War: Death in King Philip's War, 1675 ~ 52 Ancestors #17

Thomas Cooper (my 8th great-grandfather) was born in England about 1617 and left London in March 1634/35 on the Christian as an apprentice of Francis Stiles, who was instructed to teach him the carpentry trade. Thomas was next found in Windsor, Connecticut.

By 1641, Thomas was married (to Sarah Slye) and he was settled in Springfield in 1642, where his youngest eight children's births were recorded. (It is unclear where his eldest child was born, but possibly in Connecticut where he resided briefly before moving to Springfield.) Thomas worked as a carpenter (among other things) in Springfield and he was contracted to build the meetinghouse in 1644.

View of Springfield from the Connecticut River by Alvan Fisher (Brooklyn Museum)

His nine children were Sarah, Timothy, Thomas, Elizabeth, Mary, John (died at age 2), a stillborn daughter, Rebecca, and John (killed by Indians in September 1677 in Hatfield).

Thomas was an Ensign in the Springfield company in 1657. (Remember at this time, all towns had militias in order to protect their communities). He became Lieutenant in 1667. He served in many capacities in Springfield, including serving as one of the first members of their Board of Selectmen in various (not all) years from 1644 through 1674. He served as Clerk of the Writs from 1662 until his death in 1675, suggesting a more than typical education. In 1662 he was also elected as Constable.

Step: Dad's Step-Siblings ~ 52 Ancestors #16

My grandmother, Elizabeth Adsit, known as Libby to everyone including her grandchildren, married Edgar Carter Rust on August 12, 1933, after divorcing my grandfather. 

They had been married for 29 years when this photo was taken.

Elizabeth (Adsit) Rust and Edgar Carter Rust
Summer 1962

Three years after they married, they traveled to Europe with my dad and Edgar's youngest son, Kenneth. I have a couple of photographs from this trip. This one has been enhanced and colorized by MyHeritage.

School Days: Poop-deck Pappy Pyle? ~ 52 Ancestors #15

Someone in my family probably has my dad's high school yearbook, but I can see it at Ancestry's U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-2016 database. He attended Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts, from 1937 to 1942.

The school used and still uses the British educational notations, Forms III, IV, V, and VI, though they now also refer to freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. (Form I and II, also known as seventh and eighth grades, were dropped many years ago.)

The 1942 yearbook includes a history of the class which covers over four pages of the yearbook. Near the end of the "Sixth Form History" was this paragraph.

Favorite Recipe: Spiced Pecans ~ 52 Ancestors #14

In recent years, my mother downsized a couple of times and had consolidated her recipes at the family summer house. When my siblings and I were emptying the kitchen for a renovation, I was given my mother's collection of recipe boxes. This week's theme prompted me to take them out of the bag and see what I have.

It appears that she copied recipes to have at two different residences (and possibly to give away), because I see multiple copies of the same recipes in these boxes. (One being Hermit Cookies, which I blogged about over a dozen years ago.) There are recipes in my grandmother's handwriting, recipes from other relatives and friends, and many cut from newspapers.

Here's a favorite of my mother, me, and my family, in my mother's handwriting.

SPICED PECANS

Worship: Margot Was Not a Methodist ~ 52 Ancestors #13

... in fact, she was never particularly religious.

After graduating from college in 1956, my mother moved to Boston where she met my father when they both worked at the Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Company. Over the course of several years, they fell in love and wished to marry.

In the spring of 1963, my grandmother, Helen (Hunter) Copeland, a devoted Presbyterian, contacted several ministers in the Pittsburgh area (where she lived and where my mother grew up) to ask if they were available to marry her daughter and fiancé in the late summer or early fall of 1963. When a minister would say yes, he was available, he would begin to collect information about Helen's daughter and her intended. 

At this point, Helen would let him know that the wedding would have to wait until her future son-in-law's divorce was final. According to the story, this horrified several ministers that Helen spoke with and they refused to officiate at the wedding of a woman to a man who had just been divorced. I believe some were willing to marry the couple, but told Helen that the couple had to wait a year after the divorce to marry.

My parents didn't want to wait.

Helen was able to find a young Methodist minister who was willing to marry my parents in September. My father's divorce decree was final on August 13, less than seven weeks before his wedding to my mother.