A New Sister for the Austin Boys
In March 1911 McKinley, Raymond, and Will Austin had a new sister—Elizabeth Austin. Mort and Jennie Austin, the happy parents, would have two more sons by 1915.
Mort and Jennie would say they had two families as there were 8 years between Will and Elizabeth.
John W. Johnston, Author, Dies
In March 1911 John W. Johnston died. He was the author of Reminiscences, the history of the Town of Highland.
Jennie Crawford, Eldred, to Lillie Austin, Bethel
March 20, 1904
Dear Lillie,
George [Crandall, her future husband] has been away for 10 days. He is to Shohola today. It rains. The March wind is turning me green. I will be sorry when school ends. I’ll have no money and will have to work like sin.
Now that I am trying to write, every kid asks a question. I have 27 here today so I can afford to write to you in school.
Don’t criticize my spelling. I am trying to watch Charlie Rundle and Leo Morgan. They are cute kids.
What kind of truant officer have you? The one we have is worse than none. Well as you see I am laboring under difficulties. I will stop. Please come out. Jennie J. Crawford
Jennie Crawford, Eldred, to Lillie Austin
March 27, 1905
Dear Lillie,
I have just written to Nell. She has had the diphtheria. Gotlieb Metzger is dead. Frank Kelley has partial paralysis of the face.
Bertha Hulse has a young daughter. Lottie Scott is better.
Crandall’s folks have sold their place. Mom washed today. Aunt Etta sprained her foot. I got my feet wet tonight coming up. With love, Jennie J. Crawford
Related posts:
Jennie Crawford, 1902
Lillie teaches in Cochecton
1903 Lillie Austin, teacher
1908 Cochecton
C.S. Bok, Brooklyn, N.Y., to Mort Austin, Eldred
March 11, 1899
My dear old Friend Mort,
I am so glad to hear from you. Let me congratulate you for doing so well in having a little son come to bless you.
I suppose you think I have forgotten you, like some of your city friends. I was on the point to write you many a time and have thought of you often. About Christmas time last December I was taken down sick…and also had a relapse of it that renders me more or less ill ever since then.
Thank you most heartily for your kind invitation to visit you next summer. Perhaps then I may have the other half of me as well as myself come to see you.
Are you going to run a boarding house for the summer? I like to know of this and I may be able to tell some of my friends about it especially those who go away during the hot season.
It is now a very long while since I saw you last. I think it was the time when you brought the horses to Walker.
Are you still in the old farm? My dear old man, how delighted would I be if I can see you now and talk together about everything both of the old times and of today.
It surprised me greatly when I heard of the marriage of Noe and B.C. (Bertha Collins last seen here). C.C.I. has sent out quite a number of fellows and girls, in two of a kind. I mean in pairs, hasn’t it?
Please excuse this paper. It happens this is the only thing I have in the house and I don’t want you to wait any longer until I get some paper, to hear from me.
Remember me kindly to your wife, and hug little McKinley for me. I am ever your friend,
C. Soule Bok
C. Soule Bok, friend of Mort Austin
Charles Cotesworth Pickney (C.C.P.) Eldred Dies
In March 1890 Uncle C.C.P. Eldred, the brother of Mary Ann Eldred Austin, Eliza Eldred Gardner, and Maria Eldred Austin, died.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Eldred was seven when he arrived in Lumberland with his family at the end of 1815. They had settled in an old log cabin with a sawmill near Halfway Brook.
C.C.P. Eldred had joined the Congregational Church of Lumberland in March 1824.
He was very active in the work of the church and served as a deacon from 1849 until his death in 1890.
C.C.P. had also been Postmaster of Eldred for a number of years. He was responsible for renaming Halfway Brook Village when the U.S. Post Office required a shorter name.
So the charming, much preferred (to me, anyway) name of Halfway Brook Village became Eldred, named after C.C.P. Eldred’s father, James Eldred, or named after C.C.P. himself—both stories are told.
In March, Charles C.C.P. Eldred died at his Eldred home after a three week illness. He was buried the following Wednesday in Highland Cemetery in Eldred.—The Port Jervis Union, March 12, 1890.
He [C.C.P. Eldred] was an honest industrious man of most excellent qualities which made him a great favorite in the community in which he lived.—The Evening Gazette, March 10, 1890.
Albany, New York, Term 3, March 1873
My Dear Father,
I had quite a serious time getting to the depot that morning as I had to change cars several times. I do not know what was the matter with the street cars; they would go a little ways and then stop and go back and would have to change cars. There was a gentleman and lady on the cars going to the same depot and by following them, I managed to get along very well.
When I arrived at Albany, I found the streets so blocked with snow as to prevent the cars from moving further than State Street which was however far enough for me. I got to Mrs. Wrighter about four in the afternoon. The next day I went up to school and after school went in to see Dr. Alden.
At first he seemed to think that I would be unable to make up what I had lost in staying and he was very kind however and said he was perfectly willing that I should try.
As to my voice he said it would not prevent me from graduating, though I had to ask him several times before he answered me. He thought I had better board though and I have concluded to, for a few weeks at least.
I will write again soon. Ever your aff. Emma
Albany, New York, March 14, 1873
My Dear Mother,
I arrived here in safety that afternoon about 4 o’clock. When I got here, I found the streets literally blocked with snow. The street cars were only running as far as State Street. This however was just far enough for me. I came at once to Mrs. Wright’s where I succeeded in getting board.
I did not go up to see Dr. Alden that evening, but went up to school the next morning. He came to me and wanted to know why I had not come back sooner, if you had received his letter before I came away, etc. etc.
I answered his questions to the best of my ability but evidently not to his satisfaction. He said that I could of course do as I pleased about staying, but that he did not think I could make up what I had lost and that I might better have remained at home this term. He said that you kept me at home simply because you chose to do so and that I must suffer the consequences. Continue reading
Albany, New York, March 1872
Dear Mother,
I have been very busy this week and it seems so good to be at liberty to talk to you for a few minutes even if I can only talk with pen and ink on a little piece of paper that will not contain one half I want to say…
Since writing this, I have stopped and ironed my clothes. I always iron Friday. Mrs. Wright does my washing and I think she ought to. We pay enough for board though we get ours much cheaper than some of the girls.
If I stay another term, I shall board myself. It is much cheaper and I should like it better. I am as careful of my money as I can be and have not lost any yet.
I get along very well in school, at least the teachers tell me my standing is good whenever I ask them.
Miss Stoneman is my teacher in map drawing and penmanship and I am afraid I shall never be able to draw maps correctly anyway. It takes more time than anything else and I do not see any particular use in it.
And then if we do not speak loud enough in our recitation, she marks us the same as for missing. She always tells me to talk louder until I forget what I am going to say, so I suppose my standing in that is not very good though it can not be very low or she would tell me.
Grammar is very easy and I get along quite well in that Miss McClelland gave us sentences to write and analyze the other day. She found quite a good deal of fault with the most of them, and when I got about half way through with mine, she said, “Stop. Miss Austin, that was done beautifully, just the way I wanted it.” Continue reading
Albany, New York, March 1872
My dear Mother,
I have been copying poetry and drawing maps all day and now I am going to write a few lines to my mother as I am tired and I know this will rest me as much as anything.
I am glad we do not have school Saturday. I never should have anytime for writing if they did.
The lessons are not very hard to learn, but they are hard to recite and it takes me all the time to think what I shall say and how I shall say it when I get up in the class and then I very often forget and say something wrong.
We have been having review in Geography all this week. I asked Mrs. Stoneman yesterday how many failures I had made. She said I had not made any, but my recitation on Tuesday was not very good. She gave me Mr. Parish’s to recite from and I could not tell what it was and consequently failed to recite. I was afraid she marked it a failure, but she did not. Continue reading
1872 First Term, Albany, New York
My darling Mother,
I will try and scribble a few lines now, though I have only a few minutes to do it in as it has taken me nearly all the afternoon to work out some questions in Complex Fractions according to a new theory of Professor Husted.
It took me some time to get it so that I could understand it and explain it out. I think I can do so now and this way is much better than any I have ever seen before.
We are nearly through our Physiology and I shall be glad when we are done with skeletons and bones. Miss Stoneman had a skull in class today and took the bones apart, and passed them around the class for the students to look at. I looked, but did not touch any myself. Miss Stoneman was up in our grammar class today.
Allie Van Kleek, one of the graduates, was in the class and she says she is going to make me talk louder. Before I was called on, she complained to Miss McClelland that she could not hear one of the girls and I was so afraid that she would complain of me that I would hardly speak.
I would not have been scared if Miss S. had not been there. Allie said my voice trembled so and my cheeks were so red that she took compassion on me and kept still. The girls wanted to know what made my cheeks so red. I thought my face was burning up and every word choked me and they all laughed about it when I got home.
Tell father I received the money and thank him for me for sending it. I am glad he thinks I have improved in writing.
Tell Ida I am much obliged to her for her letter and will answer soon. With much love,
Ever yours, E.E.A.
Saturday, March 2, 1872
My dear, dear Mother,
I get so lonesome as it seems to me I must write to you as I can not live without going home. Yet I like it here very much. But you know it is my disposition to be discontented.
I have had the teethache all day today and this afternoon, I went to the dentist and had one drained.
This morning Mr. Bigelow, a teacher from New York, and a graduate from here, came in for the girls to go up to the legislature. He gave Carrie and I an invitation to go, too. We accepted the invitation and went. I hoped to see Gov. Hoffman, but in this I was disappointed.
I had the pleasure of seeing Senator Madden and hearing him speak. But did not observe anything remarkably brilliant either in his looks or conversation. They spent most of the time in which we were there in disputing the time in which they should meet again and finally decided to adjourn until Tuesday next.
They were rather more dignified and orderly in the Senate than in the House of Representatives. But I did not receive very exalted impressions of either.
We went from the Senate to the State Library and took a look at the books. It is a large and nicely finished building and contains 82,000 volumes of standard literature. We have the privilege of going there to read whenever we please, but are not allowed to take any books from the building…
We are going up to the Observatory before long. Dr. Alden thinks it very desirable that we should visit it once during our stay in Albany, but has forbidden us to go more than once as he considers it a very possible place for flirtations and he decidedly objects to anything of the kind among the students of the State Normal.
Mr. Wright tells me that it is the only or at least the principle object of the school to make old maids, and that we sign a contract to remain single when we enter the school, but Dr. Alden says a lady is always entitled to the privilege of changing her mind. So it is not so bad after all. Continue reading
Albany Normal School, now the University at Albany, was the first Normal School in the State of New York and the third in the United States.
Opening December 18, 1844, Albany Normal offered a two-year teacher preparatory program, modeled on l’Ecole Normale Superieure in France. The goal was to educate and train school teachers in the science of education and the art of teaching for teaching positions in New York as well as the rest of the U.S.
In her letters [some of which will be in the next posts] from Albany State Normal to her parents, Emma Austin mentioned Dr. Alden and Professor Husted.
Dr. Joseph Alden
Dr. Alden was the first president of Albany Normal School from 1867–1882. He wrote more than seventy books, including—Christian Ethics or the Science of Duty, The Science of Government, and Thoughts on the Religious Life.
Alden was a firm believer that the study of the English language was just as important as the study of Latin and Greek.
President Alden is perhaps best known for his championing of women faculty who, he believed, should be “paid for the work done and not for the sex of the worker.” Alden was also concerned about improving the living conditions of female students.
Albert Husted
Albert N. Husted, was appointed a math instructor about 1855, but then resigned his position to join the Union during the Civil War, and mustered into Company E, on September 6, 1862, as a 2nd Lieutenant. Captain Albert N. Husted returned as a Math Professor in November 1864, at a salary of $1,000 per year.—albany.edu.
