Saturday Serendipity -- April 13, 2013

Saturdays often allow a more leisurely approach to life than work days. I can more easily post links to some blog posts or other materials I have discovered during the week, or even to those discovered during a Saturday morning coffee and extended surfing of the blogosphere/internet.

Here are a few serendipitous discoveries from this week that I commend for inclusion on your reading list.

1.  While I have had my father (90 years old) and his 92-year-old cousin tested via a Y-DNA test over the past two years, I confess that I have not taken the necessary time to truly delve into the DNA testing aspect of genealogy (as yet).  BUT, a recent article on the most distant common ancestor for Y-DNA testing really grabbed my attention and imagination.  It appears that the serendipitous discovery of a unique DNA sample in the database of Family Tree DNA has led to a very significant extension back in the common ancestor lineage for the Y chromosome -- a 70% older line than previously thought.  This means, as one of the researchers put it, ". . . the last common Y chromosome ancestor may have lived long before the first anatomically modern humans appeared in Africa about 195,000 years ago."  The research on this unique sample may have pushed the most recent common ancestor lineage tree back to as far as 338,000 years ago!  Read about it here at The Genetic Genealogist.  
  

2.   One of my favorite genealogy blogs, Judy G. Russell's The Legal Genealogist, has an importnat "notice" article about the recent new rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), that is a real boon to genealogists and those interested in generational family health issues.  A new rule will make health records available 50 years after the death of the person involved.  HHS refused to shorten the open access period, but they also declined any suggestion that it should be extended to 100 years.  Read the details at Judy's post here.

3.   Why rent microfilm records when doing genealogy research -- and where do you find the ones you need?  Diane MacLean Boumenot at One Rhode Island Family provides some answers for you here. 

4.   JSTOR (Journal Storage), previously open only to academics and researchers associated with a participating college, university or other institution, is now available in a limited version FREE to individuals!  Read some details and get some links at Upfront With NGS.

5.   The Weekly Genealogist links to an article here that answers the question, "What do you do when the cost of grave sites is too high due to loss of property to development?"

6.   Would YOU walk 820 miles to follow the footsteps of your Loyalist ancestor from North Carolina to Canada?  William Timothy Walker (a blogger with the perfect name for his project!) would contemplate such a trek -- and he has done it!  Read about it here.  To "begin at the beginning" [December 9, 2012] as they say, scroll all the way down when you reach the site and then read upward.

7.   At Nutfield Genealogy, Heather Rojo has a delightful piece on the language spoken in NiHam- SHA.  Having lived there for many years in my youth, and retaining the faintest vestiges of the accent and pronunciation in only a very few words, Heather's post had me smiling, nodding my head and laughing so much I had to go out and "pahhk the cah" to regain my composure.  Have a read heeah -- it's wicked good. 

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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62 Glorious Years and Counting -- Happy Anniversary Arnold and Shirley!!

Today is the 62nd wedding anniversary for my parents!  They were married in Galveston, Texas on Friday the 13th in April 1951.  My father was on a brief lay-over in Galveston during a voyage while he was an officer in the Merchant Marine . . . so my mother flew down to Texas from Rhode Island and they were married.

Arnold and Shirley about seven months before their wedding (October 1950)

Arnold and Shirley circa 1954

Arnold and Shirley circa 1978

Shirley (October 10, 2010)

Arnold (August 15, 2009)

Arnold and Shirley on my father's 90th birthday (November 28, 2012)

In preparation for my parents' 60th wedding anniversary in 2011, I delved into my genealogy records to develop the data necessary to prepared as accurate a Tew/Carpenter marriage history as possible.  The results indicated at the time that my parents (at 60 years) had the third longest marriage I could identify in looking back eight generations in the direct Tew and Carpenter lines.  There was one marriage of 62 years in the Tew line and the all-time leader from the Carpenter line came in at 67 years!

With 62 "Glorious Years" of marriage as of today, I can now announce that my parents move into a tie for second place with John Tew, Jr. and his wife Anna "Nancy" Kenyon (October 24, 1805 - May 6, 1868).  Five years to go in order to tie Joseph Carpenter and his bride Nancy Mason Bullock (February 21, 1813 - May 4, 1880).  GO FOR IT MOM AND DAD!!

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All photographs either taken by the author or in the author's collection.

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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Friday Fotos (April 12, 2013)

My great grandfather, Anton Hasselbaum, founded a beer, wine and liquor business in Providence, Rhode Island prior to Prohibition.  [See my blog post of January 25, 2013 here.]  Anton is pictured above in an undated photograph that ran in the Providence Evening Bulletin on July 5, 1932 -- the day after Independence Day celebrations throughout Rhode Island.  This was at a time when the passage of the 21st Amendment, and the end of Prohibition (December 5, 1933), were still a year and five months in the future.  Anton died on Valentine's Day 1916 almost three years before ratification of the 18th Amendment -- which brought Prohibition to America and would have doomed Anton's business.

Given the date of this newspaper piece, the image and the question posed amount to something beyond mere nostalgia for the bygone era of the horse and buggy.  It recalls also that in 1932 folks were still no longer able to get deliveries from the likes of Anton Hasselbaum -- so they could not enjoy a brew chilled in ice water, or a glass of wine, or a cocktail, as they celebrated the nation's independence on the 4th of July 1932!

The caption to the photograph reads as follows:

This picture shows Mr. Hasselbaum himself standing beside the horse during a trip to Riverside.  How long ago the picture was taken cannot be definitely determined, but in the words of an old-timer, "It were well over 40 year ago."  It was in the days when saloons carried very little bottled beer, and at a time when it was not against the law to transport the amber fluid, and neither was it uncommon for the family to have a "rack" left at the house for the week-end.  Mr. Hasselbaum ran one of the leading bottling works in those days, in the Elmwood section, and his wagons went all over the city and into surrounding territory to deliver beer "for the family."  It was then thought somewhat "the thing" to have the beer wagon stop at the house and deliver a week's supply. 

As a prominent bottler in Providence, the A. Hasselbaum Co. bottled beer and ale for various producers such as Handley's Peerless Ale.  This was in the days before screw-top bottles or bottles with removable and disposable caps; indeed, it was a time when beer and soda bottles were not disposable at all and were washed and re-used.  Anton's bottles used a porcelain "stopper" with a rubber washer held in with a wire bale.  Such a system was quite common then, but is rare now.  Photographs of an A. Hasselbaum Co. bottle and a stopper are shown below and each has the Hasselbaum trade mark displayed on it.  

I now own  six of my great grandfather's bottles -- each is 100 years old or more.  

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Photo of article from the Providence Evening Bulletin in the collection of the author. 

Photos of a Hasselbaum bottle and stopper courtesy of Ken Hasselbaum, a late cousin of mine, showing items from his collection.  Ken is the one who introduced me to the possibility of obtaining Hasselbaum bottles that are now over 100 years old.  Thank you Ken!     
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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew
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One Hundred Years Ago Today at Phillips Andover

As I have written elsewhere on this blog, "My paternal grandfather, Arnold G. Tew, attended Phillips Academy, Andover [Massachusetts] from 1910 – 1914.  During 1913 and 1914 he had what was called “A Line A Day” diary.  It is a small (4 ¾ in. by 5 ¾ in.), leather-bound volume with gilt-edged pages.  The diary was able to accommodate five years of entries with four ruled lines per day.  I came into possession of the diary going on three years ago.  I have transcribed all of his diary entries for the years 1913 and 1914 -- except for those that were erased or presumably torn out by my grandmother decades later due to either her sensibilities or desire to protect the image of a nearly seventeen-year-old boy she never really knew.  The diary is a wonderful trip into the language, teen slang, objects and interests of the period as well as one boy’s experience of prep school life at Phillips Andover at the beginning of the last century."

From time to time this year, I plan to post odds and ends from my grandfather's diary one hundred years to the day after he wrote them from his room at Phillips Andover.  Here is his entry from April 11, 1913 . . . 

The entry reads: "Was quite a rainy day still the temp. was quite high.  The question for debate at Philo was 'Resolved, that the U.S. government should give independence to the Phillipines [sic].'  Blackall upheld the aff. with Woodward assistant and Boynton upheld the negative with Woodbridge (assis.).  Irving gave select reading from the anonymous poem 'How He saved St. Michael's.'  Abbot gave the topics of the week."

It is interesting to read that one hundred years ago today prep school students were debating the merits of the U.S. granting independence to the Philippines.  The Philippine Revolution began in 1896 while the Philippines was a colonial possession of Spain.  When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898 after American intervention in Cuba, U.S. attacks on various Spanish possessions -- including Pacific possessions -- led to U.S. involvement in the Philippine Revolution.  Commodore George Dewey, who was in Hong Kong, sailed to Manila with the U.S. Navy Asiatic Squadron and defeated the Spanish in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.  The Navy then transported the leading Filipino revolutionary, General Emilio Aguinaldo, back to the Philippines from his exile in Hong Kong.  Philippine independence was proclaimed on June 12, 1898 from the Aguinaldo mansion in Manila, but the June 1898 declaration was never recognized by the United States or Spain and the Philippines (along with Cuba, Puerto Rico, parts of the West Indies and Guam) was ceded to the United States from Spain as part of the 1898 Treaty of Paris.  The Treaty was signed December 10, 1898, but it was not effective until April 11, 1899 -- one hundred and fourteen years ago today (which is probably why Philo posed the debate question it did on April 11, 1913 -- the 14th anniversary of the effective date of Treaty of Paris whereby the U.S. ignored the Philippine Declaration of Independence)!

An artist's depiction of the June 12, 1898 Declaration of Independence
from the Aquinaldo family mansion in Manila

The machinations of the Treaty of Paris (1898) and the U.S. denial of the Philippine Declaration of Independence led to the Philippine-American War that ended only when General Aguinaldo was captured by the U.S. and subsequently accepted the sovereignty of the United States over the Philippines.  Resentment and resistance continued in the Philippines until the U.S. granted independence to the Philippines after World War II on the 4th of July 1946 in the Treaty of Manila.  Until 1964, the Philippines shared the 4th of July with the U.S. as their independence day celebration.  Responding to pleas from historians and nationalists the Philippines legislature in 1964 passed a law designating June 12th as the actual Independence Day for the country.  The U.S. presence in the Philippines, however, did not end until November 1992 when the U.S. flag was lowered at Naval Station Subic Bay and for the first time since the 16th century there were no foreign military forces on Philippines soil.  Both Subic Bay and Clarke Air Force Base (closed in November 1991) were heavily damaged by the June 15, 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which was about eight times as forceful as that of Mount St. Helen in the U.S.  Volcanic ash covered the bases to a depth of one foot or more.

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Diary photos by the author.

Drawing interpreting the June 12, 1898 Philippine Independence Day from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Independence-day1.jpg as a file available from the Wikimedia Commons which allows its free use with attribution (provided here via the above link).

"Philo" is the Philomathean debating society (the other one at Phillips Andover in 1913 - 1914 being Forum).  My grandfather was Secretary of Philo in the Fall Term and Treasurer in the Winter Term.

"Boynton" is Nehemiah Boynton, Jr.  "Woodward" is John Blossom Woodward.  "Irving" is actually John Middleton Erving.  

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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Military Monday -- Arnold A. Walker (1841 - 1863)

Arnold A. Walker

Arnold A. Walker is my 2nd great grand uncle.  He served in the Union Army during the Civil War and was a casualty of that war having died at the age of 21 years, 2 months and 28 days (according to his gravestone).  I was not aware of Arnold's relationship to me until less than four months ago, but it turns out he played a very influential part in the life of my paternal grandfather, my father, and, not insignificantly, in my very identity!  [See yesterday's post, Discovering Where My Father's Name Came From. ]

Arnold was one of the younger brothers of my 2X great grandmother, Susan (Walker) Tew.  As explained in yesterday's post, Arnold was only six years old when his mother, Polly (Wells) Walker, died in Coventry, Rhode Island at age 38.  At this point I know nothing about what Arnold's life was like in the immediate aftermath of his mother's death and the almost complete shattering of his nuclear family that resulted from that tragedy.  I know only that when Arnold Walker reached young adulthood, he was enlisted in the Union Army and fought in the Civil War.  He died on February 19, 1863 in Washington, DC according to his gravestone. 

Arnold A. Walker was born in Coventry, Rhode Island on November 24, 1841 . . . almost 81 years to the day before the birth of my father, Arnold G. Tew, Jr.   Because of the newly discovered role Arnold Walker plays in my genealogy, I plan to do more inquiry into his life this year and hope to make any results the subject of a future blog post.

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The photo of Arnold A. Walker is taken from the Oehler Tree at Ancestry.com, which is owned by Joshua Oehler of Phoenix, Arizona.  Thank you Joshua!

Photograph of Arnold A. Walker's gravestone in Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Town of Coventry, 14, by the author.

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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Discovering Where My Father’s Name Came From

Arnold G. Tew, Sr.

Margaret "Maggie" (Conner) Tew

John Andrew Tew

As I have posted in other places on this blog, my paternal grandfather’s name is Arnold George Tew.  He was the son of John Andrew Tew and Margaret “Maggie” (Conner) Tew.  My father is a Junior and so is also named Arnold.  [My mother says that there was some vigorous lobbying for me to be named Arnold George Tew, III – but she nixed it and thus I am named John David Tew after my father’s brother and my mother’s brother respectively! ]

Other than my father and his father, the only Arnolds I knew of while growing up were celebrities –- Arnold Palmer, Arnold Stang, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, of course, Arnold Ziffel, the “son” of Fred and Doris Ziffel on the 1960s sitcom Green Acres.  Arnold Ziffel just happened to also be a pig.  But the point is, that based on this small sample I determined early on that in the U.S. the name Arnold is rather rare and so it always made me wonder about where my grandfather’s -- and hence my father’s – first name came from.  About five months ago I solved the mystery of how my father and my grandfather came to be named "Arnold."  [HINT:  It was not after Arnold Ziffel!]

My great grandfather, John Andrew Tew, was born in Coventry, Rhode Island in 1853.  He was the son of Adam Tew (1865 - 1908) and his wife, Susan (Walker) Tew (1828 - 1893).  Susan was born in Rhode Island on April 14, 1828 and she married Adam Tew on January 8, 1846 when she was only 17 years old.

Adam Tew

Susan (Walker) Tew

Susan was the daughter of Nathan Walker (1808 - 1885) and his wife Polly (Wells) Walker (1809 - 1847).  Nathan and Polly had nine children including my 2X great grandmother Susan, who was the eldest.  Nathan and Polly had three daughters and five sons.  Until late December of last year I knew nothing about Susan's siblings and while I had a picture of Susan in middle age, I had no photographs or pictures of other members of the Nathan and Polly Walker family.  And then on or about December 20, 2012 I stumbled across the Oehler Tree on Ancestry.com.  The tree is owned and maintained by Joshua Oehler of Phoenix, Arizona -- and the Nathan and Polly Walker family of Coventry, Rhode Island is part of his family tree.  Mr. Oehler had lots of information about Nathan and Polly's other children, but he had virtually nothing about Susan, the eldest.  He did not have the fact of Susan's marriage to Adam Tew, anything about their children or of her death -- but perhaps for good reason.

As I pieced together from information on Joshua Oelher's tree and in my Tew genealogy, the Walker family suffered a number of tragedies by July 1847 when Polly, mother of at least six living children, died in Coventry, RI at age 38.  In 1830 Nathan and Polly's second daughter had died before reaching her first birthday.  In 1846, their third daughter and third eldest child, Mary (born in 1832), died at age 14.  This left Susan Walker, the eldest child, as the only surviving daughter of the three girls of Nathan and Polly Walker.

Of the six boys of Nathan and Polly, at least five were living at the time of their mother's death.  Edmund Walker might have been Mary's twin brother for he was also born in 1832.  Edmund was 15 when his mother died.  Stephen Walker, named for his paternal grandfather, was born in 1835 and was 12 years old when his mother died.  Benjamin, born in 1838, and another boy born in 1841, were 9 and 6 respectively when their mother passed away.  A son whose name is presently unknown was born in 1844 and would have been just under 3 years old when his mother died if he himself was still living. Finally, Joseph Manchester Walker, born in Coventry, RI on November 14, 1846 was a mere 8 months old when his mother died on July 19, 1847 in Coventry.

Nathan Walker

So, in the summer of 1847, when Nathan Walker was not yet 39, he found himself a widower with five or six sons all 15 years old or younger and a sole surviving daughter who was 19 years old.  In many cases this would have left the family of underage boys to be raised by their father and their older sister, except that in 1847 the eldest child and only daughter, my 2X great grandmother Susan, was already married to Adam Tew and was herself the mother of a daughter, Mary D. Tew, born in Rhode Island on July 20, 1846.  Susan's first child, Mary, turned 1 year old the day after her grandmother Polly died.

Nathan's solution for making sure his children were cared for was to turn to others for assistance.  As a result, his young family was dispersed across Rhode Island and Massachusetts.  Infant Joseph went to live on a farm in Foster, Rhode Island with the Daniel Battey family.  In 1850 Benjamin was living with the John Corey family in Coventry.  The whereabouts of the other children during the first years after their mother's death is presently unknown.  The dispersal of the sons, and the fact that eldest child, Susan, was married and the mother of an infant daughter, probably explains why Mr. Oehler had little information about my great, great grandmother Susan (Walker) Tew in his Oehler Tree -- when the young boys were dispersed among other homes after their mother's death, Susan was already married and had a family of her own to care for.

Susan and her husband, Adam Tew, had at least five children in addition to their first-born, Mary Tew.   They had three girls and three boys that I know of.   The oldest of their three sons was my great grandfather, John Andrew Tew, born in Coventry on August 27, 1853.  John Andrew was only about 11 years younger than one of his mother's brothers -- the one that was born in 1841and who was only 6 years old when his mother Polly died in July 1847.  It is quite possible, therefore, that John Andrew spent some time around this uncle until the uncle died at age 21 in 1863.  In any event, John Andrew Tew and his wife, Maggie, named the only one of their four sons to survive beyond age two after this particular brother of John Andrew's mother Susan.  They named their son Arnold George Tew after John Andrew's maternal uncle, Arnold A. Walker!  John Andrew Tew's "Uncle Arnold," one of his mother's younger brothers, died in the Civil War at age 21 and so it becomes almost certain that my grandfather, Arnold George Tew, was not randomly named Arnold, but rather was named in honor and in memory of his grand uncle, Arnold A. Walker, a casualty of the Civil War.  In turn, my father, Arnold George Tew, Jr., was named Arnold after his father and, by extension, after the younger brother of his great grandmother who died while serving in the Union Army during the Civil War!

My 90-year-old father learned for the first time how he came to be named Arnold when I shared this genealogical insight with him in mid-December last year.

Arnold A. Walker (1841 - 1863)

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Photos of Nathan Walker and Arnold Walker courtesy of Joshua Oehler as posted on his Oehler Tree at Ancestry.com.  Thank you Joshua!

Picture of Susan (Walker) Tew courtesy of my cousin, Bruce O. Marquardt, who is a great great grandson of Susan (Walker) Tew and her husband, Adam Tew.

Picture of Adam Tew courtesy of my cousin, Don Benoit, who is a descendant of Adam and Susan Tew.

All other photos from the collection of the author.
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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew
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Saturday Serendipity -- April 6, 2013

Saturdays often allow a more leisurely approach to life than work days. I can more easily post links to some blog posts or other materials I have discovered during the week, or even to those discovered during a Saturday morning coffee and extended surfing of the blogosphere/internet.

Here are a few serendipitous discoveries that I commend for inclusion on your reading list.

1.   As I have often said, The Weekly Genealogist of NEHGS is always a good source for interesting articles.  This week's edition is no exception.  There are two links to stories you might like to read.  First, check out the follow-up to the recent discovery of the body of Richard III of England.  His distant relatives are now threatening suit! And then there is the article on a credit union where the  membership requirement is to be a descendant (or the spouse of a descendant) of Manley and Lucy Williams.  Read and watch to learn about "Our Family Social Credit Union of Omaha" and its 511 members.  

2.   UpFront With NGS has a piece on Legally Using Photos Online with some useful links to articles -- and a shout out to one of my favorites, The Legal Genealogist (Judy G. Russell).

3.   Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog  is having a free give away of a PDF book 13 Ways To Tell Your Ancestor Stories.  The drawing by Jana will be midnight on April 10th so you must get your entry in by midnight, Tuesday, April 9th.  

4.   If you have any ancestors or relatives from Providence, Rhode Island and its environs, you really should take what almost amounts to a virtual tour of the Providence City Archives provided by Diane Boumenot at her blog, One Rhode Island Family.  And as a bonus, check out Diane's recently posted ode to the Great Migration Newsletter in what is a quick primer on the Great Migration Study Project to remind us all of what an awesome resource that project provides.

5.   I find myself visiting Heirlooms Reunited on a regular basis and always get immersed in a leisurely look at the beautiful Autograph Books that Pam Beveridge has collected and shared with the genealogy blogosphere.  The covers, drawings and often stunningly lovely handwriting can just pull you back to a time when penmanship was an art (one I never came close to mastering).  But, Pam's project also provides a little-known resource for genealogy research and yet again I encourage readers to make Heirlooms Reunited a regular stop on your blog surfs.  Recent Autograph books with signatures and names from Oil City, PA; East Palestine, OH; Augusta, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Liberty, PA; Dushore, PA; and Utica, PA are presented in beautiful detail and could provide some "Eureka moments" for some lucky browsers!  Go have a look and let me know if you are one of the lucky ones.

  6.   And finally, a Happy 1st Anniversary to Jana Last's blog!  I was amazed to learn that Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog is a mere infant in the genealogy blogosphere.  Jana is so consistent and engaging in her posts that I just assumed she had been doing it far longer and that the blog was at least a seasoned toddler.  Congratulations to Jana!  Here is a look at her very first posting back on April 5, 2012.        

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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Friday Fotos (April 5, 2013) -- Breaking Ground for the Lonsdale Masonic Temple, Lonsdale, Rhode Island

My great grandfather and great grandmother, Samuel Eber Carpenter and Sarah Etta (Freeman) Carpenter, were participants in the groundbreaking for the Masonic Temple in Lonsdale, Rhode Island on November 22, 1927.  They are both pictured above with the other ceremony participants: Thomas B. Davis; James White; and Rev. W. B. Taylor.  As shown on the reverse side of the original 1927 photograph, the people in the photograph (left to right) are:  my great grandfather, Samuel E. Carpenter; Thomas B. Davis; James White; Rev. W. B. Taylor; and my great grandmother, Mrs. Samuel E. Carpenter [Sarah E. (Freeman) Carpenter].

The back of the photograph does not state the address or specific location of the future Lonsdale Masonic Temple.  An internet search has thus far failed to find any additional information or a photograph of a completed Lonsdale Masonic Temple -- and so it is not even known if the building was ever constructed or completed if begun.  

It is possible that the Lonsdale Masonic Temple fell to the same fate as the Masonic Temple in central Providence that was begun with groundbreaking in 1926.  Construction actually began, but was halted in 1929 around the time the Depression started.  The temple was never completed and was completely abandoned with the outbreak of WWII.  The Providence temple sat on Francis Street opposite the State House and when the Providence Place Mall opened nearby, the Greek Revival-style shell of the building was purchased and developed into a luxury hotel (the Renaissance Providence Hotel), which opened in summer 2007.

If anyone knows if the Lonsdale Masonic Temple was ever completed, I would greatly appreciate additional information -- and a photograph of the building if one exists or if the building still stands (even if no longer used as a Masonic Temple).  I believe, based on the book "History of Freemasonry in Rhode Island" (pp. 575 - 581), that the name of the Lonsdale Masonic Lodge was "Unity Lodge No. 34."  According to the History, in 1891 Unity Lodge had 115 members and among the fourteen officers was my great grandfather, Samuel E. Carpenter (History, p. 581).  There is also a clue that the temple was possibly constructed before the Depression hit, because the lower left corner of the back of the groundbreaking ceremony photograph above appears to indicate the [First?] Meeting might have been held in June 1928.

UPDATE TO THIS POST:  The Masonic Temple in Lonsdale (Cumberland) was in fact built and still exists today.  See the following post dated April, 29, 2013 for the rest of the story. https://filiopietismprism.blogspot.com/2013/04/mom-vs-google-note-to-self-always.html

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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