Addressing My Past

June 10, 2017June 15, 2017 / Michael / 1 Comment

If you know anything about me, you will know I like to research and discover things about my ancestors. I do because, until a few years ago, I did not know all that much about them. Either side of the family was pretty much a mystery except for the O’Connells. For me, the O’Connells were my maternal grandmother, Regina, and her brothers Edward and James. Edward was her twin and James was my godfather.

I have spent a lot of time looking through sites like Ancestry.com, FindaGrave.com, and Newspapers.com for names and dates of family events. I have also researched the family homes in Brooklyn. This week I plugged in an address to see what would turn up. The house at 164 Dean Street is in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn. During my lifetime it was “Uncle Ed’s house.”

164 Dean Street, circa 1940, NYC Municipal Archives

It came into my family in March 1907 with the deed going to John Boyle (my third great-grandfather). With the death of John Boyle, it passed into the hands of the O’Connell family, specifically my great-grandfather, Edward F. O’Connell. It passed to my Great Uncle, Edward A. O’Connell in 1941 and James O’Connell was added to the deed soon after.

It was common for multiple family units in the immigrant Irish community to fill these venerable old Brownstones. From 1907 through the late 1980’s, 164 Dean Street was the home of many of the Irish names that run in my family; Boyle, Cooke, Mahoney, and O’Connell.

I went into Newspapers.com and found The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the daily paper for Brooklyn for 114 years from 1841 to 1955. What I found was a little bit of a revelation. I caught some of my ancestors living their daily lives. The first thing to catch my eye with the Dean Street address was a letter written by my, then 10-year-old, grandmother to the children’s page published in May 1917 seeking admission to the Humane Club. It seems to have been a column written by someone who went by “Aunt Jean.”

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
(Brooklyn, New York)
18 May 1917, Fri • Page 29

The newspaper did a lot of society reporting and it actually reported on parties on Dean Street. Mary Boyle Cooke (my second great-grandmother) celebrated her 81st birthday:

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Sun, Nov 14, 1937 – Page 18

There were parties for my cousin William “Billy” J. Mahoney, Jr. (1st cousin, 2 X removed) The first was his 21 birthday party, the second announced his return home on furlough from the army.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Sun, Dec 14, 1941 – Page 20

With all those “Misses” invited, I think his mother, my second great-aunt “Gertie”, may have been trying to marry Billy off in 1941.

Billy would, like so many young men during that time, join the Army. He went to boot camp at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Either during a break in training or before heading over to the European theater he came home on a furlough and his mother threw him another party.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Thu, Jun 10, 1943 – Page 4

I think the second event was a lot more bittersweet than the 21st birthday celebration. Billy would go on to fight in Europe where he was wounded in action. He came home to Dean Street and took care of his mother. He never did marry.

My great Uncle Ed (Edward A. O’Connell) was an interesting character. He was a banker, a talented artist and a bit of an amateur historian of the Fire Department in New York City. In his study on the third floor of the brownstone on Dean Street he had painted a borough map of Brooklyn with the locations of all the fire houses, call boxes and graphics of some of the equipment. I don’t know if any photographs of the wall were ever taken. If there are any out there, I would love a copy. On 24 October 1948 his work appeared in the Old Timers section of the paper. Both the graphic and the write-up were his work.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 24 October 1948, page 24

I was originally looking for information on births and deaths. I found the life in between.

Revelation

60 Years

June 3, 2017June 15, 2017 / Michael / 3 Comments

My parents, Regina and Jerry Baumann were married on June 3, 1957. Today is their 60th wedding anniversary. They were married when he was 23, just 2 months shy of his 24th birthday, and she was just 2 months past her 19th.

Mom and Dad wedding

Monday is an odd day for a church wedding, and yet there they were at St. Saviour Church on 8th Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. The bride was the daughter of a New York City Fireman. The groom, a young Naval Aviator, was the son of a Brooklyn, shipyard welder. They were the products of a strong, working class, Irish Catholic upbringing in a world that had recently survived the Great Depression and World War II. They were of the generation coming of age during the innocence of the 1950’s in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The bride’s parents had great hopes for their eldest daughter, and her choice for a life partner at this age was not immediately embraced by her parents. They finally relented and gave their blessing. I guess if my father could land a jet on the rolling deck of an aircraft carrier at sea, he must have shown some potential. With the blessings of both families, wedding plans were expedited, and they arrived at the church on that Monday to say their vows and start their journey together.

Vows at St. Saviour Church in Brooklyn

The marriage was officiated by Rev. William Scrill, a friend of the bride and groom from their days as CYO counselors at Coney Island. Rosemary McNulty, my mother’s best friend, was the maid of honor. Don Hayes stood up for my Dad. Donald Harper, one of my Dad’s Navy buddies, made a last-minute appearance.

L to R: Don Hayes, Regina “Kelly” Baumann, Jerry Baumann, Rosemary McNulty and Don Harper

I tend to study old family photos. The one above is my favorite for a few reasons. First of all, my mother is positively beaming. My mother has never been comfortable with her appearance. In fact, she has always downplayed her looks. She is, unquestionably, an American Beauty. (Anyone who says otherwise is itching for a fight.) My Aunt Ann, my mother’s sister, is just barely visible photo bombing over Don Harper’s shoulder. The other story in this photo concerns the two people on the right of the group shot. Ensign Don Harper met Rosemary McNulty for the first time on May 26, 1957, just 8 days before this photo was taken. Introduced by the same couple that they are flanking in the photo. Take a close look and notice that her left arm goes back to Ensign Harper’s side. If I were a betting man, I would say that they are holding hands. The smile on her face reveals a great deal. Sixty years later, Don and Rosemary are still holding hands in South Carolina.

I am not going to give you some fantastic story of my parent’s perfect life together. There are no fairy tales. Marriage is work. Mom and Dad had more than their share of trouble, heartache, triumph, and adventure. Their union has produced six children, three sons, and three daughters. All are college graduates, all have families of their own. There are 13 grandchildren including adopted and step-grandchildren.

Through their lives together they have battled alcoholism, cancer, periods of unemployment and significant financial challenges. They sometimes battled each other. During some very dark years, my mother held the family together by sheer force of will. But, they came back to embrace sobriety, beat cancer, succeed in business and travel the world together. Today they are battling my mother’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s Disease. They are still together, honoring the vows they shared sixty years ago today.

S-007

I want to congratulate my parents, Regina and Jerry, on reaching this milestone together. I wish for their continued love and happiness no matter what challenges lie ahead. Whatever comes, I know you will get through it together. I love you both!

What I Found in a Photo

March 25, 2017June 14, 2017 / Michael / 2 Comments

While enrolled in a basic genealogy online course through Boston University I discovered that you can tell a great deal about the lives of people from looking at old photos and analyzing the objects around them. Nothing is meaningless. To test my research skills I decided to work with a favorite photograph of my maternal grandfather, at the time a young FDNY Lieutenant. LT Bernard Kelly FDNY

My homework assignment to myself was to find out about the truck and the firehouse. With only visual clues, architecture of the building and a partial side view of the truck, with the engine company number on driver’s door obscured and an “AF” manufacturer’s emblem on the hood, this is what I found (I did not go to my mother or her siblings for any information that would speed the process):

The FDNY Engine Company in the photo is Engine Company 256 housed in the firehouse at 124 Dekalb Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. That was a simple matter of researching the ladder companies that drove the Aherns Fox Pumpers in the FDNY. This was not a common engine. Once I knew the houses to which these engines were assigned, I searched for photos of the firehouses and matched the architecture cues to identify the house.

Once that was done, it was a fast look through the FDNY equipment listings for Ahrens-Fox fire engines and everything fell into place. The truck in the photo is a 1938 Ahrens Fox Model HT-1000 GPM Pumper and Hose Car. Its Ahrens Fox registration number is AF #3442. That is a match to FDNY Engine 256. It left the factory on May 18, 1938: Shipped by Ben E. Graf via B&O and Erie railroads to New York, NY on June 25, 1938.

The engine remained in the FDNY inventory until the early 1960’s when it was sold to Paragon-Texaco Oil Co. It was one of the last remaining in the FDNY inventory.

You can learn a great deal from an old photo! Now I need to go to the FDNY and see if I can name the firefighters in the photo.

If you are interested in the specifications on the truck, as delivered, here they are:

Model HT 1000-GPM piston pumper and hose car with a two-door enclosed cab. 27’ long, weight 18,300 pounds, frame by Parish Pressed Steel Co. Reading, PA. Brown-Lipe 4-speed transmission #T-297496. 50-gallon copper fuel tank under the seat. Timken HX7 front and HX19 worm-drive rear axle, 5.4 to 1 ratio. 4-wheel hydraulic brakes, 16” hand brake. Budd disk wheels, Goodyear 11.25” x 20” 14-ply balloon tires, single front and rear, spare tire on left running board. Ross 760/770204 steering with horn button. Radiator # 539659 with Brewer-Titchener dash-controlled radiator shutters. Painted NY red lacquer. Hosebed with a slatted floor and adjustable rear windshield with 6 Waugh or Lyons hand straps, loop size to fit man’s full sleeve in turnout coat. Compartments including a waterproof box for 1/4 fold 9’ Atlas life net. Approved wire mesh basket 6” deep x 24” wide at the top front of the hose bed. Suction basket holder on tail step.Hercules HXE motor #321758, 53/4″ bore x 6″ stroke, 200 brake horsepower, high-compression aluminum heads, 935 cubic inch, compression ratio 5.44 to 1. Triple ignition (18 spark plugs), Bosch ZR6 two-spark magneto, Exide 6X6K-25-3-R battery on right running board, Auto-Lite MR-4108 starter with an IGC-4064 distributor, Delco-Remy 1106629 generator with 5821 regulator. 2” Zenith updraft carburetor with Air-Maze air cleaner and flame arrester. Ahrens-Fox 6-cylinder high-pressure piston pump, rated 1000 gpm @ 160 psi, 500 @ 320, 400 @ 400, 250 @ 600, at maximum 14’ lift and engine speed of 1600 rpm or less. 3” discharge gates. Engine-to-pump gear ratio 14-62 (4.4286 to 1). Pump pistons 31/4” x 6” minor (2.1417 GPR), 41/4” x 6” major (1.2238 GPR). Ross relief valve.12-volt starting, lighting, Sireno type 51 siren on vacuum chamber, 10” chrome-plated Corcoran-Brown 2205 swiveling searchlight at the right of cab atop 12” locomotive bell. Tachometer, revolution counter, speedometer, 1000,000-mile odometer, temperature gauge, fuel gauge, oil-level gauge, ammeter, oil-pressure gauge, and viscometer on the dash. Two 10” chrome-plate Corcoran-Brown 29233 headlights. Two 6” red cowl lights, Guide model 361H. Two red and white chrome-plated Guide 280R tail lights. Two 4” chrome-plated rear hose pickup lights. 6 chrome-plated lights under the hood, with independent switches. Red Mars light atop the center of cab. 2 chrome-plated Dietz King tubular lanterns on sides of body. Homelite model R gasoline-engine driven generator with pilot light and 3 extra outlets. Two 500-watt Crouse-Hinds floodlights, one 250-watt Crouse-Hinds spotlights, with bulbs. Three 100’ lengths of #16 two-conductor mine cable. 3 sets twist-lock connectors.Hiland enclosed cab, V windshield, safety glass, metal floor boards, leather upholstery, 2 rear-view mirrors, 2 Bosch QW12/1 semaphore signals with red lights, warning light atop cab, 2 adjustable sun visors, 2 Bosch NY1851 electric windshield wipers, 2 electric defrosters, bell on right of cowl. F.D.N.Y. in 4” block letters on cab doors.Morse 2000-gpm turret pipe atop cab roof, with 3” and 31/2” connections under each side of hose bed. Two 12’ scaling ladders. One each Elkhart 21/2 gallon soda-and-acid and Foamcrest 21/2 gallon foam fire extinguishers. 6-foot hook. 8-pound flat head axe. McElligott double-female Elkhart clapper valve with 300-pound pressure gauge and ground support. Crow bar. Two 41/2” suction spanner wrenches.1 Zerk high-pressure grease gun. Set of wrenches. 10-ton hydraulic jack. 8-ounce canvas hood cover, and 8-ounce canvas hose bed cover, with securing straps and strap eyes. Weed skid chains for driving wheels.

Meaningless

The names have been changed to confound the researcher…

March 10, 2017 / Michael / Leave a comment

It has frustrated me that, while doing genealogical research, I have been unable to make the leap across the pond to Ireland with any of the many family lines in my pedigree that should lead me there. I have been working the Flood, Kelly (seemingly heading to the Isle of Man), O’Connell, Cooke, and Gaynor lines trying to find that leap back to an actual location in Ireland.

My break came in January with a clue that my Aunt Maureen had in her possession. She has a certified birth registration for her maternal grandfather, Edward F. O’Connell. The record, from the General Register Office in Dublin, was dated 15 May 1940. We are assuming that the verification of the date of birth was for the purpose of registering for Social Security benefits in 1941. The most interesting thing about the record was the name on his birth registration was not Edward F. O’Connell. The name listed was Edmund Connell. I had the reason that my search could not get me across the Atlantic. There was a name change somewhere along the line.

Edmund Connell, aka Edward F. O’Connell, was born in Earlshill, in the district of Ballingarry, County of Tipperary to Edmond Connell and Mary Connell (formerly Morris) on 23 July 1874. Mr. Connell, the elder, had his profession listed as a Sawyer. The informant to the birth was Bridget Connell. I am still trying to sort out Bridget’s relationship to Edmond and Mary.

Armed with this information I was able to connect with a volunteer at Ireland Reaching Out who provided the following information:

Earlshill townland (place-name database) is in Ballingarry civil parish, and also the Catholic Parish of the same name. The townland is located about 10km (~6 miles) south-east of the town of Littleton Co. Tipperary. The baptism for Edward/Edmond took place in Ballingarry Catholic parish the same day he was born, on the 23rd July 1874 (NLI RC Register images – right hand page near the top).

A warning from the volunteer on searching for references to Ballingarry, there are several parishes named Ballingarry in other counties in Ireland. Take care, if you are doing research, that you have the correct parish. The civil registration district where the birth registry is entered is Callan, which although based in Co. Kilkenny, also covered part of Co. Tipperary.

Edmond Connell

Mary (Morris) Connell

As for Edmond and Mary, the parents of young Edmond, there is a promising possible marriage for Edmond and Mary in ‘Gurtnahoe and Glengoole’ Catholic parish (see left hand page), which is immediately north of Ballingarry. The date is 24th October 1858 – unfortunately early Catholic marriage records don’t include as many details as the equivalent civil records, so no father’s name, occupation etc. I am reasonably comfortable that this is my maternal great grandparents’ marriage documentation.

All of the children for Edmond and Mary for whom I could find civil documentation are:

Catherine – 22nd February 1866
Richard – 3rd March 1868
John – 6th Jun 1870
Mary – 2nd Jul 1872
Edmond (23rd July 1874)
Anne – 23rd March 1878
Margaret – 13 Mar 1880

Of these birth registrations, all with parents Edward/Edmond Connell and Mary Morris mention Earlshill with the exception of Anne. The place of birth on Anne’s birth looks like Ballyphilip.

Edward and Ellen O'Connell June 1934 (Nana and Pa)

Edward F. and Ellen O’Connell

On the U.S. Naturalization Record indexes filed with the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, Edward F. O’Connell indicated that he arrived in the United States on July 12, 1880. The port of arrival is lined through. He would have arrived here eleven days before his sixth birthday. If he arrived in New York, he would have come through the immigrant inspection station Castle Garden in lower Manhattan. Castle Garden was the facility used before Ellis Island opened in 1892. I have not been able to confirm that date or locate a ship manifest that could give us a clue on when the name was changed to O’Connell through records online for Castle Garden.

Edward F. O’Connell grew up in New York. He became a naturalized citizen on 2 August 1895. He listed his occupation as “bartender”. He married Ellen Cooke and raised his family on Dean Street in what is now called the Boerum Hill Section of Brooklyn. On his draft registration card in 1918 when he was 44 years of age, he listed his occupation as “chauffeur”. Edward and Ellen had four children, Regina and Edward (twins), James, and Helen (who died at age 5 as a result of contracting polio.)

Edward F. O’Connell died in 1959 and is buried in the family plot at Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn.

I will keep researching the name change and try to determine the arrival date of the O’Connells (Connells) in the United States around 1880.

A note on Irish surnames…

Irish patronymic surnames often feature the prefix O’ . As surnames developed in Ireland, they were formed by adding the Gaelic words O, Hy or Ui denoting “descendent of” to the original bearer’s grandfather or to that of an earlier ancestor. The prefix Mc denoted “son of” to the original bearer’s father.

Fred Goat Remains Ellusive

March 5, 2017March 5, 2017 / Michael / Leave a comment

Yes, I am still chasing Fred Goat.

In a blog post, In Search of Fred Goat, last November I began the search for a photo of the Fred Goat Company Logo that once adorned the rambling company buildings at the corner of Dean Street and 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn, NY.

After the NY Municipal archives yielded a photo circa 1940 of the building from an angle that denied us a view of the turret where the “Goat” maintained vigil I adjusted my search and contacted the Brooklyn Historical Society Library at the recommendation of Greg Young from the Bowery Boys: New York City History.

I received a response from Megan Westman, a Public Services Intern at the Library and Archives of the Brooklyn Historical Society, that contained a photo of the building at just the angle I was hoping to find. Megan, in her email, said the photo is from 1941.

The Fred Goat Company, Dean Street and 3rd Ave, Brooklyn, NY circa 1941

Alas, the photo does not reveal the logo along the space at the corner between the windows on the turret. You can barely make out some lettering between the third floor window spelling out the word “GOAT”. That leads me to believe that the logo and name of the company may have been refreshed sometime after this shot was taken, perhaps after the end of World War II.

The hunt continues. I think I need to somehow track down the descendants of Mr. Fred Goat in the hopes that someone has the shot for which I am looking.

Continue reading →

“Money Cake”- Tales from 4th Street

January 22, 2017January 22, 2017 / Michael / 3 Comments

Edward and Regina

As a child in Brooklyn, the first notable event in my family that came after the Christmas and New Year’s Holiday was my maternal grandmother’s (and her twin brother’s) birthday. This year will mark the 111th anniversary of their birth on 23 January 1906.

At a family reunion back in October, my mother and her siblings gathered the Kelly family together for the first time in quite a while. Old photos and artifacts from the family were on display, shared with stories about those that went before us. Many of the stories centered around Nana’s kitchen, cooking and baking in her Park Slope home. The stories of her old gas stove were legendary. For years, I think only Nana knew how to coax that old relic to life and then to the right temperature for whatever she was making. I know in the back of my young head I had a cartoon vision of her lighting the pilot light leading to a small, smokey explosion that would leave her unharmed with the exception of a blackened face and wildly singed hair, smoking from the ends.

Out of that gas oven came countless family meals, holiday feasts and, in her later years, more intimate meals for the occasional grandchild visiting or boarding with her in her ubiquitous brownstone just down the street from Prospect Park West.

Several of my memories center around her baking. She would bake raisin nut soda bread and, what my siblings and I would call, “pound cake”. I later learned that my mother’s siblings referred to it as “money cake”, named so by my uncle. The name comes from the expense of the ingredients during the 1940’s. It was extravagant and it was a treat that appeared on special occasions.

I am one of six children. For some reason I was the only one that would leap for the raisin bread while my brothers and sisters would favor the “money cake”. Don’t get me wrong, I loved both treats. But when you are the middle child competing for limited treats, you go for what you like and what is plentiful.

When my grandmother passed in October, 2001, my Aunt Maureen put the recipes together and passed them around so the next generation would have an artifact that they could taste. Over the years, I have become fairly proficient at the Raisin Nut Bread. A few years ago I even made a loaf and passed it to my son who sent it overnight to my mother (but that is another story). But I had never attempted the “Money Cake”. To be honest, I did not realize I had the recipe because the recipe sheet I had called it “Cream Cake”. The same product had a different name in each generation of the family. Nana called it “Cream Cake”, my mother’s generation called it “Money Cake” and my siblings and I called it “Pound Cake”. Confused? Yeah, sorry!

About a week ago, while discussing some genealogy discoveries with Aunt Maureen, I asked her for the recipe again and she sent it in an email. The recipe goes as follows:

Nana’s Cream Cake (“Money Cake”)

4 eggs
1/2 pint heavy cream
1.5 cups sugar
2 cups Presto
1 tsp vanilla

Mix cream, sugar and egg yolks.
Add vanilla and mix well.
Add flour, stir until well blended.
Fold in egg whites, beaten to stiff peaks in a separate bowl. Bake in a deep pan 1 hour at 375.

Presto Cake Flour was very popular in the New York City area. I live in Southeastern Virginia and this is not an item I can find in the local Harris Teeter. I ordered a box from Amazon. If you cannot find Presto, add 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt to every cup of cake flour. Because it was raining yesterday and I had nothing more pressing on my list of things to do, I decided to give it try. I had all of the ingredient and Aunt Maureen’s email up on my laptop sitting on the kitchen counter.

Coming out of the oven at about the 55 minute mark

The result was surprising. It revived a taste memory I think I had filed away in my brain. Was it as good as Nana’s? It was close. I think I may have left in a minute or two longer than I should have. My oven temperature in an electric oven may be more stable than Nana’s old dinosaur gas oven. I recommend you test with a wooden toothpick or bamboo skewer. If it comes out dry, it is done. My sons seemed to like it. They happily helped me taste the result of my successful baking experiment.

This is how I paid tribute to Nana on the day before her 111th birthday. Maybe later on I will go pick up a Hershey Bar as a nod to her twin, my Great Uncle Ed. He always seemed to have Hershey Bars for his grandnieces and nephews when we visited him in his brownstone on Dean Street. But that story can wait for another day.

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Successful

The Perils of Disproving Family Legends

January 16, 2017January 16, 2017 / Michael / 1 Comment

I am knee-deep in genealogy paperwork this weekend. A package from the National Archives containing the military records of my great-grandfather, Sidney J. Kelly, Sr. spilled over 100 photocopied pages across my table that probably have not been disturbed since the 1920’s at a time when his widow was seeking assistance with pensions and death benefits. I spent most of Saturday pouring over the documents and creating a transcript of the many handwritten logs contained within.

The danger in the research I have been doing for the past few years comes in when I discover that a family legend is not really true. We all have them, celebrated skeletons in the closet. They could also be whispered secrets through the generations or notes in the margins of family histories left to us from those who came before us. The names Baumann, Boyle, Cooke, Flood, Gaynor, Kelly, and O’Connell get tangled in the vines on my family tree. greetings-from-gowanus-a

Did John Boyle, Jr. drown in the Gowanus Canal in 1875? (If you are not from Brooklyn, you could not possibly understand just how horrible it would be to drown in that body of “water”.) In World War I, was PVT Thomas Kelly of Company “G”, 106th Infantry Regiment gassed by the Germans on the battlefields of Belgium? Was Michael H. Baumann guilty of manslaughter in the 1910s? Was his victim, a man with the last name of O’Connell from Brooklyn, another relative on the other side of my family tree? It reads like a Penny Dreadful.

Sidney and Emily Kelly, circa 1918 Courtesy of Norman McDonald

What do I know now that I did not know last Thursday? I know that Provisional Ensign Sidney J.Kelly, USNRF, died of disease in March of 1919 while on home leave due to illness. His medical discharge, signed by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels days after his death, had to be revoked so that benefit and pension issues could be dealt with by his widow, Emily. I also have found that Ens Kelly’s son, Private Thomas M. Kelly, served with the 106th Infantry Regiment in the European theater and most likely did see combat in the 2nd Battle of the Somme in March and April of 1918 fighting alongside the British Third Army. He returned to the United States in 1919 and was discharged when the 106th was demobilized in June 1919. His name does not appear on the casualty lists from the battle. I am still looking into his unit history and am waiting for the National Archives to provide his records. The story of him being gassed is still unproven.

Whatever I uncover, I think it is best to stick to what I can prove through research and documentation. The truth will find a way to come out. Some the legends may continue as legend, others may not stand up to scrutiny. For now, I will go where the records and, hopefully, the truth take me.

Transcript

Man Cave Formal, 2017

January 1, 2017January 1, 2017 / Michael / 1 Comment

This is an update to my post from yesterday. At about 12:11 am, just after the New Year’s kisses and hugs were wrapping up, the phone pinged. The “Man Cave Formal, 2017” arrived. Because he posted it on FaceBook, I have no issues with putting it here as my first post of the year 2017. Besides, no one reads this anyway!

From a secret, undisclosed location near the border between New York and Connecticut, my brother, James, in Man Cave Formal , 2017…

James, 2017

Happy New Year!

Year

via Daily Prompt: Year

Looking Forward, 2017

December 31, 2016January 3, 2017 / Michael / 3 Comments

It is once again New Year’s Eve. I am ending this year in the same place I began it, along the Herb River in Savannah. It is really the place I want to be because She is here. That is more than enough to make me happy.

We all have rituals that go along with the new year. Some are very traditional from watching the “Ball” drop on New Year’s Eve, a kiss with just the right someone at the stroke of midnight, or a champagne toast. In my family, we await a special photo that comes out each year just after midnight on 1 January. I do not know how or when it started but my brother, no matter where he is or what significant challenge he and his family are facing, will disappear just after 11:30 and reappear in formal attire for the arrival of the new year. Even if everyone else in the house has conked out or a raging snowstorm is going on at his New York home, James will get decked out and take a photo. Sometimes it is a selfie, sometimes he has co-conspirators. Every year we all wait for the photo to pop into our email/phones.

I know it is silly, but it is a tradition that I look forward to every year. It makes me hopeful that no matter what comes in the new year, we were stylishly attired at the start!

James. 2016

James 2015

Hopeful
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In Search of Fred Goat

November 21, 2016January 3, 2017 / Michael / 1 Comment

It all started with a homework assignment from my Aunt/God mother at the Kelly Family Reunion in October. She wanted a photo of Fred Goat.

I remember Fred Goat from my childhood. We lived in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn during the 1960’s, just down the street from my maternal grandmother’s house. Nana, as we called her, often hosted major holiday and family dinners at her house. After those dinners, my father would usually end up driving my great-uncle and a cousin, both bachelors, home to the brownstone that they lived in on Dean Street in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn. My mother called the two of them “the Dukes of Dean Street”. On the return trip, after we had dropped off the Dukes, we would wish Fred Goat a good night.

Office for Metropolitan History

I really don’t know how the tradition started. I know that my mother’s sisters would say good night to him when their father would drive them home from Dean Street in the 1940’s and 50’s. Fred was always at the corner of Dean Street and 3rd Avenue. Day or night, year after year he would be standing silent vigil. “Fred Goat” was the logo of The Fred Goat Company. It adorned the top of the turret of the building that once was home to the Federal Brewing Company . The Fred Goat Company took over the building in 1914 and began manufacturing and repairing machinery.

You would think that a landmark such as Fred Goat would be a an easy find on the “Google Machine”. Alas, no photo of the old goat has revealed itself to me on the internet. So I had to do some detective work. No easy feat from here in southern Virginia.

The turret of the building was on the corner of 3^rd Ave. I found a letter in the real estate section of the NY Times on Oct 18, 2012 to Christopher Gray asking for information on the building. It was written by the same aunt who had tasked me to find Fred. I found the owner of the company’s obituary in the online archive of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Archives from Feb 7, 1939 and confirmed the information on the building. I next went to the NYC Department of Taxation website. Between 1939 and 1941, and again in the mid-1980s, the city photographed every house and building in the five boroughs. I ordered a photo of the building from the 1940 collection. It arrived on 18 November 2016.

NYC Municipal Archives

As luck would have it, the angle of the photo does not allow a look at the logo on the turret seen in the photo just to the left and above the street light.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 4th, 1925 – page 20

The ad from the Brooklyn Eagle shows the logo that was at the top of the turret on the corner of Dean Street and 3rd Avenue. But a photo of the tower with “Fred” still eludes me.

The building has gone through a lot of changes since the 1960’s. The top of the turret has been removed, Fred was painted over. The eight story section of the building shown in the first illustration has had several floors removed.

federal-breweries-of-brooklyn

The search will continue. I will try to track down the descendants of Mr. Fred Goat, you know, his kids ( I couldn’t resist). Perhaps one of them has the photo I seek. Maybe someone reading this will have it and drop me a line. I may have to go up to Brooklyn to see if I can find any other architectural archives for the City or in the Brooklyn Public Library. Somewhere out there is a photograph of the turret at the corner of Dean Street and 3rd Avenue with Fred Goat overlooking the traffic below. Someday, I will be able to say “Good Night” to Fred Goat once more.

Michael's Monologue

The thoughts running through my brain…

Family history