Ramblings about genealogy
Part two of the Pinterest rainy day fest 
I’ve created a Pinterest Board with some of my articles, other people’s articles, and some lovely photos.
If you would like to follow my Hawaii Pinterest board, click on the link:
Follow Melody’s board Hawaii: The Sights and the History on Pinterest.
I am reading a surprisingly wonderful biography called The Rocket Girl. It’s about Mary (Sherman) Morgan, American’s first female rocket scientist. She worked for a company that did government contracts during the infancy of space race. Her many achievements included an inventing the rocket fuel used in our first rockets. Many of her contributions were lost until after her death when her son started digging up her story.
The chapter on Mary’s early childhood caught my interest. She grew up in North Dakota in the 1930s. Mary’s family never took photographs because, as the author wrote, her mother did not abide photography. When offered to have their photos taken, either by friend or a professional, her mother refused. She was completely against the whole practice.
It surprises me that this kind of view was present in the 1930s. I could see in the early years of photography that it might hit up against religious or societal views against vanity and the like. But, you would think by the 1930s, most people would have had a baby, school, or marriage photo done.
I’ve never run into a relative or ancestor who refused to be photographed on the grounds that it might not be morally right. Was this a widespread view?
I wonder if this was really what Mary (Sherman) Morgan’s mother believed or if there was something else behind it. As a genealogist, I find it sad especially for her offspring. Her son realized too late that preserving photographs would be important to her story and to himself. How sad it would be to have no photographs of ones family. And, how thankful I am that my family has many!
Have you come across anyone in your tree who was opposed to photography? Don’t count those who seemed to avoid cameras…LOL
In this video, Mary Sherman’s son discusses her achievements.
We often look back a hundred or two hundred years ago and think of it as the “simple life”. Hard work and none of the problems of modern life. But, was it really that way or did they just have different problems?
I found this ad in a January 1906 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. It starts out “Woman’s Nature is to love children, and no home can be completely happy without them, yet the order through which the expectant mother must pass usually is so full of suffering, danger and fear that she looks forward to the critical hour with apprehension and dread.”
Wow! That makes childbirth sound like so much fun. NOT!
Mother’s Friend has “soothing and penetrating properties”. It can deal with nausea, nervousness, unpleasant feelings. It even helps the woman pass through the “event” safely.
Notice that pregnancy and childbirth aren’t even mentioned?
This gem cost $1.00 per bottle. Even comes with a book with valuable information. What a steal.
So, what was Mother’s Friend? Was it an ointment, a drug, a herbal concoction, sugar water? I have no clue because the ad never says. But, now I’ll I have is the Rolling Stone’s “Mother’s Little Helper” rolling around in my head.
