"Piggy Pork: His Odyssey" by Thomas Yost Cooper

I picked this up recently at Morningstar Marketplace in Thomasville, Pa., and the neat thing about researching its history was discovering that this book of poems -- much like Papergreat -- represented a side hobby of a York County newspaper journalist.

The 36-page staplebound book is titled "Piggy Pork: His Odyssey." It was written by T.Y. Cooper, illustrated by John M. Sheffer and published in 1963 by Anthony Printing Company (Clayton P. Bair, Proprietor) of Hanover, Pa.

It consists entirely of 16-line poems describing a pig's travels and adventures around the globe. Here is one:

VISITS HIS CASTLES IN SPAIN

When glut with frog legs, truffles, mush-
rooms, prawn, and caviar,
Pig crossed the Pyrenees led on by
his olfactory star.

Can't be denied on Spanish far Pig
certainly waxed stronger,--
I mean his breath which grew so strong
he had need walk no longer.

Into a bullring as toreador Don
Porkerino got;
He blew his breath, the raging bull
fell dead upon the spot.

You marvel how Pig did it, but 'tis
simple as 'tis true:
Put garlic in the sausage meat, a
child can do it too.

The last poem in the book is titled "America First and Last" and the final stanza is:

Now, National Vegetarianism is
Piggy's latest hobby:
He's working for it at Washington
in a Congressional lobby.

"Piggy Pork: His Odyssey" author Thomas Yost Cooper was born April 22, 1884, and died on July 24, 1967, four years after this book's publication.¹ He graduated from Harvard University in either 1905 or 1906 with a degree in agricultural science and then moved to Hanover.

At some point, Cooper veered into journalism. He became city editor of The Evening Sun in Hanover and worked there until his retirement in 1949. During the 1960s, Cooper gifted many items -- including rare books and a collection of theater programs from the 1890s -- to the Gettysburg College library as a memorial to his parents. (The bequest's bookplate is pictured at right.)²

"Piggy Pork" wasn't Cooper's only published work. Decades earlier, in 1929, he had a 213-page book titled "Wren's nest: A fairy tale in verse, and other poems" published by Picket Press. A few used copies are still available on Amazon.

Regarding the printer and illustrator of "Piggy Pork: His Odyssey":

• Anthony Printing Company (no longer in business) dates back to at least 1915. Its other publications over the years included:
  
  • "Official program of the centennial of incorporation of the borough of Hanover, Pennsylvania; together with historical sketches, September 12 to 18, 1915" issued by the Hanover Centennial Committee in 1915
  • "Hanover Cook Book" by the Hanover Library Association in 1922
  • and "History of Gettysburg Classis of the Synod of the Potomac Reformed Church in the United States" by Edwin M. Sando in 1941.
  Proprietor Clayton P. Bair lived from 1887 to 1969 and is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Hanover.³
• Illustrator John M. Sheffer was a 1932 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He died on June 28, 1996, according to Penn's alumni newsletter. I couldn't find any additional information on Sheffer.

Footnotes
1. Primary source for this section: Thomas Y. Cooper Endowment page on the Gettysburg College website. The page notes: "There is a large file on the Cooper gift in Special Collections which includes correspondence, news clippings and information on Cooper's birth (April 22, 1884) and death (July 24, 1967)."
2. It appears, fittingly, that he also donated a copy of Homer's "Odyssey" to Harvard's library at some point. Check out this bookplate.
3. Source: Find A Grave page created by Jana-Lee Bair. Here is some more on Clayton P. Bair.

"The Girls of Central High on Track and Field"

Here's an illustration and, below, an excerpt from "The Girls of Central High on Track and Field (or The Champions of the School League)", a 1914 novel by Gertrude W. Morrison.¹

I'll be totally honest here and say that the primary reason I wanted to blog about this book is because it has a character named Otto.² The following excerpt is the opening passage of Chapter X (Eve's Adventure), and it features Eve, Otto and a good bit of local color:

Eve Sitz had plenty to do out of school hours when she was at home. Nobody could afford to be idle at the Sitz farm. But she found time, too, to put on an old skirt, gym. shoes, and a sweater, and go down behind the barn to practice her broad jump and to throw a baseball at the high board fence behind the sheepfold.

She grew expert indeed in ball throwing, and occasionally when Otto, her brother, caught her at this exercise, her marvelled that his sister could throw the horsehide farther and straighter than he.

"Dot beats it all, mein cracious!" gasped Otto, who was older than Eve by several years, had never been to school in this new country, and was one who would never be able to speak English without a strong accent. "How a girl can t'row a pall like dot. I neffer!"

"You wait till June, Otto," replied his sister, in German. "If you come to the big field day of the Centerport High Schools, you will see that girls can do quite well in athletics. You know how we can row, and you saw us play basketball. Wait till you see the Central High girls on track and field!"

"A lot of foolishness," croaked Otto. "You go to the school to learn to be smart, no?"

"No," replied Eve, laughing at him. "I am smart in the first place, or I would not go. And don't I help mother just as much -- and milk -- and feed the pigs and chickens -- and all that? Wait till you see me put the shot. I am going to win a whole point for the school if I am champion shot-putter."

"Ach! It is beyond me," declared Otto, walking off to attend to his work.

The family -- plain Swiss folk as they were -- thought Eve quite mad over these "foolish athletics." They had no such things in the schools at home -- in the old country. Yet Father and Mother Sitz were secretly proud of their big and handsome daughter. She was growing up "American."

If you're interested in reading more, the full book is available from Project Gutenberg.

Footnotes
1. Morrison -- almost certainly a pseudonym -- is also the author "The Girls of Central High" and "The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna". This seven-book series was part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate empire that I previous blogged about in "The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch".
2. Other Ottos in fiction include: the bus driver on "The Simpsons"; Sgt. Orville Snorkel's dog in "Beetle Bailey"; Evil Otto in the arcade game Berzerk; Kevin Kline's character from "A Fish Called Wanda" (who believed that Aristotle was Belgian, that the principle of Buddhism was "every man for himself", and that the London Underground was a political movement); and Otto from "Airplane!" (who I am proud to say has his own Facebook page).

Saturday's postcard: Canterbury Cathedral by Elmer Keene

Click on postcard for larger image.

This undated, unused postcard features a painting of Canterbury Cathedral¹ in South East England.

The postcard is part of the "Chic" Series by Charles Worcester & Co. of Bristol, England.

According to to the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City website, Charles Worcester & Co. was established in 1904 and was "a publisher of postcards issued under the Chic Series name. This included views presented as line drawings, in sepia monotone, and most dramatically as hand colored real photo cards of pale moonlit scenes by the artist Elmer Keene."

This Canterbury Cathedral postcard was one of Keene's works.² (You can see his name scrawled in tiny letters in the lower-left corner.)

Keene lived from 1853 to 1929. Here is an excerpt from his in-depth biography on Leicester Chronicler:

Keene painted a variety of landscapes including many marine subjects although he lived in the English county furthest from the sea. He was able to earn a living by painting for his many local patrons, so rarely exhibited, but in 1895 he did exhibit one painting at the Royal Academy, a view of Burneston Bay³ in Yorkshire. He painted moonlit views of a wide variety of landscape subjects including the English lakes, including Buttermere, Coniston and Windermere, and distinctive buildings such as Holyrood Palace, Melrose Abbey and Warwick Castle, as well as more distant locations in other countries.

There's much more great information about Keene and numerous examples of his work in the Leicester Chronicler article.⁴

Footnotes
1. Here's an interesting article -- complete with a ghostly legend -- about the cathedral's "Dark Entry", which features another image of the exterior, from nearly the same vantage point as the above postcard.
2. Here's a link that shows some of Keene's other postcard works.
3. I believe it's actually "Burniston" Bay.
4. If you're looking for even more on Keene, he's discussed on this genealogy message-board thread.

Story Gnome: The Keeper of Magic Books

"Mother Goose Secrets", a 1925 book by Barbara Webb Bourjaily, employs the cute notion that the "Story Gnome" has told all of the children's tales to the author, who in turn is relaying those stories to the readers.¹

The above illustration is from the page that comes before the table of contents. In addition to what's shown above, it also contains the following passage:

When Fairyland became invisible and part of all the vanished past
The Queen called to her, Story Gnome--
"Now are we gone into the Magic Books at last,
With Evileye and Willowitch and all the fairy train
Nor will the Earth with Earthland eyes behold our forms again.
But within these Magic Books we live throughout all Time
To frolic forth whenever called by any Proper Rhyme.
And you will guard these secrets close until that happy day
A loving wish will summon us to children, tired with play."

The tales in the book include extended versions of Little Boy Blue, The Cat and the Fiddle, Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, and many others. Most stories are prefaced by the author's interaction with or commentary on the Story Gnome. For example, here's the first paragraph of "Baa, Baa, Blacksheep":

There was once a fairy family that had a wonderful sheep. Where other sheep were white he was black. "Not a hard black like ebony," said Story Gnome, who was telling me this story one evening quite late, "but a soft black, like night, or like the clouds that come before a heavy rain."

The illustration of the Story Gnome appears at the conclusion of every story.

On the last page of the book, there is a note that reads:

Here is [Barbara W. Bourjaily's] own secret: "Of course all you children remember that the Story Gnome said on page one that no matter how many secrets he told, there would always be more secrets left for him to tell. We all know how nice it is to have a secret and so I am going to get that Story Gnome to tell me another book of Mother Goose Secrets in a little while."

Alas, it does not appear that she ever published a second book of Mother Goose tales. She did, however, co-author "The Mother's Cook Book: How to Prepare Food for Children" with Dorothy May Gorman in 1926. And, according to this article from The New York Times, she wrote "feature articles and romance novels".²

One of her sons, Vance Bourjaily (who is noted on the "Mother Goose Secrets" dedication page³), became a noted writer, novelist, playwright, journalist, and essayist. His novels included "The End of My Life" and "Brill among the Ruins".

Footnotes
1. Time magazine wrote this about "Mother Goose Secrets" in its December 14, 1925, issue: "MOTHER GOOSE SECRETS—Barbara W. Bourjaily — Small, Maynard ($1.50). Satisfying explanations for those whose curiosity is baffled by such secrets as, Why did Little Boy Blue go to sleep?"
2. Some of those 1930s romances were "Misty Mountain" and "Love's Choice: A Romance of Misty Mountain".
3. The "Mother Goose Secrets" dedication states: TO "THE THREE" JUNIOR VANCE PAUL

Great ephemera posts on Only in York County

Folks, if you're looking for some fun and fabulous writing about York County ephemera today, THE place to go is my wife's blog, Only in York County. She has knocked it out of the park this week (as always) with a pair of posts that touch on local ephemera, history and travel.

In "Pennsylvania has everything! A look at what was great about York County from a 1937 book" Joan takes an in-depth look at the York County material from a 74-year-old Pennsylvania tourism guide. She touches on bridges, a towering white oak tree in Delta, monuments, dams, lakes and historic buildings.

And in "Do you remember Pappy's?" she examines a mid-1970s menu for a now-vanished York County restaurant. Her readers join the discussion, too, adding their memories of Pappy's, where you could get a Charbroiled Burger basket for $1.15, a Jumbo Kosher Hot Dog basket for 95 cents, and Pappy's Special -- "A Robust Portion of Tender Juicy Choice Ground Beef, Served on Bun, with French Fries, Salad, Slice of Kosher Pickle" -- for $1.95.

But don't take my word for it. Go check out Joan's blog!

And then check back here later today for the Story Gnome.

A little bit of this and that

1. No, you're not going crazy. There was a post here yesterday about a train wreck. But the train wreck post was, ahem, a bit of a train wreck. So it has been removed. The Internet is full of incorrect information. No need to gunk it up any further with more inaccuracies. The train photo might return some day, after some additional research. I should have filed it under Mysteries to begin with!

2. In the meantime, if you want a Great Read, I suggest you check out Jim Lewin's poignant post on Book Flaps yesterday about a World War II veteran here in York County.

3. Here's a piece of ephemera for today:

It's a 1966 or 1967 coupon for 5¢ off Ivory Liquid¹. My favorite part is that the coupon is part of Procter & Gamble's "Safari Sweepstakes". According to the back of the coupon, you could check the winning numbers at your local grocery store. The sweepstakes is described as:

"Pack excitement into your life! Win a luxury trip for two to Africa and Europe -- all expenses paid -- with $10,000 mad money besides! Swimming in Capetown ...photographing exotic animals in Kenya national game parks...sight-seeing in London...shopping in Paris...olé-oléing in Madrid! The best of everything for 2 whole weeks -- if you're the Grand Prize winner!"

I wonder if there's any way to find out who won this 44 years ago? The contest was "Void in Wisconsin", so that's one state we can rule out.

4. Finally, here's today's "love at first sight" image:

This is the kind of find that makes it all worth it, when rummaging through box after box of books. To you, it might look like a falling-apart book that should have been thrown about 60 years ago. To me, it's a treasure chest.

The book is titled "A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband"², and it was written by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles Le Cron and published in 1917. Copies of this book in good condition³ sell for about $25. But I probably wouldn't sell this even if it was in decent condition. It has too much charm and personality. It's absolutely stuffed with newspaper clippings, scrawled recipes, pamphlets and other goodies. This book was loved and kept in someone's kitchen for a long time. There's a history there that deserves to be told, and this blog will be the place for it some day.

Footnotes
1. According to The History of Dish Soap: "In 1957, Ivory liquid dish soap was introduced, using the motto 'Tough on grease, easy on hands.' Decades later, a concentrated form of the product was introduced. 'Ultra' Ivory dishwashing soap hit store shelves in 1995, and consumers only need to use one-third the amount of 'Ultra' Ivory as compared to the old formula."
2. Hold your jokes, people with dirty minds.
3. Which is to say, copies that actually have an intact spine.

Advertisements from 1920 issue of Hoard's Dairyman

Pictured below are some advertisements from the January 9, 1920, issue¹ of Hoard's Dairyman, a magazine about the dairy industry that was started in 1885 and is still around today.²

Products and companies mentioned in the advertisements include:

• F.W. Brode & Co. of Memphis, Tennessee
• C.A. Libbey Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin
• C.H. Dana Co. of West Lebanon, New Hampshire
• Professor Jesse Beery of Pleasant Hill, Ohio, and his book "How to Break and Train Horses"³
• Land agent W.J. Andrews of Chicago

Footnotes
1. Page 1165, if you were wondering.
2. Here's a link to the history page on the Hoard's Dairyman website. And here's the magazine's entry on Wikipedia, which includes some interesting notes about Hoard's pioneering work on the national "cow census" and its annual Cow Judging Contest.
3. I was somewhat surprised to find that Beery, who died in 1945, has a website. Many of his books and pamphlets are available on Amazon.com. Here, for example, is a link to one from 1930.

Happy New Year and have some walnut kisses

Here are the front and back sides of an old "New Year Greetings" card.¹ The front looks like it's signed by someone with the last name "Kilgore." I really love the delicate artistry of the owls and the clock tower.

Written on the back, in cursive, is a recipe for a sweet treat:²

Mrs. Wogan's recipe for Walnut Kisses

1 lb. kernels ground
1 lb. pulverized sugar
whites of 6 eggs

Beat egg whites stiff
add sugar + keep beating until stiff
When real stiff add nuts + flour

Grease pans
Slow oven 300°

That doesn't seem like enough specific information to successfully carry out the recipe, does it?

Here are some links to additional pages about walnut kisses, which seem to have at least some history as a Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish treat:

• from AmishRecipes.net
• a few variations from Cooks.com
• from Best of Mother Earth
• "Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking" on Project Gutenberg

Footnotes
1. This card was found within the same lot of books from Glen Rock that yielded the bookmark and "Alice and Jerry" reader I wrote about last week. There were a bunch of ephemera goodies within this collection, and it's going to yield some great future posts on Papergreat.
2. Want more sweets? Here are recipes for rio cream and apricot ice cream from a previous post.