Today we went to Willard with Uncle Ed, Aunt Glad & Uncle Don, Kim, Radiance & Brandon.

No one is really sure why Grandpa Joseph Perry ended up at Willard State Hospital in 1941. Uncle Ed said a barn beam fell on his arm and broke it. He had a pin put into it but it wasn’t put in right so he couldn’t use his arm normally and it created quite a bit of pain. He still worked on the farm with his arm bent. Uncle Ed says he remember he saw him sitting with a blanket over his head once. Uncle Ed doesn’t remember him going to the hospital, or who made the decision to send him there. Aunt Glad said after he went to the hospital he had someone at the hospital write a letter to Grammie Gladys Perry telling her to send him some clothes so he could come home.

Willard State Hospital closed in 1995 and is now owned by New York State Department of Correctional Services, and we weren’t supposed to go onto the property and take photos, but we did, and we were asked to leave. There were several buildings, so we don’t know which building he would have stayed in.

Chapin House in The Maples at Willard State Hospital

We then went to the cemetery, which is down from the hospital towards Seneca Lake on the right up on a hill. It is unmarked. They used to mark all of the graves with numbered markers, but the state has removed the upright markers to make it easier to mow. So here’s one big field where tons of people are buried, and who knows where my Grandpa Joseph Perry is buried.

Willard State Hospital Cemetery

Willard State Hospital Cemetery

Entrance/Exit to Willard State Hospital Cemetery

One of the markers left in place because it is deep enough not to get in the way of the mower.

I’m back to scanning in old family photos and came across this really nice photo of Great Grandpa Henry Stebbins, Great Grandmother Henrietta Stebbins, my Dad as a little boy, and Aunt Tee – Helen Theona Fry – as a little girl.

I don’t know where this photo was taken, but I think it’s really nice.

My Great Grandmother Henrietta Savage Stebbins Goodrich lived with a lady named Myrtle Hunt in Syracuse, NY for a period of time. Myrtle Hunt was one of the cheeriest people I have ever known. Her house wasn’t that big, but I remember being intrigued with her front porch. Check it out!

And here’s a side view of the porch:

I just found out the other day that after my Mom was first married and before the kids started coming along, she used to visit Great Grammie (Dad’s Grandmother). Mom said she was really nice to her, and Great Grammie would go about doing her work while my Mom was visiting with her. After she moved from Myrtle’s home, she went to live with my Grandmother for a while. Here she is visiting at my parents’ home at Christmas time in 1968:

I really like this photo because it is one of the only photos we have of her where she is smiling. Plus it is the house I grew up in, and the view from the picture windows was phenomenal! Oh, and you can see the profile view of Myrtle Hunt as she is sitting in the chair.

After she moved out from her daughter’s home, she then moved to Vermont to live with her son, my Great Uncle Martin Stebbins. This is where she died at the old age of 91.

So I finally finished the new album of Great Grammie Goodrich’s photos for Dad and brought it over to him. I pointed out three different 5×7 photos of my older brother to my Mom and commented on what a cute little boy he was. She told me that she had a contract with a photographer that came to her home every year to take photos of my brother, and when I came along, of me. The photographer used to set himself up in the living room. What a cool idea, huh? That way, the child is happiily in his own environment instead of being dragged off to a studio somewhere and feeling very scared about the whole ordeal. Here’s a small version of one of these photos of my brother:

Isn’t he a cutie?

Things are not like they used to be. I remember deliveries being made to the home, too. Mom used to have Charles Chips Potato Chips delivered every week – those were the best potato chips! She had a tin like the one shown on the website, and she actually still has that tin after all of these years. I also remember that when my younger brother came along she had a diaper service pick up the dirty diapers and drop off clean ones – cloth diapers, that is. There may have been other delivery men she had, but those are the two I remember. Back when things were less complicated than they are today.

As I’m continuing to scan in photos (right now from Dad’s side of the family), I noticed that many of them have my Mom’s writing on the back of them. So I thanked her for her patience and taking her valuable time to do this so that I could reap the benefits. She told me that when Grammie Fry was in the hospital with cancer, Grammie had asked Mom to bring unmarked family photos so Grammie could id them for her. As Dad was working out of town, and I was living out of town, Mom was the only family member who visited Grammie everyday. This must have gone on for quite a while given the large amount of identified photos. Mom told me that Grammie’s last word to her before she slipped into incoherency was “pictures.” While the whole situation of Grammie starving to death due to colon/liver cancer saddened me to no end then and still does 23 years later this month, I am very grateful to her and my Mother for identifying and labelling all of these pictures. How many daughters-in-law do you know would spend time with their Mother-in-Law like my Mom did? Not too many these days that I know of. Now that’s sad. (Okay, I’m getting off my soapbox now).

Here’s an excellent example of what I’m talking about. These are my great-grandparents Henry and Henrietta Stebbins in 1908, their son Martin Stebbins and Grammie, Helen Stebbins, as a baby (Henry and Henrietta had just lost a daughter, Alice Stebbins, which I’ll post about later):

Henry Stebbins Family 1908 Hosted on Zooomr

Here’s the back of the photo with my Mom’s handwriting:

Henry Stebbins Family 1908 back Hosted on Zooomr

Zooomr is hosting these photos tonight as Flickr was temporarily down.

I have finally finished moving all of Henrietta Stebbins’ photos from the three photo albums to one big archival type photo album for Dad. In making sure I had everything online in my photo albums, I came across this young photo of Gwen Mann in Henrietta’s Brown Album:

I love the dress! I would say this photo was taken c. 1930’s. All of the other photos of Gwen include Genevieve, her twin.

The other day I mentioned that Grammie Perry and Grammie Fry had the exact same Wedding Album. Today I’m posting the Marriage Certificate page from Grammie Fry’s Wedding Album, along with her official Marriage Certificate, Wedding announcment, and engagement announcement. Here’s the page from the Wedding Album showing they were married in Rochester, PA on January 14, 1928:

Here’s the official Marriage Certificate:

Here’s a card from Rev. E. G. Lusk:

Here’s the Announcement of their Wedding:

Here’s their Engagement Announcement dated August 1, 1927 folded together:

And opened up:

Happy Independence Day! Okay, we have lots of Revolutionary War Soldiers in our ancestry, but it would take me a while to round up all of the names (I’ll do that at some later date). For now, since I started posting about the Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War in Onondaga County on the Onondaga Historical Association blog, I thought I would do the same here. In March I took photos of the Roll of Honor owned by OHAM&RC and posted them on the Onondaga USGenWeb website. Here’s the middle section of the plaque:

On the other sections of this plaque, our ancestors (that I know of so far) are:

Jabez Cole

Noah Hoyt (listed as just Hoyt)

Ozias Northway

We have many more Revolutionary War ancestors, and some of their ancestors eventually migrated to Onondaga County, but they’re not listed here. More on this subject later. I have to go celebrate our independence!

Mom had asked to borrow Grammie Perry’s Wedding Album (Gladys Cole and Joseph Perry), so I had it out and decided to scan it for you. They were married at her parents’ home in South Onondaga, Onondaga Co., NY on Nov. 21, 1927 by Rev. L. Everett Squires. Witnesses were Ruth M. Cole, her sister, and Edson J. Cole, her father. Here’s the cover page:

Title Page:

Pages 1 & 2 – this page contains their Marriage Certificate:

Pages 3 & 4:

Pages 5 & 6:

Pages 7 & 8:

Pages 9 & 10:

Pages 11 & 12:

Pages 13 & 14 – Guests – too bad she didn’t fill in her guest list. It would be interesting to see who attended the wedding:

Pages 15 & 16 – Gifts – nothing filled in here, either:

What is really interesting is my other set of Grandparents have an album just like this. I’ll scan the pertinent pages from that album another day.

If you would like to see or have larger images of anything I post in this blog, just let me know!

With Henrietta’s photo albums still fresh on my mind, I thought I would post a couple of really nice photos of Great Grandpa Henry Stebbins with his daughter, my Grandmother, Helen Marion Stebbins Fry:

This one was taken at Watkins Glen in 1914:

I remember Grammie Fry saying that you could twist her hair around a finger and it would stay in a ringlet.