Happy Father's Day

My favorite dads:

My daddy

My granddaddies

My daughters' daddy

My granddaughter's daddy

My grandson's daddy

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Good-bye Feedburner - Hello Follow.It

Several months ago, Google announced that in July it will discontinue the Feedburner service which emails blogs to subscribers. Like other bloggers, I looked for another service and have decided on Follow.it. Look for the new subscribe button in the sidebar.

If you already follow Jollett Etc through email, your address has been entered automatically, so you’re already taken care of. Please note there are 3 differences:

1. My blog will arrive in your email from Follow.it instead of from Jollett Etc.
2. The email arrives the day after the blog is posted. (At least that is my experience in following others.)
3. Ads appear at the bottom of the email.

Many of my blogging friends don’t like the ads, but I did not find them offensive or intrusive. To be honest, I don’t read blogs in the email anyway. I always click on the title which takes me to the blog itself. If you find Follow.it annoying, you can unsubscribe at any time. This is a judgment-free zone.

Another option is to follow my blog through a reader such as Feedly or Bloglovin. They are free and even offer an app.

As always, thanks for reading!

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Photo Friday - Swimmers

Unidentified friends of Violetta Davis Ryan
around 1920 probably at Blue Hole in Naked Creek
Rockingham County, Virginia

The best antidote to the summer heat!

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

52 Ancestors - FATHER'S DAY: Walter Rucker and Son

With Father’s Day approaching, we reflect on the importance of our fathers. A good father is the best gift a child can receive. A father’s affection and support of our activities and our dreams help build our confidence and independence. We want to make Dad proud. Social media floods us with nostalgic images of father and son fishing or enjoying a game of catch. However, that image quickly fades after reading the numerous news stories about my grandmother’s cousin Frank and his father Walter Newman Rucker.

It was 1916. Frank was just a teenager about 15 or 16. He was one of ten children born to Walter Newman Rucker and his wife Ada Eppard. That year, Frank’s bachelor uncle Charley Eppard was living with them in Shenandoah, Virginia. Living with various relatives over the years, Charley managed to save a lot of money which he kept in a trunk. That money must have been just too tempting for young Frank Rucker.

He stole it. 

STOLEN GOODS

from Harrisonburg
Daily News Record 28 Mar 1916

According to news reports – and there were lots of them – Frank took around $600 which included 7 twenty-dollar gold coins. He was caught when A. A. Moore, a 23-year old brakeman for the railroad, was arrested on a charge of receiving money that he knew had been stolen. 

The prosecution argued that Moore helped Frank and his friends Jacob Rothgeb and Martin Luther Kite spend much of the money on a trip to Harrisonburg. Moore made purchases with the gold pieces at both Toppin’s Saloon and at Frazier & Slater’s store.

ads in the Daily News Record

The defense responded by saying Frank told Moore that he FOUND the money and there was “more where that came from.” Moore emphasized that he gained nothing from the money since the purchases of a suitcase and two suits of clothing were for Frank and that he gave all the change back to Frank as well. The prosecution maintained that any prudent man could look at the circumstances and just KNOW that the money had been stolen.

AND THE JURY SAYS …

The trial ended in a hung jury, so the judge set another court date. 

from Daily News Record
7 Apr 1916

News reporters covered the case like it was the trial of the century. Spectators filled the court room.

Daily News Record 6 Jun 1916 

Among the material witnesses to be called were Frank’s buddies Jacob Rothgeb and Martin Luther Kite. Both failed to show up. Kite was soon arrested in Maryland where supposedly he had gone to obtain work. As for Rothgeb, the counsel for the defense claimed Frank’s father Walter Rucker had threatened him and that is why he failed to appear.

Walter’s behavior was key to the defense counsel’s strategy. He brought in witness after witness who testified that both Walter and Frank had bad reputations when it came to truthfulness.

Impeaching the prosecution’s witnesses must have worked because the second trial ended in acquittal for A. A. Moore.

headlines - Daily News Record
10 Jun 1916

Walter must not have been too happy about the verdict. He was quoted in the newspaper saying he wanted “to put the stripes on Moore.” 

REFORM SCHOOL

For the theft, Frank was sent to the Laural Industrial School, a juvenile correctional center north of Richmond, instead of prison. Surely Walter was glad of that.

photo by Calder Loth 2021 at DHR.virginia.gov

The Laurel Industrial School was a privately owned and administered institution established in 1892 as a model boys’ reformatory. With its mission to reform the treatment of juvenile offenders, the school housed about 300 boys. They attended classes and worked either in the shops or on the farm. Today the main building is on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.

A SAD END

Harrisonburg Daily News Record
26 Nov 1935

The next time Frank’s name appeared in the newspaper, it was in the social columns of 1929 when he and his bride, the former Myrtle Higgs, attended dinners and parties at the homes of Myrtle’s relatives.

In 1935 they moved to Sparrows Point in Baltimore County, Maryland, where Frank had obtained a job with Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Having grown up in a railroad town, having been raised by a father and uncles who worked for the railroad, and having earned his own living as a brakeman for the railroad, it seems unthinkable that Frank would have stepped between rails and been hit by a railroad car.

 

NATURE OR NURTURE

I can’t help wondering what forces were at work when Frank took his uncle’s money. Was it just an act of a teenager lacking good sense? Did he think his uncle would not notice? Or was he just a bad seed? Was Walter just as culpable for wishing harm to the others? Or was he merely a dad standing by his boy? Unfortunately, Frank Rucker died too soon leaving no children behind to tell a different tale or to wish him Happy Father's Day.

Amy Johnson Crow continues to challenge genealogy bloggers and non-bloggers alike to think about our ancestors and share a story or photo about them. The challenge is “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.”

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sentimental Sunday

 

A busy week of people coming and going!

13 June 1903 – birth of Arthur “Woody” Woodring, husband of my grandaunt Velma Davis

14 June 1985 – death of Raymond Clift, son of Sallie Jollett Clift, my great-grandmother’s sister

15 June 1893 – birth of Eliza Jane Knight, daughter of James Mitchell Knight and Leanna Jollett Knight, sister of my great-grandmother

 

16 June 1948 – death of Clifton Holland, husband of my grandaunt Mae Killeen Holland

Mae, Cliff, Helen (Mae's sister)

16 June 1883 – death of my 2X great-grandmother Lucy Shiflett Jollett

16 June 1936 – death of Johanna Sheehan Hederman, sister of my great-grandmother Mary Theresa Sheehan Killeen Walsh

Possibly Johanna
and children Catherine and John

19 June 1936 – marriage of my grandaunt Violetta Davis and Virgil “Dick” Ryan

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Pepsi Girl Friend

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo taken in a radio station in the 1940s reminded me of a letter that my mother saved from her youth.  

It was addressed to Johnnie Blanks in her care. Who was Johnnie Blanks and why did he use her address? Hold that thought. Let’s consider the letter first.

Apparently “Johnnie” had sent a fan letter and a photo to Betty, the Pepsi-Cola Girl Friend at the local radio station, WTAR, the very first to go on the air in Virginia. Betty must have been an important figure at WTAR. Afterall, she had letterhead and matching envelopes. However, Google searches came back with nothing relevant, either Betty Draper from “Mad Men” or Hallie Eisenberg, the little girl from the Pepsi commercials in the 1990s.

Dickie Blanks in 1946

Johnnie’s description sounds much like Momma’s high school sweetheart Richard “Dickie” Blanks. The postmark on the envelope was 1942 when Momma was just 13. I doubt they were dating that early, but who knows? I have 2 theories about Johnnie’s identity:

1. Dickie wrote to Betty under an assumed name and used Momma’s address so that his parents would not know.
2. Momma wrote the letter just to see what would happen – in that silly teenage girl way – maybe hoping Dickie would be listening to the radio.

At first, I thought Betty might have been a disc jockey until I noticed that she SANG “Elmer’s Tune.” Maybe she was part of Pepsi’s sponsorship of the radio program, the voice of Pepsi, so to speak.

Would you like to hear the song? It’s not Betty – it’s Glenn Miller and the Modernaires. The vocals start after 1 minute. The title does not sound very romantic – I can’t help thinking of Elmer Fudd – but it topped the charts in December 1941, just a month before Betty dedicated it to Johnnie Blanks. 

 

Turn your dial to SS574 for the top hits in Sepia Saturday stories and old photos.

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Photo Friday - Lewis Lloyd Jollett

Mary Neville Peluso and Lewis Lloyd Jollett
photo courtesy Ben Marks

Lewis Lloyd Jollett was the youngest son of Louisa Sullivan and Burton Lewis Jollett, brother of my great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis. He was born on this day 11 June 1895.

That is some beautiful hair!

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.