Each Monday at 7 a.m., we send you a new issue of Frazier Weekly—chock-full of original articles, videos, and interviews, contributed by Frazier Museum staff members.

But today, we’re taking the week off!

So to tide you over we’ve compiled a listicle: the twenty-two best Frazier Weekly articles of 2022.

Enjoy nearly two dozen contributions—arranged by date of publication—on a wide range of subjects in Kentucky history, including the first city seal of Louisville, 1828; a Georgetown woman’s gossipy letter, 1862; color-coded poison and medicine bottles from Russell, c. 1900; a Syrian immigrant–founded country store in Neon, 1917; a Jellico coal company scrip coin from Mountain Ash, c. 1930; a Ukraine-born Louisvillian’s displacement from Kyiv, 1941; and the Belle of Louisville rescue operation, 1997.

But before we look back at the best of last year, we’ve got three announcements about 2023.

First, as the place where the world meets Kentucky, the Frazier is now connecting with museums, libraries, and tourism bureaus to gather stories from around the state. So in 2023 Frazier Weekly readers will learn a lot more from communities in the 119 counties outside the Gene Snyder Freeway.

Second, we’re adjusting the hours of operation for the museum (and museum store!) for the winter: from now until March 14, the Frazier will be closed on Wednesdays. But don’t worry—we’ll resume our regular hours Wednesday, March 15.

Finally, don’t forget about our very first program of 2023: Elvis, the Colonel, and Author Alanna Nash, is this Sunday, 3–4 p.m. It’s included in the cost of admission to the museum, but you’ll want to secure your tickets now! You can also purchase a copy of Nash’s book The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley online from the Frazier’s Museum Store.

As always, thanks for reading. If you enjoy Frazier Weekly, please tell your friends, family, and colleagues to subscribe.

Happy new year!

Simon Meiners
Communications & Research Specialist
Frazier History Museum

The 22 Best Frazier Weekly Articles of 2022

Published in the January 17, 2022, issue.

In Louisville’s Russell neighborhood, at the southwest corner of Ninth and Chestnut Streets, you’ll find Quinn Chapel AME: a monument to some of the most groundbreaking figures and campaigns of the civil rights movement.

It’s not an official monument—in fact, no historic marker announces what took place behind the church’s walls, including the multiple speeches Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave in the 1960s. Its windows are boarded up with plywood.

But a large wooden sign does hint at what’s to come: after twenty years of disuse, the building is now the recipient of over $1 million in federal and city grants, so it’s set to be stabilized and restored.

Established in the early 1910s, Quinn Chapel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church quickly became the site of meetings of civil rights groups. In 1914 and 1915, the church served as a mass meeting place for a national organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as they pursued legal action against a Louisville segregation ordinance to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The congregation’s history for standing up for the rights of Black Kentuckians goes back to its original foundation as the most famous abolitionist church in Louisville. In between, it hosted protests that led to national desegregation efforts, conferences at which civil rights trailblazers gave keynote speeches, and gatherings of community members and worshipers for generations.

In this video, Brian West delves into the nearly two centuries and counting of Quinn Chapel, a historic church whose congregation has shaped civil rights in both Louisville and the US.

Heather Gotlib
Manager of Youth & Family Programs

Published in the January 24, 2022, issue.

In this week’s edition of Curator’s Corner, curatorial assistant Tyler Horne explores the story of Serur Dawahare. A Syrian immigrant, Serur in 1907 came to Kentucky where he and his family established a chain of clothing stores with locations in Neon, Whitesburg, and over two dozen other communities. For more on the Dawahares and other immigrant families in Kentucky, visit “The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall,” opening in the Frazier’s 2 South gallery in May.—Simon Meiners, Communications & Research Specialist

As part of the upcoming exhibition The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall, curator Amanda Briede asked me to handle some preliminary research into Kentucky’s immigrant stories. It’s always been a personal interest of mine: my family is made up of immigrants from all over the world, so doing a deep dive into the experience of immigrants has been a pleasure.

The story of Kentucky has usually been one about settlers, not immigrants. The classic images of Daniel Boone bravely traversing the Cumberland Gap to find fertile lands for himself and his family are ingrained into our state’s history. Equally impressive are the people who traveled across the oceans to find their new home in America, whose search led them westward down riverboats on the Ohio to live in a country far from their birthplaces.

Of the many stories I’ve encountered that capture the imagination, few are as memorable as the story of Serur Dawahare, who settled in Eastern Kentucky in the early twentieth century. Born to a Christian family near Damascus in Ottoman Syria in 1888, Serur came to America to escape religious persecution. As a poor recent immigrant with little education and unable to speak English, conditions were tough. Serur took a job in a New York City sweatshop making shoes. There, he met Selma Cury, whom he married. Selma’s brother suggested the young couple might have better financial prospects in Kentucky, where new coal mines were opening.

Soon after, in 1907, the Dawahares packed up their lives and moved to East Jenkins, Kentucky. Serur, like many merchants at the time, worked as a wandering salesman, traveling on foot from coal camp to coal camp with his wares strapped to his back. Toting everything from buttons to fabrics and household supplies, he served the communities of Eastern Kentucky well. After a number of years, in 1917, he and Selma had saved enough money to open a small storefront in Neon, Kentucky.

During his life, Serur taught himself to read, write, and keep his own books. The small country store he ran in Neon grew to four successful retail clothing stores he, Selma, and their eleven children owned and operated. Dawahares grew to become a chain of thirty stores in four states, remaining a family-owned business spanning four generations of Serur’s descendants for its 101-year history. By the time the chain filed bankruptcy and liquidated all its stores in 2008, it had long since become a fixture in communities throughout Eastern Kentucky, known for its charity work, community leadership, and fair prices.

When thinking about Kentucky history during the early 1900s, many people think of white coal workers living in a holler, and not the immigrant from Syria living right alongside them. But it’s important to remember and acknowledge people like Serur Dawahare who lived alongside those coal miners, who were valued and respected members of their communities. People of different backgrounds and from many places have always been there, in every story, bringing their own different perspectives and worldviews to shape the areas they live in.

In my view, the world, and our Commonwealth, has always been better for it.

Sources

Ward, Joe. “The Dawahares: The American Dream Come True.” Courier Journal. August 17, 1980: Accent 1, 10. Print.

Ward, Karla. “Clothing the Commonwealth: Dawahares Celebrates 100 Years.” The Lexington Herald-Leader. September 24, 2007 (Bluegrass Edition): A1, A8. Print.

Jordan, Jim. “Dawahare’s to Close All Stores.” The Lexington Herald-Leader. July 4, 2008: A1, A7. Print.

Mountain Eagle Staff. “‘Go Back Where You Came From!’” The Mountain Eagle. July 17, 2019.

Tyler Horne
Curatorial Assistant

Published in the February 7, 2022, issue.

It came to me honestly!

With my hometown Cincinnati Bengals heading to the Super Bowl for the first time in my adult life, offerings of “Congratulations!” came pouring in from all around the country. I was so blown away by the number of texts I received immediately after the AFC Championship game that I counted them.

The seventy-seven texts from family, friends, and people I have worked with over the years who offered a simple “Who Dey,” “Congrats,” or “I’m happy for you” are a pretty good indication I wear my Bengals stripes on my sleeve. This may also indicate a bit of an unhealthy obsession with a team that, before this year, hadn’t won a playoff game since January 6, 1991. I may have cried a little bit and, truth be told, I’m not ashamed.

There is plenty of room on the Bengals bandwagon, so it brings me great joy to see much of the country now on board. America loves an underdog—and in Cincinnati, we built the doghouse.

I’m often asked when I became a Bengals fanatic, but honestly, I don’t even remember a time when I wasn’t. These pictures of me in orange and black at three, ten, and twenty-one years old are just a selection of dozens that highlight my “Who Dey” obsession. In the last image, a former boss and friend got me into the locker room to meet some of the players. I’m getting an autograph from ex-Bengal Tim McGee, who caught two passes for twenty-three yards in Super Bowl XXIII.

I spent my early professional years as a sports reporter in my hometown covering Cincinnati sports, including the Bengals of the 1990s. Although I cherished every minute of it, the team was not good. There was ineptitude, promise, misfortune, defeat, and—consistently—heartbreak; but I never stopped loving my team.

When I reflect on “the why” for my loyalty to a team that brought so much disappointment for three decades, the answer is as clear as Joe Burrow’s talent. In the end, it’s not about the plays or even the players. For me, the Cincinnati Bengals represent a shared experience with the people I have loved all my life. Growing up, it was with aunts and uncles, my mom and dad, my two brothers, and the twenty-one cousins who shaped my character and sharpened my stick-with-it resolve. We were a west side, blue-collar Catholic family who learned many of life’s lessons through sports.

Those shared experiences continued with my best friends. There are ten of us in a group text and the alerts ring frequently enough to inspire occasional eye-rolls from our wives. We went to grade school together, we watched Super Bowl XXIII together in Bryan Humpert’s basement, and we hold our annual fantasy football draft on a houseboat trip at the end of each summer. We are blessed to have each other—in both sadness and celebration.

These days, my Bengals viewing is done most frequently with my crew: my two daughters and my wife Wendy, whose occasional Bengals gear is only a reflection of her love for me.

If she hadn’t watched me sing the sappy Bengals fight song after touchdowns for twenty years, she frankly wouldn’t care. But she has, she does, and that means the world to me. My daughters Mia and Ella are also now geared up and ready every game day to support Dad’s slight obsession with his hometown team. I love them for it and I hope, even after I’m gone, when the Bengals are playing on TV, they never feel alone.

I know—it’s kind of sappy for a former sports reporter. But when I look at “the why” of loving a franchise that began in my birth year, 1968, it really is about my fifty years of ups and downs. The word “nostalgia” comes from the Greek words home and pain. As a Bengals fan, that’s about right.

For more on what the Bengals mean to football fans in Kentucky, check out this piece from teaching artist Brian West.

Andy Treinen
President & CEO

Published in the February 7, 2022, issue.

Dr. Phillip Williams always knew he wanted to be a dentist. Early childhood experiences would help shape that calling—a calling for which a higher power had sent him here, he says.

As a young child, he only had a wash rag to clean his teeth. He didn’t get a toothbrush until the first grade—and by that point, his baby teeth had already rotted out.

Over time, the calling only grew stronger.

He attended the University of Louisville’s Dental School, being one of only a handful of African American students enrolled in the school at the time, and graduated in 1977.

The location he set up his practice in Louisville’s Russell neighborhood is no accident, either. Having had a mother who taught him to be self-sufficient, he says, he always knew he would return to his “roots” and set up a practice to treat people the right way.

His encounters at a dental clinic as a child left him feeling less-than. As a result, he vowed he would treat his own patients differently.

Dr. Williams has been treating patients for forty-six years at his West End Family Dental Clinic.

His story is featured in our West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation exhibition. He is one of the many residents Walt and Shae Smith have interviewed for their West of Ninth blog.

Dr. Williams and his wife attended the exhibition opening September 18, 2021. When I spoke with him that night, I told him I would be following up with an interview to talk about his powerful story.

So if you want to hear a story of passion, and being who you were sent here to be, take a few minutes to be inspired by Dr. Williams.

Rachel Platt
Director of Community Engagement

Published in the February 21, 2022, issue.

Give Us the Ballot!, a one-act play written by local playwright Larry Muhammad, tells the story of Louisvillian Russell P. Lee and his bid to be elected to the nearly all-white Board of Aldermen—the chief governing body of the City of Louisville before 2003—in 1961. Since Russell Lee’s story ties so closely into the history of West Louisville, some of which is relayed in our exhibition West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation, the Frazier decided to stage a version of the play for the public.

On Wednesday, February 16, at noon, for one day only, teaching artist Brian West performed as Russell Lee virtually via live stream on the Frazier’s YouTube channel.

Published in the March 7, 2022, issue.

When the Violins of Hope exhibition came to the Frazier in October 2019, I told the story of my father-in-law’s first friend as part of the tour I gave there. The friend’s name was Shura, and she was practically an adult at thirteen.

Born in 1938, my father-in-law was only three years old at the time, and new to their town: Barnaul, a rural place deep in the western Siberian steppe of Asia. Shura took him under her wing. She would walk with him along country roads and play with him in the snow that blanketed Barnaul for months out of the year. His key memory of that time is the bright sun, which made the snow sparkle for days on end.

What he didn’t know when he was three was they had traveled thousands of miles on a converted freight train, armed with his mother’s most valuable clothes to trade for milk and cheese, because his family had been sent there to protect them from Nazi violence in their hometown of Kyiv, Ukraine. He had left with his mother and brother while his father fought on the front lines of World War II, where he would later lose his life for the Allied cause.

My father-in-law’s grandfather stayed behind, insisting he was too old to travel so far. Not long after the family left, he was killed—a victim of genocide due to his Jewish faith—in the Babyn Yar massacre of Kyiv of September 1941. The memorial to that massacre, a horrific event that claimed the lives of nearly 34,000 Jews over a thirty-six-hour period, is adjacent to Kyiv’s main TV tower, which was hit by a missile during a Russian airstrike last week.

In 1943, when it was time for my father-in-law to leave Barnaul—he would not return to Kyiv until the following year—Shura gave him a very special gift: a photograph of the two of them with a sweet message inscribed on the back. The inscription reads: “my darling, remember me when you grow up.” Photos were rare, so it was very much given out of love. It was one of maybe two photos my father-in-law had ever had taken of himself. In 1980, when he was an adult, he packed this picture along with the other important mementos the family was bringing to America when they immigrated to Louisville, Kentucky. He still lives in Louisville today, residing in the Hikes Point neighborhood.

Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about this photograph—about the story of my father-in-law and his family’s resilience in the face of so much adversity. Kentucky is home to many people of Ukrainian descent, some of whom I am fortunate enough to call family and friends, or—in the case of people like Paralympic gold medalist Oksana Masters, who we celebrate here at the Frazier—heroes.

If, like me, you are moved by the recent news to do something to help, there are lots of great organizations delivering aid to the people of Ukraine. For more information, visit Doctors Without Borders or UNICEF.

Heather Gotlib
Manager of Youth & Family Programs

Published in the March 28, 2022, issue.

As someone who is a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, I must take a moment to celebrate and bring awareness to an important day: the International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV), an annual day observed March 31. This Thursday will mark the thirteenth annual TDoV, a day on which we celebrate the resilience of trans and non-binary people and raise awareness of discrimination trans and non-binary people face worldwide.

Kentucky is full of amazing representation from the LGBTQIA+ community! People like Silas House and Sweet Evening Breeze are just a few of them. The next time you visit the Frazier History Museum, make sure you stop by the “LGBTQ Kentucky” section of Cool Kentucky , a permanent exhibition located on the first floor of the museum. We strive to ensure Kentuckians of all kinds are represented in our museum.

Just know that ALL of us, regardless of identity, expression, or orientation, are enough just as we are.

To honor Transgender Day of Visibility, I interviewed an amazing person, V Reibel. V is a Kentuckian who sheds so much light and love in this world!

Content warning: panic attacks, anxiety, depression.

What is your name?

My name is V Reibel.

What are your pronouns?

My pronouns are they/them. (In drag, my pronouns are he/him.)

How do you identify?

I'm trans masculine non-binary (and a drag king).

What is your gender expression?

My gender expression is genderqueer.

What is the difference between gender identity and gender expression?

Gender identity is who you are from the inside; gender expression is how you express yourself to the world. It may be in alignment with your gender identity, or it may not. There’s no wrong way to express your gender (because it’s been made up by society!).

What does being trans masculine non-binary and genderqueer mean to you?

For me, I do not fit neatly into a box. I live somewhere in between and outside of the binaries of male and female. I’ve known this from about the time I was eight but never had the words to articulate what I felt until about two years ago when I discovered the word “non-binary,” meaning, “someone who does not align with the binary social constructs of male and female.” I started using trans masculine as well in addition to non-binary because, while I knew I wasn’t a man or woman, I definitely leaned more to the masculine side of things. Eventually, my desire to express this side of me came through so strong that I decided to physically transition to a more non-binary body. I want the outside of me to match the inside.

What is your profession?

I’m an actor, drag king, and solutions specialist at Verizon. While acting and performing drag are my passions and the two things I’m constantly working on, Verizon helps me pay the bills.

What were some of the pivotal moments in your life that led you to live and identify as you do now? Why?

I never felt comfortable dressing “like a girl.” But that facet of me didn’t surface until I was in graduate school studying acting. I spent two years in Houston: I was hard at work learning everything I could about acting, while also getting to know myself as a human much more intimately. When I reached the end of my education, I was in a university play that required me to dress like an early twentieth-century lady. At the time, it didn’t bother me. I had been acting since I was sixteen and, up until the end of this play, I had played a wide array of ladies, in and out of dresses and wigs. But something odd started to happen. When I would get ready for the show, I would dread going on. I would start to panic; I was afraid I couldn’t keep myself together. It wasn’t until two years later, after many attempts to grapple with this crisis, it became clear to me why: I hated that my garb signified that the person wearing it was a woman. And, internally, I knew this wasn’t an accurate portrayal of who I was. This was probably one of the most significant events that lead to my self-discovery.

What are your responses to the anti-trans laws currently being passed across the country?

I can’t speak for every trans person out there. I can only speak from my own experience. If I had known earlier on in my life that I was transmasc non-binary and could communicate that something wasn’t right to my parents, I would have. Would I have had the options trans youth have today to live as their fully authentic selves? Probably not. I knew no one who transitioned when I was a kid. But I can guarantee you, if I had access to that kind of healthcare earlier on, I believe I could have addressed the issue and saved myself from the depression and anxiety I felt growing up as a teen and young adult. But how amazing that we have the science and medicine and the resources now to do that for trans youth! To allow that demographic to live their lives as their true selves. That’s all anyone wants to do. It’s nobody else’s business except the person who is trying to improve their life by being their true self.

What do you have to say to your younger self and to all youth who are experiencing the same feelings, thoughts, and questions you once experienced?

Don’t give up. Keep rising every day and doing the best you can. Know in your heart who you are and don’t let anyone tell you different.

Note: The Frazier History Museum is a safe place. But if anyone is ever in need of additional resources—whether to learn or to provide yourself and those around you with the means to navigate these kinds of topics—visit the following links for support.

Additional Resources:

“Trans Day of Visibility.” LGBT Foundation.

Louisville Pride Foundation

Queer Kentucky. Provides services such as “Trans Inclusivity in the Workplace” training.

Amanda Egan
Membership & Database Administrator

In the Frazier Museum’s West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation exhibition, in a case of objects loaned by the Cole family, there is a program for a November 10, 1937, piano recital by “twelve-year-old piano genius . . . Tella Marie Cole of Louisville, Kentucky.”

As a Louisville-native pianist who learned how to play in the 2010s by watching YouTube tutorials, I’ve often stopped at this case and wondered: Who was this child prodigy?

In March, I set out to find answers. I scoured newspapers, interviewed her niece Nora Cole, and exchanged emails with her former students.

And I learned quite a bit.

I learned she grew up on Twenty-third and Walnut Streets in the Russell neighborhood of Louisville. She was the daughter of Louisville Leader newspaper founder I. Willis Cole. She had recitals as a child in Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and New York, where she performed pieces by composers such as Schubert, Chopin, and Mana-Zucca, as well as an original work. She graduated Central High School at sixteen in 1941 but was refused a spot at the U of L School of Music because of the school’s racial discrimination policy. She married and performed as a duo with renowned pianist Tourgee DeBose Sr. She taught piano at Illinois State University, where one of her students was actor Craig Robinson. She played “Un Sospiro” by Franz Liszt like no one else could. And her piano pedagogy was “beyond measure.”

As for her personality—“Tella Marie isn’t loquacious,” the Courier Journal’s Marion Porter wrote in 1941, reporting her discussion with the then-sixteen-year-old. “‘I want to be a concert pianist,’ [Tella] said with an arresting simplicity and singleness of purpose.”

What follows is an overview of the life and career of Mrs. DeBose, written for museum visitors planning to see West of Ninth. My hope is that, when you lay eyes on the yellowing eighty-five-year-old pamphlets promoting this talented young pianist, you’ll remember her story.

Tella Marie Cole DeBose, 1925–2012

Tella Marie Cole DeBose was born January 24, 1925, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Rosa Evelyn Long and Isaac Willis Cole and the youngest of the couple’s six children. Her father was a noted business and civic leader, devout churchman, and inductee of the National Negro Press Hall of Fame. He was the editor and sole owner of The Louisville Leader, a newspaper published from 1917 to 1950. The Cole family lived at 2317 West Walnut Street in the Russell neighborhood of the West End of Louisville.

From age four to twelve, DeBose learned how to play piano under Miss Emma L. Minnis. She made her first public appearance as a pianist in 1932 at age seven in Jeffersonville, Indiana, then appeared before the National Musicians’ Association in Indianapolis. In 1933, she was presented by the National Woman’s Missionary Society in Chicago and by the Kentucky State College that July. She appeared as a guest pianist on the Louisville radio station WAVE in August 1934. She appeared in a public recital in Memphis, Tennessee, before the schools of that city at the request of the superintendent, whose hope was to inspire the schoolchildren, in October 1934. She also had performances in Dayton, Ohio, and Hopkinsville and Lexington, Kentucky.

On Wednesday, November 10, 1937, twelve-year-old DeBose performed a recital at Williams Institutional C. M. E. Church, located at 218–20 West 130th Street in Harlem, New York. The recital was arranged by the Epworth League, a Methodist young adult association for people age eighteen to thirty-five.

From age twelve to sixteen, she studied under University of Louisville School of Music dean Dwight Anderson. He put a halt to her public appearances, but he allowed her to perform in 1940 at Louisville Municipal College. He said she had a “fine ear” that, if not the best, would have been “among the best” at the U of L School of Music, had she enrolled there.

On January 12, 1938, DeBose held another piano recital. According to the setlist, the recital consisted of seven solo pieces, then three pieces with vocal accompaniment, intermission, then seven more solo pieces, followed by the addition of Miss Minnis on a second piano. In addition to performing pieces by world-famous composers, including Mendelssohn, Chopin, Leschetizky, Schubert, Mana-Zucca, and Beethoven, DeBose performed an original piece titled “Dad’s Lullaby.”

She attended Central Colored High School and, after two-and-a-half years, graduated in 1941. She finished with a rating of 94, which placed her in the first ten honor graduates. The two or three hours of school she had missed each morning she took a music lesson “[hadn’t] hurt her a bit,” her principal, Dr. Atwood S. Wilson, told the Courier Journal. She performed the commencement exercises at her graduation ceremony Thursday, June 5, 1941, as well as all the chorus music.

Although DeBose had studied under U of L School of Music dean Dwight Anderson for four years, she was not allowed to enroll at the school because of its policy of not admitting African American students. On June 4, 1941, the Louisville Times commented editorially on the case, decrying her exclusion as an injustice, adding: “Certainly every thoughtful citizen of Louisville must be aware that equality of opportunity, one of the chief shibboleths of democracy, has been set at naught here.” In the June 5 Courier Journal, Dean Anderson voiced a similar position: “Sending her away from this city next year—because of our school racial restrictions—is to me a most shocking thing.”

In September 1941, DeBose enrolled at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, having been awarded a scholarship. In 1941–42, she was ranked the second-highest honor student in her freshman class. She graduated with honors in 1946, receiving both a bachelor of music and a master of music degree, and was elected to the Pi Kappa Lambda Honor Society.

Immediately upon graduating from Oberlin, she became a faculty member at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. During her tenure at Southern, she married Tourgee DeBose Sr., a nationally renowned concert pianist, and the two performed as a duo-piano team.

On Sunday, February 19, 1950, the Courier Journal published “2-Piano Recital,” an article promoting a concert by the DeBose couple to be held at Memorial Auditorium in Louisville, presented by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. “The program on March 5 will include solo performances by both [Mr.] DeBose and Mrs. DeBose, as well as numbers for two pianos,” it said. However, the morning the issue was published, Mrs. DeBose’s father, I. Willis Cole, died unexpectedly of a heart ailment at the family’s home on Walnut Street. As a result, the couple requested the concert be presented as a memorial to Cole.

Dean Anderson penned a review of the recital in the March 6 Courier Journal:

Mr. and Mrs. DeBose belong to those duo-pianists who play together like two individuals rather than like a disciplined mechanism. It is probably that they will continue to play thus, even after they have improved their unanimity of attack. At present, it is his virility that dominates while she supplies charm, but with greater experience he will surely temper the trumpet of his tone to more nearly match his wife’s flute.

Nothing in the afternoon equaled the glamour with which they invested Walter Niemann’s “Evening in Seville,” and they brought insinuating grace to two Danses Andalouses by Infante. The Saint-Saens Variations on a Theme of Beethoven came off not without mishaps of memory on the part of Mrs. DeBose, but there was a solid conception of the whole. Mendelssohn’s Allegro Brillant was the only example presented of music for four hands at one piano, and it was more successful, both in style and precision, than anything in the early part of the program.

Alone, Mr. DeBose played a Barcarolle by Ladow with warm lyricism, and the Paganini-Liszt “La Campanella” with bravura. Mrs. DeBose programmed the Liszt “Mephisto Waltz,” and added Smetana’s “By The Seashore.” She met the difficulties of the former with considerable ease, but the Smetana piece is more within her limits of endurance, and it was played with romantic grace. Her many friends in the audience must have noted the remarkable progress that she has made since her last public appearance here as a young girl.

In the late 1960s, Mrs. DeBose and her husband divorced. Together, they had two daughters, Donna and Arian.

In 1968, DeBose became a professor of piano at the Illinois State University School of Music in Normal, Illinois. In the 1969–70 academic year, she was one of 104 Black teachers in the US to receive an award from the Ford Foundation for advance graduate study. The Ford Foundation grant permitted her to devote full time to completing her dissertation at Indiana University, where she studied with virtuoso pianists Abbey Simon and Sidney Foster. The grant also enabled DeBose to develop a unique method of teaching piano on which she gave lectures and visual demonstrations. Her research is illustrated in a two-part teaching manual.

“When I think of Mrs. DeBose, I remember her beautiful smile and eyes that positively twinkled when she greeted her students or as she described the pieces, classical and jazz, that she had been playing at one or two o’clock in the morning,” former student Nancy Pounds told me over email. Pounds studied under DeBose at ISU and now teaches piano herself. “No one could play “Un Sospiro” by Franz Liszt like Tella Marie DeBose. It was simply mesmerizing. Her dedication to piano pedagogy was beyond measure. I will always feel deep gratitude for the many lessons over the years and for the gift of growing to know this phenomenal woman. She had a tremendous influence on my life, and I endeavor to pass along her teachings and inspiration to my students.”

At Illinois State, one of DeBose’s undergraduate students was Craig Robinson, from the class of 1994. A talented keyboardist and vocalist, Robinson is best known for his work as an actor in TV comedies, including The Office (2005–13) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013–21).

After retiring from Illinois State, DeBose continued to practice and coach her advanced students. She died April 13, 2012, in Bloomington, Illinois, and was interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.

Sources

Porter, Marion. “U. of L. Music Dean ‘Shocked’ By Rule Barring Negro Pupils.” Courier Journal. June 4, 1941: 12. Print.

Mootz, William. “2-Piano Recital.” Courier Journal. February 19, 1950: Sec. 4, p. 13.

Mootz, William. “DeBose Recital.” Courier Journal. March 5, 1950: Sec. 5, p. 1.

Anderson, Dwight. “Niemann’s ‘Evening In Seville’ Is DeBose Team’s High Spot.” Courier Journal. March 6, 1950: Sec. 1, p. 6.

National Urban League. Opportunity. Vol. 19–20. 1969: 219–20.

“ISU Faculty Member Receives Ford Grant.” The Vidette: A University Newspaper. Illinois State University. Vol. 82 No. 2. July 10, 1969: 5. Web.

Obituary of Tella Marie Cole DeBose. Courier Journal. April 27, 2012: B6. Print.

School of Music at Illinois State University. Facebook post. June 12, 2014.

Telephone interview with Mrs. DeBose’s niece Nora Cole. March 25, 2022.

Simon Meiners
Communications & Research Specialist

Published in the May 2, 2022, issue.

Each week leading up to the opening of the Frazier History Museum’s next permanent exhibition “The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall,” we will highlight an object or objects to be included in the exhibition.

Opening with a private reception May 19 and to the public June 1, 2022, “The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall” will tell the story of Kentucky’s rich history, including, among other topics, its native peoples, the Civil War, and the early nineteenth century, when cities such as Louisville gained prominence due to their important locations along the Ohio River. It will expand viewers’ personal connection to history by pairing historic figures like Henry Clay, emancipationist Cassius Clay, and Abraham Lincoln with diverse narratives from lesser-known figures in Kentucky history.

In partnership with artist Ché Rhodes and the (Un)Known Project, led by artist-run nonprofit IDEAS xLab, the exhibition will include a space for visitors to reflect on the stories, both known and unknown, of the enslaved that lived in Kentucky. This interactive exhibition is designed to engage visitors of all ages and will feature objects related to Kentucky’s diverse history as a border state on the banks of the Ohio, including the clock face from the top of the Town Clock Church in New Albany, Indiana, an important stop on the Underground Railroad, and the Bloedner Monument, the oldest surviving memorial to the Civil War.

“The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall” has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.—Amanda Briede, Curator

Chosen for the Mother’s Day issue of Frazier Weekly, Mollie’s letter proves the state motto of Kentucky—“United We Stand, Divided We Fall”—has always applied to Kentuckians and their mothers.

On May 23, 1862, a loving daughter in Georgetown, Kentucky, named Mollie wrote this letter to her mother, whose address is not known. “My Dear Mother,” it begins. “How I miss our mails! After hearing nothing for many days, at last the long-expected letter came, and my heart was made inexpressibly lighter, except that its made me very homesick and kept me crying for a half hour.”

In the letter, which spans eight pages, Mollie describes her day-to-day life and social visits from her close friends. She also goes into detail about how much she misses her mother, although her mother has only been away visiting family for a couple of months. Mollie talks to her mother about decisions she must make regarding a number of things, such as job opportunities. She says she may not be invited back to the schoolhouse after the school year ends and that she does not enjoy children, so being a governess would not be a good fit, either. She is also uncertain about a gentleman who is courting her friend, and reports that her friend has nothing good to say about the man, but still wants her to think well of him.

“My candle is sinking and my eyelids too,” the letter concludes. “Good night dear mother when I get home again I will always stay with you. [Enjoy?] yourself see you can. And still love your loving Daughter Mollie.”

Mollie wrote this letter prior to pivotal moments in the Civil War: The war had broken out in April 1861, and Confederate forces had occupied towns in Kentucky since September 1861; but it would be another two months until July 15, 1862, the day Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan would raid Georgetown, where Mollie lived. Had the stress of the war not affected Mollie yet, or was she trying to continue to live a normal life during this hard time? These are questions whose answers we don’t have.

What we can understand, however, is the close relationship between these two Kentuckians—and the love they shared.

Casey Harden
Director of Exhibit Ideation

Published in the May 23, 2022, issue.

Each week leading up to the opening of the Frazier History Museum’s next permanent exhibition The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall, manager of collection impact Hayley Rankin will highlight an object or objects to be included in the exhibition.

Opening to the public June 1, 2022, The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall will tell the story of Kentucky’s rich history, including, among other topics, its native peoples, the Civil War, and the early nineteenth century, when cities such as Louisville gained prominence due to their important locations along the Ohio River. It will expand viewers’ personal connection to history by pairing historic figures like Henry Clay, emancipationist Cassius Clay, and Abraham Lincoln with diverse narratives from lesser-known figures in Kentucky history.

In partnership with artist Ché Rhodes and the (Un)Known Project, led by artist-run nonprofit IDEAS xLab, the exhibition will include a space for visitors to reflect on the stories, both known and unknown, of the enslaved that lived in Kentucky. This interactive exhibition is designed to engage visitors of all ages and will feature objects related to Kentucky’s diverse history as a border state on the banks of the Ohio, including the clock face from the top of the Town Clock Church in New Albany, Indiana, an important stop on the Underground Railroad, and the Bloedner Monument, the oldest surviving memorial to the Civil War.

The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.—Amanda Briede, Curator

In Whitley County, Kentucky, situated near the southeastern border of Kentucky and Tennessee, is Mountain Ash, a small, unincorporated community that originated as a coal town for the Jellico Coal Mining Company. Like many coal companies of the early 1900s, the Jellico Mining Co. issued scrip coins to miners for purchasing goods in the Jellico company store. Scrip coins are private currency that often come in the form of metal tokens. The use of scrip coins, such as this ten-cent coin, kept miners and their families dependent upon the provision of the coal companies so they would remain in coal towns and continue to work there.

The Jellico Coal Mining Company, named for the Jellico Mountains in Tennessee, began mining around 1883 after the discovery of the Jellico coal seam drew several mining companies to the area. Jellico coal was considered a high-ranking “steam and grate” coal, so numerous coal towns populated Whitley County by 1910 to increase production.

Although the number of coal towns and miners has decreased over 200 years of commercial mining, due in part to changing technologies and environmental concerns, Kentucky still remains one of the top producers of coal for the United States today.

To learn more about the history of coal mining in Kentucky, visit The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall.

Hayley Rankin
Manager of Collection Impact

Published in the June 20, 2022, issue.

If I’ve learned anything during my seventeen years working at a history museum, it’s the extent to which the past affects the present. Specifically, I’ve learned that the hard work people put in to make change many years ago affected my day-to-day life growing up, and continues to influence my life today. How might my life be different without the seventy-year push for women’s right to vote, the invention of the computer, or the passage of Title IX?

Effective beginning June 23, 1972, Title IX states:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

While it’s often misconstrued narrowly as a sports-equity law, Title IX is actually an anti-discrimination civil rights law that covers all educational programs receiving federal assistance. But young me was not aware of any of this, and was just determined to run a faster mile and improve my left-hand dribble—not to mention make friends with teammates, many of whom remain an important part of my life today.

It didn’t occur to me until I was an adult that the passage of Title IX, three years before I was born, meant I was the first generation in my family with equal access to sports and educational programming.

I recently sat down with my mom, Kathie Burger Johnson, to explore how her experience growing up prior to Title IX was different from my own. Here are a few things I learned:

Her high school in St. Paul, Minnesota, only offered intramural sports for girls.

Many of the local private, religious schools offered high school sports for girls prior to Title IX, which meant, after it passed, they had a huge leg up on the public school competition.

Girls’ intramural sports were often scheduled early in the morning or late at night to keep the pool, court, or field open for the boys at more convenient times of day.

Some of the more athletic girls in her high school were picked on and called names.

There were not nearly as many women athletes to look up to and serve as role models.

It was very enlightening to hear about my mom’s high school experience specific to athletics and consider the impact of Title IX on my life. Having the opportunity to participate in a variety of sports, including track, cross-country, softball, and basketball, from the elementary level through college, taught me many things: how to work effectively as part of a team, that hard work leads to improvements, and that, when you inevitably fail, you get back up and try again. These are all valuable lessons I still lean on today.

Thank you, Title IX—and happy birthday!

Megan Schanie
Manager of School & Teacher Programs

Published in the July 4, 2022, issue.

The Fourth of July automatically makes us all think of backyard barbeques, pool parties, fireworks, and fun with family and friends. It makes us think of red, white, and blue, stars, and summertime. But we might also find ourselves briefly thinking about freedom, democracy, and the founding of a nation. What an incredible moment in history that was, a colony breaking free from its motherland. What kind of courage must it have taken to even dream of the possibility? And more so, the courage to stand in the face of doubt.

Here at the Frazier History Museum, we have some amazing pieces from the Revolutionary War, some pieces that help us see up close that incredible moment in history. One piece in particular is the Dr. Josiah Bartlett sword, which the museum obtained in 2002. This beautiful weapon features an ivory handle with the decorative head of a lion in silver. The sword is practical enough to serve as a serviceable weapon but decorative enough to denote the owner’s status and rank.

Dr. Josiah Bartlett served in the New Hampshire legislature and as a magistrate prior to the Revolutionary War. In 1770, the British government appointed Dr. Bartlett as commander of a local militia unit, and it is likely he acquired this sword at that time. Bartlett’s political principles and increasing opposition to British colonial rule resulted in him being stripped of his offices in 1775. This action, however, led to him being chosen as a representative to the Continental Congress. That same year, Dr. Bartlett became the first man to vote for the Declaration of Independence and the second man to sign the Declaration after John Hancock.

This weekend, if you are out in town with your family, we hope you will come down to the Frazier to visit. Come to our Founder’s Gallery on the second floor and see Dr. Josiah Bartlett’s sword up close and think about what a thrilling moment in history this was.

Tish Boyer
Collections Manager

Published in the July 4, 2022, issue.

On July 2, 1776, delegates meeting at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia voted to approve a resolution that had been introduced on June 7 by Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, that declared the colonies’ independence from Great Britain. The motion stated “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

John Adams, a delegate to the Continental Congress who would become America’s first Vice President and second President, quickly penned a letter to his wife, Abigail, on July 3 with the prediction that the Second Day of July, 1776, will be “the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

On July 4, delegates from the thirteen colonies formally adopted the document titled the Declaration of Independence that had been drafted by the Committee of Five appointed by the Continental Congress. The members of the Committee were Thomas Jefferson (who did most of the drafting), Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, and Adams.

Although the country would celebrate America’s independence on July 4, John Adams continued to believe July 2 was the correct date on which to celebrate America’s independence. Adams declared that the Declaration of Independence was a document that he described as “dress and ornament rather than Body, Soul, or Substance.” For Adams, the actual vote to declare American independence was the thing worth celebrating. In fact, Adams continued to believe that July 2 was the correct date on which to celebrate the birth of American independence, and would reportedly turn down invitations to appear at July 4 events in protest.

However, Adams did correctly describe the type of celebration America would adopt to commemorate the Fourth of July. Philadelphia hosted America’s first birthday party in 1777. It was a last-minute affair, but the Virginia Gazette references ships decorated “with the colours of the United States and streamers displayed” and a “grand exhibition of fireworks.” We also know individuals celebrated by enjoying meals prepared for the occasion. Members of the Continental Congress celebrated the vote to declare independence at City Tavern, the Philadelphia public house that hosted many gatherings of the founding fathers. Their dinner menu is not known but there are records of the meal John Adams and his family prepared to celebrate the anniversary of America’s vote for independence. Their meal would be very similar to the foods others in the thirteen colonies enjoyed on the occasion.

The Adams family dined on a meal of green turtle soup, poached salmon with egg sauce, green peas, boiled potatoes, Indian pudding, and apple pan dowdy. Turtle soup was one of the most popular dishes at the time. We don’t have Abigail’s recipe for the soup but her recipe for apple pan dowdy, a kind of messy apple pie, has survived. After all, what is more American than apple pie on the Fourth of July? I hope you will give it a try!

Abigail Adams Apple Pan Dowdy

Ingredients (Pastry):

• 1 1/2 cup flour

• 1/2 cup shortening

• 1/4 tsp. salt

• 1/4 cup butter, melted

• 3 to 4 tbsp. ice water

Instructions:

(Note that the pastry ingredients should be doubled if you plan to use a crust on the bottom and top of the apple filling. I only use it on the top: I cut the dough into squares then place the pieces on top to give it a “dowdy” look.)

Cut the shortening into the flour and salt with a pastry cutter. Sprinkle the ice water over dough, adding only enough to hold the dough together. Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness, brush with 1/4 cup melted butter. Cut pastry in half. Place one half on top of the other. Cut again and again until you have 16 separate pieces piled up. Press them lightly together, then chill the dough for 1 hour. Roll pastry again and cut in half. Roll one half to fit the bottom of the baking dish and the other to fit the top.

Ingredients (Filling):

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg

• 1/4 tsp. salt

• 10 Newtown Pippin apples (or apple of your choice)

• 1/4 cup molasses

• 3 tbsp. melted butter

• 1/4 cup water

Instructions:

Core, peel, and slice the apples. Mix with sugar and spices and put in pastry-lined dish. Combine molasses with butter and water. Pour over apples. Cover with top crust and seal. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Then reduce heat to 325 degrees.

“Dowdy” the dish by cutting the upper crust into apples with sharp knife. Bake one hour or until the apples are bubbling vigorously. Serve hot with ice cream or whipped cream.

Vickie Yates Brown Glisson
Board Member, Frazier History Museum
Guest Contributor

Published in the July 11, 2022, issue.

Ever wonder why, when you go to an exhibition like West of Ninth and see a slew of blue and green bottles, they’re always in the pharmaceutical section instead of mixed in among the other bottles? Well, there’s a reason for that: Pharmacists and bottle manufacturers in the late 1800s and early 1900s used color-coded glass bottles to signify the contents within. Blue, green, and in rare cases amber were the colors assigned to bottles of poison and hazardous medical substances. The bottles also had some odd shapes: They were often triangular or hexagonal (also known as coffin shaped). Most had some sort of ridging or bumps which, combined with the color and shape, alerted the handler of the contents.

A major reason for the advent of the formalized poison identification system was the prevalence of accidental deaths. During the early nineteenth century, hundreds of individuals worldwide died after mistaking poison containers for standard food containers. It was an easy mix-up: A person could stroll into their local grocery with an emptied out food container, fill it with a hazardous substance such as rat poison, then take it home with the rest of their groceries and store it—an unlabeled poison bottle—in a cabinet. As you can see, this could cause harm—especially if you are trying to get medicine in the middle of the night by candlelight in the mid- to late-1800s.

The most common of all poison bottles found by archaeologists and wayward hikers alike is generally a cobalt blue hexagonal bottle, a design patented in 1859 by Savory and Barker. Many bottles found today—at archaeological dig sites, home renovation projects, or various other locations—are popular among collectors. Sizes of the bottles range from one to twenty ounces, with sample sizes as small as an eighth of an ounce. In rarer cases, eighty-ounce bottles can be found; but usually, those bottles are not found fully intact.

In the Beecher Terrace case in the Frazier’s West of Ninth exhibition, you’ll find bottles in a variety of shapes and sizes. (Constructed in 1939, Beecher Terrace was a housing project located in the Russell neighborhood of Louisville. However, people had been inhabiting that location—a span of twenty-eight acres bounded by Ninth, Thirteenth, Jefferson, and Muhammad Ali—for many decades). If you look closely at select bottles, you’ll even be able to read the name of the product or the pharmacist who prepared and dispensed it.

In some triangular bottles with identifying cobalt blue color and distinguishing bumps, there would most likely be bichloride tablets that contained some antiseptic solutions. In small cobalt blue bottles, there could be solutions that promised relief for upset stomachs, headaches, hangovers, and more. Believe it or not, Lysol has been around for quite some time and usually came in a brown glass bottle or aqua glass bottle to denote it’s toxicity.

Many other fascinating things can be discovered about these bottles as archaeologists continue to find more.

Sources

Lindsey, Bill. “Bottle Typing (Typology) & Diagnostic Shapes.” Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA).

Eastman, Jane. “Dangerously Addictive Glass: Poison Bottles.”Beachcombing. October 5, 2021.

Sammie Holmes
Laboratory Manager, Corn Island Archaeology
Guest Contributor

Published in the July 25, 2022, issue.

The city of Louisville has had five official seals through the years, one of which is preserved in cast iron on the sidewalk directly in front of the Frazier Museum. Some of the designs emerged from a public competition, while one was the result of the mayor hiring an Austrian artist who had immigrated to Kentucky after fleeing Nazi Germany. All of the seals are interesting. In just a few short minutes, I’ll give you the detail on all five, then ask you: Which one is your favorite?

Mick Sullivan
Curator of Guest Experience

It has been really great this summer to watch guests explore our new permanent exhibition The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall. The exhibition is filled with stories, people, and objects—so many, in fact, that we’re focusing on some of our favorites, one at a time. In our new Commonwealth Collection video series, each episode features a different staff member highlighting a single object with insight, background, and detail.

First, curator Amanda Briede shares one of her favorites: an unusual doll in the exhibition’s Civil War gallery.

Mick Sullivan
Curator of Guest Experience

Published in the August 22, 2022, issue.

I sat beside Milt Hettinger as he spun story after story to me. He has seen and experienced more in his life than many people could experience in multiple lifetimes. The man is a master storyteller—but, as good of a storyteller as he is, he’s an even better man and firefighter. He’s humble about his accomplishments, but isn’t afraid to acknowledge they made an amazing impact.

Today, though, I’m particularly interested in one story: the time he helped save the Belle of Louisville.

In 2017, Milt retired from the Louisville Fire Department where he had been a diving instructor and also a commercial diver. He has spent thousands of hours in the dark-as-mud Ohio River. On an ordinary day, he knows what his day has in store for him; but life is unpredictable, so he keeps diving equipment in the back of his truck at all times.

August 24, 1997, was not an ordinary day.

On this particular morning, in the early predawn hours, the Belle of Louisville was taking in gallons of Ohio River water every second. She was sinking in port. Multiple things would need to go exactly right for the Belle to be saved. Fortunately, Wayne McBride, the owner of a tow boat company, was coming upstream when he noticed what was happening. He used his tow boat to nudge the Belle from sliding down into the river and being lost forever. While explaining the situation, Milt wants to make one thing clear: “If Wayne had not been there, the Belle would have been gone.”

McBride stabilized it, but they still needed someone to dive into the Belle and relieve the necessary valves to prevent it from taking in more water. Hettinger was called on the scene: He was the right guy at the right time.

As luck would have it, just a week prior to the sinking, Milt had taken a cruise aboard the Belle during which one of the engineers gave him a private tour. He saw the boiler, the engine room, and the workings of the boat.

Now, he was on the waterfront in the back of his truck changing into diving gear. “Do not send anyone in behind me,” he told a major for the Louisville Fire Department. The same boat on which his great-grandmother had worked as a cook—then called the Idlewild—was suddenly sinking. Milt recalls, “I knew what needed to be done.”

He wasn’t able to see a thing in the murky Ohio River water that consumed the compartments of the boat. All he could do was feel. His memory from the guided tour came rushing back as water continued to pour in. Shortly after he had entered the boat, he was able to relieve pressure from two valves on the boilers to prevent the Belle from blowing up.

Months later, a former seasonal employee of the Belle of Louisville, Brennan Callan, was charged with sinking the Belle by opening the fresh water valve in the engine room.

Thanks to the efforts of Hettinger, McBride, and over one hundred others, the Belle of Louisville was later brought up and is fully operational today. Captain Mike Fitzgerald gifted Hettinger the original blueprints as a sign of gratitude. Hettinger was also designated an honorary captain of the Belle of Louisville and named 1997 Louisville Firefighter of the Year.

Today, Milt still drives by the Belle every day on his way home from serving food at a soup kitchen in downtown Louisville. Every day, he blows her a kiss—remembering the day he and so many others saved her. “That day she became my lady,” he told me, before correcting himself.

“We saved her. Not me. We saved her.”

Greg Schoenbaechler
Marketing Manager

Published in the September 26, 2022, issue.

Cue the 5th Dimension’s 1969 hit song “Aquarius”: Members of the zodiac have entered the Frazier in the form of whiskey decanters!

While we can’t say if this alone will usher in a new era of light, love, and humanity, it will certainly enhance our permanent collection and museum displays.

The recently acquired Bourbon whiskey decanters are two of a set of six released in 1970, each of which depicts two icons from the twelve-month zodiac calendar. We have Capricorn-Cancer and Aquarius-Leo, which seem to indicate that the icons are paired with their six-month opposites.

The Frankfort Distilling Company, established around 1902, produced the decanter set to accompany their “Rare Antique” label Bourbon under the ownership of Seagram. This pre-Prohibition enterprise managed to survive the 1920s thanks to the Paul Jones Company, which purchased the distillery in 1922 then produced medicinal whiskey there. Seagram then purchased the company in 1943 primarily to acquire the Four Roses label. By the 1970 zodiac decanter release, the original Frankfort Distilling Company essentially existed in name only, but it continued to produce whiskey out of Louisville until 1983.

So why the zodiac? Any astrology lovers or daily horoscope followers out there? Interest in zodiac signs seems to be making a comeback after the initial craze of the late 1960s and `70s that saw star-sign accessories and horoscope booklets everywhere. “What’s your sign?” even became a popular pick-up line. In a time of mood rings, lava lamps, and bell bottoms, it’s not difficult to imagine.

Here in Louisville, the Fund for the Arts held a Zodiac Ball at the Zoological Gardens in 1970 to symbolize the “cooperative link between the twelve arts organizations which are members of the fund,” while advertisements such as Dante’s Zodiac Jewelry popped up everywhere.

From the 1950s through the `80s, Bourbon distilleries sold a great variety of fun decanters to increase Bourbon sales; naturally, they would design decanters that drew upon current pop culture. In fact, astrology became such a default topic of conversation that ads for alcohol and guides to hosting the perfect happy hour integrated the current fascination with the zodiac. It’s no surprise that distilleries sought to capitalize on the craze.

So while Mercury might be in retrograde, we are calm, optimistic, and moving forward here in the collections department because our new zodiac decanters are already on display in the Spirit of Kentucky®! This exhibition tells the story of Kentucky Bourbon whiskey, America’s native spirit.

Come see us soon!

Hayley Rankin
Manager of Collection Impact

Published in the October 10, 2022, issue.

During this brief video, Frazier Museum curator Amanda Briede shares an introduction to the Native American section of The Commonwealth exhibition.

Megan Schanie
Manager of School & Teacher Programs

Published in the October 17, 2022, issue.

This month’s Sippin’ With Stephen showcases the new and exclusive Bourbon Limited Members’ Club which ships Bourbon only available to club members directly to their Kentucky residence. My Frazier Museum colleague Haley Hicky is known as the chief marketing officer and “unicorn wrangler” for Bourbon Limited. Haley has an extensive background in the Bourbon industry and brings the knowledge and experience to make this club a must-join for all Bourbon lovers. The bottles will be shipped every two to three months at a cost of $200 per bottle plus tax and shipping cost directly from our distillery partners to your Kentucky residence.

After watching this episode, please feel free to contact Haley at hhicky@fraziermuseum.org with any questions about the club.

Stephen Yates
Community & Corporate Sales Manager

Published in the October 24, 2022, issue.

On Friday night, the Male Bulldogs will host the duPont Manual Crimson for the 140th matchup between the two teams. First held in 1893, the annual Male-Manual football game is the oldest high school football rivalry in the state of Kentucky—and one of the oldest in the country. Per tradition, the winning team gets to take home “The Barrel” and display it until the next year’s game.

When I enrolled at Manual in 2002, fresh off the school’s 2001 victory in “the Old Rivalry,” fourteen-year-old me took for granted that the Barrel would always be in my school’s lobby, beaming with history and heritage. But come November, I saw the Michael Bush–led Bulldogs trounce my Crimsons, 26-0, and custody of the Barrel transfer to my foes in purple on Preston Highway. (Come back, Barrel—I hardly knew ye!)

In advance of the historic game on Friday, we’ve asked two Frazier Weekly contributors—teaching artist Brian West (Male, class of 1996) and manager of collection impact Hayley Rankin (Manual, class of 2014)—to weigh in on the rivalry and what it means to them. Although I’m Team Hayley in this tiff, I’ve got to doff my cap to Brian: He played for Male’s 1993 4A State Championship football team. He’s got that `dog in him!—Simon Meiners, Communications & Research Specialist

Male Alum Brian West on the Old Rivalry

It warms this alum’s heart to know the football program has returned to prominence in the state. The Bulldogs, led by head coach Chris Wolfe, have been in the championship hunt nearly every year since Wolfe took the reins at Male back in 2010. In his eleven years as head football coach, Wolfe has led Male to the Class 6A State Championship game five times, winning the title two times in 2015 and 2018.

To be frank, Male has been the only school in the state that could hang with the perennial football powers at Trinity and St. X. Since 2007—when the Kentucky High School Athletic Association expanded the number of state football classes from four to six—Male has been one of only two other schools in Kentucky besides the Rocks and Tigers (and the only public school from Louisville) that has won the 6A State Championship.

Naturally, that fills me with a sense of pride. As a state football champion myself, I know that other former Bulldogs players, coaches, and alumni take great pride in the tradition of winning championships and being able to compete with the big boys at X and Trinity.

Another tradition we hold dear is being the best at the Male-Manual rivalry in football.

Sure, Manual has a terrific journalism program, contains top-notch facilities for studio art, and has a track and field program that might rival ours someday. Sure, the school has turned out some pretty classy and smart alums, like my co-workers Hayley Rankin and Simon Meiners.

But, when it comes to the pigskin, the Rams have never really been able to hang with us Bulldogs. The numbers don’t lie! Since the inaugural game in 1893, Male has amassed a record of 88 wins, 45 losses, and only 6 ties against Manual. When I played football at Male (back when Boyz II Men and Salt-N-Pepa were the rage), we always beat Manual in football.

Now, this year may be different. Male has lost some games. Manual seems to be having a good year, losing only one game so far this year and fighting St. X for the district crown. I doubt this year will be different though. Male wins big this Friday!

Cue George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog”!

Ruff! Ruff!

Brian West
Teaching Artist

Manual Alum Hayley Rankin on the Old Rivalry

Around this time eight years ago, I was probably thinking about all of the outfits I was going to wear for Red/White week as I juggled choir rehearsal, AP courses, college application essays, and an acceptable night’s sleep. Growing up with a focus on academics and performing arts, I was never really one for sports, but I loved (and still love) how it brings people together. And Red/White week accomplished this, to say the least.

Starting Monday morning before Friday’s game against Male, the entire student body transformed into a spectacle, donning costumes, decade outfits, all black (for the bulldog’s funeral, of course), and Manual spirit wear. It was visually overwhelming, ridiculous, and incredible. You were lame if you didn’t participate. It didn’t matter what magnet program you belonged to or how much you cared about athletics, everyone came together during Red/White week. But even I, a sports novice, knew that all of this pomp and circumstance revolved solely around one game. One football game played against our arch rival for over a hundred years. I never questioned it, never did a deep dive into the finer points of the history—I just knew we were two of the oldest schools in the city and that Male was the most important school for us to beat. To be better than.

So here I am, eight years later, not having given much thought to this in the in-between, ahead of the 140th football game between duPont Manual and Male. If it weren’t for the Frazier’s Kentucky Rivalries exhibition, another year would likely pass without me giving it much thought.

But it’s not just another year: This year, preparing for Kentucky Rivalries has allowed me to connect with local schools, alumni associations, and artifacts that represent a tradition of school spirit, including at Manual. As I learned more about “the Old Rivalry” from alumni, I became aware that Manual doesn’t have the best track record in terms of winning. In fact, Male has won over twice as many games as we have over the years. This was a surprise to me, not just because it’s no fun to learn you’ve often been the loser, but because that’s not how I remember it. I recalled my days walking through center hall, where the barrel sat atop our trophy cabinet. Was I witness to some rare occurrence? Was my memory muddled after barely a decade? My desire to solve this anomaly led me to game records where I expected to find at least one or two victories within my time, but instead, I discovered just how accurate my memory was. In the fall of 2010, my freshman year, the Crimsons won the barrel back from Male after years of passing it back and forth. In 2011, the barrel remained at Manual. And again, in 2012. And again, in 2013. I couldn’t believe it—four years in a row stands out for Manual along our timeline.

Even more remarkable, after my class departed in 2014, the barrel was lost once again to Male, beginning a seven-year winning streak they still possess. The superstitious might say that certainly wasn’t a coincidence and that my graduating class is a good luck charm, but I would credit the talent of our football team and coaches. The final scores from those games indicate how fierce the rivalry truly is, each time winning by just a touchdown or field goal: 21-14 (2010), 23-14 (2011), 24-14 (2012), and 32-29 (2013). It’s clear we fought hard to secure victory all four years, hearkening back to our trade school forebears who were determined to prove they were just as good as the intellectual elite in purple and gold. I hope the Manual football team can prevail this Friday and prevent seven years from turning into eight, especially as they are doing well this season with a 7-1 record, but I will stand up and cheer regardless of the outcome.

So here I am, proudly digging out the few t-shirts I saved from high school, red and black, that declare “Crimson Crazies” and “Manual” to return to the stadium to see, just in case, if the spirit of the Class of 2014 indeed makes a difference.

Go Crimsons!

Hayley Harlow Rankin
Manager of Collection Impact

Published in the November 28, 2022, issue.

Good morning!

Great things are happening with Stories in Mind, which brings the Frazier Museum into long-term care communities. Our team is visiting facilities nearly every day, and our audiences keep growing and growing. The residents have given a lot of positive feedback, and some have even suggested topics they want to know more about! Our facilitators, Susan and Martin, have taken some neat artifacts from the Frazier’s collection to the residents to provide a true hands-on experience. In fact, one of the residents brought their own show-and-tell artifact to one of the engagements: a cane her father had carved by hand from a piece of driftwood from the 1937 flood.

The residents have enjoyed a wide variety of subjects. We have created a menu that includes topics about Kentucky’s Natural Wonders, such as the Ohio River, species of trees, and the mountains; Kentucky Music and Musicians; and Kentucky Explorers and Inventors. We even had a program about Veterans Day in which we shared stories of some of Kentucky’s most notable veterans. And, let me tell you, the residents had some incredible stories to share about their personal experiences in the military.

The reception the residents have given us has far exceeded our expectations. Some of them have invited family members to the engagements—and those folks have expressed their excitement at how our interactions have benefited their loved ones. Our goal is to build relationships with the residents to provide a creative outlet by sharing stories and bringing the Frazier Museum straight to their residence. We are proud of this program and excited to continue growing relationships. Since the pandemic, many residents have suffered from loneliness. But Stories in Mind has given us the opportunity to positively impact the mental well-being of these residents.

If you appreciate the work we are doing, please consider supporting this program and the Frazier tomorrow on Giving Tuesday—or anytime.

For more information about Stories in Mind, please contact the Stories in Mind administrator, Kevin Bradley, at kbradley@fraziermuseum.org or (502) 412-2280.

Martin Rollins, Kevin Bradley, and Susan Reed
Stories in Mind Team