He hasn't a name but he is definitely male. I've had him for a long time, ever since I was a little girl. My great aunt Jessie was a firm believer in lucky ducks and bought me this little blue one so I could have my own bit of luck. I chose him for his cheerful yellow bill and his lovely sky-blue plumage.
Lucky Ducks were first created by Peter Rantell, when actors appearing in Whitby asked for a good luck charm (as one cannot make luck for oneself). A small, endearing duck was the result and now the business of producing them is over fifty years old.
My lucky duck has perched on every ms that I've sent out. Now my mss are sent out in email form, my duck always perches on top of my computer on the night before I post. When he's not sitting on manuscripts, he glides on top of my mobile phone as it lies on the bookcase, waiting for THE CALL from a big movie producer.
What
would a series about kisses in historically set movies be without a John Wayne
and Maureen O’Hara kiss?
Disappointing.
That’s what it would be.
I cut
my eye teeth, as the saying goes, on John Wayne movies. As such, John Wayne and
his larger than life persona are a memorable part of my childhood. Maureen O’Hara
was my favorite of all his leading ladies. I remember being absolutely crushed
when I discovered they weren’t married. In my pre-teen thinking brain, they
were such a perfect couple, how could they not be married. I was even a little
put out with John when he kissed other leading ladies.
While I
could rant about how many of Wayne’s movies did not age well for the portrayal
of the women’s characters (McLintock! and The Quiet Man, I’m looking at you), I’m
reminding myself that I mustn’t make judgements of the past through the lenses
of our current societal mores.
Onward to this month’s
kiss…
Regardless
of my mini-complaint that The Quiet Man didn’t age well, the two kisses toward
the end of the movie are my favorite John Wayneand Maureen O’Hara kisses. As always, Maureen
O’Hara’s characters hold their own with Wayne's characters, and she shines in this movie
in that regard.
I absolutely
love the build-up to the kisses, which occurs during a storm in a cemetery.
The
kisses come at the end of this clip. (1:23 and 1:49)
See you next month for more
kisses from the big screen.
Evergreen Chapel, Evergreen Cemetery Colorado Springs, CO Photo (C) Doris McCraw
We know Isabell Long was the wife of a Civil War Veteran. Her headstone stands next to her husband John H Long. From there it gets murky.
Isabell, according to her headstone was born in 1846 and she died in 1836. Marriage records show she married in Tazewell County, Illinois on February 13, 1864. Pekin, founded in the 1820s along the Illinois River, probably was the largest town in that county. Her husband John had mustered out of the service in Sand Prairie, Tazewell County, Illinois in August of 1863.
Using the above information, Isabell was probably living in the vicinity and the couple may have known each other prior to John entering the service in 1862.
We know Isabell was born in England. Her maiden name was Joyce. While searching through the immigration records, I found an Isabell Joyce who arrived in New York in 1860 with her mother and about seven other siblings. This Isabell was fourteen at the time. However, there is another Isabell Joyce who arrived in New York in 1851. So far, research has not verified which Isabell is the one who married John H. Long.
Image of the possible ship Isabell may have taken in 1860 From Ancestry.com
The 1910 census stated the couple had been married forty-seven years, and Isabell had born seven children all of who were still alive at that date. Her youngest was eighteen in 1910.
Isabell outlived her husband dying at about the age of ninety. What stories she could have told.
For other stories in this Civil War series, click the links below.
Carrying on from last month's post on Robert Lincoln's uncanny connections to presidential assassination, there were other strange things that I thought might interest you.
Many have noted as synchronicity between the murders of JFK and Lincoln. Apart from serving in the same position they both faced significant Civil Rights challenges during their time as president and were elected to Congress in a ‘46 year; 1846 for Lincoln, Kennedy in 1946. The two men entered the White House in a ‘60 year; 1860 and 1960, and both lost a child while serving as President. Willie Lincoln at 11 from typhoid in 1862, and JFK's premature baby of JFK, Patrick, passed away at just two days old in 1963.
John F. Kennedy
The similarities grow with their deaths. They were both shot, probably not that an uncommon method of assassination, but both were shot in the head. Lincoln at close range in box number seven while attending a performance of "Our American Cousin" in Ford's Theatre, Kennedy from a distance while riding in the seventh car an open-air Dallas motorcade in a car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company called a Lincoln. The underlying commonalities continue in that they were both killed on a Friday and they were both killed by men with three names Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth. On top of all that, both attackers were able to flee the scene of the murders, and were killed before coming to trial.
To top all of that off, both were succeeded by VPs called Johnson, and both were Southerners, whereas the presidents were Northerners. That part is less surprising as it's common for presidents to choose a running mate who will broaden their appeal.
Thomas Jefferson
American history shares more than a few similar synchronicities. Political adversaries Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day, the 4th July 1826. They were the last two remaining revolutionaries, and despite being rivals, had maintained a relationship by letter in their later years. On his death bed the 90-year-old Adams was unaware of his Jefferson’s death, whispered, “Thomas Jefferson survives.” He was wrong, as Jefferson had already died a few hours before.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the first battle was the Battle of Bull Run. "Bull Run" got the name of a stream on the land a 46-year-old grocer named Wilmer McLean in Manassas, Virginia.
The battle left his small farm in a state of devastation, so McLean took his wife to the safety of a new home in Appomattox, Virginia,. For around four years, this proved to be a good move until war found him again. In 1865, the war ended with Robert E. Lee surrendering to Ulysses S. Grant at the Appottomax Courthouse, mere steps from McLean's new property. The war begun and ended with Mr. McLean.
This is vaguely similar to the man who found war followed him when the Americans bombed Japan in WW2. Tsutomo Yamaguchi was unlucky enough to be in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell. He fled on a train, seeking safety. He arrived in Nagasaki in time to see a second flash. Over half his is body was covered in burns from radioactive ash, but he survived. Yamaguchi is the only person recognised by the Japanese government as having survived both bombings. The poor man died of cancer in 2010.
George Washington
George Washington is unquestionably one of, if not the, most important figure of the American Revolution. Historians agree that the prime reason for the American Revolution was a series of Acts of Parliament imposed on colonists without their consent or any representation, such as the 1765 Stamp Act.
It's interesting to note that those acts were the result of Britain needing to pay significant war debts that were the result of the Seven Years War. The Seven Years War (1756-1763) was a global conflict involving the world powers of the time, and was fought mainly in Europe and the Americas. One of the first actions of the Seven Years War was the Battle Of Jumonville Glen, followed by the Battle of Fort Necessity. Those involved French troops driving off a British crew who were building a fort in disputed territory. The British then ambushed the French force and took the fort back, but were unable to hold it. They retreated to Fort Necessity and held out as long as they could before surrendering to the French.
This set of events is considered one of the sparks that started the Seven Years War, which in turn caused the taxation, which then lit the fuse that started the revolutionary war.
So who was the leader of the British forces who took the fort and then surrendered? George Washington.
The Vikings believed in magic. I used one of their beliefs in my "Viking and the Pictish Princess," the idea of a cursing pole.
Called a Nithing pole (in old Norse this means Scorn Pole), this was a long staff or pole, set into the earth and topped with a horse's head. It was meant to bring bad luck, and along with runes, was intended to create malice and trouble.
Such rituals and poles are recorded in the Viking Sagas, as in Egil's Saga. You can see what he did in this excerpt on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nithing_pole
My Viking warrior Olaf also uses a Nithing pole. Instead of a horse's head he uses a deer's head, to placate the spirits and gods of the Pictish kingdom that he and his new wife are striving to protect from invaders and rival ruler Constantine.
Excerpt.
Up on the moor, beside the old ring of stones and facing
east, he had set up a cursing pole to anger and offend the spirits
of Constantine’s land, to give himself and his folk good
luck and to force bad luck onto Mongfind and her ilk. He had
slammed the newly felled and trimmed ash sapling into the
earth and snow, driving it down in his fury and frustration,
and topped the pole with the head of the roe deer, as sacrifice
to Loki, to Odin and to any Pictish god who would heed a Viking.
Man’s magic, for sure, but is it good to hold such secrets from my
wife?
It had to be, he decided. Eithne, these days, often looked
drawn and troubled. She had enough pain with her sister’s
As a strange writer's coincidence I wanted a Norse name for a small black horse, one that would roughly translate as "Sooty". I searched on the Internet and found a name: Saehrimnir, meaning sooty sea-beast. This fit nicely with Scottish and Pictish beliefs concerning water-horses and Kelpies.
The June movie kiss is from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
I am an
Indiana Jones movies fan. I like the Raiders of the Lost Ark best, because it was the first of the five in the franchise. However, I love them all for different reasons, not the least of which is I watch movies to be entertained, and all of
the Indiana Jones movies have entertained me.
In Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I loved that Indy and Marion were reunited and were married after all their years
apart. I also liked that they had a son. The ‘you may kiss the bride’ kiss was a
fun kiss, but it’s not THEKiss in the Indiana Jones franchise.
THEKiss is at the end of the fifth movie, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
In Dial
of Destiny, Indiana Jones is 80 years old and separated from Marion, due to a combination of his temperament and their deep grief. He is
disillusioned with where his life has brought him. He is equal
parts angry with life and himself. He is at loose ends with retirement and
wondering what purpose there is in life at his age. There were moments I felt
sorry for him. But he is still Indy at heart, despite his life since he and Marion
first fell in love to when they finally married twenty-something years later
and currently living alone with his heartache. Many references to the previous
four movies pop up in Dial of Destiny,
which is delightful.
There
is one particular scene in Dial of Destiny
that is absolutely soul-wrenching. It is in this scene that we see Indy at his
most vulnerable. It is agonizing to share his deepest regrets, which is the
grief of the death of his son and the subsequent disintegration of his marriage,
both of which he feels completely helpless to deal with.
I
needed Indy and Marion to reconcile before Dial of Destiny ended—desperately needed
it.
I
wasn't disappointed. The moments leading up to the reconciliation kiss are
simply wonderful. Their dialogue takes us back to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark scene when Marion and
Indy are alone in a cabin on the ship and Marion, exasperated, says, “Well, where doesn’t it
hurt?”
This is
a touching scene, and we know in our heart of hearts that it’s going to be okay
between Indy and Marion now. It’s a bittersweet, happy ever after feeling.
Theirs
is a kiss of forgiveness. It’s a kiss that begins to heal their shared heartache.
It is a kiss that reminds them of their love. It is THE Kiss.
This
movie clip isn’t great quality, but it’s the only one available on YouTube.
Dial of Destiny honored Harrison Ford
and Indiana Jones. It is a fitting story to end the series with.
See you next month for more
kisses from the big screen.
Robert Todd Lincoln (August 1, 1843 – July 26, 1926) was the eldest son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, and the only one of their children to outlive both parents. He was a businessman, a corporate lawyer, served as Secretary of War, and was also the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom. He was president of The Pullman Company from 1897 until 1911, but served on the board until 1924, two years before his death.
He had a distant relationship with his father, who was often busy working, but it seems that the President was aware of missing out on family life, mentioning to his wife in a letter, "don't let the blessed fellows forget Father."
Robert was an undistinguished student, failing fifteen out of the sixteen subjects of the Harvard entrance exams, and described by the author Jan Morris as having "emerged an unsympathetic bore." Parental strings were pulled for him at university and in his military career when the Civil War broke out, with his mother keeping him from joining up until shortly before the end of the war. President Lincoln seemed more aware of the optics, telling his wife that, "our son is not more dear to us than the sons of other people are to their mothers." However, when Robert did join up, his father wrote to Ulysses Grant asking for his son to be placed on his staff, meaning that he still got the kind of cushy and safe position denied to almost everyone else.
Abraham Lincoln
He married Mary Eunice Harlan in 1868, and had three children, who themselves had children of their own, with the last of Abraham Lincoln's acknowledged direct line dying out when Robert's grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985. However, DNA studies proved that author Vicky Reany Paulson is a descendent of Abraham Lincoln's mother's line, Nancy Hanks, who was illegitimate and raised by her grandparents until going to live with her mother and her new husband when she was twelve. There's currently a DNA project underway to find more people connected to this side of the family, and that proves Nancy Hanks' parentage was different from that of her siblings, confirming the illegitimacy tales. Rumours still swirl about Lincoln's feal father being a man named Thompson, but no research has confirmed this to date.
All these stories are commonplace to those of us who have studied our own family trees. We all have such dalliances in our genealogy, but what sets Robert Lincoln apart, aside from the extraordinary opportunities and company his fortunate birth set before him? It wasn't even the scandal of committing his mother to an, albeit plush, mental asylum to evade negative publicity; something she ruined by sneaking a letter out to her lawyer and escaping, leaving the press negatively questioning his motives. Such treatment of inconvenient women was fairly
James A. Garfield
commonplace at that time, although she garnered more public sympathy than most.
His distinction lies in his link to assassinated American presidents.
Robert was invited to the theatre the night his father was shot, but declined the invitation. However, he was present when Abraham Lincoln died, nine hours after being fatally wounded in 1865. Not only that, but he was present when Charles J. Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881. Just to compound that, he was just outside when President William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz, making him the only man there when three American presidents died through assassination, which makes him absolutely unique in US history.
On top of all that, he was saved from falling in front of a train in 1963 or '64 by Edwin Booth, whose brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated Robert's father. Robert Lincoln wrote, "
William McKinley
The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of coursea narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name."
So, Robert Lincoln was not only present when three American Presidents were assassinated, but was rescued from certain death by the brother of the man who killed his father.
My question to you is, what's your favourite set of weird coincidences?
This short post is on Martha Lynn Bell. She was born in Indiana in 1839 to William and Elizabeth Lynn. By 1850 she and her six siblings were living in Keokuk County, Iowa. Her father was a minister.
She married James W. Bell in Keokuk County, Iowa, sometime between May 28 and May 30, 1859. The couple settled in Steady Run, Keokuk County, Iowa.
The couple remained in Keokuk County, Steady Run through 1870. By the 1880 census, the couple and their two daughters were living in Luka, Pratt County, Kansas.
Possible photo of Martha from Find A Grave
In 1883 the couple arrived in Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado. During their marriage, other than when James was serving in the Iowa Infantry during the Civil War, she was raising their daughters. The census records always show her as a housewife. James was a carpenter.
Martha passed on March 2, 1892, at fifty-three of pneumonia.
For those who want to learn more about Keokuk County, Iowa, here is a link to the 1996 Sesquicentennial video: History of Keokuk County, Iowa
For links to past writing on Civil War Veterans and Civil War Wives:
The May
movie kiss comes to you from the 1990 movie, Quigley Down
Under. The casting is perfect:
Tom
Selleck plays the American cowboy who travels to Australia in answer to an ad
for a sharpshooter;
Laura
San Giacomo plays “Crazy” Cora Cobb, a woman cruelly abandoned when her husband
put her on a ship to Australia as punishment for the death of their baby;
and
Alan
Rickman as Elliot Marston, the man who advertised for a sharpshooter and who is
a nasty bit of goods.
We hope
from the moment Quigley comes to Cora’s defense in the first minutes of the
movie that they will end up together. We watch their feelings for each other
develop during the trials and hardships they share as they survive the hardships of the Australian outback.
We experience a couple of ‘near kiss’ moments. When Quigley rides away
from Cora near the end of the movie then stops and looks back at her, our hearts leap into our throats
and our eyes mist over. We know he loves her, because he stops to look back. She knows it, too.
The business with Marston is unfinished, and both Quigley and Cora know he has to face down Marston, which is why Quigley leaves Cora behind. Right now, we’re
a little nervous that they (and us) will be cheated out of their kiss.
But not
to worry. They are reunited at the ship that will take them back to America. The kiss we’ve waited for doesn’t disappoint. It’s a happy, feel good
moment, and we can’t stop smiling.
See you next month for more
kisses from the big screen.
A small plaque in an alley in London declares that the Republic of Texas had a small embassy over a wine shop in London from 1842 to 1845. It's at the entrance a small alley in Pickering Place off St. James’s Street and reminds us, that for a very short time, The Republic of Texas (declared in 1836) quickly tried to establish international relations. A number of Texas Legations were established in Washington, D.C., London, and Paris in 1836. The Paris Embassy is in The Place Vendôme in the 1st arrondissement, and is known as Hôtel Bataille de Francès.
These diplomatic missions were designed to promote the new republic, but the one in London is notable due to a few quirks in the tale.
Even at the time of opening, the Texas Embassy in London was above a wine merchant's premises in London. It's still there today, having opened over three hundred years ago on land where Henry VIII used to enjoy hunting parties with Anne Boleyn. Patrons to Berry Bros and Rudd included Lord Byron, and it was on their scales that he unveiled his famous weight loss after dieting, having gone from thirteen stone twelve pounds in boots, hat, and all his clothes (194lbs) to ten stone (140lbs). The business was founded in 1698 as high-end grocers, but they didn't become wine merchants until the late eighteenth century, with the present premises being built in 1730. Apart from Bryon, famous clients included Beau Brummell, William Pitt the Younger, and the Aga Khan, so you can see that Texas was in a good area. In fact, it is very close to St. James's Palace.
Under the shop, there are two acres of wine cellars and caves, and the buildings were home to a high end Georgian brothel and gambling den, and the courtyard at the back was previously used for cock-fighting.
Houston sent Secretary of State Dr. Ashbel Smith to serve as the Texas Legation representative, and Britain welcomed the Texas Legation. Goods were traded and there was even an offer from the UK to help protect the Texan borders from the USA. The then Prime Minister, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, had talks aimed at funding the abolition of slavery in Texas, but Smith informed him that it was "impossible for Texas to accept any sort of a British subsidy for the abolition of slavery without a greater sacrifice of national dignity than she was willing to make.”
That decision has led historians to speculate that it hastened the end of Texan independence, reducing support from European nations, and making it harder to resist annexation. Britain wanted a tactical counterweight to the USA, but there is also little doubt that the Conservative government was reluctant to spend money in areas where they had few political vested interests, and a reluctance to engage with America or Mexico in border disputes. Britain was certainly not squeamish enough about slavery to refuse Texan cotton.
The Texan Embassy closed in 1845, but not before a now-legendary party in which much wine and liquor was consumed. The Texans went home, but left behind a debt of £160 in unpaid rent, a massive £16,198.75 today ($20,330.73). That bill remained unpaid for over a century until Texas’s sesquicentennial year. 26 Texans dressed in Texas buckskin settled the bill with Berry Brothers & Rudd in Republic of Texas bank notes. Berry Brothers & Rudd honoured the relationship by launching a new brand of whiskey named “Tex Leg Bourbon Whiskey.” The visit was arranged by the Anglo-Texan Society, of whom the author Graham Greene was a founding member. The society was founded after Greene and actor-producer John Sutro when they heard some visiting Texans complain about British reserve. It was that society who installed the plaque marking the premises in 1963. It disbanded in 1979.
Sarah Jane Durkee Anderson was born to St. Louis, Missouri banker Dwight Durkee, and Sarah Jane Davis Durkee in March of 1856. This made her, according to the 1972 book, " Five Hundred First Families of America", by Alexander Du Bin, a person of some importance, in terms of her heritage.
So far, there is not much to be found about Sarah's early life. She was one of probably four children. She married Dr. Boswell P. Andersonm born around 1845, on January 2, 1879, at the Church of Holy Communion (?), in St. Louis. Her parents were in attendance, and according to the records, helped serve as witnesses. The couple settled in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Dr. Anderson was an early doctor in the region and was instrumental in much of the growth of the medical mecca of the area, including a term as the President of the Colorado Medical Society. He served in the CSA as one of Mosby's raiders in the Civil War and carried a bullet for the rest of his life from that conflict.
As the wife of such a prominent person, Sarah took part in charity events, traveled, and raising three of the couple's surviving six children. She was part of a circle of prominent people in the region.
The below article from the March 30, 1912 issue of the Rocky Mountain News illustrates this point.
Her husband passed on August 29, 1919. Sarah lived another twenty-one years, passing on July 10, 1940, at age eighty-six.
Given her background, she was probably comfortable in the circle of people she associated with. However, one does wonder how she fared with such a prominent husband who, according to stories, drank and partied fairly heavily. We can only infer, for no records of writings exist or have been found so far. As a historian, I can only hope.
One thing is certain, Sarah and her husband worked together along with others in the community leaving the conflict that was the Civil War out of their part in the growing community. The history wasn't hidden, it simply was not the most important part of their community involvement.
For links to past writing on Civil War Veterans and Civil War Wives:
He hasn't a name but he is definitely male. I've had him for a long time, ever since I was a little girl. My great aunt Jessie was a firm believer in lucky ducks and bought me this little blue one so I could have my own bit of luck. I chose him for his cheerful yellow bill and his lovely sky-blue plumage.
