Thowback Thursday - Uncle Harold Wait's Camp at Lake Sherman

A couple of weeks ago Paul and I went kayaking at Lake Sherman in Brimfield, MA.

Before Paul and I really got into doing genealogy, we went to the Wait Family Reunion in 2002. While we were there we met a lady (my grandfather's sister's son's wife, got that?) who was really into genealogy.  She brought her book that she was working on and went around gathering everyone's information.  

It was around 2003 that Paul and I started getting interested in genealogy.  Some time later in talking with my Aunt Esther about some of what we had found out she gave me this lady, Ann Bonneville's, email.  We corresponded back and forth and she eventually mailed us her book that she was still working on.  It had a lot of information and pictures that I had never seen.

One of the pictures in her book was of Uncle Harold's "camp" on Lake Sherman in Brimfield, MA.  

I remember talk of this camp.  My Dad used to love going there.  My Aunt Dot said she never liked going in the water there because there were blood suckers.  

This picture was from Ann's book.

Last fall I decided that I would like to try and find out if this camp still existed.  We found the lake, but couldn't identify the house.

My Dad told me years ago that he tried to find it and he had to hike from the road to get to it.  The picture we had was from the water, so I thought maybe we could find it from the kayaks.  Believe it or not, we found it and it didn't look much different than the picture we had.  

Through landmarks we were able to find the camp from the road.  No one was there at the time.  When we got home we looked up the deed and found that Uncle Harold's son Jim sold it in 1990.

It was so much fun actually finding this place.  I was really surprised that it was still there.  

In going through my grandmother's photo album this week I found this picture.

On the back of the picture, this was written in my grandmother's handwriting.  

1957  Camp at Lake Sherman, Brimfield Mass.  

Donald Merz Wait, Feb 6, 1900, my grandfather.

David Reed Wait, Jan 19, 1907, his brother.

Can I say it again?  I LOVE doing family history.  

June 2016 Scrapbook Pages

 (In the above page, after it's printed, I'll add the baseball card with his picture on it.)

Throwback Thursday - Julia Christina Merz Lamson

On April 21, 2016, Paul and I went to the wake of Doris Hubbard.  Doris was married to Bob Hubbard, and Bob's mother Lucy was my grandfather's sister.  While we were going through the line, two of Doris's sons, Barry and Bobby, mentioned something of interest to us.  

This is what I journaled about that: 

Both Barry and Bobby told Paul and I about a picture that was hanging in Doris's home. It was a picture of Julia Merz Lamson. They told us that she was buried in White Church Hill Cemetery in West Springfield. Neither of them really knew how she fit into the family. So of course Paul and I got right onto it. We went to White Church Hill Cemetery which is just across the street from Kristen and Toby's house. It's proper name is Meeting House Hill Cemetery. We weren't able to find the grave but came home and looked her up on ancestry.com. In just a little while we had figured out that Julia was Dora Merz Wait's sister. Dora was my grandfather Donald's, and their (Barry and Bobby Hubbard) grandmother Lucy's, mother; so Julia was Donald and Aunt Lucy's aunt. We also found out in looking through the censuses that the Waits and the Merzs were from Greenfield, but Julia married a man from Northampton and moved to West Springfield. Bob Hubbard's parents lived on the same street, Larone St., that Julia and her husband lived on. I'm wondering if when Lucy and her mother Dora went to visit aunt Julia, that Lucy met Bob who lived on that street with his parents, and that is how Lucy and Bob came to live in West Springfield and, ultimately, how my grandfather Donald came to live in West Springfield because my aunt Dot told me that my grandfather wanted to get transferred (Western Union) to West Springfield to be near his sister Lucy. I love doing genealogy!!

Hopefully, that wasn't too confusing!

It's amazing what just talking to Doris Hubbard's sons lead us to - another piece of the puzzle for our family tree.  By the way, we did eventually find her grave.