Happy Days & Special Events of the Wilbur Family, 1898-1980

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HAPPY DAYS AND SPECIAL EVENTS OF THE WILBUR FAMILY
1898 - 1980

by ROSS T. WILBUR

Northfield, Minnesota

June 1982

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction

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PART I
A BIT OF ROMANCE

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THE FAMILY AND THE NEIGHBORHOODS
IN WHICH WE LIVED
The Early Years
The Affluent Years
Mother's Helpers and Servants
The Reversal of Fortune

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PART II
JOYOUS HOLIDAYS
Sundays
Christmas
Valentine's Day
Easter
MayDay
Fourth of July
Halloween
Thanksgiving Dinner

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WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT BIRTHDAYS?
Family Birthdays
Grandfather's Ninetieth Birthday Party

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FAMILY PRAYERS

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TRIBUTE TO MOTHER AND FATHER

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A WILBUR PHOTO ALBUM

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PART III
SCOUTING AND OTHER OUTINGS
Scouting
Camp Delmont
Other Outings
THE SEA! THE BAY! AND SUMMERTIME
Lavallette, New Jersey
The Sea and the Beach
Barnegat Bay
The Summertime

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PART IV
THE FAMILY TREE BRANCHES OUT

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FAMILY REUNIONS

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APPENDIXES
Appendix A -Notes by Chapters
Appendix B - The Wilbur Family Tree
Appendix C- H. 0. Wilbur & Sons, The
Chocolate Factory
Appendix D- Genealogical Notes

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67

71

79

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This account of HAPPY DAYS AND SPECIAL EVENTS
OF THE WILBUR FAMILY is dedicated to those who
made its writing possible; who acted on its stage,· who
shared their joys and sorrows; who tossed eggs at Easter,·
who sailed Barnegat Bay; who blew trumpets at
Christmas; and who knelt each evening at Family Prayers.

Bertrand and Anna
Bertrand
Harry
Donald
Elizabeth
'"hOS":r Nelson

Esther (I.oN.\)
~-.~Anna ~~)
Ruth
Virginia (Gtllllo)

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FORWARD
Happy memories are treasures which should not be hoarded but brought out and shown to members
of your extended family and to friends. Ross Wilbur has done just that in writing Happy Days and
Special Events of the Wilbur Family, 1898 -1980. The Wilburs were and are an extraordinary family
and I am delighted that we now have a record of some of the events that happened among them.
For many years the Wilburs lived at 42 Rosemont Avenue and I lived at 41 Rosemont Avenue, just
across the street. Because I was a youngest child with an eight year gap to my nearest brother, I
became almost from birth a de facto member of the Wilbur family, fitting in between Esther and
Ross. Nelson became my older brother and Ross my younger brother.
This is Ross' story and not mine, but I have my treasured Wilbur memories too: the trips to the
chocolate factory; guarding the cherry trees from the birds; reloading shotgun shells; preparing,
cooking, and eating starlings and grackles; the chemistry laboratory in the stable; the rope ladder
escape; grinding valves on the Model T Ford; the elegant Marmon; and visits to the summer home
on the ocean at Lavallette.
On October 8, 1981, I visited the scene of these childhood memories. I stood in the middle of Rosemont Avenue and looked at the two houses, still standing across the street from each other. In
general appearance they are just what they were in 1915. There are no structural alterations and even
the Wilbur stable is still there. Standing in front of the Wilbur house, I let myself enjoy the flood of
memories from our happy childhood. And now, you can enjoy thinking about that past too as you
read what Ross has written.
Walton Forstall
December 1981
Pittsburg

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INTRODUCTION
This is an account of special days and events occuring in the family of Bertrand Kingsbury and Anna
Dean Wilbur during the years 1898 to 1939 when the parents broke-up their home in Haverford on
the "Main Line" of surburban Philadelphia and relocated during father's retirement years in La
Jolla, California. Aspects of the saga extend on to 1980 by which time the parents and two of their
sons and three of their daughters had passed on to eternal life.
Vignettes of the activities of a growing family of ten children - five boys and five girls, living in the
post-Victorian and pre-World War I to World War II periods, are portrayed showing an upper-class
family enjoying surburban and seashore living at a time that led into the "roaring twenties" and on
to the "great depression" of the early thirties.
Why record the past? Partly for my own and my children's enjoyment! But, there are other reasons
as well. The immediate descendents of Anna and Bert numbered 93 by the third generations (34
households as of 1980). This figure includes the great grandchildren together with all the spouses,
affectionately known as the WIPS (Wilbur In-law Protective Society). Many out of this group have
asked for more information about the family on the Wilbur/Dean side, having heard stories of the
doings and goings-on of their parents and grandparents. Some of these stories are retold here
together with some that may be less familiar. Surely other members of the family could add other
episodes to this collection!
Admittedly, this account is viewed through my eyes, tinted (or faded) by the light and shadow of
time, but more particularly, tinted by the eternal optimism of Rossie Boy who must have inherited
the characteristic from his mother, Anna Dean, who reared ten children and saw the ups and downs
of fortune, but was everloving and caring for a fine but dominant and somewhat unpredictable husband.
A word of appreciation is due my brothers, Bert and Harry, for their careful review of this account,
for their helpful suggestions and for their contributions to the document itself. Larry Wilbur shared
his professional skills in designing "A Wilbur Album" which has been incorporated at the request
of the family. Clarke Maxfield flew to Northfield in order to facilitate getting this to the press and
out to the family members. Rosemary Codding (aided by family and friends especially Ray Ressler
instructor and native of Lititz) type set the text.
If these pages bring pleasure to members of the family and lead to the recall of other Special Days
and Events, they will have served the intended purpose of the author.

Ross T. Wilbur
Northfield, Minnesota

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PART I

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A BIT OF ROMANCE
The first formal meeting of our parents as told by a friend of Tante's 1, took place in the Wilbur
Home in Bryn Mawr. Grandmother Harriet Wilbur taught an older girls' Sunday School class at the
Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church. Mother, who was a student at Bryn Mawr College, attended the
class and grandmother grew to admire her. Anna was invited frequently to the Wilbur home for
Sunday dinner where she heard glowing accounts of son Bertrand, the medical missionary at Sitka,
Alaska. Finally, Bertrand returned on furlough and at Sunday dinner met the lovely Anna Dean.
Subsequently Anna, instead of pursuring her education and graduating with her classmates at Bryn
Mawr College, married Bert, went to Alaska and became a devoted wife and mother.
There seems to have been an interlude after this first meeting when father returned to Sitka and
mother went to Europe with her Uncle Will and Aunt Helen Taylor. Father's journals tell of the
romance carried on by letter, it taking a month for a letter to be exchanged each way, he writing 'til
midnight answering Anna's letters that came by boat so that his replies could go out on the boat the
next day. What a way to wait out decisions, he proposing and she "considering"! It took a year to
win an affirmative answer which mother gave when father came down from Alaska on a furlough.
The six Dean children lived near Uncle Will and Aunt Helen (Auntie Grandma to us children) in
Cincinnati, Ohio. Although father was home on furlough, their correspondence was sporadic.
Father finally wrote from Philadelphia that he would be going to Chicago in July 1897 and "if there
shall be an opportunity, I shall see you and perhaps we may clear up this sad tangle?" Accordingly,
he arranged to go to Gratiot Beach, north of Detroit where the Taylor and Dean families vacationed.2
After father's visit and their engagement, mother wrote her "Confessio Amatus" 3 telling of the
depth of their love and their strong faith in God. This statement was sent to father who had gone
back to Alaska after his visit to Gratiot Beach. It highlights the turmoil and the joy of father and
mother's romance. Mother wrote:
Oh, how terrible the waiting was! How I kept the mail days in my mind hoping for that "daily
chronicle of my life". Resolving to write -tearing up all I had written - and when July came,
every letter, every telegram might possibly be from you - no - the days past. August came and
went - with wild zeal I devoted myself to others that I might not have a moment to think - and
yet I thought - each happy excursion had the sting of your absence - for always I thought of having you there too. Only Aunt Helen knew and one Sunday in August when I was amusing some
children whose mother was very ill, out in the grove with guinea pigs (Little Dorothy called
them the "McGinty pigs"), Aunt Helen sent them to the front yard to gather clover blossoms,
-and putting her arm around me as I sat there with five little guinea pigs in my lap she said,
"Nancy dear, the summer is almost over, isn't he coming?" I said, "I don't know. I hope he
will come on his way west, he was travelling east with his mother and sister- perhaps he felt that
they needed him then." Then she asked what I heard from you and I said, "Nothing" - I explained that I had not answered your letter, and she said I was wrong - then the children came
back and Aunt Helen left me.
But that night she came home and said, "little girl, I take back what I said - on first thought it
seemed thee ought to have answered his letter. But he must love thee, love thee so that he will be
unsatisfied until he talks with thee face to face - and there can be no answer except from thy
own lips when he can look into thy eyes."- I waited for a week. Aunt Helen was gone. But there
flashed through my consciousness the illuminating truth - that there was no such thing as a
God-given love and that I had a right to aid - for at last my heart told me that if I really loved

1

you I would forget myself- as I sat down, wrote, sealed and mailed a letter to you before my
heart should fail. Of course all the tormenting doubts came back, doubts chiefly of your love
-feared lest you had learned to forget me- or found that you never loved. Oh Laddie, it wasterrible - but I had to cling to my faith that God would over-rule the mistake if I was wrong since I
had done my best.
The Deanery, Gratiot Beach,
Port Huron, Michigan
(The postmark was September 5, 1897)
My dear Dr. Wilbur,
May I know something of your plans for returning to Sitka this fall? We leave Gratiot in two
weeks and I have been anxious not to miss you if the opportunity should be given for that talked
of visit.
Of course your summer at home has been full of work and pleasure. I can fancy your return to
Sitka and the ovation that awaits you there in the stolid hearts of your former patients as they
come to the dock to meet you.
Please do not think that I am trying to renew the past or to hold on to a friendship that left me
so greatly your debtor. Perhaps, I write because, womanlike I want the last word or perhaps
because I cannot help acknowledging the sweet friendliness of your last letter.

September third.

Ever sincerely your friend,
Anna Elliott Dean 4

Father states in his journal that he responded immediately to mother's letter stating that he would
like to visit. Auntie May, mother's oldest sister and head of the Dean family, telegraphed an invitation to father formally inviting him to visit at Gratiot Beach. Mother continues her account more by
an expression of her emotions and feelings than in the form of a narrative;
I talked incessantly to Bur all the way down to town until he teased me into being absolutely
silent- Would you know me- had I grown much older- I felt absolutely ancient as though I had
lived a life time since we met and you seemed so far away from me, and such a stranger - and yet
I knew you were coming to ask me to be your wife. Did I love you or myself created ideal of
you? My brain was a whirl, and here you were doing the formal, polite- yes a pleasant journey,
all were well at home and sent their love - yes the car would soon be here - so tiresome to wait
-but finally we did reach Gratiot Beach and you were introduced to the Lake, the lawn and the
"boarding house" then the Deanery - This is my big sister, Dr. Wilbur - and my brother,
George. (They had declared they were going to ask, "What is the name? Oh Wilbur") Bess was
sitting in my room on the floor and peeping through the curtain when the spring snapped and
up flew the shade with a bang! but you didn't seem to know it. How abruptly I hurried over to
"Hawthorne Lodge" -before you knew where you were, was it not, but you have forgiven me I
know for I knew dinner was waiting since your train had been late and oh! I did want nothing to
disturb May.

After the months of somewhat turbulent letter writing, father was anxious to tell mother of his love
where they could be alone. As soon as the amenities of meeting the family and having dinner were
over, father was able to take mother for a walk along the shore. Mother continues in "Confessio
Amatus'':
2

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So much of those days is a blank - I must have been in some sort of a trance - But we started out
on our walk that evening, I remember that naughty Morris sang through a megaphone, "Does
the girl that I adore love me less or love me more, starlight, star bright, tell me do you know?" I
have no idea what you said, until as we walked along the single boardwalk to the shore I tried to
tease you about the race in the afternoon - You did not answer but stepped beside me and said
"Anna it's no use. I must talk to you of my love" - I think I said - "Oh, Bertrand, please
don't" - But you slipped your arm around me and somehow or other I found myself sitting on
the bank. I could not have walked another step- I never felt so absolutely helpless- I was so, so
frightened - I think I must have clung to you - dear, did I -there seemed to be only you in all the
world - there must have been two of me that night- my heart longed for the joy and the peace
-one me, let you draw me very near to you and you gave me an answering kiss, as your lips met
mine - then the other me awoke (was it the intellectual me?) and felt the wrong - no I cannot say
wrong for there was truly only the sweetest most sacred joy in that first kiss - my beloved - and
that was what puzzled me - I thought to have been horrified, but somehow I felt that we belong
to each other- and I was 'close driven' as you say with the old and the new self- I wanted time
to fight it out, I could not see nor think, nor feel, so I cried- "Don't, don't-- Oh, Laddie dear,
what a night it was - I couldn't see how you could love me, and I wasn't sure you did, really,
and I didn't know whether this that I felt was love- I smile at all this now- but then, how I really suffered. Then we walked home, and you quietly held my hand and soothed me into some
control of my will, and we went in to chat about Alaska - somehow after that you seemed to
belong to me - I seemed to know and understand you - all the "stranger" was lost - instead of
turning to my brothers and sisters to help me entertain you - I found myself turning to you to
help me to be pleasant to my brothers and sisters.
How restless I was that night - as I thought of the future. If you went back with no more
satisfactory conclusion than that evening - and for hours I thought of all that would involve
-No,no. It would be better to make this the end of all- better "No" than uncertainty. -but this
made all so dark - I could not think of the future that should not include your "friendship" at
least. Then it began to grow light - and still I had not slept - when like a thought from Heaven
came a new voice - ''But if you say- 'Yes' -it is still a miracle wrought by God himself- I cannot
understand it - but trouble and worry and doubt vanished - there was only peace and joy - and
rest and I said I will tell him in the morning - and I fell asleep so sweetly- I was almost conscious
of it.

Finally an understanding was reached, the understanding that true lovers seek and find in such different ways:
---finally you and I (and Lulu started for the woods - I have no idea what made me take Lulu
with us - for I wanted to be alone with you - and how thoughtless and unkind to dismiss her, I
might have known she would get lost had I stopped to think, poor little girl - Where were all my
woodsman instincts - I have always prided myself on my pathfinding, who have for years guided all expeditions to the woods -. Bert, you must have bewitched me - I had simply no idea
where I was - and I was so ashamed of my loss of wits. Do you remember finding maiden hair
fern and then losing the basket - which you finally discovered and do you remember how you
tried to put your arm around me - truly it vexed and troubled me -. Then we came to a little
bower that has since become so sacred to us - and you asked whether you should cease telling
me of your love- and could I but honestly answer, "No" - I believe I did not half listen to what
you said for I was thinking of the peace of the decision I had made during the troubled night
-and I wondered whether you truly wanted me to say "yes" - for just then you seemed quite
resigned dear, patient Laddie - but I knew I loved you so that I could not be silent any longer, so

3

"Would you take me with all my littleness and meanness" -and I knew you meant it when
you looked up at me to see what I meant- "Yes- I would take you." Did I manage to say,
"Then, take me" -. My own dear Love - it took me several days to realize the depths of the joy
that that moment brought to us - but that moment meant I felt peace - the blessing - and I knew
it was right -that God had given us to each other- that I loved you- with a new Love. Was it
peaceful gladness - that came to us that afternoon - and how the gladness has deepened - how
much more fully we comprehend it now even than we did that supreme hour -. How sacred are
those few moments - I can only whisper the joy to you -when you are holding me close to your
heart- when you are looking into my innermost soul, when I see reflected in your eyes all I
would say could words be found to tell you how I love. Hand in hand we wander through the
woods, back to the realities of the old life. But how changed the world in which we lived.

So on that memorable Wednesday in the woods at Gratiot Beach amid maidenhair fern, mother and
father bespoke their love for each other and agreed to share their lives together. Furlough over,
father returned to Alaska within a short time and from there wrote Aunt Helen Taylor on
November 7, 1897:
Dear Aunt Helen
That name looks strange to me on paper, as I sit in my office this Sabbath night, but not as
strange as I felt the first night I called you that. Indeed I was very much afraid of you, not
because the boys had guyed me, but from the few stray remarks that dear Nancy let slip into her
letters while you were in Europe. I am so glad that it is all very different now, for you have been
so lovely to me, when it must have seemed very hard to think of a stranger as Nancy's lover. Indeed I should love you, even tho you had not been as kind as you were, for Nancy loves you as
much.
Our good nurse has gone to church, so I am here to see that none of the patients on liquid diets,
steal out to the pantry and get a square meal, or that some stray visitor does not bring a bottle
of hooch-i-noo (native liquor) or a plug of tobacco to some case recently operated.
I have been very busy, finding an epidemic of measles raging here on my return. Please tell Dr.
Taylor that the little impromptu clinic on the exanthemata which he gave George and me in the
House of Refuge, has stood me in good service here. Our epidemic is past and we have
fumigated everything so that this letter is not likely to be stopped by the Board of Health. I am
very well, thank you, in spite of the weather which has.been very wet for almost two months,
they tell me. Certainly we have had but two clear days since I came- Now is not that a dreadful
place to bring a lovely young wife? But it is not so bad even now. It is tolerably consistent
weather, pretty sure to rain so you know you are safe in taking an umbrella and rubbers where
ever you go. And you know that white dresses and spring bonnets cannot safely be worn for we
never have a hot wave, and then too the weather is a triffle thick sometimes, we never find the
air saturated with carbon in a fine state of suspension nor do our lace curtains get dirty in two
weeks from the smoke! So you see there are the roses amid the thorns in Alaska as elsewhere.
The weeks since I returned have passed quickly in retrospect. The days seem to go fast enough,
by themselves, but somehow they don't count up very fast and the spring to 1899 seems so far in
the future I have to use my mental telescope of powerful imagination to see it at all. One of our
returned missionaries, who was staying here a few days, told of an experience she had with a
native boy and girl who were engaged. They were very anxious to be married and the man came

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to the missionary and said:"Mrs. McFarland, I very much want to marry Mary. My chest is sick
and I don't think I can live very long and I want to be married as much as I can". Well
-doubtless there are others who feel the same way! regarding the latter clause especially. Which
brings me to the subject of my beloved sweetheart as every letter, every conversation surely will
do, if continued long enough and it is not necessary to be very long either. Dear Aunt Helen,
there is something very beautiful, very stange about this love I have for dear Nancy. It is not a
fancy, for fancy is born of imaginings and dreams, I think, and you know that I hardly allowed
myself to think of her in the long five months we did not correspond. But this love's so real. It
seems to be in every fiber of my life. It has purified me, enabled me and filled me with new
energy and loftier ambition. Absence only makes the heart-hunger more keen. Is it not almost
Divine? Certainly in the sense that it is God given it is divine.
When I was a youth of about eighteen I was wont to dream of such a love. But that was that exceedingly 'calfy' age when Carlisle says "all young men should be kept in a hogshead and fed
through the bung hole until they arrive at the age of discretion". So when I had arrived at the
age of presumable discretion I thought love a little less real and a little less able to work miracles
than in the earlier days. Truth is, I was rather cynical and fast growing more so, but that is all
gone.
I long to see Nancy so! Indeed I don't get used to it at all and it just gets worse day by day. Her
letters are exceedingly sweet and I wonder how a girl can realize just what I crave in order to
supply that want. It is inexpressibly precious that never has one disappointment crossed mymind regarding Nancy. Now don't you really think she is the loveliest woman God ever caused
to bless a man? Don't you. I do.
Ah! me! My letter is full of my love and I have not told you how I thank you for your goodness
to me- Please accept my sincere gratitude and if I offer my very true love I don't think the Doctor will care, do you? I really mean it.
Kindly express my best wishes to the junior Doctor and his Sister.
To Dr. Taylor, my respects and my sincere regarq. May our God bless you, dear Aunt Helen,
filling your life with gladness and ever making you the blessing you already are.
I am, by your leave, very dutifully,
Your nephew, Bertrand

Once more the coastal steamers carried letters back and forth between the young lovers for nine
months but this time with the asssurance that comes after the engagement. Mother was busy in Cincinnati making plans for the wedding and father was becoming increasingly impatient for his return
to the States and his betrothed.
Bertrand and Anna were married June 15, 1898 at Cincinnati, Ohio and then went to Gratiot for a
brief honeymoon before going on to Alaska. Mother wrote to Aunt Helen en route. Among their
companions aboard ship were prospectors going to ''the Klondyke'' in the gold rush of that year.
5

On board the Topeka
Pyramid Harbor, July 5, '98
My dear Aunt Helen,
From the land of the glaciers- greetings! How I wish thee and dear Uncle Daddy might see these
things with us. The mountains snow-capped rising out of the sea- the islands, the numerous,
wonderful glaciers, some high in the mountains, others coming to the water's edge and presenting a broad green-blue wall. It is beautiful, wonderful. We are in the land of perpetual day now,
and it is so hard to leave the deck for the necessary sleep when each turn brings a new beauty.
To speak no longer in general terms of our trip, I will tell you of these Alaska towns at which we
have gone ashore. Wrangle - the home of the totem poles - came first, and we spent the entire
afternoon in wandering around this village. A route to the Klondyke via Sitkun River gave
Wrangle a great boom and new houses eclipse the old Indian huts, and the totems appear in the
midst of these new houses, stores, tents, boats, wharves, lumber yards. It is impossible to
describe the amalgamated mess of one of these boom towns, built on the mountain slopes with
no more clearing than is absolutely necessary. We called at one of the houses- Chief Katashan's
- his children are at Sitka. As we walk along we will hear a gutteral sound nearby, and some
native, old or young, will be beaming at "Dochtah, Dochtah, Sitak Dochtah!"
Leaving Wrangle, we went to Juneau- about a twelve-hour run. Can you imagine the Fourth of
July at Juneau! You have probably seen pictures of Juneau, but none of them can give you any
idea of it as it is built there on a landslide. We climbed a hill back of the town and oh, it was the
loveliest of places - a high wooded mountain, snow-topped, the streams roaring down the
precipices to the narrow valley - and the rushing, tumbling stream that received them all - and
flowers and ferns and pines everywhere. We called at the mission there, then went to town again
to see the parade. We took a few snaps of the procession and hope they will be good enough to
give you some idea of the celebration. Uncle Sam led the procession with a warship on his back
labeled "Maine," and at the final celebration this was "blown up." All the natives in their
gaudiest blankets were there, and all the townspeople. In the afternoon we crossed the channel
to the greatest gold mine in the world - the Treadwell mine on Douglas Island, and Bertrand
made it intensely interesting to me by explaining the operation ....
This morning we reached Skagway (about 2 a.m.), which is the present boom Alaskan town,
and affords the best route to the Klondyke over the Chilkoot pass. A number of our fellow
passengers have "gone in" from here. We hope we are to go to Glacier Bay, but we will not
know until afternoon when we reach the cross roads, for it all depends on time and tide. If not,
we will be in Sitka tomorrow morning. Every moment of our week's voyage has been delightful,
and I hope it will not be long before you and Uncle Daddy are personally conducting a tour to
Alaska with Sitka as an object point. If Bertrand were not fast alseep in the steamer chair he
would send a message of love - so as it is I enclose it anyhow. I send you my love.
Ever your Anna Dean Wilbur

After their arrival at the Presbyterian Mission at Sitka, mother wrote a long letter to her older sister,
May, telling of their first few days in their new home and the welcome she and father received from
the community.

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Sitka, Alaska
July 13, 1898
My dear Maysie,
Here I am at the hospital for office hour with Bertrand and I am going to take time by the
forelock and begin to tell you some of the happenings of this my first week in Sitka. I found I
had thirty-nine notes of acknowledgment to write, so the time I have has been given to this duty. I was so sorry yesterday when a tourist steamer wandered in unexpectedly that I did not have
a letter for her to take to you, but I did get all the notes off on her so you will understand how it
is that Marion Cram and the Armstrongs have letters while you do not.
But to take up the thread of my story when I left it on board the Topeka. When we woke up
Wednesday morning we found the captain had been able to get through Peril straits without
waiting for the tide, and that brought us four hours nearer to Sitka than we had anticipated.
When we were on deck we were already in familiar waters and dear Bert enthusiastically pointed
out all of his friends, the mountains, the islands, and the bays. It was all so beautiful we made
very little concession to breakfast for we were in Sitka Bay. The tide not being favorable to
enter the usual channel, we made a circuit of the bay, which gave us chance views of Sitka town,
then the mission and even dear little Raven's Nest 5 across the bay between the islands. As we
passed the Mission buildings, handkerchiefs were waved from the windows, and by the time we
reached the wharf the band was stationed there to give us welcome. Mrs. Carter, the hosptial
girls, and several teachers were also waiting, and a number of townspeople, perhaps not with
the special object of welcoming us, but they welcomed us just the same. Our fellow passengers,
including some Britishers, were very much interested and said we had a hearty welcome.
After a little delay in shaking hands on the wharf, we proceeded up the street, passing the Greek
church and then turning to the right were on the road along the bay that shows on the picture.
In front of the first house, branches of hemlock were spread before us to walk over in triumphant entry, and from the porch five or six friends sent a shower of rice. Coming to the first
mission building, the boys' dormitory, we were greeted by the teachers who could not get down
to the wharf on time, and in the yard were groups of interested spectators smiling and waiting
for a word of recognition from "Doctah."
Then on to Raven's Nest. How good it was to get there. You can have no idea from the
photograph of the perfectly beautiful bit of earth those steps span. It is just naturally wild - a
chef d'oeuvre of natural art, with ferns and flowers and shrubs and trees- until you reach the
very doorstep of the nest. And how shall I describe the nest - so cosy and homelike and comfortable as the living room seemed that morning when I was welcomed to my new little home. The
four large windows reaching almost from floor to ceiling framed the wonderful views of sea and
islands and mountains. The room within was itself so tasteful and bright. You know the curio
corner and Bert's handsome desk with its book shelves above; opposite this is another well filled
bookcase - and the couch with some of its familiar pillows is between the front windows, a Morris chair and three rockers, desk chair, table, etc. finish the list of furniture - come see how cosy
it is, you dear people.
Bertrand's room opened from the living room, and the woodshed back of that you know- of
course I had to see it all, and then up the companionway (which isn't half bad after all and is so
businesslike in the way it gets you immediately to the second floor) to my room over the living
room. Bertrand had fixed it up so nicely- a gold brown carpet, white woodwork, yellow paper,

7

white and brass bed, chiffonier, bureau, wash stand, bookcase and steamer chair upholstered
for lounging, and the other chair. Three beautiful windows and yellow and white draperies. The
bureau had the Dean pictures on it, May and Bess and Arch, so you welcomed me to Raven's
Nest. Some of our steamer tourist friends wandered up at once, among them some true
Britishers that I had taken a fancy to -they were taking a tour of America and were most genial;
one of them said, "Your little new home is most terribly cosy, now isn't it?"
That first day we didn't do much of anything. I believe our time was so broken by people and
things. We took supper and dinner at the teacher's club, where everyone was most cordial and
pleasant. I am agreeably surprised in finding all the workers so nice - I feared they might be
cranky, but we have very jolly times at the table usually. Mr. Kelly, the superintendent, is just
splendid, quiet perhaps, but with a streak of humor and always thoughtful for others. Miss
Gibson, the nurse at the hospital, has been so kind and good to us. We take breakfast at the
hospital every morning because the rest of the school keeps such early hours. Aunt Deal has
been so busy that we have not seen very much of her, and she is going away this August so bid
your anxious fears subside. The others I will speak of later.
Thursday morning I was introduced to the sea pools in our front yard, and found so many interesting things: jelly fish, star fish, crabs and all sorts of shell fish, anemones, sea urchins and
beautiful sea weeds. The shore is so beautiful. Fancy what the rocks at Newport or Marblehead
would be if the bells and ferns grew out of the crevices of the highest ones and the heather,
shrubs, vines, deep moss and trees wherever the tide left them undisturbed in little depressions
of the rock. We had a little row over to a near island in the afternoon, and going out I cast my
trolling line and caught two big fish- black bass, each weighing at least three pounds. (I judge
by comparison with Frey's 3-lb. fish.)
We have had good weather every day, but Friday was one of those gloriously brilliant days that
Alaskans claim as their specialty. The teachers were busy getting ready for the reception of the
evening, so since we were not allowed to help make the cake, ice cream or salad, we cleared out
from under foot by taking the little canvas boat about twelve o'clock and going over to Bluebell Cove Island (I caught some fish on the way over, too!) It is such fun to have a perpetual
bait. We landed on a clean beach washed four times a day by the tide, and the water here is so
pure and clean that it really cleanses and leaves no dirt behind. Bertrand built a fire, and soon
we had the chocolate ready - and sardines, fresh tomatoes, chocolate, bread and butter,
chocolate cake and fruit were spread on a level space with overhanging vines the little flowers
peeping out around the edge of the cloth. Oh, it did taste good! After a little climb around the
island to points of vantage for views, or sequestered little flower dells, we came home in time
for a swim. The water was delightful, about as cold as Gratiot but being salt it was glowing.
After a hasty supper with the teachers, we came home to don our best bib and tucker for our
reception. I wore my white and yellow silk (and, by the way, all my clothes arrived in excellent
condition). The teachers rooms- the front rooms on the first floor of the boys' building- were
beautifully decorated with potted plants, ferns, hemlock and such a wonderful profusion of
pansies. The way things were extemporized interested me, I thought it was so clever and looked
so pretty. Pieces of clay pipe were bound with white crepe paper and through the string·s wete
slipped these great large pansies until the whole was covered - thrust into the top of the pipe was
a great spreading bouquet of ferns, grasses and fine vines with brilliant leaves. The dining room
looked so pretty, too, with circles of pansies around the white table cloth and almonds, olives,
rolled sandwiches, chicken salad, coffee, ice cream and cake were served to about two hundred
guests. All the white people in Sitka were invited, so we met at one moment the Attorney
General, at the next the clerk of the grocery store, perhaps the Russian priest next, and the

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guard at the jail; then the Governor and perhaps your Irish wash-lady; but all cordial and polite
and clean and glad to see the Doctor's wife. I was so proud of my husband, for they all seemed
to be devoted to him and indeed I cannot blame them for he is always so pleasant and kind to
everyone. Mr. Kelly and Mr. and Mrs. McClelland (the minister and his wife) received the
guests, Mrs. Carter stood with us and presented them. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, and I
think it was so kind of the "Ladies of the Mission" to give the reception for us, for it meant so
much trouble for them - writing and delivering the invitations, preparing every bit of the
refreshments themselves, decorating, and collecting a little necessary china, silver and linen
from all their friends. We did thoroughly appreciate what it meant.
Sunday afternoon we went out in the large boat with Mrs. Carter and the three hospital girls for
a final celebration because Annie and Salina were to go back home Monday as their time at the
hospital is over. We went to another island and Bertrand and I climbed up a steep ledge of rock
to the summit of the cliff and then each of us climbed a crab apple tree in order to get sufficiently above the shrubbery to see the bay .... The others of our party stayed on the shore and picked the salmon and blueberries that grow here in such profusion. Then we rowed over to another
island, a small bed of rock cleft by the water into two parts with almost perpendicular sides.
The marine life is always so interesting on all these islands, and it is all so new to me. This island
had so many of those exquisite aboloni (?) shells on it.
Home again, and Miss Gibson came over for supper with us. Bertrand made some delicious
creamed chicken, string beans, biscuit, chocolate, apricots and chocolate cake comprised the
menu. We spread our cloth on a knoll on the hillside of Raven's Nest, with the ferns and flowrs
around it, and our new silver coffee pot and tea spoons we were very proud and haughty and
everything tasted so good. We had supper at home several times, and Bertrand is just the best
cook. One time we had been working hard all day, I forget whether we were moving down to
the manse or building a chicken coop, but that dear husband of mine thought I looked tired, so
he invited me to supper at Raven's Nest. I was not allowed in the kitchen but read on the couch
until he came for me- and there was the daintiest little supper you can imagine all ready for us.
A pretty center piece of flowers and ferns from our front yard, and a little bouquet at my place
-and smoking hot and most appetizing broiled venison and such good gravy, beans, bread and
tea with sliced apricots and cake for dessert.
Have I explained any place in this letter that we have three rooms in the manse where we are
sleeping now while Mr. McClelland is away, to keep his wife company, but we expect to live
there while we are building? Our plans are all made now, and we are to order the lumber on this
boat and expect to begin work the middle of August. There are ever so many things I would like
to write about, but that will all come gradually for I must not take any more time just now.
I keep thinking of you and loving you and wishing you might share all of my excursions and the
beauty of my new home. Bertrand sends his love, heaps of it, to you all, and we are just as hapPY as can be.
Ever your Anna
Written "a little frequently" in homopathic doses ever since I have been here until now.

This was the auspicious beginning of the family that grew to number ten children, Bert and Harry
being born in Alaska. The chapters that follow tell of the "Happy Days and Special Events" of that
family, although there were also days and events in which our parents experienced disappointment
and sorrow. Throughout the forty-six years of their marriage, they maintained a steadfast faith in
God and an enduring love one for another.
9

THE FAMILY AND THE NEIGHBORHOODS
IN WHICH WE LIVED
The Early Years
Father's Journals, "J.A.M." and "J.A.U." 6 cover in detail the seven years (1894-1901) he spent as
a medical missionary at Sitka. It was following the death of Uncle Harry Wilbur, an older brother,
that grandfather (H. 0.) persuaded father to join him and Uncle Will Wilbur, the oldest brother, at
the chocolate factory. 7 Father felt it was God's Will that he leave the mission field and his medical
practice, which he enjoyed immensely, and respond to "duty to his family." The appeal to family
loyalty coincided with increasing friction with the Home Mission Board, which kept insisting on
greater emphasis on evangelism at the expense of the needs of the medical work at the hospital. Consequently, father and mother, with Bertie and baby Harry, moved to Ardmore, where they lived for
several years. 8 (See footnote for the several neighborhoods in which the family lived.)
From the time the family left Ardmore, Pennsylvania, following Don's birth in 1903 until the fall of
1918, they enjoyed a period of suburban living at 42 Rosemont Avenue. Rosemont was a quiet street
with cordial neighbors, large homes built in the early part of the Twentieth Century with extensive
back yards having vegetable gardens, grape arbors, fruit trees and in our case a chicken yard with
laying hens. It was here that the children from Buddy to Ginny (seven in all) were delivered at home
with the assistance of the family doctor, Dr. Powell. After moving to Rosemont, mother told of her
home and her new life in a leter to her sister, Elizabeth Dean (Tante):
Sunday morning

My dear Betsy,

Now it is your turn at last for a long visitation for I have a two days old cook and I cook no
more. Donald is asleep and all the rest of the household at church. I have just been out around
the farm to prepare the Sunday fruit and make a lovely centerpiece of red, purple and green
grapes and pears from our own vine and tree, and added rosy peaches and red and purple morning glories with a leaf border. Come have some it is so fresh and pretty.
Bert got home safely last Tuesday after his week on the yacht. 9 The boat was at Marblehead
when he arrived, and they cruised up the coast that afternoon and the next morning early
started for Boston, where he spent the rest of the week under the shadow of Bunker Hill
dismantling the ship. He thought he was to have some fun running around, but the captain was
sick and then had to be discharged, so Bert found he was working and couldn't leave the ship
after all. So he did not get to Annie Beals Parker's and quite incensed Aunt Annie Dean by not
seeing her until Sunday afternoon.
Affairs at our house move smoothly and happily. I have been filling fruit jars industriously with
everything that came my way and was cheap enough. The little boys will soon start to
kindergarten, which Harry insists on confusing with zoological garden in spite of my many and
oft explanations. This morning while dressing him for Sunday school he said, "Muover, when
can I go to kindergarten to watch the monkies?" I thought he might in his innocence be nearer
the truth than I in my wisdom. I have been making Donald some dresses with belts and he seems
quite a boy now. He is a monster big one. I used a pattern a year older than he is and when I
tried it on, it was perfectly tight, although I had anticipated enough fullness to gather both the
neck and waist while the sleeves are so long they hang below his fingers. He is so cunning now
and talks a great deal. Just now he has a fad for Chinese and adds ee to every word- mamee,

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walkee, drinkee, goodee, kissee, etc. My oldest has reached the tree climbing stage and many
are the rents I am called upon to repair. I have now made overalls and laws whereby "no
overalls no trees" is the edict. The bannisters are also the scene of many exploits, and both boys
whiz down as recklessly as we used to do. They have not yet asked for tableboards to toboggan
down stairs.
I haven't forgotten that I owe you a bill of $1.43 but have been expecting to see you all summer
and still hope you are to get east, but now that you are so well and frisky I suppose you will be
planning to settle down somewhere and work. Don't forget I love you and want you to come
make this home whenever you are ready, and I hope this time you can meet some of the people
and have a good time.
I am your,
Nancy Jane

The Affluent Years
It was from our Rosemont home that the family packed up every June after school was out to go to
the shore at Lavallette, New Jersey; that the three older boys went to the Haverford Preparatory
School for Boys; and that Buddie went to the Model School for Girls in Byrn Mawr. For two years
(1916-1918) Deanie, Helena and I were tutored at home since I had been born with a harelip and
cleft palate and my poor speech made it difficult for me to be understood in the public school where
I was subject to merciless teasing by fellow students.

Several of our relatives lived in the vicinity. Aunt Helen W. Elliott, father's older sister by sixteen
years, lived a block away in an impressive stone house on Montgomery Avenue with the grounds extending to Roberts Road. This home was built after grandmother's death, and grandfather, with
whom she and her daughter Madeline had been living, moved from the old family home another
block east on Montgomery Avenue on the edge of Bryn Mawr. Father's oldest brother, William
(Will), resided at a country estate perhaps a mile or so from the old Saint David's Episcopal Church.
Mother had two brothers in the area: Archer Dean, the youngest in her family, lived in Ardmore,
and Morris Dean in West Chester. Each brother had a daughter, and the three families regularly
celebrated Thanksgiving and some of the other holidays together.
The year Ross was born, 1910, the family built an ocean-front cottage between Magee and Vance
Avenues at Lavallette, New Jersey. It was a well-planned summer home with spacious living and
dining rooms, a den, tool shop, large pantry, kitchen and laundry room. There were seven
bedrooms and two additional bedrooms for servants over the kitchen and laundry, which were
entered outside from the second-floor porch and were used by the family in later years. There was a
large attic with three gables, a spacious dormer on the ocean side to the east. There was a large,
wooden, water tank that occupied an eight-foot space and supplied the second-floor bath. The attic
was where the boys slept.
First and second floor porches surrounded all but the north side of the house, so the sea could be enjoyed from sunrise to sunset. The west side overlooked Barnegat Bay, which was some six blocks or
more away. On the south side of the second floor was an open deck where we children would lie
after being chilled by an ocean swim and toast ourselves out of the wind, in the hot sun. Many of the
special events and activities recorded in these pages took place at the "cottage."
II

Family fortunes were at their best during the mid-teens and early twenties. It was in 1918 that the
family moved to "Anberten" 10 in Haverford on Railroad Avenue across from the entrance to
Haverford College. Grandfather "H. 0." purchased the property for about $18,000 and gave it to
father and mother, who assumed responsibility for the substantial remodeling of the old Victorian
house with many gables, balconies, decks and intricate decorations.
The main entrance to Anberten's one and one-half acres was from Buck Lane. A large carriage
house and horse stable was on a knoll on the left of the entrance and nearby the tenant house that
Harry Backus occupied. Our home stood on the right, surrounded by spacious lawns shaded by
large maples and oaks. The driveway circled under a porte-cochere where guests entered the house
through large oak doors into a paneled entrance hall having a fireplace, oak table and leathercovered couch and armchair that matched the table. A large moose head hung above the mantel. To
the left a staircase led to a landing where a grandfather clock gave the Westminster chime each
quarter hour, then the staircase turned and led to the second floor.
Opposite the entrance and across the entrance hall, sliding doors led to the dining room with a gas
heater in the fireplace. And on the right side of the entrance hall another set of sliding doors led to
the living room, which looked out on a terrace and across Railroad Avenue to the campus of Haverford College. At the end of the dining room, French doors opened to the music room, with double
doors leading on the right back to the living room. And on the left, large doors led to father's den or
study, which was also paneled in walnut and had a large fireplace with Alaskan totem poles supporting the mantel. Like the living room and music room, the den faced the terrace running across the
front of Anberten. A doorway led out of father's den to a porch, and from there a path curved to a
walk-in entrance to the property from Railroad Avenue. A large butler's pantry, kitchen and maid's
sitting room with a small porch completed the first floor, except for connecting passageways, coat
closets and a powder room off the entrance hall.
An unusual feature that had been built into the old house was a hand-operated elevator that led
from father's den to the master bedroom directly above. This room also had a fireplace as did the
guest bedroom. There were five bedrooms, a sewing room, porch and three baths on the second
floor. The third floor contained four bedrooms, a bath and servants' quarters with a bath. 11
The three oldest boys graduated from Haverford College, and Buddy from Bryn Mawr, while we
lived at Anberten. Mother entertained with gracious cousins' parties for twenty-five or more on the
terrace and lawn. Harry's graduation party and Bud and Hugh's weddings were other memorable
occasions that took place there. Fortunately, grandfather's was the only funeral held at Anberten.
He died in his ninetieth year after having lived in luxurious retirement at the Bellevue Stratford
Hotel in Philadelphia for many years.
If this were a journal instead of an overview of the family's activities, considerable space would be

devoted to the family's involvement with the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church. Father's two journals tell of his extensive relationship to the church as a youth and young man, and of his fondness
for its beloved pastor, Dr. William H. Miller, who encouraged him to go into the mission field. I
was named for the minister of the church, Dr. G. A. Johnston Ross. Dr. Andrew Mutch baptized
the three younger girls and some of the grandchildren, confirmed several of us and married Bud and
Hugh, Don and Beth. He later conducted the interment services for the ashes of both our parents.
Father was an elder of the Presbyterian Church all of my youth and served communion each quarter
wearing the formal, daytime cutaway coat with striped trousers. The older
youth of the family were involved in Christian Endeavor where, it is said, that the imaginative Harry
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gave a talk one Sunday evening using as his text, "Feed the baby onions so you can find him in the
dark."
For years, a Wilbur was Scoutmaster of Troop I (later Troop 42) , which met at the Bryn Mawr
Presbyterian Church. Father organized a Troop Committee while we were living at Rosemont and
obtained a charter for Bryn Mawr Troop I, Boy Scouts of America. The troop was one of the the
first along the Main Line. Weekly meetings and outings were held for nearly a year before the annual registration was begun. Official uniforms for boys and men were obtained from the prestigious
men's clothing store, Jacob Reed & Sons in Philadelphia. Later, Harry was Scoutmaster, followed
by Don while they were at Haverford College. My childhood chum, Walton Forstall, who lived
across Rosemont Avenue from our house, became the troop's Scoutmaster many years later, carrying on the traditions of Troop 42.
As a medical man, Father became aware of sanitation problems in the growing area where we lived,
known as "The Main Line," and politically organized as Lower Merion Township. When the
Township Commissioners formed the Board of Health, father was the first member, and as president he forcefully exercised the authority of that body for twenty-five years, until he and mother
retired to La Jolla. 12 With the support of the Commissioners, he first cleaned up the watershed supplying domestic water to the area. Sanitary requirements for dairy products were established and
successfully defended against the opposition of large producers all the way to the state capital. Such
things as tuberculin testing, pasteurization, facilities' inspections have since become standard in
most cities, but they were bitterly opposed at the time.
What we kids really liked about the Board of Health was its quarantine! While the four older
children were still in elementary school, it was considered beneficial to close the schools when
measles, mumps, chicken pox, whooping cough, diphtheria and the like were epidemic. Quarantine
signs were posted on the doors of affected homes. Our prestige was never higher than when one of
us was entrusted with the letter from the President of the Board of Health to the School Principal
ordering closure.
On Rosemont Avenue the Forstalls, Reimers, Parks, Richards and Wilburs were usually quarantined about the same time. Members of a family usually "came down" one after the other, so the
yellow quarantine placards on windows remained for weeks at a time even though most of the
children were playing outside a lot of the time. What fun we had playing such neighborhood games
as "hide and seek," "run sheep run," "free tag," "coasting" and later "cheeze-it," "red light,"
while all were quarantined.
Father also led or participated in many financial drives for various charitable causes, raising money
for the community chest, for the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, and for the construction of a
new Y.M.C.A. in Ardmore, to name a few. He would spend hours calling on "important people"
(those with money) and signing letters soliciting funds to which he lent the "good Wilbur name."
Mother's Helpers and Servants

All of the families had servants and life appeared to be serene even though the mistresses frequently
complained about the inadequacies of their servants. This was the suburban environment in which
the family lived up to and for a time after World War I. At Rosemont, we usually had two
domestics, a cook and a chambermaid/waitress, and a washerwoman, Sarah or "Bobby" Roberts
who coined the word "fusty", which had the implications "of being or referring to sexiness." There
was a full- or a part-time chauffeur. The servants went to the shore with us while the children were
little. There was also a mother's helper during those early years of the family.
13

Harry Backus became our yardman shortly before we moved to Anberten. He and his family moved
into the tenant house at Haverford while our new home was being remodeled. After we moved to
Anberten, Backus's wife, Mary, became our laundress, his daughter, Rose, our chambermaid/waitress, and his sister, Annie Frame, was our cook. Each morning and evening, Harry B.
went for the mail puffing away on a cigar. He tended the garden, mowed the spacious lawn with a
push mower- no power mowers in those days, and only horse-drawn mowers on large estates- and
Harry B. watched over the property during the summer. For a time Walter Pennington was our
butler at Haverford. Mother always seemed to handle the retinue of servants with equanimity.
Brother Harry adds a note about Jane Parkhurst, by far our most able and beloved mother's helper
while we were at Rosemont:
Bertha Jane Leach Pearson Parkhurst was a tall, self-assured widow living in Glassboro, a few
miles from Camden, N.J. She must have been about 45 and had a vivacious, black-haired
daughter 10 or 11 years old. Somehow mother heard about her. I accompanied mother to
Glassboro to meet her. No doubt both were impressed, I particularly with the daughter. Mother
employed Parkue on the spot and worked out details for her to live with us at Rosemont. Her
daughter, Elsie, would stay with "Parkue's" mother. Twice a month Parkue would return for a
3-day visit to Glassboro.
From the start Parkue was indispensable. She took charge of the nursery, helped with the cleaning of the house and clean-up of the children. Put the young ones to bed, watched out for them
on picnics, took them by train to Lavallette. She did everything with gusto and good nature.
When the family had an epidemic of mumps or German measles, chicken pox or whooping
cough, Parkue helped with the nursing when additional help was needed.
Miss Snyder, a nurse at Mt. Holly, was usually called in, and Parkue and Snyder made a great
team.
One time Father and Mother went on a "Banana Boat" for a two-week boat trip to the West Indies. Aunt Elizabeth had come to take charge of the household. The day after our parents left, a
slight cold was diagnosed by Dr. Powell as measles. A red measle epidemic was starting! An
S.O.S. from Tante brought in Nurse Snyder.
Each day Tante went shopping with the chauffeur, bringing back food and a: surprise for each
of the five children, a treat mightily enjoyed in spite of the measles. Rose Callahan, the "no
fooling" Irish cook, and Bridget McGranihan, the rosy-cheeked young waitress, added special
dishes to their preparation of the food. Sarah Roberts, the sturdy, unflappable laundress,
cleaned countless messy bed clothes, the whole team of Aunt Elizabeth and her six helpers pulled toghether during the emergency, but there was no doubt who was the "Top
Sergeant,"-Parkue, of course. Father and Mother returned from their fun trip, rested but
shocked. Kudos to Dr. Powell, Tante, and Parkue, of course.
Probably the fondest memory we older children have of Parkue is of her piano playing. At the
end of the day, after the younger children were in bed, we would gather round our player piano
and Parkue would play hymns for us. She read music well and had a lovely contralto voice. Our
favorite one was of Jesus in the storm on the sea of Galilee, "Master the tempest is raging, the
billows are tossing high," it ends with "the winds and the waves shall obey thy will, Peace be
still, peace be still. "

There are many stories of the tricks the older boys played on the "servants". One of the favorite
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ones was the discovery by Harry or Don of a freshly baked chocolate cake hidden in the dirtytablelinen hamper and held in reserve for the evening's entertainment of boy friends of the maids.
The boys ran off with the cake for their own use! Another time at Haverford, Don hid a garter
snake in the deep sink in the kitchen. The cook, Annie Frame, became hysterical on its discovery!

The Reversal of Fortune
Following World War I, the chocolate business experienced a severe slump, partly due to the fact
that women began smoking, as the Lucky Strike Cigarette ad said, "Reach for a Lucky instead of a
sweet" and young men were pictured taking a carton of cigarettes to their lady love instead of a box
of chocolates. In addition, the factory had overexpanded during the war and, as a consequence, the
bankers gained control in the interest of protecting their investment. Father was eased out of the
presidency and an "expert" in chocolate manufacture was brought in from Switzerland along with a
forty-year agreement with the Swiss firm of Suchard allowing the use of that company's secret formulas for the manufacture of Swiss chocolate under the names of "Bittra," "Velva," "Caffola"
and "orange," which were added to the Wilbur line of packaged chocolate. In time, father gave up
the supervision of the laboratory in the factory, which maintained the quality control of the Wilbur
product and retired.
During this period Harry was fighting TB at home after having taken the cure at Saranac Lake, New
York, where he met Rose Marymont, the night nurse who later became his wife. Nick was attending
the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where I joined him in the fall of 1929. Toni attended
Miss Illman's School for kindergarten and elementary teacher education. Deanie was at the Friends'
sponsored Westtown School near West Chester, and Helena and Virginia were at Lower Marion
Senior and Junior High Schools respectively.
Anberten experienced the reversal of family fortunes in the late twenties. First, four of the five
domestics including Walter Pennington, the butler, were released. Harry Backus remained. In 1929
the Haverford Preparatory School for Boys, which backed up to our property, made an offer to
purchase Anberten, offering a long-term, self-liquidating note as a major part of the payment.
Regretfully, Anberten was sold and the family moved to 731 Panmure Road, about four blocks
away. The sale came a year before the financial crash of '29, and at a time when funds were urgently
needed to complete the education of the younger family members and to provide for father's retirement. Gone would be our spacious quarters and gracious living as well as my pigeon cote and
chicken house, the garden and the flower beds that mother and father had tended so carefully with
Harry Backus's help.
The house at 731 Panmure Road was rented and was more than adequate for the smaller family. It
was here that Nick and Teddy after they returned from teaching in Japan started a grocery business
in the basement of the house. The business was known as "Wilbur & Wilbur , Profit Rebate Company,'' and operated by customers telephoning their orders in the morning and then Nick made
deliveries in the afternoon. The business was relocated when the home was dismantled in 1938 and
our parents moved to La Jolla, California.
Bert and Helena had established homes in La Jolla and the Bay area of San Francisco, respectively.
Toni went West with our parents and later Deanie moved to California. Virginia lived with mother
and father too for a time before marrying Jon Dimitrijevich and going with him to Venezuela. Thus,
half of the children joined our parents on the West Coast prior to the time of their deaths, father in
his 74th year on January 7, 1945, and mother on May 20, 1952, three days before her 78th birthday.
15

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PART II

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JOYOUS HOLIDAYS
Sundays
Sundays were special days for our family since we all participated in the weekly worship at the Bryn
Mawr Prebyterian Church while we lived at Rosemont and at Haverford. The day began with the
traditional Sunday breakfast - oranges on a fork, cereal, homemade cinnamon buns (two 9 x 13-inch
pans of them, half with raisins in 'em and half without). Father always came to Sunday breakfast
wearing a white handkerchief tied around his neck since this was more comfortable than the stiff
collar and four-in-hand tie he wore to church and because often he still had to clip his beard. The
rest of us were dressed in our best suit or dress with hair well groomed.
Then there was a scramble to get off for Sunday School. In earlier years at Rosemont, father took
the children to Sunday School but later the little ones walked home while the older members of the
family stayed for church. As the family grew, we eventually occupied two pews in the old church
with different members traipsing in from Sunday School and elsewhere before the first hymn was
sung.
When we moved to Haverford, the children were older and it was more of a struggle to get off.
There would be a call from father, "The car leaves in five minutes!" -a rush for coats, hats and
galoshes. Once in the car, crowded as we were, there was such a good feeling of being well dressed,
stiff collars, neckties, polished shoes and all! As time went on, not everyone went to Sunday School
so one of us would drive the car back for the parents and those left behind or when we had two cars,
the second would come later. Some of the older brothers and sisters took on assignments as teachers
or nursery helpers. When the boys were older, they ushered in the balcony where the girls from
several boarding schools in the area sat playing tricks on the young men who passed the collection
plates, such as putting buttons in the plate as an offering, which Harry returned to the girls' embarrassment.
During the years when we had servants, we came home to a formal Sunday dinner- roast, potatoes
and gravy, vegetable, salad and always homemade ice cream served by emptying on a platter the sixquart can of frozen ice cream, which mother then sliced and served, father having carved the meat
for the main course. 13 After we gave up the servants at Haverford, I can remember mother, who had
changed back to a house dress after returning from church in order to finish cooking Sunday dinner,
hurrying up the back stairs pulling off her work dress and almost immediately coming down the
front stairs adjusting her Sunday dress and saying something to the effect, "Now the cook becomes
the hostess!"
Several times a year grandfather and "Mrs. H. 0." would be driven out from the city after church
for dinner by his uniformed chauffeur. His limousine had a glass partition separating the passengers
from the chauffeur, who was given directions over an intercom telephone. Grandfather always wore
his high silk hat, morning coat and striped trousers. After dinner we children would sit and listen to
our elders talk, father shouting into grandfather's ear while they both produced clouds of cigar
smoke, which mother quickly aired out of the living room upon the departure of the grandparents.
As soon as the formal entertaining was over, we would change our clothes and there would be outdoor games - baseball in which Deanie always displayed greater skill than I could ever muster, soccer, and other rough-and-tumble games in good weather. In winter or in stormy weather, after
father's nap, we'd play hide-and-seek, "hunter"-a game in which we'd hide in the dark and father
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would try not to let us touch his toe before he "killed" us as wild animals with a toy gun.
Sometimes the family would gather in a bedroom (no family room in those days) and mother would
read aloud while some members worked at crafts. These included weaving raffia baskets over jars,
melting sealing-wax over odd-shaped bottles to make vases, or making Christmas chain -miles of it.
One time there was a rude scuffling while mother was reading caused by one of the older children
beating out a fire in Esther's hair which had been ignited by an alcohol burner that she was using to
melt sealing-wax. Fortunately, nothing serious!
Gradually the older youth left the Sunday afternoon games in order to date. However, father kept
the program of recreation going for the younger children for many years with the help of Harry or
one of the other older youth. Memory records these years as a time of happy family living with only
an occasional period of stress.

Christmas
Of all the festivals of the Church year, Christmas was by far the most exciting and required the most
extensive planning from the time the children (we younger ones) thumbed through Sears, Roebuck
Christmas Catalogue listing our anticipated wants, to the time we marched into the living room with
its lighted tree on Christmas morning. As Presbyterians, we did not recognize nor celebrate at home
or in church the four Sundays of Advent, nor in those days was there a midnight candlelight service
Christmas Eve. It was instead a time when secret discussions were held, when gifts were wrapped in
secluded corners or in closets away from prying eyes, and when the older brothers and sisters increased the anticipation of the younger children by talking about seeing the "true, live Santa
Claus." In fact, this latter buildup always culminated in seeing him on Christmas Eve- sneaking
down from warm beds to see him decorating the Christmas tree, which was never decorated before
Christmas, or seeing Santa's red pants and boots go up the chimney and hearing sleigh bells on the
roof. Sooty boot marks on newspapers spread on the hearth were proof enough so that the "three
little girls" carried the illusion of Santa far longer than their classmates at school.
While father took an active part with mother in planning the special gifts given to each child and his
own gifts for mother, it was mother who joined in the excitement and carried the burden of preparation of Christmas for her family of ten children. Curiously, she always made some elaborate gift for
"Mrs. H. 0.," one that often took hours to make- a lovely doll to cover the telephone, a silver
beaded purse were two of them I recall. "Mrs. H. 0.," I am pretty sure, never appreciated the hours
of hard work, but mother saved herself a pretty penny!
There were shopping trips with the children under mother's guidance, new clothes to be bought,
gifts for servants, stocking stuffers to be gathered here and there, and the planning of Christmas
dinner itself. Somehow, mother never seemed to show the wear and tear of all the preparation,
which I felt and must have shown years later when I was a father and prepared with Libby for
Christmas for our four children.
It seemed like months ahead, although it was probably only after Thanksgiving, that the younger

children started making great quantities of Christmas chain using colored Christmas box trimmings
father brought from the factory and homemade flour paste preserved with cloves. The chain was
stored in large boxes and later, on the Saturday before Christmas, it was hung in long loops over the
upstairs railing and down the stairwell to the first floor where it was available to the decorators.

The decoration of the entrance hall, dining-music room and living room was assigned to older
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members of the family, each of whom created his or her own design. Younger children assisted by
handing items to the older ones as they stood on step-ladders. I was nicknamed for the occasion,
"Mr. McCoy" and was called hither and thither to deliver "more tacks", "more chain", "paste",
etc.
The dining room was usually done with a huge spiderweb of chain. The chandelier consisted of a
suspended, brass, circular frame of about 36 inches in diameter within which a brown silk curtainlike shade hung. This was removed. A chandelier of chain was created in its place. There was an inner globe of ornamentally cut-out cardboard backed by red and green paper which covered the central lamp and gave a soft, diffused light.
One year Harry mounted on the living room ceiling a decoration consisting of clusters of green holly
leaves about two feet long and inflated, red balloons for berries. It was much admired. Of course the
relatives and grandparents who visited during the holidays "Ooed" and "Ahhed" over the intricate
decorations.
Then, on Christmas Eve day, excitement was at its peak. The living room rug was turned over so the
pine sap would not damage the nap and the tree was brought in, cut to fit the ceiling height and
erected. The electric train was usually set up around the base "to help Santa!". A stocking - the
longest available from each child's supply - was stretched by the children pulling on each end. What
an advantage the older women had with long hose as contrasted with the short socks of the men!
After supper we were allowed to open the gifts that came from relatives. Tante in Washington
sometimes sent a "Wonderball," which was the most elaborate of the gifts that came. It was made
by using three-inch-wide strips of green and red crepe paper and wrapping this around an assortment of small gifts, fashioning thereby a ball. There was a piece of tape pasted to the green strip indicating whose turn it was to unwind the ball until his or her gift dropped out, then on to the next
person.
The Wonder Ball goes 'round and 'round,
Its mysteries to unfold.
A gift for each there will be found,
Perhaps a trinket of silver or of gold!

With such a crescendo of excitement, it was hard to go to bed after the stockings were hung. Mother
had already captured the mates of the stockings and could sometimes be seen by prying eyes filling
them in some hidden spot. It was my seeing her at the task that made me realize reluctantly that
"there ain't no Santa Claus!" Finally, there was the surreptitious trip downstairs to see Santa at
work, which ended the day with great expectations for the morning, expectations that were more
"material" than "spiritual."
As if by magic, the family stirred at about seven o'clock Christmas morning, although the younger
folk had been up and whispering for what to them must have seemed to be hours. The children
gathered and in low voices debated which carol to sing - "Was Bert down yet?" all outside the
parents' bedroom. Then, with a somewhat faltering start, the ten children, largely supported by the
older voices, would mount an increasingly joyous and enthusiastic "Joy to the World" as the
parents flung open the doors, having "just crawled out of bed," with greetings of MERRY
CHRISTMAS all around. One time, I noticed that mother, who had gone downstairs fully clothed
to start breakfast, had returned the back way before our singing ended and pulled on her nightgown
over her clothes in order to carry out the tradition of just getting out of bed.
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Bulging stockings and socks were taken down from the line in front of the fireplace and all too
quickly emptied of their contents- oranges, apples, bananas, a large Wilbur Bud, some wrapped
toy, candy cane, a hair ribbon or two, new socks and, oh yes, nuts, dates and raisins in little boxes.
Our fear of getting only "coal and switches" in our stockings was played upon by the older brothers
and sisters and, in fact, one year Nick's stocking was filled with the dreaded items, which immediately led to tears among the younger girls. Nick was a beloved older brother and he hadn't been
a "bad boy." Father's joke had misfired for the moment. However, he soon produced a sock filled
with Santa's goodies for Nick!
Some of the stocking fruit came to the breakfast table, where eager children gobbled fresh cinnamon buns, hot cereal and cocoa. "How soon can we see the tree?" was the urgent question. Oh,
there were peekers, especially when an older family member with a tardily wrapped gift pulled the
sliding doors of the living room open and sneaked in to deposit it under the tree.
Beds had to be made, the turkey pushed into the oven and other dinner preparations started, dishes
washed- all before the family assembled outside the living room door. When there were servants,
they joined us, too, especially Harry Backus. Horns, whistles, mouth organs were all put into use as
the doors slid open allowing us to parade into a darkened living room, illuminated by the glowing
lights of the tinsel-covered Christmas tree, beneath whose boughs lay a huge pile of gifts in assorted
sizes and colors, together with perhaps a doll or a special toy! Sometimes the family's electric train,
whose rolling stock had been added to over the years, would be running in a big circle around the
tree.
One of the older children distributed the gifts, which were enthusiastically opened, but not in a mad
scramble. Every time Harry Backus got a package, he would be asked, "What's in it, Backus?
What's in it?" and the gleeful reply after he tried to smell the package all over, "Cigars! Cigars!"
Gradually the heap of gifts was dislodged, with father making a somewhat anxious survey to see that
there had been some equality of giving, then a quiet word to mother, "Doesn't look like Esther
received a fair share?" But mother would reassure him that the value of one gift or another offset
the volume that another child might have received. Reluctantly, the great expectation of receiving
gifts had been accomplished and was over until next year.
Grandfather and "Mrs. H. 0." as she was always called, until his death when she became "Anna",
frequently came for Christmas dinner. Grandfather came with a pocket of gold coins which he
distributed in $20 coins to the oldest children, $10 coins to the middle group and tiny $5 gold pieces
to the four youngest. Those coins were always taken for "safe keeping" by father. Though they
theoretically went into savings accounts and were never formally accounted for, they undoubtedly
were used for special projects of equipment, such as the custom made blue trimmed baseball
uniforms (caps, shirts, pants, socks and shoes with cleats) for the "three boys". At other times, the
funds might have been used for a special party dress or perhaps for a new boat at Lavallette. With
ten of us, there must have been many such items above and beyond father's salary. Regardless of
how the money was spent, grandfather's Christmas gifts were always eagerly anticipated.
Mother's Christmas dinner had all the fixings and trimings of a holiday meal and ended with pumpkin and mince pie. It was rather traditional for us to have home-made, frozen, cranberry sherbert
with the main course of turkey. What made the meal special was a bowl of walnuts with red·ribbons
attached that led to each person's place. On a signal, everyone pulled his ribbon thereby procuring a
walnut which was quickly opened revealing a slip of paper in place of the walnut meat. Each slip
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gave in verse a clue as to the location of a present for that individual. The presents had been hidden
earlier by the clever family member who had composed the verses, put the slips of paper inside each
nut and had attached the ribbon. The clues were simple and obvious for the little children and more
obtuse and difficult to decipher for the older members. One clue could have been:
When the meal is over and cleaned away
Look where the maid has to lift a lid.
Hurry now! Don't delay!
For there indeed your present's hid!

While dessert was being served, the youngest child would open her nut, get help in reading it and in
interpreting the written clue. Off she'd go on the hunt. The present would be brought back and
opened at the table. Frequently, a family member who had bought a gift for another family member
and hadn't seen it opened earlier around the tree would breathe a sigh of relief when his gift which
had been taken away from the pile under the tree, was unwrapped.
Christmas afternoon was kind of a let down. Parents and children alike had been busy with
preparatons. There would be talking among the grown-ups with cigar smoke permeating the air
while children tried new toys or played new games. Later there could be a family game or two with a
snack supper. Bedtime with "Many thanks for a wonderful Christmas!" Much thought had gone
into assembling the mass of gifts that had been shared around the tree - each of the twelve (ten
children and two parents) had given something to the eleven other family members and something to
the servants. Alas, 364 days to the next Christmas! Year after year, our parents made Christmas a
memorable day!

Valentine's Day
Because the neighborhood at Rosemont Avenue was a closely knit community, we exchanged valentines among the children in the various households. Not until we were older did we purchase the
"expensive" fancy commercial valentines with round faced children, paper-lace borders and well
thought out greetings. No, instead, we made rather plain valentines by cutting out hearts from red
construction paper and writing our own messages on them. However there was one unique feature.
Each year, father brought home from the factory a box of chocolate wafers about the size of a Ritz
cracker; these wafers were placed in "glassine" bags and a red heart pasted on each side. No other
family had such valentines!
One Valentine's day at Rosemont Toni, Nick and I were out delivering our valentines to the
Forstalls across the street. We had dropped a Valentine at the door several times and each time had
run off to hide while Walton or someone else answered the ring and found the gift. Finally, Mr.
Forstall, who was rather gruff at times, came to the door and caught us in the act - they must have
been at breakfast. "It's all very fine," he grumbled, "for you to give these valentines, but can't you
see you're tracking mud all over the porch?" Well, you can imagine what we said about "old man
Forstall" as we hurried home without leaving any more of our valentine goodies there!

Easter
While our parents and the older boys went off to attend the community service, we kids held our
own, tearful Good Friday service under Buddy's guidance- singing mournfully, "There is a green
hill far away''. As a youngster I may not have understood the theological implications of sin and
salvation but those Good Friday services at home certainly impressed me with the agony and passion
of Christ on the Cross and that I was saved by His sacrifice.
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But Easter, that was another happy day- joyous within the Church and fun for us children. First of
all, there were Easter eggs to be dyed- perhaps six dozen, colored and decorated. Some were wrapped in onion skins tied on with cloth before they were boiled and came out a rich yellowish-brown.
Later, the wax-swirled eggs were devised by melting colored wax and floating the wax on water into
which the eggs were dropped covering them with a swirl of color.
We loved to hear mother tell the story of Uncle Bur's 14 encounter with an Easter egg. He was
mother's next younger brother. At the time, Bur was wearing nickers buckled below the knee. The
Easter eggs had been boiled and were waiting to cool so they could be given to the Dean children.
Uncle Bur went to the cook and asked her to drop one of the eggs into his side pocket, not
remembering the hole in the bottom. The hot egg slipped down his pant-leg and rolled behind his
knee where the buckle of his nickers held it fast. The hot egg was soon squashed by Bur who jumped
about shouting, "Oh, my egg! Oh, my leg! Oh, my egg, my leg, my leg, my egg!" making no sense
to anyone. It was not until his mother got him to stop jumping and give an explanation of his
anguish, that the hot, squashed egg was discovered plastered to the underside of his knee. As far as I
can remember, none of us ever got a serious burn dying hot, hard boiled eggs.
I can't remember if we always had individual baskets on the breakfast table but there were chocolate
goodies and jelly beans for everyone. After the Easter service, the family would gather for another
of mother's special dinners. I was allowed to arrange the centerpiece for the table which was usually
one or more of my pet's babies symbolizing new birth and growth. I arranged a wire mesh cage or
enclosure at the center of the table - with table cloth and all the best crystal and china! Inside the
enclosure, I placed several baby rabbits or chicks, or ducklings depending on what babies I could
come up with for the occasion. 15
Sometimes, the piece de resistance of the Easter dinner would be a cylinder of vanilla ice cream in a
large, spun-sugar bird's nese 6 or perhaps fifteen individual meringue glacees. After dinner on
Easter, it was traditional to have an Easter egg hunt. Mother and father took the eggs outside and
hid them while we kids were supposed to stay inside away from the windows. Mother hid eggs where
the little ones could find them more readily and father sought more difficult spots where the color of
the eggs would blend into the background- a bronze egg in a terra cotta water pipe opening. No one
kept the eggs he or she found, but each person had the fun of hunting and seeing how many could be
found, often on hints from mother while the older ones raced about for ''easy pickin's".
Following the egg hunt in which some of the older grandchildren may have participated in later
years, there would be more boisterous egg throwing games. The family was divided into two teams.
In succession, each team took a hard boiled egg and from the starting point one member would toss
to another team member as far as he or she could throw it safely so that the egg would not be broken
when it was caught. The course was around the house and the object was to make it in as few throws
as possible and still have a whole egg - oh, well, the better part of a shattered egg. The game was
stopped before too many eggs were squandered! It was Harry Backus who wound up the Easter egg
games. Weeks or months later, his lawn mower would chop up a colored egg that had washed out of
a drain spout or fallen from the crotch of a tree.

May Day
Every family has its own special rituals and celebrations. Our May Day, you may be sure had
nothing to do with trade unionism or the traditional celebration of later day Communism. During
our early years, we regularly had an outing in nearby woods late in April to gather wild flowers for
May baskets for mother and father and some neighbors, to be stealthly left at their doors early May

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Day morning. Later, May Day for us became the occasion for the crowning of the May Queen, our
mother and the King of the May, father, as well. Few parents today would have tolerated the ordeal!
Secretly, we children picked violets and gathered other flowers and blossoms which we attached to a
crown made of flexible branchs. There were little clusters of posies tied around the crown but its
"crowning glory" was the many flowered spike (or candle) of the horse chestnut blossom which
stood erect, like a shining jewel at the front of the crown. It took some doing to make the spike
stand straight up! Next, the entire crown was submerged in water in a laundry tub to keep it fresh
until supper time.
Then, before the evening meal began, the younger children disappeared, only to emerge bearing the
crowns- supposedly drained of the water in which they had been submerged. They sang "Hail to the
May Queen" and then the crown of flowers was placed on mother's head. I am sure father dressed
in his business suit would have been glad to let it go at that. But no, we weren't about to leave him
out! So he was crowned King of the May. All was well until the dripping crown began to accumulate
too much water on father's head so that it began to trickle down his beard! Then, with a word of explanation, he would relinquish his crown to the tray on which it had rested. Thus ended the ritual,
although mother was able to endure her crown for the entire meal!

Fourth of July
The Fourth of July ocurred while the family was a Lavallette and, of course, father usually took a
long holiday from the factory to be with us. After a day of activity- shooting off firecrackers, swimming in the ocean, playing on the beach, dining and naps, the time came for the special celebration.
In the pre-twenties, there were no restrictions on fireworks and as the boys became older in their
teens, the Wilburs put on quite a show for the town of Lavalette. This was done without fanfare and
for the family's amusement but at the same time for all to enjoy.
Off and on during the day there would be the bang of fiTecrackers or the staccato of a string of
crackers. Now and then there would be the louder bang of hand-tossed torpedoes which struck the
sidewalk and exploded. These consisted of tightly wrapped packets of pebbles inside of which was a
cap that ignited when the torpedo hit the sidewalk. These were the minor "works".
After supper as dusk approached, a hot-air, paper balloon fired by the heat from a small candle,
was sent aloft. Its luminescent glow could be seen over the Atlantic ocean as it sailed out as far as
one could see, carried by the prevailing wind coming from the west and going seaward. As.it got
darker, sparklers were lit for the small children who twirled them around frantically as sparks fell in
all directions. These were well within mother's ability to manage by watching that the hot cores did
not burn the children and then that the cores were cooled in a bucket of sand when the sparklers had
burned out.
At last came the fireworks for which various devices had been prepared by father and the boys
earlier, such as wooden troughs for shooting off Roman candles and sky rockets; poles and
framework for holding pin-wheels which spun around powered by jet propulsion from burning
chemicals that sizzled as they burned. Finally, the bombs!- the "works" set off from platform bases
out on the beach at $5.00 to $10.00 a boom- zoom- aaaahh! Boom! Boom! an ascending rocket- a
shower of sparks! With a roar the payload would sail up and explode with a boom! Although the
boys were amateurs, with father's instructions and care, no one was ever hurt!
Bert and Harry insist that the most unforgettable display was when they saved firecrackers all day
23

until they had accumulated forty or fifty packs of two-inchers. These were made with the fuses
braided together so that when loosened each pack formed a double strip about ten inches long.
These strips were fastened to the inside of a bushel-sized wire basket to form a complete lining
several layers thick with fuses exposed in the center. A Roman candle was mounted inside to shower
sparks on the fuses and the whole thing was suspended on a sturdy ten-foot pole on the beach. When
time came for the grande finale the Roman candle was ignited and in seconds about 3000
firecrackeres were a flaming, roaring mass blasting sparks fifteen feet in all directions. In a long
minute it was over and the crowd on the boardwalk stood in dazed silence then exploded with a roar
of cheers and hand-clapping. So ends the Fourth of July! To be replaced by community sponsored
fireworks, displayed by professionals but not over the ocean.

Halloween
Planning the costumes for two or three children seems like a difficult task for most modern mothers,
let alone dressing ten children! But for us it never seemed to be a problem, probably because by the
time I came along, number seven, there were many hand-me-down costumes from former Halloweens and from participation in school and Sunday School plays. Anyway, as long as I can
remember, there was always a "dress-up" trunk in the attic which was available on rainy days and
on Halloween. Then too, the older children could devise their own costumes with little difficulty
-sisters in boy's clothing and brothers in girl's clothes, if that was the choice?
As a child, I was terrified by some of the costumes, even though I knew they were just costumes.
There was a "red devil with horns" whose head was fixed on a broom stick. The wearer of the
costume, wore red cloth pants and then slipped a red bag-like blouse over his head. There were two
arms that hung down flapping, but the frightening aspect of the costume was the long red neck with
the devil's mask at the end. This could be lowered or extended from inside the long blouse and the
head could be turned in all sorts of frightening angles or poses.
Then there was a six-legged grey monster which required three persons to operate it. Each person
wore grey cloth pants to which heavy cardboard feet were attached. Then a heavy piece of cardboard, rounded, was placed over the heads inside and tied under the arm pits. Over all this was a
great grey cover. The front man operated a head fastened to a pole. The second man grasped the
front man around the waist and the third man grasped the second and brought up the rear. It took
some practice to operate the monster!
Father generally brought small bars of "Wilbur" chocolate to give out to the trick-or-treaters. I
can't remember going out to the neighbors on Halloween and probably we didn't but had a party
for family and friends in our own home. One of the best of these was for the friends of older
brothers and sisters at Anberten. At that particular party, there was a variety of horrors in the ''den
of horrors". A newly severed head lay on a silver platter- Tony's head as she lay on a bench with her
curly, bushy hair laid straight away from her forehead on which was painted a mouth, perhaps with
nose-putty lips, her nose was reversed with nose putty and her natural eyes stared at spectators and
caused dismay by an occasional blink. A sheet came down across the bridge of her nose with artificial hair on either side to make the top of the head. Very effective within a dimly lit cubicle.
Then in a darkened room, guests were handed a wet clammy, suede glove filled with sand for a
severed hand, skinned grapes for eye balls, and macaroni in tomato sauce for bloody veins. Upstairs
in father's den, guests watched Buddy being squashed under the elevator from which emerged
screams and squeals after the door was closed. Blood ran out of the bottom of the door and when it
was opened again - there was a full-sized, human skeleton in the elevator. All the mysteries of Halloween witchcraft! But mother was not to be outdone. Included in the refreshments for the party was
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a serving for each guest of a meringue-shell made in the shape of a skull with chocolate marking the
eye sockets and crossed bones of meringue below the skull!

Thanksgiving Dinner
Thanksgiving dinner followed the Union Church Service usually held at the Church of the Redeemer
in Bryn Mawr. The liturgical service with its intonations was a novelty for us children and Don
became the best imitator of the somewhat pompous rector who conducted the services wearing flowing robes over a corpulent frame. He spoke in a full sonorous voice with a cultivated English accent.
The responsibility for the sermon rotated among the various Protestant ministers which included the
well known Quaker, Rufus Jones, representing the Haverford Friends' Meeting. Lutherans did not
participate in the local ministerial association and remained apart from other Protestant denominations in those days.
Sometimes we went to West Chester to Aunt Marion and Uncle Bur's and in earlier years occasionally went to father's older brother Will's or to Aunt Helena Elliott's for Thanksgiving dinner,
but in my day, it was more usual for the Dean brothers and their families to come to our house.
Mother enjoyed entertaining and did it well. I can remember helping her prepare the turkey a day
ahead of Thanksgiving. She would slit the tendon in the back of the turkey's leg and hang the bird
over some strong hook or nail and then together we'd pull on the bird so as to pull out the tough tendon in the thigh. This was done with several tendons to good effect. The bird was duly stuffed and
the opening stitched together for roasting. Sometimes there were two birds, one for each end of the
table.
Dinner started with grace being given by father and then the first course of grapefruit segments in
grape juice. A cream soup may have followed, but more usually the main course followed with sweet
potatoes, mashed white potatoes, peas, turkey and gravy, and the special treat of cranberry or wild
cherry sherbert in sherbert glasses! I don't think father was fond of salads, so we may have moved
on to dessert of mince and pumpkin pies with a slice of cheddar cheese and a dab of whipped cream ,
coffee for the grown-up and pastel mints. There was a good deal of banter between father and the
visiting relatives. When I was in college, I invited several foreign friends to dinner. This was when
the family group was smaller. Prospective sons or daughters-in-law were often included. The men
had cigars as a finale.
Of course, such a hearty meal required some form of exercise in the middle of the meal, or at least,
so we thought. Often before dessert, the younger ones would be allowed to leave the table in order
to run around the block and then return for the dessert course. Later there might be a game of soccer or touch football although this was the more usual routine for Sunday dinner after we were out
of our "good clothes'. I can also recall that I thought it was a sacrilege to go to a movie in the evening on Thanksgiving Day, which we sometimes did instead of playing some family centered games at
home in the late afternoon. Like all holidays, Thanksgiving left me as a young child with a sense of
contentment and gratitude for the family.

25

WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT BIRTHDAYS?
Family Birthdays
Today in middle class families, little children celebrate their birthdays with rather elaborate parties,
often held in family/fast food restaurants in order to ease the burden of working parents. In my
childhood, too there were elaborate birthday parties when school and neighborhood friends were invited and expected to bring gifts. There might be a magician's act as the principal entertainment and
a number of games with prizes. But, Mother didn't approve of birthday parties to which friends
came and brought gifts. After all, with nine brothers and sisters and loving parents, who needed outsiders?
Each birthday was celebrated in turn, with four turning up in May. Those that fell on school days
were usually confined to a special birthday dinner- beef steak and pop-overs, mashed potatoes, peas
or beans, perhaps a jello salad and then, of course, a large homemade birthday cake of the birthday
child's own choosing chocolate or white icing, and finally ice cream after the wish was made and the
candles blown out.
In the summer at Lavallette, there was ample time to arrange for and carry out birthday celebrations. There were none in June. Nick's was in July, Ginny's and father's in August. Of course, any
excuse was occasion for a party at the shore, especially "dress-up" parties even after some of us
were married and brought our spouses and children to Lav for a weekend or so. The one honored
could choose whether there would be an outing, in the sailboat, or a dress-up party at home. Usually
it was just a party at home.
When we were younger, the brothers or sisters on either side of the birthday boy or girl became
"slaves" for the day or as long as the role could be endured. This and that had to be fetched for the
"master". Disobedience resulted in being put in the "spiders' den" -the knee-hole of father's desk
where a jar of some six or more large black/gray spiders would be dumped on the unfortunate slave.
Then, at supper time, there would be a pile of presents at the birthday child's place- one from each
brother and sister and the parents. A miscellany of toys and useful items, each carefully wrapped
and bearing a tag, sometimes with a verse of original poetry. Mother again usually had a special
birthday dinner probably ending with cake and ice cream. I think father's birthday was usually
celebrated with a dress-up party. It seemed that he took his vacation so that he could be at the shore
on his birthday and as a matter of fact, his vacation was his special time at Lav, when we all did
what he wanted. This was as it should have been for the one who supported the family all the rest of
the year and who had only a limited vacation while the rest of us had all summer.
So it's a "dress-up" party at six o'clock! At Lav, there was no costume trunk so all costumes had to
be improvised and burnt cork was the primary make-up material. How mother got the little ones
dressed in costumes I'll never know, but as we became older, costumes were more elaborate and
more original, especially after the older members had spouses and dressed as couples. Father with
his black Van Dyke beard was usually an Arab sheik, Mother was a flapper or modestly costumed in
some kind of feminine garb. Then memory brings other costumes to mind: Don and Beth dressed as
African Hot'n-tots; Nick and Ted as Laurel and Hardy; Harry and Rose as Spanish Dancers;
Helena and Norton as lovers dressed in reverse sex roles; Bud and Hugh with little Ancy as Japanese
folk. Sometimes costumes bordered on the risque, often they were just a unique turn and twist of
sheets making an Arab sheik, or a bit of this and that passing for a bikini. Toni and Gino appeared
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one year as Gay-Ninety bathers in long black drawers, an over blouse, clutching a bathing rope.
Always laughter, always cut-ups and fun!
Nick and I dressed-up one time as an organ-grinder man and monkey - guess who was the monkey?
Nick's physique when dressed in white pants and a black v~st with a heavy, black mustache made a
wonderfully realistic looking Italian organ-grinder. The organ was carried by a strap over Nick's
shoulder and it rested on a pole which was fastened to the bottom of the box. There was a crank on
the side which turned a spindle inside. Along the spindle were nails which tinkled pieces of tin nailed
to the sides of the box as the crank revolved. All in all, a crude design made from a discarded
gingerale case (collector's item) and likely resurrected from under the house.
I as monkey had a monkey's nose made out of a black stocking stuffed with newspaper and pulled
down over my face, a suit with vest and cap, and a rope tail. I was a large monkey, too large to jump
up on Nick's "music box", but the get-up with Nick was sufficiently realistic from a distance to
cause people a block away to gather up their children and hurry down the boardwalk to see the
organ-grinder and his monkey!
What's so great about birthdays? It's more than receiving gifts and party fun, especially as one gets
older. It's sharing and caring and showing it! When love focuses on one person who is precious to
all! That's what makes Birthdays special!

Grandfather's Ninetieth Birthday Party
Mention has already been made of grandfather and "Mrs. H.O." living at the Bellevue Stratford
Hotel on Broad Street in the shadow of William Penn in Philadelphia. His last birthday before his
death was his ninetieth and a gala occasion it was indeed! Father and Aunt Helen Elliott must have
had a significant hand in planning it.
Needless to say, our family had much to plan for too in order to be ready for the great occasion. All
of the boys except me had to wear formal clothes with white tie and tails. I must have had a blue
serge suit with nickers and all of us men wore white kid gloves (I kept mine for many years and
doubt if I ever wore them again.) Jennie Castor and Mrs. Duval,the two seamstresses who came
twice a year to sew dresses for the girls, prepared special dresses for this occasion, including
mother's dress which was probably blue.
One can picture father and mother followed by their ten well-dressed children entering the reception
room amid a host of guests, all in formal evening wear, and moving forward in the reception line to
wish Grandfather a HAPPY BIRTHDAY. He sat by "Mrs. H.O.", pink-cheeked with his white
mustache, well trimmed goatee and white, silky hair, having the "Day" of his latter years. 17 It was
something for us kids to see as well! Riding the elevator to the roof garden of the Bellevue Stratford,
wearing white kid gloves and trying to act like little ladies and gentlemen so that father and Aunt
Helen would be proud of us, not to mention our gracious mother. The guest list included friends
and relatives, members of the Presbyterian Church at Rittenhouse Square and former business
associates. There was music and dancing for the adults and older children while the younger children
watched. 18 Eventually, supper was served with great formality as we sat at small tables. Of course, it
was unusual and very special for us children and so late at night! Grandfather and those who had
planned the gala seemed well pleased. To this day, I enjoy the elegance of service in the main dining
room of any good hotel, that is, all but the price!

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FAMILY PRAYERS
Our parents endeavored to live a consistant, worshipful, Christ-centered life as they raised their
family. However, in this day of secular demands on the time of family members, not to mention
favorite or special T.V. shows, it is hard to imagine that a family gathered in prayer following the
evening meal. This was the practice of our family for many years. Family prayers were a routine part
of the evening and included any close family guests or relatives who had had supper with us. As the
children became older, prayers became less regular since mother thought we shouldn't be kept from
our studies.
It was a comforting time when we all sat in a circle in the living room for prayers. As one of the
younger children, I can recall sitting on mother's lap, trying desperately not to slide off while she
read from the Bible or from a collection of Bible stories. Often I would kneel at her knee. The
reading varied in length and frequently the passage or story would be picked up the next evening.
Sometimes father would make a brief comment, perhaps in answer to a question about the cruelty
of an Old Testament king.

Following the reading, each family member from the youngest to the oldest recited a Bible verse
with no one repeating a verse already given. This allowed the youngest member the freest choice of
verses. Old favorites were often repeated during the week. -"God is love." "Like as a father pitieth
his children---" "A soft answer turneth away wrath but grievous words stir up anger." and so on.
Then everyone knelt but mother while father gave a verbal prayer. He gave thanks for the day,
touched on some current need in the family, and sought the continued care and guidance of a loving
Father in Heaven. The prayer was spoken for the occasion without emotion, free of reference to sin
and condemnation. Then, we all prayed the Lord's Prayer. Neither mother nor the children offered
their own prayers, but we all had a feeling of family unity and peace as the day ended even when
there might have been some storm or stress during the day. 19
At Lav, family prayers took place after breakfast, when father was at the shore. Then, the verses of
Scripture that were recited took on a marine orientation - "For the sea is His and He made it, and
His Hands formed the dry land." When father was away at the chocolate factory, prayers were
omitted. But, as Tante said one time, "Your mother's life is a living prayer of devotion to God and
her family. She doesn't need to have a vocal prayer." It was quite true!
I am sure that each of us learned our first prayers at mother's knee as we were put to bed. It was a
time of gentle guidance and pure love. We sometimes wondered how father could be so severe and
then conduct family prayers as if there had been no incident that upset the family earlier in the day.
This became more difficult when some of the younger members reached adolescence and became
more defiant!
While father believed in times of family worship, he also had private devotions in his room each day
before going downstairs for breakfast. In addition, father's life was given to "good works" in the
community in a quiet, consistent sort of way. He was an elder and presiding elder in the Bryn Mawr
Presbyterian Church as long as I can remember. 2°Father's faith like mother's was solid. It sustained
him through out his life. At the time of father's death, his strong faith seemed to open the portal of
heaven. According to mother, father was in a coma and she was sitting quietly with him when, suddenly he smiled and said in a happy greeting, "Oh Dommini!" and was gone. 21

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TRIBUTE TO MOTHER AND FATHER
Our parents complimented each other in their nurture of their children. They participated fully in
the many activities of the family and in the joyous celebrations recorded throughout this account.
Bert contributed a sensitive interpretation of the personalities and dispositions of each of our
parents:
If things were to be done, father and mother did their dreaming, planning and deciding in
private and the enterprise was formulated and brought to us for discussion without disruptive
pulling and hauling between the parents; but they were not inflexible and we often felt that
some of our ideas were incorporated in the project.

Differences of method or opinion between our parents, I remember, but never protracted altercation, bitter disputes, incrimination nor vindictiveness; they thoroughly agreed on fundamental principles and I never knew either of them to contradict or publicly refuse to support a
significant position taken by the other. Evidently they managed to get together in private and
occasionally would admit within our family circle to having been wrong.
If father and the boys were mowing grass and raking leaves on a Saturday afternoon, mother

was mending and pressing in preparation for Sunday's march to church.
If father and the boys were enjoying a hillarous rough-house, mother was binding up the

broken hearts and wounded egos of the victims and finally calling a firm halt before someone
really got hurt.
If the storms of righteousness raged, it was mother who tempered the chill winds of justice

which beset the offender.
If father and the boys had a strenuous Scout meeting, mother was ready at home with milk and
cookies for their exhausted return.
If father and the boys had an afternoon hike and evening campfire, mother and the girls probably had a picnic in the playhouse in the backyard, played hide-an'-seek or did some sewing or
reading together.
If father was challenging the high surf of a nor'east'r with the boys, it was mother who was

quietly enduring her anxiety while safely guarding the little ones on the beach.
If father was prodding and checking the boys who were loading duffle for an expedition, it was

mother who was packing the lunch hamper and getting ready the younger ones for the day.

If father was rigging fishing lines and baiting hooks, it was mother who was keeping the small

fry out of the way and giving them something else to do.
If father was seeing to the placement of the lines for crabbing, the chances are it was mother

who was tying on the smelly, "icky-gug" fish heads for crab bait.
If father was officiating on the Racing Committee at the Yacht Club, mother was cheerfully

and effectively gathering up all the loose ends for the afternoon's buffet, while the more bouffant members of the Hospitality Committee were "ooing and ahhing" on the veranda of the
clubhouse.

29

If father was where "the tire meets the road", mother was the smooth running hub that held it

all together and the brake guarding against catastrophe.
If father was the muscle, mother was the heart, but both gave to us strength and tenderness,

firmness and warmth according to our needs as they saw them. Both were highly respected and
deeply loved by their sons and daughters and by their sons- and daughters-in-law to judge by
their statements.

Helena's tribute to Father recalled: 22
... Daddy dressed in cotton flannel pajamas, checked bathrobe, a twisted garment for a sash, a
turkish towel for a turban---he could not abide the odor of moth balls permeating the costumes
kept in the attic costume trunk. How he would leer--The Sheik! (I went to a "dress-up" party
this summer, a travesty on the ones our family knew. The young folk wanted to dress up one
evening, and sent around messengers to the adults asking them to dress up, also. I went as
Charlie Chaplin, complete with Brillo mustache. I was the only adult in costume, the rest of the
parents sat about stiffly, patronizingly. The party wasn't much fun. I was proud of my parents
then, and told the stuffy ones about how much it meant to we children to have our parents enter
into the fun. They weren't so patronizing when I had finished.) Entering into family projects
with zest and humor--Father gave me that.
I remember, while he and Mother visited us on Hollander Road, perfectly outlandish bouquets
concocted from impossible junk that Daddy arranged in my wall brackets wherein ivy had pined away. I remember dozens of jokes and jingles in the twelve Christmas stockings. (Now it is
my turn to fill four stockings and I find jokeless, jingless stockings are simply no Christmas at
all.) The saving grace of humor --Father gave me that.
I can recall ridiculous sham battles on the beach with baskets over our heads and driftwood
lances; collecting the most odious smells into one nauseous stew; glorious trips to Barnegat
Light on "Shakey-Head" Piard's cruiser; playing "Hunter" in pitch black Anberten rooms;
hide and seek; dumb crambo; charades; still-pon-no-more-moving; the Wilbur Chocolate game
with its coveted rewards of Buds, chocolate pods and chocolate leaves as the game progressed;
baseball; croquet; clock golf; golf croquet; croquinole; parchesi; old maids; Pollyanna; Majong
--these and many more Daddy played with genuine spirit. Family fun --Father gave me that.
And with that, a certain code, too. I recall being bumped in a tussle, crying and being sent
upstairs. I cried more at missing the continued frolic than I did at the lack of sympathy. (It
wasn't until, in my roughhouses with Clark, I got a sturdy shoe in the eye a couple of times, I
realized that Dad was doubtless taking far more than he was dishing out in the way of whacks.)
Being a good sport was part of the game -- Father gave me that.
I can remember calking Polly, shingling Drowsy Dunes posts, cleaning up the beach, working in
Anberten flower beds with Dad-- and his sneaking up behind with a silly joke, a cold drink, and
Eskimo pie. Or, he had all eleven of us in bed with influenza -- those who were well enough or
old enough, to peel sickel pears for him to preserve in his spare time. Comaraderie to lighten the
task -- Father gave me that.
I can see Dad going to Board of Health Meetings year after year. I can see him in Boy Scout
uniform. I can see him as Sunday School Superintendent on the raised dias, winding thread
about a stage, as an object lesson, and on Green Island managing a super-Sunday School picnic. I have opened the door to countless young boys with their hearts in their throats, and

30

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ushered them into "the presence"--the Examiner for Merit Badges. There was a girlish pride in
watching my Father officiate at Communion, even though I never ceased upon each occasion t5>
be concerned for the President of the Board of Health drinking out of a common cup. The
obligation of a citizen to serve his community -- Father gave me that.
There must have been times (now that I have children, how well I can realize!) when charades,
Hunter and baseball palled. There must have been Sunday afternoons when it would have seemed heavenly to snooze; there must have been Monday nights when his upholstered chair looked
far more desirable than the Board Room and a scrap over the bacteria count in milk; there must
have been times when he would have preferred to take Ancy to the movies, rather than from six
to a dozen of assorted sizes ... (how often did we suggest it, or was it not rather "me, too").
Perhaps he and Mother would have had a marvelous time at those weekends at Delmont -- but
we went and he cooked and planned for a cabin-full. Children, children, children --- for thirty
to forty years it has been children! Children to feed, to clothe, to house, to educate. And we,
with our two or three, think we're hot stuff. Yet I never heard him use it as a wedge or a lever
--have you? Because I am sure he never really felt it was something we should be beholden to
--he loved us, that was all -- with an abiding love, manifest in all these simple memories of service, concern, sacrifice, effort and thoughtfulness. Love -- Father gave me that.

31

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A WILBUR ALBUM

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A WILBUR
ALBUM

Henry 0 . Wilbur
13J4 - 1924

PHOTOGRAPHS SELECTED FROM THOSE AT THE
1980 WIP- 0- WIL FAMILY REUNION
Anna Dean Wilbur
1374-1952

Bertrand Kingsbury Wilbur
1370-1945

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D

octor and ~, rs. Wilbur :
Avondale , Ohio , 1893

newlyweds !

SITKA, ALASKA

1898-1901

B .K. (with baby Bert)
and Anna (with baby
Harry) at their home
"Raven's Nest" 1901

Sitka Harbor ,
c .1398

Thanksgiving at
"Raven 's Nest" ,
1398

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BAcK ON THE

"MAIN LINE': ..
Father Wilbur
with Bert(left)
and Harry(right)
c . 1 905

THE FAMILY AT ROSEMONT, c. 1909

From left : Donald , ~other Wilbur with Esther on
her lap , Bert , Harry , Father Wilbur . Elizabeth
(standing in front of B.K . ) . Nelson(seated) .

FAMILY PORTRAIT c. 1914

Back : Harry , Bert , Donald
and Father
~iddle : Mother holding Helena ;
Elizabeth holding Deanie
Front : Nelson , Ro s s and Esther
Harry , Bert and
..... ....... . - ._.......Ann and Ruth (in
~

L AST YEAR AT ROSEMONT

Standing (from left) : Donald ,
Esther , Harry and Bert
r•. iddle : rr other holding Virginia
Elizabeth , Nelson and Father
Front : Ross , Ann (Deani e ) and
Ruth (Helena)

I

Anberten : The new home ,
November , 1919 .

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LAVALLETTE , 1919
Racing the
Pollywog .

r

Bert(left ) and
BKW on his
birthday(right) .

OCother Wilbur and the gang
aboard Pollywog .

SILVER WEDDING ANNIVERSARY, ANBERTEN, JUNE 1923

Standing (from left) : Cousin Alice Lyle , Aunt ~arian Dean , Uncle ~orris Dean , Catherine (Kitty)
Dean (Strohkarck) , Nick , Esther , Don , Aunt Teresa Dean . Uncle Archer Dean , Beth Dean
~iddle : Aunt Elizabeth Dean (Tante) , Harry , N.other , Step- grandmother and Grandfather H. O.
Wilbur , Father , Aunt Helena Elliott, Great Uncle Will Lawrence , Elizabeth
Front : Ross , Helena , Virginia , Deanie

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THE ROARING

TWE TIES

Wedding bells
for Don and Beth
September , 1926 .

Getting ready for
Nick and Ted ' s wedding , 19JO .

New home at
7Jl Panmure Road
in Haverford .
B. K. and H. L . -Croquet Champs .

THE YOUNGER HALF ...

Esther (Toni)

Ross

Ruth (Helena)

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Ann (Deanie)

Virginia (Gino)

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THE 1933 REU 10

AT DROWSY DUNES ...

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Front row(from left) : Deanie Wilbur , Betsy Wilbur , Ancy Borton ,
Elliott Wilbur.
Second row(from left) : Helena Wilbur , ~other Wilbur holding
Tony Borton , Father Wilbur , Elizabeth and Hugh Borton.
Third row(from left) : Esther Wilbur , Rose Wilbur , Virginia Wilbur ,
Bert Wilbur , Teddy Wilbur , Beth Wilbur .
Back row(from left) : Ross Wilbur , Harry Wilbur , Norton Maxfield ,
Nick Wilbur , Don Wilbur .

I
WILBUR WELCOMES WILBUR ...
THE 1936 REUNION

Front row(from left) : Ross Wilbur and Libby Reynold s, Elliott
Wilbur , Tony Borton , Ancy Borton , Betsy Wilbur , Teddy Wilbur .
Second row(from left) : Buddy Borton , Beth Wilbur with
Reed Wilbur on her lap , Esther Wilbur , Rose Wilbur
with Harry , Jr . on her lap , Virginia Wilbur .
Third row(from left) : Hugh Borton , Helena lfaxfield ,
Bert Wilbur , Mother Wilbur , Father Wilbur , Deanie Wilbur .
Back row(from left) : Norton Waxfield , Harry Wilbur ,
Nick Wilbur , Don Wilbur .

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LA JOLLA AND RETIREMENT

Mother Wilbur

THE WIP -o- WIL REUNION

about 1943

Father Wilbur

August 19 80

Bert wilbur , Buddy Borton , Parry and Ross Wilbur .

THE S ENIORS

WIP :

Hugh Bortor.

THE WIP -0- WILS

Pron

Row:

Back Row:

u

WI~ :

Bert Willur

ITED

Helen Wilbur , Virginia Wilbur , Hugh Borton ,
Rose Wilbur .
Ross and Bert Wilbur , Buddy Borton , Harry Wi lbur .

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THEY GATHERED BY FAMILIES
The West Coast
The Bert Wilburs & Robert Calvin

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Front Row: .Jonathan and Betsy W.:Clbur , Tor.:rr.y Wilbur
.Second Row : Betsy Wilbur , Bert , Virginia and Jan Wilbur
Third Ro w: Robert Cal\in , Bob Wiltur , Randy and Sue Wilbur

The East Coast
The Harry Wilburs

J-on., Row : Barbara and Leah Wilbt..r , llawn Codding , Andrea Wilbur , Nadean Codding
;::,econd Rlw : Rober~, '3.nd Brian i.darlane , Sandy Wilbur , Rose and Harry Wilt'.lr ,
Phyllis ~cFarlane , Rosemary Codding
t ird Row : Tarry w· ll'ur , ..;ack and John 1\.cFarlane , Wayne Codding

The ortheast
The Hugh Borton

Front Row : Ann Borton , Ancy and Buddy Bor-e on
Back Row : Tony and Tim Borton , Hugh Borton .

The Midwest
The Ross Wilbur

Front Row :
Back Row :

Nathan and Laura Treadway , Helen and Ross Wilbur ,
Anna Treadway
Roy and Carolyn Treadway

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_.

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SCOUTING AND OTHER OUTINGS
Scouting
The Bryn Mawr Troop was organized by father in 1911 as one of the first on the Main Line. He was
a strict but well liked scoutmaster and I can well remember the boys coming to our house to pass
tests, first aid, first class cooking in the back driveway at Rosemont and later at Haverford, signaling with semaphore flags in the large field by the railroad station. Sometimes I would be the victim
to be bandaged for a first aid drill, then lifted to a stretcher made by the two scout bearers who pulled their shirts over their heads, leaving their sleeves inside the shirt. All the buttons were buttoned
and left with the buttoned side on the ground, the tails coming together and the necks at each end.
Two staffs were passed through the sleeve openings of both shirts at each end and presto a stretcher!
Long enough for a boy but a bit short for a man. 23
.As World War I approached, the scouts were called upon to grow thrift gardens in the field by the
railroad, to carry out community services, and to sell War Bonds.
When I was old enough to become a scout and later a patrol leader, Harry was Scoutmaster24 and
Nick was one of the patrol leaders. Al Burns was senior patrol leader. Harry's troop may not have
served the community in the post World War I period as well as father's but Harry always had to be
a "winner" or "die in the attempt" so when there were jamborees and scouting skills were
demonstrated with perhaps twenty troops competing against each other, Troop 1 had to come out
on top!
There was competition in knot tying; fire building, boiling water or burning a stretched string; fire
making with flint and steel or bow and drill, first aid, lashing, signaling, etc. Scouts would gather at
our house and practice for several Saturday afternoons before the big event. There was often much
discussion about "fair judges", "cheating" and the like, especially if Troop 1 did not win the meet.
But it was in the spring troop camp-out when the new scouts were initiated into the troop, that
Harry's imagination caught fire and created an elaborate ceremony. The troop regularly hiked out
to the Morris Woods where it had been given permission to camp. The woods were bounded by
roads but were deep enough to be quite secluded.
One year the initiation was carried out in the atmosphere of a Chinese village with paper lanterns et
al. I was too young for that one! On another occasion, Harry carved the famous "Haaka" mask,
about eighteen inches long and twelve inches wide. It was a fearsome face with brass rings around
the eyes, an impressive, flat nose, red cheek bones, and an African idol-type of open mouth with
thick lips. Shredded rope fiber was tacked over the high forehead for hair and the entire mask
covered in the back with burlap. A jacket and pants were also made of burlap and the squatting
"Haaka" carried a smoking bee-smoker in his hand.
The vigil part of the initiation took place after dark when each boy was led singly, blindfolded out
into the woods to keep a silent vigil, alone, without being in sight or hearing of the next boy. Then
various scary episodes would take place. Nick as a drunken tramp would crash into the boy's camp
and snatch at the scout's blanket. He had a bottle, red nose, and heavy make-up. I guess ghosts appeared too. But the most fearsome of all was old "Haaka" who jumped about emitting sounds of
''Ho! Ho! Ho!'' and then suddenly he would puff smoke into the frightened, if not terrified, scout's
face. Of course, older boys were braver and laughed at the "Haaka" figure but not the younger
ones. One boy from an under privileged area who was accustomed to defending himself nearly clubbed "Haaka" with a large rock before Harry revealed his identity.
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Then, about midnight or later, all the initiates would be brought into a clearing where a simulated
Indian Inipi (steam bath) had been set up in a tent. Here Harry as scoutmaster would call upon the
Great Spirit to purify those in the tent and then dip pine boughs into water and beat the wet branches over hot stones which produced clouds of heavy, hot steam. At the point when it seemed impossible to stand the heat and steam any longer, the tent flaps would be opened and the initiates
would be directed to plunge into a cold pool of water which had been dug in the creek nearby. Thus
ended the initiation. All was done in silence.
Father tells of conducting, when he was scoutmaster, a much simpler but perhaps sterner initiation
of scouts in connection with a watermelon feed. The boys would be told that they were to undergo a
test individually, to determine if they were telling the truth as scouts. "A scout's honor is to be
trusted. If he were to tell a lie, etc." (explanation of first scout law). If he had been trustworthy, he
would come through the test unharmed, but if he had violated his honor, the knife would cut him
and he would be injured. I can't believe father said the boy would "bleed to death".
Anyway, the scout was blindfolded after seeing a long knife, and the edge of a slice of cold
watermelon was passed under his throat while his head was held back with some of the cold juice
running down his neck - bleeding? Then the blindfold was removed and the jest revealed to the
boy's relief. 25
I remember an initiation that backfired and the joke was on the scout leaders. The Bryn Mawr
Presbyterian Church which sponsored the troop, had called a new assistant pastor, Harold Long, a
young bachelor Bert's age. He was full of fun and entered with enthusiasm into any prank. Harold
had agreed to visit the troop during one of its overnight hikes to Morris Woods. Some thirty scouts
were on this outing. They were divided into patrols, each with its own group of tents and cooking
fire. During the cooking of supper, the patrol leaders were advised to keep their boys close to the
campsite.
Harry showed each leader a real newspaper clipping. It reported that several criminally insane men
had escaped from the Norristown Insane Asylum ten miles away. Word leaked out that the men had
been last spotted heading toward the Morris Woods area. Harry and the junior leaders acted worried when the Reverend Harold Long had not appeared for the campfire as expected. AI Burns, as
Senior Patrol Leader, was dispatched to go up to the highway to look for Harold Long. The campfire was started but the opening ceremony went poorly. Of course by now every boy knew about the
escapees!
When after fifteen minutes, AI Burns did not return, we were told to "line up single file, no lights,
no noise, and to march as a group up to the highway." No one was to lag behind; every boy was to
hold on to the scout in front. A couple of the older boys were to keep to the rear so no one would be
"picked off the rear." Every few hundred paces we'd stop and on the count, "one-two-three", yell,
"AI Burns- this way!" then, march on. My best friend and neighbor, Walton Forstall, was just in
front of me in the line. We were so distraught over the Pastor's and Al's disappearance that we
decided then and there to offer a prayer for their safety; just the two of us.
We got up to the highway but there ws no sign of AI or the Reverend Long. Harry held up his hands
in an attempt to flag down a passing car. He wanted to ask those in the car if they had seen anyone,
three or four men on the highway or going into the woods? Had they seen a disabled car? The driver
slowed down but seeing a lot of youth, some with sticks, lined up along the highway, he sped down
the road!
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Almost two-thirds of the way back to camp, there was a commotion at the front of the line. By the
time we got there, Harold Long was on his feet coughing and coughing and pulling ropes off his
legs. We had come upon him bound and gaged! That was it!! The insane men were in the woods!
"Keep together fellows! Close together!"
But, when we got back to camp the fire was blazing and there was Al Burns, hale and hearty and
laughing. It was all a well planned and executed hoax- all but one thing. There was a backfire!
A few minutes after returning to camp and having a good laugh on ourselves- that is most of us, we
were again in a circle around the campfire. Our heads were bowed as a patrol leader gave our evening prayer. We were quiet and thankful. Then we heard the cracking of branches- men were approaching through the woods with flashlights. Maybe it was the men who had escaped? No, it was
the police! The car Harry had tried to flag down had reported an attempted hold-up. That took
some quick talking and patient explaining!
Harry comments after reviewing this account, "The good old days are no more! As scout leaders,
we might have been sued for child abuse by overly protective parents." I never repeated the initiations I experienced in Bryn Mawr Troop I when I was a scoutmaster in Des Moines or when I took
scout brigades into the Canadian wilderness years later, nor did Bert repeat them in California.

Camp Delmont
For many years the boys of the family attended Camp Delmont for a week either as scouts or scout
leaders. The scout camp for Delaware and Montgomery counties was situated some fifty miles north
of Norristown, Pennsylvania near Green Lane in an undeveloped area. 26 The camp had a large, centrally located dining hall, two campuses with open-air cabins for eight boys each, a swimming hole,
a craft cabin, an assembly lodge for indoor programs when it rained, and extensive paths through
deep woods. Camp Delmont had a special meaning beyond it being a place to take the troop each
summer for a week of instruction in scouting skills. Father had purchased a tract of land adjacent to
the camp and had given it to the Delmont Council 22 for the development of an outdoor chapel in
memory of his mother, Harriet Lawrence Wilbur. A large rock on one side of the the chapel had an
inscription carved into the surface memoralizing the gift.
"Shall we go to camp or not?", was a question that came up for much discussion each spring and
usually a week at camp was included in the summer's activities. Sometimes father had to make some
inspection or join other members of the camp committee and would invite me to join him on a visit
to Camp Delmont. At other times the family would drive to Camp for a day's outing. It was always
exciting to see where the older brothers went each summer, to see the cabins in which they lived, the
"ol' swimming hole", the shaky suspension bridge tying the mess hall to the two campuses which
were across the quiet stream, and the chapel at the far end of the camp trail. Behind the roughly
made pulpit was a rustic cross screened by green bushes with sunlight filtering through the leaves.
I looked forward to the day when I could walk the trails through the silent woods which I eventually
did with Walton Forstall. There were other buddies- the two 'fat' boys- Lard and Wrinkle-Belly,
Maurice Olinsky- the shoemaker's son, and the older leaders -Harry and Nick, "Unc" Mortimer
and Al Burns, all of whom we looked up to. That was a great gang of scouts! I've tried to recall the
Camp hymn which was sung traditionally at the end of each day's closing campfire. The hymn still
leaves me with a nostalgic feeling for some of the happiest days of my life!

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The End of a Delmont Day
When you come to the end of a Delmont Day,
And you sit alone with your thoughts,
When the sky had turned from blue to grey,
With the shades of the coming night.
Do you think what the end of a Delmont Day
Can mean in a Boy Scout's life?
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up,
You're at peace in this World of strife.
Well, this is the end of a Delmont Day,
Near the end of our camping too.
And the days that have past can not be recalled,
But what. have they meant to you?
For we've camped by the side of this quiet stream,
The paths of the forrest trod.
All nature has opened her books to us,
And we've grown closer to God!

Other Outings
MOUNTJOY
I believe it was while the family still lived at Rosemont and when the older boys were still in their
teens and new babies were still arriving, that the family took picnics to Mount Joy near Over Hanging Rock at St. Davids. The area was woodsy; there was a stream beyond which the Mount ascended. The hillside was overlaid with rocks which were the remains of a glacial moraine, great piles of
rocks, just ideal for climbing, for playing "hide and seek" and "king of the castle". We could build
a fireplace among the rocks where others had done the same and enjoy a cookout. We never tired of
Mount Joy and I would guess that the older boys may have taken girl friends there too.
CHERRY PICKING
Another favorite outing according to Bert, and I remember it well, was picking wild cherries from
large, old trees which grew along the roadside in severallocations, notably at St., David's and along
Old Gulph Road. As one of the smaller children, I was unable to climb the big trees, so, along with
the "little girls", I was expected to pick off the cherries that were on small twigs tossed down to us
by our older brothers and sisters. I judge· we ate more than we put into the pot. Never the less, we'd
bring home two or three gallons of cherries plus those that were "inside"! What a delicious black,
wild cherry water-ice their juice made. The water-ice was rather tart but was delicious when served
with turkey at Thanksgiving. (Choke or pin cherries are equally tastey.) 27
THE WILBUR VAULT AT ST. DAVID'S
And then, there was the pre-Decoration Day outing to the family vault built in the side of the hill of
the burying ground surrounding the Old St. David's Church which had been built in Colonial times.
There were lovely, old trees in the extensive grave yard and along the side of one hill, there were
perhaps six or eight vaults. The Wilbur vault was entered through an iron grill door that had a grill
window on either side. Beyond the door was a marble floor. The Jar wall contained about twelve
crypts into which caskets could be slid. Each crypt was closed by a marble slab on which the name or
names of the deceased buried in that space were inscribed. Several of the crypts held one or more
urns containing ashes of family members who have been cremated. 28 To a child the vault was
awesome, though peaceful place and I used to peer in to see if any of the slabs closing the openings
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had fallen in or out exposing a casket or more fearsome yet, a skeleton!
We picnicked in the meadow nearby. Some of us children gathered watercress and hunted for
crayfish or salamanders in the stream while the older folks tidied up the vault and planted flowers in
the large urns on either side of the entrance.

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THE SEA! THE BAY! AND SUMMERTIME!
Lavallette, New Jersey
Probably the happiest days of each year were those spent at the family cottage at Lavallette, 29 which
was built in 1910, the year I was born. When school was about to end each June, mother would be
busy packing trunks with household items, bed clothes, personal clothing, and what not. Each child
was allotted space in which to pack his or her clothing and "precious things". Later we could take a
canvas carry-all packed just with our own things. The trunks would be sent on the railroad and later
when we drove, carry-alls would be mailed or expressed to the shore. What an exciting time to be
really going to the shore!
School was out and we were off on the suburban trolley to 69th Street, Philadelphia where we took
the awesome, if not fearful, elevated to 32nd Street and then came a very noisy subway ride to 2nd
and Market Streets. Next, we took the ferry boat across the smelly Delaware to Camden where the
boat screeched against the tar-soaked pilings, and made an abrupt, wrenching stop. Down went the
gang plank and there was a rush up the passageway into the train shed where trains destined for
Atlantic City, Cape May, Point Pleasant and New York stood waiting, sighing in anticipation of the
long pull to the shore. Such a clammering into the cars. Windows opened, then shut to keep out
smoke and cinders. Ahead the ride with the knowledge we were shoreward bound!
Soon the familiar "Breyers ice cream! Breyers ice cream! Spoon in each and every box, Breyers ice
cream!" We knew we would each get a box which was soon opened exposing a slice of Neapolitan
-chocolate, vanilla and strawberry- ice cream in layers. How wonderful it tasted! Now, we could
settle down to play "train games". First came the suburban towns like Moorestown, Mount Holly,
Pemberton then we whizzed past New Lisbon over the Rancocas and excitedly saw sandy roads
leading into the scrub, pine-barrens of Central New Jersey. A stop at Browns Mills and then the
train had to back into Ocean Gate and Island Heights. Now, we knew we weren't far from the
railroad bridge over Barnegat Bay. Open came the windows, cinders or not! Who would be the first
to smell the cool, sea air after the long hot ride? Who'd see the sea first? "Ah, smell the air!"
"There it is!" Just a glimpse of the sea between sand dunes as the train turned north on Island
Beach and headed for Lavallette, three stops along the way- Seaside Park, Seaside Heights, Ortley
if there were passengers getting off, and LAVALLETTE!
Trunks might be unloaded to await later delivery by horse and wagon, but the children would grab
their small packs and eagerly walk up the street to the boardwalk and thence to the cottage. My,
how bright and clean everything was from the white beach to the drenching sunshine - no trees and
no green grass!
In the early days, life was more primitive than later. Groceries, if not taken home in the express
wagon going up Reece or Vance Avenues were brought by horse and wagon. We'd go down every
afternoon to meet the milk train from Philadelphia. The milk in bottles was chilled by chunks of
melting ice laid on top. The express wagon was used regularly to meet father on Friday nights and to
meet guests at other times.
Horse drawn wagons were used for the delivery of merchandise. There were wagons that had been
constructed for dumping gravel and flat top wagons for transporting the large tanks used in emptying privies. I can remember watching the driver of the gravel wagon dump his load of fresh, yellow
gravel on our side yard by rotating each floor board, standing at the back of the wagon until the entire load had fallen through the cracks left by turning each board. The big horses which strained in
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their harnesses to pull the big-wheeled wagons through the sand were somewhat protected from the
ever present flies by loose-hanging, string nets.
During the earlier years, we kept chickens in a yard between the privy and the west end of the house.
The chickens occupied about a third of the space enclosed by a lattice that was intended for a clothes
yard. I could hardly wait early each summer to take the express wagon down to the station to get the
crate of chickens father sent down. I never tired of their care or of collecting their eggs. However, as
I became older, I was also the butcher so that by summer's end, the Sunday dinner of stewed
chicken in delicious gravy with mashed potatoes had completely eliminated the laying flock!
Gradually, more streets were cut through the heavy growth of bayberry. These ran from the bay up
to the ocean and were intersected once by the railroad and again by the main road, both running
north and south. Lavallette never had a road running along the ocean front which greatly enhanced
the beauty of its unencumbered beach and the value of the ocean-front cottages. 30 As soon as streets
were cut, lots were sold and new cottages sprang up from season to season. The town was growing,
almost too fast, but we were protected by owning vacant lots to the west and north of the cottage.
Then, horror of horrors, at least from father's point of view, great poles were erected to carry electricity along all the streets, creating a monsterous forest of poles towering above the low growing
bayberry and many one-story cottages. "You're ruining the town and people will leave!" father
warned the mayor whom we had met as we drove down town. There was no uncertainty in father's
voice as to where he stood with respect to the poles which were being erected and strung with wire. A
curious incident capped the conversation. Father somewhat angrily backed the car and saw the
mayor wince. "Any thing wrong?" father asked. "Your car's on my foot!" was the painful reply.

The Sea and the Beach
The boardwalk and ever-changing beach have their special stories to contribute to this account. The
boardwalk which ran the length of the town - about a mile or more - had its own metamorphisis,
brought on by age, by storms, and by increased population. Early on, it was elevated, perhaps eight
feet above the beach, was about six feet wide for easy passing of pedestrians and followed the north
and south shoreline, had no railings and was somewhat uneven due to weathering. Several times
after severe storms, sections would be washed away and perhaps it was then that an entirely new
boardwalk with pipe railings, twice as wide, was built. With the improvement, open-air pavilions
were built and the walk was "patrolled"'. In earlier days the Coast Guard patrolled the Atlantic
Coast with men walking all night from station to station about four miles apart. The Coast Guardsmen always seemed eager to leave the soft sandy beach for the firm footing of the boardwalk. We
watched them go by and knew that all was well and that in times of storm, any small boat in difficulty near shore would be spotted and given assistance.
When the old boardwalk was washed away by an especially severe storm, those sections still standing offered a tempting scaffold for play. Often part of the structure would become shaky and we'd
play "King of the Mountain", shaking or pushing each other off the section. Then we'd play tag
climbing up and jumping down until a fearful oldster would put an end to our play. After the rock
jetties were built in more recent years with federal funds, the beach became stabilized and much of
the walk is now resting on the sand with the supporting structure completely buried.
But another story is hidden in the past involving the boardwalk. From season to season, the height
of the boardwalk from the beach would vary. The pilings holding up the walk were supported by
boards that crossed in the middle, thus when the beach was low and the walk high, one could run
underneath without ducking and children could clamber up on the cross boards. One of the games
we played was to take a man's wallet, tie a string onto it and lay it on the boardwalk with the hidden
39

string passing down a crack wide enough to allow the person hidden under the boardwalk, sitting on
a cross board, to pull the wallet through as someone bent down to pick it up! Stiffled laughter! One
time, Nick and I were playing this game with Toni on the sideline, when a woman and her children
passed by overhead. "Oh", she said, "Johnny, 'ere's a wallop' for ye," in her Irish brogue. She
pulled, we pulled, she pulled! "Oh, I cain't get it up, it's stuck to the boairds!" and on she went.
Her last comment became a bye-word whenever we had a frustrating experience.
Another aspect of under boardwalk play was at storm time, when the sea would surge up
underneath and create a pond between the boardwalk and the cottages. Then there would be an eddying and the formulation of a gully back to the sea. At such times, we'd climb up on the cross arms
and hang fearfully as the sea sent waves splashing over the bank and under the boardwalk.
On a windy day, with the wind coming off the sea, preferably from the northeast or southeast, we'd
"sail" our express wagon along the boardwalk. We had rigged up a frame which was bolted to the
flat top of the wagon. The frame contained a mast up which we could pull a sail with gaft and boom.
The north or south wind would catch the sail and push the wagon in the opposite direction down the
boardwalk - klickity-klack, klickity-klack, as we raced over the boards, then rickity-boom, rickityboom as we crossed or followed a line of nail heads holding down the boards. It was great fun, even
when the walk was wet with storm-driven spray. I've never seen another sail wagon although some
kids were able to sail at times using a beach umbrella as a sail, or a large coat held over their heads.
It was the ocean and the beach, however, that provided hours of play for us. Sand castles were built

with troughs that went 'round and 'round, passing through tunnels and ending at the bottom. Balls
could be rolled down though the troughs over and over again. However, we found it more exciting
to build castles down at the water's edge, hastily throwing up ramparts which protected the structure
against the encroachments of the sea. These castles were masssive rather than artistic. But there had
to be a contest or game involved to add the note of excitment. A thumb-hole was pushed into the
top most tower or rampart. The contest was to see whose thumb-hole was the last to be splashed
with water as the rising tide kept pushing one wave afteranother to undermine the structure and tear
away its foundation.
Another game we frequently played simulated the "dance" of the little sand pipers who followed
the receding waves looking for tidbits in the ebb and flow of the water. This game was called
"sticks". Everyone took a stick, some slim and long, others short and thick depending on one's
theory of resistence to the force of the waves. The objective was to place the stick in the sand as close
to the breakers as possible without getting caught in the next wave that pushed up the beach.
However, your stick had to withstand the onslaught of the water in order to remain in the game. The
person whose stick was the furthest down and still remained in the sand after withstanding several
waves won providing he or she wasn't caught by the upward rushing surf. We had no wings to lift us
up like the sand pipers!
There were other activities on the beach some of which were the traditional sports - baseball in the
early summer and football as that season approached, or just plain sun tanning. It was fun when
there was a cool wind to be buried in the hot sand lying on your back with arms and legs outstretched, covered by an increasing weight of sand from neck to toe. As some of the boys reached
adolescence, the sand mummy case took on more aluring human body forms. Eventually the bites
of sand fleas or a misdirected handful of sand on the cheek made it necessary to re-discover fingers
and toes and crack the mummy case. A run and dive in the cool sea provided a refreshing clean up.
We had fun tumbling, turning cart-wheels, being thrown up in the air in a blanket with knees tucked
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under the chin, ball-like, and even father took his turn. Why the blanket never broke, I'll never
know! There were games of "poison ball", relay races, high-jumping, and volley ball. Bert had been
a gymnast at Haverford College and knew how to turn flips in the air from a standing position orto
balance on a hand stand on the pipe rail of the boardwalk. And then, there was the harmless fun of
digging surreptitiously behind a person sitting on the sand until he tumbled backward into the hole!
Oh, the sea welcomed us summer after summer!
We often swam three times a day, taking a dip before breakfast. Then, "Bathing hour! Bathing
hour!" was shouted from the first floor to the attic about 10:30 a.m. after the dishes were done and
other chores completed. Again at 3:00p.m. after a siesta and on hot nights, a moonlight skinny-dip.
But is was the swimming in the rough seas of a storm that was the most fun and I must admit
"scary".
From infancy on, we enjoyed the sea. The unwatched baby left the washtub filled with warm water
on the beach and crawled down to the water's edge only to be rescued as a wave broke and splashed
over her. Most of us had taken swimming lessons from "champs" so we were confident in and
under the water. We learned how to cut across eddies when the sea was rough and riley, even going
out diagonally with the eddy in order to get out of it and then swimming in again toward shore on
the next couple of waves. What a glorious feeling to swim on top of a wave and curl with it as it rose
to full height and broke on the shore, a high mass of sand and foam. 31
One danger among many in swimming in the surf during a storm, was that of being struck by drifting logs or long, heavy planks. One time we found Buddy's head pushed in the sand and a log over
her neck as the hugh wave receded. Quick maneuvering by her brothers freed her and Buddy was
·none the worse for the experience. Swimming in the surf in the summer during a nor'east'r is no
longer allowed by the life guards who keep a cold, wet vigil over the bathing beaches.
Some of the family developed considerable skill in swimming in the surf. Bert would swim many
blocks along the coast and Helena developed excellent form. After winning one race in the ocean
which included men during the annual Labor Day races, Helena replied to an inquiry from a
reporter as to what she attributed her prowess, "Cigarettes are my best friend!" A statement which
needed interpretation - because her competitors smoked; Helena who didn't smoke had better
breath control and could outdistance them.
In the early day, the Wilbur clan made quite a show on the beach and in stormy weather we often
had an audience along the boardwalk. One of the neighbors on the ocean front, Perry Griffin, was
quoted as calling to her mother one stormy day "Mother, mother, come quick! The beach is covered
with Wilburs and the sea is full of them!"
One year Bert built a flat-bottomed wooden row boat in the back yard of our Rosemont home and
brought it to Lavallette. We kept the boat for many years at the cottage near the beach so that we
could row out to the fish pound about one mile off shore and fish on calm days. Sometimes Bert and
Harry or Don would row the boat out to a sand bar and ride on the top edge of a curling, breaking
wave to the beach. Care had to be taken to keep the weight back in the stern of the twelve foot boat
for if the bow dug into the water, the boat would filp end over end. Those rides according to Bert
and Harry were wonderful but frightening.
Another bit of special equipment we used for swimming, was a large life-raft from Uncle Will's
sloop, "The Ramona". When the sloop was dismantled and sold, father had the raft sent to the cottage at Lav. It required six persons to carry the twelve foot raft made in an oval ring of large air
tanks wrapped in canvas. Rope had been tied in loops with wooden floats around and outside of the
41

raft. Inside, there was suspended a wooden floor grill, held by rope mesh and making a protective
tank in which ten to twelve persons could hang their legs as they sat on the raft, in order to be safely
protected in an area where there were sharks. We would dive off the floating raft which we anchored out a short distance from the beach, push each other off and feel very safe in the mesh tank
as waves rolled in over the raft.
We often went up the beach to the shore based operations of the fish pound 32 a mile north of
Lavallette to watch the landing of the large skiffs and to buy fish. Usually we would see the skiffs,
thirty feet in length by twelve feet in width coming through the surf for a landing on the beach. As
soon as the skiff, hit the beach the fishermen in their boots and "Sou'westers" (yellow slickers)
would leap over board and put planks down on top of which wooden rollers were placed. The bow
of the boat was lifted up and the roller slipped under. Meanwhile, a heavy rope had been hooked to
the bow. This rope ran up the beach to a block (pulley) fastened to a telephone pole implanted up in
the dunes. The rope then came down to a swivel-tree to which a team of horses was hitched. As the
horses pulled, the heavily loaded skiff rolled up the beach and eventually the bow rested in the
sand. 33
Then came the exciting time when tar-soaked bushel baskets were tossed in the boat from flat topped wagons; when fishermen shouted orders to one another and some of them set up stools and
planks near the water's edge where they gutted weak-fish; and when the men in the boat began sorting the fish into their baskets by variety - butterfish, porgies, croakers, weakfish, flounders, blue
fish and bonito. Those who had been watching the operation crowded around the boat to see what
had been caught and select the fish they wanted to buy. As a child, I was always wary of the big
horses which seemed awesome as they tramped about taking loaded baskets back to the packing
house for shipment to fish markets in New York and Philadelphia. Of particular interest would be
the catch of some large, ununsual fish such as a "sun-fish" weighing 500 pounds, an eight foot
shark or a huge twenty-five pound lobster. For many years, I had to be lifted up to see into the boats
which stood about five feet above the beach.
One day, Nick and I rowed out to the 'pound' and while we were fishing near the nets, a west wind
came up blowing up white caps then blowing off the tops of the waves as they broke along the
beach. We decided we'd better head home. As we neared the beach, Nick, who was rowing, tried to
ride in on a wave. We started on course, but then the boat veered to the right; I thought it would
capsize. Nick and I were thrown into the sea along with the oars . We were about eight or more
waves out, a good swim but not in danger although I yelled to Nick, "Swim Nick! Swim like hell!" I
was wearing an old pair of white flannel slacks which were heavy in the water so I carefully transferred by Ingersol watch from the watch pocket in my pants to my shirt pocket and let my pants go to
"Davy Jones". After a bit, I decided to let my shirt go too, watch and all. Meanwhile Nick was watching our boat riding high and dry a hundred feet away. Each wave pushed it toward the beach.
Nick yelled "I'm going for the oars, you swim into shore." I swam to the first breaker but because I
was in the nude and "streaking" was unheard of, I had to wait until Nick went to the cottage and
got my swim trunks.Then I saw good, old Henry Stevens 1'standingon shore with a life preserver and
rope in hand. He had seen us rowing in and foresaw trouble in landing against the high waves tossed
up by the strong west wind. Fortunately, his help was not needed.
I am reminded of a statement old Peter Bloom, a Latvian immigrant with a thick accent, would
make when mother talked to him about the ravages of a storm, "When de ocean she say come! She
comes!" No bulkhead of wood or cement could stay her. Pete was an industrious builder and was
an ice-man with his sons all of whom like Pete grew to be over six feet tall. His hands and teet were
massive but his manner was gentle. He was the leader of the Latvian Church and I think often conducted the services held in the Union Church. He was the caretaker for "Drowsy Dunes" for many
years.
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In the earlier years, residents could picnic on the beach, fishermen could build fires and there were
no lifeguards or beach patrol. As the town became more populated and in order to discourage daypicnickers from the cities of New York and Philadelphia and the inland towns of New Jersey, many
resort towns enacted restrictions against picnicking, disrobing in cars, sleeping on the beach at
night. Eventually, bathers had to purchase three-day or seasonal badges in order to swim. The fees
supported the shore patrol and life guards.
These restrictions were a far cry from the earlier days when the men folk with Hugh's father, Walter
Borton, and sometimes the women too, would go for a Sunday afternoon hike along the beach
south of Seaside Park. The southern ten miles of the Island Beach peninsula, north of Barnegat
Light was an undeveloped, primeval beach, with a few squatter shacks and two coast guard stations
spaced several miles apart. The ten mile section of Island Beach was at that time, privately owned
and had been fenced off. It was known as the Phipps Estate. The development company had built
several model cottages near the central highway. The natural beauty of the estate was protected by a
kindly caretaker, Mr. Freeman, who was stone deaf except when he lived in the humid atmosphere
of the seaside. During the several years he had been caretaker, Mr. Freeman had become a
knowledgeable student of the coastal flowers, small animals and shore birds. He studied techniques
for preserving the dunes and helping them rebuild with special grasses that bound them together
against the offshore blasts of winter storms.
A pass could be purchased for $5.00 for the season which allowed the bearer to enter the estate and
use the road which ran six miles south about half the distance to Barnegat Light. By far the greatest
use of passses was by rod and reel fisherman who drove down the beach to their favorite fishing
grounds in "beach buggies". These were stripped down Fords with over-sized tires and jeep-like
bodies, custom built for surf fishing.
We would drive down for several miles and then would walk over the dunes to the beach where we
would follow the shoreline looking for unusual shells or examining the floatsam that had washed up
in a storm. We sought a dune with a sandy bowl away from the wind or sea breeze. Here we sunbathed in the nude, slid and rolled down the slope and then skinny-dipped in the cool ocean. A
natural outdoor sauna! A wary eye had to be kept for approaching beach-bugs and for fishermen
who might be moving up and down the coast trolling. Squire Borton especially enjoyed these walks
and sunbathing.
Fishing in the ocean was a popular past-time for several family members. Harry was the most
devoted nimrodist in the family and spent many evenings casting with baited hooks or trolling with a
metal sqid, ofter accompanied by Don or Nick and later by Deanie. His skill in surf casting was unsurpassed. Henry Stevens, who fished religiously early every morning and evening except in stormy
weather, was often a companion. As a child, I always enjoyed seeing what had been caught, such as
dog sharks about twenty-four inches long, blow-fish which blew themselves up when scratched on
their belly, sea robbins with large side fins and skates with long tails like a sting ray. In those days,
these were all "trash" fish and discarded although now blow-fish are considered a delicacy and are
said to taste like chicken. Sea robbins are considered edible and are called "red perch". The take
home fish were flounder, porgies, croakers, weakfish and kingfish. In the late summer and fall, blue
fish were caught in the surf but the prize of all was the striped bass (pronounced strip-ED bass).
Many a cigar was smoked by Henry Stevens as he fished and tried to keep down the mosquitoes 35
which all fishermen had to endure after sundown on calm nights or west winds. Bert and Harry
made smudge pots for fishing. They punched holes in a coffee can and attached a two-foot wire
loop to swing it. A small fire would be started in the can with chips of driftwood. Then, moist
seaweed was added to dampen down the flame and create a heavy smoke. The can was placed ''up
43

wind'' of the fisherman who sat in the smoke and so avoided the mosquitoes. Chips and seaweed
were added as needed and the can was whirled around by the wire when the fire had died down.
Because "Drowsy Dunes" was on the ocean front, we had a vantage point from which to watch
both the sea and the beach. The cottage had an upper porch/ deck and lower porch both of which
ran the full length of the front of the house facing the sea to the east, the full side of the cottage to
the south, and for a portion of the west side facing the bay. Oh, the "upper deck" that was another
special place to play in make-shift tents constructed over the hammock; to warm up in the sun after
a cold swim; to view the beach and boardwalk; to keep out of the rain; to lie in the cool breeze when
ill; and best of all for young lovers to view the moon rising out of the sea casting a silver path across
the rolling waves.
I can remember one such night when I, as an adolescent youth, came upon Harry and Rose watching
the moon beams. They invited me to sit awhile and after a bit, Harry who was then a med-student,
took my hand and passed it over Rose's blouse. "What do you feel?" he asked his embarassed
younger brother? "Well,", I replied uncomfortably, "I guess-um-1 feel Rose's breasts!" "Don't
you feel anything else?" came the question. What else would an adolescent boy feel? "No." Then
he placed my finger on his fraternity pin. "Do you feel that?" "Yes" "Do you know what it
means?" Gosh! All Harry had tried to do was to tell me he and Rose were "pinned" or "engaged"!
I was so non-plused that all I could do was to say, "I guess I'm supposed to congratulate y~u and
wish you both much happiness." I then fled the scene!
Another image involving the boardwalk along the ocean front, needs to be included in this account.
Each Sunday, as in Haverford and Rosemont, there was a scramble to get ready for Sunday School.
Father was superintendent for many years and saw to it that he, at least, got off in time to walk
down the boardwalk and ring the bell at church. Often he was trailed by a number of his children,
mother bringing up the rear with the youngest. So it must have been a somewhat am11sing sight to
see the Wilburs strung out along the boardwalk hurrying to the Union Church for Sunday School in
the morning or for church in the evening. And then, of course, there was the return trip!

Barnegat Bay
Barnegat Bay lies to the west of the Island Beach peninsula formed today by Barnegat Inlet on the
south and runs some twenty plus miles north to Bay Head where it connects with the inland waterway system via a canal leading to the Manasquan River and Manasquan Inlet which is protected by
jetties extending into the sea. At its narrowest, Barnegat Bay is barely a quarter mile wide whereas
near Barnegat Inlet it widens to between five and perhaps ten miles.
Much of the bay is shallow, barely waist or armpit deep so that there was frequently a problem of
"going aground" when sailing or motor boating out of the main channels. In earlier days, the
eastern side of the bay was bounded by low, swampy marshes aglow in July and August along their
edges with pink and white marsh mallows, a lovely three inch bell shaped flower whose pithy stem
oozed out a white gummy substance, which was said to have been used in making ''marshmallow''
candy, those little white pillows that are roasted around a campfire. The marshes jut out into the bay
forming penisulas and islands, cut off by little bays and waterways. Mother and father used to sail
through these waterways in the flat bottomed "Ancy-Dee" and the family had picnics and "swims"
on and from the "Ancy-Dee" when most of us were young. Bert adds the following description of
one such outing:
The "Ancy-Dee" figures in one of the fondest memories of the older children. While they were
still young, Father got the fishing tackle together, some food, and with them sailed out toward

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the 'corner stake' late in the afternoon to try some sunset fishing in deep water. As the sun went
down the wind dropped off to a mere zephyr and we were all admonished to be very still. The
sun dropped out of sight behind the western shore and distant trees, orange and purple lightinfused the sky and spread across the velvety water, not a nibble disturbed the waiting fishermen.
It got darker, the cool evening wind began to blow. We huddled down below the bulkhead.
Finally Dad quietly moved forward, opened the little "cubby" door behind the mast and began
some mysterious activity. We began to hear a sizzling, the delectable odor of frying bacon
drifted to us, and before long Dad was handling back hot bacon and egg sandwiches on fresh
buns! Little waves gently slapping at the boat, cool breeze, sunset colors softly fading overhead,
Father enjoying it with us-- rarely,was anything more perfect!

Bert continues with another story:
Our first boat was a twelve-foot, metal hulled rowboat which we never called anything but
"The Tin Cup". It must have been one of our very first years at Lavallette when Dad invited
Harry and me to go hunting with him at dawn. Can you picture the adventure for two nine and
eleven year old boys being awakened in the pitch dark, trying to get out of the house quietly --so
as not to disturb the family, walking through first light to the wharf, getting into that noisy tin
boat and keeping quiet while Father paddled us softly into the nearby reed-sheltered ponds
enclosed in the marshy promontories around Lavallette Cove? We had a twenty-two, I think,
and were looking for something to shoot, supposedly. But I don't ever think we did. It was just
too quiet and awesome. Little birds were flitting and twittering in the marshes as light began to
filter in. Dad pointed out a few reed birds standing motionless along the banks. Finally we saw
the indistinct form of a great blue heron ahead of us as we glided along. I don't recall that we
reached for the gun but something alarmed him with great splashing and ponderous flapping he
beat his way out of sight! I guess that broke the spell for I don't remember the rest, except that
Mother was waiting for us at home with breakfast.

As the family grew in numbers, mother and father invested in a power boat, the "Elesan" 36 and a
twenty-foot, sneak-boy sailboat, the "Pollywog" 37 which provided much more space for the family.
Bert describes a trip down the bay in the "Elesan".
We were always fascinated with the lighthouse at Barnegat Inlet. One time we older boys persuaded Dad to take us there in the Elesan for a picnic. We loaded up and started out in
somewhat uncertain weather, with a good south wind. The usual heavy seas started kicking up
with a stong tide and by the time we got below the railroad bridge seas were coming over the
fore deck to the canvas windshield. Instead of blowing itself out the wind increased and clouds
gathered until they formed a black arch from east to west across the sky, which we later learned
to identify as a line squall. After a particularly heavy wave Dad said, "Well, looks like we better
take cover. I'm sorry to disappoint you." We ran into the mouth of Cedar Creek, out of the
wind, went swimming, found and ate oysters, had a wonderful day, finally heading home under
lighter winds and showers late in the afternoon.

Along the shoreline of the bay a few commercial crabbers tried to flip up a soft-shelled crab from
among the seaweed. We often waded and pushed our scoop nets through the sea-grass, hunting here
and there for "softies". When we were unsuccessful, we would buy soft-crabs from "Uncle Ben",
the old waterman with bent-up, crossed toes, who spent hours searching for crabs. He sold shedders
for fishing, soft crabs as a special delicacy at twenty-five cents each and hard crabs. I would go out
with him occasionally and he would sometimes sail-boat race with the boys, or later go duck hunting
with Harry. He knew the bay and knew weather conditions along the shore: when the wind would
45

pickup; when it was going to storm; or when the race would become be-calmed. Uncle Ben was "an
institution" and lived in a small house-boat in the marshes in summer and in Osbornville in the
winter. I never did know if he was married, but he belonged to the Jersey "Piney'' culture, unable to
read or write, with a language of his own called the "Piney dialect" .38
We children were allowed to take the row boat, "The Tin Cup" and later Bert's wooden boat out
ourselves to bay fish or crab, after we learned to swim. I had been taught by Anna- a champion
distance swimmer. It seems that whenever Toni, Kitty Dean, who visisted us every summer, and I
took the Tin Cup out, early in the morning to fish, it was inevitable that sooner or later we got stuck
on some flat or the wind would come up too strong, for our rowing abilities, so we'd get overboard
with much laughter and pull or pole the heavy row boat ashore. We invariably got home later than
expected and while mother never showed her anxiety, father showed his by curtailing our privileges
or threatening punishment "if it happens again".
I remember one time I had taken Virginia as a little girl out in the rowboat and had been late in getting back to the yatch club. Our parents had become concerned so father walked down to the bay to
look for us. That walk gave him ample time to work up his angry temper so that he greeted us as we .
docked with a threat of a good thrashing when we got back home! Fortunately he had cooled down
during the walk back and all I received was a good scolding for being late. The reprieve was allowed
because usually I was a "good boy". The trials of parents!
There were many, happy family outings or crabbing expeditions. Yes, all twelve of us in the
Pollywog. We packed a sandwich lunch (no refrigerator boxes in those days) egg salad, cheese and
olive, tuna fish, etc. There'd be a cool drink, perhaps homemade root beer, and often watermelon
with a seed spitting contest over the side of the boat. I can remember taking off my shirt and tying
the neck and arm holes together so that it could be filled with crabs when we ran out of basket space.
Oh, those smelly, "icky-gug" rotting fish heads, the stronger the better, that had to be tied on
weighted lines. "Crab! Crab! Crab! Someone come and net it! Oh, no, false alarm!" or "Wow,
that's a big one!" or "Oh, no, it's a female, throw her back!"
One time we were crabbing and fishing at the same time. Deanie, who liked fishing became diverted
and after a bit we saw her bamboo pole and line being towed away by a fish through the water. Don
quickly stripped, plunged in and swam after the pole which he retrieved. He brought it back to
Deanie, who pulled up her line and shouted, "Hurray for me! I caught a fish!" "Who caught it,
Deanie?"
Frequently, when we tired of crabbing, the "skipper" would direct all hands to raise the sail, and
we'd head for a sandy bar or flat where all of the family when we were still young would disrobe, the
men and the boys on one side of the sail and the girls on the other and plunge in for a cool swim in
"birthday suits". There would be mud fights, and father would invariably bedeck himself with sea
weed as "Old Neptune". As we became older and more self conscious, we'd land on a beach, such
as Green Island, and mother and the girls could swim on one side of the point while the boys swam
on the other side.
We were not often be-calmed, but mother was always more comfortable with her brood of ten when
the bay was calm. It could be frightening if there was a heavy breeze so that the sail had to be "reefed down", the boat leaned and the spray came over the bow in wet sheets.
One of the special pleasures for me and the little girls when we were relatively small was to be allowed to climb the mast by putting our toes between the mast and the sail on top of the wooden rings
that held the sail. When we reached the top we'd slip our legs over the cross bars that held the stays
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supporting the mast. We could sit, one at a time, high above the deck and watch the waves be pushed away from the bow; sway as the mast yielded to the sail filled with a puff from a squall, and the
boat heeled over further. All the activities of the family on the windward side were in full v!ew down
below. Sometimes the skipper would allow me to ride out on the "monkey tail" behind the tiller
over the bubbling foam that washed up and past the stern of the ship.
When the crabbing was good, we would come home, bring a bucket or two of water to boil and then
drop in the crabs. It was a cruel but hopefully a quick death. However, there was usually such excitement that we did not meditate on the injustice of it all. Invariably, one or two crabs would escape
the boiling pot, get on the floor and have to be returned by the fire tongs from under the stove or
kitchen table. The crabs would be boiled to a bright red, cleaned and cooled and then it was time for
all hands "to pick the crabs". We never served whole boiled crabs as so many of our friends seemed
to do. No, we sat at the round dining table, each one with a soup dish into which he or she picked
out the crab meat from the white bodies or the red crushed claws. "Look out for the shell!" "Whp
did that plate, it's full of shells!" No matter every dish was dumped into the commoa bowl.
Often mother or father read a magazine story while the rest of us picked. (This was long before the
radio or stereo.) It was fun, and I enjoyed the banter when no one was reading. Sometimes the top
shell was cleaned, "boiled-out" and filled with deviled crab and dusted with bread crumbs. At other
times, we had crab salad, or crab Newburg on toast with hard boiled egg slices. At Lavallette, we lived on sea food, fish and crabs in many forms. Mother's fish chowder or clam chowder was 'out of
this world', New England style, started by sauteeing bacon and sliced onions in a pot, then boiling
the potatoes and later adding the milk and fish or clams.
Mention was made earlier of "Green Island". 39 This island l~y across the bay and to the north of
Lavallette, where the bay turns eastward, narrows and stretches on northward to Mantoloking and
Bay Head. It was a good hour and a half sail from Lavallette. About one hundred yards inland from
the shore there was a small farm house still in good condition. A point of land extended into the bay
west of the house and beyond that a large cove led ·into a river that flowed down to the bay from
Osbornville, if I'm not mistaken. The place had been a sandy farm at best, but I never remember
seeing any one living in the house. About once or twice·a summer, our family would go to Green
Island for a day's picnic. We would often pick blueberries and pin cherries (choke cherries). We also
picked berrries including blackberries at a number of locations across the bey.
But Green Island was famous in our family as the site of the annual, end of the summer Sunday
School picnic. How, father got permission to use the property, I'll never know, but suffice it to say
that several weeks before the "big day", father 40 would announce .the "Sunday School Picnic". He
arranged with all of the men at the yatch club to help convey the Sunday School childrrn and adults
in their motor boats to Green Island. Sometimes some of the family sailed the Pollywog but a motor
boat ride was a treat in itself. All of the paraphernalia for the picnic, prizes and equipment for the
games and races, and a large tub containing a can of Bryers Ice C1:eam in salt and ice from
Philadelphia was put on the boats along with the people. Some cruisers had to make two trips!
Once on the island, swimming was forbidden although some boys invariable sneaked off for a dip
and father always suspected that some of the older boys just came to Sunday School the last Sunday
or two before the outing so they could go to Green Island.
The first order of business was a picnic lunch which every family provided for its members. Mother
tells of offering a Latvian girl a slice of watermelon which she spat out only to replace it with a slice
of a big, Bermuda onion which she much preferred.

47

Once lunch was over, there were games for the little children which mother and the primary teacher,
Margaret Park, ran: a peanut scramble, a potato race and a running race. Mother kept the suitcase
filled with prizes for each event during the day- Wilbur's chocolate bars, I am sure.
The older children had a sack race, by age; three-legged race; beauty contest using flour, blackberry
jam for makeup; a contest eating blueberry pie with no hands; cracker-eating, water-feeding contest;
a relay race for women who had to drive a nail into a board and a similar race for men who had to
thread a needle and sew on a button. Such a to-do, laughter and fun! Finally the tug-of-war using an
old two inch hawser from Uncle Will's yacht "Rornona".
The picnic ended when the ice cream can was opened and cones were served to all! Father ran it all
with a firm hand, assisted by his older sons. I can still see him disciplining Teddy Bloom for gulping
down a cone and breaking back into line for a second before everyone was served.
About four o'clock the skippers returned with their cruisers and reloaded for the trip horne. A hapPY and weary throng, some with too much sun, others with too much food, some itching with jigger
bites, but for all it had been a great day! We always hoped it wouldn't blow up a storm by midafternoon and to my knowledge, father never had a serious accident during all those years of
transporting some seventy-five youth, women and children back and forth to Green Island. He and
mother must have been glad when the day was over! Guess that's where all the 'Wilbur energy"
comes from!
Several times father hired "Mr. Shakey-head, Gene Piard41 to take most, if not all of the family to
Barnegat Light House down the bay some twenty miles. It was a gala time when we enjoyed a long
boat ride and then explored the light house. We could climb up the circular staircase which was inside until we reached the hugh light itself with its revolving cylinder of prisms - the cylinder being
perhaps twelve feet across and eight feet high. The placement of the prisms controlled the passage of
light and the revolving cylinder gave the interval of light and darkness which in terms of seconds on
and off identified the light as Barnegat instead of Sandy Hook to the north or Little Egg Inlet to the
south.
In later years, when I was a companion for Henry Stevens, we spent many a night within sight of the
light house fishing in his cruiser the "Susannah". The channel from the lower bay to and out the inlet was swiftest just after "slack water" following high tide in the bay as the water began to rush out
the inlet to the sea thereby creating low tide in the Bay. The reverse was also true at the inlet. At such
times, fishing was at its best, especially flounder fishing in the daytime and large weakfish at night,
although the latter were usually caught on the flats where they were seeking soft crabs. Consequently, "Skipper Stevens" favorite fishing spot was almost a mile up current from Barnegat Inlet. You
can bet that the anchor had a struggle to hold against the strong tides which changed every eight
hours. On one trip while we were fishing in this location, I caught a hugh flounder weighing twelve
pounds or more if I remember correctly. Any fish weighing over ten pounds was termed by the Skipper a "barn door", those over five pounds, a "door mat"! Another time, as we sat holding fishing
poles enjoying the beautiful summer day, one of the great zeppelins of the late twenties or early thirties, perhaps the Graff Zeppelin or the majestic Shenadoah carne drifting down the coast from the
north with its motors purring passing east of the lighthouse. What a picture if I had only had my
camera ready!
I took only two trips out of the inlet into the Atlantic Ocean in the "Susannah". The Skipper hired
an experienced bay-rnan to go along in order to take the cruiser over the sand bar which continuously built up as a barrier in the inlet. We trolled offshore for bluefish from Barnegat to Manasquan Inlet and on one of these trips had a very successful catch!
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One of the sports which was in its infancy during the later "teens" and early "twenties" was
sailboat racing. The older cat boats with leg of mutton rigs were replaced by the main mast, catboat
rig: boom and gaff and the canvass sail fastened to the mast with wooden rings that slipped up
with the sail. About every two feet up from and horizontal to the boom, were reefing points which
when tied down at the boom line, shortened the sail two, four or six feet depending on the severity
of the wind and the number of reefs tied.
The races were under the auspices of the local yacht clubs at Bay Head, Mantaloking, Lavallette,
Sea Side Heights, Sea Side Park, Island Heights and Toms River. They took place each Saturday
during the summer at a designated club house which conducted the regatta for that day. Some years
father would be elected commodore of the Lavallette Club. The officials were dressed in white flannel pants, blue serge jackets, and yachting caps with the club's emblem in front. (I still have such a
cap with father's emblem.) The club house was decked with flags as were the several official yachts.
It was a gala occasion with boats from all over the bay coming into port the morning of the race,
some sailing in, others being towed by a motor boat. Sometimes all the boats from one club would
be towed in together.
In those days, sail boats were not classified by size and types of rig as they are now. While most of
the boats were sneakboxes with either a Marconi or boom and gaff rig, if one wanted to race in a
catboat or a small sail boat carrying much less canvas, that was fine providing the entrance fee had
been paid. In time, the size, rig and the number of persons allowed in the crew was fixed for each
class with a separate race for every class, often at a different club.
Days before the races, the older boys would work over our twenty-five foot sneakbox: renewing her
copper bottom with new, slick, copper paint; brightening the spars and wood work, washing down
the decks. Sand bags were patched so ballast could be shifted easily. The boys wore white duck pullon shirts and sailor pants. I believe Bert was usually "captain".
The Women's Auxiliary of the Yacht Club was busy preparing the noon meal which was served to
the officials and crew for a fee thereby earning money for each club. Mother was always in the
center of things when the races were at Lavallette in preparing the cold meal - ham, chicken, potato
salad by the tubful, pie and cake, coffee, milk and pop. As the youngest bol2 I never was in a race
but stayed near the food preparation and watched the race.
The excitement reached a pitch as one boat after another cast off and started sailing back and forth,
avoiding the other thirty or fifty sailboats (or so it seemed) and trying to time their movement so as
to be on the right tack and close to the starting buoy when the cannon was fired. The officials would
be out in their cruisers clearing the course prior to the race and seeing that each competitor actually
circled each buoy marking the course. They also watched that the boats didn't foul each other during their maneuvers. It was a beautiful sight- white sails billowing in a fresh breeze, blue sky and
dark water pushed up to white caps, boats sailing on their port or starboard tack or running free!
What more could be wanted in a sport?
One time when the regatta was at Lavallette, father was the commodore and was on the judges' boat
anchored at the starting line. Buddy, Tante and her friend, Blanche, had secretly entered the "Ancy
Dee" our old, scow-type, cat boat, in the afternoon race. It was just a joke- women's lib acting on a
dare, because the "Ancy Dee" was just a loveable, old, flat-bottom tub which the family had owned
ever since the three older boys were little. The craft plowed up to the starting line where twenty or
more slick, racing boats were maneuvering. The commodore in uniform stood at the rail of the
judges' cruiser: "Get off the course!" came a shouted command through the megaphone from the

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commodore. "We're in the race!" was Tante's defiant reply. "Okay." came the reluctant
acknowledgement from our embarassed father. For in truth, Tante had paid the entry fee but t.ad
no intention of finishing the race. The "Ancy Dee" sailed no further than the first barrel on the
marked course!
Usually, the boats covered the triangular course twice so it was always a thrill to see which boats
came back first to 'round the barrel at the starting line and go off again on the second lap. A great
pulling of the sheet rope, a transfer of sand bags and "ready-about, hard-a-lea!" A snapping of
blocks as each boat come about and pulleys slid on their guides. "We're ahead, look, we're in
first!" came the enthusiastic shouts from those watching the race from the upper porch of the yacht
club. Then the sailboats went off and there would be a wait of another hour or more depending on
the strength of the breeze.
If the wind freshened considerably and the captain took too great a risk in jibbing around a barrel to

save precious seconds, the boat might capsize and be disqualified from the race. Its crew, after
working the sail down the mast and righting the ship, would be towed back to port by one of the officials. What elation when the "Pollywog" came in first and a soaking wet crew stood forward,
towels in hand to receive the trophy. 43 Sometimes there was a scramble by the captain to get out of
his wet clothes and into more formal yachting clothes before receiving the coveted cup.

All of the boys were skilled sailors as was Buddy who assembled an all female crew and sailed the
Pollywog in the women's race. Nick was steward of the Lavallette Yacht Club for several summers
and had responsibility for its maintenance. This was after the days when the older boys raced and
when they were away during the summer.
Bert was especially fond of sailing. I recall one night when he was restless and decided to take the
Pollywog out for a moonlight sail and then sleep on the deck all night. Somehow, he was missed
when the other boys went to bed so a search ensued. I was asked to see if I could notice any boat sailing on the bay by looking out the west window of the attic but to no avail. It was decided to visit the
bay and finding "Polly's" slip empty it was deduced that Bert had taken her out for a sail. Mother
was concerned that he hadn't left a note. However, Bert reported later that he had tucked a note in
the front screen door. A story is told about this hunt for Bert. Sarah Roberts, our black washerwoman, stood on the dock at the Yacht Club and striking match after match said, "I'se here Bert!
Your old Bobby Roberts, waiting to show you how to come home!'' The flicker of a match could be
seen a mile our more out in the bay?
There was a period when father felt the social climate of the Lavallette Yacht Club was unsuitable
for his teenage boys. So he and mother bought a barn-like house in Mantoloking intending to move
the summer residence to that refined, well regulated, summer community. The peninsula is much
narrower there so there is only a single cottage between the ocean and the main highway. The bay
also is much narrower. However, we only painted the home for several seasons, rented it out and
then sold the house again without moving into the more snobbish Yacht Club community. It was
when the older children were repainting the Mantoloking house, that the nonsense expression came
into being, "Alibastine, alibastine, brush it 'een, brush it 'een!" Albastine was mixed with water
and put on with a wide brush. However, it was a miserable substitute for whitewash and flaked off
after a year or two in the same way. There was no such product as acrylic-based, wall paint.

The Summertime
So the family of ten children and their relatives and friends frolicked and rollicked away the summer
months at Lavallette. When father spent his two or three weeks' vacation in August at the shore, we
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"shaped up" but had extra outings for his and our pleasure. There would be special tasks such as,
raking up the trash that had accumulated during the year on the lots to the north of the cottage;
special trips like the cruise down the bay to Barnegat Light; and father's birthday was August 6th for
he usually was at Lav then. Father's vacation often extended to Labor Day when the town fathers
put on a gala celebration which marked the end of the summer for the cottage holders. There were
competitive swimming races in the ocean in the a.m. and in the bay in the afternoon. Other races included a rowing race and one we children especially enjoyed- a tub race. We would search among
the Latvians and the year 'round residents for old, wooden wash tubs which we could borrow to use
in the race.
One of the popular outings during father's vacation was the trip by car to Asbury Park where we
spent the day at the amusement park. That was a treacherous place for children! The copper drinking cups which were fastened to water coolers by chain were the only visible place for a drink. Unexpectedly, father who was always cautious about contamination and would never let us use a public
drinking fountain 44 encouraged our taking a drink from the copper cup! A more wary disposition
would have told me something was phoney. However, grasping the cup and then pushing the button
at the end of the spigot of the water cooler resulted in a sharp electric shock instead of a stream of
water.
Another unique contraption in the amusement coliseum was the horizontal, rolling barrel which had
an eight foot diameter. The object was to walk through this barrel which was about twelve feet long
while it was rolling. When Sarah Roberts walked into the rolling barrel she soon lost her balance and
tumbled over and over, skirts and petticoats swirling about her in a mass of confusion. Any one who
tried to rescue her was soon caught in the melee. First one and then a second boy would rush in then
a third until everyone was rolling around and around with her, all laughing. There was no way of
getting Sarah out and the others as well without stopping the barrel.
Then there was the "Hure" (huricane ride) which was constructed of polished wood. The
mechanism for this ride consisted of a hugh bowl-shaped like a jelly mold with a truncated cone in
the center. The bowl was about twenty feet across and the center cone was perhaps twelve feet at the
base and six feet at the top. The youth climbed into the bowl and then scaled the cone to the top
where they sat or crouched. On signal, the cone would revolve and as it picked up speed, all of the
youth would gradually be spun off as the centrifugal force became greater and greater, since there
was nothing to hold on to you'd slide down into the bowl. The champion was the person who was
the last to be spun off the top.
All of the family liked the merry-go-round from tiny toddlers to the older children who would work
at catching the black and brass rings on their fingers as the merry-go-round sped around. The person
who retrieved a brass ring got another ride free, but such rings came down the shoot too infrequently we children thought.
I can't remember the roller coaster, probably because I was too young to go on the ride, but Harry
says there was a small roller coaster that circled under the roof of the pavillion. According to him,
you had to climb up a long, circular stairway to get to the coaster. The catch was that after the ride,
the only way to get down from the coaster was by a huge, bumpy, wooden slide which rumpled
dresses and burned bare legs. Anyway there were always ice cream cones to end the day- real crisp
sugar cones!
Ah, speaking of ice cream cones, there was the annual treat from Tante when she came down from
New York or up from Washington to spend time at the shore. She would take the family to the ice
51

cream store next to the railroad station and each neice or nephew could have as many cones as she or
he could consume on the premises. (The original "all you can eat" and at a nickel a cone, too.)
Harry adds a note: ''One time Tante was conned into offering a prize of twenty-five cents to anyone
eating six cones and ten cents for each additional cone over six. Don and Nick ate seven and kept
them. I ate eight but lost them on the walk home."
No account of Lavallette would be complete without mention of all the entertaining of our Main
Line 45 friends. Each summer when the older youth were in their mid-teens and before they had gone
off to college, Buddy entertained the ''B. of R. '' which stood for the Battalion of Rogues. The battalion consisted of three teen-aged girls from the Model School in Bryn Mawr- Ophelia Stillwell46 ,
Beth Tuttle and Buddy, and our cousin, Beth Dean. This group matched in age the three older boys
of the family. Sometimes, their number was augmented by Beth Tuttle's brother, Norris. When the
"B. of R." came to Lav, it meant a week of sailing, swimming and fun. Although Buddy and her
older brothers planned and carried out a variety of activities, the younger family members also
shared in some of them. Among other events, there was usually a dress-up party with everyone in
costume for supper.
Kitty Dean (Strohkark) and Walton Forstall, my friend, were regulars whom I enjoyed especially
along with Francis Shoemaker and Dick Rhoads. Then there were those who became in-laws: Teddy
Linn and her fine brother Bob, whom Ginny liked (not an in-law, but perhaps a near-miss!), Hugh
Borton, Norton Maxfield and Rose Marymont. In earlier days there were Hildegarde Ross, Helen
McDonald and others. After Hugh and Buddy were married and Hugh's mother passed away,
Squire (Walter) Borton became a frequent visitor. Later, after grandfather's death, his wife Anna
came and stayed and stayed!
Labor Day marked the end of the summer when we reluctantly returned to Rosemont or Haverford
to take up the new academic year. We returned brown and tanned by sun and sea, our eyes had
become adjusted to the brightness of the shore where the white sand reflected the sun's rays without
any relief from shade trees. While we were at the shore, Harry Backus kept up the yard and garden
so that when we returned at summer's end, we welcomed the sight of the lush green of the tall stately
trees surrounded by carpets of green lawn, so typical of the Main Line. There was sweet corn ready
to be picked and large, red tomatoes together with fall grapes, Seckel pears and other fruit. Over all
as I walked home from school, there was a late afternoon aroma of burning leaves. A delicious supper awaiting us and a new cycle had begun.
During World War I, the three older boys worked on farms away from the coast. They made occasional trips to the shore for weekends bringing delicious peaches and sweet corn. When I was sixteen
in 1926, Hugh Borton referred me to Rodger and Mary Pennock who had a fruit farm near Mount
Holly where he had worked. That summer I launched my working career. I enjoyed orchard work
all summer and also took time off to help load baskets of tomatoes which had been picked by
members of an Italian family brought down from Philadelphia to pick "tomats". Their entire family worked in the fields including toddlers who probably spoiled more tomatoes than they picked. It
was on that farm that I learned the vulgar language of some farm hands. I was content to work in
the orchard with a kindly, elderly gentleman. Every night, Rodger counted our production for the
day! I enjoyed every weekend at the shore, barely twenty-four hours from Saturday night to Sunday
afternoon. The following summer I worked on Frank and Virginia Morse's poultry farm not too far
away from the Pennock's farm. 47
Gradually, the older members of the family were caught up with summer work away from the shore.
Buddy married and the size of the family dwindled. Helena spoke of days when father urged that
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our part of the beach be raked up and the driftwood and flotsam gotten together and placed for
disposal as our contribution to town and beach upkeep. I wish I could copy here Helena's "An Ode
to Driftwood" written to the tune of "Welcome Sweet Springtime, We Greet Thee with Song!"
Finally, father and mother, as grandparents stayed on at the shore as long as they could in the fall
and we visited them with our children until they went West in 1938. 48 •

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PART IV

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THE FAMILY TREE BRANCHES OUT49
The post-war "Twenties" and the depression racked "Thirties" brought many changes to our
family. Early in the "Twenties", candy and chocolate were shunned by figure conscious "flappers"
who in great numbers "reached for a 'Lucky' instead of a sweet". H.O. Wilbur and Sons consolidated with Bruster-Ideal 50 and under an agreement with the Swiss firm of Suchard became
known as the Wilbur-Suchard Chocolate Company. A few years later, there were other financial adjustments and father retired. But in spite of financial and health problems, the family tree adjusted
and flourished. The younger branches struggled for their "place in the sun". The older members
branched out into new families.
Bert eventually went West, first to work for Joe Sharp on a dude ranch in Arizona then to California. He had resigned his position as treasurer of the chocolate firm before we moved from
Anberten. Harry spent a year teaching at the Wilford Grenfel Mission School in Labrador after he
graduated from Haverford College. On his return, he entered the Jefferson Medical College in
Philadelphia but had to give up the study of medicine after two bouts with tuberculosis. Don married his boyhood girl friend, Beth Tuttle and went to work for Wilbur-Suchard. He moved up into
sales and for a time worked out of the regional office in Minneapolis. Buddy married Hugh Borton
following their respective graduations from Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges. They moved to
Friendsville, Tennessee where Hugh started his teaching career as headmaster and where Buddy
taught for a time. The second year, Bert joined them as supervisor of the boys' dormitory and
handyman. So, rather quickly following graduation and before Anberten was sold, the four eldest
members had left home.
Nick after graduation from Lower Merion, attended Haverford College for two years and then
transferred to the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania.
Toni went to Miss Ilman's School for Kindergarten and Elementary Education. I followed Nick to
the Wharton School when he was a senior although my first choice would have been to major in
agriculture at Cornell University at Ithica, New York. Deanie graduated from the Friends' Boarding
School at Westtown and then from the School of Nursing of the University of Pennslvania. Helena
and Virginia completed high school at Lower Merion and then Helena took secretarial training in
Philadelphia and Virginia entered Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts which Aunt Helena
Elliott and her daughter Madeline Barnes had attended. Grandfather Wilbur had contributed funds
needed to build Wilbur Hall in memory of grandmother Harriet. Thus, the younger members of the
family were occupied during the time the family lived at 731 Panmure Road in Haverford.
Harry who was "curing" at 731 following his second attack of t.b. continued to encourage dad to
write his memoirs which gave him a purpose in life after his serious heart attack in the spring of
1933. During this period Harry married Rose Marymont in New York. They had met while Harry
was a patient at the Trudeau Sanatarium, Saranac Lake, New York. Rose was the night supervisor
whom Harry would bedevil by various tricks that invariably involved breaking rules. They came to
live at 731 where Rose continued her career as a top flight, private-duty nurse and was much in demand by Main Line families, such as the Bailys and the Vauclains.
Father wrote his journal, "J .A.M." while we lived at 731 covering the period of his youth, his
medical training at the Hahnemann Medical College, and his early years in Alaska. He may have
gotten well into the second volume, "J .A. U." before he and mother moved to La Jolla, California.
Nick and Teddy followed Buddy and Hugh to Japan for two years where they both taught English
in Nagoya. Upon their return to the United States, Nick set up a telephone grocery business in the

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basement of 731 Panmure Road known as Wilbur & Wilbur, Profit Rebate Company. This was at
the peak of the Great Depression so Nick sought to attract customers by cutting costs and offering a
quarterly profit rebate to his customers based on a percentage of their total purchases during the
period. This was similar to the principle of profit sharing of the Rochdale consumer cooperatives
which had a mushroom growth at that time although Nick's was the first such organizati()n on the
Main Line. Harry and Rose worked with Nick and Ted in the grocery business for a time and then
Harry went with the National Youth Administration (N.Y.A.), a federal organization established to
develop employment opportunities for youth.
After spending the summer of 1933 as a companion for Henry Stevens, I took a W.P.A. job (Works
Progress Administration) listing library holdings and manuscripts in Philadelphia. This was terminated, I believe when I took a temporary, federal, civil service position in New York city as a
junior economist. In that position, I gathered information about the expenditures of persons who
earned over $50,000 annually. In 1935, I joined the Wilbur & Wilbur Profit Rebate Company which
had been moved to Bryn Mawr and then to Rosemont. I was with Nick and Teddy for about two
years and then returned to the Philadelphia County Board of Welfare, having decided in favor of a
professional career in social work to one in business. Elizabeth Reynolds and I were married at Providence Meeting, Media on October 2, 1937 on a gorgeous fall day. With Libby's support, as a
labratory technician at the Anna Jeanes Hospital, I began graduate work at the Pennsylvania School
of Social Work in the fall of 1939.
Deanie had become a registered nurse in Michigan where she met and married a farmer, Edward
Ness. Helena was a secretary in Philadelphia where she lived with her husband, Norton Maxfield,
Nick's college friend and a friend of the family for many years. Virginia went to the United Nations'
Relief Administration after World War II. She took an assignment to Yugoslavia where she met Jon
Dimitrijevich whom she married years later. Father and mother left 731 Panmure Road and
relocated at 42 Rosemont Avenue, La Jolla, California in 1938.
Our parents, Bert and Anna, had done all they could to rear and educate their ten children - sound
in body, mind and spirit! They began the begetting and begot those who were begotten. (See Appendix B, Family Tree)

FAMILY REUNIONS 51
The first family reunions took place at Lavallette. They were a continuation of the times when those
who were married and were able to come to the shore, came for the Fourth of July or Labor Day
week-ends, adding their numbers to those who were at Lav for the summer. These reunions have
been times for sharing, for the renewal of family ties, for the retelling of stories, for observing the
nurture of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, for viewing old movies of the family and for
games and general fun.
At the 1933 Reunion, the family gathered, Harry recalls, in the living room at Drowsy Dunes. We
had romped on the beach and had had a dress-up party the night before - activities shown in Don's
eight millimeter movies taken that year. Now, on Sunday afternoon, there was a period of quiet
renewal. Our thoughts were in tune with the rhythm of the sea and the sweep of the sky. Mother
read Psalm 91:
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shaddow of the
Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; my God; in him will I trust.

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He shall call upon me, and I will answer Him: I will be wllh Him in trouble; I will deliver Him
and honour Him. With long life will I satisy Him and shew Him my salvaton

Following this reading, father spoke with love in his voice and a strange gentleness to all of us. Here
is what he shared from his heart:
In the words of our Saviour, "with desire have I desired to eat this supper with you". So
mother and I have looked forward to this reunion. For months past we have hoped that nothing
would prevent it and for weeks we have anticipated its joys.
We all know that with the years, separations are more and more probable. Even a year or two
ago a reunion of all the clan seemed almost impossible, yet we are all together again and so
thankful that we are so united. But we all realize that those longer and more permanent separations can not be far away for some of us and so, these hours here are all the more precious. Five
years have passed since we were all here. How many changes have taken place in those years! It
is any wonder that these days mean so much?
The possibilities of disruption of family life are so great they seem almost a matter of course.
Yet we have escaped them. The forging into the family circle of new members has only
strengthened the bond while it has enlarged our interests. We have been blessed indeed, by the
coming of these new sons and daughters, brothers and sisters who have joined us, full grown,
and added love and charm and helpfulness and for the precious new lives with their opportunities and responsibilities. For all of these, as fm those born to us, we give heartfelt thanks.
But, it seems to me, I would not be fair to you if I did not tell you the most important thing in
life, as I see it after nearly 'three score years and ten'. It is the certainty of God and His love for
us and the redeeming power of His Son.
We are familiar enough with storms here by the sea. The storms of adversity, sickness and loss
are no less real nor less burdened with anxiety and I know something of their force, as they
surged and beat on the bulkheads of life and faith. The storms that assail the spirit are real and
intense and terrible. What seemed unfair and unjust almost wrecked life and blotted out the
future.
But these storms passed, as all storms do and from the gloom emerged a certain knowledge that
there is a God; that He does love us and that He saves, both now and hereafter.
I would not yield that faith for anything life can offer, for, "what will a man give in exchange
for his soul?" Why such knowledge could not come loaded with temporal blessings I do not
know. I do not believe I was intended to know but I do know that there is a God of mercy and
love and I trust Him.
So, my dear ones, this is what I would leave with you: The certainty of God and His love and
the great loss to us if we fail to really know Our Father in Heaven. It is so easy to forget; so easy
to put off our decisions on these eternal things; so easy to doubt without ever thinking it
through: so easy to let these spiritual realities be crowded aside. Believe me, as you believe that I
love you, the best of life is in finding God and knowing Him so positively that nothing can ever
sweep us from that certain faith.
And now, I do not wish to play on your emotions, nor do I wish to cast one shaddow on our
happy days but I can not help doubting we shall all meet together again. If that opportunity for

57

a wider and fuller life comes, you know I have no fear. And, you who share my faith will be
glad for my release and even my dear Heartmate, my life's unfailing blessing, will have new joy.
Lavallette, September 3, 1933

In the forty years that have passed since the events recorded in this account of "Happy Days and
Special Events of the Wilbur Family" took place, the members of the family have responded to a
variety of experiences, some filled with joy, others with sadness. Time has recorded the wear and
tear of emotional and physical stress on our bodies as we have met the vicissitudes of life. Half of
the brothers and sisters have found eternal rest with our parents. The grandchildren of Bert and An~
na have established homes of their own and have created a third generation which in 1982 is in the
process of producing the fourth generation ~ the great~great grandchildren.
What did it mean to grow up in such a family? The effect of inter~family relationships and the
response of love and care provided by the family members varied for each of us. As mother would
say when she must have felt overloaded, ''Now Sunday take care of Monday and Monday take care
of Tuesday'' and so forth. For me, the seventh child, growing up under the guidance of our parents,
it meant a full measure of emotional security, especialy from mother; a sense of pride in being a
member of a family that had "standards" of personal and family conduct~ a family respected in the
community. The financial reverses of the "twenties" cast a shaddow that required adjustments in
our living.
With this undergirding of love and caring, I found myself well prepared to carry the responsibilities
of adulthood. There has been fullfillment in my marriages and I have found enrichment in the lives
of our children and grandchildren. The family nurtured a way of life which is best expressed in a
prayer I wrote when I retired from the Lutheran Council: 52
God let me keep dreaming!
And when I awake,
God help me to find ways
The vision to take
Into the World for humanity's sake.
God keep me responding
Though slower the gait.
God help me search out,
To another's need relate,
Let no cry for help my ear escape.
God may I not forget
All I have to share.
God help me carry abroad
Christ's love everywhere.
Grateful, may I for my neighbor care!

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APPENDIXES

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APPENDIX A
NOTES BY CHAPTERS
PART!
A Bit of Romance
1.
Tante, Anna Dean's younger sister, Elizabeth L. Dean, who lived for many years at 2816 0 Street,
NW, Washington, D.C., in Georgetown.

2.

Mother records an episode that became a family folk tradition. She and father went sailing on Lake
Huron during father's two- week visit and for some "unexplained reason, the boat upset. Thus, the tradition
at Lavallette that all young lovers sooner or later upset in our sailboat, thereby signalling an up-coming
engagement. (Tante had among her "blue paper" photos a picture of the young couple swimming alongside
their over-turned sailboat.)

3.
Bertrand K and Anna Dean's romance is reviewed in a letter mother wrote and sent to father in Alaska
after their engagement in September 1897, entitled "Confessio Amatus A.D. W., (23 pages). Father also
recorded his recollections of their romance in his journals: "J.A.M. (Just About Me) and "J.A. U., (Just
About Us).

4.

As quoted by father in his journal "J.A.M. ", page 295.

5.
"The Raven's Nest" was the name father gave to his newly built home to which he took his bride. The
building still stands on a knoll overlooking Sheldon Jackson College and the Sitka Museum. The hospital
building was below on the other side of the knoll but it has been razed.

The Early Years
6.
This section omits the genealogy of the family which is shown in Appendix D, Genealogical Notes.
Nor does it attempt to review and summarize what B.K. W. has covered so well in his memoir volumes,
"J.A.M., and "J.A. U., His memoirs cover some 800 pages written for the most part during the first years
of his retirement at 731 Panmure Road, Haverford, Pennsylvania and at Lavallette, New Jersey, 1933 to
1939. Undoubtedly, mother shared in many ways- recalling episodes, encouraging its completion, and editing
as did Harry and Rose Wilbur.
7.
H. 0. Wilbur & Sons, 235 North Third Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, originally known as Croft,
Wilbur & Co. Croft separated and with his sons manufactured candy, while H. 0. Wilbur & Sons produced
high quality chocolate and coatings for bon bons. The coating won a Gold Medal at one of the early international trade expositions and sold thereafter as "Gold Medal" coating, a rich smooth, dark piquant chocolate.
(See Appendix D "H. 0. Wilbur & Sons, The Chocolate Factory.)
8.
Over the years, the family lived in the following neighborhoods:
THERA VEN'S NEST
Sitka, Alaska
1898- 1901
Greenfield A venue,
Ardmore, Penna
1901- 1904
42 Rosemont A venue,
Rosemont, Penna
1902- 1919
ANBERTEN
Railroad A venue & Buck Lane,
Haverford, Penna
1919- 1928
(incorporated in the Haverford School grounds.)
731 Panmure Road,
Haverford, Penna
1928- 1938
1938- 1952
42 Rosemont A venue,
La Jolla, Calif
59

9.

Uncle William (Will) Wilbur owned a two masted schooner named the "Ramona". As indicated in
mother's letter, it was dismantled when Don was an infant so none of us sailed on the yatch. However, one of
the life rafts from the "Ramona" was sent to Lavallette and we took it into the ocean several times each summer.

The Affluent Years
10.

"Anberten" derived from ANna, BERtrand, TEN children. (Elizabeth Borton has the file containing
the papers and records covering the costs of "Drowsy Dunes" and "Anberten".)

11.

When "Anberten" was sold to the Haverford Preparatory School for Boys in 1928, the house was converted to a junior school for boys and the public rooms on the first floor plus the bedrooms on the second
floor became classrooms. The third floor was converted into apartments. Later, the building was demolished
and a low-lying school building was constructed incorporating an additional adjacent property. Old Buck
Lane from which "Anberten" was entered was closed off, as well.

12.

See Memorial Resolution entered in the Minutes of the Board of Health, Lower Merion Township, at
the time of father's death in 1945. A signed and bound copy were among mother's effects in LaJolla.

PART II
Joyous Holidays
13.

At Haverford, Harry Backus had the chore of freezing the custard ice cream which mother had made
the previous day. At Lavallette, Nick and I froze the ice cream after Sunday School and before we took the
morning swim which was always a special swim in which all participated.

14.

Uncle "Bur" was Morris Burgess Dean of West Chester, Pennsylvania.

15. Through my elementary years at Haverford, we had a pony named, Admiral and we drove him around
Haverford College riding in a two-wheeled pony cart. After I out-grew the pony, I kept pigeons and raised
squabs. Later I raised chickens, ducks and geese many of which I hatched-out under hens. Father bought the
feed and the family received the eggs and had chicken or duck for Sunday dinner. From time to time I also
raised rabbits.
16.

A special order shipped from Flukes Grocery in Philadelphia by express and picked up in Rosemont at
the railroad station on Saturday afternoon.

What's So Special About Birthdays?
17.

Harry suggested that grandfather looked very much like the 1980 picture of Kentucky Fried Chicken's
Col Sanders.

18.

The older children and their peers from the neighborhood at 42 Rosemont A venue participated in a
dancing class that we held in our home. Walton Forstall and I would watch the instruction, perched on the
rugs which were piled on the porch, peering in through the windows much amused - "step, step, slide, one,
two, three; one, two, three, slide, stop!"

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Family Prayers
19.

I report an unfortunate episode that occurred one evening during family prayers. It is a story of humor
and more particularly of 'pity'. It has been improved by Harry's editing.
There was an old, mangy, "moth-eaten" tom cat in the neighborhood of 731 Panmure Road that catterwallered all night and meowed incessantly for food to ease his miserably starved body. He was everlastingly
begging on the back porch when mother or any of us went out to the ice box. Something had to be done to
end his misery and the nuisance he constantly caused, but Toni steadfastly defended Tom's "right to his
miserable life".
One evening while the family was assembled at prayers, Harry and Nick thought it was their opportunity to
put old Tom out of his misery. After a little enticing, mangy Tom was persuaded to eat a bite on the back
porch although he would usually not stay there and finish his supper if someone came out on the porch
with him -sneaky, character! This time, however, the boys had surreptitiously closed the outer door of the
shed. Harry the marksman and hunter of the family, had a twenty-two, target pistol ready in his hand.
Nick minded the kitchen door which led to the shed.
Peering out the kitchen door window, Nick watched Harry pull a bead on Tom's head, heard a shot and
then pandemonium broke loose! The shot had not only wounded the cat, but old Tom went wild, tearing
around and trying to get out of the shed. "Let me in Nick! Let me in!" Harry frantically yelled since he
was in danger of being badly clawed. Nick opened the door for Harry but in dashed the crazed cat, meowing pitifully and squirting blood everywhere, its nose having been creased by the bullet. Up the back stairs
it went with the boys in pursuit. Then it ran down the front stairs yow/ling in pain and terror and darted into the prayer circle in the living room. A wild scramble ended family prayers. Toni was shocked by the terrible sequence of events! Norton Maxfield, Helena's fiance, lept to the rescue.
In agony Tom made a final run back into the kitchen and down to the cellar where he was cornered under a
box and the coup d'grace administered. Gone was the tranquillity of evening worship!
Later Harry did penance by writing a poem which ended thus:
The catterwalling is out of mind.
I only wanted to be kind.
Amen!
Nine lives died that night.

20.

Mention was made under the section "Affluent Years" of father's charitable endeavours. In addition
to the charities mentioned, he also raised funds for the Boy Scout Camp, "Delmont" near Green Lane, Pennsylvania and for the Bryn Mawr Hospital. He was chairman of the Charities Committee of the Philadelphia
Chamber of Commerce.

21.

"Domini"was the name father used in referring to his beloved pastor, friend, and advisor, Dr. W.H.
Miller. Dr. Miller was pastor of the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church and during father's youth took the boys
in his Bible Class on camping trips.

22.

Tribute written by Helena W. Maxfield following father's death and sent to mother January 1945.

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PART III
Scouting and Other Outings
23. Blankets could be folded over the staff to make a longer stretcher, as well. The staffs were six to eight
feet long. Each boy carried one. They also could be lashed together to make an impromptu tower, for erecting
on either side of a creek with one rope stretched between for walking and another for holding onto forming a
bridge. This was more complicated than it sounds and took engineering skill.
24. Don had a stint as scoutmaster and Bert was a scoutmaster for a number of years in LaJolla and was
awarded a Silver Beaver as I was, after being a scoutmaster in Des Moines for nearly 20 years. I was kidded
the day after the award at the office as "Eager Beaver Wilbur".
25. While I recall hearing father tell of this initiation, neither Bert nor Harry recall it. It might have occurred once when there was a watermelon treat.
26. Delaware and Montgomery Counties Council of Suburban Philadelphia but with headquarters in that
city. Father and his friend, Ike Sutton, an attorney and outdoorsman, were Scout Commissioners and
members of the Camp Committee of the Council. For his outstanding service to scouting over many years,
father was awarded the coveted "Silver Beaver", the highest honor possible at the county council level.
27. Harry Backus would go into gales of laughter when he told a story about cherry picking as a boy. He
referred to the cherries as "black ox-hearts". He and several of his friends were picking black ox-hearts when
one boy kept extending himself on a high limb. He'd shout to those on the ground, "Here comes more black
ox-hearts. , Suddenly there was a loud creaking and snap and thump, down came the boy with a big limb of
black ox-hearts! His wind was knocked out and for a minute they feared "one black ox heart" was stopped
but the boy revived. We children were often regaled by Harry Backus' stories- the mule Harry stabbed with a
pitch-fork because that unpredictable animal which he was riding to the watering hole after a day's work in a
brick yard, had dumped him in the pond; the Irish grave robbers whose friend had taken the place of the corpse they had placed between them on the front seat of the wagon when they stopped at a bar for a nip, etc.

28. Grandmother Harriet, Uncle Harry and his wife had been interred there. In more recent years, father's
and mother's ashes have been interred at St. David's along with those of Nick, Virginia and her husband Jon
Dimitrijevich, and those of others related to the family - Phyllis and Jack's son Billy McFarlane; Rose's
mother Magdalene and sister Margaret Marymont.
In later years, grandfather H. 0. Wilbur purchased a lot and built another vault at West Laurel Hill Cemetery
in Philadelphia where he and Anna are hurried. Don and his son, Reed, are buried on the grounds of the
Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, Toni's ashes have been scattered on the Pacific Ocean and Helena is
buried in a Catholic burial ground in the Los Angeles area.

The Sea! The Bay! And Summertime
Lavallette, New Jersey

29.

The cottage was described in Chapter I, page 11.

30.

One of the nicest things about Lav as a residential resort even to this day is the absence of any commercialization on the ocean front, just the beach and the boardwalk.

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The Sea and the Beach

31.

I recently saw this same principle demonstrated in training divers who dove into great billows of foam
created by underwater air pressure being released in the pool under the diving board. This saved many a
sprained back and made for a soft landing.

32.

Before the days of the huge trawlers, which evidently scoop up everything and anything, there were
"fish pounds, scattered along the New Jersey coast about every four miles or so. The fish pound consisted of
a line of telephone poles which had been sunk into the ocean floor by hydraulic means and along which hung
a net going from near shore out to the pound itself which contained two or three "pockets, or "purses,. The
pockets were a cube of net, with the top side missing, about forty feet square and twenty feet deep, suspended
from four large poles. On the shore side of the cube there was a net funnel that opened into the net cube. As
fish swam coastwise they struck the lead net, turned from the shallow water seaward and eventually swam into the funnel and through the small opening into the cube-net. The cube or pound was emptied daily, weather
permitting, by releasing the ropes that held down the floor of the cube at each corner. Then the fishermen
•
would work the skiff on the surface of the sea across the cube by pulling up the sides and the floor of the net
and then dropping them again. This caused the fish inside the cube to swim over to the far side where finally
all the fish thrashed about in a shallow trough, out of which the fisherman scooped the fish into the skiff with
large hand scoop-nets fastened to the end of a sturdy pole.
When I was a teenage youth, Captain Jacobson, a weather-tanned Latvian immigrant, took me and
sometimes a friend out in the skiff to watch the raising of the nets. He was jovial and enjoyed his work. While
we were watching the men at their task, he would take two small fish, tie them through their mouths and gills
with a foot long piece of marlin--a fish at each end. This he would toss overboard. Quickly one of the sea gulls
which followed the skiffs to the pound seeking a feast, would snatch one of the fish and another gull the other
one. Then a tug-of- war, one fish or the other being dropped only to be snatched up again. The men and the
captain roared with laughter.

33.

To launch a skiff, the process had to be reversed. The empty skiff was eased down on rollers to the
water's edge with the heavy rope attached to the stern or if the boat had been turned around, to the bow. The
cable was then threaded through a block fastened to a telephone about 500 yards out in the sea. The end of the
rope came back to the beach where it was hooked to a swivel-tree harnessed to the sturdy team which pulled
the skiff out to sea. At the last second, the fishermen who had been guiding the skiff down the beach, jumped
aboard, un-hooked the rope as the boat approached the pole, about four waves out, and rowed away to the
fish pound nets about two miles off shore. Later motors were used in the skiffs and I can well remember hearing early in the morning about sunrise, the steady "put-put-put, of the skiffs going to the nets.
There were also several small skiffs moved by two or four men, which put to sea from the beach at Lavallette
and went off shore to fish by hand lines, troll, and occasionally operate lobster pots. They sold directly from
their boats after landing, pulling their boats up the beach by a wench turned by two men pushing a heavy pole
that had been inserted in the capstan, around and around.

34.

Henry H. Stevens was a local sportsman who lived with his wife, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law,
Helen Perry Griffin, on inherited wealth in a beautiful year-round home one block to the south of Drowsy
Dunes. When I was in college I worked as a companion for Henry, helping with his yacht during the summers
of 1932 and 1933.

35.

The mosquitos were and continue to be a problem for residents at the shore although those who lived on
the ocean front frequently had a sea breeze which blows the mosquitos away from the shore. However, as
soon as one was near or in the bayberry bushes even in day time, there could be clouds of mosquitos! Mother
said the mosquitos were never as big or as bad as they were in Alaska. Mother and father could be sitting on

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the upper deck watching the sunset or the people parading the boardwalk and mother would be eaten by mosquitos while father who said he had "acid" blood would not get a bite.
The worst time I ever had with mosquitos was one late afternoon when I had to carry twelve watermelons
from the main highway across the sand dunes south of town to the beach for a Sunday School picnic. I had
one melon in a burlap bag over my back and a second one in my arms on each trip as I trudged through the
underbrush. The mosquitos had a feast!
Barnegat Bay

36.

From our sisters' names: ELizabeth; ESther and ANna.

37.

Named for her shape: round-nosed, broad beam with the "Monkey-tail" outrigger for an extended
boom so the ship could carry more sail.

38.

Harry adds a story which is illustrative of the Piney dialect. A cross-eyed boy from the pine woods
across the Bay came to the back kitchen door with a basket containing several quarts of blueberries he had
picked. Mother opened the door to his knock. He took off his cap and blurted out, "You don't know nobody
what don't want no blueberries, does you lady?" Lady did! Mother bought the blueberries.

39.

Green Island has now become a summer cottage development.

40. For many years, father was superintendent of the Union Church Sunday School, often cosuperintendent with a Mr. Albert Smith. One of my first exposures to death occured when Mr. Smith was killed at a railroad crossing where he had gone to help someone whose car had broken down. There were two
Smith girls the age of the older boys, who used to share many activities with our family. For a number of
years, Mrs. Smith ran an ice cream shop in her cottage on the boardwalk at the north end of town, the only
such shop allowed.
41. Mr. Piard's father was a retired sea captain. His wife, poor soul, was senile and irrational, if you spoke
to her she would intone. "Fine weather, train time - going to the milk train -false teeth, false teeth. " Their
son, Gene was a kindly gentleman afflicted with a form of palsy which caused his head to tilt to one side and
shake constantly. The family lived between our house and the Stevens' to the south on the ocean front.

42. When I became old enough to race, the older boys were gone, the type of racing boat changed, and at
sixteen I began working during the summer on the Roger Pennock farm at Mount Holly.

43.

The Pollywog accumulated some twenty or so trophies before she was outclassed by more modern racing boats with nylon sails, balloon jibs and marconi rigs. The "Pollywog" as noted earlier was rigged with a
gaff-head sail or main sail.
The Summertime

44. Father, a doctor trained in the late 19th Century when germs were discovered by Pasteur, was a stickler
for sanitation.

45. "Main Line" was a name given to the suburbs lying west of Philadelphia and on the Pennsylvania RR 's
"Main Line" between New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.
46.

Ophelia is married and lives in Washington, D. C. where she operates a lamp shade shop in Georgetown.

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47. It was on the Morse's farm in 1927 that I had many discussions with Frank Morse who had been a
pacifist in World War I. He encouraged my serious consideration of pacifism which I later adopted as my
position in World War II. After two summers near Mt. Holly, I returned to Lavallette and worked six summers along the Coast. Two at the Point Pleasant Hardware Co. (1928 and 1929), two at the American
(ACME) Stores Co., Seaside Heights (1930 and 1931) and two as companion for Henry Stevens (1932 and
1933).
48. Before going West, father and mother sold all of the Lavallette property. They sold a portion of it to
Bud and Hugh Borton who tore down Drowsy Dunes which had been damaged by the storm of 1939. They
built a smaller cottage, "Drowsy Dunes II" on the southeast corner and six other cottages were subsequently
erected on the land formerly occupied by Drowsy Dunes I.

PART IV
The Family Branches Out
49 . . Harry has contributed significantly to these concluding sections, especially in providing father's meditation at the Family Reunion, September 3, 1933.

50,

I believe the Dairy Maid Chocolate Company was also a part of this merger. We have recently purchased here in Northfield, an eight ounce can of Ideal Cocoa, Dutch Process, manufactured by the Wilbur
Chocolate Company, Lititz, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of MacAndrews & Forbes Company, cost: $3.25.

Family Reunions
51.

Family members gathered for reunions at the following locations during the summers of the years
shown:
Drowsy Dunes, Lavallette, N.J.
Run-a-way, New Lisbon, N.J.
No. 1 College Circle, Haverford College
Haverford, Pa. (with stays at Drowsy Dunes II & Run-a-way)
Taman Farm, Conway, Mass.
Camp May Flather, Mount Solon, Va.

52.

1928, 1933
& 1936
1939
1960
1966 & 1970
1980

"A Personal Perspective of Faith", Ross Taylor Wilbur, February 1977, p.JO.

APPENDIXES
Appendix C: H. 0. Wilbur & Sons
53. The Wilbur Chocolate Game: Father constructed a board game similiar to parcheesi, which could be
played with up to jour persons. The board pictured the chocolate factory showing the several floors with the
different types of machinery on eachjrom the roasters on thefourthfloor to theshippping room on thejirst.
The players tossed a pair of dies and moved men, shaped like Wilbur buds, the number of spaces indicated,
starting at the top ond following the manufacturing process from floor to floor. Some spaces along the route
provided a penalty, others a reward. The rewards were pieces of chocolate - Buds, leaves, cocoa pods. Father
hoped to market the game commercially and to sell the chocolate that enhanced the play, but I don't know if
he was able to copyright it or market the game. We used to play on the original board.
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54.

I believe William Lamson, an outside business executive, was made president by the bankers following
father in the late twenties. He was respected by the family but was later replaced when the Suchard agreement
took place, by a somewhat stuffy and pompous Swiss, Willie dePerro (sp. ?).

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APPENDIXB
THE WILBUR FAMILY TREE
I. BERTRAND KINGSBURY WILBUR m. ANNA DEAN (Nancy Jane)
A. BERTRAND H. m. Virginia Wyatt
1. ROBERT W. m. Elizabeth Riggs (Betsy)
a. SANDRA L.
b. JAMES L.
c. THOMAS W.
2. VIRGINIA A. (Jan)
3. ELIZABETH D. (Betsy) m. Roger Coit (div.)
a. JONATHAN S.
4. MARY C. m. James Hardison (div.)
a. JENNIFER
b. CHRISTOPHER
5. BERTRAND K. (Randy) m. Suzanne LeClaire
a. MATHEWJ.
B. HARRY L. m. Rose Marymont
l. HARRY L. (Harry, Larry) m. Sandra Styron (Sandy)
a. ANDREA D.
b. BARBARA B.
c. LEAH
2. PHYLLIS m. John McFarlane (Jack)
a. JOHN
b. BILLY (dec.)
c. ROBERT
d. BRIAN
3. ROSEMARY D. m. Wayne Codding
a. NADEANC.
b. DAWNM.
C. DONALD (dec.) m. Elizabeth Tuttle (Beth)
l. ELIZABETH (Betsy) m. Thomas Hodges
a. PETER (dec.)
b. ELIZABETH N. (dec.)
c. KATHARINE m. Richard Hepner
2. D. ELLIOTT (Ellio) m. Sara Anne Winstead (Win,
a. ELIZABETH (Beth)
b. VIRGINIA (Ginny) m. Ronald Miller
I) ALEXANDER E.
c. MICHAEL
d. RACHEL
3. REED (dec.) m. Althea Hewitt
a. REED m. Sara Strong
b. ANN
c. LYNNE
Althea m. David VanDeusen
a. Annie Van Deusen
b. Charles VanDeusen
c. Catherine Van Deusen

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D. ELIZABETH (Buddy ,Bud,Buddie) m. Hugh Borton
I. ANN C. (Ancy)
2. ANTHONY (Tony) m. Ann Hutton
a. TAM (Tammy)
b. TIM
E. NELSON (Nick) (dec.) m. Theadora Linn (Teddy)
1. MARGARET (Meg)
2. ROBERT (Bob) m. Brenda Fritsche
a. TODD
b. NELSON (Nicky)
F. ESTHER (Toni) (dec.) m. Robert Calvin
G. ROSS m. Elizabeth Reynolds (Libby) (dec.)
1. CAROLYN JEAN m. Roy Treadway
a. JONATHAN (Nathan)
b. LAURA
c. ANNA
2. JONATHAN (Jon) m. Jacquavia Roop (div.)
a. ELIZABETH (Jeanne)
m. JoAnn Beveridge (div .)
a. JONATHAN
m. Jacque Rice
a. Norman Rice
b. Robert Rice (Bobbie)
ROSS m. Helen Farley
"Chosen Kith"
3. Andrew Kelly m. Susan Watson (Sue)
a. Joseph m. Kim Tinnell
b. Kyle
c. Jeffrey
d. Natasha
4. Elizabeth Kelly (Beth) m. Rodney Peabody (Rod)
a. Garth
b. Brett
c. Helen
5. Daniel Kelly m. Flora
a. Lillian
b. Judith
c. John
6. Patricio Lopez-L (Pachi) m. Diane Lesman
a. Cristina (Cristi)
b. Rebecca (Becca)
H. ANNA DEAN (Deanie) m. Edward Ness (div.)

68

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I. RUTH HELENA (dec.) m. C. Norton Maxfield (div.) (dec.)

1. CLARK
2. ALLEN m. Sharon Jost
a. HEATH
b. REBECCA
J. VIRGINIA (Ginny, Gino) (dec.) m. Jon Dimitrijevich (dec.)
1. JILL m. Mike Norvell

69

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APPENDIX C
H. O. WILBUR & SONS. THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

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ILBUR
OUALITY

CHOCOLATE COATINGS

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€' SONS, I"..
PHII,ADELPHIA

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COCOA

A-N-S

CHOCOLATE

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APPEND/XC
H. 0. WILBUR & SONS, THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
Founded in 1884 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Introduction
Rosemary and Wayne Codding asked that I include a comprehensive section about the Chocolate Factory in
this account since that business provided the income for the family from 1904 to about 1930. According to
Rosemary, it is difficult to get a clear understanding of the business hoth from the references to it in this account and from father's journals, "J .A.M." and "J .A. U." where there are numerous statements and extensive descriptions scattered in his narrative of the events of his life. The information provided in Appendix C is
largely taken from the second of father's journals, "J.A.U." pages 571 - 733 plus a collection of Bert's
recollections.

The Source of the Cocoa Bean
Chocolate is made from the beans which come from the Theobroma Cocao tree. The Cocao trees grow in the
tropics, have glossy, evergreen leaves, bright pink or pale yellow flowers and an odd, pod-like fruit which is
seven to ten inches long. The pods hang from the larger branches and the trunk itself. Father wrote during his
trip to Jamaica that the pods are brilliant in color - red, olive green, green banded with red, brown and
orange~ yellow. Since the trees carry buds, flowers and fruit in all stages at the same time, a few ripe pods may
be collected at any season of the year but the crop is generally gathered in June and December, the St. John
and Christmas crops, respectively.
The pods are split open and the beans which are about an inch long and grow in verticle rows, are taken out
and carried in baskets to drying houses. When dry, the beans are bagged and shipped abroad. The ripe beans
at the time of harvest had a "brown break" when cut, were plump and full flavored, whereas the unripe beans
were flat, shrunken and had a rank taste.

The Several Factory Locations
Grandfather, Henry Oscar Wilbur moved with his family from Scranton, Pennsylvania to Vineland, New
Jersey where he established a stove business. Prior to 1870, he met Samuel Croft, a candy maker. Grandfather subsequently moved to Philadelphia where the two men created a partnership known as "Croft,
Wilbur and Company". Chocolate and candy manufacture was started in a plant on Quarry Street between
Second and Third Streets and then a store and factory was built at 125 North Third Street.
A new factory was built before the Philadelphia Centennial (1876) at 1226 Market Street. It may have been
the largest candy factory in the U.S.A. at that time. This location was subsequently sold and the manufacturing continued at North Third Street. Grandfather, "Mr. H. 0. ",as he was known in the factory, managed
the office and business affairs while Croft operated the candy making business. This partnership continued
until1884 when H. 0. Wilbur and Sons was organized, Croft continuing to manufacture candy while Wilbur
produced chocolate, specializing in chocolate coatings for bon bons.
Sometime after 1907, the factory was expanded by remodeling two properties at 838 and 841 North Third
Street. The buildings on these properties went back to Colonial times. The remodeled structures were used for
the production of chocolate for "sweet packing" and for wrapping Buds and bar chocolate.

71

The Eagle Hotel, another Colonial structure which was situated on the southside of the main plant at 235
North Third Street was razed in 1910 and a modern factory building was built. This was one ofthe first reinforced, concrete factories in the city. "B.K.W." was responsible for planning the layout and flow of work
for this new plant
During the years of World War I, business was booming but there was a problem of obtaining supplies of
cocoa and sugar. By the end of hostilities in 1918 and through the early 1920's, the factory could not keep up
with the demand for chocolate. In addition, the old central power plant needed to be replaced. Consequently,
the Wilbur Executive Committee decided to go ahead and let contracts for a large warehouse building and a
new power plant in 1920 -'2l.lt appears that B.K.W. opposed the expansion because it meant the' firm would
be saddled with a substancial indebtedness. About 1922, Lawrence Wilbur (Uncle Will's son) was sent abroad
to investigate the new 'F .I.' (Fine Ingredient) process at the Cad bury Chocolate Company in England. He
returned with enthusiastic accounts of how it would reduce costs and augment production, so a contract was
signed and presently the machinery began to arrive. It was all very "hush-hush". A new, six-floor mill
building was bricked up in a corner of the yard within the old buildings. Don joined the crew about this time
and was soon at work helping to arrange the installation and get the new 'F.I.' process under way.
In 1928, there was an agreement with the Swiss firm Suchard and the company's name was changed to the
Wilbur-Suchard Chocolate Company. Two years later in 1930, Wilbur-Suchard moved its operations to
Lititz, Pennsylvania, about fifteen miles north of Lancaster and perhaps some thirty miles south of Hershey.
The firm moved to the plant of the Ideal Chocolate Company with which it had previously merged. About
thirty years later in 1958, the name was changed back to the Wilbur Chocolate Company. I presume this was
at the termination of the agreement with the Suchard company. The ''Wilbur'' name had earned a reputation
in the industry for fine coatings. In 1968, the Wilbur Chocolate Company, Inc. became a subsidary of the
MacAndrews & Forbes Company of Philadelphia, retaining its own Wilbur name and production operations
at Lititz.

The Plant at North Third Street, Philadelphia
During a telephone conversation with Walton Forstall on his 73rd birthday, he recalled the visits he and I
made to the factory in the mid-twenties. From time to time during that period, I took a friend or even my entire school class on a tour of the factory. Tliis was the plant that had been built in 1910 together with he additions of the 1920's. I can recall the layout which followed the manufacturing process as described by father in
'' J .A. U.''. Materials moved downward from one floor to the next in a continuous process which saved much
manual labor in loading, carting and again unloading. This process has become, according to Bert, the
modern method of production. Father constructed a board game based on the layout of the factory. 53
We usually started our tour by walking up the narrow stairs along the south wall to the second floor where we
paid our respects to father and his secretary, Miss. Ballintine, before either walking or taking the freight
elevator to the fourth floor where the roasting of the beans took place. The top or fifth floor was the place
where the raw beans were stored.
THE ROASTING ROOM: (FOURTH FLOOR)
The roasting room contained a series of furnaces that held long cylinders each of which revolved over a
firebox. The flavor of the chocolate was determined in part by the skill and experience of the foreman of the
roasting room who determined the temperature and time required to bring out the flavor in a given lot of
beans. Usually there were five runs through the roasters, of two hours each in a day's roasting. This
amounted to 40,000 or 50,000 pounds of beans. Each lot had to be constantly sampled while roasting for
flavor and color and the lot was graded.

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The management used a code letter for each location from which beans came in order to keep the compositon
of the chocolate formula secret from the men in the plant and prevent them from giving it to Wilbur's competitors. An example of the codes follow: E- Caracas; Exx- Columbia; Zx- Maracaibo; Px- Domingo; 2
-Bahia. There were twenty kinds of cocoa and three grades of each for a total of sixty varieties.
THE FAN ROOM: (THIRD FLOOR)
The fan room was exceedingly dusty because the roasted beans were next cooled, broken and the shell around
the bean (nut) separated from the nut meat - the cocoa itself. In an air chamber, the shell particles were blown
from the heavier particles of cocoa, known in the trade as "nibs". There had to be sufficient air pressure to
blow-off the shell particles while at the same time taking a minimum of nibs. The nibs were separated by
variety and grade so they could be combined in accordance with the formulae established by the General
Manager, Uncle Will and later father.
THE MILL ROOM: (SECOND FLOOR)
The combination of different nibs required by a specific formula came down chutes from the third floor into
the hoppers of the grinding mills. These consisted of large, circular, metal tanks in which a pair of burr or
porphery stone wheels revolved laterally. At first most of the mills had one pair of stones but later there were
two, three or four pairs of stones, one above the other, down which the chocolate liquor flowed from the upper pair of grinders. The wheels were twenty to thirty inches in diameter and from two to three feet across.
According to father, the large mills roared like steam exhaust, becoming very hot from the friction. The
roasted nibs contained 50 to 60 percent oil (cocoa butter) which liquified in the milling process. The friction of
the rolling mills ran the temperature in the tank up to 140°. The temperature of the mill room was kept at 90°
and if by accident there was a "freeze" when the cocoa butter and the liquor in the mill solidified, the mill
room crew had a miserable mass to clean out before the mills could roll again. Periodically, the stones had to
be removed and smoothed off, a difficult and time consuming task.
When the Fine Ingredients Process equipment was installed, "the roasted nibs were carried by chutes from an
adjoining building to the special mills," Bert writes. He goes on to say, "These mills were small but operated
at high pressure between cutting plates. Special sugar mills were to reduce white sugar to the finest grain size
and mix it with the finely ground chocolate liquor so as to form a velvety chocolate from the Fine Ingredients
of the F.I. process''. This process, however, proved not to befine enough for the palate so the old ''conching''
process of mixing and rolling the combined ingredients became necessary for finishing quality chocolate,
usually taking many hours of milling. The conching process is still used in manufacturing the best chocolate,
though more efficient and less bulky equipment is in use these days.
I well recall father dipping his finger into a vat of conched liquor and pretending it was delicious. With his encouragement we followed suite only to find our mouths filled with very bitter cocoa to which no flavoring or
milk powder had been added. Some of the mills were mixing the full formula of sugar and other ingredients.
Such mixtures were the consistency of sugar and butter when making a cake and had a good taste although
they were not yet ground to the smooth consistency for moulded chocolate. The quality of the coating, cocoa,
or chocolate was largely determined by the skill of the grinding operations effected by the "set" of the stones,
the kind of nibs used, and skill of the roaster.
The chocolate that was used for Bud stock, was made with the greatest care and was especially well ground.
The nibs after the usual cleaning, were all picked over by hand to take out any bits of shell that had gotten by
the fans. The finished paste was either moulded in blocks and put into storage or it was re-ground and put in
the hot room for twenty-four hours more. When it was finally ready for moulding, it was dropped from funnels. The individual Bud was rather jelly-like at this stage so the trays of Buds had to be put in the refrigerator
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by hand since any other conveyor would have shaken the form down and made the Buds lose their pleasing
and characteristic shape with the flip on top.
"There were twenty places for a Bud in each mould and Lennings machine filled them all at once by making
twenty plungers_press the chocolate through the twenty holes in the bottom of the plate of the large hopper. A
slight movement of the device that fed the moulds to the machine made the "jug handles" perfectly. It saved
a lot of labor---." (J .A. U. pg. 652)
Because H. 0. Wilbur and Sons manufactured a variety of coatings and chocolate of different flavors, the
machinery had to be cleaned out between different lots or batches. This too was time consuming and costly
but it maintained a quality of chocolate that established Wilbur's reputation. I understand that some of
Wilbur's competitors used a single formula for their chocolate mixing almonds, peanuts, raisins, and various
flavors.Also one can easily judge a chocolate's smoothness or coarseness by the feel of the chocolate on the
tongue. This forces one to realize the importance of long milling in producing quality chocolate.
THE PRESS ROOM: (SUB-BASEMENT)
In order to produce breakfast cocoa, chocolate liquor made from a specific formula was poured into cylinders
or "pots", each holding twenty to thirty pounds of liquor. The oil or cocoa butter was then pressed out under
3,000 to 4,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. This left a hard cake which was then pulverized into cocoa
powder and into which other ingredients were then mixed.
THE PACKING ROOM: (FIRST FLOOR)
When the firm operated the "sweet package manufacture" at 839- 841 North Third Street and after that unit
moved back to the new factory in 1912, Katy Tripple was made the forewoman of twenty or more girls who
wrapped Buds and other packaged chocolate. When I visisted the plant years later, women still filled boxes
with Buds and packaged other chocolate. The Buds had been individually wrapped in tin foil by hand and
later by a machine Lawrence Wilbur and father had designed with the help of an experienced machinist.
Father writes in J .A. U. (pg. 627) that forty to fifty cases of chocolate coatings were packed each night for a
total of 4,000 to 5,000 pounds.

The Power Plant
When one crosses the Delaware River on the Ben Franklin Bridge at Third and Vine, one passes the Whitman
Chocolate Factory on the right or southside near the approach. Further up the approach on the other side,
one can see the painted-over letters, "WILBUR", vertically written down the large smoke stack of the power
plant built in 1920 -'21. (These letters were visible in the early 1970's.) This plant provided electricity for the
lights, for operating machinery and for refrigeration. Steam from the turbins was used in the manufacturing
process. Bert started working as a clerk in the power plant after graduating from Haverford College in 1921.
Walton and I visited Bert while he was still in the power plant. By prior arrangement, Bert had instructed one
of the men tending the boilers on the ground floor to release the steam safety valve on the boiler when Bert
dropped a piece of coal from the catwalk above. He then took us up on the catwalk over the boilers and when
we were well back from the entrance, he dropped the piece of coal. Immediately all hell broke loose as the
safety valve was released and the space under, around and above the catwalk was filled with steam - hot,
choking steam! We were terrified thinking that there had been a break in the pipes. Bert had disappeared leaving us to feel our way along in the steam expecting to be scalded as we attempted to seek safety. In a few
minutes, the valve was closed and we were none the worse for the experience.

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Father's Twenty-Six Years as a Member of H. 0. Wilbur and Sons, Ins.
The account of B.K. Wilbur's twenty-six years (1902 -1928) as manager of production, a director and
secretary of the Board of H. 0. Wilbur & Sons, and later as General Manager and President is a story of
stress, strain, frustration and disappointment if I interpret correctly father's and Bert's descriptions of those
years. I recall on more than one occasion, mother saying when father's temper broke loose or when he had
one of his prolonged stomach up-sets and retired to his room to be alone, "You children don't understand the
difficulties father's having at the factory." Even as a teenager, I wasn't aware of his acute frustrations with
Uncle Will. Our parents didn't discuss family conflicts openly in front of the children. "Little pitchers!"
father would say as a precaution from having stories carried around the neighborhood.
Uncle Will as H.O. 's partner and General Manager of the factory never seemed to have accepted his younger
brother,B.K., as a part of the team, nor was Will a team leader. Rather Uncle Will was autocratic, made all
the major decisions without consulting with anyone and remained highly critical of father's work throughout
all those years. Father records "a violent fit of rage at Will" which left him with a facial paralysis that took
several weeks before the distortions was resolved. Will thought father should have stayed in medicine,
perhaps hoping his own sons would eventually take over the management of the factory. How father lived
through all those years of torment is an incomprehensible story.
About 1912, at the time of grandfather's second marriage to a widow Ann Hutchinson, his partnership with
Will was dissolved and a new corporation was formed over- Will's objection. At that time father was made a
director and Secretary of the new Board, H. 0. became President and Will, Vice President and General
Manager.(J.A.U. pg. 728) Father and his sister Helena were each given 100,000 shares of the corporation's
stock and for the first time father had some part in the decision making. Will retained his half ownership of
the company's stock so he continued to make the major decisions without consulting other members so of the
Board. Uncle Will died around 1915, during World War I, if Bert's memory is correct. Grandfather passed
away at the age of ninety in 1924. I believe father was President and General Manager of the Company
following Will's death and throughout most of the 1920's .In spite of the negative aspects of father's life in the
chocolate business, there appears to have been some genuine satisfactions. He was well liked by the foremen
and the men and women who worked in the plant. Obviously, he acted as a buffer between the work force and
Uncle Will. Father worked out the flow of work for the new factory in 1912 and designed labor and time saving improvements in production methods. He brought in his knowledge of the microscope in analyzing and
judging the chocolate produced by Wilbur and the firm's competitors. The microscopic findings were also used in promoting the sale of quality chocolate coatings. Father, as a medical doctor, brought his penchant for
sanitation into the plant which like other factories at that time, had given little thought to cleaning-up the
spills and smears that had accumulated on the floors and elsewhere as trucks of chocolate liquor were pushed )
about. Father had the factory cleaned-up and introduced white uniforms and aprons for the employees with
the result that H.O. Wilbur became known as one of the cleanest chocolate producers in the country.
From time to time father would experiment in developing new products using chocolate. Sometime this would
be a new combination of flavors, a new texture like a chocolate bar having a candy crunch mixed in it instead
of nuts, or an entirely new product. One time father came home with such a product and was very excited
about it because he and others in the factory had been experimenting with a coating that would cover a bar of
ice cream, harden quickly without melting the ice cream and not leave leaky holes in the chocolate coating. \
They had suceeded and the first Eskimo Pie was created! We kids thought they were great!
1
Father made two trips to the West Indies, the second in 1910 with mother, to study the production of cocoa
beans with some thought of establishing a cocoa plantation. Will went abroad every year sometimes for extended periods during which time father together with grandfather had major responsibility for the operation
of H. 0. Wilbur and Sons. The company never did establish a cocoa plantation in the West Indies nor develop

75

the horizontal infrastructure which the Hershey Chocolate Company did when it developed its own dairies in
the countryside around Hershey, Pennsylvania.
These years under Will's dismal repression in the factory were made bearable by the enduring, loving support
father received from mother as sympathetic listener and comforter. He enjoyed his family, especially at the
seashore before his general health broke and the factory had financial reverses. Father also gained considerable satisfaction, as Bert stated, from his community services: as President of the Lower Merion Board
of Health; President of the Board of the Y.M.C.A.; Scoutmaster; Chairman of the Camp Committee; and
Elder of the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church. He also participated on various committees of the Philadelphia
Chamber of Commerce. One wonders how he had the energy to carry out so many commitments, so well!

The Loss of Control of H. 0. Wilbur & Sons by the Wilbur Family
Toward the end of World War I, according to Bert, the factory was working furiously. Cocoa beans and
sugar were in short supply and Mr. J. Archer Rulon who was in charge of procurement, was scouring all
possible sources, even placing large orders overseas. Bert never heard that the firm lost a cargo to the German
submarines, but there was a serious problem of finding warehouse space for storing the large shipments when
they arrived. As a consequence, beans were stored here and there around the city which greatly increased the
office work of keeping warehouse receipts and other records showing where the various varieties of beans
were stored. The company's trucks were running all over town picking up various quanities of beans. During
this time one of the devious order clerks shifted a lot of beans to another warehouse under his own control
and then disposed of them for his own account. The deception discovered, several people were fired.
The scattering of cocoa beans stored in various locations and the short supply of some varieties created yet
another problem. Wilbur produced some items in train load shipments of several hundred tons at a time. In
addition, the factory made smaller quanities of high grade, special coatings for particular customers. Each of
these shipments of chocolate had its own formula and was composed of several kinds of beans from different
countries. Frequently a formula had to be adjusted in accordance with what was available. This meant constant sampling and. tasting in order to maintain flavor, color and quality.
Harry recalls blowing his Boy Scout bugle on the roof of the factory at a flag raising during the War in
recognition of an award the firm received from the government for maintaining full production of an essential food product needed in the war effort.Bert continues, "There was constant pressure from our principal
salesmen for more production. The factory could not meet their market requirements. The hostilities ended in
November 1918 but business kept booming until1920, then gradually the chocolate business deterioriated until the crash of 1929. New competition came in from breweries which converted to the manufacture of
chocolate, notably Klein. The Lucky Strike Cigarette Company put on a remarkably successful campaign
under the slogan "Reach for a Lucky, Instead of a Sweet" and sweets were being depreciated in popular
magazines. So by the time the Wilbur Executive Committee decided to let contracts for a large warehouse and
a new power plant, the market for chocolate had started to shrink. The expansion was completed about the
end of 1920 and in the fall of 1921 when I started to work as a clerk in the new power plant. The factory was
still in heavy production, but the salesmen were saying we needed more advertising, Hotchkin's bailiwick, so
several campaigns were contracted. I sat in as observer in several of these promotional meetings in
house.These capital outlays just before the Great Depression were what sunk the Wilbur Chocolate Company. The bank 54 took over under the terms of the bond issue and control passed from the Wilbur family- a
heart-breaking climax to dad's years of frustration and hard work." Wilbur incorporated Dairy Maid,
Bruster and Ideal Chocolate companies into its corporate structure and new management was brought into
the business.

76

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A Quality Chocolate
"Wilbur Buds" represent the firm's quality packaged, solid chocolate as differentiated from candy and bon
boos manufactured by other firms. "The formula for Buds was never written out, except in the cost book,
and only Steve, the factory foreman, and Will of course, was supposed to know that formula. No one ever
made anything that approached the quality of Wilbur Buds although there were plenty of imitations as time
went on.---Rockwood of New York made the nearest imitation in quality and Hershey had an imitation called, 'Kisses'. There were others, a lot of them with all sorts of names, I remember one called, Sprouts."
(J.A. U. pg. 653)
Wilbur was among the first chocolate manufacturers in America to produce a milk chocolate similar to what
had been marketed by Peter's Chocolate Company in Switzerland. However, Wilbur had difficulty in
developing a quality product even though the firm sent a freight train of milk chocolate coatings to a Chicago
wholesaler in 1926. It was not until 1951 that when the Wilbur Chocolate Company pioneered the shipment of liquid chocolate as contrasted with the twenty-four pound bars of coating each packaged individually.
It was in the manufacture of fine coatings that the company earned its reputation as a quality chocolate producer. The firm took prizes in the Chicago and others World's Fairs for the superiority of its coatings even
marketing under such brand names as "Medal", "Bronze Medal". The manufacture of Wilbur's chocolate
continues at Lititz, Pennsylvania, where three carloads of cocoa beans are delivered daily. The firm, under
the management of the conglamerate, MacAndrews & Forbes produces in addition to coatings, Buds in three
flavors, bar chocolate, a white, chocolate-flavored non-chocolate used in bars, coatings, and specialities such
as watermellon slices in color. Wilbur also moulds such items as chocolate rabbits for the Easter trade. The
Wilbur Chocolate Company has survived the ups and downs of the business cycle, outlasted many of its competitors and continues to operate a double shift during the week.

In 1984, the Wilbur Chocolate Company will have completed its first one-hundred years of chocolate
manufacture! Here's to the company's future success!

77

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APPENDIX D
GENEALOGICAL INFORMATION
An Explanation Relating to This Section
This section contains genealogical information arranged by ancestral families. The numbers in brackets () under each ancestor's
name indicates the generation in which that ancestor's name appears
on the Wilbur-Dean Genealogical Chart which follows this page.
The material in this section has been collected over the years from
various persons and sources. The persons listed below have contributed material and credit is given when possible. Documentary
sources are cited and their location is given if available.
A bibliography of "Books, Letters, Manuscripts and Documents" has
been added at the end of this Appendix.

Persons Providing Material
Helen MacDonald Avery

Helen Taylor Marx

Elizabeth Wilbur Borton

Catherine Dean Strohkarck

Esther Wilbur Calvin

William H. Taylor

Archer Griffin Dean

Anna Dean Wi I bur

Elizabeth Lippencott Dean

Bertrand Kingsbury Wilbur

Maude Wildman Evans

Mary Pugh Wildman

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THE WILBUR - DEAN
GENEALOGICAL

....,

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81

c~~RT

------------------DEAN ANCESTORS

CONTINUATION OF CHART

1. Joseph Anthony

Mark Anthony
b 1650 in Holland
Judith (?) Morrman
Mark came to Virginia
in 1690 or 1698
Christopher Clark(e)

Penelope Massey (Cooper)
d 8/30,1728
b 7/11,1668



Robert Jordan
b 7/11,1665
d 8/30,1738
3. Samuel Jordan
1m Christian Odeland
d 6/26,1689
2m Mary Belson (Elizabeth)
m 5/10,1690
b 7/1642
d 6/10,1690
4. Hannah Bates
(8th)

Edward Clark(e)
b England
Settled in Jamestown, 1607

2. Elizabeth Clark(e)

w

Anthony - Genoa, Italy

Massey
Penelope Ashley Cooper
b 1634 d 10/8,1689 (1699)
Thomas Jordan I I

Margaret Brasseur8
b 7/1642 d 11/7,1708

Anthony Ashley Cooper?
b 1600

Thomas Jordan
Lucy Crocker
(Corker, Cooker)
Robert Brasseir
Florence

James Bates
(9th)

(1Oth)

d 16359

(11th)

Footnotes Supplementing Chart

5.

John LaFavour, b 1717 on the Isle of Guernsey, came to Mass. in 1729.

6.

John Lawrence was a decendant of Sir Richard Lawrence, Aston Hall,
Lancashire, England, 1191.

7.

Anthony Ashley Cooper was born in England, 7/22,1621 and died in
Amsterdam, Holland, 1683. His father was John Cooper Ashley and his
grandfather was Anthony Ashley.

8.

Other spellings Brashare, Bresuer, etc.

9.

Thomas Jordan came to Virginia in 1624. His father, Samuel Jordan was
married to Cicily, second wife, and came to Jamestown in 1610. Samuel
Jordun was in a ship wrecked off Barbadoes in 1609. He landed in Virginia in 1610. His account of the shipwreck was said to have been read
by Shakespear and was the basis for the 11 Tempest 11 • Samuel patented
450 acres in Charles City County, was a member of the House of Burgesses
of Virginia in 1619. The account of the shipwreck is in the Jordan
Journal in the Folger Shakespear Library in Washington, D.C.

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THE
GENEALOGICAL

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DEAN GENEALOGY AND HISTORICAL NOTES
Anthony Family Record
Archer Family Record
Ashley Family Record
Clark(e) Family Record
Davis Family Record
Dean Family Record
Jordan Family Record
Lafavour Family Record
Needham Family Record
Taylor Family Record

._.

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Anthony

ANTHONY FAMILY RECORD
Anthony Genealogy
Anthony

Genoa, Italy

Mark Anthony
(9th)
b 1650
d 17--

m Judith (?) Mooreman

Joseph Anthony
(8th)
b 5/2,1713
d 11/23,1785

m Elizabeth Clark(e)
m 4/27,1741

Christopher Anthony
(7th)
b 3/21, 1]Lf4
d 10/28,1815

1m Judith Morrman
2m Mary Jordon
m 1/5,1776

b 2/15,1720 ( 1722)
d 2/23,1785

b 2/16,1749
d 10/28,1815

Hannah Anthony
(6th)
b 8/27' 1781
d 8/12,1830
(10/28, 1815)

m John Davis
m 7/7,1805

b 9/24' 1774
d 1842 (1843)

Mary Jordon Davis
(5th)
b 10/10,1808
d 5/25,1875

m Caleb Wright Taylor
m 1/1,1830

b 9/7,1801
d 2/25,1843

Elizabeth Lippincott Taylor
(4th)
b 1/27,1839
m George Henry Dean
d 1/22,1891
m 6/25,1868

b 11/23,1836
d 9/25,1881

Anna Dean Wi 1bur
(3rd)
b 5/23,1874
d 5/22' 1952

b 8/5,1870
d 1/7' 1945

m Bertrand Kingsbury Wilbur
m 6/15,1898

Historical Notes and Sources
Mark Anthony (9th)
Mark Anthony married Judith (?) Mooreman.
of whom was Joseph Anthony.

They had ten children, the youngest

Mark 1 s father was a merchant of Genoa, Italy who settled in Holland where Mark
was born in 1650. Mark 1 s father sent him to Italy for better educational advantages. Being ill-treated by those who had him in charge, he took shipping
on a trading vessel, which had the misfortune to be taken by Algerian pirates,
made prisoner and carried to Algeria. There the other prisoners to whom Mark
Anthony had been bound were employed by an overseer to cut wood. The overseer
was a man of such unmerciful temper they were driven to despair. So taking

89

Anthony

the man unaware they knocked him down and fled. Getting into a boat they
rowed themselves to a British vessel lying in the harbor, where after much
entreaty they finally persuaded the captain to take pity on them and take
them on board. He had holes bored in hogs.heads in which they were hidden and
all hands sailed for America. The boys had to work long after reaching New
Kent, Virginia where they were landed in 1698 in order to pay for their passage over. Mark settled in New Kent and later went to Upper James River, in
Bedford County.
(The Anthony Family, C.J. Hills, The Hills of Wilkes Co. Ga. pg. 174. CS 71
H647 Hill Family; D.A.R. Lineage Book Vol. 90, #89671 page 218)
Joseph Anthony (8th)
Joseph Anthony was born in New Kent, Henrico County, Virginia in May, 1713 and
married Elizabeth Clark(e) on the 27th of April 1741. They had fifteen children:
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Sarah
Christopher
Elizab~th

Penelopy
Joseph
James
Mary
Charles

m.
m.
m.
m.

Thomas Cooper
Mary Jordon
Wi 11 iam Candler
James Johnson

m.

Carter

9. Micajah
10. Agnes
11. Rachel
12. -Winifred
13. Mark
14. Boling
15. Judith

m.
m.
m.
m.
m.
m.

Blakey
Lance
Tate
Nancy Tate
Stone
Ware

They lived and with economy and honest industry reared fourteen children.
All t~rned out well. Elizabeth Clark Anthony was blessed by seeing the
fourth generation and beholding nearly three hundred of her descendants. 11
(Anthony Family Record, copied from the old Family Tree belonging to Major
Mark Anthony Cooper, 11 Gien Holly 11 , Bartow Co., Ga.)
11

Elizabeth Clark(e) was the daughter of Captain Christopher Clark and his wife
Penelope Massey Clark. Captain Clark became county Judge in the first court
of Louisa County in 1741. (Data from Mary Pugh Wildman).
In the years 1770-71 Joseph Anthony was preaching in Chesterfield, formerly a
part of the Henrico County, and was imprisoned by the opponents of religious
liberty and of the Baptist Church. Later he preached in Bedford County having
moved and settled on 11 Lawyers 1 Road 11 then in what was afterwards Henry County,
and was at the time of his death (1785) Moderator of Mayo Baptist Association.
11
(
Virgin.ia Baptist Ministers 11 Edition of 1835)
Lawyers 1 Road, his place of residence, is near where the Blackwater and Staunton rivers unite, so named from a highway said to have been opened for the
lawyers to travel on their way to the General Court then held at New London in
Bedford Cot: ·ty. The ':"oad, however, was in Henry County then, as Henry and Bedford were divide~ by the Blackwater river. A station, Lawyers on the Southern
Railway between Danville and Lynchburg now marks the vacinity. His will

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Anthony

establishes that Joseph Anthony was a very wealthy man for that day and time.
His widow, Elizabeth Clark(e) Anthony, soon after his death, together with
severa~ of the children removed to the State of Georgia, and settled in _______
County, where some of the older children had preceded them and where she died
at the ripe old age of more than a hundred years. (Letter from C.B. Bryant,
Martinsville, Va.)
Additional sources:

D.A.R. Lineage Book Vol. 90, pg. 218, #89671, pg, 218.
The Hills of Wilkes Co. Ga., C.J. Hills pg. 175.
The Will of Joseph Anthony, Will Book# 1 of Henry
County, Va. pg. 120: Probated Dec. 22, 1785. Copy
of Will appended at end of Arthony Family Record.

Christopher Anthony (7th)
Son of Joseph and Elizabeth Anthony, born 24 March 1744 in Henrico Co., Va.,
died in Cincinnati, 28 October 1815. Married Judith Morrman. Second marriage
to Mary Jordan, 5 January 1776 in Bedford Co. Va.
Christopher 1 s children were:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Joseph
Mary
Elizabeth
Charles
Hannah
Penelope

m.
m.
m.

Rhoda Merriman (Moo reman)
David Terrell
Wi 11 iam Ballard

m.

John Davis

7. Rachel

8. Charlotte

9.
10.
11.
12.

Sarah
Jordan
Christopher
Samuel

m. Lot Pugh
m. Ephraim Morgan
m. Henry Davis

(~ee the Jordan line and Anthony Family Record, Major Mark A. Cooper, Glenn
Holly, Bartow Co., Ga.)

Hannah Anthony (6th)
Daughter of Mary Jordan and Christopher Anthony. Was born 27 August 1781 in
Virginia, and died 12 August 1830 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She married 7 July
1805, John Davis, son of Samuel and Anna Lipscomb. He was born 24 September
1774 and died 1833. (L.J. Hill, The Hills of ltlilkes County, Ga. 176, also
Quaker Records, Goose Creek Monthly meeting, 2/12,1814. Removal to Cincinati)
Mary Jordon Davis (5th)
Daughter of Hannah Anthony and John Davis. Was born 8 October 1808 and died
1875. She married Caleb Wright Taylor who was born 7 September 1801 and died
25 February 1843.
Elizabeth Taylor (4th)
Daughter of Mary Jordon Davis and Caleb Taylor was born 27 January 1839 and
died 22 January 1891. She married George Henry Dean, 25 June 1868.

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Anthony

Anna Dean Wilbur (3rd)
Daughte; of Elizabeth Taylor and George Dean, born May 23, 1874. She married
Bertrand K. Wilbur, son of Henry Oscar Wilbur and Harriet Lawrence. He was
born 5 August 1870 and died 7 January 1945.
Note:

The Children of John Davis and Hannah Anthony (6th) and Mary Jordan
Davis and Caleb Taylor (5th) are listed in the Davis Family Record.
The Children of Elizabeth Taylor and George Dean (4th) and Anna Dean
and Bertrand K. Wilbur are listed in the Dean and Wilbur Family
Records respectively.

92

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Anthony

WILL OF JOSEPH ANTHONY
I, Joseph Anthony, being in my perfect senses and calling to mind the
mortality of my body, do make and constitute this my last Will and Testament.
First, to my loving wife, Elizabeth Anthony during her widowhood, I lend
nine negroes namely: Cooper, Charcoal, Matt, David, Ben, Sue, Jude, old
Jeane and Young Jeane, with the Plantation I now live on; also my stock, household goods and furniture.
If after my decease my wife should marry again my
desire and will is that my executors whom I shall appoint, shall take possession of the above mentioned negroes, land, stock, household goods, and furniture and dispose of the same together with the increase and income discretionally for the use of my wife and children for and during her natural life.
ltem--1 give and bequeath to those of my children that I shall mention,
N.B. Sarah Cooper, Christopher Anthony, Elizabeth Candler, Penelopy Johnson,
Joseph Anthony, James Anthony, Mary Carter and Agnes Blakey only one shilling,
each, out of my estate, I having given each of them as much of my estate at
the time of their marrying as I thought proper.
ltem--1 give and bequeath to my daughter Rachel Anthony to her and her
heirs forever two negroes, namely Henry and Lucy.
ltem--1 give and bequeath to my daughter Wineford Anthony to her and her
heirs forever two negroes, namely Charles and Sarah.
ltem--1 give and bequeath to my son Mark Anthony to him and his heirs
forever half of the land whereon I now 1 ive after his mother•s decease, together with two negroes namely Matt and Tom.
ltem--1 give and bequeath to my son Boling Anthony to him and his heirs
forever half of the land whereon I now live after his mother•s decease, being
equally divided between my two sons Mark and Boling Anthony. Also two negroes
namely James and the eldest child of a negroe woman named Milly which I formerly lent to James Johnson which I now give to my son Boling Anthony.
ltem--1 give and bequeath to my daughter Judith Anthony to her and her
heirs forever three negroes namely, Nan, and her son David, also the second
child which the said Milly had which I lent the said James Johnson.
Item--Also I give unto those, my last mentioned children each of them one
horse and saddle, two cows and calves, one featherbed and furniture or as much
money as will purchase them as they marry or come of age. And further this is
my will that if any of my children decease without heir lawfully begotten of
their body that their part of my estate bequeathed be equally divided amongst
my then surviving children or their heirs.
And at the decease of my wife my estate be equally divided among all my
children or heirs excepting daughter Elizabeth Candler-- I only give unto her
at the decease of my wife, five pounds sterling, only.

93

Anthony

And further it is in my will that the negroe named Henry which I lent to
Penelopy Johnson if she refuse to keep as a slave that the said negroe be returned .to my estate and be equally divided amongst the rest of my children.
And further it is my will that if any of my children should refuse to keep the
negroes which I will to them that they be returned to my estate and be equally
divided amongst the rest of my children.
I appoint my wife Elizabeth Anthony and my three sons, Joseph, James, and
Micajah Anthony, and Thomas Cooper executors to the within Will and making all
former wills void, I declare this to be my last will and testament.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this 20th day of
September, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-five.
Joseph Anthony LS.
Test:

John Stokes
Ambrose Jones
William Jones
John Jones

At a Court held for Henry County the 22nd Day of December 1785. The within
will and testament of Joseph Anthony Deceased was proven by the Witnesses
thereto. Whereupon it was to be recorded by The Court.
Test. John Cox, C.H.C. Recorded Will Book No. 1., Page 120
The Inventory of property not including lands, amounts to L 1,760.8.2 among
which are two Bibles. (The Will is probably filed at Martinsberg, VA.)
Copy from:

Maud Wildman Evans

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Archer

ARCHER FAMILY RECORD
Archer Genealo9y
Jonathan Archer
(7th)

b 1757
d 1842

m.

Rachel Woolman

b 1758
d 1834

Hannah Archer
(6th)

b 1790
d 1860

m.

John LeFavour

b 1787
d 1859

Sarah LeFavour
(5th)

b 1803
d 1888

m.

Jonathan Dean

b 1807
d 1849

George Dean
(4th)

b 1836
d 1881

m.

Elizabeth Taylor

b 1839
d 1891

Anna Dean Wi 1bur
(3rd)

b 1874
d 1952

m.

Bertrand

K. Wilbur

b 1870
d 1945

Historical Notes and Sources
Jonathan Archer (7th)

b 1757
d 1842

m.

Rachel Woolman

b 1758
d 1834

Jonathan's and Rachel Woolman's children were:
1.

2.
3.
(Source:

Lydia (11th child?)
Sally
Hannah

m.
m.
m.

Mathaniel Griffin
Robert Brookhouse
John LeFavour

Kitty Dean Stroh Karck 1 s Chart)

Note: For the children of George Dean (4th) and for Anna Dean Wilbur (3rd)
See Dean and Wilbur Family Records respectively.

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Ashley

ASHLEY FAMILY RECORD
Ashley Genealogy
Antony
(13th)

Ashley

John Cooper
(12th)

b

d

b

d

Anthony Ashley Cooper
(11th)
b 7/ 22 or 23,1621 at Wimborne, St. Giles Dorsetshire, England
d Amsterdam 1683
Penelope Ashley (Massey, Cooper)
(10th)
b
m Edward Clark(e) Settled in Jamestown 1607
d

Settled at Green Springs near Camp Creek,

Penelope Massey
(9th)
b

Louisa County, VA.

m Christopher Cl~rk(e)
Louisa County, VA

b
d

m Joseph Anthony

b 1713
d 1785

m Judith Morrman (Moorman,
Moo reman)
2m Mary Jordan

b
d 1815-Cincinnati, OH
b 1/5,1776

m John Davis

b 1774
d 1842

m Caleb Wright Taylor
1/1,1805

b 9/7,1801
d 2/25,1843

Elizabeth Lippincott Taylor
(4th)
b 1/27,1839
d 1/22,1891

m George Henry Dean

b 11/23,1836
d 9/26,1881

Anna Dean Wi 1bur
(3rd)
b 5/23,1874
d 5/22,1952

m Bertrand Kingsburg Wilbur

d

Elizabeth Clark(e)
(8th)
b 2/15,1720
d 2/23' 1785
Christopher Anthony
(7th)
b 2/21,1744
d 10/28,1815
Hannah Anthony
(6th)
b 8/27,1781
d 1830
Mary Jordan Davis
(5th)
b 10/10,1808
d 5/25,1875

97

b 8/5,1870
1/7,1945

d

Ashley

Historical Notes
Note:

.Antony Ashley Cooper 1 s three children came to America. Charles laid
out the city of Charlestown between the Ashley and Cooper rivers.

Note:

The children of Penelope Massey and Christopher Clark (9th) are listed
in the Clarke Family Record. The children of Elizabeth Clark(e) and
Joseph Anthony (8th) and Christopher Anthony and Judith Moorman and
Mary Jordan (7th) are listed in the Anthony Family Record.
For the children of Hannah Anthony and John Davis (6th) and Mary Jordan
and Caleb W. Taylor (5th) see the Davis Family Record.
For the children of Elizabeth L. Taylor and George H. Dean (4th) and
Anna Dean Wilbur and Bertrand K. Wilbur (3rd) see the Dean and Wilbur
Family Records respectively.

98

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Clark(e)

CLARK(E) FAMILY RECORD
Clark(e) Genealogy
Edward Clark
b
in England
m Penelope Ashley Cooper
(10th)
d
(Massey)
Settled in Jamestown, VA in 1607(or 1620)
Christopher Clark(e)
(9th)
b

b

m Penelope Massey
(Cooper)

b 7I 11, 1668
d 8/30' 1728

m Joseph Anthony
4/27,1741

b 5/2,1713
d 11/23,1785

Christopher Anthony
1m Judith Morrman
(7th)
b 3/21,1744
2m Mary Jordan
d 10/28,1815 in Cincinnati, OH

b 11/16,1749
d 10/28,1815

Hannah Anthony Johnson (widow)
(6th)
b 8/27,1781
d 8/12,1830

m John Davis

b 9/24,1774
d 1842 ( 184 3)

Mary Jordan Davis
(5th)
b 10/10,1808
d 5/25,1875

m Caleb Wright Taylor
1/1 '1830

b 9/7,1801
d 2/25,1843

Elizabeth L. Taylor
(4th)
b 1/27,1839
d 1/32,1891

m George H. Dean
6/25,1868

b 11/23 '1836
d 9/26' 1881

Anna Dean Wilbur
(3rd)
b 5/23,1874
d 5/22,1952

m Bertrand K. Wilbur
6/15,1898

b 8/5,1870
d 1/7.1945

d

Elizabeth Clark(e)
(8th)
b 2/15,1720 (1722)
d 2/23,1785

Historical Notes and Sources
Christopher Clark(e) (9th)
Christopher married Penelope Massey or Cooper of Louisa County, VA.
Christopher's and Penelope Massey's children were:
Elizabeth
Micajah
Boling

m.
m.
m.

Joseph Anthony
Judith Adams
Winifred

(Source for Elizabeth and Joseph Anthony - D.A.R. Lineage Book Vol.90 #89671)

99

Captain Christopher Clark was in the Indian Wars. He was Captain of the Militia
and Judge of the first Court of Louisa County, VA. 11 His wife Penelope is one
through whom the tradition of the Earl of Shaftsbury comes and appears in both
the Ohio and the Georgia branches of the family. Whether her name was Massey
or Cooper is not cert~in, and whether she and her sister, Lucinda or Lucretia,
were nieces, wards or granddaughters of Sir Ashley Cooper of Shaftsbury is yet
to be made certain. No evidence appears that he had daughters as the legend
had it 11 (Quoted from note from Maude Wildman Evans).
Through the preaching of Joseph Newby a Quaker of the lower part of North
Carolina many became friends and built up Camp Creek Monthly Meeting held at
Green Springs, Louisa County, VA. Among the members were Johnsons, Christopher
Clark, the Lynch, Anthony, Douglas, Moorman, Terrill, Ballard, families.
(Notes from Archer G. Dean 1/17, 1953)
Note:

For the children of generations 7 and
5 and
3 see
4 see

100

8 see Anthony Family Record.

6 see Davis Family Record.

Dean Family Record.
Wilbur Family Record

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Davis

DAVIS FAMILY RECORD
Davis Genealogy
John Davis
(8th)

m Susan Smithson

b
d

m Anna Lipscomb

b
d

m Hannah Anthony
Johnson (Widow)

b 11/2 7' 1781
d 10/28,1815
(8/12, 1830)

Mary Jordan Davis
(5th)
b 10/10, 1808
d 5/25,1875

m Caleb W. Taylor

b 9/7,1801
d 2/25,1843

Elizabeth L. Taylor
(4th)
b 1/27,1839
d 1/22,1891

m George H. Dean

b 11/28,1836
d 9/25,1881

Anna Dean Wilbur
(3rd)
b 5/23,1874
d 5/22,1952

m Bertrand K. Wilbur

b 8/5,1870
d 1/7' 1945

b

d 1743

Samuel Davis
b
(7th)
d 1779
John Davis
(6th)

(e)

b 9/24,1774
d 1842
( 184 3)

Historical Notes and Sources
John Davis (8th)
John married Susanna Smithson of Louisa County, VA.
1.

2.

3.

Wi 11 iam
Samuel
Micajah

m.
m.
m.

Their children were:

Mary
Anna Lipscomb
Mary

Samuel Davis (7th)
Samuel married Anna(e) Lipscomb and died in 1779 in Bedord County, VA.
children were:
1.
2.
3.
4.

John
William
Thomas
Micajah

m.
m.

Hannah Anthony
Za 1 i nda Lynch

101

Their

102

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Davis

John Davis I I (6th)
John married Hannah Anthony Johnson, a widow of Bedord County, VA. The family
removed to Cincinnati in 1814. John's and Hannah Johnson's children were:
Achilles Pagh
Caleb Wright Taylor
Rebecca Wallace
Hugh Smith
( 1 ived in the George Dean home)
m.
Henry Stagg

m.
m.
m.
m.

Anna Maria
Mary Jordan
Samuel Anthony
Sarah
Charlotte
Hannah

1.

2.
3.
4.

s.
6.

Goose Creek Monthly Meeting VA a certificate of removal to Miami Monthly Meeting in Ohio, was granted to John Davis and Hannah his wife with their children
Anna Maria, Mary Jordan, Samuel Anthony, Sarah and Charlotte, 11th Mo. 12th,
1814.
(Source:

Kitty Dean Strohkarch's

Chart.)

Mary Jordan Davis (5th)
Mary Jordan married Caleb Wright Taylor on January 1, 1830 under the guidance
of the Cincinnati Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends (Quaker). Their
children were:
Elizabeth
Hannah
Anna
Wi 11 iam

1.

2.

3.

4.
(Source:

m.
m.
m.

m.

George Dean
Murray Shipley
Lewis Johnson
1. Charlotte French
2. Mary Haines
3. Helen Co 11 a rd

Kitty Dean Strohkarch's

Chart.)

Mary Jordan born in Lynchburg. She was one of the organizers of the Childrens
Home, Home of the Friendless, Women's Christian Association. It was largely
through her influence that the patrol wagons were covered, so that prisoners
should not be exposed to the public gaze as they were carried through the
streets.
Comment by A.G. Dean, - Could this be the origin of the expression Black
Marias?
Note:

The children of generations 4 and 3 are listed in the Dean and Wilbur
Family Records respectively.

(Sources: Birth & Death Records, Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting, Burlington
Co., New Jersey pg. 36-78. Birth and Death Records, Cincinnati Monthly Meeting, Ohio.)

103

104

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Dean

DEAN FAMILY RECORD
Dean Genealogy
John Dean
(11th)

b about 1612
d

George Dean
(10th)
b 1640
d 1688

m Elizabeth

b

Joseph Dean I
b 1671
(9th)
d 1709

m Elizabeth Flint
1696

d

Joseph Dean II
(8th)
b 6/15,1708
d 12/24,1778

m Elizabeth Bower(s)
4/6,1732

d

Jonathan Dean
b
(7th)
d
Jonathan Dean II
(6th)
b 12/12,1768
d 12/8,1823
Jonathan Dean Ill
b 11/21,1802
(5th)
d 8/22,1849

m Elizabeth (Berth i a?)

d 1704

b 1732

b

b

d

m Desire Needham
2/19,1794 (1795)

b 2/12' 1776
d 5/1857

m Sarah Brookhouse Lafavre
11/23,1835
(Lafavour)
(11/3, 1835)

b 10/22,1817
d 5/27,1888

George Henry Dean
(4th)
b 11/23,1836
d 9/23,1881

m Elizabeth Lippincott Taylor b 1/27,1839
6/25,1868 Cincinnati, OH
d 1/22,1891

Anna Dean Wilbur
(3 rd)
b 5/23,1874
d 5/22,1952

m Bertrand Kingsbury Wilbur
6/15' 1898

105

b 8/5,1870
d 1/7,1945

106

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Dean

Historical Notes and Sources
Jonathan Dean II

(6th)

The children of Jonathan and Sarah Desire Needham were:
1.

Edmund Needham

b 12/8, 1795
d 2/5, 1820

2.

Sally (unmarried)

b 10/5, 1797
d 5/10, 1808

3.

Desire Needham I I

b 5/15, 1800
d 1/21 '1860

4.

Jonathan (Goldrush)

b 11/21 '1802
d 8/22,1849

5.

Silsby (unmarried)

b 7/19, 1806
d 8/1857

Jonathan Dean was a sea captain sailing from Salem, Massachusetts.
An undated letter to Anna Dean Wilbur from lsora Collord states there appear
to have been Deans among those 1 isted in Salem as soldiers from Massachusetts
in the American Revolution.
My dear Nancy,
Since writing to you last, I have been searching in the 1 ibrary and found
among the Massachusetts soldiers in the Revolution, several by the names of
Dean and Lakeman. Their Christian names are those which belong in your family
and with this sign of encouragement, it might be worth while to have Salem
records researched to find if possibly the father of the first Jonathan Dean
and also the name of Abigail Lakeman's father.
Very sincerely yours,
lsora Collord
Jonathan Dean I II (5th)
In November 1835, Jonathan married Sarah Brookhouse Lafavour, a New England
girl of 20. This marriage created much discussion and debate. It resulted in
Jonathan being "read out of meeting" for marrying a Unitarian girl. He was
known as "Goldrush Jonathan."

107

Dean

Their children were:
George
1.
b
d
Sarah
2.
b
James
3.
b
Anna
4.
b
John
b
5.

11/23' 1836
9/25, 1881
1838
1840
1847
1849

m. Elizabeth Taylor
m. Drok Mansfield

b 1/27, 1839,
d 1891
b 1840

Jonathan seemed to crave adventure! He was swept up in the gold rush excitment
of 1848, and sailed 11 Round the Horn'' to reach California. Jonathan left behind
in Salem, Mass. a wife, two daughters and a son, George Henry Dean, born in
1836. No word was ever heard from 11 gold rush Jonathan 11 although his wife (my
grandmother) sent a friend out to California to locate her husband. The friend
reported that the adventurer had died before discovering gold. The friend, however, remained in California where according to rumor he 11 lived very handsomely. 11
(Notes by Elizabeth Dean 6/1, 1926)
George Henry

(4th)

George married Elizabeth Lippincott Taylor in Cincinnati, OH
twenty-fifth, n~n-e-teen hundred and sixty-eight.
,•':1

on Sixth Month,

'_>''!~-\-\r,C" '/""

Their children were:
Mary Taylor Dean
b 4/7,1868
d 1/12,1935

m John M. MacDonald
9/29' 1898

b 1/2,1868
d 1/1 '1947

George Brookhouse Dean
b 7/27,1872
d 1959

m Florence Folger
10/8,1916

b
d

Anna Elliott Dean
b 5/23,1874
d 5/20,1952

m Bert rand K. Wilbur
6/15,1898

b 8/5,1870
d 617' 1945

Morris Burgess De:an
b 1/17,1876
d 10/8,1928

m Helen Marion Cram
9/23,1902

b 6/8,1876
d

Elizabeth Lippincott Dean ~io,\~~c)
b 2/6,1879
d 7/7' 1979
Archer Griffi"n Dean
b 7/29,1881
d
1958

m Therese Ohlin Holland
10/17,1906

108

b 6/7,1880
d
1967

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Dean
t\ ·~,(/'·\

\ WJ·\ '

George Henry Dean, light hearted as well as light haired, was the apple
of his mother 1 s eye and the devoted brother of his sisters, Sarah and Annie.
When in his twenties he traveled for a Boston firm of China and Glass, known
at that period as 11 Queens ware 11 , his business connections took him throughout
the South and as far west as Ohio. After the Civil war George left Boston
and his family in Salem and came to 1 ive in the thriving western town of
Cincinnati, located on the Ohio River. Here he met the fair haired Quaker
girl 11 Lizzie 11 Taylor. Her English ancestors had landed in Virginia early in
the 17th century, and one of her great grandfathers, Samuel Jordan,was a
delegate to the first House of Burgesses in Virginia, his name is on the 1619
list of those attending the first session.
George 32 and Lizzie 29 were married June 25, 1868. Three boys and three girls
were born during the 13 years before George died in 1881. Mary the eldest was
12 when her father died and Archer but six weeks old. In between were George,
Anna, Morris, 11 Bessie 11 • Ten~rs later mother died and Mary at 22 was head
of the big frame house in (_Avonda}~ a suburb of Cinc i nnat i, a bunch of co 11 ege
and teenagers. We all had Tiv.efy summers at the cottage at Gratiot Beach,
Mich. on the shore of Lake Buron.
In 1898 Anna married Bertrand ~Jilbur and went with her medical missionary
husband to live in Alaska. Mary married patient John MacDonald who had waited
six or eight years for her.Morris and Arch moved into an apartment in Avondale,
supervised by Mary. George took up residence as intern in the Cincinnati
Hospital and Elizabeth went off to Smith College.
The turn of the century found the clan scattered and the family tree vigorously
branching out but still firmly rooted in affection and family loyalty.
(Source:

Compiled by E.L. Dean from notes on genealogy from Salem, Mass.)

The Prospect Place House still stands, or did a year ago. Avondale was a
lovely country suburb when the Deans lived"there ... open fields here and there
for baseball, big trees lined all the streets, there were wooden sidewalks.
The horse cars came up Reading R~~from Cincinnati and down Rockdale
Avenue and back to town partially on Burnet, then somehow there was a ZooEden car which crossed the tops of the hills and went from Fifth Street, up
the incline to Mt. Adams where the Art Museum is, through Eden Park and across
the hills to the Zoo. And the Zoo was less than a mile as the crow flies from
Prospect Place.
Elizabeth Taylor Dean made it a warm place, inspite of her great loneliness in
losing George Dean. Mrs. Thomas MacDonald brought her son John to call on Mrs.
George Dean at Prospect Place. Mrs. Dean 1 s oldest daughter was nearest John 1 s
age, and she was called to meet John. It was Mary and she was polite but inspite of John 1 s good looks, maybe she was shy ... she quite evidently wanted to
get back in the kitchen where the other children, George, Anna, Morris, Archer
and Elizabeth, were having a taffy pull.

109

Dean

When Elizabeth Taylor Dean died, Mary was 22, and evidently responsible and
thoughtful enough so that they let her head the household. There were two
maids, Mary was careful, took her little account books down to the bank once
a month on the horse cars unless a neighbor was driving.
The other children must have been responsible, too, or they never would have
permitted Prospect Place to continue without a Mother or Father. Elizabeth
Taylor Dean's brother Dr. William H. Taylor and his wife were guardians.
Mary spoke gratefully of them, but then Mary and John MacDonald whom she
later married, each had to wait ten years for each other because of raising
their parent's families. John, particularly, had a petulant, badly spoiled
Mother and contentious younger sisters and his life trying to make his way ...
to control his Mother, to get her to make the sisters go to school, was simple
hell. Prospect Place was much more civilized, but the children resented a
sibling being over them, though they knew it had to be. So John and Mary decided early that there would never be a word of criticism in THEIR house, and
there never was. Ham Avery saw it closely and said Helen came from a veritable never never land ...
So we must take Mary's word about Uncle Will and Aunt Helen with a grain of
salt, tho Mary named her child for Aunt Helen. The younger children, Elizabeth and Archer Dean, suffered the most from the loss of their Mother, and
were frightened of Uncle Will.
I was frightened of Uncle Wi 11. He was big with a big curly wiry beard centered
with wet red lips. I wonder at the beards ... in pioneer times they were a necessity ... I suppose, and I guess there just were men who could not handle the long
vicious knives which folded into the handle just like pen knives ... the razors.
But it was no dream to see the lips and feel the beard in a Victorian kiss.
Avondale grew commercially along Reading Road ... Jewish people chose Avondale
for their settlement. It wasn't too bad ... Cincinnati had the first Reformed
Theological Seminary. We had wonderful Jews ... old Jewish families. The
Seasongoods in Cincinnati as in New York were leaders in everything good and
cultured and they were gentle people. Actually I am almost sure Murray S.
Seasongood is Murray Shipley Seasongood. When I fell into the hands of the
Philistines when John MacDonald had cerebral arterio sclerosis ... Murray Seasongood out of old friendship rescued us and I owe a debt I can never repay. On
Washington and Forest Avenues you can still see the beautiful big houses, the
Seasongoods, the Westheimers, the Fleischmanns were there with the Protestants.
Reformed Judism is so much like ... say Presbyterianism, that the simplicity and
lack of ostentation, went right down thru commercial groups.
Along about the second World War, we began to get the cheap, loud, pushing New
York orthodox Jew and they took over the area where Prospect Place is.
And the colored people began spreading west from the Lane Seminary area at
Gilbert and "Lincoln" Avenues, and they swept north over Avondale, pushed the
Jews out of Prospect Place and on north, buying the beautiful houses as a
family, and in a month ten families would live there.

110

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Dean

George H. Dean was a very astute businessman.
I am sure, living on the Main
Line, or visiting there, you are familiar with the good business sense of
Friends. Bill Kite said his father was always delighted with the combination
of the Friend 1 s soft speech and the business. He recalled Mr. Dean saying,
11
Will, I wish that thee would take the train tomorrow to Memphis, and take
the pu 1se of the south. ••
lt 1 s hard to realized that the stores in the south, the department and specialty
stores in the city, all bought from George H. Dean. He must have been a very
pleasant customer and a very good one, that Johnson Brothers in England made
a special great china tea pot in greyish white and blue with George H. Dean
baked into it, for him. He must have been successful to die so young and
leave enough money to keep up a house, keep 2 maids,a summer place, and give a
substantial amount to each one.
We know so little of him, but I love his face, and think ... there was no organized
charity except beginnings. So he hired a boat and took the 11 indigent widows and
orphans•• for a ride with refreshments on the river every summer.
Mr. Kite was his clerk, and rose to the point where the name was changed to
Dean and Kite. The two Kite boys came into the business but there were no
Dean boys interested, and I guess there was a pretty long lapse from George
Dean•s death to the time when George and Morris and Archer were through college.
The Kites had only one boy between them, neither he nor 5 sons-in-law wanted
the china business. Actually, stores in the twenties began to be approached
directly by certain china and chrystal manufactures, and the retailers started
placing their orders directly for many items so the broker and the middlemen
faded away.
(The above two accounts were found in Harry L. Wilbur 1 s file in Jupiter, Fla.
2/1982. They appear to have been written by Helen MacDonald Avery who was
Auntie Mae MacDonald 1 s only child and was raised in Cincinnati 1 s society.
11
Helen Mac•• and 11 Ham 11 Avery had two daughters, Lee Poor and Mary Avery Bancroft.)
Aunt Elizabeth L. Dean presented Don and Beth Wilbur two crystal glasses for
Christmas 1959 and wrote the following account of the George H. Dean family:
V&%
George Henry Dean, your grandfather, was born in Sal em, Massachusetts in 19.3{>.
When a young man he went into the China and Glass business, called 11 Queensware,••
at that time. The firm was in Boston, and George was sent to represent it
throughout the South. After the Civil War George decided to go into business
for himself and selected Cincinnati as a thriving town in the west. He located
at Pearl and Walnut Streets, a corner only a few blocks from the Ohio River.
The site was especially convenient because the hogsheads of English china and
French glass come by boat up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers from the seaport
town of New Orleans.
George was not a lonesome bachelor for long, for in 1868 he married Elizabeth
Lippincott Taylor, a fairhaired Quaker girl of the town. Later Elizabeth said
she always told her girlfriends she planned to marry a dark haired man, but
unfortunately she loved George the only l ightheaded man of her acquaintance.

111

Dean

Elizabeth 1 s ancestors all lived in Virginia. One of them Samuel Jordan, arrived from England early in the 17th century, and was a Delegate in the first
House of Burgesses in 1619. More than a hundred years later, 11 Lizzie 1 S 11 ancestors still living in Virginia felt that they should free their slaves, that
as Quakers they should keep no man in bondage. The family, old and young,
packed up bags, boxes, barrels, and bedsteads, put everything on flatbottom
river boats near Pittsburg and floated down to Ohio to the town of Cincinnati.
Here they were active in Friends Meeting and also in helping slaves escape
through the ••under ground. 11
George and Elizabeth had a quiet and simple wedding, one thing only was overlooked. The bride neglected to pull off the long black stockings she had put
on to protect her white silk stockings and thin satin slippers as she walked
to the carriage. Imagine the bride 1 s state of mind as she sat 11 facing meeting 11
when she saw the black stockinged toe of her slipper peeping out from under
the skirt of her pearl gray silk wedding gown!
An unusual wedding gift was sent George by business associates in England. It
was a dinner set of some heavy ware, each piece circled by a narrow red band
broken only by the dainty momogram medallion. There were not a dozen of
every size of plate, cup and saucer, but a dozen dozen of each article!!! What
became of it all? Your grandmother refused to have any of it brought into
the house. Years later, we children used the small red edged 11 butter chips 11 ,
as doll dishes.
George died in September of 1881 a few weeks after the birth of the sixth
child, the third son. The boy was named Archer for a great aunt in New England.
Elizabeth was 42 years old and Mary the eldest child was but eleven at the time.
The family continued to live in thebig frame house in Avondale, a suburb of
Cincinnati. Elizabeth died in 1891 leaving Mary, 22, the head of the family.
The house was sold eight years later, after a June wedding that sent Anna to
Alaska with Bert. A September wedding gave Mary to patient John who had been
waiting nearly ten years. George become an intern in Cincinnati Hospital,
11
Bess 11 went off to college, and the two other boys 11 batched it 11 in an apartment under the supervision of Mary.
Another gift sent to the firm of 11 George H. Dean, China and Glass 11 came from
England. It was a large, monstrous tea pot, four to six feet in height decorated with flowers and gold inscribed to G.H.D. For years it stood behind the
plate glass window at the front of the store. It figured as an emblem on all
business stationery. When a devastating fire wrecked the entire building about
1950, the entire city of Cincinnati expressed, through the newspapers, its concern over the big tea pot. It had fallen from the first floor through burning
timbers to the basement, but chipped and scarred, it still maintains its size
and dignity.
Just when and where the crystal G.H.D. glasses joined the family is not recorded. They doubtless were raised for many a toast, many a Christmas wish for
health and happiness for many many good friends.
Long may they be used for Christmas cheer!!!!!!

112

Elizabeth L. Dean
December 25, 1959

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Dean
There is a further note from the Cincinnati lnquirer 1 s Business Edition when
the firm of Dean and Kite was liquided after 90 years of business:
The teapot, a giant earthenware piece with a capacity 1,200 eight-ounce
cups was presented to the firm by Alfred Meaken Company of England in
1890. Since then it has graced two Dean and Kite 1 s show windows--at
Pearl and Walnut Streets. It was there the teapot survived its first
fire--in 1893. Sixty years later another fire ravaged the offices and
Dean and Kite moved to--312 Elm Street (Cincinnati)--repairs were made
and it has adorned the Elm Street office (and showroom until the liquidation of the firm after 90 years the firm having been established in 1871).
The 70 year old teapot, however, has survived fire and liquidation. Two
weeks ago, the venerable teapot was presented to the Ohio Historical and
Philosophical Society in Cincinnati . 11
11

Anna Dean (3rd)
Anna Dean married Bertrand K. Wilbur in Cincinnati on June 15, 1898. They went
directly to Alaska where Dr. Wilbur had been practicing as a medical missionary.
Their ten children are listed in the Wilbur Family Record.
(Sources: 11 Dean Family History 11 from a manuscript sent by George Arvedon, Federal
Str., Salem, Mass. (Elizabeth L. Dean 6/1, 1926). Taylor Family- Hills of
Wilkes Co., Ga. CS71H424. D.A.R. -Linage Book, Book V. 90, 89671. Elizabeth
L. Dean•s National Daughter•s of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) registration
number is 264501. This identified her genealogical information filed to qualify
for membership. ~/ilbur Family 11 Just About Me 11 and 11 Just About Us 11 , journals of
Bertrand K. Wilbur, 1936.)

1 13

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Jordan

JORDAN FAMILY RECORD
Jordan Genealogy
Samuel Jordan
(12th)

b
d

1 m
2 m Cice 1 i (y)

Thomas Jordan I
(11th)
b 1600(02)
d 1685
Thomas Jordan II
(1Oth)
b 1634
d 10/8,1699

Robert Jordan
(9th)

b 7/11,1665 (68)
d 8/30,1728

Mary Jordan
(7th)

m Lucy Corker

b

m Margeret Brasseur
(Florence) (Brasse i r,
Brashare, Brassneur,
Brashere, Brasseuer)

b 7/1642
d 10/7' 1708
(11/7,1708)

m Christian Oudeland
12/9,1689 (?)
2 m Mary Belson
(Elizabeth, Florence)
6/10,1690

Samuel Jordan II
(8th)
b 4/29,1711
d 1/24,1767

m Hannah Bates
11/3,1738

b 2/16, 17Lf9 (11/16,1749) m Christopher Anthony
d 10/28,1815
1/5,1776

Hannah Anthony
(6th)
b 10/27,1781
d 10/28,1815

b
d

b
d 6/26' 1689 (?)

b
d
b 3/21 '1744
d 10/28,1815

m John Davis
717' 1805

b 9/24, 1774
d 1/1842

m Caleb W. Taylor

b 9/7,1801
d 2/25,1843

Elizabeth L. Taylor
(4th)
b 1/27' 1839
d 1/22,1889

m George H. Dean
6/25,1868

b 11/23,1836
d 9/25,1881

Anna D. Wi 1bur
(3rd)
b 5/23,1874
d 5/22' 1952

m Bertrand K. Wi 1bur
6/15,1898

d

Mary Jordan Davis
(5th)
b 10/10,1808
d 5/25,1875

115

b 8/5,1870
1/7,1845

116

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!

Sourcr: "Lite Magazine"
March 23, 1959, pg. 79

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IN THE GREAT TEMPEST, as rl'picled in an old
histrrrr lxxrk trrrrarinu.,!a I i arrre scurls to*arrl

In the

Bermuda's rocky co8st. Admiral Som€rs had had the
rithout food or sleep.

con for three dals and nights

Relic of 'Tempest'
of

a violent storm over.

prpetuall lrorror," the ship was leaking so bad.
ly and all harrtis wcre so spent from pumping

lish lilerature. Britain got Brrmu,la alr,l from
accounts of the eveltt (rr'tsil ) Shakespeare got

in the ship fetcht them. and drunke one to the
other, taking tht.ir last leave." At this desper-

summer

16O9

to consequences to both English history and Eng.

that "some having good and comlbrtable waters

for writing 77rr' Temptst..r*ow scholars
believe that a skin.rliving descendant of one
of the &u l'u uri s crelr men has found thc
wrecke,l ship o[I the Bermurla shore.
At the time of the I (r09 tempest the I (X)foot galleon was making for Virginia with food
for the starring settlers at Janrestonrr. After what onc eyerritness called "threr: rlaics

ale juncture Arlnriral Sir Oeorgc Somr.rs sighterl

ideas

IJermuda. Steerirrg f,rr its reef.rimme,l shore,
he miraculously gr,runded the vesst'l bt'tleen
two heads of crrral rlhich kept her upright until
everyone had got ashore. Finalll'she broke up,
taking dou n rlith her the clues to her identity
which are only now heing unridrlled by the salvage op('rations shown on the following pages.

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A DISCOVERY
-

OF THE BARMVDAS, OTHERVVISE
crllcd the llc of
Dirrlr.

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A SECRET FATHOMED
FIVE FATHOMS DOWN

8fingrnftp

nil?urlrrfsa.,
Dmtura,tritl)
Sit Troxrs

Gato,0[!6&

UafnOUf' Str
Gr.orcrSommcr,8tlD Cd

Pialu Nar-

port, tl)r!? tllo0 ll,olth? bonourtb

.*a

Downing,

what shore to slart from was an ambiguour inEcription on a plaque
lefi on the island by the castaways saying that the ship sank "under a
point that bore S6u1h l.',q1 from the \ortherne
point of the Island." To compound Downingls

octlttorr.n, (Dbofc lalour auD fotti
tuuc tt)r utollo ttlu0lrtcDr!tnEc n0.
nrc oE, sl|D

oo[grr3)

thtin nE0 ]onouErbtt
ftrelirgfiis, inafi?

DouuD

Unst t of tuart?D.gr?rs of nortl)trl?

latttuDr, o, tD3rtaboutg : b? ltlerc
M? 0f ,01P, Anno

r6o

9.

ut

nu[tbrr)

bua

Btngof tur

),

our n)rpbc(nmt [o

[Uf,B(n,torur, anDls.'tBcD, tD.rt il)rc
rrourD fo nrucl) Dattr, n5 (ounrD
luo llrs of l)ogorraD5 tbouc fDr Ual
lno; tl)at our nrn oooDa bp ro ttre
mlDDlrg, ltltU burhtts, ban(os, nnD

f,lttlrs,

to

t,illr ont tDt Dat$, 8nD

rontnirldllp punturb fo, thrrr ultcs
snDrl)lr! nl{)ts togcrlr?r, Drrl)out
8n? tntcrnumorr t 8nD

rflbtt

prt tl)c llrrlttr

iufildfc, rl)cn to Dr:
nllnl$ : lnf0 nluo ttratall 6urnrrn,
Dcrng Dnrrtp fpcui , igtD , anD Dlfa;

ftrnrcD

ro

DltD fol longsr l,tb0ur, tl,crc cutn rc.
fOlucD, llruDout inU'l]opr of thar
lmr.s,

STORY OF WRECK I,T
ua. prrt,li.hr',1 in l(rlli.
a,'r t'rrnls l,rr sr.ttirrq ol
..\r'icl to lctllr rI.rr llolr

-,,
^-.,
I

rat) DrU

rD[b tllc blotcnt Dor:

SrM,

difliculties, the castaways had stripped the
Venture before she sank in order to build
two smaller vessels. All but two of the casta*ays sailed on to Virginia. The two rr ho remained in Bermuda were joined later by set.

*a

tilm [rro s moooarpcsnDmllll
0orru t'pon 0. fiut ano nl'3fl nrD
ll0r onlt foariltr b5 fronr tlrc rrfiDllc
of out nafi?, (rDurD ll,trr flgDt tn

T

l'enrure was not found by accident. Her discoverer, Edmund
a Virginian, had been looking for her for some time. Bur rhe
odds against finding her among the hundreds of wrecks which lirter
Bermuda's coastal waters seemed a million to one. The old accounts
agreed that the ship "fell in betweene two rockes" but estimates of the
distance from shore varied widely and the best informstion about

The

tlers from England.

Even if Downing discovered the right wreck,
he , r,rrl,l n()t ('r)unt orr its corrlairrirrg arrr tlrirrg

D. Currin, he
Gur. da's chiefof of archives. laurence
which
Iearned
an
old
document
gave the dis.r"- .i."*-t". t.
""ri"
reeords. sreercd Down, lance from shore ae 3/4 of a mile. Diving at the
ARCHivtST

1,.

D.

inc lo place of wreck. specified distance, Downing quickly found

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a

double.ed6ed reef which fitted pcrfectly thc
description of "the two rockes." Diving still deeper to five fathoms,
he spotted pieces of flint-in a form found only in fresh rrater and
often used as ship's ballast until the invention of the flint lock
later madc it too valuable.
Among thc stones Downing found his wreck. Salvage expert Teddy
Tucker uas assigned by the Bermuda government to help him and
soon the t$o nere bringing up cannon balls and pieces of pottery and
timber. All the artifacts proved to pre-date the
time of the wreck. The cannon balls l'ere 4.. 5and 9.pounders, just right for the known ordnance of thc Sca Venture. The dimensions of
the wreck $ere right too, and go were her materials: Scots pine and English oak. Most important. certain details of her structure-such
as rib spacing and inner sheathing----showed
that the rr reck was a special typc of vessel: the
emigrant ship. of which .$a ,/eruurc rras ()ne of
the earliest examples built in England. Now, as
Bermudian,s sec it, the only problem is to finish
SH IP EXPERT I'. \I.
salvage work so that they can exhibit their \tr ri{ht ,.trrrlic,l\' r,'( l's
" lflofotter" to lourists during this summer's
rr tr1..l rt rl'.
lrror e,l it
cr'lebratirrn of Bermuda's 350th anniversary,
riglrt lor 5<'a l tnturc.

118

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Jordan

Historical Notes and Sources
Samuel Jordan (12th)
Samuel Jordan and Ciceli (y)
1.

2.

Mary
Margaret

---- 's

children were:

Other children of Samuel were:

3.
4.
5.

Thomas
Samuel
Robert

b 1600

m Lucy Corker

6.
7.

Daniel
William

Cousin Helen Taylor Marx (Anntie Grandma and Great Uncle Will Taylor's daughter
from Cincinnati) wrote the following summary of Samuel Jordan's voyage to
America in the "Sea Venture" in 1609 and sent it to Elizabeth L. Dean:
Cincinnati, Ohio
January 1955
In 1609 a fleet of nine ships with 500 people left England for the new colony
of Virginia. The fleet was scattered by a storm soon after sailing. Seven
of the ships arrived in the Chesapeake. Another foundered at sea. The ninth
"The Sea Venture" on which were the newly appointed governor of the province
{Sir George Sommers) the admiral of the fleet, Sir Thomas Gates (Captain Newport) and other officer were driven by a violent storm on to the Bermudas and
completely wrecked. (The islands were referred as the "Vex Bermoothes).
The passengers spent the winter on the island, henceforth known as Somers or
Summer or Bermuda. Out of the wreck of their ship they constructed two boats
in which they sailed for Virginia the following May, 1610. (Samuel and his
second wife, Ciceli settled with their two daughters, Mary and Margeret, on
the estate called "Jordan's Journey" at Jordan's Point, now City Point on the
James River, Prince George Co., Va.)
From these our first American Ancestors is descended a long line of Jordans.
So active and influential was this Samuel and his wife that the records of
the colony show that they received special grants of land because of their
successful cultivation of their original patent.
Among the passengers was John Rolfe who later married Pocahontas. But what
especially interests us in this company was one Samuel Jordan and his wife
Cicely. He is mentioned as a member of the First House of Burgesses, 1619,
the first legislative assembly of America and probably in its subsequent history the most influential that ever existed in this country.
With Samuel in the "Sea Venture"was his brother Sylvester. His account of
their winter in Bermuda published 1610 gave Shakespear background for The
Tempest. A copy of this pamphlet is in the Floger Library, Washington. Mother
had two photostatic copies made, one of which she gave Elizabeth Dean.
(Bracketed notes added by R.T. Wilbur)
119

Helen Marx (Mrs. August)

Jordan

Samuel had no son born in Virginia. Ten years after his arrival, Thomas Jordan
and his brother came and were established in the Isle of Wight Co., Va. It
has been supposed but without documentary proof that they were sons of Samuel 1 s
by a former marriage. There is no evidence that they ever resided with him or
11
inherited
Jordan 1 s Journey!'. (Comments believed to be Helen MacDonald Avery's)
Samuel Jordan in 1610 published a Pamphlet: ''The Discovery of the Bermudas
otherwise called the Isle of Devils.•• There can hardly be any question that
Shakespeare drew some of his material for The Tempest from this source. (See
Page 2 Introduction to the Tempest, in the Works of Shakespeare by H.N. Hudson,
Volume 1 Copyright 1881, for more details confirming the above.)
(Additional source for Samuel Jordan's membership in the House of Burgesses in
Virginia in 1619 is Colonial Virginia Register, William Standard, pg. 52.
Standard's source was a manuscript journal of 11 this section 11 in the Public
Records Office in London which has been printed several times.)
Thomas Jordan
Thomas Jordan

(11th)
and Lucy Crocker's children were:

1. Thomas
2.
3.
4.
5.

m Margaret Brasseus

b
d

7' 1642
10/7' 1708

Richard
Robert
John
Nicholas

Thomas Jordan, son of Samuel by an earlier marriage came to Virginia in the
11
Diana 11 at the age of 22. He is 1 isted in 11 the Muster of the Governor's Men 11
from Pasbelaighs, January 30, 1624. (See list of imigrants to America, also
Census of 1623; 11 Valentine Papers 11 , Hatten, pg. 762) He was a member of the
House of Burgesses from Warros Queske Narraqueke (W.) Co. in 1629. 1631-1632.
(Colonial Virginia Register, Wm Standard pgs. 54,56 Henig records Thomas Jordan as a member of the House of Burgesses, Assembled 21st February 16 in
Vol. 1 pg. 153 and the H of B, Assembled 4th September 1632, Vol. 1 pg. 1789).
Thomas is mentioned in the 1623 Census as a soldier under Sir George Yeardly.
His wife, Lucy Crocker, is believed to be the daughter of Captain William
Corcker of Surry Co., Va. He was given a land grant in 1635 (1624).
Thomas Jordan II

(10th)

Thomas Jordan and Marge ret Brasseur's children were:
1.

Robert

2.
3.
4.
5.

Joseph
Richard
Benjamin
Matthew

m 1st Christian Oudeland
m 2nd Mary Belson
6.
7.

Samuel
Joshua

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Jordan

Son of Thomas I, lived at 11 Chuckatuck in ye county of Nansemond in Virginia. 11
(Valentine Papers pg. 737). He was born 1634 in Virginia, and died 8 Oct. 1699
(Valentine Papers pg. 2273). Colonial Dames of America in State of Virginia,
give the date 1700, See pg. 483. Member of the House of Burgesses assembled,
September 24, 1696 from Nansemond County, 1696-97. (Colonial Dames Virginia
Register 483, also Colonial Va. Register, Wm. Standard, pg. 91). Thomas served
as Sheriff in 1696. (Standard, Colonial Virginia Register, pg. 91, see also
list derived from one in the State Council Chamber, printed in the Virginia
Magazine History and Biography, Vol. 3 pg. 425). Thomas married Margaret
Brasseir, (Brashare) daughterof Robert and Florence Brashere. (Valentine Papers
pg. 2270). She was born July 1642, died 7 November 1708. (Recond Society of
Friends, Valentine Papers, pg. 735).
Robert Jordan (9th)
Robert's children by Christian Oudeland and Mary Belson were:
1.

Samuel

2.
3.
4.
5.

Thomas
Robert
Joseph
Mary

b 4/29,1711
d 1/24,1767

m Hannah Bates
11/3,1738
6.
7.
8.
9.

Margaret
Elizabeth
Edward
Belson

Robert Jordan and his wife, Mary (Margaret) I ived in Nansemond (Nancemond) Co.,
Virginia (Valentine Papers, Vol 4, pg. 2270). Robert married Mary (Elizabeth,
Florence) Belson, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Belson. (Valentine Papers,
pg. 738). There is a memorial to Robert Jordan as a distringuished minister
in the Society of Friends. (Valentine Papers, pg. 722).
Samue I Jordan I I (8th)
Samuel Jordan and Hannah Bates' children were:
1.

2.

Mary

b 2/16,1749
d 10/28,1815
Margaret

m Christopher Anthony
m William Harrison

b 3/21,1744
d 10/28,1815

Samuel Jordan married Hannah Bates, daughter of James and Sarah Bates at the
home of her parents in York County, Virginia on 11th Month 3rd, 1738 or
(March 11, 1738). They were members of the Society of Friends and Samuel
was a recorded minister. (Valentine Papers, pg. 759).
Mary Jordan (7th)
Christopher Anthony and Mary Jordan's children are I isted in the Anthony Family
Record. Christopher Anthony died in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Note:

For the children of generation 5 and 6 see Davis Family Record.
4 see Dean Family Record.
3 see Wilbur Family Record.

121

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La favour

LAFAVOUR FAMILY RECORD
Lafavour Genealog
LeFavour, Lafavre)
John Lefavour I
(8th)
b 1717
d 8/26, 1798
(7/26, 1798)

m Mary Cook
1745

b 1723
d 5/28,1797

John LeFavour I I
(7th)
b 4/5,1748
d 11/18,1834

m Abigal Lakeman
4/1773 (1772)

b 9/22,1751
d 10/7, 1846

John LeFavour I I I
(6th)
b 8/13,1787
d 9/4,1859

m Hannah Archer
1810

b 1791
d 1/24,1860

Sarah Brookhouse LeFavour
(5th)
b 10/22,1803
d 5/27,1888

m Jonathan Dean
11/3,1834

b 11/21,1802
d 8/22,1849

b 11/23,1836 (1835)
d 9/25,1881

m E1 i zabeth Taylor
6/25, 1868

b 1/27,1839
d 1/22,1891

b 5/23,1874
d 5/22,1952

m Bertrand K. vii 1bur
6/15,1898

b 8/5,1870
d 1/7,1945

George Dean
(4th)
Anna Dean
(3rd)

Historical Notes and Sources
John Lafavour

(8th)

John Lafavour from the Isle of Guernsey landed at Marblehead, Mass. in 1729 at
the age of 12. He was apprenticed to Eleazer Lake at farming and shoe business
at Topsfield,Mass. His brother Thomas Lefavour landed at Marblehead,Mass. in
1745 when he was 14 year of age and he remained at Marblehead. John Lafavour
was born in 1717 on the Isle of Guernsey, England. He married Mary Cook who
was born in Marblehead, Mass. in 1745.
John LaFavour II

(7th)

John LaFavour I I of Topsfield and Abigal Leheman of Ipswich, Mass. were married by Rev. Sam Dana in 1772. John came to Sa 1em, Mass. in 1802 as a ca rpenter and built the Mavenick Hotel in Boston. Both he and Abigal Lakeman are
buried in the Old Burying Ground at Topsfield, Mass.
(Sources:
Note:

Notes from Archer G. Dean 1/19, 1953)

For the children of the 4th and 5th generations, see the Dean Family
Record and for the 3rd, see the Wilbur Family Record.
123

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Needham

NEEDHAM FAMILY RECORD
Needham Genealogy
Edmund Needham
(7th)

m Sarah (Archer?)

Sarah Desire Needham II
b 2/12,1774
(6th)
d 5,1857

m Jonathan Dean
2/19,1794 (1795)

b 12/12' 1768
d 12/8, 1823

m Sarah Brookhouse
Lafavour 11/3,1835

b 10/22,1813
d 5/27' 1888

George Henry Dean
(4th)
b 11/23, 1836 (1835)
d 9/25,1881

m Elizabeth L. Taylor
6/25,1868

b 1/27,1839
d 1/22,1891

Anna D. Wi 1bur
b 5/23' 1874
(3rd)
d 6/22' 1952

m Bertrand K. Wilbur
6/15,1898

b 8/5,1870
d 1/7,1945

Jonathan Dean
(5th)

b 1 ] /21 '1802
d 8/22,1849

Historical Notes and Sources
Edmund Needham

(7th)

When Edmund Needham married Sarah Desire Needham is not recorded.
last name may have been 11 Archer 11 . ) Edmundhad two daughters:
1.

Al ice Needham

m Silsby

2.

Sarah Desire Needham
b 2/12,1774
d 5/1857

m Jonathan Dean

(Sarah's

b 12/12' 1768
d 12/8,1823

The Needham family in England took active part in the Reformation under Cromwell, and can trace their history to the 12th century. Just when the Needham
family arrive in America is not stated. (Essex Institute Hist. Collection
Vo 1 . 3 pg. 216. )
Edmund was a 11 rich Quaker of Boston. 11 Every year he went to Quaker Yearly
Meeting in Philadelphia, traveling on horseback. The journey took him a
week of hard riding.
Edmund has an unmarried sister, Alice Needham who was Sarah Desire's aunt who
gave money to educate 11 the Quaker girls of Salem 11 at the Providence Friends
Schoo 1.

125

Needham
Sarah Desire Needham I I (6th)
Sarah D. Needham married 26 year old Jonathan Dean in 1794.
Note:

Their children are 1 isted under the Dean Family Record.

Note by E.L. Dean:
The young couple had as a wedding gift a Lowestoft tea service, each piece
marked with the dainty gold monogram S.D.D. All that now remains of the tea
service is a cherished cup and saucer and a small individual relish dish.
This Lowestoft china may have been the gift of the Archer family - an aunt of
Sarah Desire Needham had married a Captain Robert Brookhouse, who sailed the
seas and brought home treasures from England and far away India and China.
LOWESTOFT a porcelain made in England 1780-1802. It is hard-made of
Kaolin and Silicones, glased with similar substance. It is fire resistant,
cups without handles were made until 1800, so this cup and saucer probably
was made in early 1800. Its present value given by a Lowestoft expert is
$35 and the smal 1 saucer is regarded as even more valuable. Of added interest
are the S.D.D. the family name in monogram.
Jonathan Dean Ill (5th)
Jonathan Dean and Sarah Brookhouse Lafavour were married November 3, 1835.
Note:

The children for generation 4-6 are listed in the Dean Family Record,
generation 3 is listed in the Wilbur Family Record

See:

Family record in the Needham Bible in possesion of Mary Dean MacDonald
Bancroft.

126

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Taylor

TAYLOR FAMILY RECORD
Taylor Genealogy
John Taylor
(6th)
b 2/18,1761

m Elizabeth Lippencott

Caleb Wright Taylor
(5th)
b 9/7,1801
d 2/25,1842 (1843)

m Mary Jordan Davis
1/1,1830

(1809)
10/10,1808
b
d 5/25,1875

Elizabeth Taylor
(4th)
b 1/27,1839
d 1/22,1891

m George H. Dean
6/25,1868

b 11/23,1836
d 9/25,1881

Anna D. Wi !bur
(3rd)
b 5/23,1874
d 5/22' ,,52

m Bertrand K. Wilbur
6/15,1898

d

•

b 9/9,1766
d 11/22' 1826

b 8/5,1870
d 1/7,1945

Historical Notes
Caleb Wright Taylor

(5th)

Caleb W. Taylor and Mary Jordan Davis' children were:

Note:

1.
2.

3.

Hannah
Elizabeth L.
\Ji 11 i am

4.

Anna

m Murray Shipley
m George H. Dean
m 1st Charlotte French
2nd Mary Haines
3rd Helen Collard
m Lewis Johnson

For the children of generation 4 and 3, see the Dean and Wilbur Family
Records respectively.

127

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WILBUR GENEALOGY AND HISTORICAL NOTES

Chapman Family Record
Lawrence Family Record
Wilbur Family Record

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Chapman

CHAPMAN FAMILY RECORD
Chapman Genealogy
El i j ah Chapman

Rachel Green Chapman

m Lois Green
1809
m Daniel Eric Lawrence I I
3/14,1833

Harriet Lawrence Chapman
b 10/21,1833 (1835) m Henry Oscar Wilbur
d 1/1907
9/1,1858

b 12/1834 (1832)
d 1924

Bertrand K. Wilbur
b 8/5,1870
d 1/7' 1945

b 5/23,1874
d 5/22,1952

m Anna Dean
6/15,1898

131

132

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Lawrence

LAWRENCE FAMILY RECORD
Lawrence Genealogy
John Lawrence
(9th)

m

Thomas Lawrence I
(8th)

m Sarah Baily

Thomas Lawrence I I
(7th)

m Mehitabel Hall

Daniel Lawrence I
(6th)

m Keziah Shattuck

Daniel Eric Lawrence I I
(5th)

m Rachel Green Chapman

Harriet Lawrence Chapman
(4th)
b 10/21 '1833 (1835)
d 1/1907

m Henry Oscar Wilbur
9/1,1858

b 12/1834 (1832)
d 1925

Bertrand K. Wilbur
(3rd)
b 8/5,1870
d 1/7,1945

m Anna Dean
6! 15' 1898

b 5/23,1874

d 5/22,1952

Historical Notes and Sources
Daniel E. Lawrence II

(5th)

Daniel Lawrence and Rachel Chapman had thirteen children, not all of whom lived
to adulthood. Their children were:
1.

2.

3.
4.

s.

Sarah
Catherine
Aidel ia
Harriet
Will

m
m
m
m
m

Henry Hall
James Pierce
Sumner Carter
Henry 0. Wilbur
Rose

Daniel Lawrence and Rachel Chapman lived near the 11 Common 11 on the road that
leads out of town to Townsend from Pepperill, Mass. Daniel was a tall, gaunt
man with blue eyes and a fringe of white whiskers about his face. While his
appearance was stern, he was said to have a merry twinkle in his eyes when
amused. In contrast, Rachel Chapman was a small woman who 11 was love and sunshine all the time 11 even though she and Daniel had thirteen children with all
the work and responsibility this required.
Their daughter Catherine and her husband lived with Daniel and Rachel. The
son-in-law, James Pierce had fought in the Civil War (the war of the Rebellion
as it was called in the North) and had lost a hand so he farmed with Daniel
using an iron hook.

133

Lawrence

Harriet•s birthplace was visited by Bertrand and Anna on their return from
Alaska in 1901. Bertrand wrote in 11 Just About Me 11 (pg. 47):
It was a humble home with a brook nearby. At that time the old
house was abandoned and going to pieces - - - (there was) the tiny
bedroom, opening off the kitchen, in which mother was born and
the old fireplace, almost at the bedroom door where grandmother
(Rachel Chapman) did her cooking for her large family. On one
side of the fireplace, one can see the iron door to the brick oven
built into the chimney and here the baking was done and the beans
put in every Saturday night and the brown bread later.
On the memorial tablet in the Common at Pepperill there are Lawrence
names going back to the American Revolution. (J.A.M., pg. 48)
Bertrand Wilbur writes nostalgicly of his boyhood visits to Pepperill in
J.A.M., pg. 53:
How I loved it all! The ever kind, dear grandparents and the Uncles
and Aunts; the simmering heat of summer and the snappy cold of
winter creaking snow and the merry bells; the fragrant groves of
pine and birch with their moss and bracken and tea-berries; the
sweet odors of new mown hay and riding the big loads; blue berries
and blue berry pie, the delicious clean odors of every home and
the fascinating habitats of the country store .... 11
Note:

For the children of generations 4 and 3, see the Dean and Wilbur Family
Records respectively.

134

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Wi 1bur

WILBUR FAMILY RECORD
Family Motto:

Animo non Astutio

Wilbur Genealogy
(Wilbar, Wilber, Wilber, Wilbour(e), Wildbore)
Samuel Wilbour (Wildbore)
(11th)
b 1585
d 7/24' 1656

m 1st Ann Bradford
2nd Elizabeth Lechford

Wi 11 i am Wi 1bor (e) I
(lOth)
b 1630
d 1710

m Martha
1653
----

Joseph Wi 1bur I
(9th)
b 1656
d 1729

m Anne Browne 11
1683

Benjamin Wilbur I
(8th)
b 6/20' 1699
d

b 1662
d 1749

m Deborah Gifford
11/9,1724

Joseph Wi 1bur II
(7th)
b 1736

m Sarah ·Hall

Benjamin Wilber I I
(6th)
b 12/14,1773
d 1830

m Susannah Champlin
(Sussaneah Chaplin)

Wi 11 i am Wi 1bur II
(5th)
b 1/18,1809
d 1I 18, 1888

m Arminda Berge
11/26' 1828

b 10/21 '1833
d 6/27' 1895

m Harriet Lawrence Chapman
9/1,1858

b 10/21 '1833
(1835)
d 1/1907

m Anna Dean
6/15,1898

b 5/23,1874
d 5/22,1952

d

Henry Oscar Wi 1bur
(4th)
b 12/1834
(1832)
d 1925
Bertrand Kingsbury Wilbur
(3rd)
b 8/5,1870
d 1/7' 1945

135

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Wilbur

Historical Notes and Sources
Samuel Wilbore (11th)
Samuel married Ann Bradford in England and together they emigrated to America.
Samuel and Ann had three (or four) children:
1.

2.
3.
4.

Samue 1
b 1614
d 1697
Joseph
b
d 8/27' 1691
William (son or nephew)
b 1630
d 1710
Shedrach
b 1632
d 2/1697 (98)

m Hannah Porter

b
d 4/16,1722

m Elizabeth Farwe 11
1653

b
d 11/9,1670

m Martha
Mary Dean

m 1st
2nd

Hanna Paine
9/16' 1692 (widow)

b
d 3/27,1691
b
d 1696

John R. Wilbur in his genealogy, The Wildbores in America, gives the following
information about Samuel Wilbore, the earliest known resident with the Wilbur
name in America:
Samuel's wife, Ann Bradford was the daughter of Thomas Bradford of
Doncaster in Yorkshire, England. (See Bradford's Will, Nov. 1, 1607.)
Samuel and his son, Samuel were made freeman of Boston on March 4,
1634. (See Boston Records.) He was the owner of considerable property
in the town of Taunton, Mass. where he later built the first iron furnace in New England on the road from Titicut to Taunton. Samuel likewise possessed holdings in Boston, evidently dividing his residence
between Taunton and Boston. He lived on Milk Street, Boston.
Samuel joined the First Church of Boston. He followed the "dangerous
doctrines" of John Cotton who was a popular "teacher" at the First
Church. Anne Hutchinson was one of their group. They were known as
antinomians, rebelling against the theocratic rule of the Puritans and
seeking rei igions and political freedom.
In November 1637, Samuel
Wilboreand Anne Hutchinson were members of a party that was banished
from the colony on account of their religion views which they held in
variance with those held by the ruling majority of the Plymouth Colony.
Acting on the advice of Roger Williams, Samuel with the others fled to
Providence, R.I. where they negotiated the purchase of the Island of
Aquidnek (now Rhode Island) from the Narragansett Indians and early in
1638 he moved his family to the new location. The new colony was established by solemn compact by eighteen persons on March 7, 1638.
The center of the new colony was Portsmouth and near here Samuel acquired a large tract of land at what is now called Little Compton, R.I.

137

Wi 1bur

The government was very democratic and enlightened. The compact
of 1640 was signed by men who were exceptional in education, family
position and wealth and far in advance of the times in their stand
on both civil and religious 1 iberties. "Among the best men of
Boston 11 •
In 1645, Samuel returned to Boston where his second wife, Elizabeth
Lechford, a widow, was admitted to the First Church on November 29,
1645. Samuel Wilbore was clerk of the town board (Boston or Taunton?)
in 1638, constable in 1639 and sergeant in 1644. He died July 24,
1656 and his Will was probated November 6, 1656.
John Wilbur states that it is almost certain that nearly all the Wilburs,
whether using the one or the other way of spelling the name, are descendants of one of the two families, although the Wilbors seem to be
confined to the William branch which settled more thickly in Rhode
Island, Little Compton being the birthplace of many of the family.
The Shadrach branch centered in and around Taunton, Mass., and from
that place emigrated to different parts of the country.
Note:

It is believed that an ancestor(s) may have come to England with William
the Conqueror under the name of Welleburro.

(Source: The Wildbores in America, John R. Wilbur, 1907, published by the
author, 3821 Barrington Rd., Baltimore, Md., 11 Partial Wilbur Genealogy," by
Esther (Toni) W. Calvin. Quotations from both documents have been interlaced.)
William Wilbor(e)

(10th)

--- and

William married Martha
1654. Their children were:
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Mary
b 1654
d 4/17,1720
Joseph
b 1656
d 5/4, 1729
John
b 1658
d
Thomas
b 1659
d
Wi 11 iam
b 12/1660
d 1738
Martha
b 1662
d
Samuel
b 1664
d 1740

settled (?) in Little Compton, R.I. about

m Joseph Mowry
1671

d 1716

m Ann Browne 11
1683

b 1662
d 1747

b 1647

m Hannah
1682
m Mary
m 1st
2nd

Ta 11 man
Joan Buggs

m William Sherman
5/12' 1681
m Mary Potter
1689

138

b 10/3,1659

d

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Wi 1bur

8.
9.
10.

Daniel
b 1666
d 1741
Joan
b 1668
d 1759
Benjamin
b 1670
d 1729

m Ann Barney
1692

b

d 1741

m Nathaniel Potter
1688
m 1st Mary Kinnicut
4/22, 1700
2nd Elizabeth Head
11 /2, 1710

b

d 1734

William Wilbor was born in 1630 in Portsmouth, R.I. His relationship to
Samuel Wilbour is not clear since some accounts indicate that Samuel had only
three sons and that his brother, Matthew Wildbore•s son also was a member of
his family. William 1 ived in Portsmouth where he was a weaver and constable
and was appointed a delegate to the general assembly.
Elizabeth vlilbur Borton wrote an account of the ••visit to the Wilbur Ancestral
Home•• at Little Compton, R.I. with her husband, Hugh Borton and daughter, Ancy,
on March 28, 1979. This visit follows the linkage with William Wilbur referred
to by John R. Wilbur in The Wildbores in America.
This part of R.I. is a fascinating spread of penninsulas stretching
into Naragansett Bay which runs 28 miles. Little Compton is situated
on one of these penninsulas. It is a village with a general store
run by a Charles Wilbur, a public school named for Josephine Wilbur
and there were other Wilbur names in the town. There is an old Congregational church with many Wilbers, Wilbours, and Wilburs buried
there.
11

Hugh obtained instructions from the postmistress for finding the
Little Compton Historical Society House which is the original Wilbur
homestead. ---We eventually located a house built in 1756 by a
Dr. William Wilbur. Ancy and I got out and looked at the outside of
a white clapboard building while High spoke to a young man at the
barn. He found that this was not the Wilbur homestead but a riverside farm which belonged to the young man, also a Wilbur, who had
inherited it.
11

••so we started back up the road, located our house and right there
was Mr. Brownell, the president of the Historical Society. He wasn•t
surprised to see us. He said Wilburs were always turning up and the
village was full of them. The house was a weathered clapboard (built 1756)
straight post and beam (I suppose) structure. The original building is
a small part of the present house, one room over the other with small
casement windows with diamond panes. Mr. Brownell was making repairs
so the house was not opened---. So we still have to tread the hallowed
boards of our anctstors but the ground we walked on and the road we drove
over were once part of the \Jilbur holdings. - - - 11

139

Wi I bur

Joseph Wi I bur

(9th)

Joseph Wi I bur and Ann Brownell's children were:
1.

Martha Wi I bor
b 8/20' 1684
d

2.

Anna

3.
4.
5.
6.

7.
8.
9.
10.

b
d
Wi 1 I iam
b
d
Joseph
b
d
John
b
d
Thomas
b
d

m 1st Timothy Clossen
6/16,1702
2nd Timothy Burgess
10/24,1707

5/8,1686

m George Wood
12/4' 1717

3/25,1688
4/7' 1775

m Jane Crandell

12/30' 1689
5/1754

m Em I in Champ I in

12/15,1691
1783

unmarried

1/14,1693
1783

m 1st Susanna C. Irish

Mary

b 1/4,1695
d
Benjamin
b 6/20,1699
d
Stephen
b 3/22' 1700
d
Abi ga i 1
b 8/27,1703
d

2nd Susannah Carr
12/15,1737

b
d 4/18,1729
b 9/20' 1702
d 1790

m Wi I 1 iam Eldrige
9/19,1716 (?)
m Deborah Gifford
11/9,1724
m Priscilla Irish
1/2,1724
m Joseph Roathboard
9/4,1734

Joseph and Ann 1 ived in Little Compton.
Mrs. Isaac Howl and.

He is buried at a place owned by

Benjamin Wi 1bur I (8th)
Benjamin's and DeborahGifford's
1.
2.
3.

children were:

Christopher (Wilbor)
b 12/23' 1726
d 1821
Lydia b 5/3,1729
Judith b 11/23,1730

b 9/2,1726

140

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Wi I bur

4.
5.
6.

John b 1/31,1733
Joseph b 9/23' 1736
David

Benjamin and Deborah lived in Little Compton, moved to Westerly, R.I.
~oseph

Wi I bur I I

(7th)

Joseph married Sarah Hall and lived in Little Compton, easterly, Hopkinton.
Benjamin Wi I bur II

(6th)

Benjamin married Susannah Champlin (Sussaneah Chaplin) and lived in Stonington
and Griswold, Conn., Hopkinton, R.I.
Note:

The number of generations and the ancestral identification between
Benjamin Wilbur (6th) and Samuel Wilbur (11th) has not been clearly
established and may be incorrect. Bertrand K. Wilbur had identified
with reservation, the eight generations shown in the genealogical
chart in 1937. Generations 9, 10, and 11 are given in The Wildbores
in America, John R. Wilbur, by counting back from Samuel the first
Wilbur immigrant to America.

Wi I I i am Wi I bur II (5th)
William Wilbur married Arminda Berge.
1.

2.

3.

Amanda
Henry Oscar
Gertrude

m

m
m

Their children were:

George Rogers
Harriet Lawrence
Slocum

William Wilbur I I was born in 1809 in or near the village of Little Compton,
R.I. He was a carriage builder and wheelwright, and Jived in Hebron. In
1835, William and Arminda drove in a one-horse chaise from New England to
Dundaff, Pa. although the reason for this has not been discovered, if in
fact it was ever recorded.
William was blue-eyed, short and had a small frame. His manner was gentle and
he had a kindly face whereas Arminda, his wife was a large woman with brown
eyes and a decidedly Irish appearance. She had a long upper lip and a snub
nose which has been a physical characteristic of Wilbur faces. Her grandson,
B.K. Wilbur described Arminda as being harsh, hard and severe in her judgments and unrelenting in her punishment.
Dundaff was a pleasant country village with about a dozen homes in the 1880 1 s.
There was a methodist church.
(Source:

11

J.A.M. 11 , B.K. Wilbur, 1936, pgs. 10 and 104)

Bertrand H. Wilbur reported to Toni Calvin that he and Anna and Bertrand K. Wilbur went to Dundaff in 1931 to see if they could find traces of B.K. 1 s family,
that is William and Arminda Wilbur. No one was found who had ever heard of a
Wi 1bur.

141

Wi 1bur

Henry Oscar Wilbur (4th)
Henry 0. Wilbur and Harriet Lawrence were married in Pepperill, Mass. on
September 1, 1858. Their children were:
1.

\Vi 1 l i am N.

2.

Harry L.

3.
4.

Helena
Bertrand K.

b.
d. about 1918
b.
d.
1900
b. 8/5, 1870
d. 1/7' 1945

m. Elizabeth Fitch
m. Clara
m. Roy Elliott
m. Anna Dean

b. 5/23, 1874
d. 5/22, 1952

Henry 0. Wilbur was born in Dundaff, Pa. in 1832 (1834). He may have learned
his father•s trade of carriage maker and wheelright but in addition he went
to an academy for further education which gave him a broader experience and
outlook than that offered by the town of Dundaff. Henry did not follow the
wagon business but took employment in Elmira, N.Y. where he met Harriet who
was attending college there. After their marriage in the home of Harriet•s
parents in Pepperill, the young couple went to Corning, N.Y. where Henry worked
as Assistant Post Master and Post Master. Later they went to Pittston,
Pa. and on to Scranton, Pa. where Henry clerked for the D.L. & W. railroad (?).
The family moved to Vineland, N.J. where Henry 0. established a stove business
and there met Samuel Croft, a practical candy maker. Henry and Harriet then
moved, prior to 1870, to 201 State Street, Camden, N.J. and H.O. went into business with Croft in Philadelphia.
In 1879, the H.O. Wilburs moved to Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania where they lived until
after Harriet•s death in 1907.
(See Appendix C H.O. Wilbur & Sons, the Chocolate Factory.)
Bertrand K. Wilbur (3rd)
Bertrand K. Wilbur and Anna Dean were married in Cincinnati, Ohio of June 15,
1898. Their children were:
1.

2.
3.
4.

5.
6.

Bertrand Henry
b 4/10' 1899
d
Harry Lawrence
b 1I 11 , 1901
d
Donald Elliott
b 11/2' 1902
d 7/2, 1975
Elizabeth Dean
b 10/5' 1904
d
Nelson Carter
b 7/22' 1906
d 8/23, 1950
Esther Anthony
b 5/13, 1908
d 2/5, 1980

m Virginia Wyatt

b 11/6' 1912
d

m Rose ~1arymont
11/12, 1932

b 4/20, 1905
d

m Elizabeth Tutt 1e
9/8, 1925

b 10/9, 1903
d

m Hugh Borton
9/1' 1925

b 4/14, 1903
d

m Theodora Lynn

b 11/13, 1908
d

m Robert Calvin

b 10/17, 1905
d

142

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Wi I bur
7.

8.
9.
10.

Ross Taylor
b 5/31, 1910
d ·!~-JI',...-r ~
Anna Dean
b 1/26, 1912
d
Ruth Helena
b 5/9, 1913
1973
d4\
'
Virginia Chapman
b 8/14, 1916
d 9/27, 1977

m 1st Elizabeth Reynolds
2nd Helen Farly

b 9/13, 1906
d 1/28, 1958
b 3/2, 1913
d

m Edward Ness

b
d

m Norton Maxfield

b

m Jon Dimitrijevich

d "' '
b 7I 1,
d 9/27, 1977

1\10~

(div.)

""t\1\ \5k>B

1970

(d i v.)

Bertrand and Anna Wilbur went to Sitka, Alaska immediately following their
marriage in Cincinnati. Bertrand had been commissioned by the Board of Foreign
Missions, the Presbyterian Church in January 1894 and was sent as a medical
missionary to Sitka to care for the Indian children of the mission there and
provide medical services for the native Alaskan Indians who lived at the "ranch",
a section of the town. (Bertrand Wi I bur graduated from the Hahnemann Medica I
College, Philadelphia, Pa. 1891.) Bertrand served the Board as doctor for
seven years until he resigned in 1901 and moved back to the "States" to join
his father and oldest brother, Will, in the chocolate business in Philadelphia.
Bert and Harry were born in Alaska, Don was born at Ardmore and the remaining
seven children were all born at Rosemont, Pa.
Bertrand K. Wilbur has written an extensive journal about his youth and then his
life with Anna Dean and their growing family in Alaska and in the Main Line
(Philadelphia area). The account is in two volumes (835 pages) J.A.M. and J.A.U.
in typed manuscript!
(Additional Sources: Wilbur Family, 1971, Asa Wilbur and A Beginning of a
Genealogy of the Wilbur Family, Josiah H. Drummond, Neither of these have been
examined by R.T. Wilbur.)

143

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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOURCES
BOOKS
(Alphabetical by Author)
The Holy Bible, Needham Family,
possession of Mary Dean MacDonald
Bancroft

-Needham Family

Census 1623, Colonial Virginia.
Daughters of the
American Revolution
Durmmond, Josiah N.

Lineage Book, V. 90, 89671

-Anthony Family

A Beginning of a Genealogy of the
Wilbur Family.
Essex Institute of Hist. Collection,
Vol. 3, pg. 216

-Needham Farni ly

Henig

House of Burgesses Assembled 21st,
Feb. 16 in Vol. 1; 4th Sept., Vol.

Henry County, Va.

Recorded Will Book # 1, pg. 120, be-Joseph Anthony•s
lieved filed at Martinsburg, Va.
Will

Hill, C.J.

The

Hot ten

Valentine Papers, Recorded Society
of Friends, pgs. 722,735,759,2270

-Jordan Family

Hudson, H.W.

The Works of Shakespear, Vol. 1, 1881

-Jordan Family

Standard, William

Colonial Virginia Register.

Hills of Wilkes County, Va.

-Anthony Family
Taylor Family

Virginia Baptist Ministers, edition of
1835
Wi 1bur, Asa

Wilbur Family, 1871

-Wilbur Family

Wilbur, John R.

The Wildbores in America, published
by the author, 3821 Barrington Road
Baltimore, Md. 1907

-Wilbur Family

145

LETTERS, MANUSCRIPTS & DOCUMENTS cont.
· Taylor Dr. Wm.

"A History of Cincinnati Monthly
Meeting of Friends". Reprint from
the American Friend, Tenth Month
20th, 1899.
"Relie of Tempest" & "A Secret Fathomed
Five
Down", Life Magazine, March
23,1959

Wilbur, Bertrand K.

"J.A.M." ("Just About Me") and "J.A.U." -Lawrence Family
("Just About Us"), manuscript, 1936
-Wilbur Family

146

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