Actors in the Family

I’ve known since my childhood about the Alcox/Alcott family who had been prominent in the early days of the town where our family lived. I’ve written about them in a prior blog post (https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2019/03/genealogy-story-alcockalcockealcoxallco.html). And as part of this I knew about my 3^rd cousin, Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), who is perhaps best known for the book she wrote, “Little Women”. She wrote this in 1868 and it was an immediate success.

However, I had not known that her book had been turned into a play. Here is that story…

 

The Concord Players

A few days ago someone posted in one of the Facebook groups which I follow (New England Family Genealogy and History). In this post she noted that she found among her family’s things a program for a play put on by The Concord Players which was celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Louisa May Alcott (1835-1888). (Here is a link to that posting - https://www.facebook.com/groups/HistoryGenNEFamilies/permalink/26372361562407315/).

[Picture of program]

 

The thing that caught my eye immediately is that two of the actors were Bronson Alcott Pratt and Louisa Alcott Kussin. That could not be a coincidence! Some quick checking revealed that Bronson and Louisa were siblings and that they were grandchildren of Louisa May Alcott’s sister Anna – thus making them my 5^th cousins, twice removed (5C2X – I’ll be using this notation in all the results below).

I decided that I needed to see if any others in the cast were also cousins of mine. It took a bit of research, especially for the women as I didn’t know whether they were going by their maiden names or their married names. However, I was able to take advantage of the fact that all of these individuals were living in or around Concord, MA in the 1930s – where the Concord Players were based. Here are my results:

·       Bronson Alcott Pratt (1889-1943), 5C2X

·       Grace W. [Brooks] Butler (1891-), 9C1X

·       Louisa Alcott [Pratt] Kussin (1900-1982), 5C2X

·       Caroline W[aterman] [Swift] Farnsworth (1905-1957) 8C2X

·       [Mary] Cornelia Lunt (1889-1965), 9C2X

·       Marian [Molly] Harlow (1913-1993), 8C2X

·       Janet [January] [Elliott] Wulsin (1893-1963), 6C4X

·       D[aniel] Ripley Gage (1885-1962), 8C2X

·       Raymond P[eacock] Baldwin (1894-1971), 9C1X

·       Hans W[illiam] Miller (1890-1960), since he was playing a German part, it’s only reasonable that his family were recent immigrants from that country. The only non-cousin in this list.

·       Russell T[rain] Smith (1905-1992), 8C3X

·       Mary [Dillingham] [Brooks] Buttrick (1887-1965), 9C4X

I also decided that I’d investigate the director and costumer who were listed on that program:

·       Marvin C. Taylor (1890-1973), 9C3X

·       Mrs. Allen French (1883-1964), Aletta Ayyrrigg Lillibridge, 2^nd wife of Allen French, 6C4X. Note that Allen French was the author of “Sir Marrok” which he wrote in 1905 and which I republished (and later added to) upon the birth of my grandson, Ethan Marrok Christman.

Thus, of the 14 people involved, 13 of them are my cousins! What a great finding! I never knew that there were so many actors in my family.

 

The Play

There was one other thing I needed to check out – the person who wrote the play version of Louisa May Alcott’s book. I found that story here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Women_(play). As you can see, Jessie Bonstelle, had been appealing to the Alcott family for the right to adapt the book into play format. She began this shortly after the turn of the century and after eight years was finally able to get permission from the family (Louisa had been dead about twenty years at that point. But Jessie did not feel capable of writing the play herself, so she enlisted the services of Marian de Forest.

So, are these two woman cousins of mine as well? Here is what I found:

·       Jessie Bonstelle (1871-1932), 7C3X

·       Marian de Forest (1864-1935), 5C4X

This play debuted in Buffalo, NY, in 1912, then toured the US before making its Broadway debut later that year where it went through 184 performances. There was no obvious New England connection in all this, but what were the chances that any of the actors were my cousins as well?

 

The Broadway Production

With a play that was first performed in Buffalo, NY, and later on Broadway, it turned out to be even harder to find the genealogical records of the actors. But, after many hours of research, here are the director, the original 12 actors, and the one replacement who filled a role on Broadway:

·       William A. Brady (1863-1950), family from Ireland

·       [Emma] Marie Pavey (1881-), English/German ancestry

·       Alice [Rose] Brady (1892-1939), daughter of director, Irish and French ancestry

·       Gladys Hulette [1896-1991), 9C2X

·       Edith [Margaret] Speare/Spears (1894-1970), 7C5X

·       [Nellie] Gertrude Berkeley (1864-1946), 6C4X

·       Eugene A. Eberle (1840-1917), 5C5X

·       Howard [Bolles] Estabrook (1884-1978), 7C3X

·       [Elwood] John Cromwell [Dager] (1886-1979), 8C3X

·       Carl Sauerman (1868-1924), born in Sweden, studied in Germany, which is appropriate for playing the part of a German

·       Carson Davenport (1860-1937), England and Ireland ancestry (it wasn’t until I found a picture of him in an old newspaper that I realized that he was much older than many the others and could adjust my searches.

·       Lynn [Burleson] Hammond (1879-1963), 8C2X

·       Lillian Dix (1864-1922), 9C3X

·       Beverly West (1898-1982), German/Irish ancestry

Thus, 8 of the 13 actors are my cousins – more than I anticipated.

 

This has required MANY hours of genealogical research over the past few days. I need a break!