Ghosts of Our Past: The Surprises of Family History

This is Antietam Creek. The photo is from a post I wrote in 2013 about a storytelling trip to several places, including the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. We stopped  briefly to visit a few sites on the Antietam Civil War battlefield which was not too far away in Maryland. At the time it was just an interesting historical location, although the description of this creek running red with blood during the battle chilled my own blood. It was horrible to imagine. I wanted to stay and wander here, to think about the men and the lives lost, but we had places we needed to be so we drove on.

Battle for Antietam bridge, from Wikipedia

Then this summer I learned from my sister Judy, who has been hard at work on our family genealogy and history, that one of our ancestors died at Antietam, and that his blood, along with that of hundreds of other soldiers, ran down this creek when he was killed at the terrible fight at the bridge. Until she found the records in her searches, I had no idea that we had a family connection to this place.

The bridge today is calm and peaceful, yet stories abound of ghosts and hauntings there. It's not hard to understand why. Here is one tale of events at the bridge, from the website Military Ghosts:

"Those who have spent time at the area known as Burnside Bridge on the battlefield, especially those park rangers and Civil War re-enactors who have been at the location after dark, say that there are strange things going on there as well. Historians and experts report that the fighting which took place here in 1862 left a number of fallen soldiers behind and many of them were hastily buried in unknown locations near the bridge. Could these restless souls be haunting the area? Visitors to the bridge at night have reported visions of blue balls of light moving about in the darkness and the sound of a phantom drum that beats out a cadence and then fades away."

The relation who lost his life is a distant one, the son of a great-great--great uncle, but he comes to life in letters that were preserved and posted on Ancestry.com. His allegiance is clear:

If you can read his writing, he congratulates his mother on getting married again :"Did not think that I was A goent to have another Dadey." It is heart-breaking to read this, and to know this young man never got to fulfill his own desire to be married.

Another surprise turned up by my sister in her research (thanking the stars for a sister who is like a terrier dog in digging up--and verifying--these records!) was that our great-great-grandfather Dominick Connelly was a prisoner at Andersonville prison in southern Georgia. (Dominick was a cousin of George Washington Connelly, the one who died at Antietam):

Dominick was one of the fortunate ones; he survived when almost 13,000 other prisoners there did not. Possibly the fact that Dominick had dysentery and was confined to hospital for much of that time actually saved his life.

Dominick was young when he enlisted, about 16; he got sick and was sent home, re-enlisted and was captured and sent to Andersonville, where he was one of a prisoner exchange just before the war ended. He was a musician--a drummer, according to the records--so why on earth he was worth capturing is beyond me.

One hundred and fifty years later my sister Theresa and I found his grave at Arlington National Cemetery. (You can read about our trip here.) 

Another story pulled together from photos, documents and memories has been developed by my cousin Julie in England. We knew our English grandfather was killed when he was hit by a car in 1930, but beyond that we knew little about him. Then another English cousin sent me a copy of a poem that he believed my grandfather, Ernest Thomas Hagger had written when he traveled to Canada as a young man.

Wait. My grandfather went to Canada? Why? When? What for? Questions piled up; I went back to my old photos and posted one of Ernest on our family Facebook page.

Ernest Thomas Hagger, date unknown

That started a flood of information as cousin Julie shared what she knew and asked her mother, my 96-year-old Aunt Grace, what she remembered of her father. Bits and pieces came together into a story of adventure, a young man seeking his fortune in the frontier of northwestern Canada--and also a tale of young love, as he gave up his dream to return to England because his betrothed (my Granny) was not allowed to join him in the Canadian wilderness. We learned much about Ernest (or Thomas as I have always thought of him), of his practical planning, his care for his family, his advancement from farm laborer to farm manager, his foresight in buying a life insurance policy at a young age. He came to life, fully three-dimensional, this man we never had the chance to meet.

I am glad that I got to visit his grave when I was in England in 2013; a circle, in a way, completed.

When I was younger I never thought much about our family history. I never thought that we might have had relatives in the Civil War; I never realized that my great-great-great-grandparents lived at 3254 O Street NW in Georgetown, Washington DC, and that they must have been in an uproar when Booth shot Lincoln at Ford's Theater on 10th Street NW, just a few short miles away. Just like the story of my granny in England and her first husband, these old family stories would have been lost had not people like my sister Judy and my cousin Julie got interested and began asking questions, searching records and looking for documents and related history.

If you've been wondering about your family, start looking now, especially if you have older relatives who might remember names and places, or have old letters and photos that will help you in your search. We almost left it too late, and so much would have been lost. 

Tomatoes in the Attic

Ah, tomatoes!

It's that time of year--at last! Our tomatoes are later this year for some reason. Perhaps all the rain in June and early July slowed down pollination. We've been getting a few here and there, enough to keep us happy, but now the boom is on. Yellow, pink, black and red are filling up the table on the deck as Larry brings them in. He prefers picking before they're completely ripe; I like to leave them on the vine as long as possible but since he's doing the picking, I'm not complaining.


I have always loved tomatoes. Some years we plant as many as 14 varieties, but this year I think we're down to 7 or 8. My absolute favorites are the black varieties--Black Prince and Black Crim. This year I could only find black cherry tomato plants so that's what I bought, along with some Cherokee Purple that seem like black tomatoes to me. Next favorites are the big pinks and deep golden yellows. This isn't to say I don't like reds! But these others are pretty much only available to us in summer, so I really look forward to them.

Our house at 514 East Quarry St, later renumbered
as 8807 Quarry Road, in Manassas, VA. We were
hard on that old place! You can see the attic window
in this photo.

I remember when I was 11, I would sneak down to the garden and get a half dozen tomatoes at a time, hide them in my pockets or wherever I could, then go up into the attic before Mom caught me. It was a trick to get into the attic because there was no ladder and the ceilings in our house were 12 fet high. First I had to position the bedroom door just right. Then I would get my feet on the doorknobs. From there I could pull myself up to the top of the door, and from there stretch to reach the attic opening. I would get my hands on the sides of the opening, and pull myself up until I could get a foot on top of the door trim. I could lift the attic trapdoor with my head, and then pull/push myself up and inside to fall on the floor. Now as I read this, it seems impossible, but at that age I was agile and strong and it seemed easy once I figured it out.

Once inside the attic I would tiptoe carefully on the boards that spanned the rafters, being careful not to let my foot slip and go through the lath-and plaster ceiling of the room below. That would have disaster! I'd have been in bad trouble and even worse, I'd have given away my hiding place in the dark, unfinished, hot attic.

There were three secrets, I discovered, in the attic: First, if I stretched out on the floor in front of the half-circle window at the front of the house, there was a most delicious, steady breeze. It was cool there even on the hottest northern Virginia days.

Me, at about the age I was in this post.
I remember Mom trimmed my bangs, and as she tried
to even them up, they just got shorter and shorter!

Then there were the boxes and boxes of old books. These books had belonged to my grandparents and when they moved a lot of their things ended up in our house, and up in our attic. There I discovered Janice Holt Giles, an author I still enjoy re-reading. There were many other books, all best-sellers from the 1930's, 40's and 50's. I read all that summer, eating tomatoes or sometimes Concord grapes when those came ripe.

And the third secret: from that half-round arched window, I could just barely see, if I positioned myself right, the blue Bull Run Mountains. I would look at them as I read Giles' The Enduring Hills, imagining myself living in a cabin in the mountains. How little I knew then that that is exactly what would happen.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Remembering Uncle Barney

Uncle Barney with his sons at the 2010 family reunion

I am thinking about my Uncle Barney tonight; he passed away this week at the age of 86. Barney (actually Bernard) Connelly was my father's younger brother and the last of that generation of my father's side of the family. He was our patriarch, a man with a beautiful singing voice and brilliant mind, a man who became a chemist, later owned a Radio Shack store and moved on to learn about and install computers before most of us realized the electronic age was upon us.

Barney was still in high school when my father shipped out to England during World War II. He was still living at home when my mother, a young bride, came from England to live with my grandparents in the first years of her marriage. Barney was her friend, someone her age she could talk to, and she loved his company and later that of his girlfriend and eventually wife, Georgette.

My father and his siblings grew up in New Orleans, and Dad had many stories of their time in that city--tales of camping trips, of swimming in rivers where they sometimes saw cottonmouths, of catching eels and going on banana boats. The above photo was taken during those years. (From top left and clockwise: Uncle Bud, Dad, Grandma, Aunt Ellen, Uncle Barney and Uncle Cincy.)

Uncle Barney with his mother (my grandmother) on top of what I think is Cranny Crow, a mountain in Lost River State Park, WV, where we now have our family reunions. My grandparents visited the park regularly in the 1940's and 50's, and Uncle Barney and Aunt Georgette honeymooned there.

I remember my uncle telling me about one time when he was home from college, I think, and helping my Dad put an addition on the tiny house we lived in then in Centreville, VA. Dad and Uncle Barney were up on the roof when they heard a little voice say "Hi, Daddy." They looked around and there I was at the top of the ladder--and I was only a year and a half old.

Barney was the one who nicknamed me "Bunky." I never knew where the name came from and he was the only one to call me that; I remember how delighted I was to hear him calling me whenever he came to see us. We looked forward to his visits because he usually brought with him his young and growing family of mainly boy cousins. We'd mess with our chemistry set, play cowboys and Indians and have the very best time. After my uncle moved to West Virginia we saw them less often but looked forward to every visit because we knew our house would be filled with laughter and even more noise than usual.

My uncle loved jokes. He often called my father just to share a good one, and Dad usually had one to share back. In the days of typewriters my Dad's family would type jokes and mail them to each other.

Uncle Barney was quite a storyteller, a lover of jokes and riddles, a man with a gentle smile and loving eyes. His health deteriorated slowly over the last few years, and while we knew he was not well, it seems one is never prepared when the time to say goodbye suddenly arrives.

We will surely miss him.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

A Heavy Heart

I have not been able to write on this blog since I came home. Late Monday evening I heard the sad news that one of my nephews had passed away on Sunday. It is difficult to write about, or to think about anything else.

Travis. What to say about him? He was just a little boy when I moved away from the area where most of my family lived, over 35 years ago.

I remember a shy little boy with deep brown eyes and tousled red hair who hid behind his mother's legs when confronted with the multitude of cousins at a family gathering.

I remember a smile that lit those brown eyes and shone right into my heart, even in photos.

I remember the football player, smart, quiet, a leader who led without seeming to do so.

I remember seeing him again, many years later, when my mother was in the hospital. He came with his baby daughter, red-haired like himself, and told my mother the little one had been named after Mom's family home in England. I remember Mom's radiant smile, her joy at seeing Travis and holding, just for a moment, his little girl.

I remember him again at Mom's funeral, five years later, and his grief so strong he stood in the door of the church and could not come further. He was gone before I could speak to him.

I remember him, was it only last year, or was it the year before? Time slips by so quickly and happy memories sometimes jumble into one bright moment of joy. It was our family reunion, and he came with his new little daughter, a little one with fat sassy cheeks and flaming red hair. We had time to talk that day, and it was a pleasure to spend time with this quiet man who could still make my heart sing with his smile.

We will all miss him. There is a hole in our family now, a place where he once stood. But there is no hole in our hearts because our love for him will live on, and our memories will sweeten the sadness of his loss.

Life must go on, difficult as it is. We continue our daily work and wait for word about the memorial service. There is comfort in knowing his heart will beat on, in another's body, and others will live because Travis gave the greatest gift of all--himself, as an organ donor.

Rest well, Travis. We will see you on the other side.

Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

A poppy for the many, many veterans in my family. Photos of a few of them:

Dominick Connelly, my father's great-grandfather, who served in the Union Army during the Civil War.

My mother's Uncle Sidney Wilson, a British soldier who was killed in 1917 in World War I, before she was born.

My grandfather, William I. Connelly Sr, who served as a lawyer for the Coast Guard during World War II.

My father, William I. Connelly Jr, who served in the Army Air Force in England during World War II (and also in Europe when the war was over).

For my husband Larry, a Vietnam War veteran;

my son Jonathan Ford

and his wife Jennifer, who both served 10 years in the US Army;

My son Aaron Ford who served 4 years in the US Air Force;

My son Larry Thomas Holstein who served in the US Air Force;

and my son Derek Ford, still in service as a Sergeant Major in the Army National Guard.

To all our soldiers, my profound gratitude and respect.

Secret Hiding Place

Tipper at Blind Pig and the Acorn wrote a post about her children's "camps" made with sheets on their Granny's porch. Her post made me remember things from my childhood and the ways we played, especially in the hot summer months of the pre-air conditioning world.

When I was little we lived in a tiny house in the woods that offered opportunities of all kinds for play. Pine forest, a crawl space under the house, sheds and ditches and a rose arbor were all perfect for the kinds of games we played. I was only 5 when we moved, but my memories of the little house are vivid. I remember well my first secret hiding place; it was in the woods, surrounded by bushes and not visible to anyone passing on the path nearby. A perfect place to hide.

(photo below was taken in Centreville, before we moved to the big house in Manassas. Apparently a game of cowboys and Indians was in progress.)

Our next house was big and old with large rooms, high ceilings, tall windows, and cool plaster walls. In summer, the windows were open and sliding adjustable screens let in any breezes that might stir the mimosa in Mrs. Blakemore's yard or the old silver maple in our back yard. A large fan on a stand rotated in the dark downstairs entrance hall and often we'd put our fingers through the open cage and let them rat-a-tat-tat on the blades as they whirled. Sometimes an unfortunate child would get their fingers in the wrong place and get whacked hard by the spinning blades, but I don't remember any cuts from the fans.

Dad made schedules for his thirteen children in the summer, and created to-do lists with incentive prizes for doing certain chores. This worked well to motivate us right after school was out, but after a while we'd get tired of the lists or we'd have developed a game we liked to play. So we'd do the assigned work but the incentive lists usually languished after the end of June. Dad's strategy was probably to keep us busy while we adjusted to being home--and to keep us out of Mom's hair while she adjusted to us being home.

By July one or two games were usually in full swing. We didn't play games like most people think of them; for us, games went on for days or weeks, even all summer. Our favorite was the Town we created in the back yard. There was little grass in the area immediately to the right of the back porch steps. We kept it worn off with our play. In the bare dirt we used our little beach shovels or Mom's garden trowel to create roads, dips, curves, intersections, shopping centers, schoolyards and farms. Each of us had a role to play--farmers, mothers, fathers, shopkeepers, teachers, doctors. I was usually the orphanage keeper and my name in our games was Uncle John and Aunt Susie (dual personality, I guess). Many an emergency, conflict, injury, death, wedding and party happened in the course of an afternoon ---who needed General Hospital with all the drama we had going on in our yard?

When it rained the fun moved indoors. Upstairs would become a Wild West town. We'd raid the attic for clothes, Joe would wear his play gun and holster, someone would have the popgun, and always we'd have a dance with Joe as the caller, standing on the dresser and singing ("I belong, I belong, on the lo-o-o-ne pray-er-ee"). Indians would raid, cattle stampede, gunfights were many and bloody and bodies often littered the floor. Joe or Tom played the sheriff and would pronounce guilt or innocence and generally keep the peace. When the town got too rowdy, the real boss--Mom--would make us settle down.

We played long-running Monopoly games that resembled some of the pictures I've seen of poker games--intent faces, piles of money, deal-making and breaking, occasional fights and tears. A single game once lasted almost a month, with money changing hands as quickly, and probably as crookedly, as on Wall Street.

When we got tired of each other's company, we all had our secret hiding places. I had several: the attic was best for reading, and there was always a breeze through the little half-moon window in front with the far-off view of the Bull Run Mountains. Under the front porch was cool and damp and kind of scary, and a good place to go with Judy if we wanted to be alone. The cherry trees were excellent in June when they were filled with cherries and a girl could climb into the branches and eat to her heart's content. There were plenty for me, the birds and for mom's jam-making. The side yard with my redbud tree and bluebell garden was fairly sheltered and if Miss Mary, who lived next door, wasn't home I could climb up into the redbud tree where I would be out of sight and could spy on brothers and sisters who played on the swingset. Why did I want to spy on them? I have no idea. Maybe I should blame it on Nancy Drew, since I read every one of those books and all of the Hardy Boys too during my attic visits.

I wonder if children still play games like these, and if they still have secret hiding places? As an adult, I sometimes long for the redbud tree and the sanctuary it offered when my little life felt too tumultuous and overcrowded with siblings.

Tipper's daughters still have that magical gift of childhood, the gift of play. I hope there are many other children out there with the same gift, touching the past and inventing futures to suit themselves. I am afraid that today's children are losing the magic of creative play. I hope that in some small town in America, there is a child building a castle under the dining room table or a fort behind the sofa. I hope a little girl or boy is exploring under a forsythia bush and finding a hidden-way world that only he or she knows. I want to believe that children are still chasing birds with salt shakers, looking for four-leaf clovers, lying on their backs and finding shapes in the clouds, catching tadpoles in puddles and finding wild berries along the sides of dusty roads.

I hope childhood is still the place of possible hopes and inspired dreams, where anything can and will happen for the child who imagines it into being.

Granddaughter Haley in the yellow apple tree--one of her hiding places at my house.

Family Reunion Time

We'll be off to the Connelly Family Reunion for the next few days. Lots of family to see, (these pics are from last year's reunion)

a pretty log cabin to stay in,

cold running creek and big picnic shelter, mountain hikes, horseback riding (for some, not for me!), wildflowers,

laughter and singing,

and lots of children!

Be back soon with lots of pics! In the meantime, I'll still be posting--as I said yesterday, so many things to write about!

Mardi Gras and New Orleans Memories

My father and his father (William I. Connelly Sr), we believe, at 1427 Gr. Rue St. John, according to what is written on the back. I would guess this photo to be late 1920's to early 30's. The wording may not be correct, since the writing was very faded, but this is what Julie thought it said. The family must have lived there for a little while, although I do not recall Dad talking about it. Maybe a family reader of this blog knows more?

It's Mardi Gras! I'd like to be celebrating but instead I will be at work.

Today's photos were found in my father's things when he passed away. Dad grew up in New Orleans on Thomas Street. Miraculously, the house he grew up in was unscathed by the recent hurricanes. As a boy, Dad said, he loved Mardi Gras. They always dressed and marched in the parade. Below are some pictures of those long ago days.

Dad (William Irving Connelly), my aunt Hester Ellen Connelly, and my Uncle Bud (John Wilbur Connelly). I would guess them t


Aunt Ellen, all alone and very cute. I wonder if she is a clown, or perhaps Tinkerbell?


Aunt Ellen, we believe, with her Aunt Mary Charlotte Becker, also known as Sister Veronica of the Poor Claire Cloister in New Orleans. Although my father's family was originally from the Washington DC area, they ended up in New Orleans due to my grandfather's work with the government. When they moved to NO, Grandpa was a lawyer with the government, and I think his position had something to do with trains. Later when the US joined World War II Grandpa became a Commander in the Coast Guard and handled several important cases in his career, the most high-profile probably being the explosion at Texas City in 1947.

The Poor Claires, year unknown. I am not sure which is my great-aunt in this photo. how my great-aunt came to be a nun at this convent I do not know, but she was there prior to my grandparents moving to NO. A bit of serendipity, I think, and probably made living so far from other family members less painful for all. I remember sending letters to Sister

Aunt Ellen as a teen, dressed as William Tell, according to Dad. We are not sure of the date of this photo, but I believe it must have been taken in the mid-1930's judging by her age. Later Aunt Ellen would earn a chemistry degree, among others, and go on to be a food editor for Good Housekeeping. She is still living today, but suffers from Alzheimer's disease. You might run into her name in older copies of Good Housekeeping cookbooks.

Dad dressed as a clown, circa 1926? He was born in 1922, and he looks about 3 or 4 years old here.

Aunt Ellen, Dad and Uncle Bud, probably the same year.

Dad as a teenager, in his favorite costume. When I was young he still loved to dress up as a pirate at Halloween. I think this may have been the same year as Ellen's teenage photo above, probably 1934 or 1935.

The family left New Orleans in 1942 and returned to the northern Virginia-DC area, where Dad enlisted in the Army Air Force that started him on the journey to meet my mother in England.

If anyone can supply additional information about these photos or the family's time in New Orleans, I'd love to hear it.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Mom (Edna June Hagger Connelly) in 1957, or thereabouts. What a lovely lady she was.

June 13th is a bittersweet date for me. My mother would have been 81 today.

As anyone who has lost a parent knows, it doesn't get easier with time. If anything, I miss her more each year. So often I will think, I've got to call Mom and tell her about that. Then I remember she's not here.

I think of her whenever I see old-fashioned roses in bloom, or an herb garden with chives and mint, or bone china tea cups with fluted shapes and painted flowers. I think of her when I make a pot of tea or eat breakfast for dinner. I especially think of her when I see my grandchildren, because Mom loved little children best of all. I think of her when I see pretty wineglasses, vintage jewelry or flowered hankies, or smell Emeraude perfume.

I remember her kitchen when I see an enamel-topped table in an antique store; I think of her when I work at the massive table that used to be her dining room table, the one that was so big all 13 children could be seated around it for dinner--with room to spare. Books of English poetry, kitchen gadgets, stacks of cookbooks and yarn all remind me of my mother and her passion for her home country, and for cooking and knitting.

She was what a mother should be--soft and firm, loving and demanding, caring and nurturing, and always a good listener.

She is always remembered and she will always be loved.

Family Reunion Pics 3

A chilly morning at Jon's cabin but the fire and coffee warmed us up.

Hannah and the face tree.

James doing something little boys (and girls) love to do: throw rocks in water.

The creek beside the picnic pavilion was perfect for exploring, and the children did a lot of it.

Cousins: Edna, Stephen, Ralph and Bernie. These are my cousins on my Dad's side, from his brother Uncle Bud (John). I missed getting a photo of Uncle Barney's family somehow. That one will have to wait for next year.