My Revolutionary War Ancestors

Since it is Independence Day I thought I would republish a story from long ago. This is the story of the family of my paternal grandmother whose maiden name was Scheetz. Her grandfather (my great, great grandfather) was named Iron Scheetz and when my dad and I started our genealogy search all we knew was that he came from Bucks County Pennsylvania. Eventually we traced his family to a Conrad Scheetz who came to Philadelphia before the American Revolution and eventually settled near Germantown Pennsylvania.  He married a local girl named Christiana Pflieger who lived near Germantown in Chestnut Hill. The Pfliegers lived in Chestnut Hill before, during and after the American Revolution and survived the Battle of Germantown. This is their story as pieced together by my dad and me. I hope you enjoy it.

I

Germantown Road - 1757

What is today known as Germantown Avenue is a very old road that began as an Indian path. From the commercial part of old Philadelphia the old Germantown Road headed northwest, eventually climbing Chestnut Hill where it forked. One fork would take the traveler to Plymouth Meeting. The other fork was the Bethlehem Pike. In 1753, Frederick Pflieger traveled as far as the forks where, instead of choosing a direction, he settled down to raise a family.

Little is known about Frederick Pflieger and it is not clear when he arrived in America. He might be the Georg Friderich Pflieger who arrived in Philadelphia from Rotterdam on the ship Richard and Mary on September 17, 1753.[i] That Frederick Pflieger appears on the Captain’s list as “Jurg Fredk Fleger” but he signed the oath of allegiance and the oath of abjuration as Georg Friderich Pflieger. There were, though, other Frederick Pfliegers in Pennsylvania in 1753 and, perhaps, the Frederick Pflieger of Chestnut Hill was related to one of them. He may have been a brother of Maria Caterina Pflieger who, in 1757, was the wife of Martin Hauser and lived just down the road from Pflieger.[ii]

Even less is known of Frederick Pflieger’s wife except that her name was Christiana. Did she come with him from Germany or did he meet her in America? No one knows. What is known is that Frederick and Christiana had four children who survived: Godfrey (Gottfried), George, Sarah, and Christiana. His daughter Christiana eventually married someone named Conrad Scheetz and our family is descended from them.[iii]

Frederick Pflieger was not one of the first settlers on Chestnut Hill, although the settlement was not very large when he arrived. Seventy years before, in 1684, William Penn granted 5,700 acres of land that became known as “the German Township” to a group of immigrants from Frankfort and the Palatine who were seeking religious freedom. The settlement was originally intended to have four villages (Germantown, Cresheim, Sommerhausen and Crefeld) situated along the Germantown Road, or the Great Road as it was called then. But the southern village, called Germantown, predominated over the others so much that the entire area became known as Germantown. Sommerhausen would eventually be known almost exclusively by its descriptive name of Chestnut Hill.[iv]

At that time the Great Road was still little more than a path that was almost impassable in the winter when it was muddy. Although the center of Philadelphia was only five miles away it took more than two hours to travel there from Germantown. Because of this, Germantown became a meeting place for the rural farmers who did not want to travel all the way to Philadelphia and the merchants of Philadelphia who wanted to trade salt, fish, seeds and dry goods for the produce of the farmers. Inns and stores were strung out along the Great Road.[v]

But Germantown was also filled with craftsmen, most of them German. By 1790 there were seven workshops for every one store in Germantown.[vi] The German immigrants who settled Germantown were a people for whom crafts were commonplace. From the first they spun flax and made linen. Weaving was a big industry in Germantown (cloth, linen and fustian) but there were also tailors, shoemakers, locksmiths and carpenters.[vii]

In Germantown, occupations included the leather crafts, woodworking and building crafts, metal crafts, food preparation, professionals and others. But tax and probate records from 1773 show that fabric crafts was the single biggest occupation; 57 Germantown men listed their occupation as something to do with the fabric crafts. Those working in fabric crafts included stocking weavers, general weavers, tailors, hatters, dyers, fullers and breeches makers.[viii]

Young Frederick Pflieger was one of these persons. He was a blue dyer.[ix] A blue dyer was the equivalent of a master dyer because blue was the most difficult color with which to dye. In the days before synthetic colors were invented, indigo was the source of blue coloring and indigo was difficult to work with. Blue dyers knew how to make the color stick and were a specialized part of the fabric industry.[x]

II

Frederick Pflieger – Blue Dyer

When Frederick Pflieger settled on Chestnut Hill, he bought a small piece of property fronting on the Great Road just below the forks. From what we can tell by looking at contemporary maps, it would today be located on Germantown Avenue between Highland Avenue and Evergreen Avenue on the right side of the street as you head out of Philadelphia toward the suburbs (it is hard to tell if that is north or east). Only one-acre, it originally had a small log house that had been built about fifteen years previously by a butcher named John Slaughter. The property had changed hands multiple times since Slaughter built the house and Pflieger bought the lot from a fellow named Jacob Souder. It is not clear if the dwelling was still a simple logg house or if the house had been replaced.[xi]

The new Pflieger property was next to a substantial two story stone building owned by John Shepherd (whom the Germans called John Schaeffer). Shepherd had purchased the property near the forks in 1738 and had constructed the building to be used as an inn where people traveling to and from Philadelphia could break their journey. Later he added a shop in which he sold goods to the locals as well as the travelers.[xii]

Living next to an inn may have been convenient for Pflieger especially if he was engaging in dye work for persons who weren’t local. Inns were where travelers stopped and that meant wagons and stage coaches stopped too. These vehicles could carry goods as well as passengers. Another Germantown blue-dyer, Jacob Beck, advertised in New Jersey that customers could “send their yarn, cloth, etc.,” to him by leaving it at a local inn in Trenton where the innkeeper would see that it was sent on to him. It is possible that Frederick Pflieger used Shepherd’s inn the same way. [xiii]

Although there is no record that explicitly states that Pflieger had his dye house on his property, there is no indication that he had any other property in the vicinity and most crafts did tend to be done at home. If Pflieger did his blue-dying at his Chestnut Hill property, what would it have been like? Asa Ellis published the first book in the United States on dying in 1798 and gave this advice:

"Your dyehouse should be sixteen or twenty feet square; well furnished with light and placed near a stream; water being essentially necessary for preparing your cloths, and for rinsing them when dyed. The floor should be made of leached ashes and it will soon become hard and render you more secure from fire.

"Your copper, or coppers, should be situated near the centre of the house; and the blue vat, about six feet from the coppers, in which you intend to heat the blue die.

"The size of your blue vat will be in proportion to the business you expect. The common size and dimensions are as follow; viz it should be five feet deep, three feet diameter at the top, and twenty inches at the bottom. Place your vat two feet in the earth, for the sake of conveniency; observe that its cover fit close. …"A copper or caldron is necessary for all dyers. The business cannot be carried on without one or more of them. Your largest copper should contain sixty, or seventy gallons. It should be set in a brick furnace; because that will heat your copper sooner. The top of the furnace, which encloses the copper ought to be six inches thick, so that you may plank the brick work, and nail the lip of the copper to the plank and plaister of the furnace. Then your copper, with care, can be kept clean, which is absolutely necessary.

…"Those, who intend to dye indigo blue, must have an iron kettle, that will hold a pailful, in order to grind indigo; and an iron ball, of twelve pounds weight; one of eighteen pounds is better. [xiv]

Operating a dye house would have been a smelly business because one of the key ingredients in blue dying was urine. The process of preparing the indigo was a delicate process.

The indigo had to be solubilized in order to be suitable for dyeing. In order to be solubilized the indigo had to be reduced or in other words "de-oxygenated." In the early days, the only satisfactory method for carrying this on was by a fermentation process wherein the required reducing conditions were set up. Both bran and madder as well as urine each contributed its own ferments and bacteria. One fermenting ingredient might give quick reducing action and then lose its power whereas another material might be slower but last longer. Hence the use of a combination of natural ingredients which would contribute various ferments to the bath. Only through long experience could a vat dyer tell when conditions were right. To plague him even more, the natural materials such as bran and madder varied from lot to lot in their fermenting power. An indigo vat had to be nurtured and tended as carefully as one might a child. The vat required the dyer's constant attention and care. No vat dyer of the old days could listen to a five o'clock whistle. In fact, the dyer's living quarters often were attached to the dyehouse so that he could constantly watch his vat and keep it in "the best of health."[xv]

That last sentence tells us that Frederick Pflieger’s dye house was probably on the one acre lot with the little log house.

Next to Pflieger, along the Great Road, was a three acre lot bought in 1751 by Jasper Scull son of the provincial Surveyor General. Scull was a blacksmith and built a small house on the property.[xvi] But in 1758 the Sculls sold the property to Martin Erdman, a shoemaker. It isn’t clear if this happened before or after the Pfliegers moved to Chestnut Hill. Martin Erdman lived until 1798 and his son stayed on Chestnut Hill, so the Erdmans would have been fixtures in the lives of the Pfliegers.[xvii]

Behind Pflieger, without any frontage on the Great Road, was a small tract of land with a house that had originally been built by the husband of one of John Slaughter’s daughters, Andrew Campbell, who was a carpenter. Presumably Campbell was still living there when the Pfliegers moved in although his wife, who is not listed in her father’s 1759 will, was probably dead. John Slaughter had another daughter, Elizabeth, who married in 1758, the year the Pflieger’s moved in. Her husband was Michael Millberger “a young victualler from the city” and, in 1760, Campbell sold the land to Millberger who was buying up land during that year. It isn’t clear if the Millbergers lived on that land or one of the other pieces of land that Millberger owned near that portion of the road, although if Campbell was a decent carpenter it was probably a fairly nice house. [xviii]

III

Frederick Pflieger and his Neighbors

The early years in Chestnut Hill could not have been easy for the Pfliegers. The winter of 1759 was severe and included a March snow that lasted 18 hours.[xix] There was also a war going on. The English colonists of Pennsylvania were fighting the French and Indians as part of a great world war known in Europe as the Seven Years War. The attacks by the French and Indians did not reach as far as Philadelphia, but it would have been a time of anxiety as travelers brought back news from the western reaches of Pennsylvania where fighting was going on.

In 1763, with the war finally over, the Pfliegers found they had a new neighbor. John Shepherd had sold his inn and his other acreage to Samuel Bachman, a saddler and innkeeper from Northhampton County.[xx]

That year also saw the opening of the first stagecoach line that went all the way to Bethlehem from Philadelphia. The stage stopped near the forks twice a week, on the way to and from Bethlehem.[xxi] Perhaps the Great Road had been improved as part of the war and could now handle wheeled traffic better than before.

Bachman only kept the Shepherd property a little more than ten years. In addition to running the tavern/inn, Bachman was a skin dresser. In 1774 he sold the portion of the property nearest the Pfliegers to Henry Cress, a hatter who had lived in the Chestnut Hill community a long time.[xxii] According to local lore, Cress continued to operate an inn while he carried on his trade as a hatter. In those days hatters worked mainly with animal skins, particularly beaver skins. The guard hairs of the beaver pelts would be removed by hand and then the remaining fur would be removed via a process using mercury. The removed fur, called fluff, was processed into hats. The hats would eventually be dyed.[xxiii] Perhaps Henry Cress worked with Frederick Pflieger to dye his hats.

Bachman sold the remainder of the Shepherd property to John Biddis, who like him was a skin dresser.[xxiv] Biddis would work with tanned or partially tanned hides and finish them with dye and glaze. Again, perhaps Frederick Pflieger worked with Biddis in dying his finished skins. One can only imagine what this portion of Chestnut Hill smelled like with Pflieger operating a dye house, Cress creating hats and Biddis dressing skins. Any smell must not have bothered the locals and travelers because, in addition to his principal trade, Biddis also operated a tavern called “The Bonny Jockey” on his premises.

IV

War Comes to Chestnut Hill

In 1775, Elizabeth Millberger, the neighbor of the Pfliegers, died.[xxv] Then, in April 1775 news reached Chestnut Hill of the altercations in the Massachusetts Bay colony between the colonists and the British army. Meetings were called to discuss the matter in Germantown.[xxvi] Whether Frederick Pflieger, Henry Cress and John Biddis attended the meeting is not known. Over the next year and a half the residents would learn that the British colonies were declaring independence from Britain, the colonial army had held off the British army in Massachusetts, the British had taken New York and, finally, armies were converging on Philadelphia.

In 1777 a Militia Act was passed ordering the enrollment of all able bodied men between the ages of 18 and 53. The new recruits in Chestnut Hill were made part of the First Company of the 2^nd Battalion of the Philadelphia County Militia. The First Company was further divided into classes which were to be called into service in rotation. Frederick Pflieger was in the 6^th Class.[xxvii] The first three classes were called up in the beginning of the summer.

Washington arrived at the beginning of August and on August 8^, 1777 the residents of Germantown and Chestnut Hill watched as 11,000 troops made their way from Philadelphia to Whitemarsh. The troops would have passed in front of the Pflieger’s home. The object was for the troops to encamp at Whitemarsh but news that General Howe was advancing caused a change in plans. The fourth class was called up to assist[xxviii].

Washington’s army was defeated at the Brandywine and marched back through Germantown in defeat a week later. The 5^th and 6^th classes, which included Frederick Pflieger, were called out to build “small redoubts” along the Schuylkill. The Great Road was filled with people fleeing Philadelphia.[xxix]

For a week, there was no news. Then on September 23, 1777 came word that the British were marching on Germantown. The defenses had not held. Two days later, on September 25 the predominantly German-speaking people of Chestnut Hill watched a column of the British Army go past heading into the village of Germantown. As the British Army settled into Germantown and September turned into October, the people tried to go on with their lives. The 5^th company with Frederick Pflieger was still presumably out with the colonial army while the people of Chestnut Hill made hay.[xxx]

Then on the morning of October 4, 1777, the people of Chestnut Hill woke to find that Washington was sending troops down the Great Road into Germantown. The Battle of Germantown had begun. Fortunately for the Pfliegers and their neighbors, Chestnut Hill was far enough away from the village of Germantown that they sustained no damage.

Washington’s action was unsuccessful and eventually the colonial troops streamed back past the Chestnut Hill residents in defeat, pursued by some British troops. On October 17 the British requisitioned all the horses in the area and entered Philadelphia. As the British moved out of Germantown the colonial forces cautiously moved in, leaving a force at Henry Cress’ place next door to the Pfliegers.[xxxi]

On October 22, 1777, the 7^th and 8^th classes were called out because the tours of the 5^th and 6^th classes were due to expire. Frederick Pflieger presumably came home with the others who had survived. Despite the nearby battle of Germantown, he would have found that Chestnut Hill had not suffered much damage.

The fortunes of the Chestnut Hill residents would change when, on December 5, 1777, General Howe, knowing the state of Washington’s army, decided to attack the American forces. 12,000 British troops headed to Chestnut Hill. In the lead were troops led by General Cornwallis.

Arriving at the forks about eight in the morning, the British Army halted to survey the situation. . Entering Matthias Busch’s house, General Howe found Matthias’ son Solomon in bed recovering from wounds received in battle and Matthias’ wife an expectant mother. Posting guards over the invalid and threatening the poor woman, General Howe established temporary headquarters in the place.

Once established on Chestnut Hill, Howe didn’t move at once.

All during the 6^th, the Army lay at Chestnut Hill, threatening such inhabitants as ventured out of doors, invading the houses of the defenseless villagers to ransack them for hidden arms and supplies … Informed by some disaffected person that Henry Cress’ house had been used as barracks by the outpost, the British plundered the house and set it afire.[xxxii]

After the war was over, Henry Cress’ widow Amelia would ask for restitution, stating that “during the invasion, the valuable house her husband owned near Germantown was occupied as a barrack by the Continental troops [and] that by information to the enemy it was consumed by fire.” In fact two of Henry Cress’s buildings were destroyed by fire. The damage to the Cress place was placed at ₤1275, second only to a claim by Julius Kerper who had one of the “best developed” farms in the area. The area near the forks appears to have been hard hit. Cress’s neighbor, Frederick Pflieger, claimed damages of ₤200 as did Pflieger’s neighbor on the other side, Martin Erdman. Michael Millberger estimated a loss of about ₤680 although it is not clear from which property. [xxxiii]

Eventually the British moved off the hill. But the war wasn’t over for Chestnut Hill. Through the winter the British passed along the Great Road regularly. Then in the spring, 2,000 British troops appeared at the forks. Although battle sounds could be heard in the distance, the troops on Chestnut Hill did not move.

It was not until later that the hill learned that the entire operation had been part of an abortive attempt by General Howe to surprise and trap the French general Lafayette who had been established with a fair force as an outpost at the Barren Hill church.

This was the last major action that Chestnut Hill and the Pfliegers witnessed. By July of 1778 the British had evacuated Philadelphia and the Continental Army was off in pursuit. But although the military was finished with Chestnut Hill the inhabitants were still affected by the war, especially because of the requisitioning of supplies and the devaluing of the continental currency.

The residents of Chestnut Hill tried to pick up the pieces left from the British. Some people left. John Biddis bought the small bit of property between his property and Henry Cress’s property that had a two story stone house on it which had been occupied by Michael Berndollar. The Hausers moved to Lancaster, so if Mrs. Hauser was Frederick Pflieger’s sister he lost a nearby family member. Although the militias were still called out, it seems that many men from Chestnut Hill preferred to pay the fines than to leave their homes.[xxxiv]

V

After the War

In 1783, with the war over, changes started to come to Chestnut Hill. John Biddis decided to move to Philadelphia and sell his property, presumably including the two story stone house he had purchased from Berndollar. Biddis, in addition to operating the Tavern and practicing the art of skin dressing was also a tinkerer. He invented a new white lead paint and decided to move to the city to exploit this idea.[xxxv] In July 1784, Frederick Pflieger purchased the portion of the Biddis place that had been the tavern for ₤425 and he and his wife moved down the road. Four years later they purchased the remainder of the property for ₤300. They rented their original property to their daughter Christiana and her new husband, Conrad Scheetz. They were married on November 11, 1784 at St. Michael’s church in Germantown.[xxxvi]

The origins of Conrad Scheetz are almost as much of a mystery as the origins of Frederick Pflieger. Conrad Scheetz came to Chestnut Hill during the revolution but it is not clear why. Although there were other residents on Chestnut Hill with the name of Scheetz (or, sometimes, Schutz), it does not appear that Conrad Scheetz was related to them. Among the group of original Crefeld investors who had purchased land from William Penn, one was named Scheetz but, although he purchased the land, he never emigrated and his wife eventually sold it back to the investor group. Some think that the various Scheetz families who showed up in Pennsylvania over the next fifty years were related to him and, so, indirectly related to each other. But this is simply a guess, no one ever proved it.

Conrad Scheetz was a hatter by trade. Of course the Pfliegers’ neighbor, Henry Cress, was also a hatter by trade so it seems probable Christiana Pflieger met Conrad Scheetz through Henry Cress.[xxxvii]

Some say Conrad Scheetz was the son of a papermaker named Scheetz who had settled in Germantown in 1737 and then moved away. But others say he is the Conrad Scheetz who emigrated aboard the ship Loyal Judith in 1743.[xxxviii] If he was, then he may have been as old as, or older than, Frederick Pflieger who may have immigrated in 1753 which might account for why Christiana outlived him by so long. According to Conrad Scheetz’ grandchildren, Conrad Scheetz was originally from Philadelphia and then moved to Germantown. Perhaps he was displaced by the war. According to his great-grandson Grier Scheetz, Conrad had two brothers, Philip (who settled in Montgomery County) and Jacob (who settled in Berks County). [xxxix]

On December 12, 1785, Christiana Scheetz gave birth to George Scheetz.[xl] When George was five years old, in 1790, his parents, who had been renting the house in Chestnut Hill from the Pfliegers, purchased the property for ₤22. They would also eventually buy the old Millberger property next door, giving them a frontage of 150 feet on the Great Road.[xli] According to the 1790 Federal Census Conrad Scheetz was living in Germantown in a household with four free white males of 16 years or older, three white males under the age of 16 years and 1 free white female. The female was obviously Christiana and the three children were George and his brothers Johannes and Jacob. One of the men was Conrad. Who were the three other men? They could have been workers. Or maybe at least one was related to Conrad or Christiana. The census records at the time have no additional information.

Christiana Scheetz’ father, Frederick Pflieger, died on November 19, 1806 according to probate records (according to his tombstone in St. Michael’s churchyard he died November 20, 1806, aged 80 years, 2 months and 18 days). His will was probated on January 2, 1807 in the Germantown Township, City of Philadelphia. He left the profit of his estate to his wife Christiana (that means she could use all the property but not sell it). After her death, the executors were to sell the “house wherein I dwell in Germantown Township” and the proceeds from the sale were to go to his son Godfrey “Pfleager”, his daughter Sarah Dedier (making clear that her husband Peter Dedier was to have no claim) and his grandson John Dedier. He also left a legacy to his daughter Christiana, the wife of Conrad “Schuetz”. The residue of the estate was to go to his sons George and Godfrey and his daughters Sarah and Christiana. His executors were his wife Christiana and his nephew George Jarrett. (We have not traced the connection to the Jarretts yet). The will was witnessed by, among others, George Cress who must have been the son of Henry Cress.[xlii]

We do not know how long his wife Christiana lived after Frederick died. Conrad Scheetz is said to have died not long after his father-in-law, in 1812.[xliii] We do not know when Christiana Pflieger Scheetz died, only that she survived Conrad by “many years”. Their son, George Scheetz, would also become a hatter but would eventually move to Bucks County where he became a teacher and was a founding member of Keller’s Church. He has descendents throughout Bucks County but one grandson, Iron Scheetz, moved west to St. Louis giving him descendents west of the Mississippi also.

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[i]Strassberger and Hinke, Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Volume I, 531-53-55, Lists201-A-B-C.

[ii]Roach, Hannah Benner. The Back Part of Germantown: A Reconstruction. The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, Monograph Series No. 7 (2001), p. 29. I tried to trace the Hausers to see if that would lead me anywhere but could find nothing.

[iii] Wills: Abstracts, Book 2 - Part A: 1806 - 1807: Philadelphia Co, PA , see will of Frederick Pflueger. There may, of course, have been other children who did not survive but these are the only children listed in his will.

[iv]Wolf, Stephanie Grauman, Urban Village: Population, Community and Family Structure in Germantown Pennsylvania, 1683-1800, Princeton University Press Princeton New Jersey 1976, p. 23.

[v] Wolf, p. 25.

[vi] Wolf, p. 103.

[vii] Wolf, p. 105

[viii] Wolf, p. 107

[ix] Roach, p. 29. The age of Pflieger can be computed from his tombstone. It was apparently the custom among the Pennsylvania Germans to put the exact number of years, months and days that the deceased had lived. Roach, per her footnotes, must have gotten her information on his profession from the Pennsylvania deed books which we’ve not been able to examine.

[x] Edelstein, Sidney, Coppers, Kettles and Vats: Equipment in Early Dyehouses, Transcribed from The American Dyestuff Reporter Vol 44, April 1955.

[xi] Roach, p. 29 and pp. 9-10. Roach’s book is the result of her examination of all the deed records for Chestnut Hill in the early years. The deed, which we have not yet been able to see, must describe the dwelling on the property. The original owner of the property was John Streeper William Streeper had come to Germantown with the first batch of settlers in 1683 and his land grant was very large. One of his children was John Streeper who ended up with a great deal of property. The land was mostly farmland and when Streeper died in 1740 his widow began selling off pieces including the one acre lot sold to John Slaughter in 1741 and the adjoining land sold to John Shepherd for use as an inn. It was Slaughter who erected a “logg house” on the lot. Streeper’s widow also sold a small half-acre lot below the Shepherd property to Samuel Channel. Later, Streeper’s son sold nine acres of land on the other side of the Channel property to Shepherd, and Shepherd used a narrow passage across the back of Channel’s lot to reach that property. Later part of this lower Shepherd land was sold to John Biddis who erected the tavern on it that Pflieger bought in his later years. According to Roach, the present Highland Avenue runs through part of the Channel property. In 1750 the Slaughters sold their lot and furnishings to a John Bertholt who must have been a speculator because he only held it ten days. (I suspect he was a creditor of Slaughter’s.) He sold it to John Rudolph of Roxborough who held it for three years and then sold the property to George Sterner. In 1753 Sterner sold the property to Jacob Souder. In 1758 Pflieger bought the lot from Souder.

[xii] Roach, p. 9. There is no explanation for why the Germans’ called Shepherd “Schaeffer”.

[xiii] http://trentonhistory.org/His/landmarks.html (See reference to the tavern called The Indian King).

[xiv]See, Edelstein.

[xv] See, Edelstein.

[xvi] Roach, p. 20 descrbes the purchase of the Scull land from William Streeper and the transfer of land to Campbell, p. 20 describes the sale to Martin Erdman .

[xvii] Roach, p. 65 gives the date of death of Erdman and transfer of the land to his son Andrew Erdman.

[xviii] Roach, pp. 20-21 describes the Campbell purchase and presumed death of Campbell’s wife; pp. 28-29 describes the various Millberger transactions.

[xix] Roach, p. 20

[xx] Roach, p. 32.

[xxi] Roach, p. 35.

[xxii] Roach, p. 45 describes the transaction with Henry Cress and his longevity on Chestnut Hill.

[xxiii] See, Tunis, Edwin, Colonial Craftsmen and the Beginnings of American Industry. The Johns Hopkins University Press (June 17, 1999) for a description of the art of colonial hatmaking.See also, http://www.whiteoak.org/learning/furhat.htm

[xxiv] Roach, p. 44 describes the transfers of the Bachman land to Cress, and Biddis. The old Channel property between Cress and Biddis was now owned by Michael Berndollar who was also a skin dresser..

[xxv] Roach, p. 45, fn. 141 states that Elizabeth Millberger aged 41 was buried in St. Michael’s Lutheran Cemetery on February 9, 1775.

[xxvi] Roach, p. 45 describes the news of the Revolution reaching Chestnut Hill.

[xxvii] Roach, pp 47-48 describes the Militia Act; see fn. 149 regarding the composite roll of the company and the Pennsylvania archives.

[xxviii] Roach, pp. 48-49 describes the passage of the troops.

[xxix] Roach, p. 49; fn 154 gives citations for the work of the 5^th and 6^th classes.

[xxx] Roach, p. 49-50; The haymaking was the week of September 27.

[xxxi] Roach pp. 50-51 describe the further activity by the British; see fn. 158 regarding billeting at Henry Cress’s place.

[xxxii]Roach, pp. 51-53 describes Howe’s intrustion upon Chestnut Hill which Roach claims comes from Ancient and Modern Germantown, by Hotchkiss.

[xxxiii] Roach, p. 53 and p. 51 fn. 158 describe the damage claims.

[xxxiv] Roach, pp. 55-56 deals with the remainder of the war.

[xxxv] Scharf, John Thomas, History of Philadelphia 1609-1884, L.H. Evarts & Co. (Philadelphia, 1884) p. 2229.

[xxxvi]Roach, p. 59.

[xxxvii] Roach, p. 59. All of Conrad’s grandchildren recalled that he was a hatter.

[xxxviii] Davis, pp. 383-384.

[xxxix] Battle, A History of Bucks County p. 1082 contains the recollections of Grier Scheetz. He recollects that his great- grandfather Conrad came from Germany and was one of three brothers: Philip, Jacob and Conrad. Philip settled in Montgomery County, Jacob settled in Berks County and Conrad settled in Philadelphia. Grier’s father was Charles and his grandfather was George Scheetz. Grier’s uncles Samuel (p. 1062), Edwin (p. 1062)) and Albert (p. 872) merely recollects that Conrad came “at an early date from Germany” and settled in Philadelphia. Grier’s father, Charles, (p. 744) recollected that Conrad “came from Germany and settled in Philadelphia, whence he went to Germantown, but later returned to the former place, where he died.” Since Grier is the next generation it is not clear why he would know more than his father and his uncles but maybe he did. In any event, the Philadelphia Directory for 1811 (the year before Conrad died) shows Conrad Scheetz, hatter, at 415 North Front Street (p. 278).

[xl] Conrad and Christiana Scheetz would eventually have eleven children: George (December 12, 1785); Johannes Georg (August 21, 1786); Jacob (September 19, 1788); William (Wilhelm) (November 25, 1793); Elizabeth (November 28, 1795), Maria (April 15, 1798), Charles (Carolus) (March 15, 1800), Christina (December 14, (1801), Samuel (February 23, 1804), Sarah (no known date) and Christina Jacobina (August 20, 1806). See Records of St. Michael’s Evangelical Lutheran Church Germantown 1741-1841 Volume I compiled and edited by Frederick S. Weiser and Debra D. Smith GGRS, Picton Press, Rockport Maine 1998 and tombstone of George Scheetz. The Christina who was born in 1801 died April 10, 1804 per her tombstone in St. Michael’s churchyard. The information about Sarah and Samuel comes from Grier Scheetz’ biography in Battle’s A History of Bucks County. Grier says that Conrad had eight children: Sarah, Eliza and Mary; and Smauel, Jacob, William, Charles and George. Perhaps Sarah was really the last Christina that didn’t die. Samuel is a mystery but there is no Johannes listed in Grier’s memory.

[xli] Roach, pp. 59-60. Roach identifies Conrad as the son of Conrad Scheetz the papermaker but there is no documentary evidence of this. Roach does cite certain records in the Orphans books but this seems inconclusive. The Millbergers had sold their property in 1781 to Michael Friedly and in 1791 Friedly sold the property to George Consor who was married to Michael Millberger’s daughter Barbara. Six months later the Consors sold to Conrad Scheetz.

[xlii] Wills: Abstracts, Book 2 - Part A: 1806 - 1807: Philadelphia Co, PA

[xliii] I am not sure where the date 1812 came from, I'm still checking that out.

June 2025 Reading

The beginning of the month was a very slow book month for me. I just could not seem to get myself to focus on reading (probably because of <waves arms around>).  I finally gave up, went to some libraries and stocked up on some mysteries I'd been wanting to read.  That did the trick. I also continue on my year-long reading of Don Quixote. 

These are the books I finished in June. 

Precipice by Robert Harris

It is the summer of 1914 and Britain is in the middle of some significant "Irish troubles" and, unbeknownst to them, on the verge of World War I. The Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith, has a lot on his plate. To add to the stress in his life, he has become smitten with Venetia Stanley, a socialite less than half his age and a member of his son's group of friends. He writes to her at least once daily and takes her on long drives in the country every week. He frets if she doesn't respond to his letters immediately. These are the days when there were 12 mail deliveries every day in London - writing a letter was almost the equivalent of texting. As Britain slides slowly into war and as the war goes on the Prime Minister obsesses over his relationship with Venetia and begins to share more and more confidential information with her. This comes to the attention of Scotland Yard who assigns a young intelligence officer to look into things. Harris tells us that the intelligence officer is fictitious but Asquith and Venetia were real people and Venetia preserved all the letters he wrote to her (her letters were destroyed and Harris must create her side of the correspondence). This is the third Harris novel I've read and each of them has been totally different:  The Second Sleep had a seemingly medieval setting; Act of Oblivion involved two men who signed the death warrant for Charles I being pursued all the way to the New World by agents of Charles II; and now this novel is set amongst the high society of WWI London.  And I've enjoyed each of them.  I will warn that this novel sometimes gets into the weeds of WWI. This was not a problem for me as I love WWI fiction but some might find it a little too much. But the relationship between Asquith and Venetia does hold the attention. 

It's Easier Than You Think by Sylvia Boorstein

I listen to the "Currently Reading Podcast" each week and two different hosts recommended this book at different times. Both of them read it after going through personal losses. I didn't realize before I picked it up that it was basically a beginner Buddhism book. That was ok because, even though I'm not a Buddhist, it had a lot of good insights into putting your life in perspective. It is written in very simple terms with examples. I don't think I would rave about it like both of them did (I think one of them put it on the list of best books she read last year) but I'm also not in the middle of a personal crisis either. I did like it and am not sorry I read it. 

Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin

Kauser Khan is a recent widow who hasn't visited her old hometown, Toronto, in the 20 years since her son died. Her daughter and grandchildren have had to travel to visit her ever since. But now her daughter is suspected of murder and needs her. Part of this story is Mrs. Khan being able to face her old self and her old neighborhood in Toronto and part is her solving the mystery. I suspect this is the first in a series since, although the mystery is solved (and I didn't guess until the end), there are still unexplained loose threads. Jalaluddin is, apparently, an established writer of romance novels and this is her first cozy mystery. She did a good job establishing the characters and, as I said, I didn't automatically guess who dunnit. It's also always nice to see an older woman as the main character. 

A Decline in Prophets by Sulari Gentill
Miles Off Course by Sulari Gentill
Paving the New Road by Sulari Gentill

These are books #2, 3 and 4 in the Rowland Sinclair Mystery Series that I started a few months ago. My libraries only had the first book in digital form so I had to track down hard copies of some of the next in the series and when I found them I picked up books 2-6.  In A Decline in Prophets Rowland and his friends are on their way back to Australia from Europe via New York, on an ocean liner in the early 1930's.  Murders ensue. I'm always fascinated by ocean liner travel back in the days when it took weeks if not months to travel across oceans and this certainly had a sense of place.  Miles Off Course takes place in a more remote part of Australia where Rowland and friends are searching for a missing person. Paving the New Road takes the group to Germany in the 1930's. I liked this one the least, partly because I easily guessed who the bad guy was (and easily guessed who their woman friend was) but mostly because it made me sick to my stomach to see how similar are the times we are living in.  Again, Gentill is wonderful at giving a very specific sense of place. Books 2 and 3 were good mysteries; although I had suspicions about many characters it wasn't until the end that I honed in on the murderers. I will look forward to getting to know the characters even better as the series progresses. I still have the next 2 library books that I need to read before they are due.  

The Dying Day by Vaseem Khan
The Lost Man by Vaseem Khan

Back in February I read Midnight at the Malabar House by Vaseem Khan which I described as Slow Horses but in Post-War Bombay. The main character, Persis Wadia, is the first female police officer on the force but since they didn't know what to do with a female police officer they assigned her to Malabar House. While browsing books at the library I found the next two books in this series and immediately snatched them up.  The Dying Day involves the theft of a rare copy of Dante's Divine Comedy; The Lost Man involves solving the identity of a body discovered in the Himalayas. Both books involve Persis navigating the sexism of the Bombay police force. I really like this series, it has well-drawn characters and a good sense of place and the mysteries are set up very well. I didn't immediately guess whodunnit in either book. Unfortunately my libraries don't have any of the remaining books in the series so I may have to actually purchase them if I want to continue the series. 

The Case of the Missing Maid by Rob Osler

This is a brand new mystery novel that is clearly meant to be the first in a series. It is 1898 in Chicago and Harriet Morrow has just been hired (on a probationary basis) as an investigator at a detective agency. They have never had a woman detective before and Harriet must navigate many hurdles. For her first case she is sent to investigate a missing maid at the home of her boss's neighbor. He thinks it will amount to nothing but it becomes very complicated. The blurb describes Harriet as a "bike-riding, trousers wearing lesbian" which is accurate but a bit reductive. Harriet is a complicated person.  I liked this novel and will definitely read more.  Harriet is an interesting character and Osler created a variety of interesting side characters. Osler also used Chicago as a great backdrop, creating a good sense of place. If you are at all familiar with Chicago you will enjoy seeing the various neighborhoods at the turn of the last century. (Part of the plot takes place in my sister's old neighborhood back in the day when the entire population was Polish.)  And I didn't guess whodunnit.  In many ways this reminded me of Amy Stewart's Miss Kopp series although it takes place in a different city and in a slightly earlier time. 

A Long Way From Home by Peter Carey

This seemed to be my month to read novels set in Australia.  This 2018 novel by Peter Carey takes us on a 1950's car race around the entire continent of Australia and we see it principally through the eyes of Irene Bobs, a woman who loves to drive. Her husband is a good car salesman and wants a licensed car dealership.  Irene hopes winning the race will be the kind of publicity they need to make a successful dealership.  As their navigator they take on their next-door neighbor, former quiz show champion Willie Bachhuber. Things become interesting for all of them as they head out of white Australia into the outback.  Carey wants to show us, through a humorous story, the clash between white culture and the ancient aboriginal culture. I liked the idea of this novel and I liked the character of Irene but it disappointed me as far as a sense of place went. I never really had a "feel" for most of the landscapes because Carey was so focused on the driving.  Late in the novel it takes an unexpected turn and I thought it was interesting but really slowed down the narrative. 

Come From Away - The Muny 2025

On the north-east tip of North America, 

On an island called Newfoundland,

There's an airport.

It used to be one of the

biggest airports in the world.

And next to it is a town called Gander.

I admit to a bit of apprehension before I arrived at The Muny last night. Come From Away is one of my favorite shows but it is a small show and The Muny is a big stage (not to mention the 11,000 seat audience). But I reminded myself that long ago I saw Carol Burnett and Rock Hudson in I Do I Do, a two person show, at The Muny and it was great. I needn't have worried, artistic director Mike Isaacson always seems to know what he is doing at The Muny. 

On September 11, 2001, after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the airspace of the United States was shut down and all incoming planes were diverted. 38 jumbo jets landed at the airport in Gander, Newfoundland carrying 7,000 passengers which was more than the population of the town itself. Gander could handle all of the incoming flights because the airport had been built in the days when planes could not make it across the Atlantic without a refueling stop. Gander's airport was the final re-fueling stop on the trip. As the characters point out, EVERYONE used to stop in Gander - the Beatles, Fidel Castro, the Queen. With the advent of the newer jets the stops were unnecessary but the big airport remained. 

The town of Gander itself did not, however, have facilities for 7,000 guests and so the people of Gander and the nearby towns banded together to take in the "plane people". They housed, fed and comforted 7,000 people until the airspace was re-opened a few days later.  

All of the characters in the musical are based on real people and each actor plays multiple parts, switching accents and costumes as needed. Heidi Blickenstaff, a Broadway veteran, made an excellent Muny debut playing the dual roles of Beverly, the captain of an American Airlines jet, as well as a teacher at the local academy that houses many of the plane people. Local talent Zoe Vonder Haar played Beulah, the head of the school, as well as a number of minor roles. Ashley Brown and John Bolton principally played Diane and Nick, two plane people who meet and are attracted to each other, but both also played other small roles. Abigail Isom was Janice, the TV reporter who was new to her job. Trey DeLuna and Jason Tam played the two Kevins, a gay couple whose relationship is challenged by the circumstances. DeLuna also played Ali, the Egyptian man who is among the passengers (he looked familiar to me and I later realized he had played the same roles in the national tour that I saw last year). Alan Green was Bob, the man from New York who suffered from anxiety. Finally, Adam Heller played Claude the mayor of Gander as well as others including the Mayor of Appleton. There wasn't a weak link in the entire cast. 

The original Broadway production utilized a rotating stage to show scene changes on a minimalist set. The touring company, knowing that many theaters don't have rotating stages, re-choreographed it so that scene changes were done solely through movement of the characters. The Muny combined those approaches. There is a rotating stage (a quite large one) and it was utilized but not in the same way as the Broadway production. Scenic designer Edward E. Haynes, Jr. and director Seth Sklar-Heyn designed a large but simple set on the rotating stage. When viewed from the front there are a series of rising levels with the minimalist chairs and tables that can be moved around to show different scenes. When the stage rotates the back is a sheer drop that can be used as a backdrop for other scenes or that the characters can look out from. 

I thought it worked reasonably well at filling the big Muny stage. I think it would have worked better if the lighting design had managed to have the spots always pick up the characters as they sang, Diane is a big role but often it seemed that her character was in the back (albeit higher on the risers) and it was hard to pick her out when she was singing. 

The production was enhanced by the use of projections on the huge rear wall what appeared to be real archival footage from Gander from those days. All in all, while I like the original design and choreography better, I thought the design worked and I enjoyed the production. 

The story of the kindness of the people of Gander to the plane people is heart warming without being maudlin. It is good to be reminded of how lucky we are to have good Canadian neighbors. 

On a personal level, I used to work with a man who was on one of the flights diverted to Gander. He and his wife were returning from Europe when they were diverted. I remember him telling me about this in 2008 and saying that they still kept in touch with their Gander hosts. 

We lucked out in terms of weather. The Muny is an outdoor theater and patrons are subject to the whims of the weather gods. The threatened thunderstorms did not materialize, the horrible humidity we have been having for the last week dropped enough to be bearable and there were occasional breezes to cool us off. 

Come From Away plays through July 2 and if you can get there I recommend it. 

Don Pasquale - June 2025

                                            photo from OTSL - Susanne Burgess and Sheri Greenawald

Way back in 1976 a group of St. Louis opera lovers decided to create Opera Theatre of St. Louis. The first opera performed was Don Pasquale. Norina was sung by a very young Sheri Greenawald, who would go on to sing in opera houses around the world. 

For this, its 50th anniversary season, OTSL chose Don Pasquale as the centerpiece opera of its Festival Season and it brought Sheri Greenawald back, not as Norina but as a delightful onstage presence as "the notary".  

The notary is a very small role, appearing in the second act only as the "fake" notary documenting the "fake" marriage of Don Pasquale. (It's a complicated story.)  But OTSL enlarged the role, putting Greenawald onstage throughout the opera as a silent conspirator with Dr. Malatesta, Ernesto and Norina. And she was delightfully humorous and in Norina's final aria, the stage was yielded to Greenawald for a few bars, making it the perfect anniversary night.

The role of Norina in this production was sung by Susanne Burgess, a British-American soprano with an exquisite voice and perfect comic timing. Don Pasquale is in the bel canto style and I must admit that it is not usually my favorite style - I sometimes think that the singers get so caught up in the singing that they forget to act.  Not Burgess!  Her voice was part of the act, at one point intentionally waking up a sleeping cafe patron with a high note. Patrick Carfizzi, a regular at the Metropolitan Opera, played the old (lecherous) Don Pasquale and had equally perfect comic timing. After the fake wedding Norina turns from a shy young convent girl into a shrew who spends all his money and the two play off of each other perfectly (don't worry, it's all part of a plot to allow Norina to marry Pasquale's nephew). 

This was a delightful production. Although the chorus only sings in Act III, they were onstage through much of the opera.  This production set Act I in an Italian Bar (Cafe) where Sheri Greenawald is the silent owner (?) and barista.  The chorus appears as comic background as very old, decrepit customers and friends of Don Pasquale in the cafe.  In Act II, at the home of Don Pasquale they appear again as his old, decrepit friends but after Norina tricks him into the fake marriage they throw off their disguises signaling that Don Pasquale's life, as he knew it, is over and revealing that some of them are women.  In the third act they are Norina's gender fluid friends whom Don Pasquale can't stand. There is a lot of symbolism in this production about the harms of the patriarchy. 

The production was directed by Christopher Alden who, at age 25, directed that very first Don Pasquale at OTSL. I did not see that production (I was still in high school) but it was apparently a more traditional production. In this production Alden let his imagination run wild to good effect. Marsha Ginsburg's set and costume designs were simple but eye-catching, starting with a fairly realistic cafe setting and then getting more and more unreal as the antics went on.  At one point Norina is on top of a cart with a top that turns her around (like the little ballerinas in jewelry boxes).  I also  must make a special call out to Eric Southern's lighting design.  And conductor Kensho Watanabe, making his OTSL debut, holds everything together conducting the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in the pit. 

Altogether a delightful evening at the opera.  Here's to 50 more seasons!

This House - June 2025

Opera Theatre of St. Louis has what is called a "Festival Season".  Every year from the end of May to the end of June it presents four operas, a different opera on each night. There is a tent on the lawn where opera-goers can picnic before the opera, grab drinks at intermission and mingle with the cast after the opera. 

Back when I used to curate a largish group of season ticket holders I would send out an email each year describing the four operas for the season.  There were always the two "big draw" operas - old standards that the public loved and would draw the big crowds.  La Boheme.  La Traviata.  This year they are Don Pasquale and Die Fledermaus. There was always one opera that I labeled "rarely performed" - although that wasn't entirely accurate. They are better described as operas performed less than the big draws. They tended to be older. Last year it was a Handel opera. 

Then there was the fourth opera, the "modern opera".  Something written in the 20th and now the 21st century.  Often the best thing we could say about the modern opera was that it was short. 

But about 10 or 15 years ago things began to change. As we moved into the 21st century the "modern operas" began to be more melodic and began to have interesting stories.  Opera Theatre began to commission modern operas and also premiered operas that it didn't commission.  Two operas by Terence Blanchard were premiered at Opera Theatre and ended up being performed in New York at the Metropolitan Opera. I've now grown to look forward to the modern opera each season. 

This year's "modern opera" is a world premier opera called This House and it is one of the best operas (not just one of the best "modern operas") that I've ever seen produced at Opera Theatre. In the story, Zoe Walker returns, with her husband, to the Harlem brownstone owned by her family since the 1920's. He believes that, now that she is pregnant, this will be a good family home for them.  Zoe isn't sure and asks to go into the house alone while he goes to get coffee. In the house she asks her mother and brother if they would be open to a renovation of the house.  But the house is filled with the ghosts of family who lived there in the past and Zoe must face some truths that she was either never told or has blocked out from her memories. As the librettists write in the program, the Walker family is tethered to the brownstone but it is unclear if they are protectors or prisoners.

The story was begun by Ruby Aiyo Gerber who wrote it as a play while she was getting her undergraduate degree at Brown University during the pandemic. She then worked on the libretto with her mother, Lynn Nottage.  Nottage is the only woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice - first in 2009 for Ruined and next in 2017 for Sweat.  Nottage seems to give credit to the poetry of the lyrics to her daughter.  The composer gives credit to Nottage's play writing experience for creating a scaffold that keeps the narrative taut. 

The composer is Ricky Ian Gordon. Although the music is "operatic" he uses different themes for the many characters (ghosts of the past) and brings in jazz, ragtime, hints at popular music and other genres of the 20th century. He says it is a musical walk through the last 100 years of American music. At a pre-opera lecture, the speaker said that Gordon orchestrated the music himself (although Gordon says he worked together with someone else) and said that the orchestrations are "very cinematic", and I agree. 

I must commend the cast who not only sang beautifully but had acting chops equal to any dramatic repertory company. Briana Hunter sang Zoe beautifully and carried us along in her story. Adrienne Danrich, originally from St. Louis, was the mother Ida and held my eyes even when she was sitting in a corner knitting. Justin Austin was Zoe's twin brother Lindon.  I saw him last year as Figaro in The Barber of Seville and I think he has a long career ahead of him. And the remainder of the large cast was equally as good. 

There are surprises in the story, some predictable and some not.  I will not give any spoilers but I will say that had tears in my eyes as the story neared its end. 

There is one more performance on June 29 and anyone nearby should try to see it.  But I also have no doubt that this opera will be picked up by other opera companies around the country and probably the Met. 

Die Fledermaus - June 2025

Back in 1984 my friends and I were looking for a "festive" show to attend. I'm pretty sure it was the holiday season and we did not want to see The Nutcracker. I was a big fan of musical theater and liked Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. Somehow I convinced my friends that the thing to do was attend a production of Die Fledermaus. It was an "off season" production from the young (under 10 years old) Opera Theatre of St. Louis at the old American Theater in downtown St. Louis. I remember that night. The theater was old and we were in the balcony. The operetta didn't have much of a coherent plot but it had exquisite music. The evening was a hit.

The next year, during Opera Theatre's "off season" they did a production of The Beggar's Opera in the upper ballroom at the Sheldon Concert Hall. I organized the same group to go. We enjoyed it again. 

Hey, we said, if we've enjoyed these two productions maybe we should go to a "real" opera during the season. Opera Theatre has a short festival season that runs from the end of May through the end of June during which they perform four operas. We decided to go for broke and get season tickets to all four productions for the 1986 season.

Until 2020, when the world shut down, I didn't miss a season. This year is the 50th anniversary and it is the 40th anniversary of that first performance I saw in 1984. How appropriate (for me) that one of the operas this season is Die Fledermaus. 

I saw a matinee performance today and it was such fun. It is a glorious production. Re-imagined to take place in 1959 New York, it still has a plot that isn't particularly coherent but the music is still exquisite. The Eisensteins (Gabriel and Rosalinde) are a suburban couple. Gabriel is old friends with Dr. Falke on whom he played a trick in the past. Falke pretends that he didn't mind but he plans "revenge" in the form of an embarassing prank. He arranges for Gabriel, Rosalinde, and their maid Adele all to be invited to a costume party being thrown by a Russian Prince at his nightclub in Greenwich Village. None of them know the others will be there. What follows is a wacky tale of "disguises, flirtations and comic deceptions" as Opera Theatre puts it. All set to the music of Johan Strauss II - the Waltz King. 

Robert Innes Hopkins designed the sets and costumes. Act One takes place in the Eisensteins' mid-century modern kitchen complete with 1950's teal colored metal cabinets, a pink refrigerator and stove and Saarinen designed table and chairs. Act Two is in the nightclub in Greenwich village, all black and red with a long bar in the back on which various cast members end up at various times. Act Three is the police station, which in comparison is somewhat spare but has a circular station for the duty officer. The costumes, especially in Act 2 are eye catching and in the crowd at the costume party we spotted Andy Warhol and Barbie, among other costumes (or maybe Warhol was supposed to be real?). 

The voices were perfect for this. Edward Nelson, as Gabriel, had a strong tenor voice that matched well with Joshua Blue's Dr. Falke and the gorgeous soprano of Sara Gartland as Rosalinde. Deanna Breiwick, as Adele the maid, also had a lovely soprano voice. But almost as importantly, the whole cast could act - sometimes that isn't true. 

But my favorite part of the opera was the beginning.  There is a long overture with lots of beautiful Johan Strauss music. During the overture the prank pulled on Falke by Gabriel is acted out - taking place on a New York subway platform and then on the subway as both of them are very drunk. They are coming from a costume party and Falke is dressed as Batman. Die Fledermaus means "the bat" and the operetta is known as the Revenge of the Bat. The choreography of this subway scene, with members of the cast getting on and off the subway, is very creative, very funny and sets the tone for the rest of the operetta. 

George Manahan conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in the pit. The music is glorious, I left humming. 

May 2025 Reading

Throughout May I kept thinking that it was a bad month for reading. Looking back on it, though, although I read fewer books than usual in May, I read longer and more complex books than I have been able to get through in recent months. 

These are the books I finished in May.

These Days by Lucy Caldwell

It is a deficiency in my education that I never knew that Belfast suffered a Blitz during WWII. This novel begins in April, 1941 right before the first bombing. There also is another bombing on the Tuesday after Easter. The final bombings were at the beginning of May. The novel is divided into three parts (one part for each bombing) and follows the lives of one family: the father Philip is a doctor at the local hospital, the mother Florence is still in grief over the loss of her first love in World War I and trying to find a purpose in life now that her children are mostly grown, oldest daughter Audrey is dating a (controlling) doctor named Richard who works with her father, middle daughter Emma is a volunteer and in a secret relationship with a women, and son Paul is too young to really feel the panic. There is also Mrs. Price, the family's daily help, as well as Betty who comes in to help her. Caldwell also briefly introduces another somewhat middle class family with a young daughter named Maisie. The bombings change all of them, and Belfast, forever. Along the way the women in the novel grapple with cultural expectations and changing times. This novel won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2023 which is why I picked it up - I'm not usually one for WWII novels. I learned a lot and it was very sad but I never really became invested in the characters. For instance, Maisie and her family tell a part of the story of the Blitz but the characters don't seem to exist other than for that purpose. This novel has a very good sense of place and some of the individual stories are compelling but as a whole I had trouble with the narrative flow and I kept putting it down for days at a time. 

The Trees by Percival Everett

It is hard to categorize this novel and it really needs more than a paragraph to really describe it. It starts out as a murder mystery but moves into horror (including zombies) but is also very funny. I mean laugh out loud funny. The action begins in Money Mississippi sometime during the first Trump administration although the racial attitudes seem to still be stuck in the 1940's. The (white) sheriff is perplexed. There is a murder of a white man whose body is castrated. A dead black man is found with him, holding the white man's testicles. Did the black man kill the white man? But then how did the black man die? Then the body of the black man disappears from the morgue, and reappears with another dead white man who is also castrated. How did the body disappear? Two (black) detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation are sent to assist, to the chagrin of the Sheriff (and the town). Eventually the FBI gets involved. Everyone agrees that the whole thing is strange. And things just keep getting stranger.  Everett takes as his starting point a true story - the lynching of Emmet Till, a boy who was accused of speaking to (and touching) a white woman. The woman, years later, said she lied about it. The two dead men at the start of this novel are descendants of the killers of Till. I don't want to give too much away but this is a novel that is enjoyable AND thought provoking. 

Breaking Creed by Alex Cava

This is the first book in a mystery series but I think the main character is a spinoff from another series (because the person who seems to be from the other series and the main character here have a past). I've had this series on my TBR for a long time because it is a mystery with dogs. Ryder Creed, an ex marine, trains dogs to do various searches and then hires himself and them out to law enforcement. This story involves a drug cartel and human trafficking. I'll probably read another of these although it was a little bit more violent than I usually like.  

Under Lock and Skeleton Key by Gigi Pandian

This is another mystery (first in a series) that has been on my TBR for a while. The premise is good. Tempest Raj is a magician with a big successful Las Vegas show but something goes wrong that puts the whole audience in danger and she ends up broke and back at home with her widowed dad and grandparents. Her dad runs a construction company that installs secret rooms and hidden staircases in homes. When a body is found in a secret room on his latest job, it isn't clear if the victim was actually intended to be Tempest. This is a locked room mystery which I generally like, but I did not like this book because I did not like Pandian's writing style. At first I thought maybe this was first novel problems, but it wasn't. Not even close; she's written a number of novels. Pandian does a lot of "telling", not "showing" and most of her telling is, in my opinion, just unnecessary. Here is an example where Tempest is visiting a friend:  "Tempest hopped onto a window seat in front of the ceiling-high wall of windows in this industrial live-work apartment in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco known as SOMA."  None of that detail was necessary or added anything to the scene. That's what the whole novel is like. This novel was not for me at all. 

Radio Girls by Sarah Jane Stratford

In 1926 Maisie Musgrave, a Canadian with a secretarial certificate, is living in London looking for a way to support herself. There is an opening for a secretary at the BBC, a public corporation in charge of radio broadcasting, which is still fairly new. Maisie surprises even herself by getting the job and ends up working as an assistant to the secretary to the Director General of the BBC himself.  But she discovers that she is also to be "shared" by the head of "Talks" programming, a woman named Hilda Matheson.  Sarah Jane Stratford, in an afterward, tells us that she was fascinated by the career of Hilda Matheson and wanted to write about it and the early days of the BBC which was one of the few places that hired women for important jobs. Stratford weaves in a tale of incipient fascism to be discovered and revealed (although this book was published in 2016 there are many parallels to today unfortunately) that was interesting but I thought was ultimately unnecessary - the story of the BBC was enough. I did enjoy this novel. Maisie is our point of view character but Stratford doesn't make her too naive or stupid to be annoying, just an outsider needing to ask a lot of questions. 

 Air-Borne:  The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe by Carl Zimmer

Last year, one of my 10 favorite books of the year was She Has Her Mother's Laugh by Carl Zimmer. That was a book about genetics (broadly). This latest book is about aerobiology, the study of what's alive (or can stay alive) in our atmosphere. It traces, among other things, the quest to prove whether some diseases, like tuberculosis and measles, can be transmitted through the air (spoiler alert:  they can). He starts at the beginning with the discredited theories of miasmas, and takes us through history including the attempts to catch germs in the air by Louis Pasteur, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earheart. He scares us (at least, he scared me) with the attempts by the US Military to perfect biological warfare with anthrax and other matters. And he frustratingly recalls the early days of COVID where we were told that washing our hands and not touching our eyes was enough to protect us. Zimmer writes for, among others, the New York Times and he has the ability to relate a compelling narrative in terms "Everyman" can understand.  I fully expect this book will be on my list of favorite books of 2025.

Shadowplay by Joseph O'Connor

In April I read and very much enjoyed My Father's House by Joseph O'Connor, which probably will go on my list of favorite books of 2025. This month I read his 2020 Walter Scott Prize-winning novel Shadowplay. The main character is Bram Stoker who is known as the author of Dracula. What I never knew was that he supported himself as the manager of the Lyceum Theater in London, and as the personal assistant to its owner the great actor Henry Irving. O'Connor tells Stoker's story through snippets of letters, newspaper articles and bits of unfinished autobiography (all fictional) of Stoker. The novel revolves around Stoker's relationship with Irving, a mercurial figure, and with the great British actress Ellen Terry (sort of the Meryl Streep of her day).  At night the sleepless Stoker wanders the streets of London at the same time that Jack the Ripper is at large.  He writes unsuccessful books in his free time, all the while gathering subconsciously the bits and pieces that will eventually become Dracula. O'Connor doesn't try to recreate the writing process but as the novel goes on the reader who remembers Dracula will notice where certain ideas came from. And if you have never read Dracula, you simply won't notice those and will just enjoy the story. This is a very good novel; I really like O'Connor's writing style. I think for the general reader they would like My Father's House a little bit better - it is more of a thriller. People who enjoy theater and/or Dracula will like this novel which provides a wonderful look backstage at a Victorian theater.