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Jesse A. Turner's
letter regarding his mother
Maria Christina Dingman and the Plass family

 

September 11, 1967

Name withheld – unknown if alive
San Diego.  California

Dear Mrs.  -------:

My sister1 has turned over to me your letter addressed to my father2 dated August 14, 1967.  My father passed away in November of 1947.  My grandfather was Mills Dingman and he had a sister Maria Dingman.  I am not sure, but I think they were the only children.

Maria Dingman married William Plass and had no children.  Mills Dingman, my grandfather on my mother's side, had 10 children and named my mother after his sister. Mrs. Plass, Maria Christina Dingman.    As a little girl, my mother went to live with my grandfather's sister, Mrs. Plass and was raised by Mrs. Plass in Stuyvesant Falls3. New York.  

My mother was called Wrighty Dingman.  She was born in Shortman4, New York on March 4, 1880.  She died June 28, 1967 and is buried in Brookside Cemetery in Englewood, New Jersey.

Incidentally,  Shortman. New York. I think they changed the name since then, was an ancestor of ours.  It seems that a William Shortman, and I am not sure of the first name William, printed articles and pamphlets in London during the American Revolutionary War condemning the crown and the people of England and fighting the colonists, settled in Massachusetts.  He barely escaped with his life and we are decedents from him.

Maria Plass, Mills Dingman's sister died in 1918 or 1919.  I was about 10 years old at the time.  Some years later, when I was in my early teens, I remember our family coming across a letter from a relative who had started out with his family for the gold rash in about 1847-48 from the area of Hudson, New York.  These letters went into detail about the preparations for the covered wagon journey and the hardships and mishaps along the way.  They never did reach the gold fields of California but settled on a ranch in Arizona.  I do not remember their names and the letters have been lost. 

Neither my brothers nor sisters who are all aware of these letters know what happened to them.

Incidentally, I have a married daughter, withheld, who lives in Altadena, California which is the Los Angeles area.  I just returned from a visit with her.

If you wish any further details, I shall be pleased to do what-ever I can to get them for you.5

Sincerely yours.

  Jesse Turner

Executive Vice President


1.   Either Grace or Hulda
2. Harold Klieny Turner
3. Near the Hudson River south of Albany, NY
4. This town has not been found.  Using MapQuest I found a reference to Shortman but it appears to be in the middle of a filed with no road :-)
The town, I would think, would be near Stuyvesant Falls or West Ghent of the Hudson River area.
5. This letter was in response from a letter of query as to the Dingman family.  Names included were Chance, Cassel, and Dingman.  Apprantley this person's grandmother was a cousin to Mills Dingman.  Searching I found references that pointed to Kate Dingman Chambers and a brother William R. Dingman of Niantic, Macon Co., IL  This could be the father of Mills Dingman. I have not calculated dates to these people as yet so the relationship to Mills is not confirmed

1.

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