Saturday, February 24, 2007
1865 STURDEVANT deed FALLS twp, WYOMING COUNTY pa.
i found this deed transfer in a strongbox belonging to my gg grandfather JACOB K. HUBLER. i do not see any connection between
him or his descendants and this deed, but i transcribed it anyway in hopes that some descendants of the STURDEVANT family
will find it interesting. here it is in its entirety:
DEED
HANNAH LATEER,
guardian of minor children of NATHAN STURDEVANT dec'd
to
FULLER SICKLER
stamped with $1.00 stamp
DARWIN HOWARD
filed Nov 6, 1866
first tax paid $2.50
---------------
page 1
THIS INDENTURE, made the fourth day of September in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and sixty five, between
ISAAC LATEER and HANNAH LATEER, his wife, for herself, and as guardian legally appointed by the Orphans' Court of the county
of Wyoming, of the estates of VANDERBURG and JUNA STURDEVANT, the minor children of NATHAN STURDEVANT, late of Falls Township,
Deceased, of the one part and FULLER SICKLER of the other part.
WHEREAS, at an Orphans' Court, held at WYOMING COUNTY aforesaid, in and for the said county, upon petition of the said VANDERBURG
J. and JUNA STURDEVANT, the said HANNAH LATUR was duly appointed guardian of the estate of he said VANDERBURG J. and JUNA
STURDEVANT, during their minority: And it appearing to the said Court, that the said Vanderburg J. and Juna Sturdevant were
not possessed of a personal estate adequate to their maintenance and education, the said court did then and there make an
order empowering the said HANNAH LATEER to make public sale of the plantation and tract of land, the estate of the said VANDERBURG
J. and JUNA STURDEVANT, for the purposes aforesaid, and to make a title thereto to the purchaser; and did direct the said
sale to be held on the premises, upon the tenth day of March, then next. In pursuance
Whereof, the said HANNAH LATEER, having first given bond with sufficient surety to the said Court, according to the act of
Assembly, for the faithful discharge of the trust thus committed to her, did, on the day and at the place in the said order
directed, expose the premises therein mentioned to sale by public vendue, and sold the same to the said FULLER SICKLER, a
and for the sum of SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS, he being the highest bidder and that the highest and best price bidden for the same,
which sale, on report thereof made to the judges of the said Court, on the 26th day of August, year above written, was confirmed
by the said court, and it was considered and adjudged by the said court, that the same should be and remain firm and stable
forever, as by the records and proceedings of the same court, reference thereunto being had will fully appear: Now this Indenture
witnesseth that the said parties of he first part for and in consideration of the sum of SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS, to them in hand
paid by the said party of the second part, at and before the ensealing and delivery hereof, the receipt and payment whereof,
they do hereby acknowledge and thereof forever acquit and discharge the said FULLER SICKLER, his heirs, executors and administrators,
by these presents, have granted, bargained, sold, aliened, released and confirmed, and by these presents (by virtue of the
powers and authorities to her, the said HANNAH LATEER, given by the aforesaid order of the Orphans' Court, and obedient to
the directions thereof) do grant, bargain, sell, alien, release and confirm unto the said FULLER SICKLER, his heirs and assigns,
all that above mentioned tract of land, with the appurtenances, bounded and described as follows, to wit, situate in the township
of FALLS, aforesaid, and bounded on the NORTH by lands of MORRIS STURDEVANT, on the east by Public road leading from FALLS
to CLINTON CORNERS, and on the south and west by lands of HIRAM EVANS & CHANCEY SHERWOOD, and SAMUEL DAILEY etc., containing
about two acres more or less, with one saw mill and dwelling house thereon. Together with all and singular other the houses,
out houses, buildings, barns, stables, ways, woods, waters, watercourses, rights, liberties, privileges, hereditaments and
appurtenances whatsoever, thereunto belonging, or in any wise appertaining, and the reversions and remainders, rents, issues
and profits thereof: And also all the estate, right, title, interest, property claim and dmand whatsoever of them, the said
VANDERBURG J. and JUNA STURDEVANT, as well as of the said HANNAH LATEER, in Law, or Equity, or otherwise, howsoever of, in,
to or out of same: To have and to hold he said tract of land, hereditaments and premises hereby granted or mentioned or intended
so to be, with the appurenances, unto he said FULLER SICKLER, his heirs and assigns, to the only proper use, benefit and behoof
of he said FULLER SICKER, his heirs and assigns forever, and the said HANNAH LATEER doth covenant, promise, grant and agree
to and with the said FULLER SICKLER, his heirs and assigns, by these presents, that she, the said HANNAH LATEER, for her own
part, or as guardian of the said minors, hath not done, committed, or wittingly or willingly suffered to be done or committed
any act, matter or thing whatsoever, whereby the premises aforesaid, or any part thereof is, are, or shall or may be impached,
charged or incumbered in title, charge, or estate, or otherwise howsoever.
In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals the day and year above written.
ISAAC LETTEER [legal signature]
HANNAH LETTEER [legal signature]
for herself and as guardian
[postage stamp for $1 one dollar with writing on top I.L. SEPT 1865]
In presence of
FRANCIS HOUGH
C. SHERWOOD
-------
STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
WYOMING COUNTY SS
On the thirteenth day of September A.D. One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty Five, before me, a Justice of the Peace in and
for the said county, came the above named ISAAC LATEER and HANNAH his wife, and severally acknowledged the within written
INDENTURE to be their act and deed, and desired that the same might be recorded as such according to law. She, the said HANNAH
LATEER, being of full age and separte and apart from her husband, by me examined, he full contents thereof being first made
known to her, declared that she did voluntarily, and of her own free will and accord, seal and as her act and deed delivered
the said indenture without any coercion or compulsion on the part of her said husband.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the day and year aforesaid.
FRANCIS HOUGH J.P. [legal signature]
---------
note: 1860 census for FALLS TWP, WYOMING COUNTY, post office MILL CITY PA,
dwelling 97 household 97
FULLER SICKLER age 40 male farmer property value 6,000 personal property value 1,500
wife SARAH age 29 female
dtr HENRIETTA age 9 female
dtr ALICE age 8 female
CLOVES [?] age 6 male
SARAH ANN age 4 female
FLORENCE age 2 female
all born penna
dwelling 136 household 135
NATHAN STURDEVANT age 30[?] male cabinet maker
HANNAH age 19 female
JOSIAH age 7/12 male
[note: this is probably the same hannah who is mrs lateer in the 1870 census below. she must have remarried right after her
husband died. little josiah age 7 mos must be the vanderburg j. sturdevant in the deed and the other child, juna e. sturdevant
is not yet born. mw]
note: 1870 census for OVERFIELD TWP, WYOMING COUNTY, post office MILL CITY PA,
dwelling 59 household 59
LATEER, ISAAC age 42 male white, farmer property value 3000 personal value 600
LATEER, HANNAH age 29 female white, keeping house
LATEER, CHOPHAS [?] age 5 male white
STURDEVANT, V.J. age 11, female[? prob male] white at home
STURDEVANT, J.E. age 9 female[?] white
all born pa, all 3 children attended school the past year.
[note: i believe he census taker is mistaken and that vanderburg j. sturdevant is really josiah, a male listed in the 1860
census. mw]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2:48 pm pst
Monday, February 19, 2007
my vassar college experience
i belong to an email group for leonia nj and on Feb 2, 2007, at 5:34 PM, a somebody wrote that i was:
"... smart, highly educated, although somewhat out of order. It's surprising a transcript of your grades from Vassar
wasn't posted to confirm how smart you might be. But, since you are so gifted you must certainly recognize ..."
i felt compelled to post the following reply:
"having eaten an entire box of chocolates today i was not planning on getting out of bed to go anywhere but the bathroom
(burpppppppp) but here i am sitting at my computer to tell you about vassar and my grades.
let's go back to 1954. i'm a senior at leonia high school, a reasonably good student and editor of the newspaper but not much
else. the guidance counsellor has told me "swarthmore doesn't want students like YOUUUUUU" so i have planned to
go to my grandfather's alma mater, dickinson college in carlisle pa.
then my mother goes on a trip with her best friend, alice meeker, who lives a few blocks away. alice and my mother have one
thing in common-- discussing the perfidious ways of men. my mother could talk about being deserted by my father -- who led
a double life in nyc -- and alice could talk about somebody named roland who rented a room in
her house before running off with a joint checking account and marrying a neighbor.
mother and alice went out for a drive one bright day in april 1954, stopping to visit VASSAR COLLEGE with its stately buildings,
rolling hills, small lakes and big trees. mother told me it was a "lovely" school and why didn't i apply. turns
out alice had a dear friend who worked in the admissions department. maybe she was admissions director; who knew. i think
mother even handed me an application blank.
no problem. i filled it out and sent it in. i got recommendations from my teachers. my english teacher, burton reid, told
me he wrote that i had a little rocky home life but he felt i would be fine if separated from my mother. the next month, i
got accepted, even tho
closing date of applications had passed. turns out a lot of
institutions work that way. my daughter got accepted at dalton in nyc in a similar fashion.
oh. so freshman year i take all the required 105 courses and fail physics with a big fat F. ugh. what a nasty subject. my
mother explains, "this is the weak link in your chain. you must DEVOTE yourself to strengthening that weak link because
you will never be stronger than the weak link in your chain."
huh? i forgot to tell you that i was a little dopey when i was young. my boyfriend john kern used to explain me by saying
"don't mind marcia. she's been to sea for a few years."
sophomore year i re-took physics 105, got a B+ the second time around, and declared my major= physics.
i had taken mother's advice not because i thought it was so great, but because there were zero physics majors in my class
at that time, and because i thought it might be nice to be a sweet young thing surrounded by brainy males with slide rules
and fast cars.
second semester sophomore year and junior year were dreadful, despite the fact that the number of physics majors had swelled
to 3 out of 400 students in the class of 1958. i had to minor in mathematics and chemistry; two
subjects that i hated to the core. physics became impossibly difficult. i felt sad and hopeless. my grades plummeted. i was
assigned a study counsellor and visited the psychologist but nobody asked me why i was majoring in physics and i didn't talk
about it.
liberation came second semester junior year. i remember the moment. i was sitting in the library of the physics dept (alone
of course; nobody used that building except the 105 students and a handful of others). i had gone thru electricity and magnetism
and had begun a class in atomic physics. i was sitting there thinking i could have an
open book exam and 6 months and not be able to pass when my advisor cast a shadow over the table. "marcia," she
stammered (for miss belding was a stammerer), "either a miracle has to happen or you are not going to be able to graduate
from vassar, because you are failing your subjects."
"do i HAVE to major in physics?" i asked.
she jerked backwards in shock. "no! of course not!" she said.
"then i can LEAVE???? oh THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!" i gasped and grabbing my books i fairly FLEW out of the building,
riding my bike across the lawns and parking it in front of the art history department just as it was getting dark. (for it
just after the semester break, in february, i believe.)
back in the 50's one was not allowed to major in fine art at vassar, only art history. i ran up the stairs and breathlessly
flung myself into the office of leila barber, who had taught italian painting, the only class i had taken besides art 105.
"miss barber, miss barber! i want to change my major to art history or i wont be able to graduate! please let me do it!"
"WHOOOOOO are YOUUUUUUUUU?" she asked.
"i took your class in italian painting; surely you remember me. i was a physics major but today they said i dont have
to do that and i REALLY want to major in art; oh PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEE miss barber, you wont regret it you really really wont!!"
"get thee to a nunnery!!!" miss barber said, peering over her pince nez and pointing her finger towards a tall figure
in the doorway-- mr lutz, the architecture teacher, sent by angels.
"oh, let her in," he said.
so i was allowed to switch majors, second semester of junior year, and jam so many art history classes into my schedule that
i graduated with 34 more points than usual.
june of 1958 i indeed graduated with my class, and i am proud to say that i dragged my average up to a C. a very fine C.
at a recent college reunion i enlarged my transcript and posted it on a bulletin board where my classmates clucked and sighed,
but for me it is a proud document, bringing back the joys of a happy happy ending...
so thanks for asking. anybody who wants to see a copy of
my transcript need only ask. it will not show you that i am smart. it will show you that i am INDEED incredibly mediocre!"
1:37 pm pst
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
7:09 pm pst
6:41 pm pst
2:13 pm pst
genealogy
Most of the genealogy information i have was GIVEN to me by others.
Genealogy is the most sharing kind of thing there is.
I had wonderful HUBLER cousins, now departed, who gave me so many memorabilia,and my great grandfather Simon and grandfather
Harry Clark HUBLER who gave me even more.
My GIBSON grandmother, dear sweet lovely VENA ZELIA GIBSON,
gave me absolutely ZILCH, zero, nada, nothing when it came to genealogy, not even her own birth date!!! And SHE is the one
who knew my HOCH, SWIGERT, SAXTON, BEECHER, GREENWOOD and GIBSON ancestors!
BUT my grandmother, in her wisdom, devoted her life to reading and underlining (in turquoise ink) passages in the King James
version of the bible, her cocker spaniel on her lap, in the little south bedroom on the second floor --the one with the treadle
sewing machine-- that overlooked the garden.
Constant study rendered Granny more than able to pronounce judgment on her daughters (my mother, and "aunt" Louise,
who was actually her niece) and her mother in law, whose crime was loving (her son) too much.
My "aunt" Louise, near the end of her life, told me she could hear Vena's words ringing in her ears, "you wicked,
wicked girl!!!"
So, there you have it. My granny did not help me with my genealogy, but BUT i got her love.
She was quite fond of me, and I of her.
She framed and displayed my watercolor of a collie, copied from the back of a playing card. (We were not allowed to have cards
at my grandparents' home, but this was a "trading" card such as we girls had bunches of, secured with rubber bands,
back at my grammar school.) If you look at the photo of her Christmas tree down below, you will see a watercolor of two dogs
on top of the bookcase, another one of my childhood efforts at art that she and grandpa so proudly displayed.
Granny pinned butterflies on the lampshade next to the brown mohair sofa. She never killed them, but saved their little bodies
after a natural expiration, pinning them to the shade. Of course, now I realize most were moths, and Mother found the source
of the moths when she and my sister vacuumed Granny's living room and saw holes in the carpet under the furniture.
Granny was passionate by nature. Quick to judge, and quick to praise. My sister remembers her throwing a glass of iced tea
when annoyed, but I remember how her smile warmed everyone in the room.
She took naps after every meal, and did not wash dishes until needed, (they waited patiently in the porcelain sink.) She showed
me how toast tasted yummy with tomato jam. We knew the toast was done in the flap jack style toaster when black smoke came
out the top, and she showed me how to scrape the black part off with a knife.
My other grandma Sandmeyer did so many things well -- she quilted, she sewed most of our clothes and cleaned house and cooked
-- but it is Granny Hubler seems closest to my heart, because she was opinionated and because she lived life leisurely.
She smelled of cold cream and wore metal curlers, just a few, around the edges of her hair every night.
She had trim ankles and appreciated all things living-- dogs and moths and butterflies and vegetables from the garden. My
patient wonderful grandpa Harry HUBLER was mad about her, despite the capricious disposition
that allowed her son to move her to California in her 80th year, leaving grandpa in a nursing home in New Jersey.
Here are 3 paintings I made in memory of Vena Z Gibson, whom I knew as Granny Hubler.
Here she is singing loudly in the Clarks Summit Presbyterian Church, which made me hide my head in the hymnal. She had majored
in music at Irving Seminary in Mechanicsburg Pa, and on the way home she confided in me that if she had to do her life all
over again she would have become a choir singer.
The next painting shows her waking from a nap on the living room sofa when I asked about the butterflies on the lampshade,
not yet painted in.
Last, I painted Granny in the back yard at 407 Powell Ave., Clarks Summit Pa, about 1948. Only the cocker spaniel on her lap
seems to have changed into a dachshund.
1:57 pm pst
Sunday, December 3, 2006
christmas memories
This is a painting in progress of my memory of Christmas when I was about 5 or 6 years old, in the early 1940's.
I am the little kid with the smile on my face, holding a doll. My mother would take my sister and me into NYC to shop where
she had charge accounts, at Gimbels or Wanamakers or Altmans.
My father did not give her cash, but paid for charge accounts, so we charged meat and groceries at the local markets and had
soap and toilet paper delivered from B. Altman and Company.
My mother and sister would leave me in the toy department where I was told to select my own gift, up to the value of $10.
I selected a blonde doll named Christine one year, and the dark haired, dark eyed Gwendolyn the next. Each doll had a cloth
stuffed body with composition head, lower arms and lower legs. Here eyes opened and closed.
The package would come wrapped in plain brown paper, and Mother left it on the dining room table, not to be opened until Christmas
morning. I would tip the box back and forth to hear the sound of "Mama" inside. Once I poked a tiny hole in the box, but could
see nothing because it was all dark inside. (Now I know i should have poked two holes; one for light to come in.)
My sister's favorite present was always something for sports, like a bike or roller skates. That's why she has a bike in this
painting.
My father had a double life, or at least another home and loved ones in New York City, so he came to leonia only a few times
a year, despite being a councilman. He came home late Christmas Eve, but told us he was waiting until the trees were FREE
in Wood Park. That's when we would get ours, and trim it, with great excitement. Dad would leave in the morning, just after
receiving his 5˘ handkerchief or 10˘ bottle of shaving lotion from me, and after giving my mother a modest present, such as
the time he gave her a ball point pen. It was green with a small gold band and he explained that it was something very special,
one of the first of that kind to be manufactured.
This painting shows mother looking all depressed when he left, despite having my gift of plastic clip on earrings on the side
table next to her. Our white bull terrier Betsy has her head in mother's lap, but some things can't be comforted right away.
My dad was such a mystery to us. My mother blamed herself for his absence but after the Jim Mcgreevy thing i got to thinking
maybe my dad was like that. He certainly had a double life and I know it involved other women, but it might have also involved
men or something else.
Whatever it was, I sense that he carried a burden of covering up something that made him ashamed. Being the son of a minister
and very proper parents count not have helped.
Appearance mattered above all things, to him. He constantly told us kids the importance of keeping secrets, which in my
case, made me do quite the opposite.
Of course i loved him, but it was, I think, fortunate in the long run that my sister and I were raised by our mother, here
in Leonia, with a father who was not much more than a paycheck and an infrequent visitor.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
dog paintings (november 30, 2006)
Painting dogs from photographs is one of my favorite things to do. This is an english setter named "neutron" who lives in
France. His owner commissioned a painting from me in June, and emailed me a few photographs.
I selected a romantic photo of the dog in a field and painted a nice portrait that I hoped would please. To tell the truth,
I find it stressful to paint commissions. I have the best time when I am painting for nobody but myself.
A few months later, I painted this second portrait when the pressure was off.
I painted the portrait over an oil painting by my then 5 yr old grandson. I like painting over old canvases, probably because
of my New England heritage where I hate to waste anything.
Here are stages of the portrait as it progressed. It is size 9x12".
I started out by scraping off the underpainting, an abstract done with oil sticks by my 5 yr old grandson.
Then I used bright cadmium red medium to "draw" the image of the dog. I used this color because it was the only one that had
not dried out in my paint box and I had a lot of it.
I worked in my kitchen with light coming in the windows, while listening to an unabridged book on tape called JOHN ADAMS by
David McCullough.
The days are short this time of year, so I had to resist the urge to take an afternoon nap and paint while the sun was out.
At first I liked the painting with the red background. But after looking at it on my kitchen wall, I decided the image did
not have enough depth. It looked kind of flat.
I reworked it without thinking, painting with my mind "at rest," kind of mindlessly. That is my favorite way to paint. I can
paint while talking on the phone or listening to the radio. Apparently my brain is compartmentalized so that speaking does
not interfere with my hand-eye coordination.
Perhaps I was thinking of Vuillard when those lovely blues and greens and beige colors came up in the background. Perhaps
I was thinking of a grassy field. I stopped when the result pleased me.
When painting, most of what I do pleases me. Have you ever noticed how some painters love their own work? I believe we each
have an inner child that is encouraged by praise. All I know is when I am working, everything I am creating looks TERRIFIC.
Later on, I might be more judgmental, but not much. The happier I am, the better my work seems to turn out.
I brought this painting to the AVAM show. Nobody bought it, but I sold a few giclee prints of it for $10 each.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Craft show at AVAM, Baltimore, November 25, 2006
Here is my booth at the one-day show at the American Visionary Arts Museum on Key Highway in Baltimore, November 25, 2006.
It was my last art show of the year.
Let me tell you there is no thrill on earth like being able to hang up all my paintings and look at them all together, and
sit there working and have people come by and say "I like your stuff."
Here is a picture I was working on, self portrait as my inner child. This was painted over a canvas I found on the street,
or else in a dumpster behind an art school last year. I scraped off the old painting as much as I could, but two bumpy swirls
remained, so I used them as a start for the eyes and the rest of the form evolved as I painted on and off over the past six
months.
Sometimes people come up to me at an art show and ask "did you paint all those today?" or "did you paint that today?" or "how
long does it take to make a painting?"
It's hard to know how to answer questions like that. Some people say "all my life" or words to that effect... I work over
and over and over paintings. Some people feel I "overwork" them. It's a matter of taste I guess. I put the paint on, then
scratch through it until it gets a kind of scumbled multicolor effect which I like.
