Charles and Iva (Haycock) Fernald - their beginning

Charles and Iva , my maternal grandparents affectionately called by me as "Dedar" (and I am not sure where that came from) and "Moses" were married because one night during their courtship they fell asleep on the couch.  Iva's mother said that when the time comes that you sleep together it is time to get married.  What would my great grandmother think of today's world?  Now Iva didn't want to marry Charlie as she called him, she had someone else in mind, his name was Lynn Worcester.  Lynn and Iva were great friends and she really liked him and that was her choice, but in those days 1907 mom was the boss.

Iva and Charles got along like night and day. Charles was satisfied with very little as long as he had a roof over his head, food on the table and a warm house with enough chopped wood for winter.  He was also content to just come home and relax after a hard day's work.  Now Iva on the other hand liked the better things in life, a nice home with pretty things, flowers to plant outside, things that Charles couldn't give her because he just never had a really good job nor a steady one.  Iva also like to go places and do things.  The wedding took place on the 29th of January 1908 in Cherryfield, Maine a small town in Washington County where Iva was from.  Charles was from nearby Ellsworth in Hancock County.

They lived in Cherryfield between eight and ten years before moving to Skowhegan in Somerset County.  By then they had one son, Stanley (b. 1916) and two daughters, Eleanor (b. 1908) and Arlene (b. 1913)  and had lost one child due to a miscarriage.  The move to Skowhegan was to be closer to Iva's parents who had moved there earlier.  Ella my great grandmother told them that there were more jobs and money there due to the lumbering industry and log drives.  Frank, my great grandfather was working the log drives and Ella was running a boarding house.  The boarding house was located in an area known as "Cornshop Hill", called that due to a small mill located at the bottom of it.  Once my grandparents settled in the first home down by the Eddy across from Coburn Park Iva started working at the boarding house and Charles went to work in the mill handling the logs coming out of the river.

A year before any other children were born my great grandfather Frank died in 1921 of cancer of the throat. He had suffered with it for three years and had even traveled out west to Savannah, Missouri for treatment for two months.  Upon returning home he caught a cold that developed into influenza which the family had.  The illness made the cancerous infection grow worse, but yet the doctor said he improved and it prolonged his life another year and he died on 21 May 1921 at the age of 58.

My great grandmother Ella and her youngest son and daughter Marcia and Walter moved in with my grandparents.  Marcia was able to get a job but Walter was still in school.  Ella needed income and somehow (this part I don't know how) she was able to get a job as a housekeeper for someone in New York.  There she had a shock and collapsed on the street.  The shock left her paralyzed and her left leg crooked.  The doctor told the family that it could be put back the normal way by snapping it.  He was an osteopathic doctor, and at the time weren't well liked.  He snapped the leg and it came up and laid across her stomach.  Anymore attempts would endanger her life according to this doctor.

Ella was transported back to Skowhegan and moved in with her daughter Iva and family.  Iva said she was hard to live with, either because of her condition or her Irish heritage.  When she wanted something she wanted it right then and there.  One time Iva was down on her hands and knees scrubbing the bedroom floor that Ella was living in and Ella asked for a glass of water.  Iva said she would get it as soon as she finished the small section of floor that was left to do.  Ella reached over and grabbed Iva's hair, pulled it and yelled and said now in a very loud and angry voice.

The last thirteen years of Ella's life she lived at the Marcotte Home in Lewiston, moving there about 1930.  Iva had her hands full with her own family and Charles not working (next story).  Iva didn't like the idea as the family didn't have a car and she would not be able to visit her very often.  All of this change of the new living place was made through a friend of Ella's and Iva was never involved in the discussion at all.  In fact she knew none of it till it was time for Ella to be transported to the home.  Iva took it as an insult like as if she hadn't done a good enough job for her mother.  Once Ella moved down there Iva started hearing things from the ones who did get to visit, such as asking people to bring her something so she could die, that she hated living down there.  One of them she asked was her own son Walter to bring her something.  Can you imagine living for 13 years on your back in bed unable to do almost nothing with your left leg laying across you?  In April of 1944 Ella caught a cold going around the home and died.

So what do you think of this blog?  I would love to hear your comments and thoughts, please post something in the section below.

HENRY JOSEPH QUIRION – A SILLY GRANDFATHER?

Have any of you seen a copy of this book?  The book is from the Postcard History Series – Waterville by Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.  Well if you are a descendant of Henry Joseph Quirion then you are missing out on a picture of him in his early years.  Today this is what this story is about.

Henry Joseph (“Honore” in Quebec) Quirion was born on the 22^nd of April in 1894 in what was then called St. Francois-d’Assisi in the County of Beauce, of the Province of Quebec in the Country of Canada.  He was the son of Sylvain Quirion and his second wife Lucie Thibodeau.  Now in French speaking Quebec they kept the ways of their ancestors and the wives stayed with their maiden names even after marriage.  But that is for another story.

Henry was a twin, his sister Marie Alphonsine died at 16 months old, but he had four other sisters to dote on him from this marriage.  There were also four brothers and two sisters from the first marriage as well, that I have found so far.  Henry’s mother was 20 years younger than his father and it was a loveless marriage.  She was brought in mostly to raise his children as well as to produce more.  Large families were needed back then to keep the farms going so the families could survive.  This led to many problems.

In 1901 Henry (age 7), his mother and four sisters were driven by horse and buggy by their father and brought down the Canada Road with their belongings and dropped off in Waterville, Maine with the father returning to Quebec.  You see being Catholic you couldn’t get a divorce and the only alternative was one of them had to leave, they couldn’t live in the same area and I guess the same country.  The oldest sister Philomene was 18, Rosanna 16, Josephine 14, Amanda 12 and of course Henry was 7.  Lucie was suddenly a single mom at 51 in a strange town and country.  Lucie and the older girls sought out work and Amanda was left home to care for Henry.  They were living in the French part of Waterville nicknamed the South End.

Henry was allowed to go to school which made it easier on Amanda who cared for the home.  He was a typical boy of the time period, and had plenty of French friends.  They like to play games – stick ball, go fishing by the river, find scraps and make things; whatever they could do to pass the time.  One of the things he took an interest in which brings us back to the book was a type of acting.  This picture which appears on page 127 of the book was taken before he married Eda Marie Landry on the 24^th of July in 1916.  She knew of his “escapades” as she called it because she was going to “knock that silliness right out of him once they got married” as she told me when she gave me the picture.

Years later in 2013 when the book came out and I was looking at it at someone’s house lo and behold there was that picture.  It states under the picture “This real-photo postcard mailed from Waterville in 1913 provides no clues as to who these costumed individuals were or why they sat together before the camera in a photographer’s studio.  Where they attending a costume party, players in a local theatrical performance, or just preparing for Halloween night?”

Well I immediately wrote to Mr. Shettleworth whom I had met on several occasions in my genealogy quest.  He was the Maine State Historian and Director of the Maine Historic Commission and just had to let him know what I knew about this picture.  That the gentleman in the back row with the large X over his head was my paternal grandfather Henry Joseph Quirion and that picture was taken at the Waterville Opera House when he was in a play.  I even told him what my grandmother said what she was going to do about it once they got married.  He emailed me back said he was happy to finally know something about the picture, the only one in the book he didn’t have anything about.

Months later, Mr. Shettleworth came to Waterville to speak at the Opera House and of course I had to be there since he would be talking about his book.  Front row seats and on the stage a very large screen as he talked and produced many of the pictures from the book.  Then at the very end he started to tell everyone about this one picture in the book he didn’t know anything about until someone wrote to him and told him the story behind it and he looked over and saw me sitting there.  Like he said 100 years ago that group probably sat on that very stage and had that photograph taken and there it was big and bold for the world (Waterville at least) to see it and my (and yours) grandfather up there in the lights once again!

Living on a Farm

(A story told to me by Theresa Roberge, my mother-in-law)

Getting a piece of land etc and with that in mind I thought you might like to hear what it was like for me growing up on a farm.  My dad thought like you and he bought a piece of land, about four acres with a shack.  I think he paid $800.00 for it.  What I remember most about that place were the spiders.  I guess nobody had lived there for a long time.  No power, no plumbing (kerosene lamps and an outhouse), but it was home and of course over the years my dad built a nice house, garage and barn, etc.

  

We put in power and plumbing and added chickens, pigs and a cow.  That cow gave the best rich milk.  My mother used the two vegetable trays in the fridge for the milk.  One was for morning and   The next day she would skim the cream off the milk.  And that was cream like you never saw in the stores.  It was so thick you could pick it up with a spoon.  When you turned the spoon upside down the cream never moved.  Most of that cream was for our butter and making the butter was my job.  The cream had to be left out of the fridge for a while to get it to room temperature.  The butter was made on Saturday when my folks went to town grocery shopping, etc.  One time I forgot to take the cream out when I was suppose to, then wanting to hurry it along I put the bowl in the sun.  Bad idea!  We didn’t have any butter that week.

the other for the evening milking.

  

We never had a horse though; my father preferred tractors but he never bought one.  He made his out of old cars.  He could do just about anything he set his mind to.  To go with his tractor he made a trailer to help haul stuff around the farm.  My father tried to teach my mother how to drive the tractor and she didn’t like it much.  One day the two of them were spreading manure for the garden and Dad wanted to leave some extra at the end of the garden.  However, my mom couldn’t seem to hold the tractor still so finally Dad hollered Whoa!, Mom thought he said Go, so she stepped on the gas and Dad went flying into the manure pile.  After that he tried teaching me.  Now that was a hoot!  That tractor had so many do hickeys under the steering wheel I could never keep them straight.  One day we went to the end of the land, which happened to be at the top of a hill.  Dad said now all I had to do was steer the tractor since we were going down hill.  I didn’t have to use the gas.  Well at the bottom of the hill was a little brook with a narrow little bridge, which I would have to go across.  All I could think of was going head first in that brook.  We picked up quite a bit of speed going downhill and Dad kept telling me to step on the brake that we were going to fast.  I couldn’t even find the brake!  Just before we got to the brook, the tractor hit a bump and we sailed right over the bridge and landed on the other side in a pile of dirt.  That was my last ride on the tractor!

 I guess the job I disliked the most was haying.  We had a neighbor who cut the hay for us but then it had to be raked by hand with wooden rakes.  Then it was loaded by hand of course in the hand wagon.  When it was piled as high as they could get it, it had to be hauled to the barn.  But something had to be put on top of the hay to keep it from flying off and that something was I.  Only me!  Now you have to realize on top of that hay wagon there was nothing to hold on to but the hay.  More than once I slid off before getting to the barn.  I never got hurt though, because I usually took half the load with me.

A Postscript to this story - my mother-in-law passed away this morning at the age of 91.

A Quest to Find a Fernald

In the late 60s my interest in genealogy happened when a maternal Aunt told me a story. It was to be her last story as she was dying of breast cancer. She thought she had told a lie when she was a teenager and wanted to go with a clear conscience. She grew up during the Great Depression, life was hard you just couldn’t buy things as there was less money often times none. No matter what the circumstances was this family was a happy one and they made do with what they had but when you are a teenage girl it can seem a little tougher. There was six children, four girls and two boys between the ages of 6 and 16 as well as two older sisters with their husbands living all in the same household. Welfare hadn’t been thought of yet, the only help you could get was either from the town, your local Church or the kindness of neighbors who had more than you did. The older sisters and husbands had jobs and helped out when they could.

For entertainment the older siblings would go to the movies, the younger ones were always involved with the neighborhood kids in one game or another. Otherwise they would be doing their homework or helping out with the chores. They like us had dreams of what could be and Helen the Aunt at 16 was no different. She wanted to go to the dances, she loved listening to the music and meeting up with friends her age. It was a great way to learn social skills and work on your confidence. Helen like any other girl wanted a new dress for these dances but under the circumstances the family couldn’t afford it, so the older sisters would remake one of theirs and add some trimmings or whatever. She could deal with that but what about when they weren’t dancing, what would she talk about. She didn’t want them to know where she lived, no way!

So she figured if she left the house early and made it to the front of a neighbor’s house they would think she lived there, problem solved. Now for the other one – conversations. She needed something important that would keep them from asking too many questions. The story she came up with was that she was related to the former Governor of Maine, Albert Fernald. After all they had the same last name and by the time they got back to school who would remember to try and look it up to see if there was such a governor. She was all set. This was the story she told me.

It peaked my curiosity and the genealogy bug hit me! Wanting to do something special for her I needed to find out if any part of this story was true. First, was there an actual Governor of Maine with the last name of Fernald? There was, and his name was Albert Manfred “Bert” Fernald, he was born in 1858 and died in 1926. Now was he related and where could I find information about him? Thinking he’s a Governor, my first thought – Augusta the state capital and library where I found out some things about him, but nothing about his background. I had to go to Poland Springs, Maine to their library if I wanted to know more about his life. There I found where someone had researched his lineage to the first Fernald who came to America, Renauld or Reginald Fernald. Renauld was the first surgeon or doctor here and arrived sometime between 1631 and 1635.

Well now I have Bert’s ancestry what about mine? Do I climb that same tree? I had a great Aunt also named Helen who had been interested in family history and had done some research so it was time to write a letter. She was more than eager to start corresponding with me, she had been doing it for years
with her niece and my aunt Helen. She supplied me with information on my ancestry but no proof as to whether it was correct or not, so a little more digging and I had the proof. But by the time I had the proof I needed to tell my aunt that she and Bert were related, just a few limbs apart, she had lost her battle with cancer. I was unable to tell her that the lie she thought she had told so often was not completely a lie, her and the governor were related – sixth cousins once removed. This meant that her dad (my maternal grandfather) and the Governor were sixth cousins, and she was once removed for not being in the same generation as the Governor.

Now if you have that same genealogy bug you know I just couldn’t stop there. My quests has continued and it has found a lot more Fernald’s. Another one right in my own backyard. His name is Merritt Caldwell Fernald and he was the second president of the Maine State College now known as the University of Maine at Orono. It’s too bad she hadn’t used Merritt in her story as he was more closely related, they were second cousins twice removed. Merritt was born in 1838 and died in 1916, living about the same time and fourth cousins twice removed but might of only considered themselves as fortunate enough to have the same last names and not related. Albert Fernald and Merritt Fernald may have crossed paths at some point, with Albert being Governor for the State of Maine and Merritt Acting President for the Maine State College I don’t know and not sure if I could ever find out. It may be another genealogical quest in search of another Fernald!

I recently had this story published in "Le Forum" a newsletter of the Franco-American Heritage Center of the University of Maine at Orono, their Summer Edition 2018.  This is what gave me another "bug" to work on or combine.