Day 4 - The Party

After lunch, Peter and I went to see Ainsley Henriques, who is a leader in the Jamaican Jewish community, and who has been working on a huge project to index and map the Jewish cemeteries. We know our Ur-Ancestor, Noel Crosswell, is buried in a Jewish cemetery, and I thought it might be neat to see if we could find his grave. Ainsley said many graves no longer have stones, and Noel's name is not in the index. He was able to give an educated guess as to where it might be. However, we ran out of time, and had to return to Fee's house for the big family get-together and dinner.

At 6 p.m., the elder family members began arriving: Mother's cousins, Joan and Farren, an in-law, Audrey, and their assorted children with spouses. By 7, everyone else began walking in. We also invited Noel Vaz and Mr. and Mrs. Wycliff Bennet, people who knew mother. Many had not ever seen the family portraits, and they became the center of the conversation for a while.

Soon the house was full, and Glenn, the Bar Man, was filling everyone's hand with some liquid cheer. Maxine prepared a repast that included crackers and a spread made from salt fish and tomatoes and onions; there was also boiled green bananas, roast chicken, rice and peas, a salad, and I'm probably missing something. Nicola brought the desserts: home-made individual pavlovas, cheesecake, and another cake.

Velia sang, accompanied on the piano by Lloyd Hall, and later Yekengale. I was so busy circulating that I only took about four photos. I am depending on the others, Peter, Velia, Fee, and Nicola, to share the ones they took. We talked, laughed, caught up all the news, ate, and sang until the wee hours, and finally, as the guests took their leave, Peter brought us to his house in May Pen, as he had to preach the sermon at Mass the following morning. Velia and I were so wired up from the party that we talked until 2 a.m.

Nest morning, Peter commented that "every living relative on the island" came to greet me. I was genuinely moved by their friendliness and kindness, and wished with all my heart I didn't have to leave so soon. My cousins, who were children and teens when we last visited, all grew up to be remarkable and interesting adults, many with spouses and children. We are expecting to stay in touch from now on.

After 40 Years

I am going back to Jamaica tomorrow for the first time in forty years! I was invited by two of my cousins to come and visit, and since I had already requested this week off from work six months ago, I decided to use it by taking them up on their offer. Forty years ago, we were all teenagers; now, we all have adult children. Mother's cousins were my age, then; now, they are her age: 90s. I think this will be a good visit.

I am also blogging the trip on my other blog, Halona, the Peering Place. You may find photos thers.

Today is Holy Thursday. It's been a long time since I went to Mass at Eastertime. I was thinking about the traditional things we used to do during Holy Week, because Laurel said something about not getting Easter baskets any more, now that she's no longer a little kid .

Tomorrow is Good Friday. I decided, since I'm off on Fridays, to make Hot Cross Buns. I found my grandmother's recipe, handwritten and slipped between the pages of a scrapbook she used to hold her recipes. Typically, for her, she included only the ingredients, and not the directions.

Gramma Lucy (Picadura) Schulmeister was a baker by profession, making the bread served in the Farrington High School cafeteria in the 1940s and 1950s. We used to enjoy home-made breads and rolls regularly, usually tied to seasons of the year, but not always. We had malasadas on "Malasadas Day" (mardi gras), hot cross buns and sweet bread (Pao Dulce) for Easter, and fruitcake and Three Kings Bread for Christmas. And white bread at other odd times during the year, when the spirit moved her.

So, tomorrow, I'm off on an adventure - to re-create the Hot Cross Buns she used to make every year on Good Friday. Here's her recipe:

HOT CROSS BUNS
2 package yeast, 1/4 cup luke
warm water, 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk, 2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup shortening, 2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 " " nutmeg,
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 " mixed glazed fruits
5 cups flour soften yeast in warm
water

This is a reaction paper my mother wrote for a biographical writing class she took at a local community college 17 years ago. While visiting her last week, I came across several of her papers, and decided to transcribe them for the purpose of sharing with the family. Here is the first.

9/2/90 “HURRICANE” Fay Schulmeister

Learning Log

I enjoyed the author’s economical use of language, which nevertheless gave vivid descriptions of the passage of the hurricane. He also managed to reveal his personality. I got the impression of a sturdy, practical person and a perfectionist. I admired his gut instinct to leap to what he saw needed to be done. I appreciated his recognition of the forces of nature, to be accepted and dealt with.

The description of the onslaught of the hurricane, and its passage, reminded me vividly of hurricanes experienced in Jamaica In my youth, although my experiences were inland. One particular occasion I recall particularly.

We were a large family, of three generations, living in a five-storey house built of stone, stucco and wood, with many windows, jalousied walls, and doors. At the warning everyone sprang into action, through long practice knowing exactly what to do. Doors, windows and jalousies had to be battened. Storm lanterns were gathered, cleaned and wicks trimmed, then filled with oil. Matches were put to hand. The estate workers and house servants waited it out in the stone-enclosed first storey. The family gathered on the second floor.

We felt the changing atmospheric pressure, saw the lowering black clouds, heard the light wind and rain. Then, all at once, came the impact of raging winds hurling what seemed like leaden sheets of rain against the house. There were sounds of creaking wood, of tree branches snapping and being blown against the house. We wondered if the roof would hold – one crack and the wind would roar in and lift it of. It was awe-inspiring to watch tall coconut trees whipped almost to the ground, and not breaking.

Then came the threatening silence of the eye. We braced ourselves. Suddenly, with unimaginable viciousness, winds and rain raged, seemingly from every direction.

After several hours all was quiet. We were thankful the roof held, and set about unbattening doors and windows. No one had been hurt, our house had withstood damage, and soon there was a joyful chattering as we all exchanged observations.

I was impressed by the author’s use of unusual verbs and similes to convey the impact of the rage of the elements; for example “The wind …. Ripped the water like a black sheet. It hammered like a fist.” I also remarked his winding down to normalcy, with his whiskey, and his return to peaceful placidity.

(Instructor’s note: “Do you think he was right to cut the ropes on the other boats? I enjoyed your description of the hurricane you experienced. (+) )

Among my mother's photos, we came across this one, labeled,"1921 St. Andrew's School." Mother says she is in the first standing row, on the left. In the back row, the left-most boy is her brother Rowley, and two heads over to the right is her cousin Simon Soutar, grandson of the Simon who came from Isle of Man. Between them, in the next row down is Eily Soutar, Simon's next-older sister.

I wish I had found this before I took the other photos of Una Soutar to be scanned and copied to a CD. It is in very fragile condition and the mat is falling apart in my fingers. I am going to order some acid-free archival storage boxes to store this and other artifacts in, and maybe preserve them from further deterioration.

I am taking the opportunity, while visiting mom this week, to look through her old photo albums. In particular, I am looking for mom's scrapbook and that of her mother, chronicling their theatre days in Jamaica. Nicola is looking for photos and information for inclusion in a book about the theatre in Jamaica that will be sold as a fund-raiser for the restoration of the Ward Theatre.

Dave has a scanner, but he says it saves files in tiff format and they are huge. I guess I'll have to find a Kinko's somewhere, where I can scan the photos and articles and save them to my flash drive.

I found some wonderful old photos of the "Soutar Sisters", as well as photos of my dad's side of the family. When Earl and Aunt Jo come on Friday, we'll go over them and try to date them and name the individuals pictured.

Got an unexpected phone call from my cousin Michael in Canada two days ago. He was calling to see how Mother is doing, because he wanted to know if she could accept phone calls. We had a long chat, and he suggested I sign up for a Skype account. Skype subscribers can call other Skype subscribers anywhere in the world via pc and talk free! I took his advice, set up my account, and called him back. This time, he turned on his webcam, and I was able to see him as we were talking, and also his wife, Debbie.

Well, I can't abide being even a step behind, and I decided to connect my little 5 yr. old web-cam, but discovered the OEM drivers aren't acceptable to WindowsXP and the new driver I downloaded from the manufacturer's web site doesn't seem to work either. So I bit the bullet and purchased a new web cam. As soon as my daughter finishes transferring her iTunes from Dad's computer to mine, I'm going to install it and call Mike back.

I also bought a flash card reader so I can transfer photos from my camera without physically tethering the camera to the laptop. That will make it much easier to phost photos here.

During our trip to Ireland at the beginning of this month, Laurel, Marty and I visited Marty's cousin Eugene, who drove us around the Cork area to see the sights. He is Marty's dad's first cousin. He and his wife Helen had ten children, a couple of whom live in the United States, one is in Europe, and one is living at home.

Helen died three years ago. As Eugene put it, they had two christenings, a wedding, and a funeral all in the same week! After the christenings, Helen and Eugene danced at their daughter's wedding, and went to bed at the hotel. When Eugene woke up in the morning, she had passed away.

Pictures from the trip are at Picasa, and I blogged the trip at Halona, the Peering Place.

My co-worker, Beth, recently shared this photo of herself and Mom, taken during her visit to Hawaii at the end of June . During the week she and her sister were on Oahu, they went to visit Mom in Kailua.

Got such a shock today! I was doing my occasional "google search" for Simon Soutar and came across a web site that seems to have digitized the book written by Leslie Purkis called "The Fire Kindlers". I have copies of this book and its two sequels that Leslie Purkis sent me, and I had no idea anyone else might have had a copy.

In any case, there was a mailto: link on the site, and I will fire off an e-mail to j.purkis@virgin.net this evening to see what the connection is.

Yesterday, I used my Godfrey Library card to take another look at their databases. I see that they now have EBSCO's Newspaper Archives, and that it includes the Jamaica Gleaner, past and present! I found many articles about my mother's parents and other relatives, including photos.

I found the death notice and obituary of my grandmother, Una Crosswell, as well as the obituaries of Dr. Louis Oliver Crosswell, my grandfather's brother, and Noel A. Crosswell, my uncle. The obits were pleasantly chatty, listing many who attended the services and their relationships to the deceased - providing clues for piecing together the extended family.

Cutting and pasting the articles into Word was a disaster - they are not readable. Transcribing them into Word while reading the pdfs online is a pain, and can't be discretely done at work. The best option is to save the page to the hard drive, and use Acrobat Reader to look at them offline. Then you can zoom and transcribe to your heart's content.

Godfrey Memorial Library is a genealogical library that sells "scholar" memberships for $35 per year. You then get a library card that entitles you to use all the wonderful resources they make available online. The list of genealogy-related databases is extensive and expensive - so your local library may not be able to provide them. I highly recommend that anyone who wants to do research online should become a Godfrey Scholar!

This article appeared in Midweek on Friday, February 3, 2006: "You Practice on the Days You Eat." It features Hawaii teen musicians featured on the PBS radio show "From the Top".

Earl sent the following in response to the photo in the previous entry:
"Rosemarie gave me these 2 photos. They were dated: 11 March 1956. The family had a get-together in Waianae Town @ Jacinth's house. I was in Japan w/da US Army, when Rosie sent these to me. It was to tease me to come home, cause I had told them I was getting married to a japanese wahine, boy did I receive so many threats of being dis-owned, etc. Only when she came home before me, they adopted her w/open arms & they took care of her better than me."

This is the other photo he refers to. Front: Julia Harris and Lucy (my grandma) Schulmeister; back: Bill (Earl's dad), Jacinth and Frank Picadura.

Cecelia Bragg, Rose Kallmyer, Julia Harris, Lucy Schulmeister - the four Costa Picadura sisters, name order is left to right; age order is right to left. The other eight kids in the family were all guys! I'm not sure where or when this photo was taken, but I'm thinking it must have been in the 1950s or 1960s. I know Julia was the first to move away from Hawaii permanently, and this must have been taken on one of her visits home.

January 6, 2006. The family got together at dinner for Fay Schulmeister's 93rd birthday. Click on the photo to see a larger image.

Seated around the table, from the left, are Mary, Laurel's friend Lisa, Mom, Lea, Aunt Jo, Laurel, Kathy, and David. I took the photo. Absent: Claire, James, Marty, and Patrick. We are at Mom's house in Kailua, and the dining table and chairs came from the house at Surbiton, in Jamaica.

Mother said yesterday she heard that a new street in Half Way Tree, Jamaica would be named Crosswell Road in honor of her father, A. Noel Crosswell, for his contributions to the country. I did a quick search of the Jamaica Gleaner online, but didn't see any corroberating articles. I did, however, find this map of Half Way Tree (requires Adobe Acrobat reader. Download here if you don't already have it.) Grandpa's house was on Surbiton Road, but the property has since been subdivided. I'll update this entry when I have more information.

A. Noel and Una Crosswell cut their golden wedding anniversary cake at Surbiton in 1960. This photo was sent to me by Michael in Toronto. (Thanks, Mike!) 

Here is a transcription of Noel Crosswell's obituary, published in The Gleaner and De Cordova's Advertising Sheet, City Edition, June 14, 1876. Peter was kind enough to give me a print from the microfilm a few years ago.

"Died
At His late Residence, 52, King St.,
Noel Crosswell,
Aged 73 Years.
The funeral will take place this evening, 14th inst. at 4.30 p.m.
Friends and acquaintances, will please accept this notice, and will oblige by allowing their carriages to attend."

This is a transcription of a letter sent to my mother by her uncle, Sydney Crosswell. Attached at the end of the letter were the addresses in 1970 of his four children.
------------------------------------
304 Airport Road
CLANTON, Ala. 35045
Friday, July 17, 1970

Dear Fay,

I have your most interesting Christmas Missive 1969 telling me about your growing family. In it, you request the addresses of my New York children which, I gladly furnish herewith, on a separate sheet - page 4.

I delayed writing because, I really wanted to write about them; then, the germ of PROCRASTINATION took over and your missive was mislaid. My age is the culrit, my dear .... I swear, the lunatics in the big cities in this country rush about so fast they, too, get mislaid or lost and blame it on TIME. It is appalling. I admit that. I am a little handicapped since both my cataracts have been removed - writing on paper without lines is a nuisance but, it is harder to write on lines, unless they are very clear.

I note that your eldest daughter, Ann, visited in Austria and attended summer school. Sidney's wife is German. Lydia's daughter married a young lawyer whose surname is Schult and you married a Schulmeister... Our grandfather was a native of Switzerland He was a graduate of Heidelburg University, Germany. This German strain is fascinating - it intrigues me - particularly as we become more and more embroiled in this socalled melting-pot on earth.

I have 4 children, all of them married and well - 11 Grandchildren and 7 great grand children.

Your father and mother I presume were Roman Catholics. My children were brought up in that FAITH. What denomination do you all profess?

Music used to be my favourite pass time. I know it used to be yours; And I think it must be wonderful to boast of a Harpist in the family. God BLESS HER!

I am trying to write as legible as possible I hope you can read it.

(2) Fay 7-17-70
Back to my children now:

Lydia, the eldest, married a Spaniard from Madrid, named Andres Abello - a "simpatico joven". They have 2 children, both married.

Sidney, known as Edward, married a charming German "fraulein", named Karen Klopottek. They have one boy, a teenager.

Elsie married a handsome Swede, named Wallen. Engineer. Inventor who is really making the grade. They have one girl, married.

Ralph turned out quite the "gay Lothario" type. He has been married 3 times, has 6 children and 4 stepchildren; all well, healthy specimens. He chose "all-American" spouses.

Yes,my dear - now comes the most important expression of personal sentiment regarding the demise of your devoted and beloved parents. A.Noel my dearest brother, and his spouse whom, he always referred to as "Una, my one and only".

We corresponded frequently with them, and we miss their lovely letters.

I make no excuse or apology, nor do I ever offer condolence on such occasions.

Strange! what so many people fear most is DEATH; a term which I refrain from using, because, to me it has meant the beginning of LIFE. LIFE ETERNAL which I look forward to, wth joy and curiosity. I believe we all have a mission to fulfill here; and so soon as that is complied with comes our transfer to other missions on an Higher plane eventually, to share PEACE for which we desperately yearn. PEACE cannot be made by Mankind; regardless of Russia, Germany, U.S.A. or Egypt, et al .... It is not a matter of Man's POWER OF CHOICE as Satan would have us believe:

PEACE can and will be attained only, by obedience to GOD'S Will: Remember, "THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN", said Jesus.

(3) = Fay 7-17-70
I am sorry I ran out of paper! - please excuse - shortly after your mother became a widow, I wrote to her in just such terms - No, it was after Noel Jr was called to join his father - ... I wrote no message of conventional condolance.

She promptly answered - I quote from her letter, dated Dec 30 - 1964:
"Dear Sydney, Many thanks for your letter. You will be glad to know it bucked me up a whole lot for, although I received a couple hundred cards, letters, etc. not one was couched in the language of yours - it made me realize the meaning of death. Up to now I have not had the energy to write anyone overseas to tell them of Noel's passing. ..."

I hoe you do not resent my attitude. I do not mean to be dogmatic, or to impose my convictions; but simply to inform you of MY point of view.

I am happy to commune with you and trust my belated effort is appreciated.

Heaps of love and blessings to all your family from

Mabel and Your Uncle Sydney.

/s/ S M Crosswell

Today, I got e-mail from my cousin in Hawaii with a link to a Honolulu Star Bulletin story about the death of Martin Denny, who composed exotic music in Hawaii a while back. My dad used to tune pianos for both Denny and Arthur Lyman when I was a kid, and he used to tell stories at the dinner table. Those days, I was too young to pay attention to grown-up talk, so I don't remember any of the stories. I do recall that the music was edgy for the time, and that you either loved it or hated it.