The story of identifying the 100-year-old boy who owned a foreign book bought at an antique shop, Part 2
[Recap so far]
This is the second part of the story tracing the owner of "Sentence Analysis By Diagram," a grammar book for children published in 1915.
In the previous article, I discussed the first owner, John Francis Bookwalter, an 18-year-old brilliant youth from a wealthy family living in Springfield, Ohio, who acquired this book in 1919.
The remaining two are:
- Boy A (the second owner), who is thought to have lived at the same address as John Francis
- Miss Marsha Reese (the third owner), who is thought to have owned this book after Boy A
These are the two.
[Identifying the second person]
Before identifying Boy A, the second owner, I was able to identify the third owner, so I will record that below.
First, let's look again at the content written by that owner, Miss Marsha Reese.
From this inscription, we can see that she lived at 421 East Euclid Avenue in Springfield, Ohio, at the time. Like Boy A, the previous owner, she asks for the book to be returned to her address in case it is lost. From this, we can infer that she, too, did not leave this book sleeping on a bookshelf but carried it around to study.
What is characteristic is her illustration. Following the words "This is the reward (for finding the book)," there are two violent illustrations as if to say "Take that!" The one on the left looks like a woman in a dress kicking a man in the buttocks, and the one on the right looks like a picture of someone being shot with a gun or something similar. Among the many inscriptions, only her illustration of the person being shot with a gun is colored in red.
Before starting the identification process for her, I and Mr. Nugazaka (@NUGAZAKA), who worked on the deciphering together, let our imaginations run wild about what kind of girl Miss Marsha was. Our prediction was: "A geeky girl with bottle-bottom glasses who walks timidly through the high school hallway clutching a grammar book and is sneered at by the cheerleaders she passes. But she's a beauty when she takes off her glasses."
It is a profiling that reflects a selfish delusion convenient for geeks. At that time, I added jokingly, "But she might be an African-American girl."
At that time, we did not realize it. That we had unconsciously pictured Miss Marsha as a "Caucasian girl." That we were looking at her with biased eyes.
[Prehistory: Racial Issues]
America is a multi-ethnic nation built by immigrants from all over the world. The many genealogy research sites that were very useful for identifying John Francis in the previous article can be said to meet the demand of people who "want to know their roots." That is how diverse their roots are. Springfield, Ohio, is no exception. The Bookwalter family, John Francis's parents' home, has a German surname, and his mother Gwendolyn is a mix of a German father and an Irish mother. However, this town was not kind to all races from the beginning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield,_Ohio
I apologize for the Wikipedia citation, but in 1904, when John Francis was still a young boy, an incident occurred in which town residents lynched and murdered an African-American man. It is said that an African-American residential area was also burned in 1906.
In a town with such a history, there was an African American girl who likely used this book to study hard in the 1930s, before the Civil Rights Movement took place. That is the third owner of this book, the person who made the notes on the back cover, Miss Marcia Leath. There is a record of the 1940 census on "Ancestry".
https://www.ancestry.com/1940-census/usa/Ohio/Marcia-Leath_16d777
According to this record, she was born "around" 1922. Her name, the fact that she lived in Springfield, and even the house number "421"—though the street name is unknown—match the notes in the book. I think we can consider this almost certainly confirmed. The entry in the race column is "African American".
Looking at the handwriting left in the book, I suspect Miss Marcia was around 10 to early teens when she made the notes. She doesn't use cursive yet, but she gives the impression of being slightly older than Boy A, who scribbled freely with a thick pencil. She draws lines with a ruler, revealing a meticulous side. Judging by her birth year, I suspect these notes were made in the early 1930s.
[The owner who was alive until very recently]
Upon further investigation, I found an obituary in the "Springfield News-Sun" dated July 10, 2016.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/springfield/name/marcia-bethel-obituary?pid=180618703&__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=pmd_vsogSbYUHDIh.mX1wP_.dwfHpr_yzKOIBBEX2.ejbx8-1630836249-0-gqNtZGzNAzujcnBszQdl
Although her surname changed to "Bethel" after marriage, it is highly likely that this person is the former Miss Marcia, as the names of her parents match those in the aforementioned census. She was born in May 1921. It seems she was alive until five years ago. If you scroll down the page, you can see a photo posted by a friend. As the 1940 record states, she is an African American woman.
Here, I would like you to recall the 1930s, the era when Miss Marcia, or rather, Mrs. Marcia Bethel, would have been using this book. And also, that the first owner of this book was the son of a wealthy family.
[From the town's biggest winner to a girl of color]
The first owner, John Francis Bookwalter, was a German-American man. He grew up in a family where his great-uncle was a state governor and his grandfather was the manager of a hydroelectric power company; he studied at one of the top boarding schools in the U.S. and was a second-generation Ivy League graduate. He was someone who stood among the "winners" even among the residents of Springfield at the time.
Conversely, Miss Marcia was an African American woman. Although women's suffrage was granted in the U.S. in 1920, the Jim Crow laws, which mandated racial segregation, severely restricted Miss Marcia's daily life. She must have heard about and witnessed the violence against African Americans occurring in various places. The second illustration Miss Marcia drew, a picture of a man being shot with a gun, also begins to seem as if it hides a deep meaning.
The red coloring might be the color of the person's clothes, but it also looks like blood flowing from a person shot by a gun. Doesn't this indicate that for her at the time, violence against people of color was something close to home?
For an African American girl living in such an era, I can imagine that dreaming of going to college, let alone an Ivy League school, was difficult. Nevertheless, she chose to pick up this book and study.
It is unclear how this book passed from the Bookwalter family to Miss Marcia. The address of the young John Francis at the time, 1054 East High Street, and 421 Euclid Avenue, where Miss Marcia's family home was, are separated by two main roads and are somewhat distant.
(The red pin on the north side is the address of the young John Francis, and the red pin on the south side is the address of Miss Marcia)
I don't think there was any personal connection between the young John Francis, born in 1901, and Miss Marcia, born in 1921, and considering the racial situation, it is hard to believe there was any close neighborhood interaction. Regarding this, we have formed hypotheses such as:
・After becoming an adult, the young John Francis released his student-era book collection at a garage sale or church bazaar, and it caught Miss Marcia's eye
・One of Miss Marcia's parents worked as a domestic helper for the wealthy Bookwalter family and received the book for their daughter's future education
and so on.
[Why did she want to learn?]
Even so, although this book is a grammar textbook, it is not categorized as a children's book; it is written strictly on the premise that a teacher will instruct students.
(Table of contents of the book. Exercises for children are posted after explanations and teaching methods for adults)
It is a mature choice for a girl of just over 10 years old to carry around and study on her own.
However, when I looked into the news from that time, I discovered an event that might have been the catalyst for Marsha's dedication to her studies.
[A Role Model for Girls]
In 1931, Jane Bolin (1908–2007) became the first African American woman to graduate from Yale University. This coincides exactly with the period when Marsha is thought to have been carrying this book around. She would later become the first African American female judge in the United States.
The news of an African American, and a woman at that, graduating from Yale must have greatly excited the African American community. It was an event that showed the world that even a girl of color had the freedom to dream of higher education. Perhaps 10-year-old Marsha was also inspired by Ms. Bolin's achievement and aspired to pursue further education. If she had picked up this book at such a time, and if she had inferred from the notes—such as the Yale University motto and the graduation years of prestigious boarding schools—that the previous owner had studied at an Ivy League school, she might have thought, 'I will study with this book too, and one day...' I can picture the young girl walking through the town of Springfield, clutching the book dearly.
I look at the illustration Marsha drew once again. The picture of a woman vigorously kicking a man reveals a vibrant sense of independence. It is as if she is saying that one day she will shake off all the various things in society that oppress her.
While all of the above is merely the author's speculation, it is certain that this book, passed from a German-American youth to an African American girl, transcended the divisions created by adults—such as race and gender—and connected the desire to learn and the dreams of higher education between these young people. Although I cannot discern what Marsha's subsequent path was from her obituary, seeing the intelligent and calm demeanor of her as an adult, I feel that the young girl's aspirations were fulfilled.
I hope that her eleven great-grandchildren have also inherited her love of learning and independence. With this, I would like to conclude the identification process for the second person.
Next time, we will close in on the identity of Boy A, the missing link between the youth John Francis, born in 1901, and Marsha, born in 1921. As we carry out our identification work, we will be led into an unexpected dark side that Ohio held at the time.