52 Ancestors: #50 Anna Mae Bennett (1898 – 1977) and #51 Owen Carl Henn (1906-1988), my grandparents

Anna Mae (Bennett) & Owen "Carl" Henn - early to mid 1950's
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This is my last post for the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge initiated by Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small blog. For more information about the challenge and links to the other blogs participating in the challenge, please click on the badge in the right margin. I didn’t make it to 52; but considering that I took 4 or 5 weeks off in the summer to pack, move, and unpack, I don’t feel bad about it.  I’ve enjoyed it, but I’m also glad to be done.

Anna Mae (Bennett) and Owen Carl Henn are my grandparents, my father’s parents. I will not be naming their children or giving specifics about them in this post as they are still living.

The Grandma I remember was, to my child’s memory, what we now call an introvert, and she was also quite shy. She loved her God, her husband, her children and her grandchildren fiercely. But she didn’t like crowds much, and would get overwhelmed and withdraw into another room for a while until she could come back out to be with people. She loved reading, and listening to music.  My memories of her remind me of me (minus the kids – I haven’t got a maternal bone in my body – and Grandma loved being a Mom and a grandmother, and minus that degree of shyness).

The Grandpa I remember was a do-er. He dug wells in his 70’s -- by hand! He gardened – on a large scale. He loved puzzles – did jigsaw puzzles upside down, green side up. Loved those odd puzzle things you get only at Christmas. He loved math. He found mathematical puzzles in the Bible. He loved the Bible and God and his family. He had a lot of Bibles. I have one of them now. I have his jigsaw puzzle gene too – but the math gene skipped me entirely.

I tried to write their entries separately as I did for my mother’s parents. But for Mom’s parents I had newspaper articles from their home town that covered the minutest things throughout their growing up years (who went to whose 4-year-old’s birthday party, 50^th anniversaries, kid’s plays, football games, debate clubs etc.) But, although I’ve got basic documents such as census documents, city directories , etc., as I’ve noted before, there are very few local papers online for Michigan’s Lapeer and Sanilac counties for this time period -- and none that mentioned my grandparents.  Moreover, I discovered that my grandparents didn’t make the papers in the town they spent their adult life in. So I’m depending more on the email interviews I did of my uncle, my Dad, and my aunts.  In the stories I know, and the ones I learned, Anna and Carl are too intertwined to do separate blog posts well so I decided to write about them together.

As we’ve seen both Anna and Carl (Grandpa went by “Carl” to friends and family because his father was “Owen,” too; but in nearly all official documents he is “Owen C. Henn”) descended from people who pushed their boundaries to live on the edge of civilization, leaving family and home for the gamble and the hope of better things to come.  Both Carl and Ann’s ancestors were hard working people who did their best to make a good life for their families with what was available to them. When you read Carl and Anna’s story, you can tell that that blood runs in their veins.

I don’t have a birth certificate for Anna, and her children tell me “there were some questions about her birth year,” although they agree that her birth day was May 16.  I think her birth year was about 1898 or 1899. In the 1900 census she was listed as 2 years old, which put the birth year as likely 1898.  In the 1910 & 1920 census, she was listed as 11 and 21 respectively, which indicates a birth year of 1899.  After she got away from home and married a younger man, she indicated in 1930 that she was 28 (which would have her born in 1902) and in 1940 as 40 years old (1900).  I think that the earlier ones, where the information was supplied by her family are more likely to be right.  Moreover, the Ohio and Social Security death indices and her obituary also all say she was born in 1898. 

Anna loved books, school, and learning, and had dreams of going to college. She grew up in a farm in Maple Valley Township in Sanilac County, Michigan. Unfortunately, she was just old enough, when her mother became ill, to help care for her parents, Andrew and Anna Gregor Bennett, her younger siblings, and keep up the housework, and she spent the next 13 years of her life doing so, as her older siblings went to college, or got married, and struck out into lives of their choosing. (See the posts on Anna Gregor Bennett and on Andrew Bennett for a listing of her siblings and their spouses.) She also knew sorrow, and just how short a time one could have to live her dreams, as her older sister, Elizabeth, died at age 28, in 1920, not long  after marrying; Anna was 22. Anna wanted to finish school and go to college, but she was not allowed to go to school past 8^th grade. After her mother died in 1828 (her father had died three years before), Anna left the small town home where she had cared for her parents, to move to the big city of Detroit. She got a job in a Department store – my father recalled the job was as a secretary, and that it was a job for which she had to dress very nicely and she was pretty. She hoped to save money to go to school.

Map of Southeast Michigan,
showing where Sanilac &Lapeer Counties are in relationship to Detroit,
In the public domain
Click to Make Bigger

I’m going to save the story of how she met Carl Henn until after I tell you about his beginnings.

My grandfather also had boundaries placed on him my Aunt tells me he felt ignored his dreams. Owen Carl Henn (“Carl”) was born on December 27, 1906 to Owen James and Myrtie Mabel Wilcox Henn. I don’t have his birth record either but all the other documentary evidence I do have that mentions a specific date is in agreement. As a farmer’s son, he was used to helping out on the family farm in Lapeer County, Michigan, while he went to school, but he had dreams of going to college to become a math teacher.  He had taught Sunday school at his family’s church from late high school on. One of my aunts told me that Carl’s father, Owen Henn, did not allow Carl to go to school past age 16 and pulled him out to work full time on the farm. But Carl reported on the 1940 census that he had finished all four years of high school. In either case, he was not given the option to go to college and was held to farm work until he turned 21, in 1927. (See posts on Owen James Henn and Myrtie Mabel Wilcox for his parents' stories and listing of brothers and sisters.)

I know the family story is that Carl and Anna married one month after he turned 21, but Grandpa’s (Carl’s) genealogy notes say that he married Anna on January 26, 1929, and the Michigan marriage records confirm that; so it was 13 months after he turned 21.  The 1929 date comports with the rest of the story, too.  It looks like Carl left the farm after his 21^st birthday, and went to Detroit and found a job, likely as a laborer, and began saving money, still with the dream of going to college.

My aunt told me that Anna met Carl in Brown City, the small town nearest to where each of them grew up, when she took her nieces to Sunday school, which he taught. But my Dad, my uncle, and my Mom told me that Carl met Anna at a church Bible study and some church socials in Detroit, which fits, as Anna had been living in Detroit since 1928. He was attracted to her because she was so pretty, well dressed, and well read, and from the same small rural area he was from. He may have found her, an older, pretty, well-dressed woman, a touch exotic. He courted her and she liked this young man from the same sort of background as she, who was a church-going man, with the same dreams as her of further education.

Carl and Anna (Bennett) Henn, circa 1929 - wedding picture, I think
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They married, in Detroit, on January 26, 1929. He was 22 and she was 30 years old. They started out living in Detroit and Anna became pregnant within a few months. Unfortunately, they lost all their savings in the stock market crash of October 1929 and the resultant financial panic. Carl likely lost his job then too, because, the family story is that after they lost nearly everything, they heard that there were jobs in Indianapolis IN and Dayton OH and they flipped a coin to choose which city to move to. The coin flip sent them to Dayton, Ohio.

In the longer run the choice was a good one. Dayton did suffer from the Depression, but as the war escalated in Europe in the late 1930’s, many of Dayton’s many factories were converted to produce war-related supplies to be shipped overseas, and, therefore, Dayton’s economy began to recover sooner than other cities. But they arrived at the start of the Great Depression, and they didn't know that yet, and neither did anyone else in Dayton.  In Ohio, by 1933, more than 40% of factory workers and 67% of construction workers were unemployed. In 1932, Ohio’s unemployment rate for all residents reached 37.3%. The industrial workers who managed to retain their jobs experienced reduced hours and wages. People had a terrible time trying to support, and feed, their families.

When Carl & Anna first got to Dayton, the only work Carl could find was as a farm hand at a $1 a day, seven days a week plus room and board, and he took it.  Anna helped by cutting wood on the farm, even though she was pregnant. Carl knew they needed more money with a child on the way, therefore, because it was more money per week, he quit his job and they went on Welfare at $15 a week, until he was able to find other better paying work.  By April 2, 1930, when the census was taken, he was a laborer (freight handler) in the B & O rail yard, and he and Anna were renting a home or apartment for $28 a month; their first son was born twenty days later.

The 1930 and 1931 city directories show that Carl & Anna were living at 18 Pioneer Street about one block west of the Miami River. At that time, through about the 1950’s, anything west of the river that split Dayton was known as the poor side of town. Carl was soon promoted to “checker” at the rail yard which involved assuring that freight was moving to the correct car, to arrive at the proper destination; later he was promoted to foreman.

In 1933 they moved further west to 43 Harvard Blvd, outside of the downtown area. My father was born that year, a healthy baby boy, over eight pounds!  My Dad told me that he was born in Drexel and Harvard Blvd doesn’t look that close to Drexel on the map so there may have been another address between 1931 and 1933; I haven’t been able to find the 1932 city directory.

They only lived at the Harvard Street address for about one year before moving to 39 Dennison Ave., southwest of the city. The city directories show them at the Dennison Ave. address from 1934 through 1937. A baby girl was born to Carl and Anna in 1934, and in April 1935, Anna’s younger sister, Margaret, died, bringing more sorrow to her and making her children all the more precious to her.

Three of Carl & Anna's addresses in Dayton, OH
Courtesy of Google Maps (& Skitch)
Click to map bigger

By 1937, the city’s economy was improving as war ramped up in Europe and the city’s factories switched to producing wartime supplies for Europe, so salaries also increased. As the economy improved, people from other areas began migrating to Dayton to find work, but Dayton was unprepared for the influx and an acute housing shortage developed. By the early 1940’s, it was reported to the Public Welfare Office that multiple families were sharing single homes, and other families were living in hotel rooms, garages, automobiles, and even sewer pipes.

Carl and Anna had been saving what they could, and some time after Anna’s younger sister died, Anna received a $500 bequest from her sister’s estate.  With that money they bought two acres of a farm being subdivided out in Jefferson township, a largely rural area of Montgomery county, to the southwest of, and abutting, Dayton; one acre had a garage or large shed on it. The acre with the garage cost $175 and the one with the building cost $125, according to my aunt. Carl bought building materials with the other $200.  My Dad remembers the family moving into that one room dirt-floored garage before he started school. According to the city directories, they were living on the property as of 1938. Dad remembers they got a fierce cat, Balti (for the Baltimore & Ohio railroad where his father worked), to deal with the rats that were used to stealing the grain that used to be stored there. The family lived in the garage while Carl built an 8 room, 2-story house, with a basement and well that he dug by hand with pick and shovel. Dad remembers that every day after work his father would come home with some of the box car package framing sticking out of his Model A Ford’s window; he used it in building the house.  After he got home from work, he would work until dark on the house, helped by the kids. After Carl finished one room (the living room, about 12’ x 16’), the family moved out of the garage and into that one room while he built the rest of the house around them; they would expand into each new room as it was done.

My Grandpa built this house!
on Olt Rd Extension in Jefferson twp, Montgomery County OH
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The house was built without electricity or indoor plumbing; it had a gas furnace in the basement with registers cut in the floors to allow the heat to rise to the next level.  My aunt remembers studying by kerosene lantern.  When it was finished, (although one of my aunts contends, with a laugh, that it was never finished), it had a living room, dining room, kitchen, and four bedrooms … and by the time I remember it, indoor plumbing, electricity, and a bathroom.

The property became the one house in the neighborhood that all the kids played at. They had a baseball diamond laid out in the yard, and Carl built them a clubhouse in the basement.

Part of the reason they wanted that much land was to raise goats to supplement the table with milk, cheese, and meat, and a garden to bring more food to the table. Initially, each spring they rented a horse to plow one acre for corn to feed the goats for a year. They used a single bottom handheld plow. When my uncle was 9, Carl taught him to drive the Model A to pull the plow so they didn’t have to rent the horse anymore. Carl dug a huge vegetable garden, and turned the soil each year, by hand. They grew potatoes, green beans, lima beans, corn, peas, lettuce, onion, carrots, tomatoes, etc. They also had a small orchard (apple, pear, and peach trees and grapes, raspberries and blackberries).

Walk behind, horse- drawn  (or Model A- drawn!), single bottom, handheld plow.
In the public domain.
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At that house, Anna did washing on Monday: an all-day job.  According to my uncle’s recollection water was pumped from the well, then carried to the kitchen stove to be heated. Clothes and sheets & such were washed in a tub with a scrub board. She washed, rinsed, and wrung out each item, then hung it all up on a clothesline, and when dry took it all down again. She ironed all day on Tuesdays, with irons heated on the stove, and folded each item. In addition, , cleaned house and cooked meals on a gas stove, without refrigeration, and washed up without a dishwasher and after having gone out to pump more  water and heating it on the stove. They tried to have meat on the table once a week: sometimes a rabbit, sometime a chicken, and occasionally a goat.  Late summer and fall, she spent innumerable hours harvesting the orchard and vegetable garden, cleaning and sterilizing canning jars and lids, and then canning all sorts of fruits and vegetables. Her children were the main focus of her life, and later, her grandchildren. But whenever she had a quiet moment, she loved to read books she had gotten from the library (since she didn’t drive, she had to walk a mile or so to the end of the trolley rail line to take a city trolley car to the library), or, if she thought no one was around, she would play the piano.

The family went to church “every day it was open”, at the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) Church in Liberty Ohio (a community in Jefferson Township that doesn’t seem to exist anymore). Carl taught adult Sunday school there, and was a superintendent of the Sunday school. He also taught a Men’s Bible Study at the Euclid Avenue EUB in Dayton, and Bible at Sinclair College. I know he later also took several correspondence courses in the 1950’s in such subjects as “Bible Studies”, and “Guidance In Christian Homemaking”, and “John – Life Through Believing”, as I have the certificates of  completion he received. I also have a copy of one of his Sunday school curriculum memos – it’s an intense course. His belief in God and his religion/church was very important to him. It was also important to Anna, but my father thought that her beliefs were not as rooted in a literal reading of the Bible as those of her husband. That dichotomy of belief has carried down to the next generation with some following in their father’s footsteps, and some, more in their mother’s.

In 1940, Dayton had 432 factories; from the late 1930’s through the mid-1940’s many of those producing war-related products. As the wartime economy ramped up, Carl knew that while he was making good money as foreman at B & O and loved working with trains, he could make more money at G.M., and he hired on to work on the assembly line at Frigidaire in the Moraine City plant, which made propellers and aircraft machine guns. He was soon promoted to “set up man”, which meant going in two hours before the first shift started to prepare for that day’s production.  My uncle told me that at some point Carl was working two jobs as he got off work at G.M. at 1 p.m., then went out to Hamilton OH to work at a B & O rail yard there, too. The city directories only list Carl as working at the rail yard – I guess that’s the job he liked best. When he switched to working for Frigidaire, he lost his draft deferment. In the 1940 Census, Carl reported working 48 hours the week before, and that his income in 1939 was $1120. (For comparison’s sake for my younger readers, in 1939, the average yearly wage in the U.S. was $1730; average rent was $28 a month; a new home cost $3800, a new car was $700 and gas was 10 cents a gallon.)

Propeller made by Frigidaire during WWII in Moraine City plant
[Note: I couldn't find copyright info on this picture, or who to contact for permission to use.
If it's yours, comment below, with available proof, & I'll attribute or take it down as you choose.]
Click to Make Bigger 

In 1942, a second daughter was born to Carl and Anna. The older children were 12, 9, and 8. They considered her a miracle. She was a well-loved baby.

In 1944, at age 38, Carl was drafted into the army. The family was very scared. Several men in the neighborhood had died in the war so they knew the danger was real. They held family prayer meetings and sang and prayed every night from when he got his draft notice until he left for Ft. Thomas in Newport KY in March, 1944. While he was away, Anna made sure each child wrote their father daily, as she did. Carl responded to each letter individually.  Anna was given a driver’s license without having to take a test even though she had never driven, because Carl was in the military and the family did not live near public transportation or any stores. My uncle, then 14, was given a restricted license, but at least he had driven the Model A to pull the plow in the garden and knew how the car worked.

Carl did not want to leave home. He felt he was needed more at home than by the army.  He had had rheumatic fever when he was 14, and, occasionally, his heart would act up, especially if he smoked or was around cigarette smoke. Nearly everyone smoked in the army, and he spent a lot of time in Army hospitals.  The Army doctors decided that his heart was too bad for him to remain in the Army and be shipped overseas, and so he was discharged. He came home 7 months and 22 days after he left. The night he came home the children heard their dog, Shep, barking outside, and when they went to look, saw their father walking straight across the fields to the back of the house carrying a shopping bag of gifts for his children, with Shep ecstatically running circles around him, barking like crazy.

He returned to work at Frigidaire, and continued working there until he retired.  

In 1948, Anna grieved the death of another older sister, at only 54. This left Anna the only surviving sister in her family. In the end, Anna, who was the sixth of eight children, outlived all of her sisters and brothers.

Carl & Anna’s oldest son married his high school sweetheart in 1950.  Their oldest daughter married in 1957. Their younger son married in 1959, and younger daughter in 1962.  On March 18, 1962, just weeks before his youngest child’s wedding, Carl’s older sister Hazel (58) was murdered in her home by a burglar who beat and then strangled her, while she fought him. $900 was taken, but nothing else was disturbed. I don’t know how you deal with news like that about your sister’s death in that manner.

Carl & Anna at my father's wedding - cropped from the 'bridal couple & parents' photo
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I asked Dad, but he can’t remember when his father retired, but can recall seeing him make calculations repeatedly to determine whether he would have enough money in retirement to live on. When he calculated that he would have $6000 a year, he retired because he felt they could live comfortably on that.

After retirement, he became more involved in the church, helped his neighbors with building projects, worked in his garden, and took up the hobby of researching his family’s genealogy (the traditional way – no computers) and his work on that (and that of other’s on my father’s side – it seems to be in the genes) has formed the foundation of mine. (Thanks, Grandpa!)

In her later years, Anna developed medical issues similar to dementia (so sad for such a bright person), and Carl cared for her. She died on September 7, 1977, while Carl was feeding her oatmeal. She was 79.

Carl lived for 11 more years. He didn’t care for being alone and he met someone who helped him not feel alone, and enjoy life again.  On July 11, 1980, he married Winnie Korn Baver, became instant (step) grandfather to her grandchildren as their grandfather was dead.  He was 73 and she was nine years younger than him. They moved to a trailer park in Miamisburg OH.  I remember her as bubbly and cheerful and their home as bright and filled with tchotchkes everywhere. Carl died on April 14, 1988, at age 81.  Winnie outlived him by 18 years; she never remarried.

My grandparents pushed against the boundaries placed on them by their families to make their own lives. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, they left Michigan and their birth families behind for the gamble and the hope of better things to come.  Although they never did get to realize their original dreams and attend college themselves, like their ancestors, Carl and Anna were hard working people who did their best to make a good life for their family with what was available to them. They succeeded in that. And they succeeded in passing on their love of learning and their love of God to their children. They raised four children who went to college and obtained advanced degrees, paying for it themselves. In addition, all of them have had good careers and have good families and a strong faith. 

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I would like to know more of Carl & Anna’s years in Michigan, and about their life after the 1950's.

I know I need to track down copies of the documentation I mentioned that I don’t have.

I Love hearing any story I can about them.

More pictures would be great too, especially a better copy of the one that I think is their wedding picture.

There is probably more I'd like to know but it's after 3:00 AM and I can't think of it right now.

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U.S. Census for years 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1940; Dayton City Directories for 130, 1931, 1933, 1934, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1942; WWII Army enlistment records; Ohio Birth Index; U.S Social Security Death Indices; Email interviews of my aunts, uncle and Dad, 2014;  Interviews of my father over a decade, compiled into a small book in or about 2008; “Ohio Modern: Preserving Our Recent Past Dayton and Surrounding Area Survey Report”, prepared for the Ohio Historic Preservation Office of the Ohio Historical Society by Heritage Architectural Associate, Kathy Mast Kane, Historic Preservation Consultant and Nathalie Wright, Project Manager and Historic Preservation Consultant, September 2010 (found at www.ohiohistory.org/File%20Library/.../Report/rp-05.pdf); http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Great_Depression; http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1939.html; Ohio Marriage Index for 1980; Findagrave.com Memorial # 13206439 for Winifred Korn Baver-Henn.

52 Ancestors: #44 Anna Gregor Bennett (1858 – 1929), my greatgrandmother

Location of Puslinch Township in what is now Ontario Canada
 Courtesy of Google maps
Click to make bigger

This is my latest post for the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge initiated by Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small blog. For more information about the challenge and links to the other blogs participating in the challenge, please click on the badge in the right margin.

I had been intending to write about someone else, and had found some fascinating things. But, I hit a snag, and figuring out how to untangle it is taking too much time right now. So I’ve decided instead to write up my great-grandmother, Andrew Bennett’s wife, for this week, especially since she leads to the person I have been researching (who I will post about in the future – so you now know you have something fascinating to look forward to). Finding and tracking Anna before her marriage to my great-grandfather was interesting to me as well --- and again proves the helpfulness of researching more than just my direct line into to find my people. I’m not going to repeat the historical information I put in Andrew’s post; please read his post as well.

Anna Gregor is my great-grandmother:  my father’s maternal grandmother. Anna was born on October 7, 1858 or 1859 to Benjamin Gregor (1824 – 1880) and Elizabeth Taylor (about 1832 – before 1880). She was probably born in Puslinch Township in Wellington County, in the British colony of the United Province of Canada (in what today would be Ontario, Canada today), as her mother grew up there and her father moved there sometime in the six years prior to Anna’s birth. Puslinch Township is  just south of the town of Guelph, which is  61 miles (99 km) west of where Toronto is now and in the peninsula east of Lake Huron, west of Lake Ontario and north of Lake Erie. (See map at the head of the post.) I’ll discuss its history more when I do posts on Anna’s parents and grandparents as some of them were among the early pioneers in the area.

In the 1861 Census of Canada, Anna was 2 years old and living with her parents and older brother James (he was 4) in Puslinch Township. Her father was a farmer. The census recorder spelled their last name as Grigor. By 1871, the family had expanded to include younger brothers George (9) & Benjamin (3) and younger sister Gracie (7). And, again the census taker spelled their last name as Grigor. I think Anna’s mother died in or before 1879, as I cannot find her in any census in Canada or the United States after that date. Hr father died on 15 March, 1880.* The children left Puslinch Township by or shortly after 1880 -- four of the five moving to Michigan. James moved to Michigan first, in or about 1878 and the others joined him in 1879.

1884 Michigan State Census (Goodland twp. Lapeer County, MI)
Found at SeekingMichigan.org
Click to make bigger

I found Anna in the U.S. Census, in 1880, when searching for her brother James; she was living with him in Burnside Township in Lapeer County Michigan; she kept house for him as he farmed. Searching the surname “Gregor” at SeekingMichigan.org, I found James, Anna, and Benjamin in the 1884 Michigan Census (see above picture), living in the township of Goodland, in Lapeer County. James (27) worked in “lumber manufacturing”, Anna (24) was his housekeeper and Benjamin (17) attended school.  The census also indicated that a female of 18, who had previously lived in the household, had married Anson Bentley on August 18, 1884. I also found a marriage record for Grace’s marriage to Anson Bentley on that date. Between these three documents I felt I had enough information to confirm that this was indeed where my great-grandmother and her siblings had gone after the probable death of their parents, and to confirm this was my Anna (Anna Bennett is a very common name). The census form also asked the time of residence within the state, which is how I found out that that James moved to Michigan first. He reported he had been there 6 years and Anna and Benjamin reported they had been there 5 years.

I think Anna’s younger brother, George, remained in Canada when the others moved to Michigan, although I’m not certain of that.  The first record I found him in was a marriage record for 1888, in which he married Emily Janette Lamont in Puslinch; the record indicated that his residence was in Hespeler, Ontario which is 9 miles (15 km) west of Guelph. [George, and his wife subsequently moved to Manitoba Canada and lived out their lives there. Anna's sister, Grace, and her husband, Anson Bentley, moved to Kansas, then Wyoming, and then to Idaho where they were buried. Anna's youngest brother, Benjamin, married Maude Amelia Thompson, and they lived most of their life in Indiana. After Maude died, he moved to Illinois; he was buried in Newago, MI with Maude. Unfortunately, I lost James after 1884.]

I feel a bit sad for Anna, with her family scattered at long distances from her. My brothers are all at long distances from me, but I have telephones, the internet, cars, and airplanes, and Anna likely didn’t have any of them. While telephones had been invented by the late 1870’s, their use in homes wasn’t common in rural areas until into the mid-1900’s because it was so expensive to string the wires out to the farm homes. Brown City itself received telephone service in 1898, but long distance calls were expensive and not private, as many families in separate households would share a “party” line and could hear whoever was speaking if they picked up their receiver. The rural areas of Sanilac County were slow to receive telephone service, until Federal Funds were approved to help run electricity and telephone wires to rural areas in the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 – seven years after Anna died.

I wonder if her brothers and sisters ever visited her, or she, them? With railroad travel it would have been possible and a lot easier and less time than horse and wagons had taken—one could travel across the country in a week instead of the several months it had taken just a few decades before.

I bet letters from Grace, George, James, and Benjamin were like gold the rest of her life. I hope they were good correspondents.

Postcard of Brown City MI  Main Street East in 1906
Off copyright and in the public domain, but
found at http://genealogytrails.com/mich/sanilac/citybrown.html (where there are more postcards)
Click to make bigger

Sometime after moving to Michigan, Anna must have met and gotten to know Andrew Bennett when he came home to visit family in Lapeer County (adjacent to Sanilac County – Brown City straddles both counties), from where he was working in Evart MI, as she married him on April 16, 1885. Anna and Andrew lived in Brown City, MI, on the Sanilac county side at least through their last child’s birth; the children’s birth records show a Brown City address. Their children were: Benjamin Gregor (born 15 February 1886, married Florence Short, and died 31 January 1970); William John (born 15 April 1889, married Mary Kalbfleisch, death date not discovered for certain yet); Elizabeth Grace (born 8 May 1891, married Arthur Bernard Martin, died 7 February 1920),  Blanche Maud (born in January 1894, married & divorced William John Huston, died 8 February 1948), Andrew Russell (born 26 January 1896, married Olive Gertrude Glover, died 23 July 1969), Anna Mae - my grandmother (born 16 May 1898, married Owen Carl Henn, died 12 September 1977), Margaret McFarland (born in August 1900, died 6 April 1935) and Thomas Edison Bennett (born 19 February 1906, married Lenore M. Griffen, died 1969). 

1900 Federal Census - Andrew and Anna Bennett Family,
found at Ancestry.com
Click to make bigger

By the time their youngest child was four years old, the family moved out to Maple Valley township, in Sanilac county and farmed until they retired. Then they moved back to a house in town in Brown City, leaving the running of the farm to their son William and his bride. Andrew died in 1925 and Anna followed three years later on April 18, 1928.

This is when I truly regret that I cannot find any Sanilac or Lapeer county newspaper archives online. When I can find historical newspapers online for where my ancestors lived, I can find out all sorts of things that help me build a fuller picture of them as a person as besides real news stories, the old time newspapers printed stories about who is going to visit who, who had someone over for dinner, church activities, school activities, legal notices, anniversary and reunion celebrations, as well as obituaries. But, try as I might, I can’t find any for any newspaper in Sanilac or Lapeer counties at any of the major (or minor) newspaper archive sites.

If you know anything about Anna Gregor Bennett and/or her family, and are willing to share, please contact me by leaving a comment below or by emailing me at the address provided in my Contact Me page.

Update: Anna's father, Benjamin Gregor, died 15 March 1880, according to the index of Ontario deaths on Familysearch.

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I truly wish I knew more about my great-grandparents. I wish I had pictures of them. I’ve seen pictures of one of Anna’s brothers and of her sister on other people’s trees on Ancestry.com, and that just makes me want to see her more (I can’t post the pictures of her siblings here for you to see as I haven’t reached out to the tree owners to ask for permission to do so yet).

I’d also like to know when, where and why her parents died. And where did her brother James go after 1884; did he have a family of his own? And more of what her life was like.

By the way, did you know that there are petroglyphs in Sanilac County that are 300-1000 years old?! Too cool! I'd also like to go see them! But until I do, here’s a link to a blog by a guy who did go see them, who has lots of pictures at the bottom of his post about his trip to the Sanilac Petroglyphs Historic State Park. 

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Canadian census of 1861; U.S. Federal Censuses for 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930; Michigan State Census for 1884; http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rd/70th/rea-history.pdf; http://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/early-twentieth-century-railroads.htm; http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/themes/story_48_1.html ; http://www.ci.brown-city.mi.us/history.php; http://genealogytrails.com/mich/sanilac/citybrown.html

52 Ancestors: #42 Andrew Bennett (1858 – 1925), my great grandfather, Canada East to Michigan, USA

Flag of the British colony of the Unified Province of Canada (which existed 1840-1867), in the public domain

This is my latest post for the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge initiated by Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small blog. For more information about the challenge and links to the other blogs participating in the challenge, please click on the badge in the right margin.

Andrew Bennett was born on November 26, 1858, in the British colony of the Unified Province of Canada in an area that would now be in the province of Quebec, Canada (see post on George Butler Wilcox and Mary Jane (Currier) Wilcox for explanation of the history of the making of Canada as we know it today).  He was the 7^th child (of 13!) of William Bennett and Margaret McFarlane/McFarland. His siblings were: Mary Jane (1845-1923), Charlotte M. (1848-1916), Thomas (1849-1934), Elizabeth (1850 - ?), Nancy Ellen (1855-1927), Dorothy (1855-1927), [Andrew], Sara 1858-1877), William (1862 - ?), Janet (1863-1932), John Edward (1865-1935), Lucretia (1868 - ?) and James (1873 - ?).  [I’ll go into more detail about his siblings when I write about his parents.]

Baptism record of Andrew Bennett (son of William) 1862, found at Ancestry.com
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I don’t know exactly where he was born in the Unified Province of Canada, but he was baptized, in 1862, in Valleyfield. It is in what is now the southwest corner of Quebec, about 20 miles from today’s Ontario-Quebec Province line. The delayed baptism likely came about because his parents had to wait for a traveling pastor to come through the area. While people could gather to worship God without an official from the church, things like marriages and baptisms tended to wait until an ordained pastor came through the area.

While Valleyfield was first incorporated as a manufacturing town many years later in 1874, it existed as a frontier settlement before that. In 1858, it was a small hamlet about 40 miles west of the island of Montreal, on the eastern edge of Lake St. Francis, and at the head of the Beauharnois Canal (part of the St. Lawrence Seaway Canal system) on the south side of the St. Lawrence River. The hamlet is now a city named Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. This area was largely settled by Scottish immigrants; even the name Valleyfield came from a paper mill, Valleyfield Mills, in Scotland. Andrew’s mother was born in Scotland, according to most of the censuses (and his father was born in Ireland).

Map showing the site of Valleyfield,, Quebec, east of Lake St. Francis, south of the St. Lawrence River
and at the head of the old Beauharnois Canal, off copyright
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From 1830 through about 1870 was a period of immigration from Canada to Michigan in the United States called “Michigan Fever”, wherein large numbers of Canadian immigrants came to Michigan, including those newly arrived in the province of Canada. They were tempted by reports of the decline of the Indian population in Michigan, good climate and resources, including good farm land, iron and copper deposits, and a growing lumber industry.

Andrew’s father, William, moved his family to Lapeer County, Michigan towards the tail end of Michigan Fever, in or by 1870. From the 1830’s to 1870 Lapeer County’s main industry had been lumber, but after the trees were gone, the county began attracting farmers like Andrew’s father and became primarily agricultural. According to the 1870 U.S. Census, William and Margaret were living in Burnside in Lapeer County, Michigan in 1870 with William and their oldest son Thomas working as farm labor. Also in the household were the youngest six children Andrew (14) through Lucretia (either 4 or 2 - the census form is hard to read -- Ancestry.com’s indexer says she is 4, but I think it says she is 2). His oldest daughter Mary Jane was married to John Young and living next door. The youngest son, James, wasn’t born yet.

By 1880, Andrew was 22, and had moved away from home, and was living with his sister Dorothy (called “Dolley”) and her husband, Robert Watson, in the relatively new town of Evart, Michigan in Osceola County on the Muskegon River in the northwest portion of the Lower Peninsula. Both men worked in a saw mill. These would have been good jobs. The 1870’s through 1890’s was a time of remarkable growth for the railroads in the United States and as the first transcontinental railroads were being built, the companies building them relied heavily on Michigan for the wood ties used in constructing the railroads as they crossed the plains states where no trees grew. I don’t know that Andrew and Robert were involved in this industry but as it was a booming trade in Michigan at that time, they may well have been a cog in the trade. [Here is an interesting article on the “timber rush” in Michigan during those years]  

Saw Mills on Budd Lake Michigan in the late 1880, about 35 miles north of Evart Michigan. 

Found at http://bluelemon.me/2013/09/25/anatomy-of-a-shingle-mill-by-roy-dodge,
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Andrew was apparently also making visits home to Lapeer County, because at some point he met and wooed Anna Gregor (daughter of James Peter Gregor and Elizabeth Taylor), whom he married on April 16, 1885. I know that he and Anna continued to live in Brown City, on the Sanilac county side (the city straddles the Lapeer County and Sanilac County line), at least through their last child’s birth. Their children were: Benjamin Gregor (born 15 February 1886, married Florence Short, and died 31 January 1970); William John (born 15 April 1889, married Mary Kalbfleisch, death date not discovered for certain yet); Elizabeth Grace (born 8 May 1891, married Arthur Bernard Martin, died 7 February 1920),  Blanche Maud (born in January 1894, married & divorced William John Huston, died 8 February 1948), Russell Andrew (born 26 January 1896, married Olive Gertrude Glover, died 23 July 1969), Anna Mae - my grandmother (born 16 May 1898,married Owen Carl Henn, died 12 September 1977), Margaret McFarland (born in August 1900, died 6 April 1935) and Thomas Edison Bennett (born 19 February 1906, married Lenore M. Griffen, died 1969).  I see the potential for a whole bunch of new-to-me cousins here! If we’re related I’d love to hear from you!

While I don’t know for certain what Andrew was doing to support his family during those years since the 1890 census was burnt in a fire in Washington, DC, and there seems to be a dearth of Michigan records for the same time period (courthouse fires, I’m told), family stories tell me he was a farmer, and I have a map showing the land he owned & likely farmed in 1894 (see below). This makes sense because agriculture was the main industry for Sanilac County after the logging period, like it was in next door Lapeer County, and because he listed himself as a farmer in the 1900, 1910, and 1920 censuses. It would have been a tough time to be a farmer as farm produce prices went down as the transcontinental railroads were completed and as the Great Plains states were settled towards the last quarter of the 19^th Century, leading to an abundance of product making it to the stores, and in the Panic of 1893 which began when the Reading Railroad company declared bankruptcy, causing a severe economic depression. Stock prices declined, and over $1 billion worth of bonds were defaulted. Hundreds of banks closed, 15,000 businesses failed, and numerous farms went under. The unemployment rate in Michigan was at 43%. The U.S. economy began to recover in 1897, after the election of President McKinley and the discovery of gold in Alaska.

1894 Land Ownership Map of Maple Valley Township in Sanilac County Michigan, showing Andrew Bennett's farm,
 found at Ancestry.com
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In the 1900 census, Andrew reported he had been married 15 years, was 46 years old, and he was a farmer.  Also in the household were  his wife Anna, 41; Benjamin, 14; William, 12; Elizabeth, 9; Blanch, 5; Andrew, 4; and Anna, 2. They lived in Maple Valley Township in Sanilac, County, Michigan. He also stated that he owned his farm but that it was mortgaged – likely as a result of trying to live through the bad times.

By 1910 Andrew had paid off the farm and owned it free and clear, and was farming with the help of his oldest son still at home – William (15). Benjamin had gotten married and started his own household the year before. Both Andrew and Anna reported their age as 51, Also at home were Elizabeth (18), Blanch (16), “Russle” A (14), Anna (11), Maggie (9), and Thomas (7).  

In the 1920 census, Andrew and Annie reported that they were 61, and that they became naturalized citizens in 1899. Andrew and William (31) are farming the property together and the farm is described as a general farm. Elizabeth had married and was working as a servant in a boarding housing at which she, her husband, and her infant daughter also boarded, in Muskegon, Michigan. Sadly, she died of pneumonia, complicated by influenza, a month after the census was taken. Andrew’s daughter Blanche (25) lived at home and worked as a public school teacher. Also at home were: Annie (21), Margaret (19), and Thomas (17).

Andrew died on January 30, 1925, at the age of 66. I don’t know of what or how he died. He was survived by his wife Ann, and seven of their eight children (his oldest daughter Elizabeth having died 5 years earlier).

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I’d like to find out more about the missing years in the late 19^th Century, and about how he died. I’d also like to know more about the farm. I must remember to check the land and probate records (if they still exist). I’d love to find a photograph of him and Anna (I would love to see my great-grandparents!). There’s a lot more I’d like to know, but it runs to the details that make a personality or a life, and would take too much time to explain. If you are related to any of these people and would like to connect and/or share your stories, suggest corrections to my information, or pictures, I’d love it if you would contact me by leaving a comment below or by sending me an email at the address in my “Contact Me” page.

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Ancestry.com. Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. ( Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.); U.S. Federal Censuses for 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920; Genealogical Research Library, Ontario, Canada. Canadian Genealogy Index, 1600s-1900s [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. (original source: Cadastres abreges des Seigneuries du District de Montreal (Vol 1) No 2, Beauharnois, Quebec, 1863.); Ancestry.com. U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. (Collection Number: G&M_64; Roll Number: 64); Michigan, Death Certificates, 1921-1952," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KF7H-R7Q : accessed 05 Nov 2014), Andrew Bennett, 30 Jan 1925; citing Brown City, Sanilac, Michigan, United States; 00552; Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics, Lansing; FHL microfilm 001973091.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~qchuntin/location/s.htm; Encyclopedic Canada, or, The Canadian album: Men of Canada; or, Success by example, in religion, patriotism, business, law, medicine, education and agriculture; containing portraits of some of Canada's chief business men, statesmen, farmers, men of the learned professions, and others., Vol. 5, William Cochrane, John Castell, Hopkins, W.J. Hunter (The Bradley-Garretson Co., LTD, Brantford and Ontario Canada, 1896.) [found as an e-book on Google Books];Quebec History, Valleyfield:  http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/Valleyfield-QuebecHistory.htm; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaberry-de-Valleyfield; https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Canada_Emigration_and_Immigration; “Michigan Fever”, part 1: http://web2.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/michigan_fever.html; Michigan Fever, part 2: http://web2.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/michigan_fever2.htm; Lapeer County Condensed history: http://www.county.lapeer.org/Clerk/county%20clerk%20history%20pg.htm; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893; http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/HIST312-10.1.2-Panic-of-1893.pdf

Also I’m currently listening to the History of the United State, 2nd edition, by The Great Courses, (which I’m getting in 6 CD installments from my local library), in the car on my way to work. This is where I learned about Michigan supplying the railroad ties for the building of the transcontinental railroads, and the Panic of 1893.

I also have the sources of my information on the kids; if you want it, please contact me,. Otherwise, I will include it whenever one of them gets their own post.

52 Ancestors: #41 James O’Brian (1823-1904), Carpenter, Farmer, Husband, Father...But Whose Son?

Huron County, Ontario, Canada

Sanilac County Michigan USA

James O’Brian is my third great grandfather, and Ann McClean O’Brian’s husband. I have a transcription of an obituary for him, too, in the family papers. Again, I have no indication what paper it came from (I will provide cite when I find out but it probably came from the Brown City or Imlay City, Michigan newspaper). The original transcription is in a compilation of family documents done by George J. Lutz, in May 30, 1972. The compilation was given to my father by his sister for Christmas a few years ago.

“James O'Brian Passes Away at the Age of 82 Years

Another of the old pioneers has been called hence by the grim reaper death and now lies at rest in the "silent city of the dead." while a large concourse of friends pay tribute to him in attending the funeral which was held from the M.E. Church at 1 p.m. today, Rev. E. Yeger officiating, and his remains laid to rest in the village cemetery, by the side of those of his companion, who preceded him in death June 23, 1902.

James O'Brian, one of the oldest pioneers of this section of the state, passed away at his home on North Second Street, this village at 9:30 p.m., Tuesday, December 13, 1904. His work was done, and well done. To him and such as he, was committed the task of subduing the wilderness and making it habitable for the thousands that should come after them, and we bow in humble submission to the will of him who doeth all things well, and pay our tribute of respect to this departed one, let us not forget that there still remains our midst, still walk our streets with tottering steps, a few of that sturdy band, but, like ripened grain, their heads are bent and white unto the harvest. The sickle of the great reaper is ready and soon they will fall beneath its keen edge. Let us honor them and speak to them kindly words of solace in the dark hours of loneliness caused by the loss perhaps of a companion. Let us not wait to strew flowers upon the casket and grave above their lifeless clay, but plant them now in their pathway while yet they may behold their beauty, and that their hearts and lives may be cheered and brightened.

Among the early settlers in this part of the state came James O'Brian, born in Belville, Ontario, 82 years ago. He lived there til 18 years of age, when he located in London, where 55 years ago he was married to Miss Ann McClean. They came to Michigan 42 years ago, settling in Maple Valley, three and one-half miles south of Brown City, on the farm now owned by Joseph Morris, where they lived until 1882, when they moved to Brown City. Mr. O'Brian was a carpenter by trade, which avocation he principally followed during his residency in Michigan.

Mr. O'Brian is survived by seven children, as follows: Mrs. Kate Clink, of Capac, Mrs. Jennie Dean of Akron, Ohio, Mrs. Elizabeth Henn of Burnside, Mrs. Margaret Hether of Maple Valley, John and Anna single at home and Mrs. George E. Harris of Yonkers, N.Y.

He was brought up in the Presbyterian faith which he held during his entire life.”

A very florid piece, isn't it? My first thought when reading it before beginning any family research, was that the writer didn't know him and was padding the piece to make it look longer. After I looked into Ann & James, realized the writer did know him – maybe the writing style of those first two paragraphs was in fashion in the early 1900’s? Did you notice that, again, I have an obituary that doesn't mention who his parents are? But, unlike last week, I don’t have a clue who James’ parents are.

Yet.

In the course of my research, I found James under several spellings of his last name, starting with Obrien, moving to O’Brien, and ending up with O’Bryan. We know from the obituary that he was born on July 12, 1823, in Belville, in Upper Canada (now Belleville, Hastings County, Ontario, Canada). He always indicated, whether in Canada or the United States, that he was born in Canada (Canada English). In one U.S. census that it states that both his parents were of foreign birth (1870 – the first after his immigration), but in the next two censuses (1880 & 1890) James stated his father was born in New York and his mother in Canada (Canada English).  

In his 19^th year, James moved to London, Canada West (Upper and Lower Canada unified into one province called Canada; what became Ontario was then called Canada West in official documents). James would have turned 18 in July 1841, so that means he was in London for the 1842 Canadian Census. Ancestry.com doesn’t have that one but FamilySearch.org does; however, it is really hard to read and the only name listed is the head of household and all others in the household are denoted by counts in categories. I haven’t yet sorted out which Obrien is my James (there is a James but I’m not certain it’s my James because of the difficulty in reading the form). I’ll continue to work on figuring it out, but I don’t have it now.

The first record I found James in was the record of his marriage to Ann McLean, in London, Middlesex, Canada on 31 August 1848, by James Skinner, minister of the United Presbyterian Church in Canada. The witnesses were Hector McLean and John Collie.

 

McLean-O'Brien Marriage Record (1848 London, Upper Canada)
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After the marriage, I first found the couple in the McGillivray township of Huron County, Canada province with their first daughter, Catharine Priscilla (1 yr old), in the 1851 Census. James and Ann were 28 years old. James was a laborer, and, oddly, the couple was listed as belonging to the Church of Rome (Catholic) – I would put that down to the census taker, as otherwise, the family always self-identified as either Presbyterian or Church of Scotland (pretty much the same thing).  In 1861, James and the family were still in McGillivray, living in a log home. James was now a carpenter, and James and Ann had four more kids (so, five total):  Catharine (9), Jane (8), Elizabeth (6), Margaret (3), and John (1). The oldest three girls were in school. Another daughter, Ann, was born later that year after the census as taken.

Two years later, James and Ann moved the family to the U.S.A, to Sanilac County, Michigan. Two more daughters were born in Michigan, Christy Jane in 1864 and Ellen in 1867. Christy died at 3 years, 3 months old; on her tombstone are the words, “sleep on sweet babe and take thy rest God called you home he thought best.” The family must have been broken-hearted.

The U.S. Census data differs a bit from the narrative given in the obituary, albeit not in major ways. By 1870, James, 48, owned and worked a farm valued at $2700 (it would be about $49,090 in today’s dollars) and had personal property valued at $600 (about $10, 909 now) in Maple Valley, Sanilac County, Michigan. Only son John was in school at that time. At the time of the 1880 census, James (57), Ann (50), two of their daughters (Anna, 18, and Ellen, 13) and son John (21) lived in Burnside Township in Lapeer county MI. James was a famer and Ann kept house. Their son John was a carpenter and daughter Anna was a domestic servant. The 1890 census forms were burned in a fire so we have no data for that year. In 1900, James (76), Ann (69) and the youngest three kids – no longer kids --  lived in Maple Valley Michigan. James listed himself as a house carpenter. John (41) was a carpenter, Anna (38), a dressmaker, and Ellen (33) was a school teacher.

When he was 79, in 1902, James lost Ann, his wife  and companion of 53 years; he lived only two years longer, before dying of pneumonia and old age at his North Second Street home in Brown City Michigan.

If you know anything about where James came from, who his parents were, and the rest of his life, and are willing to share that with me, please contact me by leaving a comment, or by emailing me at the address listed in my Contact Me page.

Death Certificate: James O'Brian (December 12, 1904)
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I really want to learn who his parents are, and what his early life was like, and whether he had siblings (and about his parents’ lives too!), and more about the rest of his and Ann’s life.

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http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php; Archives of Ontario Series: MS248; Reel: 3, Ancestry.com and Genealogical Research Library (Brampton, Ontario, Canada), Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA; Canadian Census of 1851 & 1861; U.S. Census 1870, 1880, and 1900; Ancestry.com, Michigan, Death Certificate: The Library of Michigan, Michigan Death Records, 1897-1920; Rolls: 1-302; Archive Barcode/Item Number: 30000008530705; Roll Number: 74; Certificate Number: 4.

52 Ancestors: #40 Ann McLean O’Brian (1830-1902) Born in Strathdearn, Inverness-shire, Scotland, Immigrated to Canada, then USA (Michigan)

Flag of Scotland

For various reasons, including inability to get into Ancestry.com for several days, a busy schedule, and a strong need for sleep, I didn’t get a lot of research done last week. Or not a lot that went anywhere, anyway. I kept running into twists, turns, confusions, and way-too-common names. So in creating a 40th Ancestor post, I decided to pull back and post about my third great-grandmother Ann McLean because I have a copy of a transcription of a delightful obituary for her in my family papers. So I’ll post my transcription of that, followed by a brief listing of what I’ve found about her.

 I am aware that obituaries are only as accurate as the extent of the knowledge of the person supplying the information (see post on Simon Wilcox and Lydia Sharp), and I haven’t had the chance to check out everything in Ann McLean O’Brian’s obituary yet, but it does provide a lot of lovely clues for any researcher (and one glaring lack!).

The below is a transcription of clipping owned by Lucille Robson, no indication what paper it came from (I will provide cite when I find out but probably the Brown City or Imlay City, Michigan newspaper ). Original transcription in compilation of family documents done by George J. Lutz, May 30, 1972. Said compilation was gifted to my father, by his sister [both living so names not provided in public].

Obituary – Ann McLean O’Brian

A GOOD MOTHER GONE

An exemplary Christian mother, having rounded out her full three score and ten years has laid down life’s labors and cares, and has gone home to reap the reward of a long life well spent, full of kindly deeds and Christian acts, which have wrought in the hearts and minds of those she has left behind, impressions of kindly remembrances that can only be effected (sic) by the passing of their own lives and by the passing of this soul through the pearly gates that stand ajar. Another one has been added to that spotless throng who have washed their garments and made them white in the blood of the lamb. By her death, a husband that has been her life companion, through prosperity and adversity, and who has shared with her the joys and sorrows for fifty-three years, is bereft of the one that was far more to him that all the world beside, a large family of grown children are left to mourn the loss of one of the grandest and best mothers who ever lived.

Mrs. James O’Brian was stricken with apoplexy of the brain at six o’clock a.m. on Monday, June 23. Dr. J.E. Campbell was quickly summoned and all that could be done for the sufferer was done, but she sank rapidly and passed peacefully away four hours later.

The old lady had been in her usual health up to the time she received the stroke. Only the day before, Sunday, she attended church in the morning as was her usual custom, and had done her usual shopping down town on Saturday. One year ago she had suffered a slight stroke of paralysis, which is given for the cause of the second and one proving so fatal in so short a time. The funeral was held from the M.E. Church Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. Rev. Adair of Marlette officiating. The internment took place in the village cemetery.

Deceased was born at Strathdairn, Scotland, September 16, 1830, her maiden name being Ann McLean. When still an infant she came from the old country with her parents who located near London Ontario, where she was raised. She was united in marriage to Mr. James O’Brian fifty-three years ago. They moved to Michigan about forty years ago, settling on a farm near Sharpsville, where they resided until twenty years ago when they moved to Brown City, being among the first settlers of the Village. Besides a husband, six children are left to mourn: Mrs. John Clink of Capac, Mrs. Jeanie Dean of Toledo, Ohio, Mrs. John Henn, of Burnside, Mrs. Noah Hether of near Deanville, John and Anna, single at home, and Mrs. George Harris of Marshall, Michigan. Two sisters and one brother also survive her: Mrs. Margaret Leach of Strathroy, Ontario, Mrs. C. Sullivan of Napier Ontario, and Alex McClean of Manitoba.

Mrs. O’Brian embraced the Christian faith in early life and continued to live a consistent Christian life till the end of her life, acting out in her everyday life, those principals which characterize the true Christian. She was not only a self-sacrificing and devoted mother to her children, but to the whole community in which she lived. It is safe to say that within her entire circle of acquaintances, Grandma O’Brian, as she was familiarly called, had not a single enemy. On the contrary everybody who knew her loved her as she had a kind word for everyone.

She joined the Presbyterian Church in Canada but since moving to Michigan had not united with any particular denomination, but lived a humble devoted Christian life.

The floral offerings were numerous and very pretty. One floral gift was especially appropriate and was much appreciated by the family, and that was a golden sheath of wheat.

 The family desires to hereby express their gratitude to the neighbors and friends for deeds of kindness and words of sympathy in this their hour of sore affliction.

Isn’t that a delightful tribute? She must have been a lovely person!

Did you note the glaringly missing facts? It doesn’t name her parents! Through my research so far, I’m pretty sure her father’s name is Hector McLean (which complies with family stories). Did you know that McLean was the 28th most common surname in Scotland in the 19th Century? And I will tell you, based on what I’ve been seeing, that Hector seems a very popular name amongst the McLean’s n Scotland, and in Canada, so I’m not comfortable yet saying which one is her father.  And as I’m not certain about him, it makes it even harder to be certain about her mother. It is looking to be either Janet MacGregor (which concurs with our family trees)  or Jane Frazer (which other family trees have married to the man who appears to be our Hector [because of the story about London, Ontario, which I’m going to hold back until I write about him]). Per the records I‘ve seen both women married a Hector McLean and there were kids in the household with similar names. Therefore I’m going to leave the question as to who her parents are and any more research as to their generation to a later day after this challenge is over and I have more time to spend worrying at the bones of one branch at a time. [Addendum: I just found Ann’s death certificate when I did a last minute check of SeekingMichigan.org as I was typing the end of this post(!) – actually was looking for a death certificate for one of the kids. I know that a death certificate is only as good as the knowledge of the person who filled it out, but it does help tilt the scales towards Janet….also a popular name. Sigh. I saw several couples names Hector & Janet MacGregor in records for several countries and states. Still holding this generation’s research of until after this project.]

Map showing location of Strathdearn, Inverness, Scotland
Found via Google Maps

According to the obituary she was born in Strathdairn, Scotland on September 16, 1830 (this appears to be a misspelling of Strathdearn as Strathdairn doesn’t exist and seems never to have existed).  Strathdearn is a valley situated by the River Findhorn 15 miles south of Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland.  It is a very fertile land, and is currently known for its world famous malt whiskey distillery, hill farms and very good sporting opportunities for salmon fishing, deer stalking and grouse shooting, The current village of Strathdearn has a population of 550. I wonder how big it was when Ann’s family left it?

Strathdearn Valley, Inverness-shire, Scotland (by Dave Connor, Creative Commons license via Flickr.com)

I don’t have anything on Ann until she, at age 17, married James O’Brien, in London, Canada West (which became London, Ontario, Canada after Canada became a country),  on  August 31, 1848, by Rev. James Skinner in the United Presbyterian Church in Canada. The witnesses were Hector McLean and John Collie. (I'll put a picture of the marriage record on my post on James O'Brian, which will go up in a few days.)

Three years later (1851) the young couple and their first child, Catherine Priscilla (aka “Kate”), age 2,  were living in the McGillivray district of Huron County in Canada West. Huron County was a mainly agricultural area then. Kate (1850-1938) later married John Livinstone Clink. 

In the next five years, Ann and James had five children: Janet “Jennie” (1852 – 1934, married Hiram Dean; Elizabeth (1853-1927, married John Henn – they were my 2nd great grandparents); Margaret (1857-1927, married Noah Hether); John (1859-1935), and Annie L. (1861-1908).

The family immigrated to the United States, moving to Sanilac County, Michigan, in 1863, but shortly they faced tragedy. The first child born in the United States was Christy Jane. She was born on December 23, 1864 but only lived just over three years, dying on March 29, 1868. She was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Burnside Township in Lapeer County, Michigan. Their last child was Ellen L. (1867-1947, married George Harris).

Ann and James’ family moved back and forth between the adjoining Lapeer and Sanilac counties over the next thirty years (I’ll put more details in James O’Brian’s post. He will be # 41).

She died on June 23, 1902 of a cerebral hemorrhage, and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Burnside Township in Lapeer County, Michigan, where they had buried Christy Jane.

If you have any information on on Ann McLean O'Brian, her life, and/or her family, and are willing to share it, I'd love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below or contact me through the email address in my Contact Me page.  (If the email address doesn't work --one person recently had problems, although it works fine for most people - leave me a note in the comments to go look for the email. I get notified of the comments.)

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I’d like to find records for Ann’s birth and early years (her entire life until she married James!), which also means I’d like to figure out for sure which Hector McLean and Janet MacGregor are her parents and their lives.

When and on what ship did she travel from Scotland to Canada? More about her life in each country.

And I’d like to know what newspaper that obituary was printed in.

I'd love to find more newspaper mentions/articles of her.

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http://www.strathdearn.org/; http://www.british-towns.net/scotland/highland/invernesshire/strathdearn; http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~onhuron//history.htm;  Archives of Ontario Series: MS248; Reel: 3, Ancestry.com and Genealogical Research Library (Brampton, Ontario, Canada).Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com