Transcriber's Log #003 - REBECCA RUSSELL PIGDEON of Wadesville, Virginia

Welcome to... My Darling Emma 1857

If you are NEW HERE be sure to read the beginning of the journey I am on transcribing my family's 19th century letter collection!

I can't believe how much I've learned in all these months of transcribing my ancestors correspondences just by jumping in there (sittin rather) and doing it! Recently I stumbled across some lectures on You-Tube explaining how to better read/transcribe 19th century documents like I have. Not sure why I didn't think of looking for something like this MONTHS ago, but here we are. 

Something I noticed right away into reading the letters, they didn't put words together like we do nowadays. An example is cannot/can not or someone/some one and ones I found a lil annoying when reading were to day/today or  a bout/about or my self/myself. 

    

    Numerous times I found myself fighting with spellcheck (or “spell check” if I was writing this 200 years ago.) I don’t turn it off because it helps me figure words out in some of the transcribing. I do keep the letter writer’s misspelled words “as is” in my transcribing to keep as much authenticity as possible.  Which brings me to my next semi-challenge of transcribing the correspondences.

Paragraphs, commas and periods were basically NONEXISTENT by most of these letter writers. Boy those were some late nights for me trying to transcribe those correspondences! These were mostly the earlier pre Civil War era letter writers that were so jumbled with text. Their words continuously flowing on the paper, one after the other, with no stopping.. except to flip the page!

As you can imagine just like today, some folks had better penmanship (and punctuation) than others. Some correspondences looked like puzzles and others were definitely more complicated to get thorough. I will take some photos of harder to read & odd letters and show them in future posts. Maybe I could post some of the text & words that I haven't been able to figure out and get help here on my MDE1857 blog. Does that sound like FUN to anyone else? Let me know if anyone is up for a good puzzle of cursive letters? 🤓 

     When Emma was written to as teen, her school friends and the majority of her corresponding Quaker family members ALL had pretty decent LEGIBLE handwriting compared to other letters in the collection. The Quakers were big on prioritizing educating their children in these times, boys AND girls.

Speaking of education (and Quakers for that matter), one Pidgeon family member that really stands out as having what I thought to be beautiful letters in my collection were written by Emma’s cousin Rebecca Russell Pidgeon of Wadesville, Virginia.

Letter and envelope written by Rebecca Pidgeon in 1873. Notice the little Westtown sticker

Back in the Fall of 1872, Rebecca Pidgeon was about 15 and a student enrolled at Westtown Quaker Boarding School (WQBS). She penned her letters to Emma who was around the same age at the time. 

“Beckie” as she closed her letters, wrote on quality monogrammed stationary and her envelopes adorned a miniature “Westtown” sticker on them. She tells of her dorm mates, day-to-day student life, how they must oblige to the Governess’s rules and their well-cared for campus with pampered flower gardens. Beckie seemed surprised to learn the campus had gardeners whose only job was to "tend to the flowers all day."

Westtown(WQBS) was founded in 1799 and is the oldest continuously operating co-educational boarding school in the United States today^{[winter 2026]} with a 600 acre Pennsylvania campus. When Beckie attended school there (in 1873,) it was newly coed and she mentioned this new situation in her letters. She very humorously said she's not so sure why anyone was ever nervous for the boys and girls to educate together because both are “too bashful to speak to one or another."

Beckie’s parents were Samuel Lukens Pidgeon and Sara Marshall Chandlee (I’ll list their other children below.) She never married or had any children but stayed very active with the Red Cross, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and of course like her family for decades before devoted to the Society of Friends. I actually saw her listed in the 1936 200th “Hopewell Anniversary Committee” when she was a mere 79 years old according to the book titled “Hopewell Friends History 1734–1934 Frederick County Virginia” ^{(copyright 1936)}. 

    I should throw in there that “Friends” is another name for Quakers for those that may not know. It is actually their original name and Quaker was meant in a derogatory way, but the Friends kept with the nickname. The name “Hopewell” ^{(according to Quaker.org)} was chosen because many Friends in the area had come from Hopewell in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Beckie’s family was one of the founding families of Hopewell Meeting House in Virginia. Which stills stands today. 
   

    Beckie was an aunt to Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon, notable woman's suffrage activist, teacher, speaker and researcher. Mary's many accomplishments including her time as a research economist for the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor and being the first woman to hold an educational position of any kind at the University of Virginia have been documented in several books and online articles. I found a nice bio here if you'd like to read up about Mary E. Pidgeon: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/pidgeon-mary-elizabeth-1890-1979/

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Beckie's Siblings

Children of 

Samuel Lukens Pidgeon & Sarah Marshall Chandlee:

•Edward Pidgeon (1851-1852) died at age 1

•Sarah Catherine Pidgeon (1853-1871) never married 
•Eliza Chandlee Pidgeon (1855-1930) never married 

*Rebecca "Beckie" Russell Pidgeon (1857–1941) never married  

•Lewis Pidgeon (1859-1951) married Susan Talbot Williams (*parents of Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon)
•Charles Marshall Pidgeon (1862-1951) married Katie Duvall (* I found their family photo in a letter)

•Cassandra "Cassie" Pidgeon (1864-1957) never married 

    Some wonderful photos of this family and homestead are in the Stewart Bell Jr. archives at the Handley Regional Library. Much to my appreciation they have been digitized and can be viewed online: HERE!

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Quotes I took from Rebecca "Beckie" Pidgeon's letters to Emma.

“We have privilege today, but perhaps thee don't know what I mean. Well! We don't have school this morning, and that is all. Once every other week our Governess tells us we may have privilege, and then we do not study but just play quietly or work at fancy work, or read or anything we like, we only have half a day, and have school on seventh day mornings.” 

 -Rebecca Russell Pidgeon June 18, 1873 ^{while attending} Westtown Quaker Boarding School

"The girls do a great deal of fancy work here on seventh day afternoons after they get settled, and that takes a long time, for about 3 o’clock they have some ice cream brought for us, and so it cost us 10 cts a saucer. The school is divided off in companys, and each has a name, the one I am in is called the “Myrtle Reath” and contains about nine girls altogether. Then when we have no school and each company can get together and have a real good time.” 

 -Rebecca Russell Pidgeon July 12, 1873 ^{while attending} Westtown Quaker Boarding School

“We have not the same superintendent that we had when I was here before. I like him very well even if he don't like the girls, and is very strict some times. He lets us go out of bounds to sled, with the boy’s assistant to pull up the sleds some times. And twice he let us go skating with the boys, that is not much fun though, for we are like “birds out of the cage,” and are pretty bashful. Some of the little girls are too naughty for any use. They will not mind what our Governess tells them a bit, and then we all get a scolding together. She is naturally a very sweet woman, so motherly, to those that treat her kindly, but quite delicate.”

-Rebecca Russell Pidgeon February 2, 1873 ^{while attending} Westtown Quaker Boarding School

"I can't think how much thy nice, kind, and interesting letter was valued, for it did me so much good as the girls say, I had to “smile” and out loud too. I don't think the teachers ever read the letters we get, but I have heard they read some, those that look suspicious; perhaps the ones to the boys, as they are very particular about us corresponding, and read it with the rules at the beginning of the session, not to write to any one on the other side."

-Rebecca Russell Pidgeon July 12, 1873 ^{while attending} Westtown Quaker Boarding School

"We have some fun though the boys call us “ducks,” I don't know why but it may be, because when we go to take a walk we go along two and two, in a great long string. Besides that most every girl has a nicname, one is “Pudding Deacon” because she is so fat. Myne is “Sqaub” because I am a young “pigeon” as they say, and most of the girls call me that. 

-Rebecca Russell Pidgeon July 12, 1873 ^{while attending} Westtown Quaker Boarding School

 

"On that same seventh day, which was the last, after we had our ice cream, someone asked for her (the Governess) to take us out to the boys bounds to see them play basketball, she seemed to think it would be too “exposing,” but finally concluded to take us, and after we got there, to our great disappointment they were not playing but when they saw us, some that were not the best players, commenced and it was more amusing than interesting, as some rather chimsey two ran together and caused an upset."

-Rebecca Russell Pidgeon August 12, 1873 ^{while attending} Westtown Quaker Boarding School

"The girls have been having quite a hammock fever - ever so many have been made, but I would not care to try it for it make the hands rather sore and there are no very nice places to put them. I never saw any until I came here this summer, so perhaps thee does not know what they are like. Well they are knit with one needle and a little block, like fishnets only they are longer one way than the other, and so the two ends are fastened ropes, to tie them to two trees so they can swing between, they look very much like pictures I have seen of Indians."

-Rebecca Russell Pidgeon August 12, 1873 ^{while attending} Westtown Quaker Boarding School

"We have been getting along very well this season so far. Several girls, me among them, have been broken out with Roseola. It is nothing dangerous, and does not last long, only it makes one feel very badly while waiting for it to last its time out, and the warm weather we have had lately, seems to have an effect on some of us. It was reported that Scarlet Fever was pretty bad in a very important little town near here, but our superintendent is so careful of us I don't think we are in any danger."

 -Rebecca Russell Pidgeon June 1, 1875 ^{while attending} Westtown Quaker Boarding School

“It is about harvest time with you, isn't it? We seem so shun up here that it is hard to find out what is going on in the outside world, unless our friends tell us in letters. I did see and hear a mowing machine, over in a field across the road from our bounds, and it seemed quite like home."

 -Rebecca Russell Pidgeon June 1, 1875 ^{while attending} Westtown Quaker Boarding School

Photo of Rebecca Pidgeon's envelope & letter she wrote Emma Childs while attending Westtown Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania. 

I actually have a photo of Rebecca in her elderly years standing in front of her home "Circle Hill" in Virginia that she mailed to Emma in a Christmas card. 

Let me know in the comments if you enjoyed hearing about cousin Rebecca Pidgeon and getting a glimpse into her correspondences with my 2nd ggrandma Emma E. Childs?

Sincerely,

    CT

-Some info taken from Rebecca Pidgeon’s obituary in the Richmond Times-Dispatch dated Fri, Jan 02, 1942

-Info about Westtown Quaker Boarding School from their website and the email correspondences I have had with the kind folks in their archives department

-Forgive mistakes I may have made in the names and birthdates etc in my posts. Please feel free to email for corrections if you may have them.