We spent four glorious days in Gloucester, taking day trips throughout the area. I needed a few days at the ocean, my happy place, and Kathy was willing to spend some time there too. We found a great motel right on the coast and every room had a view and patio that looked out on the Atlantic. (The motel was called The Atlantis).
After our first restful night at the beach, we took in a WW workshop in Danvers, then went to breakfast at a little diner called the Peabody Diner. We were looking for a cemetery called St. Mary’s in Salem. We asked in the diner if they knew where it was, The young waitress had never heard of it, but went back to ask the owner. One of the patrons pointed out that it was just cattycorner from the diner. Unfortunately, the office was closed, but we spent an hour or so looking for graves of the McGinnis and Furey ancestors. Kathy has information that some of them are buried in this cemetery, but we were not able to find any of them. However, there is a stone and area in the cemetery that remembers those who died.
While we were in the Peabody/Salem area, we tracked down the probable church where our great-grandparents got married, and houses in Peabody and Salem where our Nana lived.
This is 33 Jacobs Street, Peabody, Massachusetts where where our immigrant ancestors lived with their family. They were John J. McGinnis, from Ireland, Teresa J. Ready, from Prince Edward Island, Canada, and their family. By 14 June 1900, their family included our great-grandparents, Catherine Louisa McGinnis and Patrick Leo Furey and their daughter, my Nana, Grace Marie Furey.
After we were done with our ancestry trip, we continued into Salem to the Salem Witch Museum which told the story of the Salem witch trials, with a second exhibit on witchcraft today. Then it was back to the hotel and a nice walk along the beach
The next morning, we headed to Lynn and Swampscott, where our mother grew up. Oh my these were lovely cities. I never realized that they are both on the coast. Completely explained why the beach was Mom’s happy place. We drove around the areas to get a feel for Mom’s childhood taking photos of some of the house the family had lived in. The first apartment house is 68 Chestnut Street, Lynn, Massachusetts, where our grandparents, Louis Roland Rondeau and Grace Marie Furey, lived with their first two children, Mary Lois and Laura Carol in the early thirties. The middle home is 41 Orchard Circle, Swampscott, Massachusetts, where the whole family lived until they moved to New Hampshire for a year — by then the family also included Cynthia Ann, Richard Bruce, and Francis David. The last home is 10 Bloomfield Street, Lynn, Massachusetts where Mae Rondeau (granddaddy’s sister) lived with her husband, John Laughlin, their children and Mae’s brother, Omer and Louis, before 1920. Her mother, Laura Exilda Belleville, later moved in and they lived their lives out there. When he was successful, Omer bought the home so his mother would always have a place to live.
We stopped for lunch in a restaurant in Lynn that was right on the ocean. Treated ourselves to a sangria (Kathy) and a prosecco (Bridget), shared an appetizer of empanadas and had lovely shrimp dishes for lunch (what, no scallops??). Back to the hotel and another walk along the ocean.
Woke up our third morning to lots of rain. We decided to drive up to Rockport and see more of the area, then drove back down to Danvers, where we made a Target run for lots of little things and a suitcase to take into New York in a couple of weeks. Explored the area some more and the back to the room to watch the ocean in the storm.
Friday morning, we started down toward Cape Cod. On the way, we stopped at Minuteman National Historical Park and followed part of the trail of the start of the Revolutionary War. As a history buff, I was fascinated by seeing these areas. We also went to the Wayside house, home of the Alcotts, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Sidley, author of The Five Little Peppers, and Walden Pond (photo at top of post).
After we left Concord, we drove to Hingham, MA to go to the original Wahlburgers. We both enjoy the TV show and have wanted to try their food. Yummy lunch where we ate too much because we wanted to try everything! The burgers are great. Then it was on to our next stop in Cape Cod.
Bridget
Days 52-56
Wild Wandering Women 