The Barnard College Locker Mystery

Wikipedia

Amateur intrepid detectives at a woman’s college, some mysterious goings-on at the lockers
and a fascinating, rather sympathetic villain: all elements of an amazing true story from 1913 worthy of an American Dorothy Sayers.

Barnard College was (and still is) an all-female college, associated with Columbia University, in upper Manhattan; it was founded in 1889. The Teachers’ College and Arts Building at Barnard had a problem in the winter of 1913. There was a mysterious thief who was stealing things out of the school lockers. But instead of hiring an outside, male detective to scope things out, the students decided to form a detective patrol themselves. Some of the women made rounds outside the buildings, and some staked out the locker areas. They blended into the everyday crowds of Barnard students. They were patient, too. It took them a full 30 days to find a suspect. Two of the detectives, Margaret Byrnes and Dorothy Fitch, both from Queens, told the court that they had watched the suspect try six different lockers before they reported her to school authorities and “sent to the West 125th Street Police Station for a policeman.”

That suspect was Elsie L. Schmidt, “a schoolgirl from Brooklyn,” according to the New York Times. She told the court that she had graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn in 1905.* She lived in a boarding house in Brooklyn, on Lincoln Place. The landlords didn’t know anything about her; they said that Miss Schmidt had only been living there for a month. Elsie said that she was hoping to attend Barnard College to study German, and that she’d picked up the neckpiece by mistake while visiting the college. She said she’d been looking for an open locker – these were probably wood lockers back in 1913 – to leave it in for its owner. The Times noted that students now put locks on their lockers and maybe they even went so far as to find  lockers for sale that were extra-sturdy.

The Harlem Police Court was so impressed with the detective students’ testimony that they held Schmidt for $500 bail – a huge sum of money in 1913. When Schmidt was arrested she was carrying a large purse, empty except for a “fur neckpiece, which was said to be the property of a Barnard student.” I wish I knew what had happened to Elsie, but the New York Times does not seem to have published a follow-up (they seem to have done this a lot back a century ago, this is not the first time I’ve longed to know what happened).

It did not look good for Elsie, but I feel rather sorry for her – wandering around Barnard, wishing she was going to college there, maybe taking things to make herself feel, in some strange way, like she belonged there. Yet I also rather like those girl detectives prowling around the hallways and household arts lockers and gym lockers. And though I’ve given up fiction for the time being – it makes me want to turn this into a story of some kind.


*She was probably Elsie Louisa Schmidt, born September 15, 1892 in Brooklyn, see here.

Source: “Girl Captured By Barnard Detectives,” New York Times, March 29, 1913.

The Pacesetter House of 1951

Vintage Ad Browser

This Pacesetter House of 1951 is setting the pace a little bit too fast for me. Because a fireplace is supposed to be relaxing to sit by, right? And to me, this looks a little too much like a test pattern.

I used to really like the test pattern – when I was about three. Yes, back in 1965 I used to love getting up a little bit before 6am, which was when Sunrise Semester came on, and watch the test pattern. For those of you too young to have savored this amazing visual treat, the test pattern was black and white geometric stuff that TV stations showed on your screen when they were off the air. Yes, even the TV stations used to clock off and sleep for a few hours every night, back then.

designobserver.

The test-pattern tiles aside, what also bothers me here is the grey carpeting on the ceiling. It looks like the room is standing on its head, so to speak. Maybe that’s just me, though. I wish we could see the rest of this Pacesetter house. Imagine what the bathroom tiles must be like! I love the coffee table and the sofa, though.

What do you think?

Retro Road Trip: West Houston Holiday Inn, 1972

One of my favorite retro cookbooks is the 1972 edition of The Holiday Inn Cookbook, featuring descriptions of every Holiday Inn in the US and a featured recipe from each one, too. I’ve written about a few of the Inns here, but it’s been a long time since the last one. So it’s time for a retro road trip!

Viewlinerltd

And the best part is that traveling via The Holiday Inn Cookbook is that we won’t need an oil change or a brake job – so let’s get into the virtual Acura TL and go stay at the 1972 era Holiday Inn in west Houston! We will dine on Chestnut Shrimp in the Capri Dining Room. Note: there are no chestnuts in the Chestnut Shrimp, they are actually regular breaded and fried shrimp with – well, sliced almonds.* And with the shrimp we will have some Tart Orange Salad (yes, this is a day full of gelatin recipes here at Kitchen Retro).

Then we can frolic the night away in the Roman Club (I sense an Italian theme going on here, don’t you?). We will be only 9 miles from the Astrodome and the Port of Houston, so maybe tomorrow we can go check those out. And if we need a little Houston auto repair – well, that will be right around there too. I’m not sure whether the Houston Holiday Inn in the wonderful postcard is the one we’ll be at (there were four in Houston in 1972) but maybe we can go over there another time. It’s a bit cold for outdoor swimming pools now, anyway. 

Tart Orange Salad

Dissolve one 6-ounce package orange Jello [sic: Jell-O] in 1 cup boiling water. Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over 2 cups diced oranges and let sit for 10 minutes. Drain 1 cup crushed pineapple, but save juice. Add enough water to pineapple juice to make 1 cup and add to Jello. When Jello begins to set, add fruit and chill. Serve on crisp salad greens. Serves 6 to 8.

*No, I do not know why they are not called Sliced Almond Shrimp. And it’s Jell-O because that’s the commercial name, you have to have the dash! Yes, I care about this sort of thing. It’s all part of the glamorous life I lead. Makes me a little nutty (please pass the sliced almonds).

The October Bride

Life, October 23, 1939

You hear a lot about June Brides, but here at Kitchen Retro we have discovered some things about one of the lesser-known of the bridal species: the October Bride. No, she doesn’t dress up in a pelican costume to serve Candy Corn to her guests in the brand-new wedding-present vegetable dishes. She is too modern for that. She is glad to be really modern. Too modern to make salad dressing, anyway. Not like all the pioneer women who spent hours shaking up gourmet dressings to go with mixed greens.

Or perhaps not.

Well, anyway, when the October Bride invites people over, she likes to amaze them with her delicious – well, I don’t know what they are. Because she calls them “Salad Bowls”  -  in quotations. It must be code for something else.

It is code, actually, for bowls full of Hellmann’s salad dressing. Never mind the lettuce and tomatoes. Just pour in a job lot of dressing. Don’t even look as you pour. Grit your teeth for the camera, dear. This is what October Brides do.

But if you really, really want to put something that means salad-in-quotation-marks in your so-called “Salad Bowls,” why not try this concoction from the late 1960s:

Prize Vegetable Salad (from Favorite Salad Recipes of Jaycee Wives, 1968)

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
12 maraschino cherries, chopped fine
1 cup cabbage, finely shredded
1 No. 2 can crushed pineapple
8 marshmallows, chopped fine
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 pint cream, whipped


Dissolve gelatin in cold water; add enough boiling water to make one cup. Add cherries, cabbage, pineapple,  marshmallows and mayonnaise. Fold in cream. Pour into oiled mold, chill until firm. Yield: 12 servings.

Bon appétit – and trick or treat!

Victorian House Calls

A doctor in the 19th century may not have had a hospital uniform to wear as a symbol of his profession, but he would have had other ways of letting people know exactly who he or she was. These ranged from the white lab coat to special vehicles and bags. Lab coats were first worn in the 19th century. They were worn by  doctors and scientists when in laboratories, and gradually came to be worn in hospitals as well. Lab coats were well known by 1897, when an anonymous MIT junior wrote in the student publication Technique:

I ardently struggled with clothes-bags and coat-hooks
As into my lab. coat I struggled pell-mell,
Then rushed to my locker and broke many test-tubes,
And thought that I’d rather by far be in h-ll.

If you were a doctor making house calls you would not wear a lab coat, but street clothes. Nowadays, there is quite a range of scrub sets for doctors and other medical personnel to wear as a means of keeping things and people sterile and safe; but scrubs were not developed until the 1940s. The first use of sterile attire came during the 1918 epidemic, when  medical staff began to wear gauze masks and rubber gloves.

Before scrubs, there were other things made specially for those in medicine – such as special carriages. The Physician’s Basket Phaeton was “just the vehicle a physician requires.” Of course you did need to add a horse to pull it (the horse was not included!).The phaeton was an open carriage named for Phaeton, son of the Greek god Helios. Phaeton took his father’s fiery carriage out for a spin and set the earth ablaze in the process. The Physician’s Basket Phaeton was much safer than this!

And when the doctor was riding out, he or she would want a bag to carry supplies in. The “elegant satchels” and the Solid Buggy Case at left were ideal. They do look really heavy to carry, though – don’t they? Like suitcases. Good thing the doctor had that phaeton and wasn’t walking.

[Phaeton image is from Leonard's Illustrated Medical Scientific Journal (1889)]

Candy Is Dandy, But Muscatel Is Swell

I’ve been saving this 1939 advertisement (big version here) for Muscatel and other California wines, for a long time. And since I really wanted to write a “From Ad to Verse” poem today (it’s been awhile, you know!) it seemed like the ideal jumping-off point: ad plus boozy 1930s matrons plus the wife of my humorous-poem hero, Ogden Nash:

When Mrs. Ogden Nash, the gracious chatelaine,
Had bridge games and hen-filled parties on the brain
She knew that these occasions, to be really swell,
Depended chiefly upon Muscatel:

Not on wee sandwiches cut into hearts and clubs and spades
Nor on party games and ice-breaking escapades
Out of the latest book of etiquette
Can she depend to mollify this set,

For Mrs. Ogden knows, at least in Baltimore,
Some zing’s required to keep friends from bolting out the door;
How well she knows her audience: these gals are tough,
And wearing twiddly hats is more than quite-enough:

More twiddle is not requisite. Indeed
Cards, snacks and booze are really all they need;
So pour that golden California wine
Into each matron’s glass – they both will shine,

Both glass and gal! This party is first-rate,
Sip slowly, though, and keep your hat on straight;
So here’s to those who wish the ladies well -
And those who don’t can go to Muscatel.

Lavender Provender

My planters will hold a lot of lavender!

I have never been much of a gardener, but someday that is all going to change. I love fresh herbs, especially things like lavender and lemon verbena, and when I was very young someone gave me a planting kit with seeds and a bunch of tiny little plastic containers. And I tried to grow them, really I did. Only I was in a highrise apartment building and my room faced north onto a dark courtyard and…well, you can imagine how well that worked out.

Now I actually have a backyard, so all I need is a few outdoor commercial planters to put my future herbs in. Oh, and some seeds and seedlings, of course. And some gardening books! Planters are excellent for herbs, vegetable, flowers and small trees because they protect them from diseases in the soil, and from weeds. You can adjust the amount of sunlight and water they get, too. You can even shelter them on the porch when the weather gets wild. They can be small containers, of course, not commercial planters – in fact, I will probably start out small.

Lavender field in Tasmania

Having said that, a commercial planter would hold plenty of lavender, which would suit me fine. I love lavender anything – the color lavender, Yardley’s lavender soap, the lavender skin cream I got on a trip to Belgium in 1989 (it was so amazing!), lavender honey, the background of this post – you name it. Maybe I will have two or three large commercial planters with different kinds of lavender, who knows! But then we will need a bigger back yard, I suppose.

What will we do with all this lavender? Dry some for sachets, of course. We can make our own lotion, oil and candles. And we can make treats like  lavender ice cream. We can even make some unusual candy. Here is a mid-Victorian recipe for lavender sweets:

Lavender Lozenges

Fourteen pounds of powdered sugar, one quart of gum, half an ounce of Mitcham oil of lavender. These are mostly colored with a faint blue or deep pink, and cut out with a fluted cutter or other shapes to fancy.

[from Henry Weatherley, A Treatise in the Art of Boiling Sugar, Crystallizing, Lozenge-Making, Comfits, Gum Goods an d Other Processes for Confectionery, Etc., 1865, p. 107]

Henry Weathersley omits any directions for mixing or cooking the ingredients (Victorian cookery and household guide writers often did this). He does tell us just how to color them and cut them out though, in case we actually figured out how to make the stuff.

[Images from Wikipedia]