Blog: Country Gal, CityWoman--'A Tale of Two Women'

Possibly the most challenging part of writing a Blog is coming up with an eye-catching, to-the-point headline. I submit the following headlines that may well
“perk” your interest in this Blog…and then again, maybe not!

“Woman Forced to Walk Gang Plank. Witnessed by Seven Children While Husband Watches With Great Expectations!” Or….”Local Woman Escapes Certain Captivity Enroute to California!”

Those headlines, though a bit “over the top,” came to mind while mulling over how to entice you to read the next couple of paragraphs during this busiest time of the year, and I do apologize…and then, again, maybe not!

That story about the at-risk woman with husband and seven little look-alikes? True. And I know it’s true, because…?

Nothing happened in the unlikely manner suggested in the first headline, but way back in the Spring of 1679 when into her middle years, Anne Kinton Borton, in fact, did walk up a sliver of a wooden plank to gain access to a mighty vessel called The
Griffin, having bade her parents, William and Elizabeth Borton of Aynho, and siblings farewell earlier in the days just gone by in their hometown of Banbury, England.

Nothing save the breaking of that well-worn slightly-splintered board and a sea of crashing waves would keep that woman from her ordained destination and future…one filled with great expectations, her husband had reassured her, over and over again, as she nightly tended to her long black hair with the finest of brushes, a Christmas-1678 gift. (Indulge me, please, in this literary license!)

Incidentally, I should mention here the fact that the noted Mr. William Penn (of Philadelphia’s "Brotherly Love” fame) was also on board, his very presence adding a bit of distinction to the List of Passengers. Penn and John Borton, Anne’s husband, were cohorts in the new and somewhat suspicious religious movement called the Quakers, and both were “leaving town” before another jail sentence could be pronounced upon John. William, George Fox (the Founder) and others for their religious zeal.

The authoritative King of England was the most suspicious and “double-downed” efforts to lose no time keeping The Tower cells at the ready for these upstarts. No “dummies” they, 151 families prepared to leave on several ships within the next few months for their New World.

In spite of the fact that the famous Mr. Penn was a personal and close friend of the family, I muse sometimes if he conveniently “took to his quarters” when the children of my ancestral Grandmother and Grandfather took to roaming The Griffin
searching for adventure on the high seas, pestering Mom and Dad, and the one
with the best knowledge, The Captain, “Are we there yet?” (Rather than scold
the pesky kids in a resounding way, against his quiet nature...)

The List of Passengers show no Penn children on board (in my family book) so “Uncle” William had to have been a chosen delightful, if sometimes unwilling, “foil” for a few of their escapades during the sea journey.

This particular early band of Quakers was on its way to Burlington, New Jersey. Today, trying to put myself into Anne’s high-button shoes and multi-layered crinolines, I wonder what thoughts she harbored as The Griffin sailed its way into the New Jersey port. I am thinking she was thinking “What was I thinking?” And, silently of course, to her husband, a respectful “Are you happy now?”

Anne’s story, noting the slight gender change in this script, reminds me of the Biblical story of Ruth and Naomi…”Wither thou goest, I will go!”

The Americanization of the Borton Family had begun…

The 200 acres of land, on which John and Anne built their plantation-type home, is described as being located on the south side of the Rancocas Creek below Centerton extending back to the edge of Masonville, was purchased from the native Indians for a cash payment of 20 pounds and seven shillings in late 1679. What a bargain! But, I hastily add that it had to have been an equitable sales price to all parties concerned: considering the mind-set of those early Quakers when, if everyone was in agreement as to the terms, the pact was sealed by their “word” and a firm handshake, a done deal!

And so the Grandparents Borton settled down in this new land of plenty (if they worked hard), raised their seven children, served both their Faith and Country. I, among many thousands of descendants, am thankful that on one fine Spring day in Banbury, England, Anne packed up the few suitcases, a couple of homemade toys for the kiddies, threw in a potion of headache remedy for William Penn (I’m guessing on that)  and followed her husband and her heart to the Jersey Shores of 1679.

Anne and John’s story is typical of all of our grandparents who came to America as Immigrants, but whose complete stories will never be known due to loss of detailed written information or, sadly, lack of interest.

I’ve got my own sneaking suspicions that 17th Century Grandmother Grace Baldwin Marsh (born 1592 and married to John Marsh 1613) of Braintree, Essex County, England, the same area from which the ancestral grandparents of “Lucky” Baldwin originated, is “gambling” on me to make that historic connection. Could it be?

That story about the “local woman”? True…

In January of 1948, she walked up three pull-up wooden steps to board “The Pony Express” ready to leave Atlantic Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska, for Union Station in Los Angeles.

What was this young bride thinking as she took that first of three well-worn steps to send her on her way to join her husband in that land of “milk and honey and orange groves” now populated by hordes of corn-fed Hawkeyes escaping Iowa’s 1930’s Depression Days or World War II ex-servicemen who had fallen in love with the excesses of constant sunshiny days, evenings' cool ocean breezes, Pasadena’s Rose Parade and those adorable Hollywood starlets.

I was thinking I looked “really sharp” dressed in my Sunday best, two-inch heels, covered from knees to neck by a really cute dark brown Mouton Lamb fur coat (purchased on the installment plan from The Vogue for about $60.00) with a
heart-shaped less-than-a-hat-but-more-than-a-headband type of chapeau recently
purchased from Bullocks ($10.98) across the street from The Vogue. I may have
been misinformed but I was told that this is the way one should dress on these
modern-day trains. So I did…dressing up to the 9’s. Big mistake!

My railroad car’s name was aptly named: The Pony Express. This antiquated mode of transportation for the next three days and two nights was straight out of any Western movie I had ever enjoyed at the Strand Theater on a Saturday afternoon. Missing was the standard movie-extra “shotgun rider.”

Wooden seats with iron braces (no comfortable bounce there) suitcases shoved under the seats or onto the one shelf directly above one’s head. No curtains for the windows and no facilities for personal hygiene! FYI: The more “cushy” cars attached to the front and rear of The Pony Express provided the amenities. (If Mom, in sending off her last-born child at 7:30 a.m. that January cold morning, (with less than one hundred dollars in her purse) had had the chance to inspect this particular railroad car before I headed off for those Western Skies memorialized in those “fluffy” Western Stories I so loved, I fear I would not be writing this part of the Blog. Not a chance.)

What was spectacular about my absolutely-beautifully-landscaped scenic trip? For starters: the large cities and small burgs in Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California, crossing the whole of Wyoming’s Medicine Bow range, riding the rails, so to speak, along the banks of rivers cutting in and out of the forest and mountain
ranges, some showing the results of devastating recent forest fires, thence,
onto the flattened acres of lush farmlands, sandy deserts and, finally, Eureka!
California!

On my final day of being “all aboard The Pony Express” the last of my Snicker Bars were consumed, which is good planning anyway you look at it!

If I was disappointed I was not joined by Roy Rogers or Tom Mix or Hopalong Cassidy on The Pony Express,I was definitely not disappointed when just outside of Las Vegas a really-wizened but still stately figure of a man joined the passengers,
carefully adjusted his colorful poncho-style blanket around his shoulders (it
was January, remember), took his seat of importance on the floor, bowed his
head and went to sleep! My being “taken into captivity” would have to come
another time…perhaps at the Union Station where a “slight scuffle” might ensue?
(Or in a local Ralphs’ market in the Dog Food Aisle…see previous Blog “Facts of
Life”.)

(This trip, with those one or two exceptions, was like straight off the pages of a John Huston movie script and those equally time-honored stories that were my bromide for a good night’s sleep while in residence at 210 Birch…something for the grandkids to read some decades down the road!)

What 22-year-old CountryGal who had never been west of her sister Rhoda’s home in Louisville, Nebraska but once, maybe two times, wouldn’t be “blown away,” I ask you….

Lacking every apparent outward sign of natural Scottish “Reivers’ bravery,” I can only think, in looking back, I must have inherited some of Anne Kinton Borton’s English “intestinal fortitude” in this firm determination to plant new roots in another
New World (“Lucky” Baldwin’s Arcadia), with my husband raise a family of three,
serve my Faith and Country (today that would be the terrific Senior Citizens
Lunch Day Program at Temple City’s Live Oak Community Park).

And, in my daily comings and goings if I should give somebody an unintentional “headache,” I will attempt to quickly remedy the situation with a spoken apology (albeit being a Quaker by birthright and choice, it may be a silent one).  But sincere!

You have my word…

Until we meet again.....

CG/CW