1952 Cub Scouts Garfield Pack 307 and Boy Scouts Troop 303 Congregational Church - Faribault MN

 On pages 80-81 of the Weaver family album, here in 1952 in Jack Weaver at age 8 working with a hammer with Pack 307 in the basement of Garfield School in the Faribault neighborhood. 

 Jack is found at a table with his Cub Scout outfit with hat, while the female den mother is instructing other scouts. 1952.

 1952, Tom Weaver, age 5, too young for Cub Scouts, with his older brother Jack, age 8, holding a hammer

Troop 303, sponsored by the Congregational Church in Faribault. In 1952, Jim Weaver now age 11, is the second boy from the right.  Second from the left, I think is Gary Heath, a neighbor boy.  
 
Troop 303 Racoon Patrol with Carpentry demonstration, at I remember an scout gathering in the old armory near Buckham Library on Central Ave, downtown Faribault. 

 1952 Boy Scout, Jim Weaver doing carpentry with a design of a canoe in the background.

Scouting in the Weaver Family - Garfield School Cub Pack Meeting Spring 1950 -Camp Ajawah in 1950 July trip from Faribault

The oldest of the Weaver boys in Jim Weaver, born Sept 1940, and here in the Spring of 1950, here he is with his dad, (the taller man  to the right, at age 9, in the basement of Garfield Elementary School in Faribault.  This is the first scouting photo in the Peg and Pete Weaver family photo album.
For a history of the BSA, Boy Scouts of America see http://www.scouting.org/About/FactSheets/BSA_History.aspx

 On page 63 of the Peg and Paul H Weaver family photo album, this is labeled Nela Heath and Gary Heath, Mrs Peterson, Tommy Laroux, Mrs Knutson and Mike Knutson, Jim Weaver and Paul H Weaver, Mrs Reineke and a boy Reineke. This is Mr Toregson the Cub Scout Pack Leader.  According to the current 2014 website on Scouting "Cub Scouting is for boys in the first through fifth grades, or 7 to 10 years of age. Boys who are older than 10, or who have completed the fifth grade, can no longer join Cub Scouting, but they may be eligible to join the Boy Scouting or Venturing program."

 

 On the same page in 1950 this is labeled by my mom "Jim got his Cub Wolf Badge". Mr Torgeson with 5 boys, ____?, Jim Weaver, Mike Knutson, ____/, _____? Garfield Elementary School Basement.

 

Cub Scout, Jim Weaver getting ready to be taken to Camp Ajawah, age 9 Faribault driveway.  With brothers Jack, age 6 and Tommy age 3.   

1949 Buick in 1950 with Jim Cub Scout age 9 . Jack age 6 and Tommy age 3 with Raggity Andy.

http://www.ajawah.org/About.html

Ajawah History

Since 1922, boys and girls from Minnesota and throughout the world have come to experience two weeks of summer fun at Ajawah. After its founding by Westminster Boy Scout Troop 33, Camp Ajawah held its first sessions on Phelps Island on Lake Minnetonka. In 1929, the camp was moved to its permanent home on Linwood Lake.

Today, Ajawah holds four summer sessions, two for girls and two for boys. Ajawah becomes the temporary home of more than 300 campers each summer, about 80 campers per session. The boys' sessions still enjoy a vibrant scouting program, and Ajawah serves as a home base for BSA troops 33 and 100.
For 80 years, Ajawah has operated under the guidence of Westminster Presbyterian Church.

 Cub Scouts and neighbors in Faribault, Jim Weaver and Gary Heath.  ca 1950

 Platform tent at Camp Ajawah.

 Cub Scout Jim Weaver in 1950 at Camp Ajawah. Looking pensive.

Jim Weaver looking more upbeat in the platform tent at Camp Ajawah.

1950 view of swimming dock at Camp Ajawah on Linwood Lake, near Wyoming MN Photo by PHW

First Cathedral in Faribault Sept 21, 2014 Cloister Naming Ceremony with Canonization of Rev James Zolatis and Paula Zotalis

 On the first day of Autumn, Sunday Sept 21, 2014, I attended a ceremony at the Cathedral in Faribault to honor Rev James Zotalis and his deceased wife Paula Zolatis, who beginning, in October of 2002 supported the congregation in raising $400,000 to build a cloister connecting the two buildings, the Cathedral completed in 1869 and the Guild House in 1894.  When I visited with Jim during my Faribault Class of 1965 40th Reunion planning, he announced that the estate of our old family neighbor, Helen Gipson with whom my mom sang, had bequeathed $400,000. along with another estate gift from a local benefactor for $100,000. Then the construction of the Cloister and the surrounding gardens became a reality in 2006!

 
View of the Guild House, with descriptions of the interior spaces, as I arrived on the Cathedral Grounds prior to the 10 AM Communion Service in the Cathedral followed by the Naming Ceremony within the Cloister.

 Red Bud Tree on the right, planted in the spring of 2007, and dedicated to the memory of my father Paul H Weaver MD, who loved this tree and its spring lavender flowers from his youth in the south of Ohio.  My mom, and family of choice friends, Jane Newell and Byron Aldrich support me and my mom, Margaret "Peg" Glessner Weaver during that dedication in the spring of 2006

 

Peg Weaver, age 96 looking at the red bud tree, as we envisioned a gift for the new Cloister Garden in Faribault as a living memorial to Paul H Weaver MD (1910 = 1982) and his love of the natural world. 

 

Planting crew Jim Langevin, Faribault, Dan Gorbanow, St Paul, Tom Weaver, Twin Cities, Mark Mueller-Dahl, Northfield, who planted the redbud tree in April 2007, after we picked it up at the Bachman's Nursery on Cedar Ave north of Northfield.

 

Peg looking at the heart shaped leaves in May after the tree bloomed, 2007   

 

Jane Newell and Peg Weaver May 2007 after dedication ceremony at the Cathedral for the Red Bud tree in the Cloister Garden 

Jane Newell, Amy Brown and Jesse Weaver visiting the garden after the ashes ceremony in the Cathedral Columbarium in 2009. 

 Cloister Entrance to the Cathedral and Guild House with garden, Sept 21, 2014, on my way into the service.

Rev Jim Zolatis in red sweater with his family on the right, with Bishop Brian Prior in the colorful garb, with Rev Henry Doyle and other church supported during the Canonization and Cloister dedication ceremony follow by a meal in the cloister common space. 

Faribault Weaver Family and Community Limestone Home 1943- 1953

 
In 1943 Paul H and Margaret G Weaver purchased this home on windy hill "Tate Paha" in Faribault MN. A fading Kodacolor print, captures the east side of the limestone home, built by a French Canadian Miller in the 1870's.   Note the side porch and the trellises on either side of the bay window. Today, Halloween of 2014, thinking of how big this place was to grow up in and to share with others, as my parents were quite socially involved in Faribault during these years.

1945 - 425 SW 3rd St, Faribault. View looking southeast from corner of NW 3rd St and 5th Ave. Interesting to see the sizes of the trees. The Colorado Blue spruces and what appears to be a weeping or river birth between the 1st and 2nd spruces.  And the larger Norway Spruces, perhaps planted by the Carufels in the 1870's.  


Labeled 1945 by Peg Weaver, here are Jim with holster and Jack, barefoot on the winding stairway of the Weaver spacious family home in Faribault.  p24 of Family album by PHW
Labeled Spring 1949 by Peg Weaver, here are Jack, Jim and Tom Weaver on the living room floor.  Anagrams, Dominoes . p56

1949, p 56 Jack, Tommy (Tom), Davey (David) and Janey (Jane)  Agerter playing on living room floor. Ken Agerter appears to be sitting the chair behind, with legs crossed. By PHW

 In 1949, here at the Weaver Boys in costume for Halloween, Jack age 6,  Tom age 2 and Jim age 9 in the Faribault living room in front of the fireplace.  Page 56 from P-P Family Album

1949 blurry snap shot of Boys Tom in hat Jim in back and Jack right as clowns. Halloween by PHW p56

1950 Jim, Jack and Tom, with Dr "Charlie" Charles Robilliard, who was doing magic tricks in the living room.  Dr Robilliard was a partner in the medical practice with my dad and C Walter Rumpf above Payant Drug Store in downtown Faribault at this time. 

Halloween Traditions at 425 SW 3rd Street

From Peg Weaver's memoir p 67:

"The most sewing-fun I had was making Halloween costumes. For Jim I concocted a Canadian Mountie based on Pete's army campaign hat, making a bright red, percale jacket and a black oil-cloth belt and holster. Jack was Robin Hood, carrying a bow and arrow, and wearing green-dyed, long underwear pants, a sleeveless, crenulated, percale jacket and a hat with a feather. I thought that Tom was too young to require anything impressive, so he was a ghost wearing the customary white sheet."

 Halloween 1950 Gary Heath, next door neighbor in Devil costumer.  Jim Weaver as a Canadian Mountie.

 Jack Weaver as Robin Hood, page 70, P and P Album 1950.

 Halloween 1950 Tom Weaver as ghost.

Shattuck School, Civic Music Connections in the Faribault Home

My parents were involved with the Cathedral as the families home church, as Peg describes their choice coming into Faribault in 1939, with their traditions in Ohio being different.  P 42-3 Rememberings of a 83-year old grandma p42-43

"Accompanying the Fosters to the Episcopal Church I found the services to have much more ritual and to  be very different from what I was accustomed to in the Presbyterian Church: kneeling benches, communion at the altar from a common cup into which a wafer was dipped, recitation of the Apostles Creed, a choir processional and recessional. In the Presbyterian church, grape juice (not wine, which was sinful) was served in individual, tiny glasses, passed down the rows of the congregation on trays with small round compartments holding the glasses. The empty glasses were placed in a small rack on the back of the pew in front. Instead of wafers, a tray, heaped with one-inch cubed, sweetish bread, was passed. Choir members did not reach their places with a processional, but unobtrusively entered from the adjoining choir room.  Because the Agerters and several other of our new friends were members of the Episcopal Church, we became members. There was no Presbyterian Church in Faribault and the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, Pete's affiliation in West Carrollton, was too narrow-minded and fundamentalist for our liking I think that Dr. Rumpf might have been influential in our decision, too, since he was very active in the Episcopal Church and was the physician for the Episcopal schools, where he might ask Pete to substitute him.
When we joined the church, Vesper Otmer Ward was its Dean. Following him were: Charles Allen (Before becoming a minister, he had worked for the Bell Telephone Company and, during the war. installed a phone for Kate and Stella Cole, two crusty, Episcopalian old maids of the prestigious Cole family, Kate referring to the common people of Faribault as peasants.), Canon Herb Morris, John Littleford, John McNaughton, and Curate Karl Bell (whose bedroom furniture was delivered to the to church choir room prior to his marriage). We were soon drafted for the church choir where we were faithful members for many, too, too many years, through the directing of Dwight DeLong, Dave Homing, Marie Levering (with loud, inaccurate foot-pedalling), Nan Nichols (who termed our singing "sweet" and made us practice the hymns endlessly) and Jan Schuehle (so superior to the others in directing, choice of anthems and organ playing). The volunteer choir members were a varied lot in singing ability, from Don Majors, who was superb, to Hugh Fitch, who tried hard, to Bess Lindberg who "sang" loudly but was tone deaf. The music we performed was gauged by the abilities of the choir directors and members, from rather corny cantatas to Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors    under the direction of Jan Schuehle. Annual singing for several services at Christmas and Easter Seasons became a chore. "

Weaver home with Civic Music piano soloist Mrs Nettleton with Marv Horstman, Headmaster of St James School ---

 

Early 1950's, Jim, Jack and Tom Weaver with 1949 Buick "Woody" Estate Wagon

in the house driveway 

Tom, Peg and Jim Weaver, cutting up part of a cow in the kitchen to wrap up for freezing

?Picnic on the floor of the Weaver living room  Peg Weaver, Marge and Ed Silvis

Visit to Washington DC Oct 2014 Library of Congress - Chase Family Archives - Visits to Home of Frederick Douglass - Anacostia and nearby Congressional Cemetery

 Looking for the Chase Family Archives in DC.

  My Mom, Peg Weaver, looking about 8 years of age, visiting with her grandpa, JZ Chase in Findlay. As a boy, never heard much about the Chase family lineage, other than they were early farmers.
When my mom, published her memoir in 1994 "My information about the Glessner family history, having been researched by my Aunt Mary, was more abundant than for my Chase ancestors. Some of the Glessner family chart data was first compiled by Tom, based on information from Aunt Mary. In January 1992, a letter out of the blue from Oscar Beasley, Iowa City, sent some much appreciated Chase family history."  Building on the research of Oscar, a distant cousin in the Justus Chase, lineage, descending from Elizabeth Alice Chase who married a Porter.  JZ was the younger brother of Elizabeth Alice Chase (Porter)


I arrived at National Airport on Wednesday night, greeted by Paige who picked me up in their trusty van at terminal A, where Sun Country lands.  Thursday morning I took the Metro into Union Station and walked to the Jefferson Building Library of Congress (pictured here) where I found out about what I can take into the reading rooms and what I need to leave in the cloak rooms.  An Adventure in learning.   I was able to call up volumes by submitting a request on a computer near the MMR, Main Reading Room on the first floor of the Jefferson Building.  They did not allow photos in the room, and it is a very famous image with a 160 dome...here is a link for on line viewers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_Building

I learned early, the due to budget cuts the Genealogy collection that used to be supported by 5 librarians and had its own room, was moved back into the stacks by the MMR.  Here is the old card catalog where I found references to the Chase Family that I found again on the computer that now has to be used to call for a book. When I learned the system, I had a small stack of books on the Chases in no time!   I also learned that the records of employees, like my friends the Silvis's were in a special facility in St Louis MO and researchers needed to prove there direct relationship by blood to get information. 
 
View of the Supreme Court Building in the light of the setting sun, as I walk back to Union Station in the late afternoon on Thursday. 

 
East Side of the Capitol Building Thursday Evening

 
Fun modern art "sculpture" in the upper floor of the old Portrait Gallery on the east side.  TV screens are in each state that show iconic images of action from each.   http://www.npg.si.edu/inform/visit.html
  I worked from the basement of the Jefferson Library and Main Reading Room to copy from a  variety of books, to document the Chase Family history, including Nathan Chase from New York who fought in the Revolutionary War from Hoosick Falls and his ancestor William Chase who emigrated from Chesham England with the Winthrop Expedition to Massachusetts Colony in 1630.   Later Chase relatives lived in Tiverton first of Massachusetts, and later as Rhode Island, as the colony boundaries changes.  Fun to get more confirmation about the roots of the Chase family from Inez Chase my red headed grandma, through JZ Chase and Justus, and George David Chase from New York.

Over the weekend, I drove with David Frye, pictured here to Pikesville near Baltimore to attend a Mankind Project LKS meeting Saturday morning, and then he and I on Sunday had brunch in Georgetown with Robert Powell, Chair of the US MKP Organization to learn about changes in the structure of this evolving organization we each have been part of for over 20 years.  Here is David at a sculpture at the Congressional Cemetery East of the Capital in DC with tree plantings as well to honor those who died and were affected by the 911 attacks to NYC, PA and the Pentagon in VA nearby.

 
J Edgar Hoover's grave with his family at the Congressional Cemetery.  He is the iconic head of the FBI for years and allegedly was a closeted gay man.
from Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover
"
Since the 1940s, rumors had circulated that Hoover was homosexual.^[55] The historians John Stuart Cox and Athan G. Theoharis speculated that Clyde Tolson, who became an associate director of the FBI and Hoover's primary heir, may have been his lover.^[56]
Hoover hunted down and threatened anyone who made insinuations about his sexuality.^{[57][better source needed]} He also spread unsubstantiated rumors that Adlai Stevenson was gay to damage the liberal governor's 1952 presidential campaign.^{[57][better source needed]} His extensive secret files contained surveillance material on Eleanor Roosevelt's alleged lesbian lovers, which some speculate was for the purpose of blackmail—as well as material on presidents' liaisons, including those of John F. Kennedy"   (Clyde Tolson is buried nearby :-) 
 
Grave of Leonard Matlovich  with the pink triangles, at the Congressional Cemetery near J Edgar Hoover's family gravesite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Matlovich
"
Technical Sergeant Leonard P. Matlovich (July 6, 1943 – June 22, 1988)^[1] was a Vietnam War veteran, race relations instructor, and recipient of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.^[2]
Matlovich was the first gay service member to purposely out himself to the military to fight their ban on gays, and perhaps the best-known gay man in America in the 1970s next to Harvey Milk. His fight to stay in the United States Air Force after coming out of the closet became a cause célèbre around which the gay community rallied. His case resulted in articles in newspapers and magazines throughout the country, numerous television interviews, and a television movie on NBC. His photograph appeared on the cover of the September 8, 1975, issue of Time magazine, making him a symbol for thousands of gay and lesbian servicemembers and gay people generally.^[3][4][5][6] Matlovich was the first openly gay person to appear on the cover of a U.S. newsmagazine.^[7] According to author Randy Shilts, "It marked the first time the young gay movement had made the cover of a major newsweekly. To a movement still struggling for legitimacy, the event was a major turning point." ^[8] In October 2006, Matlovich was honored by LGBT History Month as a leader in the history of the LGBT community."

 

Prior to visited the National Cemetery, David, Paige and I drove to Anacostia from downtown DC, across the Anacostic River to Fredrick Douglass Home that has an amazing view of DC.  What an important figure in American History as a freed slave and then an international orator!  An icon of civil rights history in our nation.  Here is the view of downtown DC from his home on Cedar Hill. 

For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

One of my big interests in visiting the Library of Congress is to see the genealogy collection specifically to learn more about the CHASE Family.   My mom, Peg Weaver, did not have much support in finding the Chase lineage, rather her aunt Mary Glessner had become a DAR tracing her COWLES line back to Josiah Cowles in CT, and also the BIXBY line to Moses Bixby in MA. 


Here are the JZ Chase family about 1896, taken in Findlay Ohio, with Zed, AKA JZ Chase, Inez, Mintie Henry, Charlie and Roy.  

 

Chase Family Crest with Three Crosses on a leather bound Rare Book 

  
Chase Family Origins in Chesham England. From Thomas, William and Aquila Chase are early emigrants to Mass Colony.  William arrived in 1630 with the Winthrop Expedition. 

Rare Book was brought in from Maryland to have me look at it in the Rare Book Reading Room