June 2, 1942

Wenonah, Don and me, with Don's best friend, Bud Bickford (L)

In spite of my mother’s prodigious memory, she always saved things that reminded her of people and events. She started as a child, with a little box of keepsakes: the little red donkeys off of Grandpa’s chewing tobacco wrappers, the little crucifix that Pappa sent her from San Antonio, and the string of beads she bought with the dime Pappa gave her to spend when she went to the district meet in Ada, Oklahoma.

When Wenonah was older she began to take an interest in politics. I guess that was natural, since her older brother Snip, short for Homer, was a state senator. She saved newspaper clippings that mentioned him, and also stories about other prominent people and notable events. She must have got that from Mama, her mother, who had newspaper articles dating back to 1910.

Anyway, Wenonah’s dedication to preserving memories has been a wonderful thing for me, because I’ve inherited her keepsakes, pictures, letters and newspaper clippings. She started making memories for me on the day she brought me home from the hospital, by buying a newspaper and saving the front page.

It was Thursday, June 2, 1942, and it makes fascinating reading.

There were no less than twenty stories related to World War II. For example:

Midwest Warned to Expect enemy Air Raids: Wichita Cited Among cities Now in Danger.

Assassins’ bullets Thursday brought death to Reinhard Heydrich, No. 2 man of the Gestapo, whose ruthless tactics gained him the title “Der Henker” - the hangman.

British Dislodge Rommel from Libyan Stronghold

Nazis Stalled on Red Front

Senate Votes Balkan War: Resolutions Passed Against Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania

Gas Rationing Ires Congress

Commemorate Pearl Harbor In Celebration Here Sunday: Six Months Anniversary

There were only two front page stories that didn’t concern the war: The news of Charlie Chaplin’s divorce from Paulette Goddard, and that of an unruly elephant which had been banished from the Wichita zoo and relocated to a nearby farm.

It seems remarkable to me that Wichita, Kansas, would be expecting an air raid. The long range bombers of the day had a maximum range of 2000 miles or so. Neither Japan nor Germany had an airfield close enough to even bomb our coasts, let alone Wichita, 1500 miles inland, but this is the degree of panic that gripped the country at the time.

The second page of the paper had several stories that concerned our family more directly. Property owners were protesting the freezing of rents, which had risen to outrageous levels because of the shortage of housing for workers at the aircraft plants, and the renters were protesting being evicted on flimsy grounds so that property owners could raise rents. Wenonah’s landlady used a different tact. She burned her trash next to the clothes line where my diapers were drying. Wenonah wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper about her:

The World’s Meanest Landlady

A Home Town News reader writes that she has just discovered the “meanest landlady.” The woman burned her trash in the incinerator directly beneath the clothesline where a line of baby’s diapers were hanging. The baby’s things had been carefully washed with a mild soap, boiled, rinsed over and over again, and finally disinfected. “To a mother,” the reader writes, “that was nothing short of a crime.”

Still getting no cooperation, Wenonah told Don she that she couldn’t take it any longer, that she had to get away from that woman. So Don and Bud looked for us a house. We couldn’t afford to buy one, but they located a little house for rent in a nice neighborhood, and we moved. The house was on S. Bluff. There wasn’t much of a yard, but there was no incinerator next door either.

Geronimo

(These last few posts continue Wenonah’s Story from the point where the book ends, and so they’re bound to raise questions – questions about all these characters: Boyd, Everett, Kaliteyo, Oteka, Lahoma, Lacquanna, Dr. McNeill, Bud Bickford, Mr. Pepper, and there will be more. I’ll explain as best I can, without giving away the story told in the book.) 

After Pearl Harbor, Uncle Boyd, my dad’s older brother, joined the army. He was put in the artillery and made a lieutenant because of his ROTC training. Within six months he had been promoted to captain and was in the middle of the fighting at Guadalcanal. I think my dad would have volunteered too except that my mother pleaded with him to stay with her. She had missed a period and believed that she was pregnant.

Wenonah didn’t get much support for her diagnosis at first. Dr. McNeill, the doctor who had cured her stomach cramps and constipation, told her: “No. Little Geronimo’s not coming yet.” He was wrong, but the name stuck, at least for a while. I was “Little Geronimo” until I was born.

My mother’s first and only pregnancy was pretty hectic. My dad’s best friend, Bud Bickford, had quit Pepper’s and had gone to work for Boeing Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas. As soon as he was settled, he wrote and told Don that he should apply for a job there. Mr. Peppers still hadn’t moved Don into his accounting department, and he was tired of working in the refinery, so Don went up to Wichita to check out Boeing.

With the country gearing up for war, Boeing was turning out fighters and bombers as fast as they could, and hiring people in every department. They told Don he could go to work in accounting as soon as he could get to Wichita, so he and Wenonah packed up their Packard and headed north.

I remember that Packard. It was big, and black, and it had a running board. My parents owned it until I was seven or eight. I used to think it would be fun to ride, standing on the running board, but Wenonah wouldn’t let me.

When Wenonah and Don got to Wichita, they had trouble finding a place to stay. With so many people being hired at Boeing, apartments were scarce. Finally Bud and his roommate moved out of their apartment, so that we would have a place to stay.

My dad’s first job at Boeing was to compile manuals and procedures for their expanded accounting department. Wenonah told me his chief worry about her upcoming delivery was that I might turn out to be a girl. She told him that you treat a little girl just the same as you do a little boy. My name would have been Emily if I had been a girl, after Grandmother Paul’s mother.

I was born a boy though, on May 31, 1942, and Don sent out telegrams to both Grandmother Paul and to my Gunning grandparents.

Grandmother Paul was the first to reply. I think she was still having a hard time believing that Wenonah (Jim) had really gotten married. Everyone thought she would remain a career woman, and a spinster. 

Dear Don,                                                                                                      June 2, 1942.

I received your telegram. Am glad it is over. Let me know how Jim is, tell her that she has done herself proud. I am proud of her. Lots of love. Jim, who would have thought it, the world is getting good. The name is Geronimo, the world’s greatest Indian.

Proud and anxious Grandmother Victoria.

Soon afterwards came a letter from Grandmother Gunning:

Dearest Don Jimmy and Robin                                                                 June 6, 1942.

I am so anxious to go up to see you all I hope you are doing fine Jim. I know Robin must be a grand baby. From his father’s description. Don, have a little patience you can see the baby all you want to when you get them home. (The maternity ward visiting hours were very limited and Don would get to the hospital early and sit on the steps until he could get in.) I had thought I would be up there this Sun. but on second thought decided as they are so strict at the hospital I had better wait till next Sunday then you will all be home and I can see the baby and hold him too. It will be hard to wait that long but I will be seeing you sure soon. I am so glad your sister can be with you for a while when you get home (Aunt Kaliteyo). Mother (Laura Boyd, my great grandmother) has gone out to Alta’s (my great aunt) for a few days. She has been here quilting on Robin’s quilt. J.E. (My uncle J E was in highschool then) got the announcement. He was thrilled felt quite honored. He is sleeping this A.M. was out to a hop last night. Let us hear from you. Lots of love to all.

Mother Dad & J.E.

My great grandmother Boyd was still living then, although I don’t remember her, and she made me a quilt.

In the meantime Grandmother Paul had written again:

Dear Don and Jim (Wenonah).                                                                 June 4, 1942.

Received telegram Mon. & letter just now. So glad everyone is happy & that Jim and Geronimo are almost ready to go on the warpath. I am especially proud of the name you gave the Baby (Robin Rosser) & I believe you both will make excellent parents. Or Teachers. I am busy trying to finish the quota that I signed for & I think I will resign then that will be this month. This work takes all my time. I am tired. (She’s referring to her Red Cross work here, but she didn’t quit.)

            I have a nice little Garden. & you should see the day Lilies. They are as high as my head. & Madonna Lilies & Tiger Lilies. I have every kind of Marigold that was in the catalogue. I am canning everything that I have to can. You all can load up if you ever have time to come down.

I am planning to go to Anadarko. Lahoma is going to dance (Lahoma, Aunt Kaliteyo’s daughter, was representing the Chickasaw tribe as princess) She is as large as those big squaws.

Say, Tom has a perfectly beautiful little Girl. Her name is Lacquanna. (My cousin Lacquanna was born just two months before.)

Excuse haste lots of love & good luck with Son. Jim write when you can. Haskell and Lahoma are thrilled about the baby. Don write. I am sending announcements to the boys.

Love, Vick

Wenonah had been at a loss as to what to call me. I guess she figured the male names in her family had all been used up, so she started searching for new ideas. It was my dad who came up with the name Robin. It was springtime and the robins were singing and building their nests, so he said, “Why don’t we name him Robin?”

I haven’t been completely happy with the name of Robin. There are too many girls with the name. I would have been happy with “Don,” after my father, but he squelched that idea, or even “Geronimo,” although that one would be a little hard to live up to. My middle name Rosser came from the sir name of my mother’s beloved grandfather.

My dad said that every morning it was his job to change me and that I would pee on his shirt, so I guess I was getting even with him for naming me Robin.

Jim and Don's Honeymoon

First, a little apology:

I’ve decided to call Wenonah by her first name, Jim, short for her first name James, because that’s what everyone called her while I was growing up. Actually I did too. I called my parents Jim and Don, like they called each other, and they never taught me any different. My mother did prefer to be called Wenonah - she hated having a boy’s name, and in later years she went by Wenonah, except among family and old friends, but it doesn’t seem natural to me. I hope she’ll forgive me. 

Jim and Don's Honeymoon, June, 1941:

I can’t tell you about my parents’ wedding because it’s in the book, but the book stops there, so their honeymoon is fair game.

The book does mention that they started out to Mexico City with only $25, so I guess that’s as good a place to start as any. That fact just blew my mind when my mother casually mentioned it during one of our telephone conversations during her last years. I guess $25 went a lot farther on those days, but still, going to a foreign country, where you can’t speak the language, where they might not be able to fix your car, where you might get sick and need a doctor – there were so many risks. You’d have to know my parents, but I just can’t imagine them doing that.

First of all, my father was the most careful person I ever knew. He was always prepared. He was the first one ready for church every Sunday morning. He got his car maintained regularly. He was never late for a payment or an appointment. Jim said that after they were married he took out so many insurance policies she had to make him stop because she was afraid they wouldn’t have enough money to buy the things they needed. She teased him for checking their bank statements trying to catch the bank in an error. Actually Jim was the same way. When she took me shopping with her she would go to every store in town that sold a particular item before deciding what to buy. She and Don discussed every major purchase for months before they made a decision. We never lived beyond our means. We were the last family in the neighborhood to get a TV set. We fixed appliances instead of buying new ones. We never bought a car before the last one was paid off. That’s why it’s so hard for me to imagine them starting out on a twenty-five hundred mile trip with only $25. But it’s a fact. They ran out of money too, in Mexico City. My dad had to send a telegram to one of the guys he worked with, Charlie Kopp, asking him to wire another $25 for them to get home. My mother saved the telegram.

Another interesting tidbit my mother shared with me was a warning she got from her brother Haskell before they started on their trip. He told her that because of her dark skin the Mexicans would be offended when she didn’t speak Spanish, thinking she was a “high toned” Mexican refusing to speak her own language. She told me she “poo-poo’d” the idea at the time, but later at a restaurant in Mexico City, she and Don couldn’t get their waiter to come to their table. Finally a Jewish lady sitting next to them figured out their predicament, called to the waiter and ordered for them in Spanish. 

The lack of money, and difficulty communicating didn’t keep Jim and Don from having a good time though. They spent the first night together in Fort Worth, Texas, and the next day they drove on to San Antonio. There they took a Gray Line bus tour of the city for $2.00, visiting the Alamo, the Spanish Governor’s mansion, the San Jose Mission and the Japanese Tea Garden in Breckinridge Park. Jim must have enjoyed showing Don the city where she had lived as a little girl. After San Antonio, they drove south to Laredo. There they crossed the border and stayed in the Mexican town of Nuevo Laredo. They bought a tour book there, for 25¢ - Jim kept it in her scrap book. It had maps, pictures, recommended places to stay, and information about each town and point of interest along the way. From there they followed the Pan American Highway through Monterrey, Ciudad Victoria, and Ciudad Valles. The road then went up into the mountains south to Mexico City. They took some pictures along the way, of the mountains, of the palm trees lining the road, and of each other. Jim had several different outfits, and she wore a broad brimmed bonnet. Her purse was woven out of multicolored yarn and had a draw string at the top, like a small sack. I recognized it when I saw the pictures because I saw it all my life. I asked her if she still had it and she said, “Sure, I keep buttons in it.” Don wore a white shirt and a tie with light colored pants and those old fashioned two toned shoes that were black on the toes and heels and white down the sides, with a straw hat.

Jim said the prettiest town they passed was Jacala. It was nestled among the mountains, and all the houses were white washed. There were vines growing on the walls, and poinsettias blooming in the gardens. The last place they stayed before they arrived in Mexico City was a town called Tamazunchale, which they dubbed “Thomas and Charlie” because that’s what it sounded like to them. Jim said the little town was surrounded by a dense tropical forest and there were colorful wild parrots everywhere. The natives were of small stature and the hotel manager told them they were descendants of the Aztecs. Jim said that they were shy, and that she couldn’t get them to talk to her. That night they kept being awakened by a loud noise that sounded like someone trying to start a car. In the morning she and Don asked the manager what had been going on, and he told them that the noise they heard was made by the parrots.

In Mexico City, Jim and Don visited the historic sites, and the museums, but the highlight of their trip was a visit to Xochimilco, a short way from the city, home of the famous floating gardens, the “Venice of Mexico.” They took a boat tour through the gardens, and were enchanted by the beauty of the flowers. Don bought Jim a bouquet, and she enjoyed the fragrance of the flowers until the oarsman warned her not to sniff them too much because there were little insects in the flowers that sometimes transmitted disease. Jim said she spent the rest of the tour blowing her nose. The guide must have gotten a kick out of that.

It was just about that time that they ran out of money, and decided to head back to Oklahoma City where they would be living while Don continued to work at Peppers refinery, and Jim faced the task of writing 300 thank you notes for their wedding gifts.

PS: I’m saving one more story about my parents’ honeymoon for later. I want to give it a separate post because of its historical interest.

Jim and Don, Xochimilco, 1941

Hello Again

Hello, again.

I’ve only posted one blog in the last two years, so no one may notice me starting up again, but I'm going to try anyway.

I’ve finished the book, Wenonah’s Story, that I co-authored with my mother, J. Wenonah Paul Gunning, and it will be released by the Chickasaw Press the first week in October. I hope you will all read it. It’s a lot more polished than my blog, so hopefully it will be worth your while.

My mother was a remarkable woman, born in 1913 into the prominent Paul family just as it was falling on hard times. A sensitive child, Wenonah faced hardship, tragedy, conflict between her parents, and prejudice because of her Indian blood, with determination and humor. The book describes her childhood as an adventurous tomboy, her experiences at Bloomfield, a Chickasaw school for girls, getting a college degree during a time when women were expected to get married out of high school, and creating an exciting life for herself as a working woman, while giving support and encouragement to her mother and to her brothers and sisters.  

Wenonah’s Story is not just the story of my mother’s life, but also a history of the Paul family, from Wenonah’s great grandfather, Smith Paul, who ran away from his home in North Carolina to join the Chickasaw Indians, to her grandfather, Sam Paul, a Chickasaw policeman and senator, to her father William, a delegate to the Sequoya Convention, a successful rancher, and real estate broker, to her brother Homer, who served in the Oklahoma state legislature for 17 years. The book describes the stormy transition of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories into the State of Oklahoma; the prosperity of the 1920’s, and the hardships of living through the Great Depression. It also gives a pretty good picture of what it was like to grow up in a small rural Oklahoma town during the 1920’s.

I haven’t quite decided how to continue this blog, but I guess I’ll just keep telling stories about our family, putting them into the context of the times. If you read the book, the blog will give you more details about the background of the story, and the lives of the characters, and I’ll continue telling more about my dad, who’s just entering the story as the book ends. 

Thanks for reading. It's nice to be back. 

Courting

My mother Wenonah said that she and my father Don didn’t start dating each other exclusively at first, but they would go places together in a group. There were a lot of things to do in Oklahoma City in those days: movies, of course, and dances, picnics, and there was an amusement park out at Spring Lake. Late in the summer the watermelons would get ripe in Rush Springs and watermelon stands would be set up in parks. The farmers would set up a big cooler with ice in the park and you could buy a slice and eat it at one of the tables set up in the park.  

There was a pavilion out at Spring Lake Park, and they had dances there, outside. I don’t even know what’s left of Spring Lake now. When I was little you could swim in the lake, and there was an amusement park. Now swimming in the lake wouldn’t meet the health regulations, and the amusement park is gone too. I think they have a zoo and a golf course there now. Anyway, Wenonah said that nationally famous big bands would come and play there when she and Don were dating: Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Guy Lombardo, and others. 

Wenonah was a member of two organizations, and they both had parties. One was called the India-Okla Club. All of the prominent Indian leaders in the state were members: The Chickasaw and Choctaw governors and several men like my Uncle Homer, who were members of the state legislature. Wenonah was the program chairman, and she arranged for my cousin Lahoma to dance at one of the meetings. 

The other group that Wenonah joined during that time was the Beta Sigma Phi businesswomen’s sorority. I know they had dances because Wenonah saved her dance book from one of their functions. For each dance she would write down whom she danced with. When she danced with Don she would just write “us.” 

In the winter my parents went ice skating on Shepherd’s Pond, as it was called then. The Shepherd family owned a large piece of land  on the edge of town – now it’s in the middle of town, the pond has been filled in, and a shopping center called Shepherd’s Mall has been built there. 

I’ve been writing a book about my Wenonah’s life, and I don’t want to give the plot away, but she lived through a terrible tragedy when she was 15 that turned her against her father, and the experience affected her attitude towards men, or at least towards relationships with men. She told me that it was a big surprise to her family when she told them she intended to marry Don. 

It wasn’t an easy journey though. They went together for three years before Wenonah said yes. My dad was always patient. 

He got jealous one time when Wenonah danced with another man, and she told him that her father was jealous of her mother and that she wouldn't tolerate it, so he gave in. Another time my dad was drinking and Wenonah thought he had had too much, so she told him that her father had been an alcoholic and that she couldn't tolerate drinking. That's something she told me too. "You can have just as much fun sober as you can drunk," she said. Anyway, my dad stopped drinking altogether. Many years later, after they had both retired, they used to have a glass of wine together at bed time, but I can’t remember ever seeing my father drink hard liquor.  

                      

Don Meets Wenonah

Don’s last year at OU was hectic. He was working nights at Peppers, commuting to Norman during the days for his accounting classes, and spending what little time that was left to study.  

Don enjoyed the other guys he worked with at the plant. There was Charley Kopp, Tom Pierce, Bill Beebe and Bud Bickford. They did their best to make a dangerous, boring job bearable. They all teased Beebe about breaking glassware in the lab. It seemed that no matter how careful he was he’d drop a flask or pipette or something, and of course everything he broke came out of his pay check at the end of the month. Finally one day he got so disgusted with himself that he threw a monkey wrench on the floor. He didn’t break anything else that day, so the next day, first thing, he dropped the wrench again. Nothing was broken that day either, so it became a ritual. The first thing Beebe did each day was drop that wrench. He never broke another piece of glassware.  

Bud Bickford was from Oklahoma City and he lived with his parents. Bud’s folks were having a hard time, and Bud helped them as much as he could. After he got acquainted with Don, he invited him to share his room. It was a good deal for both of them. Bud made a little rent money for his parents and Don got a cheap room.   

Don and Bud became good friends. Bud had a degree in chemical engineering from OU, and he was the chemist at Peppers’ lab. He was smart and dissatisfied with his job at Peppers though, as was Don after he had worked there for a while. They spent their spare time trying to think of ways to get away from Peppers and make it big. One of their ideas came when they learned that oil had been found on the island of Aruba. They dreamed of buying a little land there and lying out on the beach while the oil flowed in. It’s just as well that they didn’t though. After the start of WWII Aruba was taken over by the Germans, who were also interested in the oil there. 

Bud had gone to high school in Oklahoma City, and he got together regularly with his classmates. Naturally he took Don along with him. One of the girls in Bud’s high school class was Jeannette Moore, whose mother had been my uncle Haskell’s secretary at the state capital. My mother Wenonah had become friends with Jeannette, so she met Don and Bud during one of their visits with Jeannette.

Wenonah had taken an education class at OU, and some of the OU football players were in it. They were rude and arrogant and definitely made a bad impression on her. It wasn’t long before Don found out what she thought of athletes - my mother was never shy about expressing her opinions, so he didn’t tell her that he had played basketball at OU.  

Peppers had a softball team and Don soon became their star player and coach. Wenonah told me once about going to one of his games. She said that it was as though she were watching a different person. Instead of the mild mannered, shy person she knew, he was aggressive, running around shouting instructions to the other players. He seemed to be making most of the scores too.  

I have a team photo of Don with Peppers’ soft ball team. It has always made me laugh. You can see patches of sweat on some of the other players’ tee shirts, but Don’s shirt is totally saturated.  

 

Peppers' Softball Team, League Champs, 1939

Mignon Laird

Lately I have been rereading my book, the one about my mother and her family, looking for errors, awkward sentences, etc., and I discovered a really interesting story that I just have to share, even if it means interrupting the story of my dad’s life.  

In the chapter I just finished editing, my mother Wenonah is telling about a time when she was ten. It would have been about 1923. During that year her older sister, Kaliteyo, who was thirteen, had a toothache. The toothache kept getting worse, until a swelling developed under her jaw. One day she was riding a horse across the yard, forgot to duck and a tree branch struck her right under the jaw, knocking her off the horse. 

Kaliteyo wasn’t hurt by the fall, but the limb of the tree punctured an abscess that had extended from the root of her sore tooth completely through her jaw bone. I remember the scar. Grandmother ran outside when she heard the commotion, and saw pus and blood running down Kaliteyo’s neck.   

Well, Pauls Valley didn’t have a permanent dentist at the time – that’s the reason Grandmother hadn’t gotten help sooner, but after seeing the huge abscess she knew she had to do something. It just so happened that a dentist had just rolled into town, in a Pullman car. I found a picture of the car in a Pauls Valley. Centennial brochure. 

 

 

 

The dentist’s name was Dr. Laird, who lived with his family in a Pullman car which he moved from town to town. When he came to a new town, he would have his Pullman car rolled off onto a side track and stay there until he saw as many patients as needed him. Then he would move on.  

My mother told me that Grandmother let her go along when she took Aunt Kaliteyo to see Dr. Laird, so she got to see the inside of the Pullman car. She told me that the inside was really fancy. It had beautiful velvet drapes with tassles on the pull cords, and elegant rugs and furniture.  

Oh, by the way, Dr. Laird pulled Kaliteyo’s tooth, and her jaw eventually healed, even though it took a long time and a lot of follow up visits to Dr. Laird.   

The other thing that my mother mentioned was that Dr. Laird had a daughter who played the harp. She told me that she heard her play and that she was very good.  

I found out a little more about Dr. Laird from a brief note on the Pauls Valley Centennial brochure. It says there that Dr. Laird’s daughter, whose name was Mignon, went on to become a professional dancer in New York City. I didn’t look into the story any further at first. It did strike me as funny to imagine Mignon running and leaping through a railroad car, trying to practice her dancing.  

But on rereading my chapter, I got curious about Mignon’s career, so I “Googled” her. Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing? The first thing that I encountered was the Mignon Laird Municipal Airport, in Cheyenne, Oklahoma. She had an airport named after her! 

Digging deeper I found a book about the Katy Northwest Railroad which describes a local service they ran from town to town in Oklahoma. The book says that Dr. Laird used that service to move his Pullman car from town to town. Also, according to the book, Dr. Laird did a lot more than pull teeth. He put on “medicine shows” by which I suppose they mean he sold some kind of tonic which was supposed to heal whatever ailed you, and part of the show was Mrs. Laird and Mignon giving readings and singing, and Mignon playing the harp. It might have been at one of these performances that my mother heard Mignon play. 

In looking for information about Mignon’s career, I found a blog by a lady named Laura Haywood about the “Ziegfield Club” which was a group of ladies in New York who had performed in the Ziegfield Follies, and who would get together from time to time to reminisce. Ms. Haywood attended some of the club’s meetings and got to know Mignon Laird, who was one of the club’s charter members. Mignon’s told her that her act consisted of dancing with her harp, which she somehow managed to play at the same time.  

Mignon was also part of the cast of a broadway show called “Who Cares” which played for 32 performances in 1930. 

Finally, I found on the New York Public Library site a spectacular photograph of Mignon, playing the harp and dancing in the Ziegfield Follies!

 

Mignon Laird in the Ziegfield Follies - 1920's

(Files of New York Public Library)