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 A Bronx tale→
I have sometimes mentioned how much stuff I inherited from my mother and her family. Mother left it all to me with the cheerful instructions that I was to figure out what to do with it.
For years, decades, I have intended to catalog and arrange, describe, and account for everything, but enthusiasm for sitting down and making lists and logs was always lacking. Recently I have been watching YouTube videos about drawing and painting, and it struck me that visual learning is definitely more fun. Continue reading Aunt Alicia’s videos→
It may surprise you to read (or not, if you’re family) that I have squirrels in my closets. They nest in bins, and hide under papers, books, or textiles when I want to find one, or shout for attention when I don’t. But I like living indoors without wildlife, so these are not the red or gray, bushy-tailed squirrels, but the genealogical kind described by Meaghan E.H. Siekman in her essay “Chasing a Squirrel.” Continue reading ‘Where was the music?’→
[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236In 1880, Regina Shober Gray[1] became a grandmother (in January) and a widow (in February). The Gray family was probably already considering the sale of their Beacon Hill house – they would later move to Mount Vernon Place – as time wrought its changes on the family’s composition.
1 Beacon Hill Place, Boston, Friday, 20 August 1880: Morris [Gray][2] left us last Wednesday in the 6 p.m. train (Aug 18th) to go round the world! He was to stop a few hours at Niagara; a few, at Chicago; and then take the train across the Continent, getting out at Lathrop [California], to visit the Yo Semite[3] &c, which requires three days, and he expected to reach San-Francisco in time to sail in the Oceanic, Sept. 1st, for Yokohama, Japan; thence by China, visiting Pekin, and getting a sight of the great wall and the seaports; thence to Singapore, Batavia, Calcutta, across Hindoostan to Bombay, visiting en route Benares, Agra, Delhi, Lucknow &c; thence by the Red Sea to Suez & the Nile. Continue reading ‘As if my home were shattered indeed’→
Many family history researchers are hard-pressed to find personal information, photographs, memorabilia, or heirlooms to treasure and preserve. I am not one of them, and yet I seem to have a remarkable supply of “memories of things unknown,” the scraps of someone’s attempt to memorialize a moment or a personality in a manner obvious to the author but obscure to later generations. I have stacks of unmarked photos of unnamed family members, locations, cattle, horses, barn cats, and especially Dalmatian dogs.
My great-grandfather Ambrose Church’s autograph book from his school days at the Oak Grove Seminary in Vassalboro, Maine – a girls’ school founded by the Society of Friends, but open as co-ed to local children – is a case in point. Continue reading Memories of things unknown→
[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236With the end of the summer in sight, I thought I would finish up this review of the Gray diary between 1860 and 1880 with several August entries from the latter year. Dr. Gray[1] had died in February 1880, and his widow was visiting her Gray in-laws before retreating to New Hampshire for a stay at a hotel.
East Milton, Massachusetts, Sunday, 8 August 1880: I left Beverly on Monday last, and came out here the same afternoon – Sallie [Gray][2] having sent me word the barouche would call for me after leaving Isa Loring[3] at the Eastern Depot, on her way to Beverly Farms. I was very glad to drive out comfortably, instead of hurrying to the [train] cars. The place is very lovely in its quiet secluded way; the house is surrounded by fine woods, oaks, elms, beeches, maples, and evergreens, the aromatic piny odors of wh. last are very delightful. Continue reading ‘Is that kind of imitation high art?’→
My great-great-great-grandfather, Elijah Dickinson, enlisted in Union Army in 1862. He was joined by both of his brothers, Atwood and James, as well as their sister’s husband, Nelson Cohaskey. The four of them served in Vermont’s 6th Infantry. Elijah died of disease during the war and is buried in Washington, D.C. Nelson also died while serving and is buried in Annapolis, Maryland. Atwood survived the war, moved from Vermont to Iowa, and is buried there.Continue reading Honoring a Civil War veteran→
While researching the provenance of a family portrait, I recently revisited the research problem posed by my ancestress Martha (____) (Naden) Mortier, an Englishwoman who came to New York before the American Revolution with her second husband, Abraham Mortier, and her daughters Elizabeth[1] and Ann Naden. As I’ve mentioned before, occasional Google searches on intractable research questions can sometimes yield surprising results, now that so many original documents have been digitized and made available online.
In this case, I went to Ancestry.com to see what I might find. Previous searches on John Naden, the father of Elizabeth and Ann, had never yielded information on his wife, Martha, although her second marriage to Abraham Mortier, in 1754, has long been known. Continue reading A marriage in the Savoy Chapel→
A few weeks ago, I went to one of the regular postcard shows that I frequent in the summer and came across a postcard that fills in a missing image in my family history. My entire postcard collection consists of images from Windsor Locks, Connecticut, where my Italian ancestors settled and lived for multiple generations. I have many of the mass-produced ones as well as some real photo postcards that show the flooding of the Connecticut River in 1936 and others showing houses that no longer stand. Continue reading Real photos→
