All My Ancestors

My job requires me to do research in old newspapers on occasion.  And I am constantly amazed at what I find printed. 

This week found me researching a murder that took place here in Oklahoma City in the early part of the 20th century.  I found the story in a regular column in the newspaper that reported the court news.  The columnist referred briefly to a couple of men who’d been sentenced to life and 20 years in the state penitentiary for murder.  But the focus of the article was the “Patterson case,” predicted to be the “center of interest for a week or more.“ This convoluted story may be the subject of a later post, involving a young female school teacher named Vernon, Wade, a young man with whom she had been “keeping company,” Wade’s father, with whom Vernon was also evidently simultaneously “keeping company,” and the school teacher’s father, whom Wade had shot and killed the previous year.  The current story told of the young woman’s suicide, and her brother Orban, a local attorney, shooting and killing Wade’s father, probably as retribution for his own father’s murder as well as his sister’s suicide.

That sensational story required that I follow it up for a few weeks, of course, to find the outcome.  I thought it was interesting, though, that the column ended with

Outside of the Patterson murder trial, only a few minor state cases are set to come up for trial this week.  The courts will be closed on Friday.  Saturday is divorce day in in the district court, and twenty-seven divorce suits are set for hearing.

It was almost too big a gap for me to process–going from the murder case to informing the reader that, by the way, court was closed Friday but since Saturday was the day appointed to deal with divorce, and there were 27 cases, court would be held. 

Life, and the search for justice, goes on.

Check it out–high-tech tombstones in Japan can provide photos and audio clips to a cell phone.

Since I’ve gone to work at a place where I look up other people’s relatives in the census on a daily basis, I’ve been amazed at the institutions that are enumerated, and the information found within. I learn something new every time I find one of these. I’ve posted previously about the prison population posted in the 1900 census for Detroit, Michigan.

The most recent find is the 1900 enumeration of the “St. Louis Insane Asylum” in, where else, St. Louis, Missouri. There are 15 pages of records–the first page and half or so are employees and the rest are listed as inmates. Hugo M. Vollmer, census taker, appears to have done a very thorough job. I wonder how he did his work–did he go through records, did he interview staff, did he interview inmates, how did he gather all this information? A check on him reveals that he is a 26 year old clerk employed at the Asylum, born in Missouri to Germany-born parents. That makes me believe that he probably did his work from the records at his disposal.  1900 is the census year that gives the month and year of birth, the year of immigration and citizenship, plus the place of birth and that of the entry’s parents. Most of the places of birth for parents is entered as “unknown” for the inmates. But, a profession listed for each person, including Alice McCormack, Irish-born 28-year-old prostitute. There’s 68-year-old female physician Sarah L. Jones–what is her story? I kept coming across “nihil” listed in the profession column. It took me a while to realize this meant “none,”–as in “nil,” I suppose.

It would be interesting to compare the demographics of this population with those of St. Louis at large–for example, many of the inmates appear to have been foreign-born. I was somewhat surprised to find a few more males than females listed.

There’s more information about the Asylum at Early St. Louis Hospitals, Homes, and Asylums.

Here are Miriam’s prompts for this week. I guess I’m not really late if we consider that George Washington’s birthday isn’t until Friday–we just celebrated last Monday, supposedly.

*As a child, do you remember celebrating either Lincoln or Washington’s birthdays? How did you celebrate them? What do you remember learning about either of these men?
It’s been so long since grade school. But it seems to me I remember acknowledging both–along with the shoebox covering for the Valentine’s exchange, we cut out silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington each February.

Of course, I remember the “Honest Abe” stories–his hard beginnings, his mother’s death and his studying by candlelight, and his walking so many miles to return a penny or so he’d shorted his customer. Honesty seemed to be a big theme for emphasis because I also remember the cherry tree and “I cannot tell a lie” story for George Washington. And his wooden teeth.

The other thing I remember is that when I would visit my grandmother in South Dakota in the summers, we would sometimes stop by a little house in Blunt. The house had belonged to one of Abe Lincoln’s teachers back in Illinois who had lived in Blunt at the end of his life. His name was Mentor Graham–though I don’t know if that was really his first name or a title–but I loved going there and feeling a direct connection to Abraham Lincoln. In 1981, my grandmother and I got to take my sons there–one was an infant and the other was 3, but it is a meaningful memory for me even if they can’t remember it.

*Did you get a day off of school, have an assembly, or was there a play performed?
Not that I remember. But those were the days before “Spring Break.” ahhhh, the good ol’ days

*Do you ever remember reading any books or watching any movies about these two leaders?
I don’t remember anything specific, though I have some recollection of Sam Waterston playing/reading for Abe Lincoln in Burns’ The Civil War.

*In your opinion, who was the greatest leader of our country, and why?
I don’t know that I want to do this one here. I can say that I have a great deal of admiration for both Lincoln and Washington–for their vision and their sacrifice and their humanity.

*In your current career, do you get Presidents Day off? Why or why not?
It depends. I’ve had jobs that we did not have the day off–teaching at University, working in a public library. I now work at a state historical society and we had that day off. Who knows the reasoning?!!

*In many communities, Presidents Day weekend is well-known for sales and special deals. How do you feel about this? Do you like to go shopping on this weekend? Or do you feel this emphasis on commercialism is disrespectful?
I can’t say that I think it’s disrespectful, but I don’t shop on that weekend. Of course, I don’t shop any weekend and as seldom as I can get by with, so I’m probably not typical in this respect.

*Presidents Day is also a day when veterans and Purple Heart recipients are honored. Are or were there any Purple Heart recipients in your family or ancestry? Have you written about what they did to earn this great award?
I don’t know anyone in my family who was awarded the Purple Heart. I do remember that one year we were doing a display for Veteran’s Day at the library, and one of our security guards brought his medal for our display. That’s really the first time I can remember seeing a medal and the person to whom it was awarded.

The other things I remember about Lincoln and Washington are that the summer we took the boys to South Dakota, 1981, we also visited Mount Rushmore. What a huge undertaking that must have been.

And my husband and I visited the log cabin ?replica? in which Abe Lincoln was born on one of our vacations before the kids were born–I just remember how beautiful Kentucky was and how much it smelled like whiskey.

Another favorite memory is going through Mount Vernon on one of our trips to D.C. I loved being there and looking at the gardens as well as the house. I thought His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis was a strong biography of Washington–I tend to like to get inside people’s heads, and I thought Ellis did a good job of describing the “why” of many of Washington’s decisions.

Lidian at The Virtual Dime Museum blog tagged me for the meme currently making the rounds.  In my quest to find fresh topics to write about by using other blogger’s suggestions, I decided I’d participate.  In one of my lives, I’m a librarian, which doesn’t make me an expert–just makes me nervous about committing. 

What issues/topic interests you most–non-fiction, i.e,cooking, knitting, stitching, there are infinite topics that has nothing to do with novels?

I love all of the above and more.  I tend to like to read about cooking more than actually performing, my shoulder has started hurting so my knitting’s going by the wayside, and genealogy and knitting long ago took over my stitching obsession.  However, almost any sort of craft “how to” I enjoy, especially if it deals with paper or fabric.  And then there’s all my genealogy and local history books–can you ever really have enough?

Would you like to review books concerning those?

Not particularly, at least in any formal fashion.  It takes time away from actually doing–the knitting, crafting, genealogy.

Would you like to be paid or do it as interest or hobby? Tell reasons for what ever you choose.

I’ve done some of the crafting and genealogy for pay and as a hobby.  I love them both, though doing it for money puts more pressure on me.  If this question refers to the writing of reviews, I tend to do it in a more informal manner–I’ve written formal reviews in a former academic life, for no $$$, of course.

Would you recommend those to your friends and how?

As I said earlier, my recommendations tend to be more informal.  I do have a  “visual bookshelf” on my facebook page, and I have some of my books up at “Library Thing,” so I suppose that could count as recommendations.  I haven’t figured out how to do it on my current blog.  But any recommending I do really tends to be more informal–especially if I come across something that I know a friend is interested in–that’s the librarian in me, I guess.

If you have already done something like this, link it to your post.

I don’t think I’ve done this–I’ll go back through my posts to be sure, but I don’t think I’ve done it here.  I usually recommend Emily Croom’s Unpuzzling your Past as my favorite beginner’s “how to” genealogy book, but that’s more likely to occur in my classes than on my blog.

….as for tagging others, I think I’ll let this branch of the meme die with my posting–I’ve read lots of others and I suspect its time has come.   On the other hand, if you’re reading this and want to take it further, consider yourself tagged.

I found this article in the 4 January 1935 McAlester, Oklahoma newspaper, of course, while looking for something else. That this couple, James Mills and Sarah Keifer, had gotten married in a Civil War army camp piqued my interest. Seventy years married is a lot of years! There is a lot of great genealogical information in this article–I hope their descendants have a copy.  And I loved the comment that their wedding provided a break from the monotony of army camp.

. . .about the couple who went to a vaudeville show, got married on-stage on a whim and $25? I heard the story on Morning Edition this morning. Eighty years later, they’re still married and using the china they bought with the money.

It’s kind of pathetic to go to Ireland and be thrilled about watching a television show, but I did get to watch “Who Do You Think You Are?” and it was great fun. The family story for Griffith Rhys Jones was partially true and partially not so much true. Isn’t that the way it goes?

Today I visited the National Library and looked in the room for “chasing ancestors,” as our hotel guy calls it. I went into the room and picked up a handout or two, but no Irish relatives popped out. Don’t think I have any.

Ireland is indeed a magical place–we’ve covered the more rural Kenamare and have spent the last few days in Dublin. I look forward to being home, but it’s been a grand trip. Brilliant, as they say here.

This week at work I’ve been researching an Oklahoma family who had a family member imprisoned just prior to statehood. They said the family tradition was that he was at McAlester–site of the federal penitentiary here in Oklahoma.

However, a visit to the state’s Department of Corrections website about the establishment of “Big Mac” states it was not built until 1908. It goes on to say that inmates from Kansas were returned to Oklahoma to build the prison. I would have assumed that prisoners from that time period were sent to Fort Smith and maybe Muskogee–there was a federal court there, not sure about a prison. But this indicated to me that they were also sent to Kansas–guess that makes sense since it’s a neighbor and it did have federal prisons by then.

Materials I found on the family indicated that the man in question had served his time in Detroit prior to Oklahoma statehood in 1907. I wondered if this could be another Detroit besides Detroit, Michigan, but after a bit more digging, I believe it must have indeed been in the Motor City.

I decided to take a look at the 1900 federal census for Detroit. Sure enough, part of Ward 7 was a listing of the prisoners in the “House of Corrections.” There were probably about 350-400 male prisoners listed and 75 female–on separate pages, of course. But my estimate is that 15 or so of the male prisoners were from “Indian Territory” or Texas. I did not find the person I was seeking, but I believe he served his time a little later, about 1902 or so.

I used the “Ask a Librarian” function on the State of Michigan website and got a prompt response. Sure enough, even though the Detroit prison was not built as a federal prison, there had been a public law passed in 1899 that enabled them to contract for federal prisoners from other states.

Another lesson learned. A confirmation that there’s usually a grain of truth in family stories, but they must be confirmed. And who would have thought that persons from Indian Territory would serve time in Michigan? And, again, I’m reminded of how grateful I am to have such great access to this sort of info from the comfort of my computer chair.

One more bit of info for those of you who are interested in McAlester’s history, and we frequently get questions about ancestors who were imprisoned there–the listing for the cemetery at the prison is online. Over 300 of the graves have entries at FindAGrave. It’s listed as Department of Corrections Prison Cemetery in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. Just so you know.

This is a fun site–The Baby Name Voyager.

You can track the popularity of a first name through history.

It also pretty much confirms my theory that if your name is any iteration of Debra, I can guess your age within 5 years.