Six months ago today my brother passed away.  Tomorrow, July 12, he would have turned 60.  I still have a hard time accepting that he is gone.  Something happens or I hear or see something and my first thought is I have to tell Ron.  But Ron is not here to tell.  It still seems not real to me.  In February we had a memorial service for him.  I was able to speak which surprised me.  Here is what I said with a shaky voice and holding back the tears.

Ron is my little brother by eight years and my only sibling. Not only was Ron my brother, he was also my friend.  I remember the day he was born.  I was so excited to have a little brother and someone to play with.  I don’t think at 8 years old, I realized how long it would be before he could actually play with me.  My mother let me help her bathe him and feed him.  I remember all his milestones, his first smile, the first time he sat up on his own, his first tooth, when he started crawl, walk, and talk.   Although, I sometimes regretted that he learned to talk.  Then later his first day of school, graduation, driver’s license and first job.  I wanted him to be able to play games with me.  So I started teaching him board games at a very young age.  Every Christmas we would get a new game and we continued this tradition as adults.  Every Christmas, I would try to find a new game for us to play.  Our favorite was 20 questions and Ron won most of the time.  He seemed to have a mind for trivia.  He had a great sense of humor and kept his sense of humor almost to end.  In the hospital the nurse was asking him questions and typing his answers into the computer.  He had to go to washroom and while he was in there the nurse said to him I can still ask you questions from here.  So she continued to ask him and he answered.  Then he said to the nurse, “This is the first time I’ve played 20 questions from the bathroom.”  The nurse cracked up.  

Ron and I often reminisced about our family.  We were a close knit family.  Every night the four of us always had dinner together.  My father was a history buff and talked a lot about history, politics, and current events at dinner table.  Both Ron and knew our history and that was thanks to my father.   Our mother and father stayed married to each other until my father passed away in 1984 and my mother followed in 1987.  We lived a few blocks from my grandparents and their home was our second home.  Our holidays were filled with family dinners where there would be 10 – 14 people at the dinner table.  In the summer there would be family picnics in our back yard as well as other places. 

We didn’t have many family vacations, but in 1967, my mother, Ron, and I drove to California.  My dad stayed home because he had to work.  It was quite an adventure for us.  We were two women alone on the road with a 12 year old in a 1962 Rambler.  The road was not expressway like today, but a two lane highway most of the way and sometimes very desolate.  We worried what we would do if the car broke down.  In Utah they were doing road repair and there was about 20 miles of a gravel road.  All of sudden we heard a knocking noise and we wondered out loud what it was and then it went away.  Just as we started to relax that it was gone, it would start again.  This went on for several more times before my mother caught Ron putting his arm out the window and knocking on the roof of the car.  We talked about our trip for years afterwards and my father would say that he didn’t go but he knew every detail as if he had been there. 

 In 1969, I started taking Ron to Cub games.  We would go a couple times a month.  After the game we would stand outside Wrigley Field and wait for the players to come out.  I would take pictures and Ron would get their autographs.  We even made a trip to St. Louis to watch the Cubs play Cardinals and stayed at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel where the Cubs stayed.  Ron would get their autographs in the lobby.  I remember there was a crowd around Ernie Banks and he was signing autographs.  Just as it was about to be Ron’s turn, Ernie said, “No more.”  Ron said, “Please Mr. Banks won’t you sign one more?”  And Ernie signed his autograph for Ron. 

Ron and I had our share of arguments and we would get mad at one another, but it never lasted. Ron and I didn’t need to call each other every day and we didn’t say I love you very often, but we knew it. I knew he was there for me and he knew I was there for him.  We were never any further than a phone call away.  He was a devoted Uncle to my sons, and a great brother.  When Ron was Ill he became my hero because of the way he handled his diagnoses.  He put up a good fight! When he passed he looked so peaceful.  Now he is with my mom and dad, and all our other relatives and friends that have passed.  His passing has left a big void in my life.  I will miss him on holidays and all the days in between.  I miss hearing his voice, and seeing his face.  I miss knowing he was just a phone call away, I miss his humor, I miss him beating me at 20 questions. I read this quote somewhere and I don’t know who wrote it or where it is from but it fit Ron and me.  “Sisters and brothers are the truest, purest forms of love, family and friendship, knowing when to hold you and when to challenge you, but always being a part of you.”

I miss you Ron and I’ll miss seeing you tomorrow on your birthday and celebrating with cake and presents.  I miss you so much RIP!

Uncle Russ

Remembering my Uncle Russ today on what would have been his 84^th birthday.  Uncle Russ was 16 years old when I was born.  My parents were living with my grandparents when I was born so Uncle Russ was one of the first people I knew as a baby.  He held me, played with me, and walked the floor with me when I was fussy.  We moved to our own place when I was one, but we were only blocks away from Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Russ.  After Uncle Russ graduated from high school, he became a mail man and for a while our street was on his route.  I would wait every day for Uncle Russ to come down the street with the mail.  I would follow him from house to house for a little while and then go home.  Some days he would stop by our house for lunch.  When I was four my Uncle joined the Navy.  I was heart-broken that he would be gone for long periods of time.  He left for Great Lakes Naval Training in November 1951 and completed his training in March 1952.  From there he went to Jacksonville Florida for more schooling and then to Memphis, Tennessee for still more schooling.  I’m not sure what his training or schooling was in, but he ended up working on airplanes and belonged to the Air Transport Squadron and his occupation was crew member.  After his schooling in Memphis he was transferred to Moffet Field in California in September 1952.  He was there until February of 1954 when he was transferred to Hickam AFB in Oahu, Hawaii until his discharge in November 1955.  We saw him periodically during the four years when he would come home on leave.  While he was stationed in Hawaii he did not come home on leave, and we did not see him for a couple of years.  He would send me presents from where ever he was stationed.  He sent me a hula skirt from Hawaii.  He sent my mother a Chinese tea set from San Francisco.  I now have that tea set.  He also sent me dolls for my doll collection, and he never forgot my birthdays.  While he was gone, my brother was born.  So he came home to a baby nephew.

After Uncle Russ came home there was a period of time when he had no job.  He would be over at our house almost every day when I got home from school, and he would play board games with me. I can remember my grandmother talking to my mother about him needing to get a job.  Everyone seemed worried that he wasn’t working except for me.  I didn’t want him to get a job because I wanted to play games with him every day.  But he finally did get a job at B. F. Goodrich changing tires on cars.  He worked there about 5 years when he met his future wife.  She came in for new tires for her car.  A few months later they married.  After they were married he got a job working for TWA.  During his time at TWA he loaded luggage on the plane, loaded the food on the plane, cleaned the planes, and then became a ticket agent. He was married to his first wife for 13 years and there were no children when they divorced. He moved to Phoenix, Arizona married a second time.  They moved back to the Chicago area and they divorced after two years.  He again moved back to Phoenix and then married again.  This time the marriage lasted a year.  After that he said he was done and was not going to marry again and he never did.  My mother and brother moved down to Phoenix after my father died and lived with him down there.  After my mother’s death my brother and uncle moved back to the Chicago area and he stayed in the Chicago area until his death.  Uncle Russ was very competitive when he played games.  He played to win.  He was a wiz at crossword puzzles.  The last few years of his life, he became a recluse and we didn’t see or hear from him often. He seemed to prefer his solitary life. It made me sad that he wasn’t more involved in our lives.  But I have great memories of my Uncle the way he was when I was younger.  Even my kids remember their Great Uncle the way he was before he became a recluse. He passed away on October 4, 2011 alone.  So it is on this day that I think about all the fun my brother and I had growing up with Uncle Russ. He was always there for us.  I miss you Uncle Russ.  RIP.

Copyright © 2014 Gail Grunst

The year, 2014, started out with me in the hospital, and once I recovered, my husband required several medical procedures.  It seemed that we were running to doctors two or three times a week in addition to our normal everyday things we needed to do. My cousin passed away in April, and then the week of Thanksgiving my brother was diagnosed with terminal Lung Cancer. Last March,my one son got married and moved 250 miles away. It seems that 2015, so far, isn’t any better than 2014.  My brother passed away from the Lung Cancer on January 11, 2015.  Since then we have been very busy running around to take care of his estate, cremation, and burial.  We had a memorial service on February 21, 2015.  Needless to say that my genealogy has been put on the back burner.  Now that things have settled down a bit, I hope to be able to get back to doing more genealogy and writing about family. I have several family stories rattling around in my head and hope to get them posted soon.  I haven’t abandoned this blog, just too much to do and not enough time to do it all.  My 2015 resolution is to get back to genealogy, get those family stories written, and get them posted.

Research Notes

I started researching the Bowers’ Family in 1979 by interviewing my grandmother, Helen Bowers Kaiser.  She told me that her mother and father were divorced when she was a small child.  She said that her father’s family, the Bowers, thought they were better than her mother’s family, the Reinhardt’s, and would not acknowledge their marriage.   After her mother and father divorced her father has nothing to do with his children.  Her mother pointed her father out to her one time when they saw him walking down the street.  Helen, my grandmother, ran up to him and told him that she was his daughter.  He said, “Get away from me kid, I don’t have any children.”  Another time they saw her grandmother, Alexena Bowers, in the cemetery but her grandmother did not acknowledge their presence. She said that her father was a musician and a drunk.  Her mother read in the paper that her father died frozen to death in the doorway of an apartment building in Chicago.  He had passed out drunk and froze to death.  She said her grandmother’s maiden name was Fischer and she came from Canada. They were related to the people who built the bodies for Chevrolet cars (Fischer Body).  Other than that she knew very little about her father’s family.

I next visited the Ottawa Avenue Cemetery in Ottawa Illinois and found the graves of the Bowers’ Family.  I found the birth and death dates of Charles, Alexena and their five children.  I also found that Alexena’s maiden name was not Fischer, but it was Frazier.  My next step was to acquire the death certificate for Charles and Alexena.  I found one for Alexena, but could not find one for Charles.  I ordered Alexena’s death certificate from the State of Illinois.  It gave Alexena’s birth date, death date, and the fact that she was born in Canada and was married to Charles.   It also gave her parent’s names as David Frazier and Catherine McBean both born in Scotland. The informant was her daughter Ethelyn Bowers Vittum.  I interlibrary loaned the Republican Times newspaper from Ottawa for the dates of the death of Alexena and Charles.  I found both Alexena and Charles Bowers’ obituaries.

According to the newspaper, Alexena was born in Naragawayn, Canada.  I could not find a Naragawayn, Canada.  I wrote to a map place in Canada and was told that it was probably misspelled and the closest name to Naragawayn was Nassagaweya, Ontario, Canada.    I believe they are probably right and have gone with the assumption that Alexena was born in Nassagaweya, Ontario, Canada.  It is also a place where Scottish Highlanders settled, and since her parents were born in Scotland, I felt that the circumstantial evidence was good enough to make this assumption.  I have been unable to find an actual birth record to date as civil records do not go back that far in Canada, and I have not checked Church records as of yet.  I think that a trip to Ontario is necessary to find the missing pieces.  I haven’t been able to find any information on he parents either.  There are many Frazier/Frazer/Fraser in Ontario.  Without knowing more about David and Catherine Frazer it is impossible to figure out which one might be them in other records.

Charles’ obituary said he was born in Ferrington, Norfolk, England.  Once again I could not find a Ferrington, Norfolk, England.  I belonged to a List Serv for Norfolk, England.  I posted a question asking where Ferrington, Norfolk, England was at.  I received many answers saying that there was no Ferrington but there is a Terrington.  This would be an easy mistake for the newspaper to make.  It could be a typo or they misunderstood the person giving the information.  After that I started looking for Charles’ birth in Terrington, Norfolk, England.  There was a problem in that there are two Terringtons.   One is Terrington – St. Clement and the other one is Terrington – St John.  So when looking for the Bowers’ name, I had to look in both places. At this time I did know his parents names.  I hit a brick wall and I stuck there for many years.

I made many trips to Ottawa, LaSalle, Illinois looking for information on Charles and Alexena.  I did find Charles’ naturalization papers filed in the LaSalle County, Illinois Courthouse in Ottawa, Illinois.  On his Declaration of Intent it gave the date he left England and the date he arrived in New York.  With this information, I was able to locate the ship he came on to the United States, and I was able to look at the passenger list.  Someone came with him who also had the last name Bowers.  He was about 50 years old and it looked like his first name was Bonard.  It was hard to read the microfilm. I searched all over for a Bonard and all possible spellings, but had no luck.  Charles’ obituary mentioned that he had two brothers Robert and William that lived in Syracuse, New York.  I did find a Robert but did not know if it was Charles’ brother.  One day in 2009, I was searching on the Internet and decided to search Terrington, Norfolk, England.  I found the Wisbeck and the Fenlands Website that listed baptisms, marriages, and burials of people living in Terrington-St.Clements, Norfolk, England.  I searched the surname Bowers.  I came across the name Bonnet Bowers who married an Eliza Linford.  When I saw the name Bonnet it hit me that this was probably the name on the passenger list.  I went back to the passenger list to look at the name again.  It could indeed be Bonnet.  I searched further and saw that a son Richard was born to Bonnet and Eliza and then a son Robert, a daughter Eliza, and Charles.  Charles’ baptism was about the same time that I had for his birth in my records. Then I searched Ancestry for Bonnet Bowers and had one hit, the 1841 England Census.  I looked at the record and there was Richard, Robert, and Charles living with Bonnet in 1841.  The mother and sister were not listed. I did not find a William as Charles’ obituary stated.  Perhaps Richard or Robert’s middle name is William.  But further research showed Richard and Robert both living in Syracuse, New York.  I found Bonnet living with Robert in Syracuse, New York.  By looking at the census records I found that Richard and Robert were both married and Richard had several children.  I was having a terrible time trying to find out when Bonnet, Richard, and Robert died.  Once again on Ancestry.com I did a search for Bonnet and found someone else with a Bonnet in their family tree.  They had 1794 as his birth where as I had 1796.  She had Bonnet’s death date as 1871.  She had Richard born in 1822 same as I did and she had Richard’s death date as 1895.  Since I now had an estimated time of death, I contacted a library in Syracuse, New York and asked if they had newspapers going back to 1871 and if the obituaries were indexed.  They wrote back and said they did have newspapers going back that far and yes the obituaries were indexed.  I asked if they could look up Richard and Bonnet.  The librarian wrote back and said she searched the NYS vital records index for Richard Bowers and located his date of death as 23 September 1895 in Syracuse.  The Vital Records registration started in New York state outside of New York City in 1881 so she was unable to look up Bonnet.  She was however able to locate a Burnet Bowers who died in Syracuse on 9 February 1871.  The obituary further stated that Burnet Bowers funeral will take place in the house of Robert Bowers in Syracuse.  Once again I think the newspaper misspelled Bonnet.

I also searched census, church records, city directories, and books for information on Charles, Alexena and their children Richard, Robert, Elizabeth, Ethelyn, and Genevieve to gather information to write this story.

It seems that some of my grandmother’s stories were correct and some false.  I was able to obtain Alexena’s probate file.  While reading her probate file, it is obvious that she did not acknowledge her grandchildren.  There is no mention in her son, Robert’s obituary that he had children nor is there any mention in Alexena’s obituary of grandchildren.  The story about her father being found dead in a doorway of an apartment building is false.  According to his death certificate he died of Tuberculosis and died in the hospital.  He was hospitalized about a month before his death.

I was curious about the house at 543 Chapel Street and did a search of property records to see who owned it before and after they did.  In doing the search, I found that Charles owned other property as well.  I found a quit claim deed that Charles’ son Robert, signed along with Robert’s wife Eva signing the property over to his mother for $1.00.  Up to this point, I have been unable to find a marriage record for Robert and Eva.  I was beginning to wonder if they were ever really married, and perhaps this was the reason that Robert’s parents did not acknowledging the marriage or grandchildren.  But Eva would not have been required to sign the quit claim deed if they had not been married.   So this is proof that they were indeed married.  I have not been able to find a record of Robert and Eva’s divorce.

My son, Brian, through his photography met a man from England on the Internet and he took a picture of the church where Bonnet and Eliza were married and their children baptized.  There is grave yard next to the church and he took some pictures of the Bowers’ graves.  There is a grave for an Eliza Bowers, however most of the tombstone is unreadable.

Everyday more and more information is on the Internet.  The LDS Family History Library in Utah is indexing their microfilm and placing it on the website.  I searched the name Bonnet Bowers in June 2011.  I had done this many times before and came up with nothing.  However in June, I found Bonnet Bowers birth listed and his parents names are Charles Bowers and Sarah Bonnet.  This made perfect sense to me since Bonnet was such an unusual name.  The date of Bonnets birth was close to what I had from his obituary the location was close to where I found Bonnet married and his children’s baptism.  I then sent for the microfilm to look at the actual record.  I also sent for film for Bonnet and Eliza’s marriage, and film with burial records for Terrington-St. Clements, Norfolk, England and found the death date for Bonnet’s daughter Eliza and wife Eliza.  As well as the death of Bonnet’s Mother, Sarah, and his Father, Charles.  Also found the births and deaths of Bonnet’s brothers and sisters.  There will always be more research to do. I hope to one day be able to go back further than 1757 and find descendants of Bonnet’s brother’s and sisters.

Did find brother William who was a step brother of Charles.  Charles’ mothehr had been married before she married Bonnet and a child William Linford. You can read Finding Brother William from my post dated 11/24/2012.

gailgrunstgenealogy.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/finding-brother-william/

Copyright © 2014 Gail Grunst

I originally posted this a couple of years ago.  I decided this year with all the snow and cold weather we have in the Chicago area, this would be a good time to remember the big snow storm on January 26, 1967.  Enjoy!

As an older adult (senior citizen), I despise the snow and cold weather.  As a child I loved the snow.  I’m not sure exactly when my opinion of it changed.  Maybe it the big snow storm of 1967.  If your old enough and lived in the Chicago area in January of 1967 you may have your own memories of the big snow storm.  I was working in Northlake, Illinois at GTE Automatic Electric at that time.  I remember it was around 2 or 3  pm., when someone said that there was a big semi stuck in the dock because of the snow.  I was wondering how I was going to get home.  If a big semi was stuck, how was my little car going to get out.  A little later the company announced it was closing.  This was an unusual move for AE.  They had all kinds of rules and you better follow them and they rarely closed if ever.  I went to my car and took one look and knew I wasn’t going anywhere.  I had no snow shovel and the snow was already to my bumper.   A lady I worked with lived nearby, and before I left she told me if I couldn’t get home to come to her house.  I started walking down Railroad Avenue and I had a choice to walk all the way down to North Avenue and back up Westward Ho Drive to her house or go down a hill in two feet of snow to her backyard.  I chose the latter.  I had a dress on (women were not allowed to wear slacks to work back then) and my boots were knee-high.  The snow was over the top of my boots.  I got to her house and was very thankful that she had invited me.  Several other people showed up too and that night was like a big slumber party.  I had only been working there since August, and I really got to know my coworkers.

My Mother was stuck at her job in Elmhurst, Illinois for a while.  I can’t remember how she got home because I usually picked her up on my way home from work.   School let out early that day because of the snow. When my brother got home, no one was home so he went to the next door neighbors.  My Father drove a truck for Burney Brothers Bakery that was located in Northlake also.  He was in Chicago stuck in traffic.  His truck then broke down.  He called the plant but they could not get to him.  He sat in the truck until the wee hours of the morning and then decided to walk or freeze to death in the truck.  He started walking and walked to Northlake (around 20 miles) .  He would stop at various places for food, coffee and to warm up.  The snow storm was on Thursday January 26th, my father made it to Northlake around noon on Saturday January 28th.  There were no cell phones back then so the only way he had of communicating with my mother was a pay phone.  I was still at my coworkers house on Saturday.  When my dad called home, my mom told him I was still in Northlake.  He called me and told me to meet him on North Avenue.  He was not going to attempt to drive down a side street.  I walked to North Avenue and met my dad.  We drove to our home in Villa Park about 6 miles.   It was slow going but we finally got home.  My mother and brother made some attempt at shoveling out but there was still a lot to do.  Then my dad, mother, brother and I shoveled our driveway and side-walk.  On Sunday January 29th we went back to get my car.  We still had to shovel out my car.  My aunt and uncle went with us and all of us shoveled.  I could not get to work on Monday and on Tuesday North Avenue was still only one lane going each direction.  I was late for work and my boss told me about it.  When I told him it was because of the snow he said I should have planned better and left earlier, and the young people where I work think they have it bad now.  I didn’t walk twenty miles in two feet of snow, but my father did.

My Car in the parking lot of Automatic Electric on January 29, 1967 (three days after storm)

Below are links to information about the snow storm.  One has a video of a news report from 1967.

Lasting Effects of Snowstorm 1967

Winter of the Deep Snow

The Infamous Chicago Blizzard of 1967