I decided to write up another cookbook from my collection, because it turned out to be even more interesting than I thought it was. Here is the cover:
This is actually a lined blank book, with all the recipes (except for some newspaper clippings) handwritten in it. Keep that “Treasury Department” information in mind as we go along.
Before we go into the people details, there are three vague clues about this book in the form of notes written in it:
(1) The inside front cover has the note “Small store Room” written in pencil.
(2) The reverse of the front page has the note “check out what you take out. Flo[ ]t for gen mess. Back for wardroom.”
(3) The inside back cover has the note “Wardroom Mess.”
These are not, of course, domestic kitchen related notes; wardrooms occur on warships.
Our first very specific clue is the name and address written in ink on the front side of the first page, which says:
Sarah L. Ashton
1019 Ashmun St
Sault St. Marie
Mich.
c/o Wynn Apts
To deal with the short lead first, I searched for “Wynn Apartments” in Sault Ste. Marie and to my surprise turned up a relevant hit – Chippewa County businessman Robert J. Wynn acquired the Wynn apartment building in 1912.
The 1922 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Sault Sainte Marie, Chippewa County, Michigan (plate 29) shows 1019 Ashmun Street as one side of a three-story, six-unit apartment building.
Before anybody gets too excited about this delightfully specific information, here’s what that block looks like in the current Google Maps view:
That’s a Rite Aid and its parking lot, I don’t know why it has a marker that says “higi.” Mr. Wynn’s valuable apartment building, former residence of Sarah L. Ashton, is no more.
So let’s return to Sarah L. Ashton. For the longest time, I was convinced the first name was “Soval” and spent too much time trying to find anyone of that name. Finally I just started looking at Ashtons and found her entry.
First, though, I referred to some of the notes on the recipes in the book, specifically:
Mrs. Moore – Soo. Michigan 1938
Mrs. Meserve? Kezar Falls Maine, 1939
Jeanne Daughatry? Soo. Michigan, 1940
“Soo” means “Sault St. Marie,” seeing as the “Sault” is pronounced “Soo.” Anyway, this told me to look in the 1940 federal census. And there she was!
Connecticut-born Sarah Ashton was a married woman acting as head of household, living at 1019 Ashmun Street (one of three households at that address). Aged 30, she had a 10-year-old daughter Louise and a five-year-old son, helpfully named Peter Jr. Both children were born in Connecticut, but five years before the family resided in Portland, Maine.
So far so good, but where was Peter Sr.?
Answer: In the Coast Guard, on the USS Ossipee, stationed at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
He was Peter P. Ashton, 40 years old, and born in Ohio. Five years before, he was also in Sault Ste. Marie. Unfortunately, the census enumerator did not record the occupations of the Coast Guard sailors.
This explains the U.S. Treasury blank book, because at the time the Coast Guard was still in that department! And it explains the “wardroom” and “mess” references written in it! Peter must have taken his wife’s handwritten cookbook with him onto the Ossippee.
So to get a more complete picture of his couple, let’s go back to 1930, when Peter and Sarah had just married.
Sarah L. Ashton was lodging at 111 Blinman Street in Ward 3 of the City of New London, Connecticut, in the household of a widowed French Canadian woman and her young grandson. The form also tells us that she had married at 19, and that her father was born in Connecticut and her mother in Massachusetts. She did not give an occupation.
Peter was not living with her because he was in the “U.S.C.G. Receiving Unit” in New London, according to the census.
He was 30 years old, had married at 29, and reported that he and his parents were born in Ohio.
And his occupation was listed as “Ships Cook First Class.”
According to a simple index to Connecticut marriage records (1897-1968) created by the Connecticut State Library and accessed through Ancestry.com, Sarah Jordan married Peter Ashton at New London, Connecticut on September 9, 1929. That’s consistent with the 1930 census information, which is great.
Since the censuses after 1950 are not publicly available, I turned to city directories to trace their movements before and after that date. And I made a Google Map to look up the various addresses:
The New London city directory for 1930 had them at 111 Blinman Street; in 1931 they were at 45 Willetts Ave; in 1932 they were at 77 Howard Street; in 1933 and 1934 they were at 59 Willetts Ave; and in 1935 they had removed to Portland, Maine. According to Google Maps, the current Blinman Street and Willetts Avenue buildings may be the same, while 77 Howard Street is now a modern commercial district.
An interesting but not surprising aspect of their movements has to do with Sarah L. Jordan’s parents. In the 1920 census, when she was 10 years and 9 months old, her family was living at 9 Stony Hill in New London, a road that no longer seems to exist. Her father, John J., was 48 years old and a house painter; her mother, Louise V., was 47. She had two older brothers, Joseph A. (22 and working as a flag man on the railroad) and Sherman R. (19 and working as an oiler at something beginning with M), and supposedly a younger sister, whose name started with L and was 1 years and 1 month old. The census enumerator’s handwriting included many unnecessary flourishes that make it hard to read.
In 1930, after all but the youngest child (now identified as a son named Leander B., age 17 and working as a grocery store salesman) had moved out, the Jordans were living in a two-family house at 77 Howard Street – the same place their daughter and son-in-law were listed in the 1932 city directory. By 1940, Sarah’s father John had died, and Leander was living with Louise and working as a salesman for a wholesale bakery.
After they moved to Portland, ME, Peter and Sarah stayed there for about three years (in 1935, only Peter was listed, on his ship; in 1936, their address was 177 Cumberland Ave, and in 1937 it was 44 Myrtle Street, and there was no listing or them in 1938).
Then in 1939, they turned up at 1019 Ashmun Street in Sault Sainte Marie. They were there in the 1940 census, and then not listed in the 1941 directories. Between 1942 and 1950 they were listed in the city directory as living at Cohanzie Road in Waterford (next to New London). In 1952, the directory said they had removed to North Carolina. The key thing here, though, is that in at least 1942 and 1944, the directory also listed Louise Jordan and Leander Jordan (who was actually in the army) at Cohanzie Road as well. Cohanzie Road no longer exists; according to a local news site, it is now called Vauxhall Street Extension. This is a very long road, so for the Google map I just picked the point where it intersects with I-395.
Also, from 1947 to 1950, Peter Ashton was listed in the directories as working at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy – not on a ship. According to the directory and census information – I don’t have access to Coast Guard personnel records – Peter Ashton as assigned to the Ossipee between 1935 and 1940. The Ossipee (specifically the WPG-50 iteration of the name) was a Coast Guard cutter built at Newport News, VA in 1915 and assigned to Portland, ME in that year. The ship was 165 feet long and 32 feet wide and apparently looked like this:
The ship was transferred to the Navy in 1917 and patrolled in the Mediterranean during World War I, then returned to the Coast Guard at Portland in 1919. It stayed there until 1935, where Peter Ashton joined its crew. It was then transferred to Sault Sainte Marie in 1936, and the other information indicates that the Ashtons moved with it. Then on November 1, 1941, the Ossipee was transferred to the Navy, patrolling in Lake Erie until June 1945, when the ship (then 30 years old) was decommissioned and sold to a private individual.
So: the period during which this cookbook could have been kept in the wardroom of a ship was only from 1935 to 1941. Why Peter would have borrowed this book from Sarah is another question. There appears to have been a Navy cookbook that was in use during that period. And presumably, since the 1930 census said he was a ship’s cook (first class), he had been trained in cooking by the Coast Guard. Still, it seems possible that this book served, however unofficially, on the US Coast Guard vessel Ossipee for some period in the 1930s. That is a most unusual history!
As to its owners, Peter P. Ashton (February 5, 1900 – August 5, 1959) died in a veterans’ hospital in Norfolk, VA, as a retiree from the US Coast Guard (though his residence was in Elizabeth City, North Carolina). This death record identified his wife as Sarah L. Ashton, and his parents as Jenny Brady and Charles Wesley Ashton. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The gravestone recorded his service in the Coast Guard, World War II, and the Korean War:
It also stated that he was born in North Carolina. This is odd, because his obituary in the Raleigh, NC News and Observer stated that he was born in Youngstown, Ohio (which is consistent with the census information). He served in the Coast Guard for 30 years, ending his career as a chief warrant officer (a big step up from being a cook).
Sarah L. Jordan Ashton’s death was reported in the News and Observer in 1989, when she was 79 years old. The obituary said she was from Mystic, Connecticut (which is close to New London), and had been a busy volunteer in Greenville and in Elizabeth City (where she lived from 1950 to 1966).
How her cookbook wound up in a collection of miscellaneous papers being sold at the antique show in Brimfield, Massachusetts is a mystery that is likely to never be solved. Did she give it away at some point when she was in Connecticut, before they moved south? There’s no way to know.
This turned out to be an even more interesting story than I expected. I hope you enjoyed it too!
Ashmun Street should be Ashman Street but for a clerical error, the family's last name is Ashman, not Ashmun. https://www.cchsmi.com/articles/samuel-ashmun-1799-1866/
The Rite Aid is new, and I suspect HIGI refers to the business that was there, before Rite Aid. HIGI could be a healthcare company or Home Interior and Gifts, Inc.
So, the story within your wonderful story! Thank you!