Hal Garrott

Hal Garrott (b. Chicago, Illinois, 21 June 1877; d. Los Altos, California, 21 October 1968)

Hal Garrott was the working name of Henry Claggert Garrott, the son of Erasmus R. Garrott (1836-1897), a physician who became the chief medical officer of the Chicago Health Department, and his wife Florence Lee (1844-1930), who were married in Chicago on 20 December 1867. Hal was the second of four children, with older and younger sisters, and a younger brother.

His life is not very well documented, but he claimed to be educated at the Lewis Institute of Chicago (a technical high school founded in 1896), the University of Chicago, the American Conservatory of Music, and in Berlin. 

He married Jane Frances Noble (1873-1945) in St. Louis, Missouri, on 25 November 1901. They settled in Minneapolis, where Garrott managed a confectionery. They had three children, Florence Garrott (1905-1914), Hal Noble Garrott (1906-1932), and Jean Garrott (1907-1997). The marriage broke up after 1920, and on 1 December 1923, in Minneapolis, Garrott married Marian Caplin (1879-1952). 

Garrott and his second wife moved to California around 1926, settling the the Carmel area, where Garrott was the Drama and Music Editor on the Monterey Peninsular Herald. After Marian's death, Garrott married a third time, on 3 January 1956 in Santa Clara, California, to Ruby J. Norton (1877-1974). Garrott died at the age of 91. 

Garrott published three books, all for children, the first two illustrated by Dugald Stewart Walker (1883-1937), a very talented artist and book illustrator, much of whose work was poorly reproduced in books published by second tier publishers. In Garrott's books his characteristic artwork is signed only "Dugald Walker." (John Coulthart has done several blog posts on Walker, including two which focus on his black-and-white work, here and here. The second link includes a couple of illustrations from Garrott's first book.)

All three of Garrott's books were published by Robert M. McBride of New York.  The first, Snythergen, appeared on 24 November 1923, dedicated to Garrott's two surviving children. It tells of a giant boy, who was first fed on round foods that made him stout, and then his alarmed parents fed him only slender items which made him tall and thin. Snythergen runs away from home, and has many adventures, making new friends like Squeaky the pig and Sancho Wing, the goldfinch. The advice of Santa Claus on feeding turns Snythergen into a regular-sized boy. 

 

The book was well-reviewed, and  it has four color plates and many black-and-white illustrations. Garrott's second book, Squiffer, appeared on 1 November 1924. This time the story centers on a Squiffer, a squirrel who wants to be a boy. He, too, has many adventures, with a Bear and some odd characters like the funny man called Red Fairy Hot, "a bad fairy who changes people into animals and then into Bats by sprinkling them with Pink Powder" (p. 63). Some of the story is set in a Candy Palace. With this volume, Walker has only one color illustration (the frontispiece), but many black-and-white ones. Squiffer sold less well than Snythergen, and can be found in cheaper remainder bindings. 

Garrott's third and final book was First-Aide to Santa Claus, published in August 1929, which brings back the boy Snythergen, Squeaky the Pig, Sancho the Goldfinch, the Bear, and Santa Claus. It is dedicated to Garrott's younger sister's two children. A new illustrator, Mary-Ponton Gardner (1883-1957), predominantly a magazine illustrator, provides twenty illustrations, all in black-and-white. Through all three Garrott books there is a diminishment of the amount of art, and sales correspondingly suffered. First-Aide to Santa Clause is Garrott's rarest book. 

 

M.A. Neff

M.A. Neff (b. Rome, Ohio, March 1858*;  d. New York, New York, 6 October 1915) 

M.A. Neff, known familiarly as "Mell," was born Melvin Augustus Neff, the youngest of ten children of  Abraham Neff (1806-1890) and his wife Tabitha Hall (1816-1876), who were married in 1831.

Neff was married twice, the first was in 1883, but it did not last more than a few years. Around 1891 he married Mary A. Haefner (1875-1955). They had two children, James Blaine Neff (1895-1983), and another that died in infancy. Neff and his wife were based in St. Louis in the mid-1890s when their son was born.

In the 1901 U.S. Census, Neff is listed in Cincinnati as a commercial salesman. But he soon gravitated to the growing motion picture industry. Around 1910 he founded the Motion Picture Exhibitors League of America, with annual conventions beginning in 1911. Neff was its President for the last four years of his life. He wrote and produced one full length silent film, The Battle of Ballots, which debuted in August 1915. It is catalogued at the American Film Institute as five-six reels, which translated to 75 to 90 minutes. It is a melodrama that centers around prohibition. Neff appeared as himself in a short documentary newsreel (Gaumont Weekly no. 72), released on 23 July 1913, when he was elected President of the Motion Picture Exhibitors League for the third time.  

Neff's one book was the self-published 118-page paperback Paradise Found, which came out in January 1914. According to Lyman Tower Sargent, in his online version of his classic Utopian Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography from 1516 to the Present (2016), it describes "a series of worlds, including two eutopias," the first of which is called Paradise. There people live long lives and fly about individually, living in trees. The second eutopia is Square Land, where everyone gets a 'square deal" including a lot on which to build a small house, and a three day work week of six hours each day. The book is very rare. 

Neff died in New York City on 6 October 1915, after a brief illness (kidney trouble), and an unsuccessful operation. 

 *Neff gave his birth details as March 1859 in the 1900 U.S. Census, but other sources suggest the year was 1858.