Valentine: #52ancestors

Arthur and Mary Flynn, together with their children:
Lester, Nellie, Sadie and William. ca. 1910.

I generally don't think of my ancestors as romantics. Pragmatic, yes; romantic, no. Life was hard and it has always seemed to me people needed to focus the majority of their energy on just getting by. My people anyway. They were farmers and tradesman and day-laborers. Romance was for the wealthy.

Yet, my great-great-great grandparents Arthur Flynn and Mary Clarissa Calhoun were married on Valentine's Day, 1865. The end of the Civil War which had gripped the nation for four long years was still several months away. It was winter – in between harvest and planting – a season when many farmers found time to marry. It was a Tuesday. So, why get married on that particular day? Maybe it was due to a touch of romance!

Mary was the oldest of ten children in a family with deep New England roots in Connecticut. Arthur had emigrated from Ireland less than a decade earlier. Their romance already seemed a bit improbable. Although the newspaper notice above from the Hartford Daily Courant (Friday, February 17, 1865, pg 2) provides scant information, a few more details about their wedding can be found in a volume of reminiscences, Litchfield County Sketches, by Rev. Newell Meeker Calhoun. Newell was Mary's brother and his book provides many insights into their family life. It was hard work, but it wasn't all work, as I discovered.

Adele Anais Toudouze.
Wedding fashion, 1865.

Newell described the farm where the Calhoun children grew up in Morris, Connecticut in great detail. The kitchen which was the heart of the home, even then, where the children stood in the large fireplace in the summer months to view the stars above. Where on winter nights the family sewed hooks and eyes onto cards to make extra money. There were two parlors; one a sitting room for receiving friends and the other which was "only opened on state occasions."

In that state parlor, Newell writes, "were a funeral and a wedding, when a son went away to the home prepared for him and a daughter to make one for herself." The funeral was that of younger brother, Willie, who died in 1863 of encephalitis, just a month shy of his 7th birthday. The wedding was Mary and Arthur's. Although no picture of their wedding day survives, the photograph above of Arthur and Mary and their four children is a testament to their enduring marriage. Mary died in Nebraska, at the home of her daughter Nellie, after a long illness in 1910. Arthur lived until 1921. They are buried together at Rose Hill Cemetery in Shenandoah, Iowa, where they moved after their marriage.

I'd love to think that they both had a little bit of poetry in their soul and their choice of wedding date was very deliberate, indeed! Happy Valentine's Day! And happy anniversary to Mary and Arthur, married 153 years ago, today.

Favorite Name: Mehitabel

Hitty, her first hundred years by Rachel Field.
New York, Macmillan Co., 1929.

Week 6 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompts us to write about a favorite name. My family tree is dotted with several names over and over. John and Nicholas; Mary and Margaret are just a few of the most common. While their individual stories are interesting, their names... not so much. I do have a Missouri and a few presidents and an ancestor whose second wife was named Cinderella. But none of those particularly inspired me for this week's post.

I have always been intrigued by Puritan virtue names like Patience and Prudence. Sadly, I don't have have any of them either. I do, however, have a Mehitable! I loved that old-fashioned name long before I discovered I had one in my family tree. The name Mehitabel was popular during the colonial period when many Protestant children were given names from the Old Testament. The name is Hebrew for "God rejoices."

When I was growing up I read any books I could get my hands on about adventurous girls like Caddie Woodlawn and Laura Ingalls and friends Betsy, Tacy and Tib. Another favorite was the story of Hitty – short for Mehitabel –  a wooden doll whose story begins in Maine in 1820. The book follows Hitty's adventures over the course of a century after she becomes separated from her original owner, Phoebe, as passes through many hands.

Hitty's story won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature for author Rachel Field in 1930, which is timely as the Newbery awards for 2018 are being selected this week! My fondness for these adventure stories has continued well into adulthood. I know I am not the only one as new opportunities to engage with these stories have presented themselves such as the recent publication of the highly acclaimed Prairie Fires, a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. While I don't know enough about my Mehitable to write a full paragraph, let alone a 625-page biography, I'll continue to revisit Hitty and my other old friends and think of one of my favorite names on my family tree.

In the Census: Triple Play!

"Keep to the right and blow your horn!"

That was the refrain my grandmother and her siblings chanted as they made their way west from Idaho along the Columbia River Gorge via historic U.S. Route 30. This week's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompt is "In the Census". I knew the Smith family had visited my great grandfather's hometown of Ukiah, California, when my grandmother was young but the census unexpectedly helped pinpoint the dates for one trip.

I had previously located the Smith family in 1920 living in Twin Falls, Idaho, exactly where I expected them to be. Curiously, they were enumerated twice on the same page, in two different handwritings. One entry was crossed out, so the enumerators realized their mistake. The basic details of the two entries are all pretty accurate, and consistent, but there are a few discrepancies. Son Ralph's middle name is recorded as Hanson by one enumerator and correctly as Haven by the other. Daughter Lois Margaret's name is half right and half wrong in both enumerations! 

Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Twin Falls Ward 2, Twin Falls, Idaho. 
NARA T625-295; Enumeration District 296, Page: 17B; Line: 54; Arthur Clinton Smith. 

Ibid, line 66.

The surprise was also finding the family at 512 Arizona Avenue in Santa Monica, California. There was no question this was the right family as the names and details are incredibly consistent with the two Idaho enumerations. But Santa Monica? My Idaho-born-and-raised grandmother never mentioned living in California!

Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California. 
NARA T625-116; Enumeration District 600, Page: 4B; Line: 84; Clinton A. Smith.

As it turns out, it's all in the details. Isn't it always? One important detail to note was the federal census was conducted on January 1st in 1920. Another was that Arthur's mother, Mary Osborn(e) is listed with the family in all three enumerations. Sometime after finding the Smith family in California, the Idaho Statesman newspaper became available online for the time period I was interested in. I searched every name permutation I could think of for the extended Smith family in search of little tidbits to help add detail to my family's story. The discovery of the following two news items finally brought the whole census mystery into focus!

The Idaho Statesman, November 19, 1919, pg. 11.

The Idaho Statesman, February 25, 1920, pg. 6. 

Clearly, the Smith family wasn't in Idaho at the time of the census. But it was understood they were returning to their permanent home. The timing was just right, however, for them to be recorded at their temporary winter address in California. If it wasn't for the census, these news items might not have captured my attention, thus solving the mystery of the three enumerations!

Hidden Mothers and Hellion Fathers

Scene from Meeting of Minds (1977-1982), 
with Jayne Meadows, as Catherine The Great.

If you're of a certain age you might remember a TV-series which aired on PBS from 1977-1982, hosted by Steve Allen, called Meeting of Minds. In it, actors played characters in history brought together for a conversation about a variety of topics. This week's prompt, "Invite to Dinner" for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is the ancestral version!

Of course, when given the opportunity to question a long-gone ancestor, most of us immediately think of those people who are the brick walls in our family tree. With that in mind, I made a list of several people I would love to have the opportunity to ask a few questions of.

Hidden Mothers

Tracing our female ancestors can be such a challenge before civil registration was required. Women were all-too-often invisible. Here are a couple such women I would like to have a sit-down chat with:

1. Mariam Williams Kirkendall (ca. 1822- ??)
   Married at 16 to Robert Kirkendall in Wisconsin in 1838, Mariam disappears following their divorce in 1849. Their divorce records are the stuff of headline news today, both sides alleging infidelity, drunkenness and more. Indicative of the time, custody of their children was awarded to their father. Curiously, she is mentioned as Robert's first wife in his obituary but her fate after 1850 remains a mystery.
2. Mary Grainger Keely Johns (1834-1871)
   For many years Mary was one of those dead-end branches of my family tree. Family stories suggested that she was married before she married my ancestor, Daniel Teats Johns. No one knew, however, if Keely was her maiden name or that of her first husband. Turns out it was the name of her former husband, but many other questions about her life still remain.
3. Catherine Thomas Younker (1834-1912)

   

   Wikipedia: Hidden mother photograph

   
   When did Catherine arrive in the United States? Born in Gilsa, Germany, Catherine and her siblings were orphaned at an early age. How and why did she make her way to Illinois after her arrival? So many questions, so few answers.

Hellion Fathers

1. Cuyler Shults (1831–1917)
   By far the most irascible of my ancestors, Cuyler murdered his neighbor and was sentenced to hang. His sentence was eventually commuted by the governor of Nebraska due to his advanced age. The trial transcripts suggest a tense relationship with his neighbor, Jamie Farr, but is that the whole story? Inquiring minds what to know!
2. Willie Henry Younker (1894-1929)
   Family tradition has it Willie telegrammed his then-wife Meda with the news he wanted a divorce while she away was visiting her family. He neglected to mention another woman was expecting his child. He died just days after his 34th birthday, so the opportunity to get any answers from him directly was lost when his children were still quite young.  
3. Owen Flynn (ca. 1795-ca. 1864)
   Okay, truth be told, I don't know for certain Owen was a bad guy. But he is the only one of my immigrant ancestors who decided to forego the opportunities of the New World and return to his homeland. Wouldn't you love to know what it was about America he didn't like enough to make returning to Ireland seem like the better idea? 

Curiously, every one of these ancestors is on my father's side of the family. He didn't find it all that amusing when I told him there was a murderer in the family, however. In typical dry, droll Dad fashion, his response was "Why don't you find people like this on your mother's side of the family?" Good question, Dad! I would love for the opportunity to find out the answer, if only I could sit down to dinner with one, or all, of these ancestors!