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As an historical novelist writing about early 19th century aristocrats, servants inevitably play a large role in my books. Particularly valets and ladies' maids, who were intimately involved in their employers' day-to-day lives. I confess I find this a difficult relationship to juggle, and I often worry that my own modern-day sensibilities make me not do it justice. I want to be true to the period. On the other hand, there’s a wide range of behaviors in any era and people are people with the same emotions and compassion. It’s hard to believe there wouldn’t, at least in some cases, be a strong emotional bond between two people who spent as much time together as valets and ladies’ maids and their employers. When I blogged about this on my own website , the post elicited some fascinating comments. Some pointed out that servants, particularly valets and ladies' maids, can often have interesting insights into the heroes and heroines and their situation. They are close observ...

David Eastburn House It's been a while since we've focused directly on the Eastburn family (although it's hard to stay more than two or three steps away from them), so we'll now return to northern Mill Creek Hundred and take a look at a farm anchored by a mid-19th Century home, but with elements a good deal older than that. I started thinking about this property while revisiting the Josiah Hulett House recently. While there are not too many examples in the area of the mid-century architectural styles that featured square-shaped houses, the David E. Eastburn house is a good one. Located on the northeast side of Corner Ketch Road, partway between Paper Mill Road and Doe Run Road, the farm dates back to the time when the Eastburns were the preeminent family in the area. Although there are older structures extant on the property, the Italianate Style (as best as I can determine) house was built in the mid 1850's by David E. Eastburn (1811-1899), probably at the time of...

Over Thanksgiving I had a discussion with a re-enactor girlfriend in which she stated that she hadn’t seen lace used much as a trimming on gowns in the Georgian era, but that she was reading it all the time in books, and it bugged her. While I agree that the use of lace (or “blond” as it was sometimes known) doesn’t appear to have been as widely used as self-fabric trims, eyelash trims, and other bits of “passimentarie”, it was used*. Here are a few examples: Saque c. 1770s. This beautiful silk gown is trimmed with lace both at the edges of the bodice and sleeves as well as in patterns on the petticoat and skirts. Round gown c. 1800-1805 This silk gauze gown from the beginning of the 19th century has a large lace frill about the neckline as well as bits of matching lace on the short sleeves. Apron-front gown c. 1810-1812 This taffeta gown as a simple lace frill all the way around the neckline. *It should be noted, however, that the two most common uses I see in books are lace trim on s...

On Thanksgiving day I walked (along with some movie actors in "The Way")the pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain! The reason I found this so fascinating and satisfying is that the movie was filmed on-site in Southern France and northern Spain, and this is the setting for my very first novel--the story of doomed love between a Muslim sheik and a Christian novice in the 12th century. Back in 1993, I was a raw beginner at novel writing, but I got hooked one day by a photograph of a darkly handsome Arab man with the most mesmerizing expression in his eyes... and that started me thinking about what story might be behind that look. So I started in... and I wrote for 7 months, rewriting the whole thing every few chapters as I learned something new about writing fiction (after 30 years as an aerospace editor I knew nothing - absolutely nothing - about writing fiction). Long story short: I finished this work and on a whim sent it in to Harlequin Historicals. L...

The Stanton Hotel, c. 1900 A while back, we looked at the hotel that, during its time, was usually looked upon as the "main" hotel in Stanton -- The Riseing Sun. And while it was likely the site of the first hotel/tavern/inn in Stanton, it was not the only one in town. Across the street from the Riseing Sun, operating for almost 100 years, was another hotel, whose memory -- and whose very name -- has almost been lost to history. Whereas there's been a decent bit written about the Riseing Sun, the Stanton Hotel has been nearly forgotten. To be honest, I wasn't really able to find to much more than some basic facts, and a long list of probable proprietors. The hotel (or much more likely, hotel s ) sat on the northeast corner of Limestone Road and Main Street in Stanton, next to where the palm reader is now. I believe it was probably centered right about where the sign is in the grass on the corner. Although this fact is only ever alluded to as far as I can tell, it seem...

Cymbre Apartments, 1533 Ash Street A couple of months ago I moved out of the Bechstein House on Wabash Street and into an apartment building in North Corktown. This three-story, brick building was constructed during World War I and originally contained fifteen apartments. A name plate over the front entrance reads "Cymbre". Butterfield & Butterfield The building was designed by the architecture firm Butterfield & Butterfield, whose offices were located in suite 1113 of the David Whitney Building. The firm consisted of Wells D. Butterfield and his daughter, Emily H. Butterfield--the first woman to be a licensed architect in the state of Michigan. Image courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library Wells D. Butterfield was born on June 10, 1859 in Algonac, Michigan. On August 4, 1881 he married Helen Hossie, a native of Sarnia, Ontario. Together they had three children: Emily, Clayton, and Duane. Wells Butterfield is perhaps most famous for...

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday, family, and friends (the latter two still apply even if you're not an American). We'll see you next week!

As mentioned in Part I, Harry Hosack owned 1763 Vermont until foreclosing in 1943. Steven Snider, a grandson of Hosack, told me that relatives remember the home being divided into two apartments at the time. This alteration must have been done after 1941, because no separate address appears in the city directory before that time. On April 26, 1946, First Liquidating Corporation sold 1763 Vermont to Jennie G. Smith, John W. Hoag Jr. and his wife, Phyllis M. Hoag. Mr. Hoag's father, John Wellington Hoag Sr., was the preacher at the Woodward Avenue Baptist Church (demolished 1986) from 1915 until his death in 1947. Between 1949 and 1956, almost all of the houses across the street from 1763 Vermont were demolished and replaced with a parking lot. The images below are courtesy of Wayne State University . There is a ten-year gap in the records on this property, both in the city directories and in the documents obtained from Wayne County. The next available data are from 1956, when t...

I'm over on Man Candy Monday 's blog today talking about historical films and the men we love to see in them. Tonight (6PM PST), I'll be joining the gang on Twitter under the hastag #ManCandyMonday to see everyone's contributions to the topic. Hope to see you there!

As the days grow shorter and colder, I find myself looking for ways to investigate in comfort. You know, look up historical facts while wearing my pajamas and sipping hot cocoa, rather than after driving downtown and hunting down a parking spot. Or visit an eighteenth century frigate at sea, as in my photo. Thankfully, modern technology is more than happy to ride to my aid. A laptop equipped with wireless can quickly connect me to the Internet and the wonderful variety of websites to be found there. Tablets, such as the iPad and its Android cousins, offer even more comfortable ways to do research. When something weighs less than a pound and a half, it’s easy to slip it into a purse then pull it out later for some quick dives into history. My household is graced with four iThings – uh, that’s members of the Apple family that can be used for research. The apps that suck me in the fastest are (in alphabetical order): Bing : This app has the snazziest interface ever for a search ap...

Josiah Hulett's old house, 1939 Over the summer, I did a post about Josiah G. Hulett  which included information about a house that he and his family resided in for about ten or fifteen years. Thanks to Josiah's great-granddaughter, Jeanne Jackson Dell’Acqua, we knew a little about the house, but not everything. Jeanne was fairly sure that the house stood somewhere near (or most likely, on) the Hercules property off of Lancaster Pike and Hercules Road, but we didn't know for sure exactly what its location was. Now, we do. It was exactly where I thought it was -- I just couldn't find any proof until now. The picture above is a close-up of an aerial photo taken in 1939 by the Dallin Aerial Survey Company, many of whose pictures can be found on the Hagley Museum website . Luckily for us, probably due to its connection with the DuPont Company, the site includes several pictures of the Hercules property dating to the late 1930's. Luckily, again, the pictures are of a fai...

Over on DelawareOnline , there is a nice little video piece focusing on the Brandywine Springs Amusement Park . You can find the video here . The two men featured in the video, Mark Lawlor and Mike Ciosek, are without a doubt the two foremost experts on the park and its history. Lawlor is the author of the book Brandywine Springs Amusement Park: Echoes of the Past 1886-1923 , which is the only comprehensive work on the history of the park (and an invaluable resource). In the early 1990's, spurred on by his research, Lawlor co-founded the Friends of Brandywine Springs  with Mike Ciosek, who has served as its president for nearly 20 years. (Mike has also served, among other things, as the lead in all the archaeological digs at the park, and certainly knows more about how it was built than anyone else alive.) I happen to know a good deal about the park myself, so if you have any questions about anything mentioned in the video (which can also be found after the jump), or about any of ...

Recently, I had the great honor of contributing to an anthology of stories inspired by Jane Austen (there's a reason the title of the anthology is Jane Austen Made Me Do It !). There are some wonderful Austenian stories in there by Regency veterans such as Syrie James and Jo Beverly. Having spent a good deal of time in 1804 recently, I decided it would be fun to do something modern, something a little quirky... something involving a team of ghost hunters and a "real" Northanger Abbey. I call it my Scooby-Doo story. This has now spawned my absolute favorite angry email. My correspondent irately informed me that if I had taken five minutes to Google, as he did, I would have known that Northanger Abbey wasn't a real place. And I should be ashamed of myself. Hmph. Okay, so he didn't actually say hmph. It was, however, highly implied. Of course, Northanger Abbey isn't a real place. (As far as I know-- there are more things in heaven and England....) That...