MS 301 Casper Martin Connery Collection

Scope and Content:

Casper is in Easthampton, Massachusetts, Westhampton, Massachusetts, and Troy, New York. He describes his classes, exams, and fraternity events, and farm work over the summer.

Scope and Content:

Casper is in Los Angeles. He describes working in a motor garage, taking a January trip to the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, and an October trip to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

Scope and Content:

Casper is in Los Angeles. This diary has no entries till late April except for mention of passing of prohibition laws. He marries Blanche on April 30 and they honeymoon in San Francisco. In July Casper begins work at Wurster Coust Co. In August he is exempted from the draft. In September he begins work at So. Cal. Telephone Co., but then in November he is ordered to report to the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard to do surveying/engineering work.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche are in Washington, D.C. for the first half of the year, with Casper working in the Navy Yards and erecting buildings at Bellevue. They vacation in New York City in May, and in July Casper is transferred to San Diego, where he begins working on plans for new structures at North Island Naval Air Station.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Marine Base, a new hospital at Balboa Park, and on the Marine railway to the shipyards. He spends his free time on home improvements and spending time with Blanche, friends, and family.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Navy Hospital, pouring concrete and buildings walls and a basement. He describes his daily life with Blanche, friends, and family. Blanche works at a bank (possibly Bank of Italy). In October they move from 1843 F St

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Navy Hospital, including the Nurses’ Quarters and Laboratory. He describes his daily life with Blanche, friends, and family. In September they take a trip with the Cornells up to Sacramento, across to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and back through Bakersfield.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Navy Hospital, including the electric and sewer lines, Contagious Ward, Double Quarters, and Surgeons’ Quarters. He describes his daily life with Blanche, friends, and family.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on North Island, including electric distribution, paving, water system extension, sea wall, the Navy Hospital Contagious Ward, and the Diet Kitchen. In April he and Blanche move from 3827 Grim St. to a ranch at 100 E. Mt. Vernon in Lemon Grove. At their ranch, they plant and tend avocado and citrus orchards.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Navy Hospital and other Naval Air Station jobs, including flood and pipe lines, a pump house and gas lines, and building a runway. He spends more time at the ranch, tending the orchards and chicken coops and making improvements to the house.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Navy Hospital, including the showers, foot bridges, repainting, and tile flooring. He also works on a crane track extension at the Destroyer Base. At the ranch he tends the avocado orchard and visits more frequently with friends.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Navy Hospital, including inspections, extending the crane tracks, Boiler House brick work, the Salt Water Pump House, the Destroyer Base Public Works Office, and other W.P.A. projects. At the ranch he continues tending his garden, orchards, and chickens.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on various W.P.A. projects, plans new relief projects, and oversees pile driving at the Sea Wall. At the ranch he tends his orchards and spends time boxing fruit for sale.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Sea Wall, Barracks Buildings, and Fleet School, and plans further W.P.A. projects. At the ranch he tends his orchards and chickens. In September they take a short trip to San Francisco with the Cornells.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on W.P.A. projects, auditorium plans, dry docks, and inspects other jobs. At the ranch he tends his orchards. There are periodic blackouts at the Destroyer Base following the bombing at Pearl Harbor.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Destroyer Base, public works buildings, and Chollas Creek jobs. He frequently works overtime on Saturdays due to the war effort, including overnight watch shifts. In his spare time he tends the ranch and visits with friends and family. Blanche spends more time in North Park with her ill mother, Martha Miles. In June Casper and Blanche move from the ranch at 100 E. Mt. Vernon St. in Lemon grove to 2411 Montclair St. in San Diego.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Naval Repair Base, primarily maintenance work and rodent control. In March Casper becomes Preventative Maintenance Inspector. Blanche continues working at the base until May. Casper more frequently mentions war news, including issues with rations and celebrations after the surrender of Japan.

Scope and Content:

Casper works on the Naval Repair Base, primarily maintenance work and inventories. Blanche manages affairs at home. Casper retires in August. From September to November, he and Blanche take a retirement road trip to Charlemont, Massachusetts.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening, running errands, and visiting with friends and family. From June to July they take a trip to Alaska.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening, running errands, and visiting with friends and family. They take a short road trip to Oregon in August to September.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening, running errands, visiting with friends and family, and helping at the Mills’ ranch. From August to September they take a road trip to Vancouver.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening, running errands, and visiting with friends and family. From June to July they take a road trip to Yellowstone National Park and Indiana. In October they take a short trip up the California coast line.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening, running errands, and visiting with friends and family. From May to July they take a trip to Massachusetts for Casper’s 50th reunion at Williston Academy.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening, running errands, and visiting with friends and family. From August to September they take a road trip to Canada.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening, running errands, visiting with friends and family, and watching television. From May to June they take a trip to Troy, New York for Casper’s 50th reunion at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening, running errands, visiting with friends and family, and watching television. They frequently visit Blanche’s ailing family member Paul Miles at Edgemoor Geriatric Hospital, and in August move him to Valley View Sanitarium in National City. Casper occasionally mentions news items, particularly coverage of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening, running errands, visiting with friends and family, and watching television.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening and cultivating fig trees, running errands, visiting with friends and family, and watching television.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening and cultivating fig trees, running errands, visiting with friends and family, and watching television. Casper occasionally mentions news items, including the moon landing.

Scope and Content:

Casper and Blanche manage affairs at home, including gardening and cultivating fig trees, running errands, visiting with friends and family, and watching television. Casper occasionally mentions news items, including the Apollo 15 mission.

Scope and Content:

Casper manages affairs at home, running errands, gardening, visiting with friends, and calling on Blanche at the Euclid Convalescent Center almost daily. Her condition remains the same, but she is alternately happy and confused or upset at being kept at the center.

Scope and Content:

This diary describes one trip by Casper in 1914 with his friend C.W. Gorton, from New York to Los Angeles via the Trail of the Sunset Borderland route. Casper remains in Los Angeles after the trip.

Scope and Content:

This diary describes three trips by Casper and Blanche. The first trip, in 1930, is an automobile trip from San Diego to West Hampton, Massachusetts. The second trip, in 1931, is an automobile trip from San Diego to Portland, Oregon with Marion and E.B. Cornell. The third, in 1936, is an automobile and boat trip to Vancouver with Bobbie (initials R.P.C., likely their nephew).

Scope and Content:

This diary describes two trips by Casper and Blanche. The first trip, in 1947, is a train trip to Charlemont, Massachusetts, taken to celebrate Casper’s retirement. The second trip, in 1948, is another train trip to Massachusetts via Detroit, and is dubbed “retirement trip no. 2”

Scope and Content:

This diary describes two trips by Casper and Blanche. The first trip, in 1952, is an automobile trip to Massachusetts. The second trip, in 1951, is an automobile trip to San Francisco and Portland, Oregon with Ruby S.C. The original travel journal for the 1951 trip was lost, and Blanche later reconstructed the trip from Casper’s diary.

Scope and Content:

This diary describes two trips by Casper and Blanche. The first trip, in 1954, is a train and automobile cross-country trip. The second trip, in 1955, is an automobile trip to Yellowstone National Park and Indiana.

Scope and Content:

This diary describes three trips by Casper and Blanche. The first trip, in 1958, is an automobile trip to Reno, Nevada with Ruby S.C. The second trip, in 1959, is an automobile trip to Canada with Ruby S.C. The third trip, in 1960, is an automobile trip to Zion National Park in Utah with Ruby S.C.

Includes:

Personal correspondence to Casper, primarily regarding his parents.

Includes:

Programs for fraternity events, an athletic meet, and commencement activities.

Includes:

A book of structural specifications and office standards of New York Public Service Commission’s engineering department.

Includes:

A membership card, by-laws, and encoded “instructor” pamphlets for blue lodges.

Includes:

Images of the Silver Strand, Bristol Bay, and portraits of two young men and the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard in 1908 (in Oversize Collections F4/D1)

Includes:

Cemetery lots and funeral expenses for both James and Martha, and 1889 appointment of James Miles to Postmaster. Also, certificate appointing James Miles to Postmaster (in Oversize Collections F4/D1).

Includes:

1936 Exposition season tickets with photo identification, a reproduction of 1881 phone listings, and a book of war rations. Also, Marriage Certificate 1917 April 30 (in Oversize Collections F4/D1).