Wolcott History

Back in 1956-1957 I was a 3rd grader in Alcott Elementary School. Two of the subjects that year were history and writing (in cursive). We had studies in each of these during the week, had a test where we had to recount the history that we had learned and write an essay in cursive about it. Normally, one wouldn’t keep this kind of material, but I liked history even back then, so I filed all my graded essays in a folder, diligently numbering them in order. When we sold the house that I’ve lived in for 50 years, one of the boxes I saved was a bunch of [historical] material from my childhood, including these papers from nearly 70 years ago.

While my cursive writing skills have declined over the years, I still have that interest in history. So, rather than take pictures of them, which most people these days can’t read anyway, I thought I’d type up the contents so people can see what we were taught back then. [Note that I’ve made a few corrections of the grammar and spelling from the original. Also, as I have since learned, there are errors of fact in some of these.]

 

Indians in Farmingbury

The Indians came through Farmingbury on their way to New Haven. They used to camp overnight in some caves. Many of the roads that we have today are Indian trails of long ago.

Some of the roads were named after the Indians. One road is the Potuccos Ring Road. The story about this road is that an Indian caught a deer. He wanted to make sure that the deer could not escape. He made a ring of fire around the woods where the deer was caught. The Indian could not get out of this ring of fire, so he was burned to death.

 

John Alcock in the Wilderness

John Alcock came in 1731. He came from New Haven. His wife came with him. They settled near water in what is now known as Spindle Hill. John Alcock built a log cabin. He also chopped down some of the forest. John Alcock protected himself with a musket. When John Alcock came from New Haven he rode on horseback.

He bought a thousand acres of land and gave a hundred acres to each of his sons and daughters.

 

Finding the Sun

Long long ago in a wilderness near Waterbury no one lived until a man came from New Haven. This man was John Alcock. When the news of a new settlement spread to New Haven, other people came but they settled in the valley. Many people became sick of a disease called malaria. One day someone went out of the valley up into the hills. The air was clear in the hills. So the people moved up into the hills. When they settled, they wanted a village. The village was named Farmingbury because Farmington and Waterbury were on each side of the village.

 

The Village of Farmingbury

Some of the people got together and sent a petition to the General Assembly in Hartford. This was a petition for a new village. The General Assembly refused to grant permission for a new village. After sending three petitions the people were able to have their village. The people decided to call the village Farmingbury. Farmington which was on one side and Waterbury which was on the other side. When this new village was founded, the people were allowed to have a preacher and a school for five months a year.

 

Church in Farmingbury

On November 22, 1771, Mr. Josph Atkins of Farmingbury bought the people together for a meeting. They voted to build a meeting house. They decided to have the meeting house face south. It was to be fifty-eight feet long and forty-two feet wide.

Mr. Joseph Atkins gave two acres of land. The meeting house was built on his land. Mr. Abraham Wooster was the master carpenter of the building. His pay was 480 pounds.

Before the meeting house was built the people met in Mr. Atkin’s home for church. The church was very important in those days. Most of the laws were made by members of the church society.

After the meeting house was finished the people needed a minister. A Mr. Jackson was asked to be minister for four years at a salary of one hundred pounds. Mr. Jackson refused. Several ministers were asked. Mr. Alexander Gillett was chosen. His salary was to be three hundred seventy-five pounds.

 

The First Business in Farmingbury

The first business in Farmingbury was mills. The first mill was built up near the Center. This mill was a saw mill. They used the saw mill to saw wood for log cabins. There were other mills too, a clothing mill, grist mill, a carding mill, and a paper mill.

 

How Woodtick Was Named

One day a man was chopping down trees in Farmingbury. His name was Judah Frisbee. He took off his coat and put it on the stump of a fallen tree. When he went to put his coat on it was full of small bugs called woodticks. He named the section Woodtick.

 

How Spindle Hill was named

A long time ago in Farmingbury there was a mill on a hill. The mill was a spindle mill. Spindles were made because women had to make their own cloth. The spindles were used to wind the wool around. This is how Spindle Hill was named.

 

Voting for a Town

Many people came to live in Farmingbury. The people wanted their village to become a town. They asked the General Assembly. The men in the assembly voted. It was a tie vote. Lieutenant Governor Oliver Wolcott broke the tie vote by voting “Yes”. The people of Farmingbury named their town after Lieutenant Governor Oliver Wolcott. This happened in 1796.

 

Farming in Wolcott

One of the businesses in Wolcott was farming. The farmers made good living in farming even though it was hard to turn woodland into farmland. The farmers had to chop trees, take out stumps and stones. Then the land had to be plowed. But once this was done the land was good farming land.

The crops were planted and harvested. When they were sold then the farmer would get something for all of his work.

 

Schools in Wolcott

Before Wolcott became a town there were schools in Farmingbury. There was a school in the South District before the Revolutionary War, but just where and when it was built we do not know. Another school was built on th north side of Meridan Road and was used until 1855. A larger school was built and used until 1923. Then the school which is now Woodtick school.

 

School in Wolcott

Long ago the schools were not like the schools are today. There were no desks. The children had to sit on benches and work on a shelf that was built all around the side of the room. The little children became tired at times. The school master would let them turn around and rest their backs.

The teacher got very little pay. He took turns living at each child’s home.

There were six schools in Wolcott: Woodtick, South, Center, Spindle Hill, North and Northeast.

 

French Soldiers in Wolcott

The French soldiers marched up Southington Mountain. They became very thirsty. A man showed them where to get a drink of spring water. Soon it grew dark and the soldiers needed a place to spend the night. Mrs. Upson let some of them sleep in her house. Most of the soldiers had to sleep on the floor. In the morning Mrs. Upson gave them some breakfast. Then the soldiers marched on to fight the English.

 

The Wolcott Fair

The first Wolcott Fair was held in 1882. It was held on the Wolcott Green. The people had this fair to show what they grew and raised on their farms.

In 1884 the fair was held on Frank Munson’s farm. After two years it was held where Frisbie School is now. This land is known as The Old Fair Grounds. It covered thirty acres and cost $1,842.00. There have been no more fairs since the early 1940s.

The first president of the Wolcott Fair Association was Mr. Harmon Payne and the first secretary was Mr. John Todd.

 

History of the Mattatuck Fife and Drum Corps

This band was started in 1767. It was called the Colonial Regiment Band. The commander was Capt. Aaron Harrison. The name of the band was changed to the Farmingbury Band. Twenty-one years later the name was changed again. This time it was called The Wolcott Band. Today the band is known as the Mattatuck Fife and Drum Corps. Many Wolcott men have played in the band. The band has played at many important happenings.

 

How Wolcott Helped the United States Grow

A few years after Wolcott was changed from a village some of the people began to leave. They heard of Mr. Sutter’s discovery of gold in California.

These people took all of their things and went West. When they got out west many couldn’t find gold. Many would have been glad to come back to Wolcott but they did not have enough money. These people had to stay in the west. This helped our country to expand.

 

Thomas Judd

Thomas Judd came from the center of Waterbury in 1690 to what is now the South District of Wolcott. He stayed here for several years. His daughter Rachel came with her husband, Thomas Upson to live near her father.

Thomas Judd went back to Waterbury but his daughter and her husband stayed on. Some of the Upson’s descendants still live in the South District today.

 

Seth Thomas

Seth Thomas came to Wolcott to build a shop for his business of clock making. But the people were afraid to let Seth Thomas build this shop because he needed a railroad. The people thought that a train coming through would set the woods on fire. So Seth Thomas went to what is now Thomaston where he built a large clock shop. Wolcott might have been an important town if Seth Thomas had built his shop here.

 

Addin Lewis

Addin Lewis for whom Addin Lewis School was named was born in Wolcott on November 18, 1776. He was a merchant in Mobile, Alabama, and also mayor of that city.

He became quite wealthy and returned to New Haven where he died.

He left $8,500 to the town of Wolcott the interest to be used for the support of public schools. He left nearly $15,000 for an academy in Southington.

 

Amos Bronson Alcott

Amos Bronson Alcott was born on Spindle Hill on November 29, 1776. Amos’ father was a farmer and a merchant. He was a very kind man. Amos’ mother was a daughter of a captain. She was polite and meek.

Amos liked to read. He went to the Spindle Hill School until he was thirteen years old. He used to write on his mother’s kitchen floor. When he was fourteen he got his first job in a writing school. He also helped his father make clocks. These clocks he sold in Plymouth. Later he became a Yankee Peddler.

Amos liked to teach. He was a kind teacher. He tried to make the children happy in school.

When Amos was a Yankee Peddler he travelled in Connecticut and Massachusetts and later in the South. He used to visit on the plantations and read many of the books he found in these houses.

 

Ebenezer Wakelee

Ebenezer Wakelee was the second man to come to Wolcott. He came because his father had been given a grant of land by the king of England. The grant said that Ebenezer’s father owned some land in what is now Wolcott. Ebenezer’s father wanted Ebenezer to settle on this land.

Ebenezer married Miss Elizabeth Nichols and came to live on the Great Plains. He bought some cattle and put a rail fence around his land to keep his cattle from wandering away.

Wolcott Card Group

It was a typical Saturday evening sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s in the small town of Wolcott. Four young couples in their late 20s or early 30s were meeting for their monthly card playing. The game of choice was usually canasta with two sets of four at each of two card tables. If one of the couples was not able to make it that month, then there would be a single table set up and the remaining two people would just watch and rotate in as each game ended. Each of the couples were raising growing broods of children. Sometimes the children would be left at home with a babysitter, but sometimes the children would be brought along and put to bed in the master bedroom upstairs. As one of these children I can recall going along in a car-bed that would be brought in so the youngest child would not roll out onto the floor and then the car-bed would be carried back out when the game was over.

            These four couples were not neighbors, in fact they lived from one end of the town to the other. And there was only one family connection among them. And the men all worked for different employers in cities to the south (Waterbury or Naugatuck). But they shared a love for the town that they had each moved to in the years following WWII. And they each would be involved in the growth of that town during the coming years. Let’s look at these four families and their contribution to Wolcott.

 

George & Jane Woodard

            George (1916-2005) and Jane (1919-1986) were the oldest of the four couples (by just a few years) and the most recent to move to Wolcott (again by just a few years). They lived on Fairview Ave, overlooking Hitchcock Lake in the very southern end of town. They eventually had three daughters (born in 1944, 1946, and 1952). George worked as a night watchman in one of the brass plants in Waterbury. Jane was very involved in the political life of Wolcott as has been reported in great detail in the Wolcott History website). Of significance here is her working as town treasurer and deputy registrar of voters, both positions would have given her access to lists of all the other residents in town.

 

Cliff & Betty German

            Cliff (1922-2012) and Betty (1923-2022) lived on Woodtick Rd, just up the street from Frisbie School. Cliff had served in WWII on a Navy fuel supply ship in the Pacific in the closing years of the war. He worked for US Chemical (later part of Uniroyal). Betty was a younger sister of George Woodard and was a teacher in the Wolcott school system. They had married in 1945 and moved to Wolcott about that same time. They had four children, three boys and one girl, but the first-born boy had died at the age of 3 weeks in 1949. The others were born in 1951, 1952, and 1956.

            Betty was the ultimate substitute teacher. The school could call her at any time, let her know that some other teacher was going to be out that day and she would step in and take over that teacher’s class – it didn’t matter if was a high school English class, math, or another subject. You knew that if you walked into the room and she was there that you would not be able to get away with anything that day. Any my parents being part of that same card group would not get you any favors either. I recall on day where she was substituting for an English teacher that she mentioned that she had been a substitute in every single course except one that was offered that year – the exception being boy’s high school gym class as she was a woman and would not be allowed in the boy’s locker room/showers. But she had even substituted in the boy’s shop class the previous week. While neither Cliff nor Betty were involved in politics, her connection to every family in town through her teaching gave her valuable insights into others.

 

Charles and Gerry Cullen

            Charles (1920-1973) and Geraldine (1923-1983) lived near the center of town. They had married in Stamford in 1943, and had moved to Wolcott shortly after. They had two boys (born in 1947 and 1950). Like Betty German, Charles was a teacher – but in one of the high schools in Waterbury, not in the Wolcott schools. They also attended the same church in Waterbury as my parents. But Charles also had a “side job” working in the town assessor’s office in Wolcott. That meant that he and Jane Woodard would have been working together in the Wolcott town office.

 

Vernon and Sylvia Russell

            My father (1920-2006) and mother (1924-2012) had married right after the end of his WWII service in the Navy in 1946 and bought a large piece of property in the far north end of Wolcott. They eventually had five children, alternating boys and girls, born in 1948, 1949, 1954, 1956, and 1958. Vernon worked as a draftsman for Scovil in Waterbury.

            My father was very involved in town politics and served as a Justice of the Peace. While technically an elected position, the quota of positions was divided equally between the two parties so that if your party nominated you it was guaranteed that you would be elected. In his later years my father also served on the Inland Wetlands Commission, thus continuing to have friends in town politics.

            In her early years, my mother’s involvement was through the Girl Scouts – involvement that had begun in her pre-teen years and which continued through the war years and after. After we had added a garage onto our home, it became the center of the GS Cookie distribution for the entire town. And it was through them that our entire family got involved in the running of the regional GS camp in Otis, MA – leading to both my parents being on the regional GS Council. Once the children were old enough my mother began working for the town, first as being in charge of the annual census (not the every decade federal census, but one that visited every home in town to count the children by age so the school district could ensure that when school began each fall they would have enough classrooms with appropriate distribution and that the busing would be appropriate). In addition, my mother became the registrar of voters for the town’s Republican Party – a job she likely inherited from Jane Woodard. When she passed away a large piece of the property the family owned was given to the Wolcott Land Trust to be preserved in perpetuity.

 

Conclusion

            Four families, ostensibly just meeting for monthly card playing. But all within a few years of age of each other and all becoming residents of Wolcott in the years during and immediately after WWII. Thirteen living children among them – overlapping over a dozen years or so. And all involved in various aspects of running the town – not as significant elected officials, but in the behind-the-scenes jobs that are needed. Between them they knew everyone in town – where they lived, the value and age of their home, the names and ages of each child – a treasure trove of information. Even though I was too young to appreciate it at the time, I’m glad to have been a part of this small group, to have known each family and to have benefitted from their collective efforts on the town’s behalf!

 

 

Time Flies

         It was February 1955. Our little street, which had been a dead-end, was being pushed through. What had been a narrow path through a swampy area just wide enough for one person to walk would soon be a paved road that connected to the street beyond. My world was about to expand.

[Alan in 1^st grade]

 

I was the oldest in our family of what had just expanded from two children to three. I was six-and-a-half and in first grade. My sister had just turned five at the end of the previous year. She was a cute and precocious girl with blond hair. My brother was only two months old. Our family had been living in this house in Wolcott, CT since my father purchased it nearly nine years ago. He was 34-years-old and had been working at Scovill Manufacturing as a draftsman since graduating from high school (except for the two years he spent in the U.S. Navy during WWII). My mother was a beautiful 30-year-old and was focused on raising we children.

My grandparents (most of them) were in their mid-to-late 50’s. The primary exception was my grandmother’s second husband who was 30 years older than she was. He had been born just a few months after the end of the Civil War, making him almost 90. I thought about him growing up at a time before Edison invented the carbon filament light bulb. Even when my other grandparents were born in the 1890s, light bulbs were not common outside of major cities. Automobiles came along toward the end of the 1800s, but even by 1910 there were only 5 vehicles per 1000 people in the US. Commercial aviation was not available until the mid-1930s when my father was a teenager. So the lives that my grandparents and parents lived were totally different than my own has been.

While the road from our house to the city where my father worked had been paved about twenty-years earlier, he saw few cars on the road during the seven miles he drove to work. Telephone service was provided by the cities to the north and south of us, so it was a long-distance phone call to others even in the same town. We had recently gotten a television (black-and-white of course). It only got three stations, and they came from different directions so my father had put a motorized antenna turner so we could turn the antenna on the chimney to get the best reception possible. Shows were all live and after the late-night news there was only a test pattern being broadcast until the following morning.

As noted above, I had recently started school. Our little school serviced the entire northern section of town, but still only had one class per grade. Some of my classmates came from English backgrounds, as did I, and our ancestors had been here in the US for over 300 years. Others came from more recent immigrant families and had ancestors from places like French Canada, Italy, Poland, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, or Austria. We were a pretty motley crew, but our differing backgrounds really didn’t matter. Having the commonality of being in the same class was more important than our ancestries.

 

Time Moved On

I stayed in that small town until I graduated from high school in 1966. Then I spent five years in Michigan for undergraduate and graduate school. Getting married, my wife and I spent four years back in Connecticut, living in Prospect. Then in 1975 I got a job offer in Eastern PA. We moved here in June of 1975 and have now been here for approaching fifty years.

My biological grandparents passed at ages 68, 71, 75, and 81, so I have lived longer than three of them already and am quickly approaching the age of the last one. My step-grandfather is the exception as he lived until the ripe-old age of 93. My parents were married for nearly 60 years and both passed away at that house in Wolcott.

Now, my children are in their mid-40s and only 20 years away from retirement. My oldest grandson is in college and the youngest is several years older than I was back in 1955.

Interestingly, despite having moved away so long ago, I still remain friends with many of my classmates from that small school. We communicate frequently, despite being scattered around the country – it’s a rare day that I don’t see a message from one of them.

The technological changes that my grandparents and my parents experienced may have seemed extraordinary to them all those years ago. But in my lifetime, I’ve experienced changes just as revolutionary. Just think what things like computers and instant communication have brought to our world. Children the age that I was 70 years ago often have access to smartphones of their own on a regular basis!

 

As my time here on this earth grows shorter and shorter, I can’t imagine what changes my grandchildren will see. The youngest ones may live until the next century (just 75 years away!). And they will experience things that I can’t even imagine over the intervening years. I won’t be around for those changes. But I’m glad that I’ve gotten to experience all that I have!

When one is younger, time moves much more slowly – after all, between the ages of 10 and 11 one gets to experience 10% of their life. But that same year only represents 1.3% of my life at this age, so the years seem to roll by so much more quickly.

 

Actors in the Family

I’ve known since my childhood about the Alcox/Alcott family who had been prominent in the early days of the town where our family lived. I’ve written about them in a prior blog post (https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2019/03/genealogy-story-alcockalcockealcoxallco.html). And as part of this I knew about my 3^rd cousin, Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), who is perhaps best known for the book she wrote, “Little Women”. She wrote this in 1868 and it was an immediate success.

However, I had not known that her book had been turned into a play. Here is that story…

 

The Concord Players

A few days ago someone posted in one of the Facebook groups which I follow (New England Family Genealogy and History). In this post she noted that she found among her family’s things a program for a play put on by The Concord Players which was celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Louisa May Alcott (1835-1888). (Here is a link to that posting - https://www.facebook.com/groups/HistoryGenNEFamilies/permalink/26372361562407315/).

[Picture of program]

 

The thing that caught my eye immediately is that two of the actors were Bronson Alcott Pratt and Louisa Alcott Kussin. That could not be a coincidence! Some quick checking revealed that Bronson and Louisa were siblings and that they were grandchildren of Louisa May Alcott’s sister Anna – thus making them my 5^th cousins, twice removed (5C2X – I’ll be using this notation in all the results below).

I decided that I needed to see if any others in the cast were also cousins of mine. It took a bit of research, especially for the women as I didn’t know whether they were going by their maiden names or their married names. However, I was able to take advantage of the fact that all of these individuals were living in or around Concord, MA in the 1930s – where the Concord Players were based. Here are my results:

·       Bronson Alcott Pratt (1889-1943), 5C2X

·       Grace W. [Brooks] Butler (1891-), 9C1X

·       Louisa Alcott [Pratt] Kussin (1900-1982), 5C2X

·       Caroline W[aterman] [Swift] Farnsworth (1905-1957) 8C2X

·       [Mary] Cornelia Lunt (1889-1965), 9C2X

·       Marian [Molly] Harlow (1913-1993), 8C2X

·       Janet [January] [Elliott] Wulsin (1893-1963), 6C4X

·       D[aniel] Ripley Gage (1885-1962), 8C2X

·       Raymond P[eacock] Baldwin (1894-1971), 9C1X

·       Hans W[illiam] Miller (1890-1960), since he was playing a German part, it’s only reasonable that his family were recent immigrants from that country. The only non-cousin in this list.

·       Russell T[rain] Smith (1905-1992), 8C3X

·       Mary [Dillingham] [Brooks] Buttrick (1887-1965), 9C4X

I also decided that I’d investigate the director and costumer who were listed on that program:

·       Marvin C. Taylor (1890-1973), 9C3X

·       Mrs. Allen French (1883-1964), Aletta Ayyrrigg Lillibridge, 2^nd wife of Allen French, 6C4X. Note that Allen French was the author of “Sir Marrok” which he wrote in 1905 and which I republished (and later added to) upon the birth of my grandson, Ethan Marrok Christman.

Thus, of the 14 people involved, 13 of them are my cousins! What a great finding! I never knew that there were so many actors in my family.

 

The Play

There was one other thing I needed to check out – the person who wrote the play version of Louisa May Alcott’s book. I found that story here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Women_(play). As you can see, Jessie Bonstelle, had been appealing to the Alcott family for the right to adapt the book into play format. She began this shortly after the turn of the century and after eight years was finally able to get permission from the family (Louisa had been dead about twenty years at that point. But Jessie did not feel capable of writing the play herself, so she enlisted the services of Marian de Forest.

So, are these two woman cousins of mine as well? Here is what I found:

·       Jessie Bonstelle (1871-1932), 7C3X

·       Marian de Forest (1864-1935), 5C4X

This play debuted in Buffalo, NY, in 1912, then toured the US before making its Broadway debut later that year where it went through 184 performances. There was no obvious New England connection in all this, but what were the chances that any of the actors were my cousins as well?

 

The Broadway Production

With a play that was first performed in Buffalo, NY, and later on Broadway, it turned out to be even harder to find the genealogical records of the actors. But, after many hours of research, here are the director, the original 12 actors, and the one replacement who filled a role on Broadway:

·       William A. Brady (1863-1950), family from Ireland

·       [Emma] Marie Pavey (1881-), English/German ancestry

·       Alice [Rose] Brady (1892-1939), daughter of director, Irish and French ancestry

·       Gladys Hulette [1896-1991), 9C2X

·       Edith [Margaret] Speare/Spears (1894-1970), 7C5X

·       [Nellie] Gertrude Berkeley (1864-1946), 6C4X

·       Eugene A. Eberle (1840-1917), 5C5X

·       Howard [Bolles] Estabrook (1884-1978), 7C3X

·       [Elwood] John Cromwell [Dager] (1886-1979), 8C3X

·       Carl Sauerman (1868-1924), born in Sweden, studied in Germany, which is appropriate for playing the part of a German

·       Carson Davenport (1860-1937), England and Ireland ancestry (it wasn’t until I found a picture of him in an old newspaper that I realized that he was much older than many the others and could adjust my searches.

·       Lynn [Burleson] Hammond (1879-1963), 8C2X

·       Lillian Dix (1864-1922), 9C3X

·       Beverly West (1898-1982), German/Irish ancestry

Thus, 8 of the 13 actors are my cousins – more than I anticipated.

 

This has required MANY hours of genealogical research over the past few days. I need a break!

Who is Like Me?

I began this blog 9.5 years ago. One of the things I posted in the first few months was titled “The ‘Like Me’ Syndrome”.

            https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-like-me-syndrome.html

In this post I talked about how we tend to feel comfortable when we are with groups of people who are like us. I used as examples Racial/Ethnic Clumping and Female/Male dominated professions. I then noted some of the solutions to these issues and which don’t work and which might work. I also looked at some of my experiences of being with people who are NOT like me. I finished with the following paragraph.

Think about your own experiences.  When you are with others who are “like you” do you feel more comfortable than when you are with others who are “not like you?”  What is it about the group that makes you “like” each other?  What other aspects of the group could you focus on so that the “like me” could dominate the “not like me?”

 

Is This Still An Issue?

If anything, this is even more of an issue than it has been historically. We now live in an era of what is sometimes referred to as “identity politics.” This is politics based on particular identities such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social caste. Although it’s been around since the late 20^th century, we are now drawing very distinct lines around the various groups.

More recently, we have begun to put a lot of effort into DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), but in doing so, we are requiring that people identify the racial/ethnic/sexual aspects that they have and thus we are enforcing the differences between people rather than looking for commonality. Then our political system tries to take advantage of these differences with such statements as “I am a woman, you are a woman, therefore you must vote for me.” (Or substitute other aspects into “I am ____” like I am an African-American, I come from a family of immigrants.)

The implicit meaning behind this is that it’s not who we are or what we do, but that we are defined by whatever aspect/identity is being discussed. Thus, things like the color of our skin are the most important things about us (“Black” lives matter!) so if we have just one drop of blood from a Black ancestor many generations ago, then we are supposed to act, to BE, Black. Universities are now having special graduation exercises just for those in a particular identity group.

In this hyper-identity world, we are now using these aspects of our life to divide us! And by dividing us into smaller groups it discourages people from working together. The “Like Me” syndrome that I noted several years ago is being used as a weapon. Instead of America being a “melting pot” where people of many different backgrounds can come together, we have been turned into a collection of identities and encouraged to NOT work together. It’s a sad state of affairs.

So, what can we as individuals do about it? Let me repeat what I wrote nine years ago:

What other aspects of the group could you focus on so that the “like me” could dominate the “not like me?”

 

So What About Me?

I thought it would be interesting to use myself as a case study and whether I actually practice what I preach. I’ve been using social media, i.e. Facebook, since shortly after I retired 17 years ago. I have now accumulated a list of “friends” numbering roughly 400. But being the organized person that I am, I also maintain a spreadsheet of all these friends which notes how I am connected to them. So, I’d like to use this spreadsheet as a surrogate for which aspect of “like me” each individual is primarily associated with.

Here are my categories:

·       Family: those with some sort of genealogical connection. This accounts for nearly 150 individuals. There are four subcategories in this. (1) Immediate family – siblings, first cousins, nieces/nephews, etc. (note that because those two generations below, i.e. grandchildren, do not use Facebook this is not a complete list of family); (2) Pierpont – those related on my mother’s side – because I am the historian of the Pierpont Family Association, I also have connections to the wider family tree including relatives in France, England, and Canada; (3) Russell – extended family on my father’s side – the subject of much of my genealogical research; (4) VanDeCar – extended family on my wife’s side.

·       Church: those individuals in the church we have attended for nearly 50 years as well as others in the denomination that we have established connections to. This accounts for about 130 individuals.

·       Wolcott: individuals from my hometown in Connecticut. About 65 individuals, roughly 2/3 are my high school classmates, the others are individuals who have an interest in Wolcott History which I often blog about.

·       Work: individuals who I have worked with in some capacity, either my job at Air Products where I spent over 30 years, or via one of the non-profits that I had a long-term connection to (school boards, international students). About 45 individuals.

·       Other: those who do not fit one of the above categories. Only a dozen individuals.

That’s actually a pretty short list of ways that define “like me”. Genealogy, church, geography, shared experiences. There is nothing here about race, color, gender, sexual orientation, or any of the other aspects of identity politics or DEI. But are these “not like me” aspects hidden in the details or otherwise being used? Let me look at some of the details below the surface in each of the above categories.

 

Family

This group is defined by genealogical connection and the origins of each of the families listed are northern European (French, English, etc.) But that does not mean that every individual has that same heritage as people are free to marry others from different heritages. So, besides the French/English/Canadian members of the extended Pierpont family, I am aware of several other instances of this which have created connections to (1) Native Americans, (2) Haiti, and (3) Japan. But these individuals are still “Family”.

And there are many other aspects of “not like me” that get passed over. I am aware of several instances of same-sex relationships, political orientations that span the spectrum of our current political situation in the US, etc. But these individuals are still family, so I don’t let our differences get in the way.

 

Church

The part of Pennsylvania where I live was settled by German immigrants in the early 1700s. But with English immigrants to the N/E/S there was a fair amount of English connection as well. And the church reflected that heritage. But as the demographics of the area are changing, so are the demographics of the church. Just a few examples: (1) our senior pastor is Black; (2) our weekly church bulletin is available in Spanish as well as English; (3) the church hosts an Arabic-speaking congregation on Sunday afternoon and we now have two Syrian young men serving on our worship team; (4) the couple who sits in front of us consists of a young man who met and married a woman from Dominica while on a missions trip and they have since adopted four African-American siblings; and (5) as part of the church’s mission focus we currently have church members serving in Mexico, Jamaica, Germany, and Czech Republic.

Because of my genealogy interests, one of the “fun” things I like to do is see if I can build a rudimentary family tree for people in the church and see if there is any genealogical connection to me. I have found such a connection for about 2/3 of the church members/attendees (usually back about 400 years). But this leads to some interesting personal connections that might not otherwise happen. For example, there are a couple of ladies who are quite different than me. Because of some poor life choices, they are now part of a very low-income group and have no connections to other relatives. They came to our church because of our outreach to the community, but they didn’t have any other connections to it. Then they were approached by me with the message that they were distant cousins. That personal connection made a real difference. Now they look me up each Sunday morning and greet me with “hello cuz”.

 

Wolcott

Because Wolcott was not incorporated until 1796 and the population only grew beyond 1000 people after the paving of Wolcott Rd in the 1930s, the demographics of the residents were very reflective of the “melting pot” of the New England in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At one time I had undertaken a genealogical study of my high school classmates. While this study only is of the 2/3 of my friends in this category, the others are of this same demographic mixture.

About 1/3 of my classmates are related to me genealogically. However, there are a wide range of  countries represented. Nearly all are from Europe with the predominant ones being England, Ireland, Italy, France (actually French-Canadian), and Polish – these were the source of much of the immigration into that part of New England in that time period. Of my 170 classmates, only two had ancestry from Africa, only one had ancestry from Asia (Philippines), and there was no Spanish (either Spain or from South America). Some had very complex mixtures such as one girl whose heritage was from Germany, Russia, Poland, Ireland, and England, another whose heritage was from French-Canadian, Sweden, Ireland, Scotland, and England, and another whose heritage was from Italy, French-Canadian, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, and Netherlands. But we all were having the same experience – growing up in a close-knit community and attending the same new high school. So not only did we all get along quite well, but we continue to be in close contact with one another. I know from their postings that there are a wide range of political views in this group, but that doesn’t matter.

 

Work

The shared experience here is working together. The only item of significance is that there are about a dozen international students (1/4 of the total of this group). I’ll have more to say about this below.

 

Other

This remaining small category includes some of my neighbors, my best man (the only individual from my college years among my friends), and some individuals who I work with on genealogical issues of WWII soldiers.

 

International Aspect

While I have always lived and worked in the United States, I have had more than the typical amount of international travel. While this has enriched my life and given me a perspective that many do not have, most of the international friends among my 400 Facebook friends did not come from this travel. I count as “international” not those who simply have a heritage from another part of the world. Rather I only give this designation to someone who was born in another country, or who lives/works/worked there for a significant length of time.

With this designation, over 10% of my Facebook friends are international (41 out of roughly 400). These 41 individuals represent 24 different countries and thus a wide range of different backgrounds. For example, I have friends who are Buddhists from Thailand/Hong Kong, a Catholic from Indonesia, Christian from Ghana, Christian from Pakistan, missionaries in Mexico, Jamaica, Germany, Zambia, Kenya, as well as individuals from Norway, Belgium, England, France, Venezuela and other places.

Having interactions with this wide variety of individuals, as well as seeing other things that they post about their life, keeps me from being narrowly focused and only having a US-centric view of the world.

 

Conclusion

This 400-member collection of friends have a wide range of backgrounds and interests. Some I see regularly at church each week. Some I haven’t seen for several decades (since high school). Some I have never actually met outside of social media. Some share political views with me, and others have views that are totally the opposite. Some are going through physical or personal problems and I pray for them regularly (and let them know that I do), others do the same for me as I deal with various physical issues as I age. With each I have at least one thing in common – be it genealogy, religion, working together, or being from the same town.

But in each area where we are different I use our relationship to learn about things from their perspective. I get to learn about the discrimination that my native American nieces feel. I share with my same-sex cousins and try to understand them instead of argue with them. I pray with my high school classmates who, like me, are aging, having physical issues, losing a spouse, etc. I pray for my Pakistani friend who is poor and suffers from persecution on a regular basis (and she prays for me too!). I share with those in our church who have had very different life experiences but who worship the same God that I do.

 

That’s the key in all this. Instead of only associating with those who are just like you, look for one aspect that you can agree upon – be it shared DNA, living in the same town, working together, or some other shared experience like going to the same church – and then use our differences to learn from each other instead of using them to divide us. My life is so much richer having learned from my friends.

Yesterday was my 76^th birthday. Between yesterday and today, I received greetings from about 25% of my 400 friends. I love them all. And I hope to continue the relationship I have with each of them for many more years to come.

 

In Memoriam – Bob Kraft

Last month, Sept. 15, 2023, my cousin, Robert Alan (Bob) Kraft, passed away at the age of 89. We were alike in many ways and had much in common (as you’ll see below), but our paths did not cross much until recent years when we were co-historians of the Pierpont Family Association. His memorial service will be next week, but I’d like to write this post to honor him first, so I am not influenced by the emotions of that day.

[Bob Kraft]

 

[Bob Kraft obituary]

Genealogical Connections

Bob and I are biological 3^rd cousins. Our common ancestors are Charles Pierpont (1825-1884) and his wife Mary Ann Warner (1828-1911). My descendant line is through Wilson Pierpont (1855-1921), Harold Pierpont (1898-1969), and my mother, Sylvia [Pierpont] Russell (1924-2012). Bob’s lineage is through a series of females – Mary Ann [Pierpont] Miller (1860-1938), Margaret [Miller] [Northrop] Hall (1889-1987), and Marion Northrop [Kraft] (1912-2006).

But there is another complicated path that connects us at the 2^nd cousin level. My grandfather’s mother, Annie Merrill (1858-1898), passed away just two weeks after he was born. He was given to another family in the next town to be raised. But his father, Wilson, then remarried about 3 years later in 1901 to Anna [Root] Hall (1853-1938). Anna was a widow who had four children, then ages 25, 23, 19, and 14, from her first husband. These would have been my grandfather’s stepsiblings. One of them was George Ransom Hall (1877-1946). When Bob was only 2 years old, his grandfather Northrop passed away in 1936. George Ransom Hall also became widowed only a year later, so Margaret and George married not long thereafter. Thus, Bob’s step-grandfather is a step-brother of my grandfather, making us step-step-second cousins. Complicated, yes, but genealogy is not always neat descendant charts.

 

Wolcott Connections

The Pierpont Family Association (PFA) had begun in Waterbury, CT, with their first meeting in 1924. Mary Ann [Pierpont] Miller and her husband, Charles Somers Miller, were some of the prime movers in getting that organization started. The PFA met in those first few years at the Mill Plain Church in the west end of Waterbury. My grandparents were part of that church (they lived less than 2 miles from it) and so our family was also heavily involved in those early years.

But members of the greater Pierpont family were beginning to migrate just a few miles north into Wolcott. Wolcott had no industry nor many large farms due to its topology, so it was a “bedroom community”. It had no high school of its own, but high school age children were bused to Waterbury. Of the above families, the Root and Hall families had been in Wolcott since the late 1800s, Howard and Marian Kraft had moved to Wolcott when they married in 1931, and my parents also moved there when they married in 1946 (as did two of my mother’s siblings and my father’s sister).

Wolcott was a small town. In 1940 the population was only 1800 people. So those who lived there tended to know each other. With genealogical connections in common as well, the Hall/Kraft and Pierpont/Russell families were well acquainted with each other. Bob was 14 years older than me, so I did not know him personally at the time. I hadn’t even started school when he was going away to college. But I knew his family. His sister, Sharon, was just two years older than me. His mother was my swimming instructor when I got my Red Cross Lifesaving Badge.

So, while third cousins are often unacquainted with each other, our closer second cousin connection as well as both our families being in the same small town gave us lots of other connections.

 

Parallel Lives

Bob left Wolcott when he went to college in the mid-west. He got a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Wheaton College in Illinois in 1955, and a master’s degree from that same school in 1957. He then got a PhD in religion and Christian origins (from Harvard). His teaching career at the University of Pennsylvania began in 1963. But when computer technology began to spread a few decades later he also had an interest in that. His obituary (above) notes that “In 1983, he helped Penn students fulfill a new computer literacy requirement that led to innovative computer science classes and groundbreaking digital application in scholarly research and information dissemination.”

Fourteen years behind him, I followed the same path. I left Wolcott and went to college in the mid-west, getting my BS in computer science from Michigan State University in 1969, then a pair of master’s degrees from that same institution in 1971. I later got a PhD in information systems. I had a 25-year teaching stint at DeSales University from 1980 to 2005 in parallel with my work in the computer field. And Bob and I lived just 35 miles away from each other in eastern Pennsylvania.

 

Reconnecting

Bob retired from his professorship at UPenn in 2003 at the age of 69. I retired just a few years later in 2007 at the age of 58. With one of his interests being genealogy and using the computer to help organize it, Bob had been involved in the PFA for a number of years as their historian. When my father passed away in 2006, I began to get interested in genealogy as well (I began my membership in ancestry.com in 2008). Thus, it was only natural that I began attending the PFA meetings where Bob and I crossed paths. It was a few years later that the PFA, both recognizing my growing interest in genealogy and Bob’s getting older, appointed us co-historians of the organization.

Bob and I actively corresponded on genealogy-related subjects. But shared email was our only connection outside of the annual PFA meeting. He had 4 children, 3 of whom lived in the area, and 9 grandchildren. I only had 2 children, but a growing brood of grandchildren that reached a total of 7 by 2014. These family interests took precedence and so we just never seemed to have the time to get together.

 

The End of the Story?

Now Bob has moved on from life in this world. But the things that we held in common are still there – love of family, importance of religion, and appreciation for the impact of growing up in the small town of Wolcott. I’ll miss sharing with him and getting his comments on my various blog entries on Wolcott and genealogy stories. And I’ll miss seeing him at the annual PFA meetings (this summer was our 100^th consecutive meeting).

Next week I’ll be driving down to Philadelphia to attend a memorial service him at the UPenn library. It’s only 2 buildings away from UPenn’s Perelman Center where I go a few times a year for my participation in various Alzheimer’s studies, so it’s a route I know well. But it will be a much more emotional time than my study visits. I hope to have a chance to talk to some of Bob’s children who also live in this area.

Thanks for your contributions, Bob. I was not aware of how much I was following in your footsteps as I grew up in Wolcott, drove to college several states away, got my degrees, then settled down in eastern PA. We’ve been a lot alike. Maybe something in our genes and in the environment we shared in Wolcott?