Gathering Roots

The Finney/Ireland Roots

Bertha Finney was born in New Canaan, Connecticut, and lived her entire life there. She was the daughter of a local estate caretaker. Through the writing she did late in her life, we get a glimpse into her memories of childhood in this idyllic community.

Bertha was born to George Edward and Augusta (LASSAN) FINNEY.[1] Her father, George, was born in 1876, the son of Charles H. FINNEY, of Norwalk, CT, and Susan FULLER, of New York. George had 3 older and 8 younger siblings.[2]

The FINNEY family has roots in New England back to Colonial times.[3] George’s lineage can be traced to the first settlers to the New World – his father was the great-great grandson of Daniel FINNEY, a Revolutionary War soldier for the state of Massachusetts. These men descended directly from John FINNEY, who arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts as early as 1630 with his mother “Mother Finney,” sister Catherine, and brother Robert – the father likely died on the voyage across the sea. The FINNEY family remained in the Plymouth area before moving to Barnstable, Mass., and eventually Bristol, Rhode Island.[4] It is to the Bristol branch of the FINNEY line that George, and therefore Bertha, was rooted.

Bertha’s mother, Augusta or Gussie LASSAHN, was a German immigrant from Parmen, a small village in Brandenburg, Germany. What is now Eastern Germany around the city of Berlin, Brandenburg was the site of the core of what was the Kingdom of Prussia in the late 1800s. Augusta was baptized in the Evangelical Church in Parmen on November 23, 1873, just a week after her birth.[5] Her parents were Carl Ludwig Ferdinand and Wilhelmine Friederike (KARBERG) LASSAHN. Augusta was the youngest of seven children born to the couple, only the four youngest of which would survive to adulthood.

Augusta emigrated to America without her family as a teenager. She arrived in New York sometime between 1882 and 1888, according to census records, and George and Augusta were married in 1896.

George and Augusta began their life together in the township of Lewisboro, New York, which is just north of the Connecticut border. They owned a home and George supported the family as a farmer, and his teenage brother Joseph lived with the family and helped on the property as a day laborer. The couple welcomed a son, George A., in 1897, and a daughter, Mary, in 1899.[6] In 1903 the couple had a daughter named Mabel, and a year later they had another girl they named Maude.[7] Mabel died sometime before 1910. The 1910 census also indicates that Augusta had two other babies that were born and died sometime between 1900 and 1910.[8] Unfortunately, there is no record of their names on any census or birth documents.

According to the U.S. Federal Census of 1910, the family had moved – now living south across the Connecticut border, renting a property on Smith Ridge Road just outside of the town of New Canaan. Bertha Lucy FINNEY was the first of her brothers and sisters to be born in Connecticut. She was born in September 1909, in the home on Smith Ridge Road, and she lived in that area all her life. Two more boys, Amos (b. 1911) and Stephen (b. 1914), completed the family.[9]

At the turn of the 20^th Century, the area around New Canaan was at the center of Gilded Age expansion – New Yorkers with wealth from railroad and oil investments were finding the counties north of the city an ideal location for their summer estates. Locals who were struggling after the collapse of the clothing manufacturing boom in the area in the late 1900s found themselves as working for the new wealthy elite in the area. Bertha’s father was a caretaker of a local estate, the William H. Cary Estate, in Stamford, and her brother George A. worked there as well. Bertha’s younger brother Stephen would eventually go on to work for Donald F. Crane as a caretaker for Mardon House, the palatial estate Crane had built in 1937 at 785 Smith Ridge Road.[10]

In June of 1918, at the age of 21, Bertha’s oldest brother George A., was drafted into the Army to serve as a solider in the Great War. He left within months for Fort Monroe, Virginia, a mobilization and training center. By November 6, with armistice on the horizon, George lay in the Post Hospital, suffering from pneumonia – likely having caught the “Spanish” Flu as it arrived on crowded boats carrying soldiers arriving home from Europe. On November 15, 1918, at 3:35 a.m., George A. died in the Fort hospital.[11] His body was returned home for burial.

On May 11, 1929, Bertha married Walter Eugene IRELAND[12] in New Canaan. Walter was a local boy, a building construction apprentice who was the descendant of a long line of native New Canaanites. The young couple lived at home with the bride’s family – they are listed in the 1930 U.S. Federal Census in the house with George, Augusta, Maude, Amos and Stephen. By now the FINNEYs own their home on Smith Ridge Road. Here, Bertha gave birth to her first child, a son she named Eugene, in October of 1930. Two more sons would follow, Paul in 1931 and David, much later in 1945.

Augusta L. FINNEY died in 1942, not many years after the death of her son Amos in 1937. Bertha’s father, George FINNEY, lived another fifteen years and died in 1957 at the age of 80. Bertha lived until 1994. She outlived all of her siblings and her husband; Walter died in 1979. When Bertha died she left behind 3 sons, 6 grandchildren, and 7 great grandchildren.

In the last years of her life, Bertha joined an exploratory writing class at the Senior Center and found she enjoyed writing. Following is one of her original poems, published in the New Canaan Advertiser on June 20, 1991.

Happiness and Joy

These are my fervent prayers,
I hope when I get called upstairs
The golden gate will open wide
And when I get a glimpse inside
Wondrous sights will meet my eyes.
It will surely not be a surprise
That they will all be waiting there
With lovely gardens everywhere
Happiness and joy will there abide
And the Lord God will be at my side.

---

[1] U.S. Federal Census 1910, Connecticut, Fairfield, New Canaan, District 0088, Sheet 9b, Dwelling 187, Family 201

[2] U.S. Federal Census 1880, New York, Westchester, Lewisboro, District 105, Page 18, Dwelling 161, Family 173

[3] Finney, Howard. Finney-Phinney families in America: Descendants of John Finney of Plymouth and Barnstable, Mass., and Bristol, R.I., of Samuel Finney of Philadelphia, Pa., and of Robert Finney of New London, Pa. 1957. The William Byrd Press, Inc.

[4] Ibid. Page 1.

[5] Germany, Prussia, Brandenburg and Posen, Select Church Book Duplicates, 1794-1874

[6] U.S. Federal Census 1900, New York, Westchester, Lewisboro, Sheet 9, Dwelling 205, Family 217

[7] New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1905; Election District: A.D. 03 E.D. 03; City: Lewisboro; County: Westchester; Page: 4

[8] U.S. Federal Census 1910, Connecticut, Fairfield, New Canaan, District 0088, Sheet 9b, Dwelling 187, Family 201

[9] U.S. Federal Census 1920, Connecticut, Fairfield, New Canaan, District 0130, Sheet 10, Dwelling 189, Family 192

[10] https://newcanaanite.com/new-canaan-now-then-the-mardon-house-8703609

[11] Virginia Department of Health; Richmond, Virginia; Virginia Deaths, 1912-2014

[12] https://www.ctatatelibrarydata.org/marriage-records/ CT State Library Marriage Records