Thursday, February 28, 2013

My Granddad's Philadelphia


My maternal grandfather, William (Will) Liming Redles began writing to my grandmother MarthaLeona Roberts in the latter part of 1921/early 1922 after his friend Warren Graham (who was married to Leona's sister Margaret Roberts) had given him a photo of her. Will was instantly smitten. In January 1922, Warren wrote to his sister-in-law Leona that he believed Will was in love with her. After several months of letter writing, the day finally came when Will would get to see her face to face. 

An officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, Will was granted leave in August 1922 from the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C. Warren invited him to Valdosta, Georgia, where the Roberts family lived, for a visit. What an opportunity! Will wrote to Leona that he'd like to see her while he was there, so he boarded a train and made a bee-line to Valdosta.  Seeing her in person seemed to make him more sure than ever that she was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. When his visit came to a close and his train left the Valdosta station, he began writing her another letter. In it he told her that he planned to head on to Philadelphia to see his sisters Isabelle and Helen after a brief stop-over in Washington to "get some clean uniforms." Once he got to Philadelphia, he mailed a "Souvenir Folder" to her that contained illustrations of several Philadelphia places of interest. He wrote the date on the inside flap of the envelope: August 20, 1922.

Will often asked Leona to visit him in Washington, but she wasn't taking him up on it. She had a friend living outside of Philadelphia, so he told her to make it more comfortable for her, why didn't she visit her friend, and he could head over from Philadelphia to see her. Was the souvenir folder an enticement to get her to come to the city?


Below are a few of the illustrations in the Souvenir Folder. I've included a transcription of the building descriptions printed in the back of the folder.


Broad Street Station, P. R. R. Philadelphia, PA

"Broad Street Station is the terminus of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Philadelphia and also the home of the wonderful Pennsylvania System."


Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Station, Philadelphia, PA

"The Reading Terminal is located at 12th and Market Streets, in the heart of the city. It is the terminus for the Philadelphia & Reading Central R. R. of New Jersey and Lehigh Valley Railroads."


  Post Office, Philadelphia, PA

"The Post Office is located on the corner of Chestnut and 9th Streets and extends along 9th Street to Market St. It is built of pressed granite, four stories high, and is surmounted by a dome reaching 170 feet above the pavement. Total cost $8,000,000."

City Hall, Philadelphia, PA

"City Hall located at Broad and Market Sts., is a structure of immense size and prominence, costing about $20,000,000. The tower is 550 feet high and surmounted by a huge statue of William Penn, the founder of Philadelphia."


The Wanamaker Store, Philadelphia, PA

"The Wanamaker Store occupies an entire city block from Chestnut to Market Sts. Between Thirteenth & Juniper Sts. The Building is twelve stories high, three stories below the street level and contains 45 acres of floor space."

I wonder if the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Station is the one he arrived in and departed from. Or could it have been the Broad Street Station? Did he shop at Wanamaker's? Is that the post office from where he mailed his letters to my grandmother while in Philadelphia? Did he have business in City Hall?

I loved looking through the illustrations of what my grandfather's Philadelphia looked like. In the absence of actual photographs in his papers, these vintage cards helped give me a sense of what his surroundings were like while he was there. 

I love these vintage cards! I have several of Valdosta. I think I'll see if I can find any of Washington, D.C., and of other places he lived.

Catherine

---

Letters and papers of William Liming Redles and Leona Roberts Redles are in the possession of their oldest daughter Leona Redles Pendleton.


Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Major Pendleton Goes to Scotland


One of the episodes in the life of my paternal second  great grandfather Philip Coleman Pendleton was a trip he took to Scotland in late 1867/early 1868 to bring back Scottish immigrants to settle in Valdosta, Georgia, and work on the farms. Southern planters felt that a new labor system was needed to provide workers to plant and harvest the crops--work that was formerly done by slaves. They believed that the immigrants would work for cheaper wages than the Freedmen would.[1] To that end, Philip was sent to Scotland by the Lowndes County Agricultural Society.[2] The funds to pay for the transportation of the Scottish workers to Valdosta were to come from membership dues collected by the Lowndes County Immigration Society.[3] 

In the latter part of 1867, Philip left Valdosta, likely traveling to Savannah on the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad (completed from Savannah to Valdosta on July 4, 1860).[4] Savannah is probably where he boarded the steamer Herman Livingston which deposited him in New York on November 3, 1867. Philip wrote to his son William Frederic Pendleton on November 4, 1867, "I arrived in this place yesterday (Sunday morning) by Steamer Herman Livingston..."[5]


Above is an ad in the October 19, 1867, New York Herald for the steamer Herman Livingston owned by the Atlantic Coast Mail Steamship Company. It sailed from New York to Savannah every Thursday.[6]

One of Philip’s sons, author Louis Beauregard Pendleton, describes this trip to Scotland in his novel Echo of Drums, which is a  "thinly veiled" story (as my dad called it) about Philip and his family during Reconstruction. Louis writes that "against the wishes of his more practical wife," "Major Carroll" (Major Pendleton) left Georgia before the money was raised. While the Major was in Scotland, "Mrs. Carroll" (Philip's wife Catharine Tebeau) asked their family friend "Judge Mallory" if he thought that the planters would advance the funds as loans, but the judge said that they would not. Money was tight during Reconstruction, so people were holding onto every penny.[7]

On December 21, 1867, Philip wrote the following to his wife Catharine from London,

I have been to Scotland, made all the arrangements for emigrants, but no money yet has followed me. I am much distressed about it, but hope I may soon be relieved, be able to do what I came to do, and be speeded back to you. I do not think I shall wait many days longer if I don't hear.[8]

The money never came. Philip's son  Charles Rittenhouse Pendleton describes this incident in a biographical sketch that he wrote about Philip in 1911. 

He gathered a shipload of Scotch [sic] and was about to sail with them to Savannah when a cablegram from his associates in Lowndes county warned him that cotton had suddenly fallen to a ruinous price and to abandon the scheme and return home. Men and families had given up home and job to come with him. The sudden announcement of the failure of his plan caused a mob to menace him in the city of Glasgow. The kindly strategy of a friend got him out of the city.[9]

Philip left Glasgow, Scotland, on the ship United Kingdom. He arrived in New York on January 27, 1868, and returned to Valdosta without having accomplished his mission.

Above is the passenger list for the ship  United Kingdom that carried Philip from Glasgow, Scotland, to New York in 1868.[10] Philip's passenger information is outlined in red.

Above is an illustration of the ship United Kingdom that carried Philip from Glasgow, Scotland, to New York.[11]

It seems Columbus, Georgia, was successful where Valdosta wasn't in their endeavor to bring in Scottish workers. I came across a June 26, 1867, article in Augusta, Georgia's Daily Constitutionalist written just a few months before Philip left for Scotland that says:

Among the passengers yesterday by the steamship Herman Livingston, from New York...were a large number of families from Glasgow, Scotland, en route to Columbus, Ga., where they are to be employed in the new cotton mills now erected.[12]

Overall, however, the scheme to bring in immigrants to work on Southern farms was not successful. According to Willard Range in A Century of Georgia Agriculture, some of the reasons it was difficult to entice immigrants to the South were "the lack of relatives in the South, unfamiliarity with Southern crops, and rumors of an unhealthy Southern climate." Also, many Europeans had an "Uncle Tom's Cabin concept of the South" where "foreigners" were not welcome, where "whites thought it a dishonor to work," and where "half civilized" whites carried knives and guns. Planters were under the mistaken impression that the "old slave diet and slave cabin" would be satisfactory to the immigrants.[13]

Just a year and a half after his trip to Scotland to bring back Scottish immigrants to Valdosta, Philip died on June 19, 1869, at the age of 56 from injuries received in a buggy accident. He is buried in Sunset Hill Cemetery, Valdosta, Georgia.

Catherine

--- 

[1] Willard Range. A Century of Georgia Agriculture 1850-1950. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1954), 78.

[2] General James Jackson Chapter, NSDAR, History of Lowndes County, Georgia 1825-1941 (1942; Reprint, General James Jackson Chapter, NSDAR, 1995), 100.

[3] Jane Twitty Shelton. Pines and Pioneers: A History of Lowndes County, Georgia 1825-1900. (Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Company, 1976), 100.

[4] Shelton, Pines and Pioneers, 154.

[5] Constance Pendleton, editor, Confederate Memoirs: Early Life and Family History, William Frederick Pendleton and Mary Lawson Young Pendleton. (Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1958), 92.

[6] An ad in the October 19, 1867, New York Herald for the steamer Herman Livingston, digital image, genealogybank.com (http://genealogybankcom : accessed 6 February 2013).

[7] Louis Beauregard Pendleton. Echo of Drums. (New York: Sovereign House, 1938), 8, 13.

[8] Constance Pendleton, Confederate Memoirs, 94.

[9]  C. R. Pendleton. "Philip Coleman Pendleton: His Part in the Early History of Macon, Particularly With Reference to Wesleyan College---The Southern Post and The Ladies' Book." The Macon Daily Telegraph, 7 May 1911, p. 4, col. 3.

[10] "New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," database, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 December 2012), entry for P. C. Pendleton, age 55, arrived New York, 27 January 1868 aboard the United Kingdom.

[11] Photo of United Kingdom (built 1857), digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 December 2012), retrieve by choosing the "ship" link attached to the "Passenger Record" database search results for P. C. Pendleton, age 55, arrived 27 January 1868 aboard the United Kingdom.

[12] "Arrival of Emigrants." Daily Constitutionalist, 26 June 1867.

[13] Range. A Century of Georgia Agriculture 1850-1950, 79-80.







Thursday, February 14, 2013

A 1923 Valentine's Day Card: "I'm tired of waiting"


This Valentine's Day card postmarked February 14, 1923, is from my maternal grandfather William (Will) Liming Redles to my grandmother Martha Leona Roberts while they were courting (long distance much of the time). He was in Washington, D.C., and she was in Valdosta, Georgia. One of my grandfather's friends, Warren Graham, was married to my grandmother's sister, Margaret. Warren sent Will a photo of Leona in about 1921, and Will fell in love.




Even though he didn't sign the card, I recognize his neat, precise handwriting on the envelope. I suppose he was getting tired of waiting for her to declare her feelings for him. He sent three letters to her around this date saying as much. In one, he says he has something very important to say to her. He didn't have to wait much longer. They were married just over two months later on May 8, 1923, in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.

Happy Valentine's Day Will and Leona!

Catherine

Monday, February 11, 2013

Military Monday - A Newly Minted WWII Army Private


This is a photo of my dad after he was drafted into the Army in 1943 during World War II. He was sent to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, for basic training before shipping out to the war in Europe.  He still looks wet behind the ears in this photo.


I wrote about his war experiences in a previous post, A Wounded WWII Vet: Pfc. Albert S.Pendleton, Jr. (1925-2006).

I can't get over how young he looks. Well, he was young. He was 18.

Catherine



Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Brothers and Sisters



These are my maternal great aunts and uncles and my grandmother, the sons and daughters of John Taylor Roberts and Catherine Margaret Young. This photograph was taken in 1947 at the J.T. Roberts house (what we call "the Big House") on Wells Street in Valdosta, Georgia. Seated in foreground is Dinah (Mary Remer) Roberts Parramore. Seated behind her is Edwina (Midge) Roberts. Standing, left to right: Martha Leona Roberts Redles (my maternal grandmother), Margaret Roberts Graham, Stella Roberts Pendleton, John Young Roberts, Maie Dell Roberts Covington, Kathleen Roberts Winn, and William Leland Roberts.

Catherine


Tuesday, February 5, 2013

The Daughters of Philip Coleman Pendleton


Recently, I found a biographical sketch in my dad's papers that was written in 1911 about my paternal second great grandfather Philip Coleman Pendleton by one of his sons, newspaper editor and publisher Charles Rittenhouse Pendleton. I realized when I read the last paragraph that I knew very little about Philip's daughters, Emma Tebeau Pendleton (1852-1919) and Mary Zella Pendleton (1857-1932). Here is what Charles had to say about his sisters:

The daughters are not married. One of them has been writing the bird stories for The [Macon] Telegraph, and has done other literary work. Both have been teachers--patrons of "female education" which so interested the early manhood and life of their father.[1]

Out of ten children, Emma and Zella were the only daughters of Philip and his wife Catharine Sarah Melissa Tebeau. Emma was born in Powelton, Hancock County, Georgia, in 1852, and Zella was born in 1857 in Sandersville, Washington County, Georgia, the same place where my great grandfather (their brother) Alexander was born. Shortly after the birth of Zella, the Pendleton family moved to the Tebeau plantation outside of Savannah, Georgia.  The following year they moved to a farm at a place they named Tebeauville (now Waycross), Georgia. During the Civil War, they moved again--this time just outside of Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.[2]

Neither Emma nor Zella married. However, it seems that Emma may have been engaged in 1878, but I don't know to whom or why the marriage never took place. I found a clue about this in a letter she wrote in 1879 to a gentleman who was apparently interested in her. She says,

I will be as candid with you hoping to give you as little pain as possible and tell you what I have told no other gentleman who was not a relative and that is that my hand has been plighted to another since July last. I tell you this for your own sake believing that you will not mention it ever and that you have not gone so far that you can think of me now only as a true friend.[3]

Emma and Zella both attended the Girls' School at the New Church in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania--Emma from 1891-1893 and Zella from 1889-1893. Zella graduated from the Girls' School in 1892.[4] There's a photograph of her in a write-up about the first graduation held at the school on the New Church History's website. [5] (Click on their name to go to this page. She's on the right in the front row.) 

Emma must be the writer who Charles refers to in the above quote from the 1911 article. (See my post The Pendleton Family Curse about the Pendleton propensity for writing.) Below is a document that I found in my dad's papers from Godey's Lady's Book dated 1883 concerning the submission of a story called "Witchery" written by Emma.[6] (Click on the image for a larger view.)



It appears that by 1900, Emma was living in Macon, Georgia, but not with their brothers Charles and Louis who were also living there (I couldn't find her in the 1900 census). Zella was living in Canada. I found their names listed under these locations in a transcription of a document about a church assembly held in 1900.[7] By 1910, both Emma and Zella were living in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, where three of their brothers (William Frederic, Nathaniel Dandridge, and Louis Beauregard) were living. They lived with their brother Louis, who was a novelist, journalist, and newspaper editor.[8]

I found several articles on genealogybank.com from The Macon Telegraph that were written by Emma in 1910 and 1911, most of which are the bird stories mentioned by Charles in the quote above. Some of the titles are "Birds of a Feather," "Birds of a Color," "Common Bird Neighbors," and "The Wood Warblers." Here is an excerpt from one of her "Birds of a Color" articles about a robin:

He was here the other day hopping about in the beautiful autumn sunlight as dainty and charming as ever he was in the good old summer time. And though late in the fall his tendency is to take on a slightly rusty wash , especially towards the tip of his pretty wings, yet in this golden sunlight he was still a symphony in blue and white and reddish brown.[9]

How lovely!

Another story, written by Emma in two parts, is "Music Mad: A Picture From Life," about a young musical prodigy who was so enraptured with the music she played that she was driven a bit mad. [10]

Emma died in 1919, and Zella died in 1932. Both are buried in the Bryn Athyn Cathedral Cemetery, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.

Catherine
---
[1] C. R. Pendleton. "Philip Coleman Pendleton: His Part in the Early History of Macon, Particularly With Reference to Wesleyan College---The Southern Post and The Ladies' Book." The Macon Daily Telegraph 7 May 1911, p. 4, col. 3.

[2] Constance Pendleton, ed., Confederate Memoirs: Early Life and Family History, William Frederick Pendleton and Mary Lawson Young Pendleton. (Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1958), 19, 52.

[3] Emma Pendleton to Mr. S[illegible], letter, 2 March 1879. Privately held by Leona R. Pendleton, Valdosta, Georgia, 2013.

[4] Alan Pendleton to Catherine Pendleton, 4 February 2013, list compiled by Freda Pendleton of Pendleton family members who attended school at the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.

[5] Ed and Kirsten Gyllenhaall, "Academy Girls School Graduation (1892),"New Church History Fun Facts, 7 June 2007 (http://newchurchhistory.org/funfacts/?p=150 : accessed 4 February 2013).

[6] Editors of Godey's Lady's Book to Emma Pendleton, letter, 23 June 1883. Privately held by Leona R. Pendleton, Valdosta, Georgia, 2013.

[7] Journal of the Fourth General Assembly of The General Church of the New Jerusalem, 1900; digital image, heavenlydoctirnes.org (http://www.heavenlydoctrines.org/New%20Church%20Life%5C1900_HTML.htm : accessed 4 February 2013).

[8] 1910 U.S. census, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, population schedule Moreland Township, p. 287 (stamped), dwelling 235, family 263, Louis, Emma, and Zella Pendleton; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed February 4, 2013); citing NARA microfilm 624, roll 1378.

[9] Emelyn Pendleton. "Birds of a Color (Blue and Bluish)," The Macon Telegraph 4 December 1910, p. 4; digital image, genealogybank.com (http://genealogybank.com : accessed 3 February 2013).

[10] Emelyn Pendleton. "Music Mad: A Picture From Life," The Macon Telegraph, 18 December 1910, p. 4.; digital image, genealogybank.com (http://genealogybank.com : accessed 3 February 2013).