Tag Archives: 1920s

Anna La Tourette Blauvelt 1867 – 1960

18 Tuesday Mar 2025

Posted by in 19th Century, 20th Century, Books, Education, Genealogy

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One of my favorite things to do as a local history researcher is to bring forgotten people to light once more. This is one of many such stories, initiated by a single photograph.

I inherited a collection of hundreds of photographs from my Losee grandparents, mostly 19th- and 20th-century portraits of relations, but a handful are images of friends of the family. When I was a teenager, I took some of these unlabeled or unrelated photos and used them in artworks, suspended between glass and felt in antique picture frames surrounded by colorful Victorian cutouts.

F.D. Lewis, No. 9 Wall St. Kingston, N.Y. – Miss Anna L. Blauvelt – author’s collection

Recently, I needed a frame and carefully reunited the cutouts and photos with others in my collection. As I examined the photos from the piece, I noticed that I had done myself a favor—I noted on a slip of paper that they were originally found in a Knickerbocker/Sharpe family album; even as a teen I realized it was important to record provenance. One of them was a “miniature print” of a young woman with 1890s curled bangs. Not only was there the photographer’s name and location, but a name written in pencil on the reverse.

Almost 30 years have passed since I put the images in that frame in the late 1990s. It would have been an uphill battle to find someone unrelated with only a name and a possible connection to my family to go on if I had been a researcher at the time. In 2024, taking the first steps to discovering who this was took me about three hours to accomplish.

Anna La Tourette Blauvelt was born in 1867, possibly in Ulster County, NY, to Augustus Blauvelt of Seneca County, NY and Jane Zabriskie of Hudson County, NJ. Anna’s father attended Rutgers and seminary school in New Brunswick, NJ. He married Jane Ackerman Zabriskie* (also known as Mary Jane or Jennie), daughter of Albert Michael Zabriskie and Ann MacIntyre La Tourette of Bayonne, NJ. Augustus and Jane had at least two children that survived to adulthood, Anna and her brother Albert A. Blauvelt, as well as two boys who died young, Benjamin B. and William T. Blauvelt. Augustus was a man of the cloth, and the couple traveled to China for missionary work in the early 1860s. Due to Jane’s poor health they returned to the US in late 1864. [*I could not determine if Jane was in any way related to Andrew C. Zabriskie, of Blithewood (now a part of Bard College). There were a great many people with that surname in New Jersey in the 19th century]

Anna’s mother Jane and brother Benjamin both died in April of 1870. When the census was taken for that year her father Augustus and brother Albert were living together in Rosendale, Ulster Co., NY where Augustus was a minister. Court records tell us he was appointed the guardian of his two children in 1873 with “his mother-in-law going on his bond”. Proving this, we find three-year-old Anna recorded in her grandmother Ann Zabriskie’s home in Bayonne in 1870 when the census was taken.

Augustus published Christian articles in newspapers and journals, some of which put him at odds with the Reformed Church he represented such that they saw fit to depose him of his duties in 1877 for heresy. A year later, a fit of public madness caused him to be committed to the New York State Hospital in White Plains, NY, then to Hudson River in Poughkeepsie where he remained for many years. Finally, he was transferred to Binghamton where he died in 1900. He suffered paranoid delusions and believed that “enemies”, such as “liquor dealers” he believed he’d angered with his temperance writings, were trying to harm him. In another case of mental illness in the family, Anna’s brother Albert would dramatically take his own life in 1918 for unknown reasons.

School Arts Magazine, Vol XXV No. 6, February 1926 p. 339

Despite the lack of supportive parents, Anna found a path for herself through education. As a child, she attended the Kingston Academy in Kingston, Ulster County, NY, graduating at 18 years of age in 1885. At her graduation, Anna read the salutation, and it was remarked she shared “highest honors” with another boy in her class. She then went on to study art and art instruction at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the Pratt Institute Teachers College in New York City where she was a pupil of Arthur Wesley Dow. She became a teacher of “manual” or “industrial” art which included trade work, such as mechanical drawing and handwork, such as basket weaving, embroidery, and sewing.

In 1905 Anna resided with widow Sarah Hawley and her daughter, fellow teacher Mary, in Nutley, NJ but removed to Oakland, California sometime before 1908 to teach there. She contributed articles to trade journals such as School Arts Magazine starting as early as 1911. In 1914 she became the Director of Manual Arts at North Arizona Training School in Flagstaff.

Anna received a B.S. in education from Columbia teacher’s college in 1915 and spent at least the month of June living with her uncle, Albert Zabriskie in Rosendale, where she visited with old friends and attended her high school reunion. She taught summer school in Missouri, at Rutgers, Columbia, and the University of Vermont, Montpelier. While living in Morningside Heights near Columbia in the 1920s she served as secretary to the Industrial Arts Co-operative Service—an organization established to inform teachers of new ideas for instructing children in arts and crafts.

In 1927, Macmillan published The Piece Bag Book, A First Book of Sewing and Weaving written by Anna La Tourette Blauvelt and illustrated by Truda Dahl, a small, hardcover “work and play” book that “encourages little girls to learn to sew by suggesting things that they can make for their dolls and their playhouses”. At the time of publication her book was part of the “Work and Play” series of books, including four other titles by other authors: Your Workshop, With Scissors and Paste, and Playing with Clay.

First illustration and title page of The Piece Bag Book by Anna La Tourette Blauvelt, 1927

First illustration and title page of The Piece Bag Book by Anna La Tourette Blauvelt, Macmillan, 1927

The book illustrates the needlework and weaving projects of two little girls called Teddy and Eleanor. Guided by their mother, the girls create simple things like a hat, scarf, pompoms, tablecloth, and a bedspread from fabric and trim scraps found in the mother’s titular piece bag. The narrative begins with the children wanting something fun to do on a rainy day and gives instructions to the young reader on how to make each item, as well as a brief note to parents at the back as to what supplies to have on hand. The children’s dialog is written in cute, century-old vernacular and the instructions are clear and simple to follow as such an instructional book should be. 

The 1930 census recorded Anna living in her own apartment close to Columbia with many professors and teachers as neighbors. She was listed as single, 62 years old, born in New York with a father born in New York and mother born in New Jersey, and her occupation was public school teacher. If the building numbers today are not all that different from what they were in 1930, she lived within walking distance of PS 125.

When the 1940 census was taken, Anna had reached the age of 72 and was a resident of a “Home for Aged Women”, specifically, the Miriam Osborn Home in Harrison, NY. She was in the same place in 1950. The data recorded about her in the census doesn’t exactly line up, but one can imagine that it was tough to get accurate information owing to the nature of the facility and her place in it.

In the 1950s, two of Anna’s first cousins, twice removed, contacted Elmwood Cemetery in North Brunswick where their family had a plot to make sure that when the time came, there was a place for Cousin Anna’s remains. One of them wrote in 1958 that “at present she seems quite well although she is 90 and senile.” The cousins were Margaret “Madge” Zabriskie Pockman Van Zanten 1885-1967 and her sister Eleanor Alling Pockman 1888-1971 who were daughters of Anne La Tourette Boice Pockman, a daughter of Margaret Zabriskie Boice, who was a daughter of Albert Zabriskie, who’s sister Jane Zabriskie was Anna’s mother. It was very kind of them to go to such lengths to make sure she found her way back home.

Educator Anna La Tourette Blauvelt passed away on March 18th, 1960, and her remains were interred in Elmwood Cemetery, her name and dates are engraved on the tombstone she shares with her parents and brothers.

Grave of Anna Blauvelt

A visit to Anna’s resting place, Elmwood Cemetery, North Brunswick, NJ

Sources:

  1. 1860 Federal Census, Bergen Point, Bergen, Hudson Co NJ – Albert M Zabriskie
  2. 1860 Federal Census, Covert, Seneca Co NY – Mary Blawvelt
  3. 1870 Federal Census, Bayonne, Hudson Co NJ June 24th – Ann Zebriskie
  4. 1870 Federal Census, Rosendale, Ulster Co NY – Cornelius Schoonmaker
  5. 1875 New York State Census, Kingston Ulster Co NY – Ann E Fort
  6. 1880 Federal Census, Poughkeepsie, Dutchess Co NY, Hudson River State Hospital – Augustus Blauvelt, inmate
  7. 1892 New York State Census, North Hempstead, Nassau Co NY – Albert A Zabriskie
  8. 1900 Federal Census, Monmouth Co NJ – Albert Zabriskie
  9. 1905 New Jersey State Census, Nutley, Essex Co NJ, Whitford Ave – Sarah E Hawley
  10. 1910 Federal Census, Berkeley Alameda Co CA – Anna L Blauvelt
  11. 1915 New York State Census, Rosendale, Ulster Co NY – Albert E Zabriskie
  12. 1925 New York State Census, Rosendale, Ulster Co NY – Albert A Zabriskie
  13. 1930 Federal Census, Manhattan, New York Co NY #540 W 123rd st Anna Blauvelt
  14. 1940 Federal Census, Rye, Westchester Co NY Osborn Memorial Home for Aged Women – Anna L Blauvelt, inmate
  15. 1950 Federal Census, Rye Westchester Co NY – Osborn Memorial Home for Aged Women – Anna Blauvelt
  16. Alameda County Manual of Statistics and Information, 1908 page 67.
  17. Albany School of Fine Arts announcement pamphlet, 1911, page 5
  18. Barnard Bulletin, 5 Oct 1923
  19. Blauvelt, Anna La Tourette. The Piece Bag Book. Macmillan, NY, NY 1927
  20. Catalogue of Officers and Graduates of Columbia University (teachers college) XVI edition, NY 1916
  21. Chicago Tribune, 8 October 1908
  22. Coconino Sun, Flagstaff AZ 30 Jun 1911
  23. Columbia University 161st commencement book, published 2 Jun 1915
  24. Cummings, Carole Elizabeth Nurmi, research by Find-a-Grave contributor 47178231
  25. Elmwood Cemetery, North Brunswick, NJ Burial Files
  26. Evening Star, Washington, D. C. 5 January 1918, Page 11 “Albert Blauvelt Sad Death”
  27. findagrave.com/memorial/261220356/albert_m_zabriskie
  28. findagrave.com/memorial/261221067/ann_mcintyre_zabriskie
  29. findagrave.com/memorial/261260783/augustus_blauvelt
  30. findagrave.com/memorial/261318776/albert_a_blauvelt
  31. findagrave.com/memorial/47071723/anna-la_tourette-blauvelt
  32. findagrave.com/memorial/47071812/margaret-ann-boice
  33. High School Teacher, The magazine Vol III No 1
  34. House & Senate Journals 48th Gen Assem. State of Missouri V II 1915 – Salary appropriated for teachers and officers
  35. Industrial Arts Magazine Vol VII No 11 November 1918 p. 424
  36. Kingston Daily Freeman, 10 Jun 1915
  37. Kingston Daily Freeman, 11 Jan 1918 Local Death Record
  38. Kingston Daily Freeman, 17 Jan 1950
  39. Kingston Daily Freeman, 20 Jul 1920
  40. Kingston Daily Freeman, 22 Jun 1913
  41. Kingston Daily Freeman, 25 Jun 1915
  42. Kingston Daily Freeman, 30 Jun 1916
  43. National Parent-Teacher Magazine, The Sep 1928
  44. New York Daily Tribune, 27 Jun 1885
  45. New York Herald, 2 Jul 1878 p. 8 “AN INSANE CLERGYMAN”
  46. New York State Death Index, certificate #24097 Anna L Blauvelt
  47. New York Tribune, 3 May 1870 p.5
  48. Oakland, California city directory, 1909
  49. Playground and Recreation Association of America Magazine Vol XXI no 1, April 1927
  50. Progressive Education magazine Vol III No 1 Jan-feb-mar 1926 Industrial Arts Co-operative Service
  51. San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Sep 1909
  52. Santa Ana Daily Register, 16 Nov 1927
  53. School Arts Magazine Vol XII No 9 May 1914 page 664
  54. School Arts Magazine Vol XXV No. 6 Feb 1926 p. 339
  55. Seattle Union Record, 14 Dec 1927
  56. SUNY 109th annual report of Regents 1895 admin department vol 2 Academies. Transmitted to the legislature 11 Feb 1886, Albany 1897-1893 University of the State of NY – Erasmus Hall Academy, Flatbush. Faculty
  57. University of Vermont, Montpellier bulletin, Vol XIX No 6 1921-1922

Who first said “Hold’er Newt”?

15 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by in 20th Century

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Short answer: it’s rather hard to tell. 

However, though my (armchair) research cannot determine where the phrase first originated, I believe I have figured out why it’s so hard to find.

I didn’t find the phrase “Hold’er Newt!” (either on its own or followed by a subsequent phrase such as “she’s headed for the pea patch!”) printed in the newspapers I can search online earlier than 1922. This could mean that it’s a 20th century invention, however, vernacular turns-of-phrase are hard to find in official publications from over 100 years ago in general.

On an episode of the podcast A Way With Words they speculated that soldiers participating in WWI may have spread the phrase from its point of origin around the country, but this theory is unsourced. According to a woman who called in to their program, “Hold’er Newt, we’re goin’ round the corner” was a phrase regarding reckless driving used by a woman she knew from Cincinnati who was born in 1922. This woman also lived in Eastern NY State. The hosts noted that per a “dictionary of catchphrases” from 1922 “newt” was perhaps slang for dolt or idiot.

I believe that “Hold’er Newt” was 1) something one said when things were getting a little out of hand and needed to be reigned in, 2) spread around the country, obscuring its geographic origin, and 3) Newt, possibly a dumb-dumb, is the one being admonished to get a handle on “‘er.”

One evening in 2008 when I visited my late cousin Ron Losee at his home in Ennis, Montana we went outside and the screen door was about to bang closed behind us. I went to grab it, spontaneously calling out “Hold’er, Newt!.” This 93 year old man stopped in his tracks, looked at me and cried “now there’s an old Dutchess County saying I haven’t heard in a while!” He had relocated to Montana in the 1950s from the northeast and grew up in Upper Red Hook where he was born in 1919. 

Tim Sample, a humorist born in 1951, wrote about how he was familiar with the phrase from growing up in Maine in the Boothbay Register:

“Loosely translated it meant: “Just hang on awhile until we can get this situation under control.” If a gang of men was lifting a heavy load and it suddenly began to shift dangerously to one side, somebody would yell, “Hold ‘er Newt!” signaling the crew to stop and maintain a steady pressure (hold her) until help arrived.”

On searching through the newspaper archive website Old Fulton New York Post Cards, I found the phrase repeated hundreds of times in dozens of newspapers between 1922 and the 1930s and sporadically as late as 1983. In the body or in advertisements, I found it appearing mostly as a headline or tagline in the 1930s and a few times decades later. 

“Hold ‘er Newt.”—Newton P. Klemann had quite an experience last night near Olmito when his car plunged into the ditch and he found himself gliding through the air with nothing but the steering wheel in his hands. The car was not injured and after fixing the steering wheel Newt “reared” for home.  – Brownsville Texas Daily Herald, 16 Dec 1922

WHEN YOU’RE CASEY DRESSED YOU LOOK YOUR BEST… jackets, toppers, neckwear, handkerchiefs, but HOLD ‘ER NEWT, you’ve got to VISIT OUR EMPORIUM… – Penn Yan, NY Chronicle-Express 2 Aug 1951

The place it was most frequently repeated was as a line delivered in a comic called The Old Home Town by Lee Stanley. The comic (as far as my search can tell) began in 1921 and the phrase was first seen in 1922 and throughout the 1920s, and occasionally in later comics. This one-panel comic always presented a busy Richard-Scarry-esque scene from the titular Home Town where some silliness or other was befalling its residents. Often in the background one can spy a horse or mule behaving badly, rearing up and kicking, while a man with a tuft of curly hair atop his head attempts to rein it in and someone shouts at him “Hold’er Newt, she’s a rearin’!”

The Old Home Town by Lee Stanley, Niagara Falls Gazette, 17 Jul 1922

This was repeated in dozens of individual comics between 1922 and 1944 that I found online and was printed in newspapers in Niagara Falls, NY, Brownsville, TX, Athens, GA, and Perth Amboy, NJ and probably all over the country wherever it was syndicated. According to Stanely’s obituary in the Chicago Tribune of February 13, 1970 it was printed in over 400 publications. Newspaper readers in this time would surely have had this phrase compounded into their lexicon by The Old Home Town if it wasn’t there already.

In 1932, country recording artist (and two-time governor of Louisiana known for his recording of “You Are My Sunshine”) Jimmie Davis recorded a goofy little song called “Hold’er Newt.” The phrase “Hold’er Newt, she’s rarin’!” is called out because “that old grey mule” is misbehaving. 

The phrase and variants of it were used to advertise used cars, menswear, and in one instance for a welder in newspapers of the 40s and 50s. 

Hold ’Er Newt was also the title of a long-forgotten short-lived 1950’s children’s puppet TV show that ran opposite Howdy Doody in some northeast markets. According to Tim Hollis in his 2010 book Hi There, Boys and Girls! America’s Local Children’s TV Programs, the plot “took place in the Figg Center general store, where a group of old geezers gathered to swap whoppers with the owner, Newt Figg.” In one episode, a character called Mr. Nosegay tried to buy a cravat from a puzzled Newt who didn’t know what he was after. It would seem 1950s kids didn’t get the reference, either. It had a very brief run on ABC at 5:30 PM in 1950. The title and subject matter are lifted straight from Stanley’s The Old Home Town comic.

I could not find video or even still images of the TV show and it’s doubtful any are extant, but you can go to YouTube and listen to this goofy song. The chorus is the best part.  

Hold’er Newt, hold’er! Hold’er Newt, I say!

Hold’er Newt, hold’er! Don’t let her get away.

Hold’er Newt, she’s rarin’ Hold’er rar’, she’s newtin’!

Hold’er, hold’er, hold’er, hold’er!

Woop woop woop woop woop!

Trip to Saranac Lake, 1920

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in 20th Century, Genealogy

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“A Trip to the Adirondack Mountains”

John Losee, English I, Sept. 29, 1920

We had some relations living in the Adirondack Mountains who invited us to spend a few weeks with them. We decided to go. We went to Barrytown about six o’clock and took a train. The ride lasted all day and when we arrived Saranac Lake my uncle was there and he took us to his house. Saranac Lakes is not on the Saranac lakes but on Lake Flower. There is not very good swimming places in Lake Flower so we planned a picnic to another lake called Pine Pond.

Larry Losee, Irene Fraleigh, and John Losee at Saranac Lake c. 1918

Larry Losee, Irene Fraleigh, and John Losee at Saranac Lake c. 1918

To get there we had to go through several lakes and walk about one mile. It was a beautiful lake but had a poor beach. It went out about three feet and then dropped off quite steeply. We had a fine time except that I being used to a long beach ran in the water and went out a little too far and went under. We went from the lake and found our friends at the place we left our boat and we had a picnic in the woods. Then we went home.

Another day we went in a motor boat that carried passengers and had a nice trip through the lakes. We went to the movies several times.

“Poor conclusion” is written in red at the bottom.