Correspondence: G.E.Valley Jr. -> Jean Valley, 20 Apr 1985

George E Valley Jr.

607 Main Street

Concord, MA

April 20, 1985

Dear Jean,

This is fast getting to be a real job. Before your letter came with its welcome news, I had already received the phone books for Ogdensburg and Lower Delaware. I have a collection of Xerox’s about the Cummins’ out of Who Was Who In America, and pix and phone books, and when the material you’re sending me arrives, I shall need a special file to keep it all in. I have started a log book, and a file in the pdp-11/34, both called “VLCMxy”. Hence this typed letter, so that there can be an easily found record of what I write, at least. I hope you don’t mind getting family letters off a machine.

The baptismal certificate was most welcome; I suppose you made a copy of it, but if you didn’t I’ll send you one of those I made when copying the pix that are enclosed.

I’m sorry a few of the pix are so dirty, but what can you expect from a cigar box over the years. I have not made photographs for about thirty years, and I do not have the facilities to wash prints any more. Perhaps your Tom can set them up for you. I am gratified that none of them have turned yellow – means I originally washed them real good. There are notes on the back, telling who else is in the picture, and approximately when it was taken. There are also two pages of Xerox copies of pix of Tom and Uncle Rob; ultimately you will receive proper photographic copies of these and also of other pix of Rob, pix of Uncle Harry, Mom and Pop. I imagine Pop’s pictures will be most interesting to the children.

Three cameras were involved: the box brownie that I had as a child; the larger “post-card” size 3A folding Kodak that Grandma gave me, either for my twelfth birthday or for some other reason about that time (1925 – 1927). I definitely had it while in high school, and all through college (until 1935). All larger pix, and pix of non-standard sizes, were taken with the Leica that Pop gave me for college graduation.

Tom had his catastrophic illness (Chorea, but caused by what I never knew, nor I think did anyone) while I was in college. Thus, most of the pix on the 3A Kodak show Tom as he originally was – a very pert, saucy and bright child. The larger pix (the curly ones) show Tom with a cup that I think he won a Mac Burney School, and with a model air-plane that I built the summer I returned home with my doctor’s degree, in 1939. Tom was a very mild mannered teen-ager at that particular time.

I have in mind to write the rector of St. Peter’s Church in Smyrna, and also to some Catholic archivist around Boston to find the name of a monkery whose members cultivate something called the Society of the Vallee’s and LaVallee’s. They live in Canada, west of Montreal – perhaps you’ve heard of them, and I won’t have to contribute to the Catholic Church to find out what they know?? I shall suspend these investigations until I have studied the contents of your eagerly awaited package.

Do you have the originals of the inscriptions in the Cummins Bible? If you do, there are a couple of dates that I can’t make out from the Xeroxs that you sent to Louisa: In what years did John Henry Cummins marry the two Ringgold sisters? One of the dates is missing in my copy and the other was blotted by John Henry so that it doesn’t come through on the copy. Also, in what year did Martha die? From what I have, I am able to conclude that Martha was at least 4 years older than Rebecca, but it would be nice to know for sure, in case for instance they weren’t sisters, or there were other Rebeccas and Marthas.

There were once quite a few Cummins in Who’s Who, none anymore. They seemed to be all pillars of the Episcopal Church or newspaper editors, and sometimes both at the same time. I am trying to trace the Ringgolds also – they stopped being famous in John Henry’s time, although one of them was a naval officer (USN) during the Civil War. It is entirely remarkable to me that these people were all so set against church ritual, that Grandpa Cummins was able to make a low church Episcopalian out of his daughter in spite of the fact that the Baacks must have been devout and strong minded Lutherans. I wonder what would have happened to me, had the rector of the church in Flushing been a Cummins – probably I’d have become a bishop too!

Well, as I said, this is a job that increases the paper.

We are both as well as we expect and hope to be, and we hope you are also.

With best regards to you and your family.

George E. Valley, Jr.