by | Mar 25, 2024 | Karen's Korner
Theodore J. Mayer was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1846 and received his education in public schools and colleges. After he graduated, he worked for a large bank as a correspondent and bookkeeper. He immigrated to the United States in 1866, married Susanna Hitz in 1876, and they had two sons. Susanna died soon after her second son’s birth. Theodore continued to live with the Hitz family and worked at W. M. Galt and Co., being in charge of the wholesale flour department. He later became a full partner in the business.
Theodore was one of the members of the committee who started the movement to create a national Spiritualism association. He was elected Treasurer of the National Spiritualists’ Association (NSA) of the United States several times and was Vice President of the First Spiritual Association of Washington D. C. In 1900, while treasurer of the NSA, he offered to donate the house which functioned as the national headquarters providing they raised the $10,000 needed “to carry on the National work.” He was also instrumental in buying a sanitarium from A. P. Spinney to house the sick.
According to Theodore’s obituary in the Washington Evening Star, 13 March 1907, “Mr. Mayer had been actively engaged in the work of upbuilding this city and increasing its prosperity since he came here in 1866. He usually took a leading part in philanthropic efforts and was especially interested in the welfare of east Washington, in which his home was located. He was nearly sixty-one years of age. It is remarked that he retained his mental and physical vigor to a remarkable degree, and until stricken by the ailment which ended in his death was an active man of affairs. He was a member of the Masonic fraternity, a director of the Eastern Dispensary and Casualty Hospital, and also a member of the directorate of the Central National Bank, the Union Trust Company and the George Washington University. For fifteen years he had been president of the Swiss Benevolent Association, and as such is said to have ‘carried sunshine into many saddened homes.’”
According to the Sunflower, 30 March 1907, Mayer “did not forget to bless and honor Spiritualism in the distribution of his estate. As is well known, Mr. Mayer was a self-made man. He did not acquire any of the large fortune he left, by inheritance or gift, but he made it by unfailing toil of hands and brain and by his judicious investments. He was essentially a clear-cut mentality, sound financier and staunch Spiritualist.” He deeded three houses to the NSA upon his death.
by | Mar 18, 2024 | Karen's Korner
Aurelia Desiree Tolman was born in 1820 to Elijah and Florilla Tolman of Erie County, New York. Her father was one of the first settlers of the county and purchased a large tract of land there. In 1839, Aurelia married Dr. Harvey B. Marvin who had been born into a farming family in Vermont. By 1850 they were living in Evans, Erie County, New York. They had four children: Frances, Horace, LaDor and LaRay.
The family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Aurelia and her daughter, Francis, were both practicing mediums, but Francis died in 1866 and Harvey died in 1870. By then, Horace, LaRay and LaDor were practicing homeopathic physicians and Spiritualists. Aurelia was one of the early women physicians, listing herself as a mental and physical healer. She continued her practice into the 1890s and was listed in the 1895 Grand Rapids Directory as Aurelia D. Marvin (widow of Harvey B. Marvin) physician, living at 264 E. Bridge Street in the city.
Aurelia Marvin died in 1903. In the Progressive Thinker, August 22, 1903, Lyman C. Howe wrote of Mrs. Dr. Aurelia Dewey Marvin whom he had known for forty years. He referred to her as a “remarkable psychic and healer of the sick.” Her husband graduated as a regular physician but was one of the first in America to adopt homeopathic medicine. He was practicing in Buffalo when the the Fox sisters became prominent. “Mrs. Marvin became a medium, had visions, and soon developed remarkable powers for healing the sick by laying on of hands.”
One spirit, Howe said came to her and told her to change her pastor’s pro-slavery thoughts. “She had a long interview with her pastor, and was so inspired that, with the help of the spirits, she penetrated the prejudices of the preacher and completely revolutionized his political creed and all his preaching on the subject of slavery was reversed.”
Howe continued, “I knew a young man in Laona, who was paralyzed from his hips down, by a sunstroke, while in the army, serving his country. Physicians could not help him. As a last resort, and a forlorn hope, he went to the home of Dr. Marvin, then in Erie County, N. Y. He stayed four weeks, during which time Mrs. Marvin treated him without medicine, and he returned home perfectly cured. Many hundreds if not thousands, could testify of her powers from personal experience. I have been one that she has blessed in that way.”
by | Mar 11, 2024 | Karen's Korner
Mrs. Matteson was born Antoinette Wealthy in Baden, Germany in 1847. Her parents came to the United States when she was 5 years old and lived in Water Valley, New York until they moved to Buffalo in 1857. Antoinette went to normal schools and married Judah Matteson in 1894. He was born in Vermont and sold publication subscriptions at the time of their marriage. By 1880, they were living in Buffalo with their five children, including Nellie, who would later aid in Antoinette’s business. Judah was listed as a musician.
Judah died in 1884. By that time, Antoinette had been practicing as a clairvoyant healer in Buffalo for over 10 years. She created psychic remedies made of roots, herbs, and bark. An advertisement in The Open Road, 1909, stated, “Between 60 and 100 people visit Mrs. J. H. R. Matteson at her home in Buffalo every day in the year; and in addition to this, Mrs. Matteson treats between 30 and 40 people every day in the year by mail. Why? Because she has cured their friends, who have sent them to her. Did you ever see between 60 and 100 patients waiting in an M.D.’s anteroom? Mrs. Matteson is not an M.D.; and of course, her enormous practice has time and again excited the envy of the “regulars” who can’t understand her success. The medical societies have had Mrs. Matteson brought before 14 Grand Juries in three different counties (Erie, Niagara, and Genesee) to indict her for practicing medicine without a license, but every Grand Jury has refused to indict her—though technically she is guilty of fracturing the law.”
Antoinette’s daughter, Nellie Whitcomb, was a life member of the New York State Spiritualists’ Association as a clairvoyant healer. Mrs. JHR Matteson’s Psychic Clairvoyant Remedies, was published and guaranteed by Nellie. When Antoinette retired, Nellie carried on her practice. “My daughter has been my assistant for thirty years, and, for more than twenty years, has carried on all outside work through correspondence, and can successfully fill my place.”
In 1910, Antoinette was living with her widowed daughters, Mary and Nellie, and widowed son-in-law, William White on Division Street. When she died at her home in 1913, according to her obituary, she had been a city resident for 56 years. She had been a long-time member of the East Aurora Spiritualist Church. “Mrs. Matteson was a firm believer in Spiritualism and did much to promote the belief and had a national reputation as a leader. She was especially notable for her charities, treating the poor if they could not afford it.”
by | Mar 4, 2024 | Karen's Korner
Amelia Hunt was born in 1829 in New York to Zachariah and Amelia Hunt of Erie County. She married farmer Hylon Colby in 1849 and they had 4 children. By 1860, the family had moved to Lake County, Indiana where Hylon continued farming. Amelia became involved with the Spiritualist movement. In 1867, Mr. J. H. Luther wrote that Amelia was “a good woman and an earnest efficient worker in the field of Progress.” She was listed as a trance speaker appearing in Penville, Indiana in 1869.
In 1870, Amelia listed her profession as a lecturer in the census. Three of her teenaged children were at home working on the farm. Apparently, the marriage did not last. Hylon remarried in 1875 and Amelia continued with her lectures. During June and July of 1878 in Winchester, Indiana a publication announced: “She will answer calls to lecture or hold grove meetings anywhere in the state. She is accompanied by Mrs. O. Smith, who is reputed to be a fine singer and guitarist.” She married James H. Luther in Indiana in 1887.
Amelia was more than just a Spiritualist minister and trance lecturer, she was an abolitionist, suffragist, free thinker, and traveled throughout the country giving lectures in both trance and normal states. She named the Cassadaga Lake Free Association which later became Lily Dale, and she was one of the founders of Camp Chesterfield. According to the Anderson Daily Bulletin, May 20 1954, there was a gathering of over 50 Spiritualists in 1885 who met in Andreson, Indiana. They organized the Indiana Association of Spiritualists or Chesterfield Spiritualist Camp. Amelia and her husband James were members.
During the 1880-90s, Amelia lectured at many locations including at Crown Point, Indiana, the Ladies’ Industrial Society of the Boston Spiritual Temple and in 1895 at Berkeley Hall where she gave a lecture entitled “If the is no God, what force in the universe creates matter?” In 1885 she spoke at Neshaminy Falls Spiritualist Camp; the topic was “Crime: Its cause and remedy.”
Amelia was described in the Banner of Light, vol. 63 no. 7, 28, April 1888 as a “tall, well-kept, white-haired lady of apparently about fifty years, in a clear tone and with much fervor and animation held the audience, without manuscript, for over an hour.” Her article in the publication spoke about Rev. Mills, the religious hierarchy that ministers support, and his uninformed opinion about female Spiritualists. “As the church teaches, the less we know the more we believe, and the more we believe the less we know.” She continued, “Spiritualism came to protect human life and reason, and that grandest of all things human, woman, the mother of nations. It is an established fact. It demands investigation. Dare anybody say it has not stood the test of the greatest scientific minds? This is not the only age when these great truths were known. Let mediums live and there will be produced some of the most remarkable phenomena ever known. The reverend gentleman knows that as Spiritualism marches on his business is gone.”
Amelia H. Luther died 26 Dec 1897 in Muncie, Indiana after making a large impact on Spiritualism.
by | Feb 29, 2024 | Karen's Korner
Captain Benjamin F. Lee was born 1835 in the state of New York and enlisted to fight with the Union in the Civil War in August of 1862, in Geneva, New York. He was in the 126th Infantry, wounded and imprisoned at Harpers Ferry in September 1862, and discharged in 1864. Benjamin moved to Sandusky about 6 years after the war where he practiced law with Judge Cooper K. Watson. He was elected prosecuting attorney in 1873 and served one term.
Benjamin invested in the Arizona Gold Mining Company and lost his entire investment. By 1880, according to the Sandusky, Ohio census, he was a 45-year-old lawyer and border living at a hotel run by H. W. Powers. By that time, Benjamin was interested in the Spiritualist movement. He became involved with the development of the Lake Brady Spiritualist camp in Mantua, Ohio and was listed as a Mantua attorney in 1892.
In 1896, Benjamin was President of the Brady Lake Spiritual Association. “This association has in view the establishment of a camp or resort, where thought may be fully expressed and as freely criticized; where the lowest may look for aid and aspire to become the highest; where goodness, purity, wisdom and all the attributes of the truthful soul may be taught and practiced; and where spiritualism in its most comprehensive application shall be fostered.”
Unfortunately, tragedy befell him. The Akron Beacon Journal, 22 Apr 1898, wrote: “The cottage of Captain Benjamin F. Lee, president of the Lake Brady Spiritualists’ Association was burned to the ground Thursday Evening and this morning the charred remains of the captain were found in the ruins.
“The cottage was the finest at the lake and was occupied by Captain Lee the year round. It was finely furnished and contained a valuable library of several hundred volumes. A number of boys discovered the fire at 7:30 o’clock last evening. When they arrived at the cottage they found the rear part in flames. Breaking in the front door they called for Lee but failed to receive an answer. They were driven out by the flames and the cottage was soon entirely consumed without any of its contents being saved. The loss will be close to $1,500.”
Coroner said he probably fainted because of preexisting heart problems and knocked over lamp. At the time of his death, he was well-known among Spiritualists throughout the country, and especially in Akron. He had lived in both Cleveland and Mantua.
by | Feb 23, 2024 | Karen's Korner
Elizabeth B. Price was born in 1828 in Vermont, one of the seven children of John and Asenath Price. The family moved their home to Three Rivers, St. Joseph County, Michigan. Elizabeth married Lewis Sanford about 1845 and they had a daughter and two sons before Lewis died in Sumner, Tennessee during the Civil War in 1863. Elizabeth eventually married physician Andrew Kinne in 1877 in Cook County, Illinois. By 1880, they were living in Colon, Michigan with her son L. W. Sanford. Elizabeth was listed in the census as a physician at that time.
Elizabeth was listed in the directory of Deceased American Physicians (1804-1929) as an Allopath and other sources refer to her as a magnetic healer. Magnetic healing was a popular curative at the time. Both she and Andrew were active in the Spiritualist community, attending camp meetings at Lake Park and South Haven in the 1890s. In 1893, Andrew conducted a séance test and the couple traveled from Illinois to Missouri to visit her children.
Andrew died in 1895 at 72 years old, but Elizabeth continued her work as a doctor and magnetic healer from her home in Dwight, Illinois. On February 21, 1913, The Kansas City Times published Elizabeth’s obituary. It stated that, “Mrs. Elizabeth B. Kinne, 86 years old, the mother of E.J. Sanford, former president of the Union Depot Company, died of heart failure at her home in Excelsior Springs last night. Mrs. Kinne was a pioneer physician in Illinois, having started a practice in Dwight more than sixty years ago. She moved to Excelsior Springs ten years ago.” She was buried at Mt. Washington cemetery.
