Genealogy Story – My Pierpont Grandparents

During the next two months will be the 120^th anniversaries of the birth of my Pierpont grandparents. In recognition of this, I thought I would summarize their early years.

Harold Granger Pierpont

My mother’s father, whom I affectionately called Grampy, was the youngest child born to his parents Wilson Levinus (b. 1855) and Annie [Merrill] Pierpont (b. 1859). He had seven older siblings – George (b. 1879), Edith (b. 1881), Albert (b. 1884), Richard (b. 1886), Joseph (b. 1888), Charles (b. 1891), and Nathan (b. 1893). Harold was born on March 3, 1898, but tragically, his mother died as a result of this childbirth just a few days later. His father, perhaps resenting him being the cause of his wife’s demise, or perhaps not feeling able to care for a newborn (since the next youngest was then nearly 5), decided to send him to live with foster parents who had no children of their own – Samuel and Hattie Nichols who lived in the town of Prospect. While Prospect was only 3-4 miles away, with transportation being limited to horse and buggy, it was fairly long trip in those days.

Grampy’s middle name was Granger and there is an interesting story behind it. At the time of his birth, his father was the “Master” of the local grange and his mother was the secretary. The following is reported in the journal of Charles Somers Miller whose wife was a sister to Wilson.

When my wife got home from the Grange, she was greatly excited because her brother Wilson L. Pierpont (who is Master of the Grange) and his wife Annie (who is Secretary of the Grange) were in their respective places when she got there, after a time recess was declared and she did not see Wilson or Annie again, but just before the Grange closed a note was received by the acting Secretary which stated that the Master and Secretary had a new ten pound son.

Wilson re-married a few years later in 1902, to a widow, Anna [Root] Hall. Anna had been born in Plainville in 1853 and had been a school teacher in Wolcott which is where she met and married her first husband, Ransom Hall. Anna had five children through him – Nettie (b. 1874), George (b. 1876), Daisy (b. 1882), Robert (b. 1886), and a still born boy (b. 1888). Ransom died in 1889 and Anna raised her four children alone. When Wilson and Anna married in 1902, her children were all old enough to live on their own, but Wilson’s younger children still lived with them. While Harold was only four at the time, he remained with his foster parents in Prospect and continued to see little of his father, step-mother, or siblings.

Samuel and Hattie were only in their mid-20’s at the time they became foster parents to Harold. Like Wilson, Samuel was a farmer. Prospect was a very small town with only a single one-room school that went up through 8^th grade. Education beyond that would have required the student to find his/her own way to get into Waterbury, so few students did so.

A few Wolcott notes about Anna [Root] [Hall] Pierpont: Ransom Hall Road in Wolcott was named for Anna’s first husband, Ransom Hall. In the 1870 census for Wolcott, Anna was living with the Atwood family (school teachers were always single women). Her neighbors included families with the name Bronson, Upson, and Wiand, all long-time Wolcott families.

Sara Blackman

My mother’s mother, whom I called Grammy, had been born in Prospect on January 2, 1898 – just two months before Harold. Her parents were Clarence (b. 1870), and Alice [Talmadge] Blackman (b. 1870). Sara was the middle child, with a brother Stanley who had been born in 1893 and a sister Edna who was born in 1906 when she was eight. Clarence was a part-time farmer, but also worked in a woolen mill in Waterbury where he hoped to make enough to pay off the debt on the family farm so he could farm full-time.

Sara’s grandparents, Isaac and Harriett [Johnson] Blackman and Stephen and Sarah [Few] Talmadge, all lived in Prospect as well, so she grew up surrounded by her extended family. As an interesting side note, while the Blackman and Talmadge families were long-time residents in the area, neither of Sara’s grandmothers were from the area. Harriett had been born in S. Easton, PA – only a few miles from where I now live, and had moved from PA to CT in the years just prior to the Civil War. Sarah had been born in England and had come to America as an infant. It is not known how Stephen had met her, since she was still living in New York City prior to their meeting.

Harold and Sara went to school together at the one-room school in Prospect. They became engaged when they were 18 and married a few years later on March 26, 1919, when they were both 21.

Early Life Together

For the first few years, my grandparents lived in an apartment as they started their family. Their first child, Clarence, was born in 1920 when they had been married a year and a half. He was named for his grandfather, Clarence Blackman, but was called “Zeke”. Two years later he was followed by Alice, named for her grandmother, Alice Talmadge (note that both were named after ancestors on Sara’s side of the family who lived near them and neither for anyone on Harold’s side). In early 1924, my grandparents bought a house on East Main St, in Waterbury where their family increased. First was my mother, Sylvia (b. 1924), then Richard (b. 1926), and finally Violet (b. 1929).

Harold’s father passed away in 1921. Sara’s parents both passed away in 1929. Thus, for most of their early years of marriage they had to raise their family without much extended family around. The exception was Sara’s sister, Edna, who never married and who spent much time with her nephews and nieces, especially on holidays or whenever someone in the home was sick. And while there were other Pierponts in the homes around them, since Harold had not been raised there, they were more like strangers than family.

Harold worked as a milkman. He initially had his own route and even had bottles with his name printed on them, then he went to work as a milk peddler for the Maple Hill Dairy just down the street which was owned by some of his Pierpont cousins. [Pierpont Road in Waterbury runs past the property which used to be the Maple Hill Dairy.]

I always enjoyed visiting with Grampy and Grammy Pierpont. Their home was always the location for our annual Thanksgiving dinner with all my uncles, aunts, and cousins. They also hosted the annual cousin’s Christmas each year while the “adult” Christmas party rotated between the various homes of my parents and my mother’s siblings.

Grampy passed away at the age of 71 as a result of injuries sustained when a ladder slipped out from under him as he was cleaning the gutters on the back side of their house. Grammy lived another 10 years before passing away at the age of 81 in 1979.

300 Blogs

Since the occasion of my 300^th blog is occurring coincident with the end of the year, I thought I’d write a summary of what these 300 have been. I won’t guarantee that I won’t write another one before the end of the year, but this is close enough.

I began writing these on February 1^st of 2015. I had no particular goals at the time except capturing the continuing stories that came to mind. I had just published my autobiography a few months before, so these were like additional chapters to that book. I wrote 38 entries that first month, 16 more the following month, and my first 100 entries by June. Having gotten that initial burst of pent-up energy taken care of, the rate of writing new entries slowed down. I wrote a total of 137 entries in 2015, 86 in 2016 (30 of these being a daily writing assignment that I took on in April), and 77 thus far in 2016. There are a few months I wrote as few as 2 entries depending on what else was going on in my life.

Within a few months of starting, a new pattern had developed. Since I had been mentally working on my autobiography for most of the prior year, I had not spent much time on something that is of major interest to me – doing genealogical research, especially looking at the intersection of genealogy, geography, and history, i.e. looking at how family stories are impacted by where the people were at the time and what else was going on around them that influenced them. This has become my major theme since then.

I have put all my blogs into a half-dozen themes and the counts of each of these themes are:

·       112 – Genealogy

·       67 – Wolcott History, i.e. stories about the town where I spent my formative years

·       57 – Family stories

·       16 – Technology, primarily stories of the technology I worked with

·       17 – Planning

·       84 – Miscellaneous (like this one)

Note that these add up to more than 300 because there are some that I have tagged with more than one theme.

Most of my entries are 1-2 pages (as I capture them initially as MS-Word documents). I’ve also written a few multi-part blogs, as I have too much for an easy read. The key ones here are:

·       8 – Planning

·       6 – Future Planning

·       6 – Trip to Ghana

·       5 – Gender and Sex

·       4 – My Father’s Navy Service

·       4 – Marrying a Cousin (written as separate entries over a long span of time, but on the same topic

My readership varies considerably. While I post links to all my entries on my Facebook account, I also share appropriate entries on two Facebook groups: Wolcott History ones on “You Know You’re from Wolcott if …”, and Pierpont Genealogy ones on the “Pierpont Family Association”. Some of my 30-day writing assignment have gotten little interest (less than 10 views), but some of the Wolcott History ones have in excess of 400 views. In total, I’ve had over 20,000 views in the last 3 years or an average of 60-70 views per posting. I’m not widely read like some people I’ve heard about, but that has not been my intention.

I want encourage others to realize that our past is not just some dusty old archive and not relevant to daily living. Rather, our ancestors were real people with real problems, even if their problems are not ones we have today. And they were impacted by where they were and what else was happening in the world – just as we today are influenced by these same things. There is a wise saying that I’ve heard many times over the years, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” This blog is part of my small effort to help educate people and encourage them to know their history.

To you, my readers, I hope that I’ve piqued your curiosity at least a few times and caused you to consider things that you might not have otherwise.

Waterbury Green

A few years ago I wrote about the statue on the green in Wolcott and how it was paid for by Leverett Kenea, my 3^rd cousin (4 times removed) (see http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2015/05/memorial-day.html). Recently a friend posted a video from Waterbury. In it, there were several pictures of the green in Waterbury and shots that featured the bronze statue of a horse that graces one end of the green as well as of the clock that is in the center. This made me wonder about the history of those items and whether there were any relationship to me there as well.

I found the answer to my questions about the horse statue in someone else’s blog (http://markorsini.blogspot.com/2004/08/carrie-welton-fountain-in.html). The horse’s name is Knight and he was owned by Caroline Welton (1842-1884) who left funds for the statue in her will. The fountain was dedicated in 1888, making it nearly 130 years old (which accounts for the lovely green patina that the statue has acquired over the years). I encourage you to read the above blog which gives a lot of details about Caroline’s life.

There are couple of connections to the Welton family in the Pierpont genealogies, including one to Austin Beecher Pierpont, the father of Morton Pierpont who owned the Pierpont dairy in East Farms. Austin would have been a 4^th cousin to Caroline, but since he is not in my direct family line, I looked for another connection. Going back up the Welton family tree, I found that Caroline’s great*3 grandfather married into the Upson family from Wolcott and Caroline’s great*4 grandfather was Stephen Upson. Since Stephen is also one of my direct ancestors, that makes Caroline my 5^th cousin (3 times removed).

The other item on the Waterbury green is the clock in the center. It is known as Colley’s Clock as Charles Colley was the individual who argued for it a century ago (it was dedicated in 1915) (see http://www.waterburyct.org/content/9586/9599/9602.aspx). Charles was the president of the Chamber of Commerce at the time. While Charles was born in Waterbury, his father was from New Hampshire and his mother from Woodbury, so we have no common ancestors. However, Charles’ wife was Mary [Bryan] and she has among her ancestors the Pardee family of New Haven. Her 1^st cousin (several times removed) Martha Pardee married into the Frisbie family who are well known in Wolcott and who are in my family tree as well. So while I have no direct connection to Charles Colley, his wife is a distant relative.

I’m proud to have connections to the individuals responsible for both the statues on the Wolcott green and the Waterbury green as well as the clock in Waterbury. 

Christmas 2017

Last year I wrote our Christmas letter on 12/14, so it’s now been 365 days and time to write another one. The years go by faster and faster as I get older!

Family – We have been trying to make a trip to Florida once or twice each year to see Chris and family. This year we had scheduled to go down in May, but a health emergency took precedence (see more below) and so we rescheduled until early November. Florida in the summer is just too warm for us and we want to avoid the holiday rush (and cost), so fall/spring seem like better times. And of course, since we see them each summer at Pinebrook in the Poconos, we want a little bit of separation from that family time as well. We spent most of our five days there just being with family, spending some quality time with our grandkids, etc. We also went with them to the Florida Renaissance Fair for a day – it was a great time, gorgeous weather, and a great place that was heavily treed so that the sun was not too intense. Aryon is now 13, Tiernan is 11, and Ilyanna is 7 – so they’re all getting older.

Chris is scheduled to be deployed to Kuwait next year with the Army Reserves. He’ll be leaving home in February for six weeks of training in Texas, then will go to Kuwait from there. It’s been nearly 10 years since his last deployment and this time he will go as a major instead of as a first lieutenant. The family will miss him and we will as well – please pray for all of them during 2018.

As I noted last year, we bought the home across the street in January for Kim and family. They are still living kind of half here and half there due to a variety of reasons. The most recent is that the well there began running out of water – one could only take out about six gallons before the pump began sucking air. Just got a new well drilled last week (down over 600’!) and the flow is not the greatest, but will be sufficient as long as everyone doesn’t try to take showers on the same day. Pump just got put in this morning and they’ll hook it up to electricity tomorrow, so we’ll finally be able to use the washer and dryer again. Still have a few more things before they’ll be over there full time, but we expect that will happen shortly.

We still have full-time childcare duties. Ethan and Isaiah are in 2^nd and kindergarten respectively at Seven Generations Charter School. Caleb will start next fall and Asher a few years after that. So now our duties include daily homework checking at one end and the final potty training at the other end of the group. We’ve calculated that we work about a 60-hour week taking care of the four boys!

Travels – Since we are tied down a bit with caring for grandchildren we don’t get in much traveling right now.  However, besides our week in Orlando in November and our usual week at Pinebrook in the Poconos with the entire family, we did a little bit this year.

In June we went to Michigan for five days – taking Ethan and Isaiah with us. The “excuse” for the occasion was the wedding of our nephew Matthew VanDeCar to his fiancée’ Stephanie. We also discovered that she is a granddaughter in the Robinson family, which Donna has known for over 50 years. It was a great several days, visiting with relatives as well as the wonderful wedding ceremony where Christ was honored. We also visited with “Aunt” Katy [Kilwin] Varga, who was Donna’s second mom when she left home after graduating from high school. Katy was 92 and had moved into a nursing home earlier this year.

In September, it became obvious that Katy was failing. Donna had been calling her weekly and you could tell from Katy’s voice. So we scheduled an emergency visit for Donna to go to Michigan to spend a few days with Katy while she was still with us. Because of the quick nature of the decision, it was far cheaper for her to go out by bus instead of making flight arrangements, even though the bus ride, with a couple of bus changes included, was 26 hours! But it was a good trip and Katy appreciated it. Katy passed away several days after Donna returned home. We will miss her!

The only other trip was a day trip to Connecticut for the annual Pierpont Family Association reunion on Father’s Day weekend. I’ve been doing a lot of genealogy research about the Pierpont family and had the privilege of being elected as the co-historian, joining my cousin Bob Kraft in that position.

Genealogy – I had a couple of interesting lines of research this past year. One was putting together a family tree for a 4^th cousin who had no connections to his Pierpont family ancestors (you can read about it here - http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/05/genealogy-story-filling-hole-in-your.html). The other was helping a distant cousin find his birth mother (and family) as he was adopted (see http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/07/genealogy-story-finding-birth-mother.html).

As I noted last year, I blog on a regular basis on a number of topics, including genealogy as well as the history of the town of Wolcott, CT where I grew up (and where most of the families from the town’s history are related to me in one fashion or another). Check out ramblinrussells.blogspot.com if you’re interested.

Miscellaneous – Getting older also seems to involve additional medical challenges. At the beginning of May I had my first colonoscopy. Unfortunately, it appears that in removing one of the polyps, a blood vessel was compromised and a few days later I had to go to the hospital with severe sepsis (blood infection). I ended up spending several days in the ICU and then had continued IV antibiotics and nurse visits at home for the next several days. Not something I want to repeat (see http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/05/scenes-from-my-hospital-bed.html for more details).

In addition, I’ve been getting weekly treatment to repair a hole in the bottom of my foot that is caused by distortion at the ball of my big toe due to arthritis and the additional pressure that walking puts on that area of my foot. I’m currently getting weekly grafts of placenta tissue and it looks like the hole may be finally closed up in the next few weeks. Not being able to do any extended walking or anything else that puts pressure on my feet means that I’ve had to curtail my exercise program this year. So I’ve not made much progress on my weight loss goals and I’ve only taken off a couple of pounds. But I’m monitoring my sugar levels daily and managing to keep everything in control otherwise.

Hoping that all of you are doing well. Here’s wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

            

.Alan & Donna

My Office Wall

The walls of my den are decorated with a number of things. I have a significant collection of items from my world travels – but perhaps that’s a subject for a future blog. What I’d like concentrate on here are a number of plaques that grace these walls above and to the sides of the door of the room. There are over a dozen of them, in several different categories. I’d like to list them all by category and finish off with noting which ones I most highly treasure.

Educational Achievements

·       Michigan State University, 1969, BS in Computer Science (with honor)

o   MSU does not use the more traditional Latin of cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude, but only honor and high honor. I did not get high honor (which my wife did), primarily because I was more interested in finishing in three years instead of four in order to minimize the cost of my education (which I was paying for myself).

·       Michigan State University, 1971, MS in Computer Science

·       Michigan State University, 1971, MBA in Production Management

·       Kennedy-Western University, 1989, PhD in Information Systems

Air Products Recognition

·       30 years of employment (1975-2005) (I retired two years later)

·       Global Diversity Recognition 2006 – Outstanding Effort in Promoting and Recognizing Diversity and Inclusion

o   This was for my work in creating a new diversity group, AnyBody Concerned about Disability (ABCD) that recognized and assisted those employees with any type of disability, whether visible (blindness, wheelchair bound, etc.) or invisible (fibromyalgia, MS, etc.)

·       Golden Cylinder Award – for service to the cylinder tracking effort

o   This was normally given to members of the sales team and I was the only person from IT to receive this award

·       Year 2000 Program

o   I warned of the problems of this technology issue for nearly 20 years, then helped lead the effort to make the changes necessary so that it would not have a significant impact on our business

External Recognition

·       Who’s Who in the East

o   This was the first of a series of recognitions from Marquis’ Who’s Who. I was later recognized in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, and finally Who’s Who in Education.

·       Strathmore Who’s Who

o   This was one of a series of recognitions from outside agencies who recognized my contributions to the computing field. I never bothered to pay for the plaque for the later ones as they were not nearly as recognizable as the ones from Marquis above.

·       ICCP – Certified Computing Professional

o   The first of this type I received was the CDP (Certified Data Processor), given at the time by DPMA (the Data Processing Management Association). I then received the CCP (Certified Computer Programmer). Finally, when ICCP took over these from DMPA, and in recognition of my other accomplishments, I was one of the first recipients of the CSP (Certified Systems Professional) and I helped to develop the criteria and exam for later recipients. I was one of only a handful of individuals in the US who held all three awards. These were later combined into the CCP noted here and the others became the Management, Programming, and Systems designations below it.

Miscellaneous

·       AFS Gavel

o   This was for my service for two years of chairing the AFS National Council which was the leadership body for the 4500 AFS-USA volunteers who serve in that organization

·       Lehigh Valley Christian High School – Faithfulness Award – 1988-2013

o   Given on the 25^th anniversary of LVCHS, where I served on the Board of Directors for most of those years, including 15 as Board Chair

·       DeSales University – Tribute for service from 1980 to 2005

o   An extract from this reads, “On behalf of the DeSales University faculty, it is my honor to acknowledge Dr. Alan Russell’s quarter century of service to the computer science program of Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales and DeSales University. In 1980, Dr. Russell became the first ACCESS instructor to teach computer science, qualifying him for the distinction of being the founding father of our computer science program in ACCESS. … Dr. Russell leaves as his legacy not only the syllabi he has designed and the courses he has taught, but more importantly, the lives he has touched during the last 25 years.”

What I treasure the most of the above are those that are for areas in which I was able to influence others and have a positive impact on their lives. There are two of these – the Tribute from DeSales University where I taught others for 25 years, and the Global Diversity Award from Air Products for my work in developing a new diversity initiative.

These two plaques hang vertically just to the left of the door above the light switch, together with one additional rectangular frame – a picture of Jesus Christ. He is the Lord of my life and the reason why I care about others in the first place.

At some future date, I will no longer be living on this earth and my descendants will probably decide to dispose of all these plaques. But the influence I have had on others will live on after me. And my life will go on as well – in heaven – in constant communication with my Lord!

Genealogy Story – Revolutionary War Service

As a follow-up to my story on my ancestors who served this country in the military (http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/11/genealogy-story-serving-their-country.html), I’ve been doing some further research into some of my ancestors who served their country during the Revolutionary War and have found that two of my great*5 grandfathers had service that connected.

My great*5 grandfather, John Russell, was born in Bedford, NY in 1756, but twenty years later had moved a few miles north to Carmel, NY. Although the Declaration of Independence, first signed on July 4, 1776, is typically used to mark the start of the war, it really began in April of 1775 with the encounter in Lexington and Concord. John Russell enlisted on May 1, 1776 in a New York regiment.

The next five months he was engaged in construction activities at Fort Constitution – located right across the Hudson River from West Point. Following this, he served for six months at Peekskill, NY, three months at Red Mills, NY and then his final three months back in Peekskill. During the latter part of his service (August-October 1777) he was under the command of General Israel Putnam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Putnam). Although John served for 17 months, he had never been more than 20 miles from his home. [Information taken from John’s pension application submitted in 1833.]

Meanwhile, one of my great*5 grandfathers on my mother’s side, Reuben Frisbie, had enlisted with a Connecticut company. His service lasted from August 1776 until the war ended in 1783. The first three months of Reuben’s service was also under General Putnam and he was located near Fort Montgomery, across the Hudson from where John Russell was located. Reuben’s service took him up and down the Hudson for the next several years, including one winter spent at West Point and another right across the Hudson at “Connecticut Village”. While it is unlikely that John and Reuben ever met, since they were in units from different states, the fact that they were both serving in the same area and under the same general for three months is interesting.

Finally, I should also note that in reading through John’s pension application that he also “signed” with an “X”, indicating that he was illiterate. With that being true for both John and his grandson Silas who signed a Civil War pension application in the same manner (see http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/10/genealogy-story-illiterate-ancestors.html), it is also most likely that the other generations of my Russell ancestors before/after John would also have been illiterate, although there are no documents which prove this.

Fortune Cookies

In an earlier blog I answered the question, “What are four weird traits you have?” My answer was:

Did you know that the “random” lucky numbers on the little slip inside your “Chinese” fortune cookie are not really random? They are chosen so that you can perform mathematical operations on them (using each number no more than once) and come up with any number between 1 and 100? I’m 67, so if two of the numbers were 56 and 11, that’s pretty obvious. But what if four of the numbers were 45, 26, 24, and 11. Then you could construct a formula of 45+(11*(26-24)) = 45+(11*2) = 45+22 = 67. Sometimes you may actually need all six of the numbers given, but rest assured, your age can be found. Whenever my wife and I go to a Chinese restaurant and are given a fortune cookie, then I won’t discard the little slips of paper until I have constructed the formula for both my and her ages.

I decided to write a blog giving a “proof” of this, so instead of throwing it away, I brought home the latest fortune cookie insert that I received from our favorite Chinese restaurant. Here are the “lucky numbers” that were on it – 29, 42, 12, 3, 33, 22.

While it is a bit time-consuming to find all the formulas for all 100 possibilities, here they are for this set of numbers. Interesting fact, isn’t it?