In the late 1980s, Phyllis (William and Julia’s
granddaughter) asked her cousin J’ann and Aunt Helen (William and Julia’s third
daughter, b.1894) for their recollections. Most of the following information
comes from them, through Phyllis.
William had severe astigmatism from childhood, which at the time could not be
corrected, so he did poorly in school and was not able to complete his
education. Helen’s information that he
did poorly in school is backed up by the 1860 census, which indicates that
William, at the age of 14, was working for his father as a clerk rather than
attending school. When he was 30, his sight was easily corrected with glasses,
but that was too late for his education.
He was a quiet,
good-natured man who did not smoke or drink. At the time of the 1870 Census, at the age of 30, he was
still living at home and his occupation was listed as “salesman for drug
store,” but it was probably a drug manufacturer, since Helen said that he
traveled for this job as far as Chicago, and met with Department store magnate
Marshall Field, who seems to have been a family friend from the families’ days
in Massachusetts.
William’s older brothers John and James owned a successful
spice import business, and they employed him as the bookkeeper, later making him a
partner. The business was located at 123 Maiden Lane in downtown New York City.
Helen remembered it as a large barnlike structure, full of
large bins. The spices had a pungent odor, almost overpowering. His clothes smelled of spice when he came
home, and he carried peppermint candies and cinnamon sticks in his pockets.
She was a teacher in the public schools of Montclair, New Jersey. He was attracted by her intelligence, health, and outgoing manner and possibly also by an independent nature which became more bossy and stubborn as she grew older.
Four of their children (Edith, Ludlow, Isabel and Helen) were born in the next 10 years, while William and Julia lived in East Orange, New Jersey. In 1896 they moved to Montclair, where Donald was born in 1899.
William was almost a generation removed from his young wife
and two generations from his children. When Helen was 10, he was 64 and seemed
like a grandfather to her. He was old fashioned, religious, and principled, believing
in keeping the Sabbath holy. The children were told not to go sleigh-riding on
Sunday. If they played the piano it could only be religious hymns. But the
children actually had little supervision from their father, who would defer to
their younger and more liberal mother.
He was a loyal Presbyterian when living in East Orange (they
lived here when middle three children were born) and so liked the minister, a Dr. Ludlow, that
he named one of his sons William Ludlow James.
When the family moved to Montclair, Julia didn’t like the
Presbyterian Church, so they joined the Congregational Church, where William
never missed a Sunday until very old. He had a pew near the back of the church
for which he paid rent. He needn't have bothered changing churches as Julia
rarely attended and when she did she preferred the Episcopal or Unitarian.
For a long while, the family lived well with a servant and a
governess. In 1900, they moved into a grand new house, for which Julia had
directed the construction, on Plymouth Street. But they were able to enjoy this
house for only 2 years.
By the turn of the century, William’s older brothers were
ready for retirement, so the firm was dissolved. William, then 62 years old,
received a share of the distribution which amounted to $100,000. (In 2024
dollars, that’s around $3.7 million.) William's brothers invested their money
wisely and continued to be wealthy men.
But William invested badly.
Julia hadn't realized, busy as she was with her children and the
management of the large house, that William had poor business sense.
In her early 40s, she had to take full management and
financial maintenance of the family. She sold the lovely big house on Plymouth
Street and bought a big old house at 51 Park Street, Montclair. This she
converted into a boarding house as well as home for her husband and 5 children.
In addition to running a boarding house, Julia became involved
in building houses, buying and selling real estate, and providing direction for
5 children to win scholarships to college. The 1910 census shows 21 people
living in the house: William, Julia, and their 5 kids; 1 niece; 9 lodgers; 2
cooks; and 2 servants.
Helen remembered her father as being a good-looking man of
medium build. In old age, his hair was white and he became fairly bald. She
wrote that her father “worked so hard to keep the finances solvent and that was
not easy with Mother's rather extravagant ways. One day my father was walking
down the street and saw a man carrying a table on his head. He thought, "I
bet he'll turn into my house," and the man did.”
He died at the age of 74 of stomach and heart trouble, at
home. Julia was then 53 and Donald was 17.
Here's more about Julia:
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