52Ancestors # 5 - Dugald Cameron Connor - a first cousin 2x removed

This post is for Week 5 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge - 2015 - by Amy Johnson Crow from No Story Too Small. Prompt for Week 5, Ploughing through. 

Ploughing with horses - National Library of Australia

With this week's prompt I am going to write about some of my Connor ancestors, those who settled around the Clarence River, New South Wales. During the 1800's there were many opportunities for farmers to show their skills - one was a ploughing competition. This was where a group of farmers would go against each other in various categories to show off their skill and win prize money.

Wordless Wednesday - Summer Sunset

Summer Sunset - taken in 2005

Madness Monday - the lives they left behind

THE LIVES THEY LEFT BEHIND is a book about the suitcases found at the Willard Psychiatric Hospital, New York after it closed in 1995. 

More than four hundred abandoned suitcases filled with patients’ belongings were found when Willard Psychiatric Hospital, New York closed in 1995 after 125 years of operation. They are skillfully examined in this book and compared to the written record to create a moving—and devastating—group portrait of twentieth-century American psychiatric care.

My friend and colleague Judi Chamberlin reviewed the book and said:
"Darby Penney and Peter Stasny, in reconstructing the lives of ten ordinary people who spent years at Willard State Hospital, have performed an important service, reclaiming these individuals from the nameless, faceless fate of being only "mental patients". By going behind the label to find both the beauty and the horror of their lives, Penney & Stasny have reclaimed the humanity, not only of these individuals, but of everyone who shared their fate - having their individuality stripped away by supposedly medical labels that became life sentences to the grimness of institutional life. Now, with their stories revealed, they can call out to us from beyond their graves, to confront us with their humanity and their tragedy."  - Judi Chamberlin author of On Our Own: Patient Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System.

Sadly Judi has passed away but her memory and her work of advocacy in the field of mental health lives on - you are missed Judi.

Lithograph of newly built Willard Asylum c 1870

You can go to the Suitcase Project here and view the photos on a Pinterest site here. They are well worth viewing. By the way, these horrific conditions were the same in Australia. Wolston Park Hospital did a similar exhibition, Remembering Goodna Mental Hospital, at the Brisbane City Hall in around in late 2007 early 2008. It was also  a powerful reminder of how people with mental illness were treated in the past and still are in many ways.

52 Ancestors #4 - May Leonie Brooks - a second cousin once removed

This post is for Week 4 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge - 2015 - by Amy Johnson Crow from No Story Too Small. Prompt for Week 4, Closest to your birthday .

May Leonie Brooks

No too much to think about here. I looked through my database of ancestors and came across quite a few with birthdays near me but stumbled across one with the same date and month - May Leonie Brooks - my second cousin once removed.

May Leonie was born on the 27th April 1883 in Grafton, New South Wales. Her parents were John Henry Brooks and Martha Jane Miller. She was the third of seven children and the second daughter.

May married William Henry McClaer (McClear) in 1904 in Grafton. William and May also had seven children, three girls and four boys. The family lived on Dunoon Road near Lismore, New South Wales.

May with Rainbow Lorrikeets

May died on 3rd April 1965 in Lismore, aged 81 years  just 24 days before her 82nd birthday and William died on 1st June 1965. They are both buried in the Lismore Memorial Gardens.

I wonder how May Leonie celebrated her birthday -  did she look forward to her day? Did she have a special cake for her birthday? May married in her 21st year - did she celebrate her coming of age or did her wedding take preference?  I hope that May enjoyed her birthdays. I certainly enjoyed mine when I was younger, now I'd rather forget the years.

Wordless Wednesday - weeds after the rain

Weeds in my garden after all the rain - the flowers aren't weeds!

52 Ancestors # 3 - Rosetta Johnson - a 4th great grandmother

This post is for Week 3 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge - 2015 - by Amy Johnson Crow from No Story Too Small. Prompt for Week 3, Tough Woman - Who is a tough, strong woman in your family tree?  

Thinking about who to select for this post I considered many women, among them my own mother, but I chose Rosetta and I hope in telling her story you will agree that she was a tough, strong woman.

Rosetta (Rose) Johnson - Johnston(e) - was born in County Louth, Ireland in about 1773. Rosetta was convicted at the Surrey Assizes - Lent 24 March 1814 [1] and sentenced to "Let them be transported beyond the seas for seven years." Rose had stolen 18 yards of sheeting value seven shillings and a shawl value 30 shillings in the parish of St George the Martyr in Southwark, aged 29 years. There is no mention of  a daughter during her indictment. There are no details available of imprisonment in subsequent prisons or hulks. She was transported to the Colony as a convict in 1815, with her young daughter Catherine on the transport Northampton.

What circumstances brought Rosetta and her daughter to London? Was Catherine born in Ireland or in England? Who was her father? There is no record found for Catherine or Rosetta's birth at this time.