The year was 1899, and this is actually based on a true story. The National Association of Elocutionists was meeting in Chautauqua, New York, a place on a lake that was considered an ideal, isolated spot for discussing intellectual ideas.
It had two problems; one was that train connections were bad, so that some elocutionists arriving from bigger cities like St. Louis or Pittsburgh found they had to wait too long at rural train outposts and some actually turned around and went back; it was just too hard. Also, the auditorium had the advantage of fresh air but the disadvantage of bad acoustics, so people who were in the back couldn't always hear everything.
Of course the social life was big. After the convention each day the steamboat would take everyone out on the lake and they would have a grand old time socializing. The big hoop dresses of the early 1890's had given way to a more sensible approach but ladies were still beautiful in beautiful gowns; it was called the mauve decade because a mauve or lavender dye had become available and was popular.
To elocutionists, practiced in the art of giving speeches and poetic performances in the best and most effective voice, listening to speeches about elocution was something to look forward to. Our friend Elizabeth, an elocutionist in Toledo, had come all the way out to Chautauqua to give a speech of her own.
By far the headliner was Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander Graham Bell's father, who was a stunning orator and had a system, which he described, of teaching speeches to the deaf.
But to Elizabeth, besides her own speech, which was perhaps the highlight of her public speaking career, there was a personal angle to this particular convention. She had gone to high school in Clockville, New York, and a friend of hers from high school, Mattie Chapman, came to visit. Mattie was dressed in a gorgeous gown and made everyone's head turn.
Mattie, however, was now Mrs. Charles E. Remick. Her husband, Charles, had been the Supervisor of Oneida County but had lost in a bitterly fought election; actually he was a Democrat in Republican territory, so it might not have surpised everyone that much. In any case, they compared notes. Elizabeth had kept her name, though she had added her husband's, and was now Elizabeth Mansfield Irving; she had two children, a boy 16 and a girl 10, but her husband had died a couple of years back and she was now a single mother.
Mattie, on her suitcases, carried the stickers of women's clubs around the nation. She apparently traveled quite a bit, and may not have brought Charles along; if not, was this a scandal? She'd have to take several kinds of trains and buses to get down to Chautauqua to see her high school friend Elizabeth. Perhaps they were out on the edge here, in a rural place, a large convention of well-spoken men and women, a couple of wild women on the social scene.
The social scene at Chautauqua was actually this huge old steamboat that went out on the lake and then, ultimately, came back at night. It was decked out like most steamboats of the day - with a calliope, and a large social area, where all the well-dressed, fine speakers would enjoy each other's company and perhaps go up on the upper deck and watch the stars and the lake. Many of the elocutionists did not bring their spouses, but people trusted each other more those days, not that there were no scandals, but more that Charles, for example, probably felt that Mattie could go see this childhood friend and then turn around and come back.
Mattie had no children that I know of. Her gown was noticed by everyone as stunning. She and Elizabeth, old high school friends, had a lot of catching up to do. Elizabeth promised to send her something from the Toledo Women's Club. Out west, she said, things were a lot different than here in New York. Her children were probably on the farm of her nearby sister. Her daughter was my grandmother. Within a few years, women would get the right to vote, but there would also be a war, and a pandemic, and a new century of things to worry about. At this point, on this night, all they worried about was having fun.
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