taylorbakercousins

Evelyn Taylor Turns Ninety!

2012-01-27T11:25:00.001-05:00

This picture was taken in Evelyn's hotel room soon after arriving. Photo collage is from New Zealand family. Roses and chocolate- covered strawberries were from Mitch and Rhonda.

Pam, Lance, Amanda, Evelyn and friend, Charlie at Christmas time

Evelyn June Laufer Taylor, wife of Bryant Taylor (son of Floyd— you just read about his home appendectomy) turned ninety earlier this month. Bryant and Eve have three children—Lance, Mitchell and Pamela.

Eve writes:

I had my 90th birthday bash this past week. It was wonderful-- small luncheon at the Homestead (Lance and Amanda's 1832 home here in Le Roy) orchestrated by Pam. Then on Friday, Pam and I, Lance and Amanda went to Niagara Falls, US to stay overnight at the Seneca Casino.

Here, I was surprised to have my granddaughter, Shiloh Taylor, (Mitch's daughter who lives in Toronto) join us. We had a super dinner at the Red Coach Inn and then gambled for only an hour----the machines now do not take coins, but eat your five dollar bills---FAST! Lance won 14 cents, but I won $20.25 (came out $10 ahead).

Saturday, we braved the elements and viewed the Falls after returning to the Red Coach Inn for a wonderful breakfast next to a roaring fire. The finale to our stay was a concert at the Casino. Two people, impersonating Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand, sang and interacted with the audience for an hour and a half. Of course, Sinatra's music began when I was in college. I remember hearing, and shaking my head, at the silliness of these young kids, called Bobby Soxers, who were screaming and swooning when Frankie sang. He started it all!!!! Some of his songs Saturday brought tears to my eyes (and to others, I later heard).

It was all wonderful!

Eve, Congratulations on this milestone birthday--you look beautiful AND young!

Family Reunions--Summertime, Singing and CrackerJacks! By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2012-01-21T12:08:00.000-05:00

It is snowing and cold outside today. I LOVE winter, but all of this snow makes me long for the sunny warmth of summertime also. And, we all know that summertime means family reunions, whether they be at Uncle Harold's cottage, a pavilion at a nearby Finger Lake, or Aunt Sylva's farmhouse. Here are a few pictures to get you thinking of family get-togethers:

Taylor Reunion, 1989--Harold, Arnon, Ruth, CB, Doris

Sylva's home, 1955--Ruth in the forefront, Neil Maffei across the table, Charlie Lochner, Aunt Lil, Esther, Rick Lochner, Bob Coleman and Philly

September 1975--Wendell, Harold, Barb Taylor, Sylva

Taylor Reunion, 1983--We always had CrackerJacks!! And, as the night wore on, the songsheets came out and the singing began. Chuck Lochner leads us on his guitar and SpiderMan is my brother Chris (looks like he created that shirt himself, but I am not sure!).

Baker Reunion, September 1964 --Taughannock Falls State Park

Lots of Relatives here!

A huge thank you to my father, Jack Kinsella for taking so many pictures over the years at all of the family reunions--I have such a large number to pull from!

And, in this snowy January, a shout out to all of the Taylor Baker cousins sick or in the hospital this month. May you heal quickly, may your strength return tenfold, and may we soon be singing by the campfire and crunching through our box of CrackerJacks. Prayers to all of you!

Floyd Taylor—An Appendectomy at Home By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2012-01-15T13:34:00.000-05:00

Floyd Taylor

Back Row: Floyd, his father Bryant Waller Taylor,
Front Row: Rex and Bryant, Floyd's sons

Another slice of life from the journal of Emma Carson Taylor, my great grandmother.

In January of 1910, Bryant and Emma Taylor live on their farm in Oakfield, NY with their children and Bryant’s father, Daniel. Daniel’s wife, Cordelia (yes, if she is familiar, it is because we have often quoted from her voluminous journals) died eighteen months earlier and Daniel still talks to his Delia as if she were alive.

Floyd, twin of Lloyd Taylor, is seventeen years old. Just two and a half years earlier, the family watched their darling Millie die at age six in their home. Emma brings flowers regularly—pansies were Millie’s favorites--to the cemetery and her journal is filled with missing her littlest girl. To witness Floyd become so sick so quickly must have been very scary for all.

Less than ten years earlier, British doctors were not recommending surgery for appendicitis. So, it must have been a fairly new operation—and to take place at your home!

January, 1910:

“Thursday Floyd helped the boys husk corn and got some chilled. On Friday morning, he was taken with a stomach ache which kept up until we thought best to call Dr. Messinger. He came twice New Year’s and has been here twice today.

January 16th, Sunday:

Everything is beautifully white with snow and frost this morning. Sleighing is good.

It has been two weeks since the last writing. Since that time, we have had another never to be forgotten time of our lives. On Monday following that writing, the Doctor came once. Floyd was growing better.

Floyd read and stayed around all day; at night, he felt some worse and tired, went to bed only to roll and toss all night. Was sick on Thursday morning, so remained in bed. Friday I decided to call the doctor who came and we did all we could for him in the line of poultices and salves, but he steadily grew worse and more feverish, with a rapid pulse and symptoms worsened.

Doctor came twice, holding off the thought of an operation, for he knew Bryant and I did not think best to have one unless it was necessary. When he came Sunday morning, January 9th, we soon saw that he feared to wait longer. The swelling was growing larger.

So it was decided that Doctor and Mrs. Cottis of Batavia and Dr. and Mrs. Messinger should meet and perform our operation in the afternoon.

Leon, Lloyd and Florence were at church. They had not been home but a short time when the Doctors and their wives came. All thought of dinner was dropped and soon everything was in readiness.

The picture it made in our dining room shall not be forgotten in years to come (which I think means the dining room table was the operating table!). Floyd was brave as a boy could very well be, and while I could hardly make up my mind that it must be, he said “Now Momma, don’t you go and upset any plans made.” They gave him chloroform in his bed, carried him down, spent two hours over him—from 3:30 until 5:30—and carried him back.

It was some time before he began coming to. As he says, he spent one of the most miserable nights he ever had or wishes to—sick, thirsty, terrible. He can scarcely describe it. He couldn’t have but a few drops of warm water at a time all through the first twelve hours, then we gradually gave him cold water until the doctor said he could have all he wanted. For three nights, Papa and I were up with him so never changed our clothes. Last night, he slept all night without waking. We surely would not like to pass through such an experience again.

What about Leon and the rest of the children? Well, we might say they have suffered a great deal in thought during this ordeal, as we surely all have. I hope we are stronger and better. We surely have had to face probable death, and life looked frail at best during the worst of it. Work that had to be done was done, the rest has gone undone. We are all very happy today for things look brighter.

Oysters and ice cream for dinner.”

Oysters were special treats, usually only for holidays in their house. Ice cream too meant it was a festive event.

One week later:

“All of our relatives are some concerned about not knowing about Floyd. Carlton (brother of Bryant) speaks of Walbridge not getting well as fast as they might wish (Walbridge—fourteen-year-old cousin of Floyd-- would die two months later from complications with diabetes—insulin was not used yet). Mary Taylor tells that a baby boy came to Jessie and Arnon Taylor Henry but never drew a breath. So the world jogs on and as we live each day we are trying to be more as our Savior would have us be and are well and happy with the dear ones about us.

Father Taylor knows nothing of Floyd’s troubles.”

As you may have guessed, by Floyd later marrying Aunt Goldie and having two boys, Rex and Bryant, Floyd survived his home operation. I try to think of what Emma and Bryant must have been coping with—this home filled with children and doctors and operating instruments and on top of that, they never told Grandpa Taylor, who also lived in their house! And, Emma’s last sentence, ‘to be well and happy with the dear ones about us.’ She so missed Millie but was trying to move on.

I passed this story on to Aunt CB (aka Mom) for any input, particularly on the medical side. She replied:

“For your understanding, hospitals were not used very much UNLESS all was lost until the mid to late 1920's. People were generally cared for at home. Surgery was the VERY last resort!

Even at Rochester General Hospital, the operating room was the library; filled with books-- the doctors wore their frock coats, seldom shirtsleeves. First "modern" addition was to wear a butcher’s apron [an idea one of the nurses had to save doctors’ clothes].

Appendicitis was not well known and not understood, so Dr. Messinger was very brave and ahead of his time. Chloroform was used then but rarely as it was so very flammable and remember, very little electricity then, hence must use daylight. Eventually, ether was to be used, still flammable but easier on the patient. With Chloroform one must be very careful not to give too much and kill the patient. Ether was still used in my day, when I was in Waterloo; I gave it many a time for deliveries. Not used much today I think, and even then, not much in big cities.”

Memories of Ruth Taylor Maney By Aunt CB

2012-01-08T20:06:00.004-05:00

Ruth Emma Taylor Maney, as many of you know, was the oldest child of Lloyd Taylor and Ethel Baker. Born in 1918, she married Thomas Maney in 1942 and lived her years in Geneva, NY. Aunt Ruth died in 2000. She would have been 94 years old on January 9th. As a Birthday Celebration, her little sister, Aunt CB, tells this story:

Some many years ago we were visiting daddy’s cousin who lived in Springville, N.Y. (where he was born.) She was the daughter of his Aunt Anna Carson Spencer, Helen Spencer Weber. She had married but had only one adopted daughter, so she was eager to pass along to a blood relative all of the voluminous genealogy she had spent years collecting. I was as eager to accept it as she was to give it, as with Mom and Daddy gone, I knew little of the Livingstons and I did not have any of Emma’s journals at that time.

Helen had tried to keep track of all of her grandmother’s siblings (her grandmother was Jane Livingston who had left N. Ireland in 1854, come to the USA and eventually married William Carson in Geneseo.) Jane was the oldest of 11 children so Helen had some job.

She had no idea how to keep track of everyone, so she went to her butcher and asked him for a few feet of his wrapping paper. This is what she spread out on her dining room table and under the heading of each of the eleven siblings she kept track of birthdays, weddings, babies and deaths through the years. Now she was ready to pass it along and luckily, I was there!

The butcher paper, all six feet or so of it, then spent some time in my drawer, as I was busy raising a family. However, whenever I could steal a half day away I’d head to Geneva, bringing the roll with me, and Ruth, having made sandwiches to save time, would help me to decipher the tiny crabbed writing and dates!

We’d spread it all out on her living room floor, (she had two adjoining rooms so we were lucky!) and take turns, one of us carefully crawling around on the paper on the floor, trying to read the dates and writing, the other one writing down on a tablet what the first one said. It was hard on the eyes (Helen scribbled some names) and harder on the knees but we’d persist, and after 3 or 4 times of this we’d finally achieved success!

We had names, dates, and at least one address to write to which eventually, after several years, led us to cousins in Scotland that we never knew we had. In 1973, when I went to Scotland, I did not have this information, but by the time Beth went there, years later, she was able to meet one of these cousins and made friends!

I do correspond with two of them and enjoy their letters but the real joy is the memory of Ruth and me, rolling around on her floor, exhausted after two or three hours of trying to connect the correct names with the proper dates, and going crazy over nothing and just laughing ourselves silly! There were few times in our grown up lives when we were free to do this and when we did get together we made the most of it.
I miss her!

January Birthdays, 2012! By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2012-01-02T11:57:00.000-05:00

Another year is upon us here at the Cousins Blog. Thank you all for your help in keeping this site going, in suggesting new stories, in sending your pictures of various cousins. We could not do it without all of you. If you have any ideas on stories you want researched or written, email me. If you want to write a short story on your ancestor, please do!!

And now, on to the Birthdays:

Jim Kinsella

(See the picture above? The bottom row, second boy from the left is little Jimmy. The picture is taken at Otty Lake in Canada)

Top row is Aunt Esther, Nancy Wright, Aunt CB,

Second Row is Dan Kinsella, Grandma Taylor, Tom Kinsella

Bottom Row is Ted Lochner, Jim Kinsella, Nancy's son Donnie, Beth Kinsella

Liz Lehmann

Paul and Angela Kinsella

In Aunt CB’s family, James Matthew Kinsella , Elizabeth Lehmann ( Dan Kinsella's wife), and Angela Cooper Kinsella, wife of Paul Kinsella, all are the January Kids.

Ruth Maney

Mike Maney

In Aunt Ruth Maney’s family, Ruth Taylor Maney herself is the Birthday girl. Aunt Ruth’s son, Michael James Maney also blows out candles.

In the Older Generation, Elmer Howland (Aunt Lil's husband), and Ruth Inez Baker (sister of Ethel, Adin and Lil), were born in January.

Elmer Howland

Ruth Baker

On the Taylor side, Bryant C. Taylor (son of Floyd) and his wife,Evelyn Taylor, both have birthdays this month.

Bryant and Eve Taylor

Max

In Aunt Leona’s family, Geoffry Max Body-Maffei (Neil Maffei's son) is the Birthday Kid of the month.

In Aunt Sylva’s family, Sylva Joyce Howland Emhof, and Norris Arnold (Linda Emhof's husband) have January Birthdays.

In Aunt Phyllis’ family, Dawn Coleman Walker (Phyllis Howland's daughter), and Justin Henderson, son of Ron Henderson, grandson of Wendell, both are January BDay Kids.

Dawn Coleman Walker

Beth, Lena, Allen, Nick

Josh Hart-Wood

Nancy, Eric, Shawn, Jon, Sandy ( Lester--Chic--Wood's children)

In Aunt Gladys’ family, Allen Smerchansky, husband of Beth Barron (daughter of Kathryn Wood Barron), and three of Lester (Chic) Wood’s sons (and so, grandsons of Aunt Gladys)-- Eric Wood, and twins Joshua and Jonathan Hart-Wood, all celebrate in January.

Mary

In Aunt Doris Hawkes’ family, Stephen Francis Hawkes, and Mary Ann Cannon Hawkes (Charlie's wife) celebrate this month.

Congratulations to all—Happy Birthday!

Christmas 2011 around the Cousins Blog

2011-12-29T17:30:00.001-05:00

Here are some pictures of our cousins on Christmas Day:

Dawn Coleman Walker, her daughter Kelley and her grand-daughter, Rene'e 

Bernie Walker

Chris, Matt, Tom, Tim and Jim Kinsella, Christmas Day

At The Homestead-- 1826 home that Lance and Amanda Taylor have in LeRoy. Pam Crane, Lance and Amanda Taylor and Evelyn Taylor ( who has her coat on, ready to go home, when they decided to take a family picture), and Pam's friend Charlie Poltenson.

Happy New Year to all the "Cousins, by the dozens."!

Christmas at Aunt CB and Uncle Jack's house

Nativity Sets at Aunt CB and Uncle Jack's house

Christmas at the Bernie and Dawn Walker's house

Hope these last few days of 2011 are good to all of you!

“I Want to See Christmas.” By Evelyn Taylor

2011-12-24T13:21:00.002-05:00

Evelyn Taylor, wife of Bryant Taylor, Aunt CB's cousin, often writes stories for our cousins' blog. Here is one she wrote for her great-granddaughter, Olive, who lives in New Zealand.

Chippy, the chipmunk who lived in a small backyard in a village named Le Roy, had heard stories of how beautiful Christmas was. It came every December, and where he lived, that month was a cold winter one, so he was always snug and asleep in his underground house until spring.

But, unlike other chipmunks, Chippy had a summer house above ground in a rock garden. Rock gardens are supposed to have flowers in them, but the dirt kept washing away, so it finally became just a pile of rocks with wonderful open places to play in, hide in, and scamper through to the top rock for a look at the world each morning.

Wondering how he could ever see Christmas, a brilliant idea “popped” into his head. He would use his “summer” house for one “winter” day, Christmas!

He set his day alarm clock for midnight December 25th, and when it rang, he dashed to the rock pile to wait. Nestled down in the lowest space, he could look right up through the top and see the sky.

As he was gazing intently, something wet, cold, and very soft fell on his nose, and more kept falling out of the sky. They were white and soft like dandelion fluff in the spring.

As he was blinking to keep these strange things out of his eyes, he suddenly saw a glorious bright star. He was so excited he kept jumping up and down. The star, of course, was the one that showed the shepherds and wise men the way to the manger where the baby Jesus lay sleeping in the manger so long ago.

Yes, Chippy had heard the wonderful story and that was why he always wanted to see Christmas, and he had at last!

Now, he could return to his underground home for the rest of the winter with the Peace and Joy of Christmas in his heart.

From all of us here at the Taylor Baker's Cousin Blog, Merry Christmas to all of you!! Wishing you much laughter and love today, Christmas Eve, and tomorrow, Christmas Day.

Dorothy Maffei in the News, By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-12-18T20:08:00.002-05:00

I think we all will be missing Aunt Leona for a very long time. But, this time on the blog, I want to do a ‘shout out’ to her daughter, Dorothy Maffei.

Dorothy has owned and operated ‘Home Goods’ in Margaretville, NY for fifteen years. When Hurricane Irene hit in late August, her village was one of the hardest hit. Dorothy immediately saw a need, and like her mother, stepped in: “We just started running around and doing stuff. We didn’t need titles or status. We were just happy to stay under the radar.”

One of the local newspapers called Dorothy ‘Margaretville's indefatigable flood relief volunteer organizer’.

Even two months later, Dorothy was continuing the effort:

“We continue to need help with cleaning out, ripping out sheetrock and paneling, and with assisting the Sweep Team and the Volunteer Center.

We need people to help with furniture pick-up and delivery. Any people w/ trucks would be great.

We are still in need of sofas and easy chairs that are in excellent shape.”

Dorothy, embarrassed by all of the media attention, made sure that she always stressed that it was a community effort, with many different people helping.

This December, the Shopmargaretville merchants’ group honored Dorothy by asking her to perform the tree lighting in Margaretville. For the small town, it was a way to show that Hurricane Irene had changed many things, but many things remained the same, indeed became stronger.

To paraphrase from ‘The Grinch Who Stole Christmas’:

‘Hurricane Irene hadn't stopped Christmas from coming, it *came*! Somehow or other... it came just the same.’

Dorothy, we are so proud of you. Have a very Merry Christmas AND a very Happy Birthday, as they are one and the same.

Welcome to the World, Dominic Carmelo Lochner!

2011-12-13T09:08:00.002-05:00

We got the news that Aunt Esther and Uncle Dick have another great grandchild.

On November 1^st, David Lochner's son, Stephen, and wife Christin had a baby boy. Dominic Carmello Lochner weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs., 15 ounces and was born via c-section because he wasn't due until November 17.

Steve explains to his aunt Julie: “Tomorrow is my day off and I will probably be up at least four times tonight. It's a good thing he's cute.”

Stephen and Dominic

Thank you for these pictures, Stephen and Christin—he IS cute! Congratulations go out to all three of you, and to all of the Lochner family.

"Great big kisses, Aunt Julie."

Aunt Leona's Funeral--December 2011 (New Photos as of 12/11)

2011-12-09T15:51:00.001-05:00

Aunt CB writes:

"After a two hour wake for Leona Howland Maffei in Syracuse, we attended a very meaningful service to commemorate her death. She was buried in the family plot with her husband, Neil, daughter, Carol Ann and son, Joe.

In the afternoon we gathered at Francesca’s Cucina for a wonderful Italian meal, the kind of food Leona liked and a wonderful way to honor her."

Many thanks go out to Chuck Lochner and Wendy Wood Osterhout for taking photos during the day, and then getting them ready for 'publication'--Great work!

You will find their photos on the right hand side of this blog--under December Birthdays. Look for 'Family Reunions and Get-Togethers' and then click on the Link for Leona's Funeral.

Back of Leona's Prayer Card

Front of Leona's Prayer Card

Laurel, Wendy, Freddy and Linda Emhof

Aunt CB, Abby, Dan and Uncle Jack

Leona Howland Maffei's Obituary

2011-12-01T16:54:00.001-05:00

Dorothy sent this along today. It will soon be in the Syracuse newspaper:

Leona Howland Maffei, 92, who lived her life with grace, courage, and humor, died peacefully at the home of her daughter Dorothy in New Kingston, NY on November 28th. She was born on March 24, 1919 in Center Lisle, NY. She had three younger sisters – Sylva, Phyllis and Gladys – who predeceased her.

She was also predeceased by her daughter Carol Anne, son Joseph and husband Neil C. Maffei Sr.. She is survived by her son Neil C. Maffei, Jr. (Patricia Body) of Syracuse, daughter Dorothy J. Maffei of New Kingston, her grandchildren Daniel B. Maffei (Abby Davidson), Sara L. Maffei, Andrew C. Maffei and Max Body-Maffei - and many nieces, nephews and relatives.

She graduated from Marathon High School and attended nursing school at Crouse Memorial in Syracuse. She married on Dec. 7th, 1939. She pursued her education throughout her life and was especially interested in art history, which she pursued as a continuing education student at Syracuse University for many years. That interest exemplified her insatiable desire to challenge herself and to excel in the things that interested her even if they brought her far away from her Southern Tier rural background.

She was an avid traveler and took pride in understanding the art and culture of the many places in the world that she visited. She and her husband also hosted foreign students studying at Syracuse University for many years. They sponsored a School of Management student Tan Nuygen, his wife, Viet and their children so they could immigrate to the United States after the Vietnam War, and considered them part of their family.

She worked tirelessly as a volunteer for both social and healthcare organizations in Central New York. She served on the boards of the American Red Cross, Meals on Wheels, the Corinthian Club, the League of Women Voters and others. She loved the arts and supported and attended regularly The Syracuse Symphony, Syracuse Stage, Syracuse Opera and The Everson Museum of Art where she also served as a docent for many years. She contributed to Francis House, Hospice of Central New York, The Leukemia Society, and was a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood.

She had an enormous love of food and often spoke of how her husband’s Italian-American family taught her to cook and then she continued to pursue both her cooking techniques and skills throughout her life. At her longtime home on Sedgwick Drive, she had over 200 varieties of roses and she was a lifelong member of the Onondaga Garden Club.

Calling hours will be at Farone & Sons, 1500 Park Street, Thursday Dec 8th at 10AM ending at Noon with a short Service & Burial at Woodlawn with a reception following from 1PM – 5PM at Francesca’s Cucina at 545 North Salina Street.

In lieu of flowers, donations to a favorite cause or organization would be appreciated.

December Birthdays, 2011 By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-12-01T12:36:00.001-05:00

December already?! Well, we certainly have lots to celebrate at the Cousins Blog, so let's get to it!

I love this picture of Freddy! From 1955

Dorothy Maffei

Aunt Esther

In Aunt Sylva’s family, Frederick F. Emhof ( Sylva’s husband) is the Birthday boy.

In Aunt Leona’s family, Dorothy Jean Maffei ( Leona’s daughter) has a December Birthday.

In Aunt Esther’s family, Esther Taylor Lochner is the Birthday Girl of the family.

Lena

Sara

Wendy

In Aunt Gladys’ family, Wendy Lee Wood Osterhout (daughter of Gladys), Allena Ruth Smerchansky (daughter of Beth Barron), Allison Marie Hart-Wood (daughter of Jon and Annie Hart-Wood, so grand-daughter of Chic Wood, and Sara Grace Osterhout (daughter of Wendy, granddaughter of Gladys) all have birthdays this month.

Levi

Kelley

In Aunt Phyllis’ family, Levi Wendell Henderson, son of David Henderson, grandson of Wendell, and Kelley Renee Walker ( daughter of Dawn, granddaughter of Phyllis) blow out candles.

Yvonne and Kathy

In Uncle Harold’s family, Kathleen Taylor Mills and her daughter--Yvonne Michelle Hauf Baley, and Matthew Taylor Spear ( MaryLou’s son) all have birthdays.

Jack Colley

Will Colley

In Aunt Doris’ family, Joseph Michael Gabrys (Cindy’s husband) , William Charles Colley and Jonathan Paul Colley-- sons of Kristyne, grandsons of Charlie Hawkes celebrate this month.

Arnon

George

Nancy, Ethel Baker Taylor, and Donny, August 1969

Bill, Diana's husband

Jacob

In Uncle Arnon’s family, Arnon Lloyd Taylor himself, and his children--George Laurens Taylor and Nancy Carolyn Taylor Wright share this birthday month. Also in his family, William Patrick McCarty (Diana’s husband), Jacob Robert Desgroseilliers (Barbara's son, grandson of Bob Taylor), and Adam Samuel Taylor (George Taylor’s son) are Birthday Kids.

Dan Kinsella

Jack and Tom Kinsella

Pat and Glenn Herdeg

Alex and Sue Kinsella

Maddy Kinsella

Maggie Kinsella

In Aunt CB’s family, Daniel John Kinsella and Thomas Edward Kinsella share a birthday, albeit it seven years apart. Also, Madeline Kate Kinsella ( Jim’s daughter), Glenn Arthur Herdeg (Pat’s husband), Alexander Brown Kinsella ( Sue’s son), and Margaret Rose Kinsella (Chris’ daughter) are the December Birthday Kinsella Kids.

Congratulations to all!

Leona Blanche Howland Maffei

2011-11-28T15:54:00.001-05:00

Aunt CB writes:

Neil, Dorothy and Leona, 2010

Neil and Leona, September 1977

It’s 10:30 AM, Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 (Happy Birthday, Tim) and Dorothy Maffei just called. Leona died peacefully this morning at 8:30. She has been at Dorothy’s house in Margaretville in the Catskills these last 9-10 days and yesterday, even perked up enough to sit and visit with Dor and eat soup from a friend.

Hospice workers have allowed Dor to have a good night’s sleep the last few nights so she is sad, teary but ready to face the future.

Leona will be cremated and within a couple of weeks Dor and Neil will plan a big party to celebrate her life.

She has been my mentor as well as my cousin and I will miss our talks but am happy for her ease in dying.

Leona, born March 24th, 1919, was 92 years old.

‘Bring none of your slim appetites here’--Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T22:21:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving at the Kinsellas with the Harold Taylors--November 1978

Thanksgiving Song—Found in Kate Youngs Baker’s scrapbook:

Come uncles and cousins, come nieces and aunts,
Come nephews and brothers, no won’ts, no can’ts
Put business and shopping and school-books
Away;
The year has rolled round; it is Thanksgiving
Day.

Come home from the college, ye mirth-loving
Youth;
Come home from your factories, Ann, Katy and
Ruth,
From the anvil, the counter, the farm, come
Away,
Home, home with you, home, it is Thanksgiving
Day.

The table is spread and the dinner is dressed.
The cooks and the mothers have all done their
Best;
No Caliph of Bagdad e’er saw such display
Or dreamed of a treat like a Thanksgiving Day.

Pies, puddings and custards, figs, oysters and
Nuts
Come forward and seize them, without if or
Buts;
Bring none of your slim appetites here,
Thanksgiving Day comes only once in a year.

Now children revisit the darling old place.
Now brothers and sisters long parted embrace.
The family ring is united once more
And the same voices shout at the old cottage
Door.

The grandfather smiles on the innocent mirth,
And blesses the Power that has guarded his
Hearth.
He remembers no trouble, he feels no decay,
But thinks his whole life has been Thanksgiving
Day.

Then praise for the past and the present we sing,
And trustful await what the future may bring;
Let doubt and repining be banished away
And the whole of our lives be a Thanksgiving
Day.

-----------------Pat Kinsella Herdeg here--Kind of old fashioned, but loved the sentiment.

Love and good thoughts to all of our cousins out there on This Thanksgiving. If I could give a hug and share a meal with each of you, I would.
--Pat

Welcome to the World, Charles Murphy Maney!

2011-11-22T21:41:00.001-05:00

Mike and Lorraine Maney proudly welcome their newest grandson to the world. They write that their son, Tim and his wife, Johanna, just added a handsome new addition to their family:

Lorraine writes:

" Charles Murphy Maney arrived early this morning. He is healthy and handsome weighing in at 8 lbs 9 oz, measuring 21 inches, and sporting a full head of dark hair. His big brother is psyched, his big sister says she doesn't like babies, and his mom and dad are just happy he's here! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers! XO."

Congratulations to all the Maneys!! Charles, can't wait to meet you.

Taylor Pictures!

2011-11-20T17:03:00.001-05:00

David Lochner, Nancy Taylor, Mike Maney--Taken 1949

Just a few pictures, as we begin Thanksgiving Week and family begins to gather.

Remember, click on the pictures and they will get bigger!
Love to you all,

Pat

Nancy Cornelia Borthwick Baker By Aunt CB and Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-11-13T11:48:00.001-05:00

Nancy was born on October 31st, 1838, in Freetown, NY. She was one of ten children (although some died early), and she would go on to have two half-siblings.

Nancy Borthwick married Leonard Baker in 1857, and census records tell us they moved from Solon to Marathon to Center Lisle, NY. She and Leonard had three children, Byron, Nell and Florence.

Byron, as we know, married Kate Youngs and had Ethel, Adin, Ruth and Lillian.

But, back to our Nancy. Aunt CB writes:

“Another one I wish I’d known. From letters and hearsay, I can almost draw a line through traits that are handed down from Nancy to her son, Byron and to his daughter, Ethel. Open-hearted, kind, interested in others, a listener, intelligent, voracious reader—Gladys spoke for them when she commented on why her mother, Aunt Lil, never remarried after her father died, “There was no room on the bed”—it was covered with books!

At the time Nancy became a widow, I think they owned the small farm in Center Lisle, whose fields ran up the hill behind it. Later, her daughter, Florence, lived there with her husband when he retired as a railroad conductor. While he was working, though, they lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania and Nancy spent time with them there after Leonard died in 1900. There she had ready access to the Carnegie Libraries of the day and made good use of them. Byron used to send her apples while she was staying there with Florence so that she’d get a taste of home.

While at home, she was busy with farm chores. When her pig was killed, she had to take care of it—after rendering the fat, sorting parts, preparing hams for smoking and making sausage—then she could get on the train in Lisle and go visit Florence.

Previous to the pig, she was so ‘busy canning and pickling that she felt like an old pickle!’ (this in a letter to Ethel while at Cortland). In another letter, she tells that Kate, their mother, had gone on to help on a baby case so ‘Lil is monarch of all she surveys, and is reckoning on doing a big stroke of business--cook a chicken, clean the pantry and go chestnut hunting’. Nancy writes Ethel that she wishes they both could watch Lillian go about her day (Lillian was quite young then).”

Nancy died in 1916 in Scranton, at the home of her daughter, Florence. She was seventy-seven years old, and most likely, had a bed filled with books yet to read.

Our Halloween-born girl Nancy reminds me of another, more recent Halloween birth in the family. Nancy was the grandmother of Lillian Baker Howland. Lillian was the mother of Gladys Wood. And, Gladys was the great grandmother of Emma Hart-Wood, also born on Halloween.

Our Emma, daughter of Joshua Hart-Wood and Brandy Kapp, just turned five years old last week. Emma told me while she knew lots of songs and stories, she had yet to learn to read. Something tells me that reading comes naturally to her, and that soon she too will have a bed filled with books.

November Birthdays, 2011

2011-11-06T16:25:00.003-05:00

Faith

Jonathan

Kristen

Bob

Happy November! A time of gaining an hour of sleep but watching it grow darker more quickly, of watching the autumn sunlight slant through trees of thinning leaves, of yellow and golds in the air as the wind blows chilly.

Here at the TaylorBaker Cousins blog, we celebrate birthdays!

In Uncle Arnon's family, the birthday kids are:

Faith Melton (Donnie's stepdaughter, granddaughter of Nancy Taylor Wright), Jonathan William McCarty (Diana’s son), Kristen Maria McCarty (Diana’s daughter) and Robert Arnon Taylor.

Jon and Jill

Coleen

In Aunt Ruth's Maney family, Kevin Michael Maney ( Michael’s son ), Coleen Margaret Maney ( Richard’s daughter), and Jill Stauffer Maney ( Jon’s wife) all blow out candles this month.

Carter Michael Hawkes ( Mickey) is the Birthday Boy for Aunt Doris' Hawkes family.

Judy and Jimmy

Aunt Barb Taylor

In Uncle Harold's family, Barbara Marie Buck ( Harold’s wife), Judy Lynn Taylor and her husband, Jimmy Alberts all celebrate this month.

David
In Aunt Esther's family, Dave is the Birthday Guy--turning a very young 65 this month! Congratulations, Dave.

Nancy, Jon, Sandy--June 2011

In Aunt Glady's family, Sandra Gwen Wood, daughter of Chic Wood, grand-daughter of Aunt Gladys is the Birthday kid.

Joan and Tom Doran

Amanda and Lance

On the Taylor side, Joan Tiffany Doran (married to Thomas Doran, son of Florence Taylor Doran), Lance Taylor (son of Bryant Taylor, son of Floyd Taylor) have November Birthdays.

Chris

Tim and his grandson, Cameron

Nick in the Rockies, August 2011

Patrick, Bridget, Joe

In Aunt CB's family, Christopher Paul Kinsella , Cameron Thomas Walker ( Kristin Kinsella’s son), Nicholas Sean Herdeg (Pat Kinsella’s son), Joseph Aiden Kinsella (Chris’ son), and Timothy James Kinsella all have November Birthdays.

Lily Rosena Baker Howland ( Aunt Lil), and Merle Barrows (son of Nell and Dell) round out the 'old-timer's of November. We'll write more on them later.

So, Congratulations to all of our November Birthday Kids--we wish we could celebrate with you all!

Halloween Storm of 2011 By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-10-31T18:14:00.001-04:00

What, No Halloween!!

That is the news in a lot of Massachusetts towns, including mine, Acton. As you look at the pictures, you can see why.

Saturday night into Sunday left us with only about four inches of snow, but that was enough to take down many of our towering oak trees, of which we were rightly proud.

All night long, we tried to sleep as we kept hearing 'Crack' and then 'Thud'. The closer the 'thud' the more we worried. Our truck, outside our garage because at the moment we have three cars, came inches from being smushed, and our roof took a hit--luckily a big branch and not a whole tree.

The next morning, without power since early the previous evening, the neighborhood was anxious to get back our power, but every one of our four streets had downed trees. NStar, our power company, would not come in--they wait for the towns to clear the streets.

We did see an NStar truck check out how bad we were--could they get through and begin to work? Neighbors raced door to door to find chainsaws and gather people. Soon, a work crew took over clearing out streets and pulling trees out of the way. The 'chain saw gang' must have cleared six or seven trees. They saved the day as NStar fell in behind them and did their magic.

We were lucky--after only 24 hours and seriously cold houses--we got our heat and electricity back. Many in town will have to wait until Wednesday, they tell us. Other nearby towns have 50-80% of their residents without power.

With so many downed lines and branches, Halloween has been postponed in Acton--WHAT do I do with all of my candy?!

Enjoy your Halloween--I KNOW we will remember our 2011 Halloween!

Welcome to the World--Carter Haylon Maney!

2011-10-26T11:49:00.003-04:00

Dan and Karen Maney announced last night:

"Meet our new grandson, Carter Haylon Maney, born at 10:15 AM at Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, weighing in at 8 lbs. 5 oz. Mom and proud Dad are doing fine!"

Dan and Karen's son Sean is the proud father, Kate the mom.

From all of us here at TaylorBaker Cousins, Congratulations to Dan, Karen, Sean and Kate. And, welcome Carter--Can't wait to see you at a future Taylor Reunion!

Byron Baker, Another October Baby, by Pat Kinsella Herdeg and Aunt CB

2011-10-21T14:06:00.002-04:00

Byron Howard Baker was born on October 6th, 1858 in Solon, NY. He first married Tina Smith and they had a baby boy, named Ira. Both Tina and Ira died by the year of 1884.

In 1885, when Bryon was 26, he married Kate Permelia Youngs. Together, they raised five children in Center Lisle—a baby in 1886 that died right away, and then Nancy Ethel, Adin Leonard, Ruth Inez and Lillian Rosena.

Byron, grandfather to Aunt CB, died in April of 1925, so she never knew him directly. But Aunt CB writes: “I know I would have liked him, though, because my mother (Nancy Ethel Baker) spoke so lovingly of him. I think she was a lot like him.

Byron was a gregarious man, a friendly easy-going person, not really cut out to be a farmer, but in those days there were very few options to choose from and this is what he grew up knowing. He did like to ‘neighbor’—he sold books to folks, books printed about national calamities (the San Francisco Earthquake, the Sinking of the Titanic) and as he traveled, he visited and enjoyed the talks.

Ethel loved him dearly and from letters, and memories, so did Adin, Ruth, and Lil. Adin as an adult did however change many of Bryon’s farming methods as soon as Adin bought the farm from his parents, perhaps further proof that Byron was not the quintessential farmer.

In the early 1900’s, with his daughter Ruth very sick with a heart condition (she died from it in 1904) he brought home a puppy “from his travels” as Lil wrote to Ethel (who was at Cortland Normal School). Not sure how Kate liked adding an energetic puppy to the family, but the children adored it, according to Lillian.

Later in the 1900’s, when the two youngest daughters of Kate’s first cousin Florence Longbothum Johnston (who was dying from tuberculosis) needed a place to stay, Byron had Ethel take a team of horses over to their house and bring them to their home for Christmas. One of these little girls stayed on and went to school in Center Lisle.

About six or eight years later, when the girls' father was dying (also from tuberculosis), Byron drove to their farm and did the chores and helped care for him. At that point, Elsie, one of the daughters who years earlier had come to Christmas, was trying to finish school to be able to teach (she was all of sixteen at this time). Elsie had to work during the days to help keep the farm going, but her assignments for the final testing arrived nonetheless. Byron studied them each day and every night, he tutored Elsie so that she could pass them. She often said she never could have become a teacher without him.

Byron did not have many years to enjoy being a grandfather. But Ruth and Arnon remembered him with great love. And at one point, Arnon (three or four years old), must have said he wanted boots ‘like Grandpa had’ because Byron gave Ethel $2 to buy boots for young Arnon.

Perhaps Ethel, who came home from school every day to teach her younger sister, Ruth, how to read and write, fulfilled Byron’s unspoken desire to teach. She had many of his traits—friendly and out-going, listened to everyone’s troubles, loved to ‘visit’ with people—I wish I had known Grandpa Byron!"

Women’s Suffrage Debate—One Hundred Years Ago by Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-10-14T17:10:00.003-04:00

In August of 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th amendment, giving the Women’s Suffrage Amendment the two-thirds majority of states needed to pass. Women in America could vote!

But, seven years earlier-- almost one hundred years ago--our ancestors were still debating this very topic, as evidenced by this newspaper article. The Oakfield, NY Grange held a debate, featuring speakers on both sides of the issue. As the newspaper article proudly stated “Most of the Speakers to be Women”.

Helping with the negative side, was our own twenty-year-old Floyd Taylor, twin brother to Lloyd, grandfather of many of us. Hmmm....

It would have been a fascinating debate to be at, no doubt about it. I think many of our female ancestors would have had a lot to say, if given the chance.

But, this article is noteworthy also for the second part of it.

Floyd and Lloyd’s younger sister, Florence, turned sixteen. Twenty-six of her high school friends, chaperoned by their teacher Miss Ethel Baker, surprised Florence with a birthday party complete with a candy pull, gifts-- including a ‘handsome silver mesh bag’, and refreshments.

As many of us know, Miss Ethel Baker would marry Lloyd Taylor two years after this surprise party.

As the national elections again ramp up, just a small family history lesson.

Thank you cousin Spencer Drown for sending along this newspaper article.

October Birthdays--Taylors of the Older Generations By Pat Kinsella Herdeg and Aunt CB

2011-10-06T16:44:00.000-04:00

October is the Birthday Month for three of the Taylors of the older generations: Cordelia Waller Taylor, her daughter-in-law Emma Carson Taylor and Emma’s son Leon Carlton Taylor.

Martha Cordelia Waller Taylor was born October 13th, 1828 in Elba, NY. She married Daniel Rockwell Taylor and they and their children lived at the family farm, ‘Peace Farm’ in Oakfield, NY. She was a prolific journal writer, and from her, we get many of the Taylor family details of those years. She died in 1908 at her farm home, now called ‘Woodlawn’ by Bryant and his wife Emma, who owned it.

On the Fourth of July in 1900, Cordelia writes: “A glorious family picnic of all the dear boys and their families and ourselves in this dear old home. Rained in the a.m., but cleared up and gave abundant time for our bountiful dinner under the trees, yes and in a tent constructed by the boys. What a grand good time and then came music and singing, inspiring and heavenly.

Orrin, Mary and baby stay, while Carlton goes and just gets home when a terrific thunderstorm breaks upon us. So endeth this happy Fourth.”

One of her sons, Bryant Waller Taylor ( my great grandfather), married Emma Jane Carson. Emma Jane is also a birthday girl this month. She was born on October 4th, 1860 in Geneseo, NY. She came from a warm and loving family. She too was a journal writer, and her pages are filled with brothers and sisters coming to visit and help with her growing family. According to her daughter Florence, she was a wonderful cook.

On September 21st, 1888, Emma writes in her journal:

“Damp and chilly most of the time. Bryant has been trying all week to get his beans in but did not --only a load or two. They were so wet from night rains. We have been sewing on Bryant’s shirts and my calico dress, crocheting, knitting for evening, when Clara would allow it. Corn cutting finished today. Bryant has been picking some apples. There is some talk of going home tomorrow for the last time before we get our ‘new baby’, Libbie (Emma’s sister), Bryant, Clara (now 21 months old) and I.”

The ‘new baby’ Emma writes of is her second child, Leon. Leon was born on October 13th, 1888, therefore sharing the birthdate with his grandmother, Cordelia. That makes him also an October Birthday Boy.

Cordelia celebrates by writing, of course:
Grandma’s Soliloquy
October thirteenth, eighteen eighty-eight!
I'm just sixty years old today.
No happier heart beats in all the land,
Though I own I am growing gray.

Now what do you think was my present rare,
On this my dear natal day?
Was it money, or lands, or something to wear?
To keep my heart young and gay?

Not money, nor lands, nor satins and silks,
Could with my rich jewel compare;
No costlier gift was ever bestowed,
Than a dear little grandson so fair.
A welcome we give from the depth of the heart
To this sweet child of promise so bright;
May he live in the light and the love of his God,
And win in Life’s battle for right.

Leon was Aunt CB’s favorite Taylor uncle. She writes: “He had a neighborhood grocery store in Batavia when we were growing up. After his own marriage dissolved, his older sister, Clara, also alone now, came to live with him in the apartment over the store. These two, raised as all B.W. and Emma's children were to be active in the church, continued to be in their grown-up years. Leon helped many of their neighbors during the depression years with an occasional bag of groceries.

He was a jovial, kind, honest uncle who was part of the Taylor Quartet and always gave us bananas as a treat! He was a great help to his father when he had to care for his stepmother. When she fell, B.W. would call Leon to help lift her up. Leon died in Geneva General Hospital of a heart attack in June of 1960.”

Our Emma Jane died at age 55 in August of 1916; she had a stroke. One month before, she wrote:
“We were all invited to Lloyd’s for the 4th. Arrived over there by 11 o’clock a.m. As soon as Lloyd could get off, we all started for Indian Falls for our dinner and had a nice time. We had some fireworks, after that ice cream and cake. Friends from Basom going back took Lloyd and Ethel home. All tumbled into bed about dead. I for one would have liked to have had it all over again next day so as to do all the things we did not but wanted to on the 4th.”

To Cordelia, Emma and Leon, we thank you for all that you gave to our family, as we continue to carry on the Taylor family journey.

Next, Mom and I will write about three Bakers with October Birthdays-- Byron H. Baker, William Youngs, and Nancy Borthwick Baker.

October Birthdays 2011—Part One, by Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-10-01T19:24:00.004-04:00

October is a great month to get outdoors and walk in the woods—the colors, the smells, the animals rustling around to get ready for winter. AND, it is a terrific month for birthdays. We have a large amount of the ‘Older Generation’ with October Birthdays, so they will get their own separate post later in the month. For now, here are the Birthday Kids:

In Aunt Doris’ family, Cynthia Hawkes Gabrys , Eowyn Brionna Colley (daughter of Kristyne Colley, granddaughter of Charles Hawkes), Stephanee Hawkes ( Steve’s daughter), Sean Towlson (married to Cindy Hawkes’ daughter, Heather), and Cameron Charles Towlson ( Cindy Hawkes’s grandson) all have birthdays this month.

Sean and Morgan

Eowyn

Cindy

In Aunt Sylva’s family, Linda Kathleen Emhof Arnold ( Sylva’s daughter) is the birthday kid.

In Aunt Esther’s family, Sara Elizabeth Lochner ( Rick’s daughter) blows out candles.

Rick, Sara, Laurie

In Aunt CB’s family, my Pops-- John Joseph Kinsella and my oldest son-- Brian Christopher Herdeg –have October Birthdays.

Uncle Jack

Brian and Gina

Curt

Stephen

In Uncle Arnon’s family, Stephen Baker Wright (son of Nancy Taylor Wright), Coreen Elizabeth Taylor ( Jim Taylor’s daughter), and Curtis Taylor (son of Bob Taylor) are the Birthday Kids.

In Aunt Ruth’s family, Paul James Maney (Michael’s son), and Richard Alan Maney enjoy October Birthdays.

Richard

In Aunt Gladys’ family, Kenneth C. Barron ( husband of Kathryn Wood) has a birthday.

In Floyd Taylor’s family, Mitch Taylor (son of Bryant and Eveyln Taylor) also has a birthday this month.

Congratulations to all!!

Watch for October for Older Generations: Emma Jane Carson, Byron H. Baker, Cordelia Waller, Leon Carson Taylor, William Youngs, and Nancy Borthwick Baker following later this month.

Pam and Mitch

A New Baby, By Uncle Jack and Pat K. Herdeg

2011-09-25T19:14:00.001-04:00

This story is from earlier this summer, but thought you all would enjoy it:

I think more than a few of my siblings were surprised as we noticed this email subject land in our computer in-boxes: ‘Surprise: New Baby at 28 English Station Rd.’

Hmmmm. NOW what are Mom and Dad up to?

Dad explains:

Your Ma and I were doing something in the backyard yesterday and it was the day the corporation was cutting the grass. Two of the young grass cutters were looking at the bushes behind our garage so I asked them what they were looking for. They said there was a baby fawn there. Finally we were able to see it but just barely.

Later when they left and things quieted down, the fawn stood up and your Ma called me to take a picture of it.

Your Ma talked to a backdoor neighbor who said the day before she noticed a deer--regular size (no doubt the mother) wandering about in our backyard; earlier, she saw a baby fawn in her yard nursing from a mother deer. Then she said, "The mother deer is still there, in your bushes, I can see her."

We looked and in the bushes near the tree the grandkids love to climb there was no doubt the mother. This is about 40 feet from the bushes where the fawn was.

Later in the evening, we went to a concert at school that Maddy was playing in and of course we told them about it. When we got back they all wanted to see the fawn. By that time the fawn and the mother had disappeared.

Exciting lives we live!

Love,

Dad

Taylor Reunion, 2011 By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-09-19T11:57:00.000-04:00

Check the right side of the blog for a link to any pictures of the Reunion as they show up in my email box! Thank you, Dad aka Uncle Jack for these!

Aunt CB and Jon Maney

Uncle Harold Taylor

Jim Kinsella and Elliott Catherman

Leah Walker and Olivia Rooks

Dave Lochner and Dan Maney

Another Terrific Reunion! As always, it was at Uncle Harold’s place on Cayuga Lake. Now, mid-September can bring all kinds of weather, and the Taylors show up no matter what, but luckily, this Saturday was a nice and sunny day for visiting with relatives.

Of the 29 cousins, (thanks to Nancy Taylor Wright for the cousins chart!), 18 turned out, along with their families, so there was a large amount of us! Aunt CB and Uncle Harold were the elders of the group, along with Aunt Barb’s sister and Uncle Jack.

The Food, as always, was varied and there was plenty of it. We had all sorts of salads, meatballs, sausages, veggies, fruit salads, cookies, brownies, elderberry pie and Tom’s Loon Cookies. NO ONE went hungry!!

Little Leah ( 16 months) and Olivia ( 13 months) had fun walking around deciding if they wanted to play with each other. The other kids remembered each other and were soon climbing trees, playing cards, seeing what objects they could launch into the lake, and creating general mayhem. Oh wait, that was their parents doing most of that.

A new winery just opened up down the street, so that had to be taste-tested.

Charlie Hawkes and Pat Kinsella Herdeg have a bet with the Jets versus the Patriots. The one with the worst record will wear the other team’s shirt next reunion, along with fitting remorseful words on the back of the jersey. Since the Patriots will win this bet, I can’t wait to see Charlie next September.

Once again, Kathy and Annie did a phenomenal job getting this all organized. Thank you!

It was so good to see everyone, even if I did not get long enough with ANY of you. Hope your autumn is kind to you. Love you all.

A Slice of Life At Age 88 –Autumn 1992 By Vince Youngs

2011-09-16T13:34:00.001-04:00

The Youngs--Lida, Baby Vincent, Edwin, Bertha, Mable, Taken 1906

Vincent Edwin Youngs was the son of Edwin and Lida Youngs, so the nephew of Kate Youngs Baker. He married Hazel Simmons and they had two daughters. In 1992, at the age of 88, he taped himself and sent the audio tape to a relative out in Oregon. He and Hazel lived in Endicott, NY.

Here is a bit of his life at age 88:

“This is your Uncle Vince. It’s Sunday morning and it’s about forty degrees I guess out here. We just finished breakfast and we’re in pretty good shape for anyone as old as Hazel and I are. But, we’re doing pretty good.

Well, I went deer hunting the first day, just up above the house here. I can’t go too far –I can’t walk that far. So, I walked around awhile up in the brush and a big deer jumped out and I shot it and it rolled down the lawn and I hooked onto it with the little tractor and took it in and I didn’t have to drag it a foot. So, I got my venison. Well, that was okay.

Hazel’s in the bathroom getting dressed and I’m sitting here with my little white dog on my lap. She sits here on my lap a lot. She’s getting old –must be about thirteen, fourteen years old. She’s getting old along with the rest of us. Well, I just looked out here; I’ve got bird feeders out here and there’s about twenty or so mourning doves and blue jays. We have them all the time. I fed them about a hundred pound of feed this fall (as he laughs). It makes a lot of company for us.

I love you all and I hope that you’re all well and everything goes just fine. So, I guess I’ll sign off and send this tape to you and see if you can understand it (as he gently laughs). I hope you can. So, this is Old Vince saying goodbye and love to all of you.”

‘Old Vince’ as he called himself lived to age 91, dying five months after his Hazel.

Thank you to cousin Norma Stephens Bruscani for supplying the audio tape.

Remembering 9/11—Ten Years On—

2011-09-10T23:51:00.001-04:00

I think most of us have been pausing this weekend to reflect on the ten year anniversary of 9/11. We didn’t have facebook ten years ago, but we DID have our family quarterly newsletter. So, I have what we wrote after 9/11. Here is just a small portion of the twenty pages we wrote:

From Essays written --One month after 9/11, In October 2001:

From Beth Kinsella Sakanishi living in Japan:

“It’s hard to write about something so wrenching, so completely mind and emotion-saturating. I still feel as if I am made of glass as I walk around. I guess one place for me to start is what none of you experience: life lived elsewhere during a national crisis.

It was ten in the evening here and we were watching ABC as the second plane hit. We stayed up until three and then I could not bear to watch anymore. Everyone here has been so sympathetic and caring. Not only my students and neighbors have asked if my family and friends are safe, but the people in the post office and supermarket.

It occurred to me that the truth about clichés is that, while in ordinary times they may seem banal, in times of great grief, they are safety lines. They are rungs in a ladder to help us peer out of a deep well, to help us test the air.”

From Julie Lochner Riber:

“We had gotten up early that morning. We turned on the TV, as we usually do, debating over whether we’d watch cartoons (Wes) or the news (Julie). I won the battle that morning. Wes exclaimed “Oh my God! Someone just flew a plane into the World Trade Center!”

I want to know all I can so I can tell future generations honestly how I felt and why. I owe it to those who died September 11th and those who are fighting this war. Am I afraid? Not really. Am I aware? Intensely. If I could do anything more than that, would I? You bet.”

From Kristin Kinsella Walker ( Kristin Kinsella then):

“The patriotism that this country is displaying makes me proud. Since I wasn’t around in any of the World War I or II times, I don’t know if this is how America was then, but that is how I imagine it. Houses, cars, buildings, trees, everything has a flag on it.

It seems that nothing can go back to how it used to be, and that makes me sad. I try to go on with my life as normal, but I don’t really know if it’s possible.”

From Pat Kinsella Herdeg:

“Norman Rockwell’s ‘Four Freedoms’ comes to mind—in particular , ‘Freedom from Fear’: A mother and father tucking their young children into bed in an upstairs attic room, the floor scattered with toys and dolls. The parents’ wear looks of tender love and of worry. The father holds a folded newspaper in his one hand—headlines from Pearl Harbor.

Now, as I look back I am struck that my first emotion after the horror was one of anger. For all of my life, we lived in what might be innocent arrogance—our country could not be touched by war. Pearl Harbor? Act of war and on a faraway group of islands. But the idea of 9/11….And, now, my children will have to grow up in a world far different from the one I did, if only emotionally.”

From Nick Herdeg ( age 10) : “ Bin Laden is a bum.”

From Lucille ‘Aunt CB’ Taylor Kinsella:

“With Pearl Harbor we had an immediate enemy to marshal our forces on. We all became ‘brothers’ and every sacrifice was made without complaint.

This time it is different in that ‘terrorists’ come in many colors and costumes. This war will be fought differently.

Mom writes eloquently that we need a new ‘Marshall Plan’ to help the poorer countries. She ends with: “hopefully we will settle down to a determination to pursue not only terrorists but help the poor societies which spawn them.”

John ‘Uncle Jack’ Kinsella:

“Will it change America? My answer is yes—it certainly has changed my thinking forever. I have always believed in the concept of “Fortress America”. We were safe in our ‘Fortress’ with the largest moat in the world—the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

I now know that it is possible for people who hate us to easily cross our moats and do our country serious harm.”

Chris Kinsella wrote a well-thought out essay on war throughout the ages and ends with:

“It is interesting that history has shown that the superpowers are constantly threatened where they are most vulnerable. We must learn from this.

I believe the government needs to provide funds and protection on our planes, trains, mass transit and other terrorist targets.”

Sue Kinsella wrote:

When I drive in to San Francisco now, I slow down before the Golden Gate Bridge and look for planes. I do not feel safer knowing that military generals can give the order to shoot down commercial jetliners.

I am very grateful that we got filled up on family time this summer, when we got to see all of you. Have I told you, each and every one of you, that I love you?”

Jen Dalle Kinsella wrote:

“My mind kept racing back to the summer of 1991 when I worked at the World Trade Center. I still have my access badge—44th floor of Tower One. Doesn’t do me any good now.

I had the opportunity to go out on the catwalk on the 110th floor. I have no fear of heights—there is no glass, no guardrail, and no noise. Just you and a breathtaking view of the city at night. And now it is gone.”

And, I have to end with Dan Kinsella’s thoughts:

“One of the things that travel to other countries brings is a realization of how good we have it here. Our way of life is not ordained, it is not guaranteed; it is only achieved by much hard work every generation. It’s time for more hard work to maintain it.

We’ve been able to do it for the last 225 years, here’s hoping we can do it again.”

As Sue said ten years ago: “Have I told you, each and every one of you, that I love you?”

Grandparents’ Kitchens, by Aunt CB

2011-09-06T15:52:00.002-04:00

Grandma's Porch, Center Lisle
Thinking back to the 1930’s when I went down to Grandma Baker’s for vacations, I can still see in my mind’s eye her kitchen, a large sunny room with a big iron cooking stove, a cot under the back window to nap on, a rocking chair near the front window, back in the corner with the farm journals near at hand to read in any spare time—but the real center of life was the round dining table off to the side.

Grandma Baker--I love this picture! Is this how she waited for the grandchildren to arrive? With pie in hand and sitting in the snow?

Surrounded by chairs, the table center was covered with a special cloth which covered all the important things left there from meal to meal. Everyone did this, to ward off flies, for tables in those days were set with more than plates and silverware. There was always a spoon holder, a vase like glass from which the spoon handles protruded. There was too, the sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers, and Grandma’s table always had a pedestal cake stand, loaded with not cake but cookies, great big lemony sugar cookies or molasses ones. There was need for a covering cloth with all the sweet stuff calling the flies.

Emily Carr Taylor, Grandpa Taylor's second wife

My Grandfather Taylor had a castor set for the table center. This was a silver handled round basket like tray with holes where glass bottles were inserted. These were filled with vinegar, home made ketchup, maybe hot sauce or mustard. When we had family dinners at his house above each place was set a tiny glass dish filled with salt to dip radishes or celery in. The celery stood in a tall round vase-like glass while the radishes, all cut to resemble roses, were passed in boat like dishes. The Taylors were more formal than the Bakers. Another accessory dish to any meal where chicken was served was the small individual kidney shaped dish, nestled to the left of your plate. You placed the bones there.

Meals were heavier in those early days, vitamins were just being discovered. Salads were hearty macaroni, potato or cabbage, not tossed lettuce or jello molds. Regardless of the food content, a well set table contained all of the above and was covered after each meal.

A lot more work than today!

40 Porter Street in Batavia--where Grandpa Taylor and Emily lived

September Birthdays 2011

2011-09-01T10:43:00.008-04:00

Hard to believe that the summer is almost over, but the month of September IS here. And, that means fall birthdays.

In Aunt Glady’s family, Gail L. Kinney ( Gladys’ daughter) , Sylvia Langstaff ( daughter of Kayte Barron Langstaff), Nance Wood Drumm ( daughter of Lester – Chic-Wood, son of Gladys), and Daniel Decker (son of Laurel Decker, daughter of Gladys) all enjoy September Birthdays.

Gail Kinney

Sylvia Langstaff

Nancy Wood Drumm

Laurel Wood Decker and her two sons, Michael and Daniel
Uncle Dick

Chuck Lochner

In Aunt Esther’s family, her husband, Richard Edward Lochner, her son--- Charles Edward Lochner, and James Andrew Lochner—Ted’s son, all blow out candles this month.

Jimmy Lochner

In Aunt Phyllis’ family, Liam Asahel Marlatt, son of Kathleen Henderson, grandson of Wendell, and Robert Coleman ( married to Phyllis Howland) both have birthdays.

Aunt Doris
In Aunt Doris’ family, Aunt Doris herself is the Birthday Girl—Yay—you would have been 87 years old this month.

In Aunt Ruth’s family, Patrick Michael Maney (son of Dan), and Lorraine Liberatore Maney—Mike’s wife, both are September Birthday Kids.

In Aunt Sylva’s family, Timothy Eugene Arnold ( Linda Emhof Arnold’s son) is the Birthday Boy.
In the Floyd Taylor family, Jennifer Taylor (daughter of Barry and Cathy Taylor) is the Birthday Girl.

In the Older Generations, Daniel Rockwell Taylor and Olive ( Aunt Nell to Ethel, Adin, Ruth and Lil) Baker Barrows are September Births.

Aunt Maria
In Uncle Arnon’s family, his wife--Maria Robey Taylor, Andrew Laurens Taylor (George’s son), Donnie Wright (son of Nancy Taylor Wright), and Ashley Taylor Wright (Stephen's daughter, granddaughter of Nancy Taylor Wright) all are September Birthday Kids.

Andrew Taylor

Donnie and Sarah

Congratulations to all!

Hurricane Irene By Various Cousins

2011-08-29T16:04:00.004-04:00

Christi's house last May--notice the wonderful old tree out front.

Christi's tree today

Pat and Glenn’s weekend began with the plan to drive Alison, their daughter, down to DC with MUCH of her stuff—Ali has a new apartment and a new job there. But, Hurricane Irene compacted that schedule.

We drove down Thursday and drove back Friday, with much of New Jersey driving north with us, as many of them were under mandatory evacuation. It was not the most relaxed trip home.
Saturday, we decided our boat in Maine should come out, so we again fed the cats extra food and drove north.

Meanwhile, in southern New Jersey near the coast, Tom was keeping us in the ‘Irene Loop’:
“It's just after 6 pm on Friday. Christine has driven off with her cats to her parents' house in central Jersey. She was under a mandatory evacuation order, so she tidied up the house, unplugged the computer, and went.

I am a bit further inland and have decided to experience the hurricane right here in Absecon. Neighbors on both sides have a gone (one to Buffalo, another to Cape Cod if you can believe that). The county to the south, Cape May, is under a mandatory evacuation. So are coastal areas of my county, Atlantic as well as Atlantic City. The casinos will be closed as of noon tomorrow, only the third time since they opened that they have shut down.

I have cleared all movable items out of the yard. Closed the windows and await the storm. It should start to show signs around noon tomorrow; we expect the worst of it after midnight, then it will be gone by noon Sunday.
So they say.

I missed the local earthquake. Everyone else in the area felt the shaking -- it woke Christi up -- but I was driving from School to Christi's so I missed it. I guess Irene will be my big adventure.

Don't worry. I've got plenty of supplies. I can handle quite a while without power (during the day I have several thousand books to read, if I so choose). I'll try to keep you up to date.

Much love from South Jersey,
--------------------------------------

It's 9:45 AM Saturday morning. Gentle rain started about a half hour ago (it's been over cast since dawn). I've completed my last preparations -- pulling the air conditioner from the living room window (it was on a shaky base), closing windows, etc. Looks like this will last until sometime early tomorrow afternoon.

Wish me luck. I have my reading material picked out."

While Sister-in-law Rose was making sure Tom had all the necessary supplies on hand, Brother Chris was being helpful, in his own way:

“ahoy storm approaching by port bow. reef the foresails and batten the hatches. I hope you are reading sea novels
--Cappy

Tom writes back: “It's 4:15 PM and raining pretty good. The wind is not ferocious, but it's starting to blow. I have begun my final preparations.

First, I have taken Sue's advice and filled the bathtub with water. I'm not sure my plug holds a good seal, so this is a test, but if it does, I'll have water galore (Sue tells me it's to help flush the toilet once the electricity goes). I told her that's what the back door is for (some of the time).

I have also begun my cooking preparations. While I am happy enough eating cold beans and buns (I do know where the hand can-opener is), I thought I'd cook some short cake and also red beans and rice. Both will keep well enough. So, tonight we'll have peach shortcake and rice and beans. We because the cats like short cake.

I was just in the bed room -- figure I needed to find my jack knife before the storm hits -- but the rain woke me up. I hope you are all safe and snug. Atlantic City is a ghost town (so the TV tells me). Very unusual for the last weekend in August.

Much love from a moist South Jersey,”

Tim writes from Syracuse: “Keep those stories coming Ol' windybags. Great adventure.
Dry Tim “

Tom writes a quick email and then his power goes out. He follows up:
“Power went off as I was writing it. It just now came back on. Wanted to get it to you. It's 9:41 now. The storm is moving slow. The eye won't be here till 3 or 4, which is a couple hours later than originally forecast. That means the storm will blow hard till probably noon or later tomorrow.

Got a call from Ted Lochner. He asked me whether I had a canoe. All is fine up his way at the moment.

We've got bands of very heavy rain. Horizontal for 10 or 15 minutes, then quiet, then it starts again. There are tornado warnings around, but none very close. The wind is not too bad.

The kitties have had their short cake -- I have too -- I got to light the candles and my iPad is a good source of entertainment when all else fails. Thanks to my land line I can still phone. All is fine here. I'll update you if I can. If not, I'll see you on the other side (of the storm).

PS. The seal in the bathtub held, so plenty of water.”

Tom writes again later that night, under the heading of ‘Good Night Irene’:

“10: 17.
I don't mean to inundate you (pun intended), but wow, this is getting exciting. Lots of flooding -- the Schukyll river in Phila is expected to crest at a level not seen since 1869. Interruptions on tv stations for tornadoes (none close to me yet). My local tv station has been knocked out. I may sleep in the basement. It's still dry and safe. (Where is that sleeping bag?)

Bands of very very heavy rain followed by dry, but the wind is picking up. Whee!

I'll send this out before I lose power again.

Much love,

Tom

PS. About that subject line -- just wanted to use that one. Irene isn't going anywhere for a bit.”

Now, I am not sure HOW many people remember the folk song ‘Good Night Irene’ but apparently Tom did—way to go!

Chuck Lochner, no doubt thinking of the rising flood waters, emailed Tom: “If you decide to sleep in the basement, be sure to sleep on an AIR mattress.”

On Sunday, Tom tells us:
“Gentle rain with stiff breezes persist, but I believe the worst of the storm is over. The news says we'll get more rain as the final bands work their way through from 10 am through noon, but it's mostly the aftermath we need to deal with now. I don't see any big branches down in the yard (lots and lots of leaves though).

The cats are antsy -- they want food and to go outside, so they are back to normal.

Philadelphia has lots of flooding. We probably do to, but the local channel is still out, so I'm not sure of the situation. I think I'll head back to bed for a bit -- still haven't found that jack knife. Thanks for listening.

Sorry New York City -- this is your problem now.”

His last report is about Christi’s house—“Christine lost a big old maple right in front of her house. Lucky it fell parallel with the road. Her house was build around the civil war, and I bet the tree was about as old. It was probably 6 feet in diameter, with much of the top gone from previous storms. It was a shrubby old thing, although we liked it very much. Turns out the main trunk was quite rotten and it just uprooted taking out Christine's electrical.

Guess we'll be planting a new tree in the Fall.”

So, that is it for Hurricane Irene on the Cousin’s front. In DC, Alison said they had high winds, but no problems.

Hope everyone has a safe and fun last few days of August!

427 W. Main St., By Aunt CB

2011-08-23T22:39:00.005-04:00

Our Geneva life was disrupted in 1944 when 30 West St, which we rented, was sold to someone who wanted to move in! Thus, we had to move out! The folks found a grand brick house with a cupola on the Main Street in Waterloo. Daddy had to sell his beloved 1941 DeSoto to make a down payment and manage a mortgage. (No cars were made after 1941 because of WWII thus he could get a good price)-- for the sum of $3800 427 W. Main St. was ours!

This is the house where Harold lived while he was attending Waterloo High School. It must have seemed very strange to him after growing up with five older siblings, to be the only kid in a house. (I stayed in Geneva, baby sitting for family and working in a 10 cent store to finish my senior year there.) Add to that the fact that he knew not a soul in town when school started!

The house means more to the grandchildren perhaps than to us older ones but we did have some grand times there! Three bedrooms upstairs with one large closet off the master bedroom, it also provided a ceiling door to be lifted as access to the cupola. By means of a six foot folding ladder we hoisted ourselves up to the attic and thus into the cupola. Years and years of dead flies met us, even as we swept them up. The four sides were windowed but also had to be cleaned and how to get to the outer sides? The tin roof prohibited our climbing out even if we dared. We did a half way job and enjoyed the view. And was this attic floored? No more than 30 West St. was and this one had no windows, only dark spaces surrounding the central cupola.

Mom and Daddy had one bedroom, I had one small one (with hooks for clothes when I was home, slept on an old army cot.) Harold had the other one, same size as mine, with a single size bed I think. Made no difference as there was enough room for him and me to lie, side by side, reading our books, as we passed back and forth a rubber tube, fitted with a stop-cock which was attached to Harold’s latest batch of “wine” which lay on its side on a shelf above the bed. All the amenities of a hotel!

Downstairs, double front doors (with a marvelous clanging door bell to wind!) led to the hall and the dining room straight on, or the living room to the side. Beside the dining room was a small room, used as a bedroom, and as they grew older, Arnon put a toilet in there as upstairs was too steep to climb often.

Then lastly the kitchen, with the old fashioned kitchen cupboard with a flour bin and sifter in it as well as spice cupboard, pull out metal counter and a big bread bin as well as potato one. Here, too, the cast iron stove was king but had become a “combination” 4 stove lids above a fire pit while 4 gas jets fired the other side! Even had a broiler (which was never used). Mom still turned out her incomparable chicken and dumplings on this.

Not done yet, behind the back wall (which held cupboards for all the dishes, pots and pans, kitchen tools and whatever) was a shed where Mom’s washing machine held sway. In this shed also was a drain, which became the bane of her life! The men in the household found it far too convenient to pause there, rather than climb the stairs. I’m sure she was pleased when downstairs plumbing was installled. Still attached to the shed was a sort of “lean to” that held all the odds and ends of life, paint cans, burlap bags, etc.

Outside, Mom, who loved flowers, had several small beds between our house and next door. And the backyard, which extended back aways, was planted in a grand garden, Daddy’s swiss chard, raspberry bushes, tomatoes, onions, etc. in season. They both had green thumbs. Behind the lean to, and near the driveway which led to a very skinny garage, Mom would have several inverted mason jars, covering the cuttings of rosebushes that only she could start! I never could!

What did they put in that skinny garage? Daddy bought his father’s 1927 Chrysler for $50 and he drove that all over. It worked well!

I can’t forget the porch at 427, which covered 2 sides and was wonderful to sit on. Tall spiriva bushes ranged along the front and other side and best of all, around the back, were two wooden doors slanting up three feet or so from the ground, protecting the cellar entrance. Grand to run on and play but better not let Grandpa catch you or he’d “tan your hide”.

Wonderful Christmases there, for having raised six kids, there we 32 grandchildren and you’ve seen pictures of the staircase between floors full of kids!

And Harold, alone among us, put his roots down in Waterloo, earned still another nickname (after all our family ones) TUFFY, met Barbara Buck, married, raised a family, and built his oil and gasoline business there. Not bad for a kid who started alone in a strange place.

Rex and Dene Taylor's 70th Anniversary By Evelyn Taylor

2011-08-16T09:03:00.001-04:00

Rex and Dene at their 70th Wedding Celebration!

Last year, we told you the story of Rex and Dene's Wedding on August 17th, 1941. Please go to this link to read the story:

http://taylorbakercousins.blogspot.com/2010/08/rexford-taylor-and-dene-chadwicks.html

This year, for the big 70th, Rex and Dene's sister-in-law Evelyn Taylor (wife of Bryant Taylor) and Evelyn's daughter Pam drove out to Ohio for a surprise anniversary luncheon for the wedding celebrants.

Evelyn writes:

"The luncheon was at 1:00PM at the Welshfield Inn in Welshfield, Ohio. It is a lovely old Inn with a front porch entrance. As we approached the entrance at exactly five minutes to one, Rex and Dene’s daughter, Barb, spotted us and escorted us to the guests of honor. Both of them were really surprised to see us, and kept mentioning it throughout the day.

Rex and Dene Cutting the Wedding Cake

Surprises are hard to pull off, but up until Rex and Dene spotted some familiar family faces, they truly thought that just the five of the immediate family were going out to lunch—Rex, Dene, son Barry, and wife, Cathy, and daughter, Barb. When all the guests arrived, the total was 30. Of that number, five were friends and the rest were family. There were five siblings in Dene’s family (4 sisters and 1 brother). Rex had only Bryant as his sibling. so Pam and I were the only representatives of the Taylor side.

The Welshfield Inn played a prominent part in Rex and Dene’s lives. It was only five miles from Hiram College, which they attended and where they met in their junior year--so they had been going there for 74 years!
Rex Feeding Dene the Wedding Cake

The luncheon was held in a private dining room, with tables seating 6-8 people. Pam and I had the good fortune of sitting with Rex and Dene, so had a chance to visit longer than others did. After all, we do not see them like the family does. Hors d’oeuvres were served with drinks: we ordered from a menu of 5 items such as chicken pot pie, beef stew, broiled salmon steaks, julienne salad. After finishing, Rex and Dene cut a lovely decorated cake, which was the wedding cake they never had. This was served with ice cream.

While we were waiting to be served, each guest introduced himself and shared a memory. Being a small group, it was not at all intimidating, and pleased Rex and Dene immensely. The stories brought a lot of smiles and laughs.

Evelyn Taylor (the author of this blog story), Dene and Rex Taylor

On a side table was a huge paper banner which people were asked to sign, a framed collage of snapshots of their life together, and a 90- picture slide show of the same.

70 years together, Rex and Dene! Congratulations!

My First Television Viewing--At the 1939 World's Fair, by Aunt CB and Evelyn Taylor

2011-08-11T12:44:00.006-04:00

August 26th, 1939 was the date we began our big trip. We drove as far as Grandma Baker’s to spend the night for we were on our way to visit the New York World’s Fair. The next day we left early to drive on through the Poconos, but not before Daddy took a picture of me with ‘my’ calf—the one I’d seen born a week or two before.

We reached East Orange, NY about 5PM. This was where our beloved ‘Aunt DeDe’ lived with her mother and sister (she was a friend of Mom’s from her teaching days and always sent us a much anticipated package for Christmas). This was to be our base for the next four days to visit the fair and nearby parks.

August 28th we were up and left early to take the train to Flushing, NY (the same train Mom used to ride to and from Scranton, PA when she taught here in East Orange and her Uncle Frank was the conductor who kept watch over her!) The first ‘building’ that greeted us was the upright triangle and ball, ‘Trylon and Perisphere’, symbol of the 1939 World’s Fair.

In through the gates were streets and buildings and food courts and pools, more than this twelve year old had ever seen. We wandered in and out of several, one of them being the Heinz Company where we each got a pin in the shape of a pickle and had many small snacks from their list of commodities. Very nice!

Somewhere in that day we went through the RCA building and I am ashamed to write that I remember very little except I have a distinct impression in my mind of the first television. It was sitting on a table, a big black box whose screen was no larger than 12 by 18 inches, I’d guess. We stood and watched a clown do a dance and some animals do the same. It was black and white and I was not at all impressed.

We just walked on to the next building (I remember being very tired of walking!). We did stay late that day to watch the fireworks which were not so bad as we could sit on the ground to watch them.

Much more to my liking was the next day’s adventure—attending the Aquacade and seeing Esther Williams dive from a tower ‘way up there’ into a tiny pool—and she made it! First time I ever saw synchronized swimming and this was much more impressive than a dimly lit picture that moved.

I have to say that when we first bought a second hand television, almost twenty years later, the screen was even smaller than that at the fair and I insisted it be set in our bedroom so that our children could not spend all of their time watching it!

And, Evelyn writes:

At the end of my Freshman year in college, a friend of mine and I decided we would like to go to NY City to the 1939 World’s Fair. There were a few reasons why this might not happen. First of all, we were both only children, and girls who had never been away from home on their own. We made all our plans for a week of sightseeing in the city and 2 days at the Fair, and presented them to our parents. What a surprise to have them say,”Yes!”

We travelled by Greyhound Bus, stayed at the YWCA, and did the touristy things: show at Radio City Music Hall, boat trip around Manhattan, trip to Statue of Liberty, tour of Chinatown and the Bowery. But the highlight was at the Fair.

Like CB, we were thrilled with all the different countries represented. I bought a silver filigree, butterfly lavaliere, which a few years later I wore at my wedding as did my daughter at hers. We were so taken by the model homes with their “picture” windows and beautiful furnishings. Another thing of the future was the model of highways which had figure eights and crossovers . Then it seemed unbelievable, but only a few years later, it was reality.

At one point we were walking along and happened to look up to see a screen showing us walking! We backed up and passed by again. We had no idea what this was!

We had no fear of anything bad happening to us. It was a safer world 72 years ago.

Lloyd and Floyd Taylor’s Births by Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-08-05T00:08:00.003-04:00

Our thanks again to Cousin Diana for finding our Great grandmother Emma’s diary from the year of 1892, AND for sharing it with us all!

To set the stage: It is1892—Emma and Bryant Taylor have five year old Clara and four year old Leon. They live in Springville, NY at this point in their lives, with Bryant working in a store with his partner, Mr. Winner. On May 31st, Mr. Winner’s wife Hattie, by now close friends with Emma, dies in childbirth.

Emma is expecting her baby early in August.

August 4th, 1892: “Some cooler today. I am feeling real well but people outside seem to think I am sick or something they send me in so many flowers. My arrangements are made for the advent—Mrs. Johnson (the midwife who will help the doctor) shown what is necessary. We are ready. May God be with us. I am trying to keep myself calm, and to borrow no trouble, but shall be so glad when all is over.”

Friday, August 12th: “Little did I think when I wrote last that all would be over so soon. Here I am sitting up in bed writing. My twins a week old tonight. God has indeed been with us so far. I have not dared to think how we are to manage two babies.

A week ago I got up before Anna (her sister) and Bryant, started the fire, so as to get my bread kneaded before breakfast. I did not feel so very good but a little later in the day felt better, kept busy. Later, my pains kept getting worse. I met the doctor at the door, sent Bryant after Mrs. Johnson and got myself to bed. I wasn’t at it long before work began in earnest and about six , or soon after it, two babies were here—two boys.”

September 7th, 1892: “So they are over a month old. They weighed six and seven pounds apiece. We call them Little Carson and Little Taylor now. Cannot seem to find names to suit yet. Little T. is not so strong as C, but real bright.

November 16th, 1892: “Father and Mother’s 40th Wedding Anniversary (Bryant’s parents, Cordelia and Daniel) at their house. The morning rainy. The babies are baptized by Mr. Manley too on this day, which makes it famous. We call them William Lloyd and Daniel Floyd.”

December 31st, 1892: “God bless my four lovely children for sweeter little ones never lived. I think I am happier now than I ever have been.”

August Birthdays, By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-08-01T14:24:00.008-04:00

Kristin, Cam, Tim, Leah

Christine

Ron and Becky

In Aunt CB’s family, Timothy M. Walker ( Kristin Kinsella’s husband) celebrates this month.

In Aunt Sylva’s family, Sylva Christine Emhof Jenkins ( Sylva’s daughter), Jeffrey Emhof ( Freddy D’s son), and Kathleen Marie Arnold ( Linda Emhof’s daughter) blow out candles.

In Aunt Phyllis’ family, Rebecca Dingman Henderson ( Ronnie Henderson’s wife), and Landon Patrick Henderson (son of David, son of Wendell), have August Birthdays.

In Aunt Ruth’s family, Matthew Stephen Maney ( Dan’s son), and Timothy John Maney ( Michael’s son) blow out candles.

Floyd, Abel (friend), Lloyd, Leon Taylor

In the Older Generations, Leonard Baker ( grandfather of Ethel, Adin, Lil and Ruth) and his daughter, Florence Baker Young (Aunt Florence) enjoy August Birthdays ,William Lloyd Taylor and his twin, Daniel Floyd Taylor, enjoy Birthdays. Also, their nephew, Thomas Taylor Doran (son of their little sister, Florence Taylor Doran) is an August Birthday Boy.

Paul and Laurel

Nicholas

Alicia

In Aunt Gladys’ family, Laurel Amy Wood Decker ( Gladys’ daughter) and her husband, Paul J. Decker , Alicia Lynn Osterhout (Wendy’s daughter, granddaughter of Gladys), and Nicholas Smerchansky ( son of Beth Barron) all have August Birthdays.

Uncle Bud and Aunt Doris

Heather

Justin and Nathaniel

In Aunt Doris’ family, Charles William Francis Hawkes (Uncle Bud), two of Cindy’s children-- Heather Walker Towlson and Justin Aaron Walker, and Justin’s son--Nathaniel Walker all are the Hawkes August Birthday kids.

In Aunt Esther’s family, Andrew Taylor Lochner ( Ted’s son) is the August Boy.

Andrew

Ann and Dennis

Gordie

In Uncle Harold’s family, Ann Marie Taylor and her husband, Dennis Catherman, Gordy Mills (husband of Kathy Taylor), and Zachary James Alberts ( Judy’s son), all celebrate this month.

Congratulations and Happy Birthday to All!!

Brunch Pictures after June Wedding By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-07-27T13:24:00.004-04:00

Hello!

I thought I would put in a few more pictures of the Kinsellas as we gathered together for my son Brian's wedding.

The day after the wedding, as people prepared to drive home, they stopped in at our house for a bit of food and conversation.

Visiting in on the East Coast, by Sue Kinsella

2011-07-20T11:14:00.005-04:00

Uncle Harold

Uncle Harold, Uncle Jack, Aunt CB

While visiting my Mom and Dad ("Aunt CB and Uncle Jack") at the beginning of July, we stopped in to visit Uncle Harold and took him out to lunch. Gordie Mills, Kathy's husband, arrived in his truck to drive Uncle Harold to the restaurant in style. Kathy joined us there, along with Annie and her granddaughter, Olivia, whom Harold calls "Olive Oyl." I thought Uncle Harold looked grand and we all had a great time together.

Olivia

Mom, Kathy, Gordie

Uncle Harold and Dad

Annie

I am adding in some pictures of Mom and Dad from when they were in Massachusetts at their grandson Brian’s wedding, as we can never have too many pictures of our ‘family elders’. And, since we got to see Uncle Harold and his great grand-daughter, Olivia, I also wanted to showcase this picture of Mom and her great grand-daughter, Leah.

Hope everyone has a terrific summer, filled with great family get-togethers, laughter, and good weather!

Mom and Leah

WHAT are those Red Sox doing now?!--Aunt CB and Uncle Jack

Uncle Jack, Aunt CB, Julie, Sue, Pat,Glenn

Visiting With Julie By Sue Kinsella

2011-07-13T11:23:00.006-04:00

Julie Lochner Riber

Julie and Sue

I got a phone call from Julie Lochner Riber in early June a few days before my son, Alex, was to graduate from high school.

“How about if I hop on a plane and come join you for Alex’s graduation?” she asked me. “I could stay for the weekend.” Julie’s husband, Wes, is working a new job at Frontier Airlines, where they get travel benefits. Wes’s comment, as I hear it, is that he gets to keep working so that Julie can go play. Given how hard they both work together on their additional remodeling business, I’m not sure either of them gets to play a whole lot. So I was delighted to have Julie come visit us.

One of the particularly painful aspects of being a single Mom is that there is no one with whom to share all the day-to-day pride and joy and crazy stories about your kid. Not being able to share the good may be even more painful than having to slog through the bad alone. So to have Julie come share the excitement of Alex’s graduation with us was a wonderful gift.

She arrived on Thursday and looped into all my errands to get ready for the graduation next day and the celebration picnic I was planning. We got the car washed, bought groceries, and then Julie made coleslaw when we got home. Next morning we got up early, dressed up, then drove to a grand old theatre in downtown San Francisco for the graduation. Of course it was wonderful, and then we headed to a park on San Francisco Bay, near the Golden Gate Bridge, for a picnic with Alex’s dad’s family. The previously cold, rainy and overcast weather cleared to a beautiful sunny day just for us!

Over the weekend, we transported Alex to his graduation parties and I took advantage of Julie’s legendary cooking skills by requesting that we (mostly she) make a lemon meringue pie – one of my favorites – with the abundance of lemons I had from a friend’s tree. Mmm-mmm-MMM! Breakfast for the next couple of days!

On Sunday, Julie, Alex and I went to a state park near us (one California is threatening to shut because of budget woes) and spent a delightful couple of hours wandering the trails. This park happens to be where I took Alex for a picnic on Mother’s Day when he was just one year old and he spontaneously burst out with his first words – “Happy Baby! Happy Baby!” A wonderful Mother’s Day gift, indeed! We used to go there often and pretend it was “our” ranch, waving to the pilots of small planes flying over from a nearby local airport.

Alex and Sue

Julie and Alex

In ancient times, the park was the site of a Miwok Indian village. Then, when California was still part of Mexico, it became part of a Spanish land grant, then was given as a wedding gift to a landowner’s daughter in the mid-1800’s. She traveled the world and brought back all kinds of exotic plants to create wondrous gardens around her adobe home. The remnants of the gardens are still there, 150 years later.

In more recent times, the Grateful Dead moved into the adobe house for a few years. Once when I went there when Alex was much younger, I found records strewn throughout the house. But a fire tore through not long ago and now it’s ruins. We poked around the house, the gardens, the ranch with its dairy barn (Julie and I agreed it looked just like Wendell and Joyce’s) and the remains of buildings like the blacksmith’s and ranch hands’ salt box homes. Then we wandered up to a recreated Miwok village and sat on a welcoming tree branch that I’m sure I remember being much higher when Alex was much smaller.

There are rumors that Julie and I might be pushing 60 around now but, as you can see, we’ll still always be Crazy Cousins!

July Birthdays, By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-07-07T14:01:00.008-04:00

Jeff, Carol, Abby and Jonah, Christmas 2010

Mary Lou

We’ll start with Uncle Harold’s family-- his daughter MaryLou Taylor Spear , and Jeffrey Aaron Hauf ( Kathy Taylor’s son) both celebrate birthdays this month. Jeff, on the Ides of July, turns a Magnificent 40—Congratulations!!

Jen

Carol Ann

In Uncle Arnon’s family, Jack Lloyd Taylor ( Arnon’s son) , and Carol Ann Taylor ( Arnon’s daughter) have birthdays this month. Bob Taylor’s children-- Robert "Robbie" Henry Taylor, Barbara Ann Taylor, and Jennifer Taylor all blow out candles in July. Alice Nellie Stitt (Arnon’s first wife), and Jillian Lockwood Wright (Stephen's daughter, granddaughter of Nancy Taylor Wright) are July Birthday Kids.
Robbie and Barb

Dan Maffei

Neil Maffei

In Aunt Leona’s family, Neil Carmen Maffei ( Leona’s husband), and Neil's grandson--Daniel Maffei ( Neil Maffei’s son) are July Birthday Kids.

Lester Wood ( Gladys’ husband) , Chick Wood ( Gladys’ son), and Neal Robert Osterhout (husband of Wendy Wood) all are the Birthday Partiers of the month in Aunt Gladys’ family.

Neal Osterhout

Chic
In Aunt Sylva’s family, her grand-daughter Cookie Jenkins (daughter of Christine) celebrates.

Helen Nase McPeek ( Phyllis’ daughter) is also a Birthday Kid.

Kristin Kinsella Walker

Patrick

Jill and Jen Kinsella

In Aunt CB’s family, Kristin Kinsella Walker ( Tim’s daughter) , Jeanette Dalle Kinsella ( Chris’ wife), Patrick James Kinsella ( Chris’ son), Alison Kate Herdeg ( Pat’s daughter), and Jill Miller Kinsella ( Jim’s wife) all celebrate birthdays this month.

Alison Herdeg

Barry Ronald Taylor ( son of Rex, son of Floyd) has a July Birthday.

In Aunt Ruth’s family, her husband--Thomas Francis Maney --and her son, Daniel Thomas Maney are July Birthdays.

Grandma Taylor
And, last but by no means least, Nancy Ethel Baker Taylor is a July Birthday Girl—Happy Birthday, Grandma Taylor!

Congratulations and Happy Birthday to One and All!!

Joshua V. Hart-Wood’s Obituary

2011-07-05T09:41:00.003-04:00

Josh and Brandy

Brandy Kapp writes:

“I just wanted to let you know that Joshua V Hart-Wood --Lester Wood’s son, my fiancé, passed away Friday night, July 1st 2011. He was in a severe motorcycle accident down in Belmont, North Carolina and was life flighted to Charlotte NC. My family and I are very heart broken at this point in time--Josh was only 27 years old! I miss him very much and I wish he was coming home. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in life.

I still wasn’t over Chic passing away a little more than a year ago, and I had to do it all over again. I held Joshua's hand and let him go to heaven.

My daughter is heartbroken as well and my 2 month old son will never physically know who daddy was. But, I’ll try my best to make sure the kids are raised knowing how great of a man Joshua was.”

Our hearts go out to Brandy and Emma and little Adin, and all of Josh’s family and friends. Below is his obituary:
-------------------------------------------------
BORN: January 30, 1984
DIED: July 1, 2011
LOCATION: Dorset, OH

Joshua V. Hart-Wood, 27, of Dorset and formerly of Warren, died Friday, July 1, 2011 following a motorcycle accident in Charlotte, N.C. He was born January 30, 1984 in Denver, Colorado, the son of Lester H. and Victoria (Hart) Wood, Jr.

A graduate of LaBrae High School, Josh attended trade school in Sunbury, Wisconsin. A driver for L.T. Harnett Trucking, he enjoyed hunting, fishing, motorcycles, and bull riding.

Surviving are his mother and stepfather, Victoria and Al Brown of Rogersville, Alabama; his companion, Brandy Kapp, with whom he made his home in Dorset; two children: Emma and Adin Hart-Wood; four sisters: Nance Wood Drum of New York, Shawn (Dave) Wood DeLucia of Georgia, Sandy (Rick) Wood Leach of Colorado, and Amber (Casey) Ontiveros of North Carolina; and two brothers: Erik, Sr. (Naomi) of Colorado and Jon (Andrea) Hart-Wood of Leavittsburg. Preceding him in death are his father; a sister, Denise Wood; and two brothers: Richard and Jacob Wood.

Services are 11:00 a.m. Friday, July 8, 2011 at McFarland & Son Funeral Home, with Rev. Rick Oaks of First United Methodist Church of Warren officiating. Friends may call 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Thursday and 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. Friday at the funeral home. Material contributions may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, Tenn. 38105.

Arrangements are entrusted to McFarland & Son Funeral Services, 271 N. Park Ave., Warren, Ohio 44481.

Happy Fourth of July!

2011-07-04T09:56:00.003-04:00

Hope everyone has a great day today--Happy Birthday, America!

Off to swim in the ocean and then check out the Boston fireworks later tonight.

Pat

Congratulations to Brian Herdeg and Gina Marzullo on their Wedding, By Pat Kinsella Herdeg, mother of the groom (!)

2011-06-30T21:15:00.007-04:00

This past Saturday, June 25th, Brian Herdeg, son of Pat Kinsella Herdeg and grandson of Aunt CB, married his longtime high school sweetheart, Gina Marzullo.

The wedding took place in Brian and Gina’s hometown of Acton, MA—at St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s Catholic Church. The groom—our Brian-- was escorted down the church aisle by his parents, Pat and Glenn Herdeg.

Grandma (Aunt CB), Pat, and Grandpa ( Uncle Jack)

Pat and Brian and Gina and Glenn

The bride—Gina Marie-- looking stunning in her strapless beaded taffeta gown, walked down the aisle arm in arm with her father.

Alison Herdeg, sister of the groom, was a bridesmaid, while Brian’s brother, Nicholas, was a groomsman.

The reception was held at a nearby hotel convention center, and highlights included the great food, dancing-- several uncles were known to spend precious time teaching dance moves to the younger generation, and catching up between relatives.

One of the pinnacles of the night was the first dance, set to ‘Almost Paradise’, a song from ‘Footloose’, the musical both Brian and Gina acted in during high school. Beautifully choreographed by Gina, a longtime dancer and choreographer—even with her long bustled train and the weight of her dress, she and Brian were not deterred—many spins and jumps and fluid moves later, they ended the dance in a kiss.

The night ended with ‘Sweet Caroline’ as the group serenaded Brian and Gina to the Red Sox anthem.

We thank EVERYONE who made it to Brian and Gina’s wedding—it went off so beautifully, and aside from our kitchen faucet exploding the morning of the wedding—it was truly a day to remember in our hearts.

Beginning of the Kinsella photo--check back later for the real thing!

We have lots of photos still to see from cousins, family, friends, so send them along, and I will put them up in a link on the side of the blog.

As Glenn and I shared a glass after the wedding, Glenn toasted to our now four children—Welcome to the family, Gina Marzullo Herdeg!

Prayers for Josh Hart-Wood

2011-06-27T12:39:00.003-04:00

Josh and Emma

Josh and Adin

We recently posted here on the cousins blog that Josh Hart-Wood--son of Chic Wood-- and Brandy Kapp welcomed little Adin into the world. His big sister Emma is already helping out with things.

Brandy posted yesterday on facebook that Josh was in a motorcycle accident and was in surgical ICU. She was on her way down to the hospital.

Late last night, she added:

Josh is still in a coma and they are trying to ween him off the sedation to wake him up. He has two fractures to the skull, facial fractures, collar bone fracture, bleeding on the brain, broken and fracture ribs. They are keeping him on the life support currently to help him breathe with all the chest pain. His vitals are looking great and we are just praying he wakes up tomorrow to slowly take him off the breathing tube! It will be a long road to recovery but I am going to be holding his hand each step of the way.Please keep him in your prayers. The kids are at home safe and sound with great family and friends. Please pray for them as well since Mommy isn't there to be with them. And many thankyous, hugs and kisses once again.

We here at the cousin's blog will try to keep you updated, but please do add Josh to your list of prayers!

Harold and Barb Taylor's House By Kathy, MaryLou, Ann and Judy

2011-06-23T15:54:00.004-04:00

Our next installment about cousins’ houses! This time, the girls of Uncle Harold have written their memories of their terrific house in Waterloo--

Kathy writes:

We Taylor girls grew up at 2756 Route 96, Waterloo. But when I was in school our address was R.D. #3 Romulus Road. Of course that was fifty plus years ago.

One of my favorite memories was Christmas Day with Grandma and Grandpa Taylor in our living room. We’d get up before daylight (always) and come down stairs with orders of DO NOT LOOK IN LIVING ROOM AROUND THE CORNER GO STRAIGHT TO KITCHEN! Here we would have to wait until 8:00 am to have breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa Taylor. We’d try to rush eating but that never worked.

When everyone was finished Dad would go in and set up his movie camera. We would walk in slowly to ooh and aah at the tree with all its presents. Opening presents meant one at a time which usually took all afternoon but we enjoyed every minute of it.

Of course I always had birthday presents wrapped in Christmas paper that got opened that day from one or another relative that could not come for my birthday .And that has never changed to this day.

Another memory I have was the year I think I was 12ish and decided to repaint my bedroom and furniture. My room was going to be lavender and my furniture white. Dad built me a bookshelf headboard for my twin bed. I painted my headboard, my mirror dresser and a five drawer dresser all white. Then I decorated it with my many stuffed animals. I collected a lot in those days (bad habit I still have today)-- I was very excited with the finished room.
Kathleen (Kat) Taylor Mills

Mary Lou writes:

I lived on Romulus Road as a kid in the house on the hill. Many memories come flooding in, but as a child I had a wander lust and roamed the farmers’ fields and spent as many waking hours that I could in the quarry behind the house on the hill. I would sing to the trees and make up stories about fairies in the trees. I was mischievous and adventurous and probably caused Mom all kinds of worry to where the heck I was. I would lose all track of time and sometimes did not come home till dark. It was a magical time for me.

Another memory is being dropped off by the school bus at the bottom of hill and walking up the hill to get home.

None of this should be a surprise to any who knew me. I am still a dreamer and still writing books in my head.

Love to all-----Marylou

Annie writes:

Well when Judy and I were younger we shared a bedroom. The older girls (Kathy and Marylou) had their own rooms. Judy and I would jump on the bed (even though we were told not to)-- then one time we broke the leg catch, were very nervous to tell what happened!

Another good memory was when I used to come down the stairway but was not always walking--I had a tendency to slip and make a loud noise flying through the door and land on bottom. Everyone always knew it was me every time!

Judy and I also had another memory of eating supper at kitchen table--eating LIVER!!! Mom would only give us 3 pieces to eat (not a favorite) but it would take us from 6:30 dinner time till almost 9 p.m. to finish eating them!

Girls should remember doing dishes and having wet towels that we would whip at each others’ bottoms with a snap!!! (Just missing Mom sometimes too). Also when we had pasta or lasagna dinners whipping the noodles at each other-- missing Dad a couple times coming home in back door....

Dad also used to have a workshop to the right of the barn that is there now (before the garage was built). Dad had oil pumps that I can remember in the building that I would check out, plus also other tools.

Also remember the family go-cart and mini bike that we all rode? Dad had built the go-cart and we drove on the road in the woods that Dad mowed for us to drive around! I also remember riding the mini bike with our neighbor and we fell and I burned my leg but covered it up so I wouldn't get yelled at-- bad blistered burn but I did put cold on it.

Judy writes:

I have great memories of tromping through the back woods along the trails that Dad made. They led us to the quarry that is just a bug-ridden pond with lots of pollywogs. It was fun to explore with the dogs. We always had a dog. I was never scared, we could hear Mom call out for us or hear the triangle bell she rang. I also remember when Dad would clear the quarry of snow and we could ice- skate.

I still love the outdoors-- The Pacific Northwest was a great wonderland to explore. Now we get to explore Florida, just as cool.

I so remember "the play-house" It was so much fun to have a place to pretend. We would make-up plays and be silly. The neighbor kids would come over. And of course the "cousins"-- time to hang out. A very fun time to think back on.

I also remember harvest-time and our garden! Wow, as a kid I thought it was as big as a football field. I was in charge of picking beans and cucumbers. Mom would get us up early and put on grubby shoes and bug spray. Out we would go with our buckets. I can remember the assembly line of tomatoes and corn with Mom telling us what to do!!! HaHa, it was a lot of work but the reward of eating the canned veggies was the best.

My love to all, Judy

June Events on the Cousins Blog

2011-06-19T18:39:00.010-04:00

Paul Kinsella, son of Tim Kinsella, ran his second marathon on Sunday, June 5th. He ran in the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon and finished with the terrific time of 3:37, taking 20 minutes off of his first marathon time. What a terrific accomplishment! Way to go, Paul.

Paul and Angela Kinsella

Chuck Lochner reports that he just completed a major renovation on an apartment –a two year project—and even in this economy, managed to rent it at premium price. Great job, Chuck!

Patrick Kinsella, son of Chris Kinsella, recently had his First Communion at St. Rose of Lima in North Syracuse.

Patrick Kinsella

We have four graduations to proudly trumpet:

Joe Kinsella
Joe Kinsella, son of Chris Kinsella, graduated June 15th from Kindergarten Prep.

Alex and Sue Kinsella

Alex Kinsella, son of Sue Kinsella, graduated from The Bay School of San Francisco on Friday, June 10th, and heads off to Stanford this fall.

Ted, Brian and Judy Lochner
Brian Lochner, son of Ted Lochner, graduated from David Prouty High School in Spencer, MA.

Ali ( on the right) with two friends
Ali Herdeg, daughter of Pat Kinsella Herdeg, graduated from Dartmouth College on Sunday, June 12th and will begin work at Rand Corporation in Washington, DC later this summer.

Congratulations of ALL of our June Event Makers!!

We are so proud of you all.

Jane Livingston Carson By Pat Kinsella Herdeg and Aunt CB

2011-06-13T19:39:00.009-04:00

Here is another look back at one of our amazing ancestors. Jane lived a long and varied life filled with tales of wonder and tragedy. I wish I had known her.

Jane is my great great grandmother on the Taylor side. Jane Livingston married William Carson and their daughter, Emma, married Bryant W. Taylor. My grandfather, Lloyd Taylor, is their son.

Jane, daughter of Adam Livingston and Jane Russell was born in Northern Ireland. She had five brothers and five sisters. Of her ten siblings, William and Letitia ended up in Illinois; Nancy, Martha and Elizabeth went to Glasgow, Scotland.

Jane Livingston was twenty years old when she left Northern Ireland with her brother, William to come to the United States. In 1854, this voyage took five weeks. She suffered from seasickness and every day in fair weather her brother William carried her up to the deck to lie in the sunshine.

Jane spent two years as a maid in New York City before moving to Groveland (near Geneseo, NY) where she again worked as a maid—this time for the Lattimer family. It was in Groveland she met her husband, William Carson. They discovered that, as kids, they had grown up only miles apart in Northern Ireland. One year later -- in 1857 -- they were married.

Jane Livingston Carson and her husband, William--probably their 50th Anniversary picture

William Carson, her husband, came to the United States at age 22 to work as a farm hand in Geneseo, NY. After he and Jane married, they rented land in the area. In 1875, with seven children, they moved to a farm in the Oakfield, NY area where they became active in the Presbyterian Church. They became good friends with Daniel and Cordelia Taylor, and it must have been at church that their daughter, Emma, met the Taylor boy, B.W.

In 1880, Jane and William Carson bought a larger farm they named “Rural View” in West Bethany, NY. The huge horse chestnut tree still standing in back was planted by Jane Livingston Carson.

Jane and William had eight children:

--Albert Livingston Carson was a wanderer. He settled, for a time, in the Chicago area and married.

--Our Emma was next—as we know, she married B.W. Taylor and had an eventful life in
Oakfield, NY. She died at Woodlawn at age 55 after suffering a stroke.

Rural View

A Carson Reunion, Jane near middle

--Mary Elizabeth Carson was the next oldest. Reading through Emma’s journals, Libbie was her favorite sister. She relied heavily on Libbie to help her when her children were born. At age 36, Libbie died of a burst appendix.

--Theodore William Carson married and had two children. At age 43, he was living at Rural View and working it for his parents. He became very sick with pneumonia and after taking too much laudanum (by accident or not?), he died.

--Anna Margaret Carson married and had three children. Her mother Jane lived with her at the end of her life.

Rural View

Jane out in her fields

--George Grant Carson married and lived in Batavia.

--Edward Everett Carson married and had four children. He also farmed in West Bethany. At age 44, suffering many hardships on the farm, he shot himself and died.

--Harry Hayes Carson was the youngest. Again, reading his sister Emma’s journals, I think she always saw Harry—seventeen years her junior—as her kid brother. Harry married and had one daughter. They lived in Cincinnati, but when he came down with tuberculosis, he came back to Woodlawn in Oakfield, NY to ‘cure’. Unfortunately, the cure did not take, and Harry died at age 36.

Our Jane lived a long life, dying in 1921 at age 87. Her husband had died ten years earlier and of her eight children, she buried five of them. Aunt CB, aka Mom, also has eight children. Little wonder that she often brings up Jane and talks about what heartaches she must have known.

2846 St. Paul Boulevard, By the Kinsellas

2011-06-08T15:44:00.010-04:00

We’ll start the cousins write up of our family houses by highlighting our family home, 2846 St. Paul Boulevard, in West Irondequoit, a town with Rochester on its southern border and Lake Ontario on its northern border.

Mom and Dad moved from ‘2846’ in 2007 after living there for more than 45 years.

Mom writes many memories of 2846—here are a few:

--Sue, packing her clothes in a brown paper bag, and moving to the dog house in the back yard to live, after some words with me—she was nine or ten.
--Chris, curled up on the love seat in front of the living room window, immersed in the bird book that he got for Christmas. Two day later, he came up for air and was an expert!
--Tim, his driver’s license barely in his pocket when he got a ticket, right in front of our house.

Kitchen

Living Room

Sue remembers: I loved the pantry off the kitchen when we first moved into 2846. It was long and narrow and filled with cupboards. The cupboards, lovely wood with glass windows, filled the upper walls, with matching cabinets along the bottom wall. Among the cabinets was a bin that pulled out at a 45 degree angle. Mom called it a flour bin.

There were secret doors to the outside—one was the milk box that in older times, the milkman must have opened from the back yard and put in orders of milk bottles. This door saved us many times when we left our house keys in the house—the smallest was always pushed through the tiny opening.

Dan writes: We lived on St. Paul Blvd., but we hung around with the ‘Seville gang’ the kids who lived on the street to one side of us. They were scared of the ‘Thorndyke gang’—kids from the dreaded Thorndyke Street on our other side. I guess they must have been a year or two older than us, so felt bullied when we ran into them.

We would regularly have ‘wars’ with them. These wars were primarily raids with us running over to where they were playing and pelting them with pine cones, or vice versa. I know for a while we stockpiled paper bags full of pine cones up in the top of the garage at 2846, because we didn’t want to take the chance of getting caught without our supply. For all I know, they may still be there!

Beth writes, calling hers ‘Ghost Memories’—
--In the front yard, underneath the big fir tree, making ‘rooms’ by clearing spaces in the pine needles and using pine cones to outline ‘doors’
--In the back yard, learning to skate backwards, being careful around the roots of the big tree at one end
--In the downstairs hall, Tom and I jumping from ever higher stairs until we got scared and stopped. I wonder what stair we stopped at?
--In the living room, peanut hunts during birthday parties, marathon Monopoly and Risk games while we listened to just about every Beatles record ever made
--In the kitchen, making pies and cookies with Grandma Kinsella, coloring Easter eggs, and around the counter, everyone liked best the seats where you could rest your feet on the radiator
--In the basement, watching ‘Dark Shadows’ and eating Charlie Chips chips, consulting the Ouija board and scaring ourselves silly

Tim writes:
It will be sad at Christmas time not to be there to open presents, have a dart gun war, and take a nap on the living room floor after a wonderful turkey dinner.

Jim writes:
The house I grew up in was HUGE. The house I returned to as an adult looked identical...just smaller.

The nice thing about an old house is all the stories that have left their mark on it:
1) The scratch marks on the basement door from our dog trying to get out when we were away.
2) The hammer marks on the banister from my brand new 'kids' hammer I was testing out Christmas afternoon
3) The cracked glass mirror over the fireplace...blamed on our neighbor for years until one of us 'fessed up.
4) The notes and drawings on the ceiling in the attic written by siblings over time.
5) The 'hidden compartment' over our clothes-chute that had secret papers in it
6) The water-stain on the hall ceiling from the bathtub overflowing when we were too rambunctious in the tub above

Like scars left on a body, they record the passage of time, and bring a smile to those who remember.

Dining Room where many a Thanksgiving and Christmas feast were eaten!

Library

Tom writes:

I’m sitting in the backyard of my house at 20 Hobart Avenue. It’s a nice backyard. But it holds none of the memories of the backyard at 2846. No trees that I jumped from into leaf piles. No ghost trees of plum and pear. No basketball court with cracks for shooting foul shots and three pointers. No garage with an attic to play in as a child. No tent trailer, sleds, hockey sticks, no windows broken.

Paul Kinsella writes:

I remember—Breaking the garage windows…a lot (editor’s note—LOTS of hockey got played there). I guess I knew it was bad when I broke one and then told Grandpa. He came out to fix it and just pulled a fresh window from a pile in the corner of the garage. When you have a reserve stash of three or four garage windows at all times, it’s never a good sign.

--Dart gun wars at every major family event!!! I remember explaining to my friend in elementary school how I couldn’t wait to go to Christmas so I could have a dart gun war with my uncles.

The Attic as we kids never saw it--empty!

And, in 1993, when one of our family newsletter questions was ‘What is your Favorite Room’, almost everyone answered, ‘our attic’, although everyone had different reasons for loving it so.

Chris writes: One of my favorite rooms was the little room behind the sliding door with the Confederate flag in the attic. To get to the room, you had to open the sliding doors and open a small door into the room. It was a small room with a slanted roof. It contained several old chemistry sets, one of the broken down televisions and Jim’s astronomy magazines. This was Fred’s (our cat) favorite room as he ripped all the insulation down with his claw.

I’ll end our memories of 2846 with what my niece Kristin wrote about her favorite room when she was thirteen—such wisdom, Kristin!

“My favorite room is the attic at Grandma’s house. It’s my favorite room because it has a lot in it. It is so crammed with stuff, you’ll never know what you might find. The closet door in the outer attic is prominent in my memories, because of the height marks penciled in on it. I like to see what my height is compared to my dad, aunts, and uncles at the same age.

I really like the attic, and when I get my own house, I want one just as full of memories as Grandma’s is.”

Massachusetts Tornadoes By Pat Kinsella Herdeg and Ted Lochner

2011-06-04T12:33:00.000-04:00

My, were we surprised by the tornadoes--very strange--we do not get many here, and although apparently we do get two or three a year, they are very weak.

These were very strong—EF 3-- and tore up houses, etc, just like you see in the middle of the country. You could hear it in the voices of our television reporters covering it--they are not used to seeing this destruction here in our state. One reporter was already out in western Ma reporting on the first batch of tornadoes live on television. A trooper called to her to look over her shoulder and suddenly, another tornado was on its way. She told us later--'I kept filming, but I thought to myself, at what point do I stop and run?' She stopped and ran. Amazingly, a third round of tornadoes hit again later--by this point, she was sheltered in a nearby basement.

Parts of Western MA look like Joplin, MO did--entire buildings gone, bulldozers and buses picked up. One terrific video shows the tornado twirling right along the Connecticut River and dropping all sorts of debris onto cars on the bridge.

We did have warnings, but I am not sure how many people paid attention--we do get them from time to time, but they are always weak and nothing comes of them.

The tornadoes kept hitting the same stretch--three batches--touching down in the same group of towns, each leaving certain towns in between untouched!

We here in Acton on the morning the tornadoes hit got hail the size of pennies. My two cats went wild--did not like that at all. Then, in late afternoon, we did not get tornadoes but the winds and thunder and lightning was amazing--I was convinced trees would fall, but none close to us.

Plenty of people without power in western MA, and lots of cleaning up to do, but so far, only three people dead. People all over the state are finding bits of papers from the affected towns—books, bills, brochures—some have managed to travel eighty miles away!

And, Ted Lochner, almost in the tornado corridor, emailed me today:

“Everything is fine here. We are located in between the two tornado paths, one about twelve miles to the south and the other about 20 miles to the north!! The devastation in the towns of Sturbridge, Brimfield, Monson, Wilbraham, & West Springfield is unbelievable. I am trying to institute a plan to gather together a team of Home Depot employees to go down there to help those poor people that lost everything they owned. God bless their souls.”

So, that’s it from now sunny and calm Massachusetts.

June Birthdays, By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-06-01T00:01:00.001-04:00

June—a month of sunshine, flowers and weddings (my son Brian’s wedding is later this month). And, a month of Terrific Birthday Kids!

Kathryn
Three generations of Woods celebrate the month of June--Kathryn Wood Barron ( daughter of Gladys) , Kathryn’s daughter-- Kayte Barron Langstaff, and Kayte’s son --Gavyn Langstaff.

Kayte, Gavyn and Spice

Also, Jennifer Ann Wood (daughter of William and Jessica Wood, grand-daughter of Nancy, great grand daughter of Chic Wood and so, Great Great Grand daughter of Gladys Wood) will be one year old at the end of June. Aunt Gladys must have loved this month of birthdays for her clan!

Jennifer, from last July

Elsewhere on the Baker side, Carol Ann Arnold ( daughter of Linda, daughter of Sylva)is a celebrating her birthday this month, as well as David Wendell Henderson ( Wendell and Joyce’s son). David Henderson

Heading up the ‘ancestors group’, Bryant Waller (B.W.) Taylor, Jane Livingston-- mother of Emma Jane Carson, and Adin L. Baker all were born in this month.

On the Taylor side, Jonathan Taylor (son of Barry and Cathy Taylor), and Charles C Doran (son of Florence Taylor Doran) celebrate birthdays.

In Uncle Harold’s family, Thomas Baley Jr. (Yvonne Baley’s husband—she is grand-daughter of Uncle Harold), and Daniel Taylor Spear ( Mary Lou’s son) blow out candles.

Yvonne and Tom

In Arnon Taylor’s family, James Lee Taylor ( Arnon’s son) , Jim’s daughter--Erin Louise Taylor, Diana Maria McCarty ( Arnon’s daughter), and Michelina Paige Letourneau (Cynthia's daughter, granddaughter of Nancy Taylor Wright) all have June Birthdays.

Jim and Bob Taylor, 1984

Diana and Aunt Maria

Mickey

Doris Hawke’s family has Janis Harvey Hawkes ( Mickey’s wife) as the Birthday Girl.

Ruth Maney’s family celebrates with Jonathan Paul Maney , and Karen Kalke Maney (Dan’s wife).

John and Jill Maney

Congratulations and Happy Birthday to all!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-05-26T19:24:00.001-04:00

Memorial Day is upon us, and many of us look forward to barbeques and cottages, tending to our yards, flowers and grass, and just generally enjoying the ‘official beginning of summer’.

But, let’s also remember what Memorial Day stands for:

“Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it's difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860's tapped into the general human need to honor our dead.”--- From-- http://www.usmemorialday.org/

And, a poem—

Freedom Is Not Free ---By Kelly Strong
I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
and then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of TAPS one night,
When everything was still
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That TAPS had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.

We’ve written of a few of our relatives who have died during wartime—Daniel Mott at Second Bull Run was a recent story. So, as you pass by your local cemetery on your way to a picnic, take a few minutes and stop in to remember and thank those who died to keep us free and safe.

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, everyone!

Springtime and Sunshine!

2011-05-21T11:58:00.002-04:00

Well, a bit of sunshine after a full week of rainy weather has me thinking of weather around the cousins’ country. Everyone is out mowing their lawns and weeding and putting in bushes and flowers—springtime in New England!

Here in Acton, Ma, we Herdegs have a sunny day with chance of showers. At almost noon, it is 63 degrees and I just finished washing both the car and the truck.

This afternoon, we hope the Boston Bruins can win another playoff game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Later tonight, we’ll definitely be watching the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs continue their first series against each other in ninety-three years. To celebrate, tonight they will wear uniforms from the 1918 World Series they played together.

But, back to weather. Around the country,

--My sister Sue, living in Novato, CA will enjoy of a day of sunny weather and 70 degrees

--My cousin Judy, living in Sarasota, FL will also have a sunny day, but the temperatures will get up to 88 degrees

--My cousin, Kathryn Barron, living in Kent, OH has a partly cloudy day to look forward to, and temps in the 70’s

--Julie Lochner Riber, in Louviers, CO sounds like her day may not be the best, weather-wise—isolated thunder storms and cloudy with temps up to 63 degrees.

--Diana McCarty in Buffalo, Minnesota has a day of rain, with temperatures perhaps breaking the seventies

--Joyce Henderson, in Center Lisle, NY sounds like her day is like Diana’s—cloudy, rainy (STILL RAIN!!!) and in the 70’s

Overseas, Mitch in New Zealand will have a day of sun and clouds and 57 degrees

--Beth in Chiba, Japan has night, but she will have light rain with 75 degrees

--New found Livingston-Carson-Taylor cousin Muriel in Shotts, Scotland has perhaps the worst forecast—heavy rain and only 48 degrees

So, is my forecasting right?

Tell us what your weekend was like—weather-wise or otherwise!

New Green By Beth Kinsella Sakanishi

2011-05-15T13:37:00.003-04:00

My sister Beth writes yesterday from Japan: “Still a lot going on, more bad news all the time. We are all just hanging in there, taking each new piece as it comes. Not really able to relax yet. But things better than two months ago.”

A few weeks ago, Beth sent these written images of Japan in the springtime:

“I was out walking today and though this is prime cherry blossom season and many other dark pink, purple, red-orange and palest pink blossoms are out, though this is just the start of a whole parade of flowers that we all look out for and delight in: azaleas next, then the various irises, the long flowing waterfalls of white, pink and lavender wisteria, then the hydrangeas during the rainy season, and the delicate, lacy crepe myrtle in summer -- the color I want to see most is the greens of shinryoku (new green), the mini season that comes after the cherry blossoms and before the rainy season in June.

I think we all have this longing, no matter where in Japan we may be along what is called the ‘cherry blossom front’ -- that long sweep of the first blooms in the south and then the month-long slow trek they take as they open up all along the northern crescent of Honshu (the main island) and bloom at last, in Hokkaido, the northern-most island. The cherry blossoms are just starting in Tohoku and I can only begin to imagine, from the dull hint of it in me, the mixed emotions of people there as they see them.

The ‘new green’ season, though, is a different thing from the brief, shimmering beauty of the cherry. The green is not one but a dozen, two dozen, shades of green as all the spring leaves, on bushes, on trees, on plants, turn a shade that glows and glows with a vividness I have never seen anywhere else. Perhaps it happens elsewhere, perhaps it is a common thing in Asian countries, but I thought I knew every nuance there was to green, having lived in Ireland for a year, but the new green here is transcendent.

It takes some doing to outshine the colorful, silky, showy blooms of spring flowers here, but the green does so. It is partly that it all happens at once, and that it is a palette from lime to darkest green to balance the pastels, but it is also a turning of the emotional season here. Schools, ‘new faces’ (the newly hired young people who, having graduated in March, are just starting to get their feet under them, in May), other classes adults have decided to embark on -- all these are beginning and a new phase of life is underway. It is the beginning, though, so still new, still scary, still difficult to see the twists and turns it will take.

But the new green is, far more than the celebrated cherry (and I have always liked the quieter plum more anyway), a sign of hope, the promise of growth. I need that. We all do.”

1904 – “Something of a Hard Year” By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-05-10T10:55:00.007-04:00

We’ve written other blog posts about the Carsons and the Taylors, who lived in Oakfield, NY.
Emma Jane Carson married Bryant W. Taylor and together, they raised Clara, Leon, Floyd and Lloyd (my grandfather), Florence and Mildred.

I am transcribing parts of Emma’s journals, and thought giving you slices of them from time to time might be interesting. Her mother-in-law’s journals--Cordelia Waller Taylor—are wonderfully detailed, but quite religious. Emma’s are more personal, more to the heart.

In July of 1904, Emma writes of her sister Anna visiting. “She and the children stayed until the morning of the 5th of July when Floyd carried them to Batavia. The very day that she left word came that Aunt Clara Henry (blog story about Clara at--http://taylorbakercousins.blogspot.com/2009/12/clara-taylor-henry-1855-1904-by-pat.html) was dead.

Clara Taylor Henry

How we felt! She had been so sick, but we felt that she was going to get well. Death came early on that morning. Then followed the usual getting ready for the funeral which was held from this, the “Homestead” on the 8th of July at 2 o’clock P.M.

The body was brought on from Madison their home by Mr. Henry and Arnon, reaching here Friday a.m. where Father, Bryant, and Carlton met them. They all came to lay the dear body in the old home for a few hours where we and the old friends might take a last look. By Five o’clock all was over.”

By August, Emma confides that Mr. Henry (a professor at the University of Madison, WI and who was ‘wandering’ for a few weeks following his wife Clara’s death) “thinks our Clara too frail looking to try to undertake trying to graduate the coming year. It is a great disappointment to her and to me to think of giving it up when we have both worked so hard to bring it about.”

Clara’s ‘frail-ness’ (she was seventeen in 1904) was an early sign of the mental illness that would finally bring her to spend the last of her years in the Willard Hospital (see blog story about Clara--http://taylorbakercousins.blogspot.com/2011/01/clara-elizabeth-taylor-burt-by-aunt-cb.html).

Topping Carrots, Lloyd, Leon, Floyd

Emma goes on to write: “Wheat is cut but not in. Part of hay is still out. A great deal of rain makes it so hard for farmers to get on this year.”

The next entry is in October. Emma writes: “The boys and Florence started for school September 12. Florence only went one day and a half when she was taken sick so I called the doctor who said she had Typhoid Fever. She was under his care for three weeks—so small a girl and so terrible a disease.

How and where she got it is the question we cannot answer. And how many more of us will have it before we get through.” What Emma did not know, as we have told the story before, is that the school’s well water was daily brought from the Taylor wells which were behind their home and too close to their own cow barn. The manure effluent drained into their well.

Haying, Floyd, Lloyd, Leon

Also in the October entry: “Fall work is some behind with us. Potatoes and most of the apples to pick yet.”

By Thanksgiving, “Well, potatoes and apples finally were gotten in but last were frosted some.”

On January 1st of 1905, Emma writes, but not of her usual ‘What Will This Year Bring’. Instead: “ Little did I know when last I wrote what would be to tell when I wrote again. I will write a few of the particulars for the benefit of those who may wish to read in the future.

On November 28th, 1904, Leon was at West Bethany (ed.—with his Carson grandparents) expected home by noon. Lloyd and Floyd (who were twelve years old) went to school in the forenoon. At noon, when Leon came, Bryant thought best to keep both boys at home and draw hay to the horse barn. This being done, apples were next taken hold of to get them to the cellar and out of the way of frost.

Lloyd went to take the forks to the west barn. When the others went back for another load of apples, they discovered Lloyd lying in the barn unconscious.

Bryant picked him up and carried him in. We laid him on the couch and there he lay for four long hours, not knowing a thing that was going on. Of our feelings I need not write. Leon went for Dr. Turk who was here in less than an hour.

I left Lloyd to their care. During the evening I was called to help undress him, get him onto a bed on the couch. For a week he needed constant care, Bryant and I not undressing for this length of time. The doctor was a daily visitor for two weeks. Lloyd suffered terribly from headache and nervousness. His mind wandered for a few days, then Lloyd keeping on a steady slow gain.

All this trouble was caused by the kick of a horse on the head we suppose. Marks lead us to think so. Lloyd himself could not tell us what happened.

I dressed him first on December 20th in the evening, then each day following, he was dressed part of the time. On the eve of December 23rd, he came out to the table for his first supper. Then, on Christmas morning, he came out to breakfast and since then has been to the table for all meals.

So we may say that he is well—a narrower escape never came so near to us, and I expect the reason he did live was that the worst part of the kick came on the double cap rim (Pat asks-- Of his hat?). As it was, the bone was dented in about as far as it could be without being cracked. We feel very thankful that his life was saved!

All this, with dear Aunt Clara’s death and Florence’s sickness in September made 1904 something of a hard year.”

Our Emma, my great grandmother, did not know that the year of 1907 was to be much harder. But, that is a different story.

Welcome to the World, Adin Lester Hart-Wood!

2011-05-05T09:50:00.003-04:00

Adin on Easter

Adin and Mom

Adin and Big Sister Emma

Adin and Dad

Joshua Hart-Wood, son of Chic Wood, and Brandy Kapp announce the birth of their son—Adin Lester Hart-Wood.

He was born Wednesday April 20th, 2011 @ 1:09 pm at Ashtabula County Medical Center (Ashtabula, Ohio) weighing in at 7lbs. 4 oz. and 19.5 in. long.

Brandy writes:

“He has a head full of hair just like his dad ..lol ! He weighed 2 oz. more than our daughter when she was born and our daughter Emma had no hair.

I've been so busy and caught up at home with the motherhood of two precious children now--They've been keeping on my feet ...and Josh and I are enjoying every minute of it! I'm running on 4 hours of sleep each day but it's all worth it in the end.

We've named him Adin Lester after Great Uncle Adin and Lester after (Chic/Dad). I know Chic would be so proud and would have a smile from ear to ear about the name we've chosen for the little man. I was looking at baby pictures of Chic, and Adin looks a lot like him other than the ears!

Emma is a proud sister of her little brother and a big help!”

Aunt Gladys Howland Wood would be Adin’s great-grandmother.

Congratulations!

May Birthdays, 2011:

2011-05-01T12:37:00.014-04:00

Uncle Harold and his tomatoes

Jeff and Carol Hauf

Spring HAS arrived, and with it, plenty of flowers and tornadoes and wind and rain. But, the sun also shines through, and I have hopes that my lilac bushes will bloom this month. A few quotes to hopefully brighten your day--

"Don't knock the weather: nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while."
- Kin Hubbard

"If it's drama that you sigh for, plant a garden and you'll get it. You will know the thrill of battle fighting foes that will beset it. If you long for entertainment and for pageantry most glowing, plant a garden and this summer spend your time with green things growing."
- Edward A. Guest, Plant a Garden

As always, we have Birthdays on the TaylorBakerCousins to Celebrate:

In Uncle Harold’s family, it is The Big Guy himself-- Harold Baker Taylor, along with Carol Elizabeth Hunt (Jeff Hauf’s--son of Kathy Taylor--wife) who blow out candles this month.

Kristy and Eowyn

In Aunt Ruth’s family, Sean Francis Maney ( Dan Maney’s son) is the Birthday Boy.

In Aunt Doris’ family, Kristy Hawkes Colley ( Charlie’s daughter) celebrates a birthday this month.

Cynthia

In Uncle Arnon’s family, Jean Wilcox Taylor (Jim’s wife), and Cynthia Wright DeLuca (daughter of Nancy Taylor Wright) have May Birthdays.

Bridget

Matt

Leah

In Aunt CB’s family, Leah Kate Walker (daughter of Kristin, grand daughter of Tim Kinsella) turns one year old! Also, Matthew Thomas Kinsella ( Tim’s son), and Bridget Laurel Kinsella ( Chris’ daughter) are the Birthday Kids.

Lawson Henderson

Ron, Joyce, Kathleen and David Henderson

In Aunt Phyllis’ family, Joyce Ann Tillotson Henderson ( Wendell’s wife), Kathleen Amy Henderson ( Wendell’s daughter), Ronald Wendell Henderson ( Wendell’s son), Lawson Ray Henderson (son of David and Patsi, grandson of Wendell and Joyce) all celebrate birthdays this month.

Joey Maffei

In Aunt Sylva’s family, Michael Emhof (son of Freddy D, son of Sylva) is the Birthday Kid.

In Aunt Leona’s family, Joseph Maffei ( Leona’s son), Sara Louise Maffei and Andrew Carmen Maffei (twins of Neil Maffei Jr.) blow out candles.

Ted and brother, Chuck

In Aunt Esther’s family, F. Theodore Lochner, and Wesley Allen Riber ( Julie Lochner’s husband) are the May Birthday Kids.

Wes Riber

Happy Birthday to you all!

Welcome to the World, Esther Grace Walker! By Charlie Hawkes

2011-04-24T19:54:00.002-04:00

I have been given permission to announce the arrival of the newest in the Walker family.

Justin and Sharon Walker of Lockport, son and daughter-in-law of Cindy (Hawkes) Gabrys, annouce the birth of their daughter:

Esther Grace Walker
born April 23rd, 2011 at 7:59 P.M.
weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces
and 19 1/2 inches long.

Mother and daughter are doing well.

Our love to all, Charlie

Daniel Mott, Missing in Action during the Civil War by Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-04-15T15:30:00.004-04:00

Second Battle of Bull Run

"Our boys fell like the leaves of autumn."

April 12th marked the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter. We will have many reminders around the nation about the Civil War, but here on the cousins’ blog, we remember family.

Daniel Mott, younger brother of Diadamia (our Great Great Grandmother), was a farmer with his father in Virgil, NY. He enlisted in the 76th NY Regiment during the Civil War, and by all accounts—military, official and personal—he went missing in action on August 28th, 1862 during the Battle of Brawner’s Farm, in the Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Second Manassas.

Daniel was the ninth of thirteen children. Two of his older brothers had fought and died in Texas during the Mexican War. In 1861, both Daniel and his younger brother, William, joined the Union Army. For whatever reason, they joined months apart, and fought in different regiments. William came home and lived until the age of 62. Daniel was not as lucky.

Our Daniel mustered in as a private in 1861 in Cortland, NY at the age of twenty-six. He was to serve a three year term in the 76th NY Regiment, Company A. The Register of Enlistments records that our Daniel is six feet, one half inch in height, with grey eyes, brown hair, and ‘florid’ complexion.

A letter from Lyman Culver, a Cortland County boy in Daniel’s Company A, describes well what Daniel’s camp must have looked like before they encountered the enemy:

Brawner's Farmhouse

I wish you could take a peep in our tent this morning - you would think it looked rather sassy - the 76 Reg. occupies 290 tents with three and four in each tent, overhead is our Enfield rifles & swords on one side, our knapsacks canteens, and if you take a peep in my overcoat you will find a six shooter and bowie knife - they were presents to me and I have been waiting for a chance to use them.

On the afternoon of August 28th, 1862 near Gainesville, VA, young Culver got a chance to use his sassy weapons.

To prevent the Federal commander’s efforts to concentrate at Centreville and bring General John Pope of the Union into battle, Stonewall Jackson ordered his troops to attack a Union column as it marched past unawares on the Warrenton Turnpike—Daniel Mott of the 76th NY was in this Union column of men.

For one and a half hours, the soldiers fought, only thirty yards apart in places. In this short time, this opening salvo of the Second Bull Run Battle inflicted casualties amounting to almost one-third of the 7000 men engaged. General Gibbon, a veteran of some of the heaviest fighting of the entire Civil War, later recalled, 'The most terrific musketry fire I have ever listened to rolled along those two lines of battle… neither side yielding a foot.”

Marker for the 76th NY Regiment at Brawner's Farm Field that day

This savage fight at Brawner’s Farm lasted until dark. In another account of the action, Captain Noyes, a staff officer at Brigade headquarters, from which point he had a good view of the opposing forces, wrote in his work "The Bivouac and the Battlefield":

"All along the low ridge parallel to our position stood double lines of Rebel infantry. I saw a mile of lightening leaping from their muskets while a deluge of thunderbolts shivered like fiends among us and over us. Our boys fell like the leaves of autumn."

Another soldier, Uberto A. Burnham of Cortland, had been a school teacher, and wrote in later years about the day Daniel Mott disappeared, August 28th, 1862, at the Battle of Brawner Farm, Second Bull Run:

And now it became apparent to the two brigade commanders that their small force was in an extremely dangerous position. It seemed imperative that the six shattered regiments that had done the fighting should get out of the way while night lasted. It was decided to leave the Centerville road and retreat to Manassas. Preparations were immediately made for the march, ammunition was issued. Details were made to bring in the wounded.

Capt. Watrous of my company commanded the detail to bring in the wounded of the 76th. They went in the darkness close to the Confederate lines. They could hear the conversation of their men and the cries of their wounded. When they came to a prostrate form they put hands on the face to see if it was cold. If not he was picked up or helped up.

As they hurried away under cover of darkness, it would have been easy to leave behind Daniel Mott, wounded or already dead.

The National Park of Manassas has the Groveton Confederate cemetery, where soldiers from both sides were buried by Confederates. After the Civil War, all northern soldiers that could be found in Groveton were dug up and re-buried at Arlington Cemetery.

Our Daniel is most likely buried in Arlington under the Tomb of the Unknown of the Civil War. This granite tomb, shaped like a casket, holds the remains of 2,111 Civil War soldiers, most of them from the Bull Run Battlefields.

So, when you next visit Arlington Cemetery, stop in at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and watch the changing of the guard, but then, search out the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers of the Civil War and stop and think of our Daniel.

Thoughts on Japan, By Beth Kinsella Sakanishi

2011-04-10T13:45:00.014-04:00

Walking home from teaching her first ‘Current Topics’ class since the earthquake, Beth got thinking about an old essay she wrote and what she would add to it now:

In Fits and Starts

I was trying to think of a way to describe the shaky islets in a swamp feelings here. That fragility, but also the connectedness to a sure and history-laden environment. An emotional ecosystem that lives with and sustains flow, change. I looked back at an essay I wrote several years ago and saw I have been thinking these things out for years. I was talking, in the piece below, about how the historical fear of fires in Japan, and the other natural disasters, does something to the human spirit. How it can make the idea of ‘change’ less scary in one way (it has to be done, over and over and over, in this land of typhoons, floods, earthquakes, fires), but also, on the other hand, more awful (Again? Again, you are asking me to pick up the pieces of my life and somehow get over the loss, again?) All I know is that people here live with impermanence, transience, fragility, in ways as built into the fabric of their lives as Americans do with ‘freedom’, say. And because something is in danger of being taken away or destroyed does not mean you live without it. That is part of what I was writing about below:

"Change. In a land of frequent earthquakes, of seasonal typhoons and floods and fires, don’t people get used to their lives being ripped out from under them? This is a country where you can still hear, especially in winter, people walking the neighborhoods at night, around dinner time, clicking two pieces of wood together, calling out the same refrain echoing down the centuries, “Beware of your fires”. No, people here still have paper panes in their tatami mat rooms, and a heart that slows for a moment, listening to that neighborhood warning, then fumbles to find its pace again.”

“Japan lives with extremes. Friends back home in snow country, where the only natural disasters to worry about are blizzards and ice storms, cannot imagine how I could live in a place that is so prone to earthquakes. The thing about earthquakes, though, is that they seldom last more than a minute or two, and often much less than that. They are terrifying for those moments, and in fact, so disoriented am I -- every single time -- by the unexpectedness of the jolt, that it takes a handful of seconds to recognize what it happening, even though I have been through these rumblings literally thousands of times before. When mind kicks in, after heart and body have already sent up their flares, I run to the doorway and wait. And in those moments of waiting think enough thoughts, enough worst scenarios, to fill a very long book.

But then it is over, and never having experienced a serious quake I am only talking about those that leave no more than a few dishes or picture frames broken. Right after one, for the next day, that is all anyone talks about: where were you? what did you do? Everyone uses this time’s warning to check that their earthquake kit is up-to-date, too. By the end of the week, though, the earthquake and the certainty that a bigger one is coming some day, has already faded. This kind of time is too quick with its shout to keep holding on to.”

Of course, now that I have lived through a big one, or at least the outer edges of one, I can report that my mind worked differently in the 9.0 jolt. And whether it was because it was so long -- five minutes instead of the usual 30 seconds or so, because it was three quakes that happened sequentially, overlapping a bit -- or because it was so strong (if it was a 9.0 there, it was about a 7 in our part of Chiba), time did a funny thing. Instead of the flood of thoughts that usually go through my head in the lesser, quicker jolts, this time, I told Takeshi all my mind could come up with was “Please stop, please stop, please stop,” in a loop as fierce as a mantra. What I had not remembered until a few days ago, and this had come back to me eerily just an hour or so before the most recent, strong aftershock, was that I had for the first time ever thought, “This feels very different. It is not stopping. I might die in this one.” I had not even been able to ‘remember’ I thought that until a few days ago, a month after the quake.

I know this piece is dark, so far, but it won’t stay that way. I just mean to be showing you how the mind suffers these horrors (and I am so far from knowing firsthand any of the real horrors; my shocks have all been second-hand from the flood of news images and stories we are still getting day and night), and then repairs itself in fits and starts. I feel absolutely pummeled at times by the emotional impact of the Tohoku stories, the scenes repeated over and over (like the twin towers falling again and again, though Japan learned something from that, I believe, and did not give us tsunami waves endlessly, after the first few days), the repeated need to be up on the latest thing that has gone wrong at the Fukushima reactors.

And yet.

Yet, even I, knowing my adopted country as well as I do, having lived here now more years than in my home country, am amazed and inspired by how quickly people find alternative ways to live when ‘normal’ is not possible.

One last bit from the essay I quoted above. In that piece, I was talking about a time, years ago, when I was deciding whether to go or stay and visited Kyoto one winter to help me think. This is how I ended the piece:

“The way the sky after a typhoon is scrubbed bluer and more cloudless than it has been for months, the way fear jumps up but then in settling down brings a calm deeper than before -- these are the cleansings of a place where nature can change your world in an instant, but can also foster determination to dig in. I think of all the fires Kyoto has endured, all the civil wars and faction fights, the earthquakes and typhoons and landslides, and what I see down every street, in every shrine and temple garden, and views unchanged for a millennium, is belief that we can pick ourselves up and start again. This is the real heart of Kyoto, of the whole country, and is one reason I chose to stay that long ago winter I was in doubt.”

Well, I cannot say that anything is so easy this time. And yet, I see this same belief and determination everywhere:

People all over the country donating children’s backpacks (an odd -- to me -- humungous thing that tells you how much homework these kids get, and hard as a turtle’s shell, so sturdy that one young girl was saved from the tsunami’s sweep when the strap of her backpack caught on an upper landing and she was held above the waters until they receded) for those who need them in the Tohoku area. These are expensive items, not the small amount we would think a backpack might cost.

I see Japanese companies with a mindset lightyears ahead of their usual tradition-bound thinking. This is a country where ‘flex time’ took forever to get here and is not widespread, where every year during the week-long ‘Golden Week’ (April-May) and New Year holidays, almost everyone has the same days off and so every flight out, and every train home or to a popular destination is packed (I just stay home!). An atmosphere where some companies have only recently let some employees work from home. All changed: gearing up the real threat of summer blackouts (Tokyo summers are hellish, people need air conditioning), companies are suddenly talking a language any American has known for a decade or more, with flex-time, a 4-day work week, staggered vacation times, leaving early, having a third of the workforce work at home (so the company doesn’t use as much air-conditioning), on and on.

I see all the lessons learned from other quakes: prefectures affected by the Kobe one all ‘adopting’ a Tohoku prefecture and since they are prevented by law from sending money, send ‘people’ instead: nurses and doctors and social workers, of course, but also -- and this I never would have thought of but they’ve been through it and grasped it once -- municipal workers to help take the place of key city officials and other natural planners in an emergency, who were lost in the tsunami. And whole schools moved together -- children, with their teachers, to another prefecture that has an empty school.

Some of the hardest choices facing those in the quake/tsunami/nuclear zone have to do with ‘change’. Do you leave or do you stay? Some of the terribly exhausted choose to stay in shelters or their damaged houses because they still have a relative ‘missing’ and will not leave until they know for sure. Others, whole communities, have moved to another nearby prefecture, but have done so together (with their local gov’t setting up right along with them, in this new place) so they can go back together ‘when they can’. Still others stay because they cannot bear to let others down.

There is the example of one hospital, the only hospital in a town of 10,000. Water had reached the third floor, the computers and expensive equipment like MRI machines had all been ruined. After the first week, the president and the full-time doctors left, pleading ill health. Well, the nurses were made of sterner stuff and they stayed. The head nurse, most of the other nurses, and some rotating part-time doctor staff from other cities are keeping the place running. On almost no sleep, day after day, week after week. The head nurse said, ‘Sure, I wanted to run away, too, but I couldn’t leave these people.’

You see how connected Japan is from this disaster: the reason milk is scarce (one company in Ibaragi makes most of the nation’s cartons), and the 3 big auto companies are really up against it (the parts manufacturers are almost all, in small factories, in Tohoku), and that some foods are still scarce even in relatively removed Tokyo (certain key ingredients were from Tohoku) -- is all from one huge swipe of Mother Nature.

But this realization of being connected is also, of course, why the nurses stayed, why every famous Japanese sports player, singer, comedian, writer, etc., from the affected area has gone back, or has tried to go back, to cheer people up. It’s why so many foreigners stayed and why when people asked me if I had gone home for a short time, I said I had not.

I don’t know if belief and determination are enough to bring Tohoku back, but I do know that I understand those unchanged scenes of Kyoto now even better than that winter long ago. And I don’t know how precisely you keep picking yourself back up, but I am sure that is exactly what people in Tohoku who lost power again, because of the 7.1 quake two days ago, in many areas that had just gotten it back after a month, are doing today. Perhaps shaking their heads and muttering mo ii (enough already!), but then sighing and getting back to cleaning the mud off the photo album someone found and returned to them, or scavenging what could be saved from the wreckage of what was once a sake-brewer’s or a fish-product company or a ramen shop or an auto parts factory, or picking the debris from a much smaller now farm field and planting the crop that has to go in now, today, and not tomorrow.

Yesterday's Aftershock--More From Beth Kinsella Sakanishi

2011-04-08T10:47:00.003-04:00

Beth writes about yesterday’s aftershock and the ones before it: I am finding all of this is something like having PTSD. You can't forget it; there are too many aftershocks and places without electricity. Every time it all is shoved in my face again, and we are what 200 kms from the area most affected?

I could not bear to watch the tsunami video you sent so don't know which one it was. The hardest part for me watching those videos was listening to the Japanese, which you are spared. Just heartrending as people call out encouragement you know is too late.

We have had other aftershocks (here in Chiba) just as strong as last night's or almost as strong -- 900 aftershocks, of all sizes and duration, and counting, according to some reports, but the tsunami was, as always, the added element of terror, this last time.

More blackouts and no water for places in Tohoku that had only recently started to get back on their feet. Really feels never-ending.

But they did warn us (as they did in the NZ quake that happened just before ours, so we had heard this idea twice) that any time in the first month after, we could have anything up to a 9.0 as an aftershock.

It was a longer than usual shaking, though, and at night, so that was upsetting.

Hard to imagine those poor folks still in evacuation centers, or those who could not stand it anymore, and went back to their damaged homes.

No way to escape thoughts of it, even here, as we go through darkened stations and no escalators (and station stairs here are very, very long flights, often) -- as we all struggle to preserve electricity.

Supposedly, the bigger the earthquake, the more aftershocks and the more frequent, and the stronger they are. They had started to be more spaced out last week, but then had picked up in frequency in recent days. Guess the aftershock last night was why.

Hopefully, things will calm down again. Grateful, as always, for everyone's thoughts...

Love, b

P.S. You can post this, if you want, but it is scattered. I am tired. But it is a bit of on the spot reporting.

----------Pat Kinsella Herdeg here--I pass on to Beth all of your comments. They DO help her. She is tired now much of the time, but feels she should explain some of what is going on over in Chiba, at least.

“Hands” By Beth Kinsella Sakanishi

2011-04-06T11:45:00.002-04:00

Beth and Takeshi

The other day, I read a short article about some young men from Tokyo who had gone back to one of the hardest hit areas. One of them was searching for his parents’ home, and his two friends had come along to help.

Many times a house cannot be found because it was swept out to sea; other times you can find it, but hundreds of meters away from where it was supposed to be, carried an unimaginable distance by the tsunami.

That was the case with the now famous pair -- grandson and grandmother -- rescued over a week after the tsunami. The family had felt very strongly that the pair were still alive, somewhere. They had had a phone call right after the quake from the grandson who told them they were at home, and okay, and then the call was cut off and they heard no more. The family came to look in the coming days, at where the house should have been, but also further away. They looked and looked, circling wider and wider in their search, but never quite far away enough because who can imagine a world wrenched so hugely awry? The two were safe, though, and trapped in a small space near a refrigerator, so could eat a few things, and drink some water, until the grandson could finally find a way to the roof and wave his arms and call to rescue workers, “My grandmother is inside.” Both of them say that talking with the other one kept them alive, able to hope.

But getting back to the three young men from Tokyo. The hometown boy did not find his family home, but the three stayed to search the area because they came upon so many belongings strewn everywhere, as far as the eye could see.

At first, he was just looking for something, anything, from his home that he could bring his parents, but they kept finding so many of the lightest things that had floated ashore: photos, drawings, photo albums, notebooks, certificates, books. They started to collect as many as they could thinking that if they brought them somewhere and kept foraging and finding more, people to whom they belonged, people who had lost everything but memories -- these people might come and claim something that was theirs.

I was watching the short amount of news I allow myself these days and happened to see a quick segment showing one of these rooms of ‘things’. Whether it was the collection the boys started or not, I am not sure. The idea caught on and soon most towns had such rooms. I had the sound turned down and so wasn’t listening to the voiceover, but was just looking. Things were neatly sorted out in long lines: someone had thought to put like things together: photo albums in a long line like train cars, a ‘photo gallery’ over there: wedding photos, graduation photos, family and travel photos, and ‘Coming of Age Day’ photos.

Both the graduation and Coming of Age Day photos have a depth of meaning that is hard to grasp unless you know this culture, but when you do, you can’t see these things in the ‘room’ without being moved.

Graduation ceremonies are very big deals here: I remember being surprised and amused, when I first got here, to hear that mothers get all dolled up for and even (shock!) fathers attend kindergarten graduation. But there are very elaborate, stylized ceremonies at every level, from kindergarten to college; it is an important ritual to both child and family.

Among the most moving short segments of the many we are still getting every night on the news, are the various graduation ceremonies (the school year begins in April in Japan, so graduation is in March ) where either a child has died, and so the father or mother sits in their seat with a photo of the child on their lap, or a parent is not there to witness this event and we see the poor child go up, knowing they are going through this family ritual with a broken heart.

‘Coming of Age Day’ photos -- this is a treasure that you can’t guess at from outside the culture because we don’t have anything like this. ‘Coming of Age Day’ is when all the young Japanese who have turned twenty that year ‘become adults’ and have a ceremony at their city hall. A few young men dress up in traditional male Japanese clothing, but most wear a western suit.

Almost all the young women, though, rent very expensive kimono, and get up at the crack of dawn to be ready. Literally: I have a friend who helps them put on their kimonos because young women can’t do it themselves -- it is very complicated and they are not used to it -- and she is up by 4 a.m. to help them dress and have their hair and makeup done professionally. This photo is often the only time they will ever wear a kimono and is priceless.

I could also see children’s drawings and things rolled up into tubes that looked like diplomas. What moved me most, though, was one ‘drawing’ that some child had made: two hand prints in the middle of a background so white that you knew someone had carefully cleaned the mud from it. The hand print art reminded me of a short article in today’s paper about a donation from Indonesia: ten thousand people, lining up for hours in front of the Japanese embassy, “stamped their palm prints onto a huge board in Jakarta on Sunday as a message of solidarity to the survivors” of the disaster.

And this in turn brought to mind another image from perhaps a week ago, when volunteers were just starting to be able to make it to the worst-hit areas. The news program had found a few different types of people to focus on: the people from Niigata and the Kobe area who had been through their own earthquakes and who had been helped by others and wanted to give back; the teachers who made sure their families were okay and then went back to spend some time each day with their students in the shelters.

One that was so culturally attuned that only someone from here, or someone who had spent time in Japan would get the full impact of was this sight: the rescue workers who rigged up, as one of their first priorities every area they came to, bathing areas (not showers -- the point was not merely to be clean) because there is little that a Japanese finds more soothing than a long soak (and any onsens, hot spring resorts, in the areas who were not too damaged, also immediately allowed people to use their baths for free).

One of the first times I saw anyone from an evacuation shelter smile was the first scenes of them making use of onsens and these bathing areas. And the community aspect of it was/is important. Men and women bathe separately, but you usually bathe with all ages together: grandmas and middle-aged women and mothers with their young children, fathers, sons and grandfathers, after a week or more with no running water (and you know how fanatic the Japanese are about cleanliness...), all relaxing, talking from time to time, and finding some bit of comfort, together.

But the group that made me cry was a collection of elementary or possibly junior high students that arrived like a flock of chicks and descended on one shelter saying, “The massage team is here!” Grandchildren in Japan often massage the aching shoulders of grandparents. It is a custom I have always found sweet. To see these children doing so, for strangers they were treating as their precious grandparents, and to watch the complex emotions steal over the faces of the elderly men and women who received this gift, is something that will stay with me for a long time.

I think that here is one thing I take away from this: that yes, food, electricity, water and medicine have all been vital to get to those in Tohoku, but other kinds of help are just as important. It is the spirit, the heart, that needs food, too, to keep the body alive.

April Birthdays, 2011 By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-03-31T16:42:00.009-04:00

Ahh, April Fools Day was ALWAYS looked forward to in our house. For days ahead, we worked out pranks and jokes. Particularly in the morning, I tried to wake up more quickly than usual—could be salt and not sugar I was spooning onto my cheerios, could be the clock was ten minutes behind what it should be, could be, well just about anything! We tended not to believe anything we were told that day. This morning, I feel like another prank has hit me—snow! It coats the trees and then plunks loudly to the ground in wet white dust storms. THIS is April?! On to the Birthdays! Graham Gabby Mike

In Uncle Arnon’s family, Michael Anthony McCarty (Diana’s son), Graham Alan Wright (Donnie’s son, grandson of Nancy), and Gabrielle Michelle Letourneau (Cynthia's daughter, 1st grandchild of Nancy Taylor Wright) are the Birthday Kids.

Paul and Angela Rosemary

Kelly

Marlene

In Aunt Ruth's family Marlene Ann Maney ( Richard’s daughter) is the Birthday Girl.

In Aunt CB's family, Rosemary Holz Kinsella (Tim’s wife), Paul Christopher Kinsella (Tim’s son) , and Kelly Ann Kinsella (Jim’s daughter) all celebrate this month.

Uncle Harold's grandson, Jessie Taylor Spear (Mary Lou’s son) is the Birthday Boy in their family.

William Carson

Pam and Mitch Taylor

Laurie and Sarah

Judy

Charlie and Mary

On the Taylor side, William Carson, father of Emma Jane Carson, was born in April 1830 in Northern Ireland. Pamela Taylor Crane (daughter of Bryant and Evelyn Taylor) blows out candles this month.

In Aunt Esther's Lochner family, Laurie Acker Lochner (Rick’s wife), and Judith Powers Lochner (Ted’s wife) are April Girls.

Aunt Doris' son Charles William Hawkes, and Kelly Marlene Walker ( Cindy’s daughter) celebrate this April.

Gladys

Gavyn and Aedyn Rhoda

Dawn and Annie

Dawn and Bernie

On the Baker side, Gladys Howland Wood, her son, Michael F. Wood, and Glady's great grandson, Aedyn Langstaff (Kathryn Wood Barron’s grandson), all have Birthdays this month.

In Aunt Phyllis familiy, two of her daughters--Rhoda Lynn Coleman and Sheila Ann Coleman (known as Annie), and Bernard C. Walker (Dawn Coleman’s husband) are the Birthday Kids.

Neil Carmen Maffei, Jr. ( Leona’s son) also celebrates an April Birthday.

Wow! Lots to celebrate this month. Congrats to all.

Oakfield, NY One Room School House: By Aunt CB, Uncle Jack and Pat Kinsella Herdeg

2011-03-27T19:51:00.002-04:00

We’ve written about the Center Lisle School House (http://taylorbakercousins.blogspot.com/2009/05/center-lisle-school-house-by-lucille.html), so now it’s the Taylor family’s turn to hear about their school house.

The Union Free Schoolhouse is now a home; Aunt CB never got a chance to go inside of it, but as a home now, it probably has had extensive renovations and would not look much like the Woodlawn Taylors remembered it.

Years ago, during one of their visits to Aunt Florence’s home (Florence Taylor Doran), Jack Kinsella asked her to tell him about the one room schoolhouse that all the Taylor children attended while growing up next door at Woodlawn.

It stood at the intersection of their road (MacComber Rd) and the Oakfield-Batavia Townline Rd, in Oakfield, NY.

The drinking water used was carried daily from the well at “Woodlawn” by the older students. Quite often during the late summer someone in the Taylor family would come down with typhoid fever. It was a common illness at that time, and could be fatal. You may remember that Florence’s younger sister, Mildred, was still recuperating from typhoid fever when Florence came home from school with scarlet fever. Mildred caught it, was too frail to get through it and died. Only years later, when typhoid’s cause was better understood, did the Taylors realize that their farm well was being contaminated by its proximity to the barn and animal waste. Aunt CB often wonders how many school children caught typhoid from the water at the school house.

Aunt Florence told of one student, Clara NewKirk, who came to school in a two wheeled gig. Upon arrival, she would put the reins around the whip socket and send the horse home. In the afternoon, her father would send the horse and gig (alone) after her and then she drove it home!

Later, in 1911, Ethel Baker accepted a position at the Oakfield school house to teach 7th and 8th grade mathematics and art. She met Lloyd Taylor at a “Christian Endeavor” (Presbyterian youth social group). Soon, Florence Taylor, Lloyd’s younger sister, noticed that her brother began meeting her after school to help her unharness her horse and he would ask her all sorts of questions about her teacher.

Eventually, as Ethel was included in the group of young people who often gathered at ‘Woodlawn’ for taffy pulls, Florence realized that Lloyd and Ethel were interested in one another.

Aunt CB continues the story: “Daddy and Mom used to go back for yearly reunions at the school house. Every fall, they would meet there with Daddy's old school mates and they would go into the school and eat. Each year they would appoint a classmate to arrange for the pot luck meal they enjoyed together. Mom usually took her beans she was famous for!! These reunions went on for many years, maybe from the 1940’s through the 1960’s.”

When the school closed for good, Lloyd made sure he got his old desk, which Jim Kinsella now has in his extensive ‘historical pub’.

In both Center Lisle and Oakfield, the one room school house held so many memories and stories!

Picture One: 1960 Reunion--Lloyd is in front row near the right, Ethel is diagonally two rows above him.

Picture Two: School house in the early 1960's

Picture Three: Aunt CB’s diagram of what school used to look like inside

Picture Four: Lloyd’s school desk

Picture Five: Lloyd’s pencil case

Happy Birthday Mom, also known as CB, or Lucille Kate Taylor Kinsella

2011-03-20T22:17:00.000-04:00

March 21st—Spring officially arrived last night, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief that we have survived MOST of this cold and snowy winter.

But, we here on the cousins blog have more important events to celebrate—namely, my mother’s 84th birthday!

Little Lucille has come a long way from her summer days helping Adin milk cows in Center Lisle, suffering through two bouts of scarlet fever (and so getting her never-been-cut red hair sheared extremely short—so the long hair did not drain her energy), working in the fields during WWII to help the war effort (and thereby gaining her long-time nickname of ‘CB’ because she worked as fast as the legendary racehorse Sea Biscuit), and in 1949 marrying John Joseph Kinsella in Waterloo, NY.

I think we can all tell numerous stories of my mother, but today, I thought I would help celebrate her birthday by giving a short rundown of her eight children and their families, thus helping cousins place us all when you see the ‘Kinsella’ name in a story on the blog. For almost fifty years, Mom and Dad lived in West Irondequoit, a northern suburb of Rochester, NY. About five years ago, they moved to a smaller home in Greece, yet another Rochester suburb. But, back to the kids:

Picture Two: Kinsella Family, 1969—Back Row—Tim, Dan, Sue; Middle Row—Pat, Tom, Jack, CB, Beth; Front Row—Jim, Chris

Susan Ethel Kinsella, their first child, arrived in 1951. She now lives near San Francisco. Her son Alexander Brown Kinsella graduates from high school this June.

Daniel John was born in 1952. He married Liz Lehmann and they both live in Fairport, a suburb of Rochester.

Timothy James was next, born in 1955. He married Rosemary Holz in 1976. They live in Liverpool, NY. Their oldest is Kristin, who married Tim Walker. They live in Clay, NY with their two young children, Cameron and Leah—Mom and Dad’s first great grand-children. Paul is Tim and Rose’s middle child, born in 1982. He married Angela Cooper last summer, and they both live near Los Angeles. Matthew, Tim and Rose’s third child, was born in 1985. He lives in Baldwinsville, NY with his long-time girl friend, Gina Herzbrun.

Patricia Ann was Jack and CB’s fourth child. I married Glenn Herdeg in 1983. In 1987, our oldest, Brian was born. He will be marrying Gina Marzullo this summer. Alison, our middle child, was born in 1989. She graduates from college this May. Nicholas, our youngest, was born in 1991. He is a freshman at CU Boulder.

Thomas Edward was born in 1959. He works in NJ and lives in Absecon with his long-time love, Christine Farina.

Elizabeth Ruth was born in 1961 and she is married to Takeshi Sakanishi. They live in Chiba, Japan.

James Matthew was born in 1965. He is married to Jill Miller and they live in Greece, NY, a few blocks away from Mom and Dad. Their oldest daughter, Madeline, was born in 2000, and Kelly was born in 2004.

Christopher Paul was born in 1968. He is married to Jen Dalle and they live in Cicero, NY with their four children (and yes, various assorted pets). Their oldest, Margaret, was born in 1997, Bridget in 2000, Patrick in 2003 and Joseph in 2005.

Ma, we love you! Have a terrific Birthday—we wish you energy, health and peace as we ALL surround you with our love and gratitude.

Picture Three, 2009 : Back Row, Left to Right—Tim Walker, Angela Cooper, Paul Kinsella, Gina Herzbrun, Matt Kinsella, Christine Farina, Tom Kinsella, Sue Kinsella, Alex Kinsella, Liz Lehmann, Dan Kinsella, Gina Marzullo, Brian Herdeg, Glenn Herdeg
Middle row: Kristin holding Cam, Tim Kinsella, Rose Kinsella, Jim Kinsella, Jill Kinsella, CB, Jack, Chris Kinsella, Jen Kinsella holding Joe, Pat Herdeg, Alison Herdeg, Nick Herdeg
Front Row: Maddy, Kelly, Bridget, Maggie, Patrick

Picture Four: Ma and Pa and the crew walking up to dinner, 2009

Happy St. Patrick's Day, and Thank You from Beth in Japan

2011-03-17T09:49:00.002-04:00

Thanking You

The thing that has helped me most (besides my immediate family, here and in the US) is the messages from cousins, from friends, from people who know that my parents have a daughter and son-in-law in Japan and have called them. People on my internet lists, people from all sorts of times and places in my life, people from work, have all sent love and prayers.

Even as I consider how very much that emotional support has helped me, I realize it is one more thing that those in the evacuation centers are largely deprived of. Along with lack of electricity, food, water, warmth (in temps that are now back to winter’s range, the snow on the debris obscenely pristine looking) -- they must have little idea of how much the rest of the nation, the rest of the world, is thinking of them.

Pat adds here that Beth had previous written and told us that Takeshi's nephew--San-chan-- spoke to his Dad and he is all right, but in an evacuation center with no electricity and running out of food.

It is, as it so often seems to be, the smallest gestures that move the most. I was just watching a program talking about the many relief efforts under way (and how so much of it is moving slowly or not at all because of the acute gasoline shortage. Trucks loaded up and ready to deliver, stalled). One was a delivery of special warming blankets (and this one had reached a center): every box had hand-written messages of support and encouragement on the outside. I think that would be as much help to those inside the centers as the blankets they desperately need.

This is not a culture of easy hugs and huge emotional (verbal) outpourings. It is like all the arts here: the subtlest shade has tremendous meaning and impact. The writing on the boxes; the young rescue worker I saw caressing a obaachan’s (the word for your grandmother, but also for any older woman, thus making strangers your family, in a way, something that struck me the moment I started to learn Japanese) hair and stroking her hands to warm them up, tears streaming down his face; the child I heard about, from a friend, who thanked the trainman (in Tokyo) for working so hard to get the trains running again; the sake maker factory who was out the next day after the quake looking for his workers and upon finding them hugged them (in a country where I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen adults hug each other), also in tears. On and on. Small gestures, small actions, that reveal so much of what is going on underneath.

Minds on other matters. I know what I am going to write about next is natural. I am just recording the oddness of it, for me. I sit in front of the television, tuned to the station that has English coverage, and realize at times that I have been listening for a good 5 or 10 minutes and have not understood or retained a single thing because my mind has let the wild horses loose again -- I am thinking not one other thing while the spiel continues, but fifty different things, all tangled together. Impossible to sort out. I know then it is time to turn down the sound for a while.

I flip to other channels, first, though just to see. See what? I don’t know, just to find something else, to see if there something else I should be paying attention to. Almost a week after the disaster, about half the stations are still doing daylong earthquake/tsunami coverage. I zip past the many Korean dramas, talk shows, etc. on other channels, thinking -- too soon, too soon. The only program, besides news, I can bear to watch for a few minutes is one where a dog and his owner go around and ‘meet’ other dog owners (this is a regular show -- it is filmed in a different location each time). It sounds odd, but it is very Japanese, I think. I have always liked it. I love the dog owner’s laugh and the dog is good-natured and well-behaved. I find myself stopping at this channel and watching this, when I won’t watch anything else. Because, I realize, it is all about communicating with strangers. Making immediate friends, because of the dog, and then finding out in ten minutes more about these new friends, than you would in days. The instant rapport, the quick opening up, reaching past most ‘normal’ social barriers.

But then I go back to news, or turn the tv off for a while because my heart and mind have taken as much as they can again. I turn on the internet, get lovely emails from people sending all of Japan such love, but then also see how my internet lists have gone back to their normal lives, how others are discussing things again that have no meaning for me yet. I can’t think past what is here and though, as I said, it is natural for others outside of Japan, to go on, we can’t. Nor should we. It just smacks me up against the reality of some types of ‘borders’, of worlds that exist outside our ‘accident that has not yet ended’ (I forget who said this recently, but it was someone high up, about the nuclear situation. I took it immediately, though, as about life here, at the moment.)

As usual, I meant to be saying one thing in this email and got on to others. I meant, though, to say again to you all, how very much your concern and encouragement and thoughts have helped us all. I wish we could somehow beam these messages into the evacuation centers. We ARE all thinking about them, but they do not know it. Can they feel it? I hope so.

Beth Kinsella Sakanishi: More Thoughts From Japan

2011-03-13T21:16:00.003-04:00

Earlier today Beth wrote:

I can see how even as protected and safe as we are, able to live in our house and eat and drink and have heat and food -- even we are getting very tired, just from the total wrenching of emotions, again and again and again. I cannot begin to imagine though, even with the small taste I have, what is like for those (300, 000 at last estimate) who are in evacuation centers.

I was thinking of Pakistan just now -- remember how it was weeks before they got to some villages and how angry everyone was? Well, now I understand it more clearly. Japan is one of the most sophisticated countries in the world (in ways), is as prepared as any for as much of this as you could be, had the Kobe earthquake 15 years ago and made a lot of mistakes then, so had learned from that.

Even so -- there are villages like the one where only 7000 of the 17,000 have been contacted. 2/3 of the village was just swept away. It must have been one of the first places hit. There are towns like that and small towns (this is a whole area of small towns) in very isolated areas that no one can get to. With all that Japan can muster. With no electricity, with no radio or cell phone, even with helicopters, you can't get everywhere. I understand that now in ways I wish I did not.

Then, just now Beth emails again:

Hi All,

Just a quick note, this time. I am actually going to venture out today, for the first time, after I send this. Takeshi has been doing the shopping (and all the stores have very little in them, NOT that I am complaining. Just 'reporting' the way it is even here, far from the real dangers/tragedies).

But people have wondered how they can help and I think until we know more (and even after that, of course), people can help best by keeping us all in your thoughts and prayers. People do that instinctively, but may wonder if it helps. It does.

Otherwise, there is not much yet even we can do. The one thing we have started today is a 'rolling blackout' system, where different parts of the Kanto area (Tokyo and environs; not Hokkaido, which has had power plants out, too, and not all of eastern Japan which is on a different power 'frequency' -- 50 vs 60 Hz) will have their power turned off, so it can be given to Tohoku, which is still very cold at night, among all their other problems.

Our 'shift' today is 3 to 7 pm, so I will go out and do things before then. {And it DOES feel good to be able to help, in this way, anyway. Something concrete we can do for them. We really all do have a huge instinct to help don't we, and when it can't, it is part of the pain.}

It IS hard to watch this and not be able to help. No one can much, even the rescue teams, when 500 (at least) bridges are out and roads are flooded, but they will get there as fast as they can. More teams are coming all the time. Besides the NZ, Aus. and American teams I mentioned, some from Singapore and Korea have come.

I think you are getting pretty good reportage of all of this on your end, so I won't write as much, but we are still getting all day coverage and it helps, sometimes, to write about it. Will write as I think of things.

In the meantime -- thank you each and every one of you: for your emails, your thoughts, your love. We feel it.

Love,

Beth

More Thoughts from Beth on Japan’s Earthquake Aftermath

2011-03-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

When I think of 'Tohoku', the northern part of Japan that starts at the prefecture just above us and goes up to the northern tip of the mainland (Hokkaido is the big island just off that northern tip), I think: rice farmers, small business owners, small farmers, many, many older people because it is a relatively poorer area of Japan and so the young all flock to Tokyo. It would break anyone's heart to see all those pictures of the devastation, but that it is Tohoku seems to make it worse, somehow. It will take them years to come back from this. Some towns, never.

I was trying to think of how to explain the 'stereotype' of Tohoku people. Is it even helpful? I don't know. I am just following what my mind gives me. Think of New Englanders, maybe people from Maine (or my stereotype of them -- Pat can correct me). They are used to very harsh winter conditions, many different rough weather conditions, in fact. They are are self-reliant and resilient and perhaps not given to chatter, shall we say. The strong silent type, who is serious and hard-working. A pride of place, as their 'country' is one not for sissies.

They are used to tsunami warnings, they are used to big tsunamis (I've been hearing for years about some of the notorious ones in the past 100 - 200 years), but it all depends on how much time they had to get away. It is all being complicated, of course, just as it was in Kobe 15 years ago, by the lack of communication. If everything is washed away, there is no way to get the full picture.

We are still watching the nuclear power plant news, but there is nothing we can do but wait and see.

All my Tokyo friends are okay. Our part of Chiba is relatively safe.
------------------------------------------------
Hi All,

I am starting this now -- 6:30 pm my time -- and will finish it up and send it before I go to bed, which will be your morning and then you will know more than we do, by the time we wake up tomorrow.

I feel wrenched in a thousand ways. I feel like I did on 9/11 -- I can hardly stand to watch any more television, yet I need to know what is going on. Too, because of the nuclear power plant situation, we really do have to be up the minute informed.

I think of how Japan's economy is fragile enough as it is and now we have this? With the best will in the world, how do we help all these people? I think of these families and how do they start to put their lives back together? But I thought the same after Kobe and though things (as friends tell me) are not the same there even now, you do put the pieces that are left back together.

Teams from the US, Australia and NZ are on their way here, as we speak. Only a few days, in fact, since the Japanese team got back from NZ.

How do I sleep with these images in mind, and we are not even badly affected, here??

The news is showing us before and after photos of different cities. The interpreter (and I know from Takeshi how professional they are), as she finishes talking about one photo, can be heard catching her breath as if she is doing her best to hold back tears. As we are, all day long.

They have asked everyone in the nation to preserve electricity as so much is down in Tohoku, so that is something (thank you!) concrete that everyone can do to help them. Stores in Tokyo are closing early, etc.

The Prime Minister just spoke, as of 9 pm:

He says that the explosion was NOT the container itself. The inside of the container, with the nuclear fuel inside, was not damaged. It was the outside concrete wall that fell off.

His expert says the radiation levels AFTER the explosion were measured and they did NOT go up and are, in fact steadily, decreasing.

They are going to fill the container around the core reactor, with sea water, to further cool it down.

Earlier reports of the container itself exploding are wrong.

He explained in more detail, but the gist is, don't worry. While I wouldn't go that far, it seems a less frightening picture than an hour ago.

Finally, the last piece of a picture of those in Tohoku: they are not into spring yet, as we are just starting to be. It is still quite cold there and they have snow in places. Most places have no electricity. But as happens, too, everyone is helping everyone.

Japanese PM's don't make inspiring or poetical speeches in times of crisis, yet I found myself profoundly moved at the suggestion that the opposition parties and the DPJ stop their bitter fighting over the budget (just going on now), recess the Diet (parliament) and all come together and work only on this issue of getting Tohoku the help it needs....

Love,

Beth