Averill Connections in Nebraska

The Averills migrated from Massachusetts to Connecticut, to Illinois and then on to, among other places, Washington State. One place they stopped along the way was Nebraska. That's how we wound up with farmland in Pierce and Cuming Counties. While in Nebraska, the Averill and Emley families intermarried and our dad, Robert, inherited the farmland from the Emley family.

While in Nebraska recently, we visited a cemetery in Wisner where a number of Averills and Emleys are buried. Wisner is in Cuming County. Like many small town cemeterys, there's no full-time office to make inquiries. Instead, they have a map and book of "who's where." In some cases, the guidance is easy to follow. In other cases, one still has to do a lot of hunting around. In still other cases, moisture made the book hard to read.


Still, you'll find out things in a cemetery that you'll never see in census or most other data. Little Clyde never made it into a census...

Older Family Silver

Family Silver - Grandad Rice worked in Seattle for Linstead Silversmiths
Older Family Silver - this post
More on Family Silver - The story of Carl Linstead and Carl Zapffe in Seattle

Apparently, according to my mom, Grandad Rice worked at Carmichael's in Victoria. He was blackballed for doing silversmith work at home on the side. Apparently, the blackball is what led him to move to America and work for Linstead, reprised here. My mom also wrote the item, below, on the back of the card.

UPDATE: I searched Google for information on Carmichael. There's a good link story, here. Carmichael was born and raised in Victoria. It was rare for a native Canadian to be a silversmith at that time and so he's a "historical celebrity" for that reason. There are some Carmichael pieces in the BC Provincial Museum.

Even MORE amazing - if you look at the embedded Google Streetview image, below, you will see that the building itself looks almost IDENTICAL to the card. In fact, they even use a heraldic lion that looks the same as in the old card. A screenshot is below. One wonders if the Fort Street Cycle building was built later, or if the business card simply omitted it. Certainly, the building to the right looks more modern, in a "retro" kind of way.