Sepia Saturday: Where in the World?

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

The street view in this week’s Sepia Saturday prompt brought to mind a couple photos of my grandaunt Lillie Killeen. Whatever the story was behind the photos is lost to time. I was just going to share the photos and move on.

Lillie Killeen 
place and date unknown

Then I noticed a log tower. That’s interesting!

Lillie Killeen with her niece Ebbie
(revised: UNKNOWN)

I googled “log tower” images but found nothing that looks like this one. I will guess it is in Florida, only because her niece Ebbie lived in Florida.

So, Folks, what do you think? Where were Lillie and Ebbie (revised: NOT EBBIE) on that fine day? 

Hit the Sepia Saturday streets for more old photos and stories.

UPDATE: Lillie’s shoes and glasses are the same as in another photo that she dated 1944. With that in mind, the other woman is not likely to be her niece Ebbie who would have been only about 25. And now that means the log tower could have been anywhere.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to a comment by Mr. Mike, I now know that Lillie and her friend were at the outdoor theater of the Lost Colony, an outdoor drama located in Manteo, North Carolina. Big tourist attraction! Here are some photos I found online. The log towers house the sound system and other theatrical controls like lights. They have since been covered in some kind of clapboard.

an old postcard

from lostcolony.org

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Turn

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

During the month of March, I will be shining the light on my Irish roots.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt shows a crowd watching and likely enjoying a performance on an athletic field. With my self-imposed limitation of blogging about ONLY my Irish ancestors during the month of March, I decided to share a few photos of people with their backs turned.

Lillie Killeen at the ribbon-cutting May 1952

A HUGE crowd showed up for the dedication of the NorfolkTunnel connecting Portsmouth and Norfolk in 1952. That was the end of the car ferry service. My grandaunt Lillie Killeen was a guest of her employer and long-time friend Dr. Vernon Brooks who served on the tunnel commission.

This must be friends of my grandaunt Helen Killeen Parker. I wonder where this train was. Was it an abandoned train? Part of an exhibit in a park? 

 

John Jr., "Cutey," and "Bob" 1920

Well, wuddayaknow – here sit John Jr and his sister “Bob” looking at who-knows-who on the other side of the door. Stillllll looking for their parents in case you wondered.

Please turn around and head to Sepia Saturday for more photos and stories of crowds, performances, and people facing the other way.

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

52 Ancestors - RESOLUTION: Please Hold for Katherine Riley

A resolution is not just a New Year’s tradition that we make and break. The word implies a strong decision to do or even NOT do something, but it also implies a quality of being determined or resolute.

Katherine Riley, grandaunts Lillie Killeen
and Helen Killeen Parker
September 1965

Katherine Riley might well be described as “resolute” when she gave a vase to her good friend, my grandaunt Helen Killeen Parker. Oh, it wasn’t a gift. It was for safe-keeping until she returned from the nursing home. Katherine was determined to come home and retrieve the vase. Why the vase was so important, I don’t know. All I know is that she told Aunt Helen, “You hold on to it until I come home.”

Helen held on to it until she knew she was dying. That is when she gave the vase to her niece, my aunt Betty, with instructions to hold on to it until Katherine Riley came home.

Katherine Riley never came home. She died in April 1982, about a year after Helen.

My aunt once showed me the vase. She told me it will be mine one day and that I should hold on to it for Katherine Riley.

It’s a real commitment.

Amy Johnson Crow continues to challenge genealogy bloggers and non-bloggers alike to think about our ancestors and share a story or photo about them. The challenge is “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.”

Wendy

© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: The Merchant

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

Pictures like this week’s Sepia Saturday prompt can be a real time-suck for me because I find myself Googling to identify the model of the cars, to determine whether products like Meadow Gold milk and butter are still available, and to find old photos of buildings identified by their signage. It’s a handsome photo, one with which I cannot compete. I have grocery stores and grocers in the family, but most have already been introduced on my blog. The good news is I still have one more. The bad news – and it’s really not that bad – is that he isn’t family.

When Barry and I were planning our wedding in 1973, the FOLK WEDDING was the rage. I guess it grew out of the “Make love, not war” / “Do your own thing” attitudes of the 1960s-early 70s. Less formal than traditional wedding ceremonies, the folk wedding often included folk tunes accompanied by guitar. So I needed a singer. And a guitar. My aunt, my dad’s sister, suggested Joanie Glynn. What? Who? “You know – the Glynns. They’re cousins,” she said and Daddy confirmed.

I’ve gone years just accepting that the Glynns are our cousins. I figured they must be those distant cousins, those 2^nd or 3^rd cousins that no one really gets to know. When I actually did the research, I saw almost immediately that they are not MY cousins at all. They are not my aunt’s or dad’s cousins either. They are not even my grandmother’s cousins. The Glynns are cousins of my grandmother’s HALF-siblings. My great-grandmother married twice; my family descends from the second husband. The Glynns are related to the first husband, the OTHER side of the family.

So here is John Joseph Glynn. 

John Joseph Glynn (1862-1942)
probably Matthew C. Glynn  (1891-1969)

John Joseph Glynn was born to Michael and Mary Irwin Glynn in Ireland in 1862, immigrated to the United States in 1884, and in 1890 married Bridget Mary Killeen, sister of John Joseph Killeen, my great-grandmother’s first husband. John Joseph Glynn and John Joseph Killeen – try keeping that straight. I guess the Irish did not have much imagination when it came to naming babies.

Bridget Mary Killeen Glynn (1863-1948)
either John Joseph Jr or Ellen Frances

John and Bridget were in Virginia by 1890 as all 6 children were born there between 1891 and 1910. John operated a grocery store at the corner of Henry and Second Streets. In the 1900 and 1910 census, they lived on Second. In later censuses, they lived on Henry. In every census except 1940, John was enumerated as a grocer or merchant. City directories through 1935 also show him as a grocer. By 1936, he was retired.

 

Portsmouth City Directory 1935

Photo albums that I have inherited from my Killeen aunts Helen and Lillie reflect the closeness of the Killeen and Glynn families.

 

September 1931
Bridget, John Joseph,
daughter Ellen, aka "Nell"

Captioned "Brothers"
possibly John Joseph Jr and Matthew
but assumed age difference is too much

Lillie Killeen with cousins
William and Margaret Glynn

"Cousin Nell"

That's cousin Nell on the right - not sure of the other 2

I have the Glynns to thank for my very existence. My great-grandmother Mary Theresa Sheehan Killeen had planned to be a New Yorker until John Joseph Killeen died in 1905 leaving her a widow with 5 children to raise. Her sister-in-law Bridget Killeen Glynn persuaded her to come to Portsmouth to be with family. According to family lore, it was Bridget who introduced Mary Theresa to her future second husband John Fleming Walsh. And as they say, the rest is history.

I’ll say this though about the Sheehan-Killeen-Walsh group, they did not and do not discriminate based on a last name. Family is family. A cousin is a cousin regardless of DNA.

There is more in store at Sepia Saturday.

Wendy

© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Woman at the Window

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

There is nothing remarkable about this week’s Sepia Saturday prompt featuring a woman near a window. Yet surprisingly it tricked me into noticing in how many photos my grandaunt Lillie Killeen was positioned near a window.

Lillie at work 1942

Lillie at Aunt Helen's house 1966

Lillie visiting on Tangier Island 1973

I have written about Lillie several times HERE and HERE. Today I want to share two funny stories about her.

The Potted Plant

While her sister Helen Killeen Parker was away, Lillie looked after the things at the house. She faithfully watered the flowers and plants, even the ones inside. However, one of the healthiest-looking potted plants was actually made of SILK. (We’ve all been fooled like that, right? Right??)

Oven Bags

In my early married life, the Reynolds Oven Roasting Bags were all the rage. Everyone was thrilled to be able to roast a chicken or turkey in one. Turkey came out juicy. A pot roast was perfect and the vegetables were not mushy. When her friends touted the benefits of cooking in a bag, Lillie wanted to get on board. So she got a plastic bag, added a nice roast, and popped it in the oven. Only it wasn’t a legitimate roasting bag, just a regular ol’ plastic bag. The results were exactly as you’d expect.

Now I don’t mean to sound like I’m laughing at her. Well, ok, yes, I am. It’s a funny story. However, I do not mean to imply she was stupid. I think she was a victim of her age and changing technology much like people of my generation struggle to adjust to the world of computers and social media. Keeping pace is often a challenge.

Young Lillie

When I look back at Lillie, I do not see a silly old woman tripped up by technology. I see the caregiver. Lillie was the first of 9 children born to Mary Theresa Sheehan Killeen Walsh, 6 with John Joseph Killeen and 3 with John Fleming Walsh. She was probably always charged with taking care of SOMEBODY.

Lillie with Mae's baby John 1917

She doted on her sister Mae’s children.

She traveled from Virginia to New York to help a cousin who had just given birth.

Lillie in New York 1917

Lillie in New York 1920
Even the doors have windows

Whenever her sister Helen entertained, Lillie was right there at her side making sure everyone was served and taken care of. My sister is just like that. “Lillie Jr” rattles around in the kitchen preparing food and filling glasses for everyone, rarely taking time to join in the fun herself. I have to tell my sister, “OK, Lillie, you can sit down now.”

 

Lillie 1977 at Helen's house

The window on the world is open at Sepia Saturday.

Wendy

© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Bikes, Boats, and Freedom

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt captures a moment many of us have experienced – the simple pleasure of pedaling away on a bicycle to some place new with wind in our hair. Some would say there is no better place to bike than on a boardwalk at the beach.

In 1944, my grandaunt Lillie Killeen joined some friends for a day at Virginia Beach. Biking the boardwalk was on their agenda.

Love the bathing suit and sandals!

 

Lillie Killeen and beau 1944

I wonder why Lillie's boyfriend showed up in a tie.

I wish I knew the names of her friends. The woman was probably a coworker, a nurse for Dr. Vernon Brooks. Lillie was his bookkeeper.

 

At the office of Dr. Brooks
From top to bottom:
Unknown, Lillie, Unknown.
The woman on the bottom step looks
like the woman at the beach.

The man NOT dressed for the beach was Lillie’s long-time boyfriend. She eventually broke it off with him because, according to her, he drank too much. Lillie never married.

It seems fitting that Lillie is pictured here with the bicycle which years earlier had become a symbol for women’s independence. Think about it. For years women depended on men for transportation, but a bicycle gave women freedom. A bicycle did not require a chaperone.

Fifty years before this photo was taken, the bicycle changed women’s lives. Bicycling and the women’s movement became intertwined. Many suffragettes pedaled their way from town to town gathering support for women’s rights and eventually the right to vote. Susan B. Anthony once said that bicycling had “done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton noted that “the bicycle will inspire women with more courage, self-respect, self-reliance.”

In a time when women were expected to marry and raise a passel of children, Lillie stood apart. If anyone pitied her, she was quick to point out that she was the lucky one. She didn’t have to come home and cook dinner for a man. She could take off for the weekend on the spur of the moment without having to see to anyone else’s needs.

Lillie especially enjoyed her overnight trips aboard the “Baltimore Boat.” Old Bay Line offered overnight service between Norfolk and Baltimore.  

The City of Norfolk, part of the Old Bay Line fleet
known as "the Baltimore Boat"

On many Fridays, Lillie dined and danced her way to the big city. Hers was a fun and carefree life that her sisters could not know because of their obligations to husbands and children.

Lillie and others like her just might have a bicycle to thank for such freedom and independence.  

Pedal on over to Sepia Saturday for more old photos and stories.  

Wendy

© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Rock On!

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is just adorable: two little girls on a rocking horse. What fun they must have been having, probably as much fun as my grandaunts Helen and Mae Killeen were having when they squeezed themselves onto a rusted old pedal car, probably one they had played with as little girls themselves.

 

Helen and Mae Killeen
about 1921
Captioned in several photos as
"Our Ford" and "Jitney"

In the early years when automobiles were becoming more affordable, the pedal car made its appearance too. They were at the top of every child’s wish list. Pedal cars were expensive, so it is no wonder the Killeens held on to their toy car despite having outgrown it.

 

Aunt Helen about 1921

When Mae’s son John was a little boy, he too enjoyed having a pedal car.

 

John Holland and Aunt Helen
about 1919

His aunts Helen and Lillie doted on him, so sharing good times on the pedal car came naturally.

Helen and John with the pedal car
Lillie on some other riding toy that operated without pedals, feet only.

Their cousins in New York had a similar pedal car.

 

Aunt Lillie with that "mystery child" John Jr.
about 1920-1921

They also had a “pedalless” ride-on toy.

Here are those "mystery children" John Jr. and "Bob" (who was a girl).
I bet that is their father, John SENIOR. But what was his last name?

At a time when babies seemingly spring from the womb already adept at computers and finding YouTube on mommy’s cell phone, it is refreshing to know that the iconic rocking toy is alive and well. It is not always a horsie, though. Christmas 2016, my sweet baboos received rocking toys that were part rocker-part plush lovey in the forms of an airplane for the boy and a caterpillar for the girl.

Hop on a stick pony, pedal car, caterpillar or plane, and make your way to Sepia Saturday where everyone is rockin’!

Wendy

© 2019, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: The Boy

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt featuring a model and two little boys made me recall a little boy whose story has been left unfinished too long. In 2012 and again in 2015, I posted pictures of this “mystery child” and put forth theories about who he might have been.

At first I thought maybe he was my great-grandmother Mary Theresa Sheehan Killeen Walsh’s child who might have died young. But I abandoned that thought since he was not in any census with our family.

Then I thought maybe he was a little boy named John Walsh who died in 1919, the same year these photos were taken. But when I saw the photo dated 1932, I had to reject this theory as well.

Dated 1932
Lillie Killeen, and very likely
William Glynn and Margaret Glynn

My third theory that he was one of the New York cousins was almost right. It seems he was indeed a cousin but not from New York. He lived just streets away from the Killeen-Walsh household in Portsmouth, Virginia.

In 2016 an email alerting me to a child I had missed in the Killeen family tree made me take another look at our Glynn “cousins.” Actually, the Glynns are not really my cousins; they are cousins of my great-grandmother’s children by her first marriage to John Joseph Killeen. His sister Bridget was married to John Joseph Glynn. (Those Irish Catholics did not exhibit much creativity in naming children.)

Courtesy Fold3

A close inspection of census records soon offered a likely candidate for the mystery child. John and Bridget’s youngest son William at age 10 had not attended school and he could neither read nor write. At age 20, he still could not read or write. In the 1940 census, the column for highest grade completed contained only a dash. If it was not already obvious, his World War II draft card made it clear: “Blind in both eyes. Mentally deficient.”

William lived with his sister Margaret Glynn the rest of his life. He died at the age of 52 from cerebral thrombosis. Margaret never married but devoted herself to caring for her brother. 

Most likely the woman pictured with William and my grandaunt Lillie Killeen in 1932 was Margaret Glynn. I must say, Margaret and Lillie look every bit as stylish as the woman in the prompt! William was rather dapper too in those argyle socks.

Don’t stand there gawking, please visit Sepia Saturday for more stories.

Wendy

© 2019, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.