Letter from Ida to Bluke Jr.

Cousin Terry sent me a copy of a letter she found in some old family papers. It was a letter from Ida Rene Abbott to her nephew Blucher Fletcher, Jr in 1909. It took some time to transcribe the letter, and there are still a few words missing, but here it is:

September 2nd 1909

Dear Bluke,
Your letter received and glad to hear from you. I know you have found it lonely, no one but yourself in the house. Where did sister go. She didn’t want me that is sure. I wrote and told her to let me know what Sunday she was [in] Norfolk, and I would go down for the day. So she got off and didn’t say a word. Yes, Bluke, we will be glad to have you any time. All you got to do is say what Sunday you will come and we willl meet you at the depot. Would love to see you. Write and tell us when you will come. Bring your lady friend along. Will make .... plan for you as possible. It is $1.50 round trip just for the day. Come and stay a week and go back the next Sunday. It is fine up here. You will not want to go back any more. I am going to look for a letter saying that you will come. Love to sister and Bluke and receive a large share for yourself. Let me hear from you at once. Your loving aunt, Ida Abbott

My questions... What caused the estrangement between sisters? Bluke would have been about 19 years old - who was his "lady friend?"

To appreciate what it took to decipher this letter, here is the original:

1205 Flobert Drive, Part One 1959-1965

When I was five years old and my mother was pregnant with my sister, my parents had a modest brick home built in Princess Anne County, way out in the country, far outside the city where my father worked and where my grandparents lived. The development, called Bellamy Manor, was owned by the Bellamy family. It was only a partially cleared property. The part of the development behind the manor house was called "the Hill." You either lived on the Hill or in the Woods. We lived in the Woods. Most of the Kempsville area around Bellamy Manor was farmland. There was a strong Mennonite population in Kempsville and much of the farmland was devoted to dairy cows.

After the Bellamy property was developed, the big white Manor house remained, facing Kempsville Road, until the "new" library was built around 1988. You can still see the ancient trees behind the library that give away the original location of the house.

A History of the Kempsville Library

The Kempsville Area Library is built on the site of the historic "Bellamy Manor" Plantation, circa 1715-1959. The 9.7 acres of land was sold to the City of Virginia Beach in 1967 for $50,000. On April 29, 1969 the Kempsville Area Library first opened its doors. Appropriately, the event took place during National Library Week. The building was 6,000 square feet and opened with a collection of 7,000 volumes to serve a population of 20,000 in the Kempsville area. At that time, the Kempsville Area Library was the fourth branch of the Virginia Beach Public Library System. As the Kempsville population grew, so did the business at the library. The year 1984 brought 239,400 visits to the Kempsville Area Library alone! By 1985, the library was serving a population of more than 65,000 and housed a collection of 53,000 volumes. By August 1986, plans for a new library building came to fruition. The original library building would become the Fourth Precinct police station. The community participated in planning the new building. A survey of library users helped determine the features that the residents felt were important. Ground Breaking ceremonies were held on October 20, 1988. The construction of the building began almost immediately and its entire outside structure was completed in just a matter of months! In January 1990 the new Kempsville Area Library opened, ready and eager to serve the residents of Kempsville!

http://www.superpages.com/bp/virginia-beach-va/kempsville-area-library-L0137952191.htm

My first memories of Bellamy Manor

There were no proper roads the first year or so, just ruts in the grassy lanes cut into the heavy woods. Some of the roads further back in the woods had no houses built on them yet and were great places to hike.

The woods smelled heavily of wild creatures - to this day the scent is distinct in my memory. And rattlesnakes galore! We killed many rattlesnakes in our first years in the Woods. I almost stepped on a coiled rattlesnake while playing tag in the Downs' yard. I heard the rattling and thought it was the water spigot. I looked down and screamed for help. Mrs. Edge rushed over with a 22 shot gun and blew it away right at my feet.

Old Mr. Bellamy came around in his big white car through the development periodically. He knew all of the residents and spoke to the children as he rode by. He told one child, "you've grown two ax handles since I last saw you!" At Halloween, everyone knew there were candied apples handed out at the manor house.

There were only a few houses back then on that quarter mile stretch called Flobert Drive. We were near the end of the street (the "turn around").  Our house was the third house in a row next to the Edges and Downs'. Our lot sizes were near a half acre. We had about fifty trees in our yard. The Gaskins family lived in a big house in the middle of three fenced in lots about halfway down the road. They had a horse, and also had a pony-sized black German Shepherd named "Mount" who charged menacingly at everyone who dared to go down the street.  The Watson family lived on the corner at the entrance to Flobert Drive. Our bus stop was at the foot of their driveway. Their oldest daughter Priscilla was our babysitter.

Hunters were used to letting their dogs loose in the woods to run. Mr. Jones would drive his pack of baying hounds to the end of our street and release them. He'd come back some time later to pick them up. His dogs were named after U. S. Presidents; invariably, Truman would be left behind and Mr. Jones would have to come pick him up the next day from our front porch.

Sometimes we would find cows or horses wandering in our yard. We'd have to call the owners to come get them. Once when my mother was hanging out clothes, a fox ran under the clothesline followed shortly thereafter by hounds and a hunter on horseback.

My best and only friend was the next door neighbor, also named Teresa. She introduced me to things I had never known, such as cussing and sex (on a very limited scale) and eating animals that were killed in the woods. Her mother had a heart as big as the moon, but could cuss like a sailor and didn't care who heard. They also had whiskey in the house and tobacco. Once she made homemade root beer that accidentally fermented and made all the neighborhood kids drunk. The Edges had their house built toward the front of their lot so there was a huge plot in the back for a garden and grape vines. I learned to shell butter beans and have grape skin fights. I also learned to be more physically daring - Teresa would swing as high as the sky and fly off into a hill-sized dirt pile. We made forts out of hay bales and played there all day. The Edges had a nasty dog named Jigger who bit everyone. Back then, getting bit by Jigger was just part of a normal day. My cousin Calvin biked his newspaper route with Jigger attached to one leg.

As more folks moved into the neighborhood, my circle of friends grew. We all knew each other and were in each others' homes as much as our own. As long as I came home when the cowbell rang, my mother didn't care where I was and never had to worry. My cousins moved into Bellamy Manor four streets away and within easy walking distance. Kids rode their bikes long distances from home - there were no restrictions or boundaries. The "big ditch" on the other side of the Edges' house was the pathway to our friends' homes on all the other streets that ran parallel in the "Woods." We had our secret forts in the woods. We were outside all day long. There was no such thing as air-conditioning so being outdoors was preferable to the stifling house.

... more later...

3319 Brest Avenue

Due to lack of any remarkable research findings to report, I will take this opportunity to share some personal memories of early childhood.

My parents were only 22 and 24 when I was born. Their first home was on Brest Avenue in Norfolk. We lived there until just before my sister was born. I was five years old. Here is the house today... the crepe myrtles and shrubs were not there in 1959. There also appears to be an addition on the back of the house that wasn't there.

3319 Brest Avenue, Norfolk Va.
Google Maps, December 2016

I have few but very distinct memories of being in this little house...

Sitting at the kitchen table and discussing possible names for my new kitten. I was probably only two or three years old. Apparently, my mind was only on the food because we named the cat Applesauce.

Breaking my leg falling out of the high chair.

Running crying from the kitchen into the bedroom and into my dad's arms (oddly, I associate this vivid moment with breaking my leg but that does not make sense).

Getting a new dog, a beagle named Butch (wonder what happened to Applesauce?).

The mimosa tree in the backyard, in whose shade we lived and moved in the summertime. I remember having a good sized wading pool where all the neighborhood kids came to swim. My July birthday parties were held at a picnic table under that tree.

My friend David who had a prosthetic leg. He had to take it off to swim in my pool.

My friend (Karen I think) who lived across the street and had a mean dog on a chain in her backyard.

The detached garage that my dad built. I don't remember much about the process of building it, but I do remember clearly what it looked like. If you look closely at the photo above, you can catch a glimpse of it.

Santa Claus (a neighbor dressed up) visiting us in our home and scaring me to death.

A Christmas gift - a large robotic gorilla which came with a cork gun. If you could hit the gorilla in the chest with a cork, it would give a frightening roar and flash its green eyes and start moving menacingly toward you. The thing scared me to death! Isn't it just like my dad to come up with a gift like this for a little girl.

The neighborhood bully who told a group of us younger ones about the "bloody bones" in the window of the creepy house on the corner and scared me to death.

I was a timid child.

My friend Rexanne who lived around the corner (the other way from the creepy house) who shared my same exact birthday. We love to connect about that fact to this day. Coincidentally, she was friends with my future spouse in high school.

My cousins living on the next block (Argonne Avenue). I ran away once and called to my Uncle Sonny to help me cross the street. I don't remember this, but my mother says she was very upset with me.

Sitting in front of the TV every Saturday morning in the living room, patiently watching the test pattern until cartoons came on at 7:30.

I have other memories, such as visiting my grandparents during these early years, but this is the sum total of my memories about living in the house on Brest Avenue.

John Adam Zaun, German Immigrant

John Adam Zaun was born on September 12, 1840, in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. He is my 2X great grandfather in my direct paternal line.

At age 27, "Adam" left Germany, likely to avoid being drafted in the Prussian Army. He immigrated to America in 1867. Peter and Barbara Wellner and their daughter Elizabeth arrived at or about the same time, maybe even on the same ship. 

"Adam Soun" married Elizabeth Wellner on October 25, 1868, in Dumbarton, Virginia. They became naturalized citizens in 1873 (per 1930 Census). Adam and Elizabeth had four children: Louise Sophie in 1876, John Adam in 1879, Henry Phillip in 1884, and Charlie Wellner in 1886.

There are some inconsistencies. On their marriage certificate, Adam's parents are named as George and Elizabeth Soun in the "same household." There is no mention of his parents on any other document, no other indication that they immigrated to America. On the marriage record, Adam's birth year is given as 1844, which is inconsistent with other records. On Elizabeth's death certificate, her son John Adam, gave her middle initial as "B." He did not know who her parents were.

According to the Richmond City Directory, Adam and Elizabeth lived at 1116 W. Main Street in 1874. Adam's occupation was "paver." Later, his occupation, according to sources, was "farming" on a "Truck Farm." By 1900 they were living on Staples Mills Road. Their son Henry lived with them; their daughter Louise Duckhardt lived next door. According to the 1920 census, Adam, Elizabeth, and Henry lived and worked on a "home farm" on Hungary Road, which today runs parallel to E. Parham between interstate highways 95 and 64.

John Adam Zaun died of heart problems at age 82 on December 26, 1922, at his home in Dumbarton, Virginia. He was buried in Bethlehem Baptist Church Cemetery on Penick Road. 

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Genealogy Resources: Death Certificates

Ancestry.com occasionally adds a whole new database to their vast collection of sources. When this happens it is like Christmas for a genealogy hound!  About a year ago, the entire collection of Virginia death certificates was added. I attached as many as I could find to my family tree.

Death certificates list the official cause of death and contributing factors. They also name the parents and birthplaces (though sometimes the informant gets this information wrong). Though it might seem morbid, I scrutinized every one of these certificates looking for individuals' "stories," and I was certainly not disappointed. I found out how my Uncle Jimmy supposedly killed himself ... he shot himself in the abdomen with a shotgun. What on earth!? That just doesn't make sense to me. How does one even accomplish something like that? Pull the trigger with your big toe? My imagination was busy coming up with alternate theories; for instance, I know from firsthand experience that his 2nd wife, Margaret, was crazy. I wouldn't be surprised if she shot him.

Today, I discovered that all the death certificates for that state of Missouri from 1910-1965 have been released. My great grandfather's certificate was in that database. According to his death certificate, the cause of death was "shock due to prostectomy." So sad! Such a terrible way for a strong, healthy, handsome 69-year old man to go.

Note how much personal information can be obtained from a document like this. It is a real treasure!

Dillingham Blvd

If you read my last post, you know that my relatives helped to dismantle the Jamestown Exposition homes at Sewells Point. Some of the homes were saved and  became part of what is known as "Admirals' Row" on the Naval Base.

Naturally, I wanted to know more about these homes, so I googled them. To my surprise, I discovered that the famous homes are on "Dillingham Boulevard," named after Admiral A. C. Dillingham.

Part of Admirals Row on Dillingham Blvd.
PilotOnline.com

Whoosh! Mind blown... I contacted the Dillingham family expert (in England) and learned that I am descended from the New England Dillinghams and so is Adm. A. C. Dillingham. The Admiral is my cousin. And an important road is named after him in my own hometown.

Jamestown Exposition of 1907 historical site
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/parktour/jamestownexposition.html

Rear Admiral Albert Caldwell Dillingham

Terry, Terry, and Charlie

Where do I begin... so much I have learned today! I invited cousin Charlie Fletcher and his daughter Terry over for lunch today. The idea was that I would share what I have learned about the Bryant family history, and ask some of the burning questions that I hoped Charlie could answer. Charlie is an impressively sharp 91 year old, full of stories about his life and about family.

They arrived at 10:30 a.m. We talked for about two hours before we even thought about having lunch! Conversation went off on many tangents (listed below) which I will explain later in this post.

• The Jamestown Exposition of 1907 on Seawells Farm
• Ocean View
• Asbury Park
• Civil War
• Blackwater
• investment properties

After lunch we got on the computer and I invited Terry to view and contribute to my family tree on Ancestry. We looked at some of the photos, stories, and documentation that I have collected for each ancestor. Then we looked at maps online to learn where the Bryant and Fletcher family farms were located in Blackwater. Though it was already 3:00 in the afternoon by this time, we decided to get in the car and drive out to Blackwater to see the land firsthand.

As we thought, the memories ingrained in Charlie's brain led us to all the places he remembered from childhood. Even though the landscape is dramatically changed, he "felt" that we should turn or veer right there... he knew the names of every family property we passed. We turned off of Blackwater Road onto S. Head of River Road, a small segment of road that probably used to be part of Blackwater Road. We stopped where Charlie thought the Bryant family farm should have been. We pulled in a driveway next to a couple of modern barn buildings. A neat row of ancient cypress trees up to the main road gave a clue that an old driveway had been there. I got out of the car and talked with a girl who was putting horses away in the barn. Her last name was Ehrinzeller and she had only owned the property for a few years. She bought the farm from the daughter of the Wright family (of the Lake Wright Hotel) and had no idea of its history. But Charlie was sure it was the right place. The "old Cox place" was right next door.

UPDATE 9/20/21: Recently I sat down and wrote down a timeline of Bryant family history. I discovered that Charlie Fletcher was not born until after his family moved to Ocean View in Norfolk, so he could not have had childhood memories of the family farms in Blackwater. This put a good part of my research into question! After studying the original deed to the Bryant farm, I learned that it was actually located on the other side of the Cox farm, across Head of River Road. 

Note to my children: This farm, once owned by my 2X great grandfather, is at one end of Head of River Road. At the other end of Head of River Road is the farm where your paternal great grandmother, Mae Kelly, was born. 

Then we drove up the road to Pungo Ferry Road, where the Fletcher Farm had once been. "Pungo Ferry Road ran right through the middle of grandfather's strawberry field," recalls Charlie. The Davis Grainery, next to the original house, was once on a piece of property owned by the Fletchers. We took pictures of where the house once stood, but the only remaining evidence was an old tree (see picture below).

The big old tree stood in front of the Fletcher house, which burned down.
Sadly, the tree fell not long after this photo was taken.

Further down Blackwater Road was the Baptist Church, where we thought we might find some family graves. We were specifically looking for the graves of Eley and Margaret Bryant. Charlie said that his grandfather, Blucher, was the first elder of the Blackwater Baptist Church so we thought we'd check out the cemetery there. We looked at all the oldest gravestones, but no luck. There was a Margrett Jane Fletcher - no idea who she was. But it was a pleasant adventure into Pungo history.

Blackwater Baptist Church

From Findagrave.com:
Margaret Jane was married, first to George A. Gilbert
in about 1880, and second, to Malachi G. Fletcher
in about 1903 (this was Malachi's third marriage).

We stopped at the Blackwater Trading Post, originally owned by the Cox family, where we ran into a native of Blackwater who shared some stories with Charlie. Then we drove down to the Mill Dam Stream where Murray's sawmill had once been. Both families are related to the Fletchers by marriage. Blucher Fletcher was married twice before he married Addie. A daughter from a previous marriage was married to Mr. Murray. Their son, Edgar, lived and worked on the farm with Blucher and Addie (1910 Census). Blucher, Jr.'s step-sister, Margaret, married into the Cox family ("Sis Mag") who owned the farm next to the Bryants. 

Terry and her father, Charlie.

Side stories: 

Sis Mag's adopted son Horace Cox, who worked for Kline Chevrolet, was killed by muggers. 

Margaret's sister Penelope was married to Dr. Murray and lived in the gray house at Boush and 21st Street. 

Now, back to the random topics of conversation from this morning. 

Blucher Fletcher, Sr., purchased 8 lots for $25 each in Ocean View and created a "mini-farm" at Willoughby Heights off 1st View. Blucher built houses on Peachtree Street out of cypress from his farm land in Blackwater. The first house (9337 Peachtree) was divided into apartments and several generations lived under one roof. I believe my grandfather, Ernie Zaun, lived with them for a short time when he first moved to Norfolk from Richmond. The second house (9327 Peachtree) was Addie's "dream house."  Both houses are still standing. Charlie was born on Peachtree Street, and his daughter, Terry, was born in another house on Peachtree Street.

9337 Peachtree Street

9327 Peachtree Street, Ocean View, Norfolk, Va.

Blucher Jr. and his son Phillip (Charlie's father) left the farm and got work dismantling the houses on Sewells Point. These homes had been built on the former Sewells Farm by the 13 colonial states for the Jamestown Exposition of 1907*, and the Navy wanted to tear them down and use the land for barracks. [The houses were all moved to one street and became known as Admirals Row].

Charlie remembers his uncle Charlie Bryant (his namesake) visiting their home on Peachtree Street in his chauffeured car. Charlie Bryant's wife Mariah was a wealthy widow who owned several hotels on the beach in Asbury Park in New Jersey. He also remembers visiting my grandparents, Jack and Ernie Zaun, in their home on Mason's Creek Road. The house is still there (cream with two rails). [Note: I can find no evidence of my grandparents living on Mason Creek Rd].

Charlie still has the money that was in the pocket of his great grandfather Blucher when he signed up to go to war. Blucher had described to Addie how he hid behind trees during battle and watched the bark fly off. 

Charlie's aunt Ruth had a mental disability from Scarlet Fever. 

One of Audrey's children was badly scarred on her face from an accident near Charlottesville when Charlie Page was driving. Charlie Fletcher had wanted to ride in the car with his fun uncle Charlie but his mother wouldn't let him.

There was once a streetcar to Ocean View at the Princess Anne County line. Van's Cottages were at the end of the line. Charlie delivered newspapers in this area as a boy. He invested in many properties that were hugely profitable in Ocean View and Virginia Beach, including "Little Williamsburg." [I am trying to find information on these properties].

*The "Norfolk 100" were men who built funds to bring the Jamestown Exposition to Norfolk instead of to Richmond.