Sepia Saturday: Hospitalman 3rd Class

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo prompt features the kitchen of a hospital train.  Hospital train?  That’s a foreign concept to me, but I do have a TRAINed nurse.  (HA HA HA HA -- I kill me! Yeah, I'm here through the weekend.)

Janet Basham Meines
1929 - 1997

Janet Louise Basham was my mother’s cousin.  She was the older daughter of my grandmother’s sister Rosalind Mae Rucker and Larry Dalton Basham.  Janet was born July 10, 1929, in Roanoke, Virginia, and graduated from William Fleming High School in 1947.  

Janet Louise Basham 1947
scanned from William Fleming HS yearbook
The Colonel
available on Ancestry.com

As many yearbook staffs tend to do, quotes were selected for each senior.  Next to Janet’s photo was this gem:  “Thou shalt not wash dishes.”   In the Class Last Will & Testament, Janet left her bubblegum to another student, Jack Baldwin. 

Typical teenager!

Janet Louise Basham Meines
photo courtesy of her daughter
(name withheld for privacy)

Sometime between graduation and marriage, Janet joined the Navy as a WAVE and became a nurse, specifically Hospitalman 3^rd class.  


That is probably where she met her husband, Clarence “Clix” Meines.

Newly-Wed Pair Expected for Stay at Bride’s Home

A former Roanoker, Miss Janet Louise Basham, Hospitalman 3^rd Class, WAVE, was married July 24 [1950] to Clarence Haines Meines, Jr., Hospital Corpsman, USN, in the chapel of the US Naval Hospital, St. Alban’s, Long Island, New York.

Both will be discharged from the Navy this week and will arrive in Roanoke Saturday to visit Mrs. Meines’ parents, Mr. and Mrs. Larry D. Basham.

Mr. Meines of Paterson, NJ, is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Haines Meines.

The ceremony was performed at 4 p.m. and Chaplain J. T. Embry officiated.

Given in marriage by her father, the bride wore a ballerina length dress of white organdy and lace over taffeta with a fingertip veil and lace headband.  Her bouquet was of white carnations.

The maid of honor and only attendant was Miss Ellen Farmer of Ohio.  She wore a ballerina length gown of pink organdy and carried pink carnations.

Michael Rooney of New Jersey served as best man.  Ushers were Willard Barnes and Horace Latouir.

Following the ceremony, a reception was held at the WAVEs’ quarters, US Naval Hospital.

For a wedding trip, the couple went to Culver’s Lake, NJ.  Following their visit in Roanoke, Mr. and Mrs. Meines will live in Paterson, NJ.

Janet and Clix raised 4 children, 2 girls and 2 boys.  She died in April 1997. 

I don’t remember ever meeting the Meines children when I was a child.  It’s possible.  My grandmother’s sister visited usually every year, and Janet sent Christmas cards, so there was some level of closeness.  Several months ago after scanning a Meines Christmas card into my family files, on a whim I searched on Facebook for the “kids.”  Not too surprisingly, they are there.  The oldest is a new grandmother and now my Facebook friend.  Wonders of the Internet!

I got slightly off-track with this post, but climb aboard the Sepia Saturday train and see what else is cooking.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Fearless Females: March 5 How They Met

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has presented 31 prompts to honor the “fearless females” in our family trees.

Today’s prompt:  You’ve documented marriages, now, go back a bit. Do you know the story of how your parents met? Your grandparents?

Yesterday I wrote about my grandparents’ surprise elopement.  But the story of their courtship is the stuff of Chick Flicks.

My grandfather Orvin Davis was dating the very pretty and popular Rosalind, one of Shenandoah’s finest.

Rosalind Mae Rucker Basham
1903-1973

He must have waited many evenings in the parlor at Rosalind’s house on Fourth Street, possibly chatting politely with Rosalind’s father Joe, while Rosalind was upstairs fixing her hair and dabbing on just the slightest hint of perfume.  No doubt Orvin spied out of the corner of his eye Rosalind’s younger sister descending the stairs and turning left into the kitchen.

Lucille Rucker Davis
1904 - 1990

How many times did this scene play out before Orvin shifted gears and started calling on Rosalind’s younger sister Lucille?  


Those had to be some awkward evenings waiting in the parlor.

Rosalind did not take it well.  I wonder if there was any hair pulling.

Mary Eleanor Davis Slade
1929-2005

And just as my grandfather KNEW Lucille was the one, my dad was immediately taken with Orvin and Lucille’s daughter (my mother).  They met on a blind date.  Daddy always said when he saw Momma come out of the house carrying that big bowl of potato salad, he knew she was THE ONE.   

And he hadn’t even tasted the potato salad!

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Census Sunday: The Bashams

Rosalind Mae Rucker

In 1940, my maternal grandmother’s sister Rosalind Mae Rucker Basham was living in Roanoke, Virginia.  She and her husband Larry Dalton Basham owned their Round Hill Avenue home valued at $5000.  Dalton, who had completed eight years of school, was working as a mechanic in the rayon mill.  He was fully employed the previous year earning $1820, which equates to roughly $29,998 today.  He worked 40 hours the last week of March just prior to the start of the census.

Rosalind (spelled Rosalynd in the census) had graduated from high school.  She was a homemaker raising two daughters, Janet (10) and Gloria (6).

Click to enlarge

Because the family is listed as living in Roanoke in 1935 rather than in “Same House,” it seems likely they bought the house sometime after 1935. In fact, the city directories available on Ancestry indicate they bought the house between 1936 and 1938. The 1937 directory is missing.

Digging a little deeper, I found on Trulia that the house was built in 1937.  It is described as being a little over 1500 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 1 bath.  This is probably the same house Rosalind and Dalton lived in the rest of their lives. 

from Google Maps
3622 Round Hill Ave, NW Roanoke, VA

This Christmas card shows the house as it looked before 1960 (the year Dalton died).  It is not much different today.

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.