A pizza parlour might be the last place you’d expect to get a history lesson. Books, yes. The History Channel, yes. A cedar chest stored away in your great-grandmother’s closet, yes.
A pizza joint in Owego, NY—no.
We had just bought a new (used) car, and I was riding the high of a successful haggle. We had ordered a large pie at the counter. Sara had gone to the washroom—an event that takes on greater frequency with each week of pregnancy. Nay, I’m not complaining: if she had not gone to the ladies’ room, who knows if what happened next would ever have come to pass.
Still twitching from my hard-bargain driving, I surveyed the walls of Original Pizza, a classic red-vinyl and checkered tablecloth joint on Lake Street in Owego. There on the wall was a map of Tioga County. The paper had that grayish old colour, and the ink was all black. The swishing lines under the name of the surveying company told me the map had to be printed before 1940.
I love maps. Especially old ones. So I walked over to it and craned my neck to survey its markings.
In 1855 they still made maps with class. Buildings were represented as little black squares, with the first initial and family names printed neatly next to each structure. They included demographic tables with numbers of births and deaths over the past few years. And it wasn’t folded up like a thousand times like the highway map that’s scrunched under the seat of your car. This kind of map you framed in heavy oak and hung in your library. Or pizza parlour.
I would have only given this map a passing glance of appreciation for its overall quality, except that Tioga county includes the little hamlet of Candor, NY. And Candor, I know from conversations with my dad and uncle, is where my dad and his four siblings spent their early childhood. Since those conversations began, I have been slowly—slowly, mind you—growing into the role of family historian for my generation of Tylers. It’s a happy process, but takes time and more effort than you might think.
Except for this day.
I scan the names of homeowners on this 1855 map of Tioga county, paying special attention to the Candor and South Candor communities. I think it to much to hope that the property colloquially known as “Three Horse Chestnut” where my family lived will be labeled as such. But I pore over the names, sliding my eyes down each road and highway. No Tylers or any name I recognize.
But Sara’s not out yet, so I turn my idle attention to the town of Owego. There, jumping out more because of the pattern of letters than because I actually read it, is my name: “Tyler.” What’s more, the little black parallelogram that represents a house is labeled with “J Tyler,”--straight above the "E" in OWEGO--and I happen to know that a succession of John Tylers runs back through my family tree.
Here it is, on the wall in Original Pizza, a possible lead on where my family was before my grandfather’s generation in Candor. Sweet. It will take some more work to find out who this J Tyler really was and to whom he might be related (and if they include me). That will be work for another day. For today, the little serendipity is enough.
And we had the most fabulous pepperoni and onion pizza, to boot.
~ emrys
A pizza joint in Owego, NY—no.
We had just bought a new (used) car, and I was riding the high of a successful haggle. We had ordered a large pie at the counter. Sara had gone to the washroom—an event that takes on greater frequency with each week of pregnancy. Nay, I’m not complaining: if she had not gone to the ladies’ room, who knows if what happened next would ever have come to pass.
Still twitching from my hard-bargain driving, I surveyed the walls of Original Pizza, a classic red-vinyl and checkered tablecloth joint on Lake Street in Owego. There on the wall was a map of Tioga County. The paper had that grayish old colour, and the ink was all black. The swishing lines under the name of the surveying company told me the map had to be printed before 1940.
I love maps. Especially old ones. So I walked over to it and craned my neck to survey its markings.
In 1855 they still made maps with class. Buildings were represented as little black squares, with the first initial and family names printed neatly next to each structure. They included demographic tables with numbers of births and deaths over the past few years. And it wasn’t folded up like a thousand times like the highway map that’s scrunched under the seat of your car. This kind of map you framed in heavy oak and hung in your library. Or pizza parlour.
I would have only given this map a passing glance of appreciation for its overall quality, except that Tioga county includes the little hamlet of Candor, NY. And Candor, I know from conversations with my dad and uncle, is where my dad and his four siblings spent their early childhood. Since those conversations began, I have been slowly—slowly, mind you—growing into the role of family historian for my generation of Tylers. It’s a happy process, but takes time and more effort than you might think.
Except for this day.
I scan the names of homeowners on this 1855 map of Tioga county, paying special attention to the Candor and South Candor communities. I think it to much to hope that the property colloquially known as “Three Horse Chestnut” where my family lived will be labeled as such. But I pore over the names, sliding my eyes down each road and highway. No Tylers or any name I recognize.
But Sara’s not out yet, so I turn my idle attention to the town of Owego. There, jumping out more because of the pattern of letters than because I actually read it, is my name: “Tyler.” What’s more, the little black parallelogram that represents a house is labeled with “J Tyler,”--straight above the "E" in OWEGO--and I happen to know that a succession of John Tylers runs back through my family tree.
Here it is, on the wall in Original Pizza, a possible lead on where my family was before my grandfather’s generation in Candor. Sweet. It will take some more work to find out who this J Tyler really was and to whom he might be related (and if they include me). That will be work for another day. For today, the little serendipity is enough.
And we had the most fabulous pepperoni and onion pizza, to boot.
~ emrys
1 comment:
This brings back the past when as kids my mom and dad would take us on vacations to Ohio and we would roam the cementaries. I also am getting the job of family history from my mom, but I am lucky as most of it she has done.
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