Well the mystery is solved as to who that most attractive lady in last
week's photo is. Josephine "Effie" Rodman Goethals is
the mystery women. Effie apparently was at the side of Colonel
Goethals quite a bit in the canal construction years. I managed
to find this not so good photo that came from a newspaper article and
apparently is one of the only in the public arena. This photo
was also used on Genealogy, Find a Grave and Obit for Effie. I
am sure there are family photos which are not public in the Goethals
family home in Martha's Vineyard. When Goethals married Effie,
she introduced him to Martha's Vineyard in 1889. He fell in love
with the place and purchased property on Crocker Terrace.
Thereafter, until his death in 1928, he made the Town of Tisbury his
legal residence and never voted anywhere else. Tisbury is a town
located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts.
Below is a Ernest Halen photo of Colonel and Mrs. Effie Goethals pose
in front of the gasoline powered motor car that Goethals used to
travel up and down the rail line, visiting various parts of the canal
project. He called it the Yellow Peril as it was painted
Yellow. I posted this same photo back in 2008 and at that time I
didn't know that the women was his wife. The man with the
Skimmer Hat to the left of the motor car is Sam Grier who was the
motorman that drove Goethals around.
I don't know the others, but might have been just visitors. Photo courtesy
of researchgate.net with caption reading: "Colonel
and Mrs. Effie Goethals pose in front of the gasoline powered motor
car".
Postscript: The man standing by Goethals without a hat is Lindley
Miller Garrison was an American lawyer from New Jersey who served as
Secretary of War under U.S. President Woodrow Wilson between 1913 and
1916. Identified by CZ Images contributor Bob Dillion.
According
to an article in The Dukes County Intelligencer that my friend
Fred Sill (RIP) sent to me and written by grandson Thomas Goethals,
Col. Goethals was a letter writer. He wrote letters to
classmates, friends, and dignitaries offering them free transportation
to and from the Canal Zone on the Panama Railroad Company's steamship
line (of which he was president). These others in the photos
could be some of these friends. According to this same article
Goethals saved letters sent by his friends and are now archived in the
Library of Congress, a gift from his widow Effie and his two sons
after his death in 1928.
These
stories of great men and women go on forever.
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