Finding Meta Schrubbe, circa 1908

This is Meta Schrubbe. 

I'm guessing by her clothing the year is somewhere between 1905-1910. 

Anyone out there a bicycle expert?  Can you give me more clues?

I found this wonderful photo of Meta in an antiques/collectible shop in Stevens Point, WI.  The handwriting on the back of the photo says, Meta Schrubbe.

I noticed, Meta is wearing a ring, left hand, ring finger. 

Married?  Yes, I think so, but I haven't found a marriage date for Meta Lona Schrubbe and George Barton Kelly.  They had a daughter Lona in 1910.

in 1905 Meta would be 24 years old

I like to collect photos like these, scan the photo and post it on Ancestry.com.  I write to living relatives I can find--and make an effort to return the original photo. 

Her husband George Barton Kelly died in Jan 1920 at age 42.  According to his obituary, George was ill only one week when he passed away.  No mention made of the type of illness.   He was a paper mill employee for many years.  Meta was 39 years old in 1920, and her daughter Lona was 10 years old. They were living in Cohoes, New York in 1920.

I found Meta and her daughter Lona in the 1930 U.S. Census living in Milwaukee renting 870 Meinecke Avenue for $40.  Meta, now age 49 is employed as a Department Store Salesperson, and her daughter Lona 20, is a typist for and insurance company.

I wrote a message this morning to a lady on Ancestry.com--I believe she is a living great granddaughter of Meta Schrubbe Kelly.  I offered the photograph at no charge.

I found Meta's obituary.  She died in Kentucky at age 71.

Post script January 5, 2014 - I received email from Linda Brown of Kentucky, great granddaughter of Meta Schrubbe Kelly.  And tomorrow I'll mail the original photograph to Linda.  Ms. Brown talks about visiting friends in Medford, WI and may come visit us.  

I am inspired by photograph of Meta and her bicycle--because I recently received a gift from Laurie at Reflections Antiques in Nelsonville, WI.  The gift: two handwritten binders, written by our own Ragnhild Bertine Quien in February 1908. 

Ragnhild was a 1906 graduate of St. Olaf's College and in 1908 she was teaching at Scandinavia Academy in my town of Scandinavia, WI. 

Ragnhild was writing (in those binders) about physical exercise and detailed steps to complete each exercise.  I am guessing Ragnhild must have been preparing to teach a girl's fittness class.  The writings seemed to be lesson plans from month to month.

Meta Schrubbe and Ragnhild Quien were modern, independent women.   I like them.  I wish I knew more about them.  How charming--more and more items seem to return to our 1893 Queen Anne Victorian where Ragnhild lived.  I have her teacher's briefcase, and a handful of letters she wrote to her brother Peter.  Great stuff.

 

 

Picture Rail - Upstairs Hallway

I painted the upstairs hallway caramel--didn't like it.

 

Then I painted it light green--didn't like it.

 

Then I painted it brown--the color of a paper sack.  I like it.

It is the same color as our office downstairs.

The color is Barely Brown (eggshell finish) by Valspar. 

 

I mentioned in another post that my husbad Jon (pictured) found picture rail in the attic.  He brought it down, sanded and repainted it black.  Here are some photos of Jon installing the picture rail.

 

 

This view is looking north, towards the front of the house.  In the background you can see the Juliet balcony.  A couple of weeks ago Jon replaced the floor of the Juliet balcony and installed new tongue and groove ceiling on the front porch.  I'll follow up with photos/story about that in my next post.

 

What Happens Next in the Upstairs Hallway:

 

I have 4 land patents that I matted and framed in black, ready to put on this long 28ft. upstairs hallway.  The land patents are from the 1850's, when Peter Gurholt Christianson applied for the land where our house sits, and surrounding farm land he cleared.  The first land patent describes the land where our house was built 40 years later in 1893.

Also, I have a number of graduation photos and certificates from the Wrolstad and Quien families matted and framed in black to hang in the hallway. Here are some photos of those items--taken while I was painting the hallway--auditioning wall colors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

Great luck--I looked up St. Olaf's College website, searched for Class of 1906 and I'll be damned I found photograph of our previous owner's daughter Ragnhild Bertine Quien with her girlfriend Minnie Gullickson in the library at St. Olaf's.  I can't believe what incredible luck I have.  Sometimes, its as if another hand is guiding me to find people, places, and things having to do with our old house.

 

Standing left is Ragnhild Bertine Quien, St. Olaf's College, 1906

 

Detail of Ragnhild Quien (left) and her friend Minnie Gullickson (right).

 

 

Middle Left is our Ragnhild Bertine Quien, St. Olaf's Class of 1906

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dayton Computing Scale - 1904

One Sunday Jon and I traveled to DePere, WI to attend an antiques market.  We enjoyed the day and kept circling back to this commercial scale and bought it. 

 

 

Can you tell me, what was the original color of this scale?  The last patent date listed on the spinning computing dial is 1904.    

 

 

 

 

Upstairs Long Hallway

28 ft. Upstairs Hallway - North View towards Juliet Balcony at front of the house.

 

My brother and I have been working on the long hallway upstairs for a long time.  I have lots of things to tell you about.   The color of walls in this photo is NOT the final color.  Nope.  Within two weeks time I ended up repainting--changing the color 3 times.  Jon told me to STOP IT.  

 

The first color (pictured above) is a very elegant caramel which I now appreciate more.  I couldn't get my head around it at first and decided it looked the color of baby poop. 

 

So then, I painted it spring green, and Jon said it looked like his most dreaded color in the world "celery green."  And right now the wall color I chose is the color of a paper sack--called "Barely Brown."  I decided to leave it alone for a while to see if I can live with it. 

 

Photo during wall crack repair phase

 

Last fall my brother Will started work on repairing the wall cracks.  This is the South View of the hallway--toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. 

 

 

To the left is the repaired wall: cracks fixed with webtape and durabond, then a skim coat of joint compound and slightly sanded until silky smooth.  In this photos the camera is directed at the floor so you can see the picture rail Jon found in the attic.  He took all the picture rail to his workshop, sanded, primed, and painted it so we could re-install after I finish last coat of wall color.

 

 

Here's the stairwell, and above is the cleat/deck system Jon built so we could get to the upper half of the stairwell to make wall repairs.  Directly above the wooden deck is a stained glass window.

 

 

Temporary Scaffold in Stairwell

 

Jon will shroud the wrap around cleat with a mantle shelf in the stairwell once the repairs are finished.  Our reasoning is not decorative, but essential to future repairs to the stairwell stained glass window or ceiling.  We could always unscrew the mantle shelf, to get to the cleats and re-install the deck if necessary.

 

 

Ascending the stairs, you can see the condition of the 120 year old walls.  

 

 

Ah, there's a wonderful example of big and small cracks. 

 

 

Forcing some durabond into the fissures starts the repair.  Later, we mended the area like we handling all the other smaller cracks with webtape and durabond again, and once that is sanded the entire wall gets a skim coat of drywall joint compound, and a light but smooth sanding before priming.

 

We haven't rushed anything.  Pacing ourselves we've allowed drying/curing time between each step.  Sometimes, we've gone off for months to do other projects before returning to these wall crack repairs. 

 

My brother Will is moving along down the stairs this past month--working his way to the 12' x 12' foyer.

 

 

 

Descending the stairs into the foyer.  Isn't it odd how light plays on a wall and changes from eery yellow to and erry green/yellow?  How dreadful.   I'm going to paint the stairwell walls and foyer red--the same red as in the dining room.  The foyer leads directly into the dining room.  Makes sense to me.

 

 

Here's another photo of our dining room.  However in the evening, the walls take on a darker red.

 

 

Below is an image of a Sargeant painting I saw long after I painted our dining room.

 

Don't they look similar?

 

 

It's elegant and how I imagine Jon and I entertaining.  Ha. Ha. 

 

Ok, back to the foyer repairs . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will is just about done with the webtape and durabond wall crack repairs in the foyer.  Next he and I will tackle the skim coat. 

Busy Days Here at the 1893 Victorian

I'm going to rattle on a bit this morning, telling you about some projects we're working on.

I'm sewing purses, and sold quite a few.

 

 

Here are a couple new designs . . .  I'll tell you about,

But first--here's what Jon's been doing.

 

 

Jon is harvesting dead trees we'll use to heat our old Victorian house.

 

In two days, he felled 5 Elm and Locust trees on the west side of the yard--all were dead due to disease.  In fact they've been dead for a number of years.  Our concern is to take down the trees before they harm the neighbor's house and yard. 

 

Photo of the base of the big tree Jon felled.

 

I photographed the 80 ft. tree prior to cutting it down.  Jon was shocked to find quite a bit of the tree interior hollow.  Good call on his part to take it down. 

 

 

Can you see Jon in the middle of the photograph? 

I drew a red line from the right to the left showing the direction of the huge tree where it fell. 

Jon put it down right where he wanted it. 

 

Jon stops to review where he'll start cutting chunks to haul to the wood splitter.

 

 

 

 

Above photo:  almost hidden from view, Jon is driving a bucket load of chunked tree trunk from the fall site across the yard to the area where he'll split the chunks into quarters.  I'll have to get out there and take some photos of Jon splitting the wood. 

 

Jon has a splitter fixture for the skidster that grabs the chunk and splits it in half.  It's neat the way it works and looks like fun to operate--if you like playing with big toys.  He's working hard out there--felling trees, cutting them up, hauling away the chunks, splitting the wood to heat our old Victorian.  He loves this kind of work, but it sure makes his body ache later on.

  

Our yard and house sat silent for more than 3 decades before we bought it.  The house required lots of restoration.  Just the same house its always been--but repaired and refreshed.  You can see from this photo of the west yard--that some trees need to go because they're already dead.  The clean up will bring in great warming light to the shady north side.

 

While Jon was sawing, I was baking.  A couple loaves of cheddar bread, and a lemon meringe pie.

 

Hey, before you go . . . I want to show you construction phases and highlights of purses I designed.

 

The 3 button charcoal micro suede purse I drafted flaps beginning with a small paper plate.  Each round I added a bit more to the diameter. 

 

Finished with silver satin interior with pockets and key fob, this one sold immediately, so I decided to try something different in a dark plum microsuede.

 

 

 

Both flaps decorated with wool penny medallions hide snaps, revealing secret compartments for folded money or cards.

 

 

Purse Sold Yesterday

 

Below is a photograph of the interior.  To show the interior, I turned the purse inside out.

Both walls of the interior have printed cotton pockets.  Plum soft batik cotton for the liner and accents for carrying straps.  Two sets of magnetic snaps (interior lining and exterior flap closure).  Signature key fob. 

 

I'm finished constructing a navy microsuede purse.  

Here are the interior parts--so you can see that construction.  

 

 

 

I stuffed a card inside each pocket so you can see the pocket openings.

But it didn't show up well, so I marked up the photo in red 

to illustrate further. 

 

The lower shallow pocket opens toward the side seam, meaning this will be a hidden pocket inside the purse.  The purse owner will be reminded of the location of the hidden pocket

by feeling for the little spider charm sewn in place. 

 

Inside the hidden pocket is . . .

 



a little hidden pouch to put folded money or cards. 

The pouch and inside the pocket has a bit of velcro sewn to hold it secure.

 

I finished another purse in walnut brown, but it sold right away and I didn't get it photographed.  It had a splendid double padded, double pouch, zippered pocket--the perfect size to carry a kindle.  

 

Working with a few more designs--this time I'll use red pleather, and I have some sumptuous taffeta in gun metal blue.  Do you remember this fabric? 



I made drapes for the north bedroom upstairs. 

 

My rule of thumb before I decorate a room I find drapery fabric first--then wall color--then bedding. 

 

When all else fails I can pair drapes and wall color with ivory crocheted bedspread. 

 

I might even re-create the cinnamon bun tiebacks as a decorative feature using the same drapery material for the purse.  I confess, I made valances for the three windows in the north bedroom, but decided not to use them--as I didn't want to cover up the beautiful spoon carved wood blocks.  So I think I'll deconstruct the valances and make something useful--like purses or pillow shams.

 

Here are two of the three windows in the north bedroom.

Ah, but the sun lit windows seem to wash out the color of the drapes and wall. 

I really wanted to show you the great crocheted bedspread against these dark gray/blue walls.  Let me look for another photo.  Just a minute.

 

Yes, there we go.

 

And, depending upon the time of day or lighting--the northbedroom walls and drapes look either more blue, or more gray.

 

Well, I've taken enough of your time with photos and talk this morning.

 

I wish you all happiness in everything you do today.