The Grunt Work That I Must Do

 

 Uncle Peg’s Chronicles

May 14, 2026

“The Grunt Work That I Must Do”

 

“These were their settlements. And they kept good family records.”^[1]

Don’t forget to look for the title which is embedded in the chronicle.

 

 

 

I moved the family album to the next page for this chronicle only. I am puttering away at Westmorland in the “Colossal Collection of Cousins.” WORD offers a few templates to choose from, or of course, I could design my own. The date will likely change – no way I will complete this in 2026.

 

And I Quote:

 

Hi Peg,

 

These newsletters are awesome. So much research and detail, and communicated in a fun-to-read way. Truly excellent. Thank you for putting them together and sharing them. – Gretchen Wentzell Lowerison

 

A fascinating email, Peggy!  I was a young boy and heard stories of grandpa living in Santa Rosa . . . My interests then leaned more toward riding bikes outside and dressing up as a cowboy with side guns.  I remember very little of him as a young boy although I am aware that he did live with us for a while in an apartment behind our home.  My first vivid memory of him was on our first trip to Oahu.  Grandma Eva [Jerome’s second wife] and grandpa Holmes purchased a home in Kailua on Awakea Street.  He loved orchids and the backyard was full of blooming orchids as he led mom and dad to see what he was growing. It was there in Kailua that he pastored a congregational church.   – Glenn Holmes

 

I so much appreciate your feedback. Thanks, Gretchen and Glenn.

  

FAMILY ALBUM

 

 

 

1926 to 1928

 

1924 to 1928 are the years that our Holmes ancestors spent renewing relationships that had somehow fallen by the wayside but with organization, letter writing, and challenging travel – by hook or by crook – they managed to come together again. They reacquainted and rediscovered their family ties. And then, one by one, they died, and many of those ties died with them.

2026 to 2028

                A week ago, I received a gift from Paula Holmes – three books. She sent them from Florida via a mutual friend.                                                                                                                                                                                                                Some of you may not know where Paula fits into our family, although many have either met her  in person or virtually. She is one of our wonderful in-laws and I am proud to call her friend. We met in person in 2014, and after our reunion, she stayed with me for a few days. She is also an amazing genealogist and editor, and everything I have published has benefited from her red pen.                                                             She fits into the William Holmes line by marriage to Richard R-W Holmes (1939 – 2002); son of Richard Weatherbee Holmes (1907 – 1966) and Dorothy Lynk; Walter Wendell Holmes (1876 – 1943) and Mary Weatherbee; and William N Holmes (1846 – 1931) and Anna C Heath; and Daniel and Charlotte Holmes. I give you that genealogy because one of the books has a gift inscription: “To Walter & Mary From Mother.” Mother is Anna Columbia Heath Holmes, wife of William.                                                                             I already own one of the books: “Ernest Holmes: His Life and Times,” by his brother Fenwicke L Holmes. The genealogy is not accurate, as Fen W Holmes made sure I was aware of. The stories are a wonderful addition to bringing the nine brothers to life.                                                                                                  “The Inner Light: an Informal Portrait of a Philosopher” is a collection of “parables;” actually, case studies of individuals who have benefited from Ernest Holmes’ contributions to their lives.                                          “Mind Remakes Your World” was edited by Ernest Holmes and Maude Allison Lathem. This is the one with the gift inscription. I have not delved into it yet, but under the title on the title page, it says, “How to think yourself into better health, greater happiness, and more success as proved by thirty-six leading exponents of New Thought, throughout the United States and Canada.”                                                   If you don’t know of Ernest, you can google Dr. Ernest Holmes and find lots of information about his life and his “Institute of Religious Science.” I have only scratched the surface, as I have little understanding of his teachings but more in where he fits into our family. Suffice it to say, he had much influence on society in his time and place, and still has followers, and several people in his family line and other lines.                                                                                                                                                                                         As a family historian, I will place these books on my shelf, along with other books that some of our ancestors and some of you have written. I do intend to read or skim them. Thank you so much, Paula.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                On the next page is the top shelf of my bookshelf, jam packed with my reference books.

News from Holmes

Congratulations to John and Makala (Brignone) Russo on the arrival of their daughter, Sofia Noemi, on April 3^rd. She is a baby sister for Ezra and Giovanni, and a granddaughter for Joseph and Cindy (Ballantyne) Brignone. Sofia is in the Louisa (Holmes) Ballantyne.                                                                                 Her middle name, Noemi has been passed down from her great-grandmother, Elsa Noemi Quiroga Loayza Ballantyne, who passed away in 2025. Her mother also has the middle name Noemi.                        Thanks to grandmother Cynthia for sharing this wonderful news.

Elizabeth Thorunn Steeves Obituary

 

LINCOLN - Elizabeth Thorunn Steeves passed away at Eastern Maine Medical Center on April 15, 2026. She was born in Reyjkavik, Iceland on July 31, 1942, to LT. Col Jerome Steeves and Bjorg Kristjana Elfar, who met and married there during WWII. Liz was raised and went to school here in Lincoln after her mother’s early death, graduating from Mattanawcook Academy in 1960.

She went on to graduate from Fisher Junior College in 1962, where she received an A.S. degree in Secretarial Sciences. Several years later she attended Lesley College, working on finishing her Bachelor’s degree.

She worked in academia and medicine for many years at Harvard University, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, M.I.T. and back at Harvard again. Off and on during these years she also studied Buddhism and practiced long and short meditation retreats at Insight Meditation Centers. She was active in the Arlington St. Church, singing in the choir for many years. She was also active in the Lincoln Historical Society and the Alumni Association. She also helped plant the Little Red School Grounds Garden.

She was predeceased by her parents and great aunt and uncle, Ina and Johnny Corro, who brought her up at their home on East Broadway. She is survived by her sister, Anna Steeves and Anna’s daughter Asja Steeves and her daughter Ella of San Francisco; and also by her half-siblings Mike and Bonnie Steeves of Richmond, VA and Martha and Rob Zavorski of CT and their families. Also surviving are numerous cousins and other relatives from here and away, including cousins from her mother’s family in Iceland.

A graveside service will be conducted at the Lincoln Cemetery on June 1, 2026 at 11 am.

Memorial Gifts can be sent to Lincoln Historical Society, 29 West Broadway and Penobscot Valley Humane Society, Lincoln, Maine.

 

https://www.bowersfuneral.com/obituaries/Elizabeth-Thorunn-Steeves?obId=48324758

 

FAMILY HISTORY LESSON

 

For the past few weeks, I have randomly picked out various people in our family of Daniel Holmes descendants. You saw some of my results in the last chronicle. I used my 2014 book, “A Homestead on the Old Post Road,” as the basis for CCC – Westmorland section. You might recognize some of it, but it’s also changed quite a bit.                                                                                                                                 I am adding, removing, correcting, and changing some information.                                                       I have fixed up the baptisms. All of the children except William were baptized in Sussex Parish. Portage Vale was part of the parish. If William was baptized, I have not found a record, nor did Karl, when he looked through the old books. I mentioned, in my book, that they went to the church in Portage Vale to have the Sussex rector baptize their children. However, according to Cliff Marks, Rev. H N Anold, who baptized most of them, held services at a “preaching station.” “Rev. Thomas McGhee oversaw the building of St. Paul’s Church. The Church and Cemetery were consecrated in a service at Portage Corner on 29 June, 1861. The small cemetery with a few stones can still be seen at the Corner.” His source was from the Provincial Archives.                                                                                                                                                  As Fenwick, the youngest son, was baptized by Rev. Thomas McGhee in 1857, he was not baptized in St. Paul’s Anglican Church. I unknowingly committed an anachronism. Now, I know what an anachronism is and I try to avoid making them. A preaching station would be a building or a home in a particular location, and the travelling clergyman would make the rounds to various communities. Depending on how many locations he had to visit, and how close they were, the residents probably didn’t have a clergyman every week.                                                                            I now have access to the Anglican records for Sussex parish at the genealogical society, and I cited them properly.                                                                                                                                                I am looking at other footnotes and citation wannabees. Lots of colour in my manuscript, as I read along and change the black print to red until I correct it, and I wonder to myself, where did that information come from? One thing I wondered about was something from Karl: the value of the farm in the 1861 census. That is not mentioned in the 1861 list of people, and I realized that there must have been an agricultural census taken at that time, but do you think I can find it on-line? Uh-uh. I finally found out that it was written in his communication with Cecil T Holmes of the Peter line. I read: “Daniel was now involved in farming 200 acres with a cash value of 3200 dollars.” I would like to see section 3, the agricultural section of the Canadian census of 1861, to insert a citation.                                                                                                                                                                I had the wrong date of death for Charlotte Hoyt’s mother, Frances (Ketchum) Hoyt. I had her buried before she died. Oops. New paragraph: “Charlotte lost her mother, Frances Hoyt, in May, 1861. Frances was seventy-seven. I do not know where James and Frances are buried. It could be the Anglican Cemetery in the triangle, or it could be in the Pioneer Cemetery, several kilometers down the road. Rev. Thomas McGhee stated that she was buried in Portage, Sussex parish, on May 24, 1861.” It’s on page 67 in your book, if you wish to pencil in a correction.

New citation as provided by NBGS: New Brunswick Genealogical Society, Anglican Registers Project, Register MC223-S15-6C1a, Page 0025 (URL: https://arp.nbgstwo.ca/records/displayRecord/MC223-S15-6C1a-0025_burial_0050,  Retrieved on May 7, 2026.

                I found the date, location, and cause of death of Carrie Steeves. How pleased Liz would be! We did know, since I printed the book in 2014, where they rest. Carrie died in 1936, in Bath, Maine, five days after she fell and fractured her left hip. Her son, Frank, lived in Bath in 1936. (Source: City Directory of Bath, Maine, for 1936.) She must have been visiting  or staying with Frank at the time. Alf and Carrie are buried in the Cedar Grove Cemetery in Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts; their burial dates are Alf on 7 April 1918, and Carrie on 29 July, 1936. (Find a Grave Memorial numbers are 214993768 for Carrie and 214993736 for Alf. I found the information about Carrie’s cause of death at Find a Grave.) You can pencil in the information about Alfred on page 134 in your book; about Carrie, on page 135, if you wish.

These are just a few examples of what I am up to, and it’s not an exciting part of genealogy to tell you about – more the grunt work that I must do. In the photo – baby fiddleheads beside and old pot.

 

 

This ends week twenty of our centennial virtual celebration of 1926 – 2026.

 

A Cotton Tablecloth

 

Uncle Peg’s Chronicles

April 30, 2026

“A Cotton Tablecloth”

 

“These were their settlements. And they kept good family records.”^[1]

Don’t forget to look for the title which is embedded in the chronicle.

 There are several photos and records. It would take me forever to find them again. Please request an email if you wish to see them. 

 

 

FAMILY ALBUM

 

And I Quote:

 

Thanks so much for the pictures of the Underhills. We had many happy times with Aunt Phyllis, the Nolte’s, and Lora. ~ Phyllis 

Maggie Kate sends her love (she just snuggled up beside me on the couch and saw your name).  Hugs from me, too. Ami

. . . My daughter Jennifer and I just returned from a trip to the Okanagan.  I wanted to visit my mom, Dorothy Holmes, and Dad ‘s graves in Oliver.  I . . . thought I should go now as have not been back since 1974 when I buried my mom.  Her Dad, George Holmes, and Mom, Julia MacNaughton and the Teakles are all in the same cemetery . . . Cathy Higgins.

 

1926 to 1928 

1924 to 1928 are the years that our Holmes ancestors spent renewing relationships that had somehow fallen by the wayside but with organization, letter writing, and challenging travel – by hook or by crook – they managed to come together again. They reacquainted and rediscovered their family ties. And then, one by one, they died, and many of those ties died with them.

2026 to 2028

Jeanni has waited patiently for me to write about someone she knows, so I took these two weeks to look at William Nelson Holmes and Anna Columbia Heath and their nine sons. I found a few items – sorry, nothing new on Charles Holstead Holmes. FamilySearch’s Full Text Search is a work in progress, and if you are a researcher, it is something you should go back to from time to time. I found, among other things, a funeral record. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. I was pleased to find the informant’s name and address on the document. Jeanni’s husband, Stoney, knew Liz of the Steeves line, and I believe they had a visit after the 2016 reunion. Am I correct? So, this should be a fun chronicle for Jeanni. I hope so.

As I looked for new records, I found one of special interest to me. I just wish I could follow through on it, and see what happened to Kimmy. If he went back to Japan, I don’t think I will find anything new. I thought I remembered Fen writing about him, and how they lost track of him. I went through my old emails, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. (P.S. Nope.) As I looked through my old emails, I found some to treasure. Words from people who are now gone from us. Our history. Our stories. How many times have I wished for another chance to ask them questions.

Big thanks and hugs to Matriarch Janet for sharing her thoughts and memories of her grandmother, Ella Holmes Underhill, via Julia. This will really dress up the Ella section! I hope to do that others of you with the “Colossal Collection of Cousins.” You can help.

Around this table we always tell the same old stories. Cousin Sue. (Paraphrased.)

AROUND ELLA’S TABLE

Janet Nolte, granddaughter of Ella, shared memories of Ella with her daughter, Julia, in April, 2026, and Julia passed them on to me. She gave me permission to edit, so using mostly their words, I put the story into a timeline order and added a few commas.

 

The Minella family, Mac, Lil, Bobby, Sis, and Janet, left Boston when Janet was five. The visits all kind of blur together.  Janet recalls that Ella lived in two different houses, one up the hill and one lower.   The first house she visited Ella in was on Upland Terrace.  She is trying to recall the street of the second house which was down the hill. [Ranelegh]. The Minellas lived on Falkland Terrace. [There is a third, in between Upland and Ranelegh – Brooksdale.]                                                                                                Bedrooms and bath were on the second floor. Nancy shared her room with Janet when she visited in the summers.  Lora and Prudie shared a room. Donny had a tiny little room. Harold, Nancy's dad, had the big beautiful room with the turret facing the street and was next to the bathroom. Ella's bedroom was next to that and Lil stayed with her mom when they visited.                                                                   Also, there was a young couple who boarded at Ella's in the 3rd floor apartment.  They entered the same front door, but off the second-floor landing were additional stairs. The first- floor stairs were opposite the front door in the entry hall.

She was an excellent cook!  Janet has no memory of specific dishes, just that everything tasted great.  She did recall roast beef and chicken, French toast, and no hamburgers.

The dining table was always set with a cotton tablecloth and cotton napkins. Everyone had their own "spot" to eat, so if you came in to eat and no one else was eating then, you still sat in your spot.  Lora worked late and often ate at the table alone in the evenings, so Janet would often go in and sit to keep her company. Food was always set on the table in bowls and you were only to take as much as you could eat . . . if not, you had to sit there until you finished what was on your plate.  Food was not to be wasted - "the poor starving Armenians!"                 

The house had a butler's pantry which is where the toaster was located. Toast was something that you could make and eat whenever you were hungry. You would make your toast and then take it to your spot in the dining room.  Janet often had butter with cinnamon sugar or bananas on her toast.                         Janet recalls seeing her grandmother walking back from the grocery store with two bags of groceries, one on each arm. She also recalls that a baker would come to the house once or twice a week and that Ella would give her order or pick out bread or rolls or sweet breads, etc., from his basket.                         Ella was very sweet and had a beautiful smile. Janet has no recollection of ever seeing her grandmother angry. She was a very loving grandmother! She remembers reading books to her grandmother when she visited, since Ella couldn't see well and reading was difficult. Ella loved to go for a ride in a car; she rolled to the side as the car made turns and always enjoyed getting an ice cream cone before they headed back home.                                                                                                                                                   She had a weight problem, which contributed to her diabetes. At some point someone built or had brought in a porta-potty (chemical toilet) for Ella to use on the first floor so that she had to only go up the stairs at night. 

Janet and her mother, Lil, went to visit family in Canada in the summer.  Apparently, Lil was always a bit anxious when traveling into Canada . . . she was concerned that they might not let her leave. Lil was a worrywart, but Janet didn't realize this about her mother until she was much older.

Janet remembers that Ella died young (in her 60's). Her daughter, Lil, was with her when she died, sitting in her chair in the kitchen. 

 

My question: was there only one bathroom? Yikes.

Julia: if I’ve made any faux pas in my editing, let me know.

 

That’s the story. Here’s one of the records: the 1940 US Census. It explains why there were so many occupying the bedrooms.

 

 

46 Brooksdale Road, Brighton, Massachusetts.

Gordon, Althea, Arline, and Guy Griffin. The occupants of the third-floor apartment.

                Ella Underhill: age 58, a widow, born Canada, no occupation.

                Ruth Underhill (Ella’s daughter).

                Lillian (Ella’s daughter), Robert, Lillian and Janet Minella.

Lora (Ella’s daughter) and Prudence Thornton.

Harold, Adele (Ella’s daughter), Nancy and Donald Watson.

 

46 Brooksdale Road; Google Maps, 2022. The house number is above the front door. At a real estate site, I was able to view some of the updated rooms. I now understand about the toilet – what a beautiful but long stair case! In researching Ella’s years in Massachusetts, I found several locations in and around Brighton. In the 1910 census, she lived at 21 Montfern; in 1920, at 33 Newton; in 1930, at 31 Upland; In 1940, 46 Brooksdale; in 1950, 11 Ranelegh. Upland is about seven miles from Brooksdale: Brooksdale is right around the corner from Ranelegh. Ella was on Ranelegh when she died in 1950.

  

CORRECTION ON THE IDENTIFICATION

OF THE PEOPLE IN THE LAST HEADER PHOTO

  

Thank you to Julia, Cindy, Karl, and Jean for helping me to correct and verify my identification of the people in the header photo of the last newsletter. I apologize to the descendants of Ella. Cindy agrees with me that the person on the left is Cecil and the fourth person is Floyd, but it could be the opposite.

 

Cecil, (son of Charles and Phoebe) (we think), Minnie (wife of Floyd), Nancy (daughter of Floyd and Minnie), Floyd, (son of Charles and Phoebe) (we think), Lora Thornton (daughter of Carl and Ella), Phyllis (wife of Jim Holmes, who is the son of Floyd and Minnie), Lil aka Sis (daughter of Lil and Mac Minella), Margaret (wife of Cecil), and Lil (wife of Mac and daughter of Carl and Ella Underhill). 

News from Holmes

It is with sadness that I share the news that Elizabeth Thorrun Steeves, aka Liz, passed away on Wednesday, April 15, in Lincoln, Maine. I do not have her obituary. Liz was interested in both local (Lincoln, Maine) and family history. She was particularly helpful when I was writing my book, especially with the Steeves family of New Brunswick and Massachusetts, and with some of the Louisa Holmes Ballantyne family and the William N Holmes family, who lived in Maine for some or all of their lives. She was very active with the Lincoln Historical Society.                                                                                                                              In the absence of an obituary, I give you an article that Liz wrote for “The Icelandic Review” in February, 2003. Her parents were Jerome Irving Steeves and Bjorg Kristjana Elfar. Jerome was in the Caroline M Steeves line. She leaves to mourn her sister Anna, and half-siblings Martha Zavoski and Michael Steeves, from Jerome’s second marriage, and many close cousins. I also included an introduction of herself to us, her Holmes family.                                                                                                                                                Although Liz regretted that she could not attend the 2016 reunion, she would not leave the side of her special friend, Harley Sproul, who she nursed for several years during his illness until just before his death in 2022.                                                                                                                                                                                              Mum and I met Liz personally in her “cute little home” in Lincoln, Maine.

My Icelandic Story

                “I was born in Reykjavik in the summer of 1942. By the middle of 1941, World War II was raging in Europe and mobilization was intensifying in the USA. My American Dad had graduated from college and enlisted in the US Army Air Corps. He was taught to fly and, as the story goes, he and his squadron were put on an aircraft carrier that steamed to the North Atlantic. Somewhere in those waters they were ordered to take off and fly north, to “follow the stars” until they came to Iceland. Both excited and scared, they did so and brought their fighter planes down in the “Land of the Midnight Sun.” This was July of 1941, and my 23-year-old father settled in at the Keflavik base with his flying buddies. Not long after, he met my Icelandic Mom.                                                                                                                                                                                             My mother was a vivacious 21-year-old, brought up in Reykjavik, the eldest daughter of a family of musicians. She was a pretty, talented young woman who spoke several languages . . . and “a great cook,” my Dad reported, when he finally got the courage to write home about her. Since fraternizing with the Icelanders was frowned upon by both the US military and Icelandic authorities, socializing was not an easy enterprise. But the Icelanders and the Americans managed to get together, and by the latter months of 1941 my father and mother were living together (whenever possible) at her home in Reykjavik. At some point, it was apparent the birth of a child was imminent, and I came along in July of 1942. Soon after, however, my Dad received orders to return Stateside. It was only at this point that he dared defy US military restrictions against marrying. He “went into battle” to get permission to marry and bring his new family back home. A marriage ceremony was performed, though probably not with the endorsement of the US Army, and my father returned to America in October 1942.                                                                           My mother was determined to rejoin her husband. In March, 1943, she booked the two of us on a merchant steamer for the sea voyage to New York. It was said to have been an arduous crossing, taking many weeks. The ship was forced to take a circuitous route in order to avoid icebergs and prowling enemy submarines in the North Atlantic. There were other young brides and babies on board the ship, which ran out of supplies during the crossing. The babies were said to have been fed Coca-Cola as a substitute for milk – a part of the story I could never quite fathom . . . though, I suspect, breastfeeding may not have been the custom then, and conceivably Coke could have been seen as a solution to the problem of hungry, howling infants!                                                                                                                                                                                 Mother and I were met in New York harbour by an Icelandic woman, a resident of New York City, who had taken on the task of meeting every ship from Iceland in those years. When arrivals were uncertain and husbands unable to stay in New York, this woman put up the Icelandic brides in her home and acted as a contact person until the husbands arrived. My mother was always grateful for this fellow Icelander’s assistance and remained in contact with her for years after.                                                                                Sadly, my parents’ time together was short. They lived the busy, nomadic life of a military family for the remainder of the War, moving from assignment to assignment, to bases in Florida, Texas and Delaware. Soon, signs of the illness that would take my mother became evident. There were years of treatment, surgery, and finally she was hospitalized in a TB sanitorium in Colorado. My father was assigned to a nearby Air Force base. My younger sister (born in 1944) and I went to live with our paternal grandparents in central Maine. After my mother’s death, my father escaped into his military career and eventually a second marriage. He never found it easy to talk about Iceland, or about our mother and their life together. Later on, in the years before his death, he was able to reminisce a bit. He expressed a desire to return to Iceland one more time, but in the end, he never did.                                                                                          My sister and I were brought up on the family stories of our young parents in Iceland and the dramatic North Atlantic crossing. The terror and the excitement of the World War II years never ceased to fascinate us, and as with much of my parents’ story, in the telling and retelling, myth and reality probably became forever entwined.                                                                                                                                                  As a young girl growing up in a small quiet New England town, I clung to my identity as an Icelander. I told my “born in Iceland story” to just about anyone who would listen. I poured over picture books, photos and travelogues sent from Icelandic relatives. Still, I knew very little about Iceland or the Icelanders. There was a gap, a missing sense of lineage and knowing.                                                                                           In later years, I did visit Iceland and met my large extended family there. And I came to know Icelanders living in or visiting the United States, so eventually my knowledge and understanding of Icelandic culture widened. More recently. I’ve enjoyed subscribing to “Iceland Review.” The news/Daily Life columns (by both Icelandic and American-born writers) have given me an up-close-and-personal perspective on Icelandic life and customs. I hope “Iceland Review” will continue its unique role, connecting Iceland and the world via the Internet. I would love to hear the stories of other adult children of American (or British?) soldiers and Icelandic war brides . . .  to hear what their stories and their parents’ lives and stories were like. I suspect the oral history of World War II in Iceland has not been fully articulated, and many of the storytellers will be gone in a few years. Perhaps “Iceland Review” could play a role in recording and preserving some of this interesting history. Elisabet Thorunn/Boston, February 2003.”                                                                                                                           

These are a few paragraphs Liz wrote to introduce herself to us, her Holmes family. I edited it slightly. I’m not sure of the date. Some details overlap.

“Hi Holmes-Folk: I’m Liz Steeves, from Lincoln, Maine, USA. I recently moved back to the central Maine community where I was brought up – having lived in the Boston area for many years. Lincoln, about 50 miles above Bangor, is called the Town of 13 Lakes, and it happens to be the small town to which a number of NB Canadians emigrated between 1860 and 1890. These included Holmes and Ballantynes and Wilsons and Steeves.                                                                                                                                                                           My grandfather, Walter Steeves,’ mother, was Caroline Holmes Steeves, daughter of Charlotte and Daniel Holmes. My Grandad probably came up to Lincoln to visit his Holmes cousins (the family of William and Anna Holmes) and married my grandmother, Villa Warren Steeves, in 1913. Villa and Walter raised seven children – including my father, Jerome Steeves, who graduated from the U. of M. and entered the US Army Air Corps just before WWII. With accelerated training on Long Island, Dad’s air corps unit was the first to take off from an aircraft carrier, the WASP, in July, 1941. The squadrons were sent aloft in the North Atlantic and found themselves in Reykjavik, Iceland – on ‘active duty,’ unbeknownst to the rest of the world, well before the US officially entered the War in December, 1941.                                                       Although the US soldiers were not to ‘fraternize’ with the Icelandic women, this rule was quickly and completely ignored – and a good number of my dad’s fellow officers ended up coming home with Icelandic brides. This included my father, who met my mother, Bjorg Elfar, and against orders, married her just before being shipped back to the States. I was born in Reykjavik. My mother and I joined Dad in the States in 1943, and my sister, Anna, was born in 1944. During the war years, we moved as a family from base to base in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere. Then my mother became ill with tuberculosis (which eventually took her life), and my sister and I were brought to Maine – to live among our large extended family of Grandparents and Great-Aunts and Uncles. Anna and I went through school in Lincoln, busily enjoying all the good things a small town in winter – and of course with the long Maine winters, we were quite the little snow-bunnies, building ice forts and igloos (the latter not always entirely authentic, I must admit).                                                                                                                                                                                                I graduated from high school and went off to school in Boston in 1960, to Fisher Junior College (at the time). My Dad had offered me three options: nursing school in Portland, Teachers College in Gorham, Maine, or secretarial school in Boston. And while I cared little about being a secretary, I cared a lot about getting away to the big city, and off I went. I enjoyed my Boston years, working in publishing, then at Harvard, Harvard Medical School and MIT in administrative for a number of years.                                 My sister went off to nursing school at Deaconess Hospital in Boston, so for a while we were in Boston together, until she got the traveling spirit and finally ended up settling in San Francisco. I stayed in the Boston area most of my work career – for many years being active in a UUA church there that had a wonderful music program. Singing in choir and choruses was enormously rewarding and exciting during those years, culminating in my 15 minutes of fame, when we sang ‘The Sacred Concerts’ on stage in Symphony Hall with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and a large gospel chorus! Very neat indeed. My later years were more introspective, as I plunged into meditation practice and studying Buddhism, with many retreats, several three-month-long silent retreats at a wonderful meditation center in western Massachusetts.                                                                                                                                                                                                        In 2008, I decided to return to Lincoln and purchased a cute little home, just outside of town. I wanted to experience a few of those ‘good old-fashioned Maine winters’ again (before I was too old to tramp around on ice and snow)! Well, I do think my wish has come true – especially this past winter, which has been utterly beautiful, not too cold, and filled with an abundance of pretty, lengthy, unending snowfalls! Maybe I can move to Florida now, but I probably won’t. I’m no longer as out-doorsey as when I was young, but I do enjoy winter, and don’t think they’ll ever take the snow-bunny completely out of me, even if nowadays, I’m more often on the inside, sitting in my rocking chair, looking out at it!                                           So here I am, back in the land of the Ancestors: Holmes, Ballantynes, Steeves, Warrens, Wilsons, etc, enjoying researching family history at the Lincoln Historical Society, studying it on my own and meeting new cousins to help fill in the gaps. (Thank you, Peggy V, for all the Holmes genealogy, which I knew so little about before this past year!) And as time goes on, I’ll try to tell you more about your Holmes cousins in Lincoln, and how quickly they became intwined in and a part of the Lincoln area community.”                             

FAMILY HISTORY LESSON

                The following are a few documents I located at FamilySearch Full Text Search. Most of the records are for the sons of William and Anna Holmes.                                                                                                            This is the funeral record of Fenwicke Lindsay Holmes, dated October, 1973. The informant was Mr. Louis A Holmes, Fenwicke’s adopted son.

 

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-LQ62-YSW9-Y?view=fullText&keywords=William%20N.%20Holmes%2CCaliforniaCALIFORNIACALIFORNIA&lang=en&groupId=

This is the death record of Harry Holmes, son of William and Anna, who was born in 1881 and died in 1883.

 

 

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-997W-991B?view=fullText&keywords=Harry%20HOLMES&lang=en&groupId=

This is a portion of an application of a passport for the Jerome C Holmes family.

 

 

Images 594 – 598 of 693.

 

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G965-NCPJ?view=fullText&keywords=MaineUnited%20StatesUnited%20StatesUnited%20StatesUnited%20StatesUnited%20StatesUnited%20StatesUnited%20StatesUnited%20States%2CJerome%20C.%20HolmesJerome%20C.%20HolmesJerome%20C.%20HolmesUnited%20StatesUnited%20StatesUNITED%20STATES%2CUNITED%20STATESMaineLincoln&lang=en&groupId=

 

This is the marriage license of Ernest S Holmes and Hazel B Foster.

 

 

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L93H-MWPF?view=fullText&keywords=Jerome%2CHolmes%2CCALIFORNIACALIFORNIACALIFORNIA%2CCALIFORNIA&lang=en&groupId=

 

I had a little surprise. I was using “Jerome C Holmes” in the FamilySearch Full Text search box and after scrolling many pages, this card popped up. It’s from the passenger list of the ship President Jackson, launched in 1921 with the name Silver State, renamed in 1923. On board was Masaichi Kamei, a young man from Tokyo, Japan. He was born about 1905 in Toyama, Japan, and was returning to California in 1928. He had lived in California for five years, from 1923 to 1928, and he was a student. Perhaps he returned to Japan for a summer break.

What triggered a memory was the name of the contact person he had in the US: Jerome C Holmes, 1229 Glenn Street, Santa Rosa. I pulled out Fen’s “Holmes Line” to reread what he had written about a young Japanese man who stayed with them for a time. Fen wrote about their foster brother, Kimmy. Could this be the young man who lived with the Jerome Holmes family?

 

I had to connect them somehow: a genealogist needs evidence. The city directories provided the proof I needed that Masaichi Kamei was indeed Fen’s “foster brother” Kimmy.

In 1924 directory of Pomono, California, Jerome and Jennie Holmes lived in Pomono, California, at 1166 Columbia Avenue. So did Kamei Masaichi. The 1928 card for passenger Masaichi Kamei gave Jerome C Holmes’ residence as 1229 Glenn Street, Santa Rosa, California. In the 1928 city directory of Santa Rosa, Jerome Holmes lived at 1229 Glenn Street. In the 1929 and 1930 directories of Santa Rosa, Masaichi Kamei lived at 767 Mendocino Avenue, Santa Rosa. According to Google maps, there are .2 miles between these two houses. At that point of my research, I lose track of “Kimmy.” Perhaps he returned to Japan. You can see him standing in the back in the header photo. He is with his “foster family,” left to right: Jennie, Jerome K, Fenwicke and Jerome C Holmes. Jerome C is the son of William N Holmes and Anna Columbia Heath.                                                                                                                                                                   I found this comment in our Facebook group from Jolynda, dated April 2, 2020. “Fen so badly wanted to find his “big brother.” He talked about his search and disappointments to not being able to locate him. He tried so diligently. And even at 98 years he reflected on not being able to reconnect with him.”

I couldn’t go any further on Ancestry, either. If he returned to Japan, Ancestry does not cover that country.

 

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BP-4Q6F-4?view=fullText&keywords=JEROME%2CHOLMES&lang=en&groupId=

 

It is almost May Day. Do a happy dance.

 

This ends week eighteen of our centennial virtual celebration of 1926 – 2026.