The Fortean himself may be the least interesting member of his family.
Gordon Hollyer was born 16 October 1898 in Canada, descended from a family of artists. His paternal grandfather was William Perrin Hollyer, a famous artist who father ten children, five of whom became artists, including Gordon’s dad, Gregory, who moved from England to Canada, where he met and married Katherine MacDonald, a native Canadian. In 1900, a few years after their marriage, they migrated to Buffalo, where in the next twelve years Gordon would be joined by four siblings. His dad ran an art studio, which apparently was lucrative enough to keep the family in some degree of comfort.
In 1912, Katherine died; Gregory remarried two years later, and fathered another five children with his second wife—matching his own father’s prolificity. Gordon finished high school and became a working man. According to his World War I draft card, in 1918 he was working as a timekeeper. Two years later, he was still living with his father and step-mother, the only one beside his father working: he was a reporter at a newspaper. He would remain a newsman for the rest of his life, a book collector, and a skeptic.
Gordon Hollyer was born 16 October 1898 in Canada, descended from a family of artists. His paternal grandfather was William Perrin Hollyer, a famous artist who father ten children, five of whom became artists, including Gordon’s dad, Gregory, who moved from England to Canada, where he met and married Katherine MacDonald, a native Canadian. In 1900, a few years after their marriage, they migrated to Buffalo, where in the next twelve years Gordon would be joined by four siblings. His dad ran an art studio, which apparently was lucrative enough to keep the family in some degree of comfort.
In 1912, Katherine died; Gregory remarried two years later, and fathered another five children with his second wife—matching his own father’s prolificity. Gordon finished high school and became a working man. According to his World War I draft card, in 1918 he was working as a timekeeper. Two years later, he was still living with his father and step-mother, the only one beside his father working: he was a reporter at a newspaper. He would remain a newsman for the rest of his life, a book collector, and a skeptic.
It was while working as a reporter that he met his future wife, Beth A. Stewart, herself descended from an ink-stained family. Her paternal grandfather had been a printer in New York, and her father—born, as she was, in Iowa—edited a weekly newspaper. Born 21 November 1897 (making her just shy of a year older than Gordon), she attended Iowa College, then finished at the University of Wisconsin, where she was on the school paper, The Badger, and graduated with honors in journalism. Her thesis was “A Study of Nature Articles in Current Magazines.” After her graduation in 1921, she returned home to live with her father, Raymond Grant, mother, May, and (much) younger brother, Robert Silas, who had been born around 1912. She worked for a year on The Cedar Rapids Gazette then moved to Buffalo, where she became one of the first full-time female reporter on the Buffalo Courier.
Gordon and Beth married in 1923. The family expanded quickly, but was closer in structure to Beth’s than Gordon’s: they had two sons, both June babies, Stewart born in June 1924 and Cameron born in June 1926. In 1928, the Gordon’s father and stepmother relocated to Worcester, Massachusetts, where his art career continued to flourish. Beth settled into housewifery and Gordon made his living reporting for the Buffalo Evening News. The family finances seem to have been relatively tight in 1930, living on Arnold Street in a rental home ($45) without a radio. The next year, though, they had moved to Lafayette Street, and while it is impossible to track their finances from this distance and without any more information, their fortunes seem to have been on the increase. In 1931, Gordon and Beth traveled to the Caribbean, presumably on holiday. (It was August.) And they seemed to have weathered the Great Depression well enough: in 1940 they were in the same house on Lafayette, also a rental, charging $40, but Gordon had worked 52 weeks and made $2,500—the equivalent of about $42,000 in today’s money.
Both sons joined the war effort, Stewart in December 1943 and Cameron in July 1944. Cameron would be part of the occupying force in Germany, operating a switchboard. According to later recollections, Cameron was quiet and bookish, a hunger that could be satisfied in the home, which had a well stocked library. After the war, Stewart attended college in Colorado and later worked throughout the Midwest as a social worker and child psychologist. Cameron took a degree in anthropology from Harvard, then an MA in literature at the State College of Buffalo.
Clearly, by the 1950s, whatever financial struggles the family may (or may not) have faced in the 1920s, they were doing well enough. College costs at the time were nothing compared to what they are now, especially considering both Stewart and Cameron likely had college paid for them by the GI Bill. But, still, there were two less people in the house, Gordon continued to work, and in 1950 Beth returned to work (although it’s possible she was working to some extent all along in ways not captured by the census). She became the director of public relations and membership at the Buffalo YWCA, a position she held until September 1967.
Meanwhile, Stewart would eventually settle in Arizona, where he would stay until his death in 2001. Beth’s brother, Robert Silas, would also end up on the West Coast, living in Berkeley and teaching at San Francisco State. In 1952, he contracted Polio, which left him needing an iron lung. Yet he continued to teach twice a week, with a belt-adapted apparatus for the commute across the Bay and a respirator on campus that allowed him to put in ten hour days. He would continue this schedule for thirteen years, dying in 1965, the same year as Gordon’s father. Cameron attended a third school, going to his father’s homeland to take a degree in library science at the University of Toronto. He stayed, going to work for the Toronto Public Library System. In 1969, he convinced the library to start collecting in Sherlockiana, and in 1971 the Library opened the collection to researchers, tied in with the creation of Toronto’s own Sherlockian Society, the Bootmakers, so named because the boots Sherlock Holmes wore in The Hound of the Baskervilles were made in Toronto. The collection became one of the largest of its kind in the world, and Cameron remained its curator until 1991. He would pass on nine years later.
Most of this, though, Gordon would never know: or know only in ways we cannot understand. Of the same generation as Tiffany Thayer, he would life about as long, and pass just before Thayer and the Fortean Society did, too. I cannot find the exact date, but it seems that Gordon Hollyer died some time late in 1956. Apparently, he worked as a reporter up until the time of his death.
Not much can be said about Hollyer’s Forteanism. I suppose a study of the Buffalo newspapers for which he worked might reveal something, potentially even something very interesting, but the ratio of work to reward seems poor. His location in Buffalo, though, is worth noting, as there was a certain amount of Fortean activity in that city. Paul L. Keil, the amateur journalist (and future resident of Lily Dale) lived in Buffalo for a while after World War II. Taylor Caldwell, the author and member of the Fortean Society, maintained a home in Buffalo. Someone with the surname Kiesewetter was a Buffalo resident and member of the Fortean Society, as was a woman with the first initial B. and the last name Goldstein. And the bookstore owner H. W. Giles was a proud Fortean. If Gordon was indeed a book collector, it is entirely possible he knew Giles, and the two may have swapped Fortean thoughts.
Beyond that, Hollyer only warranted two mentions in Doubt. The second came in February 1957 (number 53), and was his obituary: “MFS Gordon Hollyer was another loss we must lament but can’t repair. He died in Buffalo, N. Y., ae 57. He had been a newspaperman for 37 years, his widow tells us, ‘a book collector, scholar and skeptic.’ All our sympathy goes to her.” The first sign of his name was much earlier, Doubt 15 (summer 1946). There must have been some correspondence, at least, between the Hollyers and Thayer in the intervening years for Beth to have the chance of telling about Gordon’s death. Whether that was letters exchanged or clippings sent in that Thayer just didn’t run, for one reason or another, I have no idea.
Gordon sent in at least two clippings for issue 15. The first concerned black rain on the north shore of Lake Erie that left roads, sidewalks, houses, and trees looking as though “it had rained ink.” The story was in by a number of Forteans, another of whom may have lived in the Buffalo area—Larry Wilson. (I cannot find a copy of this story.) That was on page 223. Two pages later, Hollyer is again credited (and again with a number of others, including Olive Oltcher, who had also sent in the story of the black rain). This clipping dealt with 8,000 to 10,000 tons of fish washed up on the banks of Lake Poinsett, in South Dakota. Officials said the cause were poisonous gases given off by lake-bottom vegetation. Thayer and Robert Farnsworth (who also sent the story) thought this explanation too pat, since it was almost only bottom feeding fish that died, not game fish. “Mighty selective gasses,” Farnsworth quipped.
I did find this story in the papers from the time, and it’s a good, Fortean one. Starting in the middle of April, 1946, tons and tons of sig started washing up on the shore of Lake Poinsett, South Dakota’s largest lake, in the east-central part of the state. Initially, officials were not sure of the cause, suggesting that a blanket of now on the lake may have suffocated the fish; mostly, they were concerned with getting rid of them before the warm weather made them stink and drove tourists away from the resort area. At one point, there were one hundred workers piling them into windrows one hundred feet long, ten feet high, and fifteen feet wide, with bulldozers burying them—but those in charge still suspected it would take five weeks to rid the beach of the offal.
Early on, there were rumors that the army would bring in flame-throwers, but this was denied. Instead, the army brought the main ingredients of fore bombs and tried to burn the cadavers. Colonel L. W. Green of the army’s chemical warfare division had done experiments that satisfied him the fish could be immolated. As it turned out, though, the army’s plan didn’t work—the fish bodies had too much moisture. Bulldozers were the only answer, with the chemicals being used to seal the gigantic tombs. Men worked in shifts because the stench was so great. Eventually, though, the fish were cleared, and new explanations offered—later reports making note that some naturalists blamed off-gassing vegetation. There was no authoritative conclusion, though, and with the bodies gone the story also went away, another damned event. (For what it’s worth, DDT was first used in the Lake Poinsett area in 1946.)
And that was it for Hollyer—leaving not much to conclude about his Forteanism. He seems to have shown some interest in the traditional Fortean subject of things falling from the sky. And, as his wife said, he was skeptical enough to doubt official explanations of odd events. He did come from a fascinating family, though.
Gordon and Beth married in 1923. The family expanded quickly, but was closer in structure to Beth’s than Gordon’s: they had two sons, both June babies, Stewart born in June 1924 and Cameron born in June 1926. In 1928, the Gordon’s father and stepmother relocated to Worcester, Massachusetts, where his art career continued to flourish. Beth settled into housewifery and Gordon made his living reporting for the Buffalo Evening News. The family finances seem to have been relatively tight in 1930, living on Arnold Street in a rental home ($45) without a radio. The next year, though, they had moved to Lafayette Street, and while it is impossible to track their finances from this distance and without any more information, their fortunes seem to have been on the increase. In 1931, Gordon and Beth traveled to the Caribbean, presumably on holiday. (It was August.) And they seemed to have weathered the Great Depression well enough: in 1940 they were in the same house on Lafayette, also a rental, charging $40, but Gordon had worked 52 weeks and made $2,500—the equivalent of about $42,000 in today’s money.
Both sons joined the war effort, Stewart in December 1943 and Cameron in July 1944. Cameron would be part of the occupying force in Germany, operating a switchboard. According to later recollections, Cameron was quiet and bookish, a hunger that could be satisfied in the home, which had a well stocked library. After the war, Stewart attended college in Colorado and later worked throughout the Midwest as a social worker and child psychologist. Cameron took a degree in anthropology from Harvard, then an MA in literature at the State College of Buffalo.
Clearly, by the 1950s, whatever financial struggles the family may (or may not) have faced in the 1920s, they were doing well enough. College costs at the time were nothing compared to what they are now, especially considering both Stewart and Cameron likely had college paid for them by the GI Bill. But, still, there were two less people in the house, Gordon continued to work, and in 1950 Beth returned to work (although it’s possible she was working to some extent all along in ways not captured by the census). She became the director of public relations and membership at the Buffalo YWCA, a position she held until September 1967.
Meanwhile, Stewart would eventually settle in Arizona, where he would stay until his death in 2001. Beth’s brother, Robert Silas, would also end up on the West Coast, living in Berkeley and teaching at San Francisco State. In 1952, he contracted Polio, which left him needing an iron lung. Yet he continued to teach twice a week, with a belt-adapted apparatus for the commute across the Bay and a respirator on campus that allowed him to put in ten hour days. He would continue this schedule for thirteen years, dying in 1965, the same year as Gordon’s father. Cameron attended a third school, going to his father’s homeland to take a degree in library science at the University of Toronto. He stayed, going to work for the Toronto Public Library System. In 1969, he convinced the library to start collecting in Sherlockiana, and in 1971 the Library opened the collection to researchers, tied in with the creation of Toronto’s own Sherlockian Society, the Bootmakers, so named because the boots Sherlock Holmes wore in The Hound of the Baskervilles were made in Toronto. The collection became one of the largest of its kind in the world, and Cameron remained its curator until 1991. He would pass on nine years later.
Most of this, though, Gordon would never know: or know only in ways we cannot understand. Of the same generation as Tiffany Thayer, he would life about as long, and pass just before Thayer and the Fortean Society did, too. I cannot find the exact date, but it seems that Gordon Hollyer died some time late in 1956. Apparently, he worked as a reporter up until the time of his death.
Not much can be said about Hollyer’s Forteanism. I suppose a study of the Buffalo newspapers for which he worked might reveal something, potentially even something very interesting, but the ratio of work to reward seems poor. His location in Buffalo, though, is worth noting, as there was a certain amount of Fortean activity in that city. Paul L. Keil, the amateur journalist (and future resident of Lily Dale) lived in Buffalo for a while after World War II. Taylor Caldwell, the author and member of the Fortean Society, maintained a home in Buffalo. Someone with the surname Kiesewetter was a Buffalo resident and member of the Fortean Society, as was a woman with the first initial B. and the last name Goldstein. And the bookstore owner H. W. Giles was a proud Fortean. If Gordon was indeed a book collector, it is entirely possible he knew Giles, and the two may have swapped Fortean thoughts.
Beyond that, Hollyer only warranted two mentions in Doubt. The second came in February 1957 (number 53), and was his obituary: “MFS Gordon Hollyer was another loss we must lament but can’t repair. He died in Buffalo, N. Y., ae 57. He had been a newspaperman for 37 years, his widow tells us, ‘a book collector, scholar and skeptic.’ All our sympathy goes to her.” The first sign of his name was much earlier, Doubt 15 (summer 1946). There must have been some correspondence, at least, between the Hollyers and Thayer in the intervening years for Beth to have the chance of telling about Gordon’s death. Whether that was letters exchanged or clippings sent in that Thayer just didn’t run, for one reason or another, I have no idea.
Gordon sent in at least two clippings for issue 15. The first concerned black rain on the north shore of Lake Erie that left roads, sidewalks, houses, and trees looking as though “it had rained ink.” The story was in by a number of Forteans, another of whom may have lived in the Buffalo area—Larry Wilson. (I cannot find a copy of this story.) That was on page 223. Two pages later, Hollyer is again credited (and again with a number of others, including Olive Oltcher, who had also sent in the story of the black rain). This clipping dealt with 8,000 to 10,000 tons of fish washed up on the banks of Lake Poinsett, in South Dakota. Officials said the cause were poisonous gases given off by lake-bottom vegetation. Thayer and Robert Farnsworth (who also sent the story) thought this explanation too pat, since it was almost only bottom feeding fish that died, not game fish. “Mighty selective gasses,” Farnsworth quipped.
I did find this story in the papers from the time, and it’s a good, Fortean one. Starting in the middle of April, 1946, tons and tons of sig started washing up on the shore of Lake Poinsett, South Dakota’s largest lake, in the east-central part of the state. Initially, officials were not sure of the cause, suggesting that a blanket of now on the lake may have suffocated the fish; mostly, they were concerned with getting rid of them before the warm weather made them stink and drove tourists away from the resort area. At one point, there were one hundred workers piling them into windrows one hundred feet long, ten feet high, and fifteen feet wide, with bulldozers burying them—but those in charge still suspected it would take five weeks to rid the beach of the offal.
Early on, there were rumors that the army would bring in flame-throwers, but this was denied. Instead, the army brought the main ingredients of fore bombs and tried to burn the cadavers. Colonel L. W. Green of the army’s chemical warfare division had done experiments that satisfied him the fish could be immolated. As it turned out, though, the army’s plan didn’t work—the fish bodies had too much moisture. Bulldozers were the only answer, with the chemicals being used to seal the gigantic tombs. Men worked in shifts because the stench was so great. Eventually, though, the fish were cleared, and new explanations offered—later reports making note that some naturalists blamed off-gassing vegetation. There was no authoritative conclusion, though, and with the bodies gone the story also went away, another damned event. (For what it’s worth, DDT was first used in the Lake Poinsett area in 1946.)
And that was it for Hollyer—leaving not much to conclude about his Forteanism. He seems to have shown some interest in the traditional Fortean subject of things falling from the sky. And, as his wife said, he was skeptical enough to doubt official explanations of odd events. He did come from a fascinating family, though.
