The Grimke Sisters

I would like to introduce you to a website – http://www.thegrimkesisters.com/ - dedicated to the memory of the Grimke sisters – abolitionists and advocates of women’s rights. Lani Peterson and Susan Lenoe do dramatic presentations of the Grimke sisters – mainly in the North-East of the country. I know they would welcome opportunities to go down to the city with so many associations with the Grimkes. Here is the link to the video of them re-enacting the occasion when Angelina was the first woman to address the Massachusetts Legislature in 1836 -

http://www.necn.com/Boston/New-England/Grimke-sisters-antislavery-message-revived-in-Boston/1206408346.html

Nancy Weston Grimke

These photos form part of the Grimke Family Collection at the Moorland Springarn Research Center. They clearly are all of the same subject. Notice the chair, the dress, and the necklace.  

Edward Wilson

Edward “Bill” Wilson was a member of Captain Scott’s last fateful expedition to the South Pole in 1911-1912. Wilson’s mother’s maiden name was Whishaw. He was my grandmother’s first cousin. If he had survived, he would have trained as a Church of England priest. Besides being the doctor on the expedition, he was also an ornithologist, a naturalist and a painter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Adrian_Wilson

http://www.edwardawilson.com/features/worst_journey.shtml

http://www.edwardawilson.com/life/11TNova.shtml

The History of the Whishaw Family

My grandmother’s maiden name was Whishaw. She was born in St.Petersburg, Russia, September 9th 1901. Her father was the British Vice-Consul in the city. He had to become a Russian subject in order to be an agent for British companies in Tsarist Russia. His Russian name was Yacov Vassilievitch. He left his beloved adopted country just before the Bolsheviks came to power. 

A cousin who lives in Ireland asked a historian, Turtle Bunbury, to put together a collection of stories about the Whishaws from their origins in Cheshire to far-flung places such as Russia. The Whishaws were very much a part of the British community in Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution. The records are located in the Brotherton Library at Leeds University.

http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_family/hist_family_whishaw.html

Thomas Fenwick Drayton and Percival Drayton

These two brothers were the sons of William Drayton, Chief Justice in Philadelphia. One, Thomas Fenwick, was a Confederate General, and the other, a captain in the Federal navy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Drayton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Drayton