The topic for this week is “Begins with A Vowel”.  It always surprised me that three out of four of my grandparents ended up in the same small farming community, Elba, New York. The town has 2500 acres of muckland soil that supplies the onions giving Elba the title of “Onion Capital of the World”, as well as being home to two of the top 100 farms in the country. [1]

My maternal grandfather was born there; his family is one of the original families who settled there in the 1800’s. His grandfather owned a large farm there, and my grandfather, siblings, and other relatives worked on the land. Ironically, he chose not to settle there himself, raising my mother and her brothers in a nearby town. His first name, Ellsworth, also starts with a vowel!

I have mentioned my maternal grandmother before. She was born in the city, to parents who struggled. She, when a teen, was placed in foster care on a farm in Elba, New York. I’ve talked before how it must have been strange for her to go from a city to a large farm in the country. She lived there about 12 years before marrying my grandfather and setting up her own home.

My final Elba grandparent is my paternal grandmother. She was born in a small town in Alberta, Canada, to Polish immigrant parents.  My great-grandfather traded in the cold Alberta winters for western New York when she was about 9 years old. My grandmother worked hard during her years in WNY before retiring to Florida. Her name is Eleanor, another vowel.

Well, that’s it for this week. If you would like to see if I could help you with your family history, please reach out to me for a free consultation.  Have a lovely week!

[1].       Elba, New York, elbanewyork.com, (https://elbanewyork.com ; accessed 14 October 2021).