Thursday, November 20, 1924. The marriage of my father's parents.

Which was oddly a Thursday.  I think of most weddings being on Saturday.

At least they are now.

The wedding was in Denver, where they had met and where my grandfather was working.  They'd live there until 1937, when they'd move to Scottsbluff.  In that time they had all of their children save for one, who would be born in Scottsbluff, the first one being born in 1926 and my father being born in 1929.

They were both 23 years old.  He had been on his own since age 13.  She was living with her parents in Denver, where they had moved after her father had closed his store in Leadville.  Her parents were of 100% Irish extraction, with her mother being from Cork.  His parents were of 100% Westphalian extraction.  They were both Catholic, although I don't know what church they were married in.  Likey one of the Catholic churches downtown.

The American Automobile Association of State Highway Officials approved a resolution recommending that states agree to a consistent system of numbered highways.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 18, 1924. Adding to the public domain.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1950s, 1954, Army, Black Hills, Calvin Coolidge, Commentary, Medicine, Personalities, Public Land, South Dakota, United States Forest Service

Sunday, March 30, 1924. Camp Carey

Wow, what headlines.

I linked this in because of the reference to "Camp Carey", a Boy Scout Camp somewhere on Boxelder Creek, the land for which was donated by former Governor Robert D. Carey.

The Casper Herald also mentioned it on the front page.

It's not there today, and I don't know where it is, or what happened to it.  A search for its fate was in vain, although through that method, I learned that it had been in existence as late as the 1950s and a local figure's obituary proudly noted his role in establishing it.  A Camp Carey Road exists in Wyoming, but it seems to be in the Pole Mountain area of Albany County, which this is not.  Indeed, there's a reference to a military "Camp Carey" that predates this 1924 Boy Scout establishment.

By 1925, Girl Scouts were also using the "woodland paradise".

In 1926, a terrible weather related tragedy occured there, apparently.

Twelve people died from drinking denatured alcohol at a party in Toledo, Ohio.  That is, alcohol with poisons added to it by regulation.

This is very common and is designed to keep industrial and commercial alcohol from being used as a drink.

The German People's Party announced its election platform of a "new democratic monarchy".

Last prior edition:

Saturday, March 29, 1924. Yesterday's news, or not. Morning mail.

1920s, 1924, 1950, 1950s, 1960, 1969, Crime, Mail, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Post Office, Teapot Dome Scandal, Weather

My father's side.

Lex Anteinternet: I had always thought my grandfather on my mother's...: but it turns out, he died in 1958. He was, therefore, about 67 years of age. Still not ancient by current standards, but not 58 years of age...

Carrying this forward, or over, or whatever it would be just a bit, my father's father died on October 9, 1949.  He was 47.  I'd been told by one of my aunts that it was on her birthday, but it was the day after her birthday when he died.  Close enough to burn in an indelible mark, I'm sure.

That aunt was born in 1931, which would have made her 17 or 18 at the time of his death.

His youngest son, my father's brother, was born in 1936, which would have made him 12 or 13, which is a bit older than I recalled.  It's still pretty young, however.  My father was born in 1929, which would have made him 19 or 20, older than I recalled, but it makes sense in context.  In both these instances, I think it's the younger age, 12 and 19, that would be correct.  My father would have just completed junior college, as they called it at the time.  His oldest sister, born in 1926 (the same year my mother was born) had been married three years and was living in Nebraska.  She was the only married sibling, naturally enough, at the time.

My married aunt would come back to Casper when her husband graduated from dental school.  He'd grown up at least partially in Nebraska, but had strong Casper family connections, but I'm not sure how that had come about.

My other aunt would go on to the University of Wyoming, something unusual for the time.  She didn't graduate.  I never thought much of that, but as the family story developed following her death the rest of us ultimately learned of a trauma that would have been about the time of her senior year there, so her failure to graduate, surprising for an extremely intelligent women, make sense.

My father's mother died in 1973, she was 71 at the time. That'd definitely older than I recalled (I had thought it was 65).  Somewhat unusually, both she and my father's father were born in the same year, 1901, making them about a decade younger than my mother's parents.  They married in 1923, when then both would have been 21 or 22.  It's interesting that the oldest of their children wasn't born until 1926, which at that time was a little bit of a delay.

I would have been ten when she died.  I can definitely recall it, and having been up at the hospital while she was ill.

Related thread:

I had always thought my grandfather on my mother's side died at age 58. . .

Saturday, June 2, 1923. Criqui v. Kilbane

Eugène Criqui knocked out Johnny Kilbane in the sixth round at the Polo Grounds in New York City to take the World Featherweight Title.  Babe Ruth, who had hurried over from a Yankee's game, was in attendance.

Cirqui.

Cirqui had been a professional boxer since 1910, although his career was interrupted by World War One during which he was shot in the jaw by a German sniper.  His jaw had been reconstructed with wire, the bone of a goat and silver.

He died at age 83 in 1977.

Kilbane.

Kilbane was from Ohio and from a classically difficult childhood.  He'd been boxing since 1907.  He served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War One and retired shortly after losing this fight.  He died at age 68 in 1957.

The Kaufman Act passed, requiring the electrification of all New York City railroads by the beginning of 1926.

The Federal Government wasn't taking New York's no to Prohibition lightly.

Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and Other Commonwealth Realms, April 21, 1926 to September 8, 2022.

 

From our post Queen Elizabeth in Canada.

My mother was born a mere five days later.

Queen Elizabeth II is the longest serving monarch in British history.  She grew up in a United Kingdom that was one of the most powerful nations in Europe and she came of age young, as many English did, due to the Second World War in which she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Services.  At the time of her birth to her parents, George and Elizabeth, the chances of her becoming monarch were remote.  The King at the time was King Edward VIII, who remained so until 1936 at which time he abdicated in order to marry Wallis Simpson.  Therefore, for the first ten years of her life, "Princess Lilybet" was on a different path in life.  Her name, therefore, was not intended to bring about a second Queen Elizabeth, recalling the controversial final Tudor monarch.

Princess Elizabeth in 1933.

She became Queen in 1952, following the death of her father, and remained Queen for seventy year, serving in that role with dignity, if occasionally with criticism, as the United Kingdom ceased to be an Empire and became a junior partner of the United States, then a member of the European Community and then Union, and then a country free of it.  She also went from being a young princess whose parents basically saved the monarchy, to seeing it threatened again as the media came to focus increasingly on their private lives, exposing conduct, which she did not participate in, which royals often had, but which had remained hidden from public eye.  In her final years, she delivered a speech regarding COVID 19 which many Americans lamented that their own leaders could not, making her appear to be so much more dignified than our own, that an American public that always somewhat regarded the British throne as their own, sort of, did more so.

God save the Queen.

Sunday Morning Scene. Churches of the West: St. Dominic Catholic Church, Old Highlands District, Denver Colorado.

Churches of the West: St. Dominic Catholic Church, Old Highlands Distric...: 

St. Dominic Catholic Church, Old Highlands District, Denver Colorado.

This is St. Dominic Catholic Church in the Old Highlands District of Denver, Colorado.  

This large Gothic style church was the second St. Dominic's in Denver, both of which, fittingly enough, were and are Dominican churches.  The church was originally associated with a school, but the school closed in 1973.  The Church itself was built in 1926, replacing one that had been built in the late 19th Century.

The rectory for the church stands next door and is just a bit older, having been built in 1923.

December 21, 1920. The Last War Savings Stamps of the Great War.

The last US War Saving Stamps, designed to help fund World War One as loans from the citizens to the government, were sold on this date in 1920. They matured on January 1, 1926.

KDKA in Pittsburg started regularly scheduled broadcasting, the first radio station in the United States to do so.