Max Ralph Butter

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Max Ralph Butter

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Max Ralph Butter was born on August 2, 1898, at 33 Oneida Street in Boston’s South End (today the location of the Ink Block development). His parents, Harry and Annie (Iascovich or Covich) Butter were born in Russia. They each immigrated to the United States in the 1890s and married in Boston in 1897. Max had five younger siblings: Edith born in 1900, Charly in 1903, Melvin in 1905, Minnie in 1908, and Joseph in 1909. Charly died in 1904 of tuberculous peritonitis (or tuberculosis of the abdomen).

Harry was a metal dealer. In 1901, he formed his own company, Harry Butter and Co., Inc., smelters and refiners. By 1913, the company was located at its long-time location, 151 Mount Vernon Street in Dorchester (today part of the land belonging to JFK/UMASS station). The metal distribution arm was known as the Butter Sales Corp.

By September 1898, the Butters had moved about two blocks from Max’s birthplace, to 8 Genesee Street. They remained in the neighborhood for the next couple years, living at 49 Oswego Street in 1900 and 13 Oswego in 1901. They relocated to Dorchester in 1902, residing at 10 Howell Street. Six years later they were living at 71 Fayston Street in Roxbury. They moved to 19 Wolcott Street in Dorchester in 1909. The following year, they purchased 57 McLellan Street in Dorchester, the family home for almost twenty years. The 1910 census recorded that they employed a maid, nineteen-year-old Lena Hazelton, a recent Russian immigrant.

Max graduated from the English High School of Boston. He attended Northeastern College his freshman year, studying Chemical Engineering. By June 1917, he was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On October 2, 1918, he entered the United States Naval Reserve Force, enrolling at the Navy Recruiting Station in Boston. He served in the Naval Unit at MIT until November 11, 1918. He was placed on inactive duty on December 18, 1918, then honorably discharged due to “lack of funds.” In recognition of his service, Max’s name was included on a memorial tablet at Congregation Beth-El on Fowler Avenue, Dorchester, which aimed to “perpetuate the names of her sons who were ready to pay the supreme sacrifice in the World War.” Max graduated from MIT with the class of 1921. After graduation, Max continued living at 57 McLellan Street. He worked in sales for wholesale shoe companies, his profession through the mid-1930s.

On June 9, 1927, Max married Helen O. Miller in Providence, Rhode Island. Helen was a native Rhode Islander, and they settled in the state. They had two children, Audrey and Charles. By 1935, they lived at 129 Adelaide Avenue in Providence. In 1940, the census recorded they rented their home for $45 a month and employed a live-in maid, Mable Mitton of New Hampshire. They moved to 126 Warrington Street, Providence in 1942. Three years later, the Butters relocated to the Boston area, to 221 Chestnut Hill Avenue in Brighton. By 1950, they were living in Newton, Massachusetts, at 58 Royce Road. In the late 1960s, they moved to 55 Audubon Drive in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Max had joined the family business around 1940. That year, he earned $2,000. Initially he was a salesman and metallurgist. By the mid-1960s, he was president of the company. He continued to be listed in Boston directories as the president of the company into the 1980s, though Newton directories listed him as retired by the mid-1970s.

Max died in Boston on September 11, 1992. He was buried in Linwood Memorial Park in Randolph, Massachusetts. Memorial observance was held at his late residence. When Helen died in 1997 she, too, was buried in Linwood Memorial Park.

Sources

Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; Ancestry.com

Marstall, Chris. “A Neighborhood Named for … New York?,” Boston Globe. 19 April 2012: K12; ProQuest.com

Naturalization Records. National Archives at Boston, Waltham, MA.; Ancestry.com

Family Tree; Ancestry.com

“Harry Butter, 89,” Boston Globe, 21 November 1963: 21; Newspapers.com

“Notice of A Remedial Action Plan,” Boston Globe, 6 December 2003: 92; Newspapers.com

Boston directories, various years; Ancestry.com

1900, 1910, 1920, 1940 U.S. Federal Census; Ancestry.com

The Cauldron, 1917: The Annual of the Co-operative School of Engineering of North Eastern College, Volume One. Boston, MA; Archive.org

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Military, Compiled Service Records. World War I. Carded Records. Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard.

“To Pay Tribute to Sons in the War,” Boston Globe, 28 November 1919: 14; Newspapers.com

“Deceased,” Technology Review, Volume 97, Number 3, April 1994. Cambridge, MA. Association of Alumni and Alumnae of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994; Archive.org

Richardson, Dennett L. Alphabetical Index of the Births, Marriages and Deaths Recorded in Providence, Vol XXII, Part II K-Z Marriages from 1921 to 1930 Inclusive. Providence, RI: The Oxford Press, 1932; Archive.org

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

City of Newton, Assessed Polls. Various years; Archive.org

Newton directories, various years; Archive.org

State of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Death Index, 1970-2003. Boston, MA, USA: Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Health Services, 2005; Ancestry.com

“Deaths,” Boston Globe, 13 Sept 1992: 52; Newspapers.com

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Robert Towle Burr

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Robert Towle Burr

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Robert Towle Burr was born in Dorchester on April 12, 1896. His parents, Charles Sargent Burr and Annie L. (Towle) were Bostonians with ancestral connections to northern New England; Charles’s mother had been born in Maine, and Annie’s parents were from New Hampshire. Charles and Annie were married in Roxbury in July 1891. They had two other sons: Kenneth born in 1893, and Malcolm in 1901. Charles spent his career with Bowditch and Clapp, a wholesale millinery business, eventually becoming treasurer of the company. The family owned 9 Walton Street in Codman Square, where, in 1900, they employed a live-in servant. 

Robert entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, in 1915. A member of the class of 1919, he pledged Theta Delta Chi and was the captain of the hockey team. In the spring of 1917, he enlisted in the American Field Service, a volunteer ambulance service begun in 1915, which worked directly with the French military, evacuating wounded from the front. Volunteers were generally financially secure, college-educated men. They were required to pay their own passage to Europe and purchase a uniform. An advertisement for the Field Service listed basic qualifications: “American Citizenship–Good Health–Clean Record–Ability to drive Automobiles (superficial knowledge of repair work an advantage).”

Robert was issued a passport on May 31, 1917, and sailed from New York on June 9. He served in “Section Sanitaire Unis 68,” primarily made up of New England college men. The largest group came from Amherst College, but there were also men from Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, even Milton Academy. Robert was one of four Bowdoin students. In July 1917, Section 68 began serving on the Western Front; Robert served with the unit for three months.

He then joined the United States Air Service. In October 1917, he returned to the United States for training, sailing from Bordeaux, France, on the SS Rochambeau. He enlisted on December 8, 1917, and trained at Call Field in Wichita Falls, Texas, attaining the rank of Second Lieutenant on August 29, 1918. In October, he was sent to Cadet Aviation, Camp Dick, in Dallas, Texas. He was discharged on December 19, 1918. 

The 1920 census reported Robert living at home and attending school. In 1925, he began a career with the New England Bolt Company of Everett, “manufacturers of wrought and cast iron of every description.” By 1928, he was a treasurer with the company, which was described as a “family business” in his obituary.

On April 26, 1923, Robert married Margery (sometimes spelled Marjorie) Southack, a copywriter, of 30 Moultrie Street, Dorchester. They were married in Dorchester by Reverend Adelbert L. Hudson of the First Parish Church on Meeting House Hill. They initially settled in Arlington, Massachusetts, at 19 Chandler Street. In 1925, they moved to Winchester, the town Robert lived in for the rest of his life, where they purchased 50 Glen Road. Twelve years later, they bought 71 Wildewood Street, about three-quarters of a mile from their previous home. The couple had three children: Malcom, Philip, and Virginia. During World War II, Malcom was a B-17 Flying Fortress bombardier with the 351st Bombardment Group.

By the early 1950s, it appears Robert and his wife were living apart. Articles in the Winchester Star report Robert living at 314 Highland Avenue and Margery living in Boston. They do not appear to have formally divorced; she was named as his wife in his obituary.

Robert moved to 1 Fenwick Road by the late 1950s. At the end of his life he lived at 200 Swanton Street. Robert died suddenly in Winchester on December 19, 1972.

Sources

Birth Record, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911–1915. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com

Family Tree; Ancestry.com

US Federal Census, 1900, 1910, 1920; Ancestry.com

“Honor Bowditch, 50 Years Head of Firm,” Boston Globe, 5 Jan 1932: 21; Newspapers.com

Woodman, Ernest S., Ed. The Directory of Directors in the City of Boston and Vicinity, Boston: The Bankers Service Company, 1911; 444; Books.Google.com

Bowdoin Orient, Brunswick, ME, 5 October 1915; Archive.org

“Pick Dorchester Boy,” Boston Globe, 3 March 1917: 5; Newspapers.com

Selected Passports. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C., 28 May 1917-31 May 1917; Ancestry.com

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

“Prologue: The First Steps,” “Roster OF VOLUNTEERS OF THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE IN FRANCE, 1915-16-17,” “History of The American Field Service in France, Appendices,” & “Roster, SSU 68,” The AFS Story; ourstory.info

“Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957,” Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Year: 1917; Ancestry.com

Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Ancestry.com

“United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940,” St. Louis: National Archives and Records Administration, 1985, FamilySearch.org

Field Service Bulletin, 20 April 1918, number 41, 21 Rue Raynouard, Paris; Archive.org

Air Service Journal, 26 September 1918; Air Service Journal, 3 October 1918, Books.Google.com

General Catalogue of Bowdoin College and the Medical School of Maine, Sesquicentennial Edition. Brunswick, ME, 1950; Archive.org

“Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915,” Massachusetts State Archives; FamilySearch.org

“Real Estate Notes,” Winchester Star (Winchester MA) 4 December 1925: 1; Archive.org

“Deeds, Middlesex County,” Boston Globe, 3 Sept 1937: 39; Newspapers.com

Notice, Winchester Star (Winchester MA), 25 February 1938: 4; Archive.org

World War II Draft Cards (Fourth Registration) for the State of Massachusetts; Records of the Selective Service System; Ancestry.com

“Wins Second Oak Leaf Cluster,” Winchester Star (Winchester MA) 12 January 1945; 2; Archive.org

“Obituaries: Robert T Burr,” Winchester Star, 21 December 1972; 2; Archive.org

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Frank Hastings Burns

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Frank Hastings Burns

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Frank Hastings Burns was born on February 22, 1889, in Damariscotta, Maine, to Helen (Hastings), known as Nellie, and Lewis R. Burns. Both parents were born in Bristol, Maine. They married in Boston on July 3, 1884. At the time of his marriage, Lewis was a mariner.

In 1900, Frank lived in Bristol, Maine, with his paternal grandmother, Betsy Burns, and his uncle Robert, a fish peddler. His parents were in Boston; Nellie lodged at 7 Albion Street, while Lewis worked as a railroad break-man and lived with his brother, a buggy-maker, at 37 Gray Street. Nellie died of variola, or smallpox, on April 22, 1902, in the midst of Boston’s last smallpox epidemic. After a twelve-day illness, she died at the Southampton Street Detention Hospital, the primary hospital in the city treating smallpox patients. Her residence was recorded as 7 Webster Avenue. In June 1902, Frank’s maternal grandfather, Frank G. Hastings, was appointed his guardian. That September, Lewis petitioned the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for guardianship “of Frank H. Burns of Boston … minor.” In 1904, as guardian of Frank’s estate, Lewis sold property in Maine of which Frank was a partial owner.

Frank attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, class of 1911, where he pledged Zeta Psi.

After graduation he worked for the New York Telephone Company in New York City. In June 1917, Frank was living with his father at 35 Colonial Avenue near Codman Square and working for the Boston Advertiser Company of 309 Washington Street, Boston.

Frank enlisted in the Regular Army on December 12, 1917. He served in the 21st Photo Section, Air Service, Military Aeronautics. A Boston Globe article listing recent recruits reported Frank enlisted as a “photographer for Aviation Section.” Air Service Photographic Sections, comprised of an officer and 24 men, developed and interpreted aerial reconnaissance photographs taken by pilots or observers in airplanes or observation balloons. These photographs were used for planning bombardments or attacks, and were often made into composite photographic maps. From his career in advertising, Frank may have known how to create composite photographic images and photo layouts, and perhaps had experience taking and developing photographs.

Frank sailed overseas on October 16, 1918, leaving from Hoboken, New Jersey, on the USS Agamemnon. He was promoted to Sergeant on November 1, 1918. In February 1919, he returned to the United States, departing on the first of the month from Saint-Nazaire, France, sailing on the SS Kroonland, and arriving on February 18. After demobilization at Camp Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts, Frank was discharged on March 21, 1919.

Frank returned to 35 Colonial Avenue, and in 1920 he was an advertising agent for a newspaper. His father continued to work as a break-man for a steam railroad. Also living with them was Frank’s aunt, Nellie M. Fassett, who was a housekeeper for a private family.

On February 9, 1922, Frank married Kate Williams in Cambridge. Originally from Bangor, Maine, Kate was living in Cambridge and working as a saleswoman. They were married by Reverend Raymond Calkins of the Congregationalist First Church in Cambridge. The couple had two daughters, Betsy and Margaret.

Frank and Kate initially lived at 376 Riverway in Boston. In 1928, Frank was hired by the B.C. Forbes Publishing Company of 120 Fifth Avenue, New York City, publishers of Forbes magazine. Starting out as an advertising representative, Frank spent the rest of his career with the company, rising to Vice-President and Director of Advertising of Public Relations in 1951. In 1940, he made $5,000 a year.

After Frank took the job with B.C. Forbes, he and his family moved to Mount Vernon, in Westchester County, New York. By 1930, they lived on Beechtree Lane in the Bronxville section of Eastchester, New York, their home for twenty years. On August 31, 1950, Kate died at age 56.

In the 1950s, his daughters attended Colby College and Frank was active with the Colby College Parents Association. Frank was also a member of the State of Maine Society of New York, serving as the organization’s vice-president. By the early 1960s, Frank was splitting his time between Bronxville and Warren, Maine. He moved fulltime to Warren by the mid-1960s. At the end of his life he was a resident of Americana Healthcare Center in Lafayette, Indiana, near to his daughter Margaret, who lived in West Lafayette.

In the spring of 1984, Frank fractured his hip. During his recovery at Saint Elizabeth Hospital Medical Center in Lafayette, Indiana, Frank died of a heart attack on April 9, 1984, at age 95. He was cremated at the West Haven Memorial Park Crematory in Lafayette and buried in the Bristol Mills Cemetery in Bristol, Maine.

Sources

Lewis Burns and Nellie Hastings marriage record, Massachusetts, Marriage Records 1840-1915, New England Historic Genealogical Society; Boston, Massachusetts; Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911–1915; Ancestry.com

U.S. Federal Census, 1900, 1920, 1930, 1940; Ancestry.com 

Nellie Hastings Burns death record; Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com

Maine County, District and Probate Courts, Probate Place: Lincoln, Maine; Ancestry.com

General Catalogue of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME: Bowdoin College, 1912; Ancestry.com

Zeta Psi Fraternity Pocket Directory, 1912; Ancestry.com

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Military, Compiled Service Records. World War I. Carded Records. Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard.

“Shipload of T-N-T, Potsdamn Via Belgium,” Boston Globe, 13 December 1917: 9; Newpapers.com

“United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940:” FamilySearch.org

Sweetser, Arthur. The American Air Service: A Record of Its Problems, Its Difficulties, Its Failures, and Its Final Achievements. NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1919; Archive.org

Lists of Outgoing & Incoming Passengers, 1917-1938. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985, The National Archives at College Park, Maryland; Ancestry.com

“Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915,” FamilySearch.org

The Bowdoin Alumnus, November 1928, Vol 2 No 1; DigitalCommons.Bowdoin.edu

“Announce Rentals,” Bronxville Review, 26 April 1930: 20; HRVH.org

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

“Obituary,” New York Times, 2 Sept 1950: 12; ProQuest.com

“Donald Winship Weds Margaret Owen Burns,” New York Times, 27 May 1962: 87; ProQuest.com

“Miss Betsy Burns. Planning Marriage,” New York Times, 27 October 1964: 45; ProQuest.com

Masthead; Forbes Magazine, 1 April 1951; Books.Google.com

The Pine Cone; A Panorama of Maine. Spring 1952. Portland, ME: The State of Maine Publicity Bureau; digitalmaine.com

Indiana State Board of Health. Death Certificates, 1900–2011. Microfilm. Indiana Archives and Records Administration, Indianapolis, Indiana; Ancestry.com

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Joseph Douglas Bruce

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Joseph Douglas Bruce

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Joseph Douglas Bruce was born on December 30, 1899, at 215 Norfolk Street in Dorchester. He was the oldest son of Joseph L. and Mary H. (Blaisedell) Bruce. Joseph, Sr. was from Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia, and immigrated to the United States in the early 1880s. Mary was born in Concord, New Hampshire, and was a school teacher before her marriage. Mary and Joseph, Sr. were married in Brockton in 1897. They had four other children: Norma born c. 1898, William Homer in 1901, Allen Emerson in 1904, and Donald Dean in 1909.

Joseph, Sr. worked in the Boston meat processing industry. In the early 20th century, he was a foreman at a canning factory at 14 Clinton Street. By 1904, he was a manager at Sturtevant & Haley Beef and Supply of 34 Blackstone Street. The 1910 census recorded his occupation as a traffic manager at the National Packing Company, a meat processing conglomerate.

The Bruces lived at 210 Norfolk Street in 1900, according to the census. By 1901, the Boston directory listed them at 215 Norfolk Street. They were residing at 8 Thetford Street three years later. In 1909, they lived at 69 Milton Street. They moved to 19 Edwin Street in 1913. That year, Joseph graduated from the Henry L. Pierce School on Washington Street in Codman Square. 

On his notecard for Joseph Douglas Bruce, Dr. Perkins noted that in 1915 Joseph joined the 11th Company Coast Artillery; this was probably the 11th Company of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia Coast Artillery Corps (CAC), one of four CAC companies based at Fort Andrews on Peddock’s Island in Boston Harbor. It appears Joseph might have added a few years to his age when he enlisted, as his military records give his birth year as 1896. Dr. Perkins noted that Joseph “mobilized with National Guard,” most likely on July 25, 1917, the enlistment date on his military records. According to Dr. Perkins’s notes, at Fort Andrews Joseph “volunteered for overseas service in ammunition train.” Joseph served as a Wagoner in Company B, in the 101st Ammunition Train, part of the 26th Division, or Yankee Division. The 101st Ammunition Train was comprised of 713 officers and enlisted men from the 1st Vermont National Guard, as well as 240 from the Massachusetts Coast Artillery. In late August, the 101st Ammunition Train was sent to Camp Bartlett in Westfield, Massachusetts, for training.

On October 3, 1917, Joseph sailed overseas with the 101st Ammunition Train, departing from Hoboken, New Jersey, on the RMS Aurania, and arriving in Liverpool on October 17. After crossing the English Channel on the cattle boat Southwestern Miller, Joseph arrived in Le Havre, France, on October 22. The 101st Ammunition Train was sent to Camp Coëtquidan in Morbihan, Brittany, France. There, Company B was assigned a fleet of 20 motor cars to maintain while the vehicles were being used to transport supplies to the camp. It was a rainy, muddy, and raw winter and the men did not have enough cold weather gear. “Motor truck drivers were obliged to wear stockings on their hands while driving in lieu of gloves, which were not obtainable” remembered one history of the unit.

In February, they moved to the Chemin des Dames sector, where they worked alongside French troops. In late March, they were assigned to the Toul sector. They participated in the Second Battle of the Marne in July, Battle of Saint-Mihiel in mid-September, and the Meuse-Argonne offensive beginning in late September. The 101st Ammunition Train manned ammunition dumps and transported artillery and ammunition.

After the Armistice, the 101st Ammunition Train was sent to Rest Area #8, where they were visited by President Wilson on Christmas. In January 1919, they received orders to make their way to their port of debarkation, Brest, France. They sailed for the United States in April, returning on the SS Winifredian, which left Brest on April 6, 1919, and arrived in Boston on April 18. Joseph was demobilized at Camp Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts and discharged on April 24 or 29, 1919.  

In the early 1920s, Joseph appeared in the Boston directory living at 18 Edwin Street and working as an advertising solicitor. He reentered the military in the mid-1920s, serving in the Coast Artillery Corps. On January 1, 1924, he sailed from San Francisco on the USAT Thomas, destined for Fort Mills in the Philippines. He returned to the continental United States in early 1926 on the USAT Cambrai. By that time, he had attained a rank of Sergeant. In the late 1920s, Joseph was again living with his parents at 18 Edwin Street. The Boston directory listed him as salesman; the 1930 census reported his occupation as managing the Radio Department of a newspaper.

In 1930, Joseph married Frances Anderson, a private secretary from West Roxbury. She was the daughter of a Boston police officer who had immigrated from Prince Edward Island. Joseph and Frances had two children: John Douglas born in 1932, and Brenda, in 1938.

The couple initially lived at 89 Redlands Road in West Roxbury. In 1932, they moved to Portland, Maine. By 1934, they had returned to West Roxbury, living first at 200 Manthorne Road, and then, by 1938, at 586 Weld Street. By 1943, they moved to Newton Lower Falls, where they lived at 28 Lafayette Road, their home for many years. In Newton, Joseph was active with the Hamilton School PTA, serving on the school building committee.

In the mid-1930s, Joseph appeared in the Boston directory connected with Racheotes & Bruce Co., later the Allston Liquor Company, a liquor store at 1219 Commonwealth Avenue in Allston. The business, started by Peter Racheotes in 1917, had recently resumed operations after the end of Prohibition in 1933. Joseph was listed in the Boston directory as the president of the company in the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Joseph was also a contractor and engineer with the Harvey-Douglas Company of Cambridge and Brockton, a weatherizing and roofing business.

At the end of his life, Joseph and Frances lived at 1885 Shore Drive South in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida. Joseph died on February 18, 1980 in Pinellas County, Florida.

Sources

Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; Ancestry.com

Family Tree; Ancestry.com

Boston and Newton directories, various years; Ancestry.com

1900, 1910, 1930, 1940 US Federal Census; Ancestry.com

“Boston Public School Graduates Number 8769,” Boston Globe, 19 June 1913: 6; Newspapers.com

“United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940,” Military Service, NARA microfilm publication, St. Louis: National Archives and Records Administration, 1985; FamilySearch.org

Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Ancestry.com

Lists of Outgoing Passengers, 1917-1938. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985 The National Archives at College Park, MD.; Ancestry.com

Department of Public Health, Registry of Vital Records and Statistics. Massachusetts Vital Records Index to Marriages [1916–1970], Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA. Ancestry.com

“Hamilton School P.T.A. Hears Mrs. Mitchell,” Newton Graphic, 24 January 1916: 1; Archive.org

Hagan, Stephen. “Community Profile: From Rose Kennedy to Ellis Island, He’s Seen It All,” Allston Brighton TAB, 4-10 February 1997; Brighton Allston Historical Society, BAHistory.org

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

State of Florida. Florida Death Index, 1877-1998. Florida: Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, 1998. Ancestry.com

Funeral Notices, Tampa Bay Times (St Petersburg FL) 21 Feb 1980: 41; Newspapers.com

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Roger Ellis Bonney

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Roger Ellis Bonney

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Roger Ellis Bonney was born on December 24, 1894, in Dedham, Massachusetts. His father, Daniel Weston Bonney, was also born in Dedham. His mother, Eva (sometimes reported as Evangeline) Melissa (Wetmore), was born in Clifton, New Brunswick; her mother was originally from Massachusetts. Eva immigrated to the United States in 1868. She and Daniel married in March 1886, in Hyde Park. They had six other children: Daniel, Jr. born in 1889, Samuel in 1898, John in 1892, Eunice in 1897, Ruth in 1898, and Sarah in 1901.

Daniel changed careers frequently and appears to have suffered some financial troubles. In the 1880s, he served “several years” in Dedham as “Constable, Engineer, and Janitor of High School.” His occupation on his marriage record is machinist, his father’s profession. In 1893, he was appointed a Weigher of Hay and Coal in Dedham. That same year, he was listed in the Dedham directory as a clerk in C.S. Churchill’s coal office. He was a salesman at the time of Roger’s birth. In 1899, he worked in Norwood as a builder’s finisher while residing on Curve Street in Dedham. He was a farmer the next year, living with his family in a rented house in Duxbury; a farm laborer boarded with them. By 1904, the Bonneys were again living in Dedham, at 114 Oakdale Avenue, and Daniel was a clerk, the occupation he kept for the rest of his life. A year later, in 1905, he declared bankruptcy. He declared bankruptcy again in 1910; a business he started with son Daniel, D.W. Bonney & Son, real estate and insurance brokers, had failed.

In 1911, Roger graduated from Oakdale Grammar school. He may have become an apprentice optician around this time. In October 1911, it was reported that a Roger Bonney “has returned to his duties with the Boston Optical Co, after a serious operation.” As early as 1913, the Dedham directory listed his occupation as an optician. His employer in 1917, was the Federal Optical Company, of 387 Washington Street in Boston.

In 1916, the family moved to Dorchester, purchasing 18 Edson Street. The following year both Daniel, Sr. and Daniel, Jr. died. Sometime prior to the First World War, Roger served three and a half years in the state military.

During the First World War, Roger was a Sergeant in Battery C of the 71st Artillery, Coast Artillery Corps (CAC). The 71st Artillery was formed out of pre-existing Coast Defense companies in May 1918. Battery C was stationed at Fort Andrews on Peddocks Island in Boston Harbor.

On July 31, 1918, in a pouring rain, Roger sailed for Europe, leaving from Pier 3 in East Boston on the HMS Margha, one of nine hundred and ninety-two men on board. In France, they trained in Saint-Sylvan, near Angers, Maine et Loire. The 71st was still training when the Armistice was declared on November 11, 1918. Roger returned to the United States on the transport ship Manchuria, sailing from Saint-Nazaire, France, on February 11, 1919, and arriving in Hoboken, New Jersey, on February 22. At Camp Devens, he witnessed naturalization papers for a number of his subordinates who became American citizens.

After the war, Roger returned to 18 Edson Street and resumed work as an optician and lens grinder. His younger sisters were stenographers. Also living with the family was his sister-in-law, Hazel M. Bonney, his brother, Daniel’s widow, who was a telephone company clerk.

In the mid-1920s, Roger moved back to Dedham, living with his mother and youngest sister, Sarah, at 99 Munroe Street, which they owned. Lodging with them in 1930 was Frances Thumin, a public school teacher. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Roger occasionally appeared in Dedham news accounts. When a friend was seriously injured, Roger donated blood for a blood transfusion. He was a member of The Society in Dedham for Apprehending Horse Thieves. Founded in 1810 to combat horse thievery, by the 20th century it was a purely social organization. In 1933, he was appointed a Rider with the Society, a position open only to men weighing more than 200 pounds, so as to be heavy enough to sit on a horse thief and prevent his escape.

Roger was married in 1938 to Jean C. (Hird) Davidson, a widow whose first husband had died a year earlier. In 1940, they resided at 94 Monroe Street. Living with them was 18-year-old student Elizabeth Davidson, a sister-in-law according to the 1940 census. Still working as an optician and lens grinder, Roger was employed by the Pinkham & Smith Company of 286 Boylston Street in Boston.

Roger died on December 22, 1949. A funeral service was held for him at Saint John’s Methodist Church in Oakdale Square, Dedham. He was buried in Brookdale Cemetery in Dedham, in the Bonney family lot.

Sources

Birth Record, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com

Family Tree; Ancestry.com

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 U.S. Federal Census; Ancestry.com

Boston and Dedham directories, various years; Ancestry.com

Marriage Record for Daniel Bonney & Eva Wetmore; Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com

Historical Catalogue of the Dedham High School, Dedham MA: High School Association, 1889: 89; Books.Google.com

“Business Troubles,” Boston Globe, 6 May 1905: 9; Newspapers.com

“Business Troubles,” Boston Globe, 11 February 1910: 13; Newspapers.com

“Appendix of School Report,” 275th Annual Report of the Town Officers of Dedham, Massachusetts and the Town Records for the year Ending January 31, 1911. Dedham, MA: The Transcript Press, 1922; Books.Google.com

“Boston,” The Optical Journal and Review of Optometry, 12 October 1911: 881; Books.Google.com

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Lists of Outgoing & Incoming Passengers, 1917-1938. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985 The National Archives at College Park, MD; Ancestry.com

Elder, Bowman, compiler. An Illustrated History of the 71st Artillery (CAC). Indianapolis: Press of Wm. S. Burford; HathiTrust.org

“Two Hurt as Auto Hits Wrecked Cars,” Boston Globe, 29 Aug 1927: 3; Newpspapers.com

“What, No Horses Stolen! Yet Society Keeps Vigil,” Boston Globe, 7 Dec 1933: 14; Newspapers.com

Massachusetts Vital Records Index to Marriages [1916–1970], Department of Public Health, Registry of Vital Records and Statistics; Ancestry.com

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

“Morning Death Notices,” Boston Globe, 24 December 1949:12; Newspapers.com

Roger E. Bonney, FindAGrave.com

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Charles Stephen Bolster

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Charles Stephen Bolster

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Charles Stephen Bolster was born in Dorchester on December 20, 1894, the only child of Edith Rebecca (Lynch) and Percy Gardner Bolster. Percy was born in Roxbury; Edith in Boston. They were married in Dorchester on January 1, 1894. Charles was born at their home, at 217 Norfolk Street.

Percy was a lawyer, the family profession. His father, Solomon Alonzo Bolster, was a judge of the Roxbury District Court. His brother, Wilfred Bolster, served as chief justice of the Boston Municipal Court. Percy was also an entomologist, particularly interested in beetles; when he died, Charles donated his father’s collection to the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

Edith’s mother, Lavinia, and her sister, Caroline, lived with the family at 217 Norfolk Street. Caroline was a Smith College graduate who tutored in Dorchester, and was later a reader in Archaeology at Bryn Mawr. In 1900, the census recorded that the family employed a live-in servant, Ellen Sayers, a 21-year-old Irish immigrant. In 1910, the household included a boarder, Kate Harding; the census did not record any domestic help in the household at that time.

Charles was a student at the Roxbury Latin School, graduating in 1911. He then attended Harvard, graduating in the class of 1915. A member of the Harvard Pierian Sodality, one of the oldest musical organizations in the country, he served as conductor of the Pierian Orchestra. In 1915, he attended Harvard Law School, as had his father and grandfather. While at Harvard Law School, in 1916, he served in the Harvard Regiment (later called the Harvard Battalion) for a year: in the spring semester in Company G and in the fall semester in Company C.

Charles enrolled in the U.S. Naval Reserve Forces and was provisionally appointed an Ensign on April 6,

1917. Just as Charles was not the first lawyer in his family, nor the first Harvard graduate, he was also not the first to serve in the United States military. His grandfather had enlisted in the Army in 1862, serving as a Second Lieutenant in the 23rd Regiment, Maine Volunteers, during the Civil War. An earlier ancestor, Isaac Bolster II, was a Captain in the Revolutionary Army.

On June 12, 1917, Charles was called to active duty. He was given command of the Patrol Boat USS Skink, a motorboat on patrol in the Boston area. On August 28, 1917, he was transferred to the Patrol Boat USS Malay, a steam yacht patrolling the east coast, on which he served first as Executive Officer, and then as Commanding Officer. He was promoted to Lieutenant (junior grade) on November 20, 1918. He served as Navigating Officer on the icebreaker USS Rogday beginning on December 27. For much of the time he was assigned to the USS Rogday it was inactive in Boston. In early June 1919, the ship traveled to Bermuda to aid a damaged cargo ship. The Rogday was decommissioned on June 18. On the 25, Charles was placed on inactive duty. He was honorably discharged on April 5, 1921, when his enrollment expired.

Charles graduated from Harvard Law School in 1920 and was admitted to the bar, joining the law firm Burnham, Bingham, Gould and Murphy (later Bingham, Dana, and Gould), specializing in admiralty law. He practiced before the United States Supreme Court at least twice: in 1944 and 1955. He was also very active with Unitarian organizations, most notably serving as the president of the Young People’s Religious Union.

In early October 1930, Charles married Elizabeth Winthrop Monroe at the First Church, Boston, on Marlborough Street. Originally from Lexington, Elizabeth was a graduate of Radcliffe College, class of 1920. They honeymooned in Canada and Newfoundland, then made their home at 57 Grozier Road in Cambridge. Five years later in his Harvard class report, Charles updated his classmates, “Since the 15th Reunion I have acquired a wife, a daughter, and a son in the order named. Not bad for an old man!” Charles and Elizabeth had three children: Sarah, Stephen, and Katherine.

In 1935, Charles purchased the home of the late dermatologist Dr. Townsend W. Thorndike, an 11-room house with a two-car garage at 75 Fresh Pond Parkway in Cambridge. The Bolsters also had a 15-acre summer property in Newagen, Maine, near Boothbay Harbor. “Give me an axe and a saw and old clothes and my woods up at Newagen and you have a happy man,” Charles was quoted in The Boston Globe.

In Cambridge, Charles was active in the Republican party, serving as the chairman of the Cambridge Republican City Committee. On a state level, he chaired the Resolutions Committee at the Massachusetts Republican Convention in 1950. He was a delegate to the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago, which nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1954, he unsuccessfully ran for Congress.

Governor Christian Herter appointed Charles to the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1956. For ten years he sat as a trial judge, hearing civil actions, labor disputes, murder and criminal cases. In 1966 he retired, as required by Massachusetts statute.

Charles and Elizabeth were involved with a number of charities; Charles served in official capacities for organizations including the New England Grenfell Association, the Boston Young Men’s Christian Union, and the Boston Port Seaman’s Aid Society. In Maine, he was a member of the Star Island Corporation. The Bolsters belonged to the Cambridge Historical Society and, in April 1962, Charles delivered a paper before the membership on the history of Cambridge court houses.

Elizabeth died on July 8, 1980, while they were in Newagen. At the end of his life, Charles lived in a retirement community in Lexington. He died there on June 17, 1993, at age 98. He was buried in Mount Auburn cemetery on Narcissus Path, beside his wife and alongside his parents.

Sources

Birth Record, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 United States Census; Ancestry.com

Harvard College Class of 1915, Second Report, Cambridge, MA: Printed for the Class, Crimson Printing Co, 1919: 20; Archive.org

“Has 108th Anniversary,” Boston Globe, 7 March 1916: 7; Newspapers.com

“Regimental Announcements,” Harvard Crimson, 19 January 1916; TheCrimson.com

“Battalion Orders,” Harvard Crimson, 16 October 1916; TheCrimson.com

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Military, Compiled Service Records. World War I. Carded Records. Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard.

Mead, Frederick S., ed. Harvard’s Military Record in the World War. Boston: Harvard Alumni Association, 1921: 100; Ancestry.com

“USS Skink (SP-605),” Wikipedia. 24 February 2018. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Skink_(SP-605)>

“USS Malay (SP-735),” Wikipedia. 24 February 2018.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Malay_(SP-735)>

“USS Rogday (ID-3583),” Wikipedia. 25 February 2018

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Rogday_(ID-3583)>

“Bolster Heads Religious Union,” Boston Globe, 29 May 1926: 20; Newspapers.com

“Mr. & Mrs. C.S. Bolster to Live in Cambridge,” Cambridge Tribune (Cambridge MA), 11 October 1930: 1; Cambridge Public Library

Harvard Class of 1915. Cambridge: Printed for the Vicennial, 1935; HathiTrust.org

“Real Estate and Building News,” Cambridge Tribune, 19 July 1935: 7; Cambridge Public Library

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Republican National Committee. Permanent Roll of Delegates and Alternate Delegates to Republican National Convention. Chicago, IL: July 7, 1952; 15; HathiTrust.org

“Judge Beaudreau Resigns, Herter Names Atty. Bolster,” Boston Globe, 1 December 1956: 1, 11; Newpspapers.com

Godsoe, William D. “Title ‘Judge’ Not New for Atty. Bolster,” Boston Globe, 2 December 1956: 30; Newspapers.com

Bolster, Charles S. “Cambridge Court Houses,” Cambridge Historical Society Proceedings for the years 1961-1963, Vol 39, Cambridge, MA, 1964: 55; Cambridge Historical Society

“Deaths,” Boston Globe, 1 October 1980: 24; Newspapers.com

Connolly, Richard. “Is State Law A Bar To Better Court Practice?” Boston Globe, 18 Feb 1970: 2; Newspapers.com

Deaths, Boston Globe, 19 June 1993: 22; Newspapers.com

Witherell, Warren F. “Charles S. Bolster 1894-1993,” Star Island Newsletter, Fall 1993, Vol XIX #1: 2; StarIsland.org

Charles S. Bolster, FindAGrave.com

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Peter Gregory Blessington

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Peter Gregory Blessington

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Peter Gregory Blessington was born on March 4, 1894, at 764 Washington Street in Dorchester. His mother, Anne E. (Lally) Blessington, immigrated from Ireland in the late 1870s and worked as a domestic prior to her marriage. His father, Peter Blessington, Sr., also immigrated from Ireland, arriving in New York in 1882. They were married in Boston in 1888 and had six other children: Charles born in 1891, Martin in 1892, Mary in 1895, Francis in 1897, James in 1899, and Anna in 1902.

Peter, Sr.was a laborer for the City of Boston. First hired in 1898, in 1900 he was working in the sewer department. He was still employed by the city in 1920; at that time he was making $4 a day.

The family frequently moved around Dorchester , living at 148 Whitfield Street in 1900, 270 Kilton Street (now Norwell Street) in 1902, and 49 Torrey Street in 1905. By 1912, they had moved a block away to 50 Norfolk Street, and then in 1916 they moved again, but only a short distance to 42 Wentworth Street. The Boston directory for that year lists Peter, Jr.working as a chauffeur.

In June 1917, the Blessingtons were living at 154 Norfolk Street. On his World War I draft registration,

Peter reported that he was a gasoline motor mechanic in business for himself at 741 Washington Street. On May 28, 1918, he enlisted in the Naval Reserve Force as an Aviation Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class. Later he was a Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class. In both positions he was probably maintaining engines and machinery. He was discharged on March 22, 1919.

After his discharge from the Navy, Peter again lived at 154 Norfolk Street with his family. In 1920, he was a chauffeur for a crockery company, possibly the Dorchester Crockery Company at 1366 Dorchester Avenue. His siblings were also still living in the family home: Charles was a plumber, Martin was a teamster for a coal company, Mary was a stenographer at a cotton house, Francis was a riveter at a shipyard, James was a salesman of woolen cloth, and Anna was a typist at a bonding company. Also part of the household was a seven-year-old boarder, Richard McCarthy. Peter remained at 154 Norfolk Street through at least 1924. During this time, directories list him as an instructor at the U.S. Veterans’ Bureau Vocational School at 1010 Commonwealth Avenue in Brookline.

In the mid-1920s, Peter moved to Michigan. In 1927, he was a defendant in a case brought by Colonial Filling Stations/Beacon Oil Company of Massachusetts, claiming he owed them $772.43. By 1930, Peter was living and working at United States Veterans Hospital 100 in Bedford, Michigan. He was the garage foreman.

 On August 18, 1930, he married Sybella Estella Timbers, known as Stella, in Wisconsin. Stella was a dietician with the Veterans Administration, originally from Menomonie, Wisconsin. She was a graduate of Menomonie’s Stout Institute (now the University of Wisconsin-Stout), and received a master’s degree from Western Michigan University. Peter and Stella had a daughter, Patricia.

By 1935, the Blessingtons lived at 111 East Michigan Avenue in Galesburg, Michigan, a house that they owned. Peter worked as a machinist at nearby Fort Custer. In 1940, he earned $2,010 a year. Stella continued working as a dietician at the Veterans Hospital in Battle Creek according to her obituary, though the 1940 census lists her as a homemaker.

Peter died on August 15, 1948, at his home in Galesburg, Michigan. After returning from a drive, he did not feel well so he went to bed, and his wife called the doctor. By the time the doctor arrived around 4:45 p.m., Peter had died of “a heart ailment.”  He was buried in Menomonie, Wisconsin. His wife Stella died in 1999.

Sources

Birth Record, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911–1915. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com

Boston and directories, various years; Ancestry.com

Family Tree; Ancestry.com

1900, 1920, 1930, 1940 U.S. Federal census; Ancestry.com

Officials and Employees of the City of Boston [Document 73-1920], City of Boston: Printing Dept., 1920: 195; Books.Google.com

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

“United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940;” FamilySearch.org

1925 Brookline Directory, Boston: W.A. Greenough Co., 1925: 38; collection of the Brookline Historical Society

“Marshall Notes,” Battle Creek Enquirer (Battle Creek, MI) 20 Oct 1927: 19; Newspapers.com

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

“Peter Blessington,” Battle Creek Enquirer (Battle Creek, MI), 16 Aug 1948: 10; Newspapers.com

“Stella T. Blessington,” Dunn County News (Menomonie, WI) 29 August 1999: 6; Newspapers.com

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Alice Ethel Bland

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Alice Ethel Bland

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Alice Ethel Bland was born on August 12, 1885, in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, to Alice Lavinia (Shay) and Samuel Bland. Samuel, who was born in England, married Alice Lavinia around 1884. They also had a younger daughter, Ida, born in 1892. Samuel was a machinist; directories specify he was a rivet maker.

The Blands immigrated to the United States on October 4, 1897, taking the train from Sherbrooke to Boston. They settled in Quincy, Massachusetts. In 1900, they lived on Highland Avenue; a year later they moved to 25 North Central Avenue. Alice graduated from the Wollaston School in June 1902. She also attended two years of high school, according to the 1940 census. In February 1904, Alice Lavina died of phthisis pulmonalis (or tuberculosis) in Gardner, Massachusetts. Samuel and his daughters remained in Quincy, living at 5 Prospect Avenue in 1906. He remarried in September 1907, wedding Margaret Lycett, a millworker from Weymouth, Massachusetts. In 1910, Samuel, Margaret, Alice, and Ida were living at 245 Newbury Avenue. Alice was a leather worker and Ida was an order clerk at a leather firm. Ida married in June 1913. Around that time, Samuel, Margaret, and Alice moved to 107 East Squantum Street. Alice was hired as a nurse at a Massachusetts state infirmary on October 8, 1913. She graduated from the nursing program at the State Infirmary at Tewksbury, Massachusetts, on September 23, 1916.

Alice entered the Army Nurse Corps on December 21, 1917. When she enlisted, she gave as her address 20 Mount Vernon Street in Dorchester, the home of her cousin Agnes O’Court. Her stepmother, care of a post office box in Hanover, Connecticut, was her next of kin. Alice was initially sent to the Army Base Hospital at Fort McPherson, in Atlanta, Georgia.

On July 27, 1918, she moved to the Mobilization Station in New York. One of Alice’s colleagues later described the conditions there: “The nurses stood patiently in long lines in the super-heated corridors of the mobilization station, with hundreds of others, waiting for assignment.” Alice was assigned to Base Hospital 51, a unit formed in Boston. The nursing staff consisted of a “Chief Nurse, ninety-nine nurses, and one dietitian.” At their initial meeting, the nurses decided by vote to “be a democratic Unit, that in every subject affecting the good name or general comfort of Unit No. 51, the majority should rule, the Chief Nurse giving the final vote.” They had a song they sang to the tune of Yankee Doodle: “We’re a Boston Unit going out, To help beat the Kaiser; And when we’ve finished up our work, He’ll sadder be and wiser.”

Alice sailed with the nurses of Base Hospital 51 on the troopship France IV on August 25, 1918, arriving in Brest, France, on September 4. From there, the nurses traveled by train to Toul, the location of Base Hospital Number 51, which was part of the Justice Hospital Center. The hospital had a bed capacity of 2,000 and treated 12,505 patients.

The hospital was near to the action of the Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives. So close were they, that the hospital often served as an evacuation hospital rather than a base hospital, receiving wounded directly from the battlefield. During the Saint Mihiel offensive “the flame of the barrage lighted the windows and buildings vibrated to the shock, as the great guns boomed.” As the battle continued, “lines of ambulances” delivering a “steady stream of our wounded” began arriving, continuing “for four terrible days and nights.” According to her obituary, Alice “was gassed while on duty with combat troops in France.” She may have been part of one of the two smaller groups of Base Hospital 51 nurses who were sent closer to the front during the offensives.

After the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the hospital cared for many ex-prisoners of war, as well as influenza patients. The chief nurse estimated that about ten percent of the nurses fell ill with influenza. Base Hospital 51 ceased operations on March 31, 1919. On May 20, Alice sailed from Brest, France, on the USS Mobile, with the Casual Nurse Detachment Number 25. She arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey, on May 30. Back in the United States she worked at a Demobilization Station until her discharge on July 19, 1919.

After the war, Alice continued to work as a nurse in general practice. She lived with her cousin Agnes, Agnes’s children, and another cousin at 20 Mount Vernon Street. While Alice was overseas, in April 1918, her sister Ida had died of bronchial pneumonia. Ida’s obituary suggested that their father, Samuel, had also died by 1918. On March 27, 1920, Alice became an American citizen. Her petition for citizenship was witnessed by two fellow nurses, Elizabeth E. Mahon of Brookline, and Bessie A. Wadleigh of Jamaica Plain.

By the late 1920s, Alice had moved to California, living in Los Angeles at 837 Westlake Avenue. She may have moved to California for her health, as her obituary stated that due to having been gassed during the war she “suffered ill effects from the poison the remainder of her life.” In April 1930, she was sharing an apartment at 1736 West 24th Street, Los Angeles, with another nurse, Lillian C. McAdams, a widowed Canadian. Lillian was a trained nurse working in a hospital. According to the 1930 census, Alice, too, was a trained nurse but she was currently unemployed.

On November 25, 1930, Alice married Ralph Choate Shepherd in Los Angeles. Born in 1882, Ralph was originally from Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he had run his family’s market, J.C. Shepherd Meat and Grocery on Main Street. Previously married, he had three children. His middle child died in 1915 at age seven. He and his first wife moved to California in 1927 where he managed a grocery store.

In 1932, Alice, Ralph, and Ralph’s adult son Joseph lived at 930 North Haywood Avenue. By 1938, they had moved to 12206 Cantura Avenue in Studio City, North Hollywood, Alice’s home for the rest of her life. Alice was active with the Los Angeles unit of the Women’s Overseas Service League; of which she was the service chairman. The organization was dedicated to “philanthropic and patriotic activities,” which included purchasing war bonds, working with the Red Cross, USO and “kindred organizations,” as well the “raising and disbursing of funds for disabled ex-service women.”

Alice died on March 29, 1953, at the Veterans Administration Hospital on Wilshire and Sawtelle Boulevards in West Los Angeles. A funeral service was held for her at the Sawtelle Veterans Chapel. She was buried in the Veterans Administration cemetery in Los Angeles, now known as Los Angeles National Cemetery.

Sources

Military, Compiled Service Records. World War I. Carded Records. Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard.

Naturalization Records. National Archives at Boston, Waltham, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com

Quincy, Massachusetts, directories, various years; Ancestry.com

City Document NO. 14: Inaugural Address of the Mayor City Government of 1903 Together with the Annual Reports of the Officers of the City of Quincy, Massachusetts, For The Year 1902. Quincy: Advertiser Steam Job Print, 1903 :102; Archive.org

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 U.S. Federal Census; Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; Ancestry.com

List of the Officials and Employees of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1914-1915. Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co, State Printers, 1915: 195; Books.Google.com

Sixty-Third Annual Report of the Trustees of the State Infirmary at Tewksbury. Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co, 1917: 17; Ancestry.com

Coleman, Laura E. “Experiences of the Justice Hospital Group, Base Hospital 51.” The American Journal of Nursing. Vol 19, No 12 (Sept 1919), Lippincott Williams & Wilkins: 931-939; Jstor.org

Lists of Outgoing & Incoming Passengers, 1917-1938. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985, The National Archives at College Park, MD; Ancestry.com

Ford. Joseph H. “Base Hospitals,” The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, Volume 2: Administration American Expeditionary Forces. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921-1929; Archive.org

“United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940,” database, citing Military Service, NARA microfilm publication 76193916 (St. Louis: National Archives and Records Administration, 1985), various roll numbers; FamilySearch.org

“California, County Marriages, 1850-1952,” database; citing Los Angeles, California, United States, county courthouses, CA; FamilySearch.org

“New Englanders Move Here,” The Van Nuys News, 10 May 1927: 4; Newspapers.com

State of California. Great Register of Voters. Sacramento, CA: California State Library; Ancestry.com

Los Angeles Directories, various years; Ancestry.com

“W.O.S.L. Holds Supper Meeting Saturday, June 6,” San Fernando Valley Times, 9 June 1942: 8; Newspapers.com

United States, Selective Service System. Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number 147. National Archives and Records Administration.

“California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994,” database; FamilySearch.org 

“Last Rites Held for Mrs. Shepherd,” Valley Times (North Hollywood, CA), 2 April 1953: 10; Newspapers.com

National Cemetery Administration. Nationwide Gravesite Locator; Ancestry.com

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Frank Lemuel Black

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Frank Lemuel Black

World War I Veteran

By Camille Arbogast

Francis Lemuel Black, known as Frank, was born on May 30, 1892, in Roxbury. A twin, he was born just before his brother Robert, Jr.. Their parents, Robert LeBaron and Cecelia V. (McManaman), were immigrants from New Brunswick, Canada, who married in Boston in 1889. Prior to her marriage, Cecelia was a tailoress. Robert was a painter and a piano finisher before becoming an electric railway motorman. Robert and Cecelia had four other children: Cecelia L. born in 1889, William in 1896, Minnie in 1895, and Vincent in 1899.

At the time of Frank’s birth, the Blacks lived at 14 Adams Street in Roxbury. By 1895, they were living in Dorchester, residing at 5 Ballou Avenue. Five years later, they had moved a short distance to 90 Chapman Avenue (today’s Callender Street). They lived at 150 Canterbury Street (today’s American Legion Highway) at the edge of Franklin Park by 1910.

Frank attended three years of high school, then apprenticed as a machinist. By 1917, he was employed as a machinist toolmaker by the Nelson Blower & Furnace Company of 11 Elkins Street in South Boston. At that time, he was living with his family at 3 Oak Terrace (today’s Oakhurst Street).

At this point, little is known about Frank’s First World War service. On his draft registration in June, 1917, he gave his name as Frank Laurence Black and stated that he had already served four years as a Machinist in the Navy in Boston. It is likely he served in a similar capacity during the war. His obituary reported that he was a U.S. Navy veteran of World War I.

In 1920, Frank was living at 3 Oak Terrace and working as a toolmaker at a tool company. On May 29, 1924, he married secretary Irene Fawcett at Trinity Church in Haverhill. Irene was born in Everett to English immigrant parents. John Fawcett, her father, had been a harbor pilot, guiding ocean liners through Boston harbor. At the time of his death in 1908, he was “the owner of considerable real estate in Dorchester.”

In 1930, Frank and Irene were living with her mother, Marion Fawcett, in Brighton at 1657 Commonwealth Avenue, in an apartment they rented for $50 a month. By 1935, they lived in Newton. Two years later, Frank purchased 131 Bailey Road in Somerville, a home worth $3,600 in 1940.  Frank and Irene had moved to 93 Oxford Street in Arlington by 1942. In the early 1940s, in Somerville and Arlington, Irene’s brother Joseph Fawcett lived with them.

At the time of his marriage, Frank was a mechanical engineer. This was the occupation reported for him on the 1930 census. In 1940, he was a dye maker. Two years later, he worked for switch manufacturer Ucinite of 459 Watertown Street in Newtonville. At the end of his career he was a machinist at United Car Fastener.

In the late 1940s or 1950s, Frank and Irene moved to Needham. Around 1962, they relocated to Florida, living at 2107 Bayshore Gardens Parkway in Bradenton. There, Frank was a member of the Bayshore American Legion Post 217 and Irene belonged to the English Order of Odd Ladies of Massachusetts. Irene passed away in October 1966. Frank died on August 18, 1971, in Bradenton, Florida.

Sources

Birth Record, Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records. Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook); Ancestry.com

Robert L. Black Naturalization Papers, National Archives at Boston, Waltham, MA; Ancestry.com

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 US Federal Census; Ancestry.com

Family Tree, Ancestry.com

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915; FamilySearch.org

“Mourn With Family,” Boston Globe, 8 July 1908: 11; Newspapers.com

“Deeds,” Boston Globe, 21 May 1937: 39; Newspapers.com

Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com

“Deaths in Tampa, Other Cities on the West Coast,” Tampa Tribune, 26 Oct 1966: 13; Newspapers.com

Obituaries, Tampa Bay Times (St Petersburg, FL) 20 August 1971: 27; Newspapers.com

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Dorchester Illustration no. 2496 Grove Hall Universalist Society Church and Parish House

Posted on February 1, 2021 by earltaylor

Dorchester Illustration no. 2496  Grove Hall Universalist Society Church and Parish House

The illustration comes from the April 14, 1894, issue of American Architect and Building News.

The drawing of the proposed church and parish house does not exactly match the church as it exists today.  Was the building constructed as in the drawing and then altered?  Or was it built as it exists today?

The Holy Tabernacle Church is located at 70 Washington Street and has a legal address on the side street of 14 Bishop Joe L. Smith Way.  This section of Washington Street is between Columbia Road and Blue Hill Avenue.

The society that built the church was the Grove Hall Universalist Church, following the design of Francis R. Allen.

The following is from Parish Register of the Grove Hall Universalist Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts and Favorite Recipes.  1913.

“The Grove Hall Universalist Church came into existence March 3, 1878, being an off-shoot of the Roxbury Universalist Church, and in its inception received the cordial support of that parish.  On January 9, 1878, a meeting was held at the residence of Mr. Franklin S. Williams for the purpose of organizing a church.

Starting as a mission church, holding its first or preliminary meetings at the residents of various interested persons, it soon wanted a centrally located temporary home, and began holding its meetings in Wetherell Hall, at or near the junction of Washington Street and Blue Hill Avenue.  That served its needs for a time, but the desire for a home having more the churchly appearance prevailed, and the church on the corner of Blue Hill Avenue and Schuyler Street was built.

This amply served the purposes of the society until about 1892, when the subject of a new larger church was agitated, resulting in the building of the present edified.  At about this same time it also ceased to be a mission church, and since then has been able to maintain services without calling upon the state Convention for aid.

The present edifice was completed in 1895, and cost, furnished, about $45,000: $25,000 of this was provided for by a mortgage; the balance was raised by canvassing our parishioners.  To our good member, kind and generous neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Ivers W. Adams, we are largely indebted, both for their liberality in subscribing for the building and in their continued liberality in contributing to the wiping out of the mortgage debt, which has lately been accomplished and made possible largely through their instrumentality.”

Ivers Adams, mentioned above, is described in George V. Tuohey (1897). A History of the Boston Baseball Club – A concise and accurate history of Base Ball from its inception. Boston, MA: M.F. Quinn & Co., 1897,  p. 64.  His house faced Columbia Road at the corner of Washington Street.

Ivers Whitney Adams (born in Ashburnham, Massachusetts in 1838) was an American baseball executive and businessperson, and founder of the first professional baseball team in Boston, the Boston Red Stockings.

Adams was the Founder, Organizer and First President of the Boston Base Ball Association, the legal corporation that operated the baseball club initially known as the Boston Red Stockings. The club was Boston’s first professional baseball team, continues to operate today as the Atlanta Braves, and is the longest continuously operating team in Major League Baseball. On January 20, 1871, the Boston Base Ball Association was legally organized by Adams with $15,000 raised from investors and the commitment of Harry Wright, manager of America’s first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, to manage the new Boston club. ”

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