November 2020 – Bridging the Silences

The Pomona Solution

From 1922 to 1923 the best source of information on the Sandford and Swan families is grandfather Joe Sandford’s diary, two dozen typewritten pages in a notebook formerly used by grandmother Margaret during her studies at the University of California at Berkeley. The diary was found by cousin Robert in the crevices of Joe’s oldContinue reading “The Pomona Solution”

The End of the Family Legacy in Brooklyn

By year-end 1930, our grandparents Gordon and Ruth Hynes were living in Freeport, Long Island, New York. Gordon was an ordained Baptist minister and the full time pastor of the Freeport Baptist Church. Their first child, daughter Magurerite, our mother, was born in Freeport in April 1932. The era of great grandfather James Louis Hynes’Continue reading “The End of the Family Legacy in Brooklyn”

A Good Life Remembered

Great grandfather Edward Sandford was 79 at the time of his son’s wedding in 1921. Having started his second marriage at the late age of 48, he was always a generation out-of-step with the rest of his family. Edward had dealt with health concerns most of his life, beginning with his near-fatal battlefield wound inContinue reading “A Good Life Remembered”

The Sandford and Swan Families Unite in Ontario

By early summer 1919, grandfather Joe Sandford had safely returned to his home in Ontario, California from the war in France . The Sandford and the Swan families had known of each other since 1910 when the Sandfords moved to Ontario and Henry Swan gave Joe a job in his Ontario bank to save himContinue reading “The Sandford and Swan Families Unite in Ontario”

The Sechler and Hynes Families Unite in Brooklyn

The Sechler and Hynes families came together in the 1920s in Bushwick, Brooklyn where they lived one block apart. Great grandmother Laura Sechler and daughter Ruth lived at 987 Hancock Street while Great grandparents James and Bessie Hynes lived at 1008 with their four children. The Bushwick Avenue Baptist Church, where James was preacher, wasContinue reading “The Sechler and Hynes Families Unite in Brooklyn”