A West Point cadet

While trawling through yet another long-stored box from the W. Dale Clark Library's "attic," I found something kind of neat: a copy of A Treatise on Military Law and the Practice of Courts-Martial, by Stephen Vincent Benét, published in 1868. Now, since Omaha Public Library is not an academic library, this work does not really fit into our collection very well (it is also a little the worse for wear--the cover is falling off, and over all it's a bit fragile) and I will probably have to send it to the Friends of the Library to sell. But first I wanted to gloat over it a little.

First of all, if the name Stephen Vincent Benét makes you wonder vaguely what military law and poetry have to do with each other, the answer is--not much. This is NOT the Stephen Vincent Benét who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929 for his book-length narrative poem, John Brown's Body (all this can of course be verified at Wikipedia....), but rather the poet's grandfather and namesake, who was a brigadier-general and a graduate of the United States Military Academy. (It was a very military family--the poet's father was a career officer and young Stephen himself spent a year at Hitchcock Military Academy. But stop here, this post is NOT supposed to be about Stephen the younger. Or actually about Stephen the older, either, as you will see.)

If you'd like to actually read this book, it is available digitally from archive.org. But what actually interests me most about this particular volume is the person (or people) who owned it.  The original owner has inscribed his name, Fred A. Smith, a date (September 1872), and the words "Cadet U.S.M.A. West Point Ny."  Who was Fred Smith, and how did Omaha Public Library end up with his book?  (It might have something to do with the other name written on this frontispiece, which looks like "C.J. McCaffrey"--although the "C." looks as though it were crossed out, and the last name could be "McCalfrey.")

Well, one hopeless task at a time. "Smith" is a bad research prospect at best, and "Fred" is not much better, although it was kind of him to at least include a middle initial. But I think I've found our man. Although Ancestry.com (or Ancestry Library Edition, if you are using our library database) does have some of the West Point cadet registers, I discovered an even better source--the USMA Library Digital Collections. There I was able to download a pdf of The Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the U.S. Military Academy (June 1873). Frederick A. Smith was a member of the graduating class that year, and he appears to be the only Fred A. Smith who was at West Point in September of 1872 (although a Fred E. Smith from Illinois was admitted in July, 1872).

Frederick A. Smith was born in New York and "appointed" from New York, having been nominated by the Honorable C.H. Van Wyck and accepted February 13, 1869, according to a cadet register in the Ancestry.com database U.S. Military and Naval Academies, Cadet Records and Applications, 1805-1908. C.H. Van Wyck was almost certainly Charles Henry Van Wyck (1824-1895), a New York Republican congressional representative from 1859 to 1863. Then, as now, West Point candidates needed a nomination for admission, usually from a U.S. senator or a representative. Interestingly, Congressman Van Wyck moved to Nebraska in 1874 and eventually served as U.S. senator from Nebraska (see The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress).

But back to good old Fred. The Official Register shows that he was admitted July 1, 1869, at the age of 20 years and one month (making his birth date around June 1849). The 1873 West Point registers in the Ancestry.com database give Frederick's hometown as Newburgh, New York, which is right by West Point. There was a Frederick of the right age in the 1850 and 1860 censuses living with his parents F.B. and Sarah Smith in Blooming Grove, New York, which is just southwest of Newburgh, and the same family, minus Frederick (though "F.B." is now "Frederick"), was listed in Newburgh in the 1870 census. I felt certain of my identification when I discovered this family in Newburgh in the 1875 New York state census, available at FamilySearch--and what a splendid state census it is!  Lists relationships, occupations, AND location of absent members. Frederick A. is listed with his family, but is described as a lieutenant in the 12th Infantry, usually employed "in California." The book published in 1885 on the occasion of the 16th Annual Reunion of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy provides further confirmation by identifying the Frederick A. Smith who graduated in 1873 as the same Frederick A. Smith who was a first lieutenant and adjutant in the 12th Infantry (p. 18).

The Official Register shows that our Fred was ranked a respectable 22 out of the 41 graduating members of his class, and had only 40 demerits for the year (as compared to the record holder, Joseph F. Huston, with 193. Of course, Joseph also graduated at the very bottom of the class). 

So, our book, published in 1868, was probably a brand-new textbook when it came into Frederick Smith's hands. Someone, probably Fred himself (since mention is made of "Lt. Reilly instructor" in "3rd Section Law Mch 28th 1873," and the Official Register confirms that 1st Lt. James W. Reilly was the law and ethics professor in 1873), took some serious notes:

As a librarian I can't really approve of this vandalism, but maybe composition books were in short supply. And after all, it was not a library book yet.

Anyway, if it was Fred, his work paid off. He eventually became a brigadier-general, after serving in the Indian wars, in the Columbian Guard at the World's Fair in Chicago (for which he was commended), in Cuba, and the Philippines. In 1910 he was given command of the Department of Missouri, the second largest in the army, "with station at Omaha, Nebraska." Is that when his old book came into our city? Just before he retired in 1913, he was again stationed in Omaha, having been assigned to the command of the Second Division of the Fifth Brigade, which was headquartered there. He is indeed in the 1911 Omaha city directory, p. 1113.

Living at the Hotel Loyal (211 N. 16th Street), which seems the perfect place for a loyal officer of the U.S. Army, and very fortunately we have a picture of what it looked like just about the time he was living there.


You may wonder how I suddenly know so much about Fred.  Now that I knew he was
 the 12th Infantry Fred Smith, I hit paydirt with a Google search which unearthed a tribute to him that appeared after his death on February 4, 1922, in that year's Annual Report of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy (p. 138). Not much personal information, unlike some of the other tributes to deceased members, which were apparently written by close friends. Fred's was written by the Secretary of the Association. It does divulge that his middle initial stood for "Appleton," and that he was born May 15, 1849, in Craigville, New York. AND there is a portrait (the same that is housed at the Library of Congress). He was a distinguished-looking man. But I'd love to see what he looked like as a young cadet.

There is quite a bit more to find about Brigadier General Frederick A. Smith--because my obscure Fred Smith, humble cadet, turned out to be famous! Now, however, I'm a little curious about C.J. McCaffrey (if that is the right name), who apparently had possession of our book on April 4, 1914.

Famous librarians who have passed through Omaha

Mildred Batchelder, Mount Holyoke
College Yearbook
(Llamarada), 1922, p. 132.

I recently discovered something I feel I should have known all along (and I feel sure that EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD already knew this!): Mildred Batchelder, famous librarian in whose honor the American Library Association's Mildred L. Batchelder Award for children's books in English translation was established, began her professional life as a children's librarian at Omaha Public Library, though she spent only three years there. I have a specially warm feeling about Mildred--since I was a translator myself in my previous life.

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1901, she was awarded a Bachelor of Library Science degree from the New York State Library School in Albany, New York, in 1924. She then, at the age of 23, 

with no experience, became Supervisor of Children's Services in Omaha, Nebraska, a job that included the main library, four branches, and 34 grade schools. In Omaha she developed a training class for her staff, published a periodical on buying books for children, and used her personal savings to take staff members with her to her second American Library Association (ALA) conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey.¹

This part of her career is lightly touched on in various accounts of her life--see Barbara Bader's depiction in The Horn Book, for example.  What did she do in Omaha?

Strangely enough, we did not have a biography file on her at the library, so I had to start from scratch. I began by trawling through Library Notes for the relevant years. Library Notes was Omaha Public Library's periodic bulletin covering library news and, primarily, lists of new books. Staff were seldom mentioned by name in this publication (except for the head librarian), but I did find this:

She was already showing her strong belief in the importance of library training.

At that time, the Omaha Public Library System consisted of the Main Library, 4 branches, 4 high school libraries, 37 class room libraries, and 11 businesses, clubs, and hospitals. The Main Library, where Mildred worked, was on the southeast corner of 19th and Harney Streets (it is now an office building), and was one of the first libraries in the country to set up a separate children's department.  Here it is--very spacious! And the children look very well-behaved.

Children's room, Main Library



Omaha Public Library, 1898

I found Mildred in the 1925 and 1926 Omaha city directories. No directory was published in 1927, and she doesn't appear in 1928, having presumably moved on to her next position, as children's librarian at the Minnesota State Teacher's College in St. Cloud (where she did not last long--according to both Bader and Davis, her energetic outspokenness quickly got her fired). In both 1925 and 1926, she lived at 308 S. 38th St., in a building that also housed C.J. Palmer and Mrs. Bertha Palmquist. That address no longer exists, but it would be between Farnam and Harney.

 

I'd like to say I planned this post to coincide with Children's Book Week, which would be so appropriate, since Mildred Batchelder orchestrated OPL's Children's Book Week celebrations for three years (back then, it was celebrated in November; in 2008 it moved to May); however, I must confess my post has been stagnating for two months already, and I'm now pretty much desperate to get it out.  Nevertheless, Children's Book Week is the perfect occasion. Children's Book Week was Mildred's first major event as the new supervisor of the Omaha Public Library's children's department:

Evening World-Herald, 29 Oct. 1924, p. 14

The following year, 1925, Mildred presided over "the largest party ever given" in honor of Children's Book Week at Omaha Public Library:

Omaha World Herald, 14 Nov. 1925, p. 17.

That's what I call a party! I'm not sure we will be able to top it this year....



1. Davis, Donald G., Dictionary of American Library Biography, Vol. 3 (Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003), p. 22.

The art of cake decorating

Rummaging through a box of library discards that for some reason had been in storage for the last 30 years, I came across an apparently self-published work that aroused my ever-arousable curiosity:

Who is (was?) Hildegard Schulte? Why do we have this book? (This is a question that I find myself asking quite often when roaming through some of the library's uncataloged historical treasures.)

The title page offers further illumination:

The Schulte School of Cake Decorating, right here in Omaha!  I wanted to know more. A quick Google search indicated that a revised edition--probably a bit more slick than this, since it contained 108 pages and photographs--was published in 1958; this edition can be found on a few used-book sites.  Ours seems to be an earlier first version, possibly produced in the early years of Hildegard's career as a cake decorator--although her obituary, published in the Omaha World Herald on December 8, 1981, says that already in the 1940s she was known as "the cake lady" because of her skills as a cake baker and decorator, and that even then she was teaching in Omaha and abroad. She had actually graduated from pharmacy school, but confined her concoctions to the kitchen. An Omaha World Herald article published May 1, 1949, remarked that she had "a frosting idea for practically every occasion" and had even made a set of sugar earrings and brooch to match (I like the idea of edible accessories--perhaps nostalgia for those candy necklaces we had when I was a kid). I wish I had a good picture of some of those cakes (or better yet, the sugar earrings!) but the best I can do is post a couple of her cake designs here.

 

The 1951 Omaha city directory does not have a listing for the Schulte School of Cake Decorating (or any Schulte school), though it does give separate listings for Hildegard M. Schulte and her husband, Ellwin R., both living at 2542 Chicago St. Ellwin was a pharmacist at O'Brien Drugs (they had met at pharmacy school). Not until 1954 is there any mention of the Schulte culinary entreprises, and even then it is merely appended to Mrs. Hildegard Schulte's directory entry: "cooking school" as an occupation. Finally, in 1955, the Schulte School of Cake Decorating & Fancy Cookery rated its own separate directory entry. By 1956 it was the Schulte School of Cake Decorating & Candy Making, and in no time its entry was in bold font.

1961 was the last year the school was listed with Hildegard as the proprietor; in 1962 it was not listed at all, although Ellwin and Hildegard were listed. By 1965 Ellwin had retired, the house on Chicago St. had fallen victim to the new freeway, and the couple were living on Keystone Dr. In 1967, the Schulte School of Cake Decorating reappeared at 7002 Grant St., under the management of Ellwin and Hildegard's son, John J. Schulte, and operated there until at least the early 1970s.

Ellwin passed away in  1967 (Omaha World Herald obituary, 26 July 1967), but Hildegard carried on with her creative pursuits. She was interviewed by the Omaha World Herald in 1972 (OWH, 2 April 1972, p. 85), and although she claimed to be retired (her obituary, in contrast, says she retired in 1977, the same year she was presented with a life membership in the International Cake Exploration Société), she obviously never stopped learning, teaching, creating. She had learned tole painting, taught classes, took organ lessons, and made huge quantities of pastry treats and panoramic sugar Easter eggs for family, friends, and nursing homes.

Hildegard passed away at the age of 82 on December 4, 1981. The nature of her art was more transitory than most, but we still have The Art of Cake Decorating....