Free The Dark Closet by Miranda Beall

fifteen or twenty packs of letters rubber-banded together, and in the next old scrapbooks dating back to at least 1762, which was the oldest dated newspaper article he could find at a glance-through. Some were labeled according to who had kept the book with such statements as “This scrapbook was made largely by Winthrop Braden Mainwaring, Sr., 1840-1893.” Many such statements were written and articles annotated in his father’s handwriting.
    The fascination of old scrapbooks deflected Crossett from his course. They were filled not only with local news involving Mainwaring ancestors and contemporaries as well as other prominent Barrow families but also with a plethora of unrelated news items depending on the interests of the scrapbook keeper. Notices from the society page were rampant:
    “Mis s Katherine Mainwaring has returned from Northhampton, Mass., where she is attending Smith’s College, to spend the holidays with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop Mainwaring II.”
    “Mrs. Joshua Mainwaring gave a reception last evening at her residence, Winterhurst estate in Barrow, Md., in honor of her son, Mr. Thomas Mainwaring, and his wife, who were married at Boston, Mass., on April 8. The bride was Miss Maude Clarkson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Christian Clarkson. Mr. Mainwaring is the grandson of Jeremiah L. Mainwaring who was a large landowner in Leggett County Md., many years ago. The bride and groom spent their honeymoon at Richmond, Va., coming to Washington a few days ago to reside permanently. A large number of persons called last evening to extend their good wishes to the young couple. The receiving party included Mrs. Mainwaring, the bride and groom, and Miss Sophie Clarkson, a sister of the bride. Those who assisted in the dining room were Mrs. M. J. Barcoe, Miss Marietta Mainwaring, Miss Mamie Teilbright, Miss Clare Wetherton, and Mrs. Liette Rothfield.”
    He found his great-grandfather’s death notice and the inscription on his gravestone, his father’s birth notice, a draft of his great aunt’s wedding announcement with the exact wording of the invitations. When his great-grandfather appeared in Baltimore for dinner, it was recorded in the newspaper. When his great-great-great-grandfather fed Revolutionary troops on the lawns of Winterhurst, it was chronicled by the press. There were articles devoted to the accomplishments of various of his forebears: “Recorded Facts About Robert Mainwaring Gives Queen’s Story Added Interest.” While the actual events were not unfamiliar to him, Crossett had no idea the movements of his ancestors had been the subject of such surveillance. May Wetherton had, after all, given the impression that they had not.
    Long, narrow, hand-torn articles, yellowed with age, on subjects of general interest and curiosity were endless: ”Wedding Anniversaries,” “Birth Flowers,” “World’s Tallest Woman Dead,” “Siamese Twin a Mother,” “Proverbs of Africa,” “Floods in Europe in the Past Century,” “Early Opinions of the Potato,” “Longest Name in the Bible,” “Dire Prophecies for 1893,” “An Elegy on the Dying race of Southern Cooks,” “Cigarette Upheld, Good for Fever,” “The New Jail, A Visit to the Institution—Some of the Characters Confined There,” “Easter Eggs, Their History and Significance,’ “What Ugly Toes Women Have,” “The Graveyard Bureau Money Squandered on National Cemeteries—Crooked Contracts for Tombstones,” “Symbolic Meanings of Precious Stones,” “Sentiments Attached to Flowers,” “Rich Widows in New York,” “Keyser’s Haunted Churn,” “How Flies Climb.”
    Events from all avenues of history dotted the pages like seed thrown to hungry birds in the depths of winter: “Giant Wireless Towers at Work: First Messages Flashed Out by Naval Station at Arlington, Va.,” “Sinking of Lusitania Everywhere Denounced,” “New Diptheria Cure in a Fungus Growth,” “Age Is No Barrier to Taft’s Cabinet,”