Over the River (the Potomac) and on to St. Patrick's Church



That's the Potomac River there on the left in the photo up top, and it's the stretch of river along which our Farrell, House, Hartley, and Bigerstaff ancestors lived. It's near the long ago town of Magnolia, West Virginia, now all but gone except in the memories of a small group of folks. See that ridge line on that left far mountain? And see where it dips down, presumably to meet the river behind the greener ridge that rests in front of it? Right along in there is where Magnolia sat. And a bit down river and across from Magnolia still stands an old mission church, St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Little Orleans, Maryland. It sits up the hill aways from the river and the C & O Canal that runs next to it, looking too beautiful and historic in the warm summer sun. It captured my imagination at first sight.

Actually, we began our day driving east from the Western Maryland town of Frostburg in Allegany County where Mom lives to Little Orleans. Brother drove because he knows the area all around Little Orleans where a friend had a hunting cabin. He's been there many a time with the guys, and even thought the cabin was back in the thick woods, at night they'd all drive to a gathering place in Little Orleans, a town that somehow bills itself as the Sturgis of the East because of a motorcycling event. This year it's taking place between August 6 to 10. The rest of the year it's as peaceful as can be.

But up on the hill a bit is our target: a quiet county church. Take a look at these photos below from Cousin Joseph. Beautiful!

Visit the page for St. Patrick's Catholic Church on Find A Grave here.

How I came to visit this place is a story unto itself and so let me share that first. (Isn't it funny in genealogy how one thing for sure leads to another?) It starts with a DNA match over on AncestryDNA. Mom matched cousin Joseph and he was a wealth of knowledge! He shared that our mutual ancestors living as they were along the river on the West Virginia (formerly Virginia) side were Irish Catholic immigrants who boated across the river to attend services at St. Patrick's on the Maryland side. He found some of his Irish ancestors buried there and so did Cousin Rich.

The oldest church records from about the 1830s were still available and could be seen at St. Peter's Church in Hancock, Maryland. WOW! I imagined going there and finding the Farrell's registering baptisms and confirmations. Maybe I'd find the burial records for Thomas and Judah Farrell, our ancestors. But more on that later.

So up the hill we drove and parked. Mom waited in the car while brother and I quickly walked the grounds searching for Farrells. I took as many photos of stones as I could with the intention of eventually checking Find a Grave to see if another photo is needed. The size of the cemetery surprised me. The last picture above is deceptive and didn't give me any idea of the depth of the grounds. I had also expected to find the oldest stones closest to the church, but I could see right away that old stones were everywhere, so my strategy of looking for old stones to save time was not going to work. So up and down we walked. We got nothing. Bummer.

Oh, well. Sometimes you look and find and sometimes you look and don't find. When I just started with genealogy I was like a genea-junkie and always expected that "found it" high every time out. But now I've learned that I better just relax and enjoy the looking too. And I did enjoy this visit to the old mission church here in Little Orleans just for being there. And besides, just because I didn't find them doesn't mean that they aren't buried there. Sometimes there are some things we just don't get to know with certainty.

The bed of the old C&O Canal. These days it sits next to a hiking trail and picnic park.

 

Old stone work next to the hiking trail. Lush green beauty all around.

Down at the edge of the Potomac River, looking east towards Magnolia.

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/08/over-river-potomac-and-on-to-st.html

Great visit to see Mom! On her 96th birthday!

That's Mom and my S-I-L Lynnie sitting on the back porch of the nice brick house on Mt. Savage Road, that's been home to the Kelly family for over 50 years, and set in the little town of Frostburg, Maryland. It was a warm afternoon and there was a beautiful mountain breeze coming down the hill behind the house, working its way through the tall pines and down to the rhododendron bushes lining the far back of the property. It passed the numerous tuberous begonias set out in pots along the old stone wall, now over 100 years old. Mom has always loved her begonias and has grown them every year as long as I can remember! Now, the sun had given up it's daily effort to heat up the area and had grown soft and sweet. We all had scrubbed up and gotten pretty in anticipation of going to diner at the best Italian restaurant in town as a proper celebration of Mom's 96th birthday. It was a nice moment.

It was like that all the long weekend. Fun family time and us busy making memories.

I'll share the genealogy parts of the days with you in future blog posts. There's a lot, and I have jet lag so I'll just take it slow and steady. Let's start with the trip to the church office to see baptism, marriage, and burial records from the 1850s forward. Handwritten and some in Latin. Oh, my!

Then on to an old church across the Potomac River from where the ancestors lived. That was fun even thought we didn't find what we were looking for. Too bad, but that's genealogy for ya.

And last, the big dig into Mom's files and books. I'm real conflicted about that and I'll share my feelings with you.

Black bears had visited the side yard feasting at the old apple tree out on the edge of the property. Lynnie thought it was a mother and a cub, or maybe two cubs. And a mother deer and three fawns grazed in the yard too. She sat down for a rest in the soft sun and watched her offspring as the sun was setting. One of the fawns was full of energy and bounced around in the tall grass.

On Tuesday, I finally left. Cried. So sad at leaving Mom once again. You know what I'm talking about.

More later.


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/07/great-visit-to-see-mom-on-her-96th.html

Summer vacations at the river

Summer on the South Branch of the Potomac River.
As I post this today, July 7, 2014, Mom, Brother and his wife are off on a road trip to the river.
That's just about 100 years of river fun for our family!

In the summertime thoughts turn to vacation memories. Last week I saw Randy Seaver's "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun" post on his always informative blog, Genea-Musings, which you can read here. This time he challenges us to get those memories out of our heads and down for others to see. I like that idea and so I thought it was high time I wrote about our summer vacations down on the Potomac River. Mom has summer river memories and you can read about that here. It's only now later in life that I truly appreciate how Mom and Dad helped make memories for us kids. So here's what I remember, except for the yucky parts which get left out but you'll be able to guess at.

We lived in Cleveland in the 1950s which was about a four hour drive from little Frostburg, the small town in the mountains of Western Maryland where all of my relatives lived and where Mom and Dad grew up and Mom still lives. Dad would take a vacation week from work and we'd pack up the car with a load of stuff, and I do mean a load! I now wish I had a photo of that car. We'd drive to Frostburg and stay with Grandma and Grandpop Kelly for one night before leaving in the morning for the river.

"The river" was a section of the South Branch of the Potomac River in West Virginia where Aunt Dotty and Uncle Harold had a cabin. That's where we'd stay with Mom's sister and her family. It was right next to the cabin of Aunt Peetie and Uncle Camey, Mom's brother and his family. Both families had two boys each to play with so that was a lot of fun right there.

And the food was great! Mom and the two aunts knew just what kids and Dad's loved to eat. Roasted corn on the cob, burgers or hot dogs, baked beans and some sort of salad like potato or macaroni. Then a desert. I still remember Aunt Dotty's pineapple upside-down cake and her coconut cake and Mom's German chocolate cake. There were old fashioned jell-o molds in gem-like colors with fruit magically floating inside and something called ambrosia with pineapple chunks, whipped cream and coconut. No one went hungry down at the river!

The facilities were adequate but hardly luxurious. The modest cabin stood on stilts about eight to ten feet off the ground. That was to save it from the annual spring floods that would wipe out cabins with a lower profile. Eventually, one very bad and rainy spring the torrent that was the flooded river destroyed all cabins on this stretch. Now wiser people bring in their RVs at the start of the summer season. It had taken both uncles years of hard work to build those sturdy little cabins but they were destroyed in just a few hours that spring.

Each cabin had an outhouse. Yes, we all used the outhouse with the sliver of a moon cut into the door. Ours was a two-seater. You had to be awfully close to the other person to make use of that feature. For me, the outhouse was a bit scary... because of the spiders and snakes. OK, I really don't know how many spiders and snakes there were but the cousin boys talked up a good game to scare their city girl relative. Typical boys!

The cabin was a basic affair with two bedroom with curtains serving as doors. There was a potbelly stove positioned at the middle of the room and at the other end was the space that served as kitchen and dining area. The furniture was old and a bit beat-up but it was real comfortable. There was a big screened in porch running the full length of the back of the house that looked out through the trees at the river. A big family-sized table, and a bunch of chairs and a glider for two decorated the porch. It was my favorite place to be on a hot summer afternoon. If you got tired out playing on the river you could find a cozy spot inside or on the porch and find a book to read there. Aunt Dot was an elementary school teacher and knew exactly what to bring to encourage reading. It was a house of people who loved to read so now I can see that it was brilliant to have the house stocked with books and not piled high with the usual assortment of toys. Nice going, Aunt Dot!

But the headline act was right down the muddy bank and on the river. So what's your favorite river activity? Boating?

Aunt Petie and Uncle  Camey and the boys loading up the boat for a nice float down river.

 

 

Or would you like to go fishing? How does that sound?

Grandpop Williams, Mom's father, fishing down on the river.

Mom fishing, about 1938.

 

 

Or would you like to take a swim? Or float down the river on an inner tube? Dive off a big rock out in the river? What's your preference?

 

 

Our rock used for diving, or chilling.
Photo taken by Cousin J. C. 

Mom and her family and friends sitting on one of the big rocks in the Potomac River about 1930.



Mom tells of one summer camping on the river when her mother, Emma, assigned her the task of watching her infant brother, Camey, who was napping in a straw basket. Mom had a book, as usual, and was so engrossed in it that she didn't notice the cow who wandered over and started nibbling on the straw basket. Emma came up from her swim about that time and Mom got a severe scolding!

Thinking back on it all, I remember the corn as the best I've ever had and the peaches the largest, freshest, juiciest, and most delicious ever. There was personal freedom to be had like no other time in life. You could do as you pleased, go where you wished and swim as much as you liked. Sleep as late as you wanted. But everyone had to help if your mother asked you to do a chore. And everyone had to help clean up after dinner while the moms relaxed on the porch and got thanked profusely.

There was a big flood in 1936. A nasty spring flood that whipped out everything. Mom remembers that one. And then there was a later one that took out the aunts and uncles cabins. Maybe that was in the 1960s, but I can't remember the year exactly. I do remember being sad about it, but not as sad as I feel now thinking that it put an end to our summer river memories.



The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/07/summer-vacations-at-river.html