Chin Chin Ad – Dec 20, 1919, Page 10
Vancouver (BC) Daily World
Source: Newspapers.Com
I haven’t found where Donna was before the showing at the Avenue Theater on Christmas Day, 1919. The “Chin Chin” company was in Pendleton, Oregon, on December 10th. I am sure that the company continued west, probably played in and around Portland, then headed north. They probably played in Seattle area before continuing on to Vancouver, British Columbia.
Advertising appears to have begun with a short article on the 13th of December letting people know that the show was commencing on Christmas Day – No holiday rest for the “Chin Chin” cast. The article points to the show’s success at the Globe Theatre in New York for two years and by the box office receipts during its road tour. There is also reference to the composer, Ivan Caryll, the writers, and the leading roles played by Walter Wills and Roy Binder.[1]
On December 20th, there was a long article explaining the show and many of its highlights. Also on the 20th was the first of many standard “Chin Chin” ads. Articles and ads continue on the 23rd.
The show began on the 25th and the newspaper the following day calls out Donna by name. “Donna Montran, as the “Goddess of the Lamp,” is a lovely singer and sings sweetly, as does Ethel Lawrence as “Violet Bond.” The reviewer went on to slam the other singers saying that the “producers had put looks before voices.”[2]
Theater
The Avenue Theatre opened on April 10, 1911 at the northwestern corner of Main and Georgia. The seating capacity was just over 1,200[3]. George B. Howard managed it. In 1914, it was taken over by Klaw and Erlanger (Theatrical Syndicate) as a theatre for touring companies such as “Chin Chin.”[4]
Neither the Julius Cahn Gus Hill Theatrical Guide (1913-1914) nor the 1922 Supplement include any Vancouver, BC, theatres. I did find another guide from the 1930s that mentioned the Avenue Theatre, but it indicated that the theatre hadn’t supplied any information regarding itself.
Herbert Lloyd’s “Vaudeville Trails Thru the West” (1919) does include Vancouver, BC, theatres. The Columbia, Orpheum, and Pantages’ Theatres are covered in detail, but nothing about the Avenue.
Avenue Theatre [Main and Georgia Streets]Photograph by Walter E. Frost
Source: City of Vancouver Archives
The theatre fell into disuse about 1930 and was demolished about 1936[5], It was only a 25 year-old building.
Today the location is part of the “Golden Gate Center.”
Endnotes
[1] Vancouver Daily World (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) · Sat, Dec 13, 1919 · Page 8. Newspapers.Com [2] Vancouver Daily World (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) · Fri, Dec 26, 1919 · Page 11 – Newspapers.Com [3] Article: “The Organization of Professional Theatre in Vancouver, 1886-1914” by ROBERT B. TODD – Source: University of British Columbia Library, Open Journal Systems – https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/bcstudies/article/viewFile/1035/1073 [4] Ibid. [5] Vancouver As It Was: A Photo-Historical Journey – ELECTRIC VAUDEVILLE – https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/electric-vaudeville/.
Arthur Durwood Brown Family abt 1912 Clifford (Dick) is 3rd from left in suspenders. Source: Personal Photo Collection
In 1914, 11-year-old Clifford was living with his parents, Arthur Durwood and Mary Elizabeth Manning Brown in Merkel Township, Kidder County, North Dakota. It was a large family of 10 children (at that time). (An 11th child, whose name and sex we do not know, had been born and died before 1900.) His father worked as a laborer on a farm and the family rented their home. His youngest brother, Charles William Brown was born the previous July.
Neighbors to the Browns included a Russian family headed by John Merkel. Living with John was his wife and six kids plus Edd and Dertha Merkel Brown. Dertha was John Merkel’s daughter and Edd was Arthur Durwood Brown’s youngest brother. Near them was another John Merkel, presumably a son of John. The 1910 Census indicated 111 families in the township, many more than exist today. The 2010 Census indicated only 21 housing units in the township and a steady decline in population over the previous several censuses. It is clear though that the Brown family lived in a tight community of family.
Photo by by JBTHEMILKER Source: Panoramio | Google Maps
The 1910 Census also indicates that Clifford was attending school. It is unclear where the three Brown children, Victoria, Cora, & Clifford, went to school. It was more than 30 miles to Fessenden or to Steele so the children must have gone somewhere closer. The published by Geo. A. Ogle and Co. in 1912 shows that there was “School Land” about three miles south of the land the Browns were working. I’ve looked for evidence that a school was ever built there and I have been unable to find any. I think it likely that the children attended the school in Robinson about 8 miles away. The public school building from 1916 is still standing and it is likely that the tree attended that school.
Historically, October, 1914, was a very important time. Although the Brown family was isolated in the
North Dakota plains, they most assuredly knew the great war was beginning. Archduke
Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28th. Those
two shots sent the world into the chaos known as The Great War (World War I). In July, Austria-Hungary declared war on
Serbia. In October of 1914 the perpetrators of the attempted bombing
assassination and the successful shooting assassination of the Archduke were sentenced.
It is always a problem when you can’t find a person in a US Census while they were alive. It is particularly frustrating when you think you have the information that should find the individual in the various censuses. That is the case of Rufus Holton Darling. He died in 1857 and shows in the 1850 Census as you would expect. He is said to have come from Rome, Oneida County, New York and that his father’s name was Abner. That ought to be enough to find him, but alas, no such luck. I browsed the 1840 Census for Rome and only saw one Darling, Israel Darling, who had no males living with him aged 24 or so. Searches in the 1840, 1830, and 1820 censuses likewise did not result in any likely candidates. There are several other Darlings in the county during that time; so, I know I need to do a lot more research. I need to try to find each of these Darlings in Oneida County and trace them on to the 1850 Census, where all the members of the household are name. I hope that that will provide some insight.
Rufus Holton Darling (1816-1857)
Rufus Holton Darling was born in New York State about 1816.[1] This was the year that the U.S. Supreme Court affirms its right to review state court decisions, James Monroe was elected 5th president defeating Federalist Rufus King, and Indiana became the 19th state. Michigan wouldn’t become a state for another 21 years. Rufus is not a British name and it would be easy to speculate that Rufus was named after the presidential candidate, but we don’t really know where the name “Rufus” came from.
Nothing is known of Rufus’ youth, but in 1840, he left Rome, Oneida County, New York for the wilds of the new state of Michigan and settled in Kalamazoo[2]. 1840 was the year Army troops “transported” the local Indians to reservations west of the Mississippi. Kalamazoo was a fledgling village; the first permanent cabin was built there in 1829 and by 1840 the population had grown to over 1200 individuals in the village. Sometime in the 1840s, Rufus went into partnership with Milo J. Goss and established the Goss & Darling General Store.[3] In 1844, Rufus’ first son, Abner, was born. We know nothing about his first wife, her name, if they were married, or when she died, but in 1846 Rufus married Elizabeth Jane Swayze Wiseman[4], a widow, also with one child, a daughter. Also in 1846, the Michigan Central Railroad connected Kalamazoo to Detroit.
In 1848, Rufus and Elizabeth were living at the northwest corner of Cedar and Rose. They had the first, who they named Elizabeth, of their four children. In the fall of 1849, Rufus dissolved his partnership with Milo Goss and sold the Goss & Darling General Store[5]. In addition, in 1849, the railroad was expanding service to Chicago. Interesting enough, in the spring of 1850, Milo Goss went to California to make his fortune selling supplies to the gold miners. From 1849 to 1850, nearly 10% of Kalamazoo’s able-bodied men went to gold fields of California.
In 1852, Rufus ran for City Supervisor as a Whig[6]. He lost, however, it is clear that he was a leader in the city. Rufus and Elizabeth had twins, Eva and Emily; Eva died in 1853[7]. Emily was disabled; she never married and lived to be 65.
In 1854, Rufus was a Trustee for the city of Kalamazoo[8].
Marker: Father – Rufus Holton Darling 1816–1857 Courtesy: Find a Grave Memorial #30754149
In 1856, the neighbor across Cedar and Rose, whose name was H.G. Wells (not the author) invited a little-known Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln to speak at a Republican rally at Bronson Park. We don’t know if he was able to attend his neighbor’s rally because Rufus was quite sick, an invalid, at that time. I’d like to think he was able to go up to the park and see Mr. Lincoln.
In June of 1857, Rufus and Elizabeth had a son they named Rufus Harry Darling[9]. The following month Rufus Holton Darling died of consumption (probably tuberculosis – although “consumption” was used to describe any degenerative lung disease). He was buried with Masonic honors at Mountain Home Cemetery, in Kalamazoo[10].
Sometimes you have an ancestor for whom you know there are a lot more stories about them. Arthur Durwood Brown was such a man. There are several of Arthur’s grandchildren still alive. I hope that some of them contact me with additional stories and information about Arthur and his life. He was a remarkable man, a pioneer who settled in some of the most isolated places in North Dakota and Minnesota.
Ancestor Sketch – Arthur Durwood Brown (1869-1928)
Arthur Durwood Brown was born on 5 December 1869 in Saline, Washtenaw County, Michigan. He was the second child of eleven children born to Henry and Marion Sanford Brown. There are many conflicting records regarding Arthur’s birth year. The 1920 Census indicates he was 56 years old and thus born in 1863. On the other end of the spectrum, the 1900 Census says he was born in December of 1870.[1] His death certificate and his grave marker both indicate he was born in 1868. I am quite certain that he was born in December of 1869 because of the 1870 Census that clearly indicates that he was seven months old when the census was taken on 2 August of 1870.[2]
Arthur Durwood Brown
He grew up in Saline, which is a small community about ten miles south of Ann Arbor. It was on the Detroit, Hillsdale, & Indiana Railroad line that came to Saline in 1970. About 1883, when Arthur was 14 years old, the entire family migrated west to Jamestown, North Dakota. Arthur’s youngest brother, Edward, was born in North Dakota in January 1884.[3]
Jamestown was an up and coming new town. It was founded in 1872 and incorporated as a city in 1883.[4] It is not clear to me how or where he and Mary Elizabeth Manning met nor where they were married, but all records indicate they married on 19 Oct 1892. Arthur would have been 22 years old and Mary just 16.
Arthur Durwood Brown
Either before he moved to Minnesota or shortly after the marriage they moved to Minnesota. In either event, they established residence in Sylvan Township, Cass County, Minnesota and had their first child, Clyde Leroy, in February 1884. By June 1896, they had moved back to North Dakota where Victoria was born. Moreover, by 1897, when Clarence was born, they returned to Minnesota. The 1900 Census reports that the young couple lost a child[5]. Based upon the four-year gap in children, the child probably was born and died between 1899 and 1900 in Minnesota. We do not know the child’s name or sex.
Based upon the birthplaces of the children, the family seemed to move back and forth between North Dakota and Minnesota many times.
Name
Year
Location
Clyde
1894
Minnesota
Victoria
1896
North Dakota
Clarence
1897
Minnesota
Cora
1901
Minnesota
Clifford/Richard
1903
North Dakota
Edward
1908
North Dakota
Arthur
1909
North Dakota
Charles
1914
North Dakota
Delores
1917
Minnesota
Nettie
1921
Minnesota
Children whose birthplace was unknown were omitted.
Clifford, my grandfather, was born in 1903 in Kidder County, North Dakota. Martin was born sometime between 1904 and 1906 and Dorothy was born between 1905 and 1907. Sadly, Arthur’s two youngest children at that time, Martin and Dorothy, died from measles sometime before 1910.
In 1909, Arthur received a Land Patent for 120 acres in Merkel, Kidder County, North Dakota. It was for the N1/2-NW1/4 and the SW1/4-NW1/4 – Section 34, Township 144 North Range 72. It is interesting to note that Arthur’s brother Edward married Dertha Merkel. Today, Merkel township has a population of 39 people scattered over nearly 60 square miles of land.[6]
In 1917, he returned to Minnesota where Arthur received a land patent for 160 acres in Township 138 N, Range 029W, Section 7, NE1/4-Nw1/4, N1/2-NE1/4, SE1/4-NE1/4. (Modern GPS 46.7911918, -94.4073918 is NW Corner of L shaped property.) Today this is a very rural area of Backus in Cass County.
Arthur’s two oldest boys served in World War 1. Clyde went into the Army, went to France, where he met his wife Yvonne and returned from the Great War with his new bride. Clarence went into the Navy and served aboard the USS Shawmut, a mine layer that operated in the North Sea during much of World War I.[7] The 47-year-old Arthur didn’t serve in The Great War staying in Minnesota; his daughter, Delores was born in 1917. His last child, Nettie, was born in 1921[8] a year after his first grandchild, Marie (Clyde’s daughter), was born.[9]
Marker: Â ARTHUR D. BROWN 1868 FATHER 1928 (Photo by Mark Matson)
Arthur died on 27 August 1928, at the Walker Hospital, Walker, Cass Co., Minnesota of carcinoma of the liver.[10] He was 58 years old. He was buried at Gull River Cemetery, in Pillager, Cass County, Minnesota.[11]
Source cleanup for Susan R. Vincent
Sometimes you know that you have done wrong. I had a lot of information regarding Susan R. Vincent/Vinson and as I looked at her information I saw that many of my sources were missing and were cited poorly in other cases. Much of what I had was done on Ancestry years ago and the citations pointed to Ancestry.Com, but didn’t have enough detail for someone without access to my Family Tree Maker or without access to my tree on Ancestry to access find the information. Not good. So, I decided to clean up my sources and make sure that they stand on their own. I left the links that Ancestry puts in to the source document but I also added a copy of the document into the attached media. I set the media to “private” because I don’t care to have my copies of the data uploaded back to Ancestry. I really hate it when I do a search on someone and the search results include other people’s copies of census pages. I also wish that Ancestry wouldn’t return things I’ve posted in my searches, or I wish that at least they’d give me a button to turn that off. So anyway, for Susan I cleaned up my sources, changed my preferred name for her from Vincent to Vinson, and did some more research to add a bit more detail into what I know about her life.
Susan R Vinson was the third child of John and Lenora Busbee (possibly Beasley) Vinson in Halifax County, North Carolina, on 22 August 1848.[i] The only source for this date is her grave marker, however, the date is consistent with the 1850, 1860, and 1900 Census records. I have been unable to find her or her husband Peter F. Howell in the 1870 Census. The 1880 Census indicates that she was 33 and she should have been 31 at that census date. I believe this to just be an error in that census.
In the 1850 Census, she and her family were listed with the surname “Vincent” and were living in Halifax County, North Carolina. The 1850 Census does not describe relationships, however, it appears that their family consisted of both her parents, her siblings, Virginia and Elizabeth, and an aunt, Eliza Beasley. It also appears that her grandmother Elizabeth Vincent (Vinson) and another aunt, Nancy Vincent (Vinson) lived next door. Her father was farming the land.[ii]
There is a name change for her mother in the 1860 Census, from Lenora to Ellenior [Eleanor?] and a change in birth years from c. 1818 to c. 1825, which indicates to me a different wife. There is also a four-year gap between Susan and her next younger brother, James. Because of this, I believe that Susan had a stepmother and the rest of her siblings were half siblings. The 1860 Census also indicates the family surname as Vinson and that they were living in the “Western District,” Halifax County. (Again note the 1860 Census does not indicate relationships within the household.) Their post office was Weldon, which probably was the closest town.
I am sure that the Civil War was a difficult time for a young teenage girl. Shortly after the war, on 10 Dec 1866, the 18 year old young woman married Peter Fletcher Howell. Peter was a CSA Veteran who, although from Halifax County, had joined up in Virginia to be part of Virginia’s 61st Infantry Regiment. As might be expected, 10 months later they had their first child, Anna Lee [or Annalee] on 8 October 1867.
(I have been unable to find the family in the 1870 Census.)
There is a six-year gap between Anna Lee and John D. That would make me think that there may have been another child born to Susan between 1868 and 1872, however, the 1900 Census indicates that she had five children all of whom are living. So, now I am really confused because I’m pretty sure that she had seven children.
Snapshot of 1900 Census showing Susan R Howell as having 5 Children
From
Anna Lee 8 Oct 1867
John D about 1873
Augusta about 1875
Martha F about 1877
James D 2 Sep 1879
David B 3 Oct 1881
G. C. — Feb 1884
I speculate, that she had more than the five children noted in the 1900 census and that she actually had eight children, three of whom had passed before 1900. I certainly need to do more research to prove this speculation.
During the 1880 Census, they are living in Faucetts [Faucett] Halifax County, North Carolina, USA. Susan is keeping house for Peter and their first five children.[iii] In 1886, her oldest daughter, Anna Lee was married.
(There is no 1890 Census, so we aren’t sure where the Howells were then.)
In 1892, Susan had mail that was unclaimed at the Weldon Post Office.[iv] I believe this is evidence that the Howells moved to Conocondy [Conoconnara] township before 1892. Certainly, they are in Conocondy during the 1900 Census.[v]
Her son, David Bushrod Howell, was married on 26 December 1907.
Marker for Susan R Vinson
wife of P. F. Howell
Courtesy: Find a Grave
Susan R Vinson Howell died in her home in Tillery (which is Connoconnara township) the night of 28 Feb 1910,[vi] probably sometime after midnight early in the morning of March 1st.[vii] Her body was shipped by train from Tillery to Weldon[viii] (approximately 17 miles). Her funeral was “held at the Baptist Church,” conducted by pastor, Rev. J. G. Blalock.[ix] Today there are four Baptist Churches in Weldon. Further research is necessary to determine which church the funeral was held at. Interment was at Cedarwood cemetery.[x]
Susan R Vinson Howell led a simple life. She was the daughter of a Halifax County farmer, married a Civil War veteran who farmed the land in Halifax County after the war, She had fat least five and probably 8 children, and died at age 61 in Halifax County as simple farmer’s wife.
List of Greats
Susan A Vinson
John Vincent
Things to do
Search for a timely and/or primary source for Susan’s birth.
Research Susan R. Vinson Howell’s children closely for a missing 8th child and for the deaths of several of the children before 1900.
Research which of the Baptist Churches Susan’s funeral was held at.
[ii] 1850 United States
Federal Census Ancestry.Com,
1850; Census Place: , Halifax, North
Carolina; Roll: M432_633; Page: 34A; Image: 73.
[Family 636 – John Vincent
[iii] 1880 United States
Federal Census, Ancestry.Com,
1880; Census
Place: Faucetts, Halifax, North Carolina; Roll: 966; Family
History Film: 1254966; Page: 627C; Enumeration
District: 137; Image: 0720. Family 175.
[v] 1900 United States
Federal Census, Ancestry.Com, 1900; Census
Place: Conocondy, Halifax, North Carolina; Roll: 1199; Page: 2B; Enumeration
District: 0027; FHL microfilm: 1241199. Howell, P. F.
On December 20th, there was a long article explaining the show and many of its highlights. Also on the 20th was the first of many standard “Chin Chin” ads. Articles and ads continue on the 23rd. 
