Candelabra

A treasured inheritance from my grandmother Mabel Black Gould is a pair of brass candelabra with the Lion of Judah and a Star of David. A three-candle candelabrum is traditionally used in Jewish homes for lighting the candles on the Sabbath or Shabbat. This pair was probably made in the late 19th or early 20th century somewhere in Eastern Europe.

My grandmother told me that the candelabra were a wedding gift from a doctor friend in Bayonne, NJ, where she and Dr. J. Howard Gould lived at 696 Avenue C at the corner of 31st St. during the first years of marriage. For as long as I can remember, the candelabra stood over the fireplace in the living room at 92 Monte Vista Avenue. She kept them polished brightly, with six tall green candles always in place.

The Gould’s house at 696 Avenue C. in Bayonne where they lived from 1917/18 to 1935.
Dr. Gould had his medical office in the addition on the right side..

The candelabra were an unusual wedding present for a couple that attended the Methodist church across the street from their house. Possibly they were a family heirloom of the gift giver. As a young doctor, Dr. Gould worked with several Jewish doctors at the Swiney Sanitorium, a Bayonne medical clinic at 325 Avenue C.

Swiney Sanitorium, 325 Avenue C, circa 1920 (photo in Bayonne Passages by Kathleen Middleton)

Many Jewish families in Bayonne and other cities in northern New Jersey had fled the pogroms in Poland, Lithuania and other Russia-ruled regions of Eastern Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Bayonne had a thriving Jewish community, with several large synagogues, whose elders still spoke Yiddish.

Beth Avraham was founded in 1866 in Bayonne, NJ (Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey)

Wherever the candelabra came from, they were very special to my grandmother. Although I’m still looking for a photo of the candelabra in 92 Monte Vista Avenue, they are in a photograph of my mother Doris Gould Malaspina as a child. She is posed for Christmas in the family’s rented home in Glen Rock, NJ, where they lived while the house on Monte Vista Avenue was being built. The photograph was taken by her brother Robert Gould, a camera hobbyist who would have his own darkroom in the basement of the new house. 

This photograph is one more clue that the candelabra, carefully taken from one household to another, were treasured by the Gould’s. I don’t have a fireplace, but I’ve kept the candelabra on the piano in our dining room where they can be seen. 

Many Mabels

This is a photo of my grandmother Mabel Grace Black Gould at her family’s farm in Watertown, Connecticut on her wedding day, November 10, 1917.

I always thought “Mabel” was a strong, spunky and old-fashioned first name that matched my grandmother’s straight stature and distinctive (in so many ways) personality.

My grandmother, Mabel, in her lush yard
at 92 Monte Vista Avenue in Ridgewood NJ

In fact, Mabel was a family name that carried through at least seven generations of her matriarchal line, including her aunt, grandmother, and more.

The name “Mabel” derives from the Latin word amabilis meaning lovable or worthy of love.  It was a popular name in the Victorian era when she was born on October 14, 1893.  Many famous women born in those years shared her name:  Mabel Wheeler Daniels, an American composer; Mabel Smith Douglass, an academic and first dean of the women’s school, Douglass College, now part of Rutgers University; Mabel Paige, a famous stage and film actress; and Mabel Landrum Torrey, an American sculptor.

Mabel Landrum Torrey’s sculpture “Mother and Child”

The first Mabel whom I found in our family tree was Mabel Dorman (1720-1787), my sixth great grandmother. Born to a family descending from the Puritan founders of the New Haven Colony, she grew up New Haven where she met and married Joel Perkins. They had two daughters, Elizabeth and Mabel, before Peter’s death. She then remarried and had several more children.

Mabel Perkins (1746/7-1786) married a man named Jesse Terrill (Turril?). They had four sons, Joel, Jesse, Jared and James. but, apparently, no daughter to name Mabel. The couple was buried in Bethany, Connecticut.

Mabel Perkins’ sister, Elizabeth (1744-1798), married her second cousin, Deacon Peter Perkins, also of New Haven. Elizabeth Perkins was my fifth great-grandmother and she named one of their daughters Mabel after her sister and mother.

Elizabeth’s daughter Mabel Perkins (1777-1844) was my fourth great grandmother. She married Isaac Downs in New Haven. They later lived in Wolcott, CT. One of their daughters was named Elmina Mabel Downs (1811-1877).

Elmina Mabel Downs married my third great grandfather John Sidney Woodruff (1801-1877), a farmer from another colonial-descendant family, living in Watertown, Connecticut.

Elmina Mabel and John Sidney had six children, including Eliza Mabel Woodruff (1846-1914) and her brother John Frederick Woodruff (1842-1892), my second great grandfather.

Gravestone of John Sidney Woodruff and Elmina Mabel Woodruff, Evergreen Cemetery Watertown CT

John Frederick Woodruff married three times. His second wife was Josephine Minerva DeForest (1845-1879) with whom he had two children including Esther Mabel Woodruff, born in 1878, named after his sister and mother.

Josephine died in the year after the birth, and Esther Mabel died in early childhood in 1882. Esther Mabel’s oldest sister Harriet “Hattie” Augusta (1868-1956), the daughter of John Frederick and his first wife Ellen Jane Atwood (1846-1876), who also died young, must have helped care for Esther Mabel after Josephine’s death. Hattie Woodruff Black was my great grandmother.

Harriet “Hattie” Augusta Woodruff Black at age 20

A lifetime Watertown resident who married Elnathan Black (1858-1929(, the son of Irish immigrants, Grandma Black, as everyone called her, named her middle daughter Mabel Grace after her grandmother Elmina Mabel, her aunt Eliza Mabel, and her late sister Esther Mabel. As far as I know, Mabel Grace Black Gould, my grandmother, was the last of the famous Mabel’s in our family.

Still, there’s always the future. According to the baby name website nameberry.com in January 2026: “Mabel is a cuddly Victorian favorite rising in popularity in the US, after a 50-year nap If you love offbeat old-fashioned names like Violet or Josephine, only sassier and bubblier, Mabel is one for you to consider. It is currently in the US Top 200 and the UK Top 50.It’s ranked among the top 20 baby girls names in 2025.”

Mabel Grace Black Gould by her back porch at 92 Monte Vista Avenue (circa 1950s)

Wood Thrush

A fallen wood thrush made its way to The American Museum of Natural History, thanks to my grandmother Mabel Gould, a knowledgeable birder and a leader in her local Audubon Society.

Mabel could identify any bird perching on her backyard birdbath that stood outside her breakfast nook window.

On October 9, 1951, The American Museum of Natural History accepted her contribution of “One Wood Thrush (Hylocichia Mustelina) in the Flesh” as part of their ornithology collection.

A cinnamon-colored, speckled, medium-sized songbird, the Wood Thrush lives in Eastern forests and woodlands. The bird may have fallen in Mabel’s shady yard of oaks and pines on Monte Vista Avenue in Ridgewood NJ. I imagine her carefully picking it up, laying it in a cardboard box and embarking on the 25-mile journey over the George Washington Bridge to the museum in Upper Manhattan. The AMNH’s famed Ornithology Department holds the largest collection (99 percent of all species) of bird specimens in the world.

The certificate was signed by Clarence L. (Leonard) Hay (1884-1969, an archaeologist specializing in the Mayan Civilization who was a museum curator at the time. (An interesting side note: Hay’s father was the private secretary of Abraham Lincoln and the Secretary of State under two other presidents).

Henry David Thoreau wrote about the Wood Thrush in his Journal on June 22, 1853: “This is the only bird whose note affects me like music. It lifts and exhilarates me. It is inspiring. It changes all hours to an eternal morning.” 

A German Helmet

The Bayonne Times, Sept. 13, 1918

Imagine receiving a German helmet in the mail during the height of the Great War! That’s what happened to the Gould family of Bayonne, NJ, while awaiting news from their son, a sergeant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in wartime France.

Russell (left) with J. Howard and Mabel Gould and unidentified man in 1917, the year Russell went to war

My great uncle Russell Lowell Gould (1890-1987), the youngest brother of J. Howard Gould, served in the Army during World War I. The U.S. declared war against Germany on April 6, 1917, and some seven months later, on Nov. 20, 1917, Russell began as a private in the Infantry of the National Army.

Russell Gould’s draft card 1917

He arrived for training at Camp Dix in Wrightstown, New Jersey. The National Army was the section of the army made up of draftees rather than enlisted soldiers. Camp Dix, with dirt roads and new bunkers, had recently been built to train soldiers headed to Europe. Russell underwent further training at Camp Greene in Charlotte, NC.

Before boarding the U.S.S. Martha Washington in Hoboken, NJ, on March 21, 1918, Russell, who had just turned 27, was employed in research psychology in Pittsburgh, and held a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.A. from Columbia University, was promoted to the rank of sergeant. The ship was bound for a port near Bordeaux, France, where American forces were gathering.

U.S. Army Sergeant Russell Lowell Gould

The Martha Washington transported Navy and Army soldiers between the U.S. and Europe during World War I.

In Russell’s four-page military record posted by his alma mater Wesleyan University, he wrote that he did not fight in the war. He was assigned to the U.S. Army Medical Corps where he oversaw and provided medical care to the injured during and after battles. Russell participated in at least seven major offenses and defenses in France, including the Saint-Mihiel Offensive (or Battle of Saint-Mihiel) on Sept. 12 to take back German-held territory. Some half-million Americans fought in this first major and successful offensive of the U.S. forces.

The days-long battles that Russell witnessed resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries on all sides. From online accounts of what the Medical Corps did during the war (retrieving bodies from trenches, treating injuries, including from poison gas, providing care with limited resources and inadequate medicine and supplies, and living for months on or near battlefields), Russell surely endured many hardships. It’s estimated that nearly 40 million civilians and soldiers died in World War I.

Stretcher barrier in a trench during World War I (U.S. WWI Centennial Commission website)

1918 German helmet from the Musée de la Grande Guerre in Meaux, France

On Sept. 13, 1918, Russell’s local newspaper, The Bayonne Times, reported that his parents George H. and Lina Treadwell Gould received a German helmet in the mail. The helmet was not wrapped when it arrived at their home on Avenue C, with no note and only the family’s address and his own name on it. Typically, helmets were retrieved from dead soldiers on the battlefield.

Russell with his parents Lina and George H. Gould

After the war ended on Nov. 11, 1918, with a victory for the U.S. and its allies, Russell stayed on in the Army of Occupation, which was charged with keeping order and restoring peace in Germany. Before going home, Russell stopped in Edinburgh, Scotland, and studied at the University of Edinburgh for several months in the spring of 1919.

SS Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm shown off Manhattan Island, New York, Her Decks Croweded with US Troops Returning Home from Europe, 1919. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. GGA Image ID # 20e34a6898

He sailed back to Bayonne NJ on the SS Prinz Frederick Wilhelm, in August 1919, and was discharged from the military on August 29, 1919.

Russell’s extended family in Bayonne NJ.

Six years later, he married Winifred Sills of Mount Vernon, NY.

The Bayonne Times, March 13, 1925

Russell and Winifred, with Russell’s brother Aaron Gould.

Educated in business psychology, Russell worked for banking and investment companies, and was active in his communities in Larchmont, NY and later Bridgewater, CT. He lived a long life, to the impressive age of 97.

In his war records online at Wesleyan, Russell also answered personal questions. One of the questions was: What was your attitude toward military service and toward your call in particular? He answered: “As I found and experienced it — my attitude was one of antipathy and loathing but I’m glad I was there.”

Blackville, Washington CT

The Newtown Bee, June 23, 1893

After immigrating from Ballysadare, Ireland during the height of the potato famine in the 1840’s, John and Jane Mitchell Black’s family settled in a part of the town of Washington CT that became known as Blackville.

Black family barn at Sabbaday Lane and Blackville Road

Blackville Road runs near where their property was located. So I always wondered if the road’s name was actually connected to the family. At least two of the brothers, James M. Black and Robert Black ran successful businesses in that location – James, a farm, and Robert, a mill and a foundry.

The Newtown Bee, March 24, 1899

The Newtown Bee, May 17, 1895

I recently read an article in The Newtown Bee, June 23, 1893, that stated the connection as fact, but it’s still not certain. The article opens “The little community, a mile east of Washington Green, which bears the name of Blackville, was the scene of much business activity 40 years ago.” It later continues: “The Messrs. John M. and Robert Black, from whom “the city” was named, came to Washington around 1850.”

Another article written in June 1, 1906 describes the many endeavors of the residents of Blackville – clover and grist mills, apple orchards, corn and hay fields, cattle and sheep, carpentry shops and even a school.

I have to dig more into what year Blackville Road actually got its name. Until then, the descendants of the Black family can take some pride in the road sign.

Whooping Cough at Birch Farm

Birch Farm, Northfield Road, Watertown CT

My grandmother Mabel Black Gould was four-years-old when whooping cough swept through Birch Farm in Watertown, Connecticut. The illness in Elnathan and Hattie Black‘s family home was serious enough to warrant a mention in the local Waterbury newspaper. That the cases were called “severe” seems even more concerning.

Waterbury Democrat, July 28, 1898

The Black family was not alone. Others in town had also come down with the disease that was considered a childhood ailment but infected adults as well. A month earlier in Watertown, whooping cough was being called an “epidemic.”

Waterbury Evening Democrat, June 18, 1898

The highly contagious bacterial infection, also called pertussis, causes a hacking cough that can last for many weeks and become so violent that it precipitates vomiting and even death if left untreated. Today, whooping cough is treated with antibiotics, but in 1898, the only treatments were homeopathic cough remedies like salt of tartar that treated the symptoms but did not attack the infection. The illness had to run its course, but not before infecting entire families and communities. In Amelia, Ohio in 1892, 450 out of 600 townspeople caught the disease and some died.

The Meriden Daily Republican, July 18, 1892

Whooping cough caused some 270,000 cases and 10,000 deaths a year in the early 1900s. In 1914, a pertussis vaccine was developed. It was combined in a single shot that included tetanus and diphtheria vaccines in the 1940s. I remember my brother, Paul, born in 1959 and not yet vaccinated, became very ill with whooping cough as a baby. Now babies are given the DPT vaccines as part of the set of childhood vaccines. Still, the vaccine is only about 80 percent effective. Today, about 7000 to 8000 cases of pertussis, with 5 to 10 deaths, are reported to the CDC every year.

The Black family survived the whooping cough, and Mabel lived to celebrate her 102nd birthday.

Two Sisters Go to Smith

Harry, Aaron, Nellie, J. Howard, and Elsie Gould (left to right)
circa 1886 in Bayonne

My grandfather J. Howard Gould’s older sisters, Nellie Julia (1875-1965) and Elsie (1877-1968) both graduated from Smith College in Northampton, MA, one of the Seven Sisters liberal arts women’s colleges. In their time, few women went to college and most American colleges were for men only.

Smith College was founded in 1871 by Sophia Smith and opened in 1875. Smith was not educated but inherited money and wanted to use it to help educate women.

Sophia Smith (photograph from Smith College website)

In her will, Smith wrote: “It is my opinion that by the education of women, what are called their ‘wrongs’ will be redressed, their wages adjusted, their weight of influence in reforming the evils of society will be greatly increased, as teachers, as writers, as mothers, as members of society, their power for good will be incalculably enlarged…”

Smith College, Northampton, MA, circa 1900 (Library of Congress)

The Gould sisters, who grew up on Avenue C in Bayonne NJ, were likely encouraged by their parents to seek higher education. Their father George H. Gould graduated from Fairfield Academy before becoming a glue salesman and then a banker, and their mother Lina Treadwell Gould was a college graduate. All seven of the Gould children attended college or business school.

The two girls attended the same academic private school, Hasbrouck Institute, in Jersey City, as their brothers Aaron, Howard, and Russell. After opening as a boys school, Hasbrouck began admitting girls in 1880. The aim of the school was to prepare students for college.

Nellie was the salutatorian of her graduating class at Hasbrouck. She had to read her essay “Our Debt to the XVI Century” at graduation.

Jersey City News, June 19, 1891

The local Jersey City News published the names of the colleges that Hasbrouck graduates were attending.

Nellie received her B.A. from Smith in 1898. She went on to earn a Master’s of Arts degree from Columbia College in New York City in 1901, with a major in Education and minor in Latin. Her final paper was “The Grammer schools of the New England Colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries.” Nellie became a teacher. She taught in North Wales, Pennsylvania, and Mohegan, New York. She returned to her hometown of Bayonne, NJ, where she married an older Scottish immigrant William Cross Vivash in 1907, and they had two daughters.

Nellie Gould with her niece Louise Gould (Gray) in Bayonne, circa 1930s.

Nellie Gould, Louise Gould (Gray), and Nellie’s daughter Eileen Vivash in Manhattan, undated photograph.

Elsie graduated from Smith in 1899. When she married Harry Wells Ryman, a dentist, in 1903, Nellie was her maid of honor. Elsie and Harry raised two sons, one became a doctor and the other a dentist, and two daughters, in Summit, NJ.

In later years, the Gould siblings often met at the house at 92 Monte Vista Avenue in Ridgewood. They sat in wicker chairs in the leafy backyard and must have enjoyed their time together.

Six of George Gould’s children, including Elsie and Nellie, gathered on the lawn at 92 Monte Vista Avenue in this undated photograph, probably in the 1950s: From left-right, Howard, Elsie, Harry, Russell, Aaron, and Nellie.

Happy Holidays

“Last Trip to Birch Farm”

This poem appeared in Highland Park Poetry‘s July 2024 edition

Still Standing

Through a Facebook group on Sligo history, I discovered the Mitchell house in Barnabrack, Beltra, Sligo, where my 3rd great grandmother Jane Mitchell Black was likely born, is still standing and in the family. Several people in the group knew the house when I posted this photograph. The niece of the Mitchell family member still living there contacted me. She said the house was built in the early 1800s and has been renovated since then. It can be viewed here on Google maps. Strangely enough, the farmhouse down the narrow country road beyond the Mitchell house is owned by the Black family, according to the niece. Jane emigrated to the U.S. with her husband John Black, whose family lived in nearby Ballisadare, and their eight children in 1849.

Mitchell house in Barnabrack, Beltran, Sligo.
Photo probably taken in 1924 by Emily Black Berlet, granddaughter of Jane Mitchell Black