Thursday, July 10, 2025

My Woods are Your Woods

 

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




Charles Holmes by the tent in Portage Vale. By this time, Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie had died, so they didn’t have a place to spend the night.

 

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/

 

Here are a bunch of photos of my trek through the woods by the river. Ask for an email.  

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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My Woods are Your Woods

  Uncle Peg’s Chronicles July 10, 2025 “My Woods are Your Woods ”       “T...