VARANES LIBBEY(LIBBY) Pt2

The story of Varanes Libbey strikes me as being characteristic
of that era in the history of New England. Hundreds of men and
women left the family farms and the hill country to come to work
in the mills of Massachusetts. Men could earn from .88 cents to
around 3.50 a day in wages depending on their performance at the
job. Women were paid half that amount. That was still the best
wage available to a woman worker for that era. Mill workers would
work 12 hour days,6 days a week but anyone raised on a farm was
used to working all day everyday already. And the Lowell Mills
were originally intended as a sort of grand social experiment as
well as an industry so there were libraries, boardinghouses and an
expectation of proper moral behavior on the part of the workers.


Little wonder that Varanes and others like him left the farms for
work in the textile mills. Better money and in some cases better
living conditions. Eventually the noble intentions of the mill
owners were pushed aside for profits, but for a time it was a good
oppurtunity to make your way in the world.


Varanes was about 25 when he was made a Branch President of
the LDS Church in Lowell. That would seem to indicate he must
have been a serious young man with qualities that would lead to
his appointment. Yet only two months later he was replaced in the
position and apparently left the church shortly afterwards.



The next record I could find of Varanes was in the Adams &
Sampson Boston Street Directory of 1865:

“Libby Varanes porter, 28 India, house at Chelsea”


So Varanes left the mills at some time or another as well as the
Church. I have to wonder why he just didn’t go back home to the
family farm? Was it gone? Had one of his sisters married and her
husband taken over the farm in his absence? Did he actually
return home but left it once more to seek his fortune elsewhere?


Was there even in fact a farm left to go home to in the first place?


Or was it because of the suddenly controversial nature of the
Mormons as the doctrine of polygamy was introduced and the
New England church was rocked by accusations concerning the
conduct of William Smith, the brother of Joseph Smith? Certainly
that would have been a topic of gossip and speculation among
“proper” New Englanders. Was Varanes made to feel that he
could not go home again because of his former association with
the church?



Whatever the reason, by 1865 the 46 year old Varanes worked in
a building on India Street, along the Boston waterfront but lived
over in Chelsea across the Mystic River. He was still living there
at Walnut St. on the 1880 census as Connell O’Donovan’s
research discovered.

Working as a porter must have been hard work, but I like to think
that Varanes enjoyed being part of life on the Boston waterfront at
a time when it was still bustling with ships and visitors from far off
exotic places.


Quite a journey for a boy from Bethel, Maine.


This is why I’m now hopelessly addicted to genealogy. You never
know what new story you will find about one of your ancestors!

DAD

A lot of times when I think of Dad the mental picture I have of him
is of the way he looked nearly everyday, dressed in work clothes,
mostly in green but sometimes gray and wearing low cut tan work
boots with white sox. A pack of Camels would be in the shirt chest
pocket and he’d be sitting at the kitchen table, coffee mug in hand
as he looked out the window. That’s how I usually found him when
I got up for breakfast in the morning or when I came out to the
kitchen just before dinner to help set the table.



It’s appropriate that I see him in my minds eye dressed for work
because except for the last month of his life Dad was a worker.



As I’ve said before, he was born up in Bethel, Oxford County,
Maine and grew up in Upton and Wilson’s Mills. He left there to
enlist in the Army during World War 2 and ended up living the
rest of his life down here in Massachusetts. But I think he was still
a Mainer at heart. He listened more than talked in conversations,
nodding or smiling at whatever someone said, then would finally
make a comment or ask a question before going back into listener
mode. A typical taciturn Mainer.


Dad worked hard all his life at various jobs: landscaping; a stint in
the fledgling electronics industry at Atlas Engineering, and LFE:
Railway Express; and the Post Office. But for most part he worked
in the glass business installing windshields, mirrors, and windows.
He was good with his hands at building and repairing things. When
we moved into the house in Abington he extended the concrete
front steps of the house, converted the breezeway into another
room complete with sliding glass doors, and built a playroom in
the cellar that became my new bedroom after my little brother
was born and my old bedroom was turned into Phil's nursery.


He was not much for a display of emotions but he was there for us
kids to put together toys and bikes and as we grew older to help us
when our cars broke down. When Phil came along Dad almost
acted out the joke about the nervous expectant father. Mom told
him it was time and he got the suitcase in the car and was out the
driveway before he realized he that had left Mom standing on the
breezeway.



If Dad had any regrets I think one might have been washing out of
the Air Corps back during the war; he couldn’t take high altitude.
When we were living in Malden he’d sometimes bring Cheryl and I
over to the small Revere Airport to watch the planes land and take
off. Maybe he was thinking of what might have been while sitting
there in the car?



Dad and Mom were quite active in the VFW from the mid 1960’s
on and they were fixtures at the Saturday night dances at the Hall.
Dad usually wore his blue blazer or tan sport coat for those. I don’t
recall him as dancing to many fast dances when I saw him dance
but slow songs would find him out there dancing with Mom.


Life was never all that particularly easy for my folks financially.
Like a lot of folks they had ups and downs and often were working
more than one job. But they kept us fed and clothed and healthy.
They were just ordinary people raising their family as best they
could.



One day after Dad died the song “Raindrops Keep Falling on My
Head” came on the radio and Mom teared up. That's how I found
out it was one of Dad’s favorite songs and that when they played it
at the Saturday Dances Dad would actually sing it along with Mom
as they danced.



Dad? Singing?



But I’ve thought about the lyrics to the song a few times since
then and the more I thought about it I realized how that song
fit my Dad:

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me'
Cause
I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me
-words by Hal David, music by Burt Bacharach @1969

BY GEORGE!

I will have more thoughts on Varanes Libbey to post soon
but I had to acknowledge the birthday today of George Abbot(t)
of Andover Ma, whose birthday according to most of the
information I’ve seen was on June 14, 1615 or 1616.

George settled in Andover, married Hannah Chandler and
became the progenitor of many, many Abbotts and other
descendants. Among these are myself, Tim Abbott, Janice Brown
and historian Elinor Abbott.

So Happy Birthday, George! We wouldn’t be here without you!

VARANES LIBBEY(LIBBY)

I’ve described here before how I occasionally pick one name from
my family tree and do a quick Google to see if I can find anything
about them that I haven’t found before. Lately I’ve been doing
this at the Google Book website.

About a week ago I was looking for more confirmation of the
marriage of John Ellingwood (Ellinwood or Ellenwood in some of
the records) to Zerviah Abbott and my googling brought me to the
book A Genealogical Register of the Descendants of George
Abbot, of Andover: George Abbot, of Rowley, Thomas Abbot of
Andover, Arthur Abbot, of Ipswich, Robert Abbot, of Branford
Ct., and George Abbot of Norwalk, Ct.

Which, for interests of time and my aching fingers, will henceforth
be referred to in this piece as the Abbot Genealogical Register or
AGR.

On Page 71 I found “Zerviah A.” listed among the children of
Jonathan and Mehitabel Abbott(they were both Abbotts by birth
descended from George Abbott and Hannah Chandler and were
3rd cousins) and her marriage in 1789 to “John Ellenwood” of
Bethel. I looked through the list of their children and compared
it to what I already had here, adding the names of spouses and
children I hadn’t know about to my files. Among them I found
listed my ancestor John E., his marriage to Rachel Barrows and
the names of their children includes my 2x great grandfather
Asa F. Ellingwood.

(Asa would marry Florilla Dunham in 1850 and it’s through them
that I’m related to Tim Abbott and Chris Dunham.)


While adding the names of Zerviah and John’s children to my files
one of the entries caught my interest. Their oldest child Sarah is
listed in the AGR as marrying a Thomas Libbey of Newry and
having a son with the name Varanes. It certainly was one of the
more unusual names I’ve run across among the family and it
made me wonder what had become of Varanes Libbey. So I
googled his name. There wasn’t much online on Varanes but there
was a surprise.

I found Varanes on a website on the early history of the Mormon
Church in Lowell Mass. that was compiled by Martha Mayo and
Connell O’Donovan. There are brief biographies of the church
members and Varanes is under the name Varanes/Varanus/
Veranus Libbe (or Libby):


“Born about 1819 in Maine or New Hampshire to Samuel Libby
and Sarah Stevens Ellenwood of Saco, York, Maine. Married Ann
Smith in 1842 (in Lowell?) Worked as a manufacturer and "white
washer" in the Lowell mills. Baptized in Lowell by Wilford
Woodruff on October 16, 1844 (along with Mary Thornton), and
almost immediately was made Branch President. By mid-
December 1844, he was replaced as Lowell Branch President by
travelling missionary Elder Jesse W. Crosby. He probably left
the Mormon Church about that time as well. Varanus and Ann
had three daughters: Lydia, Emma, and Charlotte.

Lydia A. Libby was born September 27, 1843 in Lowell. She never
married and lived with her parents the rest of her life, becoming a
dress maker to help support her family.

Emma Priscilla Libby was born June 2, 1849 in Medford,
Middlesex, Mass. She married Hugh Martin of Nova Scotia,
Canada in November 1869, and they also lived with her parents,
Varanus and Ann Smith Libby. Emma and Hugh Martin had one
daughter, Elizabeth E. Martin, born about 1872 in Lowell.

The last of the three daughters, Charlotte W. Libby, was born
about 1854. In 1870, she is living at home in Chelsea.

By the 1880 Census, the extended Varanus Libby family (except
Ann Smith Libby who had apparently dead) was all living
together on Walnut Street in Chelsea, Suffolk, Massachusetts
along with Ann's brother Elijah R. Smith.”
http://people.ucsc.edu/~odonovan/lowell_members.html#augustus

This was naturally all new to me since I hadn’t even known of
Varanes’ existence until an hour before I read this entry. I’m fairly
sure my Dad knew nothing of it. But his grandmother Clara
Ellingwood had died while both her sons were quite young so it is
possible that they’d never heard about their cousin Varanes.

I emailed Connell O’Donovan for permission to quote from his
website and research which he graciously gave.In his reply says
that he feels Varanes’s departure from the Latter Day Saints might
have been part of the upheavals over the doctrine of polygamy.
He included information that will appear in an article he hopes to
publish next year and which I’ll not mention here until it does
appear but there will be further mention of Varanes in it.


I’ll have some more thoughts on this in the next post.

THE BEST LAID PLANS

I've done a number of posts under the general heading of
"Bedtime Genealogy" but in actuality I do most of the research
beforehand and then post it before I go off to bed. This week,
however, has been a bit frustrating as for some reason
or another I am falling asleep shortly after I get home from
work and so haven't been able to get much done.Hence, no
posts since Monday.


Okay, okay, the "some reason" is I'm just not as young as I
used to be and a busy day at the bookstore sort of gets to me
easier than it used to do.


I hope to have something up tomorrow or Sunday concerning
a relative by the name of Varanes Libby and perhaps a few
other posts as well.


And tomorrow..er..today..we will have author William
Martin who writes historical based mysteries set in New
England in at the store to sign copies of his newest book
Lost Constitution. I've spoken with him on his previous
visits and he's an erudite and interesting man. Try his
Back Bay and Harvard Yard novels if you haven't yet.

Ah well. Bedtime.

MY OLDEST BOOK

I have quite a number of books here but this one is the oldest

and best loved for a reason.

This is the book that started it all.

I must've been around 8 when my folks bought it for me because
they bought it as the Stop & Shop in Dorchester on Gallivan Blvd.
There were three books, actually. One of the others was “Hans

Brinker and the Silver Skates”. I can’t recall the third one, but

this is the only one of the three I still have some 50 years later.

Its age shows physically. The binding is loose and frayed and

there’s some red crayon on the cover. Some of the black and white

illustrations inside show where I traced them with a pencil so that

the carbon paper underneath would copy the image to the notebook

paper beneath that.

The first edition was published in 1924 but this one is the third

edition dated 1956, which would confirm the year I think it was

given to me.

From this book, I dove into mythology. The librarian at the

Codman Square Library steered me to the “Age of Chivalry”

in Bulfinch’s Mythology and I devoured the whole book. As

I got older I read any books I could find on ancient and medieval

history and I still have quite a few of them that I’ve bought over

the years within easy reach as I type this. I also have quite a few

Arthurian novels and nonfiction books on the subject. And I've

seen nearly every movie or tv show ever made about Arthur

and his knights.

It sparked a lifelong love of history and reading that led me to a
college degree in History and later in life nearly 18 years as a

bookseller. I suppose it's fair to say that it eventually thus led

me into genealogy.

I wonder how many people’s lives have been shaped by something

they read as a child?

DRAWING CONCLUSIONS ON TALENT

I missed the deadline for this round of the Carnival of Genealogy
but I thought I’d weigh in here anyway on who has the creative

gene in my family.

As you can see from the accompanying picture, I have little or no
artistic talent. I’ve been drawing those troll things for years now
mostly because they look a heck of a lot better than stick figures.
Musically, I used to play a mean “Hot Cross Buns” and “Do You
Know the Muffin Man?” on a Fluteaphone but that’s fifty years
ago, people and I’m pretty sure my technique and lip have gone
downhill from the second grade.

My parents had talent. Dad was good with building things and
helped wire a house when he was still in his teens. He built a

playroom in the cellar and an extra room out of a porch at the

house on Bicknell Hill here in Abington when we first moved in

to town. And he had a musical talent too: he could play “On the

Isle of Capri” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” on any

harmonica we kids happened to have handy.

Mom, as I said elswhere, had a good singing voice and enjoyed
a stint in a VFW Auxiliary chorus called “Harmony in Blue”. I can
recall her singing along to “Ave Maria” during Mass. I can also
remember her singing along to Rusty Warren’s “Roll Me Over in

the Clover” at parties where they played the album after we kids

were sent to bed as if we couldn't hear it being played!

Of us three kids, Phil and Cheryl inherited the musical gene. Phil
is seventeen years younger than me and twelve years younger

than Cheryl and came along during my folks’ active VFW life.

Watching all those parades got him interested in drum and bugle

corps and heplayed bass drum in several different local corps

growing up. He would have liked to make the snare line but being

one of taller kids for his age doomed him to the bass.

Cheryl is the most talented of the three of us. She can draw. She
played guitar and piano as a kid and one Christmas I bought her
a dulcimer at a local craft show. I don’t think she ever did much
with it though. She passed on the music bug to her own kids:

Paul plays drums, Michael keyboards, and I believe Sarah used to
play guitar.But not as a band! There can be only one Partridge
Family!

But perhaps Cheryl’s best display of holding the family creative
title is that she’s a middle school English teacher and in my

opinion that’s a profession that requires a LOT of creativity.

As for the next generation, Phil’s youngest Matt requested and
got an electric guitar for Christmas (albeit not a full sized one but

one suitable for a young kid) and his older brother PJ likes to

draw. So there’s a chance we might yet produce a composer or

artist in our branch of the West family.

Or at least one more that can draw a heck of a lot better than I

can!

OF JAMESTOWN AND PLYMOUTH PART 3

In the interests of fair play I present the following link
which proves that some folks in Plymouth are as guilty of
historical inaccuracies and huckstership as some folks in
Jamestown are. It's from today's Quincy Patriot-Ledger
newspaper:

"Plymouth promises to show Jamestown how to party:
America’s Hometown has big plans for celebrating its
400th birthday."

The comments from the Plymouth selectman at the end
of the article about "setting the record straight"are
particularly incredible.

I'm waiting to see if any readers point out the obvious
to him and the newspaper.

And we have thirteen more years of this nonsense to
look forwards to unless some responsible historians
step in to restore sanity.

THE STREETS WHERE THEY LIVED

Dick Eastman mentioned a new website from Tufts University,
Boston Streets and I checked it out. It has historical maps and
city directories from a number of years and I searched the
directories for my Mom’s family.

The McFarland’s didn’t arrive in Boston until sometime around
1880 so I began with a look at the Sampson and Murdock
Boston Directory of 1885. I had no success with McFarlands or
with the Whites or Offingers from Mom’s paternal grandparents
but they were born in 1873 and would still have been children in
1885.


I had a bit more luck with the 1905 edition. Great Grandfather
John McFarland and his eldest son Mike are listed:

McFarland John laborer h 950 Parker Rox

McFarland Michael E plumber bds 950 Parker Rox

I found only two Offingers listed:


Offinger Albert C upholsterer 338 Boylston bds 23 Metropolitan
av Ros

Offinger Joanna C widow h 23 Metropolitan av Ros


And I found my great grandfather White:


White Edward J teamster h 33 Ridge Ros

The 1925 edition had more. John McFarland had died the
year before and the death is noted by two entries:


McFarland Annie widow John h 950 Parker Rox

McFarland John (950 Parker Rox) died Aug 3 1924

There are entries for three of their sons:


McFarland Michael E shoe cutter h 946 Parker Rox

McFarland Robert J shoeworker h 946 Parker Rox

McFarland Thomas diamond cutter h 7 Dunlap Dor


This might be Uncle Leo who married Peggy McFarland:


McCue Leo motorman h 28 Worcester sq

One of the Offingers remained. Perhaps Albert was a brother
to Great Grandmother Pauline?

Offinger Albert mgr of work room 30 Winter h 23 Metropolitan av Ros

And finally Great Grandfather White and two of his other

sons other than my grandfather:

White Edward J electrician h 41 Philbrick Ros

White Charles W clerk 395 South sta h 31 Philbrick Ros

White Fred E checker res 41 Philbrick Ros

An interesting site that I definitely will spend more time exploring.

OF JAMESTOWN AND PLYMOUTH PART 2

Hmm. My earlier post about Jamestown and Plymouth got
this response from Michael Norton at the Jamestown Site
blog:

“While wrapping up my coverage of the Quadracentenial, I
ran across this blog post. The author doesn't seem to
appreciate that from Virginia's perspective it is a historical
spitting contest. The North, victorious in the Civil War,
stole the nation's founding myth from its rightful owners.
Virginians want it back.

Notice how the author cleverly skirts the salient fact that
Jamestown was the first English settlement by observing
(correctly) that neither Jamestown nor Plymouth was the
first European settlement. I couldn't help but notice
he didn't write his post in Spanish.

Of course his ancestor mutinied at Jamestown only to land
in Plymouth, an interesting twist to the tale. So consider
the source:…”

and then he goes on to quote my post.

At this late hour, approximately 12:47am, I’m sort of bemused
by this. I’ve never been accused of “cleverly skirting” something
before and it certainly wasn’t my intention in the original post. It
was just a quick thought I had and that I wanted to get posted
on the blog before I went off to the laundromat and forgot about
it.

I’m a bit taken aback.

But ok, then. Jamestown still isn’t the oldest English settlement
in North America. That honor would appear to belong to the
town of St. John’s in Newfoundland founded around 1528 by
English fishermen. I might have to doublecheck that, it is as I
said, late.


It would seem to me that there’s plenty of historical treasures
in beautiful Virginia such as the homes of many of the founding
Fathers as well as places associated in many Americans’ minds
with the Revolutionary and Civil War. And it’s wonderful to
celebrate Jamestown’s 400 years but this obsession with the
idea that Plymouth stole it's rightful place demeans it.


Can’t we all just get along and be proud of each area's
contributions?

JONATHAN ABBOT(T) AND THE ACADIANS

I mentioned in a post awhile back that I’d found a website with
an account of Acadian exiles who were sent to Andover, Ma. after
their expulsion from their Canadian homes. Some of them ended
up living for a time in a house owned by Jonathan Abbott, one of
my ancestors.

Twenty-six Acadian men women and children were sent to
Andover in February 1756 and the families of Germaine Landry
and his two sons-in-law Jacques Hebert and Charles Hebert were
placed in a vacant house owned by Jonathan:

“It was, however, a great annoyance to the Puritan farmer to
have these tenants,-- foreigners and Roman Catholics, quartered
near his own residence. But, as his descendants relate, the
Acadians completely conquered the prejudices of this family and
of the community and gained the good-will of all acquaintances.
They were industrious and frugal. The women worked in the
fields pulling flax and harvesting. They practised the rites of their
religion in an inoffensive manner and commended it by their
good conduct.”-HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF ANDOVER. by
Sarah Loring Bailey, 1880

Going by the dates I believe this Jonathan was the one born in
Andover 1Sept 1687 and who was married to Zerviah Holt.
According to Ms. Bailey the Acadians and the Abbotts parted on
friendly terms. The Landry and Hebert families eventually were
able to move to Quebec but apparently still had good feelings for
Jonathan Abbott for they sent him a token of their esteem in 1770:


“Two of them sent a souvenir to Mr. Abbot, which the family still
keep, a beautifully carved and polished powder-horn, made by
their own hands. It is inscribed:

"JONATHAN ABBOT
His horn made in Alenstown
April Ye 5 1770
I powder with my brother ball
Most hero-like doth conquer all."

It is embellished with figures of animals,-- a turtle, a deer, a fox,
dolphins, etc., and also with representations of armies fighting,
soldiers in uniform with muskets, sabre bayonet, (all the soldiers
with hair tied in queues hanging down behind), also artillery
men and field pieces.” (ibid)

There is an ironic twist to the tale of the powder horn. Germaine
Landry passed away two weeks after the date of the inscription on
18 Apr 1770.

In trying to research more for this post I found a website on the
history of Andover which has selections from a historical series
run by the Andover Townsman newspaper. One entry, entitled
“Deserted Farms” notes that:

“(3) Jonathan died just a month before the date on the powder
horn sent by the French Arcadias who had known the old man
and his son (4) Jonathan to be real friends”- Andover Townsman
13 Nov 1896

It’s an interesting tale but I don’t think it was all that warm
and fuzzy as the later accounts would make it. The
people of Andover had lost men in the Canadian
campaign to wounds or illness. The Acadians are
referred to in the records as “Jacky Bear”, “Charles
Bear”, and “Germaine Laundry” which could be
simple ignorance of French pronunciation or nicknames
given the refugees and since there were probably no
priests available nearby to perform Roman Catholic
Mass there were ceremonies to arouse the old anger at
Papists among the townsfolk.


Still, it’s nice to know that those distant Abbott relatives
were able to see past their differences and deal humanely
with the Acadians.


I had never heard that there had been French Canadian
prisoners in Massachusetts, let alone that one of my
distant ancestors had a more than casual acquaintance
with some. Lucie LeBlanc Consentino whose website
is where I first read about Jonathan Abbott and the
Acadians tells me that there were 2,000 deportees to
Massachusetts and others were sent to other of the
English colonies along the Atlantic coastline. Outside of
the poem “Evangeline” by Longfellow, I was taught
nothing about this episode in American history and I’m
not certain that the poem is even read by today’s kids.

My thanks to Lucie LeBlanc Consentino for letting me
make use of her research from her website and my
apologies for the delay in getting this done. By the
way, she is a distant relative of Germaine Landry and
his wife Cecile Forest as well as of Charles Hebert.
If you haven’t visited her website Acadian & French-Canadian
Ancestral Home I highly recommend that you do so.


I’m a bit rusty on writing long pieces and I hope I’ve
cited everything correctly. It’s taken me longer than
I wanted to finally write this, actually.

OF JAMESTOWN AND PLYMOUTH

While eating breakfast and then sorting my laundry I did my
occasional Google search on the words `Massachusetts’ and
'history’ and came across a newspaper article about the
recent festivities down at Jamestown with the President and
Queen Elizabeth in attendance. The article was entitled
“Take That, Plymouth!” and I was somewhat amazed at how
some of the Virginia and Jamestown authorities seem to have
some inferiority complex regarding how Plymouth gets more
attention then they do: the historians over how Plymouth’s
story is better known and the state officials over tourists who
visit Plymouth and spend their dollars there.


Yes, Jamestown is older. Yes, the Plymouth Rock story is
most likely 99% myth. But neither Jamestown nor Plymouth
is the oldest European settlement in North America. That
should be St Augustine in Florida, I believe. And there were
the Spanish missions and towns of the Southwest, and the
French colonists of Canada and the Mississippi Valley. They
are far older than the English colonies and get very little
of the attention they deserve in our history.


I am proud of my New England roots, some of which I’ve only
recently discovered. But I am also well aware of how rich
a past other regions possess. So, congratulations to Jamestown
on their anniversary, but let’s not turn it into some historical
spitting contest.


Oh, and what colonist was the only man to be accused of
mutiny in Jamestown and then later a colonist in Plymouth?
My ancestor, Stephen Hopkins!

WAITING ON THE SANDMAN

I mentioned last week that I’d discovered some information
concerning my Abbot(t) ancestors and Acadians in Andover
Massachusetts but that I wanted to obtain permission from
the person whose website I’d found it on before I used any
of their research.


I’ve since received Lucie LeBlanc Consentino’s gracious
permission to quote from her website and originally intended
to write a post on the subject but time and events have delayed
it. Sunday I went to see Blue Man Group with my sister Cheryl,
my brother Phil and his son PJ, A good time was had by all and
I didn’t get much serious thinking done afterwards.



I’d thought I would be able to work on it and have it done by
Monday and then realized I hadn’t written anything for the
Carnival of Genealogy yet, so I did that first. And tonight, I’m
too tired from work to write in such a way as to do the subject
justice. So it will have to wait until tomorrow night


My thanks to Lucie and my apologies for the delay.



Also, my congratulations to Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings and
Jasia of Creative Gene on being quoted in an article in Family
Tree Magazine about the decline of memberships in genealogical
societies. One of the perks of working in a bookstore: I read the
genealogy magazines at my lunch hour. I have a few thoughts on
it but I’ll wait on that also for an earlier hour of the night before
posting them as well as a few about the impact of the Family
Search announcements of the past few days.


But right now sleep sounds really nice.

HOW I LEARNED TO RIDE MY BIKE

There is a legend in my family. When my sister Cheryl read
my posts about our family trips up home she asked me if I
was going to post something about it.

It was shortly after we’d moved into the Capen St. triple decker
apartment in Dorchester and kids in the neighborhood noticied

that I still had one training wheel on my bike. Now confession here

: I’d seen an older kid thrown over the handlebars of his bike right
outside our house in Malden. I was in no hurry to have something
like that happen to me.

Ok, I was a chicken.

Dad was of course was working so it was Mom who ran me up and down
the street trying to get me to keep my balance while the other kids
watched and called out advice or laughed. Finally I just wouldn’t

get on the bike.

I should have known better.

A few weeks later we went uphome for vacation with the bike

strapped upright atop the car roof. How Dad did it, I don’t know.

This was pre-bikerack days. I do recall it involved a lot of rope and

open car windows. We got to Aunt Flossie’s house which was at

the end of a long downhill driveway at the bottom of which was a

garage or small barn. And the next day the lessons began.

Mom would start me off at the top of the driveway and push the

bike and down I’d go to either fall over or keep my balance until I

hit the garage door At some point they opened the door and put

something in there softer for me to hit. I’m not sure. I was busy

yelling like McCauley Culkin in “Home Alone” as I wobbled down

the hill. I just knew I’d fall and each time Mom would get me back

up and tell me to try it again.

Eventually I learned to stay on the bike. Hitting the brakes and

steering came a little later. When my kid brother Phil came along

and my sister’s kids after him, they heard about how I was taught

to ride a bike.

Mom was a tough cookie. She had to be, growing up when she did

and how she did. She had a temper you’d expect from a redhead

and she made us toe the line but she was ready to step in to defend

one of us if she felt we needed it.

She loved to sing and while untrained had a good voice. She used

to sing a duet of “God Bless America” to close the Saturday Night

Dances at the Abington VFW.

Mom liked parties and threw two Halloween Costume Parties I

vividly remember. For one she dressed up as the Underwood

Ham Red Devil and greeted guests on the front lawn, pitchfork in

hand. For another she went with her resemblance to Carol Burnett

and dressed up as The Washerwoman character.

She liked to watch the Boston sports teams, especially the Celtics

of the Larry Bird era and would often yell at the referees on the

tv. She also rooted for the Red Sox. When Pudge Fisk hit that home

run to win the game in the 1975 World Series everyone else but

had gone to bed and we woke them up with all the cheering we did.

She adored her grandchildren and I wish she’d had more time to

spend with them all..

When Dad died she was heartbroken. Luckily some friends from

the Post took her in hand and eventually she met Joe with whom

she found laughter again. I think if they hadn’t met we’d have lost

Mom sooner than we did.

Mom died of cancer in 1999 and it’s hard to believe she’s been

gone for eight years now. As with Dad’s passing there’s a lot of

things about those final days that are difficult to think about. But

there’s a lot of good things from the years before for us to remember

and laugh.

Like how Mom taught me to ride my bike.

SAM ADAMS ON THE MAYFLOWER

No, it's not an anomaly.

The Sam Adams Brewing Company has provided the Mayflower II
with a beer that is based on the sort brewed in the days of the
first Mayflower. It's part of the celebration of the 50th
anniversary of the Mayflower II's voyage.

The full aricle is here:

http://www.southofboston.com/articles/2007/05/10/headlines/life/life01.txt

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 13: ACADIANS IN ANDOVER

Bedtime genealogy is pretty much as the term sounds. I
work on the sales floor of a large bookstore five days a week
and my longer sessions on internet genealogy searching
usually take place on my days off. Other times, after I’ve
eaten dinner and dozed for an hour or two I’ll come online
for a bit before heading to bed and randomly pick out some
ancestors for a quick random googling.

Hence, “bedtime genealogy.”


A few nights back I googled “Abbott+Andover” hoping to fill
in some of the history of that line and on the very first page
of hits saw this link: “ACADIANS ANDOVER MA;ACADIAN
ANCESTRAL HOME”. Given my previous discovery of the
role of Essex county cousins in Canada after the expulsion of
the Acadians by the British, this link piqued my curiosity. It
led to a page at the Acadian and French-Canadian Ancestral
Website which is owned and created by Lucie LeBlanc
Consentino.


I want to obtain Lucie’s permission before I cite her research
here, so for now, check out her webpage.

GENEALOGY GRUMPING

I read with interest Randy Seavers’ account of Ancestry.com’s
recent dealings with Michael John Neill at rootdig.com over
his use of images from Ancestry of WW1 draft registration cards
and other records on his web site.

Seems parent company The Generations Network threatened
legal action over the material even though Ancestry was properly
credited as the source and the usage was in a free advertising for
the usefulness of an Ancestry subscription.

I’d done a post awhile back about the information I’d found on the
draft registrations of my grandfathers and granduncles and I
couldn’t recall if I’d posted an image, so I checked. I hadn’t; I’d
only posted what information I found.

I’m not sure what to make of all this. I have one of Ancestry’s free
memberships which basically is just to keep my family tree posted
there but I’m not a fan of hardball corporate tactics. I’m thinking
of finding another home for that and then changing any reference
to Ancestry in this blog to “A Subscription Genealogy Service That
Shall Remain Nameless”.


Hey, it’s late and I’m grumpy!

GENEALOGY DIGGING

Sundays are days when I get to spend a bit more
time on the genealogy hunt.

I’ve been backtracking a bit and adding names of siblings
of my direct ancestors to family sheets. Up until now I’d
had much of the information on paper but not in the
computer but there are also some lines where I had none
entered at all, such as the Ellingwood and Abbott siblings.
I’m hoping that by filling in those blanks it might help in
the search for the parents of my brick wall, John Cutter
West.


One of the things I’ve discovered is how many men in
my family have worked as blacksmiths or wheelwrights.
For example, John Cutter West listed his occupation on
the 1850 Oxford County Maine Federal Census as being
a blacksmith. His wife Arvilla Ames was a granddaughter
of John Ames, also a blacksmith. Could John and Arvilla
have met through that occupational connection?


On another subject I found some information which shows
the other side of events mentioned in my recent posts about
Essex County settlers in Canada and it involves one of my
Abbot(t) ancestors. I’ll be posting more on that later.


Back to the family sheets.

SCHOOL DAZE

I’ve been trying to come up with a post for this month’s Carnival
of Genealogy and realized that there are stretches of my school
life I’ve very few memories left to review. It may be because
I switched schools four or five times over the years.




For instance, I can recall some of my days at the ABC Nursery
School: the big yard, a cocker spaniel who belonged to the school
owner, and the little girl who I had a crush on and whose name I
gave my sister. Of course the memories are helped along by a
class picture I will post here at some point.



Elementary school was split between three school as I spent the
first two grades at Linden Elementary School in Malden, then
grades 3 to 6 at the Frank V. Thompson and grades 7 and 8 at
St. Matthew’s Parochial School, both in the Dorchester section
of Boston.



I can’t recall who was my first grade teacher…but ah…second
grade! Miss Murphy, my first and only teacher crush. That was
where I learned to play the flute-a-phone and was part of a big
Christmas Chorus where they lit a tree. Those sort of events
are long gone now at public schools.



When we moved to Dorchester I ended up in Miss May’s 3rd
grade class. It was there I got my first rattan on the hand and I
realized school in the city was a whole lot different from the
suburbs. It was also the first time I had to go from the style of
handwriting I’d been taught in one school to the one my new
school was using. 4th and 5th grade seem to be unmemorable but
the 6th grade…well, the fights between the male teacher and one
of the students that were a near daily occurrence I recall clearly,
as I do the two unfortunate brothers whose Swiss immigrant
parents sent them to school in leiderhosen one memorable Show
and Tell Day.



The 7th and 8th grades I spent at St Matthew’s under the eagle-
eyed watch of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Sister Mary Roque felt
a tug on the ear was a great stimulant to solving math problems at
the chalkboard, but Sister Mary Steven was a sweet elderly nun
who was patient.



I spent the 9th grade at Cathedral High School in the South End
of Boston, a building so close to the elevated railroad tracks that
from our classroom window it looked like the trains were headed
right at us when they came round a bend on the tracks. Another
change of writing styles (no wonder my writing is horrid) and a
disastrous encounter with the new math taught in the Archdiocese
schools which totally confused me. The Left Distributive Principle
of Multiplication over Addition, for example


And finally my last three years of high school I spent at Abington
High School where while I wasn’t a whiz I did have teachers whose
names and faces I still recall in good memories: Mrs. Trask, Mr.
Smith, and Mr. Divoll.


I googled my old schools just now. The Linden School still is there,
but the Frank V. Thompson is closed and being developed as
apartments while the nuns left St. Matthew’s years ago and the
school was closed last June and the students sent to the nearby
school at St. Gregory’s parish at the Lower Mills.


I wish I knew why certain years seem to have vanished into a haze.


Maybe I will dig out the old report cards Mom saved and see if
they jog any more memories.

A GRAVE MATTER

I got an email from Chris Dunham (with whom I share
Dunham ancestry) about a news story concerning an
interesting discovery up in Maine. The clipping is from a
weekly named the Advertiser Democrat which I believe
is a paper from Norway, Maine but the farm in question
is in North Paris, which is in Oxford County.

Chris tells me Dunham Road is likely not named after our
Dunham line but for another family in the area with the same
name. The name and death date of Sally Dunham plus the
name of the husband, James, matches up with my ancestress
Sally Houghton who was married to James Dunham. She’s
buried in West Paris and there’s a headstone on her grave
there.

So, why another gravestone? James and Sally’s family moved
about a bit after her death and it’s not improbable that her
grave was moved as well and the stone left behind.

As to why it ended up under the barn I suppose the next owners
of the farm found it and in an example of true Yankee frugality
perhaps might have decided it might come in handy one day!