Snow banks on U.S. Route 40 at Keysers Ridge, Garrett County, Maryland, circa 1925. Real photo postcard.
“Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we’ve no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!”
Electric trollies navigate the snow-jammed streets of a U.S. city, probably Seattle, Washington, during the enormous snows of 1916. Real photo postcard.
“It doesn’t show signs of stopping
And I’ve bought some corn for popping
The lights are turned way down low
Let it snow! Let It snow! Let it snow!”
My paternal grandfather James Albert Longmore shovels out after a winter storm in Camden, New Jersey, during the late 1930s.
“When we finally kiss good night
How I’ll hate going out in the storm!
But if you’ll really hold me tight
All the way home I’ll be warm…”
My mother Sally Garnand Longmore outside our home in Linette Lane, Annandale, Virginia, circa 1980.
“The fire is slowly dying
And, my dear, we’re still goodbying
But as long as you love me so
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!” Ω
Snow-covered trees somewhere in the Western United States. Postcard by William P. Sanborn, circa 1940.
Words: Sammy Cahn; Images: Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
There is good evidence that the marriage was kept a secret for some time.
West Patrick Street, Frederick, Maryland, circa 1905. Postcard mailed 11 August, 1909. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
I live not far from Frederick, Maryland, which is a wonderful little city—a real Maryland gem that is more vital now than at any time in its venerable history. Frederick’s old bones have been lovingly preserved beside modern additions such as a river walk, an antiques row, and a theatre district. In fact, Patrick Street, which this postcard depicts, looks much the same today as it did when this was mailed on 11 August, 1909—just less eerie and weird.
Addressed to Mrs. H. Roschen, 838 Edmundson Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland, and mailed from the summer resort community of Braddock Heights, which was only a reasonable trolly ride away, the message reads: “Dear Mamma, I wrote Uncle Henry & Uncle Ernst & grandma a postal. Please send my double heart pin with my other things. It’s in my jewelry box. I am going to see Miss Hartman of the W.H.S. now. Almost finished my hardanger. Nice & cool here. Everyone well save for a toothache. Love to all from Hermine.”
The reverse of the Roschen postcard.
Hermine Joanna Roschen, who wrote this postcard when she was 19, was born in November 1889. No one yet knew it, but she had been married for the better part of a year.
Her father, Henry Roschen, was from Germany, having come to the United States in 1875. An extant passport application states that he was born in Bremen 23 February, 1858, to Hermann Diedrich Roschen and Adelheid Brockwehl, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1887. On this application, he is described as 5’4″, with brown eyes, a straight nose, a medium mouth, a short chin, dark hair, dark complexion, and a round face.
The 1890 Baltimore City Directory listed 838 Edmondson Avenue as the location of Edward A. Prior and Company, fancy goods and toys wholesaler, and Henry Roschen as its proprietor, so perhaps the family home was above the shop of this establishment. The 2 January, 1897 Baltimore Sun contained a notice from Louis Sinsheimer stating that he had sold his wholesale flour business to Henry Roschen and Frank Boehmer, who would operate it under the name of Boehmer & Roschen. This partnership lasted until January 1907 when Henry Roschen likely died. If not then, Roschen was certainly deceased by the enumeration of the 1910 Census.
“The girls were enticing in all that shimmering cloth, bright tinsel and dainty touches of rouge.”
The “Mamma” of this postcard missive was Roschen’s wife, Louise A. Schroeder, who was born in Maryland in November 1863. She wed Henry Roschen in about 1876. Hermine was the couple’s second child. She had an elder sister named Louisa A. (b. Aug 1888) and younger siblings called Henry Herman (b. 17 June 1892-9 April 1958), Elsa (b. June 1895), Adela (b. Oct. 1897), and Ernest Carl Henry (b. Sept. 1899), the last of whom would spend his life in exotic locations throughout the world.
The Baltimore Sun of 11 February, 1908, offered a glimpse of Hermine at Baltimore’s Lyric Theatre during a masked ball by the Germania Mænnerchor, a German male choral society. “The girls were entrancing, in all that shimmering cloth, bright tinsel and dainty touches of rouge,” salivated the Sun. The men, however, fell short in the newspaper’s eyes, being “as ludicrous and misshapen as they could possibly be while temporarily hiding their masculine grace in masks, flat shoes, and lurid colors.”
The Germania Mænnerchor ball included a tableau, a ballet of small girls, and general revelry. Prizes were given, one of which Hermine, her sister Louisa, and several other young ladies won for a performance titled “School Days.” Later that year, Hermine would experience the last of her own school days when she graduated from Baltimore’s Western High school.
Hermine saw operatic tenor Caruso perform in March 1909.
On 26 January, 1909, Hermine married Irvin Henry Hahn, son of Joseph Henry Ferdinand and Clara M. Hahn. I can ascertain nothing of where or how they met, but there is good evidence that the marriage was kept a secret for some time. For example, the 9 March, 1909 issue of the Sun noted that Miss Hermine Roschen—not Mrs. Irvin Hahn—had been at the Lyric again to hear the Metropolitan Opera Company with the world-renown operatic tenor Enrico Caruso. We already know from her postcard that in August 1909 Hermine was summering in Braddock Heights under her maiden name, and when the 1910 census was taken, Hermine and her siblings lived with Hermine J. Shroeder, their 71-year-old maternal grandmother, who had emigrated from Germany in 1862 with her husband Henry Schroeder, an artist born in Prussia in about 1839.
Whatever caused the delay in announcing their marriage, it was in the open by 5 June, 1917, when Irvin Hahn filled out a World War I draft registration stating that he was born 8 May, 1887, in Baltimore, and was living with his wife and child at 1957 Edmonton Avenue—just down the road from the houses of Hermine’s mother and grandmother. Hahn noted that he worked for his father, a manufacturer of metal goods for the military who led a company that was established in 1898. Irvin was noted to be of medium height and slender, with blue eyes and brown hair.
The Baltimore Sun of 21 October, 1925, ran this delightful article on the return of Dr. Joseph Singewald and Hermine’s brother Ernest from a visit to several tribes of South American headhunters.
In 1920, the Hahns lived in White Street, Baltimore, with their two-year-old son Irvin Henry Ferdinand, born 6 May, 1917, who went by his third name or the nickname “Ferdie.” Their situation was unchanged a decade later, save that the family moved to 708 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville, a Baltimore suburb. Hahn listed his occupation as a manufacturer of metal goods. Finally, the 1940 Census placed all three family members together at the same address.
In 1942, Hahn registered for the WWII draft. Hahn was now the owner of his own business—the Irvin H. Hahn Company of 326 S. Hanover Street, Baltimore, which had been set up in direct rivalry with his father’s. (Incredibly, the company still exists today as a manufacturer of police badges and other insignias.) Hahn was described as 5’8″ with a light complexion, brown hair and brown eyes, and had a scar on his left thumb.
Ferdinand attended Reisterstown’s Franklin High School. This couplet was written about him in the 1933 yearbook: “Fun-loving, quick-tempered, white-haired Ferdie, his classmates’ joy and his teachers’ worry.” (Who else sees Draco Malfoy?) In the school’s 1946 yearbook, Hermine and Irvin were listed as boosters. This is the last trace I have found of her. She died 5 November, 1949.
After Hermine’s death, her husband took a solo journey to what was the Canal Zone, now Panama, in 1951. Two years later, he sailed from the port of New York to spend 3 months in Angola, presumably visiting his brother-in-law Ernest who lived in Loanda with his wife Augusta Fredericka Cranford.
Irvin died in October 1966. His obituary in the Sun reads: “Irvin H. Hahn is Dead at 79. Opened Metal Trimmings Company in 1928. Services for Irvin H. Hahn, retired president of a firm which produces badges and other metal trimming for uniforms, will be held at 11 a.m., Friday, at the Frank H. Newell funeral establishment, Reisterstown Road and Waldron Avenue, Pikesville.
“Mr. Hahn, 79, died Monday night at his home, 708 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville. Hahn was the president of the Irvin H. Hahn Company from 1928 to 1954…. A native of Baltimore, Mr. Hahn attended public schools here and the University of Maryland…. He opened his own firm in 1928…. His company had headquarters at 207 South Sharp Street until 1942, when the building collapsed in a snowstorm. The organization then moved to S. Hanover street. Mr. Hahn relinquished the presidency of his firm, which has 23 employees, to his son I. H. Ferdinand Hahn, in 1954, but remained as an advisor to the enterprise. He also held the posts of vice president and secretary.
“He was a member of the Masons, the Shriners, the Ames Methodist Church, and the 100 Club of Boumi Temple. Survivors include his son; a brother, Edgar F. Hahn, of Catonsville; and two sisters, Miss C. Viola Hahn and Miss Mildred E. Hahn, both of Baltimore.”
Irvin and Hermine’s son Ferdinand never married and had no children. He died in April 1987. I have not been able to ascertain where Ferdinand or his parents are buried. The intrepid Ernest Roschen died in Orange County, California, 2 August 1992, equally childless. Ω
As a postscript, let’s return to the postcard’s message, in which Hermine Roschen mentioned a “Hardanger” that was nearly finished. This was a piece of Hardanger embroidery, or “Hardangersøm,” using white thread on white even-weave cloth, sometimes also known as “whitework” embroidery.
Photo by Velvet-Glove at English Wikipedia.
The photographer may have told the children to hold hands and grab the waist belts to keep their arms still during the exposure.
Siblings, 6th-plate ambrotype, circa 1855. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
This ambrotype is not only endearing, but raises several points of interest: First, both children were stood atop chairs and with that placement came the possibility that either could topple—especially the younger child who looks about age two or three. The belts around the siblings’ waists were not part of their costumes—it is likely they were both strapped to metal stands that photographers used to provide stability for their subjects, as well as to keep young sitters like these from wandering out of the frame. (That this was sometimes necessary is illustrated the adorable image below. How refreshing it is to see a mother cracking up at the antics of her toddler whilst Daddy or a studio assistant tries to keep the child from escaping.) The photographer may also have told the siblings to hold hands and grab the waist belts to keep their arms still during the exposure.
Smiling mother and fleeing toddler, albumen cart de visite, circa 1860. Photograph by Whipple, 96 Washington Street, Boston, Massachussetts. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
Both children may also have been head clamped, as can be seen in the Victorian cartoon below. Contrary to what duplicitous eBay sellers and 14-year-old goth bloggers might propose, these metal stands were not used to hold up dead bodies. The cartoon below clearly shows how posing stands worked to help keep sitters still.
Secondly, it is unclear whether the child on the right of the ambrotype is a boy or a girl. The center-parted hair argues female, but the rest of the outfit says boy despite the floral top and long cotton bloomers under a buoyant checked skirt.
Also tantalizing are the partial words visible at the edges of the image. At one point, the sticky back of the ambrotype was covered by newspaper. If still intact, this may have yielded a clue about this image’s precise date and location of origin. Ω
The sap of another generation,
fingering through a broken tree
to push fresh branches
towards a further light,
a different identity.
—John Montague, “The Living and The Dead”
Elder and infant, albumen paper print, Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
This wonderful outdoor image, circa 1910, shows a bonneted babe sitting in a wicker pram on an early spring day in the eastern United States. The child’s pudgy hand appears lightly pinched, rather than held, by the arthritic fingers of his or her grandmother—perhaps great-grandmother. The old woman, who was probably born in the 1830s, is magnificent with her weathered face and carefully coiffed, almost ruched white hair in contrast to her elaborate dark clothing. She seems quite elderly, but sturdy and strong. A house, possibly the family home, can be glimpsed through the leafless trees behind her.
British albumen carte de visite, circa 1866. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
The next image is of a multigenerational British family posed on a ground-floor window ledge on a pleasant day during the mid-1860s. Grandmother, who is dressed in black-and-white widow’s clothing, sits in wicker chair, whilst Father and Mother lean into the picture from inside the home. Mum’s hand rests possessively on the shoulder of her youngest son, whilst the eldest brother perches on the sill and the middle son sits cross-legged below him. The daughter of the house, a tween in a jaunty summer dress, looks very much a mini-me of her mother.
Family in mourning, British albumen carte de visite, circa 1862. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
The third image, which is marked “J. McCornick, Photographer, 3 The Bridges, Walsall,” is more somber. One subject is a young girl of about 12 years beside an elderly gentleman who is likely her grandfather. The seated female may be the girl’s mother or her grandmother—it is hard to be sure, although they are clearly related.
The members of this family group are dressed in mourning, but nothing more of the nature of their loss can be supposed, except that the mother or grandmother was not mourning for her husband. The prevailing custom for widows’ bonnets was to include a white inset to frame the face.
Grandfather, whose hand appears to rest protectively on the small of his granddaughter’s back, holds in his other hand some type of folded document or wallet. The message he conveyed with this prop is now inscrutable, but it would have been understood by the carte de visite’s viewers.
The final image is a four-generation portrait, identified on the reverse as “Elizabeth Stokesbury, age 79 years; Clarissa Stokesbury, age 51 years; Extonetta Book, age 29 years; Esther Cook Book, age 3 years.”
The sitters were photographed circa 1902 in Chariton, Lucas County, Iowa. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
At the far left is Elizabeth Clark (11 April 1824-5 Oct. 1910), born in Fayette County, Ohio, to Welsh native Joshua Clark (1795-29 March 1830) and his wife Mary Blaugher (1795-16 March 1879).
Elizabeth Clark married farmer John S. Stokesbury (7 Sept. 1819-12 May 1867), the son of Robert Stokesbury (1790–1839) and Anna Baughman (1794–1870). In 1850, the Stokesburys farmed in Jefferson, Green County, Iowa; by 1860 they had moved to a new farm in the county of Wayne. The couple had eleven children to assist them: Robert (b. abt. 1842); Angeline (b. abt. 1844); Mary Ann (b. abt. 1846); Joseph (b. abt. 1848); Sarah (b. abt. 1850); Clarissa (12 Sept. 1851-8 March 1935); Harvey (b. abt. 1853); John (b. abt. 1859); Elizabeth Ann (28 June 1861-9 Aug 1946); Clark D. (b. abt. 1863); and Launa (1865-1939).
At age 16, Clarissa, second from left, married a cousin, Jesse Bush Stokesbury (24 Jan. 1843-18 Dec. 1918), the son of James Madison Stokesbury (1813–1869) and Phoebe Painter (1819–1902). By 1870, Clarissa and Jesse had migrated to Chariton, Iowa, where, the family farm was enumerated on the 1870 Census. However, their days on the land were ended by 1880, when Jesse was recorded on the census as a laundry man, and on the 1900 Census he was enumerated as a day laborer. His widowed mother-in-law, Elizabeth Stokesbury, was also in residence, along with her youngest children.
Clarissa and John had the following sons and daughters: Bryant W. (b. abt. 1868); Hillary Edwin (13 April 1870-8 Feb. 1950); Theodosia (b. abt 1872); and Extonetta (b. Dec. 1873), second from right in the photograph, who was known as “Nettie.”
On 24 November, 1898, Nettie married harness maker and saddler John Atwater Book (Sept. 1864-17 April 1924), son of Harlan and Emmaline Book. By 1900, the Books and their first child, Esther Cook (far right—and yes, Cook Book) all lived with Jesse and Clarissa Stokesbury. Nettie and John had two more children: Sarah E. (b. 6 Feb. 1902); and Jesse H. (b. 24 Dec. 1903). Sarah married Loren L. Adams on 12 September, 1935; Jesse married Fae Arza Wicks in June 1929. He died in January 1970 in Seymour, Indiana, and was buried at Chariton Cemetery.
The west side of Chariton’s main square, real photo postcard, circa 1915. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
Nettie’s brother Edwin Stokesbury, who became a broom maker and married Ollie B. Ritter on 20 February, 1894, had set up house in Chariton by 1900. The couple had four children, but shortly thereafter the marriage failed. Ollie married as her second husband a man named Van Trump and Edwin’s children took their step-father’s surname. By 1920, widowed Clarissa and her son Edwin lived together.
In 1920, Esther Book worked as a bookkeeper in a Chariton store along with sister Sarah. On the 1930 Census, Nettie, Esther, and Sarah were enumerated in one household, with Nettie working as a sales lady in a variety store; Esther worked as a bookkeeper in a bank and Sarah was a tailoress in a dry goods store.
The Des Moines Register of 25 December, 1935, featured a testimonial advertisement by Nettie in which she was quoted, “I like the simplicity of operating the Colonial Furnace and the way it holds fire. The damper enables one to feed the fire so that no smoke, soot, or gas escapes into the rooms. And I like the draft in the feed door, which can be opened to prevent puffing.”
Extonetta Book died on 8 May, 1962, and was buried in Chariton Cemetery. It appears that her daughter Esther never married. She worked for many years as the secretary of the Farmers Mutual Insurance Association and died 25 March, 1965, three years after her mother. Esther is also buried in Chariton Cemetery. Ω
As a postscript, let’s return to the postcard’s message, in which Hermine Roschen mentioned a “Hardanger” that was nearly finished. This was a piece of Hardanger embroidery, or “Hardangersøm,” using white thread on white even-weave cloth, sometimes also known as “whitework” embroidery.
"Your Dying Charlotte" 