MARY WIKOFF OLIVER
Step back into the 19th century as seen through the eyes of a woman who enjoyed attending the opera and having afternoon tea. Mary Wikoff Oliver was the beautiful college-educated wife of a successful businessman in the growing town of Hastings, Nebraska during the 1880's and 1890's.
Follow Mary and Oswald Oliver's lives through two of Mary's handwritten journals; one chronicling their newlywed days in 1881 and the other describing their First Class travels throughout Europe and the British Isles. Mary Wikoff Oliver's 1884 journal described highlights such as staying in the same Heidelberg hotel room that Mark Twain wrote about, catching a glimpse of Queen Marie Henrietta strolling the gardens at the Kings Palace in Brussels, and ordering a dress from the world renowned couturier Redfern, dressmaker to Queen Victoria.
Imagine traveling during an era when the modern form of communication was the telegraph and letter writing was the only way to learn of news from family and friends.
Sadly, 34-year-old Mary Wikoff Oliver died shortly after childbirth but through her diaries and photographs we're able to peek into the past and see what the life and times were like during a much different era.
Author Julie Claydon recounts to readers the life of her great-grandmother Mary Wikoff Oliver. While growing up, Julie saw pictures of a beautiful woman dressed in stunning Victorian-style dresses. It wasn't until September 1995 that Mary's life made a profound impact on Julie. While in her mother’s childhood home with several family members, they were examining an antique shipping trunk when Julie noticed an object lying at the bottom of the trunk. It was an 1884 journal written by Mary Wikoff Oliver! Several years later Julie was given Mary Wikoff Oliver’s 1881-1882 leather-bound handwritten journal, which described Mary and Oswald Oliver’s wedding day, honeymoon, and their newlywed lives.
Family portraits shown throughout this book are from family collections. Mary Dorothy (nee Oliver) Smith was very diligent about recording on the reverse side of every photograph the name, date, and relationship of pictures in her possession. It is extremely rare to find a family portrait without her handwriting on the reverse side. We all could learn a lesson from her perserverance in recording such valuable family information.
Dorothy also owned a postcard collection highlighting places she traveled as a youngster. Her collection also included tourist attractions visited by her parents, Mary and Oswald Oliver, prior to her birth. Some of those postcards are shown to give the reader a visual representation of the places visited by Mary and Oswald Oliver during their 14-year marriage.
Click here to see a listing of my Oliver ancestors.
Wanna send us an e-mail? Here's our mailbox. We've tweeked our e-mail address a bit to prevent all that awful spam. We think you'll figure out that AT is to be replaced with the @ with no spaces in between the @ symbol.