[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]

By the third week in August 1880, Mrs. Gray [1] was comfortably settled in New Hampshire, where she had..Continue reading →

[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]

In 1880, Regina Shober Gray [1] became a grandmother (in January) and a widow (in February). The Gray..Continue reading →

[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]

With the end of the summer in sight, I thought I would finish up this review of the Gray diary between..Continue reading →

[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]

In August 1879, the Grays [1] were back in Massachusetts after their lengthy European sojourn, and Mrs...Continue reading →

While researching the provenance of a family portrait, I recently revisited the research problem posed by my ancestress Martha (____) (Naden) Mortier, an Englishwoman who came to New York before the American Revolution with her second..

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[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]

For those of us wiling away the summer in offices in the United States, yearning for a glimpse of blue water, here is a living portrait of a Swiss summer..

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[ Author’s note: This series of excerpts from Regina Shober Gray’s diary began here.]

The 1878 Gray diary[1] is unusual in filling two full volumes instead of the more usual single one Mrs...

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[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from Regina Shober Gray’s diary began here.]

While their European sojourn during the summer of 1878 represented a break from routine, the Gray party ..Continue reading →

[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from Regina Shober Gray’s diary began here.]

While in Zurich, the Grays [1] met some friends from home and had some Philadelphia news:

Hotel Baus-au..

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Yesterday afternoon, sometime after 2 p.m., Vita Brevis marked a major milestone in the life of a blog with its one-millionth page view. Since it officially launched on 10 January 2014, with Robert Charles Anderson’s Deep Puritan Roots post, Vita Brevis has published..

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