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Newspaper Navigator Profile – Zelda Sears

Zelda Sears

Zelda Sears, (January 21, 1873 – February 19, 1935). She was born as Zelda Paldi near Brockway Township, St. Clair County, Michigan, into a multi-lingual family that spoke French, Italian and English. Her father, Justin Lewis Paldi, was a first-generation Italian immigrant engineer and horse breeder, and her mother Roxa Tyler was of English heritage.

Washington Times 15 Apr 1909 p. 11

Miss Zelda Sears, Gained Her First Insight Into Theatrical Matters in Newspaper Work. Zelda Sears, who is now the society “busybody” in “The Truant,” at the Belasco with Miss Mary Mannering, was a newspaper woman before she went on the stage. Her insight into things theatrical was gained during many years of experience as dramatic critic on Chicago papers. Miss Sears is still an enthusiast on the subject of newspaper work, but she likes still more the profession which she is now following.

Los Angeles Herald, January 17, 1909, Page 4

Zelda Sears (1873-1935) was an American actress, screenwriter, novelist and businesswoman. By age 12, she was working as a salesgirl. Sears was eventually hired to contribute pieces to the Port Huron newspaper by the managing editor. Leaving Port Huron at the age of 17, she journeyed to Chicago. Sears became fascinated with Sarah Bernhardt who was performing in Chicago. She observed the famous actress and was able to obtain an interview on one occasion. Later she joined the acting troupe of John Stapleton. Her first meaningful part came by way of Harry Parker, who was general manager for William A. Brady. Sears’ stage career was further boosted by her acting in a production of “Lovers Lane”. Other plays in which she appeared were “Women and Wine”, “The Blue Mouse”, “Keeping Up Appearances”, “The Nest Egg”, “The Scarlet Woman”, and “Undertow”. She came to Hollywood to be a scenarist for Cecil B. DeMille and MGM in the early 1930s, and went on to have roles as screenwriter and actress in multiple films. – (from historyforsale.com)

From the Library of Congress, Newspaper Navigator Dataset: Extracted Visual Content from Chronicling America

Beyond Words

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Elijah Clark Sears – Newspaper Navigator Profile

The Library of Congress launched a new version of the Newspaper Navigator on September 15, 2020. The Newspaper Navigator is a next-generation Cognitive Search indexer containing over 1.5 million newspaper photos with associated captions. Images are recognized, objects detected, captioned, and searched by visual similarity.

Inspired by Beyond Words, a crowdsourced way of detecting and captioning images in historical newspapers, Benjamin Lee and his team trained models on over 16 million supervised images and OCR-corrected text.

Ray Sears has curated a few images and text from the collection, including Elijah Clark Sears.

Elijah Clark Sears

Elijah Clark Sears, Dakota Farmers Leader, Canton, SD
21 Jun 1907 p. 1

Mr. Sears was born at East Hampton, Connecticut, 23 Jun 1805, [son of Willard Sears and Betsy Clark] and will be 102 years old next Sunday, June 23.

He comes from Revolutionary stock- his father and his two uncles served with the Connecticut troops under Washington and Putnam.

He was seven years old when the war of 1812 began and his eldest brother served as a volunteer in that second war with England. His first vote was cast for the Federalist candidate in 1828 when General Jackson was elected as a democrat. Then he joined the Whigs and became a republican when the party was organized in 1855.

Of the many important events in his long life, none gives him so much satisfaction, even unto this day, as the saving of three little girls from drowning in Lake Pocotopaug near East Hampton, when he was a boy of 19. The little girls were sliding on the ice which broke and they went under the water.

Young Sears saw the accident and ran to their rescue. He jumped into the water and after a sever struggle succeeded in getting the little ones out safely.

He saw the first steamboat that slowly plowed the placid waters of the Connecticut river under the name “Oliver Ellsworth.” It was shortly after Robert Fulton’s experiment on the Hudson. He describes the boat as being very slow and had canvas wings, as they termed them, on the sides which acted as motive power, but without much power. The invention was a failure of course.

He was a great tifer in his younger days and always turned out with the militia, but his days of martial glory are over. He is living in the quiet enjoyment of a grand and glorious old age, cheered by loving relatives and friends, with excellent appetite and all the comforts the old patriarch could wish for, under the loving care of his daughter, Mrs. Shields, and his grand daughter, Mrs. Mary Smith.

Last Monday morning Mr. Sears was out in the garden hoeing his new potatoes which he has raised from original seed. He is quite proud of this experiment and he is assured of success. As state before, his father was a soldier under General Washington, and he is therefore one of the genuine sons of the revolution, and so far as the writer knows, the only son living. He was recently elected an honorary member of the order of the Connecticut sons of the Revolution.

The Leader extends congratulations to the grand old man in advance of his one hundred and second birthday which he will celebrate next Sunday at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Shields.

Dakota farmers’ leader, June 26, 1908
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn00065127/1908-06-26/ed-1/

https://news-navigator.labs.loc.gov/search?select_state=All&select_start_year=1900&select_end_year=1963&search=elijah+clark+sears&start_time=1600394597298

From the Library of Congress, Newspaper Navigator Dataset: Extracted Visual Content from Chronicling America

Beyond Words

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