As September draws to a close, it occurs to me that many, many stories are left untold from my Labor Day trip to Pennsylvania. Today we will start at the Hagen History Center which serves Erie County, Pa. They have two campuses and we visited the one on Erie’s Millionaire’s Row.
The campus includes two historic mansions, a new building for exhibit space and a historic carriage house which is home to a gift shop and library/reading room. This is where you buy your tickets.
My friend had already been there and was excited for me to see a specific exhibit but she held her cards close. She didn’t show her hand until we were in the room and compared it to throwing me a surprise party.
What was so special?
They have Frank Lloyd Wright’s office.
You read that right. The walls, floors, furniture, typewriters, pencils and protractors. They have it all. It even has a unique smell that I couldn’t quite identify- aged wood, pipe tobacco, and brilliance?
And that remark about this being like a surprise party? This was way better than a party.
This is Frank Lloyd Wright’s San Francisco field office which he used while working on California projects. It was disassembled and sold to a private collector long ago before spending some time behind glass at the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.
Now at the Hagen in Erie, the office is no longer behind glass – you can walk through it! This is his desk! The office is relatively small with room for a desk, two guest chairs and a couch.
Those guest chairs, if you want to call them that, look rather unwelcoming to me.
This is the workroom. Notice the windows feature the image of the actual San Francisco view.
The view as you enter.
The secretary’s typewriter.
And her desk with the view.
And here’s the man himself keeping a sharp eye on visitors.
Walking through this space was near magical and I recommend going to see it if you are a fan of his work. Want to visit? Get more info here.
Also, come back tomorrow and we will have a look at his car!!!! It’s absolutely fabulous.
Next month marks the 100th anniversary of when Maude Collins became Ohio’s first female sheriff. She was appointed to the office when her husband Sheriff Fletcher Collins was shot and killed in the line of duty in 1925.
When the Vinton County Commissioners appointed the sheriff’s widow to the position, I suspect they thought it was an act of charity, something that would buy the young widow some time to plan for a fresh start. Back in the day, the sheriff’s family lived at the Sheriff’s Office. His wife was the jail matron. His five young children lived under the same roof as prisoners kept in cells. This was still customary in 1925.
So when Maude lost her husband, she lost her home too.
Maude was around thirty when she first put on the badge and I’m proud to say she proved to everyone that she was capable of doing the job. She was no one’s charity case. She investigated crimes including several murders, served warrants, patrolled the roads and arrested people just like a man would.
Women had only been voting for a few years when she was appointed Sheriff. She finished her husband’s unexpired term and then her name appeared on a primary election ballot across from some local men. She beat them pretty handily and went on to beat a male opponent in the general election. And a few years later, she went on to be elected county recorder.
Sheriff Maude busted up moonshine stills with a child at her hip. That’s because there were no social safety nets back then. There were no food stamps or welfare, no housing vouchers or even kindergarten to send her youngest to.
And when she finished her day, there wasn’t an electric washer and dryer at home to make sure the family had clean clothes or microwave meals for the nights she didn’t have time to cook.
I can’t fathom how she managed.
A double murder investigation she led gained her national attention. I have a copy of a mid- century “Startling Detective Magazine” that tells the story of a sensational murder.
Sheriff Maude is also in the state’s history books for being the first woman to deliver a prisoner (a man, no less) to the Ohio State Penitentiary in 1929. Incidentally, she was a descendent of the McCoy family that gained so much notoriety as part of the Hatfield and McCoy feud.
She must have been a character. I mean, to be a single working mom would be hard enough. To do it back then would have been a Herculean task. To do something so dangerous as be a sheriff would take true nerve. She did have a male deputy who seemed to be a decent guy and supportive of his boss but it would still have been such a hard life.
Her story was mostly lost to time until about 25 years ago. In fact, Belmont County, Ohio had been telling everyone that their lady sheriff, elected in 1976, was the first to do so in the country. No offense to her legacy but that woman wasn’t even born yet when Sheriff Maude was out breaking up moonshine operations. Plus, there were a few women sheriffs before our Sheriff Maude.
This story may ring a bell for you longtime readers. I helped the local historical society get an Ohio Historical marker a few years ago and wrote that story here.
I sit on the local tourism board and we raised money to have a mural painted in Sheriff Maude’s honor. It will be dedicated on October 9, the 100th anniversary of her becoming sheriff. We’ll have an open house at the visitors center along with some vendors that evening.
When we announced the mural project, we had a local woman suggest that celebrating Sheriff Maude wasn’t the best use of a mural. After all, she just got the job because her husband died and she didn’t have to work that hard.
I would love to time travel that woman back to 1925 and let her see how hard Maude had to work to balance home and job and to keep it together. Let her do better. Why are there always naysayers?
Sheriff Maude did everything a man would do only she had to do it better, with a family to care for and undoubtedly with a lot of naysayers waiting for her to fail. Remember, this was still a time when women were expected to stay home and raise a family rather than have jobs, homes and incomes of their own.
This is why we talk about our past and study our history. It’s up to us to keep alive these remarkable stories and to appreciate how pioneers like Sheriff Maude helped shape our community and open doors for others like her.
Women today need to remember that our rights to vote, drive, be educated work, and do as we please with our lives are not a given and can be taken away much more easily than they were won by those who came before us.
I am proud of the legacy that Sheriff Maude left behind. Representation is important and I hope that little girls across the county will go by this mural and know that any dream is possible and that women like Sheriff Maude worked to make it that way.
PS: The mural is being painted by an artist who is just as excited about Sheriff Maude’s story as I am. She’s incredibly talented so I hope you’ll look up Pam Kellough Murals on Facebook. I am a big fan of her work and hope you’ll be too! She’s pictured here on one of the early days of the mural work.
My week has been unnecessarily stressful mostly because of the choices of others. I’m pretty good at keeping my life reasonably calm but struggle sometimes to navigate circumstances caused by others.
Since stress is bad for human health, I’m doing my best to deflect and tune out other people’s shenanigans. This is often easier said than done but I’m giving it the old college try.
Last night I tried some mushroom hot chocolate to help support my sleep. This book, though, foiled attempts to drift off early. The Peach Keeper is a page turner!
Scout’s also doing his part to keep life pleasant as he alternates between luxuriating in sunny patches and curling up next to me every chance he gets. He rests most peacefully when his little body is pressed against my side. His purrs are mixed with sweet snoring when he’s truly relaxed.
We’ve had a fair amount of rain this week and loads of morning fog. Yesterday I looked out to find the butterfly bush by the window filled with spider webs. Someone was very busy, creating these magnificently complex designs.
They’re mesmerizing.
They’re also a timely reminder of how everything is connected and how pulling one thread can unravel the whole darn thing – whether it be in nature or in society at-large or in someone’s incomprehensible actions.
Remember this, friends: no one deserves your peace, your time, or space in your head unless you believe them worthy. As life, work, and the news seemingly become more busy and more convoluted with every passing day, it’s best to draw some boundaries and then do your best to stick to them.
A cat, a book and a cup of hot chocolate are powerful tools for holding the line against stress in my corner of the world. I hope you find something that works for you as well!
Fall is finally here and that means it’s vacation season for many of us. It’s the perfect time to travel because all the families with kids are back at home and, depending on where you go, it can cost less.
I have a couple of trips upcoming where I need a larger bag – something I can just check at the airport and pray makes it to my destination on the same day I do.
Unfortunately, I have traveled with just a strategically planned carry-on bag for so long I didn’t have a larger bag. The search for just the right suitcase has been on for a while now.
I had a checklist of requirements. It has to have spinner wheels and it can’t be too heavy. For that matter, it can’t be too big either. I’m traveling for a few days, not looking to smuggle a body through the airport. It couldn’t be black because, first of all, how unimaginative and second of all, have you seen the sea of black bags in any airport?
I searched online. I dragged my poor fella into stores. I dragged myself into stores alone so I could stand before a wall of exactly the wrong suitcases and agonize over why the world never seems to make exactly what I need..
And then last Friday night I found myself in Marshall’s admiring a suitcase the likes of which I had never seen. It met all the requirements and had the spinniest of spinner wheels. I really liked it but couldn’t decide if it was fabulously quirky or maybe a little tacky.
It’s a fine line sometimes.
I left it on the shelf and walked away until a few minutes later when I saw some guy man handling MY suitcase!
The nerve!
When he put it back on the shelf, I nabbed it, put it in my cart, and proceeded to torture myself with indecision for a good fifteen minutes. I finally put it back, worried that it might not hold up well.
Let’s stop here for a moment. Very few people know this about me but I have the attitude of a depression era farmer that every item I buy must last forever. I am disappointed every time I have to replace a skillet or pair of shoes because “they just don’t make things like they used to anymore.” As though I’m going to someday show up at the pearly gates with my forty year old egg skillet and a pristine suitcase in tow.
Yes, I am aware that I sound ridiculous. Just wait. It gets worse.
So I went home and immediately regretted the decision to leave it behind. And I woke up thinking about it on Saturday.
Why didn’t I just buy the darn thing and return it if I found something better?
That’s a great question.
I couldn’t find it online so, after a day of adventuring, I called Marshall’s and they did still have the suitcase. So my fella and I drove the forty minutes to retrieve the suitcase. Afterward, he asked what I wanted for supper and my answer was essentially “I don’t know but I’m wondering if I should have bought the carry-on size too.”
After all, I was never going to find it again. Long story short, this sweet guy volunteered to buy it for me. I’m still not sure if this generous offer was to give me something I really wanted or to buy himself some peace but I’m grateful either way.
Meet Thelma and Louise.
They will be easy to spot in the airport!
Tacky or cool? I’m still not sure but I think they’re me so it really doesn’t matter.
The moral of the story though is that I drove forty minutes one way to buy something I could have just bought and returned once I made up my mind. Also, I need to loosen my grip on this notion that things must last forever and just enjoy life once in a while!
“I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.”
Georgia O’Keeffe
The calendar says it’s fall so I trust that Mother Nature will figure it out again soon. I feel more like myself in the fall than any other time of year and I’m ready for that feeling again.
Life is harder in the summer and I’m exhausted as the warmer weather hangs on, wearing out its welcome in September.
I’m ready for the world to be beautiful again. I’m ready for cool days, long hikes, flannels and the smell of campfire smoke. I’m ready for spooky books and cozy blankets, for hot chocolate and the sense that anything is possible because nature is showing us how beautiful it is to let things go.
