Fort Lee, New Jersey

My Aunt Teeny gave me a framed picture that had been sent to her mother years ago.  It was a sepia-toned picture of an old Episcopal church. Under the picture it said, "Episcopal Church Parker Avenue, Fort Lee, N. J."  She supposed it was the Abbott family's church and wondered if it would help me with my research. 

[Bonnie Abbott Bryant and May Abbott Cowan, half sisters of George Wright Abbott: George Wright Abbott > Jacqueline D. Abbott > John B. Zaun > Teresa Zaun Austin]

I first had to find out the name of the church.  I did a search on Google maps of Episcopal churches in Fort Lee, and there was only one that possibly fit our family's location in the city.  But this church was on Palisades Avenue, and it was much larger.  Hmmm.  I zoomed in and looked around a little in street view and discovered that there was a Parker Avenue that ran parallel to Palisades behind the church.  A closer inspection found that the larger part of the building facing Palisades has been added onto the original smaller building facing Parker.  Bingo!  It was called the Church of the Good Shepherd.

Then, on a whim, I lifted up the corner of the picture and to my surprise found that it was a postcard!  There was writing on it too... it was a message sent to my great great Aunt Rebecca "Bonnie" Abbott Bryant from her sister May in 1917.  Rebecca's grandson Matt is one of my newfound cousins on Ancestry, so I wrote to him about the postcard.  Very cool.  He told me that it was May's grandson, Ray Eggers, Jr., who compiled most of the Abbott family genealogy back in the days when it took a lot of years of traveling to get information.  Coincidentally, I am in possession of all of Mr. Eggers' correspondence with my Aunt Miriam.

I've been wondering how the Bryants and Abbotts met each other.  The Abbott family were well known piano makers in Fort Lee.  Charles Bryant from Virginia became a piano dealer in Fort Lee.  Rebecca Abbott married Charles' brother William Bryant.  Charles' sister Ida - my great grandmother - married Rebecca's half brother George Abbott.  Did they meet through the piano business or did they meet in that little church on Parker Avenue?  Who met who first? (Later I learned that William Bryant had taken the new railroad to NJ from Southampton, Va. to find work, and met Bonnie Abbott, a coworker in a hat factory in Fort Lee. That was probably the first Bryant-Abbott connection). 

I bought a book from Amazon called Music in New Jersey, 1655 - 1860.  I was hoping it would answer these questions, but it included only a couple of pages about the Abbott Piano Factory.  Still, very interesting. Post Script: I gifted the book to Matt and Natalka Weismantel.

Plain brown wrapper

I received a mysterious package in the mail today from Aunt Teeny.  It was a thick packet of papers, but was addressed to "Leah & John" at my address.  So I called Aunt Teeny and she said that she had found a pile of genealogy papers and put them in the mail for me.  No clue why it said Leah & John.  When I opened it, it appeared to be a random assortment of letters and old typewritten documents.  On closer inspection, I realized that it was years of correspondence between Aunt Miriam and Uncle Herman and a relative in New Jersey named Ray Eggers.  Mr. Eggers had spent years doing research on the family and had published books about it.  He was particularly determined to prove the link with Roger Williams. He did it the old fashioned way, by traveling all over the Northeast doing research using primary documents.   It took more than a decade, but he finally accomplished his mission.

As I scanned the documents to post online, it occurred to me that Ray Eggers was probably a source for the Weismantel family Ancestry research as well.  I have been communicating with Matt Weismantel through Ancestry over the last year.  Ray's connection with Marge Weismantel was the source of many photos and documents, as well as the Bryant family Bible, all of which had already been shared with me by Matt.  We are all descendants of Roger Williams through the Abbott line.  

All of Ray's work and correspondence is now posted in Google Docs and has been shared with my fellow Ancestry researchers.

May Abbott Cowan, half sister of George Wright Abbott > Bonnie F. Cowan > Raymond F. Eggers.
[George Wright Abbott > Jacqueline D. Abbott > John B. Zaun > Teresa Zaun Austin]

In talking with Aunt Teeny this afternoon, more stories came out about the Butler family.  She said that Rawley Martin Butler came home from WWI with syphilis.  He came to live with the Lukhards when Junior (Herman, Jr.) and Dee (Rawley) were young and shared a bed with the boys until the syphilis was discovered. Rawley's wife Hilda divorced him and he eventually died of it in 1944.  Rawley's grandson questions some of these details, however, because Rawley and Hilda had two children in the 20's and she lived to a ripe old age.  He also said that Rawley had been known to have a gambling problem and had lost the family home which could very well have been a reason for the divorce.  The chronology of this story doesn't exactly make sense, but either way, it's a very sad situation.