More of Sara's Story

In my post of January 8th, I shared some of the genealogy information contained in Sara Caskey Breithaupt's memoirs. Written in December 1977, Sara entitled her memoirs, "Bits and Pieces of My Life." Jodie, a blog reader from Ohio, informed me that she is a descendant of Sara's Caskey family and wondered if Sara might have offered more information.

I confess that I have not pursued research into Sara's family as there is no blood relationship (which is not always a good reason to not pursue the research) to either myself or my wife and available research hours have been devoted to areas quite frankly of greater priority to us. I did commit to checking Sara's writing to see what more she had to offer about her family history, as she knew it.

My previous post about Sara's family history concludes with Sara's description of her grandmother, Sara Jane Bonnell's immigration to the USA in 1841. Sara admitted that she knew more about her mother's family than that of her father. The following is the further information that Sara shared concerning her family history.

"Sara Jane Bonnell married Gustavus Henry McElevey, an architect. They had four children, Mary Scott, my mother, [pictured below is Mary Scott (McElevey) Caskey with granddaughter Mary Scott Breithaupt, taken around 1921 or 1922] William Bonnell, Alice and Paul Henry.

Gustavus (glad they did not feel they had to pass that name on) died when mother was fifteen. Grandma's mother in Youngstown built a house for her right next to her own and Grandma moved with her four young children from Brazil, Indiana to be close to her mother. The two houses has a lovely lawn and trees between them.

It was there that I was born.

Grandma was one of seven, four born after they lived in the U.S. One brother was given his mother's maiden name, Scott, so when mother arrived, Grandma named her after her brother Scott, Mary Scott. I, of course used it for my oldest. Mary Scott and two of my grandsons have Scott as a middle name.

Father's ancestors were Scotch-Irish, the name at one time was MacCaskey. Mac means "son of." Somewhere along the line the Mac was dropped.

The family moved to the United States about 1680. I am not at all clear about the family. I wish I knew more. I am going to repeat a story I think most of you have heard me tell.

Father's mother's parents, Richard and Nancy Hall, lived in New Jersey until after their five children were born. Then great-grandfather Hall decided to go West to try to better himself. He settled in what later became Millersburg, Ohio, and sent for his wife and children. The youngest, a wee baby was Keturah. She became my grandmother.

Great-grandmother Hall took what she could of their belongings in probably just a covered wagon, disposed of the rest and started out on a long journey over the mountains in Pennsylvania. Probably took a few weeks as no doubt the letter from her husband has telling her to come. By the time she arrived at her destination her husband had died.

She could not go back so she settled down with her five children and managed to bring them up. I have always hoped she had kind neighbours not too far away.

Keturah, or Kate as she was always called, married John Marcus Caskey. They lived in Millersburg until 1880 then moved to Cleveland, Ohio. My father, Herbert K. was one of their four sons. The only sister, Harriet, married Winthrop Ingersoll and moved to Rockford, Ill. It was Uncle Wint who had Paul, my brother, come to work for him in Rockford after Paul graduated from M.I.T."