Annie Sullivan, On Genesee Hill

[dgriffin]

Well, send me whatever you want and I'll put it up on the web page. Let's keep it net, however, except for the story itself, of course. Not just because of webspace, but so it can be easily scanned by anyone interested.

Do you want me to put the bios up that you posted?

[fiona]

Here is a partial list of persons you will meet "On Genesee Hill" and what I know about their lives; the biographical data. The list will change as the story grows. Please note that most of the individuals listed below lived either in the Genesee Flats Apartment House or close by, ie: across Genesee Street or within a few blocks of the Flats. This area designated in the 1890's as "The Hill" ran from perhaps Oneida Square to Pleasant Street; there were lovley palatial homes, many of which are still standing today and the neighborhood was then known as one of the best residential sections of the city.

MAJOR CHARACTERS:

1. Annie Cathleen Sullivan, age 15, personal maid to Mary B.
Wood

2. Mary Brandegee Wood, age 15

3. Sarah Miller - Wood, Mary B.'s mother, age 51

4. John Brandegee Wood, father, age 52

5. Seymour Dewitt Latcher, around 30, builder and owner
of the Genesee Flats Apartment House

[fiona]

More complete list and bio's to follow presently.

[fiona]

Annie Cathleen Sullivan: This character is fictional, but based upon a number of sources. 1. The young woman who was seen running down Genesee Street with her shoes on the wrong feet.
2. A real person named Annie Sullivan who lived in Utica NY, worked as a chambermaid and died of smoke inhalation in the fire at the Metropolitan Hotel in downtown Utica, May, 1907.
3. A very lucky chance finding of a 15 year old girl named Annie Sullivan who arrived from Ireland and landed at Ellis Island on June 30, 1895. Her name on the ships mainfest and a photo of the ship, the Teutonic, can be viewed on line at the Ellis Island historical website. (That she fit the character so closely in age and arrival dates is beyond lucky, because I went to the website after the fact and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack)

Our Annie is 15 when she arrives from acoss the water; has long curly red hair, green eyes and is a small girl. She arrives carrying only what she owns- which is essentially nothing but the clothes on her back- and a satchel which holds a picture of her mother, two pairs of socks, an extra flannel petticoat, a comb, a bar of soap, needles and thread, 3 lace hankies and two black shawls. She is proud and not a little terrified, fingering the rosary she carries in her pocket as she walks into the Great Hall in her only frock: a brown wool skirt with a large patch on the front, a plaid shirtwaist, a woven sweater, a red cotton neckscarf and heavy hand made walking boots. She is carrying a letter from an aunt she has yet to meet, a distant relative of her mother, who runs a boarding house on Hotel Street In Utica NY. The letter is a guarantee of employment. A train will bring her to Utica and from there her fate will reveal itself. I do not know where in Ireland our Annie comes from, simply because she has not told me and perhaps she has her reasons...but, I have heard that a tiny old woman smoking a pipe and all dressed in black was seen on the wharf that morning in Queenstown, weaving her way among the departing throng, and that the old one was heard to say, "The ships are on the sea. God help us all." That I heard this meself, tis true, and I have it on good account that the old one was walking there then and is walking there still...

[fiona]

tomorrow: Mary Brandegee Wood.

[dgriffin]

Here's the HMS Teutonic in Liverpool, about to leave and pick up Annie in Queenstown (now known as Cobh, again since 1922, thanks be to god.)






Visit the Teutonic and see parts of it that Annie never saw (most of it) during her five or six days in steerage.

www.gjenvick.com/WhiteStarLine/1889-Teutonic-ShipHistory.html

[fiona]

Bio for Mary B. Wood:

Mary Brandegee Wood was born in Morristown New Jersey in March of 1880. She was the only child of John Brandegee Wood and Sarah Miller Wood. She was descended on both sides from prominent wealthy families, the historic Wood family of Morristown and the well known Miller family of Rutger Park, Utica NY. At some undetermined time her fathers health began to fail and the family moved to Riverside, California, where he managed orange groves. When Mary was 15 the family relocated to Utica NY so Mary could attend Mrs. Piatt's Female Academy. The school, an imposing red brick building on Washington Street, was known nationally as one of the best private girls schools in the Eastern United States.

The family most likley would have come East by train, perhaps departing from Los Angeles on the Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe line. The summer of 1895 was spent at the Miller homestead in Whitestown and later that year they secured rooms at the new Genesee Flats Apartment House, a full service building and one of the most luxurious in Utica. Constructed of red brick in 1893 by Northrup and Latcher the massive 7 story building dwarfed the palatial homes on Genesee Hill and became "THE" place to live on the hill for those persons wealthy enough to do so.

For Mary B. the move to Utica was fraught with sadness at having to leave her life in California but also ripe with the joy of once again being with her mother's family, the Millers, whom she had not seen in years. She arrived in Utica on July 2, 1895 and from the moment she stepped down from the train, she knew in her heart that this was " her town". She loved the hustle and bustle of it all. Fashionably attired in a tailor made traveling suit of light grey twill, matching silk parasol and soft kid skin boots, her bright blue eyes sparkled with anticipation. It was a beautiful afternoon, her chestnut colored curls were set off by the lovliest of hats, a black straw accented with a single white silk rose and black ribbons that ran down the back to lightly brush the nape of her neck. What more could a girl ask for?

Her little grey velvet purse held a vile of lavender salts, a small comb and mirror, a silver calling card case and a dog eared baseball card of retired National Leauge Saint Louis Brown's player Sandy Griffin whom she had a mad crush on and hoped one day to meet and possibly marry. As she stepped down from the train she not only daintely proffered her gloved hand to the porter, but flashed her ankles as well. This would have been unthinkable in polite society, but... what did she care? She was in a new place and a new time where no one could judge her and she could be naughty if she wanted too... at least for a little while.

Above the noise and congestion of the railway station, two voices, could be heard in a loud confrontation. There in front of an overflowing baggage cart a very young girl with flaming red hair tied back in two thick braids was being accosted by an older man.The girl was rudley dressed in a brown skirt with a large patch upon the front, a simple shirtwaist and a black shawl. Her voice rose and fell in the broughe of Western Ireland. The man, in rough working clothes, was very drunk and kept trying to pull her by the arm. As she resisted, her satchel fell open and the few pitiful items she owned fell to the platform. Crying out, she got down on her knees to gather them up: just as the man grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, a blue coated policeman was fast approaching.

"Hey there! You, Johnny Gorman, yer drunk again, damm ye and haven't I told ye to stay away from here?? And what are ye doin wi' that Lassie? Unhand her now!"

Mary B. looked and looked again. Someone should help the girl! Oh, where was Papa? Surely he would put a stop to it! But her mother, Sarah, came swiftly up beside her and putting her hand on Mary's chin, turned her face away from the scene. "It is the plight of the lower classes, my dear. You can't help them. Let us go. The carriage is waiting."

Soon the assembled family would lunch at the Butterfield House, taking rooms for the night, before continuing on to Whitestown. The hotel dining room was full that afternoon. A plump, dark haired French woman who took tea every afternoon at the same corner table laid down her knitting as Mary B. glided past. "Cest magnifique", she whispered, remembering her own lost girlhood on the streets of Paris. "Cest magnifique. Her face is surely her fortune " and sighing deeply, returned once again to her work at hand.

[fiona]

Next up: Sarah Miller Wood.

[dgriffin]

Turns out there is another Annie Sullivan. She died in 1920 in a train wreck near Schenectady. She was a cook and domestic for the Nellis Crouse family who were traveling to their summer destination on Cape Cod.
The Crouse father survived, but two of his children, and their grandmother died in the wreck. The mother had stayed at home. Annie died a few days after the wreck, on the operating table as the doctors tried to mend her broken skull. I'm copying the newspaper articles now.

I wonder if this Annie is ours, and if she had someone named Tom who was close to her.

Historically, the Annie who died in the Metropolitan fire in 1907 was a bit old for who we envision. The news articles say she was around 40.

Here's the first article about Train Wreck Annie Sullivan.

[dgriffin]

I've updated the web page and added your bio of Mary B.

www.windsweptpress.com/ogh1.htm

Very nice description of her getting off the train, her clothes, etc. And I really like the scene that introduces Annie and sets up some tension between Mary and her mother, as well as making a statement about class.


Question. Even though the bodies of Mary and her mother were consumed in the fire, do you know of any monuments that may have been erected in a local cemetery? Since the maternal family resided in Whitesboro, I'd think possibly a stone may have been set somewhere in the Utica area, and maybe likely in Whitesboro near her maternal grandmother. As we saw in obit of Sarah Miller Wood's sister in November of 1901 (a month after the tablet was dedicated at Grace Church), John B. Wood was by then back in Riverside, CA.

[dgriffin]

I think this is the bio thread, so I'll post here.

I've found a couple of references to John B. Wood and Yale on the web. He was a law graduate, class of 1865-66, and I'm not sure what the dual date means, unless he graduated mid term.

I don't have a "picture" of it, but here is the text of his entry in the 1906

"DIRECTORY OF THE LIVING GRADUATES OF YALE UNIVEE8ITY 1906"

Academical Department, 1865-1866 19

John B. Wood, Box 706, Riverside, Cal. [Agr.]

So, according to the directory, he is back in California in 1906, and that's corroborated by the other information we've found on him. The "[Agr.]" may indicate he was back in the orange grove business.

It would seem that such directories could quickly lose their accuracy. Without email it must have been difficult for someone to update the directory with all the graduate's addresses on a regular basis. Of course, people may have not have moved as often then. (But maybe Yale grads did.) Nevertheless, here is John's entry for the 1912 edition, six years later and 16 years after the fire:

www.windsweptpress.com/images/johnbwood 1912.jpg[/img]


If true, in 1912 he's back in Utica and living at the Albert.

[dgriffin]

Oct 15, 2009 22:40:55 GMT -5 jon hynes said:

Oct 15, 2009 21:11:23 GMT -5 fiona said:

Dave; The address given of the family home for the Crouses was 315 Genesee Street. That's on the Hill.

315 Genesee Street corner of Eagle

Where St. Francis high school is/was. Actually, the outdoor play area.

[fiona]

Dave: To answer your questions: About the buriel place of Mary B and Sarah: I cannot find a resting place for them in Utica, IE: no headstones, and of course, their final resting place is 1431 Genesee Street as we know. All the Millers, Greens and Jewetts are buried in the family plot on Old Forest Hill on Oneida Street, but according to the attendant, there are no Woods buried there-or anywhere in the cemetary by the names of Sarah, John or Mary. I myself have not been there to check it out. I was going to go up there and photograph the old cemetary stones and search around, but got really busy. I did do some research onto the I was searching the old cemetary in Morristown, but was not able to come up with much. Several years ago I was researching JB Wood and came up with a flag that began: And as an old man, he went into the Utica Insane Asylumn... but then, when I tried to open it it had been removed from the net...or something. About JB Wood being in Utica at the Albert in 1912, I can look in the city directory at the UPL as soon as I can get there. I have never found an obit for him nor a gravesite. You are doing better than I. We went down to Hotel Street and took a lot of pics today, of what's left of it, that is. I found an old row house, 106 Hotel, that I shot and will use this as the Gorman's boarding house, where I will place Annie. About the Johnny Gorman character, I have him as Mrs. Gorman's husband. I took the name from Vignettes of Old Utica by Judge Walsh. In the book he cites a bridge tender who works on the Hotel Street crossing bridge over the canal by the name of Johnny Gorman. I just put two and two together and viola- there was my character! You should recieve some pics of the plaque in the next few days. Can you post the pic of Mary B. in the OGH work book and do we need a pic of the mother, Sarah. going on what I sent you as an indication of what she may have looked like?

[dgriffin]

I put the photo of "our" Mary B up on the web page, along with a note to somewhat explain its provenance.
Regarding her mother Sarah, I'm getting forgetful, but all I can remember that I have of her by way of description is the photo of her visage as cast in concrete and mounted on the face of the Olbiston. Did you tell me more?
I can't remember. I THINK you said dark hair, and the news accounts said she was "about 45."
I'll go searching for a face. I think I'm looking for something that's sweet with a hint of steel.

[dgriffin]

Look who just popped out at me. Mary and Sarah. Look at those eyes!