I like city catalogs. Like the phone book before the telephone, these alphabetical lists of city dwellers are a treasure trove of historical information.

A special advertisement in the Salem City Directory of 1880 has recently attracted my attention. Mrs. JW Weatherford advertised herself in elegant fonts with floral decorations: "A variety of styles and varieties of hair accessories manufacturers. Center Street, bet. Commercial and Frontline, Salem, or."

Although searching for the term "Hair Jewelry" on Google currently may reveal the latest hair accessories products-hair clips, headbands, etc., the products promoted by Mrs. Weatherford here are more likely to be the Victorian era of making jewelry with human hair.

Although the use of human hair in personal decoration can be seen in many historical periods, it did not really appear until the Victorian period and is often related to the mourning custom of the time-a souvenir to commemorate loved ones. Sounds a bit...Halloween style? You are not alone. Just a few decades after Mrs. Weatherford advertised her store, hair accessories were completely outdated—so much so that an Oregon politician newspaper editor had to remind their readers of what this trend was. They wrote in 1907:

Fifty years ago, it was a fashion for women to use their own hair or her friends' hair to make all kinds of jewelry. These decorations are inlaid with gold, perhaps with pearls added as a further decoration. The set usually includes necklaces, brooches and earrings. A set of necklaces taken out of the jewelry box after a long confinement was carefully woven into a long round rope with hair, and then separated with narrow gold pieces to imitate beads. A golden ball is placed directly in the center, from above [sic] two bells made of hair and small golden petals. The brooch is in the shape of a bouble [sic] bow, with a gold ornament in the middle, and two bell-shaped parts hanging down from it. The earrings are bells. At the time, the production cost of such a set was about $100. This is an art in itself, weaving and weaving hair into ornaments. There are hardly any workers familiar with this art now.

This is not just jewelry. Hair is also collected and used to decorate artwork. Margaret Conser McCoy (Margaret Conser McCoy) of the Willamette Heritage Centre has a beautiful hair tie in the collection. It will also be on display in the Orientation Center of the museum until the end of October. If you need visual examples of art forms.

But, back to Mrs. Weatherford.

It was unusual for married women to own a business in the 1880s-it is commendable that at the time the state constitution allowed married women to own property independently of their husbands, but a notarized declaration form was required to exercise this right. Although the advertisement clearly stated She was in business, but in the same year's census, her occupation was listed as "housekeeping." I began to wonder more about what inspired Mrs. Weatherford's entrepreneurial spirit.

Mrs. JW Weatherford was born in Rebecca Ellen Robinson, Missouri in 1843. As a young girl, she traveled to Oregon with her parents and sister, where the family settled in the Hillsboro area. She married James W. Weatherford in Portland in 1863. JW Weatherford worked as a pharmacist in his father's family store on Front Street in Portland. The couple will have a son Frederick and two daughters Ina and Pearl. Sometime after 1870, the family moved to Salem, where JW opened a second family store specializing in "medicine! Oil! Paint!" on the west side of the commercial street between Ferry and State.

The 1880 City Guide provides detailed business descriptions of the two Weatherfords. JW was described as "serious, kind, and enthusiastic about his friends. No wonder he has made many friends and almost monopolizes the drug business here."

For Rebecca, the catalog read: "We have seen specimens of hair accessories handmade by Mrs. J. Weatherford in this city. These jewellery compares favorably with anything made anywhere in terms of elegance, cleanliness and artistic skills. Very popular. There is no doubt that many people will be happy to know that they can do hair in Salem at a reasonable price and the best style."

Combine these descriptions with census records showing they hired servant butlers and newspaper articles describing grand new home plans, and people may see a beautiful picture of family happiness. But this is not the whole story, as several documents discovered with the help of people at the Oregon State Archives and Marion County Archives will soon prove it.

JW Weatherford sold the family business in 1881. In May 1883, several lawsuits against Weatherford appeared in the records of the Marion County Circuit Court, in which a local businessman and a local Masonic hotel demanded money. In the same month, JW sold a large number of properties he owned in downtown Salem to Rebecca for $1, without any encumbrances, except for the $2,000 mortgage on the property and some judgments in excess of $400, as well as legal fees. .

Rebecca filed for divorce in July 1883. In her complaint, she claimed that her husband had neglected to support her and her children for two years, "with a few exceptions... (which made her feel very unhappy and life became heavy").

The handwritten testimony records of the judges appointed by the court provide more details. In addition to being unable to support his family, Weatherford apparently even prohibited his wife from swiping his card in many shops in the town, and issued a notice in the newspaper to all businessmen in the city, stating that he would not pay any bills from his wife. .

Rebecca reported that he went home drunk many times, "It makes my family and I feel very unhappy." When asked where her husband is, she replied: "I don't know, the last time I heard him He was in San Francisco at the time of the news. He never wrote to me."

Although it is clear that JW Weatherford received the subpoena, he did not appear in court and approved the divorce in October, and all custody of the children was given to Rebecca. Her property ownership (located at the northwest corner of the current Commercial Street and Center Street) was also confirmed, and her husband did not ask for it. Less than a week after the court approved the divorce, Rebecca sold her plot and bought a cheaper plot on the northeast corner of Union Street and Liberty Street, presumably to help settle some debts. Although it is really impossible to determine when the family began to have money and marital problems, at least it can be considered that the hair accessories business may be a way for Rebecca to support herself and her family.

Before settling in the Seattle area, Rebecca and her daughters will move to Portland and Arlington, Oregon. Interestingly, the Seattle Polk List of 1889 listed Rebecca as "JW Weatherford's widow", although she would die before her ex-husband. This little detail can give us an in-depth understanding of her feelings about divorce and the stigma brought about by divorce in the society in which she lives. She did eventually remarry. Rebecca died of cancer in 1892 and was buried in Salem Pioneer Cemetery.

A year later, JW will die of heart failure in the toilet in his Portland office. It seems that after the divorce, he studied at Willamette University School of Medicine (in Portland at the time) and graduated as allopathic in 1890. His last resting place was at Lone Pine Cemetery in Portland.

Kylie Pine is the curator of the Willamette Heritage Centre, a 5-acre museum located in Salem, dedicated to protecting and interpreting the Willamette The history of Mid-Willamette Valley connects generations. You can contact her at 503-585-7012 or kyliep@willametteheritage.org.