Winchester. The Town, Not the Rifle.

This small, rural town was called home by my ancestors. Turns out, one was a Major League pitcher.

For most of my young life, I knew only that Winchester, Kansas, was the town where both my brother and I had been born. Later, family events brought me back to Winchester. I visited relatives there. I went there for the burial of my maternal grandfather and, much later, for my maternal grandmother’s burial in the Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery. And then, as I began to do more and more research into my family tree, it began to slowly dawn on me the sheer number of citations attached to my tree recording births, marriages, deaths, and burials that had occurred in Winchester. It truly appeared–at least with regard to my mother’s side of the family–that all roads led back to Winchester.

I returned to the Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery a few years ago, not for a family burial, but to visit my ancestors’ gravesites. I had done my research. I had seen all of the photos of my ancestors’ headstones in that cemetery on the Find a Grave website. It came as no surprise then that, of the approximately 1,000 burials there, I could find a genealogical connection to just about each and every person in that cemetery.

The volume of connections took on another dimension, literally, when I walked among my many ancestors buried in that cemetery. Standing quietly in the humid, stifling Kansas summer heat, looking out over the graves surrounding me, the sheer vastness of my extended family was reinforced in a far more physical and spatial way.

“…of the approximately 1,000 burials there, I could find a genealogical connection to just about each and every person in that cemetery.”

There have been changes in Winchester since the early sixties when I was born. The small twenty-five bed hospital in which my brother and I were born—then known as Jefferson County Memorial Hospital—has added two additional wings, including a long-term care facility, and is now named the F.W. Huston Medical Center. But the current residents of Winchester number roughly half the number of my ancestors in permanent residence in that cemetery. In 2024, the population was 417.

Winchester has a library and a post office. Local businesses include one pharmacy, one gas station, one construction company, one excavator, a meatpacking plant, a fencing business, a thrift store, a photography studio, a local beekeeping enterprise, and a business devoted to furniture restoration. It has two used car/body shops, three landscaping businesses, and three churches. A farming community, it boasts four farm harvesting companies and two farm-seed distributors.

The primary reason I commit to writing weekly posts for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge, for which this essay is intended, is that in researching each week’s challenge, I inevitably make discoveries and learn new things. I am able to ascertain more about the lives of my ancestors, for sure. But I’ve also learned many fascinating facts about the history, customs, politics, and economy of places in this country and in Europe.

And I often find additional ancestors.

My Winchester ancestors were almost exclusively members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. But I do have connections to other Winchester residents as well. I discovered such a person—and his family—in researching this piece. And, oddly enough, my relation to him is through my father’s family and not my mother’s.

This week, I discovered that Winchester had been the birthplace of a Major League Baseball player. A huge New York Mets fan and full season-ticket holder for years, I was even more delighted to trace a familial connection to the player—Gerald Lee “Jerry” Robertson (1943-1996)—and to discover that, for a very brief time, he was part of the New York Mets Minor League system.

As soon as I mentioned the name Jerry Robertson to my husband–whose memory is, quite frankly, scary–I saw a glimmer of recognition. I kept reading aloud to him biographical information about Robertson, and we said almost simultaneously, “…made his Major League debut pitching for the Montreal Expos against the Mets at Shea Stadium in 1969.” That game, which took place on April 8, 1969, was the first game ever played by the new expansion team from Canada. It was a career first for Robertson, who pitched in relief, and a first for the just-formed franchise.

In 1965, Jerry Robertson had been drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. Robertson was then drafted by the Montreal Expos from the Cardinals in the 1968 expansion draft. After the 1969 season, the Expos traded Robertson to the Detroit Tigers where he pitched for one season.

Just before the opening of the 1971 season, Detroit traded him to the New York Mets. As excited as I was to think about a distant relative of mine pitching for my team, Robertson was a Met in name only. After acquiring Robertson, the Mets sent him to their AAA Tidewater club. He appeared in 37 games for the Tides, all in relief. Because of previous injuries, Robertson experienced continual pain while pitching. He retired after that season.

Winchester may be a small rural town with a very small population. But since its founding in 1857, it has been the place where hundreds of my ancestors have been born, were married, and/or died. Despite my familiarity with this place, I continue to make new discoveries about the town and its residents.

Written for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge: Week 23 – A Place That Matters. PROMPT: “Locations are vital to family history research, not only in the records they create, but the memories they hold. What is a location that is significant in your family history? Is it an ancestral home town, a place of worship, a special vacation spot?“