Oscar (52 Ancestors - #8)

This week I knew I’d like to write about Oscar or Martha (Dauwer) Bruynell. I was sorting through all the information I have on my husband’s grandfather when I came across the most detailed obituary I’ve ever read. It was a wonderful story and tribute to Oscar. My husband’s late uncle, Robert N. Bruynell, previous Town Clerk of Braintree, had penned this obit upon Oscar’s death back in 1989. I’ve re-ordered the obituary’s facts, added a few additional dates and a few more facts, but total credit for this story goes to Uncle Bob who so obviously loved his dad Oscar.

Grandpa Oscar in 1971

Oscar William Bruynell was born on July 9th, 1905 in Chelsea, Massachusetts as Oscar William Bruyneel. He was the son of Belgian immigrants Casmir Bruyneel and Emelie A. VanCouwenberghe. Casmir was a cigar maker and Emelie worked for a time as a chocolate dipper in a candy factory. Casmir and Emelie went their separate ways when Oscar was but five. After Casmir left, Emelie left Chelsea and Oscar grew up in South Boston and stayed there until he moved to Braintree, Massachusetts in 1969.

In his younger days, Oscar, was an active athlete and was especially good at track. He ran track in high school. His cousin John Stephan, who was a few years younger than Oscar, said Oscar was sometimes required to babysit for him. The two of them liked the open streetcars operated by the Boston Elevated Railway and made several trips to Lake Street in Newton to board the open cars for Norumbega Park.

Oscar graduated from Boston High School of Commerce and worked as an electrician at the Fore River Ship Yard in Quincy, MA and at an aircraft plant in Baltimore. During WWII he also did electrical work for the Mobeco Sign Company of Watertown. Because of his earlier training he was able to take care of minor electrical chores around his home. One of his memorable earlier jobs was installing sound systems in movie theatres when “talkies” came in! Oscar worked as a collector at the MBTA Red Line stations for several years retiring in 1970, before the Red Line was extended to the South Shore.

He loved to putter in his kitchen according to his son Bob. Oscar was an excellent cook. In fact, he and John Stephan, at one time, operated boarding houses on Cape Cod for civilian workers at Fort Devens. They provided their meals and packed them a lunch to take on the job each day.

Oscar married the love of his life, Martha Dauwer, on a cold fall day, November 15, 1924. It was at this time that Oscar legally changed his name from Bruyneel to Bruynell. Together they had five children, Bob, Kenneth, William, Shirley and Marjorie. William died in 1928 as a baby. Sadly, Martha died shortly thereafter leaving Oscar widowed when their oldest was 7 years old. After these two losses, Oscar’s main concern for the rest of his life was to keep his family as close together, despite the fact that they were all sent to live with different relatives so Oscar could make a living. Thankfully Oscar’s grandmother, Wilhelmina (Feller) VanCouwenberghe helped keep his family together.

Wilhemina and Grandpa

Obviously there were rough times for the family during the Great Depression when Oscar was on Welfare and had to line up to receive milk and other good distributed by the U.S. Government. Thankfully there were even more good times and the benefit of a close family. Oscar often took his youngsters fishing at Head House Pier and on their way home they would stop for french fries or soda at Kelly’s Landing or Joe’s Spa or maybe drop in at Stahl’s, a South Boston icecream and candy shoppe. Oscar’s hobby really was watching his children grow up. He often said how proud he was that all four grew up without causing problems.

Oscar spent a lot of time around boats and fishing with his cousin John. Once he retired he enjoyed deep sea fishing and sometimes went out of Boston or Plymouth on boats which provided gear needed to go after flounder or other fish.

Oscar never remarried after Martha’s death, but he found a nice friend in Annie Pitts. He and Annie would often attend family events together. They were a very sweet couple and Oscar always had a smile on his face when they were together!

Grandpa Oscar and Agnes Moloney

Also after his retirement he enjoyed going to the races at Raynham/Taunton Dog Track with his daughter, Marjorie (Conroy) who was a librarian at Tuft’s Library in Weymouth. Saturday night brought him poker games which were a regular favorite feature of his later life when he and a half a dozen of his friends formed an informal club and rotated the game amongst their homes.

Oscar enjoyed occasional visits to Fenway Park and one of these games inclulded Carl Yastrzemski’s next-to-last game. Oscar, Leo and Bob said that was an emotional game for all of them. In later life he enjoyed watching the Red Sox on television if the game didn’ t start too late! He would say that the day games were fine but he would fall asleep during the late night contests! Oscar was also a fan of television quiz shows.

Sunday morning often saw him appearing at his son Bob’s house with the newspaper to visit the grand children while sharing coffee and donuts.

Oscar was described as a quiet man who helped people when he could. He was a practical joker as well when he used to tell everybody that he had 14 grandchildren and 18 great grandchilldren with two more on the way!

Oscar William Bruynell, 83, of East Braintree, a retired electrician and retired MBTA collector died on June 21st, 1989 at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth.

Original Obituary written by Uncle Bob about his Father Oscar 

Note: If Oscar was alive today, I’d ask him more about the boarding house that he and his cousin John ran down the Cape. This was something I found interesting.

Emelie (VanCauwenberge) Bruyneel Stevens Jones (52 Ancestors - #3)

Emelie (Van Cauwenberge) Bruyneel Stevens Jones was born around 1888 in Belgium, probably like her brother Frank in or near the town of Geraardsbergen, also known as "Gramont"or "Grammont", in East Flanders. She immigrated to the US around 1904, probably with her mother and siblings to join her father. Along with other Dutch and Flemish immigrants who worked as cigarmakers, the Van Cauwenberges had lived for a few years in the Hackney section of London, where they had been listed in the 1901 England census. Emelie's father worked in London and later in Boston as a cigar-maker.   Emelie's father, Emiel (or Emil) Van Cauwenberge, immigrated to the US in 1903, and her mother and siblings followed in June 1904 on the SS "Kroonland", but Emelie was not listed on that passenger list. She may have come separately, or perhaps was inadvertently omitted from the list.



Emily VanCauwenberge (taken on April 11th, 1953 @ Margie (Bruynell) and John Conroy's wedding)

Before a Justice of the Peace in May 1905 in Chelsea, MA, Emelie married her first husband, fellow Belgian immigrant Casimir Bruyneel, whose later records show he was from the same town as the Van Cauwenberges, Grammont/Geraardsbergen, in East Flanders. On the marriage record she was listed as a servant, and at only 17 had to have permission from her father. The marriage resulted in one child, Oscar, born a scant two months later, but Emelie and Casimir were divorced before the 1910 census, when she and her son resided with her parents. Emelie then worked as a chocolate dipper.

Emily's marriage to Casimir Bruyneel

Just three months after the census was taken, in July 1910 Emelie married for the second time (again before a JP), to Belgian immigrant cigarmaker Louis Stevens, who had been boarding with her family. Tragically, Louis Stevens died in April 1913 from endocarditis, at the Rutland State Sanatorium where he had been treated for three months for pulmonary tuberculosis; he was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston. No evidence was found of children from their marriage.

Emily's Marriage to Louis Stevens

In September 1918 Emelie married a third and final time (again before a JP), to London-born Harry Jones. Despite his British name, Harry was the son of Dutch parents, Hendrikus and Johanna (Versluis) Fukker, who at his birth were living in the Mile End Old Town section of London's East End. Young Harry had arrived in New York with his mother and several siblings in February 1903 from Liverpool on the SS "Umbria", joining his father, a cigar-maker born in Rotterdam in 1872. The Fukkers had married and had a first child in Holland before moving to England, where several of their children were born from 1896-1901. Harry's birth (as Henry Fukker) was registered in 1898. The elder Henry Fukker moved to Boston in August 1902, preceding his family just as Emelie's father did. Given their similar origins and profession it is very likely the two families knew each other in England and certainly in Boston. By 1910 the Fukkers (or Jones as they were called in the census, though still Fukker in the Boston City Directory) lived in the 14th Ward, on Burnham Place. Harry's father formally changed the family name when he applied for US citizenship in 1915; as a minor, Harry was included in Henry's naturalization. Therefore, when Emelie married Harry in 1918, by the laws of the time, she automatically became a US citizen, and never had to apply in her own right.

At the 1940 census Emelie (now Emily) and Harry lived in South Boston on East Fifth St.; Harry worked as a driver for a coal company. In their household was their son, Harry, Jr. aged 12, and Emily's widowed son, Oscar Bruynell (here confusingly called Harry's "son-in-law" and named Oscar "Brown").

When Emily's third husband, Harry, died in November 1963 they lived at 48 Newport St. in Dorchester. Harry died of heart disease and emphysema, and was laid to rest in a plot he (or possibly his son, Harry Jones, Jr.) had purchased at Mt. Hope Cemetery. When Emily died two years later in the Hogdon Nursing Home in Roxbury of pneumonia and a stroke she was buried in the same plot (by the FF O'Brien Funeral Home). Her son, Oscar Bruynell, was the informant for the death certificate. He said her parents were "Wilhelmina Feller" and "Emil Van" (using a surname spelling similar to that adopted by Emily's siblings Francis Vann and Marie W. (Vann) Morton). Although Emily had only two children, she left at least 7 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.

Note: If I met Emily today, I would ask her to introduce me to her son, Harry Jones.  I would also like to know what it was like to immigrate from Belgium to England to the U.S. 

Written by Liz Barnett (8/2013)