Mom’s Notes
(Undated)
[My blog becomes more and more disconnected. . .
In taking a look at some random notebook pages from my mother's mass of notes and writing, I was struck by these few pages on the Beauchamps. They trail off on the last notebook page. Considering some bits of information online and via ancestry.com discussing the Beauchamp lineage dating from the Norman Conquest, and a "John Beauchamp" one of the landed gentry in Ireland in the late 1700's, as well as a line of Barons in England by the same name, I'm wondering if her great-grandfather and grandfather (John Beauchamp born in Ireland in 1831, and his son, John Hiberman Beauchamp, the one she writes of here) are connected. Census shows John Beauchamp of Ireland, his wife and first couple of children in the VA census, in Richmond in 1860. Then the Canadian Census 1871 shows the same birthdates and names for John Beauchamp of Ireland, his wife Emeline (Butler) Beauchamp, of VA and one daughter (Emiline "something" Beauchamp) also of VA. One of the VA children in the 1860 US Census is NOT listed in the 1871 Canadian Census--Anne Beauchamp: did she die? The rest of the children are listed, including John Hiberman Beauchamp, Mom's grandfather, as born in 1864 on "The Atlantic Ocean." Very strange. Did they take a ship from VA to Ontario? Why was this middle child born on the Atlantic Ocean. And I wonder if Mom ever knew this story! It also lists John Beauchamp of Ireland as working as a "woolen manufacter" in the City of Galt, Ontario. In VA he is listed as a "farmer." I'm sure this John Beauchamp is the same as the John Beauchamp listed in the Canadian Census, but I am not sure if he is related to the "gentlemen" listed as one of the landed gentry in Ireland. The only connection I have is Mom's notes]
Eleanor Beauchamp
The Beauchamp family lineage dates its English ancestry from the Norman Conquest in 1066 and somewhere our branch picked up its share of the spoils, as to this date [Mom’s notes not dated] my mother’s oldest brother still collects [annual?] taken rents from tenements in Dublin [Eleanor did not have an older brother, so I'm not sure what she means. Maybe "Uncle?"] However, their means, if not their [posture? Position? Looks like “postu’] became diminished in their travels to the New World, to the place where my grandfather and his brothers ended up in an orphanage in America in 1879. At the age of 12 John [Hiberman] Beauchamp and his 10 year old brother ran away and made their own way. He married my grandmother Sarah Underwood, a beautiful young woman form a large family of prosperous farmers.
Their marriage was quite stormy as my grandfather was a steady and continuous alcoholic. His drinking started firs thing in the morning and continued through the day, and although never outwardly out of control was a very severe father whose large family of five was constantly in fear of his temper He was a professional musician and played the trumpet in a nearby orchestra and was often not at home. [Ontario Marriage Records confirms he was a "Musician."]
Victorian manners were strongly enforced and my mother [I assume Eleanor] was made to handle herself with strict decorum. Piano lessons were a must with long tiring hours of practice and nothing but perfection would do.
Fortunately her mother’s large and warm family lived near and added a great deal of warmth and zest for fun so that except of fear of [aekau?] that had nothing to do with religious morals and an intense dislike of piano she survived with an amazing [perportion? proportion?] of good times.
Her father died while away from home at the age of 45 [I had recalled my mom saying that he died in a hotel fire, probably drunk, in somewhere like Toronto] , when my mother was a girl of twelve and although life became more financially pinched, tensions were a good deal more relaxed. She and her four younger brothers formed a very strong and warm relationship that remained fully intact during her life. [yes, four YOUNGER brothers; no older brother]
She and her mother must have shared much responsibility as her need for her mother and praise were very deep.
Eleanor Victoria Beauchamp [my middle name is Victoria: John H Beauchamp has a sister named Victoria Adelaide] was a strong willed highly emotional woman who although religion and magic [?] had no part in her life strongly believed that she and her mother could communicate at great distance and that when my mother ever really needed her, her mother would travel great distances to be by her side, because of a disquieting feeling but no actual communication. This happened twice to my knowledge. Once when my mother was a young woman and suffering from the dreaded flu of 1919—she had set up a small [millinary?] and picture framing shop in a strange city [where?] when she found herself a young widow. No one was willing to take a chance on catching the flu from a stranger and when she was desperately ill and alone. Her mother walked in and said she just felt something was wrong with her daughter.
Years later after my mother had married my father [Louis Golczynski] she contracted typhoid fever and again her mother appeared to nurse her daughter’s family which while she was in the hospital and recuperating.
Never the less life at home after her father’s death must have been quite hard, as my grandmother took up tailoring with my mother’s assistance, and also had to raise four brothers scattered from age one to ten.
For my mother quit school and married a poltical cartoonist at the age of 16 [Frederick William Pound: I can find no record of his having been a political cartoonist]. This marriage was very brief as her young husband went off to WW I and [something] within the year and did not return, leaving my mother a widow at the age of 18.
Off she went on her pension to Ferris Institute, a school set up especially with the idea of helping young people prepare for college no matter when their earlier education stopped. It was at Ferris institute that she met my father as a tutor for my mother lagging(sp?) scientific knowledge, which was his chief interest.
There was no religion (sp) training in this family as my grandfather was an [Atheist?] and there never was any religion. . . the immediate family. . .
[And the rest is lost.]
