Surratt Courier

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(10-01-2015 03:40 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  

(10-01-2015 03:10 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Kudos to Kathy Canavan on her Surratt Courier article entitled "The Petersens of Tenth Street Years After the Assassination." Kathy included lots of interesting information. I was fascinated by what William Petersen's grandson had to say in a 1921 interview. In describing his grandfather's house on 10th Street he said, "It was not a boarding house at all...I know that my grandfather did not conduct a rooming house." Go figure.

Haven't got mine yet--looking forward to it! I finished Kathy's book a couple of days ago and really enjoyed it.

David Rankin Barbee in his interview with Dr. Reginald Tonry (Anna Surratt's son) reported that Dr. Tonry made a similar remark: "When Mrs. Surratt moved to Washington and took the town house on H Street, she did not open a boardinghouse and she never ran an establishment of that sort." ("His Mother's Memories").

We heard the same thing from another Surratt descendant. It took pulling out the copy of her advertisement in the D.C. papers to convince them otherwise. She certainly did not open her doors to the Holohans, Nora, Apollonia Dean, or even Weichmann and welcome them in for free.

There was nothing disgraceful about running a boardinghouse in the 19th century (or later). In fact, for a widowed or single lady, it was one of only a few respectable options for them to earn a living.