Books for the Bookwyrm - Gay's Year on Sunset Island

 

I am reading these books one per shelf, top to bottom. On the fourth shelf are those by authors I don't recognize. Each shelf is organized by author's last name, and the first is Gay's Year on Sunset Island, by Marguerite Aspinwall. 

I could find no information about the author, other than that she wrote a small handful of books. I can find 7, and this is the first of two written about Gay Annersley. 

Copyrighted in 1926 and published by the Goldsmith Publishing Company in Cleveland, Ohio I could find precious little about the publishing company, either, There existed a Goldsmith Publishing Company in Chicago that opened in 1931, but this book predates that by at least two years. 

This is a clothbound book, with a fragile spine. The paper smells of dusty vanilla, and the spine has cracked in several places & doesn't want to open fully in most others. This was read carefully, to avoid further damage to the spine.

The book is what would now be categorized as a young adult story about a teenage girl and her adopted family, and their adventures on a tiny island near Martinique, in the 1920s. It is reminiscent of - and references - The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann Wyss. While this family lives in a colonial house rather than a treehouse, they are cut off from civilization and make their home on the island, all while hunting for the lost treasure of Henry Morgan, allegedly hidden there. 

The writing style is dated, but the story is quick-paced and enjoyable, and there aren't an overabundance of disused words to deter someone from reading this. It's written for boys OR girls, as the protagonist is a tomboy who is more at home fishing and gardening with the boys, than in the kitchen with the girls. Having read this, I am curious to see if I can get my hands on a copy of the second book in this series; Gay's Year at Harford Hall. 

This book was an 8th birthday gift to my Grandpa Kenny, from his mother; my great-grandmother. 

Born on 13 December, 1921, in Minneapolis Minnesota, my grandfather lived in Minnesota his entire life. A career employee of Stremel Brothers, he spent his free time skippering for his son, my father, with the Lake Harriett Yacht Club in the 1950s and 60s. Skilled though private about his musical abilities, I am told he could play both the mandolin and guitar. 

I remember my grandfather as happy-go-lucky, and young at heart. Once when my grandmother was playing the carillon for her church's Easter services he took me, a rambunctiously hyperactive tot, on a walk around the neighborhood and showed me the "sweet spot" for hearing the church bells, two blocks away. 

A stroke left him wheelchair-bound when I was 6, and I remember needing to drive down to search for him several times, as he had "run away" from his nursing home, and was found making his way to the Dairy Queen, quite indignant that he'd been caught before obtaining his ice cream.

While I am told he was abusive, he was never anything but a troublemaking companion who loved to tell dry jokes and old riddles. He and I got ourselves into a world of trouble one afternoon, as I flushed my grandmother's cigarettes down the toilet in an attempt to "save her life." Never once suggesting that it might not be the wisest of ideas, he showed me all of her hiding places, and stood blocking the doorway as she tried to get at me, laughing the entire time.

He passed away on 6 November, 1987, after more than a decade of health problems. 

Being able to read a book that was one my grandpa's, and tracing the handwriting penned by my sweet Great Grandma nearly a half-century before I was even born, has been a genuine treat. I could imagine Grandpa Kenny, head under his blankets, reading long into the night, as his parents "didn't know" that he was breaking rules about bedtime. This was a fun little read, and a sweet peek back into my grandpa's childhood. 

Next will be a book from the bottom shelf; children's and young adult books by authors I DO recognize! This little bookwyrm is enjoying her trip through the family bookcase!

Books for the Bookwyrm - The Last of the Mohicans

Being a lifelong bookwyrm, I actively seek out old classics to read. This is one that has been on my list for a few decades now, so when The Last of the Mohicans was tucked into the bookcase I knew it would be one of the first to be read.

While there is no publishing date in the book, a quick online search shows that Alta Edition books were published by Porter & Coates, in Philadelphia, from 1870 through the 1890s. While literally labeled “First” editions they are in fact reprints, first only to the publishing company. Beginning in 1864 and changing names several times, Coates was in business until 1905, when it was purchased by The Winston Company.

Opening the cover the glue is vanillic, the paper is thick, powdery, heavily yellowed, and the spine crackles just a bit. The font is painfully small as well, even when using readers, so for these reasons I chose to find a digital version to read, preserving both the book and my poor crappy eyes. 

The second book of a trilogy allegedly able to be read separately, I had a hard time with this one. Given when this was written, I expected it to be grossly sexist and racist. Having read both Uncle Remus & Mark Twain, I felt properly prepared. Oh, how truly blissful was my ignorance! 

The story was slow to develop, and I couldn't connect with the characters. While the descriptions were amazingly - frequently painfully - detailed, (something I'm certain I've NEVER said before!) the Natives were the worst possible stereotypes, and there was just too much violence for me. My eyes were in danger of getting stuck from all the rolling they did as yet another "Huh!" was uttered from the otherwise nonverbal "Indians." And oh my goodness... just leave those stupid girls to their peril already! There are damsels in distress, and then there are twits that can't be trusted with a cup of tea, for danger of drowning. *sigh* These were embarrassing caricatures of the latter.

Some books don't age well. I have read hundreds, and will likely read hundreds more. I have heard that the movie is better, but no longer have an urge to even try. There is a critique of the entire trilogy, by none other than Mark Twain. Truly, the critique is infinitely more engaging than the book itself. I am crossing this "classic" off my must-read-before-you-die list, and moving on to greener pastures.

Glued within the flyleaf, are these related newspaper clippings of the "last" Mohican chief. THEY were somewhat interesting, and I love that someone took the time to save them here in the book.

This book was stamped on the first page, as belonging to W.T. Cole. Wilson Taylor Cole, my Great-Great Grandfather, was born on 13 December, 1862 in St. Thomas, Ontario; a Canadian by birth. Married on 2 March, 1887 in Palmyra, MO he became a US Citizen on 13 January, 1897.

His obituary says he was a Minneapolis printer and writer, and the owner of Cole Printing Company of Minneapolis – a business that eludes casual internet searches. I can say that a surprising number of the books in the bookcase are stamped as having belonged to him, and the Cole line has the largest amount of ephemera tucked within my archives so he WILL come up again. He died on 11 May, 1949, LONG before I was born, and long enough ago that even my father has no memories of him.

I can't wait to choose the next book for this little bookwyrm to read! It MUST be better!

When the Grinch Loved Christmas

My father is an inveterate holiday Grinch, and has been for as long as I can remember. He's not a fan of large Christmas trees or decorating the house with lights, he grumps about the "mess" that occurs while putting up holiday decorations, I've literally never heard him sing along to a Christmas carol, and... other than Christmas cookies... he generally grumps about ALL things Christmas. We call him Grinch. Behind his back, AND to his face. To which he will grumble, "Bah, HUMBUG!" 

(In retrospect, we clearly ought to be calling him Scrooge!)

It's not so much that he hates Christmas, but he's not a fan of change... and EVERYTHING about the house changed every Christmas as Mummy, a Christmas PRINCESS, rearranged the entire living room for the tree, swapped out the soaps and towels in the bathroom, the salt shakers and dishes in the dining room, the coffee table books, the tissue box covers... literally EVERY inch of the house had a glittery red and green substitute, just for Christmas! 

There were 17 boxes in the basement, numbered and labeled, that needed to be hauled up, unboxed, and sprinkled about the house every December 1st. It took an entire week! Even after I moved away, I would go over to help her assemble her Christmas house... because it was never a one-day affair, and one person could have never put up all of her decorations.

Every December, us four girls would gleefully dance about the living room, tinsel garlands draped across our shoulders like the finest of feather boas, assembling the Christmas foofaraw and finding more and more creative ways to anchor the precious-yet-disintigrating artificial tree purchase the year she and Dad were married, while he sat grumping in his recliner watching Wheel of Fortune and insisting that we didn't need all that fluff. And TECHNICALLY he was right. We didn't NEED it. But it made Mummy happy, and that glee was contagious. 

I am unapologetically a seasonal decorator. We have 13 bins in our shed; one for every month of the year, with two for Christmas! Our seasonal decorations change EVERY SINGLE MONTH... because we love the constant change and the seasonal happiness! My son is the lead decorator in our house, and Christmas is his absolute favorite. I've barely lifted a finger for our December decorating in nearly a decade, because he LOVES to decide where every individual figurine and bit of fluff will sit each year.

While sifting through photos last month, I found a few that made me laugh far more than they should have. Here is proof-positive that my grouchy Grinch/Scrooge father, DID love Christmas... once upon a looong time ago! 

This post is for my nieces, who have dubbed Dad "Grumpy Grandpa." L and L... here is your Grumpy Grandpa, HAPPY about Christmas!!! See? He DID used to love Christmas, and he WASN'T always grumpy!

Enjoy all of the ornaments, sparkle, glitter, cookies, trees, and silly songs this Christmas! Auntie loves you!

Books for the Bookwyrm - Review of A Day with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, by May Byron.

My father sold my childhood house. I found out yesterday. We had not even known it was up for sale. Yes, he had said this summer that he was wanting to move and looking at houses, but it was said without hurry or urgency and he often discusses at great length and in great detail many things that never come to pass; and it had never been mentioned again, so I didn't think too much of it. But it sold, sight unseen, and he has less than two weeks to be out. The shock is real.

Yesterday he called to ask if I wanted "a bunch of old family books." This little bookwyrm said YES... and within minutes of returning from driving my son to work there he was on the doorstep, one large car STUFFED full of books and an old barrister bookcase. I will not share how we managed to get that HEAVY bookcase into the house as I neither want to lie, nor cause anyone nightmares. Suffice to say it was an adventure I'd never like to repeat.

Kat and I carefully unpacked the books, sorted those with notes from ancestors from those without, and then by decade, to begin assessing what we had inherited. 

The bookcase is large. It has now taken over the dark corner of our living room, and looms over my chosen sofa. We have organized the books by type, and I will be alphabetizing the books on each shelf today. The shelves are as follows: 

Poetry

Bibles and faith-based books, (this is the shelf at my short-little-mouse eye level) 

Classics

Books by authors I don't readily recognize

and Childrens/Young Adult books

There are treasures here. Newspaper clippings used as bookmarks, and wildflowers pressed between pages. Handwritten dedications to ancestors long gone. An enormous copy of Shakespeare that I used to sneak-read every summer, because I was afraid it was too old to be handled by young people. (When she finally caught me, Mummy told me I never needed to hide that I was reading books, because an unread book is a crime!) A breathtakingly beautiful Christmas picture book from a bygone era. Books I had already planned to read, and books I have never heard of. And I intend to read them all, because - as Mummy said - an unread book is a crime!

The first book on the top shelf is A Day with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, by May Byron. A slim little book, only 48 pages long, it smells like basement, book glue that's gone orange and smells vanillic, and old, heavy paper. The spine is nearly torn free and crackles softly as I turn the pages, like poplar leaves in the fall. 

The book is a sweet accounting of a single day, at Elizabeth Barrett Browning's home in Florence, Italy. There are beautiful full-color illustrations by Norman Price, and the writing has the florid feel of a time long gone. I was there, listening to her son, Pennini's laughter. I could feel the air stir with the flutterings as he handed strawberries around to the Hawthornes and other guests. And with a sigh, and all too soon, the tiny book was finished. 

As there are no inscriptions within the cover, I will imagine that this book came from the Cole side of our family, as Gramma's family could afford - and owned - many books. I am imagining that Gramma's mother, Elizabeth Eunice Cole (nee: Roberts) thoroughly enjoyed this book as a young lady, while sitting under an oak tree one beautiful autumn day... because doesn't she look like she would enjoy a romantic peek at the day of a bygone poet? Perhaps she sat reading this on an old quilt, carried overseas by her father, when he immigrated to the US from Wales. I never met my great grandmother, as she died 18 years before I was born. But I will imagine that this was her book. 

Now to choose another book for this little bookwyrm to devour.  

Military Mummy

In honor of Memorial Day, while sifting through a random box, I found an entire tiny time-capsule of photographs and memorabilia from Mummy's Navy days. Right in the middle, I found the lyrics to a song she wrote... and wanted to share the song, and just a bit of what I found in here. These will be in a special folder within the Shaw family box once everything is sorted properly. 

 First, I found her ACCEPTANCE LETTER, a newspaper clipping from her hometown, announcing her graduation, and the booklet from her graduation ceremony. 

 

There are a few photos of her in her blues, but I only know of two photos of her wearing her dress whites. Judging by the date printed on the photo, this may have been taken on the day of her graduation. 

 

Tucked in amongst the photos, were several postcards. Here is one from her bestie! 

And here is the song... and yes, when I read this I heard it in her voice, off-key and jubilant. *snurfle* 

I know that Memorial Day is to celebrate those killed in action. We do have just a few family members, but I haven't found the connection yet. Will share these as well, once I've connected the dots. 

PLEASE share this site with other family members! This is not just my history, it's all of ours. Family history is meant for sharing, so if you have a cousin, aunt, brother... anyone who may be interested, please share the link so they too can learn about our collective family histories! 

More will be posted, SOON!

Initial Discoveries

 I am about halfway through the boxes on my FIRST sorting. The plan is to go through the boxes once, getting everything sorted into appropriate family categories. THEN I can go through each family individually, and begin organizing everything by generation and type of media.

One of the first things I saw when I began opening boxes to get an idea of which might belong to what family, was this old leather child's train-case. The hinges are rusty, and it took a few minutes of careful prying to get it opened safely. It is filled with scraps of carefully folded fabric, each one smaller than a handkerchief. This was tucked within a box of Cole family items, and based on its apparent age and what else was stored with it, I would guess this likely belonged to my grandmother, Mary Elizabeth (Betty) Cole/Gates. 

Initially I had thought it was a box of fabric scraps for making dolly clothes, but after looking through the fabric more closely I believe this to be a time capsule. People used to save scraps from memorable clothing items to remember special events. The blue fabric here closely resembles the fabric from my grandmother's prom photo, and the pieces of lace have all been carefully taken from something; the stitch-marks are still visible! 

From the Shaw side, I want to share the lady who started tracing our genealogy before I was born. This is my great-aunt Anne. Born Annie Evelina White, she married Edward Valdemar Chorpenning Shaw in 1956. Edward was my grandfather Charles Shaw's brother.

I met Great Aunt Anne once, in the summer of 1981. Mummy had wanted to visit with her because she was interested in our family genealogy; and we visited her, my Aunt Marcy, (Mummy's best friend in the navy; adopted in love, and my eponym) and my Aunt Polly's family in a whirlwind "East Coast Tour." She lived with an enormous black dog, and we slept on the floor under a train table in her hobby room... she said it had been her husband's obsession. I remember my grandfather having a train room as well, so it must have run in the family! 

 

While we were there, she offered to take us on a tour of New Hampshire. We piled into her station wagon, and she ordered us to "hang on tight, 'cause the traffic's a bit rough 'round here!" I remember my father white-knuckling the oh-crap bar on her car as we FLEW around corners and through red lights, narrowly missing traffic as if our very lives depended on going FAST! We saw Plymouth Rock, (it was a rock... under a roof... VERY boring to a young girl) the Mayflower II, (I remember her showing me the ballast rocks... they were far more interesting than an old smelly boat!) a creepy waxworks museum, and I know we saw many other things in a single afternoon, but the rest is a blur. She was loud, fast, and I thought she was the most fiercely independent lady I'd ever met. After this visit she mailed Mummy several LARGE envelopes of hand-written genealogy charts, and a small mountain of personal notes she had been researching. I found the envelopes, and my fingers are positively itching to unfold the charts I haven't seen since I was a little girl. 

And because today is National Nurse's Day, here are some photos from the Payson line. Olga Keehnel/Johnson and her daughter Doris Johnson/Payson served as nurses for the North Hudson Red Cross during WWII. These are my children's great grandmother, and great-great grandmother. 

While I never met either of them, I have been told that Olga was "stern, but lovely" and that Doris was "an amazing mother" by Aunt Dolores Payson/Dahl; Doris' daughter.

My plan had been to post photos once a week... it may end up being at LEAST once a week for awhile, because I can't help but share! There's so much here, and I want everyone to see it! 

PLEASE share this site with other family members! This is not just my history, it's all of ours. Family history is meant for sharing, so if you have a cousin, aunt, brother... anyone who may be interested, please share the link so they too can learn about our collective family histories! 

More will be posted, SOON!

Welcome to the archives!

Welcome to the family library!

This is a personal archive of family genealogy files/photos/memorabilia from several different family branches. They include the family names: Cole, Gates, Shaw, Hymer, Payson, Gettinger, and many many more. 

I have been given genealogy files and boxes of photos & such from multiple family members from EVERY side of my and my children's families, and am beginning to sort/organize everything into easily accessible files. These family treasures have been sitting in boxes unseen for so long, and I cannot WAIT to share them with anyone who might be interested!

As I sort through everything, I would love to share a weekly post highlighting just a couple goodies, along with any connected information I may have. PLEASE share this site with other family members! This is not just my history, it's all of ours. Family history is meant for sharing, so if you have a cousin, aunt, brother... anyone who may be interested, please share the link so they too can learn about our collective family histories! 

There is a lot here and so far I haven't done more than dip my toes into personally adding to these files, but I am ready & eager to begin just that. First, however, I need to organize what others have already collected. Here is a photo sharing where I am in that process right now. These boxes just arrived at my house this past weekend. I'll be elbows-deep sorting things for awhile, as some of these boxes contain information from literally EVERY side of my family. 

Let's learn about our history together!