A JFR Snapshot

J F Rutherford in a candid snapshot taken at a convention in 1922. Note that the license plate number looks like 144,000. With grateful thanks to the comment trail that pointed out that this vehicle number plate was featured in the convention report in the November 1, 1922, WT page 349.

(Original photograph used with permission from Tower Archives, with thanks)

Joseph Smith's Family Tragedy

Guest post by Bernhard

Joseph Firth Smith was one of the seven original directors, when the Watch Tower Society was incorporated in 1884. The details are in an earlier article on this blog, The Magnificent Seven. Joseph was the son of Henry Smith.

 In 1876 Joseph married Kate Richards. With his wife he lived in the Seventh Ward in Pittsburgh and later on Elgin Avenue, and St. Claire Street.

On January 4, 1881 his only son Henry Firth was born.

We don’t know exactly when Joseph joined the Watch Tower movement, but we know this was by April 1883 at the latest. On December 15, 1884 he became a director of the Watch Tower Society and resigned as director on December 3, 1891. However, the resignation was not actioned by Russell until April 11, 1892. This meant that Henry Firth was 11 years old when his father left Russell.

(from a contemporary account)

Henry Firth Smith, 25 years old, was shot and almost instantly killed at 4 o’clock morning in November 11, 1906, in a desperate battle with a burglar whom he discovered in the home where he lived with his parents at Elgin and St. Clair streets, East End. 8 shots were fired during the fight and the entire neighborhood was aroused, but the murderer, leaving his revolver behind, managed to escape unseen. His parents had slept in this time. Having been awakened by the shots the father and mother ran down the stairs. On the kitchen floor they found their son. Joseph tried to arouse the victim but it was to late.

At this time the Smiths were members of the First Presbyterian Church and the funeral was also held by a Pastor from this church.

(from contemporary accounts)

After following clues for nearly three months that led them into nearly every quarter of the United States, the county detectives have found in Atlanta, Ga., the murderer of Henry F. Smith. It was the negro Jim Johnson.

(Editorial note: this report was wildly optimisitc. The newspapers were still naming other possible suspects, involved in other crimes, two years later. To my knowledge, no-one was ever brought to trial for Smith‘s murder.)

Henry Firth was employed at the plant of the Pittsburgh Label Company, 4017 Liberty avenue, of which his father was treasurer.

More information on Joseph Firth Smith can be found in Separate Identity volume 2, by Bruce Schulz and Rachael de Vienne. See chapter Organizing and Financing the Work (both main text pp. 176-177 and footnote). Extract reproduced below with permission and with thanks,

The 1880 Census indicates a birth date of about 1852. This is incorrect. The correct birth date (October 28, 1849) comes from his passport application dated May 10, 1870. Smith married Kate Richards. No children are listed in the 1880 Census. We could not locate a photo of Smith. (Editorial note: as shown above, we do have photographs of his father and his son, the murder victim.) His passport application says (Joseph) was fair-skinned and fair-haired, five feet eight in height with a straight nose, high forehead and small chin. J. F. Smith died December 7, 1924.

As did Russell, Joseph attended the Grant School, and though Smith was older, their attendance overlapped. We do not know if they knew each other as children. He attended Oberlin College and Duff’s Mercantile College. Duff’s offered night classes in accounting and shorthand, and among its alumni was Andrew Carnegie. We do not know if Smith graduated from either institution. Joseph is listed as a “clerk” in the 1866 edition of Thurston’s Directory. In the next edition he is listed as a “salesman,” living in a boarding house at 84 Wylie Avenue, Pittsburgh. By 1869 he moved a few doors down on Wylie Street and was again working as a clerk in his father’s store. Obviously Smith’s original connection to Russell was a business one. The Smiths were social peers of both Russell and Conley. The Pittsburgh Dispatch of May 11, 1889, notes that Mrs. Joseph F. Smith was on the board of directors of the Christian Home for Women. The Smiths had other business interests that in time included lithography and real estate.

His name first appears in the April 1883 Zion’s Watch Tower. The Smiths came out of the Episcopal Church. During his association with Zion’s Watch Tower he was an active evangelist. Russell reported in the February 15, 1892, Watch Tower that Smith was “making a thorough canvass of Pittsburgh and vicinity. He is letting the light shine and attracting the attention of some of the children of the light. In the portion of the city already gone over, he has circulated over 2000 copies of Dawn, which, sooner or later, will bring results.”  Smith and W. I. Mann were dropped as directors on April 11, 1892. It is probably safe to say that the same issues that prompted Mann to resign also mattered to Smith.

At the Movies

(This article gives links to see some of the films. If in time to come these links no longer work, a search of the appropriate titles should hopefully provide access.)

In the first quarter of the twentieth century, the Bible Students embraced the new medium of motion pictures to spread their message. This article is about six examples that were released between 1914-1922. Following articles on this blog give more details on the Kinemo series.

The Photodrama of Creation                         

This approximately eight hour production, normally shown in four parts on consecutive weeks or evenings, will require no introduction to readers here.

There are a number of places on YouTube where you can watch it, including some surviving films of CTR in action. Sound was on disc so CTR mimed to the recordings, not always with complete success. There are also a number of places where you can buy a DVD set of the production. However, it must be noted that all the work of restoration over the last 40 years has really been performed by one person, Brian K. This has been a real labor of love. Unfortunately, because the source material is out of copyright, others have felt no qualms about copying earlier restorations (perhaps from inferior VHS videos) and marketing them commercially. Leaving aside the ethics of this, if you want the very best version possible from surviving material, you really need to obtain one that bears Brian’s name.

Here is a link to one of the films of CTR as found on the YouTube channel "photodramaofcreation" (no spaces):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCperQm8kxIi3D4baT4Qg_FA

Restitution - Mena Film Company

The Mena film company was put together by a group of Bible Students in 1917.  Their prospectus (a 32 page brochure to raise funds) gave their names and photographs. (All pictures from the brochure are used with permission from Tower Archives, with thanks.)

 Mena Film Company directors

     Adam and Eve

Satan

 The director, Howard Gaye, in action

The company had no direct connection with the Watch Tower Society (see WT March 15, 1918, page 94), although the original Photodrama was briefly sold to Mena by the Society before everyone thought better of the deal. Unlike the Photodrama this was commercially produced, and needed to be shown to paying audiences in a commercial setting to succeed. By all accounts, it didn’t.

 It was shown to a non-paying audience at an IBSA convention in Seattle in July 1918, but then with the difficulties of the day – the Society directors jailed, others leaving association with the IBSA – it sank. It was reissued commercially under a new title The Conquering Christ and was also known as Super Strategy and God’s To-morrow. The plethora of titles suggested a project in trouble and by the end of the 1920s one of the former Mena directors, Leslie Jones, was selling off 16mm prints in seven minute segments as a serial, now rebranded with yet another title, Redemption.

The custom with “religious films” of the day was to have a modern story and then flashbacks to Bible times for an appropriate moral or lesson. Restitution followed this pattern. You can read a synopsis of the story if you go to the usual sites like IMDB, and Leslie Jones’ advertisements in the 1929 Reunion Convention report give a very detailed description of the plot. But my favorite plot summary was found at the gowatchit.com website. Unfortunately it seems to have disappeared since I first downloaded it several years ago, so I cannot give the writer a credit, but this sort of gives the flavor of the 1918 production (from a modern perspective).

“The film begins at the literal Beginning, as Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden, then moves in jumps and spurts through both the Old and New Testament with Abraham, Sarah, Joseph and Mary making cameo appearances; at one point, Howard Gaye, the film’s director, is seen as Jesus, repeating the role he played in D W Griffith’s Intolerance. After spending a great deal of time on the reign of Emperor Nero, the story suddenly takes a quantum leap to 1918, where the First World War is placed in a religious context. (The Kaiser, identified as ‘A Modern Ruler’ is unsubtly likened to Satan). The film ends with the Resurrection, as the Guilty (read: The Germans) are punished and the Good (read: Everybody Else) rewarded. Undoubtedly a remarkable achievement, Restitution is one of the most frustrating entries in the annals of Lost Films.”

One can see from that description that such a film, unless heavily re-edited, would soon become very dated by world events.

The American Film Institute/Library of Congress catalog says they have a print, but on investigation, alas they don’t. However, one segment of Leslie Jones’ serial version Redemption has been rediscovered and copied. Lasting about seven minutes it can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlGBMw45CBk&feature=youtu.be

The sequence is of Herod’s plans to massacre the innocents. While still primitive by modern day standards, film technique had advanced considerably since the Photodrama of Creation. Here are a couple of screen shots.

See Alfred Garcia (as Satan) tempt F.A. Turner (as King Herod)

Kinemo

Moving forward from 1918, we come to Kinemo. A series of three films were produced on the soon to be doomed 17.5mm gauge, and sold to Watch Tower readers and the general public via the Kinemo Company. The history and description of this venture, with its ups and downs, is described in the next series of articles on this blog. They were filmed over 1920-21 but not marketed until the fall of 1922.

As a foretaste for the next articles, here is a screen shot of J F Rutherford leaving the Great Pyramid. It was a steep climb to exit and with the heat and JFR apparently wearing a thick three-piece suit…

Cedar Point Ohio 1922

One final film completes this article, and is discussed in the article Kinemo 3 below. The Cedar Point Ohio convention of 1922 was filmed. Here is a shot of the film crew.

Although the subsequent film was offered for sale in the New Era Enterprise newspaper it has disappeared. I know for certain that the modern Watchtower Society has no copies of any of this material. While it would be silent footage, it would of great historical interest to see it. That is, of course, if it still exists.

Come on now. Anyone out there?

Kinemo 1

This series of articles covers the history of the Kinemo films produced with the Watch Tower Society’s approval. They are:

1.      Three travel films issued in 1922 (which have survived).

2.      The Cedar Point Ohio convention film (which at time of writing is missing).

3.      How the films have survived to this day.

4.      An amazingly inaccurate contemporary review of one of them.

First, the travel films of 1922.

The September 13, 1922 issue of Golden Age carried the following advertisement for the Kinemo Kit Corporation. They had produced three films (and a projector to match) which could be bought by Bible Students to show films in homes and small gatherings.

The managing director of Kinemo was George Chester Driscoll (1858-1941). He had previously managed the Pastor Russell Lecture Bureau and was one of the Bible Students involved in the Mena Film Company’s film Restitution (1918) that featured on this blog a few weeks ago.

In the August 15, 1920 Watchtower, it was announced that after a month long tour of Britain, J F Rutherford would visit Europe, and then “he will also go to Palestine and Egypt, and will be accompanied to Athens, Palestine and Egypt by Brother Driscoll and other brethren with a moving picture apparatus for the purpose of making moving pictures of actual scenes of...things of Biblical interest.” The results would be used for witnessing, and readers would be able to purchase both films and special projector in due course.

The October 1, 1921 Watchtower announced that the films had been duly made and exhibited in standard format at a number of locations, and now the Kinemo Kit Corporation (with Driscoll as manager) would handle orders for films and projectors. The Watchtower commented: “While the Society cannot engage in the manufacture and sale...yet it is the desire of the Society that every possible means for teaching the truth be employed.”

There was then quite a delay - nearly a year - before the above advertisement for films and projectors appeared in the September 13, 1922 Golden Age. Public showings in 35mm had obviously continued in the meantime because according to a report in the New Era Enterprise for May 30, 1922, a 5-reel version of the Palestine film and a 3-reel version of the Imperial Valley film were shown to a full house of 1500 at a convention session at Moose Hall, Philadelphia, on April 14, 1922. At the famous September Cedar Point Ohio convention the films were shown out of doors in the grove on a large screen, along with a tantalizing supporting feature. According to the New Era Enterprise for October 31, 1922: “The pictures included views of the Bible House and other organization buildings and offices in Brooklyn, the Bethel Home, etc., the printing and binding of booklets and pamphlets etc.” Now that would be footage worth discovering. (See the second article in this series).

When the Golden Age advertised the Kinemo films and projectors, George Driscoll wrote a two page article in the same issue about the project entitled “Visualizing Fulfilled Prophecies”. Most of the article is about technical issues. The films were on safety stock rather than nitrate, which meant you did not need a fireproof booth for the projectionist, and there was little danger of an audience being burnt to a cinder in the privacy of their own homes.

It was planned to add further films to the initial three, but nothing more appeared in the Watchtower or Golden Age, and only one more advertisement appeared in the pages of the Enterprise. In the October 3, 1922 issue the Instructo Cinema Services of Chicago offered a 400 foot reel of highlights of the Cedar Point convention, to be used with the Kinemo equipment. The advertisement was reprinted in the November 28, 1922 issue. (See again article two in this series).

Below are some frames from the original Kinemo films. First is the film on Imperial Valley, California. This was a travelog of Imperial Valley showing what had been done to the area to make the desert blossom. Because it was not filmed as part of JFR’s foreign tour it was initially thought that he did not appear in it, but there is a Hitchcockian cameo in it.

Second is a film on Palestine, which concentrated on the Jews returning to the land, and, as they believed, fulfilling prophesy.

                             J F Rutherford is seen boarding the latest in airplane technology.

                                                           Then surveying the horizon

                                               ...and visiting an estate manager's office.

And next some frames from the film on the Great Pyramid, showing J F Rutherford exiting from the pyramid. It was obviously rather hot.

  

So what happened to Kinemo? There is evidence that Driscoll ceased fellowship with the IBSA at some point. But probably the biggest problem was the size of film used. Kinemo used a special system of 17.5mm film stock – basically standard 35mm split down the middle. (Much like the amateur gauge of standard 8mm was 16mm stock split down the middle with extra sprocket holes added.) Kinemo films needed their own special projector to show them. And in 1923 the 16mm gauge was introduced for small audience projection, which soon took over and blew 17.5mm out of the water. (Between 1923-1925 the Enterprise ran a number of small ads from Kinemo owners who were now trying to sell on the equipment and films.) When Pathe in France tried to reintroduce 17.5mm film in the late 1920s, it was not compatible with earlier versions, and soon died the death again. And by the 1930s the Watch Tower Society was no longer teaching that literal Israel or the Great Pyramid fulfilled prophesy, so the subject matter would only appeal to Bible Students outside of the IBSA.

Moving pictures bring the past to life. The three Kinemo films can be seen today (see links in the third article) as early attempts in the wake of the Photodrama to use the medium of film to spread their message.

Kinemo 2

The Cedar Point, Ohio, convention of 1922 is an historical milestone for the Bible Students who later adopted the name Jehovah’s Witnesses. What is not generally known is that a short “home movie” was produced of the proceedings and sold commercially thereafter.

Below is an advertisement that appeared in the New Era Enterprise newspaper on October 3, 1922. The Instructo Cinema Services of Chicago offered a 400 foot reel of convention highlights, to be used with the Kinemo equipment. The advertisement was reprinted in the November 28, 1922 issue. According to the pitch, anyone could purchase the film for home viewing, and perhaps see if they could spot themselves amongst the audience.

As the previous article explained, the first three films made for this system – basically travelogs linked to J R Rutherford’s visit to Egypt and the Holy Land – have survived, even if currently unavailable. But has anyone out there still got a reel of film about Cedar Point, Ohio, in 1922?  It would be footage worth discovering if it still exists.

There is an element of good news and bad news about this kind of film. The good news is that film for private home use was generally not on nitrate stock. Unless stored under very specific conditions, nitrate tends to crumble to dust, unless it goes up in flames first. But safety film, although not having the translucent properties of nitrate, can survive a lot longer.

The bad news is that the Kinemo system used one of the very first “amateur” film sizes - 17.5 mm. Basically this film size started life as 35 mm stock split down the middle, and even then, different manufacturers had different ways of organizing the sprocket holes. It was only commercially available for a short time and was soon superseded when Kodak popularised 16mm and Pathé 9.5 mm. Ultimately 8 mm became the standard amateur gauge for home viewing.

So even if someone had the film, they would have great difficulty projecting it without very ancient equipment - and probably not just any 17.5 equipment, but specific Kinemo equipment. That is assuming Kinemo equipment still existed in working order and wouldn’t automatically chew up the product and spit it out in bits.

But back to the good news - many of the classics of the silent screen have only survived to our day because someone had the forethought to produce copies for these smaller sized film stocks that had the capacity for survival. In many cases, film archives have re-photographed them frame by frame to preserve them for modern audiences.

No-one is going to say that Cedar Point, Ohio, is a classic lost film. But does ANYONE know if it is still out there? Somewhere? The Instructo Cinema Service Company of Chicago must have sold a few at the time.

Kinemo 3

This third article is to show how these films have survived.

The previous article noted that narrow guage films for private home use were generally produced on safety film. But Kinemo used the 17.5 mm system (basically 35mm film split down the center) that required a special projector, and was soon superseded when Kodak popularised 16mm and Pathé 9.5 mm. In many cases in film history, archives have had to re-photograph old films frame by frame to preserve them for modern audiences.

We have to be extremely grateful to Brian K, who did this for the three Kinemo films.

Below are the links for these films. In time to come, if these links cease to work, a search on the internet should reveal where the three films are to be found.

Imperial Valley

https://youtu.be/-zIClU8TQtM                                                               

                                             

The Great Pyramid

https://youtu.be/S2snV8SyQVU

Palestine       

https://youtu.be/onCebb9bg6Q

And here a few pictures of how the original films looked when found.

And finally, here is how Brian, in his own words, described the process of restoration.

Kinemo motion picture projector, ready for operation

The film is threaded under the upper sprocket, through the film gate and behind the lower sprocket, then under the take up reel.  The lamp housing holds a high intensity light bulb.  This is turned on.  Focus is achieved by moving the Focus Adjustment Bar fore- and aft with a slight vertical motion as well.  This moves the entire lens assembly in the chrome-plated tube.  Turning the crank twice per second operates the projector at 16 frames per second, the standard speed for silent films prior to the sound era (1927).

 Close up of the Maltese Cross Shutter, lens and operating crank.

Digitizing setup of the projector.

The lens, shutter and lamp lousing are removed.  A pencil has been taped to the “flywheel” to facilitate easy turning of the flywheel.  Each turn of the flywheel advances the film one frame.  This is much easier to control than by using the crank on the other side of the projector, which moves the film 8 frames per turn.  After each rotation of the flywheel, a single photograph is taken.  The frames are assembled in Sony Vegas (video and audio mixing) software; each photograph is given two video frames (1/15 second), which is just a little slower than the proper playback speed of 16 frames per second.  The camera has three close up lenses (+1, +2 and +4) at the end of the lens and two extension tubes (36 mm and 20 mm) between the lens and the camera.  This helps to get a closer look at the small film, but even so, it only fills about 1/6 of the frame’s area.  More enlargement of the image size adds to optical issues (chromatic aberration), but the Canon 5 DS R camera has a 50.6 megapixel sensor, so not much detail is lost.  The digitized image has more pixels than a Canon 30D, with its smaller sensor, has.  This camera has a 128 GB SDHC card in it, as well as a 32 GB CF card.  Even so, it takes four sets of these cards to record all 6200 images on a typical roll of film.  Once one is filled, it is “dumped” to a computer, erased, and reused.  Exposures are made in both “raw” and “large .jpg” formats in the camera.

Kinemo 4

This article could be subtitled:

IT DOES HELP IF YOU GET THE BASIC FACTS RIGHT

There was quite an amazing review of the Kinemo Film “Imperial Valley,” published by Paul Johnson in his paper for September 1925.

"BRO. RUTHERFORD TAKING A TRIP THROUGH IMPERIAL VALLEY, CALIFORNIA"

"The picture shows Bro. R. and party in an automobile, ready for the tour. Then it shows them driving to some of his friends, to ask them if they would allow their son to go with him through Imperial Valley to take pictures. The boy's parents readily consented to let him go with the judge, though they were all prepared to start on a trip of their own through the mountains. The boy kisses his family good-bye, jumps into Bro. R.'s car, and away they go. Then the pictures go on to show Bro. R. passing through the valley on foot, examining fruit, vegetables and many other things grown there. According to the pictures, everything certainly was in good condition. Of course, the picture shows Bro. R. walking through these gardens, which takes up quite a time. On one occasion he is pictured as looking around and laughing as he turns over a very large pumpkin, saying: `It reminds me of the pumpkin pies mother used to make.'

Then the picture changes. It shows Bro. Rutherford's party with a newspaper giving the picture of a terrible automobile accident. Then the auto is shown falling down the side of a steep mountain, the occupants falling out and all being killed—they were the boy's family. Thereupon Bro. R. is seen trying to comfort the boy. It also shows Bro. R. writing a letter and handing it to the boy, telling him not to open it until when in 1925 he would hear of Abraham being resurrected. Later, the pictures show the boy in 1925 reading a morning paper with large head lines: 'ABRAHAM RESURRECTED IN PALESTINE.' Suddenly it dawns on the boy to read the letter the judge had given him. He looks at the calendar, which shows 1925; then he opens the letter, which tells him to telegraph Abraham and ask him that his famliy might be resurrected and restored to him. Finally, the boy is shown very happy as he telegraphs Abraham in Palestine in 1925."

This would be a fascinating film to see with JFR in such a prominent acting role. It’s a shame the Oscars didn’t start until 1929. There is only one slight problem with all of this – the description and review is FALSE FROM START TO FINISH.

                                                                                                             

We can see the actual film today because a copy has survived, although missing a little footage at the end of the reel. The reference has already been given in an earlier article, but it is given here again:

https://youtu.be/-zIClU8TQtM                                  

The Imperial Valley film is just a travelog, taking you around the area, showing roads being built, ditches beng dug and produce being harvested, as an illustration of what could be possible for the earth in the future. That is about it. As noted in an earlier article, JFR appears briefly in long shot looking over a field, a bit like an Alfred Hitchcock cameo.

When you read the small print Johnson tries to excuse himself:

“The Editor never saw these moving pictures, but sometime ago one of the brethren sent him a brief description of them.”

So that’s all right then. It’s someone else’s responsibility. 

Taking his words at face value, one of the brethren must have been just  “messing around.”            

And none of his readers apparently noticed.

With grateful thanks to Zion’s Herald for bringing this amusing item to our attention.

Rose and Charles Ball

A few years ago I wrote an article on How Old Was Rose Ball? Due to Maria Russell’s contradictory testimony in Russell vs Russell (1906) there were several possibilities on Rose’s age when she joined the Russell household in Pittsburgh. In fairness to Maria, she was trying to remember events from nearly twenty years before, and we can’t discount the stenographer having an off day. Equally, the information written by J F Rutherford in the Ecclesiastical Heavens booklet was written nearly thirty years after events, and was not based on first hand knowledge.

However, as a result of further research I am now happy to accept that my main premise in the above mentioned article has been proved wrong. I still think there are points of value in the article; hence it is not being deleted. But we can now establish that Rose Ball joined the Russell household in late 1888 or early 1889. She would have been 19 years old, but could have looked younger at the time.

The evidence comes from examining the life of her brother, Charles U Ball. Charles joined the Russell household and workforce before Rose did. Rose then wrote and asked if she could come and join him? We know when Charles died and now also know when he came to Pittsburgh. This is that story.

The basic story of Charles and Rose came out in Russell vs Russell (1906). Quoting from the Paper Book of Appellant, page 90, the exchange went like this.

CTR: “We had a young man in the office by the name of Charles Ball, who came to us from Buffalo, and was deeply interested.”

Counsel: “What has that got to do with the girl?”                               

CTR: “That was the brother. She wanted to come because her brother was here. After her brother died, she was lonely and Mrs Russell and I both thought a great deal of her. She was a very young looking girl…we treated her in every way as a daughter, and told her we considered her such, and she told us she considered us as parents.”

Some accounts describe Rose as an orphan, but this is not true. A check of genealogical records shows the family to be alive in Buffalo. In fact, if more people had only read the Russell vs. Russell (1906) transcript they would know this. Shortly after stating that CTR and Maria treated her as a daughter, CTR testfied:

CTR: “(She) had no relatives there, and we told her she could call herself by our name. She said the only reason she didn’t do that she was afraid if her father heard of it, he would think she had lost her respect for him.”

It may be that there was some estrangement in the Ball family, and that could be suggested by the story of her brother Charles.

Charles came to work for CTR as a stenographer. This is before they moved into Bible House. He died on March 14, 1889. Notice of his death and the funeral from CTR’s home was given in the Pitsburgh Dispatch for Saturday, March 16, 1889.

 The key records are not indexed online at this time of writing, but using the date and area, it was possible to find the burial register for Charles with some key information.

It runs across two pages in the register.

The first page gives his name: Charles Ball. His color: ditto, i.e. white. His sex: male. His age at death: 22 (This is actually an error; he was still 21 at the time). Married or single: single. Occupation: stenographer. Date of death: March 14. Cause of death: consumption.  Date of certificate: March 15.

The second page gives his birthplace: Buffalo, N(ew) Y(ork). His last residence and time of residence therein: on March 10 at Clifton Avenue (the Russells’ home) and nine months. His previous residence: Buffalo, N.Y.  Place and date of interment: Uniondale and March 17. And finally the name and residence of the physician signing the death certificate and the name and residence of the undertaker.

So we note that Charles had been living with the Russells at Clifton Avenue for the last nine months, and prior to that had been in Buffalo. So doing the math, Charles came to Pittsburgh around June-July of 1888. At some point after that, his sister wrote asking if she could come as well? So Rose came, Charles died, Rose stayed on.

The thought that there might have been some family estrangement is suggested by what happened with Charles. When he became ill he did not go back home to Buffalo. When he died, his body was not sent back to Buffalo. He did not leave a will, so his personal effects and affairs were sorted out by CTR who, rather than a family member, was granted letters of administration.

Charles Ball was buried in Pittsburgh, in the Union Dale cemetery. For an unknown young man his gravestone is really quite impressive. (Photograph reproduced with permission).

 

The motif at the top could well be a cross and crown before it was vandalised. And if so, why was it vandalised? And at the bottom of the marker is a familiar scriptural inscription, a partial quotation from Revelation 2 v.10: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”

Charles’ stay in Pittsburgh and his substantial grave stone pose questions we cannot answer. What is known is that sixty years later, he was still remembered. Here is the notice of Rose’s death from an Australian newspaper, the Melbourne Argus, for November 24, 1950.

Transcript: HENNINGES – On November 22, Rose Ball, widow of the late Ernest Charles Henninges, beloved sister of Lilian, Daisy, Charles (deceased) and Richard (deceased), aged 81 years. – Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.