Remember the Women, part 1

If you have been doing family history and have tried to trace your family name, you might been thrilled to have the "XX Family History" or "The Descendants of XX" book.  I know I was when I first started out and discovered the DAKIN history "was all in" the Descendants of THOMAS DAKIN of Concord, Mass. Compiled by Albert H. Dakin (Tuttle Publishing, 1948).  Albert spent many years sending out letters to folks all over the United States trying to trace all the descendants of Thomas who was in Concord, Massachusetts selling land in the 1650s.  He made an effort to include the names of the women who the Dakins married and when possible included their parents' names.  This is not always the case. The Dakin family descendants were lucky to have that information.  Sometimes, when tracing a family, the records only give the first name of the woman and don't identify their parents.  The DAKIN descendants were also lucky when  Elizabeth H. Dakin took the women in the first few generations and traced their families back in her The DAKIN FAMILY from THOMAS of Concord to THOMAS of Digby Including the Families of Their Wives (Plainville MA, 2008).

In my own research, I have moved beyond just looking for the names and dates of my ancestors, to also including some of their stories as you probably know just from reading this blog, if not from my genealogy books [shown on the right in this blog].  I have decided to focus on the stories and the genealogy of the women in my family.  This year I am starting with my grandmothers' generation.  Next year, will be the women in my great grandmothers' generation.  I will research not only the direct ancestors, but also interesting sisters who I have been able to include.

Adelaide Copeland Harvey Richardson with her daughter Alice.

Adelaide (Addie) Copeland Harvey married Robert (Bobbie) Worthington Richardson.  He always wanted a beautiful woman by his side; and as a young woman, Addie was beautiful.  A part of Bobbie's job with magazines involved entertaining the stars who came to town to be photographed and interviewed.  Tragically, Adelaide developed a skin infection that left open sores all over her body for decades.  Then she was blinded in one eye and partially in the other from cataract operations, as a young woman.

As their children grew,  Bobbie was "looking elsewhere," and when their two daughters were starting their own families, he started another family himself.  Then tragically for his new children, Bobbie and his new wife died.

Addie was a divorcee, legally blind, scarred by sores, and suffering from asthma.  How did she manage to survive in the world?

Marion Elizabeth Evans Dakin shortly before her marriage in 1913.

Marion Elizabeth Evans married Robert Edward Dakin.  He was an engineer who grew up watching the Bulls Bridge Power Plant being built, with the canal across his farm.  He came back and built the addition to Bulls Bridge Power Plant to bring power to the neighborhood.

When they married, she started a life moving around the state as he moved from one engineering project to another until he died tragically.  One week in December 1918, Marion's mother, husband and youngest son, died in the Flu Pandemic.  Marion needed to figure out how to support herself and her two-year-old son, Teddy.

Marion became the first Extension Nutritionist for the State of Connecticut.  If something was related to nutrition in Connecticut from 1921 until she retired in 1946, she was probably involved in it. For example, during the Depression and the WW2 Rationing, she was helping people cook with the available foods.  She was giving talks and writing farm bulletins and serving on committees.

Clarice Evans visiting the museum with modern art -- one of her favorite places.

Clarice Evans started out as an elementary teacher in Connecticut.  She took classes at the State Normal School in Danbury and eventually earned two degrees from Columbia Teachers College.

Clarice taught many places around the US and even in England before she joined the faculty at New Jersey's State Teachers College in Jersey City where she taught fine art and industrial arts until she retired in 1950.  She was an early advocate of Industrial arts in the schools and traveled to Dartington Hall in England (1928-1930) to introduce industrial arts to Dartington teachers and to surrounding schools. She also studied other progressive schools in England and on the continent and to reported back to Dartington Hall with suggestions for modeling their own programs.

Since it took me 400 pages to report on what I found on these three women in Remember the Women,  Heading up the Branches of our Women's Family Tree, part 1,  I can not begin to describe everything here.  Basically, we have three women born in the late 1800s, who came into adulthood in the early 1900s: one a divorcee, one a widow, one never married.  All managed to find their way through the challenges of the 20th century.  Enjoy.


©Erica Dakin Voolich 2017
The link to this post is:  http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2017/01/remember-women-part-1.html

60 Acres More or Less

Growing up, I remember my father telling the story of his Aunt Clarice buying land.  Clarice Theodora Evans (1884-1953) was a professional woman in the first half of the 1900s.  Clarice taught industrial arts when it was a new area of study in various schools around the US, advocated child-centered education, traveled to England to teach and to research for Darlington Hall, and spent her final years teaching at Jersey State Teachers College in New Jersey.

Clarice never married. Her sister Marion Evans Dakin was a widow who was raising a son, Ted.  Both were professional women, but neither woman had any extra funds -- they did not come from a wealthy family.  So purchasing land would be a luxury for Clarice.  Some land became available near the woods where their father had built a shack in Sherman, Connecticut.  Clarice wanted to purchase the land, but it was too expensive.  So, Clarice suggested to her friend Amy Herrick, that maybe they could buy the land together.  Amy had some money and she agreed. They would purchase the land together.

My father's story of the purchase:
The land was 60 acres and the farmer wanted three times what Clarice could afford. Clarice and Amy wanted the land surveyed before they bought it, but the farmer said, "It's 60 acres more or less, period."    The two women paid the going price per acre, Amy paying 2/3 and Clarice 1/3.  When they had the land surveyed to divide it afterwards, Clarice's share was 60 acres!

The story sounds a bit apocryphal, but I used to tell it in my middle school math class when we would study measurements --  an example of needing to have a sense of the size of measurements that you use each day.  In this case, the farmer would probably have some sense of what an acre actually was -- not what I would expect my students to know, but the farmer should.  Then we'd do an activity estimating the number of inches, centimeters, feet etc. something was before measuring. Then I'd end with "handy approximate" measures for the inch, and some estimating activities, for example.

Time to investigate the story:
1. Did Amy and Clarice purchase 60 acres of land in Sherman? 
2. Did they have it surveyed dividing it into 2/3 and 1/3?
3. Did Clarice end up with 60 acre of land as her 1/3?

This is a piece of a more complicated land record search in Sherman that I'm trying to sort out.
Here is the "truth" of the story about Clarice and Amy.

Amy and Clarice made two purchases of land in the northern portion  of Sherman, Connecticut on Ten Mile Hill on 13 December 1938, each with an undivided interest of 1/3 to Clarice and 2/3 to Amy.   One piece of property was for 10 acres, more or less, of woodland from Roland Mygatt [see Sherman Land Records, volume 16, pages 310-311].   The other piece was from Helen H Mygatt for 60 acres, more or less [see Sherman Land Records, volume 15, page 161].
Amy and Clarice purchased 10 + 60 acres on 13 December 1938.

1. Did Amy and Clarice purchase 60 acres of land in Sherman? 
Yes.

Amy and Clarice, paid to have the land surveyed and divided, 17 months later.
On 1 June 1940, they signed a portion of the land to Amy and a portion of the land to Clarice.

Clarice Evans Quit-Claimed three pieces of property to Amy Herrick, one was 5 1/2 acres, one was 10 and one was 10 acres, a total of 75 1/2 acres [see Sherman Land Records, volume 16, pages 340-341].

Also, on 1 June 1940, 1 Amy Herrick Quit-Claimed three pieces of property to Clarice Evans, total 55 acres [volume 16, pages 341-342].

Amy got 75 1/2 acres, Clarice got 55 acres.  This doesn't sound like 2/3 and 1/3.
They did own the property together as undivided 2/3 and 1/3 each.

Looking closely at the deeds on 1 June 1940.

The land had been surveyed and divided, giving Amy all of the 10 acre piece piece purchased from Roland Mygatt -- a totally separate piece of land sold, none of which went to Clarice.  Possibly this piece of land had a higher value.

The piece of land sold by Helen Mygatt, had been surveyed and divided into three pieces, one was a 6 acre plot which Amy got.

The rest of the "60 acres" purchased from Helen Mygatt, was divided into two convoluted pieces: a west portion (55 acres) and and an east portion (60 acres).

So the "60 acres, more or less" piece was actually 60 + 55 +10 acres when a survey was done.
Clarice received the west portion.

So, back to our questions....
2. Did they have it surveyed dividing it into 2/3 and 1/3?
Well, when they owned it together, it was as an "undivided" 2/3 and 1/3.  They had it surveyed.  They probably divided it into the real estate value of 2/3 and 1/3. Not explicitly stated, since no values were given in any of the original or later transactions].

3. Did Clarice end up with 60 acre of land as her 1/3?
Close to it!  She ended up with 55 acres of land bordering on the land her father bought and built a shack on in the 1920s.

I had always assumed from my father's telling of the story:
They bought "60 acres more or less, 2/3 to Amy and 1/3 to Clarice," with Clarice getting 60 acres  would have meant that Amy got 120 acres -- not exactly the the case, but not too far from the truth, I suspect if you look at land values.

So, did Clarice enjoy her new position of land owner?
Actually, Clarice was very generous.  Not long after her purchase, she filed two Quit-Claim Deeds -- giving her sister Marion Evans Dakin a 1/3 undivided interest and her nephew, Theodore Robert Dakin a 1/3 undivided interest.   [see Sherman Land Records, volume 17, pages 519-520.]

Where is the land located?
It is actually hard to find the exact location on Ten Mile Hill by the deed descriptions because names of adjacent land owners might have been long dead and the land is not a simple rectangular shape like suburban lots. ["BEGINNING at the stonewall fence intersection marking the Northeast corner of the six acres field which is bounded on .. thence Westerly along said Northerly boundary about 375 feet to land of Marion Evans Dakin; thence Northerly along land of said Dakin and land of Emery Thorp about 1520 feet to the Northeasterly corner of land of said Thorp; thence Westerly along land of said Thorp about 600 feet to the land of Robert Hungerford; thence Northerly along land of said Hungerford about 1220 feet to the Northeasterly corner thereof; then Westerly..."]

There was a statement in the deed giving Clarice her land that a photo [Fairchild Aerial Survey] was filed with the land outlined in red ink and filed with the land records.  Unfortunately, that photo doesn't exist there now.

The Town Clerk did find a map showing the land on a map for a nearby property -- Herman Mosenthal's land (actually the land originally owned by Jonathan and Ruth Evans when they first came to Sherman in 1801)

and here is a close up of the map:

Now, Clarice, Marion and Ted are land owners!


©2016, Erica Dakin Voolich
The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2016/08/60-acres-more-or-less.html

The Life of the Traveling Nutritionist, the Rest of the Story!

In A Life Re-Routed Thanks to the 1918 Pandemic, I was telling the remarkable story of my grandmother Marion  Evans Dakin who after she lost her husband, mother and youngest son in the 1918 flu pandemic, had to re-invent her life.   She went on the become the first Extension Nutritionist for the State of Connecticut from 1921 to 1946.
Marion lived and worked on the Storrs campus of Connecticut Agricultural College (later U Conn).  As part of her job, she was traveling around the state, giving talks and workshops.  She was also writing the Bulletins that the Extension Service distributed on nutrition and food preparation.

Bulletin No. 38, July 1924
The Connecticut Agricultural College, Extension Service,
Storrs Connecticut

I did some searching online and found the following articles:
• 1920, September, short book review of “Meats, Poultry and Game; How to Buy, Cook and Carve,” by “Marion Evans Dakin, Pratt Institute,” in The Journal of Home Economics, vol.12, p 426.
• 1921, January, “What your Child Should Eat” The Connecticut Agricultural College Extension Service, Bulletin no. 47, January 1921
• 1924, July, “Pickles: Chow Chow, Chili Sauce, Sauerkraut, etc.” Bulletin No. 38
• 1925, July, “Home Canning of Fruits and Vegetables,” by Marion Evans Dakin & Elsie Trabue, Bulletin no. 90
• 12 April 1931, “Old Connecticut Treats” article on famous New England recipes in The Charleston Daily Mail, (Charleston, West VA)
• 1933, “4-H food club, “What we can do with milk” Bulletin
• 1936, October, “Vegetables in Various Ways,” Unit 9 of the 4-H food program, Bulletin no. 234
• 1938, September, “Winter Salads”
• 1941, July, “Milk in Many Modes,”  Bulletin no. 311
• 1942, “Cakes and Cookies that save sugar,”   Bulletin no. 332, September 1942
• 1942, October, “Meat Replace”  Extension Bulletin
• 1942, “Home Canning,” Extension Bulletin
• 1943, author, "Fats for Table Use and Cooking
• 1984 & 1985, Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, 1984 &1985: Cookery: Science, Lore,” edited by Tom Jaine, talks about the history of Election Day Cake and on page 59 includes her recipe for a yeast-based election day cake

My initial thought was: that was a lot of articles, something to be proud of.  Then I remembered a box I have from when I cleaned out her house as her executrix in 1974. Looks like there might be a few more articles here.

The collection of Extension Bulletins that Marion authored and saved from
her 25 years as the first Extension Nutritionist for the State of Connecticut.

Undated, Bulletins in a Green Cover with two rings holding together a set of 4-page documents, from Marion’s collection.  All titled The Spotlight” by Marion Evans Dakin, Storrs, Conn., Vol. (Probably starting about 1934-35)
Introduction(Vol.1, no.1):
“With this issue we are starting a new leaflet
on its way.  As so much experimental work is being done
in nutrition and foods we want to focus our Spotlight
on the information which will help us in the better
feeding of our families - especially the children.  So
the plan for this leaflet is to present nutrition facts,
timely food preparation articles, helps in food purchas-
ing, and short-cuts.  If you have found something
which helps you in your job of feeding the family, will
you not send it in so it can be shared with others?”
• no.1, November,  “School Lunch,” “Suggested Thanksgiving Dinner Menus,” “Market Lore”
• no. 2, December, “Christmas Gifts from the Kitchen and Farm,” “Children’s Teeth,” some recipes, “Market Lore”
• no. 3, January,  “Fit the Apple to the Job,
• no. 4, February, instead of titled articles there is a two page discussion of winter planning for spring planting  and thinking herbs, time to stock up on canned good, learning to read the label (price per pound and government grade), shelving one’s supply of canned fruits and meats by the month you’ll use it, and ending with an article on vitamins.
• no. 5, March, there is a list of mixed greens to plant  in your garden, a “vegetable budget” by the day or week, a discussion of the cost of food up 6% since September (during 1934-35, the average food cost per person was $.33, going to .35 or $7.30 per person per year)  with one suggestion to keep this down of planting a garden.
• no. 6, April, “To Make a Bouquet of Herbs,” “Amounts for 50 People,” “Grainola,” “Escarole,” “A Box and Cox Garden,” “Marketing Information”
• no. 7, May, The issue is devoted to eggs
• no. 8, June, The issue is devoted to canning and includes a recipe for Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie since Rhubarb is the fruit of the month.
• no.9, July-August, Picnics (6 pages instead of 4)
• no. 10, September, “September and Schools Open,” “A Fall Jelly,” “How to Get The Blue Ribbon,” “A Christmas Suggestion,” “Youth Learns Cooperation Rather than Competition”
• no. 11, October, The issue is devoted to the school lunch with a note to can chicken meat (non-layers are culled then), the importance of calcium and vitamin A in a Child’s diet, and materials you can send away for from the extension office.
Volume II
• no.1, November, “School Lunch Box,” “Some Suggestions for Lunch Box Menus,” Thanksgiving menus suggestions from 1911, “Market Lore,” “Consumer Protected in Potato Buying”
Note: in Vol.3, no.1, “Two years ago we started Volume 2 of the
Spotlight but the one number issued turned out to be 
Hail and Farewell instead of the first of a series.”
Volume 3
• no. 1, November, The issue is devoted to good nutrition for safe driving and Thanksgiving.
• no. 2, December, “Five-Point Children,” answering a question about Vitamin A for Five-Point Children, and recipes for “Raisin Chocolate,” “Date Sweets,” Peanut Paste,” to replace some of the Christmas candy.
• no. 3, January, “Our Daily Bread,” answering a question about Calcium for Five-Point Children
• no. 4, February, “Month of Holidays,” answering a question about Iron for Five-Point Children
• no. 5, March, “First Aid to a Good Diet- A Good Food Garden,” answering a question about Vitamin C for Five-Point Children, and “St. Patrick’s Day Refreshments”
[number 6 missing]
• no. 7, May, “Five-Point Children,” “Friends School Menu” from a school in England from 1740 (read to parents so they couldn’t complain about food) [Marion got this from Clarice, who got it when she was in England 1928-1930 and visited the Friends School, Clarice mentioned it in a letter to Marion dated 11 February 1930], “May Breakfast”

Uncovered and undated Bulletins from the Cooperative Extension Work in Agricultural and Home Economics State of Connecticut from her collection [most are 8 pages long]:
• “Winter Salads” [ink note:  Sept 1938]
• “Yeast Breads”
• “Sweet Rolls and Coffee Cake”
• “Meals for 100% Health”  [pencil note:  “Revised April 1941”]
• “ABC of Food Preparation”
• “ABC of Cooking”
• “Preparing Some Common Vegetables”
• “Pickles and Relishes”
• “Christmas Cookies”  [pencil note:  “there is a revision”]
• “Guides in Food Buying: Meats”  [there are corrections in Marion’s hand writing on the sample]
• “The ABCs of Canning”
• “Yeast Breads”  [pencil note:  “1932-3, Revised 1938”]
• “Sweet Rolls and Coffee Cake”  [pencil note: “1933”]
• “Yeast Rolls”  [pencil note: “1933”]
• “Stretching the Food Dollar”  [pencil note: 1933]
• “Soufflés”
• “Rhubarb”
• “Thanksgiving” [note: includes menu from 1887]
• “Doughnuts”
• “ABC of Food Preparation: Batters and Doughs”  [pencil note:  “1933-4”]
• “ABC of Food Preparation: Batters and Doughs II”
• “Coffee” [pencil note:  “1933-4”]
• “ABC of Food Preparation: Pastry and Salad Dressing”
• “ABC of Food Preparation: Pastry”
• “Afternoon Tea”
• “Holiday Dinner”  [pencil note:  Fairfield Co Annual Meeting 1932”]
• “Suggestions for Sunday Night Suppers”
• “Junior Short Course 1937, Lunch Box Suggestions”  [pencil note:  “July 1937”]
• “ABC of Food Preparation: Pastry”
• “Uses for Sour Cream”  [pen note:  “Aug ’33”]
• “Summer Beverages”  [pencil note:  “Out of print — has been revised 1933”]
• “Camp Cookery”  [pencil note:  “Revised 1939 — N. London Co Camp 1933”]
• “Foods for the Lunch Box”  [pencil note:  “1933”]
• “Recipes for Community Meals (Amounts for 25 Servings)”
• “Standards for Some Foods Found in the Breakfast Menu”
• “ABC of Cooking: Basic Methods of Cookery”
• “Guides in Food Buying”
• “Trays for the Sick: Unit 20 of the 4-H Food Program”  [pen note:  Feb 1940]


Nutrition Book No.2, Mrs. Dakin
Undated Bulletins from the Cooperative Extension Work in Agricultural and Home Economics State of Connecticut from her collection.  Probably most from 1937-1939.
• “Outdoor Cookery”
• “The Menu of the Month - November: A week’s Meals for  Four for $11.20”  [pen: “Nov. 1939”]
• “Supper Dishes”
• “Home Canned Foods in the Family Meal”
• March 1943, “Fats for Table Use and Cooking”
• “Lamb and Mutton”
• [chart] “One Week’s Food Record”  [pencil: “Sept 1937”]
• “How to Cook Meat”
• “Pork and Port Products”
• “Veal”
• “Evening Refreshments” [pencil: “Fairfield, Oct ’37]
• “The Menu of the Month - October: A Week’s Meals at Moderate Cost”  [pen: Oct. 1939]
• “Food for the Sick and Convalescent”  [pencil: “Sept. 1939”]
• “Refreshing and Nutritious Beverages for the Sick and Convalescent” [pencil: Sept. 1939]
• “Estimating Costs and Value of Home Canned Products” [pencil: “Sept. 1939”]
• “Some Skills in Cooking”  [pencil:  “Jr. Short Course July 1939”]
• “A Polish Dinner”  [pencil: “1933 Farm & Home Week”]
• August 18, 1937, “Notice to Growers and Shippers of Citrus Fruits” from the Department of Agriculture [included for dating and context, not written by Marion]
• “Yeast Breads and Rolls: Suggested Outline for Meetings” Unit 13 of the 4-H Food Program [pen:  “Mar ’39”]
• “The School Lunch” Unit 12 of the 4-H Food Program [pen: “Feb 1939”]
• “Daily Meal Planning” [pen: “Jan. 1939”]
• “Social Customs in Dining” [pencil:  “Nov. 1938”]
• “Table Setting”  [pencil: “Sept 1938”]
• “Yeast Breads”
• “Impromptu Refreshments”  [pencil: “June Approximate Amounts of Foods to Serve Fifty”  [pencil:  “April 1938”]
• “Summer Beverages”  [pencil: “Revised Spring 1938”]
• “What Price Deserts.”  [pencil: Jan. 1938”]
• “New and Old Ways to Serve Potatoes”  [pen: “Jan. 1938”]
• “Foods for the Lunch Box (Revised December 1937)”
• “Cost-Weight Table: Table for Determining Cost Per Pound of a Product” [not by Marion, but included in her book, prepared by NY State College of Home Economics at Cornell U]


Nutrition Book No 4, “What’s Cooking”
• “A Polish Dinner” Co-author with Mrs. Joseph Kasper
• “What's Cooking in Your Neighbor's Pot?  Polish Recipes,” September 1945
• “Feast Dishes for Easter and Other Russian Recipes” offered in “What’s Cooking in Your Neighbor’s Pot” Program over Station WTIC, April 6, 1946
• “Some Southern Favorites” offered in “What’s Cooking in Your Neighbor’s Pot” Program over Station WTIC, June 29, 1946
• “Habitat Dishes from French Canada” offered in “What’s Cooking in Your Neighbor’s Pot” Program over Station WTIC, June 1, 1946
• “It’s an Old Swedish Custom — The Smörgåsbord” offered in “What’s Cooking in Your Neighbor’s Pot” Program over Station WTIC, May 4, 1946
• “Gulyas and Other Hungarian Dishes Given to Marion Evans Dakin by Mrs. Stevan Dohanos,” March 1946
• “What’s Cooking in Your Neighbor’s Pot: Some Recipes from Italy,” February 1946
• “Cooking Fish the Finnish Way,” January 1946
• “Czechoslovakian Christmas Foods,” December 1945
• “Cakes with Little or No Sugar,”  October 1945
• “Meat Replacements,” March 1945
• “Home Preserved Foods in “Basic 7” Meals,”  January 1945
• “Home-Made Mixes,”  January 1945
• “Packed Lunches,”  September 1944
• “Herbs for Accent and Flavor,” September 1944
• “Preserving Eggs in Water Glass,”  “Preserving Eggs in Mineral Oil,”  April 1944
• “Ways to Use Cereals as Desserts,”  [undated]
• “Ways to Use Home Preserved Food: Group III — Other Vegetables and Fruits,” March 1944
• “Ways to Use Home Preserved Food: 2. Tomatoes, Greens, Fruits,”  February 1944
• “Ways to Use Home Preserved Food: 1. Snap Beans and Carrots,”  January 1944
• “What Every Cook Should Know, Unit 7 of the 4-H Food Program,” 10-25-43

Dated Bulletins from the University of Connecticut Extension Service, Storrs Conn. from her collection [professionally published quality]:
• June 1933, “Jellies, Jams and Marmalades,” Bulletin 187
• March 1935, coauthor with W. B. Young, “Home Preservation of Meat,”  Bulletin 217 (Reprint of No 177)
• October 1936, “Vegetables in Various Ways, Unit 9 of the 4-H Program,”  Bulletin 234 (Revision of No. 176)
• February 1938, “Home Canning,”  Bulletin 254 (Revision of Bulletin No.219)
• March 1941, “Home Canning,” Bulletin 304 (Revision of Bulletin No. 254)
• October 1941, “Foods to Help Keep You Fit,” Bulletin 316
• April 1942, “Home Canning,”  Bulletin 324
• March 1943, “Home Preservation of Fruits and Vegetables,” Bulletin 343
• May 1944, “Jams and Jellies,” Bulletin 355 (Revision of 335)
• May 1944, “Pickles and Relishes,” Bulletin 356


Everyone always talked about how much driving Marion Evans Dakin did as she traveled around the State of Connecticut.  She was said to have known every road, named or not.  But no one in the family talked about her as an author of nutrition and food preparation bulletins for the citizens of Connecticut.

Job well done, Nana!


©Erica Dakin Voolich, 2016
The link to this page is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-life-of-traveling-nutritionist-rest.html

A Life Re-Routed thanks to the 1918 Pandemic

Marion Evans before her marriage, 1912 in Gaylordsville Connecticut

Marion Evans was born in Sherman Connecticut 11 February 1886, the 2nd daughter of Charles Harold Evans and Caroline Matilda Helsten.  Her father Charles and her uncle Edward had built houses next door to each other, at the foot of Evans Hill Rd. where their parents, Charles Evans and Hannah Elizabeth Radford lived on the top.  On the other side of that same hill in Gaylordsville, lived Marion's maternal grandparents, Eric Adolf Helstein and Mary Hearty.

Charles and Edward had a busy house construction business in Sherman and Gaylordsville.  In 1888, they decided to move their families and their business north to Great Barrington, Massachusetts where there was a building boom going on.  Charles and Edward Evans opened the Barrington Building Co. which ended up building not only houses but also a high school their daughters attended and other large buildings around the community over the years.

Neither Charles, nor his wife Caroline had any college education.  They might have attended high school but I don't know.  It is clear that education was important to them: Caroline was involved with the Current Events Club and Charles with the Sons of the American Revolution in Great Barrington.  Charles' mother, Hannah Elizabeth Radford Evans, amazingly had one year of college back in 1844-1845.  Caroline's immigrant parents -- Eric Adolf Helsten and Mary Hearty-- came in the mid-1840s and did encourage at least one of their 4 children (Sarah) to have education beyond high school.

Both Marion (1904) and her older sister, Clarice (1902), graduated from Searles High School.  Clarice taught in local schools before going on and getting degrees and eventually teaching at Jersey City State Teachers College in New Jersey starting in 1937.

As young unmarried women in the early 1900s, they needed to have jobs.  One might live at home, but unless you had wealthy parents, you needed to support yourself.   Both Marion and Clarice were in school at the same time, each graduating in 1908 -- Marion from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn New York with a degree in Domestic Science; Clarice from Connecticut's State Normal Training School in Danbury with a teaching certificate-- each with a two-year degree.

Marion's first job out of college was teaching high school domestic science in Saginaw Michigan.  Then she came back east and took courses at Columbia Teachers College for 2 years.    Her skills caught the attention of the philanthropist Helen Gould (daughter of Jay Gould) who hired her teach nutritional cooking classes for women in Roxbury New York during the summer of 1912.  She worked for Helen Gould all year, helping with setting up a new organization's chapter, the Campfire Girls, in Irvington New York and typing a book of sermons for a minister there.  When not working, she would be back home in Gaylordsville Connecticut.  Her parents were now living in her Helsten-grandparents' former home just over the Housatonic River from Robert Edward Dakin who was back at his parents' home working on the Bulls Bridge Power Plant addition.

Wedding of Marion Evans and Robert Edward Dakin, 1913

Marion and Robert Married on 13 September 1913 in Gaylordsville.  Rob was and engineer working projects around the state.  So, they would set up house-keeping and when the job required that they move, they did.  So they had three children born in three different towns. Robert Edward Jr was born in Danbury on 15 May 1915, dying the next day.  Theodore Robert was born in New Haven on 11 November 1916.  Edward Evans was born in Derby on 28 January 1918.  In August 1918 the family had moved again, this time back to Danbury so Rob could work on the dam at Stevenson over the Housatonic River.

Marion's busy daily life with children and running the household was abruptly disrupted by the flu pandemic that was sweeping all over the world.  On Saturday 30 November, Rob got sick.  Marion had two young children -- a two year old and a 10 month old along with a sick husband.  She sends her older child to stay with Aunt Mary in Gaylordsville and her mother Carrie Helsten Evans comes down to help.  By Wednesday 4 December, her son Edward was sick, as was her mother Carrie.  On Tuesday 10 December, her mother Carrie dies, the next day, her son Edward Evans died and on Thursday there was a double funeral.  The next Monday, her husband Rob died.  So, in 5 days, Marion lost her mother, son and husband to the flu -- she was now a 32 year old widow with a two year old son -- her life had dramatically changed.

She initially moved back to her father's home to decide what to do; he had lost his wife, son-in-law and grandson with all those deaths but they had no time to grieve.  Marion needed to go back to work, she had a son to raise.  What to do next?   In 1918 there wasn't social security for a widow raising a child.  Luckily she already had some education to build upon.  Probably not true for many other families who were devastated by the Influenza Pandemic.

Marion decided to go to the University of Chicago for courses in nutrition during the 1919 spring  term with her father going along as "baby tender" -- so Marion, son Ted and her father Charles traveled from Connecticut to Chicago and moved in with her sister Clarice who was teaching industrial arts at the Laboratory School there.

Marion at Pratt Institute

After a quarter at U of C, Marion was hired at her alma mater, Pratt Institute, to teach home economics.  Off they all go to Brooklyn New York -- Marion taught at Pratt for two years before being hired by Connecticut Agricultural College (now U Connecticut) as Connecticut's first Extension Nutritionist in February 1921.  She retired from U Conn in July 1946.  Her son Ted grew up on the Storrs campus with students who would trade child care for room & board. 

In her job, she was writing extension bulletins on food preparation and also giving talks to local groups and large Expositions and State & County fairs all over the state of Connecticut.  

You already know she had taken many courses and many different schools.  She decided to take a leave of absence for a semester and enrolled as a student in the college where she was on the faculty and completed her bachelors degree in teacher training in home economics -- graduating from Connecticut Agricultural College on 9 June 1930.  

When her father Charles died in 1928 in Savannah Georgia on a train home from Florida to New York, one of the obituaries listed his three surviving children and Marion was listed as the wife of a professor at Connecticut Agricultural College!!  Her husband had died ten years earlier, SHE was on the faculty, he NEVER was!

Years after she died, in 1974, the university decided to honor the "pioneer women educators" with a plaque and garden outside Holcolm Hall.  Ion 22 October 1991, went to the dedication as did Wilma Keyes, the only survivor of the honorees.

"The women were faculty members of the  School of Home Economics who lived and taught in Holcomb Hall.  Built in  1922, Holcomb Hall replaced the first women's building, Grove Cottage,  which burned in 1919. 

Memorialized for their pioneering efforts to educate UConn women  are:  M. Estella Sprague, Marion Dakin, Gladys Hendrickson, Wilma Keyes,  Lillis Knappenberger, Marie Lundberg, Lisbeth Macdonald, Edith Mason,  Elizabeth Putnam, and Elsie Trabue.  All taught in what was then the  school of Home Economics and is now the School of Family Studies.  Keyes is the only one of the ten still living.  Her art and design courses led  to the establishment of the University's present department of Art in the School of Fine Arts. 

The Pioneer Women Educators Memorial is a gift of three UConn women... 

'These women were part of the progressive wave who were seeking to  carve out new opportunities and careers for educated women,... Home  Economics was one of the new areas and these pioneers  taught our generations of women to reach beyond the accepted roles of teacher, nurse and librarian.' 

"Martha Fowlkes, Dean of UConn's School of Family Studies, comments:  'Our School is proud and grateful beneficiary of the contributions of the  women educators in whose honor the garden is dedicated.  Through their  accomplishments in the field of Home Economics, these women represent  both the University's history of women's educational achievement and its  attention to the importance and dignity of families and the lives of  women, both inside and outside the home..."  

There was irony of the picture of Marion at the top of this page.  She is sitting in the wagon, the mode of transportation around Sherman and Gaylordsville.  Soon after the picture, she married and her husband was an engineer who needed to travel around the state.  So, by the time he died, he was driving a car.  After he died and she took the job as the first Extention Nutritionist in Connecticut, in 1921 she was driving around the state to make presentations.   By the time she died, she & Ted had not only taken a boat to England to visit her sister in 1929, and then before she died she had traveled by plane to Sweden and then Japan.  To top it all off, she even watched the landing of man on the moon in 1969. Could she have even imagined the changes in transportation in her lifetime when sitting in that family wagon.

More details on the life of Marion Evans Dakin (11 February 1886-4 July 1974) are included in my article that was published in TIARA Newsletter, 2 September 2015, vol. 32, no 3.   TIARA (The Irish Ancestral Research Association) had a focus issue on Researching the Lives of Women.

The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-life-re-routed-thanks-to-1918-pandemic.html
©Erica Dakin  Voolich 2016

Clarice Evans & Anna Halberg, Life and Opportunities for Women Educators in the early 20th century

Clarice, as I remember her in my childhood a couple years before she died.

In my young-child-mind, my great Aunt Clarice was an older woman who I loved to play with on the two occasions when I visited my grandmother, Marion Evans Dakin, in Connecticut.  I have such fond memories of making a "play house" in the lilac bushes and painting at an easel she had set up in the backyard.  Clarice died tragically from a fall down the stairs on 7 July 1953.  Such a wonderful aunt.  

But, was she anything more than just a fun person, a great playmate for a chid to play with?

I've been researching Aunt Clarice.  She was born Clarice Theodora Evans on 21 April 1884 in Sherman, Connecticut, the oldest daughter of Charles Harold Evans and Caroline Matilda Helsten Evans. She wasn't even a month old, when her older brother died at 14 months.  She grew up with a younger sister, and a younger brother.  She graduated from Searles High School in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1902.  

The career opportunities for a woman in the early 1900s were limited.  She taught in the 1st district one-room school in Sherman (and according to her sister Marion was paid $246.50/year as its first teacher).  She went to the State Normal Training School, graduating in 1908.  She went on to graduate from Columbia Teachers college with a BS in 1920 and a MA in 1926.  From what I've been able to find, she taught in a variety of schools in various states, both as a teacher and as a specialist in industrial arts and then in teachers colleges.  Documenting all she did in education surprised me, I only knew of her final job at Jersey City State Teachers College, (1934-1950) in New Jersey and I knew of her teaching at the University of Chicago Lab School for a couple of years starting in 1918.  I am still learning about her career -- filling in the gaps.  She was someone who believed in progressive educational ideas -- children learning by doing.

One treasure I found in my grandmother's desk were letters from Clarice when she traveled to England 1928-1930.  Clarice was not wealthy -- she wasn't traveling abroad for two years on a "grand tour of Europe" -- No, Clarice was traveling to work at a new school, Dartington Hall in Totnes, Devon, England who had offered her £300 plus transportation, and room & board to come for a year.  Dartington Hall was interested in her knowledge of a new area of education -- industrial arts.

Clarice used her letters to her sister (Marion Evans Dakin), her aunt (Mary Helsten Pomery) and her nephew (Theodore Robert Dakin) as her journal of her trip.   And, Marion dutifully saved most of them for Clarice.    She wrote about her joys and frustrations and observations of daily life.  

Clarice wrote about life at Dartington, schools she visited, classes she taught, museums & tourist sites she visited, plays she attended, books she read, artists & authors she met (Darlington was the "in place to be" for well known artists, authors, etc.)-- you name it, she wrote about it.  She frequently mentioned being cold in the English climate and wearing the same suit for most occasions (actually close to daily).  She would write and ask her sister Marion to check out various job opportunities for her upon return -- before extending her stay for a second year.

Clarice was a professional woman who corresponded with other women who she knew from various jobs and her time studying at Columbia Teachers College.    In her letter of 18 January 1929 to her sister Marion, she writes:

Had such a nice letter from Anna Halberg.  Her board which is a congressional committee have made her school into a Teachers College.  They told her that they had never heard of a woman head of T.C. so they planned to get a man and she could stay on as dean.  Since they haven’t the man she is to do all the work.  She is a little sore.

I can only imagine how "sore" Anna is to give up her job to a man, just because she is a woman and the job title has changed!  And, while they look for that man who can do ... well, Anna should do all the work!

I got to wondering if I could find Anna.  This must be a school in Washington D.C. -- where else could Anna be working where a Congressional Committee is the board for a school?  So I did a bit of searching online and found "Anna D. Halberg, 1927 -1931" is the principal of the Wilson Normal School and Wilson Teachers College in Washington D.C.   Looking at Wilson Normal School and Wilson Teachers College in Presidents of historically black colleges and universities 1837-2013, Robert W. Woodruff Library. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=hbcupres

I found Anna D. Halberg and her predecessors were all female and "principals;" those who followed, were male and "presidents."

Humm, Anna is the head, doing all the work of the head, but the Congressmen have never heard of a woman as head of a teachers college, so they need to hire a man and 'she can stay on as a dean'.  

So, in the minds of male leaders, the women of the 1920s and 1930s could be teachers, principals or even teacher trainers in teacher colleges, but once the teacher training school became a "teacher college" and not just a "training school," the woman wasn't "qualified" to head the school.

Clarice at the art museum -- one of her favorite stops when visiting a city.

© Erica Dakin Voolich 2016

The link to this page is
http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2016/03/clarice-evans-anna-halberg-life-and.html