Posts Tagged ‘family’
remembering place – Grade One
On a ‘mind map’ of my life, what places are clearly marked as important, with bright yellow stickpins of internal memory?
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home (map from Google Earth)
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Since I spent most of my younger days in school, it isn’t very surprising that many of those stickpins mark the schools I attended. One of these is Vincent Massey Elementary School in Medicine Hat, Alberta.
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Vincent Massey Elementary School in 2012 – looks just the same as in the early 1960s (image from Street View)
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In the early 1960s there were three elementary schools within a reasonable distance of our house. The story of how I came to attend Vincent Massey was probably one of the first dramatic events in my life to that date.
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The school I was assigned to attend was determined by the School Board. The summer just before I was to attend school for the first time, a delegate of the School Board came around the neighborhood to let the parents know which school their children would attend. Mom and Dad were not at home when the representative came to call. My Mom got the information second-hand, from the mother of my best friend, just across the street.
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from home to school in Grade One (map from Google Earth)
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Mom and Dad were quite alarmed to discover I was to go to Vincent Massey Elementary School, seven blocks away. This may not seem far today – my son attended Grade One in a community 13 kilometers away. But in those days, there was no school bus and my Mom had my eighteen-month-old brother to care for. I would have to get to school on my own two feet.
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My brother and I in 1960 – I had been in Grade One for three months when the picture was taken – I look like I could easily make those seven blocks to school!
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I remember the discussions well – about the best route for me to take, about what we would do about dinner time, about the dangers of taking to strangers. We did a couple of dry runs. I can still remember my Mom showing me how to cross the busy four-lane Division Avenue. Up to this point, I had not been allowed to go beyond our own block by myself.
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Division Avenue in 2012 (image from Street View) – I remember standing on the curb looking at the traffic whizzing back and forth … no crosswalk!!!!
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The first day at school, the drama expanded. Mom had told me to be very careful to listen for my first name – Alexandra. I was usually called by my second name – Jane – so this was a major worry for me. On that first morning, all the students were assembled in the gymn. We sat on the floor and our names were called, one by one. I listened for that long, strange first name as each name was called. And, at the very end, I was all alone in the gymn … no one had called the name Alexandra.
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The teachers were very nice, of course. I was told not to worry, and Mrs. MacDonald, a teacher of one of the Grade One classes, came to get me.
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As it turned out, the neighbor had given my Mom the wrong information. Today, knowing urban planning as I do, I think ‘Division Avenue’ might have provided the first clue!!!!
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I had a great year. I walked to school with friends. We stuck to the planned route for a while, but ended up taking shortcuts through various yards. By the end of the year, I was taking the city bus, dropping my quarter into the slot like a pro. I stayed with Mrs. MacDonald for my first year of school and emerged from the grade convinced that rabbit was spelled ‘raddit’ (no fault of the teacher’s).
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Mrs. McDonald’s Grade One class (I am first left in bottom row; Mrs. McDonald is at upper left)
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The next year, properly directed by the School Board, I was sent to Crescent Heights Elementary School, two blocks away, and another stickpin on my ‘mind map’ …
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
Where they came from …
With a little more research, I have some more information on where some of my ancestors came from before they arrived in the United States and Canada.
- John Winslow (b. 1597) Droitwich, Worcestershire, England (Fortune 1620, probably 1821)
- Mary Chilton (b. 1607) St. Peter, Sandwich, Kent, England (Mayflower 1620)
- Patrick McMullen (b. 1704) Scotland
- Peter LeValley (b. 1675) France
- William Spavold (b. 1810) England (Trafalgar 1817)
- Eliza Greenfield (b. 1790) England (Trafalgar 1817)
- Stephen Hopkins (b. 1581) Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England (Mayflower 1620)
- Elizabeth Fisher (b. unknown) England (Mayflower 1620)
- Francis Cook (b. 1583) Gides Hall, Essex, England (Mayflower 1620)
- Hester Mahieu (b. 1585) Canterbury, Kent, England (Anne 1623)
- William Latham (b. 1608) Chorley, Lancashire, England (Mayflower 1620)
- Conrad Hawk (Sr.) (b. 1744) Germany
- Conrad Kresge (b. 1730) Amberg-Sulzbach, Bayern, Germany
- Johan Ulrick Kohl (b. 1702) Pallatine, Germany
- Solmey Cooll (b. 1702) Germany
- Johann Nicholas Borger (b. 1720) Wertheim, Main-Tauber-Kreis, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (1753)
- Ottila Shafer (b. 1725) Nassig, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
- Michael Fisher (b. 1720) Germany
- Maria Elizabeth Storm (b 1725) Germany
- John Clark (b. 1793) Straiton, Ayrshire, Scotland
- Jane Cooper (b. 1799) Greenock, Scotland
- Margaret Miller (b. 1798) Hoddam, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
- William Aitcheson (b. 1794) Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland (1832)
- — Wayborne (b. 1836) Rockbeare, Devon, England
- John Johnson (b. 1780) England
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I plotted these on a map of the world. Each red line represents the voyage of one or more of my ancestors across the Atlantic from the place of their birth in England, Scotland, Germany or France.
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
remembering place: a gift on a spring day
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When I was a teenager, my family lived in Lower Sackville in Nova Scotia. I went to Junior High and Senior High there and began my university days.
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I have many great memories of living in our house … of spending time with friends and family. I remember painting the kitchen cupboards with my Dad, painting a huge seascape on the living room wall, decorating the Christmas tree with the ‘help’ of our dog Snoopy, and doing homework and learning to sew while watching Audie Murphy movies. One of my earliest ‘projects’ was raising wild violets from seed along the back fence. I can remember spending hours on the phone with my friend Donna, pulling the long telephone cord down the basement stairs so I could sit and giggle in privacy.
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On that same phone, my sister and I practiced for days how we would be the tenth caller to win tickets to see Elvis Presley in Halifax. When the moment came, we counted the time just as we had carefully calculated. Then I dialed in, at the precise moment. They answered! And, in my excitement, I HUNG UP. My sister was so put out at me. And we will never know if we were the lucky tenth caller! We never did see Elvis in person.
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As an exercise for a writing class I am taking, I wrote a little about attending my best friend’s wedding after graduation in 1972. I walked to the church which was just at the bottom of our street. As I wrote the story, I thought how I would like to see that street, to better remember the walk I took. So, I went to Street View (Google Earth). I began at the top of the hill and virtually ‘walked ‘ along the street where I had lived. At the first of the walk, I saw our house in July of 2012, when the Street View image was taken. I was amazed to see how the trees we planted had grown … the house is hard to see !
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the house where we used to live, the trees all grown
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A few more ‘steps’ and Street View switched to an image taken in May of 2009. I turned back to ‘see’ the house. And this is what I saw …
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Forsythia in bloom in front of the house where I used to live
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My Mom loved the big Forsythia that grew in our front yard. She always said it reminded her of my grandmother (her mother). And there it was, in full bloom and grown huge over the 40 years since we lived there. What a lovely gift on a spring day!
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
searching the newspapers #2
Using the search features available, I have been looking in the Wyoming newspapers of the 1800s for any item about my great-grandfather. It is slow work, partly because I don’t want to miss anything, partly because I am easily distracted by various interesting adds and articles.
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You may recall that I already know of an item about my great-grandfather in the July 26, 1886 edition of the Laramie ‘Daily Boomerang’ (page 4). On July 25, 1886, he fell from his horse and broke his collar bone, only a day after he and my great-grandmother Ella were married.
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If only to show that I am being careful about my search, I have now found a corroborating article in the ‘Cheyenne Daily Sun’ for July 28, 1886 (page 3).
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I will never know if Frank was riding his own horse, or if he had to hire one from a place like Emery’s Livery Stable (in the add just to the right of the article).
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When we visited Laramie in 2002, I misread the article slightly and talked non-stop about how my great-grandfather had ridden his horse into the hills. Do you see any mention of hills in either article? Nevertheless, I was anxious to drive up into the hills east of Laramie, to see the landscape he might have seen. The road cuts there showed a orange-pink bedrock and I brought a small chunk back with me to remember Frank’s unfortunate ride. Looks a little ghostly under the scanner …
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
searching the newspaper archives
Still on the trail of my great-grandfather, I have turned for a short time to the wonderful source of the newspaper archive. This may not uncover any new leads about my relative, but it is a fascinating way to search.
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I know from my Aunt’s earlier search for information, my great-grandfather (Frank Norman) and great-grandmother (Ella Hawk) were married in Laramie, Wyoming on July 24, 1886. I have written before about my great-grandmother Ella and her father, Josiah Hawk, who was a shoemaker in Pennsylvania (https://nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/occupation-shoemaker/). In 2002, we drove out to Laramie as part of a vacation adventure, and saw where Frank and Ella were married. It was amazing to know I was standing where they did so long ago!
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My present search for Frank has taken me to the pages of the ‘Daily Boomerang’, a newspaper in Laramie. This was a four page daily paper, reporting local and national events and providing advertising for Laramie in the 1880’s and 1890’s and beyond. It included lots of local tid-bits in the ‘Personal Paragraphs’, ‘Personal Points’ and ‘About Town’ sections. The ‘Laramie Boomerang’ continues today.
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In 2002, when I visited Laramie, I spent part of the day looking at the fragile paper archives of the ‘Daily Boomerang’. Although my time was short, I was able to find out a little about the Minister who married Frank and Ella.
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Now, a little more than a decade later, I am able to access, online, every page of the paper. This is thanks to the Wyoming Newspaper Project. The project has converted over 800,000 pages of Wyoming newspapers into searchable digital format. Today, all I have to do is type the searchword ‘Norman’ to find if Frank or Ella are mentioned in the pages of any of over one hundred Wyoming newspapers ! To search these papers, have a look at http://www.wyonewspapers.org .
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I know this effort may turn up some results since I already know of one article, found by my Aunt, about my great-grandfather. On July 26, 1886, only two days after their wedding in Laramie, Frank receives a short mention in the ‘Daily Boomerang’.
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Just a little below the center of the page above, under ‘About Town’, it says:
Frank Norman, while out riding yesterday, was thrown from his horse and had his collar bone broken.
I know from later records that Frank made his living as a ‘hod carrier’, part of a bricklaying team. The ‘hod carrier’ is the worker who carries bricks on a hod – a v-shaped wooden carrier with a handle, carried over the shoulder. A collar bone injury would have been a hard turn of events for someone whose work involved carrying heavy loads. It must have been a tradgedy for the couple newly married.
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I have a little work ahead of me since I want to look at all possible entries in the newspaper about Frank or Ella from the time of their marriage to about 1892 when Frank and Ella were living in Denver, Colorado. There may be nothing more to find, and the search is made complicated because a common breed of horse for sale in Wyoming at the time – the ‘Norman’ !
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I will keep you up to date on my search for information about my great-grandfather. Have you ever used newspapers to search for information about a member of your family?
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
snags in the search for my ancestors
I have spent a lot of the weekend searching the genealogy records for information on the whereabouts of my great-grandfather before 1887 when he married my great-grandmother. It seems he had a common name and a simple search turns up a bewildering array of possibilities. Also, some of the facts do not seem to aid in the search. For example, I know he was born in Bethany, Missouri, but the only person in the census record with his name is about 10 years too young.
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To find my great-grandfather, I have looked at endless family trees, searched through long lists of possible relatives on http://www.Ancestry.com and looked at every person who lived in southern Wyoming and vicinity in 1880! I have come to know, quite well, at least three families associated with a person of the same name and age as my great-grandfather only to discover a fact that makes a connection with my family impossible.
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My post for today is only to appeal to you to think of your future family when you keep the records of your own life. Someday, my descendants will look for me (I hope they will be interested) and they will be frustrated by three mistakes I have made in record-keeping:
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1. they will be disappointed to learn I have not been very consistent about my name. First, in my work, I used my maiden name as well as my married name. Second, I have always been called by my second given name but government documents refer to me by my first name. Only last week, I was almost turned away for an appointment at the hospital because I forgot they might list me by my first name.
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2. they will be dismayed to see that, although I have nice, legible handwriting, I have not always been careful about filling out forms. In fact, I know I have been very sloppy on several occasions.
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3. they will cry when they find all the photos I have taken over the years. I have only identified people and dates in a small percentage of our home photos. When I look over our photos, I try to add information, but often I only scribble the first names of the people in the photos and I frequently have to guess at the date a photo was taken.
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When I look at my own assemblage of family information, I encounter these problems quite often. For example, who were the young women whose photos I have in my family history collection? My Mom thought perhaps they were friends of her grandmother at nursing school in Boston. I treasure their photos, but I will never know who they were.
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And I may never find, with any certainty, the whereabouts of my great-grandfather in 1860, 1870 and 1880.
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
family history – the Johnson brothers
If you have followed my blog for a while, you may be wondering what has happened to my virtual biking along the northern coast of New Brunswick.
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Well, this is what happened. As I cycled one day, I took a side road. It was a narrow road I had not travelled in quite a few years. And as I cycled, I felt drawn further and further into the past. I began to explore this past, lured by wiggling leaves that popped up as I biked along. Yes, you have guessed it … I found myself at http://www.Ancestry.ca , building a forest of family trees.
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I discovered I could learn about my family quite quickly… thirty minutes of biking gives me time to explore an ancestor or two … I can travel back in time to the 1880 USA Census to search the byways of Wyoming or the country roads of Pennsylvania … I can discover great-grandparents I have known for some time, or great-great grandparents I have never encountered before.
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So, for a little while, my exercise program will not be about discovering new places, but about discovering new family members. I promise to return to the present and my virtual geographic travels eventually.
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The first people I have met on my new travels are the Johnson brothers, my great-granduncles. They are the sons of my great-great-grandfather James Johnson. My Mom was very interested in this part of our family and worked to leave us a little of their history. I have photos of most of them, including a family grouping in a sepia tin-type. The original tin-type is small, about 2″ by 3″. Tin-types are photos imprinted on a metal surface. Most tin-types are on iron, coated with black paint or lacquer. This type of photo was popular from the 1860s through to the 1910s.
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some of the Johnson brothers in an old tin-type photo
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The brothers were John (born 1849 ), Daniel (born 1851), James (1854), Alexander (1857), and Isaac (1866). They had two sisters Kate (born 1847) and Mary Jane (my grandmother, born 1859). There is some question about which of the brothers are in the photo, but my Mom had it figured out based on the boys’ ages, and photos of them at an older age.
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Only a few details survive for the brothers. I know birth and death dates, as well as the names of wives and children. John, James and Alexander were farmers. John and James were adventurers and visited the west. Daniel and Isaac were doctors.
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So much information is lost, but for now, I am enjoying small discoveries about their lives.
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
the unknown thousands – family history
Today, I will divert a little from my usual topics and mutter about genealogy. Along with my other projects, I try to keep learning about my family. Fortunately, I have a lots of materials to look at: family letters, post cards, diaries, well-researched family trees and so on.
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I am always surprised at how much is lost. Some of this is due to the loss of records, some is due to the overwhelming numbers of people involved in the family history of just one person. When I first became interested in family history, I thought about how many lives have contributed to make ‘me’. The numbers of ‘grandparents’ add up quickly as I go back in time.
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| Generation | Numbers of parents/‘grandparents’ |
| 1 (me) | |
| 2 (my parents) | 2 |
| 3 (my grandparents) | 4 |
| 4 (my great-grandparents) | 8 |
| 5 (great-great-grandparents) | 16 |
| 6 | 32 |
| 7 | 64 |
| 8 | 128 |
| 9 | 256 |
| 10 | 512 |
| 11 | 1024 |
| 12 | 2048 |
| 13 | 4096 |
| 14 | 8192 |
| 15 | 16384 |
| 16 | 32768 |
| 17 | 65536 |
| 18 | 131072 … and so on … |
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So, to make any one of us, it took thousands of people. I knew this before, but knowing I have 131 thousand ‘grand-parents’ in 18 generations is unsettling.
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I began by just trying to know the names of those 16 great-grandparents in the 5th generation. I have them almost figured out. Those with an * beside their name have a published family tree. Those with a ? are uncertain.
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Charles Clark (*) (farmer)
Margaret Aitcheson
James Johnson (farmer)
Mary MacIntosh
Lewis Norramon (?) (farmer)
Mary ……. (?)
Josiah Hawk (*) (shoemaker) https://nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/occupation-shoemaker/ )
Sara Kresge (*)
William Spavold (carpenter) (shipwrecked off Briar Island) (https://nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/briar-island-rock-2-the-shipwreck/ )
Phelena Warner
Robert Manzer
Eleanor Evan
George Cook
Eliza Jane Smith
George Sabean (*)
Jane Mullen
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About some, like William Spavold, I know quite a lot (thanks to the efforts of my Dad). I am also gradually assembling a history of my great-grandmother Ella Hawk (daughter of Josiah and Sara) (thanks to the efforts of my aunt). The sad thing is, all I will ever know about most of these people is a name. In spite of this, I owe them my existence.
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my drawing of William Spavold, his mother and brother after their shipwreck
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
small scale economy – picking berries
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small-scale economy
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my box of berries spilled
on the footpath,
between leaves
of Kalmia and wintergreen
hawkweed and cow pies
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the cousins, their boxes brimming,
stood gawking, dismayed,
I was certain they were thinking
dumb city girl, spilled her berries
box only half full anyway
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instead, they gathered around me
sympathy in every hand
scooped most of the berries
into the box
added a few from nearby bushes
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seventeen cents he paid me
half the value of a box at full
the cousins had picked a crate or more,
remembered the wasted berries, left on the trail
and wept at the loss
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Published as: ‘small scale economy’, Canadian Stories 16 (94), December 2013/ January 2014
Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
getting ready for Christmas #4 – vintage postcards
For a few years, I have hung examples from my collection of postcards on a string above the fireplace. I have postcards for all the major holidays – New Years, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween and, of course, Christmas.
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This year, when I hung my Christmas postcards, I could only find six. I need more, I decided, and went on eBay to find just three more.
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By the time I finished my bidding and winning, I had 14 postcards to add to my collection.
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After I had hung some of the postcards over my fireplace, I discovered 7 other postcards from a collection that belonged to my grandmother. So now I have 27 vintage Christmas postcards. The eBay extravaganza was not necessary at all, but, oh, it was fun!
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three of my new postcards – notice, I now have two of a set of ‘robin’ postcards – will I go out to find three more I know are in the set????
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Vintage postcards, mailed in 1922 (left) and 1926 (right)
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
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