Big Old Family Hug

Risen from the Wreckage

When’s the last time you read a lead paragraph in a newspaper that left you feeling good? Still thinking? Allow me to share one from 117 years and 5 days ago:

“The new Grand Central Terminal was thrown wide to the public at midnight last night. Out of the excavation and the scaffolding, to the accompaniment of whistles and blasting and the chorus of the riveting machine, the new station has risen amid the wreckage of the old.”
New York Times, 02/02/1913

After ten years of excavation and construction, a ‘grand’ announcement was certainly in order. This past week, I researched the event and came up with 4 things that I learned about it. I hope you find it as interesting as I did!

1. The rebuild of Grand Central started with a plan to switch from steam locomotives to electric trains.

A train crash on January 8, 1902 killed fifteen people and injured 38. The public clamored for improvements to the system. Within a week, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad announced plans to improve and expand Grand Central. Part of the plan – defined by year’s end – was to create a new double level for electric trains.

“All this terminal city, this assemblage of buildings of such varied purposes, was made possible by the installation of the electric motor. The scheme could not have been carried out – it could not even have been conceived – in the day of the dirt and smoke and noise of the old steam locomotive”
New York Times, 02/02/1913

2. Before 1913, the trains ran aboveground. A major part of the rebuild consisted of excavation of rock and earth (90 feet worth) in order to lower the tracks below ground.

“The old Grand Central was considered the marvel of its day, but when it became outgrown and the directors of the New York Central and the New York, New Haven and Hartford began to consider the ways and means for building its successor they undertook a task larger than the task of replacing the old station by a newer and larger one…
…this was made possible by the realization that the railroad could put its “air rights” to some good purpose. For decades it had owned the land where the tracks thrust their way down to the very heart of the island and there spread out to form the huge gaping, dirty, unsightly train-yards that helped so largely make the idea of smoke and noise inseparable from the nineteenth century conception of a big railway station.”
New York Times, 02/02/1913

(snapped this outside Grand Terminal on my lunch break!)

3. Once the tracks were below ground, William J. Wilgus (chief engineer) realized that the area above could become valuable real estate.

“With the coming of the electric motor the old steam locomotive was banished, and from that banishment the builders of the new terminal developed the idea of roofing over the tracks and the trains and building above them as though the road had suddenly come into possession of scores of vacant lots.”
“Park Avenue from Forty-fifth Street to Fifty-sixth and the cross streets that formerly stopped abruptly at either side of the yawning train yards are now appearing as streets, some of them already in use.”
New York Times, 02/02/1913

4. They had to rebuild Grand Central while keeping the trains running.

“One of the things that will always be remembered about the new Grand Central is that it was built amid the wreckage of the old. The never-ending business of the terminal had to go on uninterrupted…The earth and stone dug and blasted there in the train yard had to be carted away in dirt cars, which added a long string to the already heavy and complicated traffic of the terminal.”
New York Times, 02/09/1913

If you’re interested in knowing more, the New York Times published a great article with lots of old pictures for the 100-year mark.

Good or bad, I couldn’t keep from ‘reconstructing’ this historical rebuild as a metaphor for life changes. This idea of excavating and carting away the refuse while still making sure that the trains come in and out on time just seems so similar to personal growth in a busy adult life.

Edit your resume and look for other possibilities but don’t neglect your current job! Be more patient and flexible with your kids but uh-oh! the slime has died their hands blue and who’s going to vacuum up the couscous? One builds and one excavates with the trains running in and out because that’s life.

No ribbon-cutting ceremony, no, but hopefully when it’s done you can feel that your life added that much more onto that of your ancestors, “built amid the wreckage of the old”.

When you keep trying your hardest and feel that things are being wrecked all around you, I think it helps to keep a picture of transcendence in your pocket. The phoenix rising from the ashes. The Resurrection. Or a poem! The ‘rising’ of Grand Central led me back this week to Maya Angelou’s amazing poem” Still I Rise” which you can find it here.

Big old family hugs to you all!

Winter Smiles

Happy last day of January 2020! We’ve made it through the coldest month of the year. The darkest of mornings. We had the fortitude to take down the pretty holiday lights and can now finally enjoy some extra natural light.

(It’s there, I promise – the clouds just keep getting in the way). When we see a sunset, we will see it later and later. I know this, of course, because I check it daily on the New York sunrise/sunset calendar.

It’s true that some people do not dislike the winter. I remember when my sister took her children skiing once and came back to breathlessly extol its virtues. “There were families,” she told me, “they were smiling and enjoying themselves!”

It was like a revelation: fortunate people don’t spend the winter climbing the walls. They take chair lifts! So…if you have a spare $500 I highly suggest a day of skiing with your family of 4. Otherwise, you can do like I do and take a nice, brisk walk.

In fact, I found a January 1913 newspaper article supporting that notion:

“Sometimes a woman will feel all out of sorts, heavy, miserable and blue. Her first thought is of food; she believes she needs a good cup of tea and something to eat. But she does not. What she needs is fresh air, a brisk walk, and upon returning home a light lunch…”
Madame Armand, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 24, 1913

So dictatorial and yet so sensible! I love that tone of the old newspapers. Today’s pictures feature Ferris and Clara enjoying some outdoor time. Based on their clothes they are either on their way to or coming back from church.

They are clearly having fun trying to scale the fence and then the tree. It immediately struck me that my husband and I would never allow our own girls to do that in their Sunday best. Or maybe…at all…because ‘fences aren’t meant to be climbed on’.

Even as I say it and know it as my voice I realize how needlessly overprotective it sounds. Funny how we imagine our grandparent’s generation to be the conservative one and yet, in many respects, they gave their children more freedom to explore.

Then again, Ferris got kicked in the head by a cow and lived with a dent in his head. Hard to get it right with parenting!

In the last few weeks at school, my daughter has been making crafts for Chinese New Year. (They introduced a Mandarin language program there which has been amazing). She just brought home a puppet dragon that she made using a paper bag.

This morning she put it on her hand and waved it around. The dragon said, “Hello, my name is Ava. I like rainbow color. Goodbye” and I only know this because my daughter translated it from Mandarin for my benefit. It makes me so proud that – at 8 years old – she has already moved somewhere beyond my scope of knowledge.

In 1913, very few New Yorkers had probably heard of Chinese New Year’s or knew whether it was the Year of the Rat or the Year of the Monkey (or that such a thing even existed). To my happy surprise, though, it turns out that my grandmother was born in the Year of the Rat…the same cycle we are entering as of January 25, 2020.

Born on January 1, 1913, my gram just fits into that 1912 cycle. Women born in the year of the rat are said to be organized and to place great value on the family. (She did!) They are also known for producing large numbers of offspring (5!) I also found the adjectives “adaptable”, “observant” and “stubborn”.

You might think “adaptable” and “stubborn” clash with each other and yet grammie managed to be both, I think. You don’t have five children without learning to adapt. You don’t live into your 90’s without learning to adapt. But this is the way I make my cranberry sauce, darn it.

Did grammie do a daily walk? Or did she have a daily swim? I must be getting old because I can’t remember. All I remember is that she never missed her daily exercise and that I’m sure she’d agree with the last bit I clipped from another January 1913 newspaper:

Fresh air and sunshine! Nature’s two great prophylactics – to be had without money and without price – to be had for the taking – and like most things so easily obtainable, too little prized…
Minerva B.T. Angell, Domestic Science Expert, MIT, January 26, 1913 edition of The Buffalo Sunday Morning News

A big hug and a winter smile to you all!

New Year’s Baby – 1913

Don’t throw the past away
You might need it some rainy day
“Everything Old is New Again”, co-written by Peter Allen and Carole Bayer Sager

Happy 2020! Have you already had to cross out the “19” and correct it to “20” when writing the date? (I have caught myself doing this a few times already). Curiously enough, just as we move into a new year ‘for real’, I find that I’ve displayed all my album pictures from 1912 and can move into a new year in the album: 1913.

New Year’s Day 1913 was especially important because my paternal grandmother, Marjorie E. Dunning, was born. 1/1/13. I haven’t confirmed it but I’m pretty sure her middle initial stands for Eleanor, her mother’s name.

Besides being the coldest of the month in the Northern Hemisphere, January always comes with a special sort of malaise. You’ve spent too much on the holidays and now find you need to replace the furnace (anyone?) You’ve had a mediocre year-end review and are yet enhanced to further enhance the value proposition in 2020 (show of hands?)

When I think of January, I can’t help thinking of the vulgar refrain “same sh__, different day” except it’s “same sh__, different year.” And yet. There are those among us who embrace this month with the opposite attitude. Calmness, cheer, pleasure, well-being…resolutions are made and gyms fill up.

I wonder if the fact that my grandmother was born in January changed the conception of that month forever in her mind, and in Eleanor’s. Maybe it felt natural for them to view January as a hopeful beginning. Thinking about the new year and these baby pictures of my grandmother, the phrase that came to me was “everything old is new again.”

Blurry baby Marjorie with mom (Eleanor) and sister (Clara): 1913

Everything old is new again. One interpretation could be the marketing one, where styles are rehashed after a period (high-waisted jeans, for example?) In fact, the cover of the Pottery Barn magazine this month features a ‘Round Milk Glass’ chandelier which I immediately recognized as similar to the gasolier from my earlier post.

“Inspired by a European antique, the Callahan Collection has a sleek sensibility and statement-making style that echoes the original.“

The other way to think of the phrase is to look at the same thing but with a change of perspective. Everything old is new again. I knew my grandmother as an old woman but here she is as a baby. The photo is from 1913 but it’s new to the mind of every single person who sees it.

The trick of January, I think, is figuring out how to look at the same things in a new way so that the impression you’re left with is one of possibility and opportunity rather than the “same sh__”. Or as an actress I read about in the NYT yesterday put so nicely, “…to look at the future not as a daunting bleak abyss of hell, but an exciting adventure”.

One new perspective I get seeing these pictures of my infant grandmother – baby Marjorie – is that maybe the utilitarian part of her was there even before she became aware of her surroundings. She’s bundled up and stuck in what looks like a wooden box because…I suppose…it was a practical way to keep her upright.

Then again, she was born a Capricorn and I can confirm that she exhibited a number of Capricorn-like traits. Clear-eyed, down-to-earth, a hard worker, practical, disciplined, stoic. She loved gardening and reading (both things that Capricorns are prone to doing). I know astrology isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I always find it fascinating.

The other gigantic happening on my grandmother’s birthday was the beginning of the Parcel Post (of the U.S. Postal Service). On January 1, 1913, food, dry goods, drugs and other commodities began to be delivered. This was an especially big development for the country’s rural residents (54% of the U.S. population in 1910).

To think that today I get itchy trying to wait two whole days for my new furnace’s filters to be delivered.

I look forward to sharing more 1913 pictures with you this year and hope you are starting 2020 on a positive note!

Holiday Pictures – 1884

Happy holidays, friends! I have been running behind schedule on Christmas cards, present-buying, meal-planning and…yes, blog writing since mid-November. I hate feeling that things are hurrying on faster than I can run. Maybe this is part of what attracts me to history and genealogy. It brings a certain peace knowing that one’s deceased ancestors are still waiting- ahem – right there where you left them.

My parents found the following picture among their things when they cleaned out their house to move. “You know who these people are?” my dad asked. He hadn’t any idea, even though their names were written on the back. In fact, that’s my dad’s maternal grandmother, Eleanor Sly, and Eleanor’s brother, James Clark Sly.

Eleanor (called “Nellie”) is only 10 years old in this picture and her brother, James, is listed as 12. That places the age of the photograph at about 1884. That’s the same year that France presented the U.S. with the Statue of Liberty. The new book on the market was Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn”.

If one interesting historical aspect stands out, it’s the amazing chandelier in the center. In fact, if the picture is from 1884, that would be a gasolier. Thomas Edison did not create a practical system for generating electricity in homes until 1882. (The White House was not wired for electricity until 1891). Therefore, it’s fair to assume that the bulbs in the picture must be lit with gas, not electricity.

In one way, the scene in the picture don’t look all that different than one we might take today. Yet that was 135 years ago. Eleanor and James are historically closer in that picture to the start of the Revolutionary War by 26 years than to my afternoon coffee.

Tonight, my parents will arrive for a two-week stay at our house. I hope that enough calm will prevail for us to spend time really talking to one another. The more I write these posts, the more I understand the importance of appreciating the people around us and asking about their past. Had I been a little more enlightened when my grandmother was alive, just think what stories I might have told here!

These last few weeks have been all about “right now” time (as in, I have to get this done ‘right now’). In writing this post, it has been nice to consider that all those gestures are just a tiny link between past and future. I always thought the lyric from “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” put that idea nicely:

Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more

I hope you all enjoy this time with your loved ones!

Postcard to O.M. Gregory

This past Saturday, we went to a local jeweler to have my daughter’s first pair of earrings removed and filed down. Walking into the establishment with a small child on either side, an assistant quickly approached to offer a Hershey Kiss to each of the girls.

That may have been designed to keep their hands occupied with the chocolate rather than the expensive bracelets and necklaces open for perusal. At the time, though, my one concern was how to avoid glass cases full of chocolate fingerprints. “Please save the kisses for when we get outside, girls”, I said.

As soon as I said it, of course, the Stanford marshmallow test came to mind. In the 1972 study, and in follow-up studies, 3-5 year old children that were able to wait for a reward (the marshmallow) proved to have better self-esteem, emotional coping skills and educational attainment later in life. Would my 3-year old show delayed gratification by heeding my request?

Well, friends, she ripped the wrapper a little BUT the conditions weren’t controlled so I figure it’s all good. (I’ll come back to you in 10 years). In the meantime, let’s talk about delayed gratification and the postcard. The postcard?

Yes! Before the age of instantly shared travel pictures over Facebook and Instagram you sent a humble postcard. Shorter than a letter – even shorter if on foreign ground and in need of additional stamps – the postcard makes it easy to say “I love you”.

If I didn’t love you, clearly, I wouldn’t have bought this postcard, written it, and hunted down the local post office to send it. Right? And I sent it to you, at your address, which I either knew by heart (!) or thought to copy down before I left.

What a joy when you receive one of these, when, pawing through the bills and junk mail, you come up with a photograph of an exotic locale. “Girls, look what came today!” It’s fun to flip the card over, to read the loved one’s handwritten note, and then flip it over again marveling that…there they were.

And yet, isn’t it even better when you’re the sender? What’s the first thing you do when you get home and talk to said loved one? “Did you get my postcard?” It’s almost like the confirmation that your missive reached its mark and made someone’s day allows you to relive that slice of vacation. Delayed gratification!

Today, the postcard I’ll share with you comes from the Golden Age of Postcards, a period from 1907-1915. This is also known as the “Divided Back Period”, because it was 1907 when allowances were made to have messages written on the left half of the back of a postcard. What a revelation!

Everyone ran to Woolworth’s and bought millions of 10-cent postcards to send to each other. The techy kids took it even further. They used Kodak postcard cameras that could print out a postcard-size negative of the picture.

The one-cent stamp on the above postcard was issued in 1912. Apparently in 1912 the postman was so familiar with the families of Grand Avenue that no house number was required in the address. Lena C. Moon sent the postcard, indicating that her husband Truman had taken it.

The Moons were family friends of the Dunnings and I will have more to say about them. For today’s post (and in an attempt to figure out the picture) I’ve researched the addressee, O.M. Gregory.

My best guess is that O.M. Gregory is the man in the suit and hat on the right of the picture with his wife at his side. That’s Aunt Kate, sure enough, in the middle. Whether that’s a couple on her right I don’t know, but the picture certainly has a “women’s rights” feel about it, doesn’t it?

By the way, how funny is that lady in the middle? Did she stand on someone’s back to get into the camera frame?

Who was O.M. Gregory?

Osmer Milton Gregory was born in 1870. By 22 years old, he had become a yard clerk at the O&W railroad in Middletown. He married Cora Belle Lawrence on January 11, 1899 and became a bookkeeper at a local bank. At some point, he took over the operation of a coal and lumber yard in Middletown.

The best I can guess about this picture is that the crowd has gathered under the overhang at the Middletown stop of the old O&W railroad. O.M. Gregory, being connected with the railroad, had *something* to do with it. It doesn’t matter too much, I guess.

What I love about this postcard is the hopefulness of it – both front and back. Lena’s note says that “she didn’t expect to find a thing on the negative” and yet there they are. There’s a group of people who look convinced that something good is coming.

Have a great week, everyone! Hope you’ve got good things coming to you, too…

Take Your Children to Work

That’s not an order. Please feel free to keep your children at home, if you like! It’s more of a funny commentary on how U.S. work, and children’s role in it, has changed from the time of these pictures (1912) to now.

Today, only about 1% of the U.S. are farmers or ranchers. I happen to know someone whose family still works a farm, but I doubt most people do. Contrast that with 1916 where the U.S. Agricultural Department estimates that farmers made up 32% of the population.

At least 32% of the nation’s children didn’t need to be taken to work because they already lived there. They milked cows, collected eggs, weeded gardens and fed chickens and horses. (Now, for a price, you can send your kids to Farm Camps and Farm Stays to do that.)

Sadly, in 1913, it wasn’t just chores that filled children’s days. According to The Good Years by Sir Walter Lord, some 20% of children in the U.S. were earning their living at that time. The cotton mills employed thousands of children, and not just in the South.

One small step forward came in June, 1913, when the state of Massachusetts passed a bill to set an eight-hour day for anyone under the age of sixteen. That was the “highest standard yet reached by a cotton mill state”.

Tiny Ferris and Eleanor watching the progress

In Georgia, another mill state, children still worked twelve-hour days in the name of industrial progress. In fact, the federal law prohibiting “oppressive child labor” (FLSA) was not signed into law until 1938. It took thirty-four years for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) to get a national child labor law.

If you happen to be someone who feels that social justice moves too slowly in the U.S., I think that piece of history might be cheering. Moral awakenings don’t happen overnight. It took photojournalism, support of leading politicians and clergymen, and state-by-state battles over a period of many years.

Today, the idea of a room of ten-year old children spinning cotton, in the U.S. or in any other country, is unconscionable. But that was the result of the Progressive Era…”a warmhearted crusade for a finer, cleaner life”.

Another way life got finer and cleaner shows up in the next picture. With the invention of the roller cone bit for well-digging, wells could be built deeper and with less damage to the property. That roller cone bit (nicknamed “rock eater”) made a good bit of money for Howard Hughes, Sr. who filed the patents in 1908.

Howard Hughes, Sr.? You got it – father of Howard Hughes, Jr., subject of the very long Leonardo DiCaprio movie you may have suffered through in 2005. If you get your water from a well, you can thank Mr. Hughes’s roller cone bit.

Ferris and Clara witnessing the new technology!

That’s about all the history I can swallow for today. I wish you a happy long weekend (if you get Monday off) and a ‘thank you’ to our veterans and the people who care for them.

Cousin Evelyn Sly

Last week we took a detour to 1892. I’ll return you now to 1912 where Ferris and Clara have just spent the day with cousin Evelyn Sly.

Evelyn was Clara Williams’ eldest daughter. If you go back to the 1892 graduation picture, I think you’ll see there’s quite a resemblance.

In this photo, Evelyn is only 14 years old. By 1916 she’ll become a student at Elmira College, a private liberal arts college which was an all-girls college at the time. Next, she’ll graduate from New Paltz Normal School, just like her mother. (We will get to that picture!)

Then, Evelyn will go one step further. At some point between 1917-1922, she will receive her B.S. degree from Columbia University in “practical arts”. She will then work for four years teaching before becoming a Home Demonstration Agent in Essex County, New Jersey.

Home Demonstration Agent? What on earth was that?

I’m so glad you asked!

In 1914, the Smith-Lever Act created a “Cooperative Extension Service”. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) used this service to spread information about agriculture and home economics to rural families. The hope was that better education of rural communities would lead to improved living conditions for them.

Home demonstration agents, people like Evelyn, were the local representatives of this program. (If you’re interested, the USDA has some historical pictures and literature about this program here.)

After that, Evelyn became Assistant Director of the Home Information Bureau of Springfield, Massachusetts. From 1926-1928, in Springfield, she helped organize the Eastern States Exposition which is still a thing. She worked on the exhibits related to “all phases of homemaking” and gave talks during the exposition.

After she married Lester Blake, she was appointed Home Demonstration Agent of Passaic County, New Jersey. Her office was located in the County Courthouse in Paterson, where she could be “reached by any women of the county wishing aid in household problems of any kind”. Eek.

I’ve snatched a newspaper article from the Herald-News, December 28, 1932, to show you that I’m not making this all up!

How’s that curriculum vitae for a woman in the 1920’s? Impressive, right? I did a little peeking ahead in my grandma’s album to ensure we’ll see her again. If we ever make it to 1925, there’s a nice photo of Evelyn and her husband to share with you.

A widow by age 53, Evelyn retired to Sun City, Florida at 70 years old. Both her sister Mary and Uncle Ferris ended up there so I like to think they shared afternoons together later in life! (Their obituaries both refer to their membership at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church so it’s probable).

Given that she dedicated much of her life to the concerns of women, it may not surprise you that she was also a member of the Sun City’s Women’s Club. Here’s to you, Evelyn. See you at your graduation…

Clara Williams, Class of 1892

It’s October 18th and I’m officially overdue in swapping out our summer clothes for winter ones. I had planned for it last weekend but there were soccer games and birthday parties to attend, acorns to rake, and crock-pot meals to organize. And let’s be honest – I find no joy in boxing up t-shirts and shorts in exchange for turtlenecks and corduroy.

I feel like my winter clothes still have last winter/spring’s desperation clinging to them. It pains me, emotionally, to put them back on this summer-warmed, active body. It also pains me, literally, because the skinny jeans are so darn skinny.

But now that I’ve discussed tidying up, cooking and being overweight, I want to talk about women’s historical educational advancement. Whaaat? You’d rather hear about my closet? Come on, ladies…

Meet Clara C. Williams, who will become Eleanor’s sister-in-law by marrying her brother, James. She was born to Harriet and Alonzo James, of Warwick, in about 1873. Harriet was actually her father’s second wife.

His first wife (Clarissa) died in 1871, leaving behind 2-year old Kittie, and infant Elizabeth (Lizzie). Clara was the first child from this second marriage, followed by Nellie (3 years later), and Alfred (5 years later).

Her father was a farmer, originally from Sussex, New Jersey. He must have been a successful farmer because they had two servants living with them in both the 1875 and 1880 census. Also, they must have paid for Clara to attend the New Paltz Normal School (where the picture was taken).

The New Paltz Normal School began in 1884 after a fire destroyed what had formerly been a children’s academy. Its purpose was to train teachers to teach in New York State public schools.

That means that the school was not even 10 years old when Clara graduated!

In 1938, it became an official four-year college: the State Teachers College at New Paltz. In 1947, it began offering graduate studies in education, and one year later it became one of the founding schools of the SUNY system.

Besides Clara, my grandmother attended the New Paltz Normal School and – decades later – my mom got her Master’s in Education there. (If I ever get to my grandmother being born and growing up in the album, you will see her graduation picture too!)

A lot of “firsts” in women’s higher education happened in the era of Clara’s mother, Harriet. Born in 1846, she would have been alive for the following:

1849 —Elizabeth Blackwell becoming the first woman to graduate from medical school (Geneva Medical School in New York)

1862 —Mary Jane Patterson becoming the first African-American woman to earn a bachelor’s degree. (Oberlin College in Ohio)

1870 —Ada Kepley becoming the first woman to graduate from an accredited law school (Union College of Law in Chicago).

I have been surprised to find that the history of women in higher education extends so far back. By 1889/90, already 17% of the bachelor degrees awarded in the U.S. went to women. Fifty years later? 41% . (I could pore over this very interesting table from the National Center for Education Statistics for hours).

So who’s who in this picture?

Clara is the sulky one in front – an old-time Maggie Gyllenhaal. Directly to her left (looking straight at us) is Carrie Tammany, of Marbletown, NY (Ulster County). Left of Carrie is Nellie Hallock, of Lake Grove, NY (Suffolk County).

Up in the middle, with her head cut-off with a pen mark is Isabel Thompson Dickerson, who will later marry a Shaw. On April 10, 1894, a Middletown Daily Press newspaper announces that Isabel has been assigned to teach in Bullville and Clara to teach in New Milford (both in Orange County, NY).

I don’t know the name of the black man in the back of the class but was amazed and pleased to see him there. By 1900, the number of black men obtaining higher education degrees was in the thousands but, from what I read, black men attending white colleges only numbered in the hundreds.

Less than two years after she begins teaching, Clara Williams marries into the Sly Family:

SLY – WILLIAMS
At Edenville, Jan. 1st, 1896, by Rev. R.H. Craig, James C. Sly and Clara, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo James Williams.

In June of the following year, 1897, she will have her first child, Katharine Evelyn (Evelyn). Her second child, Mary, will be born over ten years later, in 1909. If you’ve been following these posts, you’ll recognize Evelyn and Mary from prior pictures.

I don’t have information right now on whether Clara continued to teach after the birth of her daughters. I nearly killed myself trying to figure out the names and hometowns of her classmates at New Paltz. Why?

There’s a chance that someone might find it helpful and otherwise…I’d have to sort clothes. A lovely weekend to you all!

A Visit from the Hart Children

One of the pictures that I’ll share today shows Ferris and Clara playing with their cousin, Mary Sly, and with the children of a friend of Aunt Kate’s, Mary Louise Hart. It got me thinking about why we take pictures. What do we consider camera-worthy?

I used to take pictures to document anything special or out-of-the-ordinary. If I went on a hike with a friend, I would take a picture. If I was travelling or dressed up to go somewhere, that’s when the camera would come out.

With children and cell phones, I’ve lost my grip a little on what’s worth documenting. Or maybe everyone else has…I can’t decide. What’s decidedly funny is that my phone currently holds as many black-and-white photos images from 1912 as it does recent shots of the kids.

So back to the pictures. We’ve seen both Grandma Sly and Mary Sly before, in a picture from three years back. The new faces are Doris and Marie Louise Hart, daughters of Marie Louise Hart (née Little) and Thomas Riego Hart.

A friend and contemporary of Aunt Kate’s, Mary Louise (Lou) was born on May 26, 1872 in Middletown, NY. Her father (Theron) was a lawyer and Special County Judge in Orange County. I found a nice bio about Lou from the announcement of her marriage:

Miss Marie Louise Little has long been recognized as one of Middletown’s brightest, most to be admired young women. She graduated from Wallkill Academy four years ago with honor, and read an essay at the commencement exercises which won her high praise from the critics present. She followed her educational course at Vassar.
Miss Little is a sweet-dispositioned young lady, with a grace and dignity which are remarked whenever she appears. Her presence was always desired by the young society people of this city, who found her in a vivacious, sparkling companion.
March 26, 1894

Within five years of her marriage to Thomas, the couple had three children:

Thomas Riego Hart Jr.: born October 09, 1895
Marie Louise Hart: born October 4, 1897
Doris Hart – born June 28, 1899.

At the time this picture was taken, Thomas would have been 17 years old. He will later serve as a lieutenant in the Sixth Division in France during WWI. Upon his safe return, he will practice law and marry Miss Ruth Mowen. Together they’ll raise two children, Barbara Hart and Thomas M. Hart, in West Orange, New Jersey.

Marie Louise would have been 15 years old in the picture. She may not have felt much like entertaining preschoolers but there she is. She’ll eventually marry Frederick W. Landers of Upper Montclair, New Jersey, teach music, and raise John Quincy Landers and Frederick W. Landers jr., there.

Doris, 13 years old in the picture, will have a teaching career too. She’ll settle in Hewlett, Long Island and care for her mother in her old age. The admirable Lou Hart, in short, produced a line of equally bright descendants.

Oh! And I realized that we have actually seen Lou Hart before. She was at the party at Julia Lawrence’s house (the lively-looking one in the hat). I’m so pleased that I could identify a woman at that gathering, after all.

As for my doubts about whether I’m taking enough pictures of my children, I’ll say this: yes, I may “lose” some moments. Everything will be lost, though, if *someone* doesn’t start printing things out and labeling them.

If it wasn’t for my grandmother’s meticulous record-keeping I wouldn’t have any idea who spent the day with Ferris and Clara. Putting a name to a picture truly means attaching a life to it. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got a couple of empty baby books I should attend to…

Bruno the Family Dog

I felt stumped on how to write an interesting post about the Dunning family dog. Desperate, I reached out to my 8-year editor. “Why don’t you write about the history of dogs?” she suggested. “But isn’t that boring?” I grumbled. Then something extraordinary happened.

Stories about dogs began cropping up in my life in an uncanny way.

The first incident seemed like a mere coincidence. I’d been speed-reading the Odyssey to help *someone* with a Classics course. Cue Argos the dog. If you (like me) haven’t read the Odyssey since you were 13 years old, allow me to re-introduce you:

According to Odysseus’ servant, Eumaeus, Argos was a hunting dog par excellence. But with Odysseus away for 10 years, the dog fell on “evil times”. The women didn’t take care of him, and the servants, lazy with the master away, had left him “full of fleas” and “lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung”.

Yet as soon as he heard his old master’s voice, he “raised his head and pricked up his ears”. Odysseus had returned to Ithaca disguised as a beggar so couldn’t give himself away by embracing his dog. Yet even the warrior hero couldn’t fully hide his emotions:

“As soon as he saw Odysseus standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Odysseus saw the dog on the other side of the yard, he dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it…”

The Odyssey, Homer

I thought this was remarkable. First, that as far back as the 8th century B.C., some men had this close bond with their dogs. Second, that after dismissing my daughter’s suggestion to write about the history of dogs, my life literally led me to one of the earliest stories about dogs.

Then at church this Sunday, again!

The New Testament lesson was the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus. Instead of Odysseus dressed as a beggar, Luke 16 tells the story of a real beggar named Lazarus. He lives in misery at the gate of a rich man who completely ignores him.

In verse 21, Lazarus is said to be “longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.” Per my internet searches some people think that the dogs are showing compassion (in contrast to the rich man). To me it sounds like adding insult to injury.

He’s hungry, he’s got open sores and on top of that the street dogs are licking at him. Even Argos the dog, flea-bitten and laying on a pile of manure, had a better life. At least a tear was shed for his lousy fate.

Thankfully, things evolved by the time of Bruno the dog. By the twentieth century, in the U.S., dogs had become part of the family. The pictures suggest that Bruno loved the Dunnings and vice versa.

I couldn’t figure out why they named him Bruno. There was Bruno, Duke of Saxony, who died in 880. Also, Bruno Bauer (1809-1882), a German philosopher. Maybe they just liked the name Bruno. Surely they didn’t realize that Bruno is the #1 unluckiest pet name.

So my last coincidental dog text came from the mystery book I started reading this week. In the 3rd of the Jackson Brodie series by Kate Atkinson one of the characters helps heal her trauma with a dog:

“Love me, love my dog”, Dr. Hunter said, ‘A woman’s best friend.’ Timmy, Snowy, Jumble, Lassie, Greyfriars Bobby. Everyone’s best friend. Except for poor Laika, the spacedog, no one’s friend.
When Will There Be Good News, Kate Atkinson

I had to laugh. Even the mystery book I chose for pleasure reading ended up listing contemporary dog stars. Except for Lassie, the names were new to me. If you’re interested, here’s the chronological run-down:

Greyfriars Bobby: Skye Terrier from Edinburgh who spent 14 years guarding the grave of his owner until he died himself in 1872.

Jumble: Mutt dog from “Just William” stories about a young schoolboy William Brown. (1922)

Snowy: Wire Fox Terrier from The Adventures of Tintin (1929)

Lassie: Collie dog from a 1940 novel that was adapted to the 1943 movie, Lassie Come Home.

Timmy: Mutt from The Famous Five children’s adventure novels written by Enid Blyton (1942)

Laika: Stray mutt from Moscow. Launched into Outer Space on Sputnik 2 in 1957 where she died of overheating.

It may just be that once you start paying attention, dogs are everywhere. I pass two German Shepherds every day in the Times Square subway station. There’s a black labrador retriever in the lobby and street outside our office to sniff out trouble. (He will let you pat his head and say “good boy”!)

Having grown up with dogs myself, it makes me happy even just to see them. Did you have a beloved family dog growing up? What memories did you share together?