bunyan | Flying Under the Radar

I was wrapping up the ‘The Early Years’ section, with Helen exiting the U.S. for the first time in the early 1930s to voyage around Central America, but then two things happened. One Google thing, and the other a weekend upstate where Helen was born and spent summers.

Posture Parades

While Googling schools where Helen taught, I found a write up by her in a yearbook online. It declares, “Miss Helen Skinner, Director of Physical Education, Gulf Port College, Gulfport, writes, ‘Sailing, canoeing, surfboard riding, boat trips to Ship Island for swims in the surf, bicycle trips, long walks on the sea wall, picnics on the beach, moonlight horseback rides — these are some of the activities that make the Athletic Association at Gulf Park one of the most popular and important organizations on the campus. We are proud of our 100 per cent attendance…at our third Annual All-School Play Day…competition was keen and colorful in tennis, golf driving, ping-pong, deck tennis, horseshoe pitching, posture parade.’*

*Posture parade!

The below looks like she is dressed for one of those moonlight horseback rides, no?

*Helen Skinner, 1936, Gulf Port College, Mississippi*

A Field Trip, a Binder Full of Family, & the 13 Colonies

Charlton, New York, where Helen spent summers, have an historical society. I messaged them on Facebook. They wrote back, saying they would look into the names I mentioned.

I wrote again about a month later when I was planning a trip, asking if I could say hi. Unbeknownst to me, they had been digging deep into the families and had surfaced with a boat load of facts and connections going all the way back to Braintree, England in the 1500s. And found that the Skinners were settlers in the first 13 colonies.

They researched, typed, scanned, organized, printed, and presented it in a binder. It has copies of census records, wills, cemetery plots, inventories, property records, bibles, birth records, death records, etc. Thank you to Erin Miller at the Charlton Historical Society!

From the binder, in short… back in Braintree, England, in 1560ish, William Skinner worked as a yeoman (either the owner of a small amount of land or a high ranking servant). A generation or so later, the Skinners traveled across the Atlantic to live in the new Connecticut Colony (one of the 13 founding ones). John Skinner is a FOUNDER of Hartford, CT. He is even buried in the Ancient Burying Ground in Hartford. And a relative from a subsequent generation has a headstone there that’s still legible.

The Skinners moved to Upstate New York in the mid-1700s and stayed until 1904 (at least Helen’s family line) when they moved to Manhattan.

Behold this:

*This is a will or inventory from John Skinner dated 1690. If I were a handwriting analyst I might say he was a bit dramatic.*

In Charlton, I toured an old one room school house and church that has been turned into a museum with many items from around the time Helen was growing up. Below are two of the transportation options.

The Old Scotch Church is where Helen was made to go on Sundays. The church there now isn’t the original, due to fires, but we can pretend it is. The church is where she pilfered candies in the summer with her cousin Betty back in and around 1910. There’s a vivid description of their time at the church by a relative here.

There’s a cemetery catty corner from it filled with family names. Helen’s parents, Frank and Gertrude are buried side by side. See below.

Above are the gravestones of Helen’s parents. Though they moved from upstate to Manhattan to Brooklyn to New Jersey, here they are together near where they met.

The Skinner house is no longer, and the Mead house (where summers were spent) couldn’t be found.

Many thanks once again to Erin at the Charlton Historical Society!

Now we jump ahead to when Helen takes a break from Posture Parades to country-hop around the Caribbean and Central America.

The Early Years are broken down into two phases — Phase I is the ‘Going through all the documents in order…’ phase.

Exhibit I The Birth Certificate

*Certificate and Record of Birth, Helen Grace Skinner, Born Sept 7, 1903 in Menands, New York*

Helen was born September, 7, 1903 near Albany, New York. As you will see at the bottom of the document, this is a ‘true copy (photostatio)’ – I cannot find the word ‘photostatio’ even in Google, but the document looks to be an official mimeograph, ordered in 1935, with a raised seal and stamp on the back that says in red “New York State, Received 3 Aug 1904, Department of Health.” .

But Menands, noted above, is in Upstate New York near Albany.

The document says, at the time of her birth, her father, Frank Skinner, from Charlton, New York, was a 31 year old Civil Engineer; and her mother, Gertrude Skinner (nee Bunyan), from Saratoga, New York, was 27. Helen was their first child.

The tiny picture that accompanies the birth certificate at the bottom, which had become unglued, must have been part of a photoshoot that also produced the pictures below, as her shirt and hairdo are the same.

Exhibit II: Baby Photos

*Gertrude and Helen Skinner, early 1904. Note Helen’s stylish middle part. It says ‘Age 5 Mo’ in the bottom corner.*

A baby book, titled ‘Baby’s Red Letter Days’, also includes a picture from the same photo shoot along with lists detailing milestones and such.

Exhibit III: Baby’s Red Letter Days

*A page from Helen’s baby book. They lived at the time on Brookside Ave in Menande, NY., very close to Albany (and close to both Charlton and Saratoga, where her parents were from, respectively*)

A look inside the baby book:

*Pages from Helen’s baby book, completed by her mother, Gertrude, 1903-1904*

Some of the notes inside include (with punctuation/spelling intact):

Christmas Has Come – “Went to Ballston to spend the day. Very good girl all day.”
- Side note: It’s hard to be very good all day, even for adults.
Short Clothes – February 24, 1904 – “our Baby dons short cloths”
- Side note: In the baby book, ‘Short Clothes’ has its own page like the ones above, but with illustrations that look like mini adult clothing.
Cute Sayings – “At the age of 19 mos Helen exclaims to the astonishment of Dady and Mother, “Oh, my sakes.'”
- Side note: this is adorable, proper and intelligent, all with a hint of theatrics.

The more juicy stuff is housed in the back of the booklet in a section called ‘Mother’s Notes’:

Feb 15 – First played with rubber ball intelligently
- Side note: my high standards theory, validated
At 7 1/2 months Helen begins to say da-da-da and ma-ma-ma-ma and ba-ba-ba
- Side note: Google says this would give her an A+, age-wise
At 8 months Helen can get around on the floor quite well. She does not creep but hitches along
- Side note: hitching, I learned, means kind of crawling but with one foot on the ground that is pulling the body forward, and it’s something that is corrected today
June 29 – I find my baby standing behind my chair
- Side note: if worth noting it must have been a milestone and/or startling
Helen begins to be very orderly. At age of 14 1/2 mos she picks up her daddys slippers and shoes and puts them in the closet and shuts the door
- Side note: an astrology minded person would say she was a Virgo through and through
18 mos – Helen gets loaf of bread and knife and comes upstairs and says ‘piece’
- Side note: this might also be startling

What was the world like then, outside of Menands, New York? Some highlights: Teddy Roosevelt was president; the Ford Motor Company formed and released the Model A (also known as a horseless carriage); the first silent film was released; and, more apropos to Helen’s future, The Wright Brothers had their first flight on the Kitty Hawk. And refrigeration and electricity were not yet widespread. In other words, it was a long time ago (at least in American terms).

There are two pictures of houses in with the childhood photos.

Phase I, Exhibit III: House Pictures

The back of the picture of states:

*Back of photo of Skinner Homestead, Charlton, N.Y. picture.*

The house above was where her father grew up (and many Skinner generations before him). The Van Dam Hotel in Saratoga, Springs, N.Y. mentioned above, still stands, but under a different name.

The other house picture:

The 2nd house was owned by some combination of different branches of her mother’s side of the family, with names such as Mead, Smeallie, Cavert, and Bunyan. The back of the picture (which is actually an unsent postcard), says “Helen Skinner (and later Mary), and Betty Bunyan spent summers on the farm until it was sold in 1918. Grandma Mead moved to Brooklyn and lived with The Skinner Family.”

Phase I, Exhibit IV: People Pictures

This is the only other baby picture of Helen, and it’s a cutey.

*Back says: Helen Skinner. [This was likely 1904 in Menands, N.Y.*]

Maybe the clothes in the picture above are Short Clothes, even though they are long? That little sweater looks quite sophisticated. I can’t tell what the black thing is to the left of her. I first thought a loom and then perhaps a croquet set stand.

Then jump forward a few years and there are three more pictures. The first one isn’t labeled except for her name, but she looks maybe eight?

I thought the above might be a school uniform, but nixed that idea after some Googling. But what I did find is that it was a sailor dress popular in around 1910, made by the designer Peter Thompson. So she was on trend.

*Pictures of Helen, her sister Mary, cousins, and grandmothers – West Charlton, N.Y., likely 1913*

Both of the above pictures were taken at the 2nd house in West Charlton, NY. The cute little girl with the bowl cut is Helen’s sister. Helen is the taller of the older girls (the one not in stripes). The other girl and little boy are their cousins, Betty and George Bunyan. The two women are Grannie Janie and Grandma Mead (one from each side of the family).

Betty looks unhappy in both pictures, but I was assured they were best of friends and partners in crime for decades.

And that was all I had from the childhood years based on chronology. Later I found a trove of additional detail.

Next up: The Early Years, Phase II.

Flying Under the Radar

The Life of Helen Skinner Shadbolt

Tag / bunyan

9. Posture Parades, a Field Trip, a Binder Full of Family, & the 13 Colonies

6. Helen – The Socials, The Box, and The Early Years, Phase I