Revisiting Vintage Family Photo

12x24 inches, oil and collage on paper

This is a work in progress, something quite different from my usual approach to painting from old candid photos, much brighter, more stylized.  The original photo is of my grandmother, Bernice Tess, and her good friend, Elizabeth Thompson. I have several photos of them and their families together at the beach, hiking, on driving vacations and so on.  But the picture of Liz and Grandma reclining by the shore has always tickled me.  My goal here was to drastically simplify the image, play with patterned paper for their blankets, and use color for decorative effect, rather than try to imagine what the actual scene might have looked like.  I still need to paint over patterned paper at the bottom, and add shadows under the women, and I am still trying to decide whether or not to define their faces more.  Right now their indistinct faces appeal to me.

However it turns out, I'm having fun.

Not So Big

So, I swore I'd work larger, and I lied.

This afternoon, after some chores were out of the way I sat down in the upstairs studio and looked at the bigger-than-usual abstract on the wall, looked at a pile of 5x7 inch pieces of "old dog" watercolors that were torn up and gessoed, and decided I wasn't in the mood for abstraction. I wanted to see what I could do with an old photo I bought at the consignment shop last spring.  A new dog from an old one.

I enjoy working from old photographs, like the chance to really examine them, find the parts that speak to me, and see if I can make an interesting composition.  What I found most touching in the photo was the joy I imagined I saw in the dog, standing on his hind legs, his head inclined toward the man.  I did a little study on tracing paper, and taped it into my notebook, making an effort to simplify and combine shapes.  I wanted the finished painting to be more abstracted than it ended up being, but unlike some of my recent efforts, it didn't hurt my eyes.

Maybe I'll try it again later, only larger.

Or not.

Then and Now

Painting over scraps of wallpaper, using old found photographs still holds my attention, and I think I finished up with one last evening.

The original black and white photo featured five people, but the two who caught my attention most were an older woman and a very saucy little girl, so I focused on them.

The process involves drawing the figures on canvas, then adding the wallpaper with a soft gel medium. I only used three styles of wallpaper this time, and I used a larger floral motif to tie the two background pieces together.  In the original photo, besides more people, there were houses, some trees, and a horizon line.  The horizon survives behind the figures, but nothing else.  I learned the hard way that being very careful to press out air bubbles behind the paper, and making sure he edges adhere securely is crucial at this point.  Once the papers are in place, I coat the canvas with a clear gesso, so that the ground is unified. On this painting I also added a thin layer of gold acrylic paint, which will peek through a bit later.

Then I just dive in, painting the flesh tones, the clothing, and trying to paint thinly enough that the pattern from the paper shows through.  A stumbling block as I went along on this one was the woman's left foot, which was lost in shadows in the photo, apparently behind the girl's left foot.  I ended up creating a foot angled out more to the left, distinct from the girl's, but minimized by shadows.

This is about finished, I think. I warmed up the skins tones, darkened the shadows cast by their hats, and added a background that is mostly Indian Red, more opaque near the bottom, more transparent near the top.  I like the results quite well.

A side note here.  The internet is a way to make friends that I never imagined when I was young.  Some people turn out to be nobody I feel the need to every meet in person, and others reveal themselves over time to share all sorts of interests and attitudes.  My online friend Monique Jacobs died recently.  Monique lived in Belgium, was a keen reader, traveler, photographer, and artist. I met her in an online sketching group and discovered we also knew each other on Shelfari.  Over time we began emailing, sending each other small artworks and cards, commiserating when life threw curve balls, and celebrating when life was good.  While we never met face to face, we were friends, and I will miss her for a long, long time.  Rest in peace, my friend.

The Kiss

I've been working fairly regularly on a series of 11x14 inch oil paintings, done over wallpaper and other vintage papers, and based on found photos from my local consignment shop.  The picture I found of a man smooching his lady friend appealed to me very much.  It clearly is a snapshot, not a studio photograph, and her grin is wonderful to me.  I tried to suggest a horizon line, and initially intended to only include the figures, but as I went along I knew I wanted more to the image, so I added a tree.  That also had the benefit of providing something dark to set off the arm of his white shirt and part of her dress.

The challenge for me, besides making decisions about colors for clothing, hair and so on, is how much background to include (there was a house and some shrubbery), and how much of the underlying papers to allow to show through.  I want the papers, because they not only provide some visual interest, but also suggest bygone times. 

For better or worse, this is what I finally settled upon.  It's a bit silly and sentimental, but I think it's also appealing.

More Recent Painting

Sled

11x14 inches, oil over collage papers

adapted from a vintage  black and white snapshot

I have been painting lots since the weather turned colder. Lately my interest has been centered on vintage snapshots, and finding ways to paint over various decorative papers - primarily wallpaper and old printed papers.  In this one the children's clothing and much of the background is painted over wallpaper with rather delicate patterns, and the patterns disappeared under the paint - more than I originally intended.  But the background pattern still shows through, adding a bit of interest to an otherwise plain area.  I'm not sure of the year of the original photo, maybe the late 1940s or early 1950s?

Thankful

It is Thanksgiving, cold and snowy.  At our house we're staying in, enjoying our warm and cozy home, reading, petting the cat, listening to radio music, and later on enjoying a chicken dinner.  It's just silly to even consider a turkey for two people - though when I indulge in nostalgia, I miss hanging around the kitchen and snitching pieces of crispy turkey skin and stuffing from the roasting pan when Grandpa, or Dad, or even my brother was busy carving the bird. 

I am looking forward this afternoon to returning to a piece I've been working on.  It's from a photo I found at my local consignment shop,  of three mature women, friends, standing with arms around each other.  I love their happy faces, their long flowered dresses and roomy coats.  I suppose that's nostalgic for me since I remember my grandmothers wearing clothing like that.  I'd like to call it The Girls With Grandmother Faces, after the Fannie Flagg book, but that's probably copyright infringement.

I enlarged the old photo with the scanner, printed it, and then drew the image on a gessoed canvas.  After that I added bits of wallpaper from a discarded sample book, and some old newspaper, and coated the entire thing in clear gesso, to provide tooth for painting.  The fun part comes next, and I am thankful to have lots of time available to work on it.

Distracted

Distracted - that's me.  I've never been especially good at keeping a razor sharp sense of focus, and now that notes in the mail - the postal sort of mail and the electronic sort - keep arrive telling me about deadlines for artwork, year-end dinners, meetings for groups, and so on, I find myself losing track.  This is despite two or three calendars and piles of small notes to myself.

There is is nagging feeling, am I losing it?  This week I had an event on all my calendars for Friday evening.  I did my hair and actually applied lipstick, and with my coat on looked once more at the invitation, only to see that the event was scheduled for Wednesday night.  Of course the invitation only listed the date, not the day of the week, or I might have caught my error  earlier. 

All dressed up and nowhere to go except the reclining chair in front of the TV news, to eat carryout pizza.  I guess it could be worse.

I recently paid fifty cents for this little snapshot, bought because I liked the way the child's attention was called away from her mother and the two dogs.  Did someone call her name from inside the screen door?  I like the mystery of it.  I also like the symmetry of the image, the mother with the large dog (a boxer?) and the child with the small spaniel.

I decided to try painting the image on a spare 11x14 inch canvas.  I gessoed over an old acrylic painting, covered the canvas with gray acrylic, then drew in the figures with charcoal.  After spray fixing the drawing, I used soft gel medium to adhere bits of wallpaper from a sample book and some decorative papers I bought on a trip to Italy.  The entire thing was coated with clear gesso, to create a ground for further painting.

After that, it was a matter of using oil paints to create the image.  It's not so easy to see here, but I painted thinly so that the designs and floral elements from the papers peek through a bit.  If I had been smarter I would have added the underlying papers first, then drawn over them.  I guess we learn a little something every time we try a new technique.  I'm not sure if the background colors will stay as they are.  The pink in the upper right was supposed to echo the pink roses in the wallpaper, but it attracts too much attention for my taste.

I think I'll let it sit and dry for a while, then see if I want to change it any more later.

Modern Motherhood

4x6 inches, oil on paper

Now that my RCHS presentation is out of the way, I am settling in to paint from a few of the vintage snapshots I've snagged from the consignment shop.  

I'm not sure what it was about the original black and white photo that called to me, perhaps the woman's obvious pride in her daughter, the two of them smiling in what I imagine to be spring sunlight.  Or maybe it was her hat, putting her eyes in deep shadow, and accentuating her smile.

Anyway, this little painting caught the moment nicely.

Canoe

old snapshot, found in a file drawer at a consignment shop today

Green Canoe, by Jeffrey Harrison

I don't often get the chance any longer
to go out alone in the green canoe
and, lying in the bottom of the boat,
just drift where the breeze takes me,
down to the other end of the lake
or into some cove without my knowing
because I can't see anything over
the gunwales but sky as I lie there,
feeling the ribs of the boat as my own,
this floating pod with a body inside it...

also a mind, that drifts among clouds
and the sounds that carry over water—
a flutter of birdsong, a screen door
slamming shut-as well as the usual stuff
that clutters it, but slowed down, opened up,
like the fluff of milkweed tugged
from its husk and floating over the lake,
to be mistaken for mayflies at dusk
by feeding trout, or be carried away
to a place where the seeds might sprout.

Orphans

I love old photos, especially candids, and spend too much time at my local consignment shop looking through pictures that come in as part of estates.  Usually the people in the photographs are unidentified, and I imagine the relatives who choose to sell the old images have no idea who they are, and aren't interested in investigating.  This week I found a couple dozen photos from a local estate, and each was carefully labeled and dated. These women, for example, were Dorothy Boynton and her friend Alice Clark, and little dog Billy.  Billy shows up in several pictures, as do some of their horses.  Boynton's family farmed near Emerald Grove, and according to Findagrave.com are buried there.  She was born in 1092 and died in 1991.

Here is Dorothy again, with arms around her friend Marion, probably taken about 1916.  I love the easy affection between the girls, and like the contrast in the way they are dressed.  Love those jodhpurs! There is something very sad to me about all these lovingly labeled pictures, cast off.  I can only guess that Dorothy and her husband, a man named Titus who worked for the Rock County Highway Department, had no children, or none survive.  There are photos of her parents, grandparents, siblings, the house and barn, pets, all images of rural Wisconsin life from the early 1900s.  All for sale to whomever finds them interesting.

I buy pictures like these, scan them, bump up the contrast and correct the image for spots and tears, and use them as reference in figurative painting.  But most often I have no idea who the individuals are - I don't for example know who this man with a rake (?) is, though he is probably related to the Boyntons.   But I like his posture, clothing and the way the sun hits his figure.   And I suppose I like these glimpses into a way of life that has passed away.

Grandma and Mom

8x8 inches, watercolor

I haven't painted in ages, most of the summer, in fact.  I decided the best way to get going again was to take an online challenge.  So I painted this little picture of my great grandmother and my mother as a child for Maury Kettle's blog "Watercolor Passion" - see the sidebar for a link. 

I'm guessing the photo was taken about 1931.  If course it was in black and white, and the scene was filled with a complicated background of trees and beach and water in the foreground.  I just didn't worry much about any of that, and went to the body language and expressions.  Mom looks much more unhappy in the photo; she never did like putting on a bathing suit.

John Alexander Pierce

Family history concerns grab me every now and then and take up all my available brain space and time.  When I found the old ledger of my great great grandfather, John Alexander Pierce, with records of his flour mills in Troy and Genoa, I spent a couple days reading, thinking, and then taking the old book to a bindery in Madison to have a new spine attached.  

The accounts are written in a couple hands, begin in 1880 and continue to 1910, though those are clearly written by his son, George Edmund, my great grandfather.  There are egg and butter accounts that have nothing to go with the mills.  There were loose papers inside too - tax receipts, and hand written treasurer's reports from the Sugar Creek School District #4.  All are destined for the historical documents collection at UW Whitewater.

The internet, besides being a black hole of time, is also a gold mine of otherwise hard-to-find information.  I found an e-text of the 1882 History of Walworth County, and this biographical sketch of J.A. Pierce:

J.A. Pierce. farmer and mill owner, resides on section 9; has land on sections 2,3,9,10, 16 and 21, Sugar Creek, and other tracts in LaGrange, Troy, an Bloomfield, of this county, aggregating 1,000 acres.  He has two flouring mills, one in Genoa, with four run of stone; capacity, fifty barrels per day.  The subject of this sketch was born in Williamsburg, near the River St. Lawrence, in Canada West, Dec. 11, 1816; is the son of John and Maria A. (McFarling) Pierce.  He came to Wisconsin in 1845, and settled on Sec. 9, Sugar Creek, Walworth Co., where he  still resides.  He commenced in a small way , with limited means, and has since accumulated a large property.  In 1857, he bought the mill at Genoa Junction, and in 1869, bought the mill in Troy, situated one and one-half miles from East Troy, and three miles from Troy Center.  He was married in 1847 to Miss Mary Chambers, daughter of William Chambers of Geneva, Wis.  They had five children -- J. Albert, Eliza, George E., William Austin and Guy R.  The oldest, J.A., married Anna High, and lives in Eden Dakota.  Eliza died in childhood.  Mrs. Pierce died in January 1870.  Mr. Pierce was married in Geneva, April, 1871, to Hannah Morehouse, his present wife, daughter of Henry and Mary Morehouse.  Mrs. Pierce was born in England.  Though not an office-seeker, Mr. Pierce served his time as town clerk several terms, two terms as assessor, and has been Clerk of his School District, No. 5, six years, was president of the Elkhorn Bank, Elkhorn, Wis., from 1857-1861.  Mr. Pierce, in 1853, imported from Canada the first wheat that was sown in Walworth County, viz., Scotch, Fyfe, Canada Club, and China Pearl.  He also, in the same year, introduced and successfully used the first automatic self-raking reaper ever used in Wisconsin.  He also introduced the first grain sowing drill in Walworth County, and from its continued use he attributes much of his profitable success in raising wheat.  Mr. Pierce feels keenly his disappointment of the Air Line Railroad failing to come to time by not furnishing him the long promised railroad, which has been for many years graded through his farm in Sugar Creek, on which was to have been a railroad station and depot, which inevitably would have resulted much pro bon publico, although he does not despair of yet attaining in the near future the consummation of that desirable project. 

The railroad was never built. 

I was interested that great great Grandpa Pierce was an agricultural innovator, experimenting with the newest technology of the time, since my dad and brother both sold farm equipment.  I was also interested that JA Pierce grew wheat, since many of the German and Scandinavian settlers in the area were mainly interested in dairy - as were my grandfather and father.  At one time, Wisconsin was the sixth largest producer of wheat in the United States - but the crop depleted the land, and it fell from favor.   My maternal great great grandfather in Washington state also raised wheat.

Even Facebook is a source of family history information.  A former classmate grew up in the house that JA Pierce built in the 1840s.  The building is torn down now, but a quick request to my friend resulted in a photo of the old homestead for my files.  

How cool is that?

Early Farm Transportation - a Few More Photos

I already had this photo of my grandfather, Earl Pierce.  I love the pose, with him tired on the wooden kitchen porch.  It was probably taken the the early 1930s. The other photos are new to me, found in the box of Mother's things I excavated from the basement this week.

Our farm had both a dairy and a horse barn, and I know they used horses for farm work up into the 1920s.

I had never seen this photo until now, and I am not sure what year it is.  I think this is a Ford truck from about 1919.  I know little about old cars and trucks, but I think this style was used for deliveries.  They had dairy cows, and Millard had a cheese factory.  Uncle Gene told me that Grandma Pierce sold eggs, so I suppose the vehicle could have been used for any of these.

If anyone knows for sure I'd love to know more about this car.  I'm guessing a 1919 Ford Model T touring car.  It must have been dusty and bumpy on that long gravel driveway.  

Thinking Those Tractors Are...

Earl Pierce on 1929 (?) Farmall tractor

Included in the stash of photos I found this week were several of horses, farm equipment, and old cars and trucks.  I've had an interesting time reading about early tractors, and based on that I think this one was a 1929 Farmall Regular, battleship gray with red wheels.  The earliest tractors were mammoth, and needed crews of men to run them, but after World War I they scaled down in size and price, and became affordable for smaller operations. This first photo is of my grandfather and his tractor.

Ralph Pierce on his 1940's gray Ford tractor

My dad had several tractors when I was growing up, but I remember the little gray Ford best, perhaps because it was small enough to ride on comfortably.  Our farm was set far back from the county road, and had a gravel driveway that drifted shut after snowstorms on a regular basis.  He usually could plow it out with this tractor. I remember being allowed to drive it summers to rake alfalfa.  I loved driving round and round the field, thinking thoughts, watching for meadow larks and red-wing blackbirds.

Ralph on his Farmall, probably 1956 or so

Dad had a larger tractor too, for planting, cultivating (pre Roundup) and harvesting.  I liked to ride with him, standing on the bar in back, which was no doubt dangerous, but was lots of dusty fun. 

Dean Pierce on the Farmall, about 1961

I like this picture of my brother Dean.  It's funny because now he sells John Deere equipment.  The picture appeals to me also because it shows the old milk house and the barn, both of which burned in 2008.

Do you have old family pictures featuring vintage farm equipment?  I'm interested in posting some here.  Maybe there is potential for some paintings!

The Poet at Seventeen

by Larry Levis

My youth? I hear it mostly in the long, volleying   

Echoes of billiards in the pool halls where   

I spent it all, extravagantly, believing

My delicate touch on a cue would last for years.

Outside the vineyards vanished under rain,

And the trees held still or seemed to hold their breath   

When the men I worked with, pruning orchards, sang   

Their lost songs: Amapola; La Paloma;

Jalisco, No Te Rajes—the corny tunes

Their sons would just as soon forget, at recess,

Where they lounged apart in small groups of their own.   

Still, even when they laughed, they laughed in Spanish.

I hated high school then, & on weekends drove

A tractor through the widowed fields. It was so boring   

I memorized poems above the engine’s monotone.   

Sometimes whole days slipped past without my noticing,

And birds of all kinds flew in front of me then.

I learned to tell them apart by their empty squabblings,   

The slightest change in plumage, or the inflection   

Of a call. And why not admit it? I was happy

Then. I believed in no one. I had the kind   

Of solitude the world usually allows   

Only to kings & criminals who are extinct,

Who disdain this world, & who rot, corrupt & shallow

As fields I disced: I turned up the same gray

Earth for years. Still, the land made a glum raisin   

Each autumn, & made that little hell of days—

The vines must have seemed like cages to the Mexicans

Who were paid seven cents a tray for the grapes

They picked. Inside the vines it was hot, & spiders   

Strummed their emptiness. Black Widow, Daddy Longlegs.   

The vine canes whipped our faces. None of us cared.

And the girls I tried to talk to after class

Sailed by, then each night lay enthroned in my bed,   

With nothing on but the jewels of their embarrassment.   

Eyes, lips, dreams. No one. The sky & the road.

A life like that? It seemed to go on forever—

Reading poems in school, then driving a stuttering tractor   

Warm afternoons, then billiards on blue October   

Nights. The thick stars. But mostly now I remember

The trees, wearing their mysterious yellow sullenness   

Like party dresses. And parties I didn’t attend.   

And then the first ice hung like spider lattices   

Or the embroideries of Great Aunt No One,

And then the first dark entering the trees—

And inside, the adults with their cocktails before dinner,   

The way they always seemed afraid of something,   

And sat so rigidly, although the land was theirs.

Found - Millard School Photos

Millard School in the 1930s

It has been a while since I've posted any family history, but yesterday I was digging around in the basement and I struck gold.  There was the tub I had stuffed with items we took from Mother's apartment after she passed away, not that full.  My thought was I could find a better home for what was in the tub and then use it to store the empty frames I've been tripping over up in the studio.  The frames are still all over upstairs, and I have been immersed in old pictures.

I grew up on a farm in Sugar Creek township in Walworth County, and like my father, paternal grandparents, and uncle, I attended Millard Elementary School.  Mother's notes say that my great aunt Dorothy Pierce taught at the school in 1910 and 1911.  Anyway, this photo was from grandpa Earl Pierce's album.  The school looked pretty much the same when I went there for grades 1-4 in the 1950s. 

These must have been the students in the Little Room, grades 1-4, about 1939 or 1940.  My dad, Ralph Pierce, is standing second from the left with his cap on.  The only other person I recognize is standing next to him, Barb Newman.  She was good friends with both my parents for years.  That's probably Hallie Moore to Dad's left, another lifelong friend. I suspect at least one of the girls is an Olivas, because they lived next to the school.  They had lots of children, a couple of whom were at Millard with me.  The third grade class of 1938-39 (taught by Elsie  Newman) included:  George Archamsault, Ralph Pierce, Hallie Moorie, Junior Rowe, Emily Sawn, Barbara Newman, Mary Helen Weaver, Marion Schumacher, and Jean McKinney.

Little Room (grades 1-4) photo in 1959.  Mrs. Dorothy Barker taught us all.  I'm in the back row, left corner, in the green sweater.  My best friend at school, Marianne Tripp stands next to me, and Juan Manchacas, the first boy who ever gave me a ring, wears a blue jacket.  The school population fluctuated seasonally as some of the Mexican children traveled with their families back and forth to Texas for agricultural work.

Dorothy Barker, me, and Ronald Stevens who taught the Big Room (grades 5-8) at a 2994 Millard Community Picnic.

I also found a pamphlet Mother saved from the 1994 picnic.  Someone (maybe Jim Pollard) had dug around in files at UW Whitewater documents room and found some old records about the Town of Sugar Creek School District #4.  Here is a sampling of old minutes and treasurer's reports from the school board.

September 24, 1866

 A.E. Green, Chmn.

T.P. Barker, clerk

Allen Loomer, Treas.

The meeting voted to have 4 months winter and 4 months summer school.

Voted to raise $160.00 for teacher wages.

Voted to have eight cords of stove wood -- let the job to the lowest bidder. ($23.10)

September 30, 1867

Voted to have four months winter school by a male teacher and four months summer school by a female teacher.

Voted to raise $170.00 for teacher wages.

Voted to raise $10.00 for the contingency fund.

Voted to raise $21.20 for wood.

November 21, 1868

To the Dist. Clerk of School Dist. NO. 4 of the Town of Sugar Creek,

Having attached all that part of Joint School Dist. #10 laying in the Town of Sugar Creek to School Dist. #4 of Said Town, We have ascertained and determined the proportion of the proceeds of the Sale of the School House and other property of such Joint School District due to School District #4 of Said Town to be $55.31.

Signed by:

Thomas David - Supervisor of the Town of Sugar Creek

Herman Taylor

Elisha (?)

Henry Stone

Sugar Creek - January 19, 1869

You are hearby notified that Marcus D. Barker has been this day suspended from the school on charge of Disorderly Conduct, imprudent language and for breaking into my desk and taking whips out and burning them. - C.M. Brighs - teacher

February 19, 1869

The following motion was offered and unanimously carried - Moved that a vote of censure be passed against Allen Loomer, clerk of Dist. #4 in Town of Sugar Creek for the manner in which he discharged or failed to discharge the duties of said office.

Resolved that it is the wish of this district that the use of the School House be let to the Debating Society for a debate.

Resolved that when this meeting adjourns to the 27th of February there will be a vote taken to raise a tax of ($600) six hundred dollars with which to commence to build a new school house.

September 27, 1869

Marcus Gray, Chmn.

Resolved that we have four months winter and four months summer school both terms taught by a female teacher.

Resolved that the District pay not over twenty dollars per month  and board for the ensuing year.

Voted that the District is willing that the Board Open House for religious services and for the Debating Society.

September 25, 1870

$15 dollar voted to purchase a new stove for the school house - the old stove sold at auction for $1.20.

December 27, 1870

Mr. J.B. Barker made a motion that the District build a new School House - carried by unanimous vote.

February 17, 1871

Motion was made by Hiram Taylor that the District pay Harmon Gray fifty dollars for an addition to the present site and sufficient to make the Whole and acre by the United States Survey - said land to be used for school purposes only.  

Carried.

March 4, 1871 -

Committee on proposals called on to report. J.B. Barker reported bid of $1500 for Brick house - $1225 for wooden building.  Voted for brick.  Note to include outhouse.

September 25, 1871

Motion made and carried that the old School House be sold to the highest bidder (sold to J.B. Kinney for $30.00).  The old Privy was then sold for $4.40 to H.L. Graves.

October 16, 1871

...that the School Board purchase lumber and build a fence from the School House to the Doctor's fence - said fence to be eight feet high and picketed.

...that we raise $16.00 for the purpose of getting seven inch Rusia (sic) stove pipe for the stove.

...we raise $6.00 for locks to the privies, hooks and wire for stove pipe and teacher's table.

March 2, 1872

Gave Mr. Davey a complimentary note for teaching our school this winter.

September 30, 1872

...we raise $153.50 to pay Dr. Gray hid demands against the District.

Voted that we have nine months school during the year, four months winter and five months summer school with a vacation. ($200 for teacher wages)

October 10, 1872

Discussion and votes relative to fencing school house lot - voted to raise $100 for purpose of building and painting the fence on two sides of the school lot.

Teacher for year - Lyman Earle.

August 31, 1874

Voted that we instruct the Board not to have any branch of mathematics higher than arithmetic taught in this school for the ensuing year - the smaller schollers (sic) to be taught by the teacher in person.  If any schollers have to be neglected, they must be taught by the larger ones.

This may be hard to see unless you click on it, but it is a loose sheet inserted in a ledger I found from g-g grandfather, John Alexander Pierce,  who homesteaded in the 1840s.  It's a handwritten treasury report for school district no. 4 in Sugar Creek.  The ledger itself is the account book for two flour mills and a creamery the family operated.  Looks like I'd better investigate donating papers to the state historical society.

Vintage Armchair Travel: Italy

Another consignment shop find today.  This stereopticon card from 1898 shows Saint Marks in Venice.  I love the scene of the lady in a hat surrounded by pigeons.  The scanner didn't get the caption, which says San Marco, Venice, Italy -- An Oriental poem in marble, mosaic and gold.  There is also printing on the back of the card which gives quite a detailed history of the place, a fact I somehow missed until today.  I bought the card because of our upcoming trip to Venice, and because I liked the vintage look at a place that has been a destination for visitors for centuries.

My grandfather had a stereopticon viewer when I was a child.  I remember playing with the cards, though I don't recall what views he collected; the set-up disappeared long ago.  Looking at the woman with the birds also reminds me of a slide show Grandpa Pierce's brother, Uncle Bard, showed us of one of his trips that included a stop in Venice.  All I remember was the pigeons, and an image of hundreds rising up from the square.  I suppose the canals and architecture weren't that interesting or familiar to me then, but the birds were.  I actually visited Venice for an afternoon in 1972, when a high school friend and I celebrated our university graduation by taking a six-week rail pass and youth hostel trip across Europe.  Honestly, it was so long ago, and I took so few pictures, that what I remember best is - you guessed it - the pigeons.  We'll be staying a couple days this time, so I hope I do a better job of paying attention and photographing.

Browsing through old viewer cards at the resale shop I see lots of themes: travel, history, culture, humor.  I suppose my little plastic View-Master was the technology upgrade of my 1950's childhood - though my cards were mostly about Disneyland and national parks.  I have yet to see the either the theme park or Yosemite (my favorite views).  Of course these old methods of armchair travel are quaint and outdated now, with the internet, glossy magazines and travel shows on television.  But I enjoy looking at these black and white scenes from the past, and anticipating seeing the actual building and pigeons very soon.

On This Date

December 8th and we are in for a big winter storm. People are out buying snow shovels, snow blowers and snow tires. I think we'll settle in for some reading (Winter Study by Nevada Barr is getting really good) and writing of Christmas cards. I can do some painting.

Lots of things have happened on December 8th. John Lennon was shot on this day in 1980. It was the birthday of Sammy Davis Junior, also of Mary Queen of Scots, James Thurber and Diego Rivera. It was the day in 1941 that the the USA entered World War II.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/

It was my mom's birthday too. She was born December 8, 1930, so she would have been 79 today. She wasn't a big fan of birthdays, but she did say that in 1941 the family forgot hers with the news of our entering the war. As a child she was not too happy about that. She's gone now, but I think of her every day. Maybe a little more today. Miss you Mom.

Hunting, JFK, Etc

Ralph Pierce, about 1958

Deer hunting season started this weekend and that always makes me think of my dad. He and his buddies used to drive up to the Rhinelander area every year when I was a kid, and stayed for a week. He only brought home a couple deer that I remember; I think he enjoyed hunting ducks and geese more. We had a couple little horns made into coat hooks in the house, and a tanned skin he said he wanted to get made into something, gloves maybe. But he never did. After he died in 1983 one of his hunting buddies admitted that they spent more time just walking the woods, eating out and card playing than anything.

He was gone hunting the day that Kennedy was shot. I was in seventh grade, sent home early once the news was announced over the junior high school PA system. I remember going to my grandmother's house and watching coverage on the black and white television set, the adults very quiet. That night Mom and my sisters and little brother went out to eat, a rare event in those days. We went to the Traveler restaurant and all had hot beef sandwiches. Funny what stick in a person's memory.

Today my husband and I went for a walk at Oakhill cemetery. The weather here is very mild for November, and we thought we'd look at the old markers, and visit the grave of a close friend. She is buried on top of a hill that looks out over trees, and miles of fields. As we were coming back to our car, a white-tailed deer, a young doe, bounded across the markers ahead of us. I hope she stays safe.

The End of the 1994 Interview with Grandma

Bernice and Howard Tess, 1960

I finally finished transcribing Grandma Tess's 1994 tape, made for me as a Christmas present. This last section talks about something that can be a problem with researching family history, the issue of names, nicknames, and name changes. So now I'm off to have copies of the memories made, and the scratchy old cassette tape transferred to a digital format.

Bernice continues:

As far as names go, our family changed names quite often it seems. It started out with Mother’s sisters who changed their names off and on during the years. And their families changed their names several times, the girls in the family especially, but not the boys. So when I came along Mother thought nothing of changing my name from Anna Bernice Adams to Bernice Anna Adams. And that only lasted of course t three years, then she walked out on my father, in the first divorce that anyone had ever heard of around the city of Hillyard. That was considered a horrible thing to do in those days and she was a fallen woman so far as her neighbors were concerned. So much so that she took me and we left with McLains, and she went to work as a practical nurse and I was (inaudible). But in the meantime we landed out on the ranch, as I told you before, and my name was once more changed when I was eleven to Smith. And it came from Anna Adams, Anna Bernice Adams, to Bernice Anna Smith.

Carol: That was never done legally, was it?

This was never done legally. But for all intents and purposes I was Bernice Smith again. I never liked the name and I was very unhappy with the change. But I had nothing to say about it. Of course I changed it myself when I got married to my husband Howard. We had a nice short name, Tess, which I always liked. It was easy on the checkbook; you never ran out of room. Easy to spell and easy to remember; easy for other people to remember.

And we had nicknames. Sherry asked about that. Howard was called Howie, much to his distress; he did not like the name. And I was Neecy to my little brother for years. Up until the day he died I think he called me Neecy off and on. Partly to tease me and partly because it was sort of a love bond between us. When he was little he’d cry in his sleep for Neecy, and I always came and he always remembered that.

We were close, perhaps closer than a lot of brother and sisters. We were not half brothers and sister, but all through the years (inaudible). We only lived thirty miles apart. He lived in Racine and we lived in Elkhorn. And he had six children and had a hard time. He (inaudible) school paying for their clothes, and trips out to Elkhorn were expensive. But we’d open up our house on summers and he would come out with the six and his wife Appie, and they would spend two weeks in our house while we were gone on vacation, while they house sat. They had a wonderful time out there and loved it. They loved Elkhorn, and they loved being out close to the country because in Racine they saw nothing but sidewalk and dirty places. So that continued on all through the years. It was a wonderful thing to have a brother, but I always wanted a sister. And in a way Appie filled that spot, but not completely. To have a sister was my dream, but it never came true. Having a brother was the next best thing. We made the most of it.

Oh yes, I must tell you about when we were small, along with the name change. DuRell was christened James Lemuel Durrell. Durrell was his third name. And he went by the name of James and Jimmy, short, until he was two years old. He knew no other name. He didn’t know he had any other name. All of a sudden Mother decided he was going to be DuRell, not James. So we all had quite a time adjusting to that because I likes James better than DuRell and so did most people. But Mother liked DuRell, so he was DuRell. But he had his name changed the same as I did. It’d be very different in this day and age. You couldn’t change around like that, but in those days there were no papers to sign, no Social Security cards, nothing. People didn’t mind if you did things on your own, without going through a lawyer. A lot of people lived that way, so it was very commonplace and we didn’t pay any attention to it.

I’m just about running out of tape so I should make of and of it here. I want to tell everyone what a wonderful life I’ve had, with all its ups and downs. I’ve still lived and loved and a lot of happiness. Some tears, but a lot of joy. I am now 92 years old and this year is 1994. I have a family of five great grandchildren, six grandchildren, my two daughters, and myself. We all live very harmoniously and love each other very much, which is more than can be said of a lot of people. So I figure that I have had a very good life.

I am about to say goodbye to you now Sherry. You’ve been one of my very bright stars, and I want to thank you for the part you’ve taken in my life, and I have enjoyed it very much.

Good-bye for now. It was nice talking to you.

Halloween 1957

My parents weren't particularly party people, but in 1957 they dressed up for a Halloween party with high school buddies. What can I say?