According to a fellow family researcher, Henry Osborne was (still is, if you want to think about it this way) the son of a Stephen Osborn born in East Windsor CT in 1794. This Stephen married Polly Parsons in 1816. They migrated to Ossian NY with his father, Elijah. In 1836, Stephen divorced Polly and married a Sue Hungerford. In 1838, they moved to Michigan, taking three sons from Stephen's first family by Polly; all except Henry.
This always struck me as fishy. Divorce wasn't that common back then. He took all her sons with him except Henry? Wither went Polly? There's no record of her until 1870, when she's living with Henry in Livonia NY. The census records that she was born in Connecticut. So Bob went looking for a Stephen Osborn who married a Polly from CT at about the time Henry was born, 1814-1818. Thanks to impeccable record keeping by Connecticut, he found one in which names and dates fit. And this Stephen went west to where? Ossian NY. He's there in the census of 1820 and 1830.
It's the perfect genealogical storm of right names, right dates, right migration pattern; right neck of the upstate New York woods. I thought he was right. I've spent the past couple of years tracing Osbornes from East Windsor CT, and I've grown to know and love them.
Now I find out that Polly Parsons Osborne died in 1837. So she couldn't have been the Polly Osborne living with Henry in 1870 (unless they had her propped up in the corner with Jerusha). Sad, but rather a relief, since I didn't like to think about my poor great-great-great grandmother wandering around the wilds of western New York state after being divorced by a husband who then married a younger woman and took their kids to Michigan. And it certainly puts Stephen in less of an asshole light.
I am officially hot on the trail of a new Stephen.
East Windsor Osbornes, I may run into you later.
1/2/12
1/1/12
Wild about Harry
Grandson of Henry Osborne, Harry Osborn. Note the drop of the e, which causes so much confusion while tracing Osbornes.
Where the saga so far crops up in the middle is my grandfather, Harry, born 1895 in Rochester NY. I'm just wild about Harry. Who wouldn't be. My grandmother was. Just look at him.
He never got any less adorable.
Harry had a hard life, but I always remember him laughing, smiling, beaming at me. Injecting himself with the insulin he needed to live. He was relatively successful by Livingston County NY standards. Had a farm. Raised mink. Managed the local ice company. Volunteered as a fireman. Kept the brotherhood as a Mason. Not sure if he went to church, although it was right across the road. But no matter. Lots of good people never set foot in church. Harry raised a good man in my father. He was a top-notch Grampy.
He liked roast beef. He pronounced it rrrrROAST BIFF. Like a big Dutch giant, he roared and rolled that initial r for as long and loud as he could, just because he could. And because it utterly delighted me and my sister.
We often ran into Harry, holding court on the porch of The Commercial Hotel with other local farmers, small businessmen, volunteer firemen. Brother Masons. Gramp could consistently be counted on to give me a nickel and tell me to go buy an ice cream cone. I don't know what my mother did with all those nickels. I never got any ice cream cones.
Harry was born in 1895, his mother died in 1900. His father had to support two small children, which he did by becoming an insurance salesman. He couldn't earn a living and still be at home to care for two little kids, so it was given to their mother's mother, Cornelia Kusse, to watch them. By every account we have, one, Harry was a handful. From orphan, he graduated to borderline juvenile delinquent and was finally evicted from his own grandma's house after roasting a live rabbit. Or let's pray, trying to. Let's trust that Grandma Kusse was alert enough to smell something furry in the oven and the rabbit came out just slightly singed, but still alive. Never liked Harry much after, though.
In census records of 1910, Harry and his sister Floss (Florence) live with their father. At age 15, Harry is listed as a machinist. Perhaps this is how he learned how to carve up dead horses, the best food for raising robust mink.
At some point after 1910, the kids went to live with their father's brother, Uncle Bill, back in Livonia Center. Uncle Bill, for those of you who have been following, was once known as Willie Whaley. I blame no one for not following. This family is damn confusing.
One summer's day around 1915, Harry attended a chicken barbecue in Lakeville, NY and met the woman who became my grandmother, Ruth Vandia Punch. By 1917, he was living in Hemlock with his wife and new baby, working for the city of Rochester public works department. Here is where they lived.
Here, the whole gang. Notes ("Everybody Happy") by Ruth Punch Osborn, the lucky gal who married Harry. The gang's all gathered around my father Charles, born in June, 1917. As important to him as his parents were his Aunt Floss, Harry's sister, and her husband, Harold Harvey. They never had kids, so my father and his sister Rae were their children. This is one of just two photos I have of my great-grandmother, Ruth's mother, Anna Sans Punch. She's the one wearing the tie.
Harry named his son after his father, Charles. The bastard he may have been, and technically was, Charles E. Osborne senior found some place in his son's heart and his name was honored in the next generation.
Where the saga so far crops up in the middle is my grandfather, Harry, born 1895 in Rochester NY. I'm just wild about Harry. Who wouldn't be. My grandmother was. Just look at him.
He never got any less adorable.
Harry had a hard life, but I always remember him laughing, smiling, beaming at me. Injecting himself with the insulin he needed to live. He was relatively successful by Livingston County NY standards. Had a farm. Raised mink. Managed the local ice company. Volunteered as a fireman. Kept the brotherhood as a Mason. Not sure if he went to church, although it was right across the road. But no matter. Lots of good people never set foot in church. Harry raised a good man in my father. He was a top-notch Grampy.
He liked roast beef. He pronounced it rrrrROAST BIFF. Like a big Dutch giant, he roared and rolled that initial r for as long and loud as he could, just because he could. And because it utterly delighted me and my sister.
We often ran into Harry, holding court on the porch of The Commercial Hotel with other local farmers, small businessmen, volunteer firemen. Brother Masons. Gramp could consistently be counted on to give me a nickel and tell me to go buy an ice cream cone. I don't know what my mother did with all those nickels. I never got any ice cream cones.
Harry was born in 1895, his mother died in 1900. His father had to support two small children, which he did by becoming an insurance salesman. He couldn't earn a living and still be at home to care for two little kids, so it was given to their mother's mother, Cornelia Kusse, to watch them. By every account we have, one, Harry was a handful. From orphan, he graduated to borderline juvenile delinquent and was finally evicted from his own grandma's house after roasting a live rabbit. Or let's pray, trying to. Let's trust that Grandma Kusse was alert enough to smell something furry in the oven and the rabbit came out just slightly singed, but still alive. Never liked Harry much after, though.
In census records of 1910, Harry and his sister Floss (Florence) live with their father. At age 15, Harry is listed as a machinist. Perhaps this is how he learned how to carve up dead horses, the best food for raising robust mink.
At some point after 1910, the kids went to live with their father's brother, Uncle Bill, back in Livonia Center. Uncle Bill, for those of you who have been following, was once known as Willie Whaley. I blame no one for not following. This family is damn confusing.
One summer's day around 1915, Harry attended a chicken barbecue in Lakeville, NY and met the woman who became my grandmother, Ruth Vandia Punch. By 1917, he was living in Hemlock with his wife and new baby, working for the city of Rochester public works department. Here is where they lived.
Harry named his son after his father, Charles. The bastard he may have been, and technically was, Charles E. Osborne senior found some place in his son's heart and his name was honored in the next generation.
12/31/11
The relationship of relativity to relatives
wormhole
 |
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.
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.
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.
12/30/11
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.
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.
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