The "Bob WeHadABabyItsABoy" Method for Family History

This family history stuff is going to send me to the poorhouse.

Remember "Person-to-Person" phone calls?  For you youngsters who never had to pay for long distance calling, this was an operator-assisted call placed from you directly to a specific person rather than a general phone number.  If they weren't available, you did not have to pay for the call.  If they were home and came to the phone, it was even more expensive than long distance.

You may have seen the Geico commercial on TV employing that strategy.  They just had a baby, but don't want to pay for a call, so he places a person-to-person call to Bob WeHadABabyItsABoy, and the guy on the other end of the line tells his wife "They had a baby, it's a boy."  We used to do the same thing when my husband traveled - when he got to his destination, he'd place a person-to-person call to himself at our number, and then I'd know he made it okay.  We didn't get to talk, but he got his message across.  I decided to employ that same technique to answer a burning family history question without having to empty my wallet on yet another newspaper subscription.

I already have two similar subscriptions, and through them I learned that my great-grandfather, P. C. Christensen, opened Bell Bakery in Huron, South Dakota sometime between October of 1908 and March of 1909.  I was hoping to learn more about exactly when the bakery opened, and how he came to be associated with his partner, Clarence Bell, both of them moving to Huron to open that bakery.  But neither newspaper website covered that crucial time in between those dates.  Newspaper Site #3 does.

Voila!  I decided to try the Bob WeHadABabyItsABoy technique, and did a search for Bell Bakery between October 1, 1908 and March 31, 1909.  I got numerous hits, with previews, for October of 1908.  Great news!  The bad news is that the previews aren't telling me a lot.  Some look like advertisements, but others are so vague... it does, however, narrow down the dates considerably.

However, my brilliant strategy is still going to end up costing me money.  There is an advertisement for Bell Bakery in the October 17, 1908 issue of the paper, and perhaps an article, I can't tell.  I have an article from one of the paid sites from October 29, stating that "City Bakery" had a fire, but it was minor and they intended to repair and continue.  The interesting thing is that both Bell Bakery and City Bakery were located at 340 Dakota Ave.  Did Bell Bakery purchase the City Bakery location after the fire?  If so, why is there overlap in the time frame?  Was Bell Bakery initially located somewhere else before purchasing the 340 Dakota site?

I might as well get off my wallet and subscribe to newspaper site #3.  Can't take it with you, right?

One Question Resolved, Many More Raised (Of Course)

    For years, I ran across undocumented information stating that my 4th gr-grandfather, Joseph Nickerson, was a War of 1812 veteran.  Everytime I saw this information, I asked the presenter for any documentation.  I'll bet I asked 20 different researchers over the years where their information came from, and no one could produce any sort of document alluding to his service.  He did not have a military headstone.  He did not appear in any of the online databases concerning the War of 1812. No family history papers handed down mentioned his veteran status. In addition, he would have been just 14 or 15 in 1812.  But it has bothered me that I was not able to get this cleared up one way or the other.

    Today, I received a promotional email from Fold3.com, stating that they were working on getting their War of 1812 files online, and they were ready to start on Q-Z.  Without pausing to read the rest of the email, I went to the Fold3 site and started searching.  Within 10 minutes, I had Joseph's War of 1812 pension file, all 14 pages of it! 

    I have a good degree of certainty that this is him - the location of his farm in Illinois falls within the military bounty land map from the War of 1812.  The dates on the paperwork are consistent with his life span.  The residence listed for him later in life is consistent with what I know of him.  The maiden surname of his wife wasn't an exact match, but close ("Croble" vs. "Coble") and the place of their marriage was the same (Franklin co., Ohio).  The year of their marriage was also not an exact match, but close (1819 vs. 1820).

    There are a few discrepancies that still bother me though.

    The file states that Joseph Nickerson was "about 19" years old at the time of his enlistment in April of 1814.  My Joseph would have been 16 at the time.  Did he lie about his age?  Perhaps.  It's not unheard of.

    He is said to have married "Mary Croble" in 1820 at Franklin county, Ohio.  My Joseph married Margaret Coble in 1819 at Franklin county, Ohio.  I did not find any "Croble" family listed in the 1820 census in Franklin county.

    Joseph applied for a pension in 1871, the year before he died.  His wife, Margaret, had passed away in 1854, 17 years prior.  His file lists a widow, Mary.  Joseph had indeed remarried, to a woman named Hannah Maria Reves, who appears in censuses as "Maria."  Is it too far a stretch to believe that "Maria" became "Mary" in the pension record? 

    According to information found at the FamilySearch.org site*,  if a veteran had passed away, his widow would be entitled to draw a pension, as long as they had been married prior to 1815, when the war ceased.  The rules were eventually relaxed, and after 1871, the year Joseph applied for a penion, all veterans and widows, as well as their children, could apply for pensions.  So after 1871, his second wife should have been able to draw a pension on his service, if I understand the rules correctly.

    Joseph's second wife, Maria, left Joseph's home and moved in with her daughter in 1866, after 11 years of marriage.  The reason for this is unknown, perhaps she had a health-related issue that required more care than Joseph could give her, but she did live another 22 years. Shortly thereafter, Joseph moved to the home of his daughter.

    One of these documents in the pension file was made with Joseph, age 73, present at the court.   He signed a document stating that his wife was "Mary Croble."  There could be legitimate reasons why "Coble" became "Croble" in the pension papers - perhaps Joseph did not speak clearly - but to forget the woman he married in 1819 was Margaret and not Mary seems a little harder to explain. Was Mary a nickname perhaps?  But Margaret had a sister named Mary, so that seems unlikely. Dementia is also a possibility that comes to mind.

    Another document naming a widow were obviously filed *after* Joseph's death in 1872, and the name of the wife/widow remains consistent as "Mary Croble."  This is a typewritten form, filled in with a pen, and does not have a heading nor a hint as to its purpose.  I have not found a widow's pension file, which of course does not mean one doesn't exist.  Perhaps Joseph's earlier error was carried over to this document.  Is there some other explanation? Certainly a definitive answer as to the existance of a widow's pension might help with interpretation.

    The number of similarities between the Joseph in this pension file and my Joseph are great enough to make the declaration that this is indeed him, but a clear explanation for the differences as noted indicates there may be more to the story.


*https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/war-1812-pension-files/

A Silent Testament to a Story Nearly Forgotten

The photo to the left is of my grandparents, Bill and Lillian Knutz, taken sometime prior to 1957, the year their farm home burned to the ground.  I love the picture, but one of the things I enjoy just as much is looking around at the background of these old photos.  These things tell the story of their lives, day to day.  I see the radio, where Grandma first discovered soap operas.  I see a starfish hanging on the wall, most likely something Lillian's father in California sent her (he liked to spend time swimming in the ocean and collecting shells).  But what really caught my interest was the two wooden leaf-shaped shelves.   I know my mother made these in fifth grade at age 12, as my grandmother told me, and also documented with a handwritten note taped to the back.


Taking a closer look at one of the shelves tells the real story.  Notice the burned wood along the upper edges of the shelf.  This was from the fire that consumed their home and most everything in it, in May of 1957.  Oh, the stories this little shelf could tell!  As the house was burning, the family ran in and out trying to salvage as many of their possessions as possible, until the fire department arrived on the scene and took over.  The firemen pushed grandma's piano out of the smoky house, which meant a lot to them - when they weren't busy farming, they had a dance band to bring in a few more dollars.  A fireman was able to grab one of the little leaf shelves off the wall, but not the other.  Much of the rest of their things, including clothes, housewares and furniture, were destroyed.  The starfish was destroyed.  The radio was destroyed. But this little leaf shelf lives on.

It now hangs on our wall, with a small picture of Jesus sitting on it, just as it did in my grandparents' house in town.  But the blackened edges of the wood testify to a story long, long ago and mostly forgotten.

The Cistern From Hell

Few things terrified me as a kid like the thought of the cistern out at the farm.  We used to love to go out there with Grandpa and search around the concrete foundation where the house once stood, before it was burnt to a cinder by a fateful bolt of lightning.  We'd look for remnants of Uncle Don's melted marble collection or whatever other treasures might have been thrown from the burning house in an effort to save what they could.  But every step around that concrete foundation was made cautiously, after an over-abundance of careful looking, lest we fall in the dreaded cistern.

Grandma, besides being small in stature, was outnumbered by us so she'd frequently tell us "little white lies" to help enforce the rules - except with the cistern - besides being true to a certain degree, she went out of her way to tell us what would happen if we didn't heed her stern warnings.  "Don't get too close, or you'll fall in!"  "The ground around the cistern is soft and it'll suck you right in!"  "You'll be stuck in a small little dark space with nothing but water!" and the worst - "We might not be able to get you out!"  It's still hard to even think of all the things she told us about the cistern without a little panic setting in.  I didn't even know what a cistern was, but I didn't care.  I wanted no part of it.  It was a hole right down to hell itself, as far as I was concerned.

A few years ago, I was looking at an old photo album with my mother and we ran across this photo - and she said, "There's my grandma holding my sister, there's Dorothy, there's me, there's Teddy the dog, and the cistern..."  My blood ran cold and my heart rate skyrocketed.  I had not thought about the cistern since I was about 10 years old.  I was horrified at how close they were all standing to it!  And how near it was to the house!  And the dirt - the soft dirt around it!  And no one seems to be terrified!

Once I settled down, I fully understood why Grandma said what she said.  My first thought was, "I wonder what it looks like under that board!?"  Which is probably why someone put a heavy rock on it and started telling tall tales.  Love ya, Grandma, and I miss you every single day.

Nathan Graves and the "Indian Cancer Plaster"

Nathan Graves had cancer.  And he was desperate.

He was about 53 years old when the cancer first appeared on his right cheek, but it didn’t cause him a lot of suffering until about four years later.  And then, he was frantic to be rid of it.

Nathan was a Ross County, Ohio native, who came to Stark County with his newly widowed mother in the fall of 1844. He was just 14 at the time.  He remained under his mother’s roof until the age of 22, when he married 14-year-old Emily Boardman, an orphan. Nathan procured his own farm in Stark County, and they set about raising a family. Nathan and Emily had six children in all.  He was described by his niece as "a big fat man with a hearty laugh."  During his cancer crisis, he gave up his farm and moved his family to nearby Wyoming, Illinois.

I know little about what treatments Nathan sought to eradicate the tumor, until late summer of 1889.  As a last resort, Nathan wished to see a "cancer specialist" in Kansas City, who employed a special method not commonly used – the method was called Indian Cancer Plaster ¹– a recipe used to destroy the “roots” of the tumor.  The cost of the treatment was $100, and the patient needed to stay in Kansas City under the care of the physician for the duration of the treatment, at an additional cost of $1 per day.  Proceeds of a local event were unanimously voted to go to Nathan, described as a “sorely afflicted citizen.”  But he needed more – he petitioned the Stark County Board of Supervisors for $100 in financial assistance for the cost of his treatment, but was turned down.  Despite that blow, Nathan found money from somewhere, and made arrangements for one of his sons to take him to Kansas City.

Nathan was in Kansas City for four weeks.  During this time, he kept in touch with the editor of the local newspaper, and told him in October that the cancer “fell off his face” and weighed over a pound.  He said he would bring it home with him, and that, he did.  In a jar of alcohol, it was on display at Cox’s drug store.

Once Nathan arrived home from Kansas City in October of 1889, he told a different story than the encouraging notes he had sent to the newspaper.  He was uncertain about the permanence of the treatment, and was in such poor physical condition upon his return that the first order of business was to regain some strength.  He described his doctor as a “little sawed-off German,” and his living conditions while under the doctor’s care were dismal.  He was kept locked in a small, dark room on the third floor of a large building.  The only things in his room were a hard cot and a broken chair.  Three times a day the doctor’s servant would bring him soup made of garlic and onions, which sometimes Nathan could eat, and sometimes it was so bad he could not.  Nathan, ordinarily a husky man, was reduced to a skeleton by the time he was able to leave, and he was glad to get away while he still had sufficient strength to go.  Hopes were still high that once he regained a bit of stamina he would be on the road to recovery.

However, just five months later, Nathan was again seeking medical help, this time in Marshalltown, Iowa, where a physician would take a look at the cancer which had returned to his right cheek.  The doctor agreed to care for him on a “no cure, no pay” plan, and he would be given the medication to take home with him, where his family and friends would be able to take care of him.  Three weeks later, he noted that his condition had improved “considerably.”  But again, it was not to last.  One of his daughters came home to Illinois in July to help in Nathan’s care, and he finally passed from this earth on October 4, 1890, at his home, just past 60 years of age.

 *****

 

¹"Dr. H.W. Libbey's Indian medical infirmary and national bath rooms : 90 and 92 Seneca Street, Cleveland, Ohio, where he treats all forms of chronic diseases with complete success"

by Libbey, Hosea W. Publication date 1863. This publication lists different formulations of the “Indian Cancer Plaster” and their uses.

Other sources:

Numerous issues of the Wyoming Post-Herald, Wyoming, Illinois

Letters of Myrtis Evans

Obituary of Nathan Graves

Every Kid Needs an Uncle Don

Recently I was working on a set of autobiography questions, one of them being "What is your earliest memory?"   Well, the first thing I remember was being in a black baby buggy at my grandparents' home.  My mother and I lived with them while my father was in the Army, stationed in Germany.  It was the first home I had after being born, and I was surrounded by such wonderful, loving people, including an aunt and several uncles who were all still in school.  I remember laying in that buggy and hearing all their voices but being unable to see anything but the sides of the buggy.  Then, suddenly, my Uncle Don's head poked into the buggy, and I felt absolute glee!

My uncles and aunt were all nurturing and attentive, but there was something different about Uncle Don.  Perhaps it was because he was the youngest of my grandparents' children, and just 11 years old when I was born.  He was not really a child, but not really an adult either.  In some respects, we grew up together. He was doing all the fun things while the rest of them were pursuing more adult activities like dating and dancing, and Don frequently included me in whatever he had going on. We went on go-cart rides and bike rides. He took me sledding in the yard, pushing me around on a baby sled. He let me help feed his rabbit, Sam. He had fun things like baseball cards and Mad Magazine, which we weren't supposed to get into, but... 

So many other memories were never captured on film.  I was the only kindergartener who got to ride home every day on a motorcycle!   I was the pesky kid who asked his girlfriends if they were going to be our "aunt."  After he went off to Vietnam, there was a huge gaping hole in our time spent at Grandma and Grandpa's, but I recall him eventually coming home on leave and all of us fighting over who got to wake him up in the morning, while Grandma got his breakfast cooking.  Just the fact that he didn't strangle us speaks greatly to his patience!

Yes, every kid needs an Uncle Don.  My own grandchildren have an Uncle Adam, which is awfully close, and they adore him.  But growing up with Uncle Don brought something special to my childhood that I am grateful to have had. Thank you, Uncle Don!

Is it him? Or is it not him? That is the question...

                I have pined away for a Revolutionary War Patriot in my lineage for a long time, but have come up disappointed at every turn.  My husband, however, can boast of several.  My best hope for a patriot is my direct-line ancestor Joseph Lair.

                Lair, the son of German immigrants, was born in Philadelphia in September of 1745, and by 1768 had purchased land in Rockingham County, Virginia.  In 1788, he contributed horses to Captain Richard Ragan’s company, so he did at least something toward the effort.  The DAR database confirms his contribution.  Maud Ward Lafferty and Helen Lafferty Nisbet, in their book “Background of the Lair Family,” state that he no doubt served as well, in addition to his brothers, and that his service was likely documented in Virginia.

                I first took up the quest to find information on his service about 15 years ago, long before websites like Fold3.com were available.  I had made note that he attained the rank of Corporal, but did not note the source of that tidbit.  In the limited resources available at the time, I was unable to find much, so I made a few notes and stuck them in a folder.  Now, I’m going through that folder and have picked up the job of looking for his service.

                The first stop was Fold3.  I was pleased to get an immediate “hit” – and discover a Joseph Lair who rose from the rank of Private to Corporal in the Commander-in-Chief’s Guard, Continental Troops, commanded by Caleb Gibbs.  Caleb Gibbs was a “right hand man” of George Washington, and it was his duty to not only protect Washington, but to engage in battle as well.   This was a big deal!  Perhaps waiting all these years to discover a patriot was well worth it with a story like this for the family tree!  However, the reference envelope pictured below notes that the cards are filed with “Law, Joseph.”  And herein begins a whole new struggle.

                I looked at every muster roll available for this group, and beginning with July 1777 until July 1780, either a Joseph Lair or a Joseph Law shows up, but never both at the same time.  A few of the listings are clearly “Lair,” more are clearly “Law,” and some could go either way.  This man starts out with the rank of Private, and ends up as Corporal.  Because both “Law” and “Lair” never show up separately, I have to conclude that this is the same man.

That's a nice "Lair"!!

Ugh.  That's a good "Law."  The loop at the end of the "w" is consistent with handwriting in other parts of the document.

                 My Joseph Lair was born in Pennsylvania, but purchased land in Rockingham County, Virginia in 1768, and lived there until at least until 1792.  Caleb Gibbs was associated with the 14^th Massachusetts Regiment, but served elsewhere in his capacity with George Washington’s Guard, and since Washington lived in Virginia, it would not be inconceivable that Virginia men, such as Joseph Lair, were involved.  It was noted that after the war, Gibbs returned to Massachusetts.

                So – who was this man?  Was it Joseph Law, or Joseph Lair?  And if it IS Joseph Lair, is it MY Joseph Lair?  These are the problems that stand between me and a Revoultionary War ancestor.

                I wondered if I could document a Joseph Law as having served in the war, so it was back to Fold3 with a new search.  That search brought up a widow’s pension file associated with a Joseph Law who served with a Connecticut regiment under Colonel Chandler, for three years commencing from 1777.  My hopes rose!  Yes, there was a Joseph Law, but he was tied in up Chandler’s regiment during the time in question.  Continuing on through the numerous documents in the file, I found another that stated he was transferred into Gen. George Washington’s Corps of Guards.  Shoot  (no pun intended).  I am back to my previous condition of not having a patriot in my family tree.