The letter transcribed below was written by Dr. Harold C. Van Wye to his cousin Adaline Van Wye Skinner. His date does not include the year but it was probably around 1962 based on the ages of Roy and Jesse Van Wye. Harold Van Wye (1895-1976, son of John E. Van Wye) lived in Ohio. Roy Van Wye (full name Vernon Roy Van Wye; born 1899, son of Joseph F. Van Wye), his son Roy Jr. (born about 1934), and Jesse Charles Van Wye (1881-1969, son of William Van Wye and his cousin Olive Hunter) all lived in Indiana. Transcribed by Julie Kelts in 2014:<\/p>\n
\u201cOct. 3
\n\u201cDear Addie: I never seem to have time to write when I\u2019m home and since I may be able to dash off a letter, I\u2019ll give it a try.
\n\u201cRalph [Harold’s brother] & I drove over to Columbus Ind. last Friday and had a very pleasant trip. We met Roy sr. who is a retired contractor & who drove us around to four or five cemetaries. It was a beautiful day and most interesting. I don\u2019t know how informed you are about the family tree but what I know goes back to Arthur, our Grandfather\u2019s Great Grand Father. Ralph had met Roy & Roy jr. not too long ago and Roy sr. had written that just within the last month or so, he had found the grave of Mary James. He said his grandfather had always insisted that the latter\u2019s grandmother was buried there so Roy finally went over the place with a fine-tooth comb. The tombstone was in two sections and face down on the grave but it reads Mary James VanWye Wife of Arthur jr. They had no information about Arthur & assumed Mary had come on to live with relations in Ind after he died. To straighten you out so far. Mary James Van Wye is the mother of Abram and, of course, our great-great-Grandmother.
\n\u201cWhen we came back from the cemetaries, we met Jesse C. Van Wye\u201480 years old who owns a family bible which jibed with mine. I got mine from Almira who evidently got it from Uncle Enoch who was Grandpas uncle [I think he meant cousin, the one who wrote the 1902 history] and a great one to look up all his relatives when he\u2019d come to their area from his home in Missouri.
\n\u201cWell, anyway, they have Arthur jr. and his sons & daughters in the Bible record so one of these days we\u2019ll give it a good look-see.
\n\u201cRoy is 63, skinny as a rail and not what you\u2019d expect a Van Wye to look like but Jesse is rather tall and well built and looks like\u2014guess who! Uncle Homer.
\n\u201cI have all my names diagrammed on a chart which is OK if you spread it on the floor but no good in a windy cemetary. So I\u2019m starting to arrange the names after the system in the Carlton book and if I ever get that done, we\u2019ll try to fill in the dates Ralph copied from the tombstones and the Bible. It\u2019s fun but it sure takes time.
\n\u201cI might do a little better with this if I had your letter to refer to but\u2014as usual\u2014its at home.
\n\u201cIncidentally, what do you know about our Gr. Grandfather Abram? He\u2019s buried in the Union Cemetary in Niles but all I know about him was that his home was somewhere near the river in what in my day was John W\u2019s farm. And, when they laid the corner church [sic] of the ME Church in Niles, the papers from the old church stated it was started by Abram Van Wye & Thomas Anderson\u2014my Gr Grandparents. Of course I knew Abe & Bill & John W., but what of their father, uncle Charles? I used to call on young Charley when Id go back to Niles (and when he was bedfast) but I never thought to ask him about his Grandfather, or for that matter, his father Charles jr.
\n[The rest is family gossip which I will not include here.–JK]\n“Time for lunch. Say Hello to Gene
\nLove
\nHal.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The letter transcribed below was written by Dr. Harold C. Van Wye to his cousin Adaline Van Wye Skinner. His date does not include the year but it was probably around 1962 based on the ages of Roy and Jesse … Continue reading