Genealogy - Bearing Tragedy

 

1908 Teddy Bear - then and now

Sometime around 1908 my grandfather, Herbert, received a Steiff mohair bear as a gift. Not long afterwards he was holding that bear tightly and proudly while standing aside his older brother, Robert, on the family's farm in southern Ohio. Robert watches on lovingly and protectively. 

Nearly 120 years later, that bear sits atop a shelf in my mother's apartment staring lovingly and protectively at its cub.

I know nothing about the circumstances of how the bears came to my grandfather. I don't remember seeing them when I visited my grandparents. I know that my father brought them back to the house after my grandfather died -- knowing my mother loved bears.

Those bears witnessed a family tragedy. The photograph of the boys is the last image I have of Robert.

The boys' father, Sylvester, married in 1888 and spent the early years blacksmithing, managing apple and peach orchards, and looking for work opportunities and stability along the Ohio River.  That stability didn't come. By 1910 he had found work down river but away from his home in Ohio, speculating on lumber tracts in Louisiana and helping to transition tree harvested forest properties to farms. This work, though, meant he was separated from his beloved wife and four children. 

He was still working in the timber industry in Louisiana when his oldest son, Robert, finished school. Robert probably joined his father in the work for a time. Robert wasn't yet old enough to be drafted into the World War so he could have had up to two years with his father. 

The opportunity to build his relationship with his father was a bright point.  Unfortunately, the remoteness and male dominated nature of the work made it ripe for over-consuming alcohol. Sylvester had certainly succumbed to it.  Robert followed.

 By the end of 1918, Robert was eligible for the draft. He went to Fort Thomas, KY.  No longer had he joined in September the Armistice was signed in November. Robert was then discharged as a recruit in December. He may have returned to the timber industry with his father, but if he did, it was short lived. His father died in October of 1919 of Cirrhosis of the liver -- a direct result of his alcohol consumption.

Robert's family moved in to live with his maternal grandparents, Robert and Betty Wiley in a large house in Athalia, OH. While he may have helped in the General Store that his grandfather owned, Robert was trying his hand supporting the growing need for automotive mechanics.

Wiley Home and General Store in Athalia, OH

Robert married, Mary Lewis sometime after February of 1920 and they had a son, Lewis Edward born in September of 1922. 

Either the mechanic work didn't pan out or the alcoholism overcame Robert. Robert's marriage dissolved and he was eventually incarcerated for non-support.

That is tragedy enough. But while serving time in the Ohio State Penitentiary, a fire erupted in the prison. Robert was among the over three hundred men who lost their lives in that fire.

My grandfather swore off alcohol completely -- not for religious reasons -- but because he witnessed the disease it caused his father and the devastation it brought to his big brother. 

He lost a brother but kept the bear, and he kept his vow. And in doing so, he carried forward not the darkness that consumed his father and brother, but the love that once shone in a young man’s protective gaze. The bear remains bearing witness to tragedy, memory, and devotion.

*****

Next time we will look at the tragedy that follows Robert's son, Lewis.

 

Genealogy - Tragedies Remembered

 

Great Flood of Marietta, OH 

March 1936

Families carry their tragedies quietly, often in letters, photographs, and half‑remembered stories.

In June, I told the story of an uncle, Cecil McCown, who died of typhoid when he was in his early twenties and full of hope and ambition.  The event clearly rocked the family at the time and resulted in family letters being preserved for over 130 years. I also told the story, The Club and the Ring, about a couple of traumatic childhood adventures of my own. 

Similarly, I have photographs that have survived scores of years to bear witness to a family tragedy.  The photo at the top of this blog is of my grandmother standing knee-deep in the flood waters of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers at 216 South 6th Street in Marietta, Ohio.  While I remember her and my grandfather talking about floods in a general way -- shoveling mud out of homes -- I never knew the times, places, or circumstances.  With this photo in hand, I discovered my grandmother's sister and brother-in-law were living in Marietta (apparently on 6th Street) at the time of the Great Flood of Marietta in 1936. No doubt her memories of cleaning out flooded homes were anchored, at least in part, to this tragedy.

Ecclesiastes states:  "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all." So, we can expect to experience some tragedy. For the survivors of tragedies they become the seeds of the stories they get to tell. As Bilbo was able to write, "There and Back Again, A Hobbit's Holiday" telling of his adventures encountering Gollum, discovering the Ring, and losing Thorin Oakenshield, Fíli and Kíli. 

In a few subsequent blogs, I'm going to stroll through preserved stories of ancestors and close cousins to tell the discovered stories of sadness, loss, and tragedy. 

The Secret to Happiness

Eastern Bluebird

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

These words were enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence. Of the three unalienable Rights that were explicitly called out we understand the right to life for living and breathing beings fairly well -- though there have been clear disagreements about at what stage those unborn who do not yet breathe should be afforded the right to life.

With respect to Liberty, we understand it well when it is personal liberty -- but too often fail to understand it adequately when self-restraint is required to permit others liberty in things we personally believe they should not do.

It seems, when Thomas Jefferson, wrote these words he believed himself to have a good grasp of these first two. He may have even believed that everyone would understand them the same and with the same intensity as he felt.

For the last one he clearly knew that happiness is elusive. He avoided saying that humanity has the unalienable right to be happy. Rather, he said we have to right to try to catch happiness and if you can catch it then hold on to it.

When I was a child, I wanted to catch a bird. I don't remember if it was my mom or dad -- but one of them said, "The secret to catching a bird is to put salt on its tail.  If you can put salt on its tail you can catch it.!" I thought, "Well, I can't get close enough with a saltshaker so maybe if I put salt on bread and threw it in the yard it would somehow immobilize the birds." (I guess I didn't in those exact words as "immobilize" was probably not in my vocabulary -- but that was my thought process.) Clearly, the plan didn't succeed, and it got some laughs from my dad.

The expression is a very old European one -- at least five hundred years. A variant of the Simple Simon nursery rhyme included the lines:

He went to catch a dicky bird, 

And thought he could not fail, 

Because he had a little salt

To put upon its tail.

If catching a bird is a metaphor for catching happiness, then the bluebird — the most elusive of them all — becomes the perfect symbol. 

 Even before Maurice Maeterlinck's L'Oiseau Bleu, there were allusions to a bluebird representing hope or renewal in Chinese and Native American folklore. If you have watched bluebirds for any time, you will note they are very alert. Chasing one to catch it would be fruitless. To catch one would require somehow alluring it and trapping it.

So, it is with happiness. While we have the right to pursue it the pursuit rarely catches the prey. Like the bluebird, we catch sight of happiness for a moment before it leaves us to entice someone else into the chase.

Since we might only catch the bluebird by traps and tricks -- perchance that is the way to capture happiness. 

When we pursue happiness in the common way -- we seek for ways to do things we want to do or that we believe we want to do. We go to amusement parks. We go fishing, camping, or golfing.  We get ourselves treated to some form of pampering, like spas or cruises. We sit down for a whole two hours with a good book. And, in those moments, we may experience calmness, laughter or exhilaration. In other words, in those moments we caught sight of the bluebird.

Conversely, when we experience unhappiness in the common way -- we find ourselves in situations we don't want to be in or doing things we just don't want to do. We have to pay taxes. We have to sit in the waiting room at a doctor's appointment. We have to work late even though we won't get approved for overtime. We have to take out the trash or wash the dishes. And in those moments, we experience frustration, annoyance, or pain. In other words, in those moments we not only don't see the bluebird, we wonder if we ever will again.

With those two observations we can conclude: "We do what we want, avoid what we don’t, and grudgingly do what we feel forced to do." Happiness comes from transforming the third category!

The Secret to Happiness is withing our grasp. With this truth we can lure and trap the bluebird. All we have to do is to ONLY do what we want to do and NEVER do anything you don't want to do -- and then we will be happy.  But, of course, that is unrealistic.  When we get off the cruise ship, we have to go back to work to pay for the fun we just had.

Remember though, we are going to trap the bluebird.  

The secret is reorienting the mind so that you WANT to do those things you feel forced to do or you find ways NOT to FEEL FORCED to do what you don't want to do. You must choose one of those paths for each thing you don't want to do. If you do you will have captured the bluebird of happiness.

It works. I have tried it. It isn't always easy to find reasons to want to do things I feel forced to do - but if I must do them or go through them then if I look, I can find value for me or for others in the experience. I can't kick the can down the road and say, "well, I don't feel forced to do this so I'm not gonna" when I know there will be a negative consequence for that choice later that I will REALLY not want to do or experience.

The bluebird stays longest not with those who pursue it, but with those who make a home where it wants to land.

"Hey! Bluebird. I'm not chasing you but please feel free to stay."

 

A Family of Chairs

Rural Ladderback Chair

Some time ago I wrote a blog about Genealogical Treasures. In it I mused over the various trinkets and treasures that my wife and I have become stewards of.  One of those treasures is this chair and its five siblings. The chair is nut colored very light weight but sturdy chair. Most likely it is made of Tennessee Hickory. 

I first encountered these chairs decades ago while enjoying a small dessert of peaches, angel food cake, and iced cream served to us on fine china in the Nashville apartment of Uncle Jack and Aunt Alma. (Aunt Alma was the sister of my father-in-law's grandmother.) We sat at a nicely placed dining room table in one of these chairs.

Jack and Alma later moved to Carthage, TN to a smaller apartment where they lived out their long lives. Jack and Alma had no children, so as the various household items and properties were settled my father-in-law inherited the chairs. A few years ago, he and my mother-in-law, too, downsized and no longer had room for the chairs, so they passed the chairs along to their daughter and by extension to me.

I immediately noticed that the chairs, though of the same pattern, were each unique. There was no maker's mark or factory uniformity. Every rung and slat was slightly different. They were clearly handmade.  

I asked my father-in-law about the history of the chairs. As he understood it, Jack's parents, Charles Gordon and Genie Craig, had them when they were setting up housekeeping soon after they married.

Through some genealogical digging, I discovered that Jack's parents were married in May of 1901. That would mean the chairs were probably obtained around 1901 or 1902 making them about 125 years old. 

The life of a chair is often harsh. They are sat on, leaned back in, dragged across the floors and if children are around -- climbed on, scrawled, and occasionally carve on. Ladder-back chairs, especially, wind up on porches growing weathered and worn. 

These chairs lived a charmed life. 

Charles and Genie were both in their thirties when they married and only had one child, Jack -- born in 1905.  With only one child around them with any frequency and no indoor pets in any of the homes they occupied -- they all look nearly as new as they appeared when they were first wrought from the hickory of Maury County, TN. 

Curiosity got the best of me.  Who made these chairs? Could I even find out?  

Of course, since they weren't signed, I could never know for certain - but I have a hunch.  Handmade chairs could have been purchased from local stores or from people you knew. So, I did a quick look through the census documents of Maury County, TN.  I suspected that the carpenter would have lived near either Charles or Genie - and since it was a household good, it would more likely have been near Genie.

Just one page before Genie and her family in the 1900 Census (84A Sheet #7, 7th District, Maury, TN) was a young man named Andrew Cummings who was six years younger than Genie listed as a Carpenter in the house of his father.

Maybe the newly married Gordon's purchased the chairs. Maybe young Andrew or his parents provided the chairs to them as wedding gifts. We can never know, but it is fun to imagine.

There is an interesting twist to this story.  These chairs came to my wife through her father's family. But his family was not the original owners of the chairs. The original owner was Genie Craig. Genie is the great-granddaughter of Joseph Matthews. Joseph is my fifth great grandfather - meaning that the original owner is my second cousin.

It is as if the chairs knew the story long before I did, and simply guided me toward it.

 

Coal in the Veins

Ruins of a Company Store - Nuttallburg, WV

A year ago in May, my wife and I went on an American Revolutionary tour. We visited Revolutionary war related places like Cowpens and Ninety-Six, South Carolina, Lexington, Concord, and Boston, Massachusetts, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Williamsburg, Virginia. We also visited other places on our tour that were not associated with the Revolutionary War.  

One of those places was New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. We visited there for the reasons so many visit - because of the scenery, but we also visited because of my family connection to the place.

 During many summers as a child and teen the family would make a trip to visit my paternal grandparents who were living in Gallipolis, Ohio. While there we would visit aunts and uncles in Crown City, Chesapeake and Rome along Route 7. We would visit various family properties where my grandpa had rented out a house or trailer or had contracted some tobacco sharecropping. 

I haven't tracked which properties were his paternal verses his maternal family's properties and which ones he may have purchased along the way. I also am no longer certain where all the properties were.  It wasn't anything important to me as a child and my father sold most of the properties when he moved my grandmother down to live with him in the 1990s.

After grandpa's sister died and he had retired my grandparents moved to Chesapeake into her smaller house. His house in Gallipolis had sat across 1st Ave from the Ohio River, but the house in Chesapeake sat on the Ohio just a short walk from the bridge connecting to Huntington, West Virginia. From the back yard we could watch and hear the coal being loaded onto barges.

At the time I did not know my grandfather's direct connection to coal.  He was an employee of the Corp of Engineers working on the Locks and Dams along the Ohio in the region. I simply thought it was the riverboats he was interested in.  My grandmother would talk of showboats like the River Queen, the Majestic, and even the Cotton Blossom that would bring musical entertainment along the river. So it wasn't the coal I was focused on -- but I think he was.

He had worked for a short time in the coal industry.  It was a family business. He went to work in the mid-1920s with his cousin, Edward G. Blume at the Number 2 Coal Mine at Kaymoor, WV which now sits within the New River Gorge National Park. My grandpa's grandmother, Elizabeth Jane Blume Wyle, had lent Edward's father, George Morgan Blume, money as part of his capital for executing the Fayette Coal and Coke Company around 1900. 

George Blume was in the coal business because of a chance encounter his brother, Jacob, had with John Nuttall. Jacob was operating a family hotel near Keeneys creek when John Nuttall entered and asked about the source of the coal Jacob was using for his hotel. That conversation led to a partnership. Jacob's mother (my third great-grandmother), in a letter to her daughter and son-in-law described Jacob's newfound success as having "received the wine of life." Among other things, Jacob operated the Nuttalburg Company Store. (Only the foundation remains as pictured above.)

John Nuttall brought industrial coalmining to the New River Gorge - establishing the community of Nuttallburg, now a ghost town residing within and managed by the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. He also married Jacob's sister, Martha, making the entire operation a Blume family enterprise.

When I heard the coal pouring into the riverboat barges, I heard a noise and saw an operation. When my grandpa was sharing those moments with me, he saw a part of our family's connection to the region and an industry that played an important role in family he personally knew. Through a bit of research, I can now appreciate what he saw in the moment.