Her DNA is in me: Mary Christine Cullin Lawton

My grandparents hearkened from an era in which the paterfamilias was not only the bread-winner, but also lent the family its identity. This is not to say there weren't extraordinary women born in the late 19th century who became famous -- or notorious, for that matter -- in the context of family lives. But it is to say that among ordinary people, posterity was the business of men. Thus in my many efforts to reconstruct the stories of my progenitors, learning and writing about my maternal grandfather, Charles Edwin Lawton,  has been and continues to be, well rewarded through the use of on-line tools like Ancestry.com and Google searches (I just found a new tidbit today!), plus a little key input from the quickly diminishing list of survivors who knew them. But I have postponed writing about my grandmothers in large part because of a dearth of information, first or second hand, about either of them.  

My maternal grandmother, the only grandparent that ever saw me, would likely have been better known to people as Mrs. Charles Lawton than as Mary, or Mamie as the family called her, but searches on any version of her too-common names turn up vast numbers of hits, almost none relevant. So the time has come to share what is likely all I, or anyone now living, will know about her from this day forward. Also recorded here are my speculations on her motivations and emotional, monetary, and physical resources.
My mother took me to visit her for a week once a year, not less and not more, until I reached junior high, at which point I was excused of the annuality of this duty and had to go along only every few years. Mother always drove from Bloomington, Indiana, through Ohio, and across the long state of Pennsylvania to Chester, now a dogeared suburb of Philadelphia. My father the professor, who had little use for extended families anyway, and particularly not for my grandmother who had little education and with whom he had nothing in common other than her daughter who was his wife, never accompanied us. Truth be told, I also did not find my Granny, as she was known to me, a very stimulating conversationalist, or a nurturing grandparent for that matter. In retrospect she was likely a little mystified by me, uncertain of what to make of this smarty-pants little kid with the unfriendly father, and with whom she had no opportunity to be close. It's also possible my mother, or my father, didn't make it easy or encourage her to form a real relationship with me. I believe from my observations and things my mother has told me that her relationship with her mother was one of love-hate, and feelings of obligation and duty not driven by a deep connection between them.

Mary Cullin was born to the Irish immigrants John and Anna E. Giltinan Cullin on November 16, 1881, and baptized in St. Michael's Catholic Church, Chester, Pennsylvania, 11 days later. Mary was one of four daughters in this undated studio-beach portrait. Clockwise from Mary are her sisters Elizabeth (standing rear), Anne, and Catharine (or Catherine, I've seen it both ways). Looks like the girls were lovely, wasp-waisted teens at the time.
Her upbringing was doubtless conservative, and in the 1900 Census, at the age of 19, she was listed as living with her sisters and father in Chester, with no occupation shown. I don't know how she met my grandfather, Charles E. Lawton, or exactly when they married, but it was a slightly unlikely match, as Granny's family were Irish Catholic, and Charlie's  Episcopalian. Her marital life was unlikely in other ways as well. In 1909, the American Colonial Bank posted Charlie to Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to serve as cashier (a more elevated position than how one thinks of cashiers today).  By 1910, Granny is listed in the U.S. Census in Arecibo with my grandfather. I've remarked before what an enormous leap of faith and courage that must have been for her to leave her natal home to go to a foreign country 1,600 miles away by steamship, where there were few English-speakers, strange food, tropical climate (pleasantly warm winters and springs, followed by hurricane seasons stretching through long hot summers and falls), and exotic diseases to contend with. In spite of these odds, the couple thrived there, and by March of 1912, baby girl Mary Eleanor, my mother, had arrived. 

I have gleaned many ships' manifests documenting that the family returned to Chester periodically to visit their families. This photo seems to have been taken there, probably around 1914 or 1915. I would think the photographer was intending to capture the fast-moving, scowling toddler, my mother Eleanor, but the camera instead focused on Mary, my grandmother. This is one of the clearest images of her face among the many blurry and faded photos I have.

Although Arecibo was truly provincial at the time -- known for its pineapple plantations, but not for its worldly sophistication -- my grandparents carved out a busy social life among American ex-pats of similar social status and wealth. In 1919, when my mother was 5, a second daughter, Louise Edwina arrived. Around that time too they moved to the capital San Juan, where the girls could be properly schooled and Charlie was promoted first to chief cashier, and later, to director. It's clear that she was enjoying her little daughters. The family prospered, and there was a nanny to help.
They eventually built a very nice house on Carrion's Court in the neighborhood of Santurce, and accoutred it with lovely furniture, two pieces of which I am lucky to still have. Mary Eleanor and Louise Edwina posed at the entry of that house with dog Rosie about 1922 or so. Not very long after this photo was taken, the family suffered the blow of the loss of a child. Louise contracted what I believe was a streptococcal infection called erysipelas, for which there was no effective treatment. My mother told me, trying to sound matter-of-fact, but with a very slight catch in her throat, that their mother never got over Louise's death. I do not know the basis for this belief,  and whether or not Louise was Mary's favorite child we'll never know.  But I do know my mother's relationship with her mother was not unalloyed by the briefness of her sister's time on this earth.

As my grandparents aged, my grandfather's bank was being transformed by the tides of the times and no longer had work for him, and their sole child, my mother, had become an independent adult, they decided to return to the United States. By 1947 my grandmother was living in Chester again, this time in the home of two of her sisters, the widowed Catharine Glenney, and the spinster schoolteacher Elizabeth, at 17 East 18th Street, which had been the sisters' natal home.  Then suddenly, on January 11, 1948, Mary's husband, my grandfather Charles Lawton, died in the San Juan hotel he was living in as he wrapped up business in Puerto Rico and prepared to join his wife in the U.S..

The permanent move and simultaneous death of her husband slammed shut those long, mostly prosperous, doubtless interesting, and fundamentally happy years of my grandmother's life, and marked the beginning of a quiet 25-year widowhood in the house she was born into.

My earliest memory of my grandmother is cemented by this photo taken by the puddly walkway at 17 East 18th Street, a couple of weeks before my 4th birthday and 6 month's before Mary's 73rd. By then her always slight frame had developed a distinct curve down the back. My mother maintained that she had likely suffered from polio, or the scoliosis may have been caused by osteoporosis. In spite of the fact that it was bad enough that one hip was by this time much higher than the other, I don't recall that she had pain or reduced mobility from it. It's hard to believe that she didn't. The deformity of it scared me. 

It was probably around this time that my grandmother and her sisters unwittingly managed to appall me one morning as I came down the steep stairs at 17 E. 18th Street to say good-morning to the two of them when they exclaimed (with "amazement") that I must be a little boy, dressed in blue jeans as I was. My, how the times have changed, but then I was  mortified and ran back up the stairs red-faced that they would make such an awful mistake.

Four summers later my parents, and me in tow, spent a summer at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (where they had met about 10 years earlier). Mary came to spend much of the summer, maybe to take advantage of the roomy house we rented (our apartment in Bloomington was far too cozy for the comfort of three adults and kid). That was the longest stretch we were ever together, and while I have some other very distinct memories of that summer (oh yes, I had my first horseback riding lessons there) I have no sense at all of what the multi-generational  dynamics were like. At the age of 77 my grandmother looked every bit her age, through as far as I know she was essentially still healthy.

Mary Cullin Lawton on the porch of our rented house, Ann Arbor Michigan, summer 1958

In those, and the ensuing years, with us back in Bloomington and her back in Chester, she continued to try to do the right thing by me. There are birthday cards in my scrapbooks, and memories of packages arriving full of attractive but (to me) disappointingly inedible licorice Allsorts.  There were certainly also occasional phone calls between visits to Chester, but in all this time, no bond formed between us.

Mary Cullin Lawton (left rear) with her sister Catharine Cullin Glenney, at home at 17 East 18th Street, in the only color photo ever taken of them. Mid- to late 1960's.

As I became more able to form memories of my experiences and observations, I remember some distinct things about that house and life at 17 East 18th Street, like the incredibly hot summer nights trying to sleep in the little upstairs room where there was a bed for me but no breeze and no fan. I remember a large and beautiful oriental rug on the floor under my grandmother's bed that I later used in my own home until it became threadbare; there were two antique tables my grandmother brought from Puerto Rico, one of which displayed the most lovely and fascinating Leerdam Serica vase that probably Elizabeth, the schoolteacher sister (d. 1963) brought from European travels, which is now in my treasured possession along with the tables. The utterly beautiful vase is pictured at the foot of every page of this blog. My grandmother had a diamond cocktail ring she promised to give me when I turned 16. Before that could happen, it slipped off the side of the bathroom basin and vanished down the drain. And Great Aunt Catharine promised to sell me her 1940's auto (don't know what kind it was) upon earning my driver's license, but evidently some guy came along and offered her $50 before my birthday so, alas, that never happened either.

Speaking of money, I have no idea how the ladies survived. Perhaps my grandfather had been foresightful (he was a good money man, after all) and had tucked away something for my grandmother; maybe the ladies' husbands had had life insurance (was there such a thing then?) or pensions (very doubtful, especially in Charlie Lawton's case). Or perhaps the real fate of the ring was a pawn shop, and Catharine could simply not wait for the $50. My mother never made a lot, I doubt she could have helped much. Maybe they suffered, quietly, I will never know.

In 1969, my otherwise healthy grandmother needed cataract surgery. While under general anesthesia (conventional at the time) she suffered a mild stroke. While Mary was battling her own issues, Catharine had a fatal stroke, and in a matter of a few days, the family's legacy at 17 East 18th Street was at last ended.

Although her eyes recovered, and she was able to walk with help and talk semi-coherently, my grandmother's memory was wiped out, she became confused and unable to care for herself. Blessedly she never knew that Catharine had died. My mother's only choice was to settle her into a nursing home for her last years.

On April 29, 1973, while my mother was on sabbatical in Spain and I was attending graduate school in Arizona, the news came that Mary Christine Cullin Lawton had died peacefully at the remarkable age of 92. She was unceremoniously buried next to her beloved Charlie near the other Lawtons of that generation.

But no headstone had been placed. I don't know why, perhaps my mother assumed their names would be added to the family stone, or very likely, Mother did not have the money to have one carved for her parents. She was also an unsentimental person, perhaps it was not a priority. In any case, shortly after Mother died, her cousin asked if I wanted to rectify the situation. I was more than happy to do so, but to be able to place accurate birth and death dates on the granite, I had to launch my genealogy journey that yielded almost all the information I have about my grandparents' lives before I was born. Gone but definitely not forgotten.

Charles and Mary Lawton, rest in peace.

17 East 18th Street, Chester, Pennsylvania
Fall, 2010

Blogging is slogging

This blog, my first and only, came into existence on Christmas Eve, 2006. That first post was an unannotated replay of someone else's work, but I had been so taken with that piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education about Intelligent Design and why scientists should not be so mystified by its persistence that I wanted to make a record of it for my own reference, if nothing else. Subsequent posts, the majority about my original thoughts and experiences, followed so quickly  that I managed four before 2006 ended. I've averaged about 45 posts a year since then. Some are brief observations or links to interesting material elsewhere on the web, but I also treat some subjects in such detail that they have to be serialized. In addition it's very important to me to illustrate my posts with photos, mine or borrowed as need be. It's a form of public diary, and I do greatly appreciate it when I know others have read and enjoyed a post. Or, when others read and feel strongly that a post barks up the wrong tree. I've had only one troll, named Fiddledeedee, who objected so strongly to my post recommending that foot-binding in historic China not be celebrated, that he or she left comment after comment (several of which have been deleted, because they were obnoxiously repetitive) shaming me because of my unwillingness to allow cultural relativism to outweigh my objection to the celebration of that highly harmful, crippling tradition in the name of feminine beauty. In fact I enjoyed remaining calm as Fiddledeedee sweated harder and harder to make the case not only that my message was wrong but that I was a terrible person, especially for deleting some of their vitriol. I was not unsettled by his/her conclusions about my character, nor did I give up my stance on the issue.

Speaking of visitors to Amusing Musings, readers will doubtless note a little badge just above my photo on the left called SiteMeter. This fun little device tells me a little bit about who's come calling. Well more than 98% of visitors are Google and other search engines updating the searchable content on my blog. That's fine, because sometimes I get visitors who search on a particular subject I've written about, and I am rewarded they find what they seek. Once in a very great while someone will leave an interesting comment, and even more rarely engage in direct correspondence with me. That's really rewarding when it occurs, because they bring information to me that I lacked, or sometimes I can provide something meaningful to them.

But very oddly, the specific search term that most often leads people to my blog is "dollar bill." They come to my post of October 31, 2012, about the mystery of an old one dollar bill I found in my mother's things with "October 31, 1945" hand-written on it in ink in two places. And sometimes there are hits on searches for "October 31, 1945." When I found the bill, I too searched on that date but turned up nothing distinctive or that would have obvious significance for my mother, or her mother, whose writing I think it is. While I can imagine why people might be interested in finding an image of a dollar bill on the Web, why they too search that date is another mystery that I may never solve.

I also look for blogs of others that are interesting, intellectually entertaining, instructive, funny, wry, or just charmingly written even if the topics aren't earth-shaking (after all, how many of my musings are of global importance?). There are indeed some appealing blogs for the finding out there, and I'm always heartened to come across one, often only to realize that the most recent post is a year, or two, or three old. Blogging is slogging, and even chatty people with lively intellects and interests that intersect with my own are liable to abandon ship after a while.

But here I am, more than seven years later, still at it, perhaps a little less devotedly, but with ideas and stories and plans and photos and adventures still to share.

Bald Eagle Watch, an indoor sport

Our trip to Starved Rock State Park at the end of January was occasioned by Bald Eagle Watch: A Celebration of Nature, sponsored by the Illinois Audubon Society and several other august organizations. In particular, the Raptor Awareness Program offered by the World Bird Sanctuary of St. Louis, MO, was a real treat.  Raptors are birds of prey, including the eagle, hawk, falcon, osprey, and owl families, and carrion-eaters like vultures and condors. Demonstrations of North American varieties are always interesting but are relatively easy to come by. Events featuring raptors from around the world are rarer opportunities. The World Bird Sanctuary's program was held indoors in a basketball court-sized room in Starved Rock Lodge; the birds are in captivity only because, for a wide variety of reasons, if released they would not be able to survive in the wild. The following wonder-birds were featured:

American bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) "Patriot"

 

Patriot weighs 12 lbs. and is clearly big enough to grab and carry large fish and other prey such as rabbits and small children.

Long-crested eagle (Lophaetus occipitalis) "Zeus"

The long-crested eagle is a South African bird, more petite than the bald eagle, but still a large bird, and sporting a particularly nice top-knot.

Tawny owl (Strix aluco) "Buzz"

Tawnies are small owls, widespread inEurope, Britain to Scandinavia, North Africa and North and West Asia.

Barn owl (Tyto alba) "Minerva"

Barn owls are utterly silent fliers. One handler went to back of the room and held up her hand. Minerva flew to  her fist on cue. The audience was told to close their eyes and listen. When we opened our eyes, Minerva was back at the front of the room on the hander's fist, but there was no sound of wingbeats what-so-ever. It was a funny mind-trick.

American kestrel (American Kestrel (Falco sparverius). I didn't get his/her name, but let's hear it for the little guy!

These colorful little falcons are also known as sparrow hawks for one of their favorite meals. I've been fortunate to watch them hunt, and also once in a blue moon they land on my window sill at home where I can observe their glorious gray and copper coloration. If the cat doesn't notice them first!

 

Parkitecture: Starved Rock Lodge

Indoor activities at Starved Rock State Park in Utica, IL, are to be had within this wonderful Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)-built lodge designed by Joseph F. Booten. It is slightly atypical as the exterior is not stone but it most certainly qualifies as significant parkitecture, not only because of it's historic value but because of its size and continuing high volume of year-round activity.

Though rustic, the exterior is a bit pedestrian (to my eye). However, on closer inspection, it abounds with fine 1930's Craftsman detail, as can be seen on the large ironwork hinges on the main doors from the outside,

with further features of the era on the inside:

A major principle of CCC works was the use of local materials, as in the massive limestone fireplace, still wood-burning and wonderfully fragrant and cozy (especially in Polar Vortex times), in the center of the lounge:

 

The chimney is similarly impressive. However, the moose is revisionist history, as Illinois summers are too hot for moose (and for me too, a lot of the time), and they have never been found in the state.  The chandelier, however, is fully in keeping with the parkitectural theme.

The furnishings in the restaurant and lounge were built to match, and to last.

While the lodge's original decor and accoutrements wonderfully transport one to an earlier time there are also successful contemporary references to the region's past, such as Linda Lowe's "Starved Rock Cartograph" pentaptych installation in the registration area:

 

And Michael Jones's "Starved Rock Totem" on the grounds:

And these clever, if not especially artistic, chain-saw productions arising from rooted tree stumps around the lodge:

What a great celebration of an unmatched period in public architecture Starved Rock Lodge is.

Hiking the Polar Vortex

The story of "Starved Rock" has its genesis in the late 18th century skirmish between the Ottawa and Illiniwek Indians. Following the murder of Ottawa Chief Pontiac by an Illiniwek, the story goes, the Ottawa pursued, encircling the fleeing Illiniwek who attempted to find sanctuary on the flat top of a large sandstone rock formation on the south side of the Illinois River. The Ottawa simply waited below the rock until the stranded Illiniwek died of hunger, thus exacting revenge without shedding a drop of blood. The story is apocryphal, but the name, however it came to be, lives on. That's the eponymous rock (really an eroded bluff) rising 200 feet above the trees there in Starved Rock State Park, in Utica, Illinois.

The geologic history is better documented; the St. Peter sandstone formations that by happy cataclysmic accident survived the flattening glaciers that steam-rolled the rest of northern Illinois are what make for the park's interesting scenery and our sweet little winter hike to the origin of Ottawa "Canyon" one sunny, frigid January day.
The trail starts across the road from the river. It doesn't look too fun or safe...

Oddly, the otherwise nearly comprehensive the sign doesn't warn about dressing properly for conditions. 

But in fact, properly attired, it's a (mostly*) easy, lovely walk even in sub-zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures, the naked trees admitting the slanting winter light. Must be equally beautiful in every season, each in its own way.
Before long we came to the first landmark, Council Overhang, described as a natural amphitheater. It's quite spectacular, decorated as it is with veins of dark yellow rock. I'm guessing the ceiling may have been blackened by fires -- man-made --- under its sheltering roof.

The cliffs of the canyon -- the very soft yellow-banded St. Peter limestone -- arise steeply only to the west.

To the east, that it is a canyon is only suggested by gentle tree-covered rises.
There were others hiking that day as well.

We never saw the red foxes that left their footprints to tantalize us.

An eighth of a mile beyond the Overhang we reached the end of the little trail marked by a most dramatic frozen waterfall.

I don't know how high it is, but given that KLK (to the left, on the bank of the creek) is 6 feet tall, it looks to be about 40 or 45 feet top to bottom. The shallow creek fed by the falls was frozen so we could easily walk under it.

Looking out from the canyon, with the falls at our back, was beautiful in the winter light, too.

*While this little walk on the snowy trail and frozen creek was quite safe overall, on the way back from the falls, on a short, steep rise leading back to Council Overhang, we found our boots absolutely could not gain purchase on the frozen trail. Nor were there bushes or trees, nothing but the sheer limestone wall on one side, to grab to pull ourselves up. It was really quite ridiculous (and probably hilarious to anyone watching our little drama) but there was no way to ascend. Happily an outdoorsman came along the trail above us and when he saw our predicament, smartly got down on all fours and extended an arm for each of us in turn to grab onto. All's well that ends well, we made it back to blog about!

Spring is on the way. Alas.

Some people think I'm a nutcase (KLK's exact words), but I in fact love winter, and with at least two distinct Polar vortexes this winter, Chicago, from late December until the end of last week, had its first real winter in years. It's been a quarter century or more, since we had sustained temperatures below freezing, day on day, week on week. We also had significant snow fall, which of course repeatedly messed up transportation -- bus schedules were simply abandoned in face of hopelessly piled snow and cars parked willy-nilly along the city streets -- and it made a total mess out of my car, which looks like a giant chunk of bacalao.  I thought all this crazy stuff fun.
It's all waning now,  with longer days signalling the earth's gradual tilt to spring. At least KLK and I found a most entertaining way to take advantage of the cold weather while it lasted. All along the upper Mississippi and many of its larger tributaries, instead of migrating, American bald eagles wait out the lean months below locks and dams, which keep the water from freezing over so they can continue to feed on fish. In late January, at the Army Corps of Engineers lock and dam at Utica, and across the Illinois River at Starved Rock State Park, the Illinois Audubon Society hosted Bald Eagle Watch. This view is from above the lock and dam. Impressive ice coverage!

Below the dam is a different story, at least for a few hundred yards downstream. This is where the eagles soar:

Unfortunately for the photographer (me), the width of the river made it difficult to get good pictures, just because of the distance to most of the action. But here's zoom in on an eagle with a good-sized fish in its talons:

Looks like a satisfying meal for a 10 or 12 lb bird, but alas, it's a good thing my camera was on continuous shooting, because a wing beat or two later this happened:

Life's hard in the winter, even around the dams. Maybe not so much for the gull, who was apparently anticipating this possibility. Who knows whether the fish lived another day.
But I did catch one magnificent bird on the wing from the vantage of a high bluff over the river:

The trees on Plum Island, an Audubon island sanctuary in the middle of the river, were amazingly full of roosting eagles. Because of the distance and angle of the light coming through the trees, I have no good photos to share, but these Canada geese also availed themselves of the safe harbor, resting on the ice in numbers.

And this great blue heron also enjoyed the sustenance of the open river.

Littler birds, like this dark-eyed junco provided entertainment at suet and seed feeders in the state park:

 And this very cute tufted titmouse:

And the white-breasted nuthatch at the suet:

And the female down woodpecker, also working the suet:

 

Here's a nice bald eagle caught by the waning sunshine as it flies past Starved Rock.

The story of our weekend adventures is to be continued...