The Irish Cottage for Weathervane Wednesday

 This weathervane was photographed in front of the Irish Cottage in Methuen, Massachusetts. 

The Irish Cottage is a restaurant in Methuen, Massachusetts, located right at the interchange of Routes 93 and Rt. 113.  It was previously located across Rt. 113 in a strip mall, but now it is a stand alone building.  This miniature cottage is next to the parking lot, right by the street.  It looks very Irish, with the shamrock decorations and thatched roof.  Above the mini house is a small weathervane.  You might not notice the weathervane whilst passing through this intersection, but you will certainly notice the miniature cottage!

The tiny weathervane is a horse silhouette, which is very tradtional around New England.  I've never been to Ireland, so I don't know what the common weathervanes would be over there.  I've seen claddagh weathervanes, and a shamrock weathervane, too, around New England, but this mini vane features the horse. 

The Irish Cottage serves pub food and boasts a staff from Sligo and Galway.  There are special events, and a function room for parties and meetings. Live Irish music is played every Saturday.    

For the truly curious:

The Irish Cottage website:    https://www.theirishcottagepub.com/ 

Irish Cottage Pub and Restaurant, 17 Branch Street, Methuen, Massachusetts

Click here to see over 550 more weathervanes featured on "Weathervane Wednesday":   https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/search/label/Weathervane%20Wednesday   

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To cite/link to this blog post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "The Irish Cottage for Weathervane Wednesday", Nutfield Genealogy, posted February 26, 2025, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-irish-cottage-for-weathervane.html: accessed [access date]). 

Aunt Janet and Uncle Bill Blades for Photo Friday

 

This is a photo of my Auntie Janet and Uncle Bill Blades.  My cousin sent me this photo, but we don't know the year or place.  Janet is my grandfather's little sister.  She was born 14 June 1898 in Salem, Massachusetts to Albert Munroe Wilkinson and Isabella Lyons Bill, my great grandparents.  In 1927 she married William John Blades, who was born 14 June 1894 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  They lived in Beverly at 111 Essex Street in Beverly, next door to her aunt Georgia and Uncle Charles Marshall, and not far from where my grand parents lived on Dearborn Avenue. This house was built in 1675 by an ancestor, William Woodbury.  It was bought by Uncle Bill in 1927, around the time of their marriage. The house was sold in 1968 when Aunt Janet was widowed and moved into an apartment for the elderly in Beverly.  

Bill Blades was a veteran of World War I, where he lost a toe to frost bite in the trenches.  There is a family story that he was General Pershing's chauffeur. His military papers list him as a driver, but there is no proof about the General Pershing story!  After returning to civilian life he worked in the automobile industry as a repairman (1920 census), and for an auto dealer (1930 census).  He joined the Masons in 1920, in Dorchester where he lived with his parents before he married Auntie Janet.

Uncle Bill died in 1962 when I was a baby.  I don't remember him.  He is buried with a veteran's gravestone at Central Cemetery in Beverly, next to Janet, who died in 1981.  They never had any children. 

Auntie Janet worked for many, many years for the Salem Electric Lighting Company (a public utility). She earned a small gold brooch every five years she worked there, and after her death my father had the pins made into mongrammed pins for the women in the Wilkinson family.  I received one, as well as my sister, mother, aunt, and cousin.  

I remember my father picking up Auntie Janet from her apartment in Beverly and bringing her to our home in Holden, Massachusetts for Easter and Thanksgiving dinners.  She was a tiny lady, and always smiling, but I never knew her well.  The only story I remember about Auntie Janet was from my grandmother: 

"And of course we were married on a Thanksgiving Day 1926.  I think the date was November 25th, 1926.  I remember that day was quite hectic but we had the family, and an Episcopalian minister married us.  We went to Boston for just a couple of days.  My sister stayed with my mother and then I kept on working.  Oh, when we went away for our honeymoon Don's sister tried to pull away his suitcase for him.  And he kept hanging on to it and he got a black eye from the door banging into his eye.  So he had a black eye on our honeymoon and people joked about that but he really didn't feel a bit good." 

1976, Aunt Janet Wilkinson Blades

at my grandparents' 50th anniversary party. 

This is the only photograph I have of Uncle Bill Blades alone

For the truly curious:

Tombstone Tuesday 2015, William John Blades:     https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/03/tombstone-tuesday-william-john-blades.html   

The House at 111 Essex Street in Beverly, built by William Woodbury in 1675:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/01/house-built-in-1676-by-william-woodbury.html   

Surname Saturday WILKINSON from 2011 (my lineage back to our first WILKINSON immigrant ancestor in New England, Thomas Wilkinson of Portsmouth, New Hampshire)   https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/09/surname-saturday-wilkinson.html   

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To cite/link to this blog post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Aunt Janet and Uncle Bill Blades for Photo Friday", Nutfield Genealogy, posted February 21, 2025, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2025/02/aunt-janet-and-uncle-bill-blades-for.html: accessed [access date]).  

Happy 100th Anniversary, Nana and Grampy!

 Today is my grandparents' 100th wedding anniversary.  They were married on Valentine's day in 1925 in Hamilton, Massachusetts.  

There is no wedding photo. Not a single one.  And very few photos of my grandparents alone together.  

My grandparents with me, around 1962

A photo of my grandfather from my grandmother's little photo album.

She wrote his name on the sticker. 

My grandmother's high school photo.  She was supposed to graduate from Beverly high

school, but never did because she moved from Beverly to Hamilton and never finished. 

My Dad took this photo in the 1970s when

he caught Nana and Grampy under the mistletoe! 

In 1975 there was a very big 50th anniversary party for my grandparents,

at the Commodore restaurant in Beverly.  It was attended by all seven of their children

and dozens of cousins and relatives. This photo was in the local newspaper.

Was there a wedding cake 100 years ago?

My grandfather, Stanley Elmer Allen, son of Joseph Elmer Allen and Carrie Maude Batchelder, was born 14 January 1904 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He married Gertrude Matilda Hitchings, daughter of Arthur Treadwell Hitchings and Florence Etta Hoogerzeil, on 14 February 1925, in Hamilton, Massachusetts.  She was born 1 August 1905 in Beverly, Massachusetts.  Both young people were neighbors in Hamilton, a case of falling in love with the boy next door?  Why no photos?  Was it a "shot gun" wedding?  My uncle, Stanley Elmer Allen, Jr., was born in June. 

This is a real love story. My grandparents went on to have seven children between 1925 and 1942.  These children were born and grew up in the Great Depression and World War II.  When the oldest child went off to serve his country during WWII, the youngest child was born.  They had 29 grandchildren, mostly born during the baby boom following the war, but some as late as the 1970s.  

My grandparents lived in a tiny house, a former "camp" near Asbury Grove in Hamilton. This was a Methodist campground where both sets of my great grandparents lived. My grandparents house still stands on Roosevelt Avenue, and it is hard to believe seven children (five boys and two girls) all lived there together.  Several relatives all lived nearby.  Most of the extended family worked at the local estates at one time or another.  Hamilton is known for its large estates owned by wealthy Boston families such as the Winthrops, Appletons, Mandells (now the site of the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) and General George S. Patton.  

10 Roosevelt Avenue in Hamilton, photographed in 2004

My daughter standing in front of the Patton tank

in Patton Park, Hamilton, Massachusetts

My grandfather worked hard almost all his life since the 8th grade.  He had to drop out of school to support his older sister when her husband died in the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic, leaving her a widow with two babies.  He worked in a leather factory, on the Charles Tainter estate, the Palmer estate, and on 7 August 1927 he began to work as a glazier at the United Shoe Manufacturing in Beverly, Massachusetts.  He worked there for 41 years. 

Stanley died on 6 March 1982 at the Beverly Hospital.  Gertrude died 3 November 2001 at a nursing home in Peabody, Massachusetts.  

For the truly curious:

My ALLEN Surname Saturday blog post from 2012:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/09/surname-saturday-allen-of-manchester.html   

My HITCHINGS Surname Saturday blog post from 2014:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/10/surname-saturday-hitchings-of-lynn.html   

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To cite/link to this blog post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Happy 100th Anniversary, Nana and Grampy!", Nutfield Genealogy, posted January 14, 2025, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2025/02/happy-100th-anniversary-nana-and-grampy.html

A Lighthouse at Oropesa, Spain for Weathervane Wednesday

 Today's weathervane was photographed in Oropesa del Mar, Castellon, Spain.  

Last October we visited Valencia, Spain.  We visited this little lighthouse on a coastal hill in Oropesa del Mar, Spain.  It is next to an old ruin from 413 AD called the Torre del Rey (The King's Tower).  The lighthouse was first lit on 1 April 1857. The town of Oropesa is now a resort town, but it originally had a port that was quite busy with maritime trade.  The light house was first lit with olive oil, then paraffin until it was electrified in 1924.  This lighthouse is considered one of the oldest in the community of Valencia. 

The weathervane on top of the lighthouse tower is very simple, just an arrow.  It serves as a weather instrument, and it is mounted below an anemometer which measures wind speed and direction. The cardinal points below the vane are in Spanish - N, S, E, and O (oeste = west). 

For the truly curious:

Faro de Oropesa del Mar webpage:    https://oropesadelmarturismo.com/en/empresa/faro-de-oropesa-del-mar   

Click here to see over 550 more weathervanes from all over the world:   

https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/search/label/Weathervane%20Wednesday    

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To cite/link to this blog post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "A Lighthouse at Oropesa, Spain for Weathervane Wednesday", Nutfield Genealogy, posted February 5, 2025, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-lighthouse-at-oropesa-spain-for.html: accessed [access date]).