Ganna "In Woe and Weal"

Ellen with Lynn and Virginia

Relatively speaking...I've been digging around in the past. Old photos, old documents, and paperwork, and Ancestry.com. I decided to write some profiles of the characters I have discovered. First let me introduce you to Ellen O' Sullivan Seifert, my maternal grandmother.

I have been stuck by the tragic life of Ellen O'Sullivan Seifert. Born in Pontneuf, Ottawa on July 17, 1878 to Irish immigrants.  Her father, Owen O’Sullivan, was a wealthy farmer with a “dreadful drinking problem.” Her mother, Jane McCarthy had 10 children, six girls and four boys and only the girls survived. Ellen ends up falling in love with Gustavus Otto Seifert, and he is from a pretty good family.  His grandfather was a German jeweler and owned Seifert Jewelers. But oh dear, when they go to get married there are problems because she is a Catholic and he is a German Methodist. They couldn’t get married in Quebec City where she lived, and had to get married in Ontario where he opened The Imperial Laundry.

Otto Seifert

They had two pretty little girls—Eileen May Seifert (my mother) and two years later Virginia.

Lynn at 6 months

Virginia

Okay, so they are a nice little family unit, and the business is going well, and Otto is kind of cute with that big stash, and he’s busy. Laundry was delivered by horse drawn carriages through the ice, and they lived next to the stables where the horses were kept. One night he comes home from work, goes into the living room to read the paper, kisses his little 8-month-old Virginia goodnight, and next…Ruth the maid shrieks that Otto is dead. He is 44.

In his obituary Otto is described as “a whole hearted self sacrificing gentleman, a fair and honorable competitor, and an affectionate and lovable father and husband.” Of Ellen they say he was “blessed with a true and loyal helpmeet in Mrs. Seifert in weal and woe. In the true wife the husband finds not affection alone, but a companionship and help to which no other can compare.”

It was mostly woe after that for Ellen. Not much weal.  She has a baby and a toddler, her husband dies suddenly and then the evil in-laws tried to leave her with nothing. They decide not to ship the wedding silver from Seifert jewelers. They went to court over the laundry businesses and tried to cut her out of the inheritance. 

But our heroic Ellen fought! She got lawyers and ancient documents in elegant handwriting attest to the cases that she won.

On the farm, father Owen O'Sullivan in hat

Owen, Ellen, Jane, Virginia (others unknown)

So Ellen had to sell the house and the business and go back to the farm in Ottawa.

In photos my mother's little sister Virginia looks like the golden child. The blonde curly hair, the big blue eyes, the faerie-like appearance. She is five years old and has a leaking heart valve, and boom, Virginia dies.

Now Ellen has lost 50 percent of her young family. This ruins Ellen and pretty much my mother too, who for the rest of her life thinks she should have been the one to die. My grandmother rents her clothes and shreds her soul, convinced that God is punishing her because she left the Catholic Church.

Star of the Sea

She moves with two of her spinster sisters to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, a favorite summer getaway for Canadians.  Ellen the Survivor acquires and manages two pieces of property, one a hotel and one a guest house where she lived. This big brown shingled house right on the beach, was called The Star of the Sea, at One Atlantic Avenue.  I spent summers there as a child. The hotel was The Sea Side House, just a block from the ocean.

My mother meanwhile was glamming it up in London Ontario, hanging out with Queenie Freeman the heiress to the Bronfman Seagrams fortune.  And running with this fast crowd she had the misfortune of meeting a handsome cad named Jack Holroyde. They got married and had a son named John. Within no time Jack was cheating on Lynn and she had to divorce him. One Jutta Walters, is named in the divorce documents. Lynn gets full custody of John and moves in with her mom in Old Orchard Beach in 1941.

There you have Ellen, a single working mother, with Lynn, a single working mother raising John, the only child of these two very strong women. And Ellen spent the rest of her life working her ass off. Running two guest properties, enduring World War II, hurricanes, taking care of John while my mother worked, managing the cooking, the cleaning, the eccentric house guests, a stand on the beach that sold hotdogs, the repairs, the upkeep, the shopping.

A Ganna visit

I don’t remember her well at all. She came out to Arizona, where Lynn and my father Peter and I lived, twice for Christmas. I called her Ganna. She called me Bossy Gillis. I was four when she died.

Ganna in Arizona

I can’t help but picture Ellen’s life as somewhat joyless. So much work, so much endless work, all that responsibility, in a dark little town in Maine, haunted by the tragedy of Virginia and Otto and all that Catholic guilt.  But what a strong woman, man, super strong, super hero strong. 

Ellen in Maine

One of the condolence letters to my mother says, “I remember the day we traipsed sand through the house. Your mother never said a thing about sweeping it up. She just served elegant meals and read our tea leaves.”

My mother used to read my tea leaves in high school.  She too served elegant meals. 

So to Ganna, I am sorry you had such sadness in your life. But you raised a great girl who raised me. Lynn Seifert Holroyde Warren was really something else. Thank you.

Ganna