This collection concerns the history and interests of various members of the James family, especially Beulah (Baby) James Young and Adeline (Jimmy) James Cook, daughters of O. B. and Eloise Fort James. The papers are divided into three series: Correspondence, Writings, and Family History and Memorabilia.
The sparse CORRESPONDENCE of David Goodrich (D. G.) and O. B. James includes letters of recommendation, a letter from University of Wisconsin professor John Brooks to O. B. concerning his daughter's work, and a Civil War letter written at Camp Washburn, Milwaukee, from William G. James. Roughly half of the correspondence of Beulah and her husband Daniels (Dan) Young, is from Dan's brother and sister-in-law, Charlie L. and Leota (Lady) Young, while they were stationed in Egypt in the late 1940's. The other half is from Beulah's sister Adeline, documenting her worsening cancer in the early 1960's.
The WRITINGS include clippings of many of the stories of Eloise Fort James. She was a prolific writer and her work often appeared in the Richland Center Republican Observer and the Four Leaf Clover, a weekly distributed by Clover Farm Stores. Besides plays and short stories, one of her early notebooks contains an account of her family's hardware store, “Forty Years in the Implement Business.” Her manuscript and published short stories seem to be semi-biographical; she drew on her experiences in Louisiana before her marriage to O. B. James, as well as on various family events. Mary James Stark's writings consist of a few local history articles published in The Wisconsin Magazine.
The FAMILY HISTORY AND MEMORABILIA section contains notes on birth dates and wedding dates for members of the James, Cook, Stark, Brindley, Young, and Knadle families, and a six-page genealogy of the Luke Heard (Hurd) family, 1639-1829. Louise Heard was the wife of George H. James. Articles in local newspapers reporting deaths and weddings of various family members form the major portion of the Xeroxed clippings; a few others report the history of the James Hardware Store and the woman's suffrage work of Ada L. James and her father, D. G. James. Also included are a few notes and sorority invitations retained from scrapbooks kept by Adeline and Beulah while they were University of Wisconsin students. A baby book for Mary Alice James, drawings by Teddy Stark (Mary's son), Beulah's Red Cross volunteer certificates, and various programs and catalogs are included in the James and Young folder. Dan Young's army papers consist of memos, orders, and official letters, including a rough draft of his request for release from active duty.
