#52Ancestors: #FourGenerations Photo

I had an entirely different photo in mind for this week's #52Ancestors prompt but then I saw the sweetest meme video, captured by generations of families around the world, #FourGenerations. The name says it all, four generations gathered together culminating with the oldest generation. The years contained in those four generations is amazing to consider and their enthusiasm for being together is infectious. The meme began in China but has spread to all four corners of the globe. Watching their smiling, laughing faces it's easy to see "family is family" is a universal truth.

Slightly less enthusiastic is my own reaction to being part of a four-generation photograph when I was about four years old. I'm not sure what was happening that made me a good candidate for toddler anger management, but the photo below is of me, my mother, her mother, and her mother! An unbroken mitochondrial line! My great-grandmother traveled from Idaho to Washington for Christmas, I believe, several months after my parents returned from being posted overseas for three years. In the intervening period, they had acquired my brother and me. What the photo doesn't convey is that in her youth my great-grandmother had the same copper red hair as my mother did. My grandmother was a brunette, like her grandmother and as was I. I broke the chain, but if I'd had a daughter I always secretly hoped for another every-other-generation ginger!

What I love about multigenerational photos is the opportunity to really examine faces for similarities. Who has the same nose? Eyes? Smile? Oh, DNA results are great, and all, showing with scientific proof your connection to your parents, siblings and others, which satisfies our intellect. But it is the physical expression of those genes (phenotypes for science-types) that really speaks to our hearts in identifying the visible signs of that connectivity. 

Do you have four living generations in your family? Don't wait, join the wave and capture your #FourGenerations while you can. It will become a treasured memento for your family and future generations.

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!

Born on the Fourth of July!

The dapper young man pictured here is our very own Yankee Doodle Dandy, Arthur Clinton Smith, my great-grandfather.

Born on the 4th of July, 1883, to Mary Emilia Brower and Ezekiel Smith, 'Clint' — as he was more commonly known — was born in Mendocino County, California. The third, and middle, of five children, Clint's siblings included older brother Harry and sister Clara, followed by John and Lola.

The Brower and Smith families were early settlers of Potter Valley, a small community about 18 miles north of Ukiah. Racehorse Seabiscuit has the distinction of being Potter Valley's most famous {part-time} resident.

His maternal grandfather, John Daniel Brower, was a 49er, having journeyed by sail around Cape Horn and arriving in San Francisco in August of 1849. His paternal grandmother, Sarah Smith, left all that was familiar in Missouri and traveled overland to California in 1857, following several of her children.

Clint's early years were spent in Potter Valley, in typical Western fashion... farming, stock raising and attending a one-room schoolhouse. In 1899, at the age of 16, his life took a turn towards the unexpected. His mother, Mary, left her husband, uprooted her children, and moved to Honolulu where the family was enumerated at the time of the 1900 census.¹

Her reasons for leaving aren't entirely clear, but clear enough to her husband who sought a divorce based on desertion shortly thereafter. The Smith family only spent a couple of years in Hawaii, but family tradition has it Clint worked for the Matson Navigation Company — traveling to Australia and the South Pacific — before returning to California.

The timing of his return was ill-fated, however, as he was back in San Francisco for the disastrous earthquake on April 18, 1906. Supposedly desiring a more stable terra firma was one of the contributing factors that led him to Idaho. It was there he met Rhoda Ellen Cryder, my great-grandmother, and they were married July 19, 1908, in Twin Falls, Idaho. Three sons; Albert, Ralph and John, and a daughter Lois, my grandmother, followed.

By all accounts, Clint established himself as a successful farmer and the family enjoyed a comfortable life. But it was not to be a long life. Clint died of a heart attack at the dinner table just days after his 46th birthday while visiting with friends. My grandmother was just 13 years old. Her brothers ranged in age from 7 to 20. Clint's father had died years before, but his mother, Mary, had the sad misfortune of outliving four of her five children.

I often contemplate those moments in life you look back on and recognize as turning points when your life would never be the same and Clint's death was one such moment for his devastated family. But today — along with America's 240th birthday — I am celebrating Arthur Clinton Smith, our "real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July."
                                                     

1. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii Territory; NARA T623-1836; Enumeration District: 0011, pg. 17A, line 12; Emilia Smith.

Slaves in the Family

I recently had the opportunity to attend -- and speak at -- the joint Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association annual conference, which was held in Seattle. For the first time the conference included a track dedicated to genealogy. The presentations were fascinating and diverse; ranging from analyzing popular family history-related television to personal experiences researching ancestors. My co-presenter, Jill Morelli, and I presented on four hundred years of genealogy in America and the motives and impetus behind several key peaks in interest.

As the day progressed an interesting sub-theme emerged regarding slaveholders and the people they enslaved, particularly in light of actor Ben Affleck's request to leave out mention of his own slaveholding ancestors in an episode of Finding Your Roots. The story infamously came to light during the Sony email hack in late 2014. The presentations and ensuing discussion got me thinking again about my own slaveholding ancestors.

Sometimes the universe provides grace in preparation for something unexpected and unwelcome. That's exactly what happened to me when I was inexplicably drawn to read Edward Ball's Slaves in the Family. I thought there was good chance I might have slave owners on my paternal side, which goes back ten generations in North Carolina. Not soon after reading Ball's book, however, I learned of a slaveholding family on my maternal side when it was revealed in a probate record that my ancestor, Sarah Smith, went court to retain ownership of several slaves as part of her dower right following the death of her husband in 1849. I found this discovery far more devastating than if it had been the expected North Carolina branch.*

As requested, Ned (Edward) and Laura were set aside as Sarah's dower right.  At the time, the Smith family slaves included Jane and child Caroline, Mary, Edward (aka Ned), Mary, Joanne (d. 1851) and Lorra/Laura.

1850 Slave Schedule, Nodaway Township, Andrew County, Missouri

Five of the family's slaves were sold in August, 1853, and Ned and Laura were sold in March, 1857, because of the "family leaving for California". (After an intense debate California had been admitted to the union in 1850 as a free state.) At the time of the 1853 sale there was also a two-year-old named Charles and a 6-week-old child of Jane, both sold to S. L. Gant. Based on information in Andrew County records, I believe the seven individuals listed in the 1850 slave schedule¹ pictured above to be:

Name        Age   Gender    1850:         Sold to:      
Jane         22   Female    Sarah Smith   S. L. Gant
Mary         10   Female    Sarah Smith   V. B. Wood
Edward        8     Male    Sarah Smith   John P. Smith
Molly/Mary*   6   Female    Sarah Smith   Wm. Fulkerson
Laura*        5   Female    Sarah Smith   John P. Smith
Caroline*     3   Female    Sarah Smith   S. L. Gant
Joanne        1   Female    Sarah Smith   Died in 1851
     * = Mulatto

Aside from the Tar Heels, I had naively deluded myself into thinking my family was free of the taint of slavery because they were largely Midwesterners who'd migrated from the Northeast. Edward Ball's unvarnished look at his own family's history provided me with a useful road map for beginning to understand the legacy of slavery. While -- just like Ben Affleck -- I still wish I didn't have slaveholding ancestors it pretty much makes me a quintessential American.

This legacy, as much as my Quaker roots, or any of my other branches, when combined tells the complex, flawed story that is America. After the Affleck debacle If You Only Read One Book About the Legacy of Slavery: ‘Slaves in the Family’ was one of the many editorial pieces which appeared.  Like the writer, I found this book to be the first step towards confronting my complicated legacy. I am still searching for descendants of the Smith family slaves. Because they were sold out of the family in the 1850s I have to first find them in the 1860 slave schedule with another owner -- again unnamed with only an estimated age as a clue --  and then hopefully as freed people in 1870. The surname Smith only compounds an already challenging task, but it remains some of the most important family research I will ever do.

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1. 1850 U. S. census, Andrew County, Missouri, slave schedule, Nodaway Township, p. 212, Sarah Smith, head; NARA microfilm publication M432, roll 422.

*Curiously, I have yet to find a slaveholder among my North Carolina ancestors.