Saturday afternoon I opened box #9 of the 14 family history boxes I’m going through. In it I found this magazine page, torn from the August 1915 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. The portrait sketch of Miss Helen Hamilton was done by Harrison Fisher, an American artist born in 1875 in Brooklyn, New York, known for his illustrations of women.
Turns out Helen Hamilton was a second cousin of Tim’s grandmother, Allegra Hamilton. They were great-granddaughters of Benjamin Hamilton (1792-1880). Helen was about 19 years old in this sketch. She went on to marry Frederick Vincent and Allegra married Tim’s grandfather, Karl Rodgers. I wonder how well they knew each other, as Helen lived in California and Allegra lived in New York. I don’t know most of my second cousins.
This box is densely packed with newspaper clippings, correspondence, and research notes from Tim’s great-grandmother, Gertrude Hubbard. It’s going to take me a long time to get it organized! That’s okay, though, I’ve got a long hot summer ahead of me.
Meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying the cardinals singing in the wax myrtle tree outside my kitchen window every morning.
I found a copy of the August 1915 edition of Harper’s Bazaar here:
https://dn720005.ca.archive.org/0/items/sim_harpers-bazaar_1915-08_50_8/sim_harpers-bazaar_1915-08_50_8.pdf
Thank you! The picture is on page 4.
I’m glad that you have an interesting I door project for the heat of summer as well as the cardinals to entertain!
I finished my book yesterday. I tried to pace myself to last longer. But it was just so good I couldn’t put it down. Now I have to find another good read for July because I’ve read all of Paula Hawkins books! It’s hard to believe that we are halfway through 2025!!
I love it when I find a book I can’t put down! I hope you’ll find another one soon to help pass the time in what promises to be another unbearably hot summer. Do you have a library nearby? I used to buy books I wanted to read but now that we’ve downsized I borrow them from the library, but then I can’t mark my favorite passages when I do that.
I have an extreme phobia about being in a public library from my childhood school experience because the librarians scolded me for not comprehending the card index catalog. I never want to be scolded by anyone. I know that I should be over that trauma, but I am not really.
I also was groped in a Barnes & Nobles in Austin Tx when I was in my mid twenties which I reported along with many other women at the checkout counter. I volunteered to be a witness because I saw the man’s face. He was never found to my knowledge. But that incident ended my book buying for years. I told my husband when I got home because I was crying. It took over a decade and a move to Denver CO before I was able to return to a public bookstore.
I purchase hardcover books because I love the feel of reading a hardcover type and I’m a very slow reader because of low reading comprehension. My step father scolded me for bending a page corner in one of their books when I was visiting as a very young adult. I don’t buy very many books in a year. But I think it’s the best option for me. I love looking around at all the different cover designs and an assortment of topics and venues. Despite my paranoia, it’s a fun few hours for me to do. I will treat myself to a trip to our Barnes & Nobles, but will be very careful to keep six feet away from any humans in the store!
Perhaps I have book-a-phobia! 🫤🤭I’m giggling how silly I am about books!
I’m so sorry you had such a terrible experience with your childhood librarians. Adults sometimes don’t stop and think about how what they say and how they deliver their words can hurt a child and affect the rest of their lives.
I can relate to your fear of bookstores. Besides my childhood fears of dogs and spiders from frightening bites received, when I was in my 30s I was groped by a man who was delivering and installing a refrigerator in my kitchen. I was too shocked to even think of reporting him. But to this day I won’t let anyone in the house to deliver anything unless someone I know is here with me.
I’m glad you’re able to get to Barnes & Nobles now and then to enjoy looking at the books in spite of what happened to you! How do you feel about used book stores? I love perusing the shelves and imagining who might have owned the various books. Selling my used books was one way I kept my collection from getting too large, although it’s always been unwieldly. Often I’d come home with more than I sold…
What females endure… Those initial thoughts are “that didn’t just happen, did it!?!” The dialogue fight in one’s mind. Then the whole understanding that what should not have happened; Did in fact happen. Grief. I’m sorry you experienced this type of a men’s disgust that I did.
And yes, children are very much affected and impacted by the adults around them. The bad stuff and the good stuff.
I have gone into a used bookstore that buys and resells, but it didn’t interest me. I have frequently visited a couple of close Free Libraries in my neighborhood and have exchanged a nice hardcover for another. I have enjoyed some random books this way. I only have 3 books (hardcover psycho- thrillers), 2 books on CD that I have listened to a couple of times, and 2 books that my younger brother wrote and I love which I have no intention of trading. So I am definitely not smothered with a book collection.
I will look forward to a trip to the bookstore soon while Yorkie takes her noon nap!
So true, that struggle to comprehend what happened because it doesn’t seem possible and then wondering if my interpretation was wrong, which of course, it wasn’t. But it takes a long time to process… I suspect now that most women have had similar experiences. This was before the “me, too” movement shed some light on the darkness.
I think those free libraries are such a wonderful idea! They’re small so you don’t have to spend hours trying to decide which book to borrow! 😉 I’ve donated some books to some of them which were half empty, but I never found a book in one I wanted to bring home. Not yet, anyway.
That’s a beautiful sketch. Helen was lovely. I wonder about marriages like the one she embarked on, too. Different expectations then?
It was a different time but Tim’s grandmother was atypical. She didn’t marry until she was 28 and afterwards she kept working as a statistician.
I just discovered that the artist has page on WikiArt.
https://www.wikiart.org/en/harrison-fisher
How interesting! Both Tim’s grandmother and the artist’s work.
It’s fascinating to look back into the past, to me anyway. 🙂
Do you miss your outdoor summers? With the hotter days we’re having these days, a lot of days are being spent inside when I’d prefer to be outside.
What I miss the most is going down to the beach in the evenings, even on the hottest days, and feeling the sea breeze. What we considered a heat wave in Connecticut is par for the course down here!
My sister lives in GA, so I’ve had a taste of that weather. I can’t imagine living there in the days before AC, ugh!
I hear afternoon naps and sleeping porches at night were common ways of coping before AC. All activity slowed way down…
‘In the Heat of the Night’ comes to mind… as well as William Faulkner and Harper Lee, among others.
I’m not familiar with In the Heat of the Night, probably because I’m not a fan of mysteries. But I know it doesn’t usually cool off overnight down here. Sometimes it’s in the 80s when I wake up before dawn.
Ugh, not like New England at all!
Sidney Poitier starred in the movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061811/
Thanks, Eliza, I’ll have to see if I can catch it streaming somewhere.
That was an interesting find for you Barbara as well as all the notes you will be going through from the box. She is a very attractive woman and I like how she is shyly (or perhaps coyly) looking up at the artist. What a treasure trove of insight into the past that Box #9 will give you. It will help to pass the hot Summer days until you are able to walk without feeling like you will melt on the spot. I picture your spot where you’re sitting – inviting to look out as well as hear those beautiful cardinals.
Yesterday I was working out with resistance bands when I spotted two bluebirds in the birdbath, so I took a short break and got some pictures. I’m glad the birds still come for the birdbath even though we had to take the feeder down until bear season is over. I am grateful for all the treasures found and yet to be found in the boxes, but it sure is nice to get a glimpse of wild life now and then. For a couple of weeks we had a bunny under the front porch. He’d come out and run away every time we left the house or came back home.
That’s good you are seeing Bluebirds because you were hoping to see some when you initially put out the feeder. Do you still see the Mourning Dove? The bunny would be a treat to see. I used to see them at the Park, especially when the clover was out which is right now and they’d be nibbling away, not spooked by the walkers, so it must have been tasty.
I’m happy that I still see the bluebirds and cardinals, even without any feeders out. The mourning doves come around once in a while, and I am grateful for their infrequent visits because when they do come they sit on the railing and watch me. Once one tried the birdbath but I think it might be too small for them to make good use of.
Yes, that’s good they are still coming around and they’ll keep coming around for the birdbath in your hot weather, plus when the bears hibernate and you can feed them again – all the merrier for them and you. I like that the mourning dove watches you. It knows you showed it and its brethren a kindness with the food and water – creatures never forget who does them right and who does them wrong.
Yesterday a fledgling cardinal came around to inspect the birdbath, but he didn’t make use of it. I am looking forward to winter, not only to start feeding the birds again, but also to leave these brutally hot temperatures behind. Yesterday the heat index was 104°F! And the bugs. It’s such a shame because the summer is so beautiful and green down here but we can’t get outside to enjoy it!
Maybe that cardinal was afraid he’d fall in; I’ll be it will come around if it stays at a heat index of 104F – wow! I thought we had it bad here. Sadly this will be the norm and you and I, who enjoyed our early morning walks, will have to hope for a cool Fall or a mild Winter.
I see my neighbor’s Magnolia tree is in bloom again. That tree is old and bloomed every April/May once … then was done until the following Spring. This is the third time it bloomed this year already and these multiple “blooming periods” have been happening the past few years.
The bugs are bad here too. Yesterday I saw two articles on two local TV stations, plus on my local AM new station that ticks are the worst they’ve been since 2017. So that is no comfort considering the meteorologists all proclaimed “no worries about ticks in 2025 as that brutal cold killed them all off!” Not so. I will limit where I go, when I finally go out. I’ve not gone to any big parks in a while, taking my digital compact camera to Heritage Park and the Emily Frank Gardens as it is light and portable and I come home with less dud pics than with the DSLR.
The meteorologist on our local station gave us some interesting statistics on last night’s weather report. North Carolina’s average temperature has gone up 2.4°F since 1970, and every 1°F increase causes the warmer atmosphere to hold 4% more water vapor, which leads to a 30% increased chance of rainfall events. He said these extreme rainfall events are the new norm — I’m not surprised. And I thought moving away from the ocean might mitigate our disaster risk level, only to find out there’s a menacing amount of water hovering over our heads!
That’s interesting – I didn’t know that. The new weather norm is scary. We have these storms bubbling up every day and I prepare for them (mentally) and they fizzle out – but the worry is still there, along with the relief afterward. We have storms Friday and Saturday, bordering on severe again, so I hope they similarly fizzle out – at least the time frame is noon to 10:00 p.m. for both, not in the wee hours of the morning.
I have been watching a lot of the Texas flooding stories on YouTube and CNN on Twitter/X and it amazes me how anyone got out alive. Those young girls especially, but an interview with one mother, she praised this camp for the many skills they taught these girls – she herself had attended years ago, been a camp counsellor and done administrative work at Camp Mystic. You could not have known this risky weather for your move Barbara – but yes, it would have seemed logical that your disaster risk was greater in Connecticut. I hope you continue to remain unscathed by Mother Nature.
We’ll be thinking about those who lost their lives or their children in Texas for years to come. 🙏
Here’s hoping we’re relatively safe from flooding here on higher ground. I hope people learn to stop developing and building on flood plains. 🤞
I’m sure you’re right about that Barbara. And I read or heard that because it’s a flood plain they can’t get flood insurance. Seeing photos of houses and vehicles floating down the river was an amazing sight … no wonder so many of them never had a chance. I hope the bodies of those people will eventually be recovered to give some closure to their remaining loved ones.
That’s a really neat find. Must be very interesting to have all that family history to go through.
It’s very interesting and also very time-consuming. I’ve been at it for years and still find fascinating items.