Posts Tagged ‘Kankakee Illinois’

Custom Carved Heirloom Photo Display Box

In America’s history, there has been an active interest in learning one’s genealogy and ancestors, as well as recording these via words, paintings / pictures; often displayed in custom woodcrafted heirloom boxes or frames.

There are many stories (the spirit of a single person, a single place, a particular occasion) woven together that have made and continues to make the most vibrant fabric of the American story.

Recounted By Mr. Thomas Johnson, the great, great grandson of Mr. Anthony Canavan … is such a story …..

Approximately 160 years ago the man in this picture, my great, great grandfather, Anthony Canavan, made the fateful decision to emigrate with his young family from County Mayo, Ireland to the Promised Land – The United States. He did it to avoid almost certain starvation from the Great Famine that was ravaging the Emerald Isle and causing a huge exodus of Irish to America.

According to  family lore, the passage across the Atlantic was rough with huge, rolling seas that caused part of the ship’s rigging to fall and blind his oldest son John in one eye (a fact that did not keep him from serving on the side of the Union in the Civil War years later). The ship eventually docked in Philadelphia where Canavan saw signs and placards warning “Irish and dogs keep of the grass.” A few years later the Canavan clan made its way west to Kankakee, Illinois where Anthony bought a farm and from which late one autumn night in 1871 he saw the northern skyline turned into an unearthly crimson hue — the Great Chicago Fire.

This picture, taken during the last year of his life in 1890, captures the determination and grit that emboldened Canavan to cross an ocean and forge a new life in a foreign country. The photo and a funeral prayer card are beautifully presented and preserved in a one – of – a – kind custom – made frame by Uri Misrachi with images of a farm and a plow carved into each side.

It seems only fitting that Uri, himself an immigrant to America, took on the job of creating this beautiful frame – an heirloom to be passed down to future generations – of the original immigrant of our family. We think Anthony Canavan would be well pleased.

Gallary: step by step

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