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Celebrating Halloween in Yarmouth

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I grew up across the street from a cemetery. I played there, climbing and hanging on the wrought iron fence that surrounded it.  In the daylight there was no problem, but sometimes, perhaps sitting on the front porch at night gazing across the road into the graveyard, my imagination wandered.  O ver the 50 year span my family spent in our Bass River (Lower Village) home, we experienced several ghostly encounters. A  door that separated our front den from the "big" living room would open and close on its own. Witnesses were most often dumbfounded, but once and a while a brave soul would invite the invisible to "come on in." Cats, especially sensitive, would jump from a deep sleep to wide-eyed frantic scampering in the opposite direction.   One night sitting in the den with my father, the loud sound of clanking glasses rang out from  the kitchen. No one else was home. Our eyes met for a moment, and he said to me, "it's one armed Jim Baker making a toast....
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Ezra F. Chase of Yarmouth, 1918 Flu Victim - Only Son of Franklin H. and Julia Chase - Another Seriously Injured Train Employee

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I looked at this family photo many times before I finally noted the obvious - the man in the picture is missing an arm.  Instant identification.  Ezra F. Chase, son of my two times great grandparents Franklin Howes Chase and Julia Etta Covil, lost his arm in a train accident while working for the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad.  It appears that despite losing his arm, Ezra lived a full life, found love, enjoyed close family relationships and continued to work until succumbing to influenza in 1918.  While I have currently found nothing specific as to the date and circumstances of the train accident that took his arm, social posts in the local papers identify key dates for job transitions which may have been driven by his health circumstances. Ezra F. Chase was born 18 August 1870 at Dennis, Massachusetts, the only son of Franklin Howes Chase and his wife Julia Etta Covil.  He had five sisters: Julia, Lilla, Winnie, Addie, and my great grandmother Viol...
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Happy Pioneer Day July 24! John Lebrecht Bear (John L. Bear/Baer, Johann Bar) 1838-1919, Progenitor of the Bear Family of Cape Cod - An Introduction

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Among my father's belongings was a Morman bible.  The bible is marked by notes and, unfortunately, some child had been at it with a pen, but still what was this doing in my father's stuff?  Luckily for me and my family (and other John L. Bear ancestors) we have the luxury of an autobiography.  John L. Bear tells us much about his early life living in Switzerland, about the spiritual path that lead him to leave his family in 1860, and his overland travel by wagon to Utah to join the Church of Latter Day Saints.  What a journey he had.  You can read John's autobiography  here . Johann Lebrecht Bear ( Bar/Baer)  was born in Alfoltorn Am Albis, Switzerland on 9 September 1838. His parents were Johann and Anna (Steger) Bar.  He was christened 23 September 1838 at Affoltern (more than likely reformed church/Protestant as Zurich was mostly Protestant at this time).  He was the youngest of ten children. If I am to believe what recorded informati...
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