The Courtship and Marriage of Charles Kenyon and Harriet Shookman

 

Charles Kenyon and Harriet Shookman may have met each other at any time after her family moved to the Town of Grant, Monroe County, Wisconsin in 1905.  Harriet's parents, Samuel and Dora (Manley) Shookman settled and farmed near Rudd's Mill, which was a train station named after a lumber mill of the time.  Family stories tell that Charles took out Harriet's oldest sister, Lura, before starting to court Harriet.  Charles may have dated Lura when she was teaching at the Pine Grove School during the school year of 1911-12, or in 1912-13 when she was teaching at the Union Valley School.  Both were neighboring communities with ample opportunity for socializing and paths to cross.  

Harriet and her sisters, Lura and Ina, had worked in the Arizona Territory at the Ingleside resort the winter of 1910-1911 and returned to Monroe County sometime in the following spring as Hattie taught in New Lyme the following school year 1911-1912 and attended the Teacher's Institute in nearby Sparta during the summer of 1912. 

Harriet signed a contract to start teaching at Purdy Valley School in September 1912 when she was 17 and taught through the next May. Hattie and Charley would have had many opportunities to get to know each other at this time as the school grounds sat on land adjacent to Charles' father, Louis Kenyon's family farm.  .  

This photo was taken in a studio in Black River Falls on 2 October 1913.  Left to right are Charles Kenyon, Harold Hart, Harriet Shookman, possibly Vonnie Vandervort, and Ina Shookman.  Vonnie was Charles' first cousin and Ina was Harriet's sister.   At the time of the photo, Hattie would have been 18 and Charley, 23.   

At some point, shortly after this photo was taken, Hattie and her sister, Ina, returned to Arizona to work the winter season at Ingleside resort.  While in Arizona, Harriet took, and passed, the exam to teach in Maricopa County on 1 Dec 1913, likely with the idea of staying there to teach.  Something obviously changed her mind, as she returned to Tomah before August of 1914 when she sat for the exam to be recertified as a teacher in Monroe County, Wisconsin and went on to teach that fall at the Purdy Valley School.  Charley continued courting Harriet and not too many months later they were engaged to be married.

This picture is believed to have been an engagement photo of Charles and Harriet, 

taken circa summer 1915

Wedding Photo of Charles and Harriet, probably taken the day of their wedding, 

Wednesday, October 6, 1915. 

The beautiful marriage certificate was signed by Urbane. E. Gibson, Pastor of the Baptist Church at Warrens, Wisconsin, and witnesses to the marriage were Laurel Vandervort, first cousin to the groom and Ina Shookman, sister of the bride. 

Samuel and Dora (Manley) Shookman announced the marriage of their daughter, Harriet to Charles with a formal announcement.

The happy couple departed for a wedding trip to Duluth, Minnesota following their wedding and returned a week later on October 13th.   They moved temporarily into Otis Purdy's house, another of Charley's many cousins, who lived down the road in Purdy Valley not far from the home Charley had grown up in.   Their friends threw a "parcel shower" to celebrate the wedding, similar to a modern reception, which was largely attended.  

Tomah Monitor, 22 October 1915, p.8, col.4

Charley had started building a house in Purdy Valley prior to his marriage to Hattie, and they probably moved in late in the fall 1915.  Their first child, Doris was born in this house the following July.

Note: Charles Kenyon (1889-1963) and Harriet Shookman (1895-1969) are my maternal grandparents. 

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior permission of the copyright owner and publisher.

Starting School

Karla Von Fumetti standing on the front 

steps at the entrance to Irving School.

First Day of School.

I started kindergarten at Irving School in Dubuque, Iowa the Tuesday after Labor Day in 1961.  Mom wanted me in the morning class so that I could go home and take my afternoon nap, but I was assigned to the afternoon class. My kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Dew-Brittain and I had 36 classmates, several that I am still in touch with 60 years later.  My memories of Mrs. Dew-Brittain are fuzzy, but I do remember her as being a genuinely nice, kind woman who clearly loved small children.  I remember being in awe of her and going to school as being such an adventure.  

I was thrilled to go every day.  That was my first exposure to organized education outside of Sunday School at church.  Preschools did not exist and for the few mothers that worked at that time, most had family, or in-home babysitters for their young children.  Head Start and other preschool programs were largely still in the future.

Our kindergarten classroom was a wonderful place to start school. Oh, to have a classroom like that today! We could enter the classroom from the interior hall of the school, but we also had a back door to the upper playground area.  It was an exceptionally large room divided almost into quarters. One corner was the teaching area with desks, in the back corner was a play area, we had a large sunroom area for art that looked out over the back playground of the school on one side of the teacher's desk and a large cloak room on the hall side of the room. 

I loved the cloak room; it was such a novel thing to me.  We each had a hook to hang our coats on and we set our umbrellas, rain, or snow boots below. The smells in that room really told a tale of the time of year. During the warm weather, the cloak room was nearly empty except on rainy days when the wet raincoats and umbrellas dripped on the floors.  Early fall and late spring the room was full of sweaters and little jackets.  Wintertime had the cloak room chock full of winter coats, hats and mittens, snow boots and snow pants.  Little girls were required to wear dresses to school.  To keep warm, we wore snow pants under our dresses and coats.  Modesty required some significant gyrations to pull off your snow pants or wiggle back into them and still stay on your feet!  Many was the day that someone had their boots on the wrong feet, misplaced a mitten, or argued about whose umbrella was whose.

I do not remember sitting in the little desks much at all.  I remember being taught colors, the alphabet, and our numbers, which I largely already knew before kindergarten.  My favorite memories come from the art area of the room.  We had easels and counters that rimmed the wall under the bank of windows.  Finger-painting was an amazement to me.  I loved creating pictures and was astonished that we were allowed to put our hands in paint and get creative with our fingers.  Painting with brushes was also a new experience along with drawing with chalk.  

The play area had a large open area where we could sit on the floor as a group or play with a few friends with some of the materials provided.  At some point in the afternoon, we also had to pull out mats and lay down on them to "nap".  It was strictly required that we be quiet and lay still. I do not remember it being chaos but with 37 children napping on mats I cannot imagine it was as quiet as my memory thinks it was.  Recess followed our quiet time, and we would line up to go out our own back door to the upper playground.  We were allowed to run and play in that area with each other but were not allowed to go to the bigger, lower playground where the "big kids" were.

We were still living in the Hale Street house when I started school and Mom drove me those first afternoons until we moved two weeks later to New Haven Street.  Mom walked to school with me the first couple of days to teach me the way but living in a new neighborhood with lots of other children, I was soon walking on my own with a lot of new friends.  Upon leaving the house I would find my new neighbors, and off we would go.  Groups of young children walking along the streets by themselves was a common practice and we largely walked together by age groups as the big kids wanted little to do with the small ones.  

I loved my walk to school.  Although I had previously had a few unsanctioned adventures taking off before I started school, I had done little walking about on my own. Even then I enjoyed seeing the different types of houses and watch the seasons change.  We usually started school after Labor Day, and it was not long before we could see our breath in the crisp air.  We tried making different shapes with the little puffs that came from our mouths. Usually by the end of September the leaves were changing colors and the breezes turned to wind rustling through the trees.  It was a lot of fun looking under the trees for pretty leaves and acorns.  I usually went home with something in my hand on those days. 

Pretty soon the grass was frozen in the mornings and walking on it and listening to it crunch was great amusement.  Shortly after, the occasional flurry would drift from the sky and eventually the time for heavier snowflakes would be upon us.  Winter was a long part of the school year in Iowa, and we found many things to do on the way to and from school.  Making snowballs from the heavier snow or just grabbing a handful of the fluffy flakes and tossing them at someone.  My aim was never any good and I usually ended up being covered in snow rather than my friends.  On the days that the sidewalks were covered with snow we would do our best to run and slide on the slippery surfaces.  If we found a patch of undisturbed snow when we were headed home, we would tromp in the snow to look at the footprints we left behind or drop down and make snow angels. 

As sure as the snow fell for months, eventually it would melt and weather would be wet and cold and the ground, muddy and quite often it was rainy.  Those were the least pleasant days for walking as I felt cold to my bones.  My favorite part of this time of year would be walking home under an umbrella watching it drip from each of the metal points around me.  By mid-April, the weather usually started warming up and by May we would see all the flowers start peeking through again.  We did not care much about someone's flower beds but loved to look for and find the little Jumping Johnnies, clover blossoms, dandelions and anything that could pass for a flower.  Those we were allowed to pick and collect to our heart's content and we had many little water glasses at home with our bouquets.  

I have only one official school picture from Irving.  That was our kindergarten class photo.  Our teacher glued the photos on to a piece of construction paper along with the names of everyone in the photo.  It truly is a moment frozen in time: the way we looked, the way we dressed, the obvious fun we had in having our photo taken.  I am guessing most of us are looking at Mrs. Dew-Brittain rather than the photographer.   

Mrs Dew-Brittain's Afternoon Kindergarten Class. 1961-62.

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior permission of the copyright owner and publisher.

Heirlooms: Pollyanna

 

My mother, Kathleen (Kenyon) Von Fumetti, had very few books from her childhood that were still around by the time I was old enough to read.  We were lucky to grow up in a house with many books and trips to the library and I was an avid reader.  Looking through the bookshelves at home, I discovered Pollyanna one day.  I took it, curled up in the corner of the sofa and read it over the next few days.  Although the book was written in 1912, Pollyanna's story was compelling.  It really touched my heart and I believe it has always resonated and changed how I viewed things in my life and in the world from that point forward.  

For those not familiar with Pollyanna's tale, it is about an orphaned girl who goes to live with a maiden aunt who takes her in out of "duty".  Pollyanna and her father had played the "Glad" game together through the hardships in their life together.  Pollyanna brings that way of looking at her life, the world, and the people around her when she goes to live with her Aunt Polly.  Over time the people in her life are affected by how Pollyanna looks at and deals with hard issues in life.  She does not preach about how people should live; she simply is an example of what they could do in their own lives. 

Pollyanna's philosophy was not a naive way of looking at life through a rose- colored prism, but it was a way of searching for the good in a bad situation, coping with what life throws at you.  

My mother was given this book for Christmas in 1943 by her mother, Harriet (Shookman) Kenyon. Quite likely it was the only gift my grandmother could have afforded to give her that year.  Mom was 11 and in 6th grade that December.  

Kathleen and her older siblings had been raised largely in the Depression years; a time that saw them endure near poverty.  They lost not only their home, but also their farm, when the U.S. Government took a rural area, including Purdy Valley in which their land was situated, by eminent domain and added it to the nearby military base in October 1941.  Gone was their way of life in almost every way.  Her father, Charles Kenyon, lost not only his childhood home which he had worked hard to reclaim after WWI, but also the original homestead that had been settled out of the Wisconsin wilderness by his great-grandfather, Daniel Crane Purdy, in 1859.  Charles had lost his livelihood as a farmer which had quite literally sustained them during the past decade.  By 1943 the family had been forced to move and were renting a house on the outskirts of nearby Tomah, Wisconsin.   World War II was in full swing and two of Kathleen's brothers, Glen and Kyle, were overseas fighting and the third one, Jim, was waiting to go on his 18th birthday the following March.  

It is not a stretch to believe that my Grandmother, when she gave this book to my mother, was trying to encourage her to find a way to look for the best in a difficult life.  I cannot say whether this was Mom's impetus for her positive focus on life, but I do know it was her way of looking at and dealing with the hard things that came along.  Without a doubt, Mom's way of approaching life also had a significant effect on me growing up.  

The story of Pollyanna reinforced what my Mother had demonstrated all my life.  It was then, and is still now, a huge inspiration to me.  The impact it has had on my life has been immeasurable but so incredibly significant.  It is easy, maybe even natural, to focus on the negatives in life.  But to be given a gift to rise above simply surviving or enduring in life and instead see our blessings rather than the negative in any situation adds so much beauty and comfort to my life. 

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior permission of the copyright owner and publisher.

Grandma Kenyon's Favorite Recipes

My grandmother, Harriet Shookman Kenyon, was known far and wide for a lot of her own special recipes, particularly her Deviled Food Cake, Doughnuts, Angel Food Cake, and a wide variety of pickles.  Hattie likely knew how to make most of them from repetition and memory.  Sadly, I have only one of those recipes in her handwriting, that of her homemade doughnuts.

Hattie kept a scrapbook*** with a wide variety of clippings, cards, announcements, and hand-written pieces of paper that she assembled over the years.  She glued them on to the pages with care so that the reverse side could be seen, or a folded piece of paper could be opened.  Scattered through the book are a variety of recipes that she obviously treasured and I am sharing them here.  Some of them may be her own recipes as they are not identified, but others come from her mother and sisters, distant relatives, and friends in the community.  

Many of these types of recipes are no longer in use as very few people today do extensive baking let alone need to, or even want to, make their own catsup, pickles, or wall-paper cleaner.  During the post WWI to Depression era when Hattie's collection was assembled it was important to use up bacon fat or the last of the stale bread that was made a few days ago so that the precious ingredients would not go to waste and allow you to stretch your larder as well as your hard-to-come-by cash money.  

The assortment of recipes gives a picture of a life vastly different from today.  These are foods and customs that played a social role in a time now long past.  Many people have lost the knowledge and the eagerness that delayed gratification brings of biting into the first fruits and vegetables of a given season and the recipes that sprang from them, the delight of the special recipes that only a neighbor could make for the town festival, such as Hattie's Deviled Food Cake; and the richness of choice and taste that came from each region's way of using what was produced close to home.  These recipes are time transporters.  Find one and give it a try.  You will be giving yourself the gift of a past memory.

Click the images to enlarge them.

Bread Sponge Cake (front and back)

The ranch cook that is referred to in this recipe may have been the cook at the Ingleside Club and Resort near Phoenix that Hattie and sisters, Lura and Ina, worked during the winters of 1910/11 and 1913/14.  For information on how bakers of a century ago made a typical bread sponge, go to https://vintagerecipesandcookery.com/what-is-a-bread-sponge/ This would have been a yeast-raised cake rather than one made with baking soda or baking powder.

Cheese Biscuits and "Salma-Gundi" Salad

Harriet obviously had the help of a little one with a pencil while baking one day!

Note that there is no temperature for baking the biscuits as it is likely that a wood or coal oven was used.  It was not until sometime after the 1935 New Deal's Rural Electrification Administration (REA) paved the way for electrical power to be made available.  The first REA service in Wisconsin was on 7 May 1937 and Purdy Valley would have followed at some point after that.

Cream Pie and Butterscotch Pie

There are two recipes for cream pie, each would have made use of fresh milk either by skimming the cream that rose to the top in unhomogenized milk or using what was left depending on what the family had available to use after other cooking and baking.  The last two recipes are credited to "M.R.G" who may possibly be Eva (Martin) Griffin.

Sugar Cookies, Ice Box Cookies and Mock Angel Food Cake

These recipes were shared with Hattie.  The Sugar Cookie recipe came from her younger sister, Gladys Shookman, the Ice Box Cookie recipe came from her oldest sister, Lura Shookman Harris, and the Mock Angel Food Cake recipe from Lettie Purdy Hart, one of Charles Kenyon's many cousins living in the Purdy Valley area.  Ice Box Cookies would indeed have been chilled in an ice box in the day before electrified refrigeration.

Favorite Cucumber Pickles (Chunk Pickles)

Harriet was well known for her own pickle recipes, but this is one shared with her by her sister Hazel "Ina" Shookman Beran.  They must have been fabulous to be worth all the time and effort!

Sweet Sour Pickles and Molasses Drop Cookies

Another pickle recipe from Harriet's sister, Ina.  These were one of Harriet's daughter, Kathleen's, favorite pickles.  Lucy Larson, also of Purdy Valley, shared her recipe for Molasses Drop cookies.  They used up the last of the milk after it had soured.  

Jelly Roll

Shared by Rena Jeffers.  This recipe assumes that the cook knew how hot the wood or coal oven should be running, how long to bake it, know when it was done and how to turn it into a Jelly Roll when finished!  

Salad Dressing - Soft Molasses Cookies - Date Filled Cookies

Bottled salad dressings were not yet available.  Shared by Lettie Purdy Hart.

One of my favorite cookies as a child were Date Filled Cookies.  Harriet's daughter, and my mother, Kathleen made these occasionally.  

Apple Sauce Cake

The only baking instructions are to bake "slowly" for about 40 minutes.  Harriet had to make this cake while the oven was cooling down and before adding fresh fuel to the fire.  This recipe came from Lura Shookman Harris.

Picalilli & Grape Nut Bread

Picalilli is a cooked salad or relish recipe from Lura Shookman Harris to be canned for use in the winter when fresh vegetables would be scarce.  The Grape Nut Bread came from "P.J.V." who may be Phebe Jeanette Vandervort, grandmother to Harriet's husband, Charles.

Tomato Mince Meat

Made while waiting for the tomatoes and apples to ripen in the garden and on the tree.  Sister, Lura, shared this recipe for a pie filling.  This was likely a recipe that was meant to be canned as a peck of both the green tomatoes and green apples was used.

Peanut Butter Betty

A good use for stale bread which was often on hand as homemade bread had no preservatives. 

It serves 6 people, "polite" servings!

Pop Corn Balls

One of my favorites!  My mother and Harriet's daughter, Kathleen, made these for us when we were small and for treats to pass out for Halloween. Recipe shared by Rena Jeffers.

Tomato Catsup

The recipe page is dated September 29, 1933 and the first one is shared by Elsie Kuthlow and the second by Mrs. Bill Griffin.  Both took 2-3 hours of cooking on the stove before eventually being canned and sealed in jars for future use. 

Wall Paper Cleaner

This is quite a recipe which includes kerosene and ammonia and then cooking in a double boiler!

White Cookies - Mother's Ginger Snaps

What a treasure the Ginger Snap recipe must have been to Harriet and her family, as her mother, Dora Manley Shookman, passed in 1921.  Dora's 4th to 6th generation descendants are now living.

Ginger Refrigerator Cookies

This is one of Harriet's more recent recipes.  It calls for two things which were not likely available in the farmhouse in Purdy Valley:  a refrigerator and an oven that could be set at 375 degrees.  This was also a recipe using whatever farm products might be available with the bacon drippings or lard.  Crisco became available for the first time in 1911 but would have been an expensive convenience.

 ***Harriet's scrapbook was inherited by Helen (Kenyon) Kelley, then inherited by Jean (Kelley) Gluege who gifted it to Karla (Von Fumetti) Staudt for preservation and use in our shared family history.  

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior permission of the copyright owner and publisher.

Will You Love Me Then As Now?

My Grandmother, Harriet (Shookman) Kenyon, kept a scrapbook* of special documents that she had accumulated through the years.  Pasted carefully into the book so that both sides could be read, was this handwritten page.  I thought the words were beautiful and with a little research found out that they were lyrics.  The song, "Will You Love Me Then As Now?", was written in 1853 by Charles William Glover.  Historically, it was a favorite romantic ballad which was popular over the many decades following and is today considered one of the "Songs of America" by the Library of Congress.  

The lyrics are the only ones included in her scrapbook and appear to have meant a great deal to Hattie, although they are not in her handwriting.  

Harriet placed most of the items in her scrapbook in a chronological order and based on that, estimates are that this was important in her life about 1912-1913.  At that time, Hattie was teaching at the Purdy Valley School in Greenfield Township, Monroe County, Wisconsin, having started there in September 1912, at age 17.  Harriet's future husband, Charles Martin Kenyon, then age 22, lived on the farm adjacent to the school.

Jim Kenyon, shared this tale in 2004 of how his parents, Charlie and Harriet, met:

I will tell this story exactly the way my Dad told it to me.

Dad went with my Aunt Laura [Shookman] Harris when she was teaching school. Laura was quite prissy in those days. Anyway, Dad had his buckboard buggy and a prancy, snappy horse. My Dad was pretty cocky too, when he was young. He was going to take Aunt Laura for a buggy ride. So, they were in the buggy ready to go. Dad with a crack of his whip across the horse's rump, startled him (the horse) and he jumped, and f--ted and peed and my Aunt got splattered.  Thus the end of that romance. Aunt Laura disliked my Dad until the day she died. They always gave each other a wide berth upon encounter.

Dad knew Ma through the school and through Aunt Laura. One romance ended and another one started.  The buggy romance worked for Mom & Dad. I'm sure glad it turned out that way. Even if it took a prancy horse, to ensure my birthright. 

https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1771391

Now my brow is free from sorrow;

Now my steps are light and fast,

and my hair like Autumn sunshine,

But this will not always last,

When these locks by Time are silvered

When deep wrinkles Trace my brow,

When my steps are slow and feeble 

Will you love me then as now?

That your love is true and changeless,

that your heart is mine alone;

Is the vow you often utter

And to me 'tis sweet I own,

But when years have borne us onward,

Will you then recall that vow,

When these eyes have lost their luster

Will you love me then as now

Ah! my heart is wildly pleading:

That you never could deceive;

And the earnest love I bear you:

Fain would cause me to believe,

That though Time should lay his finger,

Deep with sorrow on my brow,

Yet your heart will know no changes

You will love me then as now.

 *Harriet's scrapbook was inherited by Helen (Kenyon) Kelley, then inherited by Jean (Kelley) Gluege who gifted it to Karla (Von Fumetti) Staudt for preservation and use in our shared family history.  

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior permission of the copyright owner and publisher.