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<\/a>F.D. Lewis, No. 9 Wall St. Kingston, N.Y. – Miss Anna L. Blauvelt – author\u2019s collection<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
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\u2014I 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 \u201cminiature print\u201d of a young woman with 1890s curled bangs. Not only was there the photographer\u2019s name and location, but a name written in pencil on the reverse.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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]<\/em><\/p>\n Anna\u2019s 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 \u201chis mother-in-law going on his bond\u201d. Proving this, we find three-year-old Anna recorded in her grandmother Ann Zabriskie\u2019s home in Bayonne in 1870 when the census was taken.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cenemies\u201d, such as \u201cliquor dealers\u201d he believed he\u2019d angered with his temperance writings, were trying to harm him. In another case of mental illness in the family, Anna\u2019s brother Albert would dramatically take his own life in 1918 for unknown reasons.<\/p>\n School Arts Magazine, Vol XXV No. 6, February 1926 p. 339<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n 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 \u201chighest honors\u201d 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 \u201cmanual\u201d or \u201cindustrial\u201d art which included trade work, such as mechanical drawing and handwork, such as basket weaving, embroidery, and sewing.<\/p>\n 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<\/em> starting as early as 1911. In 1914 she became the Director of Manual Arts at North Arizona Training School in Flagstaff.<\/p>\n Anna received a B.S. in education from Columbia teacher\u2019s 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\u2014an organization established to inform teachers of new ideas for instructing children in arts and crafts.<\/p>\n In 1927, Macmillan published The Piece Bag Book, A First Book of Sewing and Weaving<\/em> written by Anna La Tourette Blauvelt and illustrated by Truda Dahl, a small, hardcover \u201cwork and play\u201d book that \u201cencourages little girls to learn to sew by suggesting things that they can make for their dolls and their playhouses\u201d. At the time of publication her book was part of the \u201cWork and Play\u201d series of books, including four other titles by other authors: Your Workshop<\/em>, With Scissors and Paste<\/em>, and Playing with Clay<\/em>.<\/p>\n First illustration and title page of The Piece Bag Book by Anna La Tourette Blauvelt, Macmillan, 1927<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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\u2019s dialog is written in cute, century-old vernacular and the instructions are clear and simple to follow as such an instructional book should be.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n When the 1940 census was taken, Anna had reached the age of 72 and was a resident of a \u201cHome for Aged Women\u201d, 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n In the 1950s, two of Anna\u2019s 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\u2019s remains. One of them wrote in 1958 that \u201cat present she seems quite well although she is 90 and senile.\u201d The cousins were Margaret \u201cMadge\u201d 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\u2019s sister Jane Zabriskie was Anna\u2019s mother. It was very kind of them to go to such lengths to make sure she found her way back home.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n A visit to Anna’s resting place, Elmwood Cemetery, North Brunswick, NJ<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n One of my favorite things to do as a local history researcher is to bring forgotten people to light once …<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>\n