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Archive for January, 2012

Jan 19

Mary M Brown Hammer with her family

Mary M Brown, 1871–1953

Born in New York City in the spring of 1871, Mary (christened Margaret Braun) was the eldest child of German immigrants Frederick Braun, a carpenter, and Bertha Schneider Braun. They would eventually have four more children, including twin girls of whom only one survived infancy.

In 1880, the family – by now listed with the spelling Brown, which is what they seem to have used most of the time after this – occupied an apartment at 604 West 49th Street in midtown Manhattan. I was excited to find the address on Street View; less so to learn that it’s now a FedEx depot. Read more

Jan 9

Detail of trade emblems carved on Comb & Bartleman stone
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Stones: South Leith churchyard, part two

Maltmen, and lots of them: that’s what you’re getting in this post. I didn’t seek them out, but most of the interestingly carved stones I saw on the day I took these photos happened to belong to maltmen.

The website of the Trades House of Glasgow suggests that, historically, there may have been some women working as maltsters in Scotland:

Unlike most other crafts, some members were probably women, as there were many female tavern-keepers or publicans.

Not, in itself, a completely convincing bit of reasoning, but it got me interested enough to look for more information. Read more

Jan 8

Winged soul carved on the shoulder of Andrew Waugh and Elizabeth Hunter's stone (18th c.)
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Stones: South Leith churchyard, part one

Commonwealth War Graves Commission employees in South Leith churchyard

There’s a well-used shortcut through the kirkyard of South Leith Parish Church from the Kirkgate, a busy pedestrian area, to Constitution Street. It’s a pleasant place to be on a sunny afternoon when there are people about. I passed through one day last autumn on my way to nursery pickup, had a short chat with a couple of men from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission who were doing some maintenance work, and took a few minutes to wander around with my camera.

These photos are a slightly random selection of whatever caught my eye. There are lots of Victorian stones in the churchyard, but I’m not so keen on those as I am on the earlier ones, with their carved imagery relating to trade guilds and 18th-century symbols of mortality. South Leith has a lower proportion of mariners’ graves than the nearby North Leith burial ground, but there are sundry prosperous merchants, maltmen, fleshers, printers, booksellers and so on, along with their families. Read more

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