An Exclusive Resort

There was never any concrete evidence for it, but my mother used to relate that her father - Henry D. Block - aroused curiosity with his prominent nose, swarthy complexion, and sharp business acumen; there had, she said, even been a running joke among his friends: "Hey, Block, are you a Jew?"

Had he answered in the affirmative, he would have found himself unwelcome at the hunting lodge in Maine where he met my grandmother. The spirit of the New York State Civil Rights Act of 1913 had not reached the state of Maine in the 1922 season, and a brochure from The Firs in Rockwood advises:

Buy your ticket to Kineo Station. Check your baggage to THE FIRS, Kineo Station. Remember - don't take the steamboat to Mt. Kineo if coming to THE FIRS. Auto from Camp will meet you at Kineo Station; name on cars, "THE FIRS". References in booklet; and references required. Bring light and heavy clothing. No dress suits or evening gowns needed, but wear what you want to. Secure your accommodations early. Hebrew patronage is not solicited.

Block Family Headstone

John C. Block
1836-1903

Mina Block
1841-1894

Henry D. Block
1885-1934

Mina A. Block
1877-1969

Caroline Bare
1882-1974

Linden Hill Methodist Cemetery
Queens County, New York

Henry D. Block marries Grace Boynton Leonard, April 1925.

The text of the marriage certificate, dated April 26, 1925. Grace Leonard and Henry Block were my maternal grandparents.

CERTIFICATE OF MARRIAGE

This Certifies That

Henry D. Block
of Jersey City, N.J.

and

Grace Boynton Leonard
of Bath, Maine

were united by me in
Holy Matrimony
on the Twenty-Six day of April in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-Five
at First Baptist Church Bath Maine

Rev. John A. Swetnam
Baptist Minister

Stella Leonard Block

My mother was born on October 26, 1929, in Jersey City, New Jersey. She was the younger child of Henry Dietrich Block (1885-1934) and Grace Boynton Leonard (1896-1985).

Henry Block was a pharmacist. A clipping indicates that Henry's brother, John G. Block, also had a business in Jersey City. Their sister, Mina A. Block (1877-1969) was my mother's "Aunt Mina" and her favorite "real" aunt. Mina, who divorced after a brief marriage and a baby, gave the baby son to others to raise so that she could become a nurse. A caption written by my mother next to an "awful" picture of Aunt Mina reads:

She referred to us thrugh future yrs. as her "little family in Maine". She provided us all "the extras" we wouldn't have had.

Their parents were John C. Block (1836-1903) and the elder Mina Block (1841-1894).

Grace Boynton Leonard (Grace Block), my maternal grandmother, was my only grandparent alive during my lifetime. She was born July 18, 1896, and died in August 1985 in Bath, Maine.

My mother and her brother, Frederick W. Block (1927-2005), grew up in Bath, Maine. Their mother had been a schoolteacher prior to her marriage to Henry Block. I believe the family must have moved back to Maine from New Jersey after Henry's death.

The children were raised Baptist. Stella's liflong interest in religion and scripture was passionate and complex, and this must have been apparent even in her childhood. A certificate from the Corliss Street Sunday School, dated May 1939, records that she memorized the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the 23rd Psalm, and the Books of the Bible.

My mother's first marriage (to James J. Cousins, Jr.) lasted from November 1948 through September 1956.

At some time in 1957 she must have joined the Unitarian Church in Hartford, Connecticut, where she met my father. They are pictured together in a color photograph dated December 1957. An undated roster of that church's Young Adult Fellowship (probably from 1956 or '57) gives religious curricula vitae for its members ("belonged to the Baptist church originally"; "attended Baptist, Lutheran, and Christian Science churches"; "started as a Unitarian, got a taste of the Lutheran, Congregational & Episcopal churches and returned to Unitarianism", etc.). Among the names are the following:

Kenneth McLintock, 21 Goffe Street, Meriden, Conn.
"Ken" has been in the Hartford area for about 6 years. He was previously affiliated with Christian Science and became Unitarian last year. His interests include music and reading.

Stella Cousins, YWCA - Hartford.
Stella is originally from Bath, Maine, and has been in Hartford for 5 years. She has had a Baptist background. Her interests include music, books and chocolate ice cream.

They were married on August 24, 1958.

Stella's First Marriage

Before she met my father, my mother was married for almost eight years to one James J. Cousins, Jr. Their Thanksgiving, 1948 marriage in Bath, Maine is the subject of a clipping in the family scrapbook; and my mother's name appears as "Stella Cousins" in a number of books from her collection. (As far as I know, she kept her name as Stella Cousins, rather than going back to her maiden name Stella Block, until her marriage in 1958 to Ken McLintock.) James Cousins appears to have been from Norway, Maine. A notation in my mother's hand records that they resided in Norway, Maine; Brockton and Havehill, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; Boston; and Hartford again, between 1948 and 1951. Another clipping states that their divorce (on the grounds of "desertion") was granted on the week ending September 29, 1956, in Hartford. I don't know what became of James J. Cousins after that.

My Mother's Theology

Stella's first ambition - which lasted until age 12 - was to become a missionary. She had been taught that there were millions of poor souls in Africa and India and China who knew nothing of Christianity and who were in peril of Hell if they were not saved. Clearly someone needed to save them.

But the apparent injustice of condemning all these people troubled Stella, and she found it hard to believe that a compassionate God would send people to Hell for no fault of their own. Eventually some teacher of pastor confided that the infidels who had never heard the teachings of Christianity were in no danger; it was only those who had been offered salvation, and knowingly rejected it, who would face damnation.

Well, if that was the case, she reasoned, then the missionaries ought to leave well enough alone! Clearly they were doing more harm than good. And so, on the page in the family album dating from 1940-1941 ("Grade 7, Age 12, Mrs. Severin"), my mother notes:

This was the year I learned heathens who had not heard of Christ weren't necessarily going to hell. End of missionary.

The Church Memory Book

Among my mother's effects is an autograph book, a small blue volume carrying the title "My Church Memory Book". The first inscription (on the page headed "My Pastor") is from the Rev. Frederick P. Moffatt of Bath, Maine, with the Scriptural citation Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Most of the signatures are dated around March 18 - 21, 1942. Stella would have been about 12 1/2 years old. Some of the entries carry humorous or pithy messages:

Once you had a parrot but you killed it in a rage.
For every time your boyfriend came the darn thing told your age.
- Beverly Rogers, Corliss Street

Brunswick girls are pretty
Portland girls are smart
But it takes a girl from Bath
to break a fellow's heart.
- Gloria Rogers, Corliss Street

I had a little cat
I fed him on tin cans
And when the little kittens came
They came in Ford Sedans.
- Jean MacDonald

Remember me when far far off
where the woodchucks die
with the whooping cough.
- Betty Hopkins, Corliss Street

The very best of luck to a future teacher from a teacher.
- Mary A. Morris, Portland, Maine