Rare Book Monthly
Tracking Down Lost Lives: A Family For Sale on eBay
William P. Rudd (3) between President Taft (2) and Gov. Charles Evans Hughes (4). (5) is former Missouri Gov. David Francis; (1) is Canadian Gov. Grey
One more thing should be said about Judge Rudd. His obituaries describe him as an "omnivorous reader," and credit him with being "largely instrumental in securing for Albany the well organized system of public libraries." This being a book site, we can certainly appreciate this exceptional man.
Ironically, when you attempt to learn about Judge Rudd and his career online today, he is recognized only by the "Sodomy Laws" website. Evidently, Judge Rudd struck down a New York State law that allowed for forced sterilization of mental patients. The website quotes his decision as saying, "Frank Osborn is not a malefactor. He is mentally deficient. He is defective without personal responsibility for such defect." Judge Rudd would go on to say that sterilization is not a "proper exercise of the police power. It seems to be a tendency almost inhuman in its nature."
While the years following the death of his father proved to be very good to William P. Rudd, they were much less kind to his sister. While the scrapbook is filled with 20th century news about William, there is very little going forward about Adeline. The century started well enough, with husband George Howlett at least making a decent living working in the umbrella business. He had three brothers and some of them appear to have been quite wealthy and successful running their own business. However, tragedy would strike in 1907 when George would die at home after a long illness. Adeline would live almost twice as many years as a widow as she did as a wife. She would be left with two daughters, but only a few small clippings tell us anything more about this side of the family. There would be a happy time in 1917 when the third Adeline would marry high school sweetheart Frederick Schaschke. Schaschke would follow the route of his wife's grandfather, working for the railroad. However, tragedy would strike the family again. Young Schaschke would die from an illness just a year and a half after the marriage, at the age of 26. Like her mother, it appears that the younger Adeline never remarried, and that she had no children.
There was one other daughter of the elder Adeline, Marion Howlett. While her sister Adeline appears not to have attended college, Marion graduated from Wellesley, one of the top women's schools in the nation. Her husband, Edward Bennett Rowe, was an MIT graduate and an engineer, but not of the sort that worked on railroads. She appears to have had two children. Her daughter, Esther, died at the age of 15, the result of an appendicitis. Her son, Edward, Jr., also graduated MIT, class of 1936, and later married, though the undated clipping does not tell us when. We do know that grandmother Adeline attended and that "the occasion was a memorable one" for her.
