Category Archives: Family Stories

My New Siegel Family

Family Stories, , , ,

One of my family lines that I love exploring is the Siegel family. My great grandmother Matilda Siegal was born in Focsani, Romania. She came to the United States as a little girl of 10 years of age in 1905. She lived with her older brother Isidore and then moved in with her sister Rebecca and her husband, Simon Frankel. Rebecca had immigrated just two years earlier from Romania. Their mother, Chaje Goldman, would later immigrate in 1911 and bring along her four other children.

A little over three years ago I sent a message to a user on FamilySearch.

Family reunion
Randi, Melanie, and Amy on a Swan Boat in the Boston Public Garden (photo credit: Amy Neill.)

A little over three years ago I sent a message to a user on FamilySearch after viewing a note on my second great aunt, Rebecca Siegel, on their Family Tree. I was thrilled when I received a reply from the user, Barbara. She is the granddaughter of Rebecca. We exchanged messages back and forth, sharing what we each had found in our genealogy research, as well as stories we knew about our family members.

Continue reading My New Siegel Family →

Remembering Alma Rhodes and a Haunting Family Tragedy

Family Stories, , , ,
Alma Rhodes, age 11 in 1934, sitting with her grandfather, William H. Rhodes, age 80.

The last of grandmother’s first cousins, Alma Rhodes of Westerly, Rhode Island, died on 4 August 2019 at the age of 96. She belonged to that increasingly rare group of individuals who lived in the house where she was born well into her nineties and worked for the same bank (albeit with multiple mergers) for 49 years.

She was a portal to the early world of my grandmother, née Lois Rhodes, and passed along family letters and stories to me, thereby giving me a perspective that never could have come from public records alone. Alma visited her grandfather, William Henry Rhodes (1854–1941), almost every day and listened to his reminiscences, preserving them for another generation.

 

Alma was a portal to the early world
of my grandmother.

Continue reading Remembering Alma Rhodes and a Haunting Family Tragedy →

A Tale of Two Parades

American History, Family Stories, , ,
Anders Norander, ca. 1902.

For many of us, Labor Day is synonymous with the last celebration of summer—a time for cookouts, sporting events, and a final day off before the school year begins and autumn arrives. The very existence of the federal holiday (established in 1894) reflects the successes of America’s labor movement at the end of the nineteenth century. Labor federations such as the National Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, were founded in the 1860s to champion the common interests of America’s workforce: better wages, a regulated work week, safe working conditions, and restrictions on child labor. These organizations, however, did not always present a united front—something that was evident in Boston at the turn of the twentieth century and a truth that became personal when researching my great-great grandfather Anders Gustavus Norander. Continue reading A Tale of Two Parades →

Richard Mitchell & Co.

American History, Family Stories, , , ,
The grave of Richard Mitchell Sr. in Nantucket’s Prospect Hill Cemetery, draped with his company’s house flag.

One of the many benefits of pursuing genealogy is the chance to meet long-lost family members. In addition to the possibility of finding old photographs, documents, and family stories through them, the acquaintance itself can be a blessing. This past month, Oregon became the final state in “the lower forty-eight” that my fifth cousin once removed visited, and I was excited to host him and his wife for a couple of days.

My husband and I first met Cousin Dick last September when he led a tower climb at Washington National Cathedral. Once the climb was over, Dick pointed out a few details in the cathedral connected to our shared family legacy on Nantucket, and I was able to give him a Richard Mitchell & Co. flag, which I’d recreated from old paintings. You see, Dick is the sixth man in a row[1] to be named Richard Mitchell, so it only seemed right that he should be able to fly the old “house flag.” In days of yore, each whaling ship flew a flag identifying the house (company) it belonged to, as well as a unique flag identifying the ship by name. Continue reading Richard Mitchell & Co. →

Down on the Farm

Family Stories, Technology, ,

Between the dawn and the daylight, while the Keurig was doing its “wackadoo wackadoo wackadoo” thing brewing my morning coffee carafe, I read an article about how climate change is affecting current agricultural practices. This was nothing new to me because I’d seen changes in some of those practices as I grew up. One aspect of researching family histories is the temptation and ability to look back and compare what was to what is. I once asked my paternal grandmother (Winifred Church, 1884–1980) how she felt about all the history she had seen in her lifetime (covered wagons and farming on the Kansas prairie to men on the moon). She just laughed and didn’t answer! But I not only live in the area where most of my family history takes place, I live in that history on the land my ancestors farmed, so I thought about the similarities and changes in our farm equipment. This was a job for the Squirrel Bins, and they quickly reminded me about all the “farm photos” I still have!

The farming methods used by my family probably hadn’t changed much between the late 18th century and the early 20th century.

The farming methods used by my family probably hadn’t changed much between the late 18th century and the early 20th century when my paternal grandfather Rex O. Church (1883–1956) ran a dairy farm and became a John Deere Agricultural Implements dealer.

Down on the Farm

Continue reading Down on the Farm →

‘I don’t do dishes’

Family Stories, , ,
I don't do dishes
The ceramicist’s mark

Well, if there is one thing you should know about me, it’s that “I don’t do dishes.” Now don’t get me wrong, I always try to help set or clear the table come suppertime, and I’m never really opposed to that age-old argument of “who will wash and who will dry.” But past this, I’ve never had much, if any, interest in dishes themselves. And while I’ve always known that my adoptive great-grandmother’s Blue Willow[1] plates were to be treasured (and to be regarded as something more than just “plates”), as a kid I never figured them to be much good at all, since you couldn’t ever touch them or use them to serve up a big piece of birthday cake. I mean seriously, what good are dishes that just gaze out at you from a glass cabinet or scowl indifferently from the dining-room wall? Continue reading ‘I don’t do dishes’ →

The Family Curmudgeon: Charles Otis Cony

Family Stories, , , , ,

cur·mudg·eon /kərˈməjən/:
noun: curmudgeon: a bad-tempered person, especially an old one

Longevity is not uncommon in my old New England family. Charles Otis Cony was born on August 7, 1836 to John and Experience Read Cony, the daughter of Revolutionary War veteran George Read. A carpenter, joiner, and farmer, when he died in 1924, he had spent his entire life in the house his grandfather had built in 1789.

The Family Curmudgeon
Charles O. Cony (now I know where I get my ears!)

That my great-great grandfather Charles Otis lived to be almost 90 is not highly unusual. It is the perspective of that long life that I find fascinating: as a youngster my father talked to a man who had lived with a Revolutionary War veteran. It shortened almost 200 years to a concept I could mentally grasp. I wanted to know more about a man who had seen so much history, so many wars, and so many advances in industrialization and technology. I had heard some stories from Dad about Charles Otis, some of which my father insisted I couldn’t publish until he was long dead. I wanted to align those stories with items I’d found in my research about Charles. Continue reading The Family Curmudgeon: Charles Otis Cony →

My little slice of Irish ancestry

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing,
The author’s children with relatives in Ireland, 2004.

Although my background is almost all German and English, I’ve always wanted to find a bit of Irish in me. This is because my husband was born in Cork City and after numerous visits I’ve fallen in love with Ireland. For years I searched in my family tree for an Irish ancestor and finally, about a year ago, I found one. My 5th great-grandparent, William Jack, was born in Ireland. It might only be a sliver but I’m at least 1/128th Irish!

It might only be a sliver but I’m at least 1/128th Irish!

Continue reading My little slice of Irish ancestry →

Between the rails

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , ,

The decennial United States Federal Census often forms the backbone of historical research into an unfamiliar family member. By its nature, the census will never be fully comprehensive or exact, but it can serve as a bit of a guard rail, keeping us from going off on an unlikely tangent in our research.  Sometimes, though, those 10-year gaps between enumerations can conceal a whole lifetime of information – or in the case of my father’s family, many lifetimes. Continue reading Between the rails →