Many of us know little, if anything, about our ancestors. Often, we don’t even know their names. My own ignorance about my ancestors mirrored that of most people I know. I might have heard a story at a family gathering, seen a photo, or come across a tangible item like a ring or an heirloom—but that was all.
When genealogy software became available, I started my own family tree. Decades later, its branches are filled with hundreds of names, dates, photos and vital documents like birth certificates. Yet, there are very few stories. The ones I’ve collected are brief and reveal little about the times my ancestors lived in or the lives they led.
My ancestors left no personal diaries, writings or letters to shed light on their lives. I wonder, if they had kept journals or written memoirs, what would they have shared? What were their thoughts? What mattered most to them? What dangers did they face?
Apart from a few entries in census records, civil documents in municipal archives and passenger lists from long-extinct shipping companies, I accepted that the details of my ancestors’ daily lives would remain hidden. Once again, I wondered—what about when we’re gone? What legacy will we leave for future generations? Will they even remember our names?
But like all historical artifacts buried by time, the more I examined the unremarkable entries in pale ink on old ledger pages, the more they revealed themselves as threads in the tapestry of my ancestors’ lives. When woven together, they told remarkable stories of tragedy and triumph.
“The Remembering: Of Leather & Stone” is a fact-based fictional account comprised of three personal journals, written as if by my ancestors nearly 200 years ago.Compiled from decades of original research—examining historical records from the Town of Milford, Mass., where they settled, along with eyewitness accounts of the people, places, and events of their lifetimes—these are their stories as they might have lived and written them.
Each journal is a collection of fragments—passing thoughts and longer stories they might have felt compelled to write, even if only for their eyes—including random anecdotes about themselves, other people, incidents, and newspaper clippings, alongside deeply personal stories of life-changing events and their struggles to endure.
Their accounts are as unique as they were—intimate, emotional stories of firsthand experiences, reflections on world events, and their impact on daily life. Souvenirs of another time, their stories reveal a world as vivid and real as the present.
Forces of Nature
Cornelius Collins, my great-great-grandfather on my father’s side, was born in Ireland in 1831. He was the first from either side of my parents’ lineage to arrive in America. Illiterate and destitute, his story is one of perseverance and triumph, yet forever marked by the lasting effects of the prolonged hunger he endured during the Irish Famine.
Modern clinical and scholarly research links conditions such as cognitive and memory impairment, addictive behaviors, and chronic depression to the lasting effects of famine, which can be passed through generations.
Cornelius’s journal is a rich blend of moments revealing the strength of the human spirit, detached and emotionless observations of harsh realities, and glimpses of the shadows rarely spoken of by those who have survived a holocaust, whether natural or man-made.
Of Leather & Stone
My two great-grandfathers on my father’s side were born shortly after the American Civil War. Michael James Collins, born in 1868, was the youngest son of Cornelius Collins and, like his father, a skilled bootmaker. Giuseppe Ambrosini, born in 1866, was a master stonecutter from northern Italy who came to America seeking his fortune and was a contemporary of Michael Collins.
They lived and worked in Milford, just miles apart but worlds away from each other. Michael spent his days working in the boot factories, while Giuseppe toiled in the pink granite quarries.
Their journals are written in a parallel timeline, presented side by side as tandem narratives, revealing their different points of view during a time of significant technological change and political and labor unrest as they entered the 20th century—a period marked by even greater technological change and two world wars that would make it the deadliest century in history.
The Lost Generation
The Lost Generation reveals a fragment of “The Remembering” story of my grandmother, “Jessie,” found in her desk after her death. Born Chesirina Louise Ambrosini in 1901 in Quincy, Mass., the eldest daughter of Giuseppe Ambrosini, she was raised in Milford and lived through all 100 years of the 20th century.
In 1925, she married Joseph Cornelius Collins, the eldest son of Michael Collins and grandson of Cornelius Collins. They were part of the Lost Generation, shattered by World War I and the collapse of everything their parents had believed in and lived for.
It was the “Roaring 20s”: the soundtrack was jazz, the girls were flappers and the dance craze was the Charleston—until it all came to a tragic end with the stock market crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression.
From the mountains of northern Italy to the famine-stricken Irish countryside, to Boston — ‘“Beacon of Freedom” — and the prosperous industrial town of Milford, Mass., where technology is changing everything—these are the gritty and gripping origin stories of two very different immigrant families whose lives and destinies are forever altered by Milford—a place where people and fortunes are made.
The author can be emailed at Charles at CharlesPaulCollins.com. His website is here.
