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Generations of Nomads

~ On the Trail of Family Faces, Places, and Stories Around the World

Generations of Nomads

Category Archives: Places

Family History Magic from Augusta, Kansas

25 Saturday Jan 2020

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, Places, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Augusta, Family history, genealogical research, Genealogy, Kansas, Serendipity, Stephenson

Maybe it’s because the internet didn’t become part of my life until I was well into adulthood, but I still believe it’s magical. And that’s been proven again and again in my family history research. Sometimes the magic is random, and sometimes it’s been the result of methodical research, but either way, the information and contacts that have come to light feel like gifts that have fallen from the sky.

My grandfather, William Edward Stephenson (1910-2004), was born and raised in Augusta, Kansas. His dad, Richard W. Stephenson (1874-1960), started a men’s clothing store in town around the 1910s, and Bill’s older brother Paul Noble Stephenson (1902-1972) and his wife Dorothy continued the business until about the 1960s. I wrote a post about Grandpa Bill and his younger brother, Clark (1911-1994), and their high school and college yearbooks here.

On a whim this week, I did a search on WordPress for Augusta, Kansas. No particular reason. And what popped up was a bunch of blog posts by crittersandcats/Dave, who shares stories for his kids and grandchildren about growing up in Augusta in the ’40s and ’50s.

As if it wasn’t enough for me to get some local flavor for a place I’d only visited a couple of times, Dave answered my comment by sharing that he’d known my family and had written a story including Uncle Paul, Aunt Do, and their son, my dad’s cousin Dick!

Back in the 1950’s, we had a men’s clothing store in Augusta, Kansas. It was owned and operated by Paul Stephenson as Stephenson’s Men’s Clothing. The store was located on the east side of the 500 block of State Street, nestled up against the Prairie State Bank, on its north and Mamie Hall’s book store on the south. Paul and his wife (only 60 years and I’ve forgotten her name) were in the store every day, well dressed and professional but friendly in demeanor. Their son, Dick, was a classmate of mine. Dick and I graduated in 1954 and I went to work and I think Dick headed for the University of Kansas. The following year, I was going to attend a wedding and needed a new suit. I went down to Stephenson’s and Paul fitted me with a new outfit and his wife set me up with a lay-away plan to pay for it. Those were the last dealings I had with the Stephenson family.

crittersandcats, https://crittersandcats.com/2017/08/24/small-speck-small-world-big-ocean/

Dave goes on to write about an unplanned landing in Guam in 1959, where he bumped into Dick, who was by then an ensign in the Navy. Small world!

Richard (Dick) I. Stephenson (1937-2009) Yearbook, University of Kansas, 1958

The moral of the story is: Methodical research is all well and good, but don’t forget that serendipity also plays a part. Indulge yourself in the obscure Google search. See if somebody has written a blog post about your grandfather’s small home town, or the tiny school your great grandmother attended, or the newspaper your great great grandfather published. Surprise connections sometimes fall from the sky. There IS magic. (And thank you, Dave!)

P.S. Dick had won my heart as a five year old (just a few years after Dave’s story) when he came to visit, looking quite dashing in his Navy uniform. He pulled out a guitar and sang to me. “The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night” has been a favorite folk song of mine ever since…

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Colliding Worlds: My Family and My Step-In-Laws Knew Each Other? Four Generations Ago?

31 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Family history, Genealogy, Places, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Baltimore, Baltimore Cathedral, Bolling, Cocke, Hambleton, Hill, Mills, New Cathedral Cemetery, Obituary, Symington, Washington

When Ancestry alerted me of the anniversary of my great great grandmother Mary (Cocke) Hill’s death, I pulled up her obituary from the Baltimore Sun of October 31, 1903. I’d read it before, but imagine my surprise to read down to the list of honorary pallbearers. Out jumped a name I hadn’t noticed before–Major W. Stuart Symington–none other than (bear with me here) my husband’s step-father’s grandfather. OK, so Mary Hill’s husband, Nicholas S. Hill, also served in the Confederate Army, and both were from Baltimore. Not shocking, but fun to find.

Baltimore Sun, 31 October, 1903, Saturday, page 6

I chuckled, texted a couple of family members, and went back to read it again. And noticed that Frank H. Hambleton, my step-father-in-law Fife Symington’s other grandfather, was also listed as an honorary usher! For real.

Mary Hill was taken ill while entertaining guests at the Washington, D.C. home of her daughter Irene Bolling. And bless the Baltimore Sun’s fuzzy little heart, they even gave Irene’s street address and mentioned that Mary was entertaining in the drawing room when she was stricken. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Zillow and similar real estate websites are fantastic resources for getting a look at family places.

Here is Aunt Irene’s home at 1808 Riggs Place in the Dupont Circle section of Washington:

1808 Riggs Place NW, Washington, DC
Home of Irene (Johnson) and George Melville Bolling from approximately 1903 to 1906
Image from Zillow.com

City directories list Professor George M. Bolling at this address only from 1904 until 1906, with many other Washington addresses in the years preceding and following, so they must have been renting. Bolling taught Greek and Sanskrit at Catholic University during these years.

Thanks to the magic of Zillow, (oh, how I do love the internet!) I was even able to find interior photographs of this lovely, well-preserved house. This may have been the drawing room mentioned in Mary’s obituary:

Interior of 1808 Riggs Place, NW, Washington, DC
Image from Zillow.com

A follow-up article appeared the next day, 1 November, 1903, describing the funeral held at the Baltimore Cathedral, where many other Hill family occasions occurred, and the procession to Bonnie Brae Cemetery. I recently visited the Cathedral and the cemetery (now New Cathedral Cemetery), where both my great grandparents are buried, and was touched to find their son-in-law, my great grandfather, James J. Mills with them.

What an unimaginable thing it would have been for the Hills and Symingtons and Hambletons to think of the connection of their respective offspring so many generations later!

Relationships:

  • Mary Watkins Cocke (Johnson) (1834-1903) and Nicholas Snowden Hill (1839-1912) – 2nd great grandparents (Irene (Johnson) Bolling (1862-1946) was the daughter from Mary’s first marriage.)
  • Mary Carroll Hill (1876-1937) and James J. Mills (1863-1925) great grandparents
  • Elsie Mills (1899-1993) grandmother
  • My mum
  • Me

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A Magpie During Family History Month–So Much to Do!

01 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Family history, Genealogy, People, Places, Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Ackworth School, Family dogs, Family History Month, Leon Kroll, Mills, Oliver, Organization, Sheely

Where to start in Family History Month? Maria (Sheely) Andrews (1843-1937)? Elsie (Mills) Oliver’s (1899-1993) portrait of Marie, Leon Kroll’s cook? Jeff, my Great Dane? Ackworth School, Yorkshire c. 1870s?

Oh, my! Family History Month is here, and I need to send my intentions out into the universe. I have eleven–count ’em–unfinished drafts of blog posts and lots of other family history projects in mid-stream. I’ve taken several research trips and have information to organize. Lots to do!

I’ve just commited to Janine Adams’s 30 x 30 challenge to spend 30 minutes on genealogy research every day this month. That should help, but I need to focus! I have to confess that I’m a bit of a magpie when it comes to family history projects. Oh, look! A shiny thing! Let me play with Ackworth School, Yorkshire records for awhile. Wait–there’s an Ozarks Genealogical Society?! Or maybe I should do a post about my 3rd great aunt and the Hawaiian Mission in the 19th century. This might be a good time to join the Caithness Family History Society and explore those Oliver family roots. Or maybe I’ll look at family paintings. A blog post about all the dogs in our family would be fun, too!

So how do you stay focused in your family research? And what will you do to celebrate Family History month? So many stories to find; so many stories to share!

This post is a participant in The Genealogy Blog Party: Celebrating Family History Month.

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Happy 100!

22 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, People, Places

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

100th birthday, Bar Harbor, Family history, Family photos, fashion show, Genealogy, Mount Desert Isand, Munson

My lovely mother-in-law, Natalie (Munson) Brengle, would have been 100 years old today. Here she is as an 18 or 19 year old in a fashion show in Bar Harbor, Maine in 1937 or 1938. She only became more poised and elegant as the years passed. We miss her and raise a glass in her memory today!

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Off to Baltimore–A Geographical Genealogy Adventure

07 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, Geographic Genealogy, People, Places

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Architectural history, Architecture, Baltimore, Baltimore history, Genealogy, geographical genealogy, Hill, Johns Hopkins, Maryland, Maryland history, Mills, Oliver

After an eighteen-month hiatus from blogging due to the chaos of work and family life, I retired last week. So…I’m taking a deep breath and jumping back into blog life and family exploration.

Post-retirement getaway number one will include a quick family history stop in Baltimore next week. No research, but a 24-hour pilgrimage to visit five generations of houses, work, school, and worship places, and a cemetery. I lived in Baltimore until I was five, and with no family there after we left, have never really explored the family sites.

image

Nicholas Snowden Hill about 1909 with his daughter, Mary (Hill) Mills, and grandchildren. L to R: Elsie (my grandmother), Audrey, Mary Carroll, and Jimmy.

A big part of my love of genealogy (and of history in general) is about putting people in the context of their places–geographical genealogy. I want to be able to visualize where they lived and what they did there. Placing Granny in her childhood home–an urban row house on Park Avenue, Baltimore, full of children; picturing the 1912 funeral of her beloved grandfather, conducted by his lifelong friend, Cardinal Gibbons, at the Baltimore Basilica; walking the Johns Hopkins University campus where my dad studied and my parents strolled with me as a toddler, all keeps their memories alive and vibrant in a way that mere names and dates never can.

And then there’s my inner architectural historian at work. To see these buildings that are so evocative of their time and place–the Italianate row houses in the Mount Vernon and Bolton Hill neighborhoods, the 1920s apartment building near Hopkins, the spectacular, high Victorian Johns Hopkins University Hospital. These places would speak to me even if they weren’t tied to my family, but those connections make them especially dear.

Step one in my geographical genealogy research is to figure out where my people lived, most often through census records and city directories. According to these records and the deeds for the property, my great grandparents, James and Mary (Hill) Mills moved to their home on Park Avenue in 1900 with my grandmother, Elsie, age 1. They had been married two years, and rented the house for five years before Mary bought it in 1905. They remained on Park Avenue for the rest of their married life. James, a physician and medical professor at Hopkins, ran his practice from home, and he and Mary raised their four children here. By the time James died in 1925, the children were grown, and Mary sold the house and moved in 1927.

James Mills 1900 census

After identifying the locations of family places, then comes the fun part–seeing what they looked like. Through the wonders of Google maps street view I’ve figured out which of these homes and related places are still standing (happily, most of them), and found current images of the ones that survive.

853 Park Ave Mills House

James and Mary (Hill) Mills’ home on Park Avenue in Baltimore (left of the white building).

My pilgrimage will include a few sites from my own early childhood, including a peek at one of my earliest homes.

The Bradford

The Bradford Apartments on St Paul Street, where I lived with my parents in the late ’50s.

And for extra thrills, real estate websites have even provided interior views of the Park Avenue house (now apartments, but a few original details survive), and some beautiful 19th century interior features of the Eutaw Place house where my grandfather was a tenant while he attended medical school at Johns Hopkins. Seeing the very rooms where my family lived a century ago takes my breath away.

853 Park Ave interior

A 2nd floor bedroom (Granny’s?) in the Park Avenue Mills House, courtesy of an online rental listing.

1324 Eutaw Pl. Baltimore interior

Perhaps my grandfather, Ken Oliver, had a chair in this first floor window, or in a similar upper story window when he rented here on Eutaw Place in 1926.

Of course, public buildings are easy to find, and I’m headed to see a few of those as well. James Mills, my great grandfather, taught at the Hopkins medical school, where my grandfather, Kenneth Oliver was his student in the 1920s. One thing led to another, and Ken married Dr. Mills’ daughter Elsie in 1925.

image

An early view of the Johns Hopkins University Hospital, completed in 1889.

Elsie was a student at the beautiful, Renaissance Revival style Maryland Institute College of Art, and I’ll be headed there too.

MICA_MAIN_BUILDING

Maryland Institute College of Art, where Elsie Mills, my grandmother, studied in the early 1920s.

I’ve also found images of buildings that haven’t survived.  The two below were both victims of the Great Baltimore Fire in 1904.

B&O RR Central Office 1880

Design for the 1880 B&O Railroad Central Office, where Nicholas Snowden Hill was purchasing agent until 1888. Destroyed in the Great Baltimore Fire.

 

Carrollton Hotel

The Carrollton Hotel, managed by my great grandfather, Nicholas Snowden Hill, was also destroyed in the Great Baltimore Fire.

Much to see and much to enjoy during next week’s adventure!

 

 

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Happy Anniversary, Daniel and Emily Oliver

19 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, People, Places

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Ackworth, Beirut, Brummana, Caithness, Daniel Oliver, Family history, geneabloggers, Genealogy, Lebanon, London, Missionary, Oliver, Quaker, Ras el Met'n, Scotland, Stoke Newington, Thurso, Wedding anniversary, wedding ring, Wright, Yorkshire

img_3771

My great grandparents, Daniel and Emily, have always been the most colorful and compelling characters in my family history. I am lucky to have grown up on their stories, to have photos of them, and to have found a rich trove of their papers. And yet, there are so many unanswered questions…Today I wish them happy anniversary.

Daniel Oliver (1870-1952), an adventurous young Scotsman, left Thurso in Caithness in the northernmost part of the Scottish Highlands when he was a teenager. He was the youngest of three brothers, and came from a family of farm laborers who moved south to work on the docks in Edinburgh after Daniel left Scotland. He travelled to Morocco, where he did missionary work, and then in the early 1890s to Palestine and Beirut, where he studied Arabic. Soon he made his way to Brummana, Syria (now Lebanon), where he taught at the Quaker mission school that was founded there in the 1870s.

What ever possessed him to leave home so young? How did he become a missionary? His family was not particularly religious. What were those years on the road like? Did he travel alone or with companions? And how did a boy from such a modest family grow into such a commanding figure of a man? He didn’t speak to his children or grandchildren of his background. Did he cut off all ties with his family? Why?

Emily Wright (1865-1954) was born in Ackworth, Yorkshire, and was an adventurous young woman in her own right. She was the daughter of  Mary Ann (Deane) and Alfred Wright, a Quaker missionary, and came to Syria with him when she was in her 20s. I don’t know where Alfred went from there, but Emily stayed to teach in Brummana, finding a calling that she would continue for the rest of her long life.

What must it have been like to leave England at 25 and start life on an unfamiliar continent? The school was supported by Quakers from England and the United States. Did she know any of the faculty when she arrived? Were there friends of her father’s? Teachers from home? Did her father stay there with her for long, or did he continue on with his travels soon?

I wish there were letters or clues to Emily and Daniel’s courtship, but I don’t know of any. In my imagination I see two young, idealistic people with a deep commitment to making the world a better place through their faith and their teaching. Daniel was a strong and perhaps blustery man with an iron will and a powerful ambition. Emily was unwavering. She was his partner for sixty years, first at the school in Brummana, where he eventually became principal, and then at the Daniel and Emily Oliver Orphanage and School in nearby Ras el Met’n. There they supported, educated and provided work skills for hundreds of children through two World Wars and beyond.

On September 19, 1895, one hundred twenty-one years ago today, Daniel and Emily were married at the Friends Meetinghouse at Stoke Newington, London. I wish I knew whether they had any family or friends with them that day. With the exception of Emily’s mother, their parents were all still living at the time.  Was Alfred Wright there? Emily was close to her sisters and brothers, so I picture them with her at the meetinghouse. David and Esther Oliver, along with Daniel’s older brothers,  John and David, were living in Edinburgh. Did they make the trip?

2016-09-19-21-42-34

Daniel and Emily had been married for 57 years when Daniel died in 1952. Emily’s death followed in 1954. They had four children, (including my grandfather, Kenneth), seven grandchildren (including my mother, Celia), at least six great grandchildren, and at least twelve great great grandchildren. They also touched the lives of untold numbers of children they taught and cared for during their sixty years in Lebanon.

Daniel’s wedding ring is inscribed D + E   19th Sept. 1895. My husband wears it now with the added inscription KW to LJB 1-2-82.

And a very happy first anniversary today to another Emily–Daniel and Emily’s great great granddaughter–and her husband Matt!

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Percolating

05 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Places

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Architecture, Art, Museums, Philadelphia, Travel

I’ve just returned home from a mini-vacation that included family history research, visits to special places holding a century of family experiences, along with lots of museums, catching up with friends and relatives, and eating good food. Phew! As a result, there has been no blogging and my whirring brain is processing lots of impressions and information.

So, while the next family stories are percolating, here are a few highlights of the places we visited, in no particular order.

Memorial Hall, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

My college thesis was on the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 and Memorial Hall is the only surviving exhibition building from the extravagant world’s fair celebrating the United States’ 100th anniversary year.

It now houses the Please Touch Museum, and is full of life, inside and out. It’s easy to imagine the hustle and bustle of the fair, displaying the latest and best of America’s arts manufacturing, agriculture and so much more.

There was the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with assorted gems large and small:


And Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library was spectacular, in all its facets:

Not to overdo it on the museums, but…we were bowled over by the Barnes Foundation. Spectacular building and an even more spectacular collection.

Magill Library at Haverford College was a special pleasure. I did lots of family research there and inhaled the place where my grandfather went to college 100 years ago.

More when the percolating is done…

 

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“A Most Dainty Dish,” or How to Prepare Muskrat Stew for a Crowd

07 Saturday May 2016

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, People, Places

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Baltimore, Family history, Genealogy, Hill, Maryland, Merchants' Club

I grew up on my critter-loving grandmother’s stories about Major Nicholas Snowden Hill, her adored, indulgent grandfather, and most of those stories were about animals. Grandfather Hill took her to the circus, and soon after, he bought her Mars, the circus pony. He told her he had a surprise, and to pick a pocket in his overcoat. There was a puppy in each pocket. Granny’s stories were magical to a granddaughter who was equally animal crazed.

Nicholas Hill was a colorful figure in Baltimore. His family was among the earliest, Catholic settlers of the Maryland colony. He was raised in what is now Upper Marlboro, on one of Prince George’s County’s large tobacco farms. Sadly, his father, Charles, had many enslaved workers there. (A topic for further research). After serving in the Confederate Army in Arkansas as “Commissary of Subsistence,” he worked for many years as purchasing agent for the B & O Railroad, and later was managing director of the Carrollton Hotel and the Merchants’ Club.

I was curious about the Merchants’ Club, and a quick search led to this treasure:

Muskrat article

This 1896 article from the Baltimore Sun went viral. It was reprinted in publications ranging from The Annals of Hygiene, a medical journal; to Good Houskeeping, to the Scranton Republican, which expanded on the unappetizing muskrat, “its flesh is fat and greasy unto nastiness.”

Part of my family history search always includes looking for the places as well as the people, and up popped this wonderful image of the Merchants’ Club, site of the muskrat luncheon.

image

Design for Merchant’s Club Building on German St., Baltimore, MD
J. A. and W. J. Wilson, architect(s). From the American Architect and Building News, August 19, 1882

The Baltimore architectural firm of John Appleton Wilson and his cousin, William Thomas Wilson designed the Merchants’ Club. They were active from the late 19th century through 1907, and designed many private homes in and around Baltimore, many in the Queen Anne style, along with public and commercial buildings.

Baltimore’s Great Fire of 1904 destroyed both the Merchants’ Club and the Carrollton Hotel, and most certainly had a profound impact on Nicholas Hill’s life. To be continued…

 Sources:

The Annals of Hygiene, Volume 11, p. 383

American Architect and Building News, August 19, 1882

J. Appleton Wilson , MSA SC 3520-13819 at http://www.msa.md.gov

 

Relationship:

Major Nicholas Snowden Hill (1839-1912) – 2nd great grandfather

Mary (Hill) Mills (1875-c.1936) – great grandmother

Elsie (Mills) Oliver (1899-1993) grandmother

My mum

Me

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