kuglen.com

1900 Kuglens

Here are the young Kuglens – for most of us, our Grandparents – out side the house in North Wheeling.  I can’t tell if they are in the front of the house or the back of the house, but I am sure someone will look at it and be able to tell.

While Mom was in Wheeling last week, George Carenbauer took her to Historic North Wheeling and the visited the house.  For those of you who don’t know, George is my mom’s nephew, an attorney in Charleston W VA, and the man who keeps unearthing information about the Kuglens in Wheeling.  He discovered that the house is part of the Historic North Wheeling, and that “…629 ½ Market Street, circa 1885 – Samuel Kuglen, who built 629 ½ , was a noted businessman in Wheeling.He was a builder of boilers for steamboats among other products manufactured by the firm of Duffield & Kuglen. The house is Greek Revival in style, with much of the original fabric remaining. There is a wide frieze at the cornice with sodillions and dentils, a gable dormer with closed pediment, and fluted columns at the windows. The pediment is filled with a sunburst design. Lintels and sills are stone and the building is brick with a stone foundation. All windows have operable shutters.”  While he was with mom,  ”We were at an antique store yesterday, where the shopkeeper is a steamboat buff and has written 2 books on steamboat manufacturing in Wheeling.  He said he believes Kuglen & Duffield was a subcontractor to Phillips (sic) the major manufacturer, which had its shipyard at 6th street on the Ohio Rive, only 2 blocks down from the house.”   I remember hearing when I was little the legend of Sam Kuglen, who shuttled the capital of West Virginia on a steamboat back and forth on the river (I am guessing the Allegheny)  during the Civil War.  Is this the man or is he one more generation removed?

Here are some up close photos of the house taken last week:

Kuglen House backyard

Steps leading to the back door of the Kuglen house

The door to nowhere

A view of the street

629 1/2 !!

Joan and Dick in front of the Kuglen house

I couldn’t think of enough superlatives to thank George for doing this – taking the photos, taking Mom and Dick down to the house and showing it to them, and gathering the information.  I went to the dictionary and looked under

AWESOME

and this is what I found :

Thanks George – we think you are the best!

Back in May, Vanity Fair did a cover article on Grace Kelly, style icon, and there are two pictures in the magazine of her wearing a hat designed by none other than – GREAT AUNT MARCELLINE! According to Charlotte: “. . .here goes some family news. In the May 2010 Vanity Fair Magazine, there is a story of Grace Kelly, the 50’s movie actress that became the Princess of Monaco. I noticed a hat in one of the photos that I thought Great Aunt Marcelline had designed. I dug through my geneology box and I checked out the articles I have that Craig Kuglen gave me. Indeed, she designed this hat. There is a whole article from the NY Times describing Marcelline, the designer, and  showed the hat and who she designed it for that I have. The Vanity Fair article has been done because there is a museum in London that has opened with an exhibit of Grace Kelly. If anyone is headed to Europe this year it may be fun.”

Here are the pictures:

As usual, I began musing about Aunt Marcelline and her legacy.  I remember someone telling me that the comedian George Carlin’s mother had worked for her.  Since Mr. Carlin passed away last year, I couldn’t ask him directly, but I did some poking around and found the website of his daughter, Kelly Carlin.  (here is the link to her website)

http://www.thekellycarlinsite.com/theofficialkellycarlinsite/Home_.html .

I emailed Kelly and asked is she knew if this were true.  What I HEARD was that Mrs. Carlin had worked for Aunt Marcelline at Bergdorf’s in NYC. Kelly didn’t know, but she emailed her Uncle Patrick Carlin, who kindly responded.

The Carlins are OFFICIALLY awesome.

Here is what Uncle Patrick Carlin wrote about Aunt Marcelline’s relationship with the Carlins:

Hey Kelly,  I hope this will help.  I don't believe Mary Bearey ever worked at  Bergdorf's,

unless she was bullshitting some unwary employee to get "the employee's price".  She had a

good friend, Edith Sanford,who worked as a buyer for Bergdorf's. funny coincidence.

And now to Marcelline, who Aunt Aggie and Mary Bearey loved so well.  In  the conversations

to which I was privy, Marcelline was always spoken of with reverence about her hats  and it

seemed to me that she had her own hat shop.  I feel like one of those psychic readers, now

as I'm  thinking Westchester area or northern Bronx.  Anyway your granny was an advertising

gal, the Mercurial  Miss Bearey and she'd have lasted a very short time away from ad agency

antics which she loved so well. . . .  Love Jolly Old Uncle  Patrick

Cool, eh??  We visited Aunt Marcelline in New York when we went East in the summer of 1970 for Grandma Greene’s 80th birthday.  I remember her place was about a block from Lincoln Center and very elegant.   Here are couple of pictures of her from that trip:

Aunt Marcelline Kuglen

Aunt MArcelline and Sam Kuglen

629-1_2-market-st-wheeling-wv-with-notes

If you click on the link, you get a bigger view of the house and you can actually read all Tom’s notes.

“629 ½ Market Street, circa 1885 – Samuel Kuglen, who built 629 ½ , was a noted businessman in Wheeling. He was a builder of boilers for steamboats among other products manufactured by the firm of Duffield & Kuglen. The house is Greek Revival in style, with much of the original fabric remaining. There is a wide frieze at the cornice with sodillions and dentils, a gable dormer with closed pediment, and fluted columns at the windows. The pediment is filled with a sunburst design. Lintels and sills are stone and the building is brick with a stone foundation. All windows have operable shutters.”

Tom Kuglen did all the work (He went overboard, sending and resending me the picture until I finally got an image I could download on my archaic PC). He google mapped the address from the previous post, then he actually looked up the all the terminology that helps to identify the house, which out great, or great-great grandfather, added to the house when it was built in the 1880′s. George Carenbauer, who is not actually a Kuglen, has promised me he will take a few pictures of the old Kuglen homestead the next time he visits Wheeling, which will be in a few days to see Aunt Joan! I suppose the next step is to find out more about the firm Duffield & Kuglen and if the story I heard about Samuel Kuglen moving the capital of West Vitginia on steamboat during the Civil War (on the Allegheny River, I am guessing) is true!

The Kuglen House in North Wheeling

TOM, you ROCK ‘N” ROLL

As I am sure you are all aware, Mom, Joan, Grandma, Aunt Joanie is traveling with Dick across the country and stopping at places that are important to each of them.  Dick is taking pictures of Mom and relatives for me and emailing me a few.  I just got a small batch, so I thought I would try and keep you all current, since she is headed to Wheeling soon (I hope she has not already been there!) .  Here is some of what she wrote: “We have seen some wonderful things like the St. Louis arch, the Rocky Mountains and the vast plains of Kansas, Indiana and Missouri. We experienced some extreme heat mostly in the mojave desert (113 degrees) and rain and thunder and lightning. We had a good rain here in New York which cooled it down to a pleasant 82 degrees.”  They are headed to Wheeling on Friday to visit Eddie, Ellen and all the other Carenbauers.

then I decided to get a little creative, so bear with me.  Before I went to Erich’s wedding in Maine, I went to San Diego and Mom and I sat around for an afternoon going through boxes of pictures.  Now I can give you all a little context.

Here is Mom and Uncle Michael as little children with Grandma Greene.

Here they are playing in the front yard – look at the tricycles!  They don’t make them like this any more.

Many of the photos of Michael are out of focus.  I assume it is because he is always moving!  The next picture is when they are in high school.   Check out the bobby sox!

Joan and Michael Greene

Here’s a picture of Uncle Michael at Grandma Greene’s 80th birthday party in Oglebay Park in 1970.  (I told you I found lots of pictures!)

Mike Greene in Oglebay Park

Here they are in Kansas City in the last few days.  Notice that the pose is quite like the high school pose, except for the bobby sox.

Joan Kuglen and Michael Greene

Here’s another picture of Michael at his place in KC.

Mike Greene

Here is a picture of Mom and Michael with Denis Greene and his family in the kitchen in Kansas City.  They are all just beautiful.  Honestly, you can see the love around the table.  They all look so happy!   From left to right:  Uncle Michael, Denis, Danny, Joan, Kelly Ann, Mary Grace, Jenny (Denis’s wife) and John.  Thanks Dick, for taking a great picture!

Finally, I mentioned in an earlier post that we Kuglen cousins loved and looked up to our Carenbauer cousins, and that when George came to spend the summer with us in the early sixties, how much we loved having him stay with us.  Well, as I was going through all those old pictures, I found this one – this for you George! – and it offers photographic evidence of what how great he was with us when we were younger.  Terry is on the left, George is holding Joanie, Maribeth is in the center and I am on the right.

Terry, George with Joanie, Maribeth and Sam

Joan is on her way to Wheeling, among other places, and she and Dick are taking a slow drive across the country, stopping in places that I am calling “destinations,” places like Denver, Kansas City, to see the KC Greenes, and Wheeling.  They have a lease on a Sonata, but there is only 5000 miles on the car, so they decided to mosey across the country and put some miles on the car.  I asked them to send me pictures and keep me up-to-date, so here is a picture of Mom (I call her mom, you can call her Aunt Joan, Joanie, or anything else you like) in a place called Fort Cove, in Cove Creek, UT.

MOM – if you are reading this, I now have an assignment for you and Dick once you get to Wheeling.  I know you have plans to spend your time there visiting with Eddie, Ellen, Carl, and the rest of the Carenbauers, but I want you to go to 629 1/2 Market Street in the North Wheeling Historic District BECAUSE (and this is pretty exciting to all the KUGLENS out there…) George Carenbauer sent me a link  to a document about Samuel Kuglen ca. 1885.

We want to see pictures!

Here’s the link, and the piece of info is on page 18 - http://www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/ohio/88002693.pdf

BUT

Here’s what it says:

“629 ½ Market Street, circa 1885 – Samuel Kuglen, who built 629 ½ , was a noted businessman in Wheeling. He was a builder of boilers for steamboats among other products manufactured by the firm of Duffield & Kuglen. The house is Greek Revival in style, with much of the original fabric remaining. There is a wide frieze at the cornice with sodillions and dentils, a gable dormer with closed pediment, and fluted columns at the windows. The pediment is filled with a sunburst design. Lintels and sills are stone and the building is brick with a stone foundation. All windows have operable shutters.”

George - you are da bomb!

I don’t know about you, but I want to see if I can figure out what a sodillion looks like, along with dentils, dormers and lintels.  I teach English, as you know, and you have to use and see the words at least 8 times before they begin to become a part of your vocabulary.  I know what a gable is because I visited The House of the Seven Gables while I was in New England!  (What would I have seen if Hawthorne had written a book called The House of the Seven Sodillions?)  Who knew architecture had such specific vocabulary?

I have about 40 first cousins – 13 on my mom’s side and 26 (I think…) on my dad’s side of the family.  I can’t even begin to factor in the number of first cousins once removed – that is, the children of my first cousins – or the cousins of my parents – Craig Kuglen, for example. or Lawrence Harkleroad.  I am almost afraid to ask if Mom has any first cousins, but I am pretty sure she does somewhere in West Virginia or the Ohio Valley.  And then there are the nieces and nephews – I have 10, all of whom, I hope, look in regularly to see what is happening.  Seeing all the Carenbauers in all their incarnations last week was truly an awesome experience for me.  I am familiar with most of my Kuglen cousins and see most of them on a semi-regular basis, the two exceptions being Joe Weisen (although Joe gave me his email address a few weeks ago – SCORE one for Kuglen.com) and Michael MacDonald, Gordon and Maureen’s brother and Rory’s uncle, who I hope has somehow gotten the blog link and checked us out.  (Gordon mentioned Michael was coming to New Hampshire for a visit, so I am hoping Michael takes a look at the blog while visiting Gordon). I see my Greene cousins much less frequently, although Teresa loves coming to San Diego with Paul and her two daughters to visit mom; someone always makes a point to have a get together when the Toplaks visit San Diego.  In true family style,  while I was visiting one set of Greene cousins last week in Maine on July 3rd for Erich’s wedding, my sister KK was throwing a little party at her place in Poway for a different set of Greene – Teresa, Paul, Eva and Tessa.  So far, it has been a good summer for people coming together and connecting.

Then there is the “gee, it’s a small world after all….” – hearing from both Gordon MacDonald and Christine Hamm that Gordon had interviewed Klaus Hamm for a job a Nixon/Peabody in New Hampshire a few years back – Gordon from the Kuglen side of my family and Klaus from the Greene side of the family (You have Sam and Joan and the six kids in common!), and that Gordon and Christine both know the other’s reputation in New Hampshire politics, but have yet to meet (which has to change soon!). Is it random connectedness or are there just so many offspring of BomBom and Grandpap and Grandma and Grandpa Greene that we are taking over – New Hampshire, at least?

It’s easy to get the Kuglens together – all anyone has to do is say “Party!” and easily 50 people show up. Gordon even asked if there was anything coming up!   I am not the person to do it, but a Greene party (“Greene party,” – get it?) would be AWESOMELY AWESOME. Is it even possible?  Is anyone even interested?

Here is a picture of Joan with the Las Vegas Greenes – they are all in the picture, except Paul – Joan, Christina, Teresa with Tessa on her lap, Eva, and Aaron.

Aunt Joan with the Vegas Greenes

Finally,  here is a picture of Oly Kuglen, with a paycheck for $100.00 she earned for writing – she was in a focus group giving ideas for a TV show called “Sonny With a Chance.”  (if they use her ideas I hope she gets residuals) I think she has made more money as a writer than I have so far this year. . . good for her!!

Olympia scores as a writer!

And for all you Kuglens out there – I have some AWESOME Kuglen stuff coming up.  Stay tuned. . .

As my older sister, KK, can attest, when we were little, the Carenbauers were held up to us from an early age as the epitome of perfect children, who ate dinner every night at a perfectly appointed table with Bone China and heirloom silverware, never spilled a drop of milk or food on their perfectly creased trousers and crinoline petticoats, and had perfectly intelligent dinner conversations, punctuating every sentence with a “yes, please,” “no, thank you,” “may I. . . ” or “of course, mother, whatever you say.”  We believed in these mythical creatures and couldn’t believe that we were actually related to such quintessential children.  And they were older than us – they’d had practice, and obviously perfected, faultless behavior.

When George and Ellen visited us in California at various moments of our youth and adolescence, we WORSHIPED them.  No matter what they did, they were role models for us – they were older, they had already lived through the experiences we only heard about on the evening news (or our parents), like hippies, the Beatles, astronauts (Mercury and Gemini), Grandma Greene, Oglebay Park, McCullough’s Leap, The Mount, Georgetown and San Francisco.  They went out on DATES.  And they were as perfect as we had been promised. Ellen was gorgeous.  George was a perfect young gentleman, who held KK’s hand as the rode all the rides at Disneyland.  Michael helped KK and me get a compliment (our first) from the waitress at our neighborhood pizza parlor when we took him alone, without our parents.  Carl never made the trip out west to visit us on his own, so we worshiped him from afar.  Christine was in the rarified air, having made the transition from perfect child to perfect adult.

And so, as I headed east to attend the wedding of decade (at least to me), this image of perfection is what was stuck in my 54 year old brain.  I was nervous – I knew I had never achieved the state of perfection that had been dogging me since my childhood. (Although I did notice that I am now taller than all of them) And here I was, about to meet them all, teeming with perfection. I mean, really, the last time I had probably seen most of my Carenbauer cousins together had been at Grandma Greene’s 80th birthday in 1970 – when they were all at their collective height of coolness.

YIKES!

They are all still so. . .cool.  I still look at them with my 5 year old, 8 year old, 15 year old eyes.  They are the cool cousins, still perfect, still gorgeous, still the perfect gentlemen, gracious and welcoming and most importantly, fun.

I just had a blast.  I got to sing with Christine (and found out my mother had a recording of Annie Get Your Gun that she listened to with Chris)  while Michael played the guitar! I got to to take Ellen to Hannaford’s for ketchup and mustard and horseradish!  I got to talk to George about swimming!  (remember:  20 second intervals and hand paddles will strengthen your stroke)  Carl invited me to his room for beer!

PERFECT!

Here they are:

Carl

Georgie boy

Michael and Laura

Sam and Ellen

Erich and Esther got married yesterday, July 3, 2010.  The wedding was a wonderful expression of their love for each other and very touching.  The reception afterwards was a fantastic party and I got sit at the table with all the Carenbauer siblings and their wives – a place of honor at the family table for me.  THANKS!   I am going to write a bit more later – this are a few of the really really good pictures I took at the wedding.  Christine has been a generous and thoughtful hostess to me – just an amazing woman.  Erich was also the coolest ever – cool, cool, cool – solidifying the impression I had of him from our time on the Salmon River a few years ago.   There’s a lot for me to process about my experience here in Maine, so I promise I will write more, but for now, here are a few images from the wedding. 

Leroy Anderson and Christine Hamm

Carl,George, Christine, Ellen, Michael

Don’t the Carenbauers look amazing, wonderful, stunning, happy, excellent, stupendous, phenomenal, remarkable, wondrous?  And that is NO exaggeration……..

First of all, I’ve been waiting for this day for a loooooooooooong time – the chance to do some partying with my Carenbauer coiusins under the happiest of circumstances – Erich’s wedding to Esther Moran. 

BUT 

Here’s what I had for lunch – a lobster roll.  Yes!  I ate more lobster today than I have in the last, oh, 10 years.  And I loved every bite.  And it tasted as good as it looks – making this kind of sandwich is simple when you pulled it out of the water an hour ago!

Now onto the REAL fun!  (Once again I was remiss in taking pictures, but I will take them at the wedding, I promise!) The grounds were spectacular (Once again, the superlatives all seem inadequate to capture my experience).  The quintessential Maine yard, complete with signal flags and a dock on the river.  The day was PERFECT – the weather was warm, the breeze ever-so-slight and the entire scene glistened like a polished gemstone.

As perfect and dazzling as the scenery was, the real thrill was seeing and having the opportunity to talk to my Carenbauer cousins, George, Carl and Christine and their families.  Since I haven’t seen them for a while, I immediately looked for familiarity – like I did with Gordon.  I recognized my mother in Christine, and saw my brother John and cousin Denis Greene in Carl’s face.  George and I share freckled hands and arms. (Is it possible for us to have a Greene reunion – what a trip it would be to see all these people in the same place in the same way I am able to see my Kuglen cousins)  I felt so good just sseeing them and being welcomed into their family celebration. Erich Hamm is just a big blob of happiness, so happy that all these people are there for his wedding – me included.    Georgie boy has 3 lovely girls, Tess, Mary and Annie – each one a gem – and Carl’s daughter Jule is another jewel.  We’re just gettting to know each other, but WOW, I had a great time. 

Tess Carenbauer

Annie and Mary Greene Carenbauer

Jule Carenbauer

Once everyone left, Christine and her boyfriend, Leroy Anderson (not the composer) began telling me about Hopkington New Hampshire, where Chris lives, and an amazing production of Our Town she did back in 1990, in which Erich played George Gibbs.  I didn’t know any of this – Christine’s involvement with the play, which is modeled after the town of Hopkington (where she lives), and the site specific staging of the play in which the characters are in the places Thornton Wilder is writing about.  The conversation was, for me, thrilling and immediate and creative and why didn’t I know about it when it was happening?  Christine and Leroy are talking to me about the play with a remarkable depth of knowledge that can only come from living in the place where the action of the play takes place.  HOW COOL!!! 

Then as I was driving home I thought about Erich and his wedding and the characters of Emily and George in the play, and what Emily talks about as she sits in graveyard in Act III, and paying attention to every small detail because those details are what makes life full and complete.  Here I was having a passionate conversation with my cousin who I never see about a revloutionary piece of American Theatre, and the point of the play echoes the very action of the evening for me – experiencing an intensely intimate and revealing conversation with this cousin about the commonality of our experience – our mothers, our uncles, our cousins, the odd intersections of connections (Gordon knows of Christine and vice versa) and coming together to celebrate our connections.  To paraphrase Wilder:  You don’t realize how much the little things of life – things you did not notice before – really matter. 

I just had the opportunity to spend a couple days at Gordon MacDonald’s place in Deeering, New Hampshire.  I had a great time with Gordon, his wife Jennifer and their BEAUTIFUL daughter, Nellie.  I also got to meet Jennifer’s mom, Eileen.  They were all so kind and generous with their time and their home.  (I feel like I need to apologize for my use of adjectives and adverbs – the words I come up with don’t accurately capture the experience I had, which was memorable and truly special.  I have to rely on these cliches, even though they don’t actually capture the depth of the experience for me) 

Before I left on the trip I went to Mom’s place in San Diego and we spent an afternoon (from 12 – 6:30)pm) going through boxes of pictures, looking specifically for pictures of Aunt Marcelline I could give to Gordon.  It took us a while, but we hit the jackpot, the best find being an actual original picture from Marcelline’s graduation from the Mount.  We found some excellent pictures of my father’s generation of Kuglen siblings, which included some pictures of Aunt Marcelline when she was a girl and a young woman – including another gem for Gordon, a small black & white photo of Aunt Marce holding a baby ( we assumed it was Gordon) with Bom Bom in the background.  I was fortunate enough to present Gordon with some original pictures of his mother as a young woman, along with a copy of our Kuglen family DVD, which has some other glimpses of Marcelline from my parents’ wedding all the way through Aunt Emily’s wedding.  He showed me a few pictures his Grandmother MacDonald had given him, including a remarkable picture of the four Kuglen sisters at Aunt Emily’s wedding – and I told Gordon he was over at our house on Kerwood, with all the other kids, helping us decorate the car for Aunt Emily and Uncle Carl’s getaway.  As we were talking, Gordon spoke of the “family reunion” we had a few years back to celebrate Uncle Bob and Aunt Carolyn Salle’s fiftieth wedding anniversary.  Aunt Mary Anita and Aunt Carolyn had been telling him about Marcie and that meant a lot to him.   He asked when we would be having another – he wants to bring Nellie and Jennifer to meet the family!

Bottom line for me is that Gordon is a great guy, a great husband and a wonderful father - all in addtion to the fact tha,t for me, he is nearly a dead ringer for Grandpap!

Since I didn’t get any pictures of Gordon, Jennifer and Nellie, I am going to try and compensate for my negligence by showing you a few of his place – an old colonial house.  He showed me the foundation last night – made of solid granite, and 23 1/2 inch wide maple floor beams (if they were 24 inches, beams were sent to England for shipbuilding).  Pretty cool. 

Here are a couple views of the barn – a 90 foot beam runs across the ceiling.

Oh yeah – the sky is amazingly blue. He aslo gets his water from an underwater well – you can see it in the next photo. 

This last picture is “the backyard” but it actually surrounds the property.  This is what he gets to see every day out his kitchen window! 

Thanks, Gordon, for sharing a small part of your life with me.  It was a wonderful opportunity for me and I am glad I had the chance to take advantage of it!