Good middle-of-the-week, middle-of-the-month, middle of astronomical summer, just-past-the-middle of our 12 month, 365.24 day year of Orbit! Welcome one and all to the monthly finger-crossing, breath-holding, toe-curling at the Round Up as the Powers That Be allow me, WineRev, my once-a-month frolic and romp in the GNR Control Room. So that you are also prepared, please swing in to the Gnuville (as in Gnus, as in “Good News”-ers) Breakfast Brunch and find yourself that perfect eye-opening beverage of coffee, tea, mocha-cocoa, mimosa, margarita----you know, what ever turns your crank on a July morning.
You should also avail (avail, I say!) yourself not only of drink-ables, but also foods worthy of your teeth from toaster, microwave, griddle, oven, or even that cold cereal cupboard over there to brace yourself for the hours leading up to lunch (as Toby the Cat knows, the most important meal of the day is the NEXT one.) Find yourself a sofa, rocker, recliner, wingback, or yoga mat in the Constitution Lounge (where all your fellow patriots gather to tune in the WiFi for the morning stories, recs, replies, questions and digressions---along with sides of snark and snickers.)
Now while Constitution Day on the Calendar is officially September 17 each year, given the wave of crapola we have been facing the last 6 months in particular, it wouldn’t hurt you one bit to quietly recite the opening under your breath this morning:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Ahh…..now THAT was refreshing! And now, fellow Members of the American Posterity, cherishers of the Blessings of Liberty, what are we up against these days of “Damn it, Now what?” under our breath every time we tune in the daily news?
Democrat Jamie Raskin took advantage of his position in Congress last week and, after a few liberties with Mr. Madison’s excellent writing, in a floor speech had THIS GEM read into the Official Record. Who and what are we facing? The rich bastards of the American Posterior who believe:
“We the billionaires, and our King,
in order to deform and sicken our union, establish injustice,
ensure domestic servility, weaken our people’s defenses,
undermine the general welfare and reserve for ourselves and our posterity staggering debt servitude for eternity,
do hereby instruct the Republicans in Congress
to strip 17 million people of their health care, increase copays, deductibles and premiums for everyone else,
cut 42 million people off nutritional assistance,
increase the national debt by $4 trillion,
trash renewable energy systems,
increase our electric bills for the carbon kings,
all to weaken and destroy the Constitution of the people of these United States of America.”
As good a summation as you will come across this year!
Meanwhile, here at the Round Up, we come in with stories of uplift, resistance, hope, consolation and inspiration. There is a collection of some of these in the following paragraphs, but don’t skip the comment section! That’s where the real “Internet at its Best” happens between and among the readers and writers around here.
Also, as is my custom, I have also added an historical angle, Good and Goofy events that have happened on the 16ths of Julys long past, but which show us those humans “back then” were a lot like us, and had to face a lot like us as well. They did, and got through, which is how and why we are here. So thank you each and all for your visit here today.
Good News in Science and Engineering
>>>>>>>>>>Growing up we figure out after a while that we live in 3-dimensional space. (Some scientists get bored with 3, so they go off to add/invent/discover all sorts of other dimensions. IIRC, Einstein wanted 17 dimensions to describe an atom…...)
But we also recognize TIME, and this operates like the geometric term of a “ray”: a single starting point, and then infinitely heading off in one, arrow-headed, one-dimensional direction. Fits with what we feel like and live through: you’re born, get older, have birthdays at long intervals, get taller, have your voice and body change, become a grown-up, get grayer and more wrinkled and then die. There are no “timeouts” and, except for sci-fi, no backing “upstream.”
But now, IN THIS HOT NEW JOURNAL ARTICLE, the scientific types have come up with math (as always) to advance the idea of 3-dimensional TIME. WOW! And, as a good Lutheran confirmand from decades ago, “What does this mean?” Since we can go “forward” and “back” in space, does this open the same possibility in TIME? Is ETERNITY being able to sit and look at “that box” over there that “contains” 3-D space and time, but not over here, where the angels sing and the souls of the saved are in Paradise?
>>>>>>>» One of the great conveniences of modern life is plastic. Likewise, one of the great headaches of trying to clean up our environment are used things made of ...plastic. There have been reports of “bio-degradeable” plastics that go a ways toward addressing the mess. But now comes a NEW STORY out of Scotland (in the “lab-breakthrough” stage; scaling up to production still lies ahead) that could address this headache head on, almost literally. Some clever folks in white lab coats have figured out a way to feed plastic to bacteria…...who chew them into the chemical compounds that make up…..acetaminophen …. you know, non-aspirin for headaches. A certain symmetry here in a karmic sort of way.
Of course, July 16ths have also noted and celebrated the moments from scientists and engineers that have made back issues of July 16th worth a read.
Start with “Shade C”, #1356 and add…...
1867 Cleveland, Ohio D.R. Averill receives a patent for ready-mixed paint. His was “purest white” and a customer could add dyes for the shade they wanted. The idea caught on but Averill and others in the new industry were overtaken in 1870s by the New York partnership of Sherwin & Williams. This dynamic duo not only figured out fresh formulas for paint, they patented the Re-Sealable paint can, so the stuff would KEEP for a long time. They also produced a more stable, non-fading paint and a rainbow of pre-tinted colors.
…………..DOUBLEHEADER DATE A French gardener, Joseph Monier, thought clay pots were too fragile in his garden. He didn’t like that wood rotted or broke when plant roots pushed through. He had tried concrete with some of his plant beds, with limited success…. until he started inserting iron mesh into wet concrete. On this day he receives a patent (first of several) for iron, and later
Pouring together Monsieur Monier’s invention…..
steel, reinforced concrete. He designed a railroad bridge made from his invention in 1875, the first large scale application. All modern construction (bridges, roads, runways, multistory buildings, etc.) becomes possible due to this invention. (Also my dad’s professional life as a structural engineer revolved around this invention.)
1945 Alamogordo Air Base, south of Albuquerque, New Mexico Clear the area. Clear the AREA! Stay clear of downwind. Wear welder’s goggles. Cover your ears. The first US test explosion of the atomic bomb was made this day. The bomb (called “the Gadget”) exerted destructive power equal to some twenty thousand tons of TNT. The Atomic Age begins with a mushroom cloud……(and a signal flare is lit in the cosmos, attracting…..visitors?.......a few miles away in Roswell…..in 1947……)
In the spring of 2024 I started adding profiles of America’s First Ladies to my monthly stint as GNR director, one or two at a time. Many of you have enjoyed these, so today is no exception! There are 2 profiles this month, both of whom were First Ladies when the Nation was in VERY hard times, even teetering on the brink of collapse…..so being First Lady was different than usual...and hard on them.
First Lady
Mary Todd Lincoln
Miss Mary Todd, a belle from a fine Kentucky family
While Kentucky had only been a US state for barely 20 years, there was money to be made there, and Robert Smith Todd made a lot of it and in a hurry. He was only 21 when he married Eliza Parker. He was a merchant, then a lawyer, and still later a member of the Kentucky Legislature. While he was busy so was Eliza, bearing and raising children, 7 in all. Mary (b. Dec. 13, 1818) was in the middle of 3 brothers and 3 sisters and all of them lived in an upper class way. Good thing, that, since Eliza died when Mary was 6. Her father re-married the next year, to Elizabeth Humphries, worked on his law career, and made as certain that he could that the Todd name would be prominent…..by producing 9 children with Elizabeth (so Mary had another 4 half-brothers and 5 half-sisters.)
Mary benefitted from a good education: 6 years at a girls’ academy, 5 more at a girls’ boarding school and then 2 more at another academy. She was a good student with good marks in geography, poetry, math, French, dancing, singing, astronomy (!) and literature (Shakespeare and Victor Hugo were favorites). Since her father was in the Legislature she also took a liking to politics (including becoming personally acquainted with Henry Clay, and, in slave-holding Kentucky, a grandmother who was part of the Underground Railroad; Mary quietly adopted an abolitionist stance.)
When she was 23 the 5’2” Mary married the 6’4” Abraham Lincoln (age 33) in Springfield, Illinois in a house wedding of one of her sisters. Abe was establishing himself as a lawyer and, like his father-in-law, got himself elected to the Legislature (of Illinois), which met in walking distance of their home. Lincoln started making a name for himself as the Whig Party was giving way to the new Republican Party. Some of their leaders wanted to make Lincoln Territorial governor in Oregon, but Mary objected that it would take him away from the national stage.
In 1858 when Lincoln made his run for a US Senate seat (vs. Stephen Douglas) Mary was working the press on her husband’s behalf, and attended some of the famous debates between the two. In 1860, when Lincoln was nominated for president the press was thick in and around Springfield. Abe pressed the flesh and Mary was available to anyone with a pad and pencil. (This “front porch” approach was the pattern then; only the Democrat, Stephen Douglas, in a 4-way contest for the Presidency, and for the first time ever in Presidential campaigning, was traveling from place to place and state to state. Many considered this undignified for the office of the Presidency.)
When they arrived in DC in 1861 with their 3 surviving sons (Edward had died at age 4) many prominent families were moving South to join the secessionists. Both they and the remaining Unionist high society were quick to label both Lincolns as “too Western” for their refined tastes. When it became known she was from a slave-holding family and that several of her brothers and half-brothers were in Confederate armies, there were many insults about her “secesh” influence on the President and her “questionable” loyalty.
In the face of this Mary volunteered as a nurse for the Union wounded in town. She worked tirelessly with the “Sanitary Commission” that raised dollars and in-kind donations for items and treats for soldiers that the Army did not supply. She did the same public work for the Contraband Relief Association (the newly freed people) for housing, clothing, food, medical care and schools in DC. When she entertained she often served her own recipe white almond cake for dessert (STILL served in the White House.) She hobnobbed with members of Congress and reported information and gossip to Abraham. She also had decided opinions of her own, and at various points tried to get Lincoln to sack Treasury Secretary Chase, Secretary of State Seward, General McClellan and General Grant (all of whom stayed in their posts, although McClellan did disappear after the first year and eventually ran for President against Lincoln in 1864.)
She took to heart many of the slurs against her and the President, and was burdened heavily more personally. Their son Willie (12) died of typhoid in 1862. Mary stayed in bed for 3 weeks, passing up the funeral. Through the battle lines, she received word of several of her brothers and half-brothers who were killed or wounded in Southern arms. In 1863 she was in a traffic accident, thrown from the carriage and knocked unconscious. From medical sources it was apparent she also suffered from depression, anxiety, migraines and possibly diabetes. And of course……she was in the Presidential box at Ford’s Theater in April, 1865……
Mary Todd Lincoln, once again wearing black in mourning….
After the assassination she did not leave the White House for a month (a gentle gesture from President Johnson), then moved to Chicago. She and their youngest son, Thomas, (“Tad”) went to Germany for several years. By letter she conducted a 3 year campaign to get Congress to establish a First Lady’s widow’s pension, and succeeded in 1871 ($3000/year….a first for First Ladies.) When she and Tad then returned to Chicago, Tad became ill on the crossing. This developed into pneumonia and he died (age 18.)
Living with her oldest son Robert, Mary was so stricken by the loss of Tad that Robert thought she was going insane and took steps to have her committed to an asylum. After a long set of legal maneuvers, she was admitted to the asylum in Batavia, Illinois….and tried to commit suicide on her first day there (the staff was alert and thwarted this.)
Myra Bradwell, one of America’s first woman lawyers, thought Mary Lincoln was NOT insane and took up her case. 4 months later Mary was released from Batavia into the care of her oldest sister, Elizabeth. After a few months she moved to France for 4 years. She came back to the US, living again with Elizabeth, and died quietly in 1882 (age 63.) She was buried in Springfield next to Abraham.
GOOD NEWS IN SOCIETY AND POLITICS
>>>>>>>>>».Back in the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, and until the coming of the Printing Press, the Church was one of the few places preserving and offering (at least to a few) some sort of education. Yes, you had to learn Latin for openers, and then to read…..but there was wisdom in those words, sometimes in Scripture, and sometimes apart from it. Now as printing, learning and education spread the Church and church leaders were increasingly lost in the crowd of other educated people.
And yet…...once in a while, the Real church (not those TV and on-line charlatans) has something to say to the rest of the world worth pondering. Now comes THIS STORY of Pope Leo addressing the politicians of various nations and societies about a moral issue, indeed, an issue of humanity itself: how should we proceed with Artificial Intelligence? It’s a fairly hot topic in several circles, but when the Pope weighs in publicly, well, a lot more people may well join the conversation. When it comes to AI, I think this is a Good Thing.
>>>>>>>» Just as the Pope is encouraging a peek behind the curtain for a much larger Greater Good, there are other curtains that need to be pulled back so sunlight can serve as disinfectant. First, there is the matter of so-called “Xtian”-nationalists, that unholy alliance between certain religious leaders and certain putrid politicians. THIS STORY lifts the rum-soaked veil on Sec. Def. Hegseth and those who would like to work behind the veil of secrecy.
Likewise, THIS DAMNING ANALYSIS is a cover-ripping-off read about all that dark money floating up from the sewer onto endless politicians. Yes, the Musk of Elon added to that Scent, but this story looks past that erratic character to explain the not-so-erratic but the greedily-determined BUYING the political system.
>>>>>>>>You know, sometimes greed is not enough. Sometimes ambition is not enough. Sometimes being a rancid human being gets you…...NOTHING. Or even Less than Nothing. In a Schaudenfreude moment (Ger. “rejoicing at someone else’s misfortune”) IT SAYS HERE the annoying “Dr. Phil”’s new, anti-Woke TV network has…..filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Not only that, Dr. Phil knows who dunnit, and he is simultaneously SUING Christian Trinity Broadcast Network (which unlike New Kid on the Block Phil, has been around since 1973 causing broadcast air pollution.) Phil claims he’s in bankruptcy because STBN did it to him, and they should pay him oodles of money to bail him out of Chapter 11. It IS entertaining (and a relief) to have these tiresome critters slashing away at each other while leaving the nation and actual useful religion alone and unharmed.
________________
Mind you, July 16ths have had their moments in matters of Society and Politics, and here is a sampling of them.
622 (A three-digit date!) Mecca, Arabian Peninsula Muhammad the Prophet begins his journey from Mecca to Medina (The Hijira), marking the beginning of the Muslim era in world history.
1054 Constantinople (now Istanbul), Byzantium (now Turkey) There have been decades, indeed, in some ways, centuries, of tension among Christians. A raft of them consider the Pope in Rome to be the religion’s supreme leader, and another raft of them who hold to a different form of governance based in Constantinople. A delegation from Rome arrives for a last-ditch attempt to
“Its a shoe!” “Its a sandal!” “Follow the Gourd!”----The Life of Brian
reconcile the viewpoints but fail. So then, on this day, during a worship service in Hagia Sophia Cathedral (“Hagia Sophia” Gk. “Holy or Sacred Wisdom”; the cathedral/church is the central building for the Constantinople wing, parallel to St. Peter’s in Rome), three of the Roman delegates break decorum and interrupt the worship, go up to the altar and lay a Papal decree on it, excommunicating the entire Eastern Church. At a later Council, the Eastern Church answers with its own excommunication of the Western Church. The division of Western Christianity (Catholicism, Protestantism) and Eastern Orthodoxy dates from here. Not exactly Good News but a split that formed a watershed in history.
Sour-faced woman at top, wondering just where that young man’s left hand was, : “AHA! Caught ye, ye fire-possessed lovers! Yea verily, ICK, and begone with ye, or I wilt call in the King’s guards!”
1439 Across Great Britain Masks. Social distancing. Hand washing. You know the drill. And, more recently, vaccines, to fend off the “little beasties” causing all the trouble and heart ache. Well, it’s not the first time. In the 1430s England is having a wave of nasty diseases. What kind? What causes them? Germ theory would need to wait another 450 years to be discovered, but observation already says close contact between people somehow makes more people sick. Time for Social Distancing and then some! By Royal Decree, in order to prevent or at least slow down the on-going spread of a dangerous, even fatal disease, this day kissing is banned in England until the next decree. (There’s thy Olde Social Distancing for thee and thine at home! Ye younge lovers, be ware!)
1661 Stockholm, Sweden The Bank of Stockholm this day is the first bank in Europe to issue banknotes, pieces of paper (far more convenient than heavy, bulky coins) that can be redeemed for gold or silver at the bank. Marco Polo brought the idea back from the Far East in the 1200s, but it took this long (and the invention of the printing press in the 1450s) for the idea to be tried in the West. (Provinces, colonies and nation-states printing their own currency notes came later. Starting in 1861, the Union Army was paid in newly authorized and printed US Notes that had green ink on the back, instantly nicknamed “Greenbacks.” A Missouri soldier who had scraped his leg on a fence rail treated it in camp that night with a home-made poultice that he covered with a US Note and tied on with some string. When other soldiers saw it on him, they called the money “Shinplasters.”)
1779 Stony Point (a fort), New York The British hold this place on the high bank of the Hudson above New York City. 12 miles further north is the American fort at West Point, which holds a vital crossing connecting New England with New York and the Middle Colonies, a major military supply line. With British sea power on the Hudson, General Washington feels Stony Point is uncomfortably close by and works out a plan to take it. He hands the operation to fiery Anthony Wayne (nicknamed “Mad Anthony”, not in the angry sense but the unbalanced sense) who is a cunning leader and inspirational fighter.
“How dare those Americans use the bayonet against US!!??”
This night Wayne comes with carefully picked American troops, all of them specially drilled for this operation in the bayonet. (The British doubt Americans even have many bayonets and are quite certain they don’t know how to use them in a tactical way. BEING surprised is rarely a good thing in war.) Wayne’s men (every musket inspected in camp and on the march to ensure these were NOT loaded; Wayne meant business) come out of the dark with ladders and are over the walls before the sentries can raise the alarm. There is a bloody fight, with some later firing, but the Americans carry the day, inflicting casualties of nearly 600 killed and (mostly) captured. Later on the Americans abandon Stony Point as too exposed and the British decide not to rebuild it.
1862 Holly Springs, Mississippi (4 months into liberation by Union Army forces) Birth of Ida Bell, Later Wells) journalist, activist. Orphaned at 16 by the death of both parents in a yellow fever epidemic, moved to Memphis. Worked as a teacher, going to Fisk University in the
The irrepressible Ida B. Wells, who had more journalistic nerve in her fingernail than most of the today’s political press corps…...
summers to get her degree, then as a reporter, later editor and then owner, for Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper, reporting on racial discrimination and inequality. In the 1890s began writing in-depth stories on lynchings across the South which were re-printed nationwide in black (and some white) newspapers. A white riot in Memphis destroyed her paper so she migrated to Chicago for safety. A most unusual activist in both civil rights and for women’s suffrage. At several points was ostracized by both, by fellow blacks because she was a woman, and by suffragists because of her color, yet she championed both tirelessly. Practically invented investigative journalism, a proud member of the “Muckrakers.”
1940 Berlin, Germany France has surrendered and back on June 23rd Adolf Hitler visited Paris to rub it in. But…..the British used their sea power (and 100s of private vessels) to evacuate 338,000 troops (many thousands of them French) from Dunkirk, and their leader, Churchill, is sounding pugnacious. Nothing that hasn’t been heard before. On this day, after a long meeting with Nazi and military leaders, Hitler orders preparations to begin on the invasion of England, Operation Sea Lion. Tides and weather will affect the final date, but first Goering’s Luftwaffe will need to establish air superiority over the Royal Air Force. Should take a few weeks….., well, a bit more of August….OK, maybe the balance of summer……any time now in (to) September……damn it, how are the RAF doing it?....…
FIRST LADY
Lou Henry Hoover
Charles Henry, banker & outdoorsman, and his wife, Florence Iola (nee Weed; a former schoolteacher) of Waterloo, Iowa had 2 daughters; Lou was their first, on March 29, 1874, 8 years older than their second. While Lou was a toddler the family re-located to Whittier, California. Dad loved the outdoors and brought Lou along, who took to outdoor life, learning to camp, fish, hike and hunt. When she got into school she was hardly demure; she excelled at sports (baseball, basketball and archery; in her teens she added boating, sledding and skating, both on ice or with rollers.) She
The intrepid, outdoor-sy, Lou Henry (before her hair turned)
was a fine horsewoman, able to ride with English saddle, or Western tack, and even bareback (!) In a quieter vein, her mother taught her to sew (even embroider) and a practical, employable skill: bookkeeping.
Around 1890 (age 16) she began attending the Los Angeles Normal School (a teacher’s college; later evolved into UCLA). The family moved to Monterey, and so did Lou, transferring to the San Jose Normal School (later San Jose State.) She got her teaching certificate at age 19 and alternated working as a teller in her father’s bank with substitute teaching.
She attended a public lecture from a Stanford professor of geology one evening and was utterly smitten. She asked him if she could enroll……and if a woman could earn a degree in such field. Yes to both, and she gained a BA in geology in 1898, one of the first American women to do so, and did so despite no mining company would hire on a geology student for field work who was a woman. When she wasn’t working on her major she demonstrated a gift for languages, becoming fluent in Spanish, French, Italian and Latin.
When Lou started her freshman year the geology professor introduced her to a senior, who was the professor’s assistant, Herbert Hoover. Hoover was also from Iowa and an outdoorsman and fisherman. They hit it off strongly. When Hoover graduated he was hired first by an American mining firm. About a year later he went with a British mining company who sent him to Australia. He and Lou exchanged many letters. A year later the firm transferred Hoover to their operation in China. He sent Lou a proposal by telegram. She accepted, so he sailed first to San Francisco for a wedding, and 2 days later they both left for China. Aboard ship (several weeks passage) they both tried to learn Mandarin Chinese from a missionary. Lou picked it up so quickly the missionary admitted her vocabulary exceeded his. She thoroughly enjoyed the culture (and began collecting porcelain as a hobby.)(Later on, in the White House, if they needed to speak in front of others about something private, they would do so in Chinese, confident of privacy.)
The Boxer Rebellion in China a couple years later later led the British mining company to transfer Hoover to their home office in London. In the next 14 years there, the Hoovers had 2 sons and Lou’s light brown hair went prematurely white by age 30 (a family trait). Herbert was making excellent money and in 1908 set up his own firm, which made him wealthy. The family traveled (usually in first class) to the European continent extensively, as well as Russia (including Siberia), Burma and Japan. Around the work, the travel and raising the boys (they had household help and nannies) Herbert and Lou spent 5 years carefully translating a 1565 treatise by Georg Agricola on mining and metallurgy. It had never been translated since there were terms Agricola (writing in Latin) had invented just for the treatise. Herbert’s knowledge of metals enabled him to guess (and also test in the company lab) just what Agricola might have meant. Their work was published in 1912 and the text remains relevant to this day in the field.
The Hoover family was ready to move back to America when World War I erupted. Herbert was asked to head up an international effort of neutral nations (including the US) to provide humanitarian aid to Europe and particularly for occupied Belgium. Lou and the boys made the voyage to America but Lou herself was back and forth across the Atlantic several times and her support and love for Belgium was so celebrated that after the War in 1919, she was decorated by King Albert I of Belgium.
With the end of the War there were crop failures across Europe and the need for food was imperative. President Wilson asked the Hoovers to run a rescue operation. Herbert stayed in Europe (adding to his international reputation and a high US profile) while Lou was the national co-ordinator in the US……we would call them a “power couple.”
In 1920 the family was able to move back to California. Lou, with the help of a Stanford art professor (and sideline architect), designed and built a striking house for the family. (The house is now the Private House for whoever is currently President of Stanford. A few pictures at this link.) They hardly had moved in when the new President, Harding, named Hoover as his Secretary of Commerce. So in 1921 they were back in DC.
For the next years, Lou was at the top levels of the Girl Scouts of America, (having become fast friends with GSA founder Julliette Gordon Lowe) organizing troops, giving radio talks (! A first for a First Lady), fund-raising, editing books about scouting. A Philadelphia troop in 1926 held a local fund-raiser going door to door selling cookies, with success. Lou jumped on the idea and can fairly be called the “Mother of Girl Scout Cookies” (and taste-test approved the final recipe for Thin Mints!)
She was also named as the first/only woman to the National Amateur Athletic Association (later the NCAA). In that post she loudly defended and advocated for female athletes, and endorsed “sensible” uniforms for them. The shellbacks worked to ban women’s sports and ban women competing in international events (like the Olympics), but Lou Hoover argued them down in meetings and in public, giving her a public profile as well.
The National President of the Girl Scouts….and First Lady…Lou Hoover, goes on the air!
In 1928 Herbert Hoover won the Republican nomination and then the Presidency, so Lou and the (teenage and college-age boys) moved into the White House. She was not a socialite and presided over noticeably fewer formal dinners, dances, etc. than was the norm.
And yet, in early in 1929 First Lady Hoover hosted a set of White House teas for the spouses of new members of Congress. One new member was from Chicago, Oscar De Priest, a rare black face in the House. Lou invited his wife, Jessie, to one of these teas (having carefully asked a set of other, open-minded Congressional wives to this event….and informing the White House Guards that a well-dressed black woman was INDEED invited, so let her pass in.)
When word got out (a few days afterward) of the tea, the Southern bigots exploded. 3 state legislatures passed formal Votes of Censure while hot Floor speeches in Congress denounced this “degrading” or “defiling” of the White House. The President’s reaction? Silence….but the following week he had a White House lunch….. with the President of the Tuskegee Institute, having invited him…..and after lunch for everyone, enjoyed hearing the (all-black) Tuskegee Choir sing, who had all also been invited. (Still a “power couple.”)
The Great Depression cast its pall over the Hoover Presidency, who firmly believed that government intervention was not necessary (he both publicly and privately jaw-boned industry leaders to NOT cut wages.) Instead, both Hoovers believed that private philanthropy by the wealthy (like the Hoovers themselves) would rescue the country. Later letters and records show the Hoovers privately gave money to hundreds of people and families from their own resources, and they supported over a dozen of their own relatives with monthly allowances. OTOH, they did not publicize this, so there was not much notice or pressure to follow their example.
After Hoover lost his 1932 re-election bid, they retired to California again. Lou lamented how the Depression has damaged her husband’s legacy, and resented the Roosevelts. In an odd “crossing of paths” in 1934 Lou Hoover gave the graduation speech at her old school in Whittier, California and afterwards in the handshaking was introduced to a rising law student named Richard Nixon. Drawing on Herbert’s long trans-Atlantic experience and despite their political differences, in 1937 FDR sent Hoover to Germany to have a discussion with Adolf Hitler and get a read on him. Hoover reported back to FDR, and then filled in Lou. This led both Hoovers to begin moving away from a somewhat isolationist stance to steadily endorsing the measures FDR was taking for war readiness.
In 1939 the War in Europe ignited, and Roosevelt asked Hoover to again lead a trans-Atlantic effort to help refugees. Both he and Lou moved to New York City where the connections were easier. Lou worked with a will after Pearl Harbor, angry that Japan had attacked her much-beloved China. They lived at the Waldorf-Astoria. One January afternoon in 1944 Lou attended a matinee play, came back “home” and died abruptly of a heart attack, age 69.
Good News in Music, Arts, Literature and Fun
>>>>>>>>> A whole lot of Brits take delight in green, growing things and gardening might be a national hobby. Naturally you’ve heard of Kingswinford, UK, right? Well my sweetie SageHagRN has been a gardener her whole life and derives great joy and satisfaction from green, growing, blooming, vegetating, berrying PLANTS in her backyard. I’m OK with it but it really speaks to her soul. Well then she (and all the other gardeners here) would totally understand about John Massey’s gardening love: 30 years on a 10-acre spread planting…..20,000 trees, shrubs and plants. Even to my eye, THE PIX in THIS STORY are astounding. (And suddenly I think I hear SageHagRN getting out her Scroll marked “Bucket List”, take quill pen in hand, and add “Visit Kingswinford, UK, GARDEN!” as a new entry…..)
>>>>>>> Swanville, Minnesota is a village with 328 souls. They send their kids to Swanville High School and each year some 10 to 15 seniors graduate. Of course their families are proud…..and so are their neighbors. How proud? Those neighbors years ago wanted to make sure their graduates would go places in their lives…..starting with higher education. So decades ago they started a scholarship fund…….not just for the valedictorian, or the best and brightest. THIS GRATIFYING STORY REPORTS every graduate gets a scholarship! The fund-raising for it is a year-round effort. When it started each scholarship was $166. Now they are $5000 and the combined total over the years has topped $1 million. WHOA! and YAY!
Of course, you and I are not the first to find Good News among music, literature, arts and fun. This sort of stuff has been going on for decades!
1858 Liege, Belgium Birth of Eugene Ysaye, violinist, composer. The boy showed early talent on the violin, enough so that his teacher contacted another, far more renowned teacher, who eventually got him a government grant to study for a year. Was playing violin professionally at age 7. Considered one of the finest violinists of his day; Cesar Franck wrote a sonata for him that Ysaye made famous. Ysaye eventually became a professor at the Brussels Conservatory. His compositions are mostly centered on the violin: sonatas, an interesting set of cadenzas offered to some classical composers (“Cadenza for Beethoven” “…for Mozart” “….for Brahms” “….for Tchaikovsky”). He also wrote a good deal of chamber music, some orchestra tone poems (some of these without basses) and one opera (written in Walloon, an official language in Belgium, and so cherished by those folks.)
Dramatic….and almost a form of “call and response” for violins……
1911 Independence, Missouri Birth of Virginia Katherine McMath, actress, dancer. Father and mother (a newspaper reporter!) divorced when she was a toddler and she and her mother lived with her maternal grandparents. In 1915 her mother’s pet hobby, screenwriting, paid off; one of her scripts got made into a movie. At daughter’s age 9, she and mother relocated to Fort Worth, Texas and her mom re-married, with John Rogers becoming stepdad. Mom became a local reporter on the entertainment beat, and kept free-lancing movie scripts---which meant trips to Hollywood. Around school Virginia would go with her mother to films and theaters and she loved to sing along in the balcony, even dance. When she was 14 a traveling vaudeville show saw her, heard her, and hired her on as a child star. She made the move from vaudeville to Broadway and then movies just as these were adding sound----and music. The world discovered her under her stage name of Ginger Rogers. In 1933 she was paired for the first time with Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio and she not only kept up with him, she did everything he did, but backwards and in high heels…..
At age 25, can she dance solo? Can she tap dance? In a skirt 30 years ahead of her time? You bet your socks she could!
Here’s your 1935 “Park-o-Meter”
1935 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma The Depression is still on and like many towns and cities, OKC is trying to keep money flowing into the city coffers. On this day the city installs the first automatic parking meter in the United States. (A painted, 20-foot-long spot would cost a motorist (or farmer with a wagon) 5 cents for an hour.)
1951 Across America, especially English classes. This was the day, American lit students. Yes, required reading in a lot of places. Holden Caufield makes his appearance, the quintessential American teenager, as this day J.D. Salinger’s novel Catcher in the Rye goes on sale.
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Summer day cheers with a sip of white…..
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Shalom.
