Hoarders or Keepers?

Some of us have watched Marie Kondo declutter folks' homes. Some of us  have snickered at the genealogy memes where books are packed to the ceiling and the desk is nearly buried. Others have had to help clean out homes after loved ones have passed away. All this raises the question of what is worth keeping and what do we throw away?
Well, the Wenz family have traditionally teetered between being "keepers" and being "hoarders." But I am certainly thankful for what they've kept. Last week I wrote about Uncle Phil's photo album from his trip to France in 1937. https://keillorsmith.blogspot.com/2019/01/
But in addition to the photo album, I was the grateful recipient of a few other jewels:

 Now I know that Victor-Auguste Poulain was one of the first chocolatiers in France, "He believed that a commercial future in chocolate would be found by selling to the masses..." Thank goodness for M. Poulain! "Taste and compare!"

Fascinating letter by a Northerner visiting the south. Apparently Phil and a friend, Alfred W. Judge of Raynham Center, MA, made quite a trip around the south  with stops in Savannah, Jacksonville, Tampa, Mobile and New Orleans. Here's the text of the letter: Sunday, Dec 31, 1916

Dearest Mother,

Received all your letters so far I think, I left a change of address in Jacksonville. And no doubt you have received a letter in the meantime explaining why we left there. I am glad to hear that you are all well and had a good Xmas. Now there are a lot of folks that are expecting letters or cards but for reasons best known to myself they will have to wait maybe two weeks but I haven’t forgotten them. I’m glad you thought those letters were interesting that was what worried me.

The more I see of this country the better I like it. We called at the Information Bureau and they told us that we might stride (?) so work in an orange grove so we went out to see Mr. Trowell who owned it and met a man 70 years old and he certainly was some character. We had quite a talk but he said he couldn’t really afford to put us on but that if we got stranded to come back and he’d see what he could do. So it looks as if we couldn’t starve to death anyway. And all the people seem to be alike hospitable and solicitous. And it’s peculiar the way they trust anybody really it would do your heart good to see the difference of ways from the North.

I probably forgot to tell you on entering Sav. Harbor we passed several of those flat boats with the paddle wheel in the rear that haul cotton and such up and down the rivers they are wood burners you often read about them and they are a novel sight. Then on the way to Jacksonville we passed over a large river and there were several large rafts that shape maybe 75 feet long on with a sweep or two on them floating along with a couple of men aboard they were made up of large piles of lumber lashed together.

Down here a farmer turns his cattle out and the wander here and there at will it is all free range so walking along the country roads or wood one meets cattle and hogs most anywhere when ever they want a pig for dinner. They get on a horse and find their own which are all branded some way or another, and either (?) it or shoot it. A Barn is an unknown quantity the nearest thing to it is a rain roof on stilts and open work boards for maybe their sides. Houses are not much different in the country most residences are bungalow style and there are some very pretty ones. This is a record of weather and I don’t think it can be beat it certainly looks good to me. Note this is a government report. While the living is not much cheaper it is unnecessary to have heating fuel and warm clothes.

Another thing there are more fish in the bays rivers and lakes than you can shake a stick at and monsters too. It is surprising and such monsters. All kinds and color one with bars that looks like jailbird.

 It seems that Uncle Phil wrote to his French-born grandmother to ask about where his French ancestors were from. Here is the text of this 100-year old letter:

Private Philip H. Wenz 591547
Army Radio Section
Signal Corps No. 1
American Expeditionary Forces
A.P.O. 784

East Dedham Nov 6, 1918

Dear Philip I received your letter Nov 1 and was glad to get it. I am pleased you did not forget me, and am glad to hear that you are well. I do not know what to write to interest you. We are all well your Father and Mother were here yesterday and they are well. About my birthplace I do not know much about it as we left that place when I was about 2 years old and went to Haver (Le Havre) and left there to come here when I was 4 years old so you can see I do now know any one ther ebut the place I was born in Benfeld District of Schlestadt Department of the Lower Rhine. My father name was Francis Joseph Drach and my mother was Mary Louisa Selth before marriage. Father was born in Huttenheim canton of Benfelden Department of Bas Rhine and my mother was born in the same place I was. Your Grandfather Vautrinot was born in Leevers (Liepvre) in the department of High Rhine the place is about 2 miles from St. Marie aux Mines which is the boundary line and passes through the Voges mountains. Of course I do not know if any of our people are living now you might try if you get there I know that your Grandfather had uncles in the Crimean war and I think their names was Munier on his mothers side. There was 3 of them, your Grandfather. Father was in the Algiers and servied in the Light Infantry 22(?) Regement of the line he went through a good many battles with the arabs, and my father served in the second regiment Cuirassiers from 1832 to 1838. At the time he was born it belonged to the French, and in Franco-Prussian war it was surrendered to Germany. that is all I know I hope you will understand what I have written I am not much of a letter writer. I am well and so is Mary she sends her love and I hope you will be home soon and that I shall be spared to see you. Perry (Collins) has gone to the service that makes 5 grandsons I have in the army now. Take good care of yourself and see all you can. God Bless you and bring you home safe is my wish. Your loving Grandma. Write when you can I know it is hard in the front to have time to write good by.

There is no descriptive text with the photograph, but I believe that this is Uncle Phil's American Legion Post from Dedham, Massachusetts. Phil would be in the back row, just to the right of the American flag with his cap at a jaunty angle.

At the end of World War I, Phil was somewhere in France and his older brother Lt. Ned Wenz was in the United States Navy somewhere in the British Isles. I sure do wish there were photos from this reunion!

 Apparently Phil became a temporary journalist, chronicling their visit to France in 1937. I don't have all of the articles. I guess that's a project for my next visit home!

War ration books for the family: Philip, his wife Mary Catherine (O'Rourke) and their adopted daughter, also Mary Catherine. It was their daughter Mary whose passing provided us with this "hoard" of family history.

Nurses in Combat Boots

On a recent visit with us, my mom brought a ridiculously heavy green suitcase full of what she told me was family history books. Not having time to cope with it, I set it in the “junk room” and spent a couple of months ignoring it. I know that there’s a reason I opened it up, but now I don’t remember why. But it was like opening up Pandora’s Box, because once it was opened, there was no going back! There were several family history books, but there were also many invaluable family mementos such as Uncle Phil’s medals, their WWII ration books and letters between my Great Uncle Phil and his grandmother during WWI (that's a whole 'nother blog post!). There were also dozens of clipped obituaries from many different newspapers, and someone had taken the time to make sure there was a date written on most of them. One such obituary was for Mary Aloise Canning. Mary’s mother, Ernestine Rose Vautrinot Canning was a younger sister of my great-grandmother, Grace Eugenie Vautrinot Wenz.

Here is the text of the obituary, from the Boston Globe, dated 4 Sep 1987:

          “DEDHAM – A funeral Mass was to be said Sept. 8 at St. Mary’s Church, Dedham, for Mary A. Canning, who died Sept. 4 at the Goddard Home, Jamaica Plain. She was 86.

          Born in Dedham, and a lifelong resident. She was a graduate of Massachusetts General Hospital Nursing School, Class of 1921. Miss Canning was employed at the hospital until 1941, when she joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. During World War II, she served in Casablanca, North, Africa, and assisted wounded troops through the Italian campaign, serving troops at Monte Cassino with distinction.

          Upon the conclusion of the war in Europe, she served in the Far East, arriving in Tokyo shortly after the Armistice was signed. She retained the rank of major when she retired. After she returned to Dedham, she worked as a public health nurse for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, retiring in 1967. Miss Canning was a member of the Dedham American Legion Post.

          She was the daughter of the late Thomas and Ernestine (Votreneau [sic]) and the aunt of Richard Canning of Wilmington, Del., Edward X. Canning of Fairfield Conn., Harry Canning of Hudson, Ohio, Thomas Canning of California and Rita Meuer of Hagerstown, Md.

          Arrangements were handled by the George F. Doherty & Sons Wilson-Cannon Funeral Hom, 456 High St., Dedham. Burial will take place at Brookdale Cemetery, Dedham.

Having an interest in military history, I was entranced to think someone with whom I was closely related played a critical part in such important campaigns in WWII. The more I read, the more I was impressed with her contributions and distressed to know that the involvement of these women has been so overlooked by history. I read an excellent work by Evelyn Monahan and Rosemarie Neidel-Greenlee entitled “And if I Perish,” which details their amazing service. When the troops landed in Africa, those nurses, including Mary Canning, were landing right next to them. Between Africa and Italy, they had two hospital ships bombed out from under them. In Italy, the nurses were delayed in landing for three days, but remained trapped with the troops on Anzio Beach, otherwise known as “Hell’s Half-Acre,” for the entire time of the German bombardment. This was the first time in U.S. Military history where nurses in uniform travelled just behind the combat troops, and in many ways, they were making it up as they went along.

Like Uncle Ned, she passed away before I was ever aware of her history. But I have been in correspondence with one of her nephews who graciously shared her photo with me. He told me that “she was a very outgoing person and liked to party. She spent much time keeping in touch with relatives. I don’t think she felt that all her activities were any hardship. She rather enjoyed all her adventures.”

 L-R Jack McLaughlin, Millie Irving Wenz, with her husband Fred Wenz behind her, Emily Wenz Morse, Mary Canning, Marie Wenz McLaughlin and Dot Irving Wenz (my grandmother). The occasion was probably the anniversary of the McLaughlins, taken at their home in Hanson, MA in 1975.

And I’ve just learned that I had actually met her in 1975! Oh, that I had known! Hopefully more research will reveal more details of her life and I’ll be able to update this post with more detail soon. 

Aunt Tille and the Wenz Family

Every family has at least one brickwall, and as many methods of climbing over them. One of my strategies was to write a family history of one of our lines that ended at that ancestor’s immigration into the United States.

What an undertaking it became! But it forced me to re-examine thirty years of evidence and helped me to find some clues I’d overlooked.

Twenty-six pages later, my data had congealed into a reasonably decent narrative that I felt I could share with family members, known and unknown. Now, how to distribute it? Since I’m currently out of work, it had to be very budget-friendly. Well, I had plenty of stamps and envelopes and access to online people searches – so I went looking for distant cousins. I started with just one line – the Maitlands. I had been in contact with one of the cousins years ago, and was dismayed to learn that he had since passed away. But his obituary listed the names and towns of his siblings and children, so I wrote six letters. Well, one of them hit paydirt! I heard from the granddaughter of Aunt Tillie, my great-grandfather’s older sister. Tillie had lived with them for a time after her husband passed away.

The cousin shared a few stories with me that contained some important clues, and I’ll share a few of them here:

“During the second WW, my Mom worked several hours a day in a cemetery greenhouse.  My Mom had the greenest thumb you could find.  So....Grandma Maitland took care of us kids, or vice versa many times.  She was funny, because she wanted the neighbors to think that she was earning her keep - she would stand in one place on the sidewalk with a broom in her hand and sweep periodically. That was long before senior residences.  Altho, when she lived with Uncle Bill in Delaware, she told me that to keep busy there, she would take the bus to the Nursing Home to visit the "girls".  She was 10 years older that most of them were, but they were her friends.  I remember visiting at her home when Grandpa was still living.  They had an old pump organ, which my kid brother and I loved.  We could not reach the peddles and the keys at the same time, so we took turns.  He would play while I pumped the peddle and then we would change places.  Didn't bother Grandma doing it that way. Grandma Maitland (Wenz) lived with us about 6 months of the year after Grandpa died.  She had two sons, William and Robert Laurie Maitland, Jr. (my dad).  They took turns caring for her until she died.  She told me, since I was the youngest and would listen, stories about growing up in her family.  She said that they never spoke anything but German until they went to school.  She taught me one little verse in German that they always insisted she learn and it still is with me a lot, and she told me about her brother and his understanding of American idioms.  He was chopping wood and seemed to struggle with it.  They told him he needed more "elbow grease".  The next thing they saw was her brother in the yard greasing his elbows.  I always assumed it was Uncle Ed, who may be your grandfather figure.  I remember him well, because he came once in a while to visit with Matilda.  He was a beautiful person - very large- and very gracious, especially with us a little kids.  He had the biggest hands I ever remember, but he was a farmer in the Boston area and I assumed that was his largest."

What a great peek inside my family history – the real people, not just the names and dates on a page! So, reach out to distant cousins – you’ll never know what you’ll find!

And the book? Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B47bUrlyCkJhRndzeGx3NlQ4eFk