December 2010 – Edition 69

This issue recaps the Jerrems Journal stories of 2010. Enjoy them again.

This edition included one of a series of articles about people who formed part of the Jerrems history. It is an account of the business career of Marquette (“Mark”) Ambrose Healy, who married Annie Letitia Jerrems. Previous articles in the Jerrems Journal refer to Anne at Ogontz School (September 2008) and to Mark and Anne’s personal lives (October 2008).

February’s edition was a collection of information about Henry Herbert Jerrems, the grandfather of our readers Anita Veale (nee Jerrems) and Ken Jerrems and the great grandfather of Ben, Tate and Emma. This is my first article about the ‘Melbourne’ side of the Jerrems family, the impetus for writing the article having come from Anita, who recently supplied me with documents and photos.

It is appropriate for me to write about Edwin Jerrems because we now have a reader of the Jerrems Journal (Helen Mitchell) who is a great grand- daughter of Edwin.

My main sources of information come from Helen and my own research.

Who was Edwin Jerrems? Edwin was the eldest son of Robert Cane Jerrems, the “founding father” of the Melbourne branch of the Jerrems family, being a member of the Jerrems family which migrated to Victoria in the 1850s and settled in Richmond. His mother was Alice Rigg, who was born in 1850 in County Cumberland, England (on the Scottish border) and her Scottish parents were Thomas and Agnes Rigg (nee Carter). Robert and Alice were married in 1870.

This article was one of the “Remember Me” series and tells you about Charles Jerrems, who was born in 1858 in the Utica area in New York State. His ancestors came from Wappenham, described in the JJ of February 2008.

Much of the information in this article originated from research by Sandra, supplemented by my research.

Charles’ Parents and Siblings:

Charles’ parents were James Jerrems and his second wife Esther Jerrems (nee Colbrook). Charles came from a large “extended family”. As described in the JJ of July 2008, James and first wife Ann had 8 children James H, Thomas W., Jessee or Jesse, Elizabeth, Josephine, Rebecca, Emma and Helen. The 3 boys served in the Civil War. Following Ann’s death James married the widowed Esther in1853 and in due course they had five children, Mary, born 1853, Anah born 1854 (died 1856), George, born 1856 (died 1859), and lastly our hero Charles, born 1858.

James’s third (and final) wife was the widowed Caroline Mayborn, who was born in England in 1822. They had one daughter, Minnie.

The above photograph was taken in 1905 and shows most of the Jerrems family living in Sydney at the time, except for one “ring in”. It was probably taken at the Greenwich (Sydney) house of Charles and Susannah Jerrems.

The family consisted of parents Charles and Susannah and their children Charles Jr, Edwin, Isabel, Alf and Richmond, the first two children being absent from the photo.

The people are (L to R) standing Isabel Jerrems (born 1876) and her brother Alf Jerrems (born 1878), seated Alfred Sassall, Richmond Jerrems (born 1886), and his mother Susannah Jerrems (born about 1850) and father Charles Jerrems (born 1847) seated in the far right.

Having spent time in the United States in the 19th Century, it is now time to return to Australia in the 21st Century.

My wife Diane and I visited Anita and George Veale on 30th April 2010 while we were on a holiday in Melbourne. To our very pleasant surprise Helen Mitchell was also there, and she showed us photographs of her family. We had a sumptuous afternoon tea and reminisced at length.

Readers will remember that Anita and Helen live in adjacent suburbs and one of Anita’s granddaughters went through High School with one of Helen’s daughters. When Anita and Helen (long term residents in the area) finally met up several months ago they were amazed to realise that they recognised each other.

Their common ancestor was my great grandfather’s brother Robert Cane Jerrems and, on my estimate, the families would have lost contact with each other over a hundred years ago before the First World War. Another amazing thing to remember is that I had letters from Anita and Helen which (I happened to notice) showed that they live near each other; I do not normally record peoples’ addresses.

This is the story of Joseph Jerrems/Jerrams, who, despite his comparatively early death, had made a significant impact in his adopted community in the USA, far from where he was born in rural England. It is a typical story of the challenges facing people who migrated to foreign lands in the 1800s.

Here is more of the story of the most outstanding sportsman in the annals of the Jerrems families. It is about Alexander Nicholl Jerrems, one of the children of William George Jerrems and Mary Jerrems (nee Nicholl). The article takes us through from his childhood and his exciting sporting career to his marriage to Mary Bell.

Readers may recall that Alexander’s father (William) was one of the family which migrated from Gainsborough to Australia in the 1850s.

After 4 children (including Alexander, born in 1874) were born in Australia William’s family migrated to the United States, then to England and then back to the US in about 1883. The last child in the family, our editor’s grandfather, was born in Chicago in 1885.

September: This is one of the “Remember Me” series of articles which I have written for the Jerrems Journal. It is about Sandra’s “Uncle Billy”, who grew up in the United States and served in a conflict which our Australian readers may never have encountered before, the Spanish-American War. Another interesting aspect is that he had a most unusual experience during that war.

Uncle Billy

Sandra’s great great uncle William M. Bohling was born in Utica, NY in 1878 and died in Port Leyden, north of Utica, in 1945. Utica was the city where Sandra’s great grandparents (Joseph and Sarah Jerrems) grew up after they migrated from England (readers may remember that Joseph came from the Wappenham Jerrems/Jerrams family). Uncle Billy served in the Philippines with the United States Army (more about this later).

October: This article illustrates the style of newspaper reporting in the 19th Century, using a report about a fire involving a “Nicoll the Tailor” store as an example. The article also gives insights into the operations of “Nicoll the Tailor”, the redoubtable Alexander Nicoll/Nicholl who was the great great grandfather of our Editor Donald and readers like Chick Keller, Jerry Jerrems, Cathy and the Healy brothers. His photo was in the December 2008 Journal.

November: This article records the information we have located about Robert Colbrook. Readers may remember that he was one of the “Jerrems boys” who served in the American Civil War, as described in the Jerrems Journal of November 2009. Robert was the step son of James Jerrems (born in Wappenham, England in 1812), whose life was outlined in the Jerrems Journal of July 2008.

The main source of information is a fulsome 1906 newspaper report on his death, providing a springboard for a lot of research from Sandra. Robert’s birth and childhood:
Robert was born in Kent, England on 22nd March, 1841. His parents were Robert Colbrook (1817-49) and Esther (1820-60). He had 2 younger sisters, Sarah Brown (1845-1902) and Harriet Hardcastle (1846-?).

The family migrated to the United States in 1849 and settled in New York State.

December 2010

Dear Donald

Looking back through my list of emails, I realise that I have not written to you from Heaven since April 2009, when I congratulated you about reaching the 50th Edition of the Jerrems Journal.

There have obviously been significant advances in research carried out on the Jerrems families since the 50th Edition. I notice that one third of the major articles since the 50th Edition are devoted to Sandra’s “Wappenham” side.

Ray is not sure how many people are on our side, but it must run into the hundreds. We do not have any large entertainment areas in Heaven because St Peter says that they encourage decadence (no doubt he still remembers when the Coliseum in Rome was used to kill Christians). He believes in family entertainment. The result is that our side cannot all meet together for Christmas, so we tend to rotate invitations. We have been doing this for some time and have found that it works well. After all, there is no hurry, nobody is going anywhere.

Ray tells me that Sandra’s Family Tree now contains 2570 people. Meeting them (and remembering their names) would be a real challenge! We have of course met the Civil War veterans, and I would particularly like to meet Sandra’s ancestor Joseph (with his Hose Company), her Uncle Billy Bohling (with his water canteen with a bullet hole in it) and Robert Colbrook (the brakeman). I like a good story line.

With 18 editions of the Journal issued since I last wrote it is difficult to know where to start with my comments.

Starting back in my day, the articles about the Jepsons was outstanding, the Jepsons all loved them. The article about our wedding and the photo of St John the Baptist’s Church in Stainton-By-Langworth in Lincolnshire (pictured above) brought back memories. I had forgotten how small the Church was, and how cold the weather was at the time. As Ray suggested in the article, it was Elizabeth’s church, and she wanted to have the ceremony there, even though St Helens Church at Willingham was much larger.

Talk about old habits dying hard. Alexander Nicholl was always keen on obtaining maximum publicity for his “Nicoll the Tailor” tailoring empire. He was back in his element when he read the “Bowery Fire” article about his main shop and factory burning down. He has posted a copy of the article on the village notice board. Since reading the article about his grandson Alexander’s gridiron exploits he has asked me again if he can play his bagpipes at the next Xmas Party.

I better go, Elizabeth wants me to check whether her Xmas puddings are up to standard. I take my tasting duties very seriously.

Big Bill