"one needs not necessarily go to Europe" -- Lombardi visit the Yoho Valley

Smithsonian Institution, 1913

In 1906, Maurice Lombardi was about to take up a new job in Dallas after having been in Portland for several years.  Part of his contract with E. L. Belo company was that he would never spend summers in Dallas.  And so before moving to Dallas, he, his wife, daughter Lucy (my great grandmother) and son Conelious took a month vacation to the Canadian Rockies.  They stayed several days at Lake Louise and then went onto the Yoho Valley which the Canadian Pacific Railway was making into a destination as well.  They met a Mrs. and Miss Emerson on their trip -- it is unclear if this was intentional or just one of those fortuitous meetings of like-minded people.  Maurice notes that the Emersons were relatives of Ralph Waldo Emerson in some manner.  Once they reached the Yoho Valley, Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Lombardi stayed at the Lodge at Emerald Lake.

Library of Congress 1902

Maurice, Cornelius, Lucy and Miss Emerson went off on horseback with a guide to go up to the Yoho Valley and see the glaciers that created the Twin Falls.  The Canadian Pacific Railway had set up camps for guests to stay in after each day's ride, complete with as Maurice notes "tents, beds, clean linen, and an attendant at each place."  Maurice was most impressed with the mechanics of the Twin Falls.  In the morning, the rate of melting glacier was only enough for one fall, but by the afternoon both were falling intensely as the sun increased the rate of falling.  He clearly gloried in the adventure and used it to promote as the title of this piece suggests the attitude that not all wonders needed to be found on other continents.
  

Library of Congress, 1900-1910

The Lombardis of Valle, Airolo, Switzerland

My great-great grandfather, Cesar Lombardi, wrote between 1913 and 1918 a series of letters to his grandchildren (including my grandfather Joe Barber) detailing his life history.  These letters were published for the family and enough copies given to each family.  We ended up with an extra and was able to donate a fair copy to Rice University, which Cesar Lombardi helped found. 

Lombardi notes that he first lived in a tiny village, Valle outside of Airolo in Switzerland.  Not much seems to remain of the village based on this picture from a hike through the area:

 But Airolo itself is beautiful town, nestle in the mountains, and a regular on steep road races.

Young Lombardi's life seemed to pretty good to him in retrospect: he calls his parents "honest but poor" and notes that most people in the area had about the same amount.  They owned their house, some land to farm, domestic animals.  They had food, flax to make linens, and enough to keep them warm. Still, he closes his first letter by noting:
  "But we had no luxury—no coffee, no tea, and very little sugar—nothing outside of our own production except wine, which was served as coffee is in American families."

An interesting change, but perhaps if you are working very hard, wine can work like coffee.  In front of a computer all day, I'd be very sleep.  

[I'll share some more of his adventures in future posts.]

Doing History on the Couch

I recently gave a rather informal talk at the Historical Studies of DC conference part of which was was about Mrs. George R. Putnam hosting a tea for suffragists and part of which was about doing history research from home rather than in an archive.  I hope to write up the little talk on the tea soon, but for now, here is the handout I gave on free digitized primary sources that I use (there is one set that is only available to people with a DC public library card, but . . . your public library may have similar subscriptions).  Obviously, people on campuses often have many, many more sources available, but since I don't have that acess I left my list sorter.

Doing History at Home

Free Digitized Sources

Prepared by Lucy Barber, November 4, 2010

www.google.com/book

Digitized entire library of books. Not just books, many magazines, membership lists, college publications.

Can set data range.  When it sorts by date, it sorts with most recent date first which is not convenient. 

For pre 1923 research, set to “Full View only.”

Internet Archive

www.archive.org

Also digitized entire university library as well as other items. Better date limits, less books.

Digitized Newspapers

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

Digitizing newspapers state by state (does not include Washington Post).

Lets you focus on region if you wish. 

Date search is good.

Also has feature to allow you to search for words “close” to each other.  Helpful with names often when a middle initial may or may not be used.

Digitized Newspapers available with a DC Library card:

Washington Post

http://dclibrary.org/node/214

Historic Black Newspapers

http://dclibrary.org/node/124 (alphabetical listing)

Photographs:

www.loc.gov/pictures

Only portion of collection but allow quite good searches and can download many.

www.flickr.com

Many photographs, not always well described, not always fair to use.

www.flickr.com/commons

Place for bigger repositories to post photographs and to welcome comments that they can use to improve the description of items. 

I did warn people that a challenge of doing this type of research (which other people echoed at the conference) was it was easy to lose track of time as you find marvelous things that only sort of relate to your topic.  My example would be these charming "Russian" dances who performed at a New York City Suffrage Ball in 1914.  No relation to what I was looking for, but nice picture:

Source: Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ggb2005015317/

Or this scandalous DC suffragist smoking at the Chevy Chase Club

Miss Sarah Anderson, a Washington suffragist who advocates equal smoking rights for men and women in public places, . . . as she "puffed" a cigarette at the Chevy Chase Club
LOC: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004670186

Dentistry in Oregon: Dr. Sumner Barber's Activities in the late 19th century

Removing myself from the allure of romance in the White House to the practical reality of Sumner Barber who became a dentist in the 1870s after serving in the Civil War.  Born in New York, Barber received his degree from the Philadelphia Dental College in 1870.  He moved to Portland with his wife Ellen in 1875 and there set up both his dental practice and raised his family.

There is a nice sketch of him in Portland, Oregon, its history and builders, by Joseph Gaston on pages 71 and 72, but since it emphasizes his involvement in further the profession of denistry as do other sources, I am going to focus on that for now.  Of course, I cringe a little at the idea of writing about what dentists were thinking in the late 1890s, especially after I just chanced upon an article in which one dentist denied that teeth and their roots were connected to pain.  His suggestion give up on anesthesia.  Ouch.


Let's hope Dr. Barber didn't believe that.  The first mention of his contribution to the field comes in 1893 when he is one of the founding members of the Oregon State Dental Association. While other dentist toast to Dentistry of the Past and Future, he gives the one on dentristy of the present.  I like that sense of practicality already.

The next day, Dr. Barber is the first to give a clinic, which the Pacific Coast Dental journal reports on:


During a general discussion, the dentist engaged in a serious discussion of how to prevent infection.  Dr. Barber emphasized infections in the gum around teeth could lead to death, even when the dentist had not first intervened.  Since there was just a series of horrifying stories about this happening to a young boy in Maryland in 2008 or 2009, Dr. Barber was not wrong to point out the problem.  Though I am not sure the doctors all had a very good solution. In Maryland there was no coverage for dental problems in children on public insurance; I assume the same was true in Oregon in 1893.  It is encouraging to note that the last dentist to speak emphasized the importance of using boiling water to clean instruments.

Part of the point of forming the Oregon Dental Association was to unify the dentists; the Portland Dentists were already organized.  Dr. Barber was President of the Statewide group in 1893, and treasurer of the Portland group in the same year. 

And why did you need to unify the dentists -- so they could talk and learn from each other -- and make certain that the quacks stayed away.  In 1887, the Oregon Legislature passed a law regulating dentists.  Like many other professional groups of the time, then you needed a professional association to advocate in favor of good dentists and keep the bad dentists away.  Something we can all appreciate. 

A Romance Begun in the White House (perhaps)

I know that I have lapsed away from the most important habit of bloggers, to blog regularly.  So I thought I would return with a splash.  With a real romantic story, that may (or may not be true) and which I will probably not prove (or disprove) in this post. Conveniently, it is also related to the most popular of all things historical: an anniversary; in this case the bicentennial of the War of 1812, for which there is some energetic planning going on, especially in terms of encouraging people to go visit related sites. 

So take yourself back to some point after that war (the source is not specific).  There in the White House, at a dinner hosted by John Quincy Adams, is a dashing Joseph Duncan.  Duncan, born in Kentucky in 1794 had served with distinction in the War of 1812. Indeed he received "a testimonial of a sword" for his role in defending a fort in Ohio. He then settled in Illinois as a farmer and then served in various territorial and state government roles, most importantly perhaps as major general of the militia in 1822.  He was first elected to to the House of Representative in 1827 and continued in that role until Congress until 1834.  During this service, he was also a commander of Illinois troops in the Blackhawk war.  It was after this military service, that he was a guest of the President at a state dinner.  And then our source takes over.  He is James Roberts, who at age 88 in Chicago tell an Iowan the story of what happened at that dinner.  Among the other guests was a Miss Smith who was seated next to Henry Clay.  According to Roberts, Clay told Miss Clay that Duncan was a "rising young man" who had "won his spurs in the Mexican war" and "will make his mark in this world."  Miss Smith listened, set her cap, and won Mr. Duncan.  Miss Smith as Mrs. Mary Louisa Duncan moved with him in Illinois. 

Duncan then went onto to become Governor of Illinois from 1834-1838. Among their children was Mary Louisa Duncan, who married Charles E. Putnam, who moved to Davenport, Iowa in 1853.  In turn, Mary and Charles Putnam were the parents of my great-grandfather George Rockwell Putnam, the explorer and lighthouse commissioner.  So though, he was have come from Davenport, that he ended up in Washington, DC might have had its origins in this White House Romance.  

So let me reveal how I learned James Robert's story.  Among the many genres of books is the one that celebrates the important people in a state.  In Iowa, there is one by  Edward H. Stiles published in 1916 that focuses on its "lawyers and public men."  According to the introduction, Stiles began the work in 1881 at the bequest of the Iowa Supreme Court.  He had also moved to Iowa in the 1850s.  He did begin the work then, but he did not finish it until 1915 when he was living in Pasadena, California.   You may read the entire work at the Internet Archives.  In 1913, Stiles met Robert and wrote the story down and couldn't resist publishing.

Unfortunately, I think it must be partly mistaken.  It seems unlikely that the dinner was hosted by John Quincy Adams since he was out of office by 1829 and Duncan service in the Blackhawk War aka the Mexican War was 1831.  So then the President would have been Jackson, and I will have to learn more to determine if Clay who detested Jackson would have gone to dinner at the White House. 

For now, though I am interested in what a Sword of Honor from 1812 looked like and will go see if I can find a picture to share with you (it may not belong to Joseph Duncan).   It appears that such a quest is quite difficult, though I did discover a sword could cost you between $1,000 and $100,000.  The people of Georgia are trying to raise the money to buy back a sword that was forged in honor of a hero of the War of 1812 that is now in private hands.  Perhaps you want to help out.

Appling Sword

And what about the look of the White House in 1830s:

None of that is very romantic, but it will have to do for today. 

Visiting with Authors: my Great Grandmothers and Gertrude Stein in 1933

I am awaiting the visit of a friend and her family this week.  Dawn Potter will be reading from her book, Tracing Paradise: Two Years in Harmony with John Milton (University of Massachusetts Press, 2008) at the Writer's Center in Bethesda on Thursday, June 17. Dawn writes poetry and what I would call meditations of a life filled with reading (memoirs, but almost all relating to the experience of reading or observing). I also had the chance last week to talk with another friend who is a writer of fiction, and I am always reading works by people I know in history. All this makes me reflect on the role that "knowing" authors played in my family's past.

Gertrude Stein
Originally uploaded by George Eastman House

Every generation in the United States seems to have known some, but the experience intensified in the 1920s and 1930s. In Washington, DC, my great grandmother Marta Aresvik Putnam (known in the papers as Mrs. G. R. Putnam) was an active member of the Women's City Club and in early November 1933, she gave a review of Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The book had just been released in a mass market edition and soon enough Stein and Toklas were traveling in DC to promote it.

Te following year in December, the American Association of University Women hosted Gertrude Stein and my other great grandmother Lucy Lombardi Barber was an early pledge guest. The topic was "The History of English Literature as I understand it." When Stein was interviewed about Washington, DC, she said that she didn't really consider the place a town; notably saying there was more life in Toledo around a barber shop than in Washington. In the capital, she thought "There was too much government here, too much isolation from the life of the Nation." (Washington Post, December 29, 1934)

Woman reading in garden
Originally uploaded by George Eastman House

The family lore suggests that at this meeting, Lucy Lombardi Barber acquired a signed portrait of Gertrude Stein which she then passed down. Eventually my mother had it, and it was sold to support Bryn Mawr College scholarship funds. I will have to check my facts.

In the years since 1934, various family members have met, known, written about writers. I know I feel a certain sense of awe around anyone who composes a book and yet also a certain sense that I am allowed to comment on one, since I have written one of my own and known so many others. Not sure if that position is deserved.

Alvin Barton Barber: From Oregon to San Francisco to Phillipines to Poland to Washington

Captain Alvin B. Barber, ca. 1912

I admit that I was more interested by the women in my family when I started these explorations, but the men are emerging as their own personalities as I move deeper into this project. My father and I were just discussing his grandfather Alvin Barton Barber known as Vin to most of his family and almost always Capt. A. B. Barber in print. Dad thought Vin and his accomplishments were a bit overwhelmed by his wife's Lucy Barber's intelligence and ambition.  So I thought I'd tried to track down his movements for  a while and in that way get a little clearer on how he played a force in the family's life.

He was born in Portland, Oregon in May 1883.

I don't yet know much about his schooling there, but he was off to West Point in 1901.  This little clip from a biography of West Point Grads shows what he did from then until 1909:

Play

We know from Fanny Barber's diary that he spent the summer of 1905 in Portland with his family and going on excursion with Lucy Lombardi (see other posting on that summer).

From family legend, we know he helped with the aftermath of the SF Earthquake of 1906 but before that he was at Rodeo Valley for the Departments Rifle Range until February 12, 1906. I think Rodeo is a small town between Richmond and Vallejo, California. He then transferred to Fort Mason in
San Francisco.  Soldiers there were the first to be called up to service in the April earthquake.

That summer he ranked as 7th in the whole Pacific Region in his rifle accuracy and you can see he is sent off to various rife competitions in Monterey and Illinois.


In August 1907, he is sent to the Philippines where he is assistant to the Office of the Chief Engineer. In the big sense, he was needed in the Phillipines since the US was trying to establish firm territorial control over the place after the "Spanish-American" War of 1899 turned into the "Filipino insurrection" that lasted officially through 1902 and unofficially through most of the decade. William Howard Taft was in charge of the Territory through 1900 and left in 1904 to serve as Roosevelt's Vice President.  Other Civil Governors of the Territory continued to rely on the army to help many Islands develop.  By 1907, the US had declared the Island peaceful and had helped the loyal Filipinos establish a legislature; and missionaries and officer wives were busy helping everyone learn modern values:

Carpenter's Collection, LOC 

He would have been there for the visit of Taft on October 15, 1907 to inspect the island. But otherwise, I have not found out much about what he did while there. 

In June 1908, he and Lucy Lombardi are engaged and by August 1908 they are married. (Source San Francisco Call, August 30, 1908, page 30).  Lucy seemed to have accompanied him back to Philippines.  I don't know just what she did there yet, but I can't imagine she wasn't involved in some effort to help the women in Manila.  Here for example is a class of girls learning embroidery at the Paco School in Manila:

Carpenter Collection, LOC

Mrs. Barber returns in February of 1909, probably because she realized she was pregnant with her first child who was born 6 months later in Berkeley.  

As I wrote above, I don't know that much about what he did in the Philippines. By 1909 March he is going to be transferred to the Washington Barracks of the Corp of Engineers and he is to serve in the Engineer school.  By April 15, 1910, he, Lucy, and son Godfrey show up living in the Washington Barracks (source 1910 Censur).  Though they are also on vacation later in that month back in Portland, Oregon staying with brother John, his wife Faith, and daughter Annie. 

His next order send him to Fort Leavenworth in August 1910.  And from there I am not entirely sure.  His next three children are all born in Berkeley, where Lucy Barber was staying with her parents.  I'm not sure if he goes off to the Mexico border or if he is doing something else.  That will be for later.  We know he heads to France for the Great War, see previous post.


Here he is a the father of 4 as a later date looking both stern and friendly:

The Barber Family, 1938??

In your memory, Captain Barber, buried in Arlington Cemetery.