The Educators

School is back in session here in Medina County.  So let's take a look at a couple of Medina's well known teachers; Eliza Northrop and Ella Canavan.




Both of these ladies have elementary schools named after them. But their career paths were very different.

Eliza Northrop is known as the first teacher in Medina County. The school named after her is located on Reagan Parkway. She taught 23 students in 1817 in a "log meeting house".

Log meeting house similar to the one Eliza would have taught in.

The next year, she became the first bride in Medina County when she married Giles Barnes. As it was the first wedding, everyone was invited and everyone came. The partying when on "rather late", and people went home with bark torches to light their way. Some arrived home "snapped with wine".

Eliza Northrop Elementary School on East Reagan Parkway

Thus ended her career as a teacher. It was the custom at that time, reinforced by school boards, that a married woman could not hold a teaching position. She and Giles had seven children and Eliza died in Medina in 1863.


The NORTHROP family is an old Medina name that goes back to Connecticut.



Ella Canavan was born in Medina 1877 to Anthony and Hellen (Staid) Canavan. His parents were born and married in County Mayo, Ireland. Shortly after the couple married, they immigrated straight to Medina County. Ella's given name on her birth record is "Hellen" Canavan and she was born 4 November 1877 in Medina.  Her father, Anthony, was a section boss for the C.L. & W. railroad. The family lived at 514 West Liberty Street in Medina. He died in 1890 leaving his wife and 6 children to mourn him. In the 1880 Census, she is listed as "Helen" but by the 1900 Census, she is "Ella" and that is the name she was known by for the rest of her life.

"Miss Ella" Canavan with her students (1946 Medinian Yearbook)

After completing high school in Medina, Ella graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in teaching. She started a private kindergarten in 1900. For the next 45+ years, "Miss Ella" was a beloved teacher in the Medina School System. She resigned in 1945 but the outcry from past students and the superintendent of the schools, Mr. Spencer, dictated her return. She later resigned permanently in 1949.

"Miss Ella" passed away in 1964.

Ella Canavan Elementary School on Lawrence Street in Medina, was dedicated to Miss Ella in 1960.

Ella Canavan Elementary School

Two other schools in the Medina City School system are named after teachers: Sidney Fenn Elementary School and Claggett Middle School, named after Howard Claggett. But that is a subject for another blog.

Gloria Brown has just published a new book on the history of the Medina County Schools, titled, The Story of Medina's Schools. Read more about it in this Medina Post article: New Book Chronicles History of Medina Schools.  The Medina County District Libraries will soon have copies available to check out!

SOURCES:
Pioneer History of Medina by N.B. Northrop (1861)
History of Medina by the Medina County Historical Society (1848)
Highlights of Medina  (1966)
Findagrave.com
FamilySearch.org
AncestryLE
Medina County Gazette
The Medina Post

Discover Medina

Have you seen this site?  http://discovermedina.org/  

Created by Shannon Conley's history classes at the Medina High School, this mobile app puts a lot of Medina's history right at your fingertips, literally. Just tap your smart phone or mobile device and away you go!

Every spring, Ms. Conley tasks her students to a historical research project and add it to the app. Focusing on the people, buildings, institutions and places of Medina County, the following are just a few of its offerings:

• Ralph Waite
• Dan's Dogs
• Letha House
• Spring Grove Cemetery
• St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church
• Austin Badger
• The Farmer's Exchange
• Rufus Ferris
• The Medina Square with links to the Medina Court House, Cool Beans Cafe, Ormandy's Trains
• Ella Canavan

The Smucker Building on Public Squareby Owen Ferris 

You can search the site from a box at the top of the page, or just browse the links on the map of Medina. Zoom the map in or out to see more selections.

While assisting the students with their research can be challenging, I always look forward to seeing what they have produced. 

Each topic includes a history, pictures and often, audio  or video snippets too! The app is available at the iOS App Store or at Google Play

Let me know which is your favorite topic!

UPDATE

The students came into the library for several weeks working on their projects. We were happy to help them, but sometimes were overwhelmed by the number of students coming in and the more intense research they were doing.  But, as you can see below, they appreciated our efforts!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Did you know that Corned Beef and Cabbage is an American dish?

The Corned Beef and Cabbage meal that most Americans eat to
celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

In Ireland, beef was way too expensive for the average family. So they ate a lot of pork and particularly liked "rashers" of bacon. When the Irish immigrants arrived in the U.S., they found that even bacon was beyond their budget. But they could afford the cheap cut of beef brisket, along with the root vegetables and cabbages which would be available at the markets in March. And that is how Corned Beef and Cabbage became a uniquely Irish-American dish.


Medina has a long but sketchy history of Irish immigrants coming into the county. Medina never had a large influx of Irish immigrants at any one time.

Chart showing number of Medina County residents who were born in Ireland. 

As the chart shows there was a higher number of Irish born residents in 1850, shortly after the Irish Potato Famine that starved a million of their countrymen and sent a million more to the shores of America. Medina County history books often contain the phrase, "born in Ireland" and "descended from Ireland". Miss Ella Canavan was a daughter of immigrants from County Mayo, Ireland.

And today, we are all a "liitle bit Irish" on St. Patrick's Day. 

And me?  I am at least 1/64th Irish from my 4X Great Grandmother, Fair Sabra Connolly.

Growing up in north central Ohio, we had a tradition of pinching anyone who didn't wear green on St. Patrick's Day. Did any of you have that tradition or another one that you would like to share?

MEMORIAL DAY

People have been honoring their dead for millennia. Ancient Greeks and Romans held days of remembrance, decorating their graves with flowers and holding festivals. In 431 B.C the first recorded tributes to war dead was delivered when the Athenian General, Pericles, praised the sacrifice and bravery of soldiers killed in the Peloponnesian War.

Americans came to the custom much later, during and immediately after the Civil War. In the South, women's groups decorated the graves of Confederate soldiers even before the end of the war. This was not a official day and was held on different days in the different locations.

The club house at the race course where 

Union officers were confined. 

(Photo from the Library of Congress.)

At the very end of the Civil War, members of the U.S. Colored Troops, 1,000 recently feed slaves, and
white citizens gathered to create a new burial ground for 250 Union prisoners of war who had died at a camp near a Charleston, S.C. race track. On May 1, 1865, they came together to sing hymns and distribute flowers upon the new graves.

These activities might have been the inspiration for General John A. Logan, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union veterans' group, to declare in 1868, that May 30 should be a day of commemoration for the over half million soldiers lost in the conflict.

In 1870, Logan wrote a 1,000+ page tome titled,  The National Memorial Day: a Record of Ceremonies Over the Graves of the Union Soldiers, May 29th and 30th, 1869. Pages 866-869 cover Medina's Celebration.


For over a century the unofficial holiday was called Decoration Day, as flowers and banners were used to decorate the graves. Logan himself preferred the term "Memorial Day." In 1964, the name was officially changed to Memorial Day and in 1968, the date was changed to the last Monday in May. It wasn't until 1971 that it became an  official federal holiday.

As noted above, Medina has participated in the commemoration from the start. The 1869 holiday brought close to 3,000 people to the square of the small, sleepy, rural village.The G.A.R led the procession, followed by the ladies, arms full of wreaths and flowers, from the hall to the (Ole Town) cemetery. Soldiers that were buried elsewhere were remembered with wreaths that hung on a large cross in the center. On top of the cross a large circular wreath was placed to honor "him who had charity for all and malice toward none, the Nation's martyred president," Abraham Lincoln. The speeches were long and patriotic and somber.

Excerpt from  The Medina Gazette 4 June 1869 article that described
Medina's first Memorial Day.

The following year, no Decoration Day or Memorial Day was planned, as Medina was still recovering from the fire that devastated the square in April of that year. However...

Medina Gazette 3 June 1870, p.3.

The patriotic and reverential spirit of the citizens would not be denied and an "impromptu" commemoration took place.

Medina Memorial Day Parade circa 1880's
Photo sold on Pinterest

Photo from the 1880's, possibly 1888 when the Soldier's Monument was erected and dedicated.
Friends of the Cemetery newsletter May 2006

In 1884, William McKinley, State Representative.  and future Governor and  President of the United States, was the main speaker. McKinley was also a Civil War Veteran. After the memorials, Major McKinley was treated to a social that featured army songs and music and more speeches.

This photo from 1887 shows part of the Memorial Day festivities. Until at least 1931, part of the schedule was always
conducted in the Park before heading over to the cemetery.
Photo owner Melanie Robinson.

1889 photo from Bob Hyde's Beyond the Storefront web site.

Memorial Day Parade 1890, from Friends of the Cemetery  newsletter, May 2013.
Photo provided by David Kellogg.

The Memorial Day procession entering the gates of Spring Grove Cemetery, circa 1892.
Friends of the Cemetery newsletter, May 2004.

This undated photo shows the parade on the south side of the Park, circa 1897-1906.
Friends of the Cemetery newsletter, May 2015.

Also, circa 1897-1906. Dan Wells died in 1916.
 Note the dirt street and compare it to the street in the next photo dated, 1907.

This photo is clearly dated May 30 1907 and features the band leading the procession.
Note the brick paved street.

The plans for the 1917 Memorial Day Parade were laid out right below
a picture of four Medina "doughboys" on their way to fight in World War I.

After World War I, Memorial Day was expanded to remember all the soldiers who died in service of their country, not just the Civil War veterans.

Horses led the parade in the 1938 Memorial Day Parade.

Miss Ella Canavan escorts her students in this 1945 Memorial Day photo.
Friends of the Cemetery newsletter, May 2012.

The following year...

Medina Gazette 4 June 1946

The caption reads "The cemetery exercises were preceded by one of the largest parades to march on Memorial day in Medina in recent years... especially marked by the large turn-out of uniformed World War II veterans." They walked in memory of their fellow soldiers who never made it home.

Twenty years later, American was engaged in another war and the ceremony again was very poignant.

Medina Gazette,  31 May 1968, page 1.

Medina Gazette,  31 May 1968, page 1.

The U.S. Marine truck often features a re-enactment of the flag raising
on Iwo Jima as in this photo from the May 1987 Memorial Day Parade.

Yes, Medina County has a strong tradition of paying homage to the fallen comrades on Memorial Day.

While this post has focused on the city of Medina's commemorations for brevity, every village and town in
the county hosts Memorial Day Celebrations, as evidenced in the photos from this 30 May 2017 Medina
Gazette article.

I hope to see you at next Monday's Medina Memorial Day Parade and Commemoration. I will be riding with the Medina County Women of the Military to commemorate the over 200 women who have died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Memorial Day Parade 2012

SOURCES:

• Maranzani, Barbara, "8 things You May Not Know About Memorial Day", History, http://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-memorial-day , A&E Television Network, accessed 8 May 2019.
• Kerr, Amanda, "Memorial Day Uncovered; Charleston's 'Martyrs of the Race Course'", The College Today, College of Charleston, 29 May 2017, accessed 10 May 2019.
• Logan, John L. Gen., The National Memorial Day: a Record of Ceremonies Over the Graves of the Union Soldiers, May 29th and 30th, 1869, Washington, D.C. , 1870.
• "Decoration Day",  Medina Gazette, 4 June 1869, page 4.
• "Decoration Day",  Medina Gazette, 3 June 1870, page 3.
• "In Memoriam" , Medina Gazette, 6 June 1884, page 4.
• "Memorial Day Celebration to be Medina's Greatest", Medina Sentinel, 25 May 1917.
• Medina Gazette, 3 June 1938, page 1.
• Medina Gazette,  31 May 1968, page 1.
• Medina Gazette,  26 May 1987, page 1.
• Medina Gazette,  30 May 2017, page 1.
• Beyond the Storefront web site, http://www.medinasquare.org/about-the-project, accessed 8 May 2019.
• Friends of the Cemetery Newsletter, May 2004.
• Friends of the Cemetery Newsletter, May 2007.
• Friends of the Cemetery Newsletter, May 2009.
• Friends of the Cemetery Newsletter, May 2012.
• Friends of the Cemetery Newsletter, May 2013.
• Friends of the Cemetery Newsletter, May 2015.

Aerial Photographs at the Medina Library

This type of aerial photograph was popular in the 1950's and 1960's.
Potential customers were contacted, and if interested, could have an
aerial photograph of their homestead, for a price.

Aerial photographs were briefly mentioned in the 17 December 2015 post on Historic Home Research.

But today we are going to look more closely at the historic aerial photographs in the Franklin Sylvester Room at the Medina Library.

All of the aerial photos belonged to the Natural Resource Conservation Service/Farm Service Agency (FSA) USDA. When they moved their offices back in the seventies they were going to throw them out and the Soil and Water Conservation District saved them. Later, they did not have a place to store them so the Library took them off their hands. The FSA uses on line aerial now and newer images can be purchased at their web site Farm Service Agency

The photos are useful to researchers because they can help pinpoint how a piece of land has been used over the years or narrow down when a particular house or development was constructed. If the scale is large enough, you might be able to make out details of buildings.

As an example, we will take a look at a particular street in the city of Medina - West Park Boulevard - which happens to be where I live.

With this type of research, as with family history research, you want to start with what we know now and work our way into the past.

HOWEVER, today, we will start with a look at what the neighborhood looks like today and then jump to  the oldest record, 1937, and work toward the present.

For comparison, we will look at the street today using Google Maps.

In this screen shot from Google Maps, West Park Blvd. is right above the red line. It is south west of Medina Square and runs between South Court Street on the east, and Oak Street on the west. It is an older tree-lined neighborhood.

This is the satellite view of the area:

The oval in the upper left is the track at the fair grounds. While there is a 2018 copyright date on this photo, I know for certain that it is at least 1 year older than that. If you look at the Street View, it  is from July of 2013.

So that is how the neighborhood looks today.  And with Google Maps you can zoom in very close.

But how did it look in the past? City and county directories and plat maps can only give you a map. The aerial photographs give you a picture!

Aerial Photographs

The Medina Library has Aerial Photograph sets that cover these years:

• 1937
• 1950
• 1958
• 1965
• 1973
• 1979

Notice that there is nothing from the 1940's? America was busy fighting a war from 1941-1945. IF any photographs were taken, it is likely they would have been destroyed or classified, so they couldn't get into enemy hands. More likely, they just weren't taken.

Each set has a Key that is a map of Medina County. Handwritten across the map are numbers that correspond to the appropriate photograph.

Here is the key for the 1937 set:

By looking at the area on Google Maps and comparing it to the Key, we know to look for the

photo marked 12-1087.

The actual photo measures 9 inches X 9 inches, so if you didn't bring a magnifying glass with you, ask to borrow one from the Library.

Here is the area of West Park enlarged:

As you can see, the area is mostly farmland with veryfew landmarks to help orient ourselves.

By careful comparison with current maps, the red line indicates approximately where West Park Blvd. is today.

81 years ago, the City of Medina was concentrated around the Square and a few blocks in any direction. The area that is now in the West Park neighborhood was still part of Montville Township and was predominately farmland. You can even see the dotted patches of the apple orchards that older residents say were in the area.

Here is the same area from the 1950 set of Aerial Photographs:

West Park is a relatively new street here with just a few houses on it. Oak Street, on the western (left) end of West Park has a lot more houses, but seems to lead into an area of construction. There are still plenty of agricultural fields both to the north (above) and the south (below) West Park.

The photograph from the 1958 set:

Nearly all the houses that are currently on West Park are visible in this photo, so we know the approximate dates they were built, 1950-1958.

But notice the gap under the red X?  According to the Medina County Auditor's web site, that house was built in 1966.

There is still a lot of open space east and west of Circle Drive. And look at the open field south of West Park!

Here is part of the key to the 1965 set:

It is only by comparing the surrounding numbers that we are able to make out that the photo for the West Park neighborhood should be marked 3-87.

There aren't a lot of changes visible in this photo, but just out of the frame, below the word "Park" there is a major addition - The Ella Canavan Elementary School. The school opened in 1960.

The 1973 and 1979 sets are 2' X 2' and share the same Key. Originally, someone had handwritten the numbers across the map. Then someone else covered over the handwritten key codes with raised letters. The letters have started falling off, but you can still read the handwriting underneath.

An excerpt from the 1973-79 key indicating that the photo we want is I-6.

Here is a blow up of the West Park neighborhood from the 1973 key:

Notice the development to the north of West Park and to the East of Circle drive. Medina, and this neighborhood, were definitely growing!

This is a blow up from I-6 Photo from the 1979 Set for the West Park Blvd. area with some of the familiar landmarks typed in.

Combine Aerial Photograph research with city and county directories and Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and you can get a pretty detailed picture of the development of neighborhoods and cities.

The U.S. Geologic Survey has historic aerial photographs online at Earth Explorer. However, today this message appeared:


The Department of the Interior and the USGS have requested a Federal Advisory Committee to review USGS’s current free-and-open policy for user access to Landsat data.

This USGS web page provides a synopsis of frequently-asked questions and answers about the ongoing review.