Mr. de Cordova and the plate of cookies
Apr. 25th, 2024 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeI know some of my eastern Massachusetts dwelling friends and readers know about the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, a thirty-acre sculpture park and a museum building with towers that wear conical roofs like a small castle. I recall going there as a very small child.
It turns out my father went there as a very small child, too, back when it was just the house of Mr. de Cordova.
"I remember old Mr. de Cordova came out with a plate of cookies for me and your uncle," he recalled.
I looked up Mr. de Cordova in Wikipedia and found out that Julian de Cordova was born in 1851. He died in 1945 at the age of 94. My father--who himself is now 93--would probably have been about eight years old when he encountered Mr. de Cordova--the year would have been around 1939.
When Mr. de Cordova himself was eight, the Civil War was still two years away. Mr. de Cordova would have been 10 when the Civil War started, 12 when the Emancipation Proclamation was made, 14 when the war finished. And at age 87, he brought my father cookies. If, at age eight, Mr. de Cordova met an 87-year-old man, that man would have been born in 1772.
Mr. de Cordova was a tea broker and later the owner of the Union Glass Company in Somerville, MA. He went to Harvard University for a couple of years, married and had one child (both wife and child died before him), and, after his death, was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
It turns out my father went there as a very small child, too, back when it was just the house of Mr. de Cordova.
"I remember old Mr. de Cordova came out with a plate of cookies for me and your uncle," he recalled.
I looked up Mr. de Cordova in Wikipedia and found out that Julian de Cordova was born in 1851. He died in 1945 at the age of 94. My father--who himself is now 93--would probably have been about eight years old when he encountered Mr. de Cordova--the year would have been around 1939.
When Mr. de Cordova himself was eight, the Civil War was still two years away. Mr. de Cordova would have been 10 when the Civil War started, 12 when the Emancipation Proclamation was made, 14 when the war finished. And at age 87, he brought my father cookies. If, at age eight, Mr. de Cordova met an 87-year-old man, that man would have been born in 1772.
Mr. de Cordova was a tea broker and later the owner of the Union Glass Company in Somerville, MA. He went to Harvard University for a couple of years, married and had one child (both wife and child died before him), and, after his death, was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
