Author: anitrab

Unquestionably, Instagram provides a space for users to share photos of amazing memories. One particularly popular category of photos shared on the platform revolves around food. Users often seek out meals or snacks simply because they know the food will create a “grammable” photo. But how did people remember these “grammable” meals prior to the invention of Instagram? For John Laurence Seymour, it was by recording the meals in his diaries. From the years 1928-1982 Seymour wrote in his journals meticulously. In his daily entries, he nearly always recorded the weather, kept track of what operas and other theatrical shows he saw with his mother, and notated various meals and snacks he ate. Typically, his mother Rose (whom he affectionately called “Rosie”) would be the chef or baker behind the corn chowders or banana cakes notated on the diary pages. Seymour would often notate picking fruit, such as oranges, nectarines, or apricots, and the next day would write about the upside down cake Rosie made out of the fresh harvest. 

John Laurence Seymour’s mother, Rose A. Seymour, loved flowers. Photographs spanning the decades of her life frequently feature her posing with flowers. Sometimes she is holding the flowers, sometimes she is standing next to them, and sometimes she is in the shrubbery with them. For Valentines Day, I thought it would be apropos to have Rose Seymour share some flowers with you.

Fannie Charles Dillon
served as a mentor and a teacher to John Laurence Seymour. Both Californians and
musicians, the two shared a special bond. Seymour gave great credit to Dillon’s
composing and teaching. These accolades can be seen in a letter to the editor
Seymour sent to the Pacific Coast Musician
in 1947, just after Dillon’s death (letter below). Seymour kept numerous mementos
from Dillon, including a large collection of her sheet music, many of which she
signed and inscribed with notes to Seymour and his mother Rose (autographed
sheet music below). The black and white photograph below is of Seymour and
Dillon, taken only a few months before her death.  In the collection is also a film negative of
Dillon with Seymour’s Mother, Rose.

Dillon did not just
teach Seymour, she also taught at a number of institutions in Southern
California, including Pomona College. 
Dillon taught at Pomona College from 1910-1913, and she was also a
Pomona College Graduate. Today, her personal papers are kept in the UCLA
Special Collections under the title Fannie
Charles Dillon music manuscripts, 1881-1961. That finding aid can be found in the Online Archive of California (OAC).

From 1926-1940, John Laurence Seymour held an instructor position for the departments of both the Dramatic Arts and English at Sacramento Junior College. As part of his responsibilities for the Department of Dramatic Art, he was tasked with directing all of the school’s theatrical productions. Under Seymour’s careful direction, dozens of productions opened to praise from the local community. Seymour kept mementos of seemingly all of the productions he directed, meaning that the John Laurence Seymour Papers collection is full of programs and photographs from various Sacramento Junior College productions. Below are some mementos from “A Protegee of the Mistress”, performed on May 3, 1929. This production was the first performance of the play in America.