#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 11 Luck: Frank Scrivener's Lucky Break

My Dad, Frank Phillip Scrivener III, was a member of what is called "the greatest generation." Born in 1925, the oldest son of Frank Scrivener Jr. and Elizabeth Dent, he grew up in Baltimore.  He attended Newman Prep School in New Jersey (thanks to his grandmother) and Calvert Hall in Baltimore.  "Hank," as he was then nicknamed, was a gifted athlete, captaining the tennis team and also playing basketball, as his yearbook noted.  He had plans to enter college.

But, like so many of his peers, his college plans had to be set aside for military service in World War II.  He got in one year at Loyola College in Baltimore before enlisting in July 1943. It was only by a "lucky break" (literally) that he missed fighting in the infamous Battle of the Bulge.

After enlistment, Dad was sent to Ft. Hood TX for basic training and then to Baylor University for advanced training in engineering. He was attached to the 99th Infantry Division, 34th Signal Company.

His division was set to deploy in late 1944, headed for England and later France and Belgium.  The night before shipping out, Frank decided to get in one more round of hoops before leaving.  During the game, he fell and broke his ankle and thus was unable to deploy with the rest of the men.  So, he missed the largest and bloodiest battle of WWII. The 99th Division, outnumbered by the Germans about 5 to 1, lost about 20 percent of its strength there due to death and injury.

Of course, my mother (his girlfriend at the time) did not know that Frank was in a stateside hospital.   He wrote to her, but could not reveal his location, so naturally, she was worried when she saw the news about the devastating battles in Europe.

Eventually, Dad was sent to Europe in February 1945.  He served in Italy as a cryptologic technician, encoding and decoding messages.    (And playing a little tennis in his off hours.)  He was honorably discharged at Ft. Meade MD in March 1946 as a Technician fifth grade.

After leaving the service, Dad married his sweetheart, Anne Summers, and went back to Loyola on the GI Bill graduating in 1949.  In his spare time, he captained the tennis team and showed off his beautiful baby girl--me--to his fellow Greyhounds.  (Back row, 2nd from the right in the picture below.)  So, I guess I would have to say that Dad's lucky break was also mine, because without it, there's a good chance I wouldn't be here.

My mother attributes Dad's lucky break to the St. Christopher medal which he carried with him throughout his war service. Whether it was St. Christopher or some other heavenly guardian, or my mother's prayers, someone was certainly looking out for Dad.

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 10 Strong Woman: Louise Gwynn Scrivener Suffragette

In this 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, it seems a good time to celebrate the efforts of my great-grandmother, Louise Carmelite Keene Gwynn, as an advocate for women.  Louise, called "Lulie" or "Lulu" as a young woman, was born in Brooklyn NY 27 February 1872, the daughter of Captain Andrew Jackson Gwynn, a Confederate veteran, and Marie Louise Keene, both native Marylanders.  Her grandfather, Benjamin Gaither Keene, served as member of the Maryland House of  Delegates.

Although she was born in Brooklyn, Lulie grew up in Spartanburg SC where her parents ultimately settled after the Civil War, along with her five brothers and sisters. The family was deeply Catholic.

Mount St. Agnes

Lulie, along with her older sister Effie Gwynn,  attended Mount St. Agnes College in Baltimore (founded in 1890 by the Sisters of Mercy.) Following her graduation, Lulie became a fierce advocate of Catholic education and women's education.  She served as president of the Mount Saint Agnes Alumnae in the early 1900's.  (The 1901 Reunion program notes that she gave a vocal solo and a toast to "Woman's Place in the World of Song." )

She later (1915) founded the Maryland chapter of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae and was its first governor. In 1919, she was awarded a medal for leading her chapter in the Liberty Loan campaign during WWI.  At the same meeting, she urged her members to work in support of the vote for women:

 "Let us then, as women of Maryland, face the problems of the future squarely....Let us prepare ourselves to take up the right of suffrage, wisely using it to promote legislation for the good of humanity. " (Baltimore Sun, 22 June 1919)

Great-grandmother took up the challenge soon after women received the right to vote.  She became one of the first women in Maryland to run for elective office, campaigning for the Democratic State Central Committee, the governing body of Maryland's Democratic Party.

Mrs. B.J. Byrne, Mrs. Samuel K. Thomas, and Louise Gwynn Scrivener

In July 1921, the Democratic Women's Club of Baltimore nominated 12 women to run for the Committee, marking the first time that a political organization of women had "definitely taken action toward making a fight to get women into office" (Baltimore Sun, 30 July 1921).  On 11 August 1921, Louise was one of three women from the Second Legislative District who filed for candidacy with the supervisor of elections.


The Women's Club put a tremendous effort into the election, sending out more than 9000 mailers and knocking on doors of voters to encourage participation.  In addition, Louise was in charge of the "automobile brigade" to round up voters and bring them to the polls. Of the three women, two of them (Louise and Mrs. Byrne) won election in September's primary.  (This being a party office, candidates only had to run in the Democratic primary.)

When election day came in November, Louise was again working hard to get women voters to the polls, running the "automobile brigade" that would ferry women voters to and from the polls.  Their aim was to get every last registered woman to vote.

I never knew my great-grandmother; she died before I was born.  But judging from the copies that I have of various speeches she made and the comments of my parents and uncles and aunts who did know her, she was a force to be reckoned with.  I have no doubt that if Louise Gwynn Scrivener told someone to get in the car and go vote, that person got in the car and voted.

She was fierce in defending her opinions and worked tirelessly on many civic projects in Baltimore and throughout the state.  She served on a number of Gubernatorial Commissions such as the Commission for the reorganization of State Departments (1922), the Commission for the Bicentennial of George Washington's Birthday (1924) and the Maryland Tercentenary Commission (1929).

As a Regent of the DAR, founder of the Pilgrims of St. Mary's, and member of the Colonial Dames, Daughters of the Confederacy and other hereditary societies, Louise was devoted to local and family history.  I was lucky enough to inherit her voluminous scrapbook as well as the bulk of her notes and that led me to a lifelong interest in genealogy and Maryland history.

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 9 Disaster: The Scriveners and the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904

Frank Philip Scrivener and Louise Carmelite Gwynn (my great-grandparents) were married in Prince George's County MD in 1899 and then took up residence in Baltimore at 105 E. Lafayette Avenue.  Frank worked as a bookkeeper for the Gottschalk Company.  Their only child, Frank Philip Jr. was born in Baltimore in August 1900.

When the Great Baltimore Fire started on Sunday morning, February 7, 1904, Frank was a sturdy 4-year-old and like most of the city, the
Scriveners were probably looking forward to a quiet afternoon at home.  The fire started at the Hurst Building, located at Hopkins Place and Liberty Street, fortunately not in the area where the Scriveners lived.

At first, the fire fighters at Engine Company 15 thought it was a small fire in the basement of the building that could be fairly easily contained. But the fire rolled across the ceiling to the elevator shaft, setting off an explosion that blew off the roof and shot embers through the broken windows of nearby buildings. By noon, the fire chief had summoned all of Baltimore's Fire Companies and sent out a call for help from surrounding areas.  The wind blew the fire toward the Court House and City Hall, destroying everything in its path.

By 1:30, fire companies from Washington had arrived, only to discover that their hose couplings did not fit Baltimore's fire hydrants causing problems in getting sufficient water to battle the blaze. This issue was repeated with many other responding companies and was one of the factors that led to a standardization of fire equipment.

Meanwhile, the smoke and noise of the fire engines attracted a horrified crowd watching the destruction of dozens of blocks of the city. Militia had to be called in to keep the crowds under control. Spectators crowded the roof of the newly constructed Belvedere Hotel, 11 blocks north of the fire. I'm sure my great-grandparents could hear and see the chaos, but with a young child, they probably did not rush out to witness it.  In fact, they were likely making plans on how to escape should the fire come their way.  The electric street cars were no longer running, but the B&O railroad station was outside the fire zone and brought in carloads of fire fighters, reporters, and business men with buildings in Baltimore, as well as the simply curious spectators.

As night fell in Baltimore, the glow from the fire could be seen up to a hundred miles from the city. The streets were clogged with wheel barrows and handcarts as residents struggled to get at least some of their possessions out of the path of the fire. The financial district and the harbor area were pretty much decimated although City Hall was miraculously spared. I'm sure that the Scriveners, devout Catholics that they were, joined thousands of others in heartfelt prayers for their safety and the salvation of the city.  As the fire threatened the Little Italy section of Baltimore, the parishioners of St. Leo's gathered on the east bank of Jones Falls and prayed to St. Anthony to deliver them.  They vowed that if their homes and beloved church were spared, they would hold a yearly festival in his honor.  The fire shifted and the festival is still held every year in thanksgiving.

The Baltimore Sun (whose building was destroyed in the fire and was forced to print its papers out of town and ship them in by train)  reported that the fire was officially contained by 5 PM on Monday, February 8. More than 1500 buildings were completely leveled and another 1000 severely damaged, about a $100 million loss to the city. Fortunately very few deaths were recorded from the fire.

Within a few years, Baltimore had rebuilt, widened the streets, and celebrated in 1906 with a grand parade of 1400 fire fighters proudly marching past newly constructed buildings. I'm sure that the Scriveners were there among the cheering crowds.

Although my grandfather was very young during the Great Fire, it must have made an impression on him.  As an adult, he helped to found the first volunteer fire department in St. Mary's County in Leonardtown in 1928, one of ten charter members of the company. I'm sure he was inspired by the memories of the Great Fire of Baltimore.

[Digital Maryland has a very nice interactive map that shows the spread of the fire.
https://www.digitalmaryland.org/fire/ ]

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 7 Favorite Discovery: Great Uncle Gib Wright

I knew about my 3X great-grandfather, William Felix Wright, a lawyer and judge from Atlanta, quite some time ago.  Although he was born in Georgia and lived there his entire life, he happened to die while on a visit to his daughter, Ida Elizabeth Dent, in Maryland in 1887, and thus he turned up fairly early in my family history research.  After his death, his wife Elizabeth Caroline Dent, stayed in Maryland with her daughter and died there in 1914.

However, I never had much luck tracing the Wright line and further back than William.  I suspected that he might be the son of 60-year-old Littleberry Wright, who showed up in the 1860 Census of Newnan GA living next door to William and his family, but I had no evidence for this other than proximity.

Until I found a serendipitous reference to William one day when I was browsing through newspapers.com.  The Atlanta Constitution did a little article in 1898 about "kinsmen on the Georgia bench,"  listing judges who had fathers, sons, or brothers also serving in the judiciary.  It turned out that William had a brother who was also a judge: Gilbert J. Wright.  Who knew?  Certainly not me.  This Gilbert had never shown up in my research.

And fortunately for me, Gilbert was quite well-known in Georgia, far better known than his brother William.  Gilbert Jefferson Wright, or Gib, as he was known, was famous for his exploits as a general in the Confederate Army.  There were numerous articles about Gib and one of them named his parents, Littleberry Wright and Henrietta Austin.  Bingo. My 4X-great-grandparents.  A decades-long brick wall leaped over.

And bonus, Gib was also an interesting character in his own right.

Born in Gwinnett County GA 18 February 1825, about a year after William, Gib grew to a towering height of 6' 4". According to his biography in Men of Mark in Georgia, in his youth, he fell into bad habits and during one of his drinking bouts, was so unfortunate as to kill one of his comrades.  This led to a notable trial and his ultimate acquittal of the charge.  Gib was one of the first to volunteer for the war with Mexico in 1846, where he sustained a wound that gave him a stiff neck and a slightly peculiar stance for the rest of his life.

Returning to Georgia after the war, he studied law, set up practice in Albany GA, and in 1850, married Dorothy Chandler, the daughter of Thomas Henry Chandler and Mary Belle Jackson. They had no children.

At the outbreak of the war between the states, Gib organized the Albany Hussars, part of Cobb's Legion.  He participated in more than 100 engagements during the war and ultimately rose to the rank of Brigadier General. There are many accounts of his eccentricities, such as this story about his actions at Gettysburg:

On entering a small town, a panic-stricken courier rushed up to him saying, "General, the Yankees are coming down this road! "  To which Gib replied: "Tell 'em I'm travelling this road myself and if they don't get out of the way, it will be hell to pay." In a few minutes, he met the Federals, charged them instantly, and despite the fact that he was outnumbered, he routed them and captured a great many Union prisoners. (The Anderson Intelligencer, Anderson Court House SC, 14 February 1900.)

After the war, Wright returned to Georgia and the practice of law, was several times elected mayor of Albany and eventually appointed to the bench in 1875.

As a judge, he continued to forge a unique path, as this story illustrates:

"The redoubtable Col. Gilbert J. Wright, mayor of Albany, and judge of the Circuit Court, 1875-80. "Old Gib," as he was known to the cavalrymen of the Army of Northern Virginia, was a man of undisputed courage, successor of Gen. P. M. B. Young as colonel of Cobb's Legion. Once when he was presiding on the bench, two men, a white man and a Negro, were tried on the same day, for the same offence, by the same jury. The jury found the white man innocent: later that day they declared the Negro guilty. Said Judge Wright: "Stand up, Moses. You have been convicted of being a nigger. I put the lightest fine on you the law permits, one dollar, and I pay it myself." (Atlanta Constitution, 25 April 1962.)

Gilbert Jefferson Wright died in Monroe County GA 3 June 1895 and is buried in the Forsyth City Cemetery.

So, the discovery of my 3X-great-uncle, Gilbert Jefferson Wright, not only led me back another generation in my family history, but also uncovered a genuinely interesting branch of the family tree.