A Royal Relative?

This is a snapshot which I inherited from my grandfather's collection. On the back is pencilled 1956
CPF + Sister Erma Mowbray. CPF is Curtis P. Freshel, who married Emarel, my grandfather's half-sister. Curt and Emarel were well-known vegetarians. My aunt tells me that Curt's name was originally spelled Kurt but he changed it at the outbreak of World War I so that it wouldn't looked German or Austrian.

Anyway, I found Uncle Curt mentioned in a book on Amazon called Ripper and the Royals. Turns out that one Joseph Sickert, the son of a man whose reputation became linked with Jack the Ripper, had been looking for his long-lost brother Charles some years ago and thought it could be Curtis Freshel. It was not. However, Curt is said to be a grandson of Edward VII !

Here is what the book says:

An American, Henry Bailey Stevens... had once mentioned knowing another American, Curtis Freshel, who had a connection with the Royal Family. Stevens was traced, and in due course Joseph received the following letter from him. Though it provided no clue to Charles's whereabouts, it did reveal a gobbet of information ...

Dear Mr. Sickert,

I deeply appreciate your letter of August 28. Although I have to report that Curtis Freshel could not have been your brother, he must have been some sort of cousin.

He was born in Detroit on April 22, 1886. Most of his boyhood was spent in England, graduating from the International College in 1908. He died in his apartment in New York July 1 1968.

I do not know his grandmother's name, but she was a Lady-in-Waiting at Queen Victoria's court and was seduced by Prince Edward Albert probably in the early 1860's. The understanding was that if the child proved male he would be in line to the throne. She took her child to America and possibly with help from the Queen brought her up well. Curt's father was a successful industrialist with important holdings in both Detroit and Brazil.

In 1914 Curt married M.R.L. Sharp (nicknamed Emarel by Bernard Shaw and was a warm friend of them both) in Boston. There they used their beautiful home,'Providence House', as a cultural center and home for their Millenium Guild. My wife and I came to know them and admire them. The inflation caused by World War I nearly bankrupted them, and they moved to New York, where Curt developed Bakon [sic] Yeast, a profitable industry of the vitamin B class. He kept his lineage a secret until he knew Death was taking him.

I am enclosing two photographs of him, young and old.

Yours sincerely,
(signed) Henry Bailey Stevens

---------------------------
Said photos are not in the book but you can see a photo of Curt Freshel with Henry Bailey Stevens (who wrote the letter) at http://www.ivu.org/congress/1949na/. The Freshels, by the way, did not have any children.

Since I don't know much about Queen Victoria, I pieced together the following using a chart in the book plus Wikipedia.

Queen Victoria's mother was German. Victoria and Albert's son was Albert Edward,, who became King Edward VII in 1902. Although he was married to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, he had numerous affairs.

Their children were George V and Prince Albert Victor. George became king and Albert Victor had a daughter who married Walter Sickert; their sons were Joseph Sickert. and Charles Sickert. Charles, it turns out, was deaf and epileptic and died at age 14 but apparently this was hushed up at the time. Father Walter was an artist who became intrigued by a rumor that Jack the Ripper had lodged in his room. Much later, writers theorized that Walter Sickert WAS Jack the Ripper; thus his story becomes part of the book Ripper and the Royals. Son Joseph's efforts to clear his father's name are part of the book Ripper And The Royals , which is searchable on Amazon.com.

Great-aunt M.R.L.

I regularly check the sitemeter for my blog to see what search terms are bringing people here. Someone searched for Emarel Freshel and looked her up on my Hammer Genealogy post. I looked at their search results and found various mentions of Emarel and her husband Curt as distinguished vegetarians. A detailed page at the Vegetarian Museum talks about Emarel:

Legacy of The Millennium Guild: Victorian Era to the Late in the 19 th Century, Maude Russell Lorraine Sharpe was an advocate for animal liberation. And ardent anti-vivisectionist, Ms. Sharpe became a vegetarian and worked well into the 20 th Century for the rights of animals. She was also a talented artist who designed the well-known Wisteria lamp manufactured by the Tiffany company.

A socialite based in Boston, Masschusetts, Sharpe was author of The Golden Rule cookbook, in which she combined recipes and philosophy, including these words: 'Do Unto Others As You Would That Others Should Do Unto You Even Though They Be Four-Footed And Dumb'. To see an image of the book’s cover click here: http://www.cookbkjj.com/MM071.ASP?pageno=237


In 1911 Sharpe established The Millennium Guild, an organization founded after the Biblical promise of a return to paradise, and dedicated to vegetarian and anti-vivisection advocacy.
[...clip...]
What is more , stylish and much-admired beauty Sharpe hosted fashion shows featuring non-animal-derived furs, feathers, and leathers. The press reported on these events without ridicule, but with curiosity about the fashionable vegetarian lady and the members of her unusual groyup devoted to the liberation of animals from the slaughterhouse, fur trap, and vivisection laboratory.

Sharpe, later “MRL Freshel’ and her spouse Curtis Freshel at their celebrated Boston area mansion held lectures by phsycians and other experts on vegetarian subjects, showed slaughterhouse films, and had a bakery.

Businessman Curtis Freshel introduced Bakon Yeast, a meaty flavoring, to the US, to enhance the flavor of vegetarian foods.

Together, Mrs. Freshel and her husband and their Millennium Guild published a book of writings by emeninet authors, statesmen and scholars against vivisection.

Personally, I'm not a vegetarian although I admire their love of animals. With my food allergies including wheat and soy, I'd probably feel hungry a lot if I didn't eat meat.

Oh, you can see her lamp at various sites like TiffanyDirect. It's pretty - I'd like one for Christmas!

Emarel Freshel is in Wikipedia

There is now a Wikipedia page on Emarel Freshel, who was my grandfather's half-sister.

The page appears to be authored by Kurt Forstner of Vienna, Austria, a frequent writer for Wikipedia, and then corrected by Mike McMahon, a reviewer of cookbooks. (Emarel wrote a vegetarian cookbook.)

Here's a tidbit I received on Emarel's second husband, Curt Freshel. A woman named Judith who is researching her family tree just wrote me that Curt Freshel's grandmother was Wilhelmina Koesch (married name) and his mother was Louise Koesch, born between 1859 and 1862. Judith is working on a genealogy of her FRESCHL ancestors and discovered my blog. Uncle Curt was her cousin 2X removed but Americanized his name. Curt's father was Alfred Freschl. She traced their ancestors back to about 1740 to a little Bohemian village. They were Jewish. All of this is new to me!

Isn't it marvelous that I can post a few entries online about someone in our family tree and get information from strangers via email?

More about MRL Carpenter (Sharpe) Freshel

I wrote about MRL (sometimes spelled Emarel) a few days ago (here) . She was my grandfather's half-sister. She must have been quite talented, for in addition to designing a Tiffany lamp still made today, she designed an elaborate chalet for a neighbor. I came across this some time ago using books.google.com in a book called The American Bungalow 1880-1930. The book states that the house and the "Freshel Elizabethan house next door are now part of Boston College, called Philomatheia Hall and the Alumni House." Today I searched for more about it on the web and learned that both buildings were demolished in 1988 to make way for a modern building on the campus.

On another website I found MRL's house listed as the "Sharpe Property," leading me to surmise that MRL owned it with her first husband and kept it after his death and used it until sometime after she married Curt Freshel.

The American Bungalow by Clay Lancaster
is listed on Amazon.

Kessinger Publishes Rare Books (like Aunt Emarel's and F. Canuti's)

Frank discovered that he can purchase a new copy of his grandfather's book, The Siege And Fall Of Constantinople: The Last Roman Struggle In The East (1887) by Felidio F. Canuti (also known as Frank Canuti). It seems some enterprising publishers are using technology to copy old out-of-print books and make them available again.

I looked up Kessinger Publishing and found that they have also republished my great-aunt Emarel's vegetarian cookbook, The Golden Rule Cookbook: Six Hundred Recipes For Meatless Dishes (1910). Her name is listed as Maud Russell Lorraine Sharpe, although she later used the last name of her second husband, Kurt Freshel.

Click for all my posts about Freshel.

Young M.R.L.

Here's a photo of my grandfather's sister MRL when she was young. I have others; apparently her mother had her portrait taken many times.

Born Maud Russella Lorraine Carpenter, she preferred to use the initials MRL for her name, which eventually became Emarel. She married Ernest Sharpe, and after he died, Curt Freshel.

Earlier Post on My Grandfather's Family

Peggy and Curt

It's my sister's birthday so I found and scanned a really old picture of her. She and our cousin were dressed in improvised costumes, looking something like Roman centurions. I was older than them and I had a Kodak camera in search of interesting subjects.

Here's a more recent picture of them that I took in 2006. By this time my cousin had changed the spelling of his name from Curt to Kurt in remembrance of his great-uncle Kurt Freschl, who had anglicized his name to Curt Freshel during the first World War so that it would not appear to be German.

Linking to: Black and White Wednesday

Navigating this blog

If you are new to this blog, note that there are links down the left-hand side including Previous [Recent] Posts and Monthly Archives. For instance, click November 2006 to see all my posts for last month including Lynn's squirrel story, two posts about my great aunt Emarel Freshel, and lists of places to see in the Shenandoah Valley.
October 2006 includes pictures of children in Halloween costumers and autumn scenery, among other things.

And of course you can use the search box at the top of the page to look for names mentioned in this blog.

I've been posting since June 2005 and I hope you get something out of it. I tend to jump from topic to topic, as I have varied interests. I publish quite a few photos and this blog helps me to keep up on my digital photography. Most of them need at least some improvement in Photoshop, usually a little brightening. When I fix them for the blog, I also save a larger copy in my "to print" folder, and when I get a few dozen I upload them to Photoworks and order prints.

Hammer Family History

Having posted some genealogy from my father's family, I dug out some family history from my mother's father and will share it for other researcher's who may find this through a search engine. The picture is of four Hammer descendants circa 2002.

---

David Harry Hammer November 22 1892.
at Hollybank, Alderley Edge, near Manchester, England

David Harry Hammer 1840 near Mt Morris & Polo, Ill.		Mary Amaryllis Bower 1848 Athens County, near Marietta Ohio
Father John Hammer near Mt Morris Father Geo.?? Hammer Family was Penna Dutch (Dunkers)	Mother Eliza Witmer near Hagerstown, MD Father John Witmer was in war of 1812. Henry Witmer. John Witmer Benj Witmer came from England in 1716 and settled in Lancaster Co., Pennsylvania	Father Moses Bower Marietta, O.	Mother ___ Rew Father George Rew unknown from where Mother Fanny Wickham Her father was Joseph Wickham reported to have deserted from British forces in Revolution. Settled in Rome NY around 1805 after living in Vermont. Died May 3 1833 in Rome township

"According to my mother, her mother's name may have been Delitha. At least such a name appears somewhere in there.

Joseph Wickham is supposed to have deserted to the US forces, and Mary Amaryllis investigated her qualifications for the DAR, and wrote "Should I be proud of an ancestor who deserted his army?"

According to her, she was named Mary Amaryllis Bower by a German midwife. No one had ever heard of the German flower Amaryllis , and she was called Rillis or Emma. Not liking the former, she became Emma. In later years, she claimed she discovered what her name really was, and adopted it. She had five children, Maud Russella Lorraine Carpenter, (later Emarel), Fay, and Russell Carpenter. The two latter died in infancy. (I should have stated she married Russell Carpenter right after the Civil War, and was a widow with one small child (Maude) when about 17.) Carpenter was killed building a bridge in Chicago, I was told. He was an officer in the Civil War, and Amaryllis was a Dame of the Loyal Legion due to that.

The other two children were Hazel Harry Hammer, and David Harry. Hazel married Carl Paddock of Denver, and later [blank space] Humphrey. Had three children, Ward Edgerton and Marion Paddock, and Hazel Lou. Ward killed in runaway in mountains, other child killed in high chair upset. Emarel married Ernest Sharpe, and after he died, Curt Freshel. No children.

David Harry married Eleanor Harper Goodrich of Philadelphia.
Her father was Henry G. Goodrich. Philadelphia.
Mother Alida Belle Harper from near Marietta, Ohio"

---

Note: The above is copied from a typed page (carbon copy) that I received from my grandfather. The statement that Ernest Sharpe died seems to be sanitized history. According to Hazel Lou's account, Ernest and Emarel were divorced. This was considered shameful in the early part of the 20th century and supposedly Emarel's mother was so upset that she stopped communicating with her.

L.W.