Chasing the Elusive: Who was Catherine Field?

Many years ago, I received a copy of a fifty page letter written in 1965 that contained the genealogical memories of a woman named Dicky Kane, who wrote the letter to her nephew.  These memories centered around the family of Jacob Sheats (whose name was spelled a variety of phonetically correct ways: Sheets, Sheetz, Scheets, Sheetze, etc.), who worked along the waterfront of Philadelphia in the early part of the 19th century.  Among the many stories she shared about Jacob Sheats and his descendants pertained to my maternal great-great-great-grandmother, Helen D. M. Sheats, in which Dicky Kane stated that Jacob "gave the daughter Helen away to a Catholic family and she was reared in the Catholic faith."

I didn't think much of that sentence at the time, because proving who she was given away to would be difficult to do, or so I thought, so I filed the information away.

In doing my periodic research on each of my ancestors and their families, I stumbled across Helen Sheets in the 1850 census.  This was important to me because she married Jacob Miller just four months after this enumeration.  In 1850, Helen, listed as Ellen Sheetz, was living in the home of Catherine Fields in Passyunk, which at the time was a township near Philadelphia and in 1854 was consolidated into Philadelphia.  

Source: Ancestry.com, "1850 United States Federal Census," database online, Entry for Catherine Fields and household, Year: 1850, Census Place: Passyunk Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Roll: M432_820, Page: 60B, and Image: 129.

Even with this document, which I found over two years ago, I still had no idea who was the family she was given away to.  After all, on the census, Helen was almost of legal age (21 at the time) and could have been living with Catherine Field by choice, as Jacob Sheats had died in 1847.  I didn't have much to go on, so once again I just filed the information away.

Recently, Find My Past was having one of its free weekends.  Since it is one of the genealogical websites in which I don't have a subscription, I usually wait for such weekends to mine what I can from the site.  This past Veteran's day was such a weekend, and I knew that I wanted to search the Philadelphia Roman Catholic Parish Records.

There I stumbled upon Helen Sheats' baptism record.  She was baptized 30 April 1848 at Saint Philip Neri Church in Philadelphia, the same church in which she married Jacob Miller.  While no sponsor was listed for her as she was baptized as an "adult," this document made me giddy as it did lend some credence to the family story that she was raised by a Catholic family.  

However, what made me connect all of the dots was her eldest daughter's baptism record.  Catherine Elizabeth Miller, the eldest child of Jacob Miller and Helen Sheats is my blood link to these two, as she was my maternal grandfather's grandmother. She was born nine months after her parents had married and was baptized exactly one month later, on 7 October 1851 at Saint Philip Neri Church by the same priest who married her parents.  On her baptism record, listed as her sponsor (godmother) was Catherine Field.

Source: "Philadelphia Roman Catholic Parish Baptisms," database online with images, Find My Past, Catherine Field, sponsor, in entry for Catherine E Miller, baptized 16 October 1851; referencing St. Philip Neri, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania baptisms, page 80, entry 238, film number 132.01.

This discovery, as well as the discovery that Catherine Field was also listed as the godmother for two more of Helen's children, Daniel in 1865 and Jacob in 1867, led me to believe that this Catherine Field was more important that I first thought.  After all, she's listed as the godmother of three of Helen's children AND Helen was living with her in 1850.  So I went back and took a look at the 1850 census once more, and using that and the info from the baptisms I tried to search for more information on this Catherine Fields.

Unfortunately there wasn't a great deal, and what I did find could be pure speculation.  Catherine appears in the 1860 Federal Census as living in the First Ward of Philadelphia, Division One, as a 55 year old woman born in Philadelphia and having $1000 in personal real estate.

Source: "1860 United States Federal Census," database online, Entry for Cathrine Fields in household of Jno Fields, Year: 1860, Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 1 Division 1 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Roll: M653_1151, Page: 3, and Family History Library Film: 805151.

After that, she becomes fairly elusive. There is a possibility she died in 1875 in Philadelphia and was buried in Frankford, but further research must be done.

There's also chasing down any deeds she might have had. After all, she did own property according to both the 1850 and 1860 census enumerations. So there is a chance that she owned a great deal of land, but accessing the deeds for Philadelphia online means traveling to my nearest Family History Library, as most of them are locked to viewing at home.

And there also is researching the other Field people that reside with her on the 1850 and 1860 census enumerations. One of them in particular stuck out; the Elizabeth that shows up in both enumerations. One Elizabeth Field was listed as the godmother of Helen's son George in 1857, and Helen's eldest daughter was named Catheirne Elizabeth... was it for both Catherine and Elizabeth Field?

So on I go, chasing down the paper trail of clues to discover if this truly is the Catholic family who fostered Helen Sheats Miller.

Cooking History: Celebrating the Food of Our Family

Today was a day off for me, so I spent some time getting some things done that I had been intending to do for a while now.

I roasted a pie pumpkin in the oven, with the intent of mashing it down and freezing it for our Thanksgiving pumpkin pies.

I also made some veggie scrap broth, which is currently simmering on my stove.

I also cut some older bread that had been made two days ago by my husband into cubes to make some dressing for a meal in the coming weeks.  The crumbs were also saved and will go into our breadcrumb container for meatloaf and other breadcrumb needs.

I do some of these things out of necessity - the bread is homemade, made with whole wheat flour, and has no salt due to my husband's dietary restrictions, as well as the veggie scrap stock since it also is better than the salt-laden broths from the store.  But I also do these things to keep a connection with my past.

My mother's grandparents and some of their descendants eating outdoors, c. 1930s

My mother's mother was a caterer.  She taught my mother how to cook from a very young age.  My mom did the same for me and my siblings.  All of us were helping her from the time we could lift spoons, and by high school I was able to help her in the kitchen by cooking meals while she worked nights.  Because of her mother's catering, my mom knew what could be substituted in cooking should someone run out, and she taught me how to make things from scratch the way she learned, which is why I prefer to roast my own pie pumpkins and mash them versus using canned pumpkin, although my shortcuts in the kitchen involve using my food processor to do the actual mashing versus doing it by hand as it was done in past generations. 

After my parents got married nearly forty years ago, my father's mother gifted my mom handwritten recipes of the foods my dad liked so Mom could make them for him.  Some were deemed "not the way Mom made them,"  but others still live on to this day... and I make them now as well for my husband and I.  When she was alive, my gram loved it when I messaged her via email to tell her I made her No-Peek Chicken (or Pork chops) and that my own dear husband loved the recipe.

My Gram and I at Thanksgiving dinner, 2005

Food is very much a part of history in any family...... When I ask for memories of family and get no response, I ask people to tell me what kind of food they had at family gatherings.  Memories seem to flow when people think about food.  My maternal great-grandmother was known for boiled chicken, which some of her grandchildren remembered fondly while others remembered with horror.  My great-great-grandmother had raised a hog every spring and butchered it in the fall.... so that the Alsatian tradition of having pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day to bring luck to the new year could be celebrated.  My paternal great-great-grandaunt loved carrots, so much so that she put them in EVERYTHING, or so I have been told.... in soups and roasts, in mashed potatoes, even in lime jello.

My dad's grandparents and family gathered for a meal, c. early 1960s

It is these stories that make my family history come alive.  Since so much of family gatherings, indeed human culture, is spent around the table, it is natural that I have this connection to past generations each time I make a traditional meal for a celebration or make my grandmother's cucumber salad or even bake a loaf of bread.  I remember the stories that have passed down from my ancestors at the holidays as I celebrate their cultures in the foods that I choose to eat, from the Sauerbraten at Christmas to the turkey with homemade dressing at Thanksgiving to even the corned beef (rinsed really well and soaked to leech out the salt) at Saint Patrick's.  And yes, it is still traditional in this house to eat Pork roast and sauerkraut at New Year's to bring good luck