A gaggle of great things tucked away inside books

I have a huge backlog of bloggable¹ items that fall into the Tucked Away Inside category, and it's creating problems in the Ephemera Warehouse!² The books I've come across that contain intriguing slips of old paper are piling up and distracting me from all the other great kinds of ephemera I want to write about.³

So this post is an attempt to chip away at that backlog by offering up a gaggle of previously unpublished Tucked Away Inside goodness in one fell swoop. Enjoy!

"Request the honor of your presence..."

BOOK IT WAS INSIDE: "Tillie, A Mennonite Maid" by Helen Reimensnyder Martin⁴ (September 1908 reprint)

This wedding invitation states: "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fox Urquhart, Jr. request the honour of your presence at the marriage ceremony at six o'clock Saint Luke's Episcopal Church."

Based on information found at a few different geneaology sites⁵, Charles Fox Urquhart, Jr. -- the son of Charles Fox Urquhart and Independence Nancy Irene Coe -- was born on September 22, 1905, in Sacramento, California, and died on March 15, 1971, in Courtland, Virginia. His wife was Dorothy Harper and they had two children -- Charles Fox Urquhart III⁶ and Mary Louisa Urquhart. It's possible (and likely?) that the wedding referred to on this card is Mary Louisa's wedding to Lloyd D. Bryant Jr.

High-seas driftnets

BOOK IT WAS INSIDE: "A History of India 2" by Percival Spear (1982 paperback reprint)

The front of this card (not pictured) has a spot for a 33-cent airmail postcard stamp and is pre-addressed to:

Prime Minister of Japan
1-6-1 Nagata-Cho, Chiyoda-Ku
Tokyo, Japan

The back of the card (shown above) states:

"Dear Prime Minister,

I strongly object to the use of high-seas driftnets by the Japanese salmon and squid fishing fleet in the North Pacific Ocean. High-seas driftnets cause the unnecessary deaths of thousands of dolphins and seas birds.

I urge you to act to preserve wildlife and fisheries resources by halting the use of destructive driftnets."

International political pressure (but probably not these postcards) eventually brought an end to high-seas driftnets. According to this online case study:

"In early 1980s Japanese fleets, as well as Taiwan and South Korea, came to use large-scale driftnets in the North Pacific Ocean to catch salmon, tuna, squid, etc. A driftnet typically stretches as wide as 40 miles and traps any species in the wide area. Among victims are marine mammals such as whale, dolphin, porpoise, fur seal; and other sea animals such as sea turtle and even sea birds. Also driftnet fishing by Japanese and other Asian fleet is believed to have contributed to a decrease in the population of such economically valuable fish as tuna, marlin, swordfish, salmon, etc., in the North Pacific Ocean. The U.S., Canada and Russia, all of which have their own fishery industry respectively, were concerned about the rapid destruction of valuable sea resources by those Asian fleets and in fact tried to restrict their fishing in the North Pacific region. As pressures from the U.S., Canada, Russia increased, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which bans driftnet fishing in the high seas effective December 1992. As a result, Japan has halted driftnet fishing on the high-seas ever since."

A sad, unfinished note

BOOK IT WAS INSIDE: "Is It Worth Dying For?"⁷ by Dr. Robert S. Eliot and Dennis L. Breo (1989 paperback)

Oh, what a sad little letter! Written in careful cursive on a lined sheet of paper, all it states is:

Hi,
Greetings for bright new day.
Had been very sick, getting better.
Hope you are well, often remembered you.

Inside Makarenko's "The Road to Life"

BOOK IT WAS INSIDE: I have a three-volume, English-language hardcover set of Anton Semenovych Makarenko's "The Road to Life (An Epic of Education)," which was published in 1951 by the Foreign Languages Publishing House in Moscow.⁸ Makarenko (1888-1939) was an educator and writer who focused on educational theory. According to Wikipedia:

"In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution [Makarenko] established self-supporting orphanages for street children - including juvenile delinquents - left orphaned by the Russian Civil War. ... Although there was some opposition by the authorities at the early stages of Makarenko's 'experiments', the Soviet establishment eventually came to hail his colonies as a grand success in communist education and rehabilitation."

So, tucked away inside one of these volumes was this creased Business Reply Mail for The American Institute for Marxist Studies in New York City. The institute was founded in 1964 by Herbert Aptheker, who served as director until the institute closed in 1985.⁹

The three-volume set of "The Road to Life" has some other interesting features. All three books have this attractive bookplate glued to the first page:

And, in paging through the books, I found this interesting margin note -- perhaps written by former owner Daniel L. Mahony:

The note states: "How does ASM know all of the minutiae? Does he, like J.C., have a corps of stenographers scattered about?"

ASM, of course, is Anton Semenovych Makarenko. What J.C. is he referring to? Jesus Christ? Hmmmm.

Footnotes
1. "Bloggable" is in the Oxford Dictionary! So are “sexting” and “fnarr fnarr.”
2. #FirstWorldProblems
3. And I have so many things I want to write about, and so precious little time. Eight months ago, I wrote a Fall/Winter preview of upcoming posts. By my count, I've only covered 11 of the 23 topics that I mentioned. And the list of posts I'm eager to research and write has probably quadrupled. Sigh.
4. Author Helen Reimensnyder Martin (1868–1939) was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The full text of "Tillie, a Mennonite Maid" can be found at Project Gutenberg. Meanwhile, this copy of the novel that had the wedding invitation tucked inside once belonged to Mrs. J.C. Andes of Dayton, Virginia, according to the inscription on the first page.
5. Sources include: This FamilyTreeMaker Online page; this RootsWeb page; and this Find A Grave page.
6. Charles Fox Urquhart III's 2008 obituary includes this sentence: "His special friends, Mr. Roberts, Kate, Lizzie and Cassie are waiting to welcome him with wagging tails and sloppy dog kisses."
7. The book's subtitle is: "A Self-Assessment Program to Make Stress Work for You, Not Against You."
8. Volume one, unfortunately, has significant water damage, which keeps this from being a potentially very valuable set.
9. This DiscoverTheNetworks.org "Guide to the Political Left" also has an in-depth biography of Aptheker.

Deer drawing inside a World War II history book

I found a simple pencil drawing of a running deer tucked away inside Volume VI of "Pictorial History of the Second World War," which was published in 1947 by Wm. H. Wise and Co.¹

Who drew this? Why was it placed inside this particular book?

The back of the drawing contains five words, written in pen, that serve only to deepen the mystery:

TULIP POLKA
GREEN EYES POLKA

Deer.
Polkas.
And World War II.

What does it all mean?

Search me!²

Footnotes
1. I can't find out for sure if or how Maj. Gen. William H. Wise was associated with this publishing company.
2. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the phrase search me, used as "a verbal shrug of ignorance," was first recorded in 1901.

The Boston Daily Globe's Titanic coverage on April 16, 1912

It seems that Titanic anniversary coverage is everywhere you turn this week.

I'll join in with some excerpts from our souvenir reprint of the April 16, 1912, edition of The Boston Daily Globe. The article pictured at right -- "PROBABLY NOT ENOUGH BOATS" -- focuses on the number of lifeboats on the Titanic. It begins:

NEW YORK, April 15 -- Vice Pres. Franklin of the International Mercantile Marine Company was asked today if enough lifeboats were on board the Titanic to accommodate the passengers and crew.

"I don't know," he replied. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added: "The capacity of the lifeboats is between 35 and 40 each. I do not know the number of lifeboats carried by the Titanic. I think it probable, however, that the steamer was equipped with lifeboats enough to accommodate all."

As we know, of course, each lifeboat could have carried as many as 65 people (few did) and Titanic did not have nearly enough lifeboats for the number of passengers on board.

Here's another interesting excerpt, from an article on what was happening in New York City after the sinking was reported:

RICH AND POOR IN TEARS.
By midnight Bowling Green, in front of the White Star Line offices, was the parking place of a large number of automobiles of prominent residents of the city who had driven down town for first-hand information.

Wealth rubbed elbows with poverty and democracy in the crowd which besieged the steamship line officials, and both classes were in deep grief.

There were many instances of fashionably gowned women going into hysterics when the hopeful reports of the afternoon were blasted by the news that only 675 persons had probably been saved.

BROADWAY IN GLOOM.
Vincent Astor, only son of Col John Jacob Astor, accompanied by A.J. Biddle of Philadelphia and Col Astor's secretary, were among the crowd at the offices, and left with tears in their eyes after a 15-minute talk with Vice Pres Franklin.

Relatives of Isador Straus and a number of other prominent passengers has similar talks with Mr Franklin and came away equally dejected.

Here are some other tidbits from throughout the 1912 newspaper:

• "NORMAN NOT ABOARD. Well-Known Polo Player Returned on Olympic on Her Last Trip and is at His Home in Hamilton. NEWPORT, April 15 -- According to the passenger list of the steamer Titantic [sic], the name of Maxwell Norman, the well-known Myopia polo player and brother of Reginald, Guy and Bradford Norman of Newport, appears. Maxwell Norman return to this country on board the White Star Liner Olympic on her last run to New York, accompanied by his brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Guy Norman, and he is now at his home in Hamilton, Mass." (Who else had such good luck? Here's a page on Encyclopedia Titanica titled "Canceled Passages Aboard Titanic".)
• "PRESIDENT TAFT ANXIOUS. Sought News of His Aide, Maj Archibald W. Butt, USA, Passenger on Titanic. WASHINGTON, April 15 -- President Taft was greatly anxious tonight for news of his aide, Maj Archibald W. Butt, one of the four Washington persons on the Titanic." (Butt went down with the ship.)
• "ICEBERGS NUMEROUS. Capt Filler of the Bulgaria Saw Two Near the Locality Where the Titanic Went Down. The disaster to the Titanic has caused intense excitement among the officers of the foreign steamers now in port. Many of the liners passed bergs on their way across the ocean, and all of them declared that the ice was much farther south this year than is usual at this season."
• "10,000 FEET UNDER WATER. Mail Matter on Titanic Probably Lost With Ship When She Went to Bottom. The mail for Boston on board the Titanic is supposed to have gone down with the steamship never to be recovered, owing to the 10,000 feet depth of the ocean where the vessel sank."

Finally, here's an artist's rendering of what the Titanic sinking was thought to have looked like, by Globe illustrator Worden Wood:

Potluck Monday: Bingo card, bookplate and a 1935 radio show pass

Here are a trio of interesting old items to get your week started...

1941 Bingo card

This Bingo card is dated 1941 and was produced by the E.S. Lowe Company in New York. Edwin S. Lowe (1911-1986) was the founder of that company, and Beano, Bingo and a Catholic church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, played big parts in the success of his venture, which later brought the game Yahtzee to the masses. For all of that history, check out Duncan Pohl's terrific article titled "The E.S. Lowe Toy Company, Timing, and Chess."

And if you're interested in more Bingo ephemera, check out this Ephemeraology blog post by Mel Kolstad.

Bookplate with stork illustration

Anna H. Miller's black-and-white bookplate features a pair of storks -- those are storks, right? -- and a crescent moon.

If you're a bookplate fan, here are some previous Papergreat posts in which they are featured:

• A War Service Library bookplate
• Peering inside 1944's "Strange Fruit" by Lillian Smith
• Herbert W. Rhodes' early 20th century bookplate
• Great links: Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie
• Bookplate Junkie shares some bookplates with Papergreat

1935 Electric & Radio Show

This was my great-grandfather's Employees Pass to the eighth annual Electric & Radio Show, held from Oct. 7-12, 1935, at the Philadelphia Convention Hall. It was printed by Globe Ticket Company of Philadelphia.

The Convention Hall, part of the Philadelphia Convention Hall and Civic Center, was built in 1931 and torn down in 2005, after more than a decade without a regular tenant. In an interesting twist of fate, the Globe Ticket Company Building, which is where this ticket was printed, is now the location of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which opened in 1993.

Illustrations from a 1917 Easter card

For Easter (known as Ēostre in Old English¹), today's post showcases illustrations from a 12-page Easter card that is dated April 8, 1917.

The inscription states:

To Mande:
Wishing you A Happy Easter
April 8 - 1917
From your SS Teacher
Florence A. Bastuscheck²

Footnotes
1. This Omniglot page contains translations of "Happy Easter" in many languages.
2. According to Ancestry.com, there was a Florence A. Bastuscheck who was born in Pennsylvania around 1885 and was living in Mifflin Township in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, when the 1930 Census, was taken.

Saturday's postcard: The Howard Gould case

I purchased this postcard when Joan and I were at a sprawling antiques store in Bennington, Vermont, earlier this year.

It was mailed to Mr. Daniel Stover in Valley Falls, New York. The cursive note on the front of the postcard, which is dated May 23, 1907¹, states:

Do you recognize this? While waiting to see a lawyer in the Howard Gould case I thought I would drop you a line. We often think and speak of your fine visit. Wish you would come again. The Goats are running again and things are getting lively. BURT.

So, who was Howard Gould? And what was his case? To answer that question, we need to hop into our DeLorean and channel 1.21 gigawatts of energy through the flux capacitor.

1. It starts with Jay Gould (1836-1892), who made his millions in the railroad industry but was more infamous as a robber baron. Scandals Gould was involved with included:

• He was a key co-conspirator in some of Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall corruption.
• He and James Fisk caused the Black Friday collapse in gold prices in 1869.
• He precipitated an international incident and near war between the United States and Canada when he attempted to have Lord Gordon-Gordon kidnapped in the 1870s. This came in the aftermath of Lord Gordon-Gordon swindling Gould for $1 million.

All in all, you can see why CNBC.com ranked Gould as the eighth-worst CEO in American history in 2009.²

Gould and Helen Day Miller had six children together. And when Gould died in 1892, he left his millions to his children, one of whom was...

2. ...Howard Gould (1871-1959), who lived off his father's fortune and also had his father's penchant for getting embroiled in scandals. Howard Gould built a huge estate in Sands Point, New York (The "East Egg" of "The Great Gatsby").

The mansion had 40 rooms and an 80-foot tower. Based on Kilkenny Castle in Ireland, Gould's own Xanadu was constructed with granite and limestone and cost more than $1 million. A rough estimate is that a similar estate today would cost between $25 million and $35 million.

But, despite all his millions, Howard Gould found that money couldn't buy him everything. One man, in particular, emerged as a thorn in his side.

3. William Frederick Cody (1846-1917) was better known as "Buffalo Bill."³ The colorful Cody was a hunter, scout and showman. In 1872 he was awarded a Medal of Honor for "gallantry in action" while serving as a civilian scout for the United States.⁴

In the 1870s, Cody moved into the entertainment business with "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" (later "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World"). Cody's show brought him in contact with many adoring and lovely ladies. Here's an excerpt from Brandy Purdy's Book Reviews and News Blog:

"[With] his most expensive mistake, actress Katherine Clemmons, her talent did not match her looks and all Bill’s attempts to make her a star ended in failure, but Katherine picked herself up, brushed herself off, and went on to marry a millionaire."

That millionaire, of course, was Howard Gould. And so we come to a tumultuous marriage and divorce.

4. Howard and Katherine were married on on October 12, 1898. At that time, she was roughly 18, Howard was 27 and Buffalo Bill was 52.

The divorce began in 1907 and lasted for two years. It is those divorce proceedings that constitute "the Howard Gould case" mentioned in the cursive note on today's postcard. (I have no idea, though, who "Burt" is, where he fit into this case, and why he was enamored with his goats.)

The Gould case was a Kardashian-level national sensation. Howard accused his wife of infidelity, naming both William F. Cody and a silent-movie actor named Dustin Lancy Farnum.

Gould lost.

He was ordered, according to Wikipedia, to pay the massive sum of $36,000 per year in alimony. That's the equivalent of $860,000 per year in 2010 dollars. Ouch.

Footnotes
1. Frank Herron's "100 Years Ago Today" blog has a post that contains neat tidbits from the newspapers of May 23, 1907.
2. If you're scoring at home, here are CNBC.com's top 10 worst American CEO's from that 2009 list:

• 1. Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers
• 2. Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Financial
• 3. Ken Lay, Enron
• 4. Jimmy Cayne, Bear Stearns
• 5. Bernie Ebbers, WorldCom
• 6. Al Dunlap, Scott Paper Co.
• 7. Fred Joseph, Drexel Burnham Lambert
• 8. Jay Gould, 19th century robber baron
• 9. John Patterson, NCR
• 10. John Akers, IBM

3. No, not the fictional Buffalo Bill of "It puts the lotion in the basket" fame.
4. Buffalo Bill's Medal of Honor was revoked in 1917 and reinstated in 1989.

More stuff from inside "A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband"

[Announcer's voice] Previously on "A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband"...

• May 5, 2011: Love at first sight
• September 6, 2011: A wide sampling of the great stuff tucked away inside
• October 13, 2011: Bettina's Hallowe'en recipes
• November 23, 2011: Bettina's Thanksgiving in the country

Today, let's dive back inside the tremendous tome that is "A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband" and see what other goodies that haven't been previously discussed are tucked away inside.

First up: The Queen.

A typed and folded sheet of paper contains a recipe with the following note at the top:

THE QUEEN'S CAKE RECIPE
NOTE: This is supposed to be the only cake Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth makes herself. She goes into the kitchen and bakes it.¹ The Queen gave the recipe to the Girl's Friendly Society.² Her only wish is that the recipe not be passed on, but sold for charitable purposes for 10¢. If you share this with your friends, please remember.

The author of the Baking Family blog stumbled across a similar recipe with a similar note and wrote about it in September 2010 in The Mystery of Queen Elizabeth Cake. Here's a short excerpt:

"Now, the world wide web is not encyclopedic, nor is it all accurate. But if this were indeed a big deal for church and crown, wouldn’t one find something on, say, the official site of the royal family? Or the Church of England? Not only is there nothing there, a Canadian site includes a disclaimer, attributed to a representative of the current Queen: The recipe ain’t hers. If I were Queen Elizabeth, I would claim this recipe in a heartbeat. It makes a killer moist cake; when you pour the icing over the top, you’re headed for sticky toffee pudding."

Here's the version of the recipe that I came across, if you're interested:

* * *
Up next is this light-blue Merry Christmas/Happy New Year card that has been signed by Mr. and Mrs. Emory C. Landis.

According to RootsWeb, there was an Emory C. Landis who was born in January 1896 in York, Pennsylvania; died in 1960; and was buried in Manchester, Pennsylvania. He married Lillian May Schroll (1896-1981) on March 18, 1915, in York.

On the back of the holiday card is this handwritten recipe:

Date Apricot Bar
1 pk. dates (cut in pieces)
1 can apricots drained
1 can crushed pineapple (small size can)

Add 4 or 5 tablespoons apricot juice + 1 C. brown sugar. Cook slowly for about 5 min. then cool.

2 cups Quick (dry) Mothers Oats³
2 cups flour
1 cup Brown sugar
½ t. soda
½ t. Baking Powder
1 t. vanilla
¾ c melted butter

Mix with hands like pie dough adding vanilla last. Put ½ the crumbs in bottom of pan + pat. Put filling on this layer of crumbs. Add remainder of crumbs on top. Bake ½ hr. at 350° to 375°.

* * *

Finally, here's a slip of paper with information about Bender Body Company of Cleveland, Ohio.

The company made funeral cars, ambulances and service cars, and had his pitch: "High quality, prestige-building equipment to meet the needs of every funeral director⁴ at reasonable prices. Distributed by Bender distributors and by the Studebaker dealer organization." Representatives in attendance were:

• H.O. DeBoer, Sales Mgr.
• Walter L. Baier, Spec. Rep.
• J.W. Swanson, Studebaker Corp.

What's also interesting about this slip of paper is that it's covered in handwritten lists. The front (pictured) lists fish, turnips, quumquats, peppers, parsley, broccoli, tomatoes, grated red beets, "oyster roots or salsify", nuts and cream cheese.

Foods mentioned on the back include canapé, cream of corn soup, popcorn, turkey, filling, gravy, toasted carrots and creamed potatoes. There is also a note about pickling either tomatoes or lima beans. Or possibly both. The year 1942 is written on this side of the paper in pencil.

Footnotes
1. When I was writing this entry, there were zero Google hits for the exact phrase "She goes into the kitchen and bakes it." But isn't it a wonderful sentence, especially in the context of this piece of ephemera? I really think we should try to turn "She goes into the kitchen and bakes it." into a Internet phenomenon. Please help to make this important dream come true for me.
2. Girls' Friendly Society, founded in 1875 in England, was the first organization for women in the Church of England. The organization's slogan is "She goes into the kitchen and bakes it."
3. To see a vintage Mother's Oats coupon, check out this June 2011 post: A prayer card, a farm photo and a Mother's Oats coupon
4. A very poor slogan for a funeral home would be: "She goes into the kitchen and bakes it."

It's Opening Day! Do you have Phillies Phever?

It's Opening Day for the five-time defending National League East champion Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies, looking to shrug off their loss to the eventual World Champion St. Louis Cardinals in last year's first round¹, will be in Pittsburgh this afternoon to face the Pirates.

To mark the occasion, here is a collection of Phillies ephemera.² It's best viewed while listening to "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" by McFadden & Whitehead.³

Above: A large-sized 1980 Topps photo card of Michael Jack Schmidt. It's well-worn from being taped, tacked and glued to various doors, walls and bulletin boards over the years.

Above: An advertisement for Oscar Mayer wieners from an official 1953 Phillies score card. The hot dogs offered at Philadelphia's Shibe Park were "made only from selected meats; extra lean beef, tender veal, succulent pork."

Above: This advertisement for Phillies Franks⁴, from an early 1980s Philadelphia Flyers game-day program, is disappointing one aspect. The correct phrase -- as Tug McGraw would surely know -- is "Ya Gotta Believe!" not "You Gotta Believe!"

Above: This photograph of the Phillies' dugout during the 1980 World Series is from "Champions of the World," a special magazine that appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer after the Phillies' triumph. Pictured are (from left):

• 1. This is Randy Lerch, Warren Brusstar and Kevin Saucier. I'm almost positive they were the same person.
• 2. Pete Rose Sr.
• 3. Not a clue
• 4. Former York Revolution player Pete Rose Jr.
• 5. Bob Boone
• 6. I'm pretty sure that's a young Bob Dernier, who got a cup of coffee in 1980

Above: Another photo from "Champions of the World." This one shows the 2-3 putout that remains the greatest next-to-last out in World Series history.

Above: My son, Ashar, and I at his first Phillies game, in 2006.

Footnotes
1. The Phillies' loss to St. Louis in that series might have been my fault. In retrospect, I think this Papergreat post following Game 1 of that series was a jinx. In addition, I discussed the notion of the Sports Illustrated Jinx and whether it might apply to the Phillies. Obviously, it did. So while I plan on plenty of baseball posts this summer, you'll hear nothing from me on the Phillies once the playoffs begin. Not that I'm superstitious.
2. None of this is likely to interest you if you are a New York Mets fan.
3. McFadden & Whitehead made a Phillies-specific version of their hit song in 1980. I remember first hearing it when it was played on the record player in my fourth-grade classroom in Clayton, New Jersey.
4. Note that the pictured hot dogs are Medford Phillies Franks. In 1994, Medford was bought by Hatfield Quality Meats, which now produces Phillies Franks.