Delighted!

google makes me crazy!

I was googling and wikipedia searching for fun--some of my noteworthy relatives and ran into this lengthly discussion of my great, great paternal grandfather and mother (William Thaw and Eliza Burd Blair). I have always had bits and pieces of their story, the story of "the second wife" and the evil seed that sprang from the union with "that woman", Harry K. Thaw (murderer of Stanford White, husband to Evelyn Nesbit and all round kooky guy). Essentially, the OJ of the 1800s. Until my grandmother's last gasp, we were forbidden to have our pictures published (that includes weddings etc.) as an outcome of the press coverage of Harry's crime, trial and aftermath.

It all stems from Benjamin Thaw>>son of William Thaw and Eliza Burd Blair and brother to my great great grandmother, Mary Thaw (who married William Reed Thompson.--but the author fills in all the gaps.. Mary Thaw and William Reed Thompson had 5 daughters: Dorothea, Isabel, Helen, Mary and my grandmother, Jean. I met Mary and a tiny lady who lived at Sparkhill (on the Hudson)--never married and always slept with her two dogs, russian wolfhounds. All the daughters went to Vassar and proceeded to marry and settle either in Pittsburgh or on the East Coast. They spent their summers in Watch Hill, RI (at least my grandmother and Aunt Mary--for their entire lives). Their father, Mr Thompson died very young (when my grandmother was small). My grandmother was significantly younger than the other sisters (with a distance of over 8 years between her age and the next oldest). She had a sister in college when she was in elementary school.

so, friends and more particularly, relatives of mine...read on...this is goooooood stuff.

Photo is of William Thaw (paterfamilias).