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Generations of Nomads

~ On the Trail of Family Faces, Places, and Stories Around the World

Generations of Nomads

Monthly Archives: May 2016

A quick happy birthday

23 Monday May 2016

Posted by Generations of Nomads in People

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Family history, Genealogy, Gloucester, Mills, Oliver

img_2626

Happy birthday to my lovely grandmother, Elsie (Mills) Oliver.

There was a news story last week about a woman in Italy, (I think), believed to be the last living person who was born in the 19th century. How can that be? Well…Granny was born on May 23, 1899. She would have been 117 today.

I took this photograph in about 1977 as my mother and I took her to lunch at a waterfront restaurant in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She must have just had her hair done–it looks just the way she liked it–and her lipstick was freshly applied. I know just how she smelled, too. Her favorite perfume was 4711 Eau de Cologne, which had a distinctive fresh smell that I always loved, and it still makes me think of her.

Granny was a talented painter, passionate lover of dogs (I got those genes), fabulous baker, voracious reader, and at her best had an almost giddy enthusiasm about the people she loved. 

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Loving the Yearbooks, Part I

14 Saturday May 2016

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, Uncategorized

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Augusta, Family history, Genealogy, Stephenson, University of Kansas, yearbooks


Until I discovered how many yearbooks are lurking online, I had only one photograph taken of my grandfather, Bill Stephenson, before he was an adult. I knew hardly anything about his interests, activities, or friends and I had no mental picture of the schools where he spent all those years. What an eye-opener three yearbooks have been!

At age 14, Grandpa Bill, who I knew as a gentle, loving man with a very silly sense of humor, looked like a bit of a punk, or at least a surly teenage boy.

image

The Orange A, Augusta, Kansas High School, 1925. William Stephenson, center

Bill, my dad’s father, was born in 1910 and raised in Augusta, Kansas–a middle child with two brothers, Paul and Clark. Paul was eight years older, while Clark was just a year younger, going all through school in the same grade. From Augusta High School, they went on to the University of Kansas together, where they were roommates and fraternity brothers. Clark was the scholar in the family, and Bill always found it challenging to be in the academic shadow of his younger brother.

What tidbits did I learn from these yearbooks?

Stephenson WE August HS 1928

Stephenson Clark Augusta HS 1928

The Orange A, Augusta, Kansas High School 1928

Grandpa Bill was musical. He played in his high school orchestra, (what instrument?) and sang in the glee club and a special boys quartet.

Stephenson WE AHS 1928 quartet

The Orange A, Augusta, Kansas High School, 1928

He was class president his sophomore year and Uncle Clark was class president their senior year.

He played basketball, (top right). He always loved sports.

Stephenson WE AHS 1928 basketball

While Bill always looked serious–sometimes even scowly–Clark occasionally had a big grin in his pictures.

He had a girlfriend! And his best friend might have been Arlice Williams (to the right in the  photo at the top of the post), who appeared next to him in many pictures throughout their high school years.

Stephenson WE AHS 1928 girlfriend

Stephenson WE AHS 1928 girlfriend 2

Augusta High School was two blocks down the street from the Stephenson house.

 

Augusta High School 1928

 

I didn’t dig as much in the University of Kansas yearbook for 1932, but…

Bill and Clark were both members of Alpha Nu of Beta Theta Pi.

image

Bill is 2nd row center, Clark is upper left

The fraternity house at 1425 Tennessee Street in Lawrence, Kansas is the former Usher Mansion, a striking limestone, Italianate structure which has continued to house Beta Theta Pi since 1913.

Stephenson WE KU 1932 Alpha Nu

More grandparents and yearbooks to come.

I’d love to hear what others have found through scouring yearbooks!

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N. S. Hill Served Muskrat for Lunch?

07 Saturday May 2016

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, People, Places

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Baltimore, Family history, Genealogy, Hill

I grew up on my critter-loving grandmother’s stories about Major Nicholas Snowden Hill, her adored, indulgent grandfather, and most of those stories were about animals. Grandfather Hill took her to the circus, and soon after, he bought her Mars, the circus pony. He told her he had a surprise, and to pick a pocket in his overcoat. There was a puppy in each pocket. Granny’s stories were magical to a granddaughter who was equally animal crazed.

Nicholas Hill was a colorful figure in Baltimore. His family was among the earliest, Catholic settlers of the Maryland colony. He was raised in what is now Upper Marlboro, on one of Prince George’s County’s large tobacco farms. Sadly, his father, Charles, had many enslaved workers there. (A topic for further research). After serving in the Confederate Army in Arkansas as “Commissary of Subsistence,” he worked for many years as purchasing agent for the B & O Railroad, and later was managing director of the Carrollton Hotel and the Merchants’ Club.

I was curious about the Merchants’ Club, and a quick search led to this treasure:

Muskrat article

This 1896 article from the Baltimore Sun went viral. It was reprinted in publications ranging from The Annals of Hygiene, a medical journal; to Good Houskeeping, to the Scranton Republican, which expanded on the unappetizing muskrat, “its flesh is fat and greasy unto nastiness.”

Part of my family history search always includes looking for the places as well as the people, and up popped this wonderful image of the Merchants’ Club, site of the muskrat luncheon.

image

Design for Merchant’s Club Building on German St., Baltimore, MD
J. A. and W. J. Wilson, architect(s). From the American Architect and Building News, August 19, 1882

The Baltimore architectural firm of John Appleton Wilson and his cousin, William Thomas Wilson designed the Merchants’ Club. They were active from the late 19th century through 1907, and designed many private homes in and around Baltimore, many in the Queen Anne style, along with public and commercial buildings.

Baltimore’s Great Fire of 1904 destroyed both the Merchants’ Club and the Carrollton Hotel, and most certainly had a profound impact on Nicholas Hill’s life. To be continued…

 Sources:

The Annals of Hygiene, Volume 11, p. 383

American Architect and Building News, August 19, 1882

J. Appleton Wilson , MSA SC 3520-13819 at http://www.msa.md.gov

 

Relationship:

Major Nicholas Snowden Hill (1839-1912) – 2nd great grandfather

Mary (Hill) Mills (1875-c.1936) – great grandmother

Elsie (Mills) Oliver (1899-1993) grandmother

My mum

Me

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(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Generations of Nomads in People

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#genealogy #family history, #Miller #Kansas

imageMy grandmother, Jane (Miller) (Stephenson) Hare, at about age 13.

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© Kim Brengle and Generations of Nomads, 2016-2021

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