This week my #52Ancestors post focuses on James Haviland Tompkins, the fifth child of Samuel Dusenbury and Gettianna Vreeland Tompkins. Haviland (apparently his preferred name) was born on 15 July 1877 in Jersey City.
He graduated from New York Law School in 1900 and opened a commercial law practice in Jersey City. An interesting side note about New York Law School: it was established in 1891 by a group of Columbia College School of Law faculty, students, and alumni who were at odds with Columbia’s trustees’ desire to interfere with the faculty teaching practices.
In addition to his law practice, Haviland is also listed as the Secretary of the Smooth-On corporation. He and his brothers all seem to have been involved in the family business in one way or another.
Haviland married Eleonore Heike around 1908. An engagement announcement is as close as I can get to an exact marriage date as shortly after the engagement is announced, the scandal that rocked the Heike family also breaks. Charles R. Heike was the secretary of the American Sugar Refining Company was tried and convicted in 1910 of conspiracy to defraud the government in a case of fraudulent weighing. The sentence was waived when the judge determined that Heike was in such poor health that he would die in prison, and instead he died at home. His family was terribly affected by it as Eleonore (whose death may have been directly caused by something else) died in 1912 shortly after the birth of her daughter Eleonor Marie Tompkins in 1910. Heike’s sister later committed suicide and her brother left the country and was later committed to a mental institution.
Haviland and Eleonor appear to have moved back to the Tompkins home on Communipaw Ave. Seven years later, Haviland married Elizabeth Carol Baldwin (1891-1950) of Jersey City on 27 December 1919. Early on in their marriage they lived at 117 Bentley Ave, which was loaded with Tompkins relations. Eventually, they made their home in South Orange, New Jersey, where they raised Eleonor and their two children Carol Tompkins (1920-2016) and James Haviland Tompkins (1922-1995).
Sadly, Haviland died suddenly while vacationing in Southern Pines, North Carolina on 4 March 1942. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery in Kearny, New Jersey.
This week of #52ancestors brings us to Grace Elizabeth Tompkins, eldest daughter of my great grandfather Samuel Dusenbury Tompkins (1839-1926). I had the wrong birth date in for her but this entry gave me a chance to interview Louise Tompkins about her memories and so I am posting it on 4/10 as opposed to 10/4!
I know Grace took one extended trip with her mother and sister Louise because she left a diary among her possessions and it has come down to me. I do not know what year the trip is but it is some time before 1918 as it mentions her mother and Gettianna dies in February 1918. I think it may be 1907 as the diary starts with a family send off and she mentions that she is sailing on the S. S. Carpathia. Anyone familiar with the story of the Titanic knows this ship was probably busy in April of 1912 and Grace starts the diary on April 27th. The diary gives descriptions of ship life, ports of call and also mentions land travel, especially in the British Isles. I note especially that Grace attended services at Glasgow Cathedral on August 26th, the same cathedral visited by Louise Tompkins and myself over 100 years later on a never-to-be-forgotten visit to the Scottish Highlands.
After her mother’s death in 1918, Grace traveled with her father as well as acting as hostess at various social events at the house on Communipaw Ave. Although I know that Grace traveled abroad extensively before this, one trip caught my attention because it was mentioned in the newspapers. In 1927, Grace traveled abroad to Europe with an interesting intersection of female relatives: Louise Tompkins Voorhees, Florence Voorhees, Eleanor Tompkins (her niece) and Miss Ethel Hodsdon (a cousin from the Tennant side of the family).
Eugene Tompkins was born in 1855 to Abraham Van Wangenin and Caroline Brown Tompkins. Abraham and Caroline lived in Dutchess County, New York, on a farm outside of Hyde Park. This family is another source of genealogical frustration for me as the Tompkins are rife in Dutchess County and the surrounding area and each generation named their children after their favorite siblings, creating confusing swirls of Michaels, Rachels, James, Anns, Gilberts and Johns. To make it even more frustrating, Abraham dies at a relatively early age in 1869, and his children are dispersed throughout the Tompkins clan. So I found Eugene easily enough in the 1860 and 1870 Census but I had let the search drop several years ago in the face of easier quarry.
Telling My Story 