Saturday, February 25, 2012

Maibelle and Eugene Denegall

Meet Maibelle Denegall and her brother, Eugene Denegall. They're holding the report card of their mother, Mailbelle Palmer Denegall, who attended the Manhattan Trade School for Girls nearly 100 years ago. Two of her sisters and one of her cousins also attended Manhattan Trade (I have the student record for one of the sisters, Julliette Palmer Dudley), making them the Manhattan Trade-iest family I've encountered so far in the course of this project.

I had the privilege of spending a few hours interviewing Maibelle and Eugene earlier today at Maibelle's home (chalk up another gold star for volunteer researcher Samantha Bulgerin, who laid the groundwork for this one). They're wonderful people, and I look forward to sharing their family's story in an upcoming Slate article.

Speaking of which: The first installment of PermaRec 2.0 (i.e., a new run of articles on Slate) should appear in a few weeks. It will focus on 95-year-old Rose Vrana, who attended Manhattan Trade in the early 1930s and is still alive in Florida. She's the first -- and so far only -- living link to Permanent Record that I've found. It turns out that she's also a link to lots of other things, but I'll save those details for Slate. More soon.

No comments:

Post a Comment