text: ■ ' - 4 f"— - ■ ■ ■-—■■ ■■■■■ ■■■!■ I I■ ■ ■■■■■ ■■■ ■■ I —■ ■ ■■ !■ ■■■III. I I | - I MH MMfeW-wU | \.. 2? P **^ WSs •£■*< '****■ 5 xiiw* ' <%w ..a. j cx.«-.'''vcS>x'. ?<;. •_■. ! i ■MWSK<MP&MfeMwk«SK^M9jfiKßMMl^BaffiiMflMMp!s?2!CT<'^^wiMoMßWaßi»%aMifaßiffiKMMMtSiMßß^Bßaj?wgadß3»«iy<Traß^ff^>XTV^y l >tk'7S«K l lß«^Wy<?L3B? wIT ■■■■"■"■■ '" v vW ■* ’ ' * . ' '■ ; wP'' The , , , Reconstructed Fort Dearborn By ELMO SCOTT WATSON HEN the special Mother’s day stamps were placed on sale re cently. there was added another chapter to the romantic story of a woman who is undoubtedly Amer ica’s most famous mother. For the stamps bear the reproduction of James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s famous painting which Is called "Arrangement In Gray and Black,” but which is more familiar to his fellow-Americans as “Whistler’s Portrait of His Mother,” or, more simply still, “The Mother.” Although Anna Mathilda McNeill Whistler needs nothing more than this painting to guarantee her Immortality, yet the choice of her portrait for reproduction on a special commemorative stamp issue this year (the first time, incidentally, that such notice has been taken of Mother’s day) is an additional honor conferred upon her. In all of our history, only three other women have had that distinc tion. They were Pocahontas, the Indian prin cess ; Isabella, the Spanish queen; and Martha Washington, wife of our first President But Anna Mathilda McNeill Whistler is not the only one who is honored in this year’s Mother’s day stamp. It w*as issued also to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the event which took place in Lowell. Mass., on July 10, 1834 the birth of the son who was to achieve such world-wide fame himself and to bring a similar world-wide fame to her by his portrait of her. It is doubtful if any other painting ever put on canvas is so well known to so many people. Reproductions of it, running up into the millions in numbers, have been printed and these prints have gone to every corner of the earth. During the last year and a half, while it was in this country under a loan agreement from the French government, it was exhibited in 12 leading cities throughout the United States and it is estimated that during its triumphal tour more than 2,000,000 persons viewed it. Several hundred thousand more will have been added to that number before it is sent back to Paris late this month (for the agreement with the French government calls for its return by June 1) to resume its honored place in the Louvre. For five months of the time that the painting was on a tour of the country it was exhibited at the Chicago Art institute in connection with A Century of Progress. But among the thousands who saw it there and who also saw the replica of Fort Dearborn on the exposition grounds it is doubtful if one in a thousand realized that there was a historical, if not a cultural link between the world-famous painting, the highest exemplification of a man’s skill in the line of fine arts, and the crude architecture of a building which had only the very utilitarian purpose of preserving the lives of its inhabitants from savage hatred. That link is the theme of this story. The story has its beginning in Ireland more than 175 years ago. In the year 1758 there was born to an English family named Whistler, living there, a son to whom was given the name of John. Long before he had reached his majority young John Whistler ran away from home and joined the British army. In 1777 he came to America as a soldier in the expedition with which “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne intended to deal a crushing blow to the American colonies. But the rapier thrusts of Daniel Morgan and Benedict Arnold warded off that blow at Saratoga, and the end of the year saw John Whistler a prisoner of war along with the rest of “Gentleman Johnny’s” army. Mark that fact well, for it has a curious aftermath. Before the end of the Revolution, Whistler, as a paroled or exchanged prisoner, was back in England where he soon afterwards was discharged from the army. Then he fell in love with the daughter of one of his father’s friends, eloped with her, came to America a second time and settled at Hagerstown, Md. In 1791 this soldier who had worn the scarlet uniform of Old England put on the nondescript uniform of a lieutenant adjutant in the levies which made up a part of the army of the new republic. From that time on he served continuously on the Northwestern frontier under St. Clair, Wayne and others who were trying to break the power of the savage tribes that were resisting the westward push of the American frontiersmen. In 1797 it was “Captain” John Whistler and in 1803 he was stationed at Detroit. The Louisiana Purchase had flung our frontier from the Mississippi back to the Rocky mountains, but if we hoped to make good our possession of this vast empire there must be garrisons in the heart of the Indian country. One of the strategic places for such a garrison was at the foot of Lake Michigan at a place variously called Chicago, Chicago, Chekakee, and a half-dozen similar spellings. So, early in 1803, the Inspector General of the army stationed at Cumberland, Md., gave orders for the building of a post there and named Capt. John Whistler as commandant. Accordingly, the fort was built in the summer of 1803, given the name of Fort Dearborn, in honor of Gen. Henry Dearborn, then secretary of war, and thus Capt. John Whistler became the real "father of Chicago." The original draft for the plans of the fort, drawn by Captain Whistler, is still in the archives of the War Department at Washington—a good soldierly job, it is, but revealing none of the artistic qualities which were later to make the name of Whistler so famous. For the next nine years John Whistler, as builder of the fort and its commandant, dominated the little community in this lonely outpost of civilization which was to become the American Mother. Whistler's Portrait of His Mother Self-Portrait by Whistler (1859) Second largest city in the United States. But the building and the commanding were not the only countries. ributions he made to the history of Fort Dearborn and the beginnings of Chicago. He brought with him a growing family, some of whose members were destined for renown even greater than his. His eldest son, William Whistler, accompanied him to Chicago as a second lieutenant and served there throughout the elder Whistler’s term of service. His eldest daughter, Sarah, was married in November, 1804, to James Abbott, a trader of Detroit, thus becoming Chicago’s first bride. Another daughter married Lieut. Joseph Hamilton, who was also a subaltern under Whistler at Fort Dearborn. But our chief interest is in a toddling child of three who came with his father to Chicago in 1803. His name was George Washington Whistler. Thus did the ex-British soldier honor the great commander of the “rebels” against whom he had fought under Burgoyne. Young George Washington Whistler grew up into sturdy boyhood along the marshy banks of the Chicago river and on the sandy shores of Lake Michigan. He was only ten years old when, as the result of a garrison feud, the War department thought it advisable to scatter the officers at Fort Dearborn to various posts in the Middle West and the boy accompanied his father back to Detroit. And there, two years later, young George Washington Whistler probably witnessed the scene which made his father unique in American—and perhaps in any other—history. For Capt. John Whistler and his elder son, Lieutenant William Whistler, were officers in General Hull’s army when that flustered American commander surrendered the fort at Detroit to the British at the outbreak of the War of 1812, and tradition says that the captain was so enraged over the capitulation that he broke his sword over his knee rather than surrender it to the enemy. Perhaps it was only the shame of a surrender without firing a shot that caused him to do it. Or perhaps it might have been his realization that he was destined to go down in history as the only British officer who, having once surrendered to a victorious American army, became in turn an American officer who surrendered to a victorious British army. In due time, John Whistler was exchanged for a British prisoner, and the choleric old captain remained in the American army only until the close of the war when he was honorably discharged. He died September 3, 1829, but he lived long enough to see his son, William, whose fame as the officer to whom the Winnebago chieftain, Red Bird, surrendered in 1827, thus bringing to a close the brief and now almost forgotten Winnebago war. William also served honorably in the Black Hawk war of 1832 and in 1845 became colonel of the Fourth Infantry. Incidentally, among other subalterns who served under him in that regiment during the Mexican war was a short, stocky young lieutenant named Ulysses S. Grant. Old Capt John Whistler also lived long enough to see his youngest son, George Washington Whistler, graduate from West Point at the age of nineteen and assigned to The artillery branch. But he was not to have the satisfaction of knowing to what heights his son would rise in another profession, nor to what greater heights this son’s son would rise in still another. While George Washington Whistler was still a cadet at West Point he once visited, while on leave, the home of a classmate, William Gibbs McNeil. It was a great brick mansion which had been built on a plantation near the Cape Fear river in North Carolina before the Revolution by one Donald McNeill, scion of a Scotch family that had emigrated to America from the Isle of Skye in 1739. There Cadet Whistler made the acquaintance of Anna Mathilda McNeill, the eldest of a family of five children. It would be pleasant to be able to record the fact that it was a case of love at first sight for Cadet Whistler and Anna McNeil. But that is doubtful, for soon after he was graduated from West Point he was married, but not to Anna McNeil. Shortly afterwards young Whistler was left a widower and early in the '38s he again met the motherly older sister of his classmate, William Gibbs McNeill, and married her. In 1833 Whistler resigned from the army and the next year to George Washington Whistler and Anna Mathilda Whistler was born a son to whom was given the name James Abbott McNeill Whistler, thus perpetuating the name of his uncle, James Abbott, the Detroit trader at Fort Dearborn, as well as his paternal and maternal families, the McNeills and the Whistlers. After George Washington Whistler's resignation from the army, he rose to eminence as an engineer and in 1842 he went to Russia to enter the service of the czar in the construction of the railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow, winning for himself from Czar Nicholas the decoration "y" — the "mighty man." The Ely Miner, Ely, Minn. Bust of Whistler in Hall of fame, New York University of the Order of St. Anne. To Russia with him went his wife and their two sons, one of them a slender, weak lad, affectionately known to his mother as “Jamie.” And “Jamie” he was to her to the end of her days, even when he became a world-famous painter. For the close tie between the mother and the son who was to immortalize her on canvas began during this Russian experience. She nursed him during those bitter years and when they were ended in the death of Major Whistler and when the widow and her two sons were reduced to poverty, she brought them out of the land of snows back to her sunny North Carolina. When “Jamie” grew up he decided to follow the profession of his father and become a soldier. He secured an appointment to West Point in 1852, but his career there was a short one. In fact, it lasted only two years. Years later Whistler humorously remarked: “Had silicon been a noxious gas, I would have been a general today.” And therein lies the reason for the failure of the line of soldiers, beginning with old John Whistler to continue beyond James Abbott McNeill Whistler. One day Cadet Whistler and the others at the Point were taking a chemistry examination. One of the questions was to define silicon. Whistler guessed on that one and he guessed wrong. It is probable, however, that it was only one of several mistakes that he made in the examination. At any rate, he was “found” — that is, discharged from the academy for deficiency in chemistry. But the loss to the military world, if indeed it was a loss, was the gain of the world of art. After leaving West Point, Whistler went to Paris, resolved to become a painter, and his career in that role is too well known to need further comment. During the years he was rising to fame, his mother was in Europe, also, not with him always, but nearby in case he should have need of her. For somehow her little “Jamie” never seemed to grow up enough to be without his mother. In 1860 Whistler left London for three years more of study in Paris and his mother returned to America for a last visit with her relatives in North Carolina. For Whistler had decided never to return to his native land to live. So his mother was going to wind up what few affairs she had there and then return to London, where they would live on the scant means which the son could provide. While she was visiting in Cumberland and Bladen counties in North Carolina, the storm of the Civil War broke and her return to Europe was postponed indefinitely. Finally, early in 1864, came word from her son that he had returned to London and established himself there. So she announced her intention of joining him. Her relatives tried to deter her. Up in Virginia, a bearded little man in a blue uniform was dealing the sledgehammer strokes around Richmond which were sounding the death knell of the Lost Cause. His name was Ulysses S. Grant, who as a lieutenant had clicked his heels in salute to his colonel, William Whistler, back in the Mexican war days. Along the Atlantic coast, Union warships were tightening the blockade of the ports of the Confederacy which was slowly but surely strangling it to death. But no matter how much her relatives told Anna Mathilda McNeill Whistler that it would be impossible for her to go to Europe now, her only reply was the calm statement that her “Jamie” needed her and she was going. And go she did. Somehow she arranged to take passage on the Confederate blockade runner, the Advance, which was preparing to leave Wilmington, N.C., taking 2,000 bales of cotton to the cotton mills in England—if the Advance could get through the blockade. Another passenger on the same ship was William Laurie Hill, going on a mission from the Confederate government to London. He knew that he was taking a long chance of getting through alive, but the urgency of his mission permitted no delay. The Advance stole out of the harbor one night under the cover of darkness. Outside was a massed fleet of 150 Union vessels, concentrated against the last surviving port of the Confederacy, which was guarded by Fort Fisher. By some miracle the Advance made her escape and arrived safely in England. There Anna Mathilda McNeill Whistler lived to the end of her days, the inseparable companion of the man who came to be hailed as one of the greatest painters in the world. Leaders in Fruit Desserts Combinations Fit for the Most Elaborate Dinner or a Simple Family Gathering; Two Especial Favorites With the Children. Fruit desserts for spring tempt the palate more than the heavier puddings we have had during the winter. A dessert that combines peaches and tapioca, and baked in the oven, is fit to serve on the most special occasions. The fruit blends well with the easily digested tapioca, and makes a particularly well-balanced dessert. A favorite of the children is a jellied orange dessert, and cottage pudding is the perfect ending to one of those light spring meals with a salad as the main course. Delicious Cottage Pudding. 2 cups sifted cake flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 4 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons butter or other shortening 1 cup sugar 1 cup milk % teaspoon vanilla Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cream butter, add sugar gradually, and cream together well. Add flour, alternately with milk, a small amount at a time, beating after each addition. In the bottom of the pan, add vanilla. Bake in greased pan, 8 x 8 x 2 inches, in moderate oven (350° F.) 45 minutes. Serve hot with lemon or chocolate sauce. Jellied Orange Dessert. 4 oranges, sections free from membrane and diced 1 cup sugar 1 package orange flavored gelatin 1½ cups warm water Combine oranges and sugar and let stand 10 minutes. Dissolve flavored Burial in Royal Tomb Not for “Old Hickory” Washington possesses the tomb of a Roman emperor. The strange box-like stone structure on the lawn of the Arts and Industries building of the National Museum, which visitors usually pass without noticing, was the occasion of a dramatic incident 90 years ago when it was first brought to Washington. The tomb was secured by Commodore Jesse R. Elliott, commander of the frigate Constitution, which was the flagship of the United States squadron in the Mediterranean in 1839, from a hillside behind the city of Beirut, Syria. Although the evidence was not such as would satisfy an archeologist, Elliott believed it was the tomb of the Roman emperor, Alexander Severus. He brought it back to Washington with him. A few years later Andrew Jackson was reported dying at the Hermitage, near Nashville. Elliott had the happy, or unhappy inspiration to offer the tomb to Old Hickory as a last resting place. Jackson’s reply is one of the classics of American literature: “Although laboring under great debility and affliction from a severe attack from which I may not recover,” the dying man wrote the navy officer, “I raise my pen and endeavor to reply. The steadiness of my nerves may perhaps lead you to conclude my strength is not as great as here expressed. Strange as it may appear, my life has been a burden to me.” Nerves are as steady as they were 40 years gone by, whilst from debility and affliction I am gazing for breath. “I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a depository prepared for an emperor or a king. My republican feelings and principles forbid it. The simplicity of our system of government forbids it. Every monument erected to perpetuate the memory of our heroes and statesmen ought to bear evidence of the economy and simplicity of our republican institutions, and the plainness of our republican citizens, who are the sovereigns of our glorious union, and whose virtue is to perpetuate it. True virtue cannot exist where pomp and parade are the governing passions. It can only dwell with the people, the great laboring and producing classes, the form, the bone and sinew of our confederacy. “I cannot permit my remains to be the first in these United States to be deposited in a sarcophagus made for an emperor or king. I have prepared a humble depository for my mortal body beside that wherein lies my beloved wife, where, without any pomp or parade I have requested, when God calls me to sleep with my fathers, to be laid, for both of us there to remain until the last trumpet sounds to call the dead to judgment, when we, I hope, shall rise together, clothed with the heavenly body promised to all who believe in our glorious Redeemer, who died for us that we might live, and by whose atonement I hope for a blessed immortality.” Perhaps Alexander Severus is just as well satisfied that the school children of a democratic land troop past his empty tomb without noticing it. Emperor of Rome from 222 to 235 A. D., successor to the degenerate CENTS A PACKET IS ALL YOU PAY FOR OLD VEGETABLE SEEDS AT YOUR HOMER'S STORE gelatin in warm water. Pour over oranges. Chill, stirring occasionally. Serve in sherbet glasses. Serves 8. Baked Peach Tapioca Pudding. 1 cup quick-cooking tapioca 1 can (2 cups) sliced peaches, drained 2 1/2 cups hot water and peach juice 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon lemon juice 14 teaspoon nutmeg 4 tablespoons sugar 2 tablespoons butter Combine Ingredients in greased baking dish. Mix thoroughly. Bake in moderate oven (375°F.) 40 minutes, stirring well after 10 minutes, and again after 20 minutes of baking. Serves 6. Spare Them The late Mrs. Schuyler van Rensselaer of New York once was asked by a “society girl” whether she should “go in” for settlement work among the city poor, which she admitted she disliked. “In heaven’s name, don’t!” Mrs. Van Rensselaer replied. “People who live in the tenements have enough to bear without suffering your condescension!” —Boston Globe. Your local dealer carries Ferry’s Pure Bred Vegetable Seeds. Now only 5 cents a package. Adv. Otherwise Up to Date He—Does your mother have old-fashioned views? She—Yps, she has several in the album. Heliogabalus, who had himself officially created a god, he might have appreciated Andrew Jackson’s emotional outburst. He appears to have been somewhat of a skeptic regarding the divinity of emperors and an open-minded boy despite his environment of degeneracy. His brief reign is chiefly distinguished for his feeble efforts to better the hard lot of the common people. He established government loan offices where they could borrow at low interest to get them out of the clutches of the “bankers.” He did much to improve the status of the common soldier of the Roman legions. Christianity was making headway in Rome. The emperor was not a convert, but he neglected no chances to improve his fate hereafter. He kept a private chapel with statues of Orpheus, Abraham, Apollo, and Jesus, and paid equal homage to all of them. —Washington Star. Too Much Stress Placed on Life’s “Seamy” Side? Giving freshness to discussion of the old controversy between the exponents of “reality” in literature and in stage characterization, as opposed to those who would prominently portray the virtues and goodness of humanity, we find these expressions of opinion by a favorite woman writer: “In his play the author succeeds in portraying in the theater the grandeur of human character —for which we are grateful.” “That chance statement from a dramatic criticism seems to me to have great significance. “It reminds us how much more usual it is to have portrayed, on the stage, on the screen, in our reading even, the pettiness, selfishness, chicanery, and evil of which human character is capable. “And it is likely to have the effect of headlines in the newspaper—the whole newspaper, as a matter of fact, when it is read by people in a foreign country who have no other basis for judging us. The result might very well be that we appear as a nation of criminals with corrupt politicians, kidnappers and other gangsters predominating. “The kindness, friendship, affection, sacrifice, and unselfishness that are a part of decent people’s everyday lives are not spectacular, so they are not written about much. The daily heroism of parents with a family of children battling against adversity does not make such easy story or drama material as cupidity, crime, and sex, with the preferable luxurious background. Therefore, it is not ‘played up’ for entertainments. “Occasionally, however, an author inspired to write about life does get down to the great drama in simple everyday living—and then we find portrayed the heights as well as the depths of human character, then we see the nobility and the grandeur and the glory that is constantly exemplified as a common part of it. “Bruce Barton once wrote of a country preacher who said: ‘People I GIVING EFFECT OF SLIMNESS TO THE WOMAN OF WEIGHT Complete, Diagrammed Sew Chart Included. PATTERN 9929 Graceful lines can do more than diet to make the heavier woman look slim and smart. Every line in this dress has been planned to overcome the look of heaviness. It’s better to make a dress for yourself, when by doing so you can get this effect you want. Here especially a graceful rever, comfortable sleeves and well planned lines do the trick. We suggest a printed cotton with small figures. (The larger figured designs should be left to slender women). It will be good of plain material, too. Pattern 9929 may be ordered only in Sizes 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44 and 46. Size 36 requires 3½ yards 36-inch fabric and % yard contrasting. Send FIFTEEN CENTS in coins or stamps (coins preferred) for this pattern. Be sure to write plainly your NAME, ADDRESS, the STYLE NUMBER and SIZE. Send your order to Sewing Circle Pattern Department, 232 West Eighteenth St, New York. Quite So Young Doctor — I found him quite delirious. He kept begging me to spare his life! Wife—But that was lucid enough, wasn’t it? Talk to me of the problem of evil, but I will tell you an even greater problem; the problem of goodness. How do you account for the fact that in such a world as this there should be so much self-sacrifice, so much unselfishness, so much love? By what miracle has man, who only a few thousand years ago was living on the level of the beasts, risen to a point where he will literally “lay down his life” for his family, for a cause, for a friend?” Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. It’s Up Anyway A—Is their home up-to-date? B—Yes—and up for auction, too. A Few Drops Every Night and Morning Will Promote a Clean, Healthy Condition! At All Drug Stores Write Murine Co., Dept. W. Chicago, for Free Book Tin Cane Make Wonderful Products, (no toy, flowers). $24 to $200 weekly Plan $1. BUCKEYE SERVICE - Dellroy, Ohio. OLD AGE PENSION INFORMATION Send stamp. JUDGE LEHMAN - - Humboldt, Kin. Force of Habit Dentist — Gas? Chauffeur — Uh-huh. And take a look at the oil, too. Every packet dated 18—34. 