The Suez Canal

Strange title for a post in a genealogy blog don't you think?  Well let me tell you what happened.  My wife bought me a book to read - a history book, which I love to read about.  It was written by one of my favorite authors, David McCullough.  He wrote John Adams, 1776, The Great Bridge (about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge) and the Johnstown Flood, just to name a few.  The book she got me is The Path between the Seas, which is about building the Panama Canal.  I almost bought the book myself a few years ago, but I was probably working on a different book at the time and put it off.  His new one is "The Wright Brothers", which I would like to read because my in-laws lived in the Outer Banks of North Carolina for many years and we visited Kitty Hawk quite a few times.

Anyway, we drove to Rhode Island this weekend to attend my niece's graduation from Johnson and Wales University.  My wife was driving up and I was reading my new book.  As I said the book is about the building of the Panama Canal.  The Canal was not just built in the early 1900s.  It had been talked about and studies had been done since at least 1870.  So I am only on page 25 (of 698 pages) and I came across a paragraph which is describing a celebration honoring the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, which opened 17 Nov 1869.  In the book, The time is summer 1870, and the place is London's Crystal Palace where a public receptions is taking place.  The passage describes different events honoring De Lesseps and one part says:  "two hundred boys from the Lambeth Industrial Schools would wave four hundred colored flares in an "Egyptian Salute" to honor the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal."  Good thing I wasn't driving when I saw this, cause we would have gone right off the road.  This was 1870 in Lambeth, where my Great Grandmother Johanna Sullivan was living.  She was four years old at the time.  I wonder if the family had any memories of this event occurring?  I wonder if they were invited?  This is the kind of stuff I like to find, and it connects your family some a big event in history.  We're talking the Suez Canal here.  I realize that the canal does not come up in everyday conversation, but this was a big event in its time.

I realize that my ancestors had nothing to do with the Suez Canal, but they may have taken part in this great celebration, and that's good enough for me.  If you remember a few posts back, my great great grandfather Thomas A Brady may have worked on the Erie Canal.  So I guess I may descend from a bunch of ditch diggers.