(NEW YORK LONG ISLAND) Extensive family papers of Dorothy P

Sale 2615 - Lot 218

Price Realized: $ 1,105

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000

(NEW YORK--LONG ISLAND.) Extensive family papers of Dorothy Post Jones, descendant of a distinguished Brookhaven family. Several hundred items (4 linear feet) in 4 boxes; condition generally strong. Various places, bulk circa 1936-1982

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Dorothy Post Hubert (1918-2021) was the granddaughter of sugar magnate James Howell Post (1859-1938) and was raised in Brookhaven in eastern Long Island, graduating from Vassar in 1939. In 1941, she married a Presbyterian minister, Curtis Knowles Jones (1911-1989), and they lived in Charleston, WV; New Kensington, PA; Brookville, PA; and Daretown, NJ though 1976, when they retired to Brookhaven. She served on the board of the Post-Morrow Foundation, a local conservation fund founded by her aunt.

This collection includes 17 diaries kept by Dorothy Jones from 1944 to 1982. The 5 yearly diaries from 1944 to 1948 are most extensive, in large octavo volumes with detailed entries kept in Charlestown, WV. She often comments on news events (such as "two attacks on Jap cities with 'atomic' bombs with unbelievable force" on 9 August 1945) and food shortages in the local markets during and after the war. In an entry from 1 April 1946, a friend tells an anecdote from Denmark during the German occupation: "The guards distributed the crown jewels among a party of tourists who were viewing them, with instructions to return them in a week. All got back safely." The polio epidemic is frequently noted. Some of the later diaries cover travel, including a long Asian trip in 1980.

Also included are boxes of her personal correspondence from 1928 onward, with 4 thick packets of letters written home from Vassar, 1935-1939. Among the extensive genealogical notes are several folders devoted to her father Philip Arthur Hubert (1881-1969) of Bellport, NY and his family, including notes on (and copies of correspondence and diaries of) great-grandfather Philip G. Hubert (1830-1922), a noted New York architect and critic; and typescript short stories and essays by grandfather Philip G. Hubert Jr. (1852-1925). An original 1923 personal letter to "Brother Hubert" from music critic Henry T. Finck is included. The older tradition of manuscript newspapers is carried on with a typescript of a Hubert family production called "The Barnstead News" from Summit, NJ, August 1944. A group of 8 mounted early 20th-century snapshots apparently shows mother Helen Marion Post Hubert (1890-1973) (illustrated).