Helen Jones & the Rogers Clan

 Both of my father's grandparents were born in Unadilla NY.   About his grandfather after whom he was named, my dad would say, with touch of admiration: In Roscoe, he was known as Good-time Charley.  I guess opposites attract because Helen Rogers Jones was anything but outgoing.  My father told us that his grandmother was a very shy woman; that she never went "to town", even though in photos of Roscoe you can see that Main Street was directly beyond the RR tracks from their house! When I asked How did she go to the grocery store?! my father said either he'd go pick up the groceries or she'd have them delivered.


     The only identified photos of Helen are the tiny one above which shows her with her sister Lovina and the one of a woman sitting outside. In neither photo does she  look at the camera.  Obviously she might have hated having her picture taken.  Yet based on the many photos addressed Dear Aunt Helen and the letters written to her, I think she was a favorite aunt and sister. And I know to my father, she was a favorite grandmother.

Mary Rogers

Helen's mother, Mary Rogers was born in 1838 in Madison NY (at least that's what she told the 1865 census taker).  In 1865 Mary is living with her husband Loren and 3 small children in Norwich NY.  Her name is barely legible on the census form.  It looks like Malina. In the identified photo her right hand appears to be deformed. Despite that, and despite probably being illiterate at the time,  Mary managed to write her own name on the census form. I'll bet she insisted on it!  I admire this photo so much because despite the fact that she was born about 25 years before the Civil War,  raised 8 children, worked hard and was partially disabled and illiterate, at an advanced age she sat proudly in a photography studio to have her picture taken. 

I have NO photos of Mary's husband/Helen's father: Loren Rogers, a marble polisher born in 1825 in Chenango NY.  He is listed as mulatto in the 1880 census. A surprise to me. As I was curious about his roots, I came across a book online: The History of Otsego County NY 1740 - 1878 published in 1878 about the early settlers who came from New England to what was then called "the western wilds of New York State" including one Samuel Rogers who settled in this locality (Unadilla) and raised a  large and respectable family.  The Rogers family included sons and grandsons named Gustavus, Sherman, Charles and Jabez. Could my gr. gr. grandfather have been related to the respectable white Rogers family that helped settle Unadilla?   Ya never know!

The family Loren and Mary Rogers raised  in Norwich NY appears to have been close-knit and well established. I have a letter written to Helen from her sister Lovina who had moved to Arizona with her husband Walton Lewis for health reasons. In the letter they discuss how they are continuing to chip in $$ to pay funeral costs for a brother and their father who had died.

Helen's nephew
Charley West (back row rt.)

In later years, the Rogers family was particularly proud of Helen's sister Hannah's son, Charley West who appears to have gone to college. On the back of photo is written Cooper '13.  I've searched and searched for the school that the photo refers to.    This one of my favorite photographs.  Man, was he good-lookin'!

Hannah Rogers West