Yesterday I watched "Friendly Persuasion" with Gary Cooper who played "Jess" (Jesse) Birdwell, a Quaker family in Indiana in the early 1860's. It was interesting the way Hollywood tried to explain some of the basic beliefs and ways of Friends. And a little more subtly expressing the humor of Friends' and the enjoyment Quakers have of sex. I learned that the large families the early Quakers had was because of the mortality rate of children and to a lesser extant for the personal to run larger farms in the future, which are true, but I think the Quakers enjoyed themselves and used this more as an excuse to have as many children as they could. Expressed by the scenes where "Jess & Eliza" happily spend the night in the barn on a pile of hay. After which Jess even mentioned they must do that again, soon. I think Hollywood tried to convey the large families without having 10 or 12 or more children, by having a wide spread in age between the oldest and youngest of the 3 children in the family. This movie was made the year I was born 1956. Robert Cooke ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Message: 3 Date: Sat, 25 May 2013 17:27:16 -0500 From: Forrest Plumstead <fplum1@gmail.com> Subject: [Q-R] William Penn Movie For those who have Netflix, they have a 1942 movie named "Penn of Pennsylvania"
Friendly Persuasion is also on YouTube [free]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wah8xvWifhk What I did not know when I first saw the movie when I was young [I was born in 1946], is that I descend from early Rhode Island Quakers, one Dr. Thomas Rodman and his second wife, Patience Easton Malines (among others, but the Rodman surname came down to my paternal grandmother's generation). They are buried at Clifton Burying Ground, Newport, RI (but whoever put the info online has the wrong birth location for the first Dr. Thomas; his son, the second Dr. Thomas was born in RI, but the elder Dr. Thomas Rodman was apparently born in England; the family did not move to Barbados until after the father, John Rodman, left England after becoming a convert to the teachings of George Fox and spent three months in gaol for wearing his hat in the courtroom of Judge Thomas Lauder who proscribed and banished him from Ireland, whereupon John Rodman and his family moved to Barbados). The same book for which I paid dearly for a reprint (before Google Books and Internet Archive existed) is now online for a free download on two web sites: Genealogy of the Rodman Family 1620-1886, by Charles Henry Jones http://archive.org/details/genealogyofrodma00jone http://books.google.com/books?id=uJRPAAAAMAAJ In 50+ years of doing genealogy research with documented ancestors from seven different countries, I have discovered that children are born on an average of 22-26 months apart, so women gave birth every two years under normal circumstances (< repeat: "under normal circumstances"). Any variation in that pattern, and I go in search of records of stillbirths or infant birth/death records (easy to do in three countries where records are online back to the 1600s)..., or, sadly, a maternal childbed fever death along with the infant's death, and then a record of a second marriage. On 30 January 1906 my paternal grandmother, who was a midwife, gave birth to a boy child who lived for four hours. On 30 December 1906, she gave birth to my eldest paternal aunt who lived to old age..., so two children born eleven months apart in the same year. I didn't find out about those first four children born between the marriage date in 1901 and my eldest aunt's birth in 1906 until after the MN birth index was put online, and added birth and death records for four more children. In all, I have birth records for 13 children; five were either stillbirths or infant deaths, eight lived to adulthood (they're now all dead, too). Mostly I have records of children born every two years. There's enough time between a couple of later births for one or two miscarriages, but I have no records to prove that and my paternal grandmother died when I was a baby so I had no chance to ask her about other pregnancies. Best Wishes, Bev Anderson ----- Original Message ----- From: Bob Cooke <cookerl3@aol.com> To: quaker-roots@rootsweb.com Cc: Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2013 4:06 PM Subject: Re: [Q-R] William Penn Movie Yesterday I watched "Friendly Persuasion" with Gary Cooper who played "Jess" (Jesse) Birdwell, a Quaker family in Indiana in the early 1860's. It was interesting the way Hollywood tried to explain some of the basic beliefs and ways of Friends. And a little more subtly expressing the humor of Friends' and the enjoyment Quakers have of sex. I learned that the large families the early Quakers had was because of the mortality rate of children and to a lesser extant for the personal to run larger farms in the future, which are true, but I think the Quakers enjoyed themselves and used this more as an excuse to have as many children as they could. Expressed by the scenes where "Jess & Eliza" happily spend the night in the barn on a pile of hay. After which Jess even mentioned they must do that again, soon. I think Hollywood tried to convey the large families without having 10 or 12 or more children, by having a wide spread in age between the oldest and youngest of the 3 children in! the family. This movie was made the year I was born 1956. Robert Cooke ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Friendly Persuasion is also on YouTube [free]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wah8xvWifhk What I did not know when I first saw the movie when I was young [I was born in 1946], is that I descend from early Rhode Island Quakers, one Dr. Thomas Rodman and his second wife, Patience Easton Malines (among others, but the Rodman surname came down to my paternal grandmother's generation). They are buried at Clifton Burying Ground, Newport, RI (but whoever put the info online has the wrong birth location for the first Dr. Thomas; his son, the second Dr. Thomas was born in RI, but the elder Dr. Thomas Rodman was apparently born in England; the family did not move to Barbados until after the father, John Rodman, left England after becoming a convert to the teachings of George Fox and spent three months in gaol for wearing his hat in the courtroom of Judge Thomas Lauder who proscribed and banished him from Ireland, whereupon John Rodman and his family moved to Barbados). The same book for which I paid dearly for a reprint (before Google Books and Internet Archive existed) is now online for a free download on two web sites: Genealogy of the Rodman Family 1620-1886, by Charles Henry Jones http://archive.org/details/genealogyofrodma00jone http://books.google.com/books?id=uJRPAAAAMAAJ In 50+ years of doing genealogy research with documented ancestors from seven different countries, I have discovered that children are born on an average of 22-26 months apart, so women gave birth every two years under normal circumstances (< repeat: "under normal circumstances"). Any variation in that pattern, and I go in search of records of stillbirths or infant birth/death records (easy to do in three countries where records are online back to the 1600s)..., or, sadly, a maternal childbed fever death along with the infant's death, and then a record of a second marriage. On 30 January 1906 my paternal grandmother, who was a midwife, gave birth to a boy child who lived for four hours. On 30 December 1906, she gave birth to my eldest paternal aunt who lived to old age..., so two children born eleven months apart in the same year. I didn't find out about those first four children born between the marriage date in 1901 and my eldest aunt's birth in 1906 until after the MN birth index was put online, and added birth and death records for four more children. In all, I have birth records for 13 children; five were either stillbirths or infant deaths, eight lived to adulthood (they're now all dead, too). Mostly I have records of children born every two years. There's enough time between a couple of later births for one or two miscarriages, but I have no records to prove that and my paternal grandmother died when I was a baby so I had no chance to ask her about other pregnancies. Best Wishes, Bev Anderson ----- Original Message ----- From: Bob Cooke <cookerl3@aol.com> To: quaker-roots@rootsweb.com Cc: Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2013 4:06 PM Subject: Re: [Q-R] William Penn Movie Yesterday I watched "Friendly Persuasion" with Gary Cooper who played "Jess" (Jesse) Birdwell, a Quaker family in Indiana in the early 1860's. It was interesting the way Hollywood tried to explain some of the basic beliefs and ways of Friends. And a little more subtly expressing the humor of Friends' and the enjoyment Quakers have of sex. I learned that the large families the early Quakers had was because of the mortality rate of children and to a lesser extant for the personal to run larger farms in the future, which are true, but I think the Quakers enjoyed themselves and used this more as an excuse to have as many children as they could. Expressed by the scenes where "Jess & Eliza" happily spend the night in the barn on a pile of hay. After which Jess even mentioned they must do that again, soon. I think Hollywood tried to convey the large families without having 10 or 12 or more children, by having a wide spread in age between the oldest and youngest of the 3 children in! the family. This movie was made the year I was born 1956. Robert Cooke ~~~~~~~~~~~~