Celia and Bill on June 16, 1955 in Wellesley, Massachusetts
A big, fancy-numbered anniversary. Today is the 65th anniversary of my parents’ wedding.
Celia Oliver and Bill Hare (born Stephenson) met in college in Baltimore in the early 1950s. She was a student at Goucher College and he was at Johns Hopkins University. My Mum was a year older than my Dad, graduating from college in 1954. Their wedding took place soon after his 1955 graduation from Hopkins when he was 21 and she was 22.
It was a small, simple wedding at the house my grandparents were renting on the campus of Dana Hall School on Grove Street in Wellesley, Massachusetts. My mother wore a dark suit with white piping around the collar. It’s the same suit she was wearing in photos of my Dad’s graduation from Hopkins earlier that month.
Present were their parents–Ken and Elsie (Mills) Oliver and Bob and Esther Jane (Miller) Hare from Maryland, with Bob’s mother, Fern, (Bob was actually my Dad’s step-father); Mum’s brother Peter Oliver and soon-to-be sister-in-law, Connie Gibbs; my grandfather’s brother, A. Douglas Oliver from Philadelphia with his wife, Dessa, and two young daughters, Anne and Susan; and finally, my great-uncle, Clark Stephenson, (brother of my dad’s father, Bill Stephenson) with his wife Louise. And must not forget my grandparents’ boxer, Judy, who was an important part of my childhood a few years later!
Top left my grandfather with his old blunderbuss pistol threatens my dad to “make an honest woman” out of his daughter! Top center, Mum’s cousins Anne and Susan Oliver, Dad’s grandmother, Fern Burnham, and my aunt, Connie. Top right, Susan Oliver, unknown minister, Uncle Doug and Aunt Dessa Oliver. And I’ve never asked my mother, but I wonder if my granny–an amazing baker–made the cake.
I love the intimacy of the gathering, the silliness of my Dad hamming it up for the camera while Mum beams, the image of my dignified grandfather being silly. The house isn’t one I ever knew, but everything they’re surrounded by–furniture, hangings, rugs–is embedded in my childhood memories. It was a day filled with joy and promise.
My parents had adventures together during their six short years of marriage before my father’s early death. They drove cross-country to spend a year living in Alaska. They spent a year working in Germany. They had four years as parents together in Baltimore. And a dog. For all that, I celebrate them and look back on that day 65 years ago with gratitude.
UPDATE: Oh, my, did I get this wrong! My next post sorts it all out…
I managed to spend more time than usual frolicking in my family research this year, including a trip to England in August and a road trip through family-related places in Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina in March. The research was a refuge and escape from other worries at times, and the travel and people I connected with were pure magic. Genealogy was definitely a highlight of my 2019, with a few particularly special discoveries and experiences.
A brick wall came tumbling down; never seen photos emerged; I visited a cousin in England and made contact with several cousins I hadn’t known about; I walked in places where my ancestors spent their days. My plan was to blog about each of these, but most of those posts are still drafts… Goals for 2020!
People
OliversandOliphants – Finding the father of my born-out-of-wedlock 2nd great grandfather, David Oliver (my mother’s family name), has long been a challenge, and the discovery of DNA matches named Oliphant helped redirect my search. Thanks to the help of a great new online community, Walk My Past (see below), the mystery has been solved. David Oliver’s father, my 3rd great grandfather, was George Oliphant (1827-1904) from Bower, Caithness, Scotland. And… I found a photograph of the place he was living at the end of his life!
Barrock Lodge, Lyth, Bower, Caithness, Scotland. Postcard posted 18 July 1928. Credit: Alex MacManus from his mother’s collection here. George Oliphant was living here at the time of his death on 10 December 1904.
James Mills and Maria Milnes Photos – I’ve always had a fair amount of information on Granny’s (Elsie Mills, 1899-1993) maternal family, but not much on her father’s side. So far I’ve only turned up one blurry passport photograph of her father, James Mills (1863-1925). And then this unexpected gift! An Ancestry member posted a pair of photos from a family album–Granny’s grandparents, James Mills (1824-1904) and Maria Milnes (1825-1892). It was remarkable to see their faces and especially to discover how much my Granny looked like her grandmother.
James Mills and his Maria Milnes were married in Derby, England in 1845. They emigrated to Staunton, Virginia about 1871 with 9 of their 10 surviving children. Credit: Mills/Mason Watson/Brewer Family Tree on Ancestry.com, courtesy Korina Mills
Living Cousins – 2019 brought re-connection and first contact with close-ish cousins in England, Scotland, New Mexico, Texas, and New York. Some were through DNA matching and others through more old-fashioned methods. It turns out that a childhood friend is a 10th cousin (thank you, Ancestry DNA) and a friend from college is a 9th cousin. Best of all, I spent a lovely afternoon with my Mum’s first cousin in London. Another goal for 2020 is to be in contact with more cousins.
An August visit with Robin Monro, my first cousin once removed, in London was a delight, and seeing the strong family resemblance to my Granny (his aunt) made me happy. Then the photo of Maria Milnes (above) appeared–his great grandmother–and I see the same resemblance to her.
Places
Ackworth School – Oh, my, what a thrill this was! In August I arranged to spend a day visiting Ackworth School in West Yorkshire, exploring the buildings, and poring through the archival material collected for me by Celia Wolfe, the school’s kind and incredibly knowledgeable archivist. I won’t spoil the post that I really, truly do still plan to write, but the short version is that I strolled the campus where my great grandmother, Emily Wright (1865-1954) was born and spent most of her childhood, where her parents worked, and where her ancestors on both sides and her siblings were students from 1780 through the late 19th century. The original buildings and grounds of this Quaker boarding school are little changed, so it felt like they could have been right there, walking the halls and pathways with me.
Ackworth School, Pontrefact, West Yorkshire
And there were photographs of students and teachers, including lots of wonderful images of Emily Wright and her parents, Mary Ann Deane (1841-1884) and Alfred Wright (1831-1901). The Quakers are precise record keepers, so there were documents rich in details about many family members. Proper blog post to follow!
One: Emily Wright (center of image), age 18, taken in 1884 when she was an apprentice teacher at Ackworth School. Two: Alfred Wright, taken about 1870, when he was the bookkeeper at Ackworth. Three: Mary Ann Deane (top of image), 1861 at age 20 as an apprentice teacher at Ackworth. Credit: Ackworth School archives
Pennsylvania/Virginia/North Carolina Road Trip – A spur of the moment driving trip in March took me first to Sunbury, Pennsylvania, in the Susquehanna River Valley, north of Harrisburg, where I researched my Miller and Deppen ancestors. Thanks to the helpful folks at the Northumberland County Historical Society, I learned that my 4th great grandfather, John Miller (1774-1821), is said to have drowned in the Susquehanna River while checking his flooded land on the Isle of Que. The tiny island is one half mile wide and 5.5 miles long, part of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania on the west side of the river. I paid a quiet visit to that shore at dusk.
Isle of Que, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania
Next stop was Staunton, Virginia, where James and Maria (Milnes) Mills settled around 1870. I took a whirlwind tour of Trinity Church, where the family worshiped; Thornrose Cemetery, with a sizable Mills family plot beneath a majestic magnolia tree. Census records and city directories provided me with the addresses of several family homes, so I was able to find where James and Maria lived during their later years with some of their children.
One: Lovely Trinity Church, built in 1855. Two: The Mills family plot beneath a magnolia tree in Thornrose Cemetery. Three: By 1888, 901 West Beverly Street, Staunton, Virginia was home to James and Maria (Milnes) Mills and three of their adult children (school teachers Annie and Maria, and son Harry). By 1890, they had all moved to a nearby house, and James and Maria’s widowed daughter, Mary Ann (Mills) Aitkins had moved into this house with three young adult sons, Frank, James, and John.
The North Carolina leg of my road trip took me to Davidson County in search of late 18th to mid-19th century graves of my Owen, Bodenhamer and Goss ancestors. It was a bit of a wild goose chase. Visits to the Abbott’s Creek Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery, Reeds Baptist Church Cemetery, and Becks Reformed Church Cemetery led me to graves of some collateral ancestors, but no direct ones. But the bonus was some exceptional decorative gravestones–well worth a quick visit!
Abbott’s Creek Cemetery, near Thomasville, Davidson County, North Carolina, is known for its unusual carved gravestones. Not my ancestors, but I enjoyed seeing them.
New Resource
Walk My Past – A new resource for genealogists appeared on the scene this year when amateur genealogist Abbie Allen decided to create Walk My Past, a website where people could easily offer or request help with their family history. The idea is simple– volunteer “genies” are available to help with requests for information, cemetery photos, or a trip to a nearby archive. With willing helpers scattered across the globe, it gives access to information that can be out of reach otherwise. There are now 187 genies in 14 countries and the numbers are growing. Definitely worth checking it out!
And I’m the happiest of users. A kind-hearted “genie”, Meredith Cane of Revill McKay, Scotland, saw my request for help tracking down the answer to my Oliver/Oliphant mystery. She was already working in Scottish records for that region, and was able to identify my 3rd great grandfather, George Oliphant. Hoorah!
There’s my 2019 in a very large nutshell. Now, onward to 2020 and new adventures.
Damdaddy was my Mum’s father. (I couldn’t say Grandaddy. It stuck.) Today would have been his 121st birthday and when this picture was taken, he was a little younger than I am now. He was a quiet, intensely supportive and loving presence in my life for my first eighteen years, and remains with me still.
We’re on the front lawn of my grandparents’ little Cape style house in the outskirts of Boston. You can just make out the roses twined around the split rail fence behind us. Damdaddy became quite the gardener during his twenty years in this house, and much of the front yard was a huge (at least to my small eyes) flower bed. I especially remember bleeding hearts and snap dragons. And the sweet tasting honeysuckle vine.
The whole neighborhood smelled of the pine trees that towered over us and the shrieking of blue jays was constant. The back yard was shaded by the large pines, and in the spring it was sprinkled with lilies of the valley and violets. There was a freestanding garage (my British grandfather always put the emphasis on the first syllable–GAR-age) and I still remember its smell too.
Inside was the smell of his wonderful cooking, the sound of the BBC news on the radio in the morning while the coffee perked in the Pyrex coffee pot. In the evening there was a crackling fire in the living room fireplace. During the weeks before Christmas, he and I would go down to the basement, where we’d brush racks of Granny’s fruitcakes with brandy and port–another smell I remember well.
And a dog. There was always a dog. During my childhood there was a succession of boxers–Judy, Penny, and Jenny. Devoted dog lovers, my grandparents had always been firm training their dogs, but as they aged, the rules relaxed. By the time Jenny came along, there were (heaven forbid!) even tidbits fed from the table!
The Lavins next door had a pasture with sheep and one cranky goat. Willy got loose every now and then and would end up in Damdaddy’s garden, munching on his flowers–never a good thing. I was a big fan.
My most precious childhood memories are of this man in this place, and my sensory memories here are powerful. And yes, he did hang the moon. Happy birthday, Damdaddy.
Kenneth Stuart Oliver (October 28, 1898-January 26, 1975)
For years now I’ve been trying to sort out a line of Olivers from Caithness in the Highlands of Scotland. Oliver is my mother’s maiden name, and this is the branch of my family to which I have the strongest ties.
The mystery includes:
A great great grandfather, David Oliver, who appears to have been born out of wedlock;
Tales of a teenage shepherd from the south fathering a baby and vanishing;
A child raised by his grandparents while his mother started a new family;
And now a DNA connection to a line of Oliphants who moved from Caithness to Australia.
David Oliver, the son
My 2nd great grandfather, David Oliver, was born in Latheron, Caithness between 1844 and 1848 and died in 1923 in Edinburgh. Although I haven’t found a birth or baptismal certificate for him, his marriage certificate to Esther Henderson (30 Dec 1864, Thurso) listed David’s father as George Oliver, police officer, and his mother as Elizabeth Oliver, maiden surname Sutherland. David’s 1923 death certificate lists his parents as George Oliver (Shepherd) and Betsy Oliver, afterwards Hamilton nee Sutherland.
David Oliver married Esther Henderson, 30 December 1864 in Thurso, listing his father as George Oliver, Police Officer, and his mother as Elizabeth Oliver, maiden surname SutherlandDavid’s death certificate refers to his father, George Oliver, as a shepherd, and again names his mother as Betsy Oliver, afterwards Hamilton, maiden surname Sutherland
But…family lore is that George and Elizabeth were never married, that George may have been a young shepherd from the south. There were Olivers who moved to the Highlands from the border counties in the south of Scotland and worked as shepherds. Some may have stayed in the area, while others moved away in a generation or two.
Elizabeth Sutherland, the mother
After giving birth to David about 1848, Elizabeth Sutherland married a James Hamilton in September, 1849, and had eight more children, living in Bower, 20 miles from her parents’ home in Latheron. The 1851 census lists her son, 4 year old David Oliver, living with Elizabeth’s parents (his grandparents), George and Margaret (Sandison) Sutherland in Latheron.
George Oliver, the father?
Meanwhile, the father. There is a George Oliver who fits the general profile. He was born in the south about 1833, and was living in Thurso by 1841. There’s no documented connection I’ve found between this George Oliver and Elizabeth Sutherland other than David’s marriage and death certificates. George married a Johan McKenzie in Thurso in 1853, five to seven years after my David Oliver was born, and four years after Elizabeth married James Hamilton.
Ship Vocalist Approaching the River Mersey, Liverpool, after 1856 George and Johan Oliver arrived in New South Wales on this ship on 10 October 1856.
George and Johan sailed on the Ship Vocalist to New South Wales, Australia, with their first two children in 1856. I’ve found plenty of information about George in Australia (many children, another marriage), and he could be my guy, but nothing confirms that, and then there are the Oliphants…
Oliphants and DNA
I’ve had quite a few DNA matches who are descendants of an Essie Oliphant, born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1879, daughter of a George Oliphant, born in Wick, Caithness in 1848, son of a William Oliphant, also from Wick, born 1821. I can’t find a George Oliphant the right age, and I can’t figure out any connection beyond the DNA.
If it weren’t for the DNA matches, I’d be fairly comfortable with the assumptions I’ve made about George Oliver, but the Oliphant DNA…
The Brick Wall
The key pieces I’m trying to answer are:
Who was David Oliver’s father?
If it wasn’t George Oliver born 1833, was it an Oliphant?
Which Oliphant? (I’ve been making an Oliphant tree, but just can’t connect it to my people).
And why does David’s 1864 marriage certificate list his mother as Elizabeth Oliver when she’d been married to James Hamilton for over 10 years by then?
I would eagerly welcome any advice or information!
Relationships:
George Sutherland (1791-1873) and Margaret Sandison (1794-1882) – 4th great grandparents
Elizabeth Sutherland (1822-1908) – 3rd great grandmother and George Oliver (abt. 1833-1920) – 3rd great grandfather??
David Oliver (abt. 1848-1923) and Esther Henderson (1833-1906) – 2nd great grandparents
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!
Just a few images in the spirit of the day. Love these mothers, one and all!
Mum and me heading home from a family visit to Kansas. Always on an adventure! Tulsa Airport, 1963.
Grandma, Esther Jane (Miller) Stephenson (later Hare), with my dad, Bill. He was her only child. Kansas, 1934.
My Granny, proud mum, Elsie (Mills) Oliver with my mum, Celia, at her Goucher College graduation, Towson, Maryland, 1954.
Great grandmother Alice (Sheely) Stephenson at her home with my toddler-sized Dad, Bill. My grandfather looked so much like her! Augusta, Kansas, about 1935.
One of my all-time favorite pictures–Stella Lee (Owen) Miller was the mother of my Grandma, Esther Jane. This image was taken before Grandma was born in 1914 with her sisters (left to right) Marjorie, Nell, and Thelma. Coffeyville, Kansas, ca. 1908.
Emily (Wright) Oliver, my Mum’s paternal grandmother, with a little twinkle in her eye, possibly because of the two dogs sitting next to her. Daniel and Emily Oliver Orphanage. Ras el M’etn, Lebanon, 1931.
My great grandmother, Mary (Hill) Mills, known to her family as Dear, standing behind (left to right) Elsie (my Granny), Audrey, Nicholas Snowden Hill (her father), Mary Carroll, and Jimmy. Baltimore, ca. 1909.
And my one and only mother more recently. Salem, Massachusetts, 2018.
Kenneth Stuart Oliver’s Friends’ Ambulance Unit personnel card (Image from the Library of the Religious Society of Friends, London)
One hundred years ago, when the Armistice agreement was signed on November 11th ending World War I, Kenneth Oliver, my grandfather, was serving as a volunteer ambulance driver for the Friends’ Ambulance Unit, headquartered in Dunkirk. He had arrived in France the previous year, a baby-faced eighteen year old, and had undoubtedly experienced enough of war to last him a lifetime.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Ken and his brothers, Doug and Hugh, were students at the Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school near Philadelphia. They were sons of British Quaker missionaries in Lebanon, raised and educated in a pacifist tradition. Joining the military would not have been an option for them, yet like many young men and women raised in the Society of Friends, they must have felt a strong need to be of service during the terrible war.
In response, the Friends’ Ambulance Unit (FAU) was created by British volunteers in 1914 as a way for Quakers and others to provide medical aid and other assistance to civilians and members of the military during the war without compromising their commitment to non-violence. Over 1000 volunteers served in France, Belgium, and England between 1914 and 1919, driving ambulances, assisting in hospitals and providing aid for civilians evacuating the war zones.
Following his sophomore year at Haverford College, Ken left to join the FAU. He departed New York on the RMS Aurania, arriving in Liverpool on September 2, 1917. (Incidentally, a few months later the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Northern Ireland on February 3, 1918, heading from Liverpool to New York). It was customary for new volunteers to spend a month at an FAU training camp in Birminghamshire before being assigned to a unit.
Ken’s Friends’ Ambulance Unit personnel card (Image from the Library of the Religious Society of Friends, London)
FAU ambulance convoy (Image from Cadbury Research Library)
Ken arrived at FAU headquarters in Dunkirk on October 10th. His personnel card lists a variety of assignments and job titles—chief orderly, chief clerk, stores buyer, and primarily driver. He served as a driver in an ambulance convoy like the one pictured here, and he was listed as being based in Dunkirk in August 2018, when the FAU headquarters were bombed. Family lore has it that one of my grandfather’s assignments was to inspect the sanitary conditions of French military brothels, but of course this doesn’t appear on his personnel card…
FAU headquarters, Dunkirk, after bombing, August 1918 (Image from Cadbury Research Library)
Alan Douglas Oliver’s FAU personnel card (Image from the Library of the Religious Society of Friends, London)
Uncle Doug, Ken’s elder brother, left Haverford and joined the FAU in May 1918, nearly a year after Ken’s arrival. He sailed to Liverpool on the RMS Carpathia, renowned for having taken on passengers from the sinking Titanic in 1912. Like the Aurania, the Carpathia was torpedoed by a German U-boat, and sunk off the southern coast of Ireland just two months after Doug’s arrival.
Both young men remained in France for several months after the armistice, with Doug departing in January 1919 and Ken following in February. They rejoined their classmates at Haverford for that spring semester and both graduated the following year.
Haverford College Yearbook, 1920
I never heard my grandfather speak of the war, but surely it had to have changed the course of his life. I have to believe it played a role in his choice to become a doctor. He went on to medical school at Johns Hopkins University and then a career practicing and teaching medicine in Lebanon and the U.S.
I like my family history tangible. I want to see the places where my ancestors lived, learned, worked, and worshiped. I need to know what their faces looked like, read their very own handwriting, surround myself with their art, and if possible, I want to touch their stuff. Or better yet, wear it!
This month I joined in an Instagram “genealogy photo a day” challenge, and today’s theme was “my favorite heirloom.” Well! I picked one, but it was hard, and left me wanting to share more, so I think I’ll revisit this topic again soon.
This image of my maternal grandparents, Elsie Mills (1899-1993) and Kenneth Oliver (1898-1975), was taken before they were married in Baltimore in 1925, and has always been one of my favorites. He was 26 and a young doctor, and she was 25, a talented painter, and daughter of one of his medical school professors. I remember her regal bearing and sometimes haughty expression, but I don’t ever remember seeing him with such a dreamy expression.
This engagement portrait hangs in my house and Granny’s spectacular jacket hangs now in my closet. The cloth beneath the metallic mesh (which is very heavy!) is gray blue with a black lining. Very 1920s, very Art Deco, and very Granny. My favorite heirloom. At least for today…
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
A 2nd floor bedroom (Granny’s?) in the Park Avenue Mills House, courtesy of an online rental listing.
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.
An early view of the Johns Hopkins University Hospital, completed in 1889.
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?
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!
