Visitors to the McFaddin-Ward House in 2002 will see the museum interpreted for the "Decade of Transition and Turmoil: 1910-1919." Those years brought great technological, social, and political change to the nation and the world.

Scientific strides included isolation of vitamins A and B and discovery of the ozone layer. Health studies declared fresh air to be beneficial, so sleeping porches were added to many houses. Among new products were vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, processed cheese and 40 percent bran flakes. Women’s fashions reflected increased activism in support of suffrage or prohibition; skirts became shorter and hourglass figures gave way to softly draped silhouettes.

While the train was still the primary mode of travel, automobiles were fast gaining in popularity. Even airplanes were losing their novelty status. The first Plane came to Beaumont in 1910; in 1913 Katherine Stinson, the second woman pilot licensed in the United States, took passengers aloft--for a hefty fee.

Although audiences still flocked to George Bernard Shaw’s plays or George M. Cohan’s musicals, ever-growing numbers crowded nickelodeons to see Pearl White in "The Perils of Pauline"--or Douglas Fairbanks, or "vamp" Theda Bara. Popular music ranged from "The Missouri Waltz" to the "Twelfth Street Rag," both of which people could hear on their Edison or Victrola phonograph.

Book lovers of the decade could select H.L. Mencken’s satirical The Smart Set, Theodore Dreiser’s naturalistic The Financier, or the "concrete, spare" poems of T.S. Eliot. The 1913 Armory Show’s "modern" art exhibition in New York, featuring paintings such as "Nude Descending a Staircase," caused a controversy in the art world.

The decade also brought important changes to the McFaddins. In May of 1912, Mamie finished her studies at Gunston Hall in Washington, D.C., and returned home to enter Beaumont society. Perry McFaddin, Jr., graduated from Beaumont High School in 1913; Caldwell, in 1917.

After finishing high school, the McFaddin children got their first automobiles: Mamie, a Cadillac; Perry, a Studebaker; and Caldwell, a Lexington. Although their parents relied on chauffeurs, all three children learned to drive.

During the hot summer, many Beaumonters fled to Bolivar Peninsula. In 1915, the McFaddins bought a beach house that was destroyed by a hurricane on August 15 of the same year. In 1917, Ida McFaddin rented a cottage in Winslow, Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains, taking with her chauffeur Andrew Molo and cook Rebecca Collins.

Global turmoil came with World War I, which the United States entered in 1917. Americans sang patriotic songs--"Over There," or "I’d Like to See the Kaiser with a Lily in His Hand,"--watched patriotic movies, purchased Liberty loans and war savings stamps, and observed wheatless and meatless days. Children played "Trench Warfare," fashions reflected wartime austerity, and families proudly displayed service flags in their windows.

In Beaumont, a company of the Third Texas Infantry guarded refining, lumber, and shipbuilding facilities. Civilians attended rallies and planted victory gardens. Women’s social clubs turned their energies from teas, fine needlework, and bridge to making bandages, knitting socks and mufflers, and sewing for Belgian and French war orphans.

Perry McFaddin, Jr., was drafted into the Navy, and Carroll Ward ended up in the Army’s aviation school. Ida became a certified instructor in making bandages and taught classes. Mamie delivered gauze to workrooms and picked up finished bandages. During the worldwide "Spanish influenza" epidemic of 1918 that killed 22 million, Mamie and Caldwell McFaddin and Carroll Ward became ill but fortunately recovered quickly.

Beaumont’s steam whistles announced the armistice at 2:45 a.m. on November 11, 1918. Beaumonters, along with citizens nationwide, spent the day in wild celebration. Mamie McFaddin, in Houston for a visit, wrote in her diary, "Peace at last...never saw such excitement...everybody crazy."

The "Decade of Transition and Turmoil" was an incredibly busy and rich time period, both globally and locally. The challenge for the staff exhibit and programming team has been to decide just which themes to focus on. The year 2002 promises to be a full and exciting one for programs, exhibits, and special events.

Visitors may experience the spring exhibit from April 8, until June 2. The McFaddin-Ward House Spring Past Times event will be held Sunday, April 21, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Other programs and continuing education opportunities are listed in the "Calendar" on the back page of this issue of Viewpoints.