Sepia Wednesday

Great great great (I'm not really sure how many "greats")Aunt Agnes (left in the photo below) was almost always on the conversation menu whenever my family came together for holidays and such.

The picture below was taken sometime after her much maligned move from Boston society to a small farm in Illinois.
  

Beside her is Dame Edith Sutcliffe.  It is odd that I don't remember Aunt Agne's last name although she was part of my distant family but I remember Sutcliffe from conversations even though there was no blood relationship with her.

It also seems strange to me, thinking back on it, that in the same moldy smelling first album there is a picture of Dame Sutcliffe's husband, Judge Jacob Sutcliffe, pictured below. 

 

I suspect the person who pasted photos into that album was either proud to have a picture of the great Judge Sutcliffe or perhaps the Judge was taken in by the family, in sympathy, after his wife's westward move.

Arguments around the dinner table often centered on whether she had run out of him or whether he had arranged to have her sent out west because of her political activities on behalf of women.  Looking at thge picture, I see that later in life, he still wore a wedding band.  Whether that had anything to do with his feelings for her or his belief in the legal authority of marriage, I don't know.

It was also argued but never known for sure how, before the operational, if not legal, failure of his marriage, the Judge and Dame Edith became part of Aunt Agnes's life.  She had been a spinster but very outspoken and it is thought she might have met Edith at a political meeting of women.  Although other peoples in my family have argued that she had something going with the judge.  However, that theory bears no weight because...

shortly after Dame Edith moved to Illinois, Agnes disappeared and neither of the women were ever discussed again for at least a generation.  There was only the picture at the top of this story which was sent back sometime later -- apparently to prove she was happy to those Agnes left behind that. Although they don't really look that happy, do they. 

But the photograph provided fodder for much debate for generations to follow.

PS: The Honorable Jacob Sutcliffe apparently was sullied by rumors that his wife had run off with a woman, and lost any opportunities for a political career -- unlike today when scandal seems an essential part of any political career.  The judge took to drinking in his later years and died of gout.

Hyperventilating

It’s the middle of the night and Bagman and Butler are awakened by quick-stepping footsteps and soprano hyperventilation. “Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god…

“White rabbit?” asks Bagman in the dark?

“No,” answers Butler, “The white rabbit says ‘I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.’ I think it’s our protoplasm having another panic attack. I think Mark is up earlier than usual and probably made the mistake of reading the all the new comments on his last blog.

“Oh my god! More followers! More blogs to read! So many talented creative people! How to keep up! How to keep up!” I stumble into my workroom at 3:00 a.m., slip on unfinished blogs about hermits and sculptors, hit my head on a clock that is moving too fast, and am out like a light in the dark room. Disembodied voices float around me.

BAGMAN: “Throw water on him!”

BUTLER: “We can’t do that! We don’t have any actual hands, remember? We’re just voices in his head! Let him rest.”

BAGMAN: “You can’t set a rule like that just because it suits you! How would people know that he’s not a figment of our imagination?” Bagman throws water in my face!

“Too many people,” I moan. “Too many blogs. Wonderful people. Blogs. Wonderful. Talented people!. Questions. Time. Too many. Too little. Too much. I can’t hold onnnnnnnnnn….”

BUTLER: “He’s delirious.”

BAGMAN: “Don't let him fool you. He’s loving every minute! In a minute he’s going to wake up and complain that he spent too much time looking at other people’s blogs to write the story about the sculptor who was cleaning the Minuteman Statue that stands at the Concord Bridge where the first shot of the Revolutionary War and how he was going to sell the photo to Boston Globe but he was too hungover to set the film speed right and he couldn’t make a good print until 32 years later when Photoshop was invented which was past the Globe’s deadline and then later when President Ford came to the Bicentennial Celebration he missed the shot because he was too drunk and and was throwing up behind on of New England’s iconic stone walls while the Secret Service looked on in disgust.

I open my eyes and focus, just tired now, never hungover. “Let me up. I need to respond to my followers questions and write about the sculptor who was cleaning the Minuteman…wait a minute! How did you guys throw water on me? You don’t have any hands!”

BUTLER: “Relax. Breathe into this paper bag. Bagman’s already told the story about the sculptor.”

BAGMAN: “You can start writing about your father’s hermit days tomorrow.”

BUTLER: “Or the next day or the day after that. You have to work in the booth today at the Black Expo Conference and hang insulation in your sister-in-law’s attic on Sunday. It can wait. People understand.

My eyes are focusing now. Coffee’s kicking in. The dawn is struggling to paint blue and pale yellow on the disappearing night. “Oh my god! The Black Expo! I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!”

BAGMAN (roaring with laughter): “I told you it was the White Rabbit!”

I run from the room, grabbing my laptop in case I have time to write about my Dad and E. Foster Atkinson if there is a break at the conference.

BUTLER (calling out as I disappear): “Your pants! Remember to put on your pants.”

BAGMAN: “I think more people would come to his booth if he doesn’t wear any!”

I realize there are only six more days before the next photo shoot-out. I think Barry said it would be about houses. Or was it graveyards. Where’s my camera?