A Birthday Unawares

 

It was October 15, 1956, and Marilyn Sowle Bean wanted to hold a birthday party for her two year old daughter, Judith Louise. The only problem was, she would have to throw that party by herself. By October of 1956, Marilyn had been a single parent for almost a year, following the loss of her husband Earle the previous December.

As if that weren't devastating enough for the young mother, her husband's death had followed only eleven days after that of his older brother Sam. The original pain was primed, however, with the death of her own beloved father only seven months before that.

Apparently, though, there were friends—friends I hadn't known about, even though I did realize that time period was so difficult for Marilyn. The only way I've found out now is thanks to the discovery of her photograph collection, which had—unbeknownst to me—been sold to a local antique store, and subsequently spotted by a young genealogy enthusiast who (thankfully!) alerted me through the message boards at Ancestry.com.

The photo which told the story was thoroughly noted in Marilyn's hand on the reverse. Labeled at the top was the legend which I could easily have surmised, based on the picture, itself—but which someone else might not have known. Labels on photographs help us pass family stories along from previous generations.

The heading:

Judith Louise

Oct. 15, 1956

2 years old

Underneath the header, Marilyn inserted further explanation.

Second birthday party

with Gregory, Susan

+ Michael Hicks + their

parents, Dick and Phyllis Hicks.

So who were Dick and Phyllis Hicks? Names I've never heard Marilyn mention—that I recall—they and their children Michael and Susan might have been friends because of Judy's older brother, Greg. Maybe they were friends from the old neighborhood in San Lorenzo in northern California, where Marilyn and Earle had settled to raise their family. Or perhaps these were new-found friends from Marilyn's move, as a widow, to be close to her own mom's new home farther north in Santa Rosa.

Whoever they were, now that I can look back at the timeline of Marilyn's life, I can see those friends likely were a godsend for her in a very dark time, when she was desperately trying to raise her family with as much encouragement and cheer as a now-fatherless and widowed only child could do at this rocky start to her adulthood.

I'd love it, of course, if I could send this photo home with someone from the Hicks family, but given the time frame, it is difficult to locate a possible family member. Trusting in the search engines to lead someone to this post may be the only option for now. 

Photo above, dated October 15, 1956, taken by Marilyn Sowle Bean. Two year old Judy is seated at the head of the table, facing a birthday cake with two candles inserted, preparing with a spoon already in her mouth. Her brother Gregory is standing behind her. Michael Hicks is standing next to his father Dick, and Susan Hicks in front of her mother Phyllis. Picture currently in possession of author until claimed by a direct descendant—with my thanks for helping a family share some brighter moments in an otherwise tragic season in their lives.

When the Same Surnames Keep Showing up

 

Until the puzzle pieces keep repeating themselves, we sometimes don't even realize we've just received a research clue.

When I found the wedding photo of Lynn Ottum and Robert Wulf among the collection of pictures I retrieved from a local antique store, I presumed the former owner, Marilyn Sowle Bean, had kept the memento because they were her relatives. Last week, I researched both names and, surprised that I couldn't find any connection to my mother-in-law's family, decided to post the photograph here anyhow, in hopes that someone in their own family might find the post and request to receive the picture.

With that, I dismissed from my mind the possibility of discovering a new family line for Marilyn...until I ran across a second photo bearing the same surname. When surnames like that—especially a name I had never heard before—keep popping up, I wonder whether I've missed a connection.

To tell the truth, when I didn't succeed in determining a family connection last week, I actually thought maybe I had been overzealous in my purchases at the antique store. Maybe this was someone else's family photo. However, the photo I found this week—still from Marilyn's collection retrieved from the antique shop—definitely had a connection to Marilyn's family.

There is no doubt that this photo is tied to Marilyn Bean. Even if she hadn't affixed her meticulous labels on the reverse, I could tell the young boy in the photo was her own son. Granted, it was hard to determine his age but remembering how he always looked so much older than he actually was, because of his height, I would have guessed he was about five years of age. I wondered, however, why the little girl sitting with him wasn't instead paired with Marilyn's daughter—until I realized she would have been a toddler at that point, if her brother was just five.

For privacy reasons, I'll just say that the young girl, whose name was listed on the reverse, also had the same surname as that of the bride in last Saturday's photograph. My first guess was that the bride from last week's photo must have had a brother, and that this little girl would have been his daughter. 

However, having now encountered two people with the same surname helps focus the research effort more accurately. That research effect thus revealed the bride's approximate date of birth, leading me to discover her place in the 1940 census—back in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Apparently, just as had Marilyn's parents, after the 1930 census, bride Lynn Ottum's parents, Marjorie Schulze and Alvin Lawrence Ottum, moved their family from Wisconsin to southern California after the 1940 census. Though there was only one child listed for that census, Alvin's obituary, printed in the newspaper back home following his 1986 death in southern California, indicated that among the surviving family members were two daughters, as well as one son. Although his children were unnamed in the article, this leaves us with the possibility that the younger daughter might actually be the one named in the photograph.

Regardless of the actual identity of the young girl in the photograph, the picture is now one which I want to return to a family member. Not only that: whether Friends, Associates, or Neighbors, this F.A.N. Club clue reminds me that seeing the same surname twice—or more—in the same collection of the family's "stuff" is my prompt to keep searching for the connection.

This is no longer the case of a memorable wedding ceremony—or even of a cute little girl posing in a photo with one's son. Marilyn kept these photos her entire lifetime for a reason. It's now my task to discover what that reason might have been.  

A Brush with History

 

You never know what to expect when going through someone else's discarded photo collection. For family history researchers, the hope is always that a picture found will lead to a new family connection. That was certainly what was at the back of my mind when I followed a tip to retrieve my mother-in-law's many mementos at a local antique store, and it certainly has been the case for the items I've been able to research in the last few months. But not quite the same story for today's discovery.

Not all the photos in Marilyn Sowle Bean's holdings were pictures of family members. That is not surprising, even though as an only child of a divorced couple, she seemed to have lived a life as a loner, from what I knew of her later years. 

Among the expected pictures of the children of her mother's many siblings left behind in Wisconsin were some I had yet to connect to the family. Though it was both her custom and that of her mother to carefully label each photograph, there were some which were identified in a handwriting not familiar to me. One in particular—a wedding photo—included an entire history of one bride's special day.

Lyn Octum + Robt Wulf   Nov 21 - 1958

Bridesmaid - Sandy Boyen - student nurse from Cal. Hosp.

groomsman - Bob's brother Steve - came (flew) down from Alaska with Bob's mother + step dad

Lynn's flowers - white stephanotis - white orchid.

Church was beautiful - decorated with white + yellow mums. Pastor Wold preached.

Of course, all that information included on the reverse of the photograph just cried out for someone to confirm the details. After all, my usual thought is that someone might want to have this picture—and I'd always be glad to send it to a family member.

I quickly realized that whoever wrote the description on the reverse of the photograph must have been connected to the groom's side of the bridal party, especially when I realized the bride's name was actually Lynn Ottum, not Octum. A lovely write up followed the 1958 wedding in the North Hollywood, California, Valley Times on December 18.

"Lynn Marjorie Ottum Becomes Mrs. R. W. Wulf," the headline declared, revealing the type of details genealogists like to glean, including the names hidden behind those irritating initials. "R. W." signified Robert William. Flying down from Alaska with his brother Steven—serving possibly as the pilot?—was his mother, the former Alice Elizabeth Ocker who, after the death of her sons' father Claus Howard Wulf, married Wilbert Wilson.

Unfortunately, the 1958 wedding eventually became the 1969 divorce. Curious to see what became of the couple afterwards, I was surprised to discover Robert Wulf's Find A Grave memorial not much longer after that, at barely thirty five years of age. There had to be a story behind the stark stone marker breaking the news to me.

Searching online for any further information led to several lengthy news articles, but each of them was headlined with someone else's name; mention of Robert's name was buried in one of the last paragraphs. Apparently, along with three other people, he died in a plane crash in a remote area outside Aspen, Colorado, where he had been working as a ski instructor. At first, it was unclear whether he might actually have been the pilot, but investigations of the crash indicated another man—possibly a novice pilot—was at the controls while Robert occupied the secondary control seat for the flight.

Seated in the back of the ill-fated craft were a man and a woman. It was this man whose death on July 24, 1972, triggered the news wires to pick up the story. Adult son of a woman who for her seven failed marriages was once dubbed the "poor little rich girl," he was "daredevil race driver" and eventual entrepreneur Lance Reventlow, scouting the area for a potential site for a ski resort he planned to build in Aspen.

While most reports carrying the news of the crash focused on Reventlow, there were some local articles written specific to this other passenger, Robert Wulf. Centered around his mother, they revealed that she had moved from Alaska to northern California, where she served as secretary for a local doctor in Auburn.

Though there were news reports of Robert's passing, none I found included any mention of possible descendants. As for the woman who had been his wife—Lynn Ottum—she since was married again and eventually disappeared from any detectable public mention, quite possibly rendering each member of this once-couple the last leaf on their respective family branches.

Photograph of the November 21, 1958, North Hollywood Ottum - Wulf wedding. Standing left to right: bridesmaid Sandra Boyum, bride Lynn Marjorie Ottum, groom Robert William Wulf, best man Steven Wulf. Photograph currently in possession of author until claimed by a direct family member.

Excerpt from newspaper article above from page 22 of the North Hollywood Valley Times, 18 December 1858, courtesy of Newspapers.com.

   

Three Friends

 

Where are those old high school yearbooks when you really want them?

It's the 1930 yearbook which would have featured Josephine Sowle, perky "Aunt Jo" to Marilyn Sowle Bean whose entire photo collection ended up in a local antique store after her passing. In 1930, Jo would have likely graduated from high school in Onalaska, Wisconsin.

Jo and a friend—the photograph was thankfully labeled with the name Hazel Rahn—were captured in a 1930 snapshot flanking a man whose name was given as Ernest Otto. Jo we've already discussed, and I've been able to find quite a bit about Hazel, but Ernest was not so easy to discover. Not only was his expression, in contrast to the two smiling faces of the young women on either side of him, difficult to read, but the only man by that name in the same town would not have been of an age to be high school companions with Jo and Hazel.

Josephine Sowle could easily be found in the 1930 census in the household of her parents, Joe and Dora Sowle. Ever mindful of each relative's "FAN Club"—her friends, associates, and neighbors—I took a look around the census page where I had found the Sowle family. It wasn't too hard to spot Hazel Rahn, two doors away, living with her parents, Herman and Lula, and her three younger siblings.

Hazel Rahn was easy to find online, not only in trees on Ancestry.com, but in other records. While not in a high school yearbook, her face could be found in its college counterpart a few years later. It was in that year, 1933, when she graduated from the State Teachers College at La Crosse, and began a long career in education and community service.

Two years after her graduation, Hazel married farmer Henry F. Heider, and while she continued teaching, the couple raised three children. Her years in a close-knit farming community inspired her, in 1982, to publish a book, Along the Waterloo Road, on the history of the place which she had come to call home.

All that, of course, was long after she smiled for an unnamed photographer in 1930 while standing arm in arm with her neighbor Jo and Ernest Otto. But who was he? 

The only detail I could find for someone by that name in Onalaska, where the picture was taken, was for a twenty seven year old man living not far from Jo and Hazel in the same town. This Ernest was part of the household of Louis and Frieda Otto in 1930. 

Looking closely at that family, I noticed a younger sister, Elisabeth, who would have been the same age as Hazel. Could the gathering have been on account of a party for their graduation? Hard to tell from the one snapshot. A moment in time, capturing three people who, together in 1930, likely had very different stories from that point onward.

Above: Photograph labeled "Josephine Sowle, Ernest Otto, Hazel Rahn, Onalaska, 1930." From collection of Marilyn Sowle Bean, currently in possession of author.

Finding the Right City

 

Finding aids are invaluable resources for the family historian, piecing together her family's story one painstaking step at a time. Sometimes, we seem to find those steps intuitively, and don't need assistance, but in my godmother's case, the quest for Genia's heritage was not a search through familiar territory. I certainly needed a finding aid for this new research adventure.

Those who have researched their European-origin ancestors can vouch for the troubles piecing together the location of cities or towns in the midst of a political arena prone to boundary disputes. A near-constant state of war can do wonders for the map-making industry; every decade seems to bring a new shape to countries, and even new names to cities now conquered by the enemy.

Couple that dynamic with the territory which Genia's parents once called their homeland. Russia was immense, and the empire covered multiple ethnic and political regions. Those who, when hearing the name Russia, think only of Moscow or Saint Petersburg, perhaps don't take into account the immensity of the empire's geographic control.

That one misconception might have cost me my genealogical bearings in trying to locate the birthplace of Genia's mother Lydia. Even following the perseverance it took to locate the actual name of Lydia's hometown, it wasn't as if I could simply plug in the name of the city and, presto!, pull up its location on a map.

Believe me, I kept a handy list of Russian city names at my fingertips, if only because my knowledge of such locations was limited to the two cities already mentioned. But once I felt that "Soukhoum" was the correct rendering of Lydia's birthplace, I noticed it was conspicuously absent from that little cheat sheet. Could I have gotten this wrong? Did I need to continue the search even further?

There is also, of course, that little detail of differing languages. What a place might be called in English is seldom the same as it is called in its native tongue. Witness Germany, which the Germans prefer to call Deutschland. An American functionary, diligently taking down the names and details of arriving passengers, might not know how a specific foreign-to-us location might have been written by those who actually lived there. The name might get written phonetically or, if heard incorrectly, then spelled incorrectly. And phonics in English are seldom identical to phonetic systems used in the home country.

So, where could a place like Soukhoum actually be located? The very word itself didn't look like a transliteration of a typical Russian name—but remember: the Russian empire covered a vast area which included many other ethnic groups.

The closest match I could find for Soukhoum was a city in what is now a disputed region of the dismantled Soviet Union. Even though the spelling was different—now rendered Sukhumi or Sokhumi—the fact that the name often dropped the final "i" and likely was pronounced almost the same lead me to believe this might have been the place where Lydia's family originated.

There is another reason why I'm drawn to this location possibility: those family stories. Legend or not, some oral family histories do contain a kernel of truth, and I find that bit of truth valuable in serving as a guidepost when we are pursuing hints in the dark (or nearly blindfolded, it seems). In Lydia's case, by the time I met her—in my childhood while she, incapacitated, was rapidly approaching the other end of her life—she certainly could not speak for herself. But my mother, who had known Lydia by then for nearly twenty years, would fill in the blanks for me.

One of those fill-in-the-blanks obtained from my mother was her conjecture that Lydia was from a southern location along the coast of the Black Sea. From her description, I had wondered whether the horrors Lydia had escaped from might have been the Armenian genocide, but my mother had thought that Lydia might have been born in the part of the Russian Empire known as Georgia.

It just so happens that Sukhumi is a city in a disputed region. One side of the argument claims Sukhumi is part of a separate country called the Republic of Abkhazia, while the status quo claim is that Sukhumi belongs to the country of Georgia—exactly what my mother had said, so long ago.

Being from a port city would fit in well with whatever story would explain just how a Russian seaman like "Michael" Melnitchenko might have met and married a young woman from Georgia. But that is only one simple strand of the possible story. Sukhumi, through the ages, had always been a cosmopolitan city, and despite the austerity of the Soviet Union, was even during that era considered a holiday resort. Their census records for the past century illustrate what a diverse location that city historically was.

For Lydia's husband-to-be to arrive in her port city homeland from afar is not an impossibility. But owing to the international flavor of the city, it could have been possible that he had been living there, himself, all along. It is near impossible, at this point, to tell. For one thing, there would be the challenge of deciphering records, if they could even be located—Georgia is not on the geographic list of available records at FamilySearch.org, nor is it even close to being listed at Ancestry.com—as records not kept in the Cyrillic script of the Russian language would have been written in the characters of the Kartvelian language of Georgian. I wouldn't even begin to know where to start.

There is, however, one other step we can take to see whether we can discover anything further on Genia's family. Next week, we need to trace the history of Genia's father, the Russian seaman M. Melnitchenko who eventually came to settle in New York City.

The State of Being Stateless

 

Turns out, researching my godmother Genia Melnitchenko's maternal line provides a good lesson in the necessity of grasping the history undergirding your family's story. In the case of Genia and her mother, Lydia, exploring historic events occurring during their lifetime not only helped explain why their records were sometimes stamped "stateless" but helped me locate a way to uncover Lydia's own origin.

Because I could not locate many records regarding Genia's parents, finding any information on the Melnitchenkos' origin required looking at as many passenger records as I could find—the one place where they showed up with regularity. Of course, for Genia's father "Michael," his occupation as a seaman left a bulging paper trail—and we'll explore more of that trail next week. But for Lydia, it seemed every record-keeper she encountered conspired to keep me from discovering even the most basic of details.

To start the search for Lydia's personal history, all I had was the constant of details on Genia's birth. Genia was born in Marseilles, France, on January 6, 1924. From that detail, shared in Genia's own paper trail years later, I knew I could pinpoint Lydia in Marseilles at least at the beginning of that year. But where did she come from, before ending up in France? It was those passenger records which led me to the answers I needed—but only gradually.

Because Genia began her professional dancing career at a very early age, I could find her in international travel records when she was a young fourteen years of age. Despite traveling as a professional "artist," on account of her age, she still had to travel under the supervision of her own mother, and many passenger lists cross-referenced Genia's entries with Lydia's.

Fortunately, at that early age, Genia had not yet begun using a stage name for performances, so finding records under Melnitchenko was possible. During a dance tour of North America—and under the name Olga—Genia apparently crossed the border from British Columbia into Washington state in early 1939 which, coupled with her mother's entry, alerted me to the fact that she didn't always go by the given name Genia. In fact, I learned to look for three given names—Olga, Genia, and the full name Eugenia—as well as to search for the three surnames she used during various times in her life.

In that border-crossing record, Genia's mother's card provided—or, let's say, almost provided—the details on her own origin. Just as Genia's card had stated her place of birth as Marseilles, the typist entering the details for Lydia apparently began typing that same word for Lydia's own place of birth: Marseilles.

That entry, however, was obliterated with a volley of "xxxxx" so that the requested information had to be added on the line below. As if that weren't enough to frustrate, whatever was typed in was superimposed on the preprinted portion of the form, so all I could decipher of the record-keeping wreck was a place name beginning with "Sou---" followed by the word, "Russia." As a finishing flourish, the anti-genealogy fates insured that the scan of the card was blurry enough to make deciphering the typewriting even more difficult.

Well, at least I had "Sou---."

Of course, I couldn't just stop the search there. It is in the multiplicity of records that we find the way to piece together the actual story. Fortunately, Genia traveled often, and along with her came her mother. The ship which brought the two to North America resulting in that 1939 border crossing in Washington was the S. S. Georgic, arriving in New York harbor in October of the previous year.

There, thankfully in a carefully typed format, was the entry for both Genia and Lydia. Genia's entry was included on a page with her dance troupe, but Lydia's was entered on a different page. On October 1, 1938, Lydia declared herself to be thirty nine and a half years of age and a native speaker of the Russian language. For occupation, oddly, she, too, was listed as "artist," despite traveling solely as chaperone for her daughter.

For country of birth, there was no surprise: Lydia claimed Russia. But for the entry labeled "city or town, State, Province or District," the answer didn't exactly line up with the "Sou---" I had already found. This form declared Lydia's location of birth to be a place called "Sonkhoman."

If you have raced ahead to try and find "Sonkhoman" for me in the listing of cities in Russia, you may have discovered what I already found: there is no such place. Granted, I will need to spend some time scouring any accessible historic maps of old Russia, or find a reliable gazetteer of the region.

Or...I could just heed my own advice and keep looking for more passenger records. Maybe, just maybe, another less-hapless clerk will have gotten the details right.

That, in fact, was what let me hit the jackpot, in a way. On April 21, 1947, the S. S. William Ford Nichols, arriving in Norfolk, Virginia, from France, included two names of interest on the ship's manifest: Olga and Lydia Melnitchenko. From their ages and Genia's characteristic occupational entry as dancer, I could tell these were the same two I was seeking, but there was something strange about their entry on the passenger list.

Yes, Lydia the housewife and Genia the dancer had indicated they could speak both French and Russian, and that their "Race or People" was Russian. And yet, for their response on the section labeled, "Country of which citizen or subject," each of them had entered the word, "stateless."

A note handwritten below the passenger listing provided more information, although in abbreviations. 

Line two, signifying Lydia's entry followed by Genia's for line three, bore a term which, at first, looked to me like the name Hansen, followed by the word "stateless" in parentheses. In essence, the reason both women were identified as "stateless" was because of the time period in which they were traveling. In 1947, after the close of World War II—as at the close of the previous World War—there were many displaced persons unable to obtain travel identification from the country of their origin. 

While the ditto marks on that entry referred to a previous line with the abbreviation "Fr PP"—most likely indicating "French passport"—the explanation for what turned out to be a Nansen passport was that it was a document originally devised in response to the new Soviet Union, in 1921, revoking the citizenship of Russians then living abroad.

If the Melnitchenkos could demonstrate that they were, indeed, out of the country by 1921 to confirm their eligibility for a Nansen passport, that helps me pinpoint the time at which they left for France—or wherever they first stopped after fleeing their homeland.

That specialized passport, first promoted by Norwegian stateman—and renowned polar explorer—Fridtjof Nansen, had originally been used after the close of World War I and through 1938 for what became known as "stateless" refugees. While Genia and her mother were certainly claiming that provision during their travels long after 1938, when the Nansen International Office for Refugees handling the processing of such claims closed, another department under the auspices of the League of Nations continued the work of refugee advocacy after that date, through their office in London—which may explain why some of the Melnitchenkos' travel documents referred to London as issuing office.

That little dose of history helped confirm the difficulties I had been told about in their family stories, and may well help pinpoint some dates in the Melnitchenkos' timeline of homeless wanderings. However, let's not forget that we arrived at the point of locating that very passenger record for a different reason: the quest to discover just where Lydia, herself, had been born.

Thankfully, this passenger list did not include clerical ineptitudes. Nor did it suffer from mishandling in the digitization process. Loud and clear, the document delivered the goods. Lydia—at least according to the passenger list for the S.S. William Ford Nichols on April 21, 1947—was born in a place in Russia called Soukhoum.

Great. Now, all we need to do is determine just where, exactly, that place called Soukhoum was located, back before the Russian Revolution.

Above images: Top two handwritten excerpts from the 21 April 1947 passenger list of the SS William Ford Nichols, courtesy Ancestry.com; below image of a sample Nansen passport as it would have been issued in France, courtesy National Library of Norway via Wikipedia; all documents in the public domain.

 

Family Stories versus Family History

 

So many families have passed down stories from generation to generation, but does that mean they are all verifiable? That is the question a genealogist seeks to answer.

In my case this month, pursuing the second "ancestor" research goal I've set for this year, this time the family stories I'm seeking to document don't really belong to my own family; they belong to my godmother—and my godmother was not a relative, but a good friend of my mother.

I've learned a long time ago, in the many beginning genealogy classes I've taught, that people will often bring a story to class, wondering whether it could actually be true. Many times, an initial inspection seems to indicate that it is just that: a story. We can find no substantiation to support it.

But what about my mother's friend, Genia the ballet dancer? All through my childhood, I heard the rehearsed lines of Genia's family predicament: that her parents had to escape from Russia during the awful time of the revolution, that they sailed to France, and that Genia was born there and grew up preparing to be a professional ballerina.

My presumption was that the facts were simply what I was told. Genia's parents were from Russia, just like mine were from America. Even as a child, I had learned in history class about the Russian Revolution. The story made sense.

It wasn't until long afterwards that I began to realize the immensity of such a proposition. In my schoolgirl mind, when I thought "Russia," I envisioned the U.S.S.R. Though the Soviet Union was by far more immense than the European Russia of the nineteenth century, a child's mind carries simplified concepts. It didn't occur to me that, in the midst of that "Soviet Union," there might be multiple other countries included in that federation.

There was, also, another family story to consider. This one was about Genia's mother, the strange old woman who, when I went with my mother to visit them, always remained in the shadows in the back rooms of their New York City apartment. She, my mother told me, likely suffered from all the upheaval she had experienced in her life, fleeing not one, but two war-torn homes—first from the Russian revolution, then from Nazi occupied France during World War II. 

But where, exactly, was that first home she had left? In a story which doesn't quite add up to the other ones I learned, my mother recalled that Genia's mother had come from a seaport town. She thought it was somewhere on the Black Sea. She vaguely remembered that it might have been a place like Georgia. But other times, she wasn't entirely clear on that detail. I wondered whether Genia's mother might originally have come from nearby Armenia, site of the horrific Armenian genocide during that same time period. There had to be something terrible enough to motivate the family to move far away so quickly.

Whatever it was that caused the Melnitchenkos to leave their homeland—wherever that was—I couldn't linger on those family stories, no matter how tragic. I had to heed the advice we give to every genealogist at the start of the journey of family history discovery: start first with yourself, then move step by step through the generations.

By proxy, I first needed to start with Genia and assemble what documentation I could find on a woman who has been known by three different names. Only then would we be provided with what we need to enable us to move on to the next step: exploring the details about Genia's mother—wherever she was born. Only then will we be able to evaluate how reliable those family stories actually were.

A Tree for Genia

 

Sometimes, it is all we can do to record our own family history, let alone delve into the intricacies of anyone else's tree. But there are some times when a friend is so close that we want to ply our skills to do the same for the people who are close to us.

I suppose you could call Genia a family friend. I've known her all my life. She was in my family's circle long before I was. She was a friend of my mom during that heady twenty-something age when there were no limits to possibilities and dreams reached for the stars.

The two became friends through their work. Both were employed as dancers at one of New York City's favorite show spots, the Roxy, which boasted lavish stage productions as well as airing feature films.

There was one difference, though, in the work they both did at the Roxy. My mother had joined what was known as a precision line dancing group—before her time known as the Roxyettes, which, in a major shake-up when the original manager left the Roxy (along with several Roxy employees) for a new start-up known as Radio City Music Hall, meant the loss of that term when it morphed into the better-known name, the Rockettes.

Long after the remaining management of the Roxy recouped their losses and re-invented themselves, my mother—high-school-graduate fresh from her home in Ohio—moved to The Big City to pursue her show biz dreams. After years of ballet and tap dance training, even if she couldn't land an acting job, she could at least pay her rent with a gig at the Roxy.

Meanwhile, a Russian ballet dancer exiled from war-torn France had also made her way to New York City. Because shows at that time might include what, to us now, would seem an odd combination of entertainment features, a Hollywood movie might follow a 110-member symphony orchestra accompanying a ballet performance—the perfect venue for a dancer like Genia.

Somehow, my mother and Genia got to know each other over the months they worked together. My mom, alone in the city, would sometimes be invited to share holiday celebrations at Genia's parents' apartment. Eventually they became good friends, and kept in touch long after my mother married and moved to the suburbs—close enough, in fact, that after the birth of her first child (that would be me), my mom asked Genia if she would consider being named as my godmother.

Genia, of course, also moved on from her stint at the Roxy. For someone trained in classical ballet, that venue was a trying experience for those keen on pursuing their art, not serving as someone else's entertainment. Keeping in touch over the years with someone whose career led her to stages around the world was challenging, and eventually the two friends lost contact with each other. But for one last time—oddly, courtesy of the very skills learned in genealogical research—I was able to put the two friends together again. 

I last wrote about that experience seven years ago, beginning a two-week series on Genia on exactly the ten year anniversary of her death. I wanted to see if there was any way to piece together her family's story as I had remembered it from my childhood. While the two weeks of focused research did piece together the explanation of just how the family arrived in New York from their former home in France, it still left many gaps—plus that empty hole which begs explanation on how, at first, a Russian family ended up living in France.

Ironically, after those two weeks of research, this genealogist hadn't even compiled an official family tree for Genia. The whole story was preserved in a listing of written resources and online links. But nothing more.

That was my inspiration for picking up the saga of Genia this year for my "12 for '21" listing of research goals. First order of business will be to build a tree for Genia, of course. In addition, considering the next step will involve research through foreign records I've never had experience exploring before, we'll need to take some time to get oriented to what is available to us despite the limitations of quarantines. 

There is, however, another step which I realize would be helpful to take, as we explore what else might be learned about Genia's roots. That step, in fact, mirrors what I've learned in the past month in researching King Stockton, and through what was presented during that SLIG course on researching African Americans prior to the Civil War: a survey of the background, both historical and geo-political, will be necessary to thoroughly understand the forces which caused those immigrants to follow the path to peace and freedom they eventually took.

Above: New York City show personnel from the Roxy, undated circa 1948; photograph in possession of author.

 

But Wait! Wasn't There Another Daughter?

There is one additional detail about Thirza Browne Cole, the woman whose photograph collection ended up abandoned in a northern California antique shop. You may have picked up on it, back when I discussed finding Thirza's obituary from 1979: the obituary made mention of a daughter.

She is survived by her daughter, June Buck of Lodi, and two grandchildren.

The confusing thing about that mention is that we had already seen that Thirza and William Cole's only daughter had died young in 1923. Who was this other daughter?

In order to discover anything further on this mystery person, it helps to go back to the earlier obituary of Thirza's husband, William Cole, who passed away in 1947. There, we notice a mention of someone with the same surname, Buck:

In addition to his wife, the deceased leaves a foster son, Geo. I. Buck of Lodi...

Other than that, for descendants, the same obituary mentioned only his deceased daughter, "the late Mrs. Pauline B. Lee."

So who were George and June Buck?

Going back to the 1940 census where William and Thirza Cole lived—in Lodi, California—there were two entries in their household which may help tell the tale. Although the enumerator seemed confused about how to properly report the relationships, he did include two names of interest in our current question. While there was an entry for a George I. Buck, Junior, there was also a name immediately above his in the Cole household for a single woman also bearing the surname Buck.

She, however, was not June. Her name was entered as Burnis Pauline—or possibly a sloppily written Caroline. Burnis was twenty two, and George was twenty. At first, the entry for Burnis' relationship seemed to be "relative" with a question mark included. Then, penciled in above was the word, foster, again followed by a question mark. George's entry was equally unclear, seeming first to say "son" which was lined out and replaced with the word "foster."

Checking the previous census record in 1930, George—then a ten year old boy—had again been listed in the Cole household, although then, the listing was simply as a lodger. There was no sign of Burnis, nor any hint about who June might have been.

This, of course, calls for further explanation. You know I couldn't just let it sit there. I noticed there was a record of George's World War II draft card, listing Thirza Cole as his next of kin. Yet, Thirza was not technically his closest relative. At about the same time, there was a 1940 census entry for the elder George I. Buck (remember, our George was a junior) which included a "Bernice P." Buck of the exact same age as our "Burnis" in his household.

Looking back through the years, the 1920 census offered a potential Buck household, complete with father George I. Buck, wife Althea, and including two year old "Burnis E." and infant George.

As for June, my guess was that she had married George, the Coles' foster son, though I couldn't find any marriage record online. What I did find was a sad Find A Grave memorial for George, dated years later—but during the years in which Thirza was still alive—noting that his wife was named June.

After George was gone, June must have continued maintaining the connection with Thirza. Perhaps their children grew up knowing Thirza as their grandmother, just as Thirza's obituary had listed them.

What I wonder is whether it was June who provided all the detail about Thirza's life for the newspaper article after Thirza's passing in 1979. The obituary was so full of minute details of Thirza's younger years, yet by that time, there were none of her peers to have provided that much information (unless it was from Karen's own parents, who, despite the distance between their two households, had kept in touch with Thirza since at least the 1940s).

All this may seem like a diversion from the true goal of finding Thirza's roots as we prepare to send her photographs home, but I don't think it is. Family is sometimes a concept that is more fluid than we may make it out to be. Sometimes, it just doesn't fly to tell the census enumerator, "It's complicated," about relationships. We're left reading between the lines.

Just this vignette of Thirza and William Cole's longstanding relationship to two—later three—young people who were not actually their kin reveals something about the personality of the couple we have been observing. They seem to be people who were willing to reach out to others in need, regardless of whether those others were family, friends, or lost souls desperately in need of love.  

Can Your Own Memories Help Break Through Ancestral Brick Walls?

Last weekend brought with it the perfect elixir to turn even the surliest of Scrooges into cheer-spreading holiday ambassadors. Here in northern California, the sky was brilliant blue, the temperature pleasant, and the sun uncharacteristically inviting for a December day. I spent Saturday's noon hour celebrating with our local D.A.R. chapter for their Christmas luncheon. Then, with a friend, I strolled the nearby village-style shopping center, enjoying the sights, sounds, and wintertime treats.

We settled in at a sidewalk cafe to enjoy a mocha, chatting and watching passers-by lug their bundles. A family friend came out of a nearby store, heard my voice, turned and greeted me; she was with her grandchildren, bringing home bagels for the next day's breakfast. The daughter of a college friend walked by; despite the holiday cheer, I know her life right now is one that could use a lot of support, so I ran to catch up with her and deliver at least a hug.

The chance encounter that gave pause, though, was when what I thought was a young woman tentatively intruded upon our conversation to ask, "Is your name Jacqi?"

She turned out to be someone whom I hadn't seen for enough years to fill two generations. When I last saw her, she was a child of about ten, whom—with her friends and neighbors—I and my husband had taken to church on a weekly basis. While the families in her neighborhood were probably quite poor, I didn't think much of it at the time; it was just an offer extended that people could accept, if they wished. We probably connected with these children for about a year, then life moved on.

Now, she told me the children with her and with her husband were her grandchildren. They had stopped in at the coffee shop to get hot chocolate for a little extra warmth. We reminisced over how long it had been since we last were together, when she mentioned, "You made a big impact on my life."

Really? Can the little things we do take on such significance for others whose paths we chance to cross? Apparently so. We weave a human web of inter-connectivity. Even in our most fleeting relationships.

I couldn't help but realize that the earlier episode in my life—the one this chance encounter brought back to mind—wouldn't be one that my daughter could remember, if she ever takes to reconstructing the lives in her family history. This event occurred way before she was even born. The story line, however, could reveal some key points about that portion of a lifetime, though—if anyone were to know about it.

That got me thinking about people in my family tree—people I knew from my own childhood. What stories might I have caught just a glimpse of, and, if I chose to follow up on them, might reveal some clues about that lifetime? These are the stories I need to call to mind, once again.

I remembered doing some research on my dad's early adult years when he played in dance bands of the 1920s through 1940s. The names of some brothers kept coming up in my searches: the Ferdinando brothers. Turns out, they had an orchestra which toured, eventually ending up in the Manchester, New Hampshire area—the very place where I found my newlywed father living in a later census record. Did I know any of that when I was a kid? Of course not—I was even surprised to learn it when, as an adult, I found the family in the 1930 census. But seeing photos of the band as an adult, I realized these were the same guys teaching in the music studio where my dad worked in his later years, when I was growing up. How was I to know these guys had a piece of history in their background?

I think of other stories told by family members—seemingly insignificant at the time—which in retrospect lead back to significant clues about my parents' and grandparents' history. Admittedly, some of those might well be tall tales—like my southern grandfather's claim to have been related to John Wilkes Booth—but others may be worth pursuing.

The linchpin to all this, though, is that these memories may be lost unless we preserve them. I can't help but realize this when, greeted by a long-lost acquaintance sharing childhood memories, I realize I've never written down that life episode.

Stories are one of the cozy accoutrements of the winter holiday season. We may provide little snippets of our family's life this year in our annual brag Christmas letters sent far and wide. But unless we reach deeper in our personal history—and find a way to capture this—those stories from earlier years will be lost to our grandchildren's family history saga.

More importantly, ever notice how remembering one story triggers the memory of another story? When they begin to fall out of your head and, domino-like, leave a trail on your notepaper, you may discover, in all the excess baggage attached to those memories, some clues to your family's background that can guide your hand in your genealogical pursuits.

Above: "Kulig" (sleigh ride), undated oil on canvas by Polish realist painter Zygmunt Ajdukeiwicz; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

When It's Time to Come Home

I grew up near one of the world's largest cities, but my home, itself, was on an island. Large, but an island. While that island did boast actual sand on some of its beaches, what covered the remainder of the territory resembled something closer to powder than dirt.

One of my earliest memories of home was set during those summery twilight hours, that dreamy time of day when mothers popped their heads out the kitchen door to call their children home for bedtime. That was in the long-gone era when it was children who had playmates, and it was considered safe for them to play outside. I had been sitting on the ground, out in our backyard, with some friends and while we talked, I absentmindedly was picking up handfuls of that delightful, powdery texture and letting them pour through my fingers onto my knees.

Suddenly realizing, one of my friends gasped. "What are you doing? You're getting dirty!" This, from a four year old. Her mother had trained her well.

"So? I'm having a bath when I get called in." I liked the sense of the powdery plumes of dust pouring over my skin—just as much as I enjoyed the squeaky-clean coziness of cuddling up in my own bed at night. There was no conflict in those two states; they were made to exist sequentially. At least, that was the routine in our household. I was so nonchalantly confident of my parents' perspective.

As it turned out, I was right: I had the bath, but not a bit of grief over my besmudged appearance.

It wasn't until years later—more like decades—when the thought struck me how odd it was that one child was so certain of the dire consequences of the very action which was inconsequential in another household. After all, that's what baths were for, wasn't it?

Mulling that incident over in my mind in these far-removed, adulty years, I've come to see a number of other memories attached to that bedtime ritual, that twilight time when our parents came outside to call our names, to tell us it was time to come home.

More than anything, I've realized that each of us had different ideas of what our parents' expectations of us were. And that each parent represented widely divergent expectations.

Mostly, I realized the peace a child feels when he or she not only knows those expectations, but does them. Whether others judged our actions as right or wrong didn't matter. It's all in how we responded to our own parents' wishes—and lined up with them.

When all is in its rightful place, the call to come home can be a cozy, welcoming moment.

Though that memory lingers from my childhood, I realize, too, that adults face a time when they are called home. While some holler "Coming!" in answer to their call—yet keep right in the game they are playing—and some vainly attempt to renegotiate the appointed time, there are some who slip away so quickly, so quietly, that we miss that quick "See ya" before they headed home.

Yesterday afternoon—in broad daylight and in a hospital, even—that's exactly what our friend did. With hardly a warning—definitely not the throes of the sometimes-expected last struggles of life's finale—the man who had fought cancer for fourteen long months checked out so quickly, even the ones sitting at his bedside hardly realized it until it was over. When it's time to come home, some still can make that journey like children confident of their parents' wishes.

Above: "Train in the Snow," 1875 oil on canvas by French Impressionist Claude Monet; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

When the Obituary's Not Quite Written Yet

Sometimes, genealogists like to brag about how they like dead people, but for me, today is not that day. A sobering bedside vigil at a hospital can cure one of such an obsession—at least for the time being.

We were surprised yesterday to realize that it's been three weeks since the beginning of what will likely be the final hospitalization of one of our good friends. In one way, it seems like we just heard the news yesterday. In another way, it has taken on the aura of one, long, endless day.

The visits to the hospital, at first to lend support to our friend, have morphed into lingering hours spent with family members. The talk has sometimes lapsed into silence, sometimes into whispered conversations better left to huddles out in the hallway...sometimes, circled around the bedside, broken into hymns...but definitely shifted from the kind of chatter one does to keep company to the reflective phrases shared quietly with those desperately seeking comfort. Sometimes, hugs alone will do where words fail. There has been a lot of holding each other up, lately.

An obituary found may become a prize to a thorough and persistent genealogist, but reading those words, "peacefully, surrounded by family and friends" is an entirely different matter when written about a long-departed ancestor than when it is being replicated in the present.

Above: "Past and Present Number Two," from the 1858 triptych by British artist Augustus Leopold Egg; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Putting Our Genealogical Skills to Other Uses

Every once in a while, I do break away from my computer and venture out into the real world. Yesterday, the occasion was a lunch meeting with a friend who had recently recuperated from surgery.

Since we both are genealogy fanatics, it was no surprise that the conversation eventually drifted toward our Topic of Prime Interest. Now that she was past the pain-medicated, bed-ridden stage, my friend wanted to pick up on some projects she had set aside—as would be expected—but she also had a new one in mind.

This new project was unlike any genealogical research you'd expect to do in the usual pursuit of family history secrets. My friend wants to put her search skills to use to find a former neighbor she fondly remembers from her childhood.

She had already made some headway in this fresh pursuit, mainly thanks to our local library's extensive collection of city directories. It certainly helps to know both the name and the address of the person whom you're seeking, and even though this was a memory dredged up from the blur of childhood, there are just some things we don't forget.

As sometimes happens when we run into these special people who are so kind to children, this woman my friend was seeking apparently ended up having no children of her own. She likely displaced this disappointment with ideas on how she could be a blessing to other people's children. That is exactly what made this woman stand out in my friend's life, so many decades later.

Now, knowledgeable about how to put these genealogical research skills to work, my friend is applying what she knows about how to search to this very different type of family history project. Maybe, just maybe, she can find a living relative and send her thanks by proxy.

My friend's idea got me to thinking about my own collection of people from my childhood about whom I've always wondered. Whatever became of them? I can find out, you know. We all can. If we've learned how to ferret out the details on our missing great-great-grandparents, we can apply those same skills to find almost anyone.

I think about the German immigrant widow who lived down the block from our family in my youngest years. I never saw her, other than when she was walking home from the grocery store, wheeled basket towed behind her. I still can clearly see her faded dress, her black old-lady shoes and the dark seam of her stockings—still carefully straightened—at the back of her swollen legs.

I always wondered who she was—especially since neither of my parents ever engaged her in conversation, nor did I see anyone else in the neighborhood interact with her. Hers was the oldest house on the block—an old style building, dark in the recesses of overgrown trees and bushes—while everyone else's house was of the cookie-cutter vintage so prevalent in early post-war suburbia. It was as if the world decided to go on without her, but she just held her turf despite such notions of "progress."

It occurred to me, in yesterday's conversation, that though I've "always wondered" about her, now—if I want to—I can find out who she was. I have the skills and the resources, and I know how to use them. I have no idea what good it might be to find out, but it will somehow speak to that insatiable childhood curiosity that has apparently never left me.

I don't doubt that others may share that call of the "always wondered" but as-yet-unsolved tiny mysteries of our childhood. There are many such quests: wishes to reconnect with elementary school teachers to tell them a long-overdue thank you for their patience with our impossible childish selves. Regrets that we never went back home to tell someone the rest of the story—the story they hoped they would hear—of how our lives turned out. Those missed chances to find out whatever happened when we went one way and our childhood friends went the other way.

Though we may share such calls from a melancholy past, what's different now is that we have the tools and the skills to find out the answers for ourselves—and then, just maybe, to do something about what we discover.

Above: "Moonrise," 1884 oil on canvas by Polish artist, Stanisław Masłowski; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

The Antidote to Getting

Hungry?

I didn't think so.

Now that yesterday's national feast is behind us (except the leftovers), people have other things on their mind. Some people call this next frenzy, "Black Friday." Perhaps you are a partaker. I'm not.

Ostensibly, the day after Thanksgiving is the time to set aside for getting the gifts that will soon—well, within a month—be given to others. Perhaps, in a roundabout way, you could call it a day designated to thinking about giving.

But I don't think so. More often than not, it seems to me to be a day about getting, not giving, for really, the driving force behind all that purchasing is, ultimately, getting. I give to you, so you can give to me.

And so it escalates.

Remember those Christmas Savings Clubs? The kind where your mom or dad might have tucked away five dollars—or ten, or twenty-five—each month throughout the year, so that there would be enough to buy some gifts for Christmas? Yeah, nobody does that anymore. We've far exceeded that limitation. Blown it completely over the top. Now, people consider themselves fortunate if they pay off the credit card bill before the next holiday season rolls around.

Sometimes I wonder: how much of that shopping frenzy is driven by a cultural sense of embarrassment: "What if what he got me is bigger than what I bought him?"

I'm the Scrooge who grumbles about that every time, come this season of the year. I'm glad I have company, though. Some people have re-designated this day, "Friendsgiving," and gather with friends to share leftovers, or pie and games, or social time. Just hanging out. Anywhere but at the mall. It's fun. And de-stressing. Probably more of what the holidays used to be like.

Gear up for what's ahead, though, for if you missed Black Friday, you have that second chance on Cyber Monday. More chances to get. So you can give. So you can get.

It's been heartwarming to see the recent development following fast on the heels of Cyber Monday: Giving Tuesday. A time to give to someone who won't give back—who likely won't even know your name to do so much as send you a thank-you card.

In our extended family of mostly the-ones-who-have-everything, it is, admittedly, hard to shop for them. After all, what do you buy the guy or gal who has everything? I'm not sure how well this has been received, but in the past few years, we've taken to donating money to a favorite charity in our family members' names, then following up with a token gift—something that says, "I'm thinking of you and sending my love, but perhaps these other people can use the real gift much more than either you or I could."

Some charities have become quite consumer savvy and designed ways to accommodate these shopping preferences. We've gone that route in the past. But this year, we found a project that hits much closer to home.

When our daughter began her first year of college, she met a fellow student who is a young woman from India. Over the years, they have become close friends. As time unfolds, the predictable happens. Eventually, both these young women graduated from college. Our daughter's friend met and married a wonderful man from up north, and now this woman from the south of India lives in the uttermost northern reaches of the continental United States.

But her heart has never forgotten her family and neighbors back in her hometown. In her yearly trip back to see family, the fact that there are orphans living in the streets in her own neighborhood has weighed on her heart quite heavily--until she couldn't stand it any more and did what she could: she started a fund drive to help build an orphanage shelter that has already begun its work there.

Unlike many experienced fundraisers, her little group has just put a simple plea out there—and whether they raise their goal or not, they are building what they can.

What seems so incongruous to me, though, is the realization that, if all of the friends of this woman's friends just gave up a lunch date and instead sent a donation to help build this orphanage, it would soon be accomplished. But in our busy rush to get everything done for our holiday, quiet pleas like this sometimes go unnoticed.

I remember reading a book once, in which the author used as his opening vignette the story of a woman in India, going door to door, begging for rice for her children. In the house of one woman, who apparently could afford to do so, this beggar was granted a scant cup of uncooked rice. As she lifted her apron to catch the poured-out gift, a few grains of rice fell to the ground.

What got me was what happened next: the beggar bent down and carefully picked up every single grain of rice that had spilled. Every single grain mattered.

When I think of the huge task before my daughter's Indian friend, I can't get that picture out of my mind: with thumb and forefinger, pressing on each grain of rice and retrieving it. Every bit mattered. That's desperation.

When I was a kid, the constant mantra for those picky eaters around our dinner table was, "You better eat that; think of the starving children in India."

I guess I'm still thinking...  

When It's Time to Go Home

As genealogy aficionados, there are times when we can border on becoming glib in our assertions. "I seek dead people," proclaims a T shirt worn by a woman at a conference. In fine print below, the parenthetical explanation divulges, "I do genealogy."

While in essence, that is exactly what we spend our time doing—devoting a lot of time in the pursuit of dead people—what we really are seeking are the details on dead people long gone, not recently gone.

Just like Ebenezer Scrooge questioning the upcoming visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past—"Long past?" "No, your past."—I find myself sometimes far removed from our customary reveling in the mantra of "seeking dead people." It is when it touches our past—rather than the distant past of ancestors even our grandparents have not met—that we begin to sense the dread of that thought.

In that unexpected yet you-knew-this-would-happen sort of way, news of a fresh addition to those dead people we always claim to seek ripped through my community of friends. A beloved elderly former missionary took leave of his family for the last time, yesterday, in the dark of the early morning hours. Though he had been through so much in the past year, he had survived so much, leaving a false confidence that perhaps the worst was now behind him.

Not so.

Perhaps it is merciful when our loved ones slip away so suddenly. A heart attack sometimes sneaks up, giving no warning, and does its work so quickly that those closest are left clueless until it is all over. While that, in retrospect, seems merciful, the speed of the loss is no easier to bear.

In this case, it will be a loss felt around the world. How ironic, when you realize that this unassuming gentleman began the battle for his health on one day when, during last year's holiday season, he made his routine walk out to the mailbox to retrieve the day's delivery of Christmas cards. There were always so many holiday greetings arriving each day from around the world that it was sometimes hard to wrestle them out of the mailbox.

Sure enough, one good tug on the stack of letters in that overstuffed mailbox and the equal and opposite reaction knocked him off his feet and down on the curb. He broke his hip.

Then came surgery. And rehab. And other health revelations. And more surgery. And almost losing him. But miraculously surviving. And the wonderful day when he got to go home—back to where it was comfortable and familiar and relaxing.

We never know when that sometime will be, when we get that final call home. For some, it is in the midst of a crisis. And we lament the great loss. But sometimes, it is when we rest assured that all is well—seems to be all well—and yet isn't. Perhaps those are the times when the loss seems the hardest to bear. But is it really harder? Or is it that way from the perspective of those left behind?

In the many beliefs held by people from around the world—many of them, beliefs shared by the very people this man once knew and lived with—there is the thought that, in opposition to the grief borne by those left behind, there is a time and space of comfort for those we now count among our dead. This becomes the time when we truly do get to go home. Yet, while we cling to such thoughts, we still find it so hard to let go of the one we love.

For now, raw from the feelings of such a loss, it seems impossible to glibly chatter about those tokens of one's genealogical prowess—the "dead people" we are "seeking." Perhaps, as there is a time for every purpose under heaven, there are times to remember those long gone—the ones we've never grown close to, never become attached to, never even met.

Sometimes, though, the season asks us to set that aside and, in its place, remember the ones we have known, in their final time of going home.  

The Guys Get Their Turn

Somehow, looking at the photo of the Fort Meade, Florida, boys' basketball team from one hundred years ago, it doesn't seem as dated as the one we saw yesterday for the girls' team.

While the primary difference, for me at least, is that there is no one on the boys' team from our McClellan family—apparently, Rubie's brother Charles was not on the school's team—I thought I'd still share the photo and its companion list of names, in case someone else spots a family member. (If that is you, please don't pass silently into the cyber-night; leave a comment! We'd love to hear about your relative, who almost certainly would be either a neighbor of my relatives or a friend of my grandmother.)

As was true for the photo I posted yesterday, these pictures came to me, courtesy of the Fort Meade, Florida, Historical Society and Museum. They, in turn, received them from my mother's cousin, who had donated them to the museum. Full circle, indeed!

Above: The Fort Meade, Florida, Boys' Basketball Team, circa 1915, as numbered:

1). Frank Scaggs - Forward

2). Lamar Davis - Sub. Player

3). Theodore (Red) Hart - Forward

4). Bill Enzor - Guard

5). James Barrow - Center

6). Pat Neugent - Guard (Captain)

All the above are transcribed from the list found on the reverse of the team photograph. I'm pretty sure that is my grandmother's handwriting—although a little more girlish than I remember it being. She was, however, always careful to label photos, going so far, in later life, as to mark her children's photos with not only the age in years but also in months (and sometimes days). Talk about being detail-oriented!

Some Things DO Change Over Time

Imagine playing basketball in a dress.

If you were on the girls' b-ball team at school, back a hundred years ago, you would be.

Incredible? I have it in a photograph. They sure did. Or at least culottes. No telling how well they played, but play they did.

Thanks to that set of pictures sent to me from the Fort Meade, Florida, Historical Society and Museum, one is clearly labeled with all the names on the girls' team, including the position each girl played.

On the off chance that someone will be googling their grandmother's name, I'll include the list below. One never knows.

Unfortunately, though, the photograph is quite pixel-y. I can barely make out the outline of my grandmother's face (Rubie McClellan on the far left in the back row)—although some of the players in the front row are more clear. We really are spoiled, now, by the technology we take for granted.

Above: The Fort Meade, Florida, Girls' Basketball team, circa 1915, as numbered:

1). Rubie McClellan - Guard

2). Thelma Smith - Sub. Forward

3). Mildred Fancy - Sub. Jumping Center

4). Marian Yearwood - Running Center

5). Carrie Lightsey - Forward

6). Alma Hattaway - Sub. Running Center

7). Emma Arnold - Guard

8). Lalla Davis - Forward

9). Billie Williams - Jumping Center (Captain)

10). Wilma Dampier - Sub. Forward

All above as labeled on the reverse of the photograph, appearing to be in my grandmother's hand:

Bonus Detour: Rabbit Trail Warning #3

It’s a very simple sign that identifies the fenced-in property in Anderson County, South Carolina, as the Simpson Cemetery. Perhaps the lack of fanfare is owing to the land being a family burial ground rather than a public cemetery. Find A Grave, a handy website for obtaining addresses and contact information for cemeteries, provides the location for this place only as “Pendleton, Anderson County, South Carolina.” No address. No street name. You just have to know where to find it.

The Simpson Cemetery, as we’ve seen, was the final resting place for Charles Edward Broyles’ maternal grandparents, Zacharias and Margaret Chew Carter Taliaferro—and for their two unfortunate grandsons, Charles’ brothers Zacharias and Richard Broyles. Originally belonging to Charles’ uncle, Congressman Richard Franklin Simpson, the property eventually was passed along to his son, Richard Wright Simpson.

Today’s rabbit trail will lead us to the story of how the Simpson Cemetery passed out of the hands of the family to its current owners. It all has to do with a friend and associate of Charles’ cousin—and his brother Augustus’ business partner—Richard Wright Simpson.

In the course of his professional life, Richard W. Simpson became the personal attorney of a neighboring gentleman by the name of Thomas Green Clemson. That neighbor had a dream—and he had the means to make that dream happen. He lived on a lovely estate, bequeathed to his wife, the former Anna Maria Calhoun.

If you are anything of a history buff (at least of the South Carolina variety), you may be wondering if there is any significance to the surname Calhoun. There is. Anna Maria was daughter of John C. Calhoun, former South Carolina congressman, senator, and member of the President’s cabinet in various capacities. And seventh Vice President of the United States, under both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson—only one of two men in history so far to serve under two American Presidents.

During his tenure in federal government, of course he and his wife, his first cousin’s daughter Floride Colhoun, took up residency in Washington, D. C., especially at the start of Floride’s reign as “Second Lady,” a role in which she found herself embroiled in the social scandal that later was dubbed “The Petticoat Affair.” Among the other difficulties linked to the fallout of that unfortunate scene, her husband resigned his position as Vice President. Needless to say, the Calhouns soon returned to South Carolina.

The Calhouns’ lovely home in South Carolina was known as Fort Hill. The Greek revival architecture embellished a fourteen room residence, where Mrs. Calhoun was quite content to remain, even after her husband was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate and returned to Washington. Though she was a capable manager, when her husband died in 1850, she faced a financial need to sell the property to her son and hold the mortgage. When that son died in 1865, Floride filed for foreclosure against his heirs, but in the process died, herself, the very next year.

The claims on Fort Hill embroiled the property in legal disputes for years afterwards, until it was sold at auction in 1872. Somehow, the executor of the Calhoun estate won the bidding war and the property—at least the residence and the majority of the land—ended up in the hands of John and Floride’s daughter Anna Maria.

Ah, I sense you were wondering if this Rabbit Trail was ever going to turn around and gain some momentum.

The Calhouns’ daughter Anna Maria was, by then, wife of Richard W. Simpson’s good friend and client, Thomas Green Clemson. She herself, however, passed away shortly thereafter—in 1875—and willed the property to her husband. (You see, the plot thickens.)

At that stage in Thomas G. Clemson’s life, he was envisioning an educational innovation, and was casting about for a means to make that a reality. A politician himself, he had served for a time as United States Secretary of Agriculture. Though born in Philadelphia, he considered South Carolina his adopted home state, and when he wasn’t traveling abroad, studying innovations in agriculture, he was serving as a strong advocate for implementing these concepts at home.

Having inherited Fort Hill from his wife, by 1886, his mind was made up: he would be the vehicle to jump start a project which was then only in discussion stage in the South Carolina legislature. The concept was that, using the university system of the day—a liberal arts model—was not a suitable academic backdrop for the more practical sciences such as agriculture and “mechanics.”

Through a series of intricate talks with South Carolina governor Benjamin Tillman and others—and through a close, and closely contested vote in the state legislature—a deal was brokered in which, on their part, the state would accept the terms of the will and establish a land-grant institution specifically for agricultural training. On his part, Thomas G. Clemson, now sole survivor of his immediate family, changed his will in 1886 to grant Fort Hill and its property to the newly-established college—a public school, should the legislature choose to accept his terms; private if the South Carolina politicians rejected the offer. By only one vote, the decision went to the affirmative.

By now, those of you familiar with institutions of higher education in the South may have realized that the property in question was the seed planted to found what is now known as Clemson University. But how does all that relate to my first cousin, four times removed?

If you recall, Augustus T. Broyles, the business partner (and, incidentally, first cousin) of Richard W. Simpson, was an expert in matters of last wills and testaments. Likely, so was his associate. It was through the sage advice and skillful maneuvering of Richard W. Simpson that Thomas G. Clemson added the 1886 codicil that stood firm in the face of yet another round of wrangling over the property, as Thomas' own son-in-law chose to contest the Clemson will. Apparently, Simpson defended the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court before it was settled in favor of the newly-established college.

The will showed that Thomas Clemson paid keen attention to detail, naming the governing body that was to launch the fledgling institution. Head of that board of trustees was none other than Clemson’s own personal attorney, Richard W. Simpson—the one who insured that the originating wording stood the test of legal attack, and the one who not only advised the benefactor in making his dream a reality, but after his passing, insured that the spirit, as well as the letter, of his will was carried out.

Richard W. Simpson served as President of that initial Board of Trustees until his death in 1912. Even after his passing, he sought to uphold the spirit of his friend’s gift by donating part of his own property to Clemson College. Today, the former Simpson property is used as Clemson University's agricultural experiment station. At the edge of that property is the Simpson family cemetery where the search for our mutual relatives led me to discover this history.

Nearly one hundred years after Richard Wright Simpson’s passing, the Anderson County Museum designated him as the 2011 inductee into their Hall of Fame. Nearby, on the Clemson University campus, two recently constructed residence halls now bear the name, Simpson North and Simpson South, in honor of his contribution to the establishment of Thomas Clemson’s dream.

I don’t suppose our family connection with attorney R. W. Simpson would have given this current generation of the family any bonus points in the agricultural college's admissions competition. While my daughter’s college major does start with the letter “A,” it wouldn’t quite fall within the right category. But it still makes me proud to know that that family member’s careful attention to detail made the difference for the nearly one hundred fifty thousand students who have since graduated from the dream that became reality, Clemson University.

Above: Photograph of Fort Hill, Clemson, South Carolina, from the Historic American Buildings Survey; courtesy United States Library of Congress; in the public domain.