Lovebirds Ruth and John in 1928

In her diary, Ruth tells us about John's 29th birthday and his trip to visit his family, the Woods, in Ann Arbor.  This isn't part of Pieces of a Life.

August 25, 1928 - John's 29th Birthday

"I made a cake & trimmed it with his name & flowers.  Gave him white gold cuff links.  Tonite we went to Harding & saw "Forgotten Faces."  I bade John farewell.  He starts for home tomorrow morning to be gone until Labor Day."

On August 26, Ruth said, "How lost I am without John!'  She also mentioned answering a letter from Esther Webb Wood, her future mother-in-law, and starting a letter to John.

August 31, 1928

"I had barely finished reading a letter from John tonite when who should call but John himself.  Surprised!  Very.  He got tired of Ann Arbor, etc.  He came over and just left minutes ago.

Letters, notes, journals, diaries were such a big part of their world.  For the first 50 years of my life, writing letters was an enjoyable part of life.  I penned several letters a week.  Compared to my i-phone, a letter offers so much more opportunity to mull over thoughts, to shape the writing, think through what you are expressing, consider the other person as though they were in front of you.  Hmm - in Facetime, Skyping or a Google Hangout, they are in front of you!   

Summers At The Webb Farm on Grand Island

This is an excerpt from Pieces of a Life.  The source for this story is my father's autobiography, witten in 1974. Other parts of my book are built on my mother's diaries.  John Webb Kellogg, born in 1899, is writing about the first 12 years of the last century.

"Mother" is Esther Clara Webb Kellogg, young second wife of Charles Henry Kellogg.  Esther and many of her Webb relatives grew up in farming families on Grand Island. Esther's grandparents were Potato Famine Irish.  

"Usually Mother & I (also Dorothy after she arrived) spent a few weeks on Grand Island in the summer.  Dorothy was my sister, 4 years younger than I, who died of cancer in the early 1940's.  Grand Island was a typical farm area with a one-room school house teaching all grades through 8th. In Spring, school closed early as the children were needed to help get the crops planted.  In Fall, school opened after the harvest had been gathered.  Some chores I liked better than others."  

John then analyzed what he disliked about strawberry picking and current picking.  The chore he "did not mind" was waging war on the potato bugs. "Each week I would get a small stick and knock all visible bugs from the leaves into a small pan.  Then at the end a few drops of kerosene plus a match and that batch would never harm our potatoes.  Next week there was another batch.  How simple now with our sprays!"

Like most people, in 1974 John didn't understand the danger of DDT and other chemicals they were using on their plants.

Ruth Gets Her First Job

 Pieces of a Life tells us that Ruth Meredith, pictured in a flapper outfit, got her first job in 1925.  On Feb. 3 a friend, Margarite Klina, called to tell Ruth "she had gotten me a position in a Tea store on Madison Street.  I'm to go there some morning this week.  Oh Boy!"  Margarite must have been helping Austin High students to find part-time jobs in a work-study program..

Ruth was very excited.  She was to get "broke in" on Feb. 5  She said, "Well, I hope I make good in the Tea store business..."  On the 5th she worked from 8:30-11:00 AM and then went to school.  She worked again Thursday and a longer shift on the following Saturday from 11:00 AM to 9:30 PM. when the store was busier.  She said, "I was very nervous in the morning, but this afternoon the crowds didn't bother me half as much." 

She added, "I had dinner and supper there, and then washed the supper dishes.  I was paid $2.50 for today, and $1.13 for the two mornings; totaling $3.63.  The folks came after me about 9:25.  It is now 11:00 o'clock, and my feet and legs ache terribly, so here's where I turn in."

Initially Ruth liked Miss Hogan, the manager who trained her.  More than once Ruth was called in to cover a shift, hopping out of bed and getting to the store quickly.  Then on March 19 there was a sudden change in the picture.  "I feel terrible, but at the same time I feel that everything will turn out satisfactory.  The reason is, Miss Hogan called me up tonight and said she wouldn't need me in her store because the trade is slackening.  She said she would speak to Mr. Miller in the morning about getting me in some place else."

From then on Miss Hogan avoided Ruth, failing to call back, evidently unable to set up a job at another store for her.  On March 21, Ruth's mother talked to Margarite, who said she would speak to Andrew, the Manager of the new National Tea Store opposite Miss Hogan's store.  Ruth did get a part-time job there - and more money than the 23 or 24 cents an hour she had been earning.

Tap Dancing to "I'm a Little Teapot" in 1941

Diane (me) had been taking ballet, but tap was new to her. Before her first tap class in October, 1941, she needed tap shoes.  In her mother's diary, Ruth said, "I was lucky to get a pair of tap shoes for only 50 cents.  They were nice to her because she tried hard to do the steps."

In June, 1942 at age 6, Diane poses in her red and white gingham outfit with teapot motif, made by Ruth, after a dance recital.  She and the girls in her class tapped, danced and sang to "I'm a Little Teapot."  It was quite a hit with the proud families watching.  My dance career was about to end, though, because the young teacher was soon to close her school and follow her husband to U.S. Army Basic Training camp.

In the picture, Diane is standing on the "sundeck" that was off of two bedrooms, hers and brother Ken's.  A peek at the Oak Park neighborhood's garages, trees, homes appears behind her. Wrought iron fencing and low orange brick walls form a bulwark around the second-floor porch.

The tarred sundeck was fine to walk on or lay a beach towel on most of the year, but on the hottest summer days pools of liquid tar would appear, banishing any thoughts of sunbathing.  Neither the picture nor diary quote are in Pieces of a Life.

The Old Kellogg Home in Lancaster NY

This is the house, built sometime in the 1800s, where John Kellogg lived until age 13. It's somewhere between 16 and 20 rooms.  He said both in his book. The photo, taken in 1940, shows the house next to another, sitting on a paved street with little land, compared to the 3 1/2 acres on a hill where it was in 1899 when John was born.

In Pieces of a Life I quoted a section from John's autobiography called "Life in Lancaster in the Early 1900's".  John sketched the small town atmosphere back in the 1870's and 1880's when his father, Charles, had his first three children with his wife, Clara Shotwell, who died.  They were born in the 1870's:  Charles, Kittie Clara and George.  These were John's much-older step-brothers and step-sister.

"Now let's go way back.  What was life like when Father lived in the little town of Lancaster?  Perhaps 5,000 people walked or drove buggies or wagons over dirt roads.  The sidewalks were of wood planks as were the cross walks.  Sometime later the Village paved Main Street with brick, which was a big improvement."

"Our house had been built many years before we bought and had about 20 rooms.  It had two floors, plus a cement floor, full basement.  In the basement there was a furnace in which we burned hard coal and which gave hot air through two ducts to the two living rooms and dining room on the first floor, also to both second floor front bedrooms.  The first floor also had a large kitchen and pantry, which were heated by a large range primarily used for cooking or baking."

John goes on to say that his room and those of the hired man and woman were not heated, yet "I did not feel bad about that for none of my friends had rooms with heat.  You piled on the blankets in zero weather and dressed fast in the morning."   When John speaks of the heat, "it brings to mind the fact that he turned off the heat at night in our house in Oak Park.  In the belly of the winter when pipes might freeze, he put on just enough heat to avoid that.  So I, too, remember bundling up at night and getting dressed very quickly in the morning."  

Summertime in the Back Yard on Iowa Street

Brother Jimmie and Ruth look intently at the photographer in the summer of 1940 or 1941 while Diane appears bored and Grandma Lottie looks away, probably unaware of the photo because of her increasing deafness. Was it young Ken behind the camera - or maybe Grandpa Jim Meredith? They're seated on a bench behind the Meredith two-flat, the kitchen window and basement door behind them.

On June 12, 1941, Ruth wrote, "Most of the Radio Stations are elaborating on the sinking of United States merchant ship 'Robin Moor' by a Nazi sub-marine.  There is much speculation about it.  So far only 11 survivors out of 46 crew and passengers."

On June 14, 1941 Ruth reported in her diary an incident that could have been a tragedy.  "Part of a punch press Papa was working on broke and fell on his head.  Made a cut about an inch long.  He had to to to company [Western Electric] hospital and have it taken care of.  Then he went back to work.  Everyone marveled that he wasn't knocked out.  Piece weighed 12#."  Western Electric did start to investigate why the piece loosened and fell.  It was just three years later that Papa (James B. Meredith) passed away at the age of 64.

Life is smooth for the Merediths and Kelloggs, but a bumpy road is ahead with World War II on the horizon. This picture is not in Pieces of a Life, nor are the quotes from Ruth's diary.

Timing is Everything, They Say...

I quoted my father's autobiography in Pieces of a Life.  John Kellogg said, "In October of 1929 a serious depression started.  Mail order houses (branches) quickly reflect any change in orders for houses they operate on a percentage of sales.  In 1930 the Chicago House [of Montgomery Ward] sold about 10% of what it had sold in 1928.  This meant that the House Manager had 2 million dollars in 1930 to do what he had done with 20 million dollars in 1928.  This called for the most vigilant curbing of all expense.  

We liked our little flat building, but with things so shaky we traded the 3-flat for vacant lots west of Wilmette; the payments on the lots were so low I was reasonably sure I could carry them.  I was not sure I could carry the 3-flat;suppose that some of the tenants lost their job or we did?"

This didn't work out as John had hoped.  The land ended up being taken for part of an expressway and, from what I heard, John didn't get all of his money out of it.  Yet no one could have predicted the terrible financial hurricane that was coming.  

The picture shows John and Ruth in Ann Arbor just weeks after their wedding in 1929.