GeneaGator: May 2019

Memorial Day dedication of Suresnes American Cemetery, 1919.

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day set aside to remember those who died while serving their country. It is especially fitting then that this week's #52Ancestors prompt is "At the Cemetery". Over the course of my research, I have had the wonderful good fortune to visit many of the cemeteries where my ancestors are buried. Equally moving – and meaningful – was the opportunity to visit several of America's overseas cemeteries last year as part of a World War I centennial tour of France.

I had been researching students, alumni and staff from the University of Washington who died during World War I and I was looking forward to seeing the terrain where the final battles were fought and the final resting places for those who died there. It was a wonderful experience and it is well worth the side trip to visit any of the cemeteries administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Founded after World War I to manage the final burials of America's war dead, the Commission later because responsible for the cemeteries created World War II, as well.

Detail from the Chapel mosaic.

The first cemetery we visited on the tour was Suresnes American Cemetery. Located just outside Paris, it has a beautiful view of the city. The American military cemetery at Suresnes was established in 1917 by the Graves Registration Service of the Army Quartermaster Corps. A majority of those buried there died of wounds or sickness in hospitals located in Paris or at other places in the Services of Supply. Many were victims of the influenza epidemic of 1918–1919.

The cemetery was dedicated by President Woodrow Wilson during Memorial Day ceremonies of 1919. The above photo is an original press photo from that event, and the caption on the back states "One of the most moving scenes in American war history took place in 1919 on Memorial Day, when President Wilson visited Suresnes cemetery near Paris. Here is a portion of the crowd, gathered on that day, in the American section of the cemetery." Wilson opened his remarks with the statement "No one with a heart in his breast, no American, no lover of humanity, can stand in the presence of these graves without the most profound emotion."

Anytime you have the opportunity to honor America's war dead, whether it is your local national cemetery, Arlington or one of American's overseas cemeteries, take some time to pay your respects "at the cemetery."

Sister M. Salome (Caroline Rose) Ney
1879-1929

There was no doubt in my mind who I would write about when the #52Ancestors prompt "at worship" was announced. My great-great aunt, Caroline Rose Ney who entered a Dominican convent in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1904.

Back in my earliest days of genealogy research, I asked my grandfather for some details about his aunts and uncles. Family folklore has it my great-grandfather had no interest in becoming a farmer in Wisconsin and, following his marriage, moved to Chicago where he worked for the Armour Grain Company and my grandfather was born.

Like so many of that era, my great-grandmother developed tuberculosis and the prevailing wisdom of the era suggested the Western climate might help. All of these factors contributed to the fact I didn't have the highest expectations my grandfather would remember much as his contact with his extended family was limited to just a handful of visits.

I was soon proven wrong! My grandfather quickly rattled off the names of his three maternal aunts and uncle. His father was one of eleven children and Grandpa was able to recall all their names, in spite of the fact that he never really knew most of his aunts and uncles, except for one. One of his father’s sisters became a nun, he thought, Sister Salome might have been her name. “What was her name before?” I asked. “I don’t know if I ever heard it”, was his reply.

Family tradition also suggests Caroline's parents weren't thrilled to have their daughter enter the convent. If that is true their reasons are lost to time, but one factor certainly could have been the knowledge their daughter would be separated from them for the rest of her life. At the turn of the century, becoming a nun meant leaving your own family behind to become a part of a larger family of people dedicated to serving God in various ways. The Racine Dominicans, or the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Dominic to use their full name, were a teaching order of German origins. Many of the schools associated with Catholic parishes throughout Southeast Wisconsin, and beyond, were served by Racine Dominicans so they were certainly familiar to parochially-educated Caroline and her siblings growing up in Holy Cross, Wisconsin.

Why Caroline felt called to a life of service has also been lost to time, but together with a cousin, Mary Mueller, entered the convent and both became teachers themselves in schools around Wisconsin and Michigan. Caroline died at the age of 49 following an operation. Her siblings were especially bitter because they had pooled funds for her to have the surgery in a hospital but the operation was supposedly arranged more economically with the extra funds going to the convent. No records exist which support this but Caroline was the first of her siblings to die and I'm sure her brothers and sisters were distraught at having already lost her, so to speak, to the convent and then to lose her completely.

Port Washington Zeitung
Thursday, September 1, 1904, pg 4.

On Saturday [August 27], Miss Caroline Ney, a daughter of the
well-known Mr. J. P. Ney von Town Belgium, was taken up
as a sister of the Notre-Dame Convent in Racine.

When I first began researching Caroline I had no idea what order she belonged to and little to go on after she entered religious life. The nuns I knew growing up had long since abandoned their habits in favor of white blouses and serviceable skirts and sensible shoes. Little did I know the answer was staring me right in the face! I checked out a book from the library, Religious Orders of Women, which was like a catalog containing the mission, location, entrance requirements of each order to help girls in the 1960s considering religious life select an order they might be suited to. Sort of like a sorority rush! More importantly, it included many photos of sisters in their habits. This was before the sweeping reforms of Vatican II when many sisters adopted the more modern garb people associate them with today. A quick look at the book revealed very few orders had WHITE habits and those that did were all Dominicans. Huh, watching The Flying Nun hadn't adequately educated me for habit identification!

Shortly after determining Caroline had been a Dominican I acquired a parish history which listed all of the people, including Caroline, who had entered religious life and provided the name of the specific convent. I don't know why she was given the name Mary Salome, but after entering the convent her family never referred to her as Caroline again, even in surviving correspondence between her two of brothers, Nick and Joe.

There are many terminal branches on our family tree because the person died young, never married, or, as in the case of Sister Salome, entered into religious life. For me, their stories are no less interesting and as equally deserving of our attention and family members with dozens of descendants. Only when we look at the entire family can we fully appreciate the influences and nuances of their interconnectivity. The story of Sister Salome has always been one of those essential keys. No less critical for me than understanding the events which caused my branch of the family to move West. This is why I consider myself a family historian more than a genealogist. All the begats are very interesting, to be sure, but it's the stories that lead us to understand the context of each family's dynamic.

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Monday, May 27, 2019

#52Ancestors: At the Cemetery

#52Ancestors: At Worship