#52Ancestors: 12

The Future Genealogist

Twelve, twelve, twelve... what to write about? Since last week's #52Ancestors prompt was "large", I didn't necessarily want to write about another oversize family so soon. I'm not a huge Seattle Seahawks fan, so that particular 12 was out. I finally found my inspiration when I was reminiscing with a friend about elementary school and was reminded I was 12 years old when wrote my first genealogy query letter, and began to lay the foundation for my future passion for genealogy.

It was 1976, a heady time to be contemplating family history. Yep, I'm a Bicentennial baby, when it comes to genealogy research. Who remembers the Freedom Train which traversed the country with artifacts from America's first 200 years? I do! Not only was the United States celebrating its independence from England, but the publication of Alex Haley's Roots was also gripping readers for its depiction of the experiences of generations of an African-American family from slavery to freedom.

I have written about some elements of how I became interested in family history previously, but to recap I was interested in genealogy long before I understood there was a word for venerating your ancestors. In my case, it arrived in the form of photographs in an old suitcase at my grandmother's house which I regularly perused.

Eventually – fed up with my many questions most likely – my grandmother suggested I write to her brother Ralph and ask him for additional information. At first, I thought I was hearing things. Write to Uncle Ralph!? Are you kidding me? The same Uncle Ralph who was the childhood nemesis in many of my grandmother's stories? The brother closest in age to her, and therefore each other's biggest tormenter? That Uncle Ralph?

Once I realized she was serious, I did as she suggested and my great-uncle wrote back with many details, and more importantly, a pedigree chart he had hand-sketched that I would study over the coming the years with great intensity. As I was then in sixth grade, I didn't have many opportunities to pursue some of these details further until I was older but it was always there in the back of my mind. I listened intently for any new detail mentioned in the stories my grandparents, aunts, and uncles told. Like a squirrel hoarding its acorns, I filed away all these little nuggets of information until the time was right for me to pick up that pedigree chart again in earnest! Thank you, Uncle Ralph, for that wonderful start. Maybe brothers aren't always so bad, after all!

Inspired by those tantalizing details from my great uncle and wanting to know more, I remember reading my first genealogy how-to book, Jeane Eddy Westin's Finding Your Roots, published in 1977. I learned all kinds of new things like how some surnames were based in historical occupations and how to fill out a pedigree chart. I also learned about how different cultures have traditional naming patterns and starting with "attic archeology" to gather was information you already have.

I read about the mysterious Family History Library, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and their vast collection of microfilm. At the time I couldn't even fathom what that meant or how invaluable it would come to be to my research. By today's standards the book now seems both quaint and antiquated, but at the time it was my first glimpse into the world of genealogy. My 12-year-old self was poised with her nose pressed to the glass just burning with anticipation waiting for the virtual door to the past to open!

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References:

A later edition of Finding Your Roots is available from Internet Archive if you want to remind yourself – or learn! – what genealogy research was like before the World Wide Web and mass digitization!

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: Large

Cosmopolitan, January 1919

My maternal ancestors were Catholic so I have no shortage of large families in my family tree: 9, 11, 13, 15 children! But instead of focusing on one of them for this week's #52 Ancestors prompt, #Large, I am instead going to share the backstory behind a recent large family I happened to trip over.

By day I am a librarian and several years ago I became interested in the local history of World War I in my community. This led to curating an exhibit about wartime activities in my area, researching numerous young men and women who lost their lives in service to their county, and most recently teaching a seminar course about pop culture during the World War I-era. In other words, I have been living in the past lane – a century ago to be exact – for some time! As part of this ongoing passion, I regularly scour eBay and other online sites for postcards, and other ephemera, from the era. I recently purchased a magazine from January 1919, with an interesting inscription on the cover:

To Susan D. Lyman — mother of Grant H. Lyman — 

one of the 8,000 U.S. Marines 

He gave his life for that free-men may live — 

He is buried on the sacred soil of France.

Richard R. Lyman   Dec 28, 1918.

The issue of Cosmopolitan, with its cover illustration "An American Beauty" by well-known artist of the day, Harrison Fisher, was intriguing to me, in particular, because of the reference to Grant's burial in France. I was lucky enough to win the auction and when the magazine arrived I set out to find more about Grant, and his mother, Susan.

I went to the American Battle Monuments Commission to identify where exactly Grant was buried. His headstone indicated he served from Utah. That detail coupled with his surname, Lyman, made me think his family might possibly be Mormon (or, more properly, Latter Day Saints). My guess proved accurate and I learned Grant was the son of Francis Marion Lyman and his plural wife, Susan Delilah Callister. Both Francis and Susan were connected to many prominent early leaders of the LDS church. Grant was one of at least 22 children born to Francis by three wives. Grant's mother, Susan, was Francis' third wife and she was the mother of five other children. A half-brother of Grant's, Richard Roswell Lyman, was the signer of the magazine which was addressed to Grant's mother.

Grant Herbert Lyman was born on May 10, 1896, in Fillmore, Utah, the third child from his parents' marriage. He enlisted with the United States Marine Corps in Salt Lake City, Utah, on May 6, 1917. He arrived in France in February 1917, and died of wounds received in action near Chateau Thierry on June 17, 1918, just a month past his 22nd birthday. His mother, Susan, was on his mind at the end as a nurse wrote that Grant's final wish was "Will you please write a letter to my mother and tell her she is all the world to me." Susan would visit Grant's gravesite in July of 1930 with a government-sponsored Gold Star Mother Pilgrimage. A chance purchase on eBay led to the story of one young man, from a very large family, who gave all for his country.

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

Dreaded* Aunt Rose

This week's #52Ancestors prompt is Bachelor Uncle. However, given March is Women's History Month, as pointed about by another genealogy blogger, I am following her suggestion and writing about a bachelor or maiden AUNT. (And, if Maiden Aunt is a future prompt, I'll switch it back up!)

Margaret, Nick and Rose, circa 1910.

That said when you hear "maiden aunt" what image comes to your mind? Whatever it is, there is probably something about your vision that has a negative connotation. In my family, "that" aunt is my great-grandmother's sister, Rose. There were four sisters and one baby brother, John, in their family. Older sisters Barbara and Lillie formed a natural pair; and younger sisters Rose and Margaret did, as well.

Rose, the elder by sixteen months, and Margaret seem to have been joined at the hip throughout their childhood. I'm not sure my great-grandfather Nick realized he was getting a package deal when he married Margaret, but in many photos of the young couple taken early in their marriage... there's Rose! She seems to have been a naturally "take charge" sort of person, someone others might call bossy.

Margaret developed tuberculosis, like their father before her, and, in 1916, the decision was made to leave the Midwest's great metropolis, Chicago and move west. Idaho was their destination, where Aunt Lillie had moved years prior. Nick was able to secure a position as a court reporter in Boise, and the young couple and their two oldest children left their families, and all that was familiar behind, including Aunt Rose.

Sadly, Idaho's climate didn't provide a miracle cure for Margaret and in 1928, at the age of 41, she died of the white plague, the infectious scourge of the time. In the weeks following Margaret's death Rose came out from Chicago to help with Margaret's four children – two more added since the move to Idaho – ranging in age from 6 to 17. One would hope it was grief talking, but Aunt Rose made deeply hurtful comments to her youngest niece about how her birth contributed to her mother's death, words still fresh decades later. Horrible words, by any measure, to tell a motherless child. Aunt Rose's bossiness eventually got on the wrong side of her brother-in-law's nerves – who she had known from childhood – and Nick invited her to return to Chicago.

Aunt Rose supported herself as a cook for wealthy families in the Whitefish Bay neighborhood of Milwaukee. At the age of 46, she married gardener, Dave Lonski. So, technically, Aunt Rose wasn't even a bachelor aunt! Oh, well, so I didn't follow directions. She was still a corker! When she in Idaho one thing, in particular, her nieces and nephews remembered – and were annoyed by – was how she and their father would lapse into Luxembourgish when they wanted to talk about things they didn't want the children to hear.

Unlike her beloved sister, Aunt Rose enjoyed the gift of years living until the age of 86. Photographs of Rose show a woman looking directly into the camera with a determined gaze. There is a glimmer of mischief there, as well. She may have left her sister's children with indelible, and ambivalent,  memories, but there was never any doubt of her devotion to her little sister.

*Okay, true confessions, I'm the one who started calling her "dreaded," I don't think any of her nieces or nephews ever did... or if they did, not within her earshot!

#52Ancestors: In the Courthouse

The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, NE)
Thursday, 17 March 1892, pg. 1.

Back in the olden days, before the census was digitized and the snow was six feet deep, we were grateful for the Soundex system as a way to pinpoint the location of our ancestors. Developed as a way to identify people in an era before widespread civil registration, the Soundex enabled government officials to locate individuals as a form of proof of age when enrolling in Social Security.

The Soundex is a system for indexing surnames based on the phonetic spelling, or sound, of the name. The code consists of the first letter of the name, followed by 3 digits representing the first three phonetic sounds found in the name. As a result, similar sounding family names are grouped together with similar Soundex codes. It was invaluable for the years it was generated; 1880, 1900, 1920 and partially 1910.

Based on earlier census, I expected to find my great-great-great grandparents, Eliza (Kirkendall) and Cuyler Shultz somewhere in Hall County, Nebraska in 1900, likely near the village of Doniphan. Rather than scroll page by page, I elected to go first to the 1900 Soundex for Nebraska in the hopes of identifying an exact page. I found Cuyler readily enough, but the first thing I noticed his location was in Lincoln, Nebraska's capital. "That's weird" I remember thinking. The next thing I read really made my hair stand on end, Inmate at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Holy cow!! Scrolling on, I also found a card for his wife, Eliza, living in Doniphan, just as I expected. Well, there's definitely a story here, I thought!

The first order of business, however, was to look at the actual census. Armed with the exact enumeration district and page I was able to quickly locate Cuyler there amongst his fellow inmates. I wrote to the Nebraska State Historical Society which sent me copies of his prison record showing he was incarcerated for the crime of murder! Oh my goodness, this was getting crazy. Over time, I learned Cuyler shot his neighbor, Jamie Farr, as a result of his anger over a longstanding feud between the two, which worsened over time until the final confrontation. Numerous Nebraska newspapers have since been digitized which provide rich details of the trial. 

Grand Island Old Soldiers' and Sailors' Home postcard

Insanity was the plea and during the course of the trial evidence was introduced about Cuyler's erratic "irascible" behavior before the murder including sleeping with a gun under his pillow, randomly barking like a dog and hitting his wife with a bullwhip... but only when she deserved it. It was also revealed that Cuyler, a veteran of the Civil War, was still carrying lead bullets in his body. Although the link may not have been as well understood then, the notion that Cuyler had some level of lead poisoning certainly seems possible now. Family testimony also suggested he was a heavy drinker and not all that nice, to begin with.

Originally sentenced to hang, this was later reduced to twenty years in prison. Sixty-one at the time of the murder, Cuyler's sentence was eventually commuted in 1903 by the Governor of Nebraska Ezra Savage due to infirmities of old age. Cuyler lived out the final years of his life at the Old Soldier and Sailors Home in Grand Island, Nebraska, now known as the Nebraska Veterans Home. His obituary in 1917 mentioned nothing about his life of crime, rather focusing on his Civil War service. The closest it comes is to say he resided in Doniphan until the spring of 1892! Oh, o-kay! Wink, wink!

Curiously, Cuyler's daughter Belle—my great-great-grandmother—left this entire chapter in her family's history out of the 80-page manuscript of her life, as well! After the trial, many family members changed the spelling of their name from Shultz to Shults. I'm not exactly sure who they thought they were fooling by this change! But there is no denying that Cuyler, seemingly unconcerned about his fate according to newspaper accounts, spent some time #IntheCourthouse!

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.