Ancestors

Addled was my feeling yesterday about what to post for A as Round 10 of ABC Wednesday began.  Then anxiety set in and anchored itself in my psyche.  How was I to avail myself of an adequate answer of what to post for A?

Should I absent myself from contributing, except to comment on others absolutely arresting additions?  Should I simply stay abed and abjectly abandon, abnormally abdicate, any role in the start of Round 10?  No!  I acknowledge that is not acceptable!  Is there an acquaintance, or better yet! an ancestor I could admit to Round 10?  Whew, ambling around on the keyboard had once more unaddled my brain.  I not only have ancestors, I have ancestors whose name begins with A --  the Archambaults of South Bend, Indiana and Saint Roche de l'Achignan, Quebec.

In this photo from circa 1905 all are gathered around the matriarch and her children and their spouses.  The second person from the left in the front row is my grandmother, Eveline Archambault McCauslin.  She is sitting next to her mother with the beautiful name of Chantal Desormiers Archambault who came to South Bend with her husband Jean Louis Stanislas Archambault just after the U.S. Civil War.  He went to work in the Studebaker Wagon factory.  My grandfather is the first person on the left in the back row, Augustus Holmes McCausland, who came from London, Ontario, first to Chicago, then to South Bend, in the late 1890's.   In addition to the Archambaults and McCauslands are a Bale, a Charron, a Donahue, a Doolin, and a Landgraf. 

For less ancient additions to A, please visit ABC Wednesday.

Giving thanks!

 

T'is T-week on ABC Wednesday and Troy reminded us all that time is of the essence.  Last week there were all the preparations for Thanksgiving to be taken care of and thus I found myself running out of it and never even getting an S-post up.  How terrible!  How could I even try to make it up?  Suddenly I had a taste for more of that wonderful gathering of family and food (the best of American traditional foods: a stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, cranberry relish and pumpkin pie)

So, I am taking you to another time and place for this second Thanksgiving and celebrating with you my ancestors from a photo I found again the other day.  The place is still St. Joseph County, but in Indiana this time and the date is 1939 not 2011.   Gathered for the Thanksgiving celebration are my parents, grandparents, aunt and uncles, and a bottle of Hoosier Beer.  Sitting are my Uncle Willy Archambault, my father John McCauslin,  and my grandmother, his mother, Marie Evelyn (Archambault) McCauslin.  Standing are my other grandmother, Helen (Stuckey) Turnock, my Aunt Anna (Charron) Archambault, my grandfather August (Buck) McCauslin, my uncle Chuck Borowski (waving the Hoosier Beer above the teetotaler Aunt Anna's head) and my mother, June (Turnock) McCauslin.  Since Grandma McCauslin has on her apron, I am assuming that they had all gathered at her home on Notre Dame Avenue.  Missing from the photo are my Grandpa Ted Turnock and my Aunt Evy (McCauslin) Borowski.  One of them must have taken the picture. 

So, please take Troy's advice, waste no more time here, but take a trip with all the tantalizing T-words brought to you by the teasers of ABC Wednesday.