Week 2-2020: Favorite Photo #52Ancestors
The first picture below is my favorite photo of my Nana. I’ve written about her before – a demanding lady with a heart of gold. I think this might be her high school graduation picture because the second picture is likely her wedding portrait and she looks a bit older in that photo. I love the dress she is wearing in the wedding picture. She was married in 1921 and this dress looks right out of that vintage. My other grandmother is also sitting for her wedding portrait, so maybe that was a “thing” back then.
Catherine Josephine Spencer, born 1891, was married on 27 April 1921 at St. Columba’s Church in Newark, New Jersey, to Charles Peter Maier, Jr. A year before her marriage, she was boarding at the home of Henry and Anna Schild and working in the sales department of a jeweler.[1] One of her fellow boarders, Edward Currier, was also working for a jeweler in the factory, but I don’t know if they worked for the same company. The family story is that when she was engaged, her boss told her to design an engagement ring and he made it for her as a present. I don’t know if this story is true, but the ring, which my sister has, is stunning. Several years ago, when I was researching her family, I discovered that her half-brother in Rhode Island was also a jeweler.[2] Kinda gave me chills.
“Of course,” she quit working after she was married. My mom was born two years later and my uncle three years after that. Her husband died in 1954 and she moved to our hometown in 1948.[3] She ultimately moved in with us in late 1969 – early 1970. She lived with us until she died in 1975.[4]
If you have ever visited me in Kansas, you know that my front stairwell has a collection of family pictures that I have gathered over the years. I spent a couple of years hunting for antique frames and digitized the pictures I wanted to display. Because some of the pics were pretty beaten up, I had to do a lot of photo restoration to make them presentable. My friend Christy helped me arrange them and, personally, I think the display looks great.[5]
A couple of years later, I made some slight modifications to the photo display and moved the photos of Nana and my other grandmother, Mae. You should know before I go on that Nana and Mae did not get along. Not. At. All. Each of them thought that their child too good for the other. Made for some lovely mealtimes. Anyway, when I moved the photos I wound up with Mae’s picture over Nana’s. All well and good until a couple of weeks later when Mae’s picture came crashing down and knocked Nana’s off the wall. Yikes.
I’m not a superstitious person, but you can be sure that I re-hung those pictures toot-sweet with Nana and Mae several feet apart. I can report that everything has been fine since then.
[1] 1920 U.S. census, Essex County, New Jersey, population schedule, Newark, District 6, Ward 9, sheet 13A (penned), enumeration district (ED) 191, dwelling 163, family 271, line 44, Josephine Spencer in Henry T. Shied household; NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1034.
[2] 1920 U.S. census, Providence County, Rhode Island, population schedule, Providence, Ward 2, sheet. 20B (penned), enumeration district (ED) 189, dwelling 361, family 482, line 96, Everett L. Spencer; NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1678.
[3] U.S. State Department, American Foreign Service, Report of the Death of an American, Charles P. Maier (28 February 1954), Montreal, Canada. Maplewood Memorial Library, “Maplewood Real Estate Files,” digital images of file for 19 Girard Place, Maplewood Memorial Library Digital Archive (http://www.digifind-it.com/maplewood/data/realestate/GIRARD%20PLACE/19%20GIRARD%20PLACE.pdf : accessed 11 January 2020).
[4] Orange, New Jersey, death certificate No. 799, Catherine J. Maier (1975), privately held by family.
[5] But, please come to see and judge for yourself.
Catherine Josephine (Spencer) Maier, circa 1910
Catherine Josephine (Spencer) Maier, circa 1921