John T. McCrea
Feb 2005
Albert - I almost lost this letter, after completing it. I think I saved it to file, and so am attaching that. I hope it reaches you.
Albert - I am writing after spending most of the evening in "Our Folk". I am delighted to have this resource, and that you - and others of your family - have put this together.
I am John T. McCrea, a retired Presbyterian Minister, now living in Winter Park, Florida. My grandparents were Dr. William T. Sloan and Bertha Vandervoort Sloan of Elmwood - later Peoria where I was born in 1922. I have childhood memories of Vandervoorts, Jones, Wileys, and - more distantly (mostly hearing the names of) Douglases, Venns, and others.
I have spend the past 20 years in extensive genealogy and family history. I have visited Elmwood several times in these recent years, and had one marvellous visit to Hastings County, Ontario, where I found a number of "cousins" - both living and in cemeteries. I have Norma Douglas in my data base, as well as hundreds of Jones, Vandervoorts, and branches of both.
I have started my maternal family history, which will be called "Colonial Origins". Your web page shows only one child for William T. and Bertha V. Sloan. She was Eleanor, married Samuel Russell of Peoria in 1905, but died in childbirth in 1908. John Vandervoort Sloan was my "Uncle Jack", and was long a drama critic and editor in Chicago. Never married, died in 1930. And my mother was the 3rd - Helen Bertha Sloan, born in Elmwood 1/28/1889, died Oct 1978 - and married my father, James C. McCrea, in 1911. (four children - I am youngest)
My mother's father - Dr. William T. Sloan - was born in Clarion County, Penna. He died in 1929, my grandmother in 1933.
At the moment I have only one question to place before you, for any light you may have on the subject now or later. I have always been curious about what brought the Jones and Vandervoorts from Hastings County, Ontario, to Elmwood, in and around 1859. What in the world was going on at that time, and why Elmwood?
Thank you again for your good work, and wonderful contribution to the story. John
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