Moving further west to Bloomington, Illinois

Focussing on Julia and Carl Vrooman

Welcome to the latest edition of my blog, whether you have been with me from the start, or have signed up more recently. I’m almost a thousand miles further west now, having travelled from Boston to Bloomington, Illinois on Tuesday, crossing into another time zone - I’m now 6 hours behind the UK! This map may help as a reminder about the stages of my trip.

I am in Bloomington because this is the city where two of Adela Curtis’ important supporters lived - Carl and Julia Vrooman. I am actually staying in what was their former home, as it is now a B&B! In the next two photos, I have put my room in the guest house in Boston, side by side with my room here in Bloomington, to show the contrast in surroundings. I want to say straightaway that my room in Boston was fine and the whole experience in that guest house was pleasant - this is no criticism at all - it is just the contrast that strikes me!

My room in Boston - simple, clean and had all I needed. My room in the Vrooman house - large, light and opulent.

The contrast came to my mind because of Adela Curtis, the person I am researching. We can be pretty sure that she would have much preferred the room in Boston, as she was an advocate of a simple life. She wrote a book, In Praise of Littleness, and was known to have preferred life in a wooden hut rather than in a ‘proper’ house. She wouldn’t have liked Boston, however, because she hated cities and certainly enjoyed the natural world around her Dorset home, commenting regularly about the weather and the landscape in her diary.

Some photos of the Vrooman house, beginning with the dining room with the round table. This was the room where Eleanor Roosevelt was entertained and where I have my breakfast! The final two photos are of Julia and Carl in their younger days.

Carl and Julia were wealthy and well-connected politically and socially in the States. Julia’s aunt was married to Adlai Stevenson I, who was vice president of the USA in the 1890s and he gave Julia away when she married Carl, as her father had died previously. Carl was appointed Assistant Secretary of Agriculture during the WWI period, in the Woodrow Wilson administrations. In this role, Carl was a key player in the ‘War Garden Movement’ which encouraged the population to grow food in their backyards. It was a very successful project.

The family’s wealth came from Julia’s father, Matthew Scott, who founded a city, Chenoa in the north of McLean County and made a fortune from buying large tracts of land which he had turned into profitable corn growing land. Corn is still the major crop today.

Whilst still in the UK, planning this trip, I had discovered online the McLean County Museum, which is in Bloomington and when I saw that they had an archive related to the Vroomans, I contacted the Museum and Bill Kemp, the Librarian, got back to me and we arranged for me to visit. I wasn’t sure what I would find, but I am delighted to say that through searching the Vrooman correspondence and reading a biography about Carl, I have discovered some very useful information. Bill has been most helpful and friendly - he got the relevant boxes of archives and books ready for my visit and did a fair bit of scanning for me. I was also able to give to the museum copies of various papers that we had got which mentioned the Vroomans and which will expand the information the museum has about their connections with Adela and her communities in the UK.

Bill and I are standing in the Library section of the museum, which was once the County Courthouse. The pages are from a book by Helen Cavanagh called, Carl Shurz Vrooman: A Self-Styled Constructive Conservative, (Lakeside Press, Chicago: 1977.) The first page details Carl and Julia's first meeting with Adela Curtis in 1910. The second page recounts what was probably their last stay with her in Burton Bradstock in 1953. The page with red ink gives Julia's recipe for bread, for which she was reknowned. In a newspaper article elsewhere she explains that it was Adela Curtis who first taught her how to make bread.

I also discovered the church that Carl and Julia had attended for many years when they were at home in Bloomington. This is the 2nd Presbyterian Church, which is actually just a short distance from the Museum. Again I struck lucky, as the church was open and one of the first people I met inside was the church historian, Jeanie Wendt, who generously gave her time to show me around the building and talk about the history of the place and particularly about the era when Julia was involved. One other thing that particularly struck me about the history of this church was that it is the 2nd Presbyterian Church of Bloomington because it broke away from the 1st Church which was pro slavery.

Jeanie and I are standing in the history room in the church. The current church building was erected after Julia's death but the church that she would have known is pictured also. The dinner for Chinese airmen took place in 1947. Julia is on the right of the second row from the front.

All in all, it has been a really fruitful and enjoyable time in Bloomington with some very good contacts made with Bill and Jeanie and information garnered about Julia and Carl, a couple who had strong connections with Adela Curtis for over forty years. My next stop will be Denver in Colorado - I will be in touch again in a few days.