Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Taking Root

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Taking Root · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeart
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  Speaker 1: Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: In New Jersey Native and West Coast transplant, Craig Newmark
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  Speaker 1: had an idea. He started an email distribution list to
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  Speaker 1: keep a few of his friends abreast of local events.
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  Speaker 1: Word got around, and pretty soon Craig was adding new
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  Speaker 1: members and new information for his growing group of subscribers.
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  Speaker 1: When the list got to be too unwieldy, heat pivoted
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  Speaker 1: into something new, a website where people could post all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of wings, such as classified ads, items for sale,
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  Speaker 1: and where their band would be performing next. He called
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  Speaker 1: it Craig's List, and over the next twenty seven years
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  Speaker 1: it became something of a time capsule, preserving a piece
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  Speaker 1: of the Internet as it once was. It's sparse, black
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  Speaker 1: and white and blue design has barely changed, as have
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  Speaker 1: the kinds of items published to its thousands of pages.
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  Speaker 1: One of the most popular categories is missed connections where
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  Speaker 1: people post cryptic messages to others they might have crossed
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  Speaker 1: paths with during their day, the glance across a crowded
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  Speaker 1: subway car, or the accidental traffic jam in the supermarket ale.
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  Speaker 1: Missed connections is where love lorn hopefuls prey that special
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  Speaker 1: someone is reading. But one years ago, before the first
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  Speaker 1: miss connection was ever posted, there was the Bridegroom's Oak,
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  Speaker 1: located in the dad Hour Forced in Schleiswig Holstein, Germany.
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  Speaker 1: The Bridegroom's Oak is an oak tree over five years old.
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  Speaker 1: It's trunk is sixteen feet around and it rises to
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  Speaker 1: a soaring eighty two feet tall. It was a gift
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  Speaker 1: him the son of a Celtic chieftain who had been
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  Speaker 1: tied to a different tree in the forest. A young
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  Speaker 1: girl came along and freed him, and the chieftain planted
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  Speaker 1: the oak to thank her for her kindness. At least
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  Speaker 1: that's the story that people tell. In the past. Young
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  Speaker 1: women were encouraged to circle the tree several times under
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  Speaker 1: the light of a full moon. As they walked around it,
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  Speaker 1: they were instructed to think about the suitor they loved
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  Speaker 1: most without saying a word. If they performed the ritual correctly,
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  Speaker 1: they would be married within a year. The tree earned
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  Speaker 1: its name during the late eighteen hundreds, when the daughter
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  Speaker 1: of a forester and a chocolate maker's son from Leipzig
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  Speaker 1: fell in love. The girl's father didn't want her marrying
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  Speaker 1: the boy, and so he forbade them from tying the
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  Speaker 1: not so the lovers decided to carry on their relationship
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  Speaker 1: behind his back. They wrote each other letters, which they
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  Speaker 1: deposited in a giant hole in the middle of an
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  Speaker 1: oak tree near their house. Soon enough, her father relented
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  Speaker 1: and gave his blessing. The two were married under that
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  Speaker 1: same tree in June. As the story of the Roman
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  Speaker 1: that spread beyond the forest, others started coming to the
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  Speaker 1: tree to leave their own letters, hoping to find true love.
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  Speaker 1: They called it the brow to gum Cyca or Bridegroom's Oak,
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  Speaker 1: and those who availed themselves of its services made sure
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  Speaker 1: to leave a return address so that whomever read the
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  Speaker 1: letters knew how to get in touch with them. A
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  Speaker 1: step ladder was even installed at the base of the
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  Speaker 1: tree in to allow visitors easier access to the whole.
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  Speaker 1: The post office even began honoring the bridegroom oak as
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  Speaker 1: an official letterbox, so that love sick people from all
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  Speaker 1: over the world could write to the tree and wait
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  Speaker 1: for their one true love to write them back. Today,
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  Speaker 1: there is a small wooden fence that forms a perimeter
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  Speaker 1: around the oak, save for one opening to allow visitors
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  Speaker 1: access to the step ladder. Legend has it that over
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  Speaker 1: one couples got married after depositing letters in that tree,
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  Speaker 1: and crazily enough, one of those marriages happened to involve
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  Speaker 1: the very maleman who had spent twenty years of his
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  Speaker 1: career delivering other people's letters to the tree. In the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, the postman was invited to appear on a
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  Speaker 1: television program and a woman who had watched him decided
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  Speaker 1: to write a letter to him. She had sent it
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  Speaker 1: to the tree, knowing that he would be the one
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  Speaker 1: to deliver it. The two eventually met and remain married
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  Speaker 1: to this day. But the Bridegroom's oak didn't just bring
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  Speaker 1: people together, It too had its own love story, and
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  Speaker 1: it was one for the ages. In two thousand nine,
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  Speaker 1: the tree was wedded to the Himmelgeist Chestnut in dusl Dorf,
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  Speaker 1: as it also had its own postal address. Sadly, the
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  Speaker 1: chestnut was not long for this world. It was cut
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  Speaker 1: down in two thousand fifteen due to an incurable fungus.
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  Speaker 1: The bridegroom's oak stands today as a widower, It's only
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  Speaker 1: purpose to bring others together. Unable to turn over a
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  Speaker 1: new leaf. She almost looks like a little girl playing
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  Speaker 1: dress up with her mother's clothing. In a halt that
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  Speaker 1: author Henry James called ill fitting valerie, Lady Mew intensely
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  Speaker 1: gazes at the viewer with her slender profile and a
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  Speaker 1: seemingly bland backdrop. This might just have been a portrait
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  Speaker 1: of any other upper class British lady, but behind the
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  Speaker 1: lace was one of the most scandalous women of the
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  Speaker 1: Victorian era. If you've been listening since the early days,
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  Speaker 1: the name Mew might sound familiar to you. But in
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  Speaker 1: case you don't want to comb through more than four
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  Speaker 1: episodes to find number thirty, I'll refresh your memory. On Monday,
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  Speaker 1: October seventeenth, eighteen fourteen, a vat inside the Horseshoe Brewery
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  Speaker 1: of London malfunctioned. The twenty two foot high tank was
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  Speaker 1: held together with iron rings and was meant to store
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  Speaker 1: three thousand five hundred barrels of brown porter ale for fermentation.
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  Speaker 1: On that day in eighteen fourteen, though, one of the
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  Speaker 1: rings around the tank snapped, the whole thing burst, creating
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  Speaker 1: a fifteen foot high wave of beer that destroyed several
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  Speaker 1: buildings and killed nine people. The Horseshoe Brewery was owned
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  Speaker 1: by the Mew family and was one of the largest
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  Speaker 1: porter brewers in London. The eighteen fourteen disaster barely put
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  Speaker 1: a dent in their profits, too, the courts had ruled
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  Speaker 1: it an act of God after all. Soon Henry Mu
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  Speaker 1: was created a baronet, a hereditary title awarded to commoners.
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  Speaker 1: But this story isn't about that event. No, that's just
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  Speaker 1: the little scene setting for the person who is yet
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  Speaker 1: to come. The Mew family might have faded into healthy
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  Speaker 1: obscurity after this tragedy if not for the wife of
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  Speaker 1: the third baronet, Valerie Lady Mu, who seemed to be
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  Speaker 1: the living embodiment of the phrase may you live in
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  Speaker 1: interesting times. If the times weren't interesting enough for her,
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  Speaker 1: she certainly had a way of livening things up. Valerie
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  Speaker 1: Susan Langdon seemed to come from nothing, in that nothing
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  Speaker 1: seems to be known about her origins. She later admitted
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  Speaker 1: that she'd been an actress and even learned how to
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  Speaker 1: play the banjo, two pursuits that British aristocrats didn't greet
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  Speaker 1: with admiration. Acting was seen as one of the low
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  Speaker 1: forms of employment for women back then, and was often
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  Speaker 1: synonymous with sex work in high society. No one knows
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  Speaker 1: exactly how she met Sir Henry Mew. She was rumored
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  Speaker 1: to have been working as a performer and barmaid at
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  Speaker 1: the Casino de Venice in Holborn when she caught his eye.
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  Speaker 1: The two married in secret in eighteen seventy eight, and
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  Speaker 1: to say the marriage caused a scandal is an understatement.
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  Speaker 1: We can only imagine the reaction the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: new family had to their newest member behind closed doors,
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  Speaker 1: but outside the house they presented a unified front in
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  Speaker 1: opposition to Valerie, but she didn't care. Now possessing money
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  Speaker 1: and emoticum of influence, Valerie made a splash. In eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty three, Sir Henry's father passed away and the newlyweds
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  Speaker 1: inherited the family seat, a mansion called St Theobald's in Herefordshire.
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  Speaker 1: Valerie began transforming the palatial residence to her liking. Immediately
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  Speaker 1: she made it into a playground for the wealthy and
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  Speaker 1: powerful of London. She threw lavish parties and entertained her
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  Speaker 1: guests with her in house, roller skating rink, their swimming pool,
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  Speaker 1: and a museum of Egyptian antiquities. The crowning glory of
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  Speaker 1: the four hundred tons structure was Sir Christopher Wren's temple bar,
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  Speaker 1: which Valerie paid to have deconstructed, moved from London, and
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  Speaker 1: then reconstructed as their new entrance gate. The astonishing house
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  Speaker 1: and parties attracted anyone who was everyone, including the Prince
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  Speaker 1: of Wales. Valerie could even be seen riding around town
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  Speaker 1: in a high Phaeton, the sports car equivalent of a carriage,
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  Speaker 1: but hers was drawn by a matched pair of zebras.
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  Speaker 1: No one could ignore her, no matter how much they
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  Speaker 1: wanted to. There's no record of whether Sir Henry and
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  Speaker 1: his unconventional bride loved each other, but when he died
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  Speaker 1: in January of nineteen hundred, Valerie was the only person
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  Speaker 1: named in his will. She had become one of the
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  Speaker 1: wealthiest women in Britain. After that, Valerie threw herself into widowhood.
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  Speaker 1: She owned a couple of race horses, although they didn't
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  Speaker 1: win often, and she was a equent visitor to a
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  Speaker 1: philosophical club called the Theosophical Society, and could be seen
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  Speaker 1: at everything from art openings to prize fights in a
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  Speaker 1: variety of disguises. But here's the thing. Although they drank
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  Speaker 1: her booze and ate her food, no one seemed to
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  Speaker 1: want much from Valerie. She tried to leave her spectacular
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  Speaker 1: collection of antiquities to the British Museum, but the snobs
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  Speaker 1: there didn't want them, so they were sold after her death,
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  Speaker 1: and during the Second Boer War, when Valerie read about
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  Speaker 1: early British reverses, she bought and paid for six naval
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  Speaker 1: twelve pounder long guns that could be moved on special carriages. Initially,
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  Speaker 1: the War Office refused, so they were sent straight to
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  Speaker 1: South Africa. But the most enduring a valeries flights of
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  Speaker 1: fancy was to commission three paintings by the scandalous artist
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  Speaker 1: James Whistler. Whistler was bankrupt when he took the contract
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  Speaker 1: for the three portraits, which were almost never finished. Apparently
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  Speaker 1: Valerie and Whistler rubbed each other the wrong way, so
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  Speaker 1: Whistler destroyed the final painting, portrait of Lady mew In
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  Speaker 1: First and They Never Spoke Again. One of the previous portraits,
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  Speaker 1: though Harmony and Pink and Gray, alludes to Valerie's past,
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  Speaker 1: but it also seems to capture her renegade spirit. In it,
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  Speaker 1: she gazes out towards the audience, wearing a costume like
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  Speaker 1: dress while standing on stage defiant to the last. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.