A trip to see Mom and a reminder about why I bolg

Just recently took a trip back east to see Mom, now 97, who lives in the tiny Western Maryland mountain  town of Frostburg. Mom's great, by the way and thanks for asking. We did a bunch of things "genealogy" and I'll get to all of that in later posts. But first, this.

Was sitting at breakfast with cousins Linda and JoAnn and we got to talking about the ancestors. I was playing around on Ancestry the night before because I realized that I didn't know much about their father, Uncle Harry. So I worked on his line for a while and discovered that he and his lovely wife and my own darling aunt Louise, Dad's sister, are 5th or 6th cousins! Had to do a proper Lol!

We were at the Princess Restaurant on Main Street, which is just as charming as you'd suspect and where they keeps the very booth President Truman and his wife Bess sat in on their way to the inauguration, and it's in perfect order and unchanged. After we ordered, I brought out two sheets of paper, one with Uncle Harry's lineage and the other with Aunt Louise's. And walked the cousins back to see how they connect at George Adam Eckhart, founder of the tiny town of Eckhart (now called Eckhart Mines, but that's another story).

They were amazed! Imagine being told out of the blue that your parents were cousins, if distant cousins. "Well, that explains a lot," one of them guffawed! I think all kids will at least half-believe that their parents are cousins!

One thing lead to another, we talked about a family mystery involving twins (we have a lot of them in the family, on both sides), and then, predictably, the graves. You see, we're a family that looks after graves and is pretty serious about it. I hadn't yet made it around to see Grandma and Grandpop Kelly's grave yet but had planned on it today. It's at St Michaels' Cemetery.

We knew Grandpop's own father was buried just down a couple of spots. Yes, we all knew that and that he's right there beside his wife Christiana Eckhart Kelly, and that's where the Kelly and Eckhart lines come together. What wasn't so well-known is that Grandpop Kelly's grandparents, John Kelly and Bridget Corcoran, who both came from Ireland, are buried in St. Mike's Cemetery as well.

I thought the table would explode! This was the second genea-hand grenade to hit the table! Where, they both questioned at once. I gave some general directions. Irish cross, to the left of the main entry lane that goes to the big cross in the middle, down a couple of rows.

We said our sad and heart-felt good-byes, and off we went. I swung down to the house to pick up Mom and some aluminum foil for a stone rubbing. Then we were off to visit that very memorial for John Kelly and Bridget.

Mom recalled how shocked with disbelief that Grandpop Kelly was when she told him that his own grandfather was buried in St Mike's. He too was a big tender of the graves and it was very important that his parents and all of them were looked after. So he practically couldn't come to terms with it to know that his own dear grandparents were buried there in the same cemetery with his parents... and he didn't know.

We went to see the nice Irish cross for old John Kelly who made his way from Shannonbridge Ireland to the mountains of Western Maryland, most likely to work on the railroad, as so many Irishmen of his day did. He found Bridget Corcoran and married in Cumberland and they raised eight fine children, the boys all strong and the girls beautiful, or so I imagine:)

Cousin Linda had left the Princess and beat a trail over to the cemetery to find Old John's gravestone. She even beat Mom and I there! By the time I'd texted her to say I was a couple of rows off, she texted back to say she'd already found it!!

At the end of our breakfast together one of the girls asked if I still keep up with this blog. No, I sheepishly said, been busy. Now I felt bad that I hadn't. What fabulous cousin bait this blog has been!! Ugh. Neglectful me.

So here I am back again. And I've got some wonderful new stories to tell, if I do say so my own self.


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My own DAR adventure begins

In 1987 Mom was totally engaged with genealogy and devoted to building out our family tree. OK, so truth be told, she got obsessed with it and spent just about every available waking hour on it! She loved entertaining me with various stories about our ancestors and painted a word picture for me whenever we had some time together and I just loved listening to her. (I think she was selling me something; a good sales pitch often begins with an engaging story.) I was super busy running my business, but she had me working with her on my DAR application which was approved the first time through.

Flash forward 20 years and it's 2007. Dad had passed, Mom was adjusting to living alone and working on genealogy more than ever. I was enjoying retirement. One thing hadn't changed: Mom was still telling me about the ancestors and I was finally becoming as obsessed as she was. In no time I was caught up in chasing down some family history too. But during this time, I have to confess, I didn't think too much about the good ol' DAR.

You ever have that experience when something appears on your personal radar screen once, twice, and then three times over? For me it takes three times before I really get the hint that this might be something I need to act on. Well that sort of happened with the DAR recently. The first appearance on my radar happened when I found my old DAR records and remembered how that came about. Once retired and into genealogy one of the first projects I undertook was continuing to research my DAR Patriot ancestor, Nehemiah Newan. (You can see some of that effort put into a timeline on one of the tabs above.) I loved researching him! Was shocked to find that he did not die at Yorktown as was commonly believed but instead never returned to his wife and son and ended up having a full life in upstate New York. What a story!!

The second appearance of the DAR on my radar screen happened a half-dozen weeks ago when I stumbled into a DAR Facebook group called Daughters of the American Revolution. The Facebook page fascinated me and I popped back in to see what was going on every once in a while and finally clicked the Join button. Right at the moment there are over 12,000 members and growing all the time. That's encouraging right there. The comments were kind and welcoming and I got a warm feeling about the online group. The ladies were happily helping others take first steps, offering helpful research pointers, and were glad to help them find the right area of the NSDAR (National) web site. My DAR train was picking up speed.

All of this lead me to think about other of my ancestors who might have been Patriots. I popped on over to the National web site which you can find here. You can search and see if your ancestor is already approved and recognized as a Revolutionary War Patriot here. I quickly found out that both  Peter Troutman and Isaac Workman were listed! How cool is that?! Plus I had it on my To-do list to work on them. This might be the perfect excuse to get my act together and finish my inquiry into both of them at the same time. So that was the third appearance of the DAR on my radar screen and I really liked what I was seeing. Now I had to do something about this DAR radar thing.

Maybe I'd like being a part of one of the local chapters here in San Diego? I had already met two members over in the genealogy library in town and they were equally as nice and helpful as the ladies on the Facebook DAR page. Yeah, I might like being part of a group that loves genealogy, is interested in civic pride and doing projects along those lines. It was only going to take as much time as I wanted to invest, what with the once a month meetings, except in summer months. I'd be more that willing to help others get started with genealogy if I could and knew enough to be useful. And who knew how else I might be helpful? And yes, I would like to meet more ladies who are friendly and helpful, and like to have fun.

I wasn't going to find out just sitting here, so I emailed the Regent, that's the lady at the top of the local chapter. Got a reply fast. I was on the way.

Next blog post is about the "meet & greet" at a local restaurant. I really like these ladies! And they just love researching ancestors!


Here are some handy NSDAR links:

Become a member or just inquire.
Chapter locator. Want to find the chapters near you? Just plug in your zip code. Alternately you can Google your town or city and "DAR".
Want to let them contact you? Just fill out the Membership Interest Form here.
Not familiar with the NSDAR research options? Then check out the GRS or Genealogical Research Services here.
And don't forget that ever-popular Ancestor Search. All you need is a surname. How easy is that?

There's my paternal grandfather, John Lee Kelly (1892-1969), top row middle, in this Kelly family portrait that was likely his wedding portrait. His parents are in the front middle. It's his mother, Christiana (Eckhart) Kelly (1861-1932) who is in my DAR ancestor's line and Nehemiah Newans was her great grandfather.

 

Nehemiah Newans was thought to have died at the battle of Yorktown, yet here he is selling some land in upstate New York in 1817! That was worth knowing.

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-own-dar-adventure-begins.html

Stories Mom Told Me: Part 2, Their first car and my coal miner grandpop

Here's what I'm doing with this little project, copied from the longer explanation on yesterday's post:
I'll share some more stories Mom told me. You see I call Mom almost every morning and we do go on about family history. I keep notes on what she tells me in spiral notebooks. Now I have three fat ones brimming over with what Mom knows. Sometimes it's just a detail about our ancestors, a small event, or a note about what happened to whom and when. It's the kind of stuff that can easily get lost if a person doesn't write it down then and there.

That will serve as an introduction to each of these posts so you don't have to repeat read it all:) Then we can get right down to business. Today's story is about Mom and Dad's first car and some of the many things they did with it.

Their first car and my coal miner Grandpop.

This morning when I chatted with Mom by phone it was 14 degrees and there was snow on the ground... and it's only November. Just what you might expect of a place named Frostburg (although the naming was for a citizen named Frost) located in the mountains of Western Maryland. It gets cold in winter and can stay that way for weeks on end. I remember just a couple of years ago when a snow and ice storm blew through and everyone lost power for ten days. Folks plan ahead for such emergencies and stock up on staples that can be cooked on a gas stove. As you drive around and look at back porches, they invariably contain a BBQ grill fueled by a propane tank that can be used when electrical service goes out due to an ice storm that takes down power lines. So too might you find that a lot of homes have wood burning fireplaces or furnaces that are relied on in just such an eventuality. Heck, Aunty Betty's house has three (yes, you read that right) furnaces: an old coal furnace, and an oil and an electric furnace... just in case. These people know what they are dealing with!

So, all that by way of saying that winters can get very nasty in Frostburg. It's just a fact of life. I know this and when I read Mom's stories - which were posted here recently - and she talks about walking everywhere, I remember how cold it gets and what it means to walk the three miles or so from her parent's home down to Eckhart Flats to go dancing. Brrr!

Now I do know for a fact that Grandpop Kelly (Dad's father) hated the cold. I know that it's not quite PC today to use the "h" word, but I have to tell you, he HATED the cold! He was a thin man and had health issues and could never seem to get warm. In the 1950s Mom and Dad sent him to Miami on the train to spend time with his sister Edith and her family. He loved that trip and when he returned he told Grandma that they were going to sell the house and move down with Edith. It was only then that Grandma - who hated the heat - told him that the house her father, Gus Zeller (1858 - 1927), left to her when he died was only in HER name! Mom thinks Grandpop didn't speak to Grandma for like a month! They did finally make peace and returned to being the love birds they always were.

Well, long about 1940, Dad bought a car. A 1930-something Chevy with a rumble seat. I don't have a photo of it but here's an image from Wikimedia Commons of a 1931 Ford with a rumble seat, just so that all you kids who aren't familiar with such a thing can see it. Looks comfortable, doesn't it? Or not! Especially in ice and snow.

Grandpop Kelly worked in the coal mines during those years, and there were many in and around the Frostburg area. Grandpop had been a brakeman on the electric railroad or trolley in the 1910 US Census, when he was 18 and still living with his parents, Frank Kelly (1854-1923), then a conductor on the same electric railroad, and Cristiana (Eckhart) Kelly (1861-1932), then residing in Eckhart, Maryland. His brother Frank Jr. was already working in the coal mines. He married Grandma, Helen (Zeller) Kelly (1894-1985) on 30 September 1913.

By time of the 1920 census they were living at 230 Mechanic Street in Frostburg proper, and Grandpop was working as an electrician in the coal mines. Dad was just three years old then and his young brother Bernie was a bit over two years old.

The 1930 US Census finds the Kelly family living at 93 N. Union Street (the old name for West Main Street... yeah, confusing, right) next door to the Zeller matriarch, Moretta, who lived at 95. Her house was worth $5500 and Grandpop was paying $15 a month rent to live in the house next door that she owned. Now he's working as a motorman in the coal mine.

The 1940 US Census finds them living at 89 West Main Street (which was remaned and renumbered from Union Street) and Grandpop is simply listed as a "laborer" in the coal mine. Dad is working at the "silk mill", or the Celanese fibers company. It was his first real job. So it's just about this time that Dad bought his first car. (And, you should know, he was living with his parents and Mom was living with hers and no one knew they were married.)

So I'm chatting with Mom and she mentions that when they got their first car they would pick up Grandpop from the coal mine and drive him home. She also says he worked at a mine locally called "Shaft".

I am guessing here, but after consulting the coal fields map online,  here, and based on what Mom said, that he must have worked at a mine near Frostburg, about 5 or 6 miles away called "Shaft". I find Borden Shaft and that's too far away to be the one he worked in, but no other named shaft mines, per se. But you see that can be confusing because most of the coal mines in the area were slope or drift mines, in other words the mine tunnel was built on a slant into the hillside. Shaft mines were dug straight down with tunnels off to the side, were not the norm, so if the typical shaft tunnel mine was dug it got called "shaft."

Well the point of this story is not the various coal mines in the area and how they were worked but about the difficulty of the work itself. Mom said that Grandpop walked the 5 or 6 miles to work in the morning and then walked those same 5 or 6 miles back at night, rain or snow. Yeah, think about that: rain or snow... even in 14 degree weather. He'd get home soaked to the skin or practically frozen. And all after working in the coal mine all day.

In 1940 he was 48 years of age, and still working those long hours, feeling lucky I suppose, to have the work. The Great Depression years were very hard on this area and work was scarce, but Grandpop and his boys always found worked. And none of his sons ended up working in the mines. They went on to better things.

Because he had been a brakeman on the electric railroad, it's not too large a leap to him working as an electrician for a shaft mine operation where electricians were needed to keep the lifts running. Then in 1930 he's listed as a motorman. That sounds OK to me too because I've found that electricians and motormen earned a per hour wage whereas the laborers who dug the mines were paid by the ton of coal they dug, and that was hard dirty work. I'm a bit concerned for him when I read him listed as a "laborer" in the 1940 census. What did that mean? Was the enumerator simply following some guidelines that weren't very specific? Or was he a common laborer digging coal in the mine? That would have been the hardest work of all.

So when Dad got his first car one of the first things he did with it was go pick his father up after work at the coal mines. Nice.

Grandpop Kelly, John Lee Kelly, about 1913, with his family.

Probably a wedding portrait.

Grandpop Kelly with his kids, about 1920.

 

With daughter Louise, about 1930.

 

1942: Family pictures before the boys leave for WWII.

Grandpop is on the right.

 

On the Miami trip, mid 1950s.\

 

Also on the Miami trip.

1956, with my brother, Cleveland Ohio.

 

 
In Frostburg, about 1960.

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/11/stories-mom-told-me-part-2-their-first.html

Surname Saturday: Myers (With One "e")

Many bloggers use Surname Saturday as a blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers. It's giving me a total genealogy work out and with summer swimsuit season coming... oh never mind. But it's the same thing, kinda, because as I go through the weeks the holes and errors present themselves. Plus, and because Mom did 99.9% of the work on the tree, it is my opportunity to work my way through her accumulated data and gain an even deeper familiarity with it.

This week we continue through Generation 5, taking the women one by one, and now it's time to view what we know about Mary Myers' ancestry. She has an interesting pedigree and I'll flesh out most of it for you even though to do so means reaching out on a branch or two. See, one of the aspects of doing this exercise that tickles me is trying to give you a more detailed picture of who these people were, and are to me.

So let's get on with it! Here's Mary Myers and her ancestors. And this week I'm putting parenthesis around the years for clarity. At first I did and then I didn't, but now I think I do.

1. Diane Kelly Weintraub

2. Francis Patrick " Pat" Kelly (1916 - 2007)
3. Virginia Williams, that's Mom, living and loving it!

4. John Lee "Lee" Kelly (1892 - 1969)
5. Helen Gertrude Zeller Kelly (1894 - 1985)

8. Francis Patrick Kelly (1854 - 1923)
9. Christiana Eckhart (1861 - 1932)

18. John Eckhart (1831 - 1917)

19. Mary Myers Eckhart (1837 - 1909)
To see the post on the Eckhart line visit here.
John Eckhart was born 5 Nov 1831 in Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland and died 5 Mar 1917 in the same place. He married Mary Myers on 22 Apr 1859 in Allegany County, Maryland. She was his second wife whom he wed after Rebecca O'Brien died in 1856. He came from a long landed family with an interesting past and would have been known to all who lived in the town named for his ancestor, Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland.
Mary Myers was born 20 Mar 1837 in Frederick County, Maryland and died 30 Oct 1909 in Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland. Her father, Jacob was transferred to Cumberland and it was likely there that John and Mary met and were wed. In the 1860 US census he's working as a railroad hand and living in Lonaconing, Allegheny, Maryland. In the 1880 census he and the family at living in Eckhart, now called Eckhart Mines, and working as a miner, and that would be coal miner. My GGM Christiana Eckhart, has made an appearance and is 18. (Right, I can't find them in the 1870 census, a task on the to do list.) He stays in the same place until his death in 1917. John outlived Mary as she died in 1909.
They had the following children:
9. Christiana Eckhart (1861 - 1932)
Maggie L. Eckhart (1864 - ????). She married William Rechter.
Rachael Eckhart (1865 - 1940), who married Thomas W. Gracie, and then at his passing in 1909 in a horrible mining accident, she married Robert Strathan.
John Thomas Eckhart (1867 -1917). He married Rachael Pengilly.
Mary Catherine Eckhart (1868 - ????).

38. Jacob Myers (1789 - 1852)
39. Christiana Newans (1811 - 1865)
They had these children:
Margaret Myers (1835 - ????)
19. Mary Myers Eckhart (1837 - 1909)
Chrissie Myers ( about 1840 - ????)
Thomas F. Myers (1841 - before 1920)
Laura Myers (1845 - ????)
Now that you can see the line-up of kids, here's something about Thomas F. Myers, and you can read the book he most likely wrote himself and had published on the tab above, The Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers. Thomas was the brother of Mary Myers Eckhart. This little book has been proven to have errors but those mistakes were not known to Thomas F. Myers at the time he had it printed. I just reread it more closely and plucked out even more clues to the Myers line. It all needs to be investigated, to be sure, but I'll tell you what it says.
About Jacob Myers:
* Served in the War of 1812
* At 9 years of age, shook George Washington's hand when Jacob told Washington where an old soldier lived.
* Was the sheriff of Frederick County, Maryland.
* Was the stage agent for a stage line (named but illegible to me due to paper burn) that ran from Frederick to Cumberland, Allegany, Maryland.
* He was transferred to Cumberland.
As I say, it all needs to be investigated, but this was Thomas F. and Mary's father so there's a basis for him knowing.

And now the information gets a little sketchy. What I'm going to include here comes from the book printed by Thomas F. Myers and needs to be proven, but what the hey, let's live on the wild side! Notice that I have no numbers for these as they have not yet been posted to Mom's Big Tree because we don't know for sure.

Peter Myers (???? - 1825)
Mary Hughes or possibly Hibbs (???? - ????)
I went ahead and posted this information on Mom's Ancestry Big Tree as a test, just to see what leaves would pop up. That's why I added Hibbs as a surname for Peter's wife. Told ya' this was sketchy.
Here's what The Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers recorded about Peter.
About Peter Myers:
* Peter is the one son who made his escape during the Indian massacre (see below).
* Was "bound out" as a servant when parents were killed.
* Became a tailor early on.
* Was a scout and Indian fighter.
* Helped build Fort Frederick in Maryland.
* Served in the Revolutionary War in the Maryland Line.
* Wounded at the Battle of Brandywine.
* Wounded again at the Battle of Monmouth.
* In old age, lost his fortune after the money from the sale of his farm proved worthless.
* Died penniless.
Wow! That's a lot of real juicy information right there ready for research. But it needs to be checked out real well. Much work for later.

"Indian Fighter" Myers (????-????)
Unknown wife
Are you ready? Here's what The Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers had to say about Indian Fighter Myers who was Thomas' GGF.
* His tract of land was shown on old charts and maps as a "manor".
* Fought the Indians in the Wyoming Valley in the "Indian War".
* Killed seven Indians in a fight to the death with a double sided axe.
* The Indians offered a "ransom" for him dead or alive. (Bounty?)
* His wife was a "half-breed Indian" of the Shawnee tribe.
* During an Indian raid, his house was surrounded. His family, except for Peter, was killed and "Indian Fighter" was bound as a prisoner and later killed.
* Peter "made his escape" during this episode and hid in the brush and thus saved.
Gosh, Grandma Kelly always told me I was descended from an Indian princess;) Well she did, but no one ever took that seriously. And I guess that now that I have my DNA results back, which you can see here and below, neither do I. If the story was that the wife of "Indian Fighter" was Sub-Saharan African I think we'd have a match. But maybe she was:)

As you can see, the last two generation are very dramatic but do need checking! That will be fun.

9. Christiana Eckhart (1861 - 1932)

18. John Eckhart (1831 - 1917)

19. Mary Myers Eckhart (1837 - 1909)

23and Me Ancestry by Composition Report for me.

No Indian Princess. Too bad, Grandma Kelly.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/03/surname-saturday-myers-with-one-e.html