#52Ancestors, Week 26: Slow(er) Life

The six Wedberg sisters - Nellie, Bothilda, Cecilia, Anna, Louisa, and Lena (not in that order), circa 1905

Now, I don't think anyone would ever accuse me of "living life in the fast lane."  I enjoy quiet time with my family, and I prefer to entertain my friends in my home rather than getting together at a bar or restaurant.  I do not find the idea of a girls' day out at the mall relaxing, and I still haven't given up possession of my flip phone. Essentially, given the choice, I prefer not to have immediate access to all things at all times, and I certainly don't actively seek out humanity or mass consumption.

And yet, as much as I (metaphorically) drive in the right hand lane, I know the world moves much faster for me than it did for those who lived 100 years ago (heck, even 50 or 25 years ago).  Lucky for me, one of my ancestors thought to record what the slower life was like when her family left their home in Sweden and moved to Hegewisch, Illinois, in 1891/92!  The following are various excerpts from Cecilia Ingrid (Wedberg) Hendrickson, my great grandmother's sister.

"He [my father] left Sweden, Nov. 1891, coming to his sister’s home on Brandon Avenue.  And in the summer of Aug. 21, 1892, my mother came with 6 children." Here is our first look at the comparatively slow movement of the times.  Travel from Sweden to the United States would have been by boat (possibly multiple boats) and not airplane.  The trip would have taken weeks, not hours or days.  Of course, the move was also slow in that the family did not make it together.  10 months passed before husband and wife were reunited in Illinois.  Cecilia also noted that her mother (along with 6 children - one only 5 months old) "had sat in Union Station 2 days.  Only one train left [for Hegewisch] a day." Today, we would call a taxi or an Uber and be at our destination in no time!

Cecilia also noted how families passed the time in those days. "Mother had brought her spinning wheel from Sweden, and living at 13227 Brandon Ave., the school children would come by and get up on the porch to watch her spin...There were no TV’s or radios and not many automobiles.  Our entertainment was work and study also a house party once in a while.  At those parties we played games such as kiss the pillow (this is how Lena met her 1st husband), post office, and guessing games.  Then the nickel shows started coming – a nickel was money in those days." Imagine walking home from school and stopping to watch your friend's mother work her spinning wheel.  Nowadays, I suppose it might cause a sensation as very few people would know what it was!  The children of today would consider the entertainment options meager as well.  No TV's?  No radios? Certainly no video game systems or cell phones...  And yet people still managed to enjoy their leisure and find life partners. 

(***If you want to know what those games were all about, here is what I found as I attempted to footnote Cecilia's account.

Kiss the Pillow: A boy takes a pillow and throws it at the feet of the girl he likes best, and kneels upon it; she must also kneel upon the pillow and kiss the boy.  She then takes the pillow and throws it at the feet of one of the boys and kneels on the pillow; he then kneels down, kisses, the girl, and takes his turn with the pillow – The American Home Book of In-door Games, Amusements, and Occupations, by Caroline L. Smith, page 54.

Post Office: First all players involved in the game must be divided into two groups. After the division, one of these groups will go to another room. This room will be referred to as the "Post Office."  Every individual from the group that is not in the post office must visit the post office one at a time. Everyone in the post office must kiss the visitor.  After everyone from the outside group has visited the post office, the groups switch places. Now the new post office members must kiss the visitors who arrive one at a time from the former post office group - http://www.ehow.com/list_7216807_post-office-game-rules.html***)

Obviously, Cecilia's mother was not spinning for leisure (as some do today); she was spinning because it was necessary in order to be able to clothe herself and her children.  Somehow, though, even their work sounded relaxing.  Cecilia recounted, "At that time the woods were full of flowers and wild grapes and apples which we would pick for jelly."  And you could just pick them!  You didn't have to worry that the woods belonged to someone, and no one need be concerned about having to pay for what grew from the trees and vines.  Today, we fork over money for the privilege of picking a basket of apples or choosing our own Halloween pumpkins.  It is something we do for relaxation, for recreation, for memories.  As with the spinning, though, it was something my ancestors did for survival - to ensure a full pantry.

Would I have enjoyed living this much slower lifestyle?  I like knitting the occasional sweater and making pickles and jellies from our garden's harvest, but they are not integral to my survival.  Instead of these activities, I work to have the money to pay for clothing and food.  Is this way of living any more fulfilling, though?  I doubt Great Aunt Cecilia would think so.

#52Ancestors #Week25/26 Fast & Slow

Interesting premise for both this week and next, so I shall tie them together - 'Fast' and 'Slow," a dichotomy.

I sometimes find myself envying the slower pace of days gone by, shown to us in so many ways as idyllic and pastoral - sitting on the front porch snapping beans, fishing in a nearby stream, or taking the buggy out to go visiting. All quieter activities than rush hour or the supermarket, but I've observed that there was really very little 'slow" about that way of life.

There are certainly a variety of reasons for the phrase "Grandma worked her fingers to the bone" or tales of Grandpa working the farm until weeks before his death:  if they hadn't, they wouldn't have kept the roof over their heads of food upon the table. Everything that needed doing was done by hand and by manual labor, with manual tools and the help of family and close friends. There used to be a great plenty of hurrying to get where one was going, to the next task, to prevent catastrophe (I'm thinking of the Locust Plague in Little House on the Prairie).

Farms took shape as they were purchased often side by side by brothers and then passed to their sons, often with parcels sold or traded back and forth or in at least one case in my family, an untimely death which brought the entire family together in order to pool resources to pay off the taxes. All this to say that none of this living was 'fast' or quick. One waited for the best planting and the best harvesting, tending slowly to both crops and growing children. Walks to school were often long and waits for news or trips to town were waited for with anticipation. 

I've wondered frequently what our world would be like with some additional slowness. Fast. A race to the finish. Being first to ... fill in the blank with whichever activity comes to mind. These phrases are frequent in our media and in our own heads. I am no exception but am grateful for how the pandemic has forced us to take stock of what's important. My life hasn't changed in huge ways, and I didn't take up bread baking (my mom does that!) but I do try to be more mindful about what is taking up my time. Blogging, for instance. This is my third stab at this particular entry, so I'm feeling behind and slow, but then I'm going to post it to one of the fastest places on Earth - social media, which has an attention span of 15 seconds? 

I don't think I've made a clear case, and perhaps that not my purpose, But our great-grandparents had both fast and slow, and so do we.  I think we need both.

#52Ancestors, Week 25: Fast (Divorces)

If anyone has been waiting for me to put out this week's blog post (I doubt it), I apologize for the delay.  I struggled to come up with anything for the prompt of "fast," but I had the inspiration this evening to discuss the "quickie" divorce.

I've been working on my genealogy for well over a decade now, and something I noticed early on was that Dade County, Florida, seemed to be the place to go if you wanted a fast divorce in the 1930s/40s.  It made sense for some of my relatives who LIVED in Florida, but there were others whose residences were far from the Sunshine State.  

A quick Google search revealed that Florida is a no-fault divorce state and it also offers simplified divorces.  I haven't been able to determine when this started, but currently, in order to apply for a divorce in Florida, at least one spouse must be a permanent resident for at least six months or a member of the armed forces stationed in Florida.  After that, a simplified divorce requires only the following:
* no minor/dependent children
* neither party seeking alimony
* division of property and financial obligations must be agreed to
A simplified divorce typically takes 30 days.

I mention the 30 days because, in most cases, it seemed my relatives were also in a hurry to remarry.  My grandfather's divorce from his first wife was in Dade County in 1944.  He then married my grandmother in June of 1944. I'm not certain how he managed the Florida residency requirement.  My best guess is that he was stationed in Florida at the time.  He also had a 13-year-old daughter with his first wife, so perhaps theirs was an uncontested divorce (still only a 4-6 week turnaround) rather than a simplified dissolution of marriage. 

Then you might remember a "Nobody Knows About" post concerning Jennie Grace Terpinitz.  She was a sometime resident of Florida, and that ended up being most convenient for her in terms of marriage. When her 14-year marriage to Wilbur Lambert ended in Dade County, Florida, in 1936, she had already become acquainted with her next husband, Peter William Amey.  So much could be proven through the area newspapers' society columns.  I'm guessing it was more than just an acquaintance, though, because Jennie and Peter were married in March 1936.

And while a 1936 city directory and the 1940 census placed her, respectively, in New Jersey and New York, she returned to Dade County when her 5-year marriage to Amey soured.  (Surely it didn't have anything to do with the fact that she was more than 20 years his junior...but I digress.)  Once again, there was a quick turnaround on the divorce and subsequent marriage.  The Florida Divorce Index cites her divorce in 1941, and she was married to her third husband, Elmer Clarence Johnson, on September 22nd of that same year.

Jennie didn't have children with any of her spouses, so it seems likely she went with the "simplified" option for both divorces.

#52Ancestors, Week 24: Last One Standing

This blog started out with the intent of memorializing relatives who seemed to have been lost to time.  And, as this week's #52Ancestors prompt/theme suggests, Cuzzin Heather and I are (evidently) the last ones standing as those interested in researching them.  Whether it's because they died young, died without children, were on the run from the law, were family outcasts - the list could go on - no one else is researching their fates.  Here are a few of them who have already been discussed in this blog:

Blog namesake, Horace Irwin Pearson:  Even though he was my grandfather's uncle, literally no one knew about Horace until I unearthed him during my genealogical wanderings.  A double amputee as a result of a railroad accident, Horace was little more than a mendicant at the time of his unfortunate demise. His sad ending (both his death and his burial) was what initially motivated us to start a grouping of posts called, "Nobody Knows About ---."

Horace's kid sister, Nettie M. Pearson:  Again, no one remaining on my grandfather's side of the family has heard of her.  Certainly, no one knows what became of her; in some ways, this is even more upsetting than knowing what happened to Horace. At least we know where he is buried! Nettie’s myriad marriages produced a single child, and he is also a member of the "Nobody Knows About" Club.

On my ggg grandfather's side, there was an accomplished woman by the name of Jennie Grace Terpinitz.  A 1921 graduate of the University of Illinois, she was a talented musician and enlisted during World War II. She was a trailblazing female who married 3 times, but she does not seem to have left any children, and I cannot figure out where/when she died.  It doesn't appear anyone else cares to know.

The aforementioned Nettie's son, Pierson McClure/Joseph Miller: This is Nettie's son from her first marriage, but he appears to have been adopted by a later husband (though not the last).  I managed to track him through the name change, but he disappears from all documents in the 1940s.  Since nobody knows about Nettie, it stands to reason that nobody knows about Pierson/Joseph either.

Cuzzin Heather’s List

Horace's cousin, my 2nd great-grandmother Florence Chamberlain: While I have a photo of her from my grandmother and a rich family connection to my grandmother's family (her many siblings and lots of cousins for my mom and my generations), Florence is something of an enigmatic figure. She may have been an orphan - no one knows.  Her 3rd son (and possibly other children) were not her husband's children, and of the 15 or so known grandchildren, only 2 were available for interview or remembered/knew anything about her, and even that produced negligible information.

Florence's ne’er-do-well eldest son, Uncle Herbert Chamberlain. Gramps remembered him, his 7-years older brother who disappeared at 20. Another member of the "Nobody-Knows-About" club, he nevertheless left nieces, great-nieces and nephews and one very stubborn great-great-niece and her cousin who have tried, and so far-failed, to determine his fate.

Fern Evelyn McClain Grimmett Anderson Christianson:  Aunt Fern was not alone or hiding. However she seems to have led a somewhat independent for the times kind of life, blazed a trail first to Chicago and then to California for herself and her children, thrice divorced (or possibly widowed once or twice). Despite her two children and a small number of grandchildren and step-grandchildren, I've been unable to unearth even a single identifiable photo or reminiscence. A few photos of my great-grandmother and her sisters/niece survive, all unlabeled.  

These are just a few of our more notable “lost to time” relatives. There are many more - inside and outside of our shared lines. We will continue searching and recording what we can.

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. —George Eliot

#52Ancestors, Week 23: So Many Descendants

I have my pick of families with "so many descendants," but I think I'll focus on my grandfather and his brothers and sisters.  As Uncle Toot (sounds like the "toot" in Tootsie Roll) recalled, there were more children than he could remember, but he did his best one day to list all of them for my dad.  Somewhere, there was a cassette recording of this discussion.  I'm assuming it was tossed a long time ago, but maybe it will materialize one of these days.

Including my grandfather, I have recorded 10 children born to Francisco (Frank) and Santa Palermo.  My grandfather's oldest sibling was Antonino (Tony) Francisco Palermo born in November 1904.  Uncle Tony and his wife, Mary, had 4 children - 1 boy and 3 girls.

Next was Rocco Palermo, born on Independence Day in 1906.  Sadly, there is little to tell about Rocco, who was named after his grandfather, Santa's father.  Rocco's death certificate relates that he died of typhoid fever in September 1912.  He was six years old.

The first girl born to Frank and Santa was Paola (Pauline) in January 1909.  She was named after Santa's mother.  Pauline was married twice. The first marriage was to Salvatore Vantimiglia, and they had at least one son, Joseph Frances Vantimiglia, in 1935. After Salvatore’s death, Pauline married Archibald Madison.  This was a late-in-life marriage, and I don't have any children recorded, but writing this post reminds me that I need to look further into this.  

Grandpa Martin was born in 1910.  In his brief life, he was married twice.  His first marriage to Rose Tomasek produced one daughter, Delores Rose.  His marriage to my grandmother resulted in my aunt and my father.

Next came another girl, Francis T., in April 1912.  I don't know what the "T" stands for because the only documentation I have that Francis existed is her death certificate.  She succumbed to bronchial pneumonia at only 16 days old.  Her headstone reads "Francis T. Palermo - Sweet Baby Girl."

Salvatore Rocco Palermo (Uncle Toot) was born in May 1913. Because both Rocco and Francis passed before his birth, I wonder if he knew to include them in his list of siblings.  Are there other siblings who died in infancy that came later, and I haven't found them?  Once again, writing this post reminds me to revisit the Missouri Digital Birth Records to see if I can locate any additional Palermo children.  Uncle Toot married Dorothea Lischer in 1935 and had 3 children with her, 2 girls and 1 boy.

Nicholas Palermo was born in December 1914.  Once again, I see that I need to revisit this particular sibling of Grandpa Martin's.  I have two marriages recorded for Nicholas, but I don't have any children noted.  A quick search for the 1950 census reveals two stepchildren, presumably children from wife, Marie's, first marriage. 

Anna Marie Palermo was born in January 1917. She married Richard Wegman and had at least one daughter with him.  The last time I researched this side of my family, the 1950 census was not yet available.  One of the first things I will do once I am done with this post is seek out those census records. As Richard and Anna's daughter was born in 1937, it is quite possible I will find additional children on the 1950 census.  The same goes for many of Anna's siblings.

Anna's sister, Beatrice Rose, was born April 1919. She married Charles Zammit, and they had at least one son.  Once again, the 1950 census and/or another scouring of Missouri birth/death records may unearth more.

The final (as far as I know) child born to Frank and Santa Palermo was Francisco Antonio (Frank Jr.) in 1921. Frank and his wife, Christine, had at least 4 children - 2 boys and 2 girls.

That tallies up to at least 16 grandchildren for Frank and Santa. I'm certain I have larger families who produced more descendants, but I'm glad I chose to write about this particular generation of Palermos.  I don't know nearly enough about them, but that is something I will try to rectify as soon as I hit "Publish" on this post.

#52Ancestors #Week23 - So Many Descendants

This week’s prompt made me laugh out loud. I am Irish Catholic on my mother’s side.  That’s it, that’s the blog, lol.

I don’t have any idea the exact number of descendants (I could count them, but my grandfather had 27 first cousins, and that was just on his dad’s side!)  However, when I looked at Pulaski County, Illinois and my 2nd great grandfather, I found the extraordinarily large families I needed in Mine and Cuzzin’s neck of the woods.

Harry Coleson, my Gramps’ biological father, was an only child, his mother likely having died in his infancy as he was raised by his grandmother. However, he was surrounded by loads of aunts, uncles and cousins. As of today’s research, his mother was born toward the middle of her parents’ twelve children, and her father (Thomas Jefferson Parker) was one of fourteen!  Harry was married and together with his wife Amelia had 9 children (2 of their daughters died in infancy), and that's in addition to my Gramps, his other son.

As for the number of descendants of these families, I went through my trees and made a bit of a list. If I include the living and the long passed, the number exceeds hundreds, but what ends up being more interesting is that with 12 or 14 children, most of whom lived reasonably long lives for the times, the names of in-laws and grandchildren end up encompassing many of the area’s surnames!  This is how my Cuzzin and I keep finding ourselves chasing our relationship to one another around in circles!

For those that care to read on, I’ll outline some of the family below. Harry Coleson, only child, had 28 known grandchildren. As I am his descendant and I have a general idea of how many cousins I have in both my family and those descended from his wife Milly, let me just close with my answer to this week’s prompt:  A LOT!

Harry Coleson married Amelia “Milly” Kesner:

Lloyd Edgar Coleson, had 6 - 9 children

Mabel Mae Coleson, had 2 daughters

Frank E Coleson, had 3 children

Cassie Coleson - died in infancy

Elise Marie - died in infancy

Jessie Marie Pauline Coleson, had 4 children

Viola M Coleson, had 3 sons

Wilber Coleson, had 1 daughter?

Roy C. Coleson, had 2 children

Harry Coleson and Florence Hughes Chamberlain:

Clyde W. Chamberlain, had 7 children, 28 grandchildren, 30+ great-grands

#52Ancestors #Week22 For Real This Time - At the Polish Cemetery

Summer 2014. Our youngest was dating and about to turn 18. Our son was in the Twin Cities, and our oldest, who had moved home, was working 2 jobs and going to school. The mom taxi had become superfluous, and I had a hatchback I was about to put to thorough use, in addition to getting the grand-dog through the drive-thru.

In the first half of June, the job I had worked at since moving back to our hometown 12 years prior closed permanently, laying off about 4 dozen of us, and those of us that had been there a while received a fair severance package, so I planned to take at least a few weeks off prior to hitting the job search with gusto. In the meantime, I needed a hobby that I could sink my resources into. I don't garden, and since trying to train for our local half marathon hadn't panned out the summer prior, I went with a life-long passion - genealogy. My youngest had joined me in a few adventures and we had gone on quite a few field trips to local and regional cemeteries. My family is not rooted in our town or even nearby, but my husband has a branch here. I made some phone calls.

The Polish Cemetery on the edge of town is one of two here set aside for the Polish immigrants that settled here, most of them in the late 1880's. There is a small churchyard way outside of town, and this larger cemetery which abuts three others, all in a row. "Polish" as many refer to it, is bounded on 2 sides by the much larger Catholic cemetery, and it turns out that there was a significant dispute many decades ago regarding how the Catholic church handled differences, and the cemeteries became separate entities.

Older burials are a bit scattered throughout a few of the sections closest to the road, the cemetery driveways having become paved long after the first burials here. I decided to set to work on the first section geographically, although in the books this is section #2. I started cleaning the graves closest to the entrance road, and very quickly found that a gardening spade, a scissors and gardening gloves were NOT going to be sufficient. I hadn't done a great deal of research or talked to anyone who knew more than I, simply obtained permission from the sextant (I've since taken a preservation class and learned a bit more). It didn't take long for me to ask my husband to join me and have a look at what I was undertaking and weigh in regarding tools. Here is the list I ended up with, packed in my car with the spade and the gloves:

A long-handled edger, the kind you use along your sidewalk in the spring to make a straight edge.

A soft brush.

Water.  LOTS of water.

Sunscreen and bug dope.

A sweatshirt, just in case.

Sturdy shoes and a hat.

A five-gallon bucket (this is for hauling weeds/sod to the edge of the woods).

Cell phone (per husband, do NOT leave in car)

It's been almost 10 years, so I'm probably forgetting something important, and can no longer locate the little instructional video I made at the time. I had fun, I had rest and relaxation and I probably lost a few pounds. I saw a lot of deer, I talked with quite a few older folks coming to pay their respects to loved ones, and I learned a little Polish spelling and pronunciation.  And yes, I hurt myself. My goal was ultimately to remove sod from stones that were no longer visible, as there is very little funding and volunteers are few. I had no plans to invest in D2 or the scrubbing of individual stones.  There was one stone in particular that was just outside the section I worked that I'd had my eye on unearthing, and when I worked on it, found that the stone had been broken in half, likely many years ago.  It was not large, so I chose the smaller half and carried it (maybe 20 feet) to one of the faucets and gave it a good bath.  I'll just say that tired as I was that afternoon, I should have left the other half for another day.  I paid for that choice with a bulging disc for about a year and a half.

All told, I did clear an entire section, and a few other spots. In the years since, the sod has regrown and I'd like to give it another go, but I do think it's going to have to be someone else's turn.  I'm currently working on some of my state's poor farm cemetery records, from the relative safety of my living room.