Finding aid for the Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free Family Photographs


Title:
Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free Family Photographs
Repository:
Western Reserve Historical Society
Phone: 216-721-5722
http://www.wrhs.org
Creator:
Free, Ethelinda Griswold Rice Family
Dates:
1850-1985
Quantity:
1.01 linear feet (1 container and 1 oversize folder)
Abstract:
Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free, daughter of Joseph and Juliet Boalt Rice of Ohio, spent most of her life gathering materials related to her family's history. She was descended from prominent families in the Western Reserve and New England. The collection consists of individual and group portraits of Ethelinda Free, her immediate family, friends, and ancestors; and views of their travels and residences in the Western Reserve of Ohio. Included are photographs relating to members of the Free, Rice, Hulburt, Boalt, and Griswold families. There are also several photographs of Jay Cooke and Lucy (Mrs. Rutherford B.) Hayes. Included are photographs and notes describing the Ashtabula, Ohio, harbor ca. 1870 and notes and a drawing describing the Great Lakes ships Wend-the-Wave and Snow-Drop. Includes tintype, carte de visite, and cabinet card photographs.
Identification:
PG 323
Location:
closed stacks
Language:
The records are in English

Biography of the Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free Family

Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free (1900-1985), the eldest daughter of Joseph Hulburt Rice of Ashtabula, Ohio, and Juliet Elizabeth Boalt Rice of Sandusky, spent most of her life gathering materials that related to her family history. She was descended from prominent families through both parents' ancestry in the Western Reserve and New England.

On her mother's side, the Griswold family was well known in Connecticut, producing such public figures as Governors Matthew and Roger Wolcott Griswold. The son of the latter, also named Roger Wolcott Griswold, settled in Ashtabula, Ohio, during the early nineteenth century and continued the family tradition of community service through politics during several terms as mayor. Griswold and his wife Juliet also carried on the Griswold tradition of large families. Eight children were raised in Ashtabula during the pre-Civil War era and, before marriage, all five of the brothers headed west in search of silver and gold at mid-century. Although their sisters shared in that adventure only through their letters home, many of the sisters eventually married men who would take them away from Ashtabula for the rest of their lives. Juliet Elizabeth married Joseph B. Hall and resided in Chicago for a time while Maria married Dr. William Warner from nearby Unionville and then followed him to Wisconsis and later to Kansas. It was Fanny, Ethelinda's great-grandmother, born in Ashtabula, who stayed closest to home by moving to Sandusky after her marriage to John Munson Boalt.

The Boalt family, originally from Norwalk, Connecticut, had settled in Norwalk and Sandusky, Ohio, prior to the 1830s and was involved in the early railroads and the lake shipping industry. John Munson Boalt served as a Sandusky councilman for several years and worked as postmaster. He may also have been involved in the firm of Boalt and Smith which was a produce and commission merchant establishment on the Mad River Railroad Dock in Sandusky in 1855. through business and the marriage of his two sisters Clara Boult Butler and Susan Boalt Caldwell, Boalt was linked to prominent members of the manufacturing industry as well as several community leaders.

During that same era, the Rice and Hulburt families of Ethelinda's father's ancestry reached local prominence in Ashtabula through their lake shipping and real estate endeavors. Although her great-grandparents, Peter J. and Eliza Rice, settled only briefly in Ashtabula in the 1860s, her grandfather, Milo L. Rice, returned to the area in 1872 to wed Eliza Maria Hulburt and work as a United States Collector of Customs at the Ashtabula harbor. Eliza's father Joseph Dewey Hulburt had entered the storage and forwarding business, and with Henry Hubbard owned and operated lake vessels while engaging in the lumber business.

Such family history inspired much interest on the part of Ethelinda Rice's parents, particularly that of her mother who attempted, unsuccessfully, to publish from the historical materials she collected. Juliet Elizabeth Boalt, called "Bessie," was born in Sandusky in 1875. In 1893 she graduated from the Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and taught at the Ogontz School in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, for several years before her marriage to Joseph Hulburt Rice in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1899.

Joseph Rice was born in Ashtabula in 1873. He attended the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, graduating with a B. S. degree in 1892 and a degree in Civil Engineering in 1902. After receiving his baccalaureate degree, Rice spent several years working as a civil engineer for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad before becoming plant superintendent at the Dow Chemical Company in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. In 1905 he returned to Ashtabula with his wife and family to take care of family interests in what would become the Griswold Greenhouse Company and the J. H. Rice Company. During this time he developed JEBL, a specialized plant fertilizer, and experimented with soil research, corresponding with Dr. W. R. Veazey of the Case Institute as well as officials in the state and federal departments of agriculture. He later entered the insurance business at which he seems to have been moderately successful, and became an active member of the Masons.

Raised in such traditions of education, culture, and community service, both Ethelinda and her sister Lucinda eventually gravitated to the eastern seaboard. Born in 1900, Ethelinda attended Western Reserve University in Cleveland before transferring to Simmons College in Boston and graduating in 1923. Lucinda, Ethelinda's only sibling, was born two years later, and also attended Simmons College, graduating in 1924 with a Bachelor of Science degree. Lucinda then spent that summer on scholarship at the marine biological laboratories at Bermuda and the next summer in the laboratories at Wood's Hole. She received a Master of Science degree in Hygiene and Physical Education from Wellesley College in 1928, serving there as an assistant to the instructor of physiology, and taught at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, South Carolina. She later returned to Boston to work with biologist Dr. Alexander Forbes as a laboratory technician at the Harvard Medical School. Meanwhile, Ethelinda remained in Massachusetts, teaching the sciences and United States History, then doing secretarial work for various offices. In 1928 she returned to teaching biology at Brookline High School.

The year 1929 was difficult for the Rice family. Lucinda died suddenly on April 1 from peritonitis which developed after an appendicitis operation. Four months later, Ethelinda married Frederick Herman Free, Jr., of Plainview, Nebraska. By fall, they had taken up residence in Massachusetts where Frederick practiced law. Over the next ten years, Ethelinda worked as a substitute teacher in the Boston suburbs and a part time secretary at Harvard's Museum of Zoology. In the late 1930s, the Frees separated for approximately a year, and Ethelinda returned to the Western Reserve to work in publicity at the Cleveland Museum of Art while beginning graduate work in history at Western Reserve University. Her eventual return to Free in Massachusetts prevented the completion of her degree, but her interest in history was never forgotten. For the rest of her life she collected her own family history and attempted to write both fiction and nonfiction based on her family's experiences. Little of this work was published although her attempts, as well as the materials from which she worked, were preserved.

Scope and Content

The Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free Family Photographs, ca. 1850-1985, consist of individual and group portraits of Ethelinda Free, her immediate family, friends, and ancestors; and views of their travels and residences in the Western Reserve of Ohio. Included are photographs relating to members of the Free, Rice, Hulburt, Boalt, and Griswold families. There are also several photographs of Jay Cooke and Lucy (Mrs. Rutherford B.) Hayes. Included are photographs and notes describing the Ashtabula, Ohio, harbor ca. 1870 and notes and a drawing describing the Great Lakes ships Wend-the-Wave and Snow-Drop. Includes tintype, carte de visite, and cabinet card photographs.

The collection includes approximately 800 loose black and white photographs of varying sizes. It also includes 3 albums. The first album contains 80 black and white carte de visite photographs and measures 8.5 x 6.75 inches. The second album contains 160 black and white carte de visite photographs and measures 10 x 7.5 inches. The third album contains 19 black and white photographs and measures 5.25 x 6 inches.

Statement of Arrangement

The collection is arranged in six series.
Series I: Free Family is arranged alphabetically by subject.
Series II: Rice Family is arranged in five sub-series. Each sub-series is arranged by subject.
Sub-series A: Ethelinda Griswold Rice
Sub-series B: Joseph Hulburt Rice
Sub-series C: Juliet Elizabeth
Sub-series D: Lucinda Hulburt Rice
Sub-series E: Miscellaneous Rice Family Members
Series III: Hulburt Family is arranged by subject.
Series IV: Boalt Family is arranged by subject.
Series V: Griswold Family is arranged by subject.
Series VI: Miscelleanous Photographs is arranged alphabetically by subject.

Restrictions on Access

None.

Related Material: Related Material

The researcher should also consult MS 4028 Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free Family Papers.


Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Ashtabula (Ohio) -- Photographs.
Boalt family -- Photograph collections.
Cabinet photographs.
Carte de visite photographs.
Cooke, Jay, 1821-1905 -- Photograph collections.
Free family -- Photograph collections.
Free, Ethelinda Griswold Rice, 1900-1985 -- Photograph collections.
Griswold family -- Photograph collections.
Harbors -- Ohio -- Ashtabula -- Photographs.
Hayes, Lucy Webb, 1831-1889 -- Photograph collections.
Hulburt family -- Photograph collections.
Rice family -- Photograph collections.
Ships -- Great Lakes.
Tintype.

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] PG 323 Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free Family Photographs, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

These photographs were removed from MS 4028 Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free Family Papers. Gift of the estate of Ethelinda Griswold Rice Free in 1985.

Detailed Description of The Collection



Series I: Free Family, ca. 1929-1985

Box 1 / Folder 1-4
Ethelinda and Fred Free; Free family; friends; and scenes, ca. 1929-1985





Series II: Rice Family, dates vary




Sub-series A: Ethelinda Griswold Rice, dates vary

Box 1 / Folder 5-12
Portraits; album; candid; camp views; friends; travel; and scenes, dates vary




Folder 1
Oversize Folder 1: Portrait, ca. 1900s







Sub-series B: Joseph Hulburt Rice, dates vary

Box 1 / Folder 13-15
Portraits and candid, dates vary







Sub-series C: Juliet Elizabeth "Bessie" Boalt, dates vary

Box 1 / Folder 16
Portrait and candid, dates vary







Sub-series D: Lucinda Hulburt Rice, dates vary

Box 1 / Folder 17-22
Portraits; class pictures; candid; camp views; friends; and scenes, dates vary







Sub-series E: Miscellaneous Rice Family Members, dates vary

Box 1 / Folder 23-24
Portraits; candid; and Sanford Rice's travel views, dates vary





Series III: Hulburt Family, dates vary

Box 1 / Folder 25-26
Portraits and an album that could belong to the Rice family, dates vary





Series IV: Boalt Family, dates vary

Box 1 / Folder 27-29
Portraits; candid (probably from Bessie's stay in Florda ca. 1897-1898); and John Munson Boalt album, dates vary





Series V: Griswold Family, dates vary

Box 1 / Folder 30
Portraits and scenes, dates vary





Series VI: Miscelleanous Photographs, dates vary

Box 1 / Folder 31-34
Ashtabula area views; miscellaneous portraits including Jay Cooke and Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes; and unidentified people and scenes, dates vary




Folder 1
Oversize Folder 1: reprints of Ashtabula Harbor area, ca. 1870s




Folder 1
Oversize Folder 1: inside and outside a greenhouse, dates vary