Who was Mollie Frances?

In her own words: the typescript

What the typescript says about her, in the order it comes. The typed passages are in her own voice; the title leaf and the 1931 note are handwritten, in a hand not identified.

• Title leaf, by hand: “Compiled and Written by Molly Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer, Born 1870 on Whidbey Island, Washington” (scan 1).
• On her father: “My father was a sociable man – he liked company and to pay calls, but not parties. We were not allowed to give parties. He was a positive man, a keen reader of character, qiuck [sic] in his likes and dislikes; very interested in world affairs and politics, partizan and conservative; some of” and then, struck out, “these characteristics he has passed on” (scan 8).
• On a school friend: “The compiler of this book had a dear school friend Nellie Cotton” (scan 31).
• On the “servants” among her ancestors: “The compiler had two servants among her emigrant ancestors, Edward Doty of the Mayflower, and Joseph Wise of Roxbury,” and, of the Choate genealogists who apologized for theirs, “The compiler is not ashamed of the ‘servants’” (scan 99, scan 121).
• On Deer Isle: her great-grandfather’s place on Thompson’s Cove, “the beautiful place the compiler remembers having seen when a young girl, never to be forgotten” (scan 106).
• On herself as a child, after her sister Josephine, who died at four: “Following her came another girl – the compiler of this book – but not the same kind of a child – a more pugnacious child, one with a mind and a will of her own, who made things lively wherever she was. Maybe she reverted to her ancestor, Edward Doty, and to the persistency of her ancestor Thomas Mayhew (1) – anyway she was more or less of a disappointment” (scan 111).
• On her mother’s slipper: “One can never forget those awful moments, the quick flop over the broad lap, that reaching for the convenient, sizable slipper, and then the sting – Oh, that sting! How it is still remembered!” (scan 111).
• On pioneers and records: “every word we can recall, and everything they did, should be recorded now before it is too late. How much we have missed because those old genealogists simply ignored ‘the distaff side’.” And next: “As early Americans we owe it to the generations to come to keep our records clear from all this jumble of foreign invasion” (scan 112).
• On her brother: “I, his sister, have the highest regard and love for him as a man of upright and stirling character, having all the good that lived in so many of his ancestors, especially in his mother.” Then the blank space for herself (scan 112).
• In a handwritten note, of the first pastor of the Braintree church: “Mollie F. Holbrook ‘Stood besides his grave in Quincy MASS in 1931.’” (scan 126).
• On where her history came from: a letter from William G. Low of Brooklyn, “a personal letter to the compiler” (scan 96); “The Tyler women whom the compiler has known, of one and two generations earlier than her own” (scan 172); Joseph Partridge, a descendant of Samuel Tyler wounded in France in the World War, who “told the compiler that his prayer was that he would reach them in time” (scan 174); a letter from Gen. Henry Mitchell of Bangor, and “The compiler’s Mother and great Aunt Drew told her of this fine ancestor” (scan 175); “The compiler read her will, then in the possession of a great aunt” (scan 184).
• On arithmetic: to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “I can’t multiply 7 by 12 with security,” she adds “(The same may be said of the compiler! )” (scan 140).
• On her teacher: “the compiler’ dear teacher, the great Dr. Charles Wesley Emerson, Phillips Brooks and Wendell Phillips, for whom I had, always high regard, before I knew of the common ancestry” (scan 141).
• Her summing up, at the end: the family’s traits are “soundness, dependibility and integrity and diginity”; “There is Celtic blood, but no Irish”; “Another characteristic of the family in later generations is that they have not been publicly active. They have done their part in quiet ways, behind the throne, so to speak.” And last: “This work has been too hastily done, and needs expanding, but I doubt if any correction of a serious nature. There are several families that might be traced, and maybe some day some one will do it. THUS ENDETH THE RECORD OF THE HOLBROOK-LOW FAMILY. By Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer” (scan 223).

At least some of the handwriting in the typescript is not hers. On the Low chart a note in hand gives her grandson’s marriage in Feb 1956 and his daughter’s birth that year, two years after Mollie died (scan 95); the same page has, by hand, “See papers, separate, on the Pfeiffer Family written in Grandpa Pfeiffer’s beautiful hand-writing,” and “married Emil Chas. Pfeiffer 6-16-98” (the record has the 15th).

In her own words: what she published

• At Emerson College, 1896-98, as M. Frances Holbrook: the founding notice of a co-educational debating society (“we believe that in a co-educational society there will be a stronger spirit of enthusiasm and helpfulness”); “The Press of the Storm,” a story of a lighthouse keeper’s wife whose only son drowned in the straits (“Do men forget, or do their wills more readily bend to God’s?”); a report of Elbert Hubbard’s reading at the college in Feb 1897 (“He knows how to read his own writings! This is a rare accomplishment, among authors”), and probably a second, in Feb 1898, signed “M. F. H.”; “Wendell Phillips the Orator”; a poem ending “Then I saw life on every side,- / A soul in the worm, and leaf, and bird”; the words of the class song of 1898 (“And we would have the true success,- / Success of upright living”); and “The Day at Millis” (Emerson College Magazine, 1896-1904: writings by M. Frances Holbrook and notes on Mrs. Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer).
• “Some Illogical Conclusions,” Mind, April 1904, on the New Thought: “God and I work together.” It ends: “When I was in college I selected my room with great care, as if it were to be my abiding place forever … In this school of the earth I have learned that by far the most important thing is how well we learn our lessons” (Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer, "Some Illogical Conclusions," Mind (New York), April 1904).
• To W. E. B. Du Bois, 16 June 1916, for The Cinema Lyceum: “the ‘Negro Question’ — or Answer, if you will – has been always a vital subject to me.” She proposed a film so that “every white person who sees it will never be able to forget what the Negro race was, is and is to be” (Letters of Frances H. Pfeiffer, The Cinema Lyceum, Los Angeles, to W. E. B. Du Bois, R. R. Moton and E. J. Scott, 1916).
• The Dearborn Independent, 1924-27: “The Passing of a Princess,” her memoir of “Old Mary” and the shore in front of the family’s house, and eleven history pieces, most on women of the seventeenth century and on early California. The editor quoted her: “I have an inborn admiration and regard for heroic women of every age” (The Dearborn Independent, 1924-1927: articles by Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer).
• The Christian Science Monitor, 1928-29: an article on the Army’s camels in the western deserts, and letters to the editor, one on kindness to animals in Montaigne’s day (The Christian Science Monitor, 1928-1932: an article and letters by Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer).

Her life in the records

When	Where	What the record says	Source
4 Dec 1870	Penn’s Cove, Whidbey Island	Born; certificate made in 1930 on her brother Horace’s word	Delayed certificate of birth of Mollie Frances Holbrook, born 4 Dec 1870, filed at Island County 17 May 1930
Apr 1871	Island County	“Mollie H.,” 3 months, born in January	1871 Washington Territory census, Island County: R. B. Holbrook household
1880	Whidby Island	“Molly F.,” 9, at school	1880 U.S. census, Whidby and Camano Islands, Island County, Washington: R. B. Holebrook household
1885	Island County	In her parents’ household	1885 Washington Territory census, Island County: R. B. Holbrook household
May 1890	Coupeville	“Miss Mollie Holbrook” at the Emple-Cranney wedding; a gift with Hattie Swift	Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1890-1900: Mollie Holbrook of Coupeville and Mrs. E. C. Pfeiffer
1893-95	Oberlin, Ohio?	“Frances Holbrook (Mrs. Charles E. Pfeiffer),” physical training and the Academy; possible only	General Catalogue of Oberlin College, 1833-1908 (1909): Frances Holbrook (Mrs. Charles E. Pfeiffer)
1895-98	Boston	Emerson College of Oratory, freshman to senior, “Whidley Island, Wash.”; class of ’98	Catalogues of the Emerson College of Oratory, Boston, 1895-96 to 1897-98: Frances Holbrook
15 June 1898	Boston	Married Emil C. Pfeiffer by a minister of 28 Glenarm St, Dorchester; she 27, a teacher of Coupeville; he 33, a publisher of Cambridge	Massachusetts marriage record: Emil Charles Pfeiffer and Mollie Frances Holbrook, 15 June 1898
Nov 1898	Oswego, Kansas	Teaching at Oswego College	Emerson College Magazine, 1896-1904: writings by M. Frances Holbrook and notes on Mrs. Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer
1898-1900		“almost completely prostrated” (Emil’s sworn testimonial, 1901); recovered by Sept 1901	Helen Wilmans, The Wonders of Thought Force (1902): sworn testimonial of E. C. Pfeiffer, 20 Sept 1901
June 1899	Tacoma; La Conner	“Mrs. E. C. Pfeiffer, of Tacoma,” visiting Susan Lord Currier	Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1890-1900: Mollie Holbrook of Coupeville and Mrs. E. C. Pfeiffer
25 Aug 1899	Tacoma	Alice born, 104 Tacoma Avenue	Tacoma register of births, p. 119: a daughter of Emil C. and Frances H. Pfeiffer, born 25 Aug 1899
Dec 1899	Coupeville	To give an entertainment with “Prof. Pfeiffer” at the W.C.T.U. hall	Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1890-1900: Mollie Holbrook of Coupeville and Mrs. E. C. Pfeiffer
June 1900	Seattle	Teacher, 3 months out of work; Emil a newspaper man; her mother with them	1900 U.S. census, Seattle Ward 3, King County, Washington: E. C. Pfeiffer household
late 1900	Washington	Read a paper to the State Equal Suffrage Association; elected first vice-president	Emerson College Magazine, 1896-1904: writings by M. Frances Holbrook and notes on Mrs. Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer
Jan 1902	Boston	“now a resident of Boston and an occasional visitor at the College”	Emerson College Magazine, 1896-1904: writings by M. Frances Holbrook and notes on Mrs. Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer
Apr 1904		Her essay in Mind	Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer, "Some Illogical Conclusions," Mind (New York), April 1904
1907-08	Gardnerville, Nevada	Came from Los Angeles with Alice; advertised for pupils in literature, oratory and voice, and a Shakespeare class; a desk set from the high-school girls	The Record-Courier (Gardnerville, Nevada), 1907-1908: Prof. E. C. Pfeiffer, principal, and Mrs. F. H. Pfeiffer
1907-09	Nevada	“Reading” at the teachers’ institute; certificate for English, history, oratory	Nevada state reports, 1907-1910: Mrs. E. C. (Frances H.) Pfeiffer, teacher of reading and oratory
1910	East Aurora, New York	Lodger with Alice, a correspondent in a printing house; married 11 years, 1 child	1910 U.S. census, Aurora town (East Aurora), Erie County, New York: Frances H. and Alice P. Pfeiffer, lodgers
1916	Los Angeles	The Cinema Lyceum, with Philip A. Thompson; a pamphlet copyrighted; letters to Tuskegee and Du Bois	Letters of Frances H. Pfeiffer, The Cinema Lyceum, Los Angeles, to W. E. B. Du Bois, R. R. Moton and E. J. Scott, 1916
1920	Los Angeles	Lodger with Alice; advertising, newspaper; Emil elsewhere	1920 U.S. census, Los Angeles, California: Frances H. and Alice P. Pfeiffer, lodgers
Aug 1921	Los Angeles	Alice married Robert H. Carter	Los Angeles marriage license and certificate: Robert H. Carter and Alice Phillips Pfeiffer, 19 Aug 1921
Aug 1922	Los Angeles	A trust deed for her from Alice and Robert; probably the “Mrs. Frances H. Pfeiffer” who was secretary of a campaign committee for governor	Los Angeles Times and Glendale Evening News, August 1922: Mrs. Frances H. Pfeiffer
1924-31	Los Angeles	The Dearborn Independent, the Monitor, Economic Geography	The Dearborn Independent, 1924-1927: articles by Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer
1930	Palms, Los Angeles	With Emil, renting; he has no occupation	1930 U.S. census, Los Angeles (Palms), California: Emil and Frances Pfeiffer
25 Nov 1934	Palms, Los Angeles	Emil died at home; she signed the certificate	California certificate of death of Emil Charles Pfeiffer, Los Angeles, 25 Nov 1934
1935-40	Coupeville	Widowed, owned her house; three years of college	1940 U.S. census, Coupeville, Island County, Washington: Francis Pfeiffer
24 Feb 1954	Mount Vernon	Died at Resthaven Nursing Home after two years; “Retired-Housewife”	Washington certificate of death of Frances M. Pfeiffer, Mount Vernon, 24 Feb 1954
4 Mar 1954	Coupeville	Her obituary in the Island County Times (indexed; not seen)	Island County birth and death notice indexes: Frances M. (Holbrook) Pfeiffer, her mother, brother and daughter

Her marriage to Emil Pfeiffer

What the records show of him at the time she married him, on 15 June 1898:

• Born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1865, the son of a bank teller who had come from Bohemia; a special student at Harvard from 1885 who left in his senior year; an oarsman (for a short time captain of the university crew) and an editor of the Advocate; a teacher in the Boston schools, then superintendent of schools at North Attleborough (Harvard College Class of 1889, secretary's reports and annual bulletins, 1898-1935: Emil Charles Pfeiffer).
• On 12 Feb 1894, as “Paul Jones,” he set out naked from Boston to go round the world in a year on a $5,000 wager. Two weeks later, locked up at Springfield, he admitted there had been no wager. He kept going as a store attraction and lecturer in a paper suit, as far as Omaha (Sept 1894) and Tacoma and Seattle (Jan 1895) (Newspapers on Emil C. Pfeiffer as "Paul Jones," 1894-1902); his passport application of Sept 1894 calls him a journalist of Cambridge (U.S. passport application of Emil Charles Pfeiffer, sworn in Jackson County, Missouri, 28 Sept 1894).
• His class poem of 1898 made him “our pride, E. C. Pfeiffer, ‘Paul Jones.’” Eleven days before the wedding the Portsmouth Herald found him at Manchester, his hair “jet black,” “now being a drummer and not traveling for notoriety but for a permanent salary.”
• On the marriage record he is 33, “publisher,” of 57 Wendell Street, Cambridge.

What came after: Tacoma, Seattle, Buffalo, Boston, Santa Barbara, Gardnerville, Reno, Seattle again in the war, and Los Angeles. His arrest at Boston in June 1902 for selling borrowed directories, with “legal trouble several times” for debt. In 1910 the census finds her and Alice lodging at East Aurora, and he is not in the household; in 1920 she and Alice are lodgers in Los Angeles, and he is indexed separately there as a boarder; in 1916 she wrote “If Mr. Pfeiffer were here.” By 1930 they were together at Palms, he with no occupation and, by his class’s account, an invalid from paralysis in his last years. He died at home in 1934 and she signed the certificate. Their stones lie side by side in lot 59 at Sunnyside, Coupeville, her father’s lot.

What the records do not show: how they met. He was living in Cambridge in 1894 and again in 1898 (57 Wendell Street); nothing found puts them together before the wedding.

Her child

One child: Alice Phillips Pfeiffer, born at Tacoma on 25 Aug 1899, “a twelve-pound daughter” in the Emerson College Magazine’s notice. The censuses of 1900 and 1910 both have Mollie the mother of one child, living. Alice was with her mother at Gardnerville, East Aurora and Los Angeles, graduated from Huntington Hall, South Pasadena, in 1917, worked as a bookkeeper, married Robert H. Carter in 1921 and Harold F. Forrester in 1946, gave the details for her mother’s death certificate in 1954, and died at Oak Harbor in 1987 (Alice Phillips Pfeiffer). Alice’s son, Warren Holbrook Carter (1925-2016), retired to Whidbey Island in 1982 (Whidbey News-Times, 2016: obituary of Warren Holbrook Carter (1925-2016)).

Her obituary

Not yet seen. The Island County notice indexes date it to the Island County Times (Coupeville) of 4 Mar 1954, and show what it gave: “Frances M. Pfeiffer,” daughter of Richard and Harriett Holbrook, born 4 Dec 1861 at San de Fuca, died 24 Feb 1954 at Mount Vernon, aged 93, buried at Sunnyside (Island County birth and death notice indexes: Frances M. (Holbrook) Pfeiffer, her mother, brother and daughter). The year 1861 is ten years early and matches her death certificate, whose informant was Alice in Hollywood; the certificate leaves Mollie’s mother’s maiden name as “Harriet ??”. The stone, “Francis H. Pfeiffer, 1870, Daughter, 1952,” also has the wrong year of death (Find a Grave memorial 11548345: Mollie Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer, Sunnyside Cemetery, Coupeville).

Not yet proven

• That she is the Oberlin student of 1893-95 (“Mrs. Charles E. Pfeiffer”).
• That the 1918 Seattle copyrights (a Hoover statuette, a wartime print) are hers.
• That the “M. F. H.” review of Hubbard (Feb 1898) is hers; probable, beside her signed review of the year before.
• That the 1922 campaign secretary is she; the trust deed of the same week makes it likely.
• Where she worked at East Aurora in 1910. Elbert Hubbard’s Roycroft shops were there, and she had written about his reading at Emerson College; the census does not name the employer.