Granddaughter
Karen’s comments:
Your great grandfather Donald was a
fun-loving, sociable man—tall, slender, and handsome. I’m tempted to include a
lot of photos from his youth to his old age because he was so pleasing to the
eye.
He grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. There
are many professional portraits of Donald as a child and a young man. The
informal photos are taken at summer camps or in impressive gardens surrounded
by his beautiful, well-dressed sisters.
Donald was the youngest child, born
when his father was 58. He was only 17 when his father died.
Donald’s older sister,
Helen, recollected sometime in the early 1980s:
As for the
traits that the children inherited from their father, Edith and Donald were the
luckiest as they were endowed with graciousness, loyalty, and equanimity, no
criticalness or unkindness that my Grandmother Bellows passed on. I fell heir
to some of the bad James traits—conservatism and fears. Like my father, I hate
to travel and I don't like change.
When the
family moved to Montclair, they joined the Congregational Church, where father
never missed a Sunday until very old. I remember his speaking to Donald about
his 'backsliding' in attending the Episcopal Church, but Donald never gave in
as he loved to sing. In other ways Donald was exceptionally kind to his father.
He did many little things to cheer him and especially to keep him company as
there was no one else to do these little kindnesses for him.
Granddaughter Karen's recollections: Donald graduated with the Class of 1915 from Rutgers University—at that time a private school—and was employed through his working years as some sort of agricultural agent.
One census
reports him working for both the USDA and the State of Pennsylvania; family
notes indicate he was research director for American Veneer Package Association.
There’s a photo of him demonstrating some new packaging technology to Vice
President Nixon at some conference.
He
was an avid, accomplished gardener. Even as an adult, sometimes when I want to
relax, I imagine myself in his gardens—yes, plural. I loved visiting. A wooded yard on the side of
the house, an upper garden around the back porch of the house; stone steps down
to the middle yard-and-garden with a goldfish pond and picnic table under a
grape arbor; past a hedge into a farthest-back yard-and-garden for croquet, and
off to one side at the back, a vegetable and cutting-flower garden (my
life-long love of gladiolas originated here), and off to the other side, the
garden shed. Along the walk to the garden shed, which ran from the house in
back of the grape arbor, he grew ‘sensitive plants,’ which I loved to play
with.
He did all the gardening himself. My
mom believed that his carelessness with weedkillers and pest control chemicals
is what caused the leukemia that killed him at the age of 73.
Donald was very active in his church and community. Many were present at his funeral; I remember people from some sort of tree group (the Arbor Society?), garden clubs, and so forth. The entire church choir sang. I remember the pastor saying he didn't mind setting precedent in calling out the church choir for a funeral--he would do it any time a 30-year veteran of the choir passed away.
His and Esta’s marriage was not made
in heaven. When their eldest son, my Uncle Dick, obtained his birth certificate
to enlist at the beginning of World War II, he was shocked to see that his
recorded birth date was in April, when he had been told all his life that his
birthday was in October. I guess his
parents came clean then. That means Donald did not marry my grandmother until
she was well along in her pregnancy—probably entering the third trimester. That’s
not the behavior of an eager groom.
But the story’s ending is not all bad.
After his death, my grandmother told me that Donald had, only a few months
before being diagnosed with leukemia, told her he had finally realized what a
gem she was, and how much he owed to her for their wonderful life together, and
that he was going to try his best to make her happy for whatever time they had
left. She felt cheated by fate that he
was taken from her only shortly after their affectionate marriage finally
began.
Phyllis
wrote, of her father’s siblings:
I believe the
daughters of W.H.H. and Julia James all went to Smith College. Edith married
the famous sculptor Eli Harvey and lived most of her life in Alhambra, Calif.
They are probably both buried in Springfield Church Cemetery (Quaker) five
miles from Wilmington, Ohio. Clinton County has an historical marker for his
birthplace and some of his works are on display at the Clinton County
Historical Society. Eli Harvey knew Norman Rockwell in the art world, and they
became friends. Edith and Eli each appear in several of Rockwell’s paintings.
Isabel married Harvey Henderson and
lived, I believe, in Indianapolis where he was a Greek history professor. He
was sent by a post-war president on a type of fact-finding trip to Greece (They
had years of guerrilla and/or Communist trouble after World War II).
Helen married
Henry Ward, who died when their children were very young. Later she married
John Van Deusen. She died last summer (1986).
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