In one or two other posts here I have mentioned this box of stuff I found in the basement that was full of treasures from my youth. I was down in the basement again today and took a look through that box again and found the letter my Grandpa & Grandma wrote to me and my brothers on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary. It was written on a typewriter (so very typically Grandpa) and I scanned it but I’ve also transcribed it here:

Anniversary

October 4

1922-1972

Dear Jerry Peter & Philip

In view of our approaching 50th wedding anniversary and since you are a member of our family, we are asking you to bear with us for a few minutes while we hold forth on the well-worn subject of “Time”. It intrigues us just now because we are especially aware that we have used up quite a bit of it, possibly not in all respects in the best way, but perhaps in just about the way our limited talents permitted us.

We wish that our past fifty years had been full of noble or notable accomplishment. But only a few people seem to have been that able or fortunate. We have tried with considerable success to enjoy our lives together and to do well in establishing a family. We are happy about the results.

The passing of Time has been celebrated, regretted, recorded, and otherwise treated with great and enduring interest since Time began. In fact, we would not have Time if it did not pass. It never stood still despite fairy tales to the contrary. Without Time, we do not exist. Imagine anything existing before Time began-or after it ended!

Man has always been concerned with Time, for example, the time taken by the Earth to rotate on its axis and its orbit, the time taken by the Earth to evolve from its probable beginning, the time taken by man to become what he is, and the time between events in history.

Time engages man continuously from his birth to his death, from the rising to the setting of the sun and the beginning to the end of his undertakings, Time has been a favorite of poets who have mentioned its wing and its habit of fleeting, its capacity for being wasted, it ravages, its corridors, it footprints, its value, it healing, and humorously, what the Walrus said about it in “Alice”.

Our concern with Time is all of this and more but our special concern just now is the fact that fifty years of it have been enjoyed in our happy marriage. We are celebrating this happiness by giving a token like the enclosed to each member of our family. Please use it and enjoy it.

We hope that none of you will send us any gift in return since we have more possessions that we can manage.

Thank you for scores of happy incidents in our lives!

And remember us with the same love we send you!

Grandma & Grandpa

I just have to smile at how Grandpa is talking about Physics and Time. Gee I guess the nut, this nut, didn’t fall from from that tree. Did it?

For as long as I can remember Grandma & Grandpa came up from their home in St. Petersburg, Florida every summer to spend the summer months with us at our home in Chappaqua starting from the summer of 1958 when Mom, Dad, and I moved from Baltimore to New York.

I can still fondly recall watching the second rocket in NASA’s Mercury Program, Liberty Bell 7, launch on TV with Grandma. I remembe it because as it took off I went running out the back door to see the rocket going up into the sky and she then had to explain to me why I couldn’t see it. I still smile when I think of that.

They would come right after the school year ended and then leave, drive back home shortly before it began again.

The summer of 1972 was different though. Grandma & Grandpa would stay until their anniversary in October so that they could celebrate it with thier daughter, her husband, and the Hayes grandchildren. Grandpa took us all to (the original) Emily Shaw’s Inn in Pound Ridge for the celebration. I even remember my dad asking the waiter or waitress if they had hearts of lettuce and I remember having steak.

Sometime either the next day, or maybe a few days later, Grandma & Grandpa would pack up the old Olds Delta 98 and head south for home.

October 11th they arrived in Naples Florida south of their home in St. Pete just to visit and see it. They went for a walk on the boardwalk or quayside that evening and met a young newlywed couple on their honeymoon and chatted with them telling them how they had just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary only a few days ago.

That night my Grandpa, my dear loving Grandpa went to bed for the very last time. He would die in his sleep that night.

Grandpa’s “Time” with us had run its course.

SAW LINCOLN SHOT

H.W. LEWIS WAS AT FORD”S THEATRE ON THE FATAL NIGHT

He Was In The Gallery When He Heard The Shot Fired And Saw Lincoln’s Head Drop — The Great Commotion That Followed —  Size Of The Audience — The First Shot In The War

Click to Enlarge

This postcard is only one of several postcards that Ada wrote to Harry over the years.  Ada is the daughter of Jane Lewis and William Henry Hunter.  Jane Lewis is the brother of Henry Lewis who stowed away on a ship at age 13 and came to America on his own. The other postcards are safe and sound at my cousins home in Pennsylvania.  I hope to get down there soon so I can pick them up and get them scanned.  This way we will have a permanent digital record that can be shared by everybody.

The post card reads:

From Ada, To Harry.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. This street is a few minutes walk from us and is very steep.  Much steeper than it looks.

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

Today I asked her about it in depth and took it home (with her permission) for further evaluation. She remembers cutting it out of a newspaper around 1970-1980.

So I did some research and found that the article was actually published in 1951, much earlier than when she remembers cutting it out. My Mom would have been only 25 years old when it was printed. It would not be likely that she had ANY interest in something like that at 25. Even she admits that.

Now… I am thinking that is is possible that she cut it out of the newspaper that was given to her by  family member years after it was published and had it framed. Could my Mom be confused concerning the events of her acquiring the article? Could David Henry Lewis be related?  Or could this just be a true trick of the mind who has had to remember so much.

Research indicates that David Henry Lewis died 25 Dec 1950.

Circa 1880

Jane Lewis is the sister of Henry William Lewis who is my great, great grandfather. Jane (b. circa 1844 in Llanmdock, Wales) married William Henry Hunter (b. circa 1844 in Barstaple, England) on October 16, 1865.  Together they had at least 5 children.  Peter is the descendant of their fourth child, Margaret Grace Hunter.

My cousin in Pennsylvania has letters from Jane to the Lewis family in New York  I have not seen them yet, but now I am excited to get my hand on them now.

In 1971, Mr. Lewis began his work with the elderly when he became founding executive director of the Kendal Organization in Kennett Square and established Kendal at Longwood, the first of the Kendal nonprofit life-care retirement communities.

Before that, Mr. Lewis worked at the Vanadium Corp. of America in New York for 11 years; the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia for about two years; and Pendle Hill, a Quaker adult-education center in Wallingford, for 11 years.

But it was his work at Kendal that inspired Mr. Lewis to devote the rest of his life to serving senior citizens. At the time of his retirement from Kendal six years ago, an estimated 2,000 seniors lived in Kendal properties in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and New Hampshire.

Mr. Lewis worked to improve the living conditions of seniors nationwide with the restraint elimination program, called Untie the Elderly, and led the effort by eliminating restraints from all Kendal facilities.

After retiring from Kendal, Mr. Lewis established a new company, US Retirement Communities, where he worked until last year.

He was active in the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Homes for the Aging and the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, where he served on the executive board, its continuing care committee and its public policy committee

Mr. Lewis also served on the American Gerontological Society, the Committee on Aging of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, and Friends Services for the Aging in Philadelphia.

In addition, he served on the board of Swarthmore College, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1949, from 1985 to 1989 and again in 1990 until his death.

He was a bird-watcher and was a member of the Society of Friends.

Mr. Lewis is survived by his wife of 49 years, Eliza B. Lewis of Glen Mills; son Paul M. Lewis and daughter Laurie K. Lewis, both of West Chester; a sister; and two grandchildren.

Services are private. The family suggests contributions to either Swarthmore College or the Cape May Bird Observation Center for Research and Education, Cape May Court House, N.J.

I have been deeply curious about the Roach’s because of the mis-spelling of her last name on Anna’s grave. Initially, I though the grave was correct and that the Census record keepers were just sloppy. But as I collected various death records, I became convinced that “Roach” is the proper spelling of her last name.

Back in 1977, my Great Aunt, Grace Lewis, wrote a letter to my Uncle telling him what she knew of Henry Lewis and Anna Roche Roach. She indicated the Anna’s mother, which I later determined to be Margaret, “was educated to become a doctor in Dublin at the University there”.

Now Grace, left out an entire generation of people when describing one of the sisters of Anna, but she did mention one VERY interesting point which appears to have panned out. She stated that Anna Roach had at two sisters and a brother. She said her “brother moved to Cleveland, Ohio and had seven sons”. In Anna’s obituary, there was an editor’s note for “Cleveland, OH papers please copy”. This confirms at least this part of Aunt Grace’s history of the Roach’s.   There was a boy who went to Ohio. But how do we find him?

When I used Ancestry.com last year to see if I could quickly figure out who it could be, I was overwhelmed with results. I quickly gave up that battle and decided to save it for another day.

Well… that day has come. With a clear head, I took a fresh attempt at trying to figure out who the boy was that went to Cleveland, Ohio. I started by once again looking at the Cleveland Ohio’s necrology file which had “paid obituaries” from the early 1850′s to the mid 1900′s. I carefully paged through all records starting in 1850 and found nothing in the text that clued me in to a New York connection.

Then I went to Ancestry.com again and did a bare bones search using the folloing criteria:

Birth range: 1828 – 1848 (based on the ages of the known children of Margaret)
Lived In: “Cleveland, Ohio, USA” (Using the exact data feature)
Sex: Male
Birthplace: Ireland

Now because Ancestry.com has recently changed their search results criteria to filter out results outside the possible lifespan of the date ranges provided, I only got a handful of results. Most of the results came from the 1880 Census in Cleveland. Next I looked for someone who had seven boys… BINGO.

I found a Patrick Roach (b. abt 1835 in Ireland), married to an Elizabeth with one daughter and seven boys. When looking even closer, it turns out that Patrick’s first daughter, Margaret Roach ( the same name as his Anna’s mother), was born in New York circa 1856. Then when looking at Patrick’s first Boy born, I see that his name is Andrew, which is what I believe to be the name of Anna’s father.

So finally, I have something to work off of. Just when you think all trails are going cold, you make a break through. That is why this hobby is so much fun! Now lets see where this takes us.

Patrick lived on Woodland Avenue and was a Superintendent of a Catholic Cemetery.  That should be enough to get me going!

Click to enlarge census image

The board of Kendal Charitable Funds approved the creation of the Lloyd Lewis Fund at its meeting in October 2007. The purpose of this new fund is to support improvements in serving older adults through the Promising Innovations campaign. The new fund and this campaign were initiated by the generous gift of $250,000 from the Janet Comey Foundation, a private foundation established through the estate of former Kendal at Longwood resident Janet Comey.

• More Information at the Kendal Website
• Or write to:
  Kendal Charitable Funds
  1107 E. Baltimore Pike
  Kennett Square, PA  19348
  1-800-220-0042

• Lewis
• Tierney
• Beattie
• Hayes
• Hanley
• Colwell
• Gackstetter
• Bishop
• Graham
• Hayes
• Sheehan