#52Ancestors, Week 14: Begins with a Vowel

This prompt seemed like a no-brainer. Every part of Ann Elizabeth Echols’s maiden name begins with a vowel. Her two married names connect mine and cousin Heather’s families. Ann’s first marriage was to Thomas J. Green, the father of my great great grandmother, Emma Kate Green. Ann’s second marriage was to Benjamin Everett Pearson, one of Heather’s direct line ancestors. He also happens to be my great great great grandfather’s brother.

Ann Elizabeth Echols, born 1839, was the eldest daughter of Benjamin F. Echols and Sarah Rebecca Arter. According to Thomas Green’s Civil War pension file, he and Ann were married in 1854. She and Thomas had two daughters, Emma Katherine and Dora Isabella, before Thomas answered the call to fight in the Civil War. Unfortunately, like so many others who had experienced the grisly realities of Civil War combat, he returned from service a changed man. By 1869, he and Ann had divorced. Ann’s deposition given for his pension request described the deterioration of their marriage. “After he came from the army, he got to drinking pretty hard, and that is the reason we separated. The fact is he was never like the same person after he came home."

After the Civil War and the death of his second wife, Theodosia, Benjamin Everett Pearson (who had fought for the Confederacy) moved from West Virginia to live near his brother Joseph Allen Pearson in Pulaski County, Illinois. On August 28, 1873, he married Ann Elizabeth (Echols) Green in Alexander County, Illinois. This union was likely a contributing factor to the marriage of Benjamin’s son, John Winston, to Ann’s daughter, Emma Kate in December 1874. Ann inherited quite a few stepchildren when she married Benjamin, but they also added a child of their own to the mix. Virginia M. Pearson was born April 13, 1876, in Olmsted, Illinois.

In 1880, Ann Pearson and family were still living in Pulaski County, Illinois. It is unknown exactly when Benjamin decided to move back to Virginia. Perhaps the catalyst was his mother’s death in Franklin County, Virginia, in 1881, or maybe he left Illinois after his brother, Joseph, died in 1882. Regardless of the motivation, in 1886, when Ann gives her deposition regarding her ex-husband’s pension, her address is Pearisburg, Virginia. Ann lived her whole life in Illinois, so I have to imagine it was difficult to leave behind all she had known.  I think it’s fortunate she had a young child of her own to raise when her husband decided to pull up stakes. Emma Kate remained in Pulaski County, Illinois, and Ann’s other daughter, Dora, was living in northern Illinois.

Ann Elizabeth (Echols) Green Pearson died in Pearisburg, Virginia, on New Year’s Day 1896.

Week 13, #52Ancestors - [Don't] Light a Candle

 

From left to right: Ed Fischer, Lois Fischer holding Barbara Jane Fischer, Lena Pearson, and Jerry Pearson

When I saw the prompt for this week's #52Ancestors challenge, I must admit my mind did not long dwell on the obvious idea of writing a post on a dearly departed relative.  Almost immediately, it took a darker turn.  Although I have no reason to believe that the story of the fire I am about to relate is due to someone lighting a candle, it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.  In the end, no people - family or otherwise - were seriously harmed in the fire, so I feel safe in cheekily offering "[Don't] Light a Candle" as this week's post.

In the early morning of November 23, 1937, 12 people were forced to evacuate a 4-apartment building.  The fire started in the basement and initially woke the occupants of a downstairs apartment.  The 2 parents, their daughters, and their daughters' two children escaped in their nightclothes.  Some of them managed to find shoes in the darkness, and some of them were barefoot.  By the time they became aware of the blaze, it had already reached the building's fuse box.  A woman in an upstairs apartment was awakened by the sound of coughing.  She escaped to her porch, called for help, and was eventually rescued by firefighters.  

The remaining five occupants of the building were my relatives.  My grandfather's half-sister, Lois, was recovering from the birth of her daughter, Barbara Jane.  Her mother (my great grandmother, Lena) was visiting.  Great Grandma Lena was accompanied by my grandfather, Jerry, who was three years old at the time.  They eventually smelled the smoke and heard the commotion and came up with a plan to evacuate. As Lois had not left her bed since giving birth, she was carried down the stairs by her husband, Ed Fischer.   Great Grandma Lena carried baby Barbara in her arms and Grandpa Jerry on her back.  What a woman!

Shortly after my grandfather passed, I received a tote of family pictures and newspaper clippings.  The above photo and the accompanying article were among them.

#52 Ancestors, Week 12: Memberships

This post was moved to the Collecting Dead People blog:

Memberships

#52Ancestors #Week11 Lucky!

 Getting Lucky, Genealogy Style! In 1979, I was 10 years old and still a few years away from kindling a real passion for my family history. I remember Christmas at my grandparents' house, and I remember the feeling (and perhaps conversation) from some of the adults about my great-grandparents coming for the festivities and how they wouldn't be around forever. I don't have any idea who had the thought first, but I was visiting on the floor near my great grand dad (Gramps) while he noted down the names of his parents for his children and grandchildren. He was 76, and his handwriting was probably never exceptional, but he had written the names of his parents and his siblings, especially his eldest brother. I fel very fortunate, as most of my family has expressed minimal interest in my endeavors, but someone did this tremendous thing! 

Interestingly, one of the pieces of information that helped me so significantly on my search is still a mystery. Gramps recorded his mother as Florence Lee Farrell, her real name has consistently been in every record "Florence Lee Hughes." While there were indeed some Farrells in the area, I've never found a connection between Florence's known mother and father, or indeed her known maternal grandparents, to anyone named Farrell.

Still, information given by the son of the people in question has been invaluable and led me fairly early on to some excellent documents and correct locations (Gramps included his birth location, easily as invaluable for a man who grew up in the Mississippi/Ohio River Valley on the border of 5 states). A huge shout out to Gramps, Grandma and numerous aunts and uncles for a bit of assistive LUCK!

52 Ancestors, Week 11 - Nils Wedberg "Just My Luck"

This post was moved to the Collecting Dead People blog:

Unlucky

#52Ancestors #Week10 Translation

 I don’t know if one would (or should) call this fortunate, but nearly all of my ancestors are from English-speaking countries, so I have very little experience with having to translate anything, although as most genealogists, frequently and continuously struggle with interpretation, so that’s the trail I’m going to embrace from this week’s prompt, as tenuous as the connection may be.

Unreadable handwriting, phonetic recording of names, relationships recorded in old wills that make NO sense, and more. Most recently I obtained a copy of a Civil War pension that honestly appears to not be the person I’m looking for, but it did provide a location mystery. My esteemed cousin and I have never lived in Pulaski County, but we’ve both visited and poured over several different versions of the area maps: modern, historical, and the “sundown town” maps. Friendship, Pulaski, Illinois is not ever listed, nor have we found mention of it in any newspaper clippings or other records such as the thorough cemetery listings of this county.

I called the assessor's office in Mound City and obtained a promise of an inquiry and a call back.  Nothing.  After about 2 weeks, I called back and spoke to the same person, who apologized and promised he’d call back with info. Nothing, again. Cousin and I have a resource that we generally don't employ as a first resort, as that person is an elder local, but quite acerbic in her responses, regardless of the inquiry. With some careful consideration, I shot off an email and waited. 

As it turns out, I not only received a response chock-full of information about Friendship, I also received the unsurprising dressing-down of the county assessor's knowledge.  Friendship, Illinois was the name of a small community and school (and one would imagine a cross-roads store) described in the email as "half-way between Levings and Ullin." There is also a listing of 8th grade graduates of the Friendship school from 1917 - 1953. I'd hoped for family to be included in the earlier years of this listing but no joy.

This particular endeavor did not result in any real help to my family, for now. But it did put in place a location I may later need to reference. Never, never give up, as they say.

52Ancestors - Week 10: Translation

I've wracked my brains about this particular prompt for the better part of a week and have come to the conclusion that this will just be a post written for the sake of maintaining my blogging streak. 😂

I have both Swedish and Italian ancestry, and I will say this concerning translation.  The internet is a Godsend.  There are so many tools now available to help you translate that pesky marriage document or will.  If you have no other refuge, Google Translate will at least give you a passable idea of what you are reading (provided you can properly transcribe the writing - that's a whole other issue).  If you regularly use Facebook, there are some fantastic genealogy groups out there that are eager to assist you with your genealogical woes.  My current favorite is the Swedish American Genealogy group.  I firmly believe that if you give them enough information, they can find anything you happen to be looking for (in Swedish, of course), and then they will happily translate the information for you.

Transcription - translation's kissing cousin, if you will - is often a tougher nut to crack.  Even records that are in English can be unintelligible if the person recording them writes in any teacher's least favorite style - chicken scratch.  One family record, in particular, comes to mind...

You might remember Nettie Pearson of the thousand-and-one marriages. Her last (I think) marriage was to a man by the last name of Johnson.  What his first name was is anyone's guess.  Here are Nettie and Mr. Johnson as recorded in the 1940 census.

The name has been transcribed as Nera Johnson, but there is no Johnson by that name anywhere in the area in the years preceding this census, nor are there any after.  The only thing I am certain of is that his name is not Nera...but I have no idea what it is.  If anyone reading this has any suggestions/interpretations/transcriptions, I would be happy to entertain them.  In the meantime, Mr. Johnson of the Berrien County, Michigan, 1940 census will be...lost in translation.  😉