Category: 1900-1910

Happy October 2020 to you all. For me, among other things, this means I get emails asking me to book fall family pictures in the park. I’ve seen beautiful autumnal portraits of other families who have done this: dancing around together in the fall foliage, kicking up leaves, looking blissful. The $350 price tag has always held me back. That buys a lot of corn stalks and Libby’s pumpkin. (In a normal year, also hay rides, apple picking and a blue grass band)!

Looking back in the album, however, it seems that my grandmother’s family did partake in this fall portrait ritual. Below you’ll see Eleanor, Merritt, Ferris, Clara and baby Marjorie gathered together under a tree that’s already given up its leaves. The other man (hatless) is Burr Copley, who – if you missed it – you can read more about here.

Two very important events taking place right around this time in American history were the production of the Model T, in Detroit, and the signing into law of the Revenue Act of 1913 by Woodrow Wilson. The act’s purpose was to lower tariffs (it was also called the Underwood-Simmons Tariff Act) on imported goods. It succeeded by lowering rates from 40% to 26% (!)

To offset those revenues, the Act introduced an income tax for the first time. It exempted anyone with income of less than $4,000, which in today’s dollars would be about $100,000. Those with incomes from $4,000 to $20,000 only had to pay 1%.

In other words, it really only affected a tiny part of the population. Its huge impact was to move away from using tariffs for government revenue (consumption-based) and instead to rely on levying taxes for government revenue (in the form of income tax).

I think I’ll save the Model T history for another post. We do have some old car pictures coming up in the album! The picture below of Ferris, Clara and baby Marjorie is interesting because it was labeled “After the Whooping Cough”. Apparently, my grandmother caught Pertussis as an infant and pulled through alright.

It must have been a terrifying ordeal. Coughing spells would become so severe in victims that they would take “whooping” gasps of air, turning red or purple in the face. In 1913, scientists had detected the germ that causes Whooping Cough (bacillus pertussis) but would not have a successful vaccine until the mid-1930s. Now, expecting mothers are given a TDaP vaccine to help protect babies, and babies get another dose at two months old.

I confess that it’s still funny to look at my grandmother as a baby. In a way, she sort of looks like herself. That baby is like, “It’s dinner time and you still haven’t washed your hands?”

I thought I would wrap up on a completely unrelated note. I wrote a poem (not confessing whether it is autobiographical or not) which I thought you might enjoy. Hope you also enjoy the long weekend!

Strength Training Failure

I bought myself weights and I YouTube'd a vid
She said "Lift like this. Yes you can." So I did
She said "You'll get stronger each day if you do"
and yes, if I lifted that "if" it'd be true
but now I choose easier channels instead
then trip on the weights on my way into bed.

Today’s pictures show 80-year-old “Grandpa Dunning” (Horace, 1833-1915) and his horses in action. Both mammals fit the Mirriam-Webster definition of workhorse

1 : a horse used chiefly for labor as distinguished from driving, riding, or racing

2 a (1): a person who performs most of the work of a group task
(2): a hardworking person

b : something that is markedly useful, durable, or dependable

As a bit of a (2a) workhorse myself, I have a healthy respect for this type of person. Up until her final days, my grandmother gardened, put in hours at the Middletown Historical Society, and drove around to check in / deliver things to her children. I’m sure that growing up on a farm helped to instill that drive in her.

The first picture shows Grandpa Dunning with his horse and wagon pulling a few five-gallon aluminum milk cans. Maybe he delivered it to be made into cheese or butter. Maybe he sold it – as milk – somewhere in Orange County. Like most of these pictures, it’s anyone’s guess now.

That wasn’t all his horses manged, though. Come summer, my great-great grandfather likely used a kind of horse-drawn sickle mower to cut the grass into hay. From what I read, that was just a 5-7 foot bar with cutters along the edge that the horses would pull.

Not a fun job but an improvement over scythe and hand-raking!

Once cut and left to dry (a process called tedding) the hay would have been raked up for baling. Below, you can see those workhorses carting off a mountain of 1913 hay. Do you see the person perched on top? Doesn’t seem safe, does it?

I think the reason that they piled the hay onto the wagon is that the baling equipment in that period was stationary. The machine that now turns all that hay into bales couldn’t be pulled along then. Instead, the farmer had to deliver the hay to the baler.

Then again, Grandpa Dunning might just have been delivering that hay to the barn, where loose hay was generally stored. (To the hay loft, perhaps?) The Dunning horses, sheep and cattle could then eat it in the winter when they couldn’t go out in the pasture.

Keeps ’em toasty warm too.

These days the term “workhorse” has a bit of a negative connotation to it. In business-speak, they insist that you don’t neglect your “show horse” side. In design-speak “the workhorse of the kitchen” might refer to a clunky appliance like a refrigerator or a stand-mixer.

But workhorses have staying power. They may not be glamorous but they wake up, gobble some oats and get the job done. Especially in the last five months (five months!) it’s hard not to admire anyone who just keeps getting on up and getting through the day.

Here’s to you, my workhorse friends! Happy weekend!

The word “progressive” gets bandied about these days. It’s become popular with Democratic candidates, even when it’s not clear what they mean by it. It’s an insurance corporation featuring bizarre commercials.

From 1890-1920, it was an era unto itself: the Progressive Era. These thirty years marked a time of activism in the United States. From the local up to the national level, across all social classes and regarding all different sorts of issues, Americans sought reform.

President Theodore Roosevelt led one part of the charge by bringing a suit to dissolve the Northern Securities Company in 1902. Never before had the government interfered in such a brazen way with business interests. J.P. Morgan (who helped create the company) was shocked and called the attack ungentlemanly.

Federal law, at the time, didn’t have the power to reign in things like monopolies or stock manipulation in the business world. Bad behavior was dealt with privately. As J.P. Morgan said to Roosevelt following the suit, “if we have done anything wrong, send your man to my man and they can fix it up.”

Why should the government have a say? The idea pervaded that great men would make society better if they could build their great things (railroads, factories, banking enterprises) unhindered. If this process made a select few extremely wealthy, that was “their just reward and carried the blessing of a Higher Power”, as Walter Lord puts it in The Good Years.

That’s not theoretical, by the way. John D. Rockefeller was known to have said “God gave me my money.”

The suit against Northern Securities Company didn’t radically change any of these views. What it did was to show that the law could be used to improve a situation. It encouraged the idea of a “moral standard” which – if upheld – could make life fairer.

This is a picture of Clara from 1910. She doesn’t look particularly happy in this one but I love it anyway. Except for the giant bow, it could just as easily be me as a little girl, or one of my daughters.

One thing I appreciate about being a parent is that though my entire workday be dull, repetitive, or filled with dead-ends, it takes only five minutes with my girls to change my attitude. Children refresh.*

At some point after pick-up, my daughter will say “oh, mom!” and go on about something new or exciting that happened. She passed her swim test. So-and-so has the same shirt as she does.

It doesn’t have to be anything consequential for her excitement to infect me. Soon I’m telling her about something good I had for lunch. I rack my brain to come up with an anecdote from the day to entertain her.

Reading about the Progressive Era for the post this week gave me the same sense of well-being. A sort of positive energy seemed to flow through people then. Some pushed for popular government, others for better working conditions in factories and still others to conserve the country’s forests.

There were women campaigning for votes. There was a movement that would turn social work into a profession. Just two years before this picture of Clara, in 1908, Lewis Wicks Hine was hired by the National Child Labor Committee to take pictures of his own, documenting the horrors of child labor.

Little as these people had in common, they were alike in seeing the nation, not as a place where everybody went his own way regardless of the plight of others, but as a place where people had a common destiny, where their fortunes were interlocked, and where wise planning, wise statesmanship could devise new instruments of satisfaction for all men.

Frederick Lewis Allen The Big Change: America Transforms Itself, 1900-1950

We’ve still got some want-to-be robber-barons around, yes, but this period in history strengthened our laws and oversight. Pharma bro’s in prison, the Theranos founder is likely on her way and the S.E.C. (not created until 1934) has Elon Musk on speed dial.

There was a time when one of the most important financiers in the country, George Baker, could declare, “It’s none of the public’s business what I do…I owe the public nothing!” I don’t think that statement would be well-received in 2019. No Charitable Giving department would know what to make of it.

In fact, this George Baker began to engage in philanthropy in the 1920s, joining God-gave-me-my-money-Rockefeller. I’m inclined to think that – generous as those donations proved – both did so because they were advised that they should. I think the ethos of the Progressive Era began to hold leaders to a higher ‘moral standard’.

Perhaps since Flo the Progressive Commercial lady has forever destroyed the word “progressive” we could bring back “Square Deal” instead? Square Deal II 2020?

*sometimes

The next picture in the album features Catharine Dusenberry Sly holding granddaughter, Mary, on her lap. If I’ve got Mary’s birth date correct, then the year should be 1909. Grandma Sly, born in 1840, will live four more years while Mary will live another ninety or so.

Birth dates and dates of death are, obviously, an important part of genealogical research. For each relative you look up, you get the date and then do a quick mental calculation. “OK, 1840-1913 so she was…73 when she died”.

Soon enough, though, you dread doing those calculations. As you go, you’ll find a date of death that looks too close to the date of birth and realize that this was a child who died. So many years later, not even knowing the people intimately, it can be very upsetting.

Yet this was a part of life even well into the period that these photographs were taken. A cure for tuberculosis, for example, wasn’t tried on a human patient until 1949. It wasn’t even discovered until 1882, at which point it caused the death of one out of every seven people living in the U.S. and Europe.

According to records, grandma Sly lost two of her own children. Eleanor (my great-grandmother) was her eldest child. He was followed by James Clark (baby Mary’s father) three years later. The two children after that died early.

First, she lost baby William in 1878, at 7 months of age. Then, four years later, she lost Clara Harlow , who was only 6. These babies were buried with she and her husband, Jacob, at Warwick cemetery. (You can view the gravestone here if you wish).

I’m really not well-versed in death, if you want to put it that way. Some things I talk about all the time…books, recipes, financial data (!)…but nothing about my current situation leads me to have conversations about the end of one’s life. I’m grateful for that.

I mean, really! It’s been over 10 years since my grandma’s death and I’m just now able to dig out her album and process it!

As ever, I think my ancestors were made of stronger stuff. Catharine made it through what must have been a horrific five years and went on to live over thirty more. Counting Mary, there would be five grandchildren to hold on her lap: five squirming, crying, amazing beings that would go on to outlive her.

I’ve decided to let a quote from Willa Cather do the wrapping up for me today. Willa was, coincidentally, born on a farm herself, a year before my great-grandmother Eleanor. Her family moved to Nebraska when she was nine to avoid the – yes – tuberculosis outbreaks that were occurring in Virginia.

Though the novel My Antonia, from which I quote, was not published until 1918, by 1909 she was already working nearby, in New York City. I wish you all a good weekend, a long, healthy life and (since we’re on the subject) a peaceful death when it comes, as it must.

“I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.”

My Antonia by Willa Cather

For Father’s Day this weekend, I’d like to introduce you to my great-grandfather, labeled in my grandmother’s album as “dad”. The fact that my grandmother used the formal “mother” to label her mom and “dad” to label her father leads me to believe that she had a close relationship with him.

I also have a close relationship with my dad. Kind, generous, industrious and patient, I often give thanks that I have the father I do. However (there’s a however?) a life of experience has taught him to doubt that which he cannot personally confirm.

When I started looking into the family history and found his grandfather’s name spelled “Merit” rather than “Merrit” or “Merritt”, dad was not convinced. In fairness, it’s not an easy question. Thus, my great-grandfather currently hangs on the family tree with the unwieldy name Merit/Merrit/Merritt.

That’s not to say that I haven’t uncovered some information of merit (!). Merit’s mother, Clara Gardner, died in 1895. The newspaper obituary listed her sibling’s names as Floyd, Charles, Ira, Louise Merit and Emmet. It would make sense, then, that she named her son “Merit Emmet” after each of two brothers.

Lest you suspect that the newspaper got it wrong, here is Merit Howell Cash Gardner’s grave, with the spelling “Merit”. (A picture of sibling Emmet Van Rennselar’s grave can be accessed from the same page).

My theory is that my great-grandfather added an extra “r” at some point, and maybe an extra “t” to his middle name. His draft registration card for World War I, dated September 12, 1918, lists his name clearly as “Merrit Emmett Dunning”. Maybe he liked double letters and wanted all his names to have them?

Merrit (let’s humor him) was 34 years old in January 1909, when he became father to his first and only son, Walter Ferris. Here is a picture of the pair, likely on a Sunday, possibly on the day of Ferris’s baptism. He poses in front of his workplace, of course, the barn.

Although they named the baby Walter, he went through life by his middle name, Ferris. I grew up hearing him referred to as “Uncle Ferris” even though, properly, he was my granduncle. This is the first picture I have of someone that I actually met in person!

Ferris is only a baby in this photo so it seems unfair for me to draw a wrinkled man out of my memory but so it is. When he retired, in 1969 or so, he and his wife, Gertrude, moved to the Tampa area. Whenever he visited us in Middletown, my sisters and I would beg him to show us his stunning trick: Uncle Ferris knew how to wiggle his ears!

He had a way with children but never had any of his own. As he was the only boy that my great-grandfather had, the name Dunning (for us at least) died with Ferris in 1997. But what’s in a name? Merit/Merrit/Merritt would have to be the first to absolve his son for failing to to carry a given name into perpetuity!

Forgiveness, sympathy, demonstrable love:

fathers that learn to act with these qualities enjoy good relationships with their children. I only have sisters and daughters so the father-son relationship is not one I know about firsthand. I only have the clichéd image of the “tough father” to go by, i.e. “nothing I could do would be good enough for you, dad!”

I don’t think that was the case with these two. Ferris went to Cornell and graduated in the class of 1930 (Cornell itself was only 65 years old at the time) from the College of Agriculture. Perhaps he even went to college thinking he might work at the farm.

He worked for 37 years at the Household Finance Corporation, present-day HSBC, in consumer finance. He moved from Brooklyn to its headquarters in Illinois which (alongside a generous inheritance) suggests that he met with success there. He also served the country in World War II, as part of the United States Pacific Fleet.

I can’t imagine how a father wouldn’t be proud of a son that did all that. What’s more, his obituary states that he was “a member of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church”. The name Dunning may have fallen by the wayside but – named after a Presbyterian pastor – Ferris kept the faith.

Below, on what looks like the same day as the first picture, Ferris “relaxes” in a baby chair of the time. These never kept my kids happy for long, and mine had lights and music on it! Sure enough, the photo alongside this one in the album has Ferris standing up in the seat, likely crying to be taken out.

These pictures always fill me with happiness that – no matter how different from now – family life goes on perpetuating itself. Happy Father’s Day to you all!

When I was deciding on a New Year’s resolution for 2019, a girlfriend told me that the ‘popular’ thing this year was to come up with a one-word mantra. I went through a long list of possibilities (optimism, resilience, forgiveness) before settling on “patience”.

The idea was to use “patience” (my ‘positive mantra’) to replace my stand-by negative ones:

1. Long exaggerated sigh
2. “It’s not getting easier”
3. “I need more help”

At the risk of disturbing your calm, contented soul, I’ll describe each of these briefly for you.

I employ the sigh whenever snags occur. If we get stuck behind a bulldozer on the way to daycare, if my child refuses to get into the car seat or if I’m in a rush and can’t find something (homework, keys, etc.) I emit a long, exaggerated sigh.

I didn’t realize it was a mantra until my daughter said, “why do you always do that?” Oops.

I don’t say “it’s not getting easier” out loud. I say this to myself while on exercise equipment, when house and/or car problems arise and, generally, on Sunday nights. In the right mood, it serves as a kind of comic relief but…I think we can agree that “patience” works better.

Out of frustration, I used to say “I need more help” to myself at home or at the office. I googled it once and read an article that lifted my spirits. I can’t remember the whole of it, but it said “yes, you probably do.” It explained that throughout most of history parents didn’t live alone, working and raising children on their own and that it’s not easy.

Eventually, I just started saying that phrase out loud. Using some variations, lo and behold, my children, my husband and my manager have begun to understand when tasks aren’t being doled out equitably. This is all to say that I thought of that article again when I looked at the following pictures of my family.

Here are some women who, though hindered in some ways, likely had each other nearby and ‘on call’. I envy them that. Assuming this picture was taken in 1907 (shortly after Clara S. Dunning’s birth), here are everyone’s ages:

• Aunt Kate – 37
• Eleanor – 33
• Evelyn – 10
• Clara Rhodes – 9

These women may have had inner monologues like me but it wasn’t described that way at the time. The idea of an inner consciousness and how that could be “sublimated” was revolutionary then. In fact, not until two years later, in 1910, would Sigmund Freud lecture in the USA about this new study called “psychoanalysis”.

I look at the faces of my female relatives here and wish I could know what ran through their heads. Clara doesn’t look at the camera, was she shy? Evelyn doesn’t use the parasol, did she think it silly? Is it me or does Eleanor carry the pleased look of a new mother?

These are formal pictures, taken at a studio, so someone (Kate?) must have suggested the outing. “Come on, Eleanor! Let’s get a picture of you and the new baby!” They must have traveled by carriage together. They must have taken the pictures home, admired them and shown them around to aunts, uncles and cousins.

I may not have the luxury of living with my relatives today but I relish the times we get together. One of the most recent reunions took place at my baby shower. I hadn’t yet conceived (!) of what I would write about for this post when I decided to dig around for a poem I had written from that occasion.

Reading it over (speaking of Freud and the subconscious), I saw that it would fit well with this post. The poem is overly sentimental but it’s the closest I’ve managed to get to the idea of how crucial women are – and always have been – to helping each other move life along.

Enjoy and, if you made one, please tell me how your New Year’s Resolutions are going. It’s mid-year review time, after all. For patience, I’ll be generous and rate myself “Partially Achieved”. As my sister put it, it’s one of those “carry-over” goals.

For My Daughter

You haven’t met these ladies yet,  
You haven’t seen their faces,
You don’t yet know how they’ve helped me grow
Through diapers and tantrums and braces.

Through quiz and test, through game and match
They cheered me, “fight, fight, fight”,  
Through darkest day of my roughest patch
They held me safe and tight.

In buses, in tents, on beaches and yards, 
At worn-out diner booths,  
They taught me to sing, to cook and play cards; 
They shared with me secrets and truths. 

You’re tucked away in me today 
As I was tucked away too,  
As women at a shower awaited the hour 
of birth, to help me through.

I didn’t know then, I couldn’t have guessed 
What strength surrounded me 
But daughter, we have both been blessed 
For they’ve made me the mother I soon will be.   

In honor of Mother’s Day this Sunday, I thought we might take a look at how my great-grandmother, Eleanor, handled new motherhood. Her first child, Clara, was born in October 1907, according to census records. Eleanor would have been 33. I assumed everyone “back then” married and had children in their twenties (or earlier) so this surprised me.

The pictures in today’s post should be April or May 1909, taken when Clara was about 1 1/2 years old. No doubt, both mother and child were happy to get out of the house once Spring came. (Toddlers make any house feel too small). I found it interesting that the baby carriage ads of the day also promoted “fresh air trips” to make your baby a “lusty youngster”.

Here Clara frames the bustling Town of Wallkill. She sports a top-notch carriage (complete with parasol), baby bonnet and loose-fitting dress. I give great-grandmother ten points as a first-time mom! 110 years later, this kind of protection is still the recommendation for babies spending time outdoors.

Other toddler recommendations would have been easy for Eleanor:

• Place plug covers on all unused electrical outlets (no sockets)
• Keep your child’s car seat rear-facing (no car)
• Limit screen time (no screens)

That said, these technologies would all become available within the next 30 years as modernization surged ahead. The age of Victorianism was ending and a new trend of philosophical thought – Modernism – would soon change the Western world as we know it.

As I thought about this post, I began to see a similarity in the process towards Modernism and that of new motherhood. Modernism was a change in culture and sensibility on a worldwide scale. Becoming a new mother, for me, brought about that kind of dramatic change on a personal level.

Prior to children, my priorities looked vaguely like this:

1. Work
2. Spend time with husband
3. Spend time with family and friends
4. Hobbies / exercise

I spent time thinking about things: “What is my opinion on X, Y, Z? Am I fulfilled? What does that mean?”

Then, I became a mother. My priority list changed thus:

1. Keep children occupied
2. Feed children
3. Clothe children
4. Clean children

The questions became more immediate: “Do we need more diapers? What will we have for dinner this week?”

Not better, not worse, but – as any parent can tell you – radically different. Within the span of a few years, just like the Modernists, my husband and I renounced our beliefs in the Stable, the Rational and the Predictable.

Stable: “See you when I get home.”

Unstable: “Mon, Wed, Fri I will pick up both girls after work but Tuesdays and Thursdays you get little one after you take the train home while I wait for the after-school bus for 7 yr. old. Thursdays drop-off is at 8:45 instead of 8:30 because I take the morning call at 7:30. Unless they cancel the call in which case…”

Rational: “Oh gosh, is it bedtime already? I’m tired. Good night.” [Child lays down] .

Irrational: “10 more minutes. One more story? I’m thirsty. I have to go potty. Rub my back. Lie down with me. Two more songs? Just two more. What’s an acquaintance? La la la la LAAAAAA! Where are you going? Mommy, come BACK!”

Predictable: “Great. See you at 3.”

Unpredictable: “Did she go down for nap? Was gymnastics cancelled? Isn’t that birthday party this weekend? Oh, she’s got a fever. Where’s the thermometer? It’s not in the “Baby-related” box and not in the “Medicine and Band-aids” box either… HOW CAN WE FIND ANYTHING IN THIS MESS?”

I’ll have lots more to say about Modernism. For now, I think it adds value if we view these pictures knowing that at the very moment they were taken painting, sculpture, music, dance, drama, architecture, poetry and thought were undergoing profound transformations.

In the above picture, you can see that Eleanor knew the importance of play and – proven by Clara’s smile – the fact that toddlers love pushing and pulling things on wheels. She probably also knew, as a new Modernist mom, what it means to open the self to new experiences.

Parenthood


Less prepared, more together
Less fuel, more drive
More bills, less feather
Less awake, more alive

Martha Gonzalez

Today I have the pleasure of presenting two new pages on this site: Family Tree – Dunning Family and Family Members – Dunning Family. You’re excited! You want to click on it! But wait, before I disappoint your genealogical expectations, please note that this is not the “official” record. This is my version of a portion of the Dunning tree, researched in earnest but fully mutable, and totally fallible.

My tree is a way to help identify people in the family photos

My level of spatial intelligence is naturally, abysmally low. If I manage to park the car between the lines at the mall parking lot, it’s a good bet I won’t be able to find it again when it’s time to go. My child beats me at chess. If you try to explain to me that “my grandmother’s father’s brother-in-law” I will stop you mid-sentence because my brain really can’t work it out.

Putting a family tree on this site is one solution. I can reference people in our family history without forcing you, or (worse) me, to do mental gymnastics.

My tree begins with “Orange County Michael”

As per this genealogy, the Dunning family has existed in England from, at least, the 13th century. The “prevailing opinion…seems to be that the earliest immigrants of that name [to America] came from Devon, England”. The report mentions the towns of South Tawton and Trowleigh, and, sure enough, the baptism and marriage records on the Family Search site show plenty of Dunnings there:

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/South_Tawton_with_South_Zeal,_Devon_Genealogy

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Throwleigh,_Devon_Genealogy

From England, according to that history, the Dunnings immigrated to Fairfield County, Connecticut, Maine, Delaware, North Carolina, and Canada. I’ll only be displaying the Orange County, New York Dunnings on my family tree. That branch begins with Michael Dunning who helped to found Goshen, N.Y. in 1719.

My family tree and family member records are imperfect works-in-progress

Even after limiting the Dunning family tree to Michael’s descendants, the branches contain more ancestors than I can currently process. Where possible, I have reviewed census records, death records, and newspaper articles. There are mistakes. There are missing relationships and erroneous dates. I welcome your help in making this as accurate as possible – please contact me should you find something that needs correction.

Also, please note that in the interest of privacy, I will not add living members to the tree.

This week’s post had me thinking plenty about trees, and about the continuity of life in general. I love the idea that even if the records don’t exist, that we all come from a family tree planted ages back. Here’s a poem I wrote to that effect: enjoy!

Your Tree

Though not your choice you came to be
A twig upon the family tree
By virtue of your birth it grew
And now the history of you
Comprises not just your pursuits
But all those branches, all those fruits.
From faith it grows out of the ground
Through love it heals the air around.

It seemed like a harmless enough picture when I started looking at it. I even saw the potential there (so many names to research!) Yet this group of ladies has confounded me.

My 7-year old’s advice was to focus on what the picture shows:

1. Twenty-one ladies pose for an outdoor photograph at the home of Julia Lawrence (the back of the photo states “A Party at Julia Lawrence’s”).
2. Most ladies wear similar white dresses.
3. The lady in the middle, the only one dressed in black, looks as if she’s said something funny. She’s certainly drawn the interest of a couple of the women on the right. Also, she’s the only one looking straight into the camera. Her name is Kate Boak.

There’s no date on the back of the photograph but it’s 3 x 2 inches and mounted on heavy card stock with embossed detail around the border. That would put this party after 1890, presumably around 1900.

My grandmother’s sister, Clara, identified some of the people on the back of the card in her best chicken scratch.

1st row: Julia Lawrence, Eliza (Tuthuil?), Louise Dunning, Mrs. (?), Addie Dunning.

2nd row: Katharine Dunning, Eleanor Dunning, Kate Boak, Lou Hart, Addie Crawford.

3rd row: Mrs. Stephen Smith

Last 3 in 3rd row: Ella McEwen, Jessie Gale, Ella Brown

4th row: Mrs. Eugene Smith

For some reason or other, Julia Lawrence (born in England, and married to dairy farmer Charles F. as per the 1920 census in Walkill, NY) decided to have a party for twenty-one women friends. It was important enough of an event that someone took a photo and pasted it on a pretty matte border.

Where did they leave their husbands and children? Are they waiting off to the side? Was this some prelude to women’s suffrage, though still some twenty years away? A church garden party? Julia represented 1st Presbyterian Church at the International Convention in New York in July 1892 (as per the Middletown Times-Press) so that’s a possibility.

It’s all just speculation and…a little frustrating.

It reminded me of a book I read recently: A Heart So White, by Javier Marias. In one scene, a guard who has worked at the Prado museum for twenty-five years begins to play with his lighter near the edge of a Rembrandt painting.

My father was keenly aware that any man or woman who spent the day shut up in a room, always seeing the same paintings, for hours and hours every morning and on some afternoons, just sitting on a stool doing nothing but watch the visitors and watch the canvases (they’re even forbidden to do crosswords), could easily go mad, become a menace or develop a mortal hatred for those paintings.

The narrator’s father confronts the guard and asks him whether he really dislikes the painting so much. The guard says that he is “fed up” with it because he can’t see the face of the little girl properly. The narrator’s father explains that this is how the painting was painted, “with the fat one facing us and the servant girl with her back to us.”

The guard explains that this is exactly what is worst about the painting: “that it’s fixed like that forever”. He wants to know what happens next in the painting.

“But you know that’s not possible, Mateu,” he said. “The three figures are painted, can’t you see that? Painted. You’ve seen plenty of films and this isn’t a film. You must see there’s no way you’ll ever see them looking any different. This is a painting, a painting.”

“That’s why I’m going to do away with it,” said Mateu, again caressing the canvas with the flame from the lighter.

I got more and more infuriated as I searched each name in this photograph. “Lou Hart”, “Mary Lou Hart”, “Louise Hart”, “Mrs. Hart”, ” & Middletown”, “& Orange County”, on and on I went trying to divine the purpose of the party, or some connection between the women other than simple proximity.

Then I’d look at the photo again and there the ladies were, just sitting there in the same pose with that Kate Boak staring at me (is she smirking?) It did sort of make me want to set fire to the whole thing!

Then again, why the frustration? The guard goes mad asking “what happens next?” but he’s asking for something impossible and I was doing the same thing. I understand now that you can’t undertake a genealogy project expecting every picture to be part of a grand story about your past. Sometimes the answers just aren’t there.

The photos are fixed. Whether or not someone has labeled the people on them, or the place, that’s fixed. The person searching, though, is only ‘fixed’ if he insists on answering one narrow question (i.e., “why did they have this party?”) and not the million other questions that could be asked. You’re only stuck – in research and in life – if you don’t open yourself to other possibilities, to other ways of framing your situation.

My new way going forward will be to listen to my 7-year-old (at least on this point!) It was a party at Julia Lawrence’s. Twenty-one women sat down on the grass, smoothed their long skirts out and saved the moment forever.

My great-grandparents married on New Year’s Day, 1906. Here are a few things that happened the prior year, to put that into perspective:

1. March 17, 1905: Albert Einstein introduces the Theory of Relativity. Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt marry.
2. September 5, 1905: Treaty of Portsmouth brings an end to the Russo-Japanese War. (President Theodore Roosevelt crucial in those negotiations).
3. October 5, 1905: The Wright Brothers’ third airplanes stays in the air for 39 minutes.

As for women’s fashion, you can see that high collars, frilly blouses, long skirts and cinched waists are in. Hair is worn in the “Gibson Girl” bun and smiling for pictures is out.

I’m kidding about the smiles but, truly, this would be a “do over” picture if taken today. Only three of the bridal party are even looking at the camera and the bride and groom are in the far back, covered by shadows.

This makes me appreciate the picture even more, in a way. These days wedding photos are highly curated with the bride as the center of attention. Here it’s an imperfect family affair. My great-grandmother didn’t spend hours debating which pictures to put in the album: this was it!

I can’t identify everyone but the little girl in front is Evelyn Sly, presumably with her parents behind her. Cousin Flora Sly stands on the right side with (I think) her husband. The lady with glasses is the groom’s sister, Louise Dunning. It sounds confusing but fear not! I’m working on a family tree for the blog to help sort out all these relatives.

To my delight, the marriage was written up in the Orange County Times on Friday, January 5th, 1906.

HYMENEAL

Dunning – Sly

(From our Amity Correspondent)

A quiet home wedding took place at the residence of Mrs. Jacob Sly, of Florida, on New Year’s Day, at high noon, when her only daughter, Miss Eleanor Dusenberre, was joined in marriage to Merit Emmit, third son of Horace Dunning, of Middletown, by Rev. Dr. Robert Houston Craig of Amity, pastor of the bride, assisted by Rev. Walter Rockwood Ferris, of Middletown, pastor of the groom.”

A number of phrases from this article make me chuckle, starting with “high noon”. If you’re like me, the phrase sounds more like the hour for a cowboy shoot-em-out. Pre-1950’s, though, this was a perfectly reasonable phrase for “mid-day”. (It may also have signified the ‘zenith’ of their relationship together).

I dutifully researched Rev. Dr. Houston Craig and found that he served at Otisville Presbyterian Church starting in 1875, and moved to Amity Presbyterian Church by 1902. Meanwhile, Rev. Rockwood Ferris became the minister of First Presbyterian Church in Middletown, New York from 1902-1908.

I love the idea that both pastors were invited to their wedding; clearly these were important people in my great-grandparents’ lives. What’s more, Merit Dunning’s son is “Walter Ferris” so – unless of some extraordinary coincidence – it appears that he named his first-born son after his pastor!

The ceremony was performed with a ring. Only the members of the two families were present.

The bride looked charming in a traveling suit of blue broadcloth. She carried a boquet of white roses.

The bridal couple left early in the afternoon by carriage to Goshen to board the express on their bridal trip.

Here I laughed at “the ceremony was performed with a ring” because it seemed obvious. Little did I know that the diamond wedding ring only became a ‘thing’ after a big De Beers campaign in the 1940s. Also, the fact that their big honeymoon getaway possibly took place on an express train to Manhattan made me pause. (My daily experience on that train is far from an idyllic excursion).

The groom is prominently connected in Middletown and is a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church of that city, and the bride is a most estimable young lady related to all the Sly and Dusenberre families in this locality.

Many beautiful, valuable and useful presents were sent to the bride by the many relatives and friends of both bride and groom.
The home was tastefully decorated with evergreens and potted plants, and the wedding breakfast served by Mrs. Sly was sumptuous.

The fact that the decorations were “evergreens” (Christmas decorations?) and “potted plants” (overwintering?) made me smile. Then I checked out Eleanor Roosevelt’s wedding announcement from the New York Times where “the house was decorated throughout with ferns, palms, and pink roses.” If it’s good enough for the Roosevelts…

In sum, a limerick:

Should you wed in ’06 what a cinch
No hall and no band must you clinch
Just a pinching of waist
As mom’s breakfast you taste
But money? You won’t waste a pinch!