Bookish Disposition

The 1920 American Legion Follies

The "biggest and best home talent that you have yet seen" gathered on May 20, 1920 in the Royal Hall in Skidmore, Missouri to put on the American Legion Follies.  My family was there, of course, but the Grays, Ashbrooks, and Stricklers were only part of the cast of 100 or so who provided the fourteen acts of quality entertainment, not to mention the "clowns and hayseeds to furnish amusement between acts and keep everything on the same standard of pep." The show promised "snappy songs, catchy music, jokes, lively dances and beautiful costumes." They raised $250 for the American Legion, and I daresay a good time was had by all.

Photographer G.C. Ashbrook captured much of the splendor, and the Skidmore News reported all the details. Relive the 1920 American Legion Follies on ThisMoment.

Recipes as Records

I have been working on a very different records project for the past several weeks.  This one is personal, and it's anything but low-fat.  When my mother passed away this spring, she left behind a collection of several hundred recipes.  While most were clipped from the paper or saved from a magazine, some were family originals and favorites made for birthdays, bake sales, and community suppers spanning over 100 years.  To honor my mother and share that history with the family, I compiled a cookbook with scans of the handwritten gems and photos of the people who created them.  As I was putting the book together, I realized how closely basic records management concepts apply, even in the kitchen: 

Creation and Capture

Some recipes were carefully and neatly recorded.  Some were incorporated into letters.  Others were scribbled in pencil on the back of any handy scrap of paper.  As with other records, if the recipe isn't written down, it's lost.  The cookbook I compiled was full of cookies, pies, jams, pickles, and other county fair staples.  Missing were recipes for many of the classic, most-loved main dishes.  Those existed only in the memories and hands of the women who made them, and without the records, they are lost.  It's easy to see how that happened.  After all, how do you quantify a pinch of this added to a bit of that, stirred until the mixture feels about right and cooked until it looks done?  As with any other records project, capturing the information takes effort, but it could be the most enjoyable knowledge preservation program you've ever undertaken.

Maintenance and Use

My mother's recipe collection was arranged in a way that made sense to her.  There was a basic organizational scheme - food type, followed by title, mostly - but she had several different treasure troves of recipes, and the system required you to search in each of the different collections.  There was no file plan or inventory and no single central file, and while I wouldn't have expected one, it does make me doubt that I found them all.  The system seemed to work for her most of the time, but like so many other filing systems, you had to be the owner to understand it, and I'm sure even she didn't truly know exactly what she had.  

Access and Metadata

As I scanned each recipe, there were choices to make.  When Marguerite's White Princess Cake has its title amended to make it "Orange Princess Cake," which title wins?  Do I put all the biscuit recipes together or leave them sorted by title with the rest of the breads?  Version control is also an issue, but in this case, the adjustments to the measurements and the side notes ("from radio - good," "If you want a dressing, this is what we used") add more charm than challenge.  The commentary itself adds to the record.  Many are marked "good" and "very good," and one cake is even "splendid" while another is a "whoppin' big, smacking good cake." Some made me wish for more metadata.  I can guess by the handwriting which cook wrote down which recipe, but it's a guess.  Some are complete mysteries.  Who were the buddies behind "Buddies Delight," and why was it an old favorite?  What sparked the political commentary added to this fruitcake recipe?  Without the context, we miss part of the story.

Context, Content, and Structure

I considered retyping the recipes to make them easier to read, but I quickly rejected that idea.  The text alone loses the sense of the cook.  Was the recipe jotted down, typed, or written carefully in ink?  Is it a brief note of the ingredients and proportions scrawled on the back of an old advertisement or a complete list of all the steps on a decorative recipe card?  The notes added in pencil along the side of the card give us a sense of the cook's process, and the well-worn cards tell us which recipes were used most often.  One recipe was written on the back of a sheet of letterhead from the general store run by the family in the first half of the 1900s.  I often teach that things like blank forms and letterhead are nonrecords, but in this case, the record medium itself is also evidence that reinforces the family stories.  

Technology Change

I have to admit that I don't use 3x5 cards for my own recipes.  I tend to have printouts scribbled with my changes and notes, and if I need a recipe for something, I Google it rather than starting from scratch.  I have family recipes for mayonnaise and pickles, but I'm more likely to drive to the store to buy those things.  With a thousand angel food cake recipes out on the Web, will the next generation care about the four or five variations handed down through the family?  I'm also seeing change within the recipes themselves.  Many of them call for a "moderate" or a "slow" oven - settings my oven's digital temperature readout won't recognize - and one of my favorite recipes calls for two 15-cent bars of chocolate.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

I read an article a few months ago that mourned the loss of so many family recipe collections to disasters like Hurricane Katrina.  Our own collection was almost lost when a family member, intent on cleaning things out, tossed over half the collection without a second thought.  There were no backup copies, and the most precious recipes - handwritten history passed down through five generations - were mixed in with clippings from magazines and the local paper.  To the untrained (or unsentimental or takeout-oriented) eye, they were junk to be discarded.  To me, they were family stories told in 3x5 card form.  Without backups, and without a records schedule or plan, the first responder on the scene had no idea of their value.  I managed to save them at the last minute, but as records managers know, good planning beats pure luck every time.  In this case, duplication and dispersal is my strategy of choice, and printed and electronic copies of the cookbook are on their way to family members across the country.

My next challenge is to find the best way to protect and care for the originals.  I'm sure my day job has influenced the way I look at the photographs, notes, family history research and recipes now in my care, and I hope I can do them justice.  Sometimes our day jobs don't stop when we leave work.    The story of our communities, our companies, our families and our country is told through our records.  We can use what we know to preserve and share that history, even if it's one dish at a time.

Soda Pop Justice

If you think courtroom drama is a product of the television era, think again.  I found this gem in the Skidmore New Era, and while the paper no longer exists, its fine reporting gives us insight into the world of law and order, northwest Missouri style.  The New Era ran for a few years in the early 1900s, and I'm honored to share the same family tree as its editor and publisher.

From the Skidmore (Missouri) New Era, January 19, 1911:

Violating Sunday Closing Ordinance
George H. Patterson Charged With Selling Soda Pop on Sunday, January 8

    George H. Patterson, a confectioner and restaurant proprietor, was arrested a few days ago, charged with selling soda pop, Sunday January 8, 1911 in violation of the city ordinance, and he was summoned to appear before Squire George D. Fullerton, Tuesday, January 17 to give answer to said charge.

    No little trial in Skidmore in years has caused the comment and excitement which this one brought out.  The city marshal who, by the way has a game leg, caused by the injury received last fall, hobbled all over town no less than three times before he could find a jury to try the case.  Every business man, loafer and retired farmer was actually so very busy that it was utterly impossible for him to get away from his business long enough to set on the jury without great financial loss to himself and business, but hardly had the jury been qualified until the court room was packed like sardines in a box, and it would have been extremely difficult for one to have purchased a ham sandwich or a spool of thread for lack of clerks to wait on him.

    The charge was for violation of ordinance No. 22 A., Section 1 and 2, which are as follows:

    Sec. 1.  Every person who shall expose for sale of any goods wares or merchandise, or shall keep open any ale or porter house, grocery or tippling shop, or shall sell or retail any fermented or distilled liquor on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday shall on conviction be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not less than one dollar nor more than fifty dollars.

    Sec. 2.  The last section shall not be construed to prevent the sale of any drugs or medicines, provisions or other articles of immediate necessity.

    The lawyers in the case were George Rob Ellison attorney for the city and Cory Cook council for the defendant.

    The first witness introduced was Arch Hitchcock, city marshal, who testified that he saw George Patterson sell Sunday, January 8, three bottles of soda pop or what he thought to be soda pop to three young men.

    The young men who purchased the drinks were put on the stand.  The first, Emmett Littler, said that on Sunday morning he purchased one bottle of raspberry cider of Mr. Patterson; the second witness testified that he purchased from Mr. Patterson Sunday evening one bottle of ginger ale; the third, Jesse Roth, swore that he on Sunday afternoon bought of Mr. Patterson one bottle of lemon soda pop.  As the indictment was drawn only for soda pop, the first two articles were dropped.

    Skidmore is a dry town with nothing to drink stronger than well water, and the young man who purchased the lemon soda pop seemed to have a long and deep thirst, and testified that this particular well water of the "west side" did not agree with his stomach, and he drank lemon soda pop as a thirst quencher.

    The city contended that soda pop did not come under the purview of "any drug, medicine or provision" and that it could not be considered an acceptance, under "articles of immediate necessity," and therefore was in violation of the aforesaid ordinance.

    George H. Patterson admitted he sold the articles, but that lemon soda pop was an innocent and uninjurious drink, beneficial to the system and a quencher of thirst.

    Mr. Carver, the traveling salesman for the Clarinda Bottling Works, who manufacture the soda pop in question, stated that bottled soda water, or pop, is made from pure well water, charged with pure carbonic acid gas with granulated sugar and the pure lemon juice as a flavoring.

    Expert testimony was introduced to prove the good or bad effects of lemon juice, lemon extracts and acids on the human system.  The "hypothetical" questions propounded were not quite as long and complicated as some of those in the famous Thaw trial, but they were almost as misunderstandable to a common juror.  To get down to plain United States, Dr. Lee did not think much of lemons, particularly lemon extracts and acids, as a throat remedy or a thirst quencher, while Dr. Pierpoint admitted a great many people used the lemon fruit as a slacker of thirst and to relieve hoarseness of the throat.

    The attorneys made long and eloquent addresses:  Mr. Ellison for the plaintiff, read court reports and discussions from Massachusetts, New York, Missouri and Kansas, and by the time he had finished the last chapter, his jury did not know whether the first records were discussions in a road case or a homicide.  Mr. Cook scoffed at the idea of a Kansas judge pretending to say what a Missourian should not drink.

    The lawyers finally closed and the room ordered vacated by the spectators, and the jury left in a cold room with but little fire to deliberate on "the law and the evidence."

    After the jury all delivered an address, which would have made Cory Cook's speech and Rob Ellison's court discussions look like thirty cents against John D. Rockefeller's billion dollar fortune in comparison, they decided that George H. Patterson hadn't murdered anyone, robbed a bank or run off with some other man's wife, and brought in the following verdict:
    "We, the jury, find the defendent not guilty."
    [Signed] D. W. McCool, Foreman

Grandma would have loved Twitter

Twitter isn't really new at all.  My great-grandmother kept a journal where she recorded the weather, her projects, and the events of her day.  This entry from January 1933 would have been perfect for her Twitter feed:

Just got over having bridge party.  Everyone seemed to have good time.  Served apples & candy.  Lovely day.  Making sheet & pillow cases for Dorothy.

Some will argue that sharing such mundane details isn't serious or dignified enough.  Some might even chide my grandmother for reporting on silly things like party refreshments.  Bridge parties may be frivolous, but the local newspaper in her small town delighted in reporting on them in detail.  Maybe that community desire to share and to know what other people are doing isn't so newfangled, after all.  To a great-granddaughter who didn't have the opportunity to know her, this is priceless.  I have glimpses of her because she shared them and because someone took the time to save them.   

Ain't nobody here but us (and the) chickens

     Before my mother became ill, she did an amazing amount of family history research.  She also scanned hundreds of family photos.  Here's your records-related irony for the day:  Mom used a program called Microsoft Picture-It to scan the pictures, and she saved them all in its proprietary .mix format.  If you're already guessing that MS discontinued that software and support for that format, you'd be guessing correctly. 

     The quest is now in my hands.  I'm opening each photo and converting it to what I hope will be two different longer-lasting formats, and I'm trying to come up with a family e-records migration and preservation strategy.  It's not so much about my records geekiness as it is about family history survival.  These photos aren't fading away.  Not on my watch. 

     If you have any suggestions for software that does batch conversions of .mix files, I'd love to hear from you.  If you have ideas on sustainable formats for scans of family photos, I'd love to hear that, too.