52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week #20 theme, Textiles.

May I introduce you to our Gt Aunt Mamie (Mary Lucinda McGill). Notice her beautiful blouse. She may have made it herself, as well as those of her sisters , since she was shown to be a dressmaker in 1900 Census. The McGill family had traveled by covered wagon from Iowa to the newly opening land in Oklahoma in 1889.  By 1910, she had left her rural home in Edmond Oklahoma, to live in the big town of Oklahoma City and work at the five story, marble-floored  Mellon Department Store as a milliner.  

We have found an advertisement from the Mellon Store which states:

Just received from the most authoritative producers of millinery styles, a shipment of hats in the new vogues for early  fall street and afternoon wear.

The new styles are strikingly beautiful and diversity is shown in models, large shapes and small shapes. The Watteau or ageless model  is a very novel one, having a flat round crown and an unusually shaped mushroom brim. Other styles find their inspiration from the ages of Louis XV.

Velvets, hatters' plush silk, and felt are the foundations, with folds, aigrettes, paradise feathers and other plumage as trimmings.

We now have very smart styles at prices ranging from $5.00 - $15.00.

The Mellon Company

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

I believe that Mamie was hired to reproduce those new styles  for the ladies of the city.  In later years she was a milliner at John A. Brown's department store, also in downtown Oklahoma City. She never married and lived in a boarding house where we would visit her.  She dressed stylishly, similar to Chanel styles, in linen dresses or suits, with strings of beads. She dyed her hair auburn all her life. 

These pictures are from a trip she made to California to visit a sister and some cousins.  You can see her ivory linen traveling dress with hat, shoes, hose and gloves to match, even though she and her niece, Evana, were up close and personal with an ostrich.  The second photo was made at the beach during that visit... about 1930.  This family scene carries out the theme of Textiles because of the variety of clothing. (Aunt Mamie is in black with sun glasses.) Makes me grin to see all this bunch dressed up  At The Beach !!!

Adam Bland Griffin, Named for Circuit Riding Preacher

Thinking about our Gt Grandfather Samuel's brother, Adam Bland Griffin, b. West Virginia in 1845. With such a unique name, he just HAD to be named after someone that Wm. and Elizabeth knew. I looked over family names and census records of the time the baby Adam would have been born. No clues. In 1850 census, there is an Adam Bland age 30, listed as Methodist Preacher, in Monroe County VA. The preacher and his young wife lived next to 3 McAvoy families... brothers-in-law of Elizabeth Rodgers Griffin (our Adam B's mother). Her sister, Tabitha Rodgers m. James McAvoy. Monroe Co. is a couple of counties south of Pocahontas.

This Adam Bland would have been born about 1820 and our Adam B. Griffin b. June 1845..... when Bland would have been about 25 yrs. old.

More Googling found that Adam Bland, Methodist Preacher, was a circuit rider. A Google Book autobiography of another Western VA circuit rider mentions Adam Bland and his brothers Zane and Henry, all Methodist preachers of the era. It is an interesting read about this time in history. If you go to the link, plug in Bland in the search, or go to about pg. 44 to read.
Story of My Life by William Taylor (Methodist Preacher 1800s)

Here is an excerpt I thought interesting:
"According to the rule of the [Meth.] Conference if a young man got married before his two years of probation were out, he was not admitted, and if after admission, before the expiration of his fourth year, he was liable to censure and usually punished by appointment to a very poor circuit, where he and his young wife would enjoy their honeymoon among the whippoorwills. Pocahontas Circuit was one of the dreaded appointments, hence the boys called it "Poke-it-onto-us". "

Looks like that's what happened to Preacher Adam Bland. Our Griffins must have recognized his worth and named their child after the young circuit riding minister. In a few years, others recognized Bland by sending him as the first Protestant preacher to the California Gold Rush community. At that point we can find much about Adam Bland's ministry on the internet. I wonder if the Griffin families kept track of the man they honored by naming their child for him.