Thursday, October 17, 2013
Its a Growing Tree
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Friday, July 8, 2011
On Being a Grandfather.
Being a grandfather….wow…..its going to happen this year. Am I happy? You betcha!
What’s all this got to do with genealogy? Well lots of course. See, with out Grandfathers we would not be here, would we!? In the past twenty-four hours my head has been spinning and lots of thoughts bouncing around upstairs. Being involved in genealogy we ask tons of questions to fill in all those blank branches of the trees we grow. Now another branch will be added to our family tree.
Taking all this into consideration I sat back and thought about my grandfathers and the one great grandfather I remembered, which lead to thinking of how my father, Joseph W. Small Jr. (Born: September 3, 1928 Died: January 7th, 1997) handled being a grandfather and also about my father in law R. Vernon Bickford (Born June 22, 1926) and how he continues being a great role model as both a grandfather and great grandfather.
My great grandfather on my dad’s side was Conrad Arvidson Seiders. I am still searching his past. I do know he was born in 1876 and died in 1960. My only memories of him was at a very young age I went with Mom and Dad to Portland to visit him in a nursing home. I was about 4 years of age. We took him for a ride around the Portland/Westbrook area so he could reminisce about his past. I knew little about him and he died shortly after our visit. So Conrad is on my Family Tree Radar!
I then think of Conrad’s son in law, my Grandfather Joseph W. Small Sr., born June 6th, 1899 in the Portland area. He died in Ellsworth on September 1st, 1984. “Grampy Joe” was a wiry man, wire-rimmed glasses with a neatly trimmed moustache. He was an outdoorsman who enjoyed fishing. From streams to the larger lakes of Maine, he fished them with passion. He also enjoyed the hunting that Maine had to offer as well. I remember him telling of walking down the driveway of his house in Union, crossing the small field on the other side and standing there within sight of his home and catching large brown trout. Grampy Joe worked the railroad from Bangor to Quebec. The mail car was his job. I noticed that he had a severe bend in his knee area and his fingers on his right hand were bent at an odd angle. The knee problem arose form hours of bracing himself against a bench for hours as the train car rocked back and forth, the fingers bent from sorting and throwing mail into bags and parcel slots on the walls. His love of the outdoors carried on to the gardens he and Gram had in Union, he also loved his Siamese cats that they always had. When Gram and Gramps health declined they moved to Ellsworth. Gram went into Courtland living center because of her severe osteoporosis. Gramp went to live with my parents with whom he lived until his passing in 1984. For a very short time he got to enjoy his Great Grand daughter Kayla who was born in August 1983. When she visited him you could see the love in his eyes, a look I will never forget.
Then there was my Grandfather on my mom’s side; Lyman Linscott born May 19th, 1905 and died July 1st, 1980. “Gugga” and my grandmother Phyllis divorced either before I was born of shortly after (yet another search!) I remember Gugga as a shot in stature man. A hardworking man whom I remembered working at Jordan’s Funeral home. He was a stonecutter working on gravestones and monuments. In his later years he cleaned stones freelance. Earlier in life he also worked for the railroad as a yard worker in Hancock working on the roundtable station. He also was a great outdoors man, I fondly remember him taking me to brook fish for trout out to Red Bridge here in Ellsworth, fishing from the shore down to Fox Pond in the Black Woods. He was lucky to be able to buy a large wooden boat with a motor and I remember a couple of trips down to Tunk. We shared some great times. In the 1970s I went to work for Jordan’s Funeral Home as well. Gugga would visit the crew while we played cribbage in the stone shed during the winter months…waiting for people to “pass”. Gugga was a passionate cribbage player and when I made a mistake whilst in the middle of a bruising 4-handed game, he would tune me up with a work glove..or two. Gugga came for a large family and loved them all.
Now whats all this leading too? Well each branch of our family has his or her own unique story which makes Family history such a great area to be involved in. And Grandfathers (and Grandmothers of course!) make the roots of our trees very strong.
I am in hopes that when the future granddaughter I now know I will be enjoying for years to come, looks back and sees some of the strong roots her Grandfather and Grandmother set down for her to grow on. Thank you Kayla and Mac…thank you, and I am waiting to meet you Claire!
What’s all this got to do with genealogy? Well lots of course. See, with out Grandfathers we would not be here, would we!? In the past twenty-four hours my head has been spinning and lots of thoughts bouncing around upstairs. Being involved in genealogy we ask tons of questions to fill in all those blank branches of the trees we grow. Now another branch will be added to our family tree.
Taking all this into consideration I sat back and thought about my grandfathers and the one great grandfather I remembered, which lead to thinking of how my father, Joseph W. Small Jr. (Born: September 3, 1928 Died: January 7th, 1997) handled being a grandfather and also about my father in law R. Vernon Bickford (Born June 22, 1926) and how he continues being a great role model as both a grandfather and great grandfather.
My great grandfather on my dad’s side was Conrad Arvidson Seiders. I am still searching his past. I do know he was born in 1876 and died in 1960. My only memories of him was at a very young age I went with Mom and Dad to Portland to visit him in a nursing home. I was about 4 years of age. We took him for a ride around the Portland/Westbrook area so he could reminisce about his past. I knew little about him and he died shortly after our visit. So Conrad is on my Family Tree Radar!
I then think of Conrad’s son in law, my Grandfather Joseph W. Small Sr., born June 6th, 1899 in the Portland area. He died in Ellsworth on September 1st, 1984. “Grampy Joe” was a wiry man, wire-rimmed glasses with a neatly trimmed moustache. He was an outdoorsman who enjoyed fishing. From streams to the larger lakes of Maine, he fished them with passion. He also enjoyed the hunting that Maine had to offer as well. I remember him telling of walking down the driveway of his house in Union, crossing the small field on the other side and standing there within sight of his home and catching large brown trout. Grampy Joe worked the railroad from Bangor to Quebec. The mail car was his job. I noticed that he had a severe bend in his knee area and his fingers on his right hand were bent at an odd angle. The knee problem arose form hours of bracing himself against a bench for hours as the train car rocked back and forth, the fingers bent from sorting and throwing mail into bags and parcel slots on the walls. His love of the outdoors carried on to the gardens he and Gram had in Union, he also loved his Siamese cats that they always had. When Gram and Gramps health declined they moved to Ellsworth. Gram went into Courtland living center because of her severe osteoporosis. Gramp went to live with my parents with whom he lived until his passing in 1984. For a very short time he got to enjoy his Great Grand daughter Kayla who was born in August 1983. When she visited him you could see the love in his eyes, a look I will never forget.
Then there was my Grandfather on my mom’s side; Lyman Linscott born May 19th, 1905 and died July 1st, 1980. “Gugga” and my grandmother Phyllis divorced either before I was born of shortly after (yet another search!) I remember Gugga as a shot in stature man. A hardworking man whom I remembered working at Jordan’s Funeral home. He was a stonecutter working on gravestones and monuments. In his later years he cleaned stones freelance. Earlier in life he also worked for the railroad as a yard worker in Hancock working on the roundtable station. He also was a great outdoors man, I fondly remember him taking me to brook fish for trout out to Red Bridge here in Ellsworth, fishing from the shore down to Fox Pond in the Black Woods. He was lucky to be able to buy a large wooden boat with a motor and I remember a couple of trips down to Tunk. We shared some great times. In the 1970s I went to work for Jordan’s Funeral Home as well. Gugga would visit the crew while we played cribbage in the stone shed during the winter months…waiting for people to “pass”. Gugga was a passionate cribbage player and when I made a mistake whilst in the middle of a bruising 4-handed game, he would tune me up with a work glove..or two. Gugga came for a large family and loved them all.
Now whats all this leading too? Well each branch of our family has his or her own unique story which makes Family history such a great area to be involved in. And Grandfathers (and Grandmothers of course!) make the roots of our trees very strong.
I am in hopes that when the future granddaughter I now know I will be enjoying for years to come, looks back and sees some of the strong roots her Grandfather and Grandmother set down for her to grow on. Thank you Kayla and Mac…thank you, and I am waiting to meet you Claire!
Monday, May 9, 2011
WW II and Family Roots
WWII has been a point of interest for me in doing research and general studying. Dad was in the Army in WWII, participating in the D-Day invasion. Moving thru France, involved in the battles for Brest, with a story of hanging a flare off the Arc de Triomphe in Paris during a possible alcohol infused celebration. Stories of finding a wine cellar in a bombed out church and wrapping three vintage bottles in a sleeping bag for protection for a long Jeep trip thru bomb craters in the road, while forgetting that he also had his ‘tommy gun’ wrapped in the same sleeping bag. He claimed to have the sweetest smelling sleeping bag in WWII, after picking all the glass out of it. There were lots of such tales, and then there was the others; going onto Omaha off the landing craft and his first sight was half a soldier’s body, running to get cover and away from the sight and coming on to the other half of the body. Walking along with Gen Omar Bradley into concentration camps, dad was assigned to photograph the events; the stories of the sights were things nightmares are made of.
When I was 8 or 9 years old, my dad took me out into the workshop, his hideaway where he did electronic wizardry, taking a old metal box down from a high shelve he had me se\it beside him and he showed me pictures of the concentration camps he snuck home. I can still see those images after almost 50 years. A couple of years later, I asked Dad if I could look thru the images again..he handed them to me, but first told me some were destroyed in a leak the roof had developed. Well, it was the only thing affected and the only images destroyed were of the concentration camps. Ironic?
I also learned the day dad passed away that when he came home from Europe, my Grandfather, Joe Sr., went to the train station in Bangor, brought Dad home to their home on Bayview here in Ellsworth. Dad went right upstairs and never ventured down the stairs for a year and a half.
I now realized how that “leak” happened.
When I was 8 or 9 years old, my dad took me out into the workshop, his hideaway where he did electronic wizardry, taking a old metal box down from a high shelve he had me se\it beside him and he showed me pictures of the concentration camps he snuck home. I can still see those images after almost 50 years. A couple of years later, I asked Dad if I could look thru the images again..he handed them to me, but first told me some were destroyed in a leak the roof had developed. Well, it was the only thing affected and the only images destroyed were of the concentration camps. Ironic?
I also learned the day dad passed away that when he came home from Europe, my Grandfather, Joe Sr., went to the train station in Bangor, brought Dad home to their home on Bayview here in Ellsworth. Dad went right upstairs and never ventured down the stairs for a year and a half.
I now realized how that “leak” happened.
And there was my Uncle; Richard Linscott who I found out just before he passed, was a radio operator on a B-17 Flying Fortress...another story!
These are parts of our lives and those of our relatives that make each genealogy journey a great adventure and feed the hunger of those of us that want to discover how our families dealt with adversities. This is what makes this hobby so great.
These are parts of our lives and those of our relatives that make each genealogy journey a great adventure and feed the hunger of those of us that want to discover how our families dealt with adversities. This is what makes this hobby so great.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Dad, Germany WWII
This photo was taken by my father during his tour of duty as a Sgt. in the Army during WWII. His stories he told me of what he saw during that time will stay with me forever. The day he died, I was told that when my Grandfather picked him up at the train station in Bangor, he came home to the house on Bayview Ave., went upstairs and never came down for a year and a half....being haunted by what he experienced. The photos he showed me when I was young explained a lot. But thats another whole story in itself.
Gugga
This is my late Grandfather Lyman Linscott while he was working at the Pioneer Farm on the Bayside Road in Ellsworth. I remember as a kid going there and he taking me to see a huge bull they had there...of course as a kid a good sized cow would of been quite impressive!!
Searching The Robbins
A couple of years ago, Dotty and I made a trip to the cemetery in Union to check on my Grandparent’s graves, Joseph W. Small Sr. and Helen L. Small (Seiders). After determining everything was in place we decided to wander and check out some family lots, primarily the Robbins’s that settled Union when it was Sterlingtown. Ben Ames Williams wrote the novel "Come Spring" that is based on the Robbins and their settling the area. While walking about a lady approached us riding a 4-wheeler. She introduced herself as the caretaker and did we need any help? I advised her of my family line and that we were just looking around. She bid us good day and left. A few minutes later she returned and wanted us to look at a gravesite. We followed her to a large plot, surrounded by a metal fence, part of which was lying on the ground. The lot belonged to a line of the Robbins Family, which they have no known ancestors. If there were , there was funds available to repair the damage done by vandals. So, now I am tracking further and do believe that I am a descendant and would love to be able to go and show the lineage so the repair can be done! Just another fun part of Genealogy!
Vern
Thgis is my father in law R. Vernon Bickford during WWII onboard a Liberty ship heading thru the Panama Canal.
Monday, February 7, 2011
The Fun of Genealogy
I love it how when you are just nosing around and come across answers that you thought were not there. Looking for information on my great grandfather, Conrad A. Seiders, I was sloshing thru some sites and lo and behold. There he was, Conrad Arvidson Seiders. He was born in January of 1876, the son of Fredrick A Seiders and his wife Sarah Jane (Linscott of Palermo). Fredrick b. 1848, was the son of Henry (son of Jacob and Mary [Given] Seiders) and Mary (Whiting Starrett of Warren) Seiders………and yet there is much more to find. Some darn interesting, and fun!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Union River History
Hancock County Historian, Mark Honey, has released his second of many editions of his history of life, and working on the Union River. He has a limited number of copies available at $25.00. You can contact Mark at 207-667-5602 or email me at rescreates@roadrunner.com and I will see what I can do. Great stories and neat photos make for a lot of good reading for local history buffs!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Onward we go!
Just me again…been procrastinating about my genealogy endeavors. Spoke with a friend the other day after I found out she had written 5 books on local history in Washington County. Listening to her and how she came about penning these great works reminded me that if work is not done to preserve history, whether family or community..it will be lost. So, once again, I will be gathering all my ‘stuff’ up and work on becoming a better family historian. Wish me luck and watch for further ramblings which is the one thing I continue to do on a regular basis!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Neat Stuff
I have been looking at some documents that have been in the family for decades. I picked up a multi-paged, hand written speech that I thought was my Grandmother Helen Small’s high school graduation speech. Upon closer inspection I discovered it was not her’s but her mother’s, May Robbins of Union, ME dated 1890! I will be sitting down tonight to read the copy I made…such neat stuff.
Here we go..
Greetings. First of all a brief introduction; my name is Richard Small and I am a lifelong resident of Ellsworth, Maine. I am married to Dotty whose maiden name was Bickford, from the Sullivan/Winter Harbor Maine Bickfords. We have a daughter Kayla who also lives in Ellsworth. Years ago, my late father, Joseph W. Small Jr. (photo), took over the helm of compiling the family’s history concerning the Small’s (Westbrook, ME) side and the Robbin’s (Union, ME) side which was his Grandmother’s maiden name. She was born in Union, Maine and her husband Conrad Arvidson Seiders. Their daughter, Gram Small, Helen, married Joseph W. Small Sr.Dad kept great records and in addition to the ones my Grandmother Helen gathered, gave me a great head start in my quest. I am moving forward in my ancestral search with some recent emphasis on my Grandfather’s (Small) side which information is quite scarce…for now.
The future hopefully will bring work in the Linscott, Brenton, and Bickford areas.
I am in hopes that this blog will end up being a fun tool to use in the future. For those of you reading this, please feel free to give me any guidance you feel I am in need of, lord only knows I need it!! Thanks and keep checking.
Richard Small
POB 143
Ellsworth, ME 04605
res@gwi.net
rescreates@roadrunner.com
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