Reader comments, including an update on the quest for Oona

Earlier this month, I received a request for help finding a book of fairy tales featuring Oona. Simon, who contacted me through my Wikipedia account, is trying to help his grandmother find a book from her youth:

"She could not remember its title, only that it was a book of fairy tales, and that the main character was a fairy called Oona (she was certain of that spelling). She said she read it between the ages of 7 and 9, which would mean c. 1932-35 (although of course the book may have been published before that)."

Reader Cindy Snyder was the first to respond. She prefaced her Oona information with "I found this information, but I'm not sure if it will help because of the publication date." What Snyder found was "The Wee Christmas Cabin of Carn-na-ween" by Ruth Sawyer, which was originally published in 1941.

The Amazon.com book description states:

"A hundred years ago and more, on a stretch of road that runs from the town of Donegal to Killybegs and the sea, a drove of tinkers went their way of mending pots and thieving lambs. Having a child too many for the caravan, they left it, new-born, upon a cabin doorstill in Carn-na-ween.

"So begins the life of Oona Hegarty, who grows up to be beautiful, kind, talented and clever — but doomed , as a tinker's child, never to marry or have a home of her own. She spends her life wandering from cabin to cabin, nurturing others' children or tending the sick and the old, only to be turned out again when her usefulness has passed. Then comes the snowy Christmas Eve when Oona, an old woman now, finds herself homeless, hoisting a bundle of donated treasures almost too heavy to lift. With a famine turning human hearts to stone and not a soul who is willing to take her in, it seems Oona will end her days with no place to rest her head or warm her bones. But what of the Gentle People said to live in the boglands near Carn-na-ween — will they let an old woman's lifelong kindness go unrewarded, especially on a white Christmas?"

Simon, who has since contacted me by email, agrees that this is probably not the book his grandmother remembers. (It's worth noting, though, that Sawyer began publishing books in 1915. Perhaps she had more than one story featuring a character named Oona?)

Meanwhile, Justin Mann of Justin's Brew Review let his Google+ friends know about our search. One of them, Floyd McGaha, suggested searching Google Books with a date filter of 1900 to 1939. You can view those results here.

And my mom, who works at The Helen Kate Furness Free Library in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and loves to help with the mysteries we come across, added the following suggestion: "Check out 'Oona and the Giants,' an old Irish folktale which has been published many times with different titles by several tellers and retellers. I can't find an original author, which is normal for old folktales."

So we haven't solved this one yet for Simon and his grandmother. But I feel like there are still some good leads to pursue. I'm definitely going to delve more deeply into Google Books. Stay tuned!

Moving along to other recent reader comments:

Reader memories of West Pittston, Pennsylvania: Reader Jo Ott provided us with some wonderful tales of growing up in West Pittston. At one point, she wrote: "There are many more stories -- like how our family received eggs and sugar in the mail from a relative in Juniata County during those war years."

That prompted me to ask, "How does one mail eggs?"

Jo, of course, had a fascinating answer. She writes:

"The egg story goes like this: My aunt Lydia owned a restaurant in Mifflin, across the Juniata River from Mifflintown. As a business owner, she was able to have much larger rations of food items than residents with those tiny ration coupons. She would share with some family members & I'm sure some town folk some restaurant supplies that were rationed by the government during those war years. She had a square box made out of some kinds of composite materials that was very sturdy. Inside were three layers of dimpled and thick fiber board. Each dimple held one egg, so the box was able to hold two dozen eggs, with one layer on the bottom, one above filled with eggs and the third on top for protection. Once filled and ready to be shipped, there were two heavy-duty straps to hold the lid, which fit down over the sides, in place. On the outside there also were two square, metal frames in which to place address to and return address cards. Aunt Lyd, as nearly everyone called her, would ship the carton of eggs to us and we would ship the empty carton back to her to begin the process all over again. I don't recall if any or how many eggs were ever broken in the few years we did this. I've no idea whatever happened to that box. With the many floods in that area, I'm sure it floated on down into the Chesapeake Bay and out to sea many years ago!"

J.C. Savage of Belfast, tailor and breeches maker: JT Anthony of A Pretty Book writes:

"My eye caught this phrase and it made my brain stumble: 'Remittances payable to J.C. Savage, and crossed Ulster Bank, Carlisle Circus, Belfast.'

"I know that 'remittances payable' is old-fashioned code for check, but I've never run across the phrase crossed, even in my brief, but tortured stint, as a bank auditor.

"Research indicates that it is a banking practice found in Europe, Asia, and other places but not the U.S.

"To cross a check, you draw two parallel vertical lines across the face of the check with various notations between the lines, each meaning something different. At this point the check cannot be cashed, it must be deposited.

"If a bank name, as requested by J.C. Savage, is included in the lines, it's even more restrictive, indicating that the check must be deposited to that bank in order to get payment.

"Very similar to the U.S. endorsement 'For Deposit Only' except that the safeguards are made by the person writing the check not depositing the check.

"More than any sane person would want to know..."

And exactly the kind of cool history I love to pass along here on Papergreat. Thanks, as always, JT!

The (new) oddest stuff I've found tucked inside a book: Wendyvee of Wendyvee's RoadsideWonders.net comments: "I love a person who would track down info regarding embroidery floss and tags found in a book ... I would totally do the same thing."

Postcard: Wishing Thoma a Merry Christmas in 1913: seldom_seen writes: "If you find out who the publisher of the Post Card is, let me know. I have a card with an identical Post Card header but underneath it is an additional little Trademark of an S inside a larger Q. I have net been able to identify the trademark, yet."

Saturday's postcard: America House Motor Inn: Melanie Pancho, responding on Papergreat's Facebook page (do you "Like" this blog yet?) was able to solve the primary question posed by the post, because she lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She writes: "Yep, it's still there! It's called the Sunset Beach Resort now, though." And she provided this link.

Advertisement for Murine Eye Remedy Co. in "The Rival Heiresses": Also commenting on Facebook, Linda Chenoweth Harlow writes: "I'm going to see if I can get out of doing a lot at work tomorrow because my eyes are 'enfeebled' and the computer screen makes them worse."

Advertisements from a 1982 issue of Creative Computing: Finally, I received this mysterious comment from Anonymous: "wondering about the poster in the upper left." Attached to the comment was a link to this photo:

Now, I'm sure the reason Anonymous sent me this photo is because of the Microsoft poster on the right. I have no idea what product Microsoft is touting with this colorful illustration of what appears to be a samurai.

Of course, the rest of this obviously-early-1980s photo is amusing, too. We have:

• Three young women doing something odd with their hands
• poster for Vail, Colorado
• A T-shirt that states: "Still looking for Prince Charming"
• And an E.T. button

You never know where this blog is going to take you, eh? Today, it was from Oona to E.T.

A trio of cool cover illustrations

Let's start off the week with three wonderful book-cover illustrations that I came across over the weekend.

This above illustration is from the torn dust jacket to the 1922 novel "Georgina Finds Herself" by Shirley Watkins.

You already know that I'm a sucker for illustrations of young ladies reading books. So, naturally, I was drawn to this piece of artwork featuring Georgina sitting in a window alcove and sporting a pair of nifty red slippers!

Pictured above is the front cover of "A Text-Book of Nursing," compiled by Clara S. Weeks and published in 1888 by D. Appleton and Company. I love the gold lettering, which looks practically hand-drawn, and the line illustration of the sick woman in bed.

Finally, here's the cover of 1909's "The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip" by Victor G. Durham. This adventure series was published by Henry Altemus Company¹ of Philadelphia.

Eight books in this series were published between 1909 and 1920. ("Trial Trip" was the second in the series.)

If you check out this excellent web page on henryaltemus.com, you can find out all you ever wanted to know about the Submarine Boys, including the title of the never-published ninth book in the series. One interesting note is that this same cover illustration was used throughout the series.

I also highly recommend this in-depth history of the Altemus Juvenile Series on the same website. The Altemus titles were in competition with the Stratemeyer Syndicate juvenile-fiction books that I wrote about last April.

Footnote
1. Henry Altemus Company was previously mentioned in "American flag history, compliments of Leinbach & Bro. in Reading."

Three old postcards from Cairo

I haven't written much about the Middle East. (As you might imagine, my ephemera bins are not overflowing with old magazines from Lebanon, receipts from Syria or clipped recipes from Iraq.)

But I do have some postcards, courtesy of decades of world travel by my 20th century ancestors.

Here are three old, black-and-white postcards featuring various scenes from Cairo -- Egypt's largest city:

"Cairo - Interior of the Mosque Mohamed Ali"

The generally accepted English spelling of this place is now Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha. (It's also known as the Alabaster Mosque.) It was commissioned by Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha¹ and was constructed between 1830 and 1848. Situated on a summit, it is one of the most visible buildings in Cairo, and can be easily seen as one approaches the city.

This Wikipedia image of the mosque's interior, shot in 2006, was taken from an angle similiar to the one in the postcard and shows that little has changed inside the mosque throughout the decades.

None of today's postcards are dated or were sent through the mail. Other than the cursive script on the front, this one has the following text on the back:

POST CARD
EGYPT
Publ. & Copyright, Lehnert & Landrock, Cairo

Lehnert & Landrock is still around. It's a famous and prestigious bookshop and art gallery in Cairo. Its extensive website contains biographies of Rudolf Lehnert and Ernst Landrock.

"Cairo - General View"

This is another Lehnert & Landrock postcard.

I have no idea what corner of the city this is, or what that location looks like today.

Church of St. George

I might have been out of luck on identifying this postcard if a relative hadn't scrawled something on the back, because the only markings are some odd etchings on the front of the card (more on that in a moment) and the single word "FORTE" on the back of the card.

But someone, either my grandmother or great-grandmother, wrote the following in ink on the back of the card:

"Coptic Church (Christian)
Oldest Church in Cairo
St. Georges Church
(Orthodox)"

So that would make this a postcard from the Church of St. George, a Greek Orthodox church in Coptic Cairo. The original church building dated to the 10th century, but was destroyed by a fire. The church shown in this photo dates to 1904. There is also the Monastery of St. George, which is next door to the church.

Here are some sites where you can read more about the Church of St. George and Coptic Cairo:

• Church of St. George, Cairo, on Sacred Destinations
• "The Monastery and Church of St. George in Old Cairo," an article by Jimmy Dunn on Tour Egypt
• "Old Cairo," an article by Su Bayfield on Egyptian Monuments

But what about those etchings on the left side of the postcard? A closer look:

To me, the four letters at the top look like BADG.

It's not clear what's written underneath. But, with a little imagination, you can perhaps see the C, A and O of the word "Cairo." Thoughts?

Footnote
1. Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha (1769-1849), who is regarded as the founder of modern Egypt, is buried in a tomb in the courtyard of this mosque.

Old receipt for Landis Stone Meal Company in Lancaster County

This receipt was never officially used (except for some calculations scrawled on the back), and it's not tremendously fascinating. But I wanted to post it because the Internet is lacking in detailed information about Landis Stone Meal Company and its history. So this helps add to the online knowledge base on that (admittedly obscure) topic.

This "Customer's Copy" receipt indicates that H.K. Landis was manager of the company. There were two phones -- at a residence and quarry in Elizabethtown. And the company made poultry grit¹, mineral and pulverized limestone.

Here's what else I was able to dig up about Landis Stone Meal Company:

• It was chartered as a Pennsylvania corporation, based in Rheems², Lancaster County, on October 14, 1915. It had capital of $25,000 and was chartered for "manufacturing and selling stone meal and kindred products."
• According to a bulletin of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the company had a license to sell "White Lily" pulverized limestone in Pennsylvania in 1918.
• This advertisement for the company appears in Volume 19 (1921-22) of Our College Times, a publication of Elizabethtown College:
  
  
  
• A 1922 Penn State University bulletin on Pennsylvania's mineral industries indicates that Landis Stone Meal Co. had P.K. Landis as president and H.K. Landis as general manager. It had capital of $30,000 and production of 6,330 tons. There were seven employees and the annual wages were $6,500.³
• Here's an excerpt from a 1932 bulletin of the United States Geological Survey:
  

  "Two miles south of Rheems there is another active quarry (No. 9), also in Beekmantown limestone⁴, belonging to the HK Landis Stone Meal Co. The quarry is 50 feet square and about 25 feet deep and is equipped with tracks, crusher plant, and bins. There are three crushers and rolls..."

I don't know what eventually became of Landis Stone Meal Company, but I did find some evidence that it was still in operation as late as the 1960s.

Footnotes
1. Poultry grit is a material fed to birds that consists mainly of crushed stone, which helps a bird's digestive system grind food.
2. Rheems also appears in this March 16, 2011, Papergreat post: "Crown Coal, J.W. Wolgemuth and Wenger Feeds."
3. That's not $6,500 per employee. That figure would have been the total wages earned by all employees, combined, in a year.
4. Beekmantown is a geologic unit found throughout the Appalachian Basin. According to the National Geologic Map Database, it was named Beekmantown limestone for exposures at Beekmantown, in Clinton County, New York. The unit was previously called calciferous sand rock. In central Pennsylvania, Indian Echo Caverns and and Penn's Cave and Hotel are examples of natural attractions featuring Beekmantown limestone. More information on Beekmantown can be found here.

Bookplate Junkie shares some bookplates with Papergreat

After I featured Lew Jaffe's wonderful blog, "Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie," in a post earlier this month, he was nice enough to send me some bookplates in the mail. Here they are:

According to this February 2009 Bookplate Junkie post, Elizabeth Watson Diamond "was a remarkable collector. She commissioned many artists to create bookplates for her library." Some more about Diamond can be found on this Art of the Print web page.

Reva Kern is a well-known designer of bookplates. According to the Penn State Special Collections Library, "she utilized a uniquely American method called the 'Provincetown Print' or 'White-Line Woodcut.' She wrote a history of the Provincetown Print, which can be read here.

On the back of this cat-themed bookplate is scrawled the word "Luxemburg" (Luxembourg?)

And here is one of Jaffe's own Ex Libris, with a meerkat theme.

Thanks so much for sharing these terrific bookplates, Lew!

A 1947 card from Arendtsville Lutheran Church

I came across a hardcover copy of Cornelius Weygandt's¹ "On the Edge of Evening" (The Autobiography of a Teacher and Writer Who Holds to the Old Ways).

Pasted to the inside front cover² is a small card noting that the book was given as a gift 65 years ago -- in 1947.

The left side of the card states, in cursive:

"Arendtsville Lutheran Church
Mother-Daughter Banquet
May 14, 1947"³

And the right side of the card states:

"For Miss Clara Myers
in gratitude for your
contributions to the program."

Arendtsville is a small borough in Adams County, Pennsylvania, about eight miles northwest of Gettsyburg. The church mentioned is almost certainly Trinity Lutheran Church, which is located at 38 North High Street in Arendtsville and, as a congregation, dates to 1787.

Footnotes
1. Here are some interesting excerpts about Weygandt from Seth D. Parker's biographical essay, which is featured on the website of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book (which, fittingly, is based in the Paterno Library at The Pennsylvania State University):

• Weygandt was born on December 13, 1871, in Germantown, Pennsylvania.
• "In his autobiography, 'On the Edge of Evening,' Weygandt reminisces about his childhood, having been different from most of his peers. He recalls the other children running and playing while he was busy with his texts or learning Latin. Most of his childhood friends were actually adults. He would spend his free time listening to stories from his Aunt Rachel or Lawrence Kelly, the family gardener, who would teach Weygandt rhymes as they worked together."
• "Weygandt wrote with pride of the Pennsylvania Dutch. He even opposed the movement to correct the phrase to Pennsylvania German, on the basis that, to the world, they were Pennsylvania Dutch. He felt that most of the greatest things about their heritage would be forever tagged as Dutch. Dutch cookbooks, Dutch furniture, Dutch pretzels, and more would all be lost to their rightful owners if they insisted on being called Pennsylvania German."

2. I wrote about another instance of a gift-inscription card being pasted to the inside front cover of a book in "Birthday gift from the Class of 1943-44."
3. On that date in history -- May 14, 1947 -- the St. Louis Cardinals officially released Frank Angelo Joseph "Creepy" Crespi, who I wrote about in this June 2011 post.

JoePa 1926-2012

Sorry, ephemera fans. I've been in another round of "So, yeah, that's what I've been doing..."¹

Check out the York Daily Record/Sunday News' extensive and excellent coverage of Joe Paterno's death here. (And read more about the creation of this front page on newsroom artist Samantha Dellinger's Facebook page.)

I'll be back when I can!

Footnote
1. This was the previous installment.

Saturday's postcard: America House Motor Inn

Today's unused, undated postcard showcases the America House Motor Inn & Restaurant, which I don't believe exists any more.

According to the back of the card, the facility was located "On Eastern Shore of Virginia at Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel Plaza." I think that means it was located in Virginia Beach, but I could be wrong. Scanning some maps, it appears that residential development has taken hold in the area where this motor inn would have been previously located.

The facility was described on the back of the postcard as follows:

"40 acres of family seaside fun! Ten-acre private sandy beach, world's best sports fishing, sailboats, swimming pools, putting green, driving range, playgrounds, picnic grounds, indoor and outdoor game facilities, famous Chincoteague ponies. Soaring observation tower gives beautiful view of Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic Ocean."

Does anyone have any memories or further information regarding this place?