A Picture Worth a Thousand Words: Sarah Belle and Evelyn Winch

This is Evelyn Caroline Winch Prey, and Sarah Belle Burnap Winch, my great grandmother, and great, great grandmother.

Having this picture of Evelyn as a baby is a great treasure, not only because I don't have many baby pictures of my ancestors, but it is also fun to see family resemblances. One of my sisters looked very similar to Evelyn as a baby.

Evelyn Caroline Winch was born 21 July 1907 in the beautiful village of East Aurora, New York, to Sarah Belle Burnap and Arthur Isaac Winch. She was very talented pianist and lived in many different places throughout her life. I have very few memories of her, but I have pictures of her, showing me how to bake. She died on the 16 December 1995 in Kanab, Utah.

Sarah Belle Burnap was born on 17 May 1887 in New York to Edward Burnap and Caroline Mary Stedman. I remember my grandmother telling me that, as a child, she always thought Sarah Belle a stern woman. I think you can see in her face that she had a strenuous life. Her family growing up was very poor. We found a newspaper article in the Old Fulton Postcard newspaper collection, of a time where her family's home burned down, and the family took refuge in a nearby farmyard (perhaps that will be a story for a future blog post). I think in many ways her life was one of survival, and this time raising a brand-new baby must have brought its own challenges. She died 29 September 1964, (incidentally the year my mother was born), and is buried in the Village of East Aurora.

Connected in Strykersville

Once, when driving through New York a couple of summers ago, in a small town called Strykersville, my mom and I saw a small sign on the side of the road: "Strykersville Pioneer Cemetery." Though to our knowledge we had no ancestors from Strykersville, the quaint sign with the old swinging gate, surrounded by tall trees, called to me, and we decided to park the car on the side of the road and explore.

As we entered, there seemed to me to be a feeling of untouched hallowedness. Some headstones were still standing and readable, while others were broken, covered with moss, grass, and dirt - only a faded remembrance of the people they had once honored. 

There were several stones near the front, belonging to Revolutionary War veterans, a discovery which delighted me! Growing up in the west, I had never come across such old relics of the past, and my imagination wandered to far off times and places where freedom and liberty was so valiantly sacrificed for. I wondered what all the tall trees I then stood in the midst of, had seen.

I was saddened that so many of the headstones in this solemn place had been forgotten and left to decay. But, standing  among them, I felt strongly connected to these seemingly forgotten people. I was not related to them, did not known their names, yet they, whoever they were, were real to me. I realized that you don't need to be related to someone or even know their name, to be able to feel connected to them. And really, isn't that why family history and history are important? So that we can be connected through the ages?

On that same trip to New York, in a small shop, I came across a plaque with this quote:

"The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make." - William Morris

How fitting to find this quote only a few days after being in Strykersville; a place where, though not on the records of my family tree, I made a tender connection.