Brooklyn Life from Brooklyn, New York • Page 15

BROOKLYN LIFE 15 Mr. Samuel L. Parrish gives the use of the Parrish Museum during the winter months tor the rehearsals of the Choral Society, and during the summer concerts are frequently given in its large auditorium. Pratt-Dongan Wedding at Forest Hills Invitations have just been issued by Mr. and Mrs.

Herbert Dongan for the wedding of their daughter, Miss Effie Dongan, to Mr. Oliver Pratt, which is to take place on Saturday, June 7th, at 8 o'clock, in St. Luke's Church, Forest Hills, L. I. The matron of honor will be Mrs.

Edward R. Fuller, and the best man will be Mr. Edward R. Fuller. The following will be bridesmaids: the Misses Helen Smith, Marion Ohling, Marion Mulford and Rosa Snowden.

The ushers will be Messrs. Chester Messenger, C. E. Haight, Joseph Redegeld and John F. Stone.

Play Festival of the Brooklyn Free Kindergarten Society The Annual Play Festival for the children in the sixteen Kindergartens of the Brooklyn Free Kindergarten Society was held on the Long Meadow in Prospect Park on Wednesday morning, May 21st, at half after 10 o'clock. There were over six hundred children from different parts of the City playing the games and singing the songs of the Kindergarten. It was a most attractive gathering and well repaid those who made the effort to go to the Park that morning to see the children play. Meeting at Home of Mrs. Litt Mrs.

Ruth Litt, of East Patchogue, L. has issued invitations for a large meeting to be held at her home, "Jackwill Farm," on Tuesday afternoon, June 3rd, at 2 o' clock. Mrs. Margaret Sanger, of New York City, will speak on "The Birth Control Among the guests will be many clergymen, physicians and nurses of Suffolk County. Studio View of Miss Lewis and Miss Meday Unusually attractive invitations, hand-printed from wood blocks, have been sent out for a Studio View and tea, from 3 to 6 on May 31st, by Miss Elizabeth Lewis and Miss H.

Augusta Meday, of Woodview Road, West Hempstead L. I. It will be remembered that Miss Lewis is a sister of Mrs. Henry N. Read, of 228 Henry Street.

Exhibition at Packer The annual exhibition of the work of the pupils at Packer Institute was held Thursday and Friday afternoons, May 15th and 16th, and was unusual enough to cal forth the comment from many teachers and alumnae that it was the best in many years. It was arranged, as usual, on the main floor along the central hall, in the Assembly Room and Trustees' Room and in the Elementary Grade rooms of the main building. In the Assembly Room were exhibitions from the Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics Departments -portions of food showing their values in calories, geometrical drawings of stained glass windows and other more complicated matters, and models of scenes by little girls in the Elementary Department. We were charmed with some medieval scenes arranged by the Sixth Elementary- a Tournament, an English Fair and a Monastery. Then there was a very effective oasis in a desert of real sand, with a most life-like caravan, made by the Fifth Elementary, and a model of Packer itself and the garden by the First Elementary the littlest girls of all.

Going on to the Grade Room of the Fourth Elementary, we found some work in free cutting with scissors and paper that showed a remarkable feeling for action. In the art work of the older pupils we were especially interested in the wood block book plates, the batik work, handkerchiefs and scarfs, and in the costume designs, many of which showed charmingly imaginative fantastic figures. The metal work exhibit was particularly fine, and we noticed especially a gold and topaz pin by Emily Brundage, with a design of grapes and leaves carried out in exquisite workmanship; a very handsome flat silver dish with an etched and tooled design by Alice Parke, and a beautiful little silver dish on a pedestal by Gwendolyn Jacobus. A feature of the exhibition was the production of three little fairy plays, all versions of "Beauty and the Beast," one the familiar French legend, one the Irish version and one the corresponding Japanese story. They were charmingly done, with the delicate insight and humor that fairy plays require.

PERIPATETIC PERSONALS Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Lehrenkrauss, of 299 Sterling Place, Brooklyn, are at Haddon Hall, Atlantic City, for ten days--May 24th to June 2nd. Mr.

and Mrs. Nelson N. Moneypenny, of Ridgewood, N. with Mr. and Mrs.

Nelson N. Moneypenny, Jr. (formerly Miss Cora Douglas), are anticipating a trip through France, Switzerland and northern Italy this summer. Their daughter, Mrs. Arthur H.

Kiendl, and family will occupy "Boxwood," Mr. Moneypenny's summer home at Old Field Point, Setauket, L. I. for the season. Mr.

and Mrs. J. F. Berry, of 140 St. Johns Place, are staying at Haddon Hall, Atlantic City.

Mrs. F. C. Poucher, of 36 St. Johns Place, is also spending a few days at Haddon Hall, Atlantic City.

Mrs. Albert E. Seibert and Miss Inmond DeF. Seibert, of 51 St. Pauls Place, have been recent visitors at the Strand, in Atlantic City.

Mrs. E. H. Dudgeon, of 587 Seventh Street, has opened her hummer home at Sea Cliff, L. I.

Mrs. J. William Atherton, of 1110 East Twentyfirst Street, has gone to Lake Mohonk, N. for the summer. Mr.

and Mrs. J. W. Morrell, of 123 Hawthorne Street, have been stopping at the Dennis, in Atlantic City. Dr.

Harold W. Pembleton, of 3121 Beverly Road, has been recently entertaining his nephew, Ford Pembleton, of Central Valley, N. Y. Mrs. Lewis H.

Knapp, of 9439 Eighty-sixth Avenue, is a recent arrival at Haddon Hall, Atlantic City. Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Fisher and Miss Harriet B. Fisher, of 284 McDonough Street, have been spending the past two weeks in Washington, D.

C. Mr. L. A. Laurencelle, of 9 Crooke Avenue, has been stopping at the Dennis, in Atlantic City.

The Rev. Dr. John W. Longdale, of 962 Sterling Place, is attending the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Springfield, Mass. Mrs.

John Schlinger, of 545 Willoughby Avenue, has gone to Amityville, L. for the summer. The Rev. Francis P. Willes has moved from 130 Macon Street to 20 Polhemus Place, on the Park Slope.

Mrs. S. C. Lockwood, of 517 McDonough Street, was a recent guest at the Traymore, in Atlantic City. Among the Brooklynites who have been stopping at the Shelburne in Atlantic City, were Mr.

and Mrs. C. C. Moore of 1066 Union Street. At the Rothwell in Atlantic City was Mrs.

W. C. West of 8115 Ridge Boulevard. Dr. and Mrs.

J. Elliot Langstaff, who recently sold their Brooklyn home at 19 Seventh Avenue, left last week for their country residence, "Breljomere," at Stony Brook, L. I. Mrs. A.

E. Duncan, of 225 Seventy-seventh Street, was registered last week at the Brighton in Atlantic City. Mr. and Mrs. F.

Hancock, of 99 Hancock Street, are leaving on May 15th for a trip to the Pacific. Coast. At the Strand in Atlantic City this past week were Mr. and Mrs. C.

H. Gossen of 267 Clifton Place. Mr. and Mrs. W.

G. McRoberts, of 10 Sedgwick Place are sojourning in East Northfield, Mass. The Rev. Russell R. Upjohn, of 1675 Sixty-ninth Street, attended the Catholic Priests' Convention in Philadelphia last week.

Mr. and Mrs. Garrett W. Cropsey, of 237 Eightysecond Street, are entertaining Mr. and Mrs.

William Kepple of Westport, Conn. Mrs. E. W. Booth, of 310 St.

John's Place, was a recent guest at the Marlborough-Blenheim in Atlantic City. Mrs. Leonard Hull Smith, of 8420 Eleventh Avenue, entertained the Cresco Club of Dyker Heights at her home on Tuesday. Mr. A.

P. Sloan, of the Hotel Bossert, is attending the General Conference of the Methodist Church now being held in Springfield, Mass. The Rev. Dr. John M.

Moore, of 29 Macon Street, is taking an extended trip through the West. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Coniker and Miss Mildred Coniker, of 395 McDonough Street, left last week for Los Calif. where they expect to remain for about a year.

Mr. and Mrs. John W. Dodsworth, of 13 Garden Place, have gone to their country home, 149 Dwight Place, Englewood, N. where they expect to spend most of the summer.

Mr. and Mrs. Albert William Morley, have moved from 23 St. Francis Place to 201 Eastern Parkway. Mrs.

De Witt Clinton Weld, of 105 East Nineteenth Street, Manhattan, has gone to Bethel, for the summer. A Notable Brooklyn Family Mrs. James A. Radcliffe, now of 1 West Seventysecond Street, Manhattan, who before her marriage was Miss Elizabeth Wills Vernon, of the well-known Brooklyn family of that name, has recently completed and published a memorial of her maternal grandfather, Captain Edward Richardson, which, while of peculiar interest and value to all of his descendants as well as to members of families related collaterally or by marriage to those mentioned in the book, contains a great deal of genealogical data which cannot fail to be of interest to Brooklynites who cherish recollections of the social life of Brooklyn a generation or more, or perhaps even less, ago. Captain Edward Richardson, who after following the sea for many years and making voyages as the commander of various merchant vessels to all parts of the world, became one of the leading ship owners of New York in the days of the famous clipper ships, spent the later years of his life in Brooklyn, and his death here in 1852 at the age of eighty-three was deplored as the passing of one of the noblest philanthropists and most amiable, beautiful and courageous characters who had figured in the annals of the city.

He was born in the old Richardson homestead in Danvers, a reproduction of which typical New England home appears in the memoir, and it was not until 1832, when he was forty three years of age, that he removed with his wife and six children, the youngest of whom, Martha Adeline, was Mrs. Radclifte's mother, to the city of New York, where he became a member of the shipping firm of Richards Richardson, which was dissolved in 1839, when Captain Richardson once again took to the sea, which, however, he finally abandoned in 1841, when he founded the New York firm of E. Richardson 52 South Street, taking in his son, Thomas Smith Richardson, as a member. Apparently it was not long after this that he moved to Brooklyn, taking up his residence in what is, or was known as the Hill Section. One of his fastest clipper ships, by the way, was named Brooklyn, and was commanded on her first voyage by another of his sons, Captain Joseph Worthington Richardson.

His philanthropic activities were naturally influenced largely by his solicitude for the spiritual and physical wellbeing of the sailor, and his name is chiefly associated with the early history of the New York Port Society, the Marine Temperance Society, the Seaman's Bank for Savings, the Dover Street Mission, the American Seamen's Friend Society, the Mariners' Life Insurance Company and the Sailors' Cemetery Association; but his philanthropy was not confined to seafarers. One of his notable achievements was the founding of a mission in what was then known as Jackson Hollow, one of the toughest and most disreputable neighborhoods in Brooklyn at that time. This mission, which at first aroused the most violent hostility of the inhabitants, eventually effected a reformation which removed the stigma which rested upon the community. He was also one of the incorporators of the Kings County Inebriates' Home, at Fort Hamilton. Captain Richardson, upon taking up his residence in Brooklyn, became a member of the Washington Avenue Baptist Church.

Subsequently the family attended the Pierrepont Street Baptist Church, on the Heights, and it was in this church that his youngest daughter, Martha, first met and was afterwards married to Mr. Samuel Vernon, who curiously enough, though an Englishman, was, like his wife, the scion of a maritime family, his father, a native of the famous maritime county of Devonshire, which produced most of England's greatest naval heroes, having been the owner of a line of vessels plying between Plymouth and ports in Italy. Mr. Vernon, however, did not follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, but coming to this country at the age of 31, was joined later by a younger brother, Thomas, and founded the well New York paper firm of Vernon Brothers, with mills at Northampton, Holyoke, and elsewhere. Shortly after his marriage, June 12, 1855, to Miss Richardson, who was 17 years his junior, he and his brother built the spacious twin adjoining houses surrounded by spacious grounds at 201 Lafayette Avenue, which for many still living have so many delightful associations.

Not many, perhaps, can remember Mr. Vernon, for he died in 1870, but many can recall Mrs. Martha Richardson Vernon, who passed away in 1894, and the Vernon home when it. was a rendezvous for the, many youthful friends of her three stalwart sons and three charming daughters..