He grew up there until he moved to NY to help dig the Erie canal around 1820 and then went on to sail the Great Lakes out of Buffalo. Late in his life he married Melvina Abbott a young widow (probably a Civil War widow?) and lived and worked on a canal barge. Grandma Lillie Mae & her brother John were born and lived on the barge until Edward died when Lillie was only 5 years old. About 10 years later Melvina also died so Lillie and John went to live with her mother's family in Coburg, Ontario were she eventually met and married William Hamilton.

William’s family had migrated from Scotland to Ireland. Around the time, in Scotland, when the ‘noble’ landowners were evicting their tenants off their lands so that they could raise sheep. Thousands of the displaced Scotsman were forced to migrate to Ireland, Canada, America and even to Australia.

In Ireland - William’s grandfather, James Robert married an Irish girl. Around the time of the Irish famine, they migrated to Canada with their son John Robert when he was still a young boy. John Robert grew up in Canada, fell in love with and married Elizabeth Kendrick. Grandpa William T. was their first of many children. He grew up and eventually spotted Lillie, who was still living in Canada, singing in a church choir. They fell in love, were married and had many children, one of whom was our dad - Charles Henry. They moved to America to raise their family (Morris, Illinois and then to Buffalo, NY) were work was more plentiful at the time.

In the meantime back in Alsace, which was then a part of Germany, great grandfather Louis Sr. had become involved with a younger woman, Agatha Krieger. They were married and had a son Harry. They decided to start out fresh so they came to America with Harry around 1887 leaving the rest of the family behind. Shortly after that Louie Jr. who was now 20 years old - not wanting to be drafted in the German army decided to also go to America with his younger brother, Joseph who was only 14 or 15 at the time.

Louie’s girlfriend Barbara Bogner who was in love with him followed him to America the next year. They were married in Buffalo, in Our Lady of Lourdes Church, October 15, 1891. They were living at 86 Herman St when Lucille (Mom) and Wilamena ( Minnie or Wilma) twins were born May 24,1899.

Both Charles and Lucille grew up in Buffalo but did not know each other until they met at a party. Aunt Betty who also worked for Larkins Co. with Mom may have introduced them. They fell in love and went together for five years before they got married June 22, 1927. Mom would not agree to marry Dad until he agreed bring us kids up Catholic, he finally agreed to that as long as we didn’t go to Catholic school.

I was born in 3/25/29, Marilyn was born 2/11/31 and Barbara was born 7/25/36. It took a lot of different people and unique circumstances, coming together from Europe - many years to make our existence possible but I’m glad they did. A lot of people had to “fall in love” to make us and this story is just the “tip of the iceberg”. We were very lucky to have such great parents and ancestors and to be able to live in this time and place in the history of the world. This is only half of our children’s story - they have a whole other story from our partners side to add - but this is our unique story.

Don Hamilton 1999

Growing up around Caz-Park

THE FREEMAN FAMILY IN AMERICA

HAMILTON FAMILY TREE

HAMILTON-FREEMAN UNION

THE TROMETER FAMILY TREE

Pat Labarbera/Barbara Hamilton Family Tree.

Don Hamilton/Dolores Belert Family Tree.

John Elwell Sr./Marilyn Hamilton Family Tree.