Scanning Through the Years

Each week I get to see quick little glimpses of slices of life over the last century.  It is fascinating to open a folder to begin the scanning because we never know what we will see.  I will come across some things that make me stop and take a photo because it is unique and/or I want to remember it and share it with others.  Here are some of those things just from this week. 

I have come to appreciate how important having a good garden was to Philadelphians.  There are some beautiful gardens here locally which were built around the mansions of the past and many which became wonderful parks for all to enjoy in these times.  The City also has stunning big pots all around which I love to walk by each day. Someone had saved this advertizement from many years ago. Great prices don't you think? 

Called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the 1904 World's Fair was open for seven months and by the time it closed on December 1st had welcomed 20 million visitors from around the world. Exhibits from 50 foreign countries and 43 of the then 45 states were included in the Fair which included such amusements as re-enactments of the Boer Ward, babies in incubators, The Dancing Girls of Madrid, The Educated Horse and an elephant water slide. This letterhead (above) was included in someones memories.  I wonder if they actually stayed at this hotel and what it must have been like.  The rates certainly seem reasonable now, but we must remember the times.  The Hotel Astor in New York City had room rates at $3.50 per day in 1904.  However, The Inside Inn did include entrance to the Fair! 

Other letterheads have caught my eye also. 
This first one just baffles me....
"Furniture---Funeral Director"....seriously???

I have seen the Society of the Colonial Dames and the Daughters of the American Revolution (both of which I am looking to join), but until this week had not seen this one.  It makes perfect sense though, don't you think? 

I do have to say that I never would have imagined this one, however.  There would have to be some pretty compelling documentation to be in this order:  "Authenticated Descent from One of the Seven Leaders of the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, AD 1096".  I am also curious about the person whose name is crossed out with red "X's". 

Next, I was so excited to happen upon these beautiful hand painted coat of arms below.  I suspect the same artist did them all as they were together in one family folder and they are originals.  The paint used had metallic properties so each of them had a shine that could not be captured by my camera or by the scanner.  These are treasurers for sure. 

I appreciate beautiful handwritting so much more now than I ever have.  Trying to decifer the handwriting of some of the notes we scan, including research notes, correspondence and family histories is very challenging.  I liked this note below because I don't see the consistency of the thickness in a down stroke so I am a bit curious what kind of pen the author was using.  This letter is dated 1881.

One of my favorite finds, which I see often, is the note below. I am intrigued by those who wrote a note/letter and then decided they didn't want to use another precious piece of paper so they completed their thoughts by turning the note 90 degrees and writing across the first part of the letter!  Ingenious! This example isn't so interesting because they used the space at the beginning of the note where there is still some open space, but there are others where an entire page is covered with writing in both directions.  So fun to see!!

 My last find to share is a wonderful treasure.  It is a multi-page advertisement for one of my favorite things.  I really enjoy reading this propaganda for something so delicious!
Phillipe suchard was a Swiss chocolatier and industrialist.  He pioneered the process of grinding cocoa paste between heated granite rollers which move forward and backward.  He found success only after a bulk order of his chocolates came from Frederick William IV, King of Prussia who was also the Prince of Neuchatel.  Hence the identifying names. He also pioneered the purple wrapping of the chocolate to make his chocolate easy to identify.  His company has since passed to other companies and has ended up with Toblerone.

Doesn't this image just make you smile?  Well it does for me. 
I'm smiling now and wondering:

"Where is MY chocolate??"

Full Week!

I have to begin with two Facebook posts from our daughter, Autumn.  We miss our family so much but we are very grateful for the technology that allows us to stay connected to a small degree. Autumn has brought smiles to our faces and tears to our eyes with these two posts: 

Etta (about 22 months old) was alone in the kitchen and apparently wanted something from the refrigerator. She opened the door, moved the chair and stood inside the frig where Autumn caught her.  She looks quite pleased with herself and happy that mom was still in control enough to take a picture!  A treasure for a lifetime. 

Edison (6 years) was unhappy because he done something that ended up badly for him and Malvin (3 years) asked him if he wanted a hug.  They ended up on the couch together with Edi's head in Mal's lap while Mal stroked Edi's face to make him feel better.  Again, what a great photo for now and forever.  Brotherly love....good job Autumn and Derrick! 

We have had a busy week but we took the time Monday after work to attend the Chinese Lantern Festival that has been happening in Franklin Square for a couple of weeks.  It began at 6pm so we worked until closing (HSP closes at 5:30pm) and walked toward the Delaware River to Franklin Square.  We weren't sure about the weather but only felt a little sprinkle here and there.  Since the weather report predicted rain there weren't many people at the Festival. 

Once they let us in, it was not exactly what I had hoped it would be but it was fun to see the different displays.  We learned that this exhibit was actually an exhibit that is from China and goes around the world.  This is the 2nd time it has been in Philadelphia.  The displays were made of a fabric material for the most part.   

The park was not very big, so it didn't take long to walk around and see the lanterns and the displays.  At 6:30pm the first show began. I was impressed with the contortionists;  young girls who obviously have been training for this for a long time.

I was curious how they kept the plates on the sticks so I looked online.  This is what I found: 

There is a ball bearing system on the back of the plates which attaches enough to the sticks that the plate has to be turned almost upside down to remove it from the stick.  This is true for many if not most Chinese performers, but not always for the magician/juggler who use plate spinning as part of their performances.  Those are different and usually include the magician/juggler tossing the plates off the stick and to an assistant.

Still, the skill is impressive and we enjoyed it. 

On Friday we went to Ed's sister's house in 

Doylestown, PA for our last time.  They (Roger and Joyce) have sold their house and are moving into a different time of their life.  They will be looking for a place to buy, probably in Maryland along the east shore. Exciting times, but lots of good memories in their house. 

On Saturday we met some of Ed's cousins at the Cedar Hills Cemetery in northeast Philadephia to see the Moulder graves of grandparents and great-grandparents.  Ed had tried to find the graves before, but had not been successful.  The oldest cousin, Bob, found them and everyone was happy to be there together. 

After some time there, we had lunch at a restaurant on the Delaware River called Maggies. 

The weather is getting warmer here but we are hoping it will still be nice enough for us to comfortably take our walk to work.  Most days it won't be too bad if we get too hot on the walk back to the apartment, but it isn't very comfortable when the day begins with being sweaty and then you get chilled because our room is kept at 66 degrees.  Our room has to stay that temperature because of the treasures. 

Although we are valued at the Historical Society, we do not qualify as treasures.  Oh well.

Feeling Good Again

                      

It is always a challenge when good health is not part of the day, but I am feeling better than I have in about a month so today is a good day. 

It was good that I felt better today because I was asked to help out as a Primary teacher again at Church and also got to help with the music again!  I love Primary!  These kids are so cute. We don’t have many in Primary in our little South Philadelphia Branch, in fact there were more adult leaders/teachers in Primary today than there were children, but they are full of energy and answers and questions and corrections! Very fun!

Last week this little guy actually was sound asleep at the end of the meetings and didn’t budge until his mom came to get him.  He was so tired…..How could he sleep like that??

Monday morning came and I was feeling like that little boy and wanted to sleep all day, but back to work we went! So, I want to share a tender part of a letter from a Quaker father to his son who is away working which I recently scanned: 

I love the way this father closes his multipage letter.  It reads: 
"Son, does thee remember to pray each night to Thy Heavenly Father to guide thee and keep thee out of temptation?  Keep Him ever by thy side and thee won't go far wrong.  With heaps of love as ever, Father."

Then my favorite part......"Write soon tell me everything"

I love what we are doing.  I get to see a little piece of life among people who lived far away and far before I came.  They loved their families as I love mine. I love communicating with my family.  I want them to "tell me everything" too!

We have begun a different part of the project now.  The documents we scan are not in closed boxes anymore, but are in open boxes with individual folders for a family name.  It is more time to get the folders, open them, pull out the contents and get it ready for scanning, then returning it to the folder and move on.  We were afraid that this would slow us down considerably, but it appears that is not going to be the case.  We are getting into a rhythm that helps keep us scanning and moving ahead. 

We are happy that we have surpassed our totals from April (61,000+ images) to over 67,000 images for the month of May.  We are so grateful for our ability to continue improving in this work. 

I was given a tender mercy by the Lord last week.  I was feeling poorly and I wanted to stop but decided to continue.  The first file folder that came out of the box was the family name Baum.  I was surprised and humbled, almost to tears.  This is a maternal family name for me.  

I called my mom immediately to let her know about the find.  I won’t know until I have the time to seriously study the files if these Baum people connect to our Baum people, but they were all living in the Philadelphia area so I am hoping to find some connections although they will not be direct line because ours definitely came directly from Germany.  But, it was still fun to think that there may be a hidden treasure among the many notes in these files. 

Here are some examples of the condition of some of the records we are scanning now.  Sometimes the problem is bugs, but not very often.  

Mostly it is the quality of the paper. 

The paper often used was cheap but not good.  It falls apart at the slightest touch so trying to move it is problematic.  

Some of the records have been folded and the fold has detached from the rest of the document and is not always next to the page it is detached from.

If I can, I will spend some time finding the piece and making the scan as complete as possible. It's like solving a puzzle.

Of course my work area gets really messy when working with this paper. 

There are rusted paperclips that need to be removed, staples that have to carefully remove so we can scan all of the documents and any number of other creative ways these individuals decided to connect things.  

(We remove the straight pins so a researcher doesn’t get stuck while going through the pages.)

I particularly enjoy trying to scan pages that have been stitched together on a machine or sometimes by hand. 

I really loved this little book that was prepared by a genealogist to present to the family for whom they were working.

Another fun event happened at HSP this week.  Tara O'Brien (in the blue shirt below) is the Director of Conservation and Preservation. She has been working on a project to unroll some huge maps, straighten them out a bit and then reroll them in proper archival tubes.  These maps are huge and must have originally hung on walls somewhere. She waited to complete this preservation job until she had her interns there to help her.  It took all three of them all afternoon to get 4 maps properly rolled.

The above map is a map of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co. in early 1900's.

This map above is of Philadephia proper as it was in 1902.  Very fun to see these.  We particularly enjoyed seeing the Transit map since Ed's grandfather, Frederick Phillip Frey, Jr., was a conductor on the old trolley's. Ed remembers riding with him on these trolleys before Grandpa Frey lost his job when the City changed to buses sometime in the 1950's. After that Grandpa Frey worked at a toll booth on the Pennsylvania Turnpike until he retired. 

I'm ready to discover new things this coming week!