“…Mrs. Joe Johns and
Miss Alice Massey of Boerne were among Mrs. Johnston’s friends of that
period…” From a 1949 issue of the “Evening News” provided by the Boerne
Area Historical Preservation Society
Alice Massey, left,
became Mrs. Rochester in Mary Ware in
Texas.
Photo from the private collection of Anne Stewart of the Comfort Heritage
Foundation, Inc.
Her husband, Rector James Albert Massey, right, was Rev. Paul
Rochester in the story.
Photo from In One Place: The Story of
St. Helena's Episcopal Church by Elizabeth Hudson,
courtesy of Col. Bettie Edmonds of the Boerne Area Historical Preservation
Society.
Little Colonel fans are first introduced to
the Rochesters in
Chapter 3
of Mary Ware in Texas when
the Reverend Paul Rochester drops by the Wares’ cottage on move-in day
with a welcoming basket of food:
"We had a visitor a
little while ago," wrote Mary, in closing. "The Reverend Paul Rochester
came to call...
"Mrs.
Barnaby had stopped at the rectory on her way home to tell them
about our coming to town, and Mrs. Rochester thought that we were all
here, and that we would be so busy getting settled that we wouldn't have
much time to cook things for an invalid, and she had sent the most
tempting basketful of good things you ever saw. There was orange
gelatine and charlotte russe, and some delicious nut sandwiches. The
rector had walked all the way up here and carried the basket himself.
…I'd been looking down
the white road that leads from our place into the town, thinking how
lonely and foreign everything was, and how hard it would be to live all
winter in a place where nobody wanted to be neighborly, and where the
only people we knew were slightly old like the Barnabys or awfully old
like the Metzes, and then Mr. Rochester appeared, young and so
nice-looking and with a jolly twinkle in his eyes that makes you forget
the clerical cut of his clothes…
"His wife must be
young, too, or she couldn't be married to him, and she must be dear or
she wouldn't have sent such a dainty, altogether charming basket with
her message of greeting.
It is not until
Chapter 4, however, that readers meet Mrs. Rochester, the talented
cook who prepared that dainty feast:
"Take the basket and
dishes back to the rectory," suggested Mrs. Ware, after Jack had
proposed several occupations to no purpose.
"But I've never met
Mrs. Rochester yet," objected Mary, "and it would be sort of awkward,
going in and introducing myself."
"No more awkward than
it was for Mr. Rochester to come here and introduce himself," said Jack.
"You can tell her for me that that charlotte russe was perfection."
"I wonder what she is
like," mused Mary, half persuaded to go and see. "If I thought she'd be
approachable and easy to talk to --- but---"
"Oh, you know she's
all right," urged Jack, "or she never would have been so good to a
family of strangers. I'll bet she's a dear, motherly old soul, in a
checked apron, with gray hair and a double chin."
"Why, she couldn't
be!" cried Mary. "Not and be Mr. Rochester's wife. He doesn't look much
older than you do, and for all he's so dignified there's something so
boyish and likable about him that I felt chummy with him right away."
"Well, the things she
cooked tasted as if she were the kind of woman I said," persisted Jack,
"and I shall keep on thinking of her as that kind until it's proved that
my guess is wrong. I should think that anybody with as much curiosity as
you have would go just to satisfy it."
"You mean you want
yours satisfied," retorted Mary. "Well, she'll do it herself in a few
days. She sent word that she'd call soon, so I believe that I'll wait."…
…The yellow walls of
the rectory gleamed through the trees at the north end of the little
hamlet, reminding her of Jack's laughing wish to know what Mrs.
Rochester was like…
…What she saw when she
rang the bell at the rectory was the exact opposite of the motherly
creature wham Jack had pictured; for Mrs. Rochester, who came to the
door herself, was tall and slim and very young, with the delicate,
spirituelle kind of beauty that had always been plump little Mary's
greatest admiration and desire. One part of Jack's guess was correct,
however. She wore a big checked apron, for she was making cake, and she
invited Mary into the dining-room where the materials were all spread
out on the table.
With the girlish
cordiality that had won her so many friends even in unsociable Bauer,
she made Mary feel so much at home, that in a few moments she was
insisting on helping with the cake. It seemed a matter of course that
Mrs. Rochester should hand her the egg-beater, and before the eggs were
whipped into a stiff white mountain of snow, they were exchanging
experiences like old friends. Mrs. Rochester had found Bauer a lonely
place too, at first.
"Jack says there was
some great mix-up made when I alighted on this planet," said Mary. "I
should have dropped down some place where 'the breaking waves dashed
high on a stern and rock-bound coast.' He says I wasn't meant for a
quiet fish-pond existence."
"I know," laughed her
hostess. "You feel as if you were bound into the wrong book. You'd be
perfectly satisfied to find yourself in one of Scott's novels, in a
jumble of knights and tourneys and border wars, but you would be bored
beyond endurance to have to be one of the characters in Jane Austen's
stories."
"Oh, you
do know," cried Mary
eagerly, emphasizing her pleasure with a harder bang of the eggbeater.
"You understand exactly. There's nothing tamer than Miss Austen's
stories. Why, there's pages and pages taken up with just discussing the
weather and each other's health; and they do such trivial, inane things
and go around and around in such a deadly monotonous circle that
sometimes I've been so out of patience with them that I wanted to throw
the book into a corner."
"But you never did
throw it down," answered Mrs. Rochester, "you read on to the end and in
spite of yourself you were interested in those same commonplace
happenings and conversations, just as readers before you have been
interested in them and always will be as long as those books live. And
I'll tell you why. You read them to the end because they are true
pictures of the lives of average people. The majority of us have to put
up with the humdrum, no matter how much we long for the heroic, and it's
a good thing to read such books as 'Emma' and ' Pride and Prejudice'
every now and then, as a sort of spirit-level. We're more satisfied to
amble along the road if everybody else drives a slow nag too."
"I'm not," declared
Mary. "I want to whizz past everything in sight that is poky and slow. I
know it would be lots easier for me if I could only make up my mind to
the fact that nothing exciting and important is ever going to happen to
me, but I can't break myself of the habit of expecting it. I've felt
that way as far back as I can remember. I'm always looking for something
grand and unexpected, and every morning when I wake up it gives me a
sort of thrill to think, maybe it will come to-day."
"Well, if you're going
to stay in Bauer for awhile you certainly do need another dose
of 'Emma,'" answered Mrs. Rochester, nodding to the shelves in the
adjoining library, where stood a well thumbed edition of Miss Austen's
works. "Take her home with you, and any of the books you think your
brother would like. We are glad to make our library a circulating one."
Mary's face showed her
pleasure quite as much as her words, as she left her seat by the table
to slip into the great book-lined room and glance around it.
"You've made up for
one of my disappointments," she called back. "I had counted so much on
having the library in San Antonio to draw on this winter, and this is
even better, for I'm sure that they haven't all these rare old prints
and first editions that I see here."
Her five minutes' call
stretched into an hour, when she found that Mrs. Rochester had been
brought up in Washington and had spent her school days there. Then it
stretched into two, for some one drove in from the country with a
carriage load of autumn leaves, and Mary stayed to help arrange them in
the little church for the Thanksgiving service next day. It was nearly
noon when she finally started home with several books under her arm, her
usual hopefulness and buoyancy of spirits quite restored…
…"She's a darling,"
Mary reported at home, and quoted her at intervals for several days.
"She's promised to
take me with her sometime when she drives out to call at the ranches.
Nearly all the members of St. Boniface are out-of-town people, so
they'll probably not call on us she says. But she's coming as soon as
she can get around to it. I saw our name on a list she has hanging
beside her calendar. But there's nearly a week full of things for her to
do before she gets to us. I wish that I had a list of duties and
engagements that would keep me going every minute, the way she has to
go."
The Masseys
James Albert Massey and his wife, Alice
Ingoldsby Bliss Massey, arrived in
Boerne
in 1904 when Rev. Massey was assigned to the St. Helena
Episcopal Church. Just as described in
Mary Ware in Texas, they were
a young couple -- 24 years old in 1904 and recently married.
According to the
Hobart College General Catalog of Officers, Graduates and Students
1825-1897, Rev. Massey was a native of Rochester, New York; was a 1901
graduate of Hobart College in Geneva, New York (now
Hobart and William Smith
Colleges); and was named for his father, who was also a minister.
Photos of Alice Massey’s
famous father, General Zenas Randall Bliss,
left, when he won the Congressional Medal of Honor and
right, late in his military career
Alice was the daughter of the late West
Point graduate, Congressional Medal of Honor winner and career Army
officer
General Zenas Randall Bliss (April 17, 1835 - January 2, 1900).
Early in his military career, he was stationed in Texas at Forts Duncan,
Davis, Inge and Quitman, where he fought in the Indian wars. In 1861,
after Texas seceded from the Union, he was captured by the Eighth Infantry
near San Lucas Spring and became a prisoner of war in San Antonio. On
April 5, 1862, after nine months as a POW, he was exchanged and went on to
fight for the Union in the Civil War. He earned his Medal of Honor at the
battle of Fredericksburg and was brevetted major in the regular army for
gallant and meritorious service on that field. His Medal of Honor citation
read:
This officer, to encourage his regimen; which had never before been in
action, and which had been ordered to lie down to protect itself from the
enemy's fire, arose to his feet, advanced in front of the line, and
himself fired several shots at the enemy at short range, being fully
exposed to their fire at the time.
After the Civil War, he was
again stationed in Texas from
1870 to
1876,
and served in Texas a grand total of 23 years -- longer than any other
army officer.
General Bliss wrote about his experiences in the Civil War and on the
Texas frontier.
In 1929, his daughter, Alice Massey, allowed the University of Texas
to make a typescript of his original manuscript.
It has since been published as
The Reminiscences of Major General Zenas R. Bliss, 1854-1876: From the
Texas Frontier to the Civil War and Back Again.
He married Martha Nancy Work
(1840-1919) on October 21, 1863 and they had two children: a son, Zenas
Work Bliss, who was living in Cranston, Rhode Island; and a daughter,
Alice Ingoldsby Bliss, who was living in Washington, D.C. with her mother,
when the general died on January 2, 1900. Alice’s years in the nation’s
capitol are mentioned in Mary Ware in
Texas, when Mary Ware describes the fictional Mrs. Rochester:
…Mrs. Rochester had
been brought up in Washington and had spent her school days there…
A photo of the BLISS-SAUNDERS-TITSWORTH HOUSE at 210 Live Oak Street in
Boerne
from the Boerne Area Historical Preservation Society.
Now owned by the Boerne Independent School District,
the house is much larger than it was when Martha Nancy Work Bliss
originally built it.
Three rooms and a bath have been added to the first floor and three
bedrooms to the second.
After the general’s death, Mrs. Bliss built
a winter home in Boerne at 210 Live Oak Street to be closer to her
daughter. Her summer home was in Providence, Rhode Island, according to a
letter.
Annie Fellows Johnston wrote in 1908, describing her stepdaughter, Mary’s,
summer travels:
…Mamie
went back to Kentucky in May to escape the heat…She stayed with Hallie
(her cousin
in Pewee Valley)
till July, then went to Providence, R. I. to spend three weeks with Mrs.
Bliss. -- (General Bliss's widow, who has her
winter
home in Boerne and is one of the most charming old ladies I ever knew)…
An aside: Annie Fellows Johnston
readers who have read beyond the Little Colonel stories may be
familiar with Georgina of the Rainbows and Georgina's
Service Stars, also set around Providence, R.I.)
St. Helena’s Episcopal
Church at it has looked since 1927 when the original wooden house of
worship,
where the Johnstons would have attended services, was replaced.
Photo courtesy of the
Boerne Area Historical Preservation Society
St.
Helena’s Episcopal Church in Boerne and St. Boniface Episcopal Church in
Comfort
Though the first Episcopal worship service
was held in Boerne in 1873, it was not until 1881 that a congregation was
organized and St. Helena’s Episcopal Church was built, according to the
Boerne Area Historical Preservation Society. Today, the original little
wooden structure where Rev. Massey served is gone, replaced in 1927 by the
Gothic stone structure above that is still in existence today. The
picture below may show what the interior of St. Helena’s looked like
during the time Rev. Massey was its rector.
Photo from the private
collection of Anne Stewart of the Comfort Heritage Foundation, Inc.
St. Helena’s was within easy walking
distance of the Johnstons’
Penacres home in
Boerne; however, it is never mentioned in
Mary Ware in Texas. The church
referred to throughout the novel is
St. Boniface
in Comfort, some 11 miles away. The attraction that St. Boniface held for
the Wares -- and in real life, the Johnstons --- according to the novel,
was that:
... Nearly all the
members …(were) out-of-town people…
And that meant that the St. Boniface
congregation would have included some of the “delightful
English and Scotch families” who were willing to
befriend the Johnstons, according to Annie Fellows Johnston’s
autobiography.
These photos show the
original wooden St. Boniface church and Parrish House in 1910 (above),
in 1950 (below left) and in 1957 (below right).
The structure was later razed to make way for a new stone church.
From the private collection of Anne Stewart at the Comfort Heritage
Foundation, Inc.
St. Boniface actually opened nearly a year
after Annie bought Penacres. According to the church’s history:
St.
Boniface was established in 1906 as a mission congregation in the
Diocese of West Texas. It was named in honor of Boniface, Archbishop of
Mainz, an English-born priest and martyr who served as a missionary to
the people of Germany in the eighth century.
The
first service at St. Boniface was held on the Feast of the Epiphany
(editors note: January 6)
in
1907. For the next one hundred years, the congregation worshipped at
Broadway and Fifth Streets in Comfort, first in a wooden chapel and then
in a larger building of native stone.
An article about that first service appeared
in the January 11, 1907 edition of the “Comfort News:”
Had last Sunday dawned
clear there is no telling how many persons would have congregated in
Comfort to attend the opening service in St. Boniface Chapel. As it was,
fully two hundred were present in the little church filling it to
overflowing, so that many of the male members of the congregation were
obliged to find places in the vestibule where they stood cheerfully
throughout the service. Others, unable to secure standing room even in
the vestibule, stood in the church yard beside the open windows, and
thus gave their attention to the ceremony going on within.
The service was
conducted by Rev. Dr. Hutcheson of San Antonio, assisted by the Rector,
Rev. J.A. Massey. Mrs. G.E. Smith of Boerne presided at the organ, and
the vested choir from St. Helena’s Church in Boerne assisted the Comfort
choir in the singing which was a particularly attractive feature of the
service. The sermon was delivered by Rev. Hutcheson at the conclusion of
the regular service. Holy Communion was administered to a large number
of persons.
A large proportion of
the congregation present at this first service was made up of
out-of-town people...
…The chancel furniture
is a gift from the congregation of St. Helena’s Church at Boerne, and
the handsome brass altar cross and an alms basin were also received from
Boerne. A pair of beautiful brass vases for the altar are a gift from
Mrs. Adolph Jess of Waring in memory of his deceased wife, and the brass
altar desk and book are given by the Sunday school at St. Marks’s church
in San Antonio. Another memorial gift if the beautiful baptismal font of
white marble, this being from Mrs. E.F. Gaddis in memory of her
daughter, Pauline.
The Johnstons would have known many of the
out-of-towners listed by the paper as attending the opening day service,
including;
-
George E. Smith and his wife, Laura J. Smith (the organist), from whom
Annie bought Penacres in 1906;
-
Kendall County Sheriff George Zoeller and his daughters Louise (who was
his deputy) and Adelheid
-
Alice Massey and her mother, Mrs. Bliss
-
Tillie Dienger, whose parents owned the general store
Thought to be the a 1910
photo of the original St. Boniface’s interior,
showing the marble baptismal font donated by Mrs. E.F. Gaddis.
Note that the casement windows did, indeed, open wide, as described in
Mary Ware in Texas.
Photo from the private collection of Anne Stewart of the Comfort Heritage
Foundation, Inc.
Rev. Massey was responsible for both St. Boniface and St. Helena’s until
1911, when Rev. George A. Belsey moved to Comfort from St. Mark’s in San
Antonio to serve as associate pastor. He took over in Comfort on the fifth
anniversary of the church, January 7, 1912, the year after the Johnstons
left Boerne.
In
1908, Rev. Massey’s sister, Deaconess Charlotte G. Massey, bought a home
next to the church, which served as a parrish hall and later as a day
school. She worked as a missionary among the women and children until
1912. According to her obituary, which appeared in the April 17, 1958
edition of the “Comfort News,” she went to the Philippines in 1918 as a
missionary and became a Japanese prisoner during World War II. After her
release, she returned to Comfort for a few years and then went to
California. She died “after a long and painful illness” in a nursing home
in Chula Vista, California in 1958.
Portrait of Deaconess
Charlotte Massey,
from the private collection of Anne Stewart of the Comfort Heritage
Foundation, Inc.
The
Parrish House was built in 1910 and Miss Annie Louise Davies (who later
married George Karger) was sent to start a kindergarten. She lived with
Deaconess Massey and taught in Comfort in late 1910. Miss Davies took most
of the photographs of St. Boniface and the Masseys shown on this page, now
owned by her granddaughter, Anne Stewart.
Anne Louise Davies (Karger) with her St. Boniface kindergarten class,
comprised of the children of Mexican migrant workers, 1910,
from the private collection of Anne Stewart of the Comfort Heritage
Foundation, Inc.
Another member at St. Boniface was
Miss Camille
Edith Johnson, who taught Sunday school. Like Annie’s stepson,
John Johnston, she was
visiting Boerne for her health. Despite her youth (she would have been in
her late teens and early 20s while the Johnston’s were living in Boerne) –
or perhaps because of it, since the author found few real American girls
in Boerne to use as models in her books – the two developed a friendship.
In 1917, Miss Johnston married Joe S. Johns and made Boerne her permanent
home.
Rev. Massey was a popular preacher and people travelled from near and far
to attend services at St. Boniface. According to Anne Stewart of the
Comfort Heritage Foundation, many made the 11-mile trek up the railroad
tracks from Boerne to Comfort to hear him preach. “People walked from
Boerne to Waring. New Braunfels folks walked to Sisterdale. Those were the
days!” she says.
The
Johnstons may have helped decorate St. Boniface for services on more than
one occasion. In Mary Ware in Texas,
the first time Mary Ware and Mrs. Rochester meet, Mary helps her decorate
the church with autumn leaves for the Thanksgiving service. Later in the
book, she gathers a basketful of Texas bluebonnets for the church and in
the novel’s closing paragraphs, when the Wares are leaving Bauer and Mary
is reminiscing, she muses about “the spire of St. Boniface” and how
the church looked on “Easter morning, its casement windows set wide, and
its altar white with the snowy beauty of the rain lilies.” Annie’s
stepdaughter, Mary,
was quite a gardener and one of her specialties was lilies. In a
letter
Annie wrote to her friend,
Mamie
Lawton in 1908, she refers to Mary as the “The Lily Maid:”
A rainy
Easter Sunday - just one long continual downpour, on the grand scale by
which Texas does things. There was no getting out to church, no doing
anything, and even the lily Mary tended so carefully did not quite
bloom. Indeed so carefully has she nursed it that she has won the title
squarely of Tennyson's Elaine - "The Lily maid!"
Above, a 1910 Christmas photo of Paper Whites (narcissus)
blooming in the living room of the Parrish House at St. Boniface
from the private collection of Anne Stewart of the Comfort Heritage
Foundation
The
Boerne Area Historical Preservation Society states that Rev. Massey “and
his wife, Alice were tireless workers for the young parish” and that the
reverend “had a long and fruitful tenure at the Boerne church.” Stewart
terms the three Masseys -- James Albert, Alice and Charlotte -- “an
intriguing trio of wealthy easterners transplanted to Texas – moneyed,
educated, from a higher social class and focused on spreading the
Episcopal church.”
Above, Vicar James Albert Massey with Ann Cran Davies (kindergarten
teacher Annie Louise Davies’ mother
and Anne Stewart’s great-grandmother) to the left and two unknown women in
sailor blouses to the right.
Photo from the private collection of Anne Stewart of the Comfort Heritage
Foundation, Inc. Below, some pages from the 1914
Mary Ware Paper Doll Book,
illustrated by Mary G.
Johnston, showing the Mary Ware paper doll and a sailor costume very
similar to those worn by the women in the photo.
In
December, 1914, Rector Massey’s tenure in Boerne and Comfort came to an
abrupt halt, when he asked to be relieved of the rectorship, left town and
was never seen again. In One
Place: The Story of St. Helena's Episcopal Church by Elizabeth
Hudson states that he was asked to leave the church.
He was officially deposed from the sacred ministry by the
Bishop Coadjutor of West Texas on January 15, 1915, according to the “Journal
of the Proceedings of The Sixty-second Annual Convention of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Iowa"
. It was a
huge scandal, since he not only left St. Helena’s, St. Boniface and the
priesthood, but his wife, as well.
His
obituary appeared in the November 22, 1962 edition of the “Comfort
News:”
MASSEY RIGHTS HELD IN
DENVER
Word was received here
this week of the death of J. Albert Massey on Oct. 27 in Denver, Colo.,
and was laid to rest there on Oct. 29.
Mr. Massey resided in
Boerne and Comfort in the early 1900s and at that time was rector of St.
Helena’s Episcopal Church in Boerne and began an Episcopal Mission in
Comfort. He was instrumental in building St. Boniface’s Church in
Comfort in 1905-06.
He is survived by his
widow
(editors note: not Alice)
who is bed-ridden in the Samaritan Rest Home, Denver.
Alice stayed in Boerne and built the house pictured below at
121 Rock Road for herself in 1915. It is currently owned by St. Helena’s
Episcopal Church.
Alice Massey built this house for herself in 1915.
It was close to both St. Helena’s Episcopal Church and her mother’s winter
home.
Photo courtesy of the Boerne Area Historical Preservation Society.
She remained active in both
churches and maintained a warm relationship with her sister-in-law,
Charlotte. Evidently, she visited her in the Philippines shortly after
Charlotte was stationed there as a missionary. In 1921, Alice “gave an
account of her recent visit to the Philippines and of the work in the
hospitals there” to a group of nurses, according to “The
American Journal of Nursing Volume XXI, 1921 , pg. 832 Her brother,
Zenas Work Bliss, and his wife were regular visitors to her home in
Boerne, according to his obituary below.
Hon.
Z. W. Bliss Rites in Rhode Is.
Word was received in
Comfort Friday of the death of the Hon. Z.W. Bliss, at his residence in
Providence, R.I., on Thursday, January 10, his 90th birthday.
He had been
hospitalized for a few weeks, but had rallied and returned to his home a
few days prior to his death.
Funeral services were
held Saturday at noon at the Swan Point Chapel and burial was in the
family plot at
Swan
Point Cemetery.
Born January 10, 1867,
a son of Maj. Gen. Zenas R. and Martha N. Work Bliss, he was a graduate
of MIT, in 1889; received an honorary Masters degree in Arts from Brown
University in 1816, and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Rhode
Island State College in 1919, which is now the University of Rhode
Island. The engineering building on the University’s campus is named
Bliss Hall in his honor.
Mr. Bliss was
lieutenant-governor of Rhode Island from 1910 to 1912, and headed the
old Board of Tax Commissioners from 1912 to 1935. Considered one of the
country’s leading authorities on municipal and federal taxation, in 1927
he was asked to become a tax expert for the congressional joint
committee on internal revenue taxation. He declined the appointment,
because he felt it would take him away from his duties in his state.
Mr. Bliss is survived
by a son, Zenas R. Bliss, professor of engineering at Brown University,
two grandsons, a great grandson, and a sister, Mrs. Alice I.B. Massey of
Providence.
Mrs. Bliss died in
1950 in Boerne while visiting Mrs. Massey.
Mr. and Mrs. Bliss
spent many winters in Boerne with Mrs. Massey and made a host of friends
in Kendall County, who will be sorry to learn of this eminent man’s
death, who during his long life contributed so much to the well-being of
his state and nation.
These friends are
joined by The News in extending sympathy to his family.
Alice eventually left Boerne and moved permanently to Rhode
Island. By 1957, she was living at 109 Hope Street in Providence,
according to correspondence received by Mrs. Karger. She died in
Providence in February, 1980 at age 101, according to the U.S. Social
Security Death Index.
Thanks to
Anne Stewart of the Comfort Heritage Foundation, Inc. for sharing her
grandmother’s photographs and her own work on the history of St. Boniface
Episcopal Church and to Col. Bettie Edmonds of the
Boerne Area Historic Preservation Society for finding the portrait of Rev.
Massey.
Page
by Donna Andrews Russell
Copyright 2009
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