Genealogy Story – Charles Rogers

Charles Rogers was my father’s step-father.  He was born on November 1, 1865, just a few months after the end of the US Civil War.  His parents, Orin and Sarah J [Hubbard] Rogers had married at the beginning of that year.  They would eventually have one more son, James Rogers, who was born in 1871.  Although Charles was born in Hartford, CT, he spent most of his life living in Danbury.  His father was a jeweler by trade, and Charles pursued the same profession.

In 1890, at the age of 25, he married a lady by the name of Mary Keefe.  Although she was from New York and he was from Connecticut, they married in New Hampshire.  It was only whispered about in later years, but she later committed suicide by putting her head in a gas oven which was not lit.  So shortly after the turn of the century, Charles found himself widowed.

He returned to his parent’s home in Danbury which is where his brother James still lived as well.  His father had also passed away about that time, so in 1910 the home consisted of his widowed mother, he, also widowed, and his 36-year old brother who was still single.  Things remained that way for the next several years.

In the mid-1920’s Sarah died, and James, then over 50 years of age, finally married.  Charles remained in the home, living with his brother and his new wife.  Then in 1930, Charles finally remarried – to a woman 30 years younger than he was (he was nearly 65 and she was only 35).  His new wife, Vera [Levvy] Russell, was my grandmother, and she had the care of her two children from her first marriage.  They lived in Danbury, which had been his home for nearly all of his life, then the following summer moved to New Milford, the next town of any size up Route 7 from Danbury.

It must have been pretty interesting for a man in his late 60’s having children for the first time.  My father was nine when his mother re-married and my aunt was just four years older.  The family stayed together for the next 4+ years, then my father and his sister moved to Waterbury to live with their paternal grandfather and his second wife.  My aunt had graduated from high school and may have been going there to work – my father went along and began attending the technical high school in Waterbury.

Charles and Vera remained in New Milford – he then in his early 70’s and she in her early 40’s.  They were still living there in 1948 when I was born.  Sometime in the early 1950’s, being in his late 80’s, Charles moved into an assisted living home in Woodbury.  He had a small room to himself on one of the upper floors.  My grandmother, Vera, who was beginning to have mental problems, went into a separate nursing home elsewhere around the same time. 

We used to visit him occasionally, generally on a Sunday afternoon.  My father and I would always go up first, to let him know that we were there.  He was generally wearing a vest, but would put on his dress jacket when we arrived.  Only then would my mother be allowed into his room – he did not consider himself to be “dressed” unless he had his dress jacket on.

One of the things I learned from him on these occasional visits was how to play cribbage.  He often had the cribbage board and a deck of cards out in his room. 

Charles passed away in May of 1959, at the ripe old age of 93.  He was lucid until the very end.  My grandmother, passed away only four years later.  I always considered myself so fortunate to have a grandfather who was born back in the 1860’s and who had experienced all the changes in this country throughout the latter part of the 1800’s.