I’ve been participating in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge, #52Ancestors. This week the theme offered is disaster and I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing my ancestors to see what could qualify as a disaster, as I didn’t remember finding anything that earth-shaking while doing my previous research. So, excuse me, if this isn’t what image of disaster means to you, but my 2nd great grandfather had a really tough life. John Lewis Miller was born in 1842 to Peter Miller and Elizabeth Hartman in Washington County, MD. He was the 4th child of 8. In 1853, his father died, leaving the family of 8 in financial distress, such that his mother had to sell the family farm, and then lease the home as a place for her and the children to live. Just ten years later, on the 3 August 1863, John Lewis enrolled in Company B of the 1st Regiment of the Maryland Cavalry at the age of 21, as the regiment had just finished at Gettysburg where they lost most of their men. He was honorably discharged on 28 June 1865 at Harpers Ferry, but it could have been sooner, as he was injured in November 1864. 98 pages of a Pension file tells the story of how multiple individuals worked together to try to help him obtain his pension. John Lewis was hurt while drilling his horse in November 1864. The horse jumped over a pole and a ditch during the drill. The horse nipped the ditch and threw John over his head, while his “private parts” caught on the saddle. There was a rupture that resulted in a hospital visit at Martinsburg, and then on to Frederick MD, and eventually to Annapolis, MD. The rupture was treated but resulted in him having rheumatism throughout his life. When John Lewis first returned from the Civil War, he moved back into his mothers’ home where he worked as a boatman on the Chesapeake & Oil Canal. John married by 1880 and had three children. His wife, Sarah Katherine Yantz died in 1882, and then he experienced the deaths of his two sons, one in 1883 and one in 1885. Although I’ve researched all of their deaths, I’m unable to pinpoint the reasons for them, but 3 deaths in 3 years seems to be extreme. John then lived with his daughter Jennie Miller for the rest of his life. Little is known about the two children, except for that which is contained in his pension. John tried to obtain a pension beginning in 1887, shortly after the deaths of his family. Initially it was denied because there were no hospital records of his injury or his stay. John was notified in 1890 that the pension would be denied. John tried again in 1893 and then again in 1898 to receive a pension. Finally, in 1912 as a result of the act of 11 May 1912, John Lewis began to receive a pension of $24 per month. The pension continued until his death in 1921. Just prior to his death, on 27 April 1921, a letter was written by a friend to the Honorable Washington Gardner, then the Commissioner of Pensions. The letter states ”Mr. Miller is in great physical and financial distress, and I shall greatly appreciate it if you will give his claim early consideration.” The goal was to increase the amount of the pension that John was receiving. Unfortunately, John Lewis passed less than one month later, before any decision had been made. John Lewis died just 1 year after my father was born, and so he knew little personally about the man. John Lewis during his later life became the “father” to his daughters 7 children, because their father died in 1908. My dad explained that his mother, one of the seven, spoke little about him, as she believed nothing good could be said, and so she said nothing. John’s life was not a happy one, or at least I’m still looking for the positive stories in his life. Maybe one wouldn’t say it was a disaster, but I’m sure there are times, he might have felt that the world was conspiring against him. The picture above was a picture of John Lewis and his daughter Jennie taken just prior to her marriage in 1896.
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This week’s blog for #52Ancestors is titled “Prosperity.” I asked my husband when he thinks of this term, who in his line stands out. Our conversation reminded us of his great aunt on his paternal side, Clara Coleman (1867 to 1941). She was the daughter of William Werner Coleman (1835-1888) and Clara Valeria Metzl (1838-1924), German immigrants to the United States in 1850. They arrived separately, but both traveled from New York to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where they met and married in 1858. Soon after 5 children were born to the family, with Clara being the third. She was the older sister of my husband’s great-great grandfather, Halbert Armine Coleman. William Werner Coleman became a newspaper man in Milwaukee who published Der Herald, touted at the time as one of the leading German daily papers of the country. Clara was actually in Germany studying when her father passed. Shortly after her return Clara married a steam pipe covering manufacturer, Thomas Franklin Manville who was born in Neenah Wisconsin, and was living in Milwaukee. Thomas worked for the company called the Manville Covering Company which had been founded by his father in 1885. The Manville Covering Company merged in 1901 with H.W. Johns Manufacturing to become the H.W. Johns-Manville Company, and by 1926 was renamed the Johns-Manville Corporation. By 1905 Thomas was in New York along with Clara managing the now growing asbestos company. Two young children, Thomas (1894) and Clara (1895) were listed in the state census of 1905. Halbert, Clara’s brother, visited the family in New York City in 1907 and sent the following postcard back to his mother. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, as well as multiple others carried a story in July 1926, after Thomas Senior’s death in New York City. The story discussed that Thomas’s net estate totaled $22,179,049.00, the bulk being left to his two children, Thomas Jr. and Lorraine. His former wife, Clara Coleman was not mentioned in the will. Clara and Thomas divorced in 1909, at which time Thomas, Sr. was granted custody of his son and Clara was granted custody of her daughter.
The son, Thomas Franklin Manville, Jr. had been previously disinherited, according to the article as a result of his elopement to a ‘Follies” girl, but later reinstated when he divorced her. Overall Thomas, Jr. had 11 wives in 13 marriages during his life. Supposedly he spent more than $1.25 million in marriage settlements throughout this lifetime. His first marriage was to Florence Huber, the “Follies” girl, in 1911 and stayed with her for 10 years, the longest period of marriage that he experienced. Clare Lorraine Manville fared slightly better in terms of her love life, marrying 4 times prior to her death in 1959. She left the bulk of her estate to her daughter, Mrs. Lorraine Manville Amato, with just two clocks going to her brother. Maybe prosperity isn’t all it is cracked up to be, or at least it wasn’t in the Manville family when it comes to stability within the family unit. The oneThose who know me, know I’ve told this story before, because in so many ways the finding provided me a voice of the past. It seems to be the right story for the #52Ancestor writing challenge this week, title Favorite Discovery. When my mother passed, I received 40 boxes and 4 filing cabinets of genealogy research. She was a professional genealogist, doing work for others, while researching her family and that of my fathers. My husband was astounded that I accepted all of the information readily, and it sat in the bedroom over the garage for several months in early 2007. Finally one rainy weekend, I went into the room and decided that I would start to sort and figure out what exactly were in the boxes. Four hours later my husband found me sitting on the floor, crying. I had found a very small linen box in the 4th box I had opened. Inside that box were 52 letters on YMCA paper written by my maternal grandfather during World War One. The letters started after he was drafted and at Camp Sherman in April 2018 through to his return home in April 1919. He was a private and was a machine gunner who fought as part of the Hindenburg Line on the western front of the war. The letters were written to his future wife, his sisters and his parents and everyone of them is heartfelt. But it wasn’t just the letters in the box that caused my tears. The larger box also contained eight pages of typing that my grandfather had written upon his return home, that told the story of the war that he couldn’t tell in the letters. He had purchased pictures from the American Expedition Forces (the AEF) of the scenes he remembered in the war. The one here is of the Hindenburg Tunnel. His original map that he used throughout his trip, marking the stops that were made, was glued to a drawing of his family tree. Each of these items, along with his original service paperwork was kept by my mother in archival style. The writing was superb, the stories unbelievable. All came from the man I knew as grandfather, a farmer in eastern Ohio. A man who spoke little, other than grace at dinner, and never about the war. But his smile showed his love for his wife and my mother. These letters were left by my mother for me to find. And now I’m in the midst of publishing the story in his words, the story of faith, strength and determination by a man who wanted to return home to his family and his future wife. Here is just one letter for your appreciation of this man and his writing, written to his sister Mary, on September 28, 1918. Dear Sister Mary, I have a few minutes this morning and will reply to the fine letter I received a few days ago. I have the last of my ink in the pen, so will save that to address envelopes and write with this pencil stub until I can get some more. The girls are more than enlisting for overseas service, aren’t they? Well I fear there will be some very disappointed girls, because Sherman said “The Civil War was Hell” but it couldn’t hold a candle to this. If I ever get back and you people fully realize what it all is, you will be somewhat surprised. But if I don’t I would rather you would never attempt to locate my grave and carry my body back to the Land I love. (for it would be a very foolish attempt for reasons I cannot give here). Memories of me, my service flag you have gotten for me (and the Stars and Stripes which hangs in my room) the ones I loves so much will be the things I want you to remember me by and remember to that we boys are fighting to make this world safe and clean for our parents, brothers, and sisters, wives and sweethearts. You have always been good to me and it sure makes it a lot easier and after all “heaven is our real home and we are only here on a mission”. I think of you many twice each day and try to imagine what each of you are doing. But the best thing we think about is that our people and home are safe from the ravages of war and when this is over, we can come back to them and know they are open and a wonderful welcome awaits us. The Allies are certainly doing wonderful work and are staying a terrible offensive and capturing many prisoners, we often see bands of them going by working on roads, and performing other duties, so we hope it will not be long until it is all over and we can come back to you. As ever, Your only Brother, Earl My mother in 1943 started her genealogy research, and I am privileged to have many of those early letters and notes. The whole reason for the research was the marriage of her maternal grandparents, Walter Abraham Fox to Eva Leona Fox. They were married on 9 January 1894 in Carroll County, Ohio. They had 7 children, Esther Irene, Gladys Gretna, Fern Daisy (my grandmother), Margaret Ruth, Alfred Earl and Curtis Roscoe. In a family tree drawing done in 1913 the two were listed with both having the last name of Fox. My mother was convinced that not only were they probably cousins, but that was why her mother had only been able to have one child. And the reason why only one of her three aunts had one child. Both of her grandparents died in the early 1930s when my mother was 10 or 11, so I doubt she asked them the answer to her question about their relationship. None of her aunts or uncles knew the answer, and the drawing had stopped with Walter and Eva. Well, today we know the story. Walter and Eva are second cousins once removed. But what does that really mean? The diagram below helps. As you can see from the chart, Heinrich “Henry” Fox is Eva’s great-great grandfather. But the same man is the great grandfather of Walter Abraham Fox, Eva’s husband. Although there is only 8 years of age difference on when they were both born, Walter is a different generation then Eva, thus the “once removed.” Walter and George (Eva’s father) are second cousins – both having the same grandfather. But Eva is the child of George, so that makes them second cousins once removed. If you search on the internet for Relationship Charts + genealogy, there are wonderful charts and images that can help you figure out these confusing relationships. So, did this happen just once on the family tree to which I belong? No, it is present THREE (3) times. On my fathers’ side in the King family, first cousins married. Philip King (1709 -1783) had multiple children. One was John and another was Michael. They both had children who married, John (son of John) married Rebecca (daughter of Michael). But the story gets better. John King and Rebecca King had a daughter who they named Rebecca. John King, the grandfather of Rebecca, had another son Samuel. Samuel had a son, Charles Frederick King who married (wait for it) Rebecca King. So yes, Charles and Rebecca are also first cousins! Maybe this is why my mother never got around to writing the family history and left it for me to explain! The year 1853. The place Mussbach, Bayern Germany. Nearly one million Germans immigrated to American in the 1850’s, and they came for a variety of reasons including political oppression, religious persecution and poor economic conditions. Conrad Braun, his wife Anna Maria Wickert, and 3 children, Catherine (16), Jacob (14), and Michael (12) left Germany to travel to the United States. Their port was not the shorter route of New York, but instead they came to the port of New Orleans. Papers there reported that there was a higher that ever number of German immigrants for the past 4 years, surpassing those of the Irish. However, the trip did not end in New Orleans. The Braun family and many Germans traveled up the river to the Saint Louis, Missouri area. The Braun family chose to go across the river from New Orleans and settled in Mascoutah, Illinois.
A report in “An Early History of Mascoutah” by Herbert Lill, gives an account of another family from Germany who traveled to St. Louis. It took 46 days to cross the ocean and 9 more to reach St. Louis. Some ships provided provisions for the travelers, others just provided water, a method for cooking and a place to sleep. It is unknown what type of ship the Braun’s were on, but the trip could not have been easy. In Mascoutah, Conrad was noted as a shoemaker in the 1860 census. Most pioneers wore boots, and they needed to be made to be sturdy for the work in the fields. The boots were made of cowhide, unless someone was wealthy and then they were made of soft leather. Also, by 1860, they had an American son, Louis who was born in 1853. Conrad’s oldest daughter Catherine married in 1861, the same time that both of his oldest sons joined the Union forces of the Civil War. Although unknown exactly when, Anna died prior to 1870. At some point in time, Conrad and his youngest son Louis moved to Trenton in Clinton County Illinois, about 2 miles from Mascoutah. There Conrad continued to work as a shoemaker, while Louis continued his schooling. Conrad lived there until he passed in 1883 and is believed to be buried in the old Wakefield Cemetery. So why write about Conrad, my husband’s second great grandmother? In a car trip in 2019 from Denton, Texas to Indianapolis, Indiana, we happened to have the opportunity to stop in Mascoutah and Trenton Illinois to do some genealogical research. We also were hunting for the old Wakefield Cemetery now known as the Matsler Cemetery in Clinton County, Illinois. After receiving basic directions we headed towards Huey, Illinois. The snow was steady as we exited the main road and drove into Huey, a small one crossroad town. Finding the post office, we stopped and asked directions to the cemetery. The postmaster called the individual responsible for roads and he came and penned a map for us to get to the cemetery. We found the cemetery 15 minutes later, covered with beautiful white snow. We elected to go ahead and search but had no success in finding the tombstone of Conrad. My husband kept saying “we are a long way from home!” I kept thinking, we weren’t very far, in comparison to the trip of the Braun’s from Germany. |
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January 2022
About this BlogThis blog has been designed to serve two purposes. The first is to leave the written histories of my ancestors.
The second purpose is to offer some of my own stories, so that my children and grandchildren can learn more about my direct family and my childhood. Categories |