#52 Ancestors Week 41 Passed Down: Great Grandmother at the Coronation of George VI

 

In December 1936, just a few days before his 41st birthday, Edward VIII scandalized the nation by abdicating the throne of England in favor of Baltimore beauty, Wallis Simpson. Edward's coronation had already been planned for the following May and the ceremony was hastily redesigned for Edward's brother, George VI.  On 12 May 1937 at Westminster Abbey, George VI and his wife Elizabeth were crowned as King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth and as emperor and empress of India with all the pomp and circumstance that the British can so famously muster. 

The parade to Buckingham Palace was six miles long with tens of thousands of soldiers and police officers lining the route and hundreds of thousands of cheering spectators, despite a drenching rain.

The Evening Sun here in Maryland, gave the event front-page treatment.

Somewhere in that cheering crowd was my great-grandmother, Louise Gwynn Scrivener, and her sister, Effie Gwynn Bowie. And if everything I've heard about Louise was true, they had primo seats. If there were strings to be pulled, Louise pulled them. Since both sisters were fervent members of the Daughters of the American Revolution, I'm not entirely sure why they wanted to celebrate the British monarchy.  (There they are at the left in full DAR mode in front of the Hammond-Harwood house in Annapolis.) But, the two widowed sisters were distant cousins of George, and we know how they felt about genealogy, so perhaps they considered it a familial duty to attend. Also, I have to say that great-grandmother's scrapbook, now in my possession, shows a large number of clippings about various royals.  In any case, Louise, age 65, and Effie, age 68, sailed for England in the spring of 1937.

Of course, London was flooded with souvenirs of the momentous occasion: every kind of commemorative cup, plate, plaque, tea towel, paperweight and medal that could be imagined, and probably some that couldn't be imagined, such as the commemorative powder compact on the right.

Great-grandmother, however, resisted all such frivolous gee-gaws (at least none have turned up in the family.) Instead, she went straight for the good stuff.  Her souvenir of her trip to England (which I have recently inherited) was a beautiful Wedgewood pitcher in the very popular Blue Willow pattern. 

In doing some research on this china, I discovered that a true Blue Willow pattern must include the following: 

* willow trees

* Chinese pine trees (commonly confused as apple or orange trees)

* a bridge with three men on it

* a fence

* a boat

* a teahouse or pagoda

* two birds in flight. 

After careful examination, I can assert with confidence that great-grandmother's pitcher meets all the requirements.

So, I'm thrilled to have this souvenir of Louise Gwynn's Coronation trip.  But I have to say, that coronation compact would have been pretty cool too. 

#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.

#52Ancestors Week 1: My Start in Genealogy

#52Ancestors
Week 1: Start

I have decided to work on the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks challenge.  The prompt for this first week is "Start," so I have decided to write about what got me started doing genealogy.

It was my grandfather, Frank Scrivener. Sometime in the late 70's, he cleaned out his basement and came up with a box of family history materials from his mother, Louise Gywnn Scrivener.  He asked me if I would like to have them and I said yes.  From then on, I was hooked on genealogy.

My great-grandmother, Louise Gwynn, was really into family history.  She was a Regent of the DAR and belonged to several genealogy-based societies like the Pilgrims of St. Mary's, which she helped to found.  She had done a lot of research including many visits to the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis.  The box that my grandfather gave me included several notebooks full of her genealogy research.  But perhaps more importantly, Louise Gwynn was a saver.  The box also contained her scrapbooks where she had carefully pasted stories of her family members, marriages, deaths, graduations, you name it.  Even now, 50 years later, I still go back every now and then and look over the scrapbooks and I often find some detail that I previously overlooked or did not previously realize the significance.

Now, some of my great-grandmother's conclusions about family history were incorrect.  It took me many years of my own research at the Archives to find more accurate information, but I would not have started down that path if Louise Gwynn had not been there first.

Now a little about Louise Gwynn.  Louise Carmelite Keene Gwynn was born in Brooklyn NY in 1872 and died in Baltimore MD in 1946, although most of her early life was spent in Spartanburg SC where the Gwynns settled after the Civil War.  She was the third child, second daughter, of Captain Andrew Jackson Gwynn (wounded at Gettysburg) and Marie Louise Keene, both native Marylanders. She had three younger brothers and a younger sister.  I never met her as she died before I was born, but my parents and aunts and uncles say she was quite a force to be reckoned with.  According to them, I resemble her somewhat in temperament. :-)

The lavalier she is wearing in this picture is a family heirloom, worn by several generations of Scrivener brides (including me) at their weddings. 

She attended Mt. St. Agnes College in Baltimore and throughout her life she was a fierce advocate for women's education.  Louise Gwynn married Frank Phillip Scrivener Sr. in 1899 at her sister's residence in Prince George's County MD.  Her brother, Msgr. Andrew Keene Gwynn, officiated.   Louise and Frank settled in Baltimore where Frank worked as an accountant.  They had one son, Frank Phillip Scrivener Jr. born in 1900.  He attended the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and enlisted in the Navy during WWI. 

Louise was always involved in one civic project or another, charitable work and even politics.  After women got the right to vote, Louise was one of the first women to run for office, a seat on the Democratic State Central Committee.

When Frank retired, the couple moved to Upper Marlborough in Prince George's County near Louise's sister Effie.  Louise ran a small lending library from her home.  Her six grandchildren, including my father, often spent the summers with their grandparents, and this actually led to my father meeting my mother whose family attended the same church.

So, thank you, Louise Gwynn, for many, many happy hours of genealogy research.