Favorite Photo

This weeks' writing prompt was "Favorite Photo", I have a lot of these so I started doing the computer equivalent of 'thumbing through' some of them until I got to one that brought back a really happy memory. 

This photo was shared on a Facebook account by Dennie Sheehan of Unionville MO whose step grandmother was a sister of my several times great ancestor and whose wife is a cousin to my Mom.  Dennie is a sort of photo-journalist and history collector for the town and many people send him clippings from old newspapers and photos etc.

When I copied this photo from his Facebook page it was a memory of my grandmothers' that I was thinking of.  

I had gone back to Unionville in the late summer/early fall of 2014.  My mother was living with her mother and grandma was looking forward to turning 102 that month.  I was there to supply 'muscle', as my petite 80 year old mother could no longer lift grandma enough to get her out of the house and into the car.  Grandma's favorite thing to do at this point was to take drives to the places she remembered...and she had lived in this community/area since birth, she remembered a lot of places.

I could get grandma down the steps and into the car, and then we took many fun drives.  The drive that this photo brought to my mind was one we took to Greencastle MO where Grandma was born and lived in until she was about 12.  They had lost the family farm and were forced to move.  They moved to a place that was close to the town of Elko, about one long day of wagon travel away. They had 3 wagon-loads to move.  Starting out at the site of the old home (it was there when I was little but no longer), we drove the path that grandma remembered:

    There was a road part of the way but in some places we went overland with no roads. I was my dad's helper and I was to drive one wagon and two of the boys would drive the other 2 wagons.  I was told not to get off the wagon or leave it anywhere. Looking back that was a safety precaution, but at the time it was a command!  It took us from early morning until after dark to get there and while we stopped here and there and the boys got off the wagons and went into the woods to relieve themselves, I stayed on that wagon as ordered.  My mom said I was almost sick from holding my bladder

I had never heard the story before and it was very funny the way Grandma told it.  But I looked around at the woods and the empty acres and was more impressed than ever with her abilities.  I could only imagine how that must have felt as a young girl with a huge responsibility. No wonder she was such an amazing woman, she just did things without ever thinking she couldn't.  As we went along she would point out landmarks and places they saw on their journey.  When we got to the Elko area, there was nothing left of the old town but there was a large cattle operation there.  So many of the little villages/towns that had sprung up here and there are gone now.  The humid climate and time have taken most of the buildings.  The vegetation covers the open spots and only old-timers and historians remember them...and genealogists of course!

Grandma lived to see 102, and passed away in her sleep, 2 months later, at home surrounded by her family. 

Nearly Forgotten

The news is dominated by the COVID-19 virus and that is as it should be. I heard one of the reporters make this statement "Quarantines are just not something we connect with America" and it triggered one of those 'Nearly Forgotten' memories from my childhood and listening to Grandma's stories.  Fortunately for me, my mother is still alive and well to check my memories with (and no they are not always accurate!).  I called my mom and we discussed my remembering and she said it was correct.  Quarantining may not be something we think of in context of America as we know it but there was a time when quarantining households was not unusual...

Amanda Jane Meals

The first quarantine story I remembered was that grandmas family couldn't go to a funeral because they were quarantined.  Mom confirmed that grandma was young, maybe 9 or 10 and that she had smallpox - which definitely got you quarantined back then.  In fact when I went to look for information, the quarantining of some of the family was in the obituary for Amanda Jane Meals Quint.  She was Grandma's Grandma, my 2x great grandma.  That was my first memory of a quarantine.

Smallpox was survivable even then (about 70% lived) and was considered completely eradicated by 1979.  There was a vaccine discovered in the late 1700's but without a concerted effort vaccines would not be distributed in enough of the population to give the "herd immunity" that can eradicate a disease.

The second quarantine story I remembered a snippet of, was about Grandma and her then beau George Medlin and ducking out of quarantine to go on a date.  When I ran this one by mom she laughed and said yes that was the basic story.  We neither one remember why the quarantine this time, it could have been flu or diphtheria or cholera, all of which went around the area at one time or another. 

George and Nellie Medlin

Grandma was a good girl, she would not have done anything too dangerous.  Her story was that they were all over the 'whatever-it-was',  and George and his friend had gone to town to buy engagement rings for their sweethearts.  The guys had spent $10 each on the rings, grandma's was a yellow sapphire and her friend got a red ruby.  I believe both were birthstones.  She certainly wanted to be there for this date and so they went out in violation of the quarantine. 
I think she made the right choice, the marriage lasted 53 years until grandad was killed in an accident; and that ring is still in the family, with the oldest girl cousin who shared a birth month with grandma!

I do not know what I will do when my mom is no longer there to double check my memories!  That is one reason these writing prompts are so cool....write it down!!!

Disaster

Week 9

While my family like all families has survived floods and droughts, I think the most significant disaster the family faced was a combination of several really bad things happening in quick succession, not all natural either....

Conrad Keuhn and his wife Elizabetha,  Johann George Hix along with his wife Gertraut, Claudius and Anna Bernhart, Johann Rothe and Cecilia, Johann and Frederika Fuchs, Johann and Anna Frick, Johann and Katarina Kirschbaum.  These are the names of my ancestors who immigrated to Russia in response to Catherine the Great offering land and freedom.  These are just a few of the people who became "Germans from Russia".  (Just a side note here, can you see the whole same name thing going on?) 

Keep in mind that there is no country of Germany in the 1600 and 1700's, there are collections of city/states each with their own rulers (princes, barons etc.).  The Holy Roman Empire rules them early in this period and by the end of the 1700's the Austro-Hungarian and Prussian Empires are coming to the front.

In 1618 the 30 years war (actually a series of wars) began and it ended in 1648.  Chroniclers of the time estimate that around one half to two thirds of the German population died during this time.  Those who were not killed in the fighting starved or succumbed to plague and pestilence. This was the time of the writing of the Grimm's Fairy Tales, which were quite grim before Disney got hold of them.  This was also the peak of the 'Little Ice Age' that held Europe for about 300 years.  Rivers froze and the growing season was short. There was another war in the area that is now Germany at the end of the 1600's that resulted in a 'scorched earth' sort of effect inside the German borders. The 'Nine Years War', which had different names in other places (French and Indian War in America) happened 1754-1763 adding even more hardship to the lives of the average people.

In 1681 William Penn took his mostly German colonists to America, it would be another 80 years before my family decided they too needed to leave. 

Catherine the Great, Czarina of Russia, did not think much of the farmers/peasantry of Russia.  She was much more impressed with the industriousness, neatness and skill of her native German farmers and she had a dream of making the Volga River the breadbasket of Russia.  In 1763 she offered the new colonists free land, exemption from taxes, religious freedom and exemption from military service.  They came by the thousands, they found hardship initially but in the end they did make the Volga River valley the breadbasket of Russia and had a relatively good life until the late 1800's when they began to see the precursors of the revolutions to come.

They immigrated again to America this time.  I am glad they did.  Sometimes disasters lead to good things!

Favorite Discovery

Week 7

This one took some time to think of as I have written about a lot of my favorites, but I kept thinking of perhaps then the one that was most unexpected, and filled a blank spot, and made me smile.

The back story is almost as important as the story on this one....
Aunt Maxie was my mother in law's aunt who was only a few years older than her, so they grew up

Aunt Maxie Sanders in her Red Line Uniform

more like cousins than aunt and niece.  Aunt Maxie was a character, she was the first woman to be an engineer/conductor on the "red line" trolley in LA California, she was married five times and she had a wicked sense of humor.  My mother in law Charline and Maxie both loved family history and genealogy, so later in life (both in their 40's and 50's) Charline's job allowed her to pay for Maxie's research in some cases, and contribute to it in others.  Remember, this is before the internet, this was writing letters and looking at census reports in person, leaving ads in the back of genealogy magazines and writing to county clerks and asking if so and so was born there.  Maxie put together an extensive history of the family she and Charline shared.  She also put together the family histories of the husbands with whom she had had children - and this is where my discovery starts...

Charline Herring Gates

Charline passed before Maxie but Maxie was eventually gone as well and I, as the other family history nut, was the recipient of 5 large Rubbermaid boxes of family group sheets, death certificates, newspaper articles etc.  I spent a whole winter digitizing over 5000 pieces of paper and putting it all in family binders.  I had one binder left over and that one was for her next-to-last husband Robert (Bob) Guinty's family.  I knew her daughter and had contacted her and she would be glad to have the information from her mom on her father's family and we arranged an exchange in the near future.  I wondered if perhaps I should go through and digitize this info as well just in case. (I am a big believer in Murphy's Law!) As I began the process I found the name Quint in the records and just for fun set that whole group of papers and notes to one side.  Quint was my maternal grandmother's maiden name and I thought I might find a couple of relatives. 

l-r Frederick, William, Henry Hermann

Imagine my surprise when I started going through this new Quint tree and found that Uncle Bob's grandfather on his mothers side was my 3rd great uncle on my mothers side!  In fact she had traced that Quint family all the way back to Germany, 3 generations farther than I had been able to using the internet!  I was blown away to say the least.  It is one of my most amazing "stumble upon" pieces of info to date!

I even had a picture of these brothers in my files - Frederick was the oldest, William is my 3x great grandfather and Henry Hermann was Uncle Bobs grandfather.

Still makes me smile, Aunt Maxie and Mom would have loved the story!

Close to Home

This is the prompt for week 4 of 52 ancestors in 52 weeks (Yes I am out of order, happens to me a lot)

The minute I saw this writing prompt I thought of my moms uncle, Uncle Glen Medlin.  Uncle Glen was a fun uncle to my mom and her siblings and cousins, and he continued that tradition to my generation. 


Uncle Glen was born on May 21 of 1919, a twin and his twin was born dead.  He never married  and lived in that same house until his death in 1991.  Talk about close to home!

 Glen worked hard on the farm with his brothers and his dad.  He attended the Lone star School and went through the 8th grade there.  He walked to school because it was "Close to Home".

Glen enlisted in the Army during WWII and was sent to New Guinea in the Pacific theater.  He never talked about it but when we went to the National cemetery in Hawaii we got a real education in how bad the fighting was there.  Glen's dad died in January of 1943 and the Army sent him home so he could run the family farm for his mother, farming was considered vital to the war effort.  It was the farthest he had ever been from home.

 I imagine all bachelor uncles and spinster aunts engender theories and stories about possible lost loves that left them pining so they never married?  In Glens case it was actually true!  He had a girl friend when he left for the war and when he came home she had married someone else...like a movie!  He stayed on the farm and ran it for his mother till she died in 1962.  He then farmed until his own death in a tractor accident in 1991












Uncle Glen loved children and would play and horse around with us kids.  He was famous later in life, in his late 60's and early 70's for bringing around a gallon of fresh cream when he would drop in to visit and you knew he was hoping you'd make homemade ice cream and of course invite him for dinner!  He told me "The army done sent me halfway round the world...I looked around and decided I didn't need to see anything else so I never left home again!"

Uncle Glen and my youngest in 1989

...and that is why the phrase "close to home" makes me think of Uncle Glen!

Same Name

52 Ancestors in 52 weeks...

I am a little out of sequence here, but onward, etc.!!

The theme of 'Same Name' is one I have written about before, (see here) Germans tended to give the name of a deceased child to the next one born with the correct gender.  A nightmare for a family historian!  At other times it seemed as though there were only a few carefully chosen names used in a population and everyone had one of the 4 or 5 names - Aackk!!!

Even my own name, Kathryn, seemed to appear fairly often.  Here are a few of my favorite Kathy's...

Perhaps my favorite ancestress who shares a name with me actually shares the whole name.
Catherine Gates, whose father started out as Henry Getz and founded the village of Gatesburg PA, is my 4th great grandmother.  Of course my maiden name is Kiehn and not Gates, but it is a fun fact to pull out when starting a discussion about the family history!  It also has the advantage of making my kids cringe when I tell them "your dad and I could be related!"  I haven't found a connection - for the record. Catherine lived from 1786 to 1832 and married George Kohlmeyer.  She was one of the 17 surviving children of her father who was a Revolutionary War Veteran.

Undoubtedly my most frustrating Cathryn is the one who married Alexander Viles, lived from 1814 to 1852 and whose last name I have not been able to trace.  She died during the migration of the family from Tennessee to Missouri during a short stay in Illinois. She is one of my "brick walls".  Every Viles tree I have run across has a shortened branch at her name...someday!

Catharina Margaretha Bender was born in 1718 in Germany, packed up her family and moved to the Volga River valley in Russia in the 1760's.  This was a horribly difficult trip, part by ship and part by covered wagon, the first years were disastrous and many died.  She is my 6th great grandmother.  Her great grandson will marry...

Katharina Misskampf who was born in 1807 in Kolb Russia, one of the German-Russian colonies along the Volga.  Her daughter ....

Mary Kathryn Schreiner is the only one of my ancestresses who spells their name as I do!  Born in 1850 in Kolb Russia she will watch her daughter leave all of her family behind and take part in another great migration, this time to America, with thousands of other "Volga Germans" aka "Germans from Russia".

Katharina Margaretha Hoffman is living in the next town over, born in 1853, her son George will marry a girl from the village of Kolb Russia daughter of Mary Kathryn Schreiner and she too will watch her son and his family leave all behind and immigrate to America.

My parents had no idea about these ladies when they gave me my name years ago, but it was fun to find my name among these brave women who were part of these amazing migrations, difficult times, and historic events.

Favorite Photo

Wow, 2 weeks in a row, I think this may be a new record for me!

My favorite photo story ends up being about a lot of photos, how I got them and how much they mean to me...

...my mother is 85 now and there is not much she loves to do more than travel to see relatives...in her SUV...by herself...from California to Colorado (Daddy's family)...and on to Missouri (her family including one of her sisters)...and back home again.  During her most recent trip she was given, and brought back, an amazing gift for me...

My Dad's mom was a packrat - she saved everything from balls of twine to rubber bands from the

newspaper, foil bits and every Christmas card that made her smile.  When she passed away it was a chore going through stuff that was left.  When the furniture and the big items were gone there were boxes of papers etc. that got put in the loft above the shop area at Uncle Gene's farm - and there it sat, with everyone sort of knowing there was stuff there but just not wanting to go through it all.  It became a daunting task I think, and no one knew exactly what it was...it was 'stuff'.  This past year my cousins' son cleaned up that upper room to be his office for his machine shop and he needed to get rid of the 'stuff'.  He waited until my mom was there and then she and my aunt sat down and finally went through it.  Can you say 'TREASURE TROVE'?!  They had a good time going through it all and the only sad part was that Daddy and his brother would have had so much fun as well.  The two ladies divided up the trove into each brothers 'stuff' and then divided the rest of the pictures etc. so that each family got a few things.

Masuchi, Daddy and Jr. Bowman Looking out at the desert

Our family pile went into one of the old 50's suitcases from the attic and came home with mom.  When I visited in November she and I sat down and went through the treasures together and one of the things we found was a stack of pictures that my dad had sent to his mom and dad during his time in the Air Force during the Korean War!

Masuchi and Daddy in front of Rock Happy

 These were pictures of him and his buddies in Saudi Arabia that even my mom had never seen.  We wondered if Daddy even remembered they were there.  I had searched for years to find the base they were stationed at, to no avail and here was the menu for their Thanksgiving meal and banquet with the base (the name has changed) and the flight numbers that would allow me to track him in the records.
 

















 There were photos of my grandparents before they
were married that none of us had ever seen, and their Wedding books from the Church the minister was from...in German.  My grandmother was the sibling who took care of things, she had kept a notebook with the rough drafts of the obituaries and wedding and anniversary announcements that she put in the local paper.  Truly a genealogists dream!

So that is my favorite Photo...photos, well, then there is this one of my grandchildren...