Showing posts with label For My Sloan Cousins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label For My Sloan Cousins. Show all posts

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Because the Boat Rocked?

Note: Mildred Jane Thacker and Frances Thacker lived beside each other with their families in 1850. They, as well as their families, are listed as “mulatto” in this census. They married cousins Weatherfoot Napper and Nimrod Nicholas Thacker. Were Mildred and Frances cousins? Were they sisters? Why are the descendents of one white, and the other black

Raccoon Creek starts softly in the southeast corner of Hocking County below the Hocking River. It travels down 109 miles flirting with Athens County and the northwestern tip of Meigs County. Full bodied it runs into Vinton County before it reaches the Ohio River just north of Raccoon Island in Gallia County. The creek has always attracted boaters and fishermen. 

 In 1857, a trio of men were enjoying the day, paddling a canoe on the creek near Hawks Station in Vinton County. Dennis McKinniss, Malachi Dorton and Weatherfoot Napper were all Wilkesville Township boys. According to the 1850 census, Malachi and “Wed” lived next door to each other. Conspicuous by his absence was another neighbor, Nicholas Thacker, the nephew of Malachi and cousin to Wed. On another day, it could have easily been Nicholas in the canoe, with Wed back on dry land, but on this day, the men rowing the narrow boat were Dennis, Malachi and Wed. 
The account of the incident, found in “A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Volume 1” is painfully sparse, stating only, “The last three men were drowned at Hartley’s Mill in 1857 by the upsetting of a canoe in which they were rowing.”

 After the death of her husband, Wed Napper, Mildred Jane moved her family to Pike County where she worked as day laborer. Francis, the wife of Nicholas, stayed with her husband and family in Vinton County. Family tradition says that the Dorton, Napper and Thacker families were part Native American. This originally set them apart from their Ohio neighbors when they first arrived from Virginia. Eventually, after many decades of living, working and marrying their white neighbors, those that stayed in Vinton County crossed the threshold of race and disappeared forever into the white community. This is what happened to Francis and her descendants. 

 In Pike County, however, it was the surrounding black community that opened its arms to Mildred Jane and her family. And so Mildred and her descendants passed forever into the African American community. 

 Two descendants, one black, one white, research the same branch of a family tree. Is it possible they owe not only the color of their skin, but their very existence to a boat that rocked and a canoe trip not taken?

© 24 May 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 



Sunday, May 10, 2009

Happy Birthday, Mikey Boy!













Ah, Michael, you are the child who is so unlike me. Sometimes I have looked at you in awe, wondering how it is that I have produced such a child. By the age of two, it was obvious that you had outstripped me in mechanical genius, when you took it upon yourself to replace a dead battery in the toy train engine, that had finally, blessedly gone silent after weeks of constant use. You opened up the battery compartment of the toy, took out the old battery, went to the drawer where we kept batteries, pulled out the right size battery, put it in the correct way, closed up the battery compartment, and went toddling away with that pleased smile I’ve come to know so well and the train engine running, pressed noisily up to your ear. I watched the whole thing in shock. I, a woman who barely knew what a straight edge screwdriver was, had produced this child.

I remember one particularly trying day, when I had gotten out late from class. I had to pick your brother up at day care, you at preschool and your sister at elementary school. Nothing was going right. We were finally on our way, racing across town to get to the elementary school when we were stopped at a railroad crossing waiting for an approaching train. You had been begging me to turn the radio on, which I finally had done. Now, you were tugging at my sleeve asking me to turn the radio off. 

 “But, Mikey,” I said with all the exasperation I was feeling, “you just asked me to turn it on!” 

Mommy, just listen.” 

 So, I turned off the radio, and did just that. Wrapped in the cocoon of our car, you and I sat listening in companionable silence to the clickety clack of the train. You with that silly precious grin pasted all over your face, and me suddenly engulfed by your pure sense of joy. 

There are so many little slices of the world that I would have missed, my son, had you not been there to show me. Today is your birthday, Michael. I celebrate it not only for you, but for what having you has brought to my life. Happy Birthday, Mikey Boy!

Love, Momma


© 10 May 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 


Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Happy Birthday to My Daughter


You were maybe twenty months old, and we had started using a time out chair when you continued to get into something you had been told not to get into, like say, cigarette butts sitting in an ashtray. Only this was in a pre-enlightened time, when I didn’t know any better and called it “The Bad Girl Chair.” I was standing near “The Bad Girl Chair” one day, when you suddenly pushed me. I lost my balance and fell back into the chair. I quickly stood back up, and you pushed me again, and continued to push me until I, suddenly wising up, asked you, “Do you want me to sit in this chair?” 

 Head nod yes. 

 “Because I’ve been bad?” 

 Vigorous head nod yes. I sat down in amazement. Here you were, less than two, and not only did you understand the concept of “The Bad Girl Chair,” but you stood there unafraid to stare down an authority figure (me) when you thought you were justified. I knew then that the world was in big trouble, just as was said authority figure (me)! 

 You are such a paradox, my beautiful daughter. Gentle hearted, thoughtful, strong willed, competent, stubborn, insightful, considerate, tough, brave, intelligent, less than punctual and kick ass funny, when the mood strikes you. I would not change one tiny little thing about you, my love. From the first moment I saw your sweet little heart shaped face, I fell hopelessly in love with you. I don’t say it often enough, princess, but I am so glad that you are my daughter. Happy Birthday, baby girl. 

 Love, Momma

© 17 February 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Monday, February 9, 2009

Dear Internet – This is NOT my Monday Positive Thinking Post

Dear Internet, 

I am having a bad day. I do not like Mondays. It is laughable that I chose this day of the week for my positive thinking posts. Was I not begging for trouble? 

Most of the issues I am having are computer related, and while that might not sound like a big deal, it is. I make money using my computer and the Internet. And when I can’t log into a certain database in a certain East Coast city, I can’t make money. Wah

However, the whole tone for the day was set first thing this morning, before I knew the universe was conspiring against me. I did a dumb thing. I made myself a cup of tea, and put it into one of our mugs that we’ve had for almost seven years. As I am carrying the tea from the kitchen into the family room, I hear a telltale crack that should have been my warning that something bad was about to happen. But I am slowwitted and I keep on walking. 

Actually, I got as far as one more step, when the side and bottom blew out of the cup, spraying the contents of what moments before had been boiling water, all over me. My left foot with its long Morton’s toe, along with one of Morton’s brother toes, took a direct hit of the liquid as it obeyed the laws of gravity. Fortunately, though I am by nature a hillbilly (please no emails, I use the term lovingly) and start my mornings barefooted, this morning I had slipped on a pair of footies. Unfortunately, they are made of absorbable material and as I am jumping around in pain, it occurs to me that the biggest source of pain is this now soaked footie, which I immediately rip off.

This turned the pain down a notch, but it still hurt. So I took an ice pack wrapped in a washcloth and put it on the burn to cool it down and ease the pain. Then I sprayed burn ointment on it.

According to the Internet, I should have run the burn under cold water for about 15 minutes, not used the spray, and then wrapped in non-fuzzy material (I had some gauze that is now wrapped around the two toes.) All the other burns were superficial. I suspect this might be a partial thickness burn. 

Moral of the story - wait a few minutes before you pour boiling hot water into a cup. Then wait a minute or so more before carrying the liquid anywhere. If you hear a funny cracking sound, set the cup down immediately and step back. Learn to drink a nice cold glass of milk to wake yourself up in the morning.

So I’m cranky, I hate Mondays, and I’m setting down my Pollyanna persona that I’ve been practicing for the last few weeks, and taking a few hours to enjoy some well earned crabbiness. My quote for today (oh yes, I have one) comes from my friend Leslie, who upon reading all the aforementioned catastrophes wrote me back and said, “Sometimes you just need to bask in the vat of crabbiness.” Indeed. 

Tomorrow, I will post my regular positive thinking post. Have I mentioned I hate Mondays?

© 9 February 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Monday, January 12, 2009

Tri-Racial Isolate: A Hidden Ancestry

In the foothills of Eastern Tennessee, there lived a group of individuals called Melungeons. I mention them because they are perhaps the best-known example of a tri-racial isolate. “Tri-racial isolate” is an academic term used to denote communities of mixed racial ancestry. Most often, the mixture is said to be that of European, Native American and African American, although some would argue this point. 

 Other theories vigorously promoted include descendancy from shipwrecked Portuguese sailors (who intermarried with local natives) to shipwrecked Spaniards, Sephardic Jews, Gypsies and the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. Each theory has articulate proponents and disciples. Each theory endeavors to explain away deep olive skin, dark hair and the blue, gray or green eyes that marked many of these individuals as “different” from their white neighbors. These differences, noted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, often made them unsuitable spouses for their white neighbors. Their own unwillingness to embrace the economic, legal and social disadvantages of the African American community made them shun this group as potential mates. Because of this, they intermarried within their own populace, thus isolating themselves socially and sometimes physically from society at large. 

 Since they were not considered white or black, this posed problems in a racially divided 18th Century America. These problems would haunt the Melungeons and the other tri-racial communities well into the 20th Century. 

Prior to the 1850 census, you will find many of these mixed ancestry individuals tabulated under the “Free Colored” columns of the census, along with their free African Americans counterparts. In the 1850 and 1860 censuses, the census taker instructions were, “Under heading 6, “Color,” in all cases where the person is white, leave the space blank; In all cases where the person is black, insert the letter B; If mulatto, insert M. It is very desirable that these particulars be carefully regarded.” 

This of course, left the census taker with a dilemma when enumerating members of a mixed race group. You will often find them listed on the census with a letter “m” under the column “Color.” 

 Other famous tri-racial isolate communities include, North Carolina’s Lumbee Indians (from which the actress, Heather Locklear, descends), the Carmel Indians of Highland County, Ohio and the Redbones of South Carolina and Louisiana. The article, “ ‘Verry Slitly Mixt’: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South – A Genealogical Study” by Virginia Easley DeMarce, states that “Ethnologists have identified approximately thirty-five tri-racial isolate communities in the eastern half of the United States (or up to two hundred, if one counts small groups.)” 

 One of these smaller identified groups originated in an area of Gibson’s Mill in Louisa County, Virginia. Sometime in the early to mid 1830’s several families from “Gibby’s Mill” migrated across the Ohio River into what was then Gallia County, Ohio. A boundary change in 1850 placed most of the group within the boundaries of the newly created, Vinton County with the remainder living on the Jackson/Vinton County border. These individuals had surnames of Napper, Dorton and Thacker, joined later by Doles and Freeman. Like other mixed race communities, they congregated closely together. Like other mixed race communities, they intermarried heavily within their own group. Like other mixed raced communities, the census taker marked them with an “m” under the heading of “color.” But unlike the other tri-racial isolates, this community is of special interest to me. A branch of my family tree has roots within this community, roots that I had been unaware of until this past year. 

 If you have noticed a lack of posting and participation in geneablogger pursuits, it has been because of my own fascination with this “Vinton County Group.” In order to study the group I have had to study the disciplines of history, anthropology, cultural and ethnic studies, geography, sociology and law –certainly a stretch for a former business major. I’m not complaining. I cheerfully gobble up each new detail, but it does take time, and time is a finite quantity. 
So if I am less attentive, or seem preoccupied, this is the reason. I’m not sure what will become of the information that I am amassing. Maybe one day I will devour that one last piece that will satiate this curiosity, this hunger and I will sit back on my heels (okay, you realize the sitting back on the heels thing is a metaphor, my knees would scream in heated protest, should I actually try that move) and say, well okay, now I have had enough and I can move on. Until I have had enough, I will still be posting (I do have to come up for air from time to time) just not as much or as often. 

 If you are interested in learning more about tri-racial isolates, here are some websites to get you started. Melungeon Heritage Association Website A great website with articles of differing points of view. Discover: “Where Do We Come From?” The Lumbee Indians A variety of information and articles. Open Salon: “ Who was America’s first black President?” An interesting article about the racial background of previous presidents. World Culture Encyclopedia:: North America – “American Isolates” Frontline: “The Blurred Racial Lines of Famous Families” Be sure to check out some of the other links in the sidebar. Additional Resources Used: DeMarce, “’Verry Slitly Mixt’: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South—A Genealogical Study,” NGSQ, Vol. 80, No. 1 (March 1992): 5–35. United States Census Bureau, “Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000,” 2002. Pamphlet, U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/pol02marv-pt1.pdf: 2009.

© 12 January 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 


Thursday, December 25, 2008

My Christmas Past - My First Christmas

Merry Christmas to You and Yours!

© 25 December 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

My Christmas Past - My First Christmas as a MOM


Christmas Eve 1973 – This was my first Christmas as a mom. Here my ten-month-old daughter Joy and I are opening a gift. Before motherhood snagged me, I had no idea you could love a little person so deeply and with so much abandon. Motherhood opened up a new world for me, and though I entered it a little shakily and with much uncertainty, I entered it wholeheartedly. I was all of twenty.

© 24 December 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Thursday, December 18, 2008

My Christmas Past - Christmas 1968 - Or How I learned to smile again!

Terry and her siblings Christmas 1968

This was the year after the infamous "Christmas Slap" and right after my braces had been removed. I suddenly felt like smiling again.

© 18 December 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

My Christmas Past - Shoe Envy 1955


Christmas 1955 - I don't remember much about that Christmas except that I had a bad case of shoe envy. Once I spied my cousin's black patent leather shoes, I was permanently done with those "baby" white shoes of mine. I was two.

© 17 December 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Happy Birthday Moe Dog!


Because I love you and because it’s your birthday, I won’t mention the time we were seated at your sister’s sixth grade band concert, and you leaned over and said to me in a very loud stage whisper, “Mom, I forgot to put my underwear back on after my bath,” creating a laughing spasm that rippled through three rows of concert goers and making me want to slither under my seat. 

 Instead, I’ll just say - Happy 30th Birthday, kiddo! (Where did the time go?) 

© 16 December 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

 Love, Mom

Thursday, December 11, 2008

My Christmas Past - The Mustachioed Christmas


By 1989, we had added two son-in-laws to the family tree. They, the son-in-laws, turned out to be keepers - the mustaches not so much.

© 11 December 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

My Christmas Past - The Christmas Slap

From now until Christmas, I will be visiting some photos from my Christmas past on Wednesday and Thursday of each week. Below are two of my favorites taken in 1967, as my siblings and I sat for the annual Christmas Tree photo. My youngest siblings apparently were feeling pretty confident that Santa was done with the whole naughty and nice list.

 

© 10 December 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

8 Things You Might Not Know About Me

Well, I’ve been tagged twice for this week’s meme that is making the rounds in Geneablogger land. Since I was tagged by two of my favorite bloggers, Sheri Fenley of The Educated Genealogist and Randy Seavers of Genea-Musings, I feel duty bound to play. This time I have to give you eight things about myself that you, the reader, might not know. If you have read this blog on any kind of a regular basis, it’s probably obvious that any thought or experience that happens to pop into my brain makes its way onto this blog. Is there anything about me that you don’t already know? You might not know. . .

 1. I drink hot tea instead of coffee. (A latent English gene, perhaps?) 

 2. I not only passed my college swimming class without finishing the swim portion of the final test, but I received an A, thanks to my sister’s one size too small hot pink bikini and an appreciative student instructor. 

 3. You can count me as another member of the “I took belly dance lessons” club. Had it not been for an emergency C-section, I probably would have been become “Tara the Dancing Princess.” 

 4. I believe God created parentheses just for my benefit. (And since I don’t want his creation to go to waste, I make ample use of them in my blogging posts.) 

 5. I love all things tomato. I love tomato sandwiches, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, stuffed tomatoes, but I cannot stand the size and texture of cherry tomatoes in my mouth – yuck! 

 6. I can twist my tongue around so that it looks like I am turning it over. This (along with my Morton’s Toe) is a talent inherited from my dad. It is a useful trick in a room full of rowdy children. They’ll spend a good, QUIET half hour trying to duplicate the feat. 

 7. I played the violin in school, which is how my pal Karen and I first became friends. (She usually sat first chair and I sat second. Once, when the music instructor was trying to teach her a lesson, he switched our places right before a recital that had a solo for the first violin. I was scared to death. My generous friend talked me through it and it turned out fine – but I was happy to have her resume the duties of first chair.) 

 8. I believed my mother EVERY time she told me that taking Pepto-Bismol would make my stomach ache feel better. She lied! 

 Now the actual rules for this meme are: 
 1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
 2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
 3. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their name.
 4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and to read your blog. 
 Since, I was one of the last to come to this party, I’m guessing that most of the geneablogger crowd that has wanted to play, has played. So, any blogger reading this post, please consider yourself tagged. Ah, that goes for you non-geneablogger types, too!

© 25 November 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Thursday, November 13, 2008

November - I Weep

I hate November. I always have. The days are short and overcast. Even the thought of the annual Thanksgiving feast is not enough to cheer me. As a child, I can’t tell you the number of times my family sat feasting on the luscious bird with all of its trimmings, while I lay moaning in my bed, bedroom door closed, completely nauseated by the smells that managed to filter their way into my sickroom. Having the flu seemed, at times, like an annual November ritual. Something you could count on in the same way you could count on my mom grinding up the cranberries the night before the holiday. So you can have your Thanksgiving and the entire month. I still hate November.


It seems only fitting, then, that November would house one of my worst memories, one of those before and after moments that people call “defining.” In the scale of things, it was just a small moment. I’ve come to realize if you scratch below anyone’s surface, you will find similar moments. I’m not special. God did not single me out, but at twenty-four, with a limited worldview, it felt as if he had.


In my mind, I see a little blond girl, smiling and running towards me with arms outstretched. I smile back.  I reach for her, picking her up and kissing her warm forehead. It is a cherished fantasy, decades old. It’s all I have of her, my youngest daughter, Heather, the fantasy.


When Heather was born, she had massive birth defects. That is what I tell people, when I talk about it. It sounds much better than the truth. That as a seven-month preemie, she weighed over ten pounds. That her little body was so bloated with fluid it had crushed her fragile bones, and made it impossible for her to come down the birth canal.


The fact that she managed to survive for twenty minutes after her caesarean birth, might qualify as a small miracle, on a day when miracles were in short supply. I am haunted with the idea that she was waiting for me, and in one final insult, I let her down, not coming out of the anesthetic fog until after she had died.


Funny, when they told me she was a girl, for a brief moment there was pleasure.  I hadn’t known until that instant how much I was hoping for a girl. In that instant, I forgot that a short time earlier I had begged the doctor to give me some small piece of hope as they put me under the anesthesia. His response had been a negating shake of his head.

How much of my grief-inspired insanity do I share? How much can you hear? Do you want to know that because I never held her or kissed her little cheek, or even saw her ravaged body that the ache of it can still make me weak?


Do you want to know that for months afterwards, every time I got into my car it somehow ended up in the hospital parking lot? Even I couldn’t understand the compulsion, until finally, one day, it dawned on me that the hospital was the last place Heather had been alive for me. The baby that had kicked inside me whenever I stopped rocking in my chair had disappeared. My mind and body were still looking for her.


Do you want to know that it would take five years, but eventually the event would highlight the growing cracks in my marriage, making a divorce the final footnote of the tragedy?


I wanted the world to stop. I didn’t care about someone looking for a new house. I didn’t care if they lost their job, or their plumbing stopped working. I wanted to shout, “My daughter has died! Nothing else matters!” But of course, as everyone knows, everything else does matter, and eventually, even I had to pick up the pieces and move on.


I hope that in your gravest moments of crisis you will find the same support and compassion I found in the cadre of women who nurtured and sustained me through mine. My mother, my sisters - Marcia and Lee, and my sister-in-law Nancy had the difficult task of withstanding all the vitriol and angst that I could muster. Over and over again, they let me cry, and rage and once done, let me regurgitate again all the bile that filled my soul. They must have wondered at times if I would ever stop, and eventually I did, when the well of bile finally ran dry. I don’t know how these women weathered my storm, but thank God, they did.


And so there was before, and then there was after. One day I was me, and then I was another me - not necessarily a better me, or even a worse me, just a different me. That is how life is.


Most of the time, it is behind me, though never lurking too far below my surface. With decades of practice, I can talk about it clinically, dispassionately without the slightest wave of disturbance. Except in November, when the sky is overcast and the calendar stares at me in defiance. Then I weep.

© 13 November 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Poverty's Daughter

There are no hidden ancestral ties to political figures. There are no kings and queens to be found on my family tree. I come mostly from hard working German stock, with a few wild Irish lads and lasses thrown in for good measure. A pinch of this, a pinch of that and there you have my family tree.

From my father’s paternal side, they came from Pennsylvania and Virginia to Ohio’s Appalachian hills. A few farmers, but mostly miners, these families settled in the coal producing area of Ohio in the mid 19th century. A miner’s life was hard. They often lived in shanties and shacks provided by the mining company. They moved from time to time, following the work as it shifted from mine to mine, shaft to shaft. They started young, doing the most menial of work, and once the mines “got you”, it was hard to escape. 

In the early days, furnaces were formed and stoked at the bottom of shafts creating the ventilation needed in the tunnels beneath the earth’s surface. Cave-ins, explosions, floods all posed great dangers to the men. The wages were low, their lungs scarred from breathing in the dust, yet the men continued working for as long as their bodies held out, to keep food in their family’s bellies and a roof over their children’s heads. The sons followed the fathers into the mines, and the circle of hard work for low wages continued for another generation. 

This would have been my great great grandfather’s life. Except that he went to war and on a summer day in Georgia took a gunshot wound to the knee. The resulting amputation made finding work hard. Eventually, he would get a small disability check, but it was not enough money for the family to live on, so Henry found odd jobs when he could. His sons went to work in the mines, and his daughters looked for serving jobs to supplement the family income. 

There are no pictures of Henry or his wife Louisa. Nor are there photos to be found for any of their children. Who were they after all? Certainly, they were not anyone whose likeness was worth recording. If there had been pictures, I wonder if I would have seen gaunt cheeks, hollowed eyes and a hopelessness reserved for those whom hope has abandoned. 

Henry’s son Elmer, my great grandfather, was said to have been fond of the grape. This may or may not have been a fair assessment of the man, for it came from his wife’s stepmother, and was told to Elmer’s youngest daughter. After the death of his wife Lizzie, in 1911, Elmer found himself with four young children. He farmed out his eldest daughter, age six, to another family who used the girl as an unwilling servant. His youngest daughter was left in the care of his father-in-law. He packed up his sons, ages one and three, and headed north. 

Between 1910 and 1920, oil had begun to replace coal as a heating element. The loss of jobs, even poorly paying ones, had forced many men to leave their Appalachian homes in search of new work

So Elmer left, promising to return for his daughters sometime in the future. He headed for Lucas County, where an elder brother, Lawson, had found work earlier. We’ll probably never know what happened, but three years later Elmer was dead, in an apparent suicide. He had drunk carbolic acid. One cannot know what deep despair caused him to do this, but the result was two little boys and two little girls suddenly without any parent. The youngest boy, George, stayed with his aunt and uncle, but the older boy, my grandfather would eventually be adopted out four years later. 

Grandfather would later manage to find a good job with Overland Express and was on his way to securing a good future for himself when he died unexpectedly at age 39 of a burst appendix. He left seven fatherless children. But while my grandfather had not always made the best choices in life, he had certainly made two wise choices when he chose two strong, capable women to be the mothers of his children.

These children would grow up not to perpetuate the poverty that had been their family’s heritage, but instead would form good, stable middle class homes from which they would raise their own children. It took several generations and a prescription of community aid, personal responsibility and education to change one family’s path out of poverty.

I wonder if Louisa and Henry would have ever dreamed that a great great granddaughter would find their lives important enough to write about and share with each of you. You can have your kings and queens, and your presidential ancestral ties. In my family, we have survivors, and there is a hard won dignity to be found in that. 

Written for Blog Action Day 2008

© 15 October 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Thursday, October 2, 2008

I Read it in the News - Evidence of Collateral Damage



When people get divorced, whatever wonderful quality they first saw in each other, has long since vanished. What doesn’t vanish is their mutual offspring, something often overlooked by warring parties.

When my grandparents divorced, it was not pretty. 

My grandmother, a petite, spunky woman, and her ex Mother-in-law formed two separate camps. There were no prisoner exchanges, no mingling of combatants and both camps remained armed and on alert. The fact that the two women had never gotten along, guaranteed no one would be suing for peace. 

My grandfather, whom I have written about previously, died suddenly at the age of 39 from a burst appendix. My grandfather had been living in Toledo with his second wife, and four children. My grandmother, my dad and his sisters lived in Clyde. Nettie, the mother-in-law lived in Florida.

Nettie sent a notice to the Clyde newspaper giving the details of her adopted son’s death. The story goes that this was how my grandmother and her children heard about the death. I’m prepared to give Nettie a pass on that one, because I don’t know whether she had tried to contact grandma. Perhaps she had or perhaps Nettie figured letting the paper know was a good way to tell her former daughter-in-law and her grandchildren of the loss. 

However, what she did next seems particularly spiteful. The list of survivors given to the newspaper included the four children by the second marriage, but not one word was mentioned about the three older children who were living in Clyde. A week later, the following short notice appeared in the paper:

“Mrs. Anna X asks that we make a correction in the obituary notice of the late Walter X sent us last week by Mrs. Nettie X from Florida. Mrs. Anna X, says he is survived by three children by a first marriage, and 4 children by a second marriage.”

I can almost see my grandmother pulling herself up straight, and making the simple, direct correction. Nettie had landed a well-aimed blow at my grandmother. Maybe it was deserved, maybe not. I wonder, however, did she think about the collateral damage? Was the chance to stick the knife into my grandmother so irresistible that all other considerations were secondary? Fair or not, that one act defined, for me, Nettie’s character. And I found that character wanting.

Written for 57th Carnival of Genealogy - I Read it in the News

© 2 October 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Almost Wordless Wednesday - I knew he loved me when ...

He agreed to wear a matching pink tie for our wedding ceremony.



© 3 Sept 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

His Eyes were Gray

His eyes were gray. A man of small stature, he stood five feet six inches tall. The recruiter noted his dark hair, his dark complexion. He was 42 years old when he showed up at the recruiting station in Chillicothe, Ohio on that March day in 1865. 

In an area of the state where most men were miners, he listed his occupation as farmer. He had come that day with other men from Vinton County, many of them kinfolk. He was given a uniform, a canteen, a knapsack and a haversack. All told, the value of these items was $30.13. 

His papers listed his place of birth as Louisa County, Virginia, a fact often assumed and now confirmed. A large X where his signature should have been, signified that he could neither read nor write. According to his papers, he had signed on for a year. Lee’s surrender the following month ensured that he would not see the full term of his enlistment. 

On October 24, while stationed in Washington DC, he mustered out of Company D, 194th Ohio Infantry and out of the Union Army. He resumed his life as a farmer in Wilkesville Township of Vinton County, Ohio. His name was Nimrod Nicholas Thacker. He was my 4th great grandfather and his eyes were gray.

Note: Yesterday’s mail brought the compiled military file of Nimrod N. Thacker that I had ordered from NARA This was request number five from my “7 Days, 7 Requests” series. Request number three also came back and unfortunately, they could not find a record of a marriage between Thomas Jacobus and Catherine? in Essex County, New Jersey for the time, I had specified. You win some. You lose some.

© 19  August 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Sunday, July 13, 2008

To Bury a Civil War Soldier

On April 11, 1884, the General Assembly for the State of Ohio passed an act that would allow the state to defray funeral expenses for any former Union soldier, sailor or marine whose family did not have sufficient funds to cover the funeral expenses. 

In Vinton County, Ohio, a board was set up to review these cases and decide who would qualify for these benefits. A payment was approved for $28.40 to bury my great great grandfather Henry Smathers, on March 5, 1888.

I have written about both Henry and his wife, Louisa, in previous posts. (An Amputation in Georgia and Pension File Stories: Louisa Ish Smathers, Disappearing Woman.) 

Henry served two tours of duty, reenlisting for the second term on January 23, 1864. Five months later to the day, at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, Henry received the wound that resulted in the amputation of his left leg. The pension deposition of Louisa leaves little doubt that the family lived a life of postwar poverty. Below is an itemized accounting of how the $28.40 was spent. 

1 Coffin $15.00 
1 Robe $ 5.00 
1 Pair of Slippers and Gloves $ 1.40 
Hearse and Team $ 5.00
Digging Grave and Filling $ 2.00 

As of this moment, I have not found where either Henry or Louisa is buried. Perhaps, for them, it is enough to know where and how they lived. 

Until Next Time . . .

© 13 July 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 


Friday, June 27, 2008

A June Wedding

Last Friday, my husband and I had the privilege of attending the wedding of one of our favorite couples, my nephew Jeff and his new bride Lizzie. The mood for the evening was appropriately set by the simple ceremony performed amidst a summer garden, witnessed by close family and friends

I would show you a picture of the happy couple, but my nephew warned me that he would expect royalties for any likeness of him found on this blog site. Humph! 

One of my favorite moments, was my great nephew escorting his grandmother, my sister, down the garden path to her seat, and then skipping all the way back. The sight of a six year old skipping happily in a tux is just too precious to describe. I wasn’t quick enough to catch him mid skip with my camera – but below you get an idea. (Note: HE didn’t demand any royalties, thank goodness.)

 
While many brides and grooms request adults only for their reception, which of course is their right, Lizzie and Jeff did just the opposite. Because they both have young relatives who are very special to them, they centered their reception on these young guests. There was a scavenger hunt, a kid’s menu, and a DJ playing the “Hokey Pokey” to name just a few ways the reception catered to the younger crowd. And the kids all loved it! 

Watching my father twirl my mother around the dance floor, chatting with my own children and their special some ones, and seeing my three sibs and their families all under the same roof - well, you now know my definition of heaven. It was truly a special night. I want to thank Lizzie’s family for hosting such a wonderful event – everything was post card perfect.

And to Lizzie and Jeff, I wish you the usual blessings of happiness, health, and prosperity. I would also wish you a life filled with buckets of love, but judging from the way the two of you looked at each other, and the warm loving glow that flowed through the room last Friday night, I think you already have the love thing covered. Congratulations!

© 27  June 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 



Terry

Terry

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