Week 13 - Sisters (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

 There are two sisters in my mother's family that I will talk about this week.  However, they were not sisters to each other.  What! you say.  Well, they were each siblings of my maternal grandparents.  My grandparents were Helen Boardman and Charles Bonadio.  Helen and her sister Bertha, or Bea as she was called, appeared to  be very close judging by the many photos we have of them.  Charles's sister, Mae, also became very close to Helen.  Helen and Charles were married in 1931 and within 3 years had two children, but in 1942, when Helen was just 29 years old, she developed a case of appendicitis and two weeks later died of complications from that.  This left my mom, age 10, and her brother, age 8, with no mother.  And Charles suddenly became a single father with a full time job in a mill.  Both Bea and Mae stepped in to help Charles raise his children. Bea also worked full time in the same mill as Charles, so I am not sure of the logistics of all of this.  I would think many in the families helped out. And for whatever reason, Charles never remarried.  I like to think that he had found his one and only in Helen.  While my mother would occasionally speak of her mother, Charles never did.  So while Bea and Mae were aunts to my Mom, she was as close to both of them as she would have been to her mother and eventually, my sisters and I were treated like their granddaughters.   Bea was married in 1936, but they never had any children of their own, so mom and her brother filled those roles somewhat.  Mae was married in 1938 and did not have children until 1942, the same year that Helen died.  Bea & Mae were not the only sisters in the families. Bea & Helen had two additional sisters and Charles had three sisters besides Mae. When Mom married in 1954, she moved away from her childhood home, but never lost the connections to her aunts. I have always wished we could have known Helen, she looked like a fun person.  Some Photos shared below.

Helen & Charles

Helen Boardman Bonadio

Charles' daughter & sister

Please give credit and post a link to my blog if you intend to use any of the information written here. My blog posts are © Ann M Sinton 2022. All rights reserved. 

Week 12 - Joined Together (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

 I thought I'd just share some photos of family weddings this week.  It seems that no one had an especially eventful or unusual wedding day..  I've been fortunate to have in my possession or have come across photos of a lot of relative's weddings or photos of couples taken about the time they were married.  It's interesting how some brides had traditional wedding dresses and some wore street clothes.  Here are a few who joined together.

First, we have sisters who married brothers.  Caroline & Gary on the top, were married in 1946 and used Gary's WW2 parachute to make Caroline's wedding dress.  Then Caroline's sister, Lois, married Gary's brother, Oscar, in 1951.  

Caroline & Lois's parents, Charlotte and J. Ellsworth, were married in 1905.  This was said to be their wedding photo.  

While we do not have a wedding photo of J. Ellsworth's parents, we do have an image of their very colorful marriage certificate from 1885.

John and Carole were married in a typical 1954 ceremony, but had to change their reception location at the last minute due to a problem at the original venue.  

Carole's Aunt Mary, who was born in Italy, was married to Giovanni in 1917 in Pennsylvania.  Tragically, both Mary and her baby died from complications of childbirth a year later.

Another of Carole's aunts, Angeline, was married in 1938 with Carole as a flower girl.

John's parents, Elizabeth and Floyd, were married in 1928 at 7 AM on a Monday in the church rectory.  They had a long trip ahead of them to Watkins Glen & Niagara Falls for their honeymoon.

John's great grandparents, Merritt & Julia were married in 1852. This is said to be their wedding day.

Please give credit and post a link to my blog if you intend to use any of the information written here. My blog posts are © Ann M Sinton 2022. All rights reserved. 

Week 11 - Flowers - (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

 Women and flowers just seem to go together. Whether it's flowers that a women grows or flowers that are given to her.  This week I will talk about the connections that flowers have between me and my mother in law and daughter.  

My mother in law, Caroline, passed away in 2002 but one of the things that I will always associate with her are flowers, specifically, African Violets.  She had a vintage library table in her dining room that everyone called the "Flower Table".  It was always covered with multiple pots of African Violets with various houseplants mixed in.  If a leaf broke off of something, she would just push it back into the soil and it would grow.  Her violets were beautiful.  My husband has childhood memories of helping her take care of them. After she passed, alot of the family took one of her plants home.  Sadly, ours did not last long under my care, but did remind us of her for a little while.  

This the flower table but the Violets had already been rehomed.  

Another flower that connects me to Caroline, is called a Rose Campion.  It has fuzzy leaves and magenta blooms.  One day, we were sitting in her backyard and I noticed something growing in her lawn. She did not know what they were and they were always cut short whenever the lawn was mowed.  At the time, I had been trying to grow Lamb's Ears in my garden, another fuzzy plant.  So I thought that maybe that was what they were.  I asked if I could dig a few up.  I took them home and planted them, they grew well and to my surprise they were not Lamb's Ear.  When we moved from that home to another, I took some with me and they have been growing here happily for the last 33 years.  Fortunately for me, they self sow and come back each year.  My daughter took some last summer. Hopefully they will come up for her this year.  

Rose Campion

One last flower that will always be connected to me is Milkweed.  About 15 years ago or so, I began to plant Milkweed in hopes of attracting the Monarch butterfly to my yard.  It worked!  I have been raising Monarchs ever since.  Being wildflowers, these come back each year and sometimes spread.  But having the Milkweed in my garden has presented a nice opportunity to do something with my grandkids.  They loved watching the caterpillars and butterflies with me and helping raise them.  This has been another pastime that my daughter has continued in her yard. She has taken it a step further however, and uses the Monarchs as a teaching tool each September in her 3 & 4 year old preschool classes.  

It's amazing  how such common things can tie us together and keep memories and traditions alive.

Swamp Milkweed 

Butterflyweed (another type of milkweed)

Monarch & Swamp Milkweed

Please give credit and post a link to my blog if you intend to use any of the information written here. My blog posts are © Ann M Sinton 2022. All rights reserved. 

Week 10 - Worship (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

This week's topic, Worship, covers so many different avenues that I was not sure where to start.  Over the years, I have tried to collect images of the varied churches that are connected to our ancestors.  I've done fairly well as far as my and my husband's immediate family are concerned.  Interestingly, this pointed out that between the two of us, we cover a wide variety of denominations - Methodist, Roman Catholic, Quaker, Lutheran, Baptist and non-denominational to name a few off the top of my head.  Some family lines have been pretty steadfast in which denomination they follow.  Others see changes between generations.  Some relatives are ministers and some have contributed to the founding of their congregation. Many are lay leaders or elders of their congregations or have been members of the church choirs or other groups within their congregation.  But no matter what denomination you follow or your activities within that church, all share the same basic idea of worship.  In the "olden" days, a church was often the first  thing a community tried to establish. The church served not only as a place of worship, but a place to gather each week as a community and a place to catch up with your neighbors or to support your neighbors if needed.  

I could not settle on just what to write about, even after writing and rewriting several stories. So I finally came up with the idea of creating a pedigree chart of our ancestor's Worship preferences. Here is what that looks like.  Quite the mix on the husband's side. Not so much on the wife's side. 

(please excuse the handwriting, not my strong point)

Since the monthly theme for March is Females, I include these stories about my grandmother.

I've always admired my grandmother. She is one of my role models even though I have not followed everything about her, she comes to mind in many situations.  A little background - Elizabeth was born in 1906 and was married just one year before the Great Depression began, 1928.  Before her marriage, she attended a Business College and came home to a good job with the local office of the State Transportation Department.  Apparently, her job was dependent upon one's political party. She was approached, I think after an election and a party change, and it was suggested that she should change her party affiliation or lose her job. She refused.  She lost her job but stood her ground.  This was less than a decade after women won the right to vote at all!  

She raised 8 well educated children, was a great cook and housekeeper, she could sew and knit, became a caregiver to both of her parents and her husband, but notably was very devout in her faith. She strived to attend Mass every. single. day.  Not just on Sunday but EVERY day, no matter what.  She was a founding member of her parish's Catholic Daughters organization and later was one of her parish's "Mitten Ladies", who knit mittens to be donated to those in need.  I am sure that there were many other ways that she contributed to her parish as well. 

Elizabeth passed away the night before her 90th birthday, but there is a story about her, in her elderly years, that points to just how devout she was.  This story was told at her funeral by her pastor who was also the priest in the story.  One winter morning Elizabeth woke up to a really bad snowstorm.  But she followed her usual routine and out the door she went to attend Mass.  The roads were not conducive to driving, but that would not stop Elizabeth -  so she walked.  Now her parish was only 3 1/2 flat blocks from her home, but you can be sure that it could not have been an easy trek for her.  She arrived at the church only to be surprised to find it locked.  She was upset and found her way to the priest's home next door and knocked and knocked till he answered.  He was very surprised to see her at his door.  I do not know their exact conversation but she wanted to go to Mass and wanted to know why the church was locked. Never wondering that it might be cancelled due to the extreme weather.  

A strong woman in all ways but most of all, spiritually.  I wonder what she would have thought of Zoom Worship?

Please give credit and post a link to my blog if you intend to use any of the information written here. My blog posts are © Ann M Sinton 2022. All rights reserved. 

Week 9 : Females (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

We have all run into those female ancestors or relatives who just don't want to give up their secrets.  Females were often overlooked.  Once they married they lost more identity and became only Mrs Someone.  Even the documents about a woman where we might expect to find her maiden name or her parent's name are left blank sometimes because no one knew the names.  Fortunately, this was not the case with every one of our female ancestors or our trees would be half empty.  Thankfully, Quakers kept pretty good records and this week's subject comes to me through a line that includes two other females to take me back to her.  

My 4th great grandmother was the Rev. Priscilla (Coffin) Hunt Cadwallader.  Priscilla was born on July 10, 1786 in Springfield, North Carolina to Quakers Matthew Coffin & Hannah Mendenhall.  She married Jabez Hunt in 1811 and they soon had a daughter, Semira.  Unfortunately, Priscilla's husband died several months later in 1812.  Two years later she moved to Indiana, where her father had bought a farm.  Along with her father and his family, Priscilla became one of the first members of the new Blue River Monthly Meeting at Salem, Indiana.  She was very talented as a preacher and traveled all over preaching and by 1823 at age 37, she had visited every Friends Meeting in America.  In 1827 against her own better judgement, she married for a second time to Joseph Cadwallader, a fellow minister.  She remained very active in the Quaker faith, traveling and preaching far and wide.  Her second marriage was not a happy one and actually ended in a divorce in 1837, which was uncommon for her time and for a Quaker.  There were rumors of abuse by her husband and she commented to her daughter that she had "reason to doubt his constancy and integrity".  Her divorce was controversial also because it happened at a time when there was a split among the Quakers over some of their beliefs.  The Orthodox and the Hicksite Quakers ended up as separate entities.  Priscilla was a leader among the Hicksites, who were the breakaway group.  Her home Meeting, Blue River, was split about which side to follow and the Orthodox members ended up dissolving the Meeting and joining a Meeting in another county.  The Hicksites met and kept the name Blue River and also kept ownership of the meeting house because it was on land given to the meeting by Priscilla's father, who was also a Hicksite follower.  Where Priscilla's divorce and the division among the Quakers crossed was when the Orthodox Quakers used Priscilla's failed marriage against her and the Hicksite cause.  Some Hicksites, even tho they were her friends, were more concerned over their cause than helping her thru her personal trials partly because the Quakers just did not know how to deal with a failed marriage among their own.  But because she was so well known, her story spread. Some feel that it may have helped the Quaker-led women's rights convention held at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, show the injustices suffered by women at the time.   Priscilla passed away on Nov 13, 1859 and is buried at the Blue River Hicksite Cemetery near Salem, Indiana.  Nothing of her personal writings survive, as it is said that her second husband destroyed them. Everything that is known about her sermons and her life comes from writings of  her contemporaries who heard her preach or knew her personally.  

My grandmother , her sister and sister in law visiting

Priscilla would have preached in this meeting house many times

Mathew Coffin is Priscilla's father

I mention the women's right convention at Seneca Falls, NY.  Other well known female relatives of mine who  had a major hand in that convention - Lucretia Coffin Mott and her sister Martha Coffin Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony. All ranging from 3rd through 6th cousins to me. They all certainly would have known of Priscilla and vice versa. 

Well known women aside, there are so many stories of just everyday women who faced adversity as it came into their lives.  Several of my or my husband's ancestors faced losing a husband and being left with children to support.  Some would remarry and others would not.  Or maybe they were left to fend alone due to their husband's military service during a war.  Some of our female ancestors died too early, such as my maternal grandmother that I was never able to meet. No matter their personal stories,  I view them all as strong survivors and I believe that I am helped by having them all as ancestors. 

This was a great read about Priscilla that I became aware of when the author's wife contacted me to see if I had anything of Priscilla's that might be of interest.  

https://in.booksc.me/book/46726647/b1fe19

There is also a publication called "Memoir of Priscilla Cadwallader..."  originally written in 1862 and published for the Association of Friends in Philadelphia.  My copy was reprinted by the University of Michigan.

Please give credit and post a link to my blog if you intend to use any of the information written here. My blog posts are © Ann M Sinton 2022. All rights reserved.