Oberlin Heritage Center Blog


Archive for the ‘Members Voices’ Category

A Visit to the Norfolk Waterfront

Sunday, May 27th, 2018

By Melva Tolbert, Oberlin Heritage Center Volunteer

In keeping with the theme of freedom and the Underground Railroad, I recently visited Norfolk, Virginia which is rich in history and stories of freedom. After a stop at the Norfolk Visitors Bureau, I set out to find the Norfolk Waterfront. I ventured a couple of blocks to the Elizabeth River and found an Underground Railroad historic marker which denotes the place where many enslaved blacks sought freedom along the waterfront.

Prior to the Civil War, the waterways along the east coast served as a transportation mode that brought enslaved Africans and free blacks to the east coast. It also was the site for a busy commercial activity. This historic marker highlighted the story of George Latimer, an enslaved black man seeking freedom like thousands like him in the North. George and his wife Rebecca escaped by the waterways to Boston and he did not return to his owner.

George_Latimer_lithograph

George Latimer 
Thayer & Co. (Boston, Mass.)–Lithographer
New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Because such a large number of blacks were employed in the shipping industry (shipyards, boats, and steamships) they were able to quietly assist African Americans with securing transportation heading North. Additionally, whites, either for a fee or by aiding the efforts of the Underground Railroad movement, transported enslaved men and women out of the Virginia and North Carolina area. It is believed that thousands of people were able to reach northern cities and Canada through these heroic efforts. Much like the abolitionist of Oberlin, you could find men and women in another part of the country who were committed to the message of freedom and the network of the Underground Railroad (on water).

Link to Waterways to Freedom interactive map and historical information

A Visit to Whitney Plantation

Saturday, September 19th, 2015

By Melva Tolbert, Oberlin Heritage Center volunteer

September 9, 2015

Melva Tolbert portrait

 

While recently visiting my daughter, who resides in New Orleans, Louisiana, we decided to spend an afternoon at the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, LA.  Jessica is a history major and an elementary school teacher.  She had been to the plantation before and was pleasantly surprised with the approach that was taken that distinguished it from other plantation tours.  The focus was not on the owners of the plantation, but on the enslaved people.

We drove almost an hour away from the city and passed by other plantations on our way.  As we pulled into the large gravel parking lot you could see the large white “big house”.  We entered the welcoming center which sold tickets, books and displayed the journey that people from western African had taken  from their homeland to the Caribbean Islands, the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico to work the land.  The display also illustrates the involvement of the early Catholic popes and the British monarchies involvement in the early slave trade.

Our tour guide gathered together me, my daughter and four young women from Europe on an hour and fifteen minute walk through life in Louisiana in the early 1800s.  Our first stop was Antioch Baptist Church where we watched a video about the plantation and were introduced to some of the children that worked the land.  The plantation was purchased in 1752 by Ambroise Heidel, a German emigrant and he became wealthy producing indigo.  In the early 1800s, his son transitioned the plantation to sugar which was a much more physically demanding product and required many enslaved people.

Antioch Baptist Church

The Antioch Baptist Church (seen here at a distance behind the slave memorial) was founded by former slaves in 1868.  Originally located about 8 miles from the plantation, it was moved to the Whitney in 1999.  Photo courtesy of Whitney Plantation.

We then visited an outdoor memorial that recorded the words and honored the former enslaved children and families.  These words were captured through the Federal Writers Project (FWP) that was a part of the Works Progress Administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  The FWP supported writers during the Great Depression and interviewed former enslaved people from the South.

 

The Allees Gwendolyn Midlo Hall

The Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall is the name of the slave memorial on the property that is dedicated to the 107,000 people enslaved in Louisiana in the antebellum era.  Photo courtesy of Whitney Plantation.

Wall of Honor

The Wall of Honor honors all the people who were enslaved on the Whitney Plantation. Their names and the information related to them (origin, age, skills) were retrieved from original archives and engraved on granite slabs.  Photo courtesy of Whitney Plantation.

We continued our walk of the plantation that included the slave quarters, blacksmith shop, overseers home, a jail for runaway slaves, the kitchen and finally the owner’s house.   It was interesting to note that the kitchen resembled the slave quarters, but was actually a part of the owner’s house.  Their food was prepared and then transported to the pantry in the owner’s house.  During this time, our guide detailed the conditions that the enslaved were working under including starvation, castrations, imprisonment, separation from family and mixing with the owner’s family.

Slave Cabins

Before the Civil War, the Whitney Plantation counted 22 slave cabins on its site.  The large iron cauldrons dotting the plantation landscape were used in refining sugar cane harvested from the fields.  Photo courtesy of Whitney Plantation.

After 1865, the slaves were free, but they had no education, large families and still felt tied to the land.  The former enslaved became sharecroppers and continued to work the land up until it was outlawed in 1965.  The Whitney Plantation was purchased by another owner, preserved and is a part of the National Register of Historic Places.  The new owner wants to educate the public by telling the story of the enslaved.  Additionally, he wants to help people understand some of the challenges we continue to face today is of plantation life.

On my way out, I purchased,  Chained to the Land, Voices of Cotton & Cane Plantations by Lynette Ater Tanner.  I summarized a few of the stories and they are as follows:

Story 1 –  Julia Woodrich was interviewed on May 13, 1940 at the age of 89.  When the master died, her family was sold.  She never saw her brothers or sisters again and because she was so young she remained with her mother.  Her mother had fifteen children and never by the same man.  Each time her mother was sold she had to take on another man, even the master.  She was considered a good breeder.

After the master and misses died, the younger master took over and split up the money and property. Julia remembers when they were freed because the master could no longer take care of them so they lived off of fish and berries.  She remembers that the master would come get her sister and take her to his quarters and then inquired the following day how she felt.

Story 2 – Mrs.  Webb was interviewed August 17, 1940, but unsure of her age.  She remembers her master being the cruelest in St. John the Baptist Parish.  If an enslaved person was disobedient, he would place him in a box and they could not move.  This master was known for having very attractive slaves.  He heard about a slave with a fine physique so he bought him.  Because this enslaved person had been raised with the master’s children he was not used to harsh work, so he refused the hard work.  The master day after day directed him to work in the fields and each time he refused.  He was then told by the master to dig a hole, which he did.  The next day he was told by the master to get into the hole and the master shot him and he fell down in the hole.

Story 3 – Peter Barber was interviewed August 23, 1940 and estimated his age to be 96 years old.  He was proud in describing his life as eventful.  He acknowledges that he was born into slavery on a farm in Charlottesville, Virginia.  He refers to his master as ‘good’ as long as you were working.  He remembers being sold to another master who was a tobacco farmer for $900.00 using both union and confederate money.  Because there was talk of sending him to the Blue Mountains to fight he ran away.   Peter did not talk a lot, but he listened and he knew what the fighting was all about.  Peter and a friend, Jimmie, jumped on a boat that was headed for Cincinnati.  Both of them were put off of the boat since they knew Peter and Jimmie were not passengers.  They walked the remainder of the way.  While in Cincinnati, his friend joined the Army, but they delayed taking Peter.  Now separated from his friend, he took a job on a boat that traveled up and down the Ohio River then another boat to New Orleans.  He never joined the army and traveled the Mississippi for fifty-six years as a loner.  He is proud that his travels allowed him to see 13 presidents, but he never got to see Abe Lincoln.

OHC Note:  In 2014, the Whitney Plantation opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 262 year history as the only plantation museum in Louisiana with a focus on slavery.  For more information, visit www.whitneyplantation.com.

Celebrating 20 Years of Community Service

Monday, April 27th, 2015

By Laurie Stein (Oberlin College 2006)

The Oberlin Heritage Center was delighted that former intern Laurie Stein was able to return to her alma mater to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Community Services Work-Study Program of Oberlin College, and also to present at the Annual Meeting of the Oberlin Heritage Center on April 1, 2015. The Oberlin Heritage Center has been a community partner since the inception of the work study program.  Here we reprint Laurie’s remarks on the impact community service at the Heritage Center had on her future career path. Laurie Stein is Curator of the Lake Forest – Lake Bluff Historical Society.

First of all I want to thank the staff at the Heritage Center and Tania Boster and Beth Blissman at Oberlin College for inviting me here this week. It’s wonderful to see a lot of familiar faces and see the many steps forward taken by this organization since my time here. It’s hard to believe that in 2016 it will be ten years since I graduated from Oberlin.

The reason I’m joining you today is to celebrate the 20-year partnership between the Oberlin Heritage Center and the college’s Community Services Work-Study Program, which has been absolutely wonderful. I give it all the credit in the world for allowing me to take my study of history and hone it into a passion for interpreting the past for a public audience.

I first became connected with the Oberlin Heritage Center through a Winter Term project in my second year. I conducted research for the Ohio Historic Inventory, surveying buildings and architecture and using archives to discover their former occupants.

At the end of the three-week winter term period, I recall thinking what a shame it was that my part in the project was ending. I was just starting to become familiar with the resources and with Oberlin’s built environment and there was so much more to do! But with double majoring, playing soccer, and working to help pay my tuition, I did not realistically see how I could continue as a volunteer, at least not on a regular basis.

So I was absolutely thrilled when Pat Murphy told me that as a work study student, I could apply to continue working there during the school year through the Community Services Work-Study Program, since the Oberlin Heritage Center was one of their community partners.

BBlissman+LStein+TBoster - blog

Beth Blissman, Director of the Bonner Center for Service and Learning, Laurie Stein, and Tania Boster, Director of the Community Services Work-Study Program

This was just terrific news, that I could work to defray the cost of my attendance at school in the field that I was interested in. I think I had an inkling even then that this wasn’t just a career-building opportunity; for me this might be the career-building opportunity.

And so I continued as an intern at the Heritage Center for the rest of my time at Oberlin, including over one summer, and then after I graduated, as a Museum Fellow for a year.

It was during this time that the Oberlin Heritage Center taught me what the “public” part of public historian really meant. At first I thought that for me it meant doing research that someone else would interpret – it was what I initially considered myself best at, being the most like “writing papers,” which I had already conquered as a history major. But after that first Winter Term, I was pushed out of my comfort zone, and I worked on not just the inventory, but on any number of other projects: giving tours, docent training, special events, stuffing envelopes for membership mailings, scanning photographs, summer camps, updating the website, taking photos of gravestones at the cemetery, copyediting the annual report, demonstrating the use of stilts on the lawn in front of the schoolhouse, and much more – all things, maybe except for the stilts, that I use regularly in my current job in Lake Forest.

This was a wonderful aspect of my intern experience at the OHC, that I wasn’t just buttonholed into one project. I really got a chance to see the inner workings of a small, active history museum – a museum that had become, thanks to Pat Murphy and Mary Anne Cunningham and all of you who are here tonight, a model for other history museums across the country, including mine in Lake Forest.

All of these experiences were invaluable when I applied to graduate school, and they were invaluable in signaling that I wanted to start my career at a museum like this one, where I would be able to work closely with our interns, our board, our volunteers – where I could get to know our museum members by name and say hello to them at events – where I could help develop innovative programs and provide services to the local community. The museum where I work now, the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society, is just starting a regular internship program with our local college, Lake Forest College, and I can only hope that eventually it has a similar impact to what I was lucky enough to experience here through the Heritage Center and the Community Services Work-Study Program. Thank you.

Dr. A.C. Siddall’s Life as a Medical Practitioner: Researching and Making History

Wednesday, July 17th, 2013

by Michelle Myers, Leadership Lorain County Intern

Upon leaving my summer internship at the Oberlin Heritage Center and graduating from Swarthmore College in two years, I plan on going to nursing school and becoming a midwife. I have taken an interest in Dr. A.C. Siddall, an OB/GYN who practiced in the Oberlin Heritage Center’s Monroe House for twenty years, not only because of the feats he accomplished as a medical practitioner, but also for his engaging and vigorous writings. While looking through a file of his research papers, historical writings, and autobiographical keepings at the Oberlin College Archives, I came upon a paper he had written the year of his retirement, 1973, titled “From Practicing Obstetrician to Amateur Historian.” This paper reflects on his career and looks forward to a life of continuous medical curiosity. Now, as I look toward my future journey into the medical field, I find inspiration in what he has written. It is an example of what I may have to look forward to, as I pause and we both, Dr. Siddall and I, can breathe, reflect, and consider the wonderful medical history that had been laid before us.

A Clair Siddall, M.D., was a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology who practiced in Oberlin for 40 years. He developed the first hormonally-based pregnancy test in English literature, delivered 5,000 babies, and served as a medical missionary in China for nine years. He did all he could for the medical practice of Oberlin in his lifetime, ultimately co-founding the Oberlin Clinic and supporting the expansion of the Allen Memorial Hospital, now Mercy Allen Hospital. He lived an incredibly meaningful life, both by way of his own driving force and the inspirations of the past. He wrote paper after paper dealing with the medical history of Oberlin during his practice. In “From Practicing Obstetrician to Amateur Historian,” Dr. Siddall discussed just how much history inspired him and could inspire others, saying “…it is sufficient for this presentation to show how any physician can enlarge his horizon by more or less active interest in the history of his own profession.” Rather than viewing his retirement as a time of complete rest, Dr. Siddall used this free time to continue exploring his curiosity, as well as making up for lost time:

“So it is that now I can follow a beautiful schedule of working at my desk until noon every day then being flexible in the afternoon. Several subjects claim my attention now,
1. History of Chinese Medicine
2. Profiles of all physicians who have ever worked in Oberlin-includes the college
3. Eunuchism
4. Religious beliefs of the common man
[5.] Uninterrupted meals with my wife who has suffered interruptions and delays and cancellations for forty years, without complaint.”

Researching history inspired Dr. Siddall to reach higher standards of innovation in his own practice. He studied marvelous icons of medical history, including Hippocrates, Galen, Soranus, Sydenham, and others. He created an extensive guide of Oberlin’s history of medical practices and practitioners, which is now at the Oberlin College Archives. While he attended professional meetings on vacation, he made an effort to visit sites of medical innovation in the field of obstetrics. On one trip, he visited a monument of John L. Richmond in Newton, Ohio, who, in 1827, “carried out singlehanded, using only his pocket instruments, the first professional cesarean in the country.” Richmond performed this cesarean under the light of one candle in a log cabin. Dr. Siddall said of this character, “[s]uch courage stirs my imagination.” Dr. Siddall embraced a similarly courageous and self-assured approach in his own practice with the Pap smear, a screening test used for the detection of cervical cancer. He was one of the first individual practitioners to introduce cancer detection to the medical office. This was in the 1950’s, a point in history when physicians were skeptical of the American Cancer Association’s call for frequent cancer screenings. Because he was able to identify cancer early, Dr. Siddall was able to treat and save patients’ lives.


Dr. A.C. Siddall and his wife, Estelle.

Dr. Siddall was a historian, and at the same time, he was a medical practitioner who did things worth writing about. These factors resulted from each other, in a wheel of innovation. Medical practice is a result of medical history, and medical practice creates medical history. I believe this can be most emphasized by Dr. Siddall’s words: “So we learn that to make history takes precedence over and is more satisfying than to read history. However I never cease to be inspired by those who have gone before as pioneers in our specialty.” Indeed, these pioneers helped form Dr. Siddall’s practice and may continue to inspire medical practitioners of the future. For me, Dr. Siddall has been one of these moving pioneers in imagination. Studying medical history offers a clearer understanding to how the medical practices of today have developed. It also inspires a medical practitioner to come up with innovative and life-saving ways of handling his or her practice. I take historical research seriously because it has and will save lives.

Sources:

Siddall Papers, Oberlin College Archives.

“From Practicing Obstetrician to Amateur Historian”, Oberlin College Archives.

Oberlin Recipes

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Hello everyone!  Those of you who were able to attend the celebration for Erik and Michele Andrews, Oberlinians of the Year, know that there were many delicious goodies to be sampled.  We had several requests for recipes and decided to post some online for all to see.  If you want to add yours, email it to [email protected].  Enjoy!

Cracker Chunks

Submitted by Ann Livingston

Line a cookie sheet with foil, edges standing up.  Cover the bottom with saltines.

Mix 1 c. butter and 1 c. sugar.  Bring to a boil & boil 3 minutes. Pour over saltines. It should spread fairly easily over all. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

Spread 1 – 2 c. chocolate bits over the hot crust until covered.  Sprinkle chopped pecans on top while the chocolate is still melted (optional).

A friend’s recipe calls for brown sugar and baking 5 minutes at 400 degrees.

Ginger Cookies

Submitted by Lee Wood

Gather:

3/4 c. vegetable shortening
1 c. sugar, plus more for rolling
1 large egg
1/4 c. molasses
2 c. sifted all-purpose flour
2 tsps. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats.  Using an electric mixer at low speed, cream the shortening and sugar until thoroughly combined.  Add the egg and molasses and beat until completely incorporated.  Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt and add to the mixture.  Stir until combined.  Roll the dough into balls about 1-inch in diameter.  Roll the balls in sugar.  Place 1/2-inch apart on the prepared cookie sheets.  Flatten the balls slightly with your fingertips.  Bake for 12 minutes.  Cool on wire racks.

(Source: Food Network)

Pumpkin Bars

Submitted by Deloris Bohn

Crust

1/2 c. confectioners sugar
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 c. butter – chopped
1/2 c. finely chopped nuts

Sift sugar, flour, and salt in bowl.  Rub in butter with hands until mixture resembles course crumbs.  Mix in chopped nuts.  Grease 13 x 9 in. pan.  Press mixture into the bottom of the pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until lite brown.

Filling

1 15 oz. can pumpkin
1 1/2 c. milk
2 eggs
1 package cook & serve vanilla pudding
3/4 c. sugar
2 tsps. pumpkin spice

Whisk pumpkin, milk, eggs, pudding mix, sugar, spice.  Pour over crust and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes on center rack of oven, until center is firm.  Serve with whipped topping.