Monday, June 29, 2015

Genealogy requests

This is a typical genealogy request, of a sort I get regularly. It can be a little time consuming to answer, but it helps keep me in touch with our older records, history of the school, and after all these folks went here, and we have a certain connection and obligation to them I think. It's quite possible that grand children or gr-grand children of theirs are students here now, or will be!



My grandmother, Sarah Amanda Clark Bird (1866-1964), her sisters Myrta Blanche Clark (1879-1964) and Mary Helen Clark Bentzien (1873-1955) and their brother Horace Leslie Clark (1862-1893) all graduated from the predecessor of SUNY-Brockport. Looking at the information online from the 1917 alumni list, I found Mary Helen and Horace as well as Horace's wife Mary Gardner and her sister Christina Gardner.  These four graduated between 1888 and 1994.  Christina Gardner lived with her sister Mary Gardner Clark in Brockport until their deaths and kept in touch with the Bird family in Medina throughout their lives. 

What I don't know and would like to learn is when Sarah and Myrta attended, how long students took to finish, and whether  there are other records showing where they went to teach after graduation.  I know that Sarah taught in a country school in Niagara County, Mary Helen taught on Long Island but lived most of her life in California, and Myrta became head of the Englih Department in a high school on Staten Island before returning to retire on the Clark family farm near Medina.


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