Between the Lines: Family History and Quirky Stories From Our Forgotten Past

   Tom Taylor never served in the Civil War, but he decided in 1863 to support and promote Abraham Lincoln and his policies as a young newspaper founder, publisher and editor. He continued in this rough-and-tumble line of work, when newspapers even in small towns often had competition.      Thomas Stanfield Taylor (1840-1908) was born in South Bend, the son of Edmund Pitts Taylor and Phoebe Stanfield. He had several powerful connections in his family tree. He was the nephew of Lathrop Minor Taylor, co-founder of South Bend, and at times his father’s business partner. His uncle Samuel Hanna was Fort Wayne’s most important leader, probably its wealthiest citizen and a state legislator.       Tom was also named for his uncle Thomas Stillwell Stanfield, who started out as a clerk at Lathrop Taylor’s general store, studied law, and became an Indiana congressman and judge of circuit court. During the Civil War he helped organize...

  Newspapers in the 1870s and beyond almost all had a column with a name like “Gleanings,” “Brevities” or “Town Topics” in which the editor commented on local happenings, seasonal changes, who was visiting in town and so on. I’ve compiled collections of these from the two places the Barbour branch of my family were living in during this era: Coffeyville, Kansas and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Almost all my earlier “Gleanings” articles were from Coffeyville, however. these are Fort Wayne items. Compiled from September 1869 The public schools of this city will open for the fall term on Monday next. (Sept. 6) We do not desire to interfere with the rights of humanity to appease their appetites at various eating booths…in our city, but having, through the assistance of a watermelon rind, performed an evolution equal to a first-rate gymnast in a circus, in which our heels changed position with our head, we do enter our editorial protest against the miscellaneous scattering of the refuse matter ...

   One year when I was working as a reading teacher, two of my first-grade students were an uncle and his nephew. They were both six years old. Several years later, I had an aunt and niece in my fourth grade class. “Cynthia” and “Mia” both had always lived in the same house. In both situations, the other teachers thought this was very strange - almost freakishly bizarre. An aunt and niece the same age? And uncle and nephew in first grade together? The idea of mother and daughter pregnant at the same time – how weird!      Historically, it wasn’t unusual though. There were many situations where the niece or nephew was older than an aunt or uncle. There were many more instances when the uncle or aunt was just a few years older than niece or nephew – essentially peers. Scholar Leonore Davidoff wrote about what she called the “long” family. Mother married and had her first child young, and continued having children into her forties. The family was “long” b...

  Goldie Suttenfield dreamed of stardom. She had a small taste of it in and near her hometown, Fort Wayne, Indiana, but her performing career was brief.      Lillian “Goldie” Suttenfield was born in 1883 to William Suttenfield, the grandson of Fort Wayne pioneer William Suttenfield, and Lydia “Ida” Bainbridge. She was their only child to survive. William worked as a coachman and livery manager. He was an avid horse racing fan and had a run-in or two with the police for fighting and public drunkenness.      A rare only child in an era of large families, Goldie was probably indulged with music lessons even with her parents' limited means. As a teenager, she went public, appearing as a comic singer at local venues. Minstrel Shows and Black Face       Unfortunately, Goldie’s choice of entertainment was one imitating and making fun of Black people. The elements of minstrel shows - cake walks, buck-and-wing dancer...