Working for the Kenan Family

433 Locust Street. Photos from Art family archives.

There is a place in my home town called the Kenan Center. In my childhood it was where craft shows and indoor hockey and graduations were held. The land it sits on was offered to the First Prebyterian Church by William Rand Kenan, Jr, a wealthy philanthropist in town. The original house still sits on the grounds, which Kenan owned from 1912-1965. I took pictures before my senior prom inside it and in it's gardens. 

The house was originally known as "The Hill."

In doing my genealogy I discovered that my 2x great-grandparents George Art & Katherine Pils Art worked for Mr. and Mrs. Kenan. My grandmother was a housekeeper and then cook and my grandfather was a chauffeur and then gardener. For a look at the interior and exterior of the house, which has been beautifully maintained, follow this link. 

Kenan wrote extensive memoirs in which he says, "I converted two closets between the two front bedrooms into a grand bath and put in a bath for the servants, also running water in two servant's rooms and modernized all the bathrooms." I liked discovering he thought about the servants' comforts. 

On the website for the House, Natalie Pitzer writes about Kenan, "Educated at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he participated in the discovery of calcium carbide which is the basis for the manufacture of acetylene. Upon graduation from the university, he came to Niagara Falls to build and help operate a calcium carbide plant for the Carbide M manufacturing Company, later known as Union Carbide." His brother-in-law Henry Flagler was the partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil Company. Flagler and Kenan developed railroad enterprises in Florida.

Pitzer also writes, "At the time of his death, [Kenan] was chairman of the Flagler system, which still operates hotels, resorts, land companies and the P & O Steamship lines. Locally, he was the owner and board chairman of the Western Block Company. At the age of 85, he was described as the only millionaire to go to work at 7:00 a.m. (Reputedly, this was a little hard on the help because they were expected to be there as well.)"

He was very generous to my hometown and left a legacy of philanthropy in large and small ways. I like to imagine he was a good man to work for. But enough about him. Let's see what he said about my ancestors! Because he wrote about them in his memoirs. And thanks to the interwebs I was able to read through them on-line. What a treasure!

From the memoir Incidents along the Way: More recollections Vol 3 by William Rand Kenan, Jr. (1872-1965).

In the section titled Chauffeurs Who Have Been Employed By Me, Kenan writes,“After my marriage in April 1904 I found it necessary on some occasions that I have a chauffeur to take Mrs. Kenan and at that time I secured the services of George Art. He was coachman for Mr. & Mrs. Eugene Ashley, who had fine horses, and he wished to get some experience in operating a motor car. The Ashleys were our next-door neighbors and friends of both of us. At that time I had a Peerless touring car of 1904 model.”

This explained to me why there was a photo of the house of the lawyer E. M. Ashley in the Art photo album. According to my notes George was a chauffeur with the family until 1908 when he became a gardener. At some point before his death he became and remained Head Groundskeeper.

In the section My Experience with Gardeners, Kenan writes, “George Art followed Thomas Garret. While not a trained gardener, his work was most satisfactory. His wife was our cook and both lived in the house. Art died on the place during 1937 and his wife continued with us as cook until she had to give up on account of her health and died during the Spring of 1941.”

There is a story about how attached George was to the Kenan dogs he cared for that they keened loudly in the yard outside the Arts' lodgings while he died. True or not it tells me there was a close relationship between my great-great-grandparents and their employers. 

The Arts took a lot of photos. Someone captioned half of them cheekily and the humor of the family is evident in what pictures remain- though I saved those photos for another time. It is an absolute joy to have a sense of them as a family unit. These are photos they took around the Kenan House. It is an honor to share their lives with all of you.

A horse and buggy in the back of the Kenan estate.

A carriage in front of the house. When I was little there was an old hitching post on the street along my walk to school.

Working as a chauffeur for the Kenans. Notice the man holding the cat?

George and one of the Kenan dogs.

Writing on the photo said Ginny Kenan (unknown) & Katherine (Pils) Art.

Labelled Connie Kenan. (Which may have been the dog's name.) 

Staff names are Alvina and Corine or Connie.

Staff.

These resemble candy striper uniforms to me. Possible staff nurses?

George Art. This photo was captioned Boss Man.

The kitchen staff (?). Katherine is second in from the right.

Katherine on the right.

Kenan grounds in winter.

George and Katherine Art in the 1930s.

My 1x great-grandfather Robert Art,my grandmother Patricia Art, and Katherine Art, my 2x great-grandmother.

The only photo not from the Art Family Archives. This is one of Polster's photos of old Lockport, showing the house by an entrance to the Kenan Center grounds.

Tracking the Arths from Germany

I know a lot of my genealogy. A lot. I can take a few branches back to Charlemagne, which I’m grateful for, whether or not there were errors made along the way, which happens. But when you have that many names, lines stretching back centuries, it humbles you with the vast number of people who were all integral to your standing where you are and breathing in the oxygen of this world.

That may be the truest reason why I do what I do.

I have spent my time in recovery on Ancestry, trying to push all the lines I have to their immigrant ancestor. I am hoping to, once I have a list I feel confident about, buy the International tier for a month and try to discover where in their countries these ancestors originated. But until then…

If you read my blog you know that my Grandma Pat passed away this year. I have been spending a lot of time on her family, maybe as a means of processing through our complicated relationship, but also as a means of deepening my connection to our shared ancestors. Her own mother died when she was eight and she didn’t know a lot about her family past her grandparents, the Arts, who worked as groundskeeper and housekeeper of the wealthiest family in my hometown, the Kenans.

             A few years ago I wrote down all of the Arts living in Pendleton who came from Germany, based on the family story I had been told. It was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together but eventually I figured out the relations between the separate families and then hit the jackpot when I discovered through an early census that they lived on three separate plots, all next to each other. It validated my theory that they were relations who had likely come over and settled together.

             Then my mom told me, after speaking to her mother, that my Grandma always believed she was related to the Pendleton Arts. We didn’t have this conversation until after my Grandma passed. I wish I could have told her that they were all her cousins. But her story was more verification for my theory.

            The earliest census I found them on was 1855 where Adam Art is married to Catherine (uncertain) and is the Head of his own household, on a plot beside Wilhemina Wernersbach, living with her other two children Jacob Art and George Art. As Adam was only four years older than the boys in her house, I assumed that he was Wilhemina’s older son.

            I also found an arrival note from 1853 stating that Wilhemina Wernersbach came to America from Germany. But not with her children. Was the card incomplete?

            And where was her husband? Did he not come with them to America?

Ahhh?! Oh to go back in time and act as my own census taker. “Please, who were your mum and dad and what was her family name?”

And then… a few weeks ago I discovered a new hint on Ancestry that led to a second new hint that answered some of my questions. A hand-written card from 1836, stating a departure from Antwerp, Belgium. “Georg Arth, 35 and Wilhelmina Wernersbach, 37 and Adam, 7 and Jacob 3, and Georg, 3 mo.”

The family emigrated to America together. Proof!

That hint gave me a census for 1850 which lists Wilhemina Wernersbach and her children Adam, Jacob, and George, living in the household of Jacob and Martha Vandnspoch. Based on age, I am guessing he is her brother. Maybe a cousin, but she did name a child of hers, born in Germany, after him (feels like a safe assumption). So I say brother. And if you say both last names out loud, they are variants of the same name. In America, census takers often spelled them out phonetically.

            The census of 1850 does not list whether she is widowed or not. Not all census’ asked the pertinent questions that genealogists want to know. But perhaps Wilhemina’s return visit to Germany was related to the loss of her husband George. Or a parental loss. But it was one she undertook alone.

            It's a little thing, but I feel a step closer to her, to Wilhemina, and to the clan of Arths from Hesse-Darmstadt Germany.