Easter Lamb in Springtime

Photo of my great grandmother, in the 1920s
Florence Etta (Hoogerzeil) Hitchings
(20 August 1871 Beverly, Massachusetts – 10 Feb 1941 Hamilton, Massachusetts)


The Lamb

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life & bid thee feed,
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek & he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child & thou a lamb.
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

By William Blake (1757-1827)

Posted for "Smile for the Camera" 21st Edition
Give Their Face A Place - Women's History Month
http://www.shadesofthedeparted.com

A Post Card from a Stranger

My Uncle, Stanley Elmer Allen, Jr. during WWII

Sometime in February 1945 my grandmother was shopping at Burrows and Sanborn, a department store in Lynn, Massachusetts. She dropped a letter to her son, my uncle, who was serving as an airman in Guam during World War II. A woman from Swampscott, Frances Ronzano, found the letter in the stairway and mailed it. Then this kind woman dropped a postcard in the mail to Nana, and let her know that her letter was on its way to her son.


Mrs. John A. Ranzano, Jr.
                                             5 Shelton Road, Swampscott, Massachusetts
                                                Feb. 13th [1945, per the postmark on the front]
Dear Mrs. Allen,
Today I found a letter that you dropped on
the stairs in Burrows and Sanborn's.  I just
want you to know that I mailed it for
you.  I knew you would be anxious to
know if by any chance someone would
mail it.  More than delighted to do it
for a service man
                               Yours truly,
                                Frances Ronzano

click on images to enlarge

The stationary is labeled, Mrs. John A. Ronzano, Jr. at 5 Shelton Road, Swampscott, Massachusetts. I couldn’t find a reference to anyone named Ronzano of Swampscott on Google.com except for a reference to a “Ronzano Family Memorial Scholarship” under awards given at Swampscott High School.

Using Ancestry.com I was able to find a John Ronzano household in the 1920 Federal Census, in Swampscott there was a John A. Ronzano, age 27; Hazel R. Ronzano, age 23, and John A. Ronzano, jr., age 4 ½. The Ronzano family is also in the 1910 Census, and John Alexander Ronzano’s World War II Draft Card, dated 1942. In the city directories, John A. Ronzano was living at 9 Shelton Road up until 2002. According to the Social Security Death Index, he died on 1 January 2001 in Swampscott. There was not a record for Frances in the SSDI.

I found references on the internet, through Google, of the Burrows & Sanborn store in Lynn. I even found a reference to Charles Sidney Sanborn, son of John Sidney Sanborn and Frances Alexander, on page 71 of “The Register” a book of memoirs by the Lynn Historical Soceity published in 1931. He went to work for a dry goods firm in 1872, known as Homan & Burrows, which later became the retail store Burrows & Sanborn.

My uncle, Stanley Elmer Allen, Jr., served with the Army Air Corps in the South Pacific. He was part of the 21st Bomber Command as a tail gunner on a B-29 named “Orpen’s Orphans”, named for Colonel Bud Orpen. His unit was involved with the final bombing of Japan and Tokyo at the end of World War II. These final bombings started in February 1945 (at the same time my Nana wrote her letter) and ran through the summer until the B-29s hit the Tokyo arsenal complex on August 10, 1945. He died at the Maine Veteran’s Home in South Paris, Maine on 14 July 2003. I never did find out if he got his letter from his mother.

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "A Post Card from a Stranger", Nutfield Genealogy, posted March 8, 2019, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/03/post-card-from-stranger.html: accessed [access date]).

Interesting names from the Family Tree!

An assortment of interesting names pulled from my database. Every one of them is an actual name!

I suppose that some of these names were fashionable in their own time. My name, Heather, is now a popular name, but when my mother first named me the pediatrician said “That’s a dog’s name!” (His mother raised Scots Terriers!)

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Onesiphorus Allen (1642-1718) my 8th Great Uncle, and his son Onesiphorus Allen, Jr. (b. 1674), other interesting Allen names are Bezaleel, Shearjashub, Hephzibah and Zerubabbel.

Lemon Beadle- (1680-1717) his mother’s maiden name was Lemon, poor kid! My 7x great grandfather.

Janet Wilkinson Blades (1898-1981) was my great aunt. This was her married name, and she took a lot of kidding for it!

Ebenezer Ingraham Bill- (1805-1891) plus four descendants with this exact name. I always thought his name should be written backward. The Bill Family made up for a very plain surname with a plethora of interesting given names: Arabella, Asahel, Benajah, Bozoan, Ethelinda, Mehitable, Isabella and Zerviah.

Samuel Draper (1690 – 1767), my first cousin 10x removed, named his sons Newburyport, New York, Boston and James. He was a privateer, and I suppose he was away a lot! At least for the first three sons.

Skelton Felton- (about 1680-1749) – My first cousin 9x removed. His grandmother’s name was Skelton, unfortunately. This left a lasting legacy of about four generations of Skelton Feltons. This name causes a lot of giggling at the Annual Felton Family Reunion in Peabody, Massachusetts.

Washington Adams Jefferson Wilkinson ( b. 1804 in Smithfield, Rhode Island) His parents couldn’t make up their minds which president they liked best.

I also found various Puritan virtue names are sprinkled liberally here and there. Besides the usual Patience, Prudence and Constance I found the more unusual names of Retire, Fear, Comfort, Submit, Plain, Remember, Freelove, Hopestill, and (last but not least!) is my very all time favorite strange name on this list: Hatevil Nutter (1598-about 1675) and his three descendants by the same name, my first cousin 8 generations removed.


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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

What the heck is a gum copal worker?

I saw in the 1850 Federal census that my 3x great grandfather, Abijah Hitchings of Salem, Massachusetts, was a “gum copal worker.” After doing a double take, I wasn’t sure that I even transcribed these words correctly, so I called over three other people to look at the image on my computer monitor. It seemed to be very clear, but some thought perhaps it could be “gun” or other variations on known words. We looked up copal, but it didn’t seem to make sense. So I turned to the Google Book Search. There was the answer, and in reference to 19th century Salem, to boot! It seems that the manufacture of gum copal into varnishes for boats and furniture was an important industry in Salem. Gum copal was a form of amber, from Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean. Do you remember amber from “Jurassic Park?” It is the hardened resin of trees, often thousands of years old. This yellowish dross was somehow transmuted into a useful marine varnish. 

From New York Coach-Maker's Magazine May 1863 page 230-232 From the website http://www.carriagemuseumlibrary.org/download/1128/docs/cm_StimpsonValentine.pdf “It is collected in this state, and shipped to this country. The greater part of it is brought to Salem, a few miles from Boston, where it undergoes the process of cleaning and assorting. The three principal kinds are called Zanzibar, Benguela, and Angola, taking their names from the different coasts they are imported from. Each of these different kinds is assorted into some five to ten grades, each according to brilliancy, color, purity, and size of the pieces; in this state it is sold to the merchants and manufacturers of Boston and other places. The surplus is exported to London, some of it to be returned to head quarters in a manufactured state. It is worth form 12 to 60 cents per pound, and it is the quality of the material used that regulates the price of the varnish. The poorer the quality of the stock used, the cheaper the varnish; so the reader will observe that it is no saving to buy varnish at twenty-five cents less per gallon, for the difference in quality may be four times that sum.” 

 "The Old Merchant Marine" by Ralph D. Paine Chapter IV. The Famous Days of Salem Port "And so it happened that in the spicy warehouses that overlooked Salem Harbor there came to be stored hemp from Luzon, gum copal from Zanzibar, palm oil from Africa, coffee from Arabia, tallow from Madagascar, whale oil from the Antarctic, hides and wool from the Rio de la Plata, nutmeg and cloves from Malaysia." 

 "When I Lived in Salem 1822-1866" by King, Caroline Howard; Publisher: Stephen Daye Press; 1937, Brattleboro, VT. page 43 Chapter 3, Salem Merchants on the Seven Seas "When Lucy Saltonstall and I were children, Derby Street was one of our favorite haunts. We loved to linger round the great storehouses, and to peep in at the open doors, and although even then the glory of Salem commerce had begun to wane, there was enough of the Eastern glamour hanging about the old wharves to make them enchanting places to children. They made the Arabian Nights real to us, and told stories of the time when as Hawthorne says: "India was a new region, to which only Salem knew the way." I remember now the queer spicy indescribable Eastern smell that floated out from those huge warehouses, wherein were stored spoils from every country: pepper from Sumatra, coffee from Arabia,-cinnamon, cloves and nutmegs from the Spice Islands,-ivory and dates from Africa,-sugar and molasses from the West Indies,-wine from Madeira, and figs and raisins from Spain. And happy children were we, when some old Salt sitting in the doorway would give us bits of rock candy, or a handful of gum Arabic, or pieces of gum copal, doubly happy, if a fly chanced to be imprisoned in its clear amber." 

From “History of Essex County, Massachusetts”, Volume 1, page 85 edited by Duane Hamilton Hurd, Lewis & Co, Philadelphia, 1888 “The large importation of uncleaned gum copal…led to the establishment by Jonathan Whipple of a factory at the foot of Turner Street, in Salem, to clean and prepare the gum for the market…. This business [working gum copal] was established about 1835 and increased very rapidly. Mr. Whipple commenced by employing four or five men, but at the time of his death, in 1850, the number of men employed averaged thirty-five or forty, and the amount of gum cleaned each year was about one million five hundred thousand pounds, the gum losing in weight about one quarter during the process of cleaning…The business was prosperous until the year 1861, when an import duty of ten cents a pound was imposed on the uncleaned gum. The gum was thereafter cleaned on the coast of Africa before shipmen, and the business diminished until it was finally abandoned altogether.” 

Now I not only do I know what “gum copal” is now, but I have a good idea of what Salem was like in the middle of the China Trade frenzy, and what an exciting place this old seaport town must have been! Gum copal was just another exotic ingredient in the mix of interesting imports to New England at this time. Other occupations on this same 1850 census page in Salem: carpenter, shipwright, cooper, tobacconist, machinist, painter, mariner and shoemaker. Abijah’s son, Abijah Franklin Hitchings, would grow up to be first a sail maker, and then the assistant deputy at the Old Custom House, where Nathaniel Hawthorne also worked earlier in the 19th century. 

See my blog post  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-to-find-your-american-veteran.html for more information on Abijah Franklin Hitchings, with the story of his career, including the Salem Custom House, and his family tree back to our immigrant Ancestor, Daniel Hitchings, born about 1597 England and died in Lynn, Massachusetts. 

UPDATED 31 January 2022  

A reader sent me this great link:

https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/projects/thinking-and-experiencing-techne-re-creating-a-sixteenth-century-copal-varnish 

Photo of Salem Harbor, August 2009

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To Cite/Link to this blog post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "What the heck is a gum copal worker?", Nutfield Genealogy, posted March 4, 2010, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-heck-is-gum-copal-worker.html: accessed [access date]. 

Abraham Lincoln in New Hampshire

A Sesquicentennial Recreation



One hundred fifty years ago today, on March 3, 1860, Abraham Lincoln made a speech in Exeter, New Hampshire. He had sent his son Robert Todd Lincoln to Phillips Exeter Academy, on the recommendation of a fellow congressman, Amos Tuck of New Hampshire. Amos Tuck was an abolitionist who had held a secret meeting in 1853 to form the Republican Party, also in Exeter.

After speaking at the Cooper Union in New York City, he drew crowds in New Hampshire at the cities of Manchester, Concord, Dover and finally Exeter. Dr. Bill, a fellow genea-blogger, wrote about the Cooper Union address on his posting 21 February 2010 at http://drbilltellsancestorstories.blogspot.com/2010/02/cwss-cooper-union-address.html These speeches helped confirm Lincoln as a serious candidate for the presidency, and he became the overwhelming favorite for the New Hampshire delegation at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

This Saturday, on March 6, 2010, Exeter, New Hampshire will recreate Lincoln’s visit with several events, including the speech at the Exeter Town Hall. Role player, Steve Wood, who is a cousin from our common ancestor Francis Wyman of Woburn, will play Lincoln and recreate his speech. Other events will take place over the weekend.

Events in Lincoln Return to Exeter, March 2010

Wednesday, March 3 – 7:30 pm. Rick Schubart presents Abraham Lincoln: from Springfield, Illinois to Exeter, New Hampshire and Beyond at the Exeter Historical Society

Thursday, March 4, 7pm
Harold Holzer Presentation, Phillips Exeter Academy Assembly Hall

Saturday, March 6
10am – 4pm --- NH Historical Society Lincoln Exhibit at the Exeter Historical Society
10am – 4pm --- Lincoln Art Show at the Town Hall gallery
10am, 12pm & 3:30pm --- Guided Walking Tours, beginning at Gale Park
11am – 4pm ---- Exeter High School History Club students lead children’s activities at the Exeter Public Library
11am – Rick Schubart and Mike Pride present a program on Lincoln in NH at the Exeter Public Library followed by a booksigning (Mike Pride’s new edition of Elwyn Page’s Abraham Lincoln in New Hampshire)
2:30pm – 3:30 ---- Band Concert at the First Congregational Church
5pm --- Lincoln starts his procession & band begins to play
5:15pm --- Lincoln arrives at Exeter Town Hall
5:30pm – 7pm --- Main Event at Exeter’s Town Hall

Thanks to a grant from the NH Humanities Council, the Exeter Historical Society has created the Lincoln Sesquicentennial (150th) program, partnering with Phillips Exeter Academy, SAU 16, Exeter Public Library, American Independence Museum, Exeter Area Chamber of Commerce, Exeter Arts Association, Town of Exeter, Inn by the Bandstand, Exeter Inn, Infinite Imaging of Exeter, Water Street Bookstore, NH Historical Society, Manchester Historic Association and the Woodman Institute.

Please contact the Exeter Historical Society for more information. (603) 778-2335 or at the website http://www.exeterhistory.org/

Abraham Lincoln in New Hampshire, by Elwin L. Page (author) and Mike Pride (author, editor), , Concord, NH : Monitor Publishing Company, 2009

For more information on Steve Wood of Claremont, New Hampshire, Lincoln role player, see the website http://his-story.atspace.com/index.html

The photo above, of Steve Wood playing President Lincoln, was taken at the 2006 Wyman Family Association Meeting in Keene, New Hampshire.

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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Not so Wordless Wednesday, Villar de Ciervo

Villar de Ciervo, Salamanca, Spain, 1915
click on photos to enlarge

My husband’s maternal grandmother, María Consuelo Martín Rivero was born in the village of Villar de Ciervo, Salamanca, Spain in 1908, just a few years before this photograph. She is probably in the photograph with her parents, but we are not able to identify any of the townspeople. The church is the parish of San Agustín. Even today, the village is tiny, and has only about 350 inhabitants. It is located on the Portuguese border.

The pharmacist in Villar de Ciervo, María Ángela Sanchez Sevillano, was a noted artist. She was born in Villar de Ciervo in 1944 and she died in 1997. We have several of her paintings, but I cherish her portraits of the village the most. These paintings hang directly over my computer as I am typing this. The first painting is the San Agustín church, and the second painting is the house where Consuelo was born.





Maria Consuelo Martín Rivero’s Family Tree:

1. María Consuelo Martín, born 11 November 1908 in Villar de Ciervo, Salamanca, Spain, died on 29 April 2001 in the Hospital del Aire, Madrid, Spain; married on 8 September 1933 in Villar de Ciervo, to José Garcia, son of Sebastian García Muñoz and Maria Ribero Montero. He was born 28 Nov 1908 in Bouza, Salamanca, Spain, and died on 3 December 1994 in Madrid. He was a carbinero and a Captain in the Guardia Civil.
2. Manuel Martín Ventura, son of Mateo Martín and Manuela Ventura, born about 1880 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, died on 10 September 1971 in Villar de Ciervo; married on 23 January 1904 in Villar de Ciervo to
3. Josefa Rivero, daughter of Manuel Rivero Serradilla and Orofila Gonzalez Garcia, born on 23 October 1884 in Villar de Ciervo, died on 17 November 1937 in Villar de Ciervo. Four Children.

• 
  
  
  i.) María Joaquina b. 21 December 1904, Villar de Ciervo, d. 25 Oct 1989 in Barcelona; married on 29 September 1928 in Villar de Ciervo to Nicanor Zato.
  ii.) Nicolás d. 11 January 1966 in Tejares, Salamanca, Spain
  iii.) Luisa Antonia b. 13 June 1906 in Villar de Ciervo, d. 4 March 2004 in Madrid; married on 18 September 1930 to Joaquin Garcia Ribero.
  iv.) María Consuelo b. 1908

4. Mateo Martín, born in Vitigundino Salamanca, Spain, married to
5. Manuela Ventura, born in Barcelona?

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  i.) Manuel Martín b. about 1880
  ii.) Jose Martín

6. Manuel Rivero, son of José Ribero and Agapita Serradilla, born in Villar de Ciervo; married to
7. Orofila Gonzalez Garcia, daughter of Agustín Gonzalez and Ana María García, born in Villar de Ciervo.

• 
  
  
  i.) Josefa b. 23 October 1884, in Villar de Ciervo, d. 17 November 1937 in Villar de Ciervo; married Manuel Martin on 23 January 1904 in Villar de Ciervo.
  ii.) Jerman b. 22 May 1879 in Villar de Ciervo
  iii.) Nicolás b. 1877
  iv.) Juan Mamon b. 1 April 1880 in Villar de Ciervo, died 29 April 1891 in Villar de Ciervo.

12. José Ribero; married to
13. Agapita Serradilla, born 1800 in Guadaperro, Salamanca, Spain
14. Agustín Gonzalez, son of Ramon Gonzalez and Ynez Zamorreño; married to
15. Ana María García, daughter of Francisco García, (1776-1852) and Inocencia Bentura.

From the Baptism Records of Villard de Ciervo, LDS microfilm #1109489, and the Death Records of Villar de Ciervo San Agustín church.

For more information please visit http://www.elmolinero.com/fr1.htmThe website for the village of Villar de Ciervo, Salamanca, Spain, run by “El Molinero”, the local pub! There are photographs and some history, all in Spanish.

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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Tombstone Tuesday- from Madrid, Spain!

This is the niche for my husband's maternal grandmother, María Consuelo Martín Rivero, at the Cementerio Fuencarral, Madrid, Spain. Niches in mausoleums are more popular in Spain than here, especially in urban areas like Madrid. There are several cultural differences, also, with burials in Spain. First, since bodies are rarely embalmed, the niche is temporary. It is rented for X number of years, and then the remains are removed to an ossuary. The niche is then rented to another family. Burials in the ground are the only permanent memorials. The genealogist in me appreciates the difference in cultures, but not the loss of the inscription in a few years!

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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Genealogy Search in Spain, Part II

San Nicolas de Bari
The ancient church of Sinovas, Burgos, Spain


My husband’s father was born in Sinovas, a little village in the province of Burgos, Spain. It’s an old village, with an ancient Romanesque church built in the 13th century. The tower was restored in a major project proposed to cost almost 1 million Euros in 2009. The people here are farmers, and some families own old wine cellars on the edge of town, dug deep into the earth by hand. We have visited the village several times, and I’ve always marveled at the old church. We don’t have churches nearly 800 years old here in New Hampshire! We were able to coordinate one of our visits to Sinovas with a pre-arranged visit with the village priest, so we could take a peek at the genealogical records in the parish registers.

We met the parish priest inside and I expected to don gloves and be given lots of instructions before looking at the records book. However, the priest took us to a back room that had only a cabinet and a metal office desk, opened a drawer in the desk and took out the book, and began to thumb through it. We asked him to start with Hubby’s father, and then worked our way backwards in time to the grandfather, and anyone else with the name Rojo. We carefully copied it down all the entries.

The priest was incredulous that we were interested in all this information. I began to think that we were the very first family to ever request genealogical information. He was asking more questions of me than I was of him! We were able to go back about 100 years, with cousins and other assorted Rojos that I copied down. The priest explained that the older books were all in the archives at the Archbishops palace in Burgos, about two hours north of Sinovas. That would had to wait until another visit to Spain. (See last week’s blog posting!)

Again, it was imperative that we made arrangements ahead of time to meet with the parish priest. Sinovas is a two hour drive from Madrid, and we didn't want to miss the day he was in town, nor did we want to find out that there was a local holiday or some other interruption in the calendar. We called from the United States, and again a few days before our appointment just to make sure that we would be able to see the parish records.

We ended our trip to Sinovas with a walk around the village, taking lots of photographs, and meandered over to the wine cellars. We were fortunate to bump into some villagers who pointed out the Rojo family wine cellar, which had collapsed and the door was not visible. This kind family invited us into their own wine cellar where we all celebrated with cups of wine drawn from a barrel, and a few slices of Serrano ham cut off a big leg hanging from the ceiling. These strangers, who didn’t know us from Adam, treated us like long lost cousins. It’s one thing to see your ancestors in a record book, but an entirely better experience to eat and drink like they did!

My first blog posting about the Rojo family was on September 3, 2009 at http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/09/mass-grave-at-monte-costajan.html The genealogical information in this post was gleaned from the records at San Nicolas de Bari, Sinovas, and from the Archives of the Archbishop at Burgos.



A postcard of the medieval ceiling inside the San Nicolas de Bari church in the village of Sinovas, Burgos, Spain.



The whole family in front of the house where my father-in-law was born in Sinovas.

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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
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