the History Reporter™

I Adore National Women's History Month

2013-03-10T13:10:00.000-04:00

Women's history is near and dear to me. My graduate thesis focused on both Northern white women and Southern slave women during the American Civil War (perhaps I should publish it). My current writing project involves the diaries of Sarah Van Hoosen Jones who wrote them as a 17-year-old girl traveling abroad with her mother, aunt and grandmother in 1909. (There is so much history in those little books.) I wrote college papers (and a blog post) on Gertrude Ederle and her historic swim across the English Channel and on and on.

As you know, there are many important and untold stories about womens' contributions to the world and its history. To celebrate and educate, this blog post is dedicated to some notable women who lived in my community years ago. It's an article I wrote for Rochester Patch about six women whose legacies stretched beyond the boundaries of the village/city in which they lived.

Happy National Women's History Month!

(Reposted from Rochester Patch with permission.)

Rochester's Most Famous Women Include Dairy Farmer, Minister and One Who Formed Oakland University

For National Women's History Month, we salute a few of Rochester's most important women.

Those familiar with the history of Rochester – even just a little bit – know the names of some of the area’s most prominent women of the past. Sarah Van Hoosen Jones, Bertha Van Hoosen and Matilda Dodge Wilson are among the women whose stories we’ve read or heard about during a tour of the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm or Meadow Brook Hall.

They make us proud knowing how instrumental each was in the establishment and growth of our community.

In addition to these prominent local women, there are others from Rochester’s history whose names may not be so recognizable, but whose contributions to Rochester and beyond were equally significant.

In honor of National Women’s History Month, I’d like to tell you a bit about some of our town’s most interesting and important women of the past.

Almost all of these women were integral in the formation of Rochester’s civic, cultural and educational institutions. Others, inspired by their time and work in our town, became important figures in social causes and movements that spread across Michigan and the nation.

Antoinette Brown Blackwell

Believed to be the first ordained female minister in the United States and a champion of women’s rights and other social causes, Antoinette Brown Blackwell spent a brief period of time in Rochester in the 1840s as a teacher at a private high school called the Academy of Rochester.

A native of New York, Blackwell attended Ohio’s Oberlin Collegiate Institute in 1846, where she studied theology and began honing her skills in public speaking – a pursuit generally reserved for men at the time.

According to Friends and Sisters: Letters Between Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell 1846-93, edited by Carol Lasser and Marlene Deahl Merrill, Brown and a few other female friends from Oberlin organized their “own secret debating and mutual improvement society, inspired perhaps by Brown’s experiences at the liberal Rochester Academy in Michigan, where she taught in fall and early winter 1846-47. There she had learned new skills by working with a young women’s debating society and delivering her own extemporaneous talks at school assemblies that were open to the public.”

During her time at Oberlin, Blackwell traveled and spoke out in favor of women’s rights, temperance and an end to slavery. In 1850, she attended the first National Women's Rights convention in Worcester, Mass. Other attendees included Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth.

As Lasser and Merrill noted, both Blackwell and her friend, women’s rights activist Lucy Stone, “committed themselves to work for the social progress of women and the emancipation of black Americans from slavery and racial prejudice.”

Antoinette Brown Blackwell was believed to be the first
female minister in the country. Credit: Wikimedia.org.

Fidelia Woolley Gillette

Fidelia Woolley Gillette was a noted writer, lecturer, minister and poet. A staunch supporter of women’s suffrage, Gillette moved from Birmingham to Rochester with her husband in the 1860s and became the women’s rights editor of the Rochester Era newspaper.

In an article written by Maureen Thalmann for the Rochester Clarion in Oct. 1995, it’s noted that Gillette lectured on issues of temperance, supported the Rochester Literary and Library Society and spoke to people throughout Michigan about women’s suffrage as a representative of the Woman Suffrage Society. Her work and dedication to social causes caught the attention of the Detroit Free Press, which, as Thalmann cites, called Gillette “a thinker of uncommon breadth” in April 1875.

In 1874, the Michigan State Woman’s Suffrage Association selected Gillette and nine others to represent Rochester and Avon Township in Lansing at their annual meeting. It was there that the association began planning a campaign in support of a proposed constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote.

“With the overwhelming defeat of the (proposed amendment),” wrote Thalmann, “the Michigan State Woman’s Suffrage Association went out of existence.”

Despite the setback, Gillette continued to work for the rights of women and others experiencing prejudice in society. She was ordained a Universalist minister in 1877 and became a missionary for the church.

In addition to her work with the Rochester Literary and Library Society, Gillette was a founding member of the Rochester Woman’s Club in 1896, a group dedicated to the study of art, literature and science and which went on to establish Rochester’s first public library.

Fidelia Wolley Gillette worked tirelessly for women's rights.
Credit: Archives of the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm.

Sarah Van Hoosen Jones

Born in 1892 and raised on the Van Hoosen farmstead in Stoney Creek Village in what is now Rochester Hills, Sarah Van Hoosen Jones lived in an era when women were discouraged from attending college.

With the support of parents who believed in education – her mother, Alice, had been a schoolteacher and her father, Joseph, a school superintendent – Jones went on to earn a master’s degree in animal husbandry in 1916 and a doctorate in animal genetics from the University of Wisconsin in 1921.

With degrees in hand and a natural affinity for farming, Jones eventually took over the operation and management of her family’s dairy farm, now the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm.

According to the museum’s web site, under Jones’ direction, the Van Hoosen farm “supplied the majority of milk consumed in Detroit in the 1930s and 1940s and was the first farm in southeastern Michigan to produce certified milk.”

Jones gained national recognition for her successful farming career, becoming one of two women in the United States to be named Master Farmer in 1932. She was also the first woman in the United States to be named a premiere breeder of Holstein cattle.

In addition to her agricultural pursuits, Jones served the Rochester community in numerous ways. She was a member of the Stoney Creek and Rochester school boards from 1924 to 1961 and was a founding member of the Oakland University Board of Trustees.

Jones deeded the Van Hoosen farmhouse and property to Michigan State University upon her death in 1972. The university then donated the farmhouse and 3.5 acres of farmland to Avon Township (now Rochester Hills) for use as a museum. The rest of the property was sold to a private developer. In 1989, the City of Rochester Hills took ownership of the farm and acquired 10 surrounding acres from private owners to establish the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm.

Sarah Van Hoosen Jones successfully ran her family's dairy farm at what is
now the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm.
Credit: Archives of the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm.

Eva Woodward Parker

Eva Woodward Parker was the daughter of pioneering Rochester farmer and politician Lysander Woodward and is credited with helping to build Rochester’s first public library.

Parker lived in the Woodward family home at 1385 N. Main Street until her death in 1933. In 1949, funds from her estate helped build Rochester’s first public library building, located on the northeast corner of Fifth (now University) and Pine streets in downtown Rochester. It was named Woodward Memorial Library in Parker’s honor.

Despite modifications to the building over the years, the library eventually outgrew it. Now renamed the Rochester Hills Public Library, a new library building was built on Olde Town Road in 1999.

A variety of boutiques and businesses, including Rochester Play, now occupy the former library building.

Eva Woodward Parker died in 1933 and left her estate to the community
to establish a permanent library. This photograph was taken around 1890 at the
Huntington and Clark Studios in Detroit.
Credit: Rochester Hills Public Library via the OCHR web site.

Bertha Van Hoosen

Bertha Van Hoosen was born in 1863 and grew up on her family’s farm (what is now the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm) in Stoney Creek Village. There she learned the ways of a farm, witnessing the birth of countless farm animals. Overtime, she developed a love of medicine and science.

While her parents supported higher education for women, they were less enthusiastic about Van Hoosen’s desire to pursue a medical career and become a surgeon. Undeterred, she worked to earn money to attend the University of Michigan, from which she graduated with a degree in medicine in 1888.

She went on to specialize in women’s medicine and childbirth.

“At a time when women doctors were rare,” notes the museum’s web site, “Bertha served her community as an obstetrician, gynecologist and surgeon. Her illustrious career spanned more than 50 years.”

During her career, Van Hoosen developed a number of innovative practices and techniques. Among them were the “buttonhole” appendectomy and the use of scopolamine morphine (Twilight Sleep) as an anesthetic during childbirth.

Additionally, Van Hoosen taught medicine, serving as a professor at the Women’s Medical College of Northwestern University and at the University of Illinois. She became head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Loyola University and founded the American Medical Women’s Association.

Van Hoosen was also an early champion of sterilizing surgical instruments to prevent infection and campaigned for women’s equality in the field of medicine.

A portrait of Bertha Van Hoosen, who developed a love for medicine and
science in her early years and went on to become a well-respected doctor.
Credit: Archives of the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm.

Matilda Dodge Wilson

Born Matilda Rausch in 1883, Wilson lived a quintessential American story. The daughter of German immigrants, Wilson was born in Canada and moved with her family to Detroit in 1884, where, according to the website for Meadow Brook Hall, her father owned a saloon and her mother operated a boarding house.

In 1908, Wilson married John Dodge, who, along with his brother, Horace, owned a successful automotive parts company in Detroit.

The Dodge’s raised six children – three from John Dodge’s previous marriage and three of their own. They lived in Detroit and spent weekends at their Meadow Brook Farms property and country home in Rochester.

In 1920, John Dodge died, leaving his wife to care for six children and a large estate. Matilda Dodge turned to her philanthropic pursuits and worked in earnest to support many social causes, including women’s rights.

As noted in Wilson’s biography on the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame website, Wilson generously supported many local organizations with both financial donations and with her time and leadership skills. From 1922 to 1929, she served as president of the Salvation Army Auxiliary. She was also treasurer of the National Council of Women and director and first female chairperson of the board of directors for the Fidelity Bank and Trust in Detroit.

In 1925, Wilson married lumber broker Alfred Wilson. After selling her holdings in the Dodge Motor Car Company, Wilson became heir to “one of the largest fortunes in the United States,” according to the website for Meadow Brook Hall.

She and her husband soon built a new home on the Meadow Brook Farm property – today’s Meadow Brook Hall.

The Wilsons played a pivotal role in the formation of Oakland University. Together they donated their estate, including Meadow Brook Hall and an additional $2 million to Michigan State University to create a branch campus in Rochester. That branch became Oakland University in 1963.

President's Day: The Capture of John Wilkes Booth

2013-02-18T10:00:00.004-05:00

In Feb. 2011, I wrote an article for Rochester Patch about a local family's connection to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The gentleman I interviewed for the article, Herb Peters, gave a thorough presentation to the Rochester-Avon Historical Society one evening about his ancestors who, unknowingly, gave room and board to John Wilkes Booth, a fugitive on the run accused of murdering the president.

It's the story of how Booth came to his end -- a story surrounded in myth and speculation since 1865. But for Peters, the story of Booth's futile attempt to run after he leaped from the balcony at Ford's Theatre was precisely how his family had told it for generations. And he had the proof -- a letter from Booth's brother, Edwin -- still in his possession.

Peters, who was 95 at the time this story was posted, passed away just a couple of months later.

The capture of Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, is captured in this illustration,
courtesy of the Library of Congress, Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana.

Congressman's Dad Shares Family's Connection to Lincoln Assassin
(Reprinted with permission from Rochester Patch)

At 95, Herbert Garrett Peters has a lot of stories to tell. A former English teacher and newspaperman, Peters knows how to tell a good tale – particularly when it’s one of his own.

Recently, Peters spoke to members of the Rochester-Avon Historical Society about his ancestry, which reads like an encyclopedia of American history. Not only is he descended from a Revolutionary War soldier, but Peters’ lineage also includes an association with one of the most infamous characters in American history: John Wilkes Booth, an actor best known for assassinating President Abraham Lincoln.

A life full of history

Peters, who is the father of U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-9th District, was born and raised in Rochester, which makes him — according to members of the historical society — the oldest-known Rochester-born citizen in the area.

During his presentation to society members, Peters fondly recalled his life as a boy in Rochester. His father worked for the DUR (Detroit United Railroad) in Rochester until it shut down in 1931. To support his family of five, his father then operated a grocery store from an addition built onto the family's house, and he later trained horses at his dude ranch on Harding Road.

In 1941, Peters joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and became a first lieutenant. Three years later, he was stationed in Remes (now Reims), France, where he met his future bride, Madeline. They returned to Rochester in 1947 to begin married life and raise a family.

For 32 years, Peters taught English in Rochester’s junior high schools, and for 36 years, he was a reporter and editor for the Rochester Clarion.

Ties that bind

Peters’ family history spreads across the United States and covers the North and the South. His great-great-grandfather Ebenezer Peters was born in Rhode Island and was raised in the North. Another great-great-grandfather, William Garrett, was born and raised on a Virginia plantation and served as a soldier at Valley Forge during the American Revolutionary War.

When that war ended, Garrett returned to the plantation, married and had a son, Richard, born in 1806. Richard, Peters’ great-grandfather, eventually bought a Virginia farm of his own – a farm that not only became the scene of one of the most sensational stories in American history, but it is also the subject of a decades-long debate among historians that may soon come to a shocking conclusion.

John Wilkes Booth and the Garrett farm

On April 24, 1865, five horsemen rode up to the gates of the Garrett farm. As Peters tells the story, one of the riders, in Confederate uniform, approached Richard Garrett and told him, “One of the riders here is J. Boyd, a wounded Confederate soldier returning to his home in Maryland, and in need of short rest.”

Peters explained to the audience that “the Garretts did not know that President Lincoln had been assassinated by an actor named John Wilkes Booth on April 14 in a theater in Washington.”

Garrett gave in to Southern hospitality and his respect for the Confederacy, Peters said, and agreed to let the man named Boyd rest at the farm.

“None of the Garretts knew that Booth and co-conspirator David Herold escaped from Washington by horseback into Maryland and were the objects of a massive federal manhunt,” said Peters. And they didn't know that Booth was using the name Boyd as an alias to escape capture.

For the next two days, Booth lived and dined with the Garretts. He shared an upstairs bedroom with the Garrett's children, including 7-year-old Robert Clarence, Peters’ grandfather.

Booth also socialized with the Garrett’s other children, including 2-year-old Cora Lee, whom he referred to as his “little blue-eyed pet.”

“He’s completely at ease,” said Peters about Booth in the Garrett household. “He’s a superb actor and no appearance of a man on the run. He engages the family in small talk ... and he’s very grateful to the Garretts for their kindness.”

While Booth rested at their home, the Garretts learned of Lincoln’s murder — and of the $140,000 reward for turning in the assassin.

When Booth became fearful that Union forces were moving in, the Garretts grew suspicious of him and his “cousin” Herold. While they still didn’t realize he was Lincoln’s assassin, they did believe he was in some sort of trouble. So they moved him and Herold from their house to their tobacco barn.

On April 26, Union forces stormed Garrett’s farm, and the 16th New York Cavalry surrounded the house, demanding to know the whereabouts of Booth and Herold.

The Garretts directed the officers in charge to the tobacco barn where the two men were hiding out. Herold surrendered, but Booth refused, so the cavalry lit the barn on fire. According to Peters and many historians, Booth was then shot in the neck by Sgt. Boston Corbett. Mortally wounded, Booth was carried out of the barn to the porch of the Garrett house and died.

The whole event was witnessed by Peters’ grandfather, the 7-year-old Robert Clarence Garrett.

Historical fact or legend?

As with most historical narratives, there is another side to this story. While many historians and researchers believe Booth died at the Garrett farm, others — namely, Booth’s descendants — doubt the story and believe he escaped capture and lived several more years before committing suicide in 1907.

As David Lohr pointed out in his article “Did Abe Lincoln’s Assassin Escape? DNA May Solve Mystery” for AOL News, this version of Booth’s story was popularized by Finis L. Bates in his book, Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth, published in 1907.

In the book, Lohr noted, Bates alleged that a man resembling Booth was killed at Garrett’s farm. He also claimed to have firsthand knowledge of Booth’s survival, stating that he was an attorney for a man named John St. Helen, who confessed to Bates that his true identity was John Wilkes Booth.

According to Bates, Booth later became known as David E. George and committed suicide in Enid, OK, 42 years after the assassination of Lincoln.

While Bates’ story has largely been refuted, there is still enough doubt to make Booth’s descendants want to find the truth.

In December 2010, several news outlets reported that Booth’s descendants planned to have the body of his brother, Edwin, exhumed for DNA testing.

“By using DNA comparisons,” writes Edward Colimore in his article “Booth Descendants Agree to Brother’s Body ID Tests” for The Inquirer on Philly.com, “relatives from the Philadelphia area, New Jersey and Rhode Island hope to learn in the coming months whether the lore of John Wilkes Booth’s flight is true.”

According to Lohr, the Booth family wants “to compare DNA from Booth’s brother ... to that of a bone specimen at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington. The bone is from a man who was gunned down inside the (Garrett) barn.”

Previous efforts to exhume the body of John Wilkes Booth were denied by a judge in 1995 who believed that Booth's exact burial location, Colimore wrote, "could not be conclusively determined."

Before testing on Booth's body can begin, however, "the family wants to get permission from the museum to obtain the DNA sample from the bone specimen," wrote Lohr. "A panel of judges will make the final decision."

No testing needed

To the Peters family, there’s no doubt that the man shot and killed on their ancestor’s property was John Wilkes Booth.

At the close of the historical society program, Peters told the audience that while Booth lay dying, a member of the Garrett family snipped a lock of his black hair to give to his mother.

Peters then cited a letter written on June 10, 1878, about that lock of hair and addressed to his great-uncle Richard B. Garrett:

Dear Sir,

I have received and forwarded to our mother the memory of the misguided boy whose madness brought so much ill to us. Though his name has never been spoken by us since his untimely end, I decided to express our good attitudes to your family for your kindness to him in his last hours. And for the last act which I am sure will do much to soothe and comfort his heartbroken mother.

Yours very truly,

Edwin Booth

Christmas Dinners, 1860-1960

2012-12-27T13:27:00.002-05:00

Apologies if you follow my blog or even check in once-in-a-while. I haven't written a post since September. SEPTEMBER! Wow! That went by fast. Now it's the end of the year. Christmas has just past, but its spirit continues as the New Year approaches.

So before 2012 fades into the sunset, I wanted to write a final post for the year about Christmas. This one was inspired by my cousin who, while watching A Christmas Carol on TV, sent me a message asking what might have been on the menu for Christmas dinner in mid-1800s and suggested the topic might be good for a blog post. Good idea, Cousin!

So, let's take a look at Christmas dinners in America (and a few abroad) from the 1860s to the 1960s. Each decade had its food fads and fancies, there were definitely variations through the years and not everyone had access to certain foods of the time, but Christmas dinners remained fairly traditional throughout those 100 years.

Civil War Christmas

In the early 1860s, Christmas took on a somber tone. The Civil War meant fewer presents, loved ones missing from the dinner table, and shortages of food staples.

Christmas dinners often consisted of a main meat or two -- turkey, goose, partridge, chicken, lamb, beef/veal, smoked or boiled ham, fish -- potatoes, oysters, mince pies, cranberries, jams, chestnuts and desserts like bread and plum puddings, custards and pies.

In the years that followed the war, Christmas dinners didn't change much, though they did include some new items on the table.

The Boston Cooking-School Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer was published in 1896 and included a Christmas menu with consommé, olives, celery, bread sticks, salted pecans, roast goose, potato stuffing, applesauce, pudding, assorted cakes, bonbons, cheese, crackers and black coffee.

People living in rural areas relied mostly on home-grown foods, pickled or canned, and livestock in the barns to provide a Christmas meal.

A New Century of Celebrations

In Queen of the Household published in 1900 and noted by foodtimeline.org (a great resource for food history), Mrs. M. W. Ellsworth suggested serving "clam or oyster soup, celery, baked fish . . . roast duck, onion sauce, baked potatoes, sweet potatoes . . . stewed tomatoes, rolls, salmon . . . plum pudding, peach pie, fruit, nuts, coffee and chocolate" for Christmas dinner.

During a trip abroad in 1909, Rochester, Michigan's Sarah Van Hoosen Jones wrote about her Christmas in Cannes.

"We entered the room in which were 3 tables decorated with palms, oranges, dozens of roses and other flowers. The sun shone in brightly on us. First we had fried small fish, then a stuffed feathered pheasant spread . . . In front of the bird was the meat . . . After the pheasant was roast beef and potatoes, next was a cake with Joyeux Noel written on it, served with ice-cream. Lastly, we had fruit. This was our Christmas dinner in Cannes, France in the year 1909."

While many Americans enjoyed such traditional fare as roasted meats, plum puddings, cranberries and stuffing for Christmas dinner, immigrants in the U.S., as foodtimeline.org correctly points out, often celebrated the holidays with their own traditional foods. Christmas dishes might have consisted of stuffed cabbage rolls, sausages, pierogi, latkes, pasta, and a variety of cakes and cookies.

Christmas dinner in a newsboy's Bowery lodging house. Image from Century Magazine, 1912.
Source: www.digitalhistoryproject.com/2012/11/new-york-newsboy-newspaper-boys-in-1800.html.

Christmas During the Roaring Twenties & the Great Depression

Christmas dinner in the 1920s might have featured roast goose, olives, cream of celery soup, bread sticks, souffles, lettuce salads, dressing, toasted crackers, and coffee as Helena Judson and Flora Rose offered in The New Butterick Cook-Book, published in 1924.

The Great Depression of the 1930s mirrored the Civil War for many in the U.S. as money, food, and gifts were scarce. For those struggling to find work, Christmas dinner might have consisted of cream of peanut butter soup, roasted chicken, applesauce, potatoes, crackers, cheese, puddings or pies as suggested by Good Housekeeping Magazine in Dec. 1931 and noted by Foodtimeline.org.

Photos: Farm Security Administration: Christmas dinner in the home of
Earl Pauley near Smithland, Iowa, c. 1935. Wikimedia.org.

In the book, San Antonio in the 1920s and 1930s, Mary E. Livingston and Frances R. Pryor noted that some others enjoyed a Christmas dinner with turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, cranberry sauce, salad and pie.

A WWII Christmas


Christmas Day Dinner 1943, USS New York, Captain Kemp C. Christian, U.S.N. Commanding. Source: New York, USS file, ZC files, Navy Department Library.

In the early 1940s, WWII once again demanded rationing of food and household goods. Soldiers on the front lines may have dined on canned goods like Spam for Christmas (though other soldiers and seamen fared better eating in the mess halls, tents and dinning rooms as illustrated by the 1943 US Navy menu above), while their families back home served limited meats, potatoes, vegetables, bread, candies and pies.

Christmas in the Atomic Age

American Meat Institute Ad, c. 1950s.

Christmas dinner in the 1950s resembled most others from decades past, though cooking technology was far more advanced. Multiple cooking ranges, refrigerators and the like inspired many a domestic chef to branch out a bit and serve a variety of traditional and non-traditional foods and beverages, including Coca-Cola and 7Up.

In the article, "Your Christmas Dinner, the Best Meal of the Year," written by Ruth Ellen Church for the Dec. 20, 1957 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune and noted by foodtimeline.org, the "best meal" consisted of "cranberry juice cocktail . . . roast turkey, sweet potato or chestnut stuffing, giblet gravy or roast prime ribs of beef . . . cranberry relish or sauce, celery stuffed with blue cheese, olives, radishes . . . fruit salad . . . rolls, eggnog, pie, port wine and coffee . . ."

So, there you have it. Christmas dinners through the years from 1860 to 1960. How did your holiday dinner compare? Similar or vastly different? Let me know in the comments if you wish.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas meal and holiday with family and friends. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Article: Prehistoric Human Remains Found Under Sidewalk

2012-09-28T11:37:00.001-04:00

Recently, I wrote an article for Rochester Patch about the discovery of prehistoric human remains and a burial site under a sidewalk in downtown Rochester, Michigan. Crews working on the nearby M-150/Main Street hit bone with a backhoe which prompted on-site archaeologists to excavate the site and a couple of others.

To read more about the discovery and what may happen with the remains, please click on the link below. The article features an interview with Fay Givens, a Mississippi Choctaw and executive director of American Indian Services in Lincoln Park, Michigan, who explained to me what discoveries such as this one mean to Native Americans and what should be done with the remains.

I enjoyed writing this article and learned some valuable information.

What Will Happen to Prehistoric Human Bones Found Under Rochester?

Sarah in Scotland, July 19, 1909 -- "Mama Goes to a Suffragette Meeting"

2012-07-19T12:11:00.002-04:00

This is one in a series of articles about 17-year-old Sarah Van Hoosen Jones and the diaries she kept detailing the events of her trip abroad in 1909-1910. Read more about this diary project.

On July 19, 1909, Sarah wrote one simple sentence in her diary that spoke volumes.

"Mama went with Mr. Johnston to see the suffragettes try to brake (sic) up a speech by Winston Churchill who is against woman suffrage."

Jones was writing about an event that occurred two days earlier on July 17 at King's Theatre in Edinburgh where Churchill, a Member of Parliament, was speaking about Britain's budget crisis.

Not one to breeze past a reference to a major historical figure, I set out to find more about that speech, as well as the protesting suffragettes.

Churchill was a member of the Liberal Party and a strong voice in support of the party's proposed People's Budget, an act that sought to increase taxes among the rich and introduce new social welfare programs all in an effort to to redistribute wealth and eliminate poverty.1

He was also opposed to giving women the vote.

To find more information about the speech and the protest Sarah mentioned, I searched many newspaper archives online. One of the best resources I found is Historic Newspapers based the UK. The company provides original newspapers dating back 200 years to researchers or those looking to purchase a unique gift to commemorate a birthday, anniversary or another important event.

The dedicated staff at Historic Newspapers found in their repository, which, according to their web site is the "largest private archive of British newspapers in the world," an article about Churchill's speech in The Times from July 18, 1909.

They sent me the original newspaper along with two others from 1908 and 1913 (which I will share in a future post).

The article was printed on page 9 and titled, "Mr. Churchill on the Budget."

"In the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, on Saturday afternoon, the first of a series of demonstrations in Scotland in favour of the Budget proposals of the Government was held. The principal speaker was Mr. Churchill, M.P.

"Judge MacPherson, chairman of the eastern section of the Scottish Liberal Association, presided over a gathering which numbered over 3,000 persons."

Here's the interesting and critical part for my research:

"Elaborate precautions were taken against the possibility of disorderly interruption of the suffragists, the ladies being restricted to certain portions of the building."

The end of the article reported:

"During the proceedings in the theatre a meeting of the suffragists was held in the neighbouring street. Miss Adela Pankhurst, after speaking from a wagonette, left her vehicle and made her way to the theatre, accompanied by Miss Bessie Brown and another lady. They tried to force their way past the police, but without effect. Miss Pankhurst and another lady were taken into custody, and mounted police, which had been held in readiness, kept the crowd on the move. An hour afterwards the ladies were liberated."

According to John Simkin on the Spartacus Educational web site, Pankhurst was "given the task of disturbing meetings held by Winston Churchill."2

The Great Procession and Women's Demonstration" organised by the
Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) on 9th October 1909. On
Princes Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. Photograph taken by James Patrick, 1863-1933.
Source:The People's Story, Edinburgh Museums & Galleries (Wikimedia.org).

It's not known what Sarah's mother, Alice, thought of the proceedings or if she actually witnessed any of the protests. What's important is that she wanted to see this event. Couple that with her daughter considering it significant enough to mention in her journal, however briefly, illustrates how deeply women felt about this struggle in both the U.S. and the U.K. in 1909.

Churchill's speech can be read in its entirety here. To listen to an audio recording of Churchill speaking about the budget issues in 1909, visit the Library of Congress here.

Part I: Sarah's Journey Begins in Montreal
1. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/churchill/interactive/_html/wc0055_1.html & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Budget
2. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WpankhurstA.htm

Memorial Day

2012-05-28T00:02:00.001-04:00

My first post for the History Reporter blog featured a U.S. sailor named Thomas Fowle from Michigan. Thomas was recuperating in a Naval hospital in 1945 when he recorded himself singing two songs to his mother. I bought the recording in an antique shop years ago. The record was in a plastic sandwich bag with some of what appeared to be Thomas's color bars, a hat ribbon and a button from his coat.

That was all that was left of Thomas's memory.

The songs are sweet and beautifully haunting. Using a digital recorder, I recorded the audio from the the nearly 70-year-old record and paired it with relevant images.

You can read the first blog post here.

I wanted to find out more about Thomas and my research led me to a sad conclusion. An update about the loving sailor and his fate can be found here.

Happy Memorial Day and thank you to all of the U.S. veterans and soldiers who have served to protect us over the years and decades.

Honor the brave, Memorial Day, May 30, 1917. Lithograph showing boys
with fife and drum leading a parade of veterans and soldiers. 65 x 101 cm.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540

Paris, June 1911

2012-05-18T18:07:00.001-04:00

It's a beautiful spring day in the Midwest so I thought I'd share one of my favorite postcards from my humble collection featuring a favorite springtime locale -- Paris.

The card, with its beautiful image of the Eiffel Tower, was written by Theodore Hamilton in Paris to his brother, George S. Hamilton, in Buffalo, NY, on June 28, 1911.

My dear Brother:

I send you this card from the summit of the Eiffel Tower at Paris, nearly 1000 feet in height. One enjoys here a magnificent and marvelous view over the city and its environs. The River Seine and all the famous buildings, parks and gardens appear spread out, far below. I leave today for Orleans and Touro; then to Bordeaux and on to Madrid.

With love and best wishes,

Theodore

Postcard from Paris, June 1911.
Courtesy: The History Reporter

University professor Theodore Hamilton sent this postcard, dated June 28, 1911,
to his brother, George, a department store salesman in Buffalo, NY.
Courtesy: The History Reporter

I've had this postcard for a while and decided to try and find out more about Theodore Hamilton. And did I find out more! I'm still amazed at how much I learned about this man and his family -- I even came across a photo of Theodore. Now I had a face to go with the name of the man who wrote this postcard over 100 years ago. Incredible.

So, who was Theodore Hamilton?

A search on ancestry.com led to the discovery that Theodore graduated from Harvard University in 1899. Census records shows that he and his brother, George, were living with their widowed mother and an older sister in Chautauqua, NY, in 1900. Theodore, 31, worked as a teacher, while George, 38, was a dry goods salesman. Both men were single.

In 1904, Theodore applied for a U.S. passport. The application stated that he lived in Urbana, IL, and was a university instructor -- most likely at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall with brown hair and brown eyes.

By 1910, a year before his trip to Paris, census records show that Theodore, 35, was living in Columbus, OH, and lodging in a house with Sarah Armstrong, her daughter, Edna, and another lodger. His 1911 passport application stated that he was an assistant professor at Ohio State University.

Meanwhile, during that same time, George was living in Buffalo, NY, where he was a salesman in a department store. He roomed with the Peterson family along with a few other lodgers at 320 Hudson Street, the address to which Theodore's postcard from Paris was sent.

I still can't believe I found a picture of Thomas.
This is his 1923 U.S. passport application photo.
He was 54 years old. Source: Ancestry.com

Theodore continued to travel abroad for many years to come.

His passport application from 1923 states that Theodore was a professor at Columbus University and that he was embarking on a trip to visit several countries including England, France, Italy, Spain, Scotland, Belgium and Switzerland. It also stated that his earlier passport was destroyed in 1911 -- leaving me to wonder what happened to it.

Remarkably, this passport application included a photo of Theodore who was 54-years-old.

The last record I can find to include Theodore is a ship manifest from September 1923. He was a returning to the United States from Southampton, England.

After that year, he seemingly disappears.

Oh, but that summer of 1911 in Paris must have been something to experience.

In Nancy Duvall Hargrove's book, T.S. Eliot's Parisian Year (1910-1911), published in 2009, it's noted that "Eliot described Paris as a combination of past and present" and that Paris "was recognized for accommodating developing new movements," all the while maintaining its ties to the past with presentations of classical dramas, music, opera and dance.

According to Hargrove, Paris had an enormous effect on Eliot.

"His visit to Paris had a significant influence on his mind, soul, heart, and imagination," she wrote, "and he was even recognized as a Francophile."

I wonder if the City of Lights had the same effect on Theodore.

World War I was still years away and the world was changing fast during that second decade of the twentieth century.

Perhaps Theodore was vacationing or chaperoning students on a European tour that summer.

Whatever the case, we certainly can ascertain that he loved to travel and was fortunate enough to do so at least three times within a nearly twenty year period.

Letters Reveal More Than We Knew About the Titanic

2012-04-14T23:20:00.000-04:00

Say what you will about the swell of Titanic mania in the last few months and weeks, but, as a student of history, I find it fascinating and somewhat inspiring that so many are enraptured with a truly historical event. Too often people turn away from history, tune out in history class, and prefer reality TV to, well, reality with meaning and historical significance.

I couldn't let this momentous anniversary pass without acknowledging it here on this site. Because this site focuses on letters and photographs and the like, I thought I'd share with you a collection of online resources featuring letters and photographs from the Titanic.

A Letter to Mom

John Edward Simpson was the Titanic's doctor. He wrote a rather ordinary letter to his mother who lived in Belfast. Simpson's family had long thought the letter was lost until it turned up recently in an auction catalog. To read the letter and to find out if Simpson survived the sinking, visit npr.org: http://www.npr.org/2012/04/14/150571021/history-lost-and-found-a-letter-from-titanic.

Titanic at the docks of Southampton,
April 1912. Wikimedia.org

Vindication for the Duff Gordon's 100 Years Later

The story of Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon and his wife, Lucy, is one of the most intriguing of Titanic's history. The Duff Gordon's were accused of bribing the crew of their lifeboat to "row away from the sinking ship and not pick up survivors." Ultimately, their names were cleared by the Board of Trade, but their reputations never fully recovered.

Letters written by Sir and Lady Duff Gordon detailing their experiences the night of the sinking as well as their possessions lost to the bottom of the sea were recently discovered in a cardboard box marked "Titanic." The letters are not only tremendously insightful about the events that unfolded that April night in 1912, but may possibly clear the Duff Gordon's of any wrongdoing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/titanic-anniversary/9202821/Titanic-survivors-vindicated-at-last.html.

And the Band Played On . . .

Another auction includes a letter written by the Titanic's bandleader Wallace Hartley. He wrote the letter to his parents who lived in England. http://www.wtop.com/?nid=41&sid=2686574.

Somehow He Knew . . .

An eery letter detailing will preparations from Robert Douglas Norman, a 28-year-old electrical engineer from Glasgow who boarded the Titanic to make his way to Vancouver is part of a Titanic display at the Scotlands People Centre in Edinburgh. http://thechronicleherald.ca/titanic/83119-letter-sets-out-titanic-victim-s-wishes-for-will.

Titanic Letters Read Aloud

Listen to a series of Titanic letters read aloud by various people: http://tunein.com/radio/Titanic-Letters-p400975/.

Rare Titanic Photos

A collection of rare Titanic images and letters recently sold at auction for $100,570. http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-500202_162-10009879.html.

Wartime Valentine's Cards -- Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T14:59:00.000-05:00

A beautiful Valentine's card c. 1919 with a reference to George M. Cohan's
famous WWI anthem, "Over There." Source: Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

A wartime Valentine's card c. 1919. Source: Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print.

Sarah's Journey Begins in Montreal

2012-02-09T14:51:00.002-05:00

Sarah Van Hoosen Jones turned 17 years old on June 23, 1909 and was about to embark on a trip overseas with her mother, Alice; her aunt, Bertha (lovingly referred to as "Gubble"); and her grandmother, Sarah ("Gran"). In early July 1909, the women left Stoney Creek in Rochester, MI, and boarded a train for Montreal.

Here's an excerpt from her diary about their brief stay in Montreal:

July 2, ’09 Friday: Spent last night on the train in a state room. We woke up just in time to get dressed and get off the train at Montreal. Mamma and Gubble went to the docks to see about the baggage while Gran and I stayed in the Grand Trunk waiting room . . .

The ladies rode into Montreal, hired a cab and "went all over the town," Sarah wrote.

We visited two cathedrals. Upon paying 5 cents a piece we went up into a tower where we saw the facimilie (sic) of the house in which the angels brought the Virgin to Loretta from Nazarith (sic) . . . We went down one street on which was located 30 banks. Then we saw the McGill College; the big fur store where we took 2 pictures; after this we began to climb the mountain . . . We wound round & round before we reached the top. On the top we looked down upon Montreal and the beautiful St. Lawrence. Upon which we were soon to embark. We spent about 20 minutes up here. Took 2 pictures and used Gubble’s field glass. After this we went to the docks . . . Could not board until 4 p.m. We we took a walk through the town, ate our dinner . . . and returned to the boat. Mama and I sent off a dozen cards to the states. God bless them! After this we boarded the [ship] Gan and I walked around while Mama and Gubble set up housekeeping. Then we went to bed.

The 1909 U.S. Passport application for Sarah's mother, Alice.
Source: Passport Applications, 1795–1905. NARA Microfilm Publication
M1372, 694 rolls. General Records Department of State, Record Group 59.
National Archives, Washington, D.C. Via Ancestry.com

Postcard of St. James Street (rue Saint-Jacques) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada,
showing the Bank of Montreal and the post office. Postcard postmarked on August 30, 1909.
Note: This postcard is not associated with Sarah or her time in Montreal.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Update on WWII Sailor Post

2012-01-26T16:17:00.003-05:00

Last June, I posted a story about Thomas J. Fowle, a WWII sailor who recorded two songs on a record he made in June 1946 at a naval hospital in California. He sent that recording home to his mother and father who lived in Port Huron, Michigan.

I found the record in an antique shop. It was in a plastic sandwich bag along with a button from his Navy coat, a ribbon that says US Navy and a couple of color bar pins. I did some research about Thomas online and found out a few more interesting facts about his time in the Navy. I updated the original blog post today and included two video montages (here and here) that combine the songs he recorded along with images of the record and the USS Bunker Hill CV-17, the ship on which Fowle served.

So, here's the rest of the story (so far) . . . http://thehistoryreporter.blogspot.com/2011/06/wwii-sailors-voice-recorded-in-song-65.html.

The Year of the Diary

2012-01-21T19:36:00.004-05:00

There's a project that I've had on the back burner for some time. I'm very excited about it, yet I have managed to take huge chunks of time away from it. As John Lennon once wrote, "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Sarah Van Hoosen Jones at right on her family's dairy farm
in Stoney Creek Village in Rochester, MI. Courtesy of
the Archives of the Rochester Hills Museum at
Van Hoosen Farm.

With the start of a new year, I have once again picked up the project with a renewed determination to complete it this year. What is this project? There are a few hints here and there on this blog and, honestly, it's why I started this site about old letters, diaries and other "quiet moments in history" that often go unpublished and unknown to the public.
The project is the transcription (and, hopefully, the eventual publication) of diaries written by 17-year-old Sarah Van Hoosen Jones during a year-long trip overseas in 1909 to 1910.

That journey took Sarah, her mother, aunt and grandmother across the Atlantic to the countries of Scotland, Hungary, Germany and Algeria to name a few. This was three years before the Titanic disaster and when ocean travel could be quite grand and elegant (unless you were an immigrant consigned to the belly of the ship in steerage). Sarah and her family traveled well and experienced perks typical of travelers with money. In fact, this was the first of several overseas adventures for Sarah during her lifetime.

My first goal with this project is to transcribe the diaries -- there are three total -- Sarah wrote during that trip. If you've ever done research which required reading someone else's handwriting from another era, you know how long transcribing can take. Luckily I've become familiar enough with Sarah's handwriting to be able to decipher it pretty well, though there are words that I still stumble over and mark so that I can return to them later.

Who was Sarah Van Hoosen Jones? She was born June 23, 1892, to Alice and Joseph Jones in Stoney Creek Village in Rochester, Michigan. Sarah grew up on her family's farm in Stoney Creek as well as in Chicago, where her aunt, Dr. Bertha Van Hoosen, an accomplished physician, practiced medicine. She grew to love animals and farming so much it became her life's calling. In 1916, Sarah became one of the first women to earn a master's degree in animal husbandry.

A few years later, Sarah was given the deed to her family's farm in Stoney Creek. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she developed it into an impressive dairy farm, raising poultry and prized Holstein cattle, bottling vitamin A and D milk, and selling and distributing the milk throughout southeastern Michigan. In 1933, Sarah achieved another extraordinary accomplishment; she was one of the first women in the United States to be named Master Farmer.

Sarah's diaries from her trip abroad years earlier convey the feelings and emotions of a young girl in the early twentieth century -- some of the words and phrases she uses were common for the era and despite the excitement that surrounded her, Sarah would remain quite homesick, longing to return to her friends and beloved farm.

At first glance, some of her journal entries seem quite ordinary. They are, however, interesting in their own right, describing people, places and events from over a century ago. Yet in between her musings about tourist attractions and what they had to eat for dinner, Sarah writes quite casually about some remarkable things. Her words portray life around the world in 1909 and 1910 -- suffragette meetings in Scotland, bull fights in Spain, walks across the Sahara desert and more. It's simply fascinating.

As the transcription continues, I'll share with you the comments Sarah made -- both the mundane and intriguing -- during her journey. And, in keeping with the theme of this blog, I'll also share with you the unknown letters, diaries and scrapbooks from other young ladies of the past.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

2011-12-22T12:32:00.002-05:00

Currier & Ives lithograph c. 1876 courtesy of the
Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thank you very much for reading the History Reporter blog -- an adventure that began six months ago. Look for new posts in the new year. In the meantime, may you enjoy family, friends, cookies, and holiday cheer.

I'll close this month with two more vintage recipe from Roy Ald's Favorite Recipes of Famous Men published in 1949. (For more recipes, visit this post.)

Richard Greene's recipe for Queen Victoria's Plum Pudding sounds very Dickensian and Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy's Swedish cookies seem too delicious to pass up.

A British actor and matinee idol, Greene starred in such films as Four Men and a Prayer and Hound of the Baskervilles with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. In the 1950s, he had a hit British television show titled "The Adventures of Robin Hood."

An actor and radio personality, Bergen was also one of the most famous ventriloquists ever. He and his sidekick dummy, Charlie McCarthy entertained the masses on the radio and in films.

Queen Victoria's Plum Pudding

Greene noted that this recipe was made in his youth by his family in Plymouth, Devonshire, England.

1 lb. raisins
1 lb. currants
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 lb. suet, chopped fine
5 eggs
1 cup brandy
1/2 lb. candied orange peel
1 grated lemon rind
1/2 grated nutmeg
1/2 lb. bread crumbs

Mix brandy with beaten eggs. Combine raisins and currants with flour, then add remaining ingredients. Pour liquid mixture over dry mixture in top of double boiler. Steam for 6 hours.

Swedish Cookies

Cropped 1943 screenshot of Edgar Bergen with Charley McCarthy
from the film Stage Door Canteen. Credit: Wikimedia.org

Bergen noted that this recipe originated with his family in Chicago when he was a child.

1/2 lb. butter
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar. Add beaten egg, flour, extract, and salt. Beat until smooth. Drop on buttered tin. Bake in 400 degree oven for 5 to 7 minutes.

See you in 2012!

Dear Santa . . .

2011-12-02T09:52:00.001-05:00

Today's "A Patch of History" article for Rochester Patch titled "Dear Santa: Newspaper Letters Tell of Days-Gone-By Wishes" features a historical look at Santa Claus and letters from long ago kids who wrote to him with dreams of sleds, dolls, a Davy Crockett fort, a Shaun Cassidy record and more. What follows is a sampling of that article. To read the article in its entirety, please visit the Rochester Patch link above.

The spirit of Christmas is never as evident as it is in the words of children. For year, newspaper editors throughout the country thought so, too, as each December many of them printed letters to Santa written by local children.

An editorial cartoon for the nation's wishes printed
in the Lake Orion Weekly Reveiw on Dec. 23, 1938.
Source: Lake Orion Public Library

Letters to Santa then and now reaffirm the message of the holiday season as they brim with a sense of hope and innocence that often seems lost to us as we grow older.

I’ve been told by those in the know that Santa receives just over a million letters a year. For decades, the Lake Orion Review newspaper set up a mailbox just for Santa letters outside its headquarters in downtown Lake Orion, a small town in southeastern Michigan. Every Christmas, Santa provided the paper with some of the letters written by local children.

What follows is a sampling of letters written by area children from 1937 to 1986 (all misspellings were in the letters as printed).

Dear Santy Claus,
I would like a lectric train and a rectter set. Give all the poor boys and girls some toys and please come soon. Are you getting along ok are your rainders ready to come to earth and bring all the presents? So long Santy. – Kenneth, 1937

* * *
Dear Santa Claus,
Do you think you can come to my house this year? You know I will asleep. I want a scooter for Christmas. I think you will come to my house. Could you stay for dinner? We would like you to stay. – Martin, 1940

* * *

Dear Santa,
I have been good. I feed the dog . . . and I had a good report card too. And my name is Jeff and I’m 8 and I want a toy Thunder-Burp and two pairs of boxing gloves, that’s all I want. Thank you and may you have a Merry Christmas. – Jeffrey, 1957

* * *

Dear Santa,
Please bring me for Christmas a jet airplane, a dart set, bow and arrow, fire engine, cannon truck, air rifle, boxing bag, bowling set, Gunsmoke game, Moon Rocket, tool set, army tank, talking robot, smoking train, pair of skates, football helmet, a fanning gun, a sled, Davy Crockett fort, road building set, pop machine, socks, P.J. pants, underwear, shoes, because I have been good all year. Thank you, Santa. – Gregory, 1958

* * *

Dear Santa,
I’m in fourth grade this year. I will try to be good. I’m ten years old. Did you ever get stuck in the chimney? How are you and how is your wife? Did you work hard this year? For Christmas this year I want a paint-by-number set, Struto Road Builder set . . . trick shot gun shoots backward and rocket firing Airacobra Stagecoach Strongbox. I hope you come. – William, 1961

* * *

Dear Santa Claus,
I’m fine. For Christmas I want little Miss Echo, Candy Land, a sled, stroller that you can make 11 different things, play dishes, Popza ball and a snowsuit and some slippers, table and chairs and a bed for my dolls. I hope you have a nice Christmas. – Beth, 1962

* * *

Dear Santa,
We all like you and I please want you to bring me a set of stral cars and putt, putt, speed wax and a pear of house shoes, and Vedy, Bird, Police, Chopper and a pear of pajamas, and stretch arm strong. – Tommy, 1976

* * *

Dear Santa,
I have been a good girl this year. My mama told me so. For Christmas I would like: Dump truck, ice skates, 2 dolls, sled, play skies, Colorforms . . . escape game, sink, record player, records: Shawn Cassidy Sixteen – sick of school. – Jody, 1977

* * *

Dear Santa,
How are you? This is what I want for Christmas: a new doll, rolling skates, clothes, E.T. game, cowboy boots, also a new 1982 4x4 truck and a good job for my daddy. Thank you. – Amanda, 1982

* * *

Dear Santa,
I want a Muscle Man Ring and a giant that can climb up. Also a Karate Kid. Thanks. – Nick, 1986

* * *

Dear Santa,
I hope I get bigger. I want snow to come. – Tim, 1986

* * *

Dear Santa,
I thank you for the present you gave me last year. This year I want Kid Sister, Barbie dolls and some other things. I hope Rudolph is doing fine and the other reindeer and Mrs. Claus is doing fine too. And, especially, I hope you are doing fine, Santa. Will you try to make the world be better for people? – Kristin, 1986

Thoreau's "Walden" Made Impression on Rochester, MI Teacher & Miller

2011-11-15T22:08:00.001-05:00

Today's "A Patch of History" article features one of my all time favorite local history stories. Calvin H. Greene was a huge fan of Henry David Thoreau and his books. If there were nineteenth-century literature groupies, Greene was one of them.

Calvin H. Greene

In 1855, Greene wrote to Thoreau asking to purchase a copy of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, which he saw listed in his copy of Walden. Thoreau wrote back to Greene in Jan. 1856 stating “I am glad to hear that my 'Walden' has interested you – that perchance it holds some truth still as far off as Michigan,” wrote Thoreau. “The 'Week' has so poor a publisher that it is quite uncertain whether you will find it in any shop ... The price is $1.25. If you care enough for it to send me that sum by mail (stamps will do for change), I will forward you a copy by the same conveyance.”

And so began Greene's four-year correspondence with Thoreau. After Thoreau's death in 1862 -- at the young age of 44 -- Greene wrote to the writer's sister and mother, both of whom received him warmly. Thoreau's sister, Sophia, invited him to visit the family in Concord, Mass. Greene took her up on the offer and visited in 1863 and again in 1874.

At the request of Calvin H. Greene of Rochester, MI, Thoreau had this daguerreotype of his picture taken while in Worcester, Mass. It's considered the first photo ever taken of the famed writer and Transcendentalist.

Henry David Thoreau and the famous
daguerreotype taken at the request of
Calvin H. Greene from Rochester, MI.
Courtesy of Wikimedia.org.

Both visits to Concord were pilgrimages of sorts for Greene, who sought out Thoreau's grave site, as well as Walden and and a watering hole he was told Thoreau bathed in.
Greene also struck up friendships with Thoreau's inner circle of literary contemporaries and friends like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott, father of famed author Louisa May.
The story of Calvin H. Greene and his association with some of the greatest literary figures in America was first told by Dr. Sanford Jones of Ann Arbor who published several of Thoreau's letters to Greene in Some Unpublished Letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau in 1899.
Within the last ten years, Greene’s story has been researched and recorded by former Rochester, MI resident John C. Rosemergy, who grew up with a love for Thoreau's books. Rosemergy researched the story and wrote an unpublished paper titled, "Great God What a Man!" Notes Concerning Calvin Harlow Greene (1817-1898).
For more on this story, check out part 1 of my article on Rochester Patch and check back on Wednesday for part 2.

Remembering Armistice & Veterans Day on 11-11-11

2011-11-11T07:40:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from Rochester Patch article "Patch of History: Rochester Has a History of Celebrating War News, May 3, 2011." http://rochester.patch.com/articles/rochester-has-a-history-of-celebrating-war-news#

A small Midwestern town celebrates the end of the Great War

In 1918, an armistice between Germany and the Allies marked the end of the Great War, which would later become known as World War I. Upon hearing the news, people paraded in the streets to celebrate the historic event.

According to Home Town Rochester: A History of Avon Township, Rochester and Rochester Hills, Michigan by Deborah Larsen, about 70 men from the Rochester area, including seven from Stoney Creek, left their families and the only home they had ever known to fight overseas in 1917.

When the war ended Nov. 11, 1918, Rochester residents, dressed warmly in coats and hats, marched down Main Street. Some walked waving American flags, while others crammed into horse-drawn wagons and onto cars draped with large flags, turning them into makeshift floats. Young and old sat on car hoods and bumpers to make their way down the street and participate in the celebrations marking the end of the war.

Please take a moment today and every day to remember those who served to protect our freedoms.

A Ghostly Tale

2011-10-31T13:27:00.001-04:00

In honor of Halloween, I'd like to share my very first article for Patch.com posted Oct. 2010. It features one of the oldest cemeteries in southeastern Michigan along with some area ghost hunters who hope to make cemeteries less frightening. Enjoy & Happy Halloween!

Graveyard at Night is a Ghost Hunters Delight, Oct. 26, 2010

The Debut of Two Major Projects to Boost Local Preservation Efforts

2011-10-28T12:19:00.000-04:00

This week's article for Rochester Patch features two big developments in the efforts to preserve local history in southeastern Michigan. The first is a major study and report on the 20-year archaeological excavation at the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm. The report detailed the findings from the dig which included over 150,000 items ranging from glassware and silverware to animal bones and farm tools. I was fortunate to be a part of this excavation while still in my teens. The report is available for purchase from the museum.

The second development is the launch of a new web site from the Rochester-Avon Historical Society. This local historical society is amazingly coordinated and have accomplished some major tasks to further local preservation efforts. The web site is the latest accomplishment and will continue to grow, incorporating smart phone technology to boost awareness of historical sites, as well as historical tourism.

The site is encouraged to go regional with various historical agencies and city governments adding historic sites to a Google map with push pin icons and GPS coordinates. The icons are clickable and reveal a survey sheet of information similar to what is required for a property to be considered for the National Register of Historic Places.

The article was split into two for the week. Here are the links.

Local Web Site a One-Stop Shop for History Explorers

The 20-Year Dig: 150,000 Artifacts Paint Picture of Early Stoney Creek

Local Farmer Gathered Followers to Wait for the End of Days

2011-10-21T09:24:00.000-04:00

Today is another in a long list of days predicted to be the end of the world and those who have done the predicting have a unique place in American history.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Last May, I wrote a column for Rochester Patch about a local farmer, Uriah Adams, who became enamored with the Millerite movement. Founded by New York farmer, William Miller, the Millerites were an extremist religious group who believed Miller's prediction that the world would end in March 1843.

When the world didn't end, Miller recalculated his figures and determined the end would really happen on Oct. 22, 1844. In Rochester, Michigan, a small agrarian village at the time, Uriah Adams, already deeply fanatical, took Miller's prediction to heart and, with his own small following, waited for the world to end.

Adams' followers lived with him and his wife and children on a farm in rural Rochester, where all sorts of strange activities took place including, spouse-swapping, child endangerment, and incest. Adams' followers became prisoners on the farm. If they left, Adams told them, they were doomed to die.

Adams was a unique character in Rochester's history. He may not have made national headlines, but he certainly was one of many caught up in a vast fanatical religious movement during those years of the Second Great Awakening in the United States.

Ultimately, Adams met a tragic ending. To find out more, click on the link to the article.

http://rochester.patch.com/articles/local-farmer-predicted-end-of-days-in-1844-didnt-happen-then-either

Photo caption: Created in 1843 by Thomas S. Sinclair (circa 1805-1881), this drawing shows a caricature of a Millerite preparing for the Second Coming of Christ in April 1843. A man sits in a large safe labeled "Patent Fire Proof Chest," stocked with a ham, a fan (hanging on the door of the safe), cheese, brandy, cigars, ice, a hat, and a small book marked "Miller." As he thumbs his nose, he says "Now let it come! I'm ready." The "salamander safe," probably a trade name of the period, is named after the animal mythically reputed to have the ability to endure fire (and, presumably, the holocaust) without harm. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Letter from Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch

2011-10-19T12:37:00.001-04:00

I had two jobs when I worked for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1998-2003. The first was Manager of Publications in which I served as editor of the orchestra's program magazine, Performance, as well as numerous other publications. The second was Archivist. Archival management was a secondary focus of mine in graduate school (where I was the fortunate student of Dr. Phil Mason, author, distinguished professor and former archivist to the Kennedy family) and so I was given the responsibility of archiving historical documents pertaining to the history and administration of the orchestra (music was handled by the orchestra librarians) -- something that hadn't been done in earnest before and is now, I'm glad to know, a major component of the orchestra's daily activities as it now has a full-time archivst. Both responsibilities kept me extremely busy and allowed me to combine my love for writing and my passion for history. It truly was a wonderful position to have with such an amazing organization.

As I wrote, researched and cataloged, I got to know more about the orchestra's previous music directors and principal conductors. One of the first was world-renowned Russian pianist, Ossip Gabrilowitsch. In 1919, when the orchestra asked Gabrilowitsch to extend his one-year contract another two years, he agreed on the condition that a new concert hall be built, one, it's noted in Stages: 75 Years of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Hall, "worthy of the orchestra he had trained."

Orchestra Hall was designed by C. Howard Crane, future architect of Detroit's Fox Theatre, and built on the foundations of Old Westminster Church on Woodward. The hall was constructed around the clock and completed in just four months and 23 days. Funded by Detroit's wealthy auto barons like Horace and Anna Dodge, as well as donations from a number of prominent members of Detroit society, including $5,000 from Gabrilowitsch, Orchestra Hall opened on Oct. 23, 1919.

Ossip and Clara Gabrilowitsch.
United States Library of Congress's
Prints and Photographs division
under the digital ID cph.3b08268

Concert soloists for the 1919-1920 season included pianists Harold Bauer and Olga Samaroff, cellist Pablo Casals, violinist Arrigo Serato, and mezzo-soprano and Gabrilowitsch's wife, Clara Clemens. If her last name sounds familiar it's because Clara was the daughter of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain.

According to marktwainonline.com, a web site maintained by descendants of the Clemens/Lucia families, Clara was born in New York in 1874 and schooled in Connecticut and in Berlin, Germany. She studied piano but decided to pursue a career in opera. She met Ossip while her family was living in Austria.

The site notes that the two became friends and maintained an on-again, off-again courtship. In 1909, Ossip and Clara, now 35 years old, resumed their relationship. They were married that October. Mark Twain died a few months later in 1910. Having outlived her siblings, Clara inherited her father's entire estate.

The Gabrilowitsch's, now with daughter Nina in tow, moved to Detroit, Michigan, when Ossip received his new appointment as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's music director.

A letter from Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch
from my personal collection.

In 1921, the Gabrilowitch's lived at 5456 Cass Avenue, at least that's what it says on a letter signed by Clara that I purchased from eBay several years ago. It's a brief letter to a Mr. Cooke about his book and some songs. Unfortunately, the letter was not accompanied by the envelope. I would love to know more about Mr. Cooke and who he was: an up and coming musician? Songwriter?

The home was near what is now Wayne State University and the Detroit Historical Museum (not far from Orchestra Hall). I've included a link to the Google Street View for 5456 Cass for reference.

It's been reported that Clara was not a tremendously strong singer and that her parents, in fact, were not in favor of her leaving piano studies to pursue a vocal career.

In "O.G. the Incomparable:" Memories of Ossip Gabrilowitsch by Russ McLauchlin, a long-ago music and drama critic for The Detroit News and personal friend to Ossip, it's noted that Clara's voice was not highly regarded.

"Mrs. O.G. was a beautiful woman," wrote McLauchlin. "There is a story that once, long before the Gabrilowitsch marriage, a musical afternoon was held in the Mark Twain home . . . The feature of the program was Clara Clemens, who insisted on being considered a musician.

"In the long years of O.G.'s incumbency with the Detroit Symphony, the wife of his bosom was occasionally presented as soloist, not as the weekend 'pop' but to the stately audience of subscribers . . . Mrs. Gabrilowitsch, who was always billed as 'Mme. Clara Clemens,' was not a good singer.

"We all felt the utmost respect and affection for her husband. In our few encounters, we found her a woman of breeding and charm. But the fact remained that her vocal gifts were several kilometers short of great."

Ossip remained the music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra until his death from cancer in 1936. The Clemens/Lucia family web site states that Clara and Nina left Detroit for Europe soon after Ossip's death and that Clara married Jacques Samossaud, also a Russian musician, eight years later. They eventually relocated to California where Clara died in 1962 at age 88.

Additional sources & information:

http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/projects/applebaum/clara.html

To listen to some amazing recordings of Ossip playing the piano, visit http://www.forte-piano-pianissimo.com/ossipgabrilowitsch.html.

For more about Mark Twain & his family:
http://www.marktwainhouse.org/man/twains_children.php

The History Reporter is now on Facebook

2011-10-12T16:58:00.003-04:00

If you're on Facebook and want to keep up with the latest posts from the History Reporter blog plus some additional history news and information, you're in luck! Just click on the link to the History Reporter Facebook page and "Like" it! Thanks for your support!

Detroit Industrialist Converted Lavish Home into a Mental Hospital

2011-10-11T09:39:00.003-04:00

Today's "A Patch of History" column for Rochester Patch features Detroit industrialist Fred Shinnick and his wife, Lillian, who built a lavish country retreat about 25 miles north of Detroit in Avon Township (now Rochester Hills, MI) on over seventy acres of farmland. The home was named "The Haven" and rightfully so as it had 30 rooms, English gardens, a lake, and a caretaker's house, as well as a luxurious interior.

The home was built in the mid-1920s and served as a family residence for only a few short years. Perhaps the weight of the Great Depression forced the family to consider making an income from the home in order to maintain it, as a fellow blogger at Remembering Rochester has suggested.

The Haven as the Shinnick residence. Courtesy of OCHR.

Shinnick's obituary from 1965 noted that one of his son's, Fred Jr., was managing a new nursing facility where his father was a patient. That left me wondering if the family had a propensity toward caring for the ill and managing hospitals. After all, why choose to place a mental facility in your own home (it seems the Shinnick's still kept residence in the home among patients)? Research for that theory will be left for another day.

The Haven Sanitarium was a working mental facility from 1932 to 1968 and was rumored to have treated wealthy patients and even a few Hollywood stars. As noted in the Patch article, the evidence to back those rumors has yet to surface.

In the 1940s, The Haven partnered with the Rochester School District to assist children, teachers, staff and parents dealing with mental illness. The definition of mental illness was quite different in those days and included "conditions" like shyness and "smart-alecky" behavior, as well as more serious problems such as bullying and suicidal feelings.

The program was called the Rochester Plan and featured some pioneering techniques including therapy through art, shop or design work, as well as a questionable method called The Best Friends List used to find kids to treat. All Rochester school children were required to anonymously fill out a questionnaire asking them to write down the names of their two best friends. The lists were compiled and compared. Kids who's names weren't on the lists were brought in for treatment.

When the hospital closed in 1968 due, perhaps, to overcrowding, it was purchased by a doctor who planned to build condominiums on the property. That plan fell through and sanitarium was abandoned and left vacant. It became the home of vagrants and a "horror" hangout for frightened teen-agers until it burned to the ground in 1973.

Check out the article on Rochester Patch for a bit more information regarding The Haven.

Vikings, Maidens and Cadavers Oh My! It's the October History Carnival!

2011-10-01T00:29:00.008-04:00

I’m happy to host this month’s History Carnival. It features blog posts from September which were selected from nominations received over the last few weeks and days . . . including yesterday, which is perfect because I know the nominations are fresh J. This month’s carnival is as varied as the fall leaves now dropping in droves from the trees outside my window and includes a Viking warrior, suicidal maiden, rotting cadavers (it is the month of Halloween after all), a bratty socialite and so much more. So sit back and enjoy the October History Carnival here at the History Reporter!

In Tales from the Parish Clerks’ Memoranda No. 6: The devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour at Rescript, Donna Baillie uncovers an unusually compassionate view of suicide among parish clerks of the seventeenth century. In their recorded burial entry for maid Mary Play, who poisoned herself in the house of her master in October 1616, the clerks, Baillie notes, included a particularly sympathetic choice of scripture and referenced an unusual choice for burial -- the churchyard.

Writing Women’s History contains a post featuring a favorite topic of mine – diaries. In this case, Diary of a Victorian Debutante is about Alice Miles, a beautiful (and she knows it), English teen-aged socialite of the 1860s who laments about finding a rich husband. This isn’t Jane Austen, but it sure could be as Miles’ diary entries seem quite descriptive and filled with the usual gossip our society still craves about age, beauty, parties, etc. Like many socialites, Miles eventually finds herself in many desperate situations.

Christopher M. Cevasco takes us back to the days of the Vikings in Landøyðan – A Bird in the Hand which tells us about eleventh century Norwegian king and Viking warrior Harald Hardrada, whose allegiance to his raven banner, a type of battle flag believed to invoke the protective powers of Odin, “chief god of the Norse pantheon,” was legendary. The banner not only instilled fear in the enemy (the Anglo-Saxons), but, supposedly, protected men in battle and assured victory. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan for Harald and Cevasco provides some theories on where the banner could be today if it survived the “bloody muck of the battlefield.”

We get a good laugh with The Historical Society’s post, War of 1812, What Was it Good For . . . ? which features the video, “War of 1812: The Movie” by College Humor Originals. This satirical historical film trailer poses the question: just how much do we know about the War of 1812? The post doesn’t mince words – in fact it doesn’t have any. But what it conveys by posting the incredibly clever video (which I never would've seen otherwise) speaks volumes, I believe, about how history is taught in schools as we grow up with a vague knowledge of many important historical events. Check it out and you’ll see what I mean.

Over at History and the Sock Merchant, the post The Victorian’s Play Shea Stadium: The Crystal Palace of Concerts makes an interesting comparison between the Beatles’ 1965 record-breaking (in attendance and revenue) concert at Shea Stadium and the nineteenth-century orchestral and operatic performances at the long-gone Crystal Palace in London. The immense cast-iron and glass building, originally built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, hosted concerts that attracted just as many fans in the 1850s as the Beatles did over a hundred years later. Furthermore, as the post suggests, the venue, like the Beatles, also helped to usher in a new era of music and culture referred to as the English Musical Renaissance. But I find that the similarities don’t end there, as the Beatles went Victorian when they donned bowler hats for this photo currently up for grabs on eBay.

You’ll swear you can taste good English ale while reading Puremedievalry’s post Medieval Feast. If you’ve never experienced a turkey drumstick at a Renaissance Festival, don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything. Instead, do yourself a favor and make the medieval dinner from the recipes posted here. The white bean soup, lamb meatloaf and bread and butter pudding in Medieval Feast is the closest we’ll ever get to a time machine.

For those who like squeamish-inducing reads about the unsettling medical practices of yesteryear, look no further than The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice and the post Learning to Live Amongst the Dead, which reveals the truth about life as a student surgeon-in-training in the eighteenth century. Blood, pus, decaying flesh and rancid odors turned away many young and unprepared medical students like John Keats. Let’s just say, he made the right decision.

We take a decidedly different turn with the blog Beijing Time Machine and the post A Great Leap Brew and the Excavation of a Cultural Revolution Slogan, in which Jared Hall stumbles across a relic from China’s Cultural Revolution of the mid-1960s still visible on the side of a building, yet partially obscured by white paint. The discovery left Hall annoyed: “Make up your mind. Preserve it or paint it over.” The post highlights the little-discussed struggle over which era of history to preserve as Hall notes that the relic in its current condition is not only symbolic of the movement that inspired it, but also representative of the cultural change it initiated.

Climb aboard Night Train to Detroit for the post The Old Log Cabin about the “rustic” summer home of Senator Thomas Palmer and his wife, Lizzie, in what is now Palmer Park. The cabin, opened in 1887, is still standing. Compare the pictures of the cabin’s interior from its heyday with a contemporary exterior shot and you'll scratch your head asking yourself, “how did all of that fit in there?”

History by Zim’s post Alice Ramsey’s Cross-Country Drive strikes a chord with me. I adore stories about women who forged ahead despite ridicule and widely-held opinions about gender. I’ve mentioned Gertrude Ederle in a previous blog post and wrote my master’s thesis about women who set both feet firmly in the public realm during the American Civil War. In 1909, Ramsey became the first women to “complete a transcontinental drive” from New York to San Francisco. I love that year, as it was the year Sara Van Hoosen Jones embarked on her trip to Europe at age seventeen, writing about her travels in three diaries that I’m now transcribing and editing.

That’s it! I hope you enjoyed October’s History Carnival. Thank you for letting me host and stay tuned to find out which history blogger will host the November carnival. Happy reading!

So Much History, So Little Time

2011-09-27T12:28:00.000-04:00

Crazy busy this week as I help to launch the 50th anniversary celebration of a local elementary school -- the kids are going to have a fun school-year! Tons of research (land deeds, grave sites, etc.), collecting photographs, organizing an assembly and reception, and so much more! It's completely worth it and I am amazed at the outpouring of community support for this school's golden anniversary.

Then the History Carnival starts Saturday! There's still time to nominate a favorite history blog post, so don't be shy -- go ahead and nominate yourself or a fellow history blogger or a favorite post from a history-themed blog you like to read! I'll have quite a varied selection of history blogs for you to savor and enjoy all month long. You don't want to miss it -- we'll laugh, we'll cry and maybe even get scared out of our wits! You'll see (or read) just how fun history is.

Nineteenth Century Photo Sparks Internet Interest

2011-09-19T20:55:00.002-04:00

Since I love to sift through old photos and share some of my favorites here on the History Reporter, I have to share this link to an article about an 1870s photo of a man who apparently resembles a current (albeit fading) and famous Hollywood actor. The photo was, until recently (the listing was removed), for sale on eBay. The seller jokingly suggested that the actor may really be a vampire who enjoys immortality. The auction was taken down, but check out the photo for yourself. Doctored photo or the real deal? Have you ever come across an old photo of someone who resembles a modern-day person or a family member?