Card Table houses

In 1973, Grandmom (Grace) made a card table cover for Paul.  Paul's Palace.  Karen had just been born, and Grandmom wanted to be sure that Paul knew that he was still special.

Not many years later, she made another, more generic, card table playhouse. Hagstrom's Hut.

I know for sure that this one was used.

When Abby was little, I figured that I should do what grandmothers do, so I made her a house, but before she was really big enough to want to play in it.  Good thing you can see out of it.  Only after a couple of grownups had crawled in and waved to her through the window was she willing to try it.

It didn't seem at all necessary to make any more for the other kids.

driving parents crazy on car trips

Okay.  Keen car trips.
You can play alphabet.
You can see how many different license plates you can find.
You can play that geography game where you have to name a place that starts with the letter the last name ended with.
You can play Ghost.
OR
You can sing.
You can sing silly songs.
You can sing rounds.

Pretty standard stuff; pretty standard squabbles.

BUT
You can find other things to sing.
I know of someone who said that she and her brother would sing in seconds.  We never did that.
But you can do some mind-bending other things.
Like 
1) Sing a round with everybody singing the same words at the same time while the tune is being sung as a round.  Hard to do.  The more familiar the song, the harder it is.  Difficult for two people to keep going.  Try it with three!

2) Sing the words "George Washington Bridge" to the tune of  the old 'Cranapple Juice Drink' ad, just one syllable after another over and over with no regard for phrasing all the way to the end of the verse.  It actually comes out even. (turns out that the tune is "when you are in love, it's the loveliest time of the year" recorded by Mario Lanza.  Thanks to Newlin for knowing that.)  Not sure why it is more fun to sing the Bridge than the Drink, but it is.
                   *** ----OR ---- ***
This is the one that gets to the listeners the most..
3) Sing a song with the words one syllable off from the tune.  Our specialty was Yankee Doodle.  Just sing 'Yankeekee Doodle" to the first 5 notes and the extra syllable puts you one off for the rest of the song. Takes concentration.  And it doesn't come out even, of course.

Maybe I just had a weird childhood.

There was a Hagstrom trip once in the 80's where we tried to make interesting and long sentences using only 6-letter words.   "Seeing Larry's killer escape, Martha framed George."  "Martha should attend church."  I think this exercise grew out of some Paul project having to do with trying to guess six character passwords.

 

The Little House - woods, creek, .....

 

Grandmom and Grandpop Kwick's house.

This is the way it always looked to me.  However, in 1947 it looked like this, before the front porch and garage were added.

                         "Here we have the little cottage" it says in Ruth Berlin's handwriting.

In 1947 this pre-fab house came on a truck to Naaman's Road.

I have the floor plan with notes on modifications, bills, etc. to document the occasion.

I always knew that my parents moved out of the upstairs of the Brown House in 1947 when I was a few months old, but it seems that everybody else moved out of that house around then, too.

The back of the Little House had a clever feature.  See the chute?  It directs beer cans into the bin under the porch.  The three-pronged drying rack on the right hand post was also in frequent use (kitchen towels).  The round thing on the left post is a thermometer.

To grandkids and other visiting young relatives, the most important feature of the house in the summer was the creek.  (pronounced "crick" please)
I do remember these individual rocks.  really.  Especially the ones in the second picture.
We spent a lot of time jumping from one to another, arranging to fall into the water accidentally on a regular basis.  We caught minnows and skate bugs in tin cans in the creek,too.

And then there was the woods.  The controlled woods on the house side of the creek.  The woods with flowering bushes and bulbs planted near the rocks.  Huge piles of leaves raked up and burned in the fall.

And endless mowing.  

I can remember Grandpop mowing a *lot*.  With a push mower.

In one corner of the woods, near the creek, but farthest from the house, we kids built many very small fires, sometimes big enough to cook hotdogs.  It was there that we pitched our big tent one summer. I think the tent and our camping experiments should have their own blog post some day.

We did spend a lot of time in Grandmom's woods when we were small.

I love this picture, as much for Grace's caption as anything.

 Gerda in her woods.

Then I just recently found these pictures that say 1952 on them.  It looks like Grandpop (Nils) was still clearing and maintaining this woods when he was 77. (!)  We know this tree was in the back of the Little House because the concrete well cover shows in the second picture.  The trellis is a good clue, as well.

Apparently these woods were pretty important to my grandparents, too.

There are also memories and pictures of events inside the Little House, but those can wait for another day.

Untangling Swedish names - Grandmom's siblings

I've stumbled into an interesting tangent while going through the Kwick pictures.
Because I had his e-mail address, I shared with John Olson my online album of scanned pictures from Mother's family.  John (whose first name is Walter, and has also been known as Junior) is my second cousin.  His grandfather and my grandmother were siblings.

Right away he suggested that one of my pictures is mis-identified, and is actually a portrait of his grandfather.
He is right.  It is not Olaf. 
So.
This is Nils Adolf Olson (Ohlsson, Olsson, whatever) and his wife.

Oh.. I know Nils Adolf.
He is the one in this remarkable postcard, sent to his sister Gerda in America in 1919.
I'd never paid much attention to it before, except to think it was pretty strange.

On the back, he basically says goodbye; that he has a high fever and no appetite and will be in this hospital for the rest of his life.  Thanks for everything.
He was 44.

There followed a lot of new pictures from John, and the rediscovery of old ones I have had for a long time.  Here is one that John sent.  I don't have the original, of course, but it looks to be formally mounted on cardboard.  The middle guy is Walter, Nils's son, who could not have been more than 18 at the time, because he came to the US when he was 19.  John's opinion is that none of these people is sober in this picture.
I had always heard that at least some of the family emigration happened because coal mining was really the only work available in their area of Sweden at the time.

So.. names.
Why are the people in this part of the family called Olson, when two other brothers are called Krantz, and when the gravestones of their parents says Krantz?

I had been told that Krantz was a military name, but I never heard of Olaf or Axel being in the military in Sweden.  What I have learned from John is that Ola was in the Kings Guard.  So current theory is that Krantz was Ola's military-assigned name, but he didn't use it after he left the guard, so his children were called Olson (or some variation of that name).
Then in 1901 Sweden passed the Names Adoption Act which required that everyone have a name that would be passed down.  The idea here was to end the use of patronymics, which were just too confusing with a more mobile population.

SO.. (almost there), I think that Olaf and Axel took Krantz when they emigrated, either because of the new law or because it was simpler. And Ola and Johanna were buried as Krantz because of the new law.  Their other children kept Olson. Apparently they had that option, as well as the choice of how to spell it. "Ohlsson" was a more common spelling than I had been led to believe.  Grandmom (Gerda) used "Olson" and considered her sister's use of "Ohlsson" to be unnecessarily fancy.

Enough.  People who get all excited about these things can be tiresome, I know.

Having discovered Gerda's brother Nils, maybe I will find pictures of her other siblings who stayed in Sweden.  Stay tuned.

Electricity!

I may eventually delete this post and include these documents in a larger entry about The Brown House.
There are a lot of papers and pictures to process.
For now, though, here is a bill from 1926 for an occasion that Mother clearly remembered. She was eight years old at the time.  Her comment must have been added to the envelope in the 1990s.
How typical that it is in pencil.  She would not have wanted to do anything irrevocable to the document.

Next question:  Why was this building always referred to as the Brown House?
Maybe what I should be looking for is documentation of its re-siding.

The caption on this picture is Grace's.

House on Naaman's Road built by Nils Kwick C 1920.

 
The house was brown shingled in 1947, but I'm sure that the siding was far from new then.

Yes, that's me.  Twelve days old.

The Simon Lake Connection

I was recently asked about Grandpop Kwick's diving, so went looking for a story I had heard once.
Sure enough, Mother had documented it.

Simon Lake was an inventor of the submarine, both for military and commercial uses.
Here is a link to information about his salvage machines.
http://www.simonlake.com/html/salvage_subs.html
It is not difficult to find more about him online.

Simon Lake visited Grandpop Kwick in 1934.
And then wrote to him later.

In 2000, Grace wrote:
" I remember the visit that Simon Lake refers to in this letter.  He came to the house one evening and he and Pop talked a long time while a taxi waited in the driveway.  Impressive!
..
Simon Lake was interested in Pop's diving to help raise the de Braak which had recently been discovered sunk someplace along the Atlantic Coast.  Apparently that fell through, but the de Braak has been in the news off and on ever since, and I think it was finally recovered in the 90s.  Someplace I have a newspaper clipping about it.
At the time of his visit I was under the impression that he was the inventor of the submarine, but I don't think that is right.  I'll have to look that up."

The HMS de Braak was recovered in 1984, apparently somewhat irresponsibly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Braak_%281795%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Maralia/HMS_De_Braak


It is interesting to note that Nils was 59 years old in 1934.
While the 1910 Census listed his occupation as "submarine diver", in 1920 he is called a carpenter, then in 1930 he is again listed as a diver.
I think there are more records to find.

More diving-related pictures are in this post from January 6, 2012
http://stuffstories.blogspot.com/2012/01/january-6-grandpop-kwicks-birthday.html

Well Loved Little Rocking Chair

This little upholstered rocker appeared in my life when I was two or three.

I think of it as always being around.
It featured in early Christmas Card pictures.

There was some way we played with it - probably making forts - that involved lying on the floor with the chair upside down over our heads.  I remember this because it was such a shock one day to realize that I was too big to do that anymore.  My shoulders wouldn't fit between the arms.

My kids sat in it, and I am still looking for  more photographic proof of that.I know there are more pictures to find.
Here are Sarah in Grantsburg and Karen in Range.

At some point the chair was reupholstered in blue, and was at the Bon-Keen's.
Amanda and David both sat in it.

Karen and Brian had it for a while for their kids.

 Now it stays at my house.  Waiting for another generation.

Another Ruth employer

This is the west entrance to Black Point, another of the mansions on the Gold Coast in the Hamptons, featured in various books on the fabulous architecture of the Gilded Age in the area's history.

Cousin Ruth's photo albums don't have pictures specifically labelled for this location, but I suppose that some of her photographs of groups of servants were taken here.

We do know that she worked here, because there is this letter - unfortunately undated - presumably from the head housekeeper for Mrs. H.H. Rogers.

"She is leaving of her own accord rather than spend the winter in Southampton."
Love it.
Also interesting that "she is specially talented at arranging flowers."

(I am tagging this 1920s because this mansion was torn down in the mid 30s.)

Donnie Donaway

Donald L. "Donnie" Donaway Sr.

Age 68, of Frankford, died Saturday, January 28, 2012 at his residence.

Born in Wicomico County, he had been a truck driver for many years and most recently he was a trolley driver for the Town of Bethany Beach. He was a member of St. Ann's Catholic Church in Bethany Beach and a Friend of Bill's.

He is survived by his mother Leola (Donaway) Richards of Wilmington; a brother, Bruce Richards and his wife Cindy of Hockessin; a sister, Christeen Richards of Wilmington, DE; his daughter, Sharon Harris and her husband Steve; his boys, Michael Doherty and his wife Jinny and Daniel Doherty and 5 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his son, Donald Lee Donaway Jr. in 1990, a grandson, Justin Lee Donaway in 2005 and his soul mate, Ruth Alice Rowles in 2010.
----

Published in The News Journal on February 5, 2012
----

Donnie. I am very glad that I had the chance to know him a little bit when I visited Ruth several times in the last few years.  Mother had always remarked on what a remarkable and improbable combination Ruth and Donnie were, and it was indeed wonderful to be around them.

I am very glad to see Ruth's family included as his own in this write-up.
The worst aspect of Ruth's funeral was that the priest in Virginia simply refused to acknowledge Donnie at all.  That made me very angry.  The priest at their home church was fine, but this guy ... 

The obituary says that Donnie was a truck driver.  Well, he was driving a truck, carrying feed for some southern Delaware chicken operation when we met him.  However, if you got him talking, you found out that earlier in his life he worked on fishing boats - ocean or bay, I am not sure, but I think Ocean or both.  He also could tell stories of storms and damage to the whole Ocean City, Maryland area, and the associated changes in the shoreline over the years.

On my last visit there before Ruth got so very ill, Donnie drove us around back roads through the little towns just inland from the tourists.  We visited Assateague State Park when it was practically deserted (October).  The non-commericalized uninhabited beaches made a huge impression on me.   Then, of course, Ruth and Donnie knew some great little small town place to eat lunch...

The last time I visited, Donnie was amusing us by making a big story about how the town bigwigs wanted a special sign on the tourist trolley for the Labor Day parade, so they had one printed up on a magnetic sheet.  Fine.  Except that the body of the trolley is fiberglass.
We decided that duct tape would be an appropriately classy solution.

Donnie was a fun and gracious man, who rescued and beautifully supported and loved my cousin.  Glad I knew him.

Here is a picture of the the two of them that will have to do until I find one that is better of Ruth.

Just because it is such a great picture of Carl

 

Alice, Swea, and Carl.

This picture must have been taken in the spring of 1907.

Alice was born in September of 1905 and Swea in November of 1906.

Big brother Carl was born in August of either 1903 or 1904 depending on what records you believe.

This picture of him always make me smile.

Here is the Uncle Carl I remember.

We didn't see him often.  He was the only one of Mother's siblings who didn't live in the Wilmington area.  He worked for DuPont in Clinton, Iowa, at a cellophane plant.

We knew when he was visiting, though. If we came home from school to the smell of a cigar in the house, it was, "Uncle Carl was here!"

If he visited in the summer, it was probably an excuse to have a picnic at Alice's.

Carl was a safety engineer for DuPont.  I remember his saying that one of the things he had to do was make sure that no jewelry was worn around the machinery.  He said that it was not unusual for a young man to resist taking off a new wedding ring, but that he had some pretty unpleasant pictures to show the machine operators the reason for the strict rules.

huh.. (4/30/2012)  I found a postcard of the DuPont Cellophane Plant in Clinton.

Found a cousin!

This postcard had been rattling around in the 'Ruth Berlin' pile for years, and it seemed to be just one more of her many pictures of various friends.
I finally looked at it more carefully.
1913.
This girl is not from the Olson/Krantz side at all.  She is Judith Kvick.  Mother's first cousin.
Born in 1895.
She sent the postcard to her father, John (Johannes), Grandpop Kwick's brother, who had come from Sweden without his family.

*Very* loosely translated, this says: Happy Birthday from daughter Judith.  I wonder if you know that I can ride a bicycle.  This is not my bicycle. My girlfriend took a picture of me standing beside it.

This is the first I have realized that we had any surviving communication from Kwick relatives in Sweden in Judith's generation at all.
We heard that Uncle John and Uncle Charlie (Johannes and Carl) had come over, but since they died around the time Mother was born, there has not been not much awareness of them.

Garage House - 1978

This was a major adventure.  We reclaimed the well*, put in the septic system, and built the garage (well, Max and Mike did)  to live in  for the summer while we started the house.  Alan was on sabbatical.  The house didn't  really get started until later.  You can see the foundation in one of the pictures.  

* there is another post about the well. http://stuffstories.blogspot.com/2011/11/meaningful-mineral-memento.html

Features of the garage:

• Wood burning cook stove, fueled by wonderful clean oak blocks which were available as scrap from a factory in Siren. Took the chill out of mornings, made good cookies.
• Propane stove for more serious cooking.
• Electricity, but we used oil lamps, too.
• Water  "walked in and ran out".  Electric pump out back near the power pole.
• Outhouse with a real toilet positioned over the septic tank. Bring your own bucket of water for flushing.
• Cardboard "sheetrock" to keep wind and mosquitoes (mostly) out of the sleeping areas.
• Thunderstorms as multi-media experiences, with a tin roof to maximize rain noise and fiberglass garage door and south roof to emphasize lightning. Noisy enough that I would get up to look at the children to see if they were awake and/or bothered by the storm.  Couldn't have heard them.

The garden was not good.
There had been a schoolhouse on the front acre of the property, and when that building was razed, the topsoil wound up about three feet under clay.  We could see that when the area around the well was dug up.  A load of manure from the farmer across the road was not enough to make good soil on short notice, and we were not there long enough either to improve that soil or establish a garden elsewhere on the property.

What I remember is that it was LOUD

Ran across this program booklet today.
I know that we attended this.  I remember nothing of the displays or demonstrations.
It was a hassle to get there.
It was crowded.
It was the first time I had seen a sign saying "In Case of Fire Dial 999." (not comforting)
It was indoors, so VERY LOUD.
We didn't stay for long.

However, the booklet is full of photographs and short histories, and - especially - advertisements with a military spin.

Piggy Bank

This little guy has been with me since I was in grade school.
He is six inches tall.
I like him because he is just so much cooler than the plain pink four-legged plastic one that preceded him.  Unlike the plastic pig, this one has no plug to take out to empty him.
I remember pictures in books of children taking a hammer to their banks to get to the coins.
Unthinkable in this case.
However, if you are patient, you can stick a table knife into the slot and shake coins around until they line up on the blade and slide out.  Just be sure that you don't fill the pig to capacity, or there will be no space for the knife.
For the record:  He is currently completely empty.

Ruth worked for H.C.Frick at Eagle Rock

Cousin Ruth worked as a maid in several large houses in New York City in the early part of the century.  When the households moved to their summer places, she sometimes went with them.
That was the case with the Henry C Frick's. 
Ruth liked gardens, and she liked to take pictures.  Judging from the number of photographs taken in the gardens at Eagle Rock, the Frick mansion at Prides Crossing, she really enjoyed her summers there.

Here is a commercial postcard of the place.

And one of the gardens.

Ruth took pictures of the gardens, too.

And pictures of her friends on the staff...

And pictures of herself on the grounds...  there are a lot of these, most of very poor quality, so here are just two.

And one more commercial postcard

When she left the Frick house, Ruth got this form letter of reference.

When she got back from Sweden, she worked for John D. Rockefeller, H.H. Rogers, again for Frick, and several times for W.K.Vanderbilt, being laid off and re-hired as houses were closed and opened as seasons changed. These other families provided very positive references, which I may post in another entry someday.