Texas « All My Ancestors

7 March 2010

A Favorite Recipe Lost

Filed under: Mom, Texas — allmyanc @ 9:36 am

March is Women’s History Month and Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist has posted 31 prompts for celebrating the women in our lives. I, of course, am late getting started, but here’s today’s prompt.

March 7 — Share a favorite recipe from your mother or grandmother’s kitchen. Why is this dish your favorite? If you don’t have one that’s been passed down, describe a favorite holiday or other meal you shared with your family.

Cooking was not my mother’s joy or strength.

She did it and she did it fairly well–especially since her boundaries were fairly fixed. We lived in a rural area where it was almost too hot to have a garden–at least for my red-haired, fair-skinned mother. And we always had beef in the locker in town, and later, in our home freezer. I was shocked once to hear a friend’s mother talk about how tired she was as a child of eating lobster. But she was a child of maritime Canada–I was a child of the Texas plains, and we ate beef. My mom was known to sneak in a package of bologna or liverwurst occasionally, but it was never put on the table as the main dish. She did pass to me her skill at making gravy–one of the secrets is letting the flour cook a bit first–I later learned this was called “making a roux” in official cooking terminology. The other secret is having the right utensil to stir to keep from having lumpy gravy as the liquid (usually milk in our case) is added. Mom’s utensil of choice was some sort of coiled, springy metal thing probably originally intended to beat egg whites or somesuch.

But at some point she had a great recipe for a dessert that has been lost. She got it from her best friend Phyllis, and when I moved to the same city Phyllis left our small town for, I called her, but she couldn’t remember the recipe. I can see it written on a scrap of paper and stuffed in the recipe drawer, but I cannot re-create it nor can I find one despite handy sites like AllRecipes that let you type in the ingredients and provide you with a recipe using those foods.

It started with graham cracker crumbs. I think it probably had sugar and seems like some whipped egg whites folded in. These, along with some undoubtedly additional forgotten ingredients, were patted down into a 9 x 13 pan and baked for a bit. Then, what made it truly amazing, a boiling mixture of crushed pineapple and I can’t remember what else poured over it right as it came out of the oven. This resulted in a yummy gooey bar that was so good, at least as I remember it.

And maybe it’s the best kind of recipe. I certainly don’t need the calories, but I relish the memory of cooking in my mother’s kitchen, from recipes she’d scrawled on scraps of paper, making food that had come from her shared friendship with other women at the church. I was able to locate her “quick” fruit-cake recipe after many years through the magic of the Internet, so perhaps the pineapple, graham-cracker bars will eventually appear as well.

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14 February 2010

A Trip Down Memory Lane via Google Maps

Filed under: Cemeteries, Oklahoma, Perryton, South Dakota, Texas — allmyanc @ 5:46 pm

Written for 52 Weeks To Better Genealogy – Challenge #7

from Amy Lenertz Coffin at http://wetree.blogspot.com/2010/01/52-weeks-to-better-genealogy.html

Play with Google Maps (http://maps.google.com). This is a helpful tool for determining the locations of addresses in your family history. Where your ancestral homestead once stood may now be a warehouse, a parking lot or a field. Perhaps the house is still there. When you input addresses in Google Maps, don’t forget to use the Satellite View and Street View options for perspectives that put you were right there where your ancestors once stood. If you’ve used this tool before, take sometime and play with it again. Push all the buttons, click all the links and devise new ways it can help with your personal genealogy research. If you have a genealogy blog, write about your experiences with Google Maps, or suggest similar easy (and free) tools that have helped in your own research.

As I’ve written here many times, I come from a family of farmers–persons who had land, for the most part. Those farms and ranches are no longer in the family. But I can visit any time I like using Google Map.

My maternal grandparents lived on a ranch in South Dakota.

The main buildings were the house and the barn. The barn, at the time of this photo, sported my grandad’s brand above the doors, Lazy XY. The house actually faced north, but this is the southern exposure. It was too cold in South Dakota to have a north facing entry, so we always used the “back porch” as the entry.

My grandparents had moved most of their things back to Texas by the 1980s–they were in their 80s by then and they first spent winters in Oklahoma and Texas with my folks and my aunt and uncle, and later stayed “in the south” year round. Shortly before my grandmother died in 1998, the house burned. We don’t know the details, we just know that it burned to the ground. In a sense, it was a blessing that the house took care of itself–

When I find myself thinking about the carefree summers I spent at my grandparents’ ranch, I look at my photos, but I also often pull up their place on Google Maps:

I can still see the barn and the tree rows planted east of the house to catch the wind and snow. A trailer home replaces the house for the family that lives there now. If I really want to, I can move to the right on the map to “roam” the pasture. And I can follow the road (306th Ave. on this map) a couple of miles down the hill to the little village of Canning where my grandmother ran the country store and post office, and where we lived the year I was in the 6th grade.

This picture brings back lots of memories.

Over there at the left is the beginning of the spring-fed lakes where we swam in the summer time and ice-skated in the winter. At the right, the “top” of Cactus Loop, is where the school was. There was a cemetery behind it and a huge hill down the side. We sledded in the winter and rolled down in tractor tires in the spring. Why we weren’t killed is amazing to me. My grandmother’s store and PO was to the left of the intersection of Chesley Rd and 206th St. It looks like there’s some sort of barn there now. Above where Spring St, crosses Chesley St. is the church, with another cemetery behind it. On up that hill takes me back to my grandparent’s ranch. See the house at the lower right? I won’t include the name of the people who live here, but my granddad helped build that house–with someone as particular as he was–they got along fine. The drilled holes for the nails before they pounded them in–no nail guns here.

I have these places, and others, bookmarked on Google Map. I like visiting them occasionally. There’s a country cemetery in Beaver County I like to visit–it’s easy to count the miles as I travel down the road, and I know how many miles and which directions it is to visit where my great Aunt Edna and Uncle Gurly lived, and where my great-grandparents lived out there in Beaver County Oklahoma.

And then I can always “drive-by” the house where I grew up (marked with the small white heart)–it’s a different color now but it’s still located across the street from the high school, between the First Christian Church and the Church of Christ on Jackson Dr., and I can drag Main Street if I’m feeling really nostalgic.

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7 February 2010

Perspective and a Book Review

Filed under: Cooper Family, Mitchell Family, Texas — allmyanc @ 3:17 pm

I received and read this book this past week.

I discovered its existence last week.

As I’ve been blogging, I’ve been working on my Mitchell line. Mary Mitchell was the wife of John B. Cooper and they were the parents of George C. and Rebekah Ann Cooper. Both of these children were orphaned by shortly after the Civil War. I am descended from George C. Cooper–he was my great-grandfather. The author of From Flour Sacks to Satin is the granddaughter of Rebekah Ann, or “Annie” as she was known. I did not know my great-grandfather–he died almost 20 years before I was born. But one of the chapters in this book is entitled “Grandma Hall,”–Annie, my ggrandfather George’s sister. She knew her grandmother.

Some pages of this book were difficult to read. It is illustrative of the point that we don’t all grow up in the same family. My youngest brother remembers events in our family much differently than do I, for example. He wasn’t there for some of them, and I wasn’t there for others–his being 6 years younger and having siblings who essentially left home when he was 12, leaving him to be a type of only child, means we were reared in families essentially different in many ways.

That is the case with the story told in this book. Her story is no less true or valuable or compelling for having been the descendant of Annie. The bones of the story are the same–the children left Johnson County with their widowed mother after the War, were orphaned, were rescued from Fayette County, Texas from living with a Mr. Burns after the death of their mother, and were returned to Johnson County to live with their grandparents, Job and Elizabeth Landrum Cooper.

Other details and events vary. According to Flour Sacks, George was offered opportunities to continue his education. Annie was allowed to only attend school through the third grade, despite her thirst for more knowledge and formal education. I do know that George was a school teacher–that’s how he met Sallie Duval, his wife. Annie and her now-blind husband and children were “invited” to leave the Hall’s place. The subtitle of the book tells the tale: The Story of a Sharecropper Family. These are events of which I have no knowledge–either from firsthand experience or from family lore. And the author herself says in opening remarks,

“The purpose of this books is not to embarrass or slander anyone in recording the events of my early life, which I believe were unique in the circumstances I experienced. Through the years I have come to dearly love all of my relatives and appreciate the people with whom I was associated, both living and deceased….”

I am indebted to her for writing this story. It is on the shelf next to one of her books of poetry she gave me nearly 20 years ago–a collection that includes the thoughts of a young John B. as he looked out over his plowed fields, as the clouds of War approached. They are treasures. I wrote her a letter before I received the book, asking her if she wanted to know more about our Mitchell line. Unfortunately, it was returned–putting it out on the mailbox for the postman to pick up evidently resulted in part of her address washing off the envelope. I must revise and send it along again–none of us are getting any younger.

And I must express to her directly how grateful I am to her for putting down her story, which is, of course, part of my story.

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9 January 2010

The End of an Era

Filed under: Dad, Osborne Family, Texas — allmyanc @ 4:40 pm

Another farm auction was held out in the Texas panhandle today.

It was the auction of my uncle’s farm equipment. He’s my dad’s suviving sibling and tomorrow is his 82nd birthday. He’s farmed my grandparents’ place since their deaths in the ’80s.

This was his last year to farm and when the family LLC voted to sell the farm, the bid submitted by my brothers and me was 2nd highest.

So the farm has passed out of the family. And my uncle’s equipment was sold today. It was probably very cold and my cousin said her dad was going to be there no matter the weather. That didn’t surprise me. That generation didn’t shirk from hard situations.

Tracing my family back to the 1700s shows no profession (with one exception) other than farming. One of my two brothers would have loved to have farmed but couldn’t make it work. Our other brother and I are not farmers. This creates a little dissonance for me–I’m not willing to try to make a living farming, but it makes me incredibly sad to know that the end of farming has come for this branch of my family. I think it would have been of some comfort if we’d been able to keep the land in the family, but that was not to be either.

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31 December 2009

It Was A Very Good Mitchell Year

Filed under: Cooper Family, Military, Mississippi, Mitchell Family, Tennessee, Texas — allmyanc @ 12:11 pm

I began knowing only the unexceptional name of my great-great grandmother–Mary E. Mitchell–and that her first child was born in Texas in 1859. I have yet to find any sort of marriage record for Mary E. and her husband John B. Cooper.

By consulting Texas school census records and comparing them to the federal census, I found her father’s name –Ephraim M. Mitchell.

This helped me make contact with others who were researching Ephraim and his wife Rebecca R. Jones, and their 13 children!

There is family lore about Rebecca being the daughter of Sam Jones and Itee– Sam, aka Arpeika, the fierce Seminole leader and Itee, 1/2 Irish and 1/2 Choctaw.

But what about the Mitchells? No one in my family knew anything about them. Mary Mitchell’s husband was killed in the Civil War and she died shortly thereafter, leaving my great-grandfather George C. Cooper and his sister Rebecca Ann. The children were reared by their father’s family and very little was known about their mother Mary, much less her family.

But this year, with the help of some other Mitchell researchers, we have connected the dots, as one of them so aptly put it. With all the apparent relationships so obvious after the fact.

Ephraim’s father has been identified, as have some of his uncles–indentifying the uncles is part of how we got to Ephraim’s father John Mitchell. And, we found his mother, identified in Lightfoot’s “Let the Drums Roll” about Maury County Tennessee Revolutionary War veterans, only as “Patsy McClain.” Just this week we not only found her name to be McLean, but we likely found her father and mother and more.

Of course the path was not straight. John Mitchell apparently died in 1847 in Mexico as the result of illness contracted during his service in the Mexican War. The probate file for settlement of his estate is missing from the Shelby County, Texas, courthouse. (of course it is!) There is another younger John Mitchell enlisted in the same unit–but he cannot be found after the war in 1850–at least not yet. And is he even the son of John Sr. or is he a nephew?

Gratefully, someone saved some family letters and shared them with the rest of us. It’s only the transcription of a letter John Mitchell wrote in 1847 from Austin Texas where he’s awaiting deployment to Mexico. He talks about having stopped by Corsicana to visit his brother D.R., he mentions his horse Charley, and he admonishes his son Ephraim to take care of his mother. D.R. turns out to be John’s brother David Reed Mitchell, living and working in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas, and early correspondent from Maury County Tennessee with President Andrew Jackson regarding his deceased brother James’ estate. Charley the horse is mentioned later in another preserved letter written to Ephraim by an attorney on behalf of his cousin “H. R. Mitchell”–H.R. had evidently traded the sorrel horse Charley for 100 acres of John Mitchell’s head right land in Rusk County. H. R. turns out to be Hiram Reed Mitchell, probably the son of David Reed Mitchell. Researching his family takes us back to Mississippi where there are indications that the Mitchells were between the time they were in Tennessee and Texas.

When a Patsy or Martha Mitchell who would be a good candidate for John’s wife cannot be found in the 1850 Texas census, I go looking in Mississippi. Sure enough, there’s a good possibility living in an R. L. Boyd’s home, listed as “mother-in-law” and R. L.’s wife’s name is Mary E. The longer I examine this family, the more convinced I am that this is John Mitchell’s “Patsy McClain” and Ephraim M. Mitchell’s mother. The name Boyd keeps appearing, too, as a middle name for Mitchells–both Hiram and Ephraim have children with Boyd middle names. Robert Louis Boyd dies too early for them to be named for him, so where did this name come from? My search for more info on R. L. Boyd ends up in a dead end, but I believe the Mitchell search has yielded some more clues.

I am grateful that Martha “Patsy” McLean and John Mitchell broke out of the Mitchell’s inclination to name sons John, James, Andrew or David, and named my ancestor for his maternal grandfather, Ephraim McLean, Jr. And Ephraim McLean, Jr. is married to Mary “Polly” Boyd. The McLean line is well-documented–there’s even an DAR chapter named for Ephraim McLean, Sr., a Revolutionary War vet who lived to be +90, living in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee.

So it’s been a very good year for Mitchell research. Of course, I still have questions–and this is still a challenging search because all of the Mitchell families apparently named their multitudinous sons for their relatives–John and Andrew and James with an occasional David thrown in. But it feels like a brickwall has come down, and much of it since the 4-days-ago Mad Monday post about the Mitchells.

It’s a great way to end one year and start another.

Still digging.

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28 December 2009

Madness Monday: Mitchell Family

Filed under: Cooper Family, Memes, Military, Mississippi, Mitchell Family, Texas — allmyanc @ 1:53 pm

I’ve written about my Mitchell quest before.

This is a tough search because it’s a common name, the given names are also common (John, James, Mary, Martha), the family was apparently quite mobile, and most of what I want to know occurred before 1850 so the luxury of the every-name census records are not available. Add that this family was often in territory before statehood (e.g., probably Mississippi) and in a state I have not extensively researched, and the result is a family that drives me a little mad.

Plus, I also have to question the sanity of a man 56 years of age (according to his service record) who joins up to fight in the Mexican War.

So while I’ve written quite a bit recently about this family, it still fits the Monday Madness meme for Geneabloggers–both because they drive me mad and I do think John Mitchell, Sr. might have been a little off his rocker.

Here is the latest information I’ve received on a person named John Mitchell, Jr. I’m still not certain that he is the brother of my 4th great-grandfather, Ephraim Miles Mitchell, son of John Mitchell and probably Martha “Patsy” McClain. I’ve mentioned before that I have a copy of a letter written by John Mitchell from Austin, Texas, as he is awaiting deployment to Mexico. He mentions his brother “D. R.,” and his horse Charley, but no mention of a son in the same unit.

He does enlist on the same day in the same place as John Mitchell, Sr–20 May 1847 in Rusk County, Texas.

He enlists in the same unit–1st Texas Mounted Volunteers, Co. I.

Unlike John Sr., he apparently survives the war and he one muster roll card indicates he was mustered out 1 May 1848 by Captain Washington near Vera Cruz, Mexico.

His service record gives no other clues that I can see. Do you?

I posted most of this info in my 20 Dec post, but by writing about it again, I guess I think I’m emphasizing how frustrated I am with these guys.

Through the years I have found pieces of information on this family that all started from my trying to search for info on my mysterious great-great grandmother, Ephraim’s daughter Mary. I knew nothing about her family when I started, so with some perspective, I have learned quite a bit about this mysterious bunch–I knew her grandchildren but they knew practically nothing about her. John B. and Mary are a bit of the “lost generation” in my family since both Mary and her husband John B. Cooper died young–he in the Civil War and she shortly thereafter.

Here’s hoping . . .

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20 December 2009

John Mitchell, Jr. in the Mexican War

Filed under: Military, Mississippi, Mitchell Family, Texas — allmyanc @ 9:16 pm

I know, I know. We’re supposed to be blogging about Christmas.

But I received the second Mexican War service record I’ve ordered. Ever. And I’ve written before about my lack of confidence in dealing with military records–mostly because of my ignorance of them, particularly any record other than ones from the Civil War.

This one is for a man named John Mitchell, Jr. He enlisted in Rusk County, Texas on 20 May 1847. He is 30 years of age and he enlists in what becomes Co. I, 1st Regiment Texas Mounted Volunteers. The commander for this unit is the colorful Capt. John “Jack” Coffee Hays.

In this same unit, also as previously posted, is John Mitchell, Sr. Because of a copy of a letter passed down through the family, I am relatively certain John Mitchell Sr. is my ancestor.

But who is John Mitchell, Jr. Can I safely assume he is the son of John, Sr.? They enlist on the same day in the same place into the same unit and for the same length of time. John Sr.’s horse was evidently of better quality as it is valued at $130. Jr.’s is valued at $75, goes up to $100 by November and then at the time of mustering out, May 1848, is valued at $50. Wonder what the process is of valuing the horses?

I looked for a John Mitchell, born about 1817, in Rusk County, Texas in the 1850 census. I did not find anyone who fit this description. So I went back to Mississippi looking for such a person. There is J. B. Mitchell who is the right age in DeSoto County in both 1850 and 1860. The Mitchells are variously in DeSoto and Marshall Counties in northern Mississippi–I suspect they came into Mississippi from neighboring Tennessee. I am stymied by the initials the census taker used for this family–John Mitchell is way too common a name to depend on initials. I was hoping for a wife’s name that might help me track this John Mitchell. It appears that J.B.’s wife’s name was Susan–in 1860, the oldest child in the household is Martha. Wife Susan is not in the household by 1860. Martha is the name of John Mitchell Sr’s wife.

And here’s another big question–what were the Mitchell men doing in Texas, signing up for the Army, when their homes and families were in Mississippi? Granted, one of John Sr.’s sons, Ephraim Miles Mitchell, had come to Texas by this date, but why were his father and perhaps his brother there as well? This family seemed to move as land opened up in various places–but unlike Ephraim, these two men do not appear to have brought their families with them. At least John Sr. did not–his wife Martha/Patsy is found back in Mississippi living in the household of her daughter Mary E. Boyd, wife of Robert Louis Boyd.

I still don’t have enough information to unravel the Mitchells. But I’ll keep working. I’ve put off working on this family–a common surname, common given names and much movement prior to 1850. I keep trying to collect bits to fill in the puzzle, but so far, I don’t even have enough to build the outside edges.

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2 December 2009

Advent Calendar: Ornaments

Filed under: Germans from Russia, Holidays, Memes, Mom, Texas — allmyanc @ 8:30 pm

December 3 – Christmas Tree Ornaments
Did your family have heirloom or cherished ornaments? Did you ever string popcorn and cranberries? Did your family or ancestors make Christmas ornaments?
(Note: this post can be used for Treasure Chest Thursday as well)

So I’m late joining this exercise, but maybe it will serve the purpose of getting me started writing again. And help take me away from the frantic-ness that is too often part of these holidays.

I’d love to say we have some heirloom or cherished ornaments. I think we have some that are on their way to cherished status, but not a lot. A few years ago, I purchased some retro ornament that reminded me of those smaller glass ornaments of my childhood (1950s)–there are lots of blues and purples and stripes and some sort of rough white glitter “snow.” They aren’t circular like today’s bulbs–I’ve enjoyed putting them among our other ornaments the past few years.

My favorite ornament that I kept for many many years was a Santa Claus head I made as a first grader. We were assigned to make or bring an ornament for our classroom tree. As I recall, Mrs. Price put up some sort of painted twiggy looking tree at the back of the classroom on the counter next to the sink–as I recall, it got decorated for each season so it wasn’t a true Christmas tree in the sense that it was not evergreen.

To make my ornament, my mom blew out an egg and I drew on the face. He was a little cross-eyed as I recall. Mom helped me further by sewing a red hat–I remember we had a time making it big enough to fit over the egg–and I glued on some cotton for the white fur. I loved putting this ornament on the tree for years–first at my parents’ home and then on my own tree. However, egg-head Santa suffered a crushing blow–someone stepped on him. I don’t even remember who now but I do remember it was a very sad day when I had to do away with my Santa. I think his scruffy little red hat still fills one of the corners of the Christmas storage boxes.

But we do have another ornament that is taking on the “heirloom” mantle–it is already cherished. Our oldest son made an ornament one year out of an even more unlikely household item than an egg–a toilet paper roll. The ornament represents a man dressed as in Biblical times–or a young child’s idea of what that would be, anyway. Construction paper was used to make a red undergarment with a blue outer robe. Now-raveling burlap forms the headdress–glued over the top and partway down the back–and the face matches the artwork of my 1st grade Santa–but this one has a very dark beard colored on. It’s just so primitive and representative of my son at that young age–I love it and love to tuck it into the tree each year.

I don’t remember ever stringing cranberries or popcorn, but one year I did decorate our family tree in the tradition of what I’d read and learned about our Germans from Russia ancestors. Here in Oklahoma City, there is always a display of trees decorated by various groups who want to participate. Persons can tour the display and the event earns money for a local charity. The local Germans from Russia chapter had a beautiful tree up and it made me think about my own ancestors. My family were Mennonites so I can imagine their choice of decorations as being practical. I put unshelled walnuts and apples and candles on my tree that year. I did spray paint the walnuts with gold paint, and the apples were not “real” fruit–the were smaller shiny apple ornaments, and my candles were lights. It was beautiful to me but I remember my sons being a little puzzled. It took me back to the year my mom “flocked” (with that spray snow that was available and a staple of 1950’s Christmases) a tumbleweed for our Christmas tree in the Texas panhandle. Looking back on it, it seems appropriate but I really was embarrassed and thought it was weird at the time.

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