When that Atlas Five rocket took off over my Florida neighborhood some years ago, headed for Pluto and the edge of the solor system, it took me back to an August evening in Oklahoma circa the mid-1930's, before rockets, television or even home air conditioning.
Back then and there it was good to have access to a screened in porch where, safe from mosquitos and chiggers, neighbors could gather, sip iced drinks, catch a breeze, talk even and watch the stars come out.
On one such evening when I was a precocious eight-year-old I learned that adults could be both fallible and unfair. Even my parents.
Someone said: "That's the evening star. It's really a planet. How many planets are there?"
"Eight, I think."
"No, there are nine," I said brightly. I was ignored.
"What are their names? Let's see. Mercury is first, closest to the sun. Venus, then Mars."
"Don't forget earth. Earth's just one of the planets."
"Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune. That's seven." There was a brief pause, then a mildly scatological discussion on how to pronounce Uranus."
"That makes the eight," my Dad announced. I missed the note of satisfied finality in his voice.
"No, there are nine," I insisted. "You forgot Pluto. There was a chorus of condescending chuckles.
"Pluto is the name of a dog!" my father said scornfully.
"I was stung. "Pluto is also the name of the Greek god of the underworld," I cried.
"Brucie, that's enough!" I my mother said sharply.
"And a planet, too. I read about it in Mr Staudt's 'National Geographic' And don't call me "Brucie!'
"I said, 'that's enough!' Go in the house!"
Dismissed, I raced home in tears, forgetting even my sweetened lemonade. Pluto and I were in the doghouse banished from treasured moments in adult company.
But vindication, which came the next evening was even sweeter. Mr Staudt, bless him, was my father's boss and he readily confirmed my account, only noting that it was a Roman god that presided over the terminus of the River Styx. My father, bless him, formally apologized.
Now some six plus decades later, NASA itself agrees with me. Not only is Pluto out there at the far frigid edge of the solar system, but it's worth knowing about and going to.
Now it seems that scientists insist that Pluto is not a real planet, but I'm not persuaded. I've known better for too long a time.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Three Hundred Million Gun Nuts -- or Nots
The Supreme Court's decision that each of us has an individual right to bear arms guaranteed by the second amendment to the Constitution is only the first of many decisions to follow. Some of those decisions will be made by legislatures and courts as they struggle with the implications of this historic ruling for public safety and such.
But the vast majority of those choices will be made by individuals, like you and me, in the privacy of our hearts and homes. We have our own personal decision to make: should I exercise my new right and keep a gun, or not?
Dick Anthony Heller, the plaintiff in the case before the Supremes that successfully challenged the Washington, D. C., ban on private hand gun ownership, has of course decided that he needs a gun to defend home and family. Many will join him, but none of us has to do so.
What we do depends in part on our unique histories. Mine began one Christmas morning when I was twelve. A long narrow box under the tree caused my pulse to pound in anticipation. Under its holiday wrappings just might be a Red Ryder air rifle, my weapon of choice lo these many years of comic book ads ago.
"John, what's that?" my mother asked sharply. "You didn't buy him that BB thing?
"No," my father replied, smiling rather sheepishly as I tore the box open. Inside in two parts ready to assemble was a real rifle, caliber 22. Red Rider move over!
"I had my first rifle at twelve," he said. "I hunted jack rabbits in California. It's time he learned how to handle a gun, how to keep it safe and clean." I couldn't help but agree.
But even in Oklahoma in the war year of 1942 there were few places in the nearby country where a boy and his dad could freely shoot tin cans off a fence post. Nor could the boy blithely ride his bike alone, with the rifle over the handlebars, out of the city to where jack rabbits might roam, as his father once could.
Years slipped by while the rifle mostly languished in the closet, safe if seldom clean. It disappeared along with the bike and much else when I went away to college.
My next encounter with firearms was as a draftee during the Korean unpleasantness. Bulls eyes on the basic training firing range were as elusive as tin cans on a post, but I did score an M-1 thumb. In those days the army's ritual of arms inspection required you to put your right thumb into the open breech to release the gun bolt, then very quickly remove your thumb or get a nasty pinch and several demerits. Eventually I grew a new thumb nail with a visible dent that took a decade to fade.
On the next occasion my youngest son, full of meth and remorse over a failed romance, put his mother's pistol, kept for protection, beneath his chin and pulled the trigger. A large measure of innocense died that day as well. As I said to his mother at the funeral, and she tearfully agreed, "It wasn't supposed to end this way."
Years later, going through my late wife's California safety deposit box I found a different pistol and a few rounds to go with it. Her brother had provided the smallish, but still lethal looking "piece," also for protection, during a long ago time when I was traveling on business and she was frequently alone. Fearing that I was the most probable intruder to be shot, I had wished it gone and thought she had agreed.
What to do with it? An east coast relative volunteered to take it off my hands, but you can't legally mail a firearm. However commercial airlines are up to the job. They handle it much like duty free liquor. So a visiting east coast daughter undertook to escort it to him.
"I have a pistol in my purse," she explained to the airline supervisor she asked to speak to and was treated surprisingly well. Weapon and bullets are packed separately and checked via a strict chain of custody. I was happy to see it gone on any terms.
You can see where this tale takes me. Personally I am a Gun Not. I would just rather not have them around. Your choice may be different. Each of us has the freedom -- and the responsibility -- for either choice.
But the vast majority of those choices will be made by individuals, like you and me, in the privacy of our hearts and homes. We have our own personal decision to make: should I exercise my new right and keep a gun, or not?
Dick Anthony Heller, the plaintiff in the case before the Supremes that successfully challenged the Washington, D. C., ban on private hand gun ownership, has of course decided that he needs a gun to defend home and family. Many will join him, but none of us has to do so.
What we do depends in part on our unique histories. Mine began one Christmas morning when I was twelve. A long narrow box under the tree caused my pulse to pound in anticipation. Under its holiday wrappings just might be a Red Ryder air rifle, my weapon of choice lo these many years of comic book ads ago.
"John, what's that?" my mother asked sharply. "You didn't buy him that BB thing?
"No," my father replied, smiling rather sheepishly as I tore the box open. Inside in two parts ready to assemble was a real rifle, caliber 22. Red Rider move over!
"I had my first rifle at twelve," he said. "I hunted jack rabbits in California. It's time he learned how to handle a gun, how to keep it safe and clean." I couldn't help but agree.
But even in Oklahoma in the war year of 1942 there were few places in the nearby country where a boy and his dad could freely shoot tin cans off a fence post. Nor could the boy blithely ride his bike alone, with the rifle over the handlebars, out of the city to where jack rabbits might roam, as his father once could.
Years slipped by while the rifle mostly languished in the closet, safe if seldom clean. It disappeared along with the bike and much else when I went away to college.
My next encounter with firearms was as a draftee during the Korean unpleasantness. Bulls eyes on the basic training firing range were as elusive as tin cans on a post, but I did score an M-1 thumb. In those days the army's ritual of arms inspection required you to put your right thumb into the open breech to release the gun bolt, then very quickly remove your thumb or get a nasty pinch and several demerits. Eventually I grew a new thumb nail with a visible dent that took a decade to fade.
On the next occasion my youngest son, full of meth and remorse over a failed romance, put his mother's pistol, kept for protection, beneath his chin and pulled the trigger. A large measure of innocense died that day as well. As I said to his mother at the funeral, and she tearfully agreed, "It wasn't supposed to end this way."
Years later, going through my late wife's California safety deposit box I found a different pistol and a few rounds to go with it. Her brother had provided the smallish, but still lethal looking "piece," also for protection, during a long ago time when I was traveling on business and she was frequently alone. Fearing that I was the most probable intruder to be shot, I had wished it gone and thought she had agreed.
What to do with it? An east coast relative volunteered to take it off my hands, but you can't legally mail a firearm. However commercial airlines are up to the job. They handle it much like duty free liquor. So a visiting east coast daughter undertook to escort it to him.
"I have a pistol in my purse," she explained to the airline supervisor she asked to speak to and was treated surprisingly well. Weapon and bullets are packed separately and checked via a strict chain of custody. I was happy to see it gone on any terms.
You can see where this tale takes me. Personally I am a Gun Not. I would just rather not have them around. Your choice may be different. Each of us has the freedom -- and the responsibility -- for either choice.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
When Faith Left
A Look Back .
We were new, both as a family and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the beating heart of the Bible Belt, and the question was, not what faith would we profess, but what church would we “go to?”
“There’s the big church on the hill,” my new father said.
“Is it Baptist? Mother wondered. “No, Methodist. Let’s try it and see if we like it.”
And that’s how I came to belong through childhood and adolescence to the Boston Avenue Methodist Church, an art deco edifice crowned by a towering phallus, easily the most prominent in town (See www.bostonavenue.org) .
It wasn’t my choice. I was not quite five, newly enrolled in kindergarten, and was seldom included in choices. And, no, I am not depending on perfect recall from that age for those quotes. My mother recounted the story consistently and often and I have no reason to doubt her version.
I also learned later that we went as a family, introducing ourselves as a mom and dad married the requisite number of years to have produced a legitimate five-year-old, and transferred to Tulsa from the Chicago office of the CIT, a financial corporation.
In truth, my mother was newly divorced and remarried. My father had left her scant months after I was born. She waited for him to return until my step-father’s proposal of marriage and a new life forced her to choose. Their secret held for over 50 years until the end of their lives,, but that’s another story.
Except for a couple of years when Dad played golf both Saturday and Sunday mornings – to Mother’s frequent and vocal disapproval – we attended church faithfully. Probably I liked being dumped into that den of vociferous cubs of my age called Sunday school.
Gradually my parents dropped church for Sunday school, notably the Married Folks' Class, taught by a bible thumping “teacher,” deemed much more inspiring than Dr. Watts, the church’s minister. There was general relief when Dr. Watts made bishop and left. I attended Sunday school also, moving up through the classes with my age group.
The church became a large part of our social life. They attended the suppers, the recitals, seasonal ceremonies, even the occasional lecture or book reading, often dragging me along.
Boston Avenue Methodists enjoyed the status of belonging to a large, respectable congregation, while tacitly acknowledging the social superiority of the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians. We could in turn look down benevolently on the Lutherans (and they on us) and most other main stream Protestant denominations, but finding the Baptists a tad too jubilant for our taste.
We wondered with disdain about the Holy Rollers, Christian Scientists, Adventists, Mormons and the like, while indulging in the casual overt prejudices of the day concerning Catholics and Jews. Any atheists or agnostics around were tucked safely in the closet. We were uneasy about Unitarians and Quakers, and the world’s non-Christian organized religions were considered Greek mythologists in contemporary dress and in dire need of enlightenment.
I was not one of the “we” cited above. Those were adult concerns. I went each Sunday, made friends, struggled with my inability to sing, especially around Christmas time, and over the years of childhood and adolescence absorbed elements of the old, old story without thinking much about it. It was something you were made to do like school and naps until it became habit.
Some friends (Bob, Mary Ella, Roger, Dolores, Betty Sue, Bill, Dorothy, Jimmy and Odean) were part of the other trinity -- church, school and neighborhood – through high school and beyond, and are alive in memory still. I sang “Oh What A Friend We Have In Jesus,” dutifully, not well and without conviction. I knew who my friends were.
I was in my early adolescence when the first heretical thought popped to mind. Adults, I suddenly realized, “Really believe this stuff!” The question, “Do I believe?” was sensed more than said, but as Yogi Bera famously knew, when the road forks you must choose. Not being much of a Pilgrim I eased on down the road marked Doubt.
My parents were not overtly religious at first. We didn’t often say grace at meals while I was growing up at home. They began that custom sometime after I moved out.. Gradually their convictions deepened into a conscious emotional commitment; conscious but not especially reasoned, an unquestioned comfort to their deaths.
Meanwhile, I graduated high school and for the first time left home to college. Oklahoma A and M College (Now Oklahoma State University) is a land grant school. It is not Harvard, Stanford or Berkeley. Nor is it Brown, Oberlin or Reed.
But for a young lad from pious Tulsa it was a den of subversion. A course in American history, while biased enough (this was 1948 after all), was vastly more nuanced than the patriotic pablum of high school. A course in World History dealt objectively and comparatively with Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and other belief systems. Clearly they couldn’t all be exactly right. Perhaps none were. If you thought about it, picking the one best faith was not easy.
Then I simultaneously took a course in the Humanities and, through the good offices of a girl friend, bonded with the campus collection of free thinkers, many of them active Unitarians. We were a scruffy bunch, disdainful of the main campus swirl, drawn to art and literature, stage and screen.
The core of the group we called “The Bohemian Coop.” Three women sharing a home and three men also sharing quarters, pooled our meager funds and ran a common kitchen and social club where the women lived. Others drifted in and out of the swirl.
It was during this two year association that I first began to explore the boundaries of a life of the mind. I had always been an avid reader, but my reading diet had been heavy on less than profound fiction and on “inspirational” articles from the Reader’s Digest.. Overtly philosophical conversations were new and eye opening. Books were cited and recommended (I never did get through Ulysses, though). Those days still reverberate (Joyce remains impenetrable).
Perhaps the most subversive book I devoured during this era was Philip Wylie’s 1942 popular polemic, “Generation of Vipers.” Largely forgotten, it is only occasionally remembered today for a gratuitous assault on “Mom.”. But it deftly and joyously slaughtered whole herds of sacred cows. Though clearly dated and thoroughly opinionated, it is still a useful read by those who are up for social criticism leveled at the way the Greatest Generation fumbled its way to war.
My first conversion was from Republican to Democrat. Franklin Roosevelt, I learned, was a great president in depression and war and not at all a traitor to his class. About this time I began a life long interest in the dismal dogmas of economics. A good dose of John Maynard Keynes and I was cured of free market dogmatic orthodoxy for life. I survived a short intense flirtation with Ayn Rand and the gold standard. Current events have only solidified my interest in economics and my disdain for its contemporary reigning theories.
Gradually I began to think of myself as a Unitarian. As the name implies, the Unitarian God is a unity that requires neither devine Son nor Holy Ghost. Jesus, a truly great human being, is free to teach homely truths about living and letting live rather than wandering around feeding the multitudes from meager stores, curing the ill and maimed, raising the dead, turning water into wine (if only!), walking on the remaining water, rolling away boulders, raising himself from the dead to walk again among the chosen and by all these empty dramatics diverting human attention from the mundane grubby stuff of living that needs doing before we die.
My Unitarian phase lasted through the rest of college, the two years of my required army duty and a while after. I never formally joined a congregation, nor was I too faithful in attendance. The only occasion on which I officially declared my affiliation was prompted by a bored army clerk.
“Religion?” she inquired while filling in a basic form for my personnel file. “Unitarian,” I replied after briefly hesitating and wondering what my parents would think. She looked at me doubtfully and then searched over her shoulder for her supervisor, “Unitarian?” The supervisor nodded and she typed, “Prot.” in the appropriate box. So much for nuance.
Eileen, one of the bohemian co-opers, had parleyed her college Unitarian youth activities into the directorship of Liberal Religious Youth, or LRY, as adolescents of the newly formed Unitarian/Universalist society chose to call themselves. She enlisted me as editor of their quarterly newsletter while I was stationed at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, practicing the waning traditional ways of the field artillery. (The full story of that and other episodes in my brief, episodic army and journalism careers may each get its own essay.)
Three quarterly editions later the army shipped me by train and troop transport to England for the rest of my two year obligation. On the way I slipped the surly bonds of soldering long enough to visit Eileen at 25 Beacon Street, Boston, the venerable home of Unitarians.
When I left for duty in England for not quite a year, I left the Unitarians as well, although I didn’t know it at the time. I am still closer to their ways than to any other named sect, both drawn to and discomfited by their lack of doctrine.
For there is comfort in settled belief. We all seek answers to a trinity of questions: Where did it all come from? How should we live? Why must we die and what then? As the species dispersed over the planet from our African locus, answers evolved. They were varied in form but strikingly uniform in their essentials. There was a creation moment for the world and its life followed by a fall from grace and a loss of innocence; the divinely conferred lordship of humans over all other life and other riches of the earth; a pantheon of gods on high where rewards awaited the worshiping, pleading faithful at death; a place of eternal punishment for all others; a cosmic struggle between good and evil with good ultimately triumphant.
A Look Ahead . . .
These answers still hang in the air, profound and comforting as ever for many, but fading by the steady light of science for those who aspire to think scientifically. At least since Copernicus science has absent mindedly embarrassed religion time and again by kicking one stone after another from doctrinal edifices, revealing their essentially mythical basis.
The heavenly spheres faded. as the universe’s cosmology gradually came into focus through the magnified eyes of Galileo and his modern successors. Newton’s elegant equations, Darwin’s magisterial insights; Watson's and Crick's reinforcing thought spiral; Einstein’s and Bohr’s dueling deductions; Mendeelev’s organizing principle; Popper’s philosophy of scientific methodology; Wegener’s insight; Kuhn’s critique; Lovelock’s inspiring synthesis are justly celebrated peaks along the road called Doubt. Which I still endeavor to travel.
But what, you might properly wonder, of spirituality, moral principles and the march of civilization. I find the methods of science will be sufficient to the tasks of comprehending and guiding all of these just as well as it has led us to an unprecedented understanding of the material world and its origins.
Feelings of spirituality are stirred by the awe and fear of natural forces from the sudden movements of the earth's crust to the abrupt violence of changing weather, to the wonder inspired by land forms, water courses, rainbows, sun and moon phases, wandering stars, lightening and fire, to the dangers of life competing with other.life. Scientific understanding dispels the fear and scientific instruments enhance our awe by expanding our senses.
Moral principles attributed to the gods congeal into empty ritual and pious rules of etiquette. The teachings of great religious leaders, such as Jesus and Buddha, once shorn of their mythic trappings, are better guides, but only that. Such classics as "love one another" and the Golden Rule, are fearfully hard to apply to the tumult and minutia of daily life. Our progress is anything but fast enough, but such progress as there is owed to the dispatching of magical, stereotypical and dogmatic ways of thought.
Civilized living, even in venues of splendor and ease, has too often removed us from the hardships of our primitive beginnings by the exploitation of others. Today we can glimpse, beyond mere dreams, the way a simple but fantastically rich life can be had by all without ceaseless deadening toil in harmony with each other and other life. We can even sense the beginnings of a future in which evolution moves at our pace and to our purposes. We have billions of years before cosmic forces engulf our solar system. Time to escape before we as a species die when the sun expands to vaporize the earth.
Death. The great fear exploited by every tyrant, whether armed with sword or sceptre. Why must I die? How can I possibly cease to exist? The objective case for death is grounded in the workings of evolution. One reasoned explanation is that the individual must die so the species may continue to evolve. In turn species must die to make room for successor species. It is true that only the most primitive forms of single cell life, which reproduce by cell division, are arguably immortal. Any life which reproduces by sex can only evade by evolution those causes of death which occur before the end of its reproductive life. Thus evolution might in due time rid our species of AIDS (or AIDS will rid the world of our species) but it will never lay a glove on Alzheimer's.
There is only one escape from this trap. Evolution itself must evolve. More precisely we must take charge of the evolution of evolution. Unconsciously we began to do this eons ago with the interbreeding of domesticated plants and animals. Lately we have unraveled the code of life itself and now explore its intricate control of life's molecular building blocks. This is basic training for manipulating the genetic machinery to our benefit in ways Darwinian evolution cannot.
We will cure Alzheimer's and other patterns of life's decay, extending life's quality in satisfying ways and less probably extending life's duration by decades more. But we will not do so by the worshipful study of ancient texts however profound and inspiring their contents. By the methods of science we have found life thriving on earth wherever we have looked, from Arctic cores to tropical swamps, from stratospheric clouds to the ocean's darkest depths, from boiling springs to hidden Antarctica seas.
But this was life at its most primitive, single celled mostly. What of living symbioses as intricate as ourselves? Can we so engineer humans for living comfortably amid such extremes. We must if we are to explore and colonize the universe. The alternatives are extinction or seeding; i.e. sowing single celled life among the planets and satellites of this solar system and further afield to the exo-plants now being discovered in abundance circling other suns.
But we will not do these things without casting aside all the ancient faiths as future guides. They are indelibly part of our history, neither to be ridiculed nor forgotten, but remembered for what they were: steps along a long and torturous way.
We were new, both as a family and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the beating heart of the Bible Belt, and the question was, not what faith would we profess, but what church would we “go to?”
“There’s the big church on the hill,” my new father said.
“Is it Baptist? Mother wondered. “No, Methodist. Let’s try it and see if we like it.”
And that’s how I came to belong through childhood and adolescence to the Boston Avenue Methodist Church, an art deco edifice crowned by a towering phallus, easily the most prominent in town (See www.bostonavenue.org) .
It wasn’t my choice. I was not quite five, newly enrolled in kindergarten, and was seldom included in choices. And, no, I am not depending on perfect recall from that age for those quotes. My mother recounted the story consistently and often and I have no reason to doubt her version.
I also learned later that we went as a family, introducing ourselves as a mom and dad married the requisite number of years to have produced a legitimate five-year-old, and transferred to Tulsa from the Chicago office of the CIT, a financial corporation.
In truth, my mother was newly divorced and remarried. My father had left her scant months after I was born. She waited for him to return until my step-father’s proposal of marriage and a new life forced her to choose. Their secret held for over 50 years until the end of their lives,, but that’s another story.
Except for a couple of years when Dad played golf both Saturday and Sunday mornings – to Mother’s frequent and vocal disapproval – we attended church faithfully. Probably I liked being dumped into that den of vociferous cubs of my age called Sunday school.
Gradually my parents dropped church for Sunday school, notably the Married Folks' Class, taught by a bible thumping “teacher,” deemed much more inspiring than Dr. Watts, the church’s minister. There was general relief when Dr. Watts made bishop and left. I attended Sunday school also, moving up through the classes with my age group.
The church became a large part of our social life. They attended the suppers, the recitals, seasonal ceremonies, even the occasional lecture or book reading, often dragging me along.
Boston Avenue Methodists enjoyed the status of belonging to a large, respectable congregation, while tacitly acknowledging the social superiority of the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians. We could in turn look down benevolently on the Lutherans (and they on us) and most other main stream Protestant denominations, but finding the Baptists a tad too jubilant for our taste.
We wondered with disdain about the Holy Rollers, Christian Scientists, Adventists, Mormons and the like, while indulging in the casual overt prejudices of the day concerning Catholics and Jews. Any atheists or agnostics around were tucked safely in the closet. We were uneasy about Unitarians and Quakers, and the world’s non-Christian organized religions were considered Greek mythologists in contemporary dress and in dire need of enlightenment.
I was not one of the “we” cited above. Those were adult concerns. I went each Sunday, made friends, struggled with my inability to sing, especially around Christmas time, and over the years of childhood and adolescence absorbed elements of the old, old story without thinking much about it. It was something you were made to do like school and naps until it became habit.
Some friends (Bob, Mary Ella, Roger, Dolores, Betty Sue, Bill, Dorothy, Jimmy and Odean) were part of the other trinity -- church, school and neighborhood – through high school and beyond, and are alive in memory still. I sang “Oh What A Friend We Have In Jesus,” dutifully, not well and without conviction. I knew who my friends were.
I was in my early adolescence when the first heretical thought popped to mind. Adults, I suddenly realized, “Really believe this stuff!” The question, “Do I believe?” was sensed more than said, but as Yogi Bera famously knew, when the road forks you must choose. Not being much of a Pilgrim I eased on down the road marked Doubt.
My parents were not overtly religious at first. We didn’t often say grace at meals while I was growing up at home. They began that custom sometime after I moved out.. Gradually their convictions deepened into a conscious emotional commitment; conscious but not especially reasoned, an unquestioned comfort to their deaths.
Meanwhile, I graduated high school and for the first time left home to college. Oklahoma A and M College (Now Oklahoma State University) is a land grant school. It is not Harvard, Stanford or Berkeley. Nor is it Brown, Oberlin or Reed.
But for a young lad from pious Tulsa it was a den of subversion. A course in American history, while biased enough (this was 1948 after all), was vastly more nuanced than the patriotic pablum of high school. A course in World History dealt objectively and comparatively with Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and other belief systems. Clearly they couldn’t all be exactly right. Perhaps none were. If you thought about it, picking the one best faith was not easy.
Then I simultaneously took a course in the Humanities and, through the good offices of a girl friend, bonded with the campus collection of free thinkers, many of them active Unitarians. We were a scruffy bunch, disdainful of the main campus swirl, drawn to art and literature, stage and screen.
The core of the group we called “The Bohemian Coop.” Three women sharing a home and three men also sharing quarters, pooled our meager funds and ran a common kitchen and social club where the women lived. Others drifted in and out of the swirl.
It was during this two year association that I first began to explore the boundaries of a life of the mind. I had always been an avid reader, but my reading diet had been heavy on less than profound fiction and on “inspirational” articles from the Reader’s Digest.. Overtly philosophical conversations were new and eye opening. Books were cited and recommended (I never did get through Ulysses, though). Those days still reverberate (Joyce remains impenetrable).
Perhaps the most subversive book I devoured during this era was Philip Wylie’s 1942 popular polemic, “Generation of Vipers.” Largely forgotten, it is only occasionally remembered today for a gratuitous assault on “Mom.”. But it deftly and joyously slaughtered whole herds of sacred cows. Though clearly dated and thoroughly opinionated, it is still a useful read by those who are up for social criticism leveled at the way the Greatest Generation fumbled its way to war.
My first conversion was from Republican to Democrat. Franklin Roosevelt, I learned, was a great president in depression and war and not at all a traitor to his class. About this time I began a life long interest in the dismal dogmas of economics. A good dose of John Maynard Keynes and I was cured of free market dogmatic orthodoxy for life. I survived a short intense flirtation with Ayn Rand and the gold standard. Current events have only solidified my interest in economics and my disdain for its contemporary reigning theories.
Gradually I began to think of myself as a Unitarian. As the name implies, the Unitarian God is a unity that requires neither devine Son nor Holy Ghost. Jesus, a truly great human being, is free to teach homely truths about living and letting live rather than wandering around feeding the multitudes from meager stores, curing the ill and maimed, raising the dead, turning water into wine (if only!), walking on the remaining water, rolling away boulders, raising himself from the dead to walk again among the chosen and by all these empty dramatics diverting human attention from the mundane grubby stuff of living that needs doing before we die.
My Unitarian phase lasted through the rest of college, the two years of my required army duty and a while after. I never formally joined a congregation, nor was I too faithful in attendance. The only occasion on which I officially declared my affiliation was prompted by a bored army clerk.
“Religion?” she inquired while filling in a basic form for my personnel file. “Unitarian,” I replied after briefly hesitating and wondering what my parents would think. She looked at me doubtfully and then searched over her shoulder for her supervisor, “Unitarian?” The supervisor nodded and she typed, “Prot.” in the appropriate box. So much for nuance.
Eileen, one of the bohemian co-opers, had parleyed her college Unitarian youth activities into the directorship of Liberal Religious Youth, or LRY, as adolescents of the newly formed Unitarian/Universalist society chose to call themselves. She enlisted me as editor of their quarterly newsletter while I was stationed at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, practicing the waning traditional ways of the field artillery. (The full story of that and other episodes in my brief, episodic army and journalism careers may each get its own essay.)
Three quarterly editions later the army shipped me by train and troop transport to England for the rest of my two year obligation. On the way I slipped the surly bonds of soldering long enough to visit Eileen at 25 Beacon Street, Boston, the venerable home of Unitarians.
When I left for duty in England for not quite a year, I left the Unitarians as well, although I didn’t know it at the time. I am still closer to their ways than to any other named sect, both drawn to and discomfited by their lack of doctrine.
For there is comfort in settled belief. We all seek answers to a trinity of questions: Where did it all come from? How should we live? Why must we die and what then? As the species dispersed over the planet from our African locus, answers evolved. They were varied in form but strikingly uniform in their essentials. There was a creation moment for the world and its life followed by a fall from grace and a loss of innocence; the divinely conferred lordship of humans over all other life and other riches of the earth; a pantheon of gods on high where rewards awaited the worshiping, pleading faithful at death; a place of eternal punishment for all others; a cosmic struggle between good and evil with good ultimately triumphant.
A Look Ahead . . .
These answers still hang in the air, profound and comforting as ever for many, but fading by the steady light of science for those who aspire to think scientifically. At least since Copernicus science has absent mindedly embarrassed religion time and again by kicking one stone after another from doctrinal edifices, revealing their essentially mythical basis.
The heavenly spheres faded. as the universe’s cosmology gradually came into focus through the magnified eyes of Galileo and his modern successors. Newton’s elegant equations, Darwin’s magisterial insights; Watson's and Crick's reinforcing thought spiral; Einstein’s and Bohr’s dueling deductions; Mendeelev’s organizing principle; Popper’s philosophy of scientific methodology; Wegener’s insight; Kuhn’s critique; Lovelock’s inspiring synthesis are justly celebrated peaks along the road called Doubt. Which I still endeavor to travel.
But what, you might properly wonder, of spirituality, moral principles and the march of civilization. I find the methods of science will be sufficient to the tasks of comprehending and guiding all of these just as well as it has led us to an unprecedented understanding of the material world and its origins.
Feelings of spirituality are stirred by the awe and fear of natural forces from the sudden movements of the earth's crust to the abrupt violence of changing weather, to the wonder inspired by land forms, water courses, rainbows, sun and moon phases, wandering stars, lightening and fire, to the dangers of life competing with other.life. Scientific understanding dispels the fear and scientific instruments enhance our awe by expanding our senses.
Moral principles attributed to the gods congeal into empty ritual and pious rules of etiquette. The teachings of great religious leaders, such as Jesus and Buddha, once shorn of their mythic trappings, are better guides, but only that. Such classics as "love one another" and the Golden Rule, are fearfully hard to apply to the tumult and minutia of daily life. Our progress is anything but fast enough, but such progress as there is owed to the dispatching of magical, stereotypical and dogmatic ways of thought.
Civilized living, even in venues of splendor and ease, has too often removed us from the hardships of our primitive beginnings by the exploitation of others. Today we can glimpse, beyond mere dreams, the way a simple but fantastically rich life can be had by all without ceaseless deadening toil in harmony with each other and other life. We can even sense the beginnings of a future in which evolution moves at our pace and to our purposes. We have billions of years before cosmic forces engulf our solar system. Time to escape before we as a species die when the sun expands to vaporize the earth.
Death. The great fear exploited by every tyrant, whether armed with sword or sceptre. Why must I die? How can I possibly cease to exist? The objective case for death is grounded in the workings of evolution. One reasoned explanation is that the individual must die so the species may continue to evolve. In turn species must die to make room for successor species. It is true that only the most primitive forms of single cell life, which reproduce by cell division, are arguably immortal. Any life which reproduces by sex can only evade by evolution those causes of death which occur before the end of its reproductive life. Thus evolution might in due time rid our species of AIDS (or AIDS will rid the world of our species) but it will never lay a glove on Alzheimer's.
There is only one escape from this trap. Evolution itself must evolve. More precisely we must take charge of the evolution of evolution. Unconsciously we began to do this eons ago with the interbreeding of domesticated plants and animals. Lately we have unraveled the code of life itself and now explore its intricate control of life's molecular building blocks. This is basic training for manipulating the genetic machinery to our benefit in ways Darwinian evolution cannot.
We will cure Alzheimer's and other patterns of life's decay, extending life's quality in satisfying ways and less probably extending life's duration by decades more. But we will not do so by the worshipful study of ancient texts however profound and inspiring their contents. By the methods of science we have found life thriving on earth wherever we have looked, from Arctic cores to tropical swamps, from stratospheric clouds to the ocean's darkest depths, from boiling springs to hidden Antarctica seas.
But this was life at its most primitive, single celled mostly. What of living symbioses as intricate as ourselves? Can we so engineer humans for living comfortably amid such extremes. We must if we are to explore and colonize the universe. The alternatives are extinction or seeding; i.e. sowing single celled life among the planets and satellites of this solar system and further afield to the exo-plants now being discovered in abundance circling other suns.
But we will not do these things without casting aside all the ancient faiths as future guides. They are indelibly part of our history, neither to be ridiculed nor forgotten, but remembered for what they were: steps along a long and torturous way.
Kate, Irving, Thanks
A friend recently sent me a video celebration of the 4th of July replete with the flag waving, scenic icons of American patriotism, including the New York skyline, gap toothed of course, and the nearby Statue of Liberty, bought, we recently forgot, with the accumulated pennies of French school children.
It was a perfectly acceptable, perfectly ordinary, forgettable bit of YouTube. In the background, though, a simple melody played in a slow, overly reverential tempo which invoked a powerful memory from my childhood, which may be one of those "recovered" types that only maybe happened the way you remember it.
We – Mother, Father, me -- were laying about the living room half listening to the Kate Smith show on radio and half heard her say, "I have a new song that you all are gonna really like. It's by Irving Berlin."
Then she sang:
“While the storm clouds gather
Far across the sea
Let us swear allegiance
To a land that's free."
In November, 1938, the clouds of war were indeed forming over Europe. Kate had asked if Irving had a patriotic song she could sing on her 20th anniversary Armistice Day show. He found one he wrote 20 years before for the hit army review "Yip Yip Yaphank," circa WW I, but didn’t for some reason use. (This memory fragment recovered courtesy Wikipedia).
These days we usually skip the verse, but I suspect it was those opening words that first caught the country's attention because they were a perfect fit for its mood; anxious, still isolationist, but conscious of a growing peril. I was only eight but a mother's imagination had me in uniform and under fire already.
"Let us all be grateful
For a land so fair
As we raise our voices
In a solemn prayer."
Kate sang the verse slowly, softly, clearly. Then, raising her voice and picking up the tempo, she electrified us forever with a ringing rendition of that climactic chorus we all know so well. It's a rare privilege to own such a memory and I hope it's true.
It’s the evening of the 4th right now, and the fireworks are glorious in high definition. New York’s celebration is winding down; the national capitol broadcast concluded some moments ago; Boston is next.. Music is the fireworks’ constant companion, but national anthem performances are perfuctory, sung not well by contemporary vocalists.
There’s no question what the People’s Anthem is. The crowds sing along invited or not. Thanks, Irving and Kate, for "God Bless America."
It was a perfectly acceptable, perfectly ordinary, forgettable bit of YouTube. In the background, though, a simple melody played in a slow, overly reverential tempo which invoked a powerful memory from my childhood, which may be one of those "recovered" types that only maybe happened the way you remember it.
We – Mother, Father, me -- were laying about the living room half listening to the Kate Smith show on radio and half heard her say, "I have a new song that you all are gonna really like. It's by Irving Berlin."
Then she sang:
“While the storm clouds gather
Far across the sea
Let us swear allegiance
To a land that's free."
In November, 1938, the clouds of war were indeed forming over Europe. Kate had asked if Irving had a patriotic song she could sing on her 20th anniversary Armistice Day show. He found one he wrote 20 years before for the hit army review "Yip Yip Yaphank," circa WW I, but didn’t for some reason use. (This memory fragment recovered courtesy Wikipedia).
These days we usually skip the verse, but I suspect it was those opening words that first caught the country's attention because they were a perfect fit for its mood; anxious, still isolationist, but conscious of a growing peril. I was only eight but a mother's imagination had me in uniform and under fire already.
"Let us all be grateful
For a land so fair
As we raise our voices
In a solemn prayer."
Kate sang the verse slowly, softly, clearly. Then, raising her voice and picking up the tempo, she electrified us forever with a ringing rendition of that climactic chorus we all know so well. It's a rare privilege to own such a memory and I hope it's true.
It’s the evening of the 4th right now, and the fireworks are glorious in high definition. New York’s celebration is winding down; the national capitol broadcast concluded some moments ago; Boston is next.. Music is the fireworks’ constant companion, but national anthem performances are perfuctory, sung not well by contemporary vocalists.
There’s no question what the People’s Anthem is. The crowds sing along invited or not. Thanks, Irving and Kate, for "God Bless America."
My Family History: John and Jane Gregg and Descendents
Introduction
John Gregg and Jane Miller are my paternal great-great grandparents. They were both born in Ohio in 1804, the year after this slice of the Northwest Territory entered the Union as the 17th state. Available records tell nothing of their origins, childhood or their early adult years. Their marriage was recorded in the courthouse of Fountain county, Indiana, on 10 Jan 1828. They next turned up in 1834 near Big Woods in Illinois -- then a large tract of timbered land about 10 miles long and 4 to 5 miles wide east of the Fox river --with a boy and three girls in tow.
In 1836 Kane County was formed from a 36 square mile slice of the northern end of La Salle county, including Big Woods. . Kane's population of twelve to fifteen hundred rapidly increased.
Big Woods in time became a part of Batavia, founded in 1835, one of a cluster of still bucolic communities strung along the Fox and within the western penumbra of Chicago. Batavia is home to Fermilab, the nation's premiere national laboratory for the study of particle physics. But in 1834 the Black Hawk Indian war had been fought only two years earlier, although there is no record of Illinois' most famous Black Hawk militiaman, Abraham Lincoln, having marched about in Big Woods. After a series of desultory skirmishes, in which cholera was the victor, the disputed valley was safe enough for settlers.
John became the first blacksmith in the region. They had seven more children, including two daughters whose names are so far lost to history, and one son whose life was lived in the shadows. They acquired land, helped found what became the Batavia Congregational Church and were otherwise active in the community. John died in 1860 and Jane after 1870. John may be buried in the East Batavia cemetery along with 17 of their descendants, while Jane is probably interred near Plymouth, Indiana.
John’s death in 1860 precipitated the loss of the family homestead to creditors. These destabilizing events plus the civil war forever changed the trajectory of this pioneering family. At least three members fought for the union. One son was partially disabled and one son-in-law was killed in battle.. The extended family scattered – a not unusual pattern in our restless nation.
The First Family
The known vital statistics (birth, marriage, death) of the named children of John and Jane Gregg are:
Sarah J. Gregg. born, Indiana, 1828-1829. Married Clinton Bates, 24 Jan 1849, Kane county, Illinois.
Dorcas Gregg: born, Indiana, 1830.
William M. Gregg: born, Indiana, 29 May 1832. Married Phoebe E. Lumm, 9 Jun 1860, Kane. Died 29 Sep 1873, Batavia.
Elizabeth A. Gregg: born, Indiana, 1833. Married Benjamin Boorman (Borman), 5 Oct 1859, Kane.
Harriet Gregg: born, Batavia, 1835. Married Clement G. Bradley, 12 Jan 1859, Kane.
George Whitfield Gregg: born, Batavia, 7 Aug 1837. Married Adelaide (Addie) Minium, 22 Feb 1871, Batavia. Died 24 Feb 1917, Batavia.
Henry J. Gregg. born, Batavia, probably 1841.
Charles S. Gregg: born, Batavia, probably 1843.
John H. Gregg: born, probably Batavia, date unknown.
John and Jane Before Illinois
What can you say when next to nothing is known? Well from what you do know you can conjecture, hypothesize, and otherwise make things up, and then try to prove them.
What do we know? That in the 1850 census. which provides the most complete family snapshot, the couple said they both were born in Ohio and were now age 46. That Fountain County, Indiana, recorded their marriage, 10 Jan 1828, by handwritten record. It says they were residents of the county, "of lawful age," received their license on 4 Jan 1828 and were married within the week.
That the 1830 census has a John Gregg, age 20 to 29, residing in Fountain county, Indiana, with a female child under the age of five (Sarah?), another female child, 15 to 20, and a female, 20 to 29 (Jane Gregg).
That in 1800 Ohio counted 45,363 settlers scattered over 44,828 square miles. The territory was growing rapidly enough that Congress said it could begin the process of becoming a state because it would soon meet the Northwest Ordinance's threshold of 60,000 people. That in 1810 Ohio had 230 thousand inhabitants, and over twice that many by 1820, reason enough for a true pioneer to move on to Indiana.
That a history of Fountain County, Indiana (Beckwith, 1881), records that on 3 Dec 1827 “members and adherents of the Presbyterian church met at the house of William Miller. . . The following persons then presented certificates of membership from other churches: . . . Mrs Jane Miller, Miss Jane Miller, Dorcas Brier . . . and . . . were organized into a church.”
That after John's death in 1860 Jane and three children moved to near Plymouth in Marshall county, Indiana. That one of those children, my great grandfather, George Whitfield Gregg, lived there for a time after the civil war and that my grandfather, William Houston Gregg, was born there in 1871.
What can we conjecture? That most of the 1804 Ohio settlers were recently from elsewhere. That they probably arrived in small groups and settled near other small groups, surrounded by their farms and on or near potable and navigable waters. That they had familial and/or religious ties to those they journeyed with and/or decided to settle near.
Unfortunately the Miss Jane Miller mentioned above most certainly married someone other than a John Gregg. However, Mrs. Jane Miller could be a widow at 23 and this Presbyterian church the one that Thompson Paxton and John Gregg left when they moved to Big Woods, Illinois, and helped found a like church there (see below). Not proven, of course, but provocative enough to drive future research.
Tracing John and Jane In Illinois
1834. “John Gregg, the first blacksmith in the township settled on what is now known as the Griffith place, east of the village, early in the spring of 1834. His services were in great demand, as he was an excellent workman, and the prairie breakers used to come to his shop from Rockford [Illinois] – a journey which required a week to perform and return – to get their plows repaired.”. From the “Past and Present of Kane County, Illinois,” Chicago, William LeBaron, Jr:, and Co:
“ John Gregg, a blacksmith, an absolute necessity in frontier life, set up his shop two miles east of the river that spring. The shop consisted of an anvil on a stump and a bellows mounted in an open shed.” From “John Gustafson’s Historic Batavia,” p 11, by Marilyn Robinson and Jeffery D. Schielke.
1835. Excerpts from “A History of the Congregational Church of Batavia, Illinois, 1835 – 1985:”
“ . . .on Saturday, the 8th of August, 1835, five families met together to take the first steps for the organization of a Christian church [in] . . . the log cabin of Thompson Paxton. . . [The Paxton]
family came from Tennessee, fugitives from slavery, driven away from their native home by [their] intolerance of that institution. Mr Paxton . . . was compelled to silence his convictions, or find refuge in a state with free institutions, and this brought him first to Indiana, and, . . . in 1833, to his home. . . east of Big Woods.
“Another family, John Gregg and wife [Jane], was [also] from Indiana, from the same church
with the Paxtons. He was a blacksmith, and had his cabin and shop two miles east of the river.“
Both the Paxtons and the Greggs were among those named as the new church’s first elders.
1842. When Cornelius B. and Hanna Conde came to Batavia from New York he set up the first blacksmith shop in the village of Batavia at N. River St and formed a partnership with John Gregg, who is credited with being the first blacksmith in Big Woods.
“The election of August, 1842, was for state and county officers . . . Geneva and Batavia (Sandusky) had three votes for the abolitionists . . . [including] John Gregg.” From Marilyn Robinson’s “Batavia Places and the People Who Called Them Home.”
1847. In April John Gregg filed suit against Warren and Mary Spear in the Kane county circuit court: Case No, 1325, Box 9, Type, “CONVE.” A guess is that defendants allegedly failed to do what they said the would, probably involving the conveyance of property.
1848. The first Kane county tax list for personal property (not real estate) included John Gregg who was assessed at $520, probably on the value of his smithy.
1850. John Gregg was elected Overseer of the Poor of Batavia in the first annual town meeting for Batavia Township.
The Federal Census found John and Jane Gregg living on a property valued at $1,000 with all of their named children listed above except for John H. Gregg. Also enumerated with the family was Cornelius T. Healy, 34, born in Ireland and described as a pauper.
1853. A John Gregg, residence unknown, purchased 40 acres of federal land for $50 in Rock Island county on the third of March according to the “Illinois public Domain Land Tract Database” of the Illinois State Archives. Three John Greggs lived in three different Illinois counties in 1840, none in Rock Island, per the Illinois Census, 1810 to 1890.
1857. The city directory lists John Gregg as a lime burner at the corner of River and Spring streets, Batavia. Burning lime at a sufficiently high temperature creates a power which is the chief component of plaster for the building industry. Lime kilns were used to burn the lime rock.
In May John Gregg filed suit against Joel and George B. Moss in the Kane county circuit court: Case No. 6847, Box 50, for trespassing.
1860. A petition to the Kane County court, Daniel Eastman, Judge, by John Gregg’s eldest son, William M. Gregg, dated 17 April, 1860, “respectfully represents that John Gregg . . . died at Batavia . . . on or about the 12th day of March, 1860, leaving property and effects in this county and leaving no last will and testament, as far as known to and believed by this petitioner, and leaving personal property to the amount of about six hundred dollars. . . Your petitioner, being son of said deceased, and Jane Gregg, [his] widow, having filed her relinquishment therefore prays that Letters of Administration [of] the said estate of John Gregg, deceased, may be granted. . .”
Jane Alone
After John’s death in 1860 the census taker that year found Jane, age 57, still in Batavia making a home for George, 23; Henry, 19, and Charles, 18. Also in the household was her orphaned grandson John Bates, 7, and Hanna Cooper, 16, a domestic.
By 1865 she had moved to Burlington, today a rural village and township within Kane county, per the Illinois State Census of that interim year. That record is silent on who else might be in residence. She probably moved because eldest son William was successful in persuading the county court to allow him to sell the family property to discharge John’s debts (see below).
By 1870 Jane, 68, was living near Plymouth, Indiana, in Center township, Marshall county. Still with her were George, 32; Charles, 27, and John Bates, 17. Next door was her daughter, Harriet Bradley, with her two sons, Charles, 10, and Edward, 8. Nothing further is known for sure of Jane's life and death.
Chasing The Children . . . and Their Children
Sarah J(ane?) Gregg. Some time after their 1849 marriage in Kane Clinton and Sarah Bates settled in Milton, Du Page, Illinois, east of Kane. Two daughters, Abbie and Ellen, died in 1853 at age 3, and 1851 at age 1, respectively, and are buried in East Batavia cemetery.
In the 1850 census Sarah and "D. C." Bates, ages 21 and 33 respectively, were living on a Du Page farm valued at $300 with Abbie, 3 months old. A son, John G(regg?) Bates, was born in 1853.
By 1860's census John Bates, 7, was residing with Jane Gregg and three of her sons in Batavia. Sarah was dead, perhaps in childbirth. She was listed as deceased in the court petition cited above. Clinton Bate’s whereabouts and fate are unknown as of then.
John was reported to be in Montana in 1907 by Marilyn Robinson, who also asserted in notes on file at the Batavia Historical Society that both Sarah and Clinton Bates were departed by that time. The 1920 federal census shows a John G. Bates, 66, born in Illinois, residing in a rental house in Bridger, Carbon county, Montana, with wife Harriet P. Bates, 53.
A third person named Bates, given name illegible, is buried next to the two girls in East Batavia. The headstone bears no decipherable date of death and so could be either parent or another child.
Dorcas Gregg. Named at age 20 in the 1850 federal census and found by deduction in the 1840 census, Dorcas vanishes from history except for that one faint clue about the origin of her given name.
William M. Gregg. The eldest son was also a blacksmith in Batavia, presumably with his father. When John died leaving no will, William became his executor (see above) and further petitioned the Kane county court in June of 1861 to sell approximately 5 acres of county land, “part of the east half of the south east quarter of section twenty six (26) township thirty nine (39), range eight (8) bounded as follows . . .” by adjacent parcels, in order to satisfy claims against his father’s estate.
William and Pheobe both evaded the census taker in 1860, the year they married. In 1870 he got even by misspelling their name as Grigg and recording suspect numbers for their ages. They were in Batavia with William, age 5 months. Conflicting East Batavia cemetery records show somewhat ambiguously that Frances (Frankie) Gregg is buried near William and Phebe and next to an unknown Gregg.
In the 1880 census Phebe is living only with Jennie Gregg, age 8, and both Williams are absent. The son is presumably the unknown buried Gregg; William senior’s headstone records his date of death cited above. Still in Batavia, Pheobe’s occupation is listed as milliner. Nothing further is known of Pheobe until her death and burial in Batavia in 1899. She did not remarry in Illinois per the state marriage index.
On 8 Aug 1907 a Jeanette Gregg married Henry Herbert Ratcliff. Seven years earlier the 1900 census found a Henry H. Ratcliff, 33, a single man, in Columbiana, Ohio, and Jennie Gregg, 28, in Batavia living with Sarah F. Lemon, 52. Both Jennie and Henry are mentioned in a quit claim suit filed 19 Dec 1907, by John Griffiths against about half of Batavia, including eleven descendants of John and Jane and their families, to obtain quiet title to parts of four sections of land. The suit also mentions in proximity to the Greggs one Jennie Trenner and Unknown Trenner.
However, a Jennie Gregg is listed in land records in Bourbon Township, Marshall County, Indiana in 1908 (SEC 15, TPN 34, RE 1).
Elizabeth A. Gregg. In 1870 Benjamin and Elizabeth Borman, with one “o”, are recorded as living in Juneau, WI, with William, 9, and Jane, 8. Benjamin, born in England, is 39 and Elizabeth, born in Indiana, is “abt” 36. Both children were born in Wisconsin.. A Winnie Boardman (sic) is termed a non-resident in the long list of these cited in the 1907 quit claim suit grouped with others of the Gregg clan.
Harriet Gregg. Clement enlisted in the 89th Illinois Infantry on 25 August 1862. He died in battle on 19 September 1863 at Chickamauga, GA. On 13 February 1865 Harriet applied for a widow’s pension. She applied again 13 October 1873. Her younger brother, Charles S. Gregg, is listed on the government’s record of her applications as her guardian. Her sons, Charles and Edward Bradley, are listed non-residents in the quit claim suit.
Harriet appears in the 1870 federal census living next door to mother Jane in Center township, Marshall county, Indiana, with Charles, 10, and Edward, 8. A list of Marshall County guardian ships designates her (and her two children!) as guardian of John H. Gregg, the mystery child and her brother, as of 10 October 1873
George Whitfield Gregg. See the chapter, The Paternal Line And Civil War
Henry J. Gregg. By the 1860 census dated 24 July young Henry was still at home working as a cooper, or barrel maker. He escapes mention in the defendant list of the 4 June 1861 petition to sell the family homestead to settle John’s estate, but is listed in a June 1863 civil war draft registration as of age 22, unmarried and still a cooper. His brothers Charles and William registered with him: the three names are grouped together.
Charles S. Gregg. In 1860 the youngest, son was also still at home and also a cooper. During 1864 and 1865 he was in the Union army, 141st Illinois Infantry, as a 2nd Lieutenant. In 1870 he is at home with Mom near Plymouth, Indiana, where he owns land worth $2,000. There Charles signed as a witness to brother George W. Gregg’s petition for a civil war pension dated 27 July 1871, and vanishes thereafter.
John H. Gregg. John even more than the others is a mystery. He was never named with the family by census workers. He first surfaces as a defendant with Jane and the other children in the 1861 petition of William M. Gregg, his presumed brother, to administer their late father’s estate. The petition lists Jason Chapel as his guardian ad litem. He also surfaces in Marshall county, Indiana, in 1873, with his sister, Harriet, named as his guardian.
The Paternal Line And Civil War
When George Whitfield Gregg and Adelaide (Addie) Minium (often misspelled with two “m.s”) married on 22 Feb 1871 (Rev William H Gloss officiating) it was the last of a series of pivotal events in his life that did not seem disposed to allow him this day, and their offspring and subsequent generations (including the writer) their days in turn. The death of George's father and the sale of the family home and acreage in 1860 have already been described. On their heels came civil war.
George enlisted in the 124th Illinois Infantry on 6 Aug 1862 at Camp Baker, near Springfield for a three year term. The 124th was mustered out at Vicksburg on 28 July 1865 and discharged at Camp Douglas, Chicago, on 15 Aug 1865. Famed as the “Excelsior Regiment” of the storied Third Division, the unit was front and center at most of the famous battles of the western front: Vicksburg, Mobile, Spanish Fort. Wrote Union General M. D. Leggett: “It may be truthfully said of them, they were never driven from a position, and never attempted to take a position and failed.”
It was at the siege of Spanish Fort that George was hit by the musket ball that never again left his body. Five years later his pension application described his wound and its aftermath as follows: “. . . . That while . . . in the line of his duty he received the following wound, at Fort Spanish (sic), in the state of Alabama on the 28th day of March 1865 while skirmishing with his company . . . he was shot by a musket ball . . . entering about center of the inside of his right leg about six inches below the thigh joint striking the thigh bone and glanc[ing] inwardly and upward the said thigh bone lodging at the joint and in the rear of said thigh bone, and . . . he has never been able to have said ball extracted and [it] causes a continuous pain which prevents him from walking long at a time . . . and he can not . . . sit square down on the side of his bottom on which he was wounded.” George’s pension was approved for $30 a month and remained at that sum for the balance of his life.
Grievous and annoying as his injury obviously was, had that bullet glanced outwardly and upwardly Addie might have had good reason not to accept his proposal of marriage, and the potential for life to extend itself down the generations to this writer and beyond abruptly terminated by great grandpa’s close call with a musket ball.
Batavia’s war touched about 288 men, including 80 who went with George and the 124th Illinois Infantry regiment. Another 55 marched with George’s brother, Charles, in the 141st Infantry, which was formed late in the war for a 100 day enlistment that extended at least three months beyond that term. Clement Bradley was one of two Batavia men in the 89th Infantry, which filled its ranks mostly from Aurora when recruiting in Kane county.
When and how George proposed to Addie is unknown, but known facts and events continue to conspire to make it a highly improbable event that (happily) happened anyway. The first fact is the difference in their ages. While they likely knew of each other – Miniums were as thick on the ground as Greggs in that small community --, Addie was 16 and George, 25, when he enlisted and left for the civil war. Unmarried at 19 when he returned, she improbably stayed that way for nearly six more fallow years.
During those years George was likely living with his mother and other siblings, first in Burlington, Kane, then near Plymouth, Indiana, where he applied for his disability pension on 27 Jul 1871. Still he and Abbie found both each other and the time to wed. before he applied. They tied the knot 22 Feb 1871 in Batavia, one day after they got the license.
The couple’s first child, my grandfather, William Houston Gregg, was born in Nov 1871, in Plymouth, Indiana, suggesting that they were living either near or with Jane. Daughter Ruth Nellie Gregg was born 30 Sep 1878 in Batavia, however, putting George and Addie back home – to stay -- some time before that date. Jane’s death likely came some time roughly within the time span between the births of her grandchildren.
Addie no doubt was glad to get back. Adelaide Minium was the oldest daughter of John Jacob (J. J.) Minium and Ruth Bower. This family of seven living children had been in Batavia since 1850, where J. J. owned and operated a general merchandise store: dry goods, shoes and groceries. The Minium children moved away over time but J. J. and Ruth remained until their deaths in 1899 and 1905 respectively. In the 1880 census George and Addie are living next door to her parents on River street.
It is said that most of us only make the papers when we are born, get married and die. So it was with the family life of George, Addie and children in Batavia. From George’s obituary in the Batavia Herald we learn: “He was a wagon maker by trade and for a time ran a wagon shop on North River street [and Franklin], but afterwards associated himself with the Newton factory, where he was for years a valuable employee. . . Gregg was a loyal Soldier, a good citizen, quiet and retiring in his manner, honorable and upright, kind and obliging as a neighbor and friend. He had been one of the leading officers in the G. A. R. Post No 48.”
(Historical note: Batavia was an important seat for the manufacture of the fabled Conestoga wagon in which many a late 19th century pioneer trekked west to the Pacific. Three companies also manufactured the windmills that pumped many a mid west farmer's well.)
Tranquility ended in 1899 when both children married and about a year later moved away. William Houston never returned to live in Batavia, but Ruth Nellie, as we shall recount, ultimately did, staying until her death in 1921. William Houston married Lola Rustin, daughter of Oliver Rustin and Harriet Wells of Omaha, Nebraska, on 14 Mar 1899 in Batavia, Addie’s big brother, the Rev W. J. Minium, officiating. George, Addie and Ruth Nellie Gregg were witnesses. He was 28 and his bride was 25, born in Douglas County, Nebraska, but living at the time of their marriage in Mt. Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey. William listed his occupation as mechanic. Their first child, Maxwell George Gregg, my uncle, was born 22 Apr 1900 in Batavia. How William and Lola ever met is a mystery.
Ruth Nellie Gregg, age 20, married William R. Jones, 19, of Wheaton, Du Page county, Illinois, on 1 Jun 1899 in Batavia. The Rev W. J. Minium again officiated and witnesses were Mabel Conde and, William H., Addie and George W. Gregg. The groom was born in Streator, Illinois, to John S. R. Jones and Nora Sullivan. The couple obtained their marriage license on 14 Mar 1899 (the same day William married Lola) but waited until the traditional month of June for the ceremony.
By 12 Jun 1900 Ruth and William Jones were living in Batavia at 75 N. Washington Ave when visited by the census taker. William H., Lola and Maxwell Gregg, age two months, were living next door; however by 19 Sep 1907 when my father, Bruce Houston Gregg, was born, they had migrated to Ocean City, New Jersey.
In the 1910 census both couples were living in Chicago, again next door to each other on E. 66th Pl. But the Jones’ household had grown in ways significant for our unfolding tale. Bill’s niece, Nora, age 16 was living with them, as was a boarder, Vincenzo (misspelled “Bincengo”) Gullotta, age 29 (wrong), an Italian immigrant violinist from Taormina, Sicily. A 1921 passport application attests that Vincenzo first migrated to the U.S. in 1906, sailing from Liverpool, England. Ellis Island records also have the single, age 30 (right), immigrant arriving August 16, 1910, in New York aboard The Carpathia, suggesting that he sailed between the U. S. and Italy with some frequency.
The Taormina Trio
Ruth Gregg-Jones was also a musician. She was an accompanist, taught piano and published an instruction book of piano exercises. The potential affinity between the two musicians in one household was soon realized.
On 30 Aug 1911 Ruth and Nora both applied for U.S. passports. Ruth's application was witnessed by Vincenzo, Nora's by Fred J. Lamb. Their signatures were notarized by G. Lifrieri, who was also to receive their passports at his address. Both pledged to return to the U.S. within two years. On Nora's application it was noted that "Miss Nora Jones is going to Italy for instruction."
Official records are silent as to when they actually went to Italy, but Ruth, Nora and Vincenzo all came back to New York from Naples on the Berlin on 15 May 1912. They are listed together on the ship's manifest, Ruth as a music instructor, Vincenzo, a musician. Ruth and Nora were returning to the same Chicago address on 66th Place.
Whether they were coming home to William Jones is problematical. No, William did not die. Instead, as another researcher has declared -- in all probability correctly -- he married Nellie F. Gissler on 25 Apr 1914 in Richland City, IL. By the 1930 census the couple were living in White Plains, NY, with Marjorie, 12, and Nancy, 8. William was president of a stock brokerage, and the family lived in an elegant home with a live-in couple from Finland.
Meanwhile Ruth Gregg-Jones, Vincenzo Gullotta and (Mrs.) Fern Grant, a soprano, formed the Taormina Trio and successfully performed classical music professionally on the Chautauqua circuit and other venues on both sides of the Atlantic: London and Rome; Chicago and Denver; Taormina and San Francisco. A publicity photograph from their promotional literature shows three young, attractive performers. A "famous" fan, Mary Anderson, wrote to them: "I will never forget your most beautiful playing, with the Ionian sea before us and the roses of Taormina above us."
The Trio continued for at least three years. They likely formed after the Italy trip as no passport application for Fern is on file, nor was she on the Berlin passenger list. Vincenzo applied for a passport for himself and "my wife Ruth Gregg Gullotta" on 28 Apr 1921 for a trip to Taormina to see his parents. He had planned for them to go about 15 August, but Ruth died without issue on 31 Jul 1921, age 41, and is buried next to her parents in East Batavia cemetery. It is likely that Vincenzo went to Italy immediately after her death as his return by the passenger ship Providence on 25 October 1921 is recorded on the Ellis Island Foundation on-line data base.
The Music Man of River City
Vincenzo (“Vincengo” this time) Gullotta and Ruth G. Jones had married on 8 Apr 1914 in Lake county, Indiana. The new couple were found next in 1920 on 20 May when Vincenzo, on becoming a U. S. citizen some 14 years after his first known arrival, gave his address as 84 River Street, Batavia. Vincenzo called it home at least until 1942 when he registered -- at age 62 -- for the World War II draft's fourth "call" of men up to age 64.
Vincenzo and the former Helene Caroline Rogers were married on 21 Sep 1922. By 1930 Vincenzo, 51, and Helene, 33, were living in Batavia with two daughters, Rose Marie (sic), 6, and Helene, 4, and Helene’s mother, Mae E. Rogers, 54.
After Ruth's death, no mention of his first wife can be found in Batavia records, but his fame as a musician had spread as far as San Francisco where in 1922 the Chronicle newspaper, in an article entitled "Controlled by Wife Ghosts," declared that "The prospective second wife of a noted violinist is selected by his first wife's spirit." A picture titled "Helene Rogers" accompanies the article, which profiles several cases of wifely visitations from beyond the grave. In the florid prose of the period, writer Elizabeth Shields declaims:
"Like the faint, sweet, exquisite love songs he draws from his violin, Vincenzo Gullotta explains, is the knowledge of his dead wife's spirit rising to his consciousness. Beloved in life as she was, the beautiful Ruth Gregg, also a musician, was mourned with desperation of grief when she 'went away.'
"'But she promised,' the musician continued, 'that if it were permitted, she would return to me. . . . She told me that her greatest desire was to see me linked with youth and vitality and love' . . . It was the woman in the spirit land, the musician believes, who led him to Helene Rogers, a girl fourteen years his junior, who has promised to become his second wife. . . . Ruth Gregg Gullotta approves of this second marriage, and is working, from her astral plane, for its success!"
Given an endorsement from a higher plane the marriage could not help but occur and prosper. A history of the Batavia Commercial Club, available in the Batavia library, credits Vincenzo with being the only musician to be a member of that organization. It declares in part:
"A very distinguished man in appearance and in reputation, he lived on North Washington Avenue and was a frequent user of the [Commercial] club facilities.
“Professor Gullotta as he was so well known, was born March 6, 1880, in Taormina, Sicily. . .[He] came to Batavia as a fairly young man. A music teacher . . .he . . . had a varied career in his profession. He was married to Helen (sic) and they had three daughters. Antoinette died at age six years. Rosemary [Hicks] survived until her death in 1990 in our town and Helene G Koch [died 10 October 2009 in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin]. . .
“During his 80 years of life, the Professor not only taught music, bus also was a teacher at the St. Charles School for Boys and at the State School for Girls at Geneva. He was also Director of the Fox Valley Philharmonic Educational Orchestra during the 1940's.
“Becoming homesick, Professor Gullotta went back to Sicily in 1959, where he died on March 5, 1960, one day short of his eightieth birthday.”
It is not known whether or not Helene went with him to Italy on that final return. It is known that she is is buried in the East Batavia Cemetery, sharing a plot with her young daughter, Antonette, and but three plots away from Ruth, her predecessor and reputed spiritual sponsor. She was buried 23 Oct 1980, age 84.
George Whitfield Gregg . . . Death and Aftermath
Two documents tell the tale of George’s death and shed more light on the kind of person he was. One, an internal memo from the Chief, Finance Division, Bureau of Pensions, U. S. Department of the Interior, to the Commissioner of Pensions, declares:
“Sir: I have the honor to report that the name of the above-described pensioner who was last paid at $30 to Jan 4, 1917 has this day been dropped from the roll because of death Feb-26-1917. Very respectfully, [completely illegible signature].”
The other document is an accounting of his estate prepared by Horace N. Jones, estate administrator for the Kane county probate court, John N. Williams presiding judge. George left $2,484.40 each to William and Ruth, his surviving children. A little less than half of his assets were real enough: savings in two Batavia banks. The rest was promissory notes and accrued interest thereon owed him by Ruth and Vincenzo ($3,280.51), William ($446.70) and John and Susan Kuczinski ($210).
After $818.14 in expenses were paid, William wound up with the remaining cash and a couple of the promissory notes. Ruth and Vincenzo didn’t do badly though, as their largest note ($2,250) was in all probability a loan to buy their home, and was now forgiven in death. George’s meager estate paid $1.57 to record their trust deed.
George had no real estate of his own, only $20.00 in his checking account and owed Ruth $44.00 for board, which she collected. R. C. Hollister’s funeral bill was $356 and the estate administrator claimed $250.00. George’s estate also paid for various fees and taxes and on 26 January “at request of W. H. Gregg and Ruth G. Gullotta, [paid] on Karlzen and Co. Monument bill, $25.00.”
He is buried in the East Batavia Cemetery next to Addie. Cemetery records list George as the owner of 22 grave sites in Sections 9 and 11, lots 154 and 285 respectively, although these assets were not part of his probate. Thirteen of the sites have been used. Another 10 sites are owned by the estate of his son William in Section 11, lot 80, four of which are occupied.
William Houston and Lola Rustin Gregg . . . and Family
Grandparents William and Lola didn't have it easy during their 30 plus years of marriage. The census records for 1900, 10 and 20 describe him as a wheel maker, stock broker and investigator respectively. In 1907, when my father, Bruce Houston, was born, his New Jersey birth certificate listed his father's occupation as laborer. According to William's marriage license he was a mechanic.
By 1910 the family was complete and in the neighborhood where they would live for nearly the next two decades. Maxwell George was 10 and Bruce Houston 2 1/2 and they were living next door to their Aunt Ruth and Uncle William Jones at 1433 East 66th Place, Chicago, Illinois. Young Max would be the first of the two families to peel off. A cousin has written me that family legend has it he "went west to work on a ranch" at the young age of 14. He did return home long enough to register for the World War I draft sometime in 1917-18, but ultimately wound up in Ballston Spa, New York, for the balance of his long life (see below.) His draft registration form, unfortunately barely legible, lists his employer as American Express Company, Chicago. Under a portion labeled "Description of Registrant" is a cryptic notation: "Lost an eye."
Next to go was Great Uncle Bill, whose displacement in the affections of my Great Aunt Ruth by Vincenzo Gullotta, has been previously chronicled. William H and Lola moved into 1435 East 66th when Ruth and Vincenzo departed for marriage in Indiana and housekeeping back in Batavia. They promptly took in up to four borders in the more spacious quarters, that number being enumerated in both the 1920 and 1930 censuses. More evidence that William H was an inconsistent provider.
That was not his only inconsistency, as he left the scene sometime in the 1920s for parts and reasons unknown. Little is known of his life thereafter other than he remarried and raised a family, while his time and place of death are not known. By the 1930 census Lola, age 54, was alone with her four latest borders, no visible husband, and a disappearing son as well.
My only physical evidence of William Houston Gregg's life and ambitions is a painting I inherited from my mother. It is a majestic untitled seascape, a study in sand and sea, wind and clouds, by an impressive talent. My mother always said it was a painting of Lake Michigan, and she could be right, but it also could be a portrait of a windswept day in Ocean City, New Jersey. Not that that matters. The initials, "WHG," are bold and clear. There is no doubt where his true interest and talent lay.
Lola, Emma and Maxwell
My uncle Max was not on any one's radar for the 1920 census, but by 1930 he was living at 123 South Street, Ballston Spa, New York, with his wife, the former Emma Margaret Thayer and daughters, Marjorie, 7, and Susan, 4.
The 1940 census found Max, Margaret and Marjorie (but not Susan) living in an Albany, NY, rental house. He was the proprietor of his own Commercial Art business, working 60 hours a week. The census worker recorded that Maxwell had two years of high school, Emma Margaret had only one year high school, while Marjorie completed all four years of high school. He also recorded that Marjorie had been born in New Jersey.
Eventually the family settled in Ballston Spa. Their home was a large two story house with room enough at one point for himself and Emma, Lola, Emma's mother, his daughter Marjorie and her daughter, my living cousin, who provided this description, plus a family in an upstairs rental unit.
Lola came to live with her eldest son after 1940 and no later than 1952. The most probable year is 1942, when youngest son, Bruce, enlisted in the army. My cousin wrote: "She was a tall thin woman . . .a member of the Christian Science faith and came to live with us . . . I don't remember when that was as Grandma Gregg was always there. I was born in 1950 and I think I was about 10 when Grandma Gregg died. She and Grandma Thayer were fond memories of my childhood."
Maxwell Gregg married Emma Margaret Thayer, daughter of George Arthur Thayer and Addie M. Havens, about 1921. The Thayer family paternal line goes back to Thomas Thayer, baptized in 1596, Thornbury, Gloucester, England, who immigrated to Colonial America in 1637. It is a New England family of many branches and both notorious and distinguished members. Max and Emma were married for about 65 years until his death in 1986. She died two years later.
My cousin wrote: "My grandmother Margaret met Grampy when she would pass the mill he was working at on her way to work. . . Grampy was a quiet and thoughtful man. He read a lot and enjoyed his painting. He had his own sign and display business for a while and then went to work for the GE company as a lithographer. In his spare time he would design greeting cards, paint landscapes and portraits from pictures, and work with silk screens to create the patterns for stuffed dolls sold worldwide."
I have one of my Uncle Max's paintings, passed down from my mother. It is a landscape of the Grand Canal, Venice, signed in block letters "MGREGG AFTER MORAN." Thomas Moran, an iconic American western landscape painter of the Hudson River School, also painted numerous Venetian canal scenes. Uncle Max's work is a composite most closely resembling one Moran did in 1912. It has an honored place in my living room as it did in my mother's homes for the years I was growing up and after.
Bruce Houston Gregg, Sr.
In April, 1930, when the census enumerator came calling, and when I was but 5 months from my debut, my father began his own signature disappearing act. His first magic trick was to appear to be in three places at once. He was listed as an unemployed boarder, age 22, at the home of my maternal grandmother, Maria Krusenstierna, along with my mother, Signe Marie (Bessie) Gregg and four of mother's six siblings. They all lived at 7011 Cornell Avenue, Chicago, which became my home, too, on 15 September next.
Only blocks away, Lola told perhaps the same enumerator that her son lived with her and that he was an architect, age 22. The inconvenient truth that he was married with a son on the way did not come up. Meanwhile a census taker caught up with a Bruce H. Gregg, age 22, living at the Hyde Park YMCA, married four years, born in New Jersey of a father born in Indiana and a mother born in Nebraska, working as a building supervisor.
The next official sighting of Senior was his application for a social security card and number, dated May 21, 1937. He was working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Resettlement Administration, on the Greenbelt Project in Berwyn, Maryland, and living at 126 E Street SW in Washington, D. C. The Greenbelt Project was a New Deal era experiment in rural self sufficiency. It consisted of small garden apartments of some charm and architectural merit, organized and run for communal and cooperative living, and was a favorite initiative of Eleanor Roosevelt and Rexford Tugwell, who ran the Resettlement Administration. No trace of his contribution to this historical endeavor has been found, although much more than a trace of the community still exists.
In 1940 Senior and Lola were living at 1218 East Marquette Road, Chicago, when the census enumerator caught up with them. He worked as a real estate estimator for $2,600 a year. Also in residence as lodgers were Jessie Dudley, 33, a white married woman born in Illinois, and Robert A. Dudley, 4, presumably her son. Jessie worked as a food checker for a private school and made $540 in the past year.
Another 1940 census entry for a Jessie L. Dudley, also 33, a white single woman born in Illinois, declares that she is living alone with her parents, William W. and Ana Dudley, at 7251 Phillips Avenue, Chicago, about two miles from the Marquette Road address. Mr Dudley, 67, worked as a real estate manager for $2,000 a year, while his daughter was a secretary in real estate earning $1,200 a year.
In 1930 Jessie Dudley, no "L," was living with William and Annie Dudley and three siblings at 1536 East 67th Place, Chicago. Lola and Bruce were living at 1435 East 66th Street, about two blocks away.
What to conclude from all of this? (1) Times were hard; people did what they had to to survive. (2) People lied and exaggerated when talking to census takers, frequently more than once. (3) My father was probably a cad.
It seems likely, though not proven, that Senior left my mother when she was pregnant with me, took up with Jessie living near by, fathered a child by her, left town to work in D. C. before his second son was born, later moved her and the child in with his mother and then enlisted in the army without ever officially getting married. At least no record of his marriage to Miss Dudley has yet been found.
On 9 Sep 1942 Senior went to war. He enlisted in Chicago as a private in the army "for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law." On the way in he declared he was married, a geologist by profession with three years high school. On the way out, 18 Sep 1945, he was discharged honorably as a sergeant. A fire on 12 Jul 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center in St Louis destroyed all paper trails of his years in between.
Long before, about 1935, my mother had divorced him and remarried, so the marriage he declared to the army is to someone else. A Bruce H. Gregg married one Faye C. Hewitt in Cook County, IL, on 13 April 1942 according to an on line index. Details are on order, but all I know for sure about this marriage is that it didn't last.
On 7 Mar 1951 Bruce Gregg, 43, married Carroll Hopkins, 31, in the Randolph county courthouse, Pocahontas, Arkansas. Randolph county borders the southeastern quadrant of Missouri. The license, payment of a $100 marriage bond and the civil ceremony itself took place on the same day. Bride and groom both gave Chicago as their place of residence. I was living not far away in Tulsa, Oklahoma, about then and remember Arkansas' reputation as a marriage mill for mid westerners in a hurry.
Carroll Mildred Hopkins, daughter of Samuel B. and Veola Hopkins, was born in Illinois about 1920. The 1930 census found the family in Johnson City, Williamson county, Illinois, near the southern tip of the state -- about as far from Chicago as one can get and not leave Illinois. There were three children: Robert, 12; Carroll, 10; Marion (a son), 5. Samuel was a Virginian and Veola from Kentucky.
Sometime in 1951 after their marriage Senior and Carroll moved to Denver, CO, and lived at 14352 Ivanhoe according to Denver's city directory for that year. His occupation was abbreviated as "carp," short presumably for carpenter.
For the next sixteen years the official record is so far a blank.Only by his death do we learn enough to conjure a story of my father's mature years. From his obituary in the Nashville Tennessean, 3 September, 1967:
"Bruce Houston Gregg, 59, of 511 Chesterfield Ave., representative of Skidmore, Owens (sic) and Merrill, Architects of Chicago, died yesterday at a local infirmary after a heart attack.
"Services will be conducted at 2 p.m. tomorrow by a Christian Science reader at Phillips-Robinson Funeral Home. Cremation will take place later in Louisville [Kentucky].
"Gregg and his wife, Mrs. Carroll M. Gregg, moved to Nashville last March from Chicago. She survives.
"Gregg's firm is designer and builder of the new 3rd National Bank building under construction across from the L.C Tower at Fourth Avenue and Church Street.
"Upon completion of the new structure, the Greggs (sic) planned to return to Chicago.
"Gregg was a members (sic) of the 1st Church of Christ Scientist of Boston, Mass.
"He is salso (sic) survived by a brother, Maxwell Gregg of Ballston Spa, N. Y."
Some atrocious proof reading aside, this terse account has supplied much food for thought and conjecture. Like most obituaries it is selective in recounting the existence of ex-spouses and their offspring. Fair enough.
Why cremation in Louisville? Was he interred there? Louisville, the funeral home emailed, was the closest crematorium in those days. They didn't know where his ashes went, but did confirm that a Christian Scientist reader from the First Church of Christ Scientist of Boston conducted the 2 p.m. service. Perhaps Senior had lived in Boston for a time.
The Skidmore, Owings and Merrill connection is both heartening and intriguing. SOM is perhaps the largest building design and construction firm in the world. Among its most noted buildings are Lever House, the Air Force Academy Chapel and John Hancock Center and Sears Tower in Chicago. To represent its world class architects on construction sites would be to rise above his meager education (as of 1942) -- if not his mother's ambitions. Unfortunately, the company did not respond to my request for more information about his career.
From the his social security file (thank you, Becky) I learned that he earned $6,110 in the six months ending July 1, 1967.
Carroll M. Gregg is still alive at the end of 2010 but not responsive to attempts at contact. This is her privilege and her privacy will be otherwise respected. She lives with a relative, probably her son and my half brother, who also is unresponsive to attempts at contact.
Notes on Sources
The Batavia Historical Society on two brief visits provided access to many original and authenticating documents and advice and direction to cemetery records and other histories.
The Batavia Public Library’s local history room is a treasure trove of printed histories of Batavia, Kane County and local institutions, most notably “John Gustafson’s Historic Batavia,” by Gustafson, Marilyn Robinson and Jeffery D. Schielke, copyright 1998.
The City of Batavia records of the East Batavia Cemetery, and the kind assistance of a groundskeeper, were invaluable on my single hurried visit to the ancestral plots.
The shared research of my cousin by marriage, Ronnie Osko, and her family, of Du Page County, Illinois, whose grandfather was our fascinating Music Man.
The Illinois State archives provided many on-line data sets, including the State Marriage Index and muster rolls and histories of the Illinois civil war regiments.
Other major sources include:
The on-line federal and state census and other records of Ancestry.com.
The pension records of civil war soldiers of the National Archives
The Social Security Death Index version maintained on-line by Ancestry.com.
The on-line resources of Family Tree Maker.
About The Author
Born Bruce Houston Gregg, Jr., to Bruce Houston Gregg and Signe Marie (Bess) Von Krusenstierna, the daughter of Swedish immigrants, in Chicago, Illinois, 15 Sep 1930. My father took one look at me and left, never to be seen or heard of again. Five lonely years later my mother married John James Johnson, of Waterloo, Iowa, the only man I ever called “Dad.”. We moved immediately to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was raised as their son and was unaware of any other paternity until adolescence. Later, my step-father formally adopted me. After John and Bess Johnson were dead I began a search for my family roots. One result is this history. My wife, Carol, and I now reside in Orange City, Florida, in the John Knox Village retirement community, at 8 Nasturtium Ct. 32763. 386-218-4850. bruce4572@aol.com.
Dedication
This modest work is dedicated to the late Marilyn Robinson, noted historian of Batavia, who personally shared her time and research with me, and to Helen Morris, of Sunnyvale and The Sea Ranch, California, twelve years a neighbor and a continuing friend, who initially and patiently introduced me to the techniques and delights of genealogical research.
John Gregg and Jane Miller are my paternal great-great grandparents. They were both born in Ohio in 1804, the year after this slice of the Northwest Territory entered the Union as the 17th state. Available records tell nothing of their origins, childhood or their early adult years. Their marriage was recorded in the courthouse of Fountain county, Indiana, on 10 Jan 1828. They next turned up in 1834 near Big Woods in Illinois -- then a large tract of timbered land about 10 miles long and 4 to 5 miles wide east of the Fox river --with a boy and three girls in tow.
In 1836 Kane County was formed from a 36 square mile slice of the northern end of La Salle county, including Big Woods. . Kane's population of twelve to fifteen hundred rapidly increased.
Big Woods in time became a part of Batavia, founded in 1835, one of a cluster of still bucolic communities strung along the Fox and within the western penumbra of Chicago. Batavia is home to Fermilab, the nation's premiere national laboratory for the study of particle physics. But in 1834 the Black Hawk Indian war had been fought only two years earlier, although there is no record of Illinois' most famous Black Hawk militiaman, Abraham Lincoln, having marched about in Big Woods. After a series of desultory skirmishes, in which cholera was the victor, the disputed valley was safe enough for settlers.
John became the first blacksmith in the region. They had seven more children, including two daughters whose names are so far lost to history, and one son whose life was lived in the shadows. They acquired land, helped found what became the Batavia Congregational Church and were otherwise active in the community. John died in 1860 and Jane after 1870. John may be buried in the East Batavia cemetery along with 17 of their descendants, while Jane is probably interred near Plymouth, Indiana.
John’s death in 1860 precipitated the loss of the family homestead to creditors. These destabilizing events plus the civil war forever changed the trajectory of this pioneering family. At least three members fought for the union. One son was partially disabled and one son-in-law was killed in battle.. The extended family scattered – a not unusual pattern in our restless nation.
The First Family
The known vital statistics (birth, marriage, death) of the named children of John and Jane Gregg are:
Sarah J. Gregg. born, Indiana, 1828-1829. Married Clinton Bates, 24 Jan 1849, Kane county, Illinois.
Dorcas Gregg: born, Indiana, 1830.
William M. Gregg: born, Indiana, 29 May 1832. Married Phoebe E. Lumm, 9 Jun 1860, Kane. Died 29 Sep 1873, Batavia.
Elizabeth A. Gregg: born, Indiana, 1833. Married Benjamin Boorman (Borman), 5 Oct 1859, Kane.
Harriet Gregg: born, Batavia, 1835. Married Clement G. Bradley, 12 Jan 1859, Kane.
George Whitfield Gregg: born, Batavia, 7 Aug 1837. Married Adelaide (Addie) Minium, 22 Feb 1871, Batavia. Died 24 Feb 1917, Batavia.
Henry J. Gregg. born, Batavia, probably 1841.
Charles S. Gregg: born, Batavia, probably 1843.
John H. Gregg: born, probably Batavia, date unknown.
John and Jane Before Illinois
What can you say when next to nothing is known? Well from what you do know you can conjecture, hypothesize, and otherwise make things up, and then try to prove them.
What do we know? That in the 1850 census. which provides the most complete family snapshot, the couple said they both were born in Ohio and were now age 46. That Fountain County, Indiana, recorded their marriage, 10 Jan 1828, by handwritten record. It says they were residents of the county, "of lawful age," received their license on 4 Jan 1828 and were married within the week.
That the 1830 census has a John Gregg, age 20 to 29, residing in Fountain county, Indiana, with a female child under the age of five (Sarah?), another female child, 15 to 20, and a female, 20 to 29 (Jane Gregg).
That in 1800 Ohio counted 45,363 settlers scattered over 44,828 square miles. The territory was growing rapidly enough that Congress said it could begin the process of becoming a state because it would soon meet the Northwest Ordinance's threshold of 60,000 people. That in 1810 Ohio had 230 thousand inhabitants, and over twice that many by 1820, reason enough for a true pioneer to move on to Indiana.
That a history of Fountain County, Indiana (Beckwith, 1881), records that on 3 Dec 1827 “members and adherents of the Presbyterian church met at the house of William Miller. . . The following persons then presented certificates of membership from other churches: . . . Mrs Jane Miller, Miss Jane Miller, Dorcas Brier . . . and . . . were organized into a church.”
That after John's death in 1860 Jane and three children moved to near Plymouth in Marshall county, Indiana. That one of those children, my great grandfather, George Whitfield Gregg, lived there for a time after the civil war and that my grandfather, William Houston Gregg, was born there in 1871.
What can we conjecture? That most of the 1804 Ohio settlers were recently from elsewhere. That they probably arrived in small groups and settled near other small groups, surrounded by their farms and on or near potable and navigable waters. That they had familial and/or religious ties to those they journeyed with and/or decided to settle near.
Unfortunately the Miss Jane Miller mentioned above most certainly married someone other than a John Gregg. However, Mrs. Jane Miller could be a widow at 23 and this Presbyterian church the one that Thompson Paxton and John Gregg left when they moved to Big Woods, Illinois, and helped found a like church there (see below). Not proven, of course, but provocative enough to drive future research.
Tracing John and Jane In Illinois
1834. “John Gregg, the first blacksmith in the township settled on what is now known as the Griffith place, east of the village, early in the spring of 1834. His services were in great demand, as he was an excellent workman, and the prairie breakers used to come to his shop from Rockford [Illinois] – a journey which required a week to perform and return – to get their plows repaired.”. From the “Past and Present of Kane County, Illinois,” Chicago, William LeBaron, Jr:, and Co:
“ John Gregg, a blacksmith, an absolute necessity in frontier life, set up his shop two miles east of the river that spring. The shop consisted of an anvil on a stump and a bellows mounted in an open shed.” From “John Gustafson’s Historic Batavia,” p 11, by Marilyn Robinson and Jeffery D. Schielke.
1835. Excerpts from “A History of the Congregational Church of Batavia, Illinois, 1835 – 1985:”
“ . . .on Saturday, the 8th of August, 1835, five families met together to take the first steps for the organization of a Christian church [in] . . . the log cabin of Thompson Paxton. . . [The Paxton]
family came from Tennessee, fugitives from slavery, driven away from their native home by [their] intolerance of that institution. Mr Paxton . . . was compelled to silence his convictions, or find refuge in a state with free institutions, and this brought him first to Indiana, and, . . . in 1833, to his home. . . east of Big Woods.
“Another family, John Gregg and wife [Jane], was [also] from Indiana, from the same church
with the Paxtons. He was a blacksmith, and had his cabin and shop two miles east of the river.“
Both the Paxtons and the Greggs were among those named as the new church’s first elders.
1842. When Cornelius B. and Hanna Conde came to Batavia from New York he set up the first blacksmith shop in the village of Batavia at N. River St and formed a partnership with John Gregg, who is credited with being the first blacksmith in Big Woods.
“The election of August, 1842, was for state and county officers . . . Geneva and Batavia (Sandusky) had three votes for the abolitionists . . . [including] John Gregg.” From Marilyn Robinson’s “Batavia Places and the People Who Called Them Home.”
1847. In April John Gregg filed suit against Warren and Mary Spear in the Kane county circuit court: Case No, 1325, Box 9, Type, “CONVE.” A guess is that defendants allegedly failed to do what they said the would, probably involving the conveyance of property.
1848. The first Kane county tax list for personal property (not real estate) included John Gregg who was assessed at $520, probably on the value of his smithy.
1850. John Gregg was elected Overseer of the Poor of Batavia in the first annual town meeting for Batavia Township.
The Federal Census found John and Jane Gregg living on a property valued at $1,000 with all of their named children listed above except for John H. Gregg. Also enumerated with the family was Cornelius T. Healy, 34, born in Ireland and described as a pauper.
1853. A John Gregg, residence unknown, purchased 40 acres of federal land for $50 in Rock Island county on the third of March according to the “Illinois public Domain Land Tract Database” of the Illinois State Archives. Three John Greggs lived in three different Illinois counties in 1840, none in Rock Island, per the Illinois Census, 1810 to 1890.
1857. The city directory lists John Gregg as a lime burner at the corner of River and Spring streets, Batavia. Burning lime at a sufficiently high temperature creates a power which is the chief component of plaster for the building industry. Lime kilns were used to burn the lime rock.
In May John Gregg filed suit against Joel and George B. Moss in the Kane county circuit court: Case No. 6847, Box 50, for trespassing.
1860. A petition to the Kane County court, Daniel Eastman, Judge, by John Gregg’s eldest son, William M. Gregg, dated 17 April, 1860, “respectfully represents that John Gregg . . . died at Batavia . . . on or about the 12th day of March, 1860, leaving property and effects in this county and leaving no last will and testament, as far as known to and believed by this petitioner, and leaving personal property to the amount of about six hundred dollars. . . Your petitioner, being son of said deceased, and Jane Gregg, [his] widow, having filed her relinquishment therefore prays that Letters of Administration [of] the said estate of John Gregg, deceased, may be granted. . .”
Jane Alone
After John’s death in 1860 the census taker that year found Jane, age 57, still in Batavia making a home for George, 23; Henry, 19, and Charles, 18. Also in the household was her orphaned grandson John Bates, 7, and Hanna Cooper, 16, a domestic.
By 1865 she had moved to Burlington, today a rural village and township within Kane county, per the Illinois State Census of that interim year. That record is silent on who else might be in residence. She probably moved because eldest son William was successful in persuading the county court to allow him to sell the family property to discharge John’s debts (see below).
By 1870 Jane, 68, was living near Plymouth, Indiana, in Center township, Marshall county. Still with her were George, 32; Charles, 27, and John Bates, 17. Next door was her daughter, Harriet Bradley, with her two sons, Charles, 10, and Edward, 8. Nothing further is known for sure of Jane's life and death.
Chasing The Children . . . and Their Children
Sarah J(ane?) Gregg. Some time after their 1849 marriage in Kane Clinton and Sarah Bates settled in Milton, Du Page, Illinois, east of Kane. Two daughters, Abbie and Ellen, died in 1853 at age 3, and 1851 at age 1, respectively, and are buried in East Batavia cemetery.
In the 1850 census Sarah and "D. C." Bates, ages 21 and 33 respectively, were living on a Du Page farm valued at $300 with Abbie, 3 months old. A son, John G(regg?) Bates, was born in 1853.
By 1860's census John Bates, 7, was residing with Jane Gregg and three of her sons in Batavia. Sarah was dead, perhaps in childbirth. She was listed as deceased in the court petition cited above. Clinton Bate’s whereabouts and fate are unknown as of then.
John was reported to be in Montana in 1907 by Marilyn Robinson, who also asserted in notes on file at the Batavia Historical Society that both Sarah and Clinton Bates were departed by that time. The 1920 federal census shows a John G. Bates, 66, born in Illinois, residing in a rental house in Bridger, Carbon county, Montana, with wife Harriet P. Bates, 53.
A third person named Bates, given name illegible, is buried next to the two girls in East Batavia. The headstone bears no decipherable date of death and so could be either parent or another child.
Dorcas Gregg. Named at age 20 in the 1850 federal census and found by deduction in the 1840 census, Dorcas vanishes from history except for that one faint clue about the origin of her given name.
William M. Gregg. The eldest son was also a blacksmith in Batavia, presumably with his father. When John died leaving no will, William became his executor (see above) and further petitioned the Kane county court in June of 1861 to sell approximately 5 acres of county land, “part of the east half of the south east quarter of section twenty six (26) township thirty nine (39), range eight (8) bounded as follows . . .” by adjacent parcels, in order to satisfy claims against his father’s estate.
William and Pheobe both evaded the census taker in 1860, the year they married. In 1870 he got even by misspelling their name as Grigg and recording suspect numbers for their ages. They were in Batavia with William, age 5 months. Conflicting East Batavia cemetery records show somewhat ambiguously that Frances (Frankie) Gregg is buried near William and Phebe and next to an unknown Gregg.
In the 1880 census Phebe is living only with Jennie Gregg, age 8, and both Williams are absent. The son is presumably the unknown buried Gregg; William senior’s headstone records his date of death cited above. Still in Batavia, Pheobe’s occupation is listed as milliner. Nothing further is known of Pheobe until her death and burial in Batavia in 1899. She did not remarry in Illinois per the state marriage index.
On 8 Aug 1907 a Jeanette Gregg married Henry Herbert Ratcliff. Seven years earlier the 1900 census found a Henry H. Ratcliff, 33, a single man, in Columbiana, Ohio, and Jennie Gregg, 28, in Batavia living with Sarah F. Lemon, 52. Both Jennie and Henry are mentioned in a quit claim suit filed 19 Dec 1907, by John Griffiths against about half of Batavia, including eleven descendants of John and Jane and their families, to obtain quiet title to parts of four sections of land. The suit also mentions in proximity to the Greggs one Jennie Trenner and Unknown Trenner.
However, a Jennie Gregg is listed in land records in Bourbon Township, Marshall County, Indiana in 1908 (SEC 15, TPN 34, RE 1).
Elizabeth A. Gregg. In 1870 Benjamin and Elizabeth Borman, with one “o”, are recorded as living in Juneau, WI, with William, 9, and Jane, 8. Benjamin, born in England, is 39 and Elizabeth, born in Indiana, is “abt” 36. Both children were born in Wisconsin.. A Winnie Boardman (sic) is termed a non-resident in the long list of these cited in the 1907 quit claim suit grouped with others of the Gregg clan.
Harriet Gregg. Clement enlisted in the 89th Illinois Infantry on 25 August 1862. He died in battle on 19 September 1863 at Chickamauga, GA. On 13 February 1865 Harriet applied for a widow’s pension. She applied again 13 October 1873. Her younger brother, Charles S. Gregg, is listed on the government’s record of her applications as her guardian. Her sons, Charles and Edward Bradley, are listed non-residents in the quit claim suit.
Harriet appears in the 1870 federal census living next door to mother Jane in Center township, Marshall county, Indiana, with Charles, 10, and Edward, 8. A list of Marshall County guardian ships designates her (and her two children!) as guardian of John H. Gregg, the mystery child and her brother, as of 10 October 1873
George Whitfield Gregg. See the chapter, The Paternal Line And Civil War
Henry J. Gregg. By the 1860 census dated 24 July young Henry was still at home working as a cooper, or barrel maker. He escapes mention in the defendant list of the 4 June 1861 petition to sell the family homestead to settle John’s estate, but is listed in a June 1863 civil war draft registration as of age 22, unmarried and still a cooper. His brothers Charles and William registered with him: the three names are grouped together.
Charles S. Gregg. In 1860 the youngest, son was also still at home and also a cooper. During 1864 and 1865 he was in the Union army, 141st Illinois Infantry, as a 2nd Lieutenant. In 1870 he is at home with Mom near Plymouth, Indiana, where he owns land worth $2,000. There Charles signed as a witness to brother George W. Gregg’s petition for a civil war pension dated 27 July 1871, and vanishes thereafter.
John H. Gregg. John even more than the others is a mystery. He was never named with the family by census workers. He first surfaces as a defendant with Jane and the other children in the 1861 petition of William M. Gregg, his presumed brother, to administer their late father’s estate. The petition lists Jason Chapel as his guardian ad litem. He also surfaces in Marshall county, Indiana, in 1873, with his sister, Harriet, named as his guardian.
The Paternal Line And Civil War
When George Whitfield Gregg and Adelaide (Addie) Minium (often misspelled with two “m.s”) married on 22 Feb 1871 (Rev William H Gloss officiating) it was the last of a series of pivotal events in his life that did not seem disposed to allow him this day, and their offspring and subsequent generations (including the writer) their days in turn. The death of George's father and the sale of the family home and acreage in 1860 have already been described. On their heels came civil war.
George enlisted in the 124th Illinois Infantry on 6 Aug 1862 at Camp Baker, near Springfield for a three year term. The 124th was mustered out at Vicksburg on 28 July 1865 and discharged at Camp Douglas, Chicago, on 15 Aug 1865. Famed as the “Excelsior Regiment” of the storied Third Division, the unit was front and center at most of the famous battles of the western front: Vicksburg, Mobile, Spanish Fort. Wrote Union General M. D. Leggett: “It may be truthfully said of them, they were never driven from a position, and never attempted to take a position and failed.”
It was at the siege of Spanish Fort that George was hit by the musket ball that never again left his body. Five years later his pension application described his wound and its aftermath as follows: “. . . . That while . . . in the line of his duty he received the following wound, at Fort Spanish (sic), in the state of Alabama on the 28th day of March 1865 while skirmishing with his company . . . he was shot by a musket ball . . . entering about center of the inside of his right leg about six inches below the thigh joint striking the thigh bone and glanc[ing] inwardly and upward the said thigh bone lodging at the joint and in the rear of said thigh bone, and . . . he has never been able to have said ball extracted and [it] causes a continuous pain which prevents him from walking long at a time . . . and he can not . . . sit square down on the side of his bottom on which he was wounded.” George’s pension was approved for $30 a month and remained at that sum for the balance of his life.
Grievous and annoying as his injury obviously was, had that bullet glanced outwardly and upwardly Addie might have had good reason not to accept his proposal of marriage, and the potential for life to extend itself down the generations to this writer and beyond abruptly terminated by great grandpa’s close call with a musket ball.
Batavia’s war touched about 288 men, including 80 who went with George and the 124th Illinois Infantry regiment. Another 55 marched with George’s brother, Charles, in the 141st Infantry, which was formed late in the war for a 100 day enlistment that extended at least three months beyond that term. Clement Bradley was one of two Batavia men in the 89th Infantry, which filled its ranks mostly from Aurora when recruiting in Kane county.
When and how George proposed to Addie is unknown, but known facts and events continue to conspire to make it a highly improbable event that (happily) happened anyway. The first fact is the difference in their ages. While they likely knew of each other – Miniums were as thick on the ground as Greggs in that small community --, Addie was 16 and George, 25, when he enlisted and left for the civil war. Unmarried at 19 when he returned, she improbably stayed that way for nearly six more fallow years.
During those years George was likely living with his mother and other siblings, first in Burlington, Kane, then near Plymouth, Indiana, where he applied for his disability pension on 27 Jul 1871. Still he and Abbie found both each other and the time to wed. before he applied. They tied the knot 22 Feb 1871 in Batavia, one day after they got the license.
The couple’s first child, my grandfather, William Houston Gregg, was born in Nov 1871, in Plymouth, Indiana, suggesting that they were living either near or with Jane. Daughter Ruth Nellie Gregg was born 30 Sep 1878 in Batavia, however, putting George and Addie back home – to stay -- some time before that date. Jane’s death likely came some time roughly within the time span between the births of her grandchildren.
Addie no doubt was glad to get back. Adelaide Minium was the oldest daughter of John Jacob (J. J.) Minium and Ruth Bower. This family of seven living children had been in Batavia since 1850, where J. J. owned and operated a general merchandise store: dry goods, shoes and groceries. The Minium children moved away over time but J. J. and Ruth remained until their deaths in 1899 and 1905 respectively. In the 1880 census George and Addie are living next door to her parents on River street.
It is said that most of us only make the papers when we are born, get married and die. So it was with the family life of George, Addie and children in Batavia. From George’s obituary in the Batavia Herald we learn: “He was a wagon maker by trade and for a time ran a wagon shop on North River street [and Franklin], but afterwards associated himself with the Newton factory, where he was for years a valuable employee. . . Gregg was a loyal Soldier, a good citizen, quiet and retiring in his manner, honorable and upright, kind and obliging as a neighbor and friend. He had been one of the leading officers in the G. A. R. Post No 48.”
(Historical note: Batavia was an important seat for the manufacture of the fabled Conestoga wagon in which many a late 19th century pioneer trekked west to the Pacific. Three companies also manufactured the windmills that pumped many a mid west farmer's well.)
Tranquility ended in 1899 when both children married and about a year later moved away. William Houston never returned to live in Batavia, but Ruth Nellie, as we shall recount, ultimately did, staying until her death in 1921. William Houston married Lola Rustin, daughter of Oliver Rustin and Harriet Wells of Omaha, Nebraska, on 14 Mar 1899 in Batavia, Addie’s big brother, the Rev W. J. Minium, officiating. George, Addie and Ruth Nellie Gregg were witnesses. He was 28 and his bride was 25, born in Douglas County, Nebraska, but living at the time of their marriage in Mt. Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey. William listed his occupation as mechanic. Their first child, Maxwell George Gregg, my uncle, was born 22 Apr 1900 in Batavia. How William and Lola ever met is a mystery.
Ruth Nellie Gregg, age 20, married William R. Jones, 19, of Wheaton, Du Page county, Illinois, on 1 Jun 1899 in Batavia. The Rev W. J. Minium again officiated and witnesses were Mabel Conde and, William H., Addie and George W. Gregg. The groom was born in Streator, Illinois, to John S. R. Jones and Nora Sullivan. The couple obtained their marriage license on 14 Mar 1899 (the same day William married Lola) but waited until the traditional month of June for the ceremony.
By 12 Jun 1900 Ruth and William Jones were living in Batavia at 75 N. Washington Ave when visited by the census taker. William H., Lola and Maxwell Gregg, age two months, were living next door; however by 19 Sep 1907 when my father, Bruce Houston Gregg, was born, they had migrated to Ocean City, New Jersey.
In the 1910 census both couples were living in Chicago, again next door to each other on E. 66th Pl. But the Jones’ household had grown in ways significant for our unfolding tale. Bill’s niece, Nora, age 16 was living with them, as was a boarder, Vincenzo (misspelled “Bincengo”) Gullotta, age 29 (wrong), an Italian immigrant violinist from Taormina, Sicily. A 1921 passport application attests that Vincenzo first migrated to the U.S. in 1906, sailing from Liverpool, England. Ellis Island records also have the single, age 30 (right), immigrant arriving August 16, 1910, in New York aboard The Carpathia, suggesting that he sailed between the U. S. and Italy with some frequency.
The Taormina Trio
Ruth Gregg-Jones was also a musician. She was an accompanist, taught piano and published an instruction book of piano exercises. The potential affinity between the two musicians in one household was soon realized.
On 30 Aug 1911 Ruth and Nora both applied for U.S. passports. Ruth's application was witnessed by Vincenzo, Nora's by Fred J. Lamb. Their signatures were notarized by G. Lifrieri, who was also to receive their passports at his address. Both pledged to return to the U.S. within two years. On Nora's application it was noted that "Miss Nora Jones is going to Italy for instruction."
Official records are silent as to when they actually went to Italy, but Ruth, Nora and Vincenzo all came back to New York from Naples on the Berlin on 15 May 1912. They are listed together on the ship's manifest, Ruth as a music instructor, Vincenzo, a musician. Ruth and Nora were returning to the same Chicago address on 66th Place.
Whether they were coming home to William Jones is problematical. No, William did not die. Instead, as another researcher has declared -- in all probability correctly -- he married Nellie F. Gissler on 25 Apr 1914 in Richland City, IL. By the 1930 census the couple were living in White Plains, NY, with Marjorie, 12, and Nancy, 8. William was president of a stock brokerage, and the family lived in an elegant home with a live-in couple from Finland.
Meanwhile Ruth Gregg-Jones, Vincenzo Gullotta and (Mrs.) Fern Grant, a soprano, formed the Taormina Trio and successfully performed classical music professionally on the Chautauqua circuit and other venues on both sides of the Atlantic: London and Rome; Chicago and Denver; Taormina and San Francisco. A publicity photograph from their promotional literature shows three young, attractive performers. A "famous" fan, Mary Anderson, wrote to them: "I will never forget your most beautiful playing, with the Ionian sea before us and the roses of Taormina above us."
The Trio continued for at least three years. They likely formed after the Italy trip as no passport application for Fern is on file, nor was she on the Berlin passenger list. Vincenzo applied for a passport for himself and "my wife Ruth Gregg Gullotta" on 28 Apr 1921 for a trip to Taormina to see his parents. He had planned for them to go about 15 August, but Ruth died without issue on 31 Jul 1921, age 41, and is buried next to her parents in East Batavia cemetery. It is likely that Vincenzo went to Italy immediately after her death as his return by the passenger ship Providence on 25 October 1921 is recorded on the Ellis Island Foundation on-line data base.
The Music Man of River City
Vincenzo (“Vincengo” this time) Gullotta and Ruth G. Jones had married on 8 Apr 1914 in Lake county, Indiana. The new couple were found next in 1920 on 20 May when Vincenzo, on becoming a U. S. citizen some 14 years after his first known arrival, gave his address as 84 River Street, Batavia. Vincenzo called it home at least until 1942 when he registered -- at age 62 -- for the World War II draft's fourth "call" of men up to age 64.
Vincenzo and the former Helene Caroline Rogers were married on 21 Sep 1922. By 1930 Vincenzo, 51, and Helene, 33, were living in Batavia with two daughters, Rose Marie (sic), 6, and Helene, 4, and Helene’s mother, Mae E. Rogers, 54.
After Ruth's death, no mention of his first wife can be found in Batavia records, but his fame as a musician had spread as far as San Francisco where in 1922 the Chronicle newspaper, in an article entitled "Controlled by Wife Ghosts," declared that "The prospective second wife of a noted violinist is selected by his first wife's spirit." A picture titled "Helene Rogers" accompanies the article, which profiles several cases of wifely visitations from beyond the grave. In the florid prose of the period, writer Elizabeth Shields declaims:
"Like the faint, sweet, exquisite love songs he draws from his violin, Vincenzo Gullotta explains, is the knowledge of his dead wife's spirit rising to his consciousness. Beloved in life as she was, the beautiful Ruth Gregg, also a musician, was mourned with desperation of grief when she 'went away.'
"'But she promised,' the musician continued, 'that if it were permitted, she would return to me. . . . She told me that her greatest desire was to see me linked with youth and vitality and love' . . . It was the woman in the spirit land, the musician believes, who led him to Helene Rogers, a girl fourteen years his junior, who has promised to become his second wife. . . . Ruth Gregg Gullotta approves of this second marriage, and is working, from her astral plane, for its success!"
Given an endorsement from a higher plane the marriage could not help but occur and prosper. A history of the Batavia Commercial Club, available in the Batavia library, credits Vincenzo with being the only musician to be a member of that organization. It declares in part:
"A very distinguished man in appearance and in reputation, he lived on North Washington Avenue and was a frequent user of the [Commercial] club facilities.
“Professor Gullotta as he was so well known, was born March 6, 1880, in Taormina, Sicily. . .[He] came to Batavia as a fairly young man. A music teacher . . .he . . . had a varied career in his profession. He was married to Helen (sic) and they had three daughters. Antoinette died at age six years. Rosemary [Hicks] survived until her death in 1990 in our town and Helene G Koch [died 10 October 2009 in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin]. . .
“During his 80 years of life, the Professor not only taught music, bus also was a teacher at the St. Charles School for Boys and at the State School for Girls at Geneva. He was also Director of the Fox Valley Philharmonic Educational Orchestra during the 1940's.
“Becoming homesick, Professor Gullotta went back to Sicily in 1959, where he died on March 5, 1960, one day short of his eightieth birthday.”
It is not known whether or not Helene went with him to Italy on that final return. It is known that she is is buried in the East Batavia Cemetery, sharing a plot with her young daughter, Antonette, and but three plots away from Ruth, her predecessor and reputed spiritual sponsor. She was buried 23 Oct 1980, age 84.
George Whitfield Gregg . . . Death and Aftermath
Two documents tell the tale of George’s death and shed more light on the kind of person he was. One, an internal memo from the Chief, Finance Division, Bureau of Pensions, U. S. Department of the Interior, to the Commissioner of Pensions, declares:
“Sir: I have the honor to report that the name of the above-described pensioner who was last paid at $30 to Jan 4, 1917 has this day been dropped from the roll because of death Feb-26-1917. Very respectfully, [completely illegible signature].”
The other document is an accounting of his estate prepared by Horace N. Jones, estate administrator for the Kane county probate court, John N. Williams presiding judge. George left $2,484.40 each to William and Ruth, his surviving children. A little less than half of his assets were real enough: savings in two Batavia banks. The rest was promissory notes and accrued interest thereon owed him by Ruth and Vincenzo ($3,280.51), William ($446.70) and John and Susan Kuczinski ($210).
After $818.14 in expenses were paid, William wound up with the remaining cash and a couple of the promissory notes. Ruth and Vincenzo didn’t do badly though, as their largest note ($2,250) was in all probability a loan to buy their home, and was now forgiven in death. George’s meager estate paid $1.57 to record their trust deed.
George had no real estate of his own, only $20.00 in his checking account and owed Ruth $44.00 for board, which she collected. R. C. Hollister’s funeral bill was $356 and the estate administrator claimed $250.00. George’s estate also paid for various fees and taxes and on 26 January “at request of W. H. Gregg and Ruth G. Gullotta, [paid] on Karlzen and Co. Monument bill, $25.00.”
He is buried in the East Batavia Cemetery next to Addie. Cemetery records list George as the owner of 22 grave sites in Sections 9 and 11, lots 154 and 285 respectively, although these assets were not part of his probate. Thirteen of the sites have been used. Another 10 sites are owned by the estate of his son William in Section 11, lot 80, four of which are occupied.
William Houston and Lola Rustin Gregg . . . and Family
Grandparents William and Lola didn't have it easy during their 30 plus years of marriage. The census records for 1900, 10 and 20 describe him as a wheel maker, stock broker and investigator respectively. In 1907, when my father, Bruce Houston, was born, his New Jersey birth certificate listed his father's occupation as laborer. According to William's marriage license he was a mechanic.
By 1910 the family was complete and in the neighborhood where they would live for nearly the next two decades. Maxwell George was 10 and Bruce Houston 2 1/2 and they were living next door to their Aunt Ruth and Uncle William Jones at 1433 East 66th Place, Chicago, Illinois. Young Max would be the first of the two families to peel off. A cousin has written me that family legend has it he "went west to work on a ranch" at the young age of 14. He did return home long enough to register for the World War I draft sometime in 1917-18, but ultimately wound up in Ballston Spa, New York, for the balance of his long life (see below.) His draft registration form, unfortunately barely legible, lists his employer as American Express Company, Chicago. Under a portion labeled "Description of Registrant" is a cryptic notation: "Lost an eye."
Next to go was Great Uncle Bill, whose displacement in the affections of my Great Aunt Ruth by Vincenzo Gullotta, has been previously chronicled. William H and Lola moved into 1435 East 66th when Ruth and Vincenzo departed for marriage in Indiana and housekeeping back in Batavia. They promptly took in up to four borders in the more spacious quarters, that number being enumerated in both the 1920 and 1930 censuses. More evidence that William H was an inconsistent provider.
That was not his only inconsistency, as he left the scene sometime in the 1920s for parts and reasons unknown. Little is known of his life thereafter other than he remarried and raised a family, while his time and place of death are not known. By the 1930 census Lola, age 54, was alone with her four latest borders, no visible husband, and a disappearing son as well.
My only physical evidence of William Houston Gregg's life and ambitions is a painting I inherited from my mother. It is a majestic untitled seascape, a study in sand and sea, wind and clouds, by an impressive talent. My mother always said it was a painting of Lake Michigan, and she could be right, but it also could be a portrait of a windswept day in Ocean City, New Jersey. Not that that matters. The initials, "WHG," are bold and clear. There is no doubt where his true interest and talent lay.
Lola, Emma and Maxwell
My uncle Max was not on any one's radar for the 1920 census, but by 1930 he was living at 123 South Street, Ballston Spa, New York, with his wife, the former Emma Margaret Thayer and daughters, Marjorie, 7, and Susan, 4.
The 1940 census found Max, Margaret and Marjorie (but not Susan) living in an Albany, NY, rental house. He was the proprietor of his own Commercial Art business, working 60 hours a week. The census worker recorded that Maxwell had two years of high school, Emma Margaret had only one year high school, while Marjorie completed all four years of high school. He also recorded that Marjorie had been born in New Jersey.
Eventually the family settled in Ballston Spa. Their home was a large two story house with room enough at one point for himself and Emma, Lola, Emma's mother, his daughter Marjorie and her daughter, my living cousin, who provided this description, plus a family in an upstairs rental unit.
Lola came to live with her eldest son after 1940 and no later than 1952. The most probable year is 1942, when youngest son, Bruce, enlisted in the army. My cousin wrote: "She was a tall thin woman . . .a member of the Christian Science faith and came to live with us . . . I don't remember when that was as Grandma Gregg was always there. I was born in 1950 and I think I was about 10 when Grandma Gregg died. She and Grandma Thayer were fond memories of my childhood."
Maxwell Gregg married Emma Margaret Thayer, daughter of George Arthur Thayer and Addie M. Havens, about 1921. The Thayer family paternal line goes back to Thomas Thayer, baptized in 1596, Thornbury, Gloucester, England, who immigrated to Colonial America in 1637. It is a New England family of many branches and both notorious and distinguished members. Max and Emma were married for about 65 years until his death in 1986. She died two years later.
My cousin wrote: "My grandmother Margaret met Grampy when she would pass the mill he was working at on her way to work. . . Grampy was a quiet and thoughtful man. He read a lot and enjoyed his painting. He had his own sign and display business for a while and then went to work for the GE company as a lithographer. In his spare time he would design greeting cards, paint landscapes and portraits from pictures, and work with silk screens to create the patterns for stuffed dolls sold worldwide."
I have one of my Uncle Max's paintings, passed down from my mother. It is a landscape of the Grand Canal, Venice, signed in block letters "MGREGG AFTER MORAN." Thomas Moran, an iconic American western landscape painter of the Hudson River School, also painted numerous Venetian canal scenes. Uncle Max's work is a composite most closely resembling one Moran did in 1912. It has an honored place in my living room as it did in my mother's homes for the years I was growing up and after.
Bruce Houston Gregg, Sr.
In April, 1930, when the census enumerator came calling, and when I was but 5 months from my debut, my father began his own signature disappearing act. His first magic trick was to appear to be in three places at once. He was listed as an unemployed boarder, age 22, at the home of my maternal grandmother, Maria Krusenstierna, along with my mother, Signe Marie (Bessie) Gregg and four of mother's six siblings. They all lived at 7011 Cornell Avenue, Chicago, which became my home, too, on 15 September next.
Only blocks away, Lola told perhaps the same enumerator that her son lived with her and that he was an architect, age 22. The inconvenient truth that he was married with a son on the way did not come up. Meanwhile a census taker caught up with a Bruce H. Gregg, age 22, living at the Hyde Park YMCA, married four years, born in New Jersey of a father born in Indiana and a mother born in Nebraska, working as a building supervisor.
The next official sighting of Senior was his application for a social security card and number, dated May 21, 1937. He was working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Resettlement Administration, on the Greenbelt Project in Berwyn, Maryland, and living at 126 E Street SW in Washington, D. C. The Greenbelt Project was a New Deal era experiment in rural self sufficiency. It consisted of small garden apartments of some charm and architectural merit, organized and run for communal and cooperative living, and was a favorite initiative of Eleanor Roosevelt and Rexford Tugwell, who ran the Resettlement Administration. No trace of his contribution to this historical endeavor has been found, although much more than a trace of the community still exists.
In 1940 Senior and Lola were living at 1218 East Marquette Road, Chicago, when the census enumerator caught up with them. He worked as a real estate estimator for $2,600 a year. Also in residence as lodgers were Jessie Dudley, 33, a white married woman born in Illinois, and Robert A. Dudley, 4, presumably her son. Jessie worked as a food checker for a private school and made $540 in the past year.
Another 1940 census entry for a Jessie L. Dudley, also 33, a white single woman born in Illinois, declares that she is living alone with her parents, William W. and Ana Dudley, at 7251 Phillips Avenue, Chicago, about two miles from the Marquette Road address. Mr Dudley, 67, worked as a real estate manager for $2,000 a year, while his daughter was a secretary in real estate earning $1,200 a year.
In 1930 Jessie Dudley, no "L," was living with William and Annie Dudley and three siblings at 1536 East 67th Place, Chicago. Lola and Bruce were living at 1435 East 66th Street, about two blocks away.
What to conclude from all of this? (1) Times were hard; people did what they had to to survive. (2) People lied and exaggerated when talking to census takers, frequently more than once. (3) My father was probably a cad.
It seems likely, though not proven, that Senior left my mother when she was pregnant with me, took up with Jessie living near by, fathered a child by her, left town to work in D. C. before his second son was born, later moved her and the child in with his mother and then enlisted in the army without ever officially getting married. At least no record of his marriage to Miss Dudley has yet been found.
On 9 Sep 1942 Senior went to war. He enlisted in Chicago as a private in the army "for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law." On the way in he declared he was married, a geologist by profession with three years high school. On the way out, 18 Sep 1945, he was discharged honorably as a sergeant. A fire on 12 Jul 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center in St Louis destroyed all paper trails of his years in between.
Long before, about 1935, my mother had divorced him and remarried, so the marriage he declared to the army is to someone else. A Bruce H. Gregg married one Faye C. Hewitt in Cook County, IL, on 13 April 1942 according to an on line index. Details are on order, but all I know for sure about this marriage is that it didn't last.
On 7 Mar 1951 Bruce Gregg, 43, married Carroll Hopkins, 31, in the Randolph county courthouse, Pocahontas, Arkansas. Randolph county borders the southeastern quadrant of Missouri. The license, payment of a $100 marriage bond and the civil ceremony itself took place on the same day. Bride and groom both gave Chicago as their place of residence. I was living not far away in Tulsa, Oklahoma, about then and remember Arkansas' reputation as a marriage mill for mid westerners in a hurry.
Carroll Mildred Hopkins, daughter of Samuel B. and Veola Hopkins, was born in Illinois about 1920. The 1930 census found the family in Johnson City, Williamson county, Illinois, near the southern tip of the state -- about as far from Chicago as one can get and not leave Illinois. There were three children: Robert, 12; Carroll, 10; Marion (a son), 5. Samuel was a Virginian and Veola from Kentucky.
Sometime in 1951 after their marriage Senior and Carroll moved to Denver, CO, and lived at 14352 Ivanhoe according to Denver's city directory for that year. His occupation was abbreviated as "carp," short presumably for carpenter.
For the next sixteen years the official record is so far a blank.Only by his death do we learn enough to conjure a story of my father's mature years. From his obituary in the Nashville Tennessean, 3 September, 1967:
"Bruce Houston Gregg, 59, of 511 Chesterfield Ave., representative of Skidmore, Owens (sic) and Merrill, Architects of Chicago, died yesterday at a local infirmary after a heart attack.
"Services will be conducted at 2 p.m. tomorrow by a Christian Science reader at Phillips-Robinson Funeral Home. Cremation will take place later in Louisville [Kentucky].
"Gregg and his wife, Mrs. Carroll M. Gregg, moved to Nashville last March from Chicago. She survives.
"Gregg's firm is designer and builder of the new 3rd National Bank building under construction across from the L.C Tower at Fourth Avenue and Church Street.
"Upon completion of the new structure, the Greggs (sic) planned to return to Chicago.
"Gregg was a members (sic) of the 1st Church of Christ Scientist of Boston, Mass.
"He is salso (sic) survived by a brother, Maxwell Gregg of Ballston Spa, N. Y."
Some atrocious proof reading aside, this terse account has supplied much food for thought and conjecture. Like most obituaries it is selective in recounting the existence of ex-spouses and their offspring. Fair enough.
Why cremation in Louisville? Was he interred there? Louisville, the funeral home emailed, was the closest crematorium in those days. They didn't know where his ashes went, but did confirm that a Christian Scientist reader from the First Church of Christ Scientist of Boston conducted the 2 p.m. service. Perhaps Senior had lived in Boston for a time.
The Skidmore, Owings and Merrill connection is both heartening and intriguing. SOM is perhaps the largest building design and construction firm in the world. Among its most noted buildings are Lever House, the Air Force Academy Chapel and John Hancock Center and Sears Tower in Chicago. To represent its world class architects on construction sites would be to rise above his meager education (as of 1942) -- if not his mother's ambitions. Unfortunately, the company did not respond to my request for more information about his career.
From the his social security file (thank you, Becky) I learned that he earned $6,110 in the six months ending July 1, 1967.
Carroll M. Gregg is still alive at the end of 2010 but not responsive to attempts at contact. This is her privilege and her privacy will be otherwise respected. She lives with a relative, probably her son and my half brother, who also is unresponsive to attempts at contact.
Notes on Sources
The Batavia Historical Society on two brief visits provided access to many original and authenticating documents and advice and direction to cemetery records and other histories.
The Batavia Public Library’s local history room is a treasure trove of printed histories of Batavia, Kane County and local institutions, most notably “John Gustafson’s Historic Batavia,” by Gustafson, Marilyn Robinson and Jeffery D. Schielke, copyright 1998.
The City of Batavia records of the East Batavia Cemetery, and the kind assistance of a groundskeeper, were invaluable on my single hurried visit to the ancestral plots.
The shared research of my cousin by marriage, Ronnie Osko, and her family, of Du Page County, Illinois, whose grandfather was our fascinating Music Man.
The Illinois State archives provided many on-line data sets, including the State Marriage Index and muster rolls and histories of the Illinois civil war regiments.
Other major sources include:
The on-line federal and state census and other records of Ancestry.com.
The pension records of civil war soldiers of the National Archives
The Social Security Death Index version maintained on-line by Ancestry.com.
The on-line resources of Family Tree Maker.
About The Author
Born Bruce Houston Gregg, Jr., to Bruce Houston Gregg and Signe Marie (Bess) Von Krusenstierna, the daughter of Swedish immigrants, in Chicago, Illinois, 15 Sep 1930. My father took one look at me and left, never to be seen or heard of again. Five lonely years later my mother married John James Johnson, of Waterloo, Iowa, the only man I ever called “Dad.”. We moved immediately to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was raised as their son and was unaware of any other paternity until adolescence. Later, my step-father formally adopted me. After John and Bess Johnson were dead I began a search for my family roots. One result is this history. My wife, Carol, and I now reside in Orange City, Florida, in the John Knox Village retirement community, at 8 Nasturtium Ct. 32763. 386-218-4850. bruce4572@aol.com.
Dedication
This modest work is dedicated to the late Marilyn Robinson, noted historian of Batavia, who personally shared her time and research with me, and to Helen Morris, of Sunnyvale and The Sea Ranch, California, twelve years a neighbor and a continuing friend, who initially and patiently introduced me to the techniques and delights of genealogical research.
"Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"
This dramatic exclamation ends the second chapter of “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” the best Sherlock Holmes mystery ever from the pen of A. Conan Doyle. It was first published serially in a magazine in 1901. The best movie version stars Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson in 1939. A really big dog also stars, but its name is unknown to this writer.
That movie was scary. I know, for I was eight, and it really scared me. I went to see it with my parents one night at the new Delman theater at 15th and Lewis in Tulsa, about four blocks from where we lived There was a lot of talk to start the movie, which I didn’t understand much, then some scary stuff, then more talk followed by really scary stuff and ending in more incomprehensible adult talk that didn’t make me any less scared..
Back home it was immediately “past your bed time and you are a big boy.” The lights were turned firmly and completely out. From the darkness a huge shapeless thing growled and bayed at me. I was brave though and didn’t whimper and sob quite all night.
Dogs had long been a problem. When much younger I had become scared of Tuffy, a territorial, nasty tempered chow who guarded his property morning and afternoon against a gaggle of us kids headed, respectively, for Barnard elementary school and home again. If there were several of us, Tuffy would usually just growl and bare his teeth from the high ground of his lawn. Going it alone, however, meant crossing the street well before you got to his domain. If you knew what was good for you.
This went on through kindergarten and well into second grade. Then one day I got a card in the mail. It was an invitation to a funeral. Tuffy was dead! His grieving owners had invited all us “Tiny Friends of Tuffy” to say goodbye. We all went because there was cookies and ice cream and we got to make sure Tuffy was really, most sincerely, dead.
But, dead or not, it was Tuffy who lurked, half forgotten, behind my fright at the film. At first I was even reluctant to attend the Delman for any reason, but, as a confirmed movie fan already, I couldn’t stay away. For 1939 was arguably the best cinematic year ever, even for a kid, what with “The Wizard of OZ,” “Stage Coach,” “Gunga Din” and “Beau Geste” among others. (For adults there was “Gone With The Wind,” “Dark Victory,” “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Ninotchka,” “Of Mice and Men,” “Wuthering Heights,” “The Rules of the Game.”)
So, clutching my dime (movie) and nickel (popcorn) I often walked the four blocks to the air conditioned Delman on hot Saturday afternoons. I habitually walked along the north side of 15th street to admire the string of ornate mansions built there during the first oil boom. One especially was a sprawling red brick two story estate, built on spacious grounds and surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence sectioned by massive brick pillars that matched the house.
It was rumored that a guard dog patrolled the grounds, but the big gate was always locked and I never saw him. Until, of course, after “Hound of . . .” One day I came to the gate and it was standing wide open. I paused to get a better look. A coal black great dane, big as a pony, with a head larger than mine trotted into chilling view not 20 feet of open empty space away. I froze. He paused and looked at me. I suspended breathing. Several hours passed in the next few seconds.
Then he turned and trotted along inside the fence. I took off running, while he easily loped along keeping up with my eight year old personal best. He stopped where the fence cornered left and I ran across the street against all orders and oblivious to any traffic. Heart racing, I sprinted to the Delman and safety. I have no idea what the movie was.
Back home I told my Dad about my Baskerville moment. He advised walking on the other size of the street and I gladly did. Some time later – months, maybe a year or two – I told my story to somebody else whose adult name and face are gone, but whose words linger clearly in memory.
“Oh, that dog. He died. When you saw him he was over 20 years old, toothless and nearly blind. That’s why they usually kept him behind a locked gate. For his own safety. But he wouldn’t, and couldn’t, hurt a soul. Still, he really was big.”
After that I stopped being scared. After all, the last scary dog was dead.
That movie was scary. I know, for I was eight, and it really scared me. I went to see it with my parents one night at the new Delman theater at 15th and Lewis in Tulsa, about four blocks from where we lived There was a lot of talk to start the movie, which I didn’t understand much, then some scary stuff, then more talk followed by really scary stuff and ending in more incomprehensible adult talk that didn’t make me any less scared..
Back home it was immediately “past your bed time and you are a big boy.” The lights were turned firmly and completely out. From the darkness a huge shapeless thing growled and bayed at me. I was brave though and didn’t whimper and sob quite all night.
Dogs had long been a problem. When much younger I had become scared of Tuffy, a territorial, nasty tempered chow who guarded his property morning and afternoon against a gaggle of us kids headed, respectively, for Barnard elementary school and home again. If there were several of us, Tuffy would usually just growl and bare his teeth from the high ground of his lawn. Going it alone, however, meant crossing the street well before you got to his domain. If you knew what was good for you.
This went on through kindergarten and well into second grade. Then one day I got a card in the mail. It was an invitation to a funeral. Tuffy was dead! His grieving owners had invited all us “Tiny Friends of Tuffy” to say goodbye. We all went because there was cookies and ice cream and we got to make sure Tuffy was really, most sincerely, dead.
But, dead or not, it was Tuffy who lurked, half forgotten, behind my fright at the film. At first I was even reluctant to attend the Delman for any reason, but, as a confirmed movie fan already, I couldn’t stay away. For 1939 was arguably the best cinematic year ever, even for a kid, what with “The Wizard of OZ,” “Stage Coach,” “Gunga Din” and “Beau Geste” among others. (For adults there was “Gone With The Wind,” “Dark Victory,” “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Ninotchka,” “Of Mice and Men,” “Wuthering Heights,” “The Rules of the Game.”)
So, clutching my dime (movie) and nickel (popcorn) I often walked the four blocks to the air conditioned Delman on hot Saturday afternoons. I habitually walked along the north side of 15th street to admire the string of ornate mansions built there during the first oil boom. One especially was a sprawling red brick two story estate, built on spacious grounds and surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence sectioned by massive brick pillars that matched the house.
It was rumored that a guard dog patrolled the grounds, but the big gate was always locked and I never saw him. Until, of course, after “Hound of . . .” One day I came to the gate and it was standing wide open. I paused to get a better look. A coal black great dane, big as a pony, with a head larger than mine trotted into chilling view not 20 feet of open empty space away. I froze. He paused and looked at me. I suspended breathing. Several hours passed in the next few seconds.
Then he turned and trotted along inside the fence. I took off running, while he easily loped along keeping up with my eight year old personal best. He stopped where the fence cornered left and I ran across the street against all orders and oblivious to any traffic. Heart racing, I sprinted to the Delman and safety. I have no idea what the movie was.
Back home I told my Dad about my Baskerville moment. He advised walking on the other size of the street and I gladly did. Some time later – months, maybe a year or two – I told my story to somebody else whose adult name and face are gone, but whose words linger clearly in memory.
“Oh, that dog. He died. When you saw him he was over 20 years old, toothless and nearly blind. That’s why they usually kept him behind a locked gate. For his own safety. But he wouldn’t, and couldn’t, hurt a soul. Still, he really was big.”
After that I stopped being scared. After all, the last scary dog was dead.
Golfing Memories
Watching the final round of the 75th Masters caused a cascade of memories. They started as Charl Schwartzel, a young man from South Africa, won going away with an amazing string of birdies on the last four holes at Augusta. No one, they said, had ever done that before.
It was “50 years to the day,” as the commentators also kept saying, since another South African named Gary Player became the first “International” (read “foreign”) winner of this most American of golf tournaments. I remember that half century old eventt as well, and it immediately made Gary my favorite player (pun intended).
At 150 pounds, Player often had the word “little” stuck in front of his name, but his superb conditioning carried him far. He swung from the toes to match length with the best and often as not beat them with a delicate touch around the greens. He won nine majors, completing a grand slam with a U. S. Open victory in 1965 at Bellerive.
The Augusta commentators also made mention that it was 25 years ago that Jack Nicklaus won his last green jacket at the age of 46. That too was a memorable broadcast, with Jack and son Jackie, on his daddy’s bag, striding confidently to victory. Who can forget that snake he sank on the par three 16th? Given the prematurely fading star of Tiger Woods, Nicklaus likely will remain the greatest golfer ever. He, too, has been my favorite.
My first favorite golfer, though, was Sam Snead. He came to town in 1945 to play in the Tulsa Open, along with Ben Hogan and other famous names. My father, a steady weekend player who had taught me the game, saw this as the perfect present for my 15th birthday and took me to the tournament. It was played September 13-16 at either the Tulsa or Southern Hills country clubs. I know my birthday was, and is, the 15th but neither my memory nor google’s is any help at recalling the exact venue.
But I do remember two crushing drives. One was by Lawson Little, who flew the ball over the fairway on a dogleg left par four deep into a stand of black jack oaks where tee balls had never gone before. The other was by Snead.
Slamming Sammy was hitting third off the tee in the threesome on a straight away par five. The first two drives were impressively long and straight. Snead swung, as always, with the rhythmic grace of a ballet dancer, the most natural swing the game has ever seen. His ball soared 50 – 60 yards beyond those of his competitors. He flashed a casual grin at the applauding crowd, which included an awe struck teenager, and went on to win that tournament and 81 others on the PGA Tour, more than any other golfer.
It was 32 years later that I found the chance to repay Dad the favor of that birthday. The U.S. Open was to be played that June, 1977, in Tulsa at Southern Hills. I bought two tickets and flew home for the occasion. That I was 47, and Dad 75, didn’t make Mom’s cooking any less delicious. (“Don’t call me ‘Mom.’ I’m your Mother ” “Okay, ‘Mother,’ if you don’t call me ‘Brucie ’”).
Southern Hills, a splendid 75 year-old par 70 venue, needs an appropriate introduction. It has been rated 15th in the country by Golf Digest. Designed and built by Perry Maxwell in 1935-36, it sits, appropriately, south of town, on rolling acreage donated by Oilman Waite Phillips. Maxwell designed some 70 courses in a long career that included a partnership with Allister MacKenzie and design maintenance at Augusta National. Southern Hills has hosted three U. S. Opens and four PGA tournaments among a total of 15 major events.
I personally met its plush hilly contours as a caddy. I often carried a heavy leather bag full of clubs on each slim shoulder the full 18 holes of a hot summer’s day for a buck fifty for the first bag and a whole dollar for the second. Later, as a second tier member of the Central High golf team, I got to play there for free–the only way I could ever have afforded it.
Fittingly enough, Sam Snead, now 65, was also at Southern Hills that June, still contending with that same fluid swing, although he was now putting “side-saddle.” Dad and I caught up with him from our green-side stadium seats on the 12th hole, which needs its own introduction before the tale can be properly told.
Number 12 is tough. A 464 yard dog leg left, it turns quickly down hill to a tight green heavily sloped and tiered left to right and front to back. The fairway is tree lined on both sides. The perfect tee shot is a late breaking draw.
But it is commonplace to drive through the fairway and find trouble in the trees on the right. We watched as Arnold Palmer and Bruce Lietzke both did just that. Sam drove down the middle and a lot closer to the hole but even he was looking at a tricky five iron shot.
Back then a creek ran through the trees on the left and fed two small lakes near the green, one at front left and the other at its right. The creek trickled from pond to pond in front of the green. Deep green-side bunkers were in the mix. A half moon thicket of scrubby trees and brush capped its back side while a ribbon of first cut rough surrounded the green like a halo.
Palmer has been quoted as calling the 12th one of the most challenging par fours on the tour. Possibly he came to that conclusion on this day. His long iron second shot came out hot and low, bounced once on the green and skipped deep into the back woods.
“Dad, he’s in jail ” I exclaimed, and my father and all around us nodded. Palmer, we concluded, was looking at bogy or worse. Lietzke did a little better. He almost held the green and ended up on a bare patch of fringe sixty feet up and away from the cup. To get there the ball would have to roll on a wide downhill curve. Then Snead floated a perfect shot twenty feet below the pin.
Did I mention that the greens were fast? Of course all U.S.Open greens are slick. But Southern Hills’ bent grass surfaces were in jeopardy on this steaming Oklahoma afternoon. While the three golfers strode down the fairway the grounds crew was hosing down No 12 to keep its close cut blades from turning into lumpy brown dust. The USGA had decreed this remedy for most greens after every set of approach shots had been hit to keep the greens alive and consistent.
Arnie came out of the woods and disappeared back into them several times with different clubs before he settled on . . . his putter He had to half straddle a small sapling, which was fortunately growing away from his ball, and somehow keep his feet back from the path of his stroke. He had to thread the ball through a narrow line of trees, traversing some 20 feet of forest duff and still more feet of half inch apron to reach the green. The hole was 40 feet further from there.
He hit what looked to be a splendid save: the ball came out quickly, slowed through the thick grass and trickled onto the green Palmer walked out again grinning broadly while the ball kept trickling . . . and trickling . . . and trickling until it fell into the hole – and we nearly fell off the stadium. For a relatively small crowd we managed a very big roar, turning heads all over the back nine.
Lietzke, a superb putter, had learned a lot from watching Palmer’s roll, though his line was considerably different. He started his ball way too slowly we thought and sent it on a trajectory at first slightly away from the hole, but when it caught the downhill slope it turned sharply right, slowed nearly to a stop . . . and then began its own slow wobbly trickle. “We started a chant: “Go, go, go ” You can conjugate that verb and guess the outcome: Go, went . . . gone! Down the throat, in the hole.
“Sidesaddle Sam” lined up his put while the crowd was still cheering this second miracle.. His age-decreed style was his own invention. He faced the hole, both feet aiming at it, his left hand atop the putter to act as the pivot point and his right hand positioned down and back of the shaft to guide the club. Only Sam Snead could both make this novel stroke look graceful and make it work..
As we held our breath a half smile played about his face. Twenty feet uphill, six inches left to right at the hole. Piece of cake! The ball rattled into the cup with authority and the world was perfect.
Much later the significance of the pairing that day came to me. Snead, the living legend, playing with Palmer, the veteran king, playing with Lietzke, the young prince. Three generations, three puts, three birdies. Still, none of the three won the tournament. Hubert Green did that. But they gave old No.12 quite a beating.
As we left the grounds at the end of the day we spoke briefly with an acquaintance, mentioning that we had camped most of the day at the 12th hole. “What was all the cheering about over there?” he wondered. I said, “It’s a long story and you won’t believe it if we told you.” He said of course he would; however few have, and you might not. But it happened just that way.
I also got to see the golfer that became my final favorite. I still miss Lee Trevino. During a practice round the Merry Mex and Chi Chi Rodriguez kept Jerry Pate in a hysterical state of helpless laughter. No telling how much money they took him for when they pressed.
But Lee didn’t have too good a tournament. On the last hole one day he caught the cavernous left front bunker, climbed in, hit a nothing shot, and wearily climbed out, saying, “Now, that’s a great bunker . . . for the kind of bunker it is.” I wanted to say, “Lee, that was a great shot . . . for the kind of shot it was,” but I didn’t because I didn’t think of it until just now.
.
It was “50 years to the day,” as the commentators also kept saying, since another South African named Gary Player became the first “International” (read “foreign”) winner of this most American of golf tournaments. I remember that half century old eventt as well, and it immediately made Gary my favorite player (pun intended).
At 150 pounds, Player often had the word “little” stuck in front of his name, but his superb conditioning carried him far. He swung from the toes to match length with the best and often as not beat them with a delicate touch around the greens. He won nine majors, completing a grand slam with a U. S. Open victory in 1965 at Bellerive.
The Augusta commentators also made mention that it was 25 years ago that Jack Nicklaus won his last green jacket at the age of 46. That too was a memorable broadcast, with Jack and son Jackie, on his daddy’s bag, striding confidently to victory. Who can forget that snake he sank on the par three 16th? Given the prematurely fading star of Tiger Woods, Nicklaus likely will remain the greatest golfer ever. He, too, has been my favorite.
My first favorite golfer, though, was Sam Snead. He came to town in 1945 to play in the Tulsa Open, along with Ben Hogan and other famous names. My father, a steady weekend player who had taught me the game, saw this as the perfect present for my 15th birthday and took me to the tournament. It was played September 13-16 at either the Tulsa or Southern Hills country clubs. I know my birthday was, and is, the 15th but neither my memory nor google’s is any help at recalling the exact venue.
But I do remember two crushing drives. One was by Lawson Little, who flew the ball over the fairway on a dogleg left par four deep into a stand of black jack oaks where tee balls had never gone before. The other was by Snead.
Slamming Sammy was hitting third off the tee in the threesome on a straight away par five. The first two drives were impressively long and straight. Snead swung, as always, with the rhythmic grace of a ballet dancer, the most natural swing the game has ever seen. His ball soared 50 – 60 yards beyond those of his competitors. He flashed a casual grin at the applauding crowd, which included an awe struck teenager, and went on to win that tournament and 81 others on the PGA Tour, more than any other golfer.
It was 32 years later that I found the chance to repay Dad the favor of that birthday. The U.S. Open was to be played that June, 1977, in Tulsa at Southern Hills. I bought two tickets and flew home for the occasion. That I was 47, and Dad 75, didn’t make Mom’s cooking any less delicious. (“Don’t call me ‘Mom.’ I’m your Mother ” “Okay, ‘Mother,’ if you don’t call me ‘Brucie ’”).
Southern Hills, a splendid 75 year-old par 70 venue, needs an appropriate introduction. It has been rated 15th in the country by Golf Digest. Designed and built by Perry Maxwell in 1935-36, it sits, appropriately, south of town, on rolling acreage donated by Oilman Waite Phillips. Maxwell designed some 70 courses in a long career that included a partnership with Allister MacKenzie and design maintenance at Augusta National. Southern Hills has hosted three U. S. Opens and four PGA tournaments among a total of 15 major events.
I personally met its plush hilly contours as a caddy. I often carried a heavy leather bag full of clubs on each slim shoulder the full 18 holes of a hot summer’s day for a buck fifty for the first bag and a whole dollar for the second. Later, as a second tier member of the Central High golf team, I got to play there for free–the only way I could ever have afforded it.
Fittingly enough, Sam Snead, now 65, was also at Southern Hills that June, still contending with that same fluid swing, although he was now putting “side-saddle.” Dad and I caught up with him from our green-side stadium seats on the 12th hole, which needs its own introduction before the tale can be properly told.
Number 12 is tough. A 464 yard dog leg left, it turns quickly down hill to a tight green heavily sloped and tiered left to right and front to back. The fairway is tree lined on both sides. The perfect tee shot is a late breaking draw.
But it is commonplace to drive through the fairway and find trouble in the trees on the right. We watched as Arnold Palmer and Bruce Lietzke both did just that. Sam drove down the middle and a lot closer to the hole but even he was looking at a tricky five iron shot.
Back then a creek ran through the trees on the left and fed two small lakes near the green, one at front left and the other at its right. The creek trickled from pond to pond in front of the green. Deep green-side bunkers were in the mix. A half moon thicket of scrubby trees and brush capped its back side while a ribbon of first cut rough surrounded the green like a halo.
Palmer has been quoted as calling the 12th one of the most challenging par fours on the tour. Possibly he came to that conclusion on this day. His long iron second shot came out hot and low, bounced once on the green and skipped deep into the back woods.
“Dad, he’s in jail ” I exclaimed, and my father and all around us nodded. Palmer, we concluded, was looking at bogy or worse. Lietzke did a little better. He almost held the green and ended up on a bare patch of fringe sixty feet up and away from the cup. To get there the ball would have to roll on a wide downhill curve. Then Snead floated a perfect shot twenty feet below the pin.
Did I mention that the greens were fast? Of course all U.S.Open greens are slick. But Southern Hills’ bent grass surfaces were in jeopardy on this steaming Oklahoma afternoon. While the three golfers strode down the fairway the grounds crew was hosing down No 12 to keep its close cut blades from turning into lumpy brown dust. The USGA had decreed this remedy for most greens after every set of approach shots had been hit to keep the greens alive and consistent.
Arnie came out of the woods and disappeared back into them several times with different clubs before he settled on . . . his putter He had to half straddle a small sapling, which was fortunately growing away from his ball, and somehow keep his feet back from the path of his stroke. He had to thread the ball through a narrow line of trees, traversing some 20 feet of forest duff and still more feet of half inch apron to reach the green. The hole was 40 feet further from there.
He hit what looked to be a splendid save: the ball came out quickly, slowed through the thick grass and trickled onto the green Palmer walked out again grinning broadly while the ball kept trickling . . . and trickling . . . and trickling until it fell into the hole – and we nearly fell off the stadium. For a relatively small crowd we managed a very big roar, turning heads all over the back nine.
Lietzke, a superb putter, had learned a lot from watching Palmer’s roll, though his line was considerably different. He started his ball way too slowly we thought and sent it on a trajectory at first slightly away from the hole, but when it caught the downhill slope it turned sharply right, slowed nearly to a stop . . . and then began its own slow wobbly trickle. “We started a chant: “Go, go, go ” You can conjugate that verb and guess the outcome: Go, went . . . gone! Down the throat, in the hole.
“Sidesaddle Sam” lined up his put while the crowd was still cheering this second miracle.. His age-decreed style was his own invention. He faced the hole, both feet aiming at it, his left hand atop the putter to act as the pivot point and his right hand positioned down and back of the shaft to guide the club. Only Sam Snead could both make this novel stroke look graceful and make it work..
As we held our breath a half smile played about his face. Twenty feet uphill, six inches left to right at the hole. Piece of cake! The ball rattled into the cup with authority and the world was perfect.
Much later the significance of the pairing that day came to me. Snead, the living legend, playing with Palmer, the veteran king, playing with Lietzke, the young prince. Three generations, three puts, three birdies. Still, none of the three won the tournament. Hubert Green did that. But they gave old No.12 quite a beating.
As we left the grounds at the end of the day we spoke briefly with an acquaintance, mentioning that we had camped most of the day at the 12th hole. “What was all the cheering about over there?” he wondered. I said, “It’s a long story and you won’t believe it if we told you.” He said of course he would; however few have, and you might not. But it happened just that way.
I also got to see the golfer that became my final favorite. I still miss Lee Trevino. During a practice round the Merry Mex and Chi Chi Rodriguez kept Jerry Pate in a hysterical state of helpless laughter. No telling how much money they took him for when they pressed.
But Lee didn’t have too good a tournament. On the last hole one day he caught the cavernous left front bunker, climbed in, hit a nothing shot, and wearily climbed out, saying, “Now, that’s a great bunker . . . for the kind of bunker it is.” I wanted to say, “Lee, that was a great shot . . . for the kind of shot it was,” but I didn’t because I didn’t think of it until just now.
.
Regarding Ava Gardner
Smithfield, North Carolina, is a small town off Exit 95 of I-95. Nearby is even smaller rural Grabtown where the film star Ava Gardner was born in 1922 and is buried since 1990. But Smithfield is where memorabilia of her life and career are on display in a small, elegant museum.
Folks around Smithfield are quite proud of her. Proud that she is from an ordinary family in their quiet community, and rode her extra ordinary beauty and talent to popular and critical success. Proud of her 50 year career and cosmopolitan life. Proud especially that she asked to be brought home from London, where she lived when she died, to lie in Sunset Memorial Park with her parents and siblings.
Few of even the most famous of film stars of her era and earlier rate a museum just for them. Especially one that lasts.
Liberace's flamboyance --costumes, candelabras and cars -- was on view near Las Vegas (where else?) for a few successful years. Now his museum is closed, "temporarily."
John Wayne's home town of Winterset, IA, is soliciting building donations on the web, as is Saybrook, CT, on behalf of Kate Hepburn's small museum "under construction."
Frank Sinatra's Hoboken memorial never was much and closed in 2006. He was Ava's last husband, and in her words, "the love of my life." Hr is now better memorialized in Ava's museum than by his home town. The day we visited Ava"s place it was Francis' (as she always called him) music that played.
Jimmy Stewart's museum in Indiana, PA, is on hard times. Audrey Hepburn's family forced a memorial in Switzerland to close.
No museum honors Humphrey Bogart or Fred Astaire. Or Ava's second husband, bandleader Artie Shaw, or her reputed lover, billionaire Howard Hughes. Orson Welles has a museum "Of The Air," but you don't have to be very famous to rate mention world wide on the web.
In contrast, Judy Garland's museum in her home in Grand Rapids (Minnesota not Michigan) is thriving. It helps to be Dorothy of "The Wizard of OZ," and have the world's grand parents eager to take another generation of kids out of Kansas and over the rainbow with that enduring classic film. The 75th anniversary of "Wizard" is coming up in 2014 and word is they're already getting ready to celebrate in Grand Rapids.
Another ever youthful icon -- this time to the successive generations of adolescent rebels -- is James Dean, the original 1960's "Rebel Without a Cause." He has two places keeping his memory alive. One is his gallery and museum in Fairmount, IN, where he lived when young and is buried. The other is a modernistic monument in Cholame, CA, a tiny desert community a mile from where he died in a single car crash at the intersection of state roads 41 and 46.
Ava and Judy were born in the same year. But, like her other contemporaries, Ava lacks that singular image, frozen in time, emblematic of an identifiable era in the nation's life, that is our gift from Judy and James. One film, her star turn with Robert Walker in "One Touch of Venus," had that potential, or so it seemed to this writer at 18 when he saw it -- several times on successive days.
How is the Ava Gardner Museum doing? The lady there that day acknowledged that the tour buses are less frequent and their passengers older these days. Only one other person drifted in the afternoon in August, 2012, when we were there. It may be that when the original fans age and depart the star fades as well. The easy substitution of a web site for a brick and mortar building no doubt plays, and will play, an increasing role. Meanwhile, the Ava Gardner Museum is one of eight unique small American museums celebrated by the grand daddy of them all, the Smithsonian -- on its web site.
If Ava beats the odds and her memory does endure it will be because of the shear quality of the work done by Smithfield residents and the unusual dedication and talent of several of her most devoted followers, including Tod Johnson, present museum executive director, and his volunteer staff; Dr Tom Banks, founder of the first collection and museum with his wife, Lorraine, and the Dutch painter Bert Pfeiffer.
Pfeiffer's paintings line the wall of the museum's conference room. He painted one a year for two or more decades, each a uniquely stylized version of Ava's lush and timeless beauty. The collection rewards close examination not only to appreciate her sensuous glamour but to note the tiny, somewhat surrealistic surprises lurking in most, if not all, of his portraits.
The museum does a fine job of weaving a narrative of her film career and personal life into a seamless chronology using video, pictures and artifacts. There is the requisite Cinderella story of how a sultry photograph of her at 16 led to an MGM contract. Reportedly, her southern accent was so thick, that her screen test was silent on purpose. Then came her highly publicised pursuit by the young star, Mickey Rooney, whom she finally married and quickly divorced.
Her breakthrough film was "The Killers," a a critically acclaimed effort based on an Ernest Hemingway short story, which also introduced Burt Lancaster. My personal favorites:
1948 One Touch of Venus Robert Walker, co-star.
1949 Pandora and the Flying Dutchman James Mason
1951 Show Boat Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson
1954 The Barefoot Contessa Humphrey Bogart
1964 The Night of the Iguana Richard Burton and Deborah Kerr
Worth noting: Ava never acted or sang for her three husbands. Her declared favorite co-star was Gregory Peck while her girlhood matinee idol was Clark Gable. She lived for a long period in Spain and made her home in her final years in London.
From the Wikipedia Free encyclopedia:
The Ava Gardner Museum is located at 325 East Market Street in historic downtown Smithfield, North Carolina, and holds an extensive collection of artifacts from Ava Gardner's career and private life.
The original collection was started in 1941 by a fan, Tom Banks, who, at age 12, met Ava on the campus of Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College) where she was studying to become a secretary. When she did not return to school the next year, he saw a photograph of Gardner in a newspaper and learned that she had been signed to a movie contract with MGM.
The Banks devoted most of their lives to collecting memorabilia from every source imagined. In the early 1980s Dr. Banks purchased the Brogden Teacherage, the house where Ava lived from age 2 to 13, and operated his own Ava Gardner Museum during the summers for nine years. Dr. Banks suffered a stroke at the museum in August 1989 and died a few days later. Ava died 5 months later on January 25, 1990. In the summer of 1990, Mrs. Banks donated the collection to the Town of Smithfield, being assured that a permanent museum would be maintained in Johnston County, Ava's birthplace and final resting place.
The Ava Gardner Museum was incorporated in 1996 as a 501(c)3 organization to manage and care for the Museum's collection of personal items and movie memorabilia gifted to the Town of Smithfield by Tom and Lorraine Banks. Since that time the Ava Gardner Museum Foundation has continued to acquire artifacts related to Ava's life and is committed to preserving these items and displaying them in an educational manner.
In August 1999, the Museum’s board made an investment in downtown Smithfield by purchasing and renovating a 6,400-square-foot building that became the permanent home for the Museum’s vast collection. In October 2000, the new Ava Gardner Museum opened its doors and has continued to draw national and even worldwide attention with approximately 12,000 visitors each year.
Folks around Smithfield are quite proud of her. Proud that she is from an ordinary family in their quiet community, and rode her extra ordinary beauty and talent to popular and critical success. Proud of her 50 year career and cosmopolitan life. Proud especially that she asked to be brought home from London, where she lived when she died, to lie in Sunset Memorial Park with her parents and siblings.
Few of even the most famous of film stars of her era and earlier rate a museum just for them. Especially one that lasts.
Liberace's flamboyance --costumes, candelabras and cars -- was on view near Las Vegas (where else?) for a few successful years. Now his museum is closed, "temporarily."
John Wayne's home town of Winterset, IA, is soliciting building donations on the web, as is Saybrook, CT, on behalf of Kate Hepburn's small museum "under construction."
Frank Sinatra's Hoboken memorial never was much and closed in 2006. He was Ava's last husband, and in her words, "the love of my life." Hr is now better memorialized in Ava's museum than by his home town. The day we visited Ava"s place it was Francis' (as she always called him) music that played.
Jimmy Stewart's museum in Indiana, PA, is on hard times. Audrey Hepburn's family forced a memorial in Switzerland to close.
No museum honors Humphrey Bogart or Fred Astaire. Or Ava's second husband, bandleader Artie Shaw, or her reputed lover, billionaire Howard Hughes. Orson Welles has a museum "Of The Air," but you don't have to be very famous to rate mention world wide on the web.
In contrast, Judy Garland's museum in her home in Grand Rapids (Minnesota not Michigan) is thriving. It helps to be Dorothy of "The Wizard of OZ," and have the world's grand parents eager to take another generation of kids out of Kansas and over the rainbow with that enduring classic film. The 75th anniversary of "Wizard" is coming up in 2014 and word is they're already getting ready to celebrate in Grand Rapids.
Another ever youthful icon -- this time to the successive generations of adolescent rebels -- is James Dean, the original 1960's "Rebel Without a Cause." He has two places keeping his memory alive. One is his gallery and museum in Fairmount, IN, where he lived when young and is buried. The other is a modernistic monument in Cholame, CA, a tiny desert community a mile from where he died in a single car crash at the intersection of state roads 41 and 46.
Ava and Judy were born in the same year. But, like her other contemporaries, Ava lacks that singular image, frozen in time, emblematic of an identifiable era in the nation's life, that is our gift from Judy and James. One film, her star turn with Robert Walker in "One Touch of Venus," had that potential, or so it seemed to this writer at 18 when he saw it -- several times on successive days.
How is the Ava Gardner Museum doing? The lady there that day acknowledged that the tour buses are less frequent and their passengers older these days. Only one other person drifted in the afternoon in August, 2012, when we were there. It may be that when the original fans age and depart the star fades as well. The easy substitution of a web site for a brick and mortar building no doubt plays, and will play, an increasing role. Meanwhile, the Ava Gardner Museum is one of eight unique small American museums celebrated by the grand daddy of them all, the Smithsonian -- on its web site.
If Ava beats the odds and her memory does endure it will be because of the shear quality of the work done by Smithfield residents and the unusual dedication and talent of several of her most devoted followers, including Tod Johnson, present museum executive director, and his volunteer staff; Dr Tom Banks, founder of the first collection and museum with his wife, Lorraine, and the Dutch painter Bert Pfeiffer.
Pfeiffer's paintings line the wall of the museum's conference room. He painted one a year for two or more decades, each a uniquely stylized version of Ava's lush and timeless beauty. The collection rewards close examination not only to appreciate her sensuous glamour but to note the tiny, somewhat surrealistic surprises lurking in most, if not all, of his portraits.
The museum does a fine job of weaving a narrative of her film career and personal life into a seamless chronology using video, pictures and artifacts. There is the requisite Cinderella story of how a sultry photograph of her at 16 led to an MGM contract. Reportedly, her southern accent was so thick, that her screen test was silent on purpose. Then came her highly publicised pursuit by the young star, Mickey Rooney, whom she finally married and quickly divorced.
Her breakthrough film was "The Killers," a a critically acclaimed effort based on an Ernest Hemingway short story, which also introduced Burt Lancaster. My personal favorites:
1948 One Touch of Venus Robert Walker, co-star.
1949 Pandora and the Flying Dutchman James Mason
1951 Show Boat Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson
1954 The Barefoot Contessa Humphrey Bogart
1964 The Night of the Iguana Richard Burton and Deborah Kerr
Worth noting: Ava never acted or sang for her three husbands. Her declared favorite co-star was Gregory Peck while her girlhood matinee idol was Clark Gable. She lived for a long period in Spain and made her home in her final years in London.
From the Wikipedia Free encyclopedia:
The Ava Gardner Museum is located at 325 East Market Street in historic downtown Smithfield, North Carolina, and holds an extensive collection of artifacts from Ava Gardner's career and private life.
The original collection was started in 1941 by a fan, Tom Banks, who, at age 12, met Ava on the campus of Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College) where she was studying to become a secretary. When she did not return to school the next year, he saw a photograph of Gardner in a newspaper and learned that she had been signed to a movie contract with MGM.
The Banks devoted most of their lives to collecting memorabilia from every source imagined. In the early 1980s Dr. Banks purchased the Brogden Teacherage, the house where Ava lived from age 2 to 13, and operated his own Ava Gardner Museum during the summers for nine years. Dr. Banks suffered a stroke at the museum in August 1989 and died a few days later. Ava died 5 months later on January 25, 1990. In the summer of 1990, Mrs. Banks donated the collection to the Town of Smithfield, being assured that a permanent museum would be maintained in Johnston County, Ava's birthplace and final resting place.
The Ava Gardner Museum was incorporated in 1996 as a 501(c)3 organization to manage and care for the Museum's collection of personal items and movie memorabilia gifted to the Town of Smithfield by Tom and Lorraine Banks. Since that time the Ava Gardner Museum Foundation has continued to acquire artifacts related to Ava's life and is committed to preserving these items and displaying them in an educational manner.
In August 1999, the Museum’s board made an investment in downtown Smithfield by purchasing and renovating a 6,400-square-foot building that became the permanent home for the Museum’s vast collection. In October 2000, the new Ava Gardner Museum opened its doors and has continued to draw national and even worldwide attention with approximately 12,000 visitors each year.
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