I’ve recently started a new genealogy investigation looking for connections between myself and the teachers in my hometown. I have a lot more work to do there, so that will be a later posting. But as I was doing some investigation into one of the WHS teachers, Sheila Crichton, who taught in the science department, I found that she lived at #49 Radcliffe Ave in Waterbury. That triggered an alarm in my head as I silently exclaimed, “I know where that is!” This is the story of what I found out.
(Note that besides all my online research, I also was
able to have a phone conversation with Sheila. She has lived in Massachusetts
since getting married back in 1968, has had a long career in education,
teaching science at the high school and college level up until a few years ago.
It was a delight to be able to talk to her and to verify some of the below
long-ago information about her family.)
[Sheila Crichton – 1963 yearbook]
The Families
There are several families involved in this story. I’m not
going to list all I know about each of them here, but as I give a synopsis, I
want to concentrate on where each of these families lived at the time, since
that’s a major element of the connections that I’ll get into later.
Louis Russell Family – My Russell family line goes
from my great-grandfather Louis (1870-1946) to my grandfather Erskine
(1895-1970) to my father Vernon (1920-2006) to myself (1948-). I’ve written
about many of the details of their lives before which you can read here if you
desire:
1.
My
great-grandfather's history
2.
Our
family connections to Scovill Mfg. Co.
As noted in (1), my great-grandfather, Louis, was an
electrician working for the company which built a new powerplant for Scovill,
then got asked to run that plant in 1918 after it was built. In 1918-1920, he
and his family lived at 1318 E. Main St, just a quick walk of .2M from the
powerplant. This was a large brick 6-family structure. In 1920, Louis bought a
house at #57 Radcliffe Ave. He still walked to work, but it was now a mile. He
lived there until his passing in January 1946.
Louis’ first wife had passed away in 1903 and he had
remarried in 1910 to Helen. Louis had his two daughters from his first marriage
still at home when he began living in Waterbury. Pauline married in 1923 and
Loretta in 1924 (more on her below). Also living with them during this period
was a young granddaughter from Helen’s first marriage, Juanita.
As noted in (2), my grandfather, Erskine, left his wife in 1924.
Since his two sisters had recently married and there was room in the house, he
went to live with his father, Louis, in Waterbury. Except for a brief period
when he and his wife tried to reconcile, he remained living at #57 Radcliffe
until he remarried in 1933. He also worked in the powerplant at Scovill with
his father. Helen’s granddaughter, Juanita, being of age, also moved out around
this time.
Finally, as noted in (3), in 1936, my father and his older
sister Dorothy left their mother and step-father and moved to Waterbury where
they lived with their grandfather Louis and his wife. Dorothy got a job with
Scovill and my father finished high school, graduating in 1938. He then worked
for Scovill, walking the same one mile as his grandfather, Louis. He lived at #57
Radcliffe from 1936 until 1944 when he was drafted into WWII.
Louis’ wife, Helen, died in 1945 and Louis died in 1946. The
house then passed to their daughter Loretta (see below).
Robert Hill Family – In the 1930’s the Hill family
was living at #99 Auburn (Auburn St. was later named Atwood St.) This was right
around the corner from Radcliffe and only 400’ from #57 Radcliffe. In the home
at the time were the father, Frank, and three children – Robert, Harold, and Edith.
Robert was the same age as Dorothy [Russell] and they shared a birthday. In 1938,
Robert and Dorothy married and they initially remained living with the rest of
the Hill family. Dorothy was working as a stenographer for (not surprisingly)
Scovill. A few years later, in 1942, they had their first child, Carolyn, and
they moved to a house at #80 Midland. This was about a mile “as the crow flies”
from #57 Radcliffe, and about 1.6M by road. They remained at this location
until the late 1940’s, adding to their family a son, Robert, in 1944.
When my father came home after WWII in April 1946, his
grandfather, Louis, and step-grandmother, Helen, had both passed away (Louis
just 3 months earlier). The house where he lived before leaving for his Navy
Service as now occupied by his aunt and uncle, the MacNaughts (see below). But
he was in love with and was corresponding with Sylvia Pierpont. Thus, rather
conveniently, his discharge papers listed as his address #80 Midland, i.e., he
lived with his sister Dorothy [Hill]. The Pierpont family lived just a short
distance (.4M) down E. Main St. He proposed to Sylvia within two weeks that
April, purchased a home in Wolcott that summer, and they were married in
September. His sister, Dorothy, and his best friend, Robert’s brother Harold,
were in the wedding party.
George MacNaught Family – George’s family was from
Scotland, but they had come to the US in the 1890 and George grew up in
Waterbury. George married Loretta [Russell] in 1924. Their daughter, Shirley,
was born in 1929. George was working for the Connecticut Company (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Company)
which ran a whole series of trolley systems. He was part of the Waterbury
Division which had ten routes from Waterbury to places like Beacon Falls,
Watertown, Thomaston, and Cheshire. During this time the family lived in a
variety of places in Waterbury (I have identified at least four addresses). In
1937, the Connecticut Company trolleys in Waterbury ceased running and were
replaced by buses. George and his family moved to 2909 E Main St. This was at
the foot of the hill that Midland Road ran up, so when their niece, Dorothy
[Russell] Hill and family moved there in 1942, they only lived 900’ away.
George found new work as a printer.
In 1946, when Loretta’s father passed away, George and Loretta
moved back to her family home at #57 Radcliffe (she had lived there from
1920-1924 before she married, and again briefly in the mid-1930’s with her
husband, George). Their daughter, Shirley, would have been about 17 at the
time. After graduation from high school, Shirley remained at home, working as a
stenographer at a bank until her marriage in 1950. George and Loretta remained
at this home until his passing in 1973 and hers in 1986.
William Meo Family – The Meo family were Italian
immigrants and William was born in Waterbury in 1926. In 1950, he married
Shirley [MacNaught]. The family moved around a bit in their early married years
including when their first child, Cynthia (known as Cindy), was born in 1952.
Around the same time, they moved in a home at #99 Atwood (the same house that
the Hill family had occupied earlier when the street was named Auburn). Not too
long after (sometime between 1955 and 1959), they moved into a house at #76
Atwood, shortening the distance to Shirley’s parents at #57 Radcliffe from 400’
to 200’.
The Crichton Family
The Crichton family had emigrated from Scotland around the
turn of the century. There were two brothers, George and John. Just to make
things confusing, George (whose middle initial was “M” after his mother’s
maiden name McCrorie), had sons named John and James. George’s brother John
also had sons named George (with the middle initial “M” after his mother’s
maiden name McKenzie) as well as sons John and James. (Since they all lived in
Waterbury – two named George M, three named John, and two named James – this
made tracing them through city directories, etc. especially challenging.)
Concentrating first on the two immigrant brothers, John worked
as a blacksmith. Initially he worked doing things like shoeing horses, but as
the automotive industry gathered momentum and fewer people owned horses, he
later worked in the same capacity as a blacksmith but for one of the many brass
companies in town, the American Brass Company (abbreviated ABC) which later
became part of Anaconda American Brass Company (abbreviated AABC). George
worked as a carpenter, initially for ABC, then later in home construction.
Turning to George (the younger), like the rest of the
Crichton family, he was trained in the trades, specifically becoming a plumber.
His father got him a job working for ABC. In September, 1939, George married
Mary Mccarthy.
The Connections
Unlike all the other families above, there are no
genealogical connections between the Crichton family and the others I have outlined
(except as I note below in connection #5). But there are a whole bunch of other
connections that are the focus of this posting.
Connection #1 – Location – As I have noted above,
the house at #57 Radcliffe plays a prominent part in all the families. When
George and Mary married in 1939, the house they moved into was #49 Radcliffe –
right next door to Louis Russell and his family – which at the time included my
father. My father’s sister, Dorothy, lived right around the corner. The below
1940 census (taken in April 1940) documents this, but what it does not show is
that Mary Crichton was four months pregnant as Sheila Crichton was born in
September of that year. George and Mary lived in the house from 1939 until Mary’s
death in 1984 at the age of 70. George then moved to Massachusetts to live near
his daughter, Sheila, until he passed away in 1993 at the age of 88.
[1940 census]
Sheila remembers fondly the MacNaughts who lived next
door as well as their daughter, Shirley. She also remembers that Shirley
married William (Bill) Meo and that they lived right around the corner. Bill
and Shirley’s daughter, Cindy, took part in Sheila’s wedding in 1968 (she would
have been about 16).
Connection #2 – Occupation – George Crichton was a
plumber, but he was working in the powerhouse for ABC. His next-door neighbor,
Louis, although twice his age, was working in the powerhouse for Scovill. These
powerhouses turned the energy from running water (in ABC’s case, the Naugatuck
River, in Scovill’s case, the Mad River) into electricity to drive the
brass-making operation. While Louis’ expertise was on the electrical side and
George’s expertise was on the water side, I can imagine that they had many
interesting conversations about their respective operations.
Connection #3 – Name and Country of origin – George Crichton
was from Scotland. When his original neighbor, Louis Russell, passed away in
early 1946, the house at #57 became the home of Louis’ daughter Loretta and
son-in-law, George MacNaught. George MacNaught was also from Scotland. The
Crichtons only had one child, a daughter name Sheila. The MacNaughts also only
had one child, a daughter named Shirley. The two Scottish Georges enjoyed being
neighbors for over a quarter century – from 1946 until George MacNaught’s death
in 1973.
Connection #4 – Wolcott High School – My parents
moved to Wolcott, the next town to the north, when they married in 1946. I attended
Wolcott High School from 1962-1966 (I was actually there for the 1961-1962 year
as well as part of the eighth grade was in the same building). My Hill
relatives also moved to Wolcott. There was initially no high school, so my
cousin Carolyn attended high school in Waterbury, but my cousin Robert was part
of the initial graduating class of WHS in 1962.
Meanwhile, Sheila Crichton finished high school in Waterbury
in 1958 and went to college during 1958-1962. She studied science and
education. She continued living with her parents at #49 Radcliffe. Her first
teaching assignment after graduation in 1962 was at WHS which was about 5 miles
away. She remained on staff there until getting married in 1968 and moving to
Massachusetts. I have her picture in my high school yearbook. As someone who
excelled in math and science during my high school years, I encountered her
many times during my years there. Sheila would have also encountered my sister
who was a year younger and at WHS from 1963-1967.
Connection #5 – Late-in-life Marriage – When Sheila’s
mother passed away in 1984, her father, George, moved to Massachusetts to be
closer to his daughter. There he met a widow, Lillian [Peck] Osborne, whose
first husband had passed away in 1985. They married a few years later, both
being in their early 80’s. They have since both passed on and are buried in a
cemetery in Dennis Port, MA, under a “family gravestone”. There are seven names
on the gravestone: George W Rogers and his wife Maude (Lillian’s maternal
grandparents), Joseph S Peck and wife Hattie (Lillian’s parents), Laurence L
Osborne (Lillian’s first husband), Lillian [Peck] [Osborne] Crichton, and
George M Crichton.
[Rogers Gravestone]
With those last names and being in New England, I was pretty
certain that I could find a genealogical connection to them, so I did some
further investigation and was able to confirm my suspicions. George Washington
Rogers is my 5th cousin, 4 times removed – our common connection
being my great*8 grandfather, John Rogers (1642-1713). And Joseph Sydney Peck
is my 8th cousin, twice removed – our common connection being my
great*9 grandfather Robert Peck (1546-1593).
Conclusion
Last year I worked on a project to see what genealogical
connections I could find to my high school classmates. I am now working on an
extension of that project that is looking at the various teachers in
elementary/high school. But since I have so much genealogical information
memorized, when I saw Sheila’s address, it triggered me to do some further
checking. I’ve probably spent 15-20 hours doing the research above – looking at
census records, city directories, maps, and other sources. Some might say that’s
a waste of time, but it keeps from getting bored and keeps my mind active so I
can stave off any potential dementia. So, to me, it’s fun! And being able to have
a phone conversation with Sheila was the “icing on the cake.” While she and I are
not related by blood (that I have been able to uncover), we are step-10th
cousins as well as step-8th cousins once removed through her
step-mother Lillian [Peck] [Osborne] Crichton. So, I’ll be happy to call her “cousin”
anyway!
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