Tag Archives: Hattie Stout

Great Grandma Bakes Cakes for 32 People

Doc Stout’s Ill Health

Hattie writes the letter on Thursday, May 12, 1910. In the letter she worries a lot about her husband Doc Stout’s health. He had a stroke, or perhaps more than one stroke, a little over a year earlier. Hattie says

Pa is feeling about as usual but complains for the last week of his arm and leg being so much more numb than it was or has been for a long time. don’t know why it is so. It may be the weather has something to do with it. It has been so cold and disagreeable for the last two weeks. He can’t be so very billious for he has just finished a course of pills. He is asleep now on the davenport and snoring as usual. I do hope he won’t have another stroke. Seems cheerful & it is not that that caused the numbness.

In fact, Doc Stout did have another stroke. He died just three months after Hattie wrote this letter, in August 1910.

The Killbuck Community Band returning from the cemetery after funeral for Doc Stout. Grandfather Guy Anderson front left. Sign on left “Watch for locomotive.”

Focus on Daughter Maude

There is no question that the tie between Hattie and her older daughter, Maud, was very close. When Hattie wrote this letter, Maud was 35 years old and had been married for twelve years. She lived in Buffalo New York, and according to the census form that she answered the previous month, her husband was a traveling railroad agent. In other words he traveled around the country and promoted railroad travel during the Golden Age of train travel. In 1900 they had lived in Killbuck and he described his job as traveling salesman. And the absences apparently took a toll on Maude.

Wish you were here to go up with us in the morning and you might as well be here all the time if you could content yourself as to be there all alone. Your visit quite spoiled us for Pa misses your smile as much as I do and always says wish Maud was here if anything out of the ordinary happens or if we were going some where Say Maud would enjoy this.

I don’t believe you are getting used to the staying alone biz very fast. Quite nice of Miss Pierce staying all night with you . Wish you had some one. Can’t you hunt up a young girl to come to stay at night with you{?} Even a day would help to relieve the monotony.

Hattie Bakes Cakes

Pa wanted to entertain the Sunday School another time So I had them Mond. evening. Had a nice time. Served ice cream, cake and coffee. Bought the ice cream of Robb & made the cakes myself. Had 32 plates including my own and Pa’s. The music was fine and the quartette sang lovely.

Good heavens, great-grandmother, for the sake of a descendant who writes about food traditions, could you not have shared at least what KIND of cake? And I’m wondering what size pans and how many cakes it took to serve 32 people. Since Hattie was a reader of Godey’s Lady’s Magazine, perhaps she found the recipe there. I’ll do some searching and see what cake was most popular in 1910 and give it a whirl. Although I can’t promise to bake cakes for 32.

Hints at the Way They Lived in Killbuck, Ohio in 1910

We learn that family is tight and see each other frequently. The people she writes about include her son-in-law’s family members–their whereabouts and health. Guy Anderson’s widowed mother, Mary, has been living with her other son, “Ben” until yesterday when Vera picked her up and took her to the farm where she and Guy live.

We learn that although Doc Stout is a doctor, he owns a farm and his wife is a bit concerned about getting the spring corn planting done. Guy is probably going to help with the corn planting and is bring them the planter. After Doc Stout died, Hattie depended on Guy to manage the farm. (When I was a girl, my Uncle William J. Anderson lived on the farm and it remained in the family until we descendants sold it a few years ago.)

She mentions the weather–so chilly for May that they are burning the stove every day.

Hattie passes on a bit of gossip about townspeople–one woman who is going to Chicago and one who is pregnant (perhaps unmarried, since she says “is in a fix and begins to look plump a little.

In Closing

Hattie returns to both the subject of how much her father misses her and Maude’s unhappiness and loneliness. Then she closes with a bit of advice.

Pa said how much Maud and Carlos would have enjoyed it—wish we had had it while you were here. He talked about it for a long time but I did not ______ it very strong thinking he would forget it but he kept it up so I let him go and done the best I could. We’re not very tired. Took things easy and did not worry and that is half the battle.

Good by. love to both. don’t get lonesome or afraid. Nothing to fear but the Comet and it is too far off.

I cannot make out that word about her reaction to Pa’s wanting to have the party, but it seems logical that she is saying she did not encourage his idea, but when he would not let go of the idea, she reluctantly went along.

The “Nothing to fear but the Comet” refers to the biggest news event of the year of 1910. Haley’s comet came around on May 19, 1910 and was the center of attention for months, causing riots and stories predicting doom. The newspapers would have been covering it heavily about the time Hattie wrote this letter. But she adopted a matter-of-fact scientific view rather than the less informed panic.

ENTIRE LETTER TRANSCRIPT

(With a few additional notes)

Envelope: Mrs. C. E. Bartlett, 16 Robie Ave. Buffalo NY

postmarked Killbuck, May 12 p.m. 1910 Ohio

Killbuck Thursday

Dear Maude and Carlos You see one day ahead but, I or rather we are going to go up to Vera’s in the morning and want to start from here by eight-o’clock so I know would be no time to write letters I have written one to Will [brother William Morgan Stout] one to Clem [I have no idea who this is] and now comes your turn last-of course but not-least for I cut theirs off short for I have some things to do this afternoon yet.

Vera is going to have a grilling tomorrow and will put in two grills – She has one in now & wants to put another in as soon as I get it there with the lining and bottom as she has asked about 10 or 12 and they all could not get around one grill to any advantage. We will take Sarah Jane [Probably Sarah Jane Brink Anderson, wife of Guy Anderson’s uncle] along with us if she wants to go. Vera was down after Mary [Mary Brink, Guy Anderson’s mother] yesterday. Ben [Bernard Franklin Anderson, Guy’s brother] fetched her this far and Vera met her. [In 1910, Mary was living with Ben and his wife She will stop up there until Sun. Net seems better now. don’t think it is anything permanent though. [“Net” is Nettie Andress Anderson, wife of Ben. In fact her illness was permanent, and she died the following year.]

We have not any corn planted yet and we are just as well off as others. Guy [Leonard Guy Anderson, son-in-law of Hattie, wife of Vera] will finish his by tomorrow Eve and then we will have the planter Sat. guess he will come down and work it as Nett don’t understand it very well. do hope it won’t rain any more for a while. The sun is shining bright now but the wind is cold and we have the gem going all the time. [The “gem” “Gem” is a type of stove. They originally were coal burning, but by 1910 it could have been gas.]

I don’t believe you are getting used to the staying alone biz very fast. Quite nice of Miss Pierce [Perhaps a Buffalo friend] staying all night with you . Wish you had some one. Can’t you hunt up a young girl to come to stay at night with you{?} Even a day would help to relieve the monotony.

I have not cleaned our bit of house yet and don’t care if I don’t as long as this beastly weather lasts but I expect when it gets warm I’ll be so lazy that I won’t feel like moving one bit. Martha [don’t know who this is] washed for me at lest{least} Sat & I ironed yesterday.

I guess the news is rare about here Glenner(?) is in a fix and begins to look plump a little. I saw it in her face.You know that __ are over there. [She appears to be speaking about a woman who is pregnant, but I have no idea who she is talking about.]

Clara Started for Chicago yesterday. [Another mystery person]

Pa wanted to entertain the Sunday School another time So I had them Mond. evening. Had a nice time. Served ice cream, cake and coffee. Bought the ice cream of Robb [1920 Census shows Joseph Charles Robb as owner of a bake shop in Killbuck] & made the cakes myself. Had 32 plates including my own and Pa’s. The music was fine and the quartette sang lovely. Star’d {Started}____about eleven oclock. Vera and Guy came down but left the kids at home.

Good by. love to both. don’t get lonesome or afraid. Nothing to fear but the Comet and it is too far off.

Mother.

Grandma Vera Cooking on the Grill in 1910

1 Reply

These ladies having fun eating chicken at their picnic. Vera Anderson top right. Early 20th Century.

Harriett Emeline Morgan Stout

Isn’t it fun reading these old letters and getting a peek at my ancestor’s every day lives? In a letter from Great-Grandmother Hattie Stout to her daughter, Maude, she makes two mentions of food. She writes the letter on Thursday, May 12, 1910.

The food mention that particularly interested me was this reference to her other daughter, my grandmother Vera Stout Anderson who was going to be grilling. How? What would she be grilling? Was it for a large crowd? So many questions, and only some of them came with answers.

Outdoor cooking over direct fire is nothing new to humankind, of course. Our Neanderthal ancestors (whom, alas I have yet to document in my family tree) started the whole thing. In Colonial days, cooking outdoors over an open fire would more efficiently feed a crowd, like say, for the original Thanksgiving meal prepared by the Pilgrims in Plymouth. In the Midwest, the most frequent use of grilling would come when my ancestors cooked a large pig over an outdoor fire.

But the invention of portable barbecues for family use did not arrive until the early 1950s. Which explains the wildly popular back-yard barbecue tradition and my favorite grilled chicken recipe that I wrote about here. Unfortunately, the history-of-barbecue articles I found jump right from colonial days to the 1940s and 50s. I am left to guess at what Grandma Vera used.

Grandma Vera Anderson did not have a pre-built cooking tool like a Big Boy barbecue, as is made clear by Great-Grandma Hattie’s letter. She had a grill installed and had to get another one. I picture a pit dug in the ground that held the slow-burning wood. Metal grids to lay the meat on covered the pit. But what was the lining and the bottom that Hattie was going to loan her along with a spare grill? However the grill was constructed, it came together easily, because Hattie planned to go to Vera’s house in the morning, and Vera would be grilling that day.

For more information on what her grill probably looked like, here’s a great blog post at a blog usually focused on New Hampshire. That’s kosher because Grandma’s grandmother migrated from New Hampshire to Ohio. When Janice Brown saw this blog post about my Grandma Vera grilling in 1910, she was curious about the grills, and dug into the information available.

What was Grandma Vera cooking on those grills? Could be the pig. But maybe it was the chicken those young women in the top picture are enjoying. The picture comes from the right era. Hattie mentions in her letter that Vera will have 10 or 12, and there are 11 women in the picture. The only thing that mitigates against that assumption is that the house probably belonged to one of the women in the picture, the town milliner. It is not the farm house that Vera and Guy lived in earlier, and it is not the house that they lived in when they moved to town. Nor is it the house that Hattie lived in. I can tell by the decorative work along the roof edge of the porch.

So while the chicken in the picture might have been cooked on a grill, I have reluctantly accepted that since Hattie was getting up early to go to Vera’s, Vera probably still lived out in the country, I do not know what her grill looked like,and I do not have a picture of the food she cooked on that grill. And most maddening of all, I don’t know why everyone had to gather around the grill. Roasting marshmallows?

You can read more about the history of grilling and barbecue on Tori Avey’s site.

Reminder: if you want to cook something delicious on the grill, try that marinated chicken recipe from the Big Boy Barbecue cookbook.

This Old House: Where Ancestors Lived

2 Replies

Among the treasures that showed up in our recent move, was this picture of my great-great grandmother’s old house. I decided to put this picture together with other old house pictures, most of which I have already shown to you.

Great-Great Grandmother Mary Morgan’s Old House

Mary Morgan’s Killbuck house with Doc Stout office on right. Circa 1880

Mary Bassett Morgan (1810-1890), (wife of the infamous Jesse Morgan) lived in this Killbuck, Ohio house. When Hattie married Dr. William Stout in 1872, the newlyweds moved into an apartment in Mary’s house and Dr. Stout set up his office in the lower front part of the house, facing Main Street.

I have not researched land records–if they exist for those early days of the community–so I don’t know if Mary first lived in that old house with her first husband, Asahel Platt. Since Mr. Platt apparently owned a general store, this would have been a perfect location. And those big windows on the left side, look like a store front to me. Mary did not live in one place consistently. After Mr. Platt died, she lived in another county, where she met and married Jessie Morgan. Later census records indicate she joined her daughter in a household that probably provided a room for the school teacher, Hattie Morgan.

In 1870, Mary’s census address includes a variety of people, making it look as though she runs a rooming house. That could be the big house above. Next to her on the census list, we see a physician, so possibly that doctor left and Doc Stout took over his office.

The little town of Killbuck (then called Oxford) has two main streets–Main and Front. This building stands on a corner of the intersection of Main and Front Streets, facing Front Street where most of the businesses developed. Hattie and “Doc’s” three children, William (1873), Maude (1875) and Vera (1881), my grandmother, were all born in that house at the corner of Main and Front.

When I was in high school, a restaurant called Hale’s occupied that corner–and possibly the same building, much remodeled. But the restaurant building burned down in the 19 s and the rebuilt building on the corner bears no resemblance to Grandma Morgan’s old house.

Great Grandfather Doc and Great Grandmother Hattie Stout’s New House on Main Street

By the time my grandmother, Vera Stout (Anderson) was about four or five years old( circa 1885) , Doc Stout build a grand new house for his family, around the corner on Main Street.

I can see echoes of Hattie’s mother’s house in the new house and office Doc Stout built on Main Street. She obviously wanted to have the same kind of porch she had in her mother’s house.

Stout Family old house in Killbuck, Ohio

Dr. William Stout and family in front of family home, circa 1885

Grandma and Grandpa Anderson’s Farm House

When my grandmother married, she and her husband Guy Anderson lived for a time on this house on a farm near Killbuck. The first picture below–a gathering of their extended family in 1909–gives a hint of the grandeur of this house, which had been built by Guy’s uncle. The next picture shows how the house looked a few years ago.

Vera and Guy Anderson and families 1909

Old Anderson Farm, Photo courtesy of Herb Anderson

Grandma and Grandpa Anderson’s House in Town

However, farm life did not agree with Vera and Guy, and they moved in to town. I wish I had a better picture of the little house they lived in on a side street in Killbuck. In this one, Grandma is sitting on the porch with the three children–Bill (1905), Harriette(1906), and Herbert (1908).

Vera Anderson and children at small house in Killbuck, about 1910

Not long after the picture of this old house, the house burned to the ground. Mother tells how her father, who had a hardware store at the time, came running calling for her because he was so afraid that she had been caught inside in the fire. It was a traumatic experience that none of them would ever forget. Mother said that for years, Grandma Vera would look for things and then realize they were destroyed in the fire.

Great Grandmother Hattie Stout’s Small House

Doc Stout died in 1910, and Hattie Stout decided to move to a smaller house. She lived in this little place when my mother went off to college. This picture shows Mother’s brothers, Herbert and Bill Anderson, and her friend Sarah, who later married Bill Anderson. A cousin from Guernsey County gazes off to the right. Hattie Stout sits In the center and her daughter Vera Stout Anderson, in an apron, pets her dog Peggy. The picture dates to about 1925. (The family had moved to Columbus, Ohio when Harriette started college at Ohio State University, but returned to Killbuck when Guy and their sons could not find work.)

My grandmother Vera pets Peggy. In the center of the picture is my great-grandmother Hattie Stout, Vera’s mother. About 1925 when my mother was in college.

The End of Doc Stout’s Grand Old House on Main Street

Guy and Vera by this time had moved into the family homestead–the house that Doc Stout had built when Vera was very young. Vera continued to live there until she was in her 80s. Through the years part of it served as the doctor’s office, it became a boarding house, then a restaurant, and later Vera offered rooms or apartments for rent. When she sold it, she moved to a small house on Water Street near Front Street in Killbuck, and the grand old house on Main Street was dismantled to pave a parking lot for the grocery store.

Stout-Anderson house newspaper article

So of the five old houses shown here, only one survives that I know of. It is possible that the small house of Hattie Stout might still exist in a different form in Killbuck. But meanwhile, I am glad to have a collection of pictures of houses of my grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandmother.

Ancestors in Aprons

Food and Family