Big Old Family Hug

Happy mid-July everyone! Hope the summer finds you well. My girls are enjoying summer day camp through the town this year. Other than (loud) complaints about the daily application of sunscreen, they seem very happy.

I’ve taken quite a break from the blog recently to focus on my job. Happily, the effort has paid off and I’ll be starting a new position this coming Monday! As always, though, it’s nice to come back to the album which sits there patiently for its secrets to be uncovered.

I think I have a fun one today, at least for anyone who knows Middletown well. It turns out that the Dunnings were friendly with the Moon family, who attended First Presbyterian Church with them. Truman Moon was a very famous man, and I (like many) attended an elementary school named after him. I was fortunate to pull up a very complete obituary so that you can learn more.

Meanwhile, I’m sharing a couple pictures that I’m convinced Truman took, of his daughter Peggy and of Clara Dunning.

Here is the obituary, in full, from the July 15, 1946 edition of the Middletown Times Herald Record:

—————————-

Truman J. Moon, Retired Science Teacher, is Dead

Truman J. Moon, teacher, biologist and author, who was long prominent in educational and civic work in Middletown, died suddenly Saturday afternoon at his Summer home in Greensboro, Vermont. Memorial services for Mr. Moon were conducted yesterday afternoon at the Greensboro Church. His body will be cremated.

Surviving besides his wife, the former Lena Jordan, is a daughter, Margaret L. Moon.

Mr. Moon, whose home was at 106 West Main street, was former vice-principal and head of the Science Department at Middletown High School. He achieved national recognition in the early 1920’s through his textbook, Biology for Beginners, which is still in use in hundreds of American schools. Before the book was published it was introduced at the high school here, where students used mimeographed copies in their biology work.

In 1926 Mr. Moon revised the edition and several revisions have been made since that time. A Laboratory Manual for Beginners was published by Mr. Moon in 1922 and a revised edition was issued in 1927. The manual was issued in 1927. The manual was later revised by Miss Madeline West and Miss Edris Thayer, science teachers at the high school. His articles on scientific subjects have been printed widely in magazines such as Scientific American and Bird Lore, as well as many others.

Retired in 1937

Mr. Moon retired from teaching in June of 1937, after thirty-five years as head of the science department and vice-principal. Mr. Moon was credited with introducing new teaching methods at the high school and was originator of the development of a system for assigning pupils to classrooms, which facilitated grouping the pupils at the beginning of each term, so that class work could get underway immediately.

Mr. Moon, whose name appeared in several issues of Who’s Who In America for his work in the fields of biology and education, had for many years kept scrapbooks of Middletown High School activities and a catalogue of graduates, in which he recorded as nearly as possible, the movements of all alumni of the school.

An ardent camera fan, he had through a period of years collected pictures of historic sites in Middletown, so that his collection is a remarkably complete record of the development of the city. A frequent contributor to the Public Forum in the Times Herald, his pictures of history-making scenes in the city, such as the World War One Armistice celebration, have also appeared on Times Herald pages.

Degree at Cornell

Mr. Moon was born at Nicholasville, N.Y., in 1879, a son of Asa and Lucinda Smith Moon. He studied at Potsdam Normal Preliminary and Potsdam State Normal School until 1899. He received his A.B. degree at Cornell in 1903. A year before that, however, he had accepted a post as Botany and Zoology teacher at the high school here. Cornell authorities had recommended his appointment for the high quality of his work.

He taught here a year and then completed a Summer course which gave him a degree. Returning to Middletown at the time Biology was introduced in the high school, he became the head of that department. Later he specialized in chemistry, although he held a continued interest in the biology work. He had served as a member of the Regents Committee to prepare examinations in Biology, and was also appointed a member of a committee to revise scientific courses in the state system. He refused the latter appointment because it was not in accord with a proposal to substitute general science for biology.

Mr. Moon had also served on the Board of Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church and had been an active member and officer of the Historical Society of Middletown and Walkill Precinct. He also held membership in the University Club and State Teachers’ Association. He had bene an instructor while a student at Potsdam and Cornell and had served with the New York State National Guard from 1918 to 1920.

Indicative of the esteem in which he was regarded was the statement issued by William A. Wilson, principal at the time of Mr. Moon’s retirement. Mr. Wilson said at that time that Mr. Moon’s abilities were reflected “time and time again” in the qualifications of students leaving his classes.

Praise of faculty, members and students has always been limitless. Former students can recall his calm and easy methods of teaching and his unique quality for witty remarks which never failed to score a point in the classroom.

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Should you want to read Biology for Beginners, I actually found it online here!

I found very little about Peggy Moon’s later life, unfortunately. What I did find is that, in 1971, she gave 150 acres of land in her parents’ name to the Orange County Land Trust. Located in the Town of Walkill and called “Moonbeams Preserve”, this is apparently “a great place for a fall hike”. I’ve copied the information below for any interested parties. 🙂

I hope you have a great July and look forward to catching up with you again soon!

Moonbeams Preserve Featured in THR’s 845LIFE

Hello all! I stumbled on two pictures of my gram’s father in the 1915 section, so I decided to try to put them together with a poem. I hope you enjoy and wish you well.

Grandpa Dunning, man of God
Dressed up in his Sunday best
In leather boots his feed are shod
His tie is tied, his suit is pressed

Grandpa Dunning, dairy farmer
donned for chores like mucking stalls
sturdy, dirty boots his armor
rumpled shirt with overalls

Here - each side a feeding pail
There - each side his progeny
Here a look of hard travail
There a well-heeled family

Man of leisure? Man of toil?
"Both grow in one" the Bard might say
Great grandpa stuck his hands in soil
then washed them up, in thanks to pray

Hello everyone! How are you all? Have you survived the cold winter months and the onslaught of the Omicron variant?

We are barely holding on and therefore very excited (literally running-up-and-down-our-tiny-hallway excited) to take a small trip over February break this coming week. Our first trip in over two years, our first restaurant outing as a family in over two years, our first aquarium and museum visit…you get the point.

Speaking of trips, the next few pictures out of the album feature a rather long car trip that Aunt Katherine took to Silvery Bay, on Lake George through her church work. In fact, there is a long and rather poetic article about the trip from the Middletown Times Press, dated July 29, 1915:

SILVER BAY REPRESENTS NEW FORCE IN MISSION MOVEMENT

Local Delegates to Recent Conference Learn True Meaning of the Word

The missionary conference, recently held at Silver Bay, was attended by a number from this city and vicinity, and the following description of the place and what is done there has been furnished by one of the party:

A beautiful indentation in the western shore of Lake George gives Silver Bay its name. Back of it for a hundred miles stretch the forestclad Adirondacks. Here, from July 9 to 18, the 14th annual conference of the missionary education movement is held.

In 1902 a few wide visioned young men saw the opportunity for a new force in missions. They based their belief on the need of wider missionary knowledge and larger acquaintance with the world situation. They got together and the first annual budget was but $1,200. The movement has grown beyond their fondest hopes. Hundreds have volunteered for Christian service as a lifework in North America and non-Christian lands, 1,300,000 text books having been sold and used in classes. Fifteen thousand select leaders have been given normal training for missionary leadership in summer conferences like Silver Bay, and many in institutes and other gatherings. Summed up, the missionary education movement may be said to have increased denominational efficiency through interdenominational cooperation.

Every year, in July, Silver Bay draws delegates from nearly all the evangelical churches for ten days of mission study, personal contact with leaders, and team play. This year they number 580 and come from 13 denominations. In numbers, the Episcopalians lead, the Methodists being next, followed by the Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists, with smaller delegations from the Reformed Church of America, Disciples, Lutherans, Reformed Church in the United States, United Presbyterians, Adventists, Friends and Universalists. Geographically, the delegates represent a territory from Maine to Texas.

Virile young men and women with their life work in mind, busy pastors, board secretaries, and missionaries, representing home and foreign fields are here. The central topic is: “The Church and the Nations:” the slogan, “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done on Earth”. Twenty-seven study courses meet every demand of the varying conditions and different ages in the churches, Sunday Schools and young people’s and women’s societies. Inspiring addresses and sermons are given by such men as Bishop Stuntz of South America; Dr. Arthur J. Brown and Bishop Rhinelander of Pennsylvania, and many others. Not all of these are formal presentations, for sometimes the most effective messages are driven home while a hiking party is resting on the mountain side or in a shady nook along the lake.

Recreation is not forgotten, the afternoons being kept free for such features as bathing, boating, tramping, excursions to Fort Ticonderoga, tennis tournaments, stunts and athletic meets. Incidentally the denominational spirit is fostered by social picnics and other gatherings at which the delegates become mutually acquainted and plan for advance steps during the coming season in their home churches.

The spirit of Silver Bay is epitomized in the evening vesper service. Out in the open, seated on the gray rocks and grassy bank, with a sounding board of tree branches and the sound of lapping waves drifting slowly up from the lake the deepening twilight seems to bring with it an atmosphere of hope, a great welling desire to spend life for the highest things. This is the meaning of Silver Bay.

It’s a funny little article right? A meeting of “virile young men and women” with a passion for outdoor sports and…missionary work. No less strange in its tone when one considers that at that very moment the Austro-Germans were battling against the Russians in what is now southern Poland a year into World War I.

The “wide visioned” young men at the conference may have felt that they had a “larger acquaintance with the world situation” but it seems like the concerns of Europe were very far from anyone’s mind just then. In fact, that copy of the (admittedly local) paper only mentions WWI on page 3, in a section on the right side called “Sidelights on the War”.

On the other hand, what I like so much about the article (as other articles from this time period) is that earnestness, and “can-do” spirit that it seems to cheer. In fact, I just finished the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam that discusses that very fact. Here’s a quote:

[The Progressive’s] outlook was activist and optimistic, not fatalist and despondent. The distinctive characteristic of the Progressives was their conviction that social evils would not remedy themselves and that it was foolhardy to wait passively for time’s cure. As Herbert Croly put it, they did not believe that the future would take care of itself.

Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

The book was fascinating and extremely relevant to the posts I’ve been doing for this blog. I promise to come back to it!

In the meantime, let me just say how much I like this last picture. If nothing else, it shows how within 5 years, the layperson now had a different concept of how to take a picture. Rather than someone smiling directly into the camera, the photographer took the view from behind. Look how they framed the tree in the upper right hand corner – they saw how the picture could be used as an art form.

And I think they captured a really timeless sort of moment here. Reflection. Sitting there, taking in a moment. Retreat. Exactly the thing that my family and I are looking forward to this very weekend.

I hope you enjoy the weekend too in some sort of departure from ‘rigid, cold, and passionate service’! Thank you, as always, for sharing your time with me.

This yearning for new and distant scenes, this craving for freedom, release, forgetfulness — they were, he admitted to himself, an impulse towards flight, flight from the spot which was the daily theatre of a rigid, cold, and passionate service.

Thomas Mann, Death in Venice

Happy December to you all! Today’s picture from the album comes from 1915 when my grandmother (Marjorie) visited with 76-year old great uncle William. Like may of my ancestors, I only really know of him what the obituary tells, in this case just a year after this picture was taken.

Rev. William Arnot Dunning, brother of the late Horace Dunning, whose death was announced Friday, was born in this vicinity and grew up on the Dunning homestead, near Mechanicstown, where his nephew, M. E. Dunning now resides. He was educated at Williams College and preached at Gilbertsville, N.Y., for a long time.

He was an active Presbyterian minister for 28 years up in Ostego County, NY before his retirement in 1895.

Later he resided at Binghamton, where three years ago his wife, who was Marcia Hurd, died. Since, he had made his home at Tompkinsville, Staten Island, where he died.

I found out from a second obituary published for him in The Brooklyn Citizen that his last address in Tompkinsville was ” 119 Frelinghysen Road” . The road was renamed “Silver Lake Road” at some point but I looked up the address on Google maps and the house can still be seen there!

Funeral services were held this afternoon at the late home and the body was brought to this city at 2 o’clock over the Erie. Internment was in Hillside Cemetery, Rev. B. E. Smith officiating at the grave.

-July 22, 1916

So Uncle William’s remains took a ride on the Erie Railroad, up to Hillside Cemetery to rest among his next of kin.

This picture, William’s history as a Presbyterian minister and seeing my grandmother as a little girl (which still makes me smile) made me want to share a nice quote from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson with you:

I might seem to be comparing something great and holy with a minor or ordinary thing, that is, love of God with mortal love. But I just don’t see them as separate at all. If we can be divinely fed with a morsel and divinely blessed with a touch, then the terrible pleasure we find in a particular face can certainly instruct us in the nature of the grandest love.

May you enjoy your loved ones this holiday season and sending you a hug, as always.

In the above picture you can see a few of the buildings on the farm and one of a network of walking paths. I can’t imagine the extent of the farm in that period but I did notice that only three years ago they were still selling property from it.

This last picture features one of the grander buildings and what looks like the owner of a new 1915 Cadillac. One might speculate that the sober-suited man showing off the car, in front of what looks like a Borden home is a Borden himself but what do I know? Maybe he’s a handsome tour guide.

Hope you’ve enjoyed our trip today. A grateful salute to all you veterans out there and a big hug to everyone.

Hello again and thank you for your patience over the last four months. It has been a whirlwind of a summer for me. Our house addition began on July 5th and is nearly complete but for a glass shower door, a couple fixtures and a new garage door. The old garage door got blown out when the tow truck to pick up the overflowing construction dumpster accidentally knocked it down our driveway instead. Bump, bump, bump it went down the set of wood supports it was resting on, then THUMP, smack into the house.

They say there’s always a ‘hiccup’ or two with big projects like this so we’re just relieved that the damage wasn’t greater. On the work front, in June, 8 of my team members in Latin America were let go and I am now helping to onboard 8 new team members in Manila. If anyone asks, I look forward to this new chapter. Bump, bump, bump, THUMP.

Happily, the kids are back to in school full-time this year and my youngest has transitioned speedily to the Kindergarten routine. We were lucky that we didn’t have a school bus driver shortage like some other districts in the area (!) and so far the COVID cases have been isolated and not required either of my girls to quarantine at home.

However, it’s happened more than once that we’re feeling like good parents, waiting on time and prepared as the school bus pulls up only to see the masked faces through the bus windows as it approaches. “Your mask! Your mask!” – sudden panic as we run headlong into the house at the last minute.

I was happy to find a “Back to School 1914” picture from my grandmother’s album. My grandmother appears dressed up just like the rest so I’m not sure if they had some kind of pre-k program or something? The girl in the middle, Isabel Mapes, was a neighbor whose father (William J) would die almost exactly 3 years after this picture on September 7, 1917.

William J. Mapes, aged 54 years 10 months and 2 days, who had been a resident of this city for the past 11 years, died at his home on South Benton Avenue on Thursday, after an illness of a long duration from a complication of diseases.

Mr. Mapes was born in Great __, PA, on November 5, 1863, a son of Isaac Mapes and Sarah ___. About 11 years ago he moved to this city, where he has since resided. In 1895, he was united in marriage to Margaret St. John at Monticello, in Sullivan County. To this union was born one daughter, Mary Isabelle Mapes and one son, Frederick St. John. One brother, J.C. Mapes, of Elmira, also survives. Mrs. Mapes preceded the deceased in death several years ago.

In 1923, Isabel and her brother moved to Schenectady, NY but I’m afraid I couldn’t trace them after that. Sometimes you reach a dead end in the ancestry searches and you have to accept that the thread will just have to dangle there. I think this crazy summer has taught me something about the need to accept dangling threads (and dangling garage doors).

Until pretty recently, maybe the start of the pandemic, I really felt that with enough effort and energy, I could “design my life”, so to speak. I was extremely fortunate that no great illness, no great limitation or calamity jiggled my life so much that I didn’t feel like the person driving my fate. I’m not sure that I see it the same way now, and the renovation accentuated that feeling.

In order to put the bathroom in upstairs, the plumbers had to rip open the downstairs bathroom and put new piping in there. For months, the sheetrock from the ceiling and the side of the bathroom were torn out and we would have a view of the PVC pipes and the inner workings of the exhaust fan and bathroom light every time we used the bathroom. From a contractor’s view, it’s no big deal. As a homeowner, it’s so unsettling though.

You think, “this is my unattractive but sturdy bathroom”. It has walls, it has a ledge here where I clean the dust, and the tiles go from here to here. Then, in one day, suddenly the whole thing is covered in dust and the tiles have been ripped off and what you thought was your bathroom is really just a bunch of inner workings covered over with sheetrock.

So this is sort of what I feel like COVID did to my conception of school, and what the recent layoffs did to my conception of my work, and what the slow reckoning of this 1.5 years working from home has done to every aspect of my life. Like “huh. There’s all this machinery back there and it has to work right or…”

Which is not to say it’s all bad, right? Because I think that getting accustomed to seeing the blood and guts of life can maybe make you a better surgeon, you know?

In my case, I did a Facebook-ectomy. I deleted my account, effective October 16th, and I’m happy I did. I had tried to use the platform to be a good friend to people and to reach out to acquaintances who seemed to need help but I would get, “that’s so sweet! Thanks for reaching out”. People weren’t asking for a friend, really, or at least not the way I think of friendship.

If I only have a limited time in this world, I want to spend it communicating in a way that feels authentic to me. I can “like” and “heart” people’s photos for an hour or I can invite my Kindergartener to read books with me. What will make me happier? Which gesture will mean anything 10 or 20 years on?

Sorry if the touchy-feeliness of this post was too much for you. It’s really hard going back to writing after such a long absence and I guess I had more pent-up emotions than I realized. Good thing I wasn’t 2 months into a Word War with three little kids in tow, right Eleanor?

Here’s a nice picture of impish Marjorie on the front porch. Big hug to you all.

Happy (almost) summer everyone! With the good weather and vaccinations in full swing, I’m hopeful we’ll get the chance to do some road trips and meet up with people we haven’t seen in a long time. This weekend, in fact, my family will drive up to see my parents for the first time since September (hooray!)

In fact, we are up to that point in the album (1915) when the Dunning family also started some road trips. In fact, the pictures from today come from a trip that was memorialized in the local newspaper:

Miss Katherine Dunning, with a party of friends, motored to Kingston Monday, and took in the Ashokan Dam. They had a most delightful trip”

Middletown Times Press, 6 October 1915, pg. 2

The Ashokan Reservoir was constructed between 1907 to 1915 and involved the submerging of a number of communities to do so. Engineers realized years prior that New York City would face water shortages unless some water system was added to the Croton watershed. They saw that the Catskill Mountains could supply that, starting with a watershed at Esopus Creek.

Residents of the Esopus valley tried to block the work as it meant displacing some 2,000 locals and tearing down their roads, shops, churches and homes. The New York State Water Supply Commission ended up voting in New York City’s favor. Small wonder when you learn that every day, about 40 percent of New York City’s drinking water passes through the Ashokan Reservoir.

The picture above shows the bridge at the dividing line between the basins. I’ve looked up recent pictures and found it to look almost the same over 100 years later!

It may come as no surprise, then, that the the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has committed $750 million to the Ashokan Century Program, a set of projects to upgrade the infrastructure there. Announced in 2017, the projects are so extensive that they expect the work to continue even into the 2030’s.

Here you can see the dam still ‘under construction’. I’m not an engineer so I have no idea how to describe what we’re looking at. It’s cool though, isn’t it? It’s possible that soon we will be seeing similar pictures in the newspaper as the restoration work begins.

Can you imagine how people envisioned the Catskill water system “all the way back then”? And how – in rather short order – managed to procure the political support, the resources and the engineering skill to successfully carry it out?

Just like when I wrote about the construction of Grand Central Station, I’m in awe of these massive public projects that were undertaken with such foresight. Then again, I looked at Page 1 of the same newspaper that reported Great Aunt Kate’s trip to see what the news of the day was and found this:

PRESIDENT TO CAST VOTE FOR SUFFRAGE

President Wilson today came out for woman suffrage. In a formal statement he declared that he would vote in favor of amending the New Jersey State constitution to that effect.

Middletown Times Press, 6 October 1915, pg. 1

The vote for woman’s suffrage in the state of New Jersey was later defeated on the ballot. On October 19, 1915, voters rejected the measure by 58.04%. So…some events (dam-building!) feel prescient today and some others (rejecting women’s right to vote) feel positively antedeluvian.

Thinking about the construction and now reconstruction of the dam made me think about our lives pre and post-COVID. Certainly the newspapers are full of reports comparing our “pre” and “post?” COVID world. Has our outlook about work-life fundamentally changed? Will the economy look different from here on out?

It’s certainly revealed an old dam or two in my life, structures that are functioning well enough but could use a good renovation program. Physical health. Career. Things that I’ve made a substantial effort to build (my family) but that could use a good infrastructure inspection to identify improvements.

What about you?

Sending a big hug and a Happy Father’s Day to all those celebrating!

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone! Like so many holidays, our commercial culture has been successful morphing this to its own purpose (Summer’s official start! Get that barbecue out!) Actually, it started in May because that was when flowers were blooming to decorate the graves of Civil War soldiers.

For a long time it was known as Decoration Day. After WWI, it became a day to honor those that died in all American wars. Then, after WWII the name Memorial Day became more commonly used.

In this post, I’d like to especially honor the American soldiers that died in WWI, some 116,000 men, including some from Middletown, NY. Many of these, including my subject for today’s post, were part of New York’s 27th Infantry Division. (I was really interested to find a source that stated that more than 400,000 New Yorkers served in the military during World War I, more than any other state!)

If 116,000 deaths seems like a low fatality rate, recall that the United States stayed out of the war for the first few years. In fact, Woodrow Wilson narrowly won re-election in November 1916 with the slogan “He Kept us Out of War”. It wasn’t until early 1917 – a full 2 ½ years in – that public opinion shifted in the U.S. 

That was when the Germans resumed submarine warfare hoping to win the war. Also, in January 1917, the British intercepted the “Zimmerman Telegram” in which the Germans offered Mexico some of the US territory in return for Mexican aid. This led to the US Congress voting to declare war on Germany, on April 6, 1917.

Now, of the 116,000 deaths, you may be surprised to learn that the majority (63,114 according to this source) were due to disease, not combat. In fact, almost half the losses occurred on US soil when the influenza pandemic swept through training camps in the spring of 1918. The virus then travelled to Europe with US troops and caused more deaths once there.

It strikes me how much more relevant that feels to us in 2021, having lived through a similar pandemic. 

Without further ado, let me introduce you to John William Boyd, former husband of my grandmother’s 2nd cousin, Mildred Dunning Hurtin. Mildred graduated from Middletown High School in 1913 and married John after the war, on April 14, 1919. The marriage did not last (John remarried in 1943 and moved out to California) but Mildred gave birth to a daughter, Jean, in 1926 and records indicate that the two remained close.

I plan to revisit Mildred and John in a future post because I found a related story of interest. For now, though, there’s plenty in John’s role in WWI. Within his 10 months of service, he was promoted from Chief Clerk of the Administrative (G-1) Section, General Staff to Sergeant Major of a battalion. 

I’d venture that by July 1918 John’s division was in France, training under British mentors. By August 1918, he was likely taking part in the Ypres-Lys Offensive, which was launched to liberate Belgium and part of northeast France. The American troops fought alongside Australian, Belgian, British, Canadian and French troops, and managed to force a German retreat there.

I found some terrific (in both senses of the word) photos on an Australian government website with pictures from these battles. Many of the Allied forces were killed by machine gun fire, gas attacks, snipers and artillery fire. It was a step forward, though, and part of the “Hundred Days Offensive” that would bring an end to the Great War.

John Boyd also participated in the Somme Offensive or the “Somme Push” in late 1918. Helped by British and Australian artillery units, he and the remaining 27th Division members helped to break the defensive “Hindenburg Line” that the Germans had established.

 You can find some further information and pictures about these battles here: https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/1918/battles/hindenburg

Wikipedia (among other sites) also have good reference information about Major General John F. O’Ryan, and about NY’s 27th Division, if you’re interested in learning more.

One piece of research I was pleased to find was a newspaper article from 1925 that mentioned John Boyd. It looks like his instincts and valor to came in handy once the war ended! After all the deaths he must have witnessed on the battlefield in Europe, he must have held the preciousness of that boy’s life even dearer.

A happy Memorial Day weekend to you all. May we remember those who bravely served our country and who put other’s welfare ahead of their own to make our country – our world – a better place.

XXX

Summertime is soon upon us again, my friends – hooray! We moved our deck furniture out of the basement last weekend. My husband let the girls help to sponge the chairs with some soap and hose them off. The two of them then ran around the house breathless (“daddy let us help!”) and completely soaked.

Even though my husband and daughter are suffering from terrible allergies this year, it’s hard to keep anyone inside. Jack and Jill gave us some seeds to plant so once they germinated at the windowsill, my youngest helped to dig out a hole in the front bed. (And then dig many more holes willy-nilly, dirt flying everywhere.) I’ve been out every night to keep them watered. I’ve actually never grown anything from seed and am anxious to see if we’ll get any flowers!

Have you been out and about this past week? Do you get as nostalgic this season as I do? I pulled out my old diaries again (against my better judgement) and found one from May 1997. I had just gotten home from college and was calling around to meet up with all my returning friends. I wrote one entry from the tennis courts where my younger sister had stopped by on her way to Senior prom.

It definitely got me thinking again about those “small” pieces of personal history or family history that take place, always against the backdrop of world history. In May 1997 an IBM computer beat the World champion of chess and a tornado killed 27 people in Texas. But to me, it will be remembered for the month I came home from school and took a picture with my sister going to prom.

Similarly, the pictures in my grandmother’s album from this time start to run into the buildup to war. On June 28, 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, which started World War I. But the pictures from that time in the album, of course, just show the day-to-day of life in Middletown. Today’s is a trip to a neighbor’s house, Mrs. Ennis.

The picture was taken at the farm of Michael and Clara Ennis, in Wawayanda Township near Ridgebury. Mr. Ennis (Michael) was born in Bloomingburg on February 24, 1866 and had three sisters: Elizabeth, Ellen (a nurse) and Catherine. They had one son, Joseph J. who was born in 1902.

Joseph went on to marry Ruth Field Bennett and was a bookkeeper in New York City (so says the 1930 census). They lived at 74 Irwin Avenue which is…essentially where Middletown High School sits today. The children were Ruth (born ~1924), Joseph (born ~1927) and Clara (born ~1929). I’m not sure who’s in the picture except for the Dunning children. I’m pretty sure my grandmother is the one looking rather like me in the front, and that Clara is the one with the pretty gingham bow.

Besides knowing the name of the Ennis’ children and grandchildren (and that their farm was in Town of Walkill) I couldn’t find anything else much about them. In fact, the only big reference to the family came from a copy of the Times Herald Record from August 19, 1937.

On page 2, you’ll find the “world news” of the day detailing the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. This beside the “personal history” of the Middletown Fire Department and the Ennis Family getting Nosey the Cat out of an oak tree.

• 

And my conclusion, something I pondered on a very nice outdoor walk today, is that it all matters. Clearly, the history of the Spanish Civil War mattered. In fact, my first job out of college was to dictate very long interviews my professor had recorded with Spaniards who had lived through it. It was fascinating, putting on my headphones and hearing ‘live’ accounts from the elderly subjects in their own language. At any rate, the history mattered so much that it was my professor’s life’s work.

But what about a trip to Mrs. Ennis’ house? How does that matter? Maybe not entirely but then…these are the bows the girls wore, this is how they let the children hold the baby, it’s sunny but the baby doesn’t have a hat on, the shrubs haven’t been neatly trimmed. The moment gets a chance to live again. By looking at the picture, it’s like history folds over on itself for a minute and I love that.

Hope you are all doing well and enjoying your moment in history today.

In honor of Mother’s Day, the picture I chose from the album for today shows Ida Beakes with her daughter Carol. When I first started looking through my grandmother’s album, this is one of those photographs that I lingered over longer than the others. 

There are lovely period details in it, including the china, the chairs, Ida’s dress and the electrical outlet. Ida’s expression, though, and Carol’s positioning – snuggled up against her mother – are what make it poignant. Ida is spooning food to her daughter and it appears that they cherish that time together.

Whereas in the last photo I couldn’t be sure I had the right Wickham, I’m 100% that the mother in this picture is Ida Parthenia Beakes, born June 7, 1883 in Laurens, New York. She married George W. Beakes (born August 15, 1878) and the two were lifelong residents of Middletown. 

Their daughter Carol (Marion Carol) was born in December 1912, just a month before my own grandmother was born. The Beakes then moved to 30 Lenox Place in Middletown where they’d live for the next 26 years together. From 1914 to 1922, George was the teller at the Orange County Trust Company and in 1937 he was promoted to Assistant Secretary at the bank (at 59 years of age!)

The Beakes attended First Presbyterian Church alongside the Dunnings. Daughter Carol graduated from Middletown High School (class of 1930) and went on to the New Jersey State College for Women in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 1934 she married Warren J. Buck:

BUCK – BEAKES

Warren James Buck, son of Louis I. Buck, 109 Monhagen Avenue, and Miss Marion Carol Beakes, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George W. Beakes, were married Saturday at the bride’s home, thirty Lenox Place. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Dr. Robert O. Kirkwood of First Presbyterian Church before a small assemblage of friends and relatives of the couple. There were no bridal attendants.

After a reception for wedding guests, Mr. and Mrs. Buck started on a wedding trip. Their home will be at 611 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, New Jersey.

Ida passed away on August 20, 1976 at 93 years old. Her obituary states that she lived the last years of her life at 104 Academy Avenue and passed away at Horton Memorial Hospital. “Surviving her is a son-in-law Warren J. Buck of Norwalk Connecticut and several cousins in Middletown,” it said

Which made me think, what happened to Carol? 

You can’t imagine how stunned I was to pull up the New Jersey papers and find that she had taken her own life at 23 years old. Two short years after he officiated her marriage, in effect, Rev. R. O. Kirkwood officiated a private funeral service for her at the home of her parents.

Friends, I had a good cry about this in my car on the way to pre-K pickup. 85 years after the fact, I cried that Carol didn’t have the resources she needed to get well. I thought how tragic it would have been for her parents and her husband who must have wanted her happiness so much.

Most of all, maybe, I felt sorry for Ida, who sent her to Brownies, to summer camp in Parksville, NY, who watched her recite “God Loves Me” in front of the church, and even to college after the breakdown in High School. I felt so sad for Ida who must have felt that marriage would be a balm for her, that now her daughter might be safer.

But her daughter’s untimely death wasn’t the end of the story for Ida. The darkness didn’t overcome the light. Ida lived 40 more years, in service to others as evidenced by just a handful of later newspaper clippings:

October 27, 1938: “Mrs. George Beakes will represent 1st Presbyterian Church tomorrow morning from nine until noon when they conduct the sale for the blind on West Main Street.

December 13, 1938: “Mrs. George Beakes was appointed chairman of a committee to plan Christmas dinners for several needy families”.

What’s more, at her passing, she gave a substantial endowment to First Presbyterian Church that likely allowed the church to function for many more years. Thanks to Ida, my sisters and I grew up there, just like Carol and my grandmother and countless other children before and after. I can’t speak for others but the faith I learned there has gotten me through some dark times myself.

So in honor of Ida and of mothers everywhere here is a poem. I hope you enjoy it and send you all a big hug.

Mom's Words

Hungry? Tired? Baba? Sissy?
Mama? Dada? Boo boo? Kissy?
So big, so big, peekaboo!
No, that outlet’s not for you!

Oopsie daisy, you’re OK
Clean up, pick up, put away
Yummy veggie, one more bite
Jammies? Teeth? We said good night!

I’m coming! Later. I don’t know.
Just turn it off. ‘Cause I said so.
Uno! Sorry! Life is tough.
Stop yelling. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

Thank you? Did I hear a please?
Put that coat on ‘fore you freeze.
Don’t be fresh. Don’t slam that door!
All strapped in? I love you more.

- Martha Gonzalez