Today we are posting the pictures of most of the ladies in the Frances “Fannie” Isabella Brown Chapman Collection. We are wishing that descendants of these lovely ladies will find this post and have a new photo to add to their family treasure chest.
See previous post for more information about the collection.They were friends of Frances Isabella (Brown) Chapman, and possibly of our family’s A. Beerbower. (More to come about him.)
Annie Stranok (?), Muscatine, Iowa; nothing on reverse of image. (Click to enlarge.)“Frances Darwin Pinkney, Michigan, received Jan. 3, 1868” on reverse. (Click to enlarge.)Miss Fannie H. Brewster, very faded ink, no information on back. (Click to enlarge.)
Notes, Sources, and References:
Frances Isabella (Brown) Chapman Collection of Photos.
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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
This blog has been wonderful “cousin bait.” We have found some new cousins and learned some new family stories. We have also had some folks find us that have family artifacts that they have shared. Sometimes, they have not actually been family, or they were not very closely related so wished to pass on the item itself, and we were pleased to accept.
We have also found some ‘sadly-not-cousins’- people who contact us, thinking they may be related, but they are sadly not. Today’s post is an example- a person googling A. Beerbower found our posts about the family, so contacted us. I did not think that the image she sent was one of our family, but upon doing more research, well, it appears the image she sent isvery likelyone of our Beerbower family members. (A. Beerbower will be featured in an upcoming post.)
The pictures belonged to Frances “Fannie” Isabella (Brown) Chapman who was born in 1845 in Michigan, the third child of nine born to Lemuel Brown and Catherine Lyman. Fannie trained as a teacher and moved about 1871 to Valmont, Colorado. In 1872 she married Volney Chapman (1823 – 1907). He was one of the original ’49ers but had moved back to his family in Michigan about 1860, only to remove to Colorado after 1870. He and Fannie built a house in Loveland, Colorado which is still standing. They had three children: Lloyd, b. 1876, Verna b. 1877, and Charlotte b. 1879. Fannie sadly died when she was just 41. Her sister Ida also taught but in Kansas, married and also died young.
One of Ida’s descendants said they had some pictures of friends also and he wanted to donate them to a library or archives in Michigan; our correspondent said she will do the same with the pictures no one claims as family. “Most of the pictures are from Iowa, Michigan and one from Indiana. The ones I had been able to locate were mostly born in the mid to early 1840’s. I hate seeing the ones I have found ended up in a dusty basket at an antique store so I have been on a search for family.”
Do let us know if you are related to any of the folks in this post or those upcoming about Fannie’s photo collection.
The above image is labeled 1- Russell, 2- Green, 3-[unreadable- Cook?], 4- Green, 5-nothing written. It was pasted down, no photographer information available.
More to come from Fannie’s collection.
Notes, Sources, and References:
The Frances “Fannie” Isabella (Brown) Chapman Photo Collection
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
“View from Long Hill looking up the river,” Springfield, Massachusetts, by George H. Ireland, stereoscope card, via Wikimedia, public domain. (Click to enlarge.)
Mary (Bliss) Parsons and her husband Joseph Parsons remained in Boston for some time after her witchcraft trial in 1675, as Joseph owned warehouses there and had business in town. It would surely have been a good break from those who had accused Mary but lived so close by in Northampton. Although the jury that acquitted Mary was made up of ‘regular’ men from the Boston area, many in Northampton and elsewhere felt that having so many well-to-do members of society and friends of the Parsons family involved in the trial had ‘bought’ Mary her favorable results.
The son of Joseph and Mary, Ebenezer Parsons, had been the first white child born in Northampton on 1 May 1655. This was just before the son of Sarah (Lyman) Bridgman, one of Mary’s primary accusers, was born- yet another reason for Sarah to be envious of Mary. Ebenezer was only 20 years old when he marched off to Northfield after Indians had attacked a number of English settlements during King Philip’s War. (See note below.)
Indians Attacking a Garrison House from an old wood Engraving. This is likely a depiction of the attack on the Haynes Garrison, Sudbury, April 21,1676.(Unrelated to this family, but similar.) via Wikimedia, public domain.
Ebenezer was killed on 8 September 1675 during the fight with the Indians per some recent sources; older historical sources state the date of his death as Thursday, Sept. 2, 1675. This being just after his mother Mary’s acquittal in her witchcraft trial, those who had worked to bring her to trial said,
“Behold, though human judges may be bought off, God’s vengeance neither turns aside nor slumbers.”
The neighbors assumed that the loss of her beloved son was punishment for Mary’s ‘pact with the devil.’
Despite the continued rumors, Mary and Joseph Parsons did return to their home and family in Northampton, likely before 1678/9.
Their story continues…
On 7 March 1679, another of our Burnell ancestors (not related to the Bliss or Parsons families), John Stebbins of Northampton, died suddenly and mysteriously. An examination of the body showed, “warmth and heate in his body that dead persons are not usual to have” and that his neck had the same flexibility of that of a living person, so rigor mortis had not completely set in. His body had “several hundred of spots” that seemed as if “they had been shott with small shott.” When these spots were scraped, there were holes under them. A second examination was reported to a court of inquest: he had bruises that had not been there during the previous examination, and “the body somewhat more cold yn before, his joints were more limber.”
John Stebbins owned a sawmill, and although some (now) think his death was caused by runaway logs hitting him, some of the townspeople back then thought his death was due to witchcraft.
How does this pertain to Mary (Bliss) Parsons? Well, we know that she had been accused of witchcraft more than once. Also, she was back in Northampton, thus near where John Stebbins died. But even more damning was the fact that the wife of the late John Stebbins was Abigail (Bartlett) Stebbins. Does that Bartlett maiden name sound familiar? Yep- Abigail was the sister of Samuel Bartlett, the husband/widower of Mary (Bridgman) Bartlett, that Mary had been accused of killing through witchcraft in the 1675 Boston trial. It was the death of Mary (Bridgman) Bartlett’s young sibling that caused the first case of slander, against her mother, Mary (Lyman) Bridgman, to be brought by Joseph Parsons in defense of his wife Mary. (Yes, we almost need a detailed roadmap- so many Marys, and same last names to untangle. Maybe we just need infographics rather than narrative posts??)
Samuel Bartlett seemed to be the community’s ‘witch finder’ and he brought in testimony to the inquest concerning the death of John Stebbins. There is no record existing today that Mary (Bliss) Parsons was accused of the death through witchcraft, but some historians believe she was the target of such rumors, especially with the bad feelings between her family and the Bartletts/Bridgmans continuing through the years.
The court of inquest rendered a verdict that did not directly charge anyone with witchcraft, but at least half of the twelve male jurors believed that witchcraft had been involved. Evidence was then sent to the Boston Court of Assistants, but unfortunately that information has not survived either. There was no further action taken, however.
They had had enough- Mary and Joseph moved their household back downriver to Springfield, Massachusetts in 1679 or 1680. Springfield had been attacked and burned during King Philip’s War, so maybe it was a sort of fresh start for them. Their son Samuel Parsons remained in the family home in Northampton.
Joseph Parsons, Sr., died in 1683 and Mary, like her mother, Margaret (Hullins) Bliss, began a long widowhood.
But it was not completely over.
Twenty-two years after Mary moved back to Springfield, Peletiah Glover, a prominent Springfield merchant who possessed much wealth, went to court in 1702 to indict the slave woman Betty Negro for “bad language striking his son Peletiah.” The 14-year old Peletiah testified to the court that the slave had claimed that his grandmother “had killed two persons over the river, and had killed Mrs. Pynchon and half-killed the Colonel, and that his mother was half a witch.”
Can you guess how this relates to our study of witchcraft in Springfield and Northampton, Massachusetts? Yep, it ‘relates’ because these people were relatives- Peletiah Jr.’s mother was Hannah (Parsons) Glover, the daughter of our Mary (Bliss) Parsons. So young Peletiah’s grandmother was Mary, a full-blooded witch per the assumptions of townspeople, and thus his mother was “half a witch.”
Mary was not taken to court for this- her friends and relatives likely helped her out in this respect. A man of great prominence in Northampton and one of the Justices of the Peace who presided over the case was one Joseph Parsons; he was also the son of Mary and Joseph (Sr.), thus also the elder Peletiah’s brother-in-law and uncle of the younger Peletiah. The other Justice was John Pynchon, a frequent business partner to Cornet Joseph Parsons (Sr.). John Pynchon had also testified for Mary years before in the slander trial and was involved in her witchcraft trial.
The slave Betty “owned it she had so said.” (Interestingly, one ‘Tom Negro’ testified against Betty Negro.)
The court record for 9 January 1702 states:
“We find her very culpable for her base tongue and words as aforesaid…We sentence said Betty to be well whipped on the naked body by the constable with ten lashes well laid on: which was performed accordingly by constable Thomas Bliss…”
The last name of Thomas Bliss who carried out the sentence is, of course, familiar too: the constable was the son of the brother of Mary’ (Bliss) Parsons, thus her nephew.
Mary died at about age 85 in 1712. She was unwell and confused enough that her sons Joseph and John Parsons took over her estate the year before she died.
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Mary was lucky- six women were executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts even before the Salem witch trials of 1692, when 20 persons were executed (19 hanged, 1 pressed to death) and four died in prison while awaiting trial.
Witches could be a good community scapegoat for ills which could not yet be explained by science or disease, and claiming someone was a witch was sometimes the next step in an argument or long-standing feud. There are theories about ergot (a fungus) in the rye that was a dietary staple and could cause hallucinations and the ‘fits’ so often seen in victims of witchcraft. (The ergot would affect a smaller body, like that of a young girl, faster than that of an adult, possibly explaining why young women/girls were those primarily with ‘fits.’)
Sociologists have also postulated that witchcraft accusations take up the time of the people when they are in a lull with fighting enemies or the weather for survival, and act as a safety valve for human dissension.
Whatever our 21st century take is on witchcraft, it was a real fear for our ancestors- no matter if they were accused or accuser. The story of Mary (Bliss) Parsons illustrates that well.
Notes, Sources, and References:
Also known as Metacom’s War, ‘King Philip’ was the English name of the warrior Metacom/Metacomet. King Philip’s War was between the English colonists who had some Native American allies, vs. the other natives of New England, mostly Wampanoags and Narragansetts. Within less than a year, the population of the colonies were decimated, including a loss of at least 10% of the men of fighting age. More than half of the towns were attacked with twelve burned to the ground, and the economy of the colonies was almost ruined with the loss of livestock, crops, and goods. Many English residents had been carried off by the natives and carried into Canada, sometimes sold as slaves. The war lasted from 1675-1678. England provided very little support for the colonists during the war, thus they banded together, resulting in a colonial identity separate from English subjects. This was just the first alienation of colonists that would result in a much bigger separation 100 years later. For more of this history see the very excellent book, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766by Fred Anderson, Vintage, 2001, or his shorter version (293 pages vs. 912), The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War, Penguin, 2006. (A companion to the PBS documentary The War That Made America: The Story of the French and Indian War, 2006, available on DVD.)
See resources in Part 3.
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
“View from Long Hill looking towards Agawam” [Springfield MA] by E. H. T. Anthony, stereoscopic card via Wikimedia Commons, public domain. While taken a couple of centuries after Mary (Bliss) Parson’s life, the Connecticut River Valley in Springfield, Massachusetts, likely looked similar in the late 1600s.McMurray Family, Burnell Family(Click for Family Tree)
Since this is Friday the 13th, we will continue exploring our ‘ supernatural’ ancestor Mary (Bliss) Parsons of our McMurray line through the Burnells.
Accusations of witchcraft endured by Mary (Bliss) Parsons were described in parts 1 & 2 of this series, both in Springfield and Northampton, Massachusetts. Her ultimate imprisonment, trial, and acquittal in Boston in 1674-5 was also discussed. Incidents of Mary’s ‘bewitching,’ however, had started long before these cases, and led her neighbors to the always-lingering thoughts that she had a ‘pact with the devil,’ despite being cleared of witchcraft legally.
(There were a number of cases in which an accused witch was acquitted of the crime, but the court actually stated that the person was likely a witch despite lack of admissible evidence. There is no record of that for Mary, but it demonstrates that legality and ‘reality’ were not always the same in cases of witchcraft.)
Sometime back in the 1640s while living in Springfield, Massachusetts, Goody Parsons (Mary) had an argument with the blind man in town. Shortly thereafter, the man’s daughter began to have fits. Rumors may have circulated then about Mary practicing witchcraft and causing the fits in retaliation for the argument, but specific records do not exist today. This incident was entered as evidence, however, years later in the previously- discussed 1656 slander trial of Sarah (Lyman) Bridgman, brought by Mary’s husband Joseph Parsons. Sarah was found guilty at that trial, but rumors of Mary’s witchcraft persisted.
Interestingly, in Springfield at that same time, there was another Mary Parsons living just 10 houses away. (There were only 42 homes in Springfield about 1651.) This was Mary (Lewis) Parsons, wife of Hugh Parsons. (No relation that we know of.) Abandoned by her first husband, Mary had married Hugh, a brick-maker and wood sawyer. Like many of the colonists, Hugh Parsons was a fairly argumentative and contentious person, but probably moreso than the norm- he was in court on a regular basis both as plaintiff and defendant. This Mary bore 3 children, but two of them died very young. Despondent, grief-stricken, and possibly dealing with postpartum blues or likely some type of mental illness (or all of these), Mary (Lewis) gossiped that a Springfield newcomer, the widow Marshfield, was a witch. Goody Marshfield countered with a suit for legal slander on 30 May 1649- reputation was incredibly important to our Puritan ancestors. Mary was found guilty, and her sentence was “to be well whipped on the morrow after lecture with 20 lashes…” or pay 3 pounds to Mrs. Marshfield “for and towards the reparation of her good name.” Mary’s husband paid “the heavy Amount with twenty-four Bushels of Indian Corn, and twenty Shillings in Money.”
Not long after this incident, not-our-ancestor Mary’s husband Hugh Parsons decided to not complete the bricks for the Rev. George Moxon’s chimney despite their previous agreement, as the price of materials had increased over his original bid. He ‘had words’ with the reverend, who insisted he complete the bargain as originally agreed, although accounts differ as to what was said; “I’ll be even with him” was what one witness heard from Hugh. That very same week, two Moxon daughters were taken ill with fits (some sources say they died, some just say “succumbed to fits”- the word ‘succumbed’ can be used to mean failed to resist OR actually died from something), and Hugh’s wife Mary (Lewis) was accused of causing the fits through her witchcraft. Interestingly, Mary (Bliss) Parsons, our ancestor, as well as some additional children, also began having fits at that time. One witness claimed “as Mr. Moxon’s children acted, so did Mary [Bliss] Parsons- just all one.” Their fits were such that they all had to be “carried out of the [church] meeting, it being the Sabbath day.” Generally, few adults had these fits, and as Mary was 29 years old (if born in 1620 per some references; others state she was b. 1628, so she would have been just 21), married, and a mother, the townspeople thought her fits suspicious.
The records and scholarship are confusing for this time. John Demos, in Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England, page 270, states that Mary (Bliss) Parsons had given birth to twins that summer of 1649, but they died shortly after birth. Other references list twins as being born later, and some do not include twins at all. A majority of sources (but not Demos) state that Mary and Joseph Parsons had a son named Benjamin who was born in January, 1649 and died in April or June, 1649; that timeline most likely would not have allowed for twins in the summer, unless she had become pregnant right after the birth of Benjamin- this was unlikely as she would have been nursing him- or the twins were born premature. (Double-dating was also used at this time due to calendar changes, so that adds another bit of confusion- which year was it??)
Whichever scenario is true, poor Mary would have likely had raging hormones from pregnancy, possibly mind-altering postpartum blues from a January and/or summer birthing, plus the grief of losing a 4-6 month old son- and twins, if she did indeed birth them that summer. Her father died that next February (1650), so he may have been ill that previous year, and Mary would have been worried about losing him. In addition to her “fits,” our Mary roamed about the countryside, even at night, alone and in a disturbed, sometimes distressed, and usually distracted manner. It was claimed that she could walk through water without getting wet, after some men saw her and followed, themselves getting wet at least to the knees, whereas her clothes were dry. Joseph Parsons locked his wife in the house, and sometimes in the cellar, but she was always able to ‘magically’ find the hidden key and get out. She said she had to fight evil spirits when in the cellar, and her husband claimed she “would go out in the night…a woman went with her and came in with her.” Of course, there was no such other woman in the house, so it was assumed to be a supernatural being.
Mary (Bliss) Parsons and her family moved to Northampton in 1654, but the shadows of the devil and witchcraft accusations followed her, as we have seen. Next, our installment of Mary (Bliss) Parsons and her ‘supernatural’ life. It didn’t end after her witchcraft trial.
NOTE: Listed below are the majority of sources used in researching Mary (Bliss) Parsons for ALL of the posts in this series.
Notes, Sources, and References:
“Goody” was a title of the time and a shortened version of “Goodwife,” with “Goodman” used for males. These terms were given to those in the middle and lower classes. A person of higher status would be given the title, “Mr.” or “Mrs.”
Mary (Lewis) Parsons killed her child and was indicted for murder and witchcraft. She was found not guilty of witchcraft, but guilty of murder, and was sentenced to execution. She most probably died in jail prior to being hung. She had also accused her husband, Hugh Parsons, of witchcraft over the years, and he too was tried and acquitted.
There are two novels written by descendants of Mary Bliss Parsons that may be of interest. Silencing the Women: The Witch Trials of Mary Bliss Parsons by Kathy-Ann Becker was excellent, and maintained the historical facts while adding a good narrative flow. My Enemy’s Tears: The Witch of Northampton by Karen Vorbeck Williams is another that looks good, although I have not yet read it.
The Strong Witch Society: The Diary of Mary Bliss Parsons by DH Parsons is another book written by a descendant, and part of a trilogy. It would be wise to read the description of this book and his other two carefully if you are planning to order, as there is more than history going on in this series.
“The Goody Parsons Witchcraft Case” at http://ccbit.cs.umass.edu/parsons/hnmockup/has an excellent overview of Mary’s life including a good timeline that integrates a lot of the players and incidents in Mary’s life.
An interesting poem by Margaret Atwood details her supposed-ancestor’s hanging as a witch and her survival. “Half-hanged Mary” is about Mary Webster who was accused of witchcraft in Hadley, Massachusetts in 1684. She was acquitted, but later attacked and lynched by a gang of her neighbors. She hung from the tree all night, and when they returned to cut down her corpse, they found that she was still alive. Of course, for any who had doubted before, her survival proved that she was a witch. She lived a number of years after the incident, but likely was an outcast in her community. There is no evidence that Mary Webster had children, so she would not have descendants today, but the poem has much of interest for those trying to understand the witchcraft hysteria. http://www.emerycsd.org/webpages/dcarter/salem.cfm?subpage=1143672
Witch Hunting in Seventeenth Century New England. A Documentary History 1638–1693, edited by David D. Hall, 2nd Edition, Duke University Press Books, 2005. Includes (partial) trial transcriptions, etc.
“The Early Parsons Families of the Connecticut River Valley” by Gerald James Parsons. Part 1: Vol. 148, pp. 215- 238; Part 2: p335-360; Vol. 149: Part 3- pp53-72. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1847-. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2013.)
A Place Called Paradise. Culture and Community in Northampton, Massachusetts 1654-2004. Edited by Kerry W. Buckley, Historic Northampton Museum & Education Center/ University of Massachusetts Press. Chapter 3 is “Hard Thoughts and Jealousies” by John Putnam Demos, from his excellent, very comprehensive book Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England, New York, 1982.
Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England by John Demos, 2nd ed., 2004. Updated volume- an excellent book on all facets of witchcraft by one of the premier scholars in the field.
Annals of Witchcraft in New England, and Elsewhere in the United States, from Their First Settlement: Drawn Up from Unpublished and Other Well Authenticated Records of the Alleged Operations of Witches and Their Instigator, the Devil, by Samuel Gardner Drake. W.E. Woodward, 1869. GoogleBooks, p. 72.
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
Today is Veteran’s Day, a day to honor and appreciate the sacrifice of our veterans (and their families). Those who put their life on the line in the military allow us to wake up every morning in a free country and with freedoms that much of the world can only dream about. We need to shake the hands of our service members and say “thank you” to them whenever we meet them, and our country needs to take care of them when they come back home. (Today would be a good day to write your representatives in Congress and tell them you want better health care, pay, and benefits like the GI Bill-an improved version- for our military.)
Gerald D. Broida, son of Theodore “Dave” Broida and Lucy M. Shatzke, enlisted 4 November 1941 in the Air Corps, Regular Army at Camp Roberts in California. Jerry Broida had worked at a Skelly gas station as a teen in Colorado, so he worked in a transportation group as a Lieutenant. Jerry was 23 years old when he enlisted, and he may not have been overseas before. World War II was a far-ranging war, and Gerald got to see quite a bit of the world during his tour of duty.
Jerry corresponded with his aunt and uncle, Bess Dorothy Green and Phillip Edwin Broida while he served in World War II. He travelled to quite a few countries, and wrote about China and Italy in the two surviving V-Mails we are posting today in honor of Jerry’s service.
The notes are an interesting glimpse into life in the 1940s, and during war. Of course, they were censored, so he couldn’t say much about strategic events, but he did manage to tell a bit about his impressions of people and countries to his aunt and uncle who had not travelled out of the country (as far as we know).
A bit of background:
“V-mail” is short for “Victory Mail.” Traditionally, a soldier, sailor, or airman would write a letter, post it via air mail, and it would have to take up valuable military cargo space on an airplane to get back to the US. This process was expensive, ended up taking quite a bit of time, and was therefore not useful for urgent messages. There was also the security risk of a note containing sensitive military information that would put our troops in danger.
Eastman Kodak had developed the British “Airgraph” system in the 1930s to reduce weight and size for mail transported by air. It was realized that the Airgraph was a faster, better way for our military to send letters home. The thumb-nail sized images on light-weight film saved thousands of cubic feet of shipping space, and literally tons of weight. Just one mail bag of microfilm could hold the equivalent of 37 mail bags, or about 150,000 one-page regular letters! The weight went from over 2,500 lbs. down to just 45! That would save fuel as well.
Working with v-mail was one of the many ways that women at home provided support for our military during war.
V-mail stationery was available for the folks back home to use too. It was not used as much by civilians, because, as one writer said, “You can’t smell the perfume…”
Here are the two v-mails we have from Gerald Broida, and transcriptions:
V-mail from Lt. Gerald D. Broida, 15 April 1944, to Phillip and Bess (Green) Broida of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Transcription:
Censored
G D Broida
[1st Lt?] A. C.
To Mr. & Mrs. Phil Broida
405 Morrowfield Apt. 3
Pittsburg -17
Pennsylvania
From
0-562625
Lt. G. D. Broida
1641 Ord. S. & M. Co.
A.P.O. 210 c/o P.M.
N.Y.C.
April 15– ’44
Dear Aunt Bess & Uncle Phil,
I was very happy to receive your v-mail
of Feb. 1 a short time ago. -The main reason
for the delay is that I’ve been on the
move for quite a long time & now at last
I am in China. After a nice long & high
flying trip by air, railroad & ship I am
about to start to work again. This is really
quite the most unusual country I’ve been in
yet. There are millions of people & yet they
don’t seem to be dirty like the people of India
& Egypt. Neither do they seem to be beggars. They
are more like a large group of overgrown
kids, always ready to laugh at anything- be
it their own misfortunes or be it Americans & they
are very friendly & curious.–I’ll probably have more
to tell after I’ve been here awhile- So- until next
time- I’ll say good bye & Hope this finds you in
the best of health. [V-MAIL] Love, Gerald
The following letter does not include a year, but was sent on 4 December; it could have been 1942 or after, as that was when v-mail use began for our troops.
V-mail from Lt. Gerald D. Broida, 4 December 194?, to Phillip and Bess (Green) Broida of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Censored
G D Broida
[2nd Lt ?] A. C.
To
Mrs. Phil Broida
405 Morrowfield Apt. 3
Pittsburg -17
Pennsylvania
From
Lt. G. D. Broida
1641 Ord. S. & M. Co.
A.P.O. 528 c/o P.M. N.Y.C.
Dec 4
Dear Aunt Bess & Uncle Phil,
I received your letter about a week ago &
your package came just a few days ago. I want
you to know that I certainly appreciated them
both. – Both myself & the other 2 officers in
my company Thank you very much for the
candy- we are still nibbling on it. I would
have answered sooner but we have been
on the move again- & that always requires
lot of time & work. Then too when we
aren’t moving we always have lots of work
to do- especially in my line- whihc is keepong
the vehicles in running condition. And now I’m
looking forward to a lovely, muddy & cold Italian
winter- which will probably mean a lot more
trucks etc to fix.- oh well, such is life, I
guess. – at least I’m feeling fine & I hope
to hear the same from you. Good bye for now
Love Gerald
“You’ll write, he’ll fight!” Victory mail online exhibit with some interesting sidenotes- http://postalmuseum.si.edu/victorymail/ (Check out “Operating v-mail.”)
V-mail from Family Treasure Chest.
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