First-born Baby Kenny Arrives Early!

 Ruth and John Kellogg greeted their first baby in September, 1931 when Ruth was 25 and John 32.  The first photo shows Uncle Jimmie Meredith (20) holding Ken on the front porch.  They're  at the Meredith's two-flat at 5458 W. Iowa St., Chicago in January, 1932. You can see the baby buggy behind them.

The second photo is also on the front porch. Taken in March, 1932, it shows Grandparents Jim (51) & Lottie ((45) Meredith with Kenny this time.   Both pictures are in Pieces of a Life, as is the first quote from Ruth's diary.

Sunday, Sept. 6, 1931 - BABY'S BIRTHDAY    
"(Am catching up in these records.)
Pains started 7:15 AM.  Doc Anderson came 9:10 & took us to hospital.  Baby boy born 12:00 noon - Central time.  
Weight 7# 5.5 oz."


Monday, Sept. 7, 1931 
"What a relief; it's all over & 3 days ahead.  Labor Day!  Folks here in afternoon.  John in morning and night.  Stitches bother me. Named baby Kenneth Alan & mailed announcements."

Tuesday, Sept. 8, 1931
"Doc was in & said baby's fine.  Mama and Jim up this afternoon.  Jim saw his nephew for the first time.  John here when Mable & Edith popped in for a while & brought dress and slip.  Irene came just at 8:00 & saw baby at nursery before."

Ruth mentions some visiting girlfriends, Irene, Mable and Edith.  The baby wasn't due until Sept. 9, which is why Ruth says he was "3 days ahead."  I never did know where the name "Kenneth" came from.  No one in the family has it, so perhaps they just heard or saw it in print and liked it.  Odd that it's Scottish in origin and so is Kellogg, though neither of my parents knew that.  (Both knew that their families had some roots in England, but were unaware of the Scottish.)

John Speaks of Esther Clara Webb, His Mother

The quote below is from the beginning of my father's section in Pieces of a Life.  It's taken from the brief autobiography John Kellogg wrote in 1974 called 75 Years - Where Did They Go? 

The picture shows G.A. (Guy Ashford Wood) and his wife, Esther, in their home on Hamilton Ave., Detroit MI in 1922, both in their 40s.  This was after they'd moved from Buffalo NY as newlyweds and before they moved on to Walnut St. in Ann Arbor to buy and manage a rooming house for University of Michigan students. When this picture was taken, they had two young children, Junior (Guy) and Sara Jane.

I remember my grandmother saying that after trying both male and female students as roomers, she settled on only men because they were easier to deal with.  Like my father, she had strong, definite opinions - nothing wishy-washy about her!  Also like John, Esther was very interested in politics and current events.

Esther's first husband was Charles Kellogg, who had died in 1913.  She had been married at 18 and had two children with Charles as well - John Webb and Dorothy Helen.

"By luck I was born into a family which knew gracious living.   One of my earliest memories is my Mother, a young, attractive woman with a flat velvet ribbon around her hair to keep it in place.  One day I asked her why she wore that kind of decoration when none of the other ladies did.  The next day she appeared with her hair fluffed around a metal form called a 'rat.'  We have a 1907 picture of her dressed in that manner with her two children.

Actually she was much younger than the other women she knew.  As a farm girl, at an early age she learned to make her clothes.  Her next step was to do dressmaking in Buffalo NY.  At the age of 18 she married my Father, a widower about 44.  The farm was on Grand Island, which is in the Niagara River below Buffalo and above Niagara Falls."  

I recall a few early pictures of Grandmother Wood, but haven't seen them in years.  I'm sure that I saw the picture my father mentioned from 1907, but it may have been on a wall in Ann Arbor.  Sad that old pictures, letters, journals so often are lost in the dust of time.

Uncovered: A New Date for Jimmie's USN Service

A tiny address book stamped in gold with " Michigan Lithographing Company" on the cover looked to me like an address book.  However, it turned out to be a 4 1/2 by 2 3/4-inch diary in dark green leather, one of many sizes and shapes Ruth wrote in over the years.   Because I had not read it until after the book was published, it's not in Pieces of a Life.

The picture shows Ruth Meredith Kellogg and her younger brother, Jimmie, fooling around in the back yard on Iowa St. in Chicago where the Merediths had a two-flat.  You can see the stucco garage, which matched the two-flat (originally a house), in the background as well as the Petersen's garage next door.

This would have been around the time - the early 1940s - when Jimmie was in the United States Navy.  I had always thought that my uncle, James William Meredith, was in the service briefly early in 1942 after the start of World War II.  But Ruth's 1940 diary corrects me, as you will see.  Uncle Jimmie was a kind, soft-spoken man, but his mental illness gradually controlled his life.

Tuesday, Feb. 27, 1940 -   "Jim joined Navy and left for Great Lakes Naval Training Station for 2 months."

Saturday, May 25, 1940 -  "Jim home from Navy with Honorary Discharge papers and button."

And that's it - nothing more about what happened, though I had thought Jim left the service because he had had what used to be called "a nervous breakdown."   Ruth was very careful not to say much about Jim's schizophrenia in writing.  Since there was mandatory military service at that time, perhaps the button was something he could wear to show he had served.