Approximate Years 1956-1959
Ages 20-23
It’s amusing to me to read my grandfather’s autobiography and his time in the Army. It was peacetime, that period after Korea before Vietnam that he was in the service. He spent his days in Germany, and battled seasickness to get there and back again. This tall behemoth of a fisherman, laid low by time on a boat. 🙂
Year: 1936
Sometimes, family history is passed down to those who merely want it or to the eldest, etc–but these heirlooms of human history are best served when it engages with genealogy, not merely ones personal genealogy, but the global genealogy. Shared.
I remember a feeling of gratitude when I stumbled upon a great great uncle’s eldest son’s eldest son’s ancestry page. He being the eldest of the eldest of the eldest had inherited all of the family photos. I as the eldest of the third, of the second, of the sixth, had nothing. But here he was, this distant cousin of mine, having scanned, dutifully attached, and shared this information out into the world. My information, his information… so many distant cousins able to SEE their great great grandfather because of his contribution to his far flung genetic and digital family.
This long ramble is to say, I’m the eldest of an eldest, and now I’m uploading my dearly missed grandfather’s baby book out into the world of current cousins, and the future second of fifth cousins who may become family genealogists, so that they might not be left in the dark.
Approximate Years 1952-1959
Ages 16-23
If someone wanted to know my grandfather’s hobby, every member of my family could answer “fishing” without skipping a beat. One year my grandfather had caught over 1,000 fish. He’s not a man to hyperbole, so he had given me the precise figures, cataloged by species in a letter written in his delicate cursive. He explained what he had done with what fish–and which ones he preferred baked to fried. It was a letter, but he smacked his lips, I could hear it.
I’m posting in five-page segments. It’s relatively short five pages since it was hand-written–but it gives me time to do a little research. And, to fit more pictures in. 🙂
This section jumps pretty quickly from 16 years old to Germany in the army, so it clips along.
The VanNostrand Homestead – Dalton, New YorkApproximate Years 1946-1952
Ages 10-16
This is a continuation of the previous post of my grandfather VanNostrand’s autobiography.
Dalton Main StreetApproximate Years 1942-1946
Ages 6-10
This is a continuation of the previous post of my grandfather’s autobiography.
Approximate Years 1940-1942
Ages 4-6
There is never enough to satisfy genealogy, which seeks to fill in every hole in time even when there is no putty to fill the gaps. An autobiography to a family genealogist is a great slather of plaster, a wall of history (from one perspective) smoothed.
My grandfather died in April, and we haven’t reached the first anniversary of the event. Like I usually do, I wrote a blog post to work through it on my writing blog. Around Thanksgiving my husband and I and our son flew out to visit my grandmother…and she bestowed upon me the items of greatest value (to me), photos, diaries, marriage certificates to Great Great grandparents, and… my grandfather’s autobiography.
My grandfather always had a sharp memory, recalling the exact reel make and model he used to catch what size and species of fish in what river in what year, and the first and last name of the dummy friend who told him to use some cockamamie bait vs the bait he had chosen (as you might guess, he was more successful–but he was a master fisherman). So it comes to no surprise to me that he recalls the street, people, and school names when recalling what would be nearly six to seven decade old memories. I was blessed with a similar memory, but not nearly his proficiency for name recall.
I’m posting in five-page segments. It’s relatively short five pages since it was hand-written–but it gives me time to do a little research. And, to fit more pictures in. 🙂
Sometimes, when I read in diaries or letters a reference to the “future generations” by my own direct descendants, I feel as an audience member watching a play when the fourth wall is broken. Instead of separated by an accepted illusion that I am not involved in the actions playing out on a stage, I am separated by a time illusion of 152 years, touching a document written by a person of my own person—one I am senior to by 4 years.
This letter is written in the love-drunk months preceding their wedding in September, and has the flowery language of people trying to impress the other with their poetic thoughtfulness. While confirming their date of marriage, I realized that I share the same marriage date with my ggg grandparents, exactly 150 years later! Weddings in the Fall are the best of all! 🙂
How do you confirm ages of your relatives? What do you do with the non-direct descendants? Do they get added to your tree? Let me know in the comments!
In this letter, my ggg grandma Susan is on a trip for a family reunion by herself and with her daughter (my aunt) Grace J. VanNostrand. According to ancestry, Grace is the eldest child, born in 1864 and would be 8 years old at the time of this letter. However, in this letter she appears to be the youngest child. My grandmother Susan writes, “Grace is delighted with sea bathing she screams with delight every time we put her in the water.” The act of helping Grace into the ocean does not seem keeping with an able-bodied 8-year old, especially when their 6-year old daughter Hattie (Harriet) is walking to school solo in the July sun.
The information I have suggests that Grace married a George W. Smith. Ancestry says she died in 1946, and other than the photo of the grave above suggesting a daughter (named Georgia), I can find no further information. Even Ancestry’s little leaves are silent. The unfortunate truth of not having children means that in the egocentric process of genealogy, almost no one will have kept good information for “miscellaneous relatives.” They exist on trees for completeness, to denote the fun-fact of how many siblings a direct relative had, or if they did something note-worthy. But, Grace merely lived.
I could not locate her in the Short Tract Cemetery, only Grace’s grandmother who was her namesake. However, in the Dalton Cemetery I found a stone that seems to combine her with the rest, but no dates.
Are you related to me? Do you know Grace J. VanNostrand or George W. Smith of Dalton, NY c. 1860-1940s?
Thomas Hill (1829-1908), Niagara Falls, c. 1860, oil on canvasI find this letter very sweet, between these two people I’ll never meet beyond the page.
My grandparents were married September 15th in the year 1863, he was 28 and she 24. This letter, though undated, is written from her parents’ residence (who are also my grandparents, but it’s confusing to call everyone that) and must be very recently after their marriage because this is first time she’s ever addressed William as her “husband” in a letter and she calls out this novelty by writing, “my hand didn’t tremble when I wrote that…”
My guess is this letter must be written around October 1863, because they seem to have recently traveled from Niagra falls for their honeymoon and she asks him to bring her shawl so I suspect the weather is just starting to cool off during the day.
(Approximate Years 1860-1870)It’s an odd thing, acquiring the family heirlooms of pen and paper. The meaningless counting of chicken eggs, notations of the weather, and once-private correspondences of love. Do you have paper heirlooms too? What are they?
They died over 100 years ago, their graves mossy and worn. But, in these letters, once new, my great great great grandparents are the same age as I exist now. As they write these letters in the past of their present, and in the present I know their future looking into the past. I know their coming joys, triumphs, and failures. I’ve read the diary pages they’ve yet to write and I know which one becomes the widow[er].
Despite the relative oddity of that, I’ve decided to translate the letters and diaries into a more readable presentation. For personal catharsis dealing with the passing of my own grandfather (and giver of these letters) and for a type of preservation and sharing.
Of the North Shore 