Genie Road Trip

Today is the 12oth Anniversary of the birth of my Great Grandmother Cora Packer Shea.

Happy Hunting,

Jess

I’m counting down to the Michigan Antiquarian Book and Paper Show on April 1^st at the Lansing Center. Here’s a previous purchase.

This is Main Street in Rockford, Michigan and the message is written by Mrs. Judson M. Spore (nee Clara Dutton) to Mrs. A. Foster in Harleyburg, Ontario (according to the other side). Mrs. Spore’s husband was the Postmaster and she neatly points out the Post Office on the photo. I am not related to either woman (to the best of my knowledge) but the photo is such a great shot of a city my family has lived in for generations. I used to walk by these buildings almost daily when I lived in town.

Happy hunting,

Jessica

In honor of St. Pat’s, here is a view of the resort town and Galway suburb of Salthill in Co. Galway and the edge of Galway Bay taken during a study abroad trip in 1997. It was a beautiful day and an all around lovely trip… but I have no family from there that I’m aware of.

My known Irish ancestors include the Massy family from Rathronan in County Limerick, and the Byrne, Cunningham and Dowdall families who reported themselves from Armagh, in what is now Northern Ireland. I haven’t yet figured out where my Shea line originally hailed from in Ireland.

Ideally, I’d love to take a trip to research these lines.

Happy hunting & Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Jess

This is an example of why everyone should live life to the fullest and not take anything for granted. On occasion the world can be very strange and unfair.

March 9^th marks the 50^th Anniversary of a family tragedy. It is the day my Great-great-uncle Richard Shea died crossing Division in Wyoming, Michigan just two months shy of his 60^th Birthday. Richard was the youngest of my Great Grandfathers brothers and a World War II veteran.

But to add to the chord to this untimely death, three years later his widow, Beatrice Clark Shea, was also killed in a car crash—likely while sitting at home and watching TV during the Christmas holidays—when a teenage driver sped directly into her home, never trying to stop.

This article was a strange, sad find.

Happy hunting,

Jess

There’s a great deal of raw artistic talent among the Shea descendants and I often wonder how much of that is a trait passed on or whether it is other influences on the line. This is a drawing said to be by Ellen Cunningham Shea of her son, my great grandfather, Robert James Shea.

The original drawing is on something like cardborad but not canvas. It resides in the collection of my Great Aunt.

Happy Hunting,

Jess

Today would have been my Great-Grandfather’s 107^th Birthday. I don’t know a lot about him personally. I don’t remember him, though I was seven when he died. For practical purposes my Great Grandfather was Grandma’s second husband, my Grandpa Bailey.

Robert was the son of William Amos Johnson and Lena Grove Baker, he had one sister, Betty Lou, who was much younger and died at the age of twelve. Like many members of the extended family, he worked a stint at the shoe factory in Rockford and is subsequently listed as working in manufacturing. He married my Great Grandmother Crystal in April of 1927 and they had four children. And sometime between 1933 and 1934 there was a nasty divorce. But regardless of the reasons for the subsequent estrangement, he was able to have a relationship with his family later in life.

This is a section of a photo postcard from the collection of the Rockford Historical Museum.

Happy Hunting,

Jess

Today marks the 225^th anniversary of the birth of the father of our first Bailey family to settle in Kent County, Smith Bailey.

Smith was a native of Vermont and married Eunice King in January of 1807. The couple began their family in Vermont, relocated for a time to Oswego, NY, and then moved on to Washtenaw Co., Michigan in time for the 1840 Census. The Bailey’s and their extended family had settled in Cannon Twp, Kent Co., Michigan sometime in the 1840s. But in 1846 they had established their farm and home and hosted the organizing meeting for the First Congregational Church at Steele’s Corner’s, now Bostwick Lake Congregational Church.

The couple had ten children: Helena V. (who married Henry Sherman), Jerusha King (who married J. W. Scott), Eunice King (who married Harrison Pitcher), Chloe (who married Simon Scott), Smith Jr. (who married Marian Waite), William King (who married Susan Howard), Luther (died unmarried), Sarah (who married Harvey Porter—Seth’s Brother) and Emeline who married John Kronk.

Smith Bailey died Jun 19, 1864 at the age of 77.

My Grandpa Bailey was the grandson of William King Bailey, through his son George.

Happy Hunting,

Jess