dual personalities

Tag: Chamberlin family

November 29, 2014

For Studies and Other Honest Pursuits (Studiis et Rebus Honestis)*

by chuckofish

My grandfathers both grew up in Burlington, Vermont and several of their family members attended UVM. Recently perusing their online archives, I discovered some wonderful information about my great aunt Carly (Carolyn) and her brother, Guy, both of whom had very active college careers. I even found their yearbook pages.  Here’s Carly’s (note the misspelled middle name. It should be Hendren).

Carly's year book page

Carly was a tri-Delt, the vice-president of her class and won prizes in economics and reading, but I especially like that she exhibited the family trait, an acerbic wit. After graduation, she appeared frequently in the alumni magazine — at that time a weekly that published social announcements, including notice of her wedding to Raymond Briggs.

carly's wedding

The wedding must have been a somber affair, for Guy had been a fellow student and was, of course, her beloved baby brother. Their graduation photos were on the same page. I have divided them so that you can read them more clearly.

guys year book page

The school published several stories about Guy’s death, including the following:

Guy letterGuy letter2

and

Guy obit1Guy obit2Guy obit3Guy obit4Note that his commanding officer was George S. Patton. You’ll notice some discrepancies between the two stories. The official report says he died instantly (probably true); the other has him shot through the mouth, but still able to utter some last words (probably not true). Who knows? Clearly, Guy’s family felt the need to share these stories with the community. His death certainly convulsed their world: his wife, Dorothy, showed up out of the blue to meet the family; his mother died within months, and  his brother (our grandfather), a veteran with a wife and child, never recovered his pre-war joie de vivre. After his mother died, I’m not sure he ever went back to Burlington again. Only the two daughters, Ethel and Carly (but especially Carly), kept the memory of family alive. She must have been the one who sent the stories into the alumni magazine. I wish I could have known them all.

I realize that the quality of these isn’t the best because they’re trimmed out of a scanned in yearbook page and enlarged, but I like these two pictures a lot.

Carly Guy Russell Chamberlin

Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing? Stay tuned next week for UVM news about the distaff side of the family!

*the University of Vermont motto. All photos and documents uploaded here are from their archive web page. See link above.

 

 

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March 9, 2013

Generations

by chuckofish

History and tradition are not fashionable in academe at the moment, though thankfully they both remain popular just about everywhere else. In academia the Progressives have the floor and they think the past, like God, is dead. In reply, rather than rant, I refer to G.K. Chesterton, who rightly pointed out the importance of tradition (and by extension, history):

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.”

Hear, hear! Learn about your past and find out what the dead have to say — they speak volumes if you listen and use your imagination. Leave the comfort of your armchair (at least mentally), visit their landscapes, which were often harsh and unforgiving.

Site of the Battle of the Rosebud River 1876

Site of the Battle of the Rosebud River 1876

Appreciate the challenges they faced, which were many and cruel, from war to illness, poverty, disappointment, and old age.

Arthur Newell Chamberlin (I) who fought at the Rosebud

Arthur Newell Chamberlin (I) who fought at the Rosebud

In short, the very things that plague us still.

Caroline Hendren Chamberlin

Caroline Hendren Chamberlin

If we gain nothing else from the exercise, at least we acquire perspective on our own transient lives, though I have to admit that I have always found comfort in the past. The dead are never cruel or petty or indifferent. They are whatever we want them to be (like it or not, however much one strives to be accurate and objective, one always sees through the lens of personal experience and the present).

Ethel Chamberlin

Ethel Chamberlin

I like what Annie Dillard wrote:

Ours is a planet sown in beings. Our generations overlap like shingles. We don’t fall in rows like hay, but we fall. Once we get here, we spend forever on the globe, most of it tucked under. While we breathe, we open time like a path in the grass. We open time as a boat’s stem slits the crest of the present.”

I don’t want to sound all heavy-duty doom and gloom, though. Our ancestors had plenty of fun and it is a good idea to remind ourselves to do it, too.

ANC jr and Guy c. 1911

Guy and ANC Jr. c. 1911

Here’s to those who came before us and to everything they did (and managed not to do) so that we could be here now.

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