Category: Wilson

Ahnentafel Number: Carl Ozro Wilson, #10

Posted on by spuddled

Our next theme, for this 10th Sunday of the year, is Ancestors by Ahnentafel Number. What in the heck, you might ask, is an ahnentafel number? In which case, you may have been asking yourself this question for a long time since it’s emblazoned across the top of my website. Wikipedia provides the following:1

An ahnentafel (German for “ancestor table”; German: [ˈʔaːnənˌtaːfəl]) or ahnenreihe (“ancestor series”; German: [ˈʔaːnənˌʁaɪə]) is a genealogical numbering system for listing a person’s direct ancestors in a fixed sequence of ascent.

What this means in practical terms is that every direct ancestor in my family tree is assigned a number. Most genealogy software programs will helpfully spit out reports or pedigree charts that automatically assign ahnentafel numbers depending on who you assign as the “home person” (or person #1) in your tree. From there, that person’s father becomes their number doubled (#2); their mother becomes their number doubled plus 1 (#3). That pattern continues throughout; your paternal grandfather becomes #4, the paternal grandmother #5, the maternal grandfather is #6, and the maternal grandmother #7, and so on.

So here we are on the tenth Sunday of 2026, taking a look at #10 in my ahnentafel numbering system: my great-grandfather, Carl Ozro Wilson. Carl has shown up in this blog a number of times previously; if you ever want to quickly find prior entries for a particular family member, you can take a look at the Subject Index. In Carl’s case, the index links to two blog posts that had at least some focus on him; one discussed his marriage, and the other his obituary. There is also this excellent article written by our cousin David Johnson about Carl and Sophie (Roberg) Wilson.

Because Carl has already received some air time here, I’m not going to give a full narrative rundown of his life but will instead focus on a few highlights. Photos are always a good starting point. This first one shows Carl (standing on the left) with four siblings. Carl was born 8 February 1885 in Creighton, Nebraska. In the back are Maud Ethel, born 1881, and Jerry Erving, born 1884. The baby perched on the table is Pearl Ethel, born 1892, and at the bottom right is Carolyne B., born 1889. I’ve never noticed before but now feel compelled to ask rhetorically: did Maud and Pearl really both have Ethel as a middle name? Anyway…

Eldest 5 children of Wellington and Lucinda Wilson

Some 14 years later the next photo was taken, a wedding portrait of Carl and Sophie.

Then, around 1920, this one, showing Sophie and Carl along with baby Mildred Genevieve (born 1919), Ozro Willie (born 1911), Pearl Jeanette (born 1912), my grandmother Blanche Agnes (born 1908), and Clarence Salmer (born 1915).

Finally I have an undated photo purported to be of Carl (in the dark jacket) picking corn. Who is that child with him?

Again, rather than reiterate what has already been captured here, I’ll include some geographical highlights from Carl’s life:

  • 8 February 1885: born Creighton, Nebraska
  • 1900 census: Lincoln, Nebraska
  • 13 March 1907: married Sophie Roberg in Boone County, Nebraska
  • 1907-1915: lived in Newman Grove, Nebraska
  • 1910 census: Midland, Nebraska
  • 1920 census: Mellette County, South Dakota
  • 1929-1939: Wood, South Dakota (managed restaurant/liquor store)
  • 1930 census: Wood, South Dakota
  • 10 June 1939: dies of heart attack in Wood, South Dakota (found dying in his liquor store/restaurant)
  • 13 June 1939: buried at Winner Cemetery, Winner, South Dakota

There you have it – a quick recap of the life of Carl Ozro Wilson, ahnentafel #10. If you want more details, or if you want an ahnentafel report of your own, just let me know. I’m happy to oblige.

  1. Wikipedia contributors, “Ahnentafel,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ahnentafel&oldid=1313256358 (accessed March 7, 2026). ↩︎

W Is for…Witten (A Tale of Two Cities)

Posted on by spuddled

In the 1930 census, Grandma Montgomery was enumerated in the town of Witten, South Dakota along with her mother, Sophie, and siblings Pearl, Clarence, Mildred, Irene, Maude, and Lester. Many years later Grandma would tell me about the town of Witten and how there had been Old Witten and then New Witten when the town was moved. By 1940 Grandma Montgomery was married and living in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, but her mother Sophie was living in New Witten with Irene, Maude, and Lester. I thought I would see what I could dig up about this mysterious town with its Old and New versions.

Wikipedia tells us that New Witten is located at exactly 100 degrees longitude, and that at the time of the 2020 census, its population was 54. Interestingly, the Census Bureau does use the name “New Witten,” but the U.S. Post Office simply calls the town “Witten.” The town was originally founded in 1909, but when the railroad missed the town by 2 miles twenty years later, the town was moved.1 According to an article by Bernie Hunhoff in South Dakota Magazine, the only thing remaining on the Old Witten site is an old bank vault. A building added to Main Street in New Witten to house a bank, mercantile, and grocery store still remains, though the railroad no longer passes through the newer town either.2

Trying to find a little more information to flesh out this brief history of the two towns of Witten, I found an article in Early Dakota Days, describing how the author had organized a Sunday School at a schoolhouse in nearby Winner, and how the Reverend Wold of Witten (so much alliteration) held church services here as well.3

Of even more interest to me (though less relevant to Witten) is an account in this same article about a memorable neighborhood gathering at the home of H. O. Satree. That surname immediately rang a bell, as Emma Satree had been Grandma’s best friend while she was growing up. The article went on to describe the night’s musical entertainment, noting that “Emma Satree (now Mrs. John Sibbert of Winnett, Mont.), Blanche Wilson (now Mrs. Montgomery of Caldwell, Idaho), and myself furnished the vocal.” The article even included a photo showing Carl Wilson and children. And who was the author of the article? None other than “Mrs. Pearl Sherwood Larsen,” who previously made an appearance in this entry as one of Grandma’s schoolteachers.

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Witten,_South_Dakota ↩︎
  2. https://www.southdakotamagazine.com/witten-100th-meridian ↩︎
  3. https://ia804507.us.archive.org/2/items/earlydakotadayss00reut/earlydakotadayss00reut.pdf ↩︎

P Is for…Pretty Unusual Names

Posted on by spuddled

For today’s post I was all set to write about one of my favorite family names. Who could resist the appeal of a name like Preserved Fish? There are, in fact, two of them, as Preserved and his wife had a son also named Preserved Fish. As an aside, the elder Preserved’s wife’s maiden name was Ruth Cook, which means her married name was Ruth Cook Fish. Also, the elder Preserved’s mother was named Grizzel Strange, and he named a daughter Grizzel as well: Grizzel Fish. There’s also a Grizzel Spratt in the records. But alas – when I went to look more closely at these individuals, I discovered none of them are actually blood relations, which is very disappointing and also goes against my self-imposed rule of focusing on actual relatives for these posts. So let’s move on.

Instead of the comical Preserved Fish, I’m taking a look at another favorite name – this one the more euphonious Persis Willson, my sixth great-grandaunt. Persis, alliteratively enough, was born in Petersham, Massachusetts, on 12 August 1754, the tenth child of Samuel and Mary (Davenport) Willson. Petersham had only been incorporated earlier in the same year in which Persis was born, and our Willson ancestors were among the town’s founding members.1

In October 1771, William Johnson filed his intention of marrying Persis. Both William and Persis were listed as being “of Petersham.” Persis had just turned 17.

Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

The couple was married a month later on 21 November by the Rev. John Rogers of Leominster.

ibid.

Unfortunately, this is about the extent of what I know about Persis (and William). A compilation of Massachusetts vital records includes a section on Petersham births, but no offspring are listed as being born to William and Persis Johnson.2 There is also no William Johnson in Petersham in the 1790 census, though one does appear in 1820 and in 1830. As usual, more investigation is needed. The genealogist’s work is never done! Which also means there is always hope that I’ll find a link to Preserved and Grizzel.

  1. Coolidge, Mabel Cook. The History of Petersham, Massachusetts, incorporated April 20, 1754: Volunteerstown or Voluntown, 1730-1733, Nichewaug, 1733-1754. 1948. ↩︎
  2. Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Compiled Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1700-1850 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2018. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors. ↩︎

N Is for…Namesake

Posted on by spuddled

In some countries and time periods, there are specific naming conventions that determine namesakes: the first son named after the paternal grandfather, the second son after the maternal grandfather, the first daughter after the maternal grandmother, the second daughter after the paternal grandmother, etc.1 At other times, the process of selecting namesakes was less structured. Today I’m taking a look at Dad’s family to identify all the namesakes I can find there.

Grandpa Montgomery‘s name itself is something of a mystery, as I’ve covered here before. That’s the confusion over his middle name. It only just occurred to that his first name (Lawrence) may have been a tribute to his mother, Laura. Grandpa had a second cousin named Lawrence Extol Montgomery who was six years his senior, but that seems less likely to be a real namesake situation.

Charles William and Laura Maud (Walker) Montgomery and daughters (and dog)

Grandpa and his first wife, Antonia Marie Jelinek, had two daughters, Flo and Irene. Aunt Flo (Florence Marie), shared her mother’s middle name. I’m not immediately aware of anyone named Florence, Dorothy, or Irene in the family. After Grandpa’s first wife died, he married Grandma (Blanche Agnes Wilson), and they went on to have 10 children together. Grandma’s middle name, Agnes, is an anglicization of the name of her grandmother, Agnette, and in fact, Grandma’s baptismal record lists her as “Agneta Blanche.”2

The eldest child born to Grandma and Grandpa was Myrtle Charlotte. These are both family names (or variations thereof). Grandpa’s eldest sister was named Myrtle Pearl Montgomery, and his father, Charles William Montgomery, was the inspiration for Aunt Myrtle’s middle name. In later years she chose to go by Charlotte instead of Myrtle, and I remember her saying she wished her two names had been reversed.

After Myrtle came the oldest son, Morris Walter. I don’t know of any ancestral Morrises, though “our” Morris had a first cousin, Morris Frenier, who was five years his junior. Walter, though, was the name of Grandpa’s oldest brother, Walter Dewey Montgomery. After Morris came Marvin Lawrence. Similarly to Morris, I’m not aware of any namesake connections for Marvin’s first name, but Lawrence is obviously a callback to Grandpa’s first name. The third son in a row was William Clarence. Uncle Bill, unlike Morris and Marvin, had namesakes for both his names. Grandpa’s father, Charles William, we have of course already mentioned, and he, presumably, was named after his own grandfather, William Montgomery. And Grandma Montgomery had two Clarences in her immediate family: her older brother Anders Clarence died when he was two years old, and then eight years later another son born to the family was named Clarence Salmer.

The next daughter born to the family was Deanna Esther. Though Aunt Deanna had a first cousin once removed named Esther Myrtle Montgomery, I suspect that was just a coincidence, and I’m not aware of any other Esther connections in the family. Family lore (or at least the story Dad heard) was that Deanna was named not after a relative but after singer and actress Deanna Durbin. Deanna Durbin was only seventeen years old in 1939 when our Deanna was born, but her career had begun in a 1936 short with Judy Garland, so the timing is not out of the question.3

After Deanna came two more boys, Alwin Eugene and Theodore Richard. I haven’t been able to find any namesakes in our family tree for Uncle Gene or for Ted’s (aka Dad) middle name, Richard. The “Theodore,” however, shows up a couple of times. First, of course, as Grandpa’s maybe-middle-name, and then with Grandpa’s uncle, Joseph Theodore Montgomery.

Next after Dad came Gloria Blanche, who died at age five. This is another case in which the first name appears to have no precedent, but the middle name has clear family connections, with Gloria being given her middle name in honor of Grandma. After Gloria came Linda Lea; as with Uncle Gene, I’m not aware of any family links to either of Aunt Linda’s names, though when Dad started dating, and then married, Mom, also a Linda, the two Lindas became accidental namesakes, differentiated sometimes in conversation as “Linda Lea” and “Linda Jo.” Last in the family came Aunt Laura, and with her names (Laura Christine) she made up for Aunt Linda’s lack of family names, as she was named after both of her grandmothers, Laura Maud Walker and Sophie Christine Roberg.

Twelve children later, and we’ve reached the end of this look into one collection of family names and namesakes. Of course there are many more namesakes on both sides of the family tree, as well as other reasons for selecting names that don’t have anything to do with family history…at least not until the stories get told or written for posterity.

  1. https://englishancestors.blog/2020/04/01/english-naming-traditions/#:~:text=To%20recap:,after%20father’s%20eldest%20sister%20(patS) ↩︎
  2. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives; Elk Grove Village, Illinois; Congregational Records ↩︎
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deanna_Durbin ↩︎

M Is for…Marriage Records

Posted on by spuddled

I’m going to trust the idiom about pictures and thousands of words and focus on the former for this blog post regarding marriage records. Here are the records I have (or of which I have copies) for the first few generations of my direct ancestors.

Generation 1:

26 August 1961
Caldwell, Canyon, Idaho
Theodore Richard Montgomery and Linda Jo Hoffmann
(parents)

Generation 2:

17 September 1930
Winner, Tripp, South Dakota
Lawrence Theodore Montgomery and Blanche Agnes Wilson
(paternal grandparents)
Not a marriage record, exactly, but an article from the Bloomington, Illinois Pantagraph (which makes me wonder…do I actually have the official document somewhere in all my piles?)
12 March 1938
Peoria, Peoria, Illinois
Joseph Benjamin Hoffmann
and Velma Marie Swing
(maternal grandparents)

Generation 3:

The marriage of paternal great-grandparents Charles William Montgomery and Laura Blanche Walker on 22 February 1883 in Richland County, Illinois appears in Ancestry.com’s Illinois, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1800-1940, but this database doesn’t include images, unfortunately. So moving along…

13 March 1907
Boone County, Nebraska
Carl Ozro Wilson and Sophie Christine Roberg
(paternal great-grandparents)
7 December 1902
Fairbury, Livingston, Illinois
Paul Hoffmann and Emma Alice Slagel
(maternal great-grandparents)

Another one that’s missing (why have I not written away for these??):
18 June 1913; Peoria, Peoria, Illinois; Albert Carl Swing and Lena Agnes Hunkler (maternal great-grandparents)

Generation 4:

25 December 1858
Hamilton County, Ohio
John Montgomery and Belinda Simmons
(paternal great-great-grandparents)
15 February 1857
Noble, Richland, Illinois
Marcus Walker and Mary Ann Conklin
(paternal great-great-grandparents)
Another not-quite-document, but an excerpt
31 August 1879
Brush Creek, Fayette, Iowa
Wellington David Wilson and Lucinda Blanche Davis
(paternal great-great-grandparents)
Another one that’s more of an excerpt…
3 December 1878
Rushford, Fillmore, Minnesota
Anders Mathis Roberg and Agnette Evensdatter Lien
(paternal great-great-grandparents)
17 January 1875
Renaucourt, France
Jacob Hoffmann and Christine Schmidt
(maternal great-great-grandparents)
30 November 1875
Fairbury, Livingston, Illinois
Samuel Slagel and Mary Demler
(maternal great-great-grandparents)
17 February 1884
Fairbury, Livingston, Illinois
Albert Carl Swing and Catherine Marie Hoffmann
(maternal great-great-grandparents)
14 December 1886
Peoria, Peoria, Illinois
George John Hunkler and Maria Elizabeth Rusch
(maternal great-great-grandparents)

These are not all the marriage records I have, though they do become more sparse from here on out. I would keep adding more here, but I figure this blog post is already 13,000 words long, so that will do for now.

I Is for…Ino and War Bonnet

I Is for…Ino and War Bonnet

Posted on by spuddled

For today’s post I thought I’d combine family lore with research. This isn’t so much lore about our own family as it is about memories of growing up that Grandma Montgomery shared with me. I still have the notes where I quickly scribbled down the stories she told, and I’ve transcribed them here. But in spite of the haste in which I took down Grandma’s stories, and the number of years that had passed since the events she was relaying, I’ve been able to find some historical evidence to root at least some of those stories firmly in fact.

In about 1988 Grandma told me of her experiences growing up in South Dakota near the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Among those she knew who lived on the reservation was an elderly Sioux chief named War Bonnet. Grandma told me he’d had at least three wives and became a father for the final time when he was 80 years old. It turned out War Bonnet was surprisingly easy to find.

According to my notes, the history Grandma was relaying to me took place around 1921. In the 1920 census Grandma appears, aged 11, with her parents, Carl and “Soffia” and siblings Willie O. (Ozro), Pearl J., Clarence S., and Mildred G. in Cody, South Dakota on Sheet 5A of the census forms. On Sheet 4B, Joseph “War Bonnett,” aged 69, appears with his wife Jennie (45) and children Mathew (10), Julia (8), Lucy (6), and Solice (2 6/12). “Solice” appears to be the Silas War Bonnet who was born 19 February 1917 (interestingly, the same birthdate as my other grandmother) in Miner, South Dakota to Joseph War Bonnet and Yellow Hair.1

Year: 1920; Census Place: Cody, Mellette, South Dakota; Roll: T625_1723; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 149

Ten years earlier, before Grandma would have known him, Joseph War Bonnet and Jennie were enumerated on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. This marriage is listed as Joseph’s second and Jennie’s first. The census notes that they have been married for 14 years, and though Jennie had given birth to six children, only two are still living. These are Matthew, 3; and Louise, 11/12. Also in the household is Joseph’s daughter Millie, 19.2

Millie appears as Joseph War Bonnet’s youngest child in the 1900 census on the Rosebud reservation. There the household consists of Joseph, born November 1847 and married for four years to Jennie, born August 1880. She is listed as the mother of one child, now deceased. Also in the household are Joseph’s children, not much younger than Jennie: William, born December 1885; Samuel, born January 1887; Thomas, born March 1889; and our friend Millie, born April 1891.3

If Joseph War Bonnet’s birthdate from the 1900 census is accurate, he didn’t quite make it to age 80. The 8 February 1924 issue of The Mellete County Pioneer of Wood, South Dakota, noted Joseph’s death at the home of his sister on Sunday night. He would have been 76.

One of Grandma’s stories I have yet to verify (but had to reference here anyway since this is the week for “I Is for…”) is that of “Ino.” Grandma said that he was War Bonnet’s son-in-law who had a habit of repeatedly saying “I know, I know” in conversation so ended up being called “Ino” by everyone he…knew. This guy I have yet to locate.

I did stumble across a few other interesting corroborations while looking through the 1920 census. In my notes from Grandma’s stories, I had scrawled the following vague tidbit: “Mr. Garneys (?) [??] — Indian — died of flu outside toilet.” You wouldn’t think that vague scrawl would be very easy to prove. You would be wrong. Well, mostly. In browsing the 1920 census (just now, while researching this post, that is), just below the entry for Joseph War Bonnet’s household, I saw Ambrose and Agnes “Garneau” and thought that could very easily be the “Garneys” surname that I was obviously unsure how to spell in 1988. A little digging found the Joseph Garneau family in the 1892 Indian Census Rolls. The family consisted of Joseph, 44; Mary, 48; their children Josephine, 18; Ambrose, 16; Gauless, 14; Edward, 11; and Joseph’s father John, 88.4 Then a little further digging found an account of Joseph “Garneaux’s” death from influenza in 1918, one of a long list of deaths in the 25 October 1918 Mellette County Pioneer, most from influenza. Not surprisingly, the detail about the toilet was left out of the newspaper account.

Then one final discovery. Among Grandma’s stories were those relating to her school experiences. She told of Pearl Sherwood, one of the schoolteachers who was a snob. Another teacher who was a good teacher but couldn’t sing. Fourteen-year-old Megan simply added “Mildred Kemp” here, then noted that the students studied out of encyclopedias and that the school board didn’t actually think the students needed any schooling, which is an interesting attitude for them to have. Another teacher, Lily Larson, was 16 years old and was supposed to go to summer school (apparently to gain more experience and education herself — was this the same school board, or had their attitude changed? Anyway…) When she didn’t go to summer school as required, she was forced to quit. Only to be followed up by a teacher who used dope and was fascinated by Edgar Allan Poe. Unfortunately I didn’t write down the name of this fascinating character. And I’m still not sure which teacher couldn’t sing. But Mildred Kemp turned up in the 1920 census with barely any effort on my part.

With only one household between her and Ambrose Garneau, Mildred I. Kemp was listed as 22 years old, a teacher at the District School, and living with her widowed mother Agnes, 46. Also in their household was Mildred’s sister Clara, along with Clara’s husband and infant son.5 Later that same year Mildred would marry Leander Flaherty and would go on to have three children. Sadly, the marriage did not last; a divorce was granted to Mildred in 1934 on grounds of desertion, and five years after that Mildred died at age 41.6 7

Meanwhile, during this same time period, Grandma herself appears a number of times in the historical record, specifically The Mellette County Pioneer. In February 1922 Grandma and some of her classmates spent time practicing for an upcoming program. Emma Satree, named in the article, was described by Grandma 66 years later as her best friend.

The Mellette County Pioneer
Wood, South Dakota · Friday, February 24, 1922, pg. 4

Three months later the Pioneer observed that Grandma had taken her eighth grade examinations at the Paleck School, while her younger brother Ozro took the seventh grade exams.

The Mellette County Pioneer
Wood, South Dakota · Friday, May 05, 1922, pg. 4

Coincidentally, this article about the eighth grade exams appears just below a notice that Mrs. Agnes Kemp (mother of Mildred Kemp, who maybe couldn’t sing?) had undergone a goiter operation and was “getting along as well as could be expected.” I can report that she would live another 18 years, dying in Sioux Falls in 1940.

  1. South Dakota Department of Health; Pierre, South Dakota; South Dakota, Birth Index, 1856-1918 ↩︎
  2. Year: 1910; Census Place: Rosebud Indian Reservation, Mellette, South Dakota; Roll: T624_1475; Page: 40b; Enumeration District: 0124; FHL microfilm: 1375488 ↩︎
  3. Year: 1900; Census Place: Rosebud Indian Reservation, Meyer, South Dakota; Roll: 1556; Page: 51; Enumeration District: 0045 ↩︎
  4. The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940; Series: National Archives Microfilm Publication M595, 692 rolls; NAID: 595276; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75 ↩︎
  5. Year: 1920; Census Place: Cody, Mellette, South Dakota; Roll: T625_1723; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 149 ↩︎
  6. Rapid City Journal (Rapid City, South Dakota) · Sat, Aug 4, 1934 · Page
    2 ↩︎
  7. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/118523265/mildred_irene-flaherty: accessed August 29, 2025), memorial page for Mildred Irene Flaherty (1898–1939), Find a Grave Memorial ID 118523265, citing Pine Lawn Memorial Park, Rapid City, Pennington County, South Dakota, USA; Maintained by BlackHillsFam (contributor 47300550). ↩︎
Great-Grandma Nine Times Over: the Death of Ann Elizabeth Fuller

Great-Grandma Nine Times Over: the Death of Ann Elizabeth Fuller

Posted on by spuddled

On this day 332 years ago (21 July 1692) my nine-times-great-grandmother, Ann Elizabeth Fuller, died, probably in Massachusetts. She was born around 1634-1635, either in London or in Charlestown, Massachusetts, though London seems more plausible. Her Find a Grave memorial indicates she was baptized at St. Mary Whitechapel in London, though I will need to dig in further to find the primary sources that back up this information. Interestingly, the lime whitewash on this chapel in its early days was what supposedly gave this area of London its “Whitechapel” moniker, most famously associated, of course with Jack the Ripper.1

Sometime before 1655 Ann married Benjamin Willson, and they had seven children, all born in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Their youngest child, Jerimiah, was my eight-times-great-grandfather. When Jerimiah was less than two years old, his father sailed back to London to settle his mother’s estate but died at sea. This left Ann a widow at 29 with 7 children to raise. An inventory of Benjamin’s property at the time of his death is extant and gives an interesting glimpse into the everyday items our ancestors owned and used (though reading it will test one’s palaeography skills).

On 3 April 1671, Ann married again, this time to George Conaway. Her death record indicates he died before her. She was only 53 at her own death and is buried in the Phipps Street Burying Ground in Charlestown. Her tombstone (still remarkably legible) notes her age at her death as 48. This is fairly clearly incorrect, as this would make her birth year around 1644, and her daughter Anna Willson was born in 1655. Ah, the pitfalls of genealogy when even “written in stone” doesn’t count for much…

Find a Grave Memorial #51148615
  1. St. Mary Matfelon Wikipedia article ↩︎
A Troublesome Stove: Fire at W. D. Wilson’s

A Troublesome Stove: Fire at W. D. Wilson’s

Posted on by spuddled

I, even I, couldn’t handle bringing you my intended story this week. Suffice it to say it involves children and rabies. Those of you who know my penchant for morbid stories and true crime may be surprised by this turn of events. We’ll call it a Mother’s Day miracle. Instead, I have a cheerful story about a fire for you.

The fire itself did not take place on 12 May, but the brief newspaper article describing the event did appear exactly 113 years ago today, in the Sisseton (South Dakota) Weekly Herald. According to the article, a kerosene stove “caused considerable trouble” when it “blazed up” suddenly. This happened at the home of W. D. (Wellington David) Wilson, my great-great-grandfather. At that time, he had been living in Sisseton for 16 years; he was born in Louisville, New York, and had lived in Iowa and Nebraska before his 1895 move to South Dakota. You can read his obituary here if you want more details on the non-conflagration aspects of his life.

The Sisseton Weekly Standard
12 May 1911

The article regarding the fire goes on to state that “Mrs. Wilson” showed “rare presence of mind” by throwing the kerosene heater outside, where the fire burned out. Her hands were burned painfully but she was not seriously injured, and their home escaped damage as well. This “Mrs. Wilson” is not my great-great-grandmother Lucinda Blanche (Davis) Wilson, who died in 1894 at age 35, but W. D.’s second wife, Bessie (Olson) Wilson, whom he married about the time he moved to Sisseton. At the time of the fire she would have been about 39, with 4 children of her own.

I was trying to envision what the kerosene stove in question might have been like and found a 1911 advertisement for a Perfection Smokeless Oil Heater. The ad copy describes the marvels of the warmth provided by the Perfection Heater and even touts its portability (though it also says it weighs 125 pounds) and how it is “easily carried from room to room.” Or, apparently, easily chucked outside when it tries to burn down your house.

Tragedy at Resort, Michigan: the Death of Bert Burdell Jones

Tragedy at Resort, Michigan: the Death of Bert Burdell Jones

Posted on by spuddled

I have another sad story for you today. The subject this time is my third cousin three times removed, Bert Burdell Jones. He was born 3 November 1867 in Mason County, Michigan. He was the eldest child of James E. and Margery M. (Taylor) Jones. Margery’s parents were Elias and Sally (Willson) Taylor. Elias’s sister Mary Eunice was the second wife of my 4G-grandfather John Wilder Wilson, and these Taylor/Wilson connections produced the “Moses Taylor letters” I’ve discussed here before.

Bert appears in census records with his parents in 1870 in Kalamo, Eaton County, Michigan, and in 1880 in Little Traverse, Emmet County, Michigan. In the column in the 1880 census where infirmities are noted, next to Bert’s father’s name is noted “rupture.” This is one of those mystery medical descriptions I have yet to pin down; according to the Find a Grave website, James Jones died in 1883 at the age of about 45; whether this was related to his “rupture,” I do not know.

On 27 March 1890 in Harbor Springs, Emmet County, Bert married Minnie Caroline Dietz. He was 22; she was 19. Ten years later Bert and Minnie were enumerated in Resort, Emmet County, along with children Harold V., born July 1893; Dewey M., born April 1898; and what looks like Vyolynn (born April 1900), but in later records appears to be Verlyn. Bert is working as a day laborer.

The 1903 Petoskey, Michigan, City Directory lists Bert B. Jones as a farmer with 70 acres of land and a total property value of $1200 in Resort. In 1910 the family is still in Resort; no street names are given for the section in which they appear, but the enumerator has labeled it the “Jones Neighborhood.” Bert is listed as a general farmer; son Harold, 16, is a laborer in a lime kiln. M. Dewey and Verlyn E. are still in the household; Minnie is listed as having given birth to four children, but with only three still living. A daughter, Lottie L. Jones, had been born about 1896 and died 15 March 1897; she is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Petoskey. Others in the Jones household in 1910 included Minnie’s father Amos Deitz [sic]; a German neighbor, Frank Newman; and a 5-year-old niece, Agnes Jones. Agnes was the daughter of Bert’s brother Sidney; though Sidney was still living, Agnes’s mother had died sometime between 1900 and 1908, and it was not unusual in these situations for motherless children to be taken into other households where they could continue to benefit from the influence of a mother figure.

Interestingly, by 1920, 14-year-old Agnes seems to have become so much a part of Bert and Minnie’s family that her relationship is listed as “Daughter” in the census. Verlyn is still living in the household, as is Amos Deitz, now 84, and a new addition, 5-year-old James Bradford Jones, Bert and Minnie’s last child.

It is difficult to say what happened over the next two years, as I have yet to find any newspaper articles or other sources that would provide more context. All I have is a very clinical death certificate for Bert. His death is noted as taking place on 5 May 1922 in Resort, and he is listed as a 54-year-old farmer who had lived in Resort for 41 years. Mrs. Minnie C. Jones is the informant, and the coroner has listed Bert’s cause of death as “Suicide by strangulation (hanging).” Bert’s Find a Grave memorial adds the detail that this death took place in his barn.

A couple of years after Bert’s death, Minnie married Peter J. McEwen, before dying in 1930 at age 60. Eldest son Harold, by age 24, was missing the fingers off his left hand at the first joint but worked as a railroad telegraph operator until his own tragic death in 1949 at age 56 when he was struck by a freight train in front of his station. Merton Dewey died in Kalamazoo at age 57, Agnes Jones at 59, and Verlyn at 69. The baby of the family, James Bradford, lived until 2001, dying at age 87; one hopes he found sufficient joy in his own life to mitigate so much tragedy.

Find a Grave Memorial ID 128957467

Friday Funny: That Boy is a Girl

Posted on by spuddled

On 24 January 1908, the Sisseton (South Dakota) Weekly Standard carried the following blurb on page 5:

On 13 January 1908, Wellington David Wilson’s (my second great-grandfather) second wife Bessie (Olson) Wilson had given birth in Roberts, South Dakota, to her third child, a daughter named Gladys Leona Wilson. As W. D. noted above, the newspaper the previous week had erroneously referenced a “big 10 pound boy” born to the couple, and he chose to clarify things with humor.

Fourteen years later Gladys was confirmed, and some years later married Odin Alf Olson. The two had at least one child, Gloria Dawn Olson (born 22 July 1930 in Watertown, South Dakota). Gladys passed away in 1965 and her husband in 1968; Gloria married Ralph Brostrom in 1993 and died in 2011 in Fairfax, Virginia.