Family Memories of Christmases Long Past

Holidays have a way of displacing the usual pace of genealogical pursuits. After all, what good is remembering family, if one can't be with family during the times that count?

In the Christmas interim, I had thought it a brilliant idea to post a few reports of my ancestors' Christmases past, gleaned from newspaper reports of the time. Alas, that idea didn't work out as well as I had hoped, for while newspaper archives may be wonderful for locating reports of specifically named ancestors, it doesn't provide as easy a mechanism for those simply wishing to browse through the pages of a specific year's December issues. Worse, having ancestors who insist on living in towns which no current aggregator of old newspapers has chosen to include in their collection is a sure way to make zero progress in such a goal.

Nevertheless, I persevered and discovered some insights on my own mother's post-high school adventures, approaching the Christmas just after her graduation.

Thankfully, the Columbus, Ohio, newspapers are now among those in the holdings at GenealogyBank.com, so I could search to my heart's content. That's where I found a number of small insertions including my mother's name. Most of these were announcements of ballet school dance recitals in which she appeared.

My mother had spent a number of years taking lessons—not only in ballet, but in tap and modern dance—from the Norwegian immigrant who had opened Columbus' first ballet school in 1926. Under the direction of Jorg L. Fasting, my mother and several other children of Columbus residents were able to pursue their dreams of dance.

Sometimes, my mother's name was only included in newspaper articles as an "also ran"—barely mentioning her participation at all. One time, for a recital held at a private residence accommodating an audience of two hundred, it was mentioned that she "danced to the 'Song of India' in a costume which she herself had recently received from that country."

While it was tempting to assume this was just the usual children's recitals—those tedious events parents endured on behalf of their offspring—it was interesting to discover just who my mother's dance instructor was. Although some attributed the location of his birth to the United States—while others to Norway—Jorg Fasting apparently served in the U.S. Army during World War I. Some reports indicated he had danced with Ballet Russe, others with a ballet company in Chicago, but at any event, that he was an initiating force in the formation of the dance arts in the capital of Ohio.

I've thumbed through the countless photographs of my mother, holding costumed poses mid-dance routine during her high school years. In many, her younger sister patiently endured participation, as well—though she admittedly was not cut out for such roles, herself. My mother, on the other hand, threw herself into every dance step, wholeheartedly.

It probably came as no surprise to her parents when my mother decided, upon graduation from high school, to pursue a career in dance and acting. Though it was during war years, the arrangements were made, and my mother started out for New York and her dream, just about when most people now would be beginning their Christmas shopping routine.

Quite after the fact, The Columbus Dispatch announced, on January 10, 1944, that my mother had left Columbus, headed to the first stop on her journey the previous December 5,

to visit her aunt, Mrs. L. H. Martin in South Orange, N. J., before entraining for New York city, where she will enter the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on Jan. 17.

The article, appearing on the women's page of that Monday edition of the Dispatch, came with a nice photograph of the young "Miss Patsy Ruth Davis," as well as a mention of her parents. I can't help but wonder what Christmas was like for them, following their oldest daughter's departure on her New York City adventure.

Reviewing that vignette from my mother's younger years now, I can't help but wonder if she ever knew, upon her later-years return to Columbus, that her dance instructor was still quite active in the local arts scene. Billed in later years as a choreographer as well as teacher, Jorg Fasting still operated his dance studio, which he did until the spring before his passing. When I saw his December 7, 1987, obituary had mentioned that he "was still demonstrating dance moves at age 91," I couldn't help but think of the one protégé of his that I knew: she, too, could still dance those routines, long after those high school years when she left home just before Christmas.

Above: Photograph of unidentified New York City dance troupe, circa 1940s, with Patsy Davis in center of front row (wearing toe shoes); photograph in private collection of author.

Remembering the Ones Who Made a Difference

On my last trip to Columbus—a sad journey two years ago to clean the cabinets and desk drawers of my aunt, following her passing that November—I lingered over a box full of photos, debating whether to toss or save.

The box was filled with those tiny school portraits—you know, the thumbnail-sized kind parents pass out each year to everyone in sight—but not one of them was of a person I knew.

Unlike those photographs we often find in our now-gone relatives' collections—the type bearing absolutely no identification of the portrait's subject—almost every one of these pictures included a name.

Just one name, that is: a first name. Usually found beneath the words, "your friend." And a thumbnail-sized thank you letter to someone who was obviously their favorite teacher.

That would be my aunt.

Over the years, my aunt had evidently preserved these mementos of students who now, likely, were adults, themselves—some, possibly, even teachers. It makes me wonder whether, on a cold November day—maybe when she was feeling discouraged, herself—she pulled out this Stash of Students Past to reminisce. And soak in the positive feelings sent her by those who had not yet outgrown that endearing childish habit of thankfulness.

Sara Jacqueline Davis was a homegrown graduate of Columbus' Ohio State University, that gargantuan institution of higher education football-with-a-college-attached. She had chosen to major in home economics, a now-quaint career choice from which she eventually swerved to specialize in library science. That, of course, required yet another degree—in her case, a master's degree—but that was no problem. She was a career teacher with no family of her own to distract from her professional goals.

A social person, my aunt made many friends over the years—not just students, but fellow teachers, people she met on her frequent travels, members of her church, fellow volunteers, neighbors. A special focus of her verve for life was cheering on her beloved "Buckeyes," either in the stands or with a circle of friends at the parties she hosted at her home.

Though her career path eventually morphed from full-time teacher to librarian to part time substitute teacher, she refused to let herself become idle. Up until the injury that eventually took her life at the age of eighty seven, she kept a part time position in a local gift shop, just for "pocket change"—and company.

It was interesting, receiving the guests who stopped by, in the rainy November weather, for visitation before her funeral. They came from all walks of life. Hardly surprising, considering her cheery affect and spunky approach to life. Each came with a story to tell our family—how they came to know her, what they did together. But most importantly, what she meant to their life.

It's funny, thinking over all the things that I remember of this aunt from my own life. The ones that stand out the most aren't the achievements she accomplished, or any flashy, stellar claims. They hover mostly around childhood memories—like the time that home ec teacher promised to help me learn how to sew, took me through the whole process from picking out the fabric to completing the project, my very own stuffed animal (a cat, of course), or just the generic fun that seemed to radiate from her. She was a fun and favorite relative.

Mostly, though, in adult-eyed retrospect, it turns out that the most remarkable thing about this woman was her slow and steady consistency. Over the years, bit by bit, she built a life of constancy. Though she was petite, I guess some found a rock-like stability in her that became the antidote to the turmoil and angst in many pre-teen students' lives.

Every now and then, I run across a well-written piece, explaining how the author decided to—against all odds—go back to find and thank a teacher who made a big difference in his or her life. While I'm glad for all those who heed that nudge to reconnect with the people who poured so much of themselves into that writer's life, I'm sure glad that wasn't the case for my aunt. For there, in a box in her desk drawer, was the testimony of many years' worth of students who didn't wait, but said their heartfelt thanks, right when they could.

Photograph, top left: portrait of Sara Jacqueline Davis, circa 1950; below: in front of the Columbus school where she taught for many years in Ohio; originals from the private collection of the author.

Write Before Christmas

Letter writing must have been a tag-team sport for the ladies of my grandparents’ era. They each swapped stories, written in impeccable handwriting—or at least close enough to be merely perfect—and then urged each other to write back soon.

Granted, the letter my grandmother Rubie McClellan Davis received in October 1983 from her school friend Zemla Doke Griffith marked a grand occasion: a commemoration for the 1912 student body of Fort Meade Junior Senior High School in Florida. Small wonder my grandmother had tucked it away among her important papers.

The letter, itself, was nothing special. Other than the news clippings tucked inside the envelope, both from the 1983 event and from an earlier Class of 1919 reunion, the topics discussed were quite pedestrian. But they do give a glimpse of life in a decade, though within our reach, so far removed from the day to day remembrances we have of life today.

I suppose there were more letters sent between the two friends. The big occasion may have spurred a few extra letter exchanges, but things likely settled down to the predictable back-and-forth, once the anniversary dates were long past. Those letters, though, faded into the oblivion owing to most mundane conversations. Thankfully, the warm memories engendered by this milestone anniversary captured at least one snapshot of everyday life in 1983 for those of us looking back from our vantage point thirty years later.

            I brought my sewing machine back last time I was home so have been doing some sewing. Carolyn had to have a uniform for Flag Corps so I have made it. It was black and that was very hard on my eyes. Now I have to make one for one of the other girls whose mother does not sew and they are too poor to hire it made. I’ll take my time though and rest my eyes often. I love to sew. Wish I could see better.

            Well, I must get this in the mail. Now I’ll tell you what you told me, Write before Christmas!

                                    Love always,

                                                Zemla

A Different Kind of Senior

It was grand celebrating those glory days when the seniors of Fort Meade High School had graduated in 1919. And it’s been quite as grand to relive those reunion occasions, thanks to the letters and newspaper clippings my grandmother had saved among her special papers.

Along with all the newspaper clippings that Rubie McClellan Davis’ friend Zemla Doke Griffith sent her from Fort Meade, Florida, Zemla had included a long and newsy letter.

Personal letters like this are not the type of item people are accustomed to receiving in our current times. While Zemla’s letter was postmarked October 20, 1983—not very long ago—it does still reach back to a world that many people now would find foreign. Got friends who went to the hospital or lost a job? Now, we think nothing of posting that on Facebook or even Twitter, so everyone in our circles would know.

Perhaps only fifteen years ago, the way to share such personal news would be by email—or at the least by picking up the phone and calling, even if it were long distance.

But thirty years ago? Back in 1983, when this letter was written, there were still many people who held to the notion that it would have been extravagant even to pick up the phone to chitchat, if it involved a call between, say, Ohio and Florida.

So consider a letter like Zemla’s the 1983 equivalent of Facebook—all lumped together in one huge post.

What did she talk about? News, of course! Important stuff—at least to folks like Rubie and Zemla. The latest on what’s been happening to anyone and everyone they knew in common from the “good old days” when they were all together in high school—the mighty senior class of Fort Meade School.

When that subject had been worn out—hoping, of course, that coming in the reply would be more tidbits to keep the conversation going—the topics would head toward other familiar areas, like family, neighborhood, hobbies.

After discussing the news from classmates Elizabeth Morgan and Marie Alderman—or anyone else who had recently been in touch—Zemla responded to what my grandmother must have written in a previous letter. I’m not at all surprised to discover that Rubie’s eyesight had been a topic of correspondence. By that time, Rubie most likely had had her cataract surgery—which brought with it an outcome she never found quite matching her expectations. I can’t tell you how many times I heard my grandmother regret what had become of “my eye-uhs,” as she would call them in her distinct version of a southern accent. Apparently, the “new things that have come out” that Zemla was championing were the very things my grandmother was bemoaning.

The reference Zemla made to “your daughter” concerned Rubie’s oldest daughter, my mother, who after being widowed had sought work in the education arena just as the then-recent economic downturn had caused many school districts to lay off large numbers of teachers. My mother, after selling the family home in New York, had found a position teaching in a private school in Los Angeles—a radical change from the public school environments back home. Discovering an associate had recently been appointed principal of a private school in Minnesota, she signed on at that less-urban school setting, moving yet again, halfway across the continent. Finally, tired of being so far removed from family, she resigned herself to return home to Columbus, Ohio, where her parents and sister still lived. Until she could find a teaching position, she made ends meet by doing restaurant work along with those ever-hopeful gigs at substitute work in several school districts in the area. It was likely at that point that my grandmother had made mention of her daughter’s circumstances to her confidante, Zemla.

Keeping in mind that, in 1983, Rubie would have been eighty four years of age, and her husband Jack nearing eighty six, it’s no surprise to hear Zemla offer her condolences for Jack’s declining health. All these classmates and their spouses—at least, among those whose spouses were still alive—were likely experiencing similar circumstances. No matter how well they seemed to be doing, it was a slower and more circumspect “well” than it had been back in 1919, the year they were the mighty seniors just about to graduate from high school.

She [Elizabeth Morgan] said she had a letter from Marie [Alderman] and she had just lost a sister. That made 5 deaths in her family since the first of the year. Marie has had some problems with her heart but seems to be doing better now. She is not as active as she was though. I hear from her occasionally.

            I am so sorry you are having so much trouble with Jack in such poor health and your eyes so bad. Do hope the doctor has been able to improve your vision by now. It does seem with all the new things that have come out you could get some relief. Hope everything is better for you.

            I hope your daughter can land a permanent teaching job. I think she is wise to do as much substitute work as she can get. I really don’t see how she holds up to two jobs though. Teaching is so hard and so is restaurant work.

The Graduating Class

Seventeen young scholars were in the graduating class in the ceremony held at the Fort Meade, Florida, high school on May 2, 1919. Granted, it was a small class by today’s standards, given the size of American public schools and the populations served by most school districts.

Fifty eight years later, as many as could of that original group found their way back to Fort Meade for a reunion. I know my grandmother was there—the items I’ve been sharing over the last few days were keepsakes I found among Rubie McClellan Davis’ personal papers years after her passing. This reunion was one of the highlights of her later years.

By the time of this reunion, Rubie was seventy eight years of age—admittedly, two years older than some of her classmates, as we’ve already noticed—but still quite energetic and involved in her community far to the north of her Florida hometown. This event sounded like it had the makings of the perfect road trip, and Rubie and her husband Jack Davis took the opportunity to make the drive from their home in Columbus, Ohio.

At the point of the reunion, according to the report run by the local newspaper, there were still eleven members remaining of the original seventeen graduates. However, The Fort Meade Leader noted, only six members of the class were actually able to attend the event. These six were joined, at the reunion dinner, by special guests with links to those early school days memories. Incredibly, among those honored attendees were a faculty member from the high school at that time, a member of the preceding class, and a student usher from the 1919 ceremony who graduated the following year.

The October 7, 1977, front page article—complete with photograph—was careful to list not only those in attendance, but the names of each class member from the original graduation program.

With all those details in The Fort Meade Leader, it’s no wonder that my grandmother brought back a copy of that entire edition of the newspaper!

Class Motto:

Now we try a boundless sea.

Class Colors:                                      Class Flower:

Emerald and Gold                                 White Carnation

Class Roll:

         Marie Alderman                                   Pauline Hancock

         Nolie Bryan                                          Joseph Hudson

         Lucile Brice                                          Rubie McClellan

         Zemla Doke                                         Elizabeth Morgan

         Claire Davis                                          Bernard Meek

         John Doke                                            Patrick Nugent

         Bill Enzor                                              James Singleton

         Lottie Hollingsworth                              William Williams

Marian Yearwood

G. H. Williams, Principal of F.M.H.S.

Gertrude Scott, Senior Teacher

Class Grumbler

Senior classes over the decades have had traditions of bestowing pet labels for specific individual members, as well as their official mascots and class insignia.

It was fun to find this tear sheet, a reprint of the graduation program on May 2, 1919, of the Fort Meade, Florida, High School. While some schools in more recent years saw their senior class designate members who were “class clown” or “most likely to succeed,” for their program, the class of 1919 chose someone to read the Class Will and the Class Prophecy.

I found the reprinted page from the original graduation ceremony among my grandmother’s personal papers. It took a while to piece together the story of the event, as it was saved in the same general place as the items I’ve just shared with you over the last few days on the special commemoration of the student body of 1912.

A little explanation is in order here, once you realize that we are talking about the Class of 1919 instead of the Student Body of 1912. The program I’ve posted below comes from an earlier event, which my grandmother, Rubie McClellan Davis, was able to attend. This event, too, came with its own set of memorabilia—not sent by mail from a dear friend as the later event had been, but brought back home to Columbus, Ohio, after a wonderful trip down memory lane in Rubie’s childhood home in Florida.

The event I detailed in previous posts seemed to be all-inclusive in its reach, hoping to bring in anybody who had attended the Junior-Senior High School in the year 1912. This reunion I’m describing now occurred on Wednesday, October 5, 1977, specifically for the graduates of the class of 1919.

You might be—as I was—tickled to see the official designation for Rubie’s good friend who had shared letters with her of so many mementos of the Student Body of 1912 event. Zemla Doke was listed on the graduation program of May 2, 1919, as the Class Grumbler.

Wonder what she grumbled about…

FORT    MEADE    HIGH    SCHOOL

GRADUATING  EXERCISES

May 2, 1919

HIGH  SCHOOL  AUDITORIUM

P R O G R A M

March…………………….Miss Florence Ley

Invocation……………………..Rev. E. F. Ley

Piano Duet…………….Evelyn Keen and Inez Prine

Class History…………….Nolie Bryan

Class Grumbler……………Zemla Doke

Class Will…………………..Lottie Hollingsworth

Vocal Solo……………….Miss Theresa Yearwood

Class Declaimer……………….Lucile Brice

Class Oration………………….Bernard Meek

Class Prophecy……………Elizabeth Morgan

Showing Some Official Appreciation

What is the first thing people do when they spot a list of names, from the event they just attended, in the newspaper? Look for their own names, of course. It’s that fifteen minutes of fame syndrome.

A special event held to recognize the 1912 student body of Fort Meade Junior Senior High School in Florida merited its own newspaper article shortly after the event was held in September, 1983. Since my grandmother, who should have been part of that occasion, lived too far away to attend, her fellow classmate, the former Zemla Doke, had tucked a clipping of the article into a letter she sent to her friend Rubie McClellan Davis, by then living way up north in Columbus, Ohio.

I found that letter years after Rubie’s passing, among the possessions later kept by my aunt, Rubie's youngest daughter. The letter, as we’ve already seen, was full of news, as well as mementos of the 1983 event.

Including a newspaper report.

As my grandmother’s proxy, even I looked for her name in that newspaper list of high school classmates from 1912. At first, I was puzzled when I couldn’t find it in the newspaper clipping Zemla sent.

Then I remembered that Zemla and Rubie had discussed this strange omission in their letter. For whatever reason, Rubie was not listed among those attending the Fort Meade, Florida, school in that particular year.

The newspaper report regarding the event in September, 1983, honoring the representatives of that 1912 class, must have been yet another something Zemla hoped would help her friend feel a bit more like she had been among those in attendance.

“These grads might be in their 80s,” the article began, “but they’re bright, bouncy as teens.”

All sorts of local officials were on hand to greet the class members—making me wonder what the occasion commemorated. It wasn’t an event in May or June—typical graduation months. It wasn’t the anniversary of building—or even tearing down—the former high school. And yet, there was official fanfare, presentations with proclamations, and even a copy of the class photo from 1912, in front of the old school, for each attendee.

I never found a copy of that old photo in my grandmother’s belongings. At first, I thought, perhaps she didn’t care to save it—odd, though, since she had so carefully assembled all the rest of Zemla’s packet of memorabilia and saved it through the rest of her life.

Then I remembered: she wasn’t even counted in the list of those names. While Zemla did her best to make it seem like Rubie was there with the rest of them, some things take official involvement before they can be made possible.

            Student Body Appreciation Week may not be too special in many places, but in Fort Meade it is, especially when the student body is students who attended the school more than 70 years ago.

            “I do hereby proclaim the week of Sept. 18 through 24, 1983, ‘1912 Student Body Appreciation Week’ in Fort Meade.” With those words Fort Meade Mayor W.J. Loadholtes welcomed 14 visiting former Fort Meade High School students, now mostly in their 70s and 80s, but looking as bright and bouncy as teenagers for the unusual reunion at Fort Meade High School last week. All were members of the school’s student body in 1912.

            Also present to honor the group were City Manager Bob Bullard, several members of the city commission, representatives of the Polk County School Board and former School Board Member Dan Moody.

            Moody expressed his appreciation and admiration of the former students as examples of the results of an education in Polk County. He assured them that Polk Schools are “doing exactly what they are designed to do—educate young men and women.

            “Polk County students attain the highest possible honors in colleges and throughout their lives,” he added.

            The guests of honor were given copies of the mayor’s proclamation and framed reproductions of a photograph of the entire student body taken in front of the school in 1912.

            The 14 former students attending the reunion represented nearly half of the 30 located and invited by FMHS principal Tom McDonald.

            Those present were Lawrence Adams of Arcadia; Edith McAuley Allen of Orlando; E. C. Botts, Zelma Doke Griffin [sic], Jeanette Rivers and Eva Rivers Sexton of Tampa; Austin Clifton of Sebring; John Enzor and John Wingate of Winter Haven; Wiley Rivers of LaCrosse; Don McAuley, and Fred Bobbett, Maude Lightsey Jones and Annabelle Wiggins of Fort Meade.

            Unable to attend, due to distance, previous commitments or other reasons were Ralph Botts, Naomi Griffin Drane, Julia Griffin Enzor, Inex Prine Garrard, Marion Herring, David Hill, Lena Hill, Walter Lightsey, Lucille Wingate Long, Mary Wingate Martin, Clem Moseley, Quessie Nobles Pierce, Mrs. S. L. Nobles Townsend, Pearl Prevatt Walker, Gordon Wilcox, Billy Williams and Warren Williams.

Reunion Time

Sometimes, in doing genealogical research, I think I’ve “got it made” when I run across an unusual name to work on. Couple that with a limited geographical location, and I figure I’m sure to find the person I’m seeking, easily.

That, however, is not always how it goes.

Trying to find Zemla Doke Griffith, the woman who wrote the letter we began reading yesterday, is not turning out to be as easy as it seemed—even after uncovering details on the woman in her own letter.

Zemla is not a name I’ve ever seen before. Evidently, neither had the census enumerator for Fort Meade, Florida, in 1920: he marked her in the record as “Zemlar.”

Well, that was close enough to find her in her father Lacy B. Doke’s household. With her mother’s name written as “Milie,” seventeen year old Zemla was joined in that census record by siblings Mary, Thomas, John and Moses.

That didn’t do it for the previous census, though. Even with that full set of family names, I could not find Zemla—or even "Zemlar"—in the 1910 census, and she was evidently not yet born at the time of the 1900 census. It didn’t matter how I tried spelling either her given name, Zemla, or her surname, Doke. I tried searching under her father’s name and even her brother John’s name—just in case the opposite happened and a name as common as John would do the trick.

Apparently, from all the material Zemla had inserted in the envelope along with her letter to her friend Rubie McClellan Davis, she was sharing news of a special gathering of the class at the Fort Meade High School in 1912. Since Rubie, my grandmother, lived in Columbus, Ohio, at the time of this 1983 letter, it must not have been a good time for her to make the trip back down to Florida. After all, by this time, she would have been eighty four years of age. And her husband’s health was beginning to decline.

She had, however, in her style of organizing, filed this letter along with ephemera from a previous high school reunion which she was able to attend—all of which I’ll share over the next few days, as well as what I can find about those who were named in the clippings, programs, and other memorabilia Zemla sent to her Fort Meade school-days friend from so many years ago.

            I am enclosing some things I thought you would be interested in. I really can’t understand why you were not in the school in 1912. I thought you were here when real young, however I don’t remember you until High School. I was in the 5^th grade that year and Marie Scaggs was my teacher. There were three of my class besides myself here for the re-union. They were Lawrence Adams, Don McAuley, and Austin Clifton. I am sure you will remember some who were here. It was a real nice affair and I enjoyed it.

            I had a letter from Elizabeth recently. She is still going strong. I marvel at how well she does. She had just returned from a trip to Atlanta with her daughter. She said she had a letter from Marie and she had just lost a sister.

In Rubie’s Mailbox

I found a letter to my grandmother among my aunt’s papers, and it looked, from all the details stuffed inside the envelope, like something I ought to save.

It wasn’t a particularly old letter. Written in 1983, it was addressed to the last home where my grandmother lived in Columbus, Ohio.

The envelope was addressed to “Mrs. Jack R. Davis,” which I didn’t find particularly unusual, seeing the letter was coming from Fort Meade, Florida. That old fashioned, proper Southern mode of address—well, except it didn’t strictly include solely initials—still lived on among these old friends.

The letter was from a school chum from so many, many years ago. I had always wondered about this schoolmate’s name, having found it written in my grandmother’s unique hand in her address book.

Tell me: if you had seen a name written like this,

what would you have said that name was?

I was thankful that the woman had sent a previous letter with a return address label, which my grandmother had, thankfully, stuck in the address book right above that mystery name.

The woman’s name was Zemla. Not too many around with a name like that!

In October, 1983, Zemla started her letter off routinely enough. Following a greeting, she shared the latest news with her friend. (Since it’s a recent enough letter to refer to people still living, I’ve omitted that portion of her note.)

One of the first details that made me value the discovery of this letter is that it addressed my grandmother as Rubie, not Ruth. For all her adult life, my grandmother had gone by the first name Ruth. I had never known her by any other name. It was quite a surprise to discover that her parents had named her something other than Ruth, and to actually, here, find an example of her childhood friend calling her by that other name.

                                                         Thurs, Oct. 20^th

Dear Rubie,

            You said for me to write before Christmas but I’ve almost waited too late. I’m still at Carl’s in Ft. Meade trying to keep the home fires burning.

But it was what followed that opening section that I thought would be a fun project to share here. Actually, as far as I can figure out, it introduces two such projects. And, if I can get some of these names accounted for, it might be an interesting chance to delve into life in Fort Meade, circa 1912. For, as Zemla continued on the second page of her letter,

I am enclosing some things I thought you would be interested in…

Cousin Bait, Sixties Style

Without social media, without online genealogy forums, without even copy machines to make handy extra duplicates of letters or articles, how did genealogy writers of the last century—forget that, even just fifty five years ago—get the word out about their publications? Or even about collaborative efforts?

Nowadays, we are awash in technological tools to help us spread the news about our research goals and projects. We can tweet about them, blog about them, text about them, email them. We can post them on Facebook, Google Plus—even post pictures about them on Pinterest. We have online collaborative arenas where we can share our genealogical work for free on everything from good ol’ Rootsweb to the latest iteration of FamilySearch.org. We can even pay good money for the chance to post our data on genealogical sites where others are sure to find us. Ancestry.com was just the beginning.

But after he published his book on the Genealogical Data of the Broyles, Laffitte and Boyd Families in 1959, Dr. Montague Boyd of Atlanta, Georgia, was quite limited in how he could announce his latest venture to all his distant cousins.

As it turned out, Dr. Boyd evidently used a mimeographed form letter to do the heavy lifting for him. And he relied on the good will—and a lot of word of mouth—of many others to finish off the work.

I was fortunate to stumble upon a copy of Dr. Boyd’s March 1960 letter to my grandmother, found in my aunt’s belongings, where the letter had been parked ever since my grandmother’s passing in 1993. Dr. Boyd’s request to my grandmother, which you may have read yesterday, was scribbled on the back of the form letter I’ve included below.

When I read his postscript, added to the bottom of this form letter, along with his plea to those receiving the note to spread the word among their relatives, I realized just how different it would have been, back then, to accomplish the networking aspects of genealogical data-sharing we take so much for granted in our own times. We have so many systems at our disposal for assembling networks of people who might be supportive of our projects. The very use of the term, “Cousin Bait,” reveals a casual consideration of the ease with which we can attract the attention of interest groups such as distant relatives.

I used to publish a newsletter back in those days of sending manuscripts off to the printer—after the tedious process of dealing with the typesetter and poring over final proofs—then waiting a seemingly interminable time until the printer, having missed his promised deadline, finally turned over the finished (and pricey) copies. I can certainly relate to Dr. Boyd’s dilemma.

I wilt, also, when I consider—in terms of the time of his 1960 letter—his postscript apologizing that “I find that I shall have to do over” a part of that project. How incredible it seems, in light of all those handicaps (that they saw merely as the way things were), that many books of genealogical data were produced at all—and that any were completed without subsequent discovery of errors, for which was incurred yet another tedious process of rectifying the said discovered errors.

How incredible it seems, correspondingly, that we, in this age of such technological conveniences, haven’t produced quantum multiples of genealogical reports to pass down as our contribution to the published heritage of generations yet to come.

GENEALOGICAL DATA

OF THE

BROYLES, LAFFITTE AND BOYD FAMILIES

            A limited number of copies of the genealogical data, collected by me over a period of several years, has been published. My sister, Mrs. Elinar S. Trosdal (Lucy T. Boyd) of Savannah, Georgia, has paid for the multilithing and binding.

            The publication can be sent to any member of any of the above families without any cost, except that for the envelope, the postage, and handling (addressing, loading, and mailing), in all only one dolar.

            I began a study of my ancestors, the Broyles, Laffittes, and Boyds, having in mind the preparation of some simple outline for myself and for my immediate family. But, in time, it seemed desirable to add much more data than I had intended, and I would like now to have all of my relatives have if possible one or more copies of the collected information.

            A Family Tree of each family is also available – a blue print with blue letters on a white background. The actual cost of the blue print for the Broyles Family, with the mailing tube, and the postage, etc., is $1.14. The Laffitte and Boyd Trees $1.00 each.

            I have only a limited number of addresses of members of these families, so I hope that those of you who received this letter will send additional addresses to me, or notify those who do not receive a letter that the books and blue prints are to be had without cost.

            To obtain copies please send your request, enclosing the amount of payment necessary. Print your full name and address – (1) on the back of the envelope, and (2) in the letter. I shall use the envelope to have the publication and the blue prints addressed and sent, and I shall keep the letters in my files.

            The books and blue prints will be sent out in batches, not singly, so that there may be some delay in their reaching you. If you do not receive the data within a few weeks please write to me again. I shall not have time to acknowledge the receipt of all the letters. But I shall certainly send the book and the blue prints if I receive a suitable request.

                                                         Montague Laffitte Boyd, M.D.

                                                         2560 Habersham Road, N.W.

                                                         Atlanta 5, Georgia

P.S.   I find that I shall have to do over the Boyd and Laffitte Family Trees. I shall complete them as quickly as I can, within a week or two, at least.

Your Grandmother’s Beta Version

Once upon a time, there was consumer expectation that, when a new product was brought to market, it was error-free and all possible malfunctions had been worked out of the system.

Then there was software. Computer programmers discovered that, if they applied some cool-sounding term like “beta” to their product, they could get away with selling the general public on becoming unpaid guinea pigs for their newest release.

Somehow, in the world of genealogy, we haven’t yet reached the plateau of beta testing nirvana. When we receive a book or a printout on a family’s genealogy, we expect it to be expertly-researched, footnoted, duly documented in every which way to Sunday’s genealogical gospel truth.

In other words, no beta testing for us family historians.

And yet, we now have so many advanced opportunities to engage in genealogical crowd-sourcing. We could, feasibly, issue our family trees as proposals from the perspective of our research as it stands at this point in our process of discovery, and invite collegiate review of our work—a thought I’ll pursue in more detail tomorrow.

For the low-tech genealogical writer in 1960, however, things wouldn’t have gone quite the same. Take, for instance, a book revered in circles of those researching the widespread Broyles family in the United States. The Broyles family from Germany, having emigrated to the New World as early as the 1700s, happens to be one segment of my own roots. One of the first sources I became aware of for research into this line was the very book by Montague Boyd that I mentioned yesterday.

Apparently, at its publication in 1959, Genealogical Data: Broyles, Laffitte, and Boyd Families was not the authoritative and exhaustive work it may have been envisioned to be—at least, if we can read between the lines on a brief letter scrawled by the author on the back of a printed sheet we'll look at tomorrow, mailed to my grandmother in Columbus, Ohio, on March 12, 1960. “See if you can make any changes or additions in it for me,” requested Dr. Boyd from his location in Atlanta, Georgia.

I have no idea whether my grandmother ever got a copy of the book to “look it over carefully.” I never found a copy of Montague Boyd’s work in my grandmother’s property, though her Aunt Nellie recommended it enthusiastically. When I found her papers—saved among her daughter’s personal belongings at her passing—the letter below was still carefully tucked inside its envelope, along with the undated note I posted yesterday from her aunt, Nellie Broyles Jones of Johnson City, Tennessee.

For some people, the interest they take in genealogy may be keen, but often it is fleeting. It takes a lot of work to assemble a genealogical project of any sort—even if it was a “beta version” issued in 1959 seeking low-tech updates by snail mail in 1960.

                                                                                    Mar 11, 60

My dear Mrs. Davis

            Mrs. Nellie B. Jones gave me your address. I had the wrong street etc in Columbus, Ohio.

            I wish that you would get one of the books of genealogical data and look it over carefully and see if you can make any changes or additions in it for me.

                        Kind regards

                                    Montague Boyd

                                    (Over)

Happy Alone

A letter to Ruby McClellan Davis from her Aunt Nellie started out well, with answers to family history questions. Somewhere in the middle, though, the ninety-something woman’s attention was drawn away from the task at hand and refocused on her own current problems.

Admittedly, rheumatism is nothing to take lightly. Small wonder that first personal mention on the previous page of her letter would be brought up. That seemed to jog her mind onto a different direction, and Mary Nellie Broyles Jones began revealing a few of her other problems.

As we’ve already seen, Aunt Nellie was quite the resilient woman. While she overcame considerable health issues, perhaps there was more at stake than had already been divulged to her niece, Ruby. On the other hand, that perennial battle between the generations on just when the right time should be to gracefully pass the baton from the elder to the younger can go either way. Sometimes, the time is right—or long overdue. Other times, I wouldn’t be surprised if some become the victims of generational stereotyping—being stuffed inaccurately into the pigeonhole labeled “too old.”

Apparently, from this letter, Nellie was not ready to be confined to that rigid stereotype of the Old Woman. And she was fingering her daughter—whom she labeled here merely as “MN,” though that clearly meant her fifty-nine-year-old namesake, Mary Nell.

After all, now that we know the rest of the story—from the date of this letter, Aunt Nellie lived seven more years until her passing on June 14, 1976—we can presume that she was quite capable of maintaining her independence.

With a little bit less help than some people were insisting on providing her.

            Don’t believe I’ve written you since MN moved out from me and I’m alone and much more contented. Tried to tie me in a nursing home for the rest of my life. Was in the hospital til some one died to give me a bed. That failed in the attempt. Then she got an apt, in the hills 3 miles clear across town in the wood. Muddy rocky narrow road on top of a hi ridge. I’d never try to drive. Said she was happy, alone, and that’s all that matters. Tom and Gene call and come around evry day. Friends, also, especially one in the building. I’ll never want for attentive friends.

            MN hasn’t given me her phone or called me, been moved the 23d one month. Enough.

            I’ll send the dates to Bill, too.

            Hope all is well with you all.

                        Love to all, Aunt Nellie

Meanwhile, In a Home Nearby

As sometimes happens, people who meet in faraway places turn out to have roots in the same neighborhood back home. When I first met my future husband, I was told he was from Houston, and he surely must have been aware that I was from New York. We met in California. Come to find out, years later, his mother and mine grew up not sixty miles from each other in central Ohio.

It was pretty much the same way with the youngest Davis child—my grandfather, Jack R. Davis. He met and married a woman from Florida whose maternal relatives lived just a short drive up the road, the next county over from Erwin, Tennessee.

As I go through the papers left behind by my aunt—and, by extension, her parents before her—I’m beginning to reconstruct a few of the details of family life for Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Davis of Columbus, Ohio. I couldn’t help but note that, unbeknownst to me, my grandmother once took up an interest in family history, herself, as revealed by letters she saved from correspondence with both relatives and strangers researching the same family lines.

The letter I’ll begin sharing today was sent to my grandmother—her name, given at birth, was Ruby, but she chose to change it, unofficially, to Ruth in her adult years—by her aunt in Tennessee. It was obviously a letter responding to my grandmother’s inquiries into some details about her parents’ history.

The woman sending the reply signed the letter, “Aunt Nellie.” Her return address on the envelope—thankfully, saved as well, for the letter itself contained no date—displayed Johnson City, Tennessee. An easy fifteen miles up the road from Erwin, Johnson City and vicinity was home to Ruby’s mother’s family, the Thomas T. Broyles family. Nellie, by now widow of Thomas Franklin Jones, was born Mary Nellie Broyles on July 6, 1875, in nearby Jonesborough in Washington County—the younger (and only surviving) sister of Ruby’s mother, Sara Ann Broyles McClellan. By the time of this letter in 1969, Nellie was well over ninety years of age.

Dear Ruby,

            Your letter just received, from the date, it was several days late, or I would have answered sooner. You want to know when your parents married? Well do I remember. Also it is in my father’s old bible as he kept everything written down, and I’ll say, “I’ve followed in his footsteps all the way.”

            As he wrote—

                        “Sarah Ann Broyles was married

                         to Rupert C. McClellan

                         28^th March 1898.”

            That was at the old home place in the middle of Chucky Valley. At 8 p.m. Minister Mr. W. H. Hendrix. A rainy nite. He was R.R. dispatcher.

In Case Anything Should Ever Happen

If you’ve been reading along with me on these letters sent from Lummie Davis Moore to her younger brother Jack, you probably thought Lummie had brought the second letter to a close yesterday, when she signed off—unless you picked up a hint from her additional comment, post script, that “Friends and neighbors are taking care of everything at home.”

She wasn’t done there. In fact, it seemed hard for her to bring herself to a close, as she continued for two more pages. After all the confidence, the boasting of the certainty of faithful friends, and even the spunky spirit bemoaning the captivity of hospital confinement after hip surgery for an unfortunate fall, the façade began to crumble at the point of signing off her second letter in May, 1962.

Somehow, so far removed from family in her retirement location in Phoenix, Arizona, perhaps in all those hours of solitude, Lummie had begun to wonder if all her doctor’s promises would indeed come to pass. She began to write doubtful phrases like, “in case anything should happen ever,” and to share contact information for people who “will always know” how she was doing.

Perhaps the Mrs. Cook and Mrs. Finly Lummie referred to were retirees, just as Lummie was. One for certain—Mrs. Finly—was a snowbird from, coincidentally, Columbus, where Lummie’s brother Jack and his wife were planning to return.

Jack’s return to Columbus seemed imminent at this point. Did Lummie fear losing contact with her brother just when her own health might turn for the worst? Of course, there was always her own daughter, Sarah Martha—whom I’m presuming she referred to in this letter, using the nickname “Babe”—but somehow, Lummie seemed to have a hesitation about being a “nuisance” to her own daughter. How much reading between the lines here might yield in further family information is hard to tell on this point.

With one last plea for her brother to remember to keep her posted on his new address, Lummie put the final close on her letter.

Jack am sending you an address + Telephone no—whom you can call at any time to find out about me in case anything should happen ever—She in turn has your name and will give her your new address—She is my near neighbor—and will always know just how things are with me.

            Mrs. O. K. Cook

            532 W. Georgia Ave.

            Tel AM 5-4605

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

            Mrs. L. L. Finly

            3406 N. 38^th St.

            Tel AM 5-2727

You met this lady in Columbus (Minnie)

Friends have been wonderful—One has wheel chair for me, another brought me adjustable crutches and cane at least ½ doz[en]—have been offered—So am fine don’t worry—Did I send you Brochure of this place where I am—If not let me know and I will send you one—I sent Babe one and just don’t remember if I sent you one or not—but will—Let me know of your move—

                                    Love

                                                Lumie