{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3417",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 3417,
    "subject": "More Musings on Peace - Timeline",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2002-08-21T03:32:08+00:00",
    "last": "2002-08-21T15:30:59+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0208-1585@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "StoneOx17",
        "address": "stoneox17 at aol.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-08-21T03:32:08+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) More Musings on Peace - Timeline",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hello,\n\nThis is an elaboration on my previous post, where I speculated about the \nmeaning of the banshee story.  I have some new thoughts about this story, \nwhich I'll give in a later post, and also a proposed revision of the timeline \nthat mantis proposed, which is the focus of this message.\n\nIn a message dated 8/19/2002, mantis writes (constructing a time table).:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "1934 (Weer at 20) Weer buys car as college junior\n\n1935 (Weer at 21) Weer graduates from college; picnic with Margaret (\"age\nof the bicycle\") => engagement with qualifications (we've discussed this\nangle before, iirc)\n\n1938 (Weer at 24) Coldhouse prank.\n\n1939 (Weer at 25) the Chinese Garden dream.\n\nOkay, the only problems are \"age of the bicycle,\" which could be fixed by\nmoving the picnic two years back to 1933; and the date of Olivia's death,\nwhich I haven't placed here (because you did not mention where it goes),\nsince it complicates matters between Smart and Weer, including Weer's\nemployment."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "As Roy remarks, the picnic occured when Weer was in high school.  Weer's \nsenior\nyear would have been 1931, after the stock market crash.  But I think there \nare good reasons to believe that the Weer fortune hadn't been lost yet, as \nI'll explain later, so I'm putting the picnic in spring of 1931, when Weer \nwas a senior. \n\nWhen I wrote the earlier post, I wasn't sure where Olivia's death went.  Now \nI want to put it in 1929.  Where did Julius get the money to build the \nfactory?   My gut feeling is that neither the carny business nor Bledsoe's \ndrugstore would be sufficient (even factoring in bank loans).  If Julius \nsells the farms he inherited from Olivia, and uses the proceeds to build the \nfactory, he can make a lot more money if he sells them before the stock \nmarket crashes, and this makes for a much neater story.  However, he probably \nwouldn't be able to sell the farms before Olivia's death, as the Weers would \nfeel obligations to their tenant farmers; the breaking of these obligations \nmay be one of the reasons Julius stops speaking to Den (and his parents) \nafter Olivia's death.  Putting Olivia's death in the spring of 1929 might \nleave just enough time for the farms in her estate to clear probate and be \nsold before the crash.  Further, this timing fits well with the statements \nthat Sally's meeting of Lou Gold (shortly after he emigrates to England in \n1928) and Olivia's death are both 25 years before the Gold Hunt. (Although \n1928 fits nearly as well, and allows more than enough time for the probate \nand farm sale.)\n\nAnother item to put on the time line is when the Weers lost their fortune.  \nThe stock market crashed in 1929, but I suspect that didn't affect farming \nimmediately ... I would assume that farmers didn't start losing their farms \nuntil the 1930 harvest failed to raise enough cash to pay bank loans.  And \nafter looking on the web, it seems that banks were still foreclosing on farms \nin June 1934, when Congress passed the Frazier-Lemke act, which was intended \nto keep farmers from losing their farms.  So the Weer fortune could have been \nlost anywhere between late 1930 and mid-1934 (maybe even later).  I'm putting \nit in 1934, letting Den buy his car and pay most of his college tuition \nbefore his family loses their money.\n\nWhy did the Weers lose their fortune?  I have a story which makes sense to \nme, but really isn't either supported or contradicted by the text.  John Weer \nhad major expenses in 1923 through 1927, with the extended tour of Europe and \nwith Olivia's wedding.  It would make sense to take out a bank loan, using \nhis farms as collateral, in order to pay for it.  Before 1929, the income \nfrom the farms was easily enough to pay it off, but farm income dropped \nprecipitously in the Great Depression.  The Weers were able to scrape by for \na few years by using their other resources, while always expecting that the \neconomic downturn would end.  Eventually, however, they were unable to meet \nthe loan payments and the bank foreclosed on their farms.  \nNote that these farms are very likely some of the ones that Stewart Blaine \n\"picked up for a song\" during the Great Depression.\n\nSo here's my revision of mantis' time line:\n\n1925 (Weer at 11) Olivia marries J. Smart, who moves into her house. Den is \nstill living there since his parents are still overseas.  Bank loans for \nDen's father.\n\n1927 (Weer at 13) Den's parents return from Europe; Den moves back into the \nold house with them, after a separation of four years.  More bank loans \n(expenses from the Europe trip) for Den's father.\n\n1929 (Weer at 15) Spring: aunt Olivia dies.  October: stock market crashes.  \nJulius starts building factory.\n\n1931 (Weer at 17) Weer senior in high school; picnic with Margaret (\"age of \nthe bicycle\") => engagement with qualifications (we've discussed this angle \nbefore, iirc)\n\n1934 (Weer at 20) Weer buys car as college junior.  Bank forecloses on John \nWeer's farms.  \n\n1935 (Weer at 21) Weer graduates from college; jobs are scarce, but he finds \none as engineer at Julius' factory.  \n\n1938 (Weer at 24) Coldhouse prank.\n\n1939 (Weer at 25) the Chinese Garden dream.\n\nEven if you don't accept my arguments that Julius conspired to kill Aunt \nOlivia, Den is treated very shabbily by three of his aunt's suitors.  \nProfessor Peacock kills his aunt.  Stewart Blaine forecloses on his father's \nfarms.  And Julius Smart blackmails him with the coldhouse prank to make him \nwork for peanuts.  This reminds me somehow of  the first part of The Count of \nMonte Cristo, where three of his 'friends' conspire to have Edmond Dantes \narrested and imprisoned for life.  Like Dantes, Weer ends up fabulously rich, \nbut in Weer's case it does not make him happy, and there is no revenge for \nhim.\n\nNext post: the natural history of banshees.\n\n- Stone Ox"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0208-1588@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "2002-08-21T15:30:59+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) More Musings on Peace - Timeline",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0208-1585@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Stone Ox wrote:\nWhen I wrote the earlier post, I wasn't sure where Olivia's death went."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Now"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I want to put it in 1929.  Where did Julius get the money to build the\nfactory?   My gut feeling is that neither the carny business nor Bledsoe's\ndrugstore would be sufficient (even factoring in bank loans).  If Julius\nsells the farms he inherited from Olivia, and uses the proceeds to build\nthe\nfactory, he can make a lot more money if he sells them before the stock\nmarket crashes, and this makes for a much neater story"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "[snip]\n\nThe main problem with this is that Olivia didn't have any farms for Smart to\ninherit. John Weer controlled the Weer estate; he and his wife were still\nalive and Olivia had been dependent on John for most of her income before\nher marriage. Julius did, however, inherit Olivia's house, which he sold to\nthe city at some point, to become the public library.\n\n[snip]"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Another item to put on the time line is when the Weers lost their fortune.\nThe stock market crashed in 1929, but I suspect that didn't affect farming\nimmediately ... I would assume that farmers didn't start losing their farms\nuntil the 1930 harvest failed to raise enough cash to pay bank loans."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "[snip]\n\nRight, about the 1930 harvest being the beginning of the end for the Weer\nwealth. I have touched on this before; see:\n\nhttp://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0104.shtml\n\n-Roy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}