Edmund Rice Homestead East Sudbury, MA

Edmund Rice (1638) Association 24 Buckman Dr., Chelmsford MA 01824 Vol. 77, No. 1   Winter 2003 © Copyright 2003 by the Edmund Rice (1638) Association return to: [Information page]  [ ERA Main page]

President's Column

Dear Cousins,

Recently, there have been a large number of articles in newspapers and scientific journals about genetic databases. The Iceland genetic project is well known but now it appears that the UK will launch "the world's most ambitious study of the origins of disease" this year. The New York Times (Dec. 31, 2002) had a good review of world data projects that included six in the United States. Most of them are the result of the human genome project, now more or less completed. All are, to my knowledge, motivated by the desire to more fully understand various diseases and work toward cures.

Many people are afraid of these databases; primarily because they worry insurance companies might misuse the data. There also seems to be some suspicion of technology. In several Fred Friendly Forums broadcast on PBS, groups of highly educated professionals from various walks of life discussed their positions on genetic records. It is clear that as a group, they felt compiling genetic records presented concerns but not, for instance, DNA testing.

Unfortunately, although our Y-DNA project has nothing to do with genetic databases or genetic testing we are probably being adversely affected. At least one male declined to use the DNA kit for our Y-chromosome project that a female relative had obtained for him and I suspect some others have refused to participate even before a DNA kit was presented to them.

In my opinion, many women are more interested in genealogy than men and since, of course, females do not have Y-chromosomes they have to persuade their male relatives to participate. However, in the case above, it was the man’s wife and a woman physician who counseled him to reject the DNA kit. This man was and still is a key to possibly understanding a complex twist of Rice/Royce genealogy.

It is important to emphasize that our genealogical DNA project has nothing to do with genes. The DNA used for Y-chromosome DNA analysis does NOT contain genes.

Even so, our DNA test provider and we are extremely careful to provide safeguards in the DNA project. Very few people know identities of the participants and the lab workers only see numbers assigned automatically by the computer.

The Y-chromosome contains very few genes and those it does have pertain only to maleness. As far as I know, none of the disease databases are interested in Y-chromosomes at all. On top of this, our genealogy DNA markers come from portions of DNA that do not have any genes at all.

The vast majority of DNA does NOT hold any genes. The DNA we use is the so-called ‘junk’ DNA. Genealogy uses DNA mutations that are accumulated slowly and last through many generations. Most gene mutations are lethal and thus people who get these genes die usually long before they can reproduce. A few mutated genes cause diseases and for these, the disease databases may help in providing a cure someday.

Genealogy has no use for gene mutations. DNA and genes are NOT identical. ALL DNA is not genes.

The more we can spread the word about the true nature of Y DNA the better will be our chances to use this powerful tool for genealogy.

Sincerely,
Robert V. Rice, President

Editor’s Column

This is my last issue as editor of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association Newsletter. After six years of producing the newsletter, I need to move on to other responsibilities.

Dennis Rice recruited me in 1996. I had called him to take advantage of the price discount the ERA was offering to members who bought the genealogy software, The Master Genealogist that the Board had chosen for the computerized database of the Rice books and Dennis was the person ‘computerizing’ the books.

Somehow, before the end of our phone conversation, he convinced me to become editor and produce the newsletter on a computer. Fred Rice, then president, stopped by our home on his way back to Kansas from a trip and officially appointed me editor after a thorough discussion about the position.

Our website is a tremendous asset – for us as well as the larger genealogy community and with a web edition of the newsletter, we have greatly expanded our readership. We owe an enormous vote of thanks to the vision, talent and hard work of George King, John Chandler, Bob Rice, Bill Drury, and Dennis Rice.

Lynn McLaughlin is our new editor. I am delighted! Lynn writes, is a computer whiz, has a deep commitment to the ERA, and has many other abilities to bring to this position. We are very fortunate to have her.

It’s been a wonderful six years. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you through letters, e-mail and phone calls, and occasionally in person. Thank you for sharing lineages, family stories, births/deaths and many interesting articles. It’s been a privilege.

- Keith Capen Allen

Meet Our New Editor: Lynn McLaughlin

Believing that it is good to give something back to organizations that are important to me, I have volunteered to be the next editor of the newsletter. My grandfather's brother, Erwin McLaughlin, was president of the ERA in 1968 until his death during that year; his daughter, Mickey Snow and her late husband Alex also served in various capacities, so I'm proud to be the next McLaughlin to give my time to the ERA.

It was through Great-Uncle Erwin that I had my first twinkle of interest in genealogy. When I was about ten years old, he gave me a copy of a book he'd written on the McLaughlin family (with a few pages about the Rices as well). My mother was an only child and my father's only sibling  (ERA member Martha McLaughlin) had no children, so I grew up first-cousin-less. I was fascinated to see all the distant cousins identified in the book. Forty-three years later, I updated that book and made the acquaintance of nearly all the living descendants of our immigrant McLaughlin ancestor, and since then I've been seriously interested in genealogy.

I am a person of varied interests, which I've pursued in many different places. My business card says I'm a Power System Engineer, but the card that would really describe me would say "Traveler, Bicyclist, Genealogist, Dancer, Dog Lover". I have lived in many places - Rhode Island where I was born but don't remember, New Jersey where I grew up, Delaware where I got my Bachelor's degree, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Austin, Texas, Northampton, Mass., Paris France, and Seattle where I live now. I have toured by bicycle in North America, New Zealand and Europe, and have been taking classes in Swing, Zydeco and Ballroom dancing. My pink-nosed, cream-colored toy poodle, Gigi, likes to chase soap bubbles and won a prize for the dog who was the best kisser.

It was suggested that I mention my Rice connections. My great-grandfather, George Edwin McLaughlin, married Cora Josephine Fessenden, whose parents were Justina Eliza Rice and Erwin Fessenden. They lived in Dover, Vermont, where the Mount Snow ski resort is now. Justina's line back to Edmund Rice is: George Emory Rice and Eliza Ann Millis; Ephraim Rice and Virtue Johnson; Daniel Rice and Sally Ball; Ephraim Rice and an unknown wife; Perez Rice and Lydia; Thomas Rice and Anna Rice; Thomas Rice and Mary King (parents of Thomas) and Edward Rice and Agnes Bent (parents of Anna); Edmund Rice and Thomasine Frost. I've recently learned that I'm also descended from Thomasine Frost's sister, Alice, who married Thomas Blower.

-Lynn McLaughlin

Dear Lynn,

Editors receive comical requests and comments from Internet browsers [ERA members excepted, of course], especially on genealogical subjects. Here are examples posted on RootsWeb.

Sincerely,
Keith

Dear Editor,
"I am trying to find out why someone I know that is deceased has not been posted."

"Last week I uploaded my grandfather and this week I plan to upload my grandmother, but I've forgotten my account's password."

"So you can see what I'm talking about, I want to forward you my marriage certificate and three children, one of which is a mistake, as you can see."

Previously published in RootsWeb
Review: Vol. 5, No. 37, 11 September 2002.

Rice/Royce Mix-ups

Many Rices and Royces migrated to New York or stopped there for various periods before continuing west, north or south. Migrations of entire families were especially frequent after the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. The opening of the Erie Canal in the 1820s also accelerated the migrations.

Cortland County, New York, which is located roughly in the middle of the state, has a GenWeb site (part of the U.S. GenWeb Project) that includes a search engine for surnames. Under Rice there is a numbered list of entries at
<http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=8895765&pageid=r&mode=ALL&query=Rice>.

The first Rice listed, Glastonbury Rice Genealogy, is of John Rice of Glastonbury, Connecticut. This family is of interest to ERA because it is connected to the John Rice who married in 1649 at Dedham, Massachusetts. All the entries are of the surname Rice, as they should be based on vital records of Dedham, Massachusetts, Woodstock and Glastonbury, Connecticut. We have not found a connection to Edmund Rice but are interested in finding a living male Rice of that descent for DNA analysis. We may, in fact, have found one such but are waiting for documentary evidence.

The third, Wallingford Rice Genealogy, is an entirely different matter, for this family although listed as Rice, is actually part of the Royce family whose patriarch was Robert Royce of colonial Connecticut. This Internet ‘genealogy’ begins with Amos, son of Jacob and Thankful (Beach) Rice rather than Royce. The document continues with all of the children's births of Amos and Sarah (Moss) Royce properly agreeing with the vital records of Wallingford, Connecticut, EXCEPT they are now identified as Rice not Royce.

This is a particularly glaring example of how surnames can change. Whether the author of this ‘genealogy’ made the change or picked it up from someone else we may not find out for like most inquiries to the Internet mine has not been answered. The fact that names, dates, and places are accurate except for the surname leads one to think that the author may have decided herself that Royce and Rice were interchangeable. After all, that is what several prominent early Connecticut historians have stated.

We are having a great deal of trouble finding male Royces who will submit their DNA samples. Letters and e-mails were sent to all those suggested by the Royce newsletter editor, Al Rhodes. Most simply didn’t answer and some actually said, without giving any details, that they have not found any problem with the surnames.  One very conscientious genealogist, Mike Dobson, is well aware of Royce/Rice mix-ups and has put a very accurate
Royce genealogy on the Internet at  http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/d/o/b/Michael-E-Dobson/GENE64-0002.html#CHILD2

The ERA Genetics Committee feels obligated to continue searching for the biological father of Abishai and Matthias. A Royce is still most probable.

- Bob Rice

New Members
 

Becky (Rice) Smith	Bolton, ON
Christopher R. Kelly	Orelans, MA
Sharon L. Jones	Cedar Hill, TX
Shirley C. Rice	Lake Forest, IL
Rosemary E. Bachelor	Melbourne Village, FL
Mabel A. Sanders	North Hollywood, CA
Paula Rigano-Murray	Northampton, MA
Marilyn Cullen	Hamiltopn, MT
Bonny Robillard	Sherwood Park, AB
Gregg McKirdy	New Milford, CT
Donald P. Coleman	Montgomery, AL

ERA Computer Data Base

During the past year your association continued to improve the quality of our computer database of Edmund Rice descendants. We now have about 53,000 persons in the main database, 20,000 persons in the Nova Scotia Rice data base, and several thousand ready to be added this year. This database is an essential element of our Y-DNA research project. DNA tests help us to search for ancestors. Our authoritative association records confirm our ancestors.

Highlights include:
• Last June John Chandler provided about 4,100 new and updated records for the first five generations of Edmund Rice’s descendants. Most were authoritative cites to the published vital records for colonial Massachusetts. George King merged these updates with the master database last summer.
• Last year George edited and added twelve databases from living cousins to our master database.
• After merging these updates with our master database, George expanded our ERA web pages to include the first five generations of Edmund’s descendants. All of our sources are cited! Dennis Rice offered to host these pages at no cost to our association. Be sure to visit our pages at: www.edmund-rice.org
• For the Nova Scotia Rices, George added cites to the late 19th century birth and marriage records for Nova Scotia. He also searched and added information from the 1880 US and 1881 Canada census CD-ROMs.

Plans include:
• John is preparing a 15,000-person update, together with 18,000 new names, primarily for Edmund’s descendants who appeared in the published vital records of Massachusetts before the year 1850. Merging this update is a major effort.
• George has an additional ten databases from cousins in edit status and will add them to the master database this spring.

You can help:
• If you are using a computer genealogy program, offer a copy of your Rice line to us. You will find contact information for George in this newsletter.
• We need two or three volunteers to convert well documented Rice ancestral lines from paper copy to a The Master Genealogist database. Several times a year we receive paper copies from a cousin who is not using a computer. John, George, and Dennis’s time is much more productive when they work with existing computer databases. The volunteer effort would include only the more recent of Edmund’s descendants, from the fifth, sixth, or seventh generations forward in time. Will you help? Contact George, John, or Dennis.

Mutations In DNA

Background

We are able to use DNA Y-chromosome analysis for genealogy because mutations have left markers in the DNA. Mutations are random, minute changes in the chemical structure, the chemical composition, of DNA. Usually, a mutation in the DNA of genes is lethal and the organism dies long before it can reproduce. Sometimes, however, the mutation causes a disease and persists in the population. But we use so-called JUNK DNA for genealogy.

This is DNA that has no apparent use for the function of the organism, so mutations accumulate with no adverse effect. Population geneticists use DNA portions that change very slowly so they can follow large numbers of people over long periods of time, or thousands of years. Genealogists use different portions of DNA that change more rapidly, say one per few hundred years.

Edmund Rice male descendants

Our results with 16 Edmund Rice descendants, with about half using 12 genetic markers and half using 25 markers, show four markers have mutated since Edmund's first son was baptized on 13 Feb 1620. It is possible that with more male descendants tested other mutations will show up. John Chandler has calculated that, in general, with males taking the full 25-marker test, we can expect to see a mutation in one out of every two or three Edmund descendants.

In the Fall 2002 ERA Newsletter, Figure 1 on page 7 shows a chart of our results. In the chart below, we show the original chart modified by the additional sample #18 and results from the 13 additional markers for samples #1 and #12.

These results show that the single mutation that is the same for both #11 and  #17 must have happened with one of the three descendants immediately below the first Thomas Rice. We know that Thomas2, son of Edmund, did not have that mutation because descendants of all his other sons do not show it. We cannot tell whether the mutation event happened with Jonas3, Jonas4, or Thomas5, but if branches from one or more descendants of those were tested we might be able to narrow it further.

In the case of the different single mutation of sample #10 and the lack of that mutation for the new sample #18, we know that event occurred with Joseph or one of his descendants rather than Elisha, Zebulon, or the two Reubens. Such single mutations could help determine pedigrees of other descendants of these ancestors in the future.

Two other samples showed mutations that did not appear on the Fall 02 Figure 1 but are depicted here: # 12 has a single mutation at DYS 393 and # 1 has an unusual three-step mutation at DYS447. John Chandler, who has been studying the statistics of mutation, calls it an astounding triple mutation; that is, one that changed three bases all at once. The triple mutation has a probability of about one in a thousand whereas three separate steps that just happened to fall on the same locus is a 5-in-a-million event.

These samples with single mutations are clearly from descendants of Edmund, whereas all the other Rice and Royce samples that show many differences are not. That is because with three or more single mutations statistics show that the most common ancestor of two male Rices would have lived before surnames were adopted.

Once again, as in the original chart, the chart below shows squares in black for descendants whose DNA were tested. The open rectangles were obtained through conventional paper genealogy. Asterisks designate those samples showing mutations.

- Bob Rice

Franklin County [MA] Publications Archive Index

From: Barbara Stewart <stew@library.umass.edu>
Subject: report of new Franklin County website
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:56:37 -0400 (EDT)

Barbara Stewart and Michael Muller, both of Montague and both employees of the University of Massachusetts, have created the Franklin County Publications Archive Index, a website of vintage newspaper articles. The website is open to the public and can be found at http://fcpai.umassp.edu.

The archive currently contains nearly 7,000 articles, dated between 1870 and 1872, from the Greenfield Courier & Gazette (today known as The Recorder). The articles are indexed by topic….

It is Ms. Stewart's and Mr. Muller's hope that the archive will become the first place people turn to when researching Franklin County.

"It's a wonderful window into life in post-Civil War America. We expect this website to be of great interest to historians and genealogists all around the country, not just in Franklin County," said Ms. Stewart….
 …. Their goal is to archive and index all articles from Franklin County publications from as early as 1792 up to the limits of copyright dating.

Barbara Stewart… is a librarian at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst W.E.B. Du Bois Library with an interest in local history. For her recent sabbatical, she compiled a full text index of The Greenfield Recorder (called The Greenfield Courier and Gazette in 1870) for the period known as the "Gilded Age" - 1870 to 1900….

Michael Muller…is a Umass employee, working for the President's Office in Hadley…. Michael set up the new website at htpp://fcpai.umassp.edu. It is hosted by UMass Information Technology Services in the Mass Ventures building in Hadley….

Moses Rice Grave Monument

Field Meeting at Charlemont of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, The Greenfield Courier and Gazette, August 7, 1871. (Extracts from the article posted by Barbara Stewart)

[This] will long be a memorable day in Charlemont. One of the largest gatherings ever assembled in the Pocumtuck Valley was attracted to this beautiful town to participate in the day’s celebration. The farmers from all the region around left their work behind and with their good dames and children joined in the happy throng. A special train…came whistling up the valley, crammed with good people from Whately, Deerfield, Greenfield, and Shelburne, bringing their lunch baskets, glad hearts, and smiling faces…A procession was soon formed...To the time of martial music the column moved across the bridge and wound its way up the hillside, past the Rice House, to the little burial place where have slept for long years the brave old pioneer, Moses Rice, his children and the companion who was slain with him by the Indians.

A great-great-grandson of Moses Rice, Orlando B. Potter of New York, who by his industry and enterprise has become a millionaire, has honored the memory of his ancestor by the erection of a beautiful granite monument to mark his grave…In digging for the foundation of the shaft the remains of the slain men were found in a remarkable state of preservation. The skull of Rice showed the marks of the Indian tomahawk, and the fatal bullet fell from the bones of [Phineas] Arms as they were being examined….

A few remarks were now made by Joseph White, Secretary of the State Board of Education, a native of Charlemont and a descendant of Moses Rice. This was the first burial place in town, and of its its first settler. The land was owned and occupied by Moses Rice at the time of his death. The house, a portion of that now standing, was built by him and his son in 1750….

A red flag in a neighboring field marked the spot where the old hero fell at the hands of the savage foe, and another marked the place where a house and fort were built when the one on the side hill was rendered untenable by the Indians….Rice Fort was built by stockading around the Rice House in 1754. The old sycamore tree is yet standing, beneath the shelter of which Mr. Rice slept the first night after he came to his new settlement, and it was used as a nightly resting place until a house was built. The Rice children used to jump and swing upon its branches, that now hang many feet beyond reach….

In 1755 two men were murdered in the field before us and two others carried into captivity. This was then a wilderness and the inhabitants in a continuous alarm...

Address by the President, Geo. Sheldon of Deerfield…”This is not Mr. Chairman, the first party from the lower valley which has received a warm welcome here. How the hearts of the bold pioneer, Moses Rice, and his family must have leaped with joy on seeing the resolute faces of the three brothers, Othniel, John, and Jonathan Taylor, and the three brothers Gershom, Joshua, and Seth Hawks, all young men in the prime of life, who came as settlers…No less welcome to the stricken inhabitants must have been that party of 25 from old Pocumtuck, who reached this very spot on the morning after the bloody tragedy which this shaft commemorates, to protect the living, and perform the last sad offices for the slain…”

… After…came the collation…The lunch baskets were distributed to the proper owners, and tables laden with an abundance of good things were furnished the invited guests and those unprovided for, by the generous ladies of Charlemont.

After the enjoyable repast…Edward C. Hawks of Charlemont…was called up and responded in brief, well chosen remarks: “If the Indians have heretofore been spoken of today, it has not been in very complimentary terms. I now propose to rouse up a man who will talk in a different strain. He owes something to the Indians...Without Indians there would have been no Phillips war; without Phillips war, no Turners Falls fight; no Falls fight, no grant of Falls Town, and without Falls Town, no Bernards’town’. And instead of her broad plains for my friend to meander upon, his lot might have been cast on Hoosac Mountain, or some other place where he must have spent all his days…”

This called out Hon. Silas N. Brooks of Bernardston, who told how one of his ancestors had selected an Indian maiden for a wife, and the blood of the red man was in his veins. How it made him feel when the Association met at Turners Falls last year and gloried over the triumphs at the Falls fight – the defeat of his ancestors. But he thought the society a great educator and a good thing. …

Hon. R. N. Oakman of Montague, whose good wife was from Charlemont, was called upon the platform. He didn’t know about its being such a good thing to dig up one’s ancestry and trace back his lineage. If Darwin’s theory was correct, he had rather not go back. …The lengthening shadows warned the happy party that they had had enough for one day and must turn their faces homeward. “The Star Spangled Banner” was sung by the audience, and the party marched back to the depot…

Among the many antiquities presented for inspection…Miss Louisa Rice of Charlemont had in her possession 4 Bibles that Col. Hugh Maxwell carried in the Revolutionary Army, a brass candlestick taken at the defeat of Burgoyne’s army, a button taken from a British officer’s vest, a curious cup from the first crate of crockery ever brought to Charlemont….

** Cousin Barbara Richards found this interesting article on the Internet and sent it to me. The website http://fcpai.umassp.edu is well worth visiting; wish more librarians took sabbaticals to transcribe and index newspaper articles! By the way, many of you may have also seen a reference to this site in NEHGS eNews, Oct. 25, 2002.
- Editor

Genetics Committee Interim Report

Running accounts of Y-Chromosome DNA analyses are regularly posted on the ERA web site at www.edmund-rice.org. Most of the new ones since the Fall 02 Newsletter are for Rice families who do NOT descend from Edmund. While the majority of these are from the so-called Southern Rices, there are some from New England and at least one from Canada. A John Rice of colonial Rhode Island is number 4507 on the chart at our web site and his 12 genetic markers do not match any other so far tested.

We are only serving as the Group Administrator for non-Edmund Rices and aside from brief comments at the web site, we do not pretend to analyze the convoluted genealogies of the other Rice families of whom there are now approaching 20 with probably more to come. ERA did not pay for the analysis of any of those Rices except for one in England and one in Australia. We did pay for an additional 13 markers for one Royce sample discussed here and for all markers of another that has not yet been utilized and probably will not be.

There have been two putative additions to the Edmund Rice family via DNA analysis. These have had only 12 loci analyzed and unless their paper pedigree is conclusive only a full 25 loci match can be considered definitive. The Edmund descendants showing a single mutation are discussed elsewhere in this issue. Mutations may be useful in the future to untangle some rare descent problems.

There are several analyses that bear on problems of interest to ERA cousins for which results are due very soon:

1. A possible direct male descendant of John Rice (m. 1679, Dedham, Massachusetts) has submitted his pedigree and DNA sample. There are no descendants of Edmund Rice with the given name John known before 1650 in our database. There is a John Rice of Glemsford, Suffolk, England baptized 9 June 1620, son of John and Katherine (Wyatt) Rice who were married 24 September 1612 at Glemsford. This was reported by Dr. Joanna Martin in her search in 1999 and printed in our 1999 fall newsletter, p. 17.

No direct connection is known between John, 1649, of Dedham and John, 1620, of Glemsford. But John of Glemsford is of interest because he lived within one mile of Stanstead where both Edmund and Henry Rice lived in the same time period in England. Very careful paper verification of his genealogy will be needed. If the putative descendant of John of Dedham does not have the Edmund Rice haplotype within 2 mutations he will probably be considered part of one of the many other Rice families.

2. A participant from a Rice family in England that has a long string of men with Edmund for a second or middle name submitted a DNA sample and the genetic markers do NOT match descendants of Edmund Rice, thus forming another Rice family. A Rice from Australia who comes from a well- documented family in Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire that is close (30 miles) to Berkhamsted, Herts where Edmund's family farmed just before leaving for America, has been tested. The results for the latter case do not match Edmund's haplotype or any other Rice family yet tested.

It is becoming increasingly clear that many Rice families from England, who were not closely related, emigrated to America, Australia and probably elsewhere. This is also borne out for many other surnames. These results greatly reduce the chance that we will be able to find any Edmund Rice related families in present day England but there is at least one more tack we may be able to try; that is, telephoning Rices living near Stanstead, Suffolk, England to see if they have done enough genealogy on their Rice families to warrant a DNA test.

3. A fairly well documented descendant of Robert Royce has markers that agree (12/12) with the previously analyzed Rice/Royce descendant and five others (two at 11/12) with a Rice surname. It would seem that a good Royce identification has been made. This Royce descendant has never had any surname except Royce, unlike previous Royces who did have their surname changed to Rice, therefore removing some uncertainty. Thus, there remains little doubt that the descendants of Abishai and Matthias Rice (sample numbers 1668 and 1669 in Fig. 1) are biologically Royces. We expect the new Royce participant's full 25 loci due soon to match those with 25 markers. There are a few single mutations in the group that may possibly help further identifications. See Group 3 of our chart on web site, edmund-rice.org or Figure 1 below.

We had a Royce participant whose markers did not agree with the previous seven Royce samples or any Rice family. His paper genealogy is not complete but he apparently has always had the Royce surname. He very likely belongs to another Royce family. Ms Judith Johnson, Genealogist for the Connecticut Historical Society, has found more land records for Gershom Rice in Groton, Connecticut. It would be helpful to know more about Gershom's family in and about Groton, Connecticut.

The Genetics Committee consists of John Chandler, George King and Bob Rice. Any mistakes are mine alone.

-Bob Rice

Remembering Margaret S. Rice

Margaret S. Rice died September 21, 2002 at the age of 95. Born October 7,1906 in Brattleboro, Vermont, she was the daughter of Ernest Wilson Rice and Lucia M. (Foster) Rice. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Vermont, receiving a B.A. in 1931 and an M.A. in 1933. A celebrated town historian of Amesbury, Massachusetts and genealogy researcher, she was a member of the Amesbury History Committee, the Town Historic Commission and the genealogical researcher for the Amesbury Public Library.
- From Newburyport News, October 4, 2002

Margaret died September 21st, the day of our annual Edmund Rice Association meeting. It was fitting because she was very active in the Association and was made a life member. Margaret, with whom I share 1/8th of my ancestry, was president of the ERA from 1985 –1987 and held three annual meetings at her farm in Amesbury, Massachusetts. She also compiled Supplement 2, Parts 1 & 2 to Ward’s book, The Rice Family.

During the years Margaret wintered in Englewood, Florida with her parents, she taught at the Kentucky Military Institute winter quarters. The house her father built on Manasota Key in 1922 is still owned by the family.  The land went from the Gulf of Mexico to Lemon Bay. However, Margaret did not like Florida very much and did not go there often in the last 20 years.

My family has visited hers many times in my lifetime. We spent many happy hours with her both in Florida and at the farm in Amesbury. Her brother, Col. Allen Foster Rice, who predeceased her, was president of the ERA from 1969 - 1973. The family was very proud of their Rice ancestry; to quote Margaret, “compiling the supplement books was a labor of love”. Also, she had a “love of family” and said we need to “carry on patriotism”.

As a teenager I went to annual meetings with my grandmother Nina Rice Estabrook and have been a member of the ERA since 1981.

- Wendy Wesen

Genevieve (Rice) Pochop

Genevieve (Rice) Pochop, 92, the great aunt of Kathy (Rice) Hoeppner, passed away December 15, 2002 in Norfolk, Nebraska. She was the daughter of Charles Elsworth Rice and Stella (Hamilton) Rice, granddaughter of James Austin Rice, sister of J.D. Earl Rice and aunt of James D. Rice. Genevieve and her husband, William Pochop, who survives her, celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on January 12, 2002. Burial was in the Mount View Cemetery, Plainview.

Dan Rice
drice@iastate.edu

Dan writes, “I wanted to let you know that I got married July 1, 2001 to:
Penny Jo Rosenthal, b 28 Oct 1960, Austin MN to Dale and Shirley Rosenthal.

I have two step- children:
Elizabeth Anne Mettille, b 6 Mar 1985
Michael Scott Mettille, b. 20 Mar 1988

Hope this helps keep records up to date.

Hazardous Duty

In 1659, the General Court ordered the founding of Hadley, Massachusetts, with its own church and minister, as a way of resolving the ongoing disagreements between the churches in Hartford and Wethersfield, Connecticut. Although Hadley’s church, naturally, was built on the east, or Massachusetts, side of the Connecticut River, many members’ homes remained on the west side of the river.

In a few years trouble erupted again. Those on the west side had problems crossing the river to attend church and, against the opposition of those on the east side, petitioned the General Court on May 3, 1667 for a church and minister of their own.

“First, your petitioners, together with their families…have attended on God’s ordinances on the other side of the river, at the appointed seasons that we could or durst pass over the river, the passing being very difficult and dangerous, both in summer and winter, which thing hath proved, and is an oppressive burden for us to bear, which, if by any lawful means it may be avoided, we should be glad and thankful to this honored court to ease us therein, conceiving it to be a palpable breach of the Sabbath…Sometimes we come in considerable numbers in rainy weather, and are forced to stay till we can empty our canoes, that are half full of water, and before we can get to the meeting-house are wet to the skin. At other times, in winter seasons, we are forced to cut and work them out of the ice, till our shirts be wet upon our backs. At other times, the winds are high and waters rough, the current strong, and the waves ready to swallow us; our vessels tossed up and down so that our women and children do screech, and are so affrighted that they are made unfit for ordinances, and cannot hear so as to profit by them, by reason of their anguish of spirit; and when they return, some of them are more fit for their beds than for family duties and God’s services, which they ought to attend.”

History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, 2 vol., Philadelphia, 1879, vol. 1, pp 334-5