William Henry Harrison, and one of my ancestors

Our 9th president, William Henry Harrison, was born February 9, 1773. He was the last president born as a British subject. As a soldier, he participated in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1792, and most notably in the confrontation with the Shawnee leader Tecumseh at the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe. Consequently, Harrison was often called "Old Tippecanoe." He was delegate of the Northwest Territory in Congress, then governor of Indiana Territory. Later, he represented Ohio's first district in the U.S. House and Senate. After several years of private life, he was nominated as the Whig candidate in the 1836 and 1840 presidential elections. He won in 1840, with John Tyler as his running mate. "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!" Harrison died in April 1841, a month after his inauguration, the first president to die in office.

Here is a column from the July 22, 1840 issue of the Vandalia Whig, my hometown's newspaper at the time. Abraham Lincoln is running for Whig elector. My 4th great-grandfather Thomas R. Gatewood (c 1781-1856) is running for reelection as county coroner. (He lost.) The other names for state and county elections are notable Vandalians and Fayette Countians of the time. 

Alban Berg

Here's a composer whom I've been listening to lately. Alban Berg was born February 9, 1885. I found this quote on the British Library site: "Berg was a leading member of the ‘Second Viennese School’. The group’s music explored the extreme edges of tonality and beyond, which they saw as an extension of the kind of model perfected by their illustrious predecessors Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Berg’s music is generally considered more lyrical and accessible than that of Schoenberg and Webern, who each took slightly different musical directions." Among his several works, Berg wrote two operas that are in the repertoire: Wozzeck, and Lulu.

Lincoln Highway

I saw this post on Facebook: a nice map of the Lincoln Highway with its original route along with subsequent alignments and auxiliary routes. It was so fun to teach a course on American Highways at University of Akron. We read Drake Hokanson's lovely book on the route. When Emily was in college at Seton Hill, I enjoyed following some of the original alignments around Greensburg. 

https://lincolnhighwayassoc.org/map/?fbclid=IwAR2Y1VAcO3ZhWzThTm2MbZuemji_lc-9z4wwmvmmcq-5GYivFk6CePkBtnE

KSDK-TV St Louis

The local NBC station is celebrating their 75th anniversary today. When I was a kid, channel 4 and 11 had great cartoon shows, but we usually watched channel 5 for area news, with newscasters like Chris Condon, Max Roby, Bob Chase, John Auble, Julius Hunter, Jay Randolph for sports, and others. Charlotte Peters had a very popular daytime show.  Diane White was the first African American weathercaster at any station. Clif St James was a weathercaster and also "Corky the Clown" for the station's children's show.

According to a post on Facebook ("Vintage Route 66 and St Louis), "KSD was one of only seven television stations in the US at the time and the second west of the Mississippi. The call letters KSD stand for the initials of Joseph Pulitzer Junior’s grandmother, Kate Star Davis." 

According to Wikipedia, the station was KSD-TV in 1947-1979, and KSDK-TV thereafter. It had earlier affiliations with DuMont, CBS, and ABC. It was the first station in St. Louis to broadcast in color. 

Picture from Pinterest. Copied under fair use principles. 

Kate Chopin

Here's a name that always makes me think of Beth's masters degree readings at SIU-E. She read The Awakening for one of her classes that year. 

Kate Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis on February 8, 1850. She was a forerunner of 20th century feminist authors and, after her death, was recognized as a leading writer. She wrote two short story collections, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897), and two novels, At Fault (1890) and The Awakening (1899). While attending the St. Louis World's Fair, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died a few days later at the age of 54. She is buried in St Louis' Calvary Cemetery.

(Copied under fair use principles.) 

Hold Firmly

 Hold Firmly 

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

A devotion written for our church to complement yesterday's sermon. 

In her book Teaching a Stone to Talk, writer Annie Dillard tells of the small church that she had been attending. She memorably comments, 

“Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely involve? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flames; they should lash us to our pews” (p. 40). 

Dillard realizes that an encounter with God is life-changing, even scary and dangerous, as the Bible teaches. People died approaching God. The sons of Aaron entered the tabernacle in a careless way (Lev. 10:1-2). In another story, Uzzah died when he touched the Ark of the Covenant, so “charged” as it was with God’s presence (2 Sam. 6:1-7). In two other stories, Moses got so close to God that his face glowed, which made people afraid (Exodus 34:29-35). And in Genesis 28:16-17, Jacob awoke from his dream afraid, because he had perceived the divine presence in that place—and he hadn’t died!  

Our scripture is from 1 Cor. 15:1-11, but there are two other lectionary scriptures that we can read. One is Isaiah 6:1-8, the famous story of Isaiah the priest who suddenly realized he was in the powerful presence of God. He feared that he was lost; he called himself and his words “unclean,” which in this context means unholy, unworthy of God. He was confused—and despaired of his life. But the angel touched Isaiah and declared him and his words worthy, empowered by God. Consequently, Isaiah’s life was changed: the priest was also a prophet who communicated God’s words. 

Similarly, Luke 5:1-11 tells the story of the first meeting of Jesus with Peter and his friends. Jesus performed a miracle of abundant fish that the fishermen could sell. But Peter told Jesus to go away! Peter recognized that he was in the presence of holiness—the frightening presence of God—and like Isaiah, he didn’t want to die because of it. But Jesus gives them an invitation to “catch people.” Peter and his friends had brand-new lives and a mission. 

Our scripture from 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 was originally a reminder to that congregation to “hold firmly” to faith. Just in case they forgot, Paul reminds them of the Gospel story. This is their story, too! They are acting like they don’t believe a word of it.  

Paul reminds them that he is the least of the apostles. Remember the story of Paul’s conversion. He, too, had an encounter with the presence of holiness. It physically knocked him to the ground, temporarily blinded him, and he couldn’t even eat or drink for a while. 

Paul’s story became linked to the story of God’s salvation. He concludes his recitation of the creed with a few sentences of his own story. Paul was always sensitive that people would think of him as a second-string apostle or even a phony. But he affirmed that God in Christ had appeared to him and called him. 

Think again about what God’s power has brought about: 

“Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,

and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,

and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (1 Cor. 15:1-8)

When Paul says, “hold firmly,” he means: live so that we are guided by the Holy Spirit and know how we are part of God’s great story in Christ. Don’t neglect that gift. But I like to think of another meaning: hold on tight, because God is in your life, and you’re in for a wonderful, life-changing ride!  

Dear Lord, thank you for guiding us and transforming us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Marie Louise of Hesse-Kassel

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's ascendancy to the throne. Here's something interesting that I discovered this morning. 

Marie Louise of Hesse-Kassel was born February 7, 1688. She was a Dutch regent, Princess of Orange by marriage to John William Friso, Prince of Orange, and regent of the Netherlands during the minority of her son and her grandson. A genuine and friendly person, she was fondly called Marijke Meu (Aunt Mary) by her Dutch contemporaries. She and her husband are the most recent common ancestors of all currently reigning monarchs in Europe. (https://familypedia.fandom.com/.../Royal_descendants_of...) 

For instance, she is the 6th-great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II, via the House of Hanover (https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ancestry_of_Elizabeth_II)

Nancy Hanks Lincoln

How lovely to remember my UAkron Lincoln course this evening as I reread some books about his childhood! February 5, 1784 is a traditional birthday of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who was born in 1782 or 1784 in what is now West Virginia. She married Thomas Lincoln in 1806. They had three children, of whom only Abraham survived to adulthood. 

Tradition, validated by recent mitochondrial DNA analysis, identifies Nancy's mother as Lucy Hanks. Lincoln believed that a well-to-do Virginia planter took sexual advantage of the unmarried Lucy, and she gave birth to Nancy. If Lincoln knew the man's name, he never shared it.  Lincoln took a psychologically interesting pride in the mental powers and acumen that he thought he gained from the upper-class Virginia roots of his mother's family---while deploring the man's behavior. 

Lincoln actually didn't say much about his mother; we know much more about his beloved and supportive stepmother  There is a lot about Lincoln's relationship with his parents about which we can only speculate; he dismissed his childhood as "the short and simple annals of the poor." But he did once tell his law partner William Herndon, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." Herndon's record of that remark as always captured people's imagination about Nancy.

Lincoln was devastated when she died in 1818 of "milk sickness," the result of drinking the milk of a cow who had injested the toxic white snakeroot. Lincoln was only nine. His lifelong interest in theological questions, which we see in his Second Inaugural, surely began with the sad and unfair death of his young mother. 

There are no pictures of Nancy, but artist and Lincoln historian Lloyd Ostendorf (1921-2000) painted this imaginary portrait based on other members of the Hanks family.

Copied under fair use principles. 

Farrah Fawcett

I post famous people's birthday's on Facebook. Yesterday was Farrah Fawcett's birthday. Her poster and Charlie's Angels were so popular during my second year of college! I took dates to two movies that featured her, "Logan's Run" and "Sunburn." She was a courageous person and activist. 

 https://www.caller.com/story/news/local/2020/03/05/influential-women-south-texas-farrah-fawcett/4765321002/

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RVW's Sesquicentennial

A nice article about the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. The 150th anniversary of his birth happens this fall. 

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ralph-vaughan-williams-modernist-master?fbclid=IwAR16rGTb46oY94EBI2j1nxgkCrO43wl5-nEXuuqmg9l5KC3jOLsDoVYg_Fw