52 Ancestors Week 13: Nearly Forgotten

It is somewhat ironic that I nearly forgot to write a blog post this week, when the theme is "Nearly Forgotten." I was distracted from my usual routine by hearing the news that we can now upload our raw DNA to Geneanet. Immediately I went to the English-language version of that European genealogy website and uploaded my DNA. While waiting for matches to be found, I began to input my family tree. (Although it takes much time, I always input my tree manually. My gedcom contains too many unproven or conjectural lines and I don't want them to become internet "fact" without proper research.) Since I have previously seen trees at Geneanet which contain members of my Luxembourg families, I began with that quarter of my tree, under the supposition that it is the most likely branch on which my European DNA cousins and I will match.

There are a couple of twigs on my Luxembourg branch that extend quite far back, into the seventeenth century. As I typed in the information on these lines, I realized how sparse it was. When researching, it had been as a quick skeleton tree, finding only enough information to identify the parents of each individual and where to find the next record to move the tree back another generation. I had intended to return and fill in the gaps: locate full sets of records for each person and identify all the children of each couple. But I never did.

Now I shall return to these nearly forgotten tasks. Perhaps you will hear more about it in the near future.

52 Ancestors Week 12: Popular

How to be very, very popular

That is the subject, friends.

A gal with charm can walk off the farm

And start earning dividends

If she's popular, popular, popular friends.

-"How to Be Very, Very Popular" lyric by Sammy Cahn, 1955

MyHeritage recently released a new tool that has become quite popular, and for good reason. It automatically colorizes your old black-and-white family photos. For the most part, it does a very nice job. Like many others, I have been having some fun looking at my ancestors in color. Although the colorizations are simply guesses (you can't be certain that the couch or the shirt was really that color, and in some cases I can actually disprove the color choices), it does bring an immediacy to the old photos that can be surprising.

Grandma Aileen and Grandpa Red Brosius in Netarts, Oregon, late 1930s or early 1940s

Grandma Rose Stroesser on her first leave from the Navy, with her sister Clare.

Not only do the pictures often seem more lifelike, but occasionally the color can bring out details that easily go unnoticed in the black and white versions.

Great-uncle Lowell Brosius on a tricycle. Although clearly visible in the original, the barn in the background is much more noticeable in color.

Of course, sometimes the choice in colors goes humorously awry. I noticed a propensity for bare arms and bare legs to come out a greyish periwinkle color, very different from any normal skin tone.

Grandma Aileen Underwood at her high school graduation, with her sister Inez. Her arms were never that color in real life, nor were either girl's legs.

The tool is a colorization tool, advertised as adding color to black and white photos. However, I was curious how it would treat a faded color photograph.

Great-aunt Doris and Great-uncle Bill Underwood's 25th Anniversary

In some cases I was rather impressed with the results. It seems, however, that the color photo must be converted to black and white and then colorized from there, because in some of the pictures the colors chosen for the colorization are most definitely not those in the original.

Grandma Rose and Grandpa Jack Hoyt. The original, though faded, is far more colorful than the colorization!

All in all, I have been greatly enjoying MyHeritage's popular new colorization tool, despite its shortfalls. I appreciate the ability to download the results as a comparison between the original and the colorized version, as all the examples posted on this blog entry.

I am not affiliated with MyHeritage in any way, except as a subscriber.

52 Ancestors Week 11: Luck

A horse and buggy in 1909
On the road, 1909 by Fylkesarkivet i Vestland, on Flickr. No known copyright restrictions.

When I saw that this week's prompt was "Luck," the first thought that leapt to mind was of a certain newspaper report about an incident involving my great-grandma Cora's brother, Buchanan Wade, whom my Uncle Lowell (and probably the rest of the kids) called "Uncle Buck." But no, I reasoned, I have told that story too many times; it has featured in my Instagram feed and in my WikiTree comments. Surely I have written about it on my blog as well. A search of my blog posts, however, revealed that the story has yet to be told here, so I am free to share it this week!

Upon reading the article, you will discover that the phrase "leapt to mind" was something of a pun...

Horse Falls 30 Feet; Lands In Tree-Top and Wasn't Hurt
   It is said that a cat has nine lives but now it is believed that a horse belonging to Buck Wade has all the cats in catdom beaten a mile. Mr. Wade's horse jumped over the guard rails on the big fill by the ice plant Tuesday morning, fell fully thirty feet into the top of a tree and apparently was none the worse for its thrilling adventure.
   Mr. Wade was driving east along the north side of the fill when an approaching auto frightened his animal. The horse whirled to the guard rail and Mr. Wade leaped for his life, landing safely on the road side. But the horse went on and landed with the buggy on top of it in a tree at the bottom of the creek below. How it escaped instant death is a miracle. Probably such a thing could never happen again without fatal results either to the horse or its driver.
   Men in the vicinity rushed to the scene and got the horse out as quickly as they could. The animal walked away just a little stiff in some of its joints but otherwise apparently safe and sound. The buggy fared much worse, being torn all to pieces.

It seems that both Uncle Buck and his horse had plenty of luck that day. Only the buggy did not share in their good fortune.

The article does not state what make of auto was involved, but this Firestone-Columbus automobile (in this case, chauffering presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan) was one of the vehicles on American roads at the time.
Unknown author / Public domain

Citation:

"Horse Falls 30 Feet; Lands In Tree-Top and Wasn't Hurt," Sedan Times-Star, 25 Nov 1909, p. 1, col. 5-6; digital images, America's GenealogyBank (www.genealogybank.com : accessed 15 Aug 2011), Historical Newspapers. 

52 Ancestors Week 10: Strong Woman

Katie Sandwina, "The Lady Hercules," lifting three men
Bain News Service / Public domain

It is incredibly difficult to narrow down the topic of "Strong Woman" to a single woman in my family. In just one generation--that of my great-grandparents--it is impossible to decide. There is Great-Grandma Flora (Amos) Underwood, who left England with her husband and infant son, to travel across the ocean on a journey to America, knowing she would never see her home in England again. She left a comfortable middle-class life for the unknown world of the western U.S., living almost a pioneer existence and learning the skills along the way.

There is Great-Grandma Cora (Wade) Brosius, who raised a family of six boys and one girl in Kansas, married to a man nearly twenty years older than she was. When he died and left her with four children who were still quite young, she packed those children into a car and the five of them drove across the country to the Pacific Northwest to begin their new lives.

There is Great-Grandma Mary (Craig) Stroesser, who grew up in "the Bottoms" in Omaha, a neighborhood marked by its shanty houses and poverty, and frequently flooded by the nearby Missouri River. She went on to marry and give birth to thirteen children, suffering post-partum depression after many of them according to family lore, and suffering also the deaths of three of her sons. Although Grandma Rose, her daughter, had a strained relationship with her, it seems clear that Great-Grandma Mary was battling her own demons.

Then there is Great-Grandma Hazel (Fox) Hoyt, who, according to family lore, graduated valedictorian. Unlike my other great-grandmothers, she began to work outside the home during WWII, and continued to work after the war was over. She was a shipping clerk at Dehner Boot Company until her retirement. She was also the only great-grandmother whose lifetime overlapped my own.

Truly, I believe that you could pluck almost any woman off my family tree and, looking at her life and circumstances, come to find that she deserves the appellation of a "Strong Woman."

Wordless Wednesday: Grandma Aileen's Pedigree Scrapbooking Page

Just felt like sharing this digital scrapbooking page I created for Grandma Aileen's pedigree...

52 Ancestors Week 9: Disaster

Although I have been unable to find an example, surely in my nearly nine years of blogging I have alluded to the fact that my Grandpa Jack's family home burned sometime shortly after he returned from the service in WWII. It is a fact of which I have long been aware, and is the reason that so few photos from Grandpa's side of the family exist. Some of the few that do survive are actually singed around the edges, physical artifacts of that disaster.

For some reason, though, I never could seem to find any independent information on the fire. All I knew was the little that Grandpa told me. However, a mere two weeks ago, I finally found my first independent source: an article appeared in the 18 Aug 1948 edition of the Council Bluffs Nonpareil. So now I finally have a date for that fateful blaze. It must have happened on 11 Aug 1948.

The article reads:

Interior of Home Damaged by Fire

Fire, heat and smoke damaged the interior of the two-story home of Francis A. Hoyt, 1102 South Thirty-fifth street, Wednesday.

Two companies of firemen brought the blaze under control. It is believed a kerosene stove in the kitchen caused the fire. Hoyt told firemen he heard what sounded like an explosion in the stove.

 

Though brief, there is some valuable information contained in that article. First of all, as aforementioned, I can finally put a date to the incident. Secondly, the address is given. From city directories and other sources, I know that the Hoyts lived in that house from at least 1940 and continued to live there until at least 1957. There must have been some serious renovations made. Thirdly, it was a two-alarm fire. This makes me certain that this article is truly the correct event. In the past I have managed to find another article concerning a fire at the Hoyt house, but that one was a minor chimney fire and quickly put out. This one bears much more the character of the fire Grandpa spoke of. Lastly, the article says that the fire was believed to be caused by the kitchen stove. That rings a bell somewhere deep in my memory. It seems that Grandpa once told me that.

Incidentally, the Francis A. Hoyt referred to in the article was Grandpa's dad, my great-grandfather.

Citation:

"Interior of Home Damaged by Fire," Council Bluffs Nonpareil, 18 Aug 1948, p. 12, col. 1; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 9 Feb 2020), World Collection. 

52 Ancestors Week 8: Prosperity

The theme of Prosperity brings to mind my great-grandfather Walter Underwood's sister and her husband. The newspaper article celebrating the couple's golden wedding anniversary makes them sound very prosperous indeed.

Maldon Golden Wedding

Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Bell.

To-day (Saturday) Mr. John William Bell, J. P., and Mrs. Bell, of Spital Road, Maldon, will celebrate their golden wedding. They were married at the Wantz Road Methodist Church, Maldon.

Mrs. Bell was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. Underwood, of Hawkwell. Mr. Bell is a native of Westgate, near Weardale, Co. Durham, and came to Maldon in 1886 to assist in the construction of the Maldon-Southminster-Southend railway. On the completion of that line he remained in employment with the old Great Eastern Railway as a foreman platelayer, a position he held until he retired on reaching the age limit of 65.

In 1907 Mr. Bell was elected delegate for the G.E.R. Permanent Way Department on the Joint Conciliation Board, representing the extensive Ipswich district. For some years he devoted his spare time to endeavouring to improve the conditions of railway workers, and he played a big part in the reduction of hours and the increase of wages. When the Maldon branch was formed, Mr. Bell was appointed chairman, and he held that office until the branch was amalgamated with the National Union of Railwaymen 17 years later. Mr. Bell has always been an ardent Trade Unionist.

Mr. Bell was for some years chairman of the Maldon Co-operative Education Committee. In 1918 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace for the borough, and is about to commence his sixth successive year of office as chairman of the Juvenile Court. For three years he served on the Town Council, and for some time was a member of the Maldon Board of Guardians.

Mr. Bell is 74 and his wife 71. There is no family, but Mr. and Mrs. Bell have brought up a niece, who is now a Sister under the L.C.C. at the Eastern Fever Hospital, Homerton.

Source:

"Maldon Golden Wedding," The Essex Newsman, 31 Dec 1938, p. 1, col. 2; digital images, British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 26 Dec 2012), Brightsolid in partnership with the British Library.