52 Ancestors Week 5: So Far Away

This prompt has proven the most difficult for me thus far this year, although "So Far Away" should seem an easy prompt for an American genealogist, with the necessity of immigration in one's history. However, I have struggled to think of someone in my tree who (a) was "so far away" from his/her family, home, or something else, (b) I had enough information to actually write about, and (c) I haven't already written about. I'm not going to write about the Underwoods' 1903 trip to America; it's already been covered in Aunt Elsie's typescript, and I currently have nothing to add. Likewise, I've already written about John and Mary Craig's eventful trip on the Mauretania. Harry Stroesser made a long journey from Luxembourg to Iowa, but I have yet to discover his name in the ship manifests.

All week I have pondered a subject for this post (with the Carole King song running through my head), and, now that the week is nearly over, one has finally come to me. The research is so fresh that it should have been obvious! Last Sunday I visited my local Family History Center and used their portal to access to Newspapers.com. Perhaps it slipped my mind because it was not my intended research topic, but a quick dipping of my toe before I moved on to my main plan.

In my speedy foray into the world of newpapers, I stumbled across several articles about the Brosius boys away in France during WWI. The earliest of these is dated 18 Oct 1917, before Ormond Brosius had left for Europe:

Likes Army Life.
Ormond Brosius, Sergeant in Artillery stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, writes his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Brosius, that army life suits him and that his already dark skin is now so thoroughly tanned it is difficult to distinguis him from the Mexicans. Ormond volunteered in the regular army last April in company with Frank Ward and Bert Sherrod and they were in San Francisco until June when Ormond and Frank were transferred to Fort Bliss.

This article enabled me to add a few more details to my knowledge of Ormond's movements during the war. It also lines up to a certain extent with Ormond's own account of his enlistment:

There was three of us. When war was declared there was three of us... Frank Keller and myself and Bert Sheridan. We got on the Missouri-Pacific and went up to Wichita to enlist. Well, they told their right age. I was 16, see, and they was 18. So we got in this line... Ol’ Bert says, “I’m 18.” This old boy wrote it down. “Go on.” And Frank Keller was a-next... When they come to me, I told the truth. I said, “16.” And he said, “Young man, you come back in a couple of years.” So, the next morning I got right in this line, and when I got there I told him, “18.” “Go right ahead.” See? That’s how that happened. See. Boy, it pays to be a liar sometimes.

The first names are identical, even if the last names are not quite the same. Sheridan is quite similar to Sherrod, though. I also enjoyed the reference in the article to Ormond's dark skin. I have come across similar references on his mother's (Wade) line, and it is interesting to see how the trait is passed down the generations.

The next article helps to clarify the confusion between the names "Frank Ward" and "Frank Keller."

Mrs. E. A. Keller this week received a card announcing the safe arrival in France of her son, Frank Ward, who was at a cantonment in Texas. Ormond Brosius was with the same detachment.

It seems that Frank and his mother had different last names, and that Ormond was simply giving them the same surname. The date of arrival in France makes sense, given that the company had departed from Hoboken aboard the Aeolus on 23 Apr 1918. The 16 May 1918 printing of this note allows for the time for the troops to arrive in France, Frank to write the card, and the card to travel back across the ocean and then across land to Kansas.

It seems it took a little bit longer for Ormond to send news to his parents, but when he did it was not just a card but a whole letter.

Ormond Brosius writes his parents Mr. and Mrs. John Brosius of this city from somewhere in France, a cheerful letter telling of his safe arrival, good health and some of the quaint customs of the people of that land, which are a source of wonder and amusement to our soldier boys. He was enthusiastic over the country and well satisfied to be there under his own flag. Ormond enlisted early in the activities.

I can only wish the newspaper had printed the entire letter, as it did with one of his half-brother Harry's, which I transcribed in his Military Monday post and will not repeat here.

Speaking of Harry, the next clipping finally mentions him. Admittedly, I was more interested in finding articles regarding Ormond, in whose cabin I spent a wonderful vacation, than in Harry. When I have more time to dedicate to this newspaper research I will do a more thorough job.

John Brosius and wife are among the few Sedan parents who have received no letters from France since the armistice. Ormond is with the 18th Field Artillery and Harry with a Gas Regiment.

This clipping is dated 26 Dec 1918, the day after Christmas. The family must have spent an anxious Christmas waiting to find out if two of their members had survived to the armistice. It would have been the second anxious Christmas, the previous year still during the fighting.

They finally heard from their boys the next month.

Mr. and Mrs. John Brosius received word from their sons, Harry and Ormond Tuesday, the first they had received since the big fight ended and were greatly relieved to know that the boys are all right. Both are with the armies of occupation.

It surprised me that none of these clippings mentioned Lee, the third brother in the service. I don't believe that he ever went overseas, but some of these articles were about army life before prior to shipping out. Perhaps this lack of Lee has more to do with my search terms during my limited research time than anything else. When I return to this line of research, I will specifically seek information on Lee.

Sources and Citations:

"Likes Army Life," Sedan Times-Star, 18 Oct 1917, p. 7, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 26 Jan 2020), World Collection.

Ormond Brosius, Lowell Brosius (Portland, Oregon), recorded conversation, Aug 1979; audio cassette privately held by Amber Brosius.

"General News," Sedan Times-Star, 16 May 1918, p. 8, col. 3; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 26 Jan 2020), World Collection.

"U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939," online images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 Jun 2018), manifest, Aeolus, 23 Apr 1918, entry no. 40, for Ormond J. Brosius, service no. 1,042,684.

"General News," Sedan Times-Star, 20 June 1918, p. 10, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 26 Jan 2020), World Collection.

"General News," Sedan Times-Star, 26 Dec 1918, p. 2, col. 5; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 26 Jan 2020), World Collection.

"General News," Sedan Times-Star, 30 Jan 1919, p. 5, col. 3; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 26 Jan 2020), World Collection.

52 Ancestor Week 4: Close to Home

Lowell Brosius, my Grandpa Red's brother, was born in Sedan, Kansas 21 Mar 1913. When his father died in 1920, he moved with his mother and the younger of the Brosius kids (he was the second youngest of them all) to the Pacific Northwest. He quit school at about age 13 and began working. He worked a number of different kinds of jobs throughout his life, along with a stint as an Army MP in Europe during WWII. Among his jobs, he worked as a logger, a gold miner, and a glazier. He was married once, but the marriage didn't last.

During my earliest years, he was renting the back room of a house in Portland, Oregon. There was a backyard with a tree, and Lowell used to feed the squirrels and scrub jays. They became so tame that the squirrels would climb on him and one of the jays would snatch a peanut from his open mouth. I don't actually remember that, but I have seen photos.

Lowell standing outside his pink trailer, 1988

When I was just a little bit older, he moved into a trailer court. As a child, I was amused that his trailer was pink. He lived there for many years, and I can easily conjure up the layout of his main room. The couch was to the right of the front door, parallel with the wall. Directly across from the door was his TV, which was always tuned to a football game, and which was topped by a gold-colored mantel clock shaped like a naked woman. To the left was his kitchen table and a chair or two. Stacked up behind the couch and TV, nearly to the ceiling, were dozens and dozens of old cigarette cartons--mostly Pall Mall, a few Lucky Strike, and one or two other brands--full of books by Louis Lamour. When we visited, we would be seated on the couch while Lowell sat across from us in a chair at the kitchen table. There was always a red plastic cup on the table, and every so often Lowell would spit into it. I made the mistake of looking inside it once, and seeing the brownish liquid that resulted from his habit of chewing snus.

At some point when I was in about seventh or eighth grade, Lowell could no longer drive. Dad would visit him at least once a week to offer to take him shopping, and I never turned down the chance to come along. Sometimes Lowell would take us up on the offer of driving him to the grocery store, and I can still visualize him in his plaid flannel shirt and jeans, leaning on the cart as he slowly walked up the aisles. More often, though, Lowell wasn't in need of groceries, and we would sit on his couch and visit with him. Budding genealogist that I was, I asked many questions about his family and childhood, and a couple of times brought my tape recorder along. Other times he and Dad would discuss current events and I would let my eyes wander over his belongings, especially those boxes of books.

Whenever it was time for us to leave, we would get into the car and wave goodbye as we drove away. Lowell would stand in his open doorway and salute us as we left. It wasn't a military salute, but rather a gesture of two fingers beginning at the temple and extending toward us, then remaining in place until our car was turning the corner. It's a rather simple, ordinary gesture, but as a child it puzzled me. Everyone else I knew just waved. To this day, every time I picture Lowell in my mind, the first image that comes to mind is of him standing on the top step of his pink trailer holding his hand in that casual salute.

Once I was in sophomore or junior year of high school, Lowell needed more care. He was still independent, but it was no longer advisable for him to live alone. So he moved in with us. We had a daylight basement, carpeted and furnished, so we set that up for him as his own apartment. He generally prepared and ate his own meals, but it became our habit to go down and offer him a bowl of ice cream every night. I know he enjoyed that, because sometimes we would come back from a weekend out of town and there were fork marks in the ice cream container where he had come upstairs and helped himself. I always found it strange that he scooped ice cream with a fork, but it was endearing too.

He kept a large supply of peanuts for the squirrels and scrub jays, and would spend time in the back yard feeding them. They never got quite as tame as the ones at his old back-room apartment, but an occasional squirrel did wander into the house demanding peanuts.

Lowell died there in our basement, sitting on Grandpa Red's big leather easy chair. Mom found him that morning when she went downstairs to do laundry. I was at school, and was called to the office to get the news. That was a rough day.

As a child, and well into my teen years, I always had an overactive imagination. I was afraid to go downstairs if the lights were out, and I didn't like to be the last one to go up the stairs, because of course there was a (imaginary) skeleton who resided under the staircase and would emerge and dance at the bottom of the stairs as I ascended. Looking back, I don't know how exactly that was threatening, but somehow it was. One would think that knowing someone had actually died down there would make the basement even scarier, but the opposite turned out to be true. The very next time I went down there, it felt as if Lowell's presence were protecting me. The skeleton under the stairs vanished, as did whatever other monsters my imagination had provided. I have never felt frightened in that basement since.

52 Ancestors Week 3: Long Line

Ever since I was a child and first saw one in action, I have harbored a secret desire to become a blacksmith. It wasn't until decades later that I discovered that my desire may be quite natural; I come from a long line of blacksmiths. Perhaps it is in my blood.

"medieval blacksmith making a new hammer" by Hans Splinter
Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)

The blacksmiths are on my Stroesser line. The first known one, my 4great-grandfather, Nicolas Strösser, was born in Fischbach, Mersch, Luxembourg on 7 Apr 1753. Unfortunately, the parochial records of that time do not indicate professions, so I cannot comment on his father's occupation, but by the time that Nicolas died on 1 Dec 1815 in Beringen, Mersch, Luxembourg, civil registration had been implemented and occupations were recorded. Nicolas was a "hufschmidt," a blacksmith or farrier. A farrier, of course, is a type of blacksmith that specializes in horseshoes and caring for horses' hooves.

Nicolas passed on his profession to at least some, if not all, of his sons. I have unsourced notes in my database that his sons Nicolas and Adam were farriers, and sources for his sons Pierre and Theodore also being farriers. Pierre, who was my 3great-grandfather, was born in Beringen on 5 Mar 1796. In the 1843 census he is recorded as a "maréchal ferrant," the French term for farrier. He is also recorded as a "hufschmiedt" on his death certificate. Theodore was married twice, and the civil marriage certificate for his second marriage in 1831 gives his occupation as "hufschmit."

In my direct line, the third generation was Peter's son Peter, my 2great-grandfather. He was born in Ettelbrück, Diekirch, Luxembourg on 3 June 1834. He seems to have taken the family business in a slightly different direction. On his child Michel's 1873 birth certificate he is recorded as an "eisenhändeler," or ironmonger. An ironmonger runs what we (in the U.S.) would term a hardware store. He may or may not have manufactured his own goods. Given his family history, I rather suspect that he did manufacture them. Or perhaps his brothers did. His brother Jacques, his brother Michael, and his brother Dominique were all recorded as hufschmieds on their marriage records, and they were all residing in the municipality of Wahl. 

Sources:

"Luxembourg, registres paroissiaux, 1601-1948," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-32461-2121-64?cc=2037955&wc=STH8-3Y2:1500941901,1501121838 : accessed 15 February 2015), Fischbach (Mersch) > Baptêmes 1742-1770, mariages 1737-1770, sépultures 1738-1770 > image 56 of 68; paroisses, Luxembourg [parishes, Luxembourg].

Luxembourg Civil Registration, 1793-1923. Index and Images FamilySearch.[1]: 2009. Municipality: Beringen. "Mariages 1846-1890--PETTINGEN: Décès 1796-1823--Décès 1796-1851." Image #866. (death record for Nicolas STROESSER, died 20 Dec 1815.) Accessed 9 Dec 2010.

Paroisse de Mersch (Mersch, Mersch, Luxembourg), Luxembourg Church Records, 1601-1948, "Baptêmes 1791-1796," Petrus Streser baptismal record, image #62 of 73 (1796); digital images, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 8 Mar 2015).

1843 census of Luxembourg, Ettelbrück, Ettelbrück, image #570, household of Pierre Stroesser; digital images, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "Luxembourg, Census Records, 1843-1900," FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 18 Oct 2014); citing Archives de l'Etat.

Wahl, Redange, Luxembourg, death certificate no. 10 (1860), Peter Strösser; digital image #341 of 682, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "Décès 1829-1890," FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 22 Nov 2014).

"Luxembourg, Registres d'état civil, 1796-1941," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-6GVC-TF?cc=1709358&wc=9RYQ-L29%3A130076401%2C130674101 : 17 July 2014), Mersch > Naissances 1870-1890 Mariages 1796-1823, 1796-1847 > image 1267 of 1495; Archives nationales de Luxembourg (National Archives), Luxembourg.

Ettelbrück, Diekirch, Luxembourg, birth certificate no. 61 (1834), Peter Stroesser; digital image #1295 of 1477, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "Naissances 1797-1804 Naissances, mariages, décès 1804-1805 Naissances 1805-1838," FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 19 Oct 2014).

Wahl, Redange, Luxembourg, birth certificate no. 32 (1873), Michel Stroesser; digital image #99, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "Naissances 1867-1890-- RINDSCHLEIDEN: Mariages 1796-1797, 1800-1804, 1805-1823 -- WAHL: Mariages 1796-1803, 1805-1890 -.," FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 30 May 2010).

"Luxembourg, Registres d'état civil, 1796-1941," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6G2W-D25?cc=1709358&wc=9RYZ-C68%3A130534201%2C130651301 : 17 July 2014), Wahl > Naissances 1867-1890 Mariages 1796-1797, 1800-1804, 1805-1823, 1796-1803, 1805-1890 Décès 1797-1803, 1805-1828 > image 1042 of 1475; Archives nationales de Luxembourg (National Archives), Luxembourg. Jacques Stroesser's marriage certificate.

"Luxembourg, Registres d'état civil, 1796-1941," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6G2W-N2V?cc=1709358&wc=9RYZ-C68%3A130534201%2C130651301 : 17 July 2014), Wahl > Naissances 1867-1890 Mariages 1796-1797, 1800-1804, 1805-1823, 1796-1803, 1805-1890 Décès 1797-1803, 1805-1828 > image 1095 of 1475; Archives nationales de Luxembourg (National Archives), Luxembourg. Michael Stroesser's marriage certificate.

"Luxembourg, Registres d'état civil, 1796-1941," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6G2W-FKT?cc=1709358&wc=9RYZ-C68%3A130534201%2C130651301 : 17 July 2014), Wahl > Naissances 1867-1890 Mariages 1796-1797, 1800-1804, 1805-1823, 1796-1803, 1805-1890 Décès 1797-1803, 1805-1828 > image 1144 of 1475; Archives nationales de Luxembourg (National Archives), Luxembourg. Dominique Stroesser's marriage certificate.

52 Ancestors Week 2: Favorite Photo

The prompt for Week 2 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge this year is "Favorite Photo." 

My first reaction when I saw that this week's prompt was "Favorite Photo," was an inward groan and the question of how I could pick just one. A moment later, an image came to mind, of my Grandma Rose as a child, and the recollection that the image had an interesting story with it. It may not be my favorite photo of all time, but it is my favorite photo of Grandma Rose as a child.

The photo shows Grandma staring at the viewer, her round face framed by a short, blunt bob cut with thick bangs. She is wearing a dress with a wide white collar and a large dark bow. The most striking element of the picture is the lighting. Much of the background is in deep shadow, and Grandma's chest is slashed by strips of light and dark, like sun shining through a blind.

All through their lives, my mom and her siblings heard the story that Grandma was supposed to have been Spanky in the Our Gang (Little Rascals) films, but she lost the job because the studio found out that she was a girl and they wanted a boy. It seems like a strange story because she lived in Omaha, Nebraska, far from Hollywood studios, but it turned out to have a kernel of truth.

I found it quite by accident. Stroesser, Grandma's maiden name, is fortunately pretty uncommon. It is possible to trace a genealogical relationship between most Stroessers in North America. Therefore, in newspaper research, I can narrow the search down to Omaha newspapers and use just "Stroesser" as the search term, and almost every result will have something to do with Grandma's family.

One day I was combing through the results of such a search and stumbled upon an article entitled "More Entries in Davey Lee Resemblance Contest." Davey Lee was a child actor of the era, perhaps most recognizable today as Sonny Boy of the eponymous Al Jolson song. He played the character in two films, The Singing Fool and Sonny Boy. The lookalike contest was being put on by the Omaha World-Herald, with grand prizes of $50, and every participant invited to attend a theater party with the chance of meeting Davey Lee himself.

 

And there, in the top row of entries, was a trimmed down version of that interesting photo of Grandma Rose. It was her entry into the Davey Lee resemblance contest! This explained that strange story about Spanky of the Little Rascals. Although Davey Lee wasn't Spanky, he was another child star of the era. Grandma was five years old at the time, and no doubt her recollection of events was colored by later assumptions and suppositions. Perhaps she thought at the time that winning the contest would make her a movie star. And perhaps someone in her family commented that she didn't win because she was a girl. The story could easily have grown from there.

Source:

"More Entries in Davey Lee Resemblance Contest," Omaha World Herald, 4 Dec 1929, p. 9; digital images, America's GenealogyBank (www.genealogybank.com : accessed 12 July 2014), Historical Newspapers.

52 Ancestors Week 1: You

Last year I began the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge a little late in the year and tried to catch up. After a few weeks I was only falling farther behind, and soon gave up. This year, in the spirit of New Year's resolutions, I am starting fresh. The theme for this week is "You." Since I can't find a way to make this post about all of you who may be reading, I am taking the "You" to mean me. 

My great-uncle Ormond Brosius and his girlfriend Billie Gardner were visiting Oregon from their home in Wyoming. All the Oregon Brosiuses took advantage of this opportunity to have a family reunion. It wasn't a complete family reunion as one might envision, with all the descendants of a particular couple, but it was what they could manage in the area. There were Ormond and Billie, Ormond's brother Lowell Brosius, their brother Red and his family, their sister Susie and her kids, and their nephew Maurice (pronounced Morris) and his wife Mary. This was to be the largest reunion of the Oregon branches of Brosiuses ever held. 

One of the group shots taken during the reunion. None of the shots show all of the participants, but this one is the best grouping in terms of composition. From left to right: Eddie Renas (Susie's son), Lowell Brosius, Les Hogan (Susie's daughter's husband), Aileen Brosius (Red's wife), Ormond Brosius, Mary Brosius, and Maurice Brosius.

The reunion lasted a few days. There was much chatting, as would be expected, and my very pregnant mother had the foresight to record a portion of it to cassette. (This cassette has been cited and quoted in a number of previous posts.) There were also activities such as sightseeing, fishing, and shopping. 

My mom, as I mentioned, was very pregnant at the time. With me. So I was there, attending my first family reunion, in utero. And apparently I was anxious to attend it in person. The story goes that Billie took my parents to the Portland Saturday Market, which was an event worth seeing back then. I remember from my younger days acres of booths selling well-made crafts and foods. It took over the streets of Old Town and spilled into the historic buildings and then back out onto streets on the other side. It would take hours to go through, and all the while you would be hearing the sounds of street musicians and smelling the scents of unfamiliar cuisines. Today's Saturday Market is barely a shadow of its former self, and depresses me because I remember its glory days. Now it takes up only a couple blocks, and there is very little shopping available in those historic buildings. There is still the sound of street musicians, though, and the fragrances of world cuisines.

It was to the Saturday Market of Portland's past that my parents and Billie went, with its acres and acres of booths. And, as my mom says, "Billie walked that baby right out of me." I was born the next day while various participants in the reunion went fishing on the coast. I was literally born during a family reunion.

Thanksgiving 1914 (Remembering Aileen Underwood)

Now, therefore, I, John M. Haines, governor of the state of Idaho, do hereby join with the president of the United States in designating and setting apart Thursday, the 26th day of November, Thanksgiving Day, and I call upon our people to cease from all labor on that day and congregate at their houses of worship, or assemble at public meeting places, or gather around the family altar and offer to Almighty God their most heartfelt thanks for the blessings that are ours, and their most fervent prayer for the perpetuity of the conditions that make such blessings possible--thanks that ours is a land where every citizen is protected in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, prayers that as a nation we may ever be guided by the inspirations of the fathers of the republic--thanks that our country is at peace with the world, prayers that the carnage across the seas may cease.

So proclaimed Governor John M. Haines on 9 Nov 1914. Among those making preparations for the upcoming holiday, was the Underwood family of Meridian: Walter, the very pregnant Flora, and their children Walter, Bill, Elsie, and Olive. 

Elsie once told me about this particular Thanksgiving Day, and I wish she were still here to clarify the details for me. I am not certain whether Flora was planning to host the family gathering and the ensuing events changed that plan, or whether--and more likely, considering Flora's condition--it was planned all along that the family would go to their "Aunt Sadie's" (Walter's sister) house. But, either way, Aunt Sadie ended up serving as hostess. I like to envision a dramatic scene at the Underwood house, with all the family circled around the table, and Flora suddenly gasping out, "It's time!" She is then rushed into the bedroom, while Sadie graciously takes over the duties of the hostess. But it seems far more probable that Walter and the children went to Sadie's to begin with. Flora was nine months pregnant, after all, and preparing a Thanksgiving feast would have been quite strenuous.

Flora was in the bedroom, in labor. There was a woman, or some women, to help her (I seem to remember Elsie saying), but none of the family. Childbirth was for women, not for men, and definitely not for children. It was for the best if the family could be shuffled off to their aunt's for the celebration. And when they returned, Flora had a brand new baby girl. 

The child was named Aileen Maryann, after her Aunt Sadie's daughter Ileane and her paternal grandmother Mary Ann (Valentine) Underwood. I have always found it odd that her eponym should be "Ileane," while her own name was pronounced "Alene." Perhaps there was an evolution in the pronunciation of her first name as she grew.

She grew, eventually married Vinis "Red" Brosius, and had two children of her own. More time passed, and she became my grandmother. By the time I was able to remember, she had been widowed, and lived alone. To differentiate my two grandmothers, I called her "One Grandma," after the number of people living in her house. (My other grandma was "Two Grandma," for the same reason, but she didn't like the connotation of being number two, so I seldom called her by that name.) I remember that she tried to go along with my naming of her, but generally got it backwards, signing her cards "Grandma #1."

One Grandma, or Grandma Aileen as I more often call her now, passed away when I was only ten years old, and as recently as 2013 I was able to write (in a rough draft for a blog post about her which I never completed) "I still remember her well. However, my memories are beginning to fade a little, and get a little distressed around the edges like a photo that has been carried in a wallet for too long. So it is a good time to set them down, while they are still crystallized." Unfortunately, that metaphorical photo has been carried in my wallet for even longer, and is beginning to get creases and wear not only around the edges, but across the face. It becomes harder and harder to conjure up memories of her. 

The easiest memories to invoke are the general impressions of her as the "perfect grandma"--the kind you see on old television shows, the kind that cooks up a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings for every holiday, the kind that keeps her yard and her house immaculate, the kind that always makes you feel special. She was my only babysitter for most of my childhood, and every time we arrived at her house she would either be gardening in the yard, cooking in the kitchen, or knitting on the couch. She subscribed in my name to World magazine, the child's edition of National Geographic (and far superior to today's National Geographic Kids), and as I entered the house I would always look on the foyer table next to the tiny cactus in the boot-shaped ceramic vase to see if the new issue had arrived yet. Often I would, very gently, poke a needle in the cactus to show how brave I was.

Grandma taught me how to squeeze the sides of a snapdragon flower to make the "dragon" open its "mouth," and I remember the two of us playing with them in the back garden like puppets. The snapdragons were near the tomatoes and potatoes, and Grandma taught me how to harvest the potatoes. (She probably taught me how to harvest tomatoes as well, but I didn't like tomatoes.) I remember her teaching me, but I don't remember how to do it.

I do remember how she taught me to sew. She taught me my first stitch, the running stitch. She had once worked at Jantzen Knitting Mills, and had a a number of tricks. Perhaps if she had lived longer I would have become proficient. But she, at least, gave me a decent foundation. She did beadwork, as well. I forgot most of what she had taught me about that for a while, but then re-learned.

Grandma was a wonderful cook. I was fortunate enough to indirectly inherit some of her cooking ability. My maternal grandmother was... not a wonderful cook, so my mom eventually learned from her mother-in-law, Grandma Aileen, and then passed her learning on to me. Although Grandma Aileen was a wonderful cook, I was a picky child. She had to get creative to get me to eat anything besides peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or chicken noodle soup. To this day, the only way I truly enjoy a tuna fish sandwich is the way that Grandma made it: the canned tuna mixed thoroughly with a little mayonnaise, spread on white Wonder Bread, cut into four squares (not triangles), and with a few Pringles on the side.

One day she made tomato soup, which I refused to even taste because: tomatoes. So Grandma introduced me to the melon baller. I was to eat my soup with a melon baller instead of a spoon. The soup would run through the hole in the scoop, so I had to rush it to my mouth before it all ran out. Much to my surprise, tomato soup suddenly became palatable. After that, I often asked to eat my soup with a melon baller, and my favorite soup became tomato. 

The holidays were always spent at Grandma's house, with the whole family and a full dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, Jell-O salad, candied yams, coconut cream pie, chocolate pudding pie. We would all gather around the table together, but when it wasn't dinnertime, Grandma would be in the kitchen. She had a galley kitchen in her house, right off the dining room and visible from the living room. You couldn't comfortably fit more than one person in that kitchen at a time. So often Grandma would be in there alone, while the rest of us were gathered in the living room talking. And Grandma would be in the kitchen, laughing and laughing. She had the most joyous, infectious laugh. One couldn't help but laugh with her. She would shout out her contributions to the conversation, too, but her laugh was the most memorable thing.

The more I write about Grandma, the more memories begin to flood back. I remember how she would sometimes sit on the floor and play Barbies with me, and when we were done she would ask me to help her up. I would try to pull her up by the hand, and she would grunt and make it to her feet.

I remember that she wore false teeth, and would dislodge them from her gums and display them between her lips when I would request it. It was like an amusing magic trick.

I remember that she kept a bucket of coins in one of her kitchen cupboards, which she would let me play with. 

I remember the time she jumped up and down in her garbage can to compact the trash, but fell out and we had to rush her to the hospital with a broken wrist. Luckily it happened just as we were leaving her house, before we were gone. We were actually in the car, pulling out of the driveway, when it happened.

One day, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I was nine years old. We visited her at the hospital, or at the nursing home, every day after school. Sometimes it was boring, and I sat in the hallway doing my homework. The nursing home had a pet rabbit in a cage, which I enjoyed. I remember she had a roommate at the nursing home for a while: a young woman named Bonnie. We liked Bonnie.

Being in the nursing home, Grandma could no longer keep her hair dyed brown as it had always been. That was when I learned that Grandma dyed her hair. I remember that when it grew out, it was the most beautiful golden shade of gray, and I couldn't understand why she had been dying it.

On November 26, 1989, for her 75th birthday, I brought in my violin to play her "Happy Birthday." By that time she could no longer talk or move, but she listened with loving eyes to my scratchy, off-key rendition of the song. The next day she died.

Christmas of 1989 was the first Christmas we ever celebrated without her. But there were still presents under the tree with her name on the tag. She had done her Christmas shopping by mail order before she passed away. My present was exquisite: a real silver vanity set with a mirror, a brush, and a comb. The back of the mirror was engraved, and she had finally gotten it right. The engraving reads, "From #1 Grandma."

Today is the 115th anniversary of that eventful Thanksgiving Day when she was born. I have never forgotten her on this day, even if it is only to look up to Heaven and whisper, "Happy birthday, Grandma."

Sources:

"Thanksgiving Day Proclamation by the Governor of Idaho," The Meridian times, 13 Nov 1914, p. 1, col. 2; digital images, Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 24 Nov 2019), Historic American Newspapers.

Elsie Crocker, "Elsie Crocker" (typescript, 1990s); copy in possession of Amber Brosius.

Personal reminiscences of Amber Brosius.

Craig mysteries slowly unraveling

Alex E. Proimos [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

On Monday I did the unthinkable. I accidentally left my laptop at work, so in the evening I had only my phone for genealogy. Today's smartphones are amazing, and you can download wonderful genealogy apps, but, in both screen size and flexibility, they are still inferior to a laptop. But I had to make do, so I opened up the FamilySearch app and began scrolling through my "Ancestors with Tasks" list, looking for relatives I know readily enough to easily determine if a source applies. (And, might I add, it drives my pedantic side nuts that the app calls them all "Ancestors" when most of them aren't ancestors at all, but collateral lines?)

The first few tasks I went through weren't memorable. Finally I clicked on Barney Robbinnult, my 3great-grandfather. The possible record match that popped up was a marriage license naming him as the father, and my 3great-grandmother Julia Kimmey as the mother, of the bride. The marriage took place in California in 1916, and the bride was Mattie Craig.

My 2great-grandmother was Martha (Robinault) Craig, sometimes called Mattie. Up until the moment the significance of this marriage record dawned on me, I knew only what was written in one of the articles on her first husband's, my 2great-grandfather's, murder: "For about two years [John Stephen Craig] had been separated from his wife, who is now said to be remarried and living in California." But California is a big place, Martha Craig is a common name, and I had no idea what her married name might be.

Marriage record, trimmed from the original at FamilySearch

And here was the record that would solve that mystery. She married a man named Paul Ruther. He was a painter, born in Germany, and his parents were named, too. The date was before John Craig's murder, and both parties selected "Divorced" as their marital status. That meant that somewhere there has to be a divorce record for the Craigs. But where? In California, Nebraska, or somewhere in between? My initial survey for records of that period being unsatisfactory, it occurred to me that divorces at the time often appeared in newspapers.

I knew that just searching for "John Craig" at Chronicling America would yield little; many times I had tried unsuccessfully to find his murder that way. Looking for a divorce record, the logical search terms would be "Craig divorce," so I set the search parameters to Nebraska and tried that, but found nothing of interest. I remembered having tried "Martha Craig" in the past, so I tried her nickname "Mattie Craig." Apart from being reminded that there was another Martha/Mattie Craig in Omaha at the time, apparently highly respectable and working as a schoolteacher, there was nothing of interest again. I racked my brain, thinking what would have appeared in a divorce notice in the 1910s. Unless the parties were prominent (as mine were most certainly not) or the divorce had some other special interest to the public, the notices were usually quite succinct. Just names and addresses.

So I tried their address: "Tenth and Paul." And there was the jackpot. Many of the articles that the OCR had failed to recognize as "John Craig" or "Martha Craig" or "Mattie Craig" suddenly began to appear. Their divorce has still failed to materialize, but something else did show up. The headline in the Omaha Daily Bee read "Had a Premonition He Would Be Killed," and I knew immediately what the article would be about. Here was one of the long-sought-after articles on John Craig's murder.

The article duplicated much of the information that is contained in the first article of the Omaha World Herald, which I transcribed on a former post, "A Murder in the Family." But there were a few differences. For one, this newspaper dubbed him with the nickname of "hermit expressman." Although the idea that he was an expressman who was a hermit was not new, using it as a nickname was. Secondly, this paper identified the neighbor who had last seen him alive by name. This article was also much more definite on the information about his wife having divorced him and remarried. It stated as a fact that "[h]e was divorced from his wife, who remarried and is now in California." However, the article also gave the wrong name for his son Matthew, calling him Martin instead.

A few more articles on the subject appeared in the Daily Bee for the next several days, although not a single one of them comes up in the results when searching for "John Craig." The second article in the series, "Police Believe Craig Murdered," which was published the following day, made the interesting observation that

For years John Craig conducted a little grocery store near his home, Tenth and Paul streets. He was never known to have given customers credit on purchases and is said to have made many enemies as a result. It is thought that perhaps one of these persons may have committed the deed.

This is the first I have heard of the idea that one of his customers killed him. It is also the only article I have seen that elaborates on what kind of store he ran. Knowing that he was an expressman, I had imagined his store to be more on the lines of stationery or carriage riggings. Seeing that it was a grocery store took me by surprise.

The newspaper search for "Tenth and Paul" also revealed some more color to add to the already colorful characters in the Craig family. From the articles I had already amassed from the World Herald, it was well established that they did not get along smoothly with their neighbors. The Daily Bee cemented that impression, and managed to top everything with my own 2great-grandmother, at the late date of 1906, accusing her neighbor of being a witch!

Since my search was for the location, not names, there were also many results that had nothing to do with my ancestors, but with the neighborhood in which they lived. It seems to have been an area with frequent police intervention, and one 1911 article explicitly said, "The neighborhood is regarded as a tough one by the police."

I began to be curious to see the layout of the neighborhood. The various articles had made it clear that it was near the railroad tracks, and some of the businesses mentioned made it sound like an industrial area. The Library of Congress website has a nice collection of Sanborn maps available to view for free, so I narrowed down the collection to those of Omaha, and then began scanning through them for the neighborhood. Although I have not mentioned it yet in this post, the Craigs' address was variously given as "Tenth" or "Eleventh" and "Paul" or "Nicholas," so I figured that they must have lived within in a block defined by those four streets. 

Excerpt from 1901 Sanborn map of Omaha, showing intersection of Eleventh and Nicholas.

Only two of the maps of Omaha contained that part of town, and the one dated nearest the time of John Craig's murder was published some 16 years earlier, in 1901. But there is one thing very baffling about both these maps. It is easy to see that Nicholas and Paul streets do parallel one another, and are one block apart. Likewise, Tenth and Eleventh; and they are perpendicular to Nicholas and Paul, as expected. The intersection of Nicholas and Eleventh is easy to find. But Paul street seems to fade away before it can cross Tenth! Yet multiple newspaper articles, not only in 1917, but also at the time this map was published, refer to the intersection of Tenth and Paul.

So there we have it. My Craig ancestors lived at a nonexistent street intersection. Although some of their mysteries are slowly unraveling, they only give rise to new mysteries. I guess they know how to keep a person intrigued.


Sources:

Los Angeles, California, "California, County Marriages, 1850-1952", Licenses & certificates v. 261-264 1916: 130 (image 859 of 1443), Ruther-Craig, 12 Sept 1916; digital images, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 20 May 2019).

"Craig is Found Dead; How Killed Mystery," Omaha World Herald, 22 Feb 1917, p. 1; digital images, GenealogyBank (www.genealogybank.com).

"Had a Premonition He Would Be Killed," Omaha Daily Bee, 23 Feb 1917, p. 7, col. 4; digital images, Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 21 May 2019), Historic American Newspapers.

"Police Believe Craig Murdered," Omaha Daily Bee, 24 Feb 1917, p. 11, col. 3-4; digital images, Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 21 May 2019), Historic American Newspapers.

"No Light Shed on Death Of John Craig at Inquest," Omaha Daily Bee, 26 Feb 1917, p. 5, col. 4; digital images, Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 21 May 2019), Historic American Newspapers.

"Manzer is Seriously Cut," Omaha daily bee, 16 July 1911, p. 5, col. 2; digital images, Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 21 May 2019), Historic American Newspapers. 

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Omaha, Douglas And Sarpy County, Nebraska. Sanborn Map Company, Vol. 2, 1901. Map.