Uncle Peg’s Chronicles
October 1, 2026
“My Mind
is Full of 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.
FAMILY ALBUM
And I Quote:
I had
to laugh about your little lie. –
Cindy
It’s always fine to use a photo of
mine. Thanks for the credit and confession. –
Brett
That was a fun chronicle. I really enjoyed the photos, and thank
you for sharing the descendant information for so many of them. I
recognized a number of those in the photos, either from the 2016 reunion (I did
manage to attend that one) or from their frequent mention in previous
Chronicles. So many people to track, and so many with whom you have
stayed in contact. You have gathered us and kept us together, as a
shepherd does his sheep! (But with some of us, it is rather like herding
cats, I suspect.) – Jeanni
Hi Peg, an excellent Chronicle as
always. Very sad news regarding Eleanor; I very much enjoyed meeting her at the
2014 reunion. She was full of joy and kindness. I am sure her immediate family
and friends are heartbroken. Thank you for sharing some of her family
history and pictures. Our family circle from the 2014 reunion has lost 9 people
in 12 years; that seems like quite a few. We never know when it will be our
turn. I hope that your library holds on to the old maps. My observation is that
libraries are continually having to remove "old items" to make room
for the new; maybe historical sites are different. James Hoyt III's
probate was quite eloquent, perhaps that was just standard jargon of the
time. Thank you for all your time, Julia
Note re the probate: there was likely
what we might call a default copy of probate and land records, as they seem to
be similar – just names and boundary changes and the like. Sometimes, when I
can’t figure out a word or a phrase, I just look at nearby copies and it is
more legible. Peg.
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
Kirk and Susan were rather surprised to see so many tourists
here in September. This is the time of year that brings out the leaf peepers,
most of us whose hair is turning a blander colour, and whose grandchildren are
back in school. All too soon those leaves will fall off the trees, and we never
know when we will be covered in a white blanket. So, off we retirees go, to the
beautiful back roads winding from New England to Atlantic Canada, where
generally the nights are cool and the days are warm.
Susan Stephens, of the Louisa Holmes Ballantyne line,
contacted me early in the summer and asked if we could get together. It turned
out that the day they were to be in Moncton was the day that I would attend our
genealogy meeting, so I invited them to join me. Susan did, and she said it was
her first genealogy meeting ever. She doesn’t know if there are groups like
that where she lives. Afterwards, I joined Kirk and Stephen for dinner at a
locally owned restaurant, and we visited for well over an hour.
Between the meeting and the conversation at dinner, we all
learned some history and some current events. The speaker at the meeting gave a
presentation about the Loyalists, and Susan got some of “the other side of the
story” of the American revolution and the aftermath. At the dinner, I got an
update on their opinions about the current political situation. I know it is a
cliché, but it sent shivers down my spine.
Where
in the World?
Peter
Ketchum and Sarah Ketchum’s Stones in Portage Vale.
Terry Bannister of
Portage Vale is restoring them. Apparently, he is still going to regrout
Peter’s.
Peter
and Sarah are two of the children of Captain Isaac Ketchum and Mary Elizabeth
(Ketchum) Ketchum. Charlotte (Hoyt) Holmes, wife of Daniel Holmes, was the
granddaughter of Isaac and Mary.
This is a photo that I took further
back from the cemetery. I think I am standing close to where the Anglican
church sat in Portage Vale.
FAMILY HISTORY LESSON
I
thought I would share a bit of my newest version of Billy and Maggie’s story
with you – what I call “My Story.” It is almost ready to go to “Generations,”
the journal of the New Brunswick Genealogy Society. My copy for the family might
be a bit different.
This
part of it is near the beginning.
My Story
I first learned about Billy and Maggie when I
discovered an old violin in a rustic case in a scary upstairs closet of the
Hill Grove farmhouse, where Billy and Maggie died. I was eight or nine years
old. In my fuzzy memory, I see myself lay the case on the feather bed, open it
gingerly, and gaze upon the violin. I had already explored most nooks and
crannies in the house. How had I missed this closet? I pondered the instrument
for the rest of that afternoon. With some trepidation, or anticipation, or both,
I asked about the violin. Where, and who, did it come from? My childish
whisper: can I learn to play it?
Although Mum remembered her grandfather describing Billy as a tinker, in the censuses his occupation was given as farmer. Probably he was both. Billy was creative, and made all manner of wooden things. In addition to the blocks in bottles, he made a miniature threshing machine that he hooked up to his dogs. The dogs ran up a ramp, back down and around, like a treadle, and thrashed the grain. He was a musician; my mother inherited his melodeon and I, his violin. Mum told me that he played the fiddle at the Saturday evening barn dances and the melodeon at church services. The violin sat in the closet after Billy died in 1916, in the chamber next to the stovepipe. I regret not playing it after I grew up, and now I have lost my touch. Cecil T Holmes visited Floyd Holmes in 1851. Cecil wrote, “. . . in 1951 . . . when we called on my cousin Floyd . . . and his wife Minnie at their farm in Petitcodiac . . . that they showed us Uncle Billy Snyder’s violin.”[1]
The violin went through a rough period after Billy died. Wood needs humidity, but all it received was dry wood smoke from the chimney behind the closet in the upper chamber, causing it to come unglued and crack. Dad and Mum had it repaired and maintained before I began taking lessons, even in later years when it wasn’t being played. I’ve been told that musical instruments need to be played, as if they were animate. I regret not playing it after I grew up, and now I have lost my touch.
Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie’s life story grew over the years, as I gained more experience in genealogy and family history. My mother was a story-teller, as was her grandfather, and for as long as I can remember, I knew there was an Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie. When I started putting their information into my family tree, I was surprised to learn that Mum had never met them. She made them seem so real to me. They died in the same house where she was born, six years later.
I wish I could tell Mum what I have learned about them. Oh, likely Billy did tinker, but he was so much more. “Uncle Billy made your violin,” she told me, and insisted that this family lore was true. I doubt that many tinkers make violins. I believe he was a luthier – a maker of stringed instruments. A local luthier explained to me that my violin could not have been the first violin the luthier made. “The quality was too great to be a first effort,” he told me. The luthier who made your violin really knew what he was doing concerning the weight, type of old seasoned woods, thicknesses in many crucial areas of top and back, voicing the wood, etc., giving the instrument depth . . . I’m sure your violin will be enjoyed by you and yours and probably by many others when we are all dead and gone, as is the way with greatly toned fine violins. They carry on beyond us.[1]
Uncle Billy was a farmer and a tinker. He was a musician and a luthier. He and Maggie were innkeepers.
Their home in Portage Vale sat across the road from the Kennebecasis River, where you could open the windows and listen to the water music. He fished in that river. The old Ketchum house is the setting for this family history.
It
took me some time, but I finally determined the provenance of the Portage Vale
property. Who built the house? To whom did it pass down to over the years?
Mum’s
notes about Uncle William Snider.
Near
the end of the story:
My Story, continued.
In the summer of 2024, I took a walk in Portage Vale, from the Episcopal cemetery, past the path to the creek, and by the house that sits where the old house sat. I met the home owner, explained who I was, and told him that I stopped once a year in Portage Vale to commune with my ancestors.
“We are just about to put the sign on the new bridge across the river to the woods,” he told me. “Please join us.” I accepted his gracious offer. The sign was a tribute to his father, Howard. He mentioned that he was preparing the trails for the clients of Balsam Ridge Forest Domes, and I was welcome to walk them. In the summer of 2025, I took him up on his offer. I walked up, up and up; then down, down and down.
The woods are much like any other woods. There was a refreshing forest scent, a breeze to rustle the leaves, a variety of hardwoods and softwoods, soft pine forest beds, a trickle of river that pooled in one location, and birdsong.
Did this experience help me write my story? How could it not? I know the characters well enough with book knowledge. I know where they lived and some of what they did day to day and over a lifetime. I know that Maggie provided her guests with pancakes and cooked their trout. I assume there was maple syrup; that was pretty much a given in our rural areas of the past.
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 strawberries and blueberries – forerunners of those that surely Maggie whipped up into shortcakes, pies, bangbellies, and grunts. I pictured a pie cooling in the kitchen window.
I thanked him for letting me wander his woods. He replied. “My trails are your trails.”
My story is
your story, too.
(The
home owner is David Matthews, son of Howard Matthews. His name will not be
mentioned in the “Generations” article, for privacy reasons.)
This ends
week forty of our centennial virtual celebration of 1926 – 2026.
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