Friday, December 18, 2009

Lewis Tooker Hutton II

Lewis Tooker Hutton II (b. December 29, 1904; d. May 10th, 1953) as remembered by his daughter Joan Tooker Hutton [Landis] and his son Lewis T. Hutton III
 Lewis Tooker Hutton II (from Mag) 1929?
 

Jessie Eunice Stewart [Hutton] with Lewis T. II
 Lewis Tooker Hutton II with Mikey, his beloved Irish setter. (Kit Foster on January 5, 2010)

Jesse Eunice Stewart [Hutton] b. 6 August 1869: Lewis Hutton II (left) and Andy

My grandparents on the paternal side were Jessie Eunice Stewart and Lewis Tooker Hutton. I never knew either of them. Jessie was the daughter of Lachlan Stewart (born in 1853 in Greenock, Scotland and died on June 22 in Newburgh, N.Y.) Jessie was born on August 6, 1869, in Newburgh and died on April 12, 1927 in Morristown, N.J. Her application for membership in the DAR is folded up in the Lyon Memorial (which I am leaving to Joshua, our historian.) Jessie married Lewis Tooker Hutton who was born on January 25 in New York City and died on October 20, 1914 in Morristown. They had two sons, Andrew and Lewis Tooker. We do not have any pictures of Jesse's husband Lewis.

I heard that Jessie died of a carbuncle on her neck. I also heard from a second cousin, Mary Stewart Hafer, that the Huttons were related to the wealthy branch of that family in NYC. Mr. Hutton never worked and was left three different inheritances of $60,000 each but ran through them with ease. He was also very kind and liked by the Stewarts. (I’ll quote from a few letters about the Huttons when I can see better.)

I remember Uncle Andy quite vividly. I always thought him very pretentious. He wore a black homburg hat and ascots and used such phrases as “As my memory serves me." His wife was Ruth. They had one daughter also named Ruth who committed suicide at age 16. I don’t know if she was from a former marriage of Ruth’s or not. I never met her. There is a sweet, sad letter from Andy in the Lyons Memorial written to my mother when my father died. He mentions “little Lewis” in it, the only time I find the half-brother reified in print! [Joan made contact with her half-brother Lewis Tooker Hutton III for the first time at New Year's 2010 only a week after this post was written. (Josh L.)] Andy called me in NYC before I went to Paris in l953 and said he was leaving me the other half of the Hutton china. That is the set with the flowers painted on each dish by Joan Tooker Hutton for whom I am named. I don’t know what happened to it, perhaps he sold it.

My father, Lewis Tooker Hutton II was born on December 29, 1904. I know he went to Morristown schools as he had Ms. Tindall in the fifth grade as I did years later. She told me that he was a terrible student and that she often sat him in the corner on a stool with a dunce’s hat on his head. He was obviously severely dyslectic and could hardly read or write. He was sent to Blackstone Military Academy and ran away from it and all other schools. He never graduated from high school. How he met my mother, I do not know. They married in Morristown 19 June 1929. I was born in April of 1930. They went to Niagara Falls and Elizabethtown for their honeymoon. My mother told me that she knew from the first night that her marriage had been a mistake. They lived in a house on Burnham Park. (Picture of Lewis in a big raccoon coat.) Then in an apt. on Washington St., which I vaguely recall. I remember jumping up and down in my crib and blocking the door.

I don’t know what sorts of jobs, if any, he had at at his time. He was very dapper and many thought him handsome, He had dark red wavy hair. We moved to New Paltz, N.Y. when I was about two or three. His rich uncle, Samuel Stewart, tried to help him with employment (see stanza two of “Addresses.”) I don’t know what went wrong but we moved back to Morristown, probably to 99 Franklin St.

Lewis took jobs as a policeman, detective, milkman, car salesman. None lasted very long. He loved to go hunting and adored his dogs, especially Mikey, an Irish setter. He spent whatever it took to care for Mikey when he got sick which was often. He was sometimes part of Sunday night gatherings of the Fosters and would even play charades and games sometimes. When I was in third grade, we moved to 3 Conklin Ave., Morristown’s model house. (The banker who came to see this investment was Edgar B. Landis of the Chemical Bank. He also signed the checks from a trust fund that kept us from starving during the thirties.)

Lewis could be very funny and charming if he wanted to be. He knew many jokes. He was also obnoxious and embarrassing. He once walked into mother's bridge group in his long johns. He went on binges of drinking. I am sure he was seeing other women. He brought one home one day and I remember finding my mother and father and this strange person all sitting on the side lawn as if enjoying tea.

Once, he went to work for the WPA, digging ditches. He would tell us stories of men who brought pork chop sandwiches for lunch and one who would eat even the bones. Lewis had false teeth and when he would sneeze, they sometimes flew across the room. He took lots of laxatives and antacids too. Finally, in l942, he flew off to Reno to try for a divorce. Then, mother and I went to Florida for several months to get one. Lewis joined the Navy at some point and then married a women who worked in a factory in Picatinny.

They had a son named Lewis Tooker, I think. I remember when he called mother to tell her, she called him “you rat!” He said he was going to leave the whole trust fund of $50.000 to me but he never did that so I shared it with the brother I never saw or wanted to meet. After the divorce, I don’t think I saw him again. He did keep in touch with Mother and once visited her in New Haven. He may have married two more times. He moved to Florida. I found an obituary in a letter from Andrew Hutton which says that he was 48 at the time of his death and employed by the Dade county school system. (A janitor?) He was a mason, and so was buried in that ritual.

My father often infuriated me and disappointed me but how I wish I could meet him again and ask so many questions, explain to him the facts of dyslexia and how that shaped his life. It was at the core of his low self-esteem and his identity. How he would have loved to see his grandchildren. I have forgiven him entirely, I think.

Lewis II on the day of his wedding to Mary Riker (Photo sent by Lewis III)

Lewis II at his second marriage to Marie Riker [Hutton]

Lewis T. Hutton III (Joan's half-brother) wrote to Joan on January 2, 2010:
It seems our Great Grandfather Andrew Hutton came from Scotland with our Great Grandmother around 1830. He was, by the way, a Master Carpenter. I have various clippings of the census in those early years. By 1850 our Grandfather, Lewis Tooker Hutton I, was listed. In later files I found our Grandmother, Jesse (Stewart). It is all quite interesting. You [Joan] and I of course did not meet Grandfather Lewis but I was told when he moved to Morristown every thing he touched turned to gold. Addendum: This information on Lewis I seems to be incorrect, Mary Hafer was kind enough to inform Joan in 2008 that the gold came from multiple inheritance’s Lewis I went through. My guess is he had quite a time while it lasted and who is to blame him.
On January 12, 2010 Lew III wrote:
When Dad died Lucy (Lew II's third wife) sent the pictures that I have posted to me. She seemed quite nice. As my sister-in-law said, "Dad did marry nice women." I really don’t think he aged well. He was only 48 when he died and the pictures from Florida do not show the same handsome man we saw him to be when he was in his thirties and early forties. I was amazed to hear from Joan that he had false teeth, but, then again, Clark Gable, the king, had false teeth. When Dad died the story goes that he dove into the ocean when he was hot and sweaty and when he came out had a heart attach. He was also a smoker.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

George Wilkins Kendall





George W. Kendall

ca.1848



 George Wilkins Kendall and his three daughters. He had four children: Georgina (1850-1947), George William (1852-1876), Caroline Louise (1853-1899), and Henry Fletcher (1855-1913).

A native of New Hampshire George Wilkins Kendall was a journalist by profession. He was co-founder of the New Orleans "Picayune" newspaper in 1837. Kendall later wrote books chronicling his experiences with the 1841 Texas Santa Fe Expedition and the Mexican War. he moved to this area in 1857 and became a sheep rancher. His promotional efforts led to growth and development of the county, which was named for him in 1862. 
See other photos of Texas Historical markers about George Wilkins Kendall here

A molder of world opinion. His theme: greatness of Texas. Born in New Hampshire. Learned printing and worked in New Yori, Boston and Washington, D.C. With Francis A. Lumsden, in 1837 founded New Orleans "Picayune". Joined the Texan-Santa Fe Expedition, 1841, as a reporter. Was imprisoned along with other ill-fated members. Wrote a book on the expedition. During Mexican War, 1846-1848, often rode with the Texas Rangers, in world's first war coverage by a foreign correspondent; filed his news by Pony Express. In 1847 settled on Texas sheep range, at Post Oak Springs. Continuing news columns brought him in a single mail 300 letters from far away as Sandwich Islands, inquiring about Texas. During the Civil War, produced wool for Confederate uniforms, blankets. Proposed a weaving mill on Comal River for making cloth near the flocks. Received no government response. To keep producing wook, had to fight COmanches, range fires, freezing disasters. When roaming vandals threatened to kill sheepherders, he and his teenage son tended flocks themselves. To end of his life, his regular dispatches to the "Picayune" continued to praise good life in Texas. (1965)

KENDALL, GEORGE WILKINS (1809-1867).

George Wilkins Kendall, journalist and pioneer Texas sheepman, was born on August 22, 1809, at Mont Vernon, near Amherst, New Hampshire, the son of Thaddeus and Abigail (Wilkins) Kendall. He learned printing at Burlington, Vermont, and practiced his trade first in Washington and then for Horace Greeley in New York. About 1832 he worked for a year on the Mobile Alabama Register, then moved to New Orleans. There, with Francis Lumsden, he founded the city's first cheap daily, the New Orleans Picayune, named after the inconsequential coin then current in Louisiana. The first edition, a four-page folio, appeared in January 1837. A humorist, Kendall filled the paper with light banter that increased its popularity. The Picayune prospered, and in time became a powerful force for the annexationqv of Texas and westward expansion. In 1841 at Austin Kendall joined the Texan Santa Fe expedition,qv launched by Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar.qv Near Tucumcari, New Mexico, the expedition, suffering hardships and confusion, surrendered to the Mexican army. Kendall marched as a prisoner to Mexico City, where he and others were imprisoned for a time in a leper colony. The Picayune published twenty-three of his letters (June 17, 1841-April 30, 1842) detailing his experiences, and influential friends secured his release in May 1842. On his return to New Orleans Kendall ran a serial account of the expedition in the Picayune, and in 1844 he published Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition, a 900-page book that sold 40,000 copies in eight years. When it appeared in book format, much of Kendall's material had been plagiarized in Frederick Marryat's Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet. For the next three years Kendall's Picayune advocated war with Mexico. When the Mexican Warqv came in 1846 Kendall became a volunteer in Capt. Benjamin McCulloch'sqv Texas Ranger company, attached to Gen. Zachary Taylor'sqv army on the Rio Grande. He accompanied the rangers on long and dangerous reconnaissances and was present at the storming of Monterrey. Kendall's reporting brought immediate fame, and he was hailed as the nation's first war correspondent. Kendall next traveled with the staff of Gen. William Jenkins Worth and recorded Gen. Winfield Scott's landing at Veracruz and the subsequent Mexico City campaign. Kendall was wounded in the knee in the storming of Chapultepec. After the war Kendall sojourned in Europe for several years, and in 1849 in Paris he married Adeline de Valcourt. The couple had four children. There too, he prepared his second book, The War between the United States and Mexico, which was published in 1851 with a profusion of illustrations by Carl Nebel.

In the 1850s Kendall played a major role in promoting the sheep business in Texas. In 1852 he and three friends purchased and placed twenty-four Spanish merino rams and a flock of chaurro ewes on a ranch on the Nueces River, and employed Joe Tait, an experienced herder from Scotland, as manager. Within a year Kendall moved the flock to the Waco Springs Ranch, near New Braunfels, and acquired the Post Oak Springs pasture, near Boerne. He battled blizzards, grass fires, and disease until 1856, when he began making a profit. The flock doubled to 3,500 animals within two years and he found a market for his wool clip in Atlanta, Georgia. Kendall promoted the Texas sheep business in every way. He regularly described his experiences in the Picayune and praised the Texas Hill country as a sheep range. His merino (and rambouillet) rams produced a graded flock, and he sold rams around the state. In 1858 he began contributing an article on the Texas sheep industry to the annual Texas Almanac.qv When the scab disease became an epidemic in 1864, Kendall was the first to build large vats and dip his flock of 5,000. The postwar years brought prosperity. At his death on October 21, 1867, Kendall generally was regarded as the father of the sheep business in Texas. Kendall County was named in his honor. Kendall's daughter Georgina was a well-known civic leader in San Antonio and was largely responsible for the preservation of the Kendall family papers, which were sold in 1989.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Paul H. Carlson, Texas Woolybacks: The Range Sheep and Goat Industry (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1982). Fayette Copeland, Kendall of the Picayune (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943). H. Bailey Carroll, The Texan Santa Fe Trail (Canyon, Texas: Panhandle-Plains Historical Society, 1951). Robert Walter Johansen, To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.

Thomas W. Cutrer


Also see this from the University of Texas Library, where is family papers are archives thanks to Georgina de Valcourt Kendall Fellowes. Includes application to the DAR. In Box 15, photographs and papers are kept of family members, including: Other Kendall Family Members. George W. Kendall (Son of Thaddeus), Abigail Wilkins Kendall (George W. Kendall's mother), Caroline (Carrie) Kendall, Amanda Kendall (wife of T. R. Kendall), Ralph, Caslie and Grace Kendall, Helene Kendall, and Richmond Kendall (son of Thaddeus).

After traveling extensively in Europe and living in Paris, where he met his wife Adeline de Valcourt, he and his family moved back to the United States; first to New Orleans, where the family only spent one year, and then to New Braunfels, Texas, in 1856. About 1860 the family once again moved, this time to Boerne, Texas, where Kendall would take up sheep ranching and introduce Merinos sheep to the region. He died at his ranch in Boerne from pneumonia on October 21, 1867.

He and Adeline de Valcourt had four children: Georgina (1850-1947), George William (1852-1876), Caroline Louise (1853-1899), and Henry Fletcher (1855-1913). After her father's death, Georgina de Valcourt Kendall Fellowes took up the task of preserving the records of her father and attempting to publish George Wilkins Kendall's manuscript, The War Between the United States and Mexico. She also preserved the records of her other family members, documenting their lives at the ranch in Boerne. Georgina Fellowes provided access to her family's records to a number of researchers.

The most substantial work based on the Kendall Family papers is Fayette Copeland's Kendall of the Picayune (1943). Georgina provided Copeland with full access to the collection, and a lengthy written correspondence between the two also sheds light on certain aspects of the life of George Wilkins Kendall and life of the Kendall family in early Texas.

Georgina married Eugene Fellowes in 1873. Eugene grew up in New Orleans, but had moved and become a member of the Illinois State Legislature. He and Georgina had one child, Kendall Fellowes, who had a career in acting in New York City. The family moved to Spokane, Washington, for the benefit of Eugene's health in 1883. He continued to practice law and was a member of the legislature when Washington became a state in 1889.

George William Kendall, like all of the Kendall children, was born in France and came to America with his parents in 1855. It was hoped that the climate in Texas would improve George's health as he was never strong. After his father's death in 1867, George assisted in the care of the ranch and of the large flock of sheep. He died, unmarried, in 1876 while visiting an aunt in Vermont.

Caroline Louise Kendall (Carrie) was discovered to be unable to hear or talk at the age of one year. When her family moved to America in 1855, she remained in France with her maternal grandmother in order to continue studies under Dr. Houdin, who was teaching her to articulate. She was able to make herself well understood in French. She came to America after the close of the Civil War and attended a school in Jacksonville, Illinois, where she learned to read and write English. She died, unmarried, on July 4, 1899.

Henry Fletcher Kendall graduated from West Point in 1878 and spent the majority of his service career in the Eighth Cavalry. He was stationed to a variety of posts in Texas, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Oregon. He married Mary Adair Jordan in 1887 and they had two children: Adeline and William Henry. While being transported to Manila in 1902, Fletcher became seriously ill and never fully recovered. He retired from the active service in 1905 and died in Portland, Oregon, in 1913.

Adolphe de Valcourt was born in Versailles, France, in 1828. He was the brother of Adeline de Valcourt Kendall. He was involved in the building of the Suez Canal and fought in the Franco-Prussian War. Their father, August Poirot de Valcourt, fought with Napoleon and was involved in the disastrous campaign in Moscow.

Nathan Kendall was George Wilkins Kendall's great great-grandfather. His will was passed down through the family, however, he had a son and a grandson named Nathan Kendall, which, sometimes, causes confusion.

Edgar Kendall Landis

Edgar Kendall Landis: Born November

and is a decendant of

George Wilkins Kendall


Landis family in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, 1961 or 62. Joshua, Joan, Kendall holding Ethan, Chris

Margaret Agnes Foster [Hutton]

Margaret Agnes Foster [Hutton] was born August 14, 1902 and died April 7, 1984. She was the second child of Harriet Smith Edwards (10 June 1873 - 23 April 1943) and Harry Walter Foster (21 July 1870 - 15 December 1944).
Margaret Agnes Foster [Hutton]
Mag at 16


The Foster family - Back row from left: Lincoln, Eleanor, Margaret, Dudley
In front Richard, Harriet Foster, Phil

Margaret as remembered by her daughter, Joan Tooker Hutton [Landis]

My mother, Margaret Agnes, was born on August 14th, 1902.

She went to school in Roseville and later, in Morristown. She loved school and was always at the head of her class. She was supposed to go to Smith as her mother and Grandmother had but failed the physics exam. In those days you had to pass all four entrance exams. Instead of taking it over, she was sent to a finishing school in Bethlehem. Pa., Bishopthorpe Manor. She was unhappy there and did not stay the whole year. She also took courses at K. Gibbs School, worked for the Girl Scouts, was a counselor at a camp in Maine, helped run Kahdena and was often the family chauffeur, taking her brothers to Peck School, etc.

I do not know how she met my father. They married in 1929. We lived in Burnham Park, an apartment on Washington St., in New Paltz, N.Y., 99 Franklin St. and 3 Conklin Ave. (See my poem, “Addresses.”) Mother divorced Lewis in l942. We went to Florida and lived with Ms. George a friend of wonderful Mrs. Richardson who lived opposite Kahdena, and who helped Mother and me on many occasions.

Mother went to work as a secretary and finally sold the house and moved to Norfolk to help out brother Lincoln. When Linc remarried, she found a job in New Haven at a dress shop and then became secretary to Mr. Lawrence Babb at the Sterling Library. She lived at 69 Whitney Ave. Sometime in the fifties, she moved back to Falls Village to be near Bunny and Phil and Linc and Timmie Foster. She lived in a red house on Rte.7 and then moved to the gray house next to it, both belonging to Dorothy Haven, (Timmie’s Aunt) with very low rent. She worked for a Dr in Canaan and then as secretary at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville. She died on April 7, 1984, probably of an aneurysm.

My mother was an extraordinary person. She was kind, brave, empathetic, had a great sense of humor (even though she was a Republican), always trustworthy. She did have bouts of depression in later years but uncharacteristically sought help and rode them out. One of her greatest pleasures was a trip through England and Ireland with us and Ben Foster in l963. Another was her visit to Lebanon in 65. This is written up in diaries and an article she wrote for the Lakeville Journal.

In Lebanon, she stayed with us in Ainab on her arrival and held morning classes for all Dodges and Landis children in painting and drawing. Somewhere, pictures of this survive. She also loved the celebration of her 80th birthday with the whole clan in 1982.

I have just found an autobiography she wrote of her early life and will try to type it up for interested progeny. (Also, see my chapter in Women's Re-Visions of Shakespeare: On the Responses of Dickinson, Woolf, Rich, H. D., George Eliot, and Others. Edited by Marianne Novy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990., titled “Another Penelope: Margaret Hutton Reading William Shakespeare.”)

Journal Entry
Mag Hutton, 24 February 1972

Memories of my early childhood are vague and fragmentary. Some events are remembered only as having been told to me, others are live, and perhaps some are repressed - faded photographs show me as a baby and on through my girlhood but many of the occasions these commemorate are lost to my recall.

Newark, N.J. - 423 Fourth Ave

I do remember the house in Roseville, a suburb of Newark, NJ, where we lived for about 14 years. the address 423 Fourth Ave, the telephone #556J. The neighborhood was considered a fine place to live at that time with open spaces nearby, large homes on the adjoining avenue, schools, churches, stores, a firehouse, and all the necessary suppliers for daily living were within walking distances in those horse and buggy days. To go to the railroad station in special occasions we afforded the livery station horse and carriage but just for a trip to Newark, we took the trolley cars - a walk of about five city blocks. thinking about that walk several landmarks stand out. An old ladies home, "our" church, St Thomas Episcopal across the street from the Presbyterian one,
[The only Episcopal church listed today in Roseville is St. Barnabas, founded in 1852 and across the street from the Roseville Presbyterian Church. Josh L.]
 a tennis court, one of the first apartment buildings, and finally the Armory where the smell of tar bark and horses were exciting but frustratingly as we seldom saw the indoor of the building. Roseville Ave was the residential avenue of the neighborhood so most of the walk we passed lovely houses of friends and "nodding neighbors."
[About Newark: Originally the site of several large farms, the introduction of the trolley turned Roseville into a mini-city within Newark. Click here for location.Through the years, much like Newark´s Vailsburg, Weequahic and Woodside sections, Roseville developed into one of the city´s suburban-style neighborhoods. By 1917, the Newark News described the community as having "all the requisites of an independent community -- churches, schools, social and political and business organizations, the Essex Troop Armory, a Masonic temple, moving picture shows and theater." The heart of the neighborhood is at the intersection at Roseville Avenue, which runs north-south, and Orange Street, which leads to the Oranges and runs east-west.]

[Here begins an insert of an entry written in 1970, when Mag was 68]

I think I remember the man who came around to light the street lamps, the first automobiles and the smoke and smell they left behind. Butter, eggs, milk, groceries, the fire engine were delivered by horse drawn wagons and even the doctor arrived by horse and buggy - and how dismayed I was when occasionally a horse would slip and fall on the icy street. A character with a lovely full white beard delivered fresh homemade horse-radish, cottage cheese and in season water cress. How well I remember seeing him come down the alley between our house and the Pryor's next door with his basket on his arm to make his sales.

Our homes were lighted by gas, heated by coal, and cooking in winter by coal and summer by a gas stove. Therefor we had to have an icebox on the back porch which was filled every other day by the burly iceman carrying in a large block of ice on his shoulders and swung about by ice-tongs.

On the block where we lived there were but five houses. Each had a back yard but the one on the corner had a large garden taking up part of our block. I how I used to envy that lovely yard. To go to school we had a short walk but in the early days part of the way was through what we called the "woods" along a dirt path beside a high wooden fence. Most of my bad dreams seemed to take place in that vicinity. Our part of the city was partly country - a golf club, a tennis court and a large truck farm were part of the neighborhood. in the winter we coasted down a hill from the tennis court or on any street with a slope. In spring and fall we roller skated. I still can hear the sound the skates made over the cracks between the paving stones before the day of cement sidewalks.

Sunday School

We went each Sunday to Sunday School to the neighborhood Episcopal church just a block and a half away. I still have the Bible I was awarded for "faithful attendance." Each Sunday we were given a card about an inch square, then for four of these we received a larger one and I've forgotten how many were needed for a book or award. Each card had a picture either of flowers or a religious subject. Later I went to dancing school held in the parish house and how well I remember the first year end dance where I was escorted there by a boy.

Clothes

My mother had made me a pink dotted Swiss dress with a pink satin bolero jacket, which was tied with long pink ribbons in the end of which were tiny ribbon flowers!! But oh how embarrassing to be called for to take me home by my father and by my failure to say goodbye to my escort. I caused him to cease to be my especial friend - and I think he didn't speak to me again although I remember his name so well - Melvin Henry Mather Jackley.

Another fad of costume in those days for dancing school was a full taffeta skirt worn over a chiffon blouse. We carried our dancing slippers in an especially made cloth bag and changed in the rooms under the stage. It was for this dancing class that my brother Dudley arranged with out much success to furnish the music by radio. He hooked his home made set up to a Victrola horn but as this all was in the experimental stage of broadcasting music the results were not good. There were no broadcasting stations, just individual persons playing a Victrola over his own set. All sending was done in Morse code and received with ear phones so the occasion of music and talking over the air was a great one.

Two Scary Events

Two events which had a lasting effects on our future behavior come to mind. One day as a treat, mother took Dudley, Eleanor (still young enough to be pushed in a baby carriage) and me with a neighborhood friend to walk to Branch Brook Park. We picnicked by a pond and were playing around when some one screamed. Eleanor had fallen in the water. Her full dress had filled with air so as to keep her afloat. Mother stepped out to the rescue and sank down to her neck in a hole. Dudley (about five years old) started out of help. I screamed on the shore as I watched mother reaching for El and trying to keep Dud back. A man with a broken arm heard the commotion and with his help all were safely brought to shore. Vaguely I remember a feeling of embarrassment as we trudged home, mother, dud, and El dripping wet. forever afterwords, El was scared of water. Later when we vacationed in Milton and went to the stream to swim or go out in our row boat, El wouldn't go in the boat and tried to keep us ashore. I think she finally did go in the water but very fearfully. The stream had a muddy bottom and we had to examine our bodies carefully after our swims to dislodge the bloodsuckers (leeches) which might attach themselves to our skin. they stuck - hence the way we use the word leech today to denote...

The street at the corner was paved with cobble stones and the firehouse was near. How often we were awakened in terror as the whistles screamed, the horses pulling the engines clattered over the stones racing to a fire. So one day when I was playing around the corner with friends I ran home in fear as I heard that our house was on fire. There were the fire engines hosing through the upstairs window. Mother was visiting across the street, grandfather was at home in his room on the 3rd floor when he smelled smoke. He phoned (556J) the firehouse and called my mother. she looked across the street to see flames shooting out of the bedroom window. The story goes that Lincoln, then about 3 year as old and his friend Stewart had made a tent of bed clothes under fathers bed. Climbed on a chair reached the matches, which were on the mantle piece, and playing Indians lit a fire. in those days little boys wore cotton suits and the two young playmates could have seriously burned but for my grandfather's presence of mind. All I really remember is the horrid smell left in the house after the fire was extinguished but that episode served as a lesson to all of us. I remind you that matches were a necessity as light was provided by gas. Dangerous too as Eleanor supposed to be napping had turned on the gas jet, saved from asphyxiation when mother smelled the escaping gas, turned it off, opened the windows and got my sister out of the room. She, Eleanor, also locked herself in the bathroom and couldn't open the door. Only by getting a ladder and having a neighbor climb through the window was the door unlocked.

All in all the past 70 years I've seen so many scientific and industrial changes it is hard to believe. Developments in cars, radio, TV housing, paper products, airplane travel, exploration of the moon to mention just a few. Not including wars and weapons. What have we in the 68 years I have lived, in the name of freedom and progress left to our descendants?!
....
Two world wars - "to make the world safe for democracy," the Korean and Viet Nam Wars, the muddle in the Near East are not events to have lived through and remembered with assurance of a better civilization to come.

[This ends the insert of the 1970 record and resumes the 1972 journal entry]

All of this goes back to 1902 when I was born the second child in the family which expanded to six - four boys and two girls. My mother's father lived with us, a maid lived in, so we were rather a full house.

Arthur Mead Edwards - Grandfather

Grandfather, Arthur Mead Edwards, was an aristocratic, fine looking man of six feet in height, and as I remember him, gray hair and mustache, gold-rimmed eye glasses who seemed so tall. he was a great walker interested in many sciences, so he pursued this interest far and wide, collecting specimens of algae, mosses, plants, seeds, all of which he experimented with and studied. His microscope was much in use and we were allowed to gaze to our wonder at wiggling "creatures" and thing I did not understand. He had a large correspondence with many famous scientists around the world and his library was a vast one on many subjects. His interest in botany and related subjects was no doubt, inspired from his British uncle, Sir James Edward Smith, who had purchased the library and specimens of the famed Linnaeus and given them to the government of Britain thus starting the Linnaean Society which is still in existence in London, established about 17...

This grandfather was born in NYC 1844, educated at Columbia College medical school where he later taught. it was there he me, Emma Ward, a native of Newark, NJ, who was his pupil. She was on of the first women being educated at a Medical school. they were married about 1870-71 and lived in the house in Newark, the third house to be built on the original plot of land granted to John Ward (See Lyon's Memorial Volume) with Robert Treat to plot and settle Newark. The Newark Library now stands on this property on Washington Street.

My mother, Harriet Smith Edwards and her sister Eleanor Pierrepont, were born there in 1873 and 1875. As I remember being told, Grandpa was invited to be a professor at the University of Tokyo, Japan so he and his family set out sometime in about 1882-83 for Berkeley, California, where he would give a series of lectures before taking the steamer across the Pacific. The trip by train as described by my mother as she remembered it was a long and dirty one with many stops. Some of her most fascinating stories were about the dirty, smelly Indians, who pushed their way among the passengers. to a young girl of 10 years they must have seemed like savages as some cruel persons then called them. We must remember the West was being settled in the 1880s and the Indians were being fought and persecuted, alas. In my childhood I had a fondness for Indians and my brothers and sisters took Indian names, built lean-tos and acted out our parts. By 1900, due to several writers to whom we were exposed, attitudes had changed and the Indian life became romantic to us, i.e. Hiawatha, Burroughs, etc.

The two girls caught whooping cough at Berkeley and Grandpa, aged 40 caught it from them, suffered a stroke, so all future plans must be remade. To the honor of my grand mother, whom I never knew, she took her ailing husband and two girls back across the country to Newark, where she became the bread winner as a physician. Her sister Alicia Ward, also studied medicine and became an industrial doctor - never married and I vaguely remember he as a grand person. She must have impressed me more than I realized because when my brother Philip was two or three years old, I used to dress him in girls clothes, brush his blond curly hair into ringlets and call him Alice Ward.

Somehow it is difficult to recall much about my grandpa Edwards as he died in 1914 when I was 12, but I believe he had an excellent mind, an inquiring intellect and a great interest in the expanding and developing sciences. I do know he was trying to find a source of sap or other substance from which to make rubber. He predicted walkie-talkies and much else that has come to pass. Much I know and my interest in wild lowers and birds I must have picked up from him as his knowledge of the flora and fauna was really scientific to be passed on through my mother and to us her children. Some of his treatises on mosses, grasses, etc. are in the Yale Library.


My grandfather Foster, born in England, immigrated to Newark about 1871 when my father was a year old. I remember as he lived until about 1929, after his 80th birthday. He was not a college educated person but had a memory of many songs and anecdotes with which to amuse us children and a beautiful singing voice. He was a member of the church choir up until age 70 or so.

My other Grandmother, Agnes Perry Foster, too had died before the turn of the century. Therefore I never knew a grandmother and used to say to my mother that I hoped she lived to be a grandmother to my child or children.

Mother - Harriet Smith Edwards

My mother, Harriet, the elder of the two daughters was born in Newark, NJ in 1873, went to Smith College, then later to teachers college in N.Y. so she could run a kindergarten in her home. Her sister Eleanor about 2 years younger must have been quite different in character. I remember her as a beautiful woman always dressed in the best taste, and after her marriage to Howard Adams, lived in Baltimore, Md., apparently well provided with money. I visited her once in her lovely home and I recall being waited on by a butler. She apparently was more worldly than my mother, who took life seriously, always trying to help the less fortunate and who was quite religious, as her mother must have been as the altar in the House of Prayer, the High Episcopal Church in Newark, was given in memory of the Edwards.

Father - Harry Foster

My father sang in the choir at the House of Prayer, (also see this) as did his father and it was there he met and courted my mother. A bundle of his letters give me the impression that he was romantic. He realized his deficiencies (he was hunchbacked, was most neat and otherwise a good looking man) as to education and background, money and family. After a rather lengthy courtship, they were married January 25, 1900. Father, I believe was still in the jewelry business. Just when he and his brother John opened a drug store in Roseville, I'm not quite sure. I remember the store, which was not too far from our house, the soda counter and the red and green bottles (customary of all druggists) in the window.

Father's Businesses

Later father tried other ventures, one of the first to manufacture a hand manipulated washing machine, a one burner oil kerosene plate for cooking - a kerosene iron and a hand driven vacuum cleaner, all before electricity took over. He then took up making cigarettes with a sulfur tip that lit by being struck on the box that contained them. Two of the names I remember were "auto-light" and "monolight" guaranteed to light in wind or rain, this being before the day of safety matches, book matches or lighters. I dimly recall the Turkish man who bought the tobacco - Mercury Athanatius?. and believe it was the first time I saw a man wearing a fez. Then I believe father was a partner in a Bank - some trouble - perhaps embezzlement by a member - created trouble of which I was vaguely aware but knew I felt shame and apprehension as father might be considered liable and guilty. What really happened I don't know as I was too young to learn the facts. With two other of his brothers, Charles and William, father then went into the hardware business.

Morristown

When in 1918 we moved to Morristown, father was partly retired but in a year or two purchased a hardware store there which he ran until he finally had to go out of business after the depression and the U.S. entry into World War II. At one time father must have made money - perhaps before 1929 because he said that he was worth a quarter of a million on paper. Perhaps he invested mother's inherited money to good advantage - or the store made money for we lived well. We had always had servants - mostly colored people - a wash woman came three or four days a week and I remember how I used to love to watch, talk to and listen to one of them who was part Indian. Her tales were fascinating.

Cars 

Father bought a car as we lived a couple of miles from town and I learned to drive the Chevrolet. The principal of the High School and I were the only two people to park our cars during the school day in the old barn behind the school. Morristown was a town where many wealthy people lived so there were automobiles but most were chauffeur driven. This must have been about 1919 when I became the family driver. After the "Chevie" we had a Ford "Model T," a station wagon with three seats across, curtains with Mica windows.
 
1918 Chevrolet Series 490: Open-bodied cars like the Chevrolet Series 490
were popular due to lower cost.

Ford Model T - 1917

Because of foot pedals there were open spaces in the floor so water could splash through and in cold weather I was never without arctics on. By this time, I was out of school and my daily schedule of transporting the various members was quite involved. Dudley and Eleanor were the first to be taken. She to the 7:45 a.m. train to go to Newark to art school and Dudley who was then an electrical engineer at his first job to the factory where he worked from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Back home to take Lincoln to high school, father to his store and Dick and Phil to a private school - Miss Thomas' Maybe I'd pick up the wash woman and bring her out for the day. Mother usually went shopping in th emorning - another trip for me. Then pick up the younget boys and father for lunch. Take father back, meet Eleanor at the train later in the afternoon, later take the washwoman home, get Dudley from the factory and father from his store. If one of th boys or I went to a game at the high school or the movies or maybe it was a choir rehearsal - a cout meeting or some entertainment it was o the road again in the evening. Needless to say I wore out many clothes just putting them on and tking them off. I remained the chauffeur for ten years except for the six months I was at boarding school. Dudley went ot Chicago to work, Eleanor never could learn to drive nor could mother or father. As the youner boys grew old enough they were off at college so it all was mostly my chore. We had at times the  Ford station wagon (after the Chevie) and a Packard true six - an open car just useful in the summer.
 
Packard Six, 1921 

The road in winter were never plowed so if possible to drive at all in the snow with th e hard tires of that era we had to put on chains. Such a cold chore - the ruts in the road made by the traffic froze, making turning or passing a hazard. The chains broke but the mud guards making holes in them. If not fixed soon enough and one winter we couldn't drive the car for six weeks as even had to garage our neighbor's car as they lived beyond us up a quite a hill on a private road. The fact Kahdena Park where we lived was a small suburban area of five houses apposite a beautiful estate, the Gustav Kissell place, home of one of the millionaires of that opulent period with a polo field, farmers house, coachman's house (where I lived for awhile after I was married) stables, a gardener's house etc. See map opposite.
[Gustave Kissell, a NY banker, died in 1911 and left his wife Caroline Thorn Kissell over 1,2 million dollars. He left his sons large amounts as well. Across the street from the Fosters' house was the house of Charles F Cutler, who was often written up in the NYTimes society pages, such as this. A short history of Morristown states that in "1900 – many of the nation’s wealthy discovered Morristown and settled in the area, especially the four mile stretch of Madison Avenue from Morristown east to Madison. Some of the most opulent mansions were those of Otto H. Kahn, Hamilton McKeon Twombly, Charles Mellon, Eugene Higgins, the Frelinghuysens, Claflins, James, Allens, Wolffs and Kountzes. In the 1930's and the 1940's – the large Madison Avenue mansions were gradually demolished in response to the national income tax and to avoid rising property taxes, increased cost of domestic help and the rising cost of living."]

We, being the new comers, were not considered in the same "class" as the Halls, Cutlers, and Pawles. These three had more money and were not "in trade." The Halls and Cutlers having made money in the telephone co.

By 1923-24, I was driving one of the first air-cooled cars, a Franklin, but what a chore it was to start it on cold mornings. Rags soaked in hot water put on the pipes in the engine often did the trick taking up much time but finally some one installed a heating wire connected to the battery, which heated the manifold and gas to aid in starting. Another Franklin followed, a beautiful car, dark blue with dark blue broadcloth upholstery, a silver bud vase, its own suitcases which fitted in the trunk of the car and the body was aluminum so advertised as light, comfortable and using less gasoline.

School Days

After 65 years, I can still recall the books of my kindergarten teacher, Miss Dodd, the school room, and the location of this room. One of my memories of this early period of my training, (perhaps because I felt complimented) was praise for my ability to use my hands especially folding paper and making boxes neatly. Faces or figures of other teachers (this not always the names) come to mind. Discipline was strict and I'm sure I was a goodie-goodie as I can't recall being kept in after school, one form of correction for wrong doing. Nor being sent to the Principal. Fortunately, I liked school and was always either first, second or occasionally third at the head of the class. Spelling was easy for me and I doted on mental arithmetic. When I first went to school it was called the Seventh Street School.
Read about North Seventh Street School by clicking here. and its principal Thomas T Collard in Essex county, N.J., illustrated, Published in 1897. Turn to page 89.

Just about two city blocks away but one block was underdeveloped and we walked through what we called "the woods" via a dirt path beside a high wooden fence which enclosed the property of the adjoining piece of land a city block deep. Well I remember one large tree whose raised roots caused a detour in the path. Many of my "bad" dreams occurred in this woods. Later, of course, this piece of property was "developed". Now I wouldn't call it that. A paved street was made and an apartment house built so all the trees, wild flowers and our "woods" were gone.

Later this school became the Garfield School. [1894 - Garfield School erected (1893-1894); enlarged 1897-1914. See map] I remember a bit of doggerel about  our Principal.

A little bird was flying south,
With Lone T Collard in his mouth,
But when he found him such a fool,
He dropped him down on Garfield School.

Mr. Collard to me was a nonentity. He seemed with his black beard, pasty face and partly bald head to lack character and force. Entering his office by the front door was a place I never entered so how could I judge the man? Boys and girls at this date (1906-1916) each had a separate entrance and court yard, this we were not segregated in class, and we never entered the "front door."

I can hear even now the ring of our roller skates on the pavements, the clatter of hanging them on a hook in the cloak room and wearing our skate key on a cord around our heads. (We had no separate lockers in those days.) We also jumped rope, perhaps during recess so if we arrived early before the bell rang for classes. My outstanding achievement and one I never lost was my prowess at playing jacks. In the spring when th boys got out their marbles and the marble bags, we girls got ready our jacks and ball and the bag to carry them in. I was allowed to play marbles once in awhile with my brothers had never felt accomplished a I did with jacks.

After graduating from the 8th grade at Garfield School, I went to Barringer (sic.) High, quite a distance to walk - but a nice walk through branch Brook Park on Park Ave. to the heights above on which the school rose. Again I had no difficulty in my school work. Only two year were spent here as the family moved to Morristwn at the beginning of June 1918, near the end of my sophomore year. For two weeks Dudley and I finished out the term by bus, train and walking finished out the term at Barrington (sic). Though we had moved but about 25 miles from Newark, travel was not an easy matter. We loved our new house as it was larger, had ample grounds and lawns and was quite in the country.

Again I was happy at school, did well except in Latin and graduated in 1920. The country was celebrating the bicentennial of the landing fo the pilgrims so our graduating theme was patriotic. All I can remember of the valedictory I gave was the closing - an excerpt from James Russell Lowell's "Present Crisis" - ending with "footsteps in the sands of time." The graduation exercises too place in the morning, late in June, there I had to hasten to another school to take the final of four college board exams, one in physics. this I learned in August, i had failed, and to be admitted to Smith College, (mother's alma mater) at that time, all four comprehensives exams must be passed. so I always felt this changed my life. I must have been a most spiritless girl. - 18 years old that August, as I docilely accepted the plan to send me off to boarding school. Bishopthorpe Manor, Bethlehem, Penn. was chosen (by what criteria I don't know).
 
Front view of Bishopthorpe Manor, an Episcopal seminary for girls and young ladies, with several young ladies sitting on front steps, Bethlehem, Pa.
Black and white Postcard. 1911?

Side view of Bishopthorpe Manor, partially obscured by trees, Bethlehem, Pa., Picture postcard, Date: 1909? [Read this short history of the school written in 1919]

Mother did fit me out with a lovely wardrobe, hats made to order of dureteen, (sp?) corsets created and fitted on me, evening dresses, one a pink satin made over from one Aunt Eleanor Adams sent and another a blue chiffon made with a stylish harem shirt were included. I did assert myself by insisting my shoes were to be oxfords not the usual high laced ones we all wore those days. I even took part of my graduation present money to buy them.

I did not belong in such a cloistered atmosphere. My roommate wasrather stupid, homely and not congenial. I did make friends but something was missing. I did not fit in. My studies were easy and my marks excellent. Home for Thanksgiving bringing Rose Barr with me. Mother made it a gala occasion. there came the Xmas holiday. Back in January I realized how unhappy I was. We walked to church two by two along the side walks cynosure of all eyes. We were chaperoned everywhere we went.
Bethlehem Preparatory School, Bethlehem, Pa. Date: 1907-14?

We were invited to a dance at a boys prep school there in Bethlehem, nicknamed the "Angel Factory" as the students were being educated for entrance to the Episcopal Ministry. I had no social graces and felt I was a complete failure as one poor boy, too polite to leave me, was stuck with me sitting on the side lines for far too long.

At last my cries home must have been heard and considered for I was allowed to leave and return home in February. I never knew how my family felt. I was accepted and home-life was as usual. I was free. This was in 1920-21. I was 18 years old! I then took over being the family chauffeur and general help. Any further education came from my own efforts, reading, teaching Philip one year, and just living.

Looking Back

How difficult it is to know one's parents. As I reflect back I realize my childhood must have been in a rather good routine surroundings, influence I'm sure by my mother. She was well educated, religious, energetic, romantic (I believe) and evidently her family had enough money to live well. She was kind, charitable to many people, always took part in church work - but although she may have been sentimental she showed no outward affection to us children.

We two older children had a nursemaid and I suppose a cook or housekeeper. The younger children did not, as I imagine finances didn't allow that. I never heard gossip or loose talk. Never saw mother in a temper although I can remember hearing, after I had been put to bed, some arguing or loud talk between mother and father which frightened me, and I knew I prayed that God would not let them have a real fight. I was a timid child who hated fighting and it wasn't until I was in my teens that Dudley finally said to me, "fight back," to someone who was being mean to me.

Mother set a good example in her diction and disposition. I have her to thank for some of my background in pronunciation and grammar. Her background was one of an educated family as bother her father and mother were college graduates in medicine. In fact, her mother, Emma Ward Edwards, was one of the first women to be admitted to a college of medicine and to receive many accolades as a practicing physician in Newark, N.J. a "horse and buggy lady doctor." Naturally mother was sent to college, Smith in Northampton, Mass., where she made many life-long friends. She then went on to train as a teacher at Teachers College in New York and opened her own kindergarten.

The tragic (I so call it as it was never discussed) death of her mother in Florida must have affected the family severely.

Always religious, mother took an active part in church affairs at the House of Prayer where the alter was in memory of her mother. Father and his father sang in the church choir and it is there father and mother met and courted. I have read letters written during this courtship of about three years and in these letters they recount meetings at church, bird walks. (I possess an annotated bird book with dates of sightings) and family doubts about the engagement.

Mother continued her devotions and church work all of her life. she wrote hymns and devotional poems which father had privately printed. We had morning family prayers in the English tradition. every morning when I was young. We then had household help. Later these were discontinued as the family enlarged and help was scarce. We always went to Sunday School and Sunday was a day for walks or trolley rides in the afternoons.

[End of Mag's Journals]

Margaret's Wedding to Lewis Tooker Hutton II

Grandma Mag left an envelope with four wedding pictures (19 June 1929) of her and Lewis Tooker Hutton II. With them, she left a sad note that I copy below.

 
Margaret weds Lewis Tooker Hutton II on June 19, 1929


 
Stewart Gatter, the grandson of Julia Ann Lyon [stewart] and son of Mary Stewart [Gatter] was Lewis II's best man at his wedding to Margaret Foster.


Joan and Margaret in 1930

Joshua Landis wrote:
One cannot help but wonder why Mag married Lewis. The way my mother explained it to me is as follows: Harriet Foster had terrible rheumatoid arthritis, which seriously restricted her movement and made her last years a battle against pain and joints that would not work. Mag assumed much of the household work and had to drive her brothers around. She never went to college. At 27 years old, Mag must have felt that she was getting old and might miss motherhood. These were perhaps reasons that she married Lewis II - to get out of the house, stop being mother to her brothers, gain independence, and get wed. Evidently, she and Lewis - who drove one of the few other cars in Morristown - often passed each other and waved. He was dashing. They married. Who knows what he was looking for, perhaps a mother.
Mag was a wonderfully warm and kind person. I always loved visiting her in the little gray salt-box house she lived in on Rt 7, just outside of Falls Village, Conn. When Dad quit First National City Bank (Citi Bank) in 1967, we stayed with her for about 6 months, which I enjoyed very much. I hated the terrible public school in Falls Village, where kids still got ring worm and a number of those picked up by my school-bus still had out houses and were quite poor. The school was a big step down from ACS in Beirut.
But living with grandma was a delight. She took me on bird walks, nature walks and taught me many of the flowers in her garden, such as Johnny Jump Ups, Daisies, Lady Slippers, phlox, Hydrangeas, and many more. During a single day in May, we spotted somewhere around 100 different kinds of birds. I will never forget seeing a Blackburnian Warbler with her. She also taught me to knit, crochet and sew. She was a card shark and taught us crazy eights, hearts, spades and other games. I watched in envy as she did endless cross-word puzzles, completing the NY Sunday Times puzzle, invariably in less than 15 minutes. Us boys inherited Grandpa Louis' dyslexia so we could only look on with envy at her wonderful visual memory and all the word games it allowed her to excel at, such as scrabble, Jeopardy, and cross-word puzzles. She could remember any name or number from her past, a gift that Joan inherited but neglected to pass on to her children!
I watched my first football games with her. She was a big Dallas Cowboys fan. Linc would come over to watch with her from time to time, which was good fun. We all loved Linc, who had a biting sense of humor and was good fun. It also gave us a chance to get to know her other brother who lived in the neighborhood, Phil and his wife, Bunny. We got to know the Sinclairs as well, Linc's wife's children. I would always sneak downstairs early in the morning so I could steal a few minutes alone with Mag, as she drank her cup of coffee and had a piece of toast in the morning.
When I drove up to Vermont in May 1976 with Harlen Stabler, my girlfriend my freshman year at Swarthmore, we stayed with Mag. I was surprised to discover that Mag had moved down from her bedroom upstairs so that we could have the double bed. When I sneaked down the stairs the next morning to have our cup of coffee, I asked her why she was so liberal in her sleeping arrangements. She responded, "Why should I mind? I am only jealous because I don't have anyone to sleep with me." We laughed. That was Mag, kind, self-effacing, and sturdy.
Mag in 1936 [Photo of Mag sent to Joshua by Kit Foster on January 4, 2010]

Lincoln Foster and Reggie, his first wife (Linc is Mag's brother and the father of Ben): Photo sent by Kit Foster on January 4, 2010

Phil Foster, little Joan Hutton and Mag Foster [Hutton] in 1936: Photo sent by Kit Foster on January 4, 2010]

[Mag and Ben 1936: photo sent by Kit Foster January 4, 2010


Mag and Little Dudley, who was born in 1935. (1936)

 
Mag's interment in Vermont at Pig in the Poke, 1988
Ethan, Joshua, Joan, Chris. Grandma was cremated after her death in 1984 and mother kept her ashes hanging around for a number years before we buried her. We always promised that we would get a proper gravestone made for her, but didn't. We placed a marble cornerstone that was to have been used to mark the property line at Pig in the Poke on her grave instead.

She gave birth to Joan Tooker Hutton, her only child, on April 22, 1930.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Joan Tooker Hutton Landis

Joan Tooker Hutton [Landis] was born in Morristown, New Jersey on April 22, 1930 to Margret Foster Hutton and Louis Tooker Hutton.
  
Joan in Beirut, 1964

Joan Hutton

 Joan and Cousins: Joan writes, Jan. 5 2010: they are from Left to Right: Becky Foster [Light], little Dudley, Joanie holding Ben. Barbara Chalfin and Bruce (B.G.) Chalfin on the porch at Kahdena. Bobby and B.G. are the children of Aunt Eleanor (Mag's oldest sister) whom I called Aunt Nono. Bobby died a few years ago, B.G. was found around the time of the family reunion in Milton but is lost again. Maybe Kit can find him? Aunt Nono was Eleanor Pierrepont Foster Chalfin. She was married to Bruce Chalfin. Her children were Barbara Chalfin Powers and Bruce Galveston Chalfin. I have lists of all Barbara's children. Ben says this picture was probably taken in 1936, the year he was born.

Joan Tooker Hutton Landis
Written January 2010
Media, PA at 440 Osage Ln.

I was born on April 22, 1930 at Dr. Mills’ Hospital in Morristown, N.J. My first memories are of jumping my crib across the floor in an apartment on Washington St., of a small blanket I carried with me called my “rahrah”, and sitting down in a cold puddle in a blue snowsuit. Also, in New Paltz, being unfairly spanked by my father who thought I was running toward the road when I was only going to pick up a chestnut under the hedge. 99 Franklin St., where we lived from l934- l938, I remember vividly as an early heaven. We were often at Kahdena, my grandparents’ house, which remains as the imaginative center of my life in various ways, as the setting for novels, dreams, memories. (See its re-occurrence in my book of poems, That Blue Repair.) It was my palace with its many rooms, stained glass window, back stairs that led to a kitchen of warmth and good smells and a walk-in lilac grove where I spent many hours. I know we were often “poor” in t he 30’s but I never experienced poorness except through watching the tramps who would ask for food and work, and sit around their little fires in the woods nearby at night. I also remember being locked in our Ford car by my father while he went into a bar. I screamed myself hoarse for what seemed like hours. My first terror.
When I was eight, we moved to 3 Conklin Ave., Egbert Hill where I learned to play the piano (on loan), sled, climb trees, play complicated, made-up games and write stories. In l939 or 40, I inherited $10,000 from my Great Uncle Sam. The interest accruing from this allowed me to go to boarding school (All my diaries from this time are stored in a plastic box at 450 Osage.)
At 12, I went with mother to Florida where divorces were available. I remember the long train trip to Miami among many soldiers and the bright room I shared with mother in the house of Ms. George. The school there was very poor academically but the riding stable was a new center of excitement and I fell in love with Shamrock, a Morgan horse that I was allowed to feed, groom and ride. I detested the lawyer who kept pumping me about my father and as much as I disliked Lewis T. Hutton, I refused to testify against him.
.
Returning to Morristown, I went to high school, acted in some plays, refound my group of friends from George Washington School. During two weeks and then a month in the summer, I went to camp Mogisca where I wrote stories and plays that were put on for the whole camp. I told my cabin mates that I had six brothers and sisters and a twin. Mother helped me in this scam by writing letters to me from them. I loved the communal living and a strange sense of power which I felt and which I kept as a secret. People seemed to like me and depend on me although I did not know why. I tried not to be proud but humble and funny. My name at camp was first Gulliver, then Tommy.
(Photo: Joan with Beardsley: "This picture of Beardsley was taken at 3 Conklin Ave when I was about 13 c. 1943)
In October of 1944, I went to Stoneleigh-Prospect Hill School in Greenfield, Mass. I had been mysteriously rejected by Northfield (I thought it was because of my divorced parents) and chose SPH because of a horse pictured in its ad. It was not rigorous academically but I immediately loved it. I learned to ski, was praised for increasingly sentimental themes and stories, usually won the English prize and was President of my class in my senior year. I played Pitti Sing in The Mikado at Deerfield where Ralph Oatley, the Director, encouraged me to go into the theater. My name at school was Dusty.
Joan and Kit c.1944: Photo courtesy of Kit

Mother, during these years, had moved to Norfolk,Conn. to help Uncle Linc raise my cousins, Becky and Ben. We called the house we lived in Hillbottom Hovel. We were very aware that most of our friends and acquaintances were very rich and that we were very poor. Probably good for us. I began to smoke and drink cocktails with Linc and Mother.

I applied to only one college, Bennington, and was accepted with a big scholarship. I was a week late in arriving as I had a leading role in a play by Capek (“Androcles and the Lion?”) at the Mahopac Playhouse. (An actress had gotten ill at the last moment and a friend from SPH who was in the costume dept. had recommended me.) Bennington was, at last, the academic heaven I had always dreamed of. I soon realized that I did not want to major in drama, the Dept. was poor, but in English. Ben Belitt’s Language and Literature, Stanley Kunitz’ Poetry Workshop, Howard Nemerov’s Yeats and Eliot, and Proust, Mannn and Joyce, Franklin Ford’s Modern European History, Fred Burkhardt’s Methods of Science and Kenneth Burke’s Literary Criticism were all high points of my four years.

I fell madly in love with Bill Hudson from Williams, Tom Guinzberg (Photo on right is Tom Guinzberg who was an editor of the Paris Review) from Yale and a few others.

In the summer of 48, I drove to Mexico with Annsy Irwin, Marcy Tyler and Wendy Apple in a 1938 Studebaker called Puta. We stayed with Annsy’s mother, Peggy Regler and her step father, Gustav, and travelled to Cuerna Vaca, Tepotzlan and Acapulco where we met four guys on the beach, one for each of us. Mine was Tony Cobb, a married man on a trial separation from his wife. We danced in the moonlight and spooned and met again in Mexico city where we drank tequila and listened to the Mariachis. We four drove back via California to Philadelphia; one of the most glorious summers of a lifetime.

For non-resident term in the sophomore year, I worked for Bill Sudduth and Silva Mardiste, an Estonian displaced person brought to this country by Sudduth and taken in by Bennington. We went by bus and train to the south, giving lectures, getting publicity in the local newspapers and staying with friends of ours and of Bill’s. Our week in Austin, Texas was memorable for the chance to stay in a sorority house, be showered with clothes, cars, dates by those girls and be promised fifty scholarships for D.P’s. Silva was wonderful during the whole trip and in telling the dramatic story of her capture by Russians and then Nazis and her work in a slave labor camp.

During the summer of 50, I worked as the Girl in the Iron Lung, a traveling show that went to fairs, carnivals and boardwalks. When this was written up for the college newspaper, a group of girls accused me of dishonesty and asked me to resign as Chair of the Judicial Committee. I refused. There were many meetings and community meetings on the subject until finally, some of the faculty persuaded the girls to back off.

I wrote my senior thesis as a novella, The Girl in the Iron Lung, (It was later accepted by New Directions for publication but cut down by the poet Hayden Carruth and withdrawn by me as unworthy! Stupid woman.) During Non-Resident Term in my senior year, I worked for Mademoiselle magazine and lived with six Benningtonians in an apt. on 57th St. I worked with a woman named Ann Kirschbaum of whom more anon.’ I was also an alto in the Octet.

After graduation, I went to Europe with Annsy Irwin and Martha (Toot) Hornblower. We toured England, Scotland and Wales with a Yale friend of Annsy’s, returned to France (where Ann met Pierre Bourgois) had a fine stay in Villefranche at a beautiful villa belonging to a relative of Annsy’s and then went to Italy where we lived in a pensione for about $1.00 per day. When my money began to run out, I booked a ticket home on the S.S. Argentina which turned out to be an immigrant ship that went from Naples to Greece to Halifax to N.Y. I started out in steerage, got moved to the poop deck and finally to first class. The rumor was that I was having an affair with an officer who let me use his room and bath for showers, but that was untrue. I did have one (mild) with Rolando Zerlino, a nice guy emigrating to the U.S.

In New York, I worked for Macmillan in Direct Mail and lived with Mrs. Longfellow, grandmother of my friend, Kristin Curtis. On Feb. 14, l952, I went to a housewarming given by Annie Kirschbaum and her cousin, Mariana Amram. There, I met a callow blond named Kendall Landis. We talked for only a few minutes and found one another wholly uninteresting. Then, on May 14, I was late to a wedding reception for Pat Fitzsimmons and Danny Cardozo at the Fifth Ave. Hotel. I sat in one of the two empty seats at the reception and soon, that same Kendall Landis plumped down in the other one. “Are you still a banker?” I asked him with some disdain. We traded retorts and after the reception, he borrowed five dollars and took me to the San Remo for supper. That was the beginning of a long love affair that is still in medias res after 57 years. (Read engagement announcement) We married on February 14, 1953, at Millstream House, spent our honeymoon on Nassau and lived in a cold water flat at 18 Cornelia St. I worked for Grove Press for $25.00 per week and free books.

Kendall was soon assigned to Paris branch of National City Bank (now Citibank) where we lived at 18 Rue de Chazelles, an apartment we took over from Peter Matthiessen and Patsy Southgate, complete with car, phonograph and Martine Mansiot, a maid. We later moved to 9 Rue Brunel from which Christopher was born on August 14, l954, at the Clinique du Roule. We rubbed his lips with garlic so he would be strong and brave. He almost died of dehydration at five months but was saved by an American doctor, Neil Rogers, at the American Hospital. T.G.

Kendall was reassigned to Beirut on ten days notice. We were taken under the wings of David and Doris Dodge. We lived near Rue Hamra in Ras Beirut with a potato field in front. We loved it there and were unhappy to be reassigned to NYC after only a year. Kendall found and fixed up a wonderful apartment at 317 E. 10th St. Joshua Mead was born on May 14, l957. In l958, after several months of intensive Arabic lessons at Berlitz, we packed up again and took a freighter, via Genoa, to Beirut and from there flew to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In spite of amoebas and heat, we had a fascinating time there. We helped start a theater where we acted in Separate Tables, Picnic, The Glass Menagerie and Born Yesterday. Ethan Edwards was born on a home leave in l960 at the horrible hospital in Torrington. Back to Jeddah until 1962 and then to Beirut again. I became involved with the American Repertory Theater and starred in Something Unspoken, Oh Dad, Poor Dad, The Boyfriend and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (see the review by Caresse Crosby.) My first publication of poetry was in the Transatlantic Review. We spent unforgettable summers in Ainab where we had a long visit from mother and from Ruth Landis too. Our last post was in Morocco where we took a trip from Casa Blanca to Marrakesh, to Zagora, through the Atlas, to Fez and Rabat and back to Casa.

In the U.S., Kendall left the Bank, we stayed with Mother in Falls Village and finally decided to take a year at Wesleyan while K. decided what to do next. (We had attended a two-week alumnae seminar at Bennington in l965 which made education a possible goal.) We rented a split-level ranch in Middletown and all went back to school. I took all of Richard Wilbur’s courses, Poetry Workshop, American Poetry and Milton, and began publishing poems in The New York Times, The Far Point, The Cardinal. An interview with Wilbur was published in the Transatlantic Review. Courses with George Kreeger were also excellent. I began my Master’s Thesis, The Strategies of Joy: Modes of Transcendence in Milton, Emerson and Dickinson.

From Middletown, we moved to Bennington where Kendall became Director of Development and I, having turned down the Directorship of Admissions, worked in that office, finished my thesis and helped fix up our first house on Walloomsac Rd. I resumed my friendship with former professor, Ben Belitt and did an interview with him which was published in Midway. In the fall of 1971, I taught at North Adams State College in North Adams, My colleagues there tried to dissuade me from teaching Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist, too hard, they felt, for the students. I did and they loved it. Being mostly Catholics, they understood it profoundly. I hated to leave that job and Bennington where we had just started to make good friends.

In Swarthmore, I decided to go to Bryn Mawr and work for a doctorate. Fortunately, I won a Danforth Fellowship which paid all my expenses. I finally wrote a dissertation on Shakespeare’s Symbolic Geography and graduated in ‘84. My paper on Hamlet was chosen to be presented at the conference in Cambridge that year. I also published reviews and articles on Ben Belitt, Louise Gluck and John Peck in Salmagundi. In 77, I was asked to teach a course in Shakespeare at the Curtis Institute of Music. So began a new career which lasted for 24 years. The curriculum grew, I became the first chair of the Liberal Arts and helped in the process of attaining certification for Middle States. During my final year I organized a national search for my replacement and interviewed many candidates. The unanimous choice of the committee and the students was Jeanne McGinn. Hurrah.

Other highlights of the Swarthmore years were roles in the Faculty plays, The Drunkard, The Man who Came to Dinner, and Anything Goes for which I learned to tap dance and belt out the songs of Reno Sweeney.

In l991, we bought the house on Osage Lane.

We went every summer to Pig in a Poke, our beloved house in Granville, Vt. Tracy Winn, David Outerbridge and I formed a writing group that still meets as often as possible during the summer months. In 2000, I attended a seminar in poetry at Skidmore taught by Frank Bidart. I returned in 2001, 2 and 4. This was an intense and thrilling experience and one that gave me the confidence to think of trying to publish a book. That finally happened in 2008, thanks to the enthusiasm and willingness to take a risk of Kathryn Schenkman, publisher of Penstroke Press in Rochester, Vt. That Blue Repair was the occasion for readings in Rochester and Philadelphia and Swarthmore College.

I have not written here about my three sons or daughters-in-law, or my six grandsons. Needless to say, they are the real highpoints of my life Now, thanks to Joshua’s blog and family tree, I have finally found my half-brother, Lewis T. Hutton III in Rockaway, N.J. And am cleaning out closets and boxes in an attempt to leave my affairs in some kind of order , which has a sepulchral tone not really felt as yet.

Joan Hutton Landis in 2008 in Vermont

She majored in English at Bennington College, where she studied poetry with Stanley Kunitz, Howard Nemerov, and Ben Belitt.

After working in publishing, she married Kendall Landis and lived in Paris, Jeddah, Beirut, and Casa Blanca. During those years she wrote and published poetry and was active in theater.

Returning to the States in 1967, with her husband and three sons, Landis studied poetry with Richard Wilbur at Wesleyan University, where she earned her masters degree. During that period her work was published in small journals, as well as in the Transatlantic Review and the New York Times.

Landis continued her education, earning a Ph.D. at Bryn Mawr. She was awarded a Danforth Graduate Fellowship for Women. Her articles on Shakespeare were published in Hamlet Studies, The Upstart Crow and the Shakespeare Quarterly, among others. Her reviews of the poetry of Louise Gluck, Ben Belitt, and John Peck appeared in Salmagundi.
 
In 1977 Landis began teaching at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, helping to form the core curriculum, initiating both poetry and fiction workshops and becoming the first Chair of the Liberal Arts Department. She participated in Frank Bidart’s poetry workshops at the New York Summer Writers’ Institute in Saratoga Springs, where she was encouraged to work on the manuscript that eventually became That Blue Repair.

Landis’s most recent poetry has appeared in Parnassus: Poetry in Review, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry and Salmagundi.