‘Make life, death and the vast forever one grand, sweet song' - Recently discovered diary provides a window into 19th century Warwick

Warwick — On Christmas Day in 1881, Grace Pelton, 11 years old, inscribed the first page of her new autograph album and spent the next decade getting friends and relatives to sign it. Her album provides a window into a young girl’s life in Warwick in the 19th century, a time when best wishes were generally more serious than variations on roses-are-red. Grace’s book surfaced not long ago in a collection of papers, books and artifacts that the late Florence P. Tate, the late town historian, bequeathed to the Warwick Historical Society. Most of Grace’s signers wished for her to lead a virtuous life, to find a suitable husband without undue delay and always to remember the importance of friendship. “Changes may come and friends must part,” Hattie Morehouse wrote, “but distance cannot change the heart.” Of course, some doggerel found its way into Grace’s little book, such as these words from a girl named Matie in 1882: “In the tempest of life when one needs an umbrella/May yours be upheld by a handsome young fellow.” There were only a few like this. Most were sober, along the lines of Mary D. Barnes’s “May peace ever attend thy footsteps.” “May happiness be forever thine/Here and hereafter, friend of mine,” Carrie B. Dunham wrote. “May joy thy steps attend/And find in everyone a friend,” Florence Green offered. Sara C. Clarke left Grace’s future happiness in other hands. “May your life be sunny without care or woe/If the dear Heavenly Father willeth it so.” In 1882, Frank Holbert - remember that name - didn’t have much to say so he just scrawled his signature across a page in Grace’s album and was done. Some inscriptions remained popular beyond the 1880s. That business about a fellow and an umbrella shows up in an album dated 1923. But there seemed to be little time for frivolity during Grace’s adolescence. “May your virtues ever spread,” Hattie J. Wood cautioned in 1883, “like butter on hot gingerbread.” The poetic meter may have been off, but Grace doubtless got the message. Lizzie Edsall wrote: “I wish you long life and happiness plenty/and a dear loving husband by the time you are twenty.” Remember that age - 20. “In your wreath of remembrance, twine one bud for me,” wrote Grace’s cousin, Mattie Knapp. And Jeannie Stockmann recalled in 1889: “We’ve had a delightful summer Miss Grace/And I hope this winter to see your sweet face.” The signatures ended in 1889 and the next year, just eight days before another Christmas, Grace Pelton and Frank Holbert were married as a blizzard whipped through the Warwick Valley. She was 20 years old, just as Lizzie Edsall had wished. He was 25. Grace had taken the advice about friendship; 200 guests attended her wedding. There would again be 200 at the Holberts’ 50th anniversary reception in 1940. Wedding and anniversary occurred at the Pelton farmstead on what is now County Route 1 not far from the Warwick school bus garage. Early in the marriage, Frank owned a popular restaurant in lower Manhattan. He and Grace and their three children lived in Brooklyn, but when he closed the restaurant in 1926, Frank took the family back to the Pelton farm. Frank served as an officer of the Warwick Cemetery Association and as a director of the Warwick Valley Telephone Co. He died in 1942. Grace’s interest lay in local history. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Colonial Daughters of the 17th Century, the New York State Historical Association and the Warwick Historical Society. The Warwick Valley Dispatch described her as one of Orange County’s leading historians. Grace died early in 1959, two months short of her 89th birthday. “Be good, sweet maid,” Lizzie Gray had written to her back in 1889 when both were young, “let those who can be clever do noble deeds - not dream them all day long. And so make life, death and the vast forever one grand, sweet song.”