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Pine Cones in the Holyoke First Level Canal

In February, I took pictures like this one of the Holyoke First Level Canal.  The water was so flat that it mirrored the buildings on the other side of the canal.  I was so amazed that day that I picked up three pinecones that were alongside the canal.  One I threw into the canal that day.  The other two I brought home for good luck promising myself that I would return them to the canal someday.  I kept them on a shelf near my bed each side by side of one another.  Tuesday of this week I felt despondent so I decided to return the cones six months after I had taken them.

I went to the same spot along the canal that I had found them.  Plan was to throw the second pinecone into the canal and then after work five hours later to throw the third into the water.  I threw the first in and got ready to ride my bike away.  I noticed that the cone did not move at all even though there was a slight current to the south.  I was a bit irked so I pulled my backpack off again and got the third cone out.  I threw it a bit downstream and a bit closer in then that non-mobile second one.  They were about 7 feet away from each other at the time that the third one hit the water.  The third cone immediately and in a straight line moved toward the second cone while the second cone stayed still.  It was moving upstream and outward.  From seven feet away it directly hit the second cone without wavering a bit.  Both cones stuck together for 5 seconds.  Then they gradually (and finally) moved downstream as one would expect.  They did however stay about 10 inches apart that whole time.

My whole life I have been ever the scientist.  This was the first symbolic act I have ever done in my life.  Using physics, which is the one and only topic that I am good at,  I might find that there actually is a one in a million probability of this happening.  Seeing however that it was a symbolic act by me, it amazed me and still does.  I rode away along that beautiful canal walk.  They have been side by side on my shelf for six months and they seemed to want to continue being with each other even after I threw them into the water.

Civilisation by Kenneth Clark

Civilisation was written to express a view about the rise of modern Europe in a cultural vein and has succeeded.  This book should be a standard text in high school and college.  There should be discussions about this book in many forums.  The tack that I wish to take is that toward what has happened to much of college education in America in the last 30 years.  No longer is there the quest to get a good liberal arts education in order to learn about the physical and cultural world and about one’s self.  There is now only careerism that only leads one to think about oneself and not society as a whole.

The last two professions that depends heavily upon the person obtaining a bachelors degree and no more and also leads into a high level profession are engineering and business.  No other professions have led the Unites States to be a wealthy nation than engineering and business firms.  Often engineers and business people embark on their careers without a concern about their society whether on a regional or a national basis.  This leads to commercialism run amok.  Most engineers and businessmen know little about architecture, history, science, and the arts.

I propose that their education should be radically changed.  Their education should be closer to that of a medical doctor.  Doctors obtain a four year college degree and then go onto a professional degree.  Engineers and business people should all be required to do the same.  This would be for their own good and the good of society.  More science and more arts would make them better engineers and better at business ventures.  Society would also benefit since they would know how to fit engineering projects and business venture more appropriately into a community.

For example how should a bridge be designed to better fit into the cultural landscape of a city or town.  Another how could a store be designed to fit into the architecture of a downtown of a city.  Should there be more car free streets in the downtown of a city or town.  These questions are not being asked enough in the medium and small sized cities and towns of the northeastern USA where there are many architectural treasures.

The book Civilisation fits in since it will help students in these fields learn of the past and learn about Socratic dialogue.  The Middle Ages became a time of little innovation compare to the times that preceded and followed it.  That might be because workers were too narrowly trained and did little innovation.  In recent decades that milieu surrounds us again today.  Employers are hiring people not based on their desire to innovate and to fit their work into the cultural landscape but rather upon their highly refined technical skills.

A better trained professional would alleviate that problem.  They would be better able and have more desire to lead projects that fit into the culture needs of a city or town and not destroy it.

Stories

Civilisation by Kenneth Clark

Pine Cones in the Holyoke First Level Canal

Football Game Balls during the Cold Rainy Championship Game

Football Pressure Drop by Temperature

Poljacik family story

My grand nephew Nicholas was born to my niece Shelby 8 years ago.  He has grandparents of Poljacik – Burke – Saint Andre – Comeau.  The last two lines were written about in two separate stories so this is about the paternal lines.  All tales are unique and this one is no different.

Ján Poljačik came from Kokava nad Rimavicou of Rimavská Sobota province of western Slovakia in 1920 to work in the marble mines of Rutland County Vermont.  He was newly married to Mária Funtjar and they settled in Pittsford of that county and had 9 children.  It might sound difficult to do Slovakian genealogy but when I approached it about 10 months ago it was quite easy.  Most Slovakian immigrants came from tiny villages and moved to tiny villages in the USA.  All to do the same mining job that they knew so well.  This Kokava nad Rimavicou has about 300 people and his ancestors stayed there for centuries.  I simply followed the data trail back to 1810.  Jan was an evangelical Lutheran and this made my job very easy since there would be only about 10 records per year for that faith in that village.  I went through a century of data in two nights.

The Burke line from Vermont was a bit more work since there were families from Massachusetts, Quebec, and Pennsylvania.  By the end, it makes for a nice family tree.  Nicholas did have a unique story on this quarter of his tree.  His 2nd great grandfather George Townsend married 4 times.  That is no big deal in itself.  His third marriage was to Ella Mae Campbell who already had a daughter so he become a step-father.  No big deal still.  Well in 1928, when he was 45 years old, he ran away with this step-daughter Mildred Mae Kingsland.  She was 14 years old.  They went to Buffalo New York and got married there.  She signed the certificate stating that she was 16 and he signed stating he was 34 – both lies.  He was still married to the girl’s mother.  Goodness what a lurid tale – such that is not found very easily.  I have checked my work many times and am sure of the story.  The rest of the Burke quarter of the family is quite genial.

In the end all lines would meet in Rutland County of Vermont and that is where Nicholas extended family still live to this day.

Williams family story

At one time Hampden and Hampshire Counties of Massachusetts were principally farmland.  Towns like Westfield, Southampton, Worthington, and Granville still have farming characteristics but have changed into highly residential.  They were settled as farming towns by the late 1680s by colonial Americans but as emigrants moved into the area in the 1700s and early 1800s, more and more farms were being settled.  New settlers were coming from England, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Scotland.  These patterns are seen in the Williams quarter.  The Williams family itself came from England in about 1830, but the families they married into were all different from one another.  They were the Loomis of Connecticut, the Strong of Southampton, the Dubian of Dalton, the Bill of Southwick, the McDonald of New Brunswick, and the Wingate of Scotland.

 These families would change occupations as America would develop.  They would enter into the manufacturing jobs that booming Westfield would have by the era from 1880 to 1930.  They would keep their family farms but take on other occupations like retail and police work.  These early immigrants to America are called the Yankees since they were of British extraction.  The wave from 1880 to 1920 were from Quebec and Ireland.  These immigrants had lower education but were still hard workers.

The Lamontagne family of Holyoke came to work in the mills of Holyoke by the 1880s.  Some of them worked farms in Agawam and West Springfield but mostly they were mill workers.  In Holyoke, they would marry into the Beauchesne, Monaghan, Cavanaugh, and Gorman families.  This new wave of settlers were Catholic compared to the Yankee farmers who were Protestant.  Families were much larger and education slight.  Virtually all Irish that came to Holyoke were from County Mayo or County Kerry and most of those were from only a few farm towns in Ireland.  Entire villages in Ireland were abandoned especially along the western seacoast.  Most of the Irish would work in paper or fiber mills in Holyoke like the Parsons Paper Mill, Farr Alpaca Company, and the Skinner Silk Mill.

Grant family story

Grime family story

The Grime family of New Bedford can be broken into its four parts: Grime – Brierley – Spoor – Brault.  The Spoor and Brault have been written about extensively before, so here we concentrate on the Grime and Brierley parts.  David Grime immigrated with his family in 1892 from Blackburn of Lancashire County in England to New Bedford of Massachusetts.  He had with him his wife Elizabeth Nowell and their 7 children.  The industrial revolution had started in England in 1760 and stayed strong there until about 1880.  It continued in the small towns of New England from about 1800 to 1850 and then moved to the medium-sized cities.  Lancashire County of England is the heart of industrial England.  Thus when times changed and jobs got scarce it suffered the most.  David Grime was a weaver like most of that region.  He could see the shift in the industry and struck out for the cotton mills of New Bedford.  He would have 3 more children in Massachusetts and the entire family was employed as weavers in the mills.  At least five generations of the Grime family had lived in Blackburn England and had all married at the Blackburn Cathedral.  The children, the 6th generation, would carry on their hard work in the mills of a new country.

Thomas Grime was the first son of David and Elizabeth.  He would first marry Evelyn Saxon in 1908 and they would have three children – Leonard, Reynolds, and Norman.  Evelyn would die after 6 years of marriage and Thomas would remarry.  His second marriage was to Inez Maud Brierley of South Berwick Maine.  Their children were Muriel, Hazel, Thomas, Robert, Annetta, and June.  Robert would marry one of the Spoor sisters in 1953.

Inez Brierley was born to Charles Brierley and Winetta Alice Hilbourn in 1895.  The Brierley family had come to South Berwick by way of Ontario and before that England and Ireland.  The Hilbourn family had been in southern Maine for over 200 years.  They were farmers and also worked the woods as hunters and fishermen.  Old Maine data is easy enough to find.  The South Berwick Historical Society is very active and has an excellent web page.  I was able to find an image of the maternal grandparents of Inez.

Industrialization changes not only the landscape but also the people.  Farming would give way to industry and small towns would become big cities.  South Berwick has not changed much but cities like New Bedford were changed forever.  Former farmers with go there with their traditional values and within a generation even their personal lives would change.  Inez Brierley had 9 siblings but only 3 of them lived past their youth.  A chance at a better life must have thrilled her.

Fernandes family story

Jacintho Fernandes the First was born on Madeira Island in the Atlantic in 1899.  He was born in the small village of Freguezia dos Cunhas of Seitos Anjos Province.  In 1917 he would immigrate on his own to New Bedford to open a grocery.  There he would meet Odilia Rezendes and in 1927 they would marry.  Odilia was one of 8 children of Francisco Medeiros Rezendes and Maria Angelina Mello.  Francisco and Angelina had meet and wed in Santa Maria Island of the Azores in 1894.  They had moved from there to Brazil where they had their first four children.  After 12 years in Brazil, they moved back to Sao Miguel Island of the Azores where they had four more children.  In 1914, Francisco died and Angelina decided to move her family to New Bedford.  They had to travel in steerage during the entirety of the voyage.  Once in New Bedford, they banded together as a family.  Only 4 of the 8 children had children of their own.

Odilia Rezendes and Jacintho Fernandes had 3 children of their own.  The first of whom is Jacintho Fernandes the Second known as Uncle Jesse to most of us.  Like most immigrant families, these families continued to climb the educational and economic ladder.  Neither Jacintho nor Odilia had much education but they made sure that their children did. Jacintho Fernandes would meet a sister of the Spoor family of New Bedford and in 1953 would wed.  The Spoor story was told before.  Their child and they would moved to Dartmouth and participate in the community as teachers.

Mayo family story

The Mayo family of Chicopee Massachusetts comes from both Quebec and English lines.  They can be divided into the four grandparents – Mayo, Hamel, Walpole, and Blazer. Solyme Mailloux entered into Chittenden County of Vermont in about 1810.  Like many that came from Quebec into northern Vermont, he changed his last name to fit into the society.  This was not done among the Quebec of southern New England.  Only a small number of Quebec immigrants went into any given Vermont town and they needed to fit in.  All his children had an American name including one of his sons William Mayhew.  Even this was not enough and when William had children in the era from 1850 to 1870, he named them differently too with one of his sons being John Henry Mayo.  Thus the transformation was complete.  Farming was getting tough in northern Vermont so John Mayo moved his family to Granby Massachusetts in 1910.  Then in 1925 his son Charles would marry a Holyoke native.

Firmin Hamel was one of the first Quebec settlers of the new city of Holyoke.  He first came to Holyoke in 1860 but quickly noted that he had a knack for getting others to immigrate to Holyoke.  He was hired to do just that.  He would every year travel back to Quebec to encourage more settlers to come to the new industrial city.  Of his many children there was one Telesphore that selected to be a dairy farmer in western Holyoke.  His sons likewise worked on the farm and likewise married other Quebec immigrants.  His son George a milkman married Rosalie Goyette in 1898.  Longevity is a trait in the Hamel family of Holyoke especially among the woman.  Many would live past 90 years old.  George and Rosalie had one daughter Loretta that lived to 100 years old.  She had outlived her husband Charles Mayo by 34 years.

John Walpole in the early 1800s moved to Hellesdon of Norfolk County England.  Like in America the industrial revolution forced workers from the farms to the small towns near streams and then into the large mill cities.  His grandson William would marry a city-dweller in 1875 and become a servant – a very desirable job for the lower class.  His own son William would be a French polisher in Norwich and would own a small business doing that.  This is a trade that treats fine wood until it acquires a high luster.  By then they were well established in Norwich.  The last of the Walpole line Arthur would marry a Blazer in 1930.

In 1800, Norwich was the 2nd largest city in England.  All cities have poverty and Norwich just as London had a lot of poor.  Bernard and Anne Deary perhaps tried to raise their children well.  To lift oneself from poverty is very hard.  Their daughter Sophia was a charwoman her entire life.  This is the equivalent of a housekeeper.  Such woman of the lowest economic class found it too hard to marry due to lack of interest from the men.  Still she became the mother to five children without ever marrying – that is, they were born out of wedlock.  This was very common in the 1800s in England.  Poor houses were common in this period – recall the stories of Charles Dickens.  Sophia’s children would also struggle.  Her daughter Susan would do the same – work as a charwoman and raise four children herself out of wedlock.  One of the daughters of Susan – Alice Deary – would marry James Blazer in 1888 in Norwich.  James was a night watchman.  He had enough of a salary from that to raise a strong family.   Their daughter Gladys Blazer married the above Arthur Walpole.  In turn their daughter would marry into the Mayo family of America.  Via doing genealogy one can see the development of society from very hard times to prosperous times.  These Mayo and Walpole families are no exception.

Klindt family story

Claus Klindt moved from Fahren of Holstein, Germany to Maquoketa Iowa in 1871 with his wife Esther Brockman.  They had their six teenage children with them.  The Franco-Prussian War had started the year before and that might have been the reason for the move.  Their son Wilhelm Klindt would be a farm hand in Iowa and then after marriage in Arkansas.  His five siblings would stay in Iowa for many decades and it was with good fortune that I was finally able to trace the family using their obituaries.

Johann Rödelsperger and his wife Dorothea Luft would move from Hesse State of Germany in 1846 to New York State and then to Michigan.  One of his sons also called Johann Rödelsperger would live in Michigan and then move onto Arkansas.  This second Johann would change his name to John Raedels.  His daughter Cora would marry Wilhelm Klindt in 1896 in Arkansas.  In 1907 they would have a son Fred William Klindt.

James Arwine was born in 1799 in Pennsylvania.  He would marry Mary Ellen Martin in 1822 in Anderson County, Tennessee.  She herself had been born there to North Carolina natives.  Most vital records of the Midwest and West are kept by county and not by town.  There were no towns but just farmland spread throughout the county.  Marriage records would typically not note the names of the parents.  People moved a lot out West seeking better farms and better ranches.  In 1844 David Lively Arwine was born to this couple.  David would fight in the Civil War for 145th Regiment, Indiana Infantry.  After the war he would settle in Tarrant County of Texas.

Henry David Smith and Sarah Ann Murphy would marry in 1867 in Brown County of Indiana.  They had many children including Eliza Annie Smith who was born in 1877 in Indiana.  The family would move to Arkansas and that is where Eliza would marry David Arwine in 1909 in Benton County.  In 1911 they would have a daughter Grace Marie Smith.  There the four families would unite when Fred Klindt and Grace Smith would wed in 1931 in Benton County.  Ruby Klindt would be born to the couple.