California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

The Monument

by John Lawrence, July 8, 2020

Perhaps replacing a statue of George Washington with a statue of Crispus Attucks, who was a black man and the first casualty of the Revolutionary War, would be an appropriate recognition of American history. Crispus Attucks (c.1723 – March 5, 1770) was an American stevedore of African and Native American descent, widely regarded as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre and thus the first American killed in the American Revolution. The Boston Massacre was a confrontation on March 5, 1770 in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston. Attucks was born in Framingham, Massachusetts. Town histories of Framingham written in 1847 and 1887 describe him as a slave of Deacon William Brown, though it is unclear whether Brown was his original owner. In 1750 Brown advertised for the return of a runaway slave named Crispas.

My own American history on one side of my family goes back to about 1650 when Harman Hendricks Rosenkrans arrived from Bergen, Norway. A couple generations later Col. John B Rosenkrans was able to acquire a 1000 acre plantation in the Walpack area of Sussex County, NJ, on which he had African American and Indian slaves. He fought in the French and American War and later in the Revolutionary War. There is a monument to him in Sussex County which consists of a big boulder on which is a metal plaque near the Old Mine Road. I have never been able to find it, but, if anyone wants to topple it because Rosenkrans was a slaveholder, it would be pretty hard to do. Rosenkrans' life is well documented and his role in American history is as well. The New Jersey Society of the Sons of the American Revolution would probably be upset if it were to be toppled, however.

My American ancestors have probably been in this country for 10 generations. That means that I have about 1000 direct American ancestors of whom only one was a slave holder to my knowledge. At least he was an equal opportunity slave holder keeping Native Americans and African Americans as well. I don't even know who most of my American ancestors even are. I must have thousands of cousins, all but a handful, I know nothing of. My Grandmother, Alice Clark, born Alice Rosenkrans, was in the direct line of Col. Rosenkrans so I would be too. So would be my Grandchildren who are of African American as well as European American descent. So the American situation is very complicated. The plot thickens.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the nation's third President, is a case in point. He had six children with his wife, Martha, but only two survived to adulthood. Martha Jefferson died a few months after giving birth in 1782, and Jefferson's daughters, and later his grandchildren, became the focus of his domestic life supposedly. Jefferson also fathered six children with his slave Sally Hemings.

According to Wikipedia:

Jefferson became a widower at age 39 in 1782. He never remarried and died in 1826. Sally Hemings was his much younger slave and a likely half-sister of his wife. She accompanied his daughter Maria to France, where they are believed to have started a sexual relationship, and returned with him to Monticello. Most historians now believe that Jefferson had a relationship with Sally Hemings that lasted nearly four decades, until his death, and that Jefferson fathered her six children.

Four of Hemings' children survived to adulthood. In the antebellum period, hers would have been called a "shadow family". Sally Hemings was also the child of a shadow family. Historians believe her father to be John Wayles, Jefferson's father-in-law, who as a widower had a 12-year liaison with his mulatto slave Betty Hemings and fathered six children with her. These children had three-quarters European, one-quarter African ancestry, and were, half-siblings to Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. Sally Hemings is the youngest child of this shadow family. Issac Jefferson described Sally as "mighty near white ... very handsome, long straight hair down her back."

Of the four Hemings children who survived to adulthood: William Beverley, Harriet, Madison and Eston Hemings—all but Madison Hemings eventually identified as white and lived as adults in white communities. Under the Virginia law of partus sequitur ventrem, because Sally Hemings was a slave, her children were also born enslaved. But the children were seven-eighths European, one-eighth African by ancestry. If free, they would have been considered legally white in Virginia of the time.

Oh what tangled webs we weave. Thankfully, the issue of slavery has finally been settled. DNA analysis proved that Jefferson had six children with Sally Hemings who was half black or, evidently much less than half. Jefferson probably has more descendants who have African American blood than those that don't. The same probably holds true for many other slaveholders. So America is a composite of many races and combinations of races.

Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." At the time of this writing it was more wishful thinking than anything else. Jefferson goes on: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Jefferson said it best - whenever government is destructive of the ends of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, it is the Right of the People to alter it or abolish it and replace it with a government that is more conducive to their Safety and Happiness. Is the present American government conducive to the most Happiness for most of the people? I doubt it. The French Revolution enshrined "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite". As Americans we've left out entirely "Fraternite" or the notion that "we're all in this together." Instead we've enshrined the notion "every person for themself." Egalite also has been given a very twisted definition. Perhaps we should go back to the original writings of the French philosophes who inspired both revolutions.

Florence Elizabeth Lawrence, nee Clark, my Mom

 My Mom was born September 5, 1913 in Hainesville, NJ on the Kyte family farm near the Old Mine Road, the oldest road in the US, and the Delaware River. She was named Florence after her Grandma Rosenkrans and Elizabeth after her Grandma Clark (nee Kyte). She died in January 1997 in Hackettstown, NJ at the age of 83. She is the person that (so far) I've had the longest relationship with in my life - 56 years, my Dad having died in 1975. Mom's mother was Alice Rosenkrans Clark and her father, John Kyte Clark. I don't know too much about my Mom's early years, but it was definitely in the horse and buggy days, growing up on the farm. They had a large extended family who were the descendants of the Europeans settlers who came to the area in the 1700s. I have a picture of a Civil War reunion in 1915 (50 years after the end of the war) which shows my Grandma Clark holding "two year old Florence." My grandfather farmed his small farm with horses right up until 1945 or so when he sold the farm and moved to Newton, NJ. I'm not sure when they bought their first car. They were self-sufficient, independent small farmers who grew most of their own food, made most of their own clothes and provided for their own needs to a much greater extent than people do today. As little as possible was store bought. I'm sure my Grandma Clark instilled in my Mom and her sister, Winnie, their prodigious work ethic that lasted them their entire lives. My Mom was extremely energetic, productive and ambitious, not one to sit down and relax until every last chore that could possibly be done was done. However, on the farm there was a clear delineation between "men's work" and "women's work." My daughter, Justine, asked her once if she'd ever milked a cow, and she said "no." When asked why she said, "No one ever asked me to!"

Mom attended a one or two room schoolhouse and later went to Newton HS. It takes about 15 minutes to drive by car from Hainesville to Newton these days, but in those days the trip was prohibitively long so my mother roomed and boarded in Newton presumably coming home weekends. Later she went to Montclair State Teachers College in Montclair, NJ. She and her sister both became teachers. Summers she worked as a waitress at nearby Rock View House, a resort of sorts where they had a golf course, swimming and horse back riding. So it wasn't necessarily all work and no play although the work ethic was very strong. Sometime during the 1930s my Mom, her sister and one other girl made a car trip to California to visit their uncle, one of Grandma Libby Kyte's brothers, who lived in Santa Monica and was an optometrist. That was quite an adventurous trip for three young women in those days before the advent of the interstate highway system. Later, being childless, Uncle Kyte left quite a lot of money to Grandpa Clark when he died. I think this paid for my Mom's college and later for the mortgage on our house. 

After graduating from college, she worked at Franklin HS in Franklin, NJ, home of the world's richest zinc ore and mineral deposits probably due to a meterorite that crashed into earth eons ago. There she met my Dad. My Dad sent her a note via one of the students which said, "Do you want to have turkey with me and my parents..." so that was their first date. My Dad used to joke about eating "old, dead cow," so I guess I owe my existence to an old, dead turkey! They were married at the family farm June 30, 1940, and visted all the civil war battlefields on their honeymoon. That was my Dad, a history major's, idea. I was born about a year later. My Mom was a stay-at-home Mom while my sister and I were kids. Later she went back to work as a teacher. When I was four we moved to the house on Lewisburg Road in Wantage Township, NJ where my Dad was principal of the Wantage Consolidated School. She would stay there for the rest of her life except the last three years when she relocated to the House of the Good Shepherd in Hackettstown.

Shortly after my sister was born in 1945, my Mom was diagnosed with TB and had to go to a sanitarium in Glen Gardner, NJ. This was tragic for our family. I remember the day Grandpa Clark came to pick Mom up and drive her to the sanitarium while Dad stayed with me and my sister, Jeanne. My Mom didn't like emotional displays and had coached me to "be grown up" and not get emotional. Everything went smoothly until, at the last minute, I grabbed my Mom and didn't want to let her go. After that I only saw her once in the next four years till she finally came home when I was in second grade. My Dad was left with two small kids and a responsible job he had to do. My Mom was there for almost four years! Finally, the invention of streptomycin saved her life, but the shots were so expensive ($180. per at a time my Dad only made about $250. a month) that it forced my Dad into bankruptcy, what they called medical indigency at the time. So people going bankrupt over medical bills is nothing new. My Mom, in the course of her treatment, had half of each lung removed. For the rest of her life she couldn't walk up a slight hill without getting winded. It's amazing how much she accomplished despite that and she never complained.

My Mom was a beautiful woman. She had movie star looks although she wasn't the emotionally expressive, dramatic, actress type at all. Quite the opposite. She was very intelligent and had a clear, rational mind. In fact she was probably the most rational person I ever knew, man or woman. There was a bit of role reversal in our family. Usually, the husband is the left-brained rational type and the wife, the right-brained emotional type. Those roles were reversed as my Dad was more emotional than my Mom, and my Mom was more rational than my Dad. My Mom was also a perfectionist and could be quite critical. She always did what she was supposed to do, and she expected others to do likewise. Her favorite sayings were, "There's no time like the present," and "Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today." To say my Mom was industrious was to say the least; she was a powerhouse - a great homemaker and a professional woman. She was very cheerful, and I don't think she was ever depressed although once in a while she could be in a bad mood. Later, when my sister was older, they had a live-in maid, Mae, who took care of my sister and was practically part of the family. Even she called my Mom "the slavedriver" and the "General."

Mom and I had a bit of a personality clash as I'm more of a creative type, and she was more businesslike. She wasn't the kind to suffer fools gladly, and, therefore, she didn't suffer me gladly at times. She once told Justine, "You and your Dad are both dreamers." But I owe my self-discipline, ability to be organized and my English language skills to her. For my entire life, after I left home, we exchanged weekly letters. Later there were weekly phone calls as well as the letters. We always stayed in touch and our relationship was better from a distance than it was when I was "under her thumb." Mom had an agenda for me which clashed with the agenda I proposed for myself which was made up, largely, as I went along, improvised, so to speak. Mom was what I call the "corporate" type - businesslike, industrious, clear-headed, cheerful. I'm more the bumbling, depressed, creative, muddling through type. Mom had a clear idea of what I should be and where my life should go which I perceived as somewhat overbearing. I had to define my own life and make my own mistakes. I suppose I'm not the first one to have this kind of tension with one's parent.

When Mom came home from the sanitarium, she had another challenge to face - my sister had been born with brain damage and couldn't walk or talk although it wasn't obvious when she was young what the extent of the damage was. She looked normal. Later it would become evident that the damage was massive as she never learned to talk even as an adult and had the mentality of about a one and a half year old her entire life. Despite all this, my parents never lost their optimism, their belief in God and the American dream. They were both professional people; they had a lot of nice friends, mainly other professionals, and a very active social life. My Mom kept some friends her entire life. In fact at the end of her life she roomed with Betty May at the House of the Good Shepherd whom she had known in high school. I think my Mom felt as if she'd come a long way from the farm in Hainesville although she spent almost her entire life in Sussex County, where she grew up. It was nice having all your extended family within a 15 mile radius unlike today where families are spread out over the entire country.

Around 1950 or so, Mom and Dad took in a foster daughter, Shirley. Shirley stayed with us a few years and then moved to Hackettstown with another foster family. She married and raised four children. Although out of touch for several years she and my Mom eventually got back in touch and remained close for the rest of Mom's life. In fact it was Shirley who called to tell me that Mom had died in the hospital at Hackettstown. Shirley and I became great friends as we are till this day. We are truly brother and sister. I regard Shirley as practically a saint having raised four of her grandchildren due to circumstances beyond her control. Shirley and I and the kids went on a lot of trips together when they were growing up. Recently, Megan, the oldest, graduated from college. She still has Jonathan who's in eighth grade at home.

When my Dad died in July, 1975, Justine and I flew to NJ from CA and spent the entire summer with Mom and Grandma. She and Justine, her only grandchild, had a special relationship for the rest of her life. She loved and spoiled Justine. We always flew back there for Christmas and had a lot of wonderful Christmases together, the three of us. Christmas morning we always had orange juice, cinnamon rolls and coffee. My Mom was famous for her cinnamon rolls. I loved them. That was before the cinnamon roll craze of today, and still I've never had a better cinnamon roll than the ones my Mom made. She also was famous for her brownies, and she always had cinnamon rolls and brownies in her freezer which she took out when I came home. Because I was self-employed since a year after my Dad died, I usually spent a few weeks a couple times a year with my Mom. That was a lot of vacation and a luxury I wouldn't have been able to have if I worked a regular job where they give you two weeks of vacation a year. My Mom, however, would have preferred that I had the regular job because that is what she pictured in her mind for me even though I felt I was doing a good thing by spending so much time with her.

For many years we were a vertical family, Mom, the widow, my daughter, Justine, only granddaughter, and me, the single parent - three generations but very much integrated as a family. I was a single parent with custody of Justine for most of her childhood so Mom fulfilled a much larger role than most grandparents did in their grandchildrens' lives. I remember when Justine's Mom first left, my Mom came out and stayed with Justine and me until things settled down. She did all she could to keep our family together and was heart-broken when her influence wasn't able to do it. She was a fighter, but a very gentle, somewhat shy (in public) and classy person who was always impeccably dressed and liked to have luncheon (never just lunch) with her respectable friends. In later years Mom supported Justine and I financially to a certain extent. She was generous beyond belief giving us both large checks for birthdays and Christmas and later, when Justine was in college and graduate school, practically every month. Mom looked out for us, but she didn't worry about us. She was not a worrier. She always wanted the best for us, and she always thought she knew what that best was. If only we would live as she prescribed. I think it was one of the frustrations of her life that we didn't.

My Mom took more courses and became a school librarian largely because she didn't want to have to deal with the discipline cases any more. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Clark (no relation), the principal, whom she didn't like very much, started sending the discipline cases to the library! My Mom had to go on the war path to get Mr. Clark to rescind this policy. She was a fighter. She retired - early I think - after she had just gotten in enough time to collect her pension. She had Dad's life insurance, her pension and social security so she was set. She spent winters in Florida going from one friend's house to another's. They came and stayed with her in the summers when Florida was too hot. The house, for which they paid $5000. in 1945, was obviously paid for and they had added on along the way. My Mom was an excellent decorator and the house always looked nice. They had a lot of dinner parties sometimes for 3 or 4 couples at a time. My Mom did all the work of preparation, cooking and clean-up. In those days the housewife did it all. People didn't bring dishes for potluck. I think my Dad considered this one of the perks of being married. He used to joke around sometimes to my Mom's embarrassment. He once said the only reason he got married was so that he'd have someone to darn his socks to which my Mom said "Oh, Cliffff ..." They had big family and friends picnics in their yard in the summers. I built the fireplace they used out of field stones when I was 11.

Some time after my Dad died, my Mom got a call from Jack Bauer, a guy she had dated in high school. I guess Jack had never fallen out of love with her, and since she was a widow and his wife was incapacitated with Alzheimer's or something, they struck up a relationship. She and Jack were together for a few years, and they traveled together except that one of her destinations in Florida was no longer available to them because the people didn't approve of them living together and not being married. It didn't seem that long before Jack got cancer and died. She had another great friend, Wally Wirths, who was a very rich guy who had built a mansion on some nearby property that belonged to the Stires family when I was a kid. I used to go there and play with Gary Stires who was in my class. We used to swim in the pond, play baseball etc. I don't know if Mom's relationship with Wally was romantic or not. I think it was for the most part platonic. Anyway Mom and Wally went into the antiques business together opening up a little store in Colesville. They pursued this for several years till my Mom started feeling it was too much and got out. Antiques and flowers were her passions her whole life. She edited some of Wally's books, paeans of right wing literature. Wally was an ardent right winger which presented something of a culture clash as I was a left winger and anti-war protester from the sixties.

At Wally's urging, Mom took in a Vietnamese foster son, An Nguyen, who was one of the boat people fleeing Vietnam during the war. An went through high school and college while living with Mom at the house on Lewisburg Road. It was a good arrangement for both of them. An's prescence helped my Mom stay active and involved in life. Presently, An lives in Singapore, is married and has a daughter who he named Florence in honor of my Mom. Once An and I took an all day canoe trip down the Delaware River from Dingman's Ferry to the Delaware Water Gap, and An used to pick me up from the airport when I went back there. We'd stop for Korean or Chinese food on the way home.

I sometimes wonder why my Mom didn't use her intelligence in more profound ways. As an English teacher, she was a good writer. She was primarily a grammarian and would always correct Justine's grammar. "It's Heather and I ... not me and Heather." But I think my Mom's orientation was practical, down to earth, home, family and business, not pie in the sky, artsy fartsy, intellectual. She would leave that to me although she didn't want me to be that way either. In the final analysis one can only be a good writer if one has something to say, if one's life has some emotional content or inner turmoil. My Mom was very unemotional and had no inner turmoil so, even though she was intelligent, her intelligence was directed outward towards the practicalities of life. She was not introspective in the least. I was always trying to get my Mom into conversations about relationships or politics. She could talk about these subjects, but she didn't seem to want to most of the time unless she was humoring me. She was a relentless small talk talker. She would go on for hours talking about the trivia of her and others' lives while we were driving somewhere to which I would reply "Um Humm. Uh Huhh." And so it would go until we reached our destination. My Mom seemed to be all business or all small talk. It was frustrating for me. I wanted my Mom to be my friend, but I think she thought her role was to be my parent. I remember when I was a kid I was always trying to joke around with her, but she would say I was being "fresh." I think she was lucky to have Dad, me and Justine in her life. We diverted her from being "all business."

We diverted her from living by rote. I think my Mom's philosophy was you knew what you should do and you got up and did it. No discussion necessary. You didn't have to mull it over, question it, wonder about it. My Mom was definitely anhedonistic. She did her duty, but she didn't seem to enjoy things the way other people did. She got a lot of satisfaction out of doing a job well done. Enjoyment or entertainment was secondary. She wasn't a "leave the dishes in the sink" kind of a person. My Mom hardly ever went to the movies her whole life. As an English teacher, she didn't seem to have a lot of intellectual interests either. She didn't read much. She used to enjoy watching "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" on TV, two shows I detest. I know she read books and studied French in college, but she was quintessentially middle American as was my Dad, and I think they read Reader's Digest condensed books. There was never hardly anything in the way of an intellectual discussion at the dinner table. Again, more small talk or no talk at all. My Dad was the ringleader of interesting things to do and my Mom, more or less, went along. Later Justine and I were the ringleaders. Mom always wanted to get somewhere by the shortest possible route, the route she had always taken before, while I wanted to explore, try a different way and see new vistas.  Justine used to joke around with her, and, being a good grandmother, she never told Justine she was "fresh."  She was a wonderful grandmother and friend to her peers. She was the family matriarch, the rock of Gibralter, and looked out for Justine and me in terms of our needs and especially financially. She was really a class act, and, because she was such a beautiful woman, she could get away with being the "General."

E Pearl Van Gelder Lawrence, my Grandmother

My Grandma Lawrence was the matriarch of the family. I remember one time when I was about four years old my parents were having a party and I was just getting over some childhood disease like whooping cough or measles. I wanted to go and join the others outside, but my Mom didn't want me to expose them to my germs. My Mom, who could be a stern taskmaster, didn't have much sympathy for me but my Grandma comforted me. She took good care of me and my sister when my Mom had to go to a sanitarium for TB for four years.

After my Mom came home, she still wanted us to come over to her house for dinner almost every Sunday. She never wanted us to leave. I remember her standing at the kitchen window waving goodbye as we drove away. I usually spent a couple weeks at her house in Vernon, NJ every summer. I remember practising the trumpet with old sheet music sitting on her porch. Grandma played the piano. She got rustier as she got older, but she always had a piano in a little room off the parlor in Vernon. I remember her playing "My Dreams are Getting Better All the Time."

Grandma was a good cook. She made home made bread and apple pie. I remember, when I was attending Andover, she would make me my lunch for the all day train ride up there with home made bread roast beef and meat loaf sandwiches.  Then I would order a Tropicana orange juice from the porter on the train to go with it. Her kitchen was fascinating; it was really old timey. I remember the stove she used to have was one of those monstrous iron contraptions, and her toaster was the old fashioned kind with two sides that flipped down. You had to turn the bread around to toast the other side. She used a coffee percolator which probably gave rise to my Grandpa's favorite expression, "How ya percolatin'?" She had a little pantry off the kitchen where she kept little cans of deviled ham that I liked.

I think Grandma was an undiagnosed manic depressive. She loved us a lot but she also suffered a lot especially over the fact that my sister wasn't normal. She never learned to talk and had the mental ability of about a two year old her entire life. But she was emotionally normal; she laughed, she cried and she benefited from all the love and affection Grandma gave her. I remember one time when we had just left the house after Grandpa died, we had forgotten something, and went back to get it. I found Grandma in tears. She said "It's so hard without Grandpa." She was OK every day until 4 o'clock when Grandpa usually came home from the station. After that Grandma got lonely. She lived another 25 years after Grandpa died.

She was born on a farm in Bellvale, NY just outside of Warwick in 1891, the middle girl of three  sisters. She met Grandpa when she took the train to school every day. He was the station agent. They lived as a young couple in Sugar Loaf, NY, where my father was born, and that was the ancestral home of the Laroe family of which she was a descendant. Grandma saved news clippings her entire life and I remember one that told about how she learned Morse code and took over the telegraphy duties when my Grandpa was sick. She saved all the numerous clippings about my Dad too. She was very proud of him. 

Before they moved to Vernon around 1945, they lived in Warwick where my Grandpa was station agent there with the Lehigh and Hudson RR. They rented a house on South Street and I remember spending time there and going to the nearby park. Grandma took me to Akins drug store for vanilla  ice cream sodas. They had glass top tables with merchandise displayed inside. Akins drug store is still there but they don't have the soda fountain any more.

Grandma knew all the townspeople in Vernon, which in those days was just a little hamlet. There was Alvey Mott, the postmaster, who lived next door. I used to go up there to get the mail.  Across the street were the Garlinghouses, who used to sit on a couch on their front porch, the Martins, who were  more respectable, and Berniece whom my Grandma didn't like much. There was Inez who lived up the hill. There was Oscar Lozaw, the local service station owner, and his wife Florence whom Grandma commiserated with. She used to tell about how mean Oscar was to Florence. "Florence cooks him a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon and a loaf of bread for breakfast every day and he never gives her any of it!" To which I replied "Why doesn't she just take some for herself since she's cooking it? Why does she have to wait for Oscar to offer it to her?"

After Grandpa died, Grandma just had a small railroad pension to live on, but she always managed to send me $5.00 for my birthday. She lived in the house in Vernon by the brook until she got too old and sick. I  remember visiting her every day in the hospital in Middletown, NY when I was home on vacation. She told me "Take good  care of Justine," my daughter.  I promised her I would. She died in 1980 at the age of 89.

I always felt close to my grandmother emotionally. Unfortunately, I think I inherited from her my manic depressive tendencies. It's interesting that it skipped a generation because my Dad was never the least bit depressed as far as I could tell. He was the most cheerful person I ever knew. I was always attracted to women more like my Grandma than like my Mom. My Mom was a fantastic person, but she was more managerial than emotional. Even the maid called her the General and the Slavedriver. She obviously thought this was the best way to be for the good of all concerned. Grandma was very emotional and affectionate, and, if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have known what that felt like and how much I needed it. I have her to thank for all the love and care she gave me!

Grandma's family goes way back in New York State and New Jersey. She talked about it a little bit, but as a kid, I wasn't interested. Her father, George Van Gelder, married Mary Laroe Hallock who was the daughter of Sarah Jane Laroe. The Laroe family goes back to Jaques Laroe who landed in New Amsterdam in about 1670 with his mother and two siblings. They were French Huegenots fleeing religious persecution and were some of the original settlers of the country. The complete genealogy is as follows.

Jacques Le Roux first appears in the records of New Harlem in 1673 when he took the Oath of Allegiance. The surname is variously spelled Le Roux, Laroe, Larue, La Rue and Lereau. Jacques' mother, Jannetje (Jane), landed in New Amsterdam (New York City) about 1670 with 3 children. The father died at sea. Their son, Jacques, was born 1657 and married Wybrecht Helling in Bergen, NJ in 1681. Several of Jacques' children were born in Hackensack, NJ. At his death, he left a large estate including 600 acres of land in Ramapo, NJ. He had 12 children one of whom was Hendrick. Hendrick married Marritie (Mary) Lammerse Smidt in 1715 at Tappan, NY. He inherited a large part of his father's estate at Ramapo and died at Ramapo in 1760. Hendrick had 9 children one of whom was Jacobus baptized in 1721 who was the oldest son and had rights of primogeniture.

Jacobus Laroe married Rebecca Bertholf in 1742 at the First Reformed Church of Passaic, NJ. In 1765 Jacobus moved to Warwick, NY, the first relative to live in Orange County, NY. Jacobus and his wife are buried in Locust Hill Cemetery just off route 94, the King's Highway, between Warwick and Chester, NY. Jacobus died in 1781 and his wife died within 24 hours. They were both buried at the same time. I visited the Locust Hill Cemetery recently, a place I had driven by all my life but had never realized the significance of.  Many of the headstones have suffered the ravages of weather but names and dates are still discernible. Crynis was Jacobus’ and Rebecca's son born in 1762 in Bergen, NJ and moved with his parents to Warwick. He had sequentially 2 wives, the first of whose name is lost and the second of whom was Joanna Howell. He and his 2 wives are buried in Locust Hill Cemetery. Crynis served in the Revolutionary War under Col. John Hathorn. Crynis had 9 children by his first wife and 1 child by his second.

One of the children, James Buskirk, was born in 1803, married Adeline Benedict born 1804, and died in 1853. Starting in 1858 after her husband died, Adeline composed a journal, of which I have a copy, in her own handwriting. It tells about John Brown being hanged, the railroad coming to town and other historical events leading up to the Civil War as well as everyday life around Sugar Loaf, NY. She died in 1874.

James Buskirk Laroe and Adeline had 4 children: Mary Elizabeth, Sarah Jane (1831-1888), Abigail and John Henry. Sarah Jane married James Hallock (1832-1892) around 1855. They had 5 children the oldest of whom was Mary Laroe Hallock (1866-1930) who married George Van Gelder (1857-1912).

George and Mary had 3 children: Mary (Maisie) H. (1888-1976), Edith Pearl
(1891-1980) and Mina. Mary married Thomas Relyea (1879-1969). They had 2 children: George (1907-1995) and Evelyn (1908-2004). Pearl married James S. Lawrence (1888-1952): They had 2 children: Clifton E. (1913-1975) and Edith (1914- ). Mina married Charles Beecher. They had no children.

Evelyn married George Zimmer. They had 1 son George Harold. He married Linda. They had 2 daughters, Wendy and Amy.

Clifton married Florence E. Clark (1913-1997) in 1940. They had 2 children John C. (1941- ) and Jeanne E. (1945-1978). Edith married George Leatham (1914-1987). They had 2 children: George Lawrence (1948- ) and James (1953- ). George married Mary Pipes (1950- ). They have 2 children Sydney Alicia (1982- ) and George Taylor (1984- ).

John married Janice Olson (1946- ) in 1970. They had 1 child: Justine N. (1970- ). Justine married L. Quartez Wynn in 2003. They have 3 children: Jasmine A. (2001- ), Monique I. (2003- ) and Isaiah Q. (2008- ).

So the direct line from Jacques Laroe to the youngest descendant is: Jacques Laroe, Hendrick Laroe, Jacobus Laroe, Crynis Laroe, James Buskirk Laroe (marrried Adeline), Sarah Jane Laroe (married James Hallock), Mary Laroe Hallock (married George Van Gelder), Edith Pearl Van Gelder (married James S. Lawrence), Clifton E. Lawrence, John C. Lawrence, Justine N. Lawrence (married L. Quartez Wynn), Jasmine, Monique and Isaiah Wynn.

So Jasmine, Monique and Isaiah are 10th generation descendants of Jacques Laroe, the French Huegenot, or 11th generation descendants of his mother, Jannetje
(Jane), who was the first ancestor to set foot in North America in about 1670.

My Grandmother, Alice Jeanette Clark (Nee Rosenkrans)

My Grandma Clark was born Alice Rosenkrans in 1886 in Walpack, NJ and died in 1974 in Sussex, NJ. She was born into quite a famous and illustrious family. Her great great great grandfather, John B Rosenkrans, was a captain in the French & Indian War and a Colonel in the Revolutionary War and had a 1000 acre plantation in Walpack. Her family is well documented in a book, "The Rosenkrans Family in Europe and America," by Allen Rosenkrans published in Newton, NJ in 1900. My grandmother is of the last generation mentioned in the book. The name Rosenkrans came from rose wreath or rose crown, and this came about because a Danish knight by the name of Eric had sold fish to the Pope and was presented by the Pope with a rosary and added it to his coat of arms in 1325. He then took the name Rosenkrantz although the family name didn't become official till the King of Denmark made the nobility take family names in 1525. The reason was that there was considerable confusion since, for instance, Neils' son Eric was called Eric Neilson and Eric's son Neils was called Neils Ericson so the names reversed every other generation. Evidently, the part of Denmark where the Rosenkrans's originated, Schleswig Holstein, eventually became part of Germany due to war. Then they went to Amsterdam, Holland, which, at that time, was also part of Germany.

Dirk Jacobszoon Rosencrans (or Roosencrans) was one of the Captains of the Civil Guard of Amsterdam, in 1584 and 1588, and Commissioner in 1589. His father was banished since he was a Calvinist when Spain took over Holland. The family, having lived in Holland for 130 years, then moved to Bergen, Norway and from there to the US. Some of Allen Rosenkrans' correpondents were convinced that the Rosenkrans's in Bergen couldn't have been descendents of the Noble Rosenkrans family because they were engaged in fishing and commerce, but Allen was convinced otherwise due to the fact that the Holland Rosenkrans's had a rose wreath on their crest.

There is not the least probability that your family is related to this Noble Family. Your ancestor, Herman Hendrickson,, is no doubt related to Henrik Rosenkrans who, in 1617, 1619, 1629 obtained permission to the fishery of herring and whales at the coasts of Greenland and Norway, and whose son Henrik Rosenkrans, 1657, was Berggesell in Norway. These two men were known not of the Danish Noble Family of Rosenkrantz. They were on the whole not Noblemen, as their business shows, but it may be presumed from the lively intercourse which took place at that time between Holland and Norway that they were immigrated Dutchmen. Surely a family of the name of Rosenkrantz lived in Holland and Dirk Jacobsen Rosecrans lived in Amsterdam 1580. Allen Rosenkrans’ ancestors are supposed, in the 16th or 17th centuries, to have emigrated from Holland to Norway and they were employed in the mines. One of them was called Berggesell, which means a position with the Norwegian Mining Company. In the 17th or 18th century some of that family were officers in the Royal Danish Norwegian army. One of Allen Rosenkrans' ancestors was called Herman Hendrickson. The names Herman and Henrik were used by this Hollandish, Danish, Norwegian family, but they were not related to the Royal Danish Noble Family of Rosenkrantz. Herman Hendrisckson's ancestor again must have been Herman Rosenkrands, who in 1617 was permitted to catch whales in Greenland, a Danish possession. The Noble Family of Rosenkrantz is known since 1525. ... In the long list of members of the Famous Rosenkrantz Noble Family there don’t exist any man whose life is proved historically of that name Herman, but a few have been named Henrik. I think, therefore, that Herman Rosenkrantz cannot have been a descendant of that family, especially since he pursued a trade. We know very well the many Rosencrantzs at the period in question. The Rosenkrantz family is perhaps the most famous of all the Noble Families in Denmark, and is still flourishing. ... The above letter from Rector Bendixen, of Bergen, establishes the fact as declared by Mr. Thiset, of Copenhagen, that many of the Rosenkrantz family left Holland and went to Bergen, Norway, between 1593 and 1652. The Herman Hendriksen who went to Norway in 1652 may have been our ancestor born in Holland, who came from Bergen to New York and was married there in 1657 or as Mr. Thiset imagines, Herman Hendrickson, our ancestor, may have been the son of Henrik, the Burgesell of Norway, who he says was the son of Herman the fisherman, descendant of Captain Dirk. But his identity before reaching this country cannot be positively determined, as the early records of Bergen were burned. ... Of the later family there were Jacob Dircksen, the banished [because he was a Calvinist], and Dirk Roosecrans, his son, Captain of the Civil Guard, both of whom used the Rose-wreath, the one upon his dwelling and the other as his coat of arms. This is conclusive evidence that the German branch whence they sprang were descended from Erik of the Rose-wreath, for, till 1525, none but his descendants used it. Herman Rosenkrantz, the merchant, who went to Norway and secured the right of whale fishing on the coasts of Norway and Greenland, 1617 - 1626, is supposed to have been his son, and the father of Henrik, the Burgesell of Norway, 1657, who was probably the father of our American ancestor, Herman Hendrickszen, as the name indicates. During the years of war and persecution which followed Jacob's banishment till 1652, nearly or quite all of the Rosenkrantz family in Holland emigrated to Bergen, or thereabout, after a stay in Holland of about 130 years.

The book gives this account of the first Rosenkrans to come to America:

HARMON HENDRICK ROSENKRANS, the progenitor of the most numerous branch of the Rosenkrans Family in the United States of America, from whom were descended Colonel John Rosenkrans, of the Revolution, and General William Stark Rosecrans, of the Civil War, was of Holland descent, but came from Bergen, Norway, to New Amsterdam about the middle of the seventeenth century where he was married in 1657. His marriage record copied from the Genealogical and Biographical records of New York taken from the First Reformed Dutch Church of the city is as follows: ... Married March 3rd, 1657, Herman Hendrickson, from Bergen, in Norway, to Magdalena Dircks, widow of Cornelius Caper. This form of our ancestor’s name denotes that he was the son of Hendrick or Henrik, and as it is nowhere else found so written, but is usually written Harmon Hendrick, we shall thus write it when speaking of him. Herman and Harmon were interchangeably used in Holland and among the early settlers, as were Jacobus and James, Johannis and John. But one instance is found where he wrote his own name, that being in 1683, when he signed his name to a petition, writing it "Harmon Hyndryx." As family names were then but little used he did not write the name Rosenkrans. After his marriage in New York, 1657, we next find him in Kingston where he settled about 1660. His son Alexander was born in Kingston, as his marriage record shows, and he was baptized in New York, April, 1661.

The following is from "The Rosenkrans Family in Sussex County, NJ, submitted by John D. Rosenkrans,VI":

Colonel John Rosenkrans  b.1724 Rochester, NY d.1786 Walpack, NJ, came to the Old Mine Road in Walpack in 1745 when he purchased Fort Shappanack, which overlooked the Delaware River. [The Old Mine Road is given credit in the history books as the oldest road in the US.] During his day, the Indians were numerous in that section of the country. Col. John often related to his sons, that bands of Indians would often come to his house and partake in generous hospitalities which he offered. Frequently, a score of Indians found shelter beneath his roof for the night, sleeping on the kitchen floor. Fort Shappanack (aka Fort Johns), according to Sussex county histories, was named for the old village in which it stood. When the American Revolution broke out Col. John enlisted in the Sussex County Militia, 3rd Regiment, on May 23, 1777 he was commissioned to the rank of Colonel for his gallantry. He fought at the Battle of Germantown, Pa. and he accompanied General Sullivan in his campaign against the Indians of the upper Susquehanna and Genesee Valley in 1779. At one time, he was shot in the shoulder, and from the results of, he never fully recovered. A physician in Morristown, in the treatment of his wound, scraped the bone of his shoulder, which caused it to grow worse. He died in 1786 and was buried at old Shappanack Graveyard on Old Mine Road, just behind his home. Adjoining the graveyard was a low Dutch church, built of logs, of which he was an elder. In 1959, at the site of former Fort Shappanack, a Memorial was dedicated, in his name, by the Sons of the American Revolution; Col. John Rosenkrans Chapter. Another son, Major Benjamin Rosenkrans [Alice Rosenkrans great great grandfather] b.1770 Walpack, d.1848 Walpack, was a commander in the Sussex Co. Militia at Sandy Hook, NJ in the War of 1812. Major Benjamin was buried at the Peter’s Valley (Bevans Cemetery) in 1848. My Grandfather, John Russell Rosenkrans b.1896 in Sandyston, NJ, d.1971 Bernardsville, NJ,  fought in WWI, my Father, George C. Rosenkrans b.1922 Layton, NJ, fought in WWII.

I think John Russell was my Grandma Clark's brother.

Perhaps the most famous Rosenkrans of them all was a general in the American Civil War - General William Stark Rosecrans. There are many alternative spellings of the name of which Rosecrans is one but they're all related. Rosecrans and Ulysses S Grant were rivals in the Civil War. From 1868 to 1869, Rosecrans served as U.S. Minister to Mexico, but was replaced when his old nemesis, Ulysses Grant, became president. He turned down the Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio in 1869. He returned to private mining business in Mexico and California for ten years. He was elected as a congressman from California, serving from 1881 to 1885, and was appointed as the Register of the Treasury, serving from 1885 to 1893. When Grant applied to Congress for a pension after engaging in disastrous financial dealings, Rosecrans rose to speak against it. He died in 1898 at Rancho Sausal Redondo, Redondo Beach, California, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, in San Diego, California, is named in his honor.

Every time I drive on Rosecrans Street, a major artery in San Diego, I think of my distant relative. It's interesting how the names Rosecrans and US Grant are preserved to this day in San Diego. The US Grant hotel, which was built by Grant's grandson is a prominent landmark.  There's also a Rosecrans Street in LA near Redondo Beach where Rosecrans had a ranch. There is a biography of General Rosecrans:  The Edge of Glory: A Biography of General William S. Rosecrans, U.S.A, Louisiana State University Press, 1999, by William M Lamers. Here is more biographical information about General Rosecrans.

I remember when my grandparents, John and Alice, lived on the farm in Hainesville NJ. My Mom and Dad were married there, and I remember riding on the hay wagon when I was a little boy. I think my grandfather used horses to draw the wagon until he retired from farming and moved to Newton, NJ around 1945. I used to visit them at their house on Madison Street. Usually, I stayed for a week every summer. Grandma Clark always had fresh gingerbread cookies in the cookie jar. She was famous for them and her pickled beets. They alway had a nice garden, and a chicken coop in the back yard from which they obtained fresh eggs every day. I remember Grandma reading to me and my cousin, Peggy, when we were little, and the great picture in the dining room of my Mom, seated, and Aunt Winnie (standing) when they were about 12 and 10, respectively. Grandma Clark had a great sense of humor and she always used to tell what I call 19th century jokes. She used to send me to the local Mom and Pop store on errands, and I remember one of her jokes that went as follows:

A mother asked her son to go to the store for a pound of peas. [They were dried in those days.] "Now," the mother said,, "don't forget to ask Mr. Jones about his wife. She's been sick lately." So all the way to the store the little boy said to himself, "A pound of peas and how's your wife? A pound of peas and how's your wife?" When he got to the store he went up to Mr. Jones, the storekeeper, and said "A pound of peas and how's your wife?" "Split er whole?", Mr. Jones replied. "Her did?", said the little boy in amazement.

I remember Grandma always believed that she could cure warts by rubbing them with a bean and putting the bean underneath a rock. Then, when the bean had rotted away, the wart would be gone. It seemed to work. Grandma was very industrious and her house was always immaculate. She had her work cut out for her every day. Each day of the week had a different set of chores associated with it. She took a half hour nap every day at precisely the same time. She crocheted doilies and other items and sold them in the department store where my grandfather worked his retirement job in the window shades and linoleum department on Spring Street.

I remember that, after Grandpa had a stroke and had to go live in a nursing home, Grandma walked the mile every day to see him, and then walked home again. She had never learned to drive. Nor had my other grandmother. My grandfather had a 1952 black Plymouth that never left the garage after that. I bet it was an excellent buy for whoever bought it, because they hardly ever went anywhere, and then it was just to visit relatives locally. I remember Grandma and Grandpa used to play Pinochle once a week on the same night with Mabel Morgan who was Grandma's sister and her husband. I think his name was Ed. They lived just around the corner on a nearby street.

There is a story that, when my Dad was dating my Mom and he brought her home late one night, Grandma came out of the house (on the farm) as they were talking in the car and said, "Young man, in my day we didn't keep girls out to all hours of the night!" Grandma was very strict about not allowing any liquor in the house. I had heard that she was WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union). She had been a school teacher, I believe, at least for awhile, and both her daughters grew up to be school teachers. Grandma was the sharpest and most mentally astute of all my grandparents in my opinion although they were all pretty intelligent.

My Dad used to tell the story (not apocriphal) of how his mother-in-law had given him a cemetery plot in the Hainesville cemetery as a wedding present. She was a very practical person. Anyway they are all there together at this point in time which makes it convenient for me.

Here is the genealogical summary:

1. Harman Hendricks Rosenkrans b 1612-1632, Bergen, Norway; d 1697, Rochester, NY.

2. Son Alexander Augustus Rosenkrans b 1661, Kingston, NY; d 1746, Walpack, NJ.

3. Son Johannes (Colonel John) Rosenkrans b 1724, Rochester, NY; d 1786, Walpack, NJ.

4. Son Major Benjamin Rosenkrans b 1770, Walpack, NJ; d 1848, Walpack, NJ.

5. Son John B Rosenkrans b 1792, Walpack, NJ; d 1850

6. Son Alfred b 1822 Walpack, NJ; d 1872, Walpack, NJ.

7. Son John B b 1852, Walpack, NJ; d ?.

8. Daughter Alice Jeanette b 1886, Walpack, NJ d circa 1974, Sussex, NJ.

9. Daughter Florence b 1913, Hainesville NJ; d 1997, Hackettstown, NJ.

10. Son John b 1941, Franklin, NJ.

11. Daughter Justine b 1970, La Jolla, CA.

12. Daughters Jasmine b 2001, San Diego, CA and Monique b 2003, San Diego, CA.

James Stringham Lawrence, Railroader, Numismatist, Loved his Cocker Spaniels

James S. Lawrence was my grandfather. He was born August 11, 1888 in  Freedom Plains, NY, a small hamlet close to Poughkeepsie in Dutchess County. He grew up in Poughkeepsie where his father, Walter E Lawrence was employed by Lucky and Platt, a large department store. Walter put the finishing touches on the furniture sold there. I imagine that, if there was some assembly required, that was Walter's job. Grandpa's mother's name was Josephine Sherwood. There is a story that Grandpa was named Stringham after a rich man that lived in the area in the hope that the rich man would give them some money but he never did.

The Freedom Plains Presbyterian Church where Grandpa was baptized is still there located on Stringham Road. There is also a Stringham Park that has numerous soccer fields, but as far as what happened to the Stringhams or what property they owned or influence they had at the time of Grandpa's birth, no information seems to be available. Grandpa was probably inspired by the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge, which was completed one year after he was born, to become a railroad man.

The bridge remained the southernmost non car float rail crossing of the Hudson or related rivers until the opening of the Hell Gate Bridge in 1914 (which crosses the East River and thus does not actually provide access to the western shore of the Hudson). The bridge was considered an engineering marvel of the day and has 6 main spans. Total length is 6747 feet including approaches. The deck is 212 feet above water. It is a multispan cantilever bridge, it has three river crossing cantilever spans of 525 feet; 2 anchor spans of 525 feet, 2,200 foot shore spans and a 2,654 approach span on the eastern shore, as the eastern shore is lower than the western shore which has bluffs in that area. It formed part of the most direct rail route between the industrial Northeastern states and the Midwestern and Western states.

Grandpa became a telegrapher and worked for the Lehigh and Hudson Railroad his whole life. His younger brother, William, became an engineer and was known as "Wild Bill." Grandpa had a sister, Roella, who married Walter Herring who worked for National Cash Register which later became IBM. That's Grandpa on the left, age 16, and his brother, William age 14, on the right. William lived in Maybrook, NY which was the last stop on the L&HR railroad before it connected with the Poughkeepsie bridge. From Maybrook the line continues southeast to Warwick, NY, the railroad's headquarters, and from there to Vernon, NJ where Grandpa was the station agent from the late 1940s until his death in 1952.

I've hiked the railroad from Warwick to where it crosses the Delaware River in Phillipsburg, NJ. The railroad continued from there to its terminus in Easton, PA. From Vernon the line continued through McAfee, Hamburg and Franklin, NJ where there was a rich zinc mining operation. Coal was hauled from Easton to Poughkeepsie where it could be put on a barge and shipped down the Hudson to New York City.

Grandpa served time at the one man Lake Station outside of Warwick where he met my grandmother as she traveled by train from Bellvale to Warwick to attend high school. They were married June 14, 1911. After that Grandpa was station agent at Sugar Loaf, NY. It seemed as though he was station agent at practically every station on the L&HR in the area. Grandma learned Morse Code and how to operate the teletype machine and substituted for Grandpa on occasion. Grandpa spent most of his days, when my Dad and Aunt Edie were growing up, at the Chester, NY station, and then later he was at the Warwick station before moving on to Vernon. One of Grandma's old newspaper clippings (undated) reads as follows:

"S. Lewis Conklin, a farmer living on the Chester-Sugar Loaf road, was visited by a burgler last Tuesday night.  The lock on the chicken house had been broken and a lot of chickens taken. The thief also took a bag of feed from the barn. Constable James S. Lawrence, who was returning to his home near the Conklin farm at 11:45 PM met a horse and sleigh and recognized the driver. The bag of feed was in the seat and the chickens were in bags in the rear of the sleigh. The following morning Mr. Conklin, acccompanied by Officer Lawrence, called at the home of the midnight visitor and found him dressing chickens. Mr. Conklin promptly identified several of his fowls and the party admitted taking 24 and the bag of feed. This happened to be a white man. A negro would have been promptly arrested and tried. The same laws should govern where a white man commits a crime. The officers of the town are sworn to do their duty, and we expect some move to be made shortly. The charge of breaking a lock on an outbuilding is burglary in the third degree, the stealing of the feed and chickens is petit larceny. Of course this is not pleasant business but the laws must be enforced."

Grandpa was a numismatist and had a wonderful coin collection. I remember he had every Morgan Head quarter and every penny going way back including Indian heads and a very rare Lincoln head 1909 SVDB. In a 1957 article in the Middletown (NY) Times Herald on Vincent Van Duzer, Numismatist, it says: "A Mr. James Lawrence of Warwick (now deceased) had been a helpful mentor to Mr. Van Duzer, and his gratitude to him for his enthusiastic encouragement and assistance is translated into his desire to assist other collectors, young and old."

Grandpa loved his dogs and he used to breed cocker spaniels. When I came on the scene, Grandpa was winding down his dog raising operation but he still had three - Hoppy, Fanny and Suzy. I think Hoppy and Fanny were the parents and Suzy was the pup. He kept them in part of his garage in Vernon. I remember it was very dark in the garage because there was no electricity, and there was a dirt floor with about 6 inches of loose dirt. Grandpa had an old Terraplane car and those dogs would hop in the back seat to go for a ride. Grandpa never drove over 30 miles per hour. In the garage were a lot of old horse collars as if Grandpa was waiting for the day when the horsed carriage would return.

Before they moved to Vernon they had a rented house in Warwick which was a very nice town and headquarters for the L&HR. My grandmother used to take me to Akins Drug Store (which is still there!) for a vanilla iced cream soda. They had little glass top tables with merchandise located inside. Warwick has a nice park which was close to Grandpa's house on South Street where I used to play with Bunny who was a daughter of one of their friends.

Vernon, by contrast, was a little one horse town in those days with a two room school house. Today it has grown considerably, but in those days there was nothing to it. Grandpa had an outdoor toilet when they first moved there, and at the station down the hill within walking distance, the outdoor toilet remained until the end of Grandpa's career at which point, I think, they shut the station down. The whole railroad only lasted until 1974. Across the street from the house was a public pump, and we used to go over there to fetch water. Grandpa eventually had a well dug so they could have indoor plumbing and running water.

I used to spend a week in the summer with Grandpa and Grandma and one day I would go with Grandpa to the station. There wasn't much to do since only about two trains a day went through there. Grandpa would get messages over the telegraph and then would attach them to a hoop with a long handle. He'd have to stand near the track when the train came by holding up the hoop. The engineer would stick his arm out the window and hook the contraption, pull the message off and then hurl the hoop back out the window. Then Grandpa and I would have to go find it. Sometimes it went in the brook and Grandpa would have to wade in to get it.

There was a big passenger waiting room at the station, but there had been no passenger service for years before my Grandpa ever arrived there. I remember there was a poster in the waiting room with about four streamliners lined up on it side by side and staggered so you could get a good look at them. In Grandpa's office was a small pot-bellied stove, the only heat he had. The station was located on a medium size square lot with the out house in one corner. Every so often Grandpa would have to mow the grass. Grandpa's desk faced the tracks and there were some gigantic levers by means of which Grandpa adjusted the semaphores so as to give the proper signals to the trains coming through.

Grandpa had sugar diabetes and had to give himself a shot of insulin in the leg every day. He kept oranges in the back seat of his car in case he ever needed sugar in a hurry. There was a pond not far from Grandpa's house and the water went over a dam and then down a brook real close to the back of Grandpa's house. It was so close that you could barely walk around one corner of the house. Anywhere in the house you could hear that brook. It lulled you to sleep at night.

I remember one time in 1947 or 48 when Grandpa, Dad and I went to a baseball game at Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was shortly after Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play major league ball, and Roy Campanella, the second, had joined the team. Dad and I were Giants fans and Grandpa was a Dodgers fan. We sat in a part of the stadium surrounded by black people rooting, of course, for the Dodgers but, in particular, for Jackie and Roy. In the late innings, the Dodgers were trailing, but we could hear shouts of "Wait for Campie!" and "Campie gonna hit a homer." Well, unfortunately, Campie struck out and the Giants won. Grandma told us that, when Grandpa got home and she asked him who won, he replied, with a dejected look, "The Dodgers lost."

Grandpa died in 1952. He must have retired shortly before because, in Grandma's clippings, there was a story about how he'd been elected to represent the L&HR vets. Grandpa had always been elected to represent the L&HR telegraphers at their conventions and in their union. He was a popular guy. His motto was: "Pay what you owe. Then you will know what you own." It must have been his Scottish ancestry.

According to my research, the 1870 census shows  my great grandfather, Walter E, age 15, living in Pine Plains, NY with father William E (engaged in farm labor) and mother Eliza with siblings Ida, 13, Robert, 11, Edward, 9, John, 6, and Henry, 2. It shows William's place of birth as New York. William was born in 1826 and Eliza in 1828. Walter and Edward married two sisters, Josephine and Mary Sherwood, respectively. Ed and Mary had one child, Sherwood Lawrence, who had one son who, tragically, was killed by a bus while walking home from school. The newspaper report (undated) said: "[Mr. Sullivan, a passenger on the bus] ran to the Lawrence house, not knowing the identity of the boy, and Mrs. Edwin Lawrence answered his ring. He told her that a boy had been hit, and she asked if the boy had a little leather coat with a fur collar attached. Mr. Sullivan said he believed the boy had, and Mrs. Lawrence replied: "That must be our boy," and rushed out of the house. Mr. Sullivan found the telephone and called the authorities and Dr. Clifford A. Crispell.

When he returned to where the boy lay, Edwin Lawrence, the grandfather who was an eyewitness to the tragedy, had the injured boy in his arms and was rocking back and forth as he sat on the ground moaning "It's our only boy." When Dr. Crispell arrived, he pronounced the boy dead...

...The Lawrence family is widely known in Red Oak Mills and the vicinity, where father and son, Edwin and Sherwood, operated the prosperous Lawrence farm. The boy is a grandson of Mayor Alfred P. Russell of Beacon. His mother is a teacher in the district No. 8 school, town of Poughkeepsie..."

After that the grandfather, Edward or Edwin, hung himself in the barn.

The 1880 census shows William living in Pleasant Valley, NY, occupied as a carpenter. He and wife, Eliza are both 48. Children Henry, 12 and Virgil, 7, are still at home.

I went on a pilgrimage recently to the Dutchess County villages where the Lawrences came from: Freedom Plains, Pleasant Valley, Pleasant Plains and Pine Plains. I wanted to find something out about my ancestors, but there were no traces of them. I found the Freedom Plains Presbyterian Church where Grandpa was baptized and Stringham Park. From Freedom Plains I took Freedom Road to Pleasant Valley. It turned out to be a designated historic route. The countryside was beautiful, but it was left to my imagination where the farm that my great great grandfather worked on was. It was the day after a northeaster had dropped 8 inches of rain and flooded many roads. Wappingers Creek was rushing through Pleasant Valley.

Pleasant Plains consisted of a Presbyterian Church and that was it. All of these little towns had large Presbyterian churches. Pine Plains was the largest of the small hamlets with a huge cemetery, but I couldn't find one Lawrence. There were a lot of Hiseroots and Huysradt's but no Lawrences. There were some Lawrences at the Netherwood Baptist Church, but none of them seemed to be related. It was a pleasant drive through the Dutchess County countryside, and then I crossed the Hudson on the Kingston Bridge, route 199, and headed for Springfield, NJ and dinner with my friends Morty and Renee Geist.

The Saga of John Kyte Clark

My grandfather, John Kyte Clark, whom I was named after,  was named after his grandfather, John C Kyte. He was born in 1883. I had heard a family story that my great grandfather, Eugene Clark, had left my great grandmother, Libbie, and gone off to the city to pursue a life of wine, women and song. I don’t know if that part was true or not but the 1900 census record shows that my great grandmother had moved back to the family farm with her father and mother along with her two sons, John K and Claud. She was 43 at the time. My grandfather was 16. His older brother was 20. I imagine that my great great grandfather, John C Kyte who was 78 needed all the help he could get on the farm as did my great great grandmother Sarah who was 78 also. This was also the farm where Libbie grew up according to the census of 1870 assuming that her parents farmed the same farm their entire life which was common in those days. People didn’t move around from farm to farm much. The 1870 census shows that Libbie was 14 and living with her father, mother and 7 siblings in the farm house pictured below (picture taken 2006).
      
       I had heard that my great grandfather, Eugene, came from Bucks County, PA. That was only partially true. My great great grandfather Aaron W Clark was born in Sandyston, NJ in 1831. The 1850 census record shows that Aaron W who was 19 was living in Sandyston Township where the Kytes resided. The 1860 census shows Aaron W living in Sandyston with Hannah and oldest son Isaiah. He later moved to Monroe County in PA since the 1870 census shows him living there with wife, Hannah, and sons, Isaiah, Eugene and another with an indecipherable name. So the families might have known each other before the move to PA. Besides the farm was only a mile or so from the border with PA so moves back and forth over the border were probably common.
      
       The 1880 census record shows that Eugene and Libbie were married and farming in Sandyston. Eugene was 19 and Libbie was 22 so my great grandmother was 3 or 4 years older than my great grandfather. They had a one year old child who must have been my grandfather’s older brother, Claud, so Eugene must have been 17 or 18 when they got married. Maybe that had something to do with why he left and went off to the big city. He had gotten involved with an older woman at a very young age. However, he must have stuck around at least till 1883 because that’s when my grandfather was born. Since the 1890 census records were burned, we can’t know whether my great grandfather left before or after 1890, but he had definitely left by 1900 because, according to the census, my great grandmother was living with her parents on the family farm in Hainesville, Sandyston, along with her two sons. That was the same farm where she grew up and where my mother was born and grew up. How many generations back that farm goes in the Kyte and Clark families is unclear, but it was at least 4, probably more.
      
       In 1907, my grandfather’s brother Claud died. I had heard that he had drowned in a swimming accident. He was 28 and must have been living at the farm in Hainesville. By 1910 according to the census record, my grandfather, who was 26, was the head of household which consisted of his mother, Libbie, 53, and his grandmother, Sarah, 80, his grandfather, John C, having died in 1902. So Grandpa lost his brother and grandfather within a 5 year period, and Libbie lost her father and son. Within a 10 year or so period, they had also lost for all intents and purposes their husband and father.
      

By the 1920 census, the picture on the Hainesville farm had changed quite a bit. Grandpa John K was married to Alice Rosenkrans and they had 3 children, Florence, 6, my mother, Winifred, 4, my aunt, and J Earl, 1. Sarah had died, but Libbie was still living. She was 62. My mother was born September 5, 1913. The census listed my grandfather’s birthplace as Pennsylvania which presents something of a mystery because, according to the 1880 census, Eugene and Libbie were married and living in Sandyston. Did they subsequently move back to Pennsylvania in which case the story about Grandpa being born in Bucks County, PA may be true? If so the family sure moved back and forth between NJ and PA a lot. Great grandma Libbie died in 1924, and my mother’s brother, J. Earl, died of pneumonia in 1928 when he was only 10.
      

I know from a letter my mother had saved that Libbie went through hell and high water to get title to the family farm in the early 1900s, probably after her mother died so that she and her son would have a place to live and a livelihood for my grandfather. I think I recall that the lot lines were somewhat ambiguous probably because the farm had never been surveyed since it had been in the same family for so long. And there were probably monetary considerations in order to buy out her siblings.
      
       Eugene had died in 1916 and is buried in the family plot along with Libbie so they must never have gotten divorced. What his subsequent relationship with his wife and my grandfather was after he left the family, I don’t know, but it must have been at least sufficient so that the family was notified when he died. Sadly, by 1928, my Grandpa had lost his father, mother, brother and son. Grandpa never talked about any of this and what little I know was passed down to me by my mother. Other than, that is, what I have been able to dig up from perusing the markers at the Hainesville Cemetery and from my genealogical research online.
      
My grandfather farmed the family farm until approximately 1945 after which he sold it, and he and my grandmother moved to Madison St in Newton. My grandfather worked as a handyman for a department store installing linoleum flooring and window shades in people’s houses. My grandmother crocheted doilies and hankies and sold them through the same store. My grandfather was a good carpenter and he had a full set of tools in his little garage. Now I wish I would have asked him to teach me something about carpentry. I think he would have been glad to do it, and I could have learned something. But I never showed any interest so it was one of those missed opportunities
      
Another story is that my mother and Aunt Winnie (picture left circa 1940) and a friend drove to CA in the 30s to visit a relative, George  Kyte, who was an optometrist in Santa Monica. They must have come over the original transcontinental highway, the Lincoln Highway. He was Libbie’s brother born about 1863. Therefore, he was my grandfather’s uncle. According to the 1920 census he was living in Santa Monica with his wife, Mary, and was an optometrist.  When he died, he left his estate to my grandfather. I don’t know how much money was involved, but it must have been considerable for those days. So my grandfather and grandmother had a nice retirement in Newton. My grandmother’s sister, Mabel, and her husband lived close by, and the two couples played pinochle once a week. They had a garden and chickens. My grandfather had a black 1952 Plymouth for the rest of his life. They were frugal and always had a neat house (pictured below). Even their basement was always neat and clean. My grandmother used to read stories to me and my cousin, Peggy Cole, who was about 6 months older than me, and, unfortunately, died when she was 15. I used to spend a week with my grandparents every summer and would go into work with my grandfather or ride my bicycle around Newton which was and still is a nice town.
      

My grandfather had a stroke when he was 75 or so and then was in a nursing home in Newton until he died in 1968. My grandmother, who never learned to drive, would walk the mile or so every day to see him. When I came home on vacations, my Mom and Dad would always take me to visit my grandfather in the nursing home usually right after I came home and right before I went back. I sort of didn’t want to go so much because the nursing home was depressing, but now I’m glad my parents insisted and that I did go.
      
       My grandfather never talked too much and never talked about his mother’s and his struggle to survive or how they came to live on the farm which had been in the family for generations. It was a small farm, and my grandparents were very self-sufficient. They were both very industrious and provided a lot of their everyday necessities by the work of their own hands as did many people in those days instead of buying everything at the store. The dairy farm provided them with a cash flow so that they did have money for the things they couldn’t provide for themselves. My grandfather never had a tractor on the farm. He used teams of horses to pull the hay wagon and the manure wagon right up to the time he sold the farm. I remember riding on top of the hay wagon once when I was about 4 years old.
      
       That farm is still in good shape today. It has gone through a series of owners, but it still has significance to me. My parents were married there in 1940.  Later when my mother got TB and had to go to a sanitarium, it was my grandfather who came and picked her up while my Dad stayed with my sister and me. We would have lost our house due to the fact that my Mom’s streptomycin shots were $180. a month and my Dad only made $250. in 1946 had it not been for the fact that my grandfather bought out their mortgage and didn’t require my parents to pay anything till my Mom got out of the sanitarium and they got back on their feet. Then I remember my Mom paying Grandpa $50.00 a month. When I was going to school, my grandfather always shook hands with me and there was a $10. bill in my hand when we let go. He was a kind, generous man.
      
       Going further back in the Kyte family Libbie’s father and mother John C and Sarah were born, respectively, in 1821 and 1829. They died in 1902 and 1913, respectively. John C’s father and mother were Jacob Hoornbeck Kyte and Mary Cortright born in 1775 and 1784, respectively. They died in 1858 and 1862, respectively. Both were born and died in Sandyston. Jacob H. Kyte’s parents were Thomas Kyte (1726-1816) and Lea Keator (1739-1827). Lea Keator’s ancestry can be easily traced back several more generations. Thomas Kyte was a dead-end for now as far as my research is concerned. Mary Cortright’s parents were Simon Cortright (1764-1824) and Catherine Ennes (1764-1848).
      
       In the Clark family, Eugene’s parents were Aaron W Clark b.1831 and Hannah. Aaron W’s parents were Samuel Clark b.1805 and Elizabeth b. 1806.

The picture on the left is Johnny Lawrence and Peggy Cole in 1942.

My cousin, Jennifer Peel, has a blog that links here.

The Eponymous Clifton E Lawrence

According to the dictionary, you're eponymous if you have something named after you.  But also the thing that is named after you is also eponymous. Now it seems to me that it should be one or the other or there should be two separate words - one for the person who has something named after them and one for the thing that is named after someone. At any rate my father is eponymous because there is a school in northwest New Jersey that is named after him - the Clifton E Lawrence Elementary School.

My Dad was a special person. Before he came to Sussex, he had been voted the most popular teacher at Highland Park High School in the early years of World War II when most of his students were going to go directly from high school into the military. He taught "Problems of American Democracy." I wished I would have asked him what those problems were, but I never did. He was the principal of Wantage Consolidated school starting in 1943 and then the school system sort of grew underneath him to the point where he became superintendent of the Sussex-Wantage Regional school system. When he retired at age 62, he had been in the school business for 42 years having started as a teacher at the age of 20. Unfortunately, he died within a month of his retirement of a heart attack. He never collected one iota of his richly deserved pension. He still had a lot to give as he had just won the primary election for state assemblyman and probably would have won the general election as well. He was the ultimate civic-minded person!

But my Dad's professional accomplishments don't really tell you what kind of person he was. He was an extremely cheerful, optimistic person who brought out the best in everyone. He was a genius at human relations and he really genuinely liked people. His values were very mainstream, middle of the road American, and he kidded about being middle class. He had a great sense of humor and a lot of folksy sayings. He was intelligent, but his intelligence was infused with an emotional sense and he had excellent judgment and wise decision making abilities. He touched a lot of people's lives.

I remember as a kid his telling about this little girl in kindergarten or first grade. I guess she was a few years behind me in school because I don't remember her personally. But I remember her name  - Yvonne Petroliwicz - at least I think that's how you spell it. My Dad would say he felt sorry for that little girl because he didn't see how she was ever going to learn to spell her name! Well, fast forward about 50 years and I was in the Sussex Ben Franklin one day. I had taken in an old picture of the Wantage School (seen above) circa 1940 to get it framed. The person in the framing department looked at the picture and asked me if I had gone to school there. I said yes, did she? She said yes. Her name was Yvonne Petroliwicz. I told her that my Dad had been principal there, and she proceeded to tell me the story of how every year on the first day of school (or maybe it was the last) - I don't remember - she would bring my Dad some cupcakes. On the day she graduated my Dad presented her with a doll and she told me, "I was the only one he gave a doll to."

That was the kind of man my Dad was. He touched a lot of people's lives. He made it a point to know all the kids in his school by name even when there got to be several hundred of them. He carried a brief for his kids, looked out for their best interests. He fought for school additions when the kid population grew even though he made some enemies with the folks who didn't want their property taxes to go up. He seemed to know everyone in the county both children and adults.

I remember another time when Abie South died. Abie was about 14 at the time and lived with his mother and sister in Butler's alley, the "ghetto" of Sussex where the poorest people lived in ramshackle huts. Abie was in a coal car parked on a siding probably stealing coal to heat their house when suddenly a load of coal came down the shute positioned above and into the car smothering Abie. It was a tragedy for Abie's mother because she didn't have a husband and Abie was the "adult" male of the family. I remember my Dad driving up Butler's Alley - because I was with him - till he found Mrs. South to express his condolences. I remember her saying, "You don't know who your friends are till something like this happens." A lot of people wouldn't have bothered to contact Mrs. South. He cared about people whether they were high or low.

My Dad was very active in the community. He was President of the Board of the Alexander Linn Hospital for 20 years. He was active in the Masonic Lodge, and he was out a lot at night at meetings. One year he was secretary to the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge, Adrian Hommell, and was out at some lodge meeting or other almost every night. I remember he used to say Abe drove 80 miles an hour with the heater on full blast, the radio on full blast, the windows rolled up and smoking a cigar! Abe was quite a character. Dad was an American history major in college and was active in all the historical events like the Bi-Centennial celebration in 1976. I remember my Mom saying that on their honeymoon they visited all the Civil War battle fields. Dad loved all the civic institutions - church, school, hospital, the Boy Scouts.

My sister had cerebral palsy. She must have had massive brain damage due to lack of oxygen when she was born. She looked normal, but she never learned to talk and walked only for a few years. Her balance was always precarious and she fell a lot. From her teen-age years on she was heavily sedated and not too active. My Dad was so good to her. He played with her and made her laugh. The only thing my sister had in life were our parents. She used to sit by the window all day waiting for them to come home and, when they pulled in the driveway, she let out a big cheer and clapped her hands. They were all she had, and they were so good to her.

My Dad was a very sociable, gregarious guy sort of the opposite of me. He was very balanced between introversion and extroversion, but he was mainly an extrovert, I think. He loved social occasions. Psychologically, he had his head on straight. It seemed like he was always "up", always in a good mood. I don't think I ever saw him lose his temper, ever saw him angry. I always wished I was more the outgoing type like him but I'm not. Even in the same family you can have seemingly opposite personality types. I'm more like my Grandfather who was very introverted, almost autistic. I've come to terms with the fact that my Dad and I are different types, and I'm glad I didn't try to follow some life path that required the social and psychological skills and abilities that he had because I just don't have them. I think everyone has to first find out who they are, and then follow the path best suited for them, not necessarily the path that their father or mother followed. Parents have to realize that their off-spring may or may not be like them. I think psychological predispositions are genetically  inherited and not just from parents but from grandparents, great grandparents - who knows how far back certain traits go - and there certainly is a diversity of personality types in any given family if you go back far enough.

When my Dad died, the Board of Education promised my Mom that, if they ever built another school, they would name it after my Dad. Well, about 10 years after my Dad died, as it turns out, they did build another school. However, the local paper announced that it was to be called the "Ryan Road" school because it was to be located on Ryan Road. When I was a kid, Timothy Ryan was the dog catcher in Wantage Township, and I guess he was the most prominent citizen living on that particular road at the time, which, if I recall, was a dirt road. So Timothy Ryan, through no fault of his own, was about to not only have a road named after him but a school as well. And the school would have been named after him had it not been for my Mom. She went into high gear writing letters to the editor, getting her high powered friends to write letters to the editor, and in general going on a campaign to make the Board of Education follow through on their promise to her to name the school after her late husband. After some initial resistance, the powers that were gave in and decided to honor their promise and name the school after my father after all. My mother was a relentless campaigner and there was no stopping her when she got on her high horse.

So that's how my father got to be eponymous. He had a great life. He enjoyed himself immensely, but not every minute. I remember him saying, "Some days I wouldn't give you a nickel for this job." He was a genuinely nice person. I don't think he had a mean bone in his body, and he seemed to have the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein. He had a real sense of wonder about life, about the universe. My Dad was pretty down to earth and liked to joke around a lot. They used to like to have picnics in the summer time, and my Dad would say, "This tastes pretty good for an old dead cow." He also had a sense of his own mortality, and I heard him say numerous times, "But life goes on."