One day, Mrs. Balch asked Sonia what she thought she would like to be.

“I think I would like to make ladies’ hats if I could find someone to teach me.”

“I’ll ask my milliner whether she would care to take an apprentice.” In those years telephones were not the common commodity they are today, but Mrs. Balch was one of the few householders who permitted herself that expensive utility. She called up Madam Hagadorn, the finest milliner in town, and told her that she had in her home a very bright little girl who, she thought, would make a very good apprentice. Could she find room for her?

Sonia H. Davis, Two Hearts That Beat as One, Chapter Eight.

Mary Bathsheba Baldwin was born on January 11, 1840, in the town of Durham, Greene, New York. Her parents were Anson Curtis Baldwin and Bathsheba Gilbert, both natives to the town of Durham. She was the second daughter of the couple. The first daughter, Elisa Baldwin, was born on June 16, 1836, but sadly passed away September 18, 1840, when Mary was only eight months old. She had a half sibling, Cadwell A. Baldwin, born on May 31, 1835.

Mary’s father, Anson Curtis Baldwin, had been previously married to Elizabeth Cadwell, and not long after giving birth to her son, Cadwell, she passed away on June 11, 1835. Anson, somehow in the midst of this tragedy, met Bathsheba Gilbert shortly thereafter and they married. In the collaborative notes section in Anson’s “person” page in FamilySearch shows the date October 7, 1835, alongside Bathsheba’s name, and it could very well mean the date of their marriage. Although without a marital record, it’s hard to verify this possibility.

Anson and Bathsheba had their first child, Elisa, and then Mary.

Tragedy had not only struck Elisa, but it had first struck Bathsheba. She passed away on January 11, 1840, on the very same day that Mary was born. (Find a Grave) And thus explains why on Mary’s christening record, it only mentioned her father. (FamilySearch) It’s hard to imagine the level of pain Anson suffered through all these losses: the death of his first wife and his second wife. Yet, the sorrow did not follow him into old age, for Anson passed away on September 11, 1840, only seven days prior to Elisa’s death. (Find a Grave)

The cause of death is a mystery, but it might’ve had something to do with Anson’s time in the military. In the memorial section for Cadwell A. Baldwin in Find a Grave, it gives this brief mention of Anson’s occupation and lineage:

They [Anson and Elizabeth] died in 1840 and 1835, respectively, Mr. Baldwin having been a captain in the New York State militia. But little is known of his family, except that his father was Curtis Baldwin, who was married on April 15, 1779, to Polly Chitenden, whose ancestry can be traced back to William Chitenden, originally from the parish of Marden, County of Kent, England, where he was born in 1594.

Find a Grave

Only eight months old, and so much death had already surrounded Mary. There is little record to inform us about what happened next for both Cadwell, who was only five, and Mary, only an infant. We don’t know if they were separated or they remained together, or if they were taken in by relatives or sent elsewhere entirely. It really is a dismal case, but while there is very little to map out Mary’s own childhood years, she would later play a pivotal role in Sonia’s childhood and livelihood.

Years passed and nothing more is revealed, in terms of records, until 1860, in which Mary was mentioned in that year’s census. She was nineteen and living in the same house with two other families (the Boings and Bascoms), and their servant, Sarah Crandle. Mary was already working as a milliner at the time of the census.

Then, in the midst of the Civil War, Mary met Charles Hagadorn and they married on December 29, 1863. While the Civil War continued to rage on, the couple had their first child, Cora Hagadorn, occasionally referred to as “Flora”. Cora was born on October 16, 1864, and her brother Charles Hagadorn was born on March 12, 1866.

In the 1880 census, Mary’s profession was listed simply as “Millinery store”. It is unclear if Mary owned her own shop in Elmira, or if she was hired as a milliner by an established shop.

The tragedy of the 1880 census, however, is that we learn Mary was a widow. Her husband, Charles Hagadorn, passed away on January 19, 1877, and the cause of death is unknown. The only available source for Charles Hagadorn is the 1870 census.

This census provides a wealth of information into their family, the first being that Charles was a clerk, working at a hardware store. Secondly, Mary was wrongly named Emma, but we learn that she was “keeping house” as her occupation, which certainly is a job in itself. Followed by Charles and Mary, their children Flora (aka Cora) and Charles. Their domestic servant, Kate McCarty, was listed as well. The last two members registered under their household is worthy of attention, for both women, Hattie Gilbert and Sarah Sanders, were milliners. Hattie Gilbert was likely a relative of Mary’s mother, given her maiden name, or she was purely a coincidental possessor of the Gilbert surname, while Sarah is virtually unknown, and little is revealed elsewhere.

It is remarkable bearing in mind that two milliners were living with Mary. Even though Mary’s occupation in 1870 was “keeping house”, these women could very well have been her employees, if she indeed had her own shop. Another significant probability is that Mary worked alongside them in her free time to bring extra income, especially since in the millinery trade, women didn’t have to work in hat shops to still make money in the field. In her autobiographical writings, Sonia confessed in doing this quite a bit while she was pregnant with her firstborn, an unnamed son, and with Florence:

Besides working at the shop, she [Sonia] took in private work at home whenever she could get it.

Sonia H. Davis, Two Hearts That Beat as One, Chapter Ten

In May 1901, Sonia became pregnant again. She worked in the neighborhood, and they were glad to keep her job open for her. Materials were brought to her house, and they would collect the finished hats in the evening. A substitute milliner was hired until Sonia was able to come back.

Sonia H. Davis, Two Hearts That Beat as One, Chapter Eleven.

 And she even did it while she worked at Ferle Heller:

Later Klei [Rheinhart Kleiner] & I went for a walk around Flatbush, whilst Mrs. Greene prepared some hats for a customer of the evening—she sometimes makes exceptionally artistic hats herself, aside from the work of the establishment. Good profit—just now she’s getting $60.00 for a couple whose raw material cost only $20.00. Forty simoleons for labour which isn’t in the least repulsive…

H.P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, September 29, 1922, Letters to Family and Family Friends, p. 81.

By 1880, Mary reclaimed her occupational role as milliner and would do so officially in the censuses thereafter. Three years later, on March 16, 1883, Sonia was born in Ichnya, Ukraine, and on June 4, 1892, she emigrated to the United States and lived in Elmira with her mother and stepfamily. Due to the harassment from her stepfather, Solomon Moseson, Sonia moved out of his house roughly around the age of thirteen or fourteen between the years 1896 and 1897.

She went to live with the “Balch” family. In my post, “Laya Machat-Smyth: A Girlhood Friend”, I reveal that the “Balch” family was actually the Machat family. Mrs. Machat was a friend of Racille Moseson, Sonia’s mother. Sonia became extremely close with Laya, whose name in the autobiography was changed to Eva. Sonia was prone to changing the names of those she included in her autobiography for fear of legal complications, which, in my personal opinion, was a fear instilled in her by August Derleth. Yet, for the sake of consistency, Mrs. Machat will remain as “Mrs. Balch” in this post so as not to confuse the reader.

When Sonia moved out from her stepfather’s house, Mary was considered the finest milliner in Elmira, and it’s at this time we get the quoted passage above in which Mrs. Balch called Madam Hagadorn. There’s no need to avoid spoilers when we know Sonia’s fate as a talented milliner, and during that phone call between Mrs. Balch and Madam Hagadorn, we get Mary’s response to Mrs. Balch’s question: Could she find room for her?

“But Mrs. Balch,” said Madam Hagadorn, “we do not pay our apprentices the first six months. Also, we usually have them deliver our orders. If the young lady is willing to work six months while learning, we will pay her a small salary after that, according to her ability.

Sonia H. Davis, Two Hearts That Beat as One, Chapter Eight.

For six months, Sonia apprenticed under Mary Bathsheba Hagadorn.

The finest milliner in town took Sonia under her wing and taught her all that she could in that short span of time. It’s unclear how immersed Sonia became in Mary’s life during her apprenticeship. By this point Mary had two very adult children. Cora was thirty-two years old in 1896, and Charles was thirty, both of which were living their own lives. But I can’t help but wonder if they met Sonia at any given moment while visiting their mother at the shop, or if Mary had ever spoken about them to Sonia.

While a marriage certificate has yet to be found, Cora met and married Charles A. Bowman. According to the 1900 census, Charles and Cora had been married for twelve years, indicating they got married in 1888. Charles was a bookkeeper for a bank, as stated in the 1900 census, and living with the couple was Mary, and their servant Mary E. Curtis. It appears that Charles and Cora never had any children.

As for Cora’s brother, Charles Hagadorn, he had enlisted in the military. In the 1900 military and naval population census, he was listed at the top as the Captain of the Field and Staff 23rd Infantry.

He was stationed in Camp Gregg, which is in the province of Pangasinan, Philippines. Little else is given about Charles in that census, and we’re left to wonder about his personal life. It would seem that Charles never married and instead made a career out of the military. After the 1900 military census, the only other mention of Charles is from the Veterans Administration Master Index regarding his death on October 18, 1918. Oddly enough, his residence at the time of death was Elmira, Pennsylvania; however, his death was listed in the Illinois vital record of Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947. I haven’t the slightest idea as to why that’s the case. The cause of death is unknown, but I can only speculate it was somehow related to his service in the military.

After Sonia’s apprenticeship with Mary, Sonia moved to live on her own in Passaic, New Jersey, and later in New York City. While living in Passaic, she met Samuel Greene in December 1898, marrying him a year later in December 1899. In October 1900, Sonia gave birth to her first child, a son—“a gorgious [sic] baby”. (Sonia to Sidney, Florence, and niece Leonore, August 25, 1964) For the next eight years, Sonia would endure the hardest relationship in her life. She would lose that gorgeous baby boy on January 1901, give birth again to Florence Carol Greene on March 19, 1902, all while she was physically (and psychologically) abused by Samuel. Both Sonia and Florence left Samuel in 1906 and lived in Baltimore for two years. After which, in 1908, Sonia returned to New York City to finally divorce Samuel. With that terrible chapter of abuse behind her, Sonia’s life would change for the better, both personally and professionally.

Sonia would climb the ranks of millinery, ultimately landing the high-paying job at Ferle Heller. As for Mary Baldwin Hagadorn, she, too, continued her own millinery work, even into old age. Sadly, on January 14, 1909, Mary passed away. The cause of death is unknown, and it’s also unknown if Sonia was informed of her death. She passed away only a year after Sonia divorced Samuel, and since Sonia was close with Mrs. Balch and her family, it is quite possible Sonia heard the news from her. We will never truly know if Mary and Sonia ever stayed in touched after the latter’s apprenticeship. What we do know is Mary made an impact in Sonia’s life. Mary’s expertise in millinery helped shape Sonia’s dream into reality, and her willingness to bring an immigrant teenage girl under her wing speaks volumes of Mary’s kindness and patience.

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Because music plays such a pivotal role in my writing, I have made this playlist which has inspired the posts for this blog. These are the songs I listen to while drafting my research every month. You may follow it in Spotify, or simply take a listen while learning more about Sonia.