Perhaps my earliest ancestor in North America was Edward Colborne who sailed to the New World from England with his brother Robert on the ship Defense in 1635. He landed in Boston and settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts, taking a job as a farmer for the wealthy Saltonstall family. I was excited to find that thisContinue reading “Wrong House, Right Place”
Tag Archives: art
New Boxes
Library Street in Chelsea, Massachusetts has two very different sides of the road. One side has old multi-family homes which have weathered a lot of changes in this former industrial neighborhood. The other has a brand new housing development called The Box District. In 1901, Irish immigrants Daniel and Kate O’Connor, (my great grandparents) livedContinue reading “New Boxes”
Janitoress
The Rhode Island State House sits like a beached white whale on a hill overlooking downtown Providence. It is massive and relates to none of its surroundings on Smith Hill. Completed in 1904, the magnificent marble building makes a big impact from every angle. Its dome is the fourth largest of its kind, behind Michelangelo’sContinue reading “Janitoress”
A Church Reborn
I met a man across the street from St. Rose Church on Broadway in Chelsea, Massachusetts, while drawing, who smiled when I told him that my grandfather was baptized in this church. With his Hispanic accent, he said that he was going into the church just now to prepare for today’s baptisms. He told meContinue reading “A Church Reborn”
Chain Migration
It wasn’t long ago that I pictured my great grandparents facing the complete unknown when they came to America in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But my research has largely proved that wrong. The O’Connors and O’Keefes followed others from their families and hometowns that came before them. No doubt, what they did tookContinue reading “Chain Migration”
Moving, Moving
This is the house where my grandfather James Victor O’Connor was born in 1906. He and his young family lived here in an apartment in Chelsea, Massachusetts, for a couple of years, and then moved around the corner. I’m noticing through my research that my relatives moved around a lot. This immigrant family were rentersContinue reading “Moving, Moving”
Builder
My great grandfather Clinton Colburn built both of these houses in the Washington Park section of South Providence. He built the one on the right, and lived there while he built the other on the left—his eventual home for the rest of his life. He described himself as a carpenter when he was a youngContinue reading “Builder”
Old and New Immigrants
When investigating my long-gone immigrant ancestors, I often find more immigrants living in the same houses, and filling the same neighborhoods. In this American drama, the set remains the same – only the cast changes. In the small, crowded city of Chelsea, Massachusetts (near Boston), the working class immigrants that were mostly Irish and RussianContinue reading “Old and New Immigrants”
New City
Daniel O’Connor moved his growing family to Providence’s Valley neighborhood from Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1915 to work in the huge US Rubber plant just down the hill. He and his wife Kate (McMahon) were immigrants – they grew up in the same parish in Cork City, Ireland. By this time, they had seven of theirContinue reading “New City”
Visiting the Relatives 