Bill's Blog

The Beginning of a Fall Journey

We were supposed to leave on September 19th, but Betty and Birgitta insisted that we delay a day so that I could visit a doctor. My back was killing me and my self-medication wasn’t working all that well. He prescribed a lidocaine patch that helped a lot as our travels began.

The first leg on Tuesday brought us to brief stop in Chicago. The really good thing about this stop was that we got to visit with Orlando Bryant. He has an apartment right downtown on Michigan Avenue. The bad thing was that we could only stay one night. Orlando, we promise to come back for a long week-end.

Wednesday, we headed to Ann Arbor. We had hoped to visit with Bob and Brenda Montgomery before Ann Arbor, but they were not at their cabin on Lake Michigan. In Ann Arbor, we stayed with Cat and Alex for several days. Ann Arbor is a nice college town. We got see much of the campus and, while we did not attend the sporting event, we did get to see the enthusiastic Michigan fans after a Saturday football game. While there we went to an automobile museum with a great collection of old Kaiser and Hudson cars, not to mention some old GM and Fords. Another place we went was the little hamlet of Saline, Michigan. There we enjoyed a small art fair and a local musical group, called the Saline Fiddlers. We also visited University of Michigan Arboretum. It was nice, but Betty loved seeing the little troll community in the woods. I guess it is a good thing that we did not see any trolls as they can be quite the tricksters. Cat seemed loaded with academic work, which is typical for beginning PhD. candidates. Alex was still waiting on a job. They were really settling into the community. A week after we left, Alex called to say that he had gotten that job.

On Monday we were on our way to Toronto. We did not go directly to Toronto. While Betty’s great-grandfather, Francis, and his father, Thomas, and mother, Sarah, were born in Ireland, they immigrated first to Grey County Ontario. Francis married Johanna Younge there in 1860. They started a family there in Normanby Township. So we went to do some research and see the graveyard where Thomas, Sarah and Johanna are buried.

We spent two days in Toronto. We couchsurfed with Oliver Stock. He was a wonderful host who lived in downtown Toronto. We spent two days walking all over the city. It really tired me out, because my back was still aching some. Still we saw Chinatown, the St. Lawrence Market and the Distillery district. The distillery district was loaded with art galleries and we wandered. On Wednesday evening we went to an excellent play, called After Mrs. Rochester, at the Alumnae Theater. Afterwards we went out for beers at a nearby tavern. We had a great time.

We left Toronto on a Thursday morning. We were on our way to Syracuse. We passed right by Niagara Falls so we had to stop. I had never been there before. The falls is a powerhouse with so much water flowing down it. It is not as large nor as magical of Iguacu, but it was sight to behold.

We couchsurfed with Sarah and Annie for three nights in Syracuse. I wanted to stop here so that I could show Betty where my ancestors, Zenas and Nancy Miller lived. We found the cemetery where they are buried the Town of Scott. I am sure that they lived quite close to the cemetery. We also drove to Ithaca and Auburn and we stopped to walk by Lake Skaneateles and the town on its shores.

We are spending nearly a week in Northampton. I had wanted to come here because my ancestors lived up and down the Connecticut River valley with Northampton as the starting point and spreading out from there. There is a farm in Haydenville, just a few miles from Northampton, where the Millers lived for more than 200 years. The last Miller that lived there died in 1923. The first Miller that lived there was the first settler in Williamsburg, which was officially incorporated in 1735. We couchsurfed with Randy in Springfield on Sunday night then moved on to Shel and Dina’s home in Hadley the next two nights and now we are with Jim in Amherst. All our hosts have been great. Shel and Dina were really great. They are just a few years younger than us and they have very similar political views.

I met with a local historian to get a sense of the local resources. Most of my time has been spent in the Forbes Library in Northampton. We did get out to Haydenville and Williamsburg one day. I met a distant cousin, Russ Warner, and his wife Elaine. We spent several hours with him talking about the family tree, and our lives and our children. It was delightful.

Betty and I are headed to New Brunswick tomorrow and onto Nova Scotia after that. I will write again from Nova Scotia.

Posted by bill at October 6, 2011 11:12 AM