THE OWL A Genealogical Quarterly Magazine Founded in 1899, by George W. Wing, Kewaunee, Wis., and edited by him until his death in 1924. PUBLISHED BY THE WING FAMILY OF AMERICA, Incorporated. Price $1.00 a Year; Single Numbers, 25 cents Entered at the post-office at Kewaunee, Wisconsin, as second class matter. The Owl is the official journal of the Wing Family of America, Incorporated, and solicits information concerning family events. Address all correspondence concerning it to Mary Gertrude Wing, Wareham, Mass. The Owl considers it a privilege to be able to introduce to its readers members of the Family who have attained to distinction in any line of worth-while human endeavor. In the March issue of this year occurred a reference to the Rev. John D. Wing, D. D., of Chattanooga, Tenn. In this issue we are pleased to present the portrait, together with a brief life-sketch of this kinsman who has risen to a position of recognized ability and worth in the Episcopal Church in the South. Rev. John Durham Wing, D. D. John Durham Wing was born in Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 19th, 1882, the son of John Durham (Jehu Lowrey, John, Edward, Benjamin, Benjamin, Matthew, Stephen, Rev. John, Matthew) and Sallie (Peeples) Wing. He was educated in the public schools of Atlanta and at the University of Georgia, in Athens. For five years after leaving college he was engaged in business, two of these years being spent as London Manager of the firm by which he was employed. Later he entered the Episcopal Theological Seminary, in Virginia (of which institution Bishop Phillips Brooks was an alumnus) and was graduated in 1910. He was ordained to the Priesthood of the Episcopal Church the same year by Bishop Nelson, of Atlanta, and became NUMBER 4 WING FAMILY OF AMERICA, INCORPORATED Acting President, RUFUS L. SISSON, Potsdam, N. Y. 2nd Vice President, MISS MARY GERTRUDE WING, Wareham, Mass. Secretary, MRS. CAROLINE E. WING PARKER, Treasurer, ALVIN P. WING, East Sandwich, Mass. Asahel R. Wing, Fort Edward N. Y. Dr. Laura Hawkins, Washington, D. C. Wilson D. Wing, Bangor, Me. rector of the Church of the Holy Comforter, Atlanta, remaining until 1912. He was at the Church of the Incarnation, Atlanta, 1912-1913; Grace Church, Anniston, Ala., 1913-1915; Christ Church, Savannah, Ga., 1915-1923; St. Paul's Church, Chattanooga, Tenn., January, 1923, to date. In 1913 he married Miss Mary Catherine Ammons, of Atlanta, and they have four children: Mary, born in 1914; John Durham, Jr., in 1917; Breckenridge Wilmer, in 1919; and Sarah, in 1923. On May 6, 1925, he was elected Bishop-Coadjutor of the Diocese of South Florida, and will probably be consecrated during September of this year. His Florida residence will be fixed at Winter Park, a suburb of Orlando. "To be born well is a priceless privilege; not for the purpose of boastfulness; not to be declared by crest or coat-of-arms,-but to be translated into works which will measure up to the quality of the gift. It is a wonderful opportunity which every child is given to perpetuate the standards of his forbears; to carry on the family name so that each generation will be the richer because a member of that family has been of it." From "Twice Thirty", by Edward W. Bok. Announcement! Here is an item of more than ordinary interest to the Family. It has long been recognized in many directions that one of the great needs of The Owl was an index. To trace individual records and fit them into their places in the History, without such an index, has been a difficult task. No one recognized this any more truly than Col. Wing, and he had been working upon such an index forno one knows how long. In one of his last letters to the secretary, Mrs. Parker, he wrote that he had at length brought it down to date. Recently, in a box of genealogical material that came to The Owl office in Wareham was this index. How valuable it will be to the Family only those can realize who have turned the pages of Owl after Owl in search of some elusive record. When it can be published, or in what form it can be published, is not. yet determined. Doubtless it will be ad-. visable to wait until the History shallhave been brought down to date; but, meanwhile, it will be at the service of the Family, and the present editor will be glad to look up the records of any members of the Family there entered. It is one more evidence of the interest of our late president since it represents an enormous amount of labor; and it adds that much more to our indebtedness to him. There are also now available back numbers of The Owl, as far as 1910. If numbers are missing in any files it is possible that we may be able to supply them. Price of single copies, twentyfive cents. In looking over an old scrap-book which was compiled in the early days of the Association, we came upon this poem, with the inscription, which is here reproduced. As back I look into the years that were, The church is filled with many a worshiper; Grave men are there with broad brimmed Quaker hats, The Old Friends' Meeting House With long surtouts and in South Yarmouth, Mass. Quite near the village, by the wooded cravats. snowy white And rows of women too are in their place, With plain apparel and with saintly face; And while a solemn stillness fills the air, Their hearts engage in silent praise and prayer. A Quaker Wedding in 1925 The old Apponegansett Meeting House on the Russells Mills Road in Dartmouth, And now there comes unto my listening Mass., is a familiar landmark to many ear, In measured cadence, which I gladly which I gladly hear, Owl readers. The drive across the stonearched bridge, with the thickly-wooded banks of the stream on the one side and The pleading of some saint who, day the more open meadow on the other, by day, and the sharp turn that brings to view the plain though well-preserved old wooden structure, is an unfailing delight to those who have an appreciation of this mingling of past with present. It is always a matter of comment that the back of the building is toward the road and we have wondered if this country road was so much of a "highway" in the olden days that it represented to the "plain" people who worshipped there "the world" from which they turned scription of this same Meeting House by away. We learn, however, from a dethe late Franklyn Howland, published in the Dec. 1906 Owl, that all the meeting houses and many of the dwellings of that period were built to face the south, regardless of the location of the highway. To many Owl readers who have never visited the spot this Meeting House is familiar, doubtless, by means of the moving picture, "Down to the Sea in Ships." For this film a Quaker wedding with all the olden paraphernalia was staged here one summer day a few years ago. But it has been forty years since an actual wedding was solemnized in this historic building; therefore it was of unusual interest when such a wedding occurred on Tuesday, the 7th of July. This old Quaker Meeting House, built in 1790, on the site of one still older by nearly a hundred years, figured largely in the annals of the early Wings of Dartmouth; few of the old families that were not connected by marriage; therefore we feel a special interest in this young birthright Quaker who chose to be married here. The occasion was so unique that newspapers sent their reporters, and the following account is taken from these reports: "Happy is the bride the sun shines on" proved but an empty saying, as those can witness who were present at the old ser Friends' Meeting House at Apponegansett on Tuesday. Eleven o'clock, the customary hour for the simple marriage service, was sunless, but the attractive young people who rolled up into the yard in a commodious limousine brought their own happiness with them. Previous to the formal period of quiet reflection and self-communing which opens the vices of Friends, the "man and woman" who came to the quaint old Meeting House to take each other as "husband and wife" moved about among the small assembly of relatives and friends with quiet, though smiling, greetings. It was a felicitous combining of customs traditional and a pretty informality emanating from their own contentment and cordiality. These two were George Arthur Selleck, himself a minister of the Friends and a student at Hartford Theological Seminary, and Florence Mabel Gifford, a native of Westport, and born into the faith of the Friends. Miss Gifford has recently been a teacher in the Girls' Ida May School of Boston. She is a graduate of Wellesley College. She has been abroad several times, spending in Rome at one period a whole school year in the perfecting of her special branch of teaching. Mr. Selleck was originally a Kansas Friend. He met Miss Gifford He met Miss Gifford when both were instructors in the Oak Grove School at Vassalboro, Maine. Miss Gifford, during her teaching in Boston, took her membership from the Allen's Neck Meeting, which was only a few miles from Apponegansett, to the Boston Friends' Meeting in Roxbury. From that Meeting two men and two women came as a committee appointed to see that the discipline of the Friends was observed and to return the minutes to the Monthly Meeting. The bride, as we may in these days call her, was dressed becomingly in modern costumes, and the bridegroom wore a conventional suit of present-day fashion. The people assembled looked like the average enlightened type of sturdy New England country dweller. There was no "plain dress" except in one instance. Samuel and Laura Gidley, elderly Friends of the neighborhood who, alone, "keep the meeting", sat on one of the "high seats" facing the audience. Every First Day they are at the meeting house unless, by weather or illness, they are un able to attend, when they keep meeting at home. The wife, in her snuff colored skirt, little cobwebby gray shawl, white cuffs and small dark silk bonnet, was the only upholder, in outward semblance, of the olden times. There might have been sixty guests present. These all sat on the women's side, which often, in larger meeting houses, now the sexes are allowed by the discipline to mingle in seating, is the only portion used. As the last guests arrived, and the two chief participants took their places on the lowest "facing seat", the gentle social converse ceased, as it seemed, spontaneously. Outside in the warm damp air, the birds of the surrounding woods and meadows were heard, in the sudden stillness of human contemplation. Several minutes passed. Then rising from a front seat (it being an "appointed" day the seating was not necessarily according to "High Seat" prerogative) Bertha Smith, minister of the Allen's Neck Meeting, offered prayer. There was another brief silence, with the birds again as the only commentary. Then the two young people on the "facing seats" arose. They joined right hands as the discipline prescribes, and made each their declaration: "In the presence of the Lord, and before this assembly, I take thee, Florence Mabel Gifford, to be my wife, promising with Divine assistance, to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband until death shall separate us." "In the presence of the Lord, and before this assembly, I take thee, George Arthur Selleck, to be my husband, promising, with Divine assistance, to be unto thee a loving and faithful wife, until death shall separate us." One of the committee from the Boston Meeting rose and made an announcement about the signing of the certificate; and then followed the felicitations of the guests. The Discipline declares: "At the close. avoid entering hastily into discourses about affairs of this life, a practice inconsistent with the Christian gravity |