Week 40 - Cemetery - Dillingham

In 1632 Edward Dillingham immigrated into Massachusetts from Cottsbach, Leicestershire, England and settled in the town of Lynn.  In 1637, Edward was one of ten men who were sent by the King of England to found the town of Sandwich, the first English town on Cape Cod. All ten men received land grants for their work. Initially a Puritan, Edward later embraced Quaker beliefs. He played an active role in the community's civic affairs.

Edward had married Ursula Carter in 1614, and they had a total of seven children. I descent through their son Henry and his wife Hannah (Perry). Edward was my 8x great grandfather on my paternal side. (My grandma Porter was a Dillingham).

The oldest of my ancestor's burials in America would be that of Edward who was born 6 December 1594/1595 and died 1 May 1667 in Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts.  The original headstone for Edward has disappeared, though he shows on the cemetery map as being buried in plot #264.

Old Town Cemetery in Sandwich is also known as Old Burial Ground cemetery. It is the oldest cemetery that I have ever been in. There are over 40 Dillingham's buried in this cemetery. A treasure map of my ancestors!

At some point a memorial marker was made for Edward and also for Elder William Brewster.  It is said to be in Old Town Cemetery, but on Find A Grave it shows that it is located in Auburn, Maine.  That would be over 191 miles away from the town that he died in. Obviously, there is some research to be done. 

In 2008, my husband Dan and myself along with my sister Carolyn and her husband Ken took a trip to Boston. We rented a car and traveled to the Old Town Cemetery in Sandwich. Of course, we also toured Boston, Salem and drove the Lexington to Concord Road. With a stop to tour the replica of the Mayflower, see Plymouth Rock, and a nighttime visit to a cemetery in Salem it made for an awesome trip.

We had a memorable trip and hopefully, there will be many more cemetery visits for us. But it was very meaningful to be able to pay our respects to the first of the Dillingham's to travel to the New World.

Barbie

Week 39 - Disappeared - Porter

As a kid growing up in the 50's and 60's, there was a weekly routine that was followed by our family pretty much all the time.  As the middle of five daughters, I grew up with seven of us—Mom, Dad, and all us girls—crowded around the table at every meal.

Monday through Thursday, dinner went on the table at 6:00 PM. And you better be there. We all sat down together, ate together, said please and thank you and at the end of dinner, you asked to be excused and took your plate to the kitchen. My job was to set the table and then after dinner I was expected to sweep the dining room floor. My older sisters would start the dishes, but the younger ones were excused from those nightly chores.

On meatless Fridays it was pancakes, French toast, macaroni and cheese or tuna casserole. 

On Sunday's we would all read the paper and fight over the funny pages.  By the time all five of us, plus Mom would read the paper it was a total mess. I loved reading Ann Landers and checking out any weddings and engagement announcements. I remember having Silly Putty and spreading it out thin and putting it over my favorite cartoon and then peeling it back to see the imprint.

Stock photo

Sunday dinner was served at 2:00 PM. Sharp. And my favorite was mom's roasts...beef and pork roasts together in the big red roaster with potatoes and carrots. She would make enough gravy for thrashers and would make biscuits and apple salad also. The salad was made with lettuce and chopped apples, and mom would make a mayo dressing for it. It was such a simple thing, but very memorable. Dessert wasn't common, except during strawberry season. Then it was shortcake time.

Those times of daily traditions, family discussions at the table and working together seem to be a thing of the past.  Those days have disappeared and they are sorely missed.

Barbie

 

Week 38 - Animals - Sheridan

The 1880 Agriculture Census of Gratiot County, Michigan shows a complete listing of animals that were on the original Sheridan farm that was located just south of the town of Fulton. To those that read these missives...Fulton became the town of Perrinton.

My 2x great grandfather Patrick Sheridan and his wife Margaret started the farm and grew it into a thriving homestead. Their son Michael and his wife Elizabeth (my great grandparents) expanded the farm into supplying the Poultry Hall with the excess animals that were produced on those acres. 

The agriculture census reads like a farm diary. It starts with land owned (160 acres), land tilled (80 acres), woodland and forest (80 acres), products grown - Hay, clover, oats, corn, wheat, potatoes (Irish!), orchards with apples and peaches. Vineyards with grapes and harvesting lumber from the wooded areas of their land.

And animals!

Milch cows, beef cattle, hogs, sheep and lambs, chickens and other poultry, and horses.

To put it into perspective - a milch (milk) cow could produce three to five gallons of milk per day. The average weight of a gallon of milk is eight pounds. It took 21 pounds of milk to make one pound of butter. 

And that doesn't account for the fact that it took 2 - 4 hours to churn, wash and salt a pound of butter, after it sat to for a few hours to let the cream rise. And they averaged 400 pounds of butter made in a year from their four cows. The average cost of a pound of butter was $.30.

My head hurts...I was never any good at math! 

Then when you gather the eggs, (350 dozen in 1879) feed the chickens, feed the animals in the barn, shear the sheep, spin the wool - well you get the picture about the animals. 

A lot of work.

1880 Gratiot County, Michigan agriculture census

But I can see why Patrick and Elizabeth began the Poultry Hall. The farm itself produced enough to feed, clothe and support their family of seven children along with family from the previous generation and still have a surplus.

The income from what was produced from those animals averaged $2500.00 a year if the majority was sold. That would be about $80,000.00 in today's market. 

Proof that we come from hard working, resourceful ancestors.

Barbie

Week 37 - In the News - Sheridan

My grandparents John and Pauline (Prince) Sheridan took over the family business from grandpa's parents, Michael and Elizabeth (Holland) Sheridan. Michael had taken it over from his parents Patrick and Margaret (Hughes) Sheridan. It was named the M E Sheridan Poultry Hall, and they processed chickens, turkeys, etc. and also shipped eggs and meat to Detroit to market. All the poultry were raised on the family farm that was located south of the town of Perrinton, Michigan. It was a small community with a population of approximately 300 people. 

ME Sheridan Poultry Hall - John O Sheridan on right at upper level

Michael Sheridan standing in front with moustache

It was a thriving business for the area and the times. I grew up with the story that when my mom was a baby the business burned down, and all was lost as they did not have insurance on the building or contents. From then on, it seemed like they moved around a lot into different houses never straying from town. Grandpa worked often for the government planting trees (CCC during the war?) and Grandma somehow seemed to keep body and soul together.

Mom told stories about her brother Rexie going hunting for deer, squirrel and other small game for dinner and of walking the railroad tracks behind Borden's to pick up pieces of coal for heat in the winter. By standards, they were poor, but they didn't seem to know it. They went to school, played with friends, and generally lived day to day just like anyone else during the days of the depression and going forward into the beginnings of WWII.

Mom and her sisters, Agnes and Alice were having a discussion about when the hall burned down one time and Aunt Aggie swore that "Rain was just a baby" when it happened. I never followed up on the timing over the years until one day I was at the Library of Michigan reading newspapers on microfilm looking for obituaries.

A lightbulb went off and I thought...maybe it made the news(paper)...after all it affected more than just their family.

I found it on the front page of the Gratiot County Herald newspaper on December 20, 1925. My mom was born January 5, 1924, so she would have been just shy of 2 years old when the fire happened. 

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PERRINTON IS HIT BY LARGE FIRE FRIDAY

Three Business Places Are Wiped Out With Loss Estimated at $12,000

Fire completely wiped out three business places in Perrinton early last Friday morning with an estimated loss of $12,000. The fire started in the John Sheridan building and spread rapidly through the frame structures until it had also enveloped Clarence Helms' Recreation parlor and Fred Richards general store. After the Perrinton Chemical tank proved inadequate fire trucks were called from Maple Rapids, St. Johns and Alma but arrived too late to stop the flames.

Mr. Sheridan who lives on the second floor of his building, arose about five o'clock that morning, and, after building a fire, returned to bed. Soon afterwards flames were discovered in the interior of his building thought to have started from a defective chimney. Fire quickly consumed the double front two-story building with all of its contents including the household furniture and equipment for the produce business. Mr. Sheridan had $1000 insurance on the building and $150 on the contents which only partially covered the loss.

Mr. Helms carried no insurance, and his building was entirely raised (sic).

Mr. Richards carried $3100 insurance on his stock and building. He is moving his goods into the building formerly occupied by Bert Carson's Hardware where he will continue in business.

Many thanks is extended to the fire departments and townspeople for their great help in saving the surrounding buildings. The George Carr building was badly scorched but was kept from burning by the use of chemicals.

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The article answered those questions and generated a few more. Yes, mom was just a baby, and all was lost. But they did have insurance and in today's dollars it would have been equal to $26,600.00 today. Why they didn't rebuild or start another business I don't know. Maybe grandpa felt bad and helped the other businesses rebuild? They still had the farm south of town at that point although Great Uncle John Sheridan and his wife Audrey lived there.  

Questions I never thought to ask. Maybe one of you did? Let me know please.

Barbie

Week 36 - Off to School - Porter

This prompt conjures up lots of ideas...schoolteachers, students, what I loved and hated about my school years. Here are two people from the same small town, 44 years apart in age and from two different generations, yet they impacted youth, each in their own way.

My favorite person involved with school was my mom. Lorraine (Sheridan) Porter. The year I went into the 7th grade at Central Intermediate School in Midland, Michigan my mom went to work in the cafeteria! Horrors! My mom would be able to know everything I was doing. The friends I made, teachers that didn't like me. She would suddenly 'know all'! Thanks Carolyn (my sister) for talking her into applying at the school just so she would be able to be off in the summers and Holidays to make it easier for the 'littles'...my two younger sisters. 

But actually, mom going to work in 1965 made it easier for me. She always had change in her pocket so if I forgot to get my 35¢ for lunch, I just went through her line instead of the one I was supposed to get in. She never asked me how my day was going, it's as if I didn't exist. She was doing her job, not taking care of me. 

She was 40 years old when she went to work there and she worked for 24 years for Midland Public Schools. My husband would talk about how wonderful lunches were at Central and how lousy they were at the High School. And he remembered mom in the lunchroom and so have many other people over the years. She had a knack of remembering names and faces and we would often chat about different people she had interacted with. 

She wore a white uniform dress and white shoes.  She would go out to work in the morning just before 7am and she worked until 2:30pm. It gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling to have her so close for those three years at school.

The other person was a member of the Sheridan family that little would be known about. Grandpa Sheridan's first cousin.

His name was Claude Joseph Miller. He was born May 24, 1880, in Fulton township, Gratiot County, Michigan. Fulton became the town of Perrinton, due to the fact there was another town named Fulton already in Michigan.

Claude was the son of Michael Francis 'Frank' Miller and his wife Margaret Sheridan. Margaret was the daughter of Patrick and Margaret (Hughes) Sheridan. She was more commonly known as Maggie. The younger sister of my great grandfather Michael Sheridan.

Claude was the youngest of their two sons and when he was out of Fulton schools, he proceeded to teach in Perrinton for two years. He then headed West and worked in the harvest fields of North Dakota. Afterwards he went to Minnesota and spent two years working in the logging camps. By 1902, he had returned to his hometown and proceeded to enroll at the Central State Normal at Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. (CMU) 

After five and half years, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching) and a life certificate for teaching in Michigan.

Claude married Mabel Demoray 26 June 1911 in Shepherd, Michigan. Mabel was also a teacher when they married. In 1920, she was not teaching, but in 1930 she is again listed as a teacher. They had three children Woodrow, Margaret and Marie. 

In 1915 he was hired by Ecorse, Michigan to serve as Superintendent of Schools in that city. He helped to develop and expand Ecorse schools and worked there for 24 years, only leaving because of death. He died 28 Aug 1939 in Lincoln Park, Michigan. Both he and his wife are buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Detroit. 

The Claude J Miller Elementary School (School One) was named following his death and although the original building was torn down and rebuilt in the 1990s his name is still attached to it.

Barbie