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.

Asking the Right Questions

erroneous obit

I had reached a stalemate with my family tree - sketchy details with lots of contradictions and unclear relationships.  I started asking questions, and writing them down.  I identified potential sources of information and tested them out. Answering one question led to three more questions.  I am filling up a notebook with questions!  My notebook has tables, and charts, and maps, and lists... organizing the information in a variety of configurations brings up even more questions.  This strategy has given my research such a giant boost, I can't keep up with all the information I'm digging up!

I started with my simplest question:  Was my great grandfather, George Wright Abbott, the son of Gertrude or Sarah?  Records showed Sarah was his mother, but his obituary named Gertrude (his father's first wife).  I knew Gramp Abbott lived with his daughter Miriam when he died - surely she would have known the identity of his mother?  My potential source:  Aunt Teeny (Miriam's daughter).  When I asked, Teeny told me that her mother Miriam had collapsed when Gramp died and was barely able to function much less write an obituary, so the people at Bliley's Funeral Home wrote it.  So there it is:  the obituary is wrong because strangers wrote it.  Mystery solved.  I am confident in saying that Sarah was his mother.

Another question:  Who was Ida Rene's mysterious first husband?  As far as anyone in the family knew, my great grandmother Ida was married only twice - to William B Butler and to George W Abbott. However, the transcription of her marriage record to William Butler gave her name as "Ida Rena [Bryant] Williams."  So who was this Williams guy?  Also, curiously, Ida and William Butler were married in Princess Anne County, though her family was from Southhampton County.  How did she end up in Princess Anne County? This question took me on an adventure to unexpected places.

from Wikipedia:  Princess Anne County in 1895

I decided that the key was with Ida's twin sister Addie.  I started following tangents on her life.  Addie's grandson Charlie Fletcher told me years ago that the family once lived in Princess Anne County, in the Blackwater area.  So maybe this was the connection to the Williams fellow?  Another Ancestry researcher wrote that Eley Bryant, Ida and Addie's father, farmed the "Land of Promise Plantation" in Princess Anne County.  A search on Google maps proved that Land of Promise Road intersects Blackwater Road in what is now Virginia Beach.  This researcher also wrote that Eley was Southern Baptist - the nearest baptist church at the time was located at the corner of Princess Anne Road and....drum roll....Williams Farm Road. Williams?! Could this be the family?  My mother used to buy vegetables from Williams Farm when I was little.  I still haven't identified Ida's first husband, but I'm getting warmer.  The next step is to search the church's records or the Virginia Beach Courthouse records.

Land of Promise-Blackwater - still mostly farms

The Addie tangent led to answers to other questions that I wasn't even asking.  I discovered that she and Blucher moved to Ocean View by 1930.  She and her mentally disabled adult daughter Ruth lived in the same boarding house on Peachtree Street as her son Blucher, his wife Catherine, and their sons Phillip and Charles. This possibly explains why my grandfather Ernie moved from Richmond to Ocean View when he came to Norfolk to look for work - he briefly lived in a boarding house near Addie.  It also ties in with Charlie Fletcher's stories about growing up in Ocean View and remembering my grandfather there.

This tangent led to yet another discovery, one that has been haunting me ever since my son Adam bought a house on Newport Avenue in Norfolk.  Which house on Newport Avenue did my dad live in as a boy? In a search for my grandfather Ernie's address in Ocean View, I stumbled on his address on Newport Ave in a 1952 city directory - there it was - 4306.

"Gramp" standing in front of 4306 Newport Ave in 1954.

4306 Newport Ave today

Chaucer (originally posted in Feb 2015)

My 18th great grandmother, Kathryn de Roet Swynford, was the wife of John I Plantagenet and sister in law of Geoffrey Chaucer, the "father of English Literature."  There have been other English ancestors that have gotten me excited, but this one blew me away.  My passion has been English Literature since high school because of an inspiring teacher, Mrs. Comstock.  She was the reason I became an English major in college. I loved studying Chaucer so much in college that I took every single course taught by Chaucer scholar, Dr. Rosemary Sprague.  I even learned Middle English so I could read Chaucer's works in the original language. I had a strong drive to know everything about that time period.  I know the line of descent is not direct, but still... any connection at all is amazing.

Kathryn Swynford is an ancestor through my paternal great grandmother, Georgia Powell.

Postscript: Tragically, the beloved Dr. Sprague died in her bed during a fire at her old Victorian home in Farmville, Va. I own one of her books, and still remember her fondly.

Taking it to the next level

I've reached the point where I am ready to expand my research into new methods and sources.  There are still many options I have not explored online.  I aim to exhaust every source online before resorting to visiting actual places in person.   This is probably the beginning of my investment of financial resources into the project, and also where my research will become quite a bit more tedious.

Today I began watching a video series on Ancestry.com's youtube channel about Genealogical Proof Standards.  So much yet to learn!  I ordered a book published by the Board of Certification of Genealogists. I may look into getting certified as a genealogist myself.  I started a research log.  I looked into the Family Tree Maker software - not sure if I need that yet.  I submitted a post for review on the Ancestry Facebook page.  I had already submitted questions to Genealogy Roadshow and to ask@ancestry.com.  To date, my only expense has been the annual membership in Ancestry and the book I just ordered today.  It will cost more to join the International version of Ancestry, and even more to subscribe to valuable resources, such as Newspaper.com.  I feel like I need to confirm and validate every single name I have already added to my tree before I can add anybody else or spend any more money.

There are many reasons for genealogy research:  publishing, curiosity, legacy... my sole reason for doing this is for my children and their children.  Knowing one's family history is an important part of one's identity.

Genetic Memory

I do not believe in reincarnation, though I have had personal experiences that made me understand why people do believe in it.  Now, I read about studies conducted at Emory University indicating that we inherit memories through our DNA, that we share in the experiences of our ancestors. This would explain a lot!  Chemical changes to our DNA occur when we experience a stressful or traumatic event, and experiments with mice show that these memories are passed down to subsequent generations. Experiences can alter our brains and our behavior, and these traits can be inherited.  Our DNA holds the recorded history of our family!  Natural aversions and instincts, and even phobias can be explained by this biological mechanism. I'm thinking that those mysterious deja vu moments can be explained by this as well.

Deja Vu

deja vu 

When I was about seven years old, my parents and a neighbor took me with them to Colonial Williamsburg. I remember very little about the visit, but one moment struck me so dramatically, I still get goosebumps thinking about it. The grownups were at Raleigh Tavern purchasing ginger cakes from the bakery there. (The smell still has very strong memory associations for me, which may explain why I must bake Raleigh Tavern ginger cakes every Christmas).  Anyway, I walked ahead of them and opened a little white gate leading out to Duke of Gloucester Street.  As I stood in the gateway looking toward the capitol building, an powerful sensation of deja vu came over me, and I have never forgotten it.  At that age, I could not even have known that deja vu was a thing.

Remembering Places I've Never Been
There are certain places that have always greatly interested me for no reason that I could figure - I have never set foot in any of them, but they are on my bucket list for sure:  Long Island and Cape Cod, The Alamo in Texas, and the particular areas of England associated with the legend of King Arthur.  Also, a story that greatly intrigued me as a child was The Boy at the Dike, set in the Netherlands.

Through my genealogy research in the past two years, I have discovered that my ancestors have solid connections with these very places.  It is truly an exciting thing for me, to believe that my inexplicable attraction to these places may be linked to my DNA!  I believe that this phenomenon might explain why some people get so hooked on genealogy once they get started.  It's like finding yourself.

Teresa Marie Allen, part 2

(this post is a continuation of THIS one)

Teresa Marie (nee Ethelyn) Allen
We know that my grandmother, Teresa Allen, nee Ethelyn, was raised in a Catholic boarding school in Paris, Texas.  We know that she was influenced by the nuns who cared for her (we have the Bible that was given to her by one of the Sisters).  She told her daughter Virginia that she changed her name to Teresa, taking on the name of one of the nuns.  We also know that she was trained as a nurse.  In researching the history of Paris, Texas, the only mention of a Catholic boarding school I could find is St. Patrick's, where the nuns were from the order of the Sisters of Mercy, whose mission was nursing. 

The History of Paris Regional Medical Center: Our Paris, Texas acute-care hospital has come a long way since its inception in 1911....The beginning of what was to eventually become Paris Regional dates to 1896 when the Sisters of Mercy operated St. Patrick’s Academy, a boarding school near downtown Paris, Texas. After several years of agonizing labor and severe tests of faith, six sisters reopened the facility as St. Joseph’s Infirmary on October 1, 1911.

http://www.ipernity.com/doc/138242/7266250

St. Joseph's Infirmary, 1908

St. Joseph's, est. 1911, site of St. Patrick's Academy

Present day site of St. Patrick's Academy (from Google Earth)

From Texas to Oklahoma to Illinois Nursing became a licensed profession in the early 1900's in Texas.  A growing percentage of women were in the workforce, and I believe my grandmother was among those at this cultural cutting edge.  In 1920, she was living in Oklahoma City in a boarding house on 11th Street and was working as a nurse.  A fellow roomer in this house was her lifelong best friend Maud Marshall, also a nurse.  The nearest hospital to this location - in walking distance, in fact - is the present-day Oklahoma University Medical Center and College of Nursing.  The Sisters of Mercy were a strong presence in Oklahoma City, as they founded Mount St. Mary Academy, an all girls' school which began as a mission to education Native American children.  From Oklahoma City, my grandmother moved with her friend Maud to Chicago, where there happens to be another Sisters of Mercy hospital. Coincidence?  I think not.  

UPDATE - Found Mother Teresa online!  This story is definitely adding up.

The first Catholic school in Paris was founded by a little band of Sisters of Mercy under the direction of Mother Teresa Muldoon. The sisters arrived in Paris in 1896. For two months, the sisters lived in the old Wooldridge home, at 238 Clarksville Street. With money bequeathed to her by her brother, Mother Teresa purchased three lots adjacent to the church on Clarksville Street. The little school was on the site of the first St. Joseph's Hospital building and now the parking lot west of the present hospital. In four years the sisters had progressed from small shacks to a fine modern building, a combination of a convent, the Convent of Mercy, and a school, St. Patrick's Academy. The school was started with a solemn blessing on March 17, 1900, and included a boarding school for several years. Financial difficulties forced the sisters to close the school, and the sisters converted the school to a hospital in 1910. It was named St. Joseph's Infirmary. They ran it for its first two years. In 1912 the Sisters of Mercy returned to Chicago, and the hospital was then continued under the direction of The Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio. Mother Teresa is buried in the Sister's plot in Evergreen Cemetery.

Boston Evening Transcript - Jun 26, 1903

http://glt.amormeus.org/documents/USProvinceNewsletterNovDec07.pdf

Update -Mar 2015:   My sister found a couple of documents packed away with her own nursing school stuff... a listing of licensed nurses in Virginia showing that Teresa Allen Crofford graduated from Paris Sanitarium Training School for Nurses, and a yearbook listing alumni of the school.  She, along with her friend Maude Marshall and five others, comprised the 7th graduating class.  The nursing school originated in the St. Joseph's Infirmary, further cementing the facts in the above story.

Update-June 2015:  searched for Maude Marshall and found her name as well as Teresa Allen's in the City Directories of Sherman Texas, and Paris Texas.  They both worked as nurses at St. Vincent's Sanitarium, and then at the Sanitarium of Paris in 1917-1919.

http://digicol.lib.depaul.edu/cdm/ref/collection/cm1/id/1191

Horses in the Black Hills

Passing Down a Love of Horses
Lame Johnny Creek was named after a scoundrel who was hanged from a tree near the creek.  The land along this creek was desirable grazing land for ranchers in the Black Hills area.  One ranch on this creek called Fleur de Lys was famed for its horses that were imported from France, including Percheron and Arabian breeds.  My grandfather's family owned horses too.  My grandfather, Horace Crofford, used to talk to me for hours about horses, and I hung on every word.  He described each breed and its characteristics, all of which I remember to this day.  From him, I learned about roans, paints, pacers, mules, Appaloosas, palominos, Percherons, Arabs, quarterhorses, and Tennessee Walkers.  I learned which horses were good for racing, plowing, carriage, or riding, and I could tell you which characteristics made them good for the job. He taught me about halters, bits, and bridles. When I went away to college and visited the riding stable there, I was drawn to a beautiful horse that I could immediately recognize as a Morgan because of Baba's description - barrel chest, strong legs and hindquarters, graceful arched neck, broad forehead, and cupped face.  My identification was confirmed by the owner.

Personal Experience
One story Baba told was about a horse on his father's ranch... during the night, the horse squeezed through the door into the stock room and gorged on oats.  The oats swelled up inside the horse and he couldn't get back out through the door.  The horse raised a ruckus, and the family came running.  They got him out of the storage room somehow, and family members had to take turns walking the horse around and around the paddock all night long so he wouldn't get a ruptured intestine and die.  A drink of water would have killed the horse quickly.

Postcards from my Grandfather
Whenever Baba went to Wyoming to visit his family, he sent postcards of horses and wrote about them on the back:

As you can see, I wore these postcards out studying them!