What They Wore (2nd of two posts)

What They Wore

My dear daughter----

As sentimentality is one of the virtues--at least I term it thus--that the greater part of mankind possess and I know that my girl is in possession of this “virtue” I have here collected a few reminiscences from time passed, which have belonged to Mamma--Olga and Lulu, whose departure from the earth state, is well nigh forgotten and as I am growing old--and I fear after my death these things will be ignored, I have arranged them--as you see--in such a manner that they can easily be preserved, and I am certain that your children and grandchildren will find them more interesting as the years roll on, and you can continue to add articles to the treasure box, as you may see fit.  --I will also send  you the Daguerreotypes of Mamma & Pappa--some of whose letters, written to me from Memphis, two months before leaving the form of dust, & I will also send you.  You know, dear, that by rights they belong to Viggo, and shall give him the balance--3 or 4-- but if Florence or Ellinor would copy them, they are welcome to--and you certainly ought to have them all. I intended to also send you some of your own dear father’s letters, written from Missouri, during the time your Howard was born--but I began to glance over them just now, and became so interested that I concluded Pa & I read them together before you get them.  --The silhouette is a “Brenta” but I dare not say whether it is of my  mother’s brother --or her mother’s brother.  With love you and yours and many good wishes for a merry Christmas, both from Pappa and myself--not forgetting Mrs. Henriksen--I am, darling, your loving Mother----Emily Olsen


Note from Jaymie: The above is the transcribed introduction in the hand-stitched paper book of fabric swatches that Emily Olsen gave to her oldest child, daughter Anna Olsen Grund ("Aunt Arna" to Nancy, Wally and Don).  The book was made before 1906 when Emily was in her 70s.  The photos above show swatches of dress fabrics sewn into this paper book of "reminiscences" by Emily Olsen.  The swatches are from dresses, collars, wrappers, polonaises, worn by family no longer living:  her mother Anna Miller, her daughters who died young, Lulu and Olga.

Back to the story: Rynd Jay Lawder murdered 11/27/1905

It's taken me a long time to get back to the story.  In yoga class today, the theme was related to the Day of the Dead (yesterday and today) and the importance of remembering our ancestors with gratitude while we learn from them, "alchemize the negative" and move ahead.  I took it as a mission to start up with the blog again.  OK, remember John F. Lawder (1833-1908), the attorney in Pleasant Hill, Papa's grandfather, and father of the 4 deaf children?  He had seven siblings (all born in Ohio), the youngest one being Rynd Edward Lawder (1837-1890).  Both John and Rynd served in the Civil War but Rynd seemed to do very well.  He ended the war with the rank of colonel, was awarded 320 acres in Texas as a reward for his service and got a plum government job in eastern Missouri, Revenue Collector for Audrain County.  He married Hannah and used some of his money to acquire a mine near the Salt River.  Their youngest of their three sons was named Rynd J., called "Jay".  A promising young man, Jay went to U. of Tennessee and played football (right end) before coming home to take over the mine.  Maybe too sure of himself, this "bachelor and member of a prominent and wealthy family in Mexico Missouri" , and took liberties when pretty 26 year old Alva Bailey came into the mine office one day.  She was collecting the wages for her husband, Edwin Bailey.  Jay evidently won her "with a single kiss"  .... and her husband learned of the affair in late 1905.  Knowing that Jay Lawder would be boarding the train to Chicago on November 27th, Edwin Bailey takes a gun and waits for him, shooting Lawder dead at the station.  How do I know these juicy details.... they were reported in newspapers all over the country every day of the trail the following year.  From Fairbanks, Alaska to the Washington Post and the NY Times.  The dramatic finale came in September 1, 1906 when the jury voted to AQUIT the Baileys (husband and wife were charged in conspiracy) on the basis of "the unwritten law".  I kid you not.  Honor crimes not just in Sicily, but in the Show Me state in the 20th c.  [You can read the whole article if you are an ancestry.com member: Fairbanks Daily Times, Sept. 2, 1906, Headline: "Defense--Unwritten Law".] There's something ambivalent in the portrayal of the lovely Alva, now pregnant with Jay's child.  For example she has NAMED THE BABY 'JAY'.  Ah romance.

So what has this to do with us?  Jay's father and Papa's father were cousins, so Papa and Jay were like Jaymie Hyde and Nina Chernoff in their connection.  Could be close or far depending on the family communication.  Did Papa know of it?  The whole country was following it; could the Lawders just a few hundred miles away in the same state not know of it?  Papa was just 17 years old at the time of the murder and trial.  Yet, to Nancy Wolcott's knowledge, Papa never spoke of this story or any other Lawders other than his mother and sister.  His grandfather John, uncle to Jay, was still alive and practicing law, as was Papa's father Paul (1865-1915).  How could a story teller, a former newspaper writer, not use a story as good as this one if he knew it?

A Faint Meteor

With young Rynd "Jay" Lawder on my mind, murdered at age 29, I am puzzling over the universal interest in dramatic life turns, however insignificant the protagonists.  I noted this line in one of Abigail Adams' letters recently (I noted it recently; she wrote it in the 1770s):"Fame without honor would be like a faint meteor gliding through the sky, shedding only transient light."

Reunited by Chance-- Papa's mother and her sister

Ancestry.com has digitized local papers from around the country and offers the encouragement that even ordinary people get their names in the paper.  Yes, indeed, even our Lawders.  Here's the first item of interest, this from the Marion (Ohio) Daily Star, May 4, 1914, on the front page, bottom right corner:

Reunited by Chance

Chicago, May 4----- After living for ten years within three blocks of each other, Mrs. Alice Lawder and Mary C. Dawes, sisters, were reunited by a newspaper story telling of the former's son, missing in Mexico. The women had not seen each other for fifteen years.

[End of article]

Alice L. is Papa's mother, whom Don Jr., Wally and Nancy knew well as children, and Mary is "Mamie" Dawes, Alice's half sister.  The missing son, I'm assuming, is Charles Vernon Lawder, Papa's half brother (Alice's son by her 1st marriage).   There is a tantalizing small b&w photo in our collection of a man in his 30s, his arm around a woman holding a toddler in a tropical setting.  On the back, in old handwriting is "Charles Vernon Lawder and family in Mexico City.  Please return [the photo] to Mrs. Alice Lawder, Clark Street, Chicago, Ill."   So now we have to find the newspaper story reporting his missing status or some other clue.  Nancy knew vaguely that Papa had a brother, but not much more had been remembered or shared. Alice Van Houten Lawder's first husband's last name was Van Lumbard and she was widowed when she married Paul Lawder in 1888.  Alice and Alonzo Van Lumbard had two children Mary C (later 'Mamie' Dawes) and Charles Vernon Lumbard. Both changed their last names to 'Lawder' after their mother's marriage to Paul.

Who Came First?

Susan Lawder Hyde has been doing family history research too and shares the fascination.  She has been working on Russell's family but is interested in doing some Lawder/Van Houten/Olsen/Thorsen research on their lives "on the other side", before they came to America.  I have had more than enough to do figuring out their more recent history and am much more interested personally in how their stories illuminate American times.   But Susan's got the "international Ancestry", the higher level, and it would be fun to know that part too.  I told her I'd give her my list of the emigrants/immigrants in each family.  If there's a competition, the Van Houtens are WAY the earliest, (beating even the Wolcotts I think).  Lawders are second in this focus group of Bano and Papa's grandparents' families.  The Danish Olsens and Thorsens came last, but all were here by the mid 19th c.  So, here's the line up:

From Houten, The Netherlands, comes Roelof Cornelise Van Houten (1628-1672).  I don't know the exact date, but Roeloff C came over early enough to get married in Rennselaerswyck, New Netherlands (Albany, NY) in 1643 to Gerritje Van Ness, born in Emberland, Netherlands.  (These Dutch kept great parish records.)  Both born abroad, they died in Bergen County, New Netherlands, AKA New Jersey.  No great photos on the web, but the facts about Houten are here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houten

From Ireland in 1801 comes Frederick Lawder (Papa's great-great-grandfather) and his wife Margaret Reid. (See previous post).  Lawders have been in Ireland for a long time... but originally from Scotland.

From Flensberg, Denmark in 1852, comes the young Jens Jensen Thorsen, soon known as James Thorsen.  He graduates from Naval College in 1845, then goes to California (Gold Rush?) where he becomes naturalized in San Francisco in 1852.  [My mom, Nancy, has the original naturalization paper!] Jens/James returns home to Denmark, marries Emma Bloch and has 4 children (including Bano's father James Bloch Thorsen) before emigrating for good to Chicago in 1869.  [Johnny Thorsen in Savannah has sent us some info on their crossing in 1869 and the names of the kids. ]  Denmark loses Flensberg and the rest of Schleswig Holstein to Germany after 1869 on and the Danish minority faced a dim future.  PS Flensburg today looks like a great place to visit (photo below)

From somewhere in Denmark come George Olsen and Emily Miller, Bano's maternal grandparents.  George was born in Denmark in 1825 and by 1860 was married to Emily and living with her parents in Memphis, Tenn. and in Chicago.  They are in both places for the 1860 census actually. Emily Miller was born in Denmark in 1837 and came over as a young child.  They married in 1859.

Have a go, Sues!  You're able to write right to this blog, so I hope you will.

Rynd --a good Lawder family name

I'm ready to be done with these Lawders and move on to the story of the Van Houtens.  (Preview:  I have an actual diary from 1845 that I'm so eager to tell you about.)  We're equally connected to both of course:  Papa had a mother (Van Houten) as well as a father (Lawder).  I am noting an irresistible bias toward the name that gets carried down the line....i.e. the fathers' names, despite my best intentions.

But before we leave the Lawders for the moment, I want to mention the name "Rynd".  I have five different 'Rynd Lawders' in my family database.  There were Rynds in every generation following the marriage in Ireland in the 1740s of Frederick L. Lawder and Rebecca Rynd.  Those two did not emigrate to America, nor did their son (1) Rynd born in 1746, but their grandson and namesake Frederick Lawder (1780-1866) emigrated to the US in 1801.  This Frederick married Margaret Reid in Virginia in June 1807.  They had a passel of children including Marion H.'s father (2) Rynd Lawder (1811-1841).  [Note: Marion H. Lawder and John F. Lawder, whom we know from previous posts, were the first cousins who married and had 4 children, one of whom was Paul Lawder, Papa's father.]  John F and Marion named their first child (3) Rynd Henry (nicknamed Harry) (1861-1918), probably after John F's brother (4) Rynd Edward (1837-1890) who reached the rank of Major in the Civil War and also moved to Missouri after the war.  In 1880 Rynd E. was Collector of Revenue in Audrain Co., MO and the father of 3 children, including a (5) Rynd Lawder Jr. (1876-1905).  This last Rynd that I have found was on the 1893 football team at the University of Tennessee and died at the young age of 29.  There are a few more Rynds (e.g., Rynd Lawder Stratton) found around the Ancestry.com site but I haven't attempted  to corral all the cousins across the generations.  Too many!  Just a little time with a family tree convinces you that the whole world is basically related if you go back 5-6 generations!

So who's going to be the first in the next generation to revive the name Rynd?  Meanwhile the mysterious photo above is a photo of a "rynd" or 'rind", the iron piece in the middle of a millstone.  See wikipedia if you don't believe me.