A Ghostly Tale

In honor of Halloween, I'd like to share my very first article for Patch.com posted Oct. 2010. It features one of the oldest cemeteries in southeastern Michigan along with some area ghost hunters who hope to make cemeteries less frightening. Enjoy & Happy Halloween!

Graveyard at Night is a Ghost Hunters Delight, Oct. 26, 2010

The Debut of Two Major Projects to Boost Local Preservation Efforts

This week's article for Rochester Patch features two big developments in the efforts to preserve local history in southeastern Michigan. The first is a major study and report on the 20-year archaeological excavation at the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm. The report detailed the findings from the dig which included over 150,000 items ranging from glassware and silverware to animal bones and farm tools. I was fortunate to be a part of this excavation while still in my teens. The report is available for purchase from the museum.


The second development is the launch of a new web site from the Rochester-Avon Historical Society. This local historical society is amazingly coordinated and have accomplished some major tasks to further local preservation efforts. The web site is the latest accomplishment and will continue to grow, incorporating smart phone technology to boost awareness of historical sites, as well as historical tourism.

The site is encouraged to go regional with various historical agencies and city governments adding historic sites to a Google map with push pin icons and GPS coordinates. The icons are clickable and reveal a survey sheet of information similar to what is required for a property to be considered for the National Register of Historic Places.

The article was split into two for the week. Here are the links.

Local Web Site a One-Stop Shop for History Explorers

The 20-Year Dig: 150,000 Artifacts Paint Picture of Early Stoney Creek

Local Farmer Gathered Followers to Wait for the End of Days

Today is another in a long list of days predicted to be the end of the world and those who have done the predicting have a unique place in American history.



Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Last May, I wrote a column for Rochester Patch about a local farmer, Uriah Adams, who became enamored with the Millerite movement. Founded by New York farmer, William Miller, the Millerites were an extremist religious group who believed Miller's prediction that the world would end in March 1843.

When the world didn't end, Miller recalculated his figures and determined the end would really happen on Oct. 22, 1844. In Rochester, Michigan, a small agrarian village at the time, Uriah Adams, already deeply fanatical, took Miller's prediction to heart and, with his own small following, waited for the world to end.

Adams' followers lived with him and his wife and children on a farm in rural Rochester, where all sorts of strange activities took place including, spouse-swapping, child endangerment, and incest. Adams' followers became prisoners on the farm. If they left, Adams told them, they were doomed to die.

Adams was a unique character in Rochester's history. He may not have made national headlines, but he certainly was one of many caught up in a vast fanatical religious movement during those years of the Second Great Awakening in the United States.

Ultimately, Adams met a tragic ending. To find out more, click on the link to the article.

http://rochester.patch.com/articles/local-farmer-predicted-end-of-days-in-1844-didnt-happen-then-either

Photo caption: Created in 1843 by Thomas S. Sinclair (circa 1805-1881), this drawing shows a caricature of a Millerite preparing for the Second Coming of Christ in April 1843. A man sits in a large safe labeled "Patent Fire Proof Chest," stocked with a ham, a fan (hanging on the door of the safe), cheese, brandy, cigars, ice, a hat, and a small book marked "Miller." As he thumbs his nose, he says "Now let it come! I'm ready." The "salamander safe," probably a trade name of the period, is named after the animal mythically reputed to have the ability to endure fire (and, presumably, the holocaust) without harm. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Letter from Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch

I had two jobs when I worked for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1998-2003. The first was Manager of Publications in which I served as editor of the orchestra's program magazine, Performance, as well as numerous other publications. The second was Archivist. Archival management was a secondary focus of mine in graduate school (where I was the fortunate student of Dr. Phil Mason, author, distinguished professor and former archivist to the Kennedy family) and so I was given the responsibility of archiving historical documents pertaining to the history and administration of the orchestra (music was handled by the orchestra librarians) -- something that hadn't been done in earnest before and is now, I'm glad to know, a major component of the orchestra's daily activities as it now has a full-time archivst. Both responsibilities kept me extremely busy and allowed me to combine my love for writing and my passion for history. It truly was a wonderful position to have with such an amazing organization.

As I wrote, researched and cataloged, I got to know more about the orchestra's previous music directors and principal conductors. One of the first was world-renowned Russian pianist, Ossip Gabrilowitsch. In 1919, when the orchestra asked Gabrilowitsch to extend his one-year contract another two years, he agreed on the condition that a new concert hall be built, one, it's noted in Stages: 75 Years of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Hall, "worthy of the orchestra he had trained."

Orchestra Hall was designed by C. Howard Crane, future architect of Detroit's Fox Theatre, and built on the foundations of Old Westminster Church on Woodward. The hall was constructed around the clock and completed in just four months and 23 days. Funded by Detroit's wealthy auto barons like Horace and Anna Dodge, as well as donations from a number of prominent members of Detroit society, including $5,000 from Gabrilowitsch, Orchestra Hall opened on Oct. 23, 1919.



Ossip and Clara Gabrilowitsch.
United States Library of Congress's
Prints and Photographs division
under the digital ID cph.3b08268

Concert soloists for the 1919-1920 season included pianists Harold Bauer and Olga Samaroff, cellist Pablo Casals, violinist Arrigo Serato, and mezzo-soprano and Gabrilowitsch's wife, Clara Clemens. If her last name sounds familiar it's because Clara was the daughter of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain.

According to marktwainonline.com, a web site maintained by descendants of the Clemens/Lucia families, Clara was born in New York in 1874 and schooled in Connecticut and in Berlin, Germany. She studied piano but decided to pursue a career in opera. She met Ossip while her family was living in Austria.

The site notes that the two became friends and maintained an on-again, off-again courtship. In 1909, Ossip and Clara, now 35 years old, resumed their relationship. They were married that October. Mark Twain died a few months later in 1910. Having outlived her siblings, Clara inherited her father's entire estate.

The Gabrilowitsch's, now with daughter Nina in tow, moved to Detroit, Michigan, when Ossip received his new appointment as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's music director.



A letter from Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch
from my personal collection.

In 1921, the Gabrilowitch's lived at 5456 Cass Avenue, at least that's what it says on a letter signed by Clara that I purchased from eBay several years ago. It's a brief letter to a Mr. Cooke about his book and some songs. Unfortunately, the letter was not accompanied by the envelope. I would love to know more about Mr. Cooke and who he was: an up and coming musician? Songwriter?

The home was near what is now Wayne State University and the Detroit Historical Museum (not far from Orchestra Hall). I've included a link to the Google Street View for 5456 Cass for reference.

It's been reported that Clara was not a tremendously strong singer and that her parents, in fact, were not in favor of her leaving piano studies to pursue a vocal career. 

In "O.G. the Incomparable:" Memories of Ossip Gabrilowitsch by Russ McLauchlin, a long-ago music and drama critic for The Detroit News and personal friend to Ossip, it's noted that Clara's voice was not highly regarded.

"Mrs. O.G. was a beautiful woman," wrote McLauchlin. "There is a story that once, long before the Gabrilowitsch marriage, a musical afternoon was held in the Mark Twain home . . . The feature of the program was Clara Clemens, who insisted on being considered a musician.

"In the long years of O.G.'s incumbency with the Detroit Symphony, the wife of his bosom was occasionally presented as soloist, not as the weekend 'pop' but to the stately audience of subscribers . . . Mrs. Gabrilowitsch, who was always billed as 'Mme. Clara Clemens,' was not a good singer.

"We all felt the utmost respect and affection for her husband. In our few encounters, we found her a woman of breeding and charm. But the fact remained that her vocal gifts were several kilometers short of great."

Ossip remained the music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra until his death from cancer in 1936. The Clemens/Lucia family web site states that Clara and Nina left Detroit for Europe soon after Ossip's death and that Clara married Jacques Samossaud, also a Russian musician, eight years later. They eventually relocated to California where Clara died in 1962 at age 88.

Additional sources & information:

http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/projects/applebaum/clara.html

To listen to some amazing recordings of Ossip playing the piano, visit http://www.forte-piano-pianissimo.com/ossipgabrilowitsch.html.

For more about Mark Twain & his family:
http://www.marktwainhouse.org/man/twains_children.php

The History Reporter is now on Facebook

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Detroit Industrialist Converted Lavish Home into a Mental Hospital

Today's "A Patch of History" column for Rochester Patch features Detroit industrialist Fred Shinnick and his wife, Lillian, who built a lavish country retreat about 25 miles north of Detroit in Avon Township (now Rochester Hills, MI) on over seventy acres of farmland. The home was named "The Haven" and rightfully so as it had 30 rooms, English gardens, a lake, and a caretaker's house, as well as a luxurious interior.

The home was built in the mid-1920s and served as a family residence for only a few short years. Perhaps the weight of the Great Depression forced the family to consider making an income from the home in order to maintain it, as a fellow blogger at Remembering Rochester has suggested.


The Haven as the Shinnick residence. Courtesy of OCHR.

Shinnick's obituary from 1965 noted that one of his son's, Fred Jr., was managing a new nursing facility where his father was a patient. That left me wondering if the family had a propensity toward caring for the ill and managing hospitals. After all, why choose to place a mental facility in your own home (it seems the Shinnick's still kept residence in the home among patients)? Research for that theory will be left for another day.

The Haven Sanitarium was a working mental facility from 1932 to 1968 and was rumored to have treated wealthy patients and even a few Hollywood stars. As noted in the Patch article, the evidence to back those rumors has yet to surface.

In the 1940s, The Haven partnered with the Rochester School District to assist children, teachers, staff and parents dealing with mental illness. The definition of mental illness was quite different in those days and included "conditions" like shyness and "smart-alecky" behavior, as well as more serious problems such as bullying and suicidal feelings.

The program was called the Rochester Plan and featured some pioneering techniques including therapy through art, shop or design work, as well as a questionable method called The Best Friends List used to find kids to treat. All Rochester school children were required to anonymously fill out a questionnaire asking them to write down the names of their two best friends. The lists were compiled and compared. Kids who's names weren't on the lists were brought in for treatment.

When the hospital closed in 1968 due, perhaps, to overcrowding, it was purchased by a doctor who planned to build condominiums on the property. That plan fell through and sanitarium was abandoned and left vacant. It became the home of vagrants and a "horror" hangout for frightened teen-agers until it burned to the ground in 1973.

Check out the article on Rochester Patch for a bit more information regarding The Haven.

Vikings, Maidens and Cadavers Oh My! It's the October History Carnival!

I’m happy to host this month’s History Carnival. It features blog posts from September which were selected from nominations received over the last few weeks and days . . . including yesterday, which is perfect because I know the nominations are fresh J. This month’s carnival is as varied as the fall leaves now dropping in droves from the trees outside my window and includes a Viking warrior, suicidal maiden, rotting cadavers (it is the month of Halloween after all), a bratty socialite and so much more. So sit back and enjoy the October History Carnival here at the History Reporter!

In Tales from the Parish Clerks’ Memoranda No. 6: The devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour at Rescript, Donna Baillie uncovers an unusually compassionate view of suicide among parish clerks of the seventeenth century. In their recorded burial entry for maid Mary Play, who poisoned herself in the house of her master in October 1616, the clerks, Baillie notes, included a particularly sympathetic choice of scripture and referenced an unusual choice for burial -- the churchyard.

Writing Women’s History contains a post featuring a favorite topic of mine – diaries. In this case, Diary of a Victorian Debutante is about Alice Miles, a beautiful (and she knows it), English teen-aged socialite of the 1860s who laments about finding a rich husband. This isn’t Jane Austen, but it sure could be as Miles’ diary entries seem quite descriptive and filled with the usual gossip our society still craves about age, beauty, parties, etc. Like many socialites, Miles eventually finds herself in many desperate situations.

Christopher M. Cevasco takes us back to the days of the Vikings in Landøyðan – A Bird in the Hand which tells us about eleventh century Norwegian king and Viking warrior Harald Hardrada, whose allegiance to his raven banner, a type of battle flag believed to invoke the protective powers of Odin, “chief god of the Norse pantheon,” was legendary. The banner not only instilled fear in the enemy (the Anglo-Saxons), but, supposedly, protected men in battle and assured victory. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan for Harald and Cevasco provides some theories on where the banner could be today if it survived the “bloody muck of the battlefield.”

We get a good laugh with The Historical Society’s post, War of 1812, What Was it Good For . . . ? which features the video, “War of 1812: The Movie” by College Humor Originals. This satirical historical film trailer poses the question: just how much do we know about the War of 1812? The post doesn’t mince words – in fact it doesn’t have any. But what it conveys by posting the incredibly clever video (which I never would've seen otherwise) speaks volumes, I believe, about how history is taught in schools as we grow up with a vague knowledge of many important historical events. Check it out and you’ll see what I mean.

Over at History and the Sock Merchant, the post The Victorian’s Play Shea Stadium: The Crystal Palace of Concerts makes an interesting comparison between the Beatles’ 1965 record-breaking (in attendance and revenue) concert at Shea Stadium and the nineteenth-century orchestral and operatic performances at the long-gone Crystal Palace in London. The immense cast-iron and glass building, originally built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, hosted concerts that attracted just as many fans in the 1850s as the Beatles did over a hundred years later. Furthermore, as the post suggests, the venue, like the Beatles, also helped to usher in a new era of music and culture referred to as the English Musical Renaissance. But I find that the similarities don’t end there, as the Beatles went Victorian when they donned bowler hats for this photo currently up for grabs on eBay.

You’ll swear you can taste good English ale while reading Puremedievalry’s post Medieval Feast. If you’ve never experienced a turkey drumstick at a Renaissance Festival, don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything. Instead, do yourself a favor and make the medieval dinner from the recipes posted here. The white bean soup, lamb meatloaf and bread and butter pudding in Medieval Feast is the closest we’ll ever get to a time machine.

For those who like squeamish-inducing reads about the unsettling medical practices of yesteryear, look no further than The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice and the post Learning to Live Amongst the Dead, which reveals the truth about life as a student surgeon-in-training in the eighteenth century. Blood, pus, decaying flesh and rancid odors turned away many young and unprepared medical students like John Keats. Let’s just say, he made the right decision.

We take a decidedly different turn with the blog Beijing Time Machine and the post A Great Leap Brew and the Excavation of a Cultural Revolution Slogan, in which Jared Hall stumbles across a relic from China’s Cultural Revolution of the mid-1960s still visible on the side of a building, yet partially obscured by white paint. The discovery left Hall annoyed: “Make up your mind. Preserve it or paint it over.” The post highlights the little-discussed struggle over which era of history to preserve as Hall notes that the relic in its current condition is not only symbolic of the movement that inspired it, but also representative of the cultural change it initiated.

Climb aboard Night Train to Detroit for the post The Old Log Cabin about the “rustic” summer home of Senator Thomas Palmer and his wife, Lizzie, in what is now Palmer Park. The cabin, opened in 1887, is still standing. Compare the pictures of the cabin’s interior from its heyday with a contemporary exterior shot and you'll scratch your head asking yourself, “how did all of that fit in there?”

History by Zim’s post Alice Ramsey’s Cross-Country Drive strikes a chord with me. I adore stories about women who forged ahead despite ridicule and widely-held opinions about gender. I’ve mentioned Gertrude Ederle in a previous blog post and wrote my master’s thesis about women who set both feet firmly in the public realm during the American Civil War. In 1909, Ramsey became the first women to “complete a transcontinental drive” from New York to San Francisco. I love that year, as it was the year Sara Van Hoosen Jones embarked on her trip to Europe at age seventeen, writing about her travels in three diaries that I’m now transcribing and editing.

That’s it! I hope you enjoyed October’s History Carnival. Thank you for letting me host and stay tuned to find out which history blogger will host the November carnival. Happy reading!