FAMILY STORIES - A LOT OF FACTS & A LITTLE FICTION, MAYBE

AGNES SALATHIEL HALL

1881-1956

     Agnes Salathiel Hall and I shared second great grandparents.  Agnes' mom was the niece of my great-grandma Nancy.  Any way one tries to explain these generational things, it is easy to get confused --  but less so as one becomes more familiar with genealogical research.  I didn't know Agnes herself, but early on in my hunt for "family" I was fortunate enough to come into contact with Joe Cullen, also a relative of Agnes, and he shared with me a paper she had written about her ancestors – all of whom were my family too. 

     Like all of us who deal with "oral" or "written" histories, some of what is written is true and some is close but not exact.  Half the fun of genealogy is "proving" what one finds – and then absorbing it into one's understanding of the family.  Here's what I mean:

1.  Agnes wrote that one of her ancestors had seen George Washington and that the Indians could not shoot him, because they believe he led a charmed life.  Arrows could not touch him either. 

     I wondered where this idea had come from.  From a bit of research I learned that during the French and Indian War (1754-1763) at one point Washington advised  General Braddock not to march into the wilderness because of the Indians.  Braddock did it anyway and the outcome was known as "Braddock's massacre."  It was in later testimony regarding Washington's warning that for the record it came out that the Indians did, in fact, think Washington was bullet-proof, because they had tried many times to shoot him, but to no avail. 

2.  Agnes wrote "In her childhood Mama had seen the chemical match and baking soda introduced."

     In research I learned that "Strike anywhere" matches were first developed by John Walker and Samuel Jones in England in the early 1830s, and "Safety matches" were not invented until 1844.  Agnes' mom, Jemima, was born in 1842 and it's likely that starting life out in Western Virginia she did witness this arrival of the match.  Agnes also said her father struck fire with a flint and steel, and that the first stoves, called "step-stoves," made their appearance.  In an oral history by Dellie Norton (1898-1993) she writes: "We cooked with one of these old kind of step stoves…It had four eyes on top and a little apron out in front.  And just a place where you put your bread in.  And really, it was very small, but you could cook good on them.  There was a door there at the little apron where you put your wood in.  You don't ever see none of them no more."

3.  Agnes wrote that her grandma Corel "remembered the fall of the stars.  They thought it was an omen.  Scientists have since found the cause."

     This refers to the great meteor storm of 1833.  During the 4 hours which preceded dawn on Nov. 13, 1833, the skies were lit up by thousands of shooting stars every minute.  Newspapers of that era reveal that almost no one was unaware of the shower.  If they were not alerted by the cries of excited neighbors, they were usually awakened by flashes of light cast into normally dark bedrooms by the fireballs.  Many people believed that it was the end of the world.  Some people ran out to watch, and other people crawled under their bed or ran into the closet.

4.  Finally Agnes told how her family left Tazewell County, Virginia, in the late 1840s.

     "Henry Corel, my mother's father, and brothers and families, their stock, etc., came to Kansas from Virginia by flatboat down the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.  The boat foundered and they unloaded at Wyandotte and drove by schooner to Westport, Missouri using ox teams.  Mama was seven years old.  Kansas City was not started then.  They began a homestead on Little Blue, now Kansas City's famous Cliff Drive.  But finding themselves in slave territory, they moved on to Lawrence, the main seat of anti-slave activity.

                                *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     * 

     This paper of Agnes Salathiel Hall, even with its little errors, is what has me putting Agnes herself into the Immortal Nobody category.  Look what she left me and all her other descendants!  How would I ever know that these things happened in my family?  That historically they even happened?  And she could not imagine that in 2017 someone would be blessing her for this little paper.  

A WITNESS TO BLEEDING KANSAS

REMINISCENCES OF HENRY HIATT OF TWIN MOUND

Kansas State Historical Society

February 6, 1897

Toussaint La Hay settled in Douglas County before I came to Kansas and built a nicely finished pine house of three or four rooms, plastered, painted, and on a raised foundation.  His claim was half a mile east of what is now known as Sigil Bridge, a little post office at the crossing of the Wakarusa, eight miles from Lawrence.  Gabriel Markle, who married a daughter of La Hay, still lives on this place.  The house was one of the nicest ones in the country at that time, and was perhaps put up in 1855.  Mr. La Hay had a wife, two sons, and two or more daughters.  His boys were pro-slavery and rough and always ready to fight.  I think he owned one or two slaves.  His boys were both large enough to hold claims, and I think there must have been two or three quarter sections of land in the family, good bottomland.  La Hay was a man of wealth and influence among his people.

Sometime in 1856 a party of free-state men, supposed to have been residents of the vicinity, but whose identity I never learned, robbed his house of furniture, clothing, etc., and burned it to the ground.  La Hay was not intimidated by this outrage, but immediately put up a log-pole hut with dirt floor, when he lived for some time and until he built a better frame house than the first.  I think he left our neighborhood shortly before the war, going south.  I think his daughter married Mr. Markle about the time he left.

I felt indignant when I heard of the robbing and burning of La Hay’s house, although I was a free-state man and had come to Kansas with the intention of doing my part in the struggle.  I remember of calling on La Hay early in our acquaintance and expressing my desire that we should be neighborly.  I told him that it was only the circumstances of our bringing up that made me an abolitionist and him proslavery; had he been residing north and I south, our views would have accorded with our environments.  He seemed greatly pleased with my overtures of friendship, and we always got on well together.  My wife and I attended the marriage of one of his daughters during the time the family lived in the log house.  The young man whom she married worked in my saw mill.  (Claims, 1861, p. 1536).

I had another neighbor by the name of Geo. W. Ward, who had been a member of the first border ruffian legislature.  He had a comfortable double log house.  For reasons of personal safety he left home in the fall of 1856, leaving his wife, a woman of perhaps sixty years, in charge of the premises.  On the night of September 7^th, some free-state men in our neighborhood, Alfred Curtis, A. E. Love, and one other man I did not know, went to Ward’s house, and not finding him at home proceeded to carry away bedding and clothing.  Then they piled the furniture together and set fire to it.  They had ordered his wife to leave, but she would not go until the fire drove her out.  They took some cattle, hogs, and chickens.  The cattle they killed and offered it for sale in the neighborhood.  Some time after the fire Mr. Ward returned and rebuilt the house, remaining a year or two until he could see it, going south before the war.

The men who committed these depredations were our free-state neighbors.  I told them that it was our duty to behave ourselves.  If we acted as badly as the Missourians, plundering and murdering, our friends in the east would have no sympathy for us, and would leave us to our fate. (Claims, 1861, p. 1735-1737.)

Permission to use this document courtesy of Archives Division, Kansas State Historical Society

SHALL WE COMMENCE?

MAJOR CHESTER D. DANIELSON

February 25, 1931 - April 14, 2014 

            Meeting Major Chester "Chet" Danielson was my introduction to The Salvation Army.  The Salvation Army had a church in the little city of Ontario, California, and when my family moved to that town in 1965 and got our kids enrolled in school, we became acquainted with Chet, his wife Vicki and their five kids, who also went to the same school as mine.  So we really knew him through PTA before we learned anything about his "job" as the pastor of The Salvation Army Corps (Church.) 

            About a year later the position of Secretary at The Salvation Army Corps became available and Vicki suggested that I apply for it.  I did, and this really was my learning time about the wonderful organization and its founding.  The Salvation Army's International Headquarters says this: "The Salvation Army began in 1865 when William Booth, a London minister, gave up the comfort of his pulpit and decided to take his message into the streets where it would reach the poor, the homeless, the hungry and the destitute.

            His original aim was to send converts to established churches of the day, but soon he realized that the poor did not feel comfortable or welcome in the pews of most of the churches and chapels of Victorian England. Regular churchgoers were appalled when these shabbily dressed, unwashed people came to join them in worship. Booth decided to found a church especially for them."

            Working in the church office with Chet and Vicki was to see Booth's mission in practice.  Chet was a pastor who loved his flock.  Each Sunday morning he drove the Church bus in a wide sweep of the poorer sections of town and brought in every child and every adult who wanted to be in Sunday School and Church that day.  He took them back home at the conclusion of the services.  He did that for evening service too.  He did that again for Wednesday night prayer meeting.  He provided musical instruments and taught willing children how to play them, so they could provide music for the church services.  Clothing was available for those in need; food was furnished for those who needed it.  Children often came without shoes, but they went home with them.  Sometimes the police brought people to The Salvation Army for help – and Chet and Vicki, with the money that was donated by the Community - used that money to help people in our local community.  The Danielsons were ministers of love.

            Just as in the regular Military Service, officers are moved from place to place, and after 5 or so years, the Danielsons were moved to a new town, and they ended up their career teaching at The Salvation Army's Officer's Training School in Palos Verdes, CA.  I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at their retirement service, and I was proud to do so.  We kept in touch.

            I was sad to learn of his passing.  I hold so many good thoughts of him and Vicki.  Really good people they were.  In my opinion (and I told him this), his only foible was that when it was time for his sermon, he looked out at all those people in the pews that most of society didn't want in their churches – many unkempt, some unemployed or unemployable and mostly uneducated – and solemnly pronounced:  "Let us commence." 

            The congregation may not have understood what "commence" meant, but they all knew what was next:  Our Major was going to preach!

THE GOOD DOCTOR

Charles M. Cowan, MD

     I was diagnosed with a heart problem when I was 4 years old.  That was in 1939 and there wasn't much in the way of diagnostic tests at that time.  The cardiologist my parents took me to said don't play any running games, don't go above 4,000 feet altitude, sit on the sidelines during recess, and come back in a year.  I did what they said.  I had a different kind of childhood and my schooling was always different from all the other kids.  It made me an odd child.  But I always carried with me the idea that I could cause my heart to kill me if I was didn't do what the doctor said.   

     When I married, the doctor, not a cardiologist,  said childbirth will give us a good idea of what your heart will do.  Although I eventually had 4 children, I had no heart problems, but I still always had doctors who focused on my heart.  And I always had a cardiologist.

     In 2000, doctors began saying no, I didn't have a heart problem.  I didn't believe them.  After all, I almost lost my childhood over my bad heart, and something had to justify that. 

     When I turned 65 and retired  I chose a Senior Advantage medical plan and selected my Primary Care doctor.  I also found a new cardiologist, Dr. Charles M. Cowan, and made an appointment to see him.  I had all my records sent to him.

     At the first appointment I told him my woeful heart story.  He said he wanted to review my records, ordered an echocardiogram (my first) and told me to come back in a month.  He did, and I did.  When I saw Dr. Cowan again, he took my hand and in a kind, sweet voice he said, "Honey, your heart is perfect except for 3 very tiny little holes that just never grew together as you grew up.  They are so tiny that together they make a funny noise, but that isn't a heart problem.  You don't need me.  You need to go home and live a normal life.

I was stunned.  I finally got him to agree to let me come once a year so he could listen to my heart -- just to make sure.  He laughed and told me to book an appointment for a year.  There was something about him so reassuring that I finally believed what I was told.  Yes, I saw him the next year, and he again assured me my heart was fine.  It was his kindness and the fact that he listened to me that made me so fond of him.

     But after that second appointment, I never saw him again.   In 2008, he and his wife, along with a friend, were killed in a plane crash.  He was the pilot, it was his plane, and it malfunctioned on takeoff from the airport at Catalina Island off the Southern California Coast.  I also learned from the newspaper article of the crash that his first wife had been shot and killed in a car-jacking some years prior to my initial visit to him.  She had stopped to pick up donuts for his office staff when this happened. 

     I think of Dr. Cowan often when I'm getting my aging body refilled and restored by my "now" doctors.  I have yet to find another doctor who is as friendly, encouraging, comforting and genuinely interested not only in my health but my feelings about my health as he was.  I was lucky to have him for a doctor, even for such a short time. 

~RIP~

WILLIAM'S ONE!

William Stevenson Dobbins

April 28, 1821 to January 25, 1847

            As a genealogist, I often run into people from the past who seem to have left very few footprints to follow.  They exist on paper in a minimal way, and except for the genealogist, might very quickly move past the "Immortal Nobody" category. 

            That is the way I would describe William Stevenson Dobbins, born in Ohio in 1821, who was the youngest child of Robert and Catherine Dobbins, the youngest brother of 7 siblings, and  eventually the husband of Sarah Brand. 

            He did nothing important enough to get written up in a county history book, although if he hadn't died at the young age of 25, he might have distinguished himself in some way.  In fact, many researchers have wondered if a William S. Dobbins was even a part of the family.  He was not given any property by his father like all the other children received; and he was not mentioned at all in the Session Minutes of the Bennington Presbyterian church, whose membership list included every member of the Dobbins family and whose pastor was his own father.   

            Some researchers wondered if perhaps he was simple-minded, thus not in a position to be treated like all other family members.   He was buried in the Dobbins Cemetery, but the stone was silent.

            In my research I found two important issues:  In an old Family Reunion paper dating from 1911, this story was handed down. " It was customary then to have wood cut for Sunday use on Saturday by the boys.  At one time, when he was away on one of his long trips, the boys failed in this duty.  The father returned on Saturday and sent his son Will out to chop the needed wood.  He did not hear the axe, and went out to see what was the trouble and overheard the following soliloquy:  'R. B. D.  Roaring Big Devil – this is a hell of a work.'  To the boy’s astonishment, the father appeared, saying, 'Tut, tut, tut.  I’ll teach you to take your father’s name in vain – to the woodshed we’ll go.'" 

            In all my research done over the last 40 years on the Dobbins family, this is the only time William was ever given a body and a personality, albeit one of a bratty teenager.  In a county history book there is a single line that said a William Dobbins married a Sarah Brand, but no documentation of that fact in the county courthouse marriage records turned up.

            William remained an immortal nobody for a long time because another researcher and I, both on the trail of this young man, failed to move on a probate file in the county for what appeared to be a person by the name of William L. Dobbins, not Willian S. Dobbins – in spite of the fact that sometimes old handwriting "L"s and "S"s are confused with each other.   

            When I finally decided to try one last time to either "rule in" or "rule out" this man by taking this final step, I sent for, and received, a William Dobbins' probate records.  One paper showed that his widow, Sarah Brand Dobbins, turned over her appointment as executrix for her husband's estate to Robert B. Dobbins.   And in this probate material it became obvious that William's middle initial was "S" -- for Stevenson, his grandmother Dobbins's maiden name – Elizabeth Stevenson Dobbins.

            William is truly an immortal nobody.  He will not be remembered for anything he did – except act like a brat and be so immortalized in an unpublished family reunion paper and sent to me by a Dobbins still living in Illinois.  But he did acquire enough worldly goods by farming the land that there was need for probating his estate when he died at age 25..  He left a wife, but no children.  His tombstone is in the Dobbins Cemetery (now the Clemens Cemetery) in Fulton County Illinois. 

            I do believe that is enough for William Stevenson Dobbins to take his place here in my Immortal Nobodies blog.

REMEMBERING MY FRIEND SHIRLEY

SHIRLEY FRIEDMAN ABRAMS

Feb. 28, 1934 - Jan. 1, 2017

            Shirley and Marv Abrams were, first of all, Jerry's friends; I "acquired" them after marrying Jerry in 1975.  Over the next 30 years we saw the Abrams socially many times – most often at Temple affairs but also at dinners when one of us felt the need to "get together to eat and catch up" on our busy lives.   I was very fond of both of them, and our get-togethers were always just super!

            We were saddened when Marv died in 2014 after a long illness, but we were shocked, as well as saddened, when Shirley died suddenly on January 1, 2017.  It wasn't until I read her obituary that I had any idea of what I DIDN'T know about her.  She never talked about herself.

            Her "other" life, besides being a wife and mother, had started out as a PTA president. Later she took leadership roles in the local United Way, Heart Association, the Jewish Federation, and the County Education Coordinating Councils.  She often received "Leader of the Year" awards from these groups.  Her volunteer efforts became so valuable to the LA County Dept. of Education that they created a full-time position for her at the main office in Downey.  She led vital programs on the education of the homeless and on addressing truancy in the schools until her retirement in 2011. 

            She continued her community activities as a long-time board member of the Jewish Federations of Los Angeles and the Eastern Region of Southern California, the Jewish Family Service and by serving on the prestigious JENNY Commission, reviewing the qualifications of appointed judges in the state.  She was twice invited to the White House to participate in the White House Conference on Children and Youth both in 1972 and again in 2002.

            She always made sure that family and friends came first.  She regularly met with groups of friends and prided herself on being present at important occasions in the lives of her loved ones.  She is survived by her two children and five grandchildren.

            Do I miss her?  You bet!

MISSING OUT ON SO MUCH

          Dorothe Gould-Pratt came into my life sometime around 1996, excited to learn that I was researching and compiling material on Americans buried in a Protestant cemetery in Istanbul.  She had lived in Istanbul for many years, and we discovered we had many friends in common.  It was one of those friends who suggested that since Dorothe was living in southern California now, she should make contact with me to talk about that cemetery, which also had been one of Dorothe's interests when she was there.

          Dorothe did, and for a few years, she and I met, discussed Turkey, Istanbul, friends there, and – of course – the cemetery.  She dug into her files and provided me with many letters and research from another friend of hers, "Charlie", who had been financially supporting this Protestant cemetery.   What she put in my hands was material that I never would have known of otherwise. 

          Meeting Dorothe was one of the most delightful things that I could experience.  At the time, she was living in Santa Barbara, and when I met her for the first time, I saw a very small and artsy woman, a jaunty tam on her head, a longish gauzy coat flowing in the winds off the coast of that lovely town, and a walking stick, helpful to both her legs and her image.  Her personality was as warm and inviting as her appearance.  And like women who instantly form a bond, we talked our heads off every time we met.

          We talked almost exclusively about what I needed for my book – not only did she give me some ideas of where I might find additional information on those people in the cemetery but also on the visual look of the book – layout, graphics, etc.  It was always over lunch – indoors or outdoors but always in some cute little nook that she had discovered in the short time she lived there.   We never talked about ourselves: the subjects were Cemetery, Istanbul, and book.  

          She ultimately decided to go back up north; I published the book in 1998.  Later I heard that she had died in 2000.  She was 88.  It wasn't until just recently, in searching the internet for someone to use in my Immortal Nobodies blog, that I googled her name and found an obituary.  Here's what I missed:

          She was the daughter of a Ukiah farmer, and studied art at Oakland's California College of Arts and Crafts, and also at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts in the 1930.  She had lived in New Orleans, LA, New York, Puerto Rico, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Santa Rosa, as well as in Turkey.

          In 1961 at the age of 50, she boarded a freighter from New Orleans to Turkey in what would become a 23 year journey into the Middle East.  She worked a while for NATO, hosted a radio program called "Dorothe Learns Turkish", and found her lifetime interest in Turkish wood-block printing.  She used her artistic talents in many ways with this art form, from providing displays in museums, to creating hand block-printed scarves and other clothing for fashion lines out of New York.  Her business expanded to Australia, Beirut, Italy, England, Puerto Rico, to name a few.

          Although I didn't know it, at the time she moved north after we met she was already working on new designs and fashioning new garments until a few days before her death.  She left many cousins and many more devoted friends.  She is buried in the Old Rural Cemetery in Santa Rosa.

            I am so sorry I missed out on knowing what all she had done with her life.  I have never looked at the cover of my book without thinking of her as I knew her.  Now I look at it and regret what I didn't know.

RANSFORD C. BUCKNAM PASHA

In the College Park, Maryland Branch of the National Archives, in the State Department Decimal File 367.1161/11(1930-39) I found a letter sent to the State Department by M. K. Moorhead, American Consul General Istanbul.  He was enclosing a list of American citizen buried in the Protestant cemetery, Ferikoy-Istanbu and in the British cemetery at Uskudar nearby.  Here is part of this letter:
 "A rather interesting American buried in the British cemetery at Uskudar is Ransford D. Bucknam who brought the Turkish cruiser HAMIDIEH from Cramps shipyards in Philadelphia, where it was being refitted, to Istanbul.  It appears that the Sultan Abdul Hamid became very fond of Mr. Bucknam who was captain of the American Merchant Marine and gave him the honorary rank of Admiral in the Turkish navy and also created him a Pasha.  It is reported that Bucknam Pasha during the Turkish-Italian war did very good service for the Turkish navy in breaking through the Italian blockade and also during the Balkan war very often navigated vessels in raids in the Mediterranean and other waters.  He died in 1915 of heart failure."

When researching for my book "A Fine Place of Rest: Americans Buried in the Protestant Cemetery, Ferikoy-Istanbul, Turkey" I did not come across his name as being in Ferikoy, and I only put this little blurb in my book because I wanted the entire letter accompanying the burial list sent to the State Department in 1935 by M. K. Moorhead shown.  I have since learned that Bucknam was born in Nova Scotia - and have no idea why Moorhead would list him as an American buried at a British Cemetery in Uskudar.  To be an American he would have had to be naturalized, and since I am not researching him I will probably never know.

John McFarlane, director of The Nauticapedia Project, whose vision is to celebrate and highlight the maritime heritage of British Columbia, and I "met" via the internet and exchanged what information we had on this fellow.  It is amazing how someone who was a perfect candidate for my blog "An Immortal Nobody" could have turned out to be so interesting.  In fact, he is noted on several websites and there is much speculation about, for instance, the women in his life.  As genealogists know, facts and fiction comes from strange places sometimes..

Thanks to John McFarlane for permission to reprint these photographs.

MY BUDDY, BOB SKLAR

Beginning in 9th grade I determined that until I knew for sure what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would focus on Journalism classes.  I was lucky enough to have some good teachers and I did well.  I also made some very good friends.

By the 11th grade I was the Page Two (of four) editor, with Marty Sklar being editor and my mentor. The following year I was elected Editor and one of my Page editors was Marty's younger brother, the fellow pictured above, Bob Sklar.  Bob was a year behind me in school and obviously on the path to being Editor in his Senior Year.

The kids in the Journalism class were a close knit bunch; most of us didn't bother with study halls because there was a paper to put together and we spent that time in either in the "High Life" office or in the print shop downstairs, where we helped put the next issue of the paper to bed.

Bob and I became good buddies and became one of my page editors, too.  He was probably the happiest person I had ever met. He wasn't a silly-funny person, he just found the happy side of everything.  When I had a decision to make, I always brought Bob into the debate; he was smart, sharp and - well, the laughter you see in the picture above is the way we always saw him.  It was always his working pose, too.  Such a personable kid; a good friend and a good buddy.

Bob and I said our goodbyes in June of 1953.  His little "farewell" to me is still sitting in my yearbook, a treasure I've kept all these years.  The next year he did, in fact, become Editor of The High Life, and I went off to college.  We never met up again.

He did well for himself, a full and rich life.  He graduated in 1958 from Princeton, received a doctorate from Harvard, and among other things, "was a professor of cinema studies at New York University's Tisch School of the arts for more than 30 years," according to William Grimes of the New York Times.

I would never have known this about my buddy, except that in July of 2011, I saw an announcement of his death in Barcelona from a brain injury sustained in a bicycle accident.  Damn! I thought, my buddy is gone.  All the years from 1953 to 2011 telescoped in my brain and it was as if he still was my buddy helping me put out a good high school newspaper -- and all those intervening years not have any feeling of separation from a really neat friendship.  I am so sorry he is gone, but so happy that he made such a life for himself and a mark on the academic community..

A TOUGH WAY TO DIE

SHIRLEY LAPPIN PRIEGEL

1923 - 1957

Shirley Lappin  was born on July 11, 1923 to Ben and Belle Mark Lappin.  She was an only child. Belle's older sister had no children, and her youngest sister, Bertha, Mark Title gave birth to Jerry in 1929 and Judy in 1933.  These cousins were all born in Los Angeles and  raised in the southern California area.  They saw each other weekly, however, when the three families gathered at the family home in Boyle Heights every Sunday for dinner.

Shirley married Sid Priegel shortly before he went into the military service during World War II.  It was while he was overseas that Shirley was diagnosed with scleroderma, which at that time was an almost unheard of disease, and except in a few cases was almost always fatal.  Scleroderma was so rare that many physicians had never seen a case of it, and Shirley allowed herself to be examined by many physicians just so they could know what scleroderma looked like.  Her case was also written up in the prestigious JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association.)   

According to family history, she was treated at Cedars of Lebanon (now Cedars Sinai) Hospital in Los Angeles and because she and her mother had agreed to let her act as a “guinea pig,” Shirley was never charged a penny for the many, many times she was hospitalized.  During the years she lived after her diagnosis, her internal organs as well as her skin slowly hardened.  All the skin on her body became taut, which drastically changed her appearance.  It was, and is, a nasty disease.

She lived for 12 years after she was diagnosed, dying on  November 12, 1957 at the age of 34. 

She was my husband Jerry's cousin. 

OLIVIA GILLESPIE COREL McGEE

January 14, 1839 - November 28, 1917

OBITUARY (Newspaper and publishing date unknown).

Mrs. Olivia Gillespie [Corel] McGee

Mrs. Olivia Gillespie McGee was born in Virginia in 1838 and came to Kansas City, Mo. in 1849 via the boat line to what was then Westport Landing.  She lived around that vicinity until 1854, in which year she came to Lawrence in a vehicle drawn by an ox team and settled on the claim on which is now embraced Oak Hill Cemetery, which her family afterwards sold to the City of Lawrence for a cemetery.

She was married to John Jacob McGee in 1860, who wooed, won and married her on the present site of Oak Hill Cemetery, where she was buried.

Mrs. McGee lived in Lawrence continually with the exception of the last few years when she made her home with her sons in Kansas City, of whom there are six, and one daughter, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., her husband, W. J. Vann, being chief engineer of the Ward Line Steamship plying between New York and Cuba, West Indian and Mexican ports.

Mrs. McGee's oldest daughter, Virdilla, was married on the old home place east of Lawrence to George T. Gaumer in 1881, removed to Yucatan a year or two later and resided there until the breaking out of the Mexican reolution, when they removed to the City of Mexico, where Dr. Gaumer was engaged in biological work by the Madero regime.  She died and is buried in the City of Mexico.  Her family still reside in Yucatan with the exception of John D. Gaumer, a son, who is attending a school of electrical engineering in Milwaukee, Wis.  His son visited his relatives last summer in Lawrence and Kansas City.

Mrs. McGee was living east of Lawrence during all of the stirring border war scenes, and entered Lawrence within an hour after the Quantrill gang burned and sacked the city.  Her husband was enrolled in the Kansas militia and was in the battle of Westport, and aided to drive Price away.

One of General Lane's children was taken ill during those stirring times, removed to her home at Oak Hill, and died there.

She came from Missouri, and one of General Lane's men arrived at her home and made away with some of their horses, while she looked on perfectly helpless to prevent the robbery.  However, it is needless to state that Jack McGee got those horses back into his possession at the point of a Colt's revolver in West Lawrence.

A brother of the deceased, and the only surviving member of the family, J. P. Corel, is still enjoying good health at eight-six years of age.  He has lived here continuously since settling in Lawrence in 1854, and still resides with his son, James H. Corel, on the claim he pre-empted from the government.

Mrs. McGee's youngest son, Thos. S. McGee, is captain of a Missouri battery in the 129^th Field Artillery, stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.  He attended her funeral.  A large number of relatives from Kansas City and Lawrence also attended the funeral.

Mrs. McGee is survived by a daughter, Mrs. William J. Vann, Brooklyn, N.Y., and six sons, Oliver C. McGee, John J. McGee, Richard O. McGee, Kansas City, Mo.; Albert McGee, Kansas City, Kansas; Solon N. McGee, Pascoe, Washington; and Captain Thomas S. McGee, One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Field Artillery, Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

A SUDDEN LOSS - A SUDDEN DEATH

I lost track of "Aunt Mary" after an unexpected divorce took her out of my life.  She really was the aunt of my kid's dad, and during the time he and I were married, we often had wonderful Sunday visits with her and her kids, Mary Ann, Carolyn and Sandy in Santa Monica, who of course were my ex-husband's cousins.  All the Kirkpatrick relatives had houses that were overflowing with warm southern hospitality and big Sunday dinners.  Aunt Mary often hosted them, and a great hostess she was.  I liked Aunt Mary a lot.

I suppose in the aftermath of our divorce my husband took our kids on occasion to visit with Aunt Mary et al, but I never saw her after 1971.

In June of 1986 I received in the mail from my ex-husband a copy of a Chattanooga, Tennessee article that spoke of the death of Aunt Mary:

CALIFORNIA CRASH KILLS FORMER RESIDENT MRS. KIRKPATRICK

South Pittsburg, Tenn. - Mrs. Mary Corder Kirkpatrick, 73, a former resident of South Pittsburg, was one of those killed last week in Walker, California aboard a tour bus.

The bus, carrying residents of a Santa Monica retirement home back from an outing to Reno, Nevada, ran off a mountain road at a reported high rate of speed and plunged into a river.

Mrs. Kirkpatrick was raised in South Pittsburg, but had not lived there for several years, according to officials with Rogers Funeral Home, who made the announcement. 

She was the daughter of the late Will and Nomey Tice Corder and the widow of Jere Kirkpatrick.

Survivors include a son, Sandy Kirkpatrick; two daughters, Mary Ann Langford and Carolyn Erickson, all of Santa Monica; sister, Mable Bruce, Decatur, Ala.; six grandsons; one granddaughter; and several nieces and nephews.

Services will be held Friday in California.  Graveside services will be held at 3:30 p.m., CDT Saturday in Cumberland View Cemetery, Kimball, Tenn., with the Rev. Ray Chism officiating.

MYSTERY OF A TINY HEADSTONE

LITTLE DUCHIE

August 1869 - December 1882

Today's ImmortalNobody comes from England and is shared with permission from the Hastings Observer newspaper.

"A photographer who stumbled across an unusual headstone in St. Leonards' woodland is attempting to find out more about its origins.  Sid Saunders, from Hollington, was walking through the woods when he made a bizarre discovery in the undergrowth - a 134-year-old headstone for a rabbit.

Sid explains: "I lost my wife three-and-a-half years ago, so I started doing my old hobbies - a lot of walking and photography.  "On this particular day two years ago, walking in Marline Wood, just off Queensway, I noticed a bit of concrete just poking out of the undergrowth.  I pushed my foot against it and it would not move, so I moved the undergrowth and released it...it was a little headstone."  

The stone was filthy and overgrown with moss, so the following day Sid returned to Marline Wood to clean it up.

He said: "It says on there 'In memory of the little Duchie' which tells me it's part of the Dutch rabbit family.  "It's obvious the family had money to buy a headstone.  "It must have been part of the estate there."  The headstone includes an image of a rabbit and the inscription shows that 'Duchie' was born in August 1869 and died in December 1882.  Although 13 years does sound like a remarkably long time for a rabbit to survive, experts say well cared for rabbits who live indoors can live into their teens.  Sid returned to the site recently to once again clean up the tiny headstone.  He said: "It's something for this 73-year old man to keep his brain active."  This year Sid says he wants to do some research in a bid to find out more about the family who left this tiny headstone behind.  The Marline Valley Local Nature Reserve, which includes Marline Wood, is owned by Hastings Borough Council and managed by Sussex Wildlife Trust. *Pictures taken by Sarah Lawler.

Reproduced by permission of the Hastings Observer

http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/.  Picture by Sid Saunders.

REMEMBERING THE BABY DAYS

February 18, 1927 - January 2, 2017

In 1959 my husband and I bought our first house.  It was in Westminster, California, and on our street most of the husbands were former GI's and qualified to buy a home on a VA loan.  As I recall, the buyer had to have a monthly income of $350, and we barely qualified.  Our little family at that time included a 3 year old son, and two daughters aged 18 month and 2 months.  In 1961 our final daughter was born.  The house was small - only 1100 square feet, but it was a mansion to us compared to the apartment we had been living in.

Everyone on the block, it seemed, had little kids, and the first thing we looked for was a good doctor who would take good care of our children.  

Now in 1955, Dr. Melville Singer settled in Garden Grove, right next door to Westminster, and it wasn't long before the word went around that Dr. Singer - and later also his partner Dr. Kegel, were accepting patients ....and before long, every child on our street was placed in their care.  There were children from the Brown family, the Ritchie family, the Umnesses, the Zepedas, the family of the Zachers, the Beckstroms, the Dews and the Dominskis.  Oh, and there were more...but you can see that the word was out......and advice given was always:  "You'd better take him/her to Singer and Kegel."  

These children were part of the Shirley Street 'gang" -- all getting a good start under the good doctors.

It was comforting to know they were there for us.  

Dr. Singer was the first pediatric cardiologist in Orange County, and he joined the staff of Children's Hospital of Orange County in 1964.  His career spanned 60 years; he did good all over the world.

I was sad when I saw an obituary with his name.  Although my "baby" at the time was 56 year old, I couldn't help but remember how it seemed just yesterday when I cradled her in my arms and took her in with a high fever.  It was a good memory, not of her sickness but of Dr. Singer's legendary care.

Learning how to be a mom has to be credited in good part to listening to what doctors tell us to do for our little ones.  Thanks, Dr. Singer, for being there when we needed you.