Ellen McCauley was born in Fermanagh County, Northern Ireland, August 17,1886.  She emigrated to the United States in 1901 According to three different censes entries. She left Northern Ireland before her Father Bernard McCauley died in 1902. I have not yet found records of her passage or with whom she stayed upon her arrival, but I will continue to search and review other family records for clues.         

John Aunchman was born in Vermont, USA in 1883 where he lived on a dairy farm.  The Aunchman family were of English descent. His occupation was listed as a salesperson and from what I gathered, came to New York to sell milk and other farm produce to markets in New York City.  Lost to time is the story of how they met, but considering they both lived in New York City, and each had the experience of living a rural farm life, one could see that they had that common bond.

The earliest and definitive record I can find is a 1910 censes Which indicates that they had been married for three years and living in the Bronx at 230 153^rd Street.  At this time Gladys, their first child, was two years old and Vincent, their second child, was just a few months old.  Below is a copy of Glady’s Aunchman’s birth certificate.

The 1915 NY census shows the Aunchman family still living in the Bronx, NY, but now on Park Avenue.  There is an addition to the family.  Eileen Aunchman was born in 1912 and lived four short years succumbing to Pneumonia and meningitis in 1916.  What a tragic loss for the family.  Below is the Death Certificate for the young Eileen Aunchman.

Perhaps it was this event that led the family to move from New York city as examining the 1920’s U.S. Censes we find the family living in Pittsford, near Rutland Vermont.  John Aunchman is working at a milking station.

The family then finds their way to Rensselaer, NY by 1925 as recorded in the New York State census.  The four family members, John, Ellen and their children Gladys and Vincent are living at 27 Aiken Avenue.  They again appear in the 1930’s United State Censes living at 21 Nelson Avenue in the City of Rensselaer.  John Aunchman is working as a shipper in a local Bakery.  Vincent, aged 20, is living at home with his parents. Gladys Froelich, as I remember her, was one of the warmest and sincerely caring adults I remember from my youth.  As a young adult I thought she had worked at the Huyck’s textile mill in Rensselaer before getting married, but the 1925 census indicates at age 16 she worked at a drug factory so she may have worked at the Sterling Winthrop lab in Rensselaer.  Robert was very mechanically inclined able to repair anything from radios to refrigerators.  Gladys and Robert Froehlich married in 1929 and set up house on second avenue in Albany, Robert Vincent Frolich, their son, was born in 1932.  Robert’s middle name, Vincent, after his uncle, Vincent.  My father would go camping with both Robert Senior and Robert Junior and sparked my father’s (Bernard McCauley IV) interest in the Boy Scouts of America, along with camping and outdoor activities.

This is a Family Photo from I believe the mid 1940’s.  From left to right; Gladys Froelich, Anna McCauley, Robert Froelich Sr. Robert Froelich Jr., Ellen Aunchman, and the two children, Bernard McCauley (IV) and Patricia McCauley-Matthews.

I don’t remember meeting Vincent Aunchman or his wife Thelma Face.  I would have been two years old when he passed away.  I am told he had a cleft pallet and one of his arms was shorter than the other and these physical traits were often underappreciated by people who did not know him.  He gravitated to independent labor, working as an ashman in Albany.  In the days of heating a home with coal, a person was needed to not only deliver coal, but also to remove the ash from the furnace to be dumped elsewhere.  These are both high labor and messy tasks.  In later years he ran his own small trucking concern.  He married Thelma Face in November of 1936. In 1940 they were living on Clinton Street in Albany not far from His sister Gladys on Second Avenue. Thelma would go on to work as a file clerk in the New York State Tax department.  The couple lived in Albany and moved out to Best Road in North Greenbush, Rensselaer, County in 1960.  In 1964 Vincent died tragically from a gunshot wound while cleaning his rifle. Thelma Face died in 1988. 

Above a photograph of Vincent Aunchman’s grave marker and Below John Aunchman and Ellen McCauley’s grave marker. Both are buried in Holy Sepulture Cemetary in Rensselaer, New York.