Madame Williams

Sarah Bernhardt and Blanche Legereau in "Gismonda" presented at at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in 1894.

Sarah Bernhardt and Blanche Legereau in "Gismonda"
presented at at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in 1894.

In 1959 the Oak Ridge School System tried an experimental foreign language program in Woodland Elementary School. There the experiment found expression in the form of a most singular individual: a vivacious middle-aged Parisienne known to us kids simply as "Madame Williams". Her marching orders seem to have been a simple: introduce young students to French language and culture by means of …play!

Towards that end the school system had found the perfect teacher/performer/playmate for the job. "Madame Williams" was none other than Blanche Legereau, who as a child performer, had toured the world with the Sarah Bernhardt Troupe for seven years until the death of "Madame Sarah" in 1923. 

Mme. Williams never simply walked into our classroom. Oh non non! Rather, she would make a grand entrance as she burst through the door, a human whirlwind of beads, scarves, perfume, and  joie de vivre.

"Bonjour mes petits chéris, vous allez bien ?" she would announce in a loud voice, trained no doubt by Madame Bernhardt to carry to the last row in a large theater. I'm sure Mr. Maxwell, our school principal heard her through the closed door of his office at the far end of the building. Then as she scooped us up out of our chairs, crushing us with embraces and kisses as she flourished her beads and scarves, she would lead us in singing...

Sur le Pont d'Avignon

On y danse, On y danse

Sur le Pont d'Avignon

On y danse tous en rond.

On an imaginary bridge the boys would deeply bow to the girls as we sang...

Les beaux messieurs font comme ça

Et puis encore comme ça.

And as they curtsied they girls would reciprocate with...

Les belles dames font comme ça

Et puis encore comme ça.

And so it would go for the next 45 minutes or so until, just as dramatically as she had entered, Mme. Williams would take her leave and vanish down the hall to the next "class". I felt sorry for our teacher Mrs. Dougher, who had to re-establish order in the classroom. Mme. Williams was a very hard act to follow indeed.

Unfortunately, when I moved on to more traditional foreign language classes I discovered that none of the "real" language teachers (bless their academic hearts) could hold a candle to Mme. Williams. I did poorly. So poorly in fact, that my Seventh Grade French teacher advised me that since I obviously had no aptitude for foreign languages I should abandon her class and take auto mechanics instead while there was still time for me to learn something that I could use in life. I ignored her advice, preferring to remain in her class, among my friends, rather than risk an uncertain fate among the cigarette smoking, grease-stained troglodytes who inhabited the auto mechanics building.

In those days movies about ancient Rome were popular: Quo Vadis in 1951, The Robe in 1953, Ben Hur in 1959, Spartacus in 1960, and Cleopatra in 1963. So when I entered Oak Ridge High School in 1964 and discovered that the language of Julius Caesar was a choice I signed up for Latin 1 where I had better luck than with French. But only barely. I was now a "C" student rather than a "D" student. I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that being constantly tormented by the two-bit bully who sat behind me made it difficult to concentrate on mastering the complexities of Latin declensions. Eventually I would take care of the bully, but that is another story for another time. By then I had already had "the Great Awakening".

Infantile Amnesia

The memory goes like this:

I am very young, and I am in the car with my parents. Dad is driving. We come to a place that is familiar. There are small buildings on either side of the road. The car slows, then comes to a stop. Sometimes there are other cars there too. Sometimes not. 

This has happened before and it is always like this. Dad rolls down his window, and as he does so as a man approaches the car and peers inside. They exchange some words. Then the man goes away and Dad drives on. The whole encounter lasts no more than twenty seconds.

We are not supposed to remember events from very early in our childhood due to infantile amnesia. Nonetheless this ritual happened so often I can still see it in my mind. It is not my only memory from that time. The Elza Gate photo by Ed Wescott is dated 25 Feb 1949. Less than one month later, on 19 Mar 1949, the gates at Oak Ridge are opened to the public. On that date I was 1 year, 4 months, and 12 days old.

205 Vermont Ave., Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Here I am in an early photo with Mom. In the lower right corner are the words "Davy & Mommie, 1 yr." The photo was taken on Sunday, November 7, 1948, my first birthday. My mother's name is Claudy Felicia Osborn. She is 22 years old.

We are standing in the front yard of our home at 205 Vermont Avenue*, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Our home is the Right Center E-2 unit in a "Type-E Apartment" building. It is one of many such buildings in our neighborhood. Each building had four apartments. Two were one story apartments, designated as E-1 units, (Right Wing or Left Wing), and were located on the ends of the building. The other two were two story apartments, designated as E-2 units, (Right Center or Left Center), and were located side by side in the center of the building. Ours was an E-2, Right Center, unit.

My father lived in our home before I came along. He lived there before he met Mom too. I know he was living there on February 9, 1946, because the Complaint for Divorce filed by his first wife, Kathryn (Johnson) Case, gives 205 Vermont Avenue as the address of his residence. I believe my mother began living there sometime after February 14, 1947. 

1940s Federal Enlarger

The shadow of my father's head is in the lower left corner of the photo. He was a chemist, of sorts, and worked at Y-12. He was also a photographer, of sorts, and it was he who made the picture. It is one of four exposures he made that morning. Later, he developed the film in a makeshift darkroom in the bathroom of our apartment. When the film was dry, he made prints on four 8 x 10 sheets of Kodak enlarging paper, using his old Federal enlarger.

Notice that there is but one car in the scene. This is normal for this place and time. Not everybody owns a car, and most of those who do are men. When they go to work they take their cars with them. If their wife needs to go shopping, visit friends, or run a few errands, then she must walk, ride the bus, or take a taxi. Otherwise she must drive her husband to the plant in the morning, and pick him up again when he gets off from work. All that assumes that the wife knows how to drive and has a drivers' license. Not all wives did in those days. My mother did not.

In the upper left corner of the picture are two trees. Between the trees are what appear to be crosses. Those are posts for clothes lines. Electric clothes dryers existed in 1948, but I can't think of a single family that had one before the 1960s. In the 1940s all homes in Oak Ridge have clothes lines in the back yard. In the photo you can see a few clothes hanging on the line. The next day there will be many more. That is because the next day is Monday, and for most homemakers at the time, Mondays are wash day.

Behind my mother's head, and across the street, is another Type-E Apartment like ours. A sidewalk runs from the street to a couple of steps leading up to a screen door. Every house has screen doors, as well as screens on the windows. There is no air conditioning. In the 1940s the only way to stay cooler in hot weather was to open the doors and windows, and pray for a breeze. Electric fans also helped.

Screen doors and screens on the windows also help keep the flies out. The screen doors attach to the door jambs with long springs which cause the doors to snap close with a loud clack. At all hours of the day the clacking of screen doors echoes up and down the streets of our neighborhood. In spite of the quick closing springs, a few flies manage to make it past the screen doors barriers. Every household has fly-swatters handy to take care of such intruders.

In the photo you can see that both my mother and I are happy. She looks at me in a caring and loving way. I look forward, held upright and guided by my mother, as I toddle about exploring the world. My earliest memories are about exploring my little piece of the world. In those memories Mom is always nearby, guiding me. The "head of the household" is but a shadowy figure at best.

*The Type-E Apartment that was our home, and the home of three other families, (201, 203, 205 and 207 Vermont Ave.) is no more. It is now the site of Mac's Pharmacy.

Type-E Apartment

Type E Apartment building at the corner of West Fairview Road and Florida Avenue.
Photo by Ed Westcott.

This is a Type-E Apartment like the one we lived in at 205 Vermont Avenue. There is a sign post in the photo that reads "W. Fairview Rd."  The Unit Numbers 301, 303, and 305, are also visible when the photo is enlarged. It still stands today and can be seen at the intersection of West Fairview Road and Florida Avenue. 

Type-E Apartment buildings contained four apartment units. There were two single story units, one on either end of the building. There were a pair of two story units between the two single story units. We lived in one of the two story units, sometimes referred to as the "Left Center Unit". It is the highlighted unit labeled Apt.#2 in the floor plan below.

The apartment units were rather small. The living room space was approximately 12' x 16' 4". Entering the front door you would notice stairs in front of you leading to the second floor. Looking to the left you would see a wood burning fireplace and a built-in book case. Beyond the fireplace was a small dining area. Adjoining the dining space was the doorway leading to the kitchen. To the right of the doorway was a coat closet. To the right of the coat closet was another closet containing an electric water heater. The flooring was matched hardwood.

The kitchen was a 7' x 8' space. Along the right wall was a two compartment sink. Along the left wall were an electric range and refrigerator. The floor was linoleum. A door in the outer wall led to the platform porch outside.

The second floor contained two bedrooms with matched hardwood flooring. Each bedroom had a closet with rod and shelf. The bathroom was also located on the second floor. It had a tub with overhead shower, a toilet, and a sink, The flooring was linoleum.

Dad sprinkling flower seeds in front of his apartment, 205 Vermont Ave.
They are not Atomic seeds. Those would come later. 

Mom, in the downstairs living space at 205 Vermont.

The Sound of Rain

For some reason or another, I have always enjoyed the sound of rain. Not the booming chaos of thunderstorms, mind you, nor the threatening roar of a torrential downpour, but the peaceful drumming of soft, steady rain.

~~~~

Oak Ridge Hospital circa 1945.

It is Wednesday, November 5, 1947. Dad holds an umbrella above Mom as the two of them carefully step off the front porch of Dad's apartment at 205 Vermont Avenue, splash across the front yard to the street, and pile into Dad's 1936 Oldsmobile coup. Usually, Dad would be well on his way to Y-12 at this hour, but today is different; they are on their way to the hospital instead. They live close by, an eight-minute walk at best, but it is raining, and they are in a hurry. Mom is in the beginning stages of giving birth to a baby. Dad steps on the gas, and they arrive at Oak Ridge Hospital in less than three minutes. 

At the hospital, they are asked a few questions as part of the admission process. The answers can be summed up in two sentences:

Mom is a 21-year-old married white woman from Sheffield, Alabama, whose maiden name is Claudia Felicia Osborn, whose occupation is "housewife," and who is about to deliver her first child at the end of a nine-month pregnancy.

The father of the yet-to-be-born child is Forrest Neil Case, her husband, a twenty-eight-year-old white man from Mansfield, Ohio, whose occupation is "chemist."

The paperwork done, Mom is admitted to the hospital shortly before 9:00 AM.  

I have no idea what happens during the next forty-eight plus hours. I only know that the rain continues all that day and into the night. By Thursday morning, the rains have subsided, and the day continues fair and cool. Friday, November 7, begins with grey skies and dark clouds rolling in from the Cumberland Plateau. By 12:40 AM, fifty-two hours and forty-five minutes after checking into the hospital, the first drops of rain begin pelting the roof of the hospital as Mom finally gives birth to her first child, a healthy baby boy.

After the birth, orderlies wheel Mom from the delivery room down the hall to a room she will share with another woman, a Cherokee from North Carolina, who has also given birth that day. Exhausted, Mom quickly falls asleep. Dad lingers a bit, looks at the baby through the nursery window, then returns home for a few hours. He had not noticed that the rains had come again and runs to the Olds to keep from getting soaked.

Wrapped in blankets, Mom's baby boy lies in the nursery asleep. He and the Cherokee child are the only newborns there. The falling rain drums steadily on the roof, walls, and windows of the hospital all afternoon and into the night, punctuated from time to time by the soft voices of the nurses and the occasional crying of the two newborns whose lives on this earth are just now beginning.

~~~

I had a childhood friend in Oak Ridge whose name was Rosalie. Her family lived in Woodland, a short distance from ours. We attended the same schools and rode the same buses. She was from the Qualla Boundary, Cherokee, North Carolina, and her family would often return there on weekends to visit kin. Someday I must ask her when and where was she born and does she enjoy the sound of rain. Not the booming chaos of thunderstorms, nor the threatening roar of a torrential downpour, but the peaceful drumming of soft, steady rain.

From the Au Family Bookcase

The room I found myself in most often was the parlor. It had a beautiful wood cabinet with shelves for books, protected by two glass doors, and beneath that, drawers full of family treasures. I'm lucky enough to have a few of the books, to wit:

New Caesar with Vocabulary (Allen & Greenough's edition) re-edited by James B. et al, and published by Ginn & Company in 1886, and again in 1898. Inside, the top of the front free endpaper was inscribed "Mary Au". It had been my grandmother's school book from her Latin class. I remember being surprised and impressed to learn that my grandmother had learned to read and write Latin as a young woman.

~~~

Another of Mary Au's books was St. Elmo, which  Wikipedia describes as "a novel by American author Augusta Jane Evans published in 1866. Featuring the sexual tension between the protagonist St. Elmo, a cynical man, and the heroine Edna Earl, a beautiful and devout girl, the novel became one of the most popular novels of the 19th century. The novel sold a million copies within four months of its publication." 

Mary was sixteen years old when she inscribed the front end paper of the book with her name and date: "Mary Au Oct. 30, 1909".

~~~

Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush by Ian MacLaren, published in 1895, belonged to Mary Au's mother Leila White. 

The front end paper of that book was inscribed "This is Leila Au Book received from her sister-in-law Nina Au as a present 28 years ago. Many thanks." The hand writing in that book varies considerably from that of Mary Au in the two books that belonged to her. From the wording I imagine that it was inscribed by Leila Au.

This edition of Bedside the Bonnie Brier Bush was published in 1894. If Leila White acquired the book the year it was published, the inscription was made in the year 1922, when Leila was fifty-eight years old. 

Nina Au, the sister-in-law referred to in the inscription was Nina Katherine Jesson, wife of Charles Henry Au, a younger brother of Samuel Augustus Au. 

Wikipedia describes the book thus: "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush is a book of short stories by Ian Maclaren's published in 1894. It became a hugely popular bestseller. It is considered to be part of the Kailyard School of Scottish literature. A kailyard or kailyaird (kale) is comparable to a cabbage patch and refers to a kitchen garden as might be found adjacent to a cottage. The title, Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, references the Jacobite song "There grows a bonnie brier bush in our Kailyard". Publishers Weekly reported it as the bestselling novel in the U.S. during 1895 and the 10th bestselling novel during 1896. The stories in the book recount some of MacLaren's experiences as a Free Church minister in rural Perthshire and blends humour and pathos with racy Scots dialogue."

~~~

The Child's Own Book of Standard Fairy Tales, published by the John C. Winston Company of Philadelphia, is a 525-page hardcover book, bound in green decorative cloth, containing many stories, including Aladdin, or the wonderful lamp; Ali Baba, or the Forty Thieves; The Booby; Jack the Giant Killer; The Two Cakes; Puss in Boots; The White Cat; Valentine and Orson; Beauty and the Beast; and Cinderella.

It is illustrated with several color plates. Inside, the top of the front free endpaper is inscribed "Richard Au from Sammie, Xmas 1910".

~~~

Andersen's Fairy Tales, published by Rand, McNally & Co., is a 416-page hardcover book, bound in green decorative cloth, containing many stories, including The Snow Queen; The Nightingale; The Red Shoes; The Ugly Duckling; The Little Match Girl; and Thumbelina.

It is illustrated with several monochrome plates. Inside, the top of the front free endpaper is inscribed "Richard Everette Au, Merry Xmas, December 25, 1911".

~~~

The following three books contain nothing to indicate to which members of the Au family they belonged.

Daddy Jake, the Runaway, by Joel Chandler Harris.

 Published in 1898, it was one of the author's early collections of "Uncle Remus" tales. 

 As a child I had read some of the Uncle Remus stories in Woodland Elementary School. 

I had also seen the Walt Disney movie version, Song of the South, which I enjoyed very much.

 I especially loved the Uncle Remus character and the animated characters Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear.

~~~

Three Daughters of the Confederacy. Published in 1905 by G. W. Dillingham Company, New York. 

I know nothing about this book other than it was one of many pumped out by Cyrus Townsend Brady, an Episcopal minister, who found the time to write over 100 books in his lifetime. He also worked as a screenwriter for Vitagraph. 

The title page of the book reads: "Three Daughters of the Confederacy The Story of Their Loves and Their Hatreds, Their Joys and Their Sorrows, During Many Surprising Adventures on Land and Sea." 

The author dedicated the work to Mrs. James Henry Parker and the New York Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy and to "that Fair Daughter of the South", his wife.

~~~

Life and Adventures of Frank and Jesse James the Noted Western Outlaws by Hon. J. A. Dacus, Ph. D. The title page contains the following quote:

"Strange murmurs fill my tingling ears, 

Bristles my hair, my sinews quake, 

At this dread tale of reckless deeds."

Now who could resist purchasing a book that promised all that?

As fascinating as the book may be, one can only wonder as to the veracity of the author's account of the "Noted Western Outlaws" lives and the events described in the book. 

More interesting perhaps, was the life of the "Hon. J. A. Dacus, Ph. D." himself. In 1868 the Public Ledger of Memphis reported that Dacus was then a "Baptist preacher in Illinois," adding that 'Within the brief space of five years he has been a grocer, cotton factor, farmer, school teacher, journalist, poet, political 'stump orator', book agent, chief engineer of a flatboat and superintendent of a saw mill.'"

- See https://www.newspapers.com/image/215169609/?terms=dacus

The House in Mansfield

Once or twice a year our family would make a 430 mile journey from Oak Ridge to Mansfield, Richland County, Ohio. Our destination was a two story farmhouse, built in 1880, the home of Dad's parents and his brother Wendell. I always looked forward to those trips. I loved the house and the people who lived in it. I loved their hometown and the countryside around it. I loved Ohio.

All of the people I loved there are gone now. The house still stands, but it is not the house I knew and loved. That house died many years ago too. Only its body remains. Its soul has departed.

I do not know the folks who live there now. I hope they love the place as much as I did. I think they must, judging from the way it looks. They seem to care for it. They seem to appreciate it for what it is, without trying to change it into something else. They are undoubtedly infusing the house with a new soul. I wish them well. To respect the privacy of current or future owners of the house I will not reveal its address.

I will try my best to describe the house and the people who lived there prior to 1 June 1990 as best as I can. To do that I must close my eyes to now to return to then. I will write in the present tense because I will not be writing about the past. I will be writing about the now that still lives, somewhere, in the present of my mind. Bear with me. Here we go.

Me in a large tree at the rear of the house. Summer of 1956.

The basic plan of the house is that of a traditional T shaped farmhouse, with the addition of another room on the northwest side. In the roof line drawing above, the "T" is inverted. Learn more about this style of farm house here.

Here I am enjoying an aerial view from the driveway on the southeast side of the house.
Dad is operating the bucket mounted on a Ford tractor.. Summer of 1956.

The kitchen, pantry, dining room, office/study, and parlor are all on the ground floor. Beneath a portion of the ground floor is a cellar. Access to the cellar from inside the house is by stairs between the Kitchen and Pantry. The cellar may also be accessed through a pair of cellar doors outside the house, beneath the Kitchen window.

Me atop the outside cellar doors. Summer of 1956. I am happy. Oh so very happy.

The bathroom and four bedrooms are on the second floor. There is an attic above the second floor. Access to the attic was in the Bedroom above the Parlor. 

There are two outbuildings on the property: a two story garage and a two room shed. The rear room of the shed holds firewood. The other room has lawn and garden tools such as the lawn mower shown below. Some of the hand tools are old and may have belonged to Samuel Augustus Au.

Me with Wendell's lawn mower in the front yard.
Summer of 1956.