In respect to the picture of the Stowell Family on pages 16–17 of the August/ September 1982 issue that was taken with a panoramic lens: this type of camera had a lens that was turned from left to right during the exposure, thus allowing the clown on the left end of the group to run like hell around the back of the group and be on the right end by the time the lens was aimed at him again. This is what apparently happened in this picture, and it was a good reason to keep the children seated in front.
Robert W. Thayer
Schenectady, N.Y.
Genealogy Continued
It was with considerable surprise and dismay that I discovered upon reading “Genealogy: The Search for a Personal Past” that no mention was made of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Founded in 1845, and now occupying a seven-story building in Boston’s Back Bay, the society is the oldest genealogical society in America. NEHGS has numbered among its founders and members many of America’s most distinguished leaders, including Presidents John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and Ulysses S. Grant. For the past 138 years NEHGS has charted the course for American genealogy and local history with its superb library, manuscript collections, and educational programs. The quarterly journal, the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, is not only the oldest continuously published historical journal in the United States, it also has established the standard format for organizing genealogical data, known as “Register style,” and has unquestionably brought into print some of the best documented and most well-conceived articles in the field of genealogy. Today NEHGS boasts a membership of sixty-five hundred—of whom more than half reside outside of the New England region—and is truly one of the outstanding family research institutions in the world.
Arthur A. Dunn
President, NEHGS
Genealogy Continued
Genealogy can be a powerful enlivener of history, and not only for grown-ups. Children love family stories, and if they know that Grandfather was a carrier flier in the Pacific or that Grandmother’s grandparents had the first car in their neighborhood, they will absorb a personal sense of the past that will make history classes more exciting.
Even as a small boy I knew that I was descended from the Mayflower’s John Rowland, which puts me one up on your Judson Hale, who only wishes he were. I can still remember the thrill of reading Bradford’s history about Howland’s falling overboard and wondering, “Where would I be if he hadn’t been rescued?”
I knew about Quaker ancestors on Nantucket and in Pennsylvania and their migration south and to the Midwest. And I knew that my grandfathers had fought, one for the North and one for the South, in the Civil War, which made that war more vivid—though they were both most uncommunicative about it!
Donald W. Marshall
Town Historian
Bedford Hills, N.Y.
Genealogy Continued
P.S. By the way, it was St. Paul, not Timothy, who wrote, “Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies” (First Epistle to Timothy, 1:4).
In your excellent article “Genealogy” you quote a piece of invaluable advice for would-be family historians: “There is no point in digging up an ancestor if you are not going to make him live.” May I add two suggestions? First, save the letters! These exchanges between parents and children, spouses, other relatives, and friends not only tell what happened but give an invaluable picture of the writers’ character, personality, and opinions. Also their comments often serve to give a needed light touch to a too-staid text. Second, talk to the old folks! How often have I cursed myself for not asking questions, now that those who had the answers are passed beyond recall.
F. Barreda Sherman
Mill Valley, Calif.
Kind Words
I have felt a fan letter coming on for years, so at long last here it is. I have been getting AMERICAN HERITAGE since the beginning and I have never subscribed to anything that has given me more pleasure. One of the best things is the clarity with which the stories are written. Everything is so readable and clear. No academics writing for other academics, which is so often the case in other publications. And this is the only magazine in which I read and thoroughly enjoy the Letter From the Editor. End of fan letter, and carry on!
Lillian Thompson
Winston-Salem, N.C.
Whistling Couplets
In the August/September 1982 issue of your super publication you have a most interesting article titled “Whistling Women,” the story of Alice Shaw, a talented whistler of her day. I believe I heard her many years ago, but I’m really writing to say that you left out the beginning of the song ending, “Always come to some bad ends.” It goes like this:
Grandma Grunt said a wonderful thing:
Boys can wh’f9tle but girk must sing
’Cause whistlin’ girls and crowin hens
Always come to some bad ends.
Sanford Strother
Glendale, Calif.
Whistling Couplets
The article “Whistling Women” was of particular interest to me. Perhaps you will be interested to learn of a rebuttal to all those dire predictions. When I was a little girl, in the early days of this century, I learned to whistle and was very proud of my accomplishment and practiced diligently. My paternal grandmother, who was tone deaf, repeated the opening bit of doggerel in your article. This naturally stopped my whistling until my maternal grandmother removed the curse. She sang, whistled, played the piano, and loved music. The magic cure? It went like this:
Whistling girls and bleating sheep
Are the very best property a man can keep.
I’ve been whistling ever since.
Margaret G. Slater
Slingerlands, N. Y.
Out!
Two words in your story about Babe Ruth’s (maybe) calling his home run in 1932 (“The Time Machine,” October/ November 1982) wounded the psyche of every Chicago baseball fan.
Chicago is a highly polarized city when it comes to baseball. White Sox fans detest the Cubs. Cub fans despise the White Sox. Chicagoans who profess to support both teams are either politicians, immigrants who have not conformed to local mores, or subversives who neither appreciate nor understand the national pastime.
The Cubs have won nothing since 1945. That’s thirty-seven full seasons. They haven’t won a World Series since before World War I. Theirs is a record of futility rivaled only by the White Sox, who went forty years between pennants, even if they did win in 1959.
Each Chicago fan glories in the inadequacies of his favorite team. Making a virtue of necessity, he takes pride in his team’s disasters, brags of its misfortunes, and will argue interminably that his team’s blunders are the most horrendous.
Your article places the incident during the World Series in Comiskey Park! But Comiskey Park is and always was the home of the White Sox. Any ten-year-old can tell you that the White Sox never have and never could have met the Yankees in a World Series: they’re both American League teams. The victims were the Cubs; the site their home, then as now, Wrigley Field.
You have stolen from Cub fans one of their most treasured humiliations and awarded it to the hated White Sox, who have no need of secondhand catastrophes.
Dale A. Rettke
Chicago, Ill.
Sneaky Signature
In the Goetzmann and Sloan article on Edward H. Harriman’s 1899 Alaskan expedition (June/July 1982), you have referred to the “brilliant young bird illustrator” Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and his “charming pictures.” But you failed to identify a colored reproduction of his work as belonging to the artist. Below the magpie in a group of “Overland Friends” on page 79 can be seen the artist’s signature, LA Fuertes.
Michael L. Stahler
Fremont, Calif.
Corrections
In our October/November 1982 issue we printed a letter from a reader stating that Richard Reeves had wrongly identified California Assemblywoman Maxine Waters in an interview, “If Tocqueville Could See Us Now,” that appeared in the June/July issue. We find on checking with Ms. Waters’s office that Reeves was right in the first place, except that he identified her as majority leader rather than as assistant majority leader.
In “Genealogy: The Search for a Personal Past” (August/September) the membership of the Colonial Dames of America was incorrectly given as 22,000. The proper figure is 2,000.
