We continue to celebrate the great and varied stories of how our families came to this country. We read now another such venture as shared with us by Nancy Allen.
We welcome the entire St. Nicholas Community throughout the months of July and August (and throughout the year) to share their family stories, family efforts, successes and struggles. This is how our legacies continue and stay alive!
How Nancy Allan's Ancestors Came To The United States:
My mother was a Purdy and she married a Blackwell. I have more detailed information on the Purdys, who were Irish, than on the English Blackwells, so I will write about the Purdys. My husband's parents came from England to Canada, and when I married John he was a Canadian citizen, but I'll skip them, too, delightful as they were, because John didn't last long enough to make the move from Holy Innocents to St. Nick's, and what you want is history from members of the congregation.
The facts of this genealogy were provided some years ago by my mother's cousin, Janette Osborn Cake, who wrote to Ireland for the information.
My immigrant ancestors were a young Protestant couple from County Down, Northern Ireland, James and Jane Purdy, who boarded ship for the U.S. two weeks after their wedding, in May of 1847, during the time of the potato famine. They were accompanied-somewhat to their surprise-by the groom's mother and sister, Sarah and Ann Purdy. By boat, rail, and stage they progressed to Brunswick County, Virginia, and remained there for the rest of their long lives.
James Purdy became a farmer, and the couple raised seven children, most of whom lived into their eighties. My grandfather, Nicholas, was the second child, born in October of 1850. James became a naturalized citizen of the United States in May of 1859, and then had to join the Confederate Army when the Civil War began, and fought against his adopted country. According to family lore, he was spared at Gettysburg (he was in Pickett's Division) because he had gone AWOL upon learning that two of his children had the measles-Leonard and my grandfather, Nicholas. Wounded at Five Forks, he walked from Petersburg all the way to Appomattox to surrender, and then walked home to Lawrenceville. During the war, Nicholas, then a young teenager, carried food and letters through the lines.
James and Jane Purdy had seventy years of married life. James died at 90, Jane at 93. In 1916, the Richmond Times-Dispatch featured a story on them on their 68th wedding anniversary, with a picture of fourteen family members covering three generations.
Nicholas and Leonard ran a dry goods store in Lawrenceville for many years. Both had long lives. Leonard lived the longest, dying at 97, deaf, but still enjoying the daily newspaper. When I visited him with my mother in the early 1950's he was talking knowledgeably, about Eisenhower, who was then President.
Nicholas, whom I called Granddaddy, married somewhat late, at 45. His wife was a young woman from Richmond named Nannie Sutton. Their only child was my mother, Harriet Purdy. She married Ashby Blackwell, a college professor and another Virginian, in 1925, and I was born in 1928. I was their only child. Granddaddy lived with us from the time his wife died, in 1930 until 1940, when a fast-growing cancer took him at the age of 89. He had been my playmate as well as my grandfather and took my part privately when I had arguments with my mother. He was spry until a couple of months before his death, and had not lost any of his mental powers.
I wonder which one of them I'll take after?
Nancy (Purdy Blackwell) Allan
-Manny
manny@stnicholasepiscopal.org
