My Adema Cousins - Part 1

by Glenn N. Holliman

                                         The scene from the Lake Erie cottage of the Adema family in Canada not far from Niagara Falls

This past July, my wife, Barbara, and I once again visited the Lake Erie cottage of Bob and Gay Adema. Bob and I share common maternal great grandparents, George Washington and Frances Wilson Osborne (1851-1940). Frankie was with her father, Isaac Wilson (1822-1864) when he was cruelly bushwhacked and killed on his farm in Ashe County, North Carolina, yet another victim of the Civil War.

Left to right, Barb, Gayle, Rob and Bob. Rob Adema, son of Bob and Gayle, makes his home in Buffalo, New York, where Adema families have lived since the late 1800s, immigrating from Holland.

My wife, Barb, whose maiden name is Long, is also a native of the Buffalo area, having been born and raised in Lockport, New York.

Bob' mother, Gladys Osborne Adema (1913 - 2003) and my mother, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick (1923-2015) were first cousins.

Gladys was the daughter of Bascom(b) and Doris Kruger Osborne (1891-1923).  In earlier blogs, I have told the story of the untimely death of Doris at age 32, the mother of three young children - Bacomb, Doris and Gladys Osborne.

While together, Bob and Rob pulled out some family artifacts and photographs.  Here are some we examined.

Right in 1937 are Bob's parents, Howard M. (1909-1984) and Gladys Osborne Adema at Niagara Falls. Howard had met Gladys in Damascus, Virginia while working with the Civilian Conservation Corp during the middle 1930s as part of President Franklin  Roosevelt's New Deal.  After that service, Howard returned to Buffalo, NY with his new bride and entered the family heating and furnace business.

Left, the first child of Howard and Gladys, Margaret 'Peg"Adema Noeltner, held in 1937 by her grandmother Amelia Margaret "Millie" Berkhausen Adema, b 1874. 

After the birth of Bob,  Alan Adema,was born in  in Buffalo, Howard and Gladys third child.  Below right in 1951, Alan on his sister's Peg's shoulders, next to their grandfather, Bascomb Osborne at Niagara Falls.

Below left, Howard and Gladys Osborne Adema as newly weds in the middle 1930s.

Next Posting, more on the Adema cousins!

For additional information on Stansbery, Wilson, Greer, Osborne, Adema, Hollimans, Boones, Wilcoxsons and many associated families, please visit www.bholliman.com, a virtual archive of manuscripts and records of these families.

Some Families of Damascus, Virginia, Part IX

By Glenn N. Holliman


This is the ninth in a series of stories with photographs of  my great uncle and aunt, Dave and Pearl Osborne Wright and their many years of life in Damascus, Virginia.  Pearl is the grand daughter of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson of Ashe County, North Carolina. As ever I am grateful to Phyllis Mink, daughter of Doris Osborne Akers,  Bob and Rob Adema, descendants of Gladys Osborne Adema and Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, a niece of Pearl Osborne Wright and this writer's mother, for making many of the historical photographs available.

One will find information on persons recorded here at Ancestry.com in the Gallery sections.

In Baltimore, Maryland in 1922, a young mother (right) named Dora Kruger Osborne died suddenly and unexpectedly.  She left her husband, Bascomb Osborne, a native of Ashe County, North Carolina and brother of Pearl Osborne Wright, with three young children.  Bascomb, devastated by the loss his wife, was not able to care appropriately for the son and two daughters.  Pearl and Dave Wright generously took them in and raised them as their own in Damascus, Virginia.

The oldest, Bascomb K. Osborne, born 1910, joined the U.S. Navy as an enlisted man in 1927, and rose to the rank of Lt. Commander by the time of retirement in the early 1950s.

The oldest daughter was Doris Osborne (1913-1980)
seen here on the right standing in front of the new high school which was finished in the late 1920s.  Doris would meet and marry a new chemist in town who eventually ran the Beaver Works, a chemical dye company.

Below is Elmer F. Akers, who courted Doris Osborne, won her hand, and together they raised a family in Damascus.