My Troublemakers in the Catholic Protectory Records

The one of the few Anglicized names among my direct ancestors is that of my maternal grandfather's family, the Desjardins. They changed their surname to Gardner. Yeah, not close in spelling at all but the translation of the French name, Desjardins, means "from the gardens." Likely that means that somewhere back in time I descend from some Frenchman with a green thumb. I didn't get that gene.

My great-great grandfather, Damas Desjardins, came to the United States from Montreal, Quebec, Canada in the early 1880s. I don't have any information about his immigration but according to my great-great grandmother's naturalization papers, the couple married on May 14, 1884 in New York City, so Damas was in New York before then.

His obituary was published in the Patchogue Advance in October of 1911, and it is one of my favorite pieces of genealogical documentation that I have found to date because it documents this otherwise unofficial surname change. It states that "Mr. Desjardins was known to his friends here by the name of Gardiner, an Anglicization of his French family name." That is the evidence I have to back up my grandfather's statement that the surname was changed. There seems to be no official documentation of a legal name change for them which, based on the time period is not surprising. Names could be pretty fluid back before Social Security. 

My great grandpa, Damas's son, was born Almond Desjardins in Long Island City, Queens County, New York on September 21, 1891. He died on February 11, 1946 in the same county but by that time was known as Albert Gardner. Delving into the life of Almond/Albert, I came to learn that he had many brushes with the law in his youth. In the articles dating from 1906 & 1907, he is identified by multiple names and spellings; A. Gardner, Almond Gardener, and Almond Gardner.

One such article appeared on November 8, 1907 in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, titled "Patchogue Lad in Trouble. He is Charged with Stealing Brass from Vacant Houses in L.I. City." It reads as follows:

Almond Gardener, 16 years old of Patchogue L.I. was arrested by the Long Island City police last night, and in back of his arrest is an interesting story.

Young Gardener comes of a good family. He has an industrious brother living in Long Island City, and when he left Patchogue several days ago, he took up his residence with that brother. On Wednesday night two unoccupied frame houses, 86 and 88 Main street, Long Island City were broken into and damage done to the extent of $200. The damage was due to the desire of the marauders to get possession of certain pieces of brass in the plumbing work.

Unfortunately for the guilty parties, their first visit to the buildings resulted so successfully that they returned last night, and one of them was caught. The prisoner described himself as Almond Gardener of Patchogue. As Detectives Hufman and Ebbers of the Astoria Precinct have discovered where the brass pieces were sold for 55 cents, they expect to arrest Gardener's companion.

The police say that about a year ago Gardener and another boy named James Kidney were found sleeping in buildings near the rug works in Astoria. They were arrested and committed to the Catholic Protectory. Mrs. Gardener finally got her boy out of the institution and also succeeded in having his companion released. The Gardener family had resided in Astoria but moved to Patchogue before the boys were let out. They were taken to Patchogue from the Protectory, but after behaving themselves for about four months, the pair cut loose. Kidney was the first one to incur the displeasure of Mrs. Gardener and he was sent away. In three weeks young Gardener packed up his grip and started out to find a place with more life and go in it, and now he awaits the action of the courts.

"Hmm," I wondered, "What is this Catholic Protectory that Al and his friend were sent to?"

Another article from November 8, 1907, appeared in The Brooklyn Daily Star, and went into a little more detail:

Gardner Fell From Grace

Patchogue was too Slow so he came back to L.I. City

And got into trouble again - charged with burglary in Astoria

Tale of a big-Hearted Mother who tried to reform two bad boys and what came of her efforts

About thirty cents in cash and the prospect of a term in some penal institution is the reward Almond Gardner gets for taking the leading part in a burglary in Astoria on Wednesday night that resulted in theft of over $35 worth of lead pipe and plumbing fixtures and damage to the building which $100 will not pay for.

Gardner is the lad who was sent away to the Catholic Protectory in Manhattan about a year ago because he and another boy, James Kidney, persisted in sleeping out night in the stables and outhouses, rather than stay in the soft, warm beds that their homes provided.

Gardner comes [...illegible...] the good influence of a comfortable home, and seems to prefer the excitement of the under-world to obeying his parents.

After he had been in the Protectory for a few months, his folks moved from Astoria to Patchogue, and his mother, thinking that life in a country village would offer fewer temptations to evil doing, managed to ensure his release from the institution.

Took Both Boys Home

When she went over to Manhattan to get her boy, her attention was attracted to young Kidney, who looked pale and emaciated as the result of his confinement. Her mother's heart was touched and she begged to be allowed to take Kidney home with her too. Kidney has no mother having been living with an aunt.

She took both boys with her to Patchogue and set to work to reform them. Kidney lasted about four months before he fell from grace. He could not stain the strain any longer, so he stole from his benefactor and fled out into the alluring world.

Gardner Lasted Longer

Gardner clung to the paths of rectitude with commendable tenacity up to about three weeks ago. Then he begged to be allowed to come to Long Island City to visit his brother who lives on Eighth street. Once here he became fascinated with the old life again, and began to consort with evil companions.

The climax came when he and another boy, who has not yet been arrested, tore boards off one of the rear windows of the houses at 86 and 88 Main street and forced an entrance. They tipped out all the lead pipe they could carry and took away six sewer traps. This stuff they sold to a junk dealer for fifty-five cents. It cost new about $25. A plumber will probably charge over $100 to repair the damage.

Not content with this escapade, the boys came back later on to get more loot but they were frightened away. Detectives Hufman and Ebers were put on their trail with the result that Gardner was caught Thursday evening.

He readily confessed to the part he played in the burglary and said that it was no use for him to try to be good, anyway. He was arraigned in the Fifth street police court this Friday and held for the Grand Jury at $1000 bail.

This mention of the Catholic Protectory prompted me to go looking for more information about that institution. The New York City Catholic Protectory was an orphanage / juvenile delinquency program run by the Catholic Church in an effort to instill morality and ethics in children. They took in children who were under the age of 14 years, either with the consent of their parents or guardians for the well-being of the children because of the families' financial situation, or the child was committed to the institution by order of a New York City magistrate due to truancy, vagrancy, or homeless.

A few years ago, I uncovered records available in FamilySearch.org titled Residents' Identification Cards, ca. 1880-1938. The record set was authored by The Society for the Protection of Destitute Roman Catholic Children of New York City. Lot of words to remember. However, it is indeed the records for what was the New York City Catholic Protectory. At one time, it was also known as The Lincoln Hall School in Lincolndale, New York. 

In addition to being tricky title to find in the FamilySearch Card Catalog, it is also un-indexed dataset; meaning you can't search it, you have to browse through it image by image. The images are relatively well organized alphabetically by the child's surname but as I described above, Great Grandpa had some issues with his surname. 

The first time I went looking for him in the record set I did not find him. I thought maybe he was under a different last name. Essentially I gave up. Earlier this year, I decided to take another look. Actually, I went looking for his friend James Kidney first. I hadn't looked for him before. I figured if I could find James in there, Al had to be in there. And sure enough - - - there on Film #1851431 (Fucelli, Mario - Gargano, Louis) - Image Group #7856562 - Images #2862 & 2863 out of the 2916 images of that digitized real of microfilm is my great grandfather listed as Almand Gardner.

"Ungovernable." That seems right. Might be genetic but I digress...

Some children's files are, of course, much larger and reveal much more detail about them and their family's circumstances. The interesting note for me is that is the April 8, 1907 note that states "Sent on trial to friend, Miss Emily Gardner, Patchogue, L.I." The same note is on James Kidney's card. Now Al's mother's name was Malvina, not Emily. Even his card shows his mother as Alvina - close. I don't know who Emily Gardner is. Perhaps it's just a human error or maybe it was Al's oldest sister, Emma. Although, the articles do say the boys were released to Al's mother. Hmm. With every answer comes more questions.

Ungovernable. Ha. Love that.

Great-great Uncle Hector Desjardins, a Resident of The Craig Colony for Epileptics

Sometime in the late 1980s, I interviewed my maternal grandfather about his ancestry. He was kind of tight-lipped about his family history. Thus, I didn't really dig into his line of my family tree until after he passed away in 2004 but then some of the details from that conversation return to me whenever I uncover a new family document. One detail that floats back to me from time to time is my grandfather mentioning that he had an uncle who was epileptic. Now back in the day, epilepsy had a real social stigma; people thought those seizures were caused by possession by the Devil. 

Grandpa didn't recall his uncle's name when we spoke but years later, I came across a 1910 U.S. Federal Census record for a Hector Desjardins, a resident at The Craig Colony for Epileptics in Sonyea, Livingston County, New York. I was pretty convinced that this was my grandfather's uncle but it was not, until recently, that I ordered Hector's death record from Groveland, NY. With the record in hand, I know this for sure this was grandpa's uncle even though it lacks a mother or father's name on the certificate. I know it's the uncle because the death certificate states that both parents were born in Canada but that Hector was born in New York City. True! True! And true! But the big give away is that this Hector Des Gardner, another variant spelling of the surname Desjardins which was eventually anglicized to Gardner, was buried in Patchogue, NY. That is where his parents are buried. The family plot has a small foot-stone that reads simply H.D. That's gotta be Hector.

Hector was 30 years old at the time of his death from ileus colitis and bronchopneumonia. The contributory cause of death is listed as epilepsy. According to the death certificate, Hector had been a resident of the Craig Colony for Epileptics for 11 years, 6 months, and 16 days. That places his arrival at the Colony as February 12, 1906. Hector would have been about 19 years old. I don't have an exact day of birth for him; I know it was November in either 1885 or 1886. The death record say 1886.

The doctor who signed his death certificate on August 31, 1917 was Dr. G. Kirby Collier of Sonyea, NY. The "G." stood for George. Dr. Collier was an influential physician in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. In his obituary, special to the New York Times, which appeared on June 19, 1954 and reads as follows:

Rochester, N. Y., June 19 - Dr. G. Kirby Collier, researcher in alcoholism and one of the early specialists in neuropsychiatry, died here yesterday in his home here at the age of 75.

Born in Wilmington, N.C., Dr. Collier was graduated from the University of Maryland in 1900. In 1902 he joined the staff of Craig Colony for Epileptics at Sonyea, N. Y. He came to Rochester in 1919 and specialized in epilepsy, alcoholism and child psychiatry.

Dr. Collier was a past president of the Monroe County Medical Society, the American Psyhiatric Association, the League of Internationale Contre L'Epilepsie and a diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

He leaves his wife, Mrs. Clara Collier, and two daughters, Mrs. Stephen T. Crary of Northampton, Mass., and Miss Elizabeth Collier.

Alcoholism was a real issue for Hector's brother, Albert, who also died in residency at a hospital but not for epilepsy; different condition all together. In any case, I wonder how frequently Hector saw his family, if at all. Patchogue is in Suffolk County on Long Island, about 6 hours from where the Craig Colony was located. 

A new semester has just begun at the college I work for. I look at the incoming freshmen and their parents all anxious about sending their 18 year-olds away for 4 years. And here Hector was being sent away at 19 for what would be the rest his short life. So sad.

I also wonder about the conditions he lived in and why a hospital resident dies so young. Was he really treated well there?

Here is a photo I found online of the hospital at Craig Colony which may very well have been the building in which Hector died.

Unidentified creator. “Defectives, Epileptics: United States. New York. Sonyea. Craig Colony: Craig Colony, Sonyea, N.Y. ; Social Museum Collection; Hospital and Laboratory.” Digital image. CURIOSity Collections, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Social Museum Collection, circa 1900. Accessed May 19, 2023. https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/ids:43314459$1i

Review: Meet the Hitlers

I finally got the opportunity to watch the 2014 documentary, Meet the Hitlers. The film  examines the relationship between name and identity without much commentary. 

The director, Matthew Ogens, introduces the viewer to a variety of real life characters including several individuals with the name 'Hitler.' There is a man named Romano-Lukas Hitler, a European of some ilk who believes himself to be a relative of the Nazi leader. There is also an elderly gentleman, Gene Hitler, an American with no known connection to the infamous Adolph Hitler. One subject is a teenage girl who has the surname Hittler who explains that her peers do not react to the name quite the same way as grown-ups do. There is also the white supremacists from New Jersey who several years ago made the news for naming their son Adolph Hitler. Another subject is a name born in Ecuador named Hitler Gutierrez. Then there are those subjects who do not bear the name Hitler themselves but explore the image, identity, and ancestry of the Adolph Hitler. Their stories allow you to draw your own conclusions about name and identity.

Writer, David Gardner, is in pursuit of last known descendants of Adolph Hitler's half-brother. Gardner wrote the 2001 book, The Last of the Hitlers: The story of Adolf Hitler's British nephew and the amazing pact to make sure his genes die out. That British half-brother's child moved to America and settled in a town on Long Island called Patchogue; the same town some of my relatives settled in. This may not be surprising but the Hitlers changed their surname. The author protects the family's anonymity. My Patchogue relatives also changed their name. They changed it from Desjardins to Gardner; no known relation to the author introduced here though.

It is fascinating to see how each subject reacts to and connects with the name Hitler and how having such an infamous name affects them. It documents a wide variety of human responses; there are those who find it humorous, those who shrug it off as a mere coincidence of no consequence and take great pride in their ancestry, some subjects have a horrific admiration for the Nazi leader, and then others have buried their genetic relationship to infamous Hitler.

Two things struck me. One was when the director asked Gene Hitler why it was important to him to keep his name. why didn't he change it. Gene gave it some thought and said his name was important to him because his parents gave it to him.

The other moving moment for me was the ending. David Gardner, unable to interview the Hitlers of Patchoque, decided to interview a Holocaust survivor residing in Patchogue. At one point the author asks the man how he would feel knowing that descendants of Adolph Hitler live near him. The kindly Jewish man shrugs a bit and says that he does not hold the author responsible for the acts of his ancestors; these Hitlers of Patchogue are not responsible for the horrors their ancestor committed.

That is kind of the message I try to put across in this blog. 

I am the great granddaughter of a schizophrenic, a great-great granddaughter of a man who committed a murder-suicide, one of my 5th great grandfathers was a Colonel at the Battle of Saratoga which was the turning point of the American Revolution, and I'm a descendant of Charlemagne (supposedly, I can't document it just yet but aren't we all descendants of Charlemagne? We each have something like 131,072 15th great-grandparents.). 

Although I believe you should take pride in your existence and owe some reverence to those who came before you, I also do not think the sins of the father are the sins of the son. If you ask me, which I acknowledge you did not, those who wear their surname like a badge of honor ought to do something on their own to be proud of. Those people who came before you, those whose DNA you carry within your own cells, they were just people. Good. Bad. Ugly. And Beautiful. 

Brush with the Law Proves Location and Name Change

When I started my genealogy research 22 years ago, I began on my father's side of the family trying to unpuzzle for myself some of the modern day connections I did not quite understand. I stayed on that side of the family for a very long time. I did not truly dig into my mother's lineage until after my grandpa passed away in 2004; about 9 years ago.

One of the big obstacles in researching my mother's side has been the fact that there was a surname change. My Great-great-grandfather, Damas Desjardins, French-Canadian by birth, Anglicized his name to Thomas Gardner. I suspect this was in order to obtain more work and avoid ethnic discrimination. I cannot find anything official about the name change and back then, before Social Security, it was easier to assume an identity.

In some records he appears as Damas Desjardins, in others as Thomas Gardner, in others as Damas Gardner, and still others as Thomas Desjardins. To make matters even more confusing, his offspring indiscriminately used either last name as well. His son, my great grandfather, Almond Desjardins, like his father also chose to use a more American sounding first name; Albert. Almond/Albert was indeed born in the United States; his name just sounded very French.

This flip-flopping of names not only makes constructing searches challenging it makes proving anything a daunting task. I often hear myself saying, "Well, yes, I know it says that but it is the same man." Anything I can find that helps me to solidify this family's surname change is precious to me.

Mind you, this branch of the family has also had some run ins with the law in nearly every generation. Which brings me to an article from the Brooklyn Daily Star titled "Sing Sing for John Miller: L.I. City Man who Swindled Magnus Larsen Sent Up on Suspended Sentence - Five Others Given a Chance to Reform" from December 21, 1907. In it is mentioned Almond Gardner. The first time I have seen my great grandfather listed with his very French-sounding birth name and Anglicized surname. In addition to showing his name in that way, it also documents that the family moved. What a gem of a find!!

It reads as follows:

"Almond Gardner, a former Astoria boy whose folks now live at Patchogue, took a quantity of lead pipe and brass sewer traps from a house belonging to George B. Ruthman on Main street last November. He is only seventeen years old and has promised to behave."

Interestingly enough, 24 years later, Almond's baby brother, Damas Jr. is also arrested for burglarizing a house while in his teens. That time, though, the house was out in Patchoque and Damas Jr. stole an electric pump with his soon-to-be brother-in-law, Elbert King. I found that in a March 31, 1931 article in the Patchogue Advance titled "Young Men Arrested for Stealing Pump." Tsk, tsk, tsk. What is with these boys?

Had Almond not committed his juvenile crime, though, I might never have had such concrete proof that he was known by variations of the names Almond Desjardins and Albert Gardner. Additionally, I knew the family had moved to Patchoque between the 1900 and 1910 censuses. This article, though, helps me to narrow the date of the family's move to after November 1906, when the crime was committed, and before December 1907, when the article was written.