Posts Tagged "Syracuse New York"
Love Letters, Chapter 8
I Married Them by Janet Dunning Van Duyn
New here? This is the eighth chapter of a story that began with a pair of love letters I purchased on ebay. Start from the beginning….
Happy Valentine’s Day! I have lots to report this week, including a phone call with Dr. John Van Duyn’s youngest daughter. I also have an update to my Villa Am Meer story, which I’ll (hopefully) post later this week.
But first! A book report on I Married Them, a humorous novel by Janet Dunning Van Duyn.
** SIDEBAR **
If you’re like me, you’ve probably been wondering how to pronounce the name Van Duyn. Is it Van-Doo-Win or Van-Doo-Ween? Well, the answer is neither. The actual pronunciation is Van-DINE.
** END SIDEBAR **
A few things first… just to recap. Janet Dunning was the first wife of Dr. John Van Duyn (see Chapter 6 for full details). They were married December 21, 1935 in Syracuse, New York. After they were married, John and his new wife Janet moved into the Leavenworth Mansion at 607 James Street. They lived there with John’s parents, Dr. Edward S. Van Duyn and his wife Lucy (Leavenworth), as well as John’s younger sister, Constance. I Married Them is a fictional novel that depicts the real life of the prominent but eccentric Van Duyn family.
I first learned of this book’s existence when I found a biography of Janet Van Duyn in a 2002 book called Contemporary Authors (Publisher: Tom Gale). I did a search online and found a used copy for sale on ebay. I won the auction and paid $1.00 for the book, plus shipping.
The book starts like this: “The train moved sluggishly across the New York Central trestle on East Hall Street, throwing up little puffs of smoke which hung depressingly in the morning sky.”
Aboard the train is Cleary, the eighty year old Irish seamstress for the MacLean (Van Duyn) family. She’d been the family seamstress for over sixty years, coming to work by horse car, cable car, “or whatever the current conveyance may be” to do the sewing (and whatever else had to be done) for the MacLean family.
“Most of East Hall Street is wide and beautiful, with great arching trees and venerable houses. The houses ranging along it in dignified rows from the trestle all the way up to the hill are solidly built painfully respectable, and appallingly homely.”
“The house on the corner of East Hall Street ad Sullivan Hill was no exception; there was plenty of smoke and soot with which to woo the Greek Temple that was the home of the Doctors MacLean.”
As Cleary arrives at work, she recalls how fearful she was of the bronze statues that guard the front walk.
“Cleary wasn’t the only one who had been frightened by these austere creatures. Many of Parthia’s small children had dashed tearfully into their parents’ arms at the sight of them. Older children were braver, of course, and sometimes downright impudent to these twin guardians of the MacLean family seat. They kicked them, rode them, used them as targets for sling-shots, and even went so far as to knock them from their pedestals regularly every Halloween.”
As Cleary arrives at work, she asks Binnie, the cook, for a cup of weak coffee. Binnie tells her they’re out of cream and asks Cleary to run over to Viglione’s to get some.
“Viglione’s was the Italian grocery on Sullivan Hill. It was used by the MacLeans as a kind of auxiliary ice box, for it seemed impossible to keep enough food in the house to satisfy the various appetites of all the family and their friends. The problem was neatly solved by never having much of anything on hand and letting people run over to Viglione’s when they wanted something to eat. The MacLeans lived off Viglione’s by a sort of symbiosis, a fundamental and easy arrangement. It was just a step across the hill from the side door, and what was the use of loading up pantry shelves when one had a grocery store practically in one’s own kitchen?”
By page 15, author Janet Van Duyn had set the scene so well, I felt I already had a strong sense of who this family was, even though none of the main characters had even been introduced yet.
Chapter one, “The Toast is Burning,” introduces the characters one-by-one in a chaotic breakfast setting, which appears to be just another “day in the life” of the eccentric MacLean family. Cleary begins the day by preparing a tray for “Doctor Mac,” the elder of the two doctors living in the mansion (the eldest, Dr. MacLean Sr., has already died at this point). As she climbs the stairs to his bedroom, the author gives this description of the historic Syracuse home:
“The hall was very dark, since it ran straight through the center of the house and was blocked off in the middle by a double door separating the front from the back. At the front were two parlors on each side of the hall, called the Red Room and the Green Room. They were high and spacious affairs, containing huge carved antiques which Colonel Davenport had had made to order. The Red Room had a red carpet and long red portieres; the Green Room had the same in faded green. In each room hung an elaborate crystal chandelier, and each had a marble fireplace over which gaped an enormous gilt mirror. These mirrors were so large they almost covered the side walls, making the rooms seem twice as spacious as they really were. When the doors were wide open the hall was flooded with light; when they were closed, as they were now, one groped his way through nubian blackness, hoping for the best.”
Click this link to see real photos of the mansion, including scans of the original blueprints…
Leavenworth Mansion, first and second floors
As the breakfast scene progresses, we learn that Doctor Mac often had his breakfast in bed because of a chronic cough he inherited from his service in World War I. On this particular day, however, he decides to join the rest of the family in the breakfast room, “the small bright cubicle behind the Green Room which the MacLeans used for all family meals because it seemed cozier and more convenient to the kitchen than the large state dining room across the hall.”
Here’s how Janet Van Duyn describes each of the characters, in order of appearance:
Dr. George MacLean – (Dr. John Van Duyn in real life, the recipient of my ebay love letters.) “There was a commotion on the stairs that sounded like the noise of several people descending rapidly. It also sounded like the special noise my husband, George, made whenever he had a tilt with stairs. He came bounding into the room looking like an Arrow collar model gone wrong. Like Doctor Mac, George was also a physician and was making impatient preparations to follow in his father’s footsteps. Someday he’d become one of Parthia’s leading surgeons.” (George is a high-energy, fiercely-competitive, absent-minded professor. He reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, especially with this line, “Aw, just leave me Dick Tracy, won’t you Binnie? I’ll take it up to him later.”)
Pim MacLean – (Constance Van Duyn in real life, John’s younger sister. She attended the same boarding school as the author and was the maid of honor in John and Janet’s wedding. She was also an actress, puppeteer, and fortune-teller in her day.) “The seductive Levantine Princess—at least that—paused in the doorway, fluttered a hand condescendingly in Binnie’s direction, then advanced into the room with a dignity which remained impressive despite the clack-clack of common flapping mules. She was arrayed in a brilliant Japanese kimona and the large orange poppies embellishing it flashed and danced as she swayed voluptuously over the table. Stately and perfectly poised, with slanting green eyes, and an aggressive chin gallantly supported by a firm jaw, she gave the general impression of being what a Levantine Princess loos like before breakfast—until you noticed that her neck was draped with what appeared to be a string of freshly caught fish—silver perch.” (Pim is easily bored, especially with her frequent male suitors.)
Doctor Mac – (Dr. Edward S. Van Duyn in real life. ) “He was a short, stocky man with thinning white hair. On his face was a perpetual scowl, but it denoted absorption in what he was doing, not ill-humor. When he walked he bent over slightly, as if he thought that by doing so he would arrive at his destination more quickly. At the moment his destination was obviously breakfast, and no more fuss. He stumped over to the table and began to cough. The toaster had started to smoke again. He flipped out a slice of blackish toast and burned his fingers as he did so.” (Doctor Mac is a curmudgeony old coot who plays a mean hand of bridge, but has very little patience and even less bedside manner.)
Carrie – (Lucy Leavenworth Van Duyn in real life.) “Carrie now came into the breakfast room. She’d taken the time to dress, a good three minutes at the outside. Her dress was on wrong side out, her hair was combed and arranged in front but hung in long, gray locks down her back. My mother-in-law was a handsome woman, with straight, prominent features and flowing light brown eyes. Her body was thin and wiry and she had the kind of slimness that makes clerks in specialty shops say enviously: “Madame does not need a corset; the Lord has given her one.” (Carrie is the tie that binds this family together, yet she’s as funny and eccentric as they come. She’s loves to entertain and jumps at any opportunity to swing from the chandeliers, even if she’s entertaining heads of state.)
Next time… a few more of my favorite excerpts from the book, as well as my conversation with Dr. John Van Duyn’s daughter.
Read MoreLove Letters, Chapter 7
The General Leavenworth Mansion – Syracuse, New York
New here? Start from the beginning….
This story started with a pair of love letters I found for sale on ebay. They were written in 1949 by a woman named Ruth Ives of White Plains, New York, and addressed to a Dr. John Van Duyn of Duluth, Minnesota. I bought them with the intent of finding the original owners (or their families) and returning them. Easy… especially since I live in Minnesota.
Or so I thought.
As it turns out, Dr. John Van Duyn wasn’t from Minnesota at all. I’m still not clear exactly how he ended up in Duluth, Minnesota in 1949 (still working on that), but I’ll get to that later. What I did learn from the 1920 U.S. Census and other data available on Ancestry.com, is that Dr. John Van Duyn was a third generation surgeon from Syracuse, New York. He belonged to a prominent family there, and lived in a historic mansion at 607 James Street.
(A mansion, you say? Oh yes, a mansion.)
Leavenworth Mansion, 1934 - Syracuse, New York
Work began on the Leavenworth Mansion in 1839, while Leavenworth was President of Syracuse Village. It was designed by architect Deacon Elijah Hayden, one of the first architects in Syracuse, and was completed in 1842. You can read much more the Leavenworth Mansion on the “Syracuse Then and Now” web site.
On September 2, 1945, the Leavenworth Mansion was featured on the front page of the Syracuse Herald-American. The article was the first in a series concerning historic houses in the Syracuse vicinity.
The Leavenworth Mansion was featured in a 1945 article in the Syracuse Herald-American
“Technically, it is known as the General Leavenworth mansion; colloquially it is called the Van Duyn house…”
“From a home standpoint, it might be well to consider that this is where Dr. Edward Seguin Van Duyn makes his residence with Mrs. Van Duyn. He is the present head of a family internationally famous, but “Who’s Who in America” states simply that he is a surgeon, born in Syracuse, Aug. 20, 1872, the son of John and Sarah (Faulks) Van Duyn. He was graduated from Syracuse University with an M.D. degree in 1897 and married Lucy Leavenworth Ballard on Feb. 4, 1903. Their children are listed as Mary L., John and Constance.”
The article goes on to talk about Janet (Dunning) Van Duyn’s book, I Married Them, which was published the same year as the article.
“Now comes the version in a book entitled “I Married Them,” by Janet Van Duyn. On an introductory page is the warning: “This is a work of fiction. While certain aspects of its background and its characters are drawn from experience, it is not intended as a factual or biographed report in any sense.”
“Then the author, described on the publisher’s jacket as ‘blonde, blue-eyed, cool, detached,’ has this to say in her opening chapter, called “The Toast Is Burning:”
“The house on the corner of East Hall Street and Sullivan Hill was no exception; there was plenty of smoke and soot with which to woo the Greek Temple that was the home of the Doctors MacLean.”
“This mansion of an architecture known as ‘pure Greek’ – from which the American Colonial is said to have been adapted – crowned the top of three ragged terraces and was approached by a flight of irregular stone steps guarded, half way up, by two ferocious bronze lions. Built in the eighteen thirties by Col. Jonas Davenport, the maternal grandfather of the man I married, its high Ionic columns and gabled roof gave it a purity of line and dignity which neither the ravages of time nor the onslaught of soot has been able to destroy. A century ago the house had been beautiful and imposing; now even though the blinds sagged and the lawn was unkempt, it still retained a certain grandeur.”
Next time… my favorite excerpts from Janet Van Duyn’s book (it’s very funny)…
Read MoreLove Letters, Chapter 5
New here? Start from the beginning…
Dr. John Van Duyn – third in a line of prominent Syracuse physicians
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, filled with family, friends, peace and celebration. We had a great Christmas and are looking forward to New Year’s Eve when my husband and I will attempt to prepare our first-ever Crown Roast for a small group of friends. (Seriously, how hard can it be?) More on that next time.
Since I blogged last, I have attempted to contact Ruth Ives’ niece who currently lives in California. So far, no luck, but I’ll keep trying. In the meantime, here’s some more background on the recipient of Ruth’s love letters, Dr. John Van Duyn of Duluth, Minnesota.
Edward Seguin Van Duyn, M.D. (1872-1955) Administrator of the Syracuse State School and the middle of three generations of prominent Syracuse physicians.
The following excerpt details the life of Dr. John Van Duyn’s grandfather, also named John Van Duyn, and is taken from the book Encyclopedia of Biography of New York: A Life Record of Men and Women of the Past, Volume 4 by Charles Elliott Fitch.
VAN DUYN, John, M. D.,
Civil War Veteran, Physician.
One of the foremost members of the medical fraternity of Syracuse, Dr. John Van Duyn, in whom the public has long reposed trust and confidence of his skill, was born in Kingston, New York, July 24, 1843, a son of Abraham and Sarah Van Duyn.
His early education, which was of a literary and classical nature, finally led to his graduation from Princeton in the class of June, 1862, and thus broadly equipped, he undertook the study of his profession, having paved the way to success by first learning the power of expressing himself.
His degree of M. D. was received from the Kentucky School of Medicine. At that time he enlisted his services in defence of his country, was a member of the medical cadet corps, and upon receiving his medical degree he became assistant surgeon in the United States Volunteers, and continued as such until the fall of 1865. After the war, Dr. Van Duyn turned his attention to building up a practice, locating at first in the State of New Jersey, where he remained until the year 1868, when he removed to Syracuse, New York, this move being due to his relations with Dr. Wilbur, the founder of the State Idiot Asylum, who offered him the position of physician to that institution, in which capacity he served for a short period of time. He then engaged in private practice in Syracuse, which in due course of time became both extensive and important. He has also taught in the Medical School of Syracuse University since its establishment, and his ability as an educator has found no fewer encomiums than his ability in the art of healing. Many are the scholars who will pass along the secrets of his vast knowledge, for as a teacher Dr. Van Duyn has given as freely of his gifts as he has received them. He was one of the originators and founders of the Syracuse Free Dispensary and of the Hospital of the Good Shepherd, serving the latter institution in the cacapity of surgeon. He is also surgeon for the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. He is a member of the Syracuse Academy of Medicine, of the American Ophthalmological Society, of the American Otological Society and of the New York State Medical Association. He is president of the University Club of Syracuse, president of the Princeton Club of Central New York, a member of the Hospital Association, of the Onondaga Country Club, of the Ka-Noo-No Karnival Company, of the Automobile Club, of the Loyal Legion, and of the Grand Army of the Republic. In Masonry he has taken all the degrees of the York Rite and has attained the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite. He has, moreover, given of his time as commissioner of education and as health officer, in both of which offices he rendered valuable service. In February, 1915, the Syracuse Academy of Medicine and the Onondaga County Medical Society gave an entertainment in honor of the completion of his fiftieth year in the practice of medicine.
Dr. Van Duyn married, December 1, 1866, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Sarah Faulks, who bore him two sons and one daughter, namely: Edward Seguin, Wilbur, and Gertrude, who became the wife of E. F. Southworth, of Syracuse. Edward Seguin Van Duyn was born in August, 1872; graduated from the Syracuse High School, class of 1889; Princeton University, class of 1894; Syracuse Medical College, class of 1897; Rhode Island Hospital, 1899, and studied in New York and abroad during the years 1900 and 1901. He is professor of clinical surgery at the Syracuse University Medical School, surgeon of the Hospital of the Good Shepherd and of the Syracuse Free Dispensary, consulting surgeon of the Ogdensburg State Institution, president of the board of managers of the Syracuse State Institution for the Feeble Minded, and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Professor Edward S. Van Duyn had conferred on him the degrees of B. S., M. D. and F. A. C. S. Mrs. Van Duyn died December 21, 1915. For many years she was prominent in social circles of Syracuse. She was a member of the Fortnightly Club, of which she was one of the founders, and the Social Arts Club. She was widely known in church circles and took an active interest in causes of religious and charitable natures.
The Rev. Dr. A. H. Fahnestock, pastor of the First Ward Presbyterian Church, a cousin of Mrs. Van Duyn, officiated at the funeral services and interment was in Oakwood Cemetery.
The demands made upon Dr. Van Duyn by his profession have left him little time to lead what might be generally termed a social life. But this man, to whom so many have come in time of need to profit by what he has learned through wide study, research, investigation and experiment, can claim undoubtedly more of a place in the hearts of the people than one who has striven merely to be socially popular.
Next time… more on Dr. John Van Duyn’s first wife, author Janet Dunning Van Duyn
Read MoreLove Letters, Chapter 4
New here? Start from the beginning…
An introduction to Dr. John Van Duyn
I’m hunkered down at my parents’ house this weekend, waiting out a big Minnesota snowstorm. I’d driven in yesterday, with plans to make 25 pounds of Swedish meatballs today with my mom. The meatball extravaganza will start later this morning; then it’s anyone’s guess whether I’ll be able to make the two hour drive home again. Guess we’ll cross that snowdrift when we come to it.
A word to all the Minnesota Christmas tree farmers and retailers out there… we feel your pain! For those of you who don’t know me, my family has been growing and selling Christmas trees my entire life. In Minnesota, this is the third weekend in a row we’ve had a Friday-Saturday snow storm, and when you only have those three weekends each year to make a living… well, you see the dilemma. Make a tree farmer happy and go buy a real tree on Monday.
Now… a brief recap of my Love Letters story.
Last month, I purchased a lot of two love letters on ebay, postmarked 1949 from White Plains, New York. They were written by a woman named Ruth Ives, and addressed to a Dr. John Van Duyn who was living/practicing in Duluth, Minnesota. Being an avid genealogist myself, my hope was to find Ruth Ives, or her family, and return the letters. I’m still working on that.
In the meantime, I wanted to know more about Dr. John Van Duyn, and whether his family was still living in Duluth. I had previously done a quick search for John Van Duyn on Ancestry.com, using 1920 as an approximate birth date, and Minnesota as a birth location. I found some Van Duyns living in South Dakota, Indiana, and Ohio, but nothing looked promising. I restricted my search to U.S. census data only, and noticed there were no Van Duyns living in Duluth on the 1910, 1920, or 1930 census. That told me he’d probably been born somewhere else and moved to Duluth sometime after 1930.
** SIDEBAR **
You may be wondering why I didn’t bother checking the 1940 census, since these letters were postmarked in 1949. To protect the privacy of living U.S. residents, there is a 72 year privacy mandate on all U.S. census data, so it’s not yet possible to check the 1940 U.S. Census for John Van Duyn. Of course, if you’re a genealogist, the date April 2, 2012 is especially significant to you. That’s when the 1940 census is officially released to the public. (Hoo ahh.) I’m assuming Ancestry.com will be experiencing some serious server crashes on that day.
** END SIDEBAR **
However, now that I knew more about Ruth Ives, I was able to narrow down my search for John Van Duyn a bit more. First, I knew she’d been born in 1917, so instead of using a birth date of 1920, I tried 1915, plus or minus 5 years.
I scrolled past several records for Van Duyns living in South Dakota, Indiana, and Ohio, and then I recognized something… an odd word I’d seen somewhere before… “Onondaga.” It was the name of a county in Syracuse, New York. I clicked on the record, and it took me to a page from the 1920 U.S. Census, showing the Edward and Lucy Van Duyn family, with children Mary, age 16, John, age 14, and Constance, age 9. They also had a 51 year old servant living with them, and a 37 year old boarder named Alice David. Sounded like the Van Duyns were pretty well-off in 1920.
I went back to my original search results, and noticed something else that jumped out at me… a John Van Duyn from Syracuse, New York listed on the U.S. School Yearbooks Index. I clicked on the record, and there was that word again… Onondagan… I knew I’d seen it somewhere before. That’s the name of Syracuse University’s yearbook, the one where I’d found a photo of Ruth Ives from 1947.
This record took me to a page from the 1932 Onondagan Yearbook, showing the current members of Nu Sigma Nu, a medical fraternity. Though he wasn’t included in the photo, John Van Duyn was listed, along with his father, Edward Van Duyn, as “Members in Faculty” of Syracuse University. So, there you have it. Our Dr. John Van Duyn was a member of the faculty at Syracuse University… the same school where Ruth Ives (the author of the love letters) was also a faculty member.
I went back to my search results once more and found a 20 year old John Van Duyn listed in the 1929 volume of the Bric A Brac Yearbook from Princeton University. I knew it was the right John Van Duyn since his address matched that of the 1920 U.S. Census – 607 James Street, Syracuse, New York.
I still hadn’t found a photo yet, but I was building a timeline. John Van Duyn was born sometime around 1909. In 1929, he was attending Princeton University for his undergraduate work, and by 1932, he was a member of the medical faculty at Syracuse University.
I scrolled down a bit farther in my list of search results and found two more records for John Van Duyn. The first one was on the New York Passenger Lists. On June 13, 1922, John Van Duyn, age 16, arrived in New York City from Cherbourg, France. His birth date was listed as July 24, 1905, address 607 James Street in Syracuse. Interestingly, he was traveling with another John Van Duyn, presumably his grandfather, who shared the same birthday as young John Van Duyn, July 24, 1843. He was 78 years old, living at the same address as young John, and born in Kingston, New Jersey.
The next record was a listing of Georgia Deaths from 1919-1998. John Van Duyn, age 80 years, died on January 10, 1986 in Muscogee County.
So, I now knew that both the author and the recipient of my love letters had passed away. In order to return the letters, I’d need to re-focus my search on living family members.
Well… it’s time to make the meatballs. I’d like to wish everyone who reads my blog a very Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season. I’ll try to blog again soon, though I’m hopelessly behind on “all things Christmas” this year. I’ll try to squeeze in a few lines in the next few days… in between shopping, baking, shipping… etc.
Next time… much more about Dr. Van Duyn (and I don’t just mean John!), and my progress on trying to track down Ruth Ives’ family.
Read MoreLove Letters, Chapter 3
New here? Start from the beginning…
An introduction to Ruth L. Ives
In 1949, Ruth Ives was 32 years old, living in Syracuse, New York. A native of White Plains, near New York City, I was curious how/why she’d ended up in Syracuse… a city in Central New York, about 150 miles east of Buffalo. I started Googling.
Syracuse Herald Journal - January 8, 1947
I found another photo of Ruth Ives from the Syracuse University yearbook, dated 1947. Miss Ives was also mentioned in the 1949 yearbook (the same year the love letters were written) in this description of the Opera Workshop, for which she was the director:
Ruth Ives, Onandagan Yearbook, 1947
I found one other mention of Ruth Ives, in the 2009 obituary of her brother, Edward “Sandy” Ives. You may recall in Ruth’s second letter she referred to her brother Sandy when she was asking John Van Duyn about his new car: “Do tell me more about the car. What color is it? Is it four door? Dad and Sandy say that 4000 miles is practically brand new.”
It turns out Ruth’s younger brother, Sandy, was a respected English professor who took up an interest in folklore and folksong history while he was teaching at the University of Maine. He became a respected author, historian, performer, and recording artist of northeast/northwoods folksongs. Heres a snippet from Sandy’s obituary, published in the Bangor Daily News on August 4, 2009:
Edward D. “Sandy” Ives passed away peacefully Aug. 1, 2009, at his home. Sandy was born Sept. 4, 1925, in White Plains, N.Y., the son of Warren L. and Millicent (Dawson) Ives. In addition to his loving family, he leaves behind a legacy of songs, stories and cherished memories among the countless people whose lives he touched as teacher, researcher, writer and friend. He was predeceased by his parents; an infant brother, Baby John; and his beloved sister, Ruth.
By now, I had a pretty good idea of who Ruth Ives was. From her letters, we know she’d moved back to White Plains from Syracuse in 1949 and was working at Altman’s Department Store in the cosmetics department. She was a fairly good tennis player, a terrible bridge player, and she was very much in love with a doctor by the name of John Van Duyn, working at the Arrowhead Clinic in Duluth, Minnesota.
So, who was this mysterious Dr. John Van Duyn? How did they ever meet? Did they ever work out their differences and get married? More next time…
Read MoreAbout Me
Join me in my sporadic ramblings as I embrace the curious life. Wife of a turkey farmer. Mother of two teenage boys. Avid ponderer. Treasure seeker. Curator of the written word. I enjoy sparking interest in the mundane and uncovering a compelling backstory.
