Genealogical Journey: The Cryne Line Part 3: The Fine Cryne LIne

The Cryne family members I was in touch with didn't seem to know about my branch of the family, so maybe nobody in mine knew about Catherine Cyrne's youngest three boys being placed in an orphanage. Cousin Carol confirmed the name of the orphanage to be what is now called Mount Loretto.  I perused my grandmother's address book.  An address listed for Great-aunt Margaret read "Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, Mount Loretto, Staten Island, NY.  Dietary Department Boys." This was not written in the address book, it was from a pre-printed address label torn from an envelope and scotch taped into her address book.  As there was no zip code in the address, it was put in there prior to 1963. Cousin Bill confirmed that Great-aunt Margaret did indeed work at Mount Loretto and even resided there in her retirement years.

Address in my grandmother's handwriting for her sister Margaret at Mount Loretto on Staten Island

Okay, so that was reference to evidence that her cousin Catherine's sons were there at possibly the same time Great-aunt Margaret worked there.  The Clay boys were there from the late 1920's to the mid-1930's.  I found Frank, Raymond and Joseph Clay, Carol's father, listed there on the 1930 census.  However, Great-aunt Margaret was listed as a chambermaid at Bellevue Hospital, also living there. in 1930.  Aunt Peggy told me that Great-aunt Margaret did work at Bellevue for a while, and as she does not appear on the census in Staten Island in 1930, that must be her.  So perhaps she didn't know about the Clay boys and got that job at Mount Loretto after the Clay boys left.  I found Great-aunt Margaret still at Bellevue on the 1940 census which asked where you were five years ago. She answered, "same place." so didn't encounter the Clay boys at Mount Loretto in the 1930's.   But why did I still feel that the family knew about the Clay boys?

Reviewing Julia's family tree on Ancestry again, I noticed something I had not seen the other times I had looked at it.  Read much?  One of Catherine's sons with the last name Cyrne had a baptismal certificate that referenced "Helen Lyons" as a sponsor.  The link said to email the author to see a copy of it.  I was willing to bet that the certificate read "Helena"not Helen.  Helena was the baby's great-aunt and Cousin Drew's grandmother.  I didn't expect a response from this email address because it contained the word "bogus" in the address.  Happily, I was wrong.  Julia emailed me back right away and sent me a copy of the baptismal certificate.  It read "Helena Lyons" as I predicted.  More reference to evidence that the family possibly knew about Catherine's youngest sons.  Below is Julia's email to me.  The Cyrne line is fine.

Michele,

I have asked my family for a copy of the certificate, and I will send it to you.  You should know that there is some confusion between the birth certificate and baptism:  the dates of birth don't match, and one shows him as older than the other.  We believe the baptism certificate is more likely accurate, as the birth certificate wasn't filed for a few years afterwards, and the family were strict Catholics and would have had him baptized quickly.  

He is a remarkable man.  His life is quite a story, and I hope to post it sometime on Ancestry to keep the story alive. We also have a copy of his passport, when he went to Japan right after WWII for business, along with some other info.  He also enlisted in the US Marines at 17, fought in Central America, was wounded, worked for the Irish mob during prohibition, lost all his savings in the crash, started a steel company and remade himself from scratch.  

I would love to have the photograph that you mentioned.  It would be nice for my family to see my grandfather's mother.  She had a rough life after her first husband died.  All we know is that she remarried an abusive man and was fairly unhappy with her life.  

Julia

I was happy to provide Julia a photograph of her great-grandmother.  I also encouraged her to expand Joe Cryne's story as I, for one, would love to know more about this relative.

Michael Joseph ( Joe ) Cyrne's baptismal certificate showing Helena Lyons as his sponsor.  Courtesy of Julia Cyrne.  

Genealogical Journey: The Cyrne Line Part 2: The end of the line?

I found someone else also posted a family tree on Ancestry listing Catherine Cryne as an ancestor. Catherine was married twice and this tree was for her and her first husband Michael's descendants.  Ancestry does not give names of living relatives listed on the tree for privacy reasons.  (They probably had people like me in mind when they did that.)  Not seeing any other way to contact the tree's author, I wrote a message in the comment section of the page.  The tree didn't go beyond Catherine's parents ( Michael & Elizabeth Rogers) so I was not hopeful that she knew about any more ancestors than what I had learned. We all seemed to be "stuck" at Denis and Elizabeth Sullivan or their children, as was the case with this branch of the family tree.  This tree did cite that same 1900 census listing Catherine and her three siblings: George, Anna and Lizzie.  Maybe the author was certain that Catherine's mother was Elizabeth Sullivan Rogers.  Maybe she knew more about her grandmother's siblings.  As I studied the tree and the attached cited information, I hoped that Julia, the author would email me back quickly like Carol had.  That didn't happen.  Carol had left a message in the comment box as well.

From time to time, I would check Julia's tree hoping my question was answered in the comment section.  One time I notice that one of the names on the tree was no longer. private.  So I looked for an obituary and hit pay dirt again.  As always, I was happy to find more relatives but sad to see that someone had passed on.  This time it was Bernice's husband.  Bernice's father was Catherine's son. Catherine was her grandmother.  I found her living in New Jersey so I called her.  She said that Julia, the Ancestry family tree author was her niece, her brother's daughter.  I had a wonderful chat with Bernice; she told me to call her Penny.  When I asked why, she said as a little girl she attended Girl Scout Camp where everyone had to pick a nickname.  She didn't want to be called the obvious, Bernie, because there was a mean kid on her block named that and she didn't want to be reminded of him.  So she picked Penny and it stuck.  Penny didn't have Julia's contact information, did not use a computer and was only "a little" interested in genealogy.  Her son didn't accept my friend request on Facebook.  I thought I was at the end of the Cryne line.

By this time, Cousin Bob had come through for me and located a photo of Catherine Rogers Cryne Clay, his grandfather's sister.  This photo cemented it for me that Catherine was a member of our family.  Bob's email mentioned his mother's recollection of Catherine and two of her son's as well.

Kitty Rogers ( Courtesy of Bob Rogers)

I was still curious if other branches of the family, mostly mine, who resided on Staten Island knew of Catherine's youngest sons being placed in an Orphanage there.  Why would they go from Islip on Long Island to Staten Island?  I had this nagging feeling that knew but no proof until...

Genealogical Journey: The Cryne Line Part 1: Drew Knew Not

I can't remember exactly how I first discovered the possibility of another branch of the family existing, but the 1900 census was involved.  Ancestry.com took me to a family tree that cited that source for the author's grandmother whose siblings I had finished researching. ( See previous blog posts titled Cousin Bob and Michele Meets Megan and Michael.)  Apparently, I did not research all of the Rogers siblings.  Either I had to be wrong or she had to be wrong about her grandmother's siblings.  Maybe the census taker was wrong when he recorded the names on the 1900 census. But three out of four children's names?  The parents' names were Michael and Elizabeth Rogers. Elizabeth Rogers was born Elizabeth Sullivan and she was my grandmother's aunt.  So I searched the 1900 census again seeking other Rogers families in New York City with three children named George, Anna and Elizabeth.  No other census sheet came close.  A call to Cousin Drew confirmed my doubt; he had met George, Anna aka Vera and Lizzie many times, but never a Catherine Rogers. Drew had so much first-hand knowledge about the family, how could he miss an entire person whose siblings he had met many times?  Highly unlikely.  So I set aside the only page from the 1900 census with the four Rogers siblings listed:  George, Anna, Elizabeth and Catherine.  I wrote question marks all over it as an indication to myself that I might have the wrong family.  ( Please scroll up & down as well as left & right to see the Rogers family on the 1900 census below.)

1900 US Census showing the Rogers family at 511 West 44th Street in Manhattan.  My copy had question marks written all over it.

But I continued to research Catherine Rogers.  Although she was the youngest sibling, she was the first to marry as a teenager.  Her granddaughter, Carol, emailed me back almost immediately when I sent her a message through Ancestry about us possibly being related.  Carol said that prior to her father's death he could not talk.  Via cryptic, written messages, he told Carol's daughter Holly, that there were two.  Two what?  Two husbands.  His mother Catherine was married twice.  Prior to this, Carol's family did not know about that.  Catherine Rogers first husband was Michael Cryne.  Her second husband, Joseph Clay Sr. was Carol's grandfather whom Catherine married in 1918 after her first husband died.  Carol and I exchanged many emails; she patiently put up with my doubts about Catherine being a part of the family.  Cousins Ed and Bill were equally surprised about this discovery but could not shed any light on it.  Poor Cousin Drew, I fear he almost blew up his brain trying to recall anything about a Catherine Rogers.  I later learned that Catherine died in 1933 and Drew was born in 1932, so he would not have remembered if he had ever met her.  He later told me he did recall overhearing the adults talking about a Catherine but not directly to him.

Here is where the story got both interesting and difficult for me as a researcher.  Once again, the genealogy addiction gripped me and I dug deep.  Too deep perhaps.  How would I deal with this uncovered knowledge?  In one of my first emails to Carol, I asked what she knew about Staten Island.  She said she was surprised that I should ask that and then emailed me how Staten Island figured in her dad's life:

About Staten Island, well I was surprised to find out that u mentioned a few things, connecting our family to Staten Island.  Well, my dad, Joseph, and his 2 brothers Raymond and Frank were sent to the Catholic Orphanage there I have it in my notes and my dad brought me past there one day when I was a young girl.  It may have been called St. Mary's.  I bet your ( our cousin) Bill would know the name, it was the one that the cathedral burnt down.  There was a big fire there about 15 years or so ago.  My dad and I were watching it on the news.  His father didn't want them and were found in a house in Islip NY ( when they were small) and someone reported the incident.  I don't know all the details, I don't know if Catherine was dead then, I don't think so but I have to check the dates.  So I will ask that of my cousin Raymond to see if he has more detail.  Any way, they were young because Frank was still in diapers and not put in the same area as my dad and Raymond they were all a year or two apart.  My dad didn't get out of there till he was 16 when he joined the "CC Camp"*  then the army at 18 and when he was done with his two years he was getting set to be released and had to stay another four years because of WWII.  There was a man and wife who lived in Staten Island who wanted to adopt my father but the orphanage would not let him.  The man's name was Habacorn, my spelling may be off but it sounded exactly like that, and he lived near some kind of lake or body of water.  And I believe he also lived not far from the orphanage.  I went there too on the same day my dad showed my brother Bruce and myself the orphanage.  I will ask Raymond to search through his father's old pictures and maybe we can identify some of them.  Do you happen to have a picture of Catherine?  

Raymond, Joseph and Frank Clay, Catherine Rogers three youngest sons. Courtesy of Carol Hanrahan.

No, but finding a photo of your grandmother would be the least I could do for you.  I felt awful that her dad and uncles were placed in an orphanage in Staten Island.  Perhaps my branch of the family didn't know about this.  That must be it.  Drew knew not; so the rest of the extended family must not have known about Catherine's children either.  Please let that be the reason.

* "CC Camps" were The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a  public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families as part of the New Deal. Originally for young men ages 18–23, it was eventually expanded to young men ages 17–28. source:  Wikipedia

Genealogical Journey: Michele Meets Megan & Michael

Great-grandpa Charles Sullivan had two sisters.  His oldest sister, named Elizabeth, after their mother, was the fourth of the Sullivan children, but the first of the three born during the family's ten year sojourn back to Ireland.  Thanks to Cousin Drew and Cousin Bill's father's notes, I learned that Elizabeth Sullivan's married name was Rogers.  Without them, I was unable to trace her past the 1875 New York State census when she was still a Sullivan.  According to Cousin Drew, Elizabeth had three children:  George, Vera and Elizabeth who was called "Lizzie." Drew met them many times as they were his mother Agnes' first cousins.  Determined to complete Elizabeth's branch of the family tree, I began tracking Lizzie's descendants.

Baptismal transcript for Elizabeth Sullivan.  Obtained in Ireland, courtesy of Bill Sullivan.

Portion of family tree notes by James J. Sullivan ( 1915-2004) showing Elizabeth Sullivan's married name as Rogers.
Filling in this family tree was the inspiration for this blog and my research.  Notes courtesy of Bill Sullivan. 

Like her sister Vera (nee Anna, subject of the previous blog entry) Lizzie was also in show business. She worked at the famous Hippodrome Theater in New York City where she met her actor husband, Frank Sullivan.  Lizzie Rogers married and became Lizzie Sullivan.  She and Frank had a son named Frank, Jr. On the 1930 census, I found Lizzie and her son Frank living with Vera and her husband, Sam in Queens, New York.  I believe Vera had real affinity for her nephew Frank probably because he lived with her for a while.  In addition to mentioning Frank in her will, Vera also bequeathed money to each of his three sons:  Brian, Michael and Pat.  Unfortunately, all of Frank's sons died young. Did they have any descendants?  Drew wasn't sure, but didn't think so.  I decided to find out for sure.  Armed with Frank's wife's name, Rose, I found her obituary.  Once again, a bittersweet discovery as the obituary was several months old.  I was sorry that I didn't get to meet Rose, but her obituary did mention a granddaughter named Megan.  Could I find her?  Would it be appropriate for me to correspond with her?  I was unsure of Megan's age and if she were not an adult, it would not be appropriate to contact her.  What about her mother whose name I didn't know?  Would she want to talk to me about her late husband's family?  I decided to try, proceeding with caution.  Through the Find A Grave website, I found someone had photographed and posted the graves for Frank, Rose and their sons.  I contacted the poster and asked if she was related to them.  The answer was no, but she kindly granted my request to transfer the graves to my Find A Grave account.  By doing so, I was able to post a message, saying who I was, how I was related, what I was researching and who I was hoping to contact on this branch of the family.  After a short time, I received messages from two people who knew the three brothers growing up.  One message from Richard, who knew Brian, the oldest brother, said he was sorry to hear about the passing of all three brothers.  He shared some photos he had of them when they were teenagers.  He had no further information to offer me about Megan or her mother.  I thanked him for the photos and hoped that some day I could share them with Megan.  The second person to email me about the Find A Grave post said she knew the middle brother, Michael and his wife, Debbie.  She and her husband were friends with Michael and Debbie, up to the time of Michael's death.  She even provided me with an email  and a mailing address for Debbie!  I was excited to contact Debbie via these sources but was soon disappointed.  The email bounced back.  The letter came back to me marked "return to sender" after months of not hearing anything.  The woman who originally gave me this info did not respond to my email when I informed her of what happened and asked for other contact information on Debbie.  Was this the end of my research on this branch of the family?  For the time being, it seemed so.  I still left the message on my Find A Grave account as this unorthodox method of searching did yield some results.

Marriage Certificate for Frank Sullivan and Elizabeth Rogers.  Note Elizabeth's mother's maiden name was also Sullivan.  

1930 US Census showing Frank living with his Aunt Vera.  Scroll three quarters to the bottom of the page to see their entry.
Source:  1930 US Census on familysearch.org

In the meantime, I had obtained photos of Vera and a copy of her will from Cousins Drew and Bob. The will mentioned Frank's sons Brian, Michael and Pat.  I hoped that some day I could share this information with Megan.  I was more eager than ever to find her.

I get so many junk emails that I almost deleted Sherri's email with the words "Sullivan Family" in the subject line.  I subscribe to many genealogy sites and they often send emails with that wording in the subject line trying to sell me something.  The ancestors stopped me from deleting this one.  Sherri's email stated:

Hi Michele,

I knew the Sullivan family of Tulsa, Oklahoma from 1966 till now.  I do have information on Michael's family, his wife Debbie and children.  I would also like to email Richard, as I was very close with Brian.  The site would not accept my email and as I have never tried to contact anyone that way before, thought it would be easier this way.  

Thank you,

Sherri

Wow!  Was I impressed!  She spelled my name right!  One "L", not two.  And she went out of her way to email me directly instead of giving up when she couldn't do it via Find A Grave.  I think you have to have an account to send emails through them; glad I included my regular email address in the message.  I tried to write the rest of what Sherri emailed me, but started to cry, so what follows is directly from Sherri instead.

Hi Michele,

I will get in touch with Megan, as she would be the best choice at this time and give her your email address.  

I am putting together an ancestry.com tree for Megan as a gift and would love to connect some more dots.  You say you are a cousin of Mike's, would that be on his father's side or his mother's side?  I do know quite a bit about their family, in some ways more than Megan, as she never got to know her uncles and was around 12 when her father died.  

I spent quite a lot of time with Rose and we talked a lot about the family.  It was pretty expected by everyone that Brian and I would have been married when I graduated high school.  Mike was our biggest cheerleader.  Brian was three years older and losing him was a huge blow, not only to me, but everyone who knew him.  I spent every birthday of Rose's with her, after she lost everyone and until her death.  I still live in the Denver area and went out every year to be with her,  I went for her funeral and Megan and I spent countless hours going through pictures, talking about their family heritage and telling her stories about her uncles.  

Thank you for getting back to me, it made me feel good to see someone cared enough to create the site for them.  Megan is always placing beautiful flower arrangements on the grave.  Rose did for years and her and I always went and placed flowers as well.  

Gratefully,

Sherri

Again, wow!  She spelled my name right for the second time!  In all seriousness, the kindness of strangers throughout my genealogical journey continues to amaze me.  The forthcoming of information, the documents, the photos and what they had to do to get them:  traipsing through cow pastures in the rain, returning to cemeteries several times before night fall, and searching through chock full storage sheds in the heat of summer, all to feed my addiction to genealogy!  May I be half as kind someday.

I re-read Sherri's email.  She said "Mike's children" as in plural.  So there was more than one.  Megan had at least one sibling.  Why was she the only one mentioned in Rose's obituary?  In genealogy research, I learned that obituaries are unsubstantiated and information is omitted and sometimes just plain wrong.  A death is an emotional time and newspapers are a business charging a fee to publish obituaries.  I know my own grandmother Mary Sullivan Lagoy's obituary was wrong when it stated she was born on Long Island instead of Staten Island.  To be fair, they are the same place to people in upstate New York just like upstate is all the same rural place to those South of New York City.

I waited to hear from Megan.  Sherri said it might take a while for her to respond as she was going on vacation.  Several months went by.  Then the year on the calendar changed.  Still no response from Megan.  I emailed Sherri asking for Megan's email address and even gave her my phone number in case she preferred talking.  Sherri replied:

Hi Michelle,

Happy New Year to you, hope your holidays were blessed.  

I am sorry Megan has not gotten in touch with you.  I have been extremely busy at work, so I have not talked with her as much.  I will relay your message and see if we can get this going. 

Thank you,

Sherri

This time Sherri spelled my name wrong with two "L's" instead of one.  She was busy at work. Genealogy is often defined as irritating the living and confusing the dead.  I feared that I had irritated Sherri.  But two days later, I received an email from Megan:

Hello Michele.  This is Megan ______.  Sherry told me you have found some information regarding my father.  Do you need me to verify its him or provide further info?  I'm going to be quite honest, since my grandmother's passing I have received correspondence from a handful of "relatives" seeking information for the wrong reasons.  I only wish to share genealogy related info on relatives no longer living.  The estate and family heirlooms have been willed and received.  If this seems harsh and offensive please understand it is not meant to be.  

I was not offended in the least.  She spelled my name right with one "L".  I completely understood her concerns about cyberspace scams and "relatives" coming out of the woodwork after a death.  All the more reason to get to know your family history.  I replied by sending her everything I wanted to share with her:  Vera's will mentioning her father and uncles, Richard's photos of Brian and a photo of Vera. I gave her my Facebook information, link to the online family tree and Cousins Drew and Bob's contact information.  When I went online later that night, I could tell I convinced her that I really was doing genealogy research and that we were related.  I had a Facebook friend request from her.  I had another email from her with the same photo of Vera that I had emailed her earlier; she had the exact same photo in her ephemera.  The lines of communication were opened.  She said she had a brother named Michael and asked me to add his name to the online family tree, which I did.  She linked me to his Facebook page where I said it was nice to finally "meet" them.  They replied in kind; we are all Facebook friends now.

At some point, Timothy O'Sullivan's name came up.   Of course Megan had heard that we were related to him and even had the copy of "the book" about him by James Horan. ( See the blog post titled " The Book, the Box and the Moment of Truth").  I didn't need any more proof that we were related to him by this time, but it was nice to know yet another branch of the family heard of his incredible story.  It was great to be in touch with Elizabeth Sullivan Rogers' descendants ( Cousin Bob descends from Elizabeth's oldest son George, Vera was childless, and Megan and Michael descend from Lizzie)  but little did I know that I wasn't done researching her branch of the family.

Rose Sullivan's Obituary

Photo of Frank Sullivan I posted on my Find A Grave account while looking for his descendants. Courtesy of  Drew Van Winkle (his handwriting. )

Genealogical Journey: Cousin Vera

Vera Howe being duly sworn deposes and says: - "I was born February 1, 1897 in the Borough of Manhattan, City of New York under the name Anna Rogers. "  Only she wasn't.  Born in 1897 that is.  The 1900 census had her listed as a thirteen year old, not a three year old.  In genealogy, we are taught to believe church records over civil records.  The census is notorious for having ages wrong.  Vera's baptismal certificate says she was baptized on 13 February 1887.  The New York City birth index has her born on February 1, 1887.  Her obituary says she died at age 85.  I believe that too, was wrong, possibly making her the oldest living relative on this branch of the family...so far.  That contest is still ongoing. 

Vera's baptismal certificate showing her born in 1887.  Old Uncle George was her Godfather. Courtesy of  Drew VanWinkle 

Her legal deposition continues on to say that at the time of her confirmation twelve years later, she was given the name Veronica and thereafter known as Anna Vera Rogers.  "In June 1918, I was married to my husband, who was then in the theatrical business, was known as Samuel Howe, which was his stage name.  As a result, I became known to all our friends as Vera Howe, which is the name I have been using ever since our marriage.  I have, however, used the name Anna Veronica Howe Orchard only in connection with business transactions or in matters of a legal matter.  My mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Sullivan.  At the time of my marriage to my husband, the Rabbi who performed the marriage ceremony and who could barely speak or write English, erroneously spelled my mother's name to read Doliere. This latter name means nothing to me." 

Amendment to Vera's marriage certificate.  Courtesy of  Drew VanWinkle

The above deposition sounds like a case study for a genealogy class on name changes.  Had it not been for this deposition and the living relatives who both gave me this and knew Vera, I would not have been able to make this connection.  I found her so interesting that I momentarily forgot about finding more living relatives.  Although childless, Vera did lead me to more of them.  I guess she wanted some attention first.  So let's give her some as a thank you for helping me communicate with more distant cousins. 

Vera Howe, nee Anna Rogers was born February 1, 1887.  She was the second of four children born to Michael Rogers and Elizabeth Sullivan Rogers.  Vera was my grandmother Mary Sullivan Lagoy's first cousin.  Vera's oldest sibling, George, her only brother, had a grandson named Bob.  Bob provided me with legal documents as his father, Vera's nephew, was mentioned in her will.  Vera was Drew's mother Agnes' first cousin.  She would visit them on Staten Island.  Drew also provided me with many photos and documents of Vera's.  Perhaps because she never had any children, several extended family members ended up with her ephemera.  This turned out to be fortunate for me as a researcher. 

Vera married Sam Howe Orchard in Newark, New Jersey on June 15, 1918.  Vera was a performer in Vaudeville and then later in Burlesque.  Along with her sister Lizzie, she worked at the Hippodrome Theatre in New York City.  There was a pool on the stage of this theatre and one of the acts featured her diving into it.  Her husband Sam, was an actor with his own traveling show.  They probably met in show biz at the Hippodrome like her sister Lizzie met her husband.  Vera fist acted under a stage name of Vera Desmond prior to marrying Sam.  In a show business publication titled:  "Stories of the Play; News of the New Offerings" a photo labeled "Miss Vera Desmond  One of the pretty girls of the 'Wine, Woman and Song' Company at the Gayety" accompanied the following: 

                     "Miss Vera Desmond, one of the pretty choristers in the 'Wine, Woman and Song'
                     Company at the Gayety this week, is the youngest girl in the company as to years, but
                     in stage experience she is older than any of the other female members of the company.

                     Miss Desmond was only recently recruited from the ranks of the vaudevillians, she      
                     having been featured for several years as one of the models in the act of Dida, the   
                     Illusionist.* Before this the pretty little miss was a member of the chorus of a New York
                     musical production.  Later, however, the temptatious offer she received to become a
                     member of the 'Wine, Woman and Song' company caused her to forsake musical
                     comedy and vaudeville for burlesque."

Photo of Vera Desmond that accompanied the above quoted article. Collection of Drew VanWinkle

Perhaps the first paragraph of this article explains why Vera had to keep up the story of saying she was ten years younger than she actually was.  "Youngest girl in the company as to years, but older in stage experience", yeah, because she really was older!  I believe Vera was a very good actress blessed with the youthful genes our family possess.  Too bad she did not transition into the movies. 

After show biz, Vera continued to earn a living via her love of water and swimming.  She and Sam owned and operated a bath house in the beach community of the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Edgemere in the borough of Queens, New York.  A local community newspaper, The Wave, Rockaway Beach, NY dated Thursday, August 28, 1941, had a photo of Vera listed as Mrs. Sam Howe of Edgemere captioned "Bridge on the Beach."  Jo Carroll of the Queen's Borough Public Library pointed out a possible bid to Vera as other beach going card players looked on. 

Vera, in white.  Found online courtesy of Megan Sullivan.

I believe Vera is still performing her water acts today.  According to her will, she was cremated and her ashes were spread in Long Island Sound so she could swim in eternity. 

Vera had passed on a treasure trove of professional show biz photos to Cousins Drew and Bob.  Decades later, they would share them with me.  My second favorite photo of her is with her husband, Sam.  She is looking at him while he reads a review of his show in Variety.  My favorite photo of Vera is a simple but elegant head shot of her wearing pearls and lace.  It is my favorite not because of its elegance, but because another relative I was trying to get in touch with had the same photo.  When I emailed my copy to her, it gained her trust in me and a flood of wonderful communication opened up. 

* Dida is the illusionist act of having one girl in a tank of water on stage and then another girl suddenly appears.

Vaudeville era professional photo of Vera. Courtesy of Drew VanWinkle

Vera Howe.  Collection of Drew VanWinkle

My favorite photo of  Vera because it put me in touch with Megan!

Genalogical Journey: Cousin Bob (Part 2)

"Which photographer is that, Bob?"  My Great-uncle Jim and Bob's grandfather were first cousins so perhaps he was going to say, "Jim Sullivan, the newspaper photographer."  Instead he said, "Timothy O'Sullivan, that Civil War photographer."  Now I had the same story, unprompted, from three different branches of the family.  I told Bob about "the book" written about O'Sullivan and mentioned a newer one the Smithsonian had put out a few years ago.  Through the magic of Amazon, I sent him a copy.  ( He already had "the book" by James Horan.) 

In a subsequent email thanking me for the book, Bob floored me with the following, "I have a similar photo of O'Sullivan on brittle, albumen paper."  That photo, like the one of Timothy's sister, Ellen, was in our family for over one hundred and fifty years.  My theory was that Timothy sent it to his parents who were our ancestors' aunt and uncle.  As they (sadly) outlived their children, our ancestors inherited the photos or more likely, were charged with the lovely task of cleaning out their house and kept the photos. 

Bob emailed me the photo he had and I recognized it from yet another book, by Joel Snyder titled American Frontiers The Photography of Timothy O'Sullivan, 1867-1874.  Again, through the magic of Amazon, I sent him a copy of that book which explained more about the photograph on page 14.  Photographed by fellow photographer, Alexander Gardner, it was taken in 1868. 

Cousin Bob's photo of Timothy O'Sullivan in 1868 by Alexander Gardner


Bob and I then corresponded about other family members.  He sent me information and stories about our family tongue twister, the relatives with double Sullivan ancestry.  See if you can follow this:  Elizabeth Sullivan became Elizabeth Rogers upon marriage.  She had a daughter Elizabeth Rogers who became Elizabeth Sullivan upon her marriage.  Lizzie, as she was called, had a son named Frank after her husband also named Frank.  Lizzie and Frank met at the Hippodrome Theatre in New York City where they both worked in show business.  Frank was an actor.  Their son, Frank, Jr. was in WWII and then went to California to earn a PhD in paleontology from Berkeley.  He then moved from Carmel, California to Oklahoma to work for the oil companies.  Frank had three sons, but through his wife's obituary, I found that they had pre-deceased him.  The obituary mentioned a granddaughter, Megan.  She seemed to be the only living relative from that branch of the family.  Could I find her?  I wasn't even sure of her age.  If she wasn't an adult, it would not be appropriate for me to contact her.  Would her mother want to answer questions about her daughter's father's side of the family?  My attempts to make contact with her were close but not on track.  I placed a request on my Find A Grave page next to her grandfather's memorial.  One woman wrote back but had outdated contact information.  The letter I sent was returned undeliverable.  Further attempts to correspond with this contact went unanswered.  This was not looking good.  I so wanted to get in touch with Megan because Bob's grandfather George, was friends with Frank who was his cousin.  Bob had photos and legal documents I wanted to share that mentioned Frank and his sons.  We will get back to that part of the research story  shortly, but now we will take a break to hear about Cousin Vera, Frank's aunt and Lizzie's sister who was also in show business in Vaudeville and Burlesque.  It turned out that Cousin Vera was my link to making contact with Megan's branch of the family. 

 

Genealogical Journey: Cousin Bob

Still drunk on the accomplishment of having found out that Timothy O'Sullivan was my Great-grandfather Charles' first cousin, I then wanted to take the genealogy research in two different directions.  First, I was having so much fun finding and connecting with distant cousins, I continued to research my ancestor's siblings in hopes of finding more of them.  After all, now I could definitively tell them how we were related to Timothy O'Sullivan.  With a little co-operation, I would be able to put together a family tree of all relatives to date descending from my great-great-grandparents Denis and Elizabeth Sullivan.  Second, I wanted to continue researching ancestors beyond Denis and Elizabeth Sullivan.  If any of my distant cousins didn't know who they were, perhaps the information that Great-great-grandpa Denis had a brother named Jeremiah could lead me to their parents.  Jeremiah was Timothy O'Sullivan's father Timothy's grandparents are also my ancestors; three times great-grandparents. 

I started with relatives that Drew knew; he had met them as a child.  George Rogers was the oldest son of Elizabeth Sullivan Rogers and Michael Rogers.  I chose a male to trace because even though "Rogers" was a common last name, it would stay the same if George had a son.  He did and it did.  Through census and military records, I was able to determine that I had the right George Rogers ( 1885-1950) but I needed to pin down his spouse's name to find children.  I asked Drew if he knew her name, as there were several military records with the name George Rogers.  Drew couldn't answer my open ended question except to say, "That is a good question, what was his wife's name?" Then I asked him if it could have been Corie or Coralee as I found records with those spouses' names connected to men named George Rogers.  There are often several sets of records with a couple that has the same first names, no matter how unusual you think it is.  That was the case with Coralee and George Rogers.  I had to narrow them down by location.  He said he thought so, "Coralee, that was it"!  Drew knew they lived in the Washington, DC area so I had three place to check:  the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.  I had lived in Washington, DC prior to moving to California, so my familiarity with the area helped in the research.  The Find A Grave website and online obituaries led me to learn that George and and Coralee had a son also named George and a daughter named Helen.  Helen married a man with a very distinct last name and I actually found her living descendants first.  However, he kept mentioning Helen's husband's line of the family and I could not seem to get him to understand that that I was related to him through Helen, not her husband.  So I returned to Helen's brother George, hoping to find his descendants.  George had two sons, one named George and the other named Robert or Bob.  I found this out from their mother's recent obituary.  It is always bittersweet finding and obituary.  I am sorry for the family's loss and that I didn't get to meet the relative that had passed; so much family history knowledge goes with them.  The sweet side of the obituary is that living relatives were mentioned.  I called both Bob and George and left messages on their answering machines saying who I was and that I hoped they would call me back.  Several weeks had passed and just as I was beginning to think I wouldn't hear from them, Bob called. 

He was away on one of his trips ( he had the travel gene, another sign I had the right person) and recently returned home.  He recognized the name Sullivan and seemed interested in the genealogy.  We talked about present day family, and how he came to live in Minnesota ( job).  I asked if he had blue eyes.  He said yes, confirming in my mind anyway that they came from the Irish Sullivan genes.  I immediately recognized by good when I asked him if he had a big head.  He laughed when he heard that and said he had been told that at times.  I meant to ask if he had the stereotypical big Irish head that some men have.  We chatted a bit longer before he said a now familiar sentence to me: "You know we are related to that photographer."