Watching Grandpa Spin the Potter’s Wheel

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #49 

By Tonya McQuade

William Adolph Graham – or WAG as he always signed his pottery –

at work on his potter’s wheel in Calimesa, California, in the early 1970's.

Recently, my father gave me several more pieces of my grandpa’s pottery as he and my mom continue to downsize. I’ve always treasured the pottery my grandpa, William Adolph Graham, was able to create – especially since I can remember watching him sit at his potter’s wheel making some of these pieces. It amazed me to watch a lump of clay, helped by a little water, turn into a towering piece of artwork at his hands, and it’s something I’ve always hoped to learn myself someday. 

One of my favorite pieces is also one of his tallest at almost 18 inches. It sits on a prominent shelf in my living room, next to two other pieces he created, atop the wall unit my father built. I love that there are family ties to so many of the pieces of furniture and artwork in our home.

Three of WAG’s vases, sitting atop the wall unit my father, Douglas Graham, built, and in front of a line of books I also inherited from my grandfather

Three of WAG’s vases, sitting atop the wall unit my father, Douglas Graham, built,

and in front of a row of books I also inherited from my grandfather.

William Adolph Graham was born July 15, 1911, to Henry Hunt Graham and Francis Ethel Deakin Graham in Tooele, Utah. After graduating from high school in Twin Falls, Idaho, he hopped a train to California. There, about ten years later, he met and married my grandmother, Margaret Ruth Traughber. My father, Douglas William Graham, was born soon after, followed by two more daughters – my aunts Donna and Mary. 

The family moved around a lot in those early years, but by the time I knew my grandfather, he had settled in Southern California. I remember visiting him at homes in quite a few different locations there – Calimesa, Onyx, Bakersfield, and Visalia among them. It was in Calimesa, according to my father, that WAG started making pottery. He took some classes, bought himself a potter’s wheel and an electric kiln, and also made a gas-fired kiln. “He wanted to get good enough to sell it,” my father said, “but then he moved on to the next thing.”

Some of his pieces I have had for quite a while now, sitting on various shelves in my house. Apparently I need more shelves - I’m running out of space!

These three sit together on a high shelf in my dining room.

I love the etching on this one!

This one serves a utilitarian purpose: a Chip & Dip Bowl.

Some of the newer pieces have had to displace other items that were previously on display. Perhaps I will need to set up a rotation schedule for my artwork! LOL. I really do love the tea set below, though, which actually has four matching cups that go with it. It brings to mind this quote attributed to Lao Tzu: "We mold clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful." I’ll have to be sure to actually USE this teapot sometime, as well as the above Chip & Dip Bowl.

Tea Pot with Sugar Bowl and Creamer (with four cups that match)

And I think these are some of his prettiest vases:

I would love to see how he made this one!

They all have such unique designs; the one on the far left sits on a base.

This one, we use in our kitchen to hold plants:

And here’s one that can be used as a pitcher:

In putting this post together, I also learned that my father had to teach ceramics one summer, the one time he taught summer school at Antioch High School. The course included both wood shop (which he taught many times as an industrial arts teacher) and ceramics (which he only taught that one time). He had my grandfather bring his potter’s wheel to Antioch so my dad could practice making pottery for several days. He said he actually became pretty good!

My father, Douglas Graham, practices at the potter’s wheel as my brother Cam looks on.

He told me a story of one memorable lesson he had the class do – and it sounds like one they would remember! He explained the instructions ahead of time to his students. They were going to be “monks” working at a monastery making bowls, each student forming their bowl in the shape they wanted with their own hands, operating under a vow of silence. 

When they walked in the next day, the students entered into a dark room filled with the sounds of Gregorian chant music. They were each given a lump of clay and a candle – the only light they would have to work by. My dad said they all took it very seriously, and no one talked. They kept their vow of silence. As he recalled,  he really liked teaching ceramics because, unlike with woodshop, “there was no right way to do it.” He didn’t really like teaching summer school, though – he needed time to “follow his own bliss” – so that was the only time he taught ceramics.

My grandpa also liked to follow his own bliss. Over the years, he had many hobbies and artistic pursuits, often taking classes to learn new skills. In addition to his pottery, I have some of his paintings and pencil sketches, including an amazing portrait of an eskimo, some beautiful landscapes, and a couple of Bodie outhouses. He became fascinated by the many outhouses scattered around the well-preserved ghost town of Bodie after a visit to Bodie State Historic Park in Bridgeport, California, and he sketched quite a few of them.

Portrait of an Eskimo

Mountain Landscape

Desert Landscape

Bodie Outhouses

I love that he had such a creative spark – and I love that I now have such a great sampling of my grandpa’s pottery. My parents also still have quite a few pieces, as do my brothers and my aunts. Hopefully someday, I will be able to add to my collection with some pieces of my own. With my retirement fast approaching in June, I may finally get the chance to sign up for a pottery class. Until then, I’m happy to be able to admire and display WAG’s beautiful artwork.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog post. Check out my website for more information about my writing, to see some of my photographs, and to easily find additional blog posts. You can also sign up for my quarterly newsletter by emailing me at tonyagrahammcquade@gmail.com or by subscribing on my webpage.

Publishing My Mom’s Children’s Story: Henrietta and Weber Find a Friend

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #48

By Tonya McQuade

Cover photo drawn by my son, Aaron Silva, for my mom's book:

"Henrietta and Weber Find a Friend"

Are you looking for a great gift idea for a child in your life who enjoys animals? Well, let me tell you about my mom's new book ...

Years ago, I remember my mother talking about wanting to write a children’s book about her chicken Henrietta. I didn’t know she had actually written one until I was helping my parents go through boxes of old cards and photos this past summer, and I came across a folder with both a story about Henrietta and Weber, as well as an essay about raising chickens. I could see my mom had even gotten some feedback from someone on the manuscript; but then, she tucked it away inside a folder, where it stayed hidden for more than thirty years.

I was in high school when my dad first brought home chickens, and since I soon went away to college, I did not have as much experience with the chickens as my mom and the rest of the family did – but I watched as she fell in love with the chickens, started painting chickens, and started decorating the kitchen with chickens (on the walls, not in the oven!). I watched as she nursed Spot (aka. Weber) back to health, saw how upset she was when she learned Filo had been killed, and tried to comfort her when I found her crying by the phone one day, thinking she had just received some tragic news. She had: Peanut (another one of the chickens) had died.

One of my mom’s paintings of a chicken and young girl

My mom has always been an animal lover, taking in many stray cats over the years, as well as dogs, chickens, hamsters, fish, birds, and even a goose. On a recent trip to visit her in Antioch, she wanted to go to Walmart so she could buy more birdseed for her bird feeders in the backyard, as well as peanuts for the squirrels. Her favorite vacation was to Africa, where she was able to see many animals on safari, as well as hike the trail to see the mountain gorillas in Uganda.

I’m so glad I came across her lost manuscripts and so happy I could help make my mom’s dream a reality by publishing her work. Henrietta and Weber Find a Friend is her children’s book about our family pets Henrietta, Weber, Tippy, and Scruffy. My mother, of course, is the “kind lady” in the house!

I surprised my mom with her newly-published book on her birthday in September.

Aaron drew the cover and inside illustrations for her book.

The paragraphs above that you just read appear in the book as my “Editor’s Note” at the end. I had so much fun reading my mom's story, typing it up, and preparing it for publication. Aaron, too, was happy to contribute his artwork. My mom was very excited to see her story and essay in print - and was thrilled to see photos of young relatives reading her book (thanks to Jennifer and Joy for sending photos!). She was also grateful to be asked by some of her friends to autograph their books!

According to their mom, this is their new favorite book!

Another fan of my mom's book

Here, I share an excerpt from my mom's essay that appears after the children’s story:

I knew from the very beginning that they would mean trouble for me. Doug knew how much I loved animals, but he still decided to buy some baby chicks to be part of our living-off-the-earth plan. It wasn’t enough for him that we already had a large garden, which kept me busy with canning and various other preserving methods. We had built out own passive solar home together, which he designed. Reading "Mother Earth News" and "Organic Gardening" had become a way of life for us. So, it was only expected that raising chickens would also fit into this plan. But that’s where we ran into some definite differences in values.

I had gone along with most of the changes we were making in our lives pretty well, at least in my opinion. Now Doug would have a different tale to tell, especially when he first proposed the whole idea to me of selling our lovely home and building one ourselves. It meant we would all have some sacrifices to make for a while. Once I got over the shock, I was able to adjust quite well. There was an old house already on the property that we could live in while we were building our new home. Of course, it was full of fleas, but we managed to get rid of them. We considered the year we spent in the old house as camping out. Everyone pitched in and worked to help build the house, and it was exciting to see it all taking shape. Of course, there were those times when things didn’t go quite right, but the end product made up for any discomfort any of us experienced.

Once the house was finished, we settled in to complete our new life-style change of living pattern. We landscaped with drought-resistant plants and planted a wonderful vegetable garden, along with many fruit trees. It seemed as if our long-range goal and dream of the future had finally happened.

Why did he have to bring home those baby chicks and spoil it all? He knew I would get attached to them and NEVER be able to eat any of them. So, he proceeded to tell me they were his chicks, and I wasn’t to have anything to do with them. I managed to barely converse with him for about three days. Meanwhile, the chicks lived in the garage while he prepared their living quarters.

A photo of Henrietta - who survived the longest of all the chickens

I snuck a peek at them more than once. Eventually I got over my stubbornness, and we all named a chick. Doug named his Friar, or should I say, “Fryer.” He was going to make sure he got his point across. As luck would have it, Friar ended up being a rooster. Now, it was okay to have chickens within the city limits, but a rooster could cause some problems. Our neighbors didn’t seem to mind when I checked with them. The problem took care of itself, however, because Friar ended up dying before too long. The chickens became a part of our lives, and I loved watching all their crazy little antics. Having been raised in Chicago, I had never even been close to a chicken, so this was a new experience for me.

Eventually, I was able to find out what brooding meant because Patience decided to brood. Since we no longer had a rooster, Doug went to a farm and got her some fertilized eggs. During the night he switched her eggs for the fertilized ones. Some weeks later, I was to see the miracle of life peeking out from under the mound of black and white downy feathers.

If you want to read the rest of my mom’s essay, as well as the cute story of how Henrietta and Weber find a friend, I encourage you to buy her book at this Amazon link. Below is one of the photos Aaron drew for the book, showing the kind lady in the house holding the new “friend” Henrietta and Weber found. He said this is his favorite of the illustrations, and I have to say, it’s my favorite, too!

A Historic Trek: The Amazing Honeymoon of W.F. Traughber and Nora Petree Traughber in 1905, Part VI

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #47

By Tonya McQuade

A page from the Traughber photo album filled with family photos

Over the last six weeks in my blog posts, I have described the wedding and adventurous honeymoon my great-grandparents Frank and Nora Traughber enjoyed in August and September of 1905. I started by describing their wedding in San Jose at the Petree House, then moved on to their honeymoon adventures in Del Monte (Monterey), Pacific Grove, and Santa Cruz (Part I); Catalina Island (Part II); San Francisco (Part III), the Pacific Northwest (Part IV), and finally Yellowstone National Park (Part V).

They also visited Missoula, Montana, and Salt Lake City, Utah. However, since I have no photos or details from those stops, I have decided to skip ahead to their ultimate destination: Mexico, Missouri, where they planned to begin their married life together. That is where their photo album next picks up. Frank and Nora arrived in Mexico in mid-September of 1905 after their four-week honeymoon trek. What stories they must have had to tell! 

Wedding Announcement in the Mexico Weekly Ledger, dated 15 July 1905

As seen above, the local newspaper announced their wedding in July since Frank - aka. Dr. W. F. Traughber - already had an established medical practice and residence in town. He had traveled to California for the wedding, there to join Nora who had been living in the Bay Area since she had been attending (and recently graduated from) Stanford University. The journey to Mexico was a return trip for him, to a place with which he was familiar, but this was to be a new life for Nora. I wonder how she felt about the move after experiencing life in California.

Since Mexico is just fourteen miles from Centralia and offered more hotel selections, Mike and I stayed there for two nights during our recent visit to Missouri since I had two book talks scheduled in Centralia. I was anxious to visit the history museums in both cities since we had not been able to see either on our earlier visit to the area. So, our first stop in Mexico was at the Audrain County Historical Society/Graceland Museum Complex. We arrived just in time for a tour of the Graceland Mansion, which now houses the historical society. Below is a page from the scrapbook I have been working on for our trip.

The house was built in 1857 by John P. Clark, who lived in the house until 1867. He then sold it to Colby T. Quisenberry, who renamed it “Graceland.” In was Quinsenberry who brought purebred saddle horses to Mexico (more on that later). In 1874, Quisenberry sold the house to James E. Ross, whose family lived in it for the next half century. It was the Ross family who owned the house in 1905 when Frank and Nora were in Mexico, though James Ross died in 1900. As described on the museum website, the house is a two-story, frame dwelling with Italianate style decorative features, topped by a hipped roof with widow's walk and featuring an imposing Classical Revival style two-story front portico.

Graceland Mansion, aka. the Ross House

The original owner, Clark, hosted Colonel Ulysses S. Grant for dinner on several occasions when Grant was stationed in Mexico. I'll be writing more about Mexico's Civil War connections in a post for the Emerging Civil War website. That, however, was long before Frank and Nora lived there.

Mexico, as explained on the sign below, “was laid out by Robert C. Mansfield and James H. Smith not long before Audrain County was organized, 1836. Named for legislator James H. Audrain and settled mainly by Southerners, the county lies in the Little Dixie Region of Missouri.”  The city is “internationally known for its firebrick industry and famed for its saddle horses,” and we learned more about both of these at the museum.

Sign describing Mexico’s history in front of the Audrain County Historical Society

Back side of the informational sign about Mexico

As explained on the back side of the sign, Mexico is “a commercial and industrial hub, served by 3 railroads … [and] lies in the glacial plains region of Missouri, a highly fertile area of rich grain and livestock farms…. In the Civil War, Mexico, mainly Southern in sympathy, was early occupied by Union troops. U.S. Grant, while stationed here, July 1861, learned of his commission as a general.” 

While no battles occurred in Mexico during the war, such was not the case in nearby Centralia. I already wrote about the Centralia Massacre and the Battle of Centralia in previous blog posts, including my Traughber and Bryson family connections. Both the massacre and battle also come up in my book A State Divided: The Civil War Letters of James Calaway Hale and Benjamin Petree of Andrew County, Missouri – which includes a letter from Hale saying he had a “lucky escape” by not getting the furlough he had requested, or he would have been on the massacred train. That’s a key reason Centralia was on the line-up for my Book Tour.

At the museum, we viewed photos of more early buildings that Frank and Nora likely saw in Mexico (shown above), and learned more about the Saddlebred Horses that played a large role in Mexico’s history (shown below). According to the book Images in America: Mexico (2010), by Vicki Berger Erwin, "Mexico was home not only to great horses, but to great trainers as well. The door to George and Will Lee's Lee Brother Stable on Western Boulevard is said to have had more champion show horses (and trainers) pass through it than any other barn in the country." The stables were eventually purchased by Art Simmons, who had a 60-year career in horses, and became known as Simmons Stables.

I know from their honeymoon photos that Frank and Nora enjoyed riding horses, as they rode them in both Seattle’s Washington Park and at Yellowstone National Park. So, perhaps they enjoyed riding in Mexico – or, perhaps they enjoyed watching the horse competitions that were a popular attraction. The American Saddlebred Horse Museum is another part of the Graceland Museum Complex. Mexico was once noted as the Saddlebred Horse Capital of the World. Museum exhibits include an extensive range of equestrian memorabilia as well as displays about Tom Bass (a famous black horseman), Art Simmons (a local trainer), the Callaway Hills stallion Will Shriver, and more. 

While I cannot be sure whether Frank and Nora had anything to do with saddlebred horses, I do know that after graduating from A.T. Still University’s College of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri (see Blog Post #3), Frank set up his medical office and residence at 120 W. Promenade in downtown Mexico. So, why not return to Centralia, where most of his family lived? Mostly likely due to his potential clientele - Mexico’s population was significantly larger than Centralia’s at the time he was starting his medical practice – 5,099 vs. 1,722 (according to the 1900 Census). He must have been successful, for by 1903, he was serving as president of the Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons.

My father's printing appears on this photo, with identifying info about Dr. T

In the above photo, you can see “Doctor Traughber - Osteopath” written on the side of the building. I’m not sure who the two women and the four children are in the photo, but that’s Dr. Traughber standing on the right. He had three older and two younger sisters living in the area, as well as quite a few nieces and nephews, so it is likely some of them can be seen here. Mike and I went looking for the office, but all we could see at that address was a warehouse and an area under construction. It looks like his office building no longer exists, but across the street many old buildings do still exist, so it's likely his office/residence looked something like the ones seen in this photo.

Older buildings in downtown Mexico, near where Dr. Traughber’s office was located

From the photos in their album, it is clear Frank and Nora spent time visiting the Centralia relatives. One sad event I noticed in looking more closely at the Traughber family tree is that Frank’s brother Leslie died in November 1905 - just two months after he and Nora arrived in Mexico. Perhaps the woman in black in the office photo above is Leslie’s wife, Blanche. His death likely contributed to Frank and Nora’s decision to name their first son, born in July 1906, Francis “Frank” Leslie Traughber. Interestingly, Leslie and Blanche named one of their daughters (born in 1903) Nora - perhaps their future sister-in-law had already won their hearts! Little Nora may be one of the small girls sitting on the right in the office photo, and perhaps her brother Lowell (born in 1898) is seated second from the left. 

The album page at the top of this post includes photos of Frank’s parents (my great-great grandparents), as well as his sisters, though I don’t see any of his brothers or brothers-in-law. Some of the photos can be viewed more closer up below. I especially like the one of Frank and his mother. Frank’s siblings included:

Sisters:

• Stella Lee Traughber (1869-1919) + William A. Johnson
• Hattie Belle Traughber (1870-1941) + John Lewis Skaggs
• Elizabeth “Lizzie” Traughber (1873-1943)
• Ida Lou Traughber (1880-1969)
• Myrtle Francis “Fannie” Traughber (1882-1981) + Dr. Charles William Bryson

Brothers:

• Leslie Bryson Traughber (1877-1905) + Lola Blanche Rowland
• Charles Weaver “Carl” Traughber (1886-1965) + Georgia Alice Powell
• George Burnett “Bernie” Traughber (1889-1966) + Hallie Glenn McCabe

My great-great grandparents, Francis Marion Traughber (1848-1931)

and Mariah “Marnie” Agnes Bryson Traughber (1849-1927)

Frank with his mother in front of the Hathaway Seed & Produce Co.

Nora (on the right) showing a book to one of the Traughber sisters

The two of them smiling for the camera

A group of the Traughber women (Nora is seated second from left)

While in Mexico, I also learned that Frank sometimes helped out his father at the Centralia Mill, which his father partially owned. I found the following photo of father and son in a book titled History of Centralia, Missouri, written by Edgar T. Rodemyre and published in 1936. It said the photo was taken about thirty years earlier.

A page from the 1936 book History of Centralia, Missouri

That seems, though, like a story for another day - not really related to this series on Frank and Nora's historic honeymoon trek. In a future post, I will share more of what I learned during our recent visit about the Traughbers' lives in Centralia. In the meantime, thanks for following along on their amazing adventure!