Sepia Saturday: Private Life, Family Life

(Our contribution to Sepia Saturday. Check the others here.)

This week I finished Jane Smiley's great new novel Private Life. Besides being a compellingly written story, I was struck by how the life of its central character Margaret Mayfield could have been any number of my female ancestors. Moving from Missouri to California, she suppresses her own aspirations and dreams in order to be a dutiful wife.
In a recent interview, Smiley mentioned that the story was inspired in part by a distant relative she knew little about and ended up inventing her fictional character from that base. I've said more than once that some of the most fascinating family photos are of those I never met and knew little about.

Born in 1874, Lulie Ann Fleming was the youngest of the nine sisters of my great-grandmother Eva Bell whom I chronicled in this post.
Like Margaret Mayfield, she married at 27 in 1901. In that era, I am sure that her family worried that she was on the road to be an old maid. Seen here with her husband Charlie on their wedding day, I can imagine the guests whispering "I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen," as she walked down the aisles. I am always drawn to the hankie delicately placed in her lap.Although they lived in Kansas, not Missouri, Charlie and Lulie left for California sometime during World War I. I am sure that this was devastating to my great-grandmother since she had no other family there, all the other siblings still in Quebec. This shot is of Charlie on the Kansas farm sometime before their departure to California.
Taken in 1911, this shot shows four of their six children, including the youngest, Bessie, and Lulie's parents Spencer and Elizabeth visiting from Montreal. One son died as an infant, and another was on its way.

This final shot is from 1948 at Knott's Berry farm with Bessie and Lulie. Notice that nearly five decades after her wedding, she still had a hankie in her lap. Having been born in the days of horse drawn wagons as the main means of transport and much of the American west still a frontier, Lulie must have found it bemusing to pose for this re-enactment of it.

Looking at the photos of Lulie, I see so many familiar aspects of her face that remind me of the women in my family -- especially the position of the nose above the mouth. Seeing just that portion of her face, I could think it was my mother, sister, niece, aunt, grandmother and other women in the family. I can even see a bit of it in my own face.

I have never met any of Lulie's offspring, those surviving likely being fourth, fifth or sixth cousins. But I am curious where they are in California, if our paths may have crossed without us knowing it. I know that having these photos of Lulie was a great comfort to my great-grandmother who felt so alone in Kansas, and it is intriguing to look back at them and try to guess the fuller story.

You Know the Woman on the Left. Who Is on the Right? What Does Louis Sullivan Think?

Drunk Deaths Anniversaries

Just in case you think we have been implying that Chicago is the only place where great artists fall on drunken ruin, I point to this great post about the Centennial of the death of O. Henry. As our beloved Bowery Boys point out "He may even been drunk here" in the above image.

Junk Thief TV - Season 4 Premier

Who Was Shorpy Higginbotham?

The other day, Friendatella (whose caller identity is "Blocked Caller") and I were walking around the Mission, and we stepped into The Apartment, one of the less pretentious vintage stores in the Mission. The owner has a laid back, affable manner, and we had a long discussion about the many "analog" photographs he has, most of them conveniently categorized and generally informal snapshots that seem to have come from abandoned family albums.

He had an especially interesting series of beach shots from the 1940s taken in San Diego. It was interesting to look at the faces of young men in their teens and early 20s some six plus decades ago. What stories might they have had and what was going through their heads as they stood in groups with their arms around each other with unapologetic affection one would not see even in groups of gay men today.

Such photos in the age of digital images made me glad to recently come across two great blogs I'd never seen before -- Shorpy, named after a young boy working in the mines of Alabama a century ago and Accidental Memories, which also features odd, often historic photos and random bits of intriguing art.

Both of these remind me why I decided to start blogging more than three years ago and that I would like to get more "into" it than I have in recent months. Sometimes I resent Twitter and Facebook for killing off blogs or distracting me. At least I managed to kill off my Friendster and MySpace accounts eons ago, but I hope to make more connections with blogs of this order that have intrigue equal to that of the mystery of Lora Direnzo. Too bad she never got to meet Shorpy.

What Isn't Great About Depression?

One topic that is rarely discussed since it is still so volatile today is the level of depression during the Great Depression. The Princeton Institute for the Chronically Bummed Out (PICBO) was not established until 1948 when a branch of the Cabot family (the North Carolina annex of the family who owned Cabot Cabbage and Kiwis) funded it since they didn't want their money going to the tobacco financed Duke University. So there is no hard data on whether or not there was a rise in Depression related depression.

The institute was the first success in the Carolina Cabots previously disastrous legacy in philanthropy and monument building. Hoping to amplify their contribution to the economy of their hometown Lynchdale, North Carolina, in 1926 they commissioned a 70-foot bronze cabbage in front of the court house. Designed by Pierre Parchement-Diaz, it was prone to rusting and had a very poorly welded base. During a 1928 rainstorm, it broke loose, rolled five blocks down Robert E. Lee Avenue and finally crashed through the front wall of the Cracker Box Orphanage. Although all the children were away attending a screening of Birth of a Nation, the potential scale of slaughter did not go unnoticed and the cabbage was replaced by a more appropriately modest fountain with a cherub urinating into the mouth of a Tennessee Sea Bass.

Hoping to restore their image and show their altruistic concern for children, the Cabots funded an enormous amusement park on the north side of town with a ferris wheel that resembled Scarlet O'Hara's skirt lifted sideways, log rides, a three headed llama and the educational "Our Confederate Heritage" museum. Choosing to be low key about putting their own name on the park, the Cabots opted to borrow from the name of their own city and called it Lynch Land.

When the northern press pointed out that some parts of southern society might be less than enamored with the name, they rushed to rechristen the place as The Heart of Dixie weeks before opening. But the rushed revamp didn't work, and opening day on December 7, 1941, brought paltry crowds, and the place eventually was retooled as the largest salvage yard in the Carolinas.

Matriarch Cornelia Sidwell Cabot had long wanted to support an institute that documented the impact of depression, having grappled with it for years. She saw a therapist for more than 30 years who finally concluded that the main reason for her chronic blue demons was due to the undeniable fact that she was "a royal bitch".

Though rarely talked about publicly during the 1930s, depression was ever the eternal elephant in the room. Confusing the issue greater was whether The Depression and depression were the same thing. Sort like not knowing if funny ha ha and funny strange are the same or feeding off each other.

Lithium did start showing up on the black market during these years, but there was also a sometimes uneasy celebration of bum and hobo culture. No one lauded this more than radio star Mable Cohn, known to millions of children as Aunty Depressant who had her 20 minute broadcast on NBC at 4:40 every weekday just before the national news. Aunty Depressant would read happy stories about hobos hopping the rails and eating rusty nails and worm stew. "When things are scarce, we learn to improvise," Aunty Depressant would advise. "Ain't no reason for worries; just whistle your woes away!"

When television arrived in the wake of the Second World War, Mable Cohn's career suffered greatly as her wart infested nose didn't transfer easily to the new visual medium, and her bromides were equally out of step with the new times. She did manage to land a few small supporting roles in lower budget film noirs, typically playing tough spirited land lady or crusty bar maids in run down waterfront gin joints.

Mabel did eventually go on to find modest success in television in the 1960s doing voice overs for commercials, primarily for dog food, motor oil and as the distinctive "Lava soap lady" with her now raspy, gravelly, gender ambiguous baritone.

In an odd irony, in 1970 Mabel and Cornelia Cabot were seated next to each other in coach on a Branniff flight from Bakersfield to Reno. Oblivious to the others identity, these now quite elderly women exchanged tips on which hotel had the best prime rib buffet and which slot machines they felt were rigged.

Cornelia died in July of 1972 from a heart attack when she witnessed Sammy Davis, Jr. hugging Richard Nixon on the campaign trail. In a tragic turn of events, Mabel died the following January during the Nixon inaugural when she was trampled by a mob of "Dick Addicts", the Nixon youth corps, overcome in a frenzy as they caught a glimpse of the commander in chief waving from his limo.

Tonight on the Fabric Channel

As part of its award winning series Wild Weaves: Behind the Cloth, The Fabric Channel Worldwide (FCW) presents: Gabardine - A Stitch Apart.

1654 - After their ill-fated peach wine venture the previous summer that mutated a stomach virus that claimed 834 lives, the Brothers of Gabardina start experimenting with local cottons grown on the slopes and sheep (whom they previously did not know provided services other than companionship).

1658 - Following several awkward false starts, the brothers put on a fashion show of their new robes that draws attendees from the five surrounding valleys.

1661 - Two years of great success and demand for the fabric come crashing to a halt when locusts deplete the season's cotton harvest, and the monks begin making box wine. Die Schwestern von Bitternberg, an obscure Austrian alpine order, buy their few remaining fabrics, spinning wheels and looms.
1813 - Having created what is now the third largest industry in the nation, gabardine must now be used in all Austrian flags.

1893 - Dr. Sigmund Freud is photographed by the International Herald Tribune in a gabardine suit.

1903 - Considered an odd cross between the salsa, Turkey Trot and the Can-Can, La Gabarina floods from the obscure dance halls of Havana to the cabarets of New York, Shanghai and Berlin.

1921 - Though an initial hit with its guests, the felted gabardine sheets at Sonoma County's Bohemian Club cause President Harding to break out in hives and experience shortness of breath. When he dies suddenly months later, speculation about the role of gabardine is whispered throughout the chambers of Washington, D.C.

1928 - In between acting in and directing films at UFA, Leni Riefenstahl secretly begins working on Gabardiniad: Shroud of the Fatherland.

1936 - Hidden cameras at the World Fair are installed by MIT, capturing the weave of men's trousers and jackets. More than 85% are gabardine.
1939 - A test screening of a short excerpt from Gabardiniad in Hamburg sends the crowd into an anti-Semitic fury. Goebels writes a check for seven million marks for the completion of the film now rumored to be seven hours long.

1943 - As the war rages on, desperate families trade milk and chicken ration stamps 10 to 1 for the precious gabardine stamps that also start showing up on the black market.

1945 - Having word of the Allied forces advancing towards Berlin, Riefenstahl burns all prints of Gabardiniad. When captured in her pied-à-terre she is found listening to Kate Smith and working on a script about the adventures of two Alpine fauns. She claims she had been so engrossed in her work for the past six years she had no idea that there had been a war going on and thought it was just her noisy Jewish neighbors arguing.

1954 - As a part of the "Let's Just Get Over It" campaign, President Eisenhower is photographed for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post behind the wheel of a Volkswagen drinking a Heineken and wearing a gabardine suit.
1972 - While being photographed on a visit to the White House with his sister Karen, Richard Carpenter is visibly alarmed in some photos when President Nixon grabs the seat of his black cotton-polyester gabardine trousers and purrs, "Oooh, what a nice tight blend."

1977 - Famously headstrong Barbra Streisand teams with diminutive Paul Williams to pen the love theme for the critically lambasted yet bizarrely lucrative remake of A Star Is Born. Originally titled "Gabardine," Streisand finally relinquishes to retitle it "Evergreen". Though smiling upon winning Oscars and Grammys, she is heard mumbling, "I liked it a lot better when it was named after that sexy fabric and not that #$#@(*&$ tree!"

1979 - Clocking in at over 18 minutes, the tune "Gabardine" recorded by Belgian chanteuse Pikki tops the dance charts in Ibiza, Fire Island, Tokyo and Paris for six solid weeks. Speaking virtually no English and pitifully little French, Pikki repeats the single word "Gabardine" with such sexual gusto that the tune is banned by the Vatican, the LDS and the emerging Christian Coalition.

2007 - A pristine print of Gabardiniad is discovered in Tierra de Fuego. Criterion Collection announces that it will release a 32-DVD reissue in time for Christmas 2012.

Coming in August on the Fabric Channel - Poplin: The Populist Silk

Way Out West Side Story

I've been reading The Story of a Marriage in part due to my long standing fascination with San Francisco's western districts, many of which could pass not only for Pasadena or Palo Alto but even Kansas City or Omaha.

So it was nice to discover the Western Neighborhoods Project, with a healthy cadre of stories, photos and links. It's not quite equal to my beloved Bowery Boys, but then neither is the subject matter. Speaking of which, the B-Boys posted a tellingly well-informed post on Julius, that other historic Manhattan bar that pre-dates the Stonewall Inn by a century or so. My memories of it were never terribly quaint. Usually some bridge and tunnel troll would converge and immediately grab my crotch and ask if I had plans.

40 Years On

If you are coming to San Francisco this summer, it's fine to put a flower in your hair, but avoid Market Street next weekend.

This will be the 40th anniversary of San Francisco's signature corporate sponsorship opportunity. Unfortunately through the years, so many brands and logos have been added, that the true meaning of the event and the big parade has been lost.

In the early years, the main corporate sponsor was Budweiser and it was a chance to trot out the proudly marching clydesdales. There is nothing wrong with having vodka, Versace and shirtless go-go boys, but let's not forget what happened 40 years ago in New York that is being commemorated.

In the wee muggy hours of June 28, 1969, as news broke of Mr. Ed being found dead on the bathroom floor of his rented London apartment, a motley clan of outraged Central Park carriage horses stormed Manhattan's Tavern on the Green and demanded to be seen and heard. Security at the Kentucky Derby was incredibly high that summer, but a new era of equestrian rights was ushered in.

Don't forget that, you wee ones, as you dance shirtless after your tenth Jello shots.

This is a year of several other 40 year anniversaries:

* The word "Woodstock" entered the American vernacular, and a number of obsessive, obese tel-evangelicals speculated about the cohabitation of Snoopy and his new feathered "companion". (They're both boys, you see. And they sleep together.)

* The same weekend, the first Moonwalk took place, and in a rare move, MTV will be showing nothing but music videos the entire month of July.

* In a move that anticipated reality TV (even That's Incredible) by at least 15 years, a frustrated singer song-writer took 1960s happenings to a bloody zenith that spawned countless best sellers, documentaries, late night TV jailhouse interviews and the harrowing Abigail Folger exit line "You can stop now. I'm already dead."

Finding the Fatherland in Torrance

Although I often think that I am a typically rootless Californian, having only recently landed here, the truth is I have nearly a century of family history in the state. During my sojourn to southern California, I connected with various strains of my family, all connected by my great-grandfather -- "little Mr. Biggs" (he was barely five foot tall) -- who arrived here shortly after World War I in Torrance.

Torrance is a place where so many others I've known (Bryce Digdug, Friendatella, Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights) have roots. I've driven by it many times, glancing over at its towering oil derricks yet never felt compelled to actually enter this city where my great-grandfather brought many of his 10 children through the years while he wandered the country hitch-hiking, getting into bar room brawls and managing to shirk responsibility.

All of his children have been gone for nearly a decade, and on Thursday one of my cousins from Riverside took me to meet his first and oldest living grandchild, a woman of 99 whom I'd never heard of until recently. Her home was supposedly a museum to our family history, and I wanted the chance to meet her, especially since I'd heard that her health has been fading. She has recently been moved to an extended care facility that is in a private home in Huntington Beach. Two sweet Nicaraguan women greeted us and told us that she was napping but to go ahead and say hello. We knocked on the door and heard no response but entered, seeing a small bed with a mound of covers. My cousin boldly rustled the covers and then lifted them to unveil a tiny near-centurion without her teeth or glasses. A bit disoriented, she soon knew who my cousin was, and then I was introduced. I explained who my grandfather was, and she immediately responded "Oh, I used to play with Lucille." My heart nearly stopped. Lucille was my father's parents' first born child, who died in 1914 from a tragic accident at the age of three. I had never known of her as anything but a painful memory that caused my grandmother to leave the room in tears at the mention of her name. The tiny woman on the bed shared a couple of stories of playing with dolls and kittens with Luceille, and then my cousin reached for a pile of papers on her bedside that she had wanted us to have.

They were three essays she wrote in 1922 -- the year my father was born -- recounting the family's journey across the country to settle in California two years earlier. The descriptions were vivid and poetic, especially for someone only 12 when they were written. A polo match and chamber recital at the Broadmoor Hotel (which had opened only three years earlier) in Colorado Springs, the foul-mouthed, dirty oil field workers of Amarillo, a handsome Navajo boy's profile caught nearly romantically outside of Taos and a dirt road leading from Arizona into California were all captured with pointilistic detail.
My 99-year-old cousin is likely the young girl in the nautical hat above. My dad is the baby being held by his father, and his mother is the woman in the center with her head turned. This photo was probably taken around the time the family headed west, and my great grand father is the mustached man on the right.

Later that evening, I caught up with a dozen cousins in eastern Orange County, seeing my father's face reflected in almost half of the room. Amazingly, I had met only two of the relatives in the room, separated by thousands of miles and nearly 80 years of parallel lives until this journey.

Today, I felt compelled to actually enter Torrance -- a town that has produced a quirky list of celebrities that include Quenton Tarantino, Michelle Kwan, porn star Lucy Lee, several NFL, MLB and MLS players, Bill Clinton's brother Roger, a few NASCAR stars and guitarist Larry Carlton.

So I slipped over to where our family first settled in the late teen at 1321 Carson Boulevard, a mix use business of tax service, insurance and who knows what. It is surrounded by Circus Doughnuts, car washes and tire repair shops, panaderias and sushi joints.

With only minutes to spare I headed north to the famed Alpine Village, about a half a mile north of where my family first arrived in the west. Bryce Digdug often raves about this oddity on the Pacific. I've been to the "Danish village" of Solvang in northern Santa Barbara County and have enjoyed it tackiness. The Alpine Village makes Solvang look like a UNESCO cultural heritage site. When I arrived, I saw several thousand cars for a swap meet where people were sorting through rags. When the Filipino security guard asked if I were there for the swap meet, I responded that I was there for the Alpine Village and he looked a bit shocked. He pointed me to the parking lot where there were five other cars. I wandered around this odd, odd place and into its shops filled with large German women and smelling of must. Each spot smelled of mold, filled with dusty Hummel figurines or sun bleached copies of Der Spiegel. I managed to purchase a special memento just for Bryce and then headed north to LAX where I was greeted at Avis by a sea of swine flu obsessed attendants in surgical masks.

The Great Plains Royalty

The Oscars were on last night, and I watched it off and on, but DVR'd it so I didn't have to suffer through the more painful parts. Hugh Jackman was more interesting in the post-Oscar interview when he contended that straight men can love musicals and then did a lap dance for Barbara Walters. Too bad he consented to star in Baz Luhrman's career suicide homage to David Lean, Australia. Related or not, the previous night I watched 1965's Dr. Zhivago on KQED. At the time of its release my leftist Jewish relatives complained that it was shameless, pro-Czarist propaganda. Mainly I liked all the snow and big coats but had trouble with the repeated cuing up of "Somewhere My Love" (the worst song ever pre-"Feelings"/"I Just Called to Say I Love You"/"Ray of Light"). I liked the film as a kid because it was such a long, depressing examination of the futility of life. One reviewer described it as being Chekov for the masses with Omar Sharif being picked because he was a lot cuter than the real Chekov

Growing up in Oklahoma, Dr. Zhivago made me think of our Canadian snow storms that came sweeping down the plains from Manitoba via Fargo and Omaha. That was fitting since much of Dr. Zhivago was filmed in Canada, even though the snow still looks fake. Also, Oklahoma once had a history of being a hotbed of American Bolsheviks and when Eugene V. Debs ran for President in 1912 on the Socialist ticket, he got more votes in Oklahoma than anywhere in the Union.

Things have dramatically changed since then. Oklahoma has gone Red but in the bad kind of way. On the other hand, I learned yesterday from Bryce Digdug that they now have a Czar and Czarina. Perhaps they parade around in Oklahoma's Red Square and show off their collection of Fabergé eggs. If they ever make a movie about them, Joaquin Phoenix should be lured out of retirement and cast as Rasputin. For a mere $25 you can fill out a membership application and become a member of the Royal Barony of Oklahoma. (It's just $15 if you're under 21. Maybe what they say about recruiting the young is true.)

I've never comprehended the San Francisco Royal Court and what powers they possess. Personally, Bow and I want to be declared the Kaiser and Kaiserina of the Mission. We could ride in a gold carriage in the Carnival parade wearing gold pith helmets with elaborate fezes. Of course, I would want to be referred to as Kaiser Permanente (Prussian for Kaiser for life).

In Praise of History

Something about New York history always brings me comfort when I am on a long work-related trip. Thus I am reading Edith Wharton's lovely Old New York, four novellas covering the mid-19th century, and listening to back episodes of the Bowery Boys podcasts. If you've never visited the boys' (Tom and Greg) blog, they have some great gems on it, and their podcasts are on iTunes. They are very cute and endearing in a bookish, history nerd way. I should look them up when back in Manhattan.

Happy 150th Central Park

Be sure to check the ongoing tributes by the Bowery Boys.

Octogenarian Jazz

Like many people, The Jazz Singer is so pivotal a cultural milestone that I am sure that I have seen it even though I've only witnessed a few seconds in countless cinematic historical reviews and references set in films of the same era. I actually did see the wretched 1980 remake and have managed to erase 99% of my recall of it.

Yet I succumbed to today's 80th anniversary reissue of the 1927 original which embodies the word deluxe even by Criterion standards. The restoration is so flawless, it's hard not to think it's a complete recreation from scratch. What's especially disconcerting is just how ethnic such a hugely successful mainstream, pre-World War II film was. Coming from a Jewish family that suffered mid-American anti-semitism during the same era, I can't help but wonder how it was received in places like Indiana, Kansas or Oklahoma at the time where Catholics and Jews were the main targets of the Klan.

In recent years I've come to gain an unexpected appreciation of Jolson, especially in the superb 1933 Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. The black face scense are still pretty hard to stomach, but the three disc accoutrements are enough to make me foget all of that, adding one more volume to my ever growing library of pre-World War II cinema.UPDATE: This article in the Miami Herald sheds some light on the racial blind spot this otherwise thorough reissue offers. How odd that this and the other early cinema milestone, The Birth of a Nation, are so intertwined with the most sordid, tragic aspects of our nation's history.