Friday, February 14, 2025

Florida’s Featured Artist ~ Mary Ann Carroll


 


The Florida Highwaymen, mostly self-taught artists who sold their landscapes from the trunks of their cars in the 1950s and 60s, included one amazing and talented woman.

 

Mary Ann Carroll, the only woman of the twenty-six Original Highwaymen, once said: “'From my youth, I could draw anything I could see'” (History). 

 

That talent eventually led to her recognition as “an icon on the Highwaymen Heritage Trail” (Carroll). 


Since this group of Black artists were excluded from showing their work at art galleries, they traveled throughout southeast Florida and went door-to-door to sell their colorful impressionistic paintings—unique artwork unlike any others of the era.



A reporter for the 
New York Times wrote: “More than anything, what distinguished the Highwaymen artists were their colorful landscapes…Organic colors were not their main focus; they wanted to wow buyers with burnt-orange Florida skies or unnaturally florescent clouds” [Hurd].


Ms. Carroll, like the other twenty-five Highwaymen, “travelled across the state, selling her art at hotels, offices, and restaurants where she was not allowed to drink, eat, or even sit. If the Highwaymen faced discrimination at every door they knocked on, then the challenges--and dangers--were magnified for Carroll. She took pride in always having her pristine Buick gassed and ready to go and her small handgun cleaned and ready to use” (Florida).

 

As difficult as finding buyers must have been for a mother of seven children, Ms. Carroll’s artistic career provided a better income than working as a maid, nurse’s aide, or housepainter. Plus, when she wasn’t traveling, she could work from home.

 

When she was on the road, however, she managed to stay in touch with her children despite the lack of cell phones. She holds the distinction of being the first woman in the Fort Pierce CB (citizens band radio) Chapter. Her handle was Lady Heartbreaker #101, and she affectionately referred to her children as Baby Heartbreakers (Memorial).


 

The Highwaymen faded into obscurity during the 70s and 80s but enjoyed a resurgence in the mid-1990s when “Jim Fitch, a Florida art historian, and Jeff Klinkenberg, of the St. Petersburg Times, wrote several newspaper articles about the group whom Fitch dubbed ‘The Florida Highwaymen’ for their business of selling art door-to-door along US Highway 1” (Wikipedia). 

 

The publicity renewed interest in the Highwaymen and increased the value of their paintings. Attics were searched and yard sales were scoured for forgotten Highwaymen artwork!

 

We learn this from the Florida Department of State (FDOS) website:

 

“Since the revival of interest in the Highwaymen, [Mary Ann Carroll’s] paintings are now in great demand. Her work is noted for her use of vivid colors. Besides being an accomplished painter, Carroll was a musician and gospel singer and could be found on Sundays preaching and singing at her own ministry in Fort Pierce.”

 

Quick Bio

 

Born ~ November 30, 1940 in Sandersville, Georgia

Parents ~ Lenora "Coot" Jones Pullen and B.W. Snead

Married ~ James Brady Carroll

Died ~ December 4, 2019

Buried ~ Pine Grove Cemetery, Fort Pierce, Florida

 

Important Dates

 

2004 ~ All 26 Florida Highwaymen were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

 

May 2009 ~ Ms. Carroll was elected the first president of the Florida Highwaymen Artists and History Center.


Untitled Poinciana Tree

May 2011 ~ As guest of honor at a prestigious First Lady’s Luncheon, Ms. Carroll presented an original poinciana tree painting to Michelle Obama.


February 2019 ~ Ms. Carroll was named as Florida's Featured Artist in Celebration of Black History Month by Casey DeSantis, Florida's First Lady. 

 

March 2020 ~ The Florida Legislature honored the Florida Highwaymen by creating a specialty license plate.


 

Legacy


Ms. Carroll often referred to herself as "Queen of the Road." An annual exhibition of the Florida Highwaymen’s artwork is held at the A. E. Backus Gallery and Museum, Fort Pierce, Florida.

 

Tallahassee’s Museum of Florida has paintings by twenty-three of the original twenty-six artists in their collection.


Your Turn


Did you know about Mary Ann Carroll or the Florida Highwaymen before reading this post? Does their colorful style appeal to you? Which of these paintings would you want in your home?


Johnnie Alexander is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of more than thirty works of fiction in multiple genres. She is both traditionally and indie-published, serves as board secretary for the Mosaic Collection, LLC (an indie-author group) and faculty chair for the Mid-South Christian Writers Conference; co-hosts Writers Chat, a weekly online show; and contributes to the HHHistory.com blog. With a heart for making memories, Johnnie is a fan of classic movies, stacks of books, and road trips. Connect with her at JohnnieAlexander.com


Photo

 

Untitled Poinciana Tree; Oil on canvas, 2004; H: 29” W: 35”; Acquired from the artist in 2004Collection of the Museum of Florida History. https://dos.fl.gov/historical/museums/historical-museums/united-connections/women-in-history/mary-ann-carroll/

Sources

Carroll ~ https://highwaymenajbrown.com/mary-ann-carroll/

FDOS (Florida Department of State) ~ https://dos.fl.gov/historical/museums/historical-museums/united-connections/women-in-history/mary-ann-carroll

Florida ~ https://www.floridahighwaymenpaintings.com/highwaymen/mary-ann-carroll/

History (Orlando County Regional History Center) ~ https://www.thehistorycenter.org/mary-ann-carroll/

Hurd, Gordon K. (2019). “Alfred Hair: A charismatic businessman who created a movement for Florida’s black artists.” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/obituaries/alfred-hair-overlooked.html

Memorial ~ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/205398989/mary-ann-carroll

Wikipedia ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Highwaymen_(landscape_artists)

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Origins of the Great White Way


An aerial photograph of New York City at night shows a glowing strip between dark outlines of light-speckled skyscrapers. Even from outer space, the lights of Broadway are identifiable among the brilliance of the metropolitan area.

Yet the area became known as the “Great White Way” the year before the Wright Brothers’ first succeeded at flight.
Today, to be considered part of “Broadway,” a theater must contain 500 or more seats. There are currently 41 such houses in the Theater District, all clustered around Times Square on or near Broadway between 41st and 53rd Streets.

The origins of New York City’s reputation for theater stem to the mid-18th century with the opening of the city’s first known drama venue. Located in lower Manhattan and given the unimaginative name of “The Theatre,” it seated only 280.

Other theaters followed, such as the Park Theatre in 1798, the Bowery Theatre in 1826, and the Astor Place Theatre in 1847.

The only known photo of Niblo's Garden
(Photo: New York Public Library Digital Collections) 
During the 1820s, entertainment centers known as “pleasure gardens” developed. One of the most popular among all social classes was Niblo’s Garden. Beginning as a fenced, open-air beer garden, the venue expanded until it contained a hotel, a saloon, gaslit gravel paths through lush foliage, and an elaborate 3,000-seat theater. “The Black Crook,” considered by many to be the first true Broadway musical, opened there in 1866. The nightly production lasted five and a half hours, and the show became a runaway hit.

The interiors of these early theaters were lit with candles, and later with smelly, smoky, and dangerous gas lamps, resulting in some theaters burning and being rebuilt more than once.

The Olympia Theatre, owned by the grandfather
of famed lyricist Oscar Hammerstein, was the first
Broadway theater to use electric lighting inside and out.
The theater was part of the Olympia entertainment
complex that occupied a full city block.
(Photo: Museum of the City of New York)

In 1895, Oscar Hammerstein (grandfather of the well-known lyricist) opened the Olympia Theatre on Times Square, which was then called Longacre Square. It was part of a large complex that also included a roof garden, billiard room, concert hall, and music hall.

Although initial streetlights on Broadway, installed between Union Square and Madison Square by 1880, produced light via an electric arc, Hammerstein made history by using electric lighting both inside and outside the Olympia.

Electric lights along Broadway earned the Theater District
the nickname, the "Great White Way" in 1902
(Photo: Keystone View Company/Library of Congress)

As technology advanced, modern street lamps lit the area. Following the lead of the Olympia, other theaters installed brilliant electrical signs to promote their shows. “Spectaculars”—large, complex light displays with flashing or even animated designs—proliferated.

In 1902, the New York Morning Telegraph published an article about the theater district by columnist Shep Friedman with the headline, “Found on the Great White Way.” Two theories exist on where Friedman came up with the term: perhaps he borrowed from a London theater district, called the “White Way” for its well-lit streets, while another theory suggests that it was a biblical reference to the “way of the righteous,” symbolizing the virtuous path of entertainment and culture that Broadway represented at the time.

Regardless, the nickname stuck. Since then, the strip of light known as Broadway has been dark only during the two World Wars, when all the signs were blacked out.

Sources:

Why Broadway is Called the Great White Way | Backstage

History of New York Streets: Untapped New York

Broadway: A history of the Great White Way - Dance Informa Magazine

Why Is Broadway Called the Great White Way – Repeat Replay

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

See also: “Miss Minnette Goes to Broadway and Back” (Heroes, Heroines, and History, January 13, 2025)
 Multi-award-winning author Marie Wells Coutu finds beauty in surprising places, like undiscovered treasures, old houses, and gnarly trees. All three books in her Mended Vessels series, contemporary stories based on the lives of biblical women, have won awards in multiple contests. She is currently working on historical romances set in her native western Kentucky in the 1930s and ‘40s. An unpublished novel, Shifting Currents, placed second in the inspirational category of the nationally recognized Maggie Awards. Learn more at www.MarieWellsCoutu.com.


Her historical short story, “All That Glitters,” is loosely based on a woman from Star Lime Works, Kentucky, who went to Broadway. It was included in the 2023 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction collection and is now available free when you sign up for Marie's newsletter here. In her newsletter, she shares about her writing life, historical tidbits, recommended books, and sometimes recipes.

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

For the Love of Hollywood

By Kathy Kovach

Think of your favorite classic movie stars. Mine are Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Gene Kelly, Fred Astair, and Ginger Rogers, among many others. They have all drawn us in, stroked our cheeks, gazed into our eyes from the cinematic screen. Wooed us, if you will.

But how were they wooed? How were they convinced that Hollywood would be much better off if only they said yes? If only they linked arms and marched down the proverbial aisle?

One such “paramour” was William Meiklejohn, a talent scout who got his start in 1921 as a booking agent in Los Angeles for 80 vaudeville theaters. While there, he helped such stars as Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, and Betty Grable rise from the dying vaudeville ashes. Once film entered the picture in the late 1920s, he began working exclusively with motion-picture actors.

Robert Taylor

In the 1930s, while working for Paramount, he discovered several stars. Ray Milland, who went on to become that studio’s most bankable star, was set to begin a new job as a gasoline station attendant when Meiklejohn snatched him up. Other prominent stars under the agent’s care were Lucille Ball and Alan Ladd. Robert Taylor—my mother’s heartthrob—was making only $35 a week when Meiklejohn helped him become an MGM staple. Incidentally, Taylor’s real name was Spangler Arlington Brugh. The Hollywood Star System obviously felt the need to give their new leading man a strong masculine name. More on the Star System in a later article.

Ronald Reagan

William Meiklejohn’s most accomplished discovery not only became a prolific actor, making over eighty films and television shows in 28 years, but also went on to become the 40th President of the United States. Ronald Reagan had approached Meiklejohn to help jumpstart his acting career. He was working as a sportscaster at a radio station in Des Moines, Iowa at the time. Meiklejohn’s daughter, actress Linda Meiklejohn, relates this story: “My dad looked at him (Reagan) and called Max Arnold at Warner Brothers and said ‘Max, I've got a new Robert Taylor sitting right in my office.’ Max said, ‘God made only one’ and my father said, ‘That's not true because the other one’s sitting right here.’” I find this ironic since Taylor was MGM’s answer to Tyrone Power who was working at a different studio. Reagan and Taylor went on to become close friends.

William Meiklejohn became known as “The Star Maker” during his twenty-year stint at Paramount. When asked how he judged talent, he replied: “It’s a seventh sense, I suppose. You acquire the knack over a period of years. Star potential consists of a combination of personality, type, appearance, voice, and manners. If they gel, you may have something.”

Lana Turner

Other stories about star discovery include the infamous one about Lana Turner, who was noticed by a publisher at the Hollywood Reporter when she was sipping soda at a local café. He then introduced her to Zeppo Marx who took her to see Max Arnold at MGM where she acquired a permanent contract.

Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth was a professional dancer from the age of 12. At age 16, she was performing in a club with her father when a Fox executive spotted her. She must have impressed him because she received a contract instantly.

Bette Davis

Bette Davis’ story is more tragic. Her unconventional looks were a detriment, but she desperately wanted to become an actress. After finding some work on Broadway in a stock company, she was offered a screen test from Universal Studios. She and her mother traveled by train across country to California. When they debarked, she was left on the platform because the studio executives who went there to pick her up “didn’t see anyone get off the train who looked like an actress.” Eventually, they reluctantly signed her on, but she refused to change her appearance or name. After producing several flops for the studio, she was let go. Nearly returning to New York, she found herself cast with George Arliss in 1932’s The Man Who Played God, a Warner Bros. Production. The rest of her career speaks for itself.

Many a Hollywood star has courted us from the silver screen. For me, it’s why I’m drawn to the movies. For two hours, I can leave my obligations behind, take their hand, and step into their world—and I’m grateful that they answered their call and stepped into mine.

Who are your favorites from the Golden Age of Hollywood?




A TIME-SLIP NOVEL

A secret. A key. Much was buried on the Titanic, but now it's time for resurrection.


Follow two intertwining stories a century apart. 1912 - Matriarch Olive Stanford protects a secret after boarding the Titanic that must go to her grave. 2012 - Portland real estate agent Ember Keaton-Jones receives the key that will unlock the mystery of her past... and her distrusting heart.
To buy: Amazon


Kathleen E. Kovach is a Christian romance author published traditionally through Barbour Publishing, Inc. as well as indie. Kathleen and her husband, Jim, raised two sons while living the nomadic lifestyle for over twenty years in the Air Force. Now planted in northeast Colorado, she's a grandmother and a great-grandmother—though much too young for either. Kathleen has been a longstanding member of American Christian Fiction Writers. An award-winning author, she presents spiritual truths with a giggle, proving herself as one of God's peculiar people.




Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Andersonville's Hospital

by Denise Weimer


Most readers of this blog will likely have heard of Georgia’s notorious Civil War prisoner of war camp, Andersonville, built in early 1864 to relieve the prisons around Richmond. The hewn-log stockade was expanded to enclose 261.5 acres. By June, around 26,000 men were encamped in tents and shanties in a space meant to house ten thousand. Conditions were so bad that one prisoner from Connecticut wrote: “Many of our men, in the heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness, ‘Can this be hell? God protect us!’”


For today’s post, I’d like to focus on a lesser-known aspect of Andersonville which research for the hero’s backstory of my May 2024 novel, When Hope Sank, brought to light—the hospital. John Ransom of the 9th Michigan Cavalry wrote of the Andersonville medical facilities, “The hospital is a tough place to be in… In some cases before a man is fairly dead, he is stripped of everything, coat, pants, shirt, finger rings (if he has any). The nurses trade to the guards.”

The hospital as it functioned that summer of the worst overcrowding was the third medical facility at the prison camp and was described as a cluster of open, barrack-like sheds and tents surrounded by a stockade uphill and east from the main fort. Select trees had been left over the five acres, and it had tents for 800, though these were overflowing.

Confederate surgeon Dr. John M. Howell arrived in July 1864 to serve as acting assistant surgeon. Dr. Isiah White then headed a fifteen-person staff. Each surgeon was paired with an assistant, usually a paroled Union prisoner, and they examined roughly two hundred prisoners a day. Some physicians accused Dr. White of withholding medical supplies, and others could not tell who was really in charge of the hospital, Dr. White or Andersonville’s infamous commandant, Captain Henry Wirz, who was later tried for war crimes.


Dr. Howell’s letter to his wife upon his arrival read, “Sick and emaciated, naked, ragged and dirty – some on straw with a blanket under them – some without either – some that will die tomorrow, some today – some dying with another whose face is turned toward him breathing his last.” At that time, prisoners were dying at a rate of a hundred per day. During the month of August, nearly 3,000 men died in Andersonville at the same time the medical team decreased by three, leaving twelve physicians.

The most common ailments included diarrhea (deaths, 5,492) and scurvy (deaths, 3,661). The filth in the prison was so bad that any scratch or insect bite could be followed by rapid gangrene, leading to many amputations.

The evacuation orders that came September 7 relieved the prison at last of three-fourths of its population, and thereby minimized the number of patients as well. In October, there were still 1,280 sick reported out of 2,500 relatively healthy (though still starving) men. In December, during the coldest winter in 25 years in South Georgia, prisoners again arrived daily from other locations. But in late February, 1865, an agreement was reached that the prisoners at Andersonville would be shipped to Vicksburg for exchange.

Tragically, a number of these POWs ended up on the Sultana, the steamboat fated to explode and become our nation’s largest maritime disaster.

When Hope Sank: The Civil War took Lily Livingston’s parents, twin brother, and home. She hides her Union loyalties to protect her younger brother while working in her uncle’s riverside inn—and dismisses the threats of a saboteur as bragging. Until the Sultana steamboat explodes in the Mississippi. The fiery explosion threatens to render Andersonville Prison survivor Cade Palmer unable to practice medicine again. But the tender care of the girl who rescues him sparks both faith and romance. When coded messages pass through the inn, Cade and Lily must work together to prevent another tragedy.

https://www.amazon.com/When-Hope-Sank-April-Remember/dp/1636098290/

Denise Weimer writes historical and contemporary romance from her home in North Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A mother of two wonderful young adult daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.

Connect with Denise here:

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Monday, February 10, 2025

Fly Me A Doctor

 By Suzanne Norquist

What do you get when you combine a pastor, an airman, an inventor, and a wealthy industrialist? In Australia, you get the Aerial Medical Service, later known as the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The pastor, Reverend John Flynn, recognized the need for medical professionals in remote parts of Australia in the nineteen-teens. As head of the Australian Inland Mission, he aided people in the sparsely populated Outback. Flynn became an advocate for those who routinely lost loved ones because the trip to the nearest medical facility would take days. He shared their stories in speeches and articles.

A well-known example was the death of Jim Darcy in July of 1917. He was injured in a cattle stampede near Halls Creek in Western Australia. With no doctor nearby, a surgeon telegraphed instructions to the postmaster, using Morse code. The postmaster operated on him with a pen knife right there on the Post Office counter. After the surgery, the doctor from Perth made the arduous six-day journey to Halls Creek to check on his patient but was too late. Although the surgery was a success, Jim died soon after from malaria. At the time, all the Australian newspapers picked up the story.


Airman John Clifford Peel read Flynn’s articles and formulated a plan to use airplanes to bring doctors to remote areas. He sent a letter with details to the Reverend. Unfortunately, Airman Peel was killed in the war about a year after sending the letter. He never saw his plan come to fruition.

Over the next ten years, Reverend Flynn solicited support for the flying doctors. As part of this, he tried to find radios to communicate with people in isolated regions.

Enter the inventor . . . Alfred Traeger designed a pedal-powered radio while working for Flynn. His device used bicycle pedals to power a radio that would send Morse code over long distances.

Though all great ideas, Flynn needed money to implement them. This is where the wealthy industrialist came in. Hugh Victor McKay headed the Australian company that developed farm equipment, including the first commercially viable combine harvester. When he passed away in 1926, he left a large bequest for an aerial experiment, which was enough to make the dream a reality.

On May 17, 1928, the Aerial Medical Service made its first flight (it changed its name to the Flying Doctor Service in 1942 and the Royal Flying Doctor Service in 1955). The first year, it made fifty flights and treated 225 patients.

Over time, the organization grew, as did the number of dramatic rescue stories. There is a PBS series based on the modern-day flying doctor service.

Other ideas branched from the service. Trager’s radios were used for remote schooling and social connections. And the nurses involved developed a “body chart” to aid in communications by radio.

Reverend Flynn’s contribution was so significant that he is featured on Australia’s twenty-dollar note.


So, what do you get when you combine a pastor, an airman, an inventor, and a wealthy industrialist? You get a mechanism for providing doctors and nurses to remote parts of Australia for nearly one hundred years and counting.

 


***


”Mending Sarah’s Heart” in the Thimbles and Threads Collection

Four historical romances celebrating the arts of sewing and quilting.

Mending Sarah’s Heart by Suzanne Norquist

Rockledge, Colorado, 1884

Sarah seeks a quiet life as a seamstress. She doesn’t need anyone, especially her dead husband’s partner. If only the Emporium of Fashion would stop stealing her customers, and the local hoodlums would leave her sons alone. When she rejects her husband’s share of the mine, his partner Jack seeks to serve her through other means. But will his efforts only push her further away?

Suzanne Norquist is the author of two novellas, “A Song for Rose” in A Bouquet of Brides Collection and “Mending Sarah’s Heart” in the Thimbles and Threads Collection. Everything fascinates her. She has worked as a chemist, professor, financial analyst, and even earned a doctorate in economics. Research feeds her curiosity, and she shares the adventure with her readers. She lives in New Mexico with her mining engineer husband and has two grown children. When not writing, she explores the mountains, hikes, and attends kickboxing class.

 

Sunday, February 9, 2025

Tiny Island, Big History

By Tiffany Amber Stockton




So, as if my life didn't have enough happening, I decided it was a good idea to sign on with a monthly challenge with a few other authors who are part of my local writer's chapter. Although I've remained consistent with article writing, copywriting and copyediting, it has been a few years since I last had a fiction novel release. This challenge is helping me flex those story muscles and form a daily habit that will lead to me finishing this book that has been sitting on my computer for far too long.

Although the research is already done, today I'm sharing a little background of unique facts about this little island called Chincoteague, just off the Eastern Shore of Virginia and to the east of the Delmarva Peninsula.

CHINCOTEAGUE ISLAND

The history of human activity in Chincoteague, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, begins with the Native Americans. Settlers from Europe swooped in and overtook the land in the late 17th century, but until then, the Chincoteague Indians used it as a place to gather shellfish. They aren't known to have lived there, though, as the island lacked suitable soil for their agriculture. Marshland doesn't typically grow much of anything except reeds.

Picturesque view of Chincoteague away from the populated
portion of the island (looking toward Assateague)
Once the European settlers inhabited the island, a series of disputes over who would own the island ensued. That led to patents being issued and a final resolution of an even split between two gentleman. With ownership of the island settled, it mostly existed as a place to house livestock, since they could feed off the marsh grasses. No need for fences or other enclosures to prevent the animals from straying either. How far could the animals go when they're on an island surrounded by water? (grins)

This led to the origin of the ponies on Assateague, though legends reported a Spanish shipwreck which left the ponies as cargo to swim to the nearest island. Historians believe the legend of the shipwreck simply became entwined with the history of the ponies until it was accepted as "truth." Funny how history does that from time to time. Makes me wonder just how much of unrecorded history is truly fact or merely embellished truths spoken from generation to generation until the truth and the embellishment can no longer be separated. Have you ever come across details like this?

Anyway, back to Chincoteague.

Stanley Jester (a distant cousin) harvests oysters by hand at low
tide in his oyster bed in the shallows of Chincoteague Bay
For the next hundred years or so, the island remained a place to house livestock for owners living on the mainland of Virginia. Following the Revolutionary War, residents realized the potential of business and industry through the abundance of shellfish in the area. This industry became so big, shipments went as far north as New England to the cities steadily growing there, and as I mentioned last month, my grandfather's family lived here. It was shellfish being provided to the White House under President Woodrow Wilson which led to my great-grandfather's cousin marrying the president while he was in office, leaving me with a family connection to "American royalty."

Throughout these years of shellfish and seafood industry, Chincoteague thrived. In 1876, a rail line completed a stop just 5 miles from the island with a steamship completing the distance. This gave oystermen an efficient means of getting their shellfish to market and began the wave of tourists escaping the city heat in the summer. Tourism hasn't slowed since.

NOW IT'S YOUR TURN:

* If you had an island similar to Chincoteague just a short distance across a narrow channel from where you lived, what would you do with it?

* Are you a fan of shellfish or seafood? What's your favorite?

* What recounting of an event do you know where the real truth has been fused with legend or unrecorded history? How much is true and what is legend?

Leave answers to these questions or any comments on the post below.

** This note is for our email readers. Please do not reply via email with any comments. View the blog online and scroll down to the comments section.

Come back on the 9th of each month for my next foray into historical tidbits to share.

BIO

Tiffany Amber Stockton has embellished stories since childhood, thanks to a very active imagination and notations of talking entirely too much. Honing those skills led her to careers as an award-winning and best-selling author and speaker, while also working as a professional copywriter/copyeditor. She loves to share life-changing products and ideas with others to help improve their lives in a variety of ways, but especially from the inside out.

Currently, she lives with her husband and fellow author, Stuart Vaughn Stockton, along with their two children, three dogs, and three cats in southeastern Kentucky. In her 20+ years as a professional writer, she has sold twenty-six (26) books so far and has agent representation with Tamela Murray of the Steve Laube Agency. You can find her on Facebook and GoodReads.

Saturday, February 8, 2025

Mail-Order Bride from Russia


image by Vitaly_Stasov, deposit photos

by Martha Hutchens

The whole point of a mail-order bride is that the prospective bride and groom don’t live near each other. However, we normally think of it being a woman in the eastern United States joining a man somewhere in the west. Sometimes, the bride travelled a much greater distance.

Such was the case for Rachel Bella Kahn. She travelled from Chvedkifka, Russia in the 1890s.

Abraham Calof wrote an advertisement for a bride to join him in North Dakota. He required a woman of strong character, and most importantly, of the Jewish faith. When his first choice decided against traveling so far from family, he asked his sister to interview Rachel Kahn.

Rachel Kahn certainly had less concerns about leaving her family. Her father and stepmother were neglectful and abusive. Her job as a maid in her aunt’s mansion involved long hours and little pay. When she almost escaped through a love match with the local butcher, her family blocked the marriage because his occupation made him “inferior.” At seventeen, Rachel had already seen her share of heartbreak.

Then she received word that Abraham Calof liked what she wrote about herself. They exchanged pictures and liked each other’s looks. Abraham commissioned his oldest sister, Chaya, to interview his prospective bride. The interview included several tests, but Rachel won Chaya over when she did not become frustrated or angry while untangling a ball of knotted yarn.

Rachel traveled by train to Hamburg, Germany, then by ship to Ellis Island. Like many of the immigrants, she was desperately seasick. She forgot the misery when she saw Abraham waiting for her when she arrived in New York City. “There’s my beloved,” she said.

They traveled by train to North Dakota, where Abraham planned to file for a homestead near his family.

image by ehrlif, deposit photos

I think we forget just how desperate life on the frontier could be. Rachel probably thought she knew what she was getting into, but her first sight of her husband’s family shocked her. They were dirty, dressed in rags, and the men were barefoot. They she arrived at her new home. It was a 12 by 14 foot shack with a dirt floor, a bed, a table, and a stove. Since the couple was not married yet, they would be sharing this palace with Abraham’s parents, brother, sister-in-law, and two children.

Abraham understood her disappointment, and took her on long walks where he reassured her that this was a temporary situation. Eventually they would be own their own and happy.

In November of 1894, the couple was married. However, to conserve their limited fuel, the couple would be forced to continue living several other people, as well as livestock.

Abraham worked long hours in the field, and Rachel worked equally hard providing food for the two of them as well as for the children that they had. After five years of marriage, Abraham had enough money to build a larger home for their family, which included four children at the time.

By 1900, the homestead appeared to be prospering, with a bumper wheat crop in the field. And then hail came. Their crop was destroyed and their house was flooded. However, they persevered. 

image by IgorStrukov, deposit photos

By 1910, their homestead had grown much larger than its original 160 acres. They had also expanded from farming to breaking wild horses. They had earned the respect of their neighbors by their tenacity and their dedication to their Jewish faith. Abraham helped new farmers in the area. They were both instrumental in founding the first school in their region. Their efforts were recognized by two presidents, William Taft and Woodrow Wilson.

They spent twenty-three years on their North Dakota farm before moving to St. Paul, Minnesota. Abraham worked in dry goods there. Rachel began writing her life story, which she described as “a life worth living.”

image by LiliGraphie, deposit photos

The Calofs were married for more than fifty years. They had nine children. They both died of natural causes in their late seventies.

I think Abraham and Rachel exemplify what we think of as a mail-order marriage.

If you are enjoying this mail-order bride stories, check out Hearts West: True Stires of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier by Chris Enss.



Martha Hutchens is a transplanted southerner who lives in Los Alamos, NM where she is surrounded by history so unbelievable it can only be true. She won the 2019 Golden Heart for Romance with Religious and Spiritual Elements. A former analytical chemist and retired homeschool mom, Martha is frequently found working on her latest knitting project when she isn’t writing



Martha can frequently be found at the Sunrise Historical Hearts Facebook page, along with other Sunrise authors. If you would like to find out about new Sunrise releases (including a mail-order bride series), and meet other historical authors, click here to join the fun.