I'm Not There; The Bob Dylan Phenomena

I’ve always thought of Bob Dylan as a cipher who channels culture. It must be a strange driven life to lead. Probably he doesn’t understand it himself. I think that would explain his impatience and frustration with the questioning public.

This movie captures the irrealis of his career. He keeps reinventing himself. A different actor plays each incarnation. There is conflict in the interaction between his public and the metamorphasizing Dylan. The scene where his car is surrounded by needy, rapacious groupies is truly freighting. The faces in the windows look cannibalistic. “You know who we ARE, what we are feeling. Tell us!”

The needs of his audiences are exacerbated by the emptiness of our materialism. He doesn’t have any more answers than anybody else. He is just telling the story.

This is a unique movie. It is certainly worth seeing. It is an impressionist movie form. You may have to see it more than once.

Black and White Film

I have a picture of myself as a screen saver. I am 18? a full head of brown hair blowing in the wind. I sit astride “Apache” smiling, easy and comfortable in the western saddle. The T Rail Ranch at Patagonia Arizona spreads out around me in black and white film. The detail in the picture is blurred. Not enough pixels for even this small screen. Give me a minute and my memory can provide the details. The tan sandy ground, a rock here and there, a cow plop dried and hard in the sun. The ground is packed hard because this is the area used by cars and trucks to go between the house and the corrals.

The mesquite trees are bare, bent, built by nature for the 13 to 16 inches of rain in a good year. The ground drops off behind me covered with dry bushy growth on into the empty wash that can run fast and muddy when the clouds burst over the mountains. One year during a heavy flash flood ten cows drowned, having gotten caught up in a loose fence of barbed wire strung across the wash, and their bodies were deposited along the banks for a mile or more. One poor unfortunate was beached within easy reach of the ranch house. I was staying there at the time and sleeping in a small bed on the front porch. The ranch puppy shared my bed. He would climb up the stones of the porch, hooking his head around the leg of the bed. One night he managed this maneuver and arrived on my pillow reeking of putrid beef. He had gotten big enough to accompany the other dogs on their nightly scavenge. I quickly lifted him out and deposited him on the floor only to have him return. I solved my problem by getting up and pulling the bed away from the porch wall. He sat on the floor and whimpered plaintively. I complained the next day.
“That puppy keeps climbing into my bed at night and he stinks from the dead cow.” Frank went down and burned up the old carcass. That solved the puppy’s and my problem.

On the other side of the wash the ground begins to rise up a small hill, the last crown of a local range. This hill has a name. It is “Frank Seibold, Jr.”. It’s name sake tells me that Apaches, wandering off the “reservation” repeating their old migration route into Mexico, fired a few shots at the Ranch house from this hill in passing. “You could hear the bullets coming. They were packed poorly into the rifle chamber and came end over end making a flipping sound. It gave you time to take cover.” I can see the Indians on their little mustang ponies, their worn cotton clothing, a spot of red here and there, riding along in single file with stringy bundles of spare supplies hanging from their saddles. A mixture of boredom and resentment trigger the shots.

I have come down from Tucson for the day and my mother has taken this picture. I’m smiling. I’ve been riding with Frank. I remember saddling the horse, happy to have been able to catch Apache who I know is well broken, willing to respond to the reins and a light kick of your heals. I’ve put on a double saddle blanket and Doris’ saddle that is familiar and comfortable. I’ve tightened the cinch and buckled the latigo. Apache wears the simplest bridle, one split ear and no chinstrap. I’m dressed in blue denim frontier pants from “Porter’s”, a red and black flannel shirt over a white blouse. I would happily wear those same cloths now and they would look just as fashionable. They seem timeless.

I arrive at the Ranch with anxiety and hopeful expectation. Will Frank be there? Will he have chores to do that involve riding? Frank doesn’t ride for pleasure, only for work. The pace is always slow and considered.
“You have to save your horse for when you need him”, explains the leisurely pace.
If I hit the jackpot, Frank is there and planning a trip to the “range” and I get invited to go along. The task to be accomplished is not revealed. It becomes apparent, opening its details as the work is done. I don’t dare ask what we are going to do. That seems like taking liberties with my good fortune. I’m not sure how Frank will respond to too many questions. I just saddle up and ride into the unknown.

Today there is a young heifer expecting her first calf. She is small, a two year old, and the bull is big. Frank is concerned about her having difficulty with the birth. She has been hanging out at the furthest windmill up the dry riverbed. We head north east the horses hoofs sinking into the soft sand, dry now, and filled with old foot prints from cattle and horses. Mesquite trees on either side of the wash slip by. It seems a long ride to me and I think about the possibility of knee pain. It is a problem I have as my legs bend around the horse’s ribcage. Roundup is a special problem, spending all day from early morning to sunset in the saddle. One roundup I was riding with one leg hooked around the pommel.
“If you keep doing that you’ll give your horse saddle sores.” Said Frank.
That day I could hardly walk when I finally dismounted.

We plod along at a leisurely pace. The sun is hot and unforgiving but the breeze is cool. I do most of the talking. I’m a chatty young woman. I cover the subjects of rain, the chances of a good rainy season, the supply of dried grass still in place on the range, my classes at the University of Arizona, and what is Frank going to do with the rest of his life?
“I’ll probably spend it pulling reins.” He says

We finally arrive at the windmill. There is the heifer. She is in trouble. The calf’s two front legs and its tongue extend from her vagina. There is a large blister under the tongue. It looks like a hopeless situation to me. Here we are at least 4 miles from the ranch house with its phone. We have nothing but our selves and our horses.

Frank takes the lariat from his saddle and ropes the cow around her neck behind her ears and ties the other end of the rope to a nearby mesquite tree. He removes one rein from his horses bridle, leaving the other rein dropping to the ground, “ground tying” the horse who doesn’t move. He wraps the leather rein securely around the protruding crossed legs of the calf. The heifer sways at the end of the rope her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and exhaustion.
“Now I want you to get back here and catch this calf when it comes out. Don’t let that blister touch the ground and get covered with sand.”
I position my self, arms bent and extended. I’m holding my breath and I’m on my knees. Frank leans back using all his weight and strength. The calf emerges suddenly. I don’t expect the slippery heavy limp body. I fall forward under the unexpected weight. The calf’s head lands in the sandy wash. I feel like I’ve failed. If this was a cowgirl test, I just flunked. Frank is forgiving and accepting.
“That’s OK.”
I block out the rest of the operation. It is a big male calf with a large head. Is the calf going to live? Will the blister subside? Will it be able to nurse? We ride back to the ranch. Frank says he will come back tomorrow and check on the new Mom and baby. I think, “this man can handle anything.” This is what it means to come from a “pioneering ranch family.”

Viewing the picture I’m sure I am is still there in that time somewhere. The people who share that time and place must just be off camera. Surely they are there too. I can see them moving, reserved, unsmiling.

The family consists of the widowed Mom Sy, and the unmarried siblings in their late thirties and early forties, Doris, Helen, and Frank, Jr. Doris is a teacher and keeps her distance from the physical labor of the ranch. Helen is already suffering from “arthuritus” exacerbated by the hard strenuous physical labor of the ranch. Helen and Frank have tanned and creased skin on their faces and hands.

Helen’s travel to school was more difficult than mine. I ride in the car with Doris each morning to the 8th grade in the schoolhouse overlooking the town. Helen had to ride horseback to school every day. Her horse regularly threw her at the same place in the road. She complains to her father, hoping for a different horse.
“Who is going to be the boss? You or the horse?” He asks.

Helen does the evening milking. I am her assistant. After school I go out to the pasture behind the house and collect the milk cows. I drive them toward the corrals and the waiting calves. As time lengthens from the birth of their calves, the cows are farther and farther from the corrals. I drive the cows into the milking stalls where Helen milks them, not trusting me to “strip them.” When she finishes she turns the calves in with the cows to get their nightly ration of milk. Helen returns to the ranch house for dinner and after dinner it is my job to separate the cows and their calves for the night. The dishes are done and Helen says, “ Did you turn out the cows and calves?”
I’ve forgotten and now it is dark.
“ If you leave them together over night we won’t get any milk tomorrow.”
I grab a broom and flashlight and head for the corrals. Jersey, one of the cows has a bad temperament and likes to charge and butt you. I get the calves into their enclosure and turn to see Jersey charging me. The broom swings after the flashlight and hits it. The flashlight goes off.
“Shit”! I say loudly. I hear Frank’s voice coming from the top of the corral fence,
“Now what kind of language is that for a young lady.”
“Jersey is trying to butt me!”

The days blend into each other interspersed with memorable events, the sighting of a mountain lion, the deer hunter found dead on the mountain side, after being gored by the buck deer he thought he had killed. Helen cooks. Doris as the eldest sibling, hands down judgments. Frank takes care of the ranch with Helen’s assistance. He is the “Hand”. I wash and dry dishes. There are three Foremen, Doris, Helen, and Mom Sy. Frank is definitely low man in the pecking order cast there by his youngest sibling status or perhaps ganged up on by the women. Doris says she saved him one winter, aged 4, from drowning when he fell in the horse trough and his heavy clothing held him down.
“Biggest mistake of my life.” She says.
He is the one family member who doesn’t live in the ranch house. He has a small green tar papered cabin on the other side of the wash. I never go over there. It is a male domain. I want them to like me and approve of me more than anything else in my life.

One day I ask Mom Sy how she got to Patagonia. She was one of eight orphaned siblings born in Scotland.
“I came here from Paisley Scotland where I was working in the Mills.” It was about 1890.
“ My brother and one sister were already here. He was a jockey riding in the races in Patagonia and my sister was working in a boarding house for the Miners.”
“ My brother wrote and told me to come, that there was a lot of work in the boarding houses.”
“I started working with my sister.”
“ I met a Miner, Frank Seibold.” “”He was from Minnesota.”
“I married him and we homesteaded this ranch.” In 1895.

The homestead is a quarter section allotted by the Homestead Act. Later it is realized that in this dry desert landscape a quarter section is not sufficient to support a family. They are allowed to add another quarter section. At some point Frank wants to move on to California. Catherine refuses to give up what they have, the first thing she has ever owned.

The firstborn child was Catherine, named after her mother. She died at aged 2. The Seibolds blame visitors who brought a sick child with them. The child later came down with diphtheria. Catherine was infected and died. I’ve visited her grave in the family plot in the cemetery south of town. Her grave has a small white marble lamb with “Catherine” inscribed. It is surrounded by a black iron fence. The other members of the family have spare notation, just names and dates. Doris, the last survivor, has an unmarked grave. Her heir, a distant cousin, did not want the expense of a marker.

I hear the flat slow drawl of their voices. I remember their issues, the internal family struggles. The horses become their surrogate children. Doris breeds a prize winning filly, “Pretty Girl”. The filly is the hero of the family. She starts a quarter horse blood line that gives Doris state wide recognition. Pretty Girl is spoiled like no Seibold has ever been spoiled. She regularly comes into the fenced area around the ranch house and causes mischief. I hear the pans for the milking process being scattered from their shelves near the back door. Helen complains.

Mom Sy starts receiving Social Security. She is also loosing her short term memory. “Doris you don’t have to take my Social Security. You have your own money.”

Now in 2006 they are all gone. Frank’s wife Irene is the last survivor. What they feared most has happened. The Ranch is no longer a functioning operation. The cattle have been sold off along with the horses. The lease on the forest land has been relinquished. The deeded land, the old homestead, is broken up and sold off in ten to forty acre plots. The ranch house went to a buyer this last year. Doris’ cousin and heir, Cookie made promises she didn’t keep. She and her husband bought some “western wear” and stuck around for about 6 months. Then they returned to Florida. They asked Frank’s widow, Irene to run the ranch for them. With the help of a cowboy from Mexico, Irene ran the cattle operation for 3 years. Cookie complained that the cattle sales were not bringing in enough money. Irene was instructed to sell off the remaining cattle and horses. Cookie and her husband presided over the dismantling of the Ranch. In the process they stepped on just about every person they dealt with. I assisted Irene in retrieving a picture from the ranch house that had been left to her by Helen. Cookie swore out a warrant for Irene’s arrest that would be withdrawn only when the picture was returned.

I have been blessed to know this family, their ranch and to share a small period in their lives. My memories of the time with them are precious. They took me in, a confused adolescent girl who didn’t know yet what life was about. Through quiet discipline, work and structure built on economic survival they taught me about life and myself. I am so grateful that they had the patience and energy to accept me. Thank you, Mom Sy, Doris, Helen, Frank. Rest in Peace.

No Country for Old Men

Two weeks ago I went with my son Caleb, to see “No Country for Old Men”. We had both read the book by Cormac McCarthy and were really looking forward to seeing the film presentation.

Cormac, what has happened to our Southwest? When and how did the border area get so violent and brutal? I remember the “old days” starting for me, in the 1940’s when workers, cowboys, household help flowed easily across the border for seasonal work. If “Juan” couldn’t make it this year he would send a nephew or cousin. This was an informal relationship, taken as a serious commitment. It kept a lot of ranchers on their little spreads in Santa Cruz County, Arizona when the hard physical labor was too much for their old bodies. It also kept a lot of families south of the border solvent while they waited for the harvest.

We always knew there was “Reefer” in Nogales but no one was being killed over it. Demand was low.

It was the drugs that changed everything. “Mules” carrying backpacks loaded with fifty to sixty pounds of contraband are being attacked and killed on the familiar trails north. The killers make off with the drugs. The money in the drug trade attracted criminals with other agenda. “Coyotes” started praying on border crossers. The combination of poverty and anti-social personality makes for a volatile mix.

Cormac, your story is electrifying. The acting and direction of the movie is exceptional. I think you contrast the old timers with the new criminals in a way that leaves the viewer confused and reeling. I sat there transfixed, scratching my head and pulling my hair out. Caleb turned to me at one point and said, “Mom, stop that.”

I looked at the familiar beautiful range country. Met the “old timers” and felt transported to an earlier more gentle time only to be confronted by the scourge of the Devil Incarnate with his air gun.

It is all very scary.

Darjeeling Express

I hadn’t been to the movies in a theater in a long time. My Friend wanted to see the Darjeeling Express. First we would go to an Indian Restaurant in Waltham for lunch.

We had a good lunch at the buffet and walked to the Movie Theater. I really didn’t know much about the movie we were to see but had heard the title floating around in various media.

The movie opened with Bill Murray running to catch a train in India. The train was leaving the station, “That’s my train”, was a recurrent theme. I like Bill Murray and enjoy his films so I was encouraged by his appearance. Unfortunately for me and the audience it was a “cameo” and that was the last we saw of him until the credits.

The Story, or lack of story, was three brothers who hadn’t grown up, or identified their issues or resolved them, rushing through the vibrant Indian landscape making fools of them selves.

Supposedly they were on a “Spiritual” quest and had some rituals to perform. The Ritual turned out to be blowing on a feather and then burying it. It made me, as a fellow American, want to crawl under my seat and hide. Here they were in a Culture of long spiritual traditions going back thousands of years and this was all they could come up with? Finally they were kicked off one of the trains. What took the train personnel so long?

After and experience with death in an Indian Village, the most rich and interesting part of the film, our end stage adolescents find their mother in a pathetic “convent” populated with native children in uniform who are in the process of being robbed of their language and culture. There is Angela Huston, another cameo, as the mother. Who talked her into taking this part? Did she read the script?

In short I think this movie is the worst I’ve ever seen. No wonder one of the “stars” is suicidal. If this were the best parts I could get I would be thinking about suicide too, or at least changing my profession.

Two Accounts

I have only recently begun to put together the stories my mother told me about her early life, evidently made up by her relatives to spare her the truth, and the reality as published in the newspaper.
The true story has become available due to Internet Access to the Archives of the Brooklyn Eagle. I am grateful to be able to uncover this. It explains a lot for me. I am also grateful my mother died before I found these articles. I’m glad she was spared.

The story my mother told me:
“My mother met my father in a bowling alley. He was engaged to someone else at the time. She was determined to have him. They were married at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights. My mother wore black, to be different.”

Brooklyn Eagle: March 3, 1895
SCHREINER--- MORAN
A quiet Lenten wedding took place Friday evening at the Church of the Messiah, Green and Clermont Avenues, when Miss Edith Moran of 402 Washington avenue was united in marriage to Mr. S. Van B. Schreiner of this city. There were present the bride’s mother who gave her away, Mrs. E. F. Kretzschmar, her grandmother, Mrs. E. C. Lewis; her sister, Miss Ethel Moran; Mrs. Leeds and Mr. Will Watts, who acted as best man. The bride and groom left for an extended wedding tour in the South.

“My mother and father went to Europe on their wedding trip. I was born in Wiesbaden at Great Aunt Sarah’s house. They wrapped me in an American flag so that I would be a citizen.”

“My mother made my father sell the West India Company Stock he had inherited from his Uncle. She didn’t want her husband ‘in trade’. Then the babies started coming. She was pregnant with her third child and she didn’t have enough money. She told my father to go to Holland and buy the stock back. She was so upset while he was gone that her sister and cousins came over and got her drunk. It didn’t help.”
“When my Father got to Holland they laughed at him.”

The story told by the Brooklyn Eagle:

THE BOGUS CHECK TRICK
___________
Said to have been worked by Schreiner
___________
Arrested in Virginia on Complaint of the Clarendon Hotel Proprietors
Well Connected in Brooklyn

Brooklyn Eagle, December 7, 1897, pp. 4.
Detective Sergeant Roche of the headquarters squad and George D Clum, a clerk of the Clarendon Hotel left town last night for Suffolk, Va., to claim as a prisoner S. V. B. Schreiner, alias Vernon Webb, who was arrested in Suffolk at the request of Superintendent McKelvey on a charge of having obtained money from the proprietors of the Clarendon hotel by means of a bogus check. It is not at all unlikely that when Schreiner is brought to trial here will be a number of complaints against him.
Schreiner dresses well and has good manners. He married a stepdaughter of the late Dr. Paul Kretzschmar, once supervisor-at-large. According to the police, the wife soon separated from Schreiner, and is now living with her mother.
Superintendent McKelvey said today that on the strength of his associations on the hill the young man had been successful in passing checks on merchants who, under other conditions, would have been more conservative in their dealings.
The action against the accused was brought by the proprietors of the Clarendon Hotel. He had been living there in style until the hotel people began pressing him for his bill. He disappeared from the city on September. After having induced the clerk at the hotel to give him a receipted bill for $43.15, the amount of his indebtedness and $20.47 in cash in exchange for a check for $63.62, drawn on the Sprague National Bank, it was alleged by R. C. Tucker & Co., to the order of S. V. B. Schreiner. The check was sent to the bank and was returned indorsed “no account”. When the hotel authorities began to look for the young man they found that he had disappeared. The case was given to the police. The local authorities traced him from place to place and finally located him in Suffolk. Va..
Schreiner appeared first in Suffolk on November 8, with letters of introduction to former Mayor Pinner. He was well introduced and seemed to prosper until work came from this city that he was wanted. Then he was placed under arrest, protesting in the meanwhile that he was not the man who was sought for by the local police. He had been selling stock for the Mutual Building and Loan association of Richmond, Va. When arrested he had only 1 cent in his possession and he owed four weeks board at the Commercial Hotel of Suffolk.

Special to The Post
The Washington Post (1877-1954); Dec. 8, 1896; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post,(1877-1990) pg. 8
GAY AND CLEVER, BUT A FORGER.

S. V. B. Shriner (sic), Alias Vernon Webb, Was a Social Favorite at Suffolk,
Special to the Post.
Suffolk, Va., Dec 7-- Detective Sergeant James H. Roche, of Brooklyn, arrived today and took charge of S. V. B. Schriner, alias Vernon Webb, who was yesterday arrested on the charge of forgery. Schriner agreed to go without requisition papers. He is accused of flashing bogus checks on the Clarendon and St. George Hotels and several mercantile firms in Brooklyn, where he was once a prosperous broker.
Sergeant Roche says Schriner’s pretty young wife, whose father was Dr. Kretchmaur (sic), former supervisor-at-large in Brooklyn, has a monthly income of $500. Owing to her husband’s love of wine women and sporting life Mrs. Schriner doesn’t live with him any more. Webb, as he was known here, passed as a single man, and his arrest will leave a void in several girls’ hearts. The choir of the First Baptist Church will miss him, too. Schriner was versatile as well as clever.

Brooklyn Eagle Tuesday Dec. 8, 1896; page 14
SCHRINER SANG IN THE CHOIR
The Fugitive Was Making an Effort to Be Good,
SAYS HE HAD REFORMED
The Local Police Got on His Trail for Passing Bogus Checks in This City and Tracked Him to Virginia, Where He Was Making a Fine Reputation. Married a stepdaughter of the Late Dr. Paul Kretzschmar.

When Detective Sergeant Roche of the headquarters squad reached Suffolk, Va., yesterday in his quest for S. V. B Shriner, alias Vernon Webb, who was wanted in this city on a charge of having obtained money dishonestly by means of bogus checks, he found that the clever young man had so ingratiated himself in the good opinion of the people of Suffolk that no less than three clergymen were interested in him and were willing to declare that he was a much abused man. Schriner is a very clever person. He is well educated, well bred and a very bright young businessman. His marriage to a daughter of the widow of the late Dr. Paul Kretzschmar took place at the Hotel St. George about three years ago. It was in a sense a runaway match and the mother of the bride was very indignant and left the hotel where she had been boarding with her family, angry because she thought that Captain Tumbridge, the proprietor, had know of the engagement and had not told her of it.


There are four complaints against the prisoner. He had resolved to leave the town early in September and, it is alleged, on the day that he left Brooklyn, September 5 last, he placed five of the worthless checks that he had drawn on the Sprague bank. The victims were Balch, Price and Co., the Hotel St George, the Clarendon Hotel, a grocer named Indig and Journeay and Burnham. The latter firm has not as yet made a complaint. When Schreiner had collected all the money he could get he went directly to Richmond, Virginia where he applied to E. B. Thaw, the officer in charge of the agencies of the Mutual Guarantee Building and Loan Association, for employment. He was boarding then with a man named Pierce and he had been in his house but three days.
"I'd like to hire you," said Mr. Thaw, "but I must have references."
"Do you want a man with references or a hustling business man from New York?" Said Schreiner, who introduced himself as Vernon Webb.
The reply pleased Mr. Thaw and he went no further, but engaged Vernon Webb on the spot. He said to the detective yesterday that the young man's business methods were perfect and he proved a model agent. Webb established branches for the company in Covington, Stanton, Norfolk and Suffolk, and they all flourished. He went to Suffolk on the 8th of last month, put up at the Commercial hotel and made many friends in the town. He had been in the habit of drinking, unfortunately, but he gave up that bad habit, joined the Methodist Church of the town and as he was a remarkably good tenor singer, his services in the church choir as a soloist was an acquisition which the members were justly proud. What he did with his money is not exactly known, but the simple fact remains that, while he was making a good salary, he managed to run up a bill of something more than $38. at the hotel.
His arrest as S.V.B. Schreiner, on advises from Superintendent McKelvey, came as a shock to his friends. He denied that he was Schreiner and said to his friends in Suffolk that he would be able to clear himself. The arrival of the Brooklyn detective and the clerk of the Clarendon hotel, who had cashed his bogus check, took all the starch out of him and he relinquished all claims of innocence. When the detective visited him in jail Schreiner was entertaining no less than three clergymen who were interested in his case. When his identification was made complete he said that he was willing to return to 'Brooklyn without a requisition. He was arraigned at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon before Justice ---ia of Suffolk. The magistrate was unwilling to let him go without a requisition. The Detective said that he was anxious to catch the 4 pm train for the north. "Are you willing to go with me without a requisition?" he asked the prisoner.
"Yes," was the reply; "willing and anxious."
Thereupon he was discharged by the local magistrate and an hour later was on the train for New York. Prisoner, captor and witness reached the city this morning and one of the first persons to meet the fugitive was his wife. The greeting was most affectionate. Schreiner was taken before Justice Walsh, and his lawyer pleaded not guilty in his behalf. By his request hearing was postponed until the 16th inst. He went to jail pending negotiations for his release on bail which will be furnished by his wife. He says that he is glad to be back in Brooklyn.

New York Times file; Dec. 9, 1896, page 2



SCHRINER SANG IN THE CHOIR
The Fugitive Was Making an Effort to Be Good,
SAYS HE HAD REFORMED
The Local Police Got on His Trail for Passing Bogus Checks in This City and Tracked Him to Virginia, Where He Was Making a Fine Reputation. Married a stepdaughter of the Late Dr. Paul Kretzschmar.

When Detective Sergeant Roche of the headquarters squad reached Suffolk, Va., yesterday in his quest for S. V. B Shriner, alias Vernon Webb, who was wanted in this city on a charge of having obtained money dishonestly by means of bogus checks, he found that the clever young man had so ingratiated himself in the good opinion of the people of Suffolk that no less than three clergymen were interested in him and were willing to declare that he was a much abused man. Schriner is a very clever person. He is well educated, well bred and a very bright young business man. His marriage to a daughter of the widow of the late Dr. Paul Kretzschmar took place at the Hotel St. George about three years ago. It was in a sense a runaway match and the mother of the bride was very indignant and left the hotel where she had been boarding with her family, angry because she thought that Captain Tumbridge, the proprietor, had know of the engagement and had not told her of it.

New York Times file; Dec 9, 1896, page 2



Grandmother Goes Bail


Shreiner’s Wife Will Help Him

S. V. B. Schreiner, alias Vernon Webb, who is charged with swindling the Clarendon Hotel, in Brooklyn, was brought back to that city yesterday by Detective Sergeant Roche from Suffolk, Va. There are several complaints against Schreiner. He is a well-educated young man. About three years ago he married a daughter of Dr. Paul Kretschmar at the St. George Hotel. His wife met him upon his arrival in Brooklyn yesterday and gave him an affectionate greeting. She is wealthy in her own right, and has offered to settle a competency on him if he will give up his wild ways. Schreiner spent last night in Raymond Street Jail. His wife will furnish bail today.

Brooklyn Eagle; Monday Oct. 30, 1899
MRS. SCHREINER DIES OF CRIMINAL OPERATION
Made a Deathbed Confession Accusing Dr. Harvey, a Manhattan Practitioner.
CHARGES AGAINST HIM BEFORE
Coroner’s Jury Found Him Guilty of Malpractice on Another Brooklyn Woman Who Died.
Mrs. Edith Schreiner of 331 Park Place died this morning at her home from the result, the attending physician says, of a criminal operation performed, it is alleged, at 144 West Twenty-third Street, Manhattan. The case was reported to Coroner Burger by Dr. Charles H. Goodrich, who later swore to a complaint to the effect that Mrs. Schreiner had confessed to him that the operation which has made her so very ill, had been performed by a man calling himself Dr. Harvey, at the address mentioned. ---------------
The case is of more than usual interest, not only from the prominence of the victim, but because of the fact that it is only a short time since a young woman died in St. Catherine’s Hospital under similar conditions, who before her death identified “Dr. Harvey” as the man who had been responsible for her fatal illness.

“My father died when I was 9 years old,(1905). I didn’t know I had a father. Aunt Ethel dyed all my cloths black. He had been killed in a car crash in San Francisco. He had gone there to live with a friend from his School in Brooklyn. The friend said, “come out here and get a fresh start.” The Friend had one of the first cars in San Francisco and the breaks failed on one of the hills. They crashed and burned. The family of the Friend asked permission to bury them together in their family plot.”

When my mother was dying I said to her, “Mom, would you like to be buried with your mother?” I guess the question came out of my need to reconcile them.
“ Your father and I were never divorced. I want to be buried on top of him. I don’t want to be with my mother. She killed my brother.”

I have been unable to find and official account of my grandfather’s death. Now I understand why my mother and her sister had no contact with their father after their mother’s death. Her family probably cut him off socially and financially.

Ghost Story

When I was 8 years old my parents and I moved to Greenport, Long Island. My father was involved in the local shipyard as a Naval Architect. They were producing Mine Sweepers for the US Navy to clear German Mines from the shipping channels in the North Atlantic. These boats were one of only two wooden ships produced during WWII. The other wooden boat was the P.T. or "Mosquito Boat". My father was a Wooden boat specialist. Housing was short everywhere in the country and my parents were delighted to procure an antique Farmhouse, the "Cottage" on the Floyd estate. It came complete with furnishings, extensive grounds, a gardener, and a three car garage. The house was in two parts, the oldest part dated from the early 1700s. The kitchen with the old fireplace hearth had a built in "Dutch oven". There was a wood burning stove inserted in the hearth and also an electric stove on another wall. The parlor beyond the kitchen had been turned into a formal dining room with its own fireplace. Upstairs were three tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. Connecting to this oldest part of the house was a new addition, twice the size of the original house. They connected on the ground floor through a den and on the second floor through a door in my bedroom. Each part, new and old had a basement with a separate furnace. In the middle of the first winter, my parents closed off the new half of the house and we moved into the older house, to conserve heat and the expense of oil. When the weather warmed we could open the doors and spread out into the "new" part with its large bedrooms, bathrooms, Living room and sun porch.

I remember our time there as idealic. We quickly added two cats and a large German shepherd, my first pets, to the family. I loved the seasonal thing, the small warm winter bedrooms with one little window each, slanting floors, doors with the old iron latches, Then the spacious summer quarters with many windows, thrown open in the summer to catch the air from the sea, close on both sides of this "North Fork".

Being in the house from aged 8 until 11 years, I am a bit hazy about the time sequence, which year, which winter I began to hear the foot steps crossing the floor in my "summer" room, coming to the door now closed for the winter, to my little winter room. I think it must have happened two or three times before I thought it was noteworthy enough to tell my mother about it. What clinched it in my mind was the behavior of my dog. "King" slept on my bed with me, a narrow old iron cot. He curled up in the hollow of my knees and when I wanted to turn over he had to get up and lie down again on the other side. I can still feel the process, his resistance against the blankets, warm from his body, the final reluctant rising with the rattle of his dog tag, and then waiting till I felt the newly cold sheet warm with his body heat against the back of my knees as we both drifted back to sleep.

I remember hearing the footsteps and feeling King rise and stand over me. His lips were drawn back in a snarl, fangs bared, his hackles raised, and he was shaking so that the whole bed vibrated. Even in my nine or ten year old mind, I knew terror when I saw it. There I lay, watching the dog and the door, wondering what would happen next. He didn't bark, just the constant desperate snarl. Then he stopped, lay down in his usual place, still shaking, and we went to sleep.

I told my mother about our experience. I remember one vivid nightmare of being chased through the upstairs to the back stairway down to the kitchen by a skinny white apparition. I also remember joining a waiting wasp under the covers, being stung, crying loudly and meeting my frantic parents at the back stairs clutching my hip. They had looked at each other said, "the Ghost", and rushed up the stairs to meet me at the top.

One night while my mother was sitting on my bed after tucking me in, the footsteps came toward the door. I thought, "Wow! Now she'll believe me." I couldn't believe "whatever" would be so bold or dumb to "do it" with my mother there, ineptitude or my good luck. King stood over me, next to my mother, facing the closed door, snarling and shaking. We were transfixed. My mother said later, "I was afraid that if I had opened the door, the dog would have dropped dead from fright." I wish I could tell you about how the problem was resolved but we went on living in the house. I accepted whatever reassurance my parents offered and continued to play with my friends, my cats, and my dog. I don't remember hearing the footsteps again and I'm sure that when the summer came, we opened the door as usual and King and I moved into our summer quarters, the room of the footsteps.

Bed Memorys

When I was about 8 years old ( 1941 ) my parents took a trip and arranged for me to stay with two maiden ladies who lived in an antique house in Orient, further out the North Fork of Long Island. I was to sleep in a “feather bed”, a first for me. It must have been used to entice me to be willing to cooperate with the arrangement. I remember the feeling that they were doing us and me a big favor and that I must be on my best behavior. In retrospect that “spin” was part of the preparation by my mother, I’m sure.

I was deposited in the afternoon, in one of my best dresses. Something felt out of sync. This was the way I was dressed for a party. I knew this wasn’t a party. There must have been a meal, conversation, perhaps a game. I was focused on getting into that feather bed. The two ladies struck me as overly enthusiastic with forced smiles, unreal, probably in their anxiety about taking this responsibility.

I don’t remember the meal or the topics of conversation. What I remember is standing by the bed, hugely mountainous in my eyes. I decided I wanted to depress only the center with my body leaving the sides intact like a nest. I asked to stand on a chair and jumped into the middle. Somehow I cracked my knee or shin in the process. It hurt a lot but I didn’t want to disturb the general joviality or challenge the two ladies to care for an injured child. I really didn’t feel they could handle it. I managed not to cry out or cry. I said I had done just what I planned and was relieved when the pain quickly subsided.. I loved the bed that turned out to be surprisingly hard in the middle where I had landed. I said good night and the ladies withdrew. My parents picked me up after two nights I think, and I never saw the two ladies again. I did make a mental note each time we passed the little house by the side of the road. I understood from my mother that it was special, an Antique, “very old”.

So much of the North Fork was “very old” at that time. We rented the “Cottage” on the old William Floyd estate. My mother told me that the land had been given to William Floyd by George Washington as a reward for his service during the Revolution. The “cottage” was really two houses, Joined. The original part dated from the early 1700s. there was the cooking fireplace with a Dutch oven. The hearth was occupied by a big black stove, wood burning? I think there was another stove, electric?, in the kitchen as well. The other half of the house was a more recent addition with a parlor, sun porch, four bedrooms and two baths. The new part had a noisy ghost. (see my Ghost Story )
We rented from the currant occupant of the estate house, made of stone, with a copula, widows walk, on top. Across the road in an old yellow frame house lived Miss Floyd, whom my mother cultivated, charming her, trying to turn her into a friend. She was old even then. A little wisp of a woman with white hair. She was cared for by a black couple, retainers. I remember them as being very kind to me and friendly. At Easter the old man was sent across the road with an Easter basket for me containing eggs, candy and “real” porcelain German rabbits, the mother and two babies. My mother managed to drop one of the babies and break off an ear which she mended with glue. I still have them, in the chest. I remember entering Miss Floyd's the parlor, a room that occupied the East wing of the house. The floors slopped this way and that and the windows went from ceiling to floor.
I think my mother had concerns about the cleanliness of the kitchen, which was overrun with cats. I was admonished not to eat anything offered there.

Miss Floyd’s complaint was that her niece, not she, had inherited the stone house. This was because Mrs., Robinson, the niece had married. What threw Miss Floyd into a ladylike tantrum was the fact that Mrs. Robinson hadn’t had the expected children and was at that time in a Boston Marriage with a transvestite, Dr. Jennings. I realized that there was something strange going on mainly because Dr. Jennings who was evidently a woman dressed in men’s suits, tie and all. She was reclusive so I didn’t see much of her. At one point she was taking a mail order photography course and needed to do some pictures of a child. Mrs. Robinson asked my mother if I would pose and on the appointed day she arrived in our living room with camera, white screen, lights and I was dressed in two different outfits. The first a red and white stripped dress with my hair braided. The next, a dark red corduroy two piece dress with my hair loose. Unfortunately my mother had assigned me to do my own hair and for at least a month, probably more. I had just been smoothing the top and not re-braiding it. (Mothers don’t let your daughters grow up to be slackers.) My mother couldn’t get a comb through it. There was a snarled mat between the crown of my head and the beginning of the braids. I remember a lot of tugging and painful pulling, threats to cut it off.

Miss Floyd was the source of my two cats. Mittsey and Spot. Mittsey was killed on the road in front of the house but Spot managed to live to have two kittens, Cream Puff and Grey Boy. I loved them deliriously. We also added a German Shepard, King, to our family. I remember Spot bringing her kittens and depositing them between King’s paws and he trying to raise his muzzle out of the reach of their playful mits without getting up and disturbing them.

It was a happy time. My mother loved the house and the life of a country lady. We had visitors. Gigi and Uncle Bob, my mother’s Aunt and Uncle. They were driven over by Aunt Edith’s chauffer, Smith, in a big impressive gray Packard. Smith was in Livery and caused quite a stir in the Village of Greenport. Friends from the Clarkstown Country Club came. MK Krell and Roysey, her son, from Scarsdale. “Aunt” Truman Lovelace. Louise Whitaker, “my father’s first wife”.

I don’t know when or why things began to deteriorate between my parents. My mother said it was because she was worried that my father was getting older and they had nothing saved for the time when he must retire.

I came home from school one day and found my trunk packed and my mother saying we were going to Nyack to the Clarkstown Country Club. She left my father a note, put me in the car and we left.

That was the beginning of a very bad time. I found my self mostly alone, except for Mr. Powers and his Elephants, the only child on the club grounds. My mother and I shared a bed in our room in the clubhouse. I cried at night for my father and my pets. It must have made my mother feel guilty because I remember her crossly telling me to stop crying. Things didn’t go well for her there. PA took over her car. She had to work for our board and room. My father was furious and threatening to sue her for my custody. I remember him coming to see us and how angry he looked. I thought I had done something wrong. I didn’t understand how my life could become so confusing in such a short time.

My mother realized she had made a mistake and we packed surreptitiously, she became paranoid about taking the car back from PA and we crept out at 4 am, me being sworn to secrecy and with the help of Eddy Evans, got our car and were on the road to return to Greenport, my Father and my pets.



Addenda: I visited the North Fork in 1986 about. Mrs. Robinson’s property was being subdivided into Condominiums. Miss Floyd’s house was restored and redecorated by a new owner from New York City. It was “Victorian” in overly plush decor. Miss Floyd would have been upset. The Cottage had burned down a few years before. The little cemetery was still on the corner across the lane from the Cottage and across the road from Miss Floyd’s. I found her grave and paid my respects