There are also some images of the original Wintle Farm, Church and Thomas Wintle's headstone found here
This narrative can be dated September 1982 for that is when
most of it was researched and written. It was written while both
Grammie Wintle and my dad was alive. I started an update in March
1987. I ran into a snag and put the project aside. It is now
October 1988 and time once again to see if I can put this history
of our family down into words. My procrastination has allowed
another family member to leave. Aunt Evelyn (Lee-Lee) died last
summer. She along with my dad and a whole host of departed
Wintles are without a doubt together again. Of my Dad's immediate
family both his mom and dad along with several of his brothers
and sisters are now gone. This is of course my interpretation of
family events as I have researched it and wove my own words into
what might otherwise have been just another dry regurgitation of
history. I have tried to capture the Wintle spirit that seems to
be pretty universal as I meet family members from all over the
world.
In writing this I leave a legacy for those of us that wanted to
put into writing a portion of who we are and perhaps why. I was
happy to learn that others in the family were interested in
reading this narrative. I wrote it for my son Ben so that he
could have a solid connection with his ancestry since the
majority of his young life is spent following me through a career
in the United States Air Force.
While it talks mostly of the Wintle lineage, I talk a little
about my grandfather's wife Marion, who I knew as Grammie Wintle.
I had a great conversation with her shortly before she died. I
took her for a ride on a beautiful sunlit fall afternoon to her
early childhood home in Cambridge, Maine. I wrote down a great
deal of what she told me. Which was of course rich with anecdotes
of Wintles since she was married to Charles Frederick Wintle, my
grandfather. I of course loved Grammie, we all did. I didn't
really get a chance to know her until I'd long grown up and
returned to visit her as an adult. She was a great lady who
remained true to her God, her one marriage, only church (St.
Anne's Catholic Church), and of course, her family.
All of this is a lead into "The Wintle Family" A family
of character, strength, strong will, and sense of humor. A family
that tends to hide their deepest feelings while deeply loves
their family members.
Although I was named for him I never knew Grammie's husband, my
grandfather Freddie. What little bit I do know about him is
through the memories of others that did know and love him. I knew
him as Papa Wintle. Freddie was married to the former Marion
Lewella Clukey. Their children are: Omar Frederick (who died at
two years of age from pneumonia), Victor Emanuel (Vic) deceased;
Kenneth Joseph (Squirrel); Frederick Charles (Laddie) deceased;
James Merle (Jimmy); Bernice Ellen (Bunny); deceased Evelyn Mary
(LeeLee) deceased; Francis Douglas (Hank) deceased; Madeline Iris
(Billy) deceased; Robert Walter (Pop); Rebbeca Ann (Becky); and
Roger William (Gee).
The Wintles in the New World began their life in a place
called Cumberland Mills, Bauce County, and Canada in the waning
part of the nineteenth century. It was during the era of the
Irish potato famine and the heyday of the American industrial
revolution. Most of New England was booming with woolen mills and
thousands of labor intensive jobs that needed to be filled. That
drew lots of European immigrants to the New World.
Several of the earliest Wintles to arrive left Monmothshire,
England about 1876. Apparently following the first Wintle in the
New World who was William Bonhomme Thomas Wintle who hailed from
Gloucester England. He died within a decade of the arrival of two
of his sons, William and Charles. William arrived ahead of
Charles. It is recorded that Charles arrived in 1876. Charles's
family went in a direction different than his brother. It is fair
to assume that their journey took them west and my ancestors came
east.
In this narrative, I am deliberately focusing on a direct lineage
from me through to the first Wintle, William Bonhomme. I quickly
discovered on my journey of chasing ghosts that it is very easy
to get off on tangents while tracing genealogy. I hope to follow
some of the other branches of the family tree later. But for now
William Bonhomme is the focal point.
William was born in about 1806. According to Louise Gifford's
history he was married to Marie O'Clear or Clear. He was the
first Wintle in the Americas. Two of his sons Charles and William
arrived in Canada around 1876. William was married to a Miss
Caron. The folks in Canada that I visited all claimed that she
(Miss Caron) was Native American. Some recalled stories of Ms
Caron squatting on the floor. I've heard that often enough and
from enough diverse places to believe that she may very well have
been an Indian. Since William is my direct descendant I will stay
close to that lineage in this narrative.
For the sake of continuity I'm going to start with me and make a
family connection to William the First. My name is Frederick Ladd
Wintle. My Dad was Frederick Charles Wintle, his Dad was Charles
Frederick Wintle, whose father was James Merle Wintle who was the
first Wintle to come to the United States of my lineage, and
James's father was named Thomas Wintle son of William Wintle, son
of William Bonhomme Thomas Wintle.
Thomas Wintle was married to Jane Martin on August 29, 1900 in St
George City, County Beauce, Canada. Jane hailed from Tipperary,
Limerick, Ireland. Thomas and Jane had 10 children: Edward, Mary,
Emma, James, Margaret, Johnny, Peter, Joseph, Sarah, and Celina.
I have a copy of the legend of Jane Martin from another family
genealogist who got the legend from Freda Drinkwater. For the
sake of credit where credit is due Louise Gifford gave me the
copy of Jane Martin.
Actually, Louise's family connection is through Peter Wintle,
brother to my great-great grandfather James Merle Wintle. What
follows is how Peter and his family came from Canada to Oakland,
Maine, USA.
Peter along with his son in law Philip Poulin left Cumberland
Mills; Canada in a wagon drawn by a horse named Jeb to join their
family in Oakland. While Peter and Philip plodded south in the
wagon, Peter's daughter Lizzie and her brother Ambrose took a
touring car to Jackman, Maine. Than on to Dover-Foxcroft where
they changed trains to Oakland. On the wagon trip Peter, Philip
and Florence stayed overnight at the Forks, a small settlement on
the Kennebec River. Peter had sold his farm in Cumberland for
$13,000.00. They brought the money with them in the wagon.
According to Philip Poulin Florence carried the money. Peter's
brother James may have already been in the United States when
Peter arrived. As mentioned earlier, James is my descendant, so
back to him. James Merle's son Charles Frederick along with his
sister Maude left Waterville about 1912 to move to Dexter, Maine.
At that time Maude who was a couple of years older than Charles
(who went by the name Freddie, all of us knew him as Papa)
brought Papa with her to live. At that time, Maude was married to
Leo Clukey and hence the Dexter connection. Papa was a
naturalized United States citizen and a Canadian by birth. Most
of you'll read now came from Grammie Wintle the former Marion
Cloutier, my grandmother and wife of Freddie, my grandfather.
According to Grammie, Maude brought Freddie to Dexter with her.
Freddie was about fourteen at the time. Maude was sixteen and
most of gotten married pretty young, which was common in those
days. Before moving to Dexter Freddie worked in a cotton mill as
a nine year old boy and later with his dad in Keys Fiber in
Winslow. I conducted an interview with Grammie to capture some
family history. Here are the questions with Grammies answers.
Q: Why did Maude come to Dexter?
A: Because she was married to a bricklayer named Leo Clukey
Q: How old was she than?
A: She was two years older than Freddie was
Note: Grammie misunderstood my question. I was trying to
determine age
with my question.
In fact Papa was born in 1896, the time frame would have been
about 1910 or
1912. Because he was still a teenager when he came and married
Grammie.
He was nineteen and she was seventeen when they got married.
Q: Where did you meet Papa?
A: At his house through an introduction from his sister, Maude's
housekeeper, a girl named Denise Dyer. Papa used to visit me on
Skimmer
Lane.
Q: What were some of Papa's interest?
A: He roller-skated. He raced in Bangor in the old auditorium. He
was
great at pitching horseshoes.
Q: Did he read books?
A: Yes, magazines
Q: What magazines?
A: True magazine, he also liked to read the newspaper and smoke
Red Velvet
tobacco in his pipe.
Q: Did he drive a car?
A: No he never had a car or license.
Q: Did he gripe about anyone on the job?
A: He didn't like a fellow named Jim Curran.
Q: Did he visit Waterville?
A: He went back to visit his father and his sister Gurty after
she moved
back there.
Q: Whom did he particularly like?
A: He liked everyone, he was easy going.
Q: Did he talk about Canada?
A: He never went back to Canada, he tried one time but the car
broke down.
Bunny was driving they never made it.
Q: Did he show his feelings?
A: He was always able to hide his feelings.
Q: What did he like to drink?
A: He liked tea. He never bought milk. He drank Schmitz Beer.
Note: Schmitz Beer came in a green bottle and had a tiger on the
label.
The locals name for beer at the time was called "Tiger
Piss".
My dad told me that his dad drank a lot of water and used to tell
him that
it was necessary to wash your insides just like your outsides to
stay
healthy.
Q: Do you remember what Papa thought was funny?
A: He used to tell his story about a drunk that had three bottle
of booze
with him and he had to cross a bridge in order to get home. The
drunkard
was afraid that his rum bottles would be smashed if he tried to
cross the
bridge in his drunken state. Before crossing he looked up to the
heavens
and promised God that he would say three Hail Marys for safe
passage across
the bridge, one for each bottle. As soon as he and his rum made
it across
the bridge, the drunk looked up once more and said, "I was
only kidding".
Q: Did he like your family Grammie?
A: He tolerated my sister Ginny. He liked Eva. He liked Grampie
Clukey.
Q: What were some of his other interest?
A: He liked baseball and fishing.
Q: Who were his best friends?
A: Rusty Clukey, Jim Leighton, Red Sands, and Anthony (Doc)
Rabideau.
Q: Did Papa hunt?
A: No
Q: What about baseball?
A: Freddie got an autograph from the boy named Findler who was
lost on Mt
Katadin. Papa met Findler at a baseball game in Newport. Findler
had the
burlap bag that saved him from freezing to death and from being
bitten by
mosquitoes while he was lost on the mountain.
Q: What about fishing?
A: Freddie used to go fishing with Marshall Phinney . They use to
go to
Shirley Bog and Wilson stream. They fished with worms. (Grammie
couldn't
remember of them bringing any fish home, even after fishing all
weekend.)
Note: Freddie liked to fish on Lake Wassookeag in Dexter. One
time he
disappeared and no one knew where he was. Grammie looked
frantically for
him all day. She eventually found him fishing off the old Float
Bridge on
Wassookeag. He happened to be fishing with a woman named Clara
Brown.
Grammie assured me that they were only fishing. I add the story
for humor
Papa and Grammie were devoted to each other.
Q: Did Papa go to church?
A not as regularly as me.
Q: What did he do on vacations?
A: He never had a vacation. He worked for over forty years
without a
vacation. Almost all of those years for Fayscott Landis Machine
Shop where
he began working some four decades earlier for twenty five cents
an hour.
Background: When Papa and Grammie were newlyweds they lived on
Water St looking North their house would have been on the left.
Grammie sister Eva lived on one side of them and Joe Ganeau lived
on the other.
Papa 's first boss at Fayscott was a man named William Boyd. Mr.
Boyd was a big fat fellow. Papa worked for him as a molder. It
was a hot, dirty job that found Papa ladling hot molten iron into
sand molds. He worked ten hours a day with no benefits and no
insurance. Once one of Papa 's co-workers named Jim Curran made a
remark against our role during World War ll. Papa took great
exception to the remark because at the time he had several sons
serving in the service. One time early in their marriage, papa
moved their belongings from their house on Mechanic Street to the
old Depot on Rail Road Ave. By the time that he got out of work
that evening, Grammie Wintle had moved all of their belongings
back to Mechanic Street. Grammie didn't elaborate very much on
this anecdote, but it does illustrate her independent streak.
Grammie told me that Papa was a stern man. She used to call
him "Little Man" and he called her Pap. When he got
angry he'd count to three, twice in the following manner: One on
the first count, two on the first count, three on the first
count. And than would repeat the process with one on the second
count…. While counting to three again.
My Aunt Evelyn told me that Papa told her that she'd be bald
headed before she was twenty-five because she stood in front of
the mirror brushing her hair so much when she was younger. She
said that one of her household chores was to sweep the floor and
often times she had to sweep around Papa who liked to sit in his
favorite chair in the kitchen reading the newspaper and smoking
his pipe. He didn't like to be disturbed. Papa would remark:
"Lee-lee, wait 'til I make a mess before you sweep it
up." My mother Marilyn Wintle was kind enough to write down
her memories of Papa Wintle so I repeat her words in this
narrative now.
Charles Frederick Wintle was my father in-law whom I loved as much as my own dad. He smiled when I asked him if I could call him Papa too. He said you could call me anything you want to Marilyn. I always felt at ease around him, he always washed up and sat down in his chair and read the newspaper. No one dared to talk to him, because that was his time to unwind after a hard day's work at Fayscott. I found this out when he said "Come on in Marilyn" his daughter Billy said "You should feel honored, he doesn't let us say a word to him until he gets out of his chair."
Some time I felt that I interrupted his time with the newspaper because I'd say, "Have you read your paper yet Papa?" And he'd say "It don't matter set down and talk."
Papa was a very neat man, with a smile that would melt your heart. He enjoyed his pipe and liked Shmitz beer. But I never saw him drunk or out of the way. He called Mom Wintle Pap and she called him Little Man. And when she was angry at him, she would say "You shut-up Little red-faced Man. He would chew his pipe and just look at her.
I remember him always one foot up on the side of the stove and smoking his pipe. He told me, "You know I learned never to talk back to Pap the day that I moved her from Mechanic Street to the Depot and when I got back from work that night, she had moved back and that was in horse and wagon days."
He told me Hank and Laddie both came home crying with blood running out of their heads. It seems that a kid named Raymond Merrill hit Hank. So Laddie beat him up and his brother hit Laddie over the head with a milk bottle. Another time Laddie and hank were at their grandfather's (Vic Clukey's) house on Water Street. Hank got tired so Laddie put him up in the wagon to sleep and forgot about him. Time went by and no one could find Hank so the town's people were called out to hunt. Everyone was hunting for him-out he came from sleeping, rubbing his eyes and wondering who all the people were and what was going on. Laddie said, "Oh! Now I remember I put him in Grampie's wagon to sleep!" They were both very young and always doing something like that.
I remember Papa bought nice things for the house. One day he got a refrigerator from P.E. Wards Co. it had a left-handed door. Lee-Lee (daughter) only left handed one in the family. We all laughed and Papa said "Now I've heard of everything left handed Monkey Wrenches but never a refrigerator before."
A little bit about his brother-in-law Vern when he would do a job for Mom Wintle. He would always carry Papa's tools home with him.
Papa mended his own socks, sewed buttons on and also hid money under the carpet and in the lining of old jackets that his wife didn't wash.
He also told me once about the bad bobsled accident in town. The kids would start up by the Catholic Church and come down Free Street, down Liberty Street by the Brick Mill. This one night another bobsled had started up on the Ripley Road by James' Wintle's house. They came down across and hit head on. It killed Raymond Merrill out right and a girl named Ruth Staples died a short time later as a result from the accident.
Papa believed in God and said, "When someone dies that you love, you pray and they help you, they just go ahead and wait for us if we have faith in God."
He came to church when I took my First Communion. He kissed me and told me he was proud of me. Mom Wintle was mad because she didn't believe in showing affection. But after I grew up, I knew I was wrong about her. She was just not a person who could show her feelings.
Papa liked his mother-in-law. He always got me laughing when he would say things like: "She was little but she was mighty." Her husband Vic Clukey drank and she got mad at him once after he'd passed out and tied his testicles to the bed pose with a string. She let him sleep it off a bit than she came in and hit two pans together and yelled, "Fire!"
She painted her son's and one of his friend's faces with red paint while they were sleeping off a binge after a party. She was always doing funny tricks and she could speak Latin, French and English. In fact Laddie lived with her and she taught him Latin when he was an altar boy.
My mother Verna Ramsdell used to sell her butter and she would cry over her grandson Victor who was away fighting in W W II. Vic and my brother George fought in Europe together.
My Mom said she (Mrs. Clukey) was a little short lady who always wore an apron and that she always enjoyed talking to her. Her husband Victor's middle name was Emanuel. He was six feet tall and he was called "Little Jesus."
Papa also used to tell us to eat what was on the table because even if it were only beans, our stomachs wouldn't know the difference as long as it was full. Laddie spoke up and said "Wanna Bet?" and Papa laughed and said, "Guess you missed the point." He was against eating oleomargarine. He used to say that oleo would kill you and that you should always eat dairy butter.
Everyone had a good word for Papa. They called him Freddie; it just about killed me the day that he died. But I sure have a lot of nice memories of him and hope to see him when I go where he is some day.
POST SCRIPT:
According to Maggy Wintle Foster of St. George, Beauce County,
Quebec, Canada her grandfather Johnny's brother Thomas was the
first Wintle to leave the Anglican Church for the Catholic
Church. The first Wintle's were English speaking members of the
Anglican Church. My search of the Wintle roots lead me to Saint
George Canada in search of the family tree on a beautiful sunlit
Fall day. At the time I was armed only with the certain knowledge
that there had to be a Wintle or two left behind in Canada.
My assumption proved to be accurate. I found an Yvonne Wintle in
St George Ouest in the local phone directory. I penned the
address down and found the lady named in the phone book. It
occurred to me as I rapped on the door that I spoke no French.
Which of course was her native tongue. Anyway through the few
words of francais that I managed to cobble together, I managed to
communicate the purpose of my visit. She spoke as little English
as I did French. But I did understand that she was going to lead
me to an interpreter of some type. It turned out that the
interpreter was one Oscar Wintle and a lady named Maggy Wintle
Foster. She turned out to be the wife of Oscar Wintle who at the
time of this writing is 79 years old and very much alive. This
fact I didn't find out from my struggled communications with
Yvonne. Actually Yvonne called her sister-in-law Maggy Wintle
Foster. Maggy speaks fluent English and having gotten her address
from Yvonne I drove to Maggy's house and spent a delightful
afternoon talking about the Wintles. Maggy introduced me to her
brother Oscar Wintle who I mentioned earlier. Oscar looks like my
Dad, only Oscar has blue eyes, my Dad's are brown.
I asked some general questions about the Wintle Family. For example I asked: Do any of the Wintles drink? Maggy laughed out loud for quite some time at this question. I asked her if that meant yes. She nodded and said "There are several alcoholics in our family." A fact verified later by Peter Wintles granddaughter Louise Wintle Gifford. I would be digressing too far if I talk about Louise this early in my narrative. Back to Maggy, Maggy has pictures of her brothers and sisters and remembers her Uncles Johnny, Richard, Thomas and Bill. She said that they were not of any unusual stature, but were only of average height. I hope to ask more specific questions of her in the near future. She told me many helpful things about the family, such as her Uncle Richards family lives near Armstrong, Canada and she gave me some of their names and addresses. She also told me that as far as she knew there were no living Wintles left in Cumberland Mills, Bauce, Quebec, Canada. She furthermore gave me a letter from Louise Wintle Gifford of Waterville, Maine. This one lead practically ended my genealogical search because Louise has volumes of memorabilia and genealogies of the Wintle Family.
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