The End is Nigh!

After much cleaning, humidifying, foldering, labeling, stamping, organizing and boxing, the Rupert N. Gresham, Jr. Family Papers are finished.

The last few months have been taken up with the last bit of cleaning and humidifying of the materials, and fitting them into the organizational framework we created for the collection.

A big "EXCELLENT JOB!" goes out to Gerri, Traci, Eva and Mat for their hard work on this fascinating and enormous project. An additional thank you to Fernando for his help with a few odds and ends.

Soon we will post the finding aid to show the ultimate structure and contents of the collection. We hope people interested in San Antonio history and life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries will find this collection to be a valuable resource.

Progress Report on the Collection

During the last month or so, we have continued to clean and flatten the correspondence, which makes up a large portion of the materials in the Gresham family collection. Additionally, Gerri and I have determined a preliminary arrangement for these items and letters are being sorted accordingly. The letters are first being grouped by who received them. Within the larger grouping, we are then arranging them by sender. It should go without saying that the letters are also in chronological order, but I'm throwing that in just in case you think we've forgotten that step. We have also found, scattered among the correspondence, single locks of hair, dried flowers, and small photographs. While most of the letters are in good condition, we are also housing the more fragile ones into L-velopes (Mylar sleeves).

Thanks go to Mat for doing research on the Jones-Negley-Gresham family tree because it has helped us immensely in figuring out relationships between the correspondants, which will, in turn, assist us in determining the order of the family members in the arrangement.

This collection also contains some wonderful scrapbooks and photographs, and other papers such as receipts, school journals and newsclippings. We were pleasantly surprised to find that there were a dozen or so little ringlets in one box, but we haven't yet figured out who they once belonged to. We will consider the arrangement and preservation of these materials a little further down the road.

-Traci

Current Events - 1905 and 1908

While cleaning a group of letters from 1901-1909, I came across a couple of letters that touched on popular individuals of the time. Most of the time, these letters only cover events and people involved in the personal lives of the senders and recipients.

The first letter is written by Susie M . Jones Negley to her son Richard Van Wyck Negley on October 29, 1905. Here is an excerpt (in each letter, bold denotes underlined words in the letter):

No doubt you get Boston papers at Hanover and have been much interested in reading about the President Roosevelt's trip through the South and of the very great ovation he met with every where. And how full of awakening our country seems to be now! The wonderful disclosures brought to light in the great trusts and corporations and Insurance Co's, not forgetting Tom W. Lawson's big talk - the Rail Roads perhaps being owned by the Government - some day - the greatest canal on Earth being built and so many other things, for one. His realization that civilized people should not be more interested in a football game as played today than in a bull fight - and I can't but think that our having such a fine, courageous, and honest man at the head of our nation has a great deal to do with this awakening.

The second letter is from Nellie Jones to her sister Susan M. Jones Negley on September 20th, 1908:

Did I tell you about our all going to hear Booker Washington lecture and Burleigh sing - the latter has the best baritone voice in the world I believe - or some thing like that. Helen Lockman and Kitty were at the lecture and sat by me. They seem quite interested in their tenants. Kitty says Booker has taken 5 o'clock tea with Queen Victoria! Mrs. Booker was there and Mrs. Senator Bruce from some Southern state and staying as guests of the Bookers was a white couple!

-MCM

Genealogical background

In order to get a better idea of which person is writing to whom and the relationships between individuals in the Gresham correspondence, I did some genealogical research on the Negley/Gresham family.

Using a small family tree we had on hand from the Laura Burleson Negley Papers, I then looked up census records through http://www.heritagequest.com/. This helped me to work out the various children born to Susan and William Negley, these children being the authors of the majority of the letters I have processed.

We are now using the tree that I created from this research as a framework for relating individuals writing, receiving, or being mentioned in the letters to the rest of the family. While scanning the content of letters as we clean them, additional individuals and information is added to the tree.




-MCM

1900's Valentine

One interesting thing I came across while cleaning a stack of letters from 1900-1909 was this valentine sent from Gertrude at about age 9 to her brother Richard at Exeter in 1905.

Most of the letters in this batch are to Richard from his mother, Susan Negley. These were fairly clean and not too difficult to lay flat. Only a couple of letters need to be humidified. There is a bundle of letters from Richard's time at Yale to be cleaned next, tied together with some string.

Many of the letters in this collection are held together in this way, or rolled up as shown in a previous post.

-MCM

Flamingo stationery

I also found this darling flamingo stationery. I am not sure if you can tell from the photo, but the flamingos are embossed in silver and a metallic green. Gorgeous attention to detail! The flamingos pop right off the page...

--Traci

Mourning stationery

We have discovered more than a dozen letters written on mourning stationery. According to Emily Posts's Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage (1927):

Persons who are in mourning use black-eduged visiting cards, letter paper
and envelopes.  The depth of black corresponds with the depth of mourning
and the closeness of relation to the one who has gone, the width decreasing
as one's mourning lightens.  The width of black to use is a matter of
personal taste and feeling.  A very heavy border (from 3/8 to 1/2 of an
inch) announces the deeptest retirement, but these heavy borders are now
rarely used, the tendency in recent years being to avoid anything so
extreme; 1/4 of an inch is considered sufficient for deepest mourning, or
even 3/16, while 1/16 and 1/32 of an inch are suitable widths for second
mourning.

Wow! Such attention to detail. I wonder if we could follow such strict specifications for mourning e-mail.

--Traci

Letters galore

There are many, many letters in this collection, and seeing how many of them are included in a small batch can be a little overwhelming. A modest 5-inch stack can yield well over 30 letters, and we have quite a few stacks. Even in this early stage of processing, I am already thinking ahead to how we will arrange the letters when are finished cleaning and flattening them. I don't have any particular arrangement in place yet, of course, I'm really just coming up with ideas and looking at how our other collections with a large letters component were arranged. Mat is working on a family tree for this collection, so we will also have that resource to guide us when we are making decisions about the arrangement. I'm sure Mat will discuss his work on the family tree in another post.


--Traci

Letters ca.1880s

I have been cleaning letters from the 1880s. Many of these were folded, and like the rolled letters, present their own set of problems when we try to place them into folders. When paper has been folded and stored for long periods of time, it can become stiff, and when unfolded, it can be difficult to get it to lay flat because it remains bent along the fold lines (this is to varying degrees, depending on the thickness of the paper). Some of the previously folded letters will need to be placed in the humidification chamber (which is working so wonderfully for us) in order to get the paper to lay flat without forcing or putting strain it, which can lead to breakage along the folds.

Out of the 80-plus letters I've cleaned in this small bunch, only one separated along a weak fold. As we continue to process this collection, we will place this letter (and other fragile or problematic items) into clear sleeves that will secure the material while making the content available to researchers without fear of further damage.

--Traci

Letters home: 1910-1919

I am working on a bundle of letters from the 1910s. The majority of the letters so far are from William Walter Negley (usually referred to as Walter) to his mother, Susan M. Jones Negley. They are mostly from his time at Exeter and Yale, but there are also letters sent during his time in the army.

In one letter, dated May 11, 1916, Walter makes this statement on international affairs, "Mexican affairs are still interesting, aren't they? I do wish we would intervene and take the pesky little country."

Another item of interest is a letter from Walter explaining to his mother his reason for joining the army as an officer to avoid being drafted later on as a private.

There are other letters in the bundle: some addressed to Susan Negley, from friends and from her other son, Richard Van Wyck Negley (usually referred to as 'Dick'); from Dick to Walter and vice versa; from these brothers to their sister, Rose Gertrude Negley (usually referred to as 'Gertrude'); and to their father, William Negley.

Most of the letters are in good shape, and a little dirty. Brushed of the dirt, took the letters out of and clipped them to their envelopes. One of the letters is bent and curled pretty badly and will need to be humidified before flattening. One of the letters to Susan is still sealed with the instructions 'please hold' written on the front.

-MCM