Grandmother's Love for Literature and Culture

 

As I mentioned in my last post, Mamma had been raised to be a lady, and to love culture. And she wasn’t the only one. There was a poetry society in Pauls Valley. Every month the ladies would get together and read poetry, that written by famous authors and poems they had written themselves. Mamma named her second oldest son Homer, after the author of the Odyssey and Iliad. She had a pet banty rooster she named Chanticleer, the clever rooster who outsmarted Reynard the Fox in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.

She was also a member of the Alternate Saturday Club, formed in 1897 “to promote social, intellectual and moral culture.” The ladies wrote essays on works by leading authors, presented recitations, musical programs, and held discussions of current and past events.

In 1907, when Oklahoma became a state, small communities around the country were growing, and making an effort to improve their lives. Two national organizations grew out of this need, the Lyceum Movement and the Chautauqua Institute. The Chautauqua Institute was the one which sent teams to visit Pauls Valley. It was founded originally as a religious movement, but soon offered academic subjects, music, art and drama, sending out teams to small towns across the country. Prominent speakers and performers appearing on the Chautauqua circuit included William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, John Philip Souza and the American Opera company. They usually performed plays also, and Wenonah told me that the girls would all fall in love with the leading man.

In 1910 one of Mamma’s Chickasaw friends, Jessie Moore, visited the Chautauqua Institute in New York, and sent her this postcard. She wrote:

My expectations of Chautauqua were real, but the realization exceeds anything I ever dreamed. Could I afford it would come here every summer of my life. I nearly run my feet off for fear I will miss something. Will be home Sept – kiss Mahota (Aunt Kaliteyo’s middle name.) Lovingly, Jessie Moore^[i]

                                          Post Card from Jessie Moore, 1910

 

Mamma had an impressive library, with a set of books of poetry and literature, another about European history, and a set of children’s books called the Children’s Hour, that she read to her children from. She also had many novels, histories and biographies: the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe, novels by James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Mark Twain, you name it. Mamma never passed up a book store. She even had a copy of the Dawes Commission Rolls. My mother Wenonah said she never had to go to the school library to find background for a report. There was always plenty of information among Mamma’s books.

I gravitated toward the adventure stories: the James Fenimore Cooper books about the Algonquin Indian tribes, the Tarzan series, Pistol Pete’s autobiography, Mark Twain's tales of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, books about Comanche torture, about Isaac Parker, the “Hanging Judge,” who had sent Sam Paul, my great grandfather, to prison. Here’s a picture of Mamma’s copy of "Tarzan of the Apes," that I read surreptitiously after my bedtime, by flashlight.

                                                Tarzan of the Apes, First Edition, 1914

It was contagious. Visiting Mamma in the summers I would spend most of my time reading. My mother was an avid reader also, and she loved poetry, as did my Uncle Haskell. Actually, Pappa loved poetry too. After his death, a book of poems was found next to him open to the poem, “The House by the Side of the Road,” by Sam Walter Foss, which, as I claim in my book, “Wenonah’s Story,” was a plea for forgiveness.

Mamma left copies of several poems among her papers, none with the authors’ names though. The only one I’m sure she wrote herself is this one. which she enclosed it in a letter to Wenonah in 1948. She was sick and lonely.

Dear Jim:  I’ve neglected to write, only wanted to feel better. The wind has almost killed me. The dust has nearly choked me to deth. The mussels of my throat hirt so bad that I could hardly turn in bed. Still I have seen wind worse. I have done nothing to bring this on. I am and have taken care of myself. It is spent me. I am worn out and useless… 

The Mystic Bridge of Snow 

The nite is dim thoe snowflakes falling fast

through the still air. The earth is growing cold & while

beneath this soft pure covering through this gloom,

I see affar a Mystic Bridge of Snow

 

It falls from your high casement near yet far

Oh straight my trembling fancy to its glow.

Forms a white pathway of these falling flakes

& crosses on this Mystic Bridge of Snow            

 

The snow flakes tap against my window pane.

I heed them not. Their mistery is I cannot know.

That they have crosssed to me this winter nite.

Upon a frozen white Bridge of falling snow.

 

I stand outside the nite is dark & cold.

Within that room. There’s warmth I cannot know

the fire doth make a summers glow.

Thoe nite is white with mystic falling snow

 

Its cold as deth out here alone

the light has vanished in the cold & gloom

without some guide to light this lonely way.

I cannot cross again this Bridge of snow

 

The light has vanished it is dethly cold.

The earth is hidden in a gleam of light. I see

Only my heart’s deep longing formed. This Bridge 

Between me & this Mystic falling snow.

 

 

 

---

[i] Jessie Moore was a remarkable person. She was an attorney, passing the bar in 1923, serving as clerk for the state supreme court, the second woman elected to a state office in Oklahoma. She served on the Board of the Oklahoma Historical Society for 35 years. She was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Charities and Corrections for Oklahoma, and was head of the Women’s division of Emergency Relief during the depression. And with all that she found time to serve as president of the Alternate Saturday Club in Pauls Valley. From Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol XXXIV, Number 4, 1956.

Oatmeal

My kids live in Spokane, Washington, so I don’t get to see them that often, or my grandkids either, so when I went up there for my granddaughter Alyssa’s graduation, it was a big deal for me. When I go I stay with each of my kids for a while, which is great, except for the grandchild who has to give up his or her bed for me to sleep in. Each visit is precious for me, and memorable, but one thing in particular touched me while I was staying with my son Donald, my daughter-in-law Tina, and my grandkids, Ciara, Lauren, Zach, Sophia, and Cody. Zachary’s the one who had to give up his bed. Thanks, Zach.

Anyway Donald’s a lawyer. He’s much better in every way than I am, but he does have one thing in common with me at his age.  He’s really busy. He gets up at the crack of dawn, and often works late and on weekends. In spite of this, he still manages to spend quality time with his family. When he’s there, he’s really there, hearing about the latest accomplishment or disappointment; playing games; helping Tina cook or clean up; running errands; organizing work details to get stuff done, and he fixes oatmeal for breakfast.

That’s what got to me. My mother used to fix oatmeal for breakfast. I can still remember the warmth and smell of it as I would stand on a stool by the stove, stirring it so it wouldn’t stick to the pan. Donald asked me to stir his oatmeal too. Well, anyway, to me oatmeal means love.

Thinking about oatmeal and love and old memories, reminded me of a letter my Grandmother wrote to me when I was four.

Dear Robin,

I received your Letter. & read every word that you wrote. When I got home it was past three in the morning, and I went out to see Spot. He came to the fence to look at me. Neither one of us spoke. Then I came in to see if I could find anything for him to eat & there wasn’t one scrap of anything so I cooked him some oat meal & took that to him & then when I came in he cried, so I brought him in & let him sleep in the rocking chair. I have a lot of flowers blooming & my place looks pretty. I took dinner with Phillip Sunday & I told him that you were coming to play with him. & he is looking forward to you coming. You write again soon.

Lodes & lodes of love. Grandmother

Spot was Grandmother’s dog, and Phillip was my cousin. She loved her dogs and her grandchildren. 

Grandmother and Spot

Phillip

The Furniture Catalogue 2

                                   Grandmother's Furniture Catalogue

Since my last post, I've spent more time looking at the "Furniture Catalogue," my grandmother's scrapbook. I Googled the name on the catalogue, John V. Farwell and Co., and found out that the Farwell company was once one of the largest corporations in America. It was a wholesale distributer of "dry goods:" furniture, textiles and clothing, based in Chicago. Between 1880 and 1910 they grossed $20 mil. per year and employed over 1000 people. John Farwell himself started as a clerk in 1845 for the original company, which was called Wadsworth and Cooley.  By 1857 he had worked his way up to partner in the firm, and in 1863 the company became known as Farwell, Fields and Co. Farwell's partner, Marshall Fields, another up and coming young man, left soon afterwards to start his own company, and for the next 40 years the two companies were the most profitable names in dry goods. During the early 1900's however, the dry goods business changed. Manufacturers started selling directly to stores, eliminating the need for large wholesalers. Marshall Fields and Co. adapted by opening stores of their own, but Farwell and Co. did not. It closed its doors in 1925.  

From this, I figure that Grandmother probably started using the Farwell catalogue for a scrapbook around 1920, possibly earlier. The earliest date I can find among the pictures and articles is 1917, the latest 1932. Unfortunately, Grandmother made no effort to date her selections so any dates she included were purely by accident. Here's the cover of a magazine entitled Hunter Trader Trapper, from 1917.  

                                       Hunter, Trader and Trapper 

My other problem is that Grandmother didn't label the pictures. I didn't find the catalogue until the last few days of my mother Wenonah's life so I didn't get to go through it with her. She did tell me that one of the photos was of the actress Mary Pickford, one of the stars of the silent picture era. There are several other pictures in the catalogue which seem to be from movie ads, but only one includes a title, "Hawthorne of the U.S.A." starring Wallace Reid. Reed was another star of silent movies. He played romantic roles whereas Pickford played little girls or vivacious young women. Some of her famous roles were Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Pollyanna. From 1900 to 1930 Mary Pickford alleged to be the most famous woman in the world. She and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., fought the advent of talking pictures. In her opinion, "adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo".

                                                  Mary Pickford


As you can see Miss Pickford's picture is pasted on a page of the catalogue which advertizes wicker or "reed" furniture.  

My mother told me about going to silent movies when she was a child. There was an organ player who sat down in front providing background music for the film: fast music for action scenes, romantic music for love scenes, suspenseful music for mysteries, etc. I guess the organ player could play as loud as she (or he) wanted. There was no dialogue to drown out. My mother might not have seen many movies starring Pickford or Reid though. She told me that she and her brother Bob preferred westerns. 

Most of the pictures pasted in the catalogue are from ads. Most of the time Grandmother cut off the name of the company, but when she left it on, it's surprising how many of the names are familiar: Del Monte, Kellogg's, Coca Cola, Wrigley's gum, Chevrolet, Purina dog food, Burgess Seed and Plant Co. Here's an old Norman Rockwell painting advertizing Orange Crush:

                                               Norman Rockwell

Notice that the caption has been cut off. Grandmother was obviously just interested in the picture.  

Here's a picture advertizing Uncle Ben's Cream of Wheat. Isn't it amazing that the company is still using the same picture of Uncle Ben.

Uncle Ben 

It looks like I'll need to do another post or two from the Furniture Catalogue. There's just too much to condense into one or two articles. I'll finish this one off with a newspaper photo of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic. I hope the quality of my copy is good enough for you to see the features of some of the men. Several could pass for Col. Sanders of fried chicken fame. There's a reason for that. The Grand Army was made up of Union Civil War veterans. As usual, Grandmother didn't include a date, but it's a pretty big group so I would guess the article dates from the early 20's. According to Wikipedia the Grand Army was active in lobbying for voting rights for black veterans, and for pensions for all veterans.

                                       Grand Army of the Republic
 

As you can see, the picture is pasted on a sheet of wallpaper. Grandmother often did that, I suppose to reinforce the thin pages of the catalogue.

The Paul Room

                                           

                                              Eskridge Hotel Museum

                                             Wynnewood, Oklahoma

I just got back from another trip to Oklahoma. We got some work done on my mother Wenonah's house; we visited with my daughter and her family, and I got a chance to take another look at the Paul Room of the Wynnewood Historical Society Museum. My daughter Therese and her husband Kevin met us there.  

About twenty years ago my mother donated some of my grandmother's things to the Wynnewood museum, furniture, art work, clothing, books. It took me a long while to get into the building which isn't regularly open. Wynnewood is a small town, and it isn't near the interstate, so I don't suppose there are enough visitors to make it worthwhile to keep the museum open. The museum is located in the old Eskridge Hotel, just a half a block from the town's only stop light at the intersection of Kerr and McGee streets, honoring the founders of the Kerr-McGee oil company, which operates a refinery nearby.  

My mother chose Wynnewood for her donation because it is near where her grandfather, J. T. Rosser, first settled when he came to Indian Territory in 1888. Grandmother was only eleven. She told the story later about their trip to Indian Territory: 

I came to the Indian Territory with my father and mother. We were moving from Mississippi to the Indian Territory in wagons, working horses and oxen in 1889. I was eleven years old. I remember people telling my father that he would have to be on the lookout for horse thieves. We had some trouble while crossing Arkansas, but after we crossed into the Indian Territory we never were bothered by anyone. My father would buy feed from the Indians and they were the most accommodating people I ever met. We came through Muskogee but there wasn't much of a town there then. At that time there were but few roads and at times it looked as if it would be impossible to go any farther. After several months of traveling over rough country we located at Pauls Valley. My father traded the ox team, a tent and a few horses to Mr. John Burks for a lease that had a two room log house on it. This lease had never been worked but there was a plowed furrow around it. My father and brother began putting this prairie land in cultivation. There was open range at that time, and you could have all the hogs and cattle you wanted to own, but you had to have your brand and mark on them. 

SB 18, P 14. Interview with Mrs. Victoria M. Paul, September 14, 1937.

                                        Mrs. Victoria M. Rosser Paul

Grandpa, as my mother called her grandfather, left Cedartown Georgia in 1866 after the Civil War, and took his family west. At first it was only he and Emily, my great grandmother, and their daughter Cora. Eight other children were born along the way, a son Thomas and four girls: Kittie, Lillie, Victoria and Ada. A son and daughter, Luther and Eula, were lost to illness. Over about a twenty year period Grandpa worked his way across Mississippi, and Arkansas, settling for a few months or years in one place and then moving on to another. Grandmother was born in Pittsborough County Mississippi in 1877. Grandpa was actually headed for Texas to join his brother Ed, but he never made it. The land in Indian Territory was so fertile, and the Indians so hospitable that he decided to stay.

Grandpa's farm was actually closer to Cherokee town than it was to Wynnewood. Cherokee Town, which no longer exists, was named for a temporary camp of Cherokees making on their way from Texas to join their brothers in Indian Territory in about 1840. After he arrived, Grandpa hired a teacher and built a school for his girls and other nearby children, but later Grandmother went to a subscription school in Pauls Valley where she met Billie Paul, whom she would later marry. When her mother died in 1893 Grandmother and her younger sister Ada moved in with their older sister Cora who was married and living in Wynnewood. Cora was the proprietor of a millinery (hat) shop there.  

The Rosser girls were taught to be ladies, in spite of their frontier upbringing. They studied needlework, gardening, music - Grandmother played the melodian - and they learned to prepare fancy fruit and flower arrangements, and pastries. Grandmother didn't learn painting and charcoal drawing until about 1918, right after the start of WWI, when she was married and living in Oklahoma City during one of my grandfather's business ventures. My mother Wenonah was five at that time. Grandmother studied with a Mrs. Sheets there, the wife of a prominent physician. She did several oils and charcoals which hung in her house when I was little. I have a charcoal drawing she did then of a bust of a cherub sitting next to a vase full of brushes.  

                                                         Cherub

                                               Charcoal by V.M. Paul

When I finally got to see the museum I realized that it contained several of Grandmother's oil paintings, as well as a big charcoal drawing of a lion which always hung over the mantel of her fireplace. There was also a large brass figure of a lion sitting on the mantel. I don’t' know what happened to that. The lions were appropriate because Grandmother's living room furniture had lions' heads and paws on its backs and legs.

                         Sofa from Grandmother's Living Room Furniture

                                                         Lion
                                         Charcoal by V.M. Paul

 

                                                       Still Life

                                        Oil Painting by V.M. Paul

The museum has Grandmother's rocking chair which dates back to her marriage in 1898, a bed and a quilt, a beautiful old dress made with eyelet crochet, family pictures, and books. There was damage to the room 10 or 15 years ago when the roof caved in, and many of the original contents have been damaged or misplaced, but I was pleased to see that Grandmother's art work had survived.

Eyelet Embroidery Dress

                                         Grandmother's Rocking Chair