Remember the illegitimate son of an English nobleman who indentured himself to a Quaker family to come to America? Well here he is, Philip Packer Jr.:
Presumably, this portrait was painted before he came to the wilderness of Pennsylvania, probably when he was still living off his father's money. His father had holdings and business interests in Ireland, and he seems to have kept his little family there quite comfortable. When his first wife died, he married his mistress, Sara Isgar and brought her to his English home. However, since all of his children by her were born prior to their marriage, the children had to make their own way after Daddy's death. His children by his first wife got the estate. Here are Philip Packer, Esq., and the lovely Sarah Isgar, my 10th great grandparents:
Those of you with exceptional memories may have noticed that Eli and Ann Packer were the names of my last Quaker ancestors who died in Gratiot County Michigan in the 1800's. Eli was a direct descendant of these peolple. Philip Jr. became Quaker in Pennsylvania while serving his Quaker master. Perhaps the master had something to do with it, but I suspect the young woman he wanted to marry there had even more influence on his conversion!
Below is Groombridge place, the family home that Philip Packer Sr. re-built outside London in the 1660's. Packer was apparently an architect, a contemporary and friend of Sir Christopher Wren. The grounds are open to the public today, and the 2005 movie, Pride and Prejudice, was filmed there.
The picture below is an illustration of the adventurer with the Persian family meeting with the Indian Mogul in Agra, India circa 1604. His name was John Mildenhall (the family name later became Mendenhall), and his story is so fantastic that I have trouble believing it. It includes passing himself off to the Indian court as the ambassador of Queen Elizabeth I (he was not) and securing trading rights which he later sold to the recently formed British East India Company. Crazy! But apparently true! He is even buried in the oldest English grave in India. You can visit his tombstone there.
On to more normal (and recent) people:
Here is my Great-Grandfather, my maternal grandmother's father, a cute little boy who grew up to have a rather sad and hard life:
Alexander Franklin Fraser
Below are his parents, Bertha Harpham and Clarence Joseph Fraser (of Scottish descent). Clarence was a good deal older than Bertha, and she was widowed young, with no money and several young children. She also had physical and perhaps mental health problems. Her life story -- what I've been able to piece together of it -- is quite painful. Unfortunately, her children suffered right along with her -- a pain that was passed down for a couple of generations until my grandma and her siblings eventually seemed to pull things back together in their own adult lives.
Bertha's mother died when she was only 4 years old, and her father seems to have disappeared from her life at that point. Her mother's mother had died years before in childbirth. So Bertha was was raised by her mother's father, Franklin Squire and his 3rd wife. This 3rd wife had charge of several of Franklin's children and grandchildren by his previous marriages in addition to her own babies as they came along. Plus, for a time, her aging father *and* Franklin's aging father, both in their 80's, were living with the family. Even if her step-grandmother was a saint (and how many of us would be, under those conditions?), I don't imagine poor little Bertha got as much love and attention as every child needs. Her vivid unhappiness in later life, which living family members still recall as their strongest memory of her, is sadly suggestive.
Franklin Squire himself was a busy man outside the home. Not only did he have a rather large farm to tend, he was the early leader of the Michigan Seventh Day Adventist Church that I mentioned the other day. This is a portrait of him:
And last, but not least, I just had to include this picture of my maternal Grandfather's Grandmother. (My g-g grandmother.)
Don't you LOVE the hat? This is Mamie Gooderham
Salisbury Harvey Cutler. (Well not Cutler yet in this picture -- he came later.) Based on clues, I believe this may have been her wedding photo when she married her 2nd husband, Samuel Harvey, in 1910 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was divorced from my g-g grandfather at that time. I believe my he may have been a scoundrel! If I am right on the date of the picture, she is about 39 -- very close to my age right now. :o) My mother remembers visiting Mamie a few times as a child. In her later years, Mamie and her 3rd husband lived very near Tiger Stadium in Detroit. That whole side of my grandpa's family were big Tiger fans! They would meet at Mamie's house and walk down to the games.
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