Thursday, March 15, 2012

Treasure Chest Thursday - the Housewarming in 1905

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - a time to reveal another gem in my treasure chest of family history.  

This week, it's another newspaper article, this time from the San Diego Evening Tribune dated 23 December 1905 (page 6, accessed on GenealogyBank): 



This article reads:

"On Saturday evening, Mr. and Mrs. H.A, Carringer opened their beautiful new cottage on Horton and Thirtieth streets to their Brooklyn Heights friends with a good, old-fashioned house warming.  Over fifty people participated in the pleasures of the evening, some dancing, others engaged in whist while a few enjoyed a social chat.


"Capt. Edwards tuned his violin with the same vigor he did fifty years ago, and Mr. Jacobs with guitar and graphophone made music to entice both old and young to 'join hands and circle 'round.'


"Cake, coffee and cocoa were served by the hostess, who, with the host, made everything as pleasant that the guests hoped another cottage might be built soon and the celebration repeated."

Henry Austin and Della (Smith) Carringer were my great-grandparents and they built the house on the northeast corner of 30th and Hawthorn (it was called Horton in 1905) in 1897.  In 1905 they were not young people - Austin was 52 and Della was 43, with a son Lyle who was 14.

I'm curious about Captain Edwards and Mr. Jacobs.  Were they neighbors, friends, or folks that lived in the neighborhood?  It's too bad I don't have a guest list for this event.

Isn't it great what you can find in historic newspapers once you have an index and can search for person's names?  GenealogyBank permits the user to search by state, or even by a specific city, or a specific newspaper.  That's the only way that I found this article, which adds a social life dimension to my great-grandparents.   A game of whist?  Anyone play whist these days?  What's a graphophone?  Something else to investigate in my spare time?

The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/03/treasure-chest-thursday-housewarming-in.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Martin said...

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

FYI.