1900
Two Years Later
JANUARY 4 – In Mount Vernon, Westchester, New York a daughter was born to Edward Smith and his wife Julia Ottilia Winckler Smith. Edward (27) and Julia (28) gave their second child the first name Alice after Edward’s oldest sister Alice, who was named after their father’s sister Alice, and the middle name Julia after both Alice’s mother and maternal grandmother. Alice Julia joined the family with a brother Edward David who was only sixteen-and-a-half months older. Their father Edward had immigrated from England in 1893 and in 1897 had married Julia who was the daughter of German immigrants.
FEBRUARY – The “Brownie” camera, which gave everyone the ability to take photographs, was introduced by Eastman Kodak Company. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/culture-magazines/brownie-cameras
Alice Julia Smith
JUNE 1 – The U.S. Census recorded Alice Smith (5 months) living at 16 South Second Avenue in Mount Vernon, New York with her father Edward (28, a brass fitter), her mother Julia (27), her brother Edward (1), her grandmother Julia Winckler (54) and her uncle Ernest Winckler (18).
JUNE 7 – The U.S. Census recorded Lambeth Allen (23, a printer) boarding at 31 Humboldt in Chicago at the home of Emory J. (a carpenter) and Mary Mills whose son Cecil (22, a salesman) and daughter Ella (19, a music teacher) also lived with them. [The Mills were family friends of the Allens and appear in a picture in 1928 below. In her memoirs Nancy wrote, “Mother told me that for many years Mrs. Mills had hoped that Daddy would marry Marian Mills.” I believe she meant Ella Mills and I explain this with the picture in 1928.]
JUNE 14 – Hawaii became a U.S. Territory. http://www.fsmitha.com/time/ce19-91.htm
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned twenty-four while living in Chicago.
1901
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned one while living in Mount Vernon, New York.
MARCH 4 – William McKinley was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States.
SEPTEMBER 6 – President McKinley was shot and severely wounded by Leon Czolgosz who had immigrated from Poland as a young child and worked in Detroit “as a child laborer in a steel mill. As a young adult, he gravitated toward socialist and anarchist ideology.” https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mckinley-assassin-is-executed
SEPTEMBER 14 – THE DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT – The condition of President McKinley rapidly declined. The surgeons had not been able to remove the bullet from his abdomen. In those days before antibiotics “Gangrene had formed on the walls of (his) stomach and brought on a severe case of blood poisoning. In a matter of hours, he grew weak and began losing consciousness. At 2:15 a.m. … he died with his wife Ida by his side.” He became the 5th sitting President to die in office and the 3rd to be assassinated. His vice-president Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President of the United States. https://www.history.com/news/the-assassination-of-president-william-mckinley
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned twenty-five while living in Chicago.
DECEMBER 10 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony was held in Stockholm, Sweden. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/themes/the-very-first-nobel-prizes/
1902
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned two while living in Mount Vernon, New York.
JANUARY 8 – Two trains collided, due in part to poor visibility from the engines steam, in the Park Avenue Tunnel in New York City, killing 17 people. This led to the state-wide ban of steam locomotives. http://www.fsmitha.com/time/1902.htm
Edward (4) and Alice (2) Alice, her Grandmother Julia Weiss Winckler (55), and Edward
AUGUST 22 – President Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to ride in an automobile, “a Columbia Electric Victoria through Hartford, Connecticut.” http://www.fsmitha.com/time/1902.htm
NOVEMBER – The Teddy Bear – “One of the world’s most beloved toys was named in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt, after he refused to shoot a bear during a Mississippi hunting trip.” https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-the-teddy-bear
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned twenty-six while living in Chicago.
1903
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned three while living in Mount Vernon, New York.
OCTOBER 1 – In the first Baseball World Series the Boston Red Sox beat the Pittsburg Pirates 5-3. https://www.britannica.com/sports/World-Series
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned twenty-seven while living in Chicago.
DECEMBER 17 – The Wright brothers made “the first controlled, sustained flight in heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk” North Carolina. https://www.kittyhawknc.gov/
1904
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned four while living in Mount Vernon, New York.
Julia (33), Edward David (6), Alice (4), and Edward (32) Smith
SEPTEMBER 16 – It was reported in The Delta Independent from Delta County, Colorado that “Rev. Allen and daughter Mabel, returned from St. Louis last Tuesday. Mrs. Allen will spend the winter with her son in Chicago.”
OCTOBER 27 – The New York subway system opened. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/new-york-city-subway-opens
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned twenty-eight while living in Chicago with his mother visiting him for the winter.
1905
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned five while living in Mount Vernon, New York.
MARCH 4 – Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States.
JUNE 1 – In the New York State Census Alice (5) is recorded living at 16 South Second Avenue in Mount Vernon with her father Edward (38, a bronze maker), her mother Julia (38), her brother “Edwin” (7), and her grandmother Julia Winckler (54).
JUNE 30 – Einstein published his theory of relativity. https://timeline.web.cern.ch/albert-einstein-publishes-his-theory-special-relativity
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned twenty-nine while living in Chicago.
1906
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned six while living in New York State.
APRIL 18 – “A massive earthquake shook San Francisco, California. Though the quake lasted less than a minute, its immediate impact was disastrous. The earthquake also ignited several fires around the city that burned for three days and destroyed nearly 500 city blocks. Despite a quick response from San Francisco’s large military population, the city was devastated. The earthquake and fires killed an estimated 3,000 people and left half of the city’s 400,000 residents homeless.” https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/sf [In 1939 Lam and Alice with their daughter Nancy would visit the city of San Francisco. Nancy mentioned the earthquake in the portion of her memoirs which is included for that year.]
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty while living in Chicago.
1907
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned seven while living in New York State.
At first I hesitated to include the above old and blurry photograph. Without the captioning I would only be able to potentially identify the lady in the middle, Alice’s maternal grandmother Julia Weiss Winckler (61), who seems to be holding Alice (7) on her lap. “Ed”, her brother Edward (9), is obviously the one leaning towards Grandma Winckler. I believe the lady right behind Alice is her mother Julia Winckler Smith (36). But who would be “your mother”, the lady behind Ed? Was this picture sent to one of Alice’s cousins later in life as they both would have shared the same Grandma Winckler? If so, “your mother” may be Caroline Winckler Schleher (46), who was the older half-sister of Alice’s mother. In her memoirs Alice’s daughter, Nancy, wrote that Julia Winckler Smith “Kept in touch with her half-sister, Caroline” and that Alice kept in touch with the two daughters of Caroline’s daughter, Minnie Schleher Ellis, Dorothy “Dot” Ellis Taylor (1912-2011) and Ruth Ellis Hellyer (1917-2005).
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty-one while living in Chicago.
NOVEMBER 16 – Oklahoma became the 46th State to be admitted to the Union.
DECEMBER 31 – Only eight percent of households in the United States have electricity. http://www.fsmitha.com/time/1907.htm
1908
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned eight while living in New York State.
OCTOBER 1 – Henry Ford began producing the Model T. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty-two while living in Chicago.
1909
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned nine while living in New York State.
MARCH 4 – William Taft was sworn in as the 27th President of the United States.
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty-three while living in Chicago.
1910
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned ten while living in Queens, New York.
APRIL – Alice (10) was recorded in the U.S. Census as living on Grove Avenue in Queens, New York with her father Edward (38, a bronze maker), her mother Julia (38), her brother Edward D (11), and her grandmother Julia Winckler (63).
For the first ten or so years of Mother’s life they lived on Long Island, New York – first in Mount Vernon where their neighbors and closest friends were Mr. and Mrs. George Percy. They then moved to Corona, Long Island, New York, where their neighbors and closest friends were Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Austin.
The most family fun when she and Ed were growing up was to go swimming at a beach called “Far Rockaway”. They would take a picnic basket and go on the streetcar, which, she said, did not have seats which faced forward but bench-like seats which ran along both sides. Her Mother would not go into the water, but she still remembered her Dad in his one-piece bathing suit, with big “air holes” on each side, which covered him down to the knees.
APRIL 18 – The U.S. Census recorded Lam (33, working as a printer) living at 5713 W Ohio Street in Chicago, Illinois with his father Robert (73), his mother Ellen (70) and his youngest sister Mabel C. Allen (30).
Dad was born November 13, 1876 in Jefferson City, Missouri. In his 20s he moved to Chicago and started his own business in direct-mail advertising, The L.S. Allen Company. The business must have been fairly successful, and although I don’t know the exact date, at some time around 1910 he bought the house in Austin [a community in Chicago] and moved his family from Missouri to live in it with him. His Father would have been 74 in 1910, his Mother 71.
[I have not been able to find Robert and Ellen in the 1900 U.S. Census to verify whether they moved back to Missouri from Oklahoma prior to moving to Chicago with Lam. Per the 1910 U.S. Census, the house in Chicago that Lam and his parents and sister were living in was rented. He may have purchased a home shortly after this where they all lived until his father died in 1917. In the 1920 census Lam was living at 637 North Long Avenue in Chicago. While the census lists him as a “roomer”, per Nancy’s recollection that he only took one room and rented the rest of the house to the Manton family, this may have been the home that he had ultimately purchased.]
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty-four while living in Chicago.
Circa 1910 – Ellen (71), Robert (74), Lam (34), and Mabel (30) Allen
1911
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned eleven while living in Corona, Long Island, New York.
JUNE – While living in Corona, Alice became a big sister when her mother gave birth to a son who they named Arthur after Edward’s older brother and his Uncle Arthur Smith.
JULY 14 – Sadly, at just a few weeks old, Alice’s little brother Arthur died of “omphalitis with abscess”, an infection of the umbilical cord stump which today is treatable with antibiotics. Per his New York State Death Record he died at their home at 158 National Avenue in Corona, New York and is buried at the Flushing Cemetery which is located in Queens, New York.
Sometime later that year the Smith family moved to Chicago.
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty-five while living in Chicago.
1912
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned twelve while living in Chicago.
JANUARY 6 – New Mexico became the 47th State to be admitted to the Union.
FEBUARY 14 – Arizona became the 48th State to be admitted to the Union.
APRIL 15 – The Titanic hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic. Over 1,500 of the passengers and crew died as it sank. More than 73 years later, toward the end of Alice’s life, the wreckage would be found. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wreck-of-the-titanic-found
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty-six while living in Chicago.
1913
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned thirteen while living in Chicago.
FEBRUARY 3 – The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (establishing income taxes) was ratified. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/16th-amendment
MARCH 4 – Woodrow Wilson was sworn in as the 28th President of the United States.
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty-seven while living in Chicago.
1914
JANUARY 1 – “The world’s first scheduled passenger airline service took off from St. Petersburg, FL and landed at its destination in Tampa, FL, about 17 miles away … Their short flight across the bay to Tampa took 23 minutes.” https://www.space.com/16657-worlds-first-commercial-airline-the-greatest-moments-in-flight.html
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned fourteen while living in Chicago.
JUNE 28 – Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist. This was viewed as the spark that lit the powder keg of tensions to start the first world war. http://www.fsmitha.com/time/1914.htm
WORLD WAR I –”Imperial, territorial, and economic rivalries led to the ‘Great War’ between the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and Turkey) and the Allies (U.S., Britain, France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Montenegro, Portugal, Italy, Japan).” Before it was over more than four years later, more than 8 ½ million soldiers were killed. This number does not include the millions of civilians who also died. https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-I/Killed-wounded-and-missing
SEPTEMBER – Around this time Alice started attending Austin High School, which was close to where they lived on Nashville Street in Chicago, Illinois, which was also close to where her father had his business. Nancy wrote, “They had no car and had to walk everywhere.” [In 1899 the community of Austin had been annexed into the greater city of Chicago.]
Alice had the most beautiful naturally curly hair, soft, not kinky or frizzy, brown with a hint of auburn. However, she had it at a time when all her school friends wore their hair straight and long, in braids or one fat ponytail. Of course, she wanted to look like the other girls, but her hair simply wouldn’t grow long, and certainly would not grow straight! Somewhere she heard that if she shaved it off it would grow in straight. So, without telling anyone she went to the barber shop and had it shaved off! When I asked her what her Mother thought when she saw her, she said “She nearly crowned me!” (One of Mother’s frequent expressions. I heard her use it many times during her life. It didn’t mean she meant any physical punishment, merely that she was very upset or angry. She got the expression from her Mother.) She went on to say, “Mother wouldn’t let me miss school, and made me wear a knit stocking cap on my head until my hair grew out; and it grew back curlier than ever!”
From their pictures it looks like both Grandpa and Grandma Smith had some curl in their hair, but most women of the time used the curling iron so it is hard to tell. Uncle Ed’s hair was tightly curly and blond. I know his oldest daughter, Alice, (named after Mother) wore her black hair in long finger curls until she was 12, and in our family Evie and I each got just enough curl to keep us wondering if we should cut it short and let it do its own thing or get a permanent wave and have it set every week. For the most part we have settled for leaving it alone. As far as I know, my son Scott, was the only one of Mother’s eleven grandchildren who got her soft curly hair. [Shelton’s daughter, Ruth, did as well, as did two of Ruth’s children, Colin and Carly!!]
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty-eight while living in Chicago.
1915
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned fifteen while living in Chicago.
JANUARY 25 – The first transcontinental telephone call took place between “Alexander Graham Bell in New York, his assistant Thomas Watson in San Francisco, President Woodrow Wilson in Washington, and the president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in Georgia.” https://www.census.gov/library/audio/profile-america/profileodd/profile-odd-25.html
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned thirty-nine while living in Chicago.
1916
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned sixteen while living in Chicago.
Her brother, two years older, attended a technical school, but she didn’t remember what kind of courses he took. Mother took a two year course in accounting at Austin High. “I wasn’t a very good student” she said. During those two years, on Saturdays, she also took classes at the Chicago Art Institute in drawing, oil painting and “modeling”. When I asked her if she meant she was a “model” for the other students to draw or paint in the classes she said, “No! My dad would have killed me if I did anything like that! I modeled in clay!”
One of the things she modeled in clay was a head and shoulders (called a bust) of a young girl who lived in their apartment building. On the floor above lived the Schmidt family; the only names I ever heard for the parents were Ma and Pa Schmidt; the girl’s name was Myrtle and there was a brother the same age as Mother’s brother, Ed. His name was Jack. Myrtle died in her early teens, and at some time the Schmidt’s gave the bust which Mother had molded to Grandma and Grandpa Smith. They had it bronzed and I remember it in my grandparents’ home while I was growing up. Mother didn’t remember what happened to it.
Since she couldn’t walk to the Chicago Art Institute, she took the “El”, an elevated, electric train which completely encircled the City of Chicago – called “The Loop” – with a branch which ran west and another which ran south through what later became the poorer sections of the City. On the way around the Loop there was a stop which connected to the steam engine train which ran North to the upper class suburbs like Evanston, Winnetka and Park Ridge, and one which connected with the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin (we called it the “roaring Elgin”) which ran to the western upper middle-class suburbs, one of which was Glen Ellyn.
In their neighborhood, within walking distance, her brother belonged to a soccer club. While the boys played soccer, girls watched, visited and probably cheered and giggled. The club also sponsored dances and parties, and in the summertime picnics and hayrack rides. They would ride out west of the city on the streetcar into what was then mostly farmland, rent a truck or wagon and ride through the countryside. They also had parties in each other’s homes where they would play games (including Post Office and Spin the Bottle, she said), or someone would play the piano and they would gather around and sing.
There was a boy named Jack Whitelaw who had been in her class since grade school; he was her usual escort during high school. Of course, at most of the soccer club events Mother’s big brother, Ed, was also there, so she was well chaperoned as far as her folks were concerned. She said he came in very handy one night. She had gone to the dance with someone other than Jack Whitelaw. Jack had danced with her during the evening and was upset that she hadn’t come with him. When they were leaving to walk home the two boys started fighting. Her brother and their neighbor, Jack Schmidt, took her home. Ed and Jack thought the boys were pretty stupid, but Mother said she thought it was “very romantic” to have two boys fighting over her. When I asked her what happened to Jack Whitelaw, she said after high school she never saw him again.
At one time Ed had told her that Jack Schmidt had really, to use a long forgotten phrase, “taken a shine to her”. Mother liked Jack well enough, but the Schmidt’s were Catholic, and at that time, even through my young life, it was pretty well forbidden for Catholics and Protestants to date, certainly to marry.
[The above] was printed in Mother’s school paper when she was 16 years old. I just found it among some other papers and pictures I was going through and thought it was cute. It reminded me of my schoolgirl friend who changed the spelling of her name, Mary, to Mayre when we were in high school!
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned forty while living in Chicago.
1917
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned seventeen while living in Chicago.
MARCH 5 – Woodrow Wilson was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States.
APRIL 6 – The U.S. entered World War I by declaring war on Germany.
According to the CDC, when the US entered World War I, life expectancy in the US was 54 years old for women and 48 years old for men. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/milestone-infographic.htm
“As the United States enters World War I, one in every ten Americans has a telephone.” [land line, of course] Nancy Ellen Allen Haeger
MAY 18 – Congress passed the Selective Service Act authorizing the military draft. https://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/firstworldwar/index-1917.html
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned forty-one while living in Chicago.
DECEMBER 14 – Lam’s father Robert Alexander Allen died in Chicago, Illinois at the age of eighty-one years, one month and ten days.
His Mother was 78; Dad was 41, and still responsible for the support of his Mother and his sister, Mabel, who was in her late 30s [37].
Dad’s next older sister, Genna (Virginia) [born 1873], had married a man named Will Carter, with whom she had had four sons … After her Father died, Mabel wrote Genna that the cold northern winters were becoming hard on “Mama”; Genna said they had plenty of room in their big house and they invited Mabel and Grandma Allen to move in with them.
[In the 1900 U.S. Census the Carter family is recorded in Syracuse, Kansas and Will was working as a merchant grocer. All four of their sons were born in Kansas. By the 1910 Census the Carter family was in Lassen, California where he was recorded as a minister of the gospel. In 1917 the family moved again, this time to Homestead, Florida where the 1920 U.S. Census recorded them living beside Ellen and Mabel Allen.]
1918
Only one out of thirteen households in the United States owned a car. https://worldhistory.us/american-history/cars-in-the-1920s-the-early-automobile-industry.php
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned eighteen while living in Chicago.
MARCH 11 – The first outbreak of what would be called the Spanish flu (the worst influenza pandemic of the 20th century and, “in terms of total numbers of deaths, among the most devastating pandemics in human history”)began in Camp Funston in Fort Riley, Kansas. https://www.britannica.com/event/influenza-pandemic-of-1918-1919, https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/three-waves.htm
MARCH 31 – Daylight savings time first started in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States
MAY 15 – “The Post Office Department began airmail service between New York and Washington, D.C., via Philadelphia — the nation’s first regularly scheduled airmail route. Initially, Army pilots flew the mail.” https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/airmail-history-in-pictures.pdf
JUNE – Alice graduated from high school.
After her two years in high school Alice took a business course in shorthand and typing, after which she went to work for her father, where, using her artistic talents, she was one of the artists who modeled the clay molds for the smaller decorative pieces made by Manton and Smith. I have a few of those pieces, an inkwell, letter opener, and a small trinket box.
Manton and Smith worked a six-day week. One Saturday she was given the assignment of oxidizing some bronze pieces which were to be delivered to the customer the next Monday. Oxidizing, Mother told me as she was remembering this story, was the final liquid application to bronze pieces to prevent them from turning green. The process made the hands black which took several days to disappear. Alice refused to do the job because she was going to a dance that night and didn’t want her hands blackened. Her father became angry and sent her home, telling her not to come back.
She went to the dance, had a good time, and the following Monday morning did not get out of bed at her usual time. When her Mother came in to remind her it was time to get ready for work she told her, “I’m not going to work. I was fired!” Grandma said, “Oh, Alice, your father didn’t mean that”, but Alice replied, “I don’t care. He fired me! He’s not the only ‘Bloody Englishman’ in the house. I’m going to find another job!”
And she did go out that afternoon – to her Dad’s former place of business – Winslow Brothers. She had called for an appointment before she went and while she was on the way, Grandpa’s former secretary called him to say that she was coming for an interview. Grandpa told the secretary, “If you have a place for her, don’t offer it to her right away.” Meanwhile, Grandma was concerned about where she was going and had called her husband to tell him Alice had gone out to find a job. He told her that Alice was on the way for an interview at Winslow Brothers. So, as Mother told me, she went in, filled out the application and was told they would let her know. Of course, she was called the next day and offered the job.
Mother, for most of her life, was pretty spunky – quick to fly off the handle but just as quick to get over it. She did have her father’s temperament. He was in his early 20s when he migrated and had been raised in England at the height of the British Empire when an Englishman, no matter what his station in life, was convinced that he was one of the most superior people on earth. At one time a New York newspaper, in an uproar over some political incident, had called them “the bloody English” and at the time the name stuck, with tongue-in-cheek, because we were, of course staunch supporters of that country, politically and economically as well as comrades-in-arms during the war.
Her first job at Winslow Brothers was taking records in their in-house hospital. Because they were a munitions factory there were frequent accidents among the workers. Whether they were required by law, their insurance company, or it was just more convenient than rushing each victim to the hospital, Mother said she was responsible for filling out lots of paperwork regarding the nature of the accident, the type of treatment that was given, and so forth. After the war was over and they were no longer making munitions, she was transferred to the credit department where she worked until she married in 1922.
SEPTEMBER 12 – Lam (41) registered for the draft, writing his address of 637 Long Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. His printing business was at 11 South Desplaines in Chicago. His mother Ellen Nancy Allen, in Miami Florida, was his emergency contact. He was described as height – medium; build – medium; light hair and blue eyes.
On this same day Lam’s future brother-in-law Edward David Smith registered for the draft in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was 20 and working on the farm of Richard Hoffman in Genoa Junction. He listed his mother as his nearest relative with an address of 167 N. LaVergne Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.
After graduating from technical high school, Ed had taken a job as a hand at a farm in Genoa City, Wisconsin, just over the border from Illinois, owned by a family named Gifford [perhaps this was the farm he worked at after the Hoffman farm from the draft]. How he knew about and got the job I don’t think anyone ever told me. Shortly after that he was called into the Army during World War I but never went overseas and just before the war was over came down with Scarlet Fever, a serious disease which has since been eradicated, and sent home. He went back to work on the farm. Mr. and Mrs. Gifford had no sons; they had five daughters (which explains their need for a farm hand, I suppose) and he fell in love with the second daughter, Evelyn.
NOVEMBER 11 – Germany signed an Armistice thus ending “the Great War” which had lasted nearly four years and five months and in which an estimated 20 million people worldwide had died. https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/reperes112018.pdf
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned forty-two while living in Chicago.
Lam did not smoke, drink or swear. Mother said he used to smoke cigars before they were married, but one year he was driving to Miami to visit his Mother and knew she would disapprove so tossed them out of the car window and never smoked again. The only thing he drank in his later years was beer when he had an upset stomach.
DECEMBER 4 – President Wilson sailed to Paris for the Paris Peace Conference thus becoming the first United States President in office to travel to a foreign country. http://www.fsmitha.com/time/1918.htm
1919
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned nineteen while living in Chicago.
JANUARY 16 – Prohibition began in the United States with the ratification of the 18th amendment. http://www.fsmitha.com/time/1920.htm
FEBRUARY 26 – Grand Canyon National Park was established. https://www.terragalleria.com/parks/info/parks-by-date.html
AUGUST 18 – With the ratification of the 19th amendment women were given the right to vote. http://www.fsmitha.com/time/1919.htm
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned forty-three while living in Chicago.
1920
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned twenty while living in Chicago.
JANUARY 6 – Lam (42) was recorded in the 1920 U.S. Census as a roomer with James Manton (38) (who was the partner of Edward Smith at Manton and Smith) at 637 North Long Avenue in Chicago. James and his wife Cora (37) had two daughters, Dorothy (14) and Marion (7).
JANUARY 12 – Alice (20) was recorded in the 1920 U.S. Census as living at 167 Lavergne Avenue in Chicago with her father Edward (47), her mother Julia (46), and her grandmother Julia Winckler (73). She was working as a bookkeeper for a fire insurance company.
The homes of Lam and Alice were 1.2 miles apart.
Ellen N. Allen (80) and her daughter Mabel Allen (39) were recorded in the 1920 U.S. Census living next door to William Carter (61, minister), his wife Esther (46) and their four sons – Allen (25), Ernest (24), Fred (18), and Robert (15) in Homestead, Florida.
NOVEMBER 2 – The first commercially licensed radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, went on the air, broadcasting the presidential election results. Reportedly only about 100 people were listening. https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/kdka-broadcastings-pioneer-station
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned forty-four while living in Chicago.
1921
JANUARY 4 – Alice turned twenty-one while living in Chicago.
MARCH 4 – Warren Harding was sworn in as the 29th President of the United States.
Grandpa Smith’s business partner, Manton, had rented a house in Austin [a community in Chicago] from Mr. L. S. Allen, who retained one room in the house for himself. He was a bachelor in his mid-40s. The Mantons had Alice Smith’s picture, (a Christmas gift from the Smiths) on their piano. When Mr. Allen saw the picture he asked for an introduction. Mr. Manton did the honors, and when Mr. Allen was introduced he asked Alice if she would like to go with him to a dance at the Colonial Club in Oak Park. She said, “Sure!” He told her he didn’t have a car and would pick her up in a taxi, that he wouldn’t bring candy or flowers, just take her for a good time of dancing and supper at the club. She said she did have a nice time, but didn’t hear from him for three weeks, so figured he thought she was too young. But, he did call, and it soon evolved into an every Friday date.
The protocol for formal dances of that time was – the lady danced only three dances with her escort: the first dance, the supper dance, and the last dance. As soon as the couple arrived, while the lady was shedding her wraps and powdering her nose, the gentleman exchanged the other dances with his friends by means of a dance card. He then presented a filled-out card to his date which she hung on her wrist and always knew who her next partner would be. The gentleman kept his dance card in his breast pocket so he could keep track of who he danced with next. Mother said this was the program not only for single couples, but for engaged and married ones as well. Since a dance was meant to be a social event, the idea of dancing with only your escort would have been considered rude as well as boring …
At one dance, one of her other partners asked her if she would come to the next Friday dance with him. When Mr. Allen said he would pick her up the same time next week, she said she was going to the dance with George Dolmeier. Realizing he was being cut in on he immediately said, “ln that case, after next Friday night, I would like you to be my dance partner every Friday night!” When she turned George down for a Friday night dance, he countered with an invitation to a dance at another club which held their dances on Saturday nights. This went on for several weeks, every Friday with Mr. Allen, every Saturday night with George. Until – without a telephone call – George didn’t show up one Saturday night. At the next Friday dance when he mentioned seeing her on Saturday she said, “I’m not going with you tomorrow night, George.” “Why not?”, said he. “I only get stood up once!” she replied. “Oh, didn’t he call you?” gasped George! “No one called me. And if you couldn’t call me yourself the day of the dance, you could have called the next day to apologize.” Mother said when he tried to apologize then, she told him not to call her anymore. I said, “Was that goodbye George?” “Yes”, she said – “Exit George!”
The L.S. in Mr. Allen’s name stood for the rather pretentious Lambeth Shelton, both of which actually are names in his family tree. His business associates called him “L.S.”; his friends called him “Lam”. About this time he bought a car and started taking Alice for Sunday afternoon drives. Mother couldn’t remember what kind of car it was. When I suggested a Reo she said that was their second car. She thought the first one he bought was called “Apple” something. On one such ride she had been telling him that she wanted a dog but her father said an apartment was no place for a dog. On the way home he stopped the car, I suppose at a pretty spot, and asked her to marry him. When she hesitated and then said she would have to think about it, he said, “You don’t know if you want a Lam or a dog.”
The reason my Father hadn’t married before he was in his 40s was that he was the sole support of his Father, Mother and younger sister, Mabel. His Father had been a Methodist minister, riding the circuit through Missouri, Oklahoma and parts of Eastern Colorado. He had no “home” church contributing to his support, relied on goodwill offerings wherever he wandered, and there were no pension plans for retiring ministers. Sons and daughters were expected to care for the elderly. Dad was the next to the last of seven children, the only son. One of the older girls had died at a young age, the four other older sisters had married which left Mabel, the youngest, to physically care for her aging parents.
[The 1910 U.S. Census shows that his mother Ellen Nancy Pitts Allen had had seven children born with only four still living at the time. I have not found a name for the one older sister that died at a young age, but the other two older sisters were Lola, who was born in 1867 and married Thomas E. Kirk in 1886, and Mary, who was born in February of 1870. I can find no record of Mary’s marriage and both of these sisters obviously died sometime before 1910 in their twenties or thirties.]
All of this is probably of very little interest to those of you reading this family history, but it is told so that you will have an idea of exactly what Mother married into – most of which I’m sure she knew very little about before she accepted Dad’s proposal. Dad was a very handsome, elegant and sophisticated man in his 40s, owned his own business and could afford to take her to nice places, and this could have been very attractive to a young woman of 21.
When I asked Mother what her folks thought about her seeing someone so much older, she said her Dad just seemed to ignore it. What she didn’t know was that her Mother was concerned, and had been writing to her friend, Mrs. Gilbert Austin, their former neighbor in Corona, New York. The Austins had a son who was a couple of years older than Alice. Evidently, over the years, the two mothers had played the “Wouldn’t it be Nice” game of wishful thinking that their children might someday marry each other. When Alice told her Mother that Lam had proposed, Grandma Smith wrote to Mrs. Austin who then sent an invitation to Alice asking her to come for a visit, without revealing the underlying hope that Alice and the son, Gilbert, would hit it off. Well, no sparks flew; Alice left. On her way home she stopped in Philadelphia to visit some of the Schleher family. One of her Mother’s half sisters [Caroline Winckler Schleher] had a son named Paul who “took a shine” to her, but she said she “liked Paul well enough” but wasn’t terribly attracted. She went home to Chicago, and still without giving him an answer, continued to see Lam.
NOVEMBER 13 – Lam turned forty-five while living in Chicago.
DECEMBER
Shortly before Christmas of 1921 Lam was going to Miami to visit his family. He had taught Mother to drive his car, and she went with him to see him off. Driving home from the station she realized that she loved him and wanted to marry him. She wrote a letter to him saying, “Sometime ago you asked me a question. The answer is Yes.” He called her immediately upon receiving the letter.
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