Fruit and Frustration

Sorry for the delay in this post, but sometimes my real job -- strike, that, my paying job -- and my family need me. I spent a day on the research trail last week and met with a heaping of frustration and dollop of fruit.

I tracked down the daughter of Everett, the man we were hunting because his girlfriend was a patient at Wallum Lake in the late 1940s. Unfortunately, the daughter thought we were running some kind of identity theft scheme and hung up on me. I may still write her a letter. But our main goal was finding a photograph of Everett, which we succeeded in, anyways. While reviewing the material from Everett's girlfriend, Wayne discovered a previously unlocated photo.

The fruit came while tying up the loose ends of the story of Patient Number One, George Sprague Barrows.

Several weeks ago, my three-year-old son, Oliver, and I went hiking along the wooded roads of central Rhode Island, looking for a cemetery -- which my son persisted in calling a wegetarium -- God only knows why. This cemetery is the final resting place for George's mother, who died giving birth to him, and his brother, who died of tuberculosis several years before him. Oliver and I got chased by a dog and found some good hiking sticks, but we didn't get to the cemetery. The trip wasn't a complete loss, though. Using our field recon and aerial photos on the Web, I figured out where the cemetery is -- on private land posted against trespassing.

Last week, I contacted the landowner, who agreed to let me check out the cemetery and to let us film there, if needed.

From a genealogist's standpoint, the cemetery was a goldmine, holding four generations of George's family. It also yielded a few crumbs that may end up in the movie or in the DVD bonus material, including a touching poem on George's mother's headstone and nice shots of the cemetery itself. George's ancestors buried there also allowed me to trace his genealogy back some distance on his mother's side.

It turns out that Patient Number One was a descendant of Rhode Islander Number One: George was a great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of Roger Williams.

-Paul Parker