Uncle Peg’s Chronicles
January 4, 2024
“So Glad I Have the Questions”
“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.
This photo made
me smile this week. New Years greetings from Squid – she is adopted into the
Steeves line through her Daddy’s and grandmother’s interest and a second
marriage, and she’s just the cutest. (Dad Christopher Neel, grandmother Laura
Watson.)
I snatched this from Kelly Bassett, who now resides at what was originally known as Waterside Villa in Portage Vale, which the Davidsons occupied once upon a time. This is the Gillies Farm taken from the top of the hill – same view as I gave you last week, with a fresh blanket of snow. No relation, but Kelly is interested in Portage Vale history and his house and its ghosts of the past. His house is to the right of the photo.
1924 – 2024 CENTENNIAL WEEK ONE
Think not of Daniel Holmes as
an old man in the grave. Think of him as a four- or five-year-old child.
Think of his needs and wants.
Think of his fears and losses. Think about how that affected his entire life.
Read on.
GRATITUDE
Your comments keep me motivated to carry on. Thank
you, Grace. This is just what I hoped for, not so much for me, but for all of
you. This is an excerpt:
Well,
I finally had the proper day to sit down and thoroughly enjoy your Christmas
Chronicle. It just wasn’t right to hurry it along, so I waited until a
calm afternoon to immerse myself in it. Thank you so very much for
compiling and creating it. What a wonderful Christmas gift to so many
people.
News From Holmes
I do not know
Edna or any of her family, but she is in our family tree, in the Abner and
Hattie (Holmes) Jones line. I did not copy the entire obituary; I left out the
funeral arrangements.
Click on the link or ask for an email.
https://www.keirsteads.ca/obituaries/174723
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, edit the Abner
and Hattie (Holmes) Jones family (second child of Daniel and Charlotte)
the same way I did the Louisa, William and Carrie lines. No rush on that.
- Index old newspapers for NBGS.
- Do 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
project for 2024.
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 is my
first time to take on the challenge, and I will not tie myself down to it, but
will do it when I have the time and interest in the topic. Our work can take
any shape or form, and can, if we wish, be public, by using a hashtag. I will
probably go public, somehow, but not in the chronicle as it contains
information on living people. I’ll likely just put it on my Facebook. If I post
it publicly, it will only be about our dearly departed, most of whom we never
knew.
This
week’s topic, the first one for the new year, is family lore. That fits right
in to my current study of Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie.
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS . . .
Kristin Holmes. She’s in Brooklyn, New York, and taking beautiful
photographs. I love it when Kristin travels. I get to see things I will never
ever see. I chose two from many; it was beautiful, but I thought the J P Morgan
Library was most awesome. William Nelson Holmes line.
Catherine Higgins. I received this email from Jennifer Bishop. Her
mother, Catherine, is visiting her in London, England, from Ontario, Canada.
This also fits under gratitude. Charles R Holmes line.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, 2024, Peg!
My
mum, Catherine (Teakles) Higgins, is visiting me this Christmas in London, UK.
We have just read your last chronicle of 2023 - thank you for the info on the
Davidson descendants and our special mention. I also loved to see Phyllis' cake
recipe - wished we had passed down more recipes from both sides of my
family. Many thanks again for all that you do to keep the past not so
distant - you are the constant thread that keeps our family history close, and
we thank you for that.
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
If I could sit down at Daniel and Charlotte’s table, I’d ask
them some questions.
·
Most of your children’s names are family names or
perhaps neighbours’ or rectors’ names. Why didn’t you name one of your six sons
“Samuel?”
·
Your son, Charles Robert Holmes, told my mother
many things, but she said he never told her much about you. Do you know why
not?
·
What happened to your son, little George, and your
daughter, the new bride, Bessie? What happened to your sibling? Was he or she
older or younger than you?
·
What do you know of your half-brothers and
sisters? Do you even know they existed?
·
Did you and Charlotte have middle names? If so,
what were they?
I can’t literally sit at their table. They are gone; the
homestead is gone. But I can imagine sitting there with them. I can find some
details, but I think they took the answers to these questions to their grave. I
will continue to try and find the answers to the third and fifth questions
until my pen runs out of ink, but I doubt I’ll ever know the answers to the
rest unless some of their descendants have a chest full of historical
documents, letters, photographs, etc.
But, let’s put a positive twist on their dates, places, and
stories. How much we have learned! How many people knew of the existence of
Daniel Holmes? Of his wife and children? Of his half-siblings, and his aunts
and uncles? I don’t like to use “etcetera,” but it’s useful. Nearly all of you
in our family circle have some connection to them. My guess is that they were/are
as new to you as they were to me. I did know of their existence, but that was
about it.
Fen Holmes, who began his research in retirement, started
with two names: William and Anna Holmes. The basics. What he accomplished is amazing. He contacted
cousins, some he didn’t even know; he contacted archives; he travelled to our
family’s historical places. He gathered information, analyzed it, corrected it,
and passed it along to those who were interested. I follow in his footsteps.
Humbly. I try to carry on his legacy: not just to find family, although that is
important, but to keep our history alive, relevant, and to the best of my
ability, correct.
I try to make those old bones dance. I was blessed with an
imagination. I spent half of my childhood days in daydream land. That’s where
those questions come from – daydreaming and pondering.
It’s been a century since the 1924 Holmes Family gathering in
Lincoln, Maine. Daniel and Charlotte’s descendants live all over the world. Most
of us are in Canada or the US. Doug lives in Australia. Jennifer lives in
London. Philip is on Okinawa. Joseph is in Jordan. Violetta lives in Germany.
The list probably goes on and on.
I’d love to have answers, but I’m so glad I have the
questions. They prod me on in my quest. I love sharing what I learn. We don’t
all have the genealogical bent, but from what I’ve uncovered, we are
collectively blessed with a healthy dose of curiousity about something or other.
What are your questions about your ancestors? If you don’t
have any, you might start with “who are they?”
I have taken on the challenge by Amy Johnson Crow. Should you care to
join me, visit her website, https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52ancestors52weeks/ This
week’s prompt is family lore, which is appropriate, because it suits my current
research. You may have read it, but some are not on Facebook.
Uncle Billy’s Fiddle
William Oliver Snider
1827 – 1916
By his 3X great-niece
by marriage and a wee strand of Ketchum DNA, Peg Vasseur
Exploring my grandparents’ old
farmhouse was what we did on rainy Saturdays. On sunny days, of course, we
played outside. Oh, the nooks and crannies of that place, with its scary
basement and the two upper chambers, but very few closets. Their Sunday best
and few weekday duds hung on hooks in their bedrooms. The apron hung in the
kitchen, in the rare moments of the day when Gram wasn’t wearing it. Upstairs
in the kitchen chamber were two bedrooms, not in much use when I was a girl,
unless company came. How I loved to sleep in one of those rooms, under the tin
roof. One of them had a closet. On the opposite wall was the flue of the wood
stove.
Tucked in the back of that
little-used closet, I found a violin in an old case. It rested against the wall
where the flue kept it nice and warm, which wasn’t one bit good for it. Wood
needs some humidity. Why had I never seen this violin? I looked it over, tucked
it under my chin, and pretended it had strings. After a bit, I wrapped it up in
its ancient cloth and put it away. I pondered that violin all afternoon.
In my lifetime, Dad always drove
a big Chevrolet, and I made a beeline for the center of the front seat. Great
place to fall asleep on Mum’s lap as we headed from Hill Grove back to Moncton,
but this evening, I was wide awake. I remember the exact spot when I felt the
time was right to broach the subject of my find – right at the corner of King
Street and the Old Post Road in Petitcodiac, by the cheese factory. Where did
that violin come from? And could I take violin lessons?
Uncle Billy’s fiddle, Mum told
me. Thus began the story of the fiddle, and more stories about Uncle Billy and
Aunt Maggie. He made it, she told me many times, even well into her 90s. That’s
what her grandfather told her, and she believed him. I came to love Uncle Billy
and Aunt Maggie, who died the same week in 1916. She never met them, but she
knew about them, and from the day I tucked Uncle Billy’s fiddle under my chin
to this day, I believe her. But, just to be sure, on my last visit to a luthier
to check it out, I asked him if it could be true. To the best of his ability,
short of taking it apart, he shone a light into the f-holes to see if it was
autographed or had a label. Nothing that he could see. What he did tell me is
that it was probably handmade, about 150 years old, and the luthier who made it
knew what he was doing. It likely wasn’t the first violin he had made. It could
be true.
“After the ceremony, congratulations were extended to the newly married couple [Ormand Jones and Janet Snider], and all repaired to the spacious dining room where the wedding supper was partaken off, and about 10:30 dancing commenced and lasted until the wee sma’ hours. Messrs. W. O. Snider and F. W. Davidson furnished the music.”[1]
To my regret, I no longer play the violin. My daughter has it, safely ensconced in a beautiful case. She took a few lessons, but career and motherhood put them on hold. Maybe later. I still have the case.
I wrote a little poem in 2018. It was, and still is, my promise to Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie. His other love is Maggie. I share her name, Margaret, which means pearl.
The Fifth Peg
Now I lay me down to
sleep.
My fiddle weeps. I
pray you’ll keep
her safe and loved.
Beneath the ground
I’ll listen for her
cheerful sound.
She should not rest.
She needs to sing,
to feel a bow upon
her string.
I know there’ll be
someone in time
whose toe will tap in
time with mine.
She’ll take her pen,
to write the tale
of my two loves – my
fiddle and pearl –
her memorial requiem
to us, whose quiet
life is done.
Peg Vasseur, 2018
THIS
WEEK’S CLIPPINGS FROM NEWSPAPER ARCHIVES
"ANAGANCE - May 15 - Mr. W. O. Snider, who has been proprietor of the Portage House for the past twenty years, with Mrs. Snider has left this village for Sussex to reside in the future. Mr. Snider's management of the Portage House won the approval of the many guests he has each season entertained, while his amiable wife is held in high estimation. The Portage House will be run in the future by Mr. Snider's nephew, Mr. Ormand Jones."
I
often wondered about my guest book from Riverbank House in Portage Vale, which
went from 1909 to 1915. Was it the first guest book? I can’t answer that
question, but I now know that Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie offered their house
as a guest lodge called Portage House long before 1909. The most frequent
guest, General Darias B Warner, who was wounded in the Civil War and sent to
serve as an ambassador to Canada, stayed at Portage House much earlier. I need
to do more research on him. He’s worthy of an article in “Generations.”
I found this
clipping in Progress, a Saint John newspaper of 1894 – 05 – 19.[2]
Mosquito notes that Mr. W O Snider has been the proprietor of the Portage House
for the past twenty years. Using that time frame of twenty years, I checked out
Billy’s date of marriage to Miss Maggie Holmes, daughter of Daniel and
Charlotte Holmes: it was Thursday, 16th day of April, 1874.[3]
So, Miss Maggie, now Mrs. Snider, left off caring for her widowed father and
became the hostess of Portage House about one month later.
After twenty
years, and at the ages of about 67 and 56 respectively, Billy and Maggie left
their house in the care of their nephew, Ormand Jones, and his soon to be wife,
Jenny Snider Jones, and moved to Sussex. Why? Did they wish to retire? Rest? Perhaps
that, and to give the honeymooners some privacy and an occupation. Ormond,
their nephew, had been living with them and farming for several years. He was
there for the 1891 census. Their move was between the 1891 and 1901 census, and
by 1901, they were back in Portage Vale. The 1901 census is interesting. Ormond
Jones is listed as the head of household, Jenny, his wife, and his two sons,
Fred and Allen, were aged six and four. William and Margaret Snider were
lodgers. The house, according to the current owner, Howard Marks, had four
bedrooms. Shortly after this census, Ormond and Jenny moved to the Daniel
Holmes homestead in Petitcodiac, and took up farming, because his father and
step-mother, Abner and Eliza Jones, moved to Massachusetts. Perhaps this is
when Billy and Maggie took over the proprietorship again and changed the name
to Riverbank House.
This clipping
and the one to follow next week, and maybe others I haven’t located yet, filled
in a gap and, as per usual, gave me more to ponder.
OUR
FAMILY HISTORY LESSON
This
is a repeat. Although I did it before, I’m always adding bits of information. I
redid it from scratch.
Daniel and Charlotte Holmes’ Twelve Children
Why did they name them what they did? Why not
Samuel?
I’ve pondered this for some time, and I have my wonder – was the hurt
just to great? “What hurt?” you may not recall. I think of my almost three-year-old
grandson, and how attached he is to his mother and father, and his Ray
grandparents. How much he already loves his baby sister.
Here’s Daniel’s early childhood – up to say the age of five – in a
nutshell. A cracked, sad nutshell.
·
His
mother died.
·
His
father, Samuel Holmes Jr, remarried.
·
His
father and step-mother left Daniel and his sibling (gender and age unknown to
me) in the care of his Samuel Holstead grandparents and moved to New York. He
probably never heard from then again. All of a sudden, he had twelve new
“children” in his household. The eldest was born c. 1789, the youngest, 1811.
Daniel was two years younger than his youngest uncle. He also had an Uncle
Samuel in this family.
·
His
sibling died.
That is an awful lot of hurt for a little boy. I don’t know this, but I
think perhaps he just couldn’t name a son Samuel. The hurts were too big. Besides
the Samuels I listed, his paternal grandfather was Samuel Holmes Sr. And, his
wife, Charlotte, had an uncle, Samuel Ketchum.
Here are the known children of Daniel Holmes and Charlotte Hoyt.
1. Frances Ann (Fanny) born 1837
2. Margaret Eliza (Maggie) 1838
3. Sarah Louisa (Louisa) 1840
4. Harriet Olivia (Hattie, Livy)
1842
5. George H 1844
6. James Hoyt (George and James were
twins) 1844
7. William Nelson 1846
8. Caroline Maria (Carrie) 1848
9. Peter Ketchum 1850
10. Charles Robert 1852
11. Charlotte Elizabeth (Bessie) 1854
12. Howard Fenwick (Fenwick) 1857
The first thing I did
was to look for all the Samuels in their lives. The second thing was to list
the children of Samuel and Elizabeth (Fountain) Holmes, Daniel’s paternal
grandparents; Samuel and (maybe Elizabeth Smith) Holstead, Daniel’s maternal
grandparents, (I see Ralph has removed her name from his tree); James Hoyt III
and Frances Ketchum, Charlotte’s paternal grandparents; and Isaac and Mary
Elizabeth (Ketchum) Ketchum, Charlotte’s maternal grandparents. The Snider
family also featured prominently in their lives.
This is what I
believe to be true. Some are named directly for an ancestor; some may be for
someone they knew and loved; some may be names they liked.
Frances
Ann
was named for Charlotte’s mother, Frances Ketchum. I do not know if Frances
Ketchum’s middle name was Ann.
Margaret
Eliza
may have been named for Margaret Snider, who was her cousin and about the same
age. Their common grandparents were Isaac and Mary Elizabeth Ketchum. I see no
other Margaret, nor an Eliza.
Sarah
Louisa
was a name common to both families. Samuel and Elizabeth Holstead had a
daughter, Sarah; James and Frances Hoyt had a Sarah. I have not found a Louisa.
Harriet
Olivia
was probably named for Charlotte’s aunt, Harriet Ketchum, and Daniel’s aunt,
Olivia Holstead.
George
H
– the only George I have found is George Snider, a cousin of Charlotte.
James
Hoyt
– the father of Charlotte.
William
Nelson
– the only William I know is Uncle Billy, Charlotte’s cousin. Nelson was
probably for the rector, Horatio ‘Nelson’ Arnold.
Caroline
Maria
– my guess – Susannah Caroline was the cousin of Charlotte, but she went by
Susannah. Daniel had an aunt, Maria Holstead.
Peter
Ketchum
– Charlotte’s uncle, Peter Ketchum.
Charles
Robert
– Daniel had an uncle, Charles Holstead. I do not know of a Robert.
Charlotte
Elizabeth
– named for her mother. Daniel had an aunt, Elizabeth Holstead, and Charlotte,
an aunt, Elizabeth Ketchum. She went by Bessie.
Howard
Fenwick
– interesting that he was baptized Charles Fenwick, rather than Howard Fenwick.
I do not know of a Howard. Fenwick was a historical figure at the time, and
there are lots of Fenwicks in that era and place.
This ends week
one of our centennial virtual celebration. It’s a lot to ponder, understand,
and take in, isn’t it. But, we need to know these things in order to empathize
with our ancestors. They lived in a different world. Daniel and Charlottes’
lives, and those of his Holstead uncles and aunts, and his half-siblings he
likely never knew about, carried on in their children. What affected them
surely affected their children, and so on down the line. Although the children
of Daniel and Charlotte seemed close to each other, what was their relationship
like with their parents? That’s why I wonder why Charles didn’t tell his
granddaughter, my mother, much about his parents. I’ll never know. Next week,
we will discuss a wedding.
Uncle Peg
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