The last written page in Otho Scott's album is that of Effie M. Leeb. She obviously lives in Andover, a village in Ashtabula County. To get there you have to pass through either Geauga County or Lake County - at any rate it is not next door. Her writing is so faded that I have to use the computer to make it readable. Effie cites a then popular writer Annie Fields (1834-1915):
"He who bears,
Scorn into labor, ever shall be slave;
But he who finds no dark in labor's might,
He will be king, and the bright crown he wears
Will shine with stars above the sluggard's grave."
I can not find Effie, either in Geauga County or in Cuyahoga County, so my research ends on a minor note. What stays with me at the end, is the handwriting of the people - mostly in their teens - in those days. People don't write that beautifully anymore. They must have paid a lot of attention to handwriting in school. Remarkable too is the fact that sixteen year old Otho got the editor of the local paper to sign his album. Looking back, the research has taken a a lot of time as I sat hours in front of screen and keyboard and I don't know if I have made mistakes.
The album will travel soon with this translation to Chagrin Falls. I do hope the people there find the results of my research as interesting as I do. I only know Otho through the people who signed his album, so one question lingers in my mind - who was he? I guess it will remain a mystery to me, unless he is the unmarried - forty year old - Otho L. Scott who is living, in 1910 in Cleveland, with his brother George and his brother's family. Both - Otho and George - are working in the furniture business. If this Otho is the right one, he marries later in life, Katheryn, who hails from Germany and is twenty years younger. In 1930 they have two daughters Arlene (17) and Jeane (13). Otho is then the president of the Storage Company.
The album will travel soon with this translation to Chagrin Falls. I do hope the people there find the results of my research as interesting as I do. I only know Otho through the people who signed his album, so one question lingers in my mind - who was he? I guess it will remain a mystery to me, unless he is the unmarried - forty year old - Otho L. Scott who is living, in 1910 in Cleveland, with his brother George and his brother's family. Both - Otho and George - are working in the furniture business. If this Otho is the right one, he marries later in life, Katheryn, who hails from Germany and is twenty years younger. In 1930 they have two daughters Arlene (17) and Jeane (13). Otho is then the president of the Storage Company.
