Letter to family, from Catherine (Clemens) Sevenau

by Catherine Sevenau on January 27, 2011

A Letter to My Family

Dear shirt-tail, coat-tail, kissin’, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins twice-removed:

It has been a journey uniting our Chatfield clan—both past and present. “Why are you doing this?” people queried. My initial response was, “I don’t know,” followed by, “I’m interested.” Actually, it started as a family memoir and I couldn’t keep all these Chatfield’s straight so I put them into family trees—and then it got hold of me. (Also, as memoir’s tend to do, some of my family got in a snit over it—actually, it was way more than a snit—so I have put it away for a while). My compatriots are my brother Gordon Clemens (who has done family research for years and compiled a number of large white binders that serve as our mini libraries), his wife Marian (who makes us chocolate chip cookies, helps research and never gets annoyed when I call three times a day), our 2nd cousin Beverly Kelly (who’s done much work on the Elmer Chatfield line), and Cheryl (Chatfield) Thompson (an eighth cousin and a whiz at editing and unearthing records). I am indebted to our cousin Shirley Fouch (and her husband Len who scanned the first mother-lode of Chatfield pictures and who still talks to me after it crashed his hard-drive). I thank cousins David Costa, Aura Edwards, Barbara Alfrey, Judi O’Brien, Marceline Mangini, Joann Levine, Pat Benaquista, Jacqui Ewing, Mary Tuck Hodgen (who said, “you MUST come down here and go through this trunk!”) and the Rosa’s—keepers of their lines. Dozens of other cousins have generously shared pictures, letters, and stories. I am indebted to fellow researchers Harry E. Chatfield (deceased) and Warren A. Bower (formerly of Wyoming, currently in Kansas) for their work. A huge thank you to cousins Terry & Peg McCarty, authors of THE CHATFIELD STORY, who allowed me the use of pictures and excerpts from their book. I thank all the photographers and researchers on FIND A GRAVE, especially Steven Smith from Oxford, Connecticut. It takes a village to raise the dead. Bless you all.

There were times I felt divinely guided. At a complete standstill on Jacquelin’s branch, by sheer luck I tracked down Beatrice who was married to Jay (who went by Bill and unfortunately had died some years before). Beatrice led me to Bill’s 79 year-old sister Marion (who goes by JoAnn and is in her third marriage) so no chance I would have ever found her. JoAnn had Isaac’s bible, stories in a small black book penned by her aunt Kate, Calla’s artwork, and two big boxes of pictures, clippings and letters. Thanks to her, 75 photos four generations back appear in this book. She also led me to Calla’s grandchildren whom I could not have traced with what little info I had.

The Arthur Chatfield line was the most challenging. Then Cheryl Thompson tipped me off to Georgie Sanderson, related by the slimmest of threads. Georgie led me to Barbara McClintock who said, “It is amazing you called. I spent all last week organizing my family pictures and records, the whole time wondering why.” Then I found Jeff Thorn, a Sawyer connection, who dug up the Ora and Ray articles. Each time I got stuck, the person holding the information I was seeking appeared. I am astounded and grateful for the clues, coincidences and synchronicities that dangled in front of me. What a crazy collaboration! It has been fun, funny, fruitful, frustrating, fulfilling and fabulous. I hope you enjoy grazing through what has turned out to be a “weighty tome” as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

So why did I compile this history? I suppose for it’s own sake—AND—I have this thing about keeping the family together. I guess I’ve done that—and then some.

Catherine (Clemens) Sevenau

Post Script: We did our best regarding information, names and dates in spite of exasperating red herrings, missing records, and a couple of cranky cousins who refused to talk to me—apparently a genetic trait. We also gleaned what we could from:

  • Family Bibles: names entered by those who spelled fonetikly—or later entries made with faded memory
  • Wills: with faint or undecipherable script
  • Birth, marriage and death certificates: sometimes accurate—sometimes not
  • Newspaper articles: oh please, when was the last time you read something accurate in a newspaper?
  • Public records: were only as good as those who input or transcribed the information
  • Census records: depends on who was home when the census taker came; also spelling of names not so important in those days.
  • Headstones: just because it is carved in stone doesn’t make it so
  • Identification of photos: like, could ANYONE have bothered to put a name or a date on the back?
  • People’s memories: family stories passed down were most interesting—some just weren’t quite true
  • Other’s genealogy: conjecture and logic have little to do with reality—and, I too—am guilty as charged

We realize there are still errors. If you know things we don’t, would you tell us? If you have pictures squirreled away, could you look for them? And if you don’t care all that much about family history, you won’t have read this far anyway.