The father (& grandfather) we never knew
… and a brief history of the couple known as Mr. & Mrs. Douglas Green
When I first started reading through the letters that my grandmother penned weekly to her daughter Helen I was struck by the fact that almost every letter was addressed to “Mrs. Douglas Green”, in spite of the fact that the man had been dead over twenty years. Why I wondered, did my great-grandmother, May Northcutt Hinkson, always address her letters to her daughter by her deceased husband’s name? This seemed strange to me, especially considering that my grandmother, Helen, was a very accomplished and recognized professional woman in her own right. In the 1960s she was a Michigan State professor, a published author, and a sought-after conference lecturer on the topic of business education. In every sense, she had earned the right to be recognized by her own name. Yet, in all the letters that I have read so far (approx 180 letters to date) all but a half dozen have been addressed to “Mrs. Douglas Green”. The exception is a handful of letters that May wrote in the summer of 1961 when Helen was spending a summer teaching at the University of Boulder. Then, and only then, were the letters addressed “Mrs. Helen Green.” My great-grandmother must have figured that no one at the university mail office would recognize her daughter by her married name.
But I think perhaps that my great-grandmother addressed her letters this way not so much from habit or past social practice, but because it remained a small way to keep Doug’s memory alive. And a reminder to her widowed daughter that she was once someone’s sparkle, their ‘someone special’, and the “apple-of-a-sweetheart’s-eye.”
Helen was only married to Doug Green for five years before he died at the age of 35 in 1941. So their time together, relatively speaking, was short. By 1964 Helen had spent more years (considerably more) without Doug, than she had with him. Yet, her connection to Doug was kept alive through small gestures and kindnesses, such as May’s choice in addressing letters to her daughter.
My grandmother Helen didn’t talk much about Doug and their marriage during her lifetime. She preferred to focus on the present and face each day with a sense of gratitude- a trait I think she both learned and inherited from her mother May. In fact, I never got much out of her whenever I attempted to ask her questions about my maternal grandfather. Outside of “we met through church”, “he worked for a shoe company“, and “he had a beautiful singing voice”, I knew scarcely anything about my grandfather. And since he died when his infant twin daughters were only thirteen months old, neither my mother (nor her sister) had any tangible personal memories to pass on. The only visual ‘memories’ (if you can call them that) that I had of my grandfather is this one singular photo of him that always sat on my grandmother’s piano.
In crafting this chapter I’ve had to do quite a bit of detective work to create this short biography about Doug Green and his marriage to my grandmother Helen. I’m grateful for online newspaper archives and the OCR technology that provides search capabilities. Without them I would have never been able to pull together this chapter on the father/grandfather that none of us (his children and grandchildren) ever got the chance to know.
Clarence Douglas “Doug” Green and Helen Hinkson met sometime in the early 1930s through a social circle at the Compton Heights Christian Church, where they were both members. Ironically, but perhaps not very surprisingly, is the fact that this church was headed at that time by the Reverend James H. Coil, who was both Helen’s uncle and May’s sister-in-law.
The ironic part of this reality is the revelation that J. H. Coil, in a very tangible way, is somewhat responsible for the introduction of Helen Hinkson to Clarence Douglas Green in the same way that he was for the introduction of Thomas Hinkson to May Northcutt (Helen’s parents).
In 1902 the very young Rev. Coil was the minister to the First Christian Church in LaBelle. Tom Hinkson (then 27 years of age) served as secretary to the church under Rev. Coil’s leadership. Both men courted the Northcutt sisters, May and “Ray” (as Virginia Ray Northcutt was always called) around the same time period. James married Ray in Dec 1902 and Tom married May in August 1903.
I’ve already written about the relationship of James H. Coil to May and Tom during their brief courtship in an earlier chapter. So let’s jump forward thirty years to the early 1930s in St. Louis… where Helen is now a young teacher at Lafayette Elementary School and involved in her uncle’s church during her free time. It is here that she meets Doug Green, who is also actively involved in the church’s activities, especially those that involve music ministry.
Through my online archival newspaper research I learned that Doug was the Compton Heights Christian Church contact for the St. Louis Christmas Carolers Association’s citywide caroling event of 1926 (per St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 24, 1912, pg 1). Thus he had an affiliation with the church before Helen entered the picture.
Sometime in the early 1930’s the couple met and began dating. My cousin Marianne recalls being told by our grandmother that she and Doug courted for several years in part because of depression and financial reasons. Helen had been a school teacher in St. Louis and the couple knew that once they got married, she would lose her job. At the time there was apparently some rule school that teachers in St. Louis were “misses.” Whether this was an actual rule or just a customary social acceptance, I am not sure. But I surmise that during the Depression it was frowned upon for a woman to hold a job when she was married and had a husband’s income to support her. Regardless of which, in January 1934 both Doug and Helen were noted as the sponsors for the church’s Senior Endeavor Society. This is confirmation that the two were ‘an item’ well before their marriage in June 1936.
One of the interesting things I also learned about Doug in my research is that he shared a similar background to Helen. Doug’s paternal grandfather, Oscar Green, had been a prominent minister in the early expansion of the First Christian Church in the same way that Helen’s great-grandfather and uncle (Revs. B.F. Northcutt and H.R. Northcutt respectively) had been influential in the church’s expansion in the late 1800s across northeastern Missouri. The Rev O. Green had been active in Indiana, Kansas, and Missouri throughout his lifetime. His last ministry was centered in Bethany, MO where he was a preacher for eleven years before his death in 1911.
Additionally, I discovered that Doug’s family lived just three short blocks west of the Compton Heights Christian Church. Doug lived with his father at 3311 St. Vincent Street throughout his four years of college at Washington University. This home was also just a block away from the Harris Teacher College, the school that Helen and her older sister attended (Virginia from 1924-26, Helen from 1925-27) while working on their two-year teaching degrees.
Helen and her family lived 2 miles south of this area at 3427 Utah Street when she and her sister Virginia both attended Harris Teacher College. Helen would go on to earn her bachelor's degree in Education through night classes while teaching elementary school in the St. Louis Public School system. It’s interesting to me to see how geographically close their separate worlds were before they actually met and became a couple in the early 1930s.
While Doug and Helen’s early courtship appeared to revolve around church activities, it significantly changed in early 1935. In February of 1935, Doug was transferred to his company’s factory in Mexico, Missouri. This added the additional factor of long distance to their relationship.
Doug’s first job upon his graduation from Washington University in 1928 was as a clerk with Bradley Marble Company. This information I found listed, along with his address and phone, in the 1929 St. Louis City Directory. But sometime between then and the publication date of the 1930 directory Doug began working for the International Shoe Company. In the directories from 1930 through 1933 “Intl SC” was listed as his employer along with “Industrial engineer” (sometimes shortened to “Ind Eng”) as his occupation.
The International Shoe Company was a substantial employer not only in St. Louis but throughout Missouri and surrounding states. In 1931 the company owned and operated 55 shoe factories and nine tanneries. The company’s headquarters were located in downtown St. Louis. The building still stands today but is now known as the St. Louis City Museum.
For the first few years of his employment, Doug worked as auditor (based at the company’s headquarters) traveling around to the company’s various factories. I don’t know how long he did this before transferring to an office management position in one of the factories. I suspect Doug may have also worked in one of ISC’s several factories in the St. Louis area before getting a promotion outside of St. Louis.
In the early part of 1935 Doug was transferred to Mexico, MO to help provide oversight to one of its newly acquired factories. The cropped news article from the Mexico Weekly Ledger shown below acknowledges that Doug was part of the management team presented at a community press event.
It was during Doug’s time in Mexico, Missouri that I came across confirmation of my grandmother’s comment, “he had a beautiful singing voice.” These two news items highlight vocal solos that Doug performed in March and April 1935:
I’m guessing that the subsequent promotion for Doug a year later was part of the impetuous for Helen and Doug’s wedding in June 1936. Doug was promoted to Office Manager of the Perryville factory (located 80 miles south of St. Louis). With two promotions in just two short years, it appeared Doug’s star was quickly rising among the I.S.C. management ranks. He and Helen exchanged marriage vows on June 12, 1936. Newspaper announcements (below) provided more details about their wedding and future home location.
From the LaBelle Star write-up, it appears that Helen and Doug’s wedding ceremony was a private low-key affair that was officiated by… yup, you guessed it, Helen’s uncle, the Rev James H. Coil. To celebrate the joyous occasion, Helen’s older sister Virginia (who was also her St. Louis roommate) hosted a dinner and dance celebration at one of St. Louis’s swankiest locations.
In 1936, the outside rooftop at the Chase Hotel in downtown St. Louis was the place to be and be seen. During the winter months the hotel hosted dinner and events in its expansive “Palm Room.” But once the weather had warmed the Palm room was closed and activities were moved to the 10th-floor open-air Roof Top Garden.
The Chase Roof boasted a live bandstand that advertised itself as the center of social life in downtown St. Louis.
There's dancing at luncheon – there's dancing at dinner – there's dancing at supper – and there's always the distinction of being in "The Center of Social Activities" when you entertain on the Chase Roof. (Chase Hotel brochure, 1931)
I can envision Helen and Doug, along with countless friends and family, dancing the night away as they celebrate their new beginning together. And I can’t help but wonder if their celebration in June of 1936 wasn’t part of the reason for this interesting bit of history I also stumbled across:
In the summer of 1936, the Hotel Chase received complaints from tenants in a neighboring building that the music and floor show of its Roof Garden was keeping them awake a night. The City Excise Commissioner threatened revocation or suspension of the hotel's liquor license. Whether for this reason or, more likely, because summer roof gardens were being displaced by air conditioned venues, in 1940 the Chase Roof was enclosed and became the Starlight Roof. (from Losttables.com)
Helen and Doug’s first few years together as a young married couple living in Perrysville, MO appear to have been happy and engaged years for both of them. Doug was the Office Manager for the largest employer in Perryville (~ 3,100 population in 1930). So, the couple’s arrival in town immediately carried some clout. In 1935 the Perryville shoe factory employed just over 700 workers producing as many as 1,400 shoes/day.
Upon their arrival in Perryville, both Doug and Helen became immediately involved in community activities. One of the first groups they joined was the Perryville Lions (men) and Lioness (women) Clubs. Doug served as the club’s treasurer in 1937 and Helen, with more free time on her hands, also got involved with the Perryville Civic and Literary Club, the Medical Society Auxiliary as well as the Monday Study Club (what they studied? I am not sure).
Helen’s background as a school teacher and Doug’s talent in music also played into their community activities. In 1936 Doug volunteered to provide leadership for a Lions Club musical minstrel concert to benefit the community’s Library Fund. In 1937 he accepted an appointment on the Perrysville School Board.
During the couple's time in Perryville they became close with two other influential couples, Mr & Mrs. Herman Seilemann (he was the public accountant at a local petroleum company) and Judge & Mrs. Homer Graff (the Probate Court judge for the county). In 1939 the three couples took an extended trip together to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. A few social news items noting the vacation appeared in the local papers. I believe the photo I found in my mother’s baby book of Doug (below) is from this holiday.
In the spring of 1939, the couple’s time in Perryville came to a halt when it was announced in February that Doug was to be transferred to the company’s St. Charles, MO location. This, I assume was viewed by both Doug and Helen with lorn and excitement. They were saddened to leave their new friends and a community that they had become so embedded in, but they were thrilled to be moving to St. Charles (just outside St. Louis) where both family and old friends lived close by.
Once relocated to St. Charles the couple’s first year and half together was dominated by the anticipation and the arrival of the couple’s twin baby girls. In the fall of 1939 they found out that Helen was pregnant and decided to take the plunge and build a new home together. My grandmother kept a small painting of this sweet little home (a small white cape cod cottage with a red door) displayed over her couch for as long as I can remember. She said that the home had been Doug’s idea, a gift intended for his bride and the family they were expecting. I don’t know what happened to that painting. I’m hopeful that some family member, somewhere, still has it, for I’d love to add a photo of the painting it to this chapter. [Update: I found a photo circa 1999 of the house and have updated below. The photo is how I remember the house looked in the painting, except with a red door]
On May 18, 1940 the world changed for Doug and Helen when they became the parents of identical twin girls. Penelope (Penny) and Jennifer (Jenny) were welcomed with a small fanfare. Natural occurring twins, in the days before fertility support, were still a somewhat rare phenomenon. Announcements of their arrival made the pages of both St. Charles papers:
The couple definitely had their hands full with two tiny twin babies. Helen’s mother May spent the summer of 1940 in St. Charles helping her daughter with the babies.
Doug was apparently a good husband and father, doting on his wife and young daughters whenever he could. In my grandmother’s memoir, titled It Takes A Pair, she includes a short chapter about the couple’s only year together with the twins. The chapter shares a story about Doug’s helpfulness as a father and his willingness to take care of even the most unpleasant baby care chores.
One of the things Helen appreciated most about Doug was that he took care of cleaning the soil cloth nappies that had accumulated in the bucket every morning and hung them on the clothesline to dry before he left in the morning for the office. With twin babies in the house they went through clean nappies frequently. It was noticed by the neighbor ladies. Helen was the envy of the neighborhood.
This daily routine for Doug and Helen would only last a few months before Doug started to experience medical issues. His heart had been giving him trouble, so much so that Doug took a leave of absence from his work in April 1941. Doug had been home for six weeks on rest when he had a heart attack that sent him to the hospital. He was only 35 when he died at St. Joseph Hospital on June 18, 1941. The cause of death was listed as “acute heart failure” with additional notations that read “chronic myocarditis?” and “coronary disease?” Doug apparently had had rheumatic fever as a child, which attributed to his heart issues as an adult.
His death came as a shock to family, friends, and co-workers. Several newspapers published news items about his death ahead of an official obituary. One paper published the news item the very day that Doug died. It’s clear that the newspapers didn’t get all the facts right. His twin daughters were only 13 months old (to the day), not three years, and the initial for his first name was C., not W.
The death of Clarence Douglas Green had a lasting effect on my grandmother, Helen, and her daughters. Helen was only 33 years old when she was widowed. She never remarried (although she apparently once had the chance) and the twins never grew up knowing a father. Instead, Helen found a way to earn both her master’s and PhD. attending university part-time while teaching school. She was able to build a good life for herself and her daughters. She remained a widow until her death in 2003 at age 96.
Although her husband’s death had been a tragedy Helen never allowed herself to view it that way. To her, Doug had given the best of himself through their two twin daughters. She was entrusted with raising the girls for both of them and for that she was full of gratitude.
In 1982 she wrote her own memoir, titled It Takes A Pair, about raising and parenting two twin daughters solo. I encourage family members to read it. It really is a lovely book that provides lots of wonderful memories. It’s also much better written than my scribbles here. As a former school teacher and business education professor my grandmother was a talented writer. Although I can credit some of my interest in writing to her, I’m definitely not the spelling and grammar expert that she was. If she had proofed this chapter I’m sure there would be red marks all over the pages 😊.
In researching and writing this chapter I regret that my mother Penny isn’t alive to enjoy it with me. But my aunt Jennifer is, so she will get the honor of first preview. It’s been a true labor of love for me to document this relatively unknown chapter of my family’s history. I hope I’ve done Doug and Helen Green’s brief life together as a couple justice.
Addendum I:
One of the nicest bonuses to documenting family history is getting a text message from a relative with an additional piece of information that supports the story. Shortly after I published this chapter my brother sent this photo. Years ago he had been given Tim Green’s pocket watch with this typed note from my grandmother Helen. :) Thanks Doug for sending.
Addendum II:
The following notes are from my cousin Marianne, who captured these in earlier conversations with her mother. I love Doug’s comment that he and Helen had a “C.E. romance”:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this part of your history! You have told it so well and by including the extra write ups, the story comes alive. Well done!
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story. What a blessing to have all of those letters to read, and gain insights into the lives of your ancestors!