Clippings: A Promising Athlete

From the San Francisco Chronicle, 1896

A PROMISING ATHLETE
Walsh, a High School Boy of San Francisco, Who Walks With Style and Speed.

            There is a High School boy in San Francisco whose performances as a walker indicate that in him are the possibilities of the future coast champion. His name is A. M. Walsh and he lives at 1631 Ellis street. He is 18 years of age, 5 feet 7 ½ inches in height and of slight build, for he weighs, in meager track dress, but 114 pounds.

            In March, 1895, he practiced for the first time to heel-and-toe movement that is the essential part of fair walking, and in a trial on the Olympic Club grounds covered a mile in about ten minutes. Previous to that he had accustomed himself to rapid walking in going to and returning from the High School, a distance of 10 blocks from his home. That was his first training, so he was not conscious of it at the time.

A.M. Walsh, a Coming Walker (From a photograph by "The Elite.")

A.M. Walsh, in the original photograph

Young Walsh now walks a mile in 7 minutes 30 seconds. What that means may be imagined when it is asserted that a very great majority of men, take them as they pass on the street and untrained, cannot run a mile to a fire in that time. For one who is practically in his first year as a walker this is remarkable speed. Generally three years are necessary to develop a walker, and in the larger universities today there are few men whose performances surpassed the work of this beginner. The intercollegiate record for the Pacific Coast is 7 minutes 25 2-5 seconds and was made over three years ago by Harry Timm, a very tall, wiry, long-limbed athlete, who was graduated from Stanford University in 1893.

The best previous collegiate record had been held by George Foulkes of the University of California. During the last three years the record has not been threatened. L. T. Merwin of the University of California gave some good exhibitions in the East a year ago, but his time here has not been worthy of note is the performance of an experienced member of a great athletic team. Merwin is, however, a very fair walker, although his style is not the best, and his height and strength give him an advantage over a smaller man. Foulkes was a sick-set football-player, a “plodder” in his style of walking and probably incapable of very great speed because of his muscular build. Timm’s style is more like that of Walsh, an easy, loose-jointed rapid movement. But Timm’s fault was a left knee that would not always straighten completely back before the heel was raised.

And a failure to “lock” the knee to have a total of one foot and the heel of the other on the ground simultaneously subjects a walker to a caution from a watchful judge. Three cautions disqualify a man from further competition in the race, or one caution on the final 100 yards will disqualify him.

Walsh has never yet been cautioned for an unfair step and he has won six medals. His steady improvement in speed is shown in the records of events he has entered: September 14, 1895, 9 minutes 6 seconds; April 11, 1896, 8 minutes 3 3-5 seconds, breaking the school record of 9 minutes 4 seconds; May 2, 1896 Coast championship, when he finished 9 yards behind Merwin whose time was 8 minutes 10 seconds; June 13, 1896, 7 minutes 49 2-5 seconds; July 4, 1896, 7 minutes 40 seconds, at Stockton, where he was beaten by Henry Timm; July 16, 1896, 7 minutes 39 seconds.

Walsh’s stride from toe to toe is 52 inches and from toe to heel is 42 inches, though the inside seam of his trousers measures only a fraction over 33 inches. As yet he has not acquired the low, gliding side-swing movement of the foot, so well exemplified in the easy style of Horace Coffin, the champion walker of the coast. That is another possibility.

Clippings: Four Generations Join in Baptismal Ceremony

From The Independent, Northfield, Minnesota, 1909

On last Sunday afternoon four generations in the Richardson family met in a unique and impressive service. A few weeks ago The Independent mentioned the arrival in the city of Rev. G. W. Richardson and daughter, Miss Emma Richardson, from Colorado, who came for a visit with relatives. Mrs. Claude Street and son also came from Montana a short time ago and a week ago last Saturday Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Street and Claude arrived from Deer Lodge Mont., to spend the summer vacation with relatives in this city. This brought together four generations in the Richardson family, and made possible the culmination of a cherished plan conceived by the eldest member of the family.

Last Sunday afternoon the members of the four generations met at the home of Mr. and Mrs. D. F. Richardson, when the sacrament of baptism was administered to his little great-grandsons by Rev. G. W. Richardson. The grandparents on the fathers’ side, Mr. and Mrs. John Street, were also present with the other members of their family, also relatives of the Richardson family, to the number of thirty-three.

Rev. G. W. Richardson spoke earnestly of the touching ceremony, the good old hymn beginning, “Faith of our fathers living still,” was sung by the gathered company, when the venerable great-grandfather administered the sacrament of baptism to Paul Richardson Street, son of Mr. and Mrs. Claude Street, and also to Harold Richardson Street, son of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Street.

Several days previous members of the four generations interested has gotten together at Mehlin’s studio, where a photograph was taken from one of which The Independent has had the cut made that is shown above.

Four generations of Richardsons

This visit is also recorded by Emma Richardson in her journal:

“Father’s health is good, for his age, but each year he grew frailer… We spent the month of June 1909 visiting at Northfield Minnesota. Ella and Florence, daughters of my brother David had come home for a vacation visit, from Montana; each bringing a fine baby boy. And Father simply had to go see his first great-grandchildren. During this visit, he had the great pleasure of baptizing these precious infants, viz: Paul Richardson Street, and Harold Richardson Street.”

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Snapshots: Honolulu

by Jessie Emma Dewey (Cutting), ca. 1899 

Ida and Jessie on the porch - a picture from the same roll

 On the back it reads:

"Gene & I took these snaps - developed the plates & printed them - terrible

Ida -               

At corner of Beretania & Alexander St Honolulu. Cottage built by Chinese contractors - note Chinese architecture. Thot these snapshots might amuse you. I was going to destroy them but will let you do it."

The same intersection in 2016 (via Google Street View)

A Photographic Footnote

by Madge Richardson Walsh, 1985

In the trunk of family papers and mementos which my aunt left me several years ago, there were a dozen “case” photos, or what are loosely called daguerreotypes – portraits on glass, bound in ornate gilt brass frames and set in velvet-lined molded cases. All the pictures had been identified by my schoolteacher great-aunt (bless her!) in her copybook handwriting, and all of them were in excellent condition except one. Its condition was deplorable. It was, of course, the one most interesting to me, since it was a rare and early (1857) family picture including my grandfather and my great-grandfather, the Rev. George Warren Richardson.

According to my great-aunt’s notation, there were supposed to be five people in the picture, but only three could be made out: the dim figures of great-grandfather George, his wife Caroline (Fay), seated, with my grandfather David as a very young child standing by his father’s knee. The head of a fourth figure, that of the nursemaid and housekeeper, was barely discernible in the background; and the fifth figure, of another child, had completely disappeared.

The ambrotype in its deplorable condition

    The other case portraits were of collateral relatives and frustratingly clear – lovely tinted tintypes and glass ambrotypes. Why did the most important one have to be the one in such poor condition? Nevertheless, I copied it along with other family photos; the results were predictably disappointing, and I set it aside as not worth reproducing.

Some time later, I had the opportunity to attend a seminar on the archival care and conservation of photographs. It was conducted by expert Peter Palmquist at the Reading Museum and Art Center, Redding, California. The second day’s session was for family historians; we were to bring examples of what we had, especially problems.

My problem picture was an ambrotype, a successor to the true daguerreotype, but similar in process and appearance. The emulsion is fixed on the glass plate as a negative image. By providing a black background, the viewer sees the image as a positive. Ambrotypes are usually backed by a coating of asphalt or simply black paper. Although there are risks, many times such pictures can be relatively easily restored by using new black paper (acid-free, please – photographic print paper is good). Handling should be kept to a minimum; the brass encasing the glass becomes brittle as it is bent and unbent, and tends to break. There is also the possibility that the whole picture will disintegrate.

The problem with my picture proved to be more difficult. Peter volunteered to take the thing apart, if I was willing; I might lose what little could still be seen. But I felt it was worth the risk, the portrait being unusable as it was (and I did have a copy of it).

So, with all of us holding our breath, Peter carefully pried the packet out of the case, and gently unfolded the brass enclosure. The packet was a sandwich of two pieces of glass, a plain clear one on the bottom, and the glass with a negative image on top with the emulsion side inward. Between them as filling was a scrap of black velvet cloth: here was the reason for the poor quality of the picture – the velvet had crocked, depositing little particles of fuzz all over the emulsion negative.

Peter lifted the glass negative carefully off the velvet and held it up to the light. We could see immediately that the image itself was intact and whole, and all five figures were clearly visible. It was quite a moment, as we all exhaled!

Peter was able to remove the fuzz and make some excellent 8 x 10 prints for me, using the original glass plate negative. From these large prints I can make my own modern negative. This rare portrait of his family and George Richardson himself as a young paterfamilias may eventually grace his autobiography as its frontispiece; and the glass negative is safely back in its brass gilt frame and molded case, wrapped in soft cloth and none the worse for wear.

The same picture, restored

Bert T Walsh Obituary

Redding Record-Searchlight

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Bert Thompson Walsh 

December 28, 1926 – December 11, 2005

Bert was born in San Francisco, son of Albert Marion Walsh and Ruth Neely Thompson. He was a graduate of Lowell High School, and made lasting friends in the Sea Scouts, sailing on San Francisco Bay. After getting his third mate’s license from the California Maritime Academy, Vallejo, he sailed for Matson Navigation Company on the Matsonia, and on the standard oil company tanker HD Collier.

He volunteered as an officer for the USNR in 1949, and saw active duty during the Korean War. From 1950 to 1952 he served on the USS Catamount (an LSD) in Japan and Korea, mostly in the engine room. This was his first introduction to a steam power plant and he found it interesting. Discharged as an Lt.jg, he utilized the G.I. Bill to graduate from the University of California in June 1957 with a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering.

As a licensed Professional Engineer in California, Oregon and Washington, he was project manager for Chevron asphalt plants in Troy, New York; Calgary, Canada; and Phoenix, Arizona. A subsequent major project was successfully moving Phillips & Van Orden’s printing plant from San Francisco to San Jose without interrupting production.

In 1969 he first came to Redding to work for Kimberly-Clark at the Anderson paper mill. In 1976 he moved his family again when he went to work for Pacific Engineering Company, a private consulting firm in Portland, Oregon, and remained there for 10 years, engaged on projects in the Northwest and Canada.

Bert and his trees: "If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden;
if you want to be happy for life, plant a tree."

He took early retirement in 1986 and happily returned to Redding with his wife Madge. Here he resumed his volunteer activities with the Shasta Historical Society, serving on its board of directors 1990-1996, and as its president from 1992 to 1994. Both he and his wife enjoy delving into local historical research; Bert devoted much of his energy to locate lost grave sites and cemeteries, meeting interesting local people wherever he went.

Generally undemonstrative and unpretentious, he was known for his ready wit, his dry, apt (and often irreverent) remarks. After a major heart attack in 1999, he knew he was living on borrowed time. His heart and lungs finally failed; hospitalized, he met his death peacefully. Madge was with him.

He was one of the last surviving members of his Sea Scout crew and of an informal group of his classmates from the California Maritime Academy. He was also a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; the Conference of California Historical Societies; E Clampus Vitas; Horsetown-Clear Creek Preserve; Turtle Bay Exploration Park; and the First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, Redding.

He is survived by his wife of 47 years, Madge Richardson Walsh; their son David Richardson Walsh of Beaverton, Oregon, their daughter Caitilin Walsh of Redmond, Washington, her husband, Alfred Hellstern, and two grandsons, Marcus and Daniel Hellstern. Audrey, a stillborn granddaughter predeceased him.

Memorial services are to be held at 2 PM Saturday, January 14, 2006, at First Christian Church, Redding, Pastor Heather Hennessey officiating. His ashes are to be interred at Redding Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions to the church or a charity of your choice are suggested.

Some Thoughts on Tolerance (Or, Tolerance is a Two-Way Street)

An essay shared at First Christian Church Disciples, Redding, California, December, 1999
by Madge R Walsh

It seems to me tolerance is getting some bad press lately. We’re being told that tolerance “isn’t enough,” at least when dealing with a recent, specific situation in which two men were murdered because they were homosexuals. I’m not quite sure how tolerance fits in this scenario, as we certainly do not “tolerate” murder. On the contrary, what we should be concerned about is the lack of tolerance so arrogantly displayed by the alleged murderer(s). 

The Horsetown-Clear Creek Preserve, which her friend Gary
was so vested in creating; a legacy to be proud of.

Perhaps what is felt to be inadequate is the effectiveness of tolerance as a safeguard against such expressions of intolerance. Too late for these victims, our collective guilt is assuaged by offering support as a sort of apology or compensation for past (and unfortunately, continuing) discrimination (there’s another misused word!). Personally, I can tolerate what people do in the privacy of their homes, as it is none of my business. As long as people are doing the best they can with what they have, are using their gifts and talents to the best of their ability, their “sexual orientation” is irrelevant, as is their color, or gender, or whatever.

And everyone has, to a greater or lesser degree, suffered from some form of discrimination. People act or feel intolerant toward others because of age (young or old), race (black, white or in-between), gender, sexual orientation, homelessness, poverty, illness, disability, education, occupation, physical appearance (such as being short, or overweight, or left-handed, having long hair, or none, or someone else’s)—think of any human attribute. I recall that my grandmother considered anyone with red hair as extremely unfortunate, someone to be pitied, and she was not alone in this view. On the other side of the family, my great-grandfather married the young woman who had stood up for him when their classmates teased him mercilessly about his red hair. Views change with time, thank goodness; we were not only tolerant but pleased when our daughter’s inherited genes gave a reddish tinge to her hair, and again when this was exhibited even more flagrantly in the next generation. A gift from the past.

So, how do we encourage and strengthen tolerance, how do we counteract or eradicate an intolerance that unfairly victimizes people for something they most likely have little or no control over? We can try to expedite a change—for example—by school buses transporting children to balance racial mixtures at schools. A grand experiment, although it could be viewed as a piecemeal quick fix achieved by threat of force, an inflexible mandate, though it was perhaps unnecessary in some schools in a city such as San Francisco with its already happily diverse ethnic population. But across the U.S., school integration exposed various racial groups to each other in interactive situations, and it did show that a generation of children could adjust, and function quite well even when their parents were at odds with the system. Was it enough? Were the economic reverberations worth it? Integration could do almost nothing about improving the caliber of teachers, or a paucity of resources (financial or communal), or the quality of education in general. A social integration that could maintain itself could not be simply legislated into existence. And at its worst, such affirmative action resulted in a backlash, a flight to the suburbs, and “reverse” discrimination.

Perhaps toleration enforced as governmental policy is not a good example. Perhaps easier of evaluation is the success of religious tolerance, with its extended history of development here in America. Although often cited as initial impetus for colonial settlement, the freedom to worship (or not) as one pleases was not guaranteed until the colonies had to tolerate other colonies’ religious preferences in order to unite for the common welfare. The early Puritans were highly intolerant of other forms of Christianity—especially of Quakers or of such heretics as Ann Hutchinson, who was actually expelled from her community and sent into exile in the wilderness, a virtual death sentence. Fortunately, the framers of the constitution held out for separation of church and state; so we are free to go shopping among all varieties of religion to find one that suits us. But that’s tolerance. We do draw the line when some religious expression becomes harmful, to oneself, or to others, or to others’ property, or to dumb animals. We tolerate others’ beliefs, and expect them to reciprocate by tolerating ours. This applies as well to politics, for instance; or to a choice of which team to root for; or other vital matters.

We tolerate opposing views, alternative solutions, though we may argue against them; we respect others’ individual choices, no matter how wrong they would be for us. (Was it Thomas Paine who said something about disagreeing with what you say, “but I will defend to the death your right to say it”?) What more should we be expected to do? Do we have to mute our voices, listen in silence (“don’t ask, don’t tell”)? We have some freedom of choice—we can vote at the ballot box, or with our feet. Do we emulate Galileo, and recant under pressure, knowing Copernicus was correct in placing the sun, not Earth, in the center of our solar system? We have already let the theory of evolution, arrived at by scientific method, be repudiated by creationism based on mythical precepts. Myths have their place, but not at the expense of “true” facts. That is illogical.

Reciprocal acceptance is important to tolerance. In a company where I once worked (a long time ago) as a secretary in the advertising department, there was a non-reciprocal situation that led to problems. The staff included a man who was in charge of training salesmen about the products of the company. This man had a hard time keeping a secretary, and I found out why when I filled in as his secretary for a (blessedly) short time. He was quite zealous in his religion and tried to convert any young woman who worked for him. He apparently had a belief in his own infallible righteousness, and its corollary, that he knew what was best for whatever young woman came within his sphere of influence. He saw himself, no doubt, as merely playing a paternalistic role. Each new secretary would tolerate him for a while, but then would invariably request a transfer. The Personnel office always granted the transfer, and must have suspected there was a problem, if not the exact nature of it.

Fortunately, a new secretary was found for him who could tolerate his missionary efforts indefinitely; she was apparently impervious to them. She happened to be Greek Orthodox, and though my generalization may be mistaken, they have a tendency to regard their church as the “real” one, being directly descended from, and hence closest to, the earliest Christian church, therefore incorporating the truest Christianity. Western, latter day sects simply don’t count.

Even back then, the man’s proselytizing was inappropriate in the workplace. For one thing, it was a misuse of his power in his position as the secretary’s boss. All the tolerance here was on one side; it should be a give-and-take between two equals. This story has a sort of happy ending, depending on your point of view: The man did get his comeuppance, not from his secretary, but from his wife. One Friday as we were finishing work, he announced that he and his wife were going to shop for a new car that weekend. The following Monday, I casually asked if they’d found a car, and he said yes,  they had found a vehicle just right for a family car—a sedate four-door sedan in a conservative shade of--brown. This very day he’d told his wife to go and buy it. He was really looking forward with satisfaction to going home that evening and finding it safely in their garage.

The next morning, however, he seemed somehow deflated, not as satisfied as I had expected. Was there something amiss with the car? He looked at me rather ruefully and then admitted that his wife had indeed bought a car—a bright, shiny red convertible. Two-door. She had driven it home, knowing full well they would have to keep it. He wasn’t angry—at least, not any more. He loved his wife, and tolerance and love go hand in hand.. With one simple act, not an argument, she showed him he had been blind to her needs and opinions. I think her disobedience opened his eyes to the fact that he had not treated her as an equal partner in their marriage, and he realized he was at fault in not making the decision a mutual one. It was a hard lesson for him—a major attitude adjustment. I never met his wife; I wish I had. I try to imagine him driving the car, but my mind boggles.

We say Americans value the individual and the rights of the individual. This, despite a constant assault or pressure—intentional or unconscious--to have individuals adjust to uniform standards, go along with the crowd, behave as everyone else does. We are expected to conform. Oddly enough, we will champion the underdog at the same time that we try to discredit the powerful; both are part of the equalizing process. It seems we can tolerate some differences, but apparently there is a limit, albeit a fuzzy one. If we consider human behavior as a continuum, then we are most comfortable somewhere in the middle; anything marginal or on the fringe is not “normal,” though of course anything you can think of that humans could do, has been or will be done, somewhere or sometime in this world.

It is not always easy to accept ideas and behaviors outside of our usual experience. It goes against primeval human nature to welcome the unknown stranger. In doing so, we put ourselves at risk, so we are naturally wary of strangers or new ideas, and often reject them the first time around. We have to enter into a dialogue, learn to trust, to be open; and after the first disappointing discovery that not everyone thinks as we do, we have to rethink what we can accept, how much we can tolerate. We may learn tolerance in childhood, from our parents’ example or from other teachers, or later by conscious effort. Sometimes simply exposure to an array of valid, though different, cultural systems may be enough; sometimes it’s not. We have to recognize their validity. It also depends on how deeply ingrained our attitude is. As the song in South Pacific says, we have to be carefully taught to love and hate, before we are six, or seven or eight, taught to hate those whose eyes are differently made or those whose skin is a different shade. It was easy to engender hatred for the Japanese in World War II; they looked different from us. We could even pack them off to concentration camps—but, as far as I know, we didn’t do that to any naturalized German citizens. Intolerance was abetted by stereotyping, categorizing a whole group on the basis of a generalization from a statistically inadequate sample. When you get to know an individual, you discover the personality that differentiates each one of us, somewhere along the spectrum of possible human traits, and it becomes impossible then to see a group of individuals as homogeneous.

Mutual tolerance is the very basis for peace. The disturbing issue of abortion, for instance, is distressing partly because the pro-choice advocates can tolerate those who espouse a pro-life stance, but the reverse is not true. The argument gets very nasty when the anti-abortionists are rigid in their stance, with no allowance for exceptions or compromise. The lack of tolerance often explodes into war, and the “pro-lifers” make a travesty of that term when they bomb and kill clinic workers. Sometimes intolerance becomes a shooting war on both sides, as in Ireland or innumerable other places; sometimes it’s a milder intolerance or antagonism that permits expression in jokes--the so-called “war between the sexes,” for instance. The joke relieves the tension.

Even in the closest relationships—between siblings, spouses, parents and children--tolerance is, has to be, a buffer. It’s well-known that hoping to change a person’s ways after you are married is doomed to failure; best learn to tolerate that idiosyncrasy, that harmless peculiarity, and love them the way they are, for what they are.

Tolerance is the hallmark of civilization. “The life of man in the state of nature is nasty, brutish, and short” (Rousseau, I think). Where would we be if we did not tolerate each others’ foibles, each others’ shortcomings?

Welcome the stranger, then, not in spite of his or her being different, but because we are different, each unique, yet all human. We’re in this life together; let us help one another. Tolerance is a form of love.

[Editor's note: to read more about the case, see Wikipedia]