Grandpa's Sister Jennie Adds some Details

I keep getting side-tracked on the way to World War II. Here is a manuscript written by 1 of Grandpa's 2 sisters, Jennie. I transcribed her hand-written pages and put them here now because they add some detail to what grandpa says in his diary, the next post below.

Transcribed 12/09 by Leslie Vander Meulen Canavan from a copy sent to me by June Marcinkevich, daughter of Jennie Vander Meulen, my grandfather’s sister who died in 1990. This is a manuscript written in her own hand by Jennie Vander Meulen. There is a hand-written note which says “This is in mama’s handwriting.” which comment was entered by June, Jennie’s daughter.

“To my family
Jennie Vander Meulen, Mrs. Jennie Selberg Phelps, was born in East Aurora, NY on Feb 26th 1896. East Aurora is a lovely suburb to Buffalo NY. From East Aurora mother & dad moved back to Dunkirk, to their own home, where my brother Folkert was born & father had rented this home out for a year as he had been given a good job as gardener and caretaker at East Aurora with the free rental of a nice home on the estate of these people “Ramseys”. Mother & father had built the Dunkirk home to live in when they were married in 1892 on November 3rd and Folkert was born there on Aug. 7, 1893. We lived there til 1900. When father sold the home in some kind of a trade for a farm at Sheridan, NY, walking distance from there, on a railroad. While there on Mar 5th 1900, my sister Margaret was born and I was then 4 years old. We lived there little over a year and we moved to Massachusetts at Springfield, where father had a job of gardener on a large farm and helping with cows and sheep and there also was a foreman over him. Margaret learned to walk while we lived there & Folkert started his first grade in school. Mother got sick with Typhoid Fever [I’m thinking this was some sort of virulent flu as she mentions in her 1984 letter to me that they were all very sick but recovered; grandpa never mentions having had Typhoid Fever in his diaries nor any other time.]& so did Folkert and we couldn’t stay as climate was bad for Mother. Then we moved to Fort Lee, NJ in a few months & then to Paterson, NJ in an apt. From there to a farm in Fairlawn, NJ outskirts of Paterson, next to Andrew DeBoer’s farm. [Andrew is a relative.]

Then moved to Palisades Park on the hill & later to another house below the hill in Palisades Pk. Then to Leonia, NJ just a few blocks away and there we lived till we came to Portland. That was 8 moves and we lived the longest period from my 10th yr till my 14th yr & on Sept. 23, 1910 we left Leonia for Portland, Ore, stopping off on way to visit Aunt Dina & Uncle Theake at Dunkirk, their first residency.

In 1910 after we arrived here we rented a house in Woodlawn, then moved to Stafford St. in [Lise’s?] Addition & that’s where mother passed away on Sept 16, 1943. Father later sold the place. Mother was 79 yrs.

Folkert moved back east to Chicago in 1916 and I got married on Nov 6 1912 and Papa [her husband John Selberg not her father] & I moved to Issington for 1st 3 months, then back to the old Halleck St. homestead on 2 acres & lived there till 1929 around Xmas and moved to Holman & Garfield Ave. & there Papa passed away after 10 years on Jan 26, 1939 and I stayed there till 1944 & sold place then moved to [242? 24?] Prescott & from there to S. E. 30 (7117) Eastmoreland & from there in 1946 to my 4plex on Montana & Portland [Place?] & in 1950 July 21st married Vick T. Phelps & we lived there till 1954 in Feb and bot this 3269 N E Ainsworth place and here we are today. [She had another very short marriage tucked in there, little about it is recorded, but you will read some during the WWII years.]

Margaret got married in June 1922 to Martin Anderson & lived on Holland St., and they were divorced after a number of years & she remarried to Frank Robinson & they moved to several different parts in Portland & she passed away on May 8 or 9 I forget, 1951. She was 51 years old.
[She died at 9:10pm May 8, 1951 in hospital in Portland where she had been in a coma after having suffered a stroke 4/30 and one earlier.]

Father passed away on Oct. 15/47 at 83 yrs. Papa [Selberg] was born in Sundswall Sweden in March 29, 1879. A memo by (mama).

Just in case I pass away you have some kind of history of my comings & goings. Oct 27, 1976

Vick died in Emanuel Hospital on Nov 9, 1971. I sold place in 1974 & moved to 16F Fontaine which I purchased in 1974 and moved in Aug 27, 74 pd $37,000 for it - have been here ever since.

Sold condo Dec 1977 & bot home on 4220 N E Failing, Portland, OR 97213 Moved in here June 21st 1977 [She wrote to me from this address 3 Jan 1984.]

(Aug 1985 entered Porthaven Nursing home-)”

[It appears that Jennie added some of the entries after Oct 27 '76 as time went on. I surmise that she left this for her family, rather than having given it to them when it was first written. LVC]