Around Valentine's Day, 1928, With An Engaged Ruth Meredith

In her 1928 diary, Ruth mentions that she and John Kellogg were engaged on Oct. 19, 1927, which is earlier than I had thought.  The picture shows Ruth in 1928 in a cloche and
fur-collared winter coat with a beaded purse.  She was in Chicago, but I don't know where.

February 12, 1928, Sun. - "Church with John.  We took snapshots this afternoon.  Took long drive.  After supper we strung beads.  Bed 10:30.  'Lincoln's Birthday' ."

February 13, 1928, Mon. - "Monotonous day!  Raining!  Bright spot - John came to supper and we poked fun at each other.  Didn't do anything worthwhile tonite.  Looked over old valentines."

February 14, 1928, Tues. - "More rain!  Got valentine from Wanda.  John is buying mine tomorrow.  Just answered Esther's letter.  Pay day!"

February 15, 1928, Wed. - John bought 1 1/2 lb. box of chocolates with a bit of verse, entitled 'A Dumb Man's Wail'.  Good.  We saw 'The Loves of Carmen' in the movies tonight.  Also good."

February 16, 1928, Thurs. - "Got my new swivel desk chair this morning.  Tonite I washed my hair.  Florence & Clyde were at same show last night.  Now to read.  I must write Wanda soon."

February 17, 1928, Fri. - "Snow!  John over to eat.  Teased me about something he has in hiding place till 19th, which is our 4th month of engagement."

February 18, 1928, Sat. - "Papa drove me around and I did Mam's shopping.  She has stiff neck. Mama stayed home & the rest of us went to the show in Papa's car."

February 19, 1928, Sun. - "John gave cast aluminum percolator for 'hope chest'.  John & I went to Oak Park church with Papa.  Took snow pictures & then took long walk together."

Ruth doesn't mention that she is working now at Ward's.  The little clues are "pay day" and the swivel office chair.  Florence worked there too and Clyde was her steady beau, who married her in 1930.  I'm not sure who Esther is - maybe a work friend.

I'm guessing that Ruth and John went to a Methodist church on the 12th, which was his faith, and then to Oak Park's First Baptist on the 19th.  Ruth was raised a Baptist, as was her father, Jim Meredith, who was from Berrien County MI.  Ruth and John finally chose to go to Austin Baptist Church when they married in 1929.  It was the one Ruth's parents had been attending since at least 1922.  Ruth and John switched to the First Baptist in Oak Park when they moved there in 1941.  By then they had 2 children: Kenneth and Diane.

Some Bumps in the Road for Ruth and John, 1927

This is Ruth Meredith's engagement picture, published in the local paper, "The Austinite"  in October, 1927.   They had been dating since right after her graduation from Austin High in June, 1926.  Her tiny diary gives us a peek at her life and John Kellogg's in December of 1927.

Sunday, Dec. 2, 1927 - "Wonderful weather.  Had an embarrassing moment - my bloomer legs came down while walking to church.  Won and lost at bridge tonight.  Late to bed."

Monday, Dec. 3, 1927 - "Had a pretty good time at the club meeting - won a prize for a game - also a wall vase in a grab bag.  John came for me without the car.  He had a smash-up!!!

Tuesday, Dec. 4, 1927 - "John is pretty dejected over last night's accident.  It was between him and a street car, which did all the damage.  Don't know how it will turn out."

Wednesday, Dec. 5, 1927 - "Tired. Washed my hair.  It's very cold weather.  Stayed home tonight.  John dropped in for a while.  He wrote letter to the street car co. while I read.  I rec'd my 2nd book, which is 'Claire Ambler'."

Thursday, Dec. 6, 1927 - "Am retiring early after my ablutions.  Will read 'Claire Ambler', my new book,  until am tired.  Mama got a stomach ache, so Papa and I had to do dishes."

These quotes were not in Pieces of a Life, nor was the newspaper clipping.  After meeting John, Ruth's vocabulary broadened.  He had had 4 years of Latin in high school and was well read.  Fifty years later he could still come up with Latin roots to words.  "Ablutions", which means washing up, was not something she would have said before John.  

The Merediths at Baron Lake MI in 1916

"Summer 1916, Rutlage's Resort, Baron Lake, Mich" is on the back of the picture in my grandfather's writing.  Brought up in Berrien County on the southwest corner of Michigan, James R. Meredith loved the green forests and the lakes, including the big one, Lake Michigan, that formed the western edge of Michigan. 

Jim didn't have a middle name, so used "R." as his middle initial.  I've always thought it was because of his grandfather's name.   
Benjamin R. Meredith from Kent Co., Maryland had that initial.  Did it stand for a name?  Maybe.  Born in 1801, he was a soldier in the Florida War and the Black Hawk War.

Jim and his wife, Lottie Weekes Meredith, did travel from Chicago back to Michigan often to see his family at this stage, only married 11 years (Nov. 23, 1904).  Jim was doing well,
after moving to the big city, Chicago, for a job and a better life.  In 1916 he was working for a major company, Western Electric, where he would be employed for the rest of his life.

The small woman seated between the two children must be Jim's mother, Ruth Parks Olmstead Meredith, age 68.  She appears in another picture a few years later.  The girl is Ruth Viola Meredith, named for both grandmothers, at age 10.  The boy is James William Meredith (5), who is named for his father and his mother's father, William Walter Wilson Weekes, from Wilkes-Barre PA.  They called him "Jimmie."

Standing behind them are two women I'm guessing are a cousin and an aunt of the man in the middle, Jim Meredith.  Lottie, Jim's wife, wasn't in the picture.  Maybe she was behind the camera.

This is a casually posed picture with three of the subjects looking off to the right side, drawn to something - a dog barking, laughter, someone heading their way.  Young Ruth, my mother, looks strikingly like I did at about that age, right down to the somewhat bored vibes.  It looks like there's a house or a cabin behind those pictured.

Pictures from the past give you a feel for what life was like, but dredge up more questions than answers.  They make me want to study further what life was like at that time and especially for my ancestors.

Ruth Meredith at Austin High, Chicago in 1925

I love my mother's graduation picture, taken in the Spring of 1926.  Ruth Viola Meredith's marcelled dark blonde hair was very stylish.  Too bad the photo isn't in color.  Her "cat's eyes", as she called them, were greenish hazel.  My guess is that the blouse was either dark green or navy blue with a red bow.  Ruth was very aware of fashion and made most of her clothes.

Tuesday, Jan. 13, 1925 - "Today we had dandy exercises in Gym.  In Typing I have started on the first exercise in the 13th lesson, which isn't so bad, because Wanda is only on the 11th exercise.  I hope she gets through though.

Mr. Nichols showed us a Wild Western of the life on a ranch in the History class today.  Of course, it was a moving picture, supposed to fit in with the lesson, but it didn't this time."

Wednesday, Jan. 14, 1925 - "Nothing special occurred today, sorry to say.  Oh, but when I think of the many, many things that have to be done, both in and out of school hours, I just have to gasp.  The end of the term is only a few weeks away.  I didn't get any farther in Typing today.  In Industrial History class we were shown a moving picture concerning Westward movement in the early days."

Friday, Jan. 23, 1925 - "Today was better than yesterday although I had to go through three finals.  They were Shorthand, English and Industrial History."

Ruth mentions Wanda Thiele, her best friend, on Jan. 13.  She and Wanda both had to work hard to get through high school.  In Ruth's case, I suspect that being a preemie in 1906 was involved.  She was placed in a coal oven with the door ajar as an incubator for a week or more.  Her mother, Lottie Weekes Meredith, probably got that idea from a midwife or another mother.  Lottie was 19. Her mother, Viola Hawley Weekes, had died when she was 9.  Lottie left school in 7th or 8th grade to keep house for her father and little Lewis.  Ruth's father graduated from high school through Western Electric where he worked for many years.

Moving pictures were new when Ruth was in high school.  "Talkies" were about to come out.  She loved going to the moving picture theatres of the 1920s.

Ruth was disappointed with some of her grades, but happy to get an E in Gym, an 88 and an E minus on two English tests.  Mr. Nichols gave her S on a map and E on another History test.  Those were all better than her grades in Shorthand and European History on the preceding Monday.  The diary entries are not in Pieces of a Life, but the graduation picture is.  Sadly, few pictures of Ruth as a teen and around 20 have survived.

Unsolved: The Mystery of Irene

Sometimes you wonder how to sift through the tangled maze of memories, divining what is real, what is family lore, what remains hidden.  I don't know what happened to Ruth's close friend, Irene Hertel, in 1925, but I've speculated on illness, depression or maybe being jilted by some unknown man.  Or perhaps Ruth and Irene had had a spat.

Irene was a year or two older than Ruth and a strong Catholic, quite a contrast to my mother's Baptist upbringing.  Yet religion never seemed to be an issue for them.  The picture shows Ruth Meredith (left) and Irene in 1926, probably in the Austin neighborhood.  Looks like a license plate is behind Irene's feet.

Most of the quotes from Ruth's 1925 diary were not in Pieces of a Life, nor was the picture.

Friday, July 3, 1925 - "Not until I started to go to bed did I notice a big envelope and recognize the handwriting.  It is a birthday card and a long letter from Irene.  I read it real slowly; and was very glad and happy about it.  I do love Irene, and I hope that we will renew our friendship with twice as much love and energy.  I pray that we may remain so, if not more, the rest of our lives."

Friday, July 10, 1925 - "Not a word from Irene yet.  I am still waiting, hopefully."  Ruth had written to Irene, mailing the long letter on July 5, her 19th birthday.

Wednesday, July 29, 1925 - "Mrs. Smith, Margarite and James came to lunch today.  (James, often called "Smitty" is brother Jimmie's close friend along with his mother and sister.)  Just as we sat down, the phone rang and I could hardly believe my ears, for it was Irene.   She didn't say anything very important.  We just exchanged words back and forth a few minutes, and then we said Good-bye till two weeks or more from now."  

Precious Post Card From the Past

In the last post, I mentioned finding another treasure in a large box of diaries written later in Ruth Meredith Kellogg's life.  This is it - a post card made by Fain & Corning, 1716 W. Madison St., Chicago.  I'm assuming that's the photography studio, which probably was close to where the Merediths lived on the near west side of Chicago.

The young Meredith family is shown in June, 1910.  My grandmother "Lola" (aka Lottie or Carlotta), is shown in a large, feather-trimmed hat and tailored shirtwaist and jacket.  She looks so much older to me, but is only 23.  My grandfather, Jim Meredith (age 29), wears a derby, bow tie and suit, quite dressed up for the family photo.  Their prized daughter and my mother, Ruth Viola, has a special hat and coat on as well.  She is just weeks away from her fourth birthday.

The back of the card, which is where the address is shown, has more intriguing information.  It's addressed to my Great-Great Grandfather, William Henry Olmstead on Rural Delivery Route 12, Saranac, Michigan.  Jim's mother, Ruth Parks Olmstead, was named for the wife William lost in childbirth at age 25 when young Ruth was born. (Yep, more Ruths to add to the mix!)   In 1910, William Olmstead was an old man of 87, living with family in the state he had always called home.   He lived another six years, passing on in June, 1916.

Though we don't see William's handwriting on the post card, several of his letters were passed on to me.  He has elegant handwriting.  I was told long ago that he was a school teacher.  Someone did address this card to him, most likely Jim, even though he had little education.  It was his employer, Western Electric, that helped Jim Meredith achieve a high school education, even holding a graduation ceremony for all of the employees who earned diplomas.  

One question entered my mind when I saw the card.  You too?  How did it end up with the Merediths when it was mailed to Saranac in June, 1910 from Chicago?  I speculate that the Merediths either reclaimed it when William died or when his daughter, Ruth, died in 1923.  I should mention that Ruth's husband, Nathaniel Meredith, had died in 1907.  He had fought with a Michigan regiment in the Civil War.  Nathaniel and Ruth were the parents of Jim Meredith.  (See the abbreviated family tree on the last page of Pieces of a Life to help figure out who's who.)