Volume 8: Lemons and Peaches
Omaha, Nebr., Jan 12, 1909
2132 N. 29th St.
Dear Harry: –
Mamma just told me that I must write to you because she told you she would. There isn’t very much going on so I can’t tell very much.
It has been blistering cold here and I have walked home every day. We always ride because Marion makes me so late. I get ready but I have to wait for her so we never get off till 20 minutes after.
I was going skating Sunday but it was too cold. Robt called up and said he would be over but he complained so of the cold that I said he didn’t have to come.
By the way, you must not forget to write to Robert. There’ll be trouble if you do. You know he was so good to your sweetheart. Didn’t she say anything about it.
Mamma went down to Chambers last Saturday night and renewed my ticket. Pa didn’t know anything about it so don’t you give it away in any of your letters. She was just about ready to go when Mrs. Jensen came. Ma went soon after that. Robert took me home & when we got home we had coffee, 15 minutes to 12, mind you. I’ll tell you that was great. That’s a new stunt. If Alma finds out she’ll do the same thing.
Mrs. Grimmond let us read a letter she received from Harry H. It surely Is funny. Marion has received a postal and a letter all ready but Lillian has received nil. Marion’s letter was a peach, I’ll tell you. No lemons at all.
Oh! School is getting fierce. I’m very much afraid that I won’t do very good in Greek History. Robert says if I flunk ’e’ll disown me, so I guess I better git to work. Well, if I flunk I think I’ll be writing to let him go because then I’ll have to work like fury and won’t have no time for such nonsense. We only have two weeks till the examinations. Then I’ll be a tenth or a Sophomore, maybe.
I never see Dean anymore. I guess the poor fellow got scared away since he made that confession & heard the other one. I surely feel sorry for him but he certainly got a lemon all right. I guess Harry H. saw a good many changes since he was here last. Marion wasn’t quite as good & easy as she was last time. I guess he thought she gave him a few too many lemons.
Well, I haven’t time to write anymore, in fact I have no more to write so I’ll say Good-bye
Lillian
1912
The “blistering cold” of January in Omaha, Nebraska, didn’t dampen the social life of 16-year-old Lillian, though she wasn’t likely overestimating the cold. Average January temperatures in Omaha today range between about 13 and 34 degrees Fahrenheit, but record lows for any given day in January, many of them set in the 1880s or early 1900s, range between -20 to -30 degrees Fahrenheit.
The last post discussed Chambers Dancing Academy and the social dancing craze of the early 20th century, as well as the school’s connection to Adele and Fred Astaire. Chambers itself is largely an historical footnote to the Astaire story, and not much is available about the school itself, which makes Lillian’s references to it all the more intriguing. This article (really an advertisement) from the Omaha Daily Bee on 4 October 1914 provides one of the best impressions of Chambers Dancing Academy that I have found to date. It references the visit five months earlier of Vernon and Irene Castle, a pair of expedition ballroom dancers who founded their own dancing academy in New York and refined several dances that evolved into the modern ballroom dances of today. Vernon and Irene Castle were major influencers of their day. They removed the stigma associated with many of the “club dances” of the day and laid the foundation for later instructors like Arthur Murray, and the chain of Fred Astaire dance studios that began in the late 1940s. Irene Castle’s fashions and bob haircut were copied nationwide. On 7 May 1914, at the height of their popularity, the Castles visited Omaha to much public fanfare and awarded the “Castle Cup” to Mr. Harry Walker and Ms. Helen Kroner, pupils of W. E. Chambers at Chambers Dancing Academy.[1]
Willard Edwin Chambers was born in Iowa in 1863, the son of Luke P. Chambers and Mary Britt. He was the oldest of at least 10 children. He married Mabel Genevieve Rockhold on 14 March 1894 in Omaha, Nebraska. The Evening World-Herald for 14 March 1894 announced the marriage of “Professor” W. E. Chambers and Miss Mabel Rockhold of Council Bluffs, Iowa in a small ceremony, and their home address as the Dellone hotel in Omaha. Their daughter, Halcyon, was born a little less than a year later in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In 1900 the couple lived with Willard’s parents and two of his younger sisters in Kane, Iowa. Willard was working then as a dancing teacher.[2] Sometime between 1900 and 1902, Willard and Mabel parted ways. The circumstances are unknown, but Willard married Ora Pearl (Shelley) Pardee on Christmas Eve, 1902. Halcyon remained with her father.[3] Willard is found in Omaha City Directories from 1893 through 1920, though it is noteworthy that Omaha City Directories often included Council Bluffs, Iowa, as it was just across the river. He appears as an instructor of dancing at 1623 Farnam in Omaha in 1893, as a dancing instructor in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1895, and as the proprietor of Chambers’ Academies of Dancing [sic] in Omaha 1896.[4] This allows us to date the founding of Chambers’ Dancing Academy in Omaha to 1896.
When Lillian attended Chambers social dances in 1909, Willard Chambers was President of Chambers Academy, his wife Ora was an instructor, and various members of Ora’s family supported the business as secretary and treasurer. While Willard remained a dance instructor of “dramatic, classic, and social dancing” through at least 1918, the location at 2424 Farnam Street became the Kel-Pine Dancing Academy after 1916 and into the 1920s. Sometime around 1919 or early 1920, according to his obituary in the Omaha Daily Bee, Willard suffered a nervous breakdown from which he never fully recovered.
At its height, Chambers Dancing Academy was the premier dance school in Omaha, and Willard Chambers was the only teacher in Omaha who was a member of the American National Association, Masters of Dancing. He took annual trips to New York to learn and bring back the latest social dances, which included the Maxixe, Tango, Hesitation, One Step and Half and Half (which, naturally, he claimed were “impossible” to learn except through proper instruction.) Willard and his “proficient assistants” provided demonstrations at Chambers’ Academy at every assembly and taught private lessons by appointment.[5] At the height of the expedition ballroom and social dance craze of the early 20th century, it is easy to see why 16-year-old Lillian was so enamored of Chambers.
While there “wasn’t very much going on” in January of 1909, according to Lillian, we do get another excellent lesson in the Friends, Acquaintances, and Neighbors (FAN) Club principle of research coined by Elizabeth Shown Mills (https://genealogical.com/store/quicksheet-the-historical-biographers-guide-to-cluster-research-the-fan-principle/) in this letter:
The Houghs moved away to Pierce, Nebraska by 1910; from the frequency with which letters and visits from Harry are mentioned by Lillian, we can presume they were gone by 1909. ‘Mrs. Grimmond’ is Margaret (Kilday) Grimmond, sister of Elizabeth (Kilday) Hough, Harry’s mother. Margaret and Elizabeth Kilday were first generation Americans, born to Irish immigrant parents. Margaret’s husband, James, was an English immigrant who came to Omaha in 1896 and married Margaret two years later. Their children were too young to be friends of Lillian’s, though their oldest son, Paul, was close in age to Lillian’s brother Charley. In 1908, the Grimmonds lived at 2921 Burdette Street; next door to the Parsons, only 220 feet away.
What exactly “scared away” poor Dean Davidson is a mystery, though Lillian’s veiled hints in her letter to her brother Harry, who apparently knew enough of the story to understand, suggest some sort of drama. Dean was the oldest of three children born to George Davidson and “Dora” Lillie in Long Pine, Nebraska, about 250 miles from Omaha, on 21 January 1891. His family relocated to Harrison County, Iowa, where they were settled in 1905, and then to Omaha by 1908 when Dean appears in Lillian’s earlier letters. They lived at 2215 N. 29th Street, about a block north of the Parsons. George Davidson was a postal clerk for the railroad. Somewhat surprisingly for the period, Dean’s mother was also working, as a public school teacher.
This is also about the time Lillian started signing her letters with her high school graduating class date, 1912. While she was still a freshman in early 1909, she clearly was proud of her schooling even if she was challenged with certain subjects. Though high school was just beginning to become standard and popular for American youth, and still looked very different than high school as we know it today, Lillian was not so very different from teenagers today trying to balance her schoolwork and social life. Lillian’s voice, through her letters, presents a vivid picture of turn-of-the-century, Midwest America at a fascinating time, while reminding us that when it comes to people, 117 years is no time at all.
Want to read more?
Volume 1: Lillian and her Letters
Volume 2: November 4th, 1907
Volume 3: Sweethearts or Sisters and…Candy!
Volume 4: School Stories
Volume 5: Falling Outs, Senior Fairs, Faith, and Uncle William
Volume 6, Part 1: Wandering Omaha
Volume 6, Part II: Grandparents, Washing Day, and Etiquette
Volume 7: Lucke, German Social Clubs, and Dancing
[1] Omaha Daily Bee, 4 October 1914, page 58, columns 1-3. See also The Omaha Daily News, 7 May 1914, page 1; The Evening World-Herald (Omaha), 7 May 1914, page 8 and page 13; The Omaha Daily News, 8 May 1914, page 1 and page 13; The Omaha World-Herald, 8 May 1914, page 5; The Evening World-Herald (Omaha), 8 May 2014, page 12 and page 16; The Omaha Daily Bee, 8 May 2014, page 11.
[2] 1900 U.S. census, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, population schedule, Kane township, p. 176 (stamped), enumeration district (ED) 135, sheet 4-B, dwelling 325, family 332, Luke Chambers household.
[3] 1910 U.S. census, Douglas County, Nebraska, population schedule, Omaha City, Ward 4, p. 179 (stamped), enumeration district (ED) 29, sheet 8-B, dwelling 55, family 61, Willard E. Chambers household.
[4] Omaha City Directory for 1896, Volume XXII, Omaha Directory Company, page 104-105.
[5] Omaha Daily Bee, 7 January 1921, page 3, column 5.
One thought on “The Lillian Letters: Vol. 8”