The Maiden Aunt - Joan Magurn (1927-2017)

Joan Marie Magurn @1948

On September 20, 2017, Joan Marie Magurn stepped through the veil, where we have no doubt she was greeted by her parents and brother, Peter, and sister, Margaret. Because she never married in this life, there was no husband here or there, or children for that matter. She never expressed her feelings about that. What we do know is that she spent most of her life serving others.

  Born 2 May 1927 in Kilmacolm, Scotland, to John Magurn and Josephine Decima Canham, she had an older sister, Josephine Teresa (Terry.) Terry says that the two sisters were as different as night and day. Where Terry was loud and active and social, Joan was quiet and still and a homebody.

The two girls went off to 

boarding school together -St. 

Joseph’s Convent in Girvan, 

Scotland, on 19 August 1934, 

Terry age 9, Joan age 7. Joan 

was the better student, and she 

excelled in math. In the photo 

below, Joan is on the bottom 

row, 2nd from left. (Terry is 

in the center, with trophy.)

When she completed her schooling she returned home and found a job in nearby Glasgow working in a government office that oversaw old age pensions. She remained with that employer until she retired in the early 1990’s. When Terry returned from the army she and Joan would travel together to Glasgow each day for their jobs.

  Joan did not attend the dances that Terry lived for each week. She did have some boyfriends over time, but nothing turned serious. Meanwhile her parents aged and Margaret, who had a form of muscular dystrophy, grew worse. After Terry left for the USA in 1951, Joan became the main caretaker at home. She expressed to Terry several times over the years that she felt it was her duty to stay and help at home. Her father passed away in 1956. The informant listed on his death certificate was Joan. She was needed at home more than ever with their husband and father gone.

  By this time, Margaret was in a wheelchair. Joan took care of her mother and sister, drove them here and there as needed. In 1975, her mother passed away. Margaret continued to need care and attention. Their brothers, Philip and Peter, found a home for Margaret where she would be cared for and have all the social activity she loved, but Joan refused. She felt that caring for Margaret was her responsibility alone. A few times over the years, Joan found short-term accommodations for Margaret while she took much-deserved vacation trips to Europe, but she wouldn’t consider making it permanent. 

She even visited Terry in the states in 1976 and had a chance to meet her nieces. Margaret died in 1989. I’ve often wondered how Joan envisioned her life when she no longer had anyone to take care of but herself. She did return to the US to visit Terry and meet all the grand-nieces and nephews in 1995. 

We don’t know very much about Joan. The Forman girls all have fond memories 

of her from childhood because of the wonderful Christmas ‘parcels’ that would 

arrive each year chock full of gifts and British treats. In her later years she

 would call once a year, which was lovely, but challenging because of her 

Scottish accent! Joan moved from Kilmacolm to Edinburgh, to be near her 

brother, Peter and his wife, Anne, but they both passed away in 2009. She 

found activities she enjoyed and made friends. She also stayed involved in her 

Catholic church. Her health began to decline, especially her mental state, and 

she was eventually put into a facility that specialized in her issues. She 

remained there until her death. Her brother, Philip, who lives in England, would 

call her every Sunday evening. Some weeks he would report that she was in 

good spirits and they had a nice chat, but other times she was confused about 

who he was.

During a trip to the UK in 2005, her grand-niece Heidi Van Natter, met up with 

her in Edinburgh. This is the tribute Heidi wrote after Joan’s passing. 

My Great-Aunt Joan passed away today. Because she lived in Scotland, we didn't get to spend much time together, but she was always very loving and kind. Her yearly Christmas parcels introduced us to the superiority of British chocolate and the questionable edibility of Turkish Delight. The last time I saw her was 2005. In big cities, there are often panhandlers and it's easy to stop seeing them. But as we walked to her bus stop after dinner, she stopped to talk to a couple of teenagers begging on the street that I hadn't even noticed. Even though her finances were limited, she gave them what she could and expressed a deep concern for them. She spent a lot of her life caring for family members and was often lonely. I'm glad that today she was able to reunite with loved ones who went on before her!

 Joan rests now in the garden of the church where her brother, Philip Magurn, worships in Darlington, Yorkshire, England.

Ann Elizabeth Ross Kittering ( 1872-1951) - MISFORTUNE

Ann Elizabeth Ross was born 27 Oct 1872 in Newport, Kentucky to John Ross and Ann Elizabeth Spiece, named after her mother. She was the 6th child in the family. And sadly, her mother passed away just 6 days later.

Ann Elizabeth Ross was born on the 27th of October 1872

Ann Elizabeth Ross Sr. died on the 2nd of November 1872. Aged 35 yrs, one month 21 days. 

 

John Ross & Laura Lawrence were married 15 Oct 1873 

John Ross married Laura Morgan Lawrence the next year, so Laura was the only mother Ann Elizabeth ever knew. Sadly, we know nothing about their relationship.




As a child she was known as “Lizzie.” As an adult she was known as Elizabeth, but when she married Jesse W. Kittering of Cincinnati, Ohio in 1901, she was listed as “Anna E. Ross.”

On the back of the photo shown at the left is written, presumably by her niece Annie Elizabeth Baragwanath Forman (also named after Ann Elizabeth Spiece Ross): “Aunt Elizabeth who married Uncle Jesse Kittering, had 2 children, a boy and a girl but their necks were broken at birth.” How horrible that the death of your children is the single thing you’re remembered for! 

 I took this information as truth until I found some burial records. Virginia E. (the "E" could be Elizabeth?) Kittering was born 9 Dec 1905 but didn’t die until the 27th of December. The burial information from Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio, indicates the baby dies as the result of a birth injury. As a mother, to me this is almost worse than losing the baby at birth. For nearly 3 weeks, Elizabeth got to love her baby, only to lose her just after Christmas. 

In 1908 another baby was born. According to the information on the back of the picture, this was a boy, but he wasn’t named and was buried the day he was born. The burial card indicated he was stillborn. There were no more babies.

Elizabeth outlived her husband by 10 years. He was an attorney so she was left in a comfortable situation. In her will she left cash settlements to her living sister, Edna Ross Bodley, and brother, B. Frank Ross. She also left her home, clothes, furniture, household goods, linens, jewelry, and other personal belongings to Edna. Her nieces Ann B. Forman and Florence Baragwanath were to receive anything Edna didn’t need or want, as well as a percentage of net income. So she was very generous to her extended family since she had no children to pass things on to.

And once again, a female ancestress’ entire life is summed up in a few paragraphs. I like to believe that the misfortunes she faced in life taught her important lessons that benefited her and those among whom she lived during her life. She died 28 April 1951 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

"Lucky" - Lincoln Ross (1914-1982)

 Maybe "Lucky" isn't the right word once you read about the play he performed in! (At the bottom - involves murder, a chest and dinner!)

Lincoln Ross 1930

Lincoln Ross was just 17 years old when he had to step into a leading role on stage in Arden, Delaware, with very little notice. Previously he had been the theater company's property manager, though in his childhood he performed in several plays in Arden, as did his mother and all 4 of his siblings.
  Lincoln Ross (1914-1982) is the son of Edwin S. Ross (1870-1937) and the grandson of John Ross (1833-1890.)

From The News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware) 1 Aug 1931

 NOVICE SCORES IN ROBIN HOOD PLAY

 Lincoln Ross Steps in as a Substitute in "Rope" Role

  The once-in-a-lifetime thrill came to Lincoln Ross, 17 years old, Arden, Saturday night when he stepped into a breach and with only 12 hours' notice, played the role of Granillo, one of the leading roles in "Rope," the psychological drama presented by this Robin Hood Theatre in Ardentown.

  This was Lincoln's first experience on stage with a speaking role. In fact, he had scores of lines to learn and a maze of stage business to master on short notice. He has always been property manager in the Arden plays but on Saturday night he left that job because of his success and on Friday and Saturday coming he plays the role of "Laertes" in "Hamlet," to be given in the Robin Hood Barn in Ardentown.

      The tense situation among the Robin Hood players was caused by an unforseen incident whereby Walter Lawrence, of New York, who was to take one of the leading roles, could not play. Lawrence Ludwig, who has appeared many times behind Arden footlights, took Mr. Lawrence's part and Lincoln took Ludwig's part. The fact that Mr. Lawrence could not play was not learned until late Friday night. 

Lincoln Ross is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin S. Ross, Sr., and brother of Edwin Ross, Jr., manager of the Robin Hood players. Edwin played the role of Brandon, Saturday night, one of the two students who murder their school friend, place the body in a chest and invite friends to have dinner on the chest.

 

Favorite Discovery - Samuel Longstreet Forman (1856-1857)

I found a baby in the fall of 2018. He’d been lost for 161 years. And it’s only because of the Forman Family Bible that I’m confident he belongs in our family. You’ll recall that we learned from the family names listed in the Bible that the “L” in Samuel L. Forman’s name stood for “Longstreet.” So I wasn’t immediately surprised to happen upon a death record for Samuel Longstreet Foreman. Until I read that he died at age 14 months in 1857. Ancestry.com only had the indexed details, but FamilySearch.org had an image of the actual document (shown above.) No parents are listed for this baby.

Samuel Longstreet Forman, born 1805

The original SLF is named after his mother’s father (Samuel Longstreet.) So who would be likely to name a child Samuel Longstreet Forman in 1856? Wouldn’t it be logical that the son of Samuel Longstreet Forman would give that name to his son, possibly his first-born son? Samuel L. Forman had 2 sons: William Lake and Isaac E. In 1856, Isaac was only 15 years old, but William Lake had been married to Amanda Orilla McAllister since 1853. That date is fairly new since I only found their marriage date in a newspaper record in the past year or two. What troubled me about the date is that their first known child is our direct ancestor, William Charles Forman, born to them in 1859. Six years with no children? Though possible, it was unlikely, so I assumed they’d dealt with miscarriages or lost babies. So let’s assume William Lake and Amanda Forman have a baby boy in 1856, 3 years after their marriage, and they name him after William’s father, who died 12 years earlier. I think it’s a logical conclusion. I’m so confident that this baby belongs to them that I have added him to my trees on Ancestry and FamilySearch. Though it’s possible I’m wrong, I’m willing to risk being wrong than to leave this baby without a family (until we get to the next life and can find him and ask him!) But the mystery doesn’t stop there! Curious now about other potential lost babies to this couple, I searched for deaths of Forman children between 1853 and 1859. There was only one that didn’t connect to another family somehow, a baby girl named Mary who died in 1856 at the age of 15 days. Let’s do some math: Samuel Longstreet died 25 Sep 1857 at age 14 months, so he was born around July of 1856. Baby Mary died at 15 days on 4 Aug 1856, putting her birthdate in July 1856, the same as Samuel Longstreet. Could they be twins? 

 The single clue that makes me believe they belong in the same family is that both babies were buried in Machpelah Cemetery (now defunct) located at 11th St. and Washington Ave in Philadelphia. No other Formans who died in that time period were buried there. I’d never come across this cemetery before. (All interments were moved in 1895 to Graceland [North Mount Moriah] Cemetery in Yeadon, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.) I am not as confident about placing Mary in the family because her name is so common, but I’m keeping her information with the family just in case. Had Baby Samuel Longstreet’s father or mother not insisted on including his middle name on the death record, we wouldn’t even be discussing any possibilities. It would have been so easy for the doctor to just write down “Samuel Forman.” In the elder Samuel L.’s death record, his middle name isn’t written out on his death record (or anywhere else but the Bible.) I am grateful to believe in a universal resurrection, the redemption of little children, the sealing ordinances that bind families together forever, and I am thrilled to know that Samuel Longstreet Forman can now take his place as the oldest son born to William Lake and Amanda Forman.

SO FAR AWAY

We’ve talked about our Baragwanaths in Cornwall, England, but what about the branch that traveled "so far away" - to South Africa?

  We aren’t closely related to Orlando Baragwanath, the subject of the book “Trail of the Copper King” by T. V. Bulpin – he’s my second cousin 7 times removed! Our common ancestors are Richard Baragwanath (born 1699) and Zenobia Stevens (born 1705), of Cornwall, England. 

Jump forward 5 generations and we encounter John Albert Baragwanath who took his family on the trip of a lifetime – from Cornwall, England to Durban, South Africa, in 1850. John Albert had been a Cornish sea captain.

  His first wife, Elizabeth Jane Trise, mother of Elizabeth Grace, Orlando, John Albert Jr., and Emily E., passed away the year before the voyage. He quickly married Wilmot Baragwanath (a cousin) later the same year. 

The family set sail in February 1850 on the “Lady Bruce.” They joined 150 other settlers intent on a new life in a new land, with the promise of land at the end of the journey.

Lady Bruce

“Each adult will be provided with an intermediate passage, including provisions on a liberal dietary scale, for the sum of 19 pounds, or a steerage passage for 10 pounds, and on arrival in Natal [Durban] have secured to him twenty acres of freehold land.”

The passage monies had to be paid in advance and each passenger needed their own knife, fork, tablespoon, teaspoon, metal plate, a hook-pot, a mug and bedding. Each ship was required to carry a doctor. John and Wilmot’s first child together, Charles, was born on the ship, but died a few weeks after arriving at their destination, aged 8 weeks. They arrived in Durban on 9 May 1850. John, Wilmot and the 4 living children settled on a farm called “Isipingo” just south of Durban. Son John Albert was later apprenticed to a saddle maker. He opened his own trading store, ran the Concordia hotel, and had some prospecting operations. He was very successful and prosperous. He married Elizabeth Adelaide Trennery and together they had ten children. But oldest son Orlando (Orrie), born in 1872, was the stuff legends were made of!

Orlando on his 100th birthday

Orlando lived to be 100 years old, and on the occasion of that milestone, an article was written about him in the “Rhodesiana” publication. “In the autumn of 1894 a solitary passenger climbed off ...[an] ox-drawn Cape cart in Fort Victoria. . . He was Orlando Baragwanath, a young man of 22 years with some mining experience, a prospector’s zest for the unknown and an explorer’s nature.” For the next few years he worked at different mines, learning and yearning for adventure.

In May 1899, Orrie and his partner Frank Lewis, set out, their supplies packed in 50 lb. loads packed on two wagons and a four-ply canoe. They had six pack donkeys and ten armed natives. They had no need of money so they took white calico called “limbo” for currency.

They had contracted for a 3-year stint with the Tanganyika Concessions Company, earning £25/month.
The surface copper had been known, worked and traded long before. But these men were the first to use dynamite to find more beneath the surface in Northern Rhodesia! They pegged and named many copper mines on their travels, and in 1901 discovered the vast copper field on the Wusikili river, which later became the great Nkana Mine and the heart of the fabulous Copperbelt. At the spot where John Albert had his farm and hotel now stands Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, which holds the Guinness World Record for the largest hospital on earth with almost 3300 beds! Some of this material was found in an article from: http://www.rhodesia.nl/rhodesiana/volume28.pdf “Orlando Baragwanath: A Centenarian Pioneer of Rhodesia” by Roger Howman. “Rhodesiana” Publication No. 28, July 1973, The Rhodesiana Society Salisbury, Rhodesia.
- "Trail of the Copper King" by T. V. Bulpin, illustrations used above by A. A. Telford, published November 1959 by Bailey Bros & Swinfen Ltd., London W.C.

CLOSE TO HOME - The Forman Home in Westmont NJ

 My grandparents, Edgar Charles Forman and Annie Elizabeth Baragwanath were planning a fall wedding in 1922. During that spring they bought some land in Westmont, New Jersey, just two blocks away from a large farm known as Morgan's Orchard. In that area, they saw their Dutch Colonial dream house. They had a modified version of the house built during that summer.

Edgar and Annie were married on October 5, 1922 and immediately moved into their new home.

3 boys were born in quick succession, then a daughter, Mildred. 

Later Ed purchased the corner lot next to the house, which was used for various purposes during the children's growing up years, including a chicken coop and some goats and even a calf at one time! Finally the lot was transformed into a beautiful garden with walkways, a pond, and a wishing well. 

Mildred outside the family home, 1940s

After Mildred married Nick Montana in 1950, they moved into the family home and stayed. Mildred took care of her parents as they aged, and her husband as his health declined. He passed away in 2014. She is 90 and still living in the family home.

The home (thanks Google!) in 2017. Nearly 100 years after it was built, it has never been owned by anyone else but the original Forman family.

RENDER TO CAESAR - Samuel Longstreet Forman (1805-1844)

Greenwich Point Hotel (Point House) top, Gloucester Point Hotel - bottom

Thanks to the newspapers of the day, we know that Samuel Longstreet Forman was the proprietor of the Greenwich Point House Hotel on the Philadelphia side of the Delaware River from 1836 until early 1839, and then he moved across the river to take over the Gloucester Point Hotel on the New Jersey side. In 1838, before he moved, he and his wife, Eliza, received a commendation in the newspaper from one of the gentlemen they had assisted after he had capsized on the river - for "their prompt assistance and kind attention."

From the National Gazette, Philadelphia PA 17 July 1838

I was surprised to come across another incident in which Samuel helped with a capsized boat just a year later (1839.) The Philadelphia Inquirer had an article titled "An Accident and Creditable Conduct." We learn that on Saturday last [6 Jul], a batteau containing a man, his wife, and three children, was upset in the Delaware, a little below the Point House. One of the children was asleep in the bottom of the boat, and nevertheless floated away unharmed, and together with the others, was saved.

A batteau is a small flat-bottom, double-ended boat.

The article went on to say that the keeper of the Greenwich Hotel, Mr. Panormo, was "praiseworthy in the very highest degree." The article ended with this: We believe also, that the attention of Mr. Forman, on the Jersey side, was of the most commendable kind.

Well, the common phrase "Don't believe everything you read in the papers" held true even then. A letter to the editor of the paper just a few days later titled Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. 

Robert S. King wrote to say that he was the man who with his wife and children had capsized in the Delaware. He explained that he was out in a batteau with his father, wife, two children and child's nurse on Saturday afternoon, when a squall came up. He, his wife who was holding their infant in her arms, and their 2 year old son were immediately precipitated into the water. Fortunately several gentlemen on a schooner came upon them and plucked them from the water, saving them from a watery grave.

We were conveyed to Gloucester, where, through the kindness of Mr. Forman, the proprietor of the hotel at that place, and his lady, every attention was bestowed on my family that would contribute to their comfort, as far as circumstances would admit of, until we could return home.

So it wasn't the Greenwich Point Hotel but the Gloucester Point Hotel.  He goes on to say they took a ferry back to the Pennsylvania side where they hired a horse and vehicle from Mr. Panormo (Greenwich Point Hotel)  to convey them back to the city. He closes his letter with this: To Mr. Forman and his amiable family, I return my most grateful acknowledgments. 

And there you have it.