I don't know if it's the age I'm reaching, but I guess we all start looking at the "good old days" at some point. I'm feeling that plus this drive to keep the Bellvale name on the map. Most people don't realize that when the Post Office closes in Bellvale, it will be the slow end of the name for this hamlet-yes, old timers will remember it, but slowly it will fade as newcomers will refer to it as "part of Warwick". I don't mean to suggest that the Post Office will close, but when and if that does happen, there goes the designation of Bellvale on the maps. I guess everyone feels nostalgia about their hometown, but Bellvale really is unique. It has been unchanged for so many years. It had it's industrial stage first and then fell silently into a quiet residential neighborhood. No one recorded these changes until the printing of "The Rising Star" newspaper in 1889. It talked about the past history and the present(1889) community. I read this newspaper like a mystery novel. I didn't know who the people were that they mentioned or where all the old homes and places they talked about were, but I kept reading and trying to fit the pieces together. Pretty soon I started creating more and more piles of paper with notes. Post it notes were everywhere! I guess at

that point I realized I had the fever....genealogy fever.I couldn't stop thinking about them... AND they were not even any of my relatives!!!( Only other genealogists can understand this feeling) All this paperwork was getting way out of hand! I somehow had to keep this stuff contained so my next step was to buy a genealogy program for my computer to help organize it all. And so on and on I went, entering names and dates of people and buildings into my computer, trying to see who lived where, in what year and who their children were. It just became so addictive, as many hobbies and collections can be, but also lots of fun. All this research has been a wonderful trip back in time, in Bellvale, and a visit to a place like no other. With my website I hope to share some of what I found and hope you will "see" some of the people and places so fascinating to me.
As I said before, there will be mistakes! Please help me find them and correct them.

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Willemse Family Tree