Page 6 – The Horseless Age

Well, it’s not exactly the Christmas season but it is in this book. Now, if I’m to accept the sequential order, it’s not even 1900 yet. That’s significant because there is a note on this page in what would appear to be a mature hand. It says, “This looks like Marjie & Harold.” I have no idea who Marjie and Harold are. It wasn’t my grandmother, Marjoree. She wasn’t born yet. Was it someone she was named after? And Lila would have been a pre-teen at this point so I don’t think she would have a hand like this.
I’m sleuthing and finding more mysteries than I’m solving. Before I found the gravestones I thought Lila was born in 1882 and would have been a late teen when this was started. In fact, she was born in 1888. That may change many things. Was this, in fact, NOT her book as I had been told and my aunt believed? Was it her book only by ownership? Was this, in fact her mother’s book, great great grandmother Richardson? Curiously, the book ends in 1928 and Eva passes away in 1931. The coincidences seem striking.
Now Lila and her mother are inextricably linked and by more than biological pairing. Are two women represented here in this book? Just one? I don’t know. There is a letter in the book from my aunt at nine-years-old and written to my grandmother, her mother. That must have been tucked in many years after in the early 1950’s. And what of the mysterious letter my grandmother said came from Lila’s Ferdinand? Wouldn’t my grandmother have known her father’s writing?
I thought this would be a simple transcribing project but these women are alive in these pages and they won’t let me rest!
I have GOT to find Evelyn, my grandmother’s sister. She’s the last living link to these mysteries.
©Copyright 2010

Page 1 – The Intelligent Cat

(This contains much family history and, as previously stated, is designed to be a record for my children. You may find it interesting or utterly boring but feel free to read it or skip to Lila’s clipping of the day.)
How lovely that Lila, or my great-great grandmother, would begin the collection with an allegory about cats. Was she a cat lover or did this just convey the message she wanted to impart? Is cat loving in my genes? Is intolerance for petulant children ingrained in my fibers? I would argue yes for both conclusions.
Lila would have been about 12 at the turn of the century. The book predates that time so I now ask myself if my great-great-grandmother actually started it or if we simply see a young girl's thoughts. We definitely see a girl still present in these pages and then a woman as the years progress. Ferdinand "Ray," her husband, would prove a hard man and Lila’s life was not one of connubial felicity, by all accounts. She gave birth to seven children that I know of, though I didn’t know most of these great aunts and uncles except through the family stories and accountings.
Lila had a strong faith that seemed to sustain her through difficult times, though the end of her life became nearly untenable with F. "Ray," as my Aunt Sandy recalls, and Lila preceded him in death in 1955. He passed away in 1959. Both are buried in Edgewood, Iowa. My great grandfather was a distant man as evidenced in his writings. He spent his career as a postal carrier and would-be writer. He did not share Lila’s faith or compassion or, it would seem by his writings, even a desire to know and be known. Lila obviously busied herself with her children and she taught a Sunday school class of boys. When she died many years later, the boys from her class would be her pall bearers.
Her children do not seem as touched by her faith and were, apparently, not immune to the difficult atmosphere of their home. Only one of them, that I know of, claimed to embrace a Christian faith, though many of her actions in life didn’t bear evidence that would substantiate the claim and the final decision on that, as it is with any of us, is left with God Himself. That one child was my grandmother, my father’s mother.
Lila’s children included Ralph Minkler who would go on to become President of Borden’s Chicago Central District and realize great financial success, distancing himself from the family. His home was reportedly featured in Better Homes and Gardens. He was also later named in a Federal Trade Commission Violation where the company he worked for did not prevail. This was sent to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the ruling was not overturned.
At one time he offered to remove my grandmother’s children from her home and raise them. My grandmother and grandfather lived very poorly and he wanted to see my errant teenage father in military school. However, that idea wouldn’t have succeeded because my father didn’t have the grades. When he did join the military, a short time after he and my mother married, he was sent home only a few months later with a general discharge and deemed “emotionally unfit” for military life. This must have been quite serious because it was during World War II when bodies were definitely needed. This was the first official indication, for his part, of much that would go tragically wrong in our own home.
Then there was Robert “Bob” Minkler. He reportedly acquired a gold mine in California and bought a great deal of property in Fresno, California. He eventually sold it and moved away but not before my grandmother and grandfather had pulled up stakes in Oelwein, Iowa and moved to Fresno. Both my grandparents had been born in Iowa, my grandmother in Edgewood and my grandfather in Strawberry Point. They had returned to Oelwein from Springreen, Wisconsin where my grandfather had been working, and now California seemed like the next best idea.
There was another brother, Richard “Dick” Minkler. He succeeded financially as well and lived in Kansas the last I knew. The daughters included Dorothy who would marry two millionaires (not at the same time….) and live in various places, eventually settling in Santa Barbara. She pursued writing and one day, at her typewriter, went blind and passed on shortly thereafter from an inoperable, non-malignant brain tumor.
Marion was another daughter and she was only and ever described as being extremely heavy (over 400 lbs.) and plagued with the diseases obesity brings, eventually succumbing to diabetes. My own mother reports that she had a “colorful” past and was the humorous one of the family. She had one son, Mickey, who was like her in nearly every way. I met all these people only once at a family reunion. Aunt Evelyn was the baby and I saw her several times while I was growing up. The only other child was my grandmother, Nana to us, but actually Marjorie Rae Stone after she married my grandfather, Bradley. Except for Dorothy and Marion, Lila’s children were all long-lived (Aunt Evelyn still enjoys life in her own apartment) – and my grandmother lived to be 91. I’d like to find Evelyn and ask her many things.
That’s a little history for now of Lila and the children she bore. How her book and memories came to live with me is a story for another day and steeped in tragedy, secrecy, and family tumult.
So we begin with a clipping ostensibly about a cat. Three clippings appear on the first page but I’ll keep each posting confined to one at a time. This is the text and from this point forward, I will always copy it exactly as printed including any typos, capitalization, etc. I want to keep it as true to its original form as possible.

The Intelligent Cat

By Emma Churchman Hewitt

A CAT of great intelligence,

If I’ve been told aright,

Has lately found a curious way,

Of venting petty spite.

His fur is long, and soft, and thick,

And white as driven snow,

And underneath his chin he wears

A jaunty sky-blue bow.

Now, when he has things his own way,

And nothing runs amiss,

He’ll sit and purr, and blink, and dose,

And then he looks like this:-

(image is on the picture of the page)

But you must know as well as I,

Things sometimes go astray,

And that it’s quite impossible

To always have one’s way.

So, when he doesn’t get his “right,”

He goes off with a hiss,

And in the coal he’ll roll and roll,

And then come back like this:-

(see image)

When boys and girls can’t get their “right,”

They act just like this cat.

Of course, they don’t roll in the coal;

They’ve too much sense for that;

But still, whate’er the special tack

They take, they every one look black.

©Copyright 2010

Who Was Lila Minkler?

I don't really know.

She died shortly before I was born - a few months actually - and all I have of her are pictures and stories. Her face in the photo belies a genuine mirth around the corners of her eyes and mouth. She had exquisitely lovely skin and I can only surmise she is in her 50's in this photo. (She would pass away in her sixties.) I note the curly hair and see the wave in my own and the curl in my daughter's. What else do we share, I wonder? A few years ago, her grand daughter, my aunt Sandy, gave me a book she had retained for many years. It was filled with clippings, photos, and notes Lila had kept through several decades, starting in the late 1800's. It gave me a chance to know my great grandmother in a way I never imagined.

People were frugal back then and the book was a multi-printed cast off of census records, printed in 1873. I have reason to believe it may have been started by her mother and passed down. I don't know my great-great-grandmother's name but I am on the hunt. Pages have been removed which someone presumably wanted to keep, and then it was covered in a light red oil cloth. The collection was started by pasting newspaper and magazine clippings over the pages. There are poems, inspirational writings, newsworthy stories of the day including the kidnapping of the Lindberg baby and the assassination of President McKinley; surprising photos; jotted notes. There is even a heart breaking letter from my great grandfather, Ferdinand, that speaks to how difficult her life must have been with him and the legacy he built into our family through his distance and self focus. He was a very hard man, by all accounts, but he was nothing if not also a gifted writer. (A full transcript of that letter will be published here.)

Lila pushed on and she has become my friend. I think of us as contemporaries and women who understand one another. When I open her book, I talk to her and call her by her name. I tuck my own special things in with hers and trust them to her for safe keeping. No worries. I'm not deluded (any more than usual) and don't think Lila actually lives in her book. But she left this so we would know her. I'm taking the time to do just that.

So, I suppose this is a blog about not only my great grandmother but my friend, Lila. By all accounts she was a lady. She came downstairs each morning fully outfitted in the dress of her day, brooch included. As I sit here typing in my sloppy t-shirt and work-out pants, I can't help but think Lila would be appalled. However, there's another part of me that thinks the younger Lila would have gladly thrown off the fetters and welcomed the freedom I enjoy. (This proves I don't really know her at all. Maybe the older Lila would be the one to arch free, shake herself loose, and have her say, as well as her breath. Her daughter, my grandmother, never wore any under garments in her everyday life and only covered her vitals to go to church. I was very grateful she went to church, if only for the respite it afforded us!)

It's very obvious Lila loved words. She thought inspirational writing shaped lives. She not only kept the book of writings I will chronicle but she papered the outhouse with them. Any child needing to visit the facilities could sit and ponder life on the outhouse walls. She knew how to preach to a captive audience. She and Ferdinand raised a writer (my grandmother, though her writing leaned toward vitriol when not eloquently poetic)...who raised a writer (my aunt)....who became aunt to two writers: my sister and me.

Each blog post here will contain the words of one of the clippings and possibly some family history - good and evil. Pages and photos fade so this is, if nothing else, a preservation project. But it's really about giving a voice to a woman, a man, and writers past. I certainly agree with much that Lila has kept and yet would love to ask her about other writings she valued that I might question. She obviously had strong political opinions and I wonder if, with her very dominating and opinionated husband, this was how she shared or voiced them. She was also a woman with Christian faith which is an often seen narrative thread.

I will lay the pages out to you in the same order they come in the book. I plan to scan or photograph each page and then rewrite what has been collected so that it is easily readable and I'll credit the author when names appear (sometimes they don't.). Many pages have multiple clippings and I will only feature one clipping per post so it isn't too overwhelming and is more meaningful. I have no idea how many there are (a lot) or how long it will take. Since I don't really have to write creatively myself, it won't be labor intensive. When I have nothing to say on my main blog (which has rarely stopped me from writing), then I'll post here and let Lila speak.

I hope you can join me for occasional readings. Don't feel obligated to comment on yet ONE MORE BLOG. I will not be offended in the least. But if you WANT to comment, then I'd love to hear your thoughts about Lila's Project.

Robynn


© Copyright 2010