Category: Montgomery Line

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
Another Victim Added: The Death of Myrtle Barrow

Another Victim Added: The Death of Myrtle Barrow

Posted on by spuddled

Today we return to our regularly scheduled program of morbid deaths. Specifically, in this case, the death of Myrtle Barrow, my fifth cousin twice removed. She was born 29 August 1899 in Athensville, Greene County, Illinois, to Robert Newton and Fannie (Canatsey) Barrow, part of the Sweeney line on my paternal side.

In 1900, 9-month-old Myrtle appears in the census in Athensville along with her parents and 3-year-old brother “Loyd.” In 1910 the family was enumerated in Barr, Macoupin County, Illinois. Myrtle’s older brother (Lloyd Irvin) is now listed as Irving, and three more boys have joined the family: Robert, 9; Carlos, 5; and Ebert, 2. By 1920 the family is back in Athensville, but Lloyd is living on his own with his wife and family, and Myrtle now has a sister, 8-year-old Fannie.

Myrtle would not survive long enough to be enumerated in 1930. Ninety-seven years ago this past Friday at a little after 12 p.m., a series of tornadoes struck central Illinois, in particular Calhoun and Greene Counties. The Jacksonville Daily Journal of 20 April listed eight known dead at that time, including a schoolteacher, Annie Keller, who died when she was struck by a falling rafter as the Centerville schoolhouse collapsed. She had ordered the schoolchildren to get under their desks and had only just gotten them all in place when the rafter fell; all the children survived.

Myrtle Barrow did not die in the initial storm. Instead, 97 years ago today, she succumbed to the injuries she had sustained in Greene County two days earlier. Again the Jacksonville Daily Journal provides a detailed account. According to an article that appeared on 22 April, Myrtle’s brother Robert testified in the inquest held after her death (aside: wouldn’t her cause of death be fairly obvious?), stating that he had been in Athensville when the tornado struck his home. He returned home afterward to find his father at a neighbor’s, but received word that his sister had been injured. Myrtle was found 100 yards from the family home lying in a couple of inches of water. Flooding made it impossible for anyone to take her to the hospital until the afternoon of the following day. Though Myrtle was unable to provide a lot of detail, she was lucid enough to tell doctors at the hospital that she had seen the tornado approaching and taken shelter in a shed.

Though doctors had originally thought Myrtle was improving, this improvement did not last, and she died at the Passavant Hospital in Jacksonville about 2:30 p.m. on 21 April 1927. The inquest, unsurprisingly, blamed the tornado for her death, but provided detailed specifics: “shock and hemorrhage, the result of disarticulation of right knee joint, fracture of left tibia and fibula and the left humerus. Injury acquired in tornado in Greene County.” According to the National Weather Service, the storm was an F4 and claimed a total of 11 lives, including Myrtle’s. One small consolation is that by surviving the initial storm, Myrtle did not die alone; the Daily Journal article tells us that her brother Robert was with her in the hospital when she died. A very small consolation, but a consolation nonetheless.

Pekin Girl Dead: The Sad Death of Margaret Lowry

Pekin Girl Dead: The Sad Death of Margaret Lowry

Posted on by spuddled
1 April 1925 Pantagraph

Next year I’ll try to intersperse some more cheerful events in with all the dark ones. This one is about as grim as they come (and on Easter Sunday, no less). Margaret Lowry (or Marguerite Lowrey, or Margaret Lowery; sources differ), my sixth cousin three times removed, was born 11 January 1903 in Manito, Illinois, and died 99 years ago today in Spring Lake, Illinois. She is one of my paternal Illinois relatives, for the record; I have them on both sides. She was the daughter of John Clayton and Josephine West (Golden) Lowry. One of at least 8 children, Margaret’s was only one of several tragedies that befell the Lowry family. Her eldest sister Bessie died in 1919 at age 31; I haven’t been able to determine her cause of death. Then her brother George W. died in 1921 at age 29; his story would make its own blog post, as he and his wife (or possibly not his wife) died in a double suicide (or possibly a murder-suicide) when the house was filled with gas as one or both of them slept.

Margaret herself first appears in the 1910 census in Manito. Her father’s occupation is listed as cranesman on a dredge boat. He is 43 years old. Her mother appears as “Josie,” 38, married for 22 years and with 8 children, all of whom at that time were still living. Several of the older children had left home already; the remainder of the household consisted of Addie, 11; Marguerite, 7; and Blakesley, 2.

By 1920 the family had moved to Spring Lake, Illinois, and the household occupants had shifted again. John is now an electrical engineer at a pumping station; his wife is listed by her full name of Josephine; and living with them are sons George W., 27; Walter J., 24; Margaret H., 17; Blakesley G., 12; and a granddaughter, Mable J. Dwyer, 5.

Within a couple of years of this census enumeration, it appears that Margaret’s health took a turn for the worse. The newspaper articles telling of her death note that she had been in ill health “for several years” prior to 1925, and that she had been a patient at the Oak Knoll sanatorium near Mackinaw for a year. Interestingly, this is the same institution where William Jay Claton’s widow Magdalena would later find employment as a cook.

A few months before her death Margaret came home from the sanatorium but was still unwell; I wish I had more specific details about her illness. Whatever it was, it must have been too much for Margaret, as her ill health was determined to be the cause of what came next, according to an article that appeared in the Bloomington, Illinois Pantagraph on 1 April 1925. The day before, Margaret’s mother, along with three of her sisters and a brother all left home to travel to the Pekin Hospital to visit a sick grandchild there. Margaret’s father John also left home at 1:00 for his responsibilities at the pumping station where he was still employed. When he came home at 5:00 he found Margaret dead in the bedroom from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A coroner’s inquest was held, which is, presumably, where the official cause of Margaret’s despondency was determined to be her ill health. Two days later Margaret was buried in the Spring Lake Township Cemetery; she was 22.

Find a Grave Memorial #153436613

I am, as always, struck by the thought of how hard it must have been for Margaret’s parents to go on after losing a third child. Josephine would die in 1932 and John in 1934; their daughter Addie outlived them but herself died at age 48. Most of the remaining Lowry children lived relatively long lives, mercifully: Jesse died at 81, Walter at 79, and “Blakesley,” or Blake Golden Lowry, at least made it to 62, though his wife died at 39 when the car in which she was riding crashed into a gasoline truck.

That is a lot of sorrow for one family. I have no words of my own to make any of it make sense. But it is Easter Sunday, and while that does not take away the pain the Lowry family endured, it can at least give consolation and hope in the face of tragedy.

Image by Ray Shrewsberry • from Pixabay
Washed in the Blood: The Death of Lucy Loofboro

Washed in the Blood: The Death of Lucy Loofboro

Posted on by spuddled

Today’s family history death is that of my third cousin five times removed, Lucy Jane (VanHorn) Loofboro. Her death was not gruesome like last week’s, and sadly not uncommon, but no less tragic. Lucy was born 13 August 1839 in Ohio, the daughter of Job and Prudence (Davis) VanHorn, another in our Seventh Day Baptist lineage.

Lucy’s short lifespan meant that she was only enumerated in a single census. In 1850 Job and Prudence were living in Stokes, Ohio. Job was 43 and a farmer with real estate valued at $1000. He is listed as being born in Virginia. The remaining family members were all born in Ohio: Prudence, 42; Maria, 19; Almarine, 17; Obadiah, 15 (and listed as a farmer himself); James, 13; Lucy, 11; Mary, 9; Joshua, 4, and Samuel, 5 months.

It appears that sometime in the next six years the family moved to Iowa. In 1856 in Welton, Lucy (then 16 or 17 years old) married her 24-year-old second cousin, Isaac Newton Loofboro. Also a Seventh Day Baptist, Isaac was born in Clark County, Ohio in 1832, the son of Davis and Mary (Maxson) Loofboro.

It’s possible that sometime within the following year the newlyweds moved to Illinois, as the few remaining records which include Lucy come from that state. On 4 March 1857 Lucy gave birth to a son, Augustus Sumner Loofboro, but she would have less than three weeks in which to experience the joys of being Augustus’s mother. On 24 March 1857, 17-year-old Lucy died. The Seventh Day Baptist newsletter The Sabbath Recorder of 16 April 1857 provides details about Lucy’s death as well as her character in an obituary submitted from Farmington, Illinois.

The article states that Lucy’s death was of puerperal fever, and that she knew from the beginning of her illness that it would prove fatal. Even so, she fought against the thought of her early death (and, surely, against having to leave behind her husband and new baby). But in the end, according to the author of her obituary, she became resigned and even “anxious to depart and join the happy company who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Lucy is buried in the Harkness Grove Cemetery in Peoria County, Illinois.

The Sabbath Recorder, 16 April 1857
Lucy Jane Van Horn Loofboro
Find a Grave Memorial ID 18964281

Puerperal fever, also known as postpartum infection or childbed fever, was (and is) a bacterial infection of the reproductive tract suffered after childbirth. If contracted, the fever usually sets in between 1-10 days after the birth of a child. According to Wikipedia, 6 to 9 women in every 1000 births during the 18th and 19th centuries suffered from puerperal infection, and about 1/3 of those who contracted childbed fever died. Many of the illnesses may have resulted from lack of hygiene practiced by doctors at the time. Improved hygiene as well as antibiotics have reduced the number of maternal deaths since Lucy’s day.

Lucy’s widower Isaac would remarry in 1863 to Annie M. Davis. Isaac and Annie had five children, but only two of them would outlive their parents. Young Augustus Sumner did not survive his father either, though he did live long enough to be enumerated in the 1860 census. He appears with his father that year in Bloomfield, Iowa, one dwelling away from Isaac’s parents. On 21 August 1868, however, he died at the age of 11; according to A History of the Loofbourrow, Loughborough and Lufburrow Families by Milton R. Lufborrow, his death was due to snakebite. He is buried in the Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery in Welton, Iowa.

Augustus’s father would survive until 1907, dying in Welton, Iowa, at age 75. His second wife outlived him by almost 11 years, dying at age 79 in 1918. Of the two children who did survive Isaac and Annie, the eldest, Horace, moved to Wisconsin and died in 1943 at 78, and the youngest, Lewis, also moved to Wisconsin and survived until 1961 when he died at age 89, the last of the Loofboro family to depart and join those made “white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Right Eye Is Out: The Grim Tale of William Jay Claton

Right Eye Is Out: The Grim Tale of William Jay Claton

Posted on by spuddled
William J. Claton Gravestone
Find a Grave memorial #74488863
Photo by Linda T

It’s time for another gruesome family history installment. Today’s victim is William Jay Claton, my fifth cousin four times removed. He had more than his fair share of terrible events befall him; the title of this post is not even related to his horrific death

William was born 19 June 1877 in Illinois, the son of William H. and Sarah E. (Cline) Claton. In 1880 the family was living in Tazewell County, enumerated one household away from the elder William’s sister, Florence, and her family. Also living with Florence was her and William’s mother Elizabeth (Hawkins) Claton, as well as their paternal grandmother, Margaret (Gaston) Claton.

The entire Claton family seems to have suffered from incredibly bad luck (or health). Of the five family members in the household that year, three had entries made in the “Sick” column by the census enumerator. William, Sr., 36, has “Flesh Wound” recorded by his name. Lewis F., 13, has “Hip Disease” recorded, and the “Disabled” box checked. Frank E., 10, also has the “Disabled” box checked, along with a cryptic “Ruptured” in the “Sick” column. William, Sr., is not marked as “Disabled,” so perhaps his flesh wound was only a recent injury. “Willie,” aged 2, appears also, with no sickness or disability noted (yet). Lewis would live to the age of 73, but Frank would die at age 46.

The 1900 census shows William and Sarah, still in Tazewell County. Sarah’s enumeration notes that she had given birth to four children, three of whom were still living. In 1882 another child had been born and died, a daughter, Anna Alida. Also with William and Sarah were the younger William and his new bride, Magdalena (born Magdalena Snyder on 31 August 1881). William and Magdalena were married 31 May 1900, just in time to be shown as a married couple as of the Census Day enumeration date of 1 June.

By 1910 William, Jr., and Magdalena were living in Pekin, Illinois, at 360 S Capitol Street, a house built in 1902 that still stands. William is listed as being the owner of a saloon. With the couple are their children Louisa, 8, and “Wilber,” 2. In 1912 the family is still living at 360 S Capitol; they appear in that year’s Pekin City Directory as “Wm. J., lab[orer], and Mrs. Maggie Claton.” The same directory lists a number of different saloons in operation, but William’s name isn’t specifically associated with any of them.

The next appearance of William I have found is his World War I Draft Registration Card, dated 12 September 1918. Here his full name is listed, along with his birthdate and an address of 608 Derby, Pekin, Illinois. This house no longer appears to be standing. William is listed as a laborer at the Corn Products Refining Company on South 2nd in Pekin. He is described as tall, with a medium build, gray eyes, and light hair. All pretty standard fare until the section where the registrar is asked to describe any physical disqualifications in detail. Here the registrar has written, with bland understatement, “None except right eye is out.” There must be a story here, but unfortunately, I have yet to find any details. I did learn that the Corn Products Refining Company was created in 1906 through a merger of a number of U.S. corn refiners. It produced both Argo corn starch and Mazola corn oil. It has undergone a number of mergers and name changes since that time and is now known as Ingredion.

In 1920 William and Magdalena were enumerated in Spring Lake, Illinois, one household away from William’s brother Lewis. With them were Wilbur, now 11, and William E., 8. It appears that by this time daughter Louisa had married (or had at least moved out on her own), as she would live on until 1989. William is listed as being a farmer by occupation.

Less than two years later, however, William seems to have changed careers again, leading to his tragic demise. The Metamora (Illinois) Herald of 24 March 1922 describes the event of 102 years ago today in grisly detail in an article titled “Meets Horrible Death.” Some of you may want to skip ahead to the next paragraph. According to the author, William was at the Liberty Yeast Corporation plant in Pekin and was helping to unload coal with an elevator when his foot was caught in a belt. He was dragged into the machinery and “terribly mangled.” The article describes how both feet were torn off and his limbs “crushed into a pulp up to the hips,” and added, almost as an afterthought, “he also received internal injuries.” Mercifully, the article also states that he died instantly. One wonders if having only one eye might make an individual more susceptible to missteps in situations like this one.

William was laid to rest in Lakeside Cemetery in Pekin, leaving his widow Magdalena to raise two young boys on her own. In 1930 she was enumerated as “Margaret Clayton,” 48, at 1009 Summer Street in Pekin, along with both Earl and Wilbur, then 19 and 21. They were living in this still-extant house along with the owners, Alexander and Leone Anderson (and their three children), who listed the home’s value as $4500. Magdalena’s occupation is listed as leather worker at a saddlery.

The passage of another ten years finds Magdalena living at the Oak Knoll Sanitorium in Mackinaw and working there as a cook. She would survive a further 7 years before being buried beside her husband at the age of 65. However, according to her obituary, the last five of those years she spent as a house mother in a sorority house in Colorado Springs. I have yet to iron out those details, but it sounds like she continued to find purpose until the end of her life.

Son Wilbur died at age 58 and is buried in Pekin’s Glendale Memorial Gardens, and William Earl served in the U.S. Army and died at age 66 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Lacey, Washington. When William’s sister Louise died in 1989, she was also buried at Woodlawn Cemetery. One hopes that William Jay Claton’s “horrible death” really was instantaneous, and that his widow and children were able to overcome this tragedy as they moved forward with their own lives.

“whereas Joseph Waters…died”: The Death of Joseph Waters

“whereas Joseph Waters…died”: The Death of Joseph Waters

Posted on by spuddled
Joseph and Celah Waters Gravestone
Pisgah, Illinois

This week we remember another death, though there is nothing gruesome about this one. It appears to have been just your standard tragic loss of a husband, father, and grandfather. Joseph Waters, my 5G-grandfather, was born 4 January 1773, possibly in Baltimore, possibly in Amherst County, Virginia. He was the son of Isaac and Kitty (Hawker) Waters.

His early history is a bit murky, but on 27 November 1798 he married Celah Sweeney in Stanford (Lincoln County), Kentucky. Celah was the daughter of Moses and Elizabeth (Johnson) Sweeney; Moses’s burial plot features in an earlier blog post here. In 1806, Casey County was formed from a portion of Lincoln County, and it was in Casey County that Joseph’s household was enumerated in 1810 and 1820. Between 1823 and 1824 Joseph served as the sheriff of Casey County; he is recorded as being in attendance at the monthly court sessions held at the courthouse in Liberty, the county seat. This would seem to suggest some level of importance in the community.

About 1825, however, Joseph and his family moved to Morgan County, Illinois. On 1 May 1826, according to records from the General Land Office, Joseph completed the purchase of 80 acres of land in Morgan County. His household was enumerated in that county in 1830 and 1840. During their marriage, Joseph and Celah had a large number of children, possibly as many as fifteen. The eldest I have found was Polly, born in 1799 and died in 1805, and the youngest was Charles W., born in 1825 and living until 1896. Celah herself was born in 1782, which would make her 16 and 43 when her eldest and youngest children were born if this information is accurate. Between Polly and Charles, the following children were born: William, Daniel, Isaac, Zachariah, Elizabeth, John, Martha, Cassandra, Nathan, Milley, Sarah O., Frances, and Margaret. Cassandra, my 4G-grandmother, married my favorite-named ancestor, Nimrod Canterbury Murphy, in 1830.

On 19 February 1842, Joseph Waters executed his Last Will and Testament. Within it he bequeathed his wife “Celia” all his land and farming equipment, along with $40, furniture, and two horses. Everything else was to be sold and the money loaned out at interest, though if his widow preferred to leave the land, she could receive $400 instead. Joseph also included a provision that if his youngest son Charles stayed with and cared for his mother until her death, he would receive “one bay horse colt.” The will also prevented his children from selling their interest in the property until after their mother’s death and granted Celah all the same rights Joseph had had, other than cutting or selling timber. His son Zachariah was named executor.

Twenty-seven days later, the witnesses to the execution of Joseph’s will appeared in court in Jacksonville, Morgan County, were “duly sworn,” and confirmed that Joseph was now deceased. The court proceedings also noted that Zachariah would be required to complete an inventory of his father’s estate, and the probate judge authorized Zachariah to move forward with his duties as executor. One portion of the probate documentation reads “Know ye, that whereas Joseph Waters of the County of Morgan and state of Illinois, died on or about the 10th day of March A.D. 1842…”

Joseph’s widow Celah outlived him by only a few years. She died in Morgan County on 18 September 1845. The two are buried in the Union Baptist Church Cemetery in the unincorporated community of Pisgah, Morgan County, Illinois. I have visited this cemetery and seen their headstone in person. At the time of Celah’s death, their youngest son Charles was only 19; he would not marry until 1847. It seems likely he did remain with his mother until her death and, presumably, received the “bay horse colt” bequeathed to him in his father’s will.

Crandall Is Dead: The Death of Herbert Crandall

Crandall Is Dead: The Death of Herbert Crandall

Posted on by spuddled

Today we are back to the tragic deaths gleaned from our family history. This time we remember Herbert Eugene Crandall, my fifth cousin twice removed. Herbert was born 20 April 1871 in Little Genesee, Allegany County, New York, to Thomas G. and Hannah Maria (Finch) Crandall. Allegany County is another of the hotbeds of Seventh Day Baptist activity; Alfred University, founded by the Seventh Day Baptists in the town of Alfred in 1836, is in Allegany County.

Herbert appears with his parents in the 1880 census in Genesee, along with his sisters Julia, Josie, and Nina. Another sister, Anna, would be born in 1889. One hundred twenty-nine years ago yesterday (2 March 1895), Herbert, then 23, married Margaret “Maggie” Helm, 17, in Angelica, also in Allegany County.

By the time Herbert and Maggie were enumerated in the 1900 census in Genesee, Maggie had given birth to two children, of whom one, Eugene, was still living. He was born in April 1896. Herbert’s occupation is listed as “oil producer.” If this were a television show, there would be a menacing chord of some kind played here to foreshadow what is to come next for Herbert. As with so many occupations at the time, Herbert’s would provide a living but at a very high cost.

The Sabbath Recorder, a weekly newspaper published by the Seventh Day Baptist Church, notes in its “Deaths” column on 27 April 1903 that Herbert died 3 March 1903 as a result of an oil tank falling on him while he was unloading it from a wagon. It also states he is survived by his wife and two children. A bit more detail is provided in the 4 March 1903 issue of The Buffalo News, which indicates that Herbert’s back was broken on Monday (which would have been the day before he succumbed to his injuries) in Bolivar when a 40-barrel oil tank fell on him while he was assisting in unloading it. Here he is listed as being survived by his wife and three children. The following day The Buffalo Enquirer ran an article about the accident, providing even more grim details. Here the oil tank is listed as a 30-barrel tank containing six inches of ice; the article states the tank fell on Herbert, breaking his neck and paralyzing him from the waist down. “His body was doubled up like a jack-knife and his head driven between his legs by the blow.” Herbert was buried in the Wells Cemetery in Little Genesee.

Herbert Eugene Crandall
Find a Grave Memorial ID 5011360

Whether Herbert was survived by two or three living children, by 1910 there appear to have been only two remaining. Some three years after Herbert’s death, on 17 May 1906 in Olean, New York, his widow Maggie married Thomas Peavy. They are enumerated together in the 1910 census in Bolivar, along with Maggie’s sons Eugene Helm and Theodore Albert, as well as Maggie’s 62-year-old father, William. Theodore would graduate with honors from the school of economics at the University of Pittsburgh in 1923 but would only live another four years before dying of pneumonia.

His brother Eugene would live a bit longer, marrying Gertrude MacEachern in 1917 and raising three children before dying at age 53 after a year of ill health. He is buried in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Olean, New York. Maggie’s second husband died in 1946 at age 67 and is buried in the Wells Cemetery in Little Genesee. Maggie would outlive all of her immediate family. She passed away in Bolivar on 11 December 1974 at the age of 97. Her obituary notes she was a founder and past president of the Allegany County Women’s Christian Temperance Union and was the oldest resident at the Allegany Nursing Home where she lived at the time of her death. She is also noted as being active in the Bolivar First Methodist Church. One likes to think her faith gave her the necessary strength to endure all the blows which life dealt her.

The Buffalo News, 4 March 1903
Her Demise Was Not Entirely Unexpected: The Death of Agnette Roberg

Her Demise Was Not Entirely Unexpected: The Death of Agnette Roberg

Posted on by spuddled

On this day 105 years ago, my great-great-grandmother Agnette (Lien) Roberg died in Boone County, Nebraska. Hers was in many ways the quintessential immigrant story. Born 30 November 1844 in Biri, Oppland, Norway, she was the daughter of Evan Olsen Lien and his wife Karen Larsdatter Onsrud. According to sources at the University of Tromsø, in 1865 both she and her sister Oline were employed as maids.

On 12 January 1871 Agnette gave birth to a son, listed on the record of his 7 May 1871 baptism in Ostre Toten, Oppland as Emil Marthinus, son of Marthinus Juliussen. He would later go by the name Emil Martin. I need to further investigate the relationship between Agnette and Marthinus, as it appears Marthinus was still alive and living in Oppland long after Agnette and Emil emigrated to America.

Agnette and 7-year-old Emil emigrated in 1878 on the S. S. Angelo. On 3 December of that year, Agnette, then 34, married a 23-year-old bachelor, Anders Mathis Roberg, in Rushford, Minnesota. In May of the following year, the family of three left Minnesota for Nebraska in a covered wagon. Less than a year after their move, on 17 February 1880, Agnette would give birth to her second child, Severin Andrew. Severin was followed on 5 November 1881 by Sophie Christine (the only great-grandparent I ever met, and only because she lived to be 97), and on 2 June 1884 by Sena.

The family appears in the 1880 census in Shell Creek, Boone County, Nebraska, and in the 1900 and 1910 censuses in Midland Precinct, Boone County. Tragedy had struck the family in 1908 with the gruesome death of Sena’s husband, Charlie Johnson, which was followed by various legal entanglements and Sena’s eventual mysterious disappearance. In addition, Sophie and her husband Carl Ozro Wilson had lost two small children: Anders Clarence Wilson died on his 2nd birthday, 13 August 1909, and Woodrow Wilson died at two days old on 23 July 1917.

These events must have made the later years of Agnette’s life sad ones. Sometime around 1917 Agnette was diagnosed with liver cancer, and on 18 February 1919 she succumbed to the disease at the age of 74 years, 2 months, and 19 days. According to her death certificate, she was buried two days later in the South Branch Cemetery in Newman Grove, Nebraska. I have visited this beautiful windswept cemetery and seen where Agnette was buried that day, and where Anders was buried following his death 24 years later. Grandson Anders Clarence is buried near them; baby Woodrow Wilson is buried near his own parents in the Winner, South Dakota, cemetery.

Agnette’s obituary appeared in the Newman Grove Reporter of 19 February 1919. It mentions her failing health and not unexpected demise. Enumerating Agnette’s survivors, the writer refers to Emil “Roeberg” living near Bradish, “Severn” northwest of Newman Grove, “Mrs. Sina Johnson, whose place of residence we did not learn,” and “Mrs. Carl Wilson,” living in Dakota. The writer notes that Agnette was survived by thirteen of her fifteen grandchildren.

Finally, the writer captures much of Agnette’s life in one succinct paragraph: “Mr. and Mrs. Roeberg [sic] were among the oldest settlers in this county coming here forty years ago they bravely endured the hardships incident to pioneer life. They are well and favorably known throughout the entire community.” A fitting epitaph.

Sophie, Anders, Severin, Emil, Agnette, Sena
The Double Event: John and Joseph Clarke

The Double Event: John and Joseph Clarke

Posted on by spuddled

For any true crime buffs out there, I’m sorry, this post has nothing to do with the “Double Event” of Jack the Ripper. Long before the Whitechapel murders, John Clarke, my 13th great-grandfather, was born, probably in 1542 in Suffolk, England. I don’t know the date of his birth, but he was christened 482 years ago today. He was the son of another John Clarke (born in Westhorpe, Suffolk in about 1503) and his wife Margaret (born in Finningham, Suffolk). He was one of at least 6 children born to John and Margaret. On 12 October 1567 in Westhorpe he married Katherine Cooke who, interestingly, was christened 483 years ago tomorrow.

It is possible that John was christened in St. Margaret’s Church, Westhorpe, which may date back to the 11th century, and certainly to the 14th. If so, I walked in the elder John and Margaret’s footsteps when I visited Westhorpe, Finningham, and Saxstead (another Suffolk family village) in 2014. I wrote a bit about this trip in an earlier blog post. St. Bartholomew’s Church in Finningham was not built until 1560, so John could not have been christened there, though both he and Katherine died in Finningham in 1598, 8 days apart. Interestingly, John died 344 years to the day before my dad was born, and 376 years to the day before I was.

St. Margaret’s Church, Westhorpe

John and Katherine had at least 7 children. Their second, Thomas, was born in Westhorpe and married Rose Kerrich in Saxstead. Thomas and Rose had at least 12 children; the third of these was Joseph Clarke, though not one of our 11 February Clarkes. He was, however, the first of this Clarke line to emigrate to America. He was born in Westhorpe in 1618 but was “admitted as an inhabitant of Portsmouth, Rhode Island” in 1639. In about 1658 in Westerly, Rhode Island, he married a woman named Margaret, and they had ten children.

Their eldest child, my 10th great-grandfather, was named Joseph, and he was born on 11 February 1642 in Newport, Rhode Island, exactly 100 years after his great-grandfather was christened. Of course, some sources differ and give his birth date as 11 February 1643, which kind of ruins the fun of the centennial celebration. In 1664 Joseph married Bethiah Hubbard; their eldest child, Judith, married John Maxson. In turn their daughter Elizabeth married John Davis, which is where our Davis line comes in.

It’s interesting to hear the echoes of all these repeating dates. They continue in our more recent family history as well since, as noted above, I was born in my dad’s 32nd birthday, and then my nephew was born the day after I turned 37. I may not be sure about the 100 years separating John’s christening and Joseph’s birth, but there is another 100-year coincidence on the Hoffmann side of the family. That one is kind of sad, though, so for now I’ll focus on the christening and birth double event. And maybe go find some celebratory cake.