We celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary yesterday with the (now traditional) hot dog and beer at the stadium.  This tradition started out feeling like a sad state of affairs but has now woven its way into our own little culture.  It helps that another couple from Jim's section of season ticket holders shares the very same anniversary with us.  Ed and Patty enjoy having this quirky coincidence in common so we make an effort to share the bounty of the stadium meal with them each year.

Last night, we were able to go to one of the skyboxes to watch the game and stay out of the rain.  This provided us with a better opportunity for real conversation--the kind you can't have in the open air stadium seating shared with others.  Hang on to your hats because this is where we learn that Patty is called Patty Anne -- and only by her family members.  Like me, she doesn't really like to hear it come from a non-blood's mouth.  And the quirky conicidence doesn't stop there--she also has 4 sisters and 1 brother!!!  By the time this information spilled out, the men were getting a little nervous.  As well they should. 

I admit that I do not always look excitedly forward to spending our anniversary at the stadium one more time, but yesterday was a night to remember despite the rain and cancelled fireworks.  Here are some photographic reminders of that day in 1985:

I like this one for the reminder of the blue kitchen, empties on the washing machine, July calendar on the door, Nanny and Mom helping out.  Who's that girl with the glasses next to Nanny? :)

Seeing the fire truck outside the church and realizing he really did get a fire truck!

Dad and his camera!  Happy Birthday Dad.

I think this is before we defiled the Elks Club Elk

Don't we all look young!

We spent our honeymoon in Gloucester.  Jim reminded Emmy this week that he has been in her life for 29 years now!  An anniversary well remembered.

Flynn vs. Alfred 1927

I don't know about you, but I never tire of reading these articles.  This is from an Alfred area newspaper following their 57-0 drubbing at the hands of St. Bonaventure led by Weenie.  He gained 310 yards and scored 4 touchdowns in this game.  Another article about this game referred to him as "brilliant".  Who wouldn't love to read that about their beloved grandfather?

Maybe this cool (almost fall-like) morning brought this to mind today.  Seriously it is so much fun to Google Weenie. (Well, be careful to include the Flynn part maybe with Olean so you don't get any nasty surprises in the results).  If  you haven't done so while you are wasting time on the internet, I strongly recommend it. 

Paula mentioned the porch of the kitchen at 206 Tompkins street from the last post.  Yes, I remember that porch too.  I think Nanny had flowers out there we were sometimes allowed to water with one of those watering cans that had a very long skinny curved neck.  I always loved to do that.  And the bubbles, of course!  Nice, comforting memories.  Ahhhhh........

A House is Not a Home...is it?

Recently we went to Erie and stopped in Olean on our way.   Jim drove by Nanny and Weenie's house for me at 206 Tompkins Street.  This is what it looks like today:

Looks pretty much the same.  The fence wasn't there in those days but otherwise nearly the same as I remember.  I expect I'm not the only one of us that has fond memories of this place, but the very first thing that comes to my mind when I think of it is the stale smoke smell.  And even though the words "stale smoke smell" generally do not make me smile, somehow that olfactory memory is a fond one.  The other general impression I remember is one of darkness or muted light.  I don't remember lots of sunlight streaming in and the furniture was dark wood with that richly colored Oriental carpet softening the patter of little feet. 

A little bit of research indicates that house was built around 1930 which means it was fairly new in house years while we were visitors.  It didn't have a "new" feel to me.  It is still rental property today.  I can't help but wonder why Nanny and Weenie rented all those years. 

Nanny and Grampie's house on Haskell Street in Gloucester looked like this in recent years:

It has changed hands several times since Nanny and Grampie lived there.  It also changed its number:  from 34 to 24.  My memories of this place are hazier--we didn't visit often but it seemed relatively big to me and more open that the Olean house.  Records seem to indicate it was built around 1900 so it had lived a pretty significant life before we descended upon it.  Nanny and Grampie did not live on Haskell Street in the 1930 census but did so in the 1940 census.  At that time, they reported they lived in the same house 5 years earlier.  These records also state they owned the house, worth $3500 in 1940.  Anyhow, every time we go to Gloucester we drive by it and I smile at the memories.

Judy shared the news of her impending move after many years on Alice Street.  Since it is the home the boys grew up in, I'm sure there will be many memories encased within those walls.  That house will hold those memories always just as the Olean and Gloucester houses did for our parents and for us.  In that regard, I'm not sure the song lyrics have it quite right.  "A house is not a home" is 100% true but can you deny the faint smiles you generate when you see these pictures?  If the walls could speak........

Good luck to Judy, Patrick and the boys.  Empty nest feelings might be somewhat softened by your new surroundings.  I hope so.

Have you ever thought about how the weekend concept came to be?  I hadn't so I was intrigued by the following written by Marie Wells of the New England Historic Genealogical Society:

It’s a steamy summer weekend, so what do you do?  You toss the kids (and/or the grandkids) into the car and head for the shore.  Time to get some respite from the heat with those cooling ocean breezes, and to commune with nature for a few hours.  Ah, but when you get there, you find that several thousand of your closest friends and neighbors had the same idea.  With perhaps three square feet of sand to call your own and the water as crowded as the sole working elevator in a high rise office building, you make the best of a fine tradition that goes back many, many decades.

Or does it?

For the first couple of centuries after the Pilgrims first anchored the Mayflower in Provincetown Harbor, work was life, and life was work.  No thought was given toward leisure time; in fact, in Puritan Massachusetts, the one day that work was forbidden was to be spent at the meeting house for the Sabbath services – which lasted all day.  Only after the Civil War when manufacturing and huge factories became the way of life for hundreds of thousands of people, many of them immigrants, was there something – though still paltry - called “leisure time.”  The well-to-do had enjoyed leisure time for years, and built large, ornate “cottages” in resort areas such as Newport, Rhode Island, to get away during the hot summers in style.  But little thought was given to whether the working class even deserved time off and/or access to recreational amenities.  

One man changed all that, a man still held up as a symbol of overwhelming capitalism, but a man who knew a good thing when it swam up and bit him in the posterior.

In 1909, Edsel Ford publicly announced, "Every man needs more than one day a week for rest and recreation....The Ford Company always has sought to promote [an] ideal home life for its employees. We believe that in order to live properly every man should have more time to spend with his family." And in 1926, Henry Ford made his son’s words reality:  he shut down all his factories for all of Saturday and Sunday, thus creating The Weekend.  No one had done it before, but Ford had cars to sell and knew that people would by them only if they had leisure time in which to enjoy them.  What a concept!

How interesting the tie between your family's beloved Fords and leisure weekend time!  We are looking forward to upcoming weekend festivities on Long Island when our nephew Brad  will get married.  This event points to the changing nature of the concept of weekends and leisure time.  This wedding will be held on a Sunday.  When we were growing up, this just wasn't done--the phrase "non-traditional" didn't even cover such an idea.  Catholics weren't allowed Sunday marriages so as not to interfere with church services.  Sundays were held as sacrosanct.  Businesses were ALL closed.  You went to church and spent time with your families on Sundays.  Period.  

 

As we all have seen, Sundays are no longer off limits for working, shopping, alcohol or weddings!  It seems the weekend pendulum is swinging back to the earlier days when it made no difference what day of the week it was for workers, shopkeepers, liquor stores or young couples seeking to be married. 

As a child, I really did not enjoy Sundays.  I was supremely bored, so I still enjoy the freedom that Sundays now bring.  It's still a weekend day, but with the added benefit of open shops and family weddings!!!  As you may know, Amy plans to be married on a Sunday next summer so we are also becoming part of the pendulum swing.  WooHoo!

BAM! Walter Brown 1849-1908

A few posts ago, I mentioned that Walter Brown was bedeviling me in terms of "closing the door" on his life.  Walter was Grampie Brown's younger brother.  Unlike Grampie (William S. Brown), Walter was born in the United States.  Though an early census record indicates he was born in Albany County, a later census indicates he was born in Michigan (where his sisters settled).  I am more inclined to believe he was born in New York State since that earlier census record was recorded much closer to the actual event.  I have the family pretty well documented and I don't believe they were in Michigan in 1849, but I could be proven mistaken one day in the future.

Walter apparently worked with metal--his occupation was listed as tinsmith and metal laborer over the years.  He came from a long history of blacksmithing and tinsmithing seems not too far removed from that.  He married Sarah Armstrong and lived in the Buffalo NY area.  Sarah and Walter had two children William and Maria.  Again, not easy to locate yet another William Brown in Buffalo but the search will continue.

This case was cracked when I found Grampie Brown living with Sarah after Walter died.  I'd had this death notice but wasn't sure it was the right Walter until I found that little tidbit.

Further evidence was located in a gravestone picture located somewhat by accident while following Ancestry.com leads:

This picture wouldn't have made sense without knowing a little about Walter's wife Sarah.  It's in Holy Cross Cemetery (presumably Buffalo though I'm not sure--ready for another road trip to Buffalo, Paula?)

This is a case where several small clues lead me to conclude that our Walter Brown died in 1908:  the gravestone combined with the newspaper obituary combined with the census record.  None of these, standing alone, would lead to such a conclusion but TOGETHER they paint another picture of one of our family members.  It brings me great satisfaction to hunt these clues down and try to match them up.  I'm embarrassed to admit how many of these clues have been right in my files all along but that's a different story for another day.

Rose Ring 1973-2013

A while ago, I did some posts telling the story of some of my cherished possessions.  They included Mom's baby shoes, a charm bracelet from Nanny Ryan and Weenie's lighter.  It is important to document the stories behind these things so that, someday long into the future, our children can make informed decisions about what to do with them.  This is such a story.

My rose colored ring was part of my first major purchase once I had a "real" job at Brooks' in Walton.  I bought another ring at the same time from the jewelry store in town--Paveglio's maybe.  They were on sale.   The other ring had a small purple stone in it that fell out several years later but I had an engagement ring to wear on that finger soon after so I didn't miss that one very much.  But I've worn the rose ring every day since about 1973.

Until about a year ago.  I was gardening and went to dump the cart when my ring got caught in a nasty yank.  My finger was sore for several days and the ring was badly misshapen. 

The picture doesn't really do the damage justice.  Anyhow, I thought I could live without the ring.  I wore the "root beer" ring in my little finger instead but I came to the conclusion that I really missed wearing that ring so I took it in for repair.  Initially, they told me it would be about $40 to reshape the ring.  I figured $1/year maintenance wasn't a bad price to pay for something I was really missing. 

But, of course, it can't be that easy.  The phone call comes from the jeweler that the ring needs more significant repair at a price that was probably about 3 times its original cost.  Understand that this wasn't real high quality gold or anything, it just meant a lot to me because it was the first thing I bought with my own money (and it was pretty too), so the original cost wasn't more than I could pay on a part time minimum wage salary from Brooks.  Reluctantly I told them not to continue with the repair. 

Then--epiphany.  This ring is a symbol of my work life.  It was shiny and pretty back when I first started in the work world.  With retirement looming, the ring gets stretched and pulled so far out of shape that it can no longer be worn.  Perfect analogy for the ending of my professional career.  I left teaching feeling kind of wrecked and bent out of shape.  So I'm pleased to keep the ring to symbolize my working years.  And when I'm gone, it can be too.

A Father's Day post about our great grandmother

This started out as a post about my memories of Grampie for Father's Day.  You will soon see how far off base I've gone, if you haven't already figured out that Father's Day was last weekend.  I hope all the Dads and Dads-by-proxy out there had a great day.

I received this picture of our great grandparents William Ryan and his wife Katherine Bentley Ryan.  This must have been taken some time before William died in 1934.  I would check on women's fashions for the time period to narrow down the possible date but you can imagine how distracted I would get then!  Perhaps another day......  Anyhow, William died at a hospital in Danvers and I wonder if this might be a picture taken on a visit??

Katherine Bentley Ryan was the daughter of Captain John Bentley, a middle child out of six children.  Her father was lost at sea when she was about 14 and her mother died just 3 years later.  I've often wondered what those years must have been like for that family.  It must have been difficult for all of them and I'm quite sure these experiences impacted their adult lives.

Katherine and William had 9 children; Grampie was 6th in line.  Katherine spent 11 years as a widow following William's death.

Another cousin, George Handran, gave me a packet of papers many years ago originally regarding Katherine's death.  You can see it in the lower left corner above (if you click the image it will become larger and more read-able).  I've included nearly the whole page since it was so interesting to see the article about Cape Pond Ice preparing to harvest the ice that January.  Also included on this page is the notification that the World War II efforts would be requiring "every able bodied young man"--Dad included (though I don't think he was drafted).  Even more interesting is the "Lively Spirit" article about an event held in East Gloucester, which Dad participated in.  George was very pleased to point this out to me.  Dad was 17 years old at the time--I can only imagine how PERT those observations must have been.

Anyhow, Katherine died alone in her upstairs apartment and her son Paul (Grampie) was the one who alerted the firemen for assistance.  The article is mistaken that she was the daughter of William Bentley but otherwise listed survivors accurately.  It was one survivor, her brother Martin, which led me on another merry chase as I was preparing this post.

Of course, I mine such article for names and to make connections.  One name here, Joseph A. Fialho, verified a family connection I had pending.  I've had these articles many years and still find new stuff contained within!  You note that Dad was a pallbearer for his grandmother.  Katherine was buried in a different cemetery than her husband for reasons yet to be discovered (though I have some suspicions).