Legendary Opulence, an Unparalleled Trendsetter, and a Nickname with Staying Power

 

Nicknames can sometimes define a person, but when we talk about the person to whom my father owed his future—and mainstay—place of employment, it was the man who bestowed meaning to his own nickname.

The Roxy—not the nightclub people talked about, up through the earlier years of our own century, but a previous hot spot well known to New Yorkers almost a century ago—started out as the dream of a film producer. Herbert Lubin—also called Bert Lubin—was known for his movies in the 1920s. Investing in his own dream to create the world's finest movie palace in New York City, Lubin brought in the talent to convert that dream into reality, including an innovative theater operator by the name of Samuel Rothafel.

If you didn't recognize the name of that immigrant impresario, it might be an understandable slip on your part. After all, it is likely you weren't around in New York City in 1927, when ten million Americans would tune in to his radio broadcasts every Monday.

At Lubin's invitation—not to mention, substantial financial enticement—Rothafel was free to implement Lubin's dream with his own ideas about theatrical design and production values. As we look back on Rothafel's achievement, he may be hailed as an "unparalleled trendsetter," but his opulent ideas cost Lubin a near brush with bankruptcy. While Lubin's original plan had been to make this the flagship of a series of six such theaters in the metro area, a week before opening day, he sold his controlling interest in the project to William Fox, founder of Fox Studios, and moved on. 

As for the brilliant—albeit lavish—Rothafel, he remained with his dream project from its opening day on March 11, 1927, through the 1929 stock market crash, and on until 1932, when he left the theater named for him and which contained so much of his innovative talent. Its lavish appearance—everything from the columned Grand Foyer with its "world's largest oval rug" to its immense theater-sized pipe organ—bore the fingerprints of Rothafel's inspiration. Despite Rothafel's ties to this historic theater, he left for a better opportunity at Rockefeller Center, where he opened another theater whose name may be more familiar to us today: Radio City Music Hall.

As for the movie palace he left behind, the theater continued to offer its featured combination of first-run movies and live shows. Both my father and my mother, having worked there, shared stories of performing at the once-glamorous venue that was, up until the end of March, 1960, a part of the city's heritage.

Now, I doubt many people at all would recognize the name of the innovative man, Samuel Rothafel, who made the theater the place it became. But some might recognize the nickname Rothafel was known by, the name by which the theater itself was called: the Roxy. That was the place where my musician dad played his trombone in the orchestra, and my mom eventually became a dancer with the "Roxyettes." It is through their stories that I know anything at all about the Roxy—but in learning more about that New York City fixture of the 1940s, it will help me understand more about my own parents. And it certainly helps me understand the origin of what seemed to me to be an unusual name for a movie theater. 

About Those Irish Nicknames

 

Finding a mother's maiden name can be challenging in its own right. When coupled with the shifting usage of nicknames, it's a task which makes me wonder whether all those names I'm finding refer to the same woman.

The Murdock brothers Samuel, James, John, and Thomas in Lafayette, Indiana, have been the key to helping me find Eliza Murdock Stevens' mother. In particular, the most successful of the brothers—millionaire James, whose handsome photograph and biographical sketch appeared in Past and Present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana—became my source for their mother's maiden name, Kelly.

However, discovering that the woman was recorded by three different given names—Sally, Sibba, and Sabina—I needed to quell any doubts for myself.

This is not the first time I've wrestled with this question. Years ago, I wondered the same thing—and had some motivation to get to the root of the nickname problem. But did I? Let's just say that item got shoved to the bottom of the month's research list.

So I decided to take the situation to a good friend of mine: Google. After all, isn't it still true that "Google is your friend"? I asked for "Irish nicknames" and up came this handy document, a ten page chart compiled by Dennis A. Hogan called "Given Name Alternatives for Irish Research." 

Within those ten pages—and this may come as no surprise to you—the entry for Sabina confirmed that, in addition to "Bina," two other nicknames could be Sally and Sibby. Hence, the Murdock entry in the 1860 census for Sally, and the 1870 census entry for a quite different version, Sibba.

So "Sibba" was likely to have actually been "Sibby." If so, imagine that "Sibby" with a sloppily-written capital "S." Could someone have mistaken that for an "L"? I've seen that happen before.

Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but I'm hoping that a mistaken transcription is the case again, because I found a passenger record which may be of interest to us—if the entry for "Libby" Murdock was really supposed to mean "Sibby" Murdock. We'll see, tomorrow, whether there are any additional documents to bolster or negate that wishful guess.

 

Last List of the Family

 

I, Anthony Carrol, do hereby make my last will and testament....

So began the document which was presented in court in Monongalia County in what was once the state of Virginia, sometime during February of 1830. The witnesses, John F. Dering and Sarah Scott, declared under oath that Anthony Carroll was indeed deceased, and thus the will was "ordered to be recorded."

Despite my access to what is merely a typewritten copy of the original—and surely handwritten—will, there are a few details we can glean from this document. First is the observation that the surname Carroll made its appearance in this brief document in various forms: besides "Carroll" and "Carrol" for Anthony, himself, there was also a variation of the surname spelled as "Carrel" and "Carrell." Hopefully, they all referred to one and the same family, but we need to keep our mind open to the possibility that perhaps that wasn't the case.

More important, at least in pursuit of my research goal for this month—to learn what I can about the parents of my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, Mary Carroll Gordon—is the fact that wills often provide us a last listing of the decedent's family relationships. In this will of Anthony Carroll, we are not disappointed—although there are a few details which will require us to do more homework to confirm connections.

Anthony's will was fairly straightforward. First, he wanted all the "perishable" portions of his estate sold to pay off his debts and provide for a decent funeral. Second, if the sale of such belongings were not sufficient to satisfy those expenses, he dictated that one specific property of his—located on "Coburn's Creek"—be sold for that same purpose.

Then—and this is the part we were waiting to see—Anthony stated that all remaining portions of his estate be given to his wife, Temperance "Carrell" for the remainder of her lifetime. After her death—and here we arrive at the rest of what we were seeking—Anthony's estate was to be divided between his children.

The children were named as: "James Carrel, Pegey Guseman, Polly Gorden, James Walls."

Lastly, Anthony appointed his executors. We have to presume that he named more than one, because the typewritten copy inserts an ellipsis between the words "and" and "executors," most likely signifying an illegible name. The other executor was listed as "my friend, Temperance Carrell."

That listing of the names of his children gives pause. Why the name of two sons as James? Why, too, would a natural child of a Carroll have a totally different surname? One reasonable conclusion would be that Temperance, while Anthony's wife at the time of his death, might not have been the mother of all of Anthony's children. Also, the second James could be son of Temperance from a previous marriage.

The lack of that second executor's name is unfortunate, specifically because those named to such positions are often selected precisely because they have a vested interest in seeing that the heirs do, indeed, receive the inheritance intended for them. Temperance, of course, would be interested in securing her rights—but if she was not the mother of the children, who would remain to represent the needs of those parties? I suspect that second executor's name would have provided a valuable clue.

As for the identities of the children themselves, our exploration of nineteenth century nicknames came in handy for realizing that Polly could very well be Mary, a Carroll descendant who married a man named Gordon. As for the nickname Peggy, that is one common substitution which has been carried into our own century—but whether that leads us to the right daughter, we'll follow what we can find on any Margaret Carrolls who married men named Guseman, just to be sure.

With such a to-do list evolving from a document as brief as this will of Anthony Carroll, we have much to uncover in the next few days. We'll take some time to double check the possibilities—a research move which is not only prudent, but necessary, simply because of one additional problem: the Monongalia County courthouse fire of 1796.  

A Will, a Way, and Nicknames

 

Genealogists have gladly co-opted that oft-used observation, "Where there's a will, there's a way." While we hardly use the saying in the way it was originally intended, we family historians have put the revelations in last wills and testaments to good use in our own research.

In pursuing my goal for this month—documenting the parents of my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, Mary Carroll Gordon—I was fortunate to find such a will. Wills, generally found at the local courthouse and often including a file—sometimes quite lengthy—of related material, have become an important tool in piecing together the puzzle of our family history.

We'll soon take a look at a will, filed in 1830 at Monongalia County in what was then the state of Virginia, which might help answer this month's research question. But first, we need to take a detour: we need to explore the use of nicknames in these earlier centuries of our forebears' records.

Unlike our current century—a time in which one cannot even deposit money into one's own bank account without first producing a photograph identification including not a mere nickname, but a full, legal name—earlier eras were not as concerned with a full accounting of the name pronounced upon a child's birth. In fact, if you push back to the earliest records of this nation, don't be surprised to see that same unconcern with variations in spelling of those same names—sometimes, even within the same document.

We'll save rants about spelling variations for a later time, but let's focus now on those alternative terms of endearment used for members of a family. There are several useful tips and searchable lists online for use in dealing with research involving nicknames.

One might expect to see a nickname for a given name as long as, say, Penelope—or for a name which might present spelling complications, like Genevieve. But we are now looking for any mention of a woman's name which is as simple as a four-letter sequence. How hard is it to say or spell a name like Mary?

When I first began researching family history, I had to get the hang of name substitutions such as Sadie for Sarah. Those name choices made by ancestors several generations back didn't just spring off my tongue like they might have for my fourth great-grandmother. That's why I kept that list of nicknames handy. And that's how I first discovered that children given the name Mary at birth might be, in later years, called anything but Mary.

That, as we'll see tomorrow, is exactly what we'll need to keep in mind when we review the will of one Anthony Carroll of Monongalia County. He mentioned his daughters in his will, alright, but he identified each of them, not by their given name, but by their nicknames. And, as we can see from those handy lists of nicknames, the woman mentioned as Polly could well have been a daughter whom her parents had named Mary.