My Dad's National Guard Stuff

Today I am posting some of my Dad's National Guard awards and National Guard stuff. The Regiment that he was in was the 102nd Field Artillery Regimet which is the 2nd Corps of Cadets on the 101st Field Artillery. My dad SSG Gerald Spencer Jr. was a Medic in the National Guard and he almost fought in the 2nd Gulf War in the 1990's. My mother told me that he got a call telling him that the War ended but he was soon to get shipped out. He received a ribbon though for it. But the cool thing about my Dad's Regiment is that it dates back to 1786. The 102nd moved into the 101st in 2006 and the 101st dates back to 1636.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101st_Field_Artillery_Regiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Battalion,_102nd_Field_Artillery_(United_States)

History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie

The other day I was watching TV and I saw that chocolate chip cookies were actually invented by accident!

A woman named Ruth Wakefield is who invented the chocolate chip cookie and the brand Toll House. She graduated from the Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts in 1924 and worked as a dietitian and lectured on food. With her husband she bought a tourist lodge named the Toll House Inn. One day, while trying to make Butter Drop Do cookies, she ran out of Baker's Chocolate and decided to use a semi-sweet chocolate bar that she had cut up into pieces. What ended up happening was, unlike the baker's chocolate the chopped up, the chocolate bar did not melt completely and the small pieces only softened. Thus, the chocolate chip cookie was invented! Also, the chocolate bar that was used as substitute for baker's chocolate, was a gift from Andrew Nestle of the Nestle Chocolate Company. Ruth's Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe became very popular. In conjunction, Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate bar sales increase. Because of this, Andrew Nestle and Ruth made a deal: that Nestle would put Ruth's Toll House Cookie recipe on Nestle's chocolate packaging and Ruth would get a lifetime supply of Nestle chocolate! :) Wouldn't we all like that? 


http://inventors.about.com/od/wstartinventors/a/Chocolate_Chip.htm

Gideon Foster House Peabody, MA

The Gideon Foster house is located on Washington Street in Peabody, MA. It was built in the 1800s and then bought by Gideon Foster in about 1815. It is now the home of the Peabody Historical Society, who obtained the house in 1916. 

Gideon Foster was a Revolutionary War militia officer/minuteman who was from South Danvers, which is today the town of Peabody. He led his men to Lexington and Concord as Captain, and also led his men to resupply American forces at the Battle of Bunker Hill. In his later years, he was appointed by the legislature to be major general of the Massachusetts Militia and he also joined in laying the cornerstones of the Battle of Lexington monument in the year of 1835. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen._Gideon_Foster_House
http://peabody.patch.com/groups/higgins-librarys-blog/p/bp--gen-gideon-foster-colonial-patriot
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9689465

I also took a trip down to Peabody City Hall. The City Hall was built in 1883 and is a Second Empire building. The City Hall is located in the Civic Center Historic District in Peabody which also hold St. John's church and other buildings that show the "civic heart" of Peabody. The Memorial's are for the soldiers that fought in the Wars and the giant white one is the Civil War monument which is in the heart of Peabody Square. I was not able to go inside the City Hall today since it is closed on Saturdays but in the basement there is a old jail cell which they use for storage now. Upstairs there are pictures of every mayor that Peabody has had.

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

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

Today I took pictures of the old tannery building next to my house. Peabody Massachusetts was heavily involved in the leather business. A.C. Lawerence was the biggest name in the Peabody Tannery industry and made Peabody the major center in the New England tanneries. Peabody High's sports teams are named the tanneries as well. There is still one tannery that still tans leather and that is on Upton Street in Peabody. The rest of the old tanneries around Peabody were either turned into apartments or are run downed. My great grandpa Joe (who I did a blog on eariler this year) is in the Peabody Tannery museum which is located next to the George Peabody House on Washingon street. Peabody is still called the Leather City to this day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peabody,_Massachusetts
http://www.crowninshield.com/

United Shoe Machinery Company

UMC in 1920 and Cumming Properties in 2013

Foundry and Powerhouse in 1996 and restoration in 2013

      Hello from Dmitri! The Cummings Center in Beverly, Ma has a big history. It was once the United Shoe Machinery Company (UMC)  was a combination of three major shoe companies: Goodyear Machinery Company, Consolidated Hand Lasting Machinery Company, and McKay Shoe Machinery Company. The Beverly factory was begun in 1902 and was fully operational by 1906. The company was a monopoly but it was a way of life for many Beverly area citizens. Between 1900 and 1910, immigrants quickly swelled Beverly's population from 13,888 to 18,650. The factory grew from 3,000 employees to 4,500 in 1910 and the company reportedly paid its workers the highest average wages in the country. By 1911, according to the old Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, Beverly residents as a whole had higher annual earnings than the residents of any other city in the state. 

During World War 1 USM assembled special mobile shoe repair vehicles for military use.Between 1899 and 1960, USM developed and marketed nearly 800 new and improved shoe machines and patented more than 9,000 inventions in widely disparate areas. After decades of the company running successful, the old monopoly was finally broken up but its attempts to diversify in the 1960s brought it deeply into dept for the first time. The factory was sitting for many year inoperative until Cumming Properties bought it in 1996. Now thousands of companies lease offices there. The Cumming Center now still hold much of United Shoe Machinery Company history on it walls throughout the massive complex. Many large pieces of machinery are in the parking lot as you drive through the plaza. Even an original IBM time clock that was used in "The Shoe" in the early 1900s. Additional extensive USM archives are maintained at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.   

 Cummings Properties Main Site
Beverly, Ma History
United Shoe Machinery Company history

World War 1 mobile shoe repair vehicle 

Many artifacts and glass display cases around the complex

Old machinery room in one of the buildings kept preserved

Flint Public Library

The Flint Public Library that is located in Middleton Square in Middleton, Massachusetts was found by my ancestor Charles L. Flint, who is the cousin of Sylvanus Flint the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, he offered one million dollars to help start the library. In 1891, under the will of Charles Flint for the purposes of raising the long-lasting library building that was built of brick with Nova Scotia sandstone trimming and a slate roof. The entire book collection that is in the library has five thousand volumes, representing accumulations from earlier private library associations and the personal library and writings of Charles Flint..

Throughout the years the library contains more than forty thousand books, one thousand and three hundred videotapes, one thousand and one hundred audiotapes.

Another fact of my ancestor is that he was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Agricultural college (today which is “University of Massachusetts Amherst), in 1912 a laboratory was built in his name, which is called “Flint Laboratory” and told part of the founding of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a member of the Boston School Committee.

Cited:

http://www.massachusetts.edu/presidents/flint.html

http://www.flintlibrary.org/aboutus.html

Gloucester Fishermen's Wives {Statue} (Gloucester, Ma ) By Phil DiMaio

             The Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association (GFWA) was formed in 1969. The GFWA started as a group of primarily Sicilian American women, many first-generation immigrants, and initially focused on concerns of local fishermen.  GFWA is still a non-profit organization "promoting the New England fishing industry, helping to preserve the Atlantic Ocean as a food supply for the world, and assisting active and retired fishermen and their families to live better lives. This statue was sculpted in finished August 2001 and  was sponsored by the GFWA. The monument resembles the strength of a fisherman's wife waiting for her love to return from sea. It also shows you how the children are impacted by this type of life style, waiting for their father to return home. 

 

                                    "Taking watch of harbor through days and nights

                                     With his hands firmly gripping at the wheel

                                     Our statue of yesteryear and today

                                     With his eyes fixed like hardened steel

                                      Many seasons and storms have passed him by

                                      Since the Captain was dedicated by our shore

                                      Through raging winds and sunlit skies

                                      The Captain has done his faithful chore

                                      The sands of time that has ebbed and flowed

                                      In circling our great statue of the sea

                                      Like the many stories of Fishermen of old

                                      Our Captain sets the spirit within us free

                                      The inscription etched below his feet

                                      So treasured to the Fishermen in many ways

                                      When the Sands of Time are stilled we’ll meet

                                      Those we have lost now raised by God

                                      From the oceans grave"

 

 

                                      By  Peter A. Todd

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                       "A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea"

                                                                 Honore de Balzac

                                                                Links and Sources
                                                               http://www.gfwa.org/
                            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_Fishermen's_Wives_Association
                            http://www.morganfauldspike.com/the-gloucester-fishermens-w/
                            http://capeannonline.yuku.com/reply/366909/Re-Gloucester-Fishermens-Wifes-                            MemorialNot-For-Sale#.Uy9B1krD8v1

                               

Gloucester Fisherman's Memorial (Gloucester, Ma ) By Phil DiMaio

 

 

 

 

 

The Fishermen’s Memorial, also known as “The Man At The Wheel” is one of the most beautiful landmark in Gloucester Massachusetts. The statue is a permanent memorial  that resembles and reminds us of the thousands of fishermen lost at sea in Gloucester's history. In 1879 alone, 249 fishermen and 29 vessels were lost during a terrible storm. This statue not only means a lot to my city but me on a personal level because my family has been involved in the fishing  industry for generations. There is a lot of blood, sweat and tears in fishing and I have been apart of this first hand. When I see this statue it means more that just words its a way of life and teaches you that the ocean can be very dangerous but the man at the wheel watches over us.                                                      "They that go down to the sea in ships, That do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord, And his wonders in the deep."

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came”

― John F. Kennedy

 

 

 

 

 

Links and Sources

http://capeannvacations.com/Vacation.cfm?id=8698&mk=37&ck=0&em=&ey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_Fisherman%27s_Memorial

http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/ccarlsen/poetry/gloucester/memorialshistory.htm

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21581-i-really-don-t-know-why-it-is-that-all-of

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bataan Death March- My Uncle Bob's story

After the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, they attack the U.S base in the Philippines. On April 9, 1942, the United States surrender and over 75,000 Filipino and American troops on the Bataan were forced to make a sixty-five mile march to the prison camps. During the march, several died due to exhaustion and starvation.

My Uncle Robert W. "Bob" Madden was part of the Bataan Death March. According to my Uncle Dave, that on the second day of the march, Bob Madden and his friend ran off to escape the match. One of the japanese guards turned and shot and killed Bob's friend. Bob was near the guard, took the rifle that killed his friend, bash it against the Japanese guard and ran into the jungle and was in there for three days. Until he came across the ocean and found a boat. While on the boat, he rode to the friendly shores and got rescued.

Here of my Uncle Bob:
. 

Cited:
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bataan-death-march

The Progressive Era, 1900-1916

http://www.chelseaclock.com/Our-History
This picture is from a building that I never really noticed. The building right in front of it is Chelsea High School, which i attended for 4 years and i never once asked what that building across was. Well this building is where they were making the 'finest American clocks" located in Chelsea Massachusetts.

During the progressive era this building was sold to a guy named Charles Pearson who changes the name from Boston Clock to Chelsea Clock, and has stayed named since. Early 1900's US government starts ordering marine clocks,there are also car clocks being made as well as airplane clocks. The Chelsea Clock prints out the one of the earliest catalogs. The clocks where in high demand for the US government. There was a ship found in 2006 that still have the clock made in the 1920's by one of the craftsmen working in Chelsea Clock. Also in the early 1990's the government has wanted clocks from this place, in 2009 President Obama chose one of the clocks to give to his dignitaries. Here is a picture of that clock:

Its crazy to me how this building has been there since the 1800's and is still there today, and as you can see by my picture it does not look old at all.

Today I went to the Peabody Public to look at the Eben Dale Sutton Room. The history of the Sutton room is that Eben Dale Sutton's mother bought the room in honor of her son who died at a young age. Eliza Sutton offered 20,000 dollars to the Peabody Institute Library trustees.  The room is always locked because it has a lot of historical value books like the history of John Quincy Adams and the Civil War. You can go in the room as I did by asking one of the librarians. The room also holds original John Audubon prints. The two prints are of a turkey and a bird eating a fish. The room is in the original part of the library which is getting restored.

http://www.peabodylibrary.org/history/suttonroom.html

http://www.peabodylibrary.org/history/

The Changing American Landscape: Dutch Elm Disease

An American Elm survivor in Lynn MA, March 2014

1905 post card of elm trees on Lafayette Street in  Salem Mass

When I was a little girl I remember a time that there were arborists in my neighborhood cutting down every other tree it seemed.  I asked my mother why, and she told me the trees were sick with Dutch Elm Disease.  Years later she would comment from time to time, especially when driving down a tree depleted street, how much she missed the elm trees.

The American Elm Tree is the state tree of Massachusetts but there aren't many around anymore.  They were wiped out between 1930  - 1980 due to Dutch Elm Disease.  Over 50 million elms in the United States are said to have died from the disease during that period.  If people from the last turn of the century were able to see the landscapes now, they wouldn't recognize them because the mighty elm is missing.  Think of tree lined streets in cities all over the country with a beautiful canopy of tree tops of elms meeting in the middle.  That is what they saw. 

There were survivors, like the photo above of the elm in someone's backyard in Lynn, MA.  In the 1960s botanists began taking graphs (samples) of surviving trees all over the country and began trying to grow resistant trees.  It took a while but they have some now.  One type of resistant elm is called the Princeton, another The Valley Forge, and they have even begun selling them at Home Depot.   As new diseases are now killing our Ash and Maples, these resistant elms are being planted in their place.  Maybe people in the next turn of the century will see landscapes similar to those in the 1905 post card above.  Maybe I may live to see it.  Check out the links to learn more about Dutch Elm disease and see the New York Times article on the stand of beautiful elms that survived in Central Park, New York.

Dutch Elm Disease

New York Times article: In the Treetops, a Winter Gift

Bradley Palmer State Park

Entrance Sign

Amazing estate on the property

               Hi, this is Dmitri posting to the blog! Here are some pictures of the state park nearby our house in Hamilton. It is located in the towns of Hamilton and Topsfield. The park is run by the Department of Conservation and Recreation but on the property is a beautiful estate that can be rented for private occasions including weddings. On a calm summer night, you can hear the bass from the d.j. playing at these weddings from our back yard. The park has some great history from the 1900s. Bradley Palmer was a noted attorney who represented Sinclair Oil in the Teapot Dome Scandal. Apparently, the Bradley Palmer mansion was former host to secret or high-level government conferences in the FDR era.Upon his death, he willed the estate to the state to be used by citizens. The driveway on the old property has incredible rhododendrons that line both sides. It is amazing piece of property and you can bring your dogs to walk and run around. During the summer, horses ride along the many trails in the park. The Willowdale Estate is the main venue but there is also a pool during summer for the kids. The park has two different entrances you can use. The north gate is where the estate, pool, maintenance headquarters, information, and trails. The south gate by Pingree School is permanently closed but there is a place to park close by to enter the trails from the back side. Check out the park, it is a beautiful piece of Massachusetts undeveloped and natural. Here is a picture of the south entrance:

More Information and Works Cited:

Wiki Bradley Palmer Page

 Mass. gov parks maps and information
Bradley Palmer page on Mass.gov

Teddy Bears

 

 History of the Teddy Bear

       Although teddy bears and other stuffed animals have been around for all of our lives, it was not until 1902 that the first teddy bear was invented. The name "Teddy Bear" was inspired by Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. It is believed that Roosevelt was on a hunting trip and ordered a mercy killing on a cub. Another story is believed that people hunting with Roosevelt felt bad that he had not found a single bear. His group is believed to have tied up a bear without him knowing and told him to shoot it. Roosevelt felt it was unfair and refused. When a cartoonist heard the story, he created a political cartoon of Roosevelt and a baby bear and published it in newspapers around the country. Morris Mitchom and his wife got the idea of creating a stuffed toy bear. Mitchom owned a toy store in Brooklyn, New York. He even wrote to President Roosevelt asking if he could name his new toy after him. When the teddy bears became a hit he created his very own company. All stuffed animals today regardless of what kind of animal it is, can be traced back to the teddy bear, and to President Theodore Roosevelt.

http://www.nps.gov/thrb/historyculture/storyofteddybear.htm

http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/Teddy_Bear.htm