Societe St. Jean-Baptiste Update

We are working to publish the inventory of the records of the Turners Falls Societe St. Jean-Baptiste which were found in the Rendezvous on Third Street. The goal of the club was to preserve the French language and culture, and to serve as a mutual aid society for members who needed assistance.

We photographed two of the record books to create digital images. The proceedings of the Naturalization Club are viewable here. There are lots of names, but not much other information. They loved their Parliamentary Procedure! The roster for the society from the first membership will be posted as soon as I clean up the images.

Get the (Old) News Firsthand

Shari found this great local resource on Google. Newspapers are such a valuable historic resource. Read the Turners Falls Reporter 1872 - 1922 here.

Cemetery Mystery in Greenfield

They knew right away that this mystery was right up my alley.

Greenfield's DPW found what appeared to be a grave stone while excavating for a new sidewalk on Pond Street. After assuring them there was very little chance that this baby was buried there, or that the stone had washed across the street from Federal St. I sent out a call to my Facebook network. We didn't find Horace Eugene Roberts in Greenfield Deaths, but there were several trees posted on Ancestry.com that had information on this family.

I found a Hart family organization web site and made contact with the owner - Mrs. Roberts was a Hart. Betty Patterson in California was very interested in finding out more. She had information that they were buried in Green River Cemetery, and sure enough, a call to Snow & Sons confirmed that there is a family plot there.

I was able to photograph their grave stones at Green River and post them at Findagrave.com for all to see. This stone was likely a carver's mistake. The stone in the cemetery has a rectangular block on a carved base, with an oblesk top. Horace was the first burial, and the other family members were added, with individual markers for each of them also placed in the plot.

It seems Horace's mother, Mary died a few years later. His father remarried, and is also in this plot, along with Horace's two sisters, Mary Cordelia and Charlotte. Census records find the family in New York City in 1860 and 1870, but the girls were with family in Greenfield after their father remarried. They lived with Frank Thompson, and later their aunt, Susan Nims. Mary was a teacher, and Charlotte attended Wellsley and also taught there.

Local French Findings

Thanks to the Montague Cultural Council, we have received a grant to aid in preservation of the records of the Societe St. Jean Baptiste in Turners Falls!
Shari Strahan will lead the effort to catalog the ledgers and historic material that was found during the renovation of the Rendezvous. We will select some documents to scan and place the digital records at the library for reference. Look for more information to be presented as we begin to dig into the records.

Piecework: When We Were French Celebrates All of our Ancestors

Don't wait to get your tickets to see Abby Paige at the Shea Theater on Sunday, January 30 at 2 pm for a single performance in Massachusetts. Abby's one-woman show personifies a wide variety of characters who personalize the immigrant experience, and what it means to treasure your ethnic heritage.

Listen to WHAI or WIZZ for the chance to win a free pair of tickets! Purchase tickets on-line at www.countryplayers.org or call the Shea at 413.863.2281 ext. 1 to reserve your seats. All tickets are $10.

Ronald and Adrian Meck will provide a musical introduction.

We have collected some historic memorabilia for the lobby, including a historic map of Quebec and census data from 1900 Turners Falls.

Come and share this heart-warming afternoon with us!

Shhhh! Genealogists at play!

We did it! A small group got together and uploaded all of the photos of the East Mineral Road Cemetery in Millers Falls to findagrave.com along with the records that had been compiled by the Cemetery Commission 10 years ago. We will continue to whittle our way through the Montague Town Cemeteries and will add others as the records are organized. Many hands make quick work, so let me know if you want to pitch in. Thanks to Pat Allen for shepherding the project along, Tina Peters for her tutorial, Shara Strahan, Bevlyn Gallant and Phil Johnson for their typing, and Mark Fairbrother for his wandering photography.

The Latest

Kudos to Pat Allen for uploading the burials at the East Mineral Road cemetery to findagrave.com! We took photos of all of the visible stones a couple of weeks ago and will get together soon to upload them individually. The data can be uploaded as a spreadsheet, so Pat transferred the info she and Montague's Cemetery Commission (Sue Sansoucie) had compiled 10 years ago. Please contact me at rememberingancestors@yahoo.com if you would like to participate in this project.

It's all about sharing!

I reviewed the first enumeration district of the 1900 census that includes much of Turners Falls and found the following ethnic breakdown in the "Place of Birth" column:
French 172
Irish 135
German 113
Polish 65
Bohemian 48
English 46
Canada English 10
Swedish 8
Austrian 8
Russian 7
Scots 4
Swiss 2
and one each Australian, Welsh, and French french out of 2145 in this precinct.
Outside of New England there were individuals born in Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, but not much more eastward migration.

I'd like to talk about this more in light of our upcoming January production at the Shea. Abby Paige's show celebrates the ethnic heritage that we have all lost, French or not. I hope you will be attending!