8-Year-Old Sarah Does Her Part to Abolish Alcohol and Tobacco

Sarah Eva Howe of Carrollton, Kentucky grew up in a family of teetotalers. Her father was a card-carrying member of the national  temperance movement. Her mother (and later Sarah herself) was a life-long member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

Sarah's father's temperance card

Little wonder, then, that Sarah at a young age was involved in anti-drinking activities sponsored by her church, her school, and her community. She wrote a lot about Prohibition in her scrapbooks. In today's post, I offer some excerpts, written in the 1940s, starting with Sarah's memories of a musical production (probably sponsored by the Carrollton Methodist Episcopal church or an affiliated prohibition group) about the evils of drink.

Again, ellipses indicate missing or omitted words, and brackets enclose my own clarifications. In this memoir, which she wrote to her daughter Mary Alice Salyers Hays in the 1940s, Sarah is not kind to certain tavern keepers of 1890s Carrollton. I ask descendants of those men to remember that Sarah speaks from an ingrained prohibitionist stance.

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[Sarah's cousins] Beverly Howe and Cooper Winslow (both seven, and I nearly nine), whose parents were known Prohibitionists, were chosen for the trio, to the music of “A Pirate Ship’s in Sight” (either from Pinafore or Penzance, but I think Pinafore. Oh, I know! It is the song “Attentive to our duty” that the sailors sing). ... The last lines, I think:
We’re going to hang “Old Alky”
He was a cruel king.
From the “Temperance Gibbet”
The wretch must surely swing.

They were so cute; they stood on each side of me. ...  Bev was the soldier (in blue) and Cooper the sailor, also in blue, I think, but with the white cap. I wore a white sailor dress and a regular white sailor cap with “gold” braid, with black hose and high shoes, in the Navy tradition. ...  I was called Prohibition Polly and should have been delighted with the special part, but the truth is I secretly longed to be glamorous even then and felt cheated as I looked at Mildred and Jenne Howe¹ and my new friend Lisa Hafford, all of whom were fairies coming in during the last number for the dance and song. Jenne and Mildred, in white with silver dots, were water sprites and sang (with a dozen others) “The Waters that flow from the Spring, tra la, gleam bright in the merry sunshine, As gaily they dance and they sing, tra la, We welcome the joy that they bring, tra la, and hail them a beverage divine!”

... A pretty, tiny girl of five, with yellow hair and a pink dress, was called Baby Bunting, but I forget her speech; she was Gertie Lawrence, the flowerlike little sister of Burgess and Ernest and others. While she was speaking, a near tragedy occurred. The house was overcrowded, people standing up around the sides. Of course there was no electricity, and one of the boys who was helping put up “Old Alky’s” gibbet, or perhaps taking it down, someone knocked one of the oil lamps, still lighted, out of its socket to the stage. As it smoked there, people began to murmur and start to rise. Gertie stopped in alarm (the lamp was near her). Several rushed out from the wings and grabbed the lamp, which went out right away. Lisa rushed forward, executed a “free dance” and shouted “Listen to this child!” Everyone laughed and relaxed, and Gertie went on with her little speech. ...  I suppose it was one of the most elaborate and interesting things seen in Carrollton for many years.

Dad² [referring to her daughter's father] was not in this entertainment, but his brother Bob³ was one of the boys (I think Cousin John⁴ was one of these, too) who “buried Nick-O-Teen.” At that time the fight against tobacco was very strong, too, and of course cigarettes were pretty bad in those days — but I believe if the temperance people had concentrated on whiskey they would have done better sooner. But these boys carried in a pole, from which hung a twist of tobacco, pipes, etc., and buried “him” in a grave on the stage (with shovels, etc.) and sang a minor adaptation of the Marines song:
We’ve come to bury Nick-O-Teen.
He is a filthy poisonous wretch.
He is the brother of King Alcohol
And many victims does he “ketch.”
He takes away their health and money
The morals of his prisoners, too,
And so we’ve come to bury him
For we hate him, yes we do!

It was one of the best songs and best scenes and should have had a more terrible enemy as its object, as I see it now.

I want to say right now that the Prohibition party in those days was one predominantly of members not “in the lunatic fringe” but was made up for the most part of earnest, forward looking citizens, mostly good church people, who could see no other way than a clean cut to rid the country of the horrible menace which the liquor traffic certainly was in those days if not now, as both political parties were almost completely controlled by it, and all the headquarters were in such places as Tammany Hall, the “Tenderloin,” the Barbary Coast, and in other cities. As Bryan afterwards said about the Conservatives and Liberals, perhaps the Prohibitionists, unchecked, would have gone too far, but without them the reforms that have been imposed, not selling to minors, Sunday closing, and finally, regular sawdust open saloons abolished, would never have been accomplished. So I am proud that my people had a part in this.

... There was an important trip Papa and Mama⁵ took in the spring of 1892, and that was to the Prohibition Party Convention, which was held in Cincinnati when John P. St. John [the Prohibition candidate] was nominated for President to run against Harrison (the Republican “incumbent”).  ... I remember the “buttons” Jenne and her family wore; Mildred was for Harrison, of course. Uncle Joe was still a Prohibitionist at the time (he voted the national ticket before Papa did), but he afterwards succumbed to the Goslee Republican pressure, as Mr. George Winslow, also a Prohibitionist from his first vote as was Mr. Henry⁶, his brother, fell to the Hafford⁷ intense partisanism. These four, with Mr. Will Winslow,⁸ who attended the convention with Papa and Mama (I think Uncle Joe, Mr. Henry & Mrs. George came up for part of the time) were well known to be real temperance men who “voted as they prayed,” as the saying went then. Uncle Will,⁹ tho with much pressure both from brothers and brothers-in-law, still remained a Democrat, not quite willing to leave the party which as a real born-in-Ireland man he felt to be the true one.  ...

Crowd at the National Prohibition Convention at Music Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1892

I have heard Mama tell so much about this convention, held at Music Hall, and about the Demorest Diamond Medal Contest held at one of the sessions, about Miss [Frances] Willard’s address and the songs of the Silver Lake Quartet (which afterwards sang at Carrollton) that it seems I was there, but of course I wasn’t, I stayed at Grandma’s with my doting aunts and my young, interesting uncles. ...

I believe [William] Jennings Demorest (not Bryan) was a prominent “Probi,” as some

called them, and his estate provided for these contests — I think they are still going on — wherein girls and boys gave these fine temperance readings as addresses in elimination contests, getting (a) a silver medal, (b) a larger silver medal), (c) a gold medal and finally, every four years at the National Convention, (d) a large gold medal set with a diamond was given the best of all contestants among the sectional gold medal winners, about a dozen, I think. I had been with Mama to the Christian Church at home where a silver medal was given, about the summer of 1891, I suppose; Hallie Whitehead (Earl’s sister), Mary Whitehead (Mrs. “Dr.” Donald), Jennie Hanks (George McFarland’s aunt), Lille Howe,¹⁰ Jennie Stringfellow and several other girls of that age — Nell Hafford, too, I think, and Lillie Roberts ... all took part. Lille was very hoarse but went on and spoke anyway; Jennie Stringfellow got the medal, but we all thought Jenne Howe and one other girl were better than she was (I forget which one), but there was a good crowd out to see them, and I remember Aunt Katie telling how proud Jennie was of her medal. Anyway, Mama got to hear the Diamond Medal contest. ...

Frances Willard addressed the convention at night. Mama said she remarked right at the first what a fine, clean looking lot of people were at this convention, and Mama said this was true. Music Hall was packed, but with such intelligent, serious looking people and of course no drunks or disorderly persons. The Silver Lake Quartet was from Hornellsville, New York. We entertained them afterwards (in 1894, I think) and they were delightful people and very fine singers. Mr. Chambers, a plump man, played the piano and sang soprano, but the bass baritone did the comedy singing, and they had wonderful parodies and arrangements of many songs, and also led convention singing. It was this quartet that sang the famous “It was built by Levi (P. Morton), oh no! He will be known as the Vice President." He was [Benjamin] Harrison’s V.P., you know. The thing he had done was to build a big bar in some hotel. The chorus of the song about Levi was like this:
There is a hotel, they call it the Shoreham
They catch young men with liquor and floor em
And then upstairs in the rooms they store em
In this beautiful new hotel.
And 'twas built by Levi.
Not Levi?
Yes, Levi
Oh No! (bases)
Oh yes, say I, (tenor)
Oh Levi, Levi, what made you do it?
Oh Levi, Levi you surely will rue it!
For dealing out vice may help pay the rent
But you will be known as the vice president.”

(He wasn’t re-elected that year, either!)

I believe it was also this quartet who introduced “The Brewer’s Big Horses can’t roll over me!” Very pertinent then, as the big brewery wagons were pulled by enormous gray dappled horses, sort of Percherons, with big tails doubled up in a club. Everyone knew

Dappled Percherons

about these horses, and in Cincinnati, which was even more German then than now, in proportion, the smell of beer hung like a heavy cloud over everything. I tell you, I can remember with horror the many many saloons even in Carrollton, especially down 5th Street between High and Main, where Bob Booker and Mr. Vest (Ding’s grandfather) kept about as disorderly places as you could find far or near. It was in Vests, I think, that Jerome [last name not legible] was killed a few years after this (about ’98). When they were rebuilding that block and digging a new cellar, they dug up the skeleton of a man under Booker's — and it was supposed he was put out of the way there hastily at some time, but no one could be found who knew anything about it, and alas Conan Doyle was just thinking of the first “Sherlock” stories at that time. The smell of these places was indescribable. I can recall them tho all the years, even from across the street on the Courthouse pavement as we went hastily by. Jim Jett did try, I think, to keep a better place; at least it was considered a good deal more “respectable.” But to all the Howes, these places (and their owners) were indeed anathema.

Of course, Dad² and Grandad¹¹ couldn’t understand this exactly, for Grandad had grown up with the Jett boys, who lived near the Salyers boys on Main Street; also the Bookers lived across from them on Sixth Street for about ten years, and Oscar Vest (much different from his father) was always a good friend of Dad’s, tho a little older, of course. It always makes a difference if you really know people; you can’t condemn them so much, I suppose. But I have heard no one speak more conducively of the Booker and Vest “hell holes” than Dad and Grandad.

So perhaps these places may help explain the enthusiasm of the Carrollton women for their children to be in the Temperance Societies and for the church men to tend to be Prohibitionists. Uncle Tom Salyers,¹² who moved to Harriman [Tennessee] about this time (or some time earlier) was always a firm “Probi” — the only one of the brothers. I think Harriman was quite a center [of prohibition], and I guess Mr. Will Winslow was in the midst of it.


ENDNOTES
¹ Mildred Goslee was Sarah's friend and eventually distantly related through the marriage of her uncle Joseph Brown Howe (1857-1929) and Sallie Goslee (1858-1934). Jenne Winslow Howe (1883-1957) was Sarah's cousin, the daughter of her uncle William F. Howe (1846-1916) and Louisiana Winslow Howe (1852-1944).
² Sarah's husband William Levi Salyers (18788-1944), father of her daughter Mary Alice Salyers Hays (1910-1998), to whom she writes this memoir.
³ Robert King Salyers (1880-1897), brother of William Levi Salyers
⁴ Probably John Junior Howe (1879-1939), brother of Jenn Winslow Howe
⁵ Sarah's parents Robert James Howe (1855-1910) and Alice Ada Cost Howe (1859-1939)
⁶ George B. Winslow (dates unknown) and Henry M. Winslow (1850-1931) were sons of William Beverly Winslow (1814-1883) and Martha Jane Woolfork Winslow (1826-1905). Their siblings included Louisiana "Lou" Winslow (see Endnote 1)
⁷ The family of Lucy Hafford Winslow, who married George B. Winslow in 1894 in Carrollton
⁸ Probably William Beverly Winslow (1862-?) another sibling (see Endnote 6)
⁹ Probably Sarah's paternal uncle William Ficklin Howe (see Endnote 1)
¹⁰ Lille/Lillie M. Howe (1877-1942), Sarah's cousin; another daughter of William F. and Louisiana Winslow Howe
¹¹ Charles D. Salyers (1849-1926), Sarah's father-in-law (father of William Levi Salyers)
¹² Thomas D. Salyers (abt 1858-?), brother of Charles D. Salyers and uncle of Sarah's husband

Bits & Pieces: Who Are These People? A Few Mystery Photos from Sarah's Scrapbooks

Our scrapbooker Sarah Eva Howe saved many photos in her scrapbooks. Unfortunately, she didn't label all of them.

Because of their placement in one of the earliest scrapbooks, I think these people are either members or friends of Sarah's Cost ancestors, who lived in Cincinnati. I can't know for sure, but maybe someone out there can identify them.

"Tallie Ebbie"

 

Jones? Or Ames? He may or may not be a Methodist minister.

A Sweet Little Girl

 Mystery Woman #1

Mystery Woman #2

 
Two men posing in the same style as Sarah's father, Robert James Howe. The post dated August 11, 2016, speculates on the location and situation.


 

 Four young women, all dressed in white. Debutantes ready for their cotillion? Sisters? Cousins?

Last but not least, another image of women. This time we have names. Isabel Somerset is on the left. Frances E. Willard is on the right. Both were strong national leaders in the temperance movement during the 1880s and '90s. The Howes were strong leaders of the movement at the local and state levels and attended conventions supporting the movement. They may have met these women there, or maybe the photo was distributed or purchased at a convention.

The name of the woman in the center is not so easy to decipher. Martha Bensley Bruere was a temperance leader, but I can't match that last name with the handwriting.

Thoughts?

Getting from Here to There in the 1890s

Sarah Eva Howe writes in her scrapbooks about various trips in the 1880s to the early 1900s. She traveled from Carrollton, Kentucky, to Cincinnati to visit relatives and to Louisville to visit friends. Her family went to events in nearby communities of Ghent, Vevay, Madison, and Worthville. Her father and uncles traveled to New York to select stock for the family's department store.

How did they get to those places? Clippings and comments in Sarah's scrapbooks tell the stories.

Montage from one of Sarah Eva Howe's scrapbooks

• Boats – from small rowboats and ferries to large steamships – carried people and goods across rivers, lakes, and oceans. 
• A railroad bridge crossing the Ohio River from Worthville, Kentucky, was completed before 1870, and train travel was apparently commonplace in the entire area before 1880.
• The omnibus (barely visible behind the trees near the lower right corner) was an enclosed, horse-drawn coach that could accommodate groups of people. The March 6, 1871 issue of Louisville's Courier-Journal  reported: “An omnibus line is to commence its daily trips this morning from Carrollton to Worthville.” That explains how Carrolltonians got to Worthville to catch the train! Stagecoaches were still in use as well. From a web site's clipping dated October 1872 (no newspaper named): “The Carrollton Station Stage is doing a thriving business, so is the Worthville Stage, and they are both well conducted. Travel from here, to the cities, is now almost entirely by the Short Line R R. The river is so low that there is no telling at what time the Mail-boats will be along. For instance: the Ben Franklin left Cincinnati, last Saturday evening, and did not reach here until Monday morning.”
• That contraption on the hillside at the top of the montage is an incline. There was at least one incline in Cincinnati, known as "The City of Seven Hills." Sarah commented about riding it when she traveled by riverboat and needed to get from the river up to Price Hill where her Cost grandparents lived. She saved this postcard in a scrapbook.

The horse and buggy was a popular mode of transportation for centuries and was still commonplace through the early 1900s. Sarah remembered cousins coming to visit by horse and buggy.

Aunt Sallie and Uncle Mack [Sarah Varena "Sallie" Howe and Herman M. "Mack" Froman] and their children made frequent trips to see us, and go shopping, from their farm home above Ghent. With their staid family horse it was an hour & a half time. I remember how in cold weather we used to heat bricks for their feet to put in the bottom of the buggy.

What did people do in those days when they needed to get a horse and buggy across the river? This ferry could do the job. Note the commentary above the drawing: "All the Hazards of an Ocean Voyage." I suppose the most important part for the ferryman was keeping the horse calm!

Sarah noted that this ferry operated between Carrollton and Prestonville (both in Kentucky), so these passengers were crossing the Kentucky River just south of where it meets the Ohio. Note their tense body language and apprehensive expressions on the woman's face.

A previous post includes a postcard image and Sarah's comments about Heath's Ferry, which took passengers across the Ohio from the foot of Carrollton's Main Street.

Bicycles became popular modes of short-distance transportation in Carrollton – and everywhere else – in the late 1890s. That was about the time the town's residents started hearing about the "horseless carriage." The first image of an automobile in the scrapbooks was this one, an 1898 Stanley Steamer. Sarah wrote no date or source of the newspaper clipping.

 Later in the scrapbook, Sarah pasted the next image and reminisced about the first time she saw a car.

I never saw a car till 1901, I believe, but of course we began to hear of them, talk of them and even to sing of them ("My Merry Oldsmobile") before that. But I remember the feather boa era like the one the girl is wearing at right.

The song "In My Merry Oldsmobile" was written and first recorded circa 1905, so Sarah's recollection of singing the song prior to 1901 may be a little off. It's fun to listen to the song recorded in 1906.

In 1910, cars were becoming popular enough that the state decided to tax them. Five people in or near Carrollton registered automobiles with the Commonwealth of Kentucky from June 14, 1910, through June 1911. As listed on the Northern Kentucky Views web site, those car owners were Oscar G. Kipping, E.A. Wood, Ida B. Fentress, someone named Schuerman, (probably Henry Berg Schuerman, husband of Sarah's cousin Ruth Louise Howe) and A.W. Shirley. The site lists what kind of car each person had, the horsepower of each car, and the amount of tax paid.
The same web site offers these and other Carrollton-related transportation tidbits:

• “The stage from Carrollton to Worthville, in connection with the Short-line railroad, now runs only when there are passengers.” Courier-Journal, April 17, 1871
• As reported in the New York Times, the first phone call ever made from a train occurred along the Carrollton and Worthville Railroad in 1906.
• Timetable for the L&N Railroad, 1879, listing Liberty (Sanders), Eagle, Worthville, and Carrollton.

The site is a treasure trove of information and images about transportation in north and north-central Kentucky during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

It's National Grandparents Day! Meet Sarah's Maternal Grandparents, Richard H. and Sarah Evaline Arnet Cost

 On this Grandparents Day, we get better acquainted with Sarah Eva Howe's maternal grandparents, Richard Henry Cost and Sarah Evaline Arnet. 

Once again, I discover that Sarah Eva Howe's scrapbooks contain more information about the men in her family tree than about the women. As you read this post, please hold me blameless for saying more about her grandfather than about her grandmother.

Richard Henry Cost was born 25 October 1831
in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, to Henry
Cost (1808-1876) and Mary Arison (1811-1889)¹.
On 23 April 1857 in Cincinnati, he married Sarah Evaline Arnet². He died 11 July 1910 in Cincinnati and was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery there.


Sarah Evaline Arnet was born 9 July 1836 in Ohio to David Arnet (1806-1897) and Elizabeth Voris/Vorheis (abt 1810-1892).³ She died 19 June 1917 in the Price Hill area of greater Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, and was buried next to her husband in Spring Grove Cemetery.⁴

The photo below from the Howe-Salyers family album is dated 1911 and labeled with Sarah's name and a notation "age 75."  I think this looks like a much younger woman, and the clothing style looks earlier than 1911. Either the photo is in the wrong place or is mislabeled. 

In 1850, Richard H. Cost was living with his parents in Newport, Campbell County, Kentucky. Richard married Sarah in 1857, and by 1860 the couple was living in Cincinnati. From the  U.S. census, we know this family continued to live in Cincinnati (at least they were there in the census years!) until Henry died in 1910. One of their homes was at 516 W. Court Street, Cincinnati.

I developed the following list of children for Henry and Sarah. While the obituary below says the couple had 10 children, I have been able to name only nine. I have documentation only for Alice Ada, who became the mother of Sarah Eva Howe, our scrapbooker. I welcome corrections and source information on the other children.

Children of Richard H. and Sarah E. Arnet Cost:
Asa Wilbur, Cost 1858-1875
Alice Ada Cost 1859-1939
Jessie Fremont Cost 1861-1920
Lillie Maria Cost c1867-c1873
Mary Naomi Cost 1869-?
Clara Evelyn Cost 1871-1873
Ida Lenora/Leonora Cost c1874-1921
Richard Henry Cost Jr. 1876-1949
Morris Elliott Cost 1879-1961

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Spring Grove Cemetery, where both Richard and Sarah are buried, is a National Historic Landmark. By some accounts, it is the second-largest cemetery in the U.S. The first internment there occurred on 1 September 1845. I found these Spring Grove burial records online.

 While I have yet to locate an obituary for Sarah Evaline Arnet Cost, her granddaughter's scrapbook had this typed memorial to grandfather Richard Henry Cost:

   As a young man he was engaged in the Steam Boat trade between Cincinnati and New Orleans.
In 1870 he embarked in the Commission business on lower Vine Street, and from that time until a few years ago, when advancing years forced his retirement from active business, occupied a prominent place in the business circles of Cincinnati. He was honored by his business associates by being elected a Director of the Chamber of Commerce, and served creditably in that capacity, as well as on many important Committees.
   His last business connection was Manager of the Chamber of Commerce Insurance Company, in which capacity he came closely in touch with many of its members. Among all he was held in the highest esteem. He always had a warm spot in his heart for the younger men, and nothing delighted him so much as to be able to assist and encourage them. His genial ways and his readiness to speak a word of praise or encouragement and his genuine interest in their success earned for him among these men the title of “Uncle Dick,” indicating so plainly the pleasant relations and loving esteem in which he was generally held.
    In April 1857, he was united in marriage to Sarah Arnet. Ten children were born of this union, of whom six survive.
   To his family he was always kind and indulgent, and his chiefest concern was for their welfare.
   Having been so active in the days of his strength, it was hard for him to give up to the demands of advancing years. His heart was saddened as day after day record was made of the death of some beloved friend. His thoughts of these times reverted to days of old and in speaking of these friends he never wanted for words to tell of their merits.
He lived a long and useful life, and the recollection of his virtues overshadow any memory of his faults. He fought the good fight and has gone to his reward.


SOURCES
¹ Burial Record, Spring Grove Cemetery, accessed 23 Aug 2016 at http://www.springgrove.org/stats/79526.tif.pdf. Also Ancestry.com, Ohio, Deaths, 1809-1932, 1938-2007, accessed 23 Aug 2016 at http://interactive.ancestry.com/5763/ohvr_d_1908_1-1633/6137550?backurl=http://person.ancestry.com/tree/18397857/person/1617330267/facts/citation/4891874272/edit/record.

² "Ohio Marriages, 1800-1958," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XD86-K8M : 8 December 2014), R. H. Cost and Sarah E. Arnot, 23 Apr 1857; citing Hamilton, Oh, reference 2:3QMH9VK; FHL microfilm 344,471.

³ Burial Record, Spring Grove Cemetery, accessed 23 August 2016 at www.springgrove.org/stats/88974.tif.pdf. 

⁴ "Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-21323-16298-13?cc=1307272 : 21 May 2014), 1917 > 37121-40150 > image 3065 of 3302.

Celebrating a Cost Family Wedding in Cincinnati, 1897

Today, Sarah recalls a trip to Cincinnati for the wedding of "Aunt Lee,"  Ida Leonora Cost, sister of Sarah's mother Alice Ada Cost Howe. Sarah was two months shy of her 14th birthday when she went to the wedding.

Sarah begins with memories about the wedding site, the church where for years her mother and aunts played piano for Sunday School and church services.

The Cost home from Aunt Em's¹ then Mama's time, thru Aunt Jessie's² young days, then especially Aunt Momie³ was always filled with music and gay singing and talking and overflowing with young people. Also going to St. Paul’s Church Young Peoples and Sunday School, where Aunt Momie played for several years (Aunt Jessie had played six years after Mama left.) There they of course met many nice young men, and in 1897, on October 11th, Mama’s wedding day⁴, Aunt Lee married Earl Burdette Russell, a young railroad man whom she had met there at St. Paul’s. She was 24, and Mame about 29 or 30 at that time.

We went up to the wedding. It was the most fun and excitement of my young life “so far.” Leonora⁵ was not quite 10 months old, but already trying to say a few words and as Aunt Lee’s namesake (as well as Mama’s) she was of course an honor guest at the wedding, but I was the one who thrilled to the romance of it all. I was very much taken with Earl who was gay, handsome and friendly. He and Lee took me over to see their little two room apartment on Barr Street where Aunt Katie and Uncle John Smith had gone to housekeeping in ’88 but had moved to Carrollton when Grandpa Howe died. One thing that slightly shocked me with my “Southern” elaborate ideas was the casualness of Aunt Lee’s preparations for such a great event. Up to the afternoon of the wedding she had still not quite decided which of the new dresses she had gotten she would wear to be married in!! I believe she finally chose a blue cloth dress, and wore it also to go away in. Grandma Cost had gotten both Aunt Lee and Aunt Mame the latest thing in capes, black curly lamb quite long. She wanted to buy Mama one, but Mama had a good coat (and said to give her the money. With this and some various gifts of money which had been presented to me at various birthday occasions, she and Papa bought my beloved bicycle, the friend and comrade ... of the next three years for me. It was in the spring of '98, I think, that they bought it.)

A clipping in Sarah's scrapbooks refers to a hat similar to the one she wore to the wedding. I think the photo below is the one she mentions in her description.

. . . Lee and Earl went to Chicago on their wedding trip and Aunt Mame and Harry⁶ and I went to the station with them. We enjoyed so much staying in the spacious Grandpa Arnet home. It seemed so much changed tho to me, for as I remembered it the parlor was dark and still, and everyone was so quiet – but when the Cost family moved into a house, things began to hum. Harry was now 21, and working in a railroad office (but not the one he worked in most of his life). Morris⁷ was 19, and crazy about horses, he always had a job driving for some firm – Adams Express Company for awhile but that was later, and he had some thrilling adventures with them.

 Grandpa had always humored Morris, just as Grandma did Harry. Because of Harry’s long illness in 1890, and his trouble with a catarrhal⁸ infection as he got older, Grandma felt he was “delicate” so she never encouraged him to do any “hard” work, if indeed he was even inclined to do it. He wrote beautifully, was very intelligent, could play the piano by ear from an early age, and wore his clothes well. Grandpa on the other hand, indulged Morris by letting him leave school and get a job (as young boys could then) long before he should have done so. So when Grandma came into her legacy⁹, both the boys “relaxed” and thought they could take a vacation for awhile, look around for better jobs, and perhaps eventually buy a place in the country to farm, as both of them had always wanted to do (and as they did later on). In the meantime they were most charming and indulgent companions for their 14-year-old niece.



I chuckled aloud when I read Sarah's observations about her uncles Harry and Morris and their inclinations against hard work. Harry was only seven years older than Sarah, and Harry was three years younger than Harry. To Sarah, the boys were more like cousins than uncles.

This photo of Harry and Morris was not in the scrapbook but in a Cost family album. Of course, the boys were older at the time of the wedding, but I couldn't resist including this image here. Look at those faces! It's easy to imagine the Cost parents "humoring" these two sons.

Did you catch Sarah's comment about her joy in receiving her first bicycle? Stay tuned! That bicycle will play a major role in a future relationship.
















ENDNOTES
¹ Emma Cost, a paternal aunt to Sarah's mother Alice Ada Cost Howe. Emma was born about 1852, just seven years before Alice, so the girls probably grew up more like cousins than aunt-niece.
² Jessie Fremont Cost, born 1861; sister of Sarah's mother Alice Ada Cost Howe.
³ Mary Naomi Cost, born 1869; Sarah's mother's sister
⁴ This wedding was on Sarah's parent's 15th wedding anniversary. Alice Ada Cost and Robert James Howe married 11 October 1882.
⁵ Sarah's little sister Leonora Alice Howe, born 20 December 1896
⁶ Richard Henry Cost, Jr., born 1876; Sarah's mother's brother
⁷ Morris Elliott Cost, born 1879; Sarah's mother's brother
⁸ Related to copious discharge associated with inflammation of mucous membranes, especially of the nose and throat. Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/catarrhal
⁹ The inheritance received when Sarah's great-grandfather David Arnet died in January 1897

Merry Christmas, Sad New Year

Today we pick up shortly after the birth of Sarah Eva Howe's little sister, Leonora. This Christmas, with a newborn in the house and Mama still "in her confinement" and unable to do her usual decorating, baking, and entertaining, is not as festive as usual. Papa takes the role of "Santa" as best he can and makes Christmas 1896 one of the most memorable for his daughter Sarah. The New Year brings a loss and stirs suspicion about some shady financial dealings within the family.

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Christmas 1896 came while Mama was still in bed, and therefore was not as gay as usual — no tree — but Papa filled my stocking, and as he couldn’t find the clean ones after I went to bed, and he didn’t want to wake Mama, he took one of the long black fleece-lined stockings I had taken off when I went to bed, and being a fastidious person, he wrapped up every piece of candy or fruit, even the nuts, he put in it! We had a good laugh together over it in the morning, and it is safe to say, that is one stocking I have never forgotten! (I didn’t hang one up, as I hadn’t expected “Santa Claus” to fill it, with Mama in bed.)

This was the Christmas Papa gave me the Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico and Conquest of Peru; on a previous Christmas, 1894 I think, Grandma Cost [Sarah Evaline Arnet, wife of Richard Henry Cost] had sent me John North in Mexico by “Fred A. Ober,” who turned out to be a learned professor at Yale or thereabouts, I learned afterwards, so the information was authentic. I hadn’t read it for awhile, but when I finally got around to it, I became such an enthusiast on the archaeology and folklore of Mexico as set forth in the book – and then, on my birthday, 1896, she sent me The Fair God by Lew Wallace. No, I am wrong – this was in 1897 and it was Christmas 1897 Papa gave me the Conquests. I have just remembered after writing the above, and will tell later what reminded me. Papa always loved to bring things from New York to put away for Christmas, especially books, and I get a little confused remembering just which year he brought which books.

David Arnet, c1806 - 1897

Early in 1897 Grandfather Arnet¹ died at his home on Baymiller Street, Cincinnati, nearly 92 years old. Grandma Arnet² had died in ’92 or ’93 (and after that Grandfather was very lonely and easily deceived by his grandson Ezra Cross, Mama’s cousin (Aunt Momi's³ son) who lived with him, managed his business (with considerable profit to himself – no one ever knew just how much money he got away with). Grandma Cost’s⁴ family asked to have a guardian appointed in 1895, and the court put in Mr. Hunt, whose reputation was a trifle shady, and whom they suspected (tho couldn’t prove) was “in cahoots with Ez,” as I used to hear some of the family say.

But no one could do anything about it; and when [Grandfather Arnet] died, he left a house and $10,000 each to his two daughters, the surviving children. That there had been much more money before Ezra & Mr. Hunt’s regime no one doubted – in this way too Ezra’s mother got exactly the same as Grandma, tho she and her family had lived on Grandfather’s bounty rent free, for forty years at least, her husband being a nice man but “shiftless” while Grandpa Cost was proud ...  and a “good provider” – wouldn’t even ask for an equal free rent tho he lived in one of Grandfather's houses. Grandma decided to sell the house on Court Street which was left to her, and the family moved into Grandfather's home on Baymiller St. She and Aunt Momi divided the furniture left from that which was sold at auction, and Grandma got a very large bedroom suit, which was later sold to Blanche, a cousin. They paid rent for the Arnet home, but they had been used to that and for the first time in years the family felt free & “well off."

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ENDNOTES

¹ Sarah's maternal great-grandfather David Arnet
² Sarah's maternal great-grandmother Elizabeth Voris Arnet
³ Mary Naomi "Momi" Arnet, wife of John Cross and daughter of David and Elizabeth
⁴ Sarah's maternal grandmother Sarah Evaline Arnet Cost, wife of Richard Henry Cost

Names and dates in this post came from the scrapbooks and the Howe Family Bible.

Same-Day Delivery Letters: The 1800s Version of Texting

If you read "The Courtship of Sarah's Parents" posted 20 June 2016, maybe you noticed that Robert J. Howe mailed a letter and packages to his fiance on the morning of their wedding day, knowing she would receive them that same afternoon.

Did you wonder how the mail could get to Alice so quickly?

In 1882, same-day deliver of residential mail was common in Cincinnati and other major cities. Robert wrote on the envelope of his letter to Alice that it was to be delivered by 2 p.m. This was the letter about packing their trunks for the honeymoon, and the wedding was to be at 7 p.m. that very day. Time was of the essence!

 

According to the United States Postal Service,¹ letter carriers in major cities in 1880 were expected to make deliveries “as frequently as the public convenience . . . shall require,” Monday through Saturday. By 1905, carriers who worked out of New York City’s main post office made nine daily deliveries! Such service eventually became too expensive to continue. In 1950 the nation's postmaster general ordered postmasters to limit the number of deliveries in residential sections to one per day.

Endnotes
¹ U.S. Postal Service Publication 100: The United States Postal Service – An American History 1775-2006, accessed online 20 June 2016
Other Sources:
Michael Todd, A Short History of the U.S. Mail,  published in Pacific Standard online newsletter 6 February 2013. Accessed at https://psmag.com/economics/a-short-history-of-mail-delivery-52444 on 4 February 2019
Blog of the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, accessed 4 February 2019 at https://postalmuseumblog.si.edu/2016/04/daily-deliveries-down-to-one-1950.html

The Courtship of Sarah's Parents

On March 4, 1870, at the age of 15, Robert James Howe,¹ abandoned his work on a composition about gorillas and started a new essay he titled “Matrimony.” The Howe family often wrote compositions for their own enjoyment and to express thoughts and opinions. They shared their writings with each other and saved them in notebooks, desk drawers, boxes, and scrapbooks. We’ll never know what prompted Robert to write about matrimony, but we can learn about him and his era by reading it: “I once read an anecdote in a paper about matrimony. A boy had been asked by his Sunday school teacher the definition of the word matrimony. He had in his mind the answer to a question about purgatory, so he gave that to her: ‘A place or state of punishment in this life, where souls suffer a short while before they go to heaven.  ...  Many persons differ in their opinions of matrimony, therefore I think the best way to judge it is by experience. So if you want to be initiated into the mysteries of matrimony, marry.”

Robert James Howe, undated photo

By 1880, having reached the age of 25, Robert gained a different perspective on matrimony. That was the year he met 21-year-old Alice Ada Cost.² They met at St. Paul M.E. Church in Cincinnati, where Alice played the piano at Sunday school and other gatherings. A note Robert wrote to Alice on Oct. 7 of that year leaves no question about Robert’s plans:

“Your kind note ... reached me in due time ... but my almost immediate departure prevented the prompt reply your kindness merited. [Robert traveled as a representative of his father’s thriving woolen mill located in Carrollton, Kentucky.] Since my return I have delayed answering because I was waiting an opportunity to call or in some other way further cultivate your acquaintance. Next Sunday ...  I expect to be at home and, if agreeable to you, I want to escort you to church that evening. Awaiting a favorable answer by mail – directly; I have the pleasure to subscribe myself, Respectfully, Robt. J. Howe.”

Alice Ada Cost, circa 1882

The telephone, though patented in 1876, was not commonplace in middle-class homes until the 1940s or later. Robert no doubt put put on his best suit, probably donned a hat, and made his way to 516 West Court Street, Cincinnati, where Alice lived with her parents Richard and Sarah Arnet Cost. Alice, no doubt, took care to wear her favorite dress and style her hair just so. Off they went on their first date, a stroll to the church for the Sunday evening service.

That first date must have been a success. The scrapbooks include many cards and letters from Robert to Alice. We find few, if any, from Alice to Robert. Alice, like many young women, kept her suitor’s letters as treasured mementos. If Robert kept Alice's letters, they did not make their way into their daughter Sarah's scrapbooks.

Over time, Robert’s letters become less formal. Names evolve from “Robert” to “Rob” and from “Alice” to “Allie.” Sentences become shorter and less elaborate in structure and language. Notes refer to mutual friends and favorite activities. Affection is obvious.

On Friday, Aug. 4, 1882, Rob wrote to Allie: “I returned last night in good health. Hope you are well. I expect to see you about eight o’clock this evening. Truly, Rob.” The evening went well, we can assume, because the next day Robert went to Duhme & Company, a highly respected jewelry and silver store at Fourth and Walnut in downtown Cincinnati, and paid $6.25 for an 18-karat wedding band.

By October 1882, the mail carriers of Cincinnati and neighboring towns delivered a wedding invitation: “Mr. and Mrs. R.H. Cost request your presence at the marriage of their daughter, Alice A., to Robert J. Howe, Wednesday evening, October eleventh, at seven o’clock. Cincinnati. 1882.”

On the morning of their wedding day, 11 October 1882,³ Robert sent Alice a last-minute note about packing for their honeymoon trip: “Dear Allie, Brace up! Clouds have a silver lining! Remember, ‘the clouds we so dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings over your head.’ Herewith I send two packages. Please open both yourself. Put in trunk contents of the larger one and ... the other please put in wardrobe or elsewhere until tonight. After the ceremony I will put it on for traveling. Beside these I want to pack in your trunk two other suits. Yours, Rob.” (Robert’s reference about big clouds comes from “Light Shining Out of Darkness,” a hymn text written by William Cowper of England in 1774. The scrapbooks are full of references to literary and religious writings.)

The scrapbooks contain little information on the wedding, but I envision a beautiful event, with the Howe and Cost families and their friends – including some of the area’s social, political, and social leaders – “dressed to the nines,” reveling in delightful music and happy in each other's company.

Where did Robert and Alice go on their honeymoon? They packed trunks full of suits and dresses, so they must have traveled some distance, and they must have stayed a while. I have found nothing yet that specifies their honeymoon destination. When 15-year-old Robert wrote about matrimony, he  mentioned Niagara Falls as a typical honeymoon destination, so maybe they went there. Later in the scrapbook is a Niagara Falls picture postcard and a receipt dated Nov. 11, 1885, for a stay at the Hotel Kaltenbach. A second honeymoon, perhaps? The receipt, addressed to Mr. Howe, confirms payment of $9.38 for Room 24 for “Self and Lady” and Room 25 for a nurse, who accompanied Robert and Alice to care for 2-year-old Sarah Eva Howe.

Endnotes
¹ Robert James Howe was born 18 January 1855 in Flemingsburg, Fleming County, Kentucky to Irish immigrant parents John Howe and Sarah Brown Howe. Source for date and location: Passport Application; National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Roll #: 211; Volume #: Roll 211 - 01 Nov 1875-31 Jan 1876; accessed on Facebook 4 February 2016. He died 29 April 1910. Source: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31550875. I continue to search for an official death record.
² Alice Ada Cost was born 24 Dec 1859 to Richard Henry Cost and Sarah Evaline/Eva Arnet , probably in Cincinnati, Ohio, and died 15 April 1939 in Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky. Source: Kentucky. Kentucky Birth, Marriage and Death Records – Microfilm (1852-1910). Microfilm rolls #994027-994058. Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky. (Death Certificate #9569).
³ Ancestry.com. Ohio, County Marriage Records, 1774-1993 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.-Accessed 4 Feb 2016. The image indicates the record is in Hamilton County, Ohio Marriage Book 88, Page 361.