dual personalities

Tag: History

February 6, 2013

William and Mary loved of old

by chuckofish

On this day in 1693, the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia was granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II.

William and Mary

Privately founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III and Queen Mary, it is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States after Harvard University. (Some at W&M would argue that point.)

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U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler were educated at William and Mary, as well as other key figures important in the development of the nation, including U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and 16 signers of the Declaration of Independence. And lest we forget, John Stewart is a graduate.

I have a Masters Degree (in history) from the College and spent a year living happily in Williamsburg.

Here is my dual personality in a Williamsburg garden when she visited me during her spring break at Smith.

Here is my dual personality in a Williamsburg garden when she visited me during her spring break at Smith.

I went back almost 30 years later when daughter #2 was visiting colleges in Virginia and North Carolina in 2007. A lot had changed, but much was the same. I was amazed by how little I actually remembered of the campus. Outside of the library and a few classrooms, I guess I didn’t spend a lot of time on campus. I think I had been much more engaged with Colonial Williamsburg, which was and still is a very cool place.

And now for the Interesting Family Sidebar!

Henry Compton, my husband’s ancestor, was the first chancellor of William and Mary (from 1693–1700 and again from 1707–1713). But this long-distance post was the least of his accomplishments!

Henry Compton was born in 1623, the 6th son of Spencer Compton, the Earl of Northampton. He and his brothers all served with their father during the English Civil War (on the Royalist side–boo). After the death of his father at the Battle of Hopton Heath, Henry left the army and made a career in the Church.

Henry_Compton_by_Sir_Godfrey_Kneller,_Bt

He was made Bishop of Oxford in 1674, and in the following year was translated to the see of London. He was also appointed a member of the Privy Council, and entrusted with the education of the two princesses – Mary and Anne. Being a staunch Protestant, he had nothing but trouble with James II, so it is no surprise that at the Glorious Revolution, Henry Compton embraced the cause of William and Mary. Indeed, he was one of the “Immortal Seven” who invited William to invade England. He stepped up and performed the ceremony of their coronation when others would not. His old position was restored to him, and among other appointments, he was chosen as one of the commissioners for revising the liturgy. During the reign of Anne he remained a member of the Privy Council, and was one of the commissioners appointed to arrange the terms of the union of England and Scotland. However, to his bitter disappointment, his claims to the primacy were twice passed over. He died at Fulham on 7 July 1713 and is buried at Compton Wynyates.

The old family home

The old family home

My husband’s progenitor, however, was actually Henry’s adopted son, the son of his cousin John Compton, who died in battle. Typical. Another hero who is merely a cousin! Well, Henry adopted the 14-year old and it was this man, John Compton II, who went to Maryland where Henry had been given a land grant. From afar, Henry helped set up the Anglican Church in Maryland.

As you can see, the Comptons started off rather brilliantly in this country. Unfortunately they went to seed in Kentucky (not without good reason I’m sure) following the Civil War and for some generations were probably akin to some of our favorite characters on “Justified”.

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All families have their ups and downs! It keeps us humble, right?

12 Comments
January 24, 2013

Rest in peace, Winston Churchill

by chuckofish

As you know, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, Hon. RA was a British politician, best known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He died on this day in 1965 at the age of 90.

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Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, he served as Prime Minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55). A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature and was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.

I remember how really sad my parents (especially my father) were when Winston died. We watched the entire televised funeral.

churchill_funeral

In our family, it was a Big Deal. My father probably used it as an excellent excuse to drink way too much and to entertain gloomy thoughts about the state of the world.

A few years later, my family went to visit the Churchill Memorial in Fulton, Missouri when it opened in 1969. This Church, St. Mary the Virgin Aldermanbury, had stood in London since 1677 when it replaced an earlier structure that had sat on the same site since the 12th century. A magnificent building, it was badly damaged during the London Blitz, and was moved stone by stone to the campus of Westminster College in Fulton and rebuilt to Wren’s original specifications. Beneath this Church is the National Churchill Museum itself. I have always meant to go back.

St Mary Aldermanbury

Maybe this year!

Anyway, a toast to Winston Churchill and to our pater who revered him!

“All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope.” (1947)

3 Comments
January 16, 2013

Fun facts to know and tell

by chuckofish

For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, his commanders recommended Theodore Roosevelt for the Medal of Honor.

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He was not awarded the medal at that time, but 100 years later in the late 1990s, Roosevelt’s supporters again took up the flag for him. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish–American War. Roosevelt’s eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor (the other pair being Arthur and Douglas MacArthur).

If I ever knew that, I had forgotten it. I am glad to know that T.R. got his Medal of Honor. I suggest a toast to him tonight!

Today is also the birthday of Robert W. Service, the Bard of the Yukon (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958).

Robert_W._Service

When I was in Middle School, I was a big fan of Robert Service. (Yes, I was really cool.) I asked for and was given his collected poems for Christmas. I memorized large portions of my favorite poems, including “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.”

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.

Margaret Rutherford gave a dramatic recitation of the aforementioned poem in Murder Most Foul. Priceless. Here it is (with Italian subtitles!)–watch the whole thing! (Si. Si. Prego.)

Have a great Wednesday!

3 Comments
December 11, 2012

On the banks of the Wabash

by chuckofish

On this day in 1816 Indiana (“Land of the Indians”) became the 19th U.S. state. The Hoosier (“country bumpkin”) state is the 38th largest by area and the 15th most populace.

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The Wabash River, which is the longest free-flowing river east of the mighty Mississippi River, is the official river of Indiana. Thus, its state song is “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” written in 1897 by Paul Dresser, the brother of noted Hoosier writer Theodore Dreiser. (Apparently Paul Dresser was horrified by his brother’s shocking novels and changed the spelling of his name to differentiate them.)

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The official state flag of Indiana was adopted in 1917. It was designed by Paul Hadley of Mooresville, Indiana; he won a flag design contest sponsored by the DAR for Indiana’s 100th anniversary of statehood in 1916. There are 19 golden stars on a blue field. The 13 stars in the outer circle represent the 13 original colonies of the United States of America; the 5 stars in a half circle represent the states admitted prior to Indiana (but after the original 13), and the larger star atop the flame of the torch of Liberty represents Indiana.

In our family we have a fondness for the state of Indiana because daughter #1 attended and graduated from DePauw University in the charming town of Greencastle.

Depauw

During those four years we spent a lot of time in Indiana. We have been to many charming bergs in the state, including Indianapolis, Bloomington, Muncie, Terre Haute, New Harmony, Crawfordsville, Evansville–some a lot more charming than others. Indiana is, of course, a state boasting many fine colleges and universities, including Butler, Purdue, Valparaiso, Earlham, Ball State, Wabash, Notre Dame, and, of course, Indiana University.

Indiana is a state full of history and the birthplace of many famous Americans, including Johnny Appleseed, Gen. Lew Wallace, V.P. Dan Quayle, Presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison, Booth Tarkington, Bill Blass, Cole Porter, Kurt Vonnegut, Red Skelton, David Letterman, Hoagy Carmichael, and my personal favorites:

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Steve McQueen and James Dean

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Yes, Indiana. Way to go.

I could go on and on about the great state of Indiana, but I’ll stop here. I’ll just make one suggestion. In honor of the anniversary of Indiana’s statehood, I recommend watching a really good movie that celebrates the state’s love of basketball: Hoosiers (1986) with Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper. (BTW, One of the players on the high school team was played by a DePauw basketball player. The NCAA gave him a three-game suspension and he was charged 5% of his acting fee.)

We must also note that today is the birthday of two great actors (neither one from Indiana):

Victor McLaglan (1883-1959)

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and Jean Marais (1913-1998)

Jean_Marais_by_van_Vechten,_1947

Bon anniversaire!

8 Comments
October 23, 2012

Who would you choose?

by chuckofish

If you read a variety of blogs, you have certainly come across more than one of those posts where the writer asks the question: Who would you choose if you could have lunch with anyone? Usually they go on to tell you how they would love to get together with Audrey Hepburn, Princess Diana, Thomas Jefferson, Mother Theresa, Steven Spielberg and so on. Blah, blah, blah, boring celebrities. And, yes, I include Thomas Jefferson in that company. He would probably choose to have lunch with Marilyn Monroe.

Not that I’m judging anyone for their choices. Everyone is free to choose whom they want to choose. This is America after all! Come on.

Anyway, I’m sure you can guess who I would choose. Just in the last few days I’ve talked about Bob Dylan and Hilary Mantel and Marty Stuart–all would be charming companions at a meal. And you know how I feel about Frederick Buechner and Raymond Chandler. A conversation with them–to die for! As for movie stars, we’d need a big table to accommodate all my favorites.

But if we’re really talking about conversation, let’s invite:


Thomas Cranmer. He wrote the book.


General Sherman. He had Grant’s back.


U.S. Grant. He epitomized humility and courage. He had Lincoln’s back. And he was a really good writer.


Dorothy Rabinowitz. She tells it like it is in the WSJ.


T.E. Lawrence. He would be awesome, but we’d need someone to come along with us who could make him feel comfortable and draw him out of his shell–like Mrs. George Bernard Shaw.


Mary Prowers Hough, my great-great grandmother and the classiest lady to ever set foot in Colorado. I’d have a million questions for her.


J.D. Salinger. We could talk about Jesus over a glass of ginger ale in the kitchen.


Eudora Welty. We’d talk about stories and the art of writing them. I think I would like to invite


Shirley Jackson to come along too. The three of us would get along famously.


Saint Timothy. He received letters from Saint Paul containing personal advice which I take very personally: God did not give you a spirit of timidity!

Well, I’m sure I’ve left out some obvious choices. Who would you want to share a meal with? Alexander? Sargon the Great? Thomas Cromwell? Oliver Cromwell? Johnny Depp?

12 Comments
July 10, 2012

I want to go to there

by chuckofish

On this day in 1890 Wyoming entered the Union as the 44th U.S. state.

As daughter #1 says, quoting Liz Lemmon, I want to go to there. In fact, it is at the top of my list.

The state flower is Indian Paintbrush.

And my favorite movie was filmed there.

Sigh.

4 Comments
May 10, 2012

Too true (this is how my brain works)

by chuckofish

“I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.”
–Franklin Pierce Adams

FPA made that comment back in the 1930s–what would he have made of Wikipedia?

For instance, I looked up May 10 on Wikipedia and found out that in 1863 Confederate General Stonewall Jackson died eight days after he was accidentally shot by his own troops. So I clicked on Stonewall Jackson:

I read all about Stonewall, including this fascinating bit about his ancestry:

Thomas Jonathan Jackson was the great-grandson of John Jackson (1715 or 1719 – 1801) and Elizabeth Cummins (also known as Elizabeth Comings and Elizabeth Needles) (1723 – 1828). John Jackson was a Protestant in Coleraine, County Londonderry, Ireland. While living in London, he was convicted of the capital crime of larceny for stealing £170; the judge at the Old Bailey sentenced him to a seven-year indenture in America. Elizabeth, a strong, blonde woman over 6 feet tall, born in London, was also convicted of larceny in an unrelated case for stealing 19 pieces of silver, jewelry, and fine lace, and received a similar sentence. They both were transported on the prison ship Litchfield, which departed London in May 1749 with 150 convicts. John and Elizabeth met on board and were in love by the time the ship arrived at Annapolis, Maryland. Although they were sent to different locations in Maryland for their indentures, the couple married in July 1755.

The family migrated west across the Blue Ridge Mountains to settle near Moorefield, Virginia, (now West Virginia) in 1758. In 1770, they moved further west to the Tygart Valley. They began to acquire large parcels of virgin farmland near the present-day town of Buckhannon, including 3,000 acres in Elizabeth’s name. John and his two teenage sons were early recruits for the American Revolutionary War, fighting in the Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780; John finished the war as captain and served as a lieutenant of the Virginia Militia after 1787. While the men were in the Army, Elizabeth converted their home to a haven, “Jackson’s Fort,” for refugees from Indian attacks.

John and Elizabeth had eight children. Their second son was Edward Jackson (March 1, 1759 – December 25, 1828), and Edward’s third son was Jonathan Jackson, Thomas’s father.

Stonewall’s ancestors sound awesome, don’t they? Then I saw this picture of a stained glass window depicting Jackson’s life in the Washington National Cathedral.

This took me over to the National Cathedral page:

Did you know that Woodrow Wilson, 28th U.S. president and a Presbyterian, is the only American president buried in the Cathedral and, in fact, the District of Columbia? His grandson, Francis Bowes Sayre, Jr., later became dean of the Cathedral and was also buried here. I also found out that “Stuart Symington, U.S. senator, presidential candidate” and the grandfather of a boy who was in my Sunday School class, is buried there.

I went back to Stonewall Jackson’s page.

Stonewall” Jackson statue, Manassas National Battlefield Park

Very cool indeed. But where were we? Oh yes. May 10! Lots of interesting people from Karl Barth and Fred Astaire to Dimitri Tiomkin and Maybelle Carter have birthdays today. Well, you see how it goes. Have a good day.

5 Comments
May 2, 2012

Happy 401st birthday

by chuckofish

…to the King James Version of the Bible. Time flies, doesn’t it? In 1611 the King James Bible was published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker. It molded the English language, “buttressed by ‘the powers that be’–one of its famous phrases–and yet enshrined a gospel of individual freedom. No other book has given more to the English-speaking world.”

Phrases that originated in the KJV:

From time to time
The root of the matter
As a lamb to the slaughter
Stand in awe
Turned the world upside down
To every thing there is a season
Unto the pure all things are pure
A thorn in the flesh
A still small voice
Suffer the little children
Pour out your heart
No small stir
Know for a certainty
The skin of my teeth
Fell flat on his face
Set thine house in order

(Thank you to the National Geographic, December 2011, for this information)

Let’s all take a break today and read a chapter from the KJV. Here’s one to start with (I Corinthians 13):

1Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

And while we’re at it, Happy birthday, David Beckham!

David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE (born 2 May 1975) is an English association footballer who plays for the Los Angeles Galaxy. He has played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, Milan, and the England national team for which he holds the appearance record for an outfield player. And, for the record, he is perfect.

3 Comments
April 19, 2012

Singeing the beard of the King of Spain

by chuckofish

In a pre-emptive strike on this day in 1585, Francis Drake “singed the beard of the King of Spain” by sailing a fleet into Cadiz and also Corunna, two of Spain’s main ports, and occupying the harbors. He destroyed 37 naval and merchant ships. The attack delayed the Spanish invasion by a year. Over the next month, Drake patrolled the Iberian coasts between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, intercepting and destroying ships on the Spanish supply lines.

They sure don’t make ’em like Sir Francis Drake anymore. Or TV shows like “Sir Francis Drake”. Remember that one back in 1962? I do, although I probably saw it in syndication a few years later.

“Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, 

when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, 

when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore. 


Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the waters of life, 
having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity, 
and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim. 


Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, 
where storms will show your mastery, 
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. 
We ask you to push back the horizon of our hopes, 
and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love. 
This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ. ”
― Francis Drake

5 Comments
February 7, 2012

Mississippi River tsunami

by chuckofish

On this day in 1812 the mighty Mississippi River actually flowed backward for several hours. A series of tremors that had begun in December 1811 culminated on February 7 when the strongest quake hit. In the Mississippi River “water turned brown and waterpools developed suddenly from the depressions created in the riverbed.” My question: Before this, was the river some other color?

Today voters in Missouri head to the polls in a primary that is meaningless, because no delegates will be assigned as a result. And it’s costing us nearly $7 million. Booyah. No political tsunami expected here.

7 Comments