Sepia Saturday: Who ya gonna call?

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is timed right for Halloween. When my two girls were in their peak trick-or-treating years, there were parties and festivities coming at them faster than you could say, “Boo.”  But there was one non-costume and non-candy event that provided a welcome relief:  the Halloween Story Hour at our local branch library.

Halloween Story Hour at Russell Memorial Library
October 1988

The story hour was just one project of the Junior Woman’s Club of Portsmouth, of which I was a proud member from 1983 to 1991 when I reached the maximum age for membership as a JUNIOR. Most of our members were mothers of young children, so naturally children’s issues were at the heart of many club projects.

The real draw for most of the children who attended the Story Hour was not the delightful or spooky stories they would hear but the appearance of our special guests, the Crime Busters.

Crime Busters and volunteers eager to dance

Not Portsmouth's Crime Buster car but similar
image from Flickr

The Crime Busters were a group of policemen capitalizing on the popularity of the “Ghost Busters” movie franchise. Not only did they show up in costume, but they also arrived in a fully tricked-out white station wagon like the one from the movie.

Crime Busters t-shirt
image courtesy Pam Newsom Matthews

Crime Busters with some of the kids
My girls are the 4th from the left (wearing a shirt
with a cheerleader bear)  and on the far right back.

The Crime Busters entered to music and even did a little dance routine. They were a big deal in our community, in demand for parades, school programs, and parties. Somewhere in all the excitement they managed to spread a little “child safety” information as well.

These pictures remind me what fun I had in my ol’ JWCP days. Most of the “young mothers” are now grandmothers. Many of those happy children eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Crime Busters are now young parents themselves. Right now they no doubt are pulling together costumes for their little witches and Elsas, vampires and Batmans.

I wonder if any of these new parents are taking their little ones to a Halloween Story Hour.

If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, then follow the links at Sepia Saturday. I ain’t afraid o’ no ghost!

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: So Dramatic

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo featuring the dramatic pose of a woman playing the harp has afforded me the opportunity to share some pages from my grandaunt’s college yearbook. While the Stratford Players put on some very dramatic performances at the Harrisonburg Normal School, the May Day Festival required the most lavish production. Students of elocution, chorus, and dance joined forces with the drama club to make May Day inspiring and unforgettable.

In 1923, the theme was an Old English May Day,














complete with Morris dancers,

milk maids,

a fiddler,

Fiddler?  I think that's a lyre.

Robin Hood, a jester, and a horse.

Now, honestly, I hate to sound judgmental, but any group of students who could craft the scenery and costumes for Pomander Walk

Outdoor auditorium with homemade scenery

and Monsieur Beaucaire

should have been capable of rendering a better horse than that.

Maybe the May Day play was a comedy. I don’t know. Let’s look at that horse again.

That horse cracks me up!

I don’t mean to harp on it, but I do think you should visit the others at Sepia Saturday. AND if you’d like to join us, I can pull a few strings.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Children in the Shadows

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo of children in the dark inspired me to take another look at this old photo.

Center: John Jr. 1920

Once again, I am agonizing over the identities of distant relatives in New York. The little boy in the center is definitely John Jr. The two older boys in the shadows are not likely John’s brothers as they are not featured in any other photos in my collection. Whether they were cousins or neighbors is impossible to determine.

"John Jr. and I 1920"

Even though John Jr. has a distinct look that makes him easily recognizable, it doesn’t hurt that he was identified wearing the same outfit along with my grandaunt Lillie Killeen.

John Jr.’s head-wrap is unusual. I wonder if he had some kind of surgery. Almost as strange is Lillie’s colonial mop cap. Does any of this help explain why they posed at a sign that seems to warn them of “Danger”?

From the number of photos of Lillie with John Jr. and his sister, it is apparent that she was close to John Jr.’s parents. But who were they? I only wish I knew who John SR. might have been. Then maybe I could sort out the families of the sisters of my great-grandmother Mary Theresa Sheehan Killeen Walsh. 

So, like the prompt photo, I too am in the dark.

There are more stories and old photos at Sepia Saturday. Don’t YOU be left in the dark!

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Ugly People

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday commemorates 300 weeks of sharing old photos and stories by recalling the photo that got this group started. While there is no shortage of photos of ugly people in my collection, I decided to follow the prompt even more closely by recalling the photo I posted on my very first blog back in August 2011. Partly because I’m lazy, partly because there is nothing new to say, and partly because it was so darn good the first time, I am simply repeating the story (with a few minor edits) from the post that got my blog started:

Standing: My great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis, Sallie Jollett Clift,
Victoria Jollett Breeden, Laura Jollett Knight
Seated: Emma Jollett Coleman, Ulysses Jollett, Laura Jollett Sullivan

For years, this Jollett family portrait hung above the piano in my parents’ living room. My great-aunt Violetta Davis Ryan had several copies made from a little photo, and everyone who shared her pride in the Jolletts got one. As children, my sister and I heard stories of the Jolletts during every visit with our relatives in Harrisonburg and Shenandoah, Virginia. To children’s ears the Jollett family seemed like characters in a storybook, so mysterious and out of reach. Naturally we willingly adopted Jollett Pride as our own.

Then baby sister’s boyfriend came a’callin’ and snapped us into reality. He entered the living room, took one look at that gold-framed family treasure and said, “Who are all those ugly people?”

Until then, we probably never noticed the glum expressions and the general absence of beauty among the sisters. As my sassy sister noted, “They probably didn’t have Mary Kay.” 

I used to think the Jollett girls and brother were old in this picture. Now I realize they were YOUNG. They were in their 30s-40s, maybe. If that’s a wedding ring on Vic’s hand, the photo was taken after 1902.  The clothing appears to be 1910’s style. Mary Frances’ brother Ulysses died in 1931 at age 44, so that helps date this photo as well. 

Now HERE they are in their late 50s and 60s.

Standing: James Mitchell Knight, Sallie J. Clift, Leanna J. Knight, 

Walter Davis, Mary Frances J. Davis, Decatur Breeden, 

Victoria J. Breeden, Laura J. Sullivan, Will Sullivan

Seated:  Jack Coleman, Emma J. Coleman

This photo was taken at a family reunion probably 1934 or earlier. My handsome great-grandfather looks healthy, but he died in October 1934.

Please visit Sepia Saturday to read more of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: The Cutout

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is an ad for medicine in the form of a paper doll cutout. Had my parents owned a camera, they might have snapped many delightful photos of me at play with my paper dolls. Cutting out all the clothes, carefully edging my way around the tabs to ensure a good fit later on, was as much a part of the paper doll experience as the imaginative play that followed. In fact, the perforated punch-out version of paper dolls seemed like a dumbing-down of one of my favorite past times. But alas, there are no photos of me at play.

Thinking about “cutouts” reminded me of a puzzling photo in an album that belonged to my grandaunt Helen Killeen Parker. It’s such a lovely picture. I imagine that if Renoir and Monet had a baby, it might look like this.

from album of Helen Killeen Parker
about 1918-1920

But notice the black triangle. That’s a deliberate CUT, not a weakened corner of an old photo tossed carelessly into a box, not a portion that has gone missing after years of being folded and unfolded.

Somebody has been cut out of that picture. Is that a shoulder and arm, the remnants of some man, behind this lovely woman? If this were Helen – but it’s not – I would guess the man was an ex-boyfriend. Isn’t that what we do – draw glasses and ugly moustaches on their faces before ultimately just cutting them out?

Please visit my fellow cut-ups at Sepia Saturday to see what they have come up with. It’s sure to cure what ails ya.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Uncle Renza

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo is of sisters and their dogs on the steps of a mansion. About 1935, someone snapped a picture of my mother and her brother and their dog Fritz on the front steps of someone’s home which was anything but a mansion. The smiling gentleman was their grandfather’s brother known among family as “Uncle Renza.”

"Uncle Renza" (1871-1947)
my mother Mary Eleanor Davis and her brother Orvin Jr.
and of course, Fritz

Apparently Uncle Renza was an object of pity. He seemed to be poor. My mother thought maybe he was divorced. He would show up and then disappear. But those are the recollections of a child. Just what was Uncle Renza’s story?

He was born Lorenza Ridell McKinley Davis in 1871, the thirteenth of fifteen children of Mitchell and Martha Willson Davis of Rockingham County, Virginia. He obtained a sixth grade education, which was the typical length of education in rural parts of the state at that time. In August 1892, he married Chillis/Chelie Ann Shiflett of Greene County.

By 1900, Lorenza and Chelie or Anne or Anna, whatever she went by, were the parents of four children under the age of six. As was typical of women of the time, Anne took care of the household in their rented home in Augusta County while her husband worked as a farm laborer, likely on someone else’s farm.

Company houses at the logging camp near Boyer
photo courtesy Cass Scenic Railroad State Park
cassrailroad.com

Apparently there was more opportunity in the remote Pocahontas County in West Virginia. The steam railroad had finally reached those mountains, enabling the growth of commercial timbering. By 1910, the Davis family had moved into a rental home in Boyer Village, a logging camp in the Green Bank district where Lorenza and most of his neighbors were employed by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Mill.

In the census record for that year, Lorenza and Anne could boast that all six of six children were still living. But something must have happened to the family after 1910. Lorenza and Anne are nowhere to be found in either the 1920 or 1930 census. None of the usual creative spellings and combinations have produced a hit. Maybe it was true – maybe they divorced and maybe Anne remarried. Nevertheless, that does not explain Lorenza’s disappearance.

Most of their children did not show up in 1920 or 1930 either. Those that did were married but apparently did not take their parents in.

Incorrect information on the children’s later marriage and death records led me to search using the names “Lorenzo McKinley” and “Alonzo Davis.” Still nothing.

Death Certificate for Chelie Anne Shiflett Davis

Virginia death records recently released on Ancestry.com provided a few answers while sparking new questions. Anne’s whereabouts were confirmed: at least by 1939 and in failing health, she moved to Covington, Virginia, likely near, if not with, her daughter Bessie Weiford who was the informant on Anne’s death certificate. The answer to the question of whether she and Uncle Renza were divorced seems to be “No.”

However, in the 1940 census, Uncle Renza claimed he was Single. Yet at his death in 1947, he was a widower according to his death certificate.

For a few years at least, Uncle Renza seemed to be getting by. He owned his home, but it was valued at only $100 while his neighbors’ homes were valued between $1200 and $6000. At age 69, he was still employed - as a laborer for a private family. That probably translates as “handyman.” He was already past the age of normal working years, so there is no telling how much longer he was able to work.

As meager as Uncle Renza’s life seems to have been, his circumstances must have taken a grim turn. The informant at his death was not one of his children, not a sister or brother, not even a family friend.  It was the Department of Public Welfare in Fairfax, Virginia.

Death Certificate for Lorenza Ridell McKinley Davis

Whether he had been a long-time recipient of public assistance or had merely fallen on hard times in his declining years is not known. At any rate, my mother’s recollections of a “poor uncle” must have been right.

Why don’t you and your sister take the dog for a walk to the Sepia Saturday mansion?

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Julia's Cousins

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is of a woman hanging laundry. Laundry was never the focus of any of the old photos passed down to me. However, glimpses of mundane chores were caught in several photos, albeit not as artistic as the prompt unfortunately. The laundress appears almost to be floating in the dark, hovering between basket and line.

That same description can be applied to me. When it comes to learning more about my Irish great-grandmother’s sisters and families in New York, I continue to float in the dark, hovering between a “basket” of unidentifiable photos and no strong family “line” to hang them on.

from top to bottom:  Walsh sisters Julia, Catherine, Teresa (Tate)
about 1913 or 1914

Now admittedly, I do know SOME of the players. The day someone snapped this picture of my paternal grandmother and her two sisters Cat and Tate was the same day someone washed clothes. (Do you suppose it was a Monday?) Is that long-legged underwear on the line?

A later photo of my grandmother and some cousins captures a neighbor’s laundry hanging from an upstairs window on what appears to be a retractable clothesline.

Torn photo of Elmira, Julia, and Raymond
I wonder who is missing.

As interesting as that contraption is to me now, the real interest is the children and who might have been in the photo in its original condition.

Since the photo is of my grandmother with her cousin Elmira Christian, daughter of Delia Sheehan and William Christian, I can guess the little boy is Elmira’s brother Raymond, IF I’m correct in guessing the ages of the girls to be about 10-12 and the little boy about 2-3.

What is that cloth? A sheet drying on a rack?
from left to right: Probably Grace Christian,
Julia Walsh, and Elmira Christian

Adding this photo to another one of my grandmother and her cousins almost completes the Christian children. Missing is the baby of the family, William, who was perhaps either a newborn or not yet born at the time.

Another cousin photo was taken the same day, it seems, judging by my grandmother’s dress. It is Julia with Sadie Burns/Byrnes, daughter of Elizabeth Sheehan Burns/Byrnes. The rickety fence, perhaps an extension of the fence in the photo of Julia and the Christian girls, makes me think they were all there together at one time, wherever “there” was – maybe Sadie’s house in New York, maybe Elmira’s house, but would that have been in New Jersey or New York?

Julia Walsh and Sadie Burns

There is so much more to learn about my great-grandmother’s family. Yet the clues are limited. I have found only two descendants, both Delia’s grandchildren. However, neither one seems to know anything at all about their grandmother, not even her maiden name.

Or maybe they know more than they let on but just don’t want to “air the dirty laundry.”

It’s laundry day on Sepia Saturday. See who else is hanging out at the line.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.