A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS GIFT

ByLee Ann

I don’t think that Christmas mornings have ever been more magical than the ones created by my grandparents, Stephen and Mary Granger. They started a tradition for my mother and her brother, Bob, that few parents would ever take on.  Here’s the Granger Christmas Story as my Uncle Bob told it to the Knights of Columbus General Meeting in December 2015.

“Do you have a special Christmas that you remember? Mine happened over 70 years ago, but it is one that I will never forget.

Stephen Granger, circa 1905, Buffalo New York

My father, Stephen Granger, had arrived in the USA from Hungary in 1905 at the age of eight. He spoke no English and his family was very poor. His father worked in a factory in Buffalo as a labourer, supporting a family that also included my Uncle Joseph and my Aunt Julia, a child with special needs. Keeping food on the table and paying the rent left very little to buy Christmas gifts. My father told me that as a child, in a “good” year, he would receive an orange and a nickel for Christmas. Most years there wasn’t enough money, so he would receive either an orange or a nickel… and sometimes nothing.

My parents therefore made Christmas for my sister Mary-Jane and me something very special. When we went to bed Christmas Eve, there was no tree, no gifts, and no decorations. Nothing except the stockings we’d hung on the fireplace, hoping that Santa would be good to us.

Early Christmas mornings, my sister and I would tumble out of our beds and race past our stockings, now brimming with chocolates, oranges and small gifts, towards what was then called the “sun room” – a bright room with windows across the entire long wall that fronted the house. Magical, multi-coloured lights glowed and here we would find an abundance of wrapped gifts under a beautifully decorated and real Christmas tree.

Our mother and father had stayed up all night, making another Christmas magical for us!

Lionel 2020 Engine and coal car

This particular Christmas, however, was mesmerizing! Circling the tree was a Lionel Train, pulled by Lionel’s top model 2020 Engine, puffing smoke as it went around the double-tracked layout. There was a coal tender and a box car – from which tiny boxes could be unloaded at the push of a button. A lumber car tipped small wooded logs into a bin at the side of the track, and there was a tanker car and a red caboose! Plus, a crossing guard would exit a little shack and swing a lighted red lantern, each time the train passed by and with another press of a button, the engine’s whistle would sound.

Lionel Train crossing guard

Over the years, the same routine would take place, and in addition to other gifts we received, my dad would add another train item to the collection. These included an operating cattle car from which cows would exit and enter to and from a loading platform, an automatic crossing gate that went up and down as the train approached and departed.

Lionel operating cattle car and automatic moving cow

I don’t know who had more fun running the trains, my dad or me! I remember waiting impatiently as he would go over the complete operating procedure with me, explaining how each piece worked and how it was to be properly run. I think he was making up for the Christmases he missed as a boy. My dad built and painted a beautiful 4-foot by 12-foot table in the basement, which contained a train station, painted miniature people, trucks, autos, a gas station, stop signs, telephone poles, miniature trees and three interior lighted passenger cars which were stopped in front of the station. The train set and table remains in the family today, with my son Ron.

As I grew older, I realized that these gifts and subsequent memories pale next to the real meaning of Christmas: love, joy and peace.

A blessed and merry Christmas to all!”

And to you, Uncle Bob. Thank you for this and all of your Granger stories!

As we wrap up 2018, I want to thank everyone who follows this blog! May your holiday season be joyful, and filled with love and peace.

THE PRICE OF LOYALTY TO THE KING: Part 1, What Hardship Looks Like

ByLee Ann

Two hundred and forty-seven years ago, on June 11, 1771, my six-times great-grandparents were accosted by a band of armed locals who assaulted them, threatened their lives, and then ran them off their land. Donald and Mary McIntyre were forced to flee several miles south with their three young children and six neighbouring families, caught in a jurisdictional dispute between New York and New Hampshire.

The McIntyres had just recently arrived to their 200 acre piece of the colony of New York (along the North River in Albany County) and had begun the onerous process of clearing and improving the land for farming. Donald had been granted this land by the British King after discharge from fighting in the Seven Years War. But on that day in June, the family found out that New Hampshire also claimed their land. Not only that, a group calling themselves the “Green Mountain Boys” had taken up arms to roust the “New Yorkers,” then tear down the log houses they had built, pile them in heaps and burn them.

McIntyre and the others tried to return later, but were again expelled. Without a crop, they were left completely without means to support and feed themselves.

From where they had fled in New Perth (now Salem, New York) they petitioned the Governor, asking what he would have them do. Should they give up the lands, or defend them with force? Or maybe there was some course of law by which the Governor could deal with the situation?

Petition of displaced Loyalist settlers, 1771. Note Donald McIntyre’s signature

The Governor dealt with it by ordering the Justices of the Peace in Albany to investigate this “riot.” Three months later, in November, one of the Justices responded. Here’s part of what he wrote:

On the very Eve of a long hard winter it is very Schocking to see so many poor familys reduced to so great Distress and if they had not been hospitably entertained by the Rev’d Mr Clark & his people their Straits must have been exceeding great.

The Governor then issued a warrant for the arrest of the Green Mountain Boys and their leader, who were determined to be responsible. The leader, Ethan Allan, remained at large and I do not know if the fourteen Boys who assaulted the settlers were ever captured.

In any case, after seven years of war, instead of beginning their new lives in the American Colony and reaping the first crops on land granted to them for loyalty to the King, for five months my six-times great grandparents had to live on the charitable gifts of friends and the congregation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in New Perth.

There is more to the story of these ancestors, which I’ll write about in Part 2. Meanwhile, I’m reflecting on the nature of hardship, imagining the conversations among those seven displaced families while they decided what next steps to take, and looking around at my own privileged circumstances this day in June, 247 years later.

My heartfelt thanks goes out to Jim Issak and John Blythe Dobson, whose diligent research unearthed this previously unpublished petition of our ancestor, Donald/Daniel McIntyre. Jim recently shared with me their excellent article, “Daniel McIntyre, United Empire Loyalist, of The Town of Argyle, Albany County, New York, and Grimsby Township, Lincoln County, Upper Canada,” published in the July 2017 issue of The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record.

HONOURING PIONEER WOMEN

ByLee Ann

Hello there! Is it finally springtime in your neighbourhood?

Last week as the air in my neighbourhood finally softened, I took the opportunity to explore Richmond Village – my community. I wanted to see what might remain from its original settlement 200 years ago.

Site of original settlement, Richmond Ontario

The short answer is: not much remains. The longer answer is that I spent a wonderful few hours along the banks of the Jock River, which bisects the village, in the vicinity of the original “Government Reserve” block of land. Most of this block is now a subdivision, but there remains a small undeveloped piece in the south-east corner. I wandered happily back and forth along a path that used to be where two major roads intersected, delighting in the experience of standing where key events in the history of my village took place. Here in 1818 was the Commissariat, where supplies were handed out and the soldiers collected their pensions. Here was the first school, which for the initial seven years of Richmond’s existence was also home to all denominations of churches.

Richmond was a military settlement, established by veterans of the War of 1812, most of them from Ireland. We know quite a lot about the first soldier/settlers: the ranks they held, the businesses they started, the legacies they’ve left in the village, including their names on our streets. As is typical with history, we know much less about Richmond’s first women. I found myself wondering about these women and lamenting how so few details about them survive, compared to their men. I’ve blogged about this topic before (How Women Get Lost in History) and last week I wrote even more about it: a poem based on historical facts, about what a Richmond pioneer woman might have experienced (published in the Richmond Hub).

Julianna Molnar, circa 1910

This in turn led me to think about my own ancestral mothers and how I’ve worked hard to unearth details about their lives that might tell me something substantive about them. For the most part, they remain shrouded in time. This makes me sad, and also makes me want to honour them – especially my pioneer, immigrant great-grandmothers, for the particular hardships they endured.

My way of honouring is writing. So this month’s poem is for Julianna Molnár Gerencsér, my maternal great-grandmother. Happy Mothers Day, to all our ancestral mothers!

Lee Ann

DEEP DIVE INTO MY NORTH AMERICAN FAMILY HISTORY

ByLee Ann

Seeding a New Country

I recently investigated the whereabouts of my ancestors in 1867 – the year that Canada officially became a country. But the seeds for my country’s formation were actually sown over a hundred years prior to that, when the “Seven Years War” between England and France and their allies came to an end. Key battles in that war were fought in North America, including at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, in Montreal and at Quebec City. These brought about a major turning point for North America and set up the circumstances that would lead to the creation of Canada. They also led to dramatic changes in some of my ancestors’ lives.

Here’s what North America looked like in 1763, at the end of the Seven Years War:

Here’s why that war was a turning point for North America:

  1. Control switched from France to Britain. After 150 years, France surrendered all its territories to Britain and North America became English. Explains why I don’t speak French!
  2. French was protected in Quebec. “New France” was gone, and with it the French (Catholic) religion, the French language and French common law – except in Quebec, where Britain made allowances for the French settlers who decided to stay. Canada still struggles with this today.
  3. First Nations land rights were recognized. The red line shown on the map is where Britain declared the western boundary of its settlements to extend; land to the west of that was acknowledged as “Indian Territory.” This was the first recognition of First Nations’ rights to land and titles. The proclamation did not last; some historians say that what happened to the natives once the Europeans arrived was in fact genocide. And the fallout from ignored and/or disrespected native land treaties established in 1763 is still in the news in Canada today.

And here’s why the Seven Years War is important to my family history:

  1. I had ancestors living in North America at the time. The “British Colonies” noted on the map were the first settlements of what would become the United States. Thirteen colonies stretching from Georgia to Maine, they had first been established in 1607 and were already British from that time. I had many ancestors, all from my father’s line, living in the 13 Colonies in 1763.
  2. I had at least one ancestor who fought in the Seven Years War.

My Soldier in the Seven Years War

78th Fraser Highlanders wore Highland dress into battle, however the tartan style is unknown.

I know of only one ancestor who was directly involved in fighting in the Seven Years War: my 5-times-great-grandfather Daniel McIntyre. Daniel signed up with the 78th Regiment Frasers Highlanders in Inverness Scotland in 1757, at the age of 21; he was likely a farmer before that. He fought for Britain – in his kilt – at Louisbourg, at Montreal, and at the decisive battle on Quebec’s Plains of Abraham. When the war ended, his regiment consisted of 887 men. Of these, almost half chose to be deployed to other regiments in North America, while others boarded ships back to Scotland. Some settled in Quebec (as many of them spoke French) and some, Daniel included, decided to set up homes in upstate New York or Vermont. Daniel received a land grant of 200 acres in Vermont for his service to Britain.

My Family’s Presence in the 13 Colonies

When Daniel McIntyre settled in Vermont after the war, he unknowingly joined other family members from my father’s line who were already living in the 13 Colonies. Although there were battles fought during the Seven Years War in what would become New York State and Pennsylvania, I have no information that indicates any of these family members from the Colonies were involved:

  • By 1763, the Wilcox family had been in North America for 130 years! My 10-times-great-grandfather Edward was the first immigrant, from South Elkington, England. He settled in Rhode Island in 1638. At the end of The Seven Years War, his descendant, Benjamin Wilcox, my 5-times-great-grandfather, plus his wife Elsie and daughter Hannah, were living either in Massachusetts where Benjamin was born, or New Jersey, where they moved to at some point.
Fretz homestead in Pennsylvania. From Fretz Family History by Rev. A. J. Fretz, pub. 1890
  • “Weaver John” Fretz – so called because he was a weaver as well as a farmer – was head of a large Mennonite family living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They farmed together on 230 acres. “Weaver John” had emigrated from Manheim, Germany as a child, somewhere between 1710 and 1720. By 1763 the family consisted of John, his second wife Maria, their eight children and many grandchildren. “Weaver John” was my 7-times-great-grandfather.
  • The Boughner family were newcomers to the  13 Colonies, originally from Unnau, Germany. Johann Martin Buchner and Elsa Zehrung had arrived in September 1753, just three years before the war began. They settled with their seven children in New Jersey. Martin was a school master; he and Elsa were my 5-times great-grandparents.

The peace negotiated in 1763 would not last long. Within 12 years a new war would erupt, caused in part by the terms of that 1763 treaty. As a result of the new war, the map of North America would be redrawn again. Daniel McIntyre’s fighting days were not over yet. And many more of my ancestors’ lives would change dramatically.

I’ll continue this story in another post. Meanwhile: what world events have had a direct impact on your family? I’d love to know!

WHAT GOT ME INTO GENEALOGY – AND WHY I STAY

ByLee Ann

One day when I was about 12 years old, my Uncle Bob came to the house with a leather-bound, yellowed passport. While he talked excitedly about how his Aunt Lucille probably didn’t realize the value of this when she sent it to him, I paged through it slowly, along with a sheet of paper which translated the words from Hungarian. The passport, issued in 1905, recorded my great-grandparents, Jozsef and Julianna Gerencser and their two sons immigrating to Buffalo, New York from a small village in central Hungary.

Cover page of passport for Gerencser family, 1905

This was the first time I heard that my grandfather had changed his name from Istvan Gerencser to Stephen Granger. The first time I understood from my mother and uncle that their dad, Stephen, had denied his Hungarian heritage his whole life.

Being twelve years old, I was much more fascinated at the time with the fact that the passport described my ancestors as having “regular” noses. But over many years, as my Uncle Bob continued with his research – a slow process in the 1970s! – I started to ask more questions when he arrived with new stories about the people in my Granger-Gerencser family. Like Christmas in Buffalo, where Stephen and his brother would receive – in “a good year” – an orange and a nickel. How Stephen’s sister, Julie, nearly froze when being taken to church for her baptism in a traditional, but flimsy, dress during a frigid Buffalo winter. Uncle Bob also had plenty of tales about growing up with my mom St. Catharines, Ontario: the piano that fell through the floor at Mr. Zabut’s; my mother wearing her mouse costume on backwards during a skating program. And the story that began one day with his question to my mother, “So, Sis, what is the word for people whose parents were never legally married?”

Granger family, circa 1942. Clockwise from top: Mary-Jane, Stephen, Bob, Mary

It was the stories that hooked me. When my mother passed away, I decided I wanted to record what I’d come to think of as “the Uncle Bob stories.” So I arranged to meet him in St. Catharines, in the neighbourhood where he and my mother grew up. We walked the neighbourhood; he talked and I recorded. This afternoon of reminiscing became the genesis of my book, “Strength Within: The Granger Chronicles,” published in 2005 to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Gerencser immigration.

By the time I wrote that book I had learned to ask much more often, the question, “why?” Why did they immigrate? Why did they “skip town” to get married? Why did he deny his heritage? This question, of course, leads to the stories. But it also led me to much more. I learned about historical events and their direct impact on my family members. I learned how to counsel other family historians about what the options might be to dealing compassionately with family secrets. I learned how to take genealogical data and turn it into stories that people might read and enjoy.

I got started in genealogy thanks to my Uncle Bob, one of the best storytellers I know. I stay in the game because I’ve discovered I love to tell stories too. For me, genealogy is not about building a huge database of records, but about reaching beyond those records and turning data into story.

How about you? Who are the storytellers in your family? Can you think of ways to tap into those stories before they are lost?

A MEASURE OF THE MAN: The Last Will and Testament of Frederick Eckhardt

ByLee Ann

There are few enough documents that can allow us a glimpse into the personality of an ancestor. A will is certainly one, and even without reading too much into the data, I feel that I know my great-great grandfather much better for having read his.

Frederick Eckhardt died on November 11, 1901, aged 82, at his farm property near Campden in the Niagara District. He had prepared his will seven years earlier. In it, he laid out twelve clear and specific directives. The first four give instructions to:

  1. Pay all outstanding funeral and testamentary expenses.
  2. “Erect a suitable monument or tombstone at my grave.”
  3. “Bequeath my family Bible containing verities of births, marriages and deaths in my family” to his son Byron, with “my wish that he carefully preserve it.”
  4. “Bequeath my Bell organ to my daughter Sarah during her life and at her death it is to go to and become the property of my grand-daughters Edna and Edith, the daughters of my son Byron.”
Example of a Bell pump organ

Here I start to get a measure of the man. I can see someone for whom it is important to be remembered in a tangible way (the “suitable” monument or tombstone.) He is someone who values – even treasures – family and family records. (Note the importance for Frederick is not the Bible per se, but the “verities” contained in it.)

The Bell organ is the only piece of household goods that he highlighted for inheritance. Possibly a status item for him, the organ was clearly important to his unmarried daughter Sarah, who lived with him until her death in 1896. It is also probably safe to assume he had a close relationship to his granddaughters Edna and Edith, and that they valued the organ and/or playing music as much as he seemed to.

The Pragmatic Provider         

The remaining directives in the will are all about providing for his children. Frederick and his wife Magdalena (who had died back in 1869) had eleven children in total, only seven of whom survived him. First, he expressly excluded two of his sons, William and Christian, and the heirs of his late son Jacob, from receiving any portion of his estate, “as they are already in comfortable circumstances.”

So: a pragmatist and realist. Clear eyed, or at least firm in his judgements of those close to him and willing to act on what he decided was fair.

Frederick also specified a caveat in providing for his son Solomon (my great-grandfather). Frederick had provided $280 (about $10,000 today) as security for promissory notes taken out by Solomon. Frederick did this “in order to assist him.” He instructed that if the notes had not been repaid by Solomon at the time of Frederick’s death, the sum was to be deducted from the monies payable to Solomon from the estate.

So: a willingness to help out, tempered with tight control on his money, and a strong respect for money owed.

Beneath the Directives: Clues

The probate papers assess Frederick’s estate as $5,083.17, which is about $184,000 today. About half of that was the value of his 51 acres of farmland, atop the Niagara escarpment near Vineland. Frederick willed to his son Byron “and his heirs and assigns forever, all my real estate.” But he also directed that Byron had to pay a total of $2,500 for the property (about $90,000 in today’s dollars) to the executors in yearly payments. The executors would then divide that money into equal shares and pay each of the inheriting children, including Frederick’s late daughter Elizabeth’s children and Byron himself.

A bit of a complicated way to allow Byron to stay on the farm without handing over half of the estate to this one son, plus a way for Frederick to provide financial support using the whole of his estate, to his children who needed it.

So clearly, Frederick considered himself a provider for his family, and acted accordingly in life and in death.

While I think it can be dangerous to assume too much from data, I also think it’s possible to get a glimpse into the nature of a person from the records they leave behind. For this reason, wills and probate records are fabulous sources for genealogists. Beneath the legal language beats the heart of a person who, in addition to directives, leaves clues about their personality and their values.