Married 63 years

Read all about it!  This newspaper article is about my great great great grandparents.  It was torn to pieces, and there are stains from completely dissolved 100 year-old Scotch tape.  My friend is a professional archivist and she kindly restored the fragile newspaper clipping for me.  I decided to transcribe it below for posterity's sake.  It's a genealogist's dream article.  It's also any family's dream article.  Enjoy.

Family member names: Mr. and Mrs. Simeon Bacon Titus
Tree branch: Pearson
Lifetimes: 1817-1903 and 1818-1903
Relation: My 3x great grandmother and grandfather (my dad's dad's mom's mom's parents)

The Cambridge Chronicle - January 11, 1902

I also have the original photo that was used in the article.  How cute are they??

HAVE BEEN MARRIED SIXTY-THREE YEARS.

Mr. and Mrs. Simeon B. Titus Begin Their Sixty-fourth Year of Wedded Life - Live with Their Daughter on Oxford Street.

   It is generally considered a matter worthy of comment when a couple celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, and as a usual thing a great deal of attention is given to such an occasion.  But this week an aged couple residing in this city quietly celebrated an anniversary besides which a mere 50 years of wedded life seems insignificant.  Mr. and Mrs. Simeon B. Titus, both natives of Vermont, now living with their daughter, Mrs. Fanny T. Hazen, at 61 Oxford Street, are the couple and Monday they celebrated the completion of the 63d year during which they have been married.  

   Mr. Titus was born in Vershire, Vt., June 6, 1817, while his wife, was born in the adjoining town of West Fairlee May 14, 1816.  Until ten years ago Mr. Titus continued to reside on the farm on which he was born, and it was only at the age of 74 that he was induced to retire from work and come to live with his daughter.  He was one of 12 children, of whom all but he are now dead.  In his veins runs some of the patriotic blood of the sturdy New England farmers.  His grandfather, Lenox Titus, was one of those who aided in routing the British at the battle of Bennington, and thus indirectly contributed to the final defeat and surrender of Burgoyne's army of invaders at Saratoga.  Later he removed to Vershire where he was one of the pioneer settlers.  The farm on which Mr. Titus was born has been in the family 100 years.

   Mr. Titus's youth, and, indeed, his whole life, has been like many another New England farmer's life.  He attended the district school three months in winter, working on the farm during the rest of the time.  All his brothers and sisters went out into the world and to him as the youngest, it fell to remain at home and take care of the farm.  But if Mr. Titus himself did not go into the world or engage in the defense of his country during her wars, his sons evidently inherited the patriotic impulses of the family.  Of his six sons three entered the Civil war, all being under age at the time.  Two gave their lives in defense of the flag.  One, after suffering months in the prison pen at Andersonville, returned home a physical wreck.  Mrs. Fanny Titus Hazen, the eldest daughter, was a nurse in the Columbian College United States hospital, Washington in 1864-1865.  She is now president of the Army Nurse association of Massachusetts.

  Mrs. Titus, too, seems to have come from a family as patriotic as that of her husband, for her paternal grandfather, William Morris, was in the battle of Concord and Lexington [Note: This is unfortunately not true. He was sent as a soldier to Boston after those battles] and rose in the service until he became a first lieutenant.  Her mother was a Morse and was first cousin to the famous inventor of the Morse telegraph system, which has conferred untold benefits on the country and the world.  Of the 11 children of Mr. and Mrs. Titus, five are still living, four daughters and a son.  The son is Charles M. Titus, of Boston.  Of these, three were present at the celebration of the anniversary.

  Mr. Titus's age would seem to be in no way very remarkable for he comes from an exceptionally long lived family.  His mother lived to be 95 years old, while one of his brothers died at the age of 93.  A sister reached the age of 86 and all the others, with one or two exceptions, lived to a good old age.  He has a large number of descendants in various parts of the world, including several great grandchildren.  At the celebration Monday, which was private and quiet, the aged couple were made happy on this anniversary by the presence of three children, grand and great grandchildren - four generations.  

  Mr. and Mrs. Titus until within a few years attended the Epworth Methodist church at Harvard Square.  Mrs. Titus rarely goes out owing to a fall which she sustained some time ago and in which she injured her ankle so that she does not move around much.  Otherwise she is in perfect health.  About the same time her husband left off attendance, although he still preserves his interest and remains on the visiting list of the pastor.  He is in the best of health with all his faculties seemingly untouched by the advance of age and with the same enjoyment of life which he had fifty years ago.

Mother of how many children

Finding cold facts and figures raises so many questions about our ancestors' lives.  Lately I've been looking into the German line on Dru's side of the family.  This post is to show how finding pieces of information about our ancestors only raises many more questions.

Family member name: Veleska Staverinsky Neumann
Lifetime: 1854 - 1907

Places lived: Prussia; Iowa
Tree branch: Newman
Relation: Dru's 2x great grandmother (Dru's dad's mom's mom's mom)

Wilhelm and Veleska Neumann lived on the southern border between Germany and Poland.  That may explain Veleska's maiden name sounding Polish and her married name being German.  At the time, the area was known as Prussia.

Question #1 - Were Veleska and Wilhelm from different areas? (All of their documents just say Germany, which through time could have meant different places as borders shifted.) Were they a bilingual family?  Were there any objections from family members to them getting married?

Two children, Hugo and Bertha, came along in the next few years after their marriage.

Wilhelm emigrated to the United States alone in 1887, leaving his wife and two young children behind.  People from Prussia emigrated at this time in history for different reasons.  Some came for religious tolerance, some because they were hungry, some for economic opportunity. 

Veleska stayed in Prussia for three years until she made the trip to the United States with her children.  They traveled first to Liverpool, England, then sailed on the SS Nevada to finally reach New York City on May 22, 1890.  Ellis Island was not open yet, so they sailed by the Statue of Liberty and arrived at Castle Clinton immigration center.

As a side note, Veleska was five months pregnant on the voyage.  Her son Paul Newman  was born four months after her arrival.   This would obviously bring about question #2....

Question #2 - Did her husband Wilhelm visit her in Germany shortly before she journeyed to America?  If not, who is the father of Paul?

The family settled just south of Iowa City, Iowa.  She lived there the rest of her life.  

The 1900 US Census was taken ten years after her arrival in 1890.  The 1900 Census had some interesting questions on it.  There are columns titled "Mother of how many children" and "Number of these children living".  

In case the chart is difficult to read, here are Valeska's answers:

Mother of how many children: 13

Number of these children living: 3

Wow, Veleska was only 46 years old, yet she had lost 10 children.

Question #3 - How in the world did she endure the heartache?

Question #4 - Who are these children? What are their names?

To date, there are no other records of these children besides this census.  There are no birth certificates, birth records, baptism records, census records or headstones that I can find.  

More questions - Did all of these deaths happen during the years she was married to Wilhelm?  How did these babies die?

These two numbers on a piece of paper can reveal so much about a family member's life. There is so much left unsaid. I'm heartbroken. 

The Burning of Falmouth

I recently learned that some family members were greatly affected during the Revolutionary War in what is called The Burning of Falmouth.  It occurred in Portland, Maine.

Family member name: William Pearson 
Lifetime: 1740-1776
Tree branch: Pearson
Relation: My 5x great grandfather

William Pearson moved to Falmouth (now called Portland, Maine) in 1762.  He married shortly thereafter and started raising a family which would include five children.  William is mentioned in the book History of Portland in a biographical note.

It says "William Pearson built a one-story house at the eastern end of Fore Street in 1775, and had just moved into it when it was consumed in Mowatt's attack, which swept off every house on that part of the street east of India street."

Local residents called the incident Mowatt's attack or Mowatt's bombardment.

Here is a modern-day map of Portland.  His house would have been around the site of the current Railroad Museum.  It is the first street from the water. This location would have been helpful for his work, since he was a caulker by trade.  A caulker used tar and hemp to make ships watertight.

Apparently those in Falmouth were quite the rebellious bunch. They taunted the British by stealing supplies and helping the cause down in Boston which was well underway since the battles of Lexington and Concord had occurred six months prior.  Unfortunately, they were also defenseless, which is a bad combination.

The British had had enough.  They sailed into Falmouth harbor on the morning of October 18, 1775 with Captain Henry Mowat in command.  A British lieutenant went ashore with an ultimatum: swear allegiance to King George or become cannon fodder.  Option number one was out of the question, so the townspeople evacuated.  The British mercifully gave them two hours to do so.

Multiple war vessels pummeled Falmouth with cannon balls and burning missiles for the rest of the day.  Most of the town was destroyed, about half of the residents became homeless, including my 5x great grandparents and my 4x great grandfather, their son Jonathan.

What a heartache!  Your brand new home is destroyed, your young family needs a place to live, your work is affected because most ships in the harbor were also destroyed.  I don't know how the family handled the situation.  However things got worse because William died less than 6 months later, not yet 37 years old.

Was William one of the "rebels"?  Was he one of the intended targets or was he an innocent victim?  Either way, the family's life got turned upside down during the Revolutionary War in a little-known event called The Burning of Falmouth.

Stock buckle

We were snowed in after a blizzard in Virginia.  My dad finds an old box from somewhere and we dig in to find family treasures galore.

What in the world is this? (Next to the pen.)

We had no clue.  Good thing it was inside a labeled envelope. 

"Silver stock buckle.  This stock buckle was made from Mexican silver dollars and worn by Jonathan Pearson, father of Isaac, therefore great-great grandfather of the Webber Quartette."

My grandpa Roger Pearson Webber was the eldest of the Webber Quartette.

Family member name: Jonathan Pearson 
Lifetime: 1766-1841
Tree branch: Pearson
Relation: My 4x great grandfather

Now we know who, but still, what is a stock buckle?  It's a buckle for a stock.  Duh.  When looking at paintings of men from the 1700s and early 1800s, it's common for them to be wearing a wrapped, folded white linen cloth around their necks.  It's the predecessor to the neck tie, and it's called a stock.  It was the most formal of neckwear.  The stock was wrapped around the neck and had tabs like buttonholes in the back where the stock was secured with a stock buckle.  A stock buckle was often silver and sometimes embellished with gems.  It was jewelry for men.

We don't know what Jonathan Pearson looked like, but here is a photograph of his son, Isaac, wearing a stock.  I like to think he's wearing his father's stock buckle.  I realize how rare it is to possess something that belonged to a great great great great grandfather.  I'm grateful.

Now, the question remains, where did a family in the early 1800s from Maine procure Mexican silver dollars in order to make this stock buckle?  The plot thickens.

Dowry or trousseau?

A 4x6 piece of 200-year-old paper outlines some "money and other things" belonging to my great great great grandmother.  It was found in an envelope labeled by her granddaughter "doubtless the dowry of Miriam Harris".

Family member name: Miriam Hall Harris Pearson 
Lifetime: 1807-1878
Tree branch: Pearson
Relation: 3x great grandmother

dow·ry

ˈdou(ə)rē/

noun

1. property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage.

Dowries are not used much today. In India, dowries were officially outlawed in 1961, but sadly are still used as income for the groom's family. Obviously, they have the negative connotation that a woman is only worth the money she brings into a marriage.

trous·seau

ˌtro͞oˈsō,ˈtro͞oˌsō/

noun

1. the clothes, household linen, and other belongings collected by a bride for her marriage

Over time, the tradition of the dowry in the US first evolved into a trousseau or hope chest.  Sometimes a mom or grandma wanted to pass along some family heirlooms for use when her daughter is married, or the single maiden collects or sews handmade housewares for her future married self.  Those articles were added to the hope chest.   Today that tradition has evolved again into online bridal registries.

Miriam Hall Harris was born in 1807 in North Yarmouth, Maine, not far north of Portland.  She married my great great great grandpa Isaac Pearson, a young widower, in 1837. Since she was almost 30, she would have been considered an old maid by that time.  Research suggests that dowries were still in limited use in New England in the mid-1800s.

Dowry or trousseau?  Decide for yourself. (A transcribed version follows the pictures in case the handwriting is difficult to read.)

Memorandum of money and other things for Miriam Harris: Viz (definition: as follows)
Cash one hundred and twenty one dollars. $121.00
2 packed (?) Bed Quilts  16.00
2 Coverleads  9.00 (perhaps coverlet, meaning bedspread)
2 Bed Quilts  9.00
1 Bed Quilt 3.50
1 Bed Quilt 2.33
1 Counterpin 1.50 (definition: bedspread)
2 Bed puffs 3.00
4 pairs of bed blankets 20.50
2 table cloths 3.00
6 table cloths 8.64
2 table cloths 1.00
2 table cloths 2.25
2 Bowler (?) towels 1.20
6 hand towels 2 hand cloths 2.63
6 hand towels 1.50
6 hand towels 1.00
207.05

Memorandum for Miriam Harris continued
Cash Fifteen Dollars 15.00
1 Dineing table 5.00
1 Breakfast table 4.00
1 Light Stand 1.50
1 Bed Stid 5.00 (perhaps a bedstead, meaning a bed frame)
One Silver waist bukel 1.50 (perhaps a belt buckle?)
32.00
Brought over 207.05
$239.05

The only reason I would lean towards this indeed being a dowry is the fact that cash is included in the assets.  A trousseau would not have included cash.  Calculating for inflation, the $136 in 1830 would  be worth $3,515.00 as of 2018.  Not too shabby.  Go Miriam!  No wonder she held out and nabbed a hottie who later became a lawyer.

Here is my great great great grandma later in life.

The Snow Row

Do you want to go kayaking?  In Boston Harbor? In March?  Kinda frosty, right? Why would someone do that year after year?  The Snow Row!

A yearly boat race is held in Hull, Massachusetts and it's called the Snow Row.  It is for many kinds of boats without a sail or a motor, including kayaks. It seems that the race was named because most participants need to row, and there's usually snow on the ground in March in Boston.  But no!  It was named after a man named Edward Rowe Snow.

Edward Rowe Snow was born in Massachusetts in 1902.  He wrote over 40 books, mainly chronicling New England maritime history.  The Hull Lifesaving Museum is also devoted to preserving New England maritime history, and they sponsor the Snow Row as a tribute to Edward.

My dad has been racing in the Snow Row for over 20 years. It's become a family tradition.  I've had the chance to be the front person in his tandem kayak on a few occasions. We've been known to bring home gold or silver medals.  Here we are.

Imagine my surprise when I was doing research on my family tree and I found a Snow! I decided to trace the Snow family and found we have the same Pilgrim ancestor as Edward Rowe Snow. I should have known that all people in Massachusetts are related somehow.

Family member name: Edward Rowe Snow

Lifetime: 1902 - 1982
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 9th cousin, 3x removed

My 11th great-grandfather is Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower.  Stephen Hopkins is Edward Rowe Snow's 8th great-grandfather.

Yeah, we're family.

My dad is all signed up for the Snow Row again in 2018.  I'm sad I can't join him in the race this year.  But now he has an added bonus of knowing the race is named after his cousin Ed.

While telling my dad about this research, he said he met Mr. Snow in the early 1970s while taking a Boston Harbor Cruise.  Here is the famous Edward Rowe Snow.  Photo credit: Dad.

I've always wanted an Opa

We all have 16 great-great-grandparents.  Two of mine were born in Germany, and one was born in the US of German parents.  Three out of 16 great-great grandparents means I'm 3/16 German.  Wunderbar!!

I randomly Googled the following ancestor and had a surprise.

Family member name: Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Goesch
Tree branch: Goesch
Relation: My 2x great grandpa.  My mom's mom's mom's dad.

Turns out there is another crazy person out there (probably a lot of them) who blog about their ancestry.  They had an entire post about Grandpa Ernst!  In fact Ernst was his great grandfather, but through Ernst's first wife Amelia.  Ernst is my 2x great grandpa through his second wife, Bertha.
Ernst was born September 8, 1848 in Grammentin, Pommern, Prussia which today is known as Mecklenburg – Vorpommern, Germany.  On March 17, 1869, at the age of 20, Ernst sailed from Hamburg, Germany on the ship Saxonia bound for New York.

They moved between Chicago, Minnesota and finally Nebraska, where generations of Goesch family members were born and still live.  Ernst had 6 children with Amelia then another six with Bertha.  The 12th child was my great-grandmother Martha.

The German word for grandfather is Opa.  Here's my great-great Opa.

And this is Ernst and Bertha's home in 1915 in Lincoln, Nebraska.