#52Ancestors #Week50 - You Wouldn't Believe It

It's been nearly 250 years since Benjamin Franklin wrote that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. I add to that that we can all expect laundry, and surprises. If surprises aren't coming in your genealogy search, you might be doing it wrong (tongue firmly in cheek).

Last week's surprise may not have been a huge deal, but it did lead me down the proverbial rabbit hole to try to document the lives of three of my Gramps' 1st cousins. The three of these siblings were all born within just a few years of Gramps in the same neck of the woods in Pulaski County, Illinois, but when the cousins were very small, they had moved to busy St. Louis.

In writing about the middle sibling Henry last week, I believe I only mentioned his sisters briefly (runs to look). Grace Lillian Chamberlain was born in November 1896, six months after her parents' marriage. As a 4-year-old in the 1900 Census, she is listed as Grace, but spent the majority of her life as "Lillian." She is fairly easy to follow through years of records, and lived with her husband and daughter in Kentucky, eventually moving to the Carolinas. Her daughter Elizabeth does not appear to have married or had any children, so like Henry, that line is now extinct.

Minnie Elizabeth was born on an unknown date in 1901. She is not nearly as cooperative at appearing in the records, but down that rabbit hole, there were a few surprises. At age five, she wanders from her maternal aunt and uncle's home with Henry and is found sleeping in the doorway of a St. Louis theater. When Henry is living with Dad in Arkansas in 1910, the girls and their mother are nowhere to be found. I could assume that the three of them were together, but prefer to keep looking.

In 1915, a Minnie Chamberlain, age 14 and born in Illinois, appears in Sioux City, Iowa as an inmate at the Convent of the Good Shepherd. She is working as a laundress. She is still in residence there in 1920, although she has reached the age of majority (I think - it may have been 21 in those days). She may have had no where else to go, I am still looking for Lillian and their mother had remarried and was living in rural Missouri with her much younger husband, Lonie. Had Minnie done something to be judged the equivalent of a juvenile delinquent? Had she been housed as an orphan? Regardless of how she came to be in western Iowa, she appears there a 3rd time in late 1922, on a birth certificate for baby girl Chamberlain, with all of the information for father entered repeatedly as "unknown."

In 1927, Minnie appears back in St. Louis in a single newspaper article. She was working as a dancer and had been caught in a significant theft of her employer. The same article reports she has left her husband behind in Illinois, but declines to state WHERE in Illinois and does not clarify what her penalty is for this theft. A short time later, for the 1930 Census, Henry is out of state and Minnie and Lillian "missing."

However, what I have found in 1930 is their mother May, her husband Lonnie, and a 7-year-old whose relationship is not noted. My wonderful Cuzzin can tell you how eager I am when it comes to surprises, and it took me approximately an hour to follow THIS new trail and find that this young girl had an extremely similar name AND the same birthdate as that baby born in 1922 Iowa. I've withheld her name and date of birth, but my working theory based on all of the facts and the available information on her adulthood, is that this 7-year-old little girl was the daughter of Minnie and her young step-father, only 7 years her senior. However, this woman appears to be still living, just 101 years old.

Minnie, of course, is long deceased.  At least by about twenty years, if her longevity reached anything similar to her daughter's. Despite the fact that she is listed as Mrs. Montgomery in her parent's obituaries in the mid-1940's, her location is missing, and I have no further information on her.  What I do have is the information that my Gramp's cousin was a flapper or perhaps burlesque dancer in the same city and at the same time as Josephine Baker was taking flight on an international career (they'd even been small children in the same neighborhood)!

#52Ancestors #Week49 - The Family Recipes

 Oh, Gram.  I’m so sorry that I’m not giving your tradition of good recipes a fair shake. I have so many of them, and I do treasure them, but you see, I’m just not very GOOD at this cooking thing.

For decades, an old composition book lay in my Grandma’s kitchen drawer. You know the ones, with the black and white speckled pattern on the cover?  This one is similar, but the cover was probably a light tan at one point.  It is now a dark sepia, and the pages are dark and thoroughly stained. My mom has it now, and it contains many of my gray gramma’s most-used recipes from her first decade in Wisconsin as a young wife and mother. I currently have a copy, as mom had the entire thing professionally scanned and copies given to several family members.  

My daughter and I have tried a few of the entries: Vanilla Pretzels (really a cookie) - Delicious!  Brown Bread - maybe try that one again. And a family favorite, which I’ve made for many years (particularly birthdays and holidays) ‘Nana Puddin’ Yes, Gram was from the south. Green beans and bacon grease didn’t make it into the book, likely because you don’t need a recipe. Sadly, my mom bemoans that no one ever recorded her fried chicken recipe. As lost as KFC is secret.

Due to my lack of cooking ability, or maybe just because I’m a history nerd, some of my favorite pages are in the back of that book, where Gram kept track of household expenses.  Even the deposit to set up the electricity, which tells me this was recorded in the mid to late 1920’s.  

#52Ancestors #Week48 - Troublemaker

Henry Chamberlain was my 3rd great grandfather, and the only thing written about him in addition to a few civil records are his two obituaries - not an uncommon occurrence at a time when there were multiple competing papers, some issued in the morning and some after supper. Even less is written about his wife Elizabeth, her obit a mere two lines notifying the locality of her demise. Their 3rd son Lyman T Chamberlain has a little improved paper trail, as he was divorced (his second) in Arkansas and I can say from his World War I Draft Registration that he was a blue-eyed blonde man approaching middle aged, he referred to himself as "stout" and he had a "left hand badly crippled." Not knowing if he was right-handed, or if this was a congenital issue or the result of a horrific injury, there is no way to elaborate on how this affected his life.

Lyman's son, Henry Chamberlain II, shows off from his moniker that Lyman (and perhaps his first wife) revered or at least had some respect for his father, who was alive and well at the time. When Henry was born, his father was a teacher and his mother Mary, who was called May, and Aunt Viola Chamberlain were the women of the house at 146 Elm Street, Mound City, Illinois.

By July of 1906, the family is living in St Louis, Missouri, when this unfortunate incident was reported by the city paper:

Henry was actually older that Minnie, and their older sister Lillian, who may have been at home, is not named in this report. Also, the children's mother was in fact very much alive, but as the children seem to have been residing with their uncle, and Lyman was then nearby, I can only guess as to May's whereabouts.

The following year, a terrible accident befell Henry. The article portrays him as a bit older than he was at the time, it also speculates regarding his imminent demise, which thankfully did not come to pass.

Just a few short months after the above accident, an inquest is held in the death of Uncle William Allen's young wife, although what the conclusion of the investigation was, is unknown. The article does reveal that the Allen and Chamberlain families were living in the same block of Washington Street during those few years. In 1910 Henry is living with his father and new stepmother in northeast Arkansas. His sisters may have been with their mother, but this is not known. At any rate, Henry may have been left to his own devices, as the below article indicates. The identity of D.W. Chamberlain is a mystery, as there is no known relative with those initials.

The very next indication of Henry, he is back in Mound City, and he identifies himself as a carpenter by profession, but his registration for the draft is filled out with his current residence noted as "In Jail." He is 18 years old, has blue eyes like his father, and records Dad as his next of kin, also in Mound City. I do wonder if Lyman was residing in the same jail.

Further digging revealed that Henry Chamberlain had already been "home" in Illinois for at least two years. In the spring of 1916 he'd married Miss Georgia Garnett, and they had a son who must have been stillborn or only lived a few hours. The marriage must not have survived (or possibly the mother died as well), since Henry marries again in the spring of 1919 to Edith Margaret Shoat. The couple are living in Kankakee County in northern Illinois, but this marriage too is short-lived. 

Henry is not found in the 1920 or 1930 Census (yet) but in January 1931 he marries Eva Theresa Eckenrod, 11 years his senior, in Ohio. Two and a half years later, she died of tuberculosis in Detroit, Michigan. In 1933 he has returned to St Louis and is busy meeting and marrying Clara "Smiles" Shinn (October 1934), who was also a many-times-married and divorced lady. Eva and Clara were both the parents of infant daughter by prior marriages, each baby lived only a few days, so it leaves open the question of whether Henry bonded with them over their shared experience.

Both the chosen city and this fourth (for both of them) marriage seems to have suited both parties, and they are still together throughout the 1940 Census and WWII. Mysteriously, sometime around the time of their marriage, Henry begins to be recorded periodically as "Harry Hamilton" or "Harry Hamilton Chamberlain." His middle name as recorded on previous documents and in his later death certificate is "Tilden," the same as his father's.

On June 11, 1945, Mary Chamberlain (now the wife of John Van Eenoo) died of breast cancer in St. Louis. Her obituary lists her three children from her first marriage. Not long after in February 1947, Lyman Chamberlain died. Henry was the informant on the death certificate and reported that his father was the widower of Mary Chamberlain! Lyman too is "remembered fondly by his three children and grandchildren." 

Clara died in November 1960 of a fatal heart attack. She was buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in that city. They had been together nearly 30 years.

Henry died in June 1963 in St Louis after suffering from kidney cancer. Most of the fields in his death certificate were left as unknown. and his death certificate indicates that he was buried at Oakdale Cemetery, although Find a Grave notes he is at Memorial Park like his wife AND in Oakdale.

Perhaps this gentleman (first cousin to my Gramps Clyde) was a troublemaker in his youth and reformed in his 30s. I'd sure like to know where he was from age 21 to 31!

#52Ancestors #Week45 - War & Peace

 Every Veteran's Day, my Heart Swells with pride regarding all of my favorite veterans. It's some kind of serendipity that "Week 45" is for war and peace, as 1945 was the year that both of my grandfathers began their peacetime lives, after several years of war.

My ancestors "served" in the Indian wars that marked the colonialism of this continent. One is lauded on a memorial at the Battle of Point Pleasant, which frankly I wish that they'd reinscribe with the names of the indigenous individuals that were slaughtered for their land. While most of my more recent ancestors served on the side of the Union, Benjamin Everett Pearson, previously recorded, served on the side of the Lost Cause. I do wonder where his perspectives might lie today. 

There were a few distant cousins that served during the Great War, mostly adult cousins of my Grams Hazel Greenwell Chamberlain from Missouri, and one of my grandfather's relatives from Wisconsin who was killed in France.

My Grandfathers were good yet complicated men, as most humans are. 

My Irish Grandfather (Army and Army Air Corp) tried to enlist in the Wisconsin National guard at 17, but his mother sent word that he was underage and he was sent home, only to reenlist when he came of age. He did many trainings in the south and in Wisconsin and South Dakota, later being sent to England where he participated in the rescue of civilians at the Freckleton Air Disaster, and towed gliders during the D-Day operations. Later, in days that he rarely mentioned, and then only if asked, he served as guard detail for the higher command as they inspected the liberated camps. One of his photos, a large pile of shoes in Dachau. Grandpa's brother Jim was also in Europe, and their sister, Aunt Sally, served later and worked for a time at the Pentagon.

My Iowa grandfather (Army) enlisted after Pearl Harbor and was stationed briefly in North Carolina with his brother Jack prior to being sent to England for a time, then departed by ship across the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy several days into the D-Day operation. He watched as the ship on the approach next to his hit a mine and exploded, as far as he knew killing all aboard. The men he served with made it across France and into Germany and were within a day or two of Berlin when Allied victory was declared. 

During Vietnam, my dad and later my mom both enlisted in the U.S Air Force. Their gorgeous engagement photo shows them both in their dress uniforms (They were very young, and divorced when I was 6). Neither of them served overseas, Mom because she married and was soon pregnant with me, and Dad because he had minor health issues that likely would no longer affect his service as they did then, although he lost many friends who were sent. My mom's brother followed Grandpa in the Wisconsin Air National Guard, and my dad's sister married a serviceman, living in Germany long enough for my cousin to be born there.

Later I married my husband, who served 22 years honorably in both the Army, later transferring to the Air National Guard. He is an Iraqi Vet (2006-07). Through the decades of his service, it's not a small thing to say that although I don't qualify on paper, I too have served in my own way, as have oour children. I will never forget the way our daughter saluted him as he departed down the jetway.

There are so many others. My husband's brother, USMC. My husband's uncles and one grandfather, my cousin Pat. Please know that if you are a veteran and are reading this, you are appreciated.

#52Ancestors #Week38 - Lillie Faces Adversity

My Great Aunt Lillie was named after her father's surviving sister, who lived in Indiana, unlikely to ever have met one another. Since I've discovered through DNA that Gramps was not the biological son of the man who raised him, I've wondered the same about his sister, who was closest to his own age. In fact, the actual dates of their birth are suspect, as they are recorded in various records as follows:

Clyde, born October 1903 in Illinois

Lillie, born January 1904 in Illinois.

What I suspect isx more likely, since the siblings are enumerated as age 18 and age 16 in the 1920 Census, is that Lillie was likely born in January 1905, making her 15.  Everyone else in the family is listed with an incorrect age that year asa well, so this actually makes the most sense.

In 1920, she is the youngest in the household of her parents, with 2 older brothers and she has not attended school in the past year, nor is she working. 

She was born to parents who appear to have been quite religious later in life but Lillie was 3 months pregnant when she married James Hollis Chandler in Kennett, Missouri, and lived there long enough to deliver her two eldest children. Her daughter was named for her grandmother Chamberlain and Lillie's new sister in-law, Hazel, and two years later she named her son Arthur Lee.  He was called Lee all his life, which was both his grandmother's middle name and the name of another Chamberlain uncle assumed to have died in childhood, as there is no trace of him after age 2 (1900 Census). The Chandler's 4rd child, also a son, was unnamed and only lived 12 hours. He is likely buried near his Grandmother Chandler in Bethlehem Cemetery near Whiteville, Tennessee.

Between Albert Lee's birth in 1928 and the 1940 Census (which places the family in rural Hardeman County, Tennessee in 1935) there is no sign of the Chandler family except for a very small news clipping from August 1934. It seems the Hollis (then age 36) and a neighbor, Ben Deaton (age 28) had a dispute about the incoming corn crop, corn that Hollis may have been tending, but the land he lived on was rented from the Deatons. Ben pulled a knife, and Hollis shot Ben. Hollis was held in the county jail, and Lillie was home with the children, knowing that Ben's widow was about to give birth (a son was born to Mrs. Deaton 3 weeks after her husband's death). That area of Hardeman County remains very rural, and it isn't difficult to imagine both families attending the same church. Hollis was bound over for trial just over a year after the event. He may have been home at some point during that year, but I can't fathom how he might have secured bond, or how Lillie would have supported herself and three children alone. Adding to the list of her woes, this was the middle of the Great Depression, in the South!

Hollis Chandler was known to have been married two other times in addition to Lillie, also possibly having a common law marriage, possibly without divorcing Lillie. Family stories paint him as a ne'er do well who frequently lived with his daughter. He had fathered 2 other children with his 1st wife, and possibly one other daughter later in life. In 1940, he is with Lillie and their children and working in "private business" as a wood peddler. No one in the household is listed as having more than a handful of years of education. To say that Lillie had "inconsistency" in her life would have been an understatement. 

During World War II, surely Lillie would have been more than thankful that her oldest son was too young to serve, but also could have badly used the money he might have send home. Flossie had begun to work as a waitress, and appears to have continued to live at home well into her 30's. When he reached maturity, Lee went north to Wisconsin and stayed with his Uncle Clyde and Aunt Hazel. Lee married and remained in Wisconsin.

Also during the war, Albert and Florence Chamberlain left their land in Barry County, Missouri and moved in to Lillie's home in Jackson, Tennessee. Lillie now had elderly parents, an adult daughter, a son far away, 4 other young children (the youngest an infant) and a husband who seems to have come and gone. Her parents didn't live with them long. Albert was out for his evening walk and was struck by a train (I wish I were joking), and Florence passed away two years later. With the death of their parents, CLyde made his only known trip to Tennessee. Without knowing how brother and sister got along, I hope their reunion brought each of them some pleasure at a sad time. 

In 1955, the Chandlers received a tax easement / eminent domain on .04 acres. Based on where they are known to have lived, this could have been for street improvements at what was rapidly becoming "in town" versus the edge of town. I hope eminent domain portion of this transaction benefitted the family.

In 1962, Lillie became ill with cancer and passed away in June 1963 at age 60. She had a handful of grandchildren, and her funeral was a religious one. I don't have any photos that include Lillie, and efforts to reach her grandchildren have been less than successful. 

#52Ancestors #Week36 - Tradesmen

*stone wall, Derbyshire

I had to dig a little sideways for some tradesman, for as I stated to an acquaintance earlier this week, I come from sturdy farm stock, as probably greater than 90% of my forebears worked their own or someone else's farm for a living.  There are noted exceptions in my Dutch great-grandfather's line - they were shoemakers, both of traditional shoes and wooden klompen.

Back to my Gramps Clyde Chamberlain's birthplace and his biological father: Harry Edgar Coleson, unacknowledged father of Clyde, was also a farmer, however his father Lester (who somehow appears not to have stuck around to know or raise his son, certainly not past infancy) did work in the trades for some time.  The 1880 census lists him as "working in the hinge works" in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, which is not terribly far from Pittsburgh. This record is difficult to read. Later he is employed as a foreman (factory supervisor, perhaps?) at the streetcar company, and even later at the same streetcar company as "watchman, age 79!

His father, Ulysses Coleson, is enumerated in both 1850 and 1860 (Pennsylvania and Illinois, respectively) as a stone mason in construction. Stonemasonry is one of the oldest professions, stonework comprising the most ancient of structures. As the 4th son of his parents, though his father in turn was far from wealthy, he may have needed to learn a trade to support himself, as he wouldn't have been the primary inheritor of his family's farmland or finances under traditional inheritance practices of the day. 

I certainly haven't researched this branch of my family nearly as thoroughly as I need to (as covered in previous posts, the Colesons were something of a surprise), but now I have a reason to be more curious. Perhaps stone masonry was something handed down through the generations.  Before Ulysses were Thomas, then Samuel, and before that Thomas John Coleson from Derbyshire. Wouldn't it be wonderful to discover a medieval stone structure in ENgland built by a forebear?

#52Ancestors #Week35 - DISASTER

 Amy Johnson Crow has brought my Cuzzin and I together in a quest to make it through 52 weeks of writing about our (mostly Pearson) ancestors with her weekly topical challenges.  This week's "Disaster" prompt encourages us to highlight a disaster that befell our ancestors or a disaster in our own research. Why not both?

^^^America, Illinois March 2018

Much has been documented about the Great Ohio River flood of 1937. My grandmother was a teen that year, and most of her Pearson and Chamberlain relatives lived far away from their hometowns on both the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers by that point. Her grandparents, however, were still living and had many cousins and friends still living and farming in the flood plain. 

There had been so many major floods over the years, bringing evacuations and significant damages. This was a time when many rural folk still lived on what passed for houseboats on the major rivers, when even major roads weren't yet paved, and the Great Depression had not yet been relieved by the War Effort. I've spent a small amount of time in both Pulaski County, Illinois on the Ohio and Pemiscot County, Missouri on the Mississippi, some of it on land so flat it feels as if one can see at least all the way across the state. I've read reports about how the water in 1937 came up to the 2nd story of small houses that were miles from the river.  I will not even pretend to imagine the terror as the river swallowed everything the residents knew. Every neighbor's house, every general store, every school in so many little towns with people already struggling to get by.

The flood brought another kind of destruction I know that any genealogist or historian will understand:  It destroyed the bulk of old records at the Pulaski County Courthouse. Few records remain prior to 1900, and even those after 1900 are often faded or water stained. SO many records that really should exist and often are easily found in other locations, are just gone. Also, on my first trip to research Grandma's roots, I said many times and wrote in my journal that I had never seen so many cemeteries in such poor repair. You can see the toll that's been taken right there, in the eroded stones and the stones tipped off of their bases due to the sodden ground. 

These events were tragic when they occured; they changed lives and futures. I have no intent to diminish the impact felt then.  The effects are only frustrating now, as Cuzzin and I call, email and scroll, hoping that the ONE record we NEED has survived and can be found.

#52Ancestors #Week27 - The Great Outdoors

No, Not the Cult Classic Movie of Memes: The Chamberlain family's adventuring!

I did not grow up in a household that hunted or fished. I did, though, grow up hiking in the real wilderness and tent-camping every summer from ages 8 - 18. LOTS of camping. Also, since my first summer, we stayed with my grandparents at two different Wisconsin cabins, playing croquet, swimming and most of all, FISHING! There was Muskie Camp with Chamberlain great-aunts and great-uncles, fabulous and fun folk, all! 

One of my favorite cabin memories was of the first summer my grandparents took my cousin and I, both age 4, to the cabin, and one of the things we looked forward to was roasting the giant pink and yellow marshmallows they'd bought as a treat. I remember the torrential rain that evening, and my grandpa dressing in his rain gear (looking like a sea captain) and going out to grill our marshmallows, near the kitchen window so that we could watch. They loved us so well.

It was very likely that same summer that we were 4 that Grandpa started teaching us about Ootie Bugs. What the What? you may ask! The cabin was just a short distance up the road from a sandstone outcropping, where we went frequently to play in the sand, carve in the sandstone (we were children, we followed what the adults were doing) and climb the little incline with Grandpa. In the sandy spots in the incline, sandflies made their homes and Grandpa taught is that if we shouted into the holes, the "Ooties" would come out!  So if you ever see two women in their 50's, one dark haired annd one fair, shouting into the sand, we are only remembering our Grandpa. And the "Sand-Pit" was decimated - condos are there now. Grandma made up her own little songs in order to teach us the names of all the animals. She loved entertaining little songs that she remembered from childhood, and made these up for us:

                    A deer, a deer, a daddy deer, what is it?

                    A Buck! we'd shout.

                    A deer, a deer, a mommy deer, what is it?

                    A doe! we'd shout.

                    A deer, a deer, a baby deer, what is it?

                    A fawn!

My grandma took us strawberry picking, and when we were older, my Grandpa taught us how fish (you'd better believe we bait our own hooks) and to row a rowboat or canoe. 

I've lost the details, but I have memory of Gramps Chamberlain's (Grandma's dad) story of getting lost on a hunting trip (likely with his sons Clyde and Harry) and falling asleep in an abandoned eagle's nest.  True perhaps but must consider the source. Unfortunately, any fishing lore is lost to (my) memory. He and Gram also helped look out for the widow across the street and her household of children, and my grandma would regale us with stories of how her dad would load both families into his car (over a dozen children between the two families, so perhaps a truck) and had before the trip bought enough watermelon and other melons for all. I know that they made ice cream at home, so perhaps brought that along.

My grandma and her cousin Helen were born only weeks apart and grew up next door to each other. They were the oldest, and when they were growing up their neighborhood was the end of town, Grandma & Helen would each take a potato from home, and some matches. They would go to the field at the end of their street and dig a small hole and cook their potatoes for a snack, and gaze up at the stars. I can just see their dark-haired heads bent together giggling and planning a new adventure.

Also, when Grandma and Helen were about 11 or 12, they spent a summer in Missouri, mostly on the farms of Uncle Minard & Uncle Ben. I'm sure they must have participated in farm chores, and perhaps a year earlier had traveled to another part of Missouri to visit Gramps Chamberlain's parents. Grandma remembers them as hillbillies who scarcely had a home, a shack with a dirt floor. For the life they led with the most minimal of comforts and exposure to the elements, they certainly lived a long life.

Prior to these tidbits of stories that have survived, Uncle Minard, Uncle Ben and almost every single relative of their generation and prior were all farmers, many hewing farms from the wilderness as my family moved from the original Colonies to Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri. In particular, Gramps Chamberlain's grandfather Henry died when Gramps was a teen, his cause of death listed as both skin cancer and face cancer. No doubt from a life lived behind a plow or on a horse. There are also stories of cousins in that family that drowned in the Ohio River and in the Mississippi, to say nothing of the known tornados or prairie fires that sometimes ravaged the area.

I have the utmost respect for those that both taught us about nature, and for those thatb came before them that were in close and daily contact with the land. I recently finished a book about gifts of the land, and I'm certainly grateful for the exposure I've had to the Great Outdoors.

DNA Non-Answers #52Ancestors #Week17

Oh, Ancestry DNA (insert shrug).  I've learned some unexpected things, but the things I think DNA will HELP with, not so much. It doesn't help that the youngest person involved has been dead for about 150 years. 

About 2 years ago I found out some unexpected news regarding my many-times-mentioned great-grandfather Clyde Chamberlain.  He is well known among all of his grandchildren and great grandchildren as a serial skirt-chaser. Since DNA testing became popular, many of us have expected to find a few people descended from him in addition to his 7 children with his wife.  I mean, all of that activity, most of it before 1970, one would expect...

But no. As I've written about previously, Gramps was not the biological son of the man who raised him, and I'm reasonably certain he didn't know.  His biological father's family is both well-known and well documented, as the bio-dad in question had 9 children with HIS wife and in turn, several grandchildren and great grandchildren interested in their heritage.

The mystery that I want to talk about, however, is that man's mother and his maternal forebears.

Armilda Parker was born in Nov 1853, her son born when she was about 19. She is assumed to have died in childbirth as she does not appear in 1880 or after (if your're looking, she had a cousin with the same name - it's not her.  Her little son also was living with his grandmother in the 1880 census. Grandmother Parker in turn lived an exceptionally long life, both for the times and considering that she gave birth to at least twelve children.  Elizabeth Sheppard (the preferred surname spelling at the time) lived until probably about 80-85 years of age (her death date between 1900 - 1910 is assumed but not known at this time. She does not appear to have left much, if any information regarding her family of origin for posterity.  In the same vein as my cousin's statement, if you're not a genealogist you may wonder why I care about the identity of my 4th great-grandparents, but there it is.  Mystery Mr. and Mrs Sheppard, perhaps of Kentucky, perhaps of Illinois.  No one seems to know for sure, although there are a variety of guesses. The information that I find especially perturbing is that there are quite a few Sheppard marriages in the immediate area, around the same date as Elizabeth's marriage to Thomas Jefferson Parker, making many of them likely siblings, but I have been unable to determine parents for any of them!

It's my hope, at the moment, that if I chose the "shared matches" option and hit "refresh" enough times, the answer will pop from my computer screen, because not only are we dealing with burned courthouses, but some major flooding as well (insert fist shaking this time!)

*Likely burial place of both Armilda and Elizabeth

E is for Ella

 My great great grandfather Chamberlain had 2 baby sisters, the older one, closest to his own age, was Ella.  According to both the 1870 Census, taken when she was just a month old, and a family letter written just a few months later, she was named Nancy after her grandmother, but called by her middle name, Ella.  Perhaps this was to differentiate between the little girl and her Gran, who lived just a short ways across the fields of Pulaski County.  

Almost nothing at all is known about young Ella, except she was described as a blue eyed baby, and as an older daughter of the family, she no doubt was helpful to her mother, especially as several siblings joined the family: a sister next and a few more brothers were younger.

I imagine Ella helping with farm chores or chasing her younger siblings, long skirts damp from long grasses or from wading in the Ohio during low-water summers.  I imagine her mother Elizabeth handing things to her or braiding her daughter’s hair.  I imagine her older brothers, Albert and Lawrence, probably teasing her, or perhaps one of their friends had an eye on 16 year old Ella.

In the spring of 1886, Ella was very ill.  We don’t know how long she may have been ill, or what might have been tormenting her. She was 16 (records have her as 17 1/2, but according to her age as 1 month old in June of 1870, I believe her to be within a week or 2 of her 16th birthday. She was also unmarried, so far as we know.

She died in May 16th, and her death was listed as puerperal (missing the notation of “fever”). Was she pregnant, or had she delivered a baby, alive or stillborn?  Nothing further is noted, but I have seen a large number of death certificates and find it difficult to believe there was another cause.  Even old death certificates tend to leave accurate medical assessments.

There’s no real way to know, as the surviving records are sparse.  Ella was buried in a (currently) unmarked plot in the Smith Cemetery, which is near where her parents lived. There is no known connection between the others buried in the cemetery and the Chamberlain family, but there are a couple young men interred in that spot who certainly could have been a love interest to a young 16 year old…

Gone too Soon - #52Ancestors Week 9 - Patricia Ann Chamberlain

 This week’s prompt was almost too easy for me, because when I saw the phrase, I knew who to choose without a second’s hesitation.  

I don’t remember when I first heard of Aunt Pat, but I was very young.  She was my mother’s young maternal aunt, and she had died at 17 of leukemia.  My mom was greatly impacted by Pat’s death, as was the rest of the family (her bedroom was kept as a shrine, untouched, for many long years). It’s not an exaggeration that her short life led her to be nearly sanctified by those who knew and loved her.

Pat was born in October 1937 at St Mary’s Hospital and came home to a family of 6 doting siblings ages 13 to 7. All of her siblings except her next oldest sister were named for close family members, and my grandma told me that as the oldest, she was chosen to pick out the new baby’s name. There are several pictures of Patty in dainty little blue dresses, and I now own the little wooden doll cradle that was a gift from my grandma to her little sister.

Patty was just starting school when my grandma and grandma got married, followed in rapid succession by her next 4 siblings, soon leaving only the youngest 2 at home. I also have in an album a lengthy school report written by Pat, full of what at the time were pretty run-of-the-mill social observations regarding what was being taught in school about people of other cultures.  To today’s reader, nothing less than horrifying.  Pat’s parents, my great grandparents, had grown up in the South and her father was openly racist. 

As Pat grew to be a teenager, she became an aunt to a large number of nieces and nephews and often baby-sat.  My mother was the oldest grandchild, and she spent a lot of time with her aunt and grandparents (she was 9 years younger than her aunt). She remembers that Pat would play dress up with her, that Pat’s favorite record was the Tennessee Waltz, which she played until she wore the record out, and that Pat would take me mom on her dates with her, Mom riding along in the back seat.

I don’t know what happened when Pat became ill, or how the news was shared with family.  I do know that in the 1950’s, there wasn’t a great deal to do for leukemia, and that Pat wasn’t ill for terribly long before she died.  She went to prom, and a lovely portrait of her was done in her floor length blue gown.  Her boyfriend, Chester, gave her a ring and the family story is that he would not take it back after her death and that she was buried with it.  It’s unclear if he had asked her to marry him or if it was a promise for later.

Pat’s death was the 2nd relative in my mom’s life from leukemia. A little cousin on my grandpa’s side had stayed with them the year prior for some hospital visits, little Joey had died at age 6. I later learned that My grandma and Pat’s cousin Flo, from Tennessee, died in the 1970’s of leukemia.  I don’t know enough  to know if this was genetic.

I do know that my mother’s experience and the rest of the family’s grief didn’t ever really allow many of them to lay Pat to rest. She was talked about frequently, and as mentioned, her bedroom kept as a shrine for many years. It had been cleaned out and was a guest room when I was a child, but I knew that it was a sacred space, not to be entered without permission.  I don’t believe anyone ever gave those instructions out loud, we just knew.  As I write this, I wonder: would Pat have married and had 9 children like one sister, or been unable to have children and adopted two, like another?  Would she have married Chester at all, or would she have chosen a career first?  It was the mid-50’s after all.  Her 4 sisters were tiny, slim and more than a bit anxious.  Would she have been like them, or very different, this youngest sister?  Most of all, my grandma and her next-oldest sister recently passed, both in their 90s. Would Pat, who would be 86 this year, still be with us, and I could tease her like I teased my gram, taking her to Mass, out to dinner and asking her to tell tales on the younger version of my mom?

Be Careful!

 52 Ancestors #52Ancestors #Week3

When I was a kid, I remember diligently but still frantically searching my parents’ file cabinet for proof of my adoption. I don’t resemble my mom, and I was absent from any “she looks just like…” at family gatherings. What I neglected to note until I was much older is that I’m something of a doppelganger for my DAD, much like my daughter is for her dad.

Adoption. Illegitimacy.  Affairs.  

I have had a few friends and acquaintances who have hired me to look into their family history, to document and report back. I know now, after a few experiences of my very own, that one of the very first things that must be discussed is, is the client (or more pointedly myself) prepared for what I may find.  What perhaps every family is likely to find, at some point in some branch of their family.

In 2020/21, more time at home allowed for additional genealogy time. This was serendipitous, as in the summer of 2018, my cousin and partner in crime and I became enmeshed in a joint battle to FIND ALL THE PEARSONS. 

I don’t recall when exactly I noticed the DNA match in my account, but a closely related cousin to me mother was eventually narrowed down to a possible cousin or even a possible sibling to my maternal grandmother.  My great-grandfather (Gram’s dad) was a notorious alcoholic and philanderer. What a gentlemanly sounding euphemism.  Truth be told, the man couldn’t behave, at all.  Neighbors and family functions were all fair game, so I’d been expecting a “find” like this for many years.  However, after probably a year of sleuthing and more than a few emails, I eventually received a response, and there was an additional element of surprise. The DNA match in question was not a sibling for Gram, but a cousin, because it turns out that her dad (Clyde the Philanderer) was the son of his married mother and a man who was not her husband.  Backing this up are the Y-DNA results of another cousin in my family which point to the man in question. Never had paid much attention to those previously, as they indicated to me as possible name change in the 1700’s - I just didn’t think enough about it.  I’ve since conversed with some of the grandchildren from both lines, and since the parents of Clyde have been dead for so long, chalk his parentage up to irony?

Another year, another great grandfather.  My aforementioned cousin/co-blogger has been more than worth her weight in gold when it comes to combing the internet for newspaper articles for both her family and mine. My great grandfather on my Dad’s side was a straight arrow - staunch Lutheran, married, two sons, same job for all of his days. He died when I was 2, but I have a letter in which he wishes to meet his first great-grandchild. Sadly, this couldn’t happen due to age and distance. Imagine my surprise when provided with a newspaper clipping pronouncing his divorce from someone who wasn’t his known wife of 40+ years, but also the mention of a daughter!  My grandpa and his brother had a sister, and none of them ever knew.  Phone calls were made to my dad, my aunt and one of their cousins, none of whom could attest to anyone ever having heard a peep of this news.  Pictures were exchanged with the sister’s children and grandchildren, who coincidentally had been doing DNA testing right around the time the newspaper clippings were being found.

Additional surprises have been and will continue to be found, I’m sure. They can be enriching, if you choose. It seems fair to conclude with a word of caution, though: Be careful of that which you seek, for you may find it!

52 Ancestors - Herbert Chamberlain

Here’s the little we know about Herbert Chamberlain - he was born the eldest child of Joseph Albert and Florence Lee (Hughes) Chamberlain on the flat delta of the Mississippi River, in Mississippi County, Arkansas in July 1896. His legal name, or his middle name may have been George, as remembered by his younger brother when that brother was an old man.

Herbert is remembered as a rather slim-faced blonde young man (resembling his brother’s grandson), and as being at least a bit aimless. Based on his siblings’ stature, he can’t have been very tall.  He was the oldest, so he may have been assigned to look after his two younger brothers and his one or two sisters.  He may have been close to his next-oldest brother Lee, but Lee died in childhood at an undetermined age.

He filled out a registration card for WWI, and it is probably unfortunate that he didn’t serve.  He may have needed structure, discipline or a job.  Perhaps all three.

During or after World War I, the Chamberlains were back across the Mississippi, this time near Portageville, MO. Herbert was in jail after an assault or fight (decades later, remembered as a murder by his surviving brother - I’ve found no evidence of this). He had been jailed due to non-payment of an attendant fine, which surely was outside of his financial reach. Herbert and his cellmate broke out a cell window, (according to the newspaper only the evening before their scheduled release). The cellmate was apprehended a very short while later in a nearby town, while Herbert was never seen or heard from again. They had escaped by jumping onto a passing train, as was common at the time but could often be fatal.  I’d like to think he lived, and may someday be “found”

There is a record for a Herbert Chamberlain in a later Idaho Census record, married with a child named Lee. This had my attention for many years, but an obituary also exists, seemingly for the same man, who appears to have had a family of origin in Louisiana.  Perhaps a recheck.  Meanwhile, I’d love to think of sitting beside my Gramps’ brother, legs hanging over the edge of a fast-moving boxcar, nibbling on a piece of cornbread and trading stories.

52 Ancestors - Florence Lee (Hughes) Chamberlain

So many loose ends could be wrapped up with a day spent with my great-great grandmother Florence Hughes Chamberlain.  She was a woman who lived a subsistence life, described as a hillbilly who lived in a dirt-floor shack by her eldest granddaughter, reminiscing about a family trip taken to the hills of south central Missouri when she was about 12 years old.

Florence was born in the mid-1870’s in a farm-based community full of extended family on her father’s side but a fairly foreign territory for her mother, recently arrived with her father from Virginia.  Florence was likely her parents’ only child, and when she was small her paternal grandmother lived in the household.  It is unknown when her grandmother died.

Florence was rumored, even by her own son, to be an Indian woman, although this has been shown almost certainly false by DNA results of several descendants.  The Trail of Tears passed not far from her birthplace, but more than 30 years prior to her birth.  She was the daughter of a Union veteran, while her maternal grandfather, returned to Virginia before she was a teen, fought for the Confederacy.  She lived in an area peppered with sundown town, and a newspaper clipping featuring her great-aunt by marriage, who lived nearby, having been “assaulted by a negro” who was accused of stealing her market money. Certainly these experiences had more than a passing impact on her son’s racist views.

About 20 years old when she married, the young Chamberlains soon moved to Arkansas.  As far as I can tell, they sharecropped most of their working years, and their 3 oldest children, all sons, were born in the first decade of their marriage, followed by a daughter, Lillie.  There may have been another daughter, not recorded anywhere that I’ve found but remembered by Florence upon seeing her son’s only blonde daughter, about age 6, during the aforementioned visit. This family is missing from both the 1910 Census and the 1930 Census.  Combined with the loss of Census records in 1890, there are gaping holes in Florence’s life.

Things I’d like to discuss with my ancestor:  What can you tell me about your parents? They can’t both have disappeared into the ether, can they?  Did you have a much younger sister named Nancy, or was she YOUR illegitimate daughter raised by your parents.  Was your husband or Harry Coleson your true love, or both, or neither?  Yes, Harry is the biological father of your youngest son, the science is solid.  Was he Lillie’s father, too?

When Florence and her husband were both near 50, their elder son Herbert was in jail after an assault or fight (decades later, remembered as a murder by his surviving brother - I’ve found no evidence of this). Herbert and his cellmate got the bright idea to make a run for it, which according to the newspaper was the evening before their scheduled release. The cellmate was apprehended a very short while later, while Herbert was never seen or heard from again. I’d love to know if his mother mourned him, or if her poor life left her with little to think of but survival. She was a faithful religious woman according to her obituary, so certainly she prayed for her missing son.

Florence and her husband lived for as time in Barry County, Missouri (the only time they owned the land they lived on), prior to moving to Tennessee where they lived with Lillie and her children.  It was a full house. Did she get along with her daughter?  Lillie’s first daughter was named for her grandmother and called “Flossie.” 

Nobody Knows About Florence Lee (Hughes) Chamberlain

I know little about her parents, but she was likely their only child, and her grandmother lived with them.  She probably survived a local epidemic as a toddler, and was married to a 2nd cousin when she was 20.  Not long after her marriage, the couple moved to Mississippi County, Arkansas (almost certainly traveling by river), where their first 2 sons were born, Herbert and Lee. It's still a mystery how or when the family returned to Pulaski County, Illinois, but there 2 more children were born, Lillie (whose birth is sometimes recorded in Missouri) and Clyde.  Now that DNA drives so much of genealogy, I have discovered that Clyde is not the son of Florence and Joe, but of Florence and a young man her age who was raised by his grandmother near where Florence and her father grew up.  Was it an affair?  Was it an assault?  Was it only Clyde, or was it Lillie too?  The only parts that are certain are that it was NOT Joe, and Florence and Harry Coleson must have known one another.  Joe could have been back in Illinois, or he could still have been in Arkansas or elsewhere, working.  There was never any mention by Clyde that he knew of this, and it's certainly possible that even Florence was never sure.  What did this event mean to her, and did she have an important secret all of her life? 

Florence (and Joe, likely) had at least one other child, a girl whose name is lost. When her grandchildren visited the shack that she and Joe lived in in the late 1930's, Florence was remembered to have become overwrought about how my great-aunt resembled her lost little daughter. Son Lee had also passed away by this time, although how or when is not known. Son Herbert's WWI registration places them still in Illinois, but in 1920 the family is in Missouri, not far from where they lived previously in Arkansas. They are renting a farm at this point, with 3 nearly-grown children at home.  The following year, Herbert disappeared during a jail-break, never to be heard from again. According to newspaper article from this event, he and a jailmate broke out of jail just as their sentences were about to expire.  Little else is known of him, but for his mother, who had already lost two children, I can't imagine if she was devastated, angry with him, or both.  It was certainly common enough then to lose young children, and I have no idea what kind of mother Florence was, but I do know she was a Christian and church going woman, so I imagine she prayed for her lost children frequently.  It's hard to know if the subsistence poverty they lived in allowed them to search for Herbert or not.  Burial locations for Lee and the assumed daughter are not known.

Florence and Joe bought some land farther west in Missouri, which is where they lived in their shack when visited by Clyde and their grandchildren. From there they moved to Tennessee and spent their final years with their daughter Lillie and her family. Lillie was married to a law-breaking man, and they had several young children, so it likely was not a quiet environment. Joe was killed while on a walk one evening, hit by a train which probably resulted in the authorities arriving to tell his wife and daughter. Florence died less than 2 years later, and is remembered by a grandson for having been fond of her corn-cob pipe. There were certainly stories about a childhood before cars, about sharecropping and stretching the last dollar, and likely a few recipes that disappeared when she died.  She was certain to have impacted her daughter's life as a helper who needed care, or as a helping hand to the household. Clyde traveled from Wisconsin to Tennessee at least one time, to settle his parents' affairs, which included selling the small amount of land in Missouri. 

Someday, perhaps we'll find what became of her oldest son.  Someday, someone may find a letter or a page with a note regarding Harry Coleson.  I hope to find more about Mary Jane, Florence's mother, and Martha, her grandmother.  Did they enjoy Ohio River summers, or did they prefer knitting or sewing near the fire?  We know a great deal about 19th century life for rural women, and it was work which many of us would not tolerate vs the conveniences we're accustomed to. I can admire her for the hard work she faced, for the hardships she endured, for carrying on after losing her children.  I'm more curious about her realities, though.  Did she carry on, or did she fold?  I will never know the answers to many of my questions, but Florence and Mary Jane and Martha and the women they knew and cared for and loved were like us - multi-dimensional, layered people who had stories.  As their descendant, all I can do is tell those stories to the best of my ability.