Cousin Classmates

Growing up in the small town of Wolcott, CT, one tends to get to know one’s classmates fairly well. There were only 160 in my high school graduating class so I knew everyone by name. I also knew many of the students in the class right behind mine as that was my sister’s class. My other siblings were 6, 8, and 10 years behind me, so I did not know very many of the “little kids” in those grades. But as I’ve gotten involved in genealogy research, I’ve discovered that many of these classmates were also distant relatives of mine. I wonder how my life might have been different if I had known that back then. I’m going to limit this blog to those cousins who were either in my grade or my sister’s grade right behind me.

First Cousins

My mother’s older brother and sister-in-law and their five children lived just 3 houses away from us, so we obviously grew up knowing them quite well. The oldest in that family, my cousin Dave Pierpont, was only six months younger than I, but because where the cutoff between grades was he was in my sister’s class in school even though he was closer in age to me. He and I were best friends growing up and are still in contact today.

Cousins of Cousins

I had two cousins on my dad’s side, Carolyn and Bob Hill, who also lived in town, but they were 6 and 4 years older than I, so I can’t count them in this blog. However, their uncle was one of my dad’s best friends growing up and he lived in Wolcott as well. Thus, while the children in that family were not related by blood, being cousins of cousins, we nonetheless called them cousins and were quite close to them. The oldest in that family, my “cousin” Bruce Hill, was also in my grade in school.

The Coe Family

Earlier this year I was doing some genealogy research for one of my Facebook friends, Bob Perry, who also writes excellent stories about growing up in Wolcott. In the process of seeing if we were related, I found that his great-grandmother was Lillie Coe who lived in Wolcott. Further investigation revealed that Bob is my 8^th cousin once removed since there were a few Coe family members back in the far reaches of my family tree.

But knowing that this branch of the Coe family lived in Wolcott also connected me to other people I knew. One of my parent’s best friends when I was growing up were Al and Betty Coe. But since they were also part of the Wolcott Coe family, that meant that their children, in particular Janet Coe who was in my sister’s class was a relative. Checking our respective family trees, showed that Janet was my 8^th cousin.

The Atwood Family

Earlier this year I was talking to an older lady, Mary Jane Cole, in our church here in Emmaus, PA, as she had found out that I was a distant cousin of someone else in our congregation. She is not aware of any branches of her ancestry who had any connections in Connecticut, but she mentioned that it was possible that her late husband, David Cole, might have some connections there. I began building out a family tree for him based on what information she was able to provide me and found that he had some distant Cole relatives who lived in my hometown of Wolcott. But when looking at the family names involved, I found that his 7^th cousin, once removed, Francis Cole, was married to my 5^th cousin, three times removed, Martha Upson. That was pretty interesting in itself.

But that couple who were in both our ancestral trees had a daughter, Florence, who married Lyman Atwood. The Atwood family lived just a few miles from us. In my generation, Florence and Lyman’s granddaughter, Patty Atwood, was in my sister’s class. She is my 7^th cousin, once removed.

The Hoadley Family

One of the names in my family tree is Hoadley. When I began doing ancestral research, I wondered if there was any connection to one of my classmates, Chuck Hoadley. I knew that he was originally from Plainville, and that he had moved back there several years later. It was fairly easy to trace my Hoadley ancestors and find that Chuck is my 7^th cousin, once removed. I checked to see where he was living now and found that he had moved back to Wolcott and is now on the same street where I grew up about three houses away. I called him a few years ago.

An interesting story about Chuck and I. We were pretty close, especially in elementary school as the bus stop where I waited each morning was right across the street from his house on Long Swamp Road. He was the only person in my grade at that bus stop, so we got to know each other quite well. One year our family was leaving on vacation just a few days before school ended, so I made arrangements for the teacher to give my report card to Chuck so I could pick it up from him when we got back from vacation. When I got back from vacation and retrieved my report card I found that one of his older brothers had opened the envelope and was evidently jealous that I had such high grades. So while he left the front of the report card alone, he changed all the deportment grades on the reverse side. These items like class participation, etc. were graded as “O” outstanding, “S” satisfactory, or “U” unsatisfactory. He wrote over all the “O”s and changed them to “U”s. It was pretty obvious what Chuck’s brother had done, so I didn’t make a big deal of it as it wasn’t Chuck’s fault, but it’s something that I still remember all these years later.

The Seery/Norton/Beecher Families

There were several farming families in the NE part of Wolcott who were related to each other. We lived on Seery Road, named for Tom Seery who had developed it. Tom’s sister Jane had married Rufus Norton. There were two Norton families nearby, both living on Beecher Road. Rufus’ grandmother was Ellen Beecher and it was her family who had named that road. With a number of Beecher’s in my family tree, that means that I am related to this whole clan. The only one who was near my age was Roger Norton who was in my sister’s class.

The Wakelee/Andrews Families

While there were no Wakelee members my age, the entire Wakelee family in town were related to us. My 4^th cousin, 3 times removed, John Bement Wakelee, had married Rose Andrews, thus making many of the Andrews family in town cousins of our cousins. One of them, Martin Andrews, was in my sister’s class in school.

Other Families

There were other families in town where I also had distant cousins, but none in my grade or my sister’s grade. These included such families as the Krafts and the Petersons.

I have loved finding out about these cousins of mine who were also classmates. I did not know the more distant family connections at the time, and genealogical research was so much harder back then before the advent of the Internet and tools like ancestry.com.

If I had a lot more time to do the research, I’m sure that I would be able to find other genealogical connections to other of my classmates. But even finding the above has been very satisfying.