Old Coin Cache Prompts New English History Lessons

Recently, my husband cleared out some drawers. Don found the usual bits that he should have thrown out long ago but didn’t, as well as a few forgotten things that he was happy to see again. He also found a handful of English coins.

We took our children to England and Wales in 2000 and we went alone in 1987, but these were not coins left over from those trips. These coins were probably from the pockets of Don’s father. Don traveled to England with his parents when he was five or six years old and that may have been when the coins were acquired. Or maybe they had been in his father’s own junk drawer for years, remnants of his life before he emigrated to the United States in the 1930s.

Some of the coins are quite old and I was intrigued since I’ve been researching England in the 1920s. All bronze pennies and half pennies, they aren’t worth much since they were well-used, but it still gave me a bit of a thrill to hold them in my hand.

There are pennies from several years, including 1916, 1918, 1927, and 1929. They all look the same, with George V’s head on one side and the seated figure of Britannia on the other. George’s father was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and, much like the current king, spent most of his life as the Prince of Wales before his brief reign as Edward VII. George never expected to be king himself since he had an elder brother, but Albert Victor unfortunately died of pneumonia at the age of 28. 

George had been occupied pursuing a career in the navy and falling in love with a cousin (those Victorians did that a lot!), but once he became the heir apparent, his life changed drastically. He wound up marrying his brother’s fiancé and they were crowned king and queen in 1911, following his father’s death.

George became the father of Edward VIII, the man who abdicated when he wasn’t allowed to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson. The crown then passed to George’s younger son, also named George, who was Elizabeth’s father and Charles’ grandfather.

There were other children, too, including Prince John who died young in 1919. John was the last-born child and had developmental delays and epilepsy. His parents and siblings seem to have been fond of him, but a separate household was eventually set up for his care. Especially during the war years when the other royals were much occupied, John was looked after by the family nanny.

The backs of the George pennies feature Britannia with a trident and shield. Britannia is described as the “personification of Britain,” which was the name used for the country when it was under Roman rule during the first few centuries A.D.. Britannia started appearing on England’s coins in mid-1600s. 

Edgar Bertram MacKennal was the engraver of George’s portrait. He was the king’s favorite artist and sculpted several likenesses of him as well as many other works. MacKennal was an Australian and became the first of his countrymen to be knighted.  

This penny’s particular Britannia was the work of Leonard Charles Wyon. The son of William Wyon, an accomplished engraver, Leonard was apprenticed to the art at a young age, and took over his late father’s position when he was just twenty-four years old. Father William engraved penny heads of George IV and William IV, as well as the first portrait penny of Victoria in 1839. 

Son Leonard was chosen to engrave the second Victoria coin portrait in 1860, the first penny that was bronze rather than copper. This coin is known as the “Bun Head” because of the queen’s hairstyle and was in use until 1894. A very well-worn “Bun Head” penny issued in 1878 is among the coins Don inherited. 

There is also a second Victoria penny known as “Old Head” or “Veiled Head” that was issued between 1895-1901. One of those, from 1899, is also in Don’s collection. This portrait is the widow-in-mourning Victoria with which we are all familiar, designed by Thomas Brock and engraved by William de Saulles. William de Saulles engraved Britannia on the flip side as well but used the previous design by Leonard Charles Wyon. 

De Saulles was another prolific and popular sculptor. The Titanic memorial in Belfast was one of his works. He was given the commission in 1913, but World War I intervened, and the memorial wasn’t completed and dedicated until 1920. 

While I am certainly not a coin collector, researching these very old pennies and actually holding them in my hand makes me feel even closer to the 1920s history I’ve been working on for Agatha Annotated. History is so much more than a dusty book! I think making connections like this is important for reminding us that the past isn’t just a story. It’s full of real people with real issues and if we empathize with them, we can learn from them.

Ruth Grows Up - The Rest of the Story

March is Women’s History Month. I used to do more marketing around that theme when my first book, Ruth by Lake and Prairie, was still newish, even though Ruth is only twelve in the story. I rarely talk about Ruth as an adult, but it seems fitting for the occasion.

I couldn’t believe it until I did the math, but it’s been seventeen years since Ruth by Lake and Prairie was published! Drawing on all the history I could find, it tells the journey to settle Naperville, Illinois. I chose Ruth as the main character because the children of Joseph and John Naper were only preschool-aged. Ruth is their niece and was also on the voyage, so it made more sense to use her as the main character.

 
Briefly, if you don’t already know this story, in 1831, Joseph Naper planned a community in Illinois. He gathered friends and family from New York and Ohio, including his brother, John Naper, and brother-in-law, John Murray, who was Ruth’s father. It was a four-week journey, most of which was spent sailing the schooner, Telegraph, through the Great Lakes to the Chicago settlement and then another three days overland to the DuPage River.

Bits of the story have come to light from odd sources over the years. Ruth’s older brother, Ned, gave some newspaper interviews when he was one of the last surviving original settlers. Some of the other families passed down details but didn’t stay in the area, so their contributions are harder to track down.

I have found nothing directly from Ruth like an interview or a diary. The Warren girls (of Warrenville) told a story about calling on a neighbor with Ruth. She shows up as a probable “female” in early census records and is later listed by name.

 

At twenty-three, Ruth married Harlyn Shattuck. Harlyn was part of a large family who had staked out land in Boone County, near Rockford. While Harlyn was clearing the land and building the farm, Ruth seems to have lived in Naperville at the New York House hotel, possibly working for brother Ned who was the owner. (Full disclosure: My notes are still packed away and I’m recalling this without confirmation.)

Eventually, Ruth and Harlyn moved out to the farm in Boone County where they raised their children Murray, John, Olive, Willard, and Orris. Nephew Byron Johnson became part of their family after the death of Ruth’s younger sister. Cordelia had given birth to her second son, Edgar, in December of 1846, but the baby died at the end of January and Cordelia followed a week later. Ruth and Cordelia’s father, John Murray, also joined the household for a while after his wife, Amy, passed away in 1856.

 

I never mention it in a presentation for children, but Ruth’s adult life must have been difficult. In 1845 alone, she lost toddler daughter Lovisa in July and baby daughter Louesa in September. Another daughter, her last child, died in 1863, just before her first birthday.

Ruth did not live to make old bones, either. I don’t know any details, but she died in July of 1864 at the age of 45 and is buried in the Shattucks Grove Cemetery in Boone County. This was during the Civil War and her son, Murray, named for her father’s family, had joined the 9th Illinois Cavalry in January of that year, along with several of his Shattuck cousins.

When fleshing out Ruth’s character for the book, I speculated that Ruth was family-oriented, the center of hearth and home. As evidence, I look at the care she provided for her nephew and her father and the fact that, after her death, the family seems to fall apart. Harlyn remarried, to a widow named Lucretia Orton Hall, and this second family shows up in Boone County history for generations while Ruth’s children scattered.

John died in 1872 at the age of 23, leaving a widow but no children. Military records list Murray as a deserter in September of 1865. He died in 1925 at the Fergus Falls State Hospital for the Insane in Minnesota. Orris married and settled in South Dakota. Willard, who was named for Willard Scott, stayed somewhat nearby in Kane County. Olive was the only one who remained in Boone County.

When I was writing Ruth by Lake and Prairie, I tried to find descendants to see if they had any knowledge that was handed down rather than published in books and records. There wasn’t much that was new, but I did correspond with a couple of great-grandchildren, which was great fun! I’m sure Ruth would be happy to know they still think of her.

Looking at Agatha Christie's 1920s Novels via Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"

Hemingway's Writing Studio

Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1899, just a few years after the World’s Columbian Exhibition in 1893. One of the by-products of the Exhibition was that young people from rural areas were exposed to the Big City and all of the tantalizing advances of the American Industrial Revolution. Among those drawn to Chicago were writers such as Carl Sandburg, Theodore Dreiser, and Edgar Lee Masters. The years between 1912 and 1925 are characterized as the Chicago Literary Renaissance and Hemingway was coming of age during that time.

Sherwood Anderson, who wrote the stories in the book Winesburg, Ohio, was also part of this Chicago literary society. He met Hemingway in 1920 and became a sort of mentor to the younger man. By this time, Hemingway had already recovered from the wounds he received as an ambulance driver during World War I and had been writing for the Toronto Star Weekly.

Also during this time, Hemingway met and married Hadley Richardson. Barely existing on her small trust fund and his freelancing for the Toronto Star Weekly, Anderson suggested the young couple move to Paris where the post-war economy was more affordable and there was an exciting expat creative community. He even provided letters of introduction to his friends Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound.

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Paris during the 1920s must have been amazing! Stein would hold gatherings that included Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, Sinclair Lewis and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many other creative types. Hemingway moved in this circle as well and even asked Stein to be his son’s godmother.

In June of 1925, Hemingway returned to Pamplona, Spain for the Festival of San Fermin, which he had fallen in love with a few years before. He started writing The Sun Also Rises in July, finishing the first draft in just a couple months. Following revisions and edits, the novel was published in October of 1926. A second printing was ordered in just a couple of months.

People loved the book. Or hated the book. They found it realistic. Or a flight of fancy. Regardless, it remained in print for decades and spurred new analyses over the years. The character of Lady Brett Ashley has often been dissected and discussed. Was she a poor little rich girl starved for love or a spoiled slut without a heart? Since Hemingway wrote an awful lot about manliness and was married four times, one has to wonder how much he really understood about women.

Lady Brett was based on a real woman of Hemingway’s acquaintance, Mary Duff, Lady Twysden. She was in her twenties during WWI. While proof is elusive, it’s probable that she served in some capacity during the war as so many did, either working men’s jobs while they were overseas or nursing. That war time experience no doubt impacted women in many ways and influenced a lot of “flapper” behavior.

Yes, there was that new taste of independence in which a girl could work – often in trousers! – and make her own money. But war is a grim business and few families were untouched by that grimness. Many lost fathers and brothers and sons or brought them home maimed and broken. Girls who worked in hospitals experienced horrors daily such as amputations, chemical burns, and other disfiguring wounds. It’s no wonder fictional Lady Bretts and their real-life counterparts adopted a “devil take tomorrow” attitude.

Rereading Agatha Christie’s 1920s novels after contemplating The Sun Also Rises is an interesting exercise. Did mild-mannered Arthur Hastings suffer battle flashbacks? Were the outwardly self-possessed women screaming inside? “Keep Calm and Carry On” didn’t become a slogan until the next war, but seems to have been born during The Lost Generation years.

101 Years Ago this Month, Agatha Christie Started her Around-the-World Voyage

Recently, I was researching South Africa, particularly Agatha Christie’s visit there. I was amused to see that her trip took place almost exactly 101 years ago. After boarding the ship R.M.S. Kildonan Castle, Christie wrote a letter headed: “First day: 20 January 1922.” She was to spend the next two weeks onboard, arriving in Cape Town, South Africa, on February 6. 

The Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company attached “castle” to the names of all their steamships, but there actually is a Kildonan Castle on an island just off the east coast of Scotland. The name “Kildonan” apparently refers to a Saint Donan who came to the Isle of Arran to convert the Picts to Christianity in 600-something. 

Christie was traveling with her husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, who was the financial advisor for the British Empire Exhibition Mission. The Mission intended to visit all of the British Dominions and secure their participation in the British Empire Exhibition, planned for 1924. 

While visitors certainly enjoyed the Exhibition, it was a financial failure and not the unifying celebration planners had hoped for. Critics pointed out that the pavilions depicted some of countries as stereotypically primitive by not showcasing their modernization as well as their traditions. Also, it was becoming harder to ignore the general friction growing between the British Empire and its various colonies, territories, and dominions. 

The Christies left their very young daughter behind to go on this ten-month-long trip. Not an easy decision to make, one supposes. In addition to having a grand time, Agatha certainly made the most of the opportunity and put many of the details into her books. “The Man in the Brown Suit” particularly follows her real-life journey and she based the character of Sir Eustace Pedlar on her husband’s boss, Major Belcher. 

image credit: R.M.S. Kildonan Castle by Naval-History.net/Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0

The Clarion in Holland’s 1886 Directory

One of the advertisers in Holland’s Business Directory – and a major source of information about all the other advertisers – is the Naperville Clarion. While it is no longer in publication, the Clarion provided news to Naperville citizens for over 100 years. For many of those years, the Givler family served as publisher and editor.

A series of newspapers that were available to Naperville readers came and went until the 1860s. In the early days, folks read the Chicago Weekly Democrat and then the DuPage County Recorder. Other briefly published newspapers included the DuPage County Observer and the DuPage County Journal as well as the Naperville Newsletter and Naperville Sentinel.

During the Civil War, Robert Naper and Dr. Robert Potter founded the DuPage County Press, probably so locals could keep up with the national news. In 1867, after local boy David Givler had returned from the War and found his footing, he bought the Press and changed the name to the Naperville Clarion. Givler wore all the hats from reporter to editor to publisher and his motto for the paper was "Neutral in Nothing; Independent in Everything."

Givler was born in Ohio, but in the 1850s, his family relocated to the Copenhagen settlement which was around Route 59 and 83rd Street. He married Abbie Matter in 1864 while on leave from his war service and their early years were spent in Copenhagen while Givler taught school.

By 1867, they moved to Naperville and Givler became a pillar of the community. He was a well-respected speaker on history and current events and visited schools as well as clubs and organizations. He and Abbie raised three girls and three boys, with all of the boys serving at some point in the newspaper’s print shop.

Son Walter switched from printing to working for the First National Bank of Naperville. In his later years, he was instrumental in preserving early Naperville history, especially the Martin-Mitchell Mansion which had been given to the town by Caroline Martin Mitchell.

Son Oscar spent time in the print shop, too, as well as serving as town clerk, but he suffered from childhood with a “catarrhal affection” and underwent treatment at Edward Sanitorium. Unfortunately, he succumbed at age 47, leaving behind a wife and son.

David Givler published the Clarion until 1905 when he turned over the reins to his son, Rollo. David continued to write and speak during retirement, but he never rallied after his wife of 59 years passed away in the fall of 1922. He followed her on January 6, 1923.

Rollo ran operations at the Clarion and provided other printing services until 1951 when he sold everything to Mel Hodell and retired to California. The Clarion ceased to be published in the 1970s, but most issues are available for perusing through the Naperville Library’s website. They make for fascinating reading and with the search function, you can find great tidbits about Naperville families, businesses, and events.