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Weekly News January 1, 2007Description
To the women members of the Friends of Auburn Heights Preserve, HAPPY NEW YEAR! 10 years ago, Ruth and I visited the Woman’s Suffrage Museum at Seneca Falls, NY. Here, in 1848, was assembled the first important group of prominent American women for the purpose of promoting human rights. Seneca Falls was a strategic manufacturing town (Goulds Pumps are still made there) of the nineteenth century, midway between the north ends of Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. The small town of Waterloo, about 6 miles to the west, was settled by Philadelphia Quakers, and Quaker women were in the forefront of the struggle for women’s rights.
The conference at Seneca Falls was gotten together in a hurry. Visiting Waterloo from Philadelphia were Lucretia Mott and her husband, James, and she and her female friends in the Quaker community decided it important to attract attention to their mission by holding a national gathering to draw up some principles of action. A 28-year-old housewife from Connecticut named Elizabeth Cady Stanton (who was not a Quaker) had just moved with her husband to a small frame house on the outskirts of Seneca Falls, and she, too, became involved in promoting the conference. From its inception, the whole thing was planned and promoted in 10 days. The black civil rights leader, Frederic Douglass, then a young man himself, was there. James Mott agreed to chair the 2-day event, as the women knew if their resolves were to carry any weight they would need the backing of a masculine leader. Susan B. Anthony, long associated with the woman’s suffrage movement of the nineteenth century, was not there; she did not come on the scene until the 1850’s. She and Mrs. Stanton worked tirelessly together on many issues, but became estranged near the ends of their lives about 1900. In 1920, 72 years after the Seneca Falls conference, American women first voted in a presidential election, but it all started in that little town in upstate New York.
In the long process of “cleaning out” from Auburn Heights, which is just beginning, I have uncovered some family letters of 100 years ago, written mostly to my grandmother, Elizabeth Mitchell Marshall (1854-1930). Some were from her mother, Hannah Mitchell, who lived less than 5 miles away (Woodside Farm), and some from her son Warren traveling to the West Coast and to Germany, a completely new experience for him and for the Marshall family of those days. It seems the local letters centered on family illnesses, as I suppose there was not much other news except the weather, and what seem like simple illnesses now could be very serious in 1900. Typhoid fever was mentioned, and the “grip” was prevalent, sometimes bordering on pneumonia. My great-grandmother Hannah, writing in 1912 two years before her death, apologized for her shaky handwriting, but it was straight and beautiful by today’s standards. The purpose of Uncle Warren’s trip to California was to propose to Bertha Lamborn, and it must have been successful as he and Aunt Bertha were married in the front hall at Auburn Heights, June 26, 1907. The purpose of his trip to Germany (Hamburg and Berlin in 1909) was to buy rags and sell vulcanized fiber for the new National Fibre and Insulation Company of Yorklyn. By hand written letters, he gave his father, Israel, complete reports on his progress. He was rewarded, as in a letter to his wife Bertha, he said “Father says we can have some more cinders for our driveway”. Saved also at Auburn Heights were many wedding invitations of the early 20th century. I must speed up the perusal if we are to vacate by late in 2008!
On Thursday, December 28, four cars from my collection were transferred to the ownership of the Friends of Auburn Heights Preserve. There are 3 Stanleys, the 1905 Model CX, the 1914 Model 607, and the 1918 Model 735, in addition to the 1916 Rauch & Lang electric. The title to the Mobile is also in FAHP’s name as of the same date (there is a small mistake on the new title and I’ll have to go to the lane this week to get that corrected). They are all covered for insurance on the same basis as when they were in my name. We are indebted to Chazz Salkin, Director of the Division of Parks, and his contacts within the Motor Vehicle Division for facilitating these transfers for FAHP on a most favorable basis.
Tomorrow night, January 2, we hope to get underway with our new “working team” system for our mechanical, maintenance, and renovation projects. Several of the group leaders are already laying plans for the work ahead. We hope to accomplish a real face-lift for the Museum, get our automatic signals working on the R.R. by this spring, improve the R.R. cars, and possibly get another Stanley disassembled, painted, and re-assembled. Maintenance on the Packards will be addressed as well as on the Stanleys and the Rauch & Lang. I look forward to working with you on these projects.
Our 2006 Annual Appeal is about wrapped up with approximately $52,000 raised. We thank all of you who participated! Our total paid-up membership is 150 plus or minus two. Thank you for a very good year.
Bob Reilly is about to send out the first mailing announcing our June Steam Car Tour. We have about 200 steam car owners’ names on the list of prospects. He and Barb leave Colorado for a trip to Peru and the Upper Amazon on January 5, to return to their western home about January 20. Upon his return, we will be organizing committees of those FAHP members who want to help with it. The present plan is to use the McIntosh Inn, the Marriott Courtyard, and the Homewood Suites, adjacent to each other near Concord Mall, for our lodgings and headquarters, have our Sunday night banquet at the duPont Country Club, and our Friday night banquet at Winterthur. Details must be worked out. The dates, again, are June 17-22, 2007. Bob will be back in Delaware on February 3.
Happy New Year to the men as well as to the women, and best wishes to you all. Tom
