Death of a Physician - Amanuensis Monday

This obituary was part of the papers I recently reviewed at my husband's aunt's home. The collection belonged to Maria Lee Palmer Smith, her grandmother. The obituary is for Maria Smith's husband, Dr. Francis Fenwick Smith and was almost certainly from a Frederick, Maryland newspaper published on Monday, August 27, 1900, the day following his death.

Death of a Physician
_____ 

Dr. Francis Fenwick Smith Passes Away
_____ 

City's Oldest Practitioner.
_____

Had Been Engaged in Active Practice in Frederick Since 1864 --- Was Seventy-Two Years of Age and Universally Respected.

   Dr. Francis Fenwick Smith, the oldest practicing physician of this city died at his residence, East Second street, yesterday evening, at 6 o'clock, of a complication of diseases, aged 72 years. For the past few months Dr. Smith had been sick, but it was hoped that he would rally. Yesterday morning he was apparently better and the family entertained no serious thought of his early death, but late in the afternoon he began to sink rapidly and hardly had the family assembled at the bedside when quietly and peacefully he breathed his last.
   Doctor Smith was a son of the late Leonard Smith and Eliza Jamison Smith, and was born in Allegany county on May 24, 1828. His early education was obtained in his native county, after which he studied medicine at the Jefferson Medical College, Pa. from which he graduated in 1854. He began the practice of medicine in Bladensburg, Prince George's county, Md., where he remained util 1863, when he removed to Frederick, and has practiced his profession in this city, where he enjoyed a very large practice.
   In 1866 Dr. Smith married Miss Maria Lee Palmer, of Virginia, who, with four children, survive him. during his residence in this city Dr. Smith made a host of friends by his courteous and kindly manner and his truly christian charity. His skill as a physician is attested by hundreds of people who sought his aid during his long and successful practice. He was a member of the Catholic Benevolent Legion and of St. John's Catholic church. He is survived by Mrs. Smith and four sons -- Charles F., John Francis, William Meredith and Edward J.  Smith, all of Frederick. Two sisters, Misses Mary E. and Kate F. Smith also survive. His five brothers, among whom was Dr. Charles Smith, are all dead. The funeral will take place tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. Mass will be sung at St. John's Catholic church. Interment will be made at St. John's cemetery.

Source: Death of a Physician (F. F. Smith Obituary) (Frederick, MD: Newspaper Unknown, 27 August 1900).

Reconnecting Across the Years

My great-uncle Mikula Papp and his family in 1932. The portrait was taken in Chust, in what is now the Ukraine. The man sitting on the right may be another great-uncle, Ivan Papp, but I am not sure. 

Mikula was the youngest of Ivan and Maria Tegze Papp's surviving children (the one who had no shoes). He and my grandfather Stefan corresponded for many years but after Stefan died in 1948 contact with the family was lost. When we went to Europe after the Berlin Wall fell we were reunited with my grandfather's family. My father and aunt met several first cousins, including Mikula's two surviving children.

His daughter, Maria, and two of her sons were still living in the Ukraine. They were an amazing family - welcoming us with open arms with only a day or two's notice. We asked there, as we asked everyone we visited, if they had pictures we could see. His daughter pulled a photo album from the shelf and showed us an entire album of empty pages. Only old fashioned small white corners outlined where the photographs had been.

Mikula had been arrested by Stalin's men one day after World War II and sent away. He was gone for many years, but did survive and return home. The family's photographs were destroyed (it wasn't clear to me whether the men who took Uncle Mikula destroyed them or the family themselves, out of fear) but forty years later they still had the album. Despite the scars Maria and her family lived and continue to live full and successful lives. One son is a surgeon, another is a dentist and the third, a Moscow-trained classical musician, emigrated to Mexico where he is a concert violinist.

Maria's younger brother, Laszlo, had settled in Budapest and joined us there for dinner. He looked very like his father. Laszlo would have been one of the two younger boys in this picture. He had worked as a bureaucrat in Hungary for many years and was retired when we came. For my father and aunt to meet these first cousins more than seventy years after their father left Europe was a gift we will treasure always.

Finding Father - Thankful Thursday

I have spent many years researching my Meredith in-laws and have come to care deeply about many of them. I have an especially dear place in my heart for Father William Meredith, the younger half-brother of my husband's great great-grandmother.

From the first references to him as a young child in 1830s family letters to newspaper articles about him when he was serving as a priest in St. Louis in the 1870s every mention has been full of warmth and caring. When I realized he had been in St. Louis, where I live and served as the first pastor at a church, where I have worshiped, I began searching for a portrait of him. The Redemptorist order he was a member of is no longer headquartered in St. Louis; the church where he presided burned recently and most of it's records have been stored. I've not been able to find a photograph or painting.

So I was beyond thrilled when going through the papers of his niece and my husband's great-grandmother to find several documents. There was a lengthy obituary, a transcription of his tombstone, and there was this.

I'll admit to a loud gasp and a tear or two. Dancing ensued. There isn't any logical reason why he, and now this photograph, mean so much to me, but I will be forever grateful that I had the chance to pour through those papers, open up an envelope and see this face. 

I believe the writing on front says "your gruncle Wm. V. Meredith, C.S.S.R." The photograph was taken by A. J. Fox (205 North Fifth Street, St. Louis), perhaps in 1878 when Fr. Meredith celebrated his 25th anniversary as a priest. He's a little heavier than I expected, definitely posed and formal. But his eyes seem kind and his face gentle. He looks well, and strong, though he died in 1884 in New Orleans, only a few years after this portrait was taken. 

Having found Uncle Father Willie Meredith, I intend to keep him near, to guide and encourage me, even to share a celebratory jig upon occasion! By all accounts he's a very good man to have around.

First Flight - Wordless Wednesday

My grandmother, Anna Pereksta Popp just before taking her first airplane ride, c. 1961. She was flying from upstate New York to the West Coast to see her son and his family.

Happy Fourth of July!