Michael Alexander Cummings

Notes from Dorothy Jane Comings, about her father William's memories of his father, Michael A. Cummings:

Grandfather Comings [Michael Alvin Cummings] was called "the big man". My father [William] never referred to him in any other way. He never called him dad or father when he talked about him. My Grandfather Cummings was a very large person, tall and big framed. He turned up at the Dunbar Farm in Ontario, Canada looking for a job. I guess the farmer took one look at him and decided he would be a good hired hand. He was also a skilled carpenter and his tools were his prized possessions. I remember my father still had them when I was a little girl and I remember asking what M.A.C. meant engraved on the handles of those tools, and dad said those are the big man's tools. He has his initials on all his tools and they were all kept in the best condition possible

Well at the Dunbar Farm he couldn't help but notice the farmer's daughter Pheby Jane Dunbar, called Jane. My father seemed to think she might have been of an age when most girls are already married. She loved music, and had a pump organ, and he had a fine singing voice, so they were married.

They had a little boy named William Alvin, and a few years later a girl named Pheby after her mother. When work got scarce in Canada the family moved across the St. Lawrence River to Massena, New York. Grandfather built a duplex on Maple Street, one side for his family and one side to rent. He built other houses in Massena, and did all kinds of carpenter work. The little organ came from Canada with them, and I remember seeing it when I was a little girl at Aunt Pheby's house.

[She notes that Michael Alvin Cummings died of a stroke.]