Nebrasker Williams and the African Princess

One of the categories of old postcards that I collect is "walkers." Among postcard collectors, the genre of postcards portraying people who trekked long distances for reasons of health, publicity, competition, or personal objectives is known as “Walkers,” whether the journey was made by foot, bicycle, dogsled, goat cart, or other non-motorized means of conveyance. During the early part of the 20th century, "long-distance travelers," as they might be more accurately described, traveled to fulfill personal goals, promote political or social causes, advertise an upcoming event such as a state fair, or simply as a means of livelihood, raising money by selling postcards or pamphlets about themselves along the way. Occasionally, someone walking the highways today supports a religious or social cause.

There are a lot of engrossing stories and images of early "walkers."  Plennie L. Wingo walked from Abilene, Texas, to New York City in 1931 – backward!  In 1910, Fred Vaillancourt, a former railroad brakeman who had lost both legs in a railroad accident, traveled the country by dog cart. The husband and wife team, Mr. and Mrs. D. H. Woolf, walked thousands of miles across the United States in 1909 accompanied by Dolly, a little bay mare who pulled their baggage wagon.

One famous American walker whose story I will save for another occasion was Edward Payson Weston, often billed as the World's Greatest Walker, who was a "professional pedestrian" during the late 19th and early 20th century when long-distance walking was a popular spectator sport. See Kenneth Wilson, Snapshots and Short Notes, Images and Messages of Early Twentieth-Century Photo Postcards, University of North Texas Press, 2020, pages 143-144.

I have seen many postcards and photographs of such travelers, but recently, I came across an old printed blotter that advertised "Mr. and Mrs. Nebrasker Williams and their dog Big Boy."  The couple billed themselves as "World Champion Walkers and Explorers." The image of the couple on this card is striking, even if poorly printed.  For one thing, they were both black, and I am unaware of other photos or postcards of a person of color as a long-distance walker.   

The blotter's information asserts that the couple started from Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1926, intending to walk around the world. They sold blotters for 15 cents and solicited donations to finance their journey. While the printed information does not mention religion, Nebrasker is shown wearing a prominent Christian cross.

A quick internet search revealed very little about Nebrasker Williams and his wife, especially as the search engine kept trying to change "Nebrasker" to "Nebraska." After some time, I found an article in The California Eagle from 1945.  The Eagle was an African American newspaper in Los Angeles from 1879 to 1964.  It was founded by John J. Neimore, who had escaped slavery in Missouri before the Civil War.

The Eagle article was titled "African Princess and Husband Visit in City of Angels." According to that article, Mrs. Williams' name was "Princess Quenda Buranghingtore Williams," and she was from Zulatribi, Cape Town, South Africa. The source further claimed that she and her husband were guests at a turkey dinner at the St. Paul Baptist Church in Los Angeles. 

It was reported that the princess and her husband had been married for six years and that Mr. Williams had walked 37,000 miles and visited 51 countries, 48 states, and 10 islands, during which time he had worn out 840 pairs of shoes. Mr. Williams claimed to have once been the guest of Mahatma Gandhi.  Mrs. Williams described herself as "a native African girl," reported walking 9,000 miles, and said the couple had a collection of 521 scrapbooks.

Now, to me, that's a good story. I found no other references to Princess Quenda and only one more for Nebrasker; on a website titled "These Americans," which described itself as a visual narrative from the archives of American history and pop culture, was a single photo titled "Nebrasker Williams The Walking Preacher." However, this site seems to no longer exist on the web.

Nebrasker Williams, Walking Preacher

http://www.theseamericans.com/religion/press-collection-nebrasker-williams-the-walking-preacher/

(this site may no longer exist)

While we have some answers to the mystery surrounding Nebrasker Williams we don't seem to have all the facts. Is the Mrs. Williams portrayed in the blotter advertisement the same person as Princess Quenda?  The 1945 newspaper article says that he and the princess had been married for 9 years, but the blotter information says that the couple pictured on it started walking in 1926, and "... the history of our lives from 5 years old."   

What happened to the 521 scrapbooks? Where did Nebrasker walk next?  I wish I could have asked Nebrasker what it was like to travel this country on foot as a black man in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.  So, there are still many unanswered questions to this narrative; if you know some of the answers, let us know.  In the meantime, keep on putting one foot ahead of the other.

2/1/12  Additional Information:
My sister, Joanne, who must be a better researcher than I am, found an article about "Nebraska" (rather than "Nebrasker") Williams, dated March 1, 1930, in The Afro American, a Baltimore newspaper. The article says that Williams passed through Baltimore in 1927 and was again in the city in 1930, along with his wife, a sister, and "Big Boy," his bulldog. The article's author seems to be a bit skeptical about Mr. Williams's walking claims.

In this article, Mr. Williams claimed to have begun his walk in London in 1926, rather than Shreveport, and he also claimed Montreal as a starting place.  The newspaper writer says that despite numerous letters about his walk from various US city officials, Mr. Williams failed to show any evidence of having hiked in any foreign countries as he claimed.   

The Afro American does mention some of the problems that the Williams couple had in the South, including being arrested and forced to work on a prison farm for a month.  Mrs. Williams stated that she made a key out of a spoon and enabled their escape!

So, more questions: Was Mr. Williams a preacher, a "world champion walker," a con man, or a bit of all three?  Was there really an African Princess wife?  So far, we don't have the whole story, but it's an interesting walk through history in any case.

"Home is everything you can walk to." ― Jerry Spinelli

A "Killer" Find

In March 2009, my grandson Nathan and I took our kayaks to the Pedernales River in central Texas.  Despite the Texas drought, this stretch of the river at the U.S. 281 crossing is dammed,  providing a suitable small lake for us to paddle on. Nathan was seven then, but he easily handled his kayak as we explored the river for turtles, fish, and birds and enjoyed the Texas spring sunshine.

For better or worse, Nathan has inherited the "collecting gene."  From almost every outing, he brings home rocks, sticks, and other small objects, and he has been especially successful at finding forgotten change in and under vending machines.  Naturally, when he and I pulled over to the bank for a break, we walked the slope, heads down, looking for small treasures.
  
We didn't find arrowheads, gold coins, or old bottles, but there were pieces of rusty barbed wire, interesting rocks, raccoon tracks, and deer droppings – also known as "smart pills" – yes, I shared that old joke with the grandsons years ago.  


When he found something else, Nathan was busy filling his pockets with suitable rocks. "What's this, Pops?" he asked as he handed me his most recent find. It was a piece of broken crockery or pottery, and a nice one because it had part of a name imprinted in the clay.   It was about two and one-half inches from top to bottom, and the readable letters were "Wm" on the top line and "CROB" on the second line. The outside was a nice mottled tan glaze, and the inside had a shiny brown glaze.  

Nathan's pottery shard

I told Nathan it was likely a shard from a stoneware jug and perhaps a hundred years old. I thought we might be able to find out more about it from the lettering since there is a lot of recorded history about early Texas pottery. We talked a little about the importance and use of crocks and jugs to early settlers and about their manufacture.  Nathan agreed to let me take the piece home, photograph it, and do some internet research to try to identify it.  


I looked at lists of early Texas potters on the internet, hoping for a hit. I tried to figure out words or names that might fit the letters we had, but I didn't have much luck. Then, I emailed a scan of the piece to two friends:  Fraser Harris, a potter and collector of early crocks, and Larry Jones, another collector.  


It was only minutes later that Larry emailed back and said the piece was part of an old pottery jug that once held Wm RADAM'S MICROBE KILLER, a patent "snake oil" medicine created in the 1880s by William Radam, a Texas nurseryman who had previously invented several potions to kill blight and fungi on plants. Right on the heels of that email came one from Fraser, who had come to the same conclusion and found a similar jug in a book on early Texas pottery. So, the mystery was quickly and efficiently solved, and the story was fascinating –– William Radam had concocted and sold a patent medicine that he claimed would cure almost any human illness.


After working for 20 years at his own nursery business near Austin, Radam contracted malaria. He theorized that he might cure human diseases in the same way he had been curing the diseases of plants. He tried several concoctions and, after six months of drinking the potions, declared himself cured. Radam claimed the potion resulted from a complex process using sulfur, sodium nitrate, manganese oxide, sandalwood, and potassium chloride.


The first Microbe Killer jugs appear to have been salt-glazed stoneware manufactured by Meyer Pottery in Atascosa, just south of San Antonio. Nathan seemed to have found a piece of one of those jugs, and it had probably been thrown into a trash dump on or near the river's bank.


Below is a stoneware jug similar to the one Nathan's pottery shard was originally a part of.

http://drugstoremuseum.com

Other types of bottles and jugs were later used for the "Killer." By 1890, the medicine was being made in a string of factories from coast to coast. It cost about 5 cents a gallon to produce and was sold for 53 cents a jug. Radam also created a very noticeable trademark for his product.

Radam's Microbe Killer label, 1887, Photo by Mary Margret

http://www.flickr.com/photos/double-m2/3938358327/

Radam's Microbe Killer Jugs  

http://www.sha.org/bottle/medicinal.htm

 Radam's Bottle

http://www.bottlebooks.com  

     

In 1888, Radam built the Koppel Building at 322 Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, which still stands today. Radam became wealthy from the patent medicine business and moved to a luxury mansion overlooking New York's Central Park. He opened factories in London and Melbourne, Australia. Radam died a wealthy man in 1902 and is buried in Austin's Oakwood Cemetery.

Koppel Building, Austin, Texas,  Photo by Larry Miller

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drmillerlg/3590742697/

Radam's heirs continued to make money from sales of the Killer, but in 1912, an amendment to the Pure Food and Drugs Act made deception in labeling illegal. His potion was determined to be mostly water with a bit of red wine and dashes of hydrochloric and sulfuric acids. It was worthless as a medicine, and the lucrative business quickly ended.


Thanks to Nathan's keen eye, we both had something for "Show and Tell." He took the pottery shard and its story to school and allowed me to write about his find in this blog entry.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

–– Adam Smith

For more information on Wm Radam's Microbe Killer or early Texas pottery, the following websites might give you a start:


http://www.countryworldnews.com/news/texas-trails/683-texas-trails-magical-microbe-killer.html
http://www.bottlebooks.com/appraisalstories/radams_microbe_killer.htm
http://www.sha.org/bottle/medicinal.htm
http://www.texasantiques.us/meyer.html
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bcs01

Waist Gunner

My wife, Debbie, is also a collector, but she has a good excuse: She uses old photos, postcards, and other paper ephemera in her artwork. She is a printmaker who produces etchings, drawings, and monoprint collages that sometimes incorporate these items.  

Yesterday, Debbie gave me an interesting piece of WWII, "V-mail."  V-mail, short for Victory Mail, was used during the Second World War to save shipping space by transporting correspondence to and from soldiers stationed abroad on microfilm after they passed military censors.  Once it reached its destination, the film images were blown up to 60% of their original size and mailed to the intended recipient in small manila envelopes.

The V-mail letter was from T/Sgt Scott Hilliard of the 706th Bomb Squadron, dated December 23, 1943. It was written from England and addressed to his mother, Mrs. P. S. Hilliard, in Franklin, PA. The letter discusses missing Christmas at home, the possibility of Spam for Christmas dinner in England, an anticipated visit to London, and looking forward to the completion of his required twenty-five missions.

Standing L-R: Julian Dixon; Clarence Lien; John Peterson; W. Ray Walker; Warren McMillan; Scott Hilliard.    Kneeling L-R: Pilot O. W. "Pappy" Henderson; Robert Tannahill; Vere McCarty; E. Dale Howard   

http://www.446bg.com/crew_photos/crews22.htm#2

An internet search revealed several entries about Sgt. Hilliard, as well as the photo above.  The 706th Bomb Squadron was part of the 446th Bombardment Group, stationed at Flixton, England, from December 16, 1943, to April 25, 1945. So, Sgt. Hilliard's letter home was written shortly after he arrived at Flixton. He was a waist gunner on the B-24 Liberator, "Dinky Duck," piloted by O. W. "Pappy" Henderson.  There are several of Hilliard's photographs online that he took during missions from his position as a waist gunner.

B24-H. 41-29125 JU-D  Tar Heel Baby, over Portsmouth, D-Day plus 6

Photo by Scott Hilliard, 446BG  http://www.aviationmuseum.net/

  

June 15 Mission

Photo by Scott Hilliard, Waist Gunner  http://www.446bg.com

Below is a photo and a quote from an online article written in Swedish by Ingemar Melin about a June 20, 1944, bombing mission that included the 492nd Bomb Group and the 446th Bomb Group, including the 706th Squadron and Hilliard's plane.  The mission target was a German synthetic fuel plant in Politz, Poland.  The bombers were attacked by Messerschmitts above Rugen Island and suffered heavy casualties. 

https://www-forcedlandingcollection-se.translate.goog/USAAF/USAAF072-440620-flakhappy.html?_x_tr_sl=sv&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=op,sc

Politz Mission,  June 6,  1944.  Plumes of smoke from 5 B-24s shot down off the coast of Rugen.

Photo by Scott Hilliard, Waist Gunner "Dinky Duck" 706th Bomb Squadron

During the raid, Sgt. Hilliard took photographs from his waist gunner position, and he is quoted in the above article as saying, "The speed with which they had taken out an entire B-24 Squadron shocked me. I never saw any planes burn or slowly fall out of formation; they were simply missing from the sky. After a brief moment I caught my breath, I saw a number of plumes from the burning wreckage in the water below. I saw a couple of German motor boats driving around the smoldering wreckage. I picked up my K-20 camera and took some pictures of the columns of smoke."

The above article also tells the compelling story of another B-24 on that raid, "Flak Happy," piloted by 1st Lt. Nicholas B. Kehoe II of the 856th Bomb Squadron, 492nd Bomb Group. The bomber was severely hit and on fire when Kehoe instructed his crew to bail out, but he was not sure they got that warning as the plane was full of smoke. When the smoke cleared, Kehoe found himself the only one left on board.  He put the plane on autopilot and fought the flames.  

He eventually got the plane over the Swedish border and bailed out.  He was picked up by locals and turned over to the Swedish Army.  Of the other 10 crew members, eight were killed, and two were captured by the Germans.  

For more on this story, see:  http://www.492ndbombgroup.com/cgi-bin/pagepilot.cgi?page=showCrewPage&crewPage=613-Kehoe&crewTitle=Kehoe%20613&nav=c2c 

It is known that Sgt. Scott Hilliard's plane, B-24, Dinky Duck, serial no. 41-29142 survived the war, and the 706th and the 707th Bombardment Squadrons completed 60 missions without a loss.  

More information about the 446th Bombardment Group can be found at the Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum website:  http://www.aviationmuseum.net/  and at the 446th Bomb Group website: http://www.446bg.com/

I assume that if B-24 Dinky Duck survived the war, so did Sgt. Scott Hilliard, but I did not find any recent online references for him.  I hope he had many Christmas dinners at home. (See note below.)  If you have any more information about Sgt. Hilliard's life, please let us know. The V-mail to his mother is waiting for a family or museum home.


Additional Information 1/10/2012:

My friend Melody Kelly just emailed me details of a record for Scott Hilliard on Ancestry.com, revealing that Sgt. Hilliard died in Oxnard, California, in 2003 at age 82. That's a lot of Christmas dinners. Good for him.

"Hitler built a fortress around Europe, but he forgot to put a roof on it." — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Schuyler Nebraska Siblings

I recently found this beautiful real photo postcard of four women and a man posing for a photographer while sitting in a buckboard.

As you can see, they may be siblings; all five have very similar facial features, but there is no identifying information on the front or back of this card.  The postcard back has a "Velox" stamp block, and I would date the photograph to about 1908.   

A sign on the building behind the wagon says, "The Sun Press."  There is also lettering on the building at the upper right.  This lettering is blurred and hard to read, but the lower line clearly reads, "Opera House."  So, I had a few clues to use to identify the town. Unfortunately, searching for "The Sun Press" online did not pay off.  One "Sun" newspaper was found in Cleveland, but this photo didn't look like Cleveland.

Here are two scans of the details, blown up and manipulated in Photoshop to the best of my ability.  It took quite a bit of trial and error to decipher the name of the opera house, but it appeared to be J. Janecek, and that was the clue that opened things up.

I searched the internet again and found a reference to Julius Cahn's Theatrical Guide 1897, which listed Janecek Theatre, J. Janecek, mgr., in Schuyler, Colfax Co. Nebraska. The guide also listed the local newspapers as "Sun," "Quill," and "Herald."  In addition, Pettengill's Newspaper Directory and Advertisers' Handbook for 1878 lists the "Nebraska, Colfax Co. Schuyler Sun."

So, part of the mystery is solved.  But who are these handsome siblings?  How did their lives turn out?  If you can identify them or if you find another breadcrumb left on this trail, please let us know.  

See the additional comment below, courtesy of dmz.

Shall We Go?

I received an email sometime back referring to an article in the NY Times about Kurt Vonnegut by author and filmmaker Dinitia Smith. The article ends with a quote from "Requiem" by Vonnegut:

"When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here."

Another of my favorite thinkers, George Carlin, said that we shouldn't worry about saving the planet—the planet will be fine—it's the humans who are in trouble.

I hope we can occupy this wet little rock for much longer and in some sort of harmony with it, but it is beginning to look doubtful.  There is hope that the population growth rate is slowing, and perhaps there will be enough thinkers and doers to offset our waste and greed before it is too late.

If we don't survive, I hope the blue planet continues its journey without us and that other inhabitants enjoy it. However, I wonder if they will be able to create as we have. Will something as productive as Stephen Hawking's brain or as beautiful as a Leo Kottke guitar solo exist?