Anyone who has read any of my postings knows that family is incredibly important to me. I feel so lucky with the family members related to me and the role they have played in making me who I am today. Grandparents were those very special people to me. I was fortunate because I knew all four of my grandparents as a child and also as an adult. My first grandparent to pass away was my paternal grandmother, Dorothy Emma Sedlock Massey, in 1993, when I was 25 years old!
Today’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun posted by Genea-Musings asked the question, “Did your grandparents know their grandparents?”
Paternal Grandfather, Rocco Joseph Mazziotti (1909-1995)
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| Rocco Bellantoni |
As I have recorded in other blogs, my grandfather’s father was a “wheel baby” in Calabria, Italy and never knew his biological parents. He was adopted/fostered by Rocco Bellantoni (1842-1920) and Grazia Bova (1847-1900). While my grandfather, Rocco, might have known his namesake since they overlapped 11 years, to my knowledge Rocco Bellantoni never came to the United States and my grandfather never traveled to Italy.
My grandfather did, however, know his maternal grandparents:
Giuseppe Antonio Mortelliti
b. 26 Feb 1843 in Scilla, Reggio di Calabria, Calabria, Italy
d. 29 Jul 1915 in Elmsford, Westchester, New York
Santa Morabito
b. 3 Aug 1857 in Scilla, Reggio di Calabria, Calabria, Italy
d.3 June 1945 in Elmsford, Westchester, New York
These grandparents are the people who immigrated in 1893 (Giuseppe) and 1902 (Santa). Giuseppe travelled back and forth a few times before all of the family finished arriving in 1902 when Santa and her daughter (my great-grandmother Concetta) were the last to arrive. Unfortunately I have no photos of this couple to date, but I’m sure there were some taken and I just haven’t found them yet!
Paternal Grandmother, Dorothy Emma Sedlock (1910-1993)
My grandmother, Dot, had a difficult childhood. Her parents, Alonzo Sedlock and Louise A. Hillmann, both struggled with their mental health at various points in their lives. They separated and divorced around 1913, when she was just 3 years old. The story is that they were living with her mother who left she and her older sister in a hotel room when she was working as a clothes buyer for a department store when the hotel caught on fire. I have not been able to verify this with any records but in 1915 Census little Dot was living with a neighbor and her sister living with her grandparents. By 1920, Dot and her sister Ruth were living with their maternal grandmother, Emma Amanda Sackmann and her 2nd husband, Otto Schmidt. (Dot’s biological grandfather Johannes Willheim Hillmann died in 1906 so she would have never met him). My grandmother knew and loved her grandmother very much and “Granny” eventually came to live with her family for a bit and my father knew and loved her too.
Emma and Otto, 1 Oct 1911
Maternal Grandparents:
Johannes Willheim Hillmann
Favorite photo of Ruth and Dot B.18 Apr 1856 in Bremen, Bremen, Germany
D. 13 Jan 1906 in Brooklyn Ward 25, Kings, New York
Otto Fred Schmidt (step-grandfather)
B. 1868 in Germany
D. 3 May 1924 in Brooklyn Ward, Kings, New York
Emma Amanda Sackmann
26 Jun 1862 in Germania, Potter County, Pennsylvania
2 Feb 1951 in Brattleboro, Windham, Vermont
I have evidence that she did meet and know her paternal grandmother but I do not know to what level. She never spoke about this grandmother to my father, so nothing was really known about her, but I am certain that she is the one who paid for one of the favorite photos I have of she and her sister.
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| Elizabeth Kristof Barath, taken at the same photography studio |
Janos Szedlak
B. 31 Dec 1841 in Barca, Kosice, Kosice, Slovakia
D. between 1878 and 1885 in Kosice
Elizabeth Szabo Kristof
B. 18 May 1855 in Garadna, Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen, Hungary
22 Mar 1919 in Port Jervis, Orange, New York
Maternal Grandfather, Walter Elliot Tubbs (1911-1994)
Although my grandfather was the youngest of the three Tubbs children, he did appear to overlap in life with three of his four grandparents. Although this was the case and I knew my grandfather into my 20’s, I never remember hearing a story about any of them. I asked my mother at dinner tonight and she doesn’t ever remember hearing any stories either, even about the grandmother who lived in the same town close to my grandfather into his teenage years.
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| Samuel Obed Tubbs |
Paternal grandparents:
- Samuel Obed Tubbs
B. 24 Feb 1834 in Ontario County, NY
D. 30 Jun 1917 in Ann Arbor, Washtenaw, MI
Francis Eliza Randall
B. 4 Jan 1837 in Watertown, Jefferson, NY
D. 22 Oct 1924 in Ann Arbor, Washtenaw, MI
Chauncey Gould Orcutt
- B. 25 Dec 1838 in Troy, Rensselaer County, NY
D. 9 Oct 1919 in Ann Arbor, Washtenaw, MI
Susan Ann Bailey
B. 8 Dec 1840 in Green Oaks, Livingston, MI
D. 1 Oct 1904 in Ann Arbor, Washtenaw, MI
Chauncey Gould Orcutt
Maternal grandparents:
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| Frances Eliza Randall |
Maternal Grandmother, Elizabeth Anna Leach (1914-1998)
Although I knew all of my grandparents into my 20’s, I was closest with my maternal grandmother, Betty. She was bright, an avid reader and bridge player, and a fierce advocate for women, although not in the feminist sort of way.
I think she learned from her mother never to be dependent on a man. Her father died young leaving her mother and two young children to fend for themselves in the 1920’s. She took away from this experience that women needed to have an education and a job that could support themselves and to always, always have a $20 bill in your purse and 20¢ for a phone call and to know how to drive!
Betty’s father was left an orphan at age 9. His mother died a week after giving birth to him and his father died of a stroke leaving Edward to be raised by his maternal grandmother. So she never had the chance to know her paternal grandparents.
Her mother’s father died also before she was born, but her maternal grandmother was still alive. And I have two stories I heard from my grandmother about her grandmother, Mary Bedell Stoddard. In Michigan, card playing is a common pastime, especially in the cold winter months or the summer vacation time. I’m not sure if my grandmother learned to play cards from her grandmother but I know they played together, because my grandmother told me that her grandmother “cheated at cards!” and she was partially deaf and used a horn like thing. My grandmother would say, “Grandma, you can do that!” and she said that her grandmother would pretend not to hear or would put the horn to her ear and say, “What? What’s that you say?” knowing full well she knew what she was doing was not allowed! I also know that she was a beautiful artist, and my husband and I have one of her paintings she painted of a civil war soldier and young woman. I, unfortunately, don’t have any stories about what the painting represents.
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| Henry Edward Leach |
Paternal Grandparents:
Henry Edward Leach
B. 25 Jan 1834 in England?
D. 15 Jun 1892 in Lake Linden, Houghton, MI
Flora Elizabeth Croft
B. 1854 Canada
D. 1 Sep 1883 in Lake Linden, Houghton, MI
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| Flora Elizabeth Croft |
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| Henry Clay Stoddard |
Maternal Grandparents:
Henry Clay Stoddard
B. 25 Aug 1841 in Detroit, Wayne, MI
D. 8 Apr 1909 in Reed City, Osceola, MI
Mary Bedell
B. 19 May 1852 in Nankin Twnsp, Wayne, MI
D. 8 May 1933 in Big Rapids, Mecosta, MI
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| Mary Bedell |
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