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16 years ago
Cross-posted from my LJ.
One day about a week-and-a-half ago, I drove my 80-something-year-old grandmother to an eye doctor appointment in Beverly. She's doing pretty well for her age, and she does still drive around town, but gave up highway driving several years ago.
In the waiting room at the doctor's office, my grandmother started telling me some family history that I'd never heard before. It turns out that my great-great-grandfather, who went by the name Harry T. Leonard, was an actor with a traveling performance group called the Jennie Calef Co. (you can see a really cool picture of Jennie Calef here). Both he and Calef had changed their names for the stage (from Lynch and Murphy, respectively) because of widespread anti-Irish sentiments at the time. When I dropped my grandmother back off at her place, she showed me a theatrical date book that had belonged to my great-great-grandfather. It was a small, time-worn leather-bound book that contained all the dates and cities of his performances from September 1886 through 1888. It was fascinating to see all the notes he'd written in there-- people's addresses (including that of Jennie Calef's sister Lillian, whom he married), lists of people to whom he owed money and the amount owed, and the venues where they played (for instance, a week-long stand at the Grand Opera House in Columbus, Ohio, November 27-31, 1886-- the building would be destroyed by fire the very next year).
When I got home, the first thing I did was to jump online to see if I could dig anything else up about Harry T. Leonard. There wasn't as much as I'd hoped, but I did find this, in from a trade paper dated (as best as I can tell) Sept. 6, 1890: "Harry T. Leonard, for the past seven years comedian of the Jennie Calef Co., has concluded to branch out on his own hook. He has secured from W.H. Langdon the rights to 'Jim Bowie, or the siege of Alamo,' a stage picture of life in the Lone Star State. A competent company is being engaged and new scenery and costumes will be features."
Only just now, I've come across this, from Lancaster, Kentucky's 'Central Record', dated May 10, 1900: "On Tuesday evening, May 15th, at Garrard Opera House an entertainment will be presented which promises to be the biggest affair of the season. It will be under the direction of H.T. Leonard, late of the Chapman-Warren Co., and his wife, Lillian Calef, and interesting child will appear also in the cast, together with local talent selected, each person in consideration of her or his peculiar fitness to the character assigned. Many new specialties will be introduced and a cake walk performed by several children led by Baby Grace will be a feature. As the performance is to be given for the benefit of Garrard Lodge No. 29, Knights of Pythias, the house will be a large one. All would do well to secure their seats in advance at McRoberts' Drug Store. Many persons are expected from neighboring sister lodges and towns and there will be a rush. Rehearsals have been going on for a week past, and Mr. Leonard is highly pleased with the progress, and says the performance will be a 'boomer.'"
God, I love the way people wrote back then lol. Perhaps the coolest thing about this article is that it mentions their "interesting child" Grace, whom my mother is named after :) . The cast list for the show, "A Kentucky Hero" (which is billed as a "rural Comedy Drama in five acts") shows that in addition to the role of 'Shad Kershaw', my great-great-grandfather also played a character named 'Mother Kinchen' lol. How I would love to be able to go back in time and see this show.
And then, finally, in the April 9, 1904 edition of 'The New York Clipper', I found this: "Harry T. Leonard died in Baltimore, Md. on Jan. 10, 1904, of Bright's disease. He was with Haverly's and Sanford's Minstrels in the seventies, and later with many well known dramatic companies, including Walter Sandford's 'May Blossom,' 'Wages Of Sin,' and many others. He was the son of James Lynch, an old time tenor singer, of Christy's Minstrels. He leaves a wife and two children. His wife, Lillian Calef, is one of the Calef Sisters, of Boston. He was forty-eight years of age. His father survives him."
I got a touch sad reading this, but it was also interesting to learn that his father, my great-great-great grandfather, was a member of the Christy's Minstrels. They were one of the most popular groups of the minstrel scene in the mid-19th century, and had an exclusive contract with Stephen Foster to perform his songs. This means that my great-great-great-grandfather almost certainly knew and worked alongside Stephen Foster, which completely blows my mind. Foster, who is often referred to as the 'father of American music', wrote such well-known songs as "Camptown Races", "Swanee River", "Home On The Range", "My Old Kentucky Home", "Beautiful Dreamer", "Oh! Susanna" and "Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair" (the last of which, if my grandmother is to be believed, my great-great-great-grandfather may have been the first person to ever sing onstage). Now, I wouldn't necessarily say that 'proud' would be the right word to describe how I feel about learning that one of my ancestors performed in a blackface minstrel group, but all I can say is that it was a different time. Regardless, I'm completely fascinated by all this new information and I'm sure it will have me doing a good deal of further research.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to Macomb City for a performance on the 4th. Then it's on to Brookhaven, Hazlehurst, Canton and Yazoo City.*
*These are the actual Mississippi towns in which my great-great-grandfather performed during the week of October 4-8, 1886.
One day about a week-and-a-half ago, I drove my 80-something-year-old grandmother to an eye doctor appointment in Beverly. She's doing pretty well for her age, and she does still drive around town, but gave up highway driving several years ago.
In the waiting room at the doctor's office, my grandmother started telling me some family history that I'd never heard before. It turns out that my great-great-grandfather, who went by the name Harry T. Leonard, was an actor with a traveling performance group called the Jennie Calef Co. (you can see a really cool picture of Jennie Calef here). Both he and Calef had changed their names for the stage (from Lynch and Murphy, respectively) because of widespread anti-Irish sentiments at the time. When I dropped my grandmother back off at her place, she showed me a theatrical date book that had belonged to my great-great-grandfather. It was a small, time-worn leather-bound book that contained all the dates and cities of his performances from September 1886 through 1888. It was fascinating to see all the notes he'd written in there-- people's addresses (including that of Jennie Calef's sister Lillian, whom he married), lists of people to whom he owed money and the amount owed, and the venues where they played (for instance, a week-long stand at the Grand Opera House in Columbus, Ohio, November 27-31, 1886-- the building would be destroyed by fire the very next year).
When I got home, the first thing I did was to jump online to see if I could dig anything else up about Harry T. Leonard. There wasn't as much as I'd hoped, but I did find this, in from a trade paper dated (as best as I can tell) Sept. 6, 1890: "Harry T. Leonard, for the past seven years comedian of the Jennie Calef Co., has concluded to branch out on his own hook. He has secured from W.H. Langdon the rights to 'Jim Bowie, or the siege of Alamo,' a stage picture of life in the Lone Star State. A competent company is being engaged and new scenery and costumes will be features."
Only just now, I've come across this, from Lancaster, Kentucky's 'Central Record', dated May 10, 1900: "On Tuesday evening, May 15th, at Garrard Opera House an entertainment will be presented which promises to be the biggest affair of the season. It will be under the direction of H.T. Leonard, late of the Chapman-Warren Co., and his wife, Lillian Calef, and interesting child will appear also in the cast, together with local talent selected, each person in consideration of her or his peculiar fitness to the character assigned. Many new specialties will be introduced and a cake walk performed by several children led by Baby Grace will be a feature. As the performance is to be given for the benefit of Garrard Lodge No. 29, Knights of Pythias, the house will be a large one. All would do well to secure their seats in advance at McRoberts' Drug Store. Many persons are expected from neighboring sister lodges and towns and there will be a rush. Rehearsals have been going on for a week past, and Mr. Leonard is highly pleased with the progress, and says the performance will be a 'boomer.'"
God, I love the way people wrote back then lol. Perhaps the coolest thing about this article is that it mentions their "interesting child" Grace, whom my mother is named after :) . The cast list for the show, "A Kentucky Hero" (which is billed as a "rural Comedy Drama in five acts") shows that in addition to the role of 'Shad Kershaw', my great-great-grandfather also played a character named 'Mother Kinchen' lol. How I would love to be able to go back in time and see this show.
And then, finally, in the April 9, 1904 edition of 'The New York Clipper', I found this: "Harry T. Leonard died in Baltimore, Md. on Jan. 10, 1904, of Bright's disease. He was with Haverly's and Sanford's Minstrels in the seventies, and later with many well known dramatic companies, including Walter Sandford's 'May Blossom,' 'Wages Of Sin,' and many others. He was the son of James Lynch, an old time tenor singer, of Christy's Minstrels. He leaves a wife and two children. His wife, Lillian Calef, is one of the Calef Sisters, of Boston. He was forty-eight years of age. His father survives him."
I got a touch sad reading this, but it was also interesting to learn that his father, my great-great-great grandfather, was a member of the Christy's Minstrels. They were one of the most popular groups of the minstrel scene in the mid-19th century, and had an exclusive contract with Stephen Foster to perform his songs. This means that my great-great-great-grandfather almost certainly knew and worked alongside Stephen Foster, which completely blows my mind. Foster, who is often referred to as the 'father of American music', wrote such well-known songs as "Camptown Races", "Swanee River", "Home On The Range", "My Old Kentucky Home", "Beautiful Dreamer", "Oh! Susanna" and "Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair" (the last of which, if my grandmother is to be believed, my great-great-great-grandfather may have been the first person to ever sing onstage). Now, I wouldn't necessarily say that 'proud' would be the right word to describe how I feel about learning that one of my ancestors performed in a blackface minstrel group, but all I can say is that it was a different time. Regardless, I'm completely fascinated by all this new information and I'm sure it will have me doing a good deal of further research.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to Macomb City for a performance on the 4th. Then it's on to Brookhaven, Hazlehurst, Canton and Yazoo City.*
*These are the actual Mississippi towns in which my great-great-grandfather performed during the week of October 4-8, 1886.
All in all, this sounds like it will lead to you looking up genealogy stats for your family. Be careful with that. My dad fell into that hole and it almost ate him alive. He would spend days just looking at old documents that may or may not have mentioned someone in our family.
There's absolutely NO ONE famous or of historical note in my family. Everyone strived (strove?) for average.