"Well, gentlemen, life is just one blessed thing after another!" C. Maurice Lombardi (and a song quiz)

http://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/12842

My great-great grandfather Cesar Maurice Lombardi came Switzerland to the United States.  He first lived in New Orleans, and then went to Texas, where he worked in several business, before moving to Portland, Oregon to work for the Gordon Grain company.  From 1913 to 1916, at the request of my grandmother, he wrote a series of letters to his grandchildren (my grandfather Cesar Lombardi Barber among them) telling his life story.  These letters were then printed in 1948 with enough copies for all the children, grandchildren, and great children alive at the time.  Last year, the Lombardi's family gathered in Houston for a reunion and my dad lent his copy to the Woodson Research Center and Special Collections at Rice University. Ceasar M. Lombardi met the man who gave Rice University his name in New York City and was was instrumental in getting located it located in Houston, Texas. The Archives only had an old old xerox of it, so the opportunity to scan a clean copy for its own records was highly attractive. Some vicissitudes happened, but he got it back both as the printed volume and a scan for the rest of use just this week.

There is much wonderful material in it, including much about life in Portland, Oregon from 1898-1906, but I'm just going to give you background on the title of this entry. It came from a man that Mr. Lombardi worked with as editor of the Galveston Daily News. Mr. Briggs wrote it in 1948 to my great grandfather Alvin B. Barber reflecting on his memories of Mr. Lombardi. Briggs wrote that Lombardi was always interested in the young men with whom he worked on the paper. In addition, he was sympathectic to the pressures of putting out an interesting and accurate newspaper. Mr Briggs, by 1948, a senior officer of the First National Bank in Dallas, Texas, wrote of him:

It was Mr. Lombardi's courtliness of manner toward everyone and his kindly consideration of, and ingenuous interest in, young men of his staff, that attracted me to him first. In diffusing the spirit of these rare virtues, I never knew him to fail or to tire, regardless of provocation or disappointment. He met every situation, however difficult, with the equanimity of a philosopher, displayed so vividly in his familiar little phrase, "Well, gentlemen, life is just one blessed thing after another!"
{[Need to get formal citation to this volume]}

I love the double-entrendres in the phrase. Is blessed, a blessing, or a reverse use of blessed for damned. His letter show that he experienced hardship, success, true love, and exhaustion. He moved a lot and knew that he lost friends as a result. And though he was a Texan for most of his adult life, he never much like the place, it was too hot for him who was raised in the Swiss Alps, so he always considered his home in Berkeley California, his homestead.

And in one of those odd coincidences common in my family, my paternal grandfather was born in Berkeley, my mother graduated from high school from Berkeley High, and my brother lived there for a while.

The overlapping paths of people in Portland, Oregon are even more complicated, so I'll just show you a nice picture from around the time this clan of my family lived there:

Anyone want to guess the name of the song that might be connected to this car?

A Puzzler and A Game about Bryn Mawr College and Lucy Lombardi Barber

[updated 4/19/2010, in response to some corrections]
One of the re-occuring patterns in my family that strike others as odd, but actually makes sense if you think about the social spheres in which both my mother's and my father's parents operated, almost sounds like one of those odd puzzles. My mother, my grandmother, and my great grandmother, all went to Bryn Mawr College, but they were not direct descendants. How is this possible, the puzzler asks?

The answer is that my father and my paternal grandfather both married women who went to Bryn Mawr and my paternal great grandmother went to Bryn Mawr. (I went to Haverford rather than Bryn Mawr, a story for a different forum).

Some of you may associate Bryn Mawr with the quote of M. Carey Thomas that "only our failures marry." My distant memory suggest that it is important to read the rest of the text surrounding this quote. As I recall, it was more a statement meant to imply only our failures JUST marry and raise children; others, marry, raise children, and stay active in their profession and their community.

I will focus here on Lucy Lombardi, later Lucy Lombardi Barber, who did marry, but was hardly a failure. She is pictured above with me in 1967.

Lucy Lombardi graduated in 1904. As indicated by the Program from Bryn Mawr from 1905, she came to Bryn Mawr with considerable education first in Portland, Oregon, and then later at Miss. Shipley's Miss Baldwin's School (a prep school across from Bryn Mawr College)


Thanks to some digitization projects we can see what these places looked like:
Here is one of the halls at Bryn Mawr:

As was common in such schools, women published literary magazines. Below is my great-grandmother's take on Tennyson's poem about the old clock:



I like the reference to her Waterbury watch as the new measure of time, but have not had time to trace down the reference. [see comments below for information] Otherwise, literary comments are welcome; she is not around to be sensitive about criticism, and had a good sense of humor so probably welcomed it.

Finally, a little game that others can help me with: One one of the mysteries of the Overrepresented Family is when people first met. Likewise, I am curious about the networks within which my great grandmother was active in. So here's just a raw list from the 1905 Program of people who would overlapped at Bryn Mawr with Lucy Lombardi. If you know who someone is, or have a guess of how that adds to the connection, put it in the comments. All names come from here The Program of 1905:[list is by no means inclusive, indeed it is quixotic]

Helen Adams Wilson, pg. 200
Evelyn Walker, pg. 199
Clara Louise Whipple Wade, pg 198
Alice Goddard Waldo, pg. 198
Eloise Ruthven Tremain, pg. 197
Helen Whithill Turner Flexner, pg. 196
Agnes Maitland Sinclair, pg. 193
Edna Aston Shearer, pg. 192
Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, pg. 192
Emma Dunwoody Roberts, pg. 189
Marion Reilly, pg. 189
Helen Jackson Raymond, pg. pg. 189
Lucy Rawson, pg. 188
Louis(?) Lyman Peck, pg 187
Marrion Parris, pg. 187
Marion Edwards Park, 187

[oops, bored. Skipping to the A's
Maria Hawes Albee, pg. 152
Alice Anthony, pg. 153
Eleanora Frances Bliss, pg. 156
Elizabeth Middleton Bryan, pg. 158
Mary Wiley Cameron, pg. 159
Amy Lilley Clapp, pg. 169
Katherine Innes Cook, pg. 162.

Some obvious family connections come with
Bertha Havens Putnam, pg. 188
Mary Skerry Rockwell, pg. 190
oops see comments for correction

Correct and comment away!

Lucy G.

The delay between stories and information

I was pleased to spend 3/18/2010 with my father and his brother and his sister.  Alas, the time was limited and though we did share the reading of some memorable letters between his parents and others, there was no really time to consider anything.  Here's a picture from 1969 with many folks represented.

Polar Explorer George Rockwell Putnam

Over at the National Archives where I work there was a series of talks and movies on Polar Expeditions in February that include a number of cool activities, including a feature on Admiral Peary who [might have] reached the North Pole in 1909. My great grandfather George Rockwell Putnam did not go on the 1909 trip, but he did join Peary on earlier trips to Greenland and the Artic. He describes them in some detail in his memoirs, Sentinel of the coasts; the log of a lighthouse engineer, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1937. But I've been interested in looking at the coverage of the events as they happened. Before I write about that I do want to note that Admiral Peary house is about three blocks from where I live now and has a nice sign on it. I suspect it was not a coincidence that my great grandfather bought a house not far away from Peary. Both of them were active in the National Geographic Society.

So here's the story as reported at the time, in 1896, Peary had organized to make another exploration of Greenland. According to the New-York Tribune, his main goal in May of 1896 was to retrieve a huge meteorite he had found the previous year and bring it back to New York. The meteorite was -- eventually -- retrieved and is on display at the New York Museum of Natural History (there's even a video about the Meteorite it is really kind of important, though Peary did take it away from the Inuit people who both used the hard surfaces and had stories about its origins). Here it is in the Museum:

Probably because these trips were getting expensive and some people wondered if Peary took too many risks, he asked two other scientists to form groups to research other ideas and to share expenses. The group Putnam joined was known as the Benton Group or Boston Party depending on the reports (for some of this background see an article from 1897 in Technology Quarterly) Putnam was then working for the US Coast and Geodetic Society and was most interested in confirming that gravity varied at the poles than at the equator. This issue was important because it related to whether the earth is solid or not which was a subject of great debate at the time. More specifically, it was key to navigation. Since these variations in gravity affected a compass and its "true north." Navigational devices today have to account for this in all sorts of ways but as they depend less on magnets and more on GPS satellites, it may become less important. When Putnam was doing this work, precise settings required the use of a pendulum and precise marking of the stars. Here's the pendulum set up


He could only set up on land. Greenland was controlled by the Danes and he repeatedly praises them in his account of the process. He had to be on a solid surface and have good weather. It did not always happen. The trip took place from July 6 through October. As soon as he could, the pendulums had to be sent back to Washington to make sure they still were accurate. I'm not much of a mathematician so I can't explain all the calculation he preformed to understand the variations he saw. But he was apparently quite satisfied. Peary's hope to get the meteorite was however foiled and he was quite glum when they returned in September 1896. The next year he got the big one! Meanwhile my great grandfather in 1897 had his salary raised to $1,800 and was off to study the Pribilof Islands.

Alaska Natives. Three native boys on St. Paul Island, pictured with one of the St. Paul reindeer.
Originally uploaded by The U.S. National Archives

Updated Timeline

[updated again on March 27 to end the timeline in 1939 for now]
[updated to correct another typo, I probably need to figure out how to translate initials to longer names, but . . . for now I'll continue the obscurity.]

I'm trying to sort out if there is a good way to incorporate a timeline into a blog. So far, the tools I've heard of are beyond my coding skills, so for now I'm just pasting from a Word Table, it looks okay, but not that great.  I think I'll just periodically include updated timelines as I add more dates, but . . . perhaps I'll discover a more clever approach sometime.

Year	Events in The Overrepresented Family
10/24/1841	Sumner Barber born in Potsdam, New York. Son of Ira Barber (born in Vermont) and Mary Wright of Vermont
8/4/1865	Sumner Barber enlists in Ogdensburg, NY as private in 106th regiment age 21, he was a teacher
6/22/1865	Sumner Barber discharged from New York Voluntary Infantry, co. K, 106th regiment
2/24/1870	Sumner Barber receives DDS from Philadelphia Dental School
8/29/1872	Sumner Barber marries Ellen Geraldine Barton in Rochester, New York.
12/27/1874	Alice Barber born (later Alice Barber Halderman)
2/26/1878	John R. Barber born
1/10/1881	Fanny L. Barber born
5/19/1883	Alvin Barton Barber born named for his maternal uncle Alvin Barton of Rochester.
8/5/1886	Joseph L. Barber born
11/4/1889	Helen D. Barber born
9/27/1896	Peary Expedition with GRP in progress.
11/26/1902	GRP in Philippines
6/1/1904	Martha Wick (MAB) graduates from Normal School in Minnesota
6/8/1904	Sumner Barber applies for pension because of old age
7/28/1904	ABBsr order to SF
6/30/1907	ABBsr organizes fencing party
6/?/1908	ABB and LLB engagement announced
2/17/1909	Mrs. A. B. Barber returns on Japanese Liner
3/12/1909	ABBsr transfer to Washington announced in New York Tribune
6/13/1913	CLB born in Berkeley CA
9/11/1913	GRP and MAP married in Warrington, Minnesota
10/13/1914	Sumner Barber dies from a fall down stairs. He was in St. Vincent's Hospital, Portland, Oregon
11/13/1914	Ellen Barton Barber applies for widow's pension living at 483 East 16th St North.  Portland, Oregon
6/21/1922	GRP receives honorary degree from Stevens
10/7/1928	LLB is president of the Bryn Mawr Club of Washington
12/9/1933	EPB performs in Washington as part of the Varsity Players of Washington.
12/27/1933	EPB makes debut in Washington
6/10/1934	JBC married Dr. Sam Clark at Sky Meadow
5/?/1935	CLB graduates Harvard
6/29/1936	CLB and EPB marriage plans announced.
6/8/1939	ABBjr graduates from Sidwell Friends

Slight improvement by pasting HTML code from Excel into word and then pasting it here, but . . .

Society: Marta Aresvik Putnam and George Rockwell Putnam Materials in the 1910s, Washington DC style

One of the coolest (and yes, frustrating) parts of using search words on the "overrepresented" family in digitized newspapers is that some digitized newspapers have no ability to tell you where the family name appears. One of the most useful search sites for my beginning steps has been in the digitized version of the Washington Herald, available for free at the Library of Congress's Digital Newspaper Project, and the contemporaneous version of the Washington Post, available by subscription through ProQuest and in my case the DC Library . But useful and frustrating are often different in digital research. Still having to scroll through endless "society" columns trying to find mention of my family did start to teach me about what was (and was not) included in these columns. So I'll start with what is and I might have to note what was not at the end.

Both my paternal grandmother's and grandfather's family came to DC in the 1900s (one from Oregon, the other from Iowa, but via many overseas assignments) and both had a role in "Society" as judged by the Washington Post. So let me tell you quickly some of the highlights in chronological order and sticking to the DC area. My grandmother's father, George Rockwell Putnam, came to DC around 1910 as single man. He had been chosen to reorganize the Lighthouse Bureau, a section of the U.S. Coast Guard. Lighthouses are romantic to us now, but they were crucial to shipping at the time. Yet, the appointment of lighthouse keepers had more to do with who you knew than what you could do. G.R. Putnam changed this.
But he was also a semi-important figure in society. He was the guest of Dr. and Mrs. J. H. Gore at a dinner on February 4, 1910, alongside the Siamese Minister. By July, he and his cousin, Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress, are leading the Cosmos Club. {Younger readers might appreciate that this club was where the lawyer for Monica Lewinsky stayed during the impeachment hearings of President Clinton}. His appearance is less obvious until 1913 when he marries Martha Moller Wick, a teacher in Washington State, a migrant from Norway in 1904, and reared in Minnesota. The family story is that they met on as cross-country railroad trip. It is likely that George Rockwell was returning from inspecting lighthouses in Alaska and that Marta was going home on a visit. The Post reports on these "nuptials" and soon after the Putnam family is establishing themselves in good style in DC.
By April 24, 1914, they are being hosted at the Army-Navy Club by various people including the postmaster and his wife Mrs R. C. Burleson. Indeed the Burlesons are clearly close friends, which is interesting to me because Mrs. Burleson was a leader of the Suffrage Parade of 1913 which I discuss in my book on Marching on Washington (UC Press, 2003).

To me, this is cool because like many I had an understanding on my family based on stories, and the historical research is changing it. That story always ran that Marta Aresvik Putnam (as she became known) was not a radical and it was Lucy Lombardi Barber who was. But my searching in these online sources show that both women supported suffrage. Thus the Putnam's friendship with the Burleson was not just a requirement of "heads" of division of President Wilson's government, but also something that represented the real interests of the women in the gatherings.


I am growing tired. But I hope to add more postings of the nature of Washington society life from the Barber's perspective soon.

The Public and the Private: Or My Great Grandmother fights off burglers

I think one of the issues that I have always loved to explore in history is what is revealed easily and what do people what to keep close to their hearts. If you study women's history like I did from a relatively early age, you learn that what is close to the heart (otherwise known as private) is often quite the most interesting stuff and what is public is often so shaped by circumstances that it appears boring. Thus, the poem from my hometown poet, Emily Dickinson, on "I'm nobody" which includes the line "How dreary to be somebody, How public like a frog" [checked thanks to excess of good internet sources on Dickinson]. I hope you have your pop-up blocker on for that link, but the reality is that quick access to some sources is worth ignoring or investing in some pop up blockers. I'd like to find everything for free without ads, but some sites do the republishing or the aggregation and need the money. [Friends, remind me to tell you about a fellow grad student from Brown who took the risk on internet commentary and is now useful and income producing but I am too tired to discuss this approach now.]

I'm not going to address that what is public might look boring, but in my opinion rarely is today. Instead, I'm quickly sharing just the shell of a story that I found through the miracles of digitized newspapers: I.e. "D.C. Mother Scares Off 3 Robbers." it is about my great grandmother Lucy Lombardi Barber (who gave me or shares my name). It is not available for free but if you have access to Proquest Digitized newspaper, the link on the title should work. If not, here's the quick summary:
My grandfather's brother Alvin Barton Barber, Jr (who I never met) was held up at about 1:00 am in the morning and the "carjackers" forced him and his friend Rogers Albritton to drive back to his parents house in Northwest Washington. There in the early morning of July 1947, they found Lucy Barber who called the police and threatened them. The robbers fled on foot, saving the car, and the cash on hand. My great uncle and his friend had little cash on hand. The Washington Post ran the story because (I assume) it was cool that a white woman in Northwest had drove off robbers of her son and his friend with a phone call to the police rather than with weapons.

So this is a "public story" that when I shared with my father and his siblings and cousins, none had heard. It was not part of the considerable number of stories passed down from generation to generation. There are reasons I am sure that a public story did not become a family story. And if anyone wants to speculate, I welcome your inquiries. I might have some more answers or not.

I like this complexity, but I also find it hard to write about. Given the time and everything, I'll sign off now (how about that for a dated phrase). I feel as though I need a picture though, so let's see what I can do. Here's a picture of (I think) Lucy Sr's father Cesar Maurice Lombardi of Rice University. I might be off by a generation. If so, apologies and corrections, PLEASE

From Drop Box