Larry Stoutenburgh the Pocket Billiard Pro

When I was surfing the Internet for Stoutenburg ancestors, I periodically came across newspaper articles about Larry Stoutenburgh, a billiard professional. Many of the articles were about his attempt to become the billiards champion and would refer to him as Larry Stoutenburgh of Buffalo, New York.

In 1917, there was a match between Larry, the challenger, and Frank Taberski of Schenectady, defending champion. Taberski was able to defend his title in this match, but only by a narrow margin.

I found a World War II old man's registration on April 27, 1942 of Larry M. Stoutenburgh living in Manhattan, proprietor of a billiard parlor on 225 West 57th Street. He was born December 11, 1888 in New York State. The registration card named the person who would always know is address as Mrs. Mae Stoutenburgh.

She died at her home in Manhattan in 1947 at the age of 54 years. Her obituary in The New-York Times identified her as Mrs. Mae Alameda George Stoutenburgh, a former soprano with the Strauss Opera Company. It also indicated that she and Larry performed together in vaudeville; she as a singer and he as a trick shot billiard performer.

I was able to learn that Mae Alameda George was her stage name. She was born Mary Almeda George in Stouffville near Toronto, Ontario on June 4, 1887. Her family lived in the Toronto area until about 1906 when they were living in Winnipeg, Canada. By 1911, the family had settled in Vancouver where her parents remained.

Larry Stoutenburgh and his wife, Georgie, were living in Manhattan in 1940. According the the census, they were living at the same address on April 1, 1935. Georgie was born in English Canada and was 45 years old, implying that she was born about 1895. That makes her around 8 years younger than the date recorded in a York County birth register.

I found Mae George in the 1920 US Census single and living in Manhattan. She was 26 years old, 7 years younger than her actual age. I also found a 30-year-old Laurence Stoutenburgh who was single, a proprietor of a billiards parlor living in White Plains, New York. So it would seem that they did not marry until after January, 1920. The earliest newspaper article in which I found mention of the two of them performing together was in a Bridgeport, Connecticut newspaper of 1924.

In the January 23, 1919 issue of the Trenton Evening News is an article that states Larry Stoutenburgh had been living in Trenton, New Jersey for the past six months. In 1917 when he was attempting to become the billiards champion he was said to be of Buffalo. I found him in the Buffalo city directories of 1916 and 1917 as proprietor of a billiards room.

The earliest record I found of Larry Stoutenburgh was in an Orleans, New York newspaper of 1915. He was in the town to play in a billiards match. The paper did not mention where he was from.

It would seem that Larry M. Stoutenburgh moved around quite a bit between 1915 and 1920. He settled at Manhattan after the 1926 city directory was printed and before the 1931 residential directory was printed. I have not found a record of his death. He was living in Manhattan in 1948 but was not listed in the 1959 telephone directory. 

The next step is to figure out who Larry Stoutenburgh's parents are. In the mean time, I came across a video of Larry performing. It was filmed about 1924 and is subtitled. The video can be viewed here. {As of March 11, 2015 when I tested the link, the video was removed. I hope that someone besides myself was able to see it before it disappeared.}

A Detour on the Quest to find Larry Stoutenburgh

Over the last few years, I have come across newspaper articles about Larry Stoutenburgh, a trick billiard exhibitionist. I was never able to figure out how he was connected to the Pieter Stoutenburg descendants.

As the LDS Church and Ancestry.com keep adding images of records for online access, I periodically go back to see if there is anything new that would help me make a connection. It's taken some time, but I am happy to say that I have finally figured out how Larry is connected to Pieter Stoutenburg.

However, in the process, I came across one of those things not intended to be funny but is. I was looking at the 1908 City Directory for Newburgh, New York on which Stoutenburghs were listed. I saw this entry:

Stoddard, Rev Peter P, pastor Moulton Memorial Baptist Church, h 25 Lutheran.

I checked with Google maps and found that there is a home at 25 Lutheran Street in Greenburgh, NY. The Moulton Memorial Baptist Church also still exists. The church doesn't have a website but is on Facebook.

Although I suspect that the minister is not living on Lutheran Street at this date, I couldn't tell where the parsonage was.

Who Is Marvin?

In my last post, I mentioned that my father's friend Marvin Stromgren had come to live with us for a short time. Until most recently, I had no idea if Marvin was related to my father or just a friend. I went on an exploratory expedition on Ancestry.com to see if I could figure out how Marvin and Dad knew each other.

Oh did that journey illicit memories of the things that my dad had told me of his past! I did a search on Ancestry for Marvin Stromgren born about the same time as my father in Minnesota. There was a hit in the Minnesota Birth Index. Marvin Berg Stromgren and Kathleen Margaret Barthel came up as the parents of 3 children.

That aha moment hit. These were Marvin and Kathy. I don't actually remember much about Marvin and Kathy except that they were friends of my parents.

When I saw the date of birth of the youngest of the 3 children, I was confused. Their youngest child was born in 1951 before Marvin lived with us. However, their next child was born in 1955. The 4-year gap fit with Marvin having been in the military. It was during the Korean Conflict that ended in July 1953, about the time that Marvin lived with us.

The next aha moment I had was remembering that Marvin and Kathy were one of the families who had a basement house. I now wonder if Marvin stayed at our house while his basement was being built and that Kathy and her child lived with her family at that same time.

Marvin left behind at our house that wool blanket. That became my blanket and I called it my tickle blanket because it made my nose itch. It was very prickly. Thankfully, the tickle blanket was left behind when we moved to California.

So how are Marvin and my father connected?

I learned from the Minnesota Historical Society birth index that Marvin was born in Isanti County in 1925. That was a bummer because my dad was born three years earlier in Hennepin County. From the 1930 US Census images, I found Marvin in Grow Township living with his widowed mother, Olive and his siblings, two of which were born before 1920. The second household enumerated after Olive's was my dad's Aunt Ellen's family but my dad and his family were living in Aitkin County, Minnesota in 1930.

Olive died in 1979. I don't recall if I ever met her but I do remember hearing her name. Since Marvin's father died when he was very young, I don't believe that I knew his father's name. Checking the 1920 Census, I found that Olive, her husband Abel G. and their two children were living in Isanti, Minnesota on Broadway Street. He ran a general store. The Minnesota State Gazetteer of 1922 lists Abel Stromgren and Fred L. Russell proprietors of a general store, Stromgren & Russell, Isanti.

On September 12, 1918, Abel Gustaf Stromgren registered for the World War I draft. He was a merchant whose residence was in Constance (Grow Township), Minnesota. Abel named his wife, Olive Mary, as his nearest relative. So some time after September 12, 1918 but before January 6, 1920, the family moved from Constance to Isanti.

The family resided in Isanti about 8 years or so. Their youngest child was born in Isanti August 22, 1926. However, by April 2, 1930, Olive was back in Grow Township. According to the census, she was the postmistress. From a ledger of post office appointments in Anoka County, I learned that Abel was appointed postmaster in Constance on January 8, 1927. He died on November 24th of that same year. She then became the acting postmistress.

I found her in Grow Township in the 1940 Census. Olive was the postmistress. The household enumerated before hers was that of Ruth and Mathilda Book. Ruth would become my grandmother's sister-in-law. The appointment ledger noted her several appointments as postmistress of the Constance post office. The final entry was of the closure of the post office effective February 28, 1955, mail to Anoka.

Now I know how Marvin and my dad knew each other. It was because of the post office.

I don't know exactly when my dad's parents moved from McGregor, Minnesota to Constance but they were living in the same house on April 1, 1935 (1940 Census). I remember railroad tracks that were near the house where my grandmother was raised. My father told me that his grandfather had convinced the US post office to have a mail stop at his farm.

Prior to this, mail was sent to the post office in Anoka. As a member of the community had the need to make the trip to Anoka then he/she would check for mail at the post office. The mail train would pass by my great grandfather's farm. Dad told me that the train didn't stop but it did pick up and drop off mail as it passed.

In 1935, my father was 13, old enough to put the bag with the outgoing mail on the pick up hook and retrieve the bag left by the mail train from the drop off hook. My father graduated from Anoka High School in 1940. Between 1935 and 1940 my dad handled the mail bags at his uncle's farm. With Marvin's mother as the postmistress and my dad helping with the mail bag, Dad and Marvin would have known each other.

My Childhood House - Fond Memories

In my last post, I mentioned that my grandfather came from California to help my father finish the second floor of our house. They had put up the drywall to form the walls of the bedroom and a closet before my grandfather had to leave. Shortly afterwards, Marvin Stromgren came to live with us for a while.

I thought that he may have been a relative or a friend of my father's. He moved into the unfinished room upstairs for a while. It didn't seem like he was there for a very long time. Marvin had recently been discharged from the Army or Marine Corps as he had a uniform and a wool dark green blanket when he came. I think that he was in the service during the Korean Conflict.

As I was composing this post, I actually didn't know how Marvin and my dad knew each other. I did a little snooping on Ancestry.com. From the bits and pieces of information that I found, it looks like Marvin was a friend and not a relative. That's another story.

After Marvin's stay ended and before Dad had a chance to work on finishing the second floor, my brothers engaged in a game of dodge ball upstairs. That game ended with a large hole near the floor in the drywall on one side of the room. I remember that we tried to tell our dad that a huge mouse was in the attic and made the hole.

My brother and I were consigned to the unfinished bedroom after Marvin left. We apparently were not very good at getting to bed and staying there. My dad was a very astute person and decided to turn the story into one that worked for him. He said that a huge mouse may have made the hole in the wall, but it was the bear who lived in the attic that was now the problem. He told us that the bear would come out when one of us got out of bed before morning.

My dad sometimes miscalculated things. I started to wet the bed because I was too afraid to get out of bed at night because of that bear in the attic. Since bears are afraid of light according to my dad, he installed a low wattage light (today called a night light) so I could feel free to get up to go to the bathroom. My dad had an explanation why the bear wouldn't come out when I went to the bathroom vs. when I was being a problem child. Dad tried!

That house had gable in front with an air vent. Even before my dad put up the drywall there was a trap door to access the gable. As kids we would pull down the trap door and get into the gable. The small vent would allow us to see the outside of our front yard. My brothers and I would pretend that we were in a rocket ship and that we were looking down at earth.

Minnesota summers are hot and humid. After my father finished off half of the basement into a rec-room, I found myself spending most summers in the basement reading when I wasn't in some lake. The basement was the only cool place in the house.

After the rec-room was finished, we started to have Christmas Eve dinner at our house. By that time my mother's sister and her family moved from New York to Minnesota and my mother's brother and his family moved from Chicago to Minnesota. So now Christmas Eve was at our house in our basement. At that point, the Christmas Tree was put in the basement. Up to that time, our tree was set up in the living room.

The last time that I remember the tree in the living room was the year that my parents got us cardboard bricks and enclosed the entire doorway to the living room with these bricks. Mom and Dad apparently spent much of the night of Christmas Eve assembling the cardboard bricks and setting them into the door way in hopes that we would take enough time to get through the barricade to allow them some sleep. The lesson I took away from this memory...Don't under estimate your kids.

Thinking about our house also reminds me of our neighbor, Rosie Bryant. She had the most beautiful flower garden in her backyard. My dad had planted a vegetable garden in our yard, but I was entranced by Rosie's flowers. My dad let me have a small plot, about 2 by 3 feet in our small backyard. Rosie helped plant my garden each year and my tiny garden was always beautiful.

That little house has so many fond memories for me. It was hard to leave it.

The Basement House

The reporting of the terrible tornado that devastated a community near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma brought to mind root cellars. If you watched the Wizard of Oz movie with Judy Garland, her aunt and uncle took shelter in the root cellar as a tornado was approaching. I remember visiting relatives who lived on farms having root cellars.

The root cellar was under the house and access was from outside. They were not very deep, but deep enough to store vegetables. Most had a dirt floor. In the days of root cellars, they served an additional function, that of a storm cellar.

My parents bought a house in the city. Like all the houses on my street, we had a basement. I am not sure, but I think that city houses had basements to accommodate the furnace that was used to heat the house. Our house had a huge gas furnace but the older houses must have had coal burning furnaces because a couple of the old houses in my neighborhood had coal chutes from a small window at ground level into the basement below. I can't recall visiting a house in Minneapolis that didn't have a full basement.

Not all of my friends and relatives had lived in an above ground house. Some lived for a short time in a basement house. Instead of buying an existing house, the family purchased the land and built their own house. The first step was making the basement and foundation for the eventual house.

It usually took a few years to complete the entire house. Once the basement was complete, some families moved into the basement. When the main floor was finished, the family moved up to the main floor.

The basement house had a distinct appearance. It was a small structure on with a door. I remember these so distinctly that I was certain there would be a photograph on the Internet. I was surprised to find almost none. It seems now a basement house has a new meaning.

This was the only image that I could find of the entrance of a basement house like those of my childhood.





 

My Childhood House -- So Huge Yet So Small

It was many years that I last saw the house where I lived until I was twelve. In my memory, it was a big house with a big backyard. I was married with children when I saw my house next. Oh my! How very tiny!

The exterior of the house wasn't much different from when we moved. Most changes were in the landscape. The lilac bush that stood near the street on the left side of the yard was gone.

The tree near the front of the house to the left of the walkway was gone as well. I wasn't surprised as it was struck by lightning about a month before we moved. A portion of the tree was split from the tree so I expect that the tree didn't survive the next winter.

The tree on the right side of the walkway was still there. My father and I visited his uncle's farm one day and came home with a sapling. It was the first tree in our yard. When we moved, the trunk of that tree wasn't much more than 5 inches in diameter. How it had grown!

The next time that I saw the house was 10 years later. The exterior was quite different. The fake stone façade was removed and new windows installed. The poor little house looked quite plain.

When my sister and I visited the house in 1991, we did not see if the residents were at home. When we visited the house in 2001, she knocked on the door. The son of the current owner was home and invited us in to see the house.

We learned that his parents bought the house from our parents. They had not enlarged it or appreciably remodeled it other than adding a deck behind the house. The huge old furnace in the basement had been replaced by a much smaller, modern one. I remember that it seemed to take up a large portion of the basement on one side of the staircase. As my sister and I walked through the house, we couldn't image how 8 people fit in that house.

About a year ago, I saw the house again. I don't know if the people who owned it in 2001 were the current owners, but whoever owned the house had made a number of improvements to the exterior and the landscaping. I am really sorry that the fake stone façade was removed. But the red door and the shutters on the windows really help make the little cute again.

I am hoping that the interior was updated too.

Most of the houses on our side of the street looked like this house. We called them Monopoly houses because they were shaped just like the green houses in a Monopoly game. They were built after World War II to support the baby boom. When my parents bought this house, it had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, a kitchen, a basement and an attic.

The front door opens to the living room, which is on the right of the photo. The window on the left side of the door is in the master bedroom. The second bedroom is behind it. Behind the living room is a staircase to the attic. The kitchen is on the other side of staircase. Below this staircase is one to the basement and is accessed from the kitchen. The bathroom is located between the rear bedroom and the kitchen.

As our family grew in size, my father finished half of the basement into a recreation room, sometimes called a rumpus room. One year, my grandfather came from California to help my dad turn the attic into another bedroom with storage space.

That house holds a lot of fond memories.

 

Shingles Vaccine and Shingles (Herpes Zoster)

Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, varicella-zoster virus. After the symptoms of chickenpox have disappeared, the virus remains in a dormant state in the nerve tissues. When the immune system of a person who had chickenpox is compromised, then there is a potential of an outbreak of shingles.
 
I have not found a definitive explanation of what a compromised immune system is. Stress appears to be a factor but lots of people have stress yet not everyone has an outbreak of shingles. Earlier this week, I was diagnosed with shingles. My doctor asked me if I was having a lot of stress. Considering that my daughter had just received her MD and in a week my son will be hooded for his PhD, I didn't see that stress was a factor in my case.
 
I was given the shingles vaccine about 5 years ago. As friends and family learn that I have shingles, I heard many comments. The most common is "I thought the vaccine was supposed to prevent shingles."
 
Well, I am testimony that it does not. In fact having shingles does not prevent you from another outbreak. So what does the vaccine do?
 

• Can help prevent an outbreak of shingles if you have had chickenpox.
• Can help prevent a recurrence of shingles if you have had a previous outbreak of it.
• Shorten the duration of the outbreak.
• Affect the degree of pain during an outbreak.
• Affect the incident of post-outbreak pain.

 
The articles that I read concerning shingles use the phrase "can prevent" not "will prevent." Apparently, the vaccine reduces the risk of developing shingles by 50%. That might not seem like a lot, but shingles is very painful and can pose some serious long term issues.
 
Before the shingles vaccine was introduced, I knew a few friends and relatives who had shingles. They all talked about the excruciating pain and how long it took to be pain free. The duration of pain and the severity of it seem to be what the vaccine helps. My doctor told me that it was most beneficial in preventing the pain that lasted after the blisters and scabs disappeared.
 
The vaccine is primarily available to people 50 or older because the incidence of shingles is much higher as you age. Apparently the number of people who had a bout of shingles in which the pain lasted months or even years increased markedly in the older population. This pain is called postherpetic neuralgia; meaning pain due to nerve damage from the herpes virus.
 
I couldn't tell from the articles I read what percentage of people who have an outbreak of shingles suffered postherpetic neuralgia. However, according to WebMD, over 50% of the cases of postherpetic neuralgia occur in people over 60.

Last weekend, I was having some strange pain in one spot on my right side but could find no evidence of a bruise, irritation, or sore. The next day, the pain near my armpit was worse and an area of pain appeared near my shoulder blade. When the pain turned from an ache to a tingling sensation, I suspected shingles.

I made an appointment with my doctor. A rash was just beginning to appear when she examined me. That turns out to be significant because the anti-viral drug is more effective if started within 72 hours of the appearance of the rash.

Although I am not a "happy camper," the pain and discomfort I am feeling is not unbearable. This is largely due to the fact I did have the shingles vaccine in combination with the medications that were prescribed for  me.

For more information regarding shingles, chickenpox, the vaccine and treatment for shingles, visit the CDC and WebMD web sites. Both sites have information regarding who should not receive the vaccine.