From the Desk of Murray Lincoln: Susannah Shirey Shilling, also known as Susanna and Susan

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Susannah Shirey Shilling, also known as Susanna and Susan

The package arrived yesterday from Lewiston, Idaho. It was mailed on May 31, 2013 and sent via Airmail by the United States Postal Service. Yesterday was July 2, 2013 – One month and two days since it left on its journey to the “far north”.

In a way it was appropriate that it would take as long as it did to get to me. The contents of the package is all about the old days in my family – I mean the really old days… and about a part of my family that I had no idea or information about. This part of the family was lost to our side and their side was lost to them as well. We had no idea the other existed.

How did it all come about?

Well it was because of this small lady named Susannah Shilling.

On February 9, 2009 I had written a piece for this Blog that described my Grandmother Emma Kirkpatrick’s autograph album – which I called her book of treasures. After my Mom showed me the autograph book I made a digital copy to send to some of my nieces and nephews that are interested in the history or our family. I made this post on February 9, 2009 entitled “A Book of Treasures”.

(She has signed her name differently again - 'Susana')

A young lady by the name of Charisse, in the northwestern United States, found the posting one day when she was searching for information about her family and the family roots. By searching for ‘Susannah Shirey’ somehow the magic of the Internet let her stumble on to ‘Susana Shilling’. She then sent an email my way and we connected.

Then through further conversations via email she and her grandmother helped me to find Susannah Shilling – Shirey’s family.

Up to that point Susannah was a wrinkled up little old lady that was my Mom’s Great Grandmother – that my Mom thought so highly of and loved her. But my Mom had been much younger then and most memories were from her girlhood days.

My Mom was 19 years old when Susannah passed away. And like most teenagers she had little clue of her Great Grandmother’s roots – nor was it important to her. But my Mom did remember that her Great Grandmother Susannah Shilling did have another life before coming to Canada. She had married Mr. Simon Schilling (also known as Sim Shilling) and together they had a family. But at some point Simon Shilling had returned to Ireland to work in the Mines – where he was killed. There must have been a family connection and family still in Ireland to draw a young family back to the Old Country – where he would lose his life.

Mom’s now fuzzy memories (at 92 years old some things are a little vague now) she said that Susannah had returned to the USA and her family in Marion County, Iowa.

It was a good thing that she did for it was there that her daughter Lucinda met my Great Grandfather Benjamin Franklin Kirkpatrick – and they started their life together. From that marriage came Charles, Roy and Effie. Charles or Charlie or Kirk, as he was known, is my Mom’s Dad – my grandfather.

Whoa! That is a lot for you, the reader, to take in today. Sorry. I am writing this so that my kids and grandkids – as well as all my nieces and nephews will be able to get from me what I know NOW – before my own memories become fuzzy…

The package from Idaho came from Verna who’s great, great, grandfather was John Shirey, Susannah Shirey’s younger brother. She was the 4^th child of 12 – and he was the 7^th. Their parents were Stephen Shirey and Lucinda Nier, birthdays 1810 and 1819 – in Schuylkyll County, Pennsylvania, married in Wayne County, Indiana – and ended up in Marion County, Iowa.

(On the side… Stephen had some Aboriginal blood in him… likely of the ‘Blackfeet’ Tribe but who knows it might be Cherokee as well – but that is another story from my side – and their side of the family that has been passed down over the years)

After Susannah married Sim Shilling and moved away (Ireland first) and then to Canada somewhere, the family lost any connection with her… until a Google Search happened to bring us together.

I sat last evening reading the lists and information that Verna had collected and sent my way. I was overwhelmed to have discovered a hidden part of my family. It also ignited a huge flame filled with questions – who and where are the rest of my relatives in Ireland?...? in the USA?…? and the many different parts of the world?

The evidence is slim but it is there… and here is the part that I fill in for the Shirey family… Photos of Great Grandma Kirkpatrick, her mother Susannah (also known as Susana and Susan), Susan’s grave stone and Sim Shilling’s dog tag from Pleasantville Iowa (Marion County) that my Mom kept all these years as one of her treasures – and gave it to me…