The Brownes, The Curtises and The Hollands
Written by Hazel Florence Curtis. Submitted to wurm-hastings.com by Shirley Ann Worthen.
NOTE 2:
Grandma had given most of her farm to her son, Thomas, who lived nearby. I think grandma had about forty acres left and she kept nine cows which she milked herself night and morning. A wagon drawn by horses came once a day and took the milk to a cheese factory about a mile away.
The place had evidently been very rocky at one time. There was row after row of rock fence and grandpa must have kept his sons busy helping to build it.
There was a grove of maple trees and at certain times of the year they would tap the trees and let the sap run into buckets. They made maple syrup and maple sugar.
Grandma had kept a few sheep and had them sheared. She sent the wool to a factory and had it made into blankets. When we left to go home, she gave mother two lovely blankets which we used for many years.
We stayed with grandma for a month. Uncle Tom loaned us a buggy and horses and we visited many relatives. Grandma had three sisters. One lived about a mile away. Her name was Suzannah Sanderson (Green) (your second great grand aunt). She lived in a big brick house with porches on three sides. Her husband made ladderback chairs with woven deer skin seats. He had alot of them out on his porches all ready for delivery.
Grandma's other two sisters lived about ten or twelve miles away in a place called Cornwall, Canada on the St. Lawrence River. They had a big white house on the bank of the river. It had alot of porches, too. Aunt Eliza Sanderson (Loucks) was a widow and her sister, Tina Sanderson, who had never married, lived with her.
The four sisters had been the four Sanderson girls and they had a brother, John Sanderson, whom I never saw. They were born in Scotland and their mother was born in England. My grandfather's folks were Holland Dutch and had lived in New York State before moving to Canada.
I do not think Aunt Eliza's house is on the bank of the St. Lawrence River now for they have made the St. Lawrence River wider so boats can come up the river from the ocean.
While we were in Cornwall, Canada, mother bought some nice plaid, wool cloth and had a dressmaker make my sister and me dresses just alike. (See photo below)
My father's uncle (his father's brother), Will, lived farther down the St. Lawrence River at a place called Dickenson's Landing. We visited at their home also.
Father's brother, Robert, had a farm near a town not far from grandma's place. They had six children but some were grown and away from home. There were the twins, Corey and Carrie, about my age. One brother had the same name as my brother, Lloyd. One, who was older, was called Orrin and there was a sister, Bertha, who was away from home. I think there was an older brother also.
Father wanted us to have a ride on the St. Lawrence River, so when it was time to leave he took us to a place called Kingston where we got on a boat and had a one hundred mile ride to Montreal. From there we went by train to Ottawa where father hired a cab to take us to Niagara Falls. When we crossed the suspension bridge, the bus stopped to let us look down on the Niagara River and across to the falls where a little boat called "The Maid of the Mist" was taking people right up into the spray from the falls.
When we were having our ride on the St. Lawrence River, our boat went through a rough place on the river called the rapids, instead of going through a canal that had been made beside the river. The water in the rapids was so rough the boat rolled from side to side. Mother got very sea sick.
We went through "The Locks", a place made for raising and lowering the boat. We also saw The Thousand Islands.
I forgot to tell you about the cheese factory we visited while we were with grandma. It was the one where they took the milk from grandma's place. It was interesting to see all the big vats, like big bath tubs, filled with curds. These were later pressed into cheeses.After we left Niagara Falls, we stopped in a suburb of Minneapolis where mother's sister, Ella Baker (Silvernale) lived. Her husband, John Silvernale, was attending Hamlin University and Aunt Ella was boarding a few men students. Aunt Ella had one very pretty little girl about a year and a half old, named Marian.
While we were there, my brother Cyril, three years old, disappeared one day and we all went out on the streets to look for him. Finally, father found him just around the corner entertaining the firemen in the firehouse.
We were soon home again; tired, but with a lot of new things to think about and remember.
My Grandma and her brother and sister (my Grand Aunt and Grand Uncle), from l-r, Lloyd Sanderson Browne, born Feb. 21, 1894, died March 4, 1932; Ella May Browne, born Oct. 20, 1890, died Aug. 29, 1905 at aged 15 of tuberculosis; and my grandma: Hazel Florence Browne (Curtis), born Feb. 22, 1892, in Boynton, North Dakota during a raging blizzard, died Sept. 11, 1982 at aged 90 in Woodland, California of pneumonia. My parents were with her at the hospital when she passed; and my best friend and I were in my grandma's house, where I had been living with her. At the moment of her passing, we heard her shuffle down the hall of her house in her slippers just as she so often did in life.
Note that in this childhood photo, sisters Hazel and Ella are dressed in their matching plaid dresses mentioned above.
The Baker sisters: My Great Grandmother (sitting on left) Mary Helen Baker (Browne) born July 23, 1869 in Blue Earth, Minnesota, died Nov. 1935 in Auburn, California, aged 66; and my Great Grand Aunts Lucy Baker (Onstad) (sitting on right) born July 21, 1867, died Dec. 1896 at the age of 29; Ella Delora Baker (Silvernale) (standing on left) born Sept. 10, 1876; and Florence Ansley Baker (Landon) (standing on right) born July 10, 1880. Photo taken in Dawson Minnesota shortly before Lucy's death. Their mother was Hannah Maria South. Their father was John Simon Baker. The Baker line is very well detailed and documented in a published genealogy of which I have a copy and to which my Grandma added a supplement. It traces the family in detail back to my 8th Great Grandfather Edward Baker who came to America on the Winthrop fleet in 1630 and was a prominent founding father of Lynn, Massachussetts, USA (now Saugus). Baker's Hill, which is a suburb of Boston, retains his name to this day.
