History | dual personalities

February 13, 2019

“Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages.”*

by chuckofish

In case you didn’t know, a lot of things happened on February 13.

1542: Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, was executed for adultery.

1689: William and Mary, were proclaimed co-rulers of England.

1945: RAF bombers were dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment.

1955: Israel obtained four of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls.

1990: An agreement was reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.

Yes, these are but a few of the interesting historical things you can find out more about if you are so inclined.

It is also the birthday of Chuck Yeager (b. 1923)– WWII flying ace and test pilot who famously broke the sound barrier.

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Sam Shepard played him in The Right Stuff (1983). Yeager wrote an autobiography called Yeager: An Autobiography, which I think I will read. I will certainly toast him tonight.

“You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up, but you don’t give up.”

On a personal note regarding things in the history genre: the other day, while perusing the latest issue of Missouri Conservationist, I came across an interesting article about Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who made an amazing 900-mile trek 200 years ago into what is now southern Missouri and northern Arkansas to learn more about the lead mining potential in the area. This was Osage country then and pretty wild. There were not a lot of white settlers around, just scattered cabins. It was easy to get lost and he and his partner did, several times.

Fascinating in itself, but, hey, look:

Matney’s Cabin! This is about the time our own Matneys were in Arkansas, having journeyed from western Virginia. (Our great-great-great grandmother Susanna Matney was, in fact, born in Arkansas in 1818!) Was this the cabin of William Matney, our great-great-great-great grandfather? Well, this got me started looking further into it and there is a Matney Knob in Arkansas on the White River that today features a beautiful Ozark Highlands Trail.

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I also ordered Schoolcraft’s book, so I shall see what he had to say about Matney’s Cabin. (Probably not much. It is a travel journal, after all.)

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The world is more than we know.

And this was adorable: the wee laddie on Instagram…

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*David McCullough

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February 8, 2019

“Like a twig on the shoulders of a mighty stream.”*

by chuckofish

Another week almost in the books…it was long, rainy and filled with the usual ups and downs, swings and misses, and bombshell drops at work.

I am always cheered by the photos the boy takes and texts of the wee babes at their preschool. I love this one of Lottie and her friend Mattie embracing/greeting each other. Screen Shot 2019-02-04 at 11.27.55 AM.png

The last two are of a color matching game they were playing at school. Remarkable children!

This weekend I have more plans on my social calendar than usual. Later today daughter #1 is driving here from Mid-MO and then I will drive her to the airport in the morning. She is going to a conference in Washington D.C. and will also spend a night with daughter #2 and DN in Maryland. They are going to have way too much fun.

Saturday night is the Elegant Italian Dinner at church, a much-anticipated annual event where we eat lasagna and salad by candlelight and hope that nobody knocks the bar over (like last year). The boy and daughter #3 are attending with us this year while the wee babes enjoy pizza in the nursery. We are delighted that they are going with us.

Since today is the birthday of James Dean (1931-1955), I suggest watching one of his three movies this weekend: Rebel Without a Cause (1955), East of Eden (1955) or Giant (1956). I will probably opt for Rebel Without a Cause. Because, hello.

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It is also the birthday of another of my faves, William Tecumseh Sherman.

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So I will toast him tonight.

William Tecumseh Sherman, excerpt from a personal letter

I confess, without shame, I am sick
and tired of fighting—its glory is
all moonshine; even success
the most brilliant is over dead
and mangled bodies, with the
anguish and lamentations of distant
families, appealing to me for sons,
husbands and fathers; tis only those
who have never heard a shot,
never heard the shriek and groans
of the wounded and lacerated that cry
aloud for more blood, more vengeance,
more desolation

–Johnny Noiπ

Have a great weekend, travel safely and make good choices.

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Be still my heart.

And, hey, Ted Drewes opens for its 90th season on February 12!

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@explorestlouis

*Del Griffith in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

4 Comments

January 24, 2019

Guiding light

by chuckofish

How about a little Mumford & Sons to get you started this morning?

I meant to mention earlier that Mary Oliver, the poet, died last week. Known for her “secular psalms,” she has been dubbed by some “the unofficial poet laureate” of the Unitarian Universalist denomination. Well, then. I liked her anyway.

Song of the Builders

On a summer morning

I sat down

on a hillside

to think about God –

a worthy pastime.

Near me, I saw

a single cricket;

it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.

How great was its energy,

how humble its effort.

Let us hope

it will always be like this,

each of us going on

in our inexplicable ways

building the universe.

You can read about her here and here.

I will also note that on this day in 1848 James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento. Our great-great-great grandfather, Silas Hough, went west the following year to seek his fortune, but died of cholera just east of the Rocky Mountains.

Screen Shot 2019-01-23 at 12.27.49 PM.png His 16-year old son, our great-great grandfather John Simpson Hough who had accompanied him, went home to Philadelphia. He didn’t stay long though. He had seen the Rocky Mountains and there was no holding him back.

And, hey, this was an interesting interview. (I had never heard of this book. I may have to read it.)

When people talk about poverty, there are different kinds. There is a poverty of status in our country where you have all the food and water you need but you think other people are doing better all around you. You can also have a poverty of control. You feel you can’t choose how you spend your day, when to get up. We don’t talk about those kinds of poverty a lot.

Food for thought.

(The painting is Sunrise on the Mountains at the Head of Moraine Park, Near Estes Park, about 1920, by Charles Partridge Adams, CU Art Museum, University of Colorado Boulder

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November 15, 2018

“Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe”*

by chuckofish

On November 15, 1872 the Missouri Republican reported that the Mill Creek sewer of St. Louis, already more than two miles long, was nearing completion. The sewer had been begun in 1860, after Chouteau’s Pond had been drained because of “pollution.” Engineers’ reports outlined the difficulties of the enormous Mill Creek project and stated that it was clear “to the most casual observer that St. Louis without her sewer system would be almost uninhabitable at certain periods of the year.” In fact, it was a serious cholera epidemic in 1866 that gave impetus to completion of the work.

Screen Shot 2018-11-14 at 10.31.24 AM.png Screen Shot 2018-11-14 at 10.27.27 AM.png When the sewer was finally finished all the way to Vandeventer Avenue in 1890, it was considered the marvel of its time. It measured twenty feet wide, fifteen feet high, and more than three miles long. Wider than a single railroad track tunnel, the sewer pipe was described as large enough “to allow the passage of a train of cars or a four-horse omnibus.”

The things we take for granted, right?

Information from Frances Hurd Stadler, St. Louis Day By Day

*Walt Whitman

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October 26, 2018

Red letter days

by chuckofish

Screen Shot 2018-10-01 at 1.05.35 PM.png Thank goodness today is Friday! And bonus: this morning I am running up to the airport to pick up daughter #2 who is popping in for a quick visit from Maryland! Daughter #1 will drive in from mid-MO to join us later tonight.

We’re going to have a little Halloween party so the wee babes can come over and wear their costumes again. In between we’ll do our usual old-lady stuff: go out to lunch, check out estate sales and sip margaritas in the afternoon. Who cares if it’s going to rain all weekend?

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You will recall that today is the 157th anniversary of the day the Pony Express ceased operation in 1861. The idea of a fast mail route to the Pacific coast was prompted largely by California’s newfound prominence and its rapidly growing population. William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Waddell, who were already in the freighting and drayage business, founded the Pony Express in St. Joseph, MO in 1859, delivering messages, newspapers, and mail from St. Joseph to Sacramento, CA along an approximately 1,900-mile-long route.

Screen Shot 2018-10-25 at 1.34.46 PM.png Majors was a religious man and resolved “by the help of God” to overcome all difficulties. He presented each rider with a special edition Bible and required them to sign an oath:

I, …, do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while I am an employee of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me God.”

The Pony Express demonstrated that a unified transcontinental system of communications could be established and operated year-round. When replaced by the telegraph, the Pony Express quickly became romanticized and its reliance on the ability and endurance of individual young, hardy riders and fast horses was seen as evidence of rugged American individualism and awesomeness.

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In honor of this anniversary I propose we try to find Pony Express (1953) starring Charlton Heston as Buffalo Bill and Forrest Tucker as Wild Bill Hickok. I’m sure it is highly fictionalized (i.e. made up out of whole cloth), but any movie with a young Chuck Heston is probably worth watching.

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And here is Crowder’s new song, which I like a lot.

Have a great weekend!

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October 16, 2018

“There is nothing that sharpens a man’s senses so acutely as to know that bitter and determined enemies are in pursuit of him night and day”*

by chuckofish

I was reading about what happened in history on October 16–a lot, including the public burning alive of Ridley and Latimer in 1555 and the be-heading of Marie Antoinette–when I ran across the story of the long-forgotten near assassination of President William Howard Taft.

Taft met with Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz in Mexico in 1909, the first meeting between a U.S. and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president visited Mexico.

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The day of the summit, Frederick Russell Burnham and a Texas Ranger captured and disarmed an assassin holding a palm pistol only a few feet from the two presidents.

I followed the link to read about Frederick Russell Burnham and, boy, what a guy was he!

Born in 1861 on a Dakota Sioux Indian reservation in Minnesota to missionary parents, Burnham was an American scout and tracker in the Apache wars, world-traveling adventurer, conservationist, and Rough Rider. He is also known for his service to the British Army in colonial Africa and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell in Rhodesia. (Lord Baden-Powell adopted the Stetson and neckerchief worn by Burnham.)

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Burnham has a mountain named after him. Of course he does.

It is supposed that Sir Rider Haggard based his character Allan Quartermain on Burhnam. (Not surprising.) “Burnham in real life is more interesting than any of my heroes of romance!” he said.

I have checked out Burham’s book Scouting On Two Continents from my flyover university library (I’m sure it hasn’t been checked out in decades.) I’ll let you know how great it is.

*This quote of Burnham’s reminds me of this quote from El Dorado (1966):

Cole: Either one of ya know a fast way to sober a man up?

Bull Harris: A bunch of howlin’ indians out for hair’ll do it quicker’n anything I know.

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Have a good day–read some history!

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October 3, 2018

Ruminating on the river

by chuckofish

On this day back in 1909 St. Louis observed the 100th anniversary of its incorporation. A week-long celebration, backed by dozens of civic organizations, called the nation’s attention to the city which then ranked a proud fourth and which only five years earlier had staged the fabulous Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

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The centennial festival coincided with Veiled Prophet week (founded by prominent St. Louisans in 1878), so the city was decked out in purple and gold for the “monarch,” and in red, white and blue banners for the anniversary…

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Veiled Prophet Parade in 1878

To open the celebration, the city’s harbor boat sounded a blast at 5:59 a.m. From Chain of Rocks to River des Peres and from the Mississippi River to the city limits, church bells rang out along with steam whistles. As that salute died away, every carillon in the city chimed out the melodies of favorite hymns.

For more than a century, St. Louis enjoyed a spot among the top 10 cities in the country, but by 1970, the city had fallen to 18th. A decade later, to 26th. The city that once ranked fourth behind New York, Chicago and Philadelphia then tumbled out of the top 50, and now stands at 62. Indeed, the population of St. Louis has declined from its peak in 1950 by 62.7%.

Well, I was surprised to find out that these days Wichita is bigger than we are.

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Back in 1909 St. Louisans were proud of their city. Today we talk about the Gateway Arch “honor(ing) historical events that are now understood as deeply problematic within the larger trajectory of American history.” Western expansion = a bad thing. Okay, then. That may explain a lot.

Discuss among yourselves.

[Information about the centennial from St. Louis Day By Day by Frances Hurd Stadler]

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September 27, 2018

1066 and all that

by chuckofish

The Norman conquest of England began on this day in 1066. The invasion and occupation of England by an army of Norman, Breton, Flemish and French soldiers was led by Duke William II of Normandy, later known as William the Conqueror.

This made me think of the book 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates.

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The book is a parody of the style of history teaching in English schools at the time (1930), in particular of Our Island Story. It purports to contain “all the History you can remember,” and covers the history of England from Roman times through 1066 “and all that,” up to the end of World War I, at which time “America was thus clearly Top Nation, and history came to a .” [full-stop, like a telegram] It is full of examples of half-remembered and mixed-up facts, puns and really bad jokes.

The book is written in the manner of a bad test essay with most of the names wrong. It is also full of private jokes and you really have to know quite a lot of history to get them, so I can’t imagine anyone today being even slightly amused by it.

Truly it makes my own history-major head spin.

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Zut alors!

On the whole I prefer Nigel Molesworth: “a chiz is a swiz or swindle as any fule kno.”

All latin masters hav one joke.

Caesar adsum jam forte
or
caesar had some jam for tea.

No one knows anything now.

6 Comments

September 25, 2018

Ride boldly ride

by chuckofish

Today we toast Oliver Loving (December 4, 1812 – September 25, 1867) who was an American rancher and pioneer of the cattle drive. Together with Charles Goodnight, he developed the Goodnight-Loving Trail.

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He was mortally wounded by Indians while on a cattle drive and died 151 years ago today. You may recall that Larry McMurtry borrowed his manner of death and the fact that Goodnight transported his body back to Texas for his character Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove.

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Loving County, Texas, the second least-populace county in the United States in population, is named in his honor.

You can read more about the trail here.

Well, it may be time to dig out Lonesome Dove, the mini series.

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“Here’s to the sunny slopes of long ago.”

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August 22, 2018

Men and angels sing

by chuckofish

Today is the 170th wedding anniversary of Julia Dent and Ulysses Grant, who were married on a hot evening in her father’s townhouse at Fourth and Cerre streets in St. Louis in 1848. Anticipating the extreme heat, Julia had planned to wear a simple, cool muslin gown for the ceremony, but Mrs. John J. O’Fallon, a family friend, brought her a watered-silk gown with a tulle veil. Another friend, Mrs. Henry Shurlds, provided fresh jessamine blossoms. [No photo available, darn it.]

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Since Col. Frederick Dent’s house was relatively small, the guest list was held to the Dents’ oldest and closest St. Louis friends. Julia’s attendants were her sister Nellie, her cousin Julia Boggs, and Sarah Walker. Among Grant’s groomsmen were Lt. Cadmus Wilcox and Bernard Pratte III, both of whom were later to surrender to Gen. U.S. Grant at Appomattox.

Here are some pictures of the Dent home as it aged through the years…

Screen Shot 2018-08-21 at 9.34.56 AM.png Screen Shot 2018-08-21 at 10.25.11 AM.png and the street as it looks today…

Sigh. Well, the least we can do is toast old Julia and Lyss on their anniversary. They were, by all accounts, a happy couple, deeply committed to each other and their family.

Side note from the Small World Department: one of my DP’s best friends growing up was a descendant of the aforementioned O’Fallons. According to Wikipedia, John J. O’Fallon (1791 – December 17, 1865) was a businessman, philanthropist, and military officer. During the 19th century he rose to become the wealthiest person in St. Louis. He is the namesake of O’Fallon, Illinois (incorporated in 1874) as well as O’Fallon, Missouri, and the nephew of William Clark (of Lewis and Clark). O’Fallon and Frederick Dent were both founders of the Episcopal Church in St. Louis. Nice to know that there are still O’Fallons in town.

Speaking of childhood friends, yesterday I went to the funeral of the mother of one of mine. She was 98, so it was sparsely attended, but there was a dedicated phalanx of very old, very thin, very erect, well-coiffed women in St. John suits. I felt underdressed and under-coiffed in my work attire, but c’est la vie. The service, held at the church I attended as a child, was the Episcopal short-version, Beverly having stipulated that her service run no longer than 25 minutes. Indeed, Beverly was still Beverly up until the end: the minister said that in the emergency room the night before she died, Beverly had taken umbrage with the nurses for messing up her hair. I had to chuckle picturing that. By the way, this is the lady who was the originator of the “Smell the pine in your nostrils” trope, so beloved in my family.

Well, I tried my best to speak the prayers loudly and sing audibly, since hardly anyone else was able to, but the singing was a challenge. By the fifth verse of Onward Christian Soldiers, I was very ready to throw in the towel. I was glad I went, however, as it was a pleasure to sit in this light-filled sanctuary and remember back to my youth when I giggled my way through Sunday School with this particular friend.

Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Beverly. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints of light.

I heard this old song on the radio going to work the other day and thought I’d share it.

(BTW, that is not DN playing the drums, although I did do a double-take when I was watching this video.)

(Information regarding Julia Dent’s wedding from Frances Hurd Stadler, St. Louis Day By Day)

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