A Family Legend and the Rest of the Story

In the 4-generation picture above, the baby is my mother, and the eldest gentleman is William Richardson.

In my mother's autobiography, written when she was in 8th grade, she said:

"... Long ago the Richardsons were great landholders in the north of Ireland.  After awhile they came to Canada and settled in Quebec.  One son went to Belleville, Ontario where he met a Miss Bogart, whose family had come from New York because they had been loyal to the king.  After the revolution the king gave them a grant of land near Belleville.  Richardson married Miss Bogart.  They had a large family, the youngest of it was my grandfather.  He grew up in a boy’s boarding school and came to Oak Park.  They had two boys, Robert and Harold.  Harold never married.  Robert married Adelaide Harvey and they had two children, Alice and Madelon. ..."


I found her autobiography in her papers after she died in 2001.  When I asked her about the Richardsons before I knew about the autobiography, she said they came from Belfast Northern Ireland to Canada.  Then the family came to Chicago after the Great Chicago Fire (1871) to help with the rebuilding of Chicago.  She said her great grandfather William Richardson worked for the Bank of Nova Scotia.  So that was the family legend I was starting with:  Belfast, Ireland to Québec, Canada to Belleville, Ontario to Chicago, Illinois in 1871 in two generations.  As an adult, telling me about the family, my mother named six children, her grandfather was actually child number two, not six.

∞∞∞∞

I found the wedding of Robert Richardson and Sarah Allen, the parents of William Richardson in the Anglican Cathedral Holy Trinity Church in Québec on 25 May 1832.  William was born on 5 November 1835 in Québec City.  Robert was a cordwainer.  Sarah had four children before she died 28 January 1843, in Québec City.  Robert remarried, this time to Harriet Isabella Birch on 20 September 1843.  They had nine children.  Not all of his 13 children made it to adulthood.  In the 1851 and 1871 censuses, Robert says he was born in 1810 in Ireland.

I have not verified the "great landholders" or the "Northern Ireland." Robert did work as a cordwainer in Québec, he sounds like someone who is working for a living rather than managing an estate of some kind in Québec.  I have not found any passenger records bringing Robert to Québec -- so I don't know if he came as a young adult or as a child.  I haven't found any potential Richardson parents for him in Québec.  I have noticed there are many Richardsons in Northern Ireland, many of them named William Richardson and some own land.  Robert's first son was named William.  So, maybe that part of the story is true.  That is left to be investigated further.

∞∞∞∞∞∞

Now on to part two of the family legend:   Robert had a son William who went to Belleville, Ontario, married a Loyalist, and then moved to Chicago after the Fire working for a bank helping in the rebuilding effort.

In the 1851 census, William Richardson is living with his father and step-mother in Québec City and is working as an accountant.  In the 1861 census, William (25) is married to Minnie (19), he was born in Lower Canada, she was born in Upper Canada and they are living in Cobourg, Northumberland, Canada West.  He is working as a bank accountant.

William married Mary A C Bogart, daughter and granddaughter of United Empire Loyalists who came to Canada from New York.  I found a newspaper birth announcement in Belleville Ontario for only one of their six children and this became a clue:  William Jr. was born 16 February 1862, baptized in Cobourg.  The newspaper identifies William Jr.'s father as employed by the Bank of Montreal -- not the Bank of Nova Scotia.

In 2005, I wrote to the Archives of the Bank of Montreal, hoping that they might have some records on their employees.  They did!

"William Richardson
Entered service at Québec in June 1854, was a Teller at Belleville (ON) in 1857.  Between 1859 and 1860 he held several positions at HO (Montréal) before becoming an Agent in Cobourg, St. Mary's, Waterloo, Goderich (all branches in the Province of Ontario).  In 1869, W. Richardson is Manager of our St. John (NB) branch, and in 1871 he is the Manager of our Chicago branch.  He resigned in 1876 when in office at Chicago."

Also in that letter were copies of two newspaper clippings about the Bank, the first was from an 1943 Belleville paper telling about the history of the 100 years of the Bank of Montreal in Belleville.  The other article was from a corporate newspaper, FIRSTBANK NEWS, September/October 1981, page 4, titled "Bank's Chicago office opened in 1861," by Freeman Clowery, Archivist. The article was an interesting history linking banking and the development and growth of Chicago's trade and transportation center.  One particularly interesting paragraph:

     "At the time of the Great Chicago Fire, Bank of Montreal responded quickly, substantially supporting the disaster fund set up to aid sufferers.  Almost before the embers had cooled the Bank opened temporary quarters on Randolph Street, to help get commerce rolling again."

The article included a poor quality photo of the bank office after the Chicago Fire.  Fast forward to 2013.  I contacted the very nice archivist at the Bank of Montreal who I had corresponded with in 2005.  I inquired  whether they could scan the newspaper article so I could actually see a higher quality photo since it is supposed to be William Richardson in the doorway.  After a few inquiring e-mails back and forth, I received a scan of the original photograph, not the newspaper!

     "Manager William Richardson stands in the doorway of the 

Bank of Montreal's temporary premises in Chicago, opened

immediately following the Great Fire of 1871.  After the blaze it

contributed to the establishment of a fund for the relief of those

suffering from the disaster.  The Bank has operated in Chicago

since 1861."

Photo used with permission Bank of Montreal Archives.

Not only does this confirm part of my mother's story about her great grandfather coming to Chicago to help with the rebuilding after the Fire, but it clearly shows the surrounding devastation and challenges in opening up a office for any business in October 1871.


©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich
The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-family-legend-and-rest-of-story.html

Blind Man's Bluff .... Is that What this Scrapbook is Playing with Me?

An illustration in Ella Worthington's scrapbook
-- notice the game is called "Buff" instead of "Bluff" in the mid-1870s

Since initially posting about my family's scrapbook initially in A Scrapbook with a Surprise, little did I know how this would challenge me to find out more.  I had no idea that so much could be learned from what looked like a simple scrapbook full of period pictures.  I shared some of that adventure in Some Logic, Some Help, and "Ask a Librarian" or two ... Gives an Answer.   Well the adventure continues and, as the blindfolded person in the above picture, I feel as if the clues are all around me -- IF I could ONLY see them!

Here's my latest update on the adventure.

Ellen Gruber Garvey, the author of Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance, commented on my first blog post about how she had scrapbooks which were made with all sorts of books that folks might have found discarded or passed along.  In her own blog post about the release of her book, Garvey says:

For many, scrapbook making was a salvage art.  They turned the trash of the newspaper into treasured volumes.  Where did they get the volumes to work with? Not only did they remake newspaper clippings into books, but they remade old books into scrapbooks.  As one scrapbook maker whose family was busy pasting papers in 1873 explained, they were not "using up good printed books" as her visitor accuses her of doing.  Rather "there is nothing in them that we want, and so we propose putting in something, rather than have them stand idle.... Some of them are old school-books, not much worn, but out of date.  Almost every library has some useless books."

So folks were "reusing"  what they considered "useless" volumes!  I'm sure librarians cringe at the statement about the library having some useless books!

She mentioned to me that she had copies in her collection of Patent Books and Congressional Record books as scrapbooks. 

The government helped supply nineteenth-century scrapbook makers with useless books.  The hefty yearly volumes the Patent Office issued, included their agricultural reports, were especially popular with scrapbook makers.  They neatly fit two columns per page and looked well on the bookshelf, one scrapbook advice giver explained.  And since Congressmen (all men in those days) sent them out free to constituents, at least in part so their constituents would have that good-looking binding around as a reminder of the Congressman's favor, why not refill the dull contents one's own uses? Thousands did. 

Government reports and other thick volumes, such as outdated city directories -- the forerunners of phone books -- lent authority to clipping collections.  An African American janitor in Philadelphia used such directories to past up over a hundred massive volumes mainly concerning black life.  His collection drew admiring comments from newspaper reporters who were pleased to see their own newspaper writing presented in such a dignified form.

So, did the Worthington family consider their copy of the Congressional Record  a "useless book" or did they have a copy for  a reason?  When might they have acquired this Congressional Record?  Knowing when they acquired it might give a hint as to whether there was a reason for their having it beyond a gift from their Congressman who hoped that Robert would remember his largess come election day.

In order to answer the question of when did the Worthingtons acquire the book, I needed to find out when it became available to the public.  You might remember from my previous update, the copy of the Congressional Record that they owned and that Ella Worthington used for the scrapbook was volume 8, part 1, from the 45th Congress.  The date that was visible was 14 December, and it turns out that the year was 1878.  The visible page, 190, was early in the volume and so I wondered how many pages were actually in the volume and what date was the end.  The librarian at "Ask a Librarian" for the Library of Congress was helpful yet again.   It turns out that volume 8 had three parts:

Part 1, 2 December 1878 to 3 February 1879, pages 1 to 928

Part 2, 3 February 1879 to 24 February 1879, pages 928 to 1804

Part 3, 24 February 1879 to 3 March 1879, pages 1805 to 2410

The Library of Congress Librarian referred me to George D. Barnum, the Agency Historian for the Government Printing Office (GPO).  He was very patient with my questions.  He pointed out that

The Congressional Record is published daily when Congress is in session (it is printed the morning following the date on the face).  The bound volumes are issued sometime later, usually after the close of the session Congress.  Daily issues and the bound volumes have separate indexes, since the pagination changes when the bound volume is issued.

On first glance, then some time after 3 March 1879, the volume 8 of the Congressional Record for the 45th Congress would go to press.  How much after?  I can imagine it takes a while to prepare, but I figured I'd ask George Barnum.  

At the close of the session, the daily issues would have been re-set (all type was still set by hand at GPO until 1904) for the bound edition.  Unfortunately, I really don't have any information that would tell me in what sequence the volumes might have been printed, or how long it might have taken.  Bear in mind that "going to press" is one step among a great many (editing, indexing, setting type, proofreading presswork, binding) all (except editorial) done here.

Comparing the production of the Record in 1878 with today would be impossible, since virtually every variable from the production of the index to the composing of  type, method of printing, construction of the binding, or the press of completing the work has changed.  The period between the close of the session and the appearance of the the Bound Record volumes varies, depending on how quickly Congress finishes and approves the editing, how big the individual issues are, how long the indexing takes, and what other work is in the plant, etc.  I believe that the lag is about 18 months presently.

George Barnum suggested that I might check with one of the Depository Libraries here to see what their acquisition date is for their copy of this volume.  I did check with Connie Reik, a wonderful genealogist and librarian and Government Publications Coordinator at Tisch Library, Tufts University.  They received the volume in 1898, but they weren't a Depository Library in 1879.  I need to check at an earlier Depository Library to get a sense of when it was distributed to the public.

It is definitely getting later and later for the actual acquisition of this volume of the Congressional Record by the Worthington family.  So, what I thought at first about what Robert was doing as a job back in the early 1870s may not be relevant to the question of why/how they acquired this.  He might very well have acquired this book when he was working as the Secretary to the Real Estate Board of the Chicago Board of Trade.

I shared my two previous blog posts about this scrapbook with George Barnum and he added:

Very interesting post.  Let me add a little information for you.  In those days, it was not at all uncommon for members of Congress to give all manner of publications away to their constituents, and the large numbers authorized in those days reflect that.  Congress authorized 7500 copies of the bound Record for the 45th Congress 3rd session, which amounted to 30,000 actual pieces (they were, according to our annual report, 4 vols. for that session), and practically all of those went to the House and Senate folding rooms for distribution to members.  Members are more circumspect these days, but you wouldn't have had to work too hard to get a copy of the Constitution (printed at GPO) out of one of your Congressional delegation.   In earlier days the popular ones were the annual Agricultural report (later the Yearbook of Agriculture), a big tome called Special Report on Diseases of the Horse that went through a bunch of editions and, obviously, the Record.

So my part 1 of volume 8 was one of 7500 printed, many of which were for distribution to constituents.  Not too rare, but probably one of the few decorated with only gorgeous pictures from Demorest's Monthly Magazine from 1876 to 1882.

One of the side effects of this research is that I am reading Ellen Gruber Garvey's book, Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance.  People in the 19th century created scrapbooks to save the information that they had read and to be able to re-read and to share with others.  Whole families might scrapbook -- each member having his/her own.  I know Robert Worthington's two scrapbooks are very different from this book with all of it's gorgeous illustrations.  His started with news clippings of the assassination of Lincoln and then are various articles on things that interested him along with obituaries for family, colleagues at work and some friends. 

George Barnum, Agency Historian/Congressional Relations Specialist, Office of Congressional Relations, added one final thought:

This phenomenon of using books (and it seems to have been especially common for government documents) as the basis for scrapbooks has quite a history.  Thomas Jefferson did it.  http://americanhistory.si.edu/jeffersonbible/

I think because people got these government documents for nothing from members, they probably had a particular allure.

I remember hearing years ago that Thomas Jefferson "wrote" his own version of the Bible, by cutting and pasting passages from the Bible that he liked and enjoyed.  When I first heard that story, cutting up a Bible sounded almost sacreligious.  Giving it some thought now, Jefferson's Bible was in essence a scrapbook!

©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

The link for this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/04/blind-mans-bluff-is-that-what-this.html

Some Logic, Some Help, and "Ask a Librarian" or two .... Gives an Answer

In A Scrapbook with a Surprise and a Question, I shared pictures from my Ella Worthington scrapbook, both the beautiful prints from Demorest's Monthly Magazine

and the discovery that the scrapbook was made from a copy of the Congressional Record - House based on the one side of one page that was partially unglued.

I had wondered in the last post about why Ella Cobb Worthington had ended up with a copy of the Congressional Record to make into a scrapbook.  Some folks e-mailed me suggestions and posted on FaceBook and on my Blog and in e-mails to me.  I'll come back to that later in another post.

Elnora Esther (Ella) Cobb Worthington
with her great granddaughter Alice Richardson

Another couple of questions arose:
•How prevalent were Congressional Records outside of official depositories and possibly in middle class homes?
•Which copy of the Congressional Record is this?

Which copy of the Congressional Record is this?   When writing the first blog post on this scrapbook, my initial thought was to assume that it was after 1873, since the footnote on the bottom of the page refers to an law passed on 24 May 1873 concerning marine insurance companies.  And to assume it was before 1876 since that is the earliest date from a picture glued into the book.  Before writing the original story, I tried searching online for a copy of the Congressional Record - House.  I checked and didn't find the Congressional Record for the House, only for the Senate for 1873-1874.   I had figured I would continue searching, year by year, if they were online.

One of my readers, Madaleine Laird, is the author of the KinfoLit blog was told about my blogpost and question by Gena Philibert-Ortega.
Madaleine contacted me and suggested that I could narrow the actual year of the Congressional Record by reading the information on the page and then checking out the congressmen mentioned using a website which identifies members of congress, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.  I had not known about that webpage and the searching on it was helpful in narrowing down the possible year.

Looking at the part of page 190 which was visible, I can see the names of congressmen:
Mr. WILLIS, Mr. FRYE, Mr. POTTER.   Going to the Biographical Directory site, there were multiple men named Willis, Frye and Potter in the US House over the years.  I narrowed it down to:
•WILLIS, Benjamin Albertson (D), NY 1875-78
•FRYE, William Pierce (R), ME, 1871-1880
•POTTER, Clarkson Nott (D), NY, 1869-1874, 1877-1878
The earliest year for all three is 1875, I figured that was my starting point, except I initially hadn't noticed that POTTER wasn't there during the 1875-1876.

However, my helpful reader Madaleine Laird, the KinfoLit blogger, noticed another name that I had missed because he wasn't a speaker but someone mentioned, mid-paragraph:  Mr. CONGER.
So, now adding
•CONGER, Omar Dwight (R), 1869-1880.

Putting this altogether gives us the 45th congress, 1877-1878 as the only place to look for my copy of the Congressional Record-House which is so delightfully decorated with pictures from the Demorest's Monthly Magazine.

Unfortunately, that issue of the Congressional Record is not online.  So I decided to Ask a Librarian online -- I sent my blog post, along with my question and my predicted session of congress.  I got an automated reply that they would get back to me with in 5 business days.  Less than 24 hours later a wonderful librarian sent me scan of pages 190 and 191, volume 8, Saturday, 14 December 1878 (45th Congress, 3rd Session).  Since I couldn't use those scans online [from a commercial site], my friend Connie Reik, a wonderful genealogist and librarian and Government Publications Coordinator at Tisch Library, Tufts University, located and scanned the copies for me shown here.

The above page matches the page partially visible from Ella's scrapbook.  The next page in the book, shown below gives the year: 1878.

So my assumption that the issue of the Congressional Record had to be earlier than the first pictures was incorrect.

I guess Ella Cobb Worthington had some pictures she had saved and then put them together when she started her scrapbook.

Elnora Esther (Ella) Cobb Worthington with her grandson
Robert Worthington (Bobbie) Richardson

©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

The link to this page is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/03/some-logic-some-help-and-ask-librarian.html

A Scrapbook with a Surprise, and a Question

A few years before my mother died, she took me upstairs to a chest where she had a couple quilts and some scrapbooks.  Two of the scrapbooks belonged to Robert Searing Worthington.  Mother said the other scrapbook belonged to Robert's daughter, Martha Elnora Worthington Richardson.  I suspect that this scrapbook belonged to Robert's wife, Mattie's mother, Elnora Esther (Ella) Cobb Worthington (1839 - 1923).

The scrapbook is full of illustrations that were originally published in the woman's magazine, Demorest's Monthly Magazine dating from 1876 to 1882.  Since Martha was born in 1865, I suspect her mother, Ella, kept the scrapbook because Mattie would have been age 11 when she was first saving pictures from a woman's magazine that included articles, prints, and paper dress patterns.  It turns out that the Demorests developed a business selling dress patterns, magazines and sewing machines among other things.

A few illustrations were in color.

There was a big surprise about this scrapbook that I accidentally discovered as I looked through the various pictures.  One picture became unglued over time.  I discovered this was not a regular blank book meant to be a scrapbook.  Instead of blank pages with pictures glued onto each one, this is what I saw:

The Congressional Record?!  YES, THE Congressional Record for the House.  I'm not sure which year, but this unglued page is December 14, the year would be on the top of the right hand page and all of those pages are securely glued down.  The year was probably in the about 1874 or 1875 since the pictures which have dates start in 1876 and the footnote on this page refers back to something in 1873.

For the curious about the business of the day in Washington then here is more of this page:

I got to wondering why the cover (above) didn't identify the book as the Congressional Record?  Was that flower strategically placed on the cover?  I looked at the binding more carefully and realized that the three lighter colored stripes of tan were actually tape, probably strategically located over the book title!

The book weighs 7 3/4 pounds.  The pages are quite thick.  Looking carefully at the book I and realized how she had constructed this.




For each page used front and back with pictures glued on, there were a bunch of pages equal in thickness cut out.  Then a page of tissue was glued in, using one of the cut out pages to glue to, before another page of pictures.

The page on the right has the print from the magazine, there is a page of issue paper inserted.  If you look closely towards the bottom of the page on the left,  you can see the stumps of the cut out pages.

So now my question:  Why would Ella Cobb Worthington own a copy of the Congressional Record?

In 1876, Ella and Robert Worthington were living in Chicago, and according to the Lakeside annual directory for the City of Chicago, he was a cashier.  Before the Chicago Fire, Robert worked for Gibson, Chase & Company (in freight forwarding).  After the fire, Gibson, Chase goes out of existence and Robert goes to work for J.N. & S.E. Hurlbut, commission merchants.  At some point, Robert goes to work for the Chicago Board of Trade Real Estate Committee, as the Secretary and is involved with the building of the new board of trade building which opened in 1885.  About 1877, they move to "the country," Oak Park.  Robert's scrapbook was full of articles from the newspaper that he found interesting, anything on Thackery & Dickens and obituaries of friends and family.

None of this points in my mind to a family who would have bought a copy of the Congressional Record -- not exactly a casual reading book at 2 1/2 inches thick (and now 7 3/4 pounds).

Do my readers have any idea?  Please post if you do!

The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-scrapbook-with-surprise-and-question.html
©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

"Remember the women!"

"Remember the women!" is the famous quote of Abigail Adams to her husband John when he was off setting up the new government for the country.    I don't have any women ancestors who were writing the constitution (there weren't any), but it important for us to "remember the women" in our own family -- even if this is a different interpretation of her phrase!  So today's post is about my mother's grandmother, Martha Elnora Worthington Richardson, a.k.a. Nora, a.k.a. Mattie.  My mother had fond memories of living first upstairs from, and then next door to, her grandparents.

∞π∞π∞π∞π∞

Martha Elnora WORTHINGTON was born in Chicago, 17 November 1865, daughter of Robert Searing WORTHINGTON (1830-1903) and Elnora Esther COBB (1839-1923). Her father Robert Worthington had come to Chicago in 1855 from the family farm in Wisconsin and taken a job as a clerk.  Her mother Elnora Cobb had come from Madison, New York with her parents either late in 1851 or early in 1852.  They married 12 February 1861 and had one child, Mattie.

Her father kept a scrapbook starting in 1865 (see the young man and the President, for an example).  Here is the back cover of his first volume.  The top article is from 5 August 1870 and the ad below is dated "4 Aug 1870."  I suspect these events, which I have transcribed, are linked.

LOST AND FOUND.
LOST -- LAST EVENING, FROM MY BUGGY,
near Union Park Congregational Church, an envel-
ope containing papers and currency.  The finder will
be rewarded by leaving the same at 574 Washington-st,
or at the office of Gibson, Chase & Co., 88 Market-st.
R.S.WORTHINGTON.
[hand written date of Aug. 6 1870]

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1870,
  A little daughter of Robert S. Worth-
inton, Esq., had a providential escape
from death, on Wednesday evening. Mr.
W. was unhitching the horse before his
residence, No. 574 West Washington
street his daughter begin in the carriage,
when the animal ran away.  In turning a
corner the little girl was thrown out of the
vehicle upon a pile of stones, and but for a 
cushion falling under her, which was liter-
ally cut to pieces, she must have been
killed.  She received but a couple of
slight wounds on the head.


No seat-belts and child "car"seats in 1870!  It was fortuitous, our little Mattie survived her run-away-horse-wagon ride.

∞π∞π∞π∞π∞

After the Chicago Fire, Mattie's parents decided to build a home out in "the country" at the end of the train line in Oak Park.  There she met Harry Bogart Richardson who had come to Chicago from Belleville, Ontario with his family, after the Chicago Fire as part of the rebuilding effort.

Martha Elnora married Harry on 5 December 1889 in Oak Park, Illinois.  When they married, her  parents built a house next door for them to live, affectionally known as "Rotten Manor."  They had two sons, Robert (Bobbie) Worthington Richardson (1890-1951) and Harold Bogart Richardson (1894-1935) who grew up next door to their Worthington grandparents.  And when her mother's parents (Nathan and Elnora Esther Cobb) were elderly, they lived and died there too.  This extended to the next generation when my mother, Alice, and her sister Madelon & their parents moved into Rotten Manor when she was in grade school.  Her father was Bobbie Richardson and her mother was Adelaide Copeland Harvey (Grawa).

One can only imagine the usual ups and downs of childhood in the upstairs apartment in Rotten Manor with two girls and a bulldog named Mark that my mother had brought home from the schoolyard.  The vet cleaned it up and by it's license traced it back to it's original owner in Springfield, Iowa (the dog had jumped out of their car and run away when they were on a trip).  The old owners allowed the new family to keep the dog.

The envelop on the left is addressed:
For
Alice Jell Richardson, Girl Skoot.
From The Society Eddytor
of THE ROTTEN MANOR BULLYTIN.

Inside was the following news bulletin!

******JUST REVEELED ******

HORRABLE KRIME KOMMITTED ON WISKONSIN AVENOO

OAK PARK

A fearse Bull Dog lokated at 227 Wiskinsin Avenoo atacked a Pair

of Big Black Mules at that adres and litrly toad them to Shreds,

showing no Mersy.  After Komiting this Turrable Deed the Culprit

Slank away to a Nayboaring House where he lay on the Floor Lick-

ing his Pants-no- Panting his Chops-no-I shud say Licking his

Chops and Breething in Short Pants as if no thing Sinister had

O-curred.

When the Owner of the Big Black Mules diskovered the Holly Cost

and saw the Entrayls of her Butefull Big Black Mules strued on

the Ground she Uttered a Peersing Shreek and Dashed next Door

were her Muther was visitin.  Casting her Short Frales Little

Figger on the Divan she Wrung her Hands and Skreemed threw her

Tears and Nose "Muther, Mark has Etten my Butefull Big Black Mules".

Her Muther, in a low Modulated Voice as usual, sed "My darling

Dotter you shud be more cairfull with youre Properte and other Im-

pedymenta speshly Big Mules.  They shud have Lockedup in a Box

Stawl or something.  Upon herring these Wurds the Owner of the

Big Black Mules in a Frensy shouted ( as tho her Muther was Deef)

"I dont Cair", axsent on the Cair, "Those Mules are Runned".

The Culprit, foaming at the Mouth utherwise Chops, lept on the

Owner of the Big Black Mules, but when she Shouted in a Hi Shril

Voice "No, No, you Notty Dog" he turned Tale and Slank or Slunk, I
forget which, to a Sitting Posishun on top of a Radyater and looked
out of the Windo as if he had not shortly Purpetrated a Holly Cost.
The Grandfawther of the Owner of the Big Black Mules who waz wurkin
on a X wurd puzzel was shocked to heer of the Catsafterme ansd sed
"Dogonit I can't think of a Sinnynim for Hollycost in three letters
begining with A and ending with Z"
Granmuther, her feet on the Radyater, remarked in a Strong Di-ossy-
sen Suprana "This is Possytively Harrying, I dont supose you will be
abel to find as Large or as Butefull a teem of Mules in the Loup
or outside of it".
Meenwile the Owner of the Big Butefull Black Mules retreated to
her Home folowed by the Culprit at Heal.
Wen the Polees herd of this Turrible Kalamity they took no intrust
on lerning from an inosent bistander that the Owner of the Big
Black Mules was alsow a part Owner in the Culprit.  Thasall.

February 1929 [handwritten]

Only one press release survived.
This press release must have been special to the girl whose dog chewed up her beautiful black mules -- once she calmed down.  It was found in her personal papers after she died in 2001, seventy-two years later.


For those not in the Chicago area, "the Loop" is the downtown shopping area; and in this case, the grandfather who was told "This is Possytively Harrying" was named Harry.


©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/03/remember-women.html

Ancestral Power Worthy!

When working on an upcoming post on my great grandmother Martha Elnora Richardson Worthington (1865 - 1939), I came across these his and her bookplates.

My first reaction was, isn't that nice, "his" and "her" bookplates.  Hers even came with her own name, Nora Worthington Richardson, and not "Mrs H B Richardson" as one might expect for the early 1900s.  The lower right hand corner has 1917, possibly the year they were printed or maybe the order/re-order number for the printer.

I found something odd on each, just above her name is "HBR," his initials.  Above his name is "Jr." and he wasn't a "Jr."

In the back of the scene on each is a "crest" with a Latin inscription.
Thanks to Googletranslate, I know what they say.

Hers:  "Virtute dignus avorm" = "ancestral power worthy"
His: "virtute acquirtur honos" = "virtues honor"

I agree, Martha Elnora Worthington Richardson is ancestral power worthy!

©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich
The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/03/ancestral-power-worthy.html

A Young Man Runs up to the President-elect ....

The President-elect of the United States travels to Chicago after the election, a  young man runs up to him ...
So what do you think happened to that  30-year-old man who no one knew who he was when he approached the President?

Did the president's body guards, a.k.a. the Secret Service, immediately arrest him?

Actually if it were our current President, the young man might not have gotten into the the Tremont House Hotel where the President-elect was staying or any where near the parlor of the hotel where the future President was meeting with his Vice President-elect. But this didn't occur when our last president from Illinois was elected in 2008, but rather when our first President from Illinois was elected in November 1860.

That young man was Robert S Worthington, my great great grandfather.  He moved to Chicago from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin in 1855 at age 25.  In 1855, he is listed in a Chicago directory as a clerk for American Transportation Co.; in 1859, as a cashier.  In the 1860 Census in Chicago, he is listed as a bookkeeper and living in a resident hotel.  Definitely not a political wheeler-dealer in the world of Chicago and national politics who would be expected to be meeting with the soon-to-be sworn in president of the United States.

πππππππππππππππ

Fast forward 140 years, to 2001, when my mother died and I inherited Robert's two scrapbooks.  They are chocked full of newspaper clippings, page after page, corner to corner.  There are interesting articles and obituaries.  I've actually spent time over the years working on making sure I've identified all the obituaries related to the family (some actually led to solving some genealogical problems); and when a genea-friend came to visit, we scanned and she posted information from the others on Find-a-Grave so that people seeking might find the information.

Inside the front cover of Robert S Worthington's scrapbook 

-- notice he even used the lightweight pages that were not 

meant for gluing stuff on to them.

Looking closer at the first page:

It is an article describing the assassination of the President and Secretary of State, "THE PRESIDENT EXPIRED THIS MORNING" and Robert has added the year 1865 to the page.  This is April 1865, just four and a half years after Lincoln was elected the first time, now he was dead.

Our young man, a month shy of 35, has started his scrapbook with the assassination of the President.  By now Robert is growing up.  He is married, and his wife Elnora is expecting a baby in November.  He works for the freight-fowarding company of Gibson, Chase & Co. and will do so until it goes out of business after the Chicago Fire when he re-invents himself again.

I had assumed that the enormity of the assassination of the president is what spurred him to start the scrapbook, not realizing that he, Robert, a clerk/cashier had actually met the president on that fateful day in 1860, just over four years before.

What I learned a couple of years ago, was that thirty years after Robert's encounter with the President-elect, he told someone the story and it made it into the local paper.  By then he was no longer a clerk/cashier in a freight-forwarding business, but rather the assistant secretary to the Chicago Board of Trade who had supervised the construction of the new building after the Chicago Fire. He worked as the Secretary for the Real Estate Board for the Board of Trade and basically seemed to be a "clerk of the works" managing the details of the construction [finished in 1885].

So, what did happen to 30-year-old Robert when he ran up to President-elect Lincoln back in 1860?

He got Lincoln's autograph!  No one questioned Robert's being there.  My how have times changed.
If someone had run up to Obama in a Chicago hotel, he probably would have been hauled off to jail--definitely not given an autograph.

So, do I have that autograph.  Nope, no idea what happened to that black book.  Never even knew about it until I read it in the paper.  Besides, we all know that everything we read in the paper is correct.



The link for this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-young-man-runs-up-to-president-elect.html

©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

I Remember Grawa

Adelaide, age 3 (earliest picture I have)

When I was growing up, one grandmother lived with us all the time, the other for 6 months of the year.  I don't think I really appreciated all that they did -- for starters, they took care of all four of my parents' children in an era when mothers were expected to be home.  No lunchroom at school: kids had an hour and a quarter to walk home, eat, and return for the afternoon.   She was there to nurture us and feed us every day, 24-7.

∞∞∞∞∞

Adelaide Copeland Harvey was born 3 a.m., 4 November 1893 in Lake Mills, Jefferson County, Wisconsin.  Her birth certificate lists her name as "Miss Harvey" daughter of Joe Harvey and Alice Copeland and siblings of "Riley, Cathy and Copeland."  The doctor recorded the birth the same day but no one ever went back and filled in the name.   She told me she was so sickly as a baby that she was carried around on a pillow -- maybe no one thought when she did live, to go back and tell the town clerk that she had a first name.

Luckily that wasn't as much a problem as I thought it might be when I tried years later to correct her death certificate.  Adelaide H Richardson died 6 August 1971 in Houston, Harris County, Texas, at age 87.  Only, a bit of arithmetic shows that she wasn't 87 but really only 77.  I decided that I should tell the folks in the State of Vital Records office that her death certificate was incorrect.  It took a number of months with notarized letters back and forth, copies of her birth certificate and certificates identifying her parents to finally get her death certificate amended.  Now, if you order a copy, at the bottom, is the "AMENDMENT TO CERTIFICATE OF DEATH" listing her mother's name as "Alice Copeland" instead of "Alice (don't know)" and date of birth as November 4, 1893" instead of "1883" --- type of document: "affidavit of granddaughter..." not mentioning any of the vital records I had sent.

So who was this Adelaide Harvey who married Robert W Richardson?  Definitely more than just someone who was 77 when she died from pneumonia, carcinoma of the lung, with contributing conditions of chronic bronchitis and asthma and carcinoma of the face.  To me, she was "Grawa," the name I gave her when I first tried talking.  She was the person who would always have treats for us children at lunch such as a homemake cake with butter cream frosting or send one of us out to buy one package of Paul Malls for her along with Hersey with almonds or Nutty buddies for everyone -- depending upon the season.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Adelaide grew up the youngest of 4 children.  Her early years were near relatives in Wisconsin.  One day her aunt, Isabel Harvey Wegemann was minding her while making angel food cakes for the church supper.  Addie watched as her aunt carefully separated a dozen egg whites for each cake.  This became an all-day project as Isabel baked a dozen angel food cakes, all for the church supper -- no tasting!  Addie was devastated that she could not even have a little taste.  At the end of the day, Isabel made one more angel food cake for Addie to take home for dinner.  Every year thereafter, her sister Katherine made her an angel food cake for her birthday.  In later years, Auntie Kath would mail an angel food cake and we would look forward to the treat of eating of that very special cake.  It always looked somewhat battered and mishapened, but oh did it taste good.
[Katherine Harvey Rhodes, died 1964]
[Stories told to me both by Adelaide and by my mother]

Her family moved from Lake Mills, to Madison Wisconsin so two of her siblings could go to college.  Her mother ran a boarding house nearby while Kath and Riley attended the University of Wisconsin.  Then her family moved to Oak Park, Illinois.  After graduating from Oak Park High School, she married Robert Worthington Richardson on 15 January 1916.

This gorgeous wedding photo belies some of her challenges ahead.  When her second daughter was born, her mother moved in to help take care of the children and then died suddenly.  After her mother's death, depression set in and she was sent to the Kellog Institute in Battle Creek where they thought grains and special diet could cure many ills.  Her two daughters were cared for by her brothers and their wives while she was gone.  There was a comedy movie made about this health sanitarium, "On the Road to Wellville."  Years later, whenever we had popcorn, she always ate hers with milk on it -- "It's a cereal," she'd explain.  

She had asthma all her life, I remember her sitting on the side of her bed and wheezing and using her atomizer.  She developed sores all over her face as a young adult.  She saw doctors who never figured out what caused it, one even tried treating it with x-rays.  It think the sores all over her face probably itched.  Sometimes, she'd sit on the side of her bed and clap her two hands on her cheeks of her face.  It wasn't until the early 1950s that someone figured out that those sores were a staph infection, and they responded to treatment.

As a young mother, she developed cataracts in both eyes and ended up having surgery twice.  This was in the days when the patient couldn't move her head for a couple of weeks and would lie in bed with her head sandbagged in place.  Her first surgery was semi-successful, the second was a failure.  So, she lost the sight in one eye from an allergic reaction to the medication.  Not only did she lose her sight, but her brown eye turned blue.   

We grew up, knowing Grawa had different colored eyes and didn't see too well with her "good eye."  I didn't stop her from preparing meals, but it did lead to many things dropped.  Whenever she would drop something, she would yell "Nothing fell!"  If my mother was home, she would send a child to "see what nothing is this time."  We had a high-breakage rate for dishes dropped by Grawa, and so the first Christmas when Corning had "unbreakable" dishes, that was the family Christmas present.  My slightly unusual father, loved the fact that Corning would replace any dishes that broke.  When visitors came to our house, Dad loved to ask if they had seen these new unbreakable plates before and he would then "frisbee-toss" a plate to the usually horrified startled guest.

One really cold winter night, I was sitting in the living room and there was a loud crash in the kitchen, "Nothing fell!"  I went out to find Grawa had somehow dropped a gallon of root beer syrup [a Christmas gift from my best friend].  The glass jug hit the back edge of the washing machine, broke and there was root beer syrup going down the wall in the pantry behind and under the machine. While I spent the evening trying to clean it up [we eventually had to disconnect and move the machine to clean it up], my brother was in the basement with my father trying to thaw the frozen water pipes.  Dad came up for a break.  My brother came up and joyfully announced the pipes were dripping.  "If they're dripping, they're leaking and they're broken!"  Dad went downstairs to find root beer syrup leaking through the pantry floor into the basement.

Later in life, Grawa decided to get a glass eye that would cover her blue eye.  Each night Grawa would take her teeth out and put them on the dresser and then take out her eye and put it in an eye cup next to the teeth.  My youngest sister always assumed that's what everyone's grandmother did.  When she put the eye back in, it didn't always line up "just right" and she would need us kids to tell her if she appeared to be looking at the ceiling with one eye.  

Early Sunday morning before Christmas 1963, Grawa got up to go to the bathroom and couldn't seem to focus as well with her "good eye."  She woke my mother, "Alice, I can't decide if the house is on fire or if I can't focus" -- I heard my mother yell -- "Ted, wake up, the house is on fire!"  Once outside, my mother was checking to see that everyone was there -- the only one missing was my father. When she asked a fireman if he had seen her husband he replied, "Is he the stark-naked guy inside telling us how to fight the fire?"  

The fire chief had told us that the fire had smoldered all night, possibly started by something as simple as a mouse running in the walls--static electricity.  It started in the wall below the fire-break between the basement and kitchen.  It had just broken through the wall into the kitchen and was filling the house with smoke when Grawa woke us.  The chief said if we had slept another 10 minutes, no one would have gotten out.  

Thank you Grawa for saving our lives!

The grandmothers at our wedding reception:  Helen Markovich (Nona),
Adelaide Richardson (Grawa), Marion Dakin (Nana).  Before we left, I
tossed my bouquet and Grawa caught it.  She was always hopeful to remarry.
As kids we teased Grawa that when a workman left a ladder against the house
near her bedroom, it was so that she could elope with Mr. Reeves, the widower
who lived down the street!  When we got in the car to drive away after the
reception, Nana was in the back seat asking for a ride to where she was staying.

The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/02/i-remember-grawa.html

©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

"Photoshop" Early 1900's Style

Edward Olmstead and his wife Grace Alice Evans were married in 1892 and five years later started their family.   They had a family portrait taken after their four children were born:

Left to right are Charles Allen, Edward (Ed, father), Helen Elizabeth, Alice Sarah, Grace Alice (mother), Wilber Evans (Bill).

Fast forward, seven years after Alice was born, they had another child, Grace Louise.  So, how do you solve the problem of that wonderful family photo  hanging on the wall being incomplete?
Well, you "photoshop it" early 1900's style.

Pretty good job of photoshopping for an amateur long before computers, wasn't it?!
Except for Grace looking forward instead of at the photographer off to stage right, whoever did the cutting and pasting of the picture did a nice job of editing the family portrait, even lining up the shadows nicely.

Years later, one of Ed and Grace Olmstead's grandsons was showing me a copy of this picture and he mentioned that Grace Louise, the daughter, wasn't originally there and that he had a copy of that original.

Well, the scans of the two photographs arrived yesterday and with his generous permission, I am sharing them here.

Now, in our updated family portrait, left to right, we have:
Charles Allen Olmstead (1901-?), Grace Louise Olmstead (1909-1995), Edward Olmstead (1868-1959), Helen Elizabeth Olmstead (1899-1979), Alice Sarah Olmstead (1902-1996), Grace Alice Evans Olmstead (1868), Wilber Evans Olmstead (1897-1972)




The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/01/photoshop-early-1900s-style.html
©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

My Regrets and Redemption Lead to a Present for my Family

I am sure that all good family historians have moments that they regret ... I wish I knew what questions to have asked my grandmother, Nana, Marian Evans Dakin, before she died in 1974.  As a result of not knowing ANYTHING about the DAKIN family back then, my work was extensive to piece together the story. I only knew my grandfather's name (he died when my father was 2 years old) and that he had died in the 1918 flu pandemic, along with his son and mother-in-law in less than one week.

When I was in high school, Nana brought some small brownish pictures of something [she said it was a power plant that her husband Rob worked on] to share one year when she came for her annual visit.  Of course, I was the uninterested teenager.  I'm not sure anyone else in my family was much interested either.  I think she brought them out just once during her annual six-month visit.

Years later, I was a 20-something who would drive down to visit her in Connecticut.  I helped her go through various things in her house, and made note of who she wanted them to go to and what things were.  Of course, we didn't find EVERYTHING since there still were surprises when I was her executrix cleaning out her home.  By then, I had enough sense to start asking some questions about the family -- clearly not all of the ones I should have, but I made a start.  On one visit, I asked her about those pictures of the power plant.  "Of, those, I gave them to the power company."

I contacted the power company and was told they did not know where the pictures were, but they did share some information on the power plant which helped me to understand how it worked along with some of the history of the Bulls Bridge Power Plant in Gaylordsville, Connecticut.

What I never asked my grandmother was the "rest of the story" which turned out to be quite interesting.
This year's Christmas present for my family is what I learned about this story AND about the DAKIN family.

In my grandmother's desk, when she died, was one of the surprises for this executrix -- the negatives for the pictures my grandfather, Rob Dakin took of the building of the addition to the power plant.  This book, Bulls Bridge:  The Story of a dreamer, a family farmer, a camera and the building of a power plant, is the result of much research.  It is not only the story of the power plant but includes information on the DAKIN family line, all the way back to Thomas Dakin, the immigrant settler in Concord, Massachusetts by 1652.

The "Readers Digest" version of the story of the power plant is about a politician with a dream to harness the Housatonic River, a farmer who sells a convoluted part of his farm for the canal to be dug right across the fields and past his house, a farm boy who watches the canal and power plant emerge, and then, the power plant is finished and does NOT bring any power to the surrounding neighborhood!  The high school boy, goes off to college (first in family), comes back as an assistant engineer and works on the addition to the plan which brings power to the neighborhood and documents it all with his camera. His pictures from 1912 are included in the book.

I learned a lot about my ancestors as people as I researched this book -- this was not a compilation of just dates.  Oh how I wish I had the sense to talk to my grandmother about this before she died in 1974.

The link for this post is: http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-regrets-and-redemption-lead-to.html
©2013, Erica Dakin Voolich

Oh, What a Difference a Couple Hundred Years Make! ... The Sequel

Thomas was born “at Concord,MA 29 March 1723 and m. 1st before 10 3rd month 1744 (OS), prob. in Philips, Lydia, dau. of Thomas and Mercy (Coggeshall) Fish.  Lydia Fish was b. 10 Nov. 1725 and came to Beekman with her father and brothers Preserved and John Fish. [The Fish Family 37-8]

  Timothy came to Quaker Hill where he was taxed from Feb. 1744/5 through Feb. 1762 but we have not found h im taxed after that.  The will of Reuben Peckham written 19 July 1770 mentions “friend Ruth Dakin, dau. of Timothy Dakin of New Fairfield, Ct.” which would indicate that he had gone there [WN-YHS  VIII:43].  Timothy was assessed in Beekman in 1744/5 at £1 and the same in 1746/7, 1753 and June 1758.

   He was a customer at the Merrit store from 1767 on and traded with his son Thomas, Alexander Stewart, Amos Osborn, Ebenezer Hoag, Elihu Russell,  Joshua Sherman, Preserved Dakin, Robert Reynolds and Thomas Douglas.  [DCSB II: 56;; B:34; C:23; D: 20; E:10; etc.].

   He was mentioned on a road of 10 Oct. 1758 on a lot in the Oblong and also in the 1761 Oblong Quaker list.  [SBP 1:348, 113].  He was on the list of Quakers who enrolled 22 April 1755 and had to give a horse in 1757 and a steer and a heifer worth £9 in 1759 for not training in the Colonial militia.  [SBP 1:382, 383].  A deed of 1 April 1790, concerns land in lots 29 and 30 in the Oblong and mentions land Josiah Akin bought of Timothy Dakin [D 11:144].  This would be quite close to the Oblong Meeting House and in fact the Oblong quit rent list for 1761 has his name on a farm in lot 30, the same lot the Meeting House was in.  His farm was 48 acres and his quit rent was £2/2/1.  (His name was crossed out in this record, possibly because Akin had bought it by 1761).  He was very active in the Oblong Meteing and his name is on many pages of the Meeting’s records.  [FHL MF 17315, 1 through 527].

   In 1790 a Timothy Dakin was 3-1-3 in Pawling (listing between Ezra Sherman and William Russel) and in 1800 he was 1-1-0-0-1 and 1-0-0-0-1 between David Denton and Nathaniel Worden.  In 1799 Timothy Dakin of Pawling was assessed on a house and farm worth $423.75 and personal property valued at $40.  His ch. were  prob. all b. Pawling.  Lydia Dakin died on Saturday the 6th day of June at 9 o’clock AM 1812.  [PR 42].  She was probably the widow Dakin noted as a boundary in May 1810 in a mortgage on land in Pawling. [M 15: 494]”
********

The Oblong, Quaker Hill: "The eastern side of the country had been settled by Presbyterians from  Connecticut, and the western side along the Hudson River by the Dutch.   The feeling between them was far from friendly.  Their disputes had been  very bitter, and Rye and Bedfore had revolted from New York's  jurisdiction.  Their whipping posts stood ready for the punishment of any  from the river settlements who committed even slight offenses within  their limits.  As these two peoples naturally repelled each other they  had left a strip of land, comparatively unoccupied, between them... Into  and through this strip of land the Quaker stream flowed. ..."  [from  Quaker Hill by Warren H Wilson]

In April 1755, Timothy was one of the thirty-eight Quakers in Oblong  who claimed exemption from military duty.  His occupation listed on the  application is farmer. In 1779, a year after Lydia died, all the slaves had been freed on  Quaker Hill.  This was preceded by a querie at New York Yearly Meeting  (May 30, 1767) brought by Oblong Monthly Meeting:  "It is not consistant  with Christianity to buy and sell our Fellowmen for Slaves during their  Lives, and their Posterities after them, then whether it is consistant  with a Christian Spirit to keep those in slavery that we have already in  possession by Purchase, Gift or any otherways."  In 1775 Yearly Meeting  was in favor of emancipation without conditions.  The final slave owned  by a Meeting member was freed in 1777 (a newcomer freed his slave in  1779).  Since Timothy and Lydia were a members of the meeting when the  querie was originally sent to the Yearly Meeting and since such queries  would only be sent if there was concensus in the Meeting (Quaker decisions  are made by consensus and women participated in Meeting decisions), we  know Timothy and Lydia supported the abolition of slavery.  Timothy was still living in Oblong in 1778: "On his arrival, September 19, 1778, Washington, with his bodyguard,  were entertained for six days at the home of Reed Ferris, in the  Oblong.... His letters written during his residence were all dated from  "Fredericksburgh," the name at that time of the western and older part of  the town of Patterson. ... The Meeting House was appropriated by the army officers for a  hospital, because it was the largest available building. ... the use of  the building for a hospital continued three and perhaps five months.  Meantime the Friends' Meetings were held in the barn at Site 21... There is no mention, even by inference, in the records of Oblong  Meeting that proves this occupation of their building by soldiers.  It  was not voluntarily surrendered; other records show that the use of the  building was supported by force; its surrender was grudging, not a matter  to be recorded in the Meeting.  It is characteristic of the Friends that  they ignored it. This toleration of the Hospital was never sympathetic.  A letter...  to the Governor of the State of New York, Hon. George Clinton, by Dr.  James Fallon, ... He could get no one to draw wood for his hospital in  the dead of winter..." [from Quaker Hill]

********