Uncle Peg’s Chronicles
January 25, 2024
“Of Course Bryce & I Would Be Up On The Roof”
“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.
1924 – 2024 CENTENNIAL WEEK FOUR
FAMILY ALBUM
This picture
made me smile this week. This is Conrad and Phyllis Digennaro, who many have
met long ago and some of us, at reunions. T’was a chilly Florida day, and they
had to dress for it. Conrad is wearing makeshift earmuffs. Methinks he needs
knee muffs as well. Charles R Holmes line.
GRATITUDE
Your comments keep me motivated. Thank
you, Margie and Julia.
From Margie: Love the description of what
everybody’s dress was like! Better than watching the Oscar or Emmy pre-show!
I
never thought I’d top those! Woohoo!
From Julia: .
. . Also enjoyed your writing style regarding secrets . . . no siree. Look
forward to reading more about Ormond and Jennie Jones as well.
Stay
tuned. And
bless you, Ann, t’wasn’t but a couple of hours that you sent me back Lotham,
decorated with red pen. I do need to leave their mistakes intact within the
quotation marks, even though it seems “worth while” to the reader to change it
to “worthwhile.” I verified the quotation. Footnotes will eventually be
numbers.
MY GENEALOGY GOALS
- Chronicle
several times, and publish on Thursday morning.
- Keep
writing my next article for Generations, which is about the will of
William Lotham. Francis Holmes is mentioned in his inventory both as owing
money and being owed money.
- Spend
a bit of time on Moore family research: “Three Peas in a Moore Pod.”
- In
the evening, after chores are done, edit the James and Augusta (Corey)
Holmes family (sixth child of Daniel and Charlotte
)genealogy. No rush on that. - Index
old newspapers for NBGS. On hold.
- Index
Riverbank Visitors for NBGS. Put old newspapers on hold while I do this.
- Do 52
Ancestors in 52 Weeks blurb.
- Think
about how to approach another true book about Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie.
Because, it must be told. It no longer needs to be creative fiction based
on truth. I have enough local colour from the gossip columns.
I finished a revision of Abner and
Hattie (Holmes) Jones, and also, Robert and Louisa (Holmes) Ballantyne. This is
the genealogy, not their stories. The skeleton. On to James and Augusta (Corey)
Holmes: the Holmes, Glocksen, and Geitz trio.
And, Lotham’s story is written. It
needs some final revision and editing, but the basis of it is complete! I told
Dave it was done and fifteen to sixteen pages, so it might not make it into the
Spring issue. He said he was looking forward to reading it.
LOOKING BEHIND AND AHEAD
1924 to
1928
Those are the
years that our great or great-great grandparents 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.
2024 to 2028
I’ve
started to follow the Homeschool Historian recently, on Facebook. This is an
excerpt from one of her posts, and she says it better than I can.
When you are oriented towards the past,
it never really leaves you. You’re always aware that you walk on an ancient
earth where ancient people once dwelled. You see old buildings not as useless
relics to be thrown away, but as gateways into the lives of people who were
once as alive and vibrant as yourself. It’s in the back of your mind to find
the story wherever you are. You’re humbly aware that the world and its timeline
doesn’t revolve around you, but in fact, you are a tiny piece of a HUGE STORY
which began long before you appeared. You look outside yourself, empathizing
with people of the past (and the present), and are aware of your own privileged
place in history. You recognize culture (and the things it values and worships)
as being temporal. You realize you’re a small leaf in a tangled mess of
ancestors—-and without them, you wouldn’t be here.
You lean in. And by leaning in, you
learn. It gets personal. It feels human. The past isn’t boring because it
focuses on other people and events instead of you: it’s exciting because it
doesn’t.
Historical orientation is a way of
looking at the world and walking through it. It’s an active “leaning in”
towards the past and recognition of your own place in it. Historical
orientation is the romance of the past: it’s posturing oneself towards the past
in such a way that you WANT to learn about it.
Copied
from a Facebook post of January 19, 2024
https://www.facebook.com/thehomeschoolhistorian
52
ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is a challenge by Amy
Johnson Crow to write about ancestors or other people who interest us, using a
weekly prompt.
This
week’s prompt is “witness to history.”
Mum, Dad,
and General Balboa’s Fleet
My mother wrote in
her memoirs about Balboa and his planes, although she couldn’t remember his
name. I edited her paragraph slightly for punctuation. As I recall, it was the
first time she had seen an airplane. My grandfather took my Dad to see those
planes. Dad did not write his memoirs. He returned his notebook to me
completely empty. Probably Gramp purchased the photos. I doubt that he and Dad
got that close. She mentions Aunt Nan – that is Annie Colpitts Blakeney –
sister of my grandmother, Minnie.
Mum: Dad was
putting a new roof on the barn – of course Bryce & I would be up on the
roof every chance we got. One day we heard this noise & saw planes come
over, we climbed up on the barn roof. There seemed to be an awful lot of them.
Think Don [my Dad] said they were sea planes that refueled in Shediac. I can’t
remember the name of the fleet. I remember Dad telling us of the first plane he
saw go over. Aunt Nan was visiting & Dad was ploughing in a field below the
road. He ran home, leaving the horses on the plow to tell them (Mum & Aunt
Nan) to go see the planes.
Dad wrote
metadata “Balboa at the Shediac Hotel” on the back of this photo.
At this link, you can
read about the time that Italian General Itala Balboa and his fleet landed in
Shediac Bay, New Brunswick, and the warm welcome he received from New
Brunswickers. Mum and Dad, who did not know each other at the time, were eleven
years old when they witnessed this day in history.
Andrew MacLean of
Backyard History is on Facebook: insert Backyard History into the Facebook
search box if you are interested. His article about General Balboa is at this
link.
William Lotham (part 2)
C. 1600 – 1645
The probate of William Lotham: a transcribed
document written in the third person.[i]
William Lotham must have believed his death
was nigh. Trumbull transcribed his will:
“Wheras on the
other side herof ther is prticulers of the debts & creditts and
goods of Williā
Lothā, wch
apeares best vnder ech prticuler matter, and therunto as his memory
may be [ ] being now visited by
the hand of the almighty Jehouah, wth sicknes, haueing in prsence
of vs whose names are hereunder subscribed, declared his mynd and will to be,
that in case a period be put to his days before alteratiō hereof, then his just debts
being defrayed out of his prsonall estate, the remaynder hereof is
by him giuen & bequethed to John Clarke and John Ogden, whō he maks joynt
executors of this his last will and Testament, equally to be deuided betwixt
thē. Witnes my hand the day and yeare wthin written.[ii] What
have I found or surmised about William Lotham? I believe that William Lotham had several trades. He
used his boat to transport people and deliver goods. He delivered the prisoner,
Robert Bedle, to Fisher’s Island for Mr. Robins. Seargeant Bryan, on behalf of
Mr. Leches, owed him money for transporting two butts of sacke. Mr. Mitchell
owed him for carrying unspecified goods. Goodman
Comstocke and Walter Baker owed him for tobacco; and Seargeant Bryan, for soap.
He was probably a trader. As
I have found so few references to Lotham, and as I had initially considered him
to be just a trader, the compiler of a book about early tools brought to my
attention the fact that he was probably also a shipbuilder. He owned 3500
planks and 6000 trunnels or wooden nails, as well as tar, pitch, and tools. I
believe Paul Kebabian stated this occupation based on his inventory. In American
Woodworking Tools, Kebabian wrote about the drawing knife and treenails,
early colonial items that were in Lotham’s inventory. This interesting book
piqued my curiosity. For further reading about tools and shipbuilding in the
colonial era, and in particular, Lotham’s inventory items and their meanings,
see Kebabian’s book.[iii] I can’t say for
certain, but I think Lotham was probably a bachelor or widower who actually
lived on his boat. The few personal items he specifically kept on land were:
- a sow, at Mr. Sticlins’ residence
- planks, trunnels (tree nails),
iron; part at Francis Holmes, part at Mr. Tappings, part at the waterside
- tar and pitch at the waterside
With his meagre
list of belongings, he could have lived on his boat. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he
store them at his residence? His sparse list included carpentry tools, dishes
for cooking and eating, food, clothing, a skiff, a compass, an eel spear, etc. The
early lists were dated March 20, 1645. On September 27, 1645, the appraisers,
Thomas Burchwood and Stephen Poste, provided the inventory. It was even
shorter. Had some items been sold? Although
the lists do not contribute to my question about the relationship between
Holmes and Lotham, they do give a picture of the life of a sailor and
shipbuilder in the 17th century. Lotham stored iron at Holmes’
location. Frances Holmes, blacksmith, perhaps newly arrived in the Connecticut
colony, may have been in his employ. But where Lotham or Holmes lived, I do not
know from studying the life of William Lotham.
THIS WEEK’S
CLIPPING FROM NEWSPAPER ARCHIVES
This article
was from a 1916 newspaper.
KING’S CO. MAN
DIES FEW HOURS AFTER
HIS WIFE IS
BURIED
Portage Vale,
Kings Co., Jan 26 – [date of publication. Margaret died Jan 21, William, Jan
24.]
The
people of this place were shocked on last Saturday when the sad news arrived
that Mrs. Wm. Snyder had suddenly passed away on Friday night at the home of
her brother, Charles Holmes, Hill Grove, Westmorland Co., and it was only a
brief space of time before another sad report came, stating that Mr. Snyder had
died on Sunday evening, the day Mrs. Snyder’s mortal remains were laid away in
the churchyard at Hill Grove. Mr. and Mrs. Snyder, as stated in The Standard,
some time ago, left their home here a little over a month ago, to spend the
winter with her brother, and their friends little thought that they never would
again return. Mrs.
Snyder leaves one sister and several brothers, all living in the United States
except Charles Holmes, where she died. Mrs. Snyder was about seventy-four years
old. Mr. Snyder was born at this place about eighty-five years ago and is the
last member of a large and well-known family. His
funeral was held yesterday afternoon. Their many friends will learn with regret
their sudden passing. They were known by many. “River Bank House,” which was
for so many years conducted by them had guests from many parts of the province
and also from outside places. Mr. and Mrs. Snyder were well known in Sussex,
having lived there for several years. They will be much missed in this locality
as they were highly esteemed by all who knew them.
OUR FAMILY
HISTORY LESSON
I
don’t have a count of how many actual descendants Francis Holmes had, or Samuel
Sr or Jr, or Daniel. It’s a challenge. Those descendants married, perhaps more
than once, and some of them took in step-children and adopted children. Those
are hard on the program’s default, but in real life, they were and are
important to our family. Without their spouse, by whatever name they go
(husband, wife, partner, significant other, etc.) there would be no one to
carry on the line. Adoptees are a legal part of the family, hopefully beloved,
and as important as those who carry the Holmes strand of DNA. Step and half
siblings might enter the family after a trauma (death of a parent, divorce,
remarriage of parents, etc). The genealogy is the skeleton of the tree, and without
it, you can’t delve into past history. But, it’s not generally very
interesting. It’s the interactions within the family, the contributions they
made to family and community, their character and personality, the heritage
they left behind. Study a life enough and you come to love them, like them,
tolerate them, or hate them – you form some sort of emotional attachment. I will eventually
provide you with a long list of names.
Hoping that some of you, like Annemarie, Jane, and Carolyn from the two
Samuels, Ralph from the Holsteads, etc., will help me. I’ve nailed down Daniel
and Charlotte, their children, and grandchildren, I think; and have quite a
list of future generations, which include us. I’ll never find everyone, but
I’ll do my best. What
I won’t be able to do is flesh out each individual – bring their bones to life.
There will never be enough time. Some of them stick out and the few facts I
find about them intrigue me enough to search further. Like Uncle Billy
and Aunt Maggie. When I asked Mum what Uncle Billy did for a living, she said
he was a tinker. Well, he was. He made little blocks (not ships) in bottles,
that fascinated me and my cousins. Wherever did they go? I’d love to see a
photo of them. Dog-powered threshers. And violins. Did he go around the ‘hood,
selling and fixing things? He may have been a tinker, but if you’ve been
following along, you know he was much more than a tinker. I wish I could tell
Mum. I’d like to make them our collective honorary uncle and aunt. For
several years, it puzzled me that their obituary said that they lived in
Sussex. Now I know, from the gossip column of the day, that they did live there
for a while, leaving Ormand and Jennie in charge of the lodge. I
think I have enough facts, stats, guest book entries, family lore and gossip
snapshots to tell his story. It’s brewing in my mind. A new, true story. The
wheels are turning, like the dogs walking the wheels of the threshing machine. The
obituary mentioned one surviving sister and several surviving brothers of Aunt
Maggie. They were Carrie, James, William, Peter, Charles, and Fenwick. These
are our ancestors. Gone but not forgotten were Fanny, Hattie, Louisa, George,
and Bessie. Carrie, James, William, Peter, and Charles made it to the reunions
in the 1920s. Some of their children and grandchildren were there. Those that
were not able to attend due to illness, death, or distance, made it into the
genealogy and the flawed history they compiled. It’s a never-ending story. We,
the descendants of Francis Holmes and all those of us who married or stepped
into the family tree are still living it.
This ends
week four of our centennial virtual celebration.
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