Tag: historical

Historic Charleston, South Carolina: A Journey into my Family’s Past

KING STREET NEAR BATTERY PARK

Over the holiday season, I went on a search for information on my father’s ancestors who first landed in historical Charleston, South Carolina, and while doing this, I also fell in love with this beautiful seaside city full of charm, history and grace. My family has a long history of being involved with Charleston, but I never experienced the city as an adult and had not been back in Charleston in over 30+ years. Though the trip started as a search for a family past, it quickly became a chance to discover this unique and lovely city and explore all it has to offer.

MAP OF PENINSULA CHARLESTON

While we all have multiple grandparents and great grandparents, my family name comes from a gentleman by the name of Thomas Carey, my great-great grandfather who landed in Charleston in the late 1840s. He escaped Ireland with his three brothers and came to the New World seeking a better life; a life free of hunger, oppression and cultural prejudice at the hands of their British masters at the end of the great Irish Potato Famine. The other three brothers ended up landing in New York City and their histories and whereabouts are lost to the mists of time. For some unknown reason Thomas decided to try his luck in Charleston, and in doing so he left behind him possible starvation, grinding poverty, religious and cultural prejudice and possible genocide by a Protestant British government against their Irish Catholic subjects in the United Kingdom.

ONE OF THE MANY GRAVEYARDS LOCATED IN THE PENINSULA

Now times were not any easier for my great-great grandfather in Charleston than they were in the United Kingdom. On a social scale in Pre-Civil War Charleston, Irish Catholics were only slightly above freed African Americans and slaves. First of all they were Catholic in a Protestant city, most of the time they were not well educated, and popular assumptions seemed that the only things that they could do well was farm, drink and sing songs. Yet this is not a story of how the Irish progressed in American society, this is the story of the Carey family and how they progressed in Charleston. This journey into the past  was also not a story of who married whom and where they’re buried, this is more story of how the Carey family lived and worked in historical Charleston.

FRENCH HUGUENOT CHURCH NEXT TO THOMAS CAREY’S HOUSE

Little is known about what part of Ireland Thomas came from and what his skill set may have been. All I managed to find out is that not long after he arrived he was somehow able to purchase a three-story building at 25 Queen St. just behind the French Huguenot Church on Church St. where he opened a bar on the ground floor and his family lived on the two top floors. Along the way he also became a stereotypical Irish cop walking a beat in Charleston and later a night watchman.

25 QUEEN STREET, THOMAS CAREY’S HOME

Thomas is remarkable for two things in terms of family history. He managed to fight in all five battles that took place around Charleston during the Civil War including the attack on Fort Sumter and the battle that was made famous in the movie “Glory” starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. He also started a tradition that would last for four generations of Carey men only marrying Irish Catholic girls. Because of this my DNA according to Ancestry.com is 60% Irish even though the Carey family has been here for over four generations. My father was the first Carey male to marry someone who was not of Irish descent and outside the Catholic faith when he married my mother who was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister.

157 KING STREET, JAMES JOHN CAREY’S BUSINESS AND HOME

Thomas married a good Irish Catholic girl, and they had several children including a son by the name of James John who is my great grandfather. James John grew up in Charleston and became a very successful business owner who made his fortune installing gas lighting in people’s homes and along the streets of Charleston. He was so successful that he became an Alderman which was unusual for an Irish Catholic to accomplish in Charleston at that time. With his success he bought a building at 157 King St. which was the most prominent street in Charleston. His plumbing and pipe business was located on the first floor and his family lived above.  He and his wife Jennie Devine had three daughters and one son. The son was George Thomas Carey, my grandfather. James John passed away very young, age 36.

SIDE VIEW OF JAMES JOHN CAREY’S HOME

My grandfather was raised in Charleston and met my grandmother, Anna Sylveria Reynolds there. At some point George and Sylveria moved to Charlotte, NC, and raised five children there. In leaving Charleston, George became the last Carey male namesake to live in Charleston. His three sisters stayed in the Charleston area, and I have many cousins that live there. However when I was very young an estrangement occurred between my mother and my father’s brothers and sisters. What caused it, why it happened no one can remember, yet it was there. So when my father passed when I was in my early teens, the Carey family connections just faded into the background of my life. Now many years later I’m trying to pick up some of those threads and this trip to Charleston was part of that family journey.

REYNOLDS HOME IN CHARLESTON

Yet, the weekend was more than old addresses and digging into family history. Charleston is a beautiful historic and very walkable city filled with restaurants, bars, shops, art galleries, theaters and music venues. The center historical section of Charleston is the Peninsula which has the Ashley River on one side and the Cooper River on the other. At its widest the peninsula is 15 blocks wide and south of Mary Street, it is 20 blocks to world famous Battery Park, where the Civil War started. Contained within those blocks is a very walkable section of the city where you can reach any part in less than 30 minutes on foot and it contains history that dates back to the early 1700s. Charlestonians revel in their food, their art, their architecture, culture and history. Some of that history is very dark especially if you go to the Old Slave Mart Museum which is located in the actual old slave market, a market that was active until the end of the Civil War.

CANNON AT BATTERY PARK, CHARLESTON

I found this part of modern day Charleston, which is very tourist friendly to be diverse, culturally rich, very upscale and friendly in its southern hospitality. My partner and I snagged a very comfortable and affordable hotel room at the Hampton Inn which is part of the Hilton chain of hotels on the corner of Meeting and John Streets. The hotel also served a delicious breakfast in the morning for free. There are more expensive and luxurious hotels within the center section of Charleston, but this was perfect for us by meeting our budget and we were one block away from King Street which is the economic tourist center of the city.

CHARLESTON CITY MARKET, 4 BLOCKS LONG OF SHOPPING

And we walked a lot tracking down old family addresses, going to art galleries and finding wonderful off the beaten track restaurants and neighborhood bars. There was still so more stuff to do, and we didn’t even leave the peninsula to go to the other really enjoyable areas of Charleston. For a journey into the historical past and food that is the equal of New Orleans, I cannot recommend Charleston enough. We are looking forward to going back soon!

ONE OF THE MANY HISTORIC CHURCHES ON THE PENINSULA

Special Thanks to my second cousins Cliff Roberts and Charles Cansler, my first cousin Carey Roberts, and my sister Emilie Allen for the family information and history, and Laraine Smith for walking over 30 miles in two days as we wandered the streets of Charleston.  

copyright 2023 – CAREYON CREATIVE,LLC., Atlanta, GA.

Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden – Pasadena

On a wonderfully beautiful Los Angeles Sunday, my friend and I drove up the 110 and got off on Orange Grove Ave., and turned left toward Arlington Drive. We were going to visit and hopefully experience the calm and beauty of the Japanese Gardens.

HISTORY OF THE GARDENS

The property was originally owned by Charles and Ellamae Storrier Stearns, who were wealthy patrons of the arts and cultural heavyweights in the civic life of Pasadena. In 1935, they hired a famous Japanese landscape designer named Kinzuchi Fujii to construct a formal Japanese garden with a Tea House on their 2 acre lot. Now most formal Japanese gardens are rather small in square feet but a chance to create such a huge canvas for his work was something he could not pass up.

So starting in 1935 until 1942 when he was taken away to an interment camp for the Japanese during World War II, Fujii worked on the garden for the Stearns. During the 7 years of construction, the Stearns would invest more than 150,000 dollars into the project. First Fujii had to remove two tennis courts and dig out areas for the two koi ponds and waterfall. By moving tons of dirt around the lot, he was able to construct a hill area where there was none, two large ponds, and areas for the tea house and contemplation. The garden was so unusual that it became locally famous. It is the only example of a formal Japanese garden created before the war that still exists in Southern California. However, like the rest of Fujii’s gardens in the Los Angeles area which are all gone now, things did not look good for this garden site.

Ellamae died in 1949, and the mansion and property were put up for auction. Gamelia Haddad Poulsen, an art/antiques dealer, attended the auction for the Storrier Stearns estate. She was hoping only to buy two Louis XV chairs. However, when she realized that no one was bidding on the whole property, she impulsively made a bid. To her amazement she ended up as the owner of the entire estate. She sold off parts of the estate but kept the garden and an area to build a new home for her family.

In 1975,  Caltrans used eminent domain to seize a strip of property on the easternmost side of the garden for use in building the extension of the 710 freeway. An easement was also taken, since expired, to create an access road for trucks to use during the future construction of the freeway. It would have sliced directly through the middle of the garden.

Believing that the garden was lost, Gamelia let it fall into disrepair and sold off some of the valuable artifacts. The final blow came when the teahouse burned down under mysterious circumstances in 1981. Gamelia died in 1985 at which time the garden ownership passed to her son and daughter-in-law, Jim and Connie Haddad.

The garden continued to languish until 1990, when the Haddad’s decided to restore the garden to its former glory. Progress was slow through 2005 until Dr. Takeo Uesugi, professor emeritus of landscape design at Cal-Poly Pomona and one of the leading experts on Japanese garden design in the United States, undertook the management of the garden restoration. To ensure the restoration was accurate, Dr. Uesugi followed Kinzuchi Fujii’s original plans, documents and photographs taken during its first construction.

On February 15, 2005, the restored garden was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and listed as a California Historical Landmark on the California Register of Historic places. Additionally, the garden was recently awarded a Historic Preservation Award, in a ceremony in the garden, by the City of Pasadena.

NOW

The Haddads still maintain the garden and it has become a culture center in Pasadena for meetings, weddings, events, and afternoon strolls. It now features an 11 foot high entrance, two large interconnected ponds, two water falls including a 12 foot high that falls into the larger pond, and a new tea house to replace the one that burned down in 1981.

The garden is open every Thursday from 10 AM to 4 PM. The fee is $10 for adults and $7.50 for children 12 and under. They feature different jazz musicians on the 2nd Sunday Jazz series (check the website – www.japanesegardenpasadena.com for the schedule) and they are also open the last Sunday of every month. During the 2nd and 4th Thursday, they offer a Japanese Tea Service where you learn the history and meaning of the traditional Tea service. See the website or call for reservations.

ADDED BONUS

Right across the street on Arlington is Pasadena’s Arlington Park. Such a beautiful well-maintained public park filled with old and mature California friendly plants which make up quiet and restful areas all through the park. Well worth the drive just to see this park for free. But the combination of Japanese culture and California plants, it a beautiful day not to miss.

Enjoy!!

(Much of the information in this article was taken from the Storrier Stearns website, www.japanesegardenpasadena.com.)