Welcome Home Lillian Bromagen Stevens

I had made contact with a new-found cousin a few months ago through a tree I have on ancestry.com. He had mentioned the existence of some photos he inherited from another family cousin and I asked if he wouldn't mind scanning a few for me to add to the collection I've been accumulating. Over the weekend he sent them and they were the most wonderful surprise I could have imagined. Included in the photo set was a photo of Lillian Bromagen Stevens taken around late 1908-early 1909. Nothing extraordinary in that, except for the fact that she was thought to have been long dead. Her only child, my Great Grandfather, claimed that he never knew his mother so we all figured that she had died when he was extremely young or even during childbirth (which we knew was premature). And yet there she was in this picture, holding my Great Grandfather's first-born child who was born in 1908. I had long suspected that something was going on regarding Papa's claim, the settling of Lillian's mother's widow's pension claim for one was a tip off that something wasn't right, but didn't have any proof. Til now. It's another mystery to try to solve, but more importantly I feel like she's made her way home. We can finally put a face to the name and place her with the photos of the rest of her family. And we as a family can recognize her, and that is so important. Being able to find the names of those who have come before us is one thing. It's exhilarating to make that connection for sure. But when you can actually see the face of that person you've been researching for months and months, or even years on end, there is something more. I don't know what happened to her, I don't know what her mystery is, but I'm glad I can see her face and be able to say that she's my Great Great Grandmother. Welcome home, Lillian.

Photo time cont'd

So here's a photo of Emma (nee Stevens) Biever. She was the sister of Charles T Stevens, shown below on the right. The resemblance between the two is pretty pronounced to my eyes. Both share a round face for one. You can view a larger version of the photo by clicking on it.

Photo time

So I figured what these pages needed right now was some personalization and some photos to lighten things up. One of the things I've gotten really interested in while working on family history research is comparing photos of family members. I've really gotten into looking at likenesses of ancestors and comparing them to likenesses of their descendants. So this may be something I continue on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. I'm going to start with this photo, probably taken around 1910, of my Great Grandfather, Charles LeRoy Stevens, and his father, Charles T. Stevens (b. 1858 Melrose, MA d. 1926 Chicago, IL). For those of you interested in Bromagen family history, Charles LeRoy is the son of Charles T Stevens and Lillie Bromagen, daughter of James Bromagen, granddaughter of Elias Bromagen and Cassandra McNulty of Ohio and possibly VA.

Pretty much from the time I first saw this photo, I never could find much resemblance between father and son. Later in life, Charles LeRoy did show more of a resemblance but I always figured he must have inherited his mother's look from his likeness in this early photo of him. Without a known image of Lillie Bromagen though, or either of her parents, I'll never be able to put the two together. In any case, Charles L and Charles T each seem to have their own look.

Now let's compare this photo of Charles T. Stevens to his sister Emma (nee Stevens) Biever and their mother, Caroline (nee Heal) Stevens Van Wormer.....