A Trip to Europe! Part 3 of 4

Prior posts explained the photo album documenting a trip to Europe taken in 1901 by my Woodruff ancestors and the start of their journey in Scotland, Wales, and England. The photos appear to be out of order (including one photo from Paris!), and it is unlikely that they were placed in the album in chronological order. 

From England they crossed the channel and started their adventures on the Continent, visiting France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. The photographs appear to be in a better order than those from the first part of their journey, but they are not in the exact order of their trip unless they crisscrossed back and forth across Switzerland.

The map shows all the locations from which they took photos, with the exception of photos taken on the river Rhine.

    

A Trip to Europe! Part 2 of 4

Part one of this post took us through the family photo album up to their voyage across from Boston to Liverpool. The first section of the album after the crossing contains photographs from their travels across Scotland, Wales, and England.

The order of the photographs in the United Kingdom, as I mentioned before, appears to be out of order unless the family crisscrossed and doubled back on themselves. They covered a lot of ground, visiting Scotland, Wales, and central England. The map shows all the places where they took photographs.

    

A Trip to Europe! Part 1 of 4

Album page 1

Around 25 years ago, an uncle on my father’s side, knowing my interest in preserving and keeping important family relics, gave me a photo album of a 1901 family trip to Europe. My great-great grandparents took two of their three sons, my great-grandfather included, on a two-month grand tour and documented it in photographs. The photographs and annotations indicate that they visited Scotland, England, and Wales on arrival, then went to the Continent to visit France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands.

There is no other account of this trip, however the photographs, notes, and available online records provide a wealth of information that has allowed me to perform further research and learn quite a bit about their holiday. I’m particularly grateful to have this album because it contains the only photographs I possess for these family members.

A 317 Year Old Business, an 85 Year Old Painting, and Three Families Part 2 of 2

But What About the Painting?

The historical preamble in part one sets up the connection between the inherited painting, the longest-operating business in the United States, and my family.

I was prompted to research this painting because of Bill Kahl’s comments about it when I was visiting with him in 2012. Bill described the painting to me as follows:

“It was painted by John Howard Benson, the grandfather of Nick Benson. It is a painting of Lawton’s Valley in Middletown . . . my last recollection is that it hung just off the kitchen in their [my grandparents’] house in Kingston [RI] . . . the painting is an oil painting of a woodland scene in a heavy gold frame.”    

A 317 Year Old Business, an 85 Year Old Painting, and Three Families Part 1 of 2

Newport, Rhode Island

My maternal grandmother’s family has longstanding roots in the State of Rhode Island. Through her, we descend from a number of the original settlers of Aquidneck Island, which is now made up of the towns of Portsmouth, Middletown, and Newport. 

Aquidneck Island is named as a derivation from the Narragansett name for the island, “Aquidnet,” but is actually not its legal name at all. The island itself was officially named “Rhode Island” by the year 1637, with varying origin stories, but all tied to the Mediterranean Island of Rhodes. “Rhode Island” remains its legal name to this day. 

The Inn at Castle Hill with downtown Newport in the distance. Conanicut Island to the left.

    

John Black Journals - A Weekend With the Dirlams Part 2 of 2

Continuation of a three-day excerpt from my cousin John Black’s diaries over the weekend of Friday through Sunday, January 15-17, 1954. In these entries, John describes a weekend visit that he and his brother Peter made to my grandparents’ house in North Stonington, Connecticut. (Note: when John reached the end of a page, he would continue at the top of the same page and sometimes on to other pages in the diary.)

Sunday, January 17, 1954

John Black Journals - A Weekend With the Dirlams Part 1 of 2

I’ve written extensively about my cousin, John Baxter Black, who was a good friend and who influenced my interest in researching my family history. John was born in Mansfield, OH in 1924 and he died there in 2014 at the age of 90. From 1936, at the age of 12, to the week he died, John wrote a journal chronicling his daily activities and thoughts. 

John Black circa 1954

John left his journals to the New York Public Library, where I’ve reviewed a very small sampling. The collection is extensive and the process of transcribing pages from photos taken with my phone (the only method allowed) is daunting, but rewarding. I’m glad to have access to them. His diaries are dense, crowded with his tight, unique handwriting. I can read most of John’s entries quickly and easily, but it could be a challenge for others. He and I carried on written correspondence for 18 years, many of his letters being handwritten, so I have evolved into an expert at interpreting his scrawl! He wrote to me using a fountain pen in black ink, which matches these entries. 

John comes alive for me in these entries. I read his words and I can hear him speak. I picture him as he chronicles his observations and personality studies, along with his own insecurities and worries. 

Peter Black circa 1954

This short three-day excerpt from John’s diaries describes a weekend visit that John and his brother Peter made to my grandparents’ house in North Stonington, Connecticut. Over the weekend he encounters my mother, age 12, and her younger sisters, but they are not named in the entry other than collectively. They were “all good.” 

In 1954, at the time of these entries, John was 30 years old and lived in an apartment at on East 67^th Street in New York City, just a few steps from Central Park. He was in the process of editing his one and only novel, The Night the Americans Came, which was published eight years later in London. 

At this moment in time, he was reading two books that he had purchased earlier in the month: The Diaries of Virginia Woolf and Gwen Raverat’s memoir, Period Piece (Raverat, a wood engraver in England who died a few years later, was Charles Darwin’s granddaughter). 

One note: when John reached the end of a page, he would continue at the top of the same page and sometimes on to other pages in the diary. With this bit of context, the entries for those three days: