Thomas and Mary Spring: The Sundering and Reunion of a Mother and Son

POF
19th June, 2024
Channeled by Troy Tolley

ConnorB: 

Hello again, Michael.

Every day, I think of Thomas J. Spring, and I also think about his poor mother.

Two lifetimes ago, I was an Irish-American boy living in New York City. My name was Thomas Spring, and I was born in 1855. I died during the Orange Riots on July 12th, 1871, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, when a stray bullet struck my inner thigh as I walked into my mother’s candy shop. According to historical records, I bled to death over the course of twenty minutes.

When I think of Thomas’s death, I can feel great sorrow, but when I dig deeper and imagine what his mother went through, tears flow.

Thomas had just gotten out of school for the day. Although he lived at 7 Battery Place at the southern tip of Manhattan, he instead walked to his mother’s candy shop on the 200 block of Eighth Avenue. I doubt Thomas would have gone to the shop if it wasn’t open and his mother wasn’t there, so I am almost certain Thomas’s mother was present for his death.

Can you confirm if Thomas’s mother was present when he died? Did she ever recover from the experience?

Is the Essence of Thomas’s mother incarnated in my current life?

MEntity: 

From what we can see in our records, we can say that, yes, she was present. She did recover, but was never the same. It may come as a surprise that she did not blame herself. She was furious about the riots and it appears she may have coordinated with other local parents to help put into effect a kind of neighborhood/business watch. This included a dedicated messenger for sounding an alarm to schools if danger was breaking out, and creating designated safe zones for children to run if in danger.

This Essence is not known to your life in the current life, though we do see this Essence incarnated and working for the United Nations in New York City.

ConnorB: 

I never actually thought she blamed herself. None of it was her fault. If the parade had made a different turn, Thomas would have lived - no one could have anticipated it.

Can you describe Thomas's reunion with his mother on the Astral?

MEntity: Thomas appears to have recreated and sustained a shop for the ready when she exited the life and this is where their reunion took place, picking up on that same day as if nothing had taken his life. They explored the trajectory of life together without the death and discovered a magical dynamic between them that would carry over into many ways in other lives. A side note: This may seem quite fantastical, but the fragment responsible for the bullet that took Thomas's life would have been the fragment who would come to be known as Roald Dahl. His visit to Thomas and his mother inspired one of his greatest stories.

ConnorB: Holy cow. What a small world.

MEntity: We will conclude here for today. Good day to each of you. Goodbye, for now.

ConnorB: Thank you Michael and Troy! Excellent work, as always.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The Roald Dahl story. It was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What else could it be? James and the Giant Peach? I think not. Ms. Spring did not run a peach shop.

No, I certainly did not expect Roald Dahl to pop up. I'm not sure if Roald Dahl's inspiration came from personally visiting the Astral candy shop, or if it came from a visit by his past life who shot me. My guess is that both visited - one led to the other - and it was a visit by Dahl himself, perhaps in a dream, which led to the story.

I hadn't known about the Orange Riots before Michael brought them to my attention. The riots are not famous at all, and I only ever found one single book written about them. Essentially, William of Orange defeated King James II of England at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and 181 years later it got me killed.

Orange parades are annual events in which members of the protestant Orange Order march to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne. Why? King James II was Catholic, and his defeat in 1690 resulted in the loss of his crown and the restoration of England to Protestant rule. Violence often broke out at these demonstrations because there were a lot of people who still felt a certain way about James II's defeat and the way England treated Catholics.

If you ever watch the Netflix show Derry Girls (very funny show), one of the episodes features an Orange parade in the late 1990s during the end of the Troubles, and you can see that even nowadays it remains a tradition which inflames old wounds. At the time of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, Protestants and Catholics had been wrestling for control over the Crown of England ever since England, under the rule of Henry VIII, left the Catholic Church in 1534.

It's a stretch, but not necessarily inaccurate, to say that Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn in 1533, and 338 years later it got me killed.

Anyway. Come and join me on a brief and unexpected adventure through time. I did some digging and found Thomas's family in the United States census records, and I even found a couple of their graves.

First, we have the 1860 Census. My family is highlighted.

From the 1860 Census

At the top you can see my father, Edward Spring. He was listed as a day laborer by trade, whatever that means. He was born in Ireland around 1826 to Devorah Hannifin and Thomas Spring; it would appear that I was named after my grandfather. Next, you can see my mother, Mary. Her maiden name was Sullivan. She was recorded as 22 years old in this record.

Underneath Mary, you can see me. I am listed as "Thos," which is an archaic abbreviation of Thomas. I was the eldest child. Since I am listed as 5 years old, that would mean my mother was only around 17 when she had me. My father would have been around 27. Yikes.

Lastly, you can see my younger sister, Mary Bernadine Spring, who was only a newborn baby.

Now let's take a look at the 1870 Census.

From the 1870 Census

My, oh my, how the household has grown over the past decade. I am now 15 years old, Mary Bernadine is now 11, and we have been joined by two more little sisters: 5-year-old Eliza (also listed as Lizzie), born at the end of the Civil War, and 1-year-old Theressa (also listed as Therese).

There are also two others living in our home; Timothy Sullivan, an ice cream maker, and Debanaux Sullivan. In the occupation column, Debanaux is listed as "at home," which I assume means she was like a housekeeper, or something along those lines. Timothy was 28 at the time of this census and Debanaux was 23; both were born in Ireland, and my guess is that they were siblings. They must have been part of my extended family on my mother's side, because Mary's last name was also Sullivan, but I don't know how exactly they were related to Mary - maybe they were cousins.

Timothy, being listed as an ice cream maker, must have worked in my mother's confectionery shop.

If you look closely, this record also shows you that my family and I were neither deaf, dumb, blind, insane, nor idiotic. Go us.

I died a year and fifteen days after this census was taken, so imagine my surprise when I appeared in the 1880 census.

From the 1880 Census

The Sullivans have moved on, and my siblings are growing up. Mary Bernadine is now the eldest, and at 20 years old she seems to have found work as a seamstress. I actually found her grave; she is buried at Calvary Cemetery, along with me and her parents. She died on September 30th, 1924, at the age of 58. She was a teacher with the Sisters of Mercy. Because she never married, she kept her last name, which is why I was able to easily find her.

Lizzie and Theresa are now 15 and 11 respectively. Lizzie disappears from the records after this point, which means she either died or got married and left the household within the next ten years.

Around two years after my death, Margaret was born. She was seven years old at the time of the census. There is a Margaret Spring buried in Calvary Cemetery, but I am unsure if it is the same person. The Margaret buried in Calvary Cemetery apparently died in 1939 at the age of 60, which would mean she was born in 1879 and should therefore have been listed as 1 year old on the 1880 census, not 7. I think it might have been a different Margaret.

Turns out, I wasn't actually in the 1880 census; closer examination revealed that my parents had another son around 1875, and they named that son after me. So there were two Thomas J. Springs in that family. Thomas 2.0 also had a younger brother, Edward, named after my father in that life, born around 1877.

Unfortunately, the 1890 Census records were destroyed by a fire in 1921. Less than 1% of the records survived, so we cannot see what the Spring family was up to ten years later, but I did find them again in the 1900 Census.

From the 1900 Census

You can see my father Edward listed as 70 years old, working as a "watchman." My mother Mary is not listed, which means she must have died before 1900. Strangely enough, the "Thomas J. Spring, born 1875" listed on the 1880 Census is now listed as "Joseph Spring, born 1875" on the 1900 Census. Isn't that odd? Maybe he was originally named Thomas and changed his name at some point because, I don't know, maybe he didn't want to be seen as a second version of his older brother who got shot?

My younger brother Edward Jr., now 23 years old, has become a professional clerk. Maggie and Theresa, now 26 and 28 respectively, have both become school teachers, much like their older sister Mary Bernadine, who is not listed with the family in 1900. Mary Bernadine was still alive at the time, but she must not have been living with the family anymore.

Thomas/Joseph, at 25 years old, is listed as a truck driver.

We can also see that yet another younger brother, 20-year-old John, was born in 1880, presumably after that census had taken place, and it looks like John was the last and youngest child in the Spring family. He is listed as a salesman.

From the 1910 Census

My father died in 1903, but in the next census I was able to find my brother Joseph (now 34) still living with my sisters Theresa (41) and Maggie (37). They are joined by Joseph's niece, 17-year-old Margaret Guinnan who worked as a clerk for an advertising company, and a 52-year-old German immigrant named Frederich Erust who worked at a hotel and lived with the Springs as a boarder (paying rent for a bedroom, most likely). It looks like Theresa and Maggie were still parochial schoolteachers, and Joseph is listed as a teamster which means he was still driving trucks for a living.

From the 1920 Census

In 1920, we find my three younger siblings Theresa (now 51), Maggie (46), and Joseph (44) still living together, along with Margaret the now 27-year-old niece. What's interesting here is that Joseph was listed as the head of household in 1910, but now in 1920 the head of household is listed as Theresa.

Well played, Theresa.

As you can see, Theresa is still teaching, but Maggie is now a clerk like Margaret the niece. Joseph is working in a public park in some capacity, but I can't make out what his actual job is. The damn cursive is hard for me to read, but it doesn't look like he is a truck driver anymore.

If I had lived, I would have been 65 years old by this time, and perhaps my younger siblings would have been living with me instead.

Well, that's about it. After 1920 the trail goes cold. I have searched the 1930 census, but so far I have not found any of the siblings. That does not mean they are not there, but the methods I used to find them in every other census have not worked for 1930. It may be that all three siblings died during the 1920s. Or maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. I can't find the niece, either - maybe she died, or maybe she got married and her name changed.

This certainly turned into a deep rabbit hole, and I trust you have enjoyed the journey.