‘Veiling mists and disguising clouds’

Family Stories, NEHGS Collections, ,

[Author’s note: This post concludes the series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary which began here.]

PP231.236 Regina Shober Gray. Not dated.
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
Mrs. Gray’s[1] summer was winding down, and while autumn impended she could still write with exaltation of her summer visit to New Hampshire:

Plaisted House, Jefferson, N.H., Monday, 30 August 1880: Early this morning a heavy cloud – we should call it a fog-bank on the sea-shore – blotted out the world; but gradually out of it arose the great peaks – and it has lifted now – in a blaze of sun shine & beauty.

Last evening we had the most glorious sunset, with lurid red & pink clouds over head, on which was flung a blazing rainbow, all its colours transmuted into “something rich and rare” by the red Sunset glow. Low in the western sky, a sea of green – that inimitable tint, which comes only in sunset skies; then, bars & banks of gold and purple and crimson; then, deep indigo blue fading up into the paler sky where floated the ragged mass of fleecy cloud across whose red glory this rainbow, like a flaming sword, was flung! A glorious sight! Continue reading ‘Veiling mists and disguising clouds’ →

The Wyoming Valley massacre

American History, Genealogical Writing
Wyoming Forts rev
From George Peck’s Wyoming: Its History, Stirring Incidents, and Romantic Adventures (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1858).

Many years ago, during a visit with my wife to her maternal grandparents, her grandfather asked if we could deliver some books which he had sold to a bookshop in Boston. He had worked on his family’s genealogy since he was a young man, beginning about 1900, and he was culling books from his library.

When we returned home I browsed through the books. One had several accounts of attacks on settlers by Indians but, not really understanding the relevance to his research, I put the book down and later in the week delivered the books as promised. Continue reading The Wyoming Valley massacre →

Friendly rivalries

Collections, Research Methods, , , , , ,

Don and Rosser and query 7 September 1944
“Boy, did they ever embarrass me right after that [picture] was taken. That’s Don and Rosser doing the honors.” (7 September 1944)
My photography collection recently took a decided step into new territory when I started acquiring vernacular photographs – images characterized, generally, by their lack of provenance and offering limited opportunities for identifying the subject. When I bought one large lot, though, I was surprised and pleased to find quite a lot of information on the reverse of the prints, enough that I am hopeful more can be learned about the people shown.

For starters, the (presumably female) scribe who wrote neatly on most of the prints dated them precisely: most are from 3 September 1944, with one or two from four days later. The focus of her interest is clear: Wayne Ehler, whose gymnastic endeavors she much admires. Two photos are marked in another hand, and perhaps this one is male, since he subtly denigrates Wayne and boasts of his own comparable accomplishments (not shown). Continue reading Friendly rivalries →

A Bronx tale

American History, Family Stories, ,
Young boys playing stickball in vacant lot next to apt. bldg.
Boys playing stick ball. Photo courtesy of formerdays.com

My maternal grandparents were born in 1932: they were just nine years old at the beginning of World War II. They grew up blocks from each other in the Bronx: Nana in The Alley, and Papa on the other side of the tracks (literally; train tracks separated their neighborhoods) on Elton Avenue. When I come to visit, they often talk about their childhood – and I always listen. And while I am a wonderful and attentive listener, I am terrible at recording our conversations. My most recent visit, however, I was determined to conduct a proper interview. Continue reading A Bronx tale →

Richard Brunton’s family registers

American History, Collections, , ,
BRUNTON_OL_32_Goodnow_Fig.3.10-VBPOST
Courtesy of Tracy Goodnow

Over the centuries, families have kept their own records of their history – by writing it in family Bibles; by sewing it into samplers and other needlework; by having it engraved onto objects; and sometimes by writing it into preprinted family registers. NEHGS has launched a new database of family registers that have one thing in common: all were originally engraved by English-born Richard Brunton, who lived in New England in the years during and after the Revolution. Continue reading Richard Brunton’s family registers →

Aunt Alicia’s videos

American History, Collections, Family Stories,

ACW Fire WaggonI have sometimes mentioned how much stuff I inherited from my mother and her family. Mother left it all to me with the cheerful instructions that I was to figure out what to do with it.

For years, decades, I have intended to catalog and arrange, describe, and account for everything, but enthusiasm for sitting down and making lists and logs was always lacking. Recently I have been watching YouTube videos about drawing and painting, and it struck me that visual learning is definitely more fun. Continue reading Aunt Alicia’s videos →

‘Blazing out into flaming crimson’

American History, NEHGS Collections, ,

[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]

PP231.236 Regina Shober Gray. Not dated.
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
By the third week in August 1880, Mrs. Gray[1] was comfortably settled in New Hampshire, where she had evidently not lost her discerning eye for nature or the capacity to translate her views into prose.

Plaisted House, Jefferson, Sunday, 22 August 1880: We came here yesterday, having had a comfortable ride up – part of it, along the shores of Winnisquam & Winnipesaukee, and very beautiful. We found more change of the leaf than we expected so early in the season; but in low lying, moist grounds, the young maples, swamp alders, sumach &c blazed out into flaming crimson, scarlet and orange colours, like tongues of living fire against the dense, solid greens of the summer foliage; and the banks and wild pastures were carpeted with bloom – the golden-rod & yellow tansy, the white yarrow that “heals the wounded heart,” and every variety of pink spireas and purple asters & immortelles, and rich red cardinal flowers that made a glory whenever they nodded to the breeze, and great beds of night-shade, with their gay, rank, poisonous-looking blossoms of orange and purple. Continue reading ‘Blazing out into flaming crimson’ →

‘Where was the music?’

American History, Family Stories, , ,

Doerr music 2It may surprise you to read (or not, if you’re family) that I have squirrels in my closets. They nest in bins, and hide under papers, books, or textiles when I want to find one, or shout for attention when I don’t. But I like living indoors without wildlife, so these are not the red or gray, bushy-tailed squirrels, but the genealogical kind described by Meaghan E.H. Siekman in her essay “Chasing a Squirrel.” Continue reading ‘Where was the music?’ →

‘As if my home were shattered indeed’

American History, Family Stories, NEHGS Collections,

[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]

PP231.236 Regina Shober Gray. Not dated.
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
In 1880, Regina Shober Gray[1] became a grandmother (in January) and a widow (in February). The Gray family was probably already considering the sale of their Beacon Hill house – they would later move to Mount Vernon Place – as time wrought its changes on the family’s composition.

1 Beacon Hill Place, Boston, Friday, 20 August 1880: Morris [Gray][2] left us last Wednesday in the 6 p.m. train (Aug 18th) to go round the world! He was to stop a few hours at Niagara; a few, at Chicago; and then take the train across the Continent, getting out at Lathrop [California], to visit the Yo Semite[3] &c, which requires three days, and he expected to reach San-Francisco in time to sail in the Oceanic, Sept. 1st, for Yokohama, Japan; thence by China, visiting Pekin, and getting a sight of the great wall and the seaports; thence to Singapore, Batavia, Calcutta, across Hindoostan to Bombay, visiting en route Benares, Agra, Delhi, Lucknow &c; thence by the Red Sea to Suez & the Nile. Continue reading ‘As if my home were shattered indeed’ →