"Cal Stewart, Your Uncle Josh: America's King of Rural Comedy"

About Cal Stewart

 

This blog is devoted to sharing information about Cal Stewart, an American recording icon of the early 1900s. He created the popular Uncle Josh Weathersby character; Josh's town, Punkin Center; and the many colorful characters who inhabited the fictional New England town from Way Down East. Stewart's recordings were among the best-selling of the period, and through his satire and stories showed life in a fast-changing world. The actor, singer, songwriter, and author performed across the nation with his Cal Stewart & Co. group, consisting of his wife, Hazel "Rossini" Waugh, and her younger brother and sister, James and Marjorie Waugh. For millions, Cal Stewart was the king of rural comedy. Stewart's career and life are celebrated in Cal Stewart, Your Uncle Josh: America's King of Rural Comedy. The second edition of Randy McNutt's 1981 book is now back in print, and may be purchased from Amazon.com, www.iUniverse.com, and other Web sites for $20.95. It features 254 pages, 42 rare photos and illustrations, and four back-matter sections, including "The Punkin Center Cyclopedium" and "The Punkin Center Anthology." The book also includes a Stewart timeline, a discography, a bibliography, and an index. 

Uncle Josh News!

Cal Stewart and Rossini Waugh 

Married in St. Joseph, Michigan, 

in 1914

By Randy McNutt

My friend Debbie Lueders, a Cincinnati genealogist and researcher, has solved the mystery of Cal Stewart’s marriage to Rossini Waugh. Debbie bought my book Cal Stewart, Your Uncle Josh, and became intrigued by the performers who traveled with the Cal Stewart company. She wondered where Cal and Rossini were married. So did I. 

            “I was kind of entranced by the storyline,” she told me. “He [Cal] reminds me of an old-fashioned Garrison Keillor, master storyteller . . . I found Cal and Rossini’s marriage certificate and they were married up in Michigan in 1914! As you said in one chapter, with them traveling the way they did they could have gotten married in any state. And on that certificate he states that it was his second marriage. I also found a copy of the New York census from 1910 that you mentioned . . . [and] thought it might have been Cal and his first wife, Florence. Plus [I found] a few other records on the family. Cal and Rossini were a little hard to find, though—probably because of traveling so much.”

            Debbie pointed out to me an interesting point: Cal and Rossini were married in a town named St. Joseph, in Berrien County, Michigan, on July 7, 1914. “The St. Joseph’s connection is there,” she noted. It has the same name as St. Joseph’s, a Catholic school in Rossini’s hometown, Tipton, Indiana. The school employed her and her sister Marjorie in the years following Cal’s death in 1919. The women had an intimate connection to the school, which once awarded an elocution medal in Cal’s honor.

            The most fascinating part of the marriage license is Cal’s age, which he listed, in his handwriting, as 47. Actually, he was much older—57. He listed his home as New York, and his occupation as comedian. Rossini—born Hazel Waugh—listed her age as 25, which was correct, and her occupation as actress. Apparently she had been playing the fiddle and performing as an actress in Cal’s Punkin Center shows across the country.

            The marriage was performed by John W. Fletcher, a justice of the peace. Two local people, Ada Lukens adn George Laskworthy, served as witnesses. The affidavit for license to marry was obtained on June 13, 1914. Perhaps Stewart and his group were going to be in town for a while, or perhaps they returned for the July 7 marriage ceremony.

            The certificate doesn’t give any hint as to how they met, but we do know now that their marriage came a little later than was previously believed. They had only about five years together before Cal died while on the road in Chicago. His ashes are buried in Tipton’s Fairview Cemetery. The couple lived in Tipton for a few years before his death.

Marjorie Waugh, left, and sister Hazel

"Rossini" Waugh Stewart, c. 1915.

Cal Stewart records with 

Ada Jones, in New York, 1919.

Cal Stewart's "Uncle Josh at the White House," a 

phonograph disc from the early 1900s.

Randy McNutt is the author of Cal Stewart, Your Uncle Josh: America's King of Rural Comedy, and nineteen other books on Americana, music, politics, and history.