Is Meets Was

I started this post twelve years ago, and unintentionally, I did not click the button to publish it. Never too late? In 2004, we visited our Canadian cousin, Olive Joyce Hudson, aka  Joyce Burnell   (1920-2011) . Joyce regaled us with family stories, especially with tales of her personal adventures. Kilquade in County Wicklow c. 1953 Kilquade, Joyce's childhood home in Ireland, came to life as she told us about its history and how her family came to live there. Joyce Burnell, Nick and Cathy Paris, and Irene and Dave Stradtman Filled with non-stop energy, Joyce put us to work picking plums and preparing them for canning.   Although she had been to Niagara Falls a gazillion times, Joyce personally guided us throughout the area. Thank you, Joyce. © 2012, Cathy H Paris

Olive, Eulie, and Cedric Hopkins October 1897 I am pleased to introduce you to Winifred Eulalie Hopkins. Everyone called her Eulie. She was born on September 3, 1894, in Milverton, England .  Eulie's father, George, was the son of an Irish merchant and minister from Wicklow, Ireland.  Eulie's mother, Emily Ruth Draper, was the daughter of a coach smith and livery stable keeper of Hackney, London, England.  Eulie, December 1901 Garry, Edith, Harold, Lance, Maz, Cedric, Eulie, Olive, and John c. 1918 Eulie was the 8th of 10 children.  While Eulie passed into adulthood, the Great War, now known as World War I, was raging in Europe. It began on 28 July 1914, when Eulie was approaching her 20th birthday, and lasted until 11 November 1918, when Eulie was 24 years old. More than 9 million people who fought in the war, mostly men, were killed. Possibly the vast carnage is the reason that Eulie and two of her sisters never mar...

For years I was proud of being the first woman in our family who left home before she was married, seeking my independence and destiny in another world. (For me, that other world was California.) How wrong I was! Researching family history, I have discovered a parade of woman in my family, and in my husband's family, who traveled a similar road years before my time. One of these women was Susanah Lavella Hopkins , and like me, Lavella was destined to become a Californian. Known as Lala to her family, she used Lavella as her given name. In 1869, Lavella's birth was registered under her mother's name, Fanny Hopkins, in Rathdrum, County Wicklow, Ireland. Her father, Nicholas "David" Hopkins, had been born into a family of means. David had a farm called Lamb Park in Coolbeg, near Wicklow Town. In 1881, when Lavella was only 11 years old, her mother died. Family correspondence suggests her father experienced financial difficulties. By the time she was 2...