The Mockingbird's Ballad

Solon received an invitation to help break ground for the new Cincinnati church building just after the election. Lou and the boys went with him for the week's adventure during the third week of December 1896. It was a good chance for them to help get over the Bryan's defeat by McKinley.

Cincinnati was a strange and wonderful fairyland for the boys and quite a spectacle for Lou. Nashville was fine, but Cincinnati had a feel - old, European, settled and bustling. It was magnificent. Large ornate buildings, some eight, ten stories high, the majestic Roblein Bridge connecting Cincinnati with Covington, Kentucky, the new exotic Moorish Wise Temple and the beautiful fountain, all nestled along the dark, brown, swift Ohio River with an expansive ridge as the backdrop from east to west. The local boosters said it was like the seven hills of ancient Rome. The sounds were fun to hear and confusing to understand - languages, machinery, trains, steam boats, wagoneers, peddlers, street musicians and more. There was even a funny dressed foreigner entertaining outside the hotel. "Gypsy," Jim thought, "with a trained monkey and trick dog." The monkey was named "Georgie" and the dog "Dickie".

Taking a nice sixth floor room facing the river at the magnificent Netherland Hotel with its grand lobby mirrors, the Stevenson's of Tennessee were captured by the busy, smelly, noisy, and colorful "Queen City of the West". Sounds, sights and the smells of cooking hops, stockyards, river, manure, bakeries, eateries, meat plants, rot, spoilage and coal fires all blended in the cold December air to wash over and invade them.

The steamboat traffic, freight and passenger, carried no end of fascination for the twins and Lou. The boys and Lou watched the activities from their room and then ventured to the muddy, fishy smelling riverfront to explore the steamboats that had pulled in. New foods were discovered in the wonderful German eateries that dotted the area. The boys loved the strudel and Lou favored the dark bitter sweet and seedy rye bread, fresh baked, with real butter. She even sipped a bit of Solon's favorite beer, Hedepol, touted as Cincinnati's finest German lager brew out of many. Baseball season was just past but the boys found the Redlegs Park and imagined playing in a real game there. They kidded about how good they'd do. Finally Jim said, "Well, Joe, maybe we can see a game, anyway."

"Someday, yes, someday we'll see Cincinnati whipping Anson's Chicago 'Orphans'", Joe responded.

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"Love saved humanity - men, women and children. Love saved you and me," Solon intoned to the just over 100 adults and some three dozen children standing on the dried grass of a building site on Plum Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. It was a bright winter Sunday morning. It was cold but the sun shined brilliantly. The cooking of Sunday meals from the neighborhood provided a fragrant atmosphere for the proceedings. Dr. Ulysses S. Milburn presided over the groundbreaking. Dr. Isaac Morgan Atwood of Crane Theological School at Tufts University, Boston, gave the key address.