The trouble with L. M. Hewlings

I'm slogging through writing a biography of Louis Edwin Granger. It's been a fascinating process. I keep running into a major difficulty: his mother, Lucy Minerva Woodward. She keeps threatening to take over the narrative. Not only is she a fascinating character in her own right, but she and her family provided many of the primary sources for Louis outside of government and public records. It takes a conscious effort to keep to his narrative and not stray into the stories of Lucy and her siblings.

A Pen Knife and an Educated Thumb

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of making a presentation on collection assessment at Rice University. During the presentation, I presented the experience of a paint expert from PPG - the best measurement of adhesion was "a pen knife and an educated thumb". My point being there are important things that can not be directly measured with numbers. Since then I have started reading Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". I need to modify my thinking slightly.

Kahneman has a interesting view of expertise. Expert intuition is very good but has two major limitations:

• Experts don't know the limitations of their expertise. Either people don't know what they know until they know until someone else asks. Or like Raymond Babbit from the movie Rain Man, an expert is good one thing - counting cards, but doesn't understand the expertise only applies to a limited number of games of chance.
• Expertise needs to be built in a reasonably consistent environment. If the environment is extremely unreliable, all the expert will do is create a superstition. For example, I had a coworker several years ago, who had worked for a trading firm in New York. One morning he got up. He went to work. He read all the appropriate news sources. He made the same decisions based on the same types of information, and expected to make a nice profit for the firm. He lost $300 million. 

So, my example expert developed his skills over a long period of time, used consistent methods to observe on consistent environment and was able to develop intuition to process a complex situation accurately. I believe library services can be asses in the same way, though active observation. And observations a good supplement to the numbers.

Richard and Ester Bagley Part II - Wild Speculation

Warning: the following is highly speculative and based on the flimsiest of evidence.

I was poking around ancestry I found an email attached to a faded photocopy of a page in a family bible. The email detailed the Bible's origin and current location and transcribed the page. The page lists the births and some deaths of the family of John A. and Anna Bagley. It also include the family of Anna's second husband, Rev. Samuel Olney. Assuming a parent child relationship (not explicitly stated, Chapins C Bagley (Cyrenus Chapin) is the oldest son of the marriage between Anna and John. John was born in 1788 and died in 1821. A note states that Anna's obituary states she had five sons and two daughters. At least four of those sons are sons of her first husband John Bagley. Other materials online put John's birth in PA.

So conjecture: Let's say John A Bagley the father of Cyrenus Chapin Bagley was born in Luzern county, PA. Then it is quite possible he is the boy in the household of Richard Bagley in the 1790 census. Luzern county was settled by people from Connecticut. The two colonies/states contested the area until after the end of the American Revolution. If Richard Bagley returned to Connecticut after 1790, then he could have been in Hartford for Edward Bagley's birth. If Edward Bagley who migrated to Utah is also the son of the same Richard Bagley, John A Bagley would then be the older brother or half brother of Edward Bagley. This is potentially testable, Cyrenus Chapin has brothers who could have living male descendants. If it turns out the two families are related, it would at least indicate John and Edward would be at least cousins.

If John and Edward are brothers it would indicate a earlier birth date for Edward. While it's not unheard of for men to father children into their 60s, the 1800 or 1801 date would be more plausible than the 1810 or 1815 date, if Esther is also the mother of John.

Elizabeth Granger Bemis - Part 2

In the realm of strange coincidences, there was another Granger living in Littleton Colorado at the time of Elizabeth Bemis, Gershom Frank "Frankie" Ford.  Frankie was the daughter of Charles Edward Granger, the uncle of William Granger, her father, and half brother of her step-mother Louise Hill.

Frankie moved to Colorado with her widowed mother and an older brother and sister. She married Carrie Ford and moved to Littleton, Colorado. They had three children before she died in 1917.

Both Gershom F. Ford and Elizabeth Granger Bemis are buried in the Littleton Cemetery in Littleton Colorado.

Elizabeth (Lizzie Josephine) Granger Bemis

The Edwin A. Bemis Library recently published  a digital copy of So I Took An Apple, the Autobiography of Edwin Arnold Bemis, the son of Elizabeth Granger Bemis. Edwin is my cousin - our common ancestor is Daniel Granger - me through his third son, Henry Hinsdale, Edwin through his oldest son, William Foster Granger. 

In this autobiography, Edwin speaks briefly of his mother’s family and states she didn’t know much about the Grangers but spoke fondly of her foster father Luther Hill. She chose to live in Littleton because of Luther and named her first son Luther Hill Bemis after him. Luther Hill was very important in her life, and he and his wife Louise were for all intents and purposed her parents. She remembered very little of her birth parents, William Granger and Samantha Stone. 

Lizzie Josephine, as a Elizabeth was known, was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts, on March 3, 1856 to William Granger and Samantha Stone. William and Samantha had two more daughters - Nellie Maria, born February 9, 1859 and Cora Louise, born November 28, 1861. At the beginning of 1865 William had a wife and three little girls. Within seven months his wife and two of his daughters died of consumption, leaving a young widower with a four year old daughter.  Apparently, William placed his daughter into foster care with Luther and Louise Hill.

William Granger was related to Lizzie's foster father, Luther Hill through marriage:

• William is the son of William Foster Granger and Elizabeth Mead. 
• William Foster is the son of Daniel Granger and Catherine Johanna (Nicholls) Granger. 
• After Catherine died, Daniel Granger married Fanny Mead. 
• Fanny and Elizabeth Mead are sisters. 
• Luther Hill married Louisa Augusta Granger, the daughter of Daniel Granger and Fanny Mead.

So William, Lizzie's father, is both the first cousin of Louisa Hill since her mother and his mother are sisters and her nephew since she is also his father's half sister. So Luther Hill would be his uncle as well as the wife of his cousin. Luther and Louise only had one child, a daughter, Louise who only lived for about six weeks in 1861. 

I imagine, William, an overwhelmed grieving widower placed his daughter with a childless couple he knew, loved and trusted. They loved and cared for his daughter. When he remarried I imagine, he was unwilling to take his daughter from her home. I believe she had two sets of parents that loved and cared for her. 

If you would like to read more about Luther Hill, he has a biography in History and genealogy of the Kent family : descendants of Richard Kent, sen. who came to America in 1633 by Dale, E. I. and Kent, Edward E., 1899.

Puffer adventures

So there is this vicious, oft repeated rumor that Edward Cyrenus Bagley is the son of Esther Puffer, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. About six months ago, I had deleted the connection in Family Tree and about three weeks later one of my well meaning cousins ignored all the notes and discussions and conscientiously restored the link. OK, they are working with the best information they have and they've been told their entire lives this is the TRUTH. I threw up my hands and went on to work on other challenges.

So, I recently was lured back to the Edward Bagley parentage conundrum. I had this thought - what if I carefully documented Esther Puffer to show she never married, never had any children, in fact never left Vermont? Would that be good enough? I dug up the Puffer family history, linked her family to their page, looked up the family in various census records and found some very interesting things:

1. Esther lived in Grafton, Vermont in 1850 with an Ann Puffer - most assuredly her older sister, Anna.
2. She was still living with Ann in Grafton in 1860, and a Sally Darling had moved in - most likely younger sister, Sally Puffer who had married Roswell Darling. 
3. Esther died in 1863. 
4. Sally died in 1861. 
5. Ann continued to live in Grafton, and we find her in 1870 with Amos Puffer - her widower brother and his son Winchester Sydney.
6. Ann and Amos are again together in 1880 in Grafton and Amos is feeling the effects of old age.
7. Ann dies in 1881.
8. Amos dies in 1889.

Very nice story - siblings pull together and care for each other through old age - probably signifying they were close. It would be nice if we could be on good enough terms with our siblings that we could take care of each other after our spouses died. 

I found something interesting with Amos record. Someone had carefully married him to Ann (no known last name). Apparently, they saw the census records from 1870 and 1880 and assumed two people with the same name and different genders must be married. They must not have had the complete death records for Amos and Ann, which listed the same set of parents, nor did they notice the widowed marriage status for Amos and the single marriage status for Ann in 1880. I guess the moral of the story is be careful and be ready to change something if further evidence shows your assumption is wrong.

Correct 18 May 2015, original stated Esther's sister was Ann Bagley, not Ann Puffer.

Academic Best Seller and Sustainable Publishing

I just finished reading Capital in the twenty-first century by Thomas Picketty. The title came up in a discussion about academic publishing. I was curious about what an academic best seller is like.

Goldhammer's translation is very readable. It flows naturally and the only time I could hear a French voice was when the author made reference to distinctly French history. The graphs, charts, and notes did not detract from the narrative and made a strong case that we are coming out of a unique time.

One of Picketty's data sources is the endowments of U.S. Universities. He uses them to illustrate the economies of scale for investors - rich endowments have a higher return on investment (ROI) than more modest endowments. (For me, it is conceptually difficult to think a $100 million endowment as modest.) The important applicable fact was most endowments only make about 5%. This is the estimate Picketty also makes for the total ROI for most capital.

So, I started thinking, if a University is funding Library materials with an endowment how much of the endowment is needed? The basic answer is 20 times the price.  Which works well with fixed expenses. For example if you want to spend $1000 on books each year, you need a $20000 endowment. Or $21000 - $1000 to spend and $20000 to generate $1000 for next year. If I'm dealing with an ongoing commitment, like subscriptions, using this rubric is going to get you in trouble.

A simple approximation, is to subtract the inflation rate (N) from the ROI. So, if a librarian locks in the low rate of 3% inflation - most publishers offer 3-5%, the library needs to have an endowment of $50000 for each $1000 of new spending. And if a publisher wants 5%, the library can't take the journal in good conscience - the fiduciary responsibility is to preserve the endowment to continue to support the university, not hand it over to the publisher. This creates a problem. Investor's in publishers want a ROI of 5%. If the publisher can create the 5% from increased productivity, every one will be happy. If not the system will collapse as universities cut spending and publisher's raise prices in response to drops in revenue. This is a good definition of unsustainable.

Essentially, without increased productivity, we're pitting university donors against publisher shareholders. Each group may contain the same people. One model, we could adopt for dealing with the problems is the regulated monopoly model used for some public utilities. Publishers could be guaranteed steady, but modest profits. Prices would be transparent and would not increase unless approved by a public oversight board. It would remove a lot of the budget stress at universities and could actually increase the number of subscriptions sold by academic publishers.

The Mysterious Jennie C. Granger

About a year ago, I found an interesting and short blurb in the legal notes of the Chicago Tribune:

Louis E. Granger was ordered to pay alimony to Jennie C. Granger.₁

OK, so who is Jennie C. Granger? Who is Louis E. Granger? It's taken the better part of a year to partially answer these questions.

My great great grand father, Louis Edwin Granger. was living in Chicago at the time - his daughter Gladys was born in Chicago a month earlier.₂ Upon doing a quick search for Louis E. Granger with a wife named Jennie C., I found a marriage record for Beatrice Genieve Granger.₃The maiden name for Jennie Granger is Jennie C. Niles. The births for both parents are listed as United States. 1920 and 1930 Census records indicate Beatrice G. [Granger] Tator's father is from Massachusetts and mother is from New York.₄ Louis Edwin Granger was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts.

Looking through digital papers from New York, I was able to piece together a picture of Jennie C. Granger's family. I knew from her obituary₅ and personal notices around her 1932 death, who her parents were, when and where she was born and who were some members of her family. Here is what I had:

• Jennie's parents were George W. Niles and Lucy Randall.
• Jennie was born in Berlin, Rensselaer county, on May 21, 1859.
• She died March 18, 1932, at the house of her sister, Mrs. Elmer Melio in Round Lake, New York.
• She had lived in Saratoga County, NY for twenty years. She moved in from New York City.
• Her daughter, Beatrice G. Tator, son-in-law, Dr. Tator, and grandson arrived to attend the funeral.
• Her sister, Mary L. N. Curtis, travelled from Florida to attend the funeral.
• At some point she may have been married to a Louis E. Granger from Massachusetts.
• Their daughter Beatrice was born some time in May of 1882.₆
• Jennie or a proxy was in Chicago to sue for alimony.

I still had no indication whether this Louis E. Granger was or was not my great great grand father. I even tried sending a letter to an individual who could be one of Jennie's grandsons. Last month, I tracked down a lead in the Troy Daily Times:

Col. L. E. Granger, late recorder of the United States mint at San Francisco, was married last week to Miss Jennie Miles of Hoosick.₇

Louis Edwin Granger was living in San Francisco starting in about 1877.₈  According to the 1880 census Jennie Niles is living with her mother and step-father in Hoosick.₉ She is listed as a school teacher. So it looks very likely, Jennie C. Niles of Hoosick is the fourth wife of Louis Edwin Granger.

Update 11 February 2015: I found a divorce announcement in the Chicago Inter-Ocean, dated September 16, 1887. Next stop. Cook County Circuit Court Archives.

Notes:
¹"Legal Notes", Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Feb 11, 1890; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. 9, accessed 17 March 2014
²See "Illinois, Cook County Birth Certificates, 1878-1938," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NQT9-JJC : accessed 4 February 2015), Gladys Granger, 10 Jan 1890; citing Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States, reference/certificate 3424, Cook County Courthouse, Chicago; FHL microfilm 1,287,896. and "Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers, 1871-1915," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/N7QQ-SM9 : accessed 4 February 2015), Gladys Granger, 10 Jan 1890; citing v 21 p 82, Chicago, Cook, Illinois, Cook County Courthouse, Chicago; FHL microfilm 1,287,734.
³"New York, County Marriages, 1908-1935," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/V6HP-QYL : accessed 4 February 2015), Arthur Earl Tator and Beatrice Genieve Grauger, 08 Jun 1911; citing , New York, United States, county offices, New York; FHL microfilm 1,287,480. and "New York, County Marriages, 1908-1935," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FFT4-2BT : accessed 4 February 2015), Arthur Earl Tator and Beatrice Genieveve Granger, 14 Jun 1911; citing Saratoga, New York, United States, county offices, New York; FHL microfilm 1,287,474.
⁴See "United States Census, 1920," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M4YR-NZ6 : accessed 4 February 2015), Beatrice Tater in household of Dr. A E Tater, Summit Ward 1, Union, New Jersey, United States; citing sheet 12B, family 245, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,821,072. and "United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X4NX-FS4 : accessed 4 February 2015), Beatrice G Tator in household of Arthur E Tator, Summit, Union, New Jersey, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 0153, sheet 2A, family 30, line 50, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 1389; FHL microfilm 2,341,124.The 1900 census lists both parents from New York. At that time Beatrice was living with her Aunt, Mary Curtis.
⁵"Round Lake", Ballston Spa Daily Journal; April 2, 1932; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014) pg. 3. "Round Lake News", The Saratogian; April 1, 1932; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014) pg. 9. "Village shocked by two deaths", The Saratogian; March 29, 1932; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014), pg. 10. "Round Lake", The Troy Times; March 29, 1932; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014) pg. 2.
⁶Beatrice birthdate is something of a mystery. I don't currently have a birth certificate, but census records and her marriage record indicate May 1882 as the best guess for her birth. May 1882 is the date given on the 1900 Census, and she is 28 when she marries Arthur Earl Tator in April 1911. Later she would claim birth dates in 1884 and 1886. She consistently lists her birthplace as New York City.
⁷Troy Daily Times; October 4, 1880; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014) n. p.
⁸Louis registered to vote 31 July 1877 in San Francisco. See California State Library, California History Section; Great Registers, 1866-1898; Collection Number: 4 - 2A; CSL Roll Number: 44; FHL Roll Number: 977100
⁹"United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MZF8-PYH : accessed 30 May 2014), Jennie C Niles in household of Marshall Haynes, Hoosick, Rensselaer, New York, United States; citing enumeration district 160, sheet 254D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 0922; FHL microfilm 1,254,922.

Sustainable Academic Publishing

Sustainable has become the buzzword for libraries lately: sustainable buildings, sustainable collections, sustainable instruction. We think about  budgets, the environment, and services. At some level there is an anxiety that libraries can't keep doing things the way we are doing them. There is an equal anxiety that libraries are not doing what we should.

There are four problems that keep activities from being sustainable:₁

• Creating more waste than natural cycles can handle - the "horse manure" problem₂
• Extracting more materials from the earth than natural cycles can handle - the "heavy metal poisoning" problem
• Using resources faster than they can be generated - the "clear cut" problem
• Inhibiting people from accessing basic needs - the "everyone wants to eat" problem

Sustainable academic publishing would addressed all these problems. Right now, in my opinion the biggest problem keeping academic publish from being sustainable is "every one wants to eat". Academic publishing requires a distinct set of services: creation, peer-review, copy editing, distribution and preservation. At each step of the way, the people providing these services need to be able to meet needs. The scholars, excepting those with non-academic day jobs or large estates, want paid academic positions as either teachers or researchers. Publishers coordinating peer-review, copy editing, and distribution have a host of employees and owners, unless heavily subsidized, need to at least meet costs and possibly turn a profit for the owners. Librarians coordinating distribution and preservation want to live free from poverty and have time to spend with their families.

None of the models - not open green, not open gold, not membership, not traditional publishing, address preserving meaningful work and ensuring all the people in the value stream have the means to support themselves. One possible solution would be to change publishing business models back to individual subscriptions only. Libraries would have the responsibility to archive materials. This would function as a de facto embargo - materials wouldn't be freely available until they were sold to libraries for archive purposes. It's not a great solution, but it is workable, given agreement between all of the players.

¹Sustainability Illustrated, 4 Root Causes of Unsustainability, accessed 16 January 2015
²Horses were a real pollution problem in 19th Century Cities. For example, see: When Horses Posed a Public Health Hazard, City Room Blogging from the Five Boroughs, New York Times, 9 June 2008, accessed 19 January 2015