Auction Finds » finds

Vallona Starr pottery – ah, the color

sherry — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:46:34 +0000

Every now and then, I come across an auction item that draws me to its color or shape. It’s usually a warm color that’s simply beautiful.

This sweet little candy dish was among some pottery items I bought at auction. I didn’t buy it specifically for the dish but was delighted to find it once I started going through stuff in a box lot. It’s not the first piece of pottery whose shape or color has caused me to pause: I have three small contemporary pieces whose uniqueness is in their delicate size.

This new piece is in the form of a stylized leaf, with gilt around the edges and a greenish-creamish finish. When I flipped it over, I saw that it was signed: Vallona Starr, California. Unfortunately, there’s no date on the dish but it is likely from the 1950s. It’s not a large dish; it’s only 8″ long and 4 ¼” wide.

It even reminds me of California, with its fresh green-Earth ambience. Not that I know what California pottery looks or feels like (I’m sure the selection is pretty eclectic), but this comes close to what I’d imagine. This website, Potteries of California, offers information on potteries and styles in the state, and this one, California Pottery Index, offers a listing of potteries.

I found in Googling that Vallona Starr was not a person but the name of a company that made pottery from the 1930s to the 1950s. I could not find much on the company but I did come across a 1996 question-and-answer article by the experts Ralph and Terry Kovel. They said the company was founded in Los Angeles in the 1930s by Everett Starr Frost, his wife Leona and an artist named Valeria de Marsa. The three opened a ceramics gift shop called Triangle Studios and made their own designs under the name Vallona Starr. Another site said they moved the company to El Monte, Calif., and then changed the name. The company apparently closed in 1953.

They produced quirky and whimsical pieces called “Winkies,” pottery with round faces and a winked eye. They also made cookie jars, salt and pepper shakers, sugars and creamers, vases, snack sets and woodland designs. Some of their pieces appear to be collectibles, and there’s a 1995 book called “Vallona Starr Ceramics” by Bernice Stamper about the pottery.

My little dish doesn’t compare to some of their other pieces, especially the cookie jars (which are quite cute), but it’s a dear. It has a small chip but otherwise, it’s in good condition. As part of a box lot, I’m sure I barely paid for it (box lots – which can contain up to half-a-dozen items or more - can be gotten sometimes for 2 bucks). I’ll keep it around to lighten my day.

Recruiting at Howard Univ., 1949 style

sherry — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:28:55 +0000

Anyone who knows anything about HBCUs knows Howard University in Washington. It’s not the oldest of the historically black colleges and universities but it is among the most august.

It has a large web of alumni who support the school wholeheartedly (some may say fanatically, but there’s nothing wrong with that) and I know a few of them. So I was delighted to come across a Howard University Bulletin – “Howard Today” – from around 1949 among a box lot of stuff from one of my recent auctions. I was able to date the bulletin by the patch on a varsity sweater worn by a male student on the cover: “1949 Champions.”

The bulletin had some water damage and a few of the pages were stuck together. But most of the black and white photos inside were still in good shape, and were just wonderful for the history they told.

The bulletin is chock full of photos of the students and their activities: ROTC, the drama club’s plays, the homecoming queen, a fencing competition, soccer and football, an engineer with his equipment, chemists in the lab, women in the dorms, sororities in a parade and guest speakers, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, educator Mary McLeod Bethune and pianist Hazel Scott.

It’s not often that I come across old photos of black people, especially not ones that tell the story of one of our universities. The bulletin was especially sweet because some of the photos were taken by Robert S. Scurlock, a prominent photographer whose family’s Scurlock Studio captured Washington’s black middle class for more than a century. He shot the front cover inset and back cover, and some inside photos. Unfortunately, his photos are not individually credited in the bulletin. (In a post last week, I mentioned Robert Scurlock’s counterpart in Philadelphia, John W. Mosley.)

A couple months ago, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture completed an exhibit called “The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise” of more than 100 images. The studio is now closed, but 200,000 negatives, 30,000 prints and 230,000 images are archived at the Smithsonian.

Described as a “pictorial presentation” of activities at the college, the 82-page bulletin was a good chronicler of what the university was all about in 1949. Howard was founded in 1867 as a liberal arts and science college. It was named after Gen. Oliver O. Howard, a Civil War hero who was commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which provided much of its early funding. By the time of the bulletin 82 years later, the university invited students to visit the ”Hill” to see what it had to offer: degrees in medicine, pharmacy, dentisty, social work, engineering, architechture, grad school and more.

At the time, according to the bulletin, it had 502 faculty members (“some of the finest scholars and teachers in the world”) and a $14 million educational plant, with an additional $17 million building program in progress (“one of the finest in the country”), and it educated more than 6,000 students from 40 states and 24 foreign countries (“the largest institution for higher education for Negros in the United States and is likewise the only comprehensive university system designed primarily for them”).

I’m not sure if these bulletins are produced anymore, since you can now learn all about Howard from the web. But it is a good reminder of how great this university has been – and still is.

A dining room set the color of sunshine

sherry — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:11:49 +0000

It was raining like crazy outside one of my favorite auction houses a few Sundays ago. But inside, there was this pretty little yellow dining room set that stood out like sunshine on a cloudy day (I just love the Temptations).

It was among a smattering of furniture to be sold later at auction, but this piece was the gem. You couldn’t miss it on your way to preview items in other rooms – the round yellow tabletop, four chairs with their narrow curved backs and round seats, white metal appendages, laminated wood and clean simple style.

I just had to check it out – although I didn’t need dining room furniture. But like just about everyone else there, I was smitten. I pulled the chairs out from the table, turned them around to observe them at different angles. On the back of one was stenciled in large letters “Marita Thomas.”

The furniture was striking; it just needed to be in the right spot in the right home. And it wasn’t mine. It would be a conversation piece in any other home, though, instantly spurring talk because of its presence.

Other auction-goers apparently were just as intrigued as me. After I left, I watched as several people looked over the set carefully, trying to make up their minds about whether to bid. Others sat in the chairs at the table, carrying on conversations with whoever stopped by.

I kept an eye on it because I was interested in knowing how the bidding would go. As the auctioneer went down one aisle after another selling mirrors and dressers and sofas and chairs, I waited patiently and then ambled over. I watched as one couple stood sentry over it, obviously ready to bid. The man pulled a chair from the table and collapsed it. The chair folded! Something I didn’t attempt to do when I was handling them. The legs and seat formed a perfect line from top to bottom. Then he unfolded it. Another couple walked up and the man examined a chair, also trying to fold it.

I watched as anxiety crept into the first couple’s face. A competitor. This could mean they’d have to bid high or lose it.

By now, the auctioneer had approached the set, and about eight of us had wandered over. This was a folding table and chairs, the auctioneer said, and the set was signed. Someone mentioned the name on the back of one of the chairs; he indicated that that was not the maker.

As with most items at auction, bidding started low with the two couples sparring. Then another bidder stepped in. The set sold for $185 – to an absentee bidder. Sometimes, that’s the way it goes.

But what a buy!

Who is this artist Helen S. Barth?

sherry — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:09:00 +0000

At auction recently were a scattering of watercolors by an artist whose name I had come across before. They were primarily paintings of women and outdoor scenes. I also saw an old-style oil of a couple with child in a horse and buggy, painted from the back.

Her works keep appearing, and I have no idea who she was. I was familiar with her name – but not much with her works – because I had bought an oil painting of hers at the same auction house a year or so ago. Her name was Helen S. Barth. The piece I bought was of a young black boy selling paper bags for 5 cents on the street.

Most of the Barth artwork at this auction were of white women. I was drawn to the piece I bought because of the ethnicity of the boy – untattered and neat – and the pride in his stance and stare.

On the back were the handwritten title, her name, address and the date. The artwork was simply called “Bag Boy” and was painted 12-18-53.

When the auctioneer began the bidding on Barth’s latest pieces, he said that she was a well-known artist whom you could find on the internet. Well, I had tried to find out information about her before and couldn’t. I tried again, and her name still did not come up. I’ve discovered some interesting artists at auction, including a Southern folk artist named M.C. 5 Cent Jones, and have gotten some magnificient buys. Auctions are a great place to look for inexpensive pieces of art.

Who was Helen S. Barth? Was she like the thousands of other local artists in communities across the country who painted in obscurity – and still do? Ones who create because it’s in their blood and they just can’t seem to shake it? I’d love to know.

Barth’s pieces didn’t go for a lot of money. Most of the watercolors were sold as lots of about a half-dozen for around $30. I likely spent no more than $10 for the one that I got.

I have a similar oil painting hanging on my living room wall, similar in the sense that I don’t know who the artist is. This one, though, reminded me more of folk art; the style unrefined, heavy-handed in texture. It’s an oil painting of a black woman seated on a bench with bowls of flowers in her lap. The artist’s signature is smeared, but it looks like E. Strong. The painting has an old frame, possibly the original, from a framing shop in New York called house of Rosalie.

That’s one of the joys of auctions: The art of discovery.

Doing the cakewalk – in bronze

sherry — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:35:07 +0000

Back in November, my auction buddy Janet found four neat postcards among a lot of cards she had just bought. They were images of two black couples demonstrating how to do the cakewalk around 1904.

Well, at another auction this week, she fell in love with a pair of bronze figures of a boy and girl – who appeared to be black – dancing the cakewalk. The bronzes were to be auctioned near the end of a Decorative Arts sale – and likely would pull in a lot more money than she was willing to spend – and we left early. I encouraged her to leave a bid, but she didn’t.

I was curious about the bronzes and the maker. The auction house described the pieces as Vienna bronzes, “youthful male and female figures,” signed by T. Curts. The dancers looked black to us, based on their detailed facial features.

In my research, I found that T. Curts was a pseudonym for a noted Austrian sculptor named Carl Kauba, who was born in Vienna in 1865 and died in 1922. He was known for his bronzes of the American West – Native Americans and cowboys – although there is some debate over whether he ever visited this country. One account said that he did, and was also inspired by the German writer Carl May, who wrote about the West, and the stories of photographers and illustrators. Others say he never did. I found very little definitive background information on Kauba.

Kauba was also known for what were called “naughties,” or mechanical erotic sculptures. Jennmaur Gallery in San Francisco, whose website has examples of his works, noted that the most collectible and rarest of his naughties was “Metamorphosis (circa 1910),” a colorful nude butterfly woman in bronze. Another piece I saw on the web was a female figure whose metal dress could be slipped off, exposing her nudity.

The sculptor also used the named Karl Thenn, according to the gallery, most likely to avoid copyright issues since he worked for several foundries (the bronzes at auction had the inscription “Copyright Thenn Vienna”). He apparently cast his clay models at local foundries after fashioning them at a studio in his home.

Some of his bronzes were imported to the United States between 1895 and 1912, and cast at a New York foundry.

How Kauba came across two black children doing the cakewalk was a mystery I couldn’t solve. The cakewalk was pretty popular in minstrel shows in the late 1800s and at the turn of the century.

His depiction of the children were not stereotypical but natural – much unlike the way blacks were portrayed around the same time in this country. There was movement in the pieces, and these children were having fun. The boy had a smile on his face, and the girl tilted her head, her eyes closed, her thoughts focused on the cakewalk steps.

What complimentary images could he have seen of black children doing the cakewalk? Did he intentionally decide not to mimic the common portrayal of blacks at the turn of the century? I’d love to know.

These were apparently not the only bronze cakewalk figures he did of black children. I found others signed by Kauba himself on the websites of another gallery and auction house.

This was an interesting and unusual find for me, especially after coming across the cakewalk postcards. They would have been a nice companion to Janet’s postcard collection. I’m not sure if they would have been affordable because I found that Kauba’s bronzes sell for thousands of dollars. I know, though, that at auction most things can be gotten for much less. Just depends on who wants them at a given time.

NOTE: I found out later that the Kauba cakewalk bronzes sold for $325.

A treasure trove of African masks

sherry — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:38:54 +0000

They were lying almost cheek to cheek on a long table, in double rows, at the auction house. Some of the nicest African masks I’ve seen in a while.

Some years ago, I was into buying African masks. I became fanatical about them and have too many on my living room and dining room walls, and at the curve at the bottom of my stairs. I love African masks because of what they represent: The real ones were imbibed with the spirit of the peoples’ ancestors and were worn in ceremonies – either for harvest, funerals, war or hunting. They are among the true art form of African, more functional art that wall art.

I don’t buy them much anymore, but when I checked out the auction house’s website a few days before, I saw at least four masks that I liked. They were the faces of women, with raffia or straw hair that reminded me of the locs I wear and the braids that frame the faces of many other black women.

As the bidding started at auction this week, the auctioneer noted that the masks – more than 75 of them – had come from one person’s collection, a professor who lived in Philadelphia. I’m not sure how old these were; it’s hard to tell just by looking, but I’m sure that any of value had already been removed. What we got at auction – which is usually the case – were the leftovers.

But that didn’t seem to deter those of us who were there, including the several obvious dealers – one of whom walked off with plenty of them. Looking at this collection, I could tell that the professor had invested a lot of time and money in it. Too bad the pieces ended up here where the investment was whittled down to $20 here and $60 there. As I recall from my days of buying masks retail, they were not cheap.

Here at auction, most of the prices were pretty reasonable, except for the ones I wanted. They were among the most popular (one bidder, an employee of the auction house, snatched two of them out of my grasp):

Chokwe Angola female mask or Mwana Pwo, which represents the female ancestor of the Chokwe people and a sign of ideal female beauty. Carved wood decorated with glass beads, nut or seed pods, and straw or raffia hair. Adorned with glass bead earrings. Lower right in photo. $150. Didn’t get it.

Dan carved wood mask, Liberia or Ivory Coast. Braided rope hair around face and beard. Upper left in photo. $100. Didn’t get it. This was my favorite, though.

Dan carved wood mask, from Ivory Coast. Full headdress, burlap fabric and string head and hair, with cowrie shells. Large beak-like mouth and nose. Upper right in photo. $120. Didn’t get it.

Kuba carved wood mask, from Zaire. Raffia, glass beads and cowrie shells. Polychrome face. Lower left in photo. $80. Didn’t get it.

As I sat there and watched some of the prices rise near or above $100, I realized that I didn’t have to have any of those masks. I have some lovely ones already at home. The prices, for me, just weren’t right.

My auction buddy Janet did get two very nice small body masks, something I had never seen before. Made by the Makonde people of Tanzania, they were the carved breasts and stomachs of pregnant women. There was also a larger version (it sold for $40, interest obviously was not high). These body masks are worn by boys and girls during coming-out ceremonies.

Some other more interesting pieces (they fetched the highest prices). Photos are from the auction house’s website:

Ejagham (Ekoi) headdress, from Nigeria. Large carved wood double-faced bust with antelope leather skin, two curved horns. $230. This one was scary-looking, as another auction-goer also pointed out. Can’t imagine having it in my house.

Large carved wood figural headdress, from the Baga people of Guinea. Decorated with metal studs trim. $200. This is the most important form of Baga art. It looked like it weighed a ton, and measured 36″ tall, 34″ wide and 18″ deep.

For the time being, you can see the rest of the pieces on the auction house’s website.

A dream book of lottery numbers

sherry — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:48:26 +0000

I was going through a box lot of items from Sunday’s auction when I came across an old softcover book tucked inside a clear plastic bag. Its front cover was missing and its back cover had been slid inside the book.

“The H.P. Dream Book. This Is Your Lucky Day. What Did You Dream? 469.” It had a copyright date of 1926 and 1927, and the author was Prof. Uriah Konje.

I didn’t recognize the book, but I knew its purpose. My sister uses a similar book to choose the daily numbers for her lottery tickets in Georgia. And she isn’t the only one: A cousin in Ohio relies on a numbers book, too.

I’m sure some of you have relatives who still believe that the right numbers in the right order will make them rich. Me, I only play the big lotteries – Mega Millions and Powerball when the payout reaches more than $50 mil. Anything below that is a time-waster.

With my auction dream book in hand, I decided to Google Prof. Uriah Konje. I found that he was a black man born in 1893, likely owned one of the major dream book publishing companies, G. Parris Company, and lived in upstate New York. Author Anthony Shafton mentioned him in his 2002 book “Dream-singers: The African American Way with Dreams.” There appears to be very little biographical information about the man.

I learned that his real name was Herbert Gladstone Parris. He published five or more books on dreams and policy – an early (and illegal) lottery in the black community – along with revised editions of some of the books. Several of the books could be purchased from a G. Parris at an address in White Plains, NY, along with tip cards of “well-selected numbers,” according to the H.P. Dream Book itself. He also wrote under the pseudonym Prof. De Herbert.

I called my sister, who had spent the early evening helping my mother move into a new house. After I described the book, she was very excited. Wanted to buy it from me. She’s thinking that those numbers may work better than the ones in her newer book. Could they have changed over the years? Does luck run out on some numbers after a given time? Who knows.

Then she wanted to know the numbers for moving. I looked up the word: 462. I’m sure she’ll play them.

The 96-page book consisted of page after page of words in alphabetical order with three numbers next to them – achievement: 310, horizon: 862, scissors: 186; alphabets: A: 145, T: 606, Z: 793, and holidays: Good Friday: 733. It also included ladies names (mine wasn’t in there) and gentlemen’s names, days of the week, parts of the body (there’s an actual line drawing of a bare man with a fig leaf covering his private parts), cities and states. The book is also a historical record of the time, based on some of the words: lynching: 215. Ku Klux Klan: 000. Kinky hair: 006. Colored wowen:726. Confederacy: 102.

There were no dream interpretations but a short list of things you might see or feel:

To see a race riot: 291
To see a black cat running across the street: 461
To see a train wreck: 514
When you stump your toe: 921
When your hands itch: 367

According to the website luckymojo, Parris was not the only one peddling dream books, which were linked to the African-inspired practice of hoodoo. The most popular and well-known book was “Aunt Sally’s Policy Players Dream Book,” which was first published by Wehman Bros. of New York in 1889. The cover featured a stereotypical image of a black woman with head scarf and apron, and the book contained much of the same information as Parris’ books but with more dream interpretations.

The numbers 4-11-44, which are on the front of the Aunt Sally book, were associated with the lottery game policy, in which numbers ranging from 1 to 78 were drawn on a wheel. This popular bet became known as the washerwoman’s gig after it was featured on Aunt Sally’s cover.

Tucked inside my Prof. Konje auction book was a small pamphlet simply called “Dream Book” distributed by Quaker City Life Insurance Co. in Philadelphia. This pamphlet also answered the question “What’s In A Dream” with interpretations in alphabetical order by words.

Prof. Konje ended his book with a call-out “To The Colored People of the World”:

“I am appealing to you not in rhythm or Rhyme but in simple language. I beseech you to wake up, and teach your children trades and professions of all kinds.

… A nation’s success is measured by its educational and industrial attainment. It is time for the Colored People of the world to hold their industrial and educational pre-eminence.

… Another thing I want to ask you not to fight for social but political equality; and as soon as you shall have acquired political equality, there is nothing to prevent you from obtaining social equality.”

Yours truly,

Prof. Uriah Konje

A classy way to enjoy hot chocolate

sherry — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:15:26 +0000

When I first saw the lovely porcelain pot at auction, I thought it was it was a coffee pot. It certainly had the shape, except that it was flared at the bottom like a woman’s skirt.

When the pot came up for bids, the auctioneer called it a chocolate pot. I had never heard of such.

I don’t know about you, but I drink my chocolate out of a mug, one cup at a time. So to see this delicate pot with the spring-pink flowers and four cute cups and saucers made me sit up and take notice.

Isn’t that a classy way to enjoy hot chocolate?

This pot looked to be 20^th century, but I found that chocolate pots go way back. First, though, those of us who love chocolate have to thank the Mayans and Aztecs. The cocoa bean – that’s where the chocolate comes from – originated with them thousands of years ago. The Aztecs loved it so much that it became both a food and currency, according to the website Gourmet Sleuth.

The pots themselves first made their way to Spain and then France (where the company Limoges made some of them). The earliest ones identified were English, where they were popular in chocolate shops and coffeehouses where men debated politics or in homes (where women met?). Take a look at this 18^th century French painting “The Chocolate Girl” of a servant with a cup of chocolate on a tray.

The earliest pot still around dates back to about 1685, made by an English silversmith named George Garthone. Chocolate came to North America in the late 1700s, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a silver pot made around that time in Boston by Edward Winslow. At right is the Winslow pot from the museum website.

By the mid-19^th century, people had lost interest in the pots and they soon fell out of favor, although some were still being made as the century ended.

The earliest pots were quite different from the one I found at auction. The original had an opening in the lid for a wooden stirrer, or molinillo (a traditional Mexican whisk), and were made of such precious metals as silver and copper. The whisk would be placed through the top and twirled to create the froth inside the pot. Later ones were porcelain – just like the ones at auction – with a spout for pouring.

The pots are still are very collectible, but they apparently are not bringing in the prices they were five years ago, according to appraisers.

How can you tell a newer version of the chocolate pot from a coffee pot? The chocolate pot has a shorter spout and no tiny holes beyond the spout for catching those pesky coffee grinds. The shape is also different.

I don’t see chocolate pots that often at auction, but one did come up recently at one of my favorite auction houses. Someone had bought it earlier, the auctioneer said, but did not pay for it or pick it up. It had a little chip on one cup, but otherwise, he said, was in good condition.

This one was entirely different from the first one I had seen, the design pattern made heavy by the dark colors. It was a hand-painted Nippon with gold leaf. I guess the chip on the cup meant that someone had used the set and enjoyed it (or it had been accidentally chipped at the auction house).

Anyway, it was gorgeous, and would be a great way to sip away a winter afternoon with friends. Want to change up your hot chocolate? Here are some recipes, including two for Mexican hot chocolate (one with chili pepper).

The lost art of cookbook advertising pamphlets

sherry — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:15:15 +0000

Last week, I wrote about the lithographs on needle packs. They were executed so well that some of them were like works of art.

This week, as I was going through my trove of ephemera auction finds, I came across artwork of a different sort but just as lovely – on the fronts and backs of advertising cookbooks the size of a small pamphlet.

One for Pompeian Olive Oil had silver overlay on its drawing of the company’s oil can. The box of Royal Baking Soda on the back cover of another literally leapt off the page with its brilliant reds and blues.

As I turned each of these booklets over, I found that the back covers – with illustrations of the products themselves – were done as meticulously as the fronts. Each booklet contained information about the product and the company, along with recipes. Most of them were no more than six inches long, 30 or fewer pages. A few have publication dates: 1906, 1913, 1925.

The 10 pamphlets I have were part of a lot I got at auction some months ago. They were so well-preserved that they had to be part of a collection. The covers and inside pages were clean and pristine; the booklets had not been used. Likely, they were stored in a plastic sleeve far away from the kitchen. What I found in my research was that these were highly collectible.

Food companies produced thousands of these booklets, which came by mail either free or for little cost, according to the Duke University Libraries website. The earliest were simple black and white illustrated covers, but that soon gave way to more elaborate colorful ones. The library has created a database on advertising from 1850-1920, and has digitized a lot of the pamphlets, along with other types of advertising.

The cover of one of mine, for C.A. Durr Packing Co., has the beautiful graphic head of a Native American on the cover overlooking the Mohawk Valley. Intrigued, I started reading the foreword for this 1925 pamphlet from the company, then located in upstate Utica, NY.

The text stopped me in my tracks. I’m always amazed at what I find:

“A savage-enchanted land of unbelievable beauty. A fairy land of barbaric forest splendor. A land of mystery, pathos and tragedy. Thus stood the great forest Long House of the savage Iroquois.

Through this labyrinth of leaf clad forest loveliness the placid Mohawk River wandered – twisting, turning, winding leisurely to grow to greater force and serve a wider use after passing the Eastern Door of the Great Long House.

Upon the river’s quiet bosom floated the birch canoe propelled by the flashing paddle in the hand of the savage Mohawk brave – the fiercest, most implacable enemy of the white man in the new world.

But civilization now prevails. And marvelous is now this gentle Mohawk Valley.”

The illustration betrayed the company’s characterization of the Mohawk people. This demonstrates the importance of being able to tell your own history and not allow others to do it for you.

Mohawk Valley was the homeland of the tribe, whose true name is variously spelled Kahnawake. They were known as the keepers of the Eastern Door, according to Wikipedia, protecting the Iroquois Confederation – of which they were a part – against invasion from other tribes in the New England area. They helped form a confederacy and a system of government and laws that accompanied it, according to the Kanawake website.

They also protected their land from encroaching European settlers (including the new ex-pats from Britain), fighting against the new colonists in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. After being on the losing side in the latter war, life changed for the Mohawks, and they became subject to American rules and culture. Most now live in New York state and southeastern Canada.

Inside the booklet are recipes for pork dishes (all the things I no longer eat), including fried ham and eggs and baked pork chops with tomatoes; photos of their meat products, sausage kitchen and plant, and a history of the company.

One of my favorite booklets is the color of chocolate, so rich that it makes me want to make a cup of Wilbur cocoa. And oh by the way, the first recipe is for hot chocolate – and fudge and cookies and cake and caramels and ice cream.

Enjoy the art. I’m not sure if these are made anymore. Today, you have to put out 30 bucks for a recipe book cooked up by some chef with their own Food Network show.

My great grandfather and the 1900 census

sherry — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:24:31 +0000

At the turn of the 20^th century, a census-taker stopped by a rented farm in Monroe County, Georgia, and wrote down the names of my great grandfather, Green Howard; his wife, Rebecca, and their six children.

I keep trying to imagine what that was like, since it’s so different from how we do it now. I got my census form in the mail last week, took 3 minutes to fill it out and I’m mailing it today.

Back then, my great grandfather could not read or write, although his wife could. Did the white census-taker stand out in the yard of their rural cabin #125 and jot down their information? (The photo above of Green Howard was taken when he visited his son in Detroit possibly in the 1930s.)

Name. Relationship to “head of household.” Month and year of birth. Years married. Mother of how many children. Number of children living. Occupation. Read or write?

It’s hard to fathom what their family life was like back then – he and his wife had been born in slavery and lived through Reconstruction and beyond in one of the most brutal times for black people, especially in the state of Georgia where lynching was prevalent.

Equally, I’m sure that he could not have imagined that decades later, his great-great granddaughter would be writing about him – of all people.

I was able to find out some historical information about Green and Rebecca because of what they told the census-taker in June 1900. That’s why the census is so important for people of color – not just for the distribution of federal funds that can help our community and other perks – but to give us some details of our own personal histories. Unfortunately, the census form I filled out asked for very little of the information that was asked in 1900, but it at least showed that I lived and would be a good starting point to find out more about me.

The information I found out about my family on the 1900 form is the type that I will likely never find on an auction table. Records of our past just don’t end up in the dust bins. But sites like ancestry.com and heritagequestonline.com or a trip to a branch of the National Archives do make it easier, though.

I found out about my great grandparents on my mother’s side in 1989 when I helped put together a family reunion newspaper. My friend Ella and I compiled the history by using census records for historical data and filling in the rest with recollections from Green and Rebecca’s grandchildren.

From 1790 – when the first census was taken by federal marshals – until 1840, census records only recorded the head of household along with the number of slaves (only three out of five were counted, and Native Americans were not counted at all), according to the National Archives. By the time Green and Rebecca were born (he in 1852 and she in 1855), the federal government took a slave census that included the slave owner’s name, and the number of slaves by gender, age and a designation of black or mulatto. In the 1850 census, the names of all free blacks were also recorded.

In 1870, the names of all blacks were recorded as well as in the 1890 census. Most of the 1890 records were destroyed in a fire in the Commerce Department building in Washington, DC, in 1921.

When I went looking for my great-grandparents, I could not find them in the 1870 census. They apparently got married around 1883, because when the census was taken on June 8-9, 1900, they both told the census-taker that they had been married for 17 years.

Here’s the other valuable information I learned about them:

In 1900, he was 48 and she was 45. He could neither read nor write, but Rebecca could do both. According to the Census Bureau, 11 percent of the population 10 years old and over could not read or write in 1900.

They lived on a rented farm in Monroe County, Georgia (as sharecroppers, perhaps?).

They had eight children, with seven living. Only six of the children are listed, along with their names, ages, and birth month and year. The record also showed whether the children could read or write, and if they attended school. Historical records showed that schools were first established for black children in 1871 and lasted for three months during the year.

Their last son had not yet been born. The 1910 census listed him as 8 years old that year, indicating that he was born in 1901 or 1902. (His children have said that he was born in June 1900). By the 1910 census, Rebecca had died and Green had remarried.

I found all of this information in the records at the National Archives office in Philadelphia. I remember sitting at a microfilm machine, scrolling through the records when I came upon the name Green Howard and then my grandfather’s name, Alonzo.

It was one of the most amazing experiences I had ever had. I was so full of emotion that I was almost in tears. Here, in front of me, was my grandfather at 6 years old – a man I remember first as a farmer who owned his own land and then as an old man confined to a Veterans Hospital in Dublin, GA. Six years old! He had been born in 1893, according to the census record.

It was mind-boggling to me that I could reach back and connect to him. It was as if someone had touched my soul.