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...

Fresh Start!

Another year and another effort on my part to keep up with the 52 week challenge by Amy Johnson Crow!  We shall see how I do this year....

I always loved the family stories and was blessed with grandparents and great grandparents who were both alive, (always an advantage) and who loved to have an audience for their stories. I heard the stories growing up and took them at face value, there was no reason to question them, in my mind. When I was older there was an aunt in Virginia who had 'done' the family tree and I received a copy. What fun that was! We were related to Mary Queen of Scots and Andrew Hamilton and Andrew Jackson....and this just can't be true, I got my first taste of what can happen when sloppy work and copying from others happens. My father was a history teacher and I knew that Andrew Jackson didn't have any natural children although he adopted and raised several. I started researching the stories and the alleged relatives and...I was hooked! For the rest of my life I have loved the hunt, the research, the dusty files, the genealogical societies correspondence...I love it all!

Apparently there were some less than honest genealogists, or so-called genealogists in the early 20^th century who did bogus trees, where everyone ended up related to famous people or in famous battles and my relative had gotten hold of several of those and mooshed them all together into the most fantastic, sigh, and inaccurate tree you could imagine! The whole thing needed to be done over, a fresh start as it were.

I began to gather historical records from family members who had collected them, asked questions of my grandmother (who lived to be 102) and began at the beginning. Tracing back has been so much fun and the history of the family has been as much fun as the names and dates.

I did find the connection to Mary Queen of Scots and from her, of course, most of the houses of Europe. It is not however a legitimate relationship although it was an acknowledged one, I'm not in any danger of inheriting a castle. There is a distant relationship between my Hamiltons and Alexander Hamilton but very distant. There is no relationship between my Jackson and the former president. It is OK though, I have found veterans from the Revolutionary War and every war from then to the present day. I've found pioneers and inventors, relatively recent immigrants and one that was kicked out of the Plymouth Colony, a couple from Jamestown and in the background information from the Wessex branch of the family I found my cousin Thor and his father Odin. (That one may be a little sketchy too though!  Definitely needs more research, pretty sure the comic books don't count!)

So I guess I owe a thank you to my gullible aunt who gave us all a mimeographed copy (are you old enough to know what that is?) that set me off on this wonderful journey! My Fresh Start!

Unusual Names

52 Ancestors in 52 weeks Challenge-

Under the heading of better late than never I am jumping in at week three, determined to try to keep up or at least stay close this year!

Names are fascinating - I have run across patterns that involve time periods and ethnic groups.  My "Germans from Russia" Ancestors had the frustrating habit of giving the name of a deceased child to the next child born of that gender.  I have found families with 2 or 3 Marys or Georges!  I have also been frustrated at times by the seeming use of only 5 or 6 names in a particular time period, There might be 100 years when all the family used William, John, James and Robert, Mary, Sarah, Rebecca and Catherine.  The best though are the ones that are so different, you wonder where they came from and have to find out, or suffer from unrequited curiosity!  Here are a few of my favorites.

On my husband's side we had several of these unusual names:

There was this guy - 

Abiathur Kennison b. 1801 Canada d. 1876 Seward Nebraska

I found him in the Bible --Abiathar, in the Old Testament, son of Ahimelech, priest of Nob. He was the sole survivor of a massacre carried out by Doeg. Fleeing to David, he remained with him throughout his wanderings and his reign. He was loyal through the rebellion of Absalom, but he supported Adonijah against Solomon.

This one - 

Eusebius J McClesky b. 1806 South Carolina d. 1887 Mississippi 

He was named after a man called 'the Father of Church History' -  Eusebius of Caesarea, also called Eusebius Pamphili, (flourished 4th century, Caesarea Palestinae, Palestine), bishop, exegete, polemicist, and historian whose account of the first centuries of Christianity, in his Ecclesiastical History, is a landmark in Christian historiography.

And these guys - 

Flavius C Guyton b. 1845 South Carolina and Julius C Guyton b. 1847 South Carolina d. 1916 Mississippi

In my head I always make the C in the middle name Caesar!  I suspect the two names are from the play 'Julius Caesar' by William Shakespeare.  There was of course a Julius Caesar and a famous General Flavius in history.  It is impossible to know now which is the correct source but I lean towards the play. 

On my side I found names taken from more recent history;

Francis Marion Marcum b. 1827 Kentucky d. 1870 Missouri

I found his namesake in the Revolutionary War -
Francis Marion (1732-1795), one of the great partisan leaders of the American Revolutionary War, was known as the "Swamp Fox" because of his craftiness in eluding pursuers in the Carolina swamps and his brilliant guerrilla operations. Francis Marion was born in Berkeley County, S.C.

Then there was -

George Washington Medlin b. 1850 Illinois d. 1924 Missouri

There were a lot of men named after the father of our country!

There were Hezekiahs and Ezekiels, Thomas Jeffersons Andrew Jacksons, and even a Jefferson Davis!

One of the things this proved to me was something I read in a Louis L'Amour western one time...While there were some uneducated people in the early days of the country, there were a lot that learned to read using the Bible and books were precious.  You might find a trapper with a copy of Plutarchs Lives, or a cowboy reading Blackstone's Law.  The founding fathers were not the only educated people in the new world, many a 3rd or 4th son of nobility emigrated looking for land and freedom.  

I think the names are interesting because they bring me up short and make me think - who is this farmer who has read Shakespeare?

Week 35 - Back to School

This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart! Teaching is a family occupation with us. I spent 6 years teaching adult school, my brother taught high school for 15 years and currently still works in the school environment, my cousin retired from teaching, my mother was a substitute teacher for years and my father taught and coached for 21 years! There was/is a lot of respect for the good teachers, the ones who motivate their students, who care about them in a broad sense and who teach in such a manner that the students retain and understand the information.

Aunt Carmoleta and my oldest in 1990

My family in the above paragraph were all teachers in a time we would all recognize. Books, chalkboards, central heat and air, and teaching one subject. My story this week is about the first teacher I know of in my family – my great aunt Carmoleta (Quint) Minear. Aunt Carmoleta was my maternal grandmothers sister, 3 years older. She was born in 1909. My memories of Aunt Carmoleta are many. She and my grandma were very close and we always went to see her when we went to see grandma. She loved kids and kids loved her. I don't remember not knowing that she was a teacher, and I don't remember when I first got a hint that there was a story behind that fact. I always loved the family stories so I may have been young. It wasn't until fairly recently that I got the details of her story, and I think it is an interesting one.

Born Wardie Carmoleta Quint, she was named after her Aunt Wardie Meals and according to her, the

Carmoleta and sister Nellie (my grandma)

name Carmoleta came from a circus that went through the area and her dad liked the name. It always sounded exotic to me so I understand grandad liking it. Having a fascinating name doesn't automatically make you interesting but she certainly was. My mother describes her mom and Aunt Carmoleta as similar but different. My grandma Nellie could look at things and figure out how they worked. She was a seamstress, musician, crafter, canner, farmer, painter, crocheter and was better at fixing machinery than grandad. Aunt Carmoleta was a teacher, writer, poet, philosopher and farmer. They were both remarkable women and they both could do just about anything they set their minds to.

Aunt Carmoleta (left), sister Nellie, brother Glenn

Aunt Carmoleta's family lived near Greencastle MO during her first 8 years of school, and she was able to go to the local 1st - 8th grade school and she was able to do a year of high school, but then the family had a run of bad financial luck and lost the house and had to move 12 miles away. In the new place there was not a high school nearby. Remember there were no school buses yet, everyone had to walk or ride a horse. I'm sure it was different in towns but my family never did live in towns!

Aunt Carmoleta wanted to teach. Back in the late 20's and early 30's you could teach at a rural school (think one room) if you had a high school diploma. High School was not the norm for male children in rural areas let alone a girl child. Lucky kids got to stay in school until 8^th grade.

Edna Edith Quint Singley

Well I did tell you already she was a teacher so you know a solution was found. Her aunt and uncle Walter and Edna Edith (Quint) Singley offered to let her stay with them in Green City, MO, which did have a high school, and she was able to graduate from Green City High School. (She named her oldest girl Edna)

She immediately started teaching in rural schools, and she loved it. She started taking college classes (normal school) in the summers and everything was going just fine for about five years. Along came the man of her dreams, Gail Minear. You've probably seen those “rules for teachers” from the old

Marriage License upper right corner

days, and you might remember that they were not supposed to get married! Aunt Carmoleta and the man who was to become Uncle Gail, were set on marrying. They went to Linneus Missouri which was about 50 miles from their hometown and got married in secret. Small towns have not changed much and sooner or later everyone knows everything, and this was no different. I have never heard who found out and started talking, I'm not sure they ever knew! Someone did though and soon the school board knew as well. I think it says good things about Aunt Carmoleta that they let her teach to the end of the year.

She and Uncle Gail raised three children and lived on the farm. When her children were grown she went back to teaching and taking classes. She got her BA degree when she was in her 60's and continued teaching for a few more years. Everyone we've ever met that had her for a teacher said she was their favorite teacher. She taught the lower grades and made the eventual transition from 1^st thru 8^th in one room to teaching one class in a grade school.

I think she was pretty remarkable! 

Family Legends - "Uncle Jack Meals"

Walter (Grandpa), Charlotte and oldest sons

I had heard the story all my life. Grandpa went to Alaska during the gold rush...



My maternal grandmothers father (my great grandfather) went to Alaska in 1900, at the urging of his uncle (his mother's brother), who had gone in 1898. He came home with, according to family legend, a gold nugget he had made into a ring. He did not become rich, unfortunately for the rest of us. 

 

 

 

Andrew J and Hannah Meals and Children

 

 

 

 

 

 

His uncle though, became the stuff of family legends. 'Uncle Jack Meals' was that legend. He had moved from Missouri to Nebraska, he went to Alaska. He was the quintessential gold rush guy in my mind, and I even had a mental picture of him that included a pick and shovel and all the trimmings. Here was the best part...he stayed in Valdez, Alaska! Alaska...home of Grizzly bears and Caribou and Igloos, home of the tallest mountains in North America, home of Louis L'Amour novels and stories. Alaska loomed large in my mind back then, the romance of the 'last frontier' in the mind of a 'western girl'.

List of gold rushers showing Grandpa Walter Quint

Fast forward to 1997. My Grandmother was a month and a half away from 85 and she too had always wanted to go to Alaska, to see the place her father went. So she did, and she took her 3 daughters and their husbands with her. They stayed in B & B's, they went fishing for salmon and halibut, they saw a lot of country, and they went to Valdez, where they were hoping to find a trace of Uncle Jack. They stayed in a B & B in Valdez that just happened to be run by a lady who was a veritable historian of Valdez. She knew the Meals family...

List of gold rushers showing AJ Meals

Andrew Jackson Meals went to Alaska in February of 1898 with another man from Nebraska, George Cheever Hazelet. Mr Hazelet was a former Superintendent of Schools and was well educated. He kept a journal, painstakingly handwritten at the time. The history lady at the B & B had a copy and let mom and her sisters copy it. There was a home built by A.J. Meals' son Owen that they got to tour, there were streets named 'Meals' and 'Hazelet', they got to meet Marie who was a cousin, just a couple of years younger than grandma! Turned out Uncle Jack and family were kind of famous! The only problem was they were near the end of their trip and would have liked to spend a little more time.

My mom spent a lot of time carefully copying and typing and, eventually we all had a typed copy of what we called Hazelet's Journal. It read like a novel, Hazelet was a good writer and he told the story well. Mom and her sister kind of wanted to go back, and I had wanted to go to Alaska forever it seemed. We had done some more research and found some more family history. Now we wanted to go there and see it, knowing where they were, we wanted to trace their footsteps as it were. When mom started making noises like she wanted to go soon, I shamelessly encouraged her. We decided on the summer of 2018 in the summer of 2017.

A.J. and Hannah Meals

I decided I needed to reread Hazelet's Journal since it had been quite awhile. I had forgotten it ended sadly – the last phrase he wrote was “sign yourself a failure and quit”. I knew though, that he had become successful, and I sort of needed a happier ending. I went on the internet and googled him thinking I might get lucky....and did I ever! The first thing to pop up was a book titled “Hazelet's Journal”, I couldn't believe it and I raced to Amazon to check on this book, I was so excited when I read the synopses...it was the same journal, published by his great grandson John Clark! This journal though had the family pictures and some extra information and included pictures of A.J. Meals that we had never seen. I immediately ordered two, one for me and one for mom. Of course both her sisters had to have one as well, and now we were well and truly 'up for the trip'.

The vast expanses of Denali NP

So we went to Alaska, my Mom, her sister Aunt E, my brother and his wife and myself and my husband. We decided to do the big circle leaving Anchorage...we went to Denali national Park, we went to Fairbanks, we went to Tok. All of this was beautiful, fun and educational, but now we were coming to the goal...

Mom and Aunt E on the Copper River

The road from Tok to Valdez. We didn't have any information that indicated that the Meals and Hazelet party got all the way to Tok, but we knew that they had been quite far north in their search for gold and eventually copper. We knew they got to Mentasta Lake and Mentasta Pass on the early trips. We stopped at every pullout with a sign in it and took lots of pictures. It was an interesting feeling being where they were, standing in some of the same places they stood and comparing our present day views to the pictures in the books. We ate in the community of Copper Center where all of the 'gold-rushers' stopped in to rest and pick up mail etc..

Thompson Pass from the top

We went over Thompson Pass on the roadway that my great grandfather helped to build. (much improved, to our delight!) 

 We stopped at the Gakona Roadhouse Mentioned in the Journal...

 And Gakona still had one of the original buildings.  We knew this was a place they had been!












We got to Valdez, home of AJ Meals...

Description of the climb over the Glacier

Valdez! The first night was a meal on the wharf – wonderful seafood. And we drove around just looking at the town. It's not that big – a little less than 4000 people. Getting a feel for where things were. The next day we did two museums, and there - all over - were Uncle Jack Meals and his son Owen Meals, Owen was an aviation pioneer in Alaska among other things. We were just tickled at how much information we were finding on the family that we didn't have before. Around noon-ish we were eating and it turned out Mom and Aunt E and I were the only ones who wanted to go out to the old townsite (pre-1964 earthquake) and the cemetery.

pre 1964 location

Having watched the videos and the scenes from old Valdez and the aftermath of the 1964 earthquake (still the 3rd biggest in the world), and read stories about the people who were killed in the earthquake the old site was kind of eerie. They moved the homes that could be moved and burned those that were left as a safety hazard. The Meals and Hazelet families donated land for the new townsight of Valdez (where it is now). Going to the museums in the morning and watching the videos of the earthquake and the interviews of survivors made the old site much more meaningful.

We continued on to the cemetery to take pictures of the headstones of the Meals relatives...

Andrew Jackson Meals -  "Uncle Jack"

 Alaska is famous for it's mosquitoes, there is a joke about the state bird being the mosquito. The cemetery was full of them and we were walking up and down the rows looking for Uncle Jack's headstone and swatting bugs, when this nice woman came up to Aunt E and asked her who she was looking for... she might be able to help. When Aunt E told her who we were searching for, she asked if we were related and we said yes, turns out she was a descendant as well and a cousin of ours! She was there visiting her mother's grave as it would have been her mother's birthday and she had passed not long ago.

Our Alaska cousins!

She called her cousin who lived in town and she met us at the coffee shop with an envelope full of pictures of Jack Meals – some of which are in the book 'Hazelets Journal'! We sat and visited until the coffee shop closed, took pictures, traded emails and swore we would stay in touch. It was such a treat to talk to them and it really was like we had known each other forever, they were both so comfortable.

By the time we got back to the hotel my brother and his wife had decided they wanted to go for a helicopter ride over the glacier. Mom and I and Hubby decided not to (I was sure my vertigo and a helicopter would not be a good combo!) but Aunt E thought that sounded cool and she would go along as well. They made reservations and Mom and I agreed to drive them to the airport. The road to the airport wound up toward the Valdez glacier where the helicopter would take them and we decided we had time to drive up it a little ways. We ended up going all the way to the lake at the foot of the glacier and it was kind of amazing how cold the breeze was just blowing over the lake. We were standing at the foot of the mountain looking up, knowing that the glacier covered the top of that huge summit, trying to imagine pulling supplies for a year over the top of that.

Mike at the airport

 We went back to the airport and met the guy who worked there, a pilot, who asked the innocent question “what brings you to Valdez?” and got the Meals connection story! He then told us that Owen Meals was his hero and he used to visit him at his home and feed bluebirds, that Owen was the reason he learned to fly and that his dad and Owen were friends and he told us some stories about them. The helicopter ride was enjoyed by our intrepid 3 but we all agreed that meeting new friends and relatives was the high point of the day! Our new acquaintances had managed to lift Uncle Jack and his son off the pages of newspaper articles and out of the museum displays and make them real people.  What a treat that was!

Valdez Glacier 2018

Grandpa helped build the road from Valdez that eventually connected them to Fairbanks. He then came home and lived his life apparently content in Northeast Missouri. Uncle Jack stayed out there on the frontier and became an important and influential pioneer, helping to settle the Valdez area, and contributing to the development of the transportation systems. His son Owen was one of Alaska's Aviation pioneers, he was a pilot and served as the manager of the Valdez Airport until 1964, started the Valdez Electric Light and Water Company, and he ran his own Ford dealership.

In the picture above is the Glacier trail.  The glacier covered up to the two peaks in the middle and the trail led up and over, amazing when you really think of it!  There were two more days in our trip through Alaska and we had a wonderful time. Our family “legend” had not only turned out to be true, but was a bigger story than we ever guessed. We may have to investigate some other legends now...