Notes from Conversations with Mom: 1 June 2011

1 June 2011 

It was on this day that I started keeping dated notes when I talked to Mom on the phone. We talked almost every day for a while there. Wish I’d dated all the notes prior to that but am happy to have what I do.  

On this day Mom wanted to talk about WWII and the boys who served. There were a lot of them too, and ours wasn’t the only family who sent their boys off. Mom’s brother Camey Williams joined the Army and went to California for training. His best friend was Lonnie Kyle and he’s related by marriage on Mom’s side, somehow. Have just spent the better part of an hour trying to figure it out and can’t work it out. Ever get a stray person such as Lonnie Kyle? You know that there’s a connection but you just can’t make the pieces fit. 

 

Mom’s maternal grandmother Mam Whetstone is pictured with Nan Kyle in this photo above. Just don’t know who Nan is to Mam. This picture is dated 1939 and Nan appears to be pregnant. With Lonnie’s younger brother? Finding out who the Kyles were to our family is going to drive me crazy. 

While Camey was in California, so far away from little Frostburg, their hometown, he sees Lonnie! Lonnie yelled out, “Last time I saw you, you had pneumonia!” Which is strange thing to say, I first thought. 

But it was the truth! Camey and Lonnie and a bunch of the boys were playing down by the creek in January. It was frozen over, solid. Except for that spot Camey found when he cracked the ice and fell in. And he got pneumonia. He did however get an ambulance ride to the hospital. His first one. He was excited, very ill but excited. 

Lonnie also said that the last time he saw Camey he was a skinny little kid. Now, he said that Camey had turned into a man.  

 

 

That’s Uncle Camey on the right. I think this photo might have been taken in Frostburg at some point.  And I have no idea where that top one was taken, but it's not Frostburg.

 
The notation on this picture says that he was in Switzerland.  

Mom’s sister Dot had a childhood sweetheart named Harold. They grew up, fell or stayed in love and married. Uncle Harold Conrad also served but in the Navy. Cousin Steve knows his Naval history and stories of his service and someday I’ll have to get more information from him. Meanwhile, here he is in uniform. 

With his new bride, Aunt Dot.

 

 

Here he's on board a ship in the Pacific. Cousin Steve will know all of the details.

Thank goodness for cousins!

On Dad’s side of the family, his brother Bernie Kelly, was off to the European Theatre of war. When he got there, he spotted his brother-in-law Pete Fraley, his sister Christiana’s husband. Once they met again, Pete and Bernie started kidding around and Pete told him he was not regulation anything and was one of those “undesirables” they talk about. They had a good laugh! 

Kidding around was a brother thing in our family and it pops up in many family stories. Bernie was, I thought, the funniest of the uncles. Dad was funniest when he was with Bernie and they got into some close scrapes too, but all in fun. I don’t think anyone got arrested for any of their pranks, but I’m not totally certain.  

It’s said that Bernie stole watches from POWs, but maybe that’s just a made-up story told by the two other brothers. One day Bernie was walking around camp and saw this officer looking particularly pompous and thought, “Who does he think he is.” Then he realized that it was his brother Delbert!  

As I heard the story, the day the war was over in Europe Bernie grabbed a jeep and drove off to find Delbert to celebrate. Against odds, they found each other! 

 

Delbert John Kelly on the top and on the bottom, Bernie Kelly.  

 

Granny Whetstone was missing but now she's found!

Granny Whetstone near the back boundary of their "Farm"
on Midlothian Road in Frostburg, Allegany County, Maryland.

 

 

In the previous post I wrote about Mom's Granny Whetstone, and you can see it here. In short, I'm trying to find official records for her to complete an application I'm working on so that Mom can, hopefully and if all goes well, get admitted to the NSDAR, the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. And Granny Whetstone is a key player on the line back to our patriot. I've been on a mad hunt for Granny's death certificate. Death certificates are a boon in doing this particular work because they come with a big payload, if they were properly filled out. Think about it. If you get a good one you also get confirmation of birth date, birth location, death date, death location, names of both parents and if the wind is at your back, their birth places. And if you're that kind of curious (and Mom and I are) you can find out what they died of. Cool, huh?

 

So my guy at the Maryland State Archives who knows their web site and facilities like the proverbial back of his hand, did a search there for Granny and came up empty. No Granny, and no death certificate!

 

Once I had a good pout about that, I circled back and thought about how I was going to make up for this loss of birth and death dates and locations and parents, thus linking her back a generation. I checked my research notes in the spiral binder for this project and I have to say that I didn't think I missed a thing. Obits, cemetery, census records, a fruitless hunt for a birth record. Probate stuff, court records, a library card. OK, not that last thing but you get what I mean. I found nothing that was going to satisfy the genealogists that look at DAR application in that big nice building in Washington DC, like a good death certificate. Oh sure, I could piece her life together based on census records and her marriage record, but I needed that death certificate or the application was going to be a patchwork quilt of sources. I wanted clean and streamlined.

 

Feeling like a puppy chasing it's tale, I took my grief to the Facebook group for DAR members working on applications and told them everything. Boo-hoo, Grammy has no death certificate. They were good, really good. There was a flurry of "did you check the ___" questions in which they made sure I hadn't overlooked the obvious, which could happen to anyone. Then the questions turned to the slightly more obscure records and at the end we were down to insurance policies. No one suggested a library card;)

 

I was left thinking about two possible things I might do. The first was to get someone in Frostburg to go over to the cemetery offices and check the records for me, if there were any. It's been my experience that if you go over and ask to look at something and chat a bit and share the story of who and what you're looking for, people get involved and really try to help. So maybe I could get a relative in town to do that.

 

The second thing was that I could try a bit harder to track down some church records in hopes of finding a burial record in a dusty corner. I knew it wouldn't be as complete as the death certificate but hey, it was a shot because it might give a date of death and some other goodies. They were not Catholics so that was out which is too bad because the best church records in town were the Catholic records, and I had already checked those just in case. Maybe they were Lutherans? Maybe. But the minister who married them was a Baptist. And this in a small town where churches come and go almost as fast as the bars. Was not optimistic.

 

Then one of the DAR daughters came forth and offered to look and double-check to see if she could find Granny in the Maryland State Archives online. Wow! That was real nice, but DAR daughters are like that. They love to help each other and the community. A lot of people do, and that's one of the things I like about genealogy and genealogists:) So I took her up on it. "What was her name?" she posted. And then I remembered something. Something very important.

 

Granny's name! In working on her life and the records that captured glimpses into the moments of it, I noticed a distinct pattern. In her early years she was recorded as Catherine Elizabeth or Catherine Eliza, and even rarely, Eliza. Then in later years she went by Kate and Katherine. (You can see this coming, can't you?) I took a quick look at the email request for research sent to my guy at the Maryland State Archive and whatta ya think it said? "Catherine!" I had asked him to look for Catherine! If she was more likely to have gone by Katherine, then no wonder he didn't find her in the records!

 

My new DAR friend found her in the online index in under five minutes! WOW!

 

 

See there? Katherine, with a "K".
And look there, she died in 1945?

 

And the index said that she died, when? 2 January 1947! Mom said that after I was born in the fall of 1946, she talked to Granny on the phone and Granny asked her when she was bringing me over so that she could see me. Fall of 1946 and Granny Whetstone was still alive. Yes, Mom, you were right, she was alive and we did go see Granny Whetstone that winter. Right before she passed on the second day of the new year. 1947.

 

I'm wondering what happened that the year of her death ended up as 1945 on her stone?

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/10/granny-whetstone-was-missing-but-now.html 

Granny Whetstone's Missing! (And I can't find her.)

 

Yes, dear Granny Whetstone, Mom's own kind and gentle grandmother, is missing. There she is above with her husband Joseph Hampton Whetstone (1858 - 1939). No, she didn't wander off just now. She's been gone since right around the time I was born. And yes, she's missing from the records. Oh, sure, she's right there in the census records from 1870 with her House family in West Virginia all the way through the 1930 census in Frostburg, Allegany, Maryland. She's there except for a birth certificate but that's to be expected because it's West Virginia in 1865, right after the Civil War and West Virginia is a brand new state, so no birth record for her... and by way of extension, for me. By the way, she was born April 5th and the war ended April 9th. I wonder if there ever was a birth certificate for her?

But I can't complain too much (even though you know I'm going to) because of one census return for Granny and her family. Here it is and you'll notice that she and her husband are there, as well as Mom - Virginia - and her parents, Emma and Cambria Williams. And look, they are all named and the relationships are named too! WOW! Jackpot! Three generations in one record.

Isn't this cool?!

 

Alright, that's nice but what I really want is Granny Whetstone's death certificate. I have the rest of my great grandparents death certificates and I need hers too. So I emailed my guy who knows his way around the Maryland State Archives and off he went to get her death certificate as well as that of her husband, Joe. When I received his package in the mail there was no death certificate for Granny. WHA?? I couldn't believe it. So I went on the Maryland State Archive myself and tried to find her in the index. Got nothin'.

 

Then I noticed a discrepancy in her death year. Her tombstone says she died in 1945. Just look at this photo of it and see for yourself.

 

 

 

 

Mom's tree and it says that she died in January of 1946. Now I'm really confused because if I think about it, maybe that's not right either. Mom remembers - and I asked her about this many times over the years - that after she had me in October of 1946, she spoke with Granny on the phone and Granny said, When are you going to bring that baby over so I can see her? So Mom did, and Granny saw me, and presumably I saw her too. It was winter, Mom said, which in Western Maryland can come anytime really, but usually from November and until about April. That would make it late 1946 and into 1947. And Mom remembers that she took me to Granny's home of many years, on Midlothian Road in Frostburg. So maybe Granny Whetstone passed in January of 1947.

 

Grand pop Whetstone had passed on August 15, 1939, and Mom remembers it well. She and Dad were to get married that day but cancelled until the 21st because Joe died then. Granny continued to live in their home until she passed, as Mom has said.

 

So what's with the missing death certificate? And what's with the multiple death years? I'm at a loss.

 



Mom, Virginia Williams, on the left and her sister, Dot, on the right Flanking their mother Emma Susan (Whetstone) Williams in the light dress and Granny Kate, in the dark dress.
Katherine (or Catherine depending on the record) Elizabeth (House) Whetstone.
Photo, mid 1930s.

 

 

I seriously needed Granny Whetstone's death certificate because I'm working on Mom's application to the NSDAR. The DAR for short, or Daughters of the American Revolution, requires exact and accurate documentation in the preparation of your application. Death certificates are a boon to the applicant because it ordinarily includes birth and death dates as well as the names of both parents and therefore proved the vitals of that person as well as provide a link back to the previous generation.

 

But my Maryland State Archive guy sent a note with the things he did find stating in blatant terms, "She did not die in Maryland."

 

I was in shock. Shocked and maybe a little depressed at how much more work this was going to make for me. Now what the heck was I going to do? I have no vital records for Granny Whetstone. She's just plain missing.

 

More in the next post.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/09/granny-whetstones-missing-and-i-cant.html

One Lovely Blog Award, Part 2: Share Seven things about yourself

 

Randy Seaver over at the Genea-Musing Blog passed on to me the One Lovely Blog Award and you can read all about that here. I was very happy to receive it from such a prestigious blogger who is on every Best Of list! But of course there are catches that usual come with awards and this one included what felt to me like a catch:

Share seven things about yourself 

Seven things about me?! And I'm assuming that the seven things should be at least a little interesting, shouldn't they? That's gonna be real hard. So here they are and you'll soon see why I am balking at this part of the honor;)

1. I don't like to talk about me very much. I'll share if it's helpful to someone else but otherwise who wants to hear all about me? No one. Oh, sure I'll tell a story from my point of view but that simply serves the story. Therefore, this is going to be hard. So here I am wasting one of the seven with a statement that I don't like to share things about myself... there, that killed one of em';)

2. I was born in the same county that Mom and Dad were born in, all of my grandparents were born in, and 6 out of 8 of my great grandparents. Those two were born in Wales and Ireland, that being Daniel Williams (1852 - 1920) the coal miner from Wales and Catherine Elizabeth (House) Whetstone (1865 - 1947) born in Ireland. The county I was born into is Allegany County and it's a lovely lush green piece of mountain Maryland heaven. When I'm visiting Mom I don't have to go far to find all the home places. And I can really appreciate it from afar now that I live in Southern California and don't have to shovel their record setting snow accumulations.

3. At my core I'm just a country girl with city leanings. I love the freshness of the woods and am happily surprised when I see a springtime stream and can go looking for tadpoles and wildflowers. Sure, sure, everyone enjoys a real upscale restaurant in the city or a Broadway play that just opened to rave reviews, but at this point in my life I've had my fill of city life and I'd rather have a pot of fresh vegetable stew on the stove in my own home. For years I lived in Manhattan but I feel right at home on this Southern California canyon with the skunks, raccoons, opossums, grouse, hummingbirds, a rattlesnake or two, and the rare coyote and all manner of critters and birds.

4. To me the most useless thing in the world is having the common cold. Can't think. Use up all the tissues in the house. No appetite. Useless waste of time. Now whose idea was that?

5. I'm short. All these young people are tall. I don't like it.

6. I think best either in the shower or in the car by myself taking a ride to nowhere in particular. Because we live in Southern California and there's water conservation going on, long thoughtful showers are out. A lot of us think best while going on a car ride. By ourselves. Having a car full of people is counterproductive to thinking, don't you feel? I've been know to be deep in thought and driving to a specific destination only to be suddenly shaken out of a reverie and realize that I'd completely forgotten where I was going. And of course I'd passed the exit I wanted. Don't laugh. I bet you've done that too!

7. I like to do indexing. When FamilySearch was running their 1940 census project I was a cheerful participant. Then when we all pitched together to break the world record for the number of indexers indexing in one day, I was there. The records I seek out are death certificates. I really like them. Texas are my all time faves. If I get a bunch of them from a geographic area over a couple of years, well I could do that indexing all day long. And I read those death certificates too so I'm a slow indexer. I find them fascinating because they tell a lot about a community. Number of gunshot deaths, density of clogged arteries or heart attacks, a rash of infant deaths. I can't help but wonder why.

Well, see I warned you that I don't like to talk about myself. Next time I need to tackle the list of blogs that interest me and that I want to pass this One Lovely Blog Award on to. I've only got 15 to give out so that will be difficult. I think we're in a sort of Golden Age of genealogy blogging. Yes, picking out 15 will be real hard!

My Mountain Maryland.

The URL for this post is:

Mom and I have fun with the 1870 US Census

Mom, who was 96 years old just last month, has been doing genealogy since the early 1970s, only recently announced to me that she was retiring from it. She might have trouble seeing the computer screen due to eye issues, but you can't dampen her interest. We were talking about the copies of death certificates I'd received in the mail from my guy at Maryland State Archive that were for Mom's mother and father and Dad's birth certificate. We had such a good time exploring every line and wringing every last drop of meaning out of it! You get that, don't you? "He died of what???"

The only great grandparent I now don't have a death cert for is Dad's paternal grandfather, Gustav Zeller (1858-1927) and that request is in. He was born and died in Frostburg, Allegany, Maryland, a small mountain town in Western Maryland as so many other of my ancestors. In fact my parents, grandparents, and six of my eight great grands were all born and died there.  If I want to find out who was doing what about 1870 I check out the census for good old District 5 in Allegany County, that's Frostburg.

US Census 1870, District 5, Allegany, Maryland; Roll: M593-566; Page: 148A; Image: 299.

My Zeller family.

After Mom and I had some fun with death certificates we went on and chatted about how much we like just browsing census pages before and after the page on which our ancestor appears. We agreed that for us the most fun census to browse is the 1870. You see, Frostburg was on the upswing then. Coal mining, the railroad, ironworks, and brickworks all fed the main pipeline of prosperity. And merchants followed and built strong businesses. The region drew immigrants like a great big magnate from the British Isles and Germany especially. Hard work and great promise drew my own ancestors from Ireland, Germany and Wales about 1840. The head of household in the 1870 census was often listed as having a surprising amount of personal wealth.

The first thing that struck me was the uncommon names for the German states. My great great grandfather Charles Wm. Zeller (1829-1901) had immigrated from Wurtemburg in 1851. He returned a year later and married Anna Mary Bruening. They were back in Frostburg in time for the 1860 census and he was listed as a confectioner and she a milliner or hat maker. Doesn't that sound like a fun couple? His son and my direct ancestor and great grandfather was Gustav. But what of all these different German states? Look at part of the census page to see, below.

When I look at the 1870 census the families listed right before my Zeller family are from Hesse and  from Prussia. My Zellers are listed as born in Wurtemburg. Where was that? I had to know and German history is not my strength. So off to Wikipedia which you can see here. I won't take time to explore here what the unification was all about but you can go see for yourself. Here's a map from that page showing where everything was after unification. You might have to go to the Wikipedia page to see the full map. Look at the golden color area. That's where the Zellers came from and where Charles returned to marry Anna Mary Bruening.

Thanks, Wikipedia!

The neighbors listed past the Zeller family were also from the German states as well as Ireland, Wales and England. It seems to me that every-other head of household was not from Maryland or the adjoining states of Pennsylvania or even West Virginia but were immigrants. The churches in town served the diverse population and my own ancestors worshiped at St. Michael's Catholic Church (Irish), the Welsh Shiloh Congregational Church, and the Lutheran Church. My Zeller people, you might think, could have worshiped at the Lutheran Church but they were Catholic. It was the old-line Revolutionary War families who were Lutheran.

And what of local prosperity? There was plenty of work to go around and pay day brought locals and those living in adjacent town to Frostburg to shop. Saturday night downtown was a busy place!

 

Frostburg, Allegany, Maryland. Main Street, about 1900.

Charles Zeller's confectionery and sweets shop prospered and his family grew too. Here they are in the 1870 census and look, he owns $2000 in real estate.

 

 

Other families are doing well and buying up real estate too. George W. McCulloh living three residences away has $30,000 in real estate and his wife has $5000 in her own name. He's a banker. Edward Hoffman a brewer from Saxony had no real estate holdings but his neighbor Albert Holly from Hanover, also a brewer, is holding $9000 worth of real property. Their neighbor Thomas H. Paul from New York is a machinist and has $16,000 worth of real estate holdings and $7000 of personal property. Yes, it sure looks like a prosperous little mountain town. Opportunity abounded!

 

Mom and I had a real good time on the phone reviewing the Frostburg 1870 census. We just don't get people who don't get us;) Imagine, not enjoying looking at the census!

 

 

Gustav Zeller in the white barber's coat standing on the front steps of the first electric trolley that came to Frostburg. Notice his hand touching his hair... to signify that he was a barber? He was a super promoter!

 

Gustav Zeller again, this time close-up so we can see his grooming.

 

Gustav's father, Charles Wm. Zeller.

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/08/mom-and-i-have-fun-with-1870-us-census.html 

What I found out about the Whetstones, and now I'm happy.

Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland)
February 6, 1907

Recently I posted about the Whetstone house fire of 1906 and how the whole story of my grandmother's family in the early years of her life was pretty sad. You can read about it here. The death of two small children, Peter and Viola, and then the house fire that destroyed their home and all of their possessions except the clothes they were wearing: it all happened in 1906. Yeah, I'll confess that it made me sad. But today has another story - or rather the rest of the story - and I learned a couple of things I'd like to share with you.

I was curious as to why they might have lost two small children in a year, so I checked to see about epidemics that might have taken Peter in March and the infant Viola in November. Sure, little baby Viola might have had any number of birth complications and Peter could have had a childhood accident, but ever since I learned to look for flu deaths in 1918 or so I can't help think of epidemics. Wikipedia has a dandy list of world epidemics and pandemics which you can find here, but I warn you, if you are anything like me the challenge is to stop yourself from getting lost in it. (Look at that, there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco in 1900 to 1904!) And Mom's two sisters, Evelyn and Margaret were little ones lost to cholera, so I always look for that.

And back to Peter and Viola. I see a couple of diseases that might have taken them and the one that pops out is typhoid. Maybe some time I might look for their death certificate but the list of people I want death certs on is mighty long.

But I've wandered far afield here. What I want to share with you is that Joe, Joseph Hampton Whetstone, the devoted husband and loving father, rebuilt the family home on Bowery Street and he did it within the year. The house burnt down in August of 1906 and he had it all going again by February of the next year. He was, after all a stone mason and knew his way around building stuff. What joy he must have had in his heart when rebuilding his family home.

I remember reading sometime last year about how kids from families where ancestor stories are frequent and about the triumvirate theme of disaster - enduring - resilience are themselves more resilient when facing adversity. The stories they hear are family tales of suffering a hardship, sticking with it, and then overcoming to thrive again. It gives kids a sense of the family continuing, facing difficulties and then going on to recover. That's one of the best gifts we can give children and grandchildren.

When I read the story of the house fire I felt sad for this family but I didn't know the whole story. I should have kept researching. When I did go back and look again I found this small item in the Evening News (Cumberland, Maryland) that you see up top. They went on to build a new home.

Seriously, I have to keep looking when I find records like this. Have to keep turning the page to see if there are follow ups! I could easily have missed this little mention that brought joy to my heart!

 

Joseph Hampton Whetstone (1858-1939) standing by

 the water pump in the yard of his new home.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/07/what-i-found-out-about-whetstones-and.html

The Thomas and Judah Farrell DNA Project: The Connections Tree

See previous posts to find out about this project.

One thing you need when chasing the DNA rabbit down a hole is a tree that contacts can look at to see if you two match. If they don't have a tree (or a clue) at least you can send them on to your tree to window shop for a connection. Surnames and a surname list with locations and years is a good tool as well, but for my money, you can't beat a good tree. Give me a tree over a surname list any day.

I've been reading a couple of blog posts from wise writers that make the case for not posting a tree online in special or unusual situations and it opened my eyes. I now understand about the need to protect the innocent from prying eyes looking for character flaws, crimes, and the unspoken terrors of family life gone very wrong. I'm with them and to be candid there is one person, living, not on our tree because, well, of the mess. One has a moral responsibility to protect those who might be harmed from such messes made public. Doing genealogy in circumstances such as this makes the going dicey. For those of us who have garden variety family issues peppering our tree, most have a good-hearted desire to share the fun with others. After all we weren't there and we don't really know all the facts.

Mom, who you might know is 95 and been doing genealogy since the early 1970s, was reluctant to share her tree online. She'd happily send family group sheets and then GEDCOMs to anyone researching our ancestors, but putting her tree on Ancestry? She had to warm up to that. "I'm not done with it'" she said about her tree on more than one occasion. But as time went by we both came to see that even though every tree run by a living person is a work in progress, putting Mom's tree online was the best way to share her substantial work with the most people.

But not all searchers feel that way. I get it. How frustrating to see your work copied and recopied without a mention of where the document, photo or rare index came from. Recently, I had the pleasure (?) of finding a rare photo of a 2nd great grandparent I'd uploaded a while back and now on another tree without attribution. Someone had downloaded the picture and then uploaded it again and attached their name as the original submitting person. Is there a hidden tag on it stating who originally had the photo (Mom) and who cleaned it up (moi) in a photo editing program? Take a guess! But never mind about that. Back to The Farrell Project and cousin Rich's great idea.

So, cousin Rich and I had been sifting through some GEDmatch results and emailing back and forth about this and that, looking for people who matched Mom and Uncle Sonny. (See previous post or this will make no sense whatsoever!) We were working informally then, and each on his or her own avenues of pursuit when Rich emailed and said, in a nutshell, hey do you want to work together on this? You in, he asked? I immediately replied, YES!

Rich and I are trying to link as many of the descendants of Thomas and Judah Farrell by specific DNA segment and pedigree as we can. We know of a couple of hundred direct descendants, both living and dead, but just a handful of those have taken a DNA for genealogy test and are known to us. After a couple of goes at locating descendant's places on trees, both theirs and ours, Rich suggested that we needed a tree of only direct descendants - blood descendants - that could be available for prospective DNA match candidates to peruse.

Just to underline the problems faced without the Farrell Connections tree, here's what happened before we built it. If I sent GEDmatch matches to Mom's tree, they would have to either follow my very tedious instructions on how to locate the Farrell family group or try searching, or just start wading through over 60,000 individuals on Mom's tree. Either way, it's enough to send someone fleeing from the room, and not return emails.

Rich's personal tree focuses on only his wife's family in Cumberland, Allegany, Maryland. For example, Rich's tree only lists one child of Samuel Albert House (1832-1919) and Mary Elizabeth Farrell (1835-1919) whereas Mom's tree lists all 16 kids as well as each of their descendants and their kids. Yeah, we needed a new tree, a tree in common. Good idea, Rich!

As of right now there are a tidy 252 individuals on the Thomas & Judah Farrell Connections tree, all well researched, all blood descendants or spouses of blood descendants. Nice and tidy. Some descendants are sure to be missing but it's a work in progress, as are all trees. It's a fine tool to use when helping DNA cousins try to locate their ancestors within the Farrell big picture. Yeah, and it's Private. It's a research tool for us, not a tree for public consumption.

Joseph H. Whetstone (1858-1939) and Katherine Elizabeth House (1865-1947).

Kate was just one of the 16 children of Mary Elizabeth Farrell (1835-1919) and Samuel Albert House (1832-1917). Mary Elizabeth was born in Ireland.

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-thomas-and-judah-farrell-dna_16.html 

Stories Mom Told Me: Aunt Marg and her fashion sense

Mom loved Aunt Marg, I can tell from the way she talks about her. You see, Aunt Marg was Mom's mother's sister, Margaret Ann (Whetstone) Wilson Brown (1902-1996). She was born in that little mountain town I write about all the time where our ancestors lived for so many generations, in Allegany County, Maryland. It must have been quite a change of environment for her when she moved from Western Maryland to Akron.

Mom says that Aunt Marg moved there and lived with her sister Aunt Grace, Grace Elizabeth (Whetstone) Knowles (1893-1959) near her brother and Mom's Uncle Tad. (The last post was about Uncle Tad and Aunt Rena.) Even Mom went to stay for a while with Aunt Grace, just before she met Dad, but that's another story for another time. Aunt Grace and Uncle Frank had two children, Charles and Jean.

Aunt Marg got a job at O'Neils's department store in women's fashions in downtown Akron. It was the start of the great age of downtown department stores and the ladies fashion department must have seemed almost heaven for Aunt Marg who dearly love high style.

Mom doesn't know exactly what happened but at some point, Aunt Marg split from her first husband, who she met and married in Akron, Frank Brown (1898-1996). They had two children, David and Doris. Mom said that David died young but Doris grew up, got married (perhaps to someone named Clarence and that's yet to investigate), and moved to California and worked in a candy store. It was after that Aunt Marg married "Uncle Cec" (pronounced like cease, and I really don't know how else to spell it), Cecil Wilson.

Looking at the 1920 US Census for Marg and Frank Brown is fascinating. They are living at 40 S. 14th Street in a house with two other couples, aged 49, 49, 28, and 28. Marg is 18 and Frank is 20 and it says that he was born in Scotland to a Scottish father and Irish mother. When I review the others living at this residence (and none are listed as borders) the only other person who has the Scottish/Irish parents is Amelia Craig, 49, listed as "mother-in-law. It's a jumble to me, and if I had infinite time I might try to unravel this ball of yarn. Maybe sometime, but not today. By the way, Frank is working at the rubber plant as are the two other men in the residence, and you might remember that Uncle Tad moved to Akron to work in the rubber plant.

Well, whatever happened between Aunt Marg and Frank happened, and they split.  She then married Uncle Cecil Wilson and they resided in Akron. Mom remembers that he sold sewing machines. His hands were meticulously kept and that interested Mom because she could see that he didn't work with them as other of her male relatives did. He was a classy man, Mom said.

Eventually Marg and Cecil moved to Indianapolis to take better advantage of his work.  Marg worked in a big department store there too. Aunt Marg was by then a "city lady", very sophisticated, and knew about the latest fashions and dressed in them, always in the best of taste.

During her high school years, Mom received the benefits of boxes of clothing sent by Aunt Marg to her sister and Mom's mother, Emma Susan (Whetstone) Williams (1897-1956). People did that then, and still do. A bunch of our neighbors who have small and growing children exchange boxes and bags of clothing regularly. By the time of Mom's high school years which happened during the Great Depression, those boxes of clothing gained enormous value. Mom and her sister Dot looked forward to the mysterious treasures that might arrive by parcel post!

Emma taught Mom and Dot how to sew, as all the mothers of all the town's girls did. If you wanted a new outfit you were most likely going to sew it yourself. And if you got a hand-me-down from an older relative or close friend, it probably needed altering to your own measurements. Sewing was a "must have" skill for young girls in Frostburg where Mom and her family lived.

In one of those boxes from Aunt Marg was a fabulous pair of brown suede high heeled shoes. Mom loved those shoes and thought of them as the height of sophistication. She wore those shoes in sun, rain and snow. Probably dried them out in the open oven as people did then. Wore them right out and through the sole. No worries! Mom cut up the cardboard that came in the shredded wheat box that  separated the biscuits... and wore them some more.

When Mom graduated high school in 1936, she rode on the bus to spend two weeks with Aunt Marg and Uncle Cec in Indianapolis. Maybe it was more than two weeks as Mom is 95 and can't quite remember. It was quite an adventure. I'm thinking that the time spent with Aunt Marg was a sort of finishing school for Mom and was instrumental in developing her fashion sense. Even to this day, Mom remarks how stylish Aunt Marg was and how well she knew clothes and hair and how to wear them!

Aunt Marg came to visit when Mom and her sister Dot were young women, wearing a fur coat. It was a total sensation! Aunt Marg kindly let the girls borrow it so that they could walk up and down Main Street in Frostburg, taking turns in it. All the boys, Mom said, asked and asked where they got such a treasure. They shrugged and walked on.

Aunt Marg died in Indianapolis at the age of 91. I almost feel that I knew her because of Mom sharing memories. I think that I would have liked her very, very much.

Back says, "October 23, 1939, Lafayette, Indiana.

Daddy Cec, David Leroy Mathew, Mumie Wilson."

Maybe it was written by daughter Doris?

This photo is confusing!

Aunt Marg and Uncle Brownie with new baby, probably David. No date.

Just found this one: Aunt Grace, Uncle Tad and Mom's Grandmother Whetstone.

Grace Elizabeth (Whetstone) Knowles (1893-1959), "Tad", Clarence Hampton Whetstone (1891-1976), and their mother "Kate" Catherine Elizabeth (House) Whetstone (1865 - 1947).

 

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/12/stories-mom-told-me-aunt-marg-and-her.html

Stories from Mom: Epilogue

By Virginia Williams Kelly

I fell when I was 87 and broke my pelvis and that ended my walking days. I should have and could have continued, but I became lazy and it was much easier to drive so drive I did. But walking was a great time to contemplate on life, yours or someone else’s. It is also a good time to plan and dream.

 

On one of those walking days I walked thru the Catholic Cemetery in Frostburg and remembered that I had great grandparents buried there with no stone to mark their grave so I decided to put in book form the stones that were there. It took me over 2 years of nice weather to finish my project and publish it. I only live a half mile from my home to the cemetery so I always walked there and back and really enjoyed those days.

But I enjoy my days right now. I hope that you too enjoy every day because each one is a blessing.

November, 2013

Those were the days my friend

I thought they’d never end!

That's me on the left, Mama, my sister Dot, and our brother Camey. I guess Dad was taking the photo.

Dot on the left, me, my best friend then and now Ollie Coleman, and Mama.

Me, my grandmother and my mother's mother Catherine Elizabeth (House) Whetstone (1865 - 1947), Mama, and my sister Dot.

Me, 1938.

You can read more of Mom's stories here:

Part 1: Those were the days my friend, we though they'd never end
Part 2: Center Street
Part 3: Summertime on Center Street
Part 4: Mushrooms!
Part 5: Fall and Winter on Center Street
Part 6: Growing up
Part 7: Friends and neighbors, life and death on Center Street
Part 8: Walking and strawberries
Part 9: Brady's Creek.
Part 10: The Potomac River


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/11/stories-from-mom-epilogue.html