Uncle Peg’s Chronicles
July 10, 2025
“My Woods are Your Woods”
“These
were their settlements. And they kept good family records.”
Don’t
forget to look for the title which is embedded in the chronicle.
If
you are my Facebook friend and interested, I am making a series of posts about
the buildings of “the farm,” the farm of Charles Robert Holmes and Phoebe Jane
McMonagle, and of his son Floyd Orren Holmes and Minnie Beatrice Colpitts,
along with family photos and a few stories interspersed. I’m doing this to
preserve the memories. Please, comment with your memories, for there are fewer
people to ask than there were not too long ago.
FAMILY ALBUM
1919 – Mr. Chas. Holmes and daughter, Miss Bertha Holmes,
spent a few days tenting on the banks of the river last week.
Moncton Transcript, Saturday, July 26,
1919. P. 2.
AND I QUOTE (replies from the last newsletter – just for fun)
Jeanni: Thank goodness that I feel comfortable with Uncle Billy and Aunt
Maggie!
Julia: Is the Waldow dairy farm the one we visited during an earlier reunion?
That was such a fun activity.
Marvin: Just chiming in to let you know I’m still out here reading your
chronicles.
Cliff: I lived in P.V. as a grade 1 – 6
student. At that time, the canteen was a small building separate from the
house.
Jeanni – Yeah! Julia – Yes, and it was fun. Marvin – Thanks, and great
to chat with you again. Cliff – thanks for your help. And that is a sentence
for my article.
1924
to 1928
Those 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.
2024 to 2028
I love it when
you send me an email or message. Who writes letters any more, eh? I love a note
of thanks, a mention of something in the chronicle, an up to date of what you
are doing –be it family history research or something entirely different. I
like to think about what was going on in the 1920s, and hey, well, any time in
our family’s past. I have a lovely collection of letters tied up with an old
ribbon that I treasure. I wasn’t born when they were written, not even a
twinkle in their eyes. Through the letters, stories, newspaper articles,
scrapbooks, photos, and vital records, I get to know people – not intimately,
usually, but an overview. Those letters let me know that people cared about
each other – just as we do now.
I think that the
love of family history is a gift that only a few people really enjoy – this digging
deep, getting to know ancestors and collateral ancestors.
So, how and why
does that passion/obsession for family history come to someone? Genetics? Desire?
Practice? Hard work? All of the above. The same could be said for many things. Step
by step, growing into it, and then one day, you’re hooked. It’s by studying lives in context and
relationships, and not everyone likes or has time to do that. You can get
emotionally involved. You might love them or hate them; admire or fear them;
trust them completely or begrudge them. Etc. What’s the litmus test for caring
about some ancestor you never met? Maybe, would you give just about anything to
sit and talk with them? Or, does your passing interest fade as soon as they are
out of your vision? Or, would you not with it at all?
Not everyone
likes or cares about the past. We can’t all be the same; we need a diversity of
interests in this world. I just wonder what it is that inspires some of us to
become passionate about the past, and draws a yawn from others.
The “empathy
for ancestors” bug bit me - that bug who only seems to chomp on a few of us. I
don’t expect all of you to start scratching, for if that is not your passion, it’s
okay. I’m curious to know what you are passionate about, by the way. Every once
in a while, I get into a conversation. Sometimes we discuss the hard things –
for each family has them.
Thanks for the
emails this last two weeks. Closest we get to letters nowadays. I miss the
faded ribbons.
FAMILY HISTORY LESSON
Does it make a difference to a genealogist/family
historian/writer to go to a place where their ancestor/protagonist lived,
walked, worked, and died?
Depends. If all you want is genealogy, the vital stats,
the names, places, and dates in your tree, I don't suppose so. Although we
can't all research every individual in our tree, it makes a difference to the
family historian. Generally, we genealogists like to know something about some
of the people. Some like to write.
On Saturday, the 5th, I walked the woods that the
Ketchum ancestors of many of us walked. I walked on private property, with
permission. Bill and Piper walked with me; Piper was in her glory. The woods
look much like any other woods. There was a refreshing wood scent (a true story
trigger); birdsong; a breeze rustling the leaves; hardwood and softwood; soft
pine forest beds, a babbling river. Not a critter crossed my path, which I
thought unusual.
Did it help with the story I am writing? How could it
not? I know the characters well, with book knowledge. I know where they lived
and some of what they did over a lifetime and day to day. I know that Maggie
provided her guests with pancakes and cooked the trout that they caught. I know
there was butter and cream and honey ad libitum. I assume there was maple
syrup; that was pretty much a given in our rural areas of the past -
occasionally in the present.
I imagined the ghosts of Captain Isaac and his Mary,
Peter and his siblings, and Billy and Maggie, walking, working, swimming,
fishing, and foraging. I found, by the
paths, wild blueberries that surely Maggie whipped up into pies, bangbellies,
and grunts. I didn’t find those berries mentioned in any newspaper clippings
and guest book entries. But I’ve seen them with my own eyes, and the thought of
them makes my mouth water. I picture a pie cooling in the kitchen window.
Yes, my walk was inspiring. My mind is
full of questions. Who made the trails? Was it Captain Isaac, who built several
miles of road in front of his house, about two and a quarter centuries ago? Did
Peter and Samuel and his other sons do that? Did Uncle Billy and his brother
Doug clear the paths? Did the new owner, Harvey Doull, or his step-sons, the
Matthews boys? I do like to think Captain Isaac and his sons built them, so
that I trod up and down the hills that my 4X great-grandfather cleared. Can’t
really say for sure, but some of our people, for sure, crossed the Kennebecasis
River and trod through the woods. There are still lots of trees there now, but
I’m sure many came down then to provide heat for the stove and the house. I
know that Portage Vale was a good place to hunt game. Did they smoke the deer
and moose meat to provide for the long winters? We know that there were trout
in the fishing hole that must be the swimming hole I saw on Saturday.
Piper and I were tuckered out after our
adventure, but the visuals and senses provided fodder for my story. Hope I can
do them justice.
I thanked David by email for letting me
wander his woods. He replied. “My woods are your woods.”
Captain Isaac Ketchum
https://balsamridgeforestdomes.ca/resort-map/
The former owner of the property,
Howard Matthews, is buried in the woods, next to his brother, Ron.
Blueberries
The Kennebecasis River
Forget-me-nots
This ends week twenty – eight
of our centennial virtual celebration of 1925 – 2025.
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