Ruth Kellogg's Diary at Christmas, 1929

This is one of the many segments of Ruth's diary that is in Pieces of a Life, which focuses on her life and her husband John's.  They were married only about 7 months earlier.

Wed., Dec. 25, 1929 - Christmas Day
   "Up at 6:45.  We had a good time opening our gifts.  We didn't get many, bu those we did receive are nice.  Called up Florence to see if she got what she expected & she did!!  She is satisfied with it.  
    We arrived at folks' at 10:00 - before breakfast even.  Had a cup of coffee with them.  Had fun exchanging gifts there.  After big turkey dinner, we played rummy while Jimmie was at show.  Fun.  Home again at 8:25."

Ruth and her family enjoyed playing card games - a far cry from Ruth's Grandmother Meredith, who threw playing cards in the fireplace. She said, "They were the work of the devil."  As I was growing up, we played cards or board games often on Sunday afternoons.  I started playing at 5 years old and most likely my older brother, Ken, did too.

Ruth's friend, Florence Childers, received an engagement ring from Clyde Ballentine, her beau, for Christmas.  They were married a year later.  Ruth and Florence, who was from Iowa, met through their clerical jobs at Montgomery Ward in Chicago.

Ruth listed all of her gifts as she did every year and who the giver was.  She had ten gifts with the black kid purse from John being the star of the group.  Ruth also listed the seven gifts John was given with the standout being the fur-lined gloves she gave him.  John's car was stolen and wrecked a year or two earlier, so they walked long distances and took public transportation as well.  The gloves probably were warmly appreciated.

An Awful Day for Jimmie, Ruth's Brother

In 1927, an event changed the Meredith family forever.  They went to the Baptist Church, as usual, but during the service, Jimmie "stood up in church, ranting about religion.  Jimmie was normally quiet with a sweet disposition, so this was like the blast of a siren in the night."

Jimmie Meredith was 16, five years younger than his sister, Ruth.  Sadly, he went for a stay at Elgin, a state mental institution, to be evaluated.  "He was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and given shock treatments among other things.  He was in and out of mental health facilities, on prescribed drugs and in the care of psychiatrists for the rest of his life.'

This seemed like a bolt from the blue, but was it really such a shock?  Jimmie's Uncle Arthur Meredith had some sort of mental issues, though the picture of what they were is shadowy.  Jimmie's Grandmother Ruth Parks Olmstead Meredith was said to have been in a mental institution in Michigan in the late 1800s or early 1900s.  Again, we are left wondering what happened and whether it was a harbinger of what was to befall James William Meredith, whom we know as "Jimmie."

The picture above shows Lottie Weekes Meredith, Jimmie's mother, and Jimmie in the fall of 1942. They were standing on the cement in front of Ruth and John Kellogg's home in Oak Park.  That area was later to become a screened-in porch.  Jimmie is 31 and Lottie is 55.    

Missing Pictures Found!

These pictures somehow didn't print in the blogs on Nov. 5 and Nov. 30.  These added a lot to the two blogs, which were titled "Ruth Meredith's World as a Teenager" and "Just Three Months from Graduation."  On the right Ruth is 14 in the first picture, posed with a girlfriend.  This was taken in 1920.  It looks like a backyard in the Austin neighborhood.




The second one is Ruth's graduation picture, taken in March, 1926 when she was 19. It appeared in the Maroon and White, the Austin High School yearbook.   I commented on her Marceled hair style, which was very popular.  Her blonde hair was normally straight. Just 10 days after graduation on June 25, Ruth turned 20.  You can't tell from the photo, but her eyes were hazel.  

Mebbe So

"Mebbe so" was the way John Webb Kellogg said "maybe so", a reflection of his early years in Lancaster and Buffalo, New York.  Every once in a while I'll hear someone with that older upstate New York speech and be reminded of incidents in my childhood.

This picture of my father was taken in about 1919 when he was 20 and living in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan.   He was working multiple jobs because his life was on a financial roller coaster.  Charles Henry Kellogg, his father, had died suddenly at about 59.  Like his father, another Charles Henry, he was an engineer who built bridges all over the East Coast.  Unfortunately, Charles, who had one of the first cars in Buffalo, left his second wife, Esther, a 16-room house, 2 servants and scarcely any money.  I don't know if anything went to the three much older offspring from Charles' first marriage.  They were all in their 30s and only one still lived in the Buffalo area.

By this time John's only full sister, Dorothy Helen, was 9, born in 1903.  At age 13 John's  life turned upside-down, dropping from a privileged status to being concerned about a roof over the head and food on the table.  His mother sold the house, fired the servants and moved from outlying Lancaster to much larger Buffalo.  There she rented and operated a boarding house, helped by one of her sisters from nearby Grand Island.  Esther Clara Webb Kellogg was a grand-daughter of Irish Potato Famine immigrants, a confidant, resillient young woman who grew up on a farm.  She was also the oldest of ten children, used to commanding the others.

Only in her 30s, Esther remarried in 1915, this time to an easy-going Bible salesman.  The family moved to Detroit where there were supposed to be jobs to be had.  According to John, in the early years the budget was tight for Esther and Guy Ashford Wood, her husband.  They had two children, Guy Jr. in 1917 and Sara Jane in 1919.

By the time John entered college, he relished working.  To put himself through the University of Michigan, he baked pies, became a sandwich man to fraternities, waited tables at a fraternity, worked at a "casino" (a resort cafeteria), bid on and won a contract for food concessions at sporting events.  In the first summer after he started school, he was able to work 100 hours a week at the Belle Isle Casino near Detroit and had a place to sleep there.   He saved a lot of money during college.  That was a lesson - save, don't spend - he drilled into his children.  You can find out more about him - and Ruth Meredith - in Pieces of a Life.

Just Three Months from Graduation!

On Saturday, March 13, 1926, a friend of Ruth Meredith's who was learning to be a hairdresser came by to Marcel and curl her hair.  You can see from the picture what that looks like.  Ruth was happy with what Margarite had done for her.  Normally her hair was straight, not like the stylish Marcel wave.

The big occasion was Ruth's graduation picture, to be taken on the next day, Sunday. Graduation at Austin High School in Chicago was set for June 25.

In her diary, Ruth said, "After church I met Wanda.  We went down to Russell Studio on Michigan Blvd., where we posed for our 'grad' pictures. Both came back home, ate, went to B.Y. and church.  Had a full day all right."

Wanda was one of Ruth's closest friends and "B.Y." referred to the Baptist Young People's Union.  When I attended a Baptist church many years later, the group's name had changed to "Baptist Youth Fellowship" or "B.Y.F."   Ruth had lots of compliments on both her hair and the picture when it finally was ready in early May.

It may seem like Ruth's life was easy, but she had her share of turmoil.  The tenants upstairs in the rental flat above Meredith's moved to another flat several blocks away in April.  The young couple who rented the apartment said they'd sign a lease, but then refused to do it - and later moved out without notice.  The whole family, but especially Jim, worked hard to clean, paint, wallpaper the flat each time it changed hands.  The Merediths counted on that extra money.  To make ends meet, Jim would sometimes work an extra day, Sunday, at Western Electric.

A Peek at Thanksgiving on Chicago's West Side, 1926

Thursday, November 25, 1926
    "Up at 5:30.  Went with Vange, Jeanette to Sunrise at Oak Park Baptist.  Our B.Y. got banner for 100% present.  Had breakfast in Maywood at the home of some girls we took home.  Turkey dinner at Y.M.C.A.  Ambassador Theater after dinner.  State Theater with John at night.  Home at 11:00."

Ruth Meredith was busy going from event to event, first with the Baptist Youth group from Austin Baptist in Chicago, which attended the Sunrise Service at First Baptist in Oak Park, a large church that I attended years later.  Ruth went on to breakfast in Maywood, a turkey dinner at the Y and two different movies, one with her family and the other with boyfriend John Kellogg.

It was probably a sad Thanksgiving for Ruth's parents, Jim and Lottie.  Ten days earlier Jim's only brother, Arthur, who lived in Berrien County near Niles, Michigan, died suddenly at age 48.  No explanation was given, but we know that Arthur was an artist, had had some mental issues and had a common law wife, Alice.  It was his and Jim's mother, Ruth Parks Meredith, who was said to have been held in a mental hospital in Michigan.  Lottie and Jim traveled up to Michigan for the funeral on Nov. 18, a very cold and snowy day.

Why Write Stories?

My youngest daughter, Kate, suggested that I tell you why I write stories, either fiction or non-fiction.  It's a good idea, but harder to sort out than I would have thought.

At age 9, I started to keep a diary when we got our puppy, Duke, who is mentioned in my book, Pieces of a Life.  So that was writing for fun with no outside influence.  Grammar school in Oak Park involved a lot of writing assignments of one sort or another.  That kind of writing, non-fiction, seemed easy.  To me, fiction is more difficult.

I dabbled with writing short stories for many years.  If you'd like to see them, I have a drawer of mostly unfinished ones!  More often than not, I was using writing to help me figure out something or to vent my frustration, anger with someone.  So it was a coping tool.

I remember having a birthday lunch with three close friends back in the mid-1980s.  Someone questioned me  rather sharply about the way I pronounced the word "calm", saying that my way was wrong.  At that time, it was without the "l" sound.  The other three women all agreed, but I was quite sure that I was correct.  Language is my bailiwick.  One of them called me later that day to say she had checked a dictionary.  I was right.  Today there is a secondary pronunciation, incidentally, with the "l" sound.  Language is ever evolving.

I wrote a short story about the luncheon because it bothered me that we had had the disagreement - and especially when celebrating my birthday.  It helps to put things in perspective.  And perhaps that is why I wrote Pieces of a Life.  It was a way to sort out my parents' lives and better understand them.  I'm not sure I will ever complete that task, but at least I see them in more dimension today after reading diaries, an autobiography and looking through many pictures.  So why do I write?  Because that's where my heart is.

Interested in knowing more about my book?  Go to sites.google.com/site/booksbydianepellettiere.

John's College Days at University of Michigan

From the title of this post you might get the idea that John Webb Kellogg was a normal college kid with some financial backing from his family.  He was not, as you'll see in my book, Pieces of a Life. 

In his own words, "When I was the proper age for college, there was no money to send me, nor was there any blood relative to advise of the merit of going to college.  As you will see from a rather luxurious childhood, I was dropped to poverty very fast.  At the time, I thought that Fate had played me a dirty trick."

In this picture taken in 1922, John is sailing to Put-In Bay near Belle Isle Casino in Detroit where he worked long hours in the summers. He always had one or two jobs during the school year as well, determined to save money as well as put himself through college.

Where were his parents?  Now that's an interesting story, but most of it is for another time.  His mother, Esther Clara Webb, was 18 in 1897 when she married 44-year-old Charles Henry Kellogg, whose wife had died.  Charles and his father were both engineers who built bridges all over the Northeast.  They were considered well-fixed financially.  

 When Charles died at about 60 in 1913, young John was thrust onto a difficult, rocky path.  His mother sold the 16-room house in Lancaster, New York, fired the 2 servants and rented a boarding house that she ran in much larger Buffalo.  Though she remarried in 1915,  she and Guy Wood struggled to stay afloat.  

Ruth Meredith's World as a Teenager

The sweet 93-year-old picture you see shows Ruth Meredith as a girl.  It was taken in the rapidly-growing Austin area on the far west side of Chicago in the summer of 1920.  She was in 7th grade at that point, later to move on to Austin High School.   Ruth started the early diaries that are part of Pieces of a Life when she was in high school.

Ruth, my mother, loved to dance and sing with girlfriends as a teenager.  Some of the scenes in her early diaries are like sketches from  Little Women, with a group of girls laughing, playing games, daydreaming about the future.  It seems so very different from today with television, computers, smart phones sapping our attention.

Ruth loved to make her own clothes.  She was talented in creating something unique out of the pattern, the fabric and the trims. She had an eye for interesting color combinations and often used purple or lilac as either the primary color or the trim. They were her favorites all of her life.

Ruth had dark blonde hair and hazel eyes, which she was told were "cat's eyes."  In a diary, she mentions her height - 5 foot 1 inch - and that she weighed 100 lbs.

Did Ruth make the dress she's wearing?  It's likely. The person who taught her to sew was probably her mother, Lottie.  A lefty, Lottie was born in 1886, a time when her left hand would have been tied behind her to encourage using the right hand.  Most likely due to that, she was awkward in writing and mechanical skills all of her life.  She wrote with her her left hand when she was adult.  Tasks like sewing were difficult for her.

If you'd like to know more about Ruth and Lottie as well as the rest of the cast of characters in Pieces of a Life, go to https://sites.google.com/site/booksbydianepellettiere.

1920 - Ruth Meredith (right) posing with a friend at age 14.

"Pieces of a Life" is Finally Real!

Friends seem surprised to see my book in print.  Perhaps after 17 years of mostly not working on it, my family's story seemed more a figment of my imagination than anything else.  It's about my parents and a little of the three generations before them.  For those like me who are genealogy nuts, there's an abbreviated family chart in the back of the book.  If you don't like that stuff, ignore it.  That would put you in league with most people I know, including my brother, who wonders why I, "spend so much time on those dead people."

The words of Ruth Viola Meredith and those of John Webb Kellogg form much of the story.  They come from her early diaries, starting in 1925 when she was 18 and from John's autobiography, written when he was about to celebrate his 75th birthday in 1974.  There are 25 pictures as well, mostly from the 1920s and 1930s.  You know what they say about pictures - worth 1,000 words!

If I can figure out how to do it, I'll include some pictures from the first half of the last century in this blog.  I also plan to quote Ruth and John, giving you a peek inside their world.  It was not stress free, especially when World War II broke out. The rubber from Manilla that John used to make bandage was gone.  It didn't stop him on his path to success, but it slowed him down until he came up with a way around it.