This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: fl34 Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.fitzgerald/489.2.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: John, Yes, I remember you staying with Uncle Bill and Aunt Harriet and taking home the portrait. It is nice that you have it and nice that you treasure it. I can't remember what it looks like. Is it nice of her? I am sorry I didn't reply back to you sooner. But about when you posted your reply we were moving and building to replace our lost home from the 2004 hurricanes. We have been in this home now about 2 and a half years and I am still trying to settle in and catch up for the 6 or 8 years lost years after those storms. we moved 3 or 4 times before we finally got another house built and were able to be back on our original property here. Our house was horribly damaged and then the insurance co wouldn't settle saying it could be repaired. We hired a public adjuster and his lawyer who proved it was unsafe and never go thru another storm..not to mention the county condemned it the day after Hurricane Jeanne. But while waiting to settle the damgaged house burned down and we wer! e left with whatever we had taken to rental homes. Our new home is beautiful and on the same 10 acres we have lived 30 years but it's been a long time getting back any normalcy. But I want to know more about you and your family! Yes there were 5 sisters and I grew up with all of them. Lots of fun summer reunions. There was Ada, Helen, Mae, Phyliss and Harriet. I never knew Ada as she died a year before I was born but I am told I am the image of her. My sister Janet carries Ada's name as her middle name and she is a year younger than me and in Pa. Helen was my aunt but my counsin Judy's grandmother. Judy's dad is Helen's only chlid, Bus Bacorn and he just passed away here in Fl a few months ago. Mae was my Aunt but her husband..was my cousin Judy's great grandfather. Why ? LOL Because Helen and Mae married a father and son!!!! Both were named Sylvester Bacorn (Jr and Sr) This really mixed things up as Mae had a much older husband than she was herself. They had just one child who was Gladys Eckel. i think you met her and Revell , her husband. Mae had a 2nd marriage later since the Sr Bacorn passed away. Phyliss married Schmiss and they had a son Freddie and a daughter Martha. Harriet married Bill Jones and had Don and Shirley. Don lives in Va and Shirley in NJ. I remember you staying with Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bill. He just passed away and was over 100. I stay in touch with Don and so does my Mom and Anne Mae Bacorn, Judy's Mom. Ada married also and she and her husband Rance had one son Billy. Ada died very young. Grandmother(Tubman) Francey died of Breast Cancer and My Dad Thomas Francey took care of her til the end. She had a 2nd marriage to James Francey after her marriage to Tubman her 1st husband. Mr Tubman died in Calgary Canada and then Grandmother moved to Long Island where she met and married Francey. My Dad was the only child from that union and all his older half sisters spoiled him he always told us. I never met Grandmother Tubman Francey(Your Great grandmother...my grandmother) and I never met james Francey. He lost work as a builder during the depression and put a 2nd mortgage on the family home in Washington NJ. He then began to drink and left my Dad and his Mother to cope and they lost the home. Dad took care of her the rest of her life and never had any use for his father James Francey so us 4 children never met him. The 1st time we saw him was at his funeral. Phyliss and some of the sisters kept in touch with him but from what I understand he never got back on his feet and my Dad didn't feel we needed a grandfather like that I guess. As it was Dad had to quit school to take care of his Mom and I think he felt his father destroyed his early life as well. Anyway, I do have a nice photo of all the sisters and my Dad one summer at a reunion at Mae's house. It is a tiny photo but good and I will copy it for you if you like. I also have a very nice 5x7 of your grandmother Jenny which Phyliss mailed to me a few years before her death. It's nice! Maybe you'd also like a copy of that? I don't remember what the one Uncle Bill gave you looked like but all those sisters resembled one another closely. I loved Aunt Harriet the most! She always fed me when I came to see her and she always had baloney and pretzels and lots of homemade food. she always made a pot of tea. I still miss her. Helen I saw a lot of too. I absoluetly loved her husband Leo (Sylvester Jr) and so did all the kids in the family. He was so much fun and would play dominos and games with us. He would be silly and kids loved him. He wanted a grandson I think and Judy was his only grandchild and a girl. He would try to make me act like a boy. He once gave me a punching bag. once he brought me back antlers from a hunting trip...maybe thinking i'd develope an interest in that. Another time he made me a pair of wooden stilts which i played with for years. I loved him and often wished he was my grandfather too but Judy shared him with us. I was one of 4 children. If you were at the reunion with your parents you would have met my oldest sister Ellen. Janet who is youngest didn't come. She had small children then and husband worked nights and slept days and had no sitter. My brother Larry you did not meet but he and my Mom and Dad moved to Florida sometime after your visit, following me south. I already lived there when i met your Mom and Dad. I was 27 and got married Oct 1982. I still am! Just celebrated 30 years! LOL My brother sadly died about 7 years ago at only 52 of a brain aneurism. He has his widow Linda who i grew up with in NJ , here nearby, and 2 lovely daughters in their late 20's. Both girls recently were married. My sister Janet in Pa has 2 children , also grown up and one is married with 3 children and the other not married. My oldest sister Ellen went all thru school with Judy and they are both 63 now. Ellen taught school 35 years and just retired. She never married. My husband Kim and I have just one daughter Michelle and she just graduated a year ago from Stetson University in Deland Fl and now has an assistant internship at Western Michigan Univesity, in Kalamazoo Mi where she is getting her masters degree in Violin Performance and Orchestral Music. You can find her more than likley on youtube under Michelle Bessemer Stetson University...or maybe Sibelius. She is quite an accomplished violinist and has played that and piano since she was 5 or 6 years old. She is t! eaching out there and booked here already for Christman when she comes home for winter break. She stays busy most all the time playing somewhere. In 2007 at 17 , she auditioned for the National Festival Orchestra and got in and Played at Carnegie Hall In NYC. It fell on my Mom's 90th Birthday so we all flew up for it. Judy is in Charlotte NC stil and was up for the reunion that year with her little 2 yr old boy Bruce, and husband Greg. He is in his 20's now and finishing grad school for engineering. he is such a nice guy and so much fun to be around. Her daughter Chelsea is the same age as my daughter Michelle. Chelsea just graduated nursing school and took a job in Louisiana. She is a wonderful girl and our daughter loves both Judy's children. Judy divorced Greg when the kids were young teens and that is a long story but they are doing fine. Her Mom lives here in Fl alone as Bus passed away in March of this year. I see Judy fairly often and we stay in close touch. I show dogs and have for years..miniature schnauzers ...and that often takes me up her way to NC so we have fun then. Or when she comes down here to see her Mom we try to get together. We all like scuba diving and have done that together a few times. she is teaching art to elementary age children and got out of the clothing/weaving business after the divorce due to the shows and travel involved and being a single parent. I believe you met Helen, Jenny's sister at the reunion if you were there. If not , more than likely you met her at Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bills because she lived close by in Washington and they were in Bloomsbury, NJ. Here is who I remember being at the reunion...... Shirley ann , Harriets daughter. Bus and Anna Mae , Helen's son and daughter in law. My sister Ellen and I. my parents Tom and Anna Francey. Phyliss Schmiss and her husband. Aunt Harriet and Bill Jones. Gladys and Revelle Eckel and she was Mae's only daughter. I will get the photos out that I took and see who else was there but i have quite a few and if you would like copies i will send you some as well as the one of the sisters and my Dad, and the 5x7 of Jenny , your grandmother. I can write captions as to who was who so you can figure out who is who. Many are gone now but a lot of us still here who remember and wish we could reconnect somehow. Please tell me more about your family. how many children were there in your family? are you all in your 50's and 60's now. Do you still have your Mom Elizabeth? that is also my middle name and I am named that for Grandmother Tubman! My first name is for my mom's mother,Florence. I wish I could have known Grandmother Tubman Francy. She is buried in Washington NJ in the old cemetary there on the hill. Her 1st husband Tubman died in Calgary Canada and he is buried there somewhere. She then moved to long Island where she met and married Francey. She died of breast cancer and i have not a single photo of her. I wish I did. do you? I wonder if she looked like Jenny and the other sisters? Dad never had any photo of her but I could tell he adored her. He never really said what her personality was like though or spoke much about his early life. My Mom tells me that all the sisters and Dad called her "Big Mama" though!!! LOL My Mom at 95 is very clear on all this and has a memory to die for. She can tell all about the girls and their mother and their life growing up in Washington NJ. I would love if you could meet her and hear it sometime but she is really getting up there. I do have a few of her (big Mama's) things myself though. A nice pair of glass hurricane lamps that were electrified with crystals hanging. just things my Dad and Mom had that had belonged to her and they passed on to me. My Mom at 95 is not really all that well physically, but mentally and every way else? Amazing! she lives a few miles from me in her own home yet. My Dad died in 1990 after a long illness so she has been alone since. but active. She had a couple of heart attacks in the last year so doesn't drive much anymore. (no I am not kidding...LOL) Actually she took my daughter and taught her to drive and took her for her test 2 years ago. At 93. But she has since then slowed down a lot due to the heart attacks, diabetes, etc. Still though , she keeps up with me and goes places I take her and what not. I know you lost your Dad but what year was it? What did he die from? Do you have any nice photos of him and his twin which I could have a copy of? any of Him and your Mom? I have just snapshots in a dark resturant. How about any of Jenny and her husband? It would be nice to fill in the missing pieces. In my original house i had a photo gallery going up the stairs with a lot of photos of the family...both old old ones and newer. When we evacuated I took down all the pictures and took with us. We evacuated in an RV and towed a car so I could load the car with all our valueable photos and things I didn't want to lose. Anyway, John, Please tell me about your life and your family and how many of you there were and where all of you live now. If you ever come to the USA? If you do, you are welcome here. We are on the southeast coast of Florida, a few miles from the beach but in a heavily wooded preserve called the Savannas on 10 acres. I was actually invited to England this year to accompany a friend who was judging a dog show there and staying at the Risepark Kennel in London with a fellow breeder we all know named Barry Day. But she got the judging assignment 2 years ago and by the time it came around I could not go due to my Mom's health and my in laws also failing health. We lost my father in law in 2010 and just lost my mother in law last month which is when the trip to England would have been. I could not go and leave my husband knowing that she could go anytime not to mention my own Mom who depends on me now for transportation, food and supplies and about anything else she can no longer do. So no trip to England or I might have been able to find you! Our parents are all getting very old and i hate to miss a minute because I know those are moments we can never get back. I ask more now and really listen because one day the information will be gone and there will be no one to ask who can tell us t! hings about our relatives who are gone. I hope to hear back from you soon and I will try to answer a lot sooner after this. Florence Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.