Draft of Biographical Notes, Dorothy Loud (b. 5/22/1894) and Amos Howard Calef Brown (b. 12/21/1893) by George Alvin Loud Brown
Dorothy Loud
Dorothy Loud was born in Au Sable, Michigan, on May 22, 1894. Au Sable was a small lumbering town on the western shore of Lake Huron, about 130 crow miles north of Detroit. She was not quite four years old when her father was present at the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, an event which would greatly influence her formative years. Her father was George Alvin Loud, born at Braceville, Ohio, on the 18th of June 1852, and her mother was Elizabeth Glennie, born at Au Sable (?) on the 24th of July 1864. They were married on the 5th of December 1888 in Au Sable.
Dorothy was a direct descendent of Elder William Brewster (through his great great granddaughter; Onner Prince, who was her great great great great grandmother) even though the Loud family did not land in America until 1671 (in Sagadahoc County near the mouth of the Kennebec River, having hired a cheap navigator in Glasgow who caused them to miss their destination, Nova Scotia, by several hundred miles. Her mother's family, the Glennies, were more fortunate in the selection of a navigator for their trip from Ulster in Northern Ireland to the New World, arriving safely in Nova Scotia in 1745 and eventually settling in Cumberland County.)
In the 1840s, Dorothy's mother's father had migrated from Nova Scotia, where Erse was the common tongue, taught himself English and banking, and started a bank in Oscoda (?), Michigan. He lost his life in saving the lives of those who might otherwise have drowned in Lake Huron when the 1812 cannon exploded on firing the breeches buoy line to a sinking boat. His widow and only child had to support themselves. (It may be that the town of Glennie nearby is named for him. because of his selfless act.) The other person to step forward was his future son-in-law George, who was badly injured. Col. George A. Loud, the "Former Naval Person," became a six- term Congressman from the Michigan 10th District and the best friend of the Navy in Congress (according to Admiral Dewey) for his Collier program and other efforts (a vigorous and fruitful life, described elsewhere).
Dorothy and her three younger sisters, Esther, Priscilla (PC), and Mary Elizabeth (Lish) Constance, her older sister, died early in life spent their early years attending school in Au Sable and enjoying the summers on Lake van Etten.
The Loud family moved to Washington, DC, after her father was first elected to the US Congress in 1902. The sisters attended schools in the Washington area (Esther and Priscilla graduated from Miss Madeira's), but Dorothy may have gone back to Michigan, to attend the Detroit Central High School for a time. In any event, she graduated from Washington's Western High School in 1911 and was accepted at Wellesley College.
Dorothy returned to Au Sable in time to experience the Great Fire of July 1911 which destroyed the town and mills, as well as most of the surrounding forest. The townspeople had to flee to the beach on the shore of Lake Huron to survive. Her detailed description of the catastrophe and ensuing events appeared in the Detroit Journal of July 17, 1911. She was seventeen years old.
Dorothy entered Wellesley College in the fall and completed her sophomore year in the spring of 1913. During this period in her life she became deeply depressed, possibly because her father had been defeated for a new term in Congress by the German sugar beet interests who wanted higher tariffs on sugar, hurting Cuba which was still struggling with its new freedom. She withdrew from Wellesley and was taken around the world by her uncle Henry Loud. She then returned and completed her studies, receiving the John Masefield Prize "for excellence in prose writing" at her graduation in June 1916. As part of the prize, Masefield presented her with a brief memoir and bibliography of John Millington Synge, the Irish playwright, which he (Masefield) wrote, and which was published in a limited edition by Yeats's sister.
After graduation she took a secretarial post in Salem, Massachusetts, with Edward S. Morse, Curator of Japanese Ceramics at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, helping him edit his book, Japan Day by Day, published in 1917. Morse was a visiting professor of zoology at the Imperial University in Tokyo in the late 1870s, but was pushed by a friend into studying the then-living Japanese themselves before they became, as he put it, "as extinct as Belemites." Morse's most famous book, Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings, was published in 1885. It was here, in Salem, that Dorothy met Amos Howard Calef Brown (Howard), and he shortly proposed to her, their marriage taking place on the 5th of May 1917.
Amos Howard Calef Brown
Amos Howard Calef Brown, called Howard, was born at home on 40 Chestnut Street in Salem, Massachusetts, on the 21st of December 1893, the son of Eliza Rogers and Charles Alva Brown, who were married in 1891. His mother was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1864, the daughter of a prominent Gloucester family. His father was born in Portland, Maine in 1863, the son of a paper manufacturer and a developer of, and consultant on, New England waterpower. Charles Alva continued this interest after completing his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (two of his classmates at MIT were Stone and Webster), being on the board of the Rumford Light & Power Company with his father and in partnership with S.D. Warren. (Note: the first electric long-distance transmission line was constructed at the end of the century from Boston to the dam on the Presumpscot River, downstream of the S.D. Warren paper mill and just upstream of the present Route 295.)
Charles Alva Brown maintained an office in Boston into the 1930s. In the early thirties he was involved with collecting the water rights needed to permit the construction of the Metropolitan District Commission's Quabbin Reservoir, and Howard assisted him in this effort. At some point the family acquired a summer home at Land's End in Rockport, Massachusetts, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Charles Alva died at his home in Salem in 1937. Eliza Rogers Brown followed him in 1944.
The Brown children, Howard, Olcott, Alva, and Charles D. (Dee), attended the public elementary schools and Howard may have gone to Salem High School for a while. (He once expressed the desire to be buried on the bluff overlooking the sea at the back of this school.) He had a strong, ebullient personality, side-tracking his studies to the point that when he was twelve his mother put him to work in a shoe factory where he suffered greatly from the contaminated atmosphere.
Howard attended Milton Academy, graduating in 1912, and then Harvard for two years. Charles Alva suffered a severe reversal of fortune at about this time, which may have prompted Howard's leaving college. His classmates, however, continued to love him, kept in touch, and insisted that he return for his twenty-fifth reunion in 1941 at no charge, with his wife and five of his six children. (Dorothy had her twenty-fifth reunion at about the same time, seeing her dorm mate Mayling Soong, now married to Chiang Kai-Shek of China, for the last time.) Howard became a bond salesman at some time after leaving Harvard and until he entered the military.
Dorothy and Howard
Howard went into the U.S. Army when war was declared in 1917 and was sent to Plattsburg, New York for training as an artillery officer. Dorothy followed him there, working as a maid, and had a miscarriage. Howard was then sent to France because he had a knowledge of the French language, and Dorothy returned to Salem.
Howard trained with the French army troops at Neufchateau training center, about 150 miles east of Paris. (His eldest son was to be stationed there for a short time in late 1944.) Here he learned to ride a horse bareback as well as how to be an artillery observer. When the American Army arrived, he was given a battery and proceeded to the front. The sector was a quiet zone and the enemy was not to be disturbed. Howard took a different view, firing at anything that moved (in the spirit of his great-uncle Major John Calef CMH, of Civil War fame).
He was subsequently transferred to the 101st Division in Paris to act as a liaison with the French Army and later as secretary to the 2nd Division General Staff, living as a guest in a large mansion for the rest of the war. After the Armistice he turned down the offer to remain in Europe and attend Heidelberg University, returning to the States and civilian life in 1919.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Dorothy obtained employment teaching art at two "select schools" in Boston in 1918. Howard got a job with a Quaker merchant who paid very little. In the summer of 1920, Dorothy attended Harvard Summer School and continued at Radcliffe College, studying toward a Master of Arts degree. Ellen Chantal Brown was born on December 5, 1920. Dorothy returned for her mid-year exam but did not continue her formal education.
Detroit
Dorothy contracted typhoid fever in 1921 and had to return to her family in Bay City to convalesce. She obtained a position teaching English at the Liggett School in Grosse Pointe, Michigan (possibly run by two of her aunts?), and continued here until June 1923. Howard remained at his job in Boston. Ellen spent some of this time wintering with the Loud grandparents in Florida.
Wellesley, Massachusetts
Dorothy returned to be with Howard and take up a position as instructor of rhetoric and composition at Wellesley College in the fall of 1923. The appointment lasted only a year because she found herself pregnant, and George Alvin Loud Brown arrived on the 10th of February 1925. During this period, Howard's friend Guy Lee had returned from studying architecture in Japan and designed and oversaw the construction of two small houses for the Brown and Lee families on a private circle, West Riding, off Grove Street in Wellesley. (Note: both have recently been removed and replaced by a large house covering the entire circle and house sites.) At this time Miss Neidlinger came aboard as governess. Mr. Norcross started delivery of fresh vegetables from his farm in Dedham(?).
Howard was becoming prosperous as a securities dealer. He and Dorothy had a wide circle of friends, with whom they maintained contact throughout their lives, and people often dropped in from everywhere.
Howard's mother, Eliza Brown, sold the wallpaper in the dining room at 40 Chestnut Street to the Philadelphia Museum, and the family, which included Howard, Dorothy, and Ellen, toured Europe on the money thus derived in the summer of 1926. Howard was entertained by a Belgian nobleman, who was to return the visit in August 1939 and to spend his time deciding in which of his palaces to place his children and their governess, as war was then inevitable.
Dorothy resumed her teaching at Wellesley College in the fall of 1925 and continued it until March 1927. The twins Amos Howard Calef Brown Jr. and Phebe Haskell Brown were born on the 7th of May 1927. The house then became too crowded, and the family had to move. About this time, Wellesley College let Dorothy go after the teachers there decided that she should be home with her children (she was ahead of her time!).
In 1929 the Brown entourage moved to 635 Washington Street, opposite Grove Street and across the street from Eliot House in Wellesley. At this time Mike Bleasdale arrived to take care of the furnace and other domestic machinery. The house had a large central hall extending to the back, and the long illustrations of the Canterbury Tales were hung along the side walls there. These pictures were given to dear friends, the Alfred Burns on Benvenue Street, and hung in their dining room for many years until Mrs. Burns passed on.
The depression of the early thirties was beginning, and Howard eventually lost his job. The cook and maid retired to Ireland. Miss Neidlinger left to marry Dean Brooks and lived in Anasquam, Massachusetts, until her death in the 1970s. Oliver James Schoonmaker Brown arrived on April 10, 1931.
In 1932 the family moved to Pond Road across Lake Waban from Wellesley College. The house was large and was surrounded by fields on either side and a long entrance road (which the family could not afford to have plowed in winter at first). Glennie Loud Brown was born here on 22 August 1932.
In 1934 the country was slowly coming out of the Depression and Howard found a job with Talcott Inc. in New York, wool and cotton factors, which paid very well. He had to work in New York until 1936 (?) to learn the ropes, but was then transferred to Boston and set up a new subsidiary, Chas. A. Brown, Inc. (Coincidentally, Howard's future second wife's husband at that time followed the same program of training and went to Chicago.) Howard also supported Dorothy in her many projects, including being on Town School Committee, helping European refugees, supporting music and art, and attending the Boston Symphony, among others, and chauffeured the many children to their local schools and schools in Cambridge, teaching them bits of French and poetry. At this time Helene Wise joined the family to be nursemaid to Glennie.
Things went well until the hurricane of September 1938, which nearly wiped out the Naushon Shirting Mill in New Bedford, in which Talcott held a large position. Howard had to take over the mill as president and put it back into operation so that the money could be recovered. (It is interesting to note that the Naushon Mill was the only one of the mills in New Bedford damaged by the hurricane to survive World War II.)
Marion, Massachusetts
The family moved to Marion in the summer of 1940, settling at first in the Kane House. The children attended local schools, except for Ellen, who completed Ashley Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, and then went on to Radcliffe. Mike Bleasdale brought along his new wife, Minnie, but the garage apartment was not acceptable to them and they soon returned to South Natick. By 1942 the money had been successfully recovered from the Naushon Mill, and Howard was asked back to New York. He refused to move, electing instead to seek employment in the Boston area.
Howard found work in Boston as a munitions salesman and was successful here as well, working on a major contract. He had an apartment on Brimmer Street in the Back Bay, commuting to Marion on weekends. The family moved to the Knowlton House, and it was here, in the summer of 1942, that Ellen married U.S. Army Lt. Richard A. Field, who had just received a commission in the artillery at his graduation from Harvard. During the late winter of 1943 the house caught fire, and sadly Helene Wise died. Many valuables were lost, and books damaged by smoke. Ellen's first child, James Field, was born in Texas in the spring of 1943. Howard's contract with his firm was faulty, and he was shifted aside to a minor job once the big contract was won.
He was then appointed to the War Production Board in 1943, as chief of the Salvage Division for the New England area, recovering steel for use in the war effort. He purchased a house in Bellingham Place off Revere Street on Beacon Hill, Boston, in the late spring. George graduated from Tabor Academy and was drafted into the Army in July.
Boston, Massachusetts
The Browns moved to Boston during summer 1943 and Dorothy received an appointment as Docent at the Museum of Fine Arts. The two children remaining at home attended Boston schools, Oliver at Prince School and Glennie at Brimmer-May. Calef went to St. George's in Rhode Island and Phebe went to Putney (Woodstock?). Private George Brown was married to Constance Joslin at Kings Chapel on April 20, 1944. Michael Field was born in Boston. Both Howard and Dorothy lost their appointments in the summer of 1945. Dorothy died in August 1945 by her own hand. Constance returned to Boston to run the house on Bellingham Place.
George was mustered out in April 1946 and entered Harvard in June; he and Constance lived in apartments on Beacon Hill while he completed his graduate studies, and then pursued a career in environmental engineering and underground construction. Major Richard Field entered Harvard Medical School, and he and Ellen lived in Cambridge at first, then in a home in Natick. Receiving his degree in 1940, Dick went on to Mass. General Hospital where he was an internist and diabetes specialist, teaching at Harvard Medical School and finally directing the Southboro Hospital. Calef, who served the last year of the war in the Navy, returned to civilian life and entered Harvard. He subsequently had a long business career, becoming a leader in the development of computer-generated correspondence systems. Phebe attended Bennington College, and after graduation married Jonathan Chace. After raising her four children, she developed her artistic talents in the field of landscape architecture. Oliver went to St. George's in Rhode Island. Glennie attended Prince School in 1944, Boston Latin in 1945, and Westtown Friends School in 1946.
Theodora Winterbotham Brown and Amos Howard Calef Brown
Chicago
Following Dorothy's death, Howard sold the Bellingham Place house and moved to Chicago in 1947. He established an office for Fidelity Investments Inc. which did not work out, and after a time he went to work for the Franks Drugstore supply conglomerate owned by Richard Field's father. At this time he met Theodora Winterbotham Badger, called Dodo, whom he subsequently married. Also at this time he began to be called Amos rather than Howard. Oliver continued at St. George's, subsequently going on to Bowdoin College and graduate studies at the Harvard Graduate School for Education and a long career in school administration and consulting, as well as teaching at HGSE.
Boston
Amos and Dodo moved back to Boston in 1949. They took an apartment on Arlington Street, across from the Public Garden. Amos was unemployed but they were comfortably well-off. They had many projects, including researching and trying to buy the oldest brick house in Boston, with an eye to restoration. Glennie returned to Boston, beginning studies in music at Boston University. After earning her degree, she continued studies at the Longy School in piano. Starting out in secretarial work, as women usually had to then, she gradually moved into editorial, writing, and computer work. Returning to school in the 70s to study accounting and other business subjects, she also worked in management consulting projects.
Washington, DC and Los Angeles
Amos received an appointment as a contract renegotiator for the United States Renegotiation Board in 1951, and he and Dodo moved to Washington, DC so that he could take up his post. He remained so employed there, and later in Los Angeles, until his retirement in 1959.
This was the period of weddings and the arrival of a flood of grandchildren. Oliver married Eleanor Appleton Buxton (who would serve on the staff of the Governor of Maine in later years). Phebe married Jonathan Chace, Jr. Calef married Barbara Schmitt. Glennie married Raymond Wilding-White (a graduate of Juilliard School of Music in New York).
Chicago
Amos and Dodo returned to Chicago when he retired, and bought an old house with a garden that had survived the Great Fire. They traveled a lot, particularly to France and Italy, and collected pieces for the Italian garden on which Amos spent much labor (he may have gotten cancer on the back of his hand from the sun at this time). They bought a small vacation home in Galena, Illinois on the banks of the Mississippi River, and from time to time they would come east to visit their children and many, many grandchildren.
They were very active in Chicago. Dodo's aunt, Rue Winterbotham, had many years ago started The Arts Club, whose membership was mainly well-to-do individuals who wished to support the arts, as well as artists in many fields. Dodo and her sister Rue, who was president of the club, were active in planning and executing projects for many years. Amos was secretary and director of the Lincoln Park Conservation Association, a pioneer in conserving and rehabbing fine older houses. In addition, for many years he was a reader for Chicago Recording for the Blind. Mayor Daley made him an Honorary Citizen of Chicago.
In their eighties, Amos and Dodo moved to an apartment in Lincoln Park, where they lived until Amos had to go into a nursing home in Oak Park, close by Glennie. He died there on December 11, 1981. His last years were not only extended but made much pleasanter by the constant care Dodo gave him. She passed away on February ___, 1990.