Cover of “Items of Family History,” with cloth ties.
It’s a question many have pondered in middle age: how do I pass along my family history to my children and grandchildren? Nowadays one might type up some stories on Microsoft Word and enter data into ancestry.com, but if you were a rich San Franciscan at the turn of the twentieth century, you might commission a local publisher to print a book. That’s what William Alston Hayne II did, and the result was Items of Family History (1902).
Hayne (1855-1937) was born in South Carolina to a wealthy family, but they lost everything in the Civil War. The family moved to California, and there, in his forties, William fell in love with Maud Eloise Chase Bourn (1867-1948). The Bourns were also wealthy, and Hayne was embarrassed that he had little money to contribute to the match. Impulsively, he joined the throngs of fortune-seekers in the Nome Gold Rush so that he could marry Maud as a man of means, but he soon returned with the same empty pockets he had left with. Fortunately, on 27 December 1899, Maud married him anyway.
Title page of “Items of Family History”
The Bourns were rolling in money: Maud’s brother was William Bowers Bourn II, who in the 1880s had revitalized the family’s struggling Empire Mine in the Sierra foothills town of Grass Valley. He was founder and president of the San Francisco Gas Company, and in the 1890s arranged a merger with the Edison Light and Power Company; that combined entity would later become Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). He was also an investor in San Francisco’s Spring Valley Water Company, and was regularly criticized by the San Francisco press as gouging the people with his high water rates. Bourn was good friends with architect Willis Polk, who first designed the Bourn Mansion on Webster St. in San Francisco, and then later their grand Filoli estate on the peninsula. Bourn served as president of the Pacific Union Club, and contributed much time and money to the planning of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. During World War I, he was president of a group called Friends of France, and also co-created the American League of California, with the goal of providing money and manpower to the Allies in Europe. In 1920, in recognition of his service, France awarded him l’Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur.
Colophon of “Items of Family History”
But back to our little book, which is concerned only with the ancestry of William Hayne. There are five short chapters, one for each of five pedigree lines: Hayne (his father), Alston (father’s mother), Motte (father’s mother’s mother), Stiles (mother), and Duncan (mother’s mother). No author is named, so either Hayne wrote the copy himself, or hired a ghostwriter. Earlier versions of the Paul Elder checklist credited Pauline Stiles, author of the Elder publication New Footprints in Old Places, as the author, and as Hayne’s mother’s maiden name was Stiles there was a possible connection. However, I have investigated William’s and Pauline’s pedigrees and can find no common ancestors, so I now believe the author attribution to be incorrect.
Only twenty-four copies were printed, the second-smallest Elder print run known after The Passing of an Oak. Presumably, Hayne printed just enough copies to give to children, grandchildren, and other relatives. The book is very finely made, with gold-embossed grey paper over boards, and high-quality laid paper. It was printed at the Twentieth Century Press, almost certainly typeset and printed by John Henry Nash.
Our thanks to Alan Thomsen for the opportunity to photograph his copy of Items of Family History.
“Items of Family History,” page 3“Items of Family History,” page 5“Items of Family History,” page 19“Items of Family History,” page 21“Items of Family History,” page 29“Items of Family History,” page 31“Items of Family History,” page 35“Items of Family History,” page 37“Items of Family History,” page 49“Items of Family History,” page 51
Cover of “The Little Brown Hen Hears the Song of the Nightingale”
This slender volume gets my vote for the gentlest, loveliest title in the Paul Elder catalog. The Little Brown Hen Hears the Song of the Nightingale (1908) was written by Jasmine Van Dresser and illustrated by her husband William. The book contains two short bedtime stories for children: the title tale and “The Little Apple Tree Bears a Golden Harvest.”
“The Little Brown Hen Hears the Song of the Nightingale” is the story of an ornery goose and a gentle hen; the moral is “it isn’t always those with the loudest voices that have the best things to say.” The second tale teaches how Nature is interconnected, and how good things come to those who wait. William Van Dresser’s illustrations are very nice indeed, and he also supplied a custom decorated border for each story. His frontispiece is a mystery: a woman stands in the moonlight, holding out her cupped hands; this scene does not appear in either story. There is a brief introduction by Margaret Beecher White, noting that “it is the duty of all good, useful stories to give a message to their readers,” and that “the two dainty stories contained in this little volume each carries its message of truth.”
Title page and frontispiece of “Little Brown Hen”
Jasmine Edson Stone was born in 1875 in St. Louis, Missouri. She graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia and was working as an actress in New York City when she met her future husband. By 1915, the Van Dressers, along with their sons Cleland and Peter, became well-known actors in New York City, most notably performing everyday dramatic scenes of an American family for soldiers at nearby military bases. Jasmine wrote the screenplays, noting there was nothing more dramatic than the life of parents dealing with the needs of children. She was a member of the Authors Guild (then called the Authors League of America) and wrote many children’s books in her career, with such titles as Jimsey, The Wonderful Hammer, The Story of Silky, The Kitty With the Black Nose, and The Little Pink Pig and the Big Road. Jasmine and William spent their final years in Boca Raton, Florida. She died in 1948, and is buried in Solebury, Pennsylvania.
Endpapers of “Little Brown Hen”
William Thatcher Van Dresser was born in 1871 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was a talented athlete, and spent four years as a semi-pro baseball player, mostly in the Southern Association and Texas League. When his team folded in 1896, he headed north to pursue a career in art. By 1900, he was living in on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In 1903 he and Jasmine were married; Cleland was born in 1904, and Peter in 1908. William’s reputation as a commercial artist was growing, and he was a popular artist for magazine covers. He also began illustrating books, including today’s spotlight and the Jack London novel The Little Lady of the Big House. Later he was commissioned to paint portraits of Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt. William died in 1950, and is buried in Tampa, Florida.
Title page for the “Little Brown Hen” story
Margaret Humphrey Beecher White (1868-1948) was an author on Christian Science topics. She was granddaughter of the prominent minister Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and grand-niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Thanks very much to Kris Rutherford for historical information on the Van Dressers.
Decorative border for “Little Brown Hen”Page 9 of “Little Brown Hen”Title page for “Little Apple Tree” storyDecorative border for “Little Apple Tree”Page 23 of “Little Brown Hen”
Cover of Supremacy of God’s Law, along with a quarter for scale.
Vest Pocket Helps (1913) win the contest for the smallest known Paul Elder “books.” At 2½ x 3½ inches and only ten or twelve pages of text, they’re each a very slim stapled booklet. But then, that’s why they’re called Vest Pocket Helps: so that they will easily fit into one’s vest pocket. Back in the era when daily attire—at least, a man’s daily attire—always included a vest pocket, it was a self-explanatory title.
There are eight titles in the series, conveniently listed on the copyright page:
The Supremacy of God’s Law
Knowing the Truth
God’s Ever Presence
The Open Door
The Truth
The Divine Idea
Forgiveness
Material Needs
Title page of Supremacy of God’s Law
The books were sold for 10¢ each, or 80¢ for the set of eight “gathered and tied with linen tape.”
Update, 19 May 2025: The copyright page states “These pages have been compiled from random readings; grateful acknowledgement is made the several writers who have thus contributed their helpful thoughts,” though none of those writers is mentioned by name. Correspondence has come to light, however, suggesting that the texts of the Vest Pocket Helps are in fact the copyrighted writings of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science Church. In March 1914, the Christian Science Publishing Society wrote to Olcott Haskell of the Christian Science Committee on Publication for Northern California:
The trustees feel that the good work you have done with Mr. Elder in pointing out to him the necessity of protecting the copyright on the works of our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, and the publication of this Society, will be a help to him in the future as well as in the present, and they believe that, so far as the question of the Vest Pocket Helps is concerned, it would be well for you to inform Mr. Elder that under the circumstances, they believe he should be permitted to continue the sale of the pamphlets until his present stock is disposed of, but that no additional copies are to be printed by him.
Page 1 of Supremacy of God’s Law
By 1911, Elder had published at least twenty titles that he felt comfortable listing in Impressions Annual 1911-1912 catalog under the heading “Christian Science.” Elder’s store manager John Howell was a Christian Scientist, as was Paul Elder’s mother Amelia; it’s not known whether either of them had any direct influence in publishing those twenty books.
Then, in 1913, it appears that Elder published Eddy’s copyrighted material, and within a year the Christian Science Publishing Society told him to cease and desist. It would be interesting to know whether Elder knowingly published Eddy’s copyrighted material. The pamphlets list no author, which was highly unusual: only three other Elders—California, Items of Family History, and The Raising of the Steamship Republic—were published anonymously. Add the meaningless “compiled from random readings” and things seem suspicious, but Elder’s letters to the Society do not survive. In any case, the Society merely admonished him to print no more pamphlets.
The series was incorrectly titled Vest Pocket Tracts in the printed editions of the checklist.
Updated 2026-01-22
Pages 4-5 of Supremacy of God’s LawCover of God’s Ever PresenceTitle page of God’s Ever Presence
A young heiress! A suave French pilot! Intrigue! Romance! Plot twists! But wait, didn’t you say that title of this book was How To Fly? Yes I did, and I hope you’ll find this one of the most exciting stories on this website.
How To Fly (1917), by Captain D. Gordon E. Re Vley, is an introductory treatise on how to fly an airplane, written in those heady early days of powered flight, just fourteen years after the Wright Brothers’ inaugural flight at Kitty Hawk. In 1917, World War I was still raging in Europe, and famous fighter aces such as Eddie Rickenbacker and “Red Baron” Manfred von Richthofen engaged in dogfights over Belgium and France. Pilots in the early days of flight had much the same acclaim and allure as astronauts did in the early days of the Space Age.
How To Fly is a small book with flexible covers, fitting easily into a shirt pocket. Re Vley surely did not intend for his book to be a pilot’s sole source of instruction; perhaps he thought publishing the book would gain him a clientele of wealthy students? Early aviation manuals such as this are in demand by collectors, and so a copy of How To Fly can be hard to find.
Title page of “How to Fly”
Enough about the book! What about the intrigue and the young heiress?! In September 1917, two months after publishing his book, Captain Re Vley met 22-year-old Adele Dorothy Callaghan. On her mother’s side, Adele was part of an important Italian-American family in San Francisco. Her aunt Adelina was married to Egisto Palmieri, the first Italian-American state senator in California. Another aunt, Erminia, was married to Ettore Patrizi, publisher of L’Italia, the largest Italian-language newspaper in the western United States. And her grandmother, Annie Cuneo, was the first woman in the United States to serve on the Board of Directors of a major bank.
Re Vley also had an interesting background. Born in France but raised in England, he became a pilot and rose to the rank of Captain in the British Aviation Corps. He went to California on furlough, and was engaged in experimental aviation work for the US Government. Between his investments and his service pay he was quite well off, and had recently started an airplane manufacturing company.
Captain D. Gordon E. Re Vley, on the frontispiece of “How To Fly”
On 10 October 1917, Re Vley and Callaghan eloped, and were married in Hollister, California. After the wedding, they toured several grand houses in San Mateo, and after Adele indicated the one she liked best, Re Vley purchased it. In the meantime, they secured a flat in the Marble Crest Apartments at 845 Bush St. in San Francisco.
And then one fateful day, probably in November 1917, Re Vley went out for a walk. While he was out, Adele “thought it would be perfectly lovely,” as she later explained to a judge, “to examine her husband’s luggage and have a peek at some of the strange things that men carry about with them.”1Oakland Tribune, 3 April 1919, p9 What she found in his suitcase shocked her to the core: her husband was not French, nor even English, he was Russian. His name was not Re Vley, it was Edelman. No, he wasn’t a member of the British Aviation Corps, he wasn’t rich, he didn’t own an airplane manufacturing business, and he hadn’t bought her that mansion in San Mateo. And worst of all, in August 1917, just six weeks before they were married, her husband had been arrested for luring a sixteen-year-old girl to his apartment and assaulting her. He was free on bail and awaiting trial, even as Adele sat there. Everything he had told her was a lie.
Adele Dorothy Callaghan (1896-1989). This photo, along with the “Count to 10 Before Eloping” story, was published in newspapers across the country in April 1919.
One can only imagine the scene when “Captain” Re Vley/Edelman returned from his stroll. When the shouting was over, Adele packed her bags and walked out. Re Vley’s trial began on 30 November, and he was found guilty the following day. As reported by the San Francisco Call on 8 December, Superior Court Judge George Cabaniss sentenced Re Vley an indeterminate imprisonment of not less than one year. Adele was present at the sentencing, and was led weeping from the room.2San Francisco Call, 8 December 1917, p2 Re Vley arrived at San Quentin on the 20th, and Adele sued for annulment on January 10th, which was eventually granted on 2 April 1919. As you can see in the images below, the local papers delighted in reporting the saga. The day following the annulment, the OaklandTribune quoted Adele as saying “When a terribly handsome French aviator comes a-wooing, and telling fairy stories, count ten before eloping with him.” What a shame that Adele hadn’t read the San Francisco Examiner article on 20 September 1917—three weeks before they were married—when Re Vley (“also known as Captain Edelman”) had been outed as an impostor by the British Consul General and arrested for assault.
By January 1920, eight months later, Adele Callaghan had married Arthur Cornelius Crowley (1895-1941), and this marriage worked. Adele outlived her second husband by forty-eight years, passing away in June 1989 at the age of 93. Adele and Arthur are buried in the Palmieri family crypt at the Italian Cemetery in Colma.3https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44388766, accessed 14 Feb 2026
Re Vley’s mug shot on 20 December 1917, inmate #31199
After much searching online, I now know enough of Re Vley’s whereabouts to paint what I believe is a reasonably good portrait. He was born David Edelman in New York City on 26 July 1895, the sixth child and fifth son of Abraham Edelman and Clara Zelekoff (several variant spellings of her maiden name are recorded), Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia. The family had immigrated in 1891, and David was the only child of the six to be born in America. His father, a leather goods salesman, died when he was just a few years old. His older siblings worked in well-known New York manufacturing trades: cigar making, dress making, jewelry.
By the 1915 New York state census, David Edelman is now 19 years old, occupation “aviator.” Where did he learn to fly airplanes? The logical conclusion is in the military, and in his 1917 U.S. military registration card, he claims that he spent one year in the English Army. While to some degree this may be a falsehood (on 20 September 1917, British Consul General A. Carnegie Ross said “I have learned from British official sources that the statement that Re Vley is a member of the British Aviation Corps is not correct.”), Re Vley must have learned how to fly somewhere.
Re Vley and his alleged mistress Beth Webb. Note the use of the frontispiece photo from Re Vley’s book. (Los Angeles Times, 15 August 1923, p18)
I had previously assumed that Edelman used the name “D. Gordon E. Re Vley” as an alias for fraudulent purposes, but it seems to have been more nuanced than that. Almost the entire Edelman family—mother Clara, and children Nathan, Joseph, Olga, and David—adopted the Re Vley surname, perhaps in an attempt to avoid anti-Semitism. Only the two oldest sons, Peter and Alexander, appear to have kept the name Edelman. This name change happened in 1916 or 1917, as the military registration cards for both David and his brother Joseph list a surname “Re Vley” with notes that they were also known as Edelman. (For most of the family, in later years, the name “Re Vley” lost the space and became “Revley” or “Reveley” in many documents.)
In any case, in late August 1917, just a few weeks after David Edelman alias D. Gordon E. Re Vley filed his military registration card, and just two months after Elder published How to Fly, Re Vley was arrested for statutory rape. He was duly tried, convicted, and served one year in San Quentin before being being paroled on 20 December 1918. In 1920, he is living alone in San Francisco.
Re Vley next surfaces in March 1921, when he marries Ivy Gertrude Ferner Heath in San Francisco. In October of that year, several newspapers reported the formation of a new aircraft manufacturing company with Re Vley in charge. The Re Vleys moved to Southern California where he was also listed as a stockbroker and a “well-known promoter.” However, Re Vley’s deceptions now, once again, caught up with him.
In January 1923, the California Corporations Commissioner’s office issued warrants for Re Vley and two other officers of the new aircraft company. They were charged with defrauding investors by selling stock without a sales permit—stock which, as it turned out, had no actual company capitalization behind it.4San Francisco Call, 25 January 1922, p1 The case against Re Vley was eventually dismissed, but the aircraft company went out of business.
Then, in August 1923, Ivy Re Vley discovered that her husband had a mistress: Beth Webb, a minor film actress and sister of film director Millard Webb. Re Vley was paying for Beth’s “swell apartment and other luxuries.” Ivy filed for divorce, charging non-support, infidelity, and mental cruelty.5Los Angeles Times, 15 August 1923, p18 The annulment was granted in January 1924. “He was a liability rather than an asset,” said Ivy afterwards.
Just one month after his divorce from Ivy, Re Vley arrived at San Quentin for a second time, having been convicted of “offering money on false pretenses.” This conviction may have been connected with yet another fraudulent stock deal.6Los Angeles Evening Express, 15 December 1923, p3 Re Vley was transferred to Folsom Prison, where he spent the next 3½ years. He was paroled in October 1927, and within ten months married his third wife, Alverda McKee Giltner. This marriage lasted until his death on 19 December 1932, at the age of 37.
Updated 2026-02-17
Re Vley/Edelman called an impostor. San Francisco Examiner, 20 Sep 1917Re Vley convicted of assault. San Francisco Examiner, 2 Dec 1917Adele files for annulment. San Francisco Examiner, 11 Jan 1919Callaghan cautions young girls after her annulment. Oakland Tribune, 3 Apr 1919Preface to “How To Fly”Pages 4-5 of “How To Fly”Pages 10-11 of “How To Fly”Pages 98-99 of “How To Fly”Colophon of “How To Fly”
