The relationship of relativity to relatives

wormhole

---

"A hypothetical tunnel connecting two different points in spacetime in such a way that a trip through the wormhole could take much less time than a journey between the same starting and ending points in normal space. The ends of a wormhole could, in theory, be intra-universe (i.e. both exist in the same universe) or inter-universe (exist in different universes, and thus serve as a connecting passage between the two). Wormholes arise as solutions to the equations of Einstein's general theory of relativity. They crop up so readily in this context that some theorists think that real counterparts may eventually be found or fabricated and, perhaps, used for high-speed space travel and/or time travel."


Me here. All of the above lifted from The Encyclopedia of Science, if you can trust a source like that. Link provided but others sought. I want to get to the time and place and mental space of a particular young woman, surname Whaley, who at the age of 17-18 became impregnated by a local farmer, a married man old enough to be her father, and lived with him and his wife and three daughters (one of whom was her age) in a tiny house for over a decade, long enough to get pregnant three more times.

Lousy luck that there is no federal census for 1890. By 1900, I've found no trace of her.Yet her grand-daughter referred to her as Grandma Osborn.

Catharine Whaley's sons all grew to manhood. All but one had children of their own. Three went up to Rochester to make a living. Two went to work at Eastman Kodak. One became an insurance salesman (and my great-grandfather).

The boy who began life as Willie Whaley and become Will Osborne, aka Uncle Bill, remained in Livonia Center and became superintendent of the largest local graveyard, Union Cemetery. Bill knew where the bodies were buried.

But where was his mother?

Ozzy has dyslexia

I'm often asked if I'm related to Ozzy Osbourne. I always say yes, based on the likelihood that all people named Osborne ultimately descend from the same common ancestor Osborn, Osbourne, Osborne, Osburn, Osburne, Orsburn, Orsborn, Orsborne. Vowels (namely e and u) and renegade consonants (r and z) have been appearing then vanishing, confusing research for centuries.

Ozzy's line remained in Great Britain.* I most likely descend from the ones who sailed into Dorchester, MA in the early 1600's.

But wait, it gets worse. Besides shifting spellings, the full menu of stumbling blocks to research: 

Beginner level record keeping. New York state was just getting set up about the time Henry was born, in 1814 or 1816 or 1818. Born somewhere, not known. It might have been Connecticut, which was up and running in fine civilized fashion by then. Those Puritans knew how to keep accurate records. Not so New Yorkers. They were still arranging treaties. Making grids. Naming counties. What shall we call this? They'd had a French and Indian War, they'd had an American revolution, they'd had a War of 1812. They were still spinning. And communication was by horse.

Home births. What hospitals. Who's going to report in to authorities. What authorities. Where. Decades later, you say you were born four or five years later than you were? OK. Like you care about family researchers 200 years in the future.

Post office addresses. Pretty hit or miss for a while. People were still discussing, do we have a town here or what. Do we have a school? Is that what it takes? In 1789, the original settlers of an area a couple miles and three o'clock to the foot of Conesus Lake decided that their place would be called Livonia. But 3.5 acres of the land Henry farmed was much closer to South Lima. AKA, Goose Island.

* Henry Osborne spelled his name without the e whenever he felt like it. So did his son, Charles. Henry's grandson Harry dropped the e. Henry's great-grandson Charles grew up without the e, then went into the army, where there was another Charles Osborn. So my father put the e back on.

Although my father was mainly known as Chuck, he was also known as Oz. Sometimes his friends called him, affectionately, Ozzy. Technically I'm telling the truth when I say that yes, I'm related to Ozzy Osborne. (Our father was Big Oz. My sister was little Oz. I was middle Oz. My mother was Dot.)

1915, when Harry met Ruth

Half Irish. That would be on her Punch side. This is Ruth Vanda Punch, who married Henry's grandson, Harry Osborn. She's here on her porch in Hemlock, 1917, with her first child, Chuck, still inside. She loved cats, kids, and Harry. They met at a chicken barbecue in Lakeville, must have been in warm weather, say summer; married in December, 1915.

In Rochester City Directories, there are a surprising number of Punches, going back to the time of the potato famine in Ireland, mid-19th century. Why did they up and decide to come to Rochester, New York? California was wide open. I'd love to know why upstate NY, land of brutal winters, but some Punches chose there for starters. I see plenty of Patricks, Williams and Richards and I don't know who's the ancestor, who's the cousin. I do think they were all one family.

I can trace Ruth's grandfather back to my great-great-grandfather, Patrick Punch and his wife Susan. They definitely had a son named William Vincent Punch, and that V in the middle was the distinguishing feature of all the names he gave his children: Raymond V, Rena V, and Ruth V. "Eliminate future confusion" was his policy.

Patrick made his living driving a hack. So did Susan. I think these hacks might have been hearses, at least some. I put this together because another William Punch (father? uncle?) ran an undertaking business, and who better to cart bodies around than a member of the family who was also a hackman?

William V. Punch, who managed the picture frame department at a local store, died while walking along the Lehigh railroad tracks one night in October, 1902. He was heading for Conesus, where he was to get a loan that would allow him to repay a debt that was due. In the dark, he wasn't seen and was killed by a train. "He had not been himself for a couple of days," reported the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. But in the headline, readers were assured, "No Evidence That He Intended to Commit Suicide." 

His widow, Anna Punch, was left with three small children. My grandmother was seven. They lived in the home of Anna's parents, George and Sophia Sans, at 40 Martin Street, across from the Bausch & Lomb factory, which is where Ruth grew up. She was raised Catholic. When she was about 16, 1911 or so, Anna moved the family to Lakeville.

This is Anna, 1914.

So Harry and Ruth catch each other's eye at this chicken barbecue in Lakeville, where Anna moved her brood after her parents died. She might have relocated in order to live more cheaply in a home she rented from her half sister, Louise Nelson, and to be closer to her half brother, John Nelson. Ruth knew him as Uncle Johnnie; "he was like a father to us kids." He had a cottage on Conesus Lake. 

Maybe he's the one throwing the chicken barbecue. I'd like to know if Harry crashed the party or was invited. And what was the first thing he said? What's a girl like you doing in a place like this. She perhaps replied, Funny you should ask because what are the chances? Both of us were born up in Rochester and because our parents died, we're sitting here eating chicken on the shore of the farthest west Finger Lake in New York, USA. Not Ireland.

Nah, they didn't talk about anything like that. They were twenty years old and they were there to have fun. I like to think they just wanted to cut to the chase and marry each other. It's only a future generation 97 years later that sits here in West Newton, Massachusetts, pondering how the sparks must have flown, trying to sew it all together, wondering if they ever knew how good they'd be for each other, what great kids they'd have together. I'm so glad they met.

While Harry was managing multiple small businesses (the Lakeview Fur Farm, Rochester Ice), Ruth started her own business: The Flower House in Lakeville. Only a copywriter can appreciate that she called it a flower house. She had a sign out front: Ruth P. Osborn, Florist. She ran small space ads in The Livonia Gazette. When business expanded beyond their basement, Harry and Unk built her a greenhouse where I spent many fragrant hours. Her business came mostly from funerals, it seems. She made money when somebody died.

  

She bought her flowers from a nursery in Lima, where the soil was great for growing nearly anything. As Henry could have told her.

Which Whaleys?

Record keeping didn't arrive in western New York until the mid-19th century, a little more than 200 years after Connecticut figured it out. Up to 1850 or so, quite a few births in this neck of the woods were under the radar.

If this woman was Catharine Whaley, as she appears in the census, I've found no record of her.

Cut to January 5, 2019. I'm now convinced that the census taker wrote down the wrong surname. I believe the woman who gave birth to my great grandfather and 3 other sons by Henry Osborne was Catharine Whalen, not Whaley. There were Whaleys and Whalens in the area.

Catharine Whalen was a daughter of Jeremiah Michael Whalen and Martha Mitchell Whalen. I find them in Lima, perhaps it was South Lima, which was Henry's immediate neighborhood. They are in the 1840, 1850, 1855, and 1860 census. Jeremiah died in 1864, and the family split up. I've traced them all. Based on DNA matches to 2 of Catharine Whalen's siblings, I think I've finally found my gg-grandmother.

After the birth of her last son, Vernon Pemberton Osborne, there is no trace of Catharine. Three of her sons found work up in Rochester. She lived with none of them. Nor did she live with William, her first son, who remained in Livonia Center. I haven't found mention of her in back issues of The Livonia Gazette, whose writers kept track of everyone in town.

Vernon Pemberton Osborne bears the name of a young man who lived across the road from the Osbornes. Why would that be? At least one researcher believes that the man across the road was Vernie's father.

You crazy damn fool idiot!

One quarter of me is pure Harry Osborn, who was half Dutch.* His grandparents on his mother's side were Jannis Abraham Kusse and Cornelia Eckebus Kusse, who came from Nieuwvliet, arriving with brothers and sisters in Rochester between 1865 and 1870.  They lived on Kusse Street, which is no longer on the map.

Jannis became John in America and turned his trade, carpentry, into a business found in Rochester City Directories as first Kooman and Kusse, then Kusse and Company, then Kusse and Lewis. John died in 1889.

His daughter Frances M. Kusse, born in Rochester in 1871, married Charles E. Osborne on December 27, 1892. Their premature infant son died in August, 1893 and was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery. Francis gave birth to Harry in 1895, his sister Florence in 1897, and died, tuberculosis, in 1900.

Charles and his two young children lived with his Kusse in-laws on and off. They didn't like him very much and Charles may not have been welcome in the Kusse home, since in city directories from 1895 on, he resides at different home addresses. John Kusse, Frances's brother, had a particular hatred for Charles Osborne because Charles "mistreated" Frances. It makes me wonder what sort of treatment Charles observed in his own domestic situation as he grew up. Did Henry mistreat Catharine? Besides impregnating her four times without ever marrying her?

Cornelia Kusse may have despised her son-in-law, but she raised her daughter's children until she wore out and died in February of 1909, age 62. I'm sure Harry was the cause of death. He was a hellion. The time he put a live rabbit in the oven was apparently the final straw. At that point, brother John insisted that Charles Osborne raise his own kids. To quote his son Bob, who shared the story, John said to Charles, "Take them! They're yours!" In the census of 1910, the children are living with their father.

It cannot be assumed that all sweet old Dutch grandmothers retain their composure at all times. Harry got yelled at constantly and undoubtedly deserved it. Fathers tend to pass such things along, which is how my father learned to swear in Dutch, and I did too. From his grandmother, my father's father picked up certain phrases, such as that for "Goddamn fool idiot/slob/jerk!" My father passed this down to me. "Godverdomme smeerlap." I heard it a lot, but I just now looked up how to spell it.

* Making me fully one-eighth Dutch. 

Who was she?

"Her name was Kate Brant. She was the daughter of Joseph Brant, the great Mohawk chief." 

My father told me this. I took it as true. For over half a century, I was extremely proud to have Mohawk royalty in my family tree.

Nice storytelling, but no cigar. He got the Catharine part right. She appears in census records of 1870 and 1880 as Catharine Whaley. Along with his wife, his mother, and three daughters, Catharine lives in Henry's household. An infant, Willie Whaley, would likely be her son. Occupation: mistress.

She is the same age as Henry's daughter, Jennie.

                                                               *  *  *

For over ten years, a young woman who was not Henry's wife lived in his home, bore him four sons, all surnamed Osborne, and ran into Henry's wife every hour of the day. How might this have worked?

Mistress. Please. You see where they lived. I think Mr. Census Taker didn't know what to make of this domestic arrangement. He could have left "Occupation" blank, but felt compelled to label her something. He had to put her down. 

He must have heard of polygamy. Livonia is 30 miles from Palmyra, where the hill opened up, the angel stepped out, and the golden tablets were handed over to Joseph Smith. And look, says right here: a man can have more than one wife at the same time.

If you thought God wanted you to stay in that tiny house and be a fuck puppet for a potato farmer, and keep having his babies, and put up with the humiliation of going to the store in that town, maybe you could find joy in an existence as bleak as Catharine Whaley's.

She gave birth to one last little boy. Vernon Pemberton Osborne. Henry was then 65. Vernie was named after the man who lived across the street. Vernon Pemberton was Catharine's age. But married to someone else.

Catharine's second son with Henry grew up to be my great-grandfather, Charles.

Mrs. Henry Osborne

Jerusha Backus, the only woman who ever married Henry Osborne, was not my great-great-grandmother.  That honor belonged to a young woman who lived with the family. 

In 1903, Henry told his interviewer that he married a Lima girl. Probably she was from South Lima, which was forever getting lumped together with Livonia Center.  Census records show Jerusha's family living in Livonia for at least a decade before the nuptials, which took place in 1840.  John Backus, Jerusha's father, appears in the 1830 census with 5 females at home, ages 10-20.

One would think that if both bride and groom were from Livonia, the happy event would have been celebrated in the warm embrace of Livonia. Instead, they all got in the wagon and shlepped themselves to Pine Plains, New York. That is Dutchess County, 300 miles back east. That is where John Backus was born, and possibly Jerusha.

In 1840, they might have made the trip by taking the Erie Canal to Albany, then down the Hudson, or they could have gone The Catskill Turnpike, which ran along the southern part of the state, touching just the heads of the Finger Lakes.  It existed as early as 1808, but it was a long time in the building. The land was dense hardwood forest.
 
Before the Erie Canal, major migration trails westward were primarily the Mohawk and Genesee roads to Lake Erie, or the Catskill and Jericho Turnpikes.  The Catskill ran west, skirting the north edge of the Catskills, then through the southern part of the state, below the Finger Lakes.  At Bath, the routes split. You could keep going west on to Pennsylvania, or you could head northwest, which would lead to Rochester and Buffalo.  



John Backus went northwest, and found their way to Livonia. You wonder if they were aiming for Livonia or they just got there and were tired of migrating, so pulled off the turnpike and stayed.  

Henry Osborne and one female, same age, are living in Lima in 1840.  No children yet.  By 1850, there were Mary, Frederick, and Franklyn.  There would eventually would be six for her, including three more daughters, and a grand total of ten for Henry.  Henry won.  But he cheated.

Echo of the Seneca

Before it was Henry Osborne's farm, it was Seneca land. Here's How the Seneca became French.

It wasn't total wilderness. Meaning, if a deer saw you first, he'd seen people before. But he noticed you had a rifle, so he split.

Much of it was muck spiced with goose dung, sure, but it wasn't totally for the birds. French missionaries had been around since the early 1600's. Earlier than the Mayflower, 1620, French holy men were out and about in what became western New York state, doing their improving, educating, converting. Lima, just up the road from Henry's farm, was the site of at least one Seneca village.

As Ruth wrote: Harry, Chas Sr, Chuck

My father, here the baby, collected arrowheads and other relics 

that turned up every time somebody plowed. 

They're mine now.

My sister and I grew up believing that our great-great-grandmother descended from the great Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant.  "Her name was Kate Brant," my father told us. I don't know if that was based on his own research, which I haven't been able to verify, or just wishful thinking. Or it could have been wishful confabulation by Harry and his sister Floss, orphans who might well have wondered who they were.

Chuck enjoyed every iota of his fake Mohawk heritage. It could have been on the strength of his arrowhead and relic collections that he acquired the tonnage of merit badges that led to his local renown as an Eagle Scout extraordinaire. I'm not sure if his imaginary lineage had anything to do with becoming a great football player as well. His character, his sportsmanship, and apparently, his brains all got him into Hobart's class of 1941. He was the first Osborn to go to college.

Echo of the Seneca was the title of the Hobart yearbook.

CHARLES ELMER OSBORN

Phi Phi Delta

Scientific

Lakeville, New York

Bacteriologist in embryo . . . one of 

the strong silent type . . .  all around 

sport man . . . winter sports . . . always 

under par     . . . upstate granite block.

1903

(ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1903.)
OLD INMATES OF THE ALMSHOUSE
GENESEO HOME FULL OF QUAINT CHARACTERS. HAVE SEEN HISTORY MADE 

More Than One Was Born as Long Ago as 1812—One Was Postmaster of Geneseo Eight Years, and All Delight in Thinking of the Past.

The register of the Livingston county poor house at Geneseo shows that there are now 75 inmates at the institution dependent upon the charity of the county. Among those now staying at the County Home are the following: 

Henry Osborn, 87 years old, was married when he was 22 to Jerusha Backus. They had nine children, of whom seven are still alive. His wife died at the home in 1889. He has been there nine weeks. His father was Stephen Osborn. His mother, who was a Lima woman, lived to the age of 90.

The census of 1900 shows that Henry was living in Canandaigua with his daughter Jennie. They told the census taker that Henry's parents were born in Vermont. Henry may have just been funnin' with him because in other decades, the record says his parents were born in New York. It's possible that he didn't know where Stephen was born, maybe guys didn't talk about that sort of thing back then.

It could have been both. The border between Vermont and New York wasn't official until 1812. Nobody knew where anything really was. It was land, that's all. After the American revolution, after the treaty with the Seneca, Phelps and Gorham mapped it out in a grid.   

1790 Phelps Gorham purchase

Another angle

A goose coming down from Canada, you and your flock are heading for a delightfully swampy area between two long lakes that lie just the other side of one great lake. Honk when you see it.

After a soft, squishy landing, you want a fine meal and a good rest. This place, Goose Island, has it all. It's a goose buffet, made for you. So many choices. Speaking of wormholes, dig in, have a worm. Have ten worms, have insects. You don't have to look too far for frog legs. Bon appetit.

The rest room? You're soaking in it. Relieve yourself right there. What you leave behind will live on as soil.

And next thing you know, you're soil. Although part of you is and will always be goose. Same thing only different. After some centuries, during which you get richer and richer just vegetating, you feel pressure from above. Like you were run over by a plow? That's just what happened. A day or two later, a farmer comes by and in you, plants potato seed. As soil, it is your job to nurture this seed. You give it all you've got, which would include the part of you that's goose, the part of you that's frog, other buried swamp residents. Stewed trees.  

In the year 2011, postcards featuring your famous Livonia Center potatoes and onions will be worth $25 on something called eBay. But you're in the dark at this point, just doing your job, giving all that's in you to this potato. Indeed, you become this potato.   

"I'm in the milk and the milk's in me."

Maurice Sendak

To every thing, there is a season. OK, your day in the sun is over. Ding, you're done. One day the farmer comes back, yanks you out of the ground, and off you go to your next incarnation as dinner for the farmer's family. You are consumed by one of the farmer's daughters.

So finally, you the former goose are now a little girl. Your name is Jennie Osborne. You were born in 1850.


Matter is neither created nor destroyed.  
Antoine Lavoisier

Little Men, by Catharine Whaley

Inquiring minds want to know, what's the story with Catharine's last child, Vernon Pemberton Osborne? For some reason, he bore the same name as the guy who lived across the road.

On his draft registration (1918), it says that Vernie Pemberton Osborn was born February 25, 1881. He was the tail end of four Osborne boys. His brother William was between 12 and 14; Charles was 10, and Myron was 5 or 6. Henry was 65. And may not have been his father.

*  *  * 

An 1872 map shows that H. Osborne has a home across Livonia Center Road from A. J. Pemberton. A. J. had a son named Vernon. Pemberton. He was 21 in 1870. About Catharine's age. 

Did the new baby in the house look so much like their neighbor, Vernon Pemberton, that Henry decided to honor the man by naming the baby after him? Was Henry not sure if the child was his or his neighbor's, so decided to use both their names? Or was Vernie's name a humiliation that Henry insisted on. Catharine's scarlet letter. What's in a name? Shame, if you are Vernon Pemberton Osborne.

Vernie never married. He had a variety of jobs up in the city, as they called Rochester. In 1918, he worked at Kodak, a camera assembler. In other city and census records he was a machinist, a brass worker, a teacher, a salesman, a school janitor. He kept a cottage on Conesus Lake and made his way back to Livonia regularly. In the city, he resided sometimes at boarding houses, but for many years, with his brother Myron and family.

In March of 1940, Vernie fell on the ice. He died of pneumonia in May.

Before the Seneca

Ponder anew what the Almighty can do. Click here and groove on glacier power.

These are the Finger Lakes from way up high. Henry's story takes place between the last two digits on the west, Hemlock and Conesus. I was conceived in a meadow just up the hill from a bar on the west shore of Conesus Lake. You can't see it here.

Henry's memory at 87

"He's been on her again. She's big. I may be a paralyzed invalid, but I can still see, I still hear. Keep it down in there. I'm talking to you, Henry." 

From the unwritten and unpublished diaries of Jerusha Backus Osborne, 1818-1889. 

In his last interview in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, February, 1903, Henry says that his wife was a Lima girl. He was 22 when he married.

It's worth a mention that if the reporter captured his tone correctly, Henry was "delighted" to talk about the past. Sounds like he's eating well, looking at the bright side of being in the Livingston County NY poor house. His memory serves him well. Well, semi-well. On a roll, he shares that he and his wife, a Lima girl, had nine children, of whom seven are still alive.

He doesn't mention, or maybe he forgot, that he didn't have all those children with his wife.

So let's imagine that Henry's out in the potato field and we are here at the house, answering questions being put by the census taker in 1870. He's writing all this down. He doesn't understand the relationships. Appears to be that Henry Osborne is the head of the household, check, his mother, check; then we have a wife, Jerusha, and three daughters, okay.  Who's this Catharine Whaley, age 21? Same age as the eldest daughter, Jennie. Jennie is a domestic servant, Catharine has "no occupation."  Who's this little Willie Whaley, 24 months?

In the 1880 census, it says that Willie Whaley is now Willie Osborn and look, he has a couple more brothers. Why that's Henry's surname. My God, that's your surname, Jerusha! Did you give birth and didn't know it? You are by now, according to the 1880 census taker, a confirmed invalid, paralysis.  And well past childbearing years. But still Henry's wife.

Who are those guys?

Wormhole: click and see where Jerusha wound up in 1889, and Henry died in 1902. It's now a charming bed and breakfast. Livingston County Almshouse

Six Nations

If you wanted to remain within the wormhole, since it's so delightfully swampy all around* you could wend your way back further and keep bumping into intriguing hard items. Perchance a mitten, a fork, bodies left behind by the Continental army. Per George Washington himself, General John Sullivan had orders to kill countless Seneca, who were living here in 1779 and had been for centuries.

Seneca territory

If you allow that there might be something to psychometry, do wiggle your digits through a box of my father's arrowheads, collected over decades. We used to stay in the car, he'd go off hunting through just-turned fields. Amazing what would turn up. Tools, beads, pottery, pipes.

My father always knew that something would turn up. 

In the end, it was to my life's advantage that the formerly English would drift into the massive amount of western New York territory of the Phelps-Gorham purchase, then the Holland Purchase. Oh boy, land! New England Osbornes were crowded in Connecticut. They would find their way west.

Sullivan Campaign in Livingston County

* There is a Muck Road in the heart of South Lima. Look it up. How would you like to say you live on Muck Road in South Lima, New York?

Back to the future

I understand relativity in terms of relatives. My genes are my immediate connection to these people. I carry them with me. I've received something from them. What characteristics, fed on potatoes that grew big in all that goose dung? What percent of me is composed of pure, finest goose dung?

I've been to the farm. Drove right past it, thinking that can't be it. Oh please, don't let that be it. But after consulting an 1872 map, I faced the fact that the big beautiful house I hoped was ours belonged to W. S. Jerome.

We had the hovel, one door south. 

Across Livonia Center Road, there lived J. S. Beecher and A. R. Pemberton.     

By chance, four generations and 130 years later, a Beecher was about in his yard, and noticed when I parked and got out to snoop around. He owns the place now. Rents it. The current renters were at work. I asked Charlie Beecher if he'd consider letting me have a look inside. He obliged. I wish he hadn't. A look inside totally ruined my fantasy of finding a historically intact interior. Henry's hovel has been "updated" in the worst possible way, and they stopped somewhere in the sixties. There was no chance of picking up ancestral vibes.  I hate ugly rooms. I thanked him and got away as fast as I could.

That was faster than Henry got away. Faster than any of the sons and daughters of Henry got away. Faster by far than Jerusha or Catharine got away.

Mortuary Matters

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle's obituary column was not headed Obituaries.  Its title was the slightly less deathly Mortuary Matters. Still, people definitely died. Between 1891 and 1902, there was a steady stream of death in my grandmother's family.  Noted:

My great-great grandfather, 10 March, 1891:  Patrick Punch died suddenly on Sunday at his home, No. 112 St. Joseph Street, aged 70 years. 

My great-great grandmother, 27 March, 1895:  Mrs. Susan Punch, wife of Patrick Punch, died yesterday morning at her home, No. 112 St. Joseph Street, aged 67 years.

My other great-great-grandfather, 17 June, 1896:  George Sans, aged 64 years, died yesterday at the family residence, No. 40 Martin Street. A wife and three children survive him.

My other great-great grandmother:  In this city, on Friday afternoon, July 19,1901, Sophia Nelson Sans, widow of George Sans, aged 70 years. She is survived by one son, John F. Nelson, and two daughters, Louise Nelson and Mrs. William V. Punch.

My great-grandfather, 10 October, 1902: WILLIAM V. PUNCH KILLED BY TRAIN  William V. Punch, 37 years old, of No. 40 Martin Street, was killed by a Lehigh Valley freight train at about 4 a.m. yesterday at the Elmwood avenue crossing. The reason for his presence there at that hour of the night is explained by the fact that he had not been himself for a couple of days.

Punch had been employed at the Glenny store for the last seven years and had charge of the picture frame department there. He was formerly with the Sibley, Lindsay & Curr Company in its picture frame department, which business he had followed all his life.

Punch a few days ago obtained a personal loan from Mr. Watkins, of the Glenny firm, and promised to pay it back yesterday. Wednesday night he found that he did not have the money on hand and the matter worried him so that he did not sleep. He rose at about midnight and told his wife that he knew he could get the money of a friend at Conesus, where Punch has a cottage.  He said he would take his insurance policies so that he could give them as security if he could not borrow the money without them. He said or did nothing that would indicate intention to commit suicide. 

There survive Punch his wife and three children, one brother and two sisters. He was a member of the Royal Areanum, in which order he carried one insurance policy of $3,000. His other policy was with the New York Casualty Company for a like amount. He was a member of Court Kodak of the Foresters.

Punch was popular with his friends and fellow workmen and well liked by his employers.  None of them ever heard him mention suicide as a way out of the world for himself and none of the [word indistinguishable] that he had any such idea when he left home.  There is ample evidence of his intention when he left the house, and it would seem that it was one of the many accidents to persons who walk railroad tracks at night.  He may have walked under the delusion that the approaching train was on another track.  But it is not unusual that one deeply engrossed in thought while walking becomes deaf to all sounds about him. 

It seems that Punch was instantly killed. The engineer of the Lehigh engine which struck him said that he did not see the man until he was struck and his body was thrown in front of the engine.  The engineer stopped the train as quickly as he could and the train crew found the body badly mangled. As there was no use for a physician's services the engineer notified Coroner Killip, who at once went to the scene of the accident. He will hold an inquest as soon as possible.











 

Backing into St. Bridget's

It was Free Access To 1930 Census Weekend at Ancestry.com. Some surprises. My grandmother's mother, sister, and niece lived right around the corner from Harry and Ruth in Lakeville. Her half-uncle had a cottage on Conesus Lake. It must have made for some rollicking Thanksgivings, what with all Harry's people trooping through too. But everybody hunted, so there was plenty of squirrel stew to go around.

  * * * *

My great-grandmother was born Anna Sans in 1864. She was the only child of her mother's second marriage, to George Sans. Younger than George by 8-10 years, Anna's mother, Sophia, was born in Germany (Baden) in 1824, emigrated to the US in 1852, and had two children from her first marriage, to a man surnamed Nelson. Son John F. Nelson was born in Rochester in 1855, daughter Louise came along in 1858.

George Sans was also born in Baden. In Rochester City directories, beginning in 1861, George is found working in a saloon, then a meat market; next he's a steward in Rochester's first skyscraper, the Powers Building. They lived at 27, then 21, then 40 Martin Street. The Bausch & Lomb factory was a block away.  

In 1885, George's occupation is hack driver. Patrick Punch also drove a hack. Same neighborhood. Patrick's son and George's daughter may have met because their fathers knew each other. Or it could have been that both families attended St. Bridget's Church, then located on Gorham Street, at the end of Martin Street. For the Sans family, it was much closer than St. Joseph's, the German Catholic church. Mass was in Latin, it mightn't have mattered what language they spoke at home.   

In a history of St. Bridget's, established in 1854 to serve "the Dublin District" of Rochester, William Punch is identified as one of the key players in its founding. Since William V. Punch wasn't born yet, and his father's name was Patrick, this feeds my suspicion that Patrick had a father and/or a brother named William.  It suggests why, with all those Williams in the family, he gave his son the distinctive middle name Vincent, and why my great-grandfather was always known as William V. Punch. This V. middle initial became the center of each of his children's names as well: Raymond Vincent, born 1890, Ruth Vandia b. 1895, and Rena V., b. 1899.

Growing up, I knew that William V. had died in a railroad accident when Gram was little. I assumed that he'd worked on the railroad. When I started investigating census records, I saw that his occupation was salesman.  So I figured he was a salesman for the railroad. Finally I found the 1902 newspaper article about his death (Mortuary Matters). William V. never worked on or for the railroad, he was just walking on the tracks at 4 in the morning and a Lehigh Valley freight train mowed him down.

"Punch had been employed at the Glenny store for the last seven years and had charge of the picture frame department there. He was formerly with the Sibley, Lindsay & Curr Company in its picture frame department, which business he had followed all his life."

In the 1880 city directory, Anna Sans, age 16, has an occupation: frame maker.

So finally, it occurs to me that William met Anna through their mutual line of work. Framing.  I like this picture.      

Squirrel Stew

~ 3 squirrels, cleaned and cut up ~ 1/4 cup all purpose flour ~ 1 teaspoon salt ~ 1/2 teaspoon pepper ~ 2 slices bacon ~ 2 tablespoons butter ~ 5 cups of water ~ 1 - 28 oz can whole tomatoes ~ 1 chopped onion ~ 1 heaping tablespoon of brown sugar ~ 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes ~ 1 - 10 oz package frozen lima beans ~ 1 cup frozen corn ~ 3 tablespoons all purpose flour

Combine 1/4 cup flour, salt and pepper. Coat the squirrel pieces. In a Dutch oven, combine bacon and butter over medium heat until butter melts. Add squirrel and brown. Add water, tomatoes, onion and brown sugar and bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove squirrel pieces and let cool. Remove meat from bones. Add meat, potatoes, beans and corn to Dutch oven. Heat to boiling, reduce heat and cover. Simmer until potatoes are tender. Mix 3 tablespoons of flour with 3 tablespoons of cold water, then stir into stew. Heat to boiling. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, bubbly. Serve with warm rolls and enjoy!

             

Angle of repose

Charles Osborn Makes Beautiful Table Using 5,000 Pieces of Varied Kinds of Wood from All Over the World

From The Livonia Gazette, November 25, 1943

Charles Osborn may be 73 years old but that he is still young in ideas of beauty can be readily seen in the table made by him and now on display in one of Reed & Reed's windows.

Mr. Osborn, who lives with his daughter, Mrs. Harold Harvey, at Conesus lake, has for many years had a hobby of making beautiful articles of furniture.  From a firm in New York he is able to obtain wood from Brazil, Africa, India, China, Peru, in fact from almost every country in the world, and from this wood -- balsa from India and Peru, white holly from New Zealand, lace wood and satin wood from Australia, zebra wood from India, tulip wood from China, and ebony from Africa -- are his articles of furniture produced.

In the table on display in the Livonia store, he has put 5,000 different pieces and 140 hours of labor. The wood is left in its natural color with no stain applied and then rubbed to a smooth satin finish. The base of the table is made of ply-wood, with the different kinds of wood set in to form a pattern, which Mr. Osborn carries throughout on the table.

The pattern of harmony produced by Mr. Osborn and the strength and beauty of the finished product brings a picture of what it would mean, if all the countries from which this wood was originally obtained, could be as closely and strongly united.

End of article. Flash forward to 2011. I thought that a very graceful end to the article, by the way.

Just sorting through ironies here.

Born a bastard, after what had to have been a humiliating childhood, after losing his first child before it was born, after becoming at age 29 a widower with two small mouths to feed, it appears that Charles lived on, made it through the depression, and lived through two thirds of World War II. From various sources, I've learned that he married again. He found a career as an insurance agent. He lived in Irondequoit, New York.  At some point, he shot his grandson, but that's a separate story.

It seems that he came to an angle of repose, living in his daughter's home. His daughter, whom he couldn't or didn't take care of when she was very little, took him in.  Floss was a great cook and home maker, the kind who did a lot of canning and pickling.  He had it made: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks.

Near the end of his life, the cards went up in the air, the world went to war. His grandson, his namesake, joined the army and nobody knew if he'd come back. Maybe because it was time (he had earned retirement), maybe because his wife died, maybe because he was weary, lonely, and afraid, Charles found his way home to Conesus Lake, his ancestral stomping grounds. He spends his remaining oxygen applied to an effort to piece things together. 

That table, his masterpiece (besides Harry), was left to his daughter, Floss, who gave it to my parents as a wedding gift. I grew up with it. We didn't know from art.  At some point, someone decided that it would better serve as a coffee table. Following a period during which it was the ideal size for me and my sister to sit on, it came to a end.

 

You know what happens to rickety coffee tables. After one too many drinks on top of that, this Livonia Gazette-worthy work of art, now existing in time and space only here, became an embarrassment. I believe my parents threw it out.

I wish I'd been a better photographer but in 1977,

this lighting (see the light?) was the best I could do

 

when Aunt Floss brought out this photograph of
her father, my great-grandfather, Charles Osborne.

An example of his craftsmanship would be its frame.

When they went to the city

 

Rochester, New York. Two words, water power. Say hello to the Genesee River, shown here rattling its sword, being all mighty and majestic -- and just a tad terrifying.  First it ran flour mills. As people became prosperous, or at least made a living, they set up a city.  They loaded the flour onto barges, and floated it down to New York City and parts east via the cheap transportation provided by the Erie Canal. 

We sang, "I've got a mule, her name is Sal, 15 years on the Erie Canal."   

I felt sorry for Sal.  In 7th grade, I couldn't have been less interested in the history of New York state or the city of Rochester.  Now I'm all feverish. Yesterday at the library, I found Blake McKelvey's Rochester, The Water-Power City 1812-1854.  It looked like nobody's taken it out since 1945. I asked the person at check out the they'd sell it to me. You might say he hissed, "The library does not sell books." His thought bubble read: Now get the fuck outta here.

*  *  *

America was moving from an agrarian to an industrial economy.  Henry's descendants opted out of potato farming. Only one of his four sons by Catharine stayed in Livonia Center. The others moved up to Rochester. My grandfather Charles worked downtown as an insurance agent, but lived in the northeast suburb of Irondequoit, but I haven't found where. It might have been near his brother, Myron, who lived in West Irondequoit, an area along the Lake Shore Boulevard called Summerville.  

Irondequoit

Throughout the 1920's and 30's, a visit to Grandpa Osborne would have meant a trip to Irondequoit, a suburb northeast of Rochester, where both Charles and his brother Myron lived. Myron's two daughters were Harry's first cousins, and both daughters had kids, so my father would see his cousins. They lived in an area right where the Genesee River flowed into Lake Ontario. It was called Summerville. Doesn't that sound fun?


Irondequoit was bounded by the Genesee River, Lake Ontario, and Irondequoit Bay. Geologists have a name for an area of land bounded by a river, a lake, and a bay. It's a headland. Who knew? I just found out. Only took me 64 years.  

There was tons of stuff to do in Irondequoit. You could ride the Jack Rabbit at Sea Breeze Park.



You could go swimming in the natatorium at Sea Breeze.


If the largest salt water pool in the world wasn't big enough for you, you could shiver your ass off in Lake Ontario.



If you didn't know how to swim, there was someone always ready to get on a stool and teach you.



If you didn't care to get wet, Irondequoit had Durand-Eastman Park. It had a zoo. Apparently, you could ride the camels. You had to bring costumes.


Or you could just eat.



I could go on and on. And I did. My father moved us to Irondequoit in 1952. The party line was that Daddy needed to be closer to Kodak. But I suspect that part of the reason is that he'd always liked it here.

Uncle George

Right around the first of March each year, my mother's disposition would show signs of improvement and she'd get even nicer as the fifteenth came closer.  On that day, second in joyfulness only to Christmas at our house, my parents would crack open the Standard Ale and raise a glass, many of them, to Uncle George. The revelry lasted for a week or so, and the beer flowed, and Uncle George was toasted up the wazoo. So were my parents. We'd get a new washer, some years a new car, if the old one was junked up enough. Fresh blacktop on the driveway.  Things that make life good.  Then everybody would simmer down and go back to their normal mood.

That annual bonus was a big reason why people liked working for Kodak. My father had other reasons to enjoy his job.  As a chemical engineer, his profession combined his hobby, photography, with his expertise, mixing chemicals. He learned how to do that in the Army. Chemical warfare specialist Captain Charles E. Osborne was always shooting film, then he'd take it into the lab and futz with ways to make reds less yellow, greens less blue. Walt Disney was Kodak's biggest client.  Our refrigerator stored so many yellow boxes of Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Kodacolor, Ektacolor and various versions of Koda and EKta, there wasn't much space for food. Until we got a new refrigerator. That, too, was paid for with the check from Uncle George.

It did somewhat puzzle me that although he was rolling in dough, Uncle George didn't give us a lot more money a lot more often than once a year.  If we were related to somebody that rich, what explained why I was driving a second-hand bike?  And how come we couldn't have a pool in our backyard?

We'd drive by Uncle George's magnificent East Avenue mansion and I'd go, "Why can't we go inside and get some money?"  

 Uncle George's house.

  
 Our house.

Kids who grow up in Rochester NY learn about George Eastman along with George Washington. We had the Eastman School of Music, the Eastman Theater; our bank was Eastman Savings & Loan.  I attended Durand-Eastman School.  We took our sleds to Durand-Eastman Park.  Try to avoid knowing who George Eastman was, you couldn't.

Being a fairly smart kid, it didn't take me long, just most of my childhood, to figure out that George Eastman was MY UNCLE GEORGE.


Uncle George
 
Eventually I learned the reason I'd never met him. He was dead.  Dead people held special allure for me.  I had a grandmother who was dead; she fascinated me. But Uncle George had been terribly rich, so I was especially sorry that he was dead.  If he'd stayed alive, he could have met me and we'd have been friends. Because he never married or had children, I could have been the daughter he so much longed for, in which case I'd have had a really beautiful bedroom with my own TV set, HiFi, Princess phone, and canopy bed in his enormous mansion. Not to mention a decent bike. Plus a horse, there was tons of room for one.

However, and isn't this just how life goes. Instead of buying me the lavish lifestyle I could have had if he'd just stuck around and gotten to know me, George Eastman left his money to the University of Rochester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Tuskegee Institute. Go figure.