Stray Branches of Our Family Tree

I hadn't originally planned to have a part three, any editor I have ever worked with has claimed me to be too wordy. However, I just had to add this. While recently going through more of my mom's things, I found a newspaper article of Grandma and Grandpa's marriage, and their 50th Wedding Anniversary. I remember the anniversary party, I was in high school and my youngest brother couldn't attend because he had some childhood illness that had escaped him earlier. The original wedding announcement is quite a treat! WEDDING ANNOUNCEMENT ANNIVERSARY ANNOUNCEMENT I suspect these newspaper articles were originally in Grandma's possession because my mom and one of her sisters were pretty good about labeling their own things. The wedding announcement was from the Bellefontaine, Kenton or Belle Center newspapers, sometime in February of 1923. The anniversary announcement could have come from any number of newspapers far and wide. Grandpa wasn't the least bi...

...Continued....Gramma Claribel and Grandpa Ira's wedding day, written by Grandpa. 50th Anniversary Portrait of Claribel McMillen and Ira Fleece for March 8, 1973. Bought 20 lbs of candy and a box of cigars and went out to Wes and Pearl's for our supper. Pearl said she could not afford us a present but could get us a good supper which was good.  Wes and Pearl lived just a couple miles east of the farm I grew up on and Pearl was instrumental in getting us to attend her church (Silver Creek United Methodist Church). Mom was always very big on "local" before local was a thing, and really wanted to go to the church down the road and around the corner from our farm. Both churches looked the same but that one was a little smaller and has War of 1812 soldiers buried out behind it (just north of Jumbo). Uncle Wes and Aunt Pearl owned and American Four-Square house similar to this which still stands. As with all farmhouses in the area when I was growing up, it wa...

Previously published on my https://mito-trail.blogspot.com blog but moved here to consolidate my writings. This is a three part series. Today, I'm going to share a letter we found while going through her things. My brothers graciously allowed me to take all of the pictures accumulated over the generations, and any memorabilia I might find interesting in compiling our family's story. Today's letter was written by Mom's father as he celebrated his 50th anniversary with Gramma. My goodness, we should all be so lucky! Please, please, if you are married - write your own story. I have no idea why Grandpa wrote it, or to whom, or how Mom ended up with it. Maybe she asked him to do it, I don't know - he was a great story-teller. Grandpa and Gramma's wedding picture. While he wrote about the wedding, I do not know where the dress came from. She only said it was red, she made it, and it no longer exists because she wore it to church until it was worn out. The ...

Written in the first months after Mom's very unexpected death for the now defuct Mito-Trail family blog. This expanded version was written on the second anniversary of her death. This was the photo Dad carried in his wallet for more than 60 years. I've had a difficult time since Mom died. I sat down several times to write this blog and have not been able to do it. I have somewhat of a reputation of writing gut-wrenching stories of departed friends. I can't exactly call them obits, more like multiple-page stories bordering on a dissertation that jerks one's emotions all over the place. I guess people like them judging on the requests for reprints, from as far away as Australia. Like some mother-daughter relationships, ours was a bit complicated. But in later years, particularly after Dad's death, we talked multiple hours a week on the phone (we lived three states apart.) It was kind of odd in a way because since my stroke a couple years back, it had become in...

I have been thinking a lot about my mom's oldest sister lately, so I thought I would transfer the story I wrote in her memory for today's Mito-Monday. We shared our love of genealogy for many years. I miss her. Maxine Jewell Fleece Dodds 1925-2017 There are many avenues to take in genealogy and sometimes some of the facebook groups can get quite heated. Not everybody has the same goals and for me that's OK. Here are some of those goals: * Civil War Soldiers, direct lines and sometimes including as many sons, brothers, uncles and cousins as one can find. * Revolutionary War - same * Patriarchal Line * Cousin Collectors * Stretching Sideways as far as possible - cousin collecting on steroids - out to third and/or fourth cousins, and sometimes including the genealogy of Cousin Spouses. It is not unusual for these trees to top 10,000 people. Seriously!) * Immigrant Ancestors * Descendant Collectors: this is where somebody picks a particular ancestor and tries...

"Join, or Die" by Benjamin Franklin to encourage the former colonies to unite against British rule. From the Library of Congress. WILLIAM BEDEN, the longest-served Revolutionary War soldier in my line to date, is listed in very few genealogy trees. Sometimes I troll through my tree because today, I have much different goals than I did back when I was a teenager. Then, I wanted to push each line back to the The Boat. Now, my goal is to tell the stories of my ancestors. Perhaps it's because my maternal grandfather was an awesome story-teller. I don't know, but I enjoy this new goal. The Revolutionary War is not my specialty. As a matter of fact, I was trying to do some research on one of my War of 1812 ancestors (also not my specialty) who had lived close to where I was raised and got totally sidelined when I had to look at my entire tree and William kind of jumped out and said "Me! Me!" BACK STORY. William Beden (also spelled Beeden,...

First published September 30, 2017. Mom and I talk on the phone about once a week, never less than an hour - sometimes two. I know women who don't talk to their moms at all, others three or four times a day. We live three states apart, and a long jabber session one afternoon a week feels right for us. I have found that lately I keep a notebook handy, and when Mom starts talking about something of genealogical interest, I jot it down. It does not always concern our ancestors, a lot of times it's something from her life that I find interesting. When my husband and I lived on the adjoining farm and Dad would wander over for coffee, I did that with him, only on random pieces of whatever was handy, including, much to my dismay now - paper towels (not recommended, by the way). We have moved and those little scraps are still turning up, but I've progressed, thankfully, into a notebook for Mom. Dad's last remaining sister passed away last week. She lived on the other side...

Home-made noodles drying. I have a certain fondness for homemade noodles. When I was little, I used to stay over at Grandma and Grandpa's a lot (Fleeces near Roundhead, Hardin County, Ohio). One of the things Grandma and I would do together was make noodles. I don't remember her having chickens for eggs but I know she did earlier in her life; the farm women of her generation generated income by selling eggs and also butter if there was a milk cow. The chicken house was out beyond the apple orchard, and northwest of the house. Grandma Claribel and Grandpa Ira heading to the Hardin County Fair about 1922.  (Sorry it's crooked!) My noodle-making days with Grandma was in preparation for the Hardin County Fair, for lunch. It was served under the grandstand, always on the western side. I can't remember who had the eastern side but I think it was one of the school band groups. We always served beef and noodles, chicken and noodles, sloppy joe sandwiches, ...

I have this "thing" about visiting my dead relatives. I'm not sure why, maybe it just helps me feel more connected to them. Alphabetized indexed legend in the kiosk at the cemetery. My now-husband and I stopped at the National Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia one summer on the way to Florida to visit his dad. They had an interment book, easy to read because it was typed, and alphabetized and with plot numbers. How hard could it be? There was no listing for my ancestor. What? I was devastated. I didn't know what to do, and I was overwhelmed. We finally stopped at an unknown soldier marker which I photographed so I would at least have something and headed off to Florida. One day, many months later, I happened to be driving through Urbana, the county seat for Champaign County, Ohio where Hiram lived. His parents were early settlers and there were many pastors on both sides, so I pulled into the parking lot, thinking I might run across some biographical i...

June 27, 1864:  The day Hiram Hancock ended his participation in the Atlanta Campaign as a Union soldier. There is ample information available on the campaign leading up to this point, but that is not within the scope of this blog. I am including the basic outline below though, which is an excellent resource for locating additional information about the unit: http://www.ohiocivilwar.com/cw113.html March to relief of Knoxville November 28-December 8.  Return to Chattanooga and duty in that vicinity till May, 1864.  Demonstration on Dalton, Ga. , February 22-27, 1864.       • Tunnel Hill, Buzzard's Roost Gap and Rocky Face Ridge February 23-25.  Atlanta (Ga.) Campaign May 1 to September 8.       • Tunnel Hill May 6-7.       • on Rocky Face Ridge May 8-11.       • Roost Gap May 8-9.       • Battle of Resaca May 14-15.    ...

I only have two ancestors who fought in the Civil War. I have not yet found the time to concentrate on the men who were siblings of my ancestors - the sons of the mothers in my line who watched them leave. Some, I'm sure, did not return home and one of these years, it will be my research goal to concentrate on their stories. I suspect the photograph was taken around the time of his marriage to Lavina Counts in 1853. There are no known photographs of any of their children at a young age, which is not necessarily proof as they could have been lost to time. It would have seemed likely that a family portrait would have been taken, rather than two separate ones of Hiram and Lavina. However, Hiram's tiny tie dates to the late 1840s so I am doubtful this is an 1863 photograph. The photographs were presented to me at my parents' 50th anniversary party by a distant cousin whose name I cannot recall, on a floppy disk. Does anyone remember those? Lol! (I will definitely give...