Furniture and Van Scivers

When I bought my house, 35 years ago, as I was an older young adult, 40, to be exact, I had some ideas about furnishing.  I had lived in many apartments by that time, both in New Jersey and in Philadelphia, and I moved into my little bungalow with the intention of staying.  I used to quip "The next box out of this house will have me in it.  

At the time, i didn't have a car but kind friends would drive me to various 2nd hand furniture stores (before they were called 'vintage') and in particular, we went to Wacker's Trading Post in Glassboro on Delsea Drive, and to Bill's Second Hand Furniture in Mount Holly.  Later I will check and see if Bill's is still there, but I am sure Wacker's still exists.

My little bungalow was built in the 1940's and, particularly after a renovation, was devoid of closets.  It had one closet in the bedroom which became a staircase to the attic when the attic became a bedroom.  Then there was only one closet, a small hall closet for coats.  So it was imperative that I find furniture that could be used as closet space and cabinet space.  

At Bill's I found a handsome chiffarobe with a chest of drawers on one side.  It was a very dark wood, stained perhaps mahogany.  It spoke to me of detectives and hotel rooms and traveling men and rooming houses.  It had real personality and it was only $50!  

Then at a 2nd hand store on Broadway in Gloucester City (now defunct) I bought a beautiful complete bedroom set of Vintage 1930's WATERFALL Art Deco bedroom furniture:  a bureau, a chiffarobe, a bed-table, and much later, not part of the set, a cedar chest, same style.  The bedroom set was $600 total including delivery!  What a bargain!  And so BEAUTIFUL.  The bureau and chiffarobe had a mosaic of veneers arranged in a parquetry pattern.  The mirrors were framed by a golden glass etched with vines and flowers.  This was HEAVY furniture, substantial and with longevity.  All the history this furniture had seen.

Over the holiday, I saw a documentary about how every half hour a toddler is killed by Ikea furniture, the drawer open on the chest of drawers makes it unstable and liable to topple over onto little ones and kill them.  Get the old furniture, leave the Ikea in the warehouse.  Also Ikea has been illegally logging protected forests in Europe.  Another reason to buy vintage!

Wikipedia:

Distinguishing features

The style was distinguished by numerous features. It was named "Waterfall" due to its distinctive rounded drops at the edges of all horizontal surfaces, intended to mimic a flowing waterfall. Pieces in this style were usually finished with a blond veneer, though a small percentage were finished in a darker walnut finish. Drawer faces on more expensive Waterfall furniture often featured unusual designs such as decorative crossbanding and bookmatched panels. Handles were typically of orange Bakelite and brass, and some vanities had illuminated spheres or frosted panels. Pieces in this style were sometimes paired with oversized round mirrors with etched trim. The furniture was made with plywood, which would be molded during manufacturing.Higher-quality pieces would feature the Waterfall curve in molded plywood where the plywood softened edges of side corners. Mass-produced Waterfall furniture often simply featured a quarter-round edge.

Waterfall furniture contrasted from boxy walnut or mahogany pieces of the 1920s due to Waterfall's curved lines and its use of imported woods, including blond-colored Carpathian elm and golden padouk.

History

The Waterfall style became popular in America after creating a stir at the Paris Colonial Exposition in 1931. A company in Grand Rapids, Michigan was among the first to produce furniture in the style in the United States; their efforts were successful enough to inspire other furniture factories to produce Waterfall furniture, much of which was mass-produced and of poor quality.

__________________________________________________ Next, I bought a dining room set, but I can no longer remember where it came from, maybe the same Gloucester store.  It wasn't in good shape, but it was the perfect scale for my tiny kitchen and the table had an extension in it.  Very soon after I bought the set, also for $50, the chairs began to fall apart, no matter how many times I wood glued the supports.  It was a problem with the wood, it became dry, unstable and broke easily.  However, my parents were moving and in the attic of their historic house, were three ladder back chairs that needed a home - PERFECT! Though not the right period, the wood color matched and I have always loved ladder back chairs.  These were not in great shape either - except it was only the seats, not the legs, so I simply used the little electric saw my father had given me and made wooden panels to put on the seats, covered with cloth and seat cushions.  

The dining room set was signed on the bottom, 1947 Van Scovers, and I could clearly remember seeing that furniture store on the waterfront in Camden, when we went to church on Front Street in Philadelphia when I was a child.  Since I had been born in 1945, it seemed fated.  Wikipedia has a nice essay on the history of VanScivers.  Don't you miss those old landmarks?  At least I have the dining room set made there, and made American!

Well, Happy New Year Everyone!!!  Happy Trails To You!
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Baba Ram Dass died on December 22, 2019

Baba Ram Dass's book BE HERE NOW, had and still has a powerful influence on my daily life.  I have bought that book more times than any other book in my lifetime.  I bought it two or three times in the 70's and at least four times since 2000.  Sometimes I bought it because I couldn't find it, but mostly I bought it to give to my friends because it was so helpful to me.  The title says it all.
Baba Ram Dass not only gives you permission to be in the present moment, he gives you and injunction to.

My Protestant conscience taught me throughout my life to be my brother's keeper, to feel responsible for all the harm and misery in the world.  It weighed me down.  From my earliest days, I have been painfully aware of the suffering of other beings both near and far.  I can remember so many instances of real trauma and long lasting mental misery caused by things that were hardly noticed by others.  "How could they not care?" I wondered.

For two small examples:  One Easter my family was all dressed and ready to go to our local and family church, Gloria Dei, 'Old Swedes' Church, on Front Street in Philadelphia.  Outside on the street, ready to get into the car, I saw a cat in the gutter and picked it up.  "Put down that filthy thing?" MY mother cried out in horror.  "It's dead!"  

In explanation, my father said, "They climb onto the wheels to be near the warmth of the engine, then they fall asleep and the car cools down and they freeze."

It may have been my first experience of death.  And, I must add, my closest soul mates at that time (and possibly to this day) were cats and dogs, particularly cats with whom I have always had a deep and special bond.  That this memory remains after seven decades, speaks to the power of the moment.

The second incident was much later, when I was in my teens. I had just read the story of Pompei and the imagery was vivid and fresh in my mind.  I came out the front door of our house in the suburbs and my mother was pouring a pot of boiling water over the ants, a colony that had developed between white concrete sidewalk blocks.    I was horrified, connecting the ants, washed away by the boiling water with the people carried off by the pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius.  I could almost hear them screaming.  

To me these creatures are as real as people and incidents of their powerless suffering and death haunt me.  They rise up in my mind and I suffer - sorrow, heartache, and it drags me down into worldwide despair for everything, children separated from parents at the border to Mexico, animals in labs, homeless cats in winter, creatures poisoned by pollution, whales caught in nets, and on and on.  I could be weighed down to depression and death by it all.

BUT Baba Ram Dass, supported, in my case, by many many other texts on Zen Buddhism, gives me permission to be here, in my present moment, right now, and gets me released from the jail of images from the Holocaust, and mail solicitation for animal rescue groups.  I am not there, I am not able to intervene, I am here and this is now, not the past, not the future.  It is such a remarkable relief for someone with an overburdened sense of responsibility and  empathy.  

It doesn't release me from a responsibility for right action, it simply relieves me from fruitless suffering over what I cannot affect, the past, or things beyond my realm.  

I have read many other Buddhist philosophers such as Jack Kornfeld, and Pema Chodrin ( second only to Baba Ram Dass in influence in my life) and subscribed over the years to Shambala Press, but Baba Ram Dass was the first to show me the way.
It is true that he was also supported by my experiments with LSD, and his guidance no doubt, directed the effect of the LSD.

I am glad Baba Ram Dass had the chance to live such a good long life, to age 88, and I am eternally grateful to him for helping me to live a better life.  May he rest in peace.

Another thought about THE BRITISH ARE COMING, Rich Atkinson

Sometimes a book is such as pervasive experience that long after you have finished it, it is still happening in your life. 

This morning I was reading a book review of Frank Dikotter's new book: HOW TO BE A DICTATOR - THE CULT OF PERSONALITY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.  Those of us who lived through a good part of the twentieth century had the opportunity to observe several world infamous dictator's most notably Adolf Hitler, his sidekick Benito Mussolini, Emperor Hirohito, and our own pre-Revolution King George of Britain.  

One of the remarkable aspects to the personality of our George Washington, as portrayed in THE BRITISH ARE COMING, was his ability and tendency to share decision making and power.  He could have been king but he deferred to a democracy.  In most if not all of the decisions he made during the war, he gathered his generals and not only asked their opinions, but listened to them and adjusted his own ideas to fit any superior idea that came of the discourse.  

The first line in the review of the Dikotter book is:  "Dictatorship, has in one sense been the default condition of humanity."  He goes on to describe it in view of hereditary monarchy, chiefdom, patriarch, and all the many forms it has taken.  In view of this observation, which I think any knowledge of history would have to reveal, it is remarkable, almost miraculous, that George Washington did not give in to the personal ambition that brought him to the head of the army and could have made him the king of the new republic of America.  

I am not going to order this book because I am knee deep in books I have ordered this month and I have to read some of them before I order any more, but I may keep this essay.  If you want to read it, it is page 84 in The New Yorker, December 23, 2019.  There may be a copy at the local library or on-line.  Actually, I my bring it to the Whitall History Club in January as a conversation piece!  If you want to borrow my copy, you could meet me there.  James and Ann Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, NJ.  We meet at 11:00 on January 10, a Friday.  I can't tell you what a treat it is to be able to talk history with other interested people.  Few of my friendship group share this interest and the ones who do, are specific to other historical subject areas such as the Pinelands.

Happy Trails and MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Reading and Writing and the Revolution

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I will be returning to volunteer at the James and Ann Whitall House at Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, NJ this spring after a few years hiatus.

One of the innovations initiated during my first run as a volunteer there, was the History Reading Club which meets once a month on a Friday.  Among other things, we read Job Whitall's diary in that club.  Mostly, in the old days, we each read on our own and reported back to the group any books we found useful and informative.  As time went by, during my time off, the format changed to where the club members read the same book and then discuss it.  

Their latest book is From Slaves to Soldiers, by Geakes.  I just bought it from amazon.  A book I will be bringing with me to share and discuss (if that is permitted) is The British Are Coming by Rick Atkinson, volume 1 in a proposed 3 volume set.  It was marvelously written and very detailed.  I think one of the things that struck me was the immense, almost unfathomable amount of livestock and provisions needed to supply the armies both British and American.  In the book Atkins wrote of such numbers as 65,000 head of cattle gathered at an Irish port of departure.  literally hundreds of thousands of animals, pigs, cattle and horses were slaughtered annually, amounting, if anyone did the calculations, to the millions, over the course of the war.  The search for provisions literally dictated the course of the war as much as any other strategy or battle.

The other book I am going to bring to talk about is 266 Days, the account of the days the British occupied Philadelphia, told in the words of the inhabitants through diaries, letters, and newspaper accounts.  I am always interested in the on the scene, ordinary people, of any historical event, so this book was very interesting to me.  

It is December, and the ten crucial days of the Revolution in New Jersey would have played out during this month up in Trenton and Princeton.  When I walk the dog in the cold and feel the sting of the cold on my face, (as I am lucky enough to have a hooded puffy coat, a pair of quilted boots, heavy fleece lined mittens, and a neck scarf) I often reflect on the suffering of the stoic and stalwart soldiers who endured the biting sharp fanged cold of winter with none of these luxuries, all to bring us the independent constitutional republic in which we live today.

The history of our nation is a subject you can study for your entire life and there are an infinite number of routes of interest to follow in this study!

Merry Christmas everyone!  Happy Trails whether in the woods or in your mind!
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

First Day Hike at Batsto - Start the New Year Right!

First Day Hike at Batsto Village

Wednesday, January 1, 2020 at 10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Batsto Village is one of many locations in the New Jersey State Park Service hosting a First Day Hike on New Year’s Day as part of America’s State Parks First Day Hikes program. Led by a knowledgeable and entertaining guide, this urban hike will bring you to key Revolutionary sites in the community where New Jersey began!

Start your new year with a family history walk through Batsto Village.

Hike Info

Easy ~ 1.5 miles

Families welcome (Village tracks may not be comfortable for strollers). Service animals only.

Meeting Location: Batsto Visitor Center, Wharton State Forest

31 Batsto Rd, Hammonton, NJ 08037

Registration & Cancellation

Pre-registration is REQUIRED. To register and/or for more information: alicia.bjornson@dep.nj.gov or call (609)561-0024. Include your name, number of people in your party, a cell phone number and email address. Cancelled if icy conditions. To check, call (856)275-6975.

These free First Day Hikes offer a great incentive to get outside, exercise, experience history, enjoy nature, and celebrate the New Year with friends and family in one of your state parks. Wear sturdy footgear and bring water and snacks. Check the weather before you leave the house and wear weather-appropriate clothing. Layers are best for exercising in colder temperatures.

Love Those Trains!! House Tours - a review!

Bordentown Holiday Train Show

December 13 - 15 | 4 PM - 8 PM
Old City Hall, Downtown Bordentown

The Old City Hall Restoration Committee presents the Holiday Train Display! Visit every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from Thanksgiving weekend through December to see this exciting show! There will be various photos, calendars, and memorabilia along with over 200 train pieces displayed for everyone's enjoyment. Admission is free. 

I have been to the train show many times and ALWAYS loved it because I love those trains!  Waiting for the year I can put mine up again - may take awhile, my cats are young!

House Tours at Christmas
I have gone on several over the years, Woodstown, and Haddonfield most recently.  Did not like the Haddonfield one very much - not interested in trees done by hired designers or all white houses, or places where you have to put plastic bags on your shoes as though visiting a crime scene.  Woods town was homier, but I still felt like an intruder, so maybe house tours just aren't for me.  Anyhow Collingswood is having a trolley tour which sounds like fun and here is Mt. Holly:

Mount Holly Holiday House Tour

Saturday, December 14 | 3 PM - 8 PM
Main Street, Mount Holly

Get into the Christmas spirit with the Mount Holly Holiday House Tour! The house tour is a fun and festive way to celebrate the holiday season. This year the tour will feature ten historic homes decorated in various styles of Christmas, plus some extra cheer from the The Woolman Memorial and Shinn Log Cabin! Proceeds benefit Main Street Mount Holly. 

(You know I love a log cabin as much as a model train platform, so I may try this one!

Merry Christmas!

Jo Ann

stocking stuffers

A friend and I had the pleasure of attending the CandleLight tour of the James and Ann Whitall House on Sunday.  They had a whole new approach this year and all new volunteers from the time when I was a docent there, so it was all new to me!

They also had a Christmas Shop in a tent outside with many charming and ALL handmade items.  I bought a little quilted tree with button ornaments to send my daughter and some handmade chocolates.  

If you are looking for something special you may find it here:

Holiday Market 2019

VISIT THE ANNUAL EILANDARTS HOLIDAY MARKET 2019. 
 

Friday December 13th, 5-9pm
and
Saturday December 14th, 10-5pm, 2019

Eiland Arts is in the old Merchantville Train Depot right off Center Street in Merchantville, NJ

Presentation on "Yahoos and Musrats: South Jersey and the Civil War"

Greetings--

The Genealogical Society of Salem County will host a program entitled “Yahoos and Muskrats: South Jersey and the Civil War” presented by The Delaware River Blues on Tuesday, December 10, 2019 at 7:00 pm at Friends Village in Woodstown, NJ. This program will be held in the residential dining room instead of the usual auditorium.
Reenactors from the Delaware River Blues will present the many contributions and experiences of the local population to the preservation of the Union in 1861-1865. Regiments covered will include the 4th, 5th, 9th, and 14th NJ regiments. For more information, please visit www.delawareriverblues.org
This program is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit www.gsscnj.org, email genealogicalsocietysalemcounty@gmail.com, or call 609-670-0407.

Coal in your stocking

Coal, strangely enough, has returned as a subject in my life at the same time as it has returned as a subject in the political world.

Some of my earliest memories of coal are the coal delivery truck coming to our brick row house in South Philadelphia.  I would rush down to the basement to watch the chute come in the coal delivery window into or coal bin, which was actually a small closet like room, dark and dirty with old coal dust.  The coal came rattling down the chute in a torrent of black glittering gems.  I suppose my father shoveled the coal into our heater, but that part I don't remember at all.

The coal going into a furnace that I remember was at my grandmother's house in Ocean City.  She had a small black, pot bellied stove in her kitchen, and she would allow me to go to the coal bin and bring up a scuttle full of coal and then she would open the door to the blazing belly and I could use the little shovel to throw the coal in.

Also from my Philadelphia childhood, I remember the coal cars rattling down the railroad tracks on the waterfront where we went to church at Gloria Dei Old Swedes church.  I also remember the lowing of the cattle penned there I suppose for the slaughter house. So sad and mournful.  And I remember the hobos with their barrels full of fire, warming their hands.  Such sad sights for a young child, but that was city life in the first half of the twentieth century.

My father told me when he was growing up, near to the place where we lived in my childhood, he went to the railroad with his mother and brothers to pick up the coal that fell off the coal cars, to bring it home to heat their house.  After his father died, suddenly, on a return from a Merchant Marine voyage, my father and his widowed mother and his brothers were exceedingly poor.  It was the depression.  

What brought the idea of coal back into my current thinking, was reading a book 266 Days, an account of the 266 days of the British occupation of Philadelphia, city of my birth.  The narrative is built on the diaries, contemporaneous newspaper accounts, and the letters from military men on both sides of the conflict.  The women's diaries talk a lot about marauders pulling down their fences and outbuildings to get the wood for fires for heat.  So, naturally, I was thinking of the times when people heated with wood instead of coal.

Wood fireplace fires are not effective which is why Benjamin Franklin, our historic genius, invented the Franklin stove.  A wood burning fireplace makes a LOT of heat close to the blaze, and leaves the air, a few feet away frigid.  I know this from my visits and volunteer work in historic houses and from the accounts in diaries that I have read.  

The greatest waste and destruction of the woods and forests of my current home, New Jersey, was to serve the iron smelting businesses and for charcoal making.  Vast swaths of our natural forests were destroyed as they are now being destroyed in the Amazon, which is heartbreaking to me.

Back to coal:  my next 'personal' experience with coal was when my parents retired to West Virginia.  Their next door neighbor, Mr. Rose, came often to visit and play cards.  He had a raspy voice and chronic cough because he suffered from 'black lung' disease which would kill him not long after my parents moved there.

Last night, I was watching THE CROWN, on Netflix, the series about the modern monarchy, Queen Elizabeth and her sister Margaret, in particular, and there was a brief and at the moment inexplicable scene switch to a rural school with a black mountain behind it.  Immediately I knew it was going to go back to the tragic coal mine disaster of Aberfan, Wales.  Although I didn't remember the details, I remembered the mine disaster and how the whole village had lost family members.  If you aren't familiar with the story, the disaster occurred in 1966, when a black mountain of coal waste became engorged from extraordinary rain fall.  The bloated mountain of soggy dust dislodged and became a thunderous avalanche that buried half the village and the entire school.  Only 22 of the 144 school children survived, one because her teacher threw her body over two of the closest children protecting them from suffocation.  

The scene in the show of the minors digging with their bare hands to free the children from their black ocean made me cry.  Every single family lost people, and half of the children of the village died.  

My first house had petroleum heat, a big tank in the yard and an ancient heater that stood by me for 30 winters and which had served since two years before I was born.  It was original to the house, built in 1947.  The liquid petrol would come in through a pipe, be spewed into the cabinet, set alight by a spark, and the heat generated would be air pumped through the registers, leaving a pale aura of black greasy dust around the registers.  

Eventually, about 3 years ago, I converted to gas, using a home equity loan.  It turned out to be a pretty expensive proposition once all the hidden costs were factored in:  the building permits, the substitution of a larger more expensive heater after the estimate had been found inadequate.  The total was a bit over 10,000, but the heater installation team assured me that I would get the cost back in a few years.  They were right.  Oil heat cost me $250 a month once the prices rose.  In the early days, $600 a year would keep the tank full and the heater going, but just half a dozen years later it rose to $1200 a year, and soon after, $100 a month, then $200 a month and up to $250 the last decade.  Also, my old tank had begun to leak through a rusted seam in the bottom and had to be removed and replaced.  Fortunately the tank removal guys dug up the dirt, replaced it with sand surrounded by stone, and the new tank held good until the gas heater replaced it all.

Recently in my town and surrounding areas, rooftops became covered with solar panels.  It was gratifying to see this transformation, though it could't work for me because of my trees.  The sun rarely to never sees my roof.

It is easy to take for granted the modern luxuries we enjoy, indoor plumbing (I have used an outhouse - again, in West Virginia, and they are horrible from the stench to the bees and spiders) electricity, heat, clean indoor water (I have also used a water pump, and have even fetched water from a mountain spring in a large 5 gallon plastic container - yes, always in West Virginia).  It is nice to turn on a faucet and have water, hot or cold!  Every day I appreciate the luxuries of my American bungalow in the 21st Century!  Often, I ponder on the marvels of living so long and seeing so many transitions in ordinary life.  I have lived from the end of the second World War, 1945, to 2019, soon to be 2020, from coal furnace to cable tv, from horse drawn huckster wagons down the alley to space travel.  AS the Grateful Dead have said, "What a Long Strange Trip it's Been!

The stockings are hung on the bannister to the attic at my house (no chimney) and when Christmas morning comes, there won't be any coal in them.  I wouldn't even know where to find coal these days!  Maybe in West Virginia.

Mount Royal, New Jersey

Today, my brother came up from West Virginia to have Thanksgiving dinner with his two sisters.  My sister, Susan, who has lived in Mickleton for many years and now lives on the Platt's farm property, will cook the dinner.  Joe and Sue went to the Mount Royal Inn for lunch today.  My sister called to ask me to join them.  My brother said, "Jo Ann will never come here, it's a bar!"  My sister replied, "She'll come because it was built in 1762."  She was right.

I have passed this old Inn so many times and read the date on the corner of the roof and wondered about it.  Sadly, no one, not even google seems to know much about it, but I am going to try my History of Gloucester County book next.
Turns out one of the reasons I had so much trouble finding information was that the name it was historical known for was Rising Sun Tavern, NOT Mount Royal Inn:

Rising Sun Tavern (Mount Royal Inn) 

North West corner of intersection of Rt. 551, and Mantua-Paulsboro Road, Mount Royal 

This 18th century brick tavern has been known by many names through its long history. It has been called the Heart and Hand Tavern, the Sickler House, and the Blue Anchor Hotel. In 1869 it served briefly as a headquarters for the army.

 Meanwhile though every lead that my google search offered turned out to be a dud, I found a few other things of great interest to me.  I am going back to one site for information on the home of the parents of Ann Cooper Whitall, which I never saw and didn't know was still standing.  Here is the link where I found a great deal of information on historic sites in that area. 

The Cooper-Griscom House
Griscom Lane in Greenfields Village, West Deptford Township 

This famous landmark was built in the 1740's by Ann Clark Cooper, the mother of Ann Cooper Whitall. The original stone was later covered with brick, and still later with stucco. One of the most famous holly trees in America once stood on the front lawn; this 300-year-old tree was almost destroyed by lightning several years ago. In the 1860's the house and plantation were bought by the Griscom family, who lived there for eight generations. 

My sister used to live right up the street, Kings Highway, from the Bodo Otto House, and here is some information on that site:
This house was the home of Dr. Bodo Otto, Jr., who served as a surgeon and militia colonel in Colonel Read's Battalion in the Revolutionary War. He was born in 1748 in Germany. His family immigrated to Philadelphia in the 1750s. 

Otto's father, Bodo Otto, Sr., who was also a doctor, served as a senior surgeon in the Revolutionary War. In 1777, Bodo Otto, Sr. ran a hospital in the Old Barracks in Trenton. In 1778, the elder Bodo was placed in charge of the hospital at Yellow Springs, where many of the sick soldiers from the Valley Forge, Pennsylvania encampment were treated. Bodo Jr. went to work at the hospital as well, and continued to work there until 1781. In 1778, while Otto Bodo, Jr. was at Yellow Springs, this house was burned and damaged by Loyalists, and subsequently rebuilt.

Dr. Bodo Otto, Jr., died on January 20, 1782, and is buried several miles from here in the Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery in Swedesboro. [1]

Nicholas Collin, the Reverend at Trinity Church in Swedesboro, preached Otto's funeral sermon. Otto had been a friend of Collin, and he had once posted bail for Collin when he had been arrested by the militia for suspicion of being pro-British. In Collin's journal, he wrote of the type of person Otto was, including the remarkable fact that Otto helped get a pardon for one of the men who had burnt his house. Collin wrote:  [2]

"[I] preached a funeral sermon for the Med. Doctor Bodo Otto in his house, a short mile from Raccoon [now Swedesboro], and buried him at the church... He was in all respects an honorable man, and he had so far as he was able to, prevented much evil during the war. Among praiseworthy actions he obtained pardon for one of the refugees, who had burnt down his house and who for this and other [crimes] would otherwise have been hung... A great crowd of people of all sects was gathered, for he was generally respected. His old father stood trembling at his beloved son's grave, weeping bitterly."

I may have mentioned in earlier posts that I have been reading THE BRITISH ARE COMING by Rick Atkinson.  It is a huge and marvelous book and so imspiring that I have decided to become a volunteer at Red Bank Battlefield again after taking a few years off.  I no longer have my costume but I understand that now volunteers are only required to wear a state parks shirt, no costumes needed which is good because I sold all my pieces when I stopped volunteering.
On January 3rd, Whitall House volunteers will be having a History Club meeting and I will attend, then in spring when they open the house to visitors again, I will return as a docent  And all of this is because I was so inspired by the Atkinson book!  It re-awakend my interest in the war that gave birth to our nation!  

If you too are interested in the Revolution, then you probably know about CROSSROADS OF THE REVOLUTION.  They are having an event in December you may find interesting:

Tuesday, Dec. 10, 7:15 pm
Burlington County Lyceum of History and Natural Sciences
307 High St., Mt. Holly, NJ
**Please Note: $5 admission for nonmembers** Provisioning the Continental Army, by Dr. Elliott

Rancocas Christmas this weekend 11/23 & 24, 2019

I won't be able to enjoy this as I have other plans for both weekend days, however, I hope it helps you and helps with your Christmas Shopping.  I do a lot of my Christmas Shopping at Rancocas because it is perfect for the little special things, hand-made fragrant soaps for stocking stuffers, mittens made from re-purposed sweaters, doll clothes for American Girl Dolls - these are a few of the things I have found there for Christmas past.  ENJOY!

Hi Friends! 
The Rancocas Woods Craft Show is here again,,,Saturday, Nov 23rd 
10-4pm. Come stroll the woods and find Handmade Christmas gifts, delicious food and even entertainment!! 
Stop in the Craft Co-Op where you'll find over 60 vendors with their beautiful handmade wares! We'll also be serving some yummy refreshments!! Raindate: Sunday Nov 24th. ⛄🎄All of this is located on Creek Road🎁

Fun Christmas Ideas

It is so hard these days when everyone has everything they need, to figure out what is the best or most novel  gift to give a friend for Christmas.  

Here are two novel ideas:  Eiland Arts, Merchantville's old railroad station converted into a gallery and music venue coffee shop is holding an artists and artisans Christmas Market December 13 and 14, so you can pick up something special for your loved one or friend, and see some lovely and unique items too!

OR

JolaBokaFlod

Imagine this: It's Christmas Eve and after receiving a brand-new book from your family, you wrap yourself up in a blanket in front of the fire with a mug of hot cocoa and spend the rest of the evening reading.

That's exactly how Icelandic people celebrate Christmas each year. This tradition is known as Jolabokaflod, which translates roughly to "Christmas book flood" in English.

Jolabokaflod started during World War II, when paper was one of the few things not rationed in Iceland. Because of this, Icelanders gave books as gifts while other commodities were in short supply, turning them into a country of bookaholics to this day, according to jolabokaflod.org. In fact, a 2013 study conducted at Bifröst University found that 50 percent of Icelanders read more than eight books a year and 93 percent read at least one.

You can buy or make a book for a loved one.  Okay, unless you are an artist with some hand-made book experience behind you, you are probably going to buy a book.  A friend and I were in A. C. Moore the other day and he bought his niece an artists sketchbook and an art set.  What a great idea!  A. C. Moore, located in Deptford as well as on Cuthbert Boulevard in Collingswood, just opposite Newton Creek Park, has writing journals as well as sketch diaries, but the sketch books are such a fun idea.  There are all kinds of art supplies and craft supplies there to get for gifts too!  As a child, I was delighted when my mother bought me paint by number sets and art supplies.  I can't tell you how proud and delighted I was the year she bought me an easel and a paint box with paints plus a How To Draw workbook.  So I suggest you think outside the toy box and go for arts and crafts, for grown-ups too!

Forgotten History - the Oneida and the American Revolution

This year, as with other years before, I choose to remember and honor the original people of America, the Native Americans who through coerced and broken treaties, broken promises, and violence were deprived of their lands and the history of their part in the creation of the American Republic.

Tonight I am watching a documentary, Oneida:  And the American Revolution, free with amazon prime.  As a member of another group of people whose history has been willfully left out in the telling of the American story in the past, I empathize with my neighbors and I honor their memory in my own personal way.

The Oneida fought alongside George Washington in defending the frontier and in defiance of the rest of the federation of tribes who fought with the British.  

I have read a great many books of history about Native Americans and some contemporary novels by Native Americans, but I have had very little experience with Native Americans and the Revolution.  I will let you know what I learn from this documentary film.

Happy Trails!
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Watching on rv, Reading magazines, books, newspaper

My Sunday morning ritual for some time now, has been to make a pot of coffee and red the Sunday New York Times.  I can't tell you what a luxury and a treat it is for me!  The original reason I subscribed to delivery of the Sun.NYT was for the book review.  I couldn't possibly read all the books I would like to read and the bk rev gives me summaries that keep me up to date and also show me how to think about books.  One of the two features that tickle me about the bk rev are the questions for guests on page 6 and the graphic review on the end page.  The graphic reviews are often hilarious and ALWAYS creative and thought provoking.  Two of my favorites were drawings of the animals reviewing books and drawings of favorite protagonists.  It got me to thinking of my all-time favorite main characters such as Anne of Green Gables, Jane Eyre, Hans Brinker of the Silver Skates, the girls in the Oudoor Girls on a Hike and later, Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse Five, and the fireman Montage in Fahrenheit 451, just to name the ones who popped into mind right off.

I like the questions in the guest reviewers page:
1.What books are on your nightstand?
2.What was the last Great book you read?
3.Are there any classic novels you read for the first time?
4.Describe your ideal reading experience (when,where,what,how).
5.What's your favorite book no one has heard of?
6.Which writers working today do you admire most?
7.What genre do you enjoy reading most?
8.What 'classic' did you think was overrated?
9.What 3 writers would you invite to a dinner party (living or dead).
And I would like to add a question:
10.What writer or book do you think was underrated?

The article I liked most this Sunday was a review of the work of two British painters: Celia Paul and Cecily Brown, neither of whom I had ever heard of before.  I looked up their work on my computer and took great interest in their lives and careers and their paintings.

There are generally four or five articles in the paper that catch my attention, sometimes more.  The Sun.NYT is so good there are often articles in sections that I would NEVER read, articles in the Sports section or the Real Estate sections.  Often the articles I read there populate my conversation for the next few weeks or even years such as an article I read on how to get rid of your antiques so you can sell your place.  It fit in with a series of review of books on "Swedish Death Cleaning" and Marie Kondo's Tidying Up, that really got on my nerves. and in sports, I was interested in reading about the Williams sisters always, and also about how football is facing up to the reveation of the consequences of  traumatic concussion.

On Television this week, I watched, spellbound, a newly released series on Netflix WORLD WAR II GREATEST EVENTS, in film footage from all over the world newly restored and colorized.  It covered all the classic battles such as DDay, the Battle of Britain, The Ardenne Forest, Stalingrad, Midway and many more.  An interesting fact of which I was not aware was that the result of a plea from Stalin for citizens to enlist was that ONE MILLION WOMEN enlisted as combat soldiers and that they specialized as snipers due to "dexterity, precision, and patience."  They were a big factor in the street fighting at Stalingrad.  I knew from the many movies I had seen on Stalingrad that women fought, but didn't know the number or about the snipers.

The other show I watched right after WWII was THE DEVIL NEXT DOOR about the arrest and trial of John Demjanjuk, the retired autoworker in the Midwest who was accused of being Ivan the Terrible, a sadistic gas chamber guard at Treblinka.  A very interesting character in the series was the Israeli lawyer who defended him on trial in Israel.  The lawyer took so much heat from his community over this as Demjanjuk was already convicted in everyone's minds and the most hated man in the country.  No one wanted to see him defended, they wanted to string him up and kill him with their own bare hands!  The lawyer was such a complex mix of ego, contrariness, courage and legal devotion, that he was a literary character all on his own.

By the way, I was never fully convinced that Demjanjuk was Ivan.  I couldn't imagine that a man could be a sadistic psychopath for a year or two then be a normal good citizen and family man for 44 years, but my brother, who had been a marine in Vietnam said he could easily understand how a man can be bent by war and return to normal when returned to normal living.  He had a good point.  

Well, I am on my second cup of coffee and my second day with the paper, I save the Book Review for another day, so goodbye, it is time to get back to my reading!

Happy Trails,
Jo Ann 
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Interested in learning more about immigrants in South Jersey?

South Jersey Immigration Forum:  Supporting Integration of refugees & Other Immigrants

Wednesday, Nov 20 2019 from 7 pm to 9 pm

Medford Meeting House, 14 Union St. Medford 08055

Facebook:  South Jersey Immigration Forum

blog:  SouthJerseyImmigrationForum.Blogspot.com

CoHosts - NOW, Medford Quaker Friends Meeting, Medford Volunteer Ctr.

Registration requested - call 609-969-2480

Topics:

=Which immigrant groups make their homes in NJ?

=What challenges do these groups face?

=Can volunteers work within existing programs to help?

=Are forum participants interested in developing new         programs to help?

Presentations, discussions, time to visit information tables

free and open to the public

Dory Dickson 609-969-2480

Dead and Buried: Secrets of South Jersey's Hidden Cemeteries

Dead and Buried: Secrets of South Jersey's Hidden Cemeteries

November 2 & 3 | 1 PM - 4 PM

46 N. Main Street, Mullica Hill

Join the Harrison Township Historical Society for Dead and Buried: Secrets of South Jersey's Hidden Cemeteries in the Old Town Hall this fall. Peruse this free exhibit, featuring photography by Lori Nichols, every weekend through December 8! 

Magnolia Model Train Show

Any of my frequent blog visitors know that I am a big model train fan.  From my early childhood when my father put up the most magical big platform that took up our whole living room, I have been enchanted by that little world of mirror pond ice skaters, the hooting train disappearing into the tunnel, crisscrossing the other trains, and stopping at the station to pick up the lead figures waiting with their umbrellas and newspapers.  

Actually, I have a little 'n' gauge set and a tiny German village complete with a military post and red coated soldiers that I used to put up before I adopted my kittens 3 years ago.  Although they aren't kittens anymore, I have no doubt they would find my trains too much like mice to resist so for the present, no train display at my house.  

So, I satisfy my wish to see the model trains by going to train shows of which there are quite a number these days.  There are Railroad Day displays at various sites in Burlington, and I have been to exhibitions in Brooklawn, and Haddon Heights in past years, also the American Museum in Deptford where I saw one of the most interesting, to me, model railroad  accessories EVER - skaters sledders and other figures molded out of World War II bullet casings.  I love the idea of melting down the accessories of death to create fanciful figures of fun!  One of the early members of our Mt. Ephraim Seniors Group has a model lead soldier molding set-up at his house.  If he ever comes back, I am going to try to persuade him to invite me over to see it!

Details:  DATE - November 16, 2019 (date confirmed via facebook)
TIME:  from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
LOCATION:  Magnolia Community Hall
                       425 West Brooke Ave.
                       Magnolia, NJ 08049

I got this information from my group e-mail from the Camden County History Alliance and I believe you can find this information and more on their Facebook page!  There were other events on the flyer, so check out the page as there may be something you will like that I didn't write here on this blog post.

Early American Life Magazine & SOUP

The first time I saw Early American Life Magazine (from here on to be called EAL) I was at the Cherry Hill Library either picking up or dropping off a friend who used to work there but was retired.  Sometimes I borrowed books on his card although most of the time, I buy m books from amazon.  I like to keep them, like friends!

Anyhow, it was love at first sight.  At that time, I was a volunteer at the James and Ann Whitall house an enamored of all things Early American.  I had the full kit, shift, petticoat, fichu, autumn cape, winter hooded woolen cape, stockings and buckle shoes, aprons, bonnets, market basket.  I did NOT have a corset and was determined not to get that authentic.  EAL Magazine fit beautifully with my new volunteer work.

Along the way, after I stopped volunteering due to back and knee issues, I let my subscription slip, but recently renewed it hoping to get the Christmas issue, always my favorite.  It came today and along with a number of fascinating articles, there was one on SOUP!

Let me say right up front - I don't cook!  I don't like cooking, or food preperation and although there have been periods in my life that more or less necessitated that I do some cooking, I never took to it.  But come winter and the cold, like the cooks of old, I will forage around the kitchen for a couple of old favorites to take the chill off.  I make vegetable soup and I make vegetarian chili.

Vegetable soup: I always keep one or two cartons of vegetable bullion (low sodium) in the cupboard.  In the freezer, I always keep an assortment of vegetables that I choose from according to my momentary taste:  peas, corn, lima beans, green beans, carrots.
Also, I keep a few kinds of frozen pasta such as gnocchi or small cheese ravioli, and I like to choose one or two of these to throw into the soup pot.  In the cupboard again, I always keep canned spiced and diced tomatoes, lentils and beans:  red kidney beans, white cannoli, black beans.

For my super easy chili, I use all three kinds of beans, one can of spiced/diced tomatoes, a large jar of salsa, and a tablespoon of chili powder.  I buy a bag of lime flavored tortilla chips to crumble and put on the bottom of the bowl with two heaping soup spoons of chili on top and grated cheese sprinkled on top of that.

My super easy vegetarian lentil soup is simply two cans of lentils, a can of sliced potatoes, and frozen carrots.

Stay Warm my friends!
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

October Camden County History Month and the Quaker Store

If you have driven down the White Horse Pike towards the seashore, you can't have missed seeing The Quaker Store in Stratford on the north side of the road, perched on a patch of green in front of a spreading modern shopping center.  I have always wanted to visit the Quaker Store but it was rarely open, staffed by history volunteers as are most of the historic sites that have somehow managed to be saved from the wrecker's ball.  I LOVE the past in its remaining evidence of lives lived and the Quaker store was stocked with all manner of interesting items and a delightful band of volunteer tour guides.

Our guide, Rosey, told us that the store was in operation until early 1990's which was a surprise to me.  It's neighbor to the west had been the White Horse Tavern, which was demolished by developers who also had their eye on the Quaker Store, but it was rescued.  Sadly, I didn't have a chance to inquire further into the rescue story as just when we got there, a number of other visitors were arriving and my history trekking pal, Barb Solem and I wandered around on our own admiring things like the wringer washers, which my mother used when we lived in Philadelphia in the last 4 years of the 1940's and the first five of 1950's.  I remember it well, sitting in the basement.  It was quite a process, doing the laundry then.  My mother would pre-soak in a chloral and water washtub, then into the 'agitator' and through the wringer into a rinse tub, then back through the wringer and most went into a starch bath, then onto the clothes line in the backyard.  

I am going to call my brother Joe, who lives in West Virginia and ask him if he remembers our old Wringer washer.

Anyhow, the old ice box was in the back of the store - a very big one since it served a store, a handsome actual size white wooden horse which had once stood outside  but had been brought indoors to protect it from weather wear, and shelves of old bottles and tins - things I adore!  I have a few at home in a cabinet in the living room and I though "Now I know who to donate them to if I ever move or downsize (UNLIKELY)."

I was supposed to visit the Newton Meeting House and the New York Shipyard and Maritime Museum today, but I am felled by a head cold and on the sofa with tissues. tea. and an old afghan crocheted by my Grandmother Mabel for comfort and warmth.

The efforts to publicize and popularize the Camden County History Alliance offerings but using a History Month strategy is Marvelous!  I have enjoyed several of the open houses and events and a few of my other friends have visited ones I didn't get to.

Happy Trails!
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Revolutionary October in South Jersey

October 27

Jonas Cattell Run and 18th Century Field Day at Red Bank Battlefield in National Park. Mark the anniversary of the Battle of Red Bank with reenactments, colonial demonstrations, food and fun! 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. More information

Halloween at Batsto Village in Hammonton. Kids ages 12 and younger can celebrate in a non-scary Halloween environment. 12:00 noon to 3:00 p.m. More information. 

Indian King Tavern tours in Haddonfield. Visit the site where New Jersey completed the transition from colony to state. 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. More information.

Railroads in New Jersey

Saddler's Woods MORE and Gabreil Daveis Tavern

Today, SundayOctober 13, 2019, I am headed to the Legacy Diner in Audubon for lunch with a history buff friend, Barb Solem, author of 3 books on the Pines, one on Ghosttowns, one on Batsto and one on The Forks.  After lunch we are going to the open house at Gabreil Daveis Tavern in Glendora, address, Fourth Avenue and Floodgate Road.  Gabriel Daveis Tavern was once a stopping and resting point for boatmen using the Timber Creek to ferry goods to Phladephia, goods such as timber and farm products.  Behind the Tavern House, which is a beautiful building very well preserved, you can walk down a path to the Timber Creek, which, sadly is all silted up from construction on the land beyond the banks, so there isn't much creek left now.

I keep remembering things I learned from the hike in Saddler's Woods yesterday, amazing things such as:  the amount of unbroken nuts left on the ground (accords) beneath a tree, as they deteriorate over time, release a chemical into the ground which tells the tree how much nuts to produce the following year.  As for instance if a lot of nuts are left over and not eaten, the tree produces fewer nuts the next year!  That hike in the woods was so informative, although I knew with my aging memory, I couldn't remember everything, there was so much information that I keep remembering bits as the day goes on, such as, for instance, the shape of the branches at the top of the tree canopy can tell you if it is an old or young tree.  The top branches will be crumpled in a claylike shape if the tree is old, unfurled into a fan shape if the tree is young.  I can't remember if I told you but the guide showed us how to estimate a tree's height using triangulation with  a roll out tape measure and a yardstick and a little geometry.  Unforntuately, I had to take a rest during that part because my back was acting up and I have over done it a little this week.

That brings me to another subject.  Most of the things if not all of them, that I mention in this blog, are things I can do, so you can too!  I am 73, going to be 74 in a month and I have ruined knees a painful hip, and a deteriorating spine.  I expect within this upcoming year, I will be resorting to a cane.  But all of the places and events I have been blogging about are accessible to me and so they would be to you.  Possibly not to a wheelchair (as in the trail in Saddler's Woods) but certainly the workshop the week before - and many of the building I go to are also wheelchair accessible in part if not the whole.  A lot of the houses have stairs, but I can't climb them anymore either, so I usually wait down the first floor if a tour goes up stairs.

Don't forget to get a copy of the calendar of events for October History Month - it is chock full of interesting places to go and things to do!  Get up and get out - the world is waiting!

Happy Trails!
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Part Two of Saddler's Woods Workshop

Today, Saturday, Oct. 12, I enjoyed part two of the two day Saddler's Woods Workshop.  I wrote a post about part one where we walked in the 'rain garden' identifying native trees and invaders, dissected owl pellets (I found a mole skull in mine) and saw a presentation on the kinds of birds one might see in our area.

This time, boots on, we hiked in the woods and met a 250 year old tree, our old friend the poisonous snake root, which killed Abraham Lincoln's mother who had, sadly, drunk milk from a cow that had eaten the snake root plant.  WE also learned the different kinds of oaks identifiable by the shapes of their leaves, rounded or spike, and the colors they turn.  We found numerous types of acorns some edible by animals and some not!  We saw the spring that travels through Saddler's Woods to find its way to Newton Creek, and we found many kinds of invasive shrubs crowding out the natives.  It was an hour and a half and so I can't begin to tell you all we saw and learned, the berries, the fungi, the beech groves......
And, if like me, you were the kind of teen who pored over booklets about beauty routines, you may have wondered about Witch Hazel, always mentioned in regard to cleansing your face and shrinking your pores!  We found the shrub and learned that in early spring,it spits out its seeds with an actual noise of spitting!

It was exhausting and exhilarating and I cannot begin to tell you how impressed I was with the women who gave the tour and their intimate knowledge of the flora of Saddler's Woods.  I wish more people could have had the benefit of this enlightening experience!

Tomorrow, it's off to Gabreil Daveis Tavern on the Timber Creek, which by the way, has a very extensive watershed range.

Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Burlington County Historical Society-Railroads of New Jersey

Unfortunately I have plans to go to the Garbreil Daveis Open House on Sunday the 20th, so I will be unable to attend the talk by James Alexander on Railroads of New Jersey at the Burlington County Historical Society.  I really wish I could be in two places at one time but I can't.  I already promised my pal, Barb Solem to go to Gabreil Daveis as she hasn't been there yet and unlike me has limited interest in the Railroads of New Jersey.  My interest is unlimited and I am smitten with the railroad stations all along the Atlantic Avenue Line.  I have made photographs of them with the intention of someday doing a series of paintings.  Maybe I will have the opportunity to hear James Alexander at another time.

Have you seen a copy of the October History Month events?  You can get them at the Camden County Historical Society and I suggest you do that as it is chock full of wonderful history open houses, tours, speakers and events!

Also coming up is Field Day at the James and Ann Whitall House.  This should not be missed by anyone who has an interest in the Revolutionary War, or New Jersey history!  I will get more information and post it asap!

Happy Trails!
Jo Ann Wright
ps.  If you are wondering where the Gabreil Daveis Tavern is located, it is in Blackwood, just off the Black Horse Pike but I can't recall the street now.  The street sign has a historic site marker directly below it.  It could be third?
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Opinion Piece: Antiques, Death Cleaning, Books & home Libraries

Even though it is Tuesday,  I have just gotten around to reading the Sunday New York Times.  It wasn't delivered on Sunday and after I waited until noon in case it was simply late, I went out and bought a copy but I had somewhere to go and therefore, no time to read it.

Among all the interesting articles, one actually stirred a bit of anger that has been building over time, in regard to the new aesthetic in home furnishing.  The article was called "When the antiques have to go."  It was about "staging a place" for sale.  The point was that antiques are no longer in style and the 'new' look is open, spare, and bright light.  I, personally, do not care for the new style at all.  It looks as though it belong in a desert land of heat and dust and transience.  It looks cold and has no trace of the personality of the inhabitant.  

Everyone who visits antique stores knows that the fondness for vintage and antique that was in vogue for so long, is over.  Antique shops are closing up.  Articles on "The kids don't want your old stuff" abound and there is even the "Death Cleaning" movement resulting from a best seller by a Swedish author.  Apparently it is a custom to clear out everything before you die to spare the kids the effort.

I love 'stuff' and I am passionate about books.  I can understand if a reader spends most of her/his time with the fast read popular novels of Tom Clancy or Janet Ivanovich, you may not want to hold on to them because after all, you already know how it turned out.  But I have books that have been like friends, books that have been resources upon which i have drawn many times over the years.  I have book shelves.  I have books on the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, New Jersey History, to name just a few subjects, and I have books on philosophy and religion to which I have returned over and over again.  It seems to me the disdain for books as 'clutter' goes along with a new disdain for knowledge and education, a resentment towards 'elites.'

I also read a column about a rural town refusing to give the librarian a raise because most of the people in the county get by on $10 to $13 an hour.  Even though she had a masters degree the opinion was that such a high degree wasn't needed for something so easy as running a library.  And they lament that the young are leaving to go to cities.  No wonder.  They even considered letting the library close because, after all, they didn't need it or use it!

My daughter and I have already talked about my intention to not clear out every evidence of my life and my interests before I die.  I am not erasing myself.  And my home is a reflection of my many interest in art, history, literature, and my conservation of the many family heirlooms that have no financial value but, HOLY COW, they belonged to our ancestors!  No one wanted them so I took them in, one by one, GreatGrandmother's sewing machine with which she supported herself and her family, for example.  

It is as if history itself has become considered clutter.  And knowledge is clutter.  Keep the mind empty and transient like those pale, cold, uncomfortable rooms.

Antiques speak of the past and the people who lived and how they lived.  All I can do is hope that this trend, like so many others, will reverse and people will once again begin to value family history, objects from the past that have endured through the coming and going trends, and most of all, BOOKS and KNOWLEDGE!

Happy Trails!
Jo Ann
wrightj45Wyahoo.com

By the way, perhaps the children will be helped in their grieving if they go through the things you leave behind.  And if they are so whiny, maybe they can consider the money you have left them as a salary for the home clearing they have to do instead of just getting money because they are entitled to it as your offspring.  Earn it!