BOTHER

~ ~ CLIMBING THE FAMILY TREE ~ ~
Summer is family reunion time

KSHS Library: Getting there is NOT half the fun! (and its companion piece: Elena's Pink Elephant at KSHS)

HUMOR AMONG THE TOMBSTONES:

Burlingame City Cemetery: Day trip to the boonies (and its companion piece: Land of the One-finger Wave)

Rochester Cemetery: A ghostly playground?

More than the ghost of Albino Woman

And my very own all-time personal favorite:
Gardening, Genealogy & a Ghost That Sings

Have a great day!

Augustus Saint-Gaudens and the Cornish Colony

2010-03-11T04:04:00.017-06:00

"Summer" by Thomas Dewing (1890)
As loyal fans know, PBS is not all nature programs and the latest Ken Burns film. Last night's first treat was rock star Sting and lutenist Edin Karamazov performing 400-yr-old songs by Elizabethan composer John Dowland, from the album "Sting - Songs from the Labyrinth".

But my ears really perked up at the next program, about Irish-born American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) and the artist colony he founded in Cornish, New Hampshire, after wife Augusta (nee Homer) tired of the social whirl and attention that always surrounded "Gus" in New York City.

A friend offered to rent them a run-down former inn in Cornish, but Augusta's peace and quiet in the country was short-lived when many in the NYC art community followed her talented husband to Cornish and nearby towns.

The Cornish Colony, btw, pre-dates (by about fifteen years) the Old Lyme Art Colony featured here last year that grew out of Miss Florence Griswold's boarding house in Lyme, Connecticut.

But I digress...

If, like me, you'd never heard of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, chances are you've at least seen some of his incredible work.

(left)Saint-Gaudens with the completed clay model of "Standing Lincoln" before it was cast in bronze and installed in Chicago's Lincoln Park.

(I don't recall seeing its twin in the park across from Parliament in London, but then I wasn't looking for statues of Honest Abe in London.)

Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston Common,
showing Shaw leading the Afro-American
54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

Originally the memorial was to be completed in two years,
but it took perfectionist Saint-Gaubens almost fourteen.
(This photo doesn't do justice to the detail in it.)

Statues and memorials by Saint-Gaudens dot the New York City landscape, but because of his long association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, many of his works can be found there too.

Perhaps the most famous is his only nude, the bronze "Diana", which originally was a weather vane atop Madison Square Garden until prudish Victorian-era New Yorkers complained and it was moved to MMoA.

The Saint-Gaudens piece most Americans will recognize, however, even if only from a replica, is the rare 1933 Double Eagle $20 gold coin. Considered the master of bas relief sculpture, he designed it for the U.S. Mint circa 1905-07.

Further information:

Have a great day!

TombstoneTues: Mary McClellan Cupp

2010-03-09T01:46:00.003-06:00

Floral display from the visitation or funeral
of the woman in the photo in the wreath.

Problem was, neither my Cousin Alice or I could figure
out who the woman was...until we found the following
studio portrait in another pile of old family photos.

Without even seeing at the caption on the back, I knew
instantly she was our gr-gr-grandmother, Mary W. CUPP.

Mary Weaver (nee McClellan) Cupp
b. 29 Nov 1823, Washington Co, Pennsylvania
d. 16 Oct 1903, Chicago Mound, Lyon Co, Kansas.

Marr. 17 Feb 1846, Preston Co, VA (now WV) to
Michael R. CUPP, who predeceased her in 1899.

Enlargement of funeral wreath

The studio portrait that solved the mystery may
or may not be the same one in the photo.

(West) Virginia > Illinois > Kansas

In 1856, Michael, Mary and five young sons left Preston Co VA
and followed most of Mary's siblings to McDonough Co, IL.
Only one brother, Robert Price McClellan, chose not to.
He became a doctor in Uniontown, Fayette Co, PA instead.

Ten years later Michael, Mary and children left Illinois
for the Chicago Mound neighborhood of Lyon Co, Kansas.
By then the family included a sixth son and a daughter;
a second daughter had died in IL when only a week old.

New Years Day 1870, eldest son Wm. Cornwell "Will" Cupp
married Sarah Amanda "Sallie" Denham (the snow-haired
matriarch in 1936 at Morro Bay CA in this PFF post).

Will Cupp would inherit the farm at Chicago Mound that
his parents had homesteaded in 1866. But not until after
Mary had wrenched it from the clutches of his youngest
brother, Jeremiah (Jerry), who'd evicted her from
her own land shortly after Michael Cupp died.

I have a copy of Michael's will in which he left the farm
to Jerry, specifying he was not to get it until Mary died.
But Jerry and 2nd wife Mary (Hummer) Whelan
didn't let a "minor" legal technicality keep them from
taking immediate possession of what was "rightfully his".

After regaining possession of the farm, Mary Sr. made a
new will leaving it to Will, and "the sum of one dollar" to
Jerry, who tucked tail and moved his Mary to Topeka.

Good riddance.

If Mary (McClellan) Cupp looks a bit tense
in the studio portrait, now you know why.

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

Snippets Sunday

2010-03-07T19:13:00.013-06:00

A recap of posts from the past week...

Monday Madness: Memorial Card Mystery

In a box of old family photos, I came across Celeste M. CUPP's memorial card. Again.

Her true identity had escaped me for 20 years or more. Early on I'd determined Cupp was not her maiden name, but who was she??? Why had the card been sent to my mother in the first place??....

Tombstone Tuesday: Arthur Cupp

Obviously this is not a tombstone, and normally I consider photos of the remains of a Recently Departed to be, at the very least, in poor taste.

However, I've always been fascinated by the composition of this particular photo....

Wordless Wednesday: Dillo Dilemma

While 'dillos are native to Texas, these days it's not unusual to find
them farther north, even in southern Kansas. I didn't see any
of the odd little critters on my trips to OK, but my son sees
them frequently. Here are only two of the pix he sent.
(Yes, the soil really is that red, from the iron content.)

Thursday Drive: Oil In The Family

Going to or coming from Guthrie on I-35, one can't help but notice Oklahoma is oil country.

"Nodding donkeys" and storage tanks dot the landscape as far as the eye can see, bringing to mind the scene in Urban Cowboy where Houston rich chick Pam tells John Travolta's character: "My daddy's in oil - and all that that implies...".

Well, not only was my daddy "in oil", so were both of his brothers....

Postcard Friendship Friday:
Family Outing, Morro Bay CA, 1936

The back says
"5 generations - Morro Bay, Aug 1936"
but it's not a true 5-gens.

Find out why and whose family it is here.

Sarah Jessica & the Salem Witch Trials

When I settled in to watch the first episode of NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?", I truly expected to be underwhelmed. How could NBC and Ancestry.com possibly come up with a celebrity family history format better than PBS's "Faces of America" hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.?....

Have a great day!

Salem and Sarah Jessica Parker

2010-03-06T21:45:00.015-06:00

When I settled in Friday evening to watch the first episode of NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?", I truly expected to be underwhelmed.

Granted, WDYTYA is sponsored by Ancesty.com, the premier genealogy research site, of whom I've been a loyal subscriber practically since it came online in the 1990s.

Still, how could NBC and Ancestry possibly come up with a celebrity family history format better than PBS's "Faces of America" hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.?

Well, I'm thrilled to report, they did.

One issue I've had with "Faces" is that every episode features the ancestries of several of the season's twelve celebrities. Rather than devote a segment to each, it jumps back and forth from one celeb to another and back again. Also, each celeb's tree is done by Gates and a team of researchers, then the findings presented to the celebrity in a scrapbook.

Not so in "Who Do You Think".

Each episode features only one celeb who, with the assistance of local family history professionals, follows clues to ancestral locations him/herself, making the discoveries infinitely more personal.

Friday night's celeb was Sarah Jessica Parker.

Although I'm one of the five people on the planet who's never seen "Sex & The City", SJ is the reason I faithfully watched all 25 episodes of her first foray into television, as Kay Ericson Gardner in "A Year In The Life", which aired first as a 3-part miniseries in late 1986, then as a weekly series in the fall of 1987 and spring of 1988.

Despite the series "A Year" being an instant hit and maintaining a 20 market share for the entire season (which today would put it in a network's Top Three), it came along at precisely the time cable was becoming popular and wasn't renewed. Many fans - myself included - never stop hoping those 25 episodes will become available on DVD!

But back to SJ's ancestors...

She followed a maternal line, first to the the gold fields of California where a great-grandfather, John Hodge, had been headed from Ohio in 1849. The family believed he died on the trip, but the 1850 census showed him and two mining partners very much alive in El Dorado County, Calif.

Naturally my first thought was that Hodge stayed in California and established a new family, just as many young men had abandoned wives back east in the latter half of the 1800s and early 1900s.

So I was as surprised and saddened as SJ when an El Dorado County historian showed her a letter dated a few months after the census, telling how Hodge and a partner had succumbed to one of the diseases common in mining camps and were buried in an unmarked grave.

The surname "Hodge" was well known in early New England, so Boston was SJ's next stop.

I thought this set the wrong example for newbies to genealogy, who all too often latch onto an unrelated line because it happens to have the same surname, with no documentation for the crucial generations in between.

Not to worry - the historian who met with SJ in Beantown did have documents proving John Hodge's lineage to a Hodge born in Massachusetts in the 1600s.

The biggest surprise - one I should have seen coming - was another documented ancestor was Esther Elwell, who with two other women had been accused of witchcraft during the infamous Salem Witch Trials.

SJ's reaction on seeing her ancestress's name in the Witch Trials archives was the same as mine years ago upon finding my 8th ggm Elizabeth Gatchell (Getchell) there. First surprise, then horror that a relative may've been hanged as a witch.

My Elizabeth wasn't one of the accused, however, but merely one of dozens who signed a petition attesting to the innocence of Mary Bradbury.

But still, I was as relieved as SJ to learn Esther Elwell and her friends had escaped the gallows...but only because that session of the Court of Oyer and Terminer had ended a week earlier and never revived thanks to the intervention of the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Coincidentally, by the end of summer 1692, witch "sightings" had stopped altogether, lending credence to the claim of Prof. Linnda R. Caporael (right) that the original accusations were the result of hallucinations and physical manifestations caused by convulsive ergotism, which itself was the result of eating bread made from rye infected with the fungus ergot (Claviceps purpura).

Ergot-infected rye was already known in Europe to cause hallucinations and "insane" behavior but, unfortunately for the twenty souls killed during the Witch Trials, this fact was unknown in Salem.

To give you an idea of what the accusers were experiencing when they saw or felt "witches" attacking them or others, the hallucinogenic lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is also a derivative of ergot and some of their visions mirror those reported by LSD "trippers" in the 1960s.

Ergot will only attack rye under damp conditions. The rye believed responsible for the witchcraft hysteria had been planted in the damp spring of 1691, matured during the equally damp summer, then milled into the flour used by Salem residents to make bread the following winter.

Oddly, ergot fungus is rather fickle - it may attack a field of rye but not the field next to it. This would explain why only members of certain Salem families experienced symptoms of ergot poisoning; not all the rye used that winter came from the same field.

The following spring and summer were dry, hence the rye crop of 1692 wasn't infected.

For more information:

Have a great day!

PFF: Morro Bay Outing

2010-03-05T04:37:00.006-06:00

Before there were tailgates...

Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo Co, California
August, 1936

The lady at left is my gr-grandmother Sarah "Sallie" CUPP, 86.
Standing is her granddaughter, Clara "Etta" (Cupp) Tiete, 40.
The little girl is Etta's granddaughter, Dora Fay Wickham, 3 1/2.

At the time this was taken, Dora's parents lived in San Luis
Obispo County, Etta in Fresno, and Grandma Sallie in Galt
near Sacramento. So this wasn't so much as "outing" as a
gathering of generations while Sallie could still travel.

In fact, the back of the next photo (same day, Morro Bay)
calls it a "5-generation pic", but not in the usual way...

(l-r, adults) Etta's dau Velma Fay (Brown) Wickham
holding 14-mo-old son Edwin William Wickham;
"Grandma Sallie"; Etta; Sallie's dau Josie (Cupp) Morris.
In front of Velma is her other son, Arthur Stephen
Wickham, 5 1/2, and at his left is little Dora.

Were this a true 5-gen pic, it would include Etta's dad,
Albert Isaac "Bert" Cupp, or her mother, Jennie May
(Morris) Cupp-Brown. But Jennie had died in 1915,
and Etta had little contact with her father, so
his sister Josie represented their generation.

Apologies for the quality of the photos.
Both originals were severely under-exposed.

Happy PFF!

Postcard Friendship Friday is now hosted by
Beth @ The Best Hearts Are Crunchy.
Stop by and read more of this week's PFF entries!

ThursdayDrive: Oil In The Family

2010-03-04T02:46:00.025-06:00

Going to or coming from Guthrie on I-35, one can't help but notice Oklahoma is oil country.

Nodding donkeys and storage tanks dot the landscape as far as the eye can see.

On one recent trip, a song from the movie Urban Cowboy came on the radio, reminding me of the scene where Houston rich chick Pam tells John Travolta's character: "My daddy's in oil - and all that that implies...".

That line always makes me chuckle because not only was my daddy "in oil", so were both of his brothers.

Alas, it wasn't a family dynasty a la the Ewings in Dallas. None of them owned an oil company, but they were in oil. My uncles serviced rigs in western Kansas, so they'd often come home covered in it.

Daddy not so much, since he only drove an oil tanker truck briefly in the late 1920s and early '30s, after he was old enough to get a chauffeur's license. He'd left school in 1920 at age 13 to work at a filling station in Virgil KS to help support his parents and younger brothers after Grandpa Bert became an invalid from a botched operation. Grandma Emma took in sewing and ironing to make up the difference.

Below is the photo I was looking for the other night when I got sidetracked by Celeste Cupp's memorial card.

Family tradition says Daddy worked here as a teenager.
He may have, if in fact this station was in Virgil, but not under Floyd & Moore. No one with either last name in the Virgil area owned a filling station or garage in the 1920 or 1930 census. Also, the car at far left is a 1938-40 (Ford?), so the photo was taken in the early-mid 1940s.

The caption on the back is no help either:
"Alfred
Jack
Roy, helper
Gerry, boarder
taken in Jan[uary]"

No last names, no year. Roy is not Daddy's brother Roy, and I have no idea who the others are either, therefore no clue to where the station was actually located.

But what's a "nodding donkey"?
Growing up, I somehow got the impression Uncle Roy and Uncle Melvin only worked "real" rigs - the towers known as derricks - and that the odd looking contraptions I saw occasionally back home in eastern Kansas were something of a joke. Never used in large deposits of oil, only in tiny ones that yielded a few barrels a day.

Not so.

I now know that they're called "nodding donkeys" or "horseheads" or "pumpjacks", and aren't a joke. That every pump that brings oil to the surface uses some version of the same mechanism. "Donkeys" simply do it without a derrick overhead.

If you watch one for any length of time, it appears to be nodding, hence the name.

Two donkeys pumping oil from different levels of the same well.

More about how nodding donkeys work.

Have a great day!

WordlessWednesday: Dillo Dilemma

2010-03-03T06:22:00.006-06:00

Being an armadillo in northern Oklahoma in winter
isn't so bad as long as there's grass...

...but not so good when there isn't!

While 'dillos are endemic to Texas, it's not unusual now to find
them farther north, even in southern Kansas. I didn't see any
of the odd little critters on my trips to OK, but my son sees
them frequently. These are only two of several pix he sent.
(Yes, the soil really is that red, from the iron content.)

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Wordless Wednesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers,
but the main site for WW entries is here.

TombstoneTues: Arthur Wm CUPP

2010-03-02T02:24:00.014-06:00

Arthur William CUPP
b. 20 Feb 1897, Lena Valley, Greenwood Co, KS
d. 02 January 1914, Lemoore, Kings Co, Calif.

First, I apologize to those who find this photo offensive.
Obviously it is not a tombstone, and normally I consider
photos of the remains of a Recently Departed to be, at
the very least, in poor taste. I've never understood
why anyone would make such photos in the first place.

However, I've always been fascinated by the composition
of this particular photo. Because the gunshot wound
that ended Arthur's life isn't visible, and because
before I ever saw the photo I knew he was only
16 at the time, it's easy to imagine he's only
playing a teenage prank, and afterward stood
up and had a good laugh with his buddies.

He didn't get up, of course, but teenage horsing
around gone horribly wrong may've been what
caused him to be the subject of this photo.

The Emporia Gazette on 14 January 1914 reported

"[Arthur] was instantly killed by the accidental
discharge of a gun while riding in an auto with
his cousin John Kerby. The gun had been slipped
under the lap robe to protect it from the rain
which was falling. Young Kerby heard the
report and looked quickly around to get a
glance from his cousin, who dropped dead."

That was the version relayed from California
to the hometown newspaper back in Kansas.

A now-elderly relative claims what really happened
was John Kerby, believing the gun wasn't loaded,
had reached under the lap robe and was holding
it against Arthur's side when it went off.

But back to the photo...

In 1914, the deceased would be embalmed by an undertaker,
then returned to his or her home to be dressed and put on
display for mourners until the funeral and burial. Much
like present-day viewings (or visitations) at a funeral
home, except family members were expected to
take turns "sitting [with] the body" at night.

Where the deceased was "laid out" for viewing was a
matter of personal choice and size of the dwelling. If
the front parlor was large enough, the kitchen table
was brought in, covered, and the body placed on it.

If not, as it wasn't at my grandparents', the dining room
and its table would be used. Or the body might be placed
on the bed in the bedroom closest to the front door.

That said, I can't for the life of me figure out if
the room Arthur is in is the parlor or a bedroom.
Its size suggests the parlor, but the dresses
hanging at the left would indicate a bedroom.

And the hangings around the body... Could be
something the funeral home provided, but might
just as easily be the curtains from the parlor.

Now two photos from happier times...

~ Arthur's parents ~
Albert Isaac "Bert" CUPP, 20, & Jennie May MORRIS, 16,
on their wedding day, 22 Feb 1894, in Emporia KS.
Eldest child Clara Etta was born 18 mos later.
Arthur arrived 15 months after "Etta".

A year or two after Arthur's birth, Bert decided he didn't
want to be married to Jennie any more and went to
California. Jennie eventually divorced him (in 1899),
also went to California, married a not-very-nice man
named Emerson Brown, and had seven more children.
The eldest is in the center of the next photo.

Clara Etta Cupp, 9, & Arthur William Cupp, almost 7,
with half-sister Mary Ellen Brown, almost 2, in Dec 1903

See "Etta" as a teenager with some of her Morris
cousins (the photo is toward the end of the post).

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

Madness Monday: Celeste WHO!

2010-03-01T00:01:00.007-06:00

Last night while looking for the b&w pic of a gas station in Virgil or Hamilton KS where tradition says my dad began working in 1920 at the tender age of 13, I came across Celeste M. CUPP's memorial card.

Again.

Celeste's true identity had plagued me for 20 years, maybe longer.

I don't recall when I first discovered the card in my mother's things, only that I determined early on that Cupp was her married, not maiden, name.

Portion of inside left half of memorial card.
The card could only have come from one of the Cupp cousins in California with whom Mother had corresponded regularly, but any envelope or note that accompanied it had been tossed long ago.

Nor had Mother bothered to scribble an explanation on the back as she sometimes did on photos. Sometimes but not always, inadvertently providing me, years later, with many hours of pleasure (or frustration) comparing faces in the photos that were labeled to faces in those that weren't. Not an option with a memorial card.

At any rate, Mother had known the identity of Celeste's spouse, but hadn't shared this important piece of information. By the late 1980s, anyone else I could've asked was dead and buried too.

Maddening!

After many false starts and dead ends, I began ignoring the memorial card altogether. But last night I didn't. Instead I held it, turned it inside out, stared at it, willing it to reveal its secret. What clue had I overlooked?

I would start afresh.

Text portion of inside right half of memorial card.
Celeste's birthplace was Galesburg, Illinois. "Celeste" being an uncommon first name (as opposed to the ubiquitous Mary, Catherine, and Elizabeth), I would begin by searching the 1900 census for 14-yr-old girls named Celeste born in IL. (The 1890 federal census was not an option - most of it had been destroyed before anyone realized it was the only copy.)

If you've ever looked for an ancestor in the census, you already know this wouldn't necessarily be a slam dunk.

For one thing, enumerators were famous for misspelling names, first and last.

Next, in 1900, Celeste would still be living with her parents, so she might be listed (and therefore indexed) by a nickname, "Lesta" for instance.

Or by her middle name, which might or might not begin with "M", as women often dropped the middle name in favor of the first initial of their maiden or previous married name on legal documents.

Lastly, a census index is only as good as the skill and attention span of the person transcribing a name into a database.

Despite using "celes*" in the search box to catch odd spellings, I wouldn't find Celeste in 1900 (as "Celestia") until after I'd identified her parents. And that didn't happen until I'd found her and her first husband and their children in 1910, living with a brother in Waterloo, Iowa.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

To get beyond the nickname/middle name roadblock, I next searched the 1930 census (again for "celest*"), where she might appear as Celeste Cupp. This returned a slew of Celestes (including two who were nuns) but no "Celeste [M.] Cupp".

However, there was one that did look promising: "Celeste Melton", a widow of approximately the right age in Knox Co, IL, of which Galesburg is the county seat. I say "approximately" because vanity often made women shave years off their age when the census taker came around. But everything else I could find about Celeste Melton pointed to her being the Celeste.

However, I couldn't say for sure that the Widow Melton was "my" Celeste M. born on 12 August 1886 in Galesburg. Further digging proved she wasn't. Bummer.

But I wouldn't give up. Not this time! Celeste Cupp's identity had bugged me for 20-some years, and during that time I'd acquired new skills tools to solve this maddening mystery once and for all!

The first break came when it dawned that if Celeste M. Cupp died in California, she may've been registered to vote there too.

So off I went to Ancestry.com's CA Voter Registrations 1900-1968 database, which I don't use as often as I should because I rarely find any of my California Cousins in it.

From old letters, I came to the conclusion that once that bunch escaped the hard winters and scorching summers of the Midwest and settled in what most described as "heaven on earth", politics and civic duty were not high on their list of priorities - if at all.

But it was worth a shot. And a lucky shot it was, because I got the surprise of my life!

In 1954, not only was "Cupp, Mrs. Celeste M." a registered voter in the city of Los Angeles, her address was the same as "Cupp, Albert I.", my great-uncle! They lived at 7641 Densmore, Los Angeles.

The surprise being that we knew "Uncle Bert" had had three wives, but not four! He'd deserted the first, Jennie May (Morris), and their children, Clara Etta and Arthur.

The second wife, Clare, divorced him after only a few years, but his luck changed with Wife #3, Addie Lee (Jackson). Although they had no children, they were married 21 or 22 years before her death in 1944. At some point after that, probably sooner than later, he married Celeste.

But that didn't prove the Celeste b. 1886 in Galesburg IL was Celeste M. Cupp who died in 1970, right? And if they were one and the same, how did Celeste of IL end up dying in Anaheim, CA?

Well, she was the right age to have had sons who saw a brighter future in the sunshine of southern California in the 1930s than in Illinois. Or daughters whose husbands had a thirst for greener pastures.

Back to the censuses.

In 1910 and 1920, Celeste M. CASTLE was shown as the wife of Fred Castle. In the 1910 census, they were enumerated with one of her brothers. Further digging revealed the brother, Leo Clayton LOWE, was born in Knox Co, IL, and that he and Celeste May Lowe were the children of John Westley and Ellen Hester (Riggins) LOWE.

In the 1900 census, Celeste was shown as "Celestia" and she was 14 years old. A Lowe descendant also has her as "Celestia" in a family tree, with the same birth and death dates as "my" Celeste.

But I wasn't totally convinced yet.

Back to the CA Voter Registrations. But first I should mention Albert ("Bert") and Addie Cupp's address during their marriage was 7651 Densmore Ave, Los Angeles.

According to the 1940, 1942 and 1944 Voter Regs, "Castle, Mrs. Celestia M.", a housewife, was at 7641 Densmore, Celeste and Bert's address in the 1954 Voter Regs.

After Addie died, Bert had married their neighbor and moved to her house a few doors away!

But, to paraphrase that old marching song, it's a long way from L.A. to Anaheim.

When Bert died in 1955, Celeste was 69 years old. Perhaps she could no longer take care of a house by herself, or perhaps she wanted a change of scenery. At any rate, at some point after his death, she moved to Anaheim to be with (or near) a son, Fred G. Castle. She died in October 1970 at the age of 84; 63-yr-old Fred followed four months later.

My next step will be to contact descendants of Fred G. Castle or his brothers, Leo and Horace. Celeste was too old to have more children when she married Bert Cupp, but a Castle descendant might know how she came to be on Densmore Ave in L.A.

For now, the Memorial Card Mystery is solved!

Cover of Celeste's memorial card from
Church of Our Fathers
Forest Lawn-Cypress Memorial Park
Cypress, Orange Co, CA
Card measures 6.25" x 4" (folded)

Have a great day!

Madness Monday is a blogging theme sponsored by

Where oh where have I been?

2010-02-24T05:15:00.000-06:00

I'd love to say I've been MIA here the last couple of months because I was on a trip to Singapore and Australia like Maddie Griggs at The World From My Window.

I should be so lucky. Those places are warm now.

(Does anybody in the Midwest or on the East Coast remember warm, or what the world looks like without ice or snow?)

Alas, I only got as far as Oklahoma (twice), trips I intended to post about if the mother of all colds hadn't got hold of me.

Instead of going away after a week or so like a "normal" cold would, this one hung on...and on...and on. For a month and a half.

According to a friend in New Jersey, everyone she knows there had the same thing. Forever. Regardless of age or life style.

And what a sneaky germ it was. After a few days, I'd feel better and think I was getting over it, then wham!...it'd knock me on my keister again.

Cold medicine and doubling up on vitamins didn't help. Cough syrup only helped a little and only intermittently. Kleenex became my constant companion.

Personally, I think I caught it at the hospital where my grandson was born on the 6th of January.

I always wash my hands thoroughly after using a public toilet. But others may not, so I'm very careful about not touching communal surfaces like door handles and such in public places without a paper towel (or in a pinch, the cuff of my coat) between my fingers and any germs the less fastidious may've left behind.

That leaves airborne germs, which I may've inhaled in the elevator going up or coming down from my daughter-in-law's room, or even in the small, enclosed waiting room. Who knows.

At any rate, by the following Tuesday I was sneezing and coughing so much that I stayed completely away from the new grandbaby. A total bummer since Son, D-I-L and Grandbaby would shortly be moving to Oklahoma.

After 4 days, I felt better. Not 100%, but better. I was certain I'd live after all...until it hit me again.

And that's how it went for the next six weeks. Get a little better, then worse, then better, then worse again.

I forgot what it was like to swallow without pain. Even when the coughing spells got to be few and far between, my throat muscles were still sore from coughing practically non-stop at the beginning, so any coughing was agony until I began taking two aspirins every four hours.

The worst part was having no energy for anything not absolutely necessary.

The trips to Oklahoma were necessary, the first to help Son and Family move, the second to deliver items they'd left behind. Didn't help that it was dry but cold the first time, and wet and cold the second.

The part of my brain that composes witty or informative (or witty and informative) blog posts ceased to function. Total mush. But I did get rather good at Spider Solitaire thanks to the laptop I could take to bed.

Or I read. Managed to finish Max (Mr. Agatha Christie) Mallowan's memoirs and Volume One of Jennie. When I didn't have the energy to read, I watched TV, mostly PBS and mostly travel and cooking programs I didn't know existed BMC (before monster cold) because they air when I'd normally be blogging.

Once, I thought I was well enough to help a friend change the template on her blog. Instead, I somehow screwed up the code for Sat's Child, then didn't have enough functioning brain cells to figure out how to fix it until a week later.

Apologies to any of you who came here during that time and noticed things "weren't quite right". They weren't.

I began to wish I'd caught the dreaded H1N1 flu instead. Seriously.

Yes, I would've been at death's door for a week or two, but at the end of that time I would've been well or dead. Either way, done with it, not wandering around for weeks not really sick sick, but not my normal peppy self either.

For as long as I can remember, my mother was a prescription drug junkie, so it takes an Act of Congress to get me to take anything stronger than aspirin. But when rest and being nice to myself didn't shake this thing, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and visit the nearest walk-in clinic for antibiotics.

Maybe deciding to seek medical help was enough to kick my immune system into overdrive. Or maybe Monster Cold had finally run out of steam.

The very next morning, instead of dragging myself to the clinic, I popped right out of bed and did the dishes. Then the laundry. Then I vacuumed. All before my second cup of coffee. Like I used to do before Monster Cold took over. (Okay, the vacuuming was only on Saturday mornings...)

At any rate, I didn't just feel "better", I felt normal. Never dreamed I'd ever be thrilled to do housework, but I was! Hallelujah!

So I'm back, with a HUGE THANKS! to all of you who didn't un-follow me while I was MIA.

Have a GREAT day!

Jennie Churchill and Drive-in Movies

2010-02-11T16:46:00.002-06:00

What on earth could Winston Churchill's mother, American-born
Jennie (nee Jerome) and drive-in movies have in common?

Well, nothing except that a previous owner of my copy
of Vol. 1 of Jennie, The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill,
by Ralph G. Martin, used the ticket stubs below as a bookmark.

Not that I was looking for "Jennie" that day last fall in my favorite
used book store. Vols 1 and 2 simply caught my eye in the Biography
section, but once home didn't catch it again until a few weeks ago.

I suspect the clerks are fans of Forgotten Bookmarks,
as I frequently find forgotten "treasures" in books from
the public library, but had never found any from the used
bookstore. So it was red-letter day indeed when I turned
a page in "Jennie" and the Fife Drive-in stubs fell out!

Who knows how long they'd been in there.

The Fife Drive-in Theater was located at 1601 Goldau Road E, Fife,
Pierce Co, WA. It opened in 1950, but I couldn't find when it closed.
In 2000 the population of Fife, near Tacoma, was (only?) 4,784,
so I'm guessing the drive-in went dark many years before that.

However, the June 30th, 1956 issue of Boxoffice magazine -
"The pulse of the motion picture industry" - revealed that
Russ Kinsey, manager of the Tokay Theatre in Raymond WA
for the past two years, had left to become manager of the Fife.
Elsewhere I learned Mr. Kinsey replaced 24-year-old Rockne
Roxstrom, who would die in 1967 at the age of 35.

Have a great day!

TombstoneTues: Emma and Dovie CUPP

2010-02-02T09:24:00.015-06:00

CUPP & HUMMER graves
Section 1, Block 1, Lot 70
Summit View Cemetery
1808 North Pine St.
Guthrie, Logan Co, OK

Thomas P. CUPP
b. 17 January 1854, Fayette Co, PA
d. 16 July 1898, Guthrie, Logan Co, OT (OK Terr)
[The stone's color and marbling make it nearly illegible.]

I've posted elsewhere about the grisly deaths and hasty burial
of great-grand uncle Tom's widow and daughter.
In mid-January, I had the chance to go to Oklahoma, and Guthrie happened to be our exit from I-35. On the way back the next day, I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to (finally!) visit Emma and Dovie's unmarked grave.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't have to stop to ask directions. Oklahoma post signs to its cemeteries the same size and shape as the familiar green city limits signs. However, they only say "CEMETERY", not the cemetery's name, with an arrow pointing the way. But I'm guessing this saves rural residents the hassle of directing out-of-towners to obscure or forgotten cems. On seeing "CEMETERY", visitors only have to turn whichever way on the next road and keep going until the graveyard comes into view.

How simple is that? Every state should have such signs.

At any rate, to reach Summit View, take exit 157, go west past Love's (gas there is much cheaper than anywhere else near I-35, btw) and Arby's to the stop light. Turn right, and same as out in the country, keep going until a cem comes into view. Be aware, though, that you'll come to another cem first - Memorial Gardens, if memory serves. The gates to Summit View are a little farther on.

I headed for any building that looked like an office. That building also happens to be the break room for the grounds crew, and as it happened to be close to noon, I inadvertently interrupted their lunch hour.

Not a problem. A very nice man (whose name, alas, I didn't get) was quite happy to accompany me to the Cupp-Hummer graves, which were only a short walk from the office. So short, in fact, that I left my car at the office and even though it was a chilly, windy day, I wasn't frozen to the bone when I got back to it.

A lot at Summit View contains six spaces (graves). Tom Cupp is in NW (northwest), widow Emma and daughter Dovie in SW (southwest), and Emma's father, W.M. Hummer, in WC (west central). I didn't recognize any of the names on the stones in the remaining three spaces (although I might research Sam Cash just for fun).

Until a few years ago, 14-year-old Dovie was an "Unnamed infant" in the cemetery's records, probably because only an infant would be buried with its mother. The recs now mysteriously show her as "Ethel". She was always "Dove" or "Dovie" in family records and correspondence, so I'm guessing "Dovie" was short for "Dove Ethel".

Alas, we may never know, but at least she's no longer "Unnamed infant".

Summit View, btw, is more well-known as the burial site of several 1890s outlaws, the most famous being Bill Doolin of the Doolin-Dalton Gang, whom the Eagles immortalized in the song "Doolin Dalton" on their 1973 Desperado album.

Other posts about Dovie and Family:
Dovie and brother Robyn
Guthrie OK & the Cupps
Emma's father Wm. Martin Hummer
Dovie's Aunt Mary (Hummer) Whelan Cupp
Dovie's dad's side of the family

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

Perils of a Newborn

2010-01-27T00:35:00.003-06:00

Being 3 weeks old isn't so bad.
I sleep whenever and wherever I want,
get fed when I'm hungry...

..and I have plenty of time to practice
being the next Gerber Baby.

But I do wish I could burp myself...

...so Gramma would stop taking pics like this one!

FYI, Gramma, I may not understand what "blackmail"
and "high school" have to do with each other, but it
can't be good if you giggle when you say it...

...so I sure hope y'all lose this pic before
I'm old enough to date. I look like E.T.
trying to remember how to call home.

PeeWee the Puppy says:
"Yeah, yeah...WHATever.
Having a baby in the house SUCKS!"

Have a great day!

Wordless Wednesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers,
but the main site for WW entries is here.

Tombstone Tuesday: Wm Martin HUMMER

2010-01-26T06:22:00.006-06:00

Tombstone of Wm. Martin HUMMER,
west center plot, Block 1, Lot 70,
Summit View Cemetery,
1808 N. Pine St.,
Guthrie, Logan Co, Oklahoma

In the Civil War, Hummer served in Co. C, 81st Indiana Infantry.
A daughter was Sarah E. "Emma" (Hummer), wife of Thomas P. CUPP.
Tom and Emma's children were daughter Dovie and son Robyn.

Tom died in 1898 after the family had homesteaded in
Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory with W.M. Hummer,
who died the following year and was buried next
to son-in-law Tom at Summit View Cemetery.

Emma remarried in 1901 to James Archer,
but by mid-1905 was seeking a divorce.

On the morning of 9th June 1905, Emma and 14-yr-old
Dovie were thrown from their horse-drawn buggy under the
wheels of an electric street car in downtown Guthrie.
By sundown, both had been buried in one
unmarked grave next to Mr. Hummer.

More about Emma, Dovie and Robyn.

Tombstone Tuesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers

Grandma's Little Fiery One

2010-01-12T00:26:00.005-06:00

Keegan
Born 6th January 2010.
7 lbs 6 oz, 20 1/2 inches.

I swore I wasn't going to be one of those Gushing Grandmas
who whip out pix of The New Grandson at the drop of a hat.

But that was before this charmer arrived last Wednesday.

And I did wait until he was 6 days old to post one pic here.

That counts for something, right?

Keegan, btw, means "little fiery one", which must refer
to the reddish blonde hair, because (so far) he's one
the most calm and content babies I've ever seen.

No surprise then that Grandma was a goner before
he flashed those adorable dimples the first time!

Have a great day!

Winter Solstice 2009

2009-12-21T08:04:00.012-06:00

(Last year's Winter Solstice post updated.)

Even a lapsed Wiccan cannot ignore Yule, the root word
for which reportedly comes from the Scandinavians,
but has always meant only one thing: celebrating
the Northern Hemisphere's Winter Solstice.

The word solstice means "standing-still sun". During the spring and winter solstices, the sun appears to "stand still" for about 3 days.

It doesn't, of course, but only looks as if it does due to the earth's tilt. At the Winter Solstice, the northern hemisphere is leaning farthest away from the sun, at its lowest arc in the sky, thereby causing that day's daylight to be shorter than any other.

By Dec 25th when Christians celebrate the birth of the son, followers of earth-based religions such as Wicca and paganism have already welcomed the return (rebirth) of the sun on Dec 20th or 21st. No babies were sacrifced, no devils were worshipped. Contrary to popular belief, the devil doesn't even exist in Wicca and paganism.

In fact, Yule is very similar to Christmas. Not surprising since many of the traditional customs enjoyed at both are rooted in paganism.

In 2009, the Winter Solstice occurs on December 21st at 17:47 p.m. GMT (Greenwich Mean or "Universal" Time). Adjustment for time zones in the U.S.:
EST: 12:47p
CST: 11:47a
MST: 10:47a
PST: 09:47a

One of the most important elements of Yule is the Yule Log. There are several modern interpretations of this custom.

The most traditional is the lighting of the log (preferably oak) on Yule or during the previous evening, along with a piece of last year's log, then extinguishing the fire before it burns down completely, and preserving a portion to light next year's log, hence completing the cycle of the year.

Another tradition requires the fire be
kept going for the entire 12 days of Yule.
For those without a fireplace, a tabletop candle version can be used. Take a smallish log (again, preferably oak), saw off part of one side to flatten so it won't rock, then drill 3 evenly-spaced holes on the other (top) side, big enough to hold candles (tapers work best, one red, one green, and one silver). Add sprigs of evergreen and a pretty ribbon if desired.

For those who only wish to honor the "spirit" of the Yule Log and enjoy a delicious treat as well, I've included the recipe for Nut Roll, also known as Pumpkin Roll.

When my children were at home, the Christmas season didn't begin until at least two of these were in the fridge.

Okay, officially it began with playing "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" on the stereo, during which the kids would groan loudly and whine "Mommmmmm...not that cheesy song again...". Then I'd hide the cassette before they could destroy it.

This became the Season Opener after we lost the one and only copy of local columnist Merle Bird's version of "The Night Before Christmas", one line of which ended with "tissue", and the next with "aunts that could kissue". (Tissue, kissue. Get it?)

Oh, never mind...

For years, my good friend Clydean Winterbottom and I relied on hand-written copies of the Nut (Pumpkin) Roll recipe, in the belief that one of us would always have one. That is, until the year - horror of horrors! - mine slipped behind the kitchen cabinet, never to be seen again, and Clydean somehow lost hers too.

Disaster!

Christmas is ruined!

Or as Clydean is so fond of exclaiming while clutching her chest:
"Draw the blinds!...Mother has the vapors!".
But Serendipity saved the day. Clydean happened upon a church Christmas bazaar in the next town.

I should mention Clydean has radar for church bazaars, church suppers, rummage sales...basically any place that offers inexpensive (but good) food and handmade items...but this one somehow hadn't made it into her Hallmark Pocket Calendar.

At any rate, the ladies of the Sewing Circle of this particular church were selling cookbooks containing the "secret" recipes of the members, and wonder of wonders, the Nut Roll recipe was one of them!

Hallelujah!

Who says Miracles don't happen?

But enough of all that. Here's the recipe:

NUT (PUMPKIN) ROLL

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin (canned)
1 tsp lemon juice (don't leave this out)
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3 tsp pumpkin pie spice*

Filling:
1 cup powdered sugar
6 oz. cream cheese (any brand)
4 Tbsp butter (or margarine)
1 cup chopped nuts (preferably pecans, but walnuts will do)

Heat oven to 375. Beat eggs for a full 5 minutes (absolutely crucial). Gradually add sugar. Stir in pumpkin and lemon juice. Add flour, baking powder, spice(s), and salt. Line 15x10x1 inch pan (a cookie sheet with sides will do) with well-buttered wax paper. Pour in batter, spread evenly to sides, and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven. While still warm, sprinkle liberally with powdered sugar. Place a linen (tea) towel over top of cake. Immediately FLIP pan over; remove pan and wax paper. Roll up (like a jelly roll), towel and all. Cool. Unroll carefully and spread with filling after removing towel.

Filling: Beat all ingredients until smooth. Spread on cake. Re-roll and chill. Slice and serve. Yummmmm!

*If you don't have pumpkin pie spice, substitute 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, and 1/4 tsp nutmeg.

Enjoy!

Good Yule or a Merry Christmas to all,
or whatever you and yours celebrate this time of year!

Somewhere It's Warm - UPDATE

2009-12-14T12:57:00.009-06:00

Eleven months ago yesterday (15th January), I posted "Somewhere It's Warm". Re-reading it recently, it sounds just plain whiny compared to events of the past few days...

All last week, the furnace acted "funny". Sometimes it would come on and not go off. Sometimes it wouldn't come on at all on "Auto", only if manually switched to "On". Then I'd have to turn it off before leaving home for more than a few minutes.

On Friday, I asked Maintenance to have a look.

"Just the thermostat", he said, and installed a new one.

We wish that's all it was. By 6:30, the nice new digital thermostat showed the temp in the flat was 66F. By morning, it was 63. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr

Granted, I could've called in an emergency repair request, but I hated to make anyone come out on a cold night. Instead, I put on extra blankets and toughed it out until morning.

The diagnosis: the elements in the furnace were worn out...but couldn't be replaced until Monday.

While the furnace was undergoing major surgery, I left to run a few errands. The official temp Monday morning was 14F, but factor in wind chill and the real temp was ZERO.

Was I surprised the heater in my car chose that day to stop working?

Of course not.

When the heat in one's home and one's car both quit at the same time, the Universe is strongly hinting that one should move where it's warm this time of year, using the Snow Shovel Recognition Method for relocation:

Tie a snow shovel to the front of the car and drive south.
Move to the first place someone says:
"What's that thing on the front of your car?".
For the record, every year around this time I vow to move to a warmer clime, but haven't done so yet, and unless I win the Big Lottery (enough to live in England permanently), probably never will.

Happy holidays!

Katie Gets Her Wish

2009-11-29T00:54:00.007-06:00

Pssst...Buckingham Palace...people live longer now.
A variety of cards with Her Majesty in different outfits,
to alternate from year to year, wouldn't be a bad idea.

Just a thought...

Isn't Mrs. Masters a treasure?
We should all be this lively at 110!

Have a great day!

Tea For Twosday

2009-11-24T09:47:00.013-06:00

Mix 'n' match for a chilly day.

Believe it or not, the silver tray just had its annual polishing.
It's a royal pain to keep shiny, the handles especially.

I thought the teapot was sort of "autumn-ish".
No maker mark, only "Made in Brazil" and "hand-painted".

The bottom of the cream pitcher is blank;
but the sugar bowl is Pfaltzgraff.

The teacups are Wedgewood's Patrician pattern, circa 1960s,
from a set of six that I've had for a couple of decades.
Never had saucers; we only used them for eggnog at Christmas.

They're sitting on a Wedgewood saucer and a bread-butter
plate I was thrilled to find recently in a thrift shop.
I don't care they're the Hedge Rose pattern - it's enough
to have anything Wedgewood to put under the cups!

Below is the maker's mark on the saucer, which
denotes it was made in July, 1966. The bread
and butter plate was made in November, 1964.

Which one doesn't belong?

Here you can see the Wedgewood cups aren't white, but creme.
Never noticed this until I got the saucer and B&B plate!

But mainly I just wanted to show off a new tea table...

On the way to my son's Sunday to have the car winterized,
I thought my eyes were deceiving me. A yard sale on Sunday?
Yep, and being a nice day, it was drawing quite a crowd!

Actually, the table will be my laptop desk, and the treadle
sewing machine base with the laminated top that's been a
sturdy computer desk for several generations of desktops
can finally be used for...sewing. What a concept.

Tea Things Tuesday is hosted by the
Lovely Kim at Shabby Pink and Pretty,
where you can check out other TTT entries.

Silk Purse invites you to
Tuesday Tea For Two
at The Plumed Pen

Tea and Friendship Tuesdays
is hosted (hostessed?) by Charli and Me
Happy Tea Time!

Tea Things Tuesday: Whittard of Chelsea

2009-11-17T01:04:00.002-06:00

A Whittard of Chelsea metal tea caddy
from around 2005, a thrift shop find.

To avoid camera flash reflection, I scanned
it with a curtain bunched around it, but a
swatch of chintz would've worked as well.

The label on the other side said it originally held
Darjeeling - "the champagne of teas" - but
looks much like the label below at Tomokilog,
a Japanese blog which incorrectly identifies
Whittard's Summer leaf tea as Earl Grey.
The author was obviously not a tea drinker!

These caddies are a wonderful reminder of a
visit to Whittard in Buckingham Palace Road,
opposite the Royal Mews (the royal garage).
The gold State Coach, btw, is fabulous!

But back to Whittard's...

Here's a link to a map of the area, and below the map,
a nifty rotating cam of Buck Palace Road on a sunny day.
The trees at one end are part of St. James's Park, and
at the other end, under the trees at the left of the large
white building, a pocket park handy for enjoying a bag
lunch from Pret A Manger in Victoria Station.
On the other side of the wrought iron fence and
gate between the pillars is the Royal Mews.

But I digress (again)...

In 1886, Walter Whittard ("whi TARD") opened a small
tea emporium in Fleet Street in the City of London, but
soon expanded its stock to include coffee. "Of Chelsea"
was added when the original shop moved to Kings
Road in the borough of that name. Whittard of
Chelsea now has stores all over the world.

In 1976, a non-tea drinker named Giles Hilton
was hired as the accountant-bookkeeper. Soon he
discovered he did like tea - very much, in fact - and
after a 5-year apprenticeship, became Whittard's chief
buyer-blender, prompting the nickname "The Nose".
Today Giles is essentially the face of Whittard's.

Quite a personable chap to boot, as you'll see (plus
many tips on choosing tea) in the following videos :

And here's a Day with Giles in London:

Last but not least, a tea estate in Darjeeling, India,
showing what happens to tea between the field and
your teapot. (The music is mesmerizing, but "wobbly".)

A few links you might find interesting:
Whittard of Chelsea's homepage

The history of Whittard of Chelsea

Giles Hilton, Whittard's "Guru"

Tea Things Tuesday is hosted by the
Lovely Kim at Shabby Pink and Pretty,
where you can check out other TTT entries.
Happy Tea Time!