Sepia Airedale

Keying into this week's canine-themed Sepia Saturday, we feature my father's Airedale, Mike. Some of these photos have appeared in other posts, but since a good many of the stories we heard about the old homestead in Elm, Michigan, revolved around the exploits of Mike, it seems worthy to let him have his own entry.

Mike's baby picture, with young Nelson in a sailor suit circa 1920.

Mike looks considerably grown up, but Nelson's only aged a few years. Love the belted jacket, looks like he's off to church with sister Margaret.

One of the stories described Mike playing the part of dreaded "Moby Dick, the Sea Dog"while my dad and his sisters would clamber around in the apple tree, which was the Pequod.

Another couple of years and they added another dog. Pluto... I think Margaret's holding a little umbrella or perhaps a doll, but it looks more like a rubber chicken!

Mike is definitely a mature fellow by now. Is that a cookie on a saucer that Margaret is resting on his head?
Is it my imagination or is he wearing shoes?

Here is Mike with another addition to the family, Chingo, the black chow, and the eldest sister, Dorothy,
enjoying a little shade.

Reportedly Nelson recited poetry to Mike in quiet moments.

The whole menagerie, 15 years on...hanging out on The Marmon. 

Sepia Saturday: Hey Sailor

Diving once again into my box of paternal snapshots, with this week's Sepia Saturday prompt in mind...which encompasses sailor suits, among other things. My father might have worn this when playing with his younger sister Margaret and Airedale Mike, "The Sea-Dog," while perched in the "poop-deck" of an elm branch.

I' can't quite make out what the kids are holding...is it paper hearts for Valentine's Day?

Here he's forsaken the "dress whites" for the "swabbie" look.

Before his nautical career my father apparently aimed at being the engineer of a steam train.

Or a young Babe Ruth.

However, he ended up as an English professsor, and whatever his outfit was, you usually couldn't see it.

Wade in the water

A tip of the bathing-cap to the aquatic theme of this week's Sepia Saturday.

My folks, pictured deep in the land o' lakes above (Michigan), bought me this record when I was a kid -- selections from the TV folksong revue, "Hootenanny."

I grew very fond of several of the more upbeat folky songs on it ("Katie Cruel" in particular), but my least favorite (at the tender age of 10) was Judy Henske's rendition of the gospel song, "Wade in the Water." Between the intense lyrics and her growling performance, it terrified me.

At any rate, 50 years later I love Henske's performance. She foreshadows by several years another powerful emulator of black blues hollerers, Janis Joplin, who I also simply couldn't bear the first time I heard her, in 9th grade. (I was a sheltered child in the '60s... in addition to this record, my parents bought me Miles Davis and Schubert...an attempt, I suspect, to lure me away from the likes of Elvis Presley.)

I was quite pleased when the great '80s American band The Replacements stole the Hootenanny cover design for one of their own records.

Here are some interesting other renditions.

• Traditional: Ella Jenkins
• Rocking: Big Mama Thornton
• Jazzy: Ellen McIlwaine
• Electro hip-hop! Rudy Jimenez

For more water wading of various sorts, don't forget to visit the afore-linked Sepia Saturday!

Vanishing Point: The Michiganers

The opening photo today, a nod to this week's Sepia Saturday theme, was taken from the front yard of my father's childhood home in Elm, Michigan, looking across the cow-strewn fields where a freight train smokes away down the Pere Marquette railroad...an example of the "vanishing point" effect.

Not all that far away from Elm was the town of Hudson. And Hudson marks a sort of vanishing point for much of my family tree, where the roots disappear back into a darkish history.

The family album has several photos that don't note the subject's name. However, the backs bear the imprint of two photographers in Hudson, Michigan: Fred D. Brown and D.H. Spencer. Members of both the Hale and, predominantly, the Daniels, clans lived in the Hudson area in the late 1800s. (The longtime American English Hales married into the lately arrived English Danielses, who then married into the Scots/Irish Orrs, who then married into the longtime American English Bentleys.)

George Daniels, my great-great-grandfather, first acquired land in Concord, Michigan, near Battle Creek, in 1848.

 The first photo below I am guessing is a contemporary of George Daniels: Lucretia (Johnson) Hale, who was the mother of George's daughter-in-law Martha (Hale) Daniels. I make this guess based on the fact that it's a tintype (this one has no photographer imprint), and the only other such photos like it in the album are of Martha's daughters Louise and Alice, around 1876.  That was two years after the death of Henry Daniels' mother, Ann Twidale Daniels, the other likely candidate for the photo.

Lucretia would have been about 69 that year. Her husband Hiram Hale (a melodious and oddly common name, as it turns out) had been dead since 1861.

I believe the next photo is the same woman a few years later; her snood or scarf seems identical. She looks about ten years older, so if it's now around 1888, Lucretia would be 80. The young Danielses had moved from Lansing to nearby Hudson, where Henry's parents were now living, in Lenawee County, between 1870 and 1880.

It was a goodly sized family living in Concord as of 1850. The following photos, probably taken 20 years later, are possibly Henry H. Daniels' siblings Mary, b. 1837; Robert, b. 1833 MI; Benjamin, b. 1835; and/or William b. 1846. But no solid evidence exists aside from the photographer's location (Hudson being quite nearby) .

This guy looks to be about the right age to be Robert or Benjamin if this was taken in 1876. On the other hand, he bears a resemblance, especially in the mouth, to Martha Hale Daniels. Like George, she had three brothers and a sister: Andrew (b. 1837),  Benjamin (b. 1835), John (b. 1845), and  Alice (b. 1848) ... Still, everyone looked so "down in the mouth" in these portraits, it's hard to tell!

The Captain and the Captain's Wife

Henry H. Daniels was my paternal grandmother's maternal grandfather -- that is, my father's mother's mother's father. There's a nice sort of symmetry about that. He was born in Michigan in 1840, of English immigrants George Daniels (Lincolnshire) and Ann Twidale (Yorkshire). At this point I know very little about his family, but I know the following, thanks to 2nd Michigan Volunteer Infantry web site:

• Henry H. Daniels was residing in Hudson at the outbreak of the Civil War.
• He enlisted, in Hudson, as Sergeant in Company B 2nd Michigan Infantry, on the 10th of May 1861. He was 21 years old at this time.
• He was promoted to Command Sgt. on 25 August 1862 (Acting Aide-de-camp to Colonel Fenton, 1st Brigade). He was transferred on the same day from Company B to Staff.
• He was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant on 17 September 1862. He was transferred on the same day from Staff to Company H.
• He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant on 24 February 1863 (Acting Aide-de-camp 1st Brigade, 1st Div., 9th Corps). He was transferred on the same day from Company H to Company D.
• He was transferred on 27 May 1863 from Company D to Company I.
• He was promoted to Captain on 12 March 1864 of Company C.
• Promoted to Adjutant on 26 March 1864. He was transferred on 29 March 1864 from Company I to Staff.
• He was transferred on 28 July 1864 from Staff to Company C.
• He was discharged for wounds on 05 November 1864 as Aide-de-camp on staff of Colonel Leasure. 

His wife was Martha L. Hale, born around 1842 in New York state.Bentley family lore had it that she was related to the famous American patriot Nathan Hale (1755-1776). However, records are very spotty and inconsistent; it appears that her father, Hiram (1805-1861), was the son of a Nathaniel Hale (b. 1758), and I so far can't get the dots to connect. Oh well! At any rate, she looks a bit dour, doesn't she? But obviously she was in Henry's heart during the war -- and he looks pretty wistful about it (I'm assuming he's getting ready to leave for duty, with his Sergeant's stripes).



This book briefly lists the actions of the 2d Infantry...

"This Regiment left Detroit on the 5th of June, 1861 — the first of the three years' Regiments in the field from this State — with an aggregate force on its muster rolls of 1,013, to which 102 had been added previous to the 1st of July. Its first engagement was at Blackburn's Ford, Va., July 18th, 1861. During the winter it lay near Alexandria, Va., and in March was moved under McClellan to the Virginia Peninsula. It took part in the siege of Yorktown; in engagements at Williamsburg, May 5th; at Pair Oaks, May 21st; at Charles City Cross Roads, June 30; at Malvern Hill, July 1; and at Chantilly, September 1. Its casualties at Williamsburg were 17 killed, 38 wounded, and 4 missing; at Fair Oaks, 10 killed and 47 wounded. Major General Israel B. Richardson, who entered the service in this war as commanding officer of the 2d, when it was organized, died in October last, of wounds received in the battle of Antietam, in which he commanded a division of Union forces. On the 30th of November the aggregate of the Second Infantry, present and absent, was 642. It is in Burns' Division off the ninth army corps of the army of the Potomac..."


Here are the Danielses some years later in Cripple Creek. Henry took his daughters Alice and Louise west and joined the mineral rush like his inlaws-to-be the Orrs, in the Colorado mining industry.

There are some great photos on MiningArtifacts.org.

Perhaps surprisingly Henry is buried in Oakland, California, but his grandson Hugh wound up as an Oakland attorney. So there you go.

Finally, I just discovered a distinguished-looking Henry in the gloriously titled "Representative Men of Colorado in the Nineteenth Century: A Portrait Gallery of Many of the Men who Have Been Instrumental in the Upbuilding of Colorado, Including Not Only the Pioneers, But Others Who, Coming Later, Have Added Their Quota, Until the Once Territory is Now the Splendid State." (Rowell Art Publishing Company, 1902 - Colorado - 272 pages) Outside of this honor I can't find evidence of what made him so "instrumental," but I'll take their word for it!

Reference sites include Michigan In the War, Find a Grave, and FamilySearch.

Sister Alice

This week I manage to fulfil the Sepia Saturday theme of Sisters. Alice E. Daniels, known as Allie, was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1870. She was the younger sister of my great-grandmother Louise, whom I spotlighted in my last Sepia Saturday Eff-Stop post.

 I believe that of these three girls, the far-right one is Allie (there's a telltale birthmark on the bridge of her nose) and the far-left Louise, born in 1868. I have not as yet determined the identity of the older girl. The picture thus would have been taken around 1873, a few years before the family moved a tad south to Lenawee County, Michigan.

Here's Allie with what must be a favorite doll. She has some sort of adornment on her head, unless it's a hairdo of some sort, and appears to be in front of a painted backdrop.

A couple of years later, Allie (left) has a very similar dress -- perhaps the same one but let out -- and a different collar. The backdrop is rather sickeningly tilted! Interestingly, her sister appears in a similar photo wearing the same dress, though without the necklace.

 

Here is what appears to be a teenage Allie -- looking, I have to say, rather wistful, though I think she's the more beautiful of the sisters.

One mystery is that in the 1900 census, there is a Harry Daniels, aged 6, living with his grandparents Henry and Martha Daniels, along with Alice. Alice, now 30 (although being listed as 25), does not have a married name. Harry, noted as a grandson, not a son, is not the son of Louise, who was by this time married to Gaylord Orr, with her own children. He is listed as being born in Arkansas -- a state the Danielses never lived in, as far as I know. Was he born out of wedlock? Did Alice marry, move to Arkansas, and then divorce and return home?

For more about Louise and the Orrs, see The Irish Side.

The Hats of Wayne County

A few years ago I read a fascinating book titled Hatless Jack: The President, the Fedora, and the History of American Style, which attributed the demise of previously ubiquitous male hattage to the dashing JFK, who never sported the standard presidential fedoras.

This week's Sepia Saturday theme involves hats, so I offer here a selection of hats that my grandfather Bentley wore. Most of these photos I've previously posted in their full state, and have cropped them a bit for this post...

Here is George, center, in a youthful flat cap.  The year is most likely in the 'Teens. He's standing in front of the Bentley Bros. general store and gas station, with his brother Clyde to his left and an assistant on his right, both of whose hats look peculiarly Russian. There appears to be snow on the ground and roof, so you can hardly blame them.

Here are the brothers more formally posed (Clyde again to George's left) with their more summery straw boaters.

George continued wearing a boater well into his middle age. Here he stiffly stands, all gussied up with his wife Jessie beside their house in Elm, Michigan.

But he also had a fedora, similarly pale. That's my father Nelson and his sister Margaret, circa 1930.

Here's George a few years earlier in what I daresay is a Homburg, brim conservatively curled. That's an interesting style of jacket my father is wearing along with his newsboy cap.

(George's father also favored fedoras, even while gardening. That's Nelson in the fetching sun dress and, er, Easter bonnet?

George also reverted to flat caps on occasion. Here he is in about 1919 with baby Nelson and his older sister Dorothy.

The Evolution of Uncle Wiggily

Welcome to the first Eff-Stop post of 2014! I stretch the bus-centric theme for this week's Sepia Saturday post just a hair by featuring some vehicles from my father Nelson Bentley's life.

Here's Nelson around 1920, going hogwild on his scooter, near the Bentley Bros. general store, next door to their farmhouse in rural Michigan. Meanwhile the family truck lurks in the background. It looks to me like that's a spoked spare wheel leaning against the wall.

Here's a better view of the truck, a year of two later. That's sister Margaret sharing the sandpit (the farm was situated on a sand hill).

This is the family car around the same time. I can't tell the make, but historically my grampa George Bentley loved Chevrolets. I imagine that's him at the wheel. Nelson appears to be wearing a Scout's uniform. I wish cars still had running boards.

As a teen, Nelson drove the new International delivery truck, named Bosco. The dogs are Pluto (on the hood), Mike the Airedale, and Chingo the chow. Reportedly there were also three cats, Dempsey, Tunny, and Firpo, named for contemporary boxers.

Jumping ahead to college years, this suave pose has Nelson letting the Michigan winter wind up his leg.

And the same car (whatever it is...perhaps my mother's Dodge, which she bought with University of Michigan prize money for her fiction) in warmer weather. Note the pocketful of pens, which were forever a trademark of my father's, and the sockless moccasins, in which he wouldn't have been caught dead in later years.

Speaking of my mother, here she is with our family's first cars, Uncle Wiggily, a cream- and-gray 1950 Chevy, at the Pacific coast circa 1957.

Uncle W's replacement was, of course, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy the Muskrat Lady Housekeeper, a 1955 Chevy of a unique washed-out blue. Here I am joined by my friend Mark and my sister Julian, around 1965, soda bottles in hand, on a trip to Bellingham, Washington.

Bonus:  Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane

There are a few more of the Bentleys' autos at this 2010 post, Detroit Wheels...