It seems that a person, or several persons, have posted on various websites and Ancestry.com that Elvira and Felix had a daughter, Rosanne Roberts, born Sept 1934, died Sept 1934 and is buried in Ridge Mill, Custer, Oklahoma, Sept 1934. I find this hard to believe as that would put Felix at about 77 years of age and Elvira at about 71. She was 41 when she gave birth to Norva B. Roberts. He lived 1904-1958.
03 August 2011
14 July 2011
The Vogels
The Vogels approximately 1911.
Back, L-R: Anna Katherine Vogel, Henry Vogel, Katerina "Katie" Vogel, Amalia "Molie" Vogel, Katherine Vogel. [There is one Vogel child missing from the picture, Charlotte Vogel and it is not known why at this time why she was not in the picture as she was alive when it was taken.]
Katherine Vogel Blum Weigandt (1896-1967)
Mary Vogel Weigandt (1898-1922)
This is a picture of my Great Grandmother Mary Vogel Weigandt. This is from a photo shortly after the family arrived in the US from Russia. It is estimated to be 1910.
"We Are The Chosen" by Della M. Cumming -
“My feelings are in each family we are called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. We have been called as it were by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors you have a wonderful family, you would be proud of us? How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am and why I do the things I do? It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up. Their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation, to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.”
19 June 2011
Lloyd George Mallette (1914-1961)
After many years of looking for my grandfather, a cousin that I found through Ancestry.com sent me the above picture of him the end of last month. Her grandmother, Lenora, was Lloyd's sister. The date is not know, but it is assumed that it is between 1935 and 1940. I also received his baby foot print from when he was born. I felt a rush of excitement to see him for the first time, some would call it being giddy. But then I felt, and still do, an extreme amount of sadness because my mother never knew what he looked like. My grandmother, Viola Louise Mays Mallette Timm (1924-2007), never talked about him and never had any photos of him. To my mom he was just a name on her birth certificate. I've spent six years researching and looking for him. Before my mom died, I was able to tell her he was in the Army Air Force. He met and married my grandmother when he was station in Biloxi, Ms. They had two children, my mother and her brother George Mallette (1944-2002). And, that he died the month after my parents were married in Hawaii. I was able to tell her where he was buried (link included with this post), that he died with only three years of high school education and he was working as a gas and oil man that never remarried. When I looked at him for the first time the first person I saw was my mother and I'm amazed at how much my brothers look like him. I think my brother Steve more so. I take more after my dad's mother's side of the family..short round Russian/German heritage...but now I know where we kids got the pointy chin from. I can only pray that she has met up with him in heaven at that they are making up for lost time.
09 June 2011
What are the Odds?
What are the odds of there being “two” sets of twins out there named Mearl and Pearl? The set I’m interested in were born in 1895. I keep coming across a pair born in 1924. Pearl Fay only lived 10 days before she passed. She is buried in an unmarked grave with my great great grandparents and her uncle Charlie. I found Pearl’s burial location through court records, but have not yet found Mearl May…or is it Merl May? I’ve seen both spellings. Their father, Arthur is buried in California. I’ve not yet looked for their mother.
01 June 2011
Chicago City Cemetery and William Cullimore
It appears that one of the possible burial places of my great (x4) grandfather, William Cullimore, will prove to be the ultimate challenge. More so than I originally thought. One of the possible locations of burial was Chicago City Cemetery. As a widower, he moved west via the newly opened turnpike from Maryland to Chicago where his younger brother, Thomas, and his wife were living at the time. William’s obit does not list where he was buried but the cemetery that his brother is buried at does not reflect his being buried there. The puzzle has just begun and I look forward to challenge.
“Chicago City Cemetery was located in at the south end of what is now Lincoln Park. The first burials were in 1843, and at its peak, had 20,000 burials. City residents did not like the cemetery location, which was on low land, close to the lake, thinking it contaminated water supply and aided the spread of diseases such as cholera.
In 1859, the city stopped selling lots at the cemetery and reinterments began in the newly-opened Rosehill Cemetery. The last burials at City were in 1866. Other cemeteries that have reinterred remains are Graceland, Wunders, and Calvary. Jewish Cemetery landowners handled reinterments, for which there are no public records. The remains of about 6,000 confederate prisoners from the federal prison, Camp Douglas, were moved from a potters field to Oak Woods Cemetery. The conditions at Camp Douglas were notoriously awful, and most of the rebels died of hunger and disease, between 1862 and 1865.
Disinterments were completed by 1870, and the City Cemetery was officially empty of all graves except the Ira Couch tomb, which still stands in the park (it was deemed too expensive to move--and may be empty--records indicate he is in Rosehill's Couch family tomb) and 116-year-old Boston Tea Party's David Kennison. However, various digs in the park over the years, one as recently as 1998, have yielded human remains.”
25 May 2011
Lloyd George Mallette (1914-1961)
I received a pleasant surprise from my cousin a couple days ago – a black and white photo of my Grandfather Lloyd George Mallette, my mother’s father. And, his baby foot print. When I first looked at the photo I saw my younger brother looks a lot like him and my mom too. I can’t wait to scan and post a copy of the picture. I wish my mom could have seen the photo too, she would have been so excited to see it since she never knew him.
17 May 2011
Mary Helen Weigandt Shipman Solomon
Here is a newspaper article about my Great Aunt Mary “Helen” Weigandt Shipman Solomon. An amazing person! I’m so happy my husband was station here and we moved to Warner Robins in 1996. My husband also worked in the 5th MOB. It gave me the opportunity to meet up with her. We even did some oil painting together, a memory I will cherish forever. She is extremely gifted with the paint brush! Now, we are back for good and I get to see her again. She has told me so many wonderful stories about my dad’s side of the family. I will have to make her some of my cowboy cookies and see if the measure up to her standards…haha.
Here’s Why She’s Called ‘Sweetie’
Macon Telegraph (GA), February 15, 2011
WARNER ROBINS, Ga. – Her name is Helen Solomon but most everybody knows her as “Sweetie.”
Her late husband, Col. Joseph Solomon, first started calling her that. Then her three children picked up on it. They would introduce their mom as Sweetie, and the name stuck like a confectioner’s spoon in a bowl of thick icing.
Her coronation had nothing to do with her famous “cowboy cookies,” although there is a sweet tooth behind those apron strings. Sweetie has a secret recipe of oatmeal, chocolate chips and pecans. Her daughters swear it is probably locked in a vault somewhere.
It’s somewhat appropriate I introduce you to this sweet spirit in the days before Valentine’s Day. After all, there’s an ongoing love story here between a 93 year-year-old woman and the world.
She grew up in a German family in Lincoln, Neb., and married Frank Shipman five days after Pearl Harbor on Dec. 12, 1941. A month later he was on his way to fort Dix, N.J. He died in combat 67 years ago this week near the Abby of Monte Cassino in Italy.
Her friends and family in Nebraska encouraged the young widow to volunteer with the local USO. She was working in the cloak room when a handsome soldier from Cleveland, Miss., waltzed across the dance floor. His name was Capt. Joseph Solomon. He would later ask for her hand in marriage.
In 1948, while stationed in Germany, he was responsible for setting up the radar operation for the famous Berlin Airlift. She helped organize clothes and food drives in German neighborhoods.
Their son, Joe, was born in 1949. The stork dropped identical twin daughters Sandy…and…Linda into the nest two years later. In 1953, while the family was living in Montgomery, Ala., there was a massive polio outbreak. Sweetie tried to flee with her three children and head back to Nebraska to stay with her family. But 4-year-old Joe became ill on the plane. When they landed, he was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with polio. It was July 4, 1053, a day Joe would later refer to as his “dependence day.”
Sandy, who was 22 months old, was diagnosed with polio the next day followed by Linda the day after. Sweetie was diagnosed on the fourth day. Joe and Sandy were the most afflicted and spent four months in the hospital. Joe’s right leg was paralyzed, and he wears a brace to this day. Sandy still wears a knee brace and has had numerous operations. Linda and Sweetie had non-paralytic polio, although they both have scoliosis.
Their housekeeper in Montgomery, a black woman named Sadie Bell Parker, was so concerned she bought a bus ticket to Nebraska and bravely stayed in the quarantined hospital room with Joe and Sandy.
She later cared for them when they returned home to Alabama. Parker often went on trips with the family, which wasn’t easy in the days of segregation in the Deep South. It was a special relationship, and the Solomon’s still stay in touch with Parker, who is in her 90s.
In 1956, the Solomon family moved to Warner Robins, where Joseph was appointed commander of the 5th Mob at Robins Air Force Base. Two years later, the Solomon’s were named the National Poster Family by the March of Dimes. Sweetie traveled with her children for speaking engagements all over the country and tutored her children in their schoolwork. They appeared on national radio and television commercials and “The Ed Sullivan Show.” They participated in a fashion show with Marilyn Monroe at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Little Joe served as grand marshal of the Daytona 500. They brushed elbows with Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo), Eartha Kitt, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Hugh O’Brian (Wyatt Earp), Liberace, Howdy Doody and Marcel Marceau. They met Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine.
The next year, Sweetie was state representative for the March of Dimes and helped establish the office in Macon. She often went door to door to raise funds.
In her heart, she had always wanted to become a nurse. Although she never received a nursing degree, she became a medical caregiver by administering daily physical therapy to Joe and Sandy until they were teenagers.
The family left Warner Robins for a few years and lived in Puerto Rico during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Joseph even had a “red phone” at the house to notify him in the event of an emergency. While in Puerto Rico, he helped build the foundation for the world’s largest and most sensitive radiotelescope at Arecibo.
After the Solomons returned to Warner Robins, Sweetie worked for several years in the office of U.S. Rep Jack Brinkley.
Linda has complied a book of letters her mother wrote over a 27-year period from 1947-74. She plans to have it published and will call it “Dearest Folks.” That’s the greeting with which Sweetie opened every letter.
I asked Sandy about her mother’s nickname. “It’s a perfect match, “she said. “That’s her personality.”
10 May 2011
Blish/Blush
I received some genealogy information from Wisconsin in the mail last Friday. I now know when Alfred Day Blish and “Catherine” Amanda Vandozer/Vandoozer (several Racine registers has Vandozer for Catherine and other family members) were married. There are varying dates on Ancestry.com and a different date in a book on the Blish genealogy. I’m not sure why the date in the book would be different. I would have assumed he had looked at/acquired a copy of the register of marriages as a source reference. Maybe he couldn’t accept her marriage at such an early age, 13/14, which really wasn’t that uncommon in those days. I have another distant grandmother who married when she was 14. Her parents had to sign for her to be able to marry at that young of an age. I also learned the names of Catherine’s parents.
I also received the obituary for Henry Blish, but I’ve not had a chance to completely review it yet. I think this is actually Harvey, brother to my Alfred. The obit for Henry is lengthy but I will add it to my blog at a later date for others who are researching his side of the Blish/Blush family.
29 April 2011
Blish - Blush
So, I’m taking a break from the Mallette side of my mother’s family to research the “Blish” side. I have learned that Blish and Blush were interchangeable many generations back contributing to mass confusion and adding to the need for a wall of post-it notes. I first run into the undecided spelling of the last name with Joseph Blish/Blush, Jr. (1762-1848). This interchanging of last names was detrimental in Joseph’s application for pension for his service during the Revolutionary War, his claim was rejected due to no service records being found - under the spelling of Blush. But, they are there under the spelling of Blish, a discovery made in 1902 by a family researcher writing a book on the “Blish” family. When reading his pension records, under the name Blush, I see that a contributing factor could quite possibly be due to penmanship, and probably just the family not being consistent. I believe as the researcher in 1902 that this Joseph Blush is the same Joseph Blish that is great great grandfather to my great grandmother Margarite Rose Blish Mallette Rash, my mother’s grandmother. In the records at the National Archives that hold the original documents is the annotation of the researcher in 1902 and the records are now cross filed under Blish too. Also within the pension records are two documents attesting to the service of Joseph, one from his daughter Almira and one from his son Oliver, another validation that these two Josephs are one in the same. I have discovered two books on the family. Interestingly, one for each spelling of the name and both documented with various resources that are similar. So, when researching this line my suggestion is to try both spellings….Blish….Blush…happy hunting.
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