Knowing your place

I read an interesting blog post here on the link between family history and children's self-esteem. A study done by MARIAL followed several families with children aged 9-12, recording how often the family discussed ancestral stories, including stories of the parents when they were young. They discovered that the more children know about their family's history (family stories, hardships, occupations, triumphs, anecdotes) the more psychologically resilient they were. The children who participated in dinnertime and casual conversations of family stories had higher self-esteem, fewer behaviour disturbances and a greater sense of their ability to positively affect the world around them.

Do you know where you came from?  Your place in history? Here's a photo of "Grammie" Ethel Grant surrounded by her extended Gilchrest family. Ethel is the young girl center front.

Field trips!

For a presentation in April at the Timberland Regional Library Friends and Boards Forum, I will be talking about doing genealogical research in the field. Literally. This gravestone rubbing is one that I made back in 1988 when my dad and I drove from Massachusetts to Vermont on an ancestor hunt. We knew the cemetery was on the "Old Niles Farm," which, of course, no longer exists, but undaunted, we headed out to the small rural community of Halifax, Vermont. After a few false starts, and asking directions along the way, we parked the car alongside a promising-looking field in the general vicinity of our destination. It was summer--hot and muggy--and as we caught sight of the cemetery, the mosquitoes caught us. Swarms of them! We reversed our steps, drove back into the village and bought mosquito repellent, then tried again.
The cemetery consisted of about a dozen stones, in varying degrees of decay, fallen over and forgotten among the weeds, but sheltered under the trees.
This rubbing, made that day, is of Sarah (Frink) Niles, my 5th great-grandmother: "Late Consort of David Niles, who died in the revolutionary service, at White Plains in 1776."
As important to me as this find was, more important was the occasion to experience it with my dad. He was gone from us six short years later, and I cherish the memory of that adventure with him.

Luck of the Irish

The PageTurner library discussion group I lead this past week was "Into the Beautiful North" by Alberto Luis Arrea. The last discussion question was, "Where did your ancestors emigrate from? Do you have any family stories from your heritage?" I shared some stories from my Irish immigrant ancestors, which were fresh in my mind today, St. Patrick's Day, and prompted me to write them down here to share with my own family.

Denis and Bridget (O'Brien) Connolly lived in Skibbereen, Cork, Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine. They toughed it out through the worst of it, but by the 1870s, the future for 11 children was bleak. Seven (Cornelius "Con", Patrick, Dennis, Thomas (my great-grandfather), Dan, Tim, and John) of the 9 boys and Ellen, the oldest girl, had all emigrated  one-by-one, to Massachusetts. They didn't stay in the city, but moved out to the rural communities of Dunstable, Pepperell and Groton to farm. In the 1890s, Thomas, now married to Ellen Kiely with 3 children (3 others died in infancy), caught Gold Rush Fever and traveled to the Yukon to stake a claim in the Klondike. He was there for two trips and a total of about 5 years, just eking out enough to pay off his farm before coming home. [I have the letters he wrote to his wife while he was away.]
Ellen (Kiely) Connolly was not very pleased when her youngest son, Francis Gregory, fell in love and married a French Canadien, Beatrice Edna Hawley. She had picked out a nice little Irish girl for her son, and although Bea was Catholic, it wasn't enough to prevent Ellen from treating Bea poorly for the first few years of their marriage. For financial reasons, Bea and Francis had to initially live with Thomas and Ellen for those first years. Bea worked in a shoe-string factory in E. Pepperell while Francis worked at the Ford Motor Company in Fitchburg, repairing engines. Bea's shift went late into the evening and she would come home after dinner had all been cleared away. Ellen would greet her with, "there's cold potatoes in the ice box. They've been cooked once, I'm not heating them again!" and leave Bea to fend for herself. Bea's daughter, Anne (my mom) remembers Ellen staying at their home for extended visits and as a child, didn't notice any ill will--Bea never said anything negative about her mother-in-law--so Ellen must have worked out her issues eventually.
Bea and Francis left a legacy of hard work and determination. They build their own home using free "hurricane" lumber (harvested from the local forest, blown down by the strong winds), then helped three of their own sons to build their homes. During World War II Francis, too old to serve in the military, served as an Air Raid Warden in his local community of Dunstable. He was issued a helmet, a whistle and a flashlight, and would patrol the area looking for Germans (Dunstable is located near the former Army Base of Ft. Devens.)
Mom grew up not realizing she came from a poor family, as they always had food to eat (slaughtered their own pigs and chickens) and clothes to wear (hand-me-downs from her older sister, and gingham dresses made from grain sacks provided by the town.) It wasn't until she took a job in the "big city" of Fitchburg and saw how others lived (running water, flush toilets, electricity) that she realized how primitive her life in the country had been. Maybe that is why she became a hoarder of hats and shoes...I love you, Mom, Happy St. Patrick's Day! I love my Irish heritage!

Come together

Donald, 1947

My dad's birthday sychronistically fell on Family Home Evening night while my mother was visiting. She and I were at Siemers, so I planned an activity to help my grandchildren get to know their great-grandfather a bit, whom they never got to meet. I had a photo (left) of him and mom and then on top of it I overlaid smaller pictures of things that would evoke a story of his life: a picture of some Dunkin Donut's coffee/treats, a man helping someone fix a flat tire, a go-cart, a stock car racer, a puppy dog, a picture of my dad as a young man (right). Each of the kids got to take off a small picture and then I or mom told a story about it. It was fun. Happy Birthday, Dad!