Christie Ann Calder and Joseph J. Lake the research beginning

Calder Family research began for my father and I when we visited his Great Uncle Robert Lake in an assisted living facility in Upstate New York. Uncle Bob was well into his 80’s at the time but very sharp; he was able to relate details of the past very clearly. He was born in 1902 and never met his grandmother as she had passed two years after his birth and his grandfather Joseph died the year after he was born. So much of the information that he was able to relate was from other sources, his parents, and relatives of the day.

Bob had said that Christie Ann Calder came to this country from Scotland when she was about 3 years old with her mother and father. He was unsure how many siblings were also with them at the time, but he said ultimately there were 4 other sisters. Elizabeth Calder, who married James Smith, from Gouverneur, NY had several children and lived out life in that town. Great Uncle Robert said that there was a Janet Calder, who married a Morgan, but he didn’t have any other information on what happened to them. Charlotte Calder was another mystery: she was in Gouverneur, NY and that area, but he did not know what had happened to her. The last sister that he knew about was Nina Calder and she first married Charles Fry and had one daughter, Ella Mae, before they were divorced. She then married Henry Quackenbush, and they had two children, Emmit and Clara. After Henry passed away Nina moved away, and Uncle Bob wasn’t sure what had happened to her after that .

This is basically how the story of the Calder research began for me and that interview took place in the late 1970’s. Bob died in 1982. Subsequent research has proven that the vast majority of Bob’s statements were indeed fact; there were some things that he may have not known or had forgotten over time that I will document in further posts.