A Tale of Two Cemeteries

     

Entrance to Saint Anne's in Palmyra, NY

     Thursday afternoon the Rochester, New York area broke the record with a daytime temperature of 65 balmy degrees!  It's doubtful we'll see that sort of warmth again for a very long time, so I took advantage of the day to visit the Catholic cemetery in Palmyra.  Besides being good exercise, it's enjoyable to get out of the house and visit some old, (deceased), relatives.  I recently read a blog by Irish genealogist John Grenholm in which he observed, in speaking of the Irish, "Apparently we find it very hard to let go. Maybe that’s the reason we have such a thing about graveyards. Because we certainly do have a thing about graveyards".  If I'm any yardstick, that is an indisputable truism. 

     Being such a nice day, I was loathe to leave after making my usual rounds so I decided to take a stroll through the much larger village cemetery that abuts Saint Anne's as well.  The village cemetery has some very old and unique graves while Saint Anne's cemetery, being created sometime after 1850, lacks really old burials.  Come take a walk with me...

   

     Entering Saint Anne's, one is greeted by a life-sized angel.  The gravestone behind her left wing is that of my 2nd great-aunt Ellen Power from County Waterford and her husband Thomas Mahoney born in County Kerry. 

     The shot below is no man's land, the road dividing the Catholics from everyone else. Saint Anne's is on the left.

     As I left Saint Anne's and walked on into the village cemetery, I saw on a rise what looked from a distance to be palm trees on the side of a large monument.  That was odd, palm trees are definitely not native to New York but there they were.  On viewing the front of the marker, the explanation for the presence of palm trees became clear.  It read, "Dr. Henry Pebbine born Brooklyn 1797 Killed by the Seminole Indians at the massacre of Indian Key Fla. Aug 7 1840 Aged 43".  I had never heard of this massacre nor the doctor before, and I was somewhat doubtful he had been brought from Florida to New York for burial, (in August yet), so I googled it.  One website that came up contained an article written in 1912 that described the terrible events of that summer's day and mentioned a Dr. Henry, but his last name was Perrine.  A closer look at the picture I had taken of the stone showed it was indeed Perrine, not Pebbine as I had first thought.  The article concluded by noting Dr. Perrine's remains were recovered from Florida many years after the tragedy and interred in the family plot at Palmyra.  Another site claims the doctor's remains could not be located in Florida, making the monument in Palmyra a cenotaph.  I tend to believe the second site.

     In the photo below is one of the several zinc markers that dot the village cemetery.  Erected in 1886 this monument looks as though it could have been put up yesterday, the inscription is that clear.  I wish all my ancestor's markers were made of this blueish grey metal.  Their production began in 1875 and being hollow, they were actually an inexpensive option.  Unfortunately, they never gained in popularity with some cemeteries banning zinc markers on the grounds maintaining them would be costly and they might not hold up... the opposite has proven true.

     

Charles H. Kingman M.D.

     

     The marker on the right below is exactly what it looks like, a boulder set on a base memorializing the Chase family.  The other is erected entirely from cobblestones for the De Chard family.

Left, De Chard - Albert 1842-1933 and Cordelia 1842-1923

     The small oval stone below struck me as unusual, I haven't seen many of these but there are a few in the village cemetery; none are found in Saint Anne's. This one was placed in remembrance of Little Cornelia who passed away in 1836 at the age of three.

 

     While Saint Anne's Cemetery is all on level ground, the village cemetery behind it contains both level and hilly sections. One prominence is pictured below.  There are some uneven, timeworn steps placed at intervals on the hillside, but it's still steeper than it appears in the photo.  From the top it does offer a panoramic view of the two cemeteries though...

     

     Looking down from the top of the hill, Saint Anne's cemetery is the farthest section seen in the above photo.

     Three hours have slipped by, the temperature is beginning to drop now and the clouds are lowering; rain is expected before sunset.  It's time to get back to my car parked at the end of that far road.  I hope you enjoyed this brief look at Palmyra where I spend a good deal of my free time.  To be continued...  

(In May)

The Mystery Couple

  

     Shortly before an older cousin of mine died a few years ago, he entrusted to me a stack of old photos. His reasoning was his daughter, who had no interest in family history, would merely discard them upon his passing. Especially since a few of them were older and the persons in them unidentified.  I expect he was correct in his assumption; I fear the same for my genealogy efforts which is why I’m posting all I can to Ancestry.  An imperfect solution to be sure, but until a budding family historian appears in my clan will have to suffice.

    The photograph above has intrigued me since it first came into my keeping. The young lady on the right is my teen-aged grandmother, Mary O’Hora. The names of the couple holding the poodles are unknown to me, (as are those of the poodles). They are in one or two other pictures I have from approximately the same time, so I believe they are most likely relatives, but who they are continues to confound me. The obvious first step was to date the photograph. Grandma was born in 1912, it appears to me she looks to be about 16 years old in this picture give or take. That suggests it was taken around 1928.

     If they are indeed family members, I’ve narrowed the obvious possibilities as to their identities.  My grandmother’s father, Edward O’Hora, died in 1920 when Grandma was eight years old. Edward’s oldest sister Mary passed in 1907 as did his sister Anna; his brother James died in 1881. The next, Michael, never married, and Sarah Jane died in 1902. That left Winifred, who lived until 1939, and her husband Andrew Fitzpatrick who survived until 1928 and lastly, Edward’s brother Daniel who lived until 1951 and his possibly common-law wife who passed in 1937.  I tend to discount Daniel as there was some bad blood between him and the family and too, the gentleman in the photo seems shorter than what the O’Hora’s were from I’ve seen, but Winifred and Andrew are a real possibility. 

    On the other hand, the photo may be of relatives of Edward’s wife Ellen White. Ellen survived Edward and lived at the family farm until the mid-1930’s. Her siblings Margaret, William, and Julia were all deceased by 1923. Of those remaining, her brother Thomas never married, Cornelius disappeared, and John lived in California, leaving Mary, who lived until 1939 and her husband William Stevenson who survived until about 1937. 

    Census records show the Stevenson's living at 17 West 11th Street on Long Island in 1925, but they did visit Ellen on the farm occasionally.  In fact, the local newspaper published this line the first week in October of 1928, “Mr. and Mrs. William E. Stevenson of Long Island are visiting Mrs. Nellie O’Hora and family!” That’s quite interesting, I had forgotten the date of that short notice in the paper until I was looking at my notes for Mary while writing this blog. It certainly places her at the farm in 1928.  I don’t know if they would have brought their pets all the way from Long Island but they were childless...who can say? 

     So which couple could it be, Winifred and Andrew or Mary and William?  I dug out the other photos I had of the possible Mary and William and gasped, the lady who appeared in the photo was seated on the front steps of, get this, number 17!

     Here is "William" in front of the same house.  The two appear younger here than in the picture at the top of this blog, but I'm sure it's the same couple.  I may just have answered my question!  This is why I blog, I figured this whole thing out just now, while blogging.  It makes me focus and think things through like nothing else, I highly recommend it.