Street Art Shoreditch #2

I had to split my recap from Thursday's Shoreditch street art walk into three, so this is the second of three posts (for the first post, see here). I'll have one more from Shoreditch. This is a cool place, definitely one to see again.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Street art by HIN.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Otto Schade's Thames Smiley.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Art by Martin Ron, Corbet Place Bar, Shoreditch.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Close-up on Martin Ron's tamarins.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Assortment of artists on rooftop.

Street Art Shoreditch #1

Yesterday evening I was in London. The workshop I attended wrapped up in the late afternoon, leaving me time to enjoy a perfect late summer evening for a street art walk. Shoreditch is regarded as one of the best places to see the street art scene in London, so I had to go. I took the Central Line to Liverpool Street Station, walked past the Old Spitalfields Market, and looped through the streets around Shoreditch. I know that only scratched the surface of the art scene, and will definitely have to make a return visit. There's so much to see and I ran out of time.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Shoreditch, London. 28 Aug 2014.

Photo by Patrick Jones. 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Faith 47's Lion at the Truman Brewery.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Roa's crane. 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Angel mural on same street as Roa's crane.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Closer look at Faith 47's lion

I'm very lucky to do what I do. In spare moments I try to experience a bit of the culture of a place, either in a quick walk through a museum, historic site or search for some street art. My previous London visit included a few shots (see this post from 5 July 2014). I will have a second set of photos from Shoreditch in an upcoming post.

Mary Alice and her brother Harl

Source: S_Temby on Ancestry.com

A distant cousin and fellow Cain/Read researcher posted this photo on Ancestry.com for my second-great-grandmother Mary Alice Cain Read and her brother Harl Cain. I am hopeful this is a sign that there's more information soon to be found on their parents (my third-great-grandparents). For previous posts on the Cain family, see Potential Breaks in the Brick Wall from earlier this month.

I'm not sure yet on the date for the photo, but I suspect it was on a visit by Harl back to Kentucky, perhaps for a family event (funeral, reunion or wedding?).

Travel Tuesday - Old Town

This set of photos is from a long run through Old Town Alexandria on Sunday. I completed an 8 mile loop down King Street, to the Potomac and back to Del Ray. The first two photos show a quiet King Street and the fountains in front of Alexandria City Hall.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Alexandria, VA.

Photo by Patrick Jones. King Street, 24 August 2014.

The next two photos are a pair of pictures on a fence facing the Potomac along the George Washington Parkway waterfront bike/running path. These are located behind the now-closed GenOn power plant.

Photo by Patrick Jones. 24 August 2014. Along the Potomac bike path.

Photo by Patrick Jones. 

Friday Photo - Times Square

Photo by Patrick Jones. 29 Jun 2011, Times Square, NY

Photo by Patrick Jones. 29 Jun 2011.

A Closer Look at the Picture

While taking a close look at the people in yesterday's photo of the Liga Protectora Latina leaders from 1916, I noticed a similarity to a painting of my second-great-grandfather Vicente Campuzano and his second wife Beatriz Palacios (Correction* - 11 August 2015. I think this painting is of Vicente and my 2nd-great-grandmother Maria Jesus Vasquez). I think Vicente is in the fourth row, last on the right, just behind a banner and next to a column. See the comparison below:

Vicente?

The book Mexicans in Phoenix states that the picture from 1916 was provided to the author courtesy of the Romo family and the Phoenix Museum of History. It appears the museum closed in 2008-2009, so I'm not certain if there is a way to check for a full list of the names for the people in the LPL photo to confirm if this is my second-great-grandfather. But sure looks like him.

Correction 11 August 2015 - After comparing the painting against this photo of Vicente and Maria Jesus Vasquez, I am convinced the painting was based on the photo.

Leadership of the LPL 1916

In August 2012, I posted a lengthy piece on Liga Protectora Latina, the mutual aid society formed in 1914 to support Mexican immigrants in Arizona. My second-great-grandfather Vicente Campuzano was an active member of the organization, and served as the Sergeant at Arms for Lodge #1 in Tempe, Arizona in 1915. The book, Mexicans in Phoenix, by Frank M. Barrios, has a picture from the 25 July 1916 meeting of the Liga Protectora Latina showing the leaders of the organization. I'm almost certain that Vicente Campuzano is in this picture.

Source: Mexicans in Phoenix, page 119.

I have a request into the US Citizenship and Immigration Service to see if there is an Alien case file on Vicente from his years living in Tempe, Phoenix and Tucson between 1913-1916. It is a stretch but perhaps there is a file.

Santa Monica in 1877

This sketch is from the Santa Monica Public Library's Digital Collection, showing the bay and the old Long Wharf. The sketch is in a larger collection that was presented in 1975 for the city's centennial.

Source: SMPL Digital Collection

An earlier post showing maps and sketches from the Santa Monica Public Library Collection can be found from 4 June 2013 (see Travel Tuesday - Historic Santa Monica). See also my 28 December 2012 post of a photo from the Library of Congress - Santa Monica in 1908.

Pacific from Parking Structure 6

Some of the best views of the Santa Monica coastline can be found on the top of the Second Street parking garages. This photo is from the roof of Parking Structure 6, on 6 August 2014.

Photo by Patrick Jones. View from Parking Structure 6, Santa Monica.

A similar view at sunset two days earlier.

Photo by Patrick Jones. 4 August 2014, Santa Monica.

Sunday's Obituary - Charlie Read

Thanks go out to Find a Grave member Laura J. Stewart, who posted an obituary for my second-great-grandfather Charlie Read, on his Findagrave entry. Back in May 2013, I posted a transcription from the 14 December 1916 edition of the Glasgow Republican. Laura found a longer obituary in the 8 December 1916 edition of the Glasgow Times.

Source: Findagrave

There is an inaccuracy in the obituary, Charlie's father Guilford Dudley Read died nine months earlier, not "a few years earlier".

It is striking to see that he was the same age I am now, leaving behind a wife and ten young children. I was unaware that Charlie and Mary Alice had lost two children.

Remnant of Alexandria, DC

Walking around Old Town Alexandria last weekend I caught a glimpse of historic Alexandria from when it was part of the District of Columbia. One of the downspout pipes on a home off Prince Street near the Waterfront bears the stamp of "Alexandria, DC". These are pretty rare to see. Alexandria returned to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1846, so the downspout is probably over 170 years old.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Prince Street, Alexandria, VA.

Michael Lee Pope's book, the Hidden History of Alexandria, DC covers this period in great detail and is worth a read if you are interested in the history of Alexandria (see also this Washington Post article from 5 October 2011 titled "How Alexandria Lost its DC").

This downspout bears the stamp of the T.W. and R.C. Smith Foundry, which was located in Alexandria.

See also "Looking for rainy signs of social status in Old Town Alexandria", from the Washington Post on 11 September 2013.

Sunday's Obituary - Albert Read

In the continuing search for information on the Cain family in Barren County, Kentucky, I looked back at the resources on Findagrave for Barren County. I found a new obituary posted on 29 July 2014 by Find A Grave member, Laura J. Stewart (#47412616) for Albert Shirley Read, brother of Charlie Read.

Source: Findagrave

The obituary appeared in the 9 November 1916 edition of the Glasgow Republican newspaper. Albert Read died a month before his brother Charlie.

Class of 1932

In June 2012, I posted this photo of my grandmother Blanche Allene O'Brien. I now know this was her senior picture. My guess is that she was 18 years old in this photo, or 19 if it was taken after November 1931.

Blanche Allene O'Brien - Photo source, Keith D. Jones

Today a package arrived from the helpful folks at Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis containing copies from Volume Seven, Number Nine of The Riparian yearbook. The head shot of Blanche is a match to the original photo that was in my Gumpy's papers. Back in July, I wrote about how I had found Blanche in the 1930 and 1931 Riparian yearbook from the Indianapolis Public Library's digital collection, but the 1932 Riparian was missing. Huge thanks go out to the staff at Broad Ripple who sent a set of high quality copies of the pages with Blanche.

Source: Broad Ripple High School, Indianapolis

1932 Riparian yearbook, page 10

Blanche was part of the yearbook and school newspaper staff in 1932 (something I also did back in the day in high school sixty years after Blanche).

The seniors in each class had a habit of writing a "senior alphabet" couplet for the yearbook. Blanche was featured as the letter "o" on page 18. "O stands for O'Brien, a real Irish maid, a charming young miss whom with pranks you can't 'fade.'"

Riparian yearbook 1932, page 37.

In the English class photo above, Blanche is first from the left on the second row.

It is great to have this, and this view of her last year of high school connects well with the post-graduation information on Blanche's beauty salon in Broad Ripple. She was clearly well liked in her class.

USCIS FOIA Stakeholder Meeting Next Week

Earlier in the week the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will be hosting a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) Stakeholder Meeting in Washington DC on 20 August at 1:30pm Eastern. USCIS officials will talk about how they respond to nearly 140,000 FOIA requests per year and address topics of interest to USCIS requesters.

Since I have previously used the USCIS' FOIA services to obtain the alien case files for my great-grandparents Manuela Portillo and Plutarco Campuzano, I qualify as a stakeholder. This is a great opportunity for me to take a late lunch break and learn more about the process. I also have two new search requests pending for potential files on my 2nd-great-grandparents, Vicente Campuzano and Teresa Diaz Portillo.

For those not in DC, there may also be a phone option for participating. See the link above for USCIS to find out more information.

Potential breaks in the brick wall

Short of driving to Barren County, Kentucky to research, I have tried just about every possible online and available library resource to identify the parents of my second-great-grandmother Mary Alice Cain Read. Yesterday I tried a new tack in the search by reviewing what I already had on Mary Alice's children. Looking closely at an obituary for one of her daughters, I noticed a detail that I had overlooked which referenced a potentially living niece in Barren County. I was hoping that perhaps this person on the Read side might have information about the Cain family.

Using her name against public records in Ancestry.com and a Whitepages.com search, I was able to find a potential match. I took a leap that I might find them on Facebook, and sent an inquiry through the Facebook Messenger on the web to the niece's son. Within an hour I had a reply, with a suggestion to check with his Dad, also on Facebook. So I sent another message and went to bed.

This morning I received a reply, I've found some cousins! We're exchanging messages and they're checking local records to see if Mary Alice's parents names are listed in the funeral file from 1955. I'm glad I tried this alternate approach, and it really shows the power of the Internet to connect people across distances.

Photo by Patrick Jones. 7 Apr 2012.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Gardens at Dumbarton Oaks, DC.

Happy Birthday Dad

A special Happy Birthday to my Dad. The photo below is from last year's birthday dinner, which is also the same place as this year's birthday dinner. To many more birthdays.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Dad at Del Ray Cafe, Aug 2013.

A related post from 2012 is available here.

Filling in gaps

Last month I found some pictures of my grandmother Blanche O'Brien in the 1930 and 1931 Broad Ripple High School yearbook (see my 8 July post titled Riparian 1932). While in LA this past week, the helpful folks at Broad Ripple High School responded to an inquiry I had made over email, confirming that Blanche had graduated with the class of 1932. They're in the process of mailing copies from the yearbook and I'm looking forward to seeing this.

As I try to find alternate resources to present a more complete picture of the lives of my grandparents, and their parents in Indianapolis, Indiana, I run into problems with a lack of available information online. The archives of the Indianapolis Star would be a fantastic place to search, but these do not appear to be available online. In an attempt to fill in some of these gaps, I've reached out through social media to the Star. Here are some of the things I am hoping to find:

- An obituary for my grandmother Blanche from early December 1960
- Possible references to Blanche as a swimmer or swim coach at the Riviera Club or Indianapolis Athletic Club
- Articles on my great-grandfather Harry O'Brien that may have been in the Star between 1925-1957 on his clarinet reed business or as a musician
- An obituary for Harry from August 1957
- An obituary for my great-grandmother Blanche Lamon O'Brien from February 1976
- Any references to the restaurant Turner's Lunch, operated by my great-grandmother Elizabeth Lois Whitley Read Turner (she may have been in the paper as Lois Turner)
- Any articles on my great-grandparents Edgar Lawrence Jones or Alma Maude Oyler Jones

Beautify Lincoln Part 2

In a follow-up to my street art walk along Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica from 25 July, last Sunday 3 August I did another walk between Santa Monica and Venice. Here's a sampling of the walls that I was able to capture on camera.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Lincoln Boulevard, Santa Monica.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Santa Monica, 3 Aug 2014.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Lincoln Boulevard, Santa Monica.

Street Art Main Street Santa Monica

This set of photos is from a walk last Sunday through Main Street in Santa Monica, California.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Main Street, Santa Monica.

Photo by Patrick Jones. 3 Aug 2014.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Corner of Bay & Main, Santa Monica.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Santa Monica.

Photo by Patrick Jones. 3 Aug 2014.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Santa Monica, CA.

I'm now back from another week of meetings in LA. I have some new information on a few of my research lines and those will be highlighted in posts this week.

Marriage Record for Keith and Blanche

This morning's find from the Indiana marriage records on FamilySearch is a copy of the marriage record for my grandparents, Keith D. Jones and Blanche Allene O'Brien. They received their marriage license in Hamilton County, Indiana on 4 October 1941 and were married in Indianapolis on 11 October 1941.

Source: FamilySearch, Indiana Marriage Records

The upper portion of the marriage record is a great find, showing where they were both living in Indianapolis in 1941, their occupations, and information on both parents.

Source: FamilySearch, Indiana Marriage Records

Friday Photo - DC monuments

Photo by Patrick Jones. WWII Memorial & Lincoln Memorial.

Photo by Patrick Jones. 22 Jul 2014.