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By Priscilla Januskiewicz In late August of 2003 I received a flyer about an upcoming Prouty family reunion from Steve Prouty, a second cousin in Londonderry, Vermont. We had previously been in contact via e-mail after I had given some copies of old family photos to the folks at Bromley Mountain Ski Area in Peru, VT the year before. Grandmother Minnie Idella Prouty Charlton’s sister, Ann, had lived on the mountain for years before selling it to the Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer family, who turned it into a ski area. Laura, the woman I spoke with at Bromley, was thrilled to receive the old photos of the “Summit House” with my notes added. She later happened to show the photos to Steve Prouty, a friend, and then sent me an excited message saying that she had found a relative of mine. I e-mailed her again and Steve immediately contacted me. “Priscilla, you have no idea how many relatives you have in this area,” he wrote. “I’m the grandson of Benjamin Prouty (Idella’s brother). My father’s name is Clyde and he has nine living siblings, most of them with at least four kids.” He remembered Grandma Idella a little and also having Thanksgiving dinner a few times at Ann’s place on the mountain. Grandma Idella had eight siblings: Bertha Ann, Martha Irene, Mary Viola, Alfred Wells, Chester Arthur, Benjamin William, Austin Llewellyn (Lee) and Samuel, so there are hundreds of Prouty descendants, many of whom live in Vermont. (I later realized that Steve was one of the Proutys that cousin Eugene Murdock had telephoned in 1999 about the Prouty family history. Gene had hoped to hear from Ralph Prouty, an uncle of Steve’s who had done some research. More about this later.) In his e-mail to me, Steve said that he and his father, Clyde, would love to meet me and my sisters sometime, and mentioned that, although a reunion wasn’t in the works, he could get one together in the near future. I had forgotten all about it, until I received the flyer in the mail in late August, the following year. I called my sister, Donna, and we made plans to attend. On September 28, 2003, my husband Roy and I drove to Londonderry in the pouring rain. We saw a bunch of balloons on a mailbox and turned down a dirt road, which by now was getting muddier by the minute, typical of Vermont’s back roads. Steve, his father, Clyde, and his sister, Suzy, were there to meet us, along with at least fifty other Proutys. Our cousin, Joan Charlton Calder, (Uncle Euel’s daughter) drove down from Maine and met us at Steve’s. (Euel was unable to come.) My sister, Donna, and her husband, Chris, arrived later with Mum (Ona) from their home in Halifax, Vermont. Fortunately there was a large tent to gather under because the rain was unrelenting. Steve, Suzy, and their parents each own a mobile home that is near a pretty pond. The planned water sports had to be canceled because of the rain, but plenty of fun was still had by all. We all contributed to the food and there was more than enough to eat and several tables to sit at inside the tent. Steve and Suzy kept busy under a canopy grilling a huge amount of chicken and corn-on-the-cob, still in the husks. We helped ourselves to a variety of salads and other good things, and Suzy was kind enough to bring some food over to our table, including the delicious corn, dripping with butter. There were a number of desserts to tempt us, including a large scrumptious cake. One of the youngsters happily ran out to our car in the rain to get the chocolate chip cookies I had baked the day before. It was a little difficult remembering who was who, but we chatted with the guests, looked at old pictures and genealogy and Donna and Joan took photos of everyone while I jotted down names. There is one photo of Ona with nine of her first cousins, none of whom she had ever met before. They included the following: Three children of Mary Prouty Norse: Thelma, Ralph and Leroy; Five children of Benjamin Prouty: Edna, Clyde, Ralph, Millie and Norman (who had traveled from Florida with his wife); One child of Wells Prouty: Avis; And Ona, the daughter of Minnie Idella Prouty Charlton. Steve’s uncle, Ralph Prouty, lives in Bennington, VT, and he had brought the research he had done on the Prouty family genealogy. He later sent me a copy in the mail with a nice note attached. He said he was glad to have met some of “Aunt Minnie’s” (as they called her) relatives and also said that he had gone back to Brattleboro and Dummerston to check on the Prouty records again. Some, from the 1800’s, were missing. (The information he sent closely matched the research Eugene Murdock had done a few years earlier.) We met the grandson of Chester Arthur Prouty, Wendell Williams, and, later in the afternoon, saw him again at the cemetery in Bondville where Grandma’s ashes are buried with her parents (and other Proutys.) (We plan to add her name to the stone soon.) Wendell’s parents are buried there also. We were told that there are three cemeteries in Bondville, all of which have Prouty gravestones. Roy, Chris and Mum stayed in the warm cars while Donna, Joan and I tromped around in the soggy grass, looking for our ancestors’ burial places and trying to stay dry under our dripping umbrellas. When we finally headed home, our shoes were waterlogged and we were chilled to the bone, but our spirits weren’t dampened at all and we were glad we had made the effort to attend. We had previously seen the Prouty name many times on mailboxes and in other places in Vermont, and had always wondered if those people were part of our family. Little did we know how big the family really was. Here are some additional comments from Donna: We all had a great time meeting relatives we never knew we had. I do remember as a child visiting (Great) Aunt Ann up on Peru Mountain (now Bromley Resort), one visit to (Great) Aunt Mary in Vermont, and several visits with my mother to visit Great Uncle Sam when he lived in a rest home in Ashburnham, MA. Other than that, Grandma’s siblings were unknown to us, along with their many children, and it was a surprise to find out that we have oodles of cousins in Vermont! I knew we felt like we belonged here! Everyone was friendly and welcoming and we heard interesting and lively stories about their memories of their “Aunt Minnie.” We want to keep the connection strong that we have made and plan to invite them to visit us in our homes some day in the not too distant future. I discovered that one of Ben’s daughters lives in Brattleboro and she has a daughter that lives in Whitingham, VT, only three miles from us. I wonder if I have crossed paths with her already and never knew that her mother and my mother are first cousins. Our cousins can be described as down-to-earth, friendly and humorous. We can’t wait to meet all the others that didn’t come because of the rain! |
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