Early Years
Alice's father abandoned the family before she was born, and she was baptized under the name Elizabeth Alice Munn on May 23, 1866, in St. John's Church on Staten Island. She never used the name Munn and would initial her glass-photographic-negatives with "EAA" for Elizabeth Alice Austen. With no household income and no husband, Alice's mother moved back to her own parent's home, which was known as Clear Comfort. Alice was the only child in the household, which now consisted of: Alice's mother, Alice Cornell Austen (1836-?); Alice's maternal grandparents, John Haggerty Austen (c1800-?) and Elizabeth Alice Townsend (c1800-?). Also in the house were her mother's siblings: Peter Austen, who was a chemistry professor at Rutgers University; and Mary Austen (1840-?) aka Minnie Austen, who was married to Oswald Müller (1840-?) who was the owner of a shipping company. Oswald was born in Denmark.
Read more about this topic: Alice Austen
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed
And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world, the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require still a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)