Yahrzeit - Ahead & Behind theTimes

My father died 17 years ago today. November 30 is also Mark Twain's birthday. I imagine Dad would have liked to be linked to Twain, however tenuously. Funny... I just now remembered that I read THE INNOCENTS ABROAD the one time I visited Dad at his home in L.A.

In his early years in Hollywood, Dad lent his voice to various progressive causes, which got him branded as "a Red sonofabitch" (allegedly by Columbia Pictures honcho Harry Cohn), then tailed for decades by the FBI. The sign proclaiming "SCHOLARSHIPS NOT BATTLESHIPS" in this photo from 1937 (below) would have been perfect for an anti-Vietnam War demonstration--or an Occupy rally now. Alas, Dad and the other peaceniks were proved wrong four years later, when battleships became vastly more necessary.

PEACE "STRIKE" OFF CAMPUS AT U.C.L.A.

Westwood, Calif.--More than 1000 students of the University of California at Los Angeles walked off the campus in a peace strike as part of a nation-wide demonstration called by the United Student Peace Committee. --PHOTO SHOWS-- Lionel Stander, cinema actor, as he addressed the crowd of strikers, while standing on a truck parked near the campus. 4-22-37

Another Piece of History

My latest acquisition (above) is an AP Wirephoto of my father from 1953. Caption:

NEW YORK, May 6--Rep. Harold Velde, left, (R-Ill. chairman of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, points a warning finger at witness Lionel Stander, seated at right, during the actor's testimony here today. Stander refused to tell the committee at an open hearing whether he had ever been a Communist. He said he was not now a Communist, but refused to say whether he was a party member between 1935 and 1948. Rep. Morgan M. Moulder (D-Mo.) sits beside Velde.

That appears to be the infamous Roy Cohn standing in the back at left.

Yahrzeit #16

Lionel Stander (1908-1994) in 1936.
Photo for Columbia Pictures by Irving L. Schaffert.

My father died 16 years ago today. Unaware of the date, yesterday I rearranged the Dad Wall in my dining area. More than two years after acquiring the above photo (part of a large lot) I read the caption on the back:

Eager to preserve his new furniture as long as possible, eccentric Lionel Stander, most popular of Hollywood comedians, selects this strange pose for purpose of relaxation and reading. Whether the book's more interesting read sidewise is a question only Stander can answer. His latest Columbia picture is "Cinderella Man," directed by Frank Capra and starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. Lionel recently moved into a renovated farmhouse in the center of Hollywood, modernized for him by R. M. Schindler.

"Cinderella Man," retitled "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," was named Best Picture of 1936 by the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review. Capra won his second Oscar for directing and Cooper was nominated as Best Actor. My eldest half-sister was 3; my mother was 2.

The man who "modernized" Dad's house was noted architect Rudolph Michael Schindler, an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra. According to this list, in 1935 Schindler remodeled a house for "L. Stander, 2006 La Brea Terrace, Hollywood" and "Apartments for L. Stander, Los Angeles." Wish I knew the story behind those apartments.

The house takes a good satellite picture:
OMG, it recently sold for $3.75M! Here's the realtor's listing:

COVETED GATED LA BREA TERRACE PRIVATE COMPOUND
4 Bedrooms/4.0 Bathrooms/3,753 Sq. Ft/23,070 Sq. FT. Lot
Rarely are homes available in this private neighborhood. On over half an acre of private gardens is this fine home. Large LR w/ fplc, formal DR, kitchen with best appliances, play room, FR, library w/ fplc. Master with balcony, fplc, sitting area, bath with spa tub. Pecan floors throughout. Pool, outside fireplace, guest house with LR, kitchen, 1BD and 1BA and 2 separate garages for 4 cars. RECENTLY LISTED FOR $5,500,000, CURRENT PRICE MAKES THIS PROPERTY AN OUTSTANDING VALUE IN TODAYS MARKET.

Looks like an old farmhouse all right, but the windows were changed:

The interior doesn't look nearly as snazzy as in 1936:

Sea Monsters in the Hudson!

Cecil the seasick sea serpent, from Beany + Cecil.

While doing research for the Bella Terra Northwest Lighthouses map, I happened across a 19th century New York Times article about a sea serpent off the coast of Oregon. Whereupon I searched the Times online archives for "sea serpent" and found a treasure trove. Apparently summer brought sea serpent sightings from around the globe, which the Times often covered with tongue firmly in cheek. In 1904 correspondent F. Carruthers Gould wrote, "It used to be called the Silly Season because of the perennial appearance at this time of the sea serpent..." (So Obama's talk of the "silly season" was nothing new!)

Some nearby sightings:

August 31, 1886, Wednesday
IN THE HUDSON THIS TIME.
THE SEA SERPENT DISPORTING HIMSELF NEAR KINGSTON.
RONDOUT, N.Y., Aug. 30.—Fifteen minutes before the steamboat Daniel Drew caught fire on Sunday afternoon a sea serpent was seen in the Hudson River between Coddington’s Dock and Kingston Point by a number of Rondout boatmen and boys who were in swimming. Capt. R. Brush, of the schooner Mary Ann, also saw it. All hands unite in saying that its head was raised about 6 feet out of the water, and it was of the shape and general appearance of the well known anaconda or water boa of the Amazon, but much larger, being about 2 feet in diameter on a line with the eyes. The throat is described as being dirty white, while the back appeared to be mottled with light and dark brown. From a point about 6 feet back of the eyes a fin appeared which extended the entire length of its body, or rather that portion of the body visible, which was about 55 feet. Half a mile below Coddington’s Dock Capt. Brush said the serpent lashed the water with its tail. The serpent was also seen by persons on the Dutchess County shore. The parties say it was not seaweed they saw, and that they were all “perfectly sober.”

September 11, 1886, Wednesday
EXIT THE SEA SERPENT.
NEWBURG, N.Y., Sept. 10.--R.H. Randolph, of Rhinebeck, in a communication to a local newspaper says: "For the past week the New-York and country newspapers have been circulating the story of the 'Hudson River serpent' that was seen in the river at various points between Catskill and Poughkeepsie. I was one of the eye witnesses of that serpent. While the steamer Daniel Drew was burning, a gentleman and myself were sitting on the bank of the river at Rhine Cliff. We saw a long black log floating down with the ebb tide. The log was apparently about 30 feet long, with a number of knots projecting that gave it the appearance of a row of fins. A root about 5 or 6 feet long at the end of the log would occasionally roll up with the swell and might to a person of strong imagination look like a head or neck. I made the remark at the time that if it was only a little later in the evening that would be taken for a genuine sea serpent. This is what was seen on Aug. 29 by a number who claimed that they saw the sea serpent.”

January 1, 1887, Wednesday
THE SEA SERPENT ON ICE.
TIVOLI, N.Y., Dec. 31.--The Captain of the schooner Many Ann, from down East, was the first person who saw the sea serpent near Kingston. Point last Summer. It has remained, however, for a man named Brown, who lives out back of Saugerties, to see the serpent in the Hudson in Winter. Brown reached Tivoli today en route for points South. Like pretty much everybody else who has seen the serpent Brown was “perfectly sober.” He said that at the commencement of the heavy snowstorm yesterday morning he walked a considerable distance up the Hudson for the purpose of setting his nets in the ice. Brown found a great crack in the ice. He kept tramping on. Suddenly, according to Brown, he felt a sensation as though the ice were being lifted up beneath him. He says he saw the ice roll, as it were, in waves, and then split in two, making a similar crack to the one he had jumped over a short distance to the southward. Brown says that before the waving of the ice had ceased a strange-looking animal, with two eyes nearly as big as saucers and of the color of terra cotta, glared at him fiercely. The head of the beast remained above the ice for several seconds, and Brown says he had an excellent opportunity of seeing it. Brown thinks it is the sea serpent that was seen off Kingston Point and elsewhere along shore last Summer, and that the billowy motion he describes in the ice was caused by the serpent lashing its tail. Brown is the first man on record in these parts who has seen the serpent after Dec. 1. Meanwhile every crack found in the ice on the frozen Hudson is being eagerly watched by untiring small boys, boatmen who have nothing else to do except to chew tobacco and “swap lies” at corner groceries, and perhaps one or two of the wise Washington scientists who gave their views so gravely to the public and who fought so bitterly among themselves over the matter, when the serpent was seen at Kingston Point.

The Scourge of Anti-Semantics

From a Secret Correspondent:

One of the guests at a recent dinner used to coordinate the University of Virginia's Semester at Sea--a cruise with a teeny bit of schoolwork thrown in. The standard for admission was ability to pay, so the level of intellect wasn't what this prof was used to.

One of the assignments was to write about 20th century German history. It turns out that prior to World War II there was a huge wave of anti-semantics in that country! Several students wrote this; evidently they couldn't manage to copy the Wikipedia page correctly.

Le plus ça change: News from 1862

While doing research for the forthcoming Bella Terra Southeast Lighthouses Map, I came across this interesting item in a New York Times article from January 13, 1862:

JEWISH CHAPLAINS

Rev. Dr. Fischel, of New-York, had yesterday an interview with the President, to urge the appoinitment of Jewish Chaplains for every military Department, they being excluded by an act of Congress from the volunteer regiments, among whom there are thousands of Israelites. In the meantime the Doctor will take charge of the spiritual welfare of the Jewish soldiers on the Potomac. The President assured him that the subject will receive his earnest attention, and expressed the opinion that this exclusion was altogether unintentional on the part of Congress.

Siegfried Sassoon, More Relevant than Ever

The UK Guardian ran a piece on WWI poet-soldier
Siegfried Sassoon: The reluctant hero

"Cambridge University is on the verge of securing Siegfried Sassoon's personal papers for posterity – his unpublished poems and letters are more relevant than ever, says Michael Morpurgo"


The article includes this undated poem, "just a scrap torn from a notebook":

Can I forget the voice of one who cried
For me to save him, save him, as
he died?
I will remember you, and from
your wrongs
Shall rise the power and the
poignance of my songs
And this shall comfort me until
the end
That I have been your captain and
your friend.

Sassoon's July 1917 Soldier's Declaration, according to Morpurgo, "was published in newspapers and read out in the Commons; it very nearly got him executed." I imagine the same furor would erupt today. I wish it would.

A Soldier's Declaration

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects witch actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerity's for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise.

S. Sassoon,

Follow the Apple

A couple of years ago I planted a Stayman Winesap apple tree in my backyard. I since found out that it's self-unfruitful, meaning it needs another variety to pollinate it. Yesterday I bought two Cortland apple trees at Home Depot, instead of a Cortland and a Jonagold, (mis)remembering that they were good pollinators for Stayman. I just did some online research and found out that Cortland and Jonagold are the absolute wrong trees to plant with Stayman, as they won't cross-pollinate. Not that the Stayman has produced any flowers to date. But, ever the eternal optimistic (or deluded) gardener, I want to be ready for next year.

Deep into my Google search, I found this tidbit on a website about old apple varieties:
During the American Revolution, captured Hessian soldiers held near Winchester VA planted an orchard with Fameuse (aka Snow) apples.

My curiosity piqued, I did a search for Hessian soldiers Virginia, and found some fascinating--and appalling--stuff.

In a Wikipedia article on Winchester:

Hessian soldiers were known for walking to the high ridge north and west of town and purchasing and eating apple pies from the Quakers. Thus, this ridge west of town became affectionately known as Apple Pie Ridge and the Ridge Road built before 1709 leading north from town was renamed Apple Pie Ridge Road.

In the New York Times there is a March 31, 1912, article with the innocuous headline Virginia Mountains Shelter Colony of Lost Hessians.

And then there's the subhead:

Descendants of Hirelings in Revolutionary War Who After Their Release Took Refuge in Gloomy Hills Near Charlottesville, Live There in Rude Huts, A Law to Themselves and a Forgotten Band.

Those would be the same hills that visitors ooh and aah over when I take them for drives around C'ville.

The article tells how, after the Revolution, Hessian soldiers who had been imprisoned in Charlottesville (which named Barracks Road and Hessian Hills after them) took off and settled in the nearby Ragged Mountains, "a small range of black, gloomy hills." The Times's anonymous reporter then wrote, apparently forgetting that Hessians were, um, Saxons:

As we have recently learned, the Blue Ridge mountaineers are a fearless, lawless folk of the purest Anglo-Saxon blood. They have a native intelligence and furnish the best kind of material for a civilization to be built upon. A good citizen can be made out of a Blue Ridge dweller when put in the right environment....

The Hessians are quite different. They have little if any understanding of modern morality. Marriage is a luxury, which has seldom lingered at their doors.

There is hardly a cabin in these mountains which does not harbor an idiot, the result of atrocious family relations.

Wow! It gets even better:

When neighbourly quarrels arise they usually fight it out with sticks and stones and their big bony fists. Firearms are reserved for the wild turkeys and quail.

The Hessian women do most of the heavy work. The men cut a little wood and train the coon dogs. If the women become unruly they are whipped by their husbands.

The reporter supposedly heard a woman being beaten by her husband. Next day the reporter asked her brother what he was going to do about it. The supposed reply?

"Well, I reckon I can't do much. Fact is, I was a beatin' my own wife last night."

In the Good Old Days at the Newspaper of Record, I guess reporters weren't required to actually report and cite sources if unsubstantiated opinions and vaudeville jokes would do just as well.

P.S. Now I'm on the lookout for Delicious, Lodi, Honeycrisp, Golden Delicious or Fuji apple trees.

Fun Fact for the Day

Enterprise, Alabama, is home to the world's only monument to an agricultural pest: the boll weevil.

By destroying the cotton in Coffee County (named after a general, not the beverage), the weevil caused farmers to start growing peanuts and thus regain prosperity.

Wikipedia tells more.

The End of an Era

YA author Sally Nemeth sums it all up in this blog post.

January 20 is a doubly big day chez Bella: Not only does Barack Obama become president, but the Boy Wonder (who helped elect him) begins college at Metro State Denver. Darling Husband, who's taking a vacation day to watch the inauguration on TV, is going to send my little boy (6'4") off to school right with homemade waffles.

BW will be wearing a Married to the Sea T-shirt ("No kidding. I hate voting.") to his Intro to Women's Studies class. And on Wednesday, he'll wear The Communist Party T-shirt to Intro to Critical Thinking. I'm so proud I raised a wiseguy!

A 100-Year-Old Grand Entrance...and A Grand Passion

We're reviving a tradition, established when we lived in Virginia, of throwing a Twelfth Night Party, complete with a community reading of Mr. Shakespeare's play (abridged by yours truly). As is also my tradition, I've been doing research on Twelfth Night, and found some fascinating nuggets in the NY Times online archives.

One article, dated 108 years ago today, details a gala reception held by the Twelfth Night Club (the women's answer to The Players) in honor of actress Sarah Bernhardt, scheduled for 3 till 6pm the previous day:

...elaborate preparations were made...There were many decorations, flowers, and a prettily set tea table...[but] for a long time the divine Sarah did not appear....It was after 5 o'clock and only the very hungriest of the guests had ventured to take a cup of tea, when a genuine message came: 'Tell the ladies to wait. I am on the way.'

...and suddenly there was a flutter of black and white, a whisk like the passing of a breeze...It was Sarah herself, picturesque in her big black hat, her black chinchilla-edged coat thrown back, from a beautiful gown of white, with roses and orchids on her breast, looking young [ha! she was 63 with a bum knee], animated, and altogether charming. The club gave her an ovation....while Bernhardt beamed ecstatically. "I zank you wis all my heart," she said.

The article immediately below it was just as interesting. Under the headline, "Divorce for Robert Graves: Court Order Gives Wall Paper Manufacturer Custody of His Child," we learn:

The domestic troubles which led to the divorce began when Mrs. [Charlotte De Grasse] Graves met J. Hamilton Jaffray, Jr., of Yonkers. He called frequently on the Graves home, at Irvington, until warned to keep away.

Mr. Graves sold the Irvington property and came to New York City to live. His wife still met Mr. Jaffray, and the divorce proceedings followed....Mr. Jaffray proclaimed his willingness to marry Mrs. Graves should the Court set her free from her husband; declaring that she was a woman of whom any man might feel proud.

Here's the odd thing: I went to high school in Irvington, and had a friend there who lived in Jaffray Park. I wonder whether J. Hamilton moved there with the ex-Mrs. Graves; or maybe he was a frequent caller in Irvington because he had family close by.

Lest We Forget

In honor of Veterans' Day, courtesy of The Guardian UK

Suicide in the Trenches
by Siegfried Sassoon

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

French Toast?

For some fiction I'm writing, I've been researching the food and clothing of ancient Rome. I came across a late 4th century Roman cookbook, De Re Coquinaria of Apicius, translated into English in 1936 as Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome and reprinted by Dover in 1977.

Check out this recipe in Book VII:

Another Sweet Dish
Aliter dulcia

Break fine white bread, crust removed, into rather large pieces which soak in milk and beaten eggs fry in oil, cover with honey and serve.

I also found several recipes calling for sow's womb, udder and paps; brains are a frequent ingredient too. Now I wonder if the Romans coined the slogan, "Everything but the squeal."

Fact for the Day

In the Le plus ça change department, I came across this interesting snippet in Antony Kamm's The Romans:

When, after the great fire in Rome [in A.D. 64], Nero had residential areas rebuilt at his own expense to a proper grid pattern, with broad streets and open spaces, people complained that they missed the cool shade of the old, narrow alleys and the towering, ramshackle apartment blocks.

Mr. Jefferson's Academical Village

Has it already been a week since I took these photos on and around The Grounds (NOT "the campus") at UVa? How quickly the time passes--especially when one has been in bed zoning out on Valium (for back spasms) and bittersweet chocolate (just because). Click on images for full-screen viewing.




Left, "The Corner" (actually a fairly straight street) by the University of Virginia.





Below, the Rotunda and statue of its architect, Thomas Jefferson.

Above: Glorious magnolia tree and chapel(?).





Right: Flowering quince spilling over a walled garden, as seen through Pavilion pillars.












Left: Courtyard garden by the Rotunda.





Below: Just like home...in my dreams!





















Left: "The Lawn."











Right: Under a portico along The Lawn. Highly prized rooms (given as honors to students, though they're far from any plumbing) are along the left.





Below: Students studying in a Lawn room. I dearly hope that Mr. Jefferson is writhing in his grave, as in his day "Africans" were only allowed in those rooms to clean up.























The gentlemen scholars' servants (read: slaves) were housed under the Lawn rooms; hence the ventilation grill between the threshold and step in the photo below. History isn't always pretty when you look beneath the surface.

The Very Model of a Modern Major Author II

Charles Dickens

And now I give you Charles Dickens (1812-1870). His books, serialized in newspapers, were wildly popular on both sides of the Atlantic. When the last installment of The Old Curiosity Shop, published 1840-41, arrived by ship in New York, crowds shouted from the pier, "Is Little Nell dead?" So we can see that Harry Potter-itis is nothing new.

For authors whining about the hardship of book tours, I don't just give them Dickens; I throw him in their faces. The man traveled the length and breadth of England, and all over the U.S. too, giving lectures and readings from his books. And author events 150 years ago weren't your cozy, carpeted B&N affair with 20-minute reading, 15-minute audience Q&A and 20-minute book signing.

Noooo...Dickens did dramatic, hours-long readings, in halls packed to the rafters--night after night, year after year. In fact, his relentless touring and performance schedule probably contributed to his death at age 58.

Consider this tidbit from a fascinating article in yesterday's NYT, On the Trail of Brooklyn's Underground Railroad:

Dickens "read A Christmas Carol to capacity crowds for three nights running in 1868" at Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church.

Imagine doing that with individual voices for the novel's many characters--without amplification--for ONE night, let alone three. Then try and feel sorry for yourself when you're on a panel at a book festival, or do a bookstore signing.

Can't muster any self-pity? Eager to put more oomph into your presentations? Good; my job is done.

The Very Model of a Modern Major Author I

Olaudah Equiano, aka Gustavus Vassa

People are always talking about how the publishing world has changed, with authors in particular bemoaning how much better it was in The Old Days. Which is true, especially when it comes to editing and proofreading (my pet peeve).

And yet some things are very much the same.

As illustration, please allow me to introduce two outstandingly successful authors, from the 18th and 19th century respectively, who practiced--nay, invented--the basic tenets of Book Promotion 101.

First, I give you former enslaved African turned Englishman Olaudah Equiano (c.1745-1797). In 1789, after years as a globetrotting seaman, he became a bestselling author with his abolitionist autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African. Written by Himself.

Scholar Brycchan Carey notes, in his Olaudah Equiano: A Critical Biography, that the Interesting Narrative was "one of over a hundred books to appear that year on the subject of slavery." That's hefty competition, particularly when you consider that there were exponentially fewer books published then, with exponentially fewer people able to read--much less buy--them. Plus there was a bit of distraction later that year in the way of bloody news from France.

But Equiano, who had saved to purchase his freedom, was a savvy, literate businessman. He wrote his own book, unlike other slave narrators, whose stories were transcribed and published by whites (who probably took a lion's share of the profits).

Ye modern authors, take notes on how Equiano (Vassa was his cruelly ironic slave name) built his name as a writer, and published and promoted his book.

Per a Feb 2006 Washington Post review of Vincent Carretta's EQUIANO, THE AFRICAN: Biography of a Self-Made Man by Mary Frances Berry:

Taking advantage of 18th-century newspapers' demands for copy, Vassa began his writing career by publishing letters and book reviews and became acquainted with leading anti-slave-trade advocates of the day....

In 1788, Vassa began soliciting buyers for his forthcoming book, identifying himself publicly for the first time as Olaudah Equiano. He made the strategic decision to self-publish and organized a subscribers' list. Unusual for the period, he required partial payment in advance. He also kept and registered the copyright. Advertisements for the two-volume edition appeared in May 1789, just when debates over the slave trade, which had been overshadowed by the illness of King George III, regained prominence.

The cover -- with a portrait of Vassa by William Denton, a reputable painter -- depicted him not as a savage but dressed as an English gentleman....By looking directly out at readers, Equiano, their moral equal if not their superior, gives an impression of a man of the world, at ease in his own skin....

Vassa traveled throughout Britain promoting the book and the abolition cause. International booksellers also informed American readers. He became the African spokesman in debates on the slave trade. Reviews were generally favorable, and sales grew.

Over the next few years, through nine editions of the book, newspaper printers and publishers, the royal family and socially and politically prominent figures in the trades and the arts all eagerly became subscribers.... Since Vassa was his own publisher, he enjoyed complete control over what went into subsequent editions. His marriage to an Englishwoman, Susanna Cullen, and the birth of their two daughters, Ann Mary and Joanna, extended the story of his success.

As his own publisher, Vassa kept the book's entire and considerable profit. By February 1792 [two months before he married--I wonder what sort of dowry his wife brought?], he was able to lend today's equivalent of $35,000 and could afford to lose it when the debtor defaulted. He also routinely subscribed to antislavery writings of other authors.

Per Carey (emphasis mine):

He managed to convince many very important people to pay in advance for his book, a list which starts with the Prince of Wales and includes no less than eight dukes. Equiano's book is different in another way too. Equiano did not just publish the book and leave it to fend for itself. Instead, he vigorously promoted it by going on lecture tours around England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and by promoting his book he was also promoting the idea of abolition of slavery. Indeed, it was local abolition committees who arranged the lectures and readings at which he was present....

Equiano died a famous and wealthy man in 1797, though his marital success story ended with him widowed with two little children. Ann Mary died shortly after he did. Joanna, just two when she was orphaned, lived to inherit "a substantial estate of £950 from her father" (about £100,000 today) when she came of age in 1816.

There's a sad and interesting tale: What would life have been like for a mixed-race orphan girl of independent means growing up in England during the Napoleonic wars? Thackeray's Vanity Fair, set during that era, mocks Miss Swartz, a "woolly-headed" mulatto heiress from St. Kitts. (I wonder whether Joanna read Jane Austen...)

Connecting the Dots to "That Pink Lady"

On a recent episode of "Mad Men," one of the characters mentions Dick Nixon's defeat of "that pink lady."

My reaction: "Huh?"

Darling Husband told me that Nixon had won his first election in California by painting his female rival as a Communist, but couldn't remember any details.

I filed that away in the "Tidbits" section of my brain. Then I was reading the NYT over breakfast this morning, and in the middle of an article on newly colorized films on DVD, I hit this nugget about the 1935 movie "She":

To incarnate She (who in the novel is called Ayesha), [producer Merian C.] Cooper cast a well-known Broadway actress, Helen Gahagan, whose first and last film this was. The wife of the actor Melvyn Douglas, she turned to politics and served three terms in the House of Representatives before she was defeated in a 1950 Senate race by a young Richard M. Nixon in a notorious red-baiting campaign.

Aha!

And then I remembered another tidbit I'd filed away: in a 1971 NYT interview, my father had railed against Nixon and "the scurrilous persecution of Helen Gahagan Douglas.”

AHA!

A Google search turned up Helen Gahagan Dougles Online, which includes this:

She served in the House for three terms until 1950, when she sought the Senate seat held by Sheridan Downey.

After a particularly nasty primary she faced Republican Congressman Richard Nixon in the general election. The campaign was destined to be one of the nation's most famous--and infamous. Nixon, waging an inspiring red-baiting campaign, was unrelenting in his charges. If he never actually called her a communist, saying she was "pink right down to her underwear" was not a fashion critique. His legions were yet less restrained. Murray Chotiner, Nixon's campaign manager, printed an infamous flyer that was handed out at rallies. Printed on pink paper (and, thus, forever known as the "pink sheet"), it more than implied a connection between Douglas and communism.

AHA!!!

Firewater!

Lee Marvin in "Cat Ballou"

This morning I went for docent training at Four Mile Historical Park, home of my new boyfriends. Four Mile House, built in 1859, is the oldest surviving house in Denver, though technically it was outside Denver--four miles away, in fact--when it was built. There were older buildings in the area, but they were swept away in the great flood of 1864.

Four Mile's second owner was one Mary Cawker, a widow who purchased the house in 1860 at age 47. Her moonshiner husband having died of TB in Wisconsin, Mary made the trip to the Colorado Territory with her teenage son and daughter. She soon had a thriving business serving the stage lines that stopped at Four Mile House.

One of Mary's profitable products, I learned today, was whisky--better and more accurately known as "Taos lightning." She cooked it up herself; the ingredients were:

• Equal parts 180-proof grain alcohol and water
• For flavor:
  • chili peppers (perhaps from New Mexico)
    
  • tannin bark (some sort of tree root; tasted like sassafras)
  • gunpowder(!)
  • strychnine (!!)
• For color: grasshoppers; or if unavailable, cigar stubs

And you thought bathtub gin was nasty!

We weren't told whether Mary drank her own brew. I rather think not, as she lived to move to New Mexico (impelled by the 1864 flood) and then California, where she ended her days.