Then and Now: A Mayflower Pilgrimage -- Friday Fotos (September 22, 2017)

L to R: Peter A. Tew, Susan E. Tew, and John D. Tew
at the Pilgrim Memorial bas-relief in Provincetown, Massachusetts (June 1959)

A post today by Heather Rojo of Nutfield Genealogy blog featured a photo essay of her recent visit to Plymouth Plantation. This got me thinking back to a visit Molly and I made to Provincetown, Massachusetts this past March (Molly's first trip to Cape Cod). During the visit we went to the Pilgrim Memorial bas-relief in the park below the Pilgrim Monument & Provincetown Museum (which unfortunately was closed the day we were there). 

The above photo was taken while the family was spending a few weeks on Cape Cod during the summer of 1959 when my father was helping to open the new Hyannis Sears Roebuck store. Either that same summer, or about that time, we also visited Plymouth Rock and Plymouth Plantation. At the time, none of us knew that we children and our mother were actually descendants of Richard Warren, a Mayflower passenger and signer of the Compact. My mother's mother said we were related to the Warrens of Plymouth, but it was not until almost 50 years later that I was able to prove our  descent from Richard Warren through two of his five daughters (and obtain  membership in the General Society of Mayflower Descendants [GSMD] for my mother, my sons and myself).

Fast forward to this past March and Molly kindly took the "Now" photo shown below to bookend the "Then" photo of me and my siblings from 1959. 

 John D. Tew at the Pilgrim Memorial bas-relief in Provincetown, Massachusetts (March 2017)

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Photos from the personal collection of the author.

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Copyright 2017, John D. Tew

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Friday Fotos (January 16, 2015) -- A Cape Cod Family Adventure (1959)

In the late spring of 1959, my father was sent from the Holyoke Sears store to help open a new Sears store in Hyannis, Massachusetts.  He was there for several weeks and when school was out the family went to the Cape to join him. We rented a small cottage in Coral Village at Craigville Beach, Barnstable, Massachusetts and had a bit of a beach vacation while the store opening was completed. My sister Susan and my younger brother Peter are shown with me outside our cottage in June 1959.

We spent time at the beach when it was not raining or too cold and when my father had days off we would take trips to the sand dunes out near Provincetown and explore various sites on the Cape. One of the places we visited was the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown. 

Below is a snapshot taken at the Mayflower Compact bas-relief panel at the bottom of the hill below the monument tower itself. My siblings and I are shown in front of the bas-relief depicting the signing of the Compact. 

What is intriguing about viewing this photo more than 55 years later is that at the time the photo was taken none of us realized that we and our mother were all descendants of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren through two of his daughters. Just a couple of years later after visiting Plymouth Plantation, I recall my maternal grandmother saying we were related to Richard Warren of the Mayflower, but it was not until 2008 that I finally compiled the proof of what until that time had just been a family "legend."

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Images scanned from original snapshots in the author's collection.

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Copyright 2015, John D. Tew

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