A Mother is to…

Tags

book, memory, Mom, mother, Mother's Day, school, story, Taylor

When I was in either second or third grade, our teacher had us make books for our parents.  Since Mother’s Day was yesterday, I thought I would share the book I made for my Mother.  It’s been about 40 years since I wrote this.

The cover shows amazingly little wear, despite its age.

We wrote the book with a simple formula.  Each page started with “A Mother is to”, and then we would write what we thought a mother was expected to do.  Looking at this book is a peek back at the things I felt important at the time.  It has a lot of good memories associated with it.

With each part of the story, we drew an illustration.  I can’t say that my artwork shows much imagination, but then again, I was a young child at the time.  Our teacher typed our stories and then bound them into books for us.

I’m going to present the book page by page.  If you scroll over the picture, there will be my comments as an adult looking back on what I wrote.

A Mother is to Take You to the Beauty Shop to Get Your Hair Cut
by
Pam Taylor

A mother is to help you with homework after school.

A mother is to go to the market with you after school.

A mother is to keep you company when there’s nothing to do.

A mother is to join you in brownies.

A mother is to take you to the beauty shot to get your hair cut.

A mother is to let you make gingerbread by yourself.

A mother is to boss you.

A mother is to take you places.

A mother is to move things.

A mother is to help you in bed at night.

Happy Anniversary!

Tags

adventure, family, Flint, journey, marriage, Sabados, Taylor, wedding

It’s been years since this picture was taken, but I’m happy to say that Bill and I are still together, and still very much in love.

Even though we had a daytime wedding, our wedding took place under the stars.  The building behind us is the Longway Planetarium in Flint, Michigan.  We said our vows under the dome, beneath the stars projected above us.

It was my second marriage; Bill’s first.  So, he was the one that got to wear white. 😉  One of my Aunts made my dress, which is white satin overlayed with royal blue lace.  Royal blue is my favorite color.

Our friends Carla and Brenda were the Maid and Matron of Honor.  Our friend Derek was Bill’s Best Man, and my Brother Tim and his son Timmy were groomsmen/ushers.  Tiffany, my niece, was our flower girl.  My Dad (kind of out of sight in this picture) was able to finally walk his daughter down the aisle (the first time, I eloped).

As you can see, the star theme carried through into our decorations.  Tiffany carried  a star wand rather than a basket of flowers.  The bridemaids’ dresses had a fabric than kind of reminded me of the Milky Way.

My grandparents, my brother and his wife and family, most of my cousins from my Mom’s side, and some of their children.

Bill, his Aunt, two of his cousins and their families.

Unfortunately, Bill’s Mom and Dad weren’t able to make it out from Oregon to our wedding, but one of his cousins came with his family from Arizona.  The rest of his family came up from Ohio.  Much of my family was already in Michigan, but I did have one Aunt and Uncle and a cousin that came in from the East Coast.

We spent a weekend up in Harrison Michigan at a bed and breakfast.

One corner of our room at the Carriage House Inn.

After that, it was time to finish packing, as the rest of our honeymoon was spent travelling cross country in a Ryder truck, bringing all my stuff from Michigan out to California.  We both said if you can survive a week together in a Ryder truck, you can survive anything. 😛

We did have one companion on our trip West.  My last day of work, I took one of the M&M dispensers with me.  Blue, the M&M guy, became our travelling buddy, and Blue wrote back to my former co-workers about his exploits on the road.  We stopped at St. Julian’s winery in Paw Paw, Michigan, before heading down to Berwyn, Illinois, where a branch of the bank I had worked for was located.  From there we continued our trek West, and got to see many interesting sights with Blue.

This Polaroid shows some decay, but you can still see Blue on the dashboard of the Ryder truck with the statue of the Jolly Green Giant in the background.

Bill and Blue posing in front of Mount Rushmore.

I believe that is Old Faithful in the background.  We are at Yellowstone Park.

One last thing I’d like to share with you.  We didn’t write our own vows, but I did write a poem that we both recited as we exchanged rings.

Strolling Through the Old Neighborhood in 1940

In starting my research into the 1940 US Census, I started to wonder about where I grew up and how it would have looked back then, over twenty years from when I was born.  At one time, my grandparents had lived in the house that was home to me from the time I was just a few years old until I was almost thirty.  I was pretty certain that my grandparents would not be living there in 1940, and I was right about that.  My father had told me he grew up on Knickerbocker, which was a few blocks away from where I grew up.  And Knickerbocker was right where I found them.

My paternal grandfather and his family in 1940.

I learned a few things about the family from this census.  First, they had lived in the same place in 1935.  I know that in 1930 my grandparents had lived within the city limits of Flint, Michigan.  Now, they lived just outside the city limits.  My grandfather worked in an auto factory doing motor repair.  I had already known he worked at the factory, but now I knew what he did.  From what my father has told me, he was a participant of the Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37 in Flint.

I was surprised to see that neither of my grandparents had completed high school, but knowing that, I wasn’t surprised to see that my grandmother had two more years of schooling than my grandfather did.  Since her father, Joseph McCombs, was a school teacher, I have a feeling that he would have done his best to see that his girls received an education.

The children listed are my aunt and my two uncles.  My father was the youngest and would not make an appearance on the census for another ten years.  I know that my grandparents were married in Missouri, but their first child was born in Illinois.  Their oldest son was born in Missouri, and the youngest at this time was born in Michigan, as my father would be.  I wondered what had prompted the move from Missouri to Illinois and then from Illinois back to Missouri.  I knew my great-grandfather had not had his first stroke until 1931, and my uncle’s age said that he was born a few years before that event.  Was there perhaps some other family issue that caused the move, or perhaps was it a result of the financial complexities that resulted from the Great Depression?

Regardless of why my family moved from Illinois to Missouri, I know that my grandfather came to Michigan to get a job in the auto industry.  He was not alone.  As I began my journey down Genesee Avenue, I was able to find many people whose place of employment was listed as “Auto Factory”.

As I went through the records, I could see that the census takers were walking down the streets as far as they could go, and then back up to Saginaw Street, the border between Mount Morris and Genesee Townships.

1940 Enumeration District Map showing the area where I grew up. You can see both Genesee Avenue and Knickerbocker Avenue on the map. It is a distance of about one mile from Coldwater Road to Carpenter Road, the northern and southern boundaries.

In case you are wondering why there is such a large gap in the middle of the map, that is no accident.  Between Downey Avenue and Cass Avenue there were three places that I know of that were there when I grew up (I’m not sure however, if all of them were there in 1940).  From Saginaw Street to Summit Street was the grounds of Saint Francis of Assisi Church (this was the most likely structure to have been there in 1940).  The spacious (and mostly treeless) grounds made it a wonderful place for us to fly kites growing up, and they had a playground that we would often visit to swing or to go down the big slide (probably about three times the size of the one on our swing set at home).  Facing Summit Street on its west side was Summit Junior High School, and facing Detroit Street on its east side was Buell Elementary School, with a large field running the rest of the distance between them.  Past Detroit Street, I don’t know, because Detroit Street was the border my parents set for us to the west.

So, when the census takers started their walk, they had just finished with South Cornell on its western edge, and were walking east on Genesee Avenue back toward Saginaw Street.

The first thing I noticed was that the street numbers were all different from when I was younger.  I wasn’t sure why they had been renumbered.  That in some ways made it more difficult to figure out where I was on the street, but as I got closer to where I lived, it got easier.

I stopped as I found familiar names.

Two names stood out for me in this section.

The first name that stood out for me was Trovillion.  My family knew a family named Trovillion, and I wondered if this might be the parents of the Trovillion that they knew.  Since I knew that the Trovillions we knew were about my parents’ ages, I decided that, like my father, they hadn’t been born at the time of the census.

The second name that stood out for me was Leo France.  Now, the part that surprised me was that in this census, that Leo was widowed.  The reason that it surprised me was that while I don’t think that I ever met Leo, I did know his wife quite well.  You see, his wife was the grandmother of three girls that lived only a few blocks down the street from me (probably closer than what I guessed Leo lived to that location in 1940).  I became friends with all of them, lost touch when they and I moved out of the area, but, thanks to the wonders of social networking, we now keep in touch on a more regular basis.

I do have reason to believe that this is their grandfather though.  During one of those times when my own searches were hitting road blocks, I did some research into their family tree a bit.  I confirmed with them some of the things I found.  Their great-grandparents’ names were William and Marion and they were born in New York and Canada, respectively.  Mary I believe would be a shortened form of Marion, so I believe the parents he has living with them are my friends’ great-grandparents.  He would then have married again, and had more children, since my friends’ mother was born a few years after the census.

More familiar names appeared.

The last name Nelson was one I knew.  There had been a Nelson family living at the corner of Genesee Avenue and Summit Street.  Perhaps this gentleman was related.  I saw that he was divorced and had a live-in housekeeper.  The housekeeper’s last name was also familiar, as I went to school with one or two girls with the last name Schwalm.  The name Royal sounds familiar too; I think one of them named their son Royal.  I think it is likely that this would be their grandmother and perhaps also their father.

Finally, we got closer to Saginaw Street; closer to where I lived and I could tell because the names were extremely familiar.

Three names showed up on this page on Genesee Avenue that I knew.

I knew a Healey family that lived just down the street from us.  They lived across the street and a few doors down from the three friends I mentioned earlier.  However, the Healeys here would have been much older than the Healeys that I knew growing up.  Perhaps they were the parents of Mr. Healey.

I knew where I was when I got to the Pero house though.  I don’t know if I had ever met Mr. Pero, but Mrs. Pero (I don’t think I ever knew her first name) I did know and would visit from time to time.  The were actually our next door neighbors; there was an empty lot between their house and ours.  Well, in reality only a portion of the lot was empty, but I’ll come to that in a moment.  Mrs. Pero kept a nice garden in her yard, and I would go over once in a while when she was outside and talk to her.  She was a sweet lady.  Her son lived in the house after she passed away.

The Ayottes were our next door neighbors on the other side.  They were nice people too, but I didn’t get to know them as well as the Peros because they weren’t there as long.  I got to know the family that moved in after them much better.

I thought I was about done with my journey through my old neighborhood, when I spotted one last set of names.

While the neighbors to either side of us were important, so were the neighbors on the street behind us. The Henrys were our neighbors for longer than any of the others.

The Henrys were great neighbors, and I knew them the best of any family that was living in this area in 1940.  Our yards were separated by some fencing that aged to the point of non-existence by the time I was in my teens.  Again, I don’t think I knew the senior Mr. Henry, but I did know Old Mrs. Henry, as I called her (the designation Old was likely as much to do with her age as to distinguish her from her daughter-in-law.  Remember that mostly empty lot between the Pero house and ours?  It belonged to the Henrys and that’s where Old Mrs. Henry kept her garden, and a wonderful garden it was!  It would begin to bloom as soon as Spring arrived, with Crocus, and then would come the tulips and daffodils.  She didn’t just have the yellow daffodils that grew in our yard.  She had other types as well.  And the tulips were so varied as well.  She had single and double varieties.  There were variegated ones, and solid colors from bright white to a deep purple that almost looked black.  In May there would be Periwinkles and Lilies of the Valley.  There were bushes of beautiful lilacs that would bloom in early June, and several varieties of peonies and some roses as well.

I can remember playing in the backyard, and seeing Old Mrs. Henry going back to work in her garden.  There was an old, tiny trailer (an Airstream perhaps) that held her tools, and I would often hear her whistle a tune as she worked (she’s the only woman who I had ever hear whistle a tune before or since).  I would get permission now and then to pick flowers, and I was careful not to pick too many of any one type.  After Old Mrs. Henry died, I would sometimes go out into her garden and admire her flowers, and though her son kept them watered and weeded, they did not thrive for him the way they did for her.

I would visit over the fence with Mr. and Mrs. Henry from time to time, and I made occasional visits to their house.  I would sometimes cut down their driveway when I was going to and from school in Junior High.  It became an accepted practice, and I often would say hello to them as I was getting ready to cross over from their yard to mine.

My last visit to them was the day Bill and I got married.  They were not able to come to our wedding, but we paid them a visit our way to the reception.  I can remember Mrs. Henry’s sight was failing then, and I don’t remember her being in the best of health.  But I can still remember her face lighting up as we talked to her, and I was so glad to see them one last time before leaving for California.

It amazed me how much taking a stroll through my old neighborhood years before I ever lived there would help me to remember so many things.  I would recommend looking at where you grew up, even if it was years before you were born.  Even if your family wasn’t living there, perhaps there were neighbors there that you’ve forgotten that the Census could help you remember.

From Roots to a Branch

Tags

adventure, Air Force, Ancestry.com, Bunny, genealogy, investigation, journey, military, mystery, Taylor

I found you!  Kunta Kinte!  I found you!

— Alex Haley, Roots:  The Next Generations

I remember very well watching both Roots and Roots:  The Next Generations when I was in my teens.  I think in some ways, watching the story of Alex Haley’s ancestry unfold planted some of the first seeds for my own interest in family history.  I just watched the ending of the sequel to make sure I had the quote above correct, and got to again experience the elation expressed by James Earl Jones as Alex Haley when he discovered that he had indeed found the people from which his ancestor, Kunta Kinte had been taken from.  Even more touching though, was the scene where Haley was about to leave when a young man came running up.  It turned out that this man was a long-lost cousin of his, and the two men embraced as Haley broke down, sobbing with the overwhelming emotions he must have felt.

This past year, our only niece graduated from high school in Michigan.  Unfortunately, our budget didn’t allow the two of us to be at her graduation or open house.  However, we were able to afford a plane ticket so she could visit her aunt and uncle in California.  She came to visit us in August, about a month before she started college.

The first weekend she was here, Bill came back from the mailbox and handed me a large, thick, manila envelope.  I took one look at the return address, and I got excited.

The minute I saw this, I knew exactly what it contained. My uncle's military records!

I contained my excitement enough to open the envelope without ripping the contents.  Though I wanted to go through the documents in more detail at some point, my goal the first time through was to skim through to see if I could find any mention of my Aunt Bunny.

So, through the pages I went, as fast as I could go without missing any mention of a name.  Place names were popping up on every page.  Street names were familiar; Knickerbocker Avenue, Genesee Avenue, and Wheeler Drive were all places I knew the family had lived at one time or another.  Then came places that my Uncle was stationed like Korea, Casablanca, Texas, Michigan, and others.

It wasn’t until almost the very last pages in the packet that I found what I was looking for.  On the page, the typing was very faint, so it was hard to read.  “7 Jan 52:  Amn (Airman) married Miss Ethel….”

Ethel?  Was Aunt Bunny’s real name Ethel?  There was one way to find out.  I went in and changed the name on my records at Ancestry.com and I got a new leaf!

One of the things I was pointed to were some family trees, and a few of them had a picture attached to their record of Ethel.  It was a picture that I had never posted on Ancestry.com, but it excited me even more when I saw it.

That's right! It was the same picture of Bunny and her children that my Dad had given me!

I was certain that whoever had this picture was a member of the family somehow.  I just didn’t know who.  It could be one of my cousins, or it could be another relative of my Aunt.  I was hoping that whoever it was would be able to help me find Aunt Bunny and my cousins.

So, to the two people who I saw with the picture, I sent an email.  Basically I said that I had come across the name in my Uncle’s separation paperwork, that I had seen the picture and it matched one my father had given to me, and asked how they might be related and that I was trying to find out if my Aunt and cousins were still living, and if so, would there be a way to get in touch with them by email or phone.  I did not include any names in my email at the time.

The first person I sent the message to didn’t respond for a few days, and while they were helpful, they were not a relative of mine (it was a relative from Bunny’s side of the family though).  The second person I sent the message to was the first to respond.  The reply was brief, but thrilling:

Hi Pam,
Bunny was my mother. Who was your uncle?

I had my own little Alex Haley moment when I read that.  I found you!  Cousin!  I found you!  I immediately wrote back, this time filling in the details so that she knew exactly who I was talking about.  I eventually was given contact information for all my cousins.  I also found out that the two oldest actually were Bunny’s children from a previous marriage, so they are not actually blood relatives, though I still consider them to be my cousins.

Unfortunately, I found out my Aunt Bunny passed away a few years ago.  It was the one sad thing amid this joyous moment.

The greatest thing though was that while my niece was still with us, we were able to talk on the phone with one of my cousins.  He actually had been the one that, several years before had called around to find my Dad, and they both unfortunately lost touch with each other after that brief re-connection.  I was able to put them back in touch with each other, and my cousin visited Michigan last fall to spend time with my Dad.  My brother and his family also got to meet him.  I am hoping that I will get to meet him and my other cousins soon.

So, I had met the challenge my Dad had originally set for me; it took just over a year to do it.  By tracing our roots, I had just discovered a branch on our tree that had been hidden from view.  While that portion of the journey was over, my adventuring in ancestry was just getting started!

Photographs and Memories

Tags

adventure, Bunny, Detroit Suburbs, genealogy, journey, Lubbock, McCombs, memories, Michigan, mystery, photographs, Taylor, Texas

When my father sent me several documents related to our family history, he sent me a few photographs too.  Two of these photographs made me think back, remembering times from my past.

This was my Dad’s cousin Harold, and his wife Grace.  I only had the opportunity to see him a couple of times, but I remember him being a kind man, and he had a bit of a sense of humor.  His wife was nice, and a wonderful hostess when we visited their home in Lubbock, Texas when I was in my teens.  I still remember having the best hamburger of my life down there.  It was really more of a steak burger, because they used ground sirloin.  Yummy!

Harold had served in the military, and had been a prisoner of war.  Every time I see “Bridge on the River Kwai” I think of Harold because I was told that he worked on it while in captivity.

The next picture was older; the memories that came to me with it were not of the young girls in the photo, but of some of the women I knew in it.

 The people in this picture were misidentified in this picture a couple of times by my Dad.  He originally told me that this was a picture of my great-grandmother and three of her four girls.  He later identified it correctly as the four sisters.  However, he had also identified the youngest (on the left) as my grandmother, but in reality, she was not the youngest; the girl on the left was actually her sister, Jessie Rae.  My grandmother would then be on the right.  The oldest girl would be Donna, who was Harold’s mother.  The girl seated would be Jeanette.

Sadly, I never knew two of the people in the photograph.  Aunt Donna had died long before we were able to visit Texas as a family, and my grandmother died when I was just a baby.  I do remember Aunt Rae a little better.  We had several occasions where we would attend family gatherings together.  My memories of her though are not very distinct; bits and pieces of a Thanksgiving dinner or some other holiday gathering, but most of them relate more to the food or to the other children than they do to Aunt Rae.

With Aunt Jeanette though, the memories are quite vivid.  I spent so many days with her.  While she always seemed old to me, when I was a child I can remember going so many places with her.  She would often take me with her when she would do to visit with Aunt Rae or other family members that were down in the Detroit suburbs.  I would often stay the night at her house, and I would be there on occasion when out-of-town visitors came by.  I believe the first time I met Harold was one of those times; I met his brother Glenn on another occasion when I was at Aunt Jeanette’s.

The final picture had no memories associated with it.  It was a picture of family members I had never met before:  My Aunt Bunny and her children.

I knew they were out there, somewhere.  I was hoping that I would soon get the next clue to help solve the mystery of where they were.  Little did I know that this picture would be a key clue to that solution.

Discovery

Tags

adventure, Ancestry.com, Arkansas, Daviess County, discovery, Dunklin County, genealogy, information, journey, Malden, Missouri, Nebraska, obituary, Taylor, US Census, West Virginia

At times, on a journey, you come across something unexpected, a discovery that lends a bit of excitement to your adventure.  When Bill and I were last in Michigan several years ago, we visited Mackinac Island, a place I hadn’t been to since I was a kid.  When I had been there with my family all those years ago, we had ridden bicycles around the perimeter of the island.  Bill and I walked some of the paths farther in, and saw many wonderful wooded landscapes, and , a fort that I had never seen before.

Flags being raised at Fort Mackinac

Fort Mackinac was a well-known fort, and we got there early enough to see these Girl Scouts raise the flags that day.  The fort we discovered though was not nearly as well fortified.

Bill in the doorway into Fort George/Fort Holmes

The fort was not much more than raised dirt walls, but according to the sign nearby it “was the bulwark of British defenses in 1814 when the American attack was repulsed.”  I could see why.  It was at the highest point on the island, and looked straight down on Fort Mackinac.

Looking down from our newly discovered fort, we could see the flags that we had watched the scouts raise a few hours before.

Not all discoveries come in the form of forts or buildings though.  With genealogy, discovery often takes the form of documents; various records and photographs.

One such genealogical discovery I made was in the documents my father had sent me.  One in particular I called “genealogy gold”.  It was the obituary of my paternal great-grandfather, William H. Taylor.

William Henry Taylor Obituary

OLD RESIDENT OF THE CITY BURIED LAST FRIDAY

William H. Taylor, age 75 years, 3 months, and five days, who died March 15th, at his home here, was buried in Park Cemetry last Friday afternoon, following religious services which were conducted at the Methodist Church by the Pastor, the Rev. W. J. Velvick.

Mr. Taylor was born on Nov. 1o, 1857 in Upshur County, West Virginia, the son of John and Eliza Taylor. He moved with his family to Nebraska in 1884 and for nine years resided in that state. In 1893, he moved to Gallatin, Mo., where he made his home for sixteen years, moving from there to Arkansas, where he lived for three years. In 1913, he moved with his family to Malden and opened a furniture store having operated that business up until he was stricken with paralysi two years age. Mr. Taylor suffered his first paralytic stroke while serving on the election in1931, and had been unable to continue his business after that time.

He was married on March 15, 1883 to miss Georgia Chrisman and to this union nine children were born, three of these having preceded their father in death. Mr. Taylor is surviced by his wife and six children, these being: Roy Taylor of Carbondale, Ill.; Mrs. Dell Lukeheart, Ceadar grove, Iowa; Mrs. Ethel Littell, Mounds, Ill.; Mrs. Maud Hester of Malden;Mrs. Hazel Nobel of Parma; and Ralph Taylor of Flint, Michigan.

On the date of his death, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, were celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, having been married for fifty years.

(handwritten) 2 of the songs (Some Day We’ll Know, Abide With Me)

 Wow!  I was blown away!  Basically this one document confirmed every bit of census data that I had already found, and filled in a few details as well.  Within about a year of marrying my great-grandmother, they had moved to Nebraska, where census data showed that five of their children were born:  Millard Dee (1885), Roy Oscar (1887), Boyd (1888), Lucy Dell (1891), and Ethel (1892). In 1893, the family moved to Gallatin, Missouri in Daviess County and lived there for sixteen years, enough time for three other children to be born:  Anna Maud (1894), Hazel (1896), and Floyd Ralph, my grandfather (1900).

My Grandfather and His Family

Now looking at the fact that 9 children were born and only 8 were living, I knew that child number nine could have been born in West Virginia prior to the first move, in Nebraska, in Missouri, or possibly somewhere along the road.  My best guesses were that, barring the possibility of a twin, it would be a child older than Millard, a child born in the gap between Boyd and Lucy Dell, or in the gap between Hazel and my grandfather.

They would live there until about 1909, when they moved to Arkansas, just in time to be there for the 1910 census.

Now there was no question; my family had indeed lived in Arkansas!

With the information from the obituary, I was now able to figure out which of the children were still living and which had died.  Ethel, Maud, Hazel and my grandfather were still living with their parents.  Roy and Dell were listed in the obituary.  Therefore, Millard and Boyd had died.  I was able to confirm this. I found a picture of their grave marker at findagrave.com.  Boyd died in 1905; Millard in 1907.  They were buried in Gallatin, Missouri.

Finally, my great-grandparents didn’t stay in Arkansas long; they moved to Malden in 1913, which is where they lived out their lives.  My great-grandfather ran a furniture store until he had a stroke in 1931 when he was serving on the election, and he died in 1933 on the day of his golden wedding anniversary.  It seems like the Ides of March was both a good and a bad day in his life.

I am not sure why this obituary was typed rather than a newspaper clipping like the one I was given for my great-grandmother.  Perhaps the copy was in a very deteriorated condition, and the person who typed it wanted to retain the information, even if it wasn’t in its original form.  Perhaps they copied it from a clipping that belonged to another member of the family.  This likely was done before the age of the Xerox machine.  It could have also been typed by one member of the family and mailed to another farther away.

The one piece of information that is on this typed copy though is one that you would not find in the newspaper.  That is the handwritten note that indicates two of the songs played or sung at the funeral.  Whoever wrote that down was either at the funeral or had spoken to someone who had been in attendance.

It’s always great to discover a new piece of information.  It’s greater still when a piece of information confirms the data you have.

A Trip Interrupted by Flood

Tags

death certificate, Flint, flood, funeral card, genealogy, information, interruption, journey, McCombs, Michigan, military, obituary, path, road, Slaughter, Taylor

Turning aside from my own family tree, I had been travelling the path of my husband Bill’s ancestors.  I enjoyed learning about his Transylvanian heritage, and discovering the ships that had brought his great-grandparents and grandparents to the United States.

Now, I turned my attention to Bill’s mother’s side of the family.  Once again, I was entering data for all the family members we knew of, and I was getting hints here and there to explore further into the past.  Already, we had seen some of the direction that this path would take us.  Bill’s cousin had shared with us information about the research a friend of his had helped him with, and how it had taken them back to Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, where Bill’s mother’s paternal line had settled.

However, the trip I was taking into this portion of the family tree was soon interrupted.  It was not because we had run out of items to research; we had barely scratched the surface of what Bill’s cousin had told us.  The interruption came from the fact that I had received new information from my father regarding my side of the family.  It was time to return to my original path.

The information my Dad sent me came to me via email over the span of a few days. My original request had been to see if I could get any more information for the brother whose children I was trying to locate.  We were still waiting for the military records my Dad had requested.  Apparently, because my Uncle had at one point served in a classified area, the military wanted to find out exactly what we were looking for.  They actually called my father to discuss it with him.

So, Dad started by sending me the obituaries he had for his brother, which at least then gave me dates of birth and death.  One was from the Flint Journal, the local paper in my home town.  The other was from the Arkansas Gazette, which was from the state my uncle was residing in.  In the email, my Dad mentioned that he had other obituaries and asked if I wanted them.

Did I ever!  I told him to send me whatever he could as far as the family went.  Obituaries, birth and death records, pictures; I wanted whatever he could send me.

And so, I began getting email after email (nine in all). Besides my uncle’s obituary, I got his funeral card.  My father had obituaries for his other brother and sister as well.  I received funeral cards for his parents and for my Grandma Opal, my grandfather’s second wife.  My Great Aunt Jeanette’s obit was there, and there was a funeral card for her father, Joseph McCombs as well as his obituary.  There was a funeral card for a cousin of my father’s, one that I remember very well, and for his father, my Aunt Jeanette’s brother-in-law, James Slaughter.

There was even more to come.  My Dad sent me death certificates for both his parents and for my great-grandfather, Joseph McCombs!  He also sent me obituaries for both of my Taylor great-grandparents, as well as a newspaper story about a family reunion, and a “ripped from the headlines” story that could very well have been a plot of a story for Law & Order:  SVU if the show had been on back then.  That story intrigues me, and though it does not appear to have been about my family, someone kept it for a reason, and I’m curious as to why.

So, my trip through Bill’s family history was interrupted by flood.  It was a flood of information about my own family that had me postpone working on his tree a while, so I could delve back into mine.  I was glad I could.  One of the pieces I mentioned turned out to be quite a discovery!

The Long and Winding Road

Tags

adventure, Ancestry.com, Arkansas, Dunklin County, Flint, genealogy, investigation, journey, Malden, Michigan, Missouri, path, road, Sevier County, Taylor, US Census, Virginia, West Virginia

When I decided to trace my great-grandfather’s journey from West Virginia to Malden, Missouri, I never realized what a long and winding road his path would take!  Malden was his family’s final destination, but by no means was it their only one.

I had already found a 1930 US Census that showed my grandparents had already moved to my home town of Flint, Michigan.  As my grandfather was their youngest child, it was likely all the children were married or out of the house.  Once I found the 1930 census, it confirmed my suspicions:

Portion of the 1930 US Census showing my great-grandparents.

My great-grandparents were living by themselves.  I knew where my grandfather was at this time.  Where were all of his siblings?

I did learn a few things from this survey.  My great-grandparents owned a home, valued at $1,500 (not bad considering that this was after the start of the Great Depression).  While you cannot see it from this except, my great-grandfather was not working, nor had he ever been a veteran.  There was a discrepancy between the 1900 US Census and this one:  back in 1900, my great-grandmother had been listed as being born in West Virginia like her husband, William Henry.  However, on this census, she was listed as being born in Virginia!  Which one was correct?

I decided to keep working backwards, and found them again in 1920 in Malden, Missouri, this time with one child still at home.

1920 and one child left in the house: my grandfather!

Georgia didn’t seem to know which side of the state line she was born on.  This time, not only is she born in West Virginia, but so are her parents!  In 1930, they, like her, had crossed over the border to be born in Virginia.

As I continued research on this and other parts of my family tree, I  would learn over and over again that records can contain inaccurate and sometimes misleading information.  I also began to distinguish between primary source data, and secondary source data.

The US Census contains a mixture of both.  It is a primary source for where a person resided on the date that the census occurred.  Much of the other data though is a secondary data source.  Ages and birth year and month, places of birth, and places of parent’s birth are second-hand information on these records.  Other records (like a birth certificate) would be a primary data source that could confirm the information on the census.

For now though, I would continue one more decade back and fill in the last gap.  With the information on the 1910 US Census, I would be able to see the movements of my ancestors over a 40-year span.

So:

• 1930 – Malden, Missouri
• 1920 – Malden, Missouri
• 1910 – ?
• 1900 – Daviess County, Missouri

My working theories were:

1. The family would still be in Daviess County.
2. The family would be somewhere in Missouri between Daviess County and Dunklin County, where Malden is.
3. Since some of the children had been born in Nebraska prior to 1900, the family might have moved back there for a time between the two locations in Missouri.
4. The family would have already moved to Malden.

It’s nice to have theories, but of course it is the facts that will show where their path had really taken them.  And, once again, the path led to a place I didn’t expect.

In 1910, my family lived in...Arkansas?

Here’s a copy of the 1900 Census too:

My Grandfather and His Family

It didn’t faze me in the least that in 1900 my grandfather was listed as Floyd R. and in 1910 was listed as Ralfa.  Ralph was his middle name, and Ralfa I am sure, was a misspelling on the part of some well-meaning census worker.  The M in Anna M. stood for Maud, so again, they had been easy to match up.  Of course, Hazel and Ethel were pretty obvious matches.

What of the other children?  Well, I knew from 1900 that my great-grandmother had nine children and eight were living.  I noticed in 1910, the number of living children had dropped to six.  Two of my grandfather’s siblings had died.  We knew for sure the four children listed on the 1910 Census were alive.  The four not on this census were Millard D., Oscar R., Boyd, and Lucy D..  Which two had lived, and which two had died?

I wondered what had brought my great-grandparents to Arkansas.  You could almost draw a line straight down from Daviess County to Sevier County.  What had sparked their southern migration?  And why, within 10 years, had they returned to Missouri, this time settling in the southeast corner of the state?

It was certainly a long and winding road I had discovered on my great-grandparents’ journey to the West.  From the information I had gathered so far, they had left West Virginia some time prior to 1885 (the approximate year their oldest known child was born in Nebraska).  They stayed in Nebraska long enough to have at least five children.  From there, the family traveled to Daviess County, Missouri, which is likely where my grandfather was born (and possibly at least two other siblings as well).  The unknown 9th child could have been born in any of these locations.  All we know for now is that as of 1900, the child no longer was alive.

By 1910, the family had lost two more of its children, and gained one new family member, a mother-in-law (which means this would be my great-great-grandmother).  The name is listed as what appears to be Luveza Olaker (Ancestry.com listed the name as Luvcza Olaker, but I think my interpretation of the handwriting is closer to the truth).  Two of the children had also moved on to their own paths in life.  The family had also moved south and slightly west to Sevier County, Arkansas, a county just to the east of the Oklahoma border, and not too far away from the northeast border of Texas.

Ten short years later, the family returned to Missouri, this time residing in Dunklin County in the town of Malden.  The 1920 Census only shows my grandfather residing in the home with his parents.  There is not information given on this Census to indicate whether there are fewer living children now; we only know that by 1920, my grandfather’s remaining siblings had left their parents’ home.  In 1920, I also learned that my great-grandfather was running a furniture store, and my grandfather was listed as being in sales (was he working for his father?).

By 1930, my grandfather had already moved out on his own and was working on raising a family of his own in Flint, Michigan.  His parents, still residing in Malden, were no longer working.  They lived in a house they owned.

I had exhausted this path for the moment, and so I turned to yet another detour.  However, a surprising piece of information would soon come my way that would confirm much of the research I had just done.

 

Road Blocks and Detours

Tags

adventure, Air Force, Ancestry.com, detour, genealogy, Hungary, immigration, information, investigation, journey, military, Missouri, National Archives, road block, Taylor, US Census, West Virginia

In my earliest post, I mentioned that part of my motivation to begin research on my family tree was a request by my Dad to track down his brother’s children, whom the family had lost track of after their parents divorced.  I had decided to try and use the past to help make the link to the present.

However, my uncle was a rather elusive character in the past.  Part of that was the lack of information I had on him.  Sure, I had his full name.  I had his military service number.  I knew some of the general places he had lived, and one specific place (the one place we had as a family visited several times when I was young).  From census data, I was able to get an approximation of when he was born.  But as far as specifics, I knew little.

While I had gotten from the US Census data on Ancestry.com a year and a month of birth, I did not have an exact date.  My uncle had been in the Air Force.  I did not know when he enlisted or when he left the service.  My searches on Ancestry.com were not revealing much of anything on the Air Force at all.  It seemed strange, so I started expanding my search. which led me to the National Archives.

As I was looking around, I happened to spot a link about a fire in 1973, and so I decided to follow it.  I was dismayed by what I read.  Fire had devastated several of the records for both Army and Air Force personnel; 75% of the records for those in the Air Force discharged between September 25, 1947 to January 1, 1964 that were in alphabetical order after Hubbard, James E. were gone.  There had been no copies, and no indexes.  They were totally destroyed.

I felt I had reached my first major road block to any progress in finding the information I sought.  Military records might have listed information on my uncle’s dependents, so I might have gotten more information about them that way.  Without those records though, I might not ever be able to find the information about my aunt or my cousins.

However, this particular road block could possibly be cleared.  After all, what if my uncle was discharged after January 1, 1964?  What if his was one of the 25% that somehow survived the fire?  Without investigating further, I would not know whether the fate of my uncle’s military records was safe or in flames.

Since I knew that military records could be requested free by next of kin, I turned to the only living next of kin I knew of:  my Dad.  I made it as easy as I could for him.  I filled out the forms with all the data we had for my uncle, and then sent them on to him to sign and then mail.

While we waited for those records, I wasn’t going to stay idle.  I did take some detours on my journey at this time.  I decided to see how far back I could go on the Taylor side of the family tree.  I had found information on my great-grandfather, William H. Taylor, in Missouri in 1900, but not anywhere near where I expected him to be.  I knew based on the census data that he was born in West Virginia.  How had he gotten from West Virginia to Missouri, and from the upper part of Missouri down to the southeast corner?

My second detour would actually be a jump from the Taylor path completely.  I would begin researching my mother’s side of the family.

Finally, my third detour would not even be about my own family tree at all.  I would begin looking at my husband’s family tree.  My husband’s paternal grandparents had immigrated to the US from Hungary.  I wondered when and where they had arrived in the US, and from whence their journey had begun.

While I had hoped that at least part of this adventure would be a snap, it was proving to be a bit more arduous in the earlier stages.  Answers were not going to always come easily.  Genealogical records were not always going to be out in plain site, and not every person on my tree at Ancestry.com would have a hint leaf next to their name.  I would need to dig to uncover the information.  My ancestors were out there, waiting to be discovered, and I knew the best way to find them was to keep looking.  One path may be blocked, but others were open to travel and be discovered.

Adventuring Allies

Tags

adventure, Ancestry.com, descendant tree, Elder, genealogy, information, journey, Malden, McCombs, Missouri, Schreckengast, Taylor

On Ancestry.com, they make it easy to connect with others that are researching similar interests.  There are forums available to ask questions about family members you are trying to investigate.  When a hint appears for a family member that links to another person’s family tree, you can choose to contact that person directly.  At times, this person can become an ally in your journey, offering guidance, and in my case, a few new stories to add to your tree. One such ally I found in my early journey has the screen name Kaderquin.  Kaderquin’s tree came up as a hint for me because of a possible tie-in with my great-grandfather, William H. Taylor. My first note to Kaderquin:

Hi! I’m pretty new to all this, but a leaf attracted me here because my great-grandfather (William H Taylor) appears to be connected to it. I guess I would like to know how I can confirm it’s the same person, and where do I go from here?

Thanks for any help you can give in advance! 🙂

The advice I received was simple, but very helpful:

Good question! You have to compare what you know about your great-grandfather with the information on the “leaf” record. There are probably dozens of William H. Taylors. When was your great-grandfather born? Where did he live? Names of wife/wives, parents, children?

It’s always best to work from the known back…..list all you know, and find out all you can, about your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins….and expand from there.

Good luck on your research. I can’t help you…the William H. Taylor on my Daniel line is there because his son Roy married a third cousin of my grandmother…..or so I think based on current research.

So, I found out quickly that Kaderquin and I had no real family ties, although our lines may have crossed briefly because one of my grand-uncles possibly married her grandmother’s distant cousin.  When I was able to share information about my great-grandfather’s family after some additional research, Kaderquin helped me in locating death certificates for both of my paternal great grandparents. In looking at Kaderquin’s tree, I also discovered she was working on a type of tree I had never seen before:  a descendant tree.  With a descendant tree, instead of starting with yourself and working back, you start with a particular relative and work forward.  I haven’t tried this with my side of the family tree yet since I’m not that far back, but with my husband’s side of the tree, we have started working forward from one of his distant great grandfather’s on his mother’s side, the first known person with the last name of Schreckengast.

About the same time that I had found Kaderquin to be a helpful ally in my journey, I  also located Mary, who turned out to be not only an asset and an ally, but also a somewhat distant relation!  I also discovered Mary through Ancestry.com.  She happened to be researching two names that I knew from my family history:  McCombs (my paternal grandmother’s family name), and Elder (a family name that I knew was somehow related, but I had never understood the connection).  Mary helped me join up the two names with the following facts:

• Mary Emma Brazal (Mary’s grandmother), and Georgia Almeda Brazal (my great-grandmother) were sisters.
• Georgia Almeda (Meda for short) married Joseph McCombs, my great-grandfather (who was always called “Poppa” by the family).  They had four daughters, one of which was my grandmother.  Meda died in 1911.
• Mary Emma married Michael Elder.  They had two sons.  Michael died in 1914.
• Some time after this, Joseph McCombs married Mary Emma Brazal Elder.  This meant that the children from their previous marriages were not only cousins, but also step brothers and sisters!

I had always heard my Aunt Jeanette refer to Poppa’s second wife as “Aunt Emma”.  Up until learning this, I had always thought that she had called her that because she had not wanted to call her “Mom”.  It turns out Aunt Emma really was her aunt!

Mary was gracious enough to share with me some of the family pictures she had.  One of them came with a story I had never heard before:

— Mary’s Comment: “I don’t remember the man’s name but Jeanette was engaged to him and she stood him up on the wedding day left him standing at the alter [sic], a year later they got back together and on their new wedding day he left her standing at the alter [sic].”

 

Kaderquin and Mary were the first allies I found on this journey, but by no means are they the last.  Adventuring allies can assist you, give you advice, and sometimes, they will surprise you with a bit of family history you never knew.