When her husband died unexpectedly in 1949, Mabel Simmers was forced to take over the family business — Mt. Vernon N.Y.-based County Refrigeration Services, Inc. It was rough going at first, Mabel used to tell her grandchildren. The unions that supplied her labor struck because they didn’t like the idea of reporting to a female […]
Colonel Thompson Never Watched the Sun Rise from a Bathtub on Wheels
Legend has it that a French assistant, Rocha, used to wheel an invalid William Boyce Thompson to the window of his remote Picket Post house in a bathtub on wheels just so he could watch the sun rise. Turns out that story is an urban legend — or should we say “rural legend” — invented by […]
Great Uncle John Fired His Brother Because He Couldn’t Find the Lost Dutchman’s Mine
What kind of man fires his brother because he couldn’t find the mythical Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine? The kind of man who is sued for allegedly seducing a Polish Countess, I suppose. Both stories are lovingly ascribed to family eccentric John Kruttschnitt (1887-1982). According to family legend, Kruttschnitt spent most of his very long adult life […]
J.R. Boyce Asked His Second Wife for a Divorce — Through the Newspaper
I’ve been holding onto this one for several months, not sure how to tell the story. I guess I’m still in shock. While in Montana last summer, reading old newspapers in a Butte library, I ran across an article I could barely believe. Under the headline “Twenty Years After,” the deck read, “James R. Boyce, […]
Rebecca Kruttschnitt Was a Published Illustrator
I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise, given how many people in my family draw well. Nevertheless, I was astonished to discover recently that Rebecca de Mendes Kruttschnitt (1889-1974), my great-grandaunt, was a professional illustrator. Rebecca Kruttschnitt adeptly illustrated a drawing-room novel — that’s right, a roman de salon — published in 1910. The […]
Deathbed Letters: My Life’s Story
I note in the book of yarns that you may want to hold them until you write a book and then use them. It may be that you will want to bring me into your book. I have no objections. If that is the case you may want a short outline of my life. Here goes.
Deathbed Letters: The Meekest Man
At the end of 1906 I went to N.Y. to be a big shot on Wall Street and found that to be a big shot I had to have a butler. So I got one.
Deathbed Letters: Coming to Blows
I was free to run around City hall where I met an “expug” who was City Jailer. He taught me to punch bag and the manly art of self-defense.