THE MANCHEE - BLAKELEY GENEALOGY SITE
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The Manchee - Blakeley family story began just after the turn of the 20th century in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada (later renamed Thunder Bay). This is where John William Manchee and Kathleen Claire Blakeley, our parents, were born and raised. A few of the many beautiful landmarks of that region are shown on the ceramic plaque pictured here. Click on the image for a better view.
After graduation from school, and the Port Arthur Collegiate Institute, John served 4 years as an apprentice in the J.W.Crookes Pharmacy in Port Arthur to prepare for the Ontario College of Pharmacy exams at the University of Toronto. In 1925 he passed those exams with honors. It seemed he had everything - his girlfriend Kay, a career, and a job in neighboring Fort William.
However, apparently the lure of the States was more appealing,
because John emigrated to the U.S. in 1926 to work for Liggett's Drug
Stores in Detroit, Michigan. Shortly thereafter, Kay joined
John in Detroit and they were married. They gradually
moved moved north, first to Highland Park where Lois,
now Lois Steury U.E, was born in 1931, and then Ferndale, where I was born
in 1934. Not long after that, we moved to
and grew up in Royal Oak, where John and Kay are now interred.
The Great Depression and the World War of the 30's and 40's, and the 60-72 hour workweeks that John endured, must have been a challenge to these new Americans. But they did find time to leave behind many good memories - family picnics at the lake, climbing the cherry trees in the back yard, Mom's homemade cherry pies, helping Dad work around the house, and tennis lessons to name just a few. Somehow we all survived those early years. The kids went on to college, married, and had kids of their own, but those are different stories for a different time.
One of Dad's great pleasures during his free moments was genealogy. He not only created a good working model of the Manchee family tree, he also developed contacts and shared information with others working in the area. Most importantly, he planted the genealogy seed in his children. In Lois, it blossomed early. She expanded his work with the Manchee line and she independently researched and documented our Blakeley lineage back to James, our first American ancestor. Later in life, I also caught the bug, determined to share the work of John and Lois on the worldwide web. The results of that effort, along with contributions of my own made possible by the internet, are now available on this website. This website continues to be a magnet to Manchees , Blakeleys and unrelated researchers everywhere to continue to add to our knowledge base.