Saturday, August 29, 2009

A Few Notes about this Blog


As mom and I read and transcribe these old documents to include them in this blog we come across many dilemmas.
Do we 'fix' the spelling?  
Do we correct the punctuation?  What if it doesn't make sense if we don't?
How can we show the spacing and format?  
How do we show the marks that are not words at all... scrolls and embellishments?  
What if a word is crossed out? 
And what about the words we can't even make out?  
Some of the writings are so faint that we can barely read them.  Some have bled a bit.  Most are on paper so frail that we hesitate to touch it.  Often they are torn and words are difficult to discern. The handwriting is absolutely gorgeous.  We can hardly wait to show the true beauty behind these precious words.  We are reading up on how to flatten out the paper and repair the tears so that they may be scanned properly.  They must be re-humidified and then taped with PH neutral tape; so it will take time.
All this and we have barely begun.  The actual box we have opened is tiny... about the size of a cigar box. There are many more giant boxes filled with documents... literally thousands.  And each one we read leads to other questions.... who are these people discussed?  Where are the places they speak of?  What about the words or terms that are unfamiliar? .... and then off we go trying to find the answers and spending more hours on this 'hobby'!  What kind of Pandora's Box have we opened?  We don't know, but we do know that each of these letters, clippings and notes reconnects us to our past and to a way of life that is so dear and sadly long gone. We would love to hear from you, our family, as you read these posts.  You can comment at the end of any post, so please feel free to do so.  I hope you are enjoying these glimpses into time as much as we are. 

A Love Letter from Richard to Emma

This letter is on folded tablet paper.  It is from Richard Igel to his future wife, Emma.  He is assuring Emma of his situation (employment) and his love despite his absense.  His spelling and grammar are rushed as he awaits a train, but his feelings are very clear. We transcribed it as it was written, so please excuse the run-on sentences and lack of punctuation!


Louisville, July 31, 1860
My dear Emma,

Again I have spend (sic) four lonesome days here after the pleasant hours in Madison until at last to day my bussiness (sic) has come to a termination, the situation, I spoke of in Greenville, Miss, has been procured for me by Messrs Wilson Peters & Co and I shall this evening leave for Memphis. After having seen Madison again and after passing such happy hours with you my dear Emma, Louisville with all its stirring & bustling seems desolate and dead to me, a change of things therefore will be very desireable. If I reflect that this evening and many successive days every turn of the wheel will take me further from the one I love so much it almost gives me bad cheer to my voyage but perhaps someday I shall have the reversed feeling which will amply repay me for the present bad one. Find accompanying this letter my likeness, if you look at it with the same feeling I look at yours I shall at least have the satisfaction that there is one on this wide earth that loves me. Give my best respects to all your relations to Louisa, Leonora, and your Papa and mamma in particular there is nothing new i can write you but there is something old which is always new to me, that I am ever your loving and faithful
Richard


Excuse my bad writing I am in a great hurry for my departure is unexpected soon.

Emma Igel's father's Death Notices - Dr. Charles Schussler

These are various newspaper notices concerning the death of Emma's father; Dr. Charles Schussler. He was a remarkable man who served in the Union army during the Civil War as General Grant's surgeon.

Died
Schussler - In this city, Sunday evening, September 20th, 1874, at 7 o'clock, Dr. Charles Schussler, in the 67th year of his age.
The funeral will take place to-morrow (Tuesday) afternoon, at 2 o'clock, from the family residence. Friends are invited to attend without further notice.


ATTENTION SOLDIERS! All Soldiers who seved in the war of the rebellion are requested to meet at the Court House this evening at seven o'clock, to make arrangements to attend the funeral of their late comrade, Dr. Charles Schussler. Let there be a full meeting.


From Daily Courier, Tuesday, September 21st

Dr. Charles Schussler - The death of Dr. Charles Schussler occurred yesterday evening at seven o'clock. The deceased was widely known in the city and was in many respects a remarkable man. During the forty-two years of his residence in Madison he stood in the front ranks of his profession. In educational and professional attainments perhaps no physician in this city has yet equalled him. His knowledge of medicine was extraordinary.
Charles Schussler was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1807. He received his education in the Universities at Tubingen and Vienna, and subsequently graduated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1828 he left Germany for New York City where he established himself in the drug business. Shortly thereafter the drugstore was sold and a brig was purchased in which the enterprising Schussler led a colony to Texas, then engaged in the struggle for independence. Returning from Texas after a few years Dr. Schussler lived for a time in New Orleans, but finally came to Madison and held his residence in this city until his death.
The California gold excitement attracted the Doctor across the Continent for a time. At the breaking out of the late war Dr. Schussler promptly offered his services in support of the Union and went out as Surgeon in the first Regiment raised in Indiana, the gallant Sixth, commanded by Colonel T.T. Crittenden. Dr. Schussler served four years as Surgeon, having charge of Brigades and Divisions, and finally the immense Post Hospital at Nashville. His health was enfeebled by arduous labors and exposure, and he never fully recovered from their effects.
For several years he has gradually declined in strength. Yesterday morning an attack of the valves of the heart first prostrated him during the day, and at eventide, carried him to his last repose. Peace to his ashes!


The mortal remains of Dr. Chrles Schussler were Interred in Springdale Cemetery yesterday afternoon at three o'clock. In advance of the funeral cortege was a military band, the national colors, and a squad of the late companions-in-arms of the deceased.
The soldiers appropriately carried their muskets reversed, and when the body was deposited in the grave fired a final salute to the memory of the departed. The medical profession of the city preceded the hearse in the procession and a long line of mourning friends in carriages brought up the rear. The pall bearers were Messrs. Charlesworth, Cravens, Cochran, Tilton, Harper, Orr, and Dietz.

Friday, August 28, 2009

A letter from a member of Congress

This short letter on lined tablet paper has an embossed Congressional seal in the top left corner that reads: First Class (above a image of a Congressional Building) Congress. We believe it was some sort of letter of introduction of a Mr. Dunn to Emma Schussler Igel, my grandmother's grandmother.  It was written by Michael Hahn, whose biography follows.  From other letters it seems that Mr. Hahn was Emma's uncle.




Washington, March 2, 1863.

Miss Emma Schussler; Madison

Dear Emma;
I shall leave here in about four days for New York, where I will spend a few days previous to my departure for the West, to see all my folks. I will stop at Madison about a day or so on my way to St. Louis or on my return from St. Louis.
I have enjoyed the acquaintance and friendship of Mr. Dunn of Madison in the House of Representatives here and have found him an excellent and talented man. I like him very much.

Yours truly, etc.

Michael Hahn


Information on the possible identity of Michael Hahn:

Michael Hahn
(1830-1885)
HAHN, Michael, a Representative from Louisiana; born in Bavaria,
Germany, November 24, 1830; immigrated to the United States with his parents, who settled in New York City; moved to New Orleans, La., about 1840; attended the graded and high schools, and was graduated from the law department of the University of Louisiana in 1850; was admitted to the bar in 1851 and commenced practice in New Orleans, La.; elected as a Unionist to the Thirty-seventh Congress and served from December 3, 1862, to March 3, 1863; returned to New Orleans and engaged in newspaper work; appointed prize commissioner of New Orleans; elected Governor of Louisiana on February 22, 1864, and served until March 4, 1865, when he resigned; manager and editor of the New Orleans Daily Republican 1867-1871; founded the village of Hahnville; member of the State house of representatives 1872-1876 and served as speaker in 1875; appointed State register of voters on August 15, 1876; superintendent of the United States Mint at New Orleans in 1878; district judge of the twenty-sixth district from 1879 until March 3, 1885, when he resigned; elected as a Republican to the Forty-ninth Congress and served from March 4, 1885, until his death in Washington, D.C., March 15, 1886; interment in Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, La.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

A startling discovery

After a bit of research into the poem from the previous post I have discovered the author is actually Frances Dana Barker Gage. I have copied a bit of Mrs. Gage's biography below as she is quite an important figure in the Women's Rights and Temperance movement. It is interesting that our great, great, great grandmother was familiar with her writings. I wonder if they knew each other, because the book in which the poem is found wasn't published until 1866, several years after our Emma copied it for herself.


Frances Dana Barker Gage

Frances Dana Barker Gage

Frances Dana Barker Gage (October 12, 1808-November 10, 1884), a lecturer, political activist, journalist, and novelist, was an outspoken advocate of women's rights, temperance, and abolition before and immediately after the Civil War.

Frances was born near Marietta, Ohio to frontier farmers Elizabeth Dana and Col. Joseph Barker. Coming from New Hampshire, in 1788 the Barkers had crossed the Alleghenies with Rufus Putnam and wrested land from the Indians. Elizabeth, from a liberal Massachusetts family, taught her children to admire individual liberty. Elizabeth's mother, Mary Bancroft Dana, had also moved to the West and lived 14 miles south of her daughter, on the Ohio River which bordered the slave states of Virginia and Kentucky. All three generations of the Dana women assisted escaping slaves. Frances often paddled a canoe to her grandmother's house where she helped provide the refugees with food and comfort. Shortly before she died, Frances remembered feeling slaves' hurts as though they were her own and disgust with other pioneer children who chided her for sympathizing with escaping Negroes.

In her youth Frances was disciplined by her father because she had assisted a visiting barrel maker. Such labors, he said, were not part of a girl's domestic sphere. "What a pity you were not a boy so that you could be good for something," he lamented. From that moment she was determined to overcome the limits that had been set for women.

Frances's parents were more liberal in their religious beliefs than their neighbors. She much later wrote, "I never could accept the belief or doctrine of total depravity or of special providence, or the power of any being by prayer to move the universe, or any having right to do so if he could. Consequently I was led into association with the Universalists, more as a disbeliever in the doctrine of eternal punishment than any fixed faith."

In 1828 Frances married Universalist James Gage, an abolitionist lawyer and iron founder in the village of McConnelsville, 30 miles to the north. He was a friend of the New York State Universalist evangelist Stephen R. Smith. Through 35 years of married life, James supported Frances's commitment to help others. They raised eight children, all of whom thrived. She lived in McConnelsville for a quarter of a century, raising her children, educating herself, and gradually gathering influence among her peers.

Professional writing brought Gage regional fame. Writing in The Ohio Cultivator and other regional journals as "Aunt Fanny," 1845-62, she offered a warm, domestic persona who offered advice and support to isolated housewives in Ohio. She published Poems in 1867.

She extended her circle of acquaintance beyond Ohio by writing letters to women of like mind, including Englishwoman Harriet Martineau, whose 1837 book, Society in America, included a chapter, "The Political Nonexistence of Women." Another correspondent, Amelia Bloomer, engaged her to write for the New York State temperance newspaper, The Lily, 1841-54. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, whose 1848 Seneca Falls Convention launched the women's rights movement in America, was also on the staff.

Sojourner Truth In 1851 at Akron, Ohio, chairing the state's second women's rights convention, Gage, overriding audience protests, allowed the ex-slave, Sojourner Truth, to speak. Years later Gage recorded her recollection of Truth's speech, "Ain't I a Woman?" This version, superceding that of Harriet Beecher Stowe, has become the standard text and account of the event.

Gage stepped comfortably into the roles of public organizer and orator. She was a talented public speaker for more than 30 years to audiences of both men and women. Her addresses covered her "triune cause"—first, abolition; second, women's rights; and third, temperance. Eastern women's rights leaders and friends like Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Bloomer, Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown encouraged Gage to be a women's rights emissary in America's Middle West.

Musings and Memories

It is appropriate to start this blog with a precious poem written in 1864 by Emma Schussler Igel, our grandmother's grandmother. It may have been a poem she knew and recalled or one she wrote herself.  It is written in pen on folded tablet paper.  The handwriting is beautiful and the lines are spaced into sets of eight with a sweet and simple line design between the sets.  She signs it with only the date and her initials.
Emma had moved away from all her family in Madison, Indiana to Cape Girardeau, Missouri. She followed her husband there as he relocated to become an apothocary; otherwise known as a pharmacist. Emma must have missed her home and family and was struggling to be cheerful in this new and strange place.



Musings and Memories

"I am lonely, I am weary.
Would you know the reason why?
'Tis not that the day is dreary,
Not that clouds o'er hang the sky.
No. The April sun is beaming
Warm and genial as 'twer May.
Earth and air in beauty teeming
Woo my spirit from the gay.

This new home is very cheerful.
Husband, children - all are here;
But my eyes are sometimes tearful,
Tearful for old memories dear.
By my window I am sitting,
Gazing out upon the street,
Thousands to and fro are flitting
No famliar (face) glance I meet.

Ah! I miss the bird and flowers
Of the home I've left behind -
Miss the hill-tops and the bowers,
Miss the odorous-wafting wind.
This is not the same old carpet,
Upon which we danced at night -
These are not the time worn curtains
Which shut out the summer light -

But I will not sigh in sadness,
Will not let my heart grow cold,
Soon t'will throb again with gladness
Soon these new things will be old.
Kind and genial hearts are hovering
O'er life's pathway everywhere;
They will come and render sacred
Carpet, curtian, table, chair.

Flowers of love will spring in beauty -
To my fancy on the street -
If the dusty paths are trodden
Daily by familiar feet.
If I scatter seeds of kindness,
Here and there as best I may
Roses, fragrant as the old ones,
Soon will cheer the lonely way.

Home so loved - old friends so treasured -
Half my heart I'll give to (the) you
Half I'll keep in good condition,
Warm and lighted for the new
I may drop a tear of sorrow
for the past - tho' far away.
While I'm pilfering from tomorrow
Smiles and sunshine for to-day."

May 1864 E. S. I.