Monday, December 21, 1936

EDWINA IS PLEASED AND SO IS EDNA

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Nice Day. Washed.

Shortest day of year.

Sold to V.L. Watts 21 doz eggs.

Red'd for last wks eggs

9 1/12 doz @ 28¢ — $2.54

3 1/12 doz @ 20¢ — .70

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$3.24

A painter from Lowell came

this morning and started

painting kitchen green walls

and cream wood work with black

trimmings.

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Edna's kitchen is getting updated.

A few days ago, a team from Wurzburg's laid new linoleum on the floor. Today, the kitchen is getting a paint job.

I approve of Edna's kitchen color palette. My own kitchen is old and in need of an update. But like Edna's, it is green and cream and also has a touch of black here and there.

My house and Edna's house were both built around the same time. Henry and Edna built their home in 1915. My house was constructed in 1912 by Roscoe and Lucy Allen.

I feel like there are similarities in our homes.

Edna and Henry's home is on the left. My home is on the right. The photo of my home is from a postcard with a 1915 postmark.

The postcard of my home came to me by way of a stranger.

Shortly after we moved into our home, we had a yard sale. My best guesstimate is that we held that yard sale sometime in 2006. During the yard sale, a man stopped by and handed me the postcard. He said he was from Milan and had purchased it at an antique show. He wanted to make sure it ended up in the possession of the current home owners.

I treasure that gift. The postcard is framed and displayed in my home.

One thing that I love most about this postcard is the woman sitting on the front porch.

The front porch of our home is a gathering place. We commune with friends and family in that space. I spend time alone reading on the porch. Sometimes, I even take a nap on the porch.

I assume, given the postmark, that the woman in the photo is Lucy Allen. Lucy and her husband Roscoe were already aging when they built this home in Milan in 1912. By that time, two of their children, Clayton and Ralph, were dead. Ralph died in 1908 at the age of 19. Clayton was also 19 when he lost his life in 1898.

After fighting in the Spanish American War, Clayton Allen took ill on his return home. His parents, Lucy and Roscoe were notified and Roscoe set out from Milan to NYC to meet the train carrying his son home. By the time Roscoe reached his son, Clayton had succumbed to his illness.

An article dated September 5, 1898 in the Brooklyn Daily Star details the sad story.

A Father's Sad Discovery

Came From Michigan to See His Son Who He Supposed Was Sick and Found Him Dead.

Roscoe ALLEN of Milan, Mich., reached this city on Sunday afternoon in search of his son Clayton ALLEN, nineteen years old, a private in Company F, Thirty-fourth Michigan who he supposed was sick in St. John's Hospital here.

Clayton ALLEN was the young soldier who died on Friday evening last as the regiment was passing through here on its way home. Mr. ALLEN was informed by telegraph that his son was sick. The message was sent before the boy died and after he had been given into the care of the Red Cross band his captain.

The father did not know of his son’s death when he reached the city. When the boy died Mrs. HAMMOND and Miss REID, n charge of the Red Cross station, directed an undertaker to embalm the body and keep it until word was received from his family.

Coroner GUY did not take up the case until Saturday night. When he called at the undertaking establishment to take the necessary steps for the removal of the body he found it uncared for, he says. It had not been embalmed or iced and decomposition had set in. The Coroner at once caused the removal of the body to another undertaking establishment where it was cared for as far as possible.

When Mr. ALLEN looked at the body on Sunday he could not recognize it.

Identity was established by a comrade of the soldier who was in the hospital and said the photograph of the young man shown him was that of ALLEN whom he knew in the regiment and who died as he lay beside him in the ambulance.

The name Clayton ALLEN was found written on the young man's knapsack. At the Red Cross station and at the Coroner1s office the name had been entered as George, and this caused the confusion and the necessity for identification.