Fearless Females: March 23 Timeline for Mary Ann Armentrout

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:  Create a timeline for a female ancestor using your favorite software program or an online timeline generator such as Our Timelines.

Here is a timeline for my 3G-grandmother Mary Ann Armentrout, second wife of Fielding Jollett. She lived a long time and saw the very beginnings of the United States government, although some of the most interesting events happened when she was a child. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

Here are some of the highlights:

• There were 18 presidents in her lifetime, including the very first one, George Washington.
• She saw the end of the Spanish Inquisition, beginning of the Ku Klux Klan, and voting rights given to black men.
• She survived three Cholera pandemics.
• She watched the country grow with the addition of the Louisiana Purchase.  She saw the addition of new territories and 22 states.
• She survived an undeclared war on France, a number of Indian uprisings and the Seminole wars, relocation of the Cherokee, War of 1812, Mexican-US War, and Civil War.
• She saw the publication of Webster’s Dictionary and Darwin’s Origin of Species.
• She was around for some amazing inventions:  Smallpox vaccine, the steamboat, typewriter and telegraph, disinfection, ship’s propeller, internal combustion engine, dynamite, and rifle barrel.
• And she was around for some amazing discoveries including the Rosetta Stone, Halley’s Comet, and Pompeii.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: A Family That Tours Battlefields Together ...

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt shows photographers at work capturing the beauty of cherry blossoms in Washington D.C.  And isn’t that what any visitor to our nation’s capital would do?  But what distinguishes the professional from most amateurs is the tripod.  Apparently a professional photographer was working on the day my great-uncle Millard Davis and his wife Edith visited the Gettysburg National Military Park.  Note the tripod to the far left of the photo Millard snapped.

Edith Kite Davis at the entrance to Devil's Den
Gettysburg National Military Park
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

However, Millard and Edith took their own pictures with their own camera, most likely without benefit of a tripod.

One of their stops along the Gettysburg Battlefield tour that day was Devil’s Den, an important site for artillery and infantry snipers during the battle that became the turning point in the War Between the States. 

Edith Davis at Devil's Den
overlooking Plum Rum

The outcropping of boulders formed a high ridge giving the soldiers a strategic vantage point overlooking Plum Run valley between Little Round Top and Big Round Top.  It was at Devil’s Den that the South claimed one of its few successes at Gettysburg. 

Millard Davis at Devil's Den
Some of the boulders
stood 20 feet high

Touring battlefields has been a long-standing tradition in my family.  Readers of Sepia Saturday might recall that just recently I wrote about my great-aunt Velma Davis Woodring (Millard’s sister) and her friend Olive Williams.   

Their trip to Mercersburg was not their only trip together.  Two months earlier in June 1928, Woody and Velma, along with her sister Violetta, accompanied the Williams family on a trip to tour the Antietam battlefield in Maryland.  Antietam’s two claims to fame are that it was the scene of the first major Civil War battle on Union soil AND it was the deadliest single-day battle in American history. 

at Antietam Battlefield June 1928
Standing: Helen Williams, Mary Williams
Seated:  Rosie Williams, Violetta Davis, Robert Williams
Seated on the grass:  Velma Davis Woodring, Olive Williams

In that post I included a letter that Olive wrote in 1925 asking Velma’s mother to allow Velma to make a trip to Gettysburg with the Williams family and their mutual friend Virginia Cole.

While transcribing that letter, I experienced what can only be described as "a light bulb moment":  the moment when clues in a letter shed light on an old photo that my family had laughed about unapologetically because we figured we weren't disrespecting the memory of a family member.  After all, we didn't know the women in it.  To us the photo was simply funny

Left: Virginia Cole
Right: Olive Williams
Gettysburg August 1925

because the mood of those two unidentified women standing beside a cannon in a battlefield resembled the mood in this picture at another battlefield:

Me, Momma and Stonewall Jackson
Manassas, Virginia 1967

The light bulb moment was realizing those then-unidentified women were none other than Virginia Cole and Olive Williams.  The August 1925 date scrawled in the upper right corner (cropped out of the posted picture) offers strong evidence that this was the big trip to Gettysburg that Mr. Williams had planned for the girls.  

We all agreed that those two women (now identified as Virginia and Olive) seem as bored as I had been that summer when my family visited yet ANOTHER Civil War battlefield, that time in Manassas, Virginia.  

Momma and me at the Union monument
Manassas, Virginia 1967

Could anyone be more pouty, more disagreeable, more "fun" to be around? 

(Come on, Daddy – how much longer??)  

But I perked up when we finally got to the hotel pool.

Momma, me and Mary Jollette
at the Governor's Hotel, Falls Church, Virginia 1967

And what is that in my lap?  Why, my camera case, of course.  I certainly didn’t want to miss out on recording all those memories of us crisscrossing battlefields dotted with cannon, statues of war heroes, and monuments honoring dead patriots.   

For more Kodak moments, please visit Sepia Saturday.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Fearless Females: March 20 Brick Walls

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:  Is there a female ancestor who is your brick wall? Why? List possible sources for finding more information.

from Google Images

I read one time that a person should not deem an ancestor a “brick wall” unless every reasonable source has been examined and proven inconclusive.  Since then I’ve been reluctant to even THINK that term because, in truth, I have not always sought out every possible source for the many so-called brick walls in my database. 

One such ancestor is within reach while maddeningly complicated:  Sallie Jollett, my third great grandaunt, sister to my third great grandfather. She married one William Sampson.  

I say ONE because there were at least three other William Sampsons with a wife named Sarah/Sallie, all living in and around Greene County, Virginia in the early-mid 1800s.  Two of the couples can be eliminated because of their age.  But that leaves the other two who were contemporaries. 

Even though I have studied the census records to determine which family was which, it's impossible to say. In the 1850 census, William Sampson, a miller, was living next door to James Madison Marsh, nephew of Sarah Jollett.  Since families tended to live close to one another, I might conclude that my Sarah was married to the miller. However, in that same census, Sarah Jollett's nephew John was living in the household of the other Sarah and William Sampson, the wheelwright. Both William and Sarah Sampsons seem to have a connection to the Jolletts.

So far only one document has been found to definitively point to MY Sallie Jollett:  a marriage record for Smith Sampson who claims his mother was Sallie Jollett.   Unfortunately, he was already married and on his own by the 1850 census, living in Rockingham County.  Therefore, I should concentrate my research on records such as these:

1. A will for Smith Sampson to see if any siblings are named
2. Wills for any of the children of either William/Sallie couple to see if Smith Sampson is named
3. Marriage records for any of the children of either William/Sallie couple to see if Sallie Jollett is named
4. Death records for any of the Sampson children (both families) to see if Sallie Jollett is named

These seem like fairly easy documents to obtain.  I just need to get out from behind this computer, put feet on the ground, and make my way to the Library of Virginia.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: To Mercersburg and Beyond

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt depicts the world’s leaders at the Potsdam Conference.  Those men in their dark suits gathered around the peace table at the end of World War II make for an imposing presence.   What a contrast to my merry band of vacationers in white gathered around a picnic table 17 years earlier. 

August 1928
I don't know what that mark is all about.
Velma Wooding and her friends are on a picnic.
I wonder what is in that jug - tea?  lemonade? 

These same people appear in a number of photos dated August 1928 in a scrapbook that belonged to my great-aunt Velma Davis Woodring.

Olive Williams

Velma’s good friend Olive is identified in one photo and featured prominently in others, 

Mr. Williams

and one photo identifies a lone subject as “Mr. Williams.” 

I cleverly deduced that this must be the same Olive Williams who visited Velma for a week in 1925, the same Olive Williams who wrote to Velma’s mother begging her to allow Velma to extend her visit with them so that Mr. Williams could take the girls to Gettysburg.

Daddy and Mother wants to take the girls to Gettsburg [sic] next week and so I am writting [sic] and asking you if Velma might stay another week.  Daddy has already planned 

the trip for them.  That isn’t any longer than I stayed with Velma.  So please let her stay.  Mother and daddy both wants her and Virginia to stay so we can take them on that trip.

Closing, hoping to hear from you in a  favorably reply to my question.

With love,

Olive

The purpose of the visit in 1928 appears to be a simple vacation.  Velma and Woody had been married little more than a year.  Summer was quickly coming to a close and Velma would no doubt start teaching school in the fall.  So why not go for the gusto and take a road trip to see her old pal Olive in Martinsburg, West Virginia. 

It appears Mr. Williams had planned another trip for the girls – this time to Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania.

Left: Velma Davis Woodring
Right:  Olive Williams

But why Mercersburg Academy?  I have no clue.  It was not Velma’s alma mater, nor Olive’s.  Velma’s husband had attended college, but I believe he went to Shepherd College (now University), not Mercersburg.  

Mercersburg Academy Chapel
1928

Maybe the beautiful chapel simply attracted tourists just as visitors to Colonial Williamsburg enjoy a stroll through the campus of William & Mary despite having no ties to the school.

Whatever the reason, it’s quite clear that Velma was excited about seeing Olive again, and she wanted to remember the day with lots of pictures. 

Just studying the photos to make sense of them increased my curiosity about Olive Williams.  So I did what any amateur genealogist would do:  I plugged her name into Ancestry, guessed at a birth date of 1908, same as Velma’s, and entered Martinsburg, West Virginia as a residence.  A family tree appeared.  And there it was - a picture of Olive.  Those dark eyes are so distinctive that I was fairly certain I had found her. 

Olive Williams
photo courtesy Candi Keiter Johnson

Census records for the Williams family showed three girls, a match to one of the August 1928 photos. 

The Williams Family
Olive, her father Robert, her mother Rosie,
and sisters Helen and Mary

The contributor is still active on Ancestry, so I sent an email seeking confirmation that I had found my great-aunt’s good friend. 

Bingo!  As it turns out Olive’s granddaughter did not recognize Velma’s name, but she called her aunt who actually remembered Velma as Olive’s “great friend.”  She even has the elephant teapot that Velma gave Olive for her wedding to Harry “Moe” Keiter in 1930.  (Elephant teapot!  That sounds like Velma.  I wonder if the tea flowed through the trunk.) 

Through the miracle of our “virtual roundtable,” faces once hidden from the camera turned to reveal themselves more clearly.

Helen Williams, Mr. Robert Williams, Velma Davis Woodring,
Mary Williams, Olive Williams,
Unknown, Mrs. Rosie Williams

Please gather at the Sepia Saturday roundtable of blogs.  We promise not to turn our backs on you.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Fearless Females: March 12 Working Woman

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:  Did your mother or grandmother work outside the home? What did she do? Describe her occupation.

Bad-timing plagued my paternal grandfather.   First, he bought a taxi company just as the city of Portsmouth was introducing busses.  Unable to survive the competition with cheap public transportation, he and my grandmother moved to Burlington, North Carolina and then bought yet another struggling taxi company.  And that’s when my granny became a working woman.

My granddaddy's cabs

Julia Walsh Slade took on the duties as dispatcher for Burlington Cab.  My only solid memories of her working were from those visits in the summer.  While she sat at the desk answering the phone and radioing the drivers, I would style her hair.  She had beautiful white hair cut in a bob.  Sometimes I brushed it smooth and sleek.  Sometimes I twisted it into a bun that wouldn’t stay.  I’d create a curl along her cheek.   Yeah, I styled it alright.  Granny would admire herself in the mirror.  Quite often she laughed. 

Julia Slade at the Burlington Cab Company office 1958

And that’s what a taxi cab dispatcher does. 

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Fearless Females: March 11 Unexpected Death

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:  Did you have any female ancestors who died young or from tragic or unexpected circumstances? Describe and how did this affect the family?

Anyone who spends any time researching family history will eventually find an ancestor who died either in childbirth or shortly after of “childbed disease.”  But death at the hand of one’s own child is rare.

That was the sad fate of my second cousin twice removed, Isabel Fannie Davis Shiflett.  It should have been a day like any other in the farming community of Beldor in Rockingham County, Virginia in January 1922.  Bernard Henry Shiflett had gone to work and the older children were in school.  Fannie was at home with the younger ones George (age 5) and Ruth (11 months). 

Fannie’s attention was fully on her baby girl who had somehow gotten a splinter in her foot.  No one could have anticipated that little George would find his father’s shotgun or that it would “suddenly discharge,” as reported in the newspaper. 

In that unspeakable moment when a mother preoccupied being a good mother to a suffering child meets unattended curious child, a family’s life was transformed.  Fannie was killed instantly, and the baby’s arm was so mangled that it had to be amputated just hours later. 

If you’d like to read the news account, I wrote about this same story before.  Click HERE.

Certainly this horrible chapter had to impact the family in ways we can only imagine.  If George and Ruth were irreparably traumatized, you wouldn’t know it based on what I was able to uncover.  For the follow-up story, click HERE.

photo from Ancestry.com
Bernard Henry Shiflett far right
That's George next to his father.  Ruth is next to him.
Note Ruth's empty dress sleeve.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Scratches and Wrinkles and Tears, Oh My!

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is a photo of steamers along a river near Sydney, Australia.  The photo is badly scratched, much like many in my own collection of old pictures passed down through the family. 

Even if scratched or torn, old photos keep alive those family members we’ve never known.  Take for example this photo of John Joseph Killeen, the first husband of my great grandmother Mary Theresa Sheehan Killeen Walsh, and father to my sweet great-aunts that I have written about so often.

John Joseph Killeen
1863 Ireland - 1905 New York

If it weren’t for the brittle yellow tape, one or both pieces of this cabinet card might have been lost, taking with it one glimpse into my great grandmother’s past as just a young wife and mother, widowed far too soon at age 36.

Not wanting Mary Theresa to be lonely, John Killeen’s family introduced her to John Fleming Walsh who a year later became her second husband and my great grandfather.  Until a couple months ago, I had never seen a picture of him, nor had my dad seen pictures.  But Daddy said he had always heard that his grandfather John Walsh was handsome. 

My aunt gave me an envelope of old photos to scan.  Out of the envelope tumbled two tiny chips of cardboard, each less than a square inch.  When I pushed them together, I saw my great grandfather for the first time.

John Fleming Walsh
1868-1918 Portsmouth, Virginia

But I saw something else too.  That cleft in his chin – my dad and I both inherited that physical trait.  Now I know where it came from.  Still I’m left to wonder what happened to the rest of the picture and why this is the only one of him.

To genealogists and family historians, the scratches and wrinkles don’t decrease the value of those old photos.  But sometimes little hands get in the way, resulting in this:

No doubt this is an autographed photo of SOME baseball player, one of two Daddy owned (the other is a photo signed in 1941 by Bob Feller, pitcher for the Cleveland Indians).  Who scratched out the autograph and signed Daddy’s name?  Not Daddy.  His penmanship was more refined, downright beautiful with its strong right slant and distinctive lower case “e” resembling a backwards 3.  And Daddy would never have scribbled a baseball into the pitcher’s glove – how ridiculous is that?!  Obviously the culprit had no knowledge of the kinesiology of pitching.  

I don’t know why we have kept this photo.  It certainly wouldn’t fetch anything on eBay, “Antiques Road Show” or even “Pawn Stars.”  Maybe we hope the picture will offer a glimpse into our past, and that one day we’ll figure out whether my sister or I engaged in this bit of photo enhancing activity. (Eh – it was probably my sister.  I was always the good one.) 

Visit Sepia Saturday for more photos and their stories.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.