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

   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...

  Gimme Some Taffy       This is part 3 in a series of crazes, trends, and  popular expressions in our Victorian ancestors’ days. Part 1 was “The Dolly Varden Craze” and Part 2 was “Shabby Genteel.”      Taffy - Praise, flattery, “soft soap.”       At a graduation and alumni banquet in Pittsburgh a member who could not attend sent a letter of regret, “but covered the members of the association with good wishes and taffy,” the Pittsburgh Press reported in December 1898.        In 1882 the Lewisburg Local News in Pennsylvania ran a piece that first appeared in Cincinnati explaining just what “taffy” was when it did not refer to America’s then-favorite candy. “When a politician wants office, he takes to the stump and tells the people how intelligent they are and how proud he will be to represent such a constituency on the floor of Congress. That is taffy. When...

  Kaskaskia. It’s an ancient name, dramatic and evocative. Kaskaskia is a river, a 325 mile tributary of the Mississippi in Illinois. It is the name of a people, a tribe that once was part of the Illinois Confederation. The few remaining members joined with the Peoria Confederation when they were forced to move to Indian Territory – Oklahoma – in 1867, ceasing to exist as a separate tribe.      Kaskaskia was also a town, settled by French trappers and traders, with a population of 20,000 at its peak. It was once an important center, a key supply point for merchants throughout the Mississippi Valley, and Illinois’ first territorial capital. But by 1833, Kaskaskia’s glory days were over. It was on its way to the seeming extinction that came to the tribe.      “Asleep or paralyzed,” wrote a priest around this time, Kaskaskia “lies dreaming over its past and its prospects are no more. No press, no railroad, no mill, no smoke of manufact...