Category Archives: American History

Wild honey

American History, Family Stories, , , ,
Burlington County Hospital for the Insane, Pemberton Township, Community of New Lisbon, New Jersey. Courtesy of westjerseyhistory.org

His name, Asa Schooley, seemed to jump out at me. It was a name I hadn’t been searching for, but there he was in black and white newsprint, clinging to his little spot on the back page of time.[1] The details of how I got to Asa in the first place probably aren’t all that important, but suffice it to say I’d started out looking for someone else’s obituary – that of another Mr. Schooley.[2] But like the rest of us I’d found myself stumbling upon a “rabbit hole,” this particular one belonging to Asa. (I’m a bit embarrassed to tell you that I never did find the obit. I had been looking for.) Asa’s sad life, lacerated with circumstance, caught me off guard, prompting me to look further for facts and answers – a search with still much left to uncover. Continue reading Wild honey →

Finding my Connecticut roots

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , ,
Eleazer Merrill Wells. Courtesy of Findagrave.com

I recently passed my first anniversary here at NEHGS, a year during which I spent a lot of time reflecting on my own ancestry as I researched the forebears of people with deep colonial roots in the United States. My mother emigrated from Ireland in the ‘80s and my father’s ancestors are almost entirely nineteenth-century immigrants. The Gaggiolis and Mordinis from Italy, the Beires and Umdenstocks from Germany, and the Sages from England all made their way to the Midwest, and by the beginning of the twentieth century they had coalesced in Libertyville, Illinois, where my grandparents, Richard Gaggioli and Anita Sage, married. These immigrant ancestors shaped my life: the food I eat, the religion I practice, the countries where I travel. The colonists were people I only studied in school; they weren’t my ancestors. Continue reading Finding my Connecticut roots →

‘Shivered into atoms’

American History, Family Stories, NEHGS Collections, ,

Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
The aftermath of the Civil War continued to affect Regina Shober Gray[1] and her family, sometimes in surprising ways. The question in October 1865 was how to provide for the diarist’s mother-in-law’s Southern family, represented by her sister Eliza and sister-in-law Matilda Clay. Amid the worries about Lizzie Shober’s health and a neighbor’s accident, Mrs. Gray found solace in the “little stranger” expected by her friend Emily Curtis.

61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Sunday, 15 October 1865: Aunt Eliza Clay[2] has accepted an invitation from Cousin Ann Wallace to spend the winter with them in Newark. Mrs. Clay[3] and her children will pass it in Savannah – Joe [Clay][4] will be married this fall and join his housekeeping to his mother, but what under the sun he has to be married on, is a puzzle. Their negroes are gone – the plantation they will probably recover, but the house and outbuildings are burned to the ground. Continue reading ‘Shivered into atoms’ →

Effectively stateless

American History, Genealogical Writing, , ,
Records of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

Josef Izsack’s case in the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) collection only spans one year, but it highlights an interesting tale spanning a longer period than twelve months. Deported after entering Boston as a stowaway in 1946, Izsack came to the United States again the following year, working as an engineer on  the Norwegian liner S.S. Fernglen. He was denied the ability to come ashore, though, owing to that previous attempt at entering the United States. An old shrapnel wound became infected and Josef Izsack was forced to spend several months at a marine hospital on Ellis Island. Continue reading Effectively stateless →

ICYMI: A Bronx tale

American History, Family Stories, ICYMI, ,

[Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 30 August 2016.]

Boys playing stick ball. Photo courtesy of formerdays.com

My maternal grandparents were born in 1932: they were just nine years old at the beginning of World War II. They grew up blocks from each other in the Bronx: Nana in The Alley, and Papa on the other side of the tracks (literally; train tracks separated their neighborhoods) on Elton Avenue. When I come to visit, they often talk about their childhood – and I always listen. And while I am a wonderful and attentive listener, I am terrible at recording our conversations. My most recent visit, however, I was determined to conduct a proper interview. Continue reading ICYMI: A Bronx tale →

‘A most affecting scene’

American History, NEHGS Collections,

Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
An episode from early in the Civil War had a sequel in October 1865, and Regina Shober Gray[1] wrote about it as she reviewed other news from her family in Philadelphia. The earlier entry, dated 13 January 1862, read:

“Our papers too give an acct. of the arrest of the Rev.d. Mr. Wilmer[2] (formerly I suppose of St. Mark’s church Philad., and obliged to resign there, on acct. of his secession sentiments). [He] was arrested in an attempt to pass into the rebel lines, with quantities of supplies and despatches – some interlining his clothes, some in his cravat &c &c.”

In a later entry, Mrs. Gray reflects on the changed circumstances of Southern life at the end of the war.

61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Friday, 6 October 1865: Discouraging letters from Philad. Lizzie is more sick, though not with the symptoms she had here – but it does seem as if one blow after another had come on her this summer – and she so utterly unused to sickness! It makes me feel very anxious about her. Continue reading ‘A most affecting scene’ →

Hill country back roads

American History, Family Stories, ,
Hugo Cemetery

My grandmother, Marvalee, was born and raised on a South Texas dairy farm. Spending my summers with her growing up, she told me family stories of the hardships her family and ancestors endured while farming in the dry and hot Texas hill country.

In one tragic story, my great-great-grandparents, Thomas and Wilhelmina (Sachtleben) Black, faced the loss of two children consecutively. First, they lost 10-year-old Freddie to a rattlesnake bite in 1914 and, then, 14-year-old James to a ruptured appendix the following year. Thomas Black blamed himself for the death of his two sons and carried the guilt with him for the rest of his life. Continue reading Hill country back roads →

‘All of our set’

American History, NEHGS Collections,

Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
Even on holiday the diarist Regina Shober Gray[1] could not escape anxieties about the health of family members – indeed, her sister Lizzie was beginning a fatal decline, and would die later in the year.

Marion, Massachusetts, Thursday, 24 August 1865: A clear cold autumn day, which makes us bundle up in shawls enough for an Arab Sheik! I came back from Boston, in the rain storm of Tuesday – and did not bring Ella G[ray].[2] Her cough is troublesome again and her mother[3] is afraid of the dampness here – which has certainly been very chill and penetrating for the last two weeks; a very different air from the soft, balmy, almost oppressive warmth of the earlier part of our visit.

Lizzie Shober[4] is better – but I think she and Mary [Shober][5] will be glad to get away from here. They are engaged this morning making a cross and triangle of white flower and evergreens for the funeral of a young sea-captain, who died a few weeks since of dysentery in some West Indian port – he leaves a young wife not 20 years old and a babe. Continue reading ‘All of our set’ →

Tea with Granny

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, ,
The Rev. Thomas Cary by John Singleton Copley. He is wearing a blue silk banyan, an “at home” garment popular with eighteenth-century gentlemen. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Well, I have not yet finished the blue banyan that I promised my husband back in February, but the death and funeral of former First Lady Barbara Bush have caused me to lay aside that work to write about some important deaths recorded in the diary of the Rev. Thomas Cary – my (half) first cousin six times removed. In my previous post, I finished with Thomas traveling home to Charlestown, Massachusetts, just in time for his seventeenth birthday on 7 October 1762, but a celebration was not the purpose of his trip.

In fact, the only thing written on that date was “Thanksgiving Day.” The reason for his trip was that his mother was gravely ill; the date following his birthday he recorded these few words: “My mother died.” Five days later (which was an exceedingly long delay for the period), he wrote simply, “My mother was buried.” Continue reading Tea with Granny →

Inheriting Mayflower lines

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Mayflower 2020,
Front, left to right: Mary (Kleeb) Morse, wife of Albert; her daughter, Emily, known as “Sunshine”; Emory Morse, my grandfather; Myrta (Pierce) Morse, Emory’s mother, wife of Millard. Standing: Albert Burgess Morse; his sister, Edith (Morse) Nickerson; her husband, Levi Curtis “Curt” Nickerson, Millard Emory Morse; and Kenneth Wesley Nickerson, age 10, son of Edith and Curt.

My grandfather and his cousin Emily (Morse) (Rees) Wetherbee (1906–1964), lovingly known as “Sunshine,” remained close throughout her life. Their fondness for one another is already evident in this family photo, taken in July 1909.

“Sunshine,” given the name Emily for her paternal grandmother, Emily Clapp (Waters) Morse (1855–1896), became the conduit through which remembered ties to Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony passed to me. Continue reading Inheriting Mayflower lines →