I am the only daughter of my parents so when it came to naming me there was a bit of give and take between my father and mother.  My mother had wanted to name me, Ann Mary or “Amy” for short.  My mother’s birth name was Mary Ann after her mother Mary Gertrude.  My understanding is that my mother had prevailed until my father asked that I be named Catharine after his mother Catharine Rogers Cooke. So, they settled on Catharine Mary to satisfy both grandmothers. 

I didn’t realize that the spelling was unusual until I started attending grade school and, in the ensuing years, I’ve seen my name misspelled in all kinds of variations but the most frequent (besides starting with the dreaded K) was Catherine. I went by Cathy for most of my life so how my name was spelled on school, medical, hiring and legal documents varied greatly and it is the single most frequent correction I have to make…that is replacing the “e” with an “a”.  I will frequently exaggerate my name by saying Cath-A-rine. 

My grandmother, Catharine Rogers Cooke Noice Barrows or “Grandby” lived in Winter Park, Florida with her daughter’s family and near her other son’s family close by.  I lived with my parents in Wilmington, Delaware.  Granby was very generous and would pay for transportation down to Florida about once a year so that all three of her children and their families could reconnect.  I remember the first time I flew on an airplane was on one of those trips.  I also remember 16-hour car rides from Wilmington to Winter Park with my two older brothers and my parents.  I always looked forward to all the South of the Border signs along I-95 indicating the border between North and South Carolina. 

Outside of those trips, I really don’t have many memories of Grandby.  I remember her calling our house from time to time and her wanting to talk to me.  I was always mortified to talk to a woman I hardly knew and answer the run of the mill questions like “How was school” and “What do you want to be when you grow up”.  As a seven- or eight-year-old this was incredibly awkward and I would shy away.  I regretted my shying away from that phone when Granby passed away in her sleep when I was eight years old. My father attended the funeral in Winter Park with the rest of my Florida family.  

My grandmother bequeathed me a beautiful sapphire and diamond ring which was given to her by her grandmother, Catharine Amanda Rogers Sedgwick Stelle. I think this was the first time I realized that my name was more than just my grandmother’s name, it was also my great, great grandmother’s name. This ring was from my namesakes from the late 1800’s. There was some vague story about her second husband Lewis Stelle being a silk manufacturer but outside of that and this stunning ring, I knew nothing.

My father started doing genealogy research after he retired and wrote and catalogued extensively about the various family lines like Noice, Sedgwick, Rogers, Benson and Cooke.  I was given a copy of the “Orange” book along with my brothers.  It contained the Noice genealogy and, sigh….I never read it (except for the parts about me).  When I decided to embark on a trip to the United Kingdom and Ireland in March of 2023, I decided I had better read the book since most of my father’s ancestors were from Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. It was right before I left for Glasgow, that I signed up for ancestry.com to see if I could find specific locals of the folks my father was unable to find before he died in 2019.  Well, Ancestry is a treasure trove of information including pictures of my more famous relatives like Major General John Sedgwick (the highest ranking general to die in the Civil War).

Around my daughter’s wedding in July of 2023, I was able to connect with my other female Noice cousin, Christie.  She still lives in the home that my Granby owned back in the late 1960’s and her mother, my Aunt Harriett, also had a treasure trove of family memorabilia.  Between Ancestry and my deceased aunt and grandmother’s photographs and documents, my father’s meticulous research, my cousin Christie and I have been able to piece together the history of the prior Catharines in the family.  So, I traveled to Winter Park a few weeks ago and we spent several hours putting the puzzle together. 

My grandmother, Catharine Rogers Cooke, was born in Chicago and grew up in Paterson NJ until she married at the age of 25 my grandfather, Benson Noice Sr. Her mother dies in the following year, her father died six months after that and my father Benson Noice Jr. was born one month after that. So, within two years she was married, orphaned and a mother. She had two more children and then my grandfather left. She survived the Great Depression through the benevolence of her Aunt Sadie, who was the only sister of her mother and a wealthy widow. After one more marriage to Harold Barrow who left her after a horrific car accident in which he was the driver, she eventually landed in Winter Park with her daughter, Harriet and close to her son, Jim. She was a woman of great resilience and my father always said that she gave unconditional love.  I aspire to have her grit. I was fortunate that on my recent trip to Winter Park, I was able to see her grave for the first time although seeing my name etched in stone was a bit of a wakeup call.

My great, great grandmother, Catharine Amanda Rogers, was born and grew up in Cornwall, CT. She married John Benjamin Sedgwick at the age of 20.  John was the nephew of Major General John Sedgwick.  Catharine and John had a daughter Harriett Sedgwick (my great grandmother) and she was pregnant with Sarah Adam Sedgwick when John passed away at the age of 27. Catharine was left with two babies and widowed. She lived with her widowed mother for many years. She married Lewis Stelle (President L. R. Stelle & Sons’ Sauquoit Silk Manufacturing Company) nine years later at the age of 34 (he was 63) and lived in Paris, NY and Paterson, NJ. Paris is close to Utica NY and many of the photos we could not identify were taken in Utica.  This helped close the loop on many of the photos being my great, great grandmother Catharine.  The silk industry ended up moving towards Paterson and both Lewis Stelle and Catharine are buried in Paterson. A photo of her tombstone shows the correct spelling of her name as Catharine.

In all my research the most surprising find was that Catharine Rebecca Clark was born in Cornwall CT.  This was my 3rd great grandmother and the original “Catharine” with an “a” in my family line.  Many of the documents have her name spelled with an “e” including a small booklet printed upon her death that has it spelled with an “e”.  But there on the tombstone which was on Ancestry was her name spelled Catharine.  This was a complete surprise.  She married Noah Rodgers V (yes…there are 4 Noah’s before him) and almost all of them are from Cornwall.  As written in the booklet, she was the eldest of eleven children and was born, raised and died in Cornwall. Her mother passed away after she married and she returned to her childhood home to help raise her siblings. One was an infant and she helped until her father remarried. Both the Clark and Rogers Family were some of the original inhabitants of Cornwall and the Rogers line traces back to the Mayflower. 

Tracing my name back has been a fascinating adventure.  I really have taken stock that all of my preceding Catharines have been resilient, resourceful, and fearless mothers.  I’m proud to be a Catharine and aspire to persevere as my ancestors have.