dual personalities

We’ve been trying to get in the holiday spirit here. First we decorated and then we watched “3 Godfathers” (a great, but sadly underrated movie). Don’t get me wrong, those things helped. But something was still missing. I realized this morning that what I  really miss is the sound of excited children. Not having any happy children immediately to hand, I  went to my photo albums. I must say that these pictures have given me a great boost in holiday spirit.

Remember when snow meant adventure — sometimes including dinosaurs?

Remember when visiting Santa was super exciting and not that creepy?

maybe just a little creepy

Remember when an indoor tent, sleeping bag and action figures were the best thing in the world?

we still have those sleeping bags

And let’s not forget Lego…

so much Lego

or the happy, happy baby brother!

there’s nothing better than a squeaky toy

There. Now I feel the excitement of Christmas, don’t you?

While presents are nice, let’s not forget that we’re really celebrating a very different type of gift.

Merry Christmas!

I promised my dual personality that I would post the latest family history update today. It’s not earth-shattering or particularly romantic, but it does help to fill the blanks just a little bit. Today’s post concentrates on a collateral branch of the Cameron side of the family. Specifically, we take a look at my grandfather’s sister, Hazel Stuart Cameron, who (along with her two older siblings) was born in Clarence, Ontario before the family moved to Burlington VT in 1899 or 1900. After a few years living in various Burlington abodes, the Camerons bought a brand new (built in 1899), four bedroom, 2,082 sq ft. house at 140 Loomis St. Here it is today via Google Street view.

Unfortunately, the picture oddly compresses the house (see the front porch), but you sort of get the idea. Anyway, this was the Cameron home until the family patriarch’s death in 1929. In the 1920 census, three of the children still lived there: Bunker, Hazel and shell-shocked WWI veteran, Erskine. They had already lost Leila, who died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918, leaving behind a husband and two small children. But for the years before the war, we must imagine the home a happy one.

Hazel attended UVM. She doesn’t appear to have been as involved on campus as great aunt Carly and great uncle Guy were, but she did pledge to a sorority

Note the connection to DePauw University, my niece’s alma mater! It’s a small world. Here’s Hazel’s senior page, which is not exactly flattering.

Considered the  family beauty, Hazel was also something of a “daddy’s girl” and, by all accounts, spoiled. After she graduated, she got a job with Underwood Typewriter in Brookline, Massachusetts, where she  met Harry Powers. The two were married on Christmas Day, 1926.

Here’s the announcement in the UVM alumni magaine:

The College St. Church is apparently the Congregational Church in Burlington.

I’m not sure why the Congregational minister married them, since they were Baptist. Perhaps Mr. Powers was Congregational. Dual personality, do you know?

Here’s what Harry Powers looked like back in the day. By the look of things, this was taken when he was about 17.The two never had any children, but lived a quiet life — he as a professor at Tufts and she as the mild professor’s indomitable wife. She always seemed formidable to me, but she must have had a fun side because she is remembered fondly as ‘Tid’ by members of Harry’s family, who posted these pictures of Harry and Hazel on Ancestry.com.

Don’t forget to toast the Powers on Christmas! In the meantime, remember — always remember — those who are gone. And enjoy this wonderful Christmas season!

“If God had wanted somebody with St. Francis’s consistently winning personality for the job in the New Testament, he’d’ve picked him, you can be sure. As it was, he picked the best, the smartest, the most loving, the least sentimental the most unimitative master he could possibly have picked. And when you miss seeing that, I swear to you, you’re missing the whole point of the Jesus Prayer [“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner”]. The Jesus Prayer has one aim, and one aim only. To endow the person who says it with Christ-consciousness. Not to set up some little cozy, holier-than-thou trysting place with some sticky, adorable divine personage who’ll take you in his arms and relieve you of all your duties and make all your nasty weltschmerzen and Professor Tuppers go away and never come back. And by God, if you have intelligence enough to see that–and you do–and yet you refuse to see it, then you’re misusing the prayer, you’re using it to ask for a world full of dolls and saints and no Professor Tuppers.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

What better to help us prepare for the madcap rush of the holidays than a quote from J.D. Salinger’s incomparable Franny an Zooey? Balm for the overwrought American soul. Re-read the book and fortify yourself for the onslaught of the pre-Christmas rush. Whatever you choose to read, find time in your busy schedule to enjoy it properly — quietly, in solitude, and without distractions.

Have a great weekend!