Tag Archives: Family and Personal Papers

The saga of a family Bible

American History, Collections, Family Stories, , , , ,
John George Lea with his wife Harriet Ann (Wilkinson) Lea and their children Mary Olive (Lea) Rogers and John Samuel Lea, ca. 1906.

Since 1993, I have read countless family records within the pages of old family Bibles for colleagues and patrons at NEHGS. I have been fortunate to share in many moments of discovery. The moment when patrons discover we have their family Bible is priceless.  

However, until recently I had never experienced this same moment of discovery for myself. Of course, I always hoped that one day I would walk into an archive, historical society, or a relative’s home and miraculously discover an old family Bible relating to my branch of the family. Most of the time this was simply a lovely ending to a genealogical day dream. 

A few years ago, I was reviewing copies of letters between my great-aunt Mary Olive (Lea) Rogers (1899–1995) and her cousin Florence Newton written during the 1960s. In one of those letters her cousin asked: “Do you still have that large family bible that sat on the little table in Toronto your dad owned?” I paused and considered that a family Bible for my great-grandfather John George Lea (1876–1953) might actually exist. Then I realized this is the same man who received a trunk of family papers and photos from his late brother in England, decided they smelt funny, and tossed in a match! And, so, up in smoke went any hope that my family history had survived. I tried not to think of what might have been in the trunk, let alone what became of this old Bible.  Continue reading The saga of a family Bible →

Remembering Alma Rhodes and a Haunting Family Tragedy

Family Stories, , , ,
Alma Rhodes, age 11 in 1934, sitting with her grandfather, William H. Rhodes, age 80.

The last of grandmother’s first cousins, Alma Rhodes of Westerly, Rhode Island, died on 4 August 2019 at the age of 96. She belonged to that increasingly rare group of individuals who lived in the house where she was born well into her nineties and worked for the same bank (albeit with multiple mergers) for 49 years.

She was a portal to the early world of my grandmother, née Lois Rhodes, and passed along family letters and stories to me, thereby giving me a perspective that never could have come from public records alone. Alma visited her grandfather, William Henry Rhodes (1854–1941), almost every day and listened to his reminiscences, preserving them for another generation.

 

Alma was a portal to the early world
of my grandmother.

Continue reading Remembering Alma Rhodes and a Haunting Family Tragedy →

‘I don’t do dishes’

Family Stories, , ,
I don't do dishes
The ceramicist’s mark

Well, if there is one thing you should know about me, it’s that “I don’t do dishes.” Now don’t get me wrong, I always try to help set or clear the table come suppertime, and I’m never really opposed to that age-old argument of “who will wash and who will dry.” But past this, I’ve never had much, if any, interest in dishes themselves. And while I’ve always known that my adoptive great-grandmother’s Blue Willow[1] plates were to be treasured (and to be regarded as something more than just “plates”), as a kid I never figured them to be much good at all, since you couldn’t ever touch them or use them to serve up a big piece of birthday cake. I mean seriously, what good are dishes that just gaze out at you from a glass cabinet or scowl indifferently from the dining-room wall? Continue reading ‘I don’t do dishes’ →

The Family Curmudgeon: Charles Otis Cony

Family Stories, , , , ,

cur·mudg·eon /kərˈməjən/:
noun: curmudgeon: a bad-tempered person, especially an old one

Longevity is not uncommon in my old New England family. Charles Otis Cony was born on August 7, 1836 to John and Experience Read Cony, the daughter of Revolutionary War veteran George Read. A carpenter, joiner, and farmer, when he died in 1924, he had spent his entire life in the house his grandfather had built in 1789.

The Family Curmudgeon
Charles O. Cony (now I know where I get my ears!)

That my great-great grandfather Charles Otis lived to be almost 90 is not highly unusual. It is the perspective of that long life that I find fascinating: as a youngster my father talked to a man who had lived with a Revolutionary War veteran. It shortened almost 200 years to a concept I could mentally grasp. I wanted to know more about a man who had seen so much history, so many wars, and so many advances in industrialization and technology. I had heard some stories from Dad about Charles Otis, some of which my father insisted I couldn’t publish until he was long dead. I wanted to align those stories with items I’d found in my research about Charles. Continue reading The Family Curmudgeon: Charles Otis Cony →

‘The fate of the world depended upon their devotions’

American History, Collections, NEHGS Collections, ,

NEHGS Digital Collections at AmericanAncestors.orgLet’s take a step back in time. Imagine yourself in the 1840s as the British are slowly expanding their power into places like New Zealand and Hong Kong, the Oregon Trail is not just a video game but a real expedition, and you have traveled to California to make your fortune in the Gold Rush. The United States is working hard at home all the while trying to establish itself on the world stage. The 1840s were also the early days of American missionaries — a significant and often controversial piece of history which I began to learn about through reading the correspondence of Leander Thompson through the NEHGS Digital Collections at AmericanAncestors.org. Continue reading ‘The fate of the world depended upon their devotions’ →