World War II in the Geneva Daily Times

John Marks, Curator of Collections and Exhibits

When we did our World War II project in the early 1990s, Kathryn Grover was hired to research, write, and lay out the exhibit and book, Close to the Heart of the War. As part of her contract, we received all her research notes for our archives. I recently pulled out one of the large boxes to look at her source material. Any project, i.e. an exhibit, book, or documentary, reflects the creator’s selection of what to include or leave out; it’s good to look at the research with fresh eyes.

In addition to newspapers and records from our collection, Kathryn used scrapbooks that were kept during World War II. She photocopied them so she could more easily flip through pages and make notes on the copies. Scrapbooks show the creator’s interests and are assembled in a unique way, which gives them historical value. In the case of these albums, the creator(s) kept a chronological collection of Geneva Daily Times articles that only pertained to Geneva and surrounding towns. These could be recreated from microfilm, but one would have to wade through all the national news, advertising, and sports to do it – work already done by the scrapbooker.

Regular columns included “Boys in the Service” and “News of Our Men and Women in Uniform.” (I can’t tell the difference in content, so I’m not sure why there were separate columns.) They were a collection of snippets about servicemen and women, often reported by relatives who had received a letter; news ranged from receiving a Bronze Star to confirmation that someone was still safe.

As I mentioned last time, Hobart and William Smith students researched Geneva and the war for a class project. One of them looked at these photocopies and said something to the effect, “They used up a lot of space talking about nothing, didn’t they?” Seeing things out of context is not limited to the young; it bears pointing out conditions in the early 1940s. Information was censored by the government for security reasons. Mail from the war theaters was very slow and sporadic; one local POW beat a letter home by nine months. Most Times readers knew someone in the war, so one sentence in the paper, for example, that PFC Rollo was safe in England was very welcome news.

When more information was known, there were longer articles on servicemen and women. It seems that the paper focused on success stories, i.e. survival and promotion, with the occasional humorous-with-a-happy-ending tale:

Sadder but equally important were the Killed in Action notices and photos. I hesitate to post examples; seventy years later, people are still alive who remember where they were when they received the news of a loved one’s death in the war.

These photocopied scrapbook pages are available to read during archive hours (Tuesday through Friday, 1:30 – 4:30 pm). Whether you’re looking for mention of a relative or just interested in how the war was reported, they’re a good read.

Croquet

By Alice Askins, Site Manager at Rose Hill

The game of croquet was wildly popular in the 1860s and early 1870s.  It was  popular that it figured (in fantasy form) in Alice in Wonderland, published in 1865.  The craze began in Britain and soon spread to other English-speaking countries.  However, the origin of croquet is cloudy.  According to Wikipedia, the game derives from ground billiards, popular in Western Europe since the 14th century, with roots in classical antiquity.

By the late 1870s, croquet had been largely replaced by another fashionable game, tennis.   Many of the newly-created croquet clubs, including the All England club at Wimbledon, converted some or all of their lawns into tennis courts. There was a croquet revival in the 1890s, and again between the 1920s and 40s.  In the latter period, croquet was a favorite pastime of famous entertainment and literary figures. Harpo Marx, for example, talked about an extreme form of the game in his autobiography.  Extreme croquet is still with us – a variation distinguished by adventurous conditions of play.

Backyard croquet has maintained a presence in the United States America for over a hundred and forty years, as the ideal complement of garden parties, family gatherings, outdoor fund-raisers, and picnics.  There is a U. S. Croquet Association, and there are several Extreme Croquet groups.

I have not found any references to croquet in Geneva newspapers from the 1860s, but in September of 1868, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle said, ‘People brag of croquet as a successful new amusement—"It brings young people together, you know.”’  Bringing young people together, while frowned on by some, was significant.  Croquet was one of the first outdoor games that men and women played together, and it gave them opportunities to talk together in relative privacy.  The local papers carried several stories and poems about romance among the wickets – some humorous, some serious.  As the Courier put it in April of 1877, “The proprietors of croquet grounds are preparing for the spring and summer . . . and many will be . . . the matches made.”  Matches made, as opposed to matches played, is a reference to courtship.

Croquet, though, had its dark side.  Women were widely assumed to cheat by moving the balls under their skirts.  In 1875, the Geneva Gazette printed a fictional story of a devoted married couple who got into a terrible argument over the game; it ended with the wife telling her husband to shove his mallet down his throat and choke on it.  The Gazette referred in 1899 to croquet’s “devastating effect on the temper, its known tendency to break up happy homes and destroy the friendships of years.         . . . the rules are numerous, and new points are continually coming up, so that interested players often discuss the rules and dispute the interpretation with as much vehemence as baseball players in their quarrels with the umpires.”

As the Daily Times explained it in 1899, “Students of human nature can get a great deal of quiet pleasure out of the game.  The honest and dishonest natures will assert themselves, just as surely as in poker.  The quarrelsome and peaceful dispositions also show themselves.  One cannot always tell on the croquet field whom to marry, but it is not hard to tell whom one should not marry.”

The Oswego Daily Times tells us in 1873 about the Moral Discipline of Croquet.  “[Croquet] is a severe test of Christian principle . . . a rare test of character.  We have played with men whose high position warranted us in expecting the utmost honorableness and fair dealing.  But croquet was too great a strain upon their moral natures – the weakness of their characters revealed itself.  We remember a college president who could not help stopping his ball in the most accidental fashion when it was likely to roll too far.  We know fair ladies who, in a closely-contested game, always happen to dislocate their balls with their dress skirts, who then claim every advantage in replacing them.  What shall we say of such people?  That their honesty of character will not stand croquet – will not stand any of the severe tests to which the emulations of life subject them.”   

Despite the moral pitfalls, people continued to play croquet.  Even in the 1880s, when the game is supposed to have been in temporary eclipse, we find an advertisement in the Geneva Advertiser (May 1887) for Winnie’s China Hall at 204 Exchange Street selling croquet sets.  It was, after all, also “a game for all ages, and an enthusiast of rising eighty may play all day with an amateur of eight.”  (Geneva Gazette August 4, 1899)  The definitive word on the subject came early.  In 1878 the Courier printed an account of a trip from Geneva to the Antrim coal mines in Tioga County - “For a little the Tioga river bears us company, and then we leave it to ascend the long ridge that lies between us and Antrim.  . . .The country grows rougher . . . the buildings are rude and unpainted; yet the inhabitants are not uncivilized.  They play croquet.”