52 Ancestors Week 40: Cemetery

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 40:

The theme for Week 40 is “Cemetery.” (Honestly, this is one of my favorite themes!) Any memorable trips to an ancestral cemetery? Whose burial place have you searched for, but haven’t found? Any sextons in the family tree? This is their week.

Everyone's dying to get in!

    It's pretty ironic we got this prompt right at the beginning of spooky season. Halloween starts on October 1st! Don't let anyone else tell you different!

    Right. Now than that's out of the way, let's get down to business.  I've often talked about Saint Patrick's Cemetery in the blog since that's where both of my Italian great-grandparents and their relatives are buried. Saint Patrick's in Haverhill, Mass is basically the de facto Italian cemetery in the city. Sure there are Italians buried in nearby Linwood, Saint James and other cemeteries in Haverhill. It's Saint Patrick's that has the most people of Italian descent interred there. This week, I've decided to give everyone a tour of the stones. Don't worry. It's hard to get lost and I'm pretty sure it isn't haunted. If it was, you'd hear Italian ghosts asking you why you don't call anymore and you'd feel a pinching sensation on your cheeks.

Pic taken by MassGraver on FindaGrave.com

    Before we dive into it, here's a little backstory on Saint Patrick's that I've managed to dig up due to careful investigation or constant nagging. 

    As far as I can tell, Saint Patrick's has been in operation since the late 1800s and that makes it one of the more recent cemeteries in Haverhill. Stones there date back to 1896 whereas cemeteries in Haverhill like Maplewood have stones dating as far back as the 1700s. You won't find any soldiers of the American Revolution here. You will find Civil War soldiers at Walnut, though! Legend has it that it and nearby Hilldale cemetery are haunted. The older the cemetery, the more haunted it is. I don't make the rules!

    Over time, the cemetery was designated the Italian and Lithuanian burial grounds due to the various members of Saint Rita's Parish wishing to be buried there. Once Saint Rita's merged with other churches in the area to become All Saints Parish, people from all over the city ended up choosing this cemetery as their final resting place.

    Saint Patrick's is pretty easy to navigate as the property has rectangular sections. To make things even more helpful, the stones themselves are organized by decade of death for the most part. For example, if someone passed away in the 1980s, their stone would be among others who passed away in the same time period. Sometimes that's not the case as families have stones nearby. It's still convenient! Just like access to my grandfather's stone.

    The final resting place of my grandfather, my great-grandfather Vincenzo, my great-grandmother Maria, Vincenzo's second wife Fortuna and my grandma Ollie is one of the easiest stones to find. It's along one of the main "roads" on the property and is one of the first stones I remember visiting.

    Every Christmas season and Memorial Day my dad would drive us to the cemetery to clean things up, plant flowers and decorate it. We still put wreaths and other decorations up and try to keep things looking neat and tidy. The groundskeepers do a great job of course. But, there's no harm in giving them a hand!

    Maria was obviously the first in the plot to be buried there since she passed away in 1943. I've often wondered what the stone looked like back then. For as long as I can remember the stone that's currently there was always there. I just figured the names were chiseled in over time. The plot also has memorial markers dedicated to Marco and Vincenzo's service in World War 1 and II. There's also a plaque that says "Buona Fortuna" or Good Fortune there as well.

    When I was growing up, I didn't really venture too far from the stone. We did our work there and visited my other great-grandparents' stone to see if that needed work done. Thankfully, my dad's cousin Bob took care of the plot. In recent years, he started a tradition where he'd put a small pumpkin on the Ferraiolo and Carrabs stones. Someone on Find a Grave took a picture of the stones with the pumpkins on them, uploaded it to the site and now Bob's handiwork is forever immortalized on there and as hints on Ancestry. 

    The Carrabs plot is further down the "road" from my other great-grandparents' stone and a few rows in from the front. It's still relatively easy to get to. It's also very well maintained by Bob like I said. He makes it a point to visit the stone and his parents' stone in Linwood. 

    Bob and I used to take walks around the cemetery if I asked him if he wanted to take me there and to the library. It's been a while since I've gone there with him and when I went I always made sure to take pictures and listen to whatever stories he'd tell me about the area. He knows much more about the cemetery than I do! So, any facts I have can be attributed to him!

        Before I started my genealogical adventure, those were  the only two stones I ever visited. Lame, I know. What can I say? I didn't really feel like exploring the area and I didn't know who to look for at the time. So, imagine my surprise when I found out just how many connections I have to the cemetery! I'll try to sum it up as best I can. 

   Bob and I once did a cemetery run where we were trying to find the Coppolas and man did we find them. Most of them were connected to me in some way aside from a Coppola stone across the "street" from Vincenzo and company. I looked into it and that Coppola family hailed from Sicily.

    My second great-grandmother Caterina Coppola has family buried at Saint Patrick's. Her sister Concetta and brother Paolo are interred in different parts of the cemetery along with several members of their families.

    Listing them all would take some time. Let's just say most of their kids and their spousal units are also in Saint Patrick's save for a few people. Finding them all was like shooting fish in a barrel. The cemetery is full of Coppolas. I suppose it makes sense given how large their families were.

    I should note that I made it a point to share the picture of Concetta's stone with her grandson in San Pietro. His dad, Francesco, was sent back to Italy and as a result my cousin never met his grandmother or his aunts and uncles in America.

    The hunt for the Coppola stones went pretty well. I mean it wasn't hard finding them all. There was still one Coppola stone I had not been able to locate and that was the stone belonging to Paolo and Concetta's cousin Giovanni. I knew Giovanni would be buried there. Where else would he have been? Imagine my surprise when I found his family's stone two stones away from the Ferraiolo plot! I honestly never noticed!

    Sigh. I know. I know. I should have been more observant! There's a reason for my lapse in judgement. I knew about the Coppola stone for ages, of course. We'd drive by it on our way to the Ferraiolo plot. I just never thought to look BEHIND the stone to see who was buried there. All I saw was "Coppola" and thought nothing of it. Coppola is a common Italian last name. It could have been anyone and my parents had no idea who was there.

    A few years back I was with my parents and we were cleaning up the Ferraiolo plot. I decided to check out who those Coppolas were once and for all.  At that point I had looked all over the cemetery for Giovanni's stone to no avail. I was beginning to think that maybe they weren't buried there at all despite all evidence pointed to that cemetery. His death certificate DID say he was buried at Saint Patrick's!

Honest mistake. Really!

    I went to the back and smiled. There they were. Giovanni, his wife Natalina, their children Frank, Mary and Angelina and their spouses. I laughed and took the picture right away. They were right there the whole time! Talk about hiding in plain sight.

    Then again it wasn't exactly like they went anywhere.

    Still, it was cool finding their stone and even cooler knowing that it was almost next door to the Ferraiolo plot! It makes me wish I checked out the cemetery more when I was younger. Sure I wouldn't have known who Giovanni was at the time. I would have asked my great-aunt Nickie or my grandmother about him and they'd have told me all about him.

    These are just a few of the stones you'd find at Saint Patrick's. Some are easy to find and some are a little hard to spot. Still, it's important to remember the people buried under the stones and honor them in the best way possible. I've done my part by having their profiles on Wikitree. Users on Find a Grave had done the same thing and created profiles for the people buried there. In time, more of those people will have profiles on WikiTree. I promise!  At the time of this blog's posting, there are 6,189 memorials there. Not bad when you consider Saint James has 9,547 memorials! No wonder I can't find Antoine there. Some day.....

    All in all, Saint Patrick's a pretty good cemetery and even though it's not as old as some of the other cemeteries in the city it still has a ton of stories to tell. The cemetery tells the story of the Italian and Lithuanian immigrant experience and their lives. It was the first cemetery I remember visiting and it's the one I have the most connections to. Sure I have relatives in Walnut and other cemeteries in the city. However, it's probably Saint Patrick's that means the most to me because my Italian grandparents and all four of my Italian great-grandparents are buried there.

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 39: Disappeared

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 39:

The theme for Week 39 is “Disappeared.” All of us have someone on our family tree who seems to have just disappeared. This is a good week to write about them. (Who knows – maybe writing about them will help you spot some gaps in your research and give you ideas on new places to look!)

Mmm....ominous

    I might be showing my age here. There was a show I used to watch called "Unsolved Mysteries" and it was hosted by a guy with the most epic voice ever. That man was Robert Stack and his show used to keep kids awake at night. Whenever I come across someone who vanished from the records, I think of his show and the ominous theme song. It's either that or the "Twilight Zone" theme. Both theme songs work. 

    Amy's right. We all have people in our family tree who have vanished without a trace and you have to wonder about them. Did they get abducted by aliens? Did they go into the witness protection program? Did they fall into a quantum singularity? Who knows? Today, I'll be presenting the strange case of a man who did vanish without a trace. Ladies, gentlemen and others, I present my third great-grandmother, Evaline Augusta Fisher.

    By all accounts Evaline had a fairly normal life. She was born in 1849 to John Sargent Fisher and Frances Frothingham. Eva had a twin brother who sadly didn't live that long. In December of 1870 she married Austin Webster Stevens and they had four children together including my 2nd great-grandmother, Gertrude Stevens.

    Seems like a sweet life, doesn't it? Unfortunately, life doesn't always work out like the way you planned. Eva and Austin eventually got divorced sometime after 1880 and she went on to marry a guy named Charles Lewis Parker in 1912.

    After that, she all but disappeared from the records. Many trees, including mine, list her death as being on December 27th, 1923. There are no sources to back up this claim and I'm honestly not even sure where I pulled that date from. I didn't make it up or anything. To tell the truth, it may have been on the family tree my grandmother Natalie made ages ago.  If she was around, I'd ask her where she got that information from because like I said there are no sources that can verify her date of death!

    All isn't completely lost. She does appear on a few other records here and there.  In the 1880 census in Malden, she was living with Austin and their children Gertrude and Arthur. In 1900, she was living with Gertrude and her second husband Walter Senter in Haverhill. (It always goes back to Haverhill.) In 1910, she was living with Walter and Getrude in Kingston, New Hampshire. Get this. She was listed as "widowed". Divorce was a taboo topic in those days, I guess because Austin passed away in 1926 in Haverhill.

Gertrude in the center of the Senters!

    The last census Eva appears in is in the 1920 census in Lynn, Mass. There, she was living with her son Arthur and again she was listed as a widow! Seriously?! I know for a fact she married Parker. It's her last name in the census. Chuck may have actually died prior to 1920. There's just no way of knowing at this time.

    After that, it's hard to say what happened to Eva. She may very well have passed away in 1923 according to the tree my grandmother made. I have no idea. Like I said, I haven't been able to find any source that can confirm her death. I've looked at the death records in Lynn since that was her last known address and came up empty.

    I even went so far as to check out Pine Grove cemetery in Lynn since that's where Arthur's final resting place is. Nothing. Arthur is buried with a sibling who died young and several unrelated people. No sign of Eva. There are three hundred women with the name Eva buried in that cemetery and none of them have the last name of "Stevens" or "Parker". 

    This is just beyond strange at this point. All records regarding my third great-grandmother seem to vanished after the 1920 census and all we have to go on is a vague death date of December 27th, 1923. I've checked newspaper obituaries in the area at that time and came up empty. What happened to her? Did she really pass away on that day? It's a big mystery. I've even checked with the cemetery in Lynn and she's not buried there! At this point I was getting a huge headache.

Arthur and Bennie's grave.

        At least we can speculate what happened to her, right? Right. Let's say for the sake of argument that she did actually pass away in 1923. Okay. Would she have been in Lynn? It's possible. She was there in 1920. Her final resting place may actually be in one of the other cemeteries in the city. It's hard to say.

    I've tried to solve this puzzle for a long time and it's one of the many genealogical puzzles that continue to vex me. I've had to put this one on the backburner because it's just so frustrating. You would think her death record would have been scanned and digitized and pop up as a hint on Ancestry or Familysearch, right? Eh, that depends. After all Haverhill newspapers aren't digitized, either.

    With no actual death record I am left wondering if she really died on that day?  I know she passed away before 1938 as that was the year Gertrude married Charles Berry and Gertie's mother was listed as deceased on that record. With all the information I have, there's really not much else I can do. The only thing I can do is play the waiting game and you all know how much I love playing that game! I think it may be best to put this on the backburner a while longer. "Stevens" and "Parker" are both fairly common last names. I'm sure something will pop up some day.

    Eva is just one person in my tree who seemingly vanished from records. There are a few other people and my third great-grandmother is clearly the one who vexes me the most because you would think there'd be records for her death online. It's been over a hundred years since she supposedly passed away! Where are the records?! I've looked everywhere and came up empty. Perhaps this blog will help illuminate the case and perhaps YOU can help solve a mystery.

Wow. That sounded like Robert Stack in my head. See ya next time!

 

52 Ancestors Week 38: Animals

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 38:

The theme for Week 38 is “Animals.” Pet lovers, farmers, birdwatchers, fishermen – this is their week. Who will you write about this week?

Cocoa judges you while you read a blog about dogs.

    Animals have always been a part of my life. This is because virtually everyone in my family has been a pet owner at one point or another. You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat animals if they're furry, feathered or scaly. Animals can also sense if someone's a good person or not. We've got to give them credit. Though, sometimes animals can be a little crazy. More on that in a bit.

    There are honestly way too many animals and animal lovers for me talk about this week. I've decided to narrow the list down considerably. This week we'll focus on the lady who gave my brother and I our first pet way back in the 1980s. I'm of course talking about my aunt Linda, champion dog breeder and all around awesome person. 

Could this picture be more 1970s?
Yes, it could.

        Linda's journey to becoming a champion dog breeder began fairly early in her life. The Hamel clan always had pets of some kind running around the house. In the picture we see my mother with her siblings and a collie named Princess. My aunt Linda is the one to the dog's left.

    From what I've been told, Princess behaved exactly like "Lassie" from the classic television show. I'm not sure if that's true. I'd have to go back in time and see if that dog saved anyone from a well and then maybe I'll be impressed!

    Everyone loved Princess and I'm sure she was a great dog. I mean it's a collie. They're usually good dogs to begin with. Then again all dogs can be good when they're given the chance and proper training. It's up to the person training the animal and how you treat them.

   

    Either way, Linda's experience with Princess was just the beginning of her canine journey. Soon, she was onto bigger and honestly less fuzzy things. Seriously, collies must shed like crazy. Even heroic dogs have fuzz that roll like tumbleweeds around the kitchen. Then again most dog breeds do the same thing. Let's be honest.

    In 1978,  Linda began a career as a dog handler and breeder. She specialized in Brittanys, a dog breed that originally hailed from France. Britannys are a medium sized dog that come with either an orange and white or a liver and white fur coat. Sometimes they can come in a mix of all three colors!  They're also sporting dogs and are used for hunting birds like pheasants and quails.

Gunner was best doggo.

   Without a doubt one of my aunt's favorite dogs in the early 1980s was a Britanny named Gunner. I may a bit biased here but Gunner was seriously the best dog ever. He was always by my side and since my aunt was living with my family at the time I saw a great deal of him. 

    On the dog show circuit he went by Triumphant's War Boy. He was always protective of me. But, he never really barked or anything if I recall. He was just a sweet boy and was one of the first dogs I remember playing with, For more on his story, check out his page on my aunt's website!

    Gunner became obedience and field trials champion and even had awards named after him. Talk about an awesome dog. It's a good thing he never let fame go to his head. Can you imagine?

    Of course he wasn't technically our first family dog. That honor went to two Alaskan malamutes named Naki and Toomi. Amazingly enough, the Britannys always got along well with those two. Then again, if you were a dog would you pick a fight with a dog that's five times your size? Though, even the smallest dog would try. Gotta admire the sheer chutzpah of a breed like the chihuahua.

   Gunner ended up being the father of my aunt's first litter.  Her first Brittany, Penelope, was the mother. Her first litter ignited a passion for breeding every litter since has been very special to my aunt. 

    At one point Linda decided to give my brother and I our first puppy. I forget what the circumstances were. I think we ended up just asking for a dog and we were in the vicinity of dogs for as long as we could remember at that point. I think we just wanted a dog to call our own and in 1984 we finally got one.

Mom and Tux

    Tux was born in the December of 1984 and like his grandfather Gunner he was a very gentle dog. He wasn't technically a Christmas present or anything. Don't get the wrong idea. My aunt would NEVER put a puppy underneath the Christmas tree in a box unless it was for a photoshoot or something. Tux was actually born in the middle of the month in our basement.

    We obviously called him Tux because of his liver and white fur coat. His show name was Triumphant's Formal Attire and he did very well in dog shows. In fact, he became a champion several times. I know he wasn't ever on television or anything, but, it was still quite an accomplishment. We still have his ribbons somewhere.

   Despite his training, Tux was still a typical dog and did silly dog things from time to time. I remember one time we had steak on the kitchen counter that was destined to be grilled. Tux had other plans. He reached over the counter, snatched the meat up in his jaws and ran off into the living room hoping no one would notice.

     I don't think any of us were especially mad at Tux for doing that. We were just impressed because he was usually very well behaved. The dog would go with us to the boat and sit on the back deck with me. Even my aunt got a great laugh out of the story once we told her. Yes, he likely felt bad about what he did and we did send him to his kennel. It was just funny to see a usually good dog do something a little out of character for once. I guess he really wanted steak that night! Britannys can be a handful and that moment was a sign of what was to come.

Tux was a Celtics dog. Facts.

        By the early 1990s, Tux had sired several puppies and my aunt decided to give us one of the puppies as another present. I forget what the circumstances were. I think Tux was going to have one final litter before retiring and my aunt wanted us to have one of his puppies.

   We had a choice between a boy and a girl who were in the same litter. The girl was a little nosy and the boy was very shy and a little skittish. We picked the boy as he seemed a lot like Tux in the beginning.

    We named him Tie because his tail was liver on top and white underneath. Sadly, he never made it to the dog show ring as he was very ummm....energetic. Seriously, that dog's motto in life was "Gotta go fast!" Triumphant's Black Tie still had a cool show name even though everyone agreed that it would be best for him to just be a pet.

    Not every dog is cut out to be a show dog and Linda definitely understood that. The funny thing was that Tux's grandson Travis had more of Tux's personality than Tie.

    I remember one time we were dogsitting Tie's brother Travis and his sister Lacie. Travis behaved more like Tux did in and out of the ring. He would come on command and was pretty sweet. One time we had all three dogs run around an enclosure at my aunt's house and Tie would run around like he was never outside before. He was the eternal puppy.

GOTTA GO FAST! 

    Travis looked up at me once as if he was saying "What's his problem?" I was like "Don't look at me. He's your cousin." I think Tie more or less took after his mother more than his father. His mother was a very energetic dog. Tux was always very chill. 

    I'm just honestly amazed we got him to sit still for any picture we've taken of him because he was always on the move. Nothing we could do tired him out.

    We still loved him. He was great at playing fetch and he did listen to my aunt from time to time when she watched him. The trick was to get him in the mood. He was never violent or anything. Just energetic and wanted to play more than be a show dog like the other dogs in his family tree. 

    See? Humans aren't the only ones who have relatives doing their own thing in their family tree! I just wonder what happened to the shy puppy. Ironically, Lacie went from hyper to calm like her dad. 

    If I had a phone with a camera in those days, I could have made a fortune with crazy dog videos. When Tie wasn't running around, he was also getting up on his hind legs like a meerkat and spinning around chasing his tail. He also had the tendency to try and jump on my friends. He did try to jump on grandma Ollie a few times. Grandma didn't like that much even though she did love dogs.

As soon as I let this dog go....

    By 2008 both dogs had passed away and the house that was once the bastion of dogdom became a place for cats to hang out. Thankfully, Tie did meet our first cat Cocoa. The story of how we got him will be told another time.

     It was so funny watching Tie interact with the cat. Whenever Tie got too close for comfort, Cocoa would bap him on the nose and the poor dog would run back to his bed. 

    

     Heart of a wolf, right? At least they got along for the most part. For all his faults, Tie was just a bit too curious for his own good.  And he did have his sweet moments.

    My aunt once told me that Tie just needed someone to play with and most of the time was true. All pets need to be played with even though sometimes you're the one who gets tired out first!

     My aunt's love of dogs and showing them continues to this day and joining her on the dog show circuit is my cousin Kristyn. Seeing both of them action is quite cool and I'm glad the legacy continues. Kristyn is very good at what she does and she learned from the best.  I honestly have no regrets having a hyper dog around because in the end Tux and Tie were both good dogs and that's all you ever want in man's best friend.

    I'm glad we had Tux and Tie in our lives and I wouldn't trade it for a minute. I do miss Brittanys. They're fun to play with once you get past their energetic nature. I'm glad my aunt gave my brother and I those two dogs because they often distracted me from stuff that happened during school or something. And you can't say they didn't make life interesting!

Crazy dogs!

See ya next time! For more on my aunt Linda, check out these websites:

https://www.gooddog.com/breeders/triumphant-kennels-pennsylvania#tab=overview

https://www.triumphantkennels.com/home.html

See Tux here: https://www.triumphantkennels.com/champions.html

52 Ancestors Week 37: In the News

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 37: In the News

The theme for Week 37 is “In the News.” Have you made a family history discovery in a newspaper? What about a reporter, editor, or newsie in the family? 

Still waiting for pictures of Spider-Man! 

    At the time of this blog's posting, it's incredibly difficult to find Haverhill newspapers online. You literally have to jump through hoops in order to find a story about somebody living in Haverhill, Massachusetts. For some reason Haverhill newspapers are not online anywhere at this time. Thankfully, there are ways around this problem. You could do a keyword search on Newspapers.com for "Haverhill" and add someone's name. That's how I was able to find the car story I talked about a few weeks ago. You gotta love loopholes! 

    Using the loophole, I was able to find a ton of neat stories. One of the most bizarre ones was how several newspapers across the country reported on my 2nd great-grandmother's brother Paolo buying a ton of bread to feed his kids. The same story was repeated over and over again word for word. I swear it was a meme of its day. One day I'll talk about it. Just not today. I have something a bit more interesting in mind!

    This short story comes to us from the Holyoke Transcript Telegram on January 16th, 1947. The story talks about how an ambulance couldn't get to a pregnant woman and her husband due to a ton of snow being on the ground. Extraordinary measures had to be taken and so the cops placed the woman and her husband on a toboggan and delivered her to Hale Hospital where she gave birth to a bouncing baby boy.

    The couple in the story were Paul Coppola Jr, son of Paolo and his wife, Marie Thais Leblanc.

    It shouldn't surprise anyone that the Coppolas had car trouble at that time of year. Ask anyone who lives in the Northeast US and they could tell you just how hard it is to get a car started on a winter morning. You might even hear stories about the infamous Blizzard of 1978 around here. Yes, I know it mainly struck the Midwest US. However, we apparently felt the effects here in the Merrimack valley. It was that huge.

Joe and his mom.

    Once in a lifetime blizzards aside, the story was about the birth of Joseph Coppola, my second cousin twice removed. Unfortunately, the only information I gathered about him came from his obituary in 2010 and from various relatives including his great-niece Cynthia.

    Cyndi told me Joe was in the U.S. Navy. I think you all probably guessed that from the picture. Now, now. He could have been in a play or a movie. Yeah, right. He was in the Navy and looked quite spiffy in that uniform. 

    After the Navy, he became a mentor to many people and from the looks of his obituary he really loved animals.  He seemed like a cool guy and animals can sense that about people. If you want to check out his story, check out his page on Find a Grave.

    There's no biography. At least the obituary is there detailing his life. It's not a bad story for a man whose very birth made the news!

    I have to wonder. Did Joe know he made the news that early in his life? Does his family know? I'm going to link this week's blog to Cynthia and maybe she can show it to the family. It's an interesting story and it's a lot more upbeat than the one about the car crashing into the Soterakopoulous house. 

    I really like human interest stories like this one because far too often we have negative stories in the media. Even back then you had stories where someone was hurt or involved in a bizarre case. I have some other strange stories to talk about and one day I'll probably share them here. For now, we have this cool story about a couple trying to get to the hospital after the storm. In New England. I have to feel for the family. The scenario seems like it should be a scene in a movie. I'm glad Joe had a great life. I just wish I could have met him. 

 See ya next time!

P.S. Here's hoping Haverhill's newspapers get digitized soon!

52 Ancestors Week 36: Off to School

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 36:

The theme for Week 36 is “Off to School.” Any teachers, principals, school nurses, school librarians, bus drivers, or lunch ladies in the family tree? What about someone who was really into their school spirit? 

Rocking a "Transformers" lunchbox like it was 1985.

   Fun fact: The picture I used for this week's banner was likely taken exactly forty years ago. I started elementary school in 1985 and it was a wild ride ever since. It's pretty easy to date that photo since the lunchbox I have in my hand gives everything away. I wonder if I still have that "Transformers" lunchbox somewhere. It was the epitome of cool if you had one in those days and were of a certain age like I was. All in all school was pretty cool despite kids being cruel sometimes. I've always liked school in spite of the many difficulties I had and I think I owe a lot of that feeling to the people in my family tree.

    In my family tree, I have many people who were teachers. My father once taught classes to grad school students while he was in school to become a dentist. My sister-in-law Kathleen is a professor at James Madison University in Virginia and even her parents were teachers. My dad's cousin Joe was a music teacher. I could go on and on. If I had the choice to talk about one of them, I think I'll talk about my sister-in-law. Her ears are going to be burning before she reads this week's blog! Yes, I'll be sure to link it to her once I hit that "publish" button.

Jim and Kat's engagement pic!

    Doctor Kathleen Grammatico-Ferraiolo actually comes from a long line of teachers since both of her parents were teachers themselves. From an early age, she learned the importance of a good education and her parents were both more than willing to help her with various assignments while she was growing up.

    One assignment she had was to research her family history and her parents helped her  to create what was a huge binder full of reports and family stories. Any genealogist I know would fawn over the details, pictures and an stories in that binder!

    Being a genealogist, I asked to see it when I was told of its existence and I asked Kathleen if it was okay to research her family tree and see if the stories in it were true or not. Like my family own story, it was pretty much true. Her family story mirrored my own as her dad's family came from Sicily and Campania while her mother's side hails from Ireland.

    When you visit New England, you're going to find a lot of people with both Irish and Italian backgrounds. Similar shared experiences tend to bring people together.

   Long before I ever looked at that family history report I met Kathleen in the fall of 1995. My brother had just started his college career at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. Their friend Mike introduced them and they've been together ever since. Kathleen was a political science major at the time and was on the fast-track to becoming a teacher. I didn't know it at the time. But, she was going to end up teaching me a valuable lesson.

    When I graduated high school in 1997, I had no idea what my major was going to be at Merrimack College. I was accepted there and I had no idea what I wanted to study. Admittedly, I panicked. I think anyone in my place would have and if you said you didn't I'd say you were a lying liar from Liartown, Liariana.

A few feet away from where history
took flight.

    Kathleen took me aside one day and told me to focus on my strengths and that just so happened to be history. I always did pretty well with history in school and she encouraged me to continue my studies.  In a way, Kathleen was like a big sister to me at that moment. She still is! She was always there to provide me with some excellent advice and once studying history in college got to be a bit too much for me, she suggested political science as it combined history with events that were happening in the present day.

    I ended up switching my major thanks to her and I was better for it. My grades improved and my mood changed. When I was studying history in college, I found that the professors expected me to repeat everything they said word for word in essays. I was always taught to write using my own words. I didn't feel right using someone else's words and that's why I struggled in the history department. Thankfully, Kat said I should change my major as I was in danger of failing!

    I owe Kathleen a lot because I ended up doing very well in political science. The professors appreciated me writing things in my own words and I was honestly a lot more comfortable doing papers in my own style and not using someone else's words. It's still a big no-no to me. If there's a notable on Wikitree  I want to write about like comic legend Stan Lee, I will write the bio with my own words and not rely on Wikipedia.

Mom and Kat

    Kathleen eventually got her doctorate in political science at the University of Virginia a few years after I graduated college. She then became a professor at James Madison University where she teaches students about the finer points of U.S. government. As a political science major, I can only wish her good luck on that front. And that's all I can say about that. 

    The interesting thing is how the field of genealogy employs history and political science together. When I discovered the connection, I told Kathleen about it and she agreed that both fields of study play very well with each other. In genealogy, you have to understand why someone moved to a certain area because of events happening in the world at that time for example. Circumstances in the world bring families together and that's how everyone's family tree gets made. 

    Kathleen really inspired me to work hard in my studies. Whenever I had a question, she would answer it. Whenever I had a paper to work on, she would offer me pointers and suggest other opinions I hadn't considered. One of my favorite papers to write were papers where we'd take on both view points and pretend to be the other side of an argument. That was where the creative juices flowed the most! We'd take sides and present each point of view and that helped me to create some pretty amazing papers. I really wish I saved them! Those were written several computers ago and are now lost to the sands of time.

    My sister-in-law  really helped me a lot in not just my scholastic career. She's just an amazing friend and I'm glad to have her in my life as an older sister. I have two older "sisters" and like Jennifer, Kathleen can always be counted on for a sympathetic ear or someone to talk about school with. I once had the opportunity to watch her teach a class and I saw that she taught the kids the same way she taught me lessons all those years ago. I've got to say with teachers like Kathleen around, the future is in good hands.

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 35: Off to Work

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 35:

The theme for Week 35 is “Off to Work.” Who had an unusual occupation? Do you have memories of a parent going off to work every morning? What about someone whose occupation today would be obsolete, like telephone operators?

I'll have that Starbolts comic on your desk by five.

    Jobs that don't exist any more, huh? Well, we don't see many fix-it shops like the one my great-grandfather Alfred Hamel owned around here these days. I think those went out of style along with the Maytag repairman. Thankfully, those jobs sort of evolved into different specialty shops like a computer repair shop. Side note: It was actually pretty fun going to my local computer repair shop. I mean it was named after the villainous leader of the Decepticons, Megatron. How could you not like that shop? I miss Megatron Computers.

    All kidding and Transformers references aside, there is another person in my family tree who had a job that really, really doesn't exist in today's world. My grandmother Olympia Carrabs worked as a wire winder at Western Electric.

I think hers was black and gold.

 When I was a kid, my grandmother had a phone similar to the telephone in the picture in her living room.  It was pretty neat and she let me play with it all the time. It wasn't like it was connected to anything. She also wasn't an antique phone collector. Unlike my other grandmother, she didn't really collect anything. My great-aunt Nickie on the other hand....

When I was older where she got the phone from and what the story was behind it. My grandmother, if you recall, was always up for a story. If you pointed something in her house out, she will tell you all about it. Even if it was just  a knick-knack from like Pier 1 Imports.

    She told me that the phone was a memento of a very interesting time in her life. A time when she put her housework duties aside and went to work while my father was in grammar school. I'm not going to say she was a trailblazer or anything as plenty of  other women were entering the workforce during that time. What's interesting is that she first entered the workforce in while she was in her forties.

    While it was true that my grandma Ollie was a housewife for a number of years, she joined the workforce in the  early 1960s and became a wire winder. A wire winder was someone who operates machinery to wind wire, such as copper, onto bobbins, coils, or armatures for electrical components like transformers, motors, and generators. In Ollie's case, she worked on transistors for telephones.

    I can only imagine how rough that job was because back in the early 1960s, telephones didn't have
apps where you could play a game or look at the weather. Phones back then were very different. They were even different from the touchtone phones I remember from when I was a kid in the '80s and '90s! They greatly resembled the phone in her living room.

    While wire winding still technically exists as a profession, telephones haven't used transistors and tubes in a very, very long time. 

    The story of how Ollie landed the job was really quite simple. In the post World War II era, many women were going to work after the men returned home from overseas. 

    In Haverhill, Western Electric took over an old shoe factory then eventually, a large manufacturing plant opened in North Andover, Massachusetts in 1956. It became a significant employer as over 12,000 people worked at the plant at its peak. The Merrimack Valley was already known as a major player in textile production thanks in parts to the mills that dotted the valley since the early 20th century. The plant itself served as an attempt to move on from textiles to advanced technology.

    Western Electric focused on telecommunications, innovation developed products like the aforementioned transistors and fiber optics. Everything ran smoothly until 1984 when Bell Systems was dismantled. The plant itself continued working under the AT&T banner and later Lucent Technologies. The plant became an industrial park by 2021 when Bell Systems eventually removed all of their manufacturing capabilities out.

    Ollie worked at Western Electric for a number of years before finally retiring in her sixties and she always said she had a pleasant experience working there. She took great pride in her work and that was no doubt passed down by her father who was a janitor at Pentucket Bank. 

    Any line of work would be a good job for her as far as she was concerned. In her own way she helped to make peoples' lives better by working on telephones. By the time she passed away in 2002, telephones were a lot different as we were seeing more mobile phones in the hands of consumers. 

    In the end, grandma Ollie was more than just a housewife as I said earlier. She worked hard and helped while her husband Marco did his own thing.  Around the time she was working at Western Electric, he and his sister-in-law's husband Arnold Villanucci had that motel in Salisbury. To say that both of my Italian grandparents were busy in the 1960s is a bit of an understatement.

   Anyway, it was very cool that Ollie took part in a growing field that helped to bolster the economy here in the Merrimack Valley. Again, I wouldn't say she was a trailblazer by any means. She still had a great job and she took a lot of pride in her work. In the end, that's what it's all about. If you're good at something, you should show pride in it even if it's something small because you never know what kind of an impact you might have on someone's life.

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 34: Play Time

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 34:

The theme for Week 34 is “Play Time.” (This should be fun!) Who in your family tree had a playful demeanor? Anyone play a sport or an instrument? How about someone who was in a school play?

Be careful with that Wii Remote!

   I was initially going to write a blog this week about family game night and how we have a wide variety of board games in our house. Seriously. We have everything from "Monopoly" to "Trivial Pursuit". You name it, we likely have it. There's not really much to write about as my brother and I typically just played with our parents on rainy days like most other kids our age. Even then, our attention on those games didn't last very long.

    Instead of writing about how I trounced my brother in "Monopoly" by buying the orange properties, I'll be diving into the world of Candlepin bowling and how my parents ruled the lanes from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. Ironically enough, it was through bowling that I became interested in video games. Shocking, right? I'm such a '90s kid. 

    Before we get started, let me explain what Candlepin bowling is and how it differs from the more widely known sport. In New England and in the Canadian maritime provinces, we have a variation of bowling where we use smaller bowling balls without any holes. The pins are also taller, narrower and you guessed it are shaped like candles. Hence the name.  Apart from that, the rules are pretty much the same. We still have to wear other peoples' clown shoes. Gross.

    My father, James Ferraiolo, was always interested in hitting the lanes. He had joined various leagues in his hometown of Haverhill and when he and my mom returned to New England in the mid 1970s to raise a family, they joined the league at Park Place Lanes in Windham, New Hampshire.

    There they would bowl in either the Women's League, the Men's League or the Couple's League.  If they were really, really good they would even have a chance to be on WNDS, the local television station that aired bowling tournaments every Sunday at noon. "Candlepin Stars and Strikes" was the name of the show and thankfully you can find the action on YouTube! Check the channel out here! 

    It was fun watching my parents bowl every Monday night while I was growing up and I loved every minute of it. They did exceptionally well and eventually my brother and I were taught how to bowl. I can't say how good or bad I was. However, I could tell you that I had heart. And that would be lying. I did the best I could even though I had the coordination of a wounded gazelle. Chris was out of his element for sure.

    At least Park Place Lanes had something else for the kids to do. While our parents bowled, we had four options for fun activities. We could watch the action on the lanes. We could get laughed at mercilessly by other kids as we attempted to bowl ourselves. We could eat burgers, pizza, grilled cheese and other goodies at the restaurant called "The Alley Cat Diner". And lastly we could spend our parents' hard earned cash at the state-of-the-art arcade. 

My kingdom for a working X-Men cabinet.

    The arcade was the best option for us by far because they had the best games and while we obviously went to other arcades around the Merrimack valley, it was at Park Place Lanes that I was introduced to the likes of "Mario", "Pac-Man", "Donkey Kong" and other gaming icons.

    My brother and I would play the games and just before we went home my parents would come over and see what we were up to. I can safely say I did better at games like "X-Men" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". I preferred games where you could work with someone. Plus beat 'em up games are great for stress relief if you had a really rough day at school.

    As the '80s continued, my brother and I were introduced to home consoles like the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo Entertainment System. Friends of ours had the NES and it was through that console that I grew to love not the just Mario games but the "Legend of Zelda" series as well. My parents knew that eventually we had to bring the arcade action home from the bowling alley. 

Begun, the "Console Wars" have.

In 1989, my parents bought my brother and I a Sega Genesis and we played that thing nonstop throughout the '90s. Don't worry. We let our parents play, too. Our father enjoyed playing games like "Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf" and a few other launch titles. It was fun and we played with him all the time. We also enjoyed several other titles like "Sonic the Hedgehog", "Toejam and Earl" "Ecco the Dolphin" and many, many NBA, NFL or NHL related games. In our house, the Genesis ruled over Nintendo even though we definitely liked several Nintendo games our friends were playing.

    The funniest thing in the world was showing the games and everything to Grandma Ollie whenever she came over to the house.  For the longest time Ollie was the only grandparent who was within driving distance. I don't remember if we showed the games to my dad's cousins or our great-aunts, Louise and Ellie. We might have. 

    When we got the Genesis, my brother and I were excited to show grandma the ins and outs of the system. My brother talked about the technical aspects, of course. Me? My contribution was "Look at how fast Sonic the Hedgehog goes!" Hey. Not all of us are interested in how things worked. I was just glad it did.....once I blew into the cartridge.

    In all honesty, I think she was more interested in the toys my brother and I were playing with at the time. Like the board games, we had pretty much every major toy line of the '80s and '90s represented in our rooms. We had everything from "Legos" and "Transformers" to "Masters of the Universe". I'm not sure why. I think she liked seeing us play with the toys more as we were very creative. She definitely liked the weird and not quite aerodynamic Lego spaceships I created back in the day!  

    The introduction of video games didn't end our trips to the bowling alley by any means. No, we still went there every once in a while. After a certain point we got older and my brother wanted to stay home. Jim would make dinner we dined on those lovely microwaved dinner kits from Budget Gourmet. It was never anything elaborate. Trust me. 

Wii would like to play.

    Eventually, my parents stopped bowling and by that time my brother and I created our own arcade of Genesis, Nintendo Game Cube, Wii, Game Gear, Game Boy and PC games. Those games became the highlight of every Christmas eve party as my cousins and I would play those games for hours on end. To list every game we ever had would take quite some time.

    Grandma Ollie still never quite figured the games out despite sleeping in our game den whenever she stayed over.  However, she was glad we enjoyed them.  In the end, that was all that mattered to her. She was a kind person and just enjoyed seeing her grandkids happy. Thankfully, we always finished our game before she had to go to bed!

    As for bowling? Well, even though "Wii Sports" had a bowling minigame, my father never really played it. We did play the then newest edition of "Punch Out". I just don't think the Wii was ever his thing and those motion control games really give someone a workout. Don't get me wrong. Both of my parents have tried using the Wii and everything. I think they were content to do other things. It's not like I never asked them if they wanted to play!

    Once my nephews were old enough, we went back to where the gaming adventure began. We went back to Park Place Lanes and sure enough the arcade was still there even though the roster of games changed many times. It's a lot of work maintaining thirty to forty year old arcade cabinets.

     It was amazing to me because by the 2010s arcades became a rare commodity through no fault of their own. Home video game consoles just took over the market. At least they banked on nostalgia and that kept them afloat for quite some time. We even took the kids to an actual arcade that was still operating. It was nostalgic for us and a blast for the kids! We introduced the kids to the classics and they loved every minute of it. Some things never change!

    Park Place Lanes eventually closed for good a few years ago and the memories are still fresh in my mind. My parents weren't the only ones in the family to bowl, by the way! My Aunt Linda joined in on the fun on more than a few occasions when she wasn't busy showing dogs. The alley may be gone. However, I have to give it credit for getting me excited for the gaming hobby I now enjoy and watching my parents bowl was always fun. And we did bowl together every once in a while, too. Those were good times and good memories!

See ya next time!

P.S. It's also interesting to note that after the so-called "Console Wars", Nintendo ended up publishing Sega games in various collections. Mario and Sonic have crossed paths many times. Many classic video games are also now available on various consoles and Steam. You can now have an arcade in the palms of your hand.

The image of Park Place Lanes is property of Google Earth.