#About how Elizabeth was born in 1924

[geneajournals]

Tradesman: Thomas Jefferson Guice (1893-1988), Blacksmith

Thomas Jefferson Guice, son of Chapel E. and Laura Ann (Harris) Guice, was born on 1 April 1893 in Mount Andrew, Barbour County, Alabama.  He was the fourth son of eleven children. [1]

During the 1900 U. S. Census Tom was seven years old. As of June he had attended school for three months. His parents were farming on a rental property. Tom had several siblings: Davie, age nine, R. B. age five, Lelia, age two, and Aaron, age one. [2]

In 1910, Tom Guice, his parents and five siblings were classified as “Mulatto”. Tom was seventeen years old. All of the Guice children were attending school and the entire family was literate. Tom’s father, Chapel, continued to farm on his own account. Tom and older brother Davie were working as farm laborers on the house farm. [3]

After completing high school Tom Guice left home to attend college in Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama. The campus was about 50 miles north of his home in Barbour County. Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute offered academic and industrial training to African Americans. There were twenty-five industrial departments at Tuskegee, including the blacksmith department. Students were taught the theory of their particular trade and how to apply the skills in practice. [4]

Frances Benjamin Johnson, The Blacksmith Shop, c. 1904, retrieved from PICRYL, used under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication ("CCO 1.0 Dedication").

Tom Guice completed his education at Tuskegee in 1915 with a major in Blacksmithing. While at Tuskegee Tom shod the horse ridden by Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee. [5]

Thomas “Tom” Guice married Minnie Elizabeth Waters on 2 September 1915 in Montgomery, Montgomery County, Alabama.

Known children from this marriage are: Tommie Gwendolyn (1916-1993), Reginald Delmere (1917-2007), LaVerne Thelena (1919-2019), Neva Geraldine (1920-2005), Jarvis Edsell (1922-1978) and Gaynell Clarita (1928-2020).

In 1917 Tom was co-owner/operator of Guice & Jones Blacksmiths. The shop was located at 200 South 24th Street, Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama. [6]

1917 Birmingham City Directory, XXXII: 737, entries for "Guice Thos L (Guice & Jones)".

1917 Birmingham City Directory, XXXII: 1491, entry for Blacksmiths: Guice & Jones.

Thomas Jefferson Guice registered for the World War I Draft on 5 June 1917. He had a wife and a child. Thomas was employed by “Crause-Crawford Mfg. Co.” as a blacksmith. He claimed an exemption on the grounds of “Doing Government work”. [7]

"World War I Draft Registration Cards 1917-1918," Thomas Jefferson Guice No. 202, Draft Board 6, Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama.

By 1924 Thomas J. Guice was employed as a blacksmith with the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company (also known as SLSF or Frisco Lines) in Birmingham. [8]

The 1930 U.S. Census shows Thomas J. Guice living on 14th Court with his wife Minnie and their six children.  Thomas is employed as a blacksmith for a railroad shop. Minnie is a teacher in a county school.  The Guices own their home, valued at $3,000 and a radio. [9]

In 1940 Thomas J. Guice and his family are living in the same house. Thomas, a blacksmith for “steam Frisco RR” worked 48 hours the week prior to the census. In 1939 his income was $1,800. Minnie, a school teacher, had an income of $454 in 1939. Tommie Guice, the oldest daughter, is also a school teacher. Her 1939 income was $454. Son, Jarvis, has completed four years of high school. The youngest child, Gaynell, has completed sixth grade. [10]

Thomas J. and Minnie Guice are empty nesters in 1950. They are fifty-seven and fifty-four years old respectively. Thomas is still working as a blacksmith for a steam railroad. Minnie continues with her career as an elementary school teacher. [11]

Thomas Jefferson Guice retired after thirty-seven years as a Blacksmith with the Frisco Railroad. [12]

In May 1988, Thomas lost Minnie, his wife of seventy-three years. Thomas died on 27 June 1988 in Birmingham. [13]

Thomas Jefferson Guice and Minnie (Waters) Guice are buried in Shadow Lawn Memorial Park, Birmingham, Alabama. [14]

Sources

Thomas Jefferson Guice, funeral program, Byers Family Collection; privately owned. Distributed at the funeral of Thomas Jefferson Guice, 2 July 1988, Birmingham, Alabama. Inherited from Valencia Guice Byers.

1900 U.S. census, Barbour, Alabama, population schedule, Mount Andrew, enumeration district (ED) 4, sheet 5B, dwelling 97, family 97, Chapel Guice household; digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DCR3-1J9 : accessed 29 January 2012) 4119965 > image 768 of 900; citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T623, roll 1.

1910 U.S. census, Barbour, Alabama, population schedule, Mount Andrew, enumeration district (ED) 4, sheet 7B, dwelling 128, family 132, household of Chapel E Guice; digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RVD-9ZXX : accessed 28 December 2014) 4970174 > image 14 of 24; citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T624, roll 1.

Booker T. Washington, “The Awakening of The Negro,” The Atlantic, September 1896, pages 322-328; The Atlantic Ideas Tour (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideastour/civil-rights/washington-full.html : accessed 5 September 2023).

Thomas Jefferson Guice funeral program.

R. L. Polk & Co.'s Birmingham City Directory 1917, XXXII:, 737, entries for "Guice Thos L (Guice & Jones)" and “Blacksmiths Guice & Jones””; imaged in “U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 September 2023) > Alabama > Birmingham > 1917 > Birmingham, Alabama, City Directory, 1917 > images 368 and 745 of 814.

"United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YRR-QK : 25 December 2021), Thomas Jefferson Guice No. 202, Draft Board 6, Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama, USA; citing United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. 

Polk's Birmingham City Directory, 1924, XXXVIII (Birmingham: R. L. Polk & Co., 1924), 763, entry for "Guice Thos J"; imaged in “U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 2 May 2020) > Alabama >Birmingham > 1924 > Birmingham, Alabama, City Directory, 1924 > image 381 of 825.  

1930 U.S. census, Jefferson, Alabama, population schedule, Birmingham, enumeration district (ED) 37-61, sheet 20A, p. 120 (printed), dwelling 376, family 447, Thomas J Guice; digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 February 2018); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T626, roll 27.

1940 U.S. census, Jefferson County, Alabama, population schedule, Birmingham, enumeration district (ED) 68-1, sheet 5B, household 79, Thomas J. Guice; digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 February 2018); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T627, roll 91.

1950 U.S. census, Jefferson County, Alabama, Birmingham, enumeration district (ED) 68-1, sheet 72, household 99, Thomas J. Guice household; digital images, Official 1950 Census Website (https://1950census.archives.gov/ : accessed 3 April 2022); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T628, roll 742.

Thomas Jefferson Guice funeral program.

Ibid.

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186361092/thomas-j-guice: accessed 05 September 2023), memorial page for Thomas J Guice (1893–unknown), Find a Grave Memorial ID 186361092, citing Shadow Lawn Memorial Park, Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama, USA; Maintained by Beverly Hickman Atkins (contributor 48239166).

[welcometomy20s]

September 13, 2022

Today, I’ll start ranking all the Prime Ministers in the new Elizabethan era, from Churchill to Johnson (if you have to summarize the era in one phrase…) using a tier list. I’m using a tier list so that I could do this chronologically and this could serve as a very dirty introduction to the political history of Britain in the last hundred years. And for the criteria, I’m going to assess the PM’s efficacy, as in, did the PM do what they said they would do. If they did, they’ll get a high rank, if they did not, they’ll get a low rank. This would not be an assessment of how close they were to my political beliefs, because that would become a tierlist about me, and not them.

Today's part will be a short summary of the political situation in Britain up until Elizabeth became Queen of the Kingdom.

Background Background

So 1910 was a very important year because the House of Lords were severely reduced in power and there was electoral reform, and George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather became king.

After, the UK went to war with Asquith and then Lloyd George, and then they had a good election, then a bad election, as the new Labour party slowly became the new major party. During that time Bonar Law was PM, probably one of the most ineffective PM in modern times, before Baldwin took over for a bit, but then MacDonald created the first Labour government in 1923 which did not work as Asquith predicted, Baldwin won the following election in 1924.

Part 0 - Background

Elizabeth Winsdor was born in 1926, during that time Baldwin was PM, with MacDonald in opposition. There was a strike that year, which meant MacDonald took back the office in… 1929. Which wasn't a good time to take over, since the Great Depression happened, so MacDonald decided to basically take his men and form a government without Labour, which was known as the First National Government. Baldwin was basically deputy PM, and de facto PM because MacDonald was getting really old, and Baldwin returned to full PM in 1935.

1936 was when George V died and Edward VII became king, but Edward VII wanted to marry an American socialite which was a no-go and… he was a bit of nazi as well, so he abdicted at the end of the year and George VI, Elizabeth’s father, became King. George VI was not meant to be king, but he had to do his best because WWII was slowly coming up.

Baldwin, with Attlee as opposition after George Lansbury (that’s Angela Lansbury’s grandfather!) stepped down right before the 1935 election, left in 1937 and Chamberlain took over, he tried to stop the pending war but infamously failed, which led to Churchill taking over and creating a more famous Second National Government with Attlee as deputy PM.

After WWII, we had the famous 1945 General Election, which, in shock to many, led to a strong majority government led by Attlee, which led to creation of the modern British state with the NHS and the welfare state, but after six years, things felt better when Churchill took back power.

[royalpain16]

A Brief History of Princess Diana’s Fiery Family

HADLEY HALL MEARES

JUNE 29, 2021 4:04 PM

According to Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles. Indeed, the role of the aristocratic family of Diana, Princess of Wales, for centuries has been that of royal disrupter. This legacy stretches to the 14th century, with their disputed ancestor Hugh Despenser’s alleged torrid affair with King Edward II and Despenser’s eventual brutal execution. Clever, charming, and fiery, much like Diana, her ancestors learned how to play the royal game—and then ripped up the rule book.

“Nearly 300 years on, my father would talk about him with an ashamed, resigned chuckle,” Charles, Earl Spencer, writes in The Spencers: A Personal History of an English Family of the mercurial family blackguard Robert Spencer (1641-1702). While the second earl would secure the Spencers’ status as political power players for centuries, he was also “cunning, supple [and] shameless” with “a restless and mischievous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirt.”

Sunderland’s ascendancy began in the 1670s when he orchestrated King Charles II’s secret pact with England’s traditional enemy, France. Securing large payments from the French king and court for Charles II and himself, Sunderland was rewarded when he was appointed secretary of state.

After double-crossing Charles II’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, Sunderland cleverly insinuated himself with new King James II. He converted to Catholicism to appeal to the very Catholic king, and became one of James II’s closest advisers. But the king, though he valued the brilliant man’s diplomatic skills, was fully aware of Sunderland’s duplicity.

James II finally dismissed Sunderland from service in 1688, and he was later exiled. But in December of that year, James II was deposed by the Glorious Revolution, bringing his daughter Mary and her husband, William, Prince of Orange, (with whom Sunderland had conspired) to the throne.

Again in favor, he was rewarded with the post of Lord Chamberlain before retiring from public life in 1697. “Too much cannot be said of his talents,” one historian noted. “Nor too little of his principles.”

The Boss: Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

The daughter of Parliamentarian Richard Jennings and his scandalous wife, Frances, the passionate, brilliant Sarah (1660-1744) started out as a maid of honor in the court of James II. She became the most powerful woman in England, through her magnetic control of the future Queen Anne, a comparative dullard who worshipped her and perhaps became her lover. (You may remember their relationship from the 2018 movie The Favourite, in which Rachel Weisz played Sarah.)

For Sarah, her friendship with Anne was a way to advance her family and her liberal Whig politics, which she shared with her equally powerful husband, the military hero the Duke of Marlborough. “I hated tyranny by nature,” she wrote in one version of her memoir, according to Ophelia Field’s The Favourite: The Life of Sarah Churchill. “I thought mankind was born free, & if Princes were ordained to make their subjects happy; so I had always in me an invincible aversion to slavery, & to flattery.”

In 1700, Sarah arranged the marriage of her distant relation Charles Spencer, the future Third Earl of Sunderland, with her favorite daughter, Anne. Over the next 44 years, she would shape the family fortunes—and gift them with their famed auburn-tinted locks.

According to The Favourite: The Life of Sarah Churchill, with Anne’s accession to the throne in 1702 Sarah reached the peak of her power, racking up virtually every important post in Queen Anne’s suite, dictating cabinet appointments, and encouraging the ire of satirists.

But cracks would soon begin to appear. Queen Anne was naturally inclined to support the royalist Tories and was encouraged in these leanings by a new favorite named Abigail. A vindictive Sarah became a master propagandist, leaking insinuations about their relationship to the press, and allegedly threatening to blackmail Anne over the contents of their highly charged correspondence.

Sarah was finally forced to vacate her royal apartments in 1711, but she was not down for the count. A brilliant businesswoman, she became the richest woman in England, according to Field, controlling her Spencer grandchildren with promises of money and power. Centuries before the modern Diana and Prince Charles wed, Sarah even attempted to marry her favorite granddaughter—Lady Diana Spencer—to the broke Frederick, Prince of Wales, with a promise of 100,000-pound dowry. The plan fell through.

But not all her grandchildren were willing to be manipulated by their formidable matriarch. Sarah claimed her equally tough granddaughter Anne “[deserved] to be burnt,” and she disinherited her grandson Charles, Fifth Earl of Sunderland, which prompted him to write her:

As for putting me out of your will…I neither expected or desired to be in it. I…assure Your Grace that this is the last time I shall ever trouble you by letter or conversation. I am Your Grace’s grandson, Sunderland.

Sarah’s letter back was brutal. “You end that you are my grandson. Which is indeed a very melancholy truth…had you not been my grandson, you would have been in as bad a condition as you deserve to be.” Fitting words from a woman immortalized by Alexander Pope thusly:

Sixty years the World has been her Trade, The wisest Fool much Time has ever made. From loveless youth to unrespected age, No Passion gratify’d except her Rage.

The Star: Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

From the start there was something special about Georgiana (1757-1806), the coddled daughter of John, First Earl Spencer and his wife, Margaret. The captivating teenager married the sophisticated William, Duke of Devonshire, in 1774, and quickly became a sensation in London’s highest circles. “[The Duchess of Devonshire] effaces all,” Horace Walpole wrote, according to The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a Nation. “Her youth, figure, flowing good nature, sense…and modest familiarity, make her a phenomenon.”

Georgiana soon found her cold, older husband was not nearly as interested in her as everyone else. Luckily, she had many talents with which to amuse herself. She set fashions of the day, developed her own haughty way of speaking, known as the “Cavendish drawl,” and became dear friends with Marie Antoinette, according to Amanda Foreman’s The Duchess. She was also a successful novelist, and an amateur scientist.

But it was Georgiana’s brilliance as a Whig operative that would turn her into a target of the press. Constantly brainstorming with her friend, George, Prince of Wales, and political soulmate Charles James Fox, she hosted countless summits at her home. Georgiana was, she later wrote, “in the midst of the action,” seeing

“partys rise and fall—friends be united and disunited—the ties of love give way to caprice, to interest, and to vanity…”

Georgiana also worked essentially as a campaign manager for Whig candidates. During the 1784 election she bravely canvassed the street for Fox, charming Londoners with her common touch. “During her canvass,” Walpole wrote, “the Duchess made no scruple of visiting some of the humblest of electors, dazzling and enchanting them by the fascination of her manner, the power of her beauty and the influence of her high rank.”

According to Foreman’s The Duchess, there were rumors Georgiana kissed men in exchange for votes, leading to scurrilous cartoons distributed by the Tory opposition. “You have almost unavoidably amassed a great deal of useless trash—gathered weeds instead of flowers,” Lady Spencer wrote Georgiana. “You live so constantly in public you cannot live for your own soul.”

Her mother was worried about more than bad press. The hard-partying Georgiana was one of a long line of Spencer gambling addicts. She also had a laudanum dependency, and a scandalous ménage à trois arrangement with her husband and the disreputable Bess Foster. Calamity struck in 1792, when Georgiana became pregnant by the future Prime Minister Charles Grey and was banished from the country for a while.

Georgiana returned to her husband and children two years later. For the remainder of her life she battled ill health, but continued her role as a political operative, aware of what she could have been. “Would I were a man,” she mused to Sir Philip Francis. “To unite my talents, my hopes, my fortune, with [Charles James Fox’s], to make common cause, and fall or rule.”

From the start, the Spencer legacy laid heavily on John Spencer’s (1924-1992)

shoulders. As a child he was constantly cowed by his genealogically obsessed, brutal father, who considered him an intellectual lightweight. “He used to dread the train journey home [from boarding school],” his son, Diana’s brother Charles, writes. “He would hide in shadows of the train carriage, hoping his father had forgotten to collect him.”

But by the 1940s, John’s heroism as a captain in the Royal Scots Greys during World War II, and his tall, good looks and simple charm made him a most eligible bachelor. According to the documentary When the Spencers Met the Monarchy, he was even once looked at by the palace as a suitor to the future Queen Elizabeth II.

Instead, in 1954, Queen Elizabeth II (whom he served as an equerry) attended his wedding to heiress Frances Roche at Westminster Abbey. The couple had four children—Sarah, Jane, Diana, and Charles (another son, John, died shortly after birth). They were a mismatched pair, he rather dull and she vivacious, but John was reportedly blindsided when he discovered Frances was cheating on him. “How many of those years were happy?” he later said of his marriage. “I thought all of them until the moment that we parted.”

After the dissolution of his marriage, John became Diana and Charles’s primary caregiver and developed what Lord Glenconner once termed “an unfortunate raw sausage look.” Although he was stiff and old-fashioned, he attempted to be an involved father, and Diana was determined to be his “comforting angel,” according to The Diana Chronicles.

In 1975, John’s fortunes turned when his curmudgeonly father died, making him the Eighth Earl Spencer. According to Andrew Morton, he also inherited a 2.25-million-pound bill for death duties as well as 80,000-pounds-a-year running costs for Althorp, the family estate in Northamptonshire. He also found a helpmate to run Althorp in the fascinating Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, whom he married in 1976 without even telling his children. “We weren’t invited. ‘Not grand enough,’” his daughter Sarah quipped to a reporter at the time.

Despite the flippant tone, John’s betrayal would cause a deep rift in the family. A severe stroke in 1978 caused him to become frail and even more distant from his children. “He was one person before and he was certainly a different person after,” Princess Diana said, according to Morton. “He’s remained estranged but adoring since. If he comes and sees me he comes and sees me, if he doesn’t he doesn’t. It’s not my problem anymore. It’s his.”

The Rebel: Frances Shand Kydd

Frances Ruth Roche (1936-2004) wasn’t from as noble stock as the Spencers, but her family was far richer. Her father Maurice, fourth Baron Fermoy, was a conservative politician and a “terrible bottom pincher,” Lady Glenconner says in The Diana Chronicles, while her wealthy mother, Ruth, was a scheming, incurable snob and great friend of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

It was Ruth who encouraged a teenage Frances to marry the much older John Spencer, despite her tender age. “When you meet someone at the age of 15 and get engaged just five months out of school at 17, you can look back and ask, ‘Was I adult?’” she asked years later. “I sure thought I was at the time.”

The couple cultivated a farm at her family home of Park House in Norfolk, but Frances was quickly disillusioned with life in the country as a young aristocratic mother. “I’m so bloody bored with opening village fetes,” she told a friend. It was no wonder that the fiery Frances wanted more. “She was very attractive and blonde and sexy with such joie de vivre and fun about her,” a friend told Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles.

By the 1960s, Frances escaped to London more and more. She also started having an affair with a married bon vivant named Peter Shand Kydd. In 1967, she separated from John and left her two youngest children with him. “The biggest disruption was when Mummy decided to leg it. That’s the vivid memory we have—the four of us,” Princess Diana later told Andrew Morton.

Frances fought for custody of the children but lost to John, partially due to her own mother, Baroness Fermoy, who testified against her. Social outcasts, the Shand Kydds eventually moved to the coast of Scotland, and their warm household was a refuge for her children when they were allowed to visit. “Diana and I adored it for its wild beauty and the fun we had on the sea, lobster potting and mackerel-fishing,” Charles Spencer recalls.

Frances counseled against her youngest daughter’s marriage to Prince Charles, seeing too many parallels to her own first marriage—including her mother’s encouragement of the match. According to Brown, after voicing her concerns, Diana said, “Mummy, you don’t understand. I love him.” Frances replied, “Love him, or love what he is?” To which Diana asked rhetorically, “What’s the difference?”

The Grande Dames: Barbara Cartland and Raine Spencer

Perhaps no writer influenced generations of British romantics—including Princess Diana—more than Barbara Cartland (1901-2000). The author of 723 books, Cartland had, in the words of Brown, a “penchant for pink, her meringue coiffure and false eyelashes,” which betrayed a steely, snobbish character that was tough as nails.

Cartland would pass both her strength and outrageousness on to her daughter Raine (1929-2016), whom she raised to be, in Brown’s words, a “social monster baby.” Not only did she nab Gerald Legge, Ninth Earl of Dartmouth, but she also forged a career as a conservative politician, becoming the youngest person to ever serve on the Westminster City Council.

“She never took any prisoners, and never took no for an answer,” a friend recalled.

In the early 1970s, Raine set her sights on the divorced John Spencer. “She wanted to marry Daddy; that was her target and that was it,” Princess Diana recalled. According to sources, “Acid Raine” alienated the children and old friends. She also took the reins of Althorp, allegedly selling off family treasures and decorating it in her and her mother’s garish style.

During the lead-up to Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles in 1981, what to do with the clownish Cartlands became a national conversation. According to Brown:

Alexander Chancellor, the editor of The Spectator, wrote an editorial in which he called for a special Act of Parliament to ban Raine and her mother from St. Paul’s Cathedral, adding, “For it would be more than a little unfair on everybody if these two absurdly theatrical ladies were permitted to turn a moving national celebration into a pantomime.” Diana was so afraid the pantomime might indeed take place, she pressed for stratagems to blackball Cartland.

In the end Raine was invited but her mother was not. This would not be the most awkward Spencer wedding—that prize would go to Charles Spencer’s first wedding in 1989, where Diana scolded Raine for her rudeness to their mother. “If only you knew how much we all hated you for what you’ve done, you’ve ruined the house, you spend Daddy’s money and what for?” she hissed.

For her part, Raine would tire of being the scapegoat for the Spencer dysfunction. “I’m absolutely sick of the ‘wicked stepmother’ lark,” she said, according to Kitty Kelley. “You’re never going to make me sound like a human being, because people like to think I’m Dracula’s mother.”

Surprisingly, Diana would come to agree. Toward the end of her life, she grew close to her stepmother, whose no-nonsense advice she came to admire. However, it appears there was no love lost between Diana and her former favorite writer, who would quip of the royal breakup, “Of course, you know where it all went wrong. She wouldn’t do oral sex.”

The Role Model: Lady Sarah McCorquodale

Born in 1955, Sarah Spencer was the oldest, and wildest of John and Frances Spencer’s brood. Reckless and salty from an early age, Brown writes that she was kicked out of boarding school and rode her horse into her grandmother’s living room. “Sarah always had to be the best at everything,” a friend recalled. “The best car, the wittiest put-down, and the best dress.”

She also had a constant shadow in her youngest sister, Diana. “I idolized my eldest sister and I used to do all her washing when she came back from school. I packed her suitcase, ran her bath, made her bed—the whole lot. I did it all and I thought it was wonderful,” Diana told Morton.

In 1977, Sarah, who had suffered from anorexia, according to Brown, met Prince Charles at Ascot. The two began dating, and it was Sarah who introduced Diana to the prince during a shooting party at Althorp (“I’m cupid,” she’d later quip). “I remember,” Diana later said, “feeling desperately sorry for him that my sister was wrapped around his neck because she’s quite a tough old thing.”

But Sarah’s romance with the prince would soon end. She made the mistake of talking to reporters. Not only did she reportedly confess to having “thousands of boyfriends,” she also disparaged Charles as a hopeless romantic. “I wouldn’t marry a man I didn’t love, whether it was a dustman or the King of England,” she said. “If he asked me I would turn him down.”

This cardinal sin would cause Sarah to be promptly frozen out, with Charles reportedly informing her, “You’ve just done something extremely stupid.” And so, only three years later Charles would begin to court the blossoming Diana. Perhaps there was a hint of jealousy in her alleged counsel to a despondent Diana to not pull out of the wedding over his relationship with Camilla: “Bad luck, ‘Duch. Your face is on the tea towels so you’re too late to chicken out.”

[lauravias]

The Black Dahlia Murder

Elizabeth Short, nicknamed “Black Dahlia”, was an aspiring actress who was brutally murdered in Los Angeles, California, in 1947. 

She was born on July 29, 1924, in Boston, Massachusetts, and was the third of five daughters born to Cleo and Phoebe Mae Short. She spent her early life in Medford, Massachusetts, and by the mid-1940s she was living in Los Angeles, California, working as a waitress. She was an aspiring actress, dreaming of her big break into Hollywood; she was nicknamed the “Black Dahlia” after the Blue Dahlia movie out at that time. 

Her corpse was found on the morning of January 15, 1947, lying on the grass in a vacant lot in Leimer Park, by Betty Bersinger and her three-year-old daughter. The body was severed at the waist, and the two parts were about a foot apart, her blood had been drained and left her skin very pale; also, her face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears, creating an effect known as the "Glasgow smile". The corpse had been "posed", with her hands over her head, her elbows bent at right angles, and her legs spread apart. The body was posed in such a way that Bersinger thought it was a discarded store mannequin. 

Photo of  Elizabeth Short’s murder scene

Autopsy

On January 16, 1947, Frederick Newbarr, the Los Angeles County coroner, performed an autopsy of Short’s body. 

The body had been cut in half using a technique taught in the 1930s called a hemicorporectomy: the lumbar spine was transected between the second and third lumbar vertebrae. Newbarr noticed there was very little bruising along the incision mark, therefore it had been performed after death. There were ligature marks on her ankles, wrists and neck, and irregular lacerations on her right breast, right forearm, left upper arm, and the lower left side of the chest. The lacerations on each side of the face were measured 3 inches (76 mm) on the right side, and 2.5 inches (64 mm) on the left side. The skull was not fractured, but there was bruising on the front and right side of her scalp, with a small amount of bleeding in the subarachnoid space (the space between the arachnoid and the pia mater), compatible with blows to the head. 

Elizabeth Short’s death certificate

The cause of death was determined to be haemorrhaging from the incisions on her face and the blows to the head and face.

Investigation

One week later on January 21, 1947, James Richardson, an editor at the Los Angeles Examiner, received a call from a person claiming to be Short’s killer. The caller also said to "expect some souvenirs of Beth Short in the mail". The person made good on their promise, and four days later a suspicious envelope addressed to "The Los Angeles Examiner and other Los Angeles papers" was found by a postal worker. It contained Short's birth certificate, business cards, photographs, names written on pieces of paper, and an address book with the name “Mark Hansen” embossed on the cover. Despite the efforts to identify the fingerprints found on the envelope, they were compromised in transit and therefore could not be properly analyzed. 

Mark Hensen, the owner of the address book found in the envelope, was a wealthy local nightclub and theatre owner; he was also an acquaintance, at whose home Short had stayed with her friends. One of them, Ann Toth, told investigators that Short had rejected sexual advances from Hansen, and suggested it as a potential reason for the murder; Hansen, however, was cleared of suspicion.

The FBI supported the L.A. police with the investigation by running records checks on the potential suspects and conducting interviews across the nation. Since the starting of the investigation, police received a total of 500 confessions, many of which have been deemed false. One of the main suspects was George Hill Hodel Jr., who was never formally charged with the crime. He was accused by his son, Steve Hodel, of having committed Short’s murder and several other ones. The murderer has never been found, and given how much time has passed, probably never will be. 

For more information here are some of the FBI records on Elizabeth Ann Short, aka “The Black Dahlia”:

Part 1/2

Part 2/2

Sources:

Black Dahlia - Wikipedia

The Black Dahlia - FBI

Black Dahlia Murder - Biography

[the-infinite-expectation-of-dawn]

THE FIRST RECORDED MARRIAGE BETWEEN A CROATIAN AND  MāORI.

Andrija and Erina Kleskovic/Anderson in 1893

127 years ago, Croatian Andrija Kleskovic married the Maori Princess Erina Kaaka, at St Saviour’s in Kaitaia, in the far north of New Zealand. The couple had 13 children over an 18 year period.

Andrija Kleskovic was the son of a storekeeper, Andrija Kleskovic and Ana, nee Tonkovic of Mlini, a  small village near Dubrovnik. Following the death of his mother, his father married Franica Turcinovic. Unfortunately, Andrija and his stepmother did not get along. Andrija’s cousin, a priest visiting from the United States, persuaded his young cousin to come with him when he returned to America and join the priesthood.

He accompanied his cousin to America, and became a member of the choir and served as an altar boy. However, after three years, a rift developed, and Andrija left.  Feeling much bitterness, he did not return to his Catholic upbringing until many years later, a few months before his death.

Andrija went to San Francisco, where he worked as a cook at the Golden Gate Bridge construction project. Around 1884, he came to New Zealand. He joined the tide of young men who traveled from Dalmatia, to dig for kauri gum in the Far North. His three years in California had given him a good grounding in the English language and as a result, was able to assist his countrymen to buy provisions and sell their gum. He was at ease with Maori, he enjoyed sharing jokes and shared a mutual respect for them. He made many friends. In addition to his native Croatian, he was fluent in English and Maori. He assisted his Maori friends with trading their gum for provisions.

In 1892 while he was gum digging at Houhora, he made his commitment to a new life complete when he married his Maori Princess, Erina Kaaka from Te Kao, of the Ngai Takoto tribe. She was the daughter of Chief Hohepa Kaaka and Aneta Marupo. Erina’s mother had significant land at Takahue. The couple were married by the Reverend Joseph Matthews three years before he died, at St Saviour’s, Kaitaia. It was the first recorded marriage between a Croatian and Maori.  They settled down together at Spring Camp, Waihopo and worked together digging gum. In some reports Erina’s surname is spelt Kaka, the marriage certificate was signed “Ellen Kaka” and her father, Hohepa Kaka, likewise.

Andrija and Erina had 13 children over an 18 year period; Lizzie, Annie, Sonny, Joe, Leo, Tat, Mary, Lily, twins Ellen and Hazel, Patrick, Frank and Theo. The family moved from gumfield to gumfield, living in rustic shanties. Erina made their home comfortable by weaving flax mats to cover the dirt floors and gathering tataramoe (grows wild on ti tree) to fill their mattresses. They were at Tangoake Landing at Te Kao for a time before finally settling at J’s Point, Pukenui, where Andrija built a house for his family.

Andrija and Erina spoke Maori in the home, with a little pidgin English mixed in. The children didn���t learn English until they went to school. In the classroom, Maori was not allowed to be spoken; in fact, they were given the strap if the teacher overheard any students speaking Maori.

Being fluent in Maori, Andrija was asked on many occasions to act as a Maori Land Court interpreter.  A judge had difficulty pronouncing Andrija’s name and so he was known as “Mr Anderson”. Andrija changed his name to Andrew Anderson for ease of pronunciation for both Maori and English speakers.  He was naturalised in 1901 under the name “Anderson”. I will refer to him as ‘Andrew Anderson’ for the rest of the story.  

1930 – Andrija shelling toheroas at Ninety Mile Beach. Northland Canneries had license to dig from June to September using flat potato forks. Workers received 10 shillings for a four-gallon tin of toheroas (tongues only).

Erina’s parents taught their grandchildren how to plait whips of flax and make pois from raupo. The grandchildren also learnt how to make and apply some of the old Maori healing remedies.  The children were brought up with strong principles, they loved their grandparents dearly and were very respectful towards them.

When she was a baby, Hazel was given to her Uncle Raipo Kaka and his wife, Meremere Wi Tamehana, as they couldn’t have children. They provided her with a good start in life and Hazel loved them dearly.

Tane Marupo, son of Matamori and Hoera, came to live with the family at J. Point.  He was raised as an older brother and grew into a strong athletic man. Family legend recounts he was involved in the rescue of survivors from the Elingamite ship disaster in 1902.

About 1914 The Anderson family enjoying a hangi* at Awanui. *Traditional Maori cooked meal of meat and vegetables cooked in the ground over hot coals.

From J’s Point, the family moved to a farm at Kumi Road. Andrew relocated their home by barge down from Pukenui, into the Awanui River, then overland with bullocks onto the Kumi farm.

Sonny and Hepa (Joe) went off to fight in the Great War.  Private Joe Anderson was amongst the wounded on 11 May 1917. It was about this time that Erina became ill. Lizzie was called home to run the household and care for the younger children.

Tragically, Erina died on 18 January 1918. Lizzie took on her mother’s role in caring for the family. In July of the same year Lizzie married Ted Jones, a Welsh steam engineer. They had 17 children, all born at home and brought into the world, by a Maori midwife. In 1924 they moved in with Lizzie’s father at Kumi Road. There was no running water, no electricity and by this time, six children.

Andrew stayed on in Awanui for several years, before moving to Dargaville, Henderson and then Thornton in the early 1930s. In 1939 he went to Taneatua, a small town in the Bay of Plenty near Whakatane. For the next 17 years he lived with his son Peter, his wife, Sarah, and their family. He enjoyed netting whitebait and fishing for eels; also farming pigs, fowl, calves and lambs.  

Andrew also established a small orchard growing fruit trees. He even attempted making wine from the fruit using an old fibre separator, until there was a loud bang from the direction of the shed. It must have been a potent brew as it blew out the shed walls! Andrew never attempted winemaking again.  He developed a large garden and he and Sarah sold vegetables at the roadside to supplement the household income. He loved eeling and he boiled up the small eels in a kerosene tin to use as manure for the garden. During the whitebait season, Andrew and Sarah caught whitebait.

Lily married Anton Posa in 1925 but once she was pregnant she became seriously ill with septicaemia. She died in 1926 of the dreaded disease, at the age of only 22.

Andrew died in 1952, a man with a big heart who earned the respect of all he encountered. Andrew and Erina are buried in St Joseph’s Maori Cemetery, in Awanui.

Sept 1952 at Andrew Kleskovic’s/Anderson funeral – Jones Grandchildren of Andrew & Erina: L – R from the Back: Tunny, Danny, Darby, Bertha, Mary, Trevor (Aki) Alfred, David. Front: Peter, Joan, Ellen, Moira, Netta, Annie-May, Elizabeth, Rolly. Insert: Stan Jones.

It is noted in the Kleskovich Reunion booklet. “We acknowledge that we are descendants of two cultures, our Croatian heritage through Andrija and our Maori heritage through Erina, without which we would not be here.”

Children of Andrija and Erina Kleskovich about 1965 Back Row: Leo Jones, Frank Jones, Peter Jones, Joe Jones, Theo Jones and Sonny Jones. Front Row: Mabel Jurisich, Lizzie Jones, Annie Berghan and Hazel Paul.

[carole-lombard-screwball-queen]

Carole Lombard (born Jane Alice Peters; October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress, particularly noted for her energetic, often off-beat roles in screwball comedies. She was the highest-paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930s and in 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard 23rd on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

Lombard was born into a wealthy family in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but was raised in Los Angeles by her single mother. At 12, she was recruited by director Allan Dwan and made her screen debut in A Perfect Crime (1921). Eager to become an actress, she signed a contract with the Fox Film Corporation at age 16, but mainly played bit parts. She was dropped by Fox just before her 18th birthday after a shattered windshield from a car accident left a scar on her face. Lombard appeared in fifteen short comedies for Mack Sennett between 1927 and 1929, and then began appearing in feature films such as High Voltage (1929) and The Racketeer (1929). After a successful appearance in The Arizona Kid (1930), she was signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures.

Paramount quickly began casting Lombard as a leading lady, primarily in drama films. Her profile increased when she married William Powell in 1931, but the couple divorced amicably after two years. A turning point in Lombard's career came when she starred in Howard Hawks's pioneering screwball comedy Twentieth Century (1934). The actress found her niche in this genre, and continued to appear in films such as Hands Across the Table (1935) (forming a popular partnership with Fred MacMurray), My Man Godfrey (1936), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and Nothing Sacred (1937). At this time, Lombard married "The King of Hollywood", Clark Gable, and the supercouple gained much attention from the media. Keen to win an Oscar, Lombard began to move towards more serious roles at the end of the decade. Unsuccessful in this aim, she returned to comedy in Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) and Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be (1942), her final film role.

Lombard's career was cut short when she died at the age of 33 aboard TWA Flight 3, which crashed on Mount Potosi, Nevada, while returning from a war bond tour. Today, she is remembered as one of the definitive actresses of the screwball comedy genre and American comedy, and icon of American cinema.

Lombard was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908 at 704 Rockhill Street. Christened with the name Jane Alice Peters, she was the third child and only daughter of Frederick Christian Peters (1875–1935) and Elizabeth Jayne "Bessie" (Knight) Peters (1876–1942). Her two older brothers, to each of whom she was close, both growing up and in adulthood, were Frederick Charles (1902–1979) and John Stuart (1906–1956). Lombard's parents both descended from wealthy families and her early years were lived in comfort, with the biographer Robert Matzen calling it her "silver spoon period". The marriage between her parents was strained, however, and in October 1914, her mother took the children and moved to Los Angeles. Although the couple did not divorce, the separation was permanent. Her father's continued financial support allowed the family to live without worry, if not with the same affluence they had enjoyed in Indiana, and they settled into an apartment near Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Described by her biographer Wes Gehring as "a free-spirited tomboy", the young Lombard was passionately involved in sports and enjoyed watching movies. At Virgil Junior High School, she participated in tennis, volleyball, and swimming, and won trophies for her achievements in athletics. At the age of 12, this hobby unexpectedly landed Lombard her first screen role. While playing baseball with friends, she caught the attention of the film director Allan Dwan, who later recalled seeing "a cute-looking little tomboy ... out there knocking the hell out of the other kids, playing better baseball than they were. And I needed someone of her type for this picture." With the encouragement of her mother, Lombard happily took a small role in the melodrama A Perfect Crime (1921). She was on set for two days, playing the sister of Monte Blue. Dwan later commented, "She ate it up".

A Perfect Crime was not widely distributed, but the brief experience spurred Lombard and her mother to look for more film work. The teenager attended several auditions, but none was successful.[11] While appearing as the queen of Fairfax High School's May Day Carnival at the age of 15, she was scouted by an employee of Charlie Chaplin and offered a screen test to appear in his film The Gold Rush (1925). Lombard was not given the role, but it raised Hollywood's awareness of the aspiring actress. Her test was seen by the Vitagraph Film Company, which expressed an interest in signing her to a contract. Although this did not materialize, the condition that she adopt a new first name ("Jane" was considered too dull) lasted with Lombard throughout her career. She selected the name "Carol" after a girl with whom she played tennis in middle school.

In October 1924, shortly after these disappointments, 16-year-old Lombard was signed to a contract with the Fox Film Corporation. How this came about is uncertain: in her lifetime, it was reported that a director for the studio scouted her at a dinner party, but more recent evidence suggests that Lombard's mother contacted Louella Parsons, the gossip columnist, who then got her a screen test. According to the biographer Larry Swindell, Lombard's beauty convinced Winfield Sheehan, head of the studio, to sign her to a $75-per-week contract. The teenager abandoned her schooling to embark on this new career. Fox was happy to use the name Carol, but unlike Vitagraph, disliked her surname. From this point, she became "Carol Lombard", the new name taken from a family friend.

The majority of Lombard's appearances with Fox were bit parts in low-budget Westerns and adventure films. She later commented on her dissatisfaction with these roles: "All I had to do was simper prettily at the hero and scream with terror when he battled with the villain." She fully enjoyed the other aspects of film work, however, such as photo shoots, costume fittings, and socializing with actors on the studio set. Lombard embraced the flapper lifestyle and became a regular at the Coconut Grove nightclub, where she won several Charleston dance competitions.

In March 1925, Fox gave Lombard a leading role in the drama Marriage in Transit, opposite Edmund Lowe. Her performance was well received, with a reviewer for Motion Picture News writing that she displayed "good poise and considerable charm." Despite this, the studio heads were unconvinced that Lombard was leading lady material, and her one-year contract was not renewed. Gehring has suggested that a facial scar she obtained in an automobile accident was a factor in this decision. Fearing that the scar—which ran across her cheek—would ruin her career, the 17-year-old had an early plastic surgery procedure to make it less visible. For the remainder of her career, Lombard learned to hide the mark with make-up and careful lighting.

After a year without work, Lombard obtained a screen test for the "King of Comedy" Mack Sennett. She was offered a contract, and although she initially had reservations about performing in slapstick comedies, the actress joined his company as one of the "Sennett Bathing Beauties". She appeared in 15 short films between September 1927 and March 1929, and greatly enjoyed her time at the studio. It gave Lombard her first experiences in comedy and provided valuable training for her future work in the genre. In 1940, she called her Sennett years "the turning point of [my] acting career."

Sennett's productions were distributed by Pathé Exchange, and the company began casting Lombard in feature films. She had prominent roles in Show Folks and Ned McCobb's Daughter (both 1928), where reviewers observed that she made a "good impression" and was "worth watching". The following year, Pathé elevated Lombard from a supporting player to a leading lady. Her success in Raoul Walsh's picture Me, Gangster (also 1928), opposite June Collyer and Don Terry on his film debut, finally eased the pressure her family had been putting on her to succeed. In Howard Higgin's High Voltage (1929), her first talking picture, she played a criminal in the custody of a deputy sheriff, both of whom are among bus passengers stranded in deep snow. Her next film, the comedy Big News (1929), cast her opposite Robert Armstrong and was a critical and commercial success. Lombard was reunited with Armstrong for the crime drama The Racketeer, released in late 1929. The review in Film Daily wrote, "Carol Lombard proves a real surprise, and does her best work to date. In fact, this is the first opportunity she has had to prove that she has the stuff to go over."

Lombard returned to Fox for a one-off role in the western The Arizona Kid (1930). It was a big release for the studio, starring the popular actor Warner Baxter, in which Lombard received third billing. Following the success of the film, Paramount Pictures recruited Lombard and signed her to a $350-per-week contract, gradually increasing to $3,500 per week by 1936. They cast her in the Buddy Rogers comedy Safety in Numbers (also 1930), and one critic observed of her work, "Lombard proves [to be] an ace comedienne." For her second assignment, Fast and Loose (also 1930) with Miriam Hopkins, Paramount mistakenly credited the actress as "Carole Lombard". She decided she liked this spelling and it became her permanent screen name.

Lombard appeared in five films released during 1931, beginning with the Frank Tuttle comedy It Pays to Advertise. Her next two films, Man of the World and Ladies Man, both featured William Powell, Paramount's top male star. Lombard had been a fan of the actor before they met, attracted to his good looks and debonair screen persona, and they were soon in a relationship. The differences between the pair have been noted by biographers: she was 22, carefree, and famously foul-mouthed, while he was 38, intellectual, and sophisticated. Despite their disparate personalities, Lombard married Powell on June 6, 1931, at her Beverly Hills home. Talking to the media, she argued for the benefits of "love between two people who are diametrically different", claiming that their relationship allowed for a "perfect see-saw love".

The marriage to Powell increased Lombard's fame, while she continued to please critics with her work in Up Pops the Devil and I Take this Woman (both 1931). In reviews for the latter film, which co-starred Gary Cooper, several critics predicted that Lombard was set to become a major star. She went on to appear in five films throughout 1932. No One Man and Sinners in the Sun were not successful, but Edward Buzzell's romantic picture Virtue was well received. After featuring in the drama No More Orchids, Lombard was cast as the wife of a con artist in No Man of Her Own. Her co-star for the picture was Clark Gable, who was rapidly becoming one of Hollywood's top stars. The film was a critical and commercial success, and Wes Gehring writes that it was "arguably Lombard's finest film appearance" to that point. It was the only picture that Gable and Lombard, future husband and wife, made together. There was no romantic interest at this time, however, as she recounted to Garson Kanin: "[we] did all kinds of hot love scenes ... and I never got any kind of tremble out of him at all".

In August 1933, Lombard and Powell divorced after 26 months of marriage, although they remained very good friends until the end of Lombard's life. At the time, she blamed it on their careers, but in a 1936 interview, she admitted that this "had little to do with the divorce. We were just two completely incompatible people". She appeared in five films that year, beginning with the drama From Hell to Heaven and continuing with Supernatural, her only horror vehicle. After a small role in The Eagle and the Hawk, a war film starring Fredric March and Cary Grant, she starred in two melodramas: Brief Moment, which critics enjoyed, and White Woman, where she was paired with Charles Laughton. “We would have married,” said Carole Lombard during her interview with magazine writer Sonia Lee for Movie Screen Magazine in 1934 about her relationship with Russ Columbo, the famous singer killed in a tragic accident whose movie and radio career she had been guiding.

The year 1934 marked a high point in Lombard's career. She began with Wesley Ruggles's musical drama Bolero, where George Raft and she showcased their dancing skills in an extravagantly staged performance to Maurice Ravel's "Boléro". Before filming began, she was offered the lead female role in It Happened One Night, but turned it down because of scheduling conflicts with this production Bolero was favorably received, while her next film, the musical comedy We're Not Dressing with Bing Crosby, was a box-office hit.

Lombard was then recruited by the director Howard Hawks, a second cousin, to star in his screwball comedy film Twentieth Century which proved a watershed in her career and made her a major star. Hawks had seen the actress inebriated at a party, where he found her to be "hilarious and uninhibited and just what the part needed", and she was cast opposite John Barrymore. In Twentieth Century, Lombard played an actress who is pursued by her former mentor, a flamboyant Broadway impresario. Hawks and Barrymore were unimpressed with her work in rehearsals, finding that she was "acting" too hard and giving a stiff performance. The director encouraged Lombard to relax, be herself, and act on her instincts. She responded well to this tutoring, and reviews for the film commented on her unexpectedly "fiery talent"—"a Lombard like no Lombard you've ever seen". The Los Angeles Times' critic felt that she was "entirely different" from her formerly cool, "calculated" persona, adding, "she vibrates with life and passion, abandon and diablerie".

The next films in which Lombard appeared were Henry Hathaway's Now and Forever (1934), featuring Gary Cooper and the new child star Shirley Temple, and Lady by Choice (1934), which was a critical and commercial success. The Gay Bride (1934) placed her opposite Chester Morris in a gangster comedy, but this outing was panned by critics. After reuniting with George Raft for another dance picture, Rumba (1935), Lombard was given the opportunity to repeat the screwball success of Twentieth Century. In Mitchell Leisen's Hands Across the Table (1935), she portrayed a manicurist in search of a rich husband, played by Fred MacMurray. Critics praised the film, and Photoplay's reviewer stated that Lombard had reaffirmed her talent for the genre. It is remembered as one of her best films, and the pairing of Lombard and MacMurray proved so successful that they made three more pictures together.

Lombard's first film of 1936 was Love Before Breakfast, described by Gehring as "The Taming of the Shrew, screwball style". In William K. Howard's The Princess Comes Across, her second comedy with MacMurray, she played a budding actress who wins a film contract by masquerading as a Swedish princess. The performance was considered a satire of Greta Garbo, and was widely praised by critics. Lombard's success continued as she was recruited by Universal Studios to star in the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey (1936). William Powell, who was playing the eponymous Godfrey, insisted on her being cast as the female lead; despite their divorce, the pair remained friendly and Powell felt she would be perfect in the role of Irene, a zany heiress who employs a "forgotten man" as the family butler. The film was directed by Gregory LaCava, who knew Lombard personally and advised that she draw on her "eccentric nature" for the role. She worked hard on the performance, particularly with finding the appropriate facial expressions for Irene. My Man Godfrey was released to great acclaim and was a box office hit. It received six nominations at the 9th Academy Awards, including Lombard for Best Actress. Biographers cite it as her finest performance, and Frederick Ott says it "clearly established [her] as a comedienne of the first rank."

By 1937, Lombard was one of Hollywood's most popular actresses, and also the highest-paid star in Hollywood following the deal which Myron Selznick negotiated with Paramount that brought her $450,000, more than five times the salary of the U.S. President. As her salary was widely reported in the press, Lombard stated that 80 percent of her earnings went in taxes, but that she was happy to help improve her country. The comments earned her much positive publicity, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent her a personal letter of thanks.

Her first release of the year was Leisen's Swing High, Swing Low, a third pairing with MacMurray. The film focused on a romance between two cabaret performers, and was a critical and commercial success. It had been primarily a drama, with occasional moments of comedy, but for her next project, Nothing Sacred, Lombard returned to the screwball genre. Producer David O. Selznick, impressed by her work in My Man Godfrey, was eager to make a comedy with the actress and hired Ben Hecht to write an original screenplay for her. Nothing Sacred, directed by William Wellman and co-starring Fredric March, satirized the journalism industry and "the gullible urban masses". Lombard portrayed a small-town girl who pretends to be dying and finds her story exploited by a New York reporter. Marking her only appearance in Technicolor, the film was highly praised and was one of Lombard's personal favorites.

Lombard continued with screwball comedies, next starring in what Swindell calls one of her "wackiest" films, True Confession (1937). She played a compulsive liar who wrongly confesses to murder. Lombard loved the script and was excited about the project, which reunited her with John Barrymore and was her final appearance with MacMurray. Her prediction that it "smacked of a surefire success" proved accurate, as critics responded positively and it was popular at the box office.

True Confession was the last film Lombard made on her Paramount contract, and she remained an independent performer for the rest of her career. Her next film was made at Warner Bros., where she played a famous actress in Mervyn LeRoy's Fools for Scandal (1938). The comedy met with scathing reviews and was a commercial failure, with Swindell calling it "one of the most horrendous flops of the thirties".

Fools for Scandal was the only film Lombard made in 1938. By this time, she was devoted to a relationship with Clark Gable. Four years after their teaming on No Man of Her Own, the pair had reunited at a Hollywood party and began a romance early in 1936. The media took great interest in their partnership and frequently questioned if they would wed. Gable was separated from his wife, Rhea Langham, but she did not want to grant him a divorce. As his relationship with Lombard became serious, Langham eventually agreed to a settlement worth half a million dollars. The divorce was finalized in March 1939, and Gable and Lombard eloped in Kingman, Arizona, on March 29. The couple, both lovers of the outdoors, bought a 20-acre ranch in Encino, California, where they kept barnyard animals and enjoyed hunting trips. Almost immediately, Lombard wanted to start a family, but her attempts failed; after two miscarriages and numerous trips to fertility specialists, she was unable to have children. In early 1938, Lombard officially joined the Baháʼí Faith, of which her mother had been a member since 1922.

While continuing with a slower work-rate, Lombard decided to move away from comedies and return to dramatic roles. She appeared in a second David O. Selznick production, Made for Each Other (1939), which paired her with James Stewart to play a couple facing domestic difficulties. Reviews for the film were highly positive, and praised Lombard's dramatic effort; financially, it was a disappointment. Lombard's next appearance came opposite Cary Grant in the John Cromwell romance In Name Only (1939), a credit she personally negotiated with RKO Radio Pictures upon hearing of the script and Grant's involvement. The role mirrored her recent experiences, as she played a woman in love with a married man whose wife refuses to divorce. She was paid $150,000 for the film, continuing her status as one of Hollywood's highest-paid actresses, and it was a moderate success.

Lombard was eager to win an Academy Award, and selected her next project—from several possible scripts—with the expectation that it would bring her the trophy. Vigil in the Night (1940), directed by George Stevens, featured Lombard as a nurse who faces a series of personal difficulties. Although the performance was praised, she did not get her nomination, as the sombre mood of the picture turned audiences away and box-office returns were poor. Despite the realization that she was best suited to comedies, Lombard completed one more drama: They Knew What They Wanted (1940), co-starring Charles Laughton, which was mildly successful.

Accepting that "my name doesn't sell tickets to serious pictures", Lombard returned to comedy for the first time in three years to film Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), about a couple who learns that their marriage is invalid, with Robert Montgomery. Lombard was influential in bringing Alfred Hitchcock, whom she knew through David O. Selznick, to direct one of his most atypical films. It was a commercial success, as audiences were happy with what Swindell calls "the belated happy news ... that Carole Lombard was a screwball once more."

It was nearly a year before Lombard committed to another film, as she focused instead on her home and marriage. Determined that her next film be "an unqualified smash hit", she was also careful in selecting a new project. Through her agent, Lombard heard of Ernst Lubitsch's upcoming film: To Be or Not to Be (1942), a dark comedy that satirized the Nazi takeover of Poland. The actress had long wanted to work with Lubitsch, her favorite comedy director, and felt that the material—although controversial—was a worthy subject. Lombard accepted the role of actress Maria Tura, despite it being a smaller part than she was used to, and was given top billing over the film's lead, Jack Benny. Filming took place in the fall of 1941, and was reportedly one of the happiest experiences of Lombard's career.

When the U.S. entered World War II at the end of 1941, Lombard traveled to her home state of Indiana for a war bond rally with her mother, Bess Peters, and Clark Gable's press agent, Otto Winkler. Lombard was able to raise over $2 million in defense bonds in a single evening. Her party had initially been scheduled to return to Los Angeles by train, but Lombard was anxious to reach home more quickly and wanted to fly by a scheduled airline. Her mother and Winkler were both afraid of flying and insisted they follow their original travel plans. Lombard suggested they flip a coin; they agreed and Lombard won the toss.

In the early morning hours of January 16, 1942, Lombard, her mother, and Winkler boarded a Transcontinental and Western Air Douglas DST (Douglas Sleeper Transport) aircraft to return to California. After refueling in Las Vegas, TWA Flight 3 took off at 7:07 p.m. and crashed into "Double Up Peak" near the 8,300-foot (2,530 m) level of Potosi Mountain, 32 statute miles (51 km) southwest of the Las Vegas airport. All 22 aboard, including Lombard, her mother, and 15 U.S. Army soldiers, were killed instantly. The cause of the crash was determined to be linked to the pilot and crew's inability to properly navigate over the mountains surrounding Las Vegas. As a precaution against the possibility of enemy Japanese bomber aircraft coming into American airspace from the Pacific, safety beacons used to direct night flights were turned off, leaving the pilot and crew of the TWA flight without visual warnings of the mountains in their flight path. The crash on the mountainside occurred three miles outside of Las Vegas.

Gable was flown to Las Vegas after learning of the tragedy to claim the bodies of his wife, mother-in-law, and Winkler, who aside from being his press agent, had been a close friend. Lombard's funeral was January 21 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. She was interred beside her mother under the name of Carole Lombard Gable. Despite remarrying twice following her death, Gable chose to be interred beside Lombard when he died in 1960.

Lombard's final film, To Be or Not to Be, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and co-starring Jack Benny, a satire about Nazism and World War II, was in post-production at the time of her death. The film's producers decided to cut part of the film in which Lombard's character asks, "What can happen on a plane?" out of respect for the circumstances surrounding her death. When the film was released, it received mixed reviews, particularly about its controversial content, but Lombard's performance was hailed as the perfect send-off to one of 1930s Hollywood's most important stars.

At the time of her death, Lombard had been scheduled to star in the film They All Kissed the Bride; when production started, she was replaced by Joan Crawford. Crawford donated all of her salary for the film to the Red Cross, which had helped extensively in the recovery of bodies from the air crash. Shortly after Lombard's death, Gable, who was inconsolable and devastated by his loss, joined the United States Army Air Forces. Lombard had asked him to do that numerous times after the United States had entered World War II. After officer training, Gable headed a six-man motion picture unit attached to a B-17 bomb group in England to film aerial gunners in combat, flying five missions himself. In December 1943, the United States Maritime Commission announced that a Liberty ship named after Carole Lombard would be launched. Gable attended the launch of the SS Carole Lombard on January 15, 1944, the two-year anniversary of Lombard's record-breaking war bond drive. The ship was involved in rescuing hundreds of survivors from sunken ships in the Pacific and returning them to safety.

In 1962, Jill Winkler Rath, widow of publicist Otto Winkler, filed a $100,000 lawsuit against the $2,000,000 estate of Clark Gable in connection with Winkler's death in the plane crash with Carole Lombard. The suit was dismissed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Rath, in her action, claimed Gable promised to provide financial aid for her if she would not bring suit against the airline involved. Rath stated she later learned that Gable settled his claim against the airline for $10. He did so because he did not want to repeat his grief in court and subsequently provided her no financial aid in his will.

[blackkudos]

Augustine Tolton

Augustus Tolton (April 1, 1854 – July 9, 1897), baptized Augustine Tolton, was the first Roman Catholic priest in the United States publicly known to be black when he was ordained in 1886. (James Augustine Healy, ordained in 1854, and Patrick Francis Healy, ordained in 1864, were of mixed-race.) A former slave who was baptized and reared Catholic, Tolton studied formally in Rome.

He was ordained in Rome on Easter Sunday of 1886 at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran. Assigned to the diocese of Alton (now the Diocese of Springfield), Tolton first ministered to his home parish in Quincy, Illinois. Later assigned to Chicago, Tolton led the development and construction of St. Monica's Catholic Church as a black "national parish church", completed in 1893 at 36th and Dearborn Streets on Chicago's South Side.

Biography

Early life

Augustus Tolton was born in Missouri to Peter Paul Tolton and his wife Martha Jane Chisley, who were enslaved. His mother, who was reared Catholic, named him after an uncle named Augustus. He was baptized Augustine in St. Peter's Catholic Church near Rensselaer, Missouri, a community in northeast Missouri. His master was Stephen Elliott. Savilla Elliot, his master's wife, stood as Tolton's godmother.

Freedom

How the members of the Tolton family gained their freedom remains a subject of debate. According to accounts Tolton told friends and parishioners, his father escaped first and joined the Union Army. Tolton's mother then ran away with her children Samuel, Charley, Augustine, and Anne. With the assistance of sympathetic Union soldiers and police, she crossed the Mississippi River and into the Free State of Illinois. According to descendants of the Elliott family, though, Stephen Elliott freed all his slaves at the outbreak of the American Civil War and allowed them to move North. Augustine's father died of dysentery before the war ended.

Vocation

After arriving in Quincy, Illinois, Martha, Augustus, and Charley began working at the Herris Tobacco Company where they made cigars. After Charley's death at a young age, Augustine met Peter McGirr, an Irish immigrant priest from Fintona, County Tyrone, who gave him the opportunity to attend St. Peter's parochial school during the winter months, when the factory was closed. The priest's decision was controversial in the parish. Although abolitionists were active in the town, many of McGirr's parishioners objected to a black student at their children's school. McGirr held fast and allowed Tolton to study there. Later, Tolton continued studies directly with some priests.

Despite McGirr's support, Tolton was rejected by every American seminary to which he applied. Impressed by his personal qualities, McGirr continued to help him and enabled Tolton's study in Rome. Tolton graduated from St. Francis Solanus College (now Quincy University) and attended the Pontifical Urbaniana University, where he became fluent in Italian language as well as studying Latin and Greek.

Priesthood

Tolton was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1886 at age 31. His first public Mass was in St. Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday in 1886. Expecting to serve in an African mission, he had been studying its regional cultures and languages. Instead, he was directed to return to the United States to serve the black community.

Tolton celebrated his first Mass in the United States at St. Boniface church in Quincy. He attempted to organize a parish there, but over the years met with resistance from both white Catholics (many of whom were ethnic German) and Protestant blacks, who did not want him trying to attract people to another denomination. He organized St. Joseph Catholic Church and school in Quincy, but ran into opposition from the new dean of the parish, who wanted him to turn away white worshipers from his services.

After reassignment to Chicago, Tolton led a mission society, St. Augustine's, which met in the basement of St. Mary's Church. He led the development and administration of the Negro "national parish" of St. Monica's Catholic Church, built at 36th and Dearborn Streets on the South Side, Chicago. The church nave seated 850 parishioners and was built with money from philanthropists Mrs. Anne O'Neill and Katharine Drexel.

St. Monica's Parish grew from 30 parishioners to 600 with the construction of the new church building. Tolton's success at ministering to black Catholics quickly earned him national attention within the Catholic hierarchy. "Good Father Gus", as he was called by many, was known for his "eloquent sermons, his beautiful singing voice, and his talent for playing the accordion."

Several contemporaneous news articles describe his personal qualities and importance. An 1893 article in the Lewiston Daily Sun, written while he worked to establish St. Monica's for African American Catholics in Chicago, said, "Father Tolton ... is a fluent and graceful talker and has a singing voice of exceptional sweetness, which shows to good advantage in the chants of the high mass. It is no unusual thing for many white people to be seen among his congregation." The True Witness and Catholic Chronicle in 1894 described him as "indefatigable" in his efforts to establish the new parish. Daniel Rudd, who organized the initial National Black Catholic Conference which was held in 1889, was quoted in the November 8, 1888, edition of The Irish Canadian as commenting about the Congress by saying, "For a long time the idea prevailed that the negro was not wanted beyond the altar rail, and for that reason, no doubt, hundreds of young colored men who would otherwise be officiating at the altar rail today have entered other walks. Now that this mistaken idea has been dispelled by the advent of one full-blooded negro priest, the Rev. Augustus Tolton, many more have entered the seminaries in this country and Europe". Another indication of the prominence given Tolton by parts of the American Catholic hierarchy was his participation, a few months later, on the altar at an international celebration of the centenary of the establishment of the first U.S. Catholic diocese in Baltimore. Writing about it in the New York Times edition of November 11, 1889, the correspondent noted that "As Cardinal Gibbons retired to his dais [on the altar at the Mass], the reporters in the improvised press gallery noticed for the first time, not six feet away from him in the sanctuary among the abbots and other special dignitaries, the black face of Father Tolton of Chicago, the first colored Catholic priest ordained in America."

Death

Tolton began to be plagued by "spells of illness" in 1893. Because of them, he was forced to take a temporary leave of absence from his duties at St. Monica's Parish in 1895.

At the age of 43, on July 8, 1897, he collapsed and died the following day at Mercy Hospital as a result of the heat wave in Chicago in 1897. After a funeral which included 100 priests, Tolton was buried in the priests' lot in St. Peter's Cemetery in Quincy, which had been his expressed wish.

After Tolton's death, St. Monica's was made a mission of St. Elizabeth's Church. In 1924 it was closed as a national parish, as black Catholics chose to attend parish churches in their own neighborhoods.

Legacy and honors

Tolton is the subject of the 1973 biography From Slave to Priest by Sister Caroline Hemesath. The book was reissued by Ignatius Press in 2006.

In 1990, Sister Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., an Adrian Dominican Sister and then-faculty member of the Theology Department at Catholic Theological Union, initiated the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program in consultation with Don Senior, President of CTU, the theology faculty, and representatives of the Archdiocese of Chicago, to prepare, educate, and form black Catholic laity for ministerial leadership in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

The Father Tolton Regional Catholic High School opened in Columbia, Missouri, in 2011.

Augustus Tolton Catholic Academy opened in the fall of 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. Tolton Academy is the first STREAM school in the Archdiocese of Chicago. A focus on science, technology, religion, engineering, arts, and math sets it apart as a premier elementary school in Chicago. Tolton Academy is located at St. Columbanus Church.

Cause for canonization

On March 2, 2010, Francis George of Chicago announced that he was beginning an official investigation into Tolton's life and virtues with a view to opening the cause for his canonization. This cause for sainthood is also being advanced by the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, where Tolton first served as priest, as well as the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, where his family was enslaved.

On February 24, 2011, the Roman Catholic Church officially began the formal introduction of the cause for Tolton's sainthood, which must take place in a public session. He is now designated Servant of God Fr. Augustus Tolton. Also at this time there was the establishment of historical and theological commissions, which will investigate the life of Tolton, and the Father Tolton Guild, which is responsible for the promotion of his cause through spiritual and financial endeavors. George assigned Joseph Perry, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, to be the Diocesan Postulator for the cause of Tolton's canonization.

On September 29, 2014, George formally closed the investigation into the life and virtues of Tolton. The dossier of research into Tolton's life went to the Vatican, where the documents collected to support his cause will be analyzed, bound into a book called a "positio" or official position paper, and evaluated by theologians, and then, supporters hope, passed on to the pope, who can declare Tolton "venerable" if he determines Tolton led a life of heroic virtue.

On December 10, 2016, Tolton's remains were exhumed and verified as part of the canonization process. Following procedures laid out in canon law, a forensic pathologist verified that the remains (which included a skull, femurs, ribs, vertebrae, pelvis, and portions of arm bones) belong to Tolton. Also found were the corpus from a crucifix, part of a Roman collar, the corpus from Tolton's rosary, and glass shards indicating his coffin had a glass top. After verification, the remains were dressed in a new chasuble and reburied.

On March 8, 2018, historians that consult the Congregation for the Causes of Saints unanimously issued their assent to Tolton's cause after having received and favourably reviewed the positio that was presented to them. On February 5, 2019, the nine-member theological commission unanimously voted to approve the cause. It must now go to the cardinal and bishop members of the Congregation for approval before it is passed to the pope for his final confirmation.

On June 12, 2019, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of a "Decree of Heroic Virtue", advancing the cause of Servant of God Augustine Tolton. With the promulgation of the decree of heroic virtue, Tolton was granted the title “Venerable”. If the case progresses, the next stage would be beatification, followed by canonization.

[protectblackchildren]

OVERLOOKED

These remarkable black men and women never received obituaries in The New York Times — until now. We’re adding their stories to our project about prominent people whose deaths were not reported by the newspaper.

Since 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries, capturing the lives and legacies of people who have influenced the world in which we live.

But many important figures were left out.

Overlooked reveals the stories of some of those remarkable people.

We started the series last year by focusing on women like Sylvia Plath, the postwar poet; Emma Gatewood, the hiking grandmother who captivated a nation; and Ana Mendieta, the Cuban artist whose work was bold, raw and sometimes violent. We added to that collection each week.

Now, this special edition of Overlooked highlights a prominent group of black men and women whose lives we did not examine at the time of their deaths.

Many of them were a generation removed from slavery. They often attempted to break the same barriers again and again. Sometimes they made myth out of a painful history, misrepresenting their past to gain a better footing in their future. Some managed to achieve success in their lifetimes, only to die penniless, buried in unmarked graves. But all were pioneers, shaping our world and making paths for future generations.

We hope you’ll spread the word about Overlooked — and tell us who else we missed.

Read about the project’s first year, and use this form to nominate a candidate for future Overlooked obits.

1907-1960

Gladys Bentley

A gender-bending blues performer who became 1920s Harlem royalty.

BY GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

When it comes to loosening social mores, progress that isn’t made in private has often taken place onstage.

That was certainly the case at the Clam House, a Prohibition-era speakeasy in Harlem, where Gladys Bentley, one of the boldest performers of her era, held court.

READ MORE

1867-1917

Scott Joplin

A pianist and ragtime master who wrote “The Entertainer” and the groundbreaking opera “Treemonisha.”

BY WIL HAYGOOD

When Scott Joplin’s father left the North Carolina plantation where he had been born a slave, there was one thing he wanted to hold on to: the echoes of the Negro spirituals he had heard in the fields. In those songs he found a sense of uplift, hope and possibility.

In the post-Civil War era, the cruel breath of slavery and the aborted plan of Reconstruction still hung over the American South. But in the Joplin home, banjo and fiddle music filled the family’s evenings, giving the children — Scott in particular — a sense of music’s power to move.

READ MORE

1834-1858

Margaret Garner

In one soul-chilling moment, she killed her own daughter rather than return her to the horrors of slavery.

BY REBECCA CARROLL

Margaret garner, who was born as an enslaved girl, almost certainly did not plan to kill her child when she grew up and became an enslaved mother.

But she also couldn’t yet know that the physical, emotional and psychological violence of slavery, relentless and horrific, would one day conspire to force her maternal judgment in a moment already fraught with grave imperative.

READ MORE

1878-1932

Major Taylor

A world champion bicycle racer whose fame was undermined by prejudice.

BY RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

More than 100 years ago, one of the most popular spectator sports in the world was bicycle racing, and one of the most popular racers was a squat, strapping man with bulging thighs named Major Taylor.

He set records in his teens and was a world champion at 20. He traveled the globe, racing as far away as Australia, and amassed wealth among the greatest of any athlete of his time. Thousands of people flocked to see him; newspapers fawned over him.

READ MORE

1905-2001

Zelda Wynn Valdes

A fashion designer who outfitted the glittery stars of screen and stage.

BY TANISHA C. FORD

More than a half century before a “curvy” model made the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and before hashtags like #allbodiesaregoodbodies, there was a designer who knew that it was the job of clothes to fit the woman, not vice versa.

Zelda Wynn Valdes was a designer to the stars who could fit a dress to a body of any size — even if she had to do so just by looking at the client. “I only fit her once in 12 years,” Valdes told The New York Times in 1994 of her long-time client Ella Fitzgerald, “I had to do everything by imagination for her.” Valdes would simply look at Fitzgerald in the latest paper, noting any changes in her full-figured body, and would design the elaborate gowns — with beads and appliques — that she knew Fitzgerald loved.

READ MORE

1941-1970

Alfred Hair

A charismatic businessman who created a movement for Florida’s black artists.

BY GORDON K. HURD

“Well-Known Artist Alfred Hair Slain,” read the headline in The Fort Pierce News Tribune newspaper in Florida.

But before he was killed in a barroom brawl on Aug. 9, 1970, at just 29, Hair had become more than just an artist. With his drive, charisma and business acumen, he helped start a collective of Floridian artists, all African-American, who painted vibrant landscapes of their home state. They would later come to be known as The Florida Highwaymen, or more simply The Highwaymen.

READ MORE

1912-1967

Nina Mae McKinney

An actress who defied the barrier of race to find stardom in Europe.

BY ANITA GATES

About 20 minutes into “Hallelujah,” Hollywood’s first all-sound feature with an all-black cast, Nina Mae McKinney appeared on screen as Chick, a singer and dancer, in a sexy flapper dress.

She had flashing eyes, an armful of jangly bracelets, and no qualms about cheating a handsome young cotton farmer out of the money he had just gotten for his family’s crop.

READ MORE

1856-1910

Granville T. Woods

An inventor known as the ‘Black Edison.’ He found that recognition came at a hefty price.

BY AMISHA PADNANI

He carefully sealed the drawings in a mailing tube and quietly placed them out of sight from his business partner, then went to a meeting.

But when he returned, Granville T. Woods found that his drawings — a design for a novel invention that held the potential to revolutionize transportation around the world — were gone.

READ MORE

1884-1951

Oscar Micheaux

A pioneering filmmaker prefiguring independent directors like Spike Lee and Tyler Perry.

BY MONICA DRAKE

Almost as soon as you settle in to watch the 1939 melodrama “Lying Lips,” you can figure out who is the victim, who is the villain and who is the hero. And even if you know how it all will end, you want to watch anyway.

That was the beauty of the filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. He made you want to soak up the exuberance he clearly felt in delivering a whole new way of telling stories.

READ MORE

1814-1907

Mary Ellen Pleasant

Born into slavery, she became a Gold Rush-era millionaire and a powerful abolitionist.

BY VERONICA CHAMBERS

When the abolitionist John Brown was hanged on Dec. 2, 1859, for murder and treason, a note found in his pocket read, “The ax is laid at the foot of the tree. When the first blow is struck, there will be more money to help.” Officials most likely believed it was written by a wealthy Northerner who had helped fund Brown’s attempt to incite, and arm, an enormous slave uprising by taking over an arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia. No one suspected that the note was written by a black woman named Mary Ellen Pleasant.

In 1901, an elderly Pleasant dictated her autobiography to the journalist Sam Davis. As Lynn Hudson writes in the book “The Making of ‘Mammy Pleasant’: A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco,” Pleasant told Davis, “Before I pass away, I wish to clear the identity of the party who furnished John Brown with most of his money to start the fight at Harpers Ferry and who signed the letter found on him when he was arrested.” The sum she donated was $30,000 — almost $900,000 in today’s dollars.

READ MORE

1827-1901

Elizabeth Jennings

Life experiences primed her to fight for racial equality. Her moment came on a streetcar ride to church.

BY SAM ROBERTS

Because she was running behind one Sunday morning, Elizabeth Jennings turned out to be a century ahead of her time.

She was a teacher in her 20s, on her way to the First Colored American Congregational Church in Lower Manhattan, where she was the regular organist, when a conductor ordered her off a horse-drawn Third Avenue trolley and told her to wait for a car reserved for black passengers.

READ MORE

1876-1917

Philip A. Payton Jr.

A real estate magnate who turned Harlem into a black mecca.

BY ADEEL HASSAN

“Human hives, honeycombed with little rooms thick with human beings,” is how a white journalist and co-founder of the N.A.A.C.P., Mary White Ovington, described the filthy tenements that black New Yorkers were relegated to at the turn of the 20th century.

As more rural Southerners arrived in the city, the teeming Manhattan slums in which African-Americans were living had become the most densely populated streets in the city, nearly 5,000 people per block, according to one count, as landlords rented almost exclusively to white tenants.

READ MORE

1857-1924

Moses Fleetwood Walker

The first black baseball player in the big leagues, even before Jackie Robinson.

BY RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

When Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, becoming the first African-American player in modern major league baseball, he was not only a trailblazer in the sports world, but an inspiring figure in the modern civil rights movement.

But Robinson was not the first ballplayer in the long history of big league baseball known to be an African-American. That distinction belongs to Moses Fleetwood Walker.

READ MORE

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/obituaries/black-history-month-overlooked.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

[qqueenofhades]

50 Awesome Women To Know: Part 8

As we complete the latest set of 50, we ask: Are they somehow getting more awesome? Possibly. But then, they all are.

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799): Italian, philosopher, philanthropist for the poor, mathematician, mystic, theologian. Spoke seven languages, wrote the first textbook on differential and integral calculus, and was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna. 

María Parado de Bellido (1777-1822): Indigenous Peruvian, spy and revolutionary during Peru’s fight for independence from Spain, heroine of the movement and of folk legend alike.

Marta Brilej (1917-2016): Slovenian, member of the partisan resistance against the Nazis during WWII with her husband as they made many attempts to catch her, courier and war hero, ambassador and diplomat (again with her husband) in London, Mexico City, Egypt, Yemen, and other places; died at age 99.

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955): African-American, the daughter of slaves, an educator, humanitarian, and civil rights activist, appointed as a national adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt; founded Bethune-Cookman University, a historically black college, along with other efforts to improve education and the lives of recently freed slaves.

Mary Ritter Beard (1876-1958): American, historian of women’s rights and the labor movement, social justice advocate and activist, author of several seminal historical works (along with her husband) and dedicated suffragist.

Maryana Marrash (1848-1919): Syrian, author and poet, figure of the Arabian Renaissance, journalist and first woman to write in Arabic-language newspapers, patron of literary salons and intellectuals.

Mihrimah Sultan (1522-1578): Ottoman Turkish, daughter of Suleiman the Magnificent, the most powerful Ottoman princess in history and recognized as a huge political and economic mastermind in the empire, key figure in the “Sultanate of Women,” sponsor of major architectural projects and a patroness of the arts and sciences.

Mina Spiegel Rees (1902-1997): American, mathematician, pioneer of computer science, head of the math department at the U.S. Naval Research Office, first female president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, instrumental to the entire post-war direction of math and computer science in America.

Moremi Ajasoro (12th century): Yoruba, princess and tribal heroine, who was said to have married a rival prince and then returned to her people with information on how to defeat him, described as brave and beautiful.

N.K. Jemisin (1972 -- ): African-American, novelist, psychologist, and activist, three-time winner of the Hugo Award (the only author to have done so in three straight years) for her insightful, original, and compelling sci-fi and fantasy.

Nodira (1792-1842): Uzbek, poet, stateswoman, outspoken cultural critic, advocate for women’s rights in Central Asia under conservative 19th-century Islamic regimes, public figure, political advisor to her son who ruled as khan of Kokand, hanged after she refused to marry a rival.

Pearl Connor-Mogotsi (1924-2005): Trinidadian, actress, activist, promoter of Afro-Caribbean artistic cultures, institutions, and traditions; worked to represent black artists and authors as a literary agent in the UK in the 1950s; studied law at King’s College London.

Pearl Witherington (1914-2008): British/French, special operations agent during World War II, member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, described as “the best shot the [entire Special Operations Executive] had ever seen,” leader of a ring of spies and so effective that the Nazis put a bounty of one million Reichsmarks on her head; presided over the surrender of 18,000 German troops, LITERALLY JUST. GO READ ABOUT HER.

Peretta Peronne (15th century): French, Parisian surgeon who was prosecuted by the medical faculty of the University of Paris in 1411 for being unlicensed (read: female, as part of a wider effort to restrict and professionalize medicine as an elite male university career). 

Raufa Hassan al-Sharki (1958-2011): Yemeni, feminist, activist, first female journalist in Yemen, fierce advocate for women’s education and opponent of conservative Islamist groups; historian of culture, clothing, and society.

Regina Salomée Halpir (1718-c.1763): Lithuanian, doctor, travel writer, adventurer, who was self-taught as a physician while living in Constantinople with her husband, befriended Empress Anna and Empress Elizabeth of Russia; doctor to the women of the sultan’s harem, eventually wrote her own (if somewhat tall-tale-prone) autobiography.

Rosa María Hinojosa de Ballí (1752-1803): Tejana; rancher and “cattle queen” of Mexican Texas, was left 55,000 acres by her husband in 1790 and owned more than one million acres by the time she died thirteen years later.

Rufaida Al-Aslamia (7th century): Arabian; recognized as the first professional nurse in the history of medicine and the first Islamic female surgeon (c. 620), trained and taught other women medical skills and also was a social worker for the poor, children, and the needy; knew the Prophet Muhammad personally.

Ruža Petrović (1911-1958): Croatian, anti-fascist activist who refused to give up her companions under torture; after having her eyes put out with a dagger in a hideously violent crime, she kept on fighting fascists, and provided strength and moral support to her comrades, was elected to the Antifascist Front and founded an organization for the blind.

Sara Forbes Bonetta (1843-1880): Egbado (West African) princess, kidnapped and sold into slavery, ended up arriving in England and became the goddaughter of Queen Victoria; married a wealthy Yoruba businessman and moved back to Africa; her descendants are still notable in Nigeria.

Sayyida al-Hurra (1485-1561): Moroccan, stone-cold badass governmental administrator and pirate queen, counterpart of the corsair captain Barbarossa of Algiers (who controlled the eastern Mediterranean while she controlled the west); married a king later on but made him come to her to do it; described as “living a life of adventure and romance” (WHERE IS HER MOVIE DAMMIT).

Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891): Russian, mathematician, first woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics, described as “the greatest known woman scientist before the twentieth century,” first woman to edit a scientific journal, professor at Stockholm University in Sweden, feminist and author.

Therese of Bavaria (1850-1925): Bavarian, princess, daughter of Prince Liutpold of Bavaria; ethnologist, zoologist, travel writer, explorer of the Amazon, contributor and student of the (now-absolutely-tragically-destroyed) National Museum of Brazil, member of scientific and geographical learned societies.

Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar (1683-1733): Swedish, dressed up as a man and served in the army for many years and reached the rank of corporal, married a woman named Maria and won the eventual court case trying them for homosexuality; they served brief sentences and lived happily ever after.

Zofia Potocka (1760-1822): Greek, known for her great beauty and adventurous life, born into a poor Greek family, but became the lover of high-profile nobles/royals, served as a Russian spy; friends with Marie Antoinette; later became a Polish noble, gave generously to the poor in her later years.

[frankencomplex]

hcs –– the infantata procedure , character connections 

here I just want to list a few hcs I have connecting charles to other seasons & explaining HOW the infantata procedure worked. this comes w/ the disclaimer that if you write any of the muses i’ve connected charles to , & you don’t agree w these hcs , i’ll ignore them for the sake of writing w/ you & take an alternative route. after all , most of these are just interesting connections that aren’t confirmed & don’t need to be in his story. but , I think they’re fascinating , so i’m using them for the sake of his character.

- THE INFANTATA ––––– ( note beforehand , that while I have researched his work extensively , I am not active in any medical fields even remotely , & most of my writing about his work is complete pseudo science. oh well , it’s fiction , & let me be. ) charles did not have the medical technology to effectively revive someone with electricity. his procedure for bringing thaddeus back to “life” mostly involved chemical solutions & a healthy dose of power that he did not understand. in an ether-driven stupor , he reattached thaddeus’ limbs with an assortment of odd parts from animals. ( bat wings , piranha teeth , hooves from a baby goat , etc. )  at the time , he had thought these would be improvements , or that they could make up for any missing / not fully intact pieces of his son. of course , they only added to the demonic spirit that would overtake the body. this leads to my first connection , with

- ELIZABETH (THE COUNTESS) ––––– elizabeth came to charles for an abortion in 1926 , but her bloodthirsty ( likely half-vampire ) child was developed enough at three weeks that an attempted abortion became a birth. this half-vampire , undead power was present in the blood that elizabeth lost during the procedure. so , charles used this in thaddeus’ revival. THIS is what ultimately turned him into a bloodthirsty , demonic , evil creature rather than something mild & tame & potentially “unsuccessful”. this is ALSO the event that made the murder house the murder house. thaddeus’ revival with elizabeth’s half-vampire blood created the evil in the house that was capable of trapping spirits there forever. ( aka , it is charles’ fault that the house is evil & that ghosts become trapped in the house , something he carries a great deal of guilt over. )

- JAMES PATRICK MARCH ––––– ( there are two sections to this hc , one that I legitimately believe , and one that’s just for fun. ) james march was thaddeus’ killer. if you consider the timeline , elizabeth came to charles for an abortion in 1926. she then had to bring a baby home rather than avoiding james & keeping the secret , as she had mentioned that her husband didn’t even know she was pregnant. she also had to bring home a semi-developed baby with a disfigurement , something that may have been attributed to the early abortion , & something james would NOT have been happy about. the call the montgomerys receive hinting at thaddeus’ kidnapping , “an eye for an eye”, is a bible verse –– something james has been shown to utilize in his killings ( despite the fact that this is not one of the ten commandments. ) plus , how many men in l.a. in 1926 would have had the constitution to kidnap and dismember a boy who was barely two years old ? ( the second part of the hc involving james is just for fun , & only exists because I like to anchor charles to his setting as much as possible. ) james march was new money on the east coast , & charles montgomery was old money. his family held a certain disdain for new money –– & as the very influential families were all cognizant of each other , charles always vaguely knew of james’ existence. they were born the same year (1895), & they grew up in very similar situations. they both moved to l.a. from the east coast in the early 1920s , too. this hc essentially culminates to the fact that charles always knew of james while he was growing up , & he gave him an appendectomy in 1924. charles’ parents also stayed in the hotel cortez in 1926 for thanksgiving , when charles hosted dinner.

- MADISON MONTGOMERY ––––– charles had two brothers , a younger brother named walter who died in wwi , and an older brother named oliver. though charles never lived to see it occur , oliver lived a long life & he and his wife had a few children who would live to carry on the montgomery family name. one of these children had a child , & that child had a child , & that child had a child , & that child had madison montgomery. charles is a distant relative of hers , but oliver moved to l.a. in the late 1920s to handle charles’ affairs after his death , & that’s how the montgomery line ended up on the west coast. this also makes charles some semblance of a warlock , though his powers are very weak , and he’s unaware of them all of his life. he’s able to use vitalum vitalis ( hence how he managed to resurrect thaddeus ) & telekinetic earthquakes , though he has never used this. in my coven verse , he is aware of them , but elects to stay uninvolved & out of sight , leading a very normal life.

[wheresthetylenol]

Here we go..

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

Dilip - Geek, NoMBe - Miss Mirage, Starfucker - Kahlil Gibran, Icarus Moth - Needles, Skrillex - Would You Ever, and Duumu - Love Spells just to name a few. 

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? Julian Casablancas

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad “He died of a heart attack on August 3, 1924, at the age of 66, and was buried near his home in a Roman Catholic cemetery in Canterbury.

4: What do you think about most? What’s really in it for me?

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? I love you too baby. See you tomorrow!

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? With.

7: What’s your strangest talent? I can whistle 4 different ways. 

8: Girls… (); Boys… () Lame question imo.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? No but there have been many many diary entries.

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? Probably when I was a kid haha

11: Do you have any strange phobias? I fucking hate moths.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? Don’t think so.

13: What’s your religion? I haven’t decided.

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? Leaving my house.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? In front!

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? The Strokes

17: What was the last lie you told? I hope you guys have a good night!

18: Do you believe in karma? Yes, very much so.

19: What does your URL mean? It’s from Christmas Vacation.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? Pizza, and my personal hygiene 

21: Who is your celebrity crush? Mary Elizabeth Winstead

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? Yeah I sure have!

23: How do you vent your anger? Spending more time on hobbies or just going for a walk.

24: Do you have a collection of anything? I collect e-juice bottles I guess

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Neither really, but talking on the phone

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? Not yet, but I feel very close

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? Other people eating, and hit markers in Overwatch 

28: What’s your biggest “what if”? What if when you die the light at the end of the tunnel is you being born again?

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? I don’t believe in ghosts but there are definitely a countless number of alien species out there

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. My mouse, and a coaster on my desk

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? Home!

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? Hillyard haha

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? West Coast any day

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? Tay Swifty

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? To fall in love and be very comfortable.

36: Define Art. Anything where someone is using creativity, and people who observe that believe it as such

37: Do you believe in luck? I used to

38: What’s the weather like right now? Cloudy, I think it’ll rain tomorrow

39: What time is it? 3:34 AM

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? Nope

41: What was the last book you read? H20 - Virginia Bergin 

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? Not really, it’s too strong.

43: Do you have any nicknames? Jordy

44: What was the last film you saw? Bohemian Rhapsody, it was fantastic!

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? Just a big gash on my forehead when I was a kid

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? I’ve never tried

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? Girls!

48: What’s your sexual orientation? Straight 

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? Yes, plenty and still to this day 

50: Do you believe in magic? No

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? Not for long!

52: What is your astrological sign? I’m a Libra

53: Do you save money or spend it? Spend, but I really want to save. 

54: What’s the last thing you purchased? Vodka :)

55: Love or lust? Love

56: In a relationship? Yes

57: How many relationships have you had? 11 or 12?

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? Yep

59: Where were you yesterday? I was at a basketball game

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? Nope

61: Are you wearing socks right now? Yes

62: What’s your favourite animal? Dogs :)

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? Charisma, and good energy

64: Where is your best friend? He’s at his place 

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. lucidforests, showerthoughts, tattoosideas, archatlas, and bestfoodpictures

66: What is your heritage? I dont have one

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? Netflix and chill

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? Satan is a title

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? Of course i have

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? Yeah, I talk to myself just as much as anyone else

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? I would get fired in a heartbeat! 

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? a.) Yes, I would have to as tragic as it would be.. b.) Party like it’s 1999! c.) No, I think I would be ready

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. That’s a really tough one.. I think I could manage with just love.

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? Zelliack - Call Me Old Fashioned

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? 0720

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? Great sex!

77: How can I win your heart? Show me yours

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? No boredom is way better

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? I chose music

80: What size shoes do you wear? 10.5

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? Enemy double kill xD

82: What is your favourite word? Fuck, Ass, Bitch

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. Love

84: What is a saying you say a lot? Fuck me, dude.

85: What’s the last song you listened to? Miami Horror - Sometimes

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? Blue 

87: What is your current desktop picture? I’ll post it

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? I don’t know really haha

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? Question 88

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? Freak the hell out!

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? I would love to be able to get $1,000 every time I reach into my pockets

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? My early teens, I loved all the good times me and my friends had back in the day!

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Getting caught trying to steal money from my older sister

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? Tove Lo

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Perth, Australia

96: Do you have any relatives in jail? Not for a very very long time

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? No thank god haha

98: Ever been on a plane? Yes, we went to Disneyland

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? I would tell everyone about my dream to be a professional producer, open an awesome record label, start a dope XM radio station and make bank!

Wow, I can’t believe I made it through this, if you read most of it, shoot me a PM. I would love to chat haha

[chaosangelmoon]

*DISCLAIMER AND WARNING*: The Missing Musicians Series is created to bring awareness and recognition to those who created, composed, sung, or played music before disappearing without a trace. Proceed with caution, as many of these missing people may very well be deceased, and hearing audio they made may unnerve some viewers. I do not own nor profit from any of their content. May the families of the missing have my blessings.

Click “Keep reading” for more info about today’s video.

Missing Musicians #1: Connie Converse

“Elizabeth Eaton "Connie" Converse (born August 3, 1924 - disappeared 1974) was an American musician active in New York City in the 1950s. Her work is among the earliest-known recordings of the singer-songwriter genre of music. 

Converse left her family home in 1974 in search of a new life and was never heard from again. Her music was largely unknown until it was featured on a 2004 radio show and released on the album How Sad, How Lovely in March 2009.” - Wikipedia

The above song is Talking Like You (Two Tall Mountains), my favorite.

The whole album.

[thesecretfandom]

American Dream: Part One -- Bughead Au

I. Land of Excess

Word Count: 5,051

Rated: G

A/N: Part 1/3 Bughead 1920′s Au.( Read on AO3) (Part 2 Coming Soon)

"Ethel, have you seen my diamond necklace?" Betty called to her assistant. Betty had hired Ethel six months ago, and she was thus far the best assistant she'd ever had. She was responsible for organizing Betty's latest fashion show, with all the biggest names in fashion in attendance. It was the first fashion show Cooper Fashions had hosted, starring the innovative styles of the young yet top female designer, Elizabeth Cooper.

"You hung it on your vanity, ma'am."  Ethel replied.

"You don't need to call me ma'am, Ethel. You make me sound like an old woman." Betty sighed. She'd insisted when she first hired Ethel that she call her Betty, even Elizabeth, but she still called her ma'am regardless. "Remind me again why I hung a priceless diamond necklace on my vanity? Do I not have a jewelry box?"

"That's what I said last night, and you said that it could stay there because you were wearing it to the theater today."

"I don't know why I question you." Betty lifted the gold chain from where it hung on the spindle of the mirror attached to her vanity. "Be a dear and make sure the car is waiting. I'm almost ready to go."

"Yes, ma'am."

Betty entered the black town car alone, allowing her chauffer to close the door behind her. The New York City streets were busy on that weekend. Young men and women walked the streets, leaving trails of cigarette smoke in their wake. None would admit what they were up to that night, but in the mid-1920s at the height of Prohibition, Betty knew they must be wandering in to one of many speakeasies that were hidden throughout the city.

Betty preferred to keep up her image, avoiding the less savory locations in the city when there was a chance of the paparazzi catching her. She was just establishing herself in an industry thus far held hostage by men, and she would not allow some scandal to knock her out of the spotlight.

The lights from the theater were glowing, sparkling like stars pulled down from the sky. The night sky in New York City grew increasingly dimmer as the years went on. Betty remembered, as a child, visiting the city before the War… before the city lights drowned out her dreams of life on a farm with her childhood sweetheart and replaced them with dreams of fashion, adventure, and forbidden romance.

She was born at the turn of the century, her age always reflected in the year facing her. Now 1924, Betty was successful for her age, but an enigma to her peers. What was a beautiful young woman like her doing without a husband? That was something that Betty herself couldn't answer. A husband was always on her list, but her career was always higher on the list. Her husband, whoever he was, would have to wait.

A red carpet sprawled across the sidewalk from where her car stopped, leading up the stairs into the theater. Her chauffer held out a white gloved hand and as soon as her foot hit the ground flashes of light burst forth from the cameras of the news reporters.

"Miss Cooper, are you with someone?" A hot topic of conversation wherever she went.

"Miss Cooper, how long are you staying in New York?" Less common, but they always wanted to know which city she was headed off to next.

"Miss Cooper, who are you wearing?" The only question that she answered honestly every time.

Betty smiled toward the direction of the question,  the lace of her dress pooling around her ankles. "Myself of course."

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"Mister Jones?"

"What is it, Keller?" Jughead was busy. His newest show premiered tonight and already his lead actress had ripped a seam in her dress and the spotlight bulb had shattered. Luckily, both had remedies. An adequate seamstress and spare bulb would fix all of his problems, if only the damn bulb could be found in the supply closet.

"Elizabeth Cooper is on the red carpet."

Jughead stopped in his tracks. He trained his eyes on his assistant, trying to decide if the young man was lying to him.

"A celebrity is coming to my show?"

"Some may argue that you're a celebrity, Sir." Kevin responded promptly.

"I don't care for flattery, you know this." Jughead was on the move again. If the handyman couldn't find a simple light bulb, he'd have to do it himself. "I wasn't made aware of this when the VIP booths were reserved."

"She didn't reserve a booth." Kevin wrung his hands together. "She came alone with a single ticket, general audience. That's how she slipped through. She had her personal assistant buy a ticket for her."

"Well, move her to a VIP seat then. I would have gladly sent her complimentary tickets had I known."

"That… may be a problem." Kevin shrunk away from his boss when Jughead whirled on him. Kevin hated to be the bearer of bad news, especially with his particularly hotheaded boss. "All of the VIP seats have been reserved by some incredibly esteemed members of society. We can't afford to move anyone."

"Then…" Jughead thought for a moment. "Then put her in my booth. It's the best seat in the house. What are you waiting for? Go!"

Kevin scurried away toward the front of the building, through a small crowd that that had already arrived. Many of the higher class citizens, considered to be celebrities to New Yorkers, had arrived on the red carpet just moments before the esteemed fashion designer. Jughead watched as they entered the theater, seemingly disappointed that their small moment in the spotlight had been stolen away by an international star.

Jughead had first heard of Elizabeth Cooper five years ago, when she was granted her first spotlight at a fashion show in New York at the age of nineteen. She became a celebrated designer with rapid speed. One of few female designers from America, and the youngest female designer in the world to have her first line of women’s formal wear met with rave reviews.

Despite his four year seniority on the young woman, she had found fame much sooner than him. When Elizabeth was jet setting across the globe to various fashion shows, Jughead was struggling with his first big play. While her designs were in high demand, Jughead was begging on his hands and knees in front of potential investors.

His first controversial show was met with mixed reviews, but with a murderous plot line and a mysterious figure pulling the strings, it was a hit that skyrocketed Jughead into the spotlight… quite literally.

"Five minutes to show time! Everyone to your places!" Jughead waited at the center of the stage, just behind the thick, red curtain.

A nervous energy appeared behind him. "Mr. Jones…"

"Now is not the time, Keller." Jughead straightened his tie.

"But…"

"Is this going to affect the show in any way?"

"Well, it-"

"Get backstage, Kevin. Everything is going to be fine."

Once again, Kevin disappeared into the crowd of cast and crew that waited backstage. Jughead slowly pushed through the curtain and stepped into the spotlight at center stage. Through the bright light, he couldn't make out the audience… though he'd been assured it was a full house. Jughead grinned, "Welcome, esteemed guests to the premier of  Land of Excess."

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Betty sat in the sixth row back from the stage, watching as Forsythe Jones took the stage to introduce the show. She could feel the eyes of various audience members watching her with sidelong glances. She'd been offered a seat in a VIP booth by Forsythe's assistant and with much disappointment to him, she'd refused. After all, she'd come to this show at this particular theater for a reason.

As a child, when she'd first visited the city with her parents and siblings, they'd gone to a show at the small theater that had once sat on this land. She was quite young when Peter Pan came to America, and her parents had saved money for something of just the sort. A new theater had been built in its place after the war ended, but Betty still felt like a child again as she sat n the middle of the theater six rows back, just where she had been over fifteen years ago.

This show was much more mature. Set in the present day, it was a rags to riches story about a young woman with a dark past establishing herself as a successful business woman. Amidst a stalker from her past and a new mysterious lover, it was a grand romance that would empower any woman hoping to make her mark on the world. No doubt it would have mixed reviews from the influential theater critics, made up mostly of old men.

By the end of the show, Betty vowed to use her influence to promote the show. Not many shows had a female as the lead, especially when most playwrights were men. She had to give Forsythe Jones props, he always found a way to make his controversial plays strike some cord with a large audience.

Betty waited in her seat long after the show ended until only a few audience members still shuffled around the back of the theater.

"Did you enjoy the show?" A deep voice spoke from stage left, followed by a tall man with dark hair.

"Quite." Betty stood at the arrival  of Forsythe Jones. She'd seen his face in newspapers before, but he was much more handsome in person.

"You are Elizabeth Cooper." He stated, stepping through the rows of seats to stand in the row just in front of her.

"And you're Forsythe Jones."

"Call me Jughead." His lips quirked into a small smile.

"Well, if we're on a nickname basis… you can call me Betty."

She held her hand out to him and he took it happily. His hand was large, enveloping hers completely as they shook.

"I invited you to a VIP booth, did my assistant get in contact with you?"

"Ah, so you noticed." Betty smiled. "Yes, I got the message. However, I paid my modest fee for my carefully chosen seat and I intended to sit there amongst the… peasants."

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to tease strange men?"

"Are you a strange man, Mr. Jones?"

He didn't respond to this question. Instead, he laughed. Betty raised an eyebrow at him, something about his presence felt familiar; almost comforting.

"I so wish you would have taken my invitation." He laughed. "Your conversation is much more stimulating than Kevin's, my assistant. He's just a bundle of nervous energy most of the time."

"Were you not nervous on your opening night?" Betty found that hard to believe. "I am always nervous out of my mind when I release a new line."

"You see right through me, Miss Cooper."

She was fascinated by his eyes. A deep sparkling blue. There wasn't a lot of color in today's world. Even her own designs tended toward silver and gold trimming on black and white fabric. Perhaps she should consider investing in some blue dyes, or maybe red and green. The new year approached in a few short months, and with it her next line of fashion due to hit the market.

"The night is young. Care to join me for a night on the town?"

Betty smiled a small apology. She knew just what a night on the town meant. "I'll have to politely decline."

"That's a shame." He shifted his weight and began walking toward the exit. "Allow me to give you a ride home. I'd love to hear what you think of the show."

"My car should be waiting." Betty replied, following him toward the exit.

"Let me at least show you my car." Forsythe Jones walked backward down the aisle, his eyes locked on Betty. "It's a gorgeous light blue with a convertible top, though I'll leave the top up since I believe it's getting a tad cold outside."

"A little presumptuous, aren't you?" Betty smiled regardless.

"I have faith in my car. Come on, I had Kevin bring it around front."

Betty followed him, admittedly curious. She'd never been too interested in cars. Her family had never had a personal car. She distinctly remember her first ride being in a taxi after she'd moved to New York to pursue her  dreams. Even now, she owned a car but had never had the courage to drive in the city. Instead, she hired a chauffeur.

The car was beautiful, standing out against the dark city street. It was much more beautiful than Betty's plain black car, which was parked just behind his. Betty noticed the smile in her comrade's eye as she stepped closer to the car. She'd seen some luxurious things in her time, but there was something different about this particular car. Maybe it was the stains of mud swirling around the wheel wells, something  most people with such a nice car and good amount of money would normally keep clean.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?"

Forsythe swept his hand across the hood of the car, rubbing out a water spot with his thumb.

"She?" Betty responded.

"Well, of course." He replied. "Something this beautiful has got to be a woman, don't you think?"

Betty rolled her eyes, something she felt she may do often in the presence of this strange man. "I can't argue with that logic. It is a beautiful car."

Forsythe Jones smiled then, his lips curling up at the corners. "So you're saying you'll let me drive you home?"

Betty grinned in reply. "I never said that."

"You didn't have to." He stepped off the curb and walked around the driver's side of Betty's car, where Reginald Mantle sat waiting to take her home. "Hello, fine sir. I'd like to send you home early with a hefty tip. I'll escort Miss Cooper home tonight."

Forsythe held out a five dollar bill to the young chauffeur, which Reggie, bless his heart, refused to take.

"I'll need to speak to Miss Cooper. She tells me when to go home, sir."

Betty found her way to the passenger window. "It's okay, Reg. Take the money, go home, and don't spend that all at once."

"Thank you, Miss Cooper. My mother will be so grateful."

"Tell her hello from me." Betty smiled. "And also tell her that I'm still waiting for her to come to the office to get fitted for a new Sunday dress."

"I'll tell her, but I won't promise she'll listen. You know she gets nervous around expensive things."

"I'll win her over one of these days." Betty stepped back from the car. "Have a good night."

Reggie waved and waited for Forsythe to return to the sidewalk before pulling out onto the street. Betty watched the car disappear around the corner, even as she felt the presence of Forsythe Jones at her side once more.

"Well said, Miss Cooper. And it looks as if I've won you over as well?"

"Your car won me over." She corrected. "And it's a short ride home."

He walked over to his car and pulled the door open. Betty lifted her dress slightly to step into the car before she was stopped.

"Before you get in, promise me you will at least give me a chance to win you over during the drive."

"Do your worst, Forsythe Jones."

He closed the door behind her and moved swiftly behind the wheel. "Let's start with you calling me Jughead."

"Okay, Jughead. Woo me."

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Betty hooked her arm with Jughead as she led the way to her temporary New York apartment. He'd driven around the block twice after Betty had pointed out her building. She hadn't said anything when he kept driving, so he knew that he had, in fact, won her over on the short drive.

"I'd expected you somewhere a bit more lavish." Jughead said when they stopped at the front door.

"I'm one woman, who spends a lot of time living in hotels and train cars. I don't need, nor do I care for an expensive house that I'll never use."

"Fair enough, I sleep in my office most days. Lately, actually I've been sleeping at the theater."

"All work and no play…"

"I wouldn't say no play. Normally I would try to go out and find some adventure on a Friday night, but something much more interesting came up."

Jughead frowned when Betty pulled her arm away. She reached for the door handle and prepared to go inside.

"I had a lovely time at the show, Jughead. Thank you for the ride home."

"My pleasure." Jughead held his hand out to her and she placed her hand in his. He lifted her much smaller hand, leaving a light kiss on the soft skin. "Can I call on you tomorrow?"

Betty took her hand back and stepped through her door. "You can try."

Jughead spent the rest of the night thinking about those last three words she said. Her confidence may be the most alluring thing about her, but something told him that she was just as interested in him as he was in her. He knew he'd be back the next day, and maybe convince her to have dinner.

His office was cold when he returned. So maybe he hadn't told the entire truth about why it was that he slept in his office. He had a small bed set up in the corner of the loft, a kitchenette set at the back of the room. His desk sat in front of the only window, providing a view of the city streets panning out beneath him.

It wasn't that he didn't want a bigger home, but he was comfortable here. He'd grown up in a one room home with his parents and sister, one that was smaller than the room he currently lived in. Anything bigger he thought would feel empty.

And anyway, he was satisfied with sending his well earned money to his parents so they could afford to give his sister, ten years his junior, an education. Not many women got the chance to go to school, but Jughead had made sure, since his produced his first play, that she would stay in school.

He was ridiculously proud of her, now in her first year of nursing school. She wanted to become a doctor, but would settle for nursing until she could make her case to the dean of the medical college that women should be allowed to study more advanced forms of medicine.

Jughead fell asleep thinking about this. He thought, maybe if tomorrow went as planned he'd one day be able to introduce his sister to Betty Cooper. Betty had managed to make a name for herself in a man's world. She could instill some hope in his young sister.

The morning sun woke him early, a stream of bright light shone across his eyes. He yanked a pillow over his face, begging for sleep to take him back again, but it seemed he was not destined to return to dreamland. In the light of the new day, he felt nervous about his eventual return to Miss Betty Cooper. There was something about the dark of the night that granted him confidence, like she wouldn't see though him to his less than golden past.

Despite his current misgivings, he left his small home late in the afternoon to call on the young woman. His building seemed different in the daylight, and he caught a glance of golden blonde hair in the window above. Jughead smiled to himself; now he remembered why he swallowed his anxiety to take the few short steps to the building's lobby.

"Good afternoon, sir." A man in a suit and bellman's hat stood behind a desk in the lobby, a bright smile on his face. "How can I help you today?"

"Elizabeth Cooper?" Jughead supplied. "Would you let her know that Jughead Jones is here?"

The man nodded and pressed a button on an intercom. He spoke in hushed tones, so Jughead couldn't hear what he was saying to her.

"She wants me to tell you that she may or may not be down in ten minutes, and that you should wait outside."

Ten minutes. Jughead leaned against his car as he watched the time pass as various businessmen walked down the street, briefcases in hand. As ten minutes approached, he started to worry that she wouldn't be coming. Then… something caught his eye. A swatch of pale yellow fabric fluttered out of the window through which he'd seen golden hair ten minutes prior. A leg poked out from under the fabric as none other than Betty Cooper climbed out onto the fire escape.

"I don't remember Juliet climbing off her balcony to meet Romeo." Jughead called out to her.

"Who said I wanted to be Juliet?" Betty replied. "They die in the end you know. An esteemed writer such as yourself should be familiar with the works of Shakespeare, no?"

She was climbing down the metal stairway, careful not to let her dress get caught on any sharp edges. Jughead stepped away from his car, closer to the building as Betty reached the final ladder leading to the sidewalk. The end of the ladder stopped three feet from sidewalk.

"Well, Romeo. Are you going to help me down or not?"

Jughead obliged. He held one hand to her waist, the other to the hand not holding the ladder, and she hopped to the sidewalk. Betty was smiling, her soft features even more beautiful in the day light. Her hair was tied up in a knot on top of her head, a delicate chain around her neck.

"I'll admit, after last night I wasn't sure how you'd respond to my coming here today."

"What can I say? You are a mysterious man, and I need a little excitement in my life." Betty brushed past Jughead and walked around his car.  "It's much more beautiful in the daylight."

"Most things are." Jughead replied.  "Would you be interested in dinner?"

"You have a place in mind?"

"I do." Jughead smiled, opening the passenger door for Better to enter. "And I just so happen to be friends with the owner."

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"It was a disaster!" Betty laughed, recalling a story from her past over a plate of spaghetti. "It was my second fashion show ever, and the first model tripped over the front of the dress and fell right on her face!"

"I don't see how that's something you can control, though." Jughead responded. She knew he was just trying to make her feel better. "It's not your fault she was clumsy."

"Here's what you need to know about the fashion industry." Betty took a sip of her water. "If the model stumbles, it’s the shoes. If the model trips and falls, it's absolutely the fault of the dress. I thought my career was over after that. It was all over the community that I couldn't sew a proper hem length."

"It seems you managed to get past that. At least, you seem to have done pretty well for yourself."

Betty shrugged. It had been a little discouraging to have her name alongside "Fashion Fail" in the newspapers, but she had survived. That one moment that had threatened her career, ultimately only increased her motivation to prove the critics wrong. And now here she was, one of the most successful fashion designers in the world sitting across the table from one of New York's greatest playwrights.

"Are you up for a little excitement tonight?" Jughead spoke again. He had finished his food quickly, and watched as Betty slowly took small bites of her food. Now, however, Betty had finished her meal and assumed he would be taking her home.

"I suppose I can't say no to excitement, especially after I specifically said that was what I was looking for."

"I've got something in mind if you'd like to see?" Jughead raised his hand to signal the waiter.

"I trust you." Betty smiled as Jughead spoke to their waiter.

He asked to give his compliments to the chef and they were led back toward the kitchen. Betty didn't bother to ask what exactly they were doing, but she had an idea. The kitchen was a frenzy of activity, but the chef saw Jughead, shouted some instructions, and then made his was to where they stood by the door.

"Jughead Jones!" The tall man reached out to shake Jughead's hand. "And who is this lovely lady?"

Betty offered her hand to him and the chef placed a soft kiss to her hand.

"The is Elizabeth Cooper, world renowned fashion designer AND my date for the evening so you'd better watch yourself, Sweet Pea."

"Sweet Pea?" Betty questioned.

"It's a nickname, obviously. When you're in a certain business it's better for your clients to not know your real name."

"So I take it you're not just a chef then?"

"Clever." Sweet Pea winked at her then turned his attention to Jughead. "So you're going in then?"

"If you'd be so kind." Jughead crooked his elbow for Betty to link their arms as they followed Sweet Pea to the back of the kitchen where two large metal doors stood side by side. The moved through the door on the left and were escorted into a room cloudy with smoke and smooth jazz crooning from a stage set in the back of the building.

Sweet Pea got the attention of the bartender, speaking quietly so that other customers couldn't hear him. "These two are VIP. All drinks are free tonight for them." He turned to face Jughead. "Try not to make me go bankrupt."

"No worries." Jughead clapped him on the shoulder and Sweet Pea disappeared back to the kitchen.

Betty was more focused on the environment around her than the bottles of alcohol organized behind the bar. A few small tables with a few men and women sitting around each. She suddenly felt like her outfit, long and covered in lace, was entirely out of place. The few other women in the room wore black flapper dresses, a fashion Betty had never given a second thought to, and accessories made of feathers around their necks and on their heads.

"Betty?" Jughead's hand was on her elbow, leading her through the small crowd. "Are you okay with this table here? Close enough to hear the music but not too close that I can't hear you talk."

"Who said I wanted to talk?" Betty teased. She took the seat anyway as Jughead ordered from the bar. He returned with a glass of whiskey for himself and red wine for her.

"I wasn't sure what you would like, so I took the easy option."

"That's fine. Honestly, wine is the only alcohol I've had… and that was usually at church or at home when my sister snuck some her current beau."

"I often forget how young you are." Jughead said, followed by a sip of his bitter drink.

"Too young?" Betty asked. She was twenty-four, and by the time she'd reached an age where she felt the desire to drink alcohol it had become illegal. Even with her connections, she had never ventured into a speakeasy until tonight.

"You seem the perfect age to me. It fits you."

The smell of smoke and spilled alcohol permeated the small room, and as the night wore on more patrons entered through the secret door in the kitchen. The room became increasingly crowded and Betty was pushed in Jughead as another couple joined their table.

Jughead seemed to sense the tension she felt with the crowd because he stood and offered his hand to her.

"One dance and I'll take you home?"

Betty took his hand with a smile and followed him to the small bit of the open dance floor. The music came halting to a stop and was replaced by a slower ballad, the bass plunking out a deep rhythm. A sweet melody floated out from the upright piano at the side of the stage.

Betty  draped one arm over Jughead's shoulder, the other held in his hand as he pulled her close at the waist. They swayed softly with the music, a few other couples following their lead. There wasn't much room to move, so Jughead pulled her in small circles until the music wound down and ultimately went silent.

Jughead's arm was still around her even when the music stopped, and Betty thought that she quite liked this. She hadn't danced with a boy since she was in school and even then it felt forced, like something she was expected to do. Here, it felt entirely unexpected and exciting.

Jughead led her back to the door they had come through and passed through the kitchen, which had since become much more quiet. The streets outside were still crowded with people moving from one place to another, but in the alley beside the restaurant Jughead's car sat alone.

"I think I'd like to ride home with the top down, if you don't mind." Betty asked as they approached the car.

"I thought you'd never ask."

With the wind in her hair, Betty felt more free than she ever had before. City lights glowing around her and a handsome man sitting next to her, she could get used to a life like this. She wasn't entirely ready for the night to end when her apartment was suddenly imposing in front of her.

"You'll walk me up?"

"We aren't going up the fire escape this time, are we?" Jughead teased.

"I think the indoor stairs will do just fine." Betty took Jughead's arm as she led him to her doorway. She stopped outside the door, not yet taking her key from her purse. "When can I expect you to call on me again?"

Betty turned to face Jughead, their bodies so close she could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. He tilted his head down, closer to hers and his lips pressed softly against her cheek.

"As soon as possible." He said, pulling away.

"I look forward to it."

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A/N: Let me know what you think! Trying to write in the mind of how people acted almost 100 years ago was a bit strange, but I hope I did it justice. Keep an eye out for part 2!

[quantumrpg]

NAME: Tessa Clarke AGE: 24 / 1356 SPECIES: Moon Servant OCCUPATION: Owner of Voodoo Moon YEAR OF DEPARTURE: 1924 RESIDENT FOR… forty-five years. FACECLAIM: Elizabeth Olsen

t i m e  i s  a n  i l l u s i o n,  b u t  n o t  o u r  s t o r i e s…

Her life had been easy. Simple. She was a part of a village - a group, one that had been in the same pace for as long as they could remember. Their cobbled together huts and easy clothing provided them all that they needed to get by, and they provided the rest. Hunting, fishing and gathering were the soundtrack to their days.

Tessa was not born Tessa Clarke - she was born Sunngifu, daughter of the village leader and his second wife. She was born in the winter, a bright light in the midst of a terrible darkness that had long taken over their corner of the world. Sickness plagued them throughout that winter, and it soon carried her mother off with it.

She survived, even as a portion of her fellows didn’t. The sickness worked quickly, and it was a period of rebirth that she was born in to. Her childhood was an odd one - most of the children did what they could to work with the others, to help the village and make it better, and she was hidden away, fiercely protected by a father that was too scared to lose her as well as the wife that he had loved so dearly. Tessa was quiet, and reserved, someone who obeyed her father for years until she had learned enough to think for herself.

The world was too enticing for her to experience solely through the slats in the walls of her home, and she started rebelling. It started innocently, as she snuck out at dusk to watch the sky fade to black and the stars emerge. She fell in love with the stars and the moon and the idea of how much world there was - so much that she had yet to learn about, so much that she craved to learn about.

Sneaking out at dusk turned into running off when her father was busy and joining the games of the other children, games that ended with scrapes and bruises she had to cover to avoid revealing how much time she really spent outside. She had to rely on the others to keep her secrets, hope that they wouldn’t rat her out to a father whose greatest fear was realizing that his daughter had a life.

As she grew older she participated more, falling in love with nature each moment that she spent in it gathering food. She was young and naive enough to still believe that the world was overwhelmingly right. That there couldn’t be so much beauty and it still be terrible or terrifying like her father liked to pretend. The moon and the stars spoke to her, whispered through the trees like a light wind, drawing her out each night.

She was in love with the world and all its pieces as she slowly became an adult, still hidden away, denied a chance at love and life like the rest. She had to fight for every bit of freedom that she had, claws out and at the ready to sink into the little things that she couldn’t let go of. The feeling of the morning dew under her feet before she had to run back to the hut and pretend that she hadn’t seen the glorious sunrise that morning.

The plague that hit the village a second time struck her almost as soon as it struck the others. Her father couldn’t believe it - he had been so careful, but he had never known that his daughter disobeyed him at every opportunity and ran with the young boys of the village, doing all that she could to have a taste of life before it was stolen from her. As she lay wasting away in her cot, within the same walls that were supposed to have kept her safe, the witches came to the village.

She could hardly hold onto her focus long enough to understand what they were saying, but her father was desperate to believe that they could succeed in their goal of curing his plague, and he allowed his only daughter to be taken from him. Under the full moon her body bent and broke and burned from the inside out until she found herself rising, freed of the fever that had kept her body hostage. Her body felt unbelievably strong, like new, and it was with happiness that she returned to her father.

Her sudden recovery gave her father a sense of happiness that he thought would cause his heart to burst. He watched the entire village rejoice at the return of their beloved, as all of them had grown to know and love Tess as though she were their own. The happiness lasted all month - she was allowed out of her prison to rejoice with the rest of the ones who still stood, wholly healthy and ecstatic beyond measure.

The happiness lasted for a month until the full moon rose again revealing that all was not as it had seemed. Her body bent and broke and transformed until she stood a wolf, one hellbent on blood and destruction. The sun rose the next morning to reveal her naked body covered in blood, leaves and twigs woven into the strands of her blonde hair. She couldn’t understand what had happened - the last that she had remembered, the moon was rising and she had felt an unbearable pain.

She found the others, those that had been saved along with her as they realized that they hadn’t really been saved at all - they had been cursed to be slaves of the moon for the rest of their lives. Each full moon brought with it a terrible pain, the feeling of every bone in her body breaking over and over again, the guilt that came the next morning as the bodies piled up and the horror she felt overwhelmed her each time. The months turned into years and the years into a decade and she did not fight as the witches who had turned her dragged her into her own jail to rot.

Years later, freed from the prison by a time traveler, she set off for the hills. Hidden in the far reaches of the highlands she stayed there, with the silver shackles that she knew could control her on her worst nights. Years passed, her solitude the only thing that kept her sane. She couldn’t rust herself with anyone else, couldn’t be sure that they wouldn’t become just another person that she had killed along the way.

The world changed around her even as she never did, remaining the twenty-four year old she had been when she was turned from human to Moon Servant. That’s what she had been told she was - a Moon Servant. A kind name for something so wholly terrible. The world did not care that she sought to separate herself from everyone else, and as it changed around her she was forced to integrate. To not let on that the passing years with their advancements made her squeeze her eyes shut and wait to wake up from the nightmare her life had become.

She adapted, changing into exactly who she needed to be over the years. From peasant to nun to prostitute, up until the 1600s, traveling all around the world.  There wasn’t a country in Europe that she hadn’t called her home, learning the language and assimilating herself into each like her life depended on it. She didn’t want to be different, she wanted to be normal, to have some sense of belonging even if she didn’t.

Being normal, however, was not something that was always an option. Sometimes she had to use her curse for good - a deep-rooted need to atone for the things that she had done that lead to her turning those who were dying, those that were sick, and those that begged her for a chance to be different and better. Through those choices, the Kensely pack was born. Serving as alpha, her pack traveled the world with her, some coming and going as the winds took them, spreading the gift of the bite in the ways that she had taught them.

It was in the 1600s that she found that she could sail the seas - to see more of the world and make a name for herself as a woman, a successful woman, in a way that hadn’t been done before. Most feared her - she had a taste for violence against those who took slaves or abused women, and the numbers were all too common in those days. Those that didn’t fear her were those that lived good lives as honorable humans, and they benefited immensely from interactions with her. She was very generous with her money, her winnings, her gold, and she allowed everyone to take what they needed to make a life for themselves and their families.

When the golden age of piracy came to its end, she moved to the New World - America, somewhere that she had yet not explored, and she made a home for herself in Virginia, with the few members of her pack that were with her. The pack was always different, always changing, each bringing something new and exciting to her life before they aged and died or followed their fate wherever it took them. She cherished each of them - supported them as though they were her own children, because in a way they were.

Years came and went and as the country devolved into a civil war, she did what she could to support the north, her children signing on to give their lives in what ways they could. The war drained her, emotionally and physically and she found herself retreating back to a quiet life in the mountains, the numbers of her immediate pack dwindling slightly. She couldn't bring herself to care for anyone that could so callously be ripped from her, and the entirety of the human population made her sick.

She couldn’t stay hidden forever, as much as she wished to, and it was in the early 1900s that she found herself in New York City, readjusting to the city life as best she could. Things were taking a turn, there was a change in the air, and the first World War proved to her once again that humans were nothing - that they would never learn from their actions, that she would never understand them or the way that the world was turning slowly into a technological hellscape.

The year 1924 dawned with a feminine revolution in full swing. Women cut their hair and wore shorter dresses and flaunted that they couldn’t be controlled in the way they were before. Tessa related to it - she had never been one to be controlled and she accepted the movement with a happiness in her veins and a wicked grin on her lips. It was late on New Years Eve, a glass of champagne in her hands as she descended an abandoned stairwell, seeking the door at the bottom that would provide her with a solitary space in which to smoke her cigarette outside.

When she opened the door, she knew that something felt off. Wrong - in a way. There was something in her chest that told her the door had taken her to somewhere far different than the alley that she had been smoking in all night long. The first person she stumbled across tried to explain it the best that they could. That she was somewhere where reality was just different. It wasn’t the first time - she had been locked in an alternate reality once before, but this didn’t feel quite like purgatory.

A night of rest and a strong cup of coffee the next day were what she needed to process - to really understand where she was and that her life was now different. It shocked her, to find members of her pack there in the city that had slipped away in the night and found themselves just as stranded as she was, but happy nonetheless. The liminal space as they called it was nice - different, a reprieve from the realities of the world.

She became comfortable there, spending time reading and writing and doing whatever she wanted to. She became intimately familiar with the city, its ins and outs, its inhabitants, some that she had known before, but most that she hadn’t. The years turned to decades, and though she felt a strong urge to explore more, farther, she did find herself at home in the space, the claustrophobia never becoming too overwhelming.

It was in the 1980s that Tessa opened Voodoo Moon - a bar for those that once a month were inclined to find themselves on four legs once a month, running through the woods. She trained her pack well, giving them jobs at the bar and helping them anywhere else so that they would have stability in their everyday life. Her pack was her family and she supported them in a way that they had never been supported, training them and ensuring that they would never harm other human beings. The liminal space was meant to be safe, and she would be damned if she would be the reason it wasn’t anymore.

Now, ninety-four years have passed and she remains in the liminal space, entirely happy with her decision, at home surrounded by her pack and the friends and family that she’s made and chosen throughout the years.

t e l l  m e,  a r e  w e  a  p r o d u c t  o f  w h o  w e  u s e d  t o  b e?

positive: adventurous - Tess has long lived for adventure. She doesn’t say no to many opportunities and she thinks fondly on the times she spent roaming the seas and making a life for herself in ways that weren’t considered appropriate for women in her time. Pushing boundaries is something that she’s intimately familiar with. 

objective  - being an alpha means that she has no choice about being objective, but she does it well. she balances the wants of each of her pack members and ensures that they’re all happy without being walked all over. she does it outside of the pack, too - she’s able to speak to customers at the bar and provide insight that they may not see themselves. 

trusting  - she trusts easily. it’s a gut instinct of hers, one that she follows without hesitation. she knows that her sixth sense is something to be relied on, given the amount of time spent on the earth. she does, also, believe in second chances - though it depends on what they’ve done to need a second chance. 

negative: cynical - there are things in life that Tess has become cynical of. she doesn’t fully believe in the overt goodness of mankind, or that anyone in politics cares for the best interest of the masses. she has lived too long to still fully believe that the world is a wonderful place. 

demanding  - she expects a lot from her pack, and those that work for her. she doesn’t accept half-assed attempts at their jobs or slacking when it comes to training. she has become used to having a set amount of power - has worked hard for it, and she doesn’t accept less than other’s best. 

paranoid - she’s always worried about being sent back to the alternative realm, shackled and locked up. she has become used to her freedom and she has done much to make sure that she gets to keep that freedom. she is paranoid that a mistake will land her back in purgatory, and she does everything she can to avoid it.

[adavalenkova]

The Muse’s Profile - Carter (Supernatural OC)

Fandoms

Supernatural (main)

From Dusk Till Dawn

Atomic Blonde

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

General

Name: Ada Carter-Trevelyan

(Formal English: Lady Ada Trevelyan)

(Formal Russian: Ada Erastovna Valenkova)

Goes by: Dr Carter

Title: Baroness Trevelyan, a minor aristocrat owning a small estate in Porthzennor, Cornwall, encompassing a stately home and a lighthouse. Other assets on the land, including a farm and a tin mine, were sold off in the 1890s to cover the family’s debts. The family acquired the double barrelled surname, Carter-Trevelyan, around this time, after marrying into a wealthy merchant family to avoid losing the estate entirely.

Born: August 1st 1924, in a lighthouse near St Ives, Cornwall

Species: human/zombie

Age at time of story: 92

Apparent age: 43

Relationships

Parents: Marian Elizabeth Carter-Trevelyan, Erast Nikolaievich Valenkov

Other notable family: Lord Arthur Percival Carter-Trevelyan, grandfather, Irene and Varya Stepanova, cousins

Romantic interests: Ketch, though “romantic” is debatable

Sexual interests: Ketch

Friendships: none, though she develops some degree of platonic affection for Dean

Allies: Dean, though somewhat shakily. Ketch, even moreso.

Enemies: Alastair, somewhat, though she generally takes a neutral stance on demons; the Thule Society

Appearance

Hair: black, generally kept long but with an undercut to disguise the bald patches resulting from radiation poisoning

Eyes: grey

Complexion: pale, freckles

Markings: several scars covering most of her back and chest, with scar tissue replacing her left nipple, white scar tissue on her left upper arm, frequent bruises and puncture marks on her inner elbows that have variable rates of healing, left ring finger is slightly crooked following a broken knuckle

Height: 5’8”

Weight: 130lb

Build: toned, but almost sickly thin due to the effects of radiation sickness, small chest and narrow hips that give her an almost “boyish” shape

Tastes

Attire: casual, typically jeans/tank tops/combat boots, favors black

Drives: black Jeep Renegade, later a black Chevrolet Colorado

Music: Celtic/folk, classical, swing, hard rock, also very fond of Vera Lynn

Food: can taste very little due to nerve damage, only able to taste hot food such as chillis or curry

Drink (soft): coffee, but has to be strong and black for her to taste it, able to taste tea with a preference for Yorkshire Gold

Drink (alcoholic): Stolichnaya vodka, sometimes Glenfiddich Scotch

Colors: black, navy, hunter green

Hobbies (rarely practiced anymore): playing piano, boxing, fencing, hunting, horse riding, Cossack dancing (from her father), old time dancing (from her mother)

Hobbies (still practiced): shooting, open water swimming, reading

Likes: living in America, the seaside, and anything that makes her nostalgic for her childhood

Dislikes: sex, though she does like the power play of it; hypocritically, posh or upper class elites; taking orders; socialising; any of the organisations she used to work for, such as MI6, the BMoL, or the CIA; basically, anything that reminds her of the parts of her past she’s ashamed of

Skills

Former profession: lighthouse keeper, spy (WWII and Cold War), medical student

Current profession: demon doctor, alchemist

Practical skills: traditional boxing, horse riding and hunting (learned from her father), fencing, hand-to-hand combat, ranged weapons, sharpshooting, combat medicine, Western medicine (specialising in cardiology), Middle German and English alchemy, medicinal alchemy, torture

Language skills: fluent in English, Russian and German, conversational in Dutch and French, knows a small amount of Cornish

Preferred weapons: fists, knuckle dusters, handguns in combat. For torture, she’s master of the scalpel.

Special abilities: above average strength as a result of the formula, accelerated healing, immunity to almost all diseases

Personality

Traits: cynical, threatening and sarcastic with a dry sense of humor, she can be arrogant and frequently overestimates her own abilities, with terrible consequences. She projects an image of being cold and uncaring, but on occasion her inner feelings of compassion and affection inadvertently show through. Once established, those feelings are often intense and set in stone.

Qualities: assertive, confident, loyal, perceptive, smart, resilient, unprejudiced, principled, fair

Flaws: abrasive, complacent, jealous, vindictive, wrathful, selfish, cruel, manipulative, often fails to meet her own moral standards

Strengths: her intellect, physical strength and skills, excellent poker face, strategic ability, and good judgment of character

Weaknesses: arrogance, complacency, reluctance to admit her own vulnerabilities, easily manipulated once those vulnerabilities are found, emotional dishonesty, sometimes cowardice

Morality: she believes torture is justified in the case of a) punishing terrible people, or b) serving the greater good, though it isn’t clear how much she truly subscribes to this belief at heart. As of the 21st century, she chooses to harvest blood from demons so as to avoid torturing humans unless absolutely necessary. Her personal philosophy is that the worst of humanity is worse than any monster, and includes herself in that as having the capacity to do terrible things.

Fears: her own past

Triggers: corkscrews, the specific phrase “Was ist dein name?”

Religious views: none

Political affiliation: after benefitting greatly from Nye Bevan’s NHS following the war but suffering under a communist regime while undercover in the USSR, she leans cautiously left, though politics has little direct effect on her anymore

Alignment: true neutral, leaning good/evil or lawful/chaotic at different times in her life

Sexual orientation: asexual, but with a Machiavellian attitude towards sex where she views it as a game for power rather than a pursuit for pleasure

History

Her father was a Russian Cossack who fled to England following the revolution, being wanted by the Bolsheviks for trying (and failing) to defend the life of a Russian aristocrat. The aristocrat in question (having married into the Russian aristocracy) was the niece of an English Baron and retired naval captain who owned land in Cornwall, who agreed to take in Erast and permitted him to live in the lighthouse on his land as a gesture of gratitude after hearing his story.

The Baron’s daughter, politically active suffragette Marian Carter-Trevelyan, eventually fell in love with Erast and the pair married in July 1923, with Ada arriving a year later.

Baron Trevelyan was also active in the House of Lords, a keen alchemist, and member of the Men of Letters, who taught Ada much of what she knows about alchemy and the supernatural growing up. During the war, he sat on the government’s secret occult war council and recommended his granddaughter for a role spying on the Nazis - a private education had ensured her fluency in German and several other vital skills. Ada trained with the WAAF and underwent special training between 1939 and 1941 before airdropping into Frankfurt, along with an American agent, Roland Jefferson, at age 17.

Ada worked as a spy for the Allies during WWII to sabotage the Nazis’ occult program, where the Thule tried to develop a formula that would render their soldiers immortal based on an alchemical recipe from the 1500s.

Ada’s cover was blown in 1944 following a Russian telegram sent with a compromised encryption (suspected sabotage). She was imprisoned and tortured for several months, before escaping with the help of the Dutch resistance shortly before VE Day. The medieval text containing the alchemical recipe was brought back to England and placed in the custody of the Men of Letters.

During her absence, Baron Trevelyan was killed during the Blitz in 1942 when a bomb landed on the Men of Letters’ HQ. Her parents, after traveling to London to retrieve the body, were also caught in a bombing raid and killed less than a week later. Ada returned to England to find almost her entire family dead, the exceptions being her housekeeper, Mrs Hogarth, and the family cat, Grigory.

For a time after the war, Ada attended medical school before being asked to return to work for MI6 against the Russians. Part of this work involved torturing enemy agents, where she used her advanced knowledge of human anatomy to devastating effect.

Later, during the Cold War while undercover in Siberia, Ada suffered acute radiation poisoning from close proximity to a nuclear test site. She was, at this time, 43. While dying she used the Nazis’ formula combined with her blood to preserve her own life, albeit it in a “zombie-like” state - this was the first successful implementation of the formula, which sustains her to this day.

The active ingredient in the formula - the blood of someone in excruciating pain - she now supplies by performing surgery and medical enhancement procedures on demons in exchange for a fee, benefiting both parties. (For example, medical or alchemical enhancements granting demons certain abilities, powers, or immunities, requiring a painful procedure that allows Ada (now going by only the name ‘Carter’) to harvest the blood. Carter doesn’t disclose this, but rather charges for her services.)

After hearing about her in passing from Crowley, Dean approached her to help deal with his health issues that arose after being stabbed by Metatron and from the Mark of Cain.

Later, Dean reached out to Carter again to help find Kelly Kline and deliver her nephilim child. Instead, Arthur Ketch got to her first and prevented this, though the two struck up an unusual alliance in the process.

[arplis]

Arplis - News: Affordable Schoolhouse Lighting and a DIY Project To Get The Look Of An Enamelware Industrial Sconce

Last week, I told you all about my plans to incorporate Modern Schoolhouse Style into the decor of our 1920s Bungalow. This week, I’m showing you how I made an easy upgrade to a cheap light fixture to make it look like an expensive vintage reproduction. Plus, I’m doing a round-up with 60 of my favorite budget schoolhouse lights for decorating your own home! *this post contains affiliate links* I get a commission when you buy through my links that goes towards the costs of hosting this free tutorial site. Site operating fees are expensive but my commission costs you nothing. thanks for your support! BUT FIRST, WHAT IS MODERN SCHOOLHOUSE? I get this question a lot on Instagram since I revealed that my design plan for our California Bungalow is to incorporate more Schoolhouse Design Style into the decor of this home. The term is used rather loosely across the Interior Design community, as it’s technically not a real home style. Rather, Schoolhouse Style actually comes from the use of Schoolhouse Style lighting: electrical light fixtures that were widely used throughout the United States in public school buildings between the 1920s and 1950s. As explained in this article from This Old House, Schoolhouse light fixtures are known for their milky glass bulb covers. Originally, electric fixtures donned a bare bulb that created a glare. This made for challenges in the classroom, as teachers and students were often blinded by the light. To remedy that problem, lighting designers developed an opaque glass cover that would allow light to penetrate but would soften the light and alleviate the glare issues. You’ll often see these fixtures in bright finishes or with striped patterns on the globes. This was a common way to add visual interest to the fixtures while maintaining the light defusing properties. The most common DIY associated with Schoolhouse lighting is adding a stripe to the milk glass globe, as seen in this tutorial from Jackie at School of Decorating. BEYOND THE MILK GLASS SHADE In its inception, schoolhouse style was mainly used to refer to light fixtures that featured the white glass globe over a light bulb. Over the years, the term Schoolhouse Lighting has evolved to incorporate other styles of light fixtures. In fact, now you’ll find that a quick Google search for Schoolhouse pendants and sconces will reveal a wealth of options that come in glass, metal, and enamelware finishes. These fixtures lean more industrial - and even a little farmhouse - than traditional schoolhouse but in the design world, they all fall under the same decor style. The color options have evolved as well. For most schoolhouse fixtures, you’ll find that raw metal, stainless steel, and iron (or black) is a base. However, now you can even find schoolhouse chandeliers that also incorporate other finishes you might use throughout your home, such as antique brass and polished nickel. HOW TO MIX SCHOOLHOUSE LIGHTING WITH MODERN DECOR Because these light fixtures often feature cute pops of color, they’re a common favorite among people who are decorating kid’s bedrooms and playrooms. For instance, this kid’s room by Erin Wheeler of Sunny Circle Studio rocks a charming traditional schoolhouse pendant alongside schoolhouse room decor. See the national parks advertising poster and buffalo plaid throw blanket? Punched with bold primary color accents and warm, worn wood, this space just screams Traditional Schoolhouse style. Meanwhile, designer Whitney McGregor’s kid’s room, featured in Southern Living, boasts cozy, traditional cottage decor. Even with a Queen Elizabeth-style bed, the schoolhouse factory pendant looks right at home! So it’s clear that schoolhouse lighting can work in harmony with traditional home decor, but what about a more modern home? How would you use schoolhouse style in a contemporary setting? Schoolhouse lighting is fairly neutral - it features clean lines, limited adornment, and an industrial vibe. Sp of course it looks great with modern decor as well! Just take a look at these Schoolhouse factory pendants in the Rockridge Casita, a modern Airbnb in Oakland, CA: The bottom line: Schoolhouse Light Fixtures are fun. They are nostalgic. They aren’t made for stuffy quarters but can serve a beautiful juxtaposition against a hyper-traditional home. Two remaining examples? Just look at this kitchen and child’s bedroom designed by Susana of Chango + Co. Both rooms feature schoolhouse industrial light fixtures yet neither room looks particularly schoolhouse in design. The decorating possibilities with this style of lighting are truly endless! AFFORDABLE SCHOOLHOUSE LIGHTING In a moment, I’m going to show you how I turned a standard $25 metal factory flush mount into an enamelware light on a budget. But if I’m being honest, the DIY upgrade wasn’t necessary. All of the light fixtures I’ve rounded up below look like more expensive fixtures than they are. Many of these pendants and chandeliers are on my list of items to buy when we’re ready to upgrade the remaining lights in our California Bungalow. You can see all the sources I’m planning to use for our remodel via my Pinterest Board: 1924 Source List. While you’re there, make sure to follow me so you can see new inspiration and products as I add them. SCHOOLHOUSE PENDANTS + FLUSHMOUNTS click images to shop directly through retailer - affiliate links included SCHOOLHOUSE PENDANTS + FLUSHMOUNTS click images to shop directly through retailer - affiliate links included As I’ve been slowly decorating our California Bungalow, I’ve made a few little upgrades that have all contributed to a more industrial cottage decorating plan. First, I built this Schoolhouse Style Wooden Broom. Then I upgraded the entryway storage in our home by creating a small mudroom in the corner of our dining room featuring this Schoolhouse Style Wall Hook Rack. But what I failed to show you on the blog is the biggest upgrade we’d made in this home. I replaced the dining room light within a few weeks after we closed on this house. Here’s what the space looked like before we moved in. If you look beyond the moving boxes, you can see that the original light fixture in this room was very small. It actually didn’t even illuminate the room. At night, I could barely see to wipe down the table. To refresh your memory, our dining room is actually the original designated Living Room, based on traditional bungalow floorpans. I explain why I chose to move it around in this post: Our 1924 California Bungalow: Full Home Tour So the very first design decision I made for this home was to purchase and install a new light. That new light has an industrial modern vibe which lends itself to 1920s period decor and schoolhouse style. That photo was taken as a sneak peek of our new home and sent only to my email newsletter subscribers to show off our new pendant light. Want on the list to see exclusive sneak peeks and get extra content every week? You can sign up here. This modern industrial cage light, in olive green, sets the tone for the remainder of our home’s style. Part cottage, part industrial, part modern. Those styles all gather together and morph into what designers now call “Schoolhouse Modern Style”. For this reason, when I decided to update the ceiling fixture in our small hallway (for the same reason - it barely shines any light), I knew I wanted a vintage schoolhouse look. Immediately, I fell in love with this original vintage factory pendant I found on 1stdibs. But the price tag was a steep $300. That’s more than I really wanted to spend on the lighting for that tiny space. Also, I’m planning to incorporate this Hygge & West wallpaper into the ceiling of the hallway, so I was worried the grey would just get lost against it. That’s when inspiration struck and the idea for my $30 Enamelware Factory Pendant DIY was born! DIY FACTORY LIGHT REPLICA tools: paint brush painter’s tape cardboard surface for painting materials: metal farmhouse style light fixture craft paint high gloss lacquer spray STEP ONE - remove the shade from the bulb housing. STEP TWO - tape just above lower rim of shade + around bulb socket to protect surface from paint. STEP THREE - paint rim of shade and bulb housing with craft paint. allow to dry. repeat with additional coats, if necessary. STEP FOUR - remove painter's tape and spray with clear lacquer. Once all the paint and lacquer was dry, I allowed it to sit for 24 hours in order to harden. Then I installed it in our bungalow’s hallway and I love it! Since we’re taking our time with this renovation, we haven’t even updated the paint in here yet. But already, the hallway feels fresh and modern! Here’s what the hallway looked like before - You can see how that teeny tiny light was doing absolutely nothing for us. But now, it’s bright! I still want to add wallpaper above the beadboard and update all the door hardware (in keeping with the home’s historic integrity, don’t worry). Oh! And I also need to decide what color I want to paint the trim and walls throughout the house. But all those decisions and tasks can be left for another day because right now, I’m basking in the glory of my beautiful, new industrial lighting, including these two fixtures I ordered and installed in our dining room! Since the dining room leads directly into our hallway - which is the central hub of the rest of the home - consistency in design choices is key to making this home feel collected and maintain flow. While the 3 light fixtures I’ve added so far aren’t identical, they are all tied together with common finishes and styles. If you’re planning to make your own Industrial Light Fixture, I’ve added an easy printable instruction sheet that you can keep with you as you work to the bottom of this page. SCHOOLHOUSE DECOR INSPIRATION Ready to add some industrial vintage vibes to your home? Check out these posts to get you started. SHOP MY SCHOOLHOUSE STYLE BUNGALOW love this style? I do too! here are the decor items I bought to achieve the look. WEEKLY POST REMINDER + EXCLUSIVE UPDATES! I’ll never share your email address with any other companies or people. You may unsubscribe at any time. Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you! DIY HOME PROJECTS THAT ARE TRENDING RIGHT NOW quick and affordable DIY projects you don’t want to miss YOUR HOME DECORATING DILEMMAS SOLVED Commenting on this post is disabled so I can focus on our upcoming projects + client designs but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear from you. Send me your questions and comments on Instagram by either commenting on my latest post or sending me a direct message. I really love to chat it out! DIY Factory Style Vintage Enamelware Light Fixture CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD + PRINT by Teri Moore | www.tmoorehome.com skill level: EASY MATERIALS: metal farmhouse style light fixture craft paint high gloss lacquer spray TOOLS: paint brush masking tape Instructions: step one: remove the shade from the bulb housing. step two: tape just above lower rim of shade + around bulb socket to protect surface from paint. step three: paint rim of shade and bulb housing with craft paint. step four remove painter's tape and spray with clear lacquer. #HomeDecor #DIYCraftTutorials #DIYRemodeling #MyFavoriteProducts

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