Calling All Kelly Pack Rats

 

I've been thinking a lot lately about all the family history details I would never have known, if it weren't for the family's pack rats. If it weren't for the pack rats in my father-in-law's extended family, for instance, I would likely never have found confirmation—and then corroboration—of his maternal grandfather John Tully's origin in County Tipperary. Or the last sign of his maternal grandmother's missing father, Stephen Malloy. I can think of so many other instances where labels on the back of old, saved, family photographs explained connections I would otherwise not have known.

In an age when the anti-pack rat mantras crescendo to an unavoidable shriek, I can't help but wonder what will become of those bits of "trivial" paper stored in desk drawers or boxes in the closet or file folders in the attic. Those are the scraps of paper that hold the secrets to those brick wall ancestors we can't seem to trace.

Imagine, for instance, what might have been the fate—if not for family pack rats—of that last letter from Stephen Malloy, unfolded and re-read so many times by his wife that its edges frayed and shredded. Would a third- or fourth-great-grandchild hold it close and ask, "Does this spark joy?" What if the answer was no?

I keep hoping I will find someone in this Kelly line of my father-in-law who inherited a letter, or a photograph, or even a baptismal verification from back in Ireland. But then I wonder: what if that distant cousin decided it was time to declutter? Adopt a minimalist lifestyle? Follow the advice: if you haven't used this item in -- months, toss it?

I get it that life is so much more difficult when living in disorganization. That, however, doesn't necessarily mean to toss everything. Sometimes we become the keepers of irreplaceable family items, the guardians whose job it is to ensure that the next generation will one day receive what was entrusted to us.

When it comes to my father-in-law's Kelly ancestors, such keepsakes may be the only bridge to allow us to cross over to the place in Ireland which they once called their home. 

Building the Other Guy's Family Tree

 

There are a number of tempting possibilities residing in the discovery of the Flanagan DNA match connecting William and Catherine of the Cappananty property in County Limerick through their possible son James and my father-in-law's own Flanagan line. After all, if DNA connects my husband with a descendant of James Flanagan, I'd consider the connection to William and Catherine a strong possibility.

Let's look at the clues pointing us in that direction. The Flanagan property in Cappananty, at the time of Griffith's Valuation, was labeled with William's name. Later, the property register was changed to Catherine's name, and eventually to James—most likely indicating some sort of family relationship.

On my father-in-law's side of the equation, his great-grandmother Anna Flanagan, who had married the disappearing Stephen Malloy, had only one child: a daughter whom she named Catherine. If during that time period of the late 1840s, Anna's regional custom was to adhere to the old Irish naming pattern, she would normally have named her oldest daughter after her own mother. Anna's daughter being named Catherine would thus point to the possibility that Anna's own mother was named Catherine, as well.

In addition, we know that Anna had a brother William, though we don't know where he fell in his family's birth order. If Anna's brother William were son of another man named William, that would mean the younger was third son of the elder. There was another brother—implied by the arrival in Chicago of Catherine's cousin Johanna Flanagan Lee—but we don't yet know his name.

On the DNA side, the line of descent from James presents challenges, as well. For a start, we need to remember there was a gap in available church records for the Catholic parish of Ballyagran which the Flanagans called their home. There were baptismal records available for James' son James, and for his daughter named Anna. And yet, there are several online trees which indicate a large number of children—most of them without documentation other than attribution to other Ancestry subscribers' trees.

The normal step in such a DNA quandary would be to roll up our sleeves and begin building our match's family tree. Step by step with appropriate documentation, we could paint a clear enough picture of the family constellation—if we could overcome what seem to be an insurmountable lack of records.

Still, there may be another way around this roadblock. Just as I attempted for the Flannery puzzle last month, we could examine those sparse church records to find names of baptismal sponsors, then build out the family connections based on the theory that godparents named were siblings or in-laws of the parents of the child.

We could also attempt to find documentation for the current trees posted on Ancestry. Or directly contact the DNA match to see whether that Flanagan descendant might have been the beneficiary of those coveted family keepsakes. Just as my father-in-law "inherited" his Tully grandfather's baptismal verification letter, someone from the James Flanagan line of descent may have been blessed with some private token of relationship, as well.

No matter how the deed is accomplished, though, it is apparent with some DNA matches that if we want to know more about our family, it falls our lot to be the one to build our own version of someone else's family tree. Whether "quick and dirty" as some DNA enthusiasts like to portray it, or a more carefully documented effort, there are simply times when we need to build that tree for ourselves.

Besides the James Flanagan line, though, there is yet one more possibility that needs our attention before the month is out: the line from the unnamed Flanagan brother who had a Chicago-bound daughter named Johanna.    

A Genealogy Go Bag

 

My husband, ever the comedian, likes to corral the family—something akin to herding cats—and at the point when we should have left for a trip, quip, "Let's make like a baby and head out."

While it isn't quite as funny now, residents in our area received a message recently, advising much the same thing: park your vehicle in the driveway with the nose facing outward. And pack your go-bag.

Granted, the northern boundary of the wildfire raging nearby is still forty miles removed from us—as the wind blows, I might add—but the prudent heed warnings like that. Yesterday was our moment to make arrangements for what, hopefully, will be an unlikely scenario.

I did a lot of thinking about what might go in a go-bag. After all, my baggage has always included a lot of history. Perhaps that is a luxury of first-world life. Maybe not the kind to make the cut in more dire turns of events. But fire being fire, once it meets history, no matter how old or how irreplaceable, history doesn't win.

One of my husband's Facebook acquaintances happens to be a veterinarian, and, vets being vets, she dearly cares for our fuzzy four-footed companions. She happened to post a recommendation for items to include in this fire season's go-bag. Among her suggestions for preparation were the expected tasks: fill up your gas tank, keep enough of your prescription medications on hand for up to a week's supply, bring bottled water. Food, paper supplies, blankets, clothing. Logical supply choices got rounded out with the ultimate Boy Scout preparedness list of first aid materials, flashlights with extra batteries, and more. And stuff for those beloved pets.

That's when I got to thinking about those other aspects of daily life. Some people care for pets, some engage in what is supposedly America's number one hobby: gardening. But what about those of us who have that other popular hobby? We've amassed a collection of documents, photographs and heirlooms in remembrance of our ancestors. Sure, much of that is now digitized and stored online, but what of the tangible treasures passed down through generations for our safekeeping?

If you had to bolt out your front door at a moment's notice—well, other than that incessant early-warning smoke we've experienced since Wednesday—what else would you bring besides supplies to get you through the next seven days? Would any of it represent your heritage? If you had the time to think things out more clearly before that moment to head out, would something come to mind which absolutely needed to be preserved from past generations?

A hard question to consider, especially realizing the possibility that, upon your return, the legacy bequeathed to you might no longer be available to pass along to the next generation.

Beautiful Babies of Bygone Years

It was while I was holding my own beautiful baby that someone said, "Don't blink; she'll be grown before you know it." And that's the way it's been.

I suppose the same might have been said to Sarah Broyles McClellan, just after the arrival of her third and last child, William Helms McClellan, a little over one hundred years ago. Still, she made the decision that led to preserving his small spot in local history, ever since his photo debut in the Fort Meade, Florida, Annual Baby Contest.

Who knows how Bill—or Mac, as he came to be called in adulthood—might have felt about the honor. After all, he did win the contest in 1916. But those are the kinds of accolades one can't outgrow fast enough.

After growing up in Fort Meade—well, at least until his father, Rupert Charles McClellan, decided to move his dental practice to the much larger city of Tampa—Bill eventually served in World War II in the United States Army Air Force, and was also an Air Force veteran of the Korean conflict, attaining the rank of senior master sergeant.

In civilian life, he was employed by the Pasco County, Florida, Sheriff's Department, and also kept up his military association through membership in the Air Force Sergeants' Association.

Still, one has to wonder how a man like that might have felt about starting life off as the Beautiful Baby Photo Contest winner for his hometown. Was that the deep, dark secret he was compelled to hide from his closest childhood friends? Would the guys have laughed him to scorn?

Perhaps it was a mom thing. And despite the perennial "Aw, mom" complains uttered over the centuries by growing boys, for some reason Bill McClellan never gave up the photo which eventually came to be in his possession at the passing of his parents.

How do I know? The photo was sent to me by the Fort Meade Historical Society, which in turn received it from Bill's daughter.

And where do you suppose she had gotten it?

From the blushing son of a proud mama who just knew he was a beautiful baby.

Nostalgia In a Junk Drawer

We all have them, those drawers in our kitchen or bathroom cabinets deep enough to stash the odds and ends we haven't any better place to store. In a last minute sweep just before company walks in, or on a long day after our organizing moxie runs out, in go those specimens defying categorization.

Fast forward several years.

The other day, in a rush to pull something out of a drawer, I must have closed it too abruptly—only to discover its disheveled contents upon my next foray into its holdings. With everything up-ended, I couldn't find the one item I was seeking. But I knew I had put it in there. I always keep it there, in its specific place. Now what?

Poking around in the nether reaches of that cavern, I surveyed all the items jarred out of their original resting places. Many of them, I confess, were artifacts of a younger era of parenthood—cute keepsakes from a preschooler, baby bows for a head crowned with peach fuzz instead of hair, broken jewelry and barrettes I had meant to repair when I had more time and patience.

Quickly, I pushed and shoved everything back into place, hoping to find that one item I had lost, when—crack!—an awful sound stopped me in my tracks. Simultaneously spying something from a childhood long before my daughter's, I had a sickening realization of what had just snapped.

I have three remembrances of my godmother, that glamorous yet mysterious woman who wafted in and out of my life in sync with her command performances on stages around the world. Each of those three were embodied in tokens gifted to me—of which, sadly, only one now remains—in visits upon her return to New York. One was a turquoise necklace—yes, real turquoise, for a mere child. Another was an elaborate gold-chained, hip-hugging belt, the likes of which I've never since seen. The third was encapsulated in a tiny box standing no taller than an inch and a half.

It was that miniature container that had broken.

Realizing immediately what had just happened, I looked for the contents I knew were supposed to be inside. In the force of the break, the lid had popped off the container, and I could easily see the box was now empty. But what was once inside was the part that had made it precious to me.

I was now on a mad hunt to find an object standing barely an inch tall and half an inch wide. Remember, this is in the far reaches of a cavernous junk drawer. Though I knew what I was seeking, I couldn't see it for all the mess.

Then came the long-overdue, tedious process of sorting out the items from the haphazard remains of years of stowing and stashing. In the end—this didn't help that it occurred past midnight—I located the precious missing item and quickly uncapped the clear glass bottle to see if it still held what I had saved it for: the scent.

Although the perfume that had once filled this tiny bottle was long gone, it had such a wonderful essence that I had kept the bottle. Opening it and letting a bit of the fragrance escape always reminded me of my prima ballerina godmother and of a time that, in perspective, seemed to waft from a bygone era. The minute I spotted the bottle in the midst of the turmoil—relieved that it, intact, was not the source of the sickening snapping sound initiating this wild pursuit—of course the first thing I did was to gently twist off the cap. And take a sniff.

Though the wonder of the full bodied scent has aged into oblivion, the call of its beguiling top notes still lingers in the empty bottle.

Perhaps, that is just as the memories have settled in my mind: lingering, not lost. The solitary essential essence, yet without its original substance.

It was the outer container that had sustained the break. An ivory cube encasing a tiny pedestal featuring the bottle of what must have been the vintage version of the French perfume by
Raphael called Replique, it was made of plastic. With age, it had become brittle. A little twisting of the container had snapped the runner on the pedestal designed to hold the bottle in place, and all had tumbled out upon the disheveled remembrances stowed in the back of a cabinet drawer.

Did I throw it out? Empty, it has long outlasted its material usefulness. But it serves a purpose beyond that of personal adornment—besides, how could a child of perhaps ten have grasped the full significance of such a gift?—in reminding me of a precious relationship. A part of my heritage. It will undoubtedly find its way upon a trash heap, when all who are left behind will not be moved by remembrances such as this.

But not today. Gently holding it, nudging it back into its now-faded container, I put the minute bottle back in its resting place. While I don't need it to recall the one it symbolizes, it's a token that still serves to provide a welcome reminder.

  

A Sense of Place

With temperatures here in northern California sneaking up into the seventies, the urge to be outside catching some sun is overwhelming. Along with that change of venue comes the predictable: a great desire to get some blooms into those flower pots on my front porch.

What we do with the space that surrounds us tells almost as much about us as our conversations with friends or our habits around family. What do we do with the “margins” surrounding our lives? Do we fill them up to over-brimming? Leave the space stark, devoid of any clues? Or strike a workable balance?

Sometimes, those telltale margins shift through our ages and stages. When I was a crazy college kid, writing letters back home (yes, back when we only had wood-burning telephones—and let me tell you, they were expensive!), I filled up every square inch of paper. I was known as “The Empty Space Fiend.”

Now that you know that, it will probably come as no surprise to you to learn that the first time I laid eyes on the stark décor featured in a Pottery Barn catalog, my immediate thought was, “And people live in these places?!” (In their defense, to the original sterile palette, they have since added books, cushions, and other comfy signs of life.)

Of course, what I did with my margins during those stages of life was heavily influenced by the necessities of my economic standing. By the time, long after graduation, that I finally emerged from Starving Student status, I had entered the realm of two-jobs-plus-overtime. Oh, and I started my first business. There was no margin.

Lately, the phrase, “sense of place” has been reverberating in my mind. I first was impressed with this concept when reading Melissa Mannon’s blog, ArchivesInfo. Two years ago, she posted some brief comments prompted by the same thoughts I mentioned above. For Melissa, being “connected to a space” was an important orienting factor: “It is when I un-tether from [my] surroundings that I feel out of sorts.” Artwork on her walls and flowers outside her picture windows were important aspects anchoring her with a sense of place.

While making a place for yourself may seem to be the realm of the artist or the interior decorator, we each have a way of handling the space around us. It’s our way of claiming a toe-hold on what surrounds us—our environment.

Whether you’ve given that concept some thought or not, I want to encourage you to not only think of yourself here, but to consider what you might glean about your ancestors by the telltale signs they left behind: the pictures they chose to hang on their walls, the books they chose to surround themselves with.

Actually, the very places they chose to call home can tell us much about them—not only their personality but their circumstances as well. The space they claimed from the area surrounding them—and what they subsequently did with that space—reveals something about their personality, their view of their life situation, their economic and social standing and, perhaps, even more.

I think of my Polish-American ancestors, likely thrust, upon arrival in the New World, into the squalor that was the nineteenth century Brooklyn of the teeming immigrant masses. What made them seek to escape to the better neighborhoods of Queens borough to the north? What about my husband’s immigrant Catholic forebears, settling originally near the coastlands of Maryland—what led them to choose the relative risks of the wilderness of Ohio at the dawn of the 1800s? And what Sense of Place were my Southern relatives seeking, as they moved, generation by generation, farther south and then farther west?

All these people were surrounding themselves with what they hoped would make life better for them: more farmland, a bigger house, a quieter community—or a busier city.

While life in past ages may have seemed (to us, at least) simpler, people have always filled their lives with stuff. I can’t help but think of the Bean family, making the long and risky journey “around the Horn” from Maine to San Francisco—and hauling their beautiful furniture with them. Even the ones who left it all behind soon found ways to replace what they couldn’t take with them. Why? Their “Sense of Place” radar demanded it of them. We all need a way to make our space feel like home.

Some of us are fortunate enough to be the proud possessors of those items that once gave our ancestors that Sense of Place. While it might not have been a silver service, it would still have served the same purpose. Whether a framed needlepoint creation or a quilt for the bed, each piece fulfilled that important function of claiming and taming a small portion of the environment to call one's own. It is in how that turf was claimed that the tokens reveal something to us of our ancestors’ preferences and, ultimately, of their personality.

Above: Johannes Vermeer, "The Geographer," 1669 oil on canvas; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Oh, The Places Where Our Ancestors Hide

It’s all well and good to say you can, as a genealogical researcher, go to historic newspaper archives to find references on your illustrious ancestors, but what of the ones who weren’t world class citizens?

Admittedly, turning to the Library of Congress’ NUCMC catalog won’t suit your taste, if your ancestors were pioneer settlers on the prairie. Nor will a paper chase through the archives of any university holdings or governmental repositories. We just have to face the fact that some of our ancestors were near-anonymous commoners who lived out their days, hoping to grow enough or make enough to cover for their daily bread.

Still, I say there is hope in finding something of record. When that means more “hope” than “finding,” these are times when we need to think, “crowdsourcing.”

I’ll tell you why I say that. Remember my Tully family—one of the Irish immigrant families I’ve been researching in preparation for our trip to Ireland last October? One of the Tully daughters, shortly after fleeing the famine, settled in Ontario (Canada West) and thereafter was married to a man by the name of Edward Ryan. For whatever reason, the couple chose to head further west, and, rather than settle in Chicago as had her siblings, they continued beyond that point. For a while, they lived in Winnipeg. Then they tried their hand at farming, claiming a land grant in the Dakota Territory. After what must have been a horrendous bout with influenza or another ravaging disease, what was left of the families in their party chose to return to Canada. But some stayed in the Dakotas.

You know me: I’m not satisfied to only pursue my ancestral line. I want to know what happened to all the siblings. And their descendants. So I pursued the lines of each of their children—the ones who survived the illness that swept through the family’s settlement.

Other than land records, thanks to the Bureau of Land Management, there would not be many documents to grant me a peek into what made up the daily life of these settlers. Or at least, that’s what I assumed.

At that time, however, I was still actively pursuing the genealogy forums, asking questions about resources that the locals might be aware of, but which would not usually be known by those not living in the area. Thankfully, several respondents to my queries helped me find archives tucked away in university holdings that I would otherwise never know about. This happened both in North Dakota and back in Canada, where some of the family migrated to the western provinces of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. It would otherwise have taken more search prowess than I possess to have flushed out these resource diamonds in the rough. But that’s the power of crowdsourcing our research solutions.

Granted, there are those ancestors out there who never owned land, never died and passed along their property and possessions by official means of wills, never wrote letters, never were part of family photographs, and maybe never even lived near a town or went to a church that published those folksy gossip columns about who was coming to town, or what the neighbors were up to. I can relate to that quandary—after bemoaning the lack of documentation during our research trip to Ireland in search of pre-1849 records of our Irish ancestors, I winced to read Black Raven Genealogy’s blog post on how Dara relied on a collection of dog licenses to find any record of one of her relatives. Now, that’s desperate. But ingenious. We can take a lesson from those like our fellow genealogy researchers in Ireland and learn to be resourceful in our research approaches.

There are other forms of research crowdsourcing. Unlike the organized approach of queries on genealogical forums, these are more scattered, requiring more perseverance to flush them out of hiding. Or reminders that they are there. Take the GenWeb system, for instance. Most of us (especially in the United States) remember that old resource, organized by nations, states, and eventually counties. Unwieldy to navigate, unpredictable in how much—if anything—can be found in any one given domain, the GenWeb sites may hold just what you are looking for. You will never know, though, unless you pay them a visit and take a look around. Volunteer driven, the site resources are as eclectic as the people who contributed to building the site.

Other resources are entirely locally based. You may have to ask many questions before you discover a promising local repository that could hold the details on your specific ancestor. Try contacting the county historical society or genealogical society for any resources on finding your ancestors. Some county collections—either at these societies or at the local library—may not be shared as part of a larger system. I know that is true in the county where I live. For some reason, our newspaper collections have not been included in the holdings of large online archives such as GenealogyBank or NewspaperArchive. Sometimes, the only way to inquire about such collections is to go straight to the source: the county in question.

People often seem to be happy to share what they know about local resources. Sometimes, the leads I’ve found, just by asking questions or getting on mailing lists, have been enormously helpful. Consider the Perry County, Ohio, website put up by a lone volunteer on his own dime, because he felt it was the thing to do. For those researching the same location, those discoveries are indeed gems.

One other form of crowdsourcing resources is one I hope to see more of. That is the volunteer who sees resources that would be useful for research, but which are tucked away in unknown corners where they would be of use to no one. These are the people who stumble upon photographs or journals of the strangers of bygone years, tucked in a corner of an antique store, and devise a way to let the rest of the world know about them. “Far Side of Fifty” launched one such project for “orphan photographs” back in 2009, and shares one photograph a day in hopes of reuniting photo with family. So far, she’s posted nearly two thousand photographs. Out of those, over one hundred have already found their way home.

Far Side is not alone in this task. If you want to know of others bringing old photographs to light, Far Side keeps a hyperlinked list of other blogs doing the same thing.

What I have yet to find is a blogger who is sharing old journals. While some bloggers will transcribe a family member’s journal and post it for others to read, it is a rare thing to run across someone doing so for a non-relative. Think of all the historic references that could be tucked away in such diaries. A few years ago, archivist Melissa Mannon blogged about finding one such diary, which launched her into the project of transcribing it.

Of course, as wonderful as all that sounds, as the photograph or writing of a mere stranger, it is only of academic interest. What would make me perk up and get really enthused would be if someone walked into an antique store and found a photograph, a journal, a letter, or some other keepsake from one of the ancestors in my family tree.

Now, isn’t that what we’d all love to find?!

Perhaps it is each other we should be looking to, when we wish to find those traces our ancestors have left behind.

As American as Apple Pie

While you may be busy today, occupying yourself with picnics in the park—or barbecues in the backyard—I am fervently hoping to add one unusual item to my holiday to-do list: visit an antique shop.

Yes, I know there are traditions more American than that, made to fill up this national day of celebration. Come to think of it, unlike some people I know, I find antiquing is not even my cup of tea. Or, ahem, grande caramel frappucino. But for this holiday weekend, I am going to add that one item to the list.

I have a specific reason for this task: I’m hoping, in some small way, to commemorate an ancestor I’ve never met, personally, whose life has lived on in the childhood stories I remember from my mother: my grand aunt, Chevis Davis Chitwood Kyte.

My daughter has long been trying to talk me into driving to a town to the north of us, to browse through the antique stores downtown. It was just the other day that I finally agreed to join her. I had something specific I needed to find. We were on a mission, and she knew just the place to accommodate my hope to quickly accomplish that goal.

But you can’t just rush into an antique shop, grab your selected item, slap some money on the counter and run out the door. There is an ambience to the place that must be respected, a protocol to heed. Life inside the doors of an antique shop must move at the proper pace.

While I was following my daughter—the one more experienced in such antique-shop decorum—I tried to feign interest in the, well, junk (don’t kill me yet—I promise this will be a worthwhile divertissement) cluttering the aisles and closing in on me from the walls. I couldn’t help but notice two out-of-place pieces of pottery on a humble wooden stand.

I picked one up to have a closer look.

And then, turned it over, just in case.

If you have been journeying with me through the research on my family tree that I have been journaling all along here, perhaps you recall the story of my grand aunt Chevis. It was she whose rather painful life experiences ended in an early death from cancer. These life experiences, I’m hoping, were somehow assuaged by the beauty Chevis created at her job at the pottery company in her hometown Erwin, Tennessee. You may recall the post I wrote about that same Southern Potteries company.

I never had inherited any pottery from that cheerful collection of now-renowned folksy artwork—believe me, after my own aunt passed away last November, I looked carefully through all her collectibles, hoping there was a piece to commemorate our common relative. The style of the artwork, however, was imprinted in my mind’s eye. One never knows, ya know?

Fast forward to that moment when I—stranger in an antique shop, trying not to look to my left or my right, fixed solely on the task I had come to accomplish, spending not one penny more—walked past those two items. They were marked with the right name, but something was wrong. There was a smear on the wording. The familiar logo wasn’t included. But the style…the style seemed right.

I can be a tightwad when it comes to spending money unintentionally. Besides, I’m a researcher. So, what did I do? Resist the urge to buy—and promise myself I’d research the identifying stamp further when I got home.

Last night, it just so happened that we were joining friends for an early Fourth of July concert in the park in that very same town to the north. Afterwards, we planned to wander the downtown area, which on Thursday evenings is converted to a farmer’s market and street faire. I promised myself I’d take a detour into that antique shop, in the hopes that those two Southern Potteries pieces were still there. After all, these two are my piece of America. My roots are intertwined in the history of that company.

Of course, I got caught up in the moment, and forgot my mission for the evening. But I’m already determined to make another trip. Part of me is hoping the two items are still there, and that I can still buy them at the reasonable asking price. The other part of me is nagging, “But why are they so cheap?”

That’s the part of me that I will be telling, “Shut up.”

Looking For Something Else, Found This

At the pivot point between all-I-can-find for the Flannery family of Paris, Ontario, and seven more surnames to complete before our Irish research trip next fall, I decided to pull up a strand that’s not been pursued here at A Family Tapestry: Lee.

Now, I know—judging by the groans I can digitally sense through this Internet connection—Lee is not much more of an agreeable genealogical research topic than, say, Smith or Jones. There are a lot of them out there! To compound the problem, Lee is one of those surnames of trans-national prevalence, so it takes a lot of honing in to isolate the specific line I’m seeking. Why would I ever want to do something like that to myself? Especially within the time parameters I’m facing?

Calm down. This Lee has a connection that might yield some geographic tips for the Irish trip. Johanna Lee, my focus, is somehow a cousin to my thoroughly-researched Agnes Tully Stevens, my husband’s Chicago-based paternal grandmother. Lee, as it turns out, is not her maiden name, but her married name. She was born Johanna Flanagan, and like many of her Irish immigrant relatives, arrived in Chicago via Canada.

To prepare to launch into this research project, I checked my files for what I had already gleaned on this woman. I had already, when encountering resources on Johanna’s history which would have sucked me into those inevitable rabbit trails, digitized the records and filed them away for a later opportunity.

This was that opportunity, I figured, and headed back into my files to locate what I had saved.

Of course, you know it had to turn out more convoluted than that simple explanation, though, don’t you? Reading through saved emails, one by one, I began losing hope that I’d locate what I was seeking. After about the forty-somethingth file I opened, I ran across an email from an unfamiliar address and began scanning the contents:

I am going to try to e-mail you a picture of grandma Stevens (Agnes Tully). She is second from the left, middle standing, they played all over the country and on passenger ships.

I couldn’t believe it! Rabbit trail or no rabbit trail, I had to stop there and change paths. This was the very file I had looked for when blogging about Agnes and her earlier years touring as a violinist—a digitized copy of the promotional brochure, including Agnes’ photograph. It was sent in an email from my husband’s cousin Mike nearly ten years ago.

Seeing the brochure itself provided just a slim bit of searchable information to move me onward. What were the chances that I could find more via an online search now? Nearly cringing with thoughts of how this could go awry, I entered the terms “Lady Entertainers” along with “Agnes Tully”—adding the name in hopes it would divert the search results from a direction I didn’t intend to go.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the Google™ results. Not only was I able to find a copy of the brochure’s cover—albeit a poor facsimile of the original—but a complete rendering of all four pages, which I lacked.

Apparently, the University of Iowa Libraries has a collection, dubbed “Traveling Culture,” which focuses on what they subtitled “Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century.” From that separate entry, I gleaned the names of the other three young women in Agnes’ group:

            Mayfa M. Haines

            Kathryn A. Reed

            Kathryn Roberts

Another digital file at the University of Iowa collection confirmed the date of the brochure as 1910—just two years before Agnes’ marriage to William Stevens, giving me an idea of the brief duration of her tenure with Redpath, the booking agency managing the group’s engagements.

Not only did that brochure earn Agnes a place in the archives of the University of Iowa collection, but an entry in the listings at the Library of Congress, which also provided a page on the Circuit Chautauqua movement. I was even able to find a listing for Agnes Tully at Trove, the archive of the National Library of Australia!

Apparently, the brochure included a separate portrait of Agnes, standing, with her violin. The 1910-1911 season brochure also contained copy—in the flowery style of the era—promoting the group’s presentation, specifically noting Agnes’ part in the program:

Concerning the violin playing of Miss Tully too much praise can scarcely be accorded to it. The hearty encores which she invariably receives may be regarded as ample proof of the high regard in which she is held. Miss Tully is a most satisfactory concert player and soloist. She at once established herself in the good graces of her audience, and deserves the applause so generously awarded her. Her playing is characterized by great warmth of tone, color and abandon which, combined with a clean technique, beautiful bowing and virile interpretation places her among the leading lady violinists of the day. Her uniform success in these engagements of the Lady Entertainers has established for her an enviable reputation as an artist who gives promise of a brilliant future.

While I'll pick up my place, back at the head of the rabbit trail, with tomorrow's post on Johanna Lee, this was one diversion I could not resist mentioning the minute I discovered it.


Brochure information:
Front page of brochure as scanned from copy in private collection of Agnes Tully Stevens'  family member.
Inset, lower right, portrait of Agnes Tully from Redpath brochure, dated 1910, courtesy University of Iowa Libraries; both articles in public domain.

A Case of Two Signatures

In the midst of trying to determine whether my godmother, whom I knew personally as Genia Melnitchenko but whom the rest of the world knew as ballerina Genia Melikova, was the same as the immigrant I found in online documents, I recalled one little slip of paper that might help cinch matters.

Years ago, when I was probably still an infant, my godmother had sent a fanciful little Christmas greeting to me—via my mother, of course, who would have to serve as interpreter. My mother saved that little card and tucked it away among the small collection of cherished items from her earlier life.

I in turn, upon receiving it from my mother, tucked it away for memory’s sake. It was one of the Christmas tidbits I intended to include as a season’s greeting on a December blog post—but if you won’t mind reruns when it comes closer to that hectic season, I’ll share it now for one specific point.

I realized that was the one piece of paper I had bearing the signature of my godmother. The reason it comes in handy is that, among the immigration papers posted online, I found another item that included Genia’s signature.

This other specimen of her signature was on the documents granting her the name change from Melnitchenko to Melch, which we had discussed last week. From the way she formed her “G” for Genia, to the distinct formation of her “n” at the middle of her name, I felt it replicated the card I had remembered tucking away for safekeeping.

Of course, there is no way to check how she signed her last name against anything I owned of hers, for she never signed her last name in cards for me. It was always "Aunt Genia." Besides, how awkward that “Melch” seemed to be written—a word her hand seemed to rebel against in its very formation.

Despite hopes of now heading into less wintery weather, I pulled out that Christmas reminder and took a look. Let me know what you think.

Here is her Christmas greeting from so many years ago:

And here is the card from her petition to change her name in the Southern District of the New York court:

It was just a little token to remind me that this fairy tale godmother truly did exist in real life. How strange that we sometimes need repeated affirmation that our past really did happen to us.

"Now We Try a Boundless Sea"

One common tie binding Rubie McClellan Davis’ Fort Meade High School with many others throughout the United States was the choice of its class motto. I wouldn’t have known this, of course, if it hadn’t been for the inspiration of reprinting the graduation program of the Class of 1919 as their place cards for a class reunion dinner held fifty eight years later. Nor would I have known about it, except that the occasion meant so much to my grandmother that she saved the entire package of keepsakes from the event, along with a letter from her good friend and fellow classmate, Zemla Doke Griffith.

The class motto had such a poetic ring to it, I wanted to know more about its source. So I Googled it, naturally.

I was surprised the search yielded no results for any actual originator. Here I was expecting it to be a line from an inspirational poem, but apparently there is no such creation. While Google™ was quick to point out all the high schools across the nation which have used this saying as their class motto, it could not lead me to the source of the sentiment, nor any composition in which the line was included. All I could find were a few books listing pithy sayings and proverbs. One book actually included the saying in a section labeled, “Class Mottoes.” No editor could be found from those resources, all published in the first few years after 1900, equipped to label this particular sentiment as a quote from any historic figure, orator or essayist.

How could that be? That line is just screaming for some artful handling.

Perhaps we must be satisfied to chalk it up to a case of editorial evolution. Perhaps it had no creator.

With the close of the letter from Zemla to Rubie, perhaps you are wondering if there is any “rest of the story.” Who was this lifelong friend who was still exchanging letters with her classmates upwards of fifty years later?

Zemla Doke—according to her obituary—was born in Fort Meade, Florida, on July 23, 1902. Incredibly, she remained in that small town for the next eighty five years. After graduating from the town’s high school in 1919—as we’ve already seen—she attended and graduated from Florida Southern College in Lakeland. This was the beginning of a thirty year teaching career, first in Fort Meade, and then for the Pinellas County schools, as a first grade teacher.

On June 2, 1925, Zemla married Daniel Evan Griffith in Tampa. Dan and Zemla had a son and a daughter, and eventually—as we could guess from her letter—several grandchildren. Dan predeceased Zemla by over thirty years, passing away in 1963. Zemla joined him on June 5, 1995, at the age of ninety two. Though Zemla had moved from Fort Meade to Lakeland in 1987, she was returned to Fort Meade for burial at New Hope Cemetery there.

As for Rubie, a few years following Zemla’s 1983 letter, she did indeed see her husband Jack’s health decline for the years leading up to his 1988 death. Her own passing—as often seems to happen with lifelong couples—followed only a few years later, on a spring day in May, seventy four years after that first graduation ceremony for the Class of ’19.

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

A Younger Year

It was 1977, and the Fort Meade High School Class of 1919 had chosen this opportunity to join together for an October evening. The occasion of their dinner celebration was to commemorate the fifty-eighth anniversary of their high school graduation.

Though she lived far from Fort Meade, Florida, at the time, my grandmother, Rubie McClellan Davis, and her husband Jack were able to attend this special event. Jack and Rubie had made this a part of a grand itinerary, turning their travels from Columbus, Ohio, into a road trip that took in all their favorite sights—as well as adding a few new stops like Disney World.

The crowning event, of course, was Rubie’s high school reunion. The dinner event, hosted at the home of her good friend Zemla Doke Griffith’s son and daughter-in-law, included all sorts of memorabilia inspired by that graduation ceremony so many years ago. Even the seating arrangements for the meal were marked by index-card-sized place cards which turned out to be reprints of the very graduation ceremony program from 1919.

The year of graduation itself may have brought up questions in the mind of anyone following these posts about my grandmother, who was born in 1899. If you do the math, you’d realize that Rubie’s June 13 birthday followed close after the May date of her 1919 graduation—and would have made her just shy of twenty years of age.

For someone used to current standardization of public schooling, when just about everyone begins first grade at the age of six—or will soon attain that age, if their birthday occurs in the autumn months before the school district’s official “cut off” date—it seems unusual to realize that this student would be two years older than the norm upon graduation.

There are some reasons for this.

First, in the earlier years of the previous century, not everyone started first grade upon reaching the age of six. In several states, parents enrolled their children when they deemed their children appropriately ready to begin formal schooling. Thus, a first grade class might have some students who were six and other students who were seven or eight.

Then, not every student in that century completed all twelve grades of formal schooling. Many left school after completing the elementary grades, or midway through the course of high school study, to find work to help support their family. Take a look at the census records for some of those early decades to see when your own ancestors left school to get a job or take up greater responsibility on the family farm. The earlier you go in our country’s history, the less likely it was to see any given student attain the rank of high school graduate.

Because the general public didn’t see public schooling in the regimented way we currently are accustomed to, it was not considered detrimental for a student to enter the process at a later age.

That was exactly what happened to Rubie. Instead of enrolling her in first grade upon attainment of what we consider the customary age, Rubie’s parents—at least, according to family lore—chose to keep her at home until her younger brother, Charles, was also able to enroll at the Fort Meade school. Rubie then became not only student, but escort and personal nanny for her little brother.

I suppose my grandmother resented that decision. From my aunt, I learned that my grandmother tried her best to conceal the year of her birth, offering instead the year 1900 to mitigate the otherwise obvious fact that she was two years older than “everyone else” in her class.

Of course, if she looked at it all in the reverse, she would have realized that indicating, as graduate, that she was a member of the class of 1919 would have been her ticket to appear younger than she was.

We seldom think of such advantages when we are younger.

  

The Senior Class of

The Fort Meade High School

Commencement Exercises

Friday Evening, May Second

at eight thirty o’clock

High School Auditorium

About Horace’s Mother

When Mabel Martin proudly displayed the antique she described as a Dresden china clock, according to the Erwin, Tennessee, Record, she had mentioned that it was passed to her husband, Horace, from his mother.

My mind automatically wants to know who she was, and how she came to possess the unique collectible.

Discovering much about the wife of George Edward Martin, however, is not easy. Thankfully, I’ve already been provided with Emma Martin’s maiden name—Morris—but not much else to help explain how she came to own such an unusual clock.

Apparently, Horace’s father, George Martin—often going by the nickname Eddie, according to some census records—married Emma B. Morris on October 25, 1882. They were most likely married in Cumberland in New Kent County, Virginia. Best I can tell at this point, George was son of Thomas S. and Harriet K. Martin. Emma, on the other hand, was a mystery.

I was able to find a young woman matching Emma’s likely age—she was born in October, 1863, according to some census records—listed as a niece in the household of elderly Benjamin and Elizabeth Morris in the 1880 census. The couple lived in Cumberland. Included in their household, along with their sixteen year old niece “Emma B.” was another niece, eighteen year old “Mary S.” and a nephew, eleven year old “Walter C.”

Of course, each of those children living with their Uncle Ben and Aunt Lizzie could have been cousins. Just in case Mary, Emma and Walter were actually siblings, I went hunting in the 1870 census for a matching set.

While the 1870 census does not provide any listing of familial relationships, it was encouraging to find—also in Cumberland—a household that, along with an older Thomas and John, included a Mary, an Emma, and a Walter. Each was correspondingly ten years younger.

An interesting side note was that the woman listed as head of household happened to have the given name Indiana. If you, as I had, wondered about Mabel’s husband Horace having a sister named Indiana, perhaps you can now join me in presuming that the younger Indiana was named after the woman heading the household where Emma lived in 1870.

It is possible that Indiana was not Emma’s mother. After all, the next name listed in the household—showing on the page previous to the listing that includes Emma—was for twenty one year old Florence Morris, who obviously could not call the thirty five year old Indiana her mother.

For what it’s worth, I thought I’d try my luck for one more decade, even though by now, it would predate Emma’s arrival in the household—if, indeed, Indiana’s household was the right place for Emma.

In a household in the 1860 census—still in New Kent County, Virginia—headed by Thomas S. “Morriss” and, I presume, his wife “Indianna,” are listed children “Lusie,” Ellen, “Th. W.,” and baby John. No Emma yet—she was born in late 1863.

There was one more person in that household you might be interested in. While there is no indication of relationship in this earlier census, there was a seventy four year old woman living in that Morris household. Her name? Ann Lightfoot.

Could it be that Horace Lightfoot Martin gained his middle name from his mother’s maternal grandmother? And could this Ann, born approximately 1786—still in Virginia—have been the one to pass along that Dresden china clock that ultimately found its home at the New Jersey address of the great-grandson who bore her surname?

Though it still doesn’t explain how anyone in the extended Martin-Morris family came to own a German antique of that nature, at least it connects a few dots and gives us more of the big picture of some related surnames.


Photograph, above right: Meissen porcelain clock from the nineteenth century. Although this clock is not the same as the clock owned by my aunt—hers was wider and not as tall, and was without the figurines featured in this design—it serves as an example. Original photo (including examples of candelabra as well) courtesy of Wikipedia under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License from user IvoryMammoth.

Adding a Hopeful Voice to Blog Caroling

Late at night, just before Christmas Eve last year, a phone call came in that rocked our home, our upcoming holidays and, actually, gave us a very different New Year than we could have imagined. The stranger speaking on the other end of the line was telling me that my aunt—my only surviving relative from the previous generation—had fallen and broken her neck.

The week prior to that, we had arrived home from a business trip back east, and were then trying to cobble together a hasty Christmas. With this dire news added to the mix, Christmas suddenly became a blur. The focus turned to getting back east as soon as possible, with hopes to do whatever necessary on behalf of my aunt. Packing away all those festive decorations after the end of the holiday became a blur; I still don't know where I packed those ornaments. The time had, indeed, become bleak.

Somewhere in the midst of the dazed activity, I managed to post—in hopes of following footnoteMaven's Blog Caroling tradition—my comments on the Christmas carol that was ringing in my head through all that turmoil. While I had missed the deadline to participate for 2012, I still wanted to add my voice. I needed to add my voice to something uplifting, something promising.

As it has turned out, the entire year of 2013 was a challenging year. Just as the year started with news about my aunt, it closed out with the same. Christmas still seems to have that hazy aura; it may pass me by before I regain my composure. But this year, I don't want to miss raising my virtual voice and joining the Blog Caroling tradition.

Here, offered up once again after its original posting last December, is my contribution to footnoteMaven's holiday tradition:

As I take the time, in this holiday break between Christmas and New Year, to sift through family keepsakes that remind me of the season, I can’t help but notice the carols that automatically begin playing in my head.

During the Christmas season, whether I’m near a source of music or not, I have beautiful traditional tunes playing in my mind—whether they are classical (like the Tchaikovsky Nutcracker), ancient (O Come, O Come Emmanuel) or contemporary (thanks to Mel Tormé and even David Foster and Amy Grant).

When I found the card I want to share today, the music that automatically came to mind was the Gustav Holst setting to Christina Rossetti’s poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

This tiny card is not really a Christmas card. It is actually a keepsake from—or promoting—the Saint Vincent de Paul organization. On the reverse, someone from our family had written the name, “Wm. A. Stevens.” Of course, that name could have represented either Agnes Tully Stevens’ husband Will, or her son Bill—possibly even her grandson Bill. At this point, I guess I will never know.

The scene depicted on the card, though not a Christmas scene, carries the season’s message in helping others—particularly the less fortunate. Just looking at the stark surroundings and the cold colors in the background, I immediately think, “bleak”—prompting the music in my mind to strike up the melody for this very carol.

The scene also arrests me because, like those in our family’s heritage, I can’t help but think of those who don’t have the many blessings we count as our due. They are indeed blessings and gifts, given to us to pass along, both now and throughout the year ahead.

Mother’s Day Greetings From Another Age

With nary a mark to tell where she got it, or who might have bestowed it upon her, Agnes Tully Stevens’ keepsake card bears a familiar verse that even I remember hearing, so long ago, being recited.

Unlike the card I posted Friday, appearing older than the hidden mark that revealed its date of 1979, this card is undated and appears yellowed. I have no idea where Agnes might have gotten the card—somewhere in Chicago, I presume—for there is no publisher's information affixed to the cardstock.

There is no listing of author, but using a segment of the first stanza to search for further information online, I found a longer version attributed to the poet, Ann Taylor. Apparently, Ann Taylor wrote the original version of the poem in her earlier years, revising the concluding stanza much later in life. She also saw selected stanzas of the rather long poem set to the artwork of James Pollard with a working title the same as the opening line of the version of Agnes Tully Stevens’ card. The Pollard artwork—a young child kneeling and praying in her bedroom—was estimated to have been created and published some time between 1820 and 1850. Since Ann Taylor was born in 1782, the poem must have been known some time before James Pollard chose it to accompany his artwork.

Whether Agnes Tully Stevens’ card was inspired from the publications of those earlier years—perhaps passed along by her own mother—or served as a later testimony of the enduring sentiments expressed in the original poem, I have no way to tell. Regardless, it is a fitting way to pass along those wishes for a happy Mother’s Day, from our Tully ancestors, through Agnes, to her grandchildren—and now to you!

My Mother

Who taught my infant lips to pray,

To love and serve God every day,

And walk in wisdom’s pleasant way?

My Mother!

Who ran to help me when I fell

And would some pretty story tell,

Or kiss the place to make it well?

My Mother!

How could I ever cease to be

Affectionate and kind to thee

Who wast so kind to me?

My Mother!

Ah! no, the thought I cannot bear,

And if God pleased my life to spare

I trust I shall reward thy care,

My Mother!