Remembering V.O. HYDE

V.O. Hyde, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Served in the Civil War 

My husband's great grandfather was Vergene Ovando HYDE (1844-1909). He preferred to be known by his initials V. O.

Recently, a family member gave us his obituary which we had not seen before. He lied about his age to join up. He was only 16, 17 not 21 as it says in this clip (below) from the Mass Soldiers and Sailors book (thanks to Molly Leavitt from Southborough Historical Society for helping me..)

It is this family's descendants that I have been working with, recording the shared ancestors, for more than 2 years.

This obituary tells us, that like many of those who served in the Civil War, he was very ill with a fever. His must have been so severe that he was discharged. He served in Co. I, 20th Regiment Massachusetts Infantry

I knew he was a shoemaker but I didn't know the name of the place he worked. For a long time, all we knew was that he was a milk dealer after his service.

I very much like the closing paragraph where it refers to his honesty and law abiding life. His family will long remember him. We are hoping to get a veteran flag marker for his grave site in Maplewood Cemetery in Marlborough, MA

Rest in peace, V.O. and thank you for your service to our country.

Happy Memorial Day to all my readers.

Exploring Family Gravestones

Mary Linda and Eleanor, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

When planned, I envisioned a lovely May morning with warm sunshine for our cemetery walk with Eleanor and her niece Mary Linda. They are my husband's cousins. It was drizzling and chilly. I am still disappointed in the weather.

Eleanor had not seen her husband's gravestone, supplied by the military and Mary Linda was confused by the grouping of the headstones around the monument for the Hyde/Merrow/Dunbar Smallidge families. Eleanor talked to my husband Steve while I pointed out each headstone to Mary Linda. We ended at her grandparents. The headstone have just initials and no dates. The women's initials do not include the maiden names!

We met them at this section of the Maplewood Cemetery. Eleanor is a bit unsteady on her feet so her walker came with them. We encouraged her to get out of the car to look at her husband's military gravestone and then Mary Linda drove her on the grass (on the obvious path for cars) up to where I pointed out the rest of the gravestones of the Hyde family that no one was sure where they were.

The reason no one was sure was because the side of the monuments that could be seen were the wrong facing surnames. The Hyde name was on the other side of the stones!

After this, we drove to Southborough Rural to show Eleanor the gravestones of Abraham and Eleanor (Parementer) Hyde and His parents Ebenezer and Rebeckah (Fay) Hyde. She could see them from the car. I would have liked it if she could have walked up to them but I did spend all weekend and this week, printing them out so she could look at where they were and "take them home" to study.

Eleanor's mind is very sharp. She will devour the printouts.

Cemetery Walk

Southborough Rural Cemetery Sign, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Hyde Family Cemetery Walk

It will be a "silent as a grave" here at Granite-in-MY-Blood this week, as I prepare for a mini cemetery walk through two cemeteries with cousin Eleanor and her niece Mary Linda.

Eleanor, the family historian, who has helped so much with hubs family tree and with the sharing of her family photos, has never seen the gravestone of Abraham HYDE and his father Ebenezer HYDE buried in the Southborough Rural Cemetery in not-so-distant Southborough. Her family didn't have a car to take here her. It is about 25 miles from where she grew up!

It was decided that we would take her to see the gravestones at Maplewood Cemetery in Marlborough, MA first and then get back in the car and go to Southborough. She is a very young 89.

I have done extensive research for her because some of the gravestones in this multi-generational family are in Pine Grove Cemetery in Boylston, MA and older ones in Newton Center Cemetery and in Dodge Cemetery in Sutton, MA. Those photos have been taken by other people.

It will take me most of this week to be ready for being the tour guide. I hope my back and hip cooperate for this special event.

See you later.

Section 6

Section 6, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Testing

Artemas JONES

Artemas JONES, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

This is the back side of the gravestone of Charles Jones and Angeline S. Hyde.

It has been my practice to also take the back side of any gravestone that I have taken a photograph of the front side. Very often  it gives a clue to who the people are buried in that plot.


Because Angeline husband's name was JONES I thought it might be hard to find out who her husband's family was. So I was glad to see the inscription on the reverse side of the stone. I assumed that this was Charles Jones's father, mother and perhaps the mother's sister. [Making the mother's maiden name BARNES]

Little did I know that it would take me three days to find out exactly who these people were! It seemed like it was going to be easy because his name is Artemas. Really, how many people do you know that bear this first name?


Yes, it turns out that this Artemas was married to Lucy Barnes and that this is her unmarried sister Ruth buried with them. Artemas and Lucy had no children and so they became the couple that took in Lucy's mother when the father died. This mother, was Lucy BRIGHAM before she married. She was born in 1787.

This is the 1885 Massachusetts census for the household of Artemas JONES. Notice the woman Lucy Barnes, his mother-in-law is listed at age 67 as a widow. She was Insane.


She was still alive in 1860 but living in Sudbury, alone. Does this make sense?



 

Charles JONES and Angeline HYDE

Charles H. JONES

Angeline Sophia HYDE

Yesterday, I located the gravestone for Charles H. JONES and Angeline Sophia HYDE. These are their photos cropped from the HYDE Family reunion photo that I am working with. It is interesting to visit a grave when you have a photo of the people buried there.

The marriage record for this couple indicates that they were married in Southborough, by Sumner Latham, Clergyman, on 18 May 1871. He was 30, a farmer, born in Shrewsbury to Artemus and Lucy T. JONES.

She was from Southborough, born there and she is 29. Her parents are listed as Abraham and Eleanor T. HYDE. It is a first marriage for both.

Massachusetts Vital Records 1841-1910 [NEHGS] 237:304

Tombstone Tuesday: Angeline

Angeline Sophia HYDE Jones, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

As I continue researching the HYDE family, I am, of course, finding the married names of many of the women. When I got to this name, JONES, I muttered to myself, "Well, it is better than SMITH or BROWN, I guess."

On Monday 26 September 2011, we zipped over to the nearby Maplewood Cemetery to see if the gravestone for Cousin Eleanor's husband had been set in place. It had. She will be happy about that.

I turned around and started back for the car when I realized I was looking at the gravestone of Angeline Sophia HYDE and her husband Charles H. JONES.

This couple was childless so they really could have been buried anywhere in one of the area cemeteries so I was quite glad to see them here with a clearly readable stone.

Angeline Sophia HYDE (Abraham, Ebenezer, Ebenezer, Job, Daniel, Jonathan) was the fourth child and second daughter born to Abraham HYDE and his first wife Eleanor PARMENTER. She was born 11 Aug 1842, according to the Mass Vital Records of Southborough. (note the stone gives the year as 1841). Angeline is listed in the 1850 and 1860 as a child in her father's household. Eleanor, her mother, died shortly after giving birth to Nellie HYDE in 1856. (She is also buried here). Angeline probably had to help take care of baby Nellie as Abraham did not marry again until 1862.

Angeline and Charles were married (source: year from census) in 1872 when she was thirty. Adelaide, Angeline's older sister by two years, died at the age of 14 in 1855 making Angeline the oldest girl in the household, having to clean, cook and take care of younger siblings forever.

But, the story continues on the back side of this stone... Stay tuned.

Pearl HYDE

Pearl
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Linda and Fredericka HYDE had another sister who everyone called Pearl. Her name was Harriet Frances Pearl HYDE and as you can see in the photo of her, she was a nurse.

Pearl did not live next door to her sisters. She married at the young age of 18, on 18 Nov 1897, a man named William Enslie JAMIESON, who was known by his middle name.

Pearl was the oldest of the three sisters. She was born in 1878 and died in 1920.

This photo was quite faded. I worked on it for quite sometime because it is nice to have a photo of a person who loved working and did good things.

Eugene Allen DUNBAR

Eugene Allen DUNBAR
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Eugene Allen DUNBAR was the husband of Fredericka Merrow HYDE. As you can see by this headstone, he was a veteran. He was born in Hartford, CT on 6 May 1880 and lived there until he married on 21 Apr 1914 in Lynn, MA when he was 33 years old.

Eugene was the son of John DUNBAR and Maria GIBBON. His parents were both born in Ireland and lived in Connecticut.

Eugene was a pharmacist in the US Navy for 31 years until he retired. In 1920, he and his wife and children were living in Hudson, MA in the house next door to Linda and Phares (with a field in between). The sisters made a close family with my father-in-law and the oldest son, Vergene Emerson DUNBAR being quite close in age. There are several photo of the boys playing together.

Eugene is buried next his wife. He died 9 May 1958. Eugene and Fredericka had four children. Two are still living.

Aunt Fred

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Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Fredericka Merrow HYDE (1885-1960) married Eugene Allen DUNBAR on 21 Apr 1914 and had four children. To my husband's Frazel family, they were known as Uncle Gene and Aunt Fred, a source of great joking by my husband and his brothers who thought being a woman who was called Fred was pretty funny.

This is where the Dunbar family and the Frazel family get connected. They lived in houses next door to each other. There was a huge field in between the houses. We drove there last fall, taking the photos of the houses with us to make sure we were in the right place.

My husband thought it couldn't be right. The field is now a parking lot for the house my father-in-law lived in. Our daughter thinks the house style resembles the brand new one we live in now. Interesting, huh?

To my knowledge no family lives in either house now. I was glad I took the photos with me.

These two sisters were quite close. The third sister, the eldest, was a nurse. That's quite a tale. We'll get to it.

Fredericka Merrow HYDE

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Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

This is the headstone of Fredericka who was one of Linda Edward's HYDE's sisters. She is buried on the opposite side of the Maplewood Cemetery in Marlborough to her sister and the FRAZEL family. The headstones surround a large granite monument for the four surnames. [blog post to follow about this plot]

Fredericka was the youngest of the her three sisters. She was the mother of Eleanor Dunbar Sargent who is the family historian for this family and the person who is helping us with this family history.

Fredericka was born in Marlborough, MA on 25 Sept 1885. The parents lived in both Rockland, Maine where Linda was born, and in Marlborough, MA where the other two sisters were born.

I might have thought Linda was born in Marlborough too if I didn't have accurate records and the information in the Merrow genealogy to back it up. This is how some family records get confused. Luckily, we didn't make a mistake. [Merrow genealogy p. 449-450)

Fredericka died on 8 June 1960 as it says her on her headstone.

More on Fredericka in the next blog post....

Linda E. HYDE

Linda E. HYDE
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Linda Edwards Hyde was one of three daughters of Vergene Ovando HYDE and his wife Fredericka Bremer MERROW and was my husband's paternal grandmother. She was the family archivist and there are many lovely photos of her plus she kept many items that her son, my father-in-law, must have left behind when he went to college.

Linda's middle name, Edwards, remains a mystery. She was born 31 Aug 1881 in Rockland, Knox, ME and died 16 Oct 1949 in Hudson, Middlesex, MA.  She is buried alongside the FRAZEL monument in the row with her husband's parents, Joseph and Naomi FRAZEL, some of their sons and of course, her husband Phares David FRAZEL. His first wife, Mamie (Mary Mae) ULHMAN is also buried there.

But, of great mystery is the headstone, next to Linda marked simply, Frances. While searching a few years ago for the vital records of Massachusetts, I discovered that Phares and Linda had another baby, born before my father-in-law. I can't find a corresponding death record. The birth record says "unnamed female" born 21 Oct 1912. When asked, my father-in-law said, "Yes, I know." and that's all I found out.

Linda was step-mother to Raymond, her husband's son by his first wife Mamie. Raymond joined the Navy at age 17.

Linda can't have lived in Maine very long. She graduated from Marlborough High School in 1899. There are wonderful photos of her with her sisters and classmates. She was a bookkeeper before she married at eh age of 28.

It wasn't until I started researching her life that I discovered that the story of this family must be understood from what I am now calling, "The Three Sisters".

So, the story continues....

Linda and Phares

Linda and Phares
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Happy Couple

A few of the candid shots of Phares and Linda are like this one of a happy couple smiling for the camera. Our cousin Eleanor told us that Linda told her that Phares and Linda met at Lake Boon where Phares was playing baseball. She told a friend, "That's the man I'm going to marry!".

Linda did not know that Phares was a widower and had a son. We wonder who was taking care of the son Raymond while Phares played baseball or worked.

The photos of Linda, Raymond and my father-in-law (as a baby) look like they all got along.

Wordless Wednesday: Linda Edwards HYDE

SCAN0017
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Linda, my husband's paternal grandmother when she was a little girl. The back of this photograph has her full name followed by Marlboro, Mass and a date of July 22, 1885.

I scanned this photo with my Flip-Pal at 300 dpi. It will need scanning with my more powerful scanner in TIFF format. I have started a pile of these photos in their archival envelopes. They were stuck together in the box where they were stored in my father-in-laws cellar since his mother died in 1949.

Linda HYDE

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Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Tombstone Tuesday: Linda Edwards HYDE

This is the headstone of Linda Edwards HYDE, wife of Phares FRAZEL. She was my husband's grandmother. She is buried at the Maplewood Cemetery in Marlborough, Middlesex, MA between her husband and who we think is her infant daughter.

Linda was the family archivist. She was a strong willed, determined woman. It was Linda who plays an important role in this part of the my husband's family tree.There are so many photos of her that I could easily make 20 blog posts without working too hard.

But it is Linda and her sisters, Fredericka and Pearl who connect two families and their story is one that explains so much of the relationships even today.

Vital Records Frazel and Ulman

As a professional genealogist, I turn to the vital records for the most reliable information about the families I am researching. Mamie and Phares have a marriage record in the Massachusetts Vital Record 1841-1910. The town clerk had "a clear hand" (handwriting) and it is a joy to be able to easily read the information.

Mamie is listed as "Mamie Ulman", which we know from looking at her gravestone inscription that her given name was Mary. They were married in Marlborough on 11 Nov 1896 and the marriage was recorded on 15 Dec. It was a first marriage for both and they both lived in Marlborough at the time of their marriage. He was 21 and she was 22. Luckily, the names of the parents match what family records tell us and the maiden name of the women were included. They were married by a minister further confirming the Protestant religion of this family.

As Mamie is listed earlier in the 1891 Canada census as 17 and living with her parents, the names match and I can add her siblings into my tree with some assurance of their names being correct. She is listed as Baptist.

As for Phares, no one can tell me why he bore this unusual name but I have been reading up on the naming conventions and most men in this family did not use their first name and were called by their middle name until we get to Phares' father, Joseph. Phares often is listed in the Marlborough City Directory as P.D. Family tells us he was called Uncle Feggie.

Mamie and Phares had a son named Raymond who I met on the day I got married. on the 28th day of April 1905, Mamie died. Her death record was difficult to read , so I captured it and applied some shadows and sharpened the image until I could be sure of what it said.

Mamie, once again listed as Mamie Frazel, died of Pulmonary TB with a complication, sadly, of pregnancy. The doctor wrote that she was 5 months pregnant. The names of her parents are clearly written and the place she was buried on 1 May 1905 is correct. It is sad to note that she had TB for 2 years.

Her age at death was 30 years, 2 months and 3 days. She and Phares lived at 44 O'Neil St. in Hudson.

These are great records but it is sad that she left behind a young husband and little boy, isn't it?

Mamie Uhlman

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Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Mary Mae Ulhman was the first wife of Phares David Frazel. Everyone called her Mamie. Her maiden name was written as ULHMAN or ULMAN.

Mary M. Wife of / PD Frazel / Died April 27, 1905 / age 30 yrs. 2 mos. is what is inscribed on the side of the Frazel monument in the Maplewood Cemetery in Marlborough, Middlesex, MA.

Mamie was the daughter of Nathaniel Ulhman and his wife Mary Cushing. The most information known about her is in the 1891 census of Canada when she is listed as a teenager in her father's household. Her father was a farmer and the family's religion is given as Baptist. They lived in Chelsea, Nova Scotia.

Phares David Frazel and Mary Mae Uhlman's marriage 11 Nov 1896 tells us a bit more...

Phares and his sons

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Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Phares David Frazel married  in Marlborough, MA a woman the family calls Mamie. The vital records (most importantly her death record) tell us she was born in Nova Scotia. We don't know if Phares knew her before he came here with his family at age 16 or if he met her here. The marriage record (461:284) tells us that it was a first marriage for both and that they married on 11 Nov 1896 in Marlborough.

Phares is listed in the 1900 census as living as a border. I don't know why if he had a wife! He is listed as an engineer in a shoe factory. The city directory also lists him in that same year. It may be that Mamie wasn't home when the census taker came or she went back to Nova Scotia  to visit family.

Phares became a naturalized citizen in 1901 and his address given is 21 Norwood St. in Marlborough. Mamie and Phares had a son born to them name Raymond W. Frazel. He is the older child in this photo. My father-in-law is the baby.

I located a passenger list that tells us that Phares went back to Nova Scotia on the ship Prince Arthur in 1902 arriving back at Boston on 26 Sept 1902. Raymond was already born on 14 May 1902 so perhaps it was a trip back to show off the baby to his maternal grandparents?

What happened next is not good....

PD Frazel

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Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

It is too bad that my husband doesn't remember his paternal grandfather. This grandfather, who is buried in Maplewood Cemetery in Marlborough, Middlesex, MA, died on 14 Oct 1949 when my husband, who was born in 1945, was a little boy. Traveling from Rhode Island to visit family was hard on my husband who has the motion sickness we call carsickness.

Phares David Frazel born 11 May 1876 (according to his WWI Draft Card) in Baker Settlement, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. He came to the United States by ship in 1892 at the age of 16 with his parents Joseph and Naomi and his siblings. The information given to me by my father-in-law some years ago gives this date and some exact month and day of departure and arrival but I have not been able to confirm anything but the year (from census records).

I have learned a lot about my grandfather in-law in the past few months which I will continue in the next few blog posts.

Phares David FRAZEL

Phares David FRAZEL
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Phares David FRAZEL

headstone of my husband's grandfather at Maplewood Cemetery, Marlborough, Middlesex, MA

This gravestone will be the focus of upcoming posts!