Part 2: Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey Cont.

Pam’s Pictorama Post: Apologies in advance for anyone who was peevish that yesterday was a book-ish post as I am going to wrap up (at least for now) my thoughts on Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey today as she continues to be my reading material of choice. (Yesterday’s post is here.)

I will confess I went for a long fallow period of not reading much and just one off books here and there when I was. Kim powers through all sorts of long and short term reading projects, both for his own edification and for things related to work, so I am jealous when I am without one too. However, I am there with the best when I find a rabbit hole to go down and therefore here we are today.

*From Wikipedia and the only image of her I can find.*

Mrs. G de HV as I like to call her, is fading from consciousness and seems to have barely been rescued for the digital age. If we are to look at the remaining availability of her published volumes, we have to assume that the Pixie books I wrote about yesterday were among her most popular, with a few other titles that seem to stand out. She wrote upwards of 32 books (I say upwards because Wikipedia does not always have every book published by an author although they do a good job of it) and clearly there were short stories. There is a collection of them mentioned as published in 1918. The list of her publications runs from 1897 to 1918, ending with that collection of stories. However, if I really want to read the widest swath of her work I will need to dig some. I would say about half is available online or for sale as antique volumes or occasional reprint.

*From “Tom and Some Other Girls”, 1901.*

Born Jessie Bell in 1857 as one in a melee of seven children (four brothers, two sisters) she was the daughter of a Scottish insurance broker. Her place of birth was Liverpool. She first married Henry Mansergh, a cotton broker, and published her first volumes under the name Jessie Mansergh. They had a daughter, Gwyneth Alice, in 1886. Mansergh was an addict which seems to have contributed to his early death. Reading between the lines so to speak, one wonders what part her early writing played in supporting them.

While I was certain that hers was a pen name of a type that was often adopted at the time, I learned that no, her second husband was indeed George de Horne Vaizey. She meets him while on a cruise which was a prize awarded for one of her short stories. They marry in ’98 and have a son, also named George, who goes on to be a writer. Sadly her own life ends as an invalid, confined to bed for many years. She dies in 1917 at about age 60 (her precise date of birth unknown) and therefore the final volume is posthumous.

Jessie uses her own life as whole cloth for her fiction. Large dynamic families, addiction, illness abound in her pages. Therefore, I have to assume that her evolving views on marriage and the relationships between men and women was also explored on her pages. If you’ve followed my previous musings on women writings of the early 20th century, you know that I found that even the juveniles such as The Radio Girls and Automobile Girls were gently ever pushing the line forward for what was permissible and acceptable for young women. (Some posts on those books here and here.)

Interesting to find Mrs. G de HV who is a bit earlier still than those authors and for me a logical forerunner of some. The line for women, the options they had in society for supporting themselves, is still more nascent although shifting all the time. An ongoing theme she explores is the unmarried middle class woman and her lack of options. I’ve already encountered several books where due to various circumstances the heroine is in some way prohibited or unable to marry and is faced with the issue of how to live their lives, preferably not just dependent on family. She seems to walk a narrow line – clearly a woman married to a man of means is the safest port in the storm.

She also confronts the daily reality of marriage – the idea that you are joining up with a mate who you will continue to make conversation with daily for decades. (I have often said that knowing that I would never be bored talking to Kim helped ensure a good union for us!) The sheer difficulty and exhaustion of running a house and caring for a family.

*From “Lady of the Basement Flat”, 1917.*

I am going to skip forward to An Unknown Lover, a novel published in 1913. (Some spoiler alerts ahead for those who care.) The author sets herself some unusual tasks. We have a heroine, Katrine, in her late twenties who has spent most of the last decade caring for her older brother who was widowed shortly after marrying. There are rarely effective parents in her books – adult children have either lost them or they are on the sidelines for some reason. I can’t even remember why they weren’t present to stop this hot mess of a situation – dead and forgotten in this case.

Anyway, both characters are beginning to chafe at the situation. The heroine opines on having all the responsibilities of housekeeping without the partnership of a true mate. She is also painfully aware that she is dependent on her brother for her keep, which comes to a hard point when he decides to remarry. She has no marketable skills and living in a small hamlet no prospects of marriage which is more or less what she is trained for. As a literary challenge, our author has placed an epistolary relationship through part of the book, which moves the storyline along. At first it seemed a bit awkward, but it grew on me. Despite some flaws and maybe questionable decisions, it is to date my favorite of her novels.

*Love this title and looking forward to this one. Published in 1908.*

De Horne Vaizey has beloved tropes – I’ve noted before a preponderance of gray eyed heroines, some have golden eyes as an alternative. An odd one seems to be a fondness for shipwrecks – I believe I may be up to three in her oeuvre to date. An interesting tidbit, while researching this post I came across the following in an Internet Archive version of An Unknown Lover which actually photographs the pages of a hard copy of the novel and included this forward below:

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Lest I should be credited with making literary material out of a disaster still painfully fresh in the minds of readers on both sides of the Atlantic, I should like to record the following rather striking coincidence.

On the fourteenth of April last, I was engaged in writing the description of the collision at sea in which the heroine of the present book plays a part; and after some deliberation as to the most forceful word to employ, wrote the sentence which originally ran as follows: —

”Mercifully it is not one person in many thousands who is called upon to endure so titanic an experience. …”

A few hours later my husband returned home and told me of the news which had that day thrilled the world — the foundering of the steamship Titanic on her maiden voyage.

Many weeks passed by before I could bring myself to continue the narrative.

Hampstead.

Jessie de Horne Vaizey.

Somehow she pulls out two parallel love stories and details the personal growth of Katrine as she makes some rather bold leaps forward to attain a measure of happiness and independence, gently breaking with at least some of society’s conventions.

Sadly Jessie de Horn Vaizey doesn’t live quite long enough to see the shift which occurs even in the early 20’s for women. At six or so volumes I have barely scratched the surface and if it is interesting enough I promise more to come.

Pixie and Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey: Part One

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: It has been a very long time indeed since I have posted about a writer or books I have been reading. That is in part because the last year did not lend itself to reading. Helping during my
mother’s last illness and the months that followed, ultimately leading to my changing jobs at the end of the year, certainly there were books, but reading was sporadic. Love or hate my book posts, books are back and today kicks off an interest in Mrs. de Horne Vaizey, nee Jessie Bell, later Mrs. Henry Mansergh and finally Mrs. de Horne Vaizey.

Pictorama readers of long-standing know that in recent years (especially during the at home pandemic years) I chased down the writings of numerous authors including all the Judy Bolton mysteries (a post about those can be found here) and strolled through the collected works of several women who were writing short stories and novels that depicted the emerging woman in the US and Britain at the dawn of the 20th century.

These included the adult novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett (in several parts, but it all starts here),
the (glorious) short stories and novels of Edna Ferber (here) and the various series books including the Red Cross Girls, Ruth Fielding books and the many volumes of my beloved Campfire Girls. (Starting here, here and here if you are game.)

You might remember that my birthday this year turned into a day of poking around bookstores downtown, including The Strand’s re-opened rare book room. I picked up a copy of More About Pixie, the second volume in a three novel series by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey (Mrs. GdeHV for my purposes going forward)

I was able to find the first volume of the books about Pixie online, Pixie O’Shaughnessy, with relative ease on my old friend Project Gutenberg. (All three volumes mentioned here are available on this free online resource as well as some others, although beyond these books only about half of her publications seem to be readily available. Many volumes of her work are also available at the Internet Archive.) I have largely been able to download illustrated versions of the books which I urge you to try to do as some of the illustrations are very good. (Oddly I can’t seem to open and share them here and show what I was able to find otherwise. I will add that the blog site isn’t actually allowing me to add images today so I apologize for the largely un-illustrated post!)

This first volume is a wonderful depiction of life in Ireland in the waning days of the 19th century. Written in 1902 it is a bit earlier than the copious volumes of my earlier reading I mention above. The impoverished, motherless (a recent loss) family resides in a dilapidated castle which becomes a sort of
character in the book, as does the backdrop of the small Irish town they reside in.

Pixie is a young child still at the start of this book – she is not a physically attractive youngster (this is an oddly defining characteristic that stays with her; her looks do not improve with age), however she has such an outspoken and winning personality that she always everyone’s favorite. To make up for her physical limitations as a beauty, she has two lavishly beautiful sisters (Mrs. GdeHV is a little obsessed with her heroines having gray eyes, they all do), Bridgie and Esmerelda, and attractive brothers in the bargain.
The funds are scraped together to send Pixie off to a private school in London and her adventures there make up the second half or so of the volume. (Esmerelda is hot tempered and so extravagantly stunning that she is somewhat done away with at the close of volume one.)

Written a year later, volume two, the one I picked up at The Strand More About Pixie, takes an interesting turn. It is in fact not so much more about Pixie, as the story is actually told by a young woman neighbor, a
recovering invalid, who lives on the street in London where the family decamps to at the start of this volume. Her encounters with the O’Shaughnessy family include Pixie, but in reality it focuses more on her friendship with one of the older sisters, Bridgie, who plays mother to the clan. Pixie does reassert
herself in the latter part of this volume, but it is Bridgie and the neighbor girl, Sylvia, and their friendship that is at the heart of the book.

Much of the book concerns the slow recovery of Sylvia (an illness which is given no name but has even affected her bones as they gravely consider needing to amputate her foot) who is another motherless child (life of mother’s was evidently cheap), living with an aunt while her father is away in India. (Mrs.
GdeHV likes to send men to India and bring them back after many years. To date I have barely been in India with her books, but wouldn’t be surprised if we end up there one of these days.)

It isn’t until 1914 that the final volume of the three is published, The Love Affairs of Pixie. Our prolific author has penned at least 17 volumes between these so it is a more mature writer who writes this novel. It interests me that she decided to turn her hand back to a now fully adult Pixie who returns as the heroine and focus of this story. Much of this story brings Pixie and the reader back to Esmerelda and Ireland, although the Ireland of this book is less lovingly described. Pixie remains unattractive on the face of things and in fact the book opens with her own discovery of this and is a theme throughout, but the pluckiness and good heartedness of Pixie has her as a sought after mate who (spoiler alert) finds her mate at the close of this volume.

Mrs. GdeHV clearly liked to assign herself challenges to keep things interesting. These are not formulaic series books (not that there’s anything wrong with those!), but instead you can see her making choices and setting up approaches to keep things different and interesting. I’ll cover more of her biography tomorrow, a sort of sad tale despite being a very prolific writer. She must have been popular in her time, but sadly volumes appear to be hard to find and I know she wrote short stories but none of those have turned up yet. However, I have only just begun my research so undoubtedly more to come.

Aspirational

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s a rare, I don’t own ’em but wish I did post here at Pictorama today. To the extent that I have set ground rules here, one general one is that if I feature it I own it. (Some readers will remember that I broke it recently to bring you a wonderful cat chair photo. It was a family photo which a reader shared with me and the post can be found here.)

However, to some degree rules exist to be broken and this image came to me both via Mel Birnkrant (his endlessly fascinating FB page can be found here – it is a rabbit hole to go down and possibly never emerge from) and some folks sent it to me via both the Old London FB page and also via X (that we used to call Twitter). The caption reads, Felix the Cat dolls leaving their Acton factory, 100 years ago.

Allow me to start by saying this image just floors me altogether. Admittedly, Felix lust immediately filled my soul! Oh the riches of the past! Truckloads of precious, giant Felix dolls making their way from Acton, out into the 1924 world of of extremely fortunate children and itinerant photographers.

It is also of interest to me to learn that at least one factory making these dolls was in Acton. Unlike the bit of history I uncovered previously (in a post from 2015 I very much favor and can be found here) which indicated that unemployed women were given jobs making smaller ones in a factory on the East End of London. Acton is a suburban area to the west so now I know Felix was being made all over London.

These are truly splendid huge Felix toys. Are they large enough to be the ones people posed with? Could be, but hard to say. If for kids, very luxe indeed. I certainly have photos of people posing with this size Felix although it isn’t the very largest size which I judge to be about the size of a midget. However, over time my collection has come to include period photos from British beach resorts with Felix dolls smaller than these. (A post on the one above can be found here.) None of the dolls in my collection (yet!) reach these size of the ones in the truck. Hope springs eternal however.

*An admittedly soft grab off the film, but a nice close up of the Felixes.*

While chatting with Mel and researching this earlier today, I realized that this is actually a British Pathé newsreel short. It can be seen in its entirety here. (I was unable to place the video here – I am experiencing mechanical stupidity today.) Note the unruly little fellow who looks like he wants to make a break for it by falling off the cart.

Of interest that most of these Felix toys were sensibly wrapped in brown paper, precious little parcels being piled up. However, someone must have realized that some should fill the back unpacked in order to get this wonderful image.

I think what I have here is actually a frame grab rather than a still, although hopefully stills do exist so I have a chance at one some day in the future.

*Bookplate not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.*

While we are having a posting moment focused on things shared but not owned, I am adding this Felix-y bookplate which came to me via J. J. Sedelmaier a few weeks ago. It would appear that Mr. Lowell and our cartoon friend shared a moniker. I assume he had these made – very pro job though. A nicely squared off, early looking Felix here. Something sort of smart about how his hand rests on the edge of the “shelf” and the lettering. Oh for the days of book ownership pride which would result in special bookplates like this!

Back to stuff I own next week!

Cathouse

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A dollhouse setting and a kitten in doll’s clothes – what’s not to like? I was speeding along my feed in Instagram when I stopped in my tracks for this one (sold by @baileighfaucz) and had to buy it. She has a beautifully curated stream of photos, virtually all for sale and I am often tempted. It is only fiscal responsibility that binds me, until I find one like this I just have to have.

There is something about the scale of the furniture in this picture which appeals to me. The kitten is too big for the space but only by a little, like a fluffy oversized giant kitty in his or her space, unable to sit in the tiny chair or at the little table. The wallpaper (wall covering?) is closer to kitty’s scale, just a little too big for the furniture. Somehow the little landscape is precisely above the cat’s head, right in the middle of the picture.

*Beau last week, very reluctantly wearing a party hat.*

There are many textures between the fabric wall covering, the blanket or towel on the floor, a little lacy tablecloth, and the cat’s dress. There is that little landscape which we can read as a painting or even think about it as a window to the outside. I like to think the thing next to it is a calendar, but I think it is another picture. The wrapped white box (is that a tiny mirror atop it?) reads as a refrigerator to me although it could be a clothing cupboard too.

Kit is right in the middle of this evenly divided picture. It is well lit, but a bit heavier from stage right or our left, casting shadows on the carpet for the chair, cat and other objects. (It is also quite overexposed drifts all the way to a white out in the lower right corner.) This kitten is a solid citizen, fluffy and gray. He or she looks barely patient with this process.

Kim has gently suggested that it isn’t nice to dress our kitties up and take pictures of them, so I mostly contain myself on the subject. Winsome and I have made a few attempts at cats in hats in New Jersey recently. There is part of me that would love to be setting them up in dioramas and taking their photos. Perhaps it was my profession in a past life – or maybe I was the cat!

The Pictorama collection does not tend to a lot of this genre of postcard (I think of them as the equivalent of the Dogville Comedies for cats, for those of you who are in the know about those) – kittens dressed up and posed in various scenes. The rather superb one of kittens in a faux balloon above was the only that I could think of off the top of my head. (That early post can be found here.)

There were several others from the same set, but while tempting none of them were quite as engaging for me and no others were purchased. While professionally made, there is a charmingly homemade quality to this one (for the record, there’s no identifying photo studio, nothing written on the back and it was never sent) and I think the photographer just happened to hit it right on the nose.

Louise Groody with a Little Bit of Felix

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Pams-Pictorama.com Post: Today’s Pictorama oddball exclusive is this April, 1928 Theater Magazine page featuring stage star of the day Louise Groody. Shown here at age 21 by my calculation she grasps a perfectly delightful fluffy white pooch and a mysterious equally fluffy (if unable to achieve the same level of actual cuteness) creature in the other arm. She herself is dressed in fur. A very of-the-moment cloche hat covers her hair and shades her eyes in this carefully composed composition. A well trained smile outlined in carefully colored lips and revealing very even pearly teeth.

The bottom of the page reads, Pets, All of Them, Especially Louise Groody, the Hit in Hit the Deck. Below: After more than a year’s successful run in New York, Miss Groody, with the rest of the company, have folded their tricks at the Belasco and silently stolen away, despite the insistent demand of late-comers. They are now on tour, covering the principal cities. (Confidential: The small animal clinging to Miss Groody’s right arm is a honey bear, sweetness – and quite light.) Felix the cat is left out in the cold.

Hit the Deck was one of Groody’s most popular hits. Here she sings Sometimes I’m Happy from the show.

The little Felix is odd – no idea really why he is there, arms folded, smiling. Below him it says, Posed exclusively for THEATER MAGAZINE, photo by Harold Stein. He is indeed the little bit of Felix in this photo and post. (He does not appear on the back of the page where there is a similar of June Collyer.) Just a small paid advertisement? An inside joke about the show long forgotten? I wondered that about the dog and baby bear too – did they have some bearing on the show? Or does she always travel with a menagerie? A quick look at the storyline of the 1955 film version doesn’t show any reason for a baby bear. And no, Felix does not seem to have appeared in the show!

*Unidentified photo of a young Louise with a parrot, continuing the pet theme.*

According to Wikipedia, Louise was on the stage and discovered in her teens. Groody was in ten Broadway shows, four were major hits with hundreds of performances. The same article claims that Hit the Deck was a favorite of hers. She was perhaps best known as Nanette in No, No, Nanette and for her rendition of Tea for Two, although I was unconsciously familiar with her singing Sometimes I’m Happy.

*Kinda looks like Louise here. LooLoo was evidently one of her favorite roles.*

Louise married a few times. Number two was a shyster who chiseled money out of folks, her included – although she was originally named in the indictment. She divorced him while he was in Sing Sing and moved onto husband number three who seems to have stuck. Groody made a pile of dough in her early years on Broadway, subsequently lost most of it in the crash, but continued to work and lived affluently again by the forties. Louise joined the Red Cross during WWII and has a small discography of early recordings. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t appear to have much of a film career, although I can’t imagine she wasn’t in any films before becoming a fixture on early television.

As for Felix I can only say that he was so ubiquitous in 1928 that even a theater publication was sneaking him in, odd considering that in some ways film was slowly eating into and ultimately eclipsing their business. However, in 1928 no one seems to have been able to resist his charms entirely.

Ma Cheri Petit Josette

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Cat annoyance and dog acquiescence seems to be the theme of this card. Kit and pup are about the same size and both qualify for this nice little comfy looking house. Although kitty has laid claim from atop, this little doggy fellow guards the entrance. Feline high ground notwithstanding, the dog blocks the door – although he isn’t really as this is a set and I don’t think the cat or the dog would especially choose to curl up inside this adorable little house. In fact I am not sure either would comfortably fit, although we all know that wouldn’t stop the cat if indeed inclined.

The animals of my past have generally preferred without rather than within. For example, there was briefly a doghouse in our backyard. My dad purchased it secondhand somewhere, perhaps one of his beloved garage sales, and painted it up, making it a fair replica of our house. A neighbor with a sense of humor supplied a tv antennae. (Oh gosh, how many readers don’t even know what that is?) It very much resembled Snoopy’s doghouse in the comic strip which would have appealed to my father. He liked to read it to us as kids.

*A black cat in cat house card I entirely forgot I own, from a 2018 post called Cat House.* *Pams-Pictorama.com collection.*

A large pen of open rails and wire surrounded it and our German Shepard, Duchess, was invited within. I have no memory of Duchess in that doghouse however and she was rarely in the pen as she mostly lived in the house. Although our cats were free-range, our dogs never were and considering she was a sizable German Shepard of somewhat mercurial affections, that made sense. (Another doggy denizen of Waterman Avenue actually spent more time in it, a naughty rescue named Charley Brown – beagle mix. Perhaps the doghouse influenced my mother’s naming convention.)

The pooch in this card is wearing a leash it might be noted, although he is clearly placid. So while seated quietly enough here, he was not wandering at will. Kitty is beautiful and fluffy, very photogenic indeed. She is pissy, all annoyed ears though as only a cat can be. There is a small food or water bowl on one side of the dog and the interior of the house is alluring with some cushy looking material stuffed inside. Something is attached to the front of the little house and it is very speculative, however it may actually be the dog’s leash. The tiny abode is made of some nice wicker-y material and oddly it appears to levitate slightly – the cat’s weight on an uneven surface tipping it?

*A similar situation from a 2019 post, called Mornin’. Pams-Pictorama.com* *collection.*

The three different colors and textures help make this image work. Fluffy kit, woven house and sleek, shiny coated canine. The cat’s ears and tail do the rest – I suspect she was a pro. One can imagine a photo studio back in the dawn of the 20th century, snapping pics of posing animals all day long until enough images for a continued line of cards could be produced. I think a lovely way to spend one’s days. As I have already said, regular intervals of dog petting at work has increased my quality of life substantially in recent months.

*French readers please feel free to send a rough translation!*

I am supplying a photo of the back of the card and perhaps someone fluent in French can translate it for us. The hand is fine and even, but small and too hard for me to see clearly enough to try to get a translation. It is clearly from Papa to his daughter Josette. Someone else has included a small message in bright blue ink – Jeanette? A sister? The card is addressed to Mademoiselle Josette Cauchois, 15 rue Saint Laurent, Chantilly. It is postmarked Paris, 1914, but the date is obscured.

Not knowing Josette’s situation it is pure speculation, but I must say, I would be very pleased to have received this card from my own Papa.

Bill, Benron, Iowa

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This fine fat furry fellow hails to us from 1910 Diagonal, Iowa. He found his way to me via the wonderfully thoughtful Sandi Outland (@curiositiesantique, an antiques emporium in Texas) who sent me this. Some of you readers might remember that Sandi sent me an utter great holiday card with a period photo on it which inspired a post found here. She is also of the fascinating angry snowman collection which inspired the purchase of a card I wrote about here.

Sandi tucked this in this nice reproduction Felix valentine, shown below. I have often thought I should have a specimen example of this card and she has saved me the trouble of doing so. Thank you again Sandi!

*This Valentine based on a popular period one of Felix.*

Bill, the cat of our card, appears to be a solid citizen of the tabby cat category. Although I have not had a personal association with a tabby since childhood, they are dependably nice cats. The two that graced my childhood were Zipper and Tigger.

I wrote a bit about how Zipper and I as a small child would watch our fish tank together and he would “pat” the fish on the glass, guilty thoughts going through is mind! (Post found here.) He came to us as a starved and tormented stray, so small he was in danger of slipping into the crack in the backseat of the car. He grew into a swaggering dominant male of the neighborhood, holding parties with his kitty cronies in the garage, late night raids on a neighbors eel box! (Zipper’s story can be found here.)

Zipper was gone by the time Tigger came into our lives. He was one of a litter of kittens of our cat Winkie, a great tortoiseshell. My mom was generally a responsible and determined neuter and spay-er of our cats, but somehow Winkie got away from her in advance of being spayed. We kept the four kittens: the tiger Tigger, a marmalade named Squash, and two grays – Ping and Pong.

Tigger who had rather perfect markings was a good natured cat. She ran away once and was found in a neighbor’s barn, but sadly eventually wandered away again not to be found. I have always hoped she found another home, perhaps less bustling and with fewer cats than we had claim to at the time. I think she wanted to be an only cat.

Bill, the fellow in this card, appears to be in charge of a store. My guess is that he spent many a contented hour chasing mice (perhaps even the occasional rat) there and was soundly rewarded for his work in this area. Still, he does not appear to have lived on mice alone. I don’t know if he is just sitting on his tail oddly or if it was docked for some reason, but he is a splendid looking fellow, evidently in his prime here. Behind him is a wonderful wooden box emblazoned with Independent Baking Co. Crackers(?), Biscuits, Etc. Davenport, Iowa. I would claim it for my collection any day offered.

The card is addressed to Miss Sarah Stock, Storm Lake Iowa, Box 734, written in the most beautiful script. It was postmarked and dated April 26, 1910 from Diagonal, Iowa.

*Back of card. Beautiful hand – look at how the “t” in storm forms the “L” in Lake! Still, is hard to read!*

Despite the beauty of the script I am having some trouble reading it, however it appears to say, Dear Sarah, I read another letter from you this morning. I spose I’ll have to answer that to I just finished one last night, let me introduce you to Bill police patrol of Benton Ia. He looks wise. I presume to you like cats as well as I do. I can’t read his name (and no, he didn’t seem fond of periods) and I am open to suggestions. (For some reason I have assigned the sender to be a man, but it could be a woman.)

Although I have come close on several occasions as it happens I have never traveled to Iowa. The university there was under brief consideration for grad school, but life intervened before it got to the visiting stage and my grad school education never materialized. The Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra played there on tour and that was the most likely way I would have found myself there as an adult, but alas it never happened. The animal hospital I work for now is highly unlikely to send me there, although I guess you never know in life – I could make it there yet.

La Jeune France

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Rainy morning here at Deitch Studio in Manhattan. I was warned about the weather, but still managed to be disappointed when I awoke to it this morning. Sometimes rain can make me feel very cosy, but other times it is just a bit discouraging and I’m afraid I am leaning in that direction. It is early March however and here in the Northeast I guess we just have to take what we can get. It is a many cup of coffee morning as I sit here writing you all. As always though, it is a pleasant rabbit hole into the past to spend some time with one of my photos.

I don’t own many, but I do have a real affection for photos that show a store or establishment and its owner/workers and wares, especially magazines, photos (especially photo studios) or in this case postcards. They are little time capsules in a particular way.

This photo came to me via @missmollystlantiques on Instagram. In reality, a while back, she had sold me another photo in front of a photo shop and to my horror somehow sent it to the wrong person – who sadly did not send it back. She refunded me, but I was quite bereft. Then recently she sent me an offer of this photo since it was the same idea and asked if I wanted it, and here we are.

This woman (the proprietress?), stands in the door of a store called Young France. She has a sort of tunic jacket that perhaps is of the kind you might don each day in the store to keep your own dress or blouse clean. I like the bright buckles on her shoes which make me think she was probably a snappy dresser.

A look under a magnifying device reveals some small religious statues (a small Virgin Mary), medals and postcards in the large window. I think many of the postcards are vaguely religious in content too, although the top row are botanical ones. Some also look like the type of photo postcards that leave room for a bit to be written on the front, a small circle of photo at the top. I believe maybe some are photo cards that are fun – I believe I see one of a cat in a hat! There is a display of landscape photos of a souvenir type, on the doorframe next to her, hanging from a string.

There is a sort of display drawer under the window. They have locks and I cannot make out what is in them. The bottom of the window display also house some objects and other than a vague outline of a book, I cannot see what those are either however. Perhaps someone else would know immediately from the name and type of items what precisely this store was – souvenir items? In that case the religious items seem odd, but the reverse is also true.

Like many photo postcards, this one was never sent and it has no writing on the back. While the image on this card don’t really quite make the usual Pictorama qualifying parameters, it slips into the collection, filed in my mind under slice of life pictures.

A Big Kitty Family Affair

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I guess Pictorama rules are made to be broken, although there aren’t really many. Generally speaking the cardinal rule of Pictoama is that I own the object under discussion. I had barely set the parameter when I broke it back in the earliest days of this venture. (That post, devoted to some wonderful Norakuro toys can be found here.) However, since then I have pretty much stuck to my guns on that and if I have done it subsequent before today, I cannot remember when.

*From a very early, not in my collection post!*

However, I have an excellent reason for bending the rules today. An email came to me via the blog asking about what I call the giant cat chair photo postcards. I own several of these – many fewer than my photos of folks posing with Felix which seem to have started earlier (a few Felix tintype posts here and here), gone longer and reached the shores of Australia where folks posed with him in Katoomba among other resorts. (One of these posts can be found here.) I even have evidence of a giant Felix who appears to be directing traffic in Kualo Lumpur. (Here!)

*Pams-Pictorama.com collection. Felix in Kuala Lumpur.*

However, folks with the big kitty seem to have been exclusively in Great Britain. (We were simply backward here in the US, weren’t we? I haven’t seen the slightest evidence of any of the above. Nary even an early Mickey. Huh.)

Back to our story. Chay Hawes, a denizen of Great Britain wrote to say, My mum was looking through some albums and said “here’s my dad on this weird black cat thing at the seaside” (he’s the boy in the middle of the cat leaning towards his mother) so I typed “weird black cat photo margate” and amazingly your site came up as the first hit. I didn’t expect to find out about the cat so quickly! (Pictorama is always here to help with the important things. Posts about Margate and black cat goodness, including this very kitty, can be found here and here.)

Margate as a beach resort seems to have been redolent in photo ops and looking over my collection and former posts there seems to have been more than one of these giant black cats, an outsized Felix and an odd unidentified clownish character at a minimum. Black cat luck seems to also be particular to sailors so perhaps its seaside location upped the ante on black cat fortune.

*I have a bit of a weakness for these, especially as plates, but not in my collection.*

He asked if there was anything in particular affiliating black cats with Margate. There are copious postcards and bits of souvenir china which feature the felines and boast good luck. While I can find nothing which specifically ties good luck black cats to Margate, I am reminded that the Brits are well ahead of us in their affection for black kitties. I believe I have opined before on the subject of black cats representing good luck there whereas we take the very backward position that they are bad luck.

*One of many Margate lucky black cat postcards. Not in my collection.*

One particular superstition I discovered this morning is that in parts of England if a bride receives a black cat as a gift on her wedding day it is believed she will have luck in her marriage. I say let’s all move there! Happy black cats must abound. They are also thought to bring prosperity in Scotland if found on your doorstep or porch. (I’ll add that with Blackie and Beau in the family, we know we are lucky and prosperous indeed!)

*Not a great photo but here Blackie and Beau meet for the first time last summer. Recognition that they are indeed both black cats seemed to be in the air.*

I believe that Mr. Hawes’s photo is the first that I found in the wild so to speak – not being sold but a family photo, still being enjoyed by the family. It is also rare in that it is dated and noted on the back as below.

Chay says his mom is good about labeling photos and they have nice albums full as well as some wall space devoted to them. It has inspired me to do more with some of the family photos found in Jersey as I organize the house there. Mom and I went through many, but of course have found a bunch of them since she died and now no one to help me identify the folks within. (In fact, heading to NJ now.)

Few of my photo postcards of this genre have any notes and none have been mailed. I go on record by stating that I controlled myself admirably and did not beg him to sell it to me. It is a gem though!

The photographer was having a splendid day in the way he set the kids up on the chair, presumably between their parents. Mom wears a lovely fashionable outfit and an especially nice hat. Dad sports his cap and a pipe. Dad is in front of some sort of sign I am a bit curious about. The children all have a remarkable family likeness. It really is a wonderful family photo! The kitty might be a different actual one than any of the others I have as his white mouth (almost bejeweled looking!) and toes are very prominent – claw paws on this kitty. He has nice whiskers as well.

Chay also noted that his still young grandfather was shown clad in uniform a few short photos later. A sobering reminder that our family photos are snatches of time, a story told in pieces but a story nonetheless.

It gives me great pleasure to know that this photo resides with the family and enjoys status as part of family lore. Thank you so much Chay for writing in and sharing this photo!

Rolling Along

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: Today may mark the end of the birthday post fiesta – I have dinner with my friend Eileen Monday night and that technically marks the ends the annual month of shared birthday festivities with my Aquarian brethren. There was a time when there were several other members of the fold, but sadly folks have moved or are gone now so the February birthday dinners are less numerous. (Incidentally, for anyone just in this post for the toy, skip down to the bottom! Books and birthday at the top.)

In addition to the February birthdays, there’s always a nice day spent with Kim roaming somewhere in the city. This year we ended up spending most of the day book shopping. We made a quick visit to Alabaster Books (on the ever mysterious 4th Avenue which exists as a stretch of street in that part of town around 13th Street) where we were intrigued, but the prices on the early juveniles volumes that appealed were too high for our blood, although I admit titles stayed with us and Kim later found another copy of The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come by John Fox, Jr. illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, shown below.

*Discovered at Alabaster Books in the East Village,but purchased elsewhere.*

I have only had a backseat to Kim’s subsequent reading of it which seemed to veer from thinking it was amazing to a distinct sense of it falling off a bit. I will mention that he was particularly impressed with the illustration below and the song (Sourwood Mountain which can be heard on Youtube here) that it illustrates.

*One of the N.C. Wyeth illustrations in the above volume. Link to the song being played above.*

I, on the other hand, was tempted by The Boy Showman and Entertainer which essentially gives instruction on how to put on a show. These instructions were meant for someone much more handy than me (think of a kid who eventually grows up to work for NASA), but fascinate me nonetheless. I have another book of this type, How to Put on a Circus which I am very fond of and have written about here. Maybe I will go back for it.

*Another almost purchase. Maybe eventually.*

Sad that we did not feel inclined and able to support this bookstore on this particular day (they used to have the very most charming calico cat I liked to visit) we moved around the corner to The Strand. Much to our surprise and delight The Strand has re-opened their Rare Book Room upstairs. We scored a few interesting ratty volumes on the first floor before making our way up.

*The Rare Book Room – welcome back old friend!*

However among the purchases on the first floor was this interesting illustrated volume, A Captured Santa Claus which is a children’s chapter book, evidently about the Civil War. It is by Thomas Nelson Page and illustrated by someone named W. L. Jacobs. Perhaps more to come when I read this volume.

*Purchsed downstairs at The Strand, merely old but not rare?*

We were pleased to find some additional volumes in the old but not quite rarified enough to be truly rare. My significant purchase was the second volume in a series of three about Pixie O’Shaughnessy by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey, aka More About Pixie. I was able to download volume one, simply Pixie O’Shaughnessy, and read it first. (Project Gutenberg and an illustrated version can be found here.) As Pictorama readers may know, I have a real soft spot for a certain kind of early 20th Century series book and this fits the bill gloriously. I think I owe Pixie and Mrs. de Horne Vaizey their own future post, but it all started here.

*I’m already into this volume and I am a fan.*

After a trip to the art supply store where Kim bought a new light board – a festive purchase; Kim loves this piece of equipment in his arsenal. Kim and I wandered over to The Smith where Kim treated me to a lovely lunch. I discovered a photobooth in the basement and we took the pics below – first photo strip in a long time.

*The Smith in the East Village – a nice lunch and photobooth in the basement!*

Meanwhile, I have buried the lead and toy folks are wondering when the heck I was going to get to this wonderful cat toy! I have lusted ongoing over toys on wheels and someday I will have (at least one) wonderful wheeled toy large enough for a small child to ride. There are wonderful elephant ones and many bears. We shall see about that!

Anyway, this is a very early cat and he came to me via Brussels. I purchased him via an online sale on Facebook and Kim bought him for my birthday. He is the first wheeled fellow of this sort in my collection. He is missing one of his four wheels otherwise he is remarkably intact. The wheels are nicely made bits of wood with good hardware so I doubt that I can make or find much of a substitute, but luckily he will spend his days quietly.

*A glorious and sturdy device he sits upon, ready to take turns as needed.*

If you look at the front wheels you see that there is a nice bit where you could attach a lead of some sort to pull him around and the ability to turn the front and direct him that way. His ears are a bit less pert than they probably were in the day, but fully intact, as is his tail. He has a few tiger-y stripes and his stitched mouth and news were likely very red originally. He’s a solid citizen and is heavier and perhaps a tad larger than you might think he is.

There is evidence that at one time he had a bow around his neck which may have been red or pink, just a few faded orange threads. There’s something about his neck which made me wonder if his head moved at one time, but if so no longer.

Not surprisingly for a toy of this type there is no marking so I do not know if he was native to Brussels (a place which does oddly seem to cough up antique toys – one prior post to something I bought from a very sweet dealer there can be found here, Brussels may turn out to be an El Dorado of antique toys) or an import. I am looking at him and have decided he has a very sweet face. A beloved toy, probably from the earliest part of the 20th century which has made his way to me. My birthday may make me feel old, but I am a youngster compared to this fine fellow.