Caleb Woodworth of Salisbury, Connecticut: Revolutionary Patriot? Part 2

In order to determine if Caleb Woodworth of Salisbury was a Revolutionary Patriot, I needed to determine if there was any merit to the original claim, that as an old man he served for 27 days at the Lexington Alarm. There definitely was a Caleb Woodworth who performed that service, but since he lived in Windham, Connecticut, I needed to determine if he was the same Caleb Woodworth who lived most of his life in Salisbury, CT. I had to see if for some reason, my Caleb had moved.

I first decided to try to determine a firm death date and place for Caleb, and could not: He did not leave a will (as per the Town Historian), and there is no known gravemarker or cemetery record for him or his wife. In addition, there was no indication of his death in the Salisbury church records.

The next step was to try to determine when Caleb could last be placed firmly in Salisbury, Connecticut. The town tax rolls showed that Caleb paid taxes regularly until 1773, the last year he appears on the Grand List for Salisbury.

Caleb had regular land transactions in Salisbury over the course of his life, and deeding property to his sons, including one very helpful deed to his son William, my ancestor, naming him as Caleb's son and stating William's residence at the time, Nine Partners, New York. The final land transaction I found for Caleb in Salisbury was recorded in 1775, however the deed itself was dated 26 March 1773, but not recorded until 23 August 1775. The witnesses were Caleb's sons, Cyrenius and Solomon, and the property was sold to Samuel Whitmore.

I checked with the town historian of Salisbury, who holds the volumes of Town Meeting Minutes. It turns out that the Minutes are all handwritten, and have never been indexed, so it was impossible to say when Caleb's last appearance was. She was able to send me two helpful items, though:

• A list of the Freemen in Salisbury records, which contained the names of both Caleb and his son Cyrenius. There is a notation next to Cyrenius' name indicating that he took the Oath of Fidelity "at a legal Freemen's meeting held in Salisbury on the 16th day of September AD 1777." There is no such notation next to Caleb's name.

"Note A" next to Cyrenus' name indicates he took the Oath of Fidelity.

• A copy of a small book of extracts from the Salisbury Town Meeting Minutes. The last mention of Caleb in this unindexed volume - which I read late into the night - is in 1769, and consists of this curios statement: "Voted that if this town is put to any cost by reason of the widow Hannah Owen and her child, then the selectmen are directed to put the bond against Caleb Woodworth for the security of this town in suit."

The Salisbury church helpfully provided me with the name of Hannah Owen's deceased husband, Joshua Woodworth Owen, a son of Caleb's sister Margaret Woodworth.

Finally, I searched area newspapers for mentions of Caleb Woodworth, but all I found was a reference to him on a list of Salisbury residents in a legal notice in 1771.

Finding nothing about Caleb after 1773 in Salisbury, there were two possible conclusions. The first is that he had died, sometime after 1773, but likely before 1777, when his son Cyrenius took the Oath of Fidelity, but Caleb, also a Freeman, did not.

The other possibility, of course, was that sometime after 1773,  Caleb moved to Windham.  I began my search with the 1790 Federal Census in Windham, to see if there were any Woodworths in the town at that time, and turned up a record for a "Catherine Woodward." She had two household members, both female. I was unable to locate anything further about her.  

1790 Federal Census listing for Catherine Woodward in Windham, Connecticut.

I checked with the Town Clerk of Windham, who searched the records and turned up this tantalizing tidbit: in 1776, a piece of land was purchased in Windham by a Caleb Woodworth from Elisha and Josiah Kingsley. Caleb is listed as "from Windham," and no wife is mentioned. Equally as unfortunate, no subsequent sale of the land was ever recorded. (The Town Clerk suggested that it might have been transferred later by an estate administrator and indexed under the administrator's name - in which case, good luck finding it.)

So there was a Caleb Woodworth, who served at Lexington in 1775 from the Town of Windham, and who bought property there the following year. However, neither record provides any detail that might identify him as being the Caleb of Salisbury - although I note that nothing about the dates eliminates the possibility that Caleb moved (after 1773, his final appearance in Salisbury).

The only other thought I had was this: If Caleb moved from Salisbury to Windham, at the age of 69 or more, the likeliest reason would be that he went to live with one of his children. I turned my attention next to Caleb and Jane's eleven children to see if any of them appeared in the Windham area:

• Gershom (b. 1728) moved to New York State, where he served in the 16th Regiment, Albany Militia with brother William (b. 1735) during the revolution. There was a rather tantalizing clue in the records here: a Caleb Woodworth served alongside these two brothers. Further research, however, showed this to be Gershom's son Caleb, born 1763.
• Jane (b. 1730) married Jacob Turner; he died in 1762; their son William provided supplies to the Revolutionary cause.
• Ephraim (b. 1732) moved to the Saratoga, NY, area, where he served in 13th Regiment, Albany Militia. Brother Amos (b. 1741) served with him. 
• Cyrenus (b. 1736) remained in Salisbury, where he took the Oath of Allegiance in 1777.
• Freelove (b. 1738) married Jessie Chatfield; he may be the Jesse Chatfield who served alongside Ephraim and Amos Woodworth in the 13th Regiment, Albany Militia.
• Sarah (b. 1743) married Jonathan Canfield, who may have served alongside brother-in-law Selah Woodworth  (b. 1750), according to Fulton County records. 
• Deliverance (b. 1745) appears only on a birth record; nothing further.
• Solomon (b. 1748) was killed in battle in Fulton County, NY in 1781.

Two things are clear: First, Caleb's family was unquestionably on the American side during the Revolution, and second, none of Caleb's family was near Windham. Only two of his children even remained in Connecticut, Jane and Cyrenus. I tried to track daughter Jane after her husband's death, since Killingworth is only about an hour from Windham, but it seems likely that Jane remained in the Killingworth area; her son, at least, continued to live there.


Although there are additional research possibilities, my sense is this: Caleb transferred much of his property to his sons (as shown in land records), and sold the rest, so there was no need for a will. His wife Jane is believed to have died in 1774, and Caleb falls off the tax rolls in 1773. It seems likely that around that time period, Caleb and his wife moved in with their son Cyrenus, who remained in Salisbury and is buried there at the Town Hill Cemetery.
Of course, there is always more searching that may turn up other information, or at least pinpoint his death date:

• Church records in Windham may reveal more information about Caleb Woodworth and Catherine Woodward (who may not be connected at all)
• Caleb Woodworth of Windham may be mentioned in another soldier's pension
• Salisbury church records may help pinpoint Caleb's death date, if he served as a sponsor at a baptism, for example, or they took a membership listing
• Salisbury land records may show Caleb witnessing deeds after 1773, which could help pinpoint his date of death

It seems likely, given his children's strong allegiance to the American cause during the Revolution, that Caleb Woodworth would have been a patriot, if he was alive at the time of the Revolution. Where would you search next?

Caleb Woodworth of Salisbury, Connecticut: Revolutionary Patriot? Part 1

My Revolutionary War ancestor is a man by the name of William Woodworth (1735-1814), who served as a captain at the Battle of Saratoga in the Revolutionary War. I proved my connection to him through his splendidly-named daughter Freelove to the satisfaction of the Daughters of the American Revolution. It was no small feat, but once it was done, I looked through my notes to see what other Revolutionary heroes I could claim as my own.

William's parents were Caleb Woodworth and Jane Munger, about whom I have the following information from a Woodworth family history:

Caleb Woodworth and his wife, Jane Munger, with several children removed to Salisbury, Conn., in 1738, and was the first white man with a family to settle in the vicinity of Ore Hill, near the New York line. Jane was one of the first members of the Salisbury church, and ninth on the list in 1744, being received by letter from Lebanon, Conn. Caleb was tythingman (1744). Freeman (1744), Surveyor of roads (1753), Grand Juror.

From the New England  Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 54, pp. 46-48:
"Caleb Woodworth lived  a long and eventful life. He furnished five sons to the patriotic cause in the Revolutionary War, and  although an old man at the time of the conflict, he  turned out with his musket at the Lexington Alarm and through the long struggle  after younger men had taken his place in the line, he served the country by furnishing teams and supplies to the Continental Army.  His sons, as  well as himself, were distinguished in the French and Indian Wars and his son Gershom won special mention for his valor against the Indians." 

The Congregational Church of Salisbury, from a vintage postcard. 

Caleb and Jane Woodworth were among the earliest members.

Although there is a Caleb Woodworth listed in the DAR patriot database, he is not my Caleb - the dates are wrong. (A bit of research revealed he was the son of Gershom Woodworth.) My Caleb, born in 1704 to Benjamin and Hannah Woodworth in Lebanon, Connecticut, was listed as a patriot with the Sons of the American Revolution - but on a very old application, and a bit of searching on the internet reveals that, more recently, the SAR has declined to accept the proof of military service submitted for Caleb.

I checked with the SAR, asking if they had the information they had accepted on that very old application.  Although they still had the original application, they informed me that there was no supporting evidence for it, so it was not likely to be much use.

My next stop was the New England Historic Genealogical Society, where I looked up the very specific Register citation mentioned above - one which is included, verbatim, in every book that mentions Caleb Woodworth.

And here is the heart of the problem: One that volume and page number of the NEHGR, the oft-cited text about Caleb Woodworth does not appear. Rather, on page 46 begins a history of the descendants of Nicholas Munger. On page 48, there is a passing mention of Jane Munger, Caleb's wife, stating the name of her husband, Caleb Woodworth, and her father, Samuel Munger.

That's it.

I searched all the past editions of the NEHGR for information about Caleb in the Revolution: still nothing. 

Did Caleb serve in the Revolutionary War? And if he did, did he serve at the Lexington Alarm as stated in the non-existent article that everyone quotes from?

It gets, if possible, even muddier from that point. My original notes about Caleb, received from a cousin, include two possible dates of death: 30 May 1780, but also a date in 1775. Jane, meanwhile, died in 1774. In other words, it is entirely possible Caleb was not even alive at the time of the Revolution. No source is given for either date.

I begin to retrieve every record I can find regarding Caleb Woodworth of Salisbury, Connecticut. Among the items I locate: In Record of Service of Connecticut Men in the War of the Revolution, on page 26, there is a reference to a service at the Lexington Alarm by a Caleb Woodworth  - of Windham, Connecticut. Windham is two hours from Salisbury - today, by car.

The list of questions I have about Caleb Woodworth seems to get longer and longer:

• When did Caleb die and where is he buried?
• Did Caleb Woodworth of Salisbury serve at the Lexington Alarm? Is he the same man as Caleb of Windham?
• If they are not the same man, is there any service for Caleb of Salisbury that can be proved?

Vintage Death Trip: Mrs. Mary Kunse In A Trance

When researching, I often run across colorful, if somewhat grim, news items from the past - and I hate to keep them to myself, so I'm posting them here from time to time, filed under the category Vintage Death Trip.

This item was from the Goshen Weekly News, 12 October 1805.

Identifying Unmarked Family Photos: Charles and Anna Schmidt

The photo below is Charles Schmidt (1860-1942) and his wife Anna Mueller (possibly Miller) (1864-1956). It was probably taken on their wedding day, judging by the flowers on his lapel. Charles Schmidt was the brother of my great-grandfather, Frank Schmidt, and the photo was given to me by Frank's daughter, Agnes, who was my grandmother. Charles and Frank were raised in Greenville, Wisconsin, which is not far from New London where, judging by the photographer's mark, the photo was taken.

I know the above photo is Charles and Anna Schmidt because my grandmother, who knew them well, told me; perhaps more importantly, she also wrote it on the back of the photograph. I probably would not have remembered their names when I rediscovered the photo in a box some years later - after Agnes had died.

The photo below did not come to me from immediate family. This was in the album owned by a distant cousin - who did not know anything about her family history, and thus, the names that were written on some of the pictures were meaningless to her, making identifying the photos from her scans and emails very challenging. 

Before trying to identify anything from the album, I took a look at the lineage of the woman who originally owned it - my grandmother's first cousin, Mary. Mary was descended from Charles A. Schmidt, the elder brother of my great-grandfather Frank Smith; both were the sons to Anton Joseph Schmidt and his wife, Theresa Kommer. An album belonging to a descendant of Charles would also likely contain images of Anna's family - the Mullers. Depending on who originally owned the album, it could potentially contain images of other, more distant relations, as well.

The photo below is the first one Mary's daughter sent me, and I realized very quickly it was not the one I was looking for - the children were all wrong. I was looking for, I believed, a family group that included my great-grandfather, Frank - but Frank had two older sisters, which immediately ruled out this photo. There were also not enough children - the blended family of Theresa and Franz Joseph Kneisel was huge.

In looking more closely at the photo, though, I noticed that the order and ages of the children, based on census records, was entirely correct to the Charles and Anna Schmidt. Their children were: Frank (B. 1886), Emma (b. 1888), Edward (b. 1889), John (b. 1892), and Elizabeth (b. 1894). 

I noted also that the photo was taken at a studio in Appleton, not far from where Charles and Anna lived (in New London, according to census records). Holding up the two photos side by side, it certainly appears as though it could be the same couple, aged about ten years - which would be about right, as the wedding photo and family photo are about ten years apart.

I had the good fortune to have yet another photo in my own collection:

This one is also from my grandmother. The woman on the right I know to be her sister, my great-aunt Emma Smith. The photo is is marked on the back "This is Emma Smith and her cousin on her father's side." I had long suspected that the cousin in question was Emma Schmidt - and looking at the woman on the left, and comparing her to the little girl in the family picture, it seems likely it is the same girl. Their fathers were very close, and the girls - both named Emma - were born within a year of each other.

I am confident that the family group is the Charles Schmidt family, based on the source of the album, the comparison to a known photo of the the family, and the census records for the family. It was nice to get confirmation of my suspicion that the cousin in the second photo was who I thought it might be.

Review: The Genealogist's Internet, by Peter Christian

We live in an era when genealogy has become much more accessible to the masses, due to fact that so many records are being indexed and digitized, and now are available online - and with more coming available each day. There's a downside to this, of course: It can be overwhelming to know where to start, or where to go next. For those researching in the United Kingdom, though, there is a helpful guide to online resources:  The Genealogist's Internet: The Essential Guide to Researching Your Family History Online, by Peter Christian.  The book was produced by the National Archives, is now in its fifth edition, and is primarily focused on records from that area. It is an excellent resource for anyone researching in that part of the world.

The book is broken into chapters focused on the different types of resources (military, census, church, tax). Each section includes an explanation of the types of records you can expect to find, and how to interpret and use those records. It then explains the various online record repositories broken out geographically, with useful information on the strengths and weaknesses of each collection, as well as cost information where needed. 

Those who are new to UK and Irish research will find this book an invaluable tool. There are explanations of numerous types of records that are unique to the United Kingdom, such as:

• Civil registrations - when they began, how to locate them, and what may be found in them
• Records related to England's colonial period, such as those related to transportation of convicts
• Occupations, including both an explanation of the various terms and where to look for company and trade union records  
• The unique problems posed by Irish records, such as the anglicization of names

I found the explanations of the different records types to be full of information that would help keep research focused and productive. The section on church information explains why many collections are incomplete or unavailable; however, it also goes into things like church courts - a record type I would never have thought to look for because I never knew such a thing existed. They sound like interesting records, too: matrimonial disputes, and disputes between clergy and parishioners, often about tithes.

The book  also has sections that discuss general difficulties encountered in using technology to conduct genealogical research, such as indexing errors, how to conduct different types of searches (wildcard versus Soundex, etc), and recommendations on how to handle various file types one might wish to download and store. There are even chapters covering internet etiquette and privacy issues. 

Finally, the authors thought ahead: Since  The Genealogist's Internet  provides hundred of web addresses, all of which can change in the blink of an eye, they have created a website of all the links in the book - which will be updated as links change. 

The Genealogist's Internet is much more than a collection of links, though: It is a well-researched,  comprehensive, accessible research aid for anyone who wishes to conduct genealogical research in Great Britain and Ireland. Recommended.

Generous Genealogy: Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness - Again

I adored Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. For those of you who never experienced it, it was a genealogy site full of volunteers who charged no more than gas and copying costs - and many times, not even that - to retrieve records someplace that they had access to ... but you did not.

It was a simple site - nothing fancy - but those of us who used it didn't need anything fancy. We needed a trip to the courthouse or an archive or a cemetery that was too far away for us to get to. The volunteers were often more than helpful: since they knew the area, they would direct you not only to things you were looking for, but quite often suggested things that you might not have been aware of.

The site disappeared a while back when the person who organized it died. I was sad to see it go.

Someone should do something like that again, I thought - and so they have: A website called Generous Genealogists has sprung up, and put out a call for volunteers. Modeled on the original Random Acts website - but a touch more elegant-looking - the site is free to use.

If you have the time or ability to help them out - please go volunteer. It's almost as much a thrill to help someone else break through their brick wall, as it is to break through one of your own.

I wish the team at Generous Genealogists every success, and I'm excited to follow their progress and development.

Have you volunteered for Generous Genealogists? Please share your story in the comments.

Identifying Unmarked Family Photos: Theresa Kommer Schmidt Kneisel

I wrote previously about my frustrations in trying to identify a photo from an old album of unmarked family photographs. I was so disheartened by the experience that I stopped researching that part of the family for nearly two years.

Only on my recent discovery of an error I had made on Theresa Kommer's death date did I decide to revisit that part of the family. I ran across a very old post on the Fox Valley Genealogical Society website that provided me with the clue I needed to finally begin tracing Theresa's line back to Europe. I contacted the woman who had made the post, who was descended from Theresa's daughter Elizabeth - my great-grandfather Frank's older sister. The original poster offered to send me a copy of her research folder, and I requested "any photos she might have of that part of the family." I received a thick sheaf of documents, and an assortment of family photos, including this one:

Theresa Kommer and her second husband, Franz Joseph Kneisel. 

Photo taken about 1890.

She also included photographs of Anna Kneisel, the daughter of the couple above, and Elizabeth Schmidt, from Theresa's first marriage.

Elizabeth Schmidt Melzer Bauer (1854-1931)

Interestingly, when I went back to the photos I had received from the unmarked album, one was a duplicate: A wedding photo of Anna Kneisel was in both sets.

I put the the photo that I knew for sure was Theresa and her second husband, next to the photo I believed might be Theresa and her second husband, to see if I could make a final determination:

Are these the same people, aged ten years? 

(Left: FJ Kneisel and Theresa Kommer; Right: Scan #5.)

I'm still not sure. It is especially difficult to compare the two as neither of the pictures is an especially good quality scan. There is nothing super-obvious to link the two pairs, no matching jewelry, clothing, photo studio, etc.

I asked my cousin Linda her opinion, and she compared both photos and said she wasn't sure, either. She did, however, make another side-by-side comparison:

The resemblance is striking, is it not? I see two possibilities: First, that the photo on the left is of a much older Elizabeth Schmidt; or, that the photo is, as I think, Elizabeth Schmidt's mother Theresa Kommer. The unidentified photo was taken in Appleton, and both women lived there.

The problem with the idea of the photo on the left being Elizabeth Schmidt and one of her husbands is this: She wasn't very lucky in her marriages. Her first husband (Bernard Melzer) died not long after they married; and she divorced her second husband (Anton Bauer) after a brief marriage - the 1905 census shows them living in separate households. She did not marry a third time, so it is unlikely there is a photo of her in her old age with a husband.

It seems very likely to me that The Unidentified Couple of "Scan #5" really is Franz Joseph Kneisel and Theresa Kommer. What do you think?

Brick Wall Breakthroughs: Theresa Kommer Schmidt Kneisel

For a long time, my storied ancestor Theresa Kommer Schmidt Kneisel has represented a brick wall in my research: No death certificate or obituary that I could locate, no indication on the ship's manifest as to her town of origin, and the added problem of having a husband named "Schmidt" - hardly an unusual name. But recently, I noticed that I had her death date incorrect in my records. I had a date of 1900, but noticed she was listed in a town directory as late as 1908, and a biography of her son Charles published in a town history gave a death date of 1908. I realized that if I had made an error with such a simple fact, I had not even begun to do my work on Theresa, and decided to go back and start pulling together more facts about Theresa.

I decided to start with the most interesting place: The trial of Joshua Wilson, the Stockbridge Indian who murdered Theresa's husband Joseph, my great-great-grandfather, in 1863. I contacted the Cofrin Library Area Research Center, which I have worked with in the past to retrieve old wills and divorce records. The Archivist told me that yes, there were still court records from that era, but asked if I could pin down the trial date more precisely as those early records were not indexed.

Identifying Unmarked Family Photos: Theresa Kommer Schmidt Kneisel

Many years ago, on my annual Wisconsin Christmas visit, my grandmother took me to visit a cousin in Appleton - a woman whose exact relationship to us was always a little fuzzy to me. This cousin, Mary, had a large photo album filled with ancient photos, and we paged through the album slowly and carefully. Some of the photos I recognized - my great-grandparents, Frank and Anna. One of the photos was of my great-great-grandmother, Theresa Kommer.

It was quite astonishing to see a picture of a woman with such a compelling history. It is easy to conjure up visions of the hardship of her life: Theresa grieving for her murdered husband, far from her homeland and family, being forced to remarry out of necessity, and living out the rest of her life in great sadness. I don't recall thinking she looked sad though. I do remember wishing I could stare her picture for hours.

I wanted to make a copy of the photo, but Mary refused. This was in the days before scanners, and I imagine she did not trust a 16-year-old girl to safely return her family treasures. I promptly forgot about the whole thing until a couple of years ago.

Thriller Thursday - Wisconsin Death Trip: Theresa Kommer Schmidt Kneisel

Theresa Kommer has an extraordinary story. She was born 24 June, 1827, according to her gravemarker; in 1858, she and her husband Anton Joseph Schmidt and their first four children emigrated to Wisconsin from Bohemia, according to a passenger list for the Adler that I located on Ancestry.

Anton Joseph Schmidt and wife Theresa came to America from Bohemia aboard the Adler in 1858. They left via the port of Bremen; sadly, the Bremen records were destroyed.

Upon arriving in Wisconsin, the family settled in on a farm in Greenville and had two more children, the youngest of whom, Frank, was my great-grandfather. The new life they came for, however, didn't last long. On January 2, 1863, less than five years after their arrival, Anton Joseph Schmidt was shot and killed by a drunk Stockbridge Indian, Joshua Wilson. The murder caused quite a bit of excitement in the town; the events were all preserved for posterity in highly emotive Victorian prose in the local newspapers.

 From the Appleton Post-Crescent, 1863. 

Tech Tuesday - Transcript Transcribing Software

One of my least favorite tasks in my genealogy is transcribing old handwritten documents. To begin with, there are the difficulties reading the old quill-written longhand, understanding much of the language (chains and rods, anyone?), and then doing battle with the often poor quality of the scans we must work from. But then you must either:

1. load the scanned image on your computer in an image-viewing program, and toggle back and forth between windows - read and interpret in one window, toggle to word processing program and type, and back again.
2. print out the scanned old document and prop it up next to your monitor while you type. Usually this is accompanied by a problem, for example, the hard to read text shrinks down to fit the size of paper you are printing on, which is much smaller than the original book.

What you really want is to have a split screen, so that you have both the image and the word processing right there on the monitor screen together. I guess you could open two windows at the same time (one for word processing and one for image viewing) and re-size them on your monitor, but even that doesn't quite work right.

Anyway, you don't have to, and the best part is, it won't cost you.

Wisconsin Death Trip: Gladys Wright, 1907-1923

The death of a child is wrenching, even nearly a hundred years later, and even to those who never knew the children or their parents. There is a always special kind of heartbreak that goes along with a young life lost. Although the obituary of Gladys Wright, age 16, tells a sad story, there is only a hint - easily missed - of the whole story: "She is survived by her parents and one brother." 

The Family Business: Electric Motor Service Co., Appleton, WI.

I have submitted this post for inclusion in the Carnival of Genealogy, sponsored by The Creative Gene. All contributors' posts can be seen by August 4. The topic for this edition is Business and Commerce.

That handsome fellow in the photo is my grandfather, Howard Herrman (1901-1978), and the business behind him is the one he owned and ran: the Electric Motor Service Co., in Appleton, Wisconsin. I was only in his shop once, in the mid-1970's, when it was being cleared out and shut down. I asked my mother for her recollections:

Dad's business was located at 116 N. Superior St., between College Ave. and Lawrence St. near the entrance to Jones Park. His main business was repairing electric motors, but he also sold new and used motors and parts.

It was a rather greasy place, since all motors require oiling, greasing, etc., so Dad always warned us to be careful where we moved, and what we touched, because Mom would yell at him (and at us) if we came home with grease on our clothes. Nevertheless, we all loved the place. It was calm and quiet and the only place to have a private conversation with Dad, since at home Mother always listened in. If one of Dad's friends happened to be there, we also could hear more adult conversations about politics, local issues, business problems, etc. -- topics that were rarely discussed at home.

(My three sisters and I)  learned to type as we entered high school, and Dad "hired" us to work in the shop once a week or so, preparing invoices and typing business letters. It was good experience, preparing us for jobs in offices when we finished school and helping to prepare me for college.

We frequently dropped in at the shop when we were downtown shopping or running errands and needed a ride home. No matter how busy he was, Dad always seemed happy to see us and would chat as he worked.

Dad rented the little building his shop occupied for many years -- before he met and married our mother, until I was away at the university. Apparently the elderly owner of the property died, and the new owner wanted to raise the rent beyond what Dad wanted to pay, so he then moved to South Superior St., the store now occupied by a bicycle shop.

The photo above must have been the original shop, because I found an ad for the second location in a 1958 Appleton newspaper through NewspaperArchive.com:

That appears to be the address on the picture below, which was from my grandfather's collection. He was an avid amateur photographer and kept a darkroom in the basement at the house.

It was interesting to hear my mother describe her father's business as the place where she could have a private conversation with him, and I know the reason why: Howard's younger brother told me that Howard did not allow his wife to set foot in his shop. He considered it his domain, and "no wife of his was going to interfere" there. Apparently, that rule did not apply to his four daughters.