The Brownes, The Curtises and The Hollands
Written by Hazel Florence Curtis. Submitted to wurm-hastings.com by Shirley Ann Worthen.
Hazel Florence
(Browne) Curtis(NOTE 1) My Grandma (Hazel Florence Browne Curtis) wrote these stories of my family down in a notebook for me when I was little. I am going to record them in Notes here bit by bit as follows:
Suggested Names for this story:
1. Adventures of the Family of George and Mary Browne.
2. Hither and Yon With Hazel.
3. From East to West with the Brownes
4. A saga of the Browne Family
or You name it.INTRODUCTION
Dear Shirley:
You have been wanting me to write stories for you but I have been procrastinating. You may have to look that word up in the dictionary.
This is July 15, 1973 and at last your book is started.
A Visit to your great, great grandma. The scene of this first story is long ago and far away. In the province of Ontario in Canada was a little place called Osnabruck Center. Like Brooks, it was not really a town. There was a post office, a school and a depot where trains would stop for passengers and freight. Round about were small farms.
On one of these farms your great, great grandparents lived with their twelve children. The oldest was born in January 1845, the youngest in March 1867. Some of the older ones had left home and some were old enough to help their mother care for the younger children.
Jacob E. Brown
Here are their names and birthdays:
Jacob E. Browne, born June 24, 1818, died Dec. 14, 1883
Sarah D. Browne born Feb. 29, 1824, died Dec. 29, 1913.Their children:
Jacob Browne born Jan. 20, 1845
Elizabeth Browne (Warner) born Sept. 6, 1846 Elias Browne born July 28, 1848, died Dec. 14, 1863
Thomas Browne, a farmer, who had 7 children, was born April 11, 1850
Mary Ann Browne (Warner) born Dec. 22, 1851 (had one daughter)
John L. Browne, carpenter and contractor, born Nov. 23, 1853
Robert Browne, farmer, had 6 children, was born Aug. 7, 1856
Sarah Browne (Hart), had 2 children, was born Sept. 28, 1858, died April 20, 1889
William H. Browne, Engineer, had 4 children, was born Sept. 28, 1860
George M. Browne, telegrapher and farmer, had 6 children, was born Feb. 14, 1863, died 1929
James Browne, born March 28, 1865, died Feb. 14, 1866
Emily J. Browne, born March 20, 1867, died Aug. 10, 1888Robert and William each had twins. Robert's twins were Carrie and Corey. William's twins were Alice and Charles. Thomas' son, Will, and Sarah's son, Dalton, lived with us and learned telegraphy from father.
Father's brother, Will, lived in Denver and was a city engineer in charge of the city's water supply.
When I was seven years old, in 1899, father took us back to visit our grandmother. We were living in a little town called Delhi, in Minnesota, so we had quite a long ride on the train. There were beds on the train, one above the other like bunk beds, each separated from the bunks next to it. In the day time the bunks were made over into seats.
I don't remember too much about the trip. In going from Delhi to Minneapolis, we passed the Pillsbury Flour Mills. Mother used Pillsbury flour to make our bread so I was glad to see the place where our flour was made.
When we came to a town in Iowa called Cedar Rapids, my brother, Lloyd, five years old, was looking out the window. The brakeman came through our car and called the name of the station, "Cedar Rapids". Lloyd said "I don't see any rabbits, mamma".
We had to change to another train in Chicago and had time to go to a restaurant nearby where we had some good beefsteak.
As soon as we got on the other train we went to bed. When we woke up in the morning, father said our train was to go through a tunnel that had been made under the St. Croix River. I think that river was between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. When we got through the tunnel we would be in Canada.
I got car sick and wasn't feeling too good so didn't pay too much attention to the scenery in Canada. Finally, we reached Osnabruck Center and the train stopped to let us get off.
Grandma's house wasn't far from the depot and father knew where to go. We had only gone a little way when two little girls came running to meet us. They were Uncle Tom's two youngest children, Nora (7 years old), and Sadie (5 years). They were not at all shy and began telling us all the latest family news.
Then we came to grandma's house. She was a very active little old lady, seventy-six years old. She had been a widow for fourteen years. Her grand daughter, Mildred, lived with her. She was an orphan, Sarah's daughter, about fifteen years old.
Addendum: Here is a link to an old postcard of The Pillsbury Flour Mill in Minneapolis as it was in the early 1900's and as it would have been when my grandma remembered going by it on their train trip when she was seven.