LST NAME-SOME SIBLINGS’ COUSINS
MCWILLIAMS
MCCARRON
ULMSCHNEIDER
HEALY
MCWILLIAMS and MCCARRON are two of the last names of the siblings’ cousins on their mother’s side and ULMSCHNEIDER and HEALY are last names of some of the siblings’ paternal cousins.
For anyone (maybe not of the sibling generation) looking for more information to connect dots; the McWilliams family, headed by Ken and Eileen took up residence next door to The 461 in the late 1950s. Ken Jr. (aka Beaver or Beav) is retired and I believe living on the east coast again (somewhere in the VA or Carolinas area) after many years out west. Kathy is retired as well and lives in North Carolina. I have to note that Kathy worked for years in an office at a prison in NC – Eileen worked at RI’s ACI (Adult Correctional Institution – prison) for years. Ann is a postal carrier in Warwick and lives in Westerly on a farm with her husband, three kids, and a lot of farm animals. Ken Sr. was a postal carrier in NK.
As for the McCarrons, they are the children of Fred and Jane McCarron. Eldest (I think) of the three children is Diane who is a fairly regular participant on “Hillman Hikes” and I’ll say a “founding member” of a family book club. Fred and Jane also had two boys, Michael and Fred Jr. Fred Jr passed away in 2015.
All the Healy and Ulmschneider cousins are male. Judy and Dick Healy had three sons, Mark, Jeff, and David. I don’t really know much about what any of them are up to these days. I believe one is a retired SK police officer and one works at a company that specializes in accessibility products. I reached out to Judy when I started this project and invited her to follow along. If she’s seeing this maybe she can fill us in. Carol and Ron Ulmscheider also had three boys, Michael, Tim, and William (Billy). Tim is trying to revive his mother’s efforts to gather extended family at least once a year. Carol long-hosted a family Christmas party at her home on Pine Hill Road in Wakefield. Since schedules fill up quickly at Christmas time, Tim has opted to host a family cookout at his home in Wakefield on September 30.
MORE FAMILIES SIBS GREW UP WITH
FORD
BLAIS
BONNEY
SHERLOCK
The January 18, 2025 puzzle featured some families the siblings grew up with. In that grouping I included the Quigley, Hathaway, Morgan and Mayo families. This week’s puzzle presents a few more families the siblings grew up with.
The FORD family lived on School Street (first house on the right after the cemetery when entering School Street from Post Road). They had a bunch of kids (9 maybe? George, Bobby, Tommy, Mike, Fran, Patty, Kathy, Louise, Mary). I think they maybe lived next door to The 461 before moving to School Street – someone correct me on this if I’m wrong. If they didn’t, how did we know them? Anyway, there were a bunch of them and I found a few Hillman family pics with some Fords in them but I also found the image below (on the left) of Mr. and Mrs. Ford (George and Isabel) at Gil and Claire’s 25th wedding anniversary party.
The BLAIS family (also many kids – 8 of them) lived next door to The 461 for as long as I can remember. Mrs. Blais is still there in fact. The picture below (on the right) of some of them is from Norma and Chris’ wedding. It was taken in the parking lot of the church and it includes, Mrs. Blais, Mary and Peter (married then, but later divorced), Steve and Charlene. Charlene married Lou Pugliese who some might realize made special appearances at some Hillman Christmas parties.
Another family maybe not as large as either the Ford or Blais families were, was the BONNEY family. If I remember correctly they lived in the little ranch house next to Woodland Greens (now Kings Cross) golf course.
And then there’s the SHERLOCK family. There were quite a few of them as well, I’m guessing maybe five. They lived on the corner of Old Baptist and Surrey Lane. Among them were twins Pat and Pam who I claim cut the ribbon for the opening ceremony of Stony Lane Elementary School despite my inability to verify.
BLUE ANGELS SIGS/JAN’S SCHOOL PICTURE
DEWENTER
CAMPANELLA
MCCAUGHEY
KNOTT
A few years ago I took apart a gallery frame my mother had hanging in the house filled with various school pictures of her kids. Much to my surprise, a photo of Jan revealed a number of signatures on the back. I was really confused by this, not knowing who the people were that signed this photo or why they may have signed the photo. My first thought, short-lived as it was, was that it something akin to signing friends’ report card envelopes at the end of a school year but I quickly realized the “signatures” weren’t the half-block print/half-cursive combinations of elementary-aged kids but the slightly more refined chicken-scratch signatures of adults. My next thought was that the signatures would be those of teachers. Most of the names I could make out were male, and while not unheard of, most elementary teachers at the time were female.
So you may be thinking, so what, while even give it anymore thought? Well, one of the signatures caught my attention in particular; that of Zeb KNOTT. I was really curious to say the least.
Bear with me now… remember the RI Air National Guard Air Show?
Yeah, it’s probably gone forever now. The show ran at Quonset from the 1970s through 2018. There were a few years after 2018 that it looked for a while that the show would happen but each time plans were eventually scrapped. The United States Navy’s flight demonstration squad (commissioned in 1946, for those interested in that type of tidbit) typically alternated headlining the shows with the Thunderbirds of the United States Air Force and the Blue Angels made some appearances at precursor shows in Quonset in the 1950s and 1960s. At lease once Gil took some set of his offspring over to the base to catch one of these shows. There is one family story of Bob nearly getting hit by a bus at the event. Hillman siblings may have interacted with members of the Blue Angels at their schools as squad members routinely visited schools near show locations as part of community outreach efforts.
Getting back to Jan’s photo and Zebulon’s signature on the back. I did some poking around and it turns out that Zebulon Knott was the squadron leader for the Blue Angles in 1959/1960. It is unclear to me if the signatures on the photo were obtained in a school visit or at an actual air show. I think when I talked to Jan about this she thought at the air show but I might have that wrong.
Additional signatures on Jan’s photo include LCDR John DEWENTER, Capt. Doug MCCAUGHEY, and LT Anton “Skip” CAMPANELLA. The photo had to have been signed sometime between November 1959 and June 1960. Knott became the squadron leader in November 1959, squad member Skip Campanella died in a training crash in Florida on June 14, 1960.
Here’s a link to a video interview with Zebulon Knott. It’s long and I don’t expect anyone to watch it but I did find some of it interesting.
FLO&ESTHER’S 1ST PREZ ELECTION
CHARLIE AND CAL
LA FOLLETTE/WHEELER
DAVIS/BRYAN
FOURTH
Ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. However, neither Flo nor Esther was 21 in 1920 so therefore the two remained ineligible to vote that year. Four years later however, they could have voted for the winning ticket of Calvin (CAL) Coolidge and Charles (CHARLIE) Dawes or the Democratic ticket of John DAVIS and Charles BRYAN. The 1924 presidential election also offered a third party ticket (the Progressive Party), of Robert LA FOLLETTE and Burton WHEELER.
Coolidge had been vice president under Warren G. Harding and became president in 1923 upon Harding’s unexpected death. Calvin Coolidge’s 1924 campaign slogan was “Keep Cool and Keep Coolidge.” Not exactly Don Draper-quality marketing there but I guess he really didn’t need it as his victory in the election was a landslide. The slogan of the Davis/Bryan ticket was, “Honest Days With Davis,” in attempt to remind the voting public of the tremendous Teapot Dome scandal associated with the Harding administration. I don’t know that the La Follette/Wheeler ticket had a slogan but they did run on a platform of nationalizing cigarette factories. Interesting.
I do wonder if either Flo or Esther did vote in the 1924 election however as it is recorded as an election with a low voter turn out.
5 responses to “June 14, 2025 – Puzzle Discussion”
Not my best puzzle – I’m away and had to rush to finish it before leaving.
I got it in four! Although…the last two were just a shot in the dark! Have fun wherever you are!
I had to get out once and come back in.
Last two like Norm was a guessing game.
The Fords did live next door for a while, that is how mom and dad met them. I do think that they lived in the apartment upstairs though, not the main house, hence the need for a bigger house. They next moved to Ewing Rd off of School Street before up sizing again to School Street.
Nancy, sorry I never posted to last week’s puzzle, got busy and forgot.
To answer a question you left for me at my house,the 6 little girls were students of Jan’s. The only girls in her class that year if I remember correctly. I volunteered to go on a field trip to the Science Museum with them. I think I was falling asleep on the bus on the ride home. They ran me ragged!
Karen, no problem. You can go in a do an old puzzle anytime if you want. There is a “past puzzles” button at the upper right corner of each puzzle discussion page/post.