Jim Nolan's Blog

Hand Warmer Muff, 1920s

My grandmother Isabel Curry Nolan, fashionably keeping her hands warm in Buffalo. My friend Jon Ward informs me that this was also known as a "snood."

1923 Christmas Seal

From a page collecting Christmas Seals in my grandmother's scrapbook. It is captioned: "Designed by Rudolph Ruzicka NY, $4,258,000 realized." For more info on Christmas Seals, see this article in Wednesday's NY Times.

Christmas Seal, 1924

From my grandmother's scrapbook: "Designed by George V. Curtis. $4,500,00 realized." A sheet of 100 of these sells for fifty bucks today. 

Part of a page from the scrapbook. The years 1907-1913 are left blank. You can see 1912 and 1913 at the top left. Click to enlarge.

Christmas Seals, 1914 & 1915

"The Executive Committee of the American Red Cross has just officially approved the design for the 1914 Red Cross Christmas Seal, shown in the accompanying picture. Here you see the reproduction of the little stamp, which will be sold throughout the United States during the coming Christmas season to help in the unrelenting campaign which is being waged in this country against the white plague [tuberculosis]… The 1914 stamp is brightly colored with red and green predominating. It is taken up almost entirely by the laughing, ruddy, applecheeked face of Santa Claus. The background in vivid green represents part of a Christmas tree. Instead of the oblong design as used during the 1913 Christmas season, the 1914 stamp is square-practically the size of an ordinary postage stamp."

From The American Red Cross Magazine, July 1914

"It was interesting to note that the purity of the conventional design appealed more to the artist than to the popular fancy. The public likes better the seal which arouses its imagination by the face of the merry Santa Claus, or the laden boughs of a Christmas tree. The earlier stamp designs were composed of a red cross surrounded by holly in conventional form. But the seals of the last few years have depended upon the benevolent face or form of Santa Claus to enhance their popularity."

Mabel Boardman, Secretary of the American Red Cross, from her book Under the Red Cross Flag, 1915. Both quotes found at: http://www.redcross.org/museum/tour/page_8.html

Christmas Seal, 1933

From my grandmother's scrapbook.

1910 Plains Township, PA Yearbook Cover and Ad for East Stroudsburg State Normal School

Photo credit: NePA Photo Collection.

My great-grandmother Sara Curry taught here in 1910. Her son John was an eighth grade student that year. You can see a photo of him here, and other pages from the "First Annual" here. His sister Isabel, my grandmother, was also a teacher. She didn't study at East Stroudsburg State, but at Bloomsburg State, Penn State, and Columbia State Teachers College. Isabel married my grandfather Paul, John's best friend. Paul didn't believe his wife should work. Seems crazy now. Thanks to the Northeast Pennsylvania Photo Collection for posting the Yearbook. 

Isabel Curry Nolan's Locket

 

Paul, John, Jim and Ned (Edmund) Nolan. I found this locket in a box my parents gave me recently. It's one-and-three-quarter by one-and-a-quarter inches, and a little beat up. Late 1940s? I can only imagine how precious this was for my grandmother Isabel Curry Nolan (I.J.C. = Isabel Jane Curry.) Her father Vincent was killed by lightning when she was a child; her brother John by a sniper in WWI. Her new family she kept safe in scrapbooks and around her neck. Click either image to enlarge.

Jake Sicherman Debates for J.Y.M.A., June 1916

From a packet of newspaper clippings and photos sent to me by Barbara Sicherman. I've really enjoyed posting the four audio essays with Barbara this week on subjects from Well Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women. Barbara's dad Jake was my grandfather Paul's best friend, in high school and throughout life. Her mother, Esther, was a great friend of my grandmother, Isabelle. Here is an article about Jake debating a J.Y.M.A. team from Rochester at Temple Beth Zion. Thanks for this week, Barbara!

Scrapbooking, 1929

My grandmother, Isabel Curry Nolan, lost her father to lightning, her brother to a sniper, and kept the rest of her life safely tucked away in scrapbooks.

Christmas Seal, 1947

From my grandmother's scrapbook.