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Messages - marypryde

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1
The Common Room / Re: Weird trail of remains-can't find the end
« on: Monday 04 November 13 13:38 GMT (UK)  »
I appreciate your thoughts.  Yes, it certainly is an odd situation.  I will follow your suggestion to check out practices of the time regarding cremation. 

As far as I know or can tell, she was well-loved by her children and had 5 living in 1941.  As the Great Depression was just ending, they may have been strained financially but were not poverty-stricken.  If my "theory" that her son intended to bury her ashes in India has merit, then WWII would certainly have complicated that effort.  And following the war came the partitioning of India.

It is possible that her ashes were buried with her husband in the New Jersey cemetery plot after all, but there was no follow-thru on the stone.  The cemetery records were lost in a fire in the mid-1940s.  (Events seem to conspire to keep me from the answer.)

2
The Common Room / Re: Weird trail of remains-can't find the end
« on: Sunday 03 November 13 22:48 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you, Gen.  I did ask for wild ideas and I like this one as well as any other.  Since Sculpture House appears to have no records from that time (see previous response from their CEO), we'll probably never know.  However, I can poll the second cousins again for any type of ceramic do-dad attributed to our great-grandmother's time.  Now you have me wondering if it is possible to DNA test a ceramic bird or vase.  (I'm fast becoming the "weird cousin.")
                                                                     Mary

3
The Common Room / Re: Weird trail of remains-can't find the end
« on: Saturday 02 November 13 23:22 GMT (UK)  »
This email just in.  From the President and CEO of the current business, no less!  It doesn't seem there would be much point in trying to track down any living Ettl's. 

Dear Mary,
I am afraid that the Ettl's and the studio have all long since passed.  My mentor Alex Ettl a son of the founder died many years ago.  In the 54 years that I worked with he never mentioned anything about ashes ever.  Maybe his father John Ettl had dealings of some sort for an urn of some type of cast or carved head stone possibly?  This is the only thing I can come up with. Unfortunately there are no records from that time frame anywhere I can think of even from the studio.
Sorry I could not have been of more help, I wish you all the best.





4
The Common Room / Re: Weird trail of remains-can't find the end
« on: Saturday 02 November 13 23:10 GMT (UK)  »
Wow!  This whole "sculpture" thing has been about my mother's side.  I never thought to see my father's Scottish connection in the conversation.  I wonder if any of mine wound up in FI.  I know some close Doig's went to Canada (have found them via Ancestry DNA in North Dakota, USA).  A few Pryde's, since they were miners, went to Montana.  My closest Fifer's were in the vicinity of Woodside, Largo but they appear to have arrived from Kingsbarns, Cupar, Ceres.  Don't know if you have an Ancestry tree (or if that's possible in NZ), but I'd be willing to share if it would do any good.

I'll be sure to post any answers I get to my "sculpture" query.  (I don't think my Scots would have done any such nonsense as sculpture.) ::)
                                                 Mary Ellen

5
The Common Room / Re: Weird trail of remains-can't find the end
« on: Saturday 02 November 13 13:19 GMT (UK)  »
Thanks once more, Ambly.  (Love the FI motto; love the FI).

I just made a second run at the successor sculpture house asking why the ashes might have been sent there.  (From their website, it appears my timeframe was exactly when the business takeover was going on (bad luck, probably).  Next attempt will be to approach the Ettl family as you suggested.

FYI, the family member apparently in charge of these arrangements (signed the papers) was one of her sons.  (He was born in India himself and traveled the world with the YMCA.)  Now I'm speculating that he intended to take his mother's ashes to India and either did so or was prevented by world events.  (I must take another look to possibly find him going to/from India in the 1940's.)  I am in touch with his grandson, who is clueless about all of this. 

6
The Common Room / Re: Weird trail of remains-can't find the end
« on: Saturday 02 November 13 00:04 GMT (UK)  »
No will that I know of, even after having a professional researcher in NJ.  She probably didn't have one since she was the widow of a clergyman who had died in 1915 and was in a home established for the widows of clergy.  I had her 1910 Hindu-language Bible with a 1935 handwritten request that it be returned to her "dear friend" (the first Indian Bishop of the Methodist Church.)  I suppose that was an impossible task for her daughter and granddaughter (WWII, partitioning of India, etc.), but in 2010, thanks to the internet, I was successful in finding the Bishop's grandson and handing over the Bible.  That family has no idea about her burial.

I've also been in touch with the Archivist of the Methodist Church - no luck.

No will in 1940, but please return the bible to the Indian family.  Her heart was clearly in India, even after many years (she left there in the 1880s).

7
The Common Room / Re: Weird trail of remains-can't find the end
« on: Friday 01 November 13 23:24 GMT (UK)  »
Thanks Ambly.  The following from a professional paid researcher in NJ who spoke with the crematory:
Your grandmother's ashes were at their facility for cremation in December 1940. On 18 January 1941, her ashes were transferred to Ettl Studios in New York City. Ettl Studios specialized in sculptures. He had no record of what happened to them from there and was not able to tell me if the studio was still in existence today.

I then (through Google) located the successor business to Ettle and received the response quoted previously (records not that old; they don't have great-grandma's ashes.)  This was after I offered to come to NYC and spend time in their basement if they had old records.

None of my cousins/second cousins admits to having seen or heard of an old sculpture.
                                                                           Mary
                                     

8
The Common Room / Weird trail of remains-can't find the end
« on: Friday 01 November 13 21:15 GMT (UK)  »
In 1940 my great grandmother died in a New Jersey nursing home.  I have traced her body to a local crematorium and their records say the cremains were released to a NYC sculpting studio.  I have been in touch with their successor business where the response was "Look, lady.  Our records don't go back that far, but I assure you we do not have your great grandmother's ashes!"

Her husband was buried in NJ and there is a grave marker for him only.  The cemetery records were lost in a fire.  She is apparently not buried with any of her children.

I have exhausted the memories and ideas of all family members.  I do know that she was born in India to missionary parents and referred to it as her "beloved India."  My pet theory is that perhaps her ashes (in a sculpted urn, which would explain the sculpting studio) were sent to India.  However, in 1940 India and the rest of the world were a mess.  I would have no idea how to inquire or if it would be worthwhile to try.  I know, by the way that there is no marker for her at the churchyard in the Himalayas where her parents are buried.

Does anyone have any wild ideas to explain why the ashes would go to a sculpting studio? 

9
Fife / Re: Where might Margaret Marshall be buried?
« on: Monday 21 January 13 00:29 GMT (UK)  »

I see you are also an ocean away from Scotland.

I suggest you check if the place of death was a nursing home of some sort.  According to SP, my great grandmother died in Buckhaven.  She was also quite elderly and her son registered the death.  After searching all around that area, I was able to obtain help from Fife Council in establishing that she was buried with her parents in the family lair in Largo, fairly far away from Buckhaven.

Good luck in your search, Mary

 

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