Memorial Day, 2025

TL;DR -- We have took special interest each May since 2019 with respect to Memorial Day. Its weekend in May serves as the start of the summer season. 

--

We are coming up on the first weekend of summer. For many, the school season is over though many go into June. Too, many college graduations have taken place. 

Memorial Day in the U.S. aligns well with summer activities and is a traditional time with activities such as visiting and decorating graves of family and friens, honoring graves of veterans with the U.S. flag; trips to the park or other journey; BBQ in the backyard; and such. Many locations have parades and ceremonies at their cemeteries. 

In this post, we started a regular post for the Holiday starting in 2019. See the list below. For each year, we summarize the content of the post. 

Also, in 2019, we provided information about the burial of Dr. Frank in the Gardner/Dennet plot at the Greenlawn cemetery in Salem, MA. The post is titled Gallows Hill with respect to Thomas' remark about seeing the water at his favorite relaxing place and recapitulates some of the issues remaining open about the location of Thomas' remains. We will update that information during this pause to reflect. 

Today is the Visitation/Memorial of Eric W. Gardner, recently of Rapid City, SD. about whom we wrote earlier this month. 

Memorial Day, 2019 --  as we were researching Ann's genealogy, we gathered information about her grandparents who were three generations back. One finding was that a "findagrave" record about a burial at the G.A.R. cemetery at Saugus, MA held a veteran with no ties. After documenting the links, we updated his findagrave record: Walter A. Ingalls. If you pick his spouse, you will find information about his in-laws as we requested that links be updated. Too, we tied records in WikiTree with the ones at findagrave. 

Memorial Day, 2020 -- in the Covid times we were researching families in the middle of the country where they had stopped. Others had flowed on west. We mentioned the absence of graves. Or, as we see out here, there are unmarked graves. findagrave is full of these. We mentioned the record that we did for Dr. Frank. We can honor people through virtual memorials. 

Memorial Day, 2021 -- a brief recap of the two prior years and then a look at the many conflicts which produced veterans to honor. 

Memorial Day, 2022 -- we looked at a cemetery in the west as a photo from the area could have been taken in New England. It is at the site of an early mission to support Native tribes, some of whom had been in the area for centuries as well as newcomers from replacement efforts. We looked at William Whites Graves who was honored by the Natives for his support of the Osage Mission. 

Memorial Day, 2023 -- we looked at a few posts from May since our beginning in 2010. We asked the question which is still being researched: was Thomas at Cape Ann? See the post, Restart somewhat. We say, yes; but, the story will need to be altered with new information which will result from structured research. Stay tuned. 

Memorial Day, 2024 -- we looked at Nantucket and heard from Diana Davidson. She descends from the Gardners of Nantucket and lives in England, near Dorset. 

Over the rest of the month, we will work to find pertinent information with regard to the theme of this post. As we write on that, we will come back and update this post.

Remarks: Modified: 05/21/2025

05/21/2025 - 

Bunker Hill

TL;DR -- We're in the time of the Siege of Boston with the Bunker Hill incident on the horizon. But, the Siege went on until March of 1776. So, we have a few more items to look at prior to the hubbub of the Declaration of Independence whose inspiration was, in part, brought by kin from almost 100 years prior.  

---

Siege of Boston

The first thing to remember is that we are at the 250th of the Siege of Boston. Earlier, we looked at an event that led up to this: Lexington and Concord. This start of the turmoil on April 19th attracted support of able-bodied men in the area, except for Salem troops under the command of Col. Pickering (Where was Salem?).  

In our research, we ran into the battle of Bunker Hill (17 Jun 1775) early on through reference to Col. Thomas Gardner who was killed in that conflict. His 25th Continental Regiment was involved in several engagements. 

This brings up Dr. Gardner's look at the Regimental history through a series of articles that appeared in each of the issues of The Massachusetts Magazine. In the first article, he discusses the Siege of Boston and notes that the revolutionaries were not solely rebels. Many officers had served the Crown in early conflicts. 

The Siege was almost a year, going to March of 1776. We have time to look further with respect to our themes. 

---

Los Angeles (LA) of California (CA) has a neighborhood that is called Bunker Hill west. We have had several posts on the area which represents the history of LA from the time of Spanish rule to the current age of skyscrapers that have populated Bunker Hill West area. Early English involvement the area was in the 1830s. After that, many New Englanders showed up in the area. We have been researching this influx and have reported on some families. 

A stage line came into LA from Arizona (AZ) that was part of a freight/mail business with an eastern terminal at St Louis of Missouri (MO). Pre-Civil-War activity on the line followed a tight schedule and was supported by stops along the way through several current States, including Texas (TX). The area in LA where the line had their stop and supporting businesses, such as those that provided horses, stage maintenance, and more, was at the bottom of Bunker Hill West. 

The Butterfield Express, and many other Express companies, were New England in origin. Of interest is that many of these are still in existence. 

---

The Revolutionary War started in 1776 and went until 1783. So, we will have several years to look at this history in all aspects including families and their genealogies. So, let's remember Rev. John Wise of Ipswich, MA who was seen, almost 100 years later, as the inspiration for the document normally associated with the War, the Declaration of Independence. The Col. Gardner mentioned above was related to Rev. John through their Gardner lineage. Both are kin. 

 

Remarks: Modified: 05/18/2025

05/18/2025 - 

Eric W. Gardner

TL;DR -- Eric Wright Gardner, descendant of two sons, George and Samuel, of Thomas and Margaret, died recently. We offer condolences to the parents, family and friends of Eric and provide some information about Eric. His father wrote of the Magna Carta for The Gardner Annals in 2016. In that regard, we find ourselves at another milestone for that memorable document. 

--

We have covered a sampling of descendants through the generations since time of Thomas Gardner and Margaret Fryer. Our brief look at each of the children and their descendants can be considered a start. 

As an example, the following link is to information about the 5th son and his descendants over the four centuries.  

Samuel Gardner -- Dr. Frank, the author, whose work led to the 1907 and 1933 books is of this line. As well, Dr. Frank was an editor, and a major force behind the publication, of The Massachusetts Magazine.  

Today, we commemorate Eric W. Gardner (1965-2025) who is a descendant of both George and Samuel, through his mother and father, respectively. In terms of the book, the 1933 edition was of the family of George while the 1907 book principally covered known descendants of Samuel. 

Obituary

A nephew of Ann, Eric grew up in Fort Worth, TX and attended school in TX and OK. Eric's career as a weatherman was inspired by Harold Taft of Fort Worth and took him from Texas to Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota where he was a meterologist at KOTA-TV of Rapid City. 

Eric's other interest were music, cooking, and wine. With his musical interest in the piano, Eric continued his involvement by helping to arrange local performances for visiting pianists. He held regular broadcasts concerning recipes, healthy eating, and cooking lessons. He was knowledgeable about wine and arranged local support for wineries of NAPA Valley and other locations.   

---

Eric's father, Jonathan Gardner, authored our article on the Magna Carta (800th Anniversary), The Gardner Annals, Volume III, Number 1. In 2025, we have the celebration of the 810th aniversary related to King Henry I, son of King John, and his interest in the Magna Carta which needs an update related to technology (Magna Carta, technical).  

Remarks: Modified: 05/21/2025

05/21/2025 - Visitation/Memorial, today. Guestbook. 

May Day, 2025

TL;DR -- The first day of May is about 1/2 way down the path to summer from spring. Our interest orginally was Hawthorne's look at Merry Mount and its maypole. But, the 400ths became a reality and diverted attention. So, we will get the theme/meme back in operation. 

--

The first day of May is about 1/2 way down the path of spring toward summer. In that sense, it's like the Ground Hog day of February which gives some relief to winter. This year, there was a brief pause between major winter storm systems. Now, we're in the pause before the summer's heat and its storms. 

If one searches on "maypole"in this blog, several posts come up. Early on in our work, we were researching cousin Hawthorne and found out about Merry Mount and Endicotts distaste for the "hippy" environment in that area. So, we thought that the U.S. could claim to have been involved in hedonism from early on, or something like that. 

Harthorne wrote of the incident which we feature here. 

•  The Maypole that infuriated the puritans

 

By 2016, we had made progress in some areas and did a post on this May 1st while pointing to work on the Bosworth research which came back into focus this past month. This might become a regular topic.

In 2023 on Memorial Day, we did a post that pointed to earlier posts as Memorial Day's focus is right down our alley. Since then, we have had a post every year and will do so this year. In 2023, we went back and sampled a one post from each May back to the beginning. 

That might be a good theme/meme to use by quarter so as to pull old posts back into scope.

We figured that we could include Merrymount with Quincy which is a mere five miles from Weymouth which had its 400th in 2022. Other settlements in that area are expected within the next few years with their tales. 

Things associated with May 1:

• May Day 
• International Worker Day 
• Lei Day (Hawaii) 
• ...

Given the emphasis lately via the hyped look at GenAI/LLM, we might want to get back to realizing what human workers have done over the eons and, of late, the centuries. 

Though, this theme/meme might have four pieces. We mentioned 2/2 as well as 5/1. To be complete, 8/1 and 11/1 need some attention. We will look at that. 

Remarks: Modified: 05/01/2025

05/01/2025 --