Coconut Dishes Everybody Loves: 1931 Recipes from Baker's Coconut

"Like the fragrant palm groves and sunny tropic lands where it grows, Baker's Coconut has a rare sweetness, an inviting, delicious glamor, to add to every dish."

This sweet booklet with its pastel pics is full of lovely recipes for Baker's Coconut, Southern Style "fresh-grated coconut, slightly sweetened and packed, without coconut milk, in air-tight tin" and for Baker's Coconut, Premium Shred, "sugar cured-finely shredded coconut, put up in a triple-sealed, moisture-proof package that keeps it fresh."

Some have many steps and use old fashioned kitchen tools, like hand rotary egg beaters. I have a hand rotary beater in my kitchen that Mom used in the early 1960s.

Coconut Fudge Cake
2 cups sifted Swans Down Cake Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter or other shortening
1 cup coconut
2 squares Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate, melted
1 egg, well beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup milk

Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift together three times. Cream butter thoroughly, add sugar gradually, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add chocolate, blend; then add egg and vanilla. Add flour, alternately with milk, a small amount at a time. Beat after each addition until smooth. Bake in greased pan, 8 x 8 x 2 inches, in moderate oven (325 degrees F) 1 hour. Spread with Coconut Marshmallow Frosting.

Coconut Marshmallow Frosting
Add 1 cup marshmallows, quartered, to Seven Minute Frosting. Spread on cake. Sprinkle 1 can Baker's Coconut, Southern Style, over cake while frosting is still soft. Makes enough frosting to cover tops and sides of two 9-inch layers.

Seven Minute Frosting
2 egg whites, unbeaten
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons cold water
1 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla

Put egg whites, sugar, water and corn syrup in upper part of double boiler. Beat with rotary egg beater until thoroughly mixed. Place over rapidly boiling water, beat constantly with rotary egg beater, and cook and beat until thick enough to spread. Makes enough frosting to cover tops and sides of two 9-inch layers.

Here is an easy recipe to try!

Coconut Salad Delicious

2 cups cabbage, finely shredded

1 cup grated pineapple, drained

1 cup Baker's Coconut, Premium Shred

3/4 cup Hellmann's Mayonnaise

dash of salt

Crisp cabbage by allowing it to stand in ice water. Drain and dry thoroughly. Toss lightly together with remaining ingredients. Serve on crisp lettuce. Garnish with strips of pimento and chopped chives. Serves 6

 Imperial Tutti-frutti Cake

2 2/3 cups sifted Swan's Down Cake Flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup butter or other shortening
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 egg whites

Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder, and sift together three times. Cream butter thoroughly, add sugar gradually and cream together until light and fluffy. Combine milk, water, and flavoring. Add flour to creamed mixture, alternately with liquid, a small amount at a time, and mix after each addition until smooth. Add salt to egg whites and beat until stiff, but not dry. Fold gently into cake mixture. Bake in two greased 9-inch layer pans in slow oven (300 degrees F) for 10 minutes; then increase heat to moderate (374 degrees F) and bake 15 minutes longer. Put layers together and cover top and sides of cake with California Tutti-frutti Frosting and Filing or frost with Coconut Seven Minute Frosting.

California Tutti-frutti Frosting
2 egg whites, unbeaten
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
dash of salt
grated rind of 1/2 lemon
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
3/4 cup walnut meats, toasted and coarsely broken
1/2 cup currants
8 maraschino cherries, finely cut
1 can Baker's Coconut, Southern Style

Put egg whites, sugar, water, lemon juice, and salt in upper part of double boiler. Beat with rotary egg beater until thoroughly mixed. Place over rapidly boiling water, beat constantly with rotary egg beater, and cook 7 minutes or until frosting will stand in peaks. Remove from fire, add lemon rind and almond extract. To 1/3 mixture, add nuts, currants, and cherries. Spread between layers of cake. Cover top and sides with remaining frosting and sprinkle thickly with coconut. Makes enough frosting and filing for tops and sides of two 9-inch layers.

Coconut Brambles

2 cups sifted Swan's Down Cake Flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 cup cream

2 tablespoons milk

2 teaspoons baking powder

4 egg whites

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup blackberry jelly

Baker's Coconut, Southern Style

Sift flour once measure, add salt and 1/2 cup sugar, and sift again. Add cream, milk, and baking powder to egg whites, and beat with rotary egg mixer until mixture thickens; then add flavoring and remaining sugar. Fold in flour gently. Bake in two greased pans, 8 x 8 x 2 inches, in moderate oven (325 degrees F) 25 minutes or until done. Cook. Put layers together with blackberry jelly. Cut into 2-inch squares or diamond-shaped pieces, cover with Seven Minute Frosting and sprinkle with coconut. Makes 25.

Stuffed Prune Salad

2 packages cream cheese

1/2 can Baker's Coconut, Southern Style

2 tablespoons Hellmann's Mayonnaise

24 cooked prunes, seeded

Blend cheese, coconut and mayonnaise. Stuff prunes with mixture. Serve on crisp lettuce. Garnish with additional mayonnaise. Serves 8.

Yum!

Here is a history of Baker's Coconut founded in 1894 in Philadelphia by Franklin Baker:
http://www.franklinbaker.com/about-us/history.html

Here's a nice blog post on the history of the rotary beater at Cake, Oil and the Kitchen.

Black River by S. M. Hulse: Faith Quakes in the High Plains

A wife's dying request is to hear her husband bow, one more time, his tune Black River, the one he had been perfecting for years. Wes holds the violin, unable to play; his shattered, disfigured fingers long ago forgot how to find those sweet notes. The music which had saved him had been taken from him. Has Claire forgotten?

I want to go to Black River, she had asked. Belatedly Wes takes her ashes and goes back to Montana, to the place where they fell in love, the place of the 1992 prison riot that changed his life, to Claire's son who they had left behind at age 16. Where the mountains seemed like the hands of God.

With memory comes fear.

Thirty nine hours held hostage by a sociopath has haunted Wes his entire life and his torturer Williams is up for parole. Williams claims to have found faith and become a different man.

Can people change? Does 'bad blood' go from father to son? Is it enough to be right? Do we 'deserve' God? How do we find faith? Do we deserve forgiveness? What does justice have to do with forgiveness?

Hulse's first novel is a marvel, tackling existential questions through characters so richly imagined and rooted in life it is hard to believe a young woman spun them out of her imagination. The back stories are revealed in their time, woven into the story line and adding to the drama. The final meeting between Wes and Williams includes a surprise twist. The questions raised in the novel will engage you long after you close the book.

I received the ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

To learn more about the author visit: http://www.smhulse.com/

Black River by S. M. Hulse
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication January 20, 2015
ISBN:9780544309876
$ 24.00
$3.99 Kindle

+++++

To Wes, the violin sang like the human voice. It had been his voice and it brought him as close to God as anything else in his life. He had a gift with the fiddle and had played with a bluegrass  band for nineteen years. His father had loved classical music; his favorite work was the Chaconne from Bach's Partita No. 2 in D Minor and he started each day with listening to it the way some men read the Bible or a devotional. He made Wes his violin in 1966. 

Claire, the agnostic, loved old hymns. She loved her husband's tune which she had named Black River.

Wes tried to bond with his stepson Dennis by teaching him the violin, and later he teaches troubled teen, and natural musician, Scott. 

Music plays a role in the lives of most of the main characters. 

Hulse learned to play as part of her research for the novel as well as studying and listening to the music Wes loved. I can imagine the book made into a movie where music pervades every scene.

Tunes mentioned in the novel (with audio links) include:

Salt Creek (Also known as Salt River)

Devil's Dream

Mary Morgan

Angelina Baker

Cripple Creek

Hop High Ladies (perhaps same as Hop Light Ladies?)

Old Joe Clark

Blackberry Blossom

++++

Addendum Jan 11: Hulse has shared an interview about music related to her book found on Largegearted Boy: Book Notes: 

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2015/01/book_notes_s_m.html

+++++

An quilt made by Claire is on Dennis's childhood bed where Wes sleeps after his return. Claire had made it from red and blue scraps, finishing it when Dennis turned 12. Wes thinks that touching the soft quilt is like touching Claire, the stitches like writing, or scars. She was nimble with the needle, Wes remembers. After the riot Claire quilted only when Wes was away, embarrassed by her deft fingers and knowing what Wes had lost. 

 .

Grand Central Terminal Centennial Quilt Challenge Finalist

January 5 at the Blair Library in Clawson quilter and writer Theresa Nielsen gave a talk on her art. Nielsen's quilt was a finalist in the Grand Central Terminal Centennial Quilt Challenge sponsored by the City Quilter quilt shop in New York.

The quilt incorporated fabrics designed for the Centennial, including fabric representing the constellation ceiling of the terminal and a picture postcard print with images of Grand Central. The fabrics are still available at The City Quilter's website and store in aqua and ivory colorways.

Constellation fabric represents the ceiling of Grand Central

Grand Central

See more about the challenge at:
The City Quilter: http://www.cityquilter.com/Grand-Central-Centennial-Quilts.html
The Wall Street Journal:
http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579439090413753278?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304914904579439090413753278.html
All People Quilt:
http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/magazines-more/american-patchwork-quilting/grand-central-winners

Theresa Nielsen quilt photograph from All People Quilt

Nielsen's embellishments includes beading and watch parts. Her quilting group friends helped her to collect the embellishments.

Nielsen has had other quilts in challenge shows, including the National Quilt Association's Sew Batik. Her books include stories based on her family life and her many pets, including birds, dogs, and cats.

Nielson had a Redwork quilt on display as well--with presidents and political motifs.

 The library (and city hall!) have quilts on display year round. Some at the library now:

Drugs, Booze and Women. Fitzgerald in Hollywood.

Cokes and chocolate candy during the day. Chloral hydrate and Nembutal before bed. Benzedrine to get going in the morning. Booze whenever it got too bad.

Zelda was under medical care; Scottie in private school; both were back East. Nineteen years of marriage, half with Zelda's demons keeping them apart, now he sees her on rare holidays when he can get away. Intimate relations ended a long time ago.

In 1937 F. Scott Fitzgerald was in Hollywood, struggling to get jobs and pay the bills. A has-been trying to write a novel about Hollywood, hired to write scripts but tossed from film to film with no billing, nothing to show for it. His royalty check from Scribners amounted to $1.43.

Like his character Stahr in his manuscript that became the incomplete novel The Last Tycoon, Fitzgerald sees a woman who reminds him of his wife. They fall in love. Sheilah Graham was thirty to his forty, a tough, smart, self-made gal. And Scott was grasping at the last golden ring of happiness, in spite of TB and heart disease: the luxury of love.

West of Sunset by Stewart O'Nan is Biographical Fiction based on Scott's last years. Told in the third person limited, we come to know Scott by his actions, and from the narrator's knowledge of  his thoughts.

I could not stop reading. And the day after I felt such sorrow.

Plenty of Hollywood denizens show up in the story, like Bogie and Mayo who mostly drink and romp around the pool. Dottie Parker and her husband Alan Campbell; Dottie who knew him back in the old days. Names are dropped, Scott is snubbed by some of the most famous.

Ernest Hemingway appears on crutches after a botched operation on his leg. His breath stinks, he is unwashed. He has 'sold out' Scott thinks, a wasted talent. It was Hemingway who told Max Perkins that Scott sold out after Tender Is The Night appeared, who told Scott that Zelda was no good for him.

Scott hears that Tom Wolfe, the Thomas Wolfe of  Look Homeward, Angel, has died. Scott admired Wolfe's work, his ecstasy and gargantuan vitality. Wolfe was 36 years old. Scott had chosen the sanitarium near Asheville for Zelda because it was Tom's hometown, the city Wolfe could not "go home" to.

The whole glorious Lost Generation writers, all edited by Max Perkins, are old and dying and already passé, so yesterday. Scott's daughter Scottie gives him an essay she wrote for Mademoiselle about how his generation was as fashioned and outmoded as the Charleston.

What Scottie did not know yet, thinks Scott, was how war changes everything. It is 1939. She will soon see for herself.

I had found a copy of The Last Tycoon while vacationing Up North and read it for the first time since I was a teenager. It is told in the first person, by the daughter of the main character Stahr. Wonderful name for a Hollywood "tycoon.".Stahr has achieved a legendary status, the Boy Wonder who knows how to fix everything, wielding his power for the greater vision in his head. His beloved wife has died, and has only his work to keep him going. Until he sees Kathleen, who looks like his wife. He searches for her, they meet, they fall in love.

The Tycoon Stahr meets a tragic end in a plane crash. Scott died at age 44 of a heart attack at Sheliah's place, where he was working with a secretary on Tycoon.

O'Tan's novel ends with letters exchanged between Scottie and Zelda after Scott's death. "Only in love are we redeemed," writes Zelda. "God answers all prayers."

How ironic.

To learn more visit
http://www.scottandzelda.com/
http://www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org/biography/index.html

The First New Woman Was A Flapper

Jazz, cigarettes, alcohol. The corsets came off--so did the hair. Women wanted equality of choice, equality in marriage relationships, freedom over their bodies, the opportunity to do something of their own. Their Victorian parents were in despair. The New Woman, called Flappers, had arrived.

Women had been imprisoned in a gilded cage, from the restricted clothing to perpetual pregnancy. The Flappers pushed the envelope: swearing like a sailor, engaging in "petting", dancing in provocative ways, and jumping on the latest wild fashion style. One 14 year old  girl committed suicide when her mother prevented her from rolling her stockings and bobbing her hair.

Innovative and original fashion designers like Coco Chanel liberated women with her clothing. Marketing to the young set created Madison Avenue as we know it. Credit ended the need to save for purchases. Instant gratification! And Hollywood actresses Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, and Colleen Moore set role models. F. Scott Fitzgerald was there to record it in literature, his wife Zelda the Original Flapper.

"I sometimes wonder whether the flapper made me or I made her." F. Scott Fitzgerald

This was the generation that invented 'dating' and 'treating' where men asked a girl out and paid her way, leaving the girl to decide how to 'repay' him.  Premarital sex, typically with a finance, jumped from 14% of women born before 1900 to 39% of women who came of age in the first decades of the 20th c.

By 1929 over a quarter of all women had jobs, and half of single women worked. Young people lived at home longer. They came from smaller families with siblings born closer together. Social circles became generational. Radio and the movies created an information revolution, while the telephone allowed 'instant messaging'. Leisure pursuits and having fun became more important that work.

Instead of trying to reach 150 pounds, women were dieting and losing weight to wear those skimpy dresses. The 'womanly' figure was out.

Arrow shirt ad

Fundamentalism was born, a backlash against the breakdown of morality and the prevailing secular thought. The arch-conservative American Legion was formed. The Women's Voters and social feminists tried to keep alive the ideal of motherhood as the civilizing force in society.


Flapper by Joshua Zeitz is an interesting and lively social history. In the last year I had read Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhoda Garlick and lots of Fitzgerald books.  I appreciated reading about lesser known characters of the time. Artists John Held and Gordon Conway gave "visual expression to the social revolution sweeping the United States", and Lois Long AKA Lipstick who wrote a social column for The New Yorker about the Flapper social set. Actresses Clara Bow, Colleen Moore and Louise Brooks reigned the silver screen but I had known little about them.


Flapper: A Modern Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern
by Joshua Zeitz
Broadway Books
2006

Michigan's "UP" in Literary Fiction

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is remote and sparsely populated. It is surrounded by Lake Superior to the north and Lakes Michigan and Huron to the south. People, most from Finland and Nordic countries, came for the jobs. In the 18th c it was an important sources of lumber and ore, with ships carrying its resources through the 'inland' sea to ports at Chicago and Detroit, Erie and Buffalo. The forests were decimated. There were copper mines, iron mines, and coal mines that created towns. The mines closed. Ford left a 'ghost town', Pequaming, now a tourist town, where once he harvested and processed wood for his cars.

With 3% of the population and a quarter of the land--but one area code-- the UP is its own region with distinctive characteristics, its own dialect, and even cuisine. Yoopers got pastys--meat pies--from Cornish immigrants, and Finnish delicacies can be found. Fishing is not just a hobby.

The UP was and still is a sportsman's paradise, a tourist's destination of great beauty. The same escarpment that creates the Niagara Falls created Tahquamenon Falls and other smaller falls in the UP. Agates lay on the Superior beaches. Lighthouses dot the coast. And now there are casinos.

Terry O'Quinn who played John Locke on Lost is from the UP as was actor James Tolkan.

There is a heritage of UP fiction, small but notable. Classics like Anatomy of a Murder, made into a movie with James Stewart. The author John D. Voelker used the pen name Robert Traver. Voelker retired from a successful law career to fly fish trout and write.

Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams stories were set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and ever since anyone writing about the UP has been compared to them.

The Hemingway family came from Chicago north along Lake Michigan to vacation in the various resort communities in Michigan. (Chicagoans still do this.) Hemingway visited Seney in 1919 for a fishing trip. He never returned to the UP. His stories, including The Big Two-Hearted River, have forever associated him with Michigan.

+++++

I decided it was time to read a book by Michigan native Jim Harrison. NetGalley offered his newest novel, The Big Seven, set in the Newberry/Seney/Marqutte area of the UP. The novel's narrator first appeared in Harrison's novel The Great Leader.

The book refers to many Michigan places we have seen on trips Up North: Seney, Newberry, Marquette, Grand Marias.

Told in the first person narrative, we get to know the main character quite well--things I did not really want to know, too. Sunderson retired early from the Michigan State police where he was a detective. He drinks. He is obsessed with female posteriors. And he brought his work home, which contributed to the demise of his 40 year marriage to his ex, Diane, who he still loves.

In The Big Seven we learn about Sunderson's life long obsession with The Seven Deadly Sins, those which can condemn one to hell. He was a kid when he heard a sermon about them, and it has haunted him ever since. He constantly weighs his life, and other's, in terms of The Big Seven. He is sure there is a missing one: violence.

Sunderson and Diane had 'adopted' a neighbor's girl, Mona. Diane contact him because Mona is in trouble, dropping out of college to be a groupie. He tries to scare Mona's beau via blackmail. It didn't work, but he ends up with $10,000. He buys a remote cabin where he can indulge his love of trout fishing.

The cabin is situated in the midst of the Ames family--gun-totting, abusive, incestuous psychopaths. Sunderson intends to steer clear of them, but the Ames housekeeper/cook who comes with the cabin is found dead. Her replacement, another Ames family member named Monica, is a great cook who wants to escape her life. He is also befriended by her uncle, ex-com Lemuel Ames, a wannabe writer of crime fiction whose manuscript reads like a confession of murder. Sunderson finds himself deeply involved.

Meantime, Sunderson is trying to write a book about the eight deadly sin--violence.

I didn't enjoy being in Sunderson's head. His thoughts jump all over the place. He constantly commits several deadly sins, including lechery and gluttony. He is a man who just 'can't say no' when young women throw themselves at him. Plus there is the older neighbor who has set out to catch any many she can. Sunderson is upset by abuse of women and children, is well read, and basically not a horrible person. But reading his wandering thoughts and inner secrets can be in turns repulsive and dull. And yet...we see into a man who is honestly struggling with his own nature. There is also a black humor about things that happen. I realize that Harrison choose to write this book from Sunderson's viewpoint for a reason. The satisfying ending with Sunderson and Diane finding a compromise relationship is quite sweet. One wonders what Sunderson will be thinking about in a third novel.

In a Lansing State Journal interview Harrison said that his publisher was "upset about his next novel--'because it's about evil.'"
http://lansingonlinenews.com/news/msu-grad-jim-harrison-adds-two-books-this-year-to-his-collection/

It has been several days since I finished The Big Seven. I don't know if I will read another Harrison novel any time soon. But I won't soon forget it.

I received a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Big Seven
by Jim Harrison
Grove Press
Publication February 3, 2015
ISBN: 9780802123336

+++++

At a local author and book fair I met Royal Oak, MI native Peter Wurdock and purchased his book of short stories Bending Water and Stories Nearby, A Northern Michigan Short Story Collection. The stories are all set in the UP, with Newberry and Marquette often referenced. Illustrations include paintings and drawings.

Most of the stories concern people in crisis, facing dangerous situations, death, grief and the loss of loved ones, or at their lowest point in life. They must come to grips with the fact that in the end "Life'll  kill ya" as one character says. 

One story that deviates into whimsy is "Black Gold". Northern University student cousins on a short vacation before summer jobs at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island are exploring with a metal detector when they find a box with old coins. They realize their grandfather had a cabin in the area and wonder if  he had hidden the box. They ask family members about their grandfather's camp and life. He hobnobbed with Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth, The comment "Maybe you found his treasure" and learning of their grandfather's link to the Jewish Mafia and missing slot machines spur them into renting scuba gear to search the lake bottom for 'black gold.'

Bending Water is available through Blue Boundry Book or Amazon.com and can be found at COSTCO stores.
ISBN 978-0-9894214-1-6, $13.99, paperback
$6.99 on Kindle

"Early Days" from 1884

Looking through our library I came across a worn book, Early Days, a children's magazine published in 1884 in London. It was a Victorian Wesleyan Methodist publication mostly written by clergymen. 

In 1884 Christmas involved Christmas trees decked with candles, singing, tales, buying gifts, games, the return of family members who worked elsewhere, and eating--especially a big pudding with a sprig of holy!

"All too soon we have got to the last month of the year. And yet we are glad to see the long, foggy days passing away; glad to know that this month brings the shortest day of the year, and then we may look forward to longer and brighter days. The country is desolate. It almost makes us shiver to see the trees with their naked branches stretched out towards the leaden sky; and as the wind moans around these bare trees, we pull our clothes tighter around us to keep our bodies warm." 

This is not cheerful and light writing for children.

And of course there is a reminder of the real 'why' of Christmas, Christ's Mass.

January 1884 concerns included poor children in the cold, kids making a huge snow man and enjoying a magic lantern show, and a reminder that ships and sailing still were the mainstay of trade and the economy and involved huge risks to sailors.

"And when the stormy winds are blowing and howling round the house, keeping us awake in our beds, we think of the many poor sailor boys tossed about on the wild waves of the sea. Perhaps one of us has a brother or father out on the sea, and we lie awake wondering if he is safe. Poor fellows! It is hard for them to be in a storm, and very terrible when the ship is driven on to the rocks around our coast. How the sea rages around and over them, and tears the ship to pieces. They climb the icy rope ladders, and wait and pray for the life-boat to come to their rescue. And it is coming. Watchful eyes have seen them, and now the brave life-boatmen are 'toiling in rowing' to save those in danger. God speed them!"

+++++

The book belonged to Benjamin F. Cureton, 219 W. Goodale St, Columbus Ohio. A presentation plate shows he received the book in 1885, bequeathed by  James Smith, Esq. of Leebotwood for "early attendance at the Horsehay Wesleyan Sabbath School".

With all that information I had to go to Ancestry.com and do research!

According to his obituary in the Conshocton Tribune, Benjamin F. Cureton had been a physician in private practice for 50 years, passing on Sept. 19, 1966 at age 89. He had been living in Mt. Vernon, OH at the McConnell long term care after an extended illness. Benjamen had a living sister Mrs. P. J. Cummings of Mt. Vernon, OH and a brother George also of Mt. Vernon, OH. Benjamin is buried at Forest Cemetery in Frederickton, OH.

The 1897 Ohio State University yearbooks shows B. F. Cureton was in the Company C "Prize" Company of 1896 under Captain C. E. Haigler. He was a WWI veteran--the first doctor called to Camp Sherman. Captain Cureton was honorably discharged on December 19, 1918. 

The 1940 census showed he had worked in private practice as a physician for 60 hours the previous week, was 62 years of age, and was a single man living as a boarder. 

Benjamin was born January 4, 1877 in Wellington, Shropshire, England. His parents were William and Elizabeth Stephens Cureton. Benjamin was baptized Feb 14 1877 in Dawley-Magna, Shropshire England. 

His father William was born in Dawley Magna in 1849 and in 1872 he married Elizabeth in her hometown of Wellington. In 1887 William and Elizabeth and their sons came to America and lived in Knox, Ohio. William passed away in 1919 and Elizabeth died at age 98 and is buried in Wellington. 

Benjamin had siblings William, Edward, Thomas, George and Samuel.

+++++

The bequest of the book came from James Smith who lived in Shropshire, England. The census of 1851 shows he was a 62 year old brick-maker employing six persons. He was also the Wesleyan local pastor. His wife was born in 1795 and died in 1851. James died in 1853. 

Horsehay was in Dawley. In 1817 there were three brickyards in Dawley and Methodism was flourishing with a Wesleyan Methodist, Primitive Methodist, Methodist New Connection, and Methodist Free churches founded there. 

In 1890 an autographed red and white quilt was created by the Horsehay Methodist Chapel members. It includes the name of James Smith, along with a Samuel and a Charles Smith. Perhaps they were relatives of Pastor Smith.

+++++

As Early Days was a Wesleyan publication it extolled values the Victorians deemed important to growing up. Working hard for a prize was the theme of one story. Barnabe Hooper was not "particularly fond of geography" because he got muddled over the long names. He tried hard but did not win the third-class prize. He felt like a loser and wondered how he was going to face his mother.

When Barnaby sadly told his mother his news he was surprised by her response. "Barny, you seem to think it is all loss for you, but I do not think so at all. When you began the very first day of this term to study your lessons so carefully, there was more than one prize in front of you. You only thought about one, and you have lost that. But never mind, you gave gained others! You have acquired a knowledge of several different subjects, and that is a prize worth having. You have, too, I know, the approval of your master, and what is better still, the satisfaction of knowing that you have tried to do your duty." She also mentions that "our Father in heaven is well pleased with those who earnestly and willingly do the work that comes to the every day." The story closes with a happy Barny--and a reminder for boys and girls to consider the prize which all may win--the glory and honor of eternal life.

The girl says "Oh! I am so thirsty!" Which is of course a parable, with Jesus being the eternal water that quenches thirst.

We will never know if Early Days magazine instilled motivation for Benjamin to work hard to become a physician, to care for patients over 50 years, and to succeed as as a military doctor during war time. Perhaps his childhood pastor James Smith's gift was a cherished reminder of the 'old country'. Did Benjamin volunteer for WWI out of concern for his homeland? How many men's lives were saved by his efforts as a doctor during the war? 

What a wonderful world we live in when a few facts can reveal the history behind a commonplace object or worn book.