Family Heritage | marieqrogers

Posts Tagged ‘Family Heritage’

Uncle Donald

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged Barnum Hill School, Donald Charles Rogers, Family Heirlooms, Family Heritage, Family Memories, Grandparents, Tradition on September 30, 2015| 2 Comments »

Until I was about ten, my family lived upstairs in my grandparents’ house. When we were little, my brother and I shared a bedroom. On the wall above the bed hung a photograph of a young boy, Dad’s brother Donald, who died many years before I was born. That photo remained on the wall for decades, until my grandparents sold their farm and moved to Florida.
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I could not find that picture, but here is Uncle Donald and his baby brother Russell with their grandfather, George Brown.

In their cellar, hanging on the back wall under a thick layer of dust, was Uncle Donald’s bicycle. No one rode it. Even when my siblings and I were old enough to want bicycles, Donald’s stayed on the wall. No one offered it to us and I doubt any of us asked to ride it.

Who was this young man whose spirit remained a living presence in the lives of those who knew him? Donald was my father’s only brother, about three years older than he. He was a well-behaved child and a good student. By comparison, my dad was the wild one, mischievous, non-compliant. But he loved his brother more than he could express in words. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t talk much about Donald.

Uncle Donald suffered from health problems but no one seemed to know what was wrong with him. We only know that he died in his mother’s arms. Donald was only seventeen and had just graduated from high school. My dad was about fourteen. Losing his brother threw Dad into a tailspin he never seemed to recover from. In the middle of World War II, he quit school, joined the army, and was sent to the Pacific theater. I can only imagine my grandparents’ anguish, their only remaining child fighting in a war half-way around the world.

When my youngest brother was small, he developed a seizure disorder. I remember my father’s panic when Billy had seizures. That was uncharacteristic. Dad was quick to anger but not to panic. I remember him yelling that his brother died of a seizure. This alarmed me no end, so I asked my mother. She said Donald had seizures, but that was not what killed him.

One day I broke the code of secrecy and asked Grandma what Donald’s medical condition had been. She didn’t know its name, but said when he got sick he would have albumin in his blood. His doctor knew what to give him for it, but in his last illness, the doctor was out of town. Under the care of another physician, unfamiliar with Donald’s disorder or its proper treatment, and probably refusing to listen to the patient’s mother, he died.

My grandparents hoarded Donald’s possessions until the end of their lives. After they died, my parents packed up and moved from Scrambletown in the Ocala National Forest, where they lived for over thirty years, to Blackfork, Arkansas, where they’d bought a farm. Dad built a big house on the farm, large enough to store two lifetimes of accumulated treasures. Among them were Donald’s belongings, but I had no idea of their existence until this summer.

At our biennial family reunions, we always have an auction to raise money for the next one. Family heirlooms are in great demand. Before our reunion this summer, Mom and my sisters went through boxes of old pictures, ledgers, letters, knick-knacks, and diaries. None of these has much monetary value, but to us they are precious. They went to the auction block where they garnered high prices. Among them were Uncle Donald’s belongings.

From the handsome but sickly boy who had a bicycle, Uncle Donald emerged as a full human being. His high school class ring was among the auction items, in pristine condition, of course, since he didn’t live long enough to wear it out.

Books, lots of books. Apparently, Donald liked to read. What survived was a collection of popular fiction for boys, among them: Army Boys in France, Working Hard to Win, Young Eagles, and Penrod Jashber by Booth Tarkington. These were gifts from various relatives and even neighbors. The books are not in pristine condition—they have been read, probably by many people.

Perhaps the most interesting relic was Uncle Donald’s baseball. We knew he was a farm boy as well as a scholar, but an athlete? Those were the days when kids used a stick for a bat and anything they could throw, including rocks, for a ball. Uncle Donald must have been fortunate to own a baseball.

He and my father attended a one-room schoolhouse, Barnum Hill School. Dad told a story about Barnum Hill’s undefeated baseball season—they played one game with Deyo Hill School, and won. We surmise this was the game ball from that historic event.

I find it interesting that my father and his family talked freely about other relatives long gone, yet they were almost silent about Uncle Donald. Historically, the Rogers have not handled grief well. Unspoken memories of Donald were gathered in their hearts much as his belongings were stored in boxes. Not until the last person who knew Donald was gone, did these tidbits come into the open. Although Donald’s life was as unremarkable as it was short, he touched deeply the hearts of those who knew him, and he continues to live on in our memories today.

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My Cousin Michael

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged Cousins, Death, Family Heritage, Family Memories, Memories, One Room Schoolhouse, Regret, Relatives on May 31, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been reminded of my mortality. My cousin Michael died recently. I hadn’t seen him in years, yet it saddens me. Mike was only two years older than I, too young to die. I’m told he drank himself to death.

Mike hardly lead a charmed life—his mother died in childbirth. Uncle Buck remarried to a widow from Alabama who had two daughters. Aunt Ora Mae was no southern belle, but a scrappy gal who gave him two additional sons.

Mike grew up believing Aunt Ora Mae was his biological mother, until some “well-meaning” relative told him otherwise. Although given the same love and attention as the other children, Mike seemed to feel out of place. He was the only child in the home who’d been born to a different mother. I remember a conversation between him and his brother when they were very young. Uncle Buck, frustrated as parents sometimes get, had threatened to put the boys in a juvenile home. Paul, too young to know better at the time, bragged that his mother could get him out of the home but not Mike because he wasn’t hers. Ouch.

He was actually my father’s first cousin. Dad was born to Grandad’s oldest son and Mike to his youngest. With only a few years’ difference between them, my dad and Uncle Buck were buddies. Both served in World War II, came home, married, and started families. When I was born, Mike was only two and couldn’t pronounce my name. He called me “Tishie” which stuck as a nickname until I was a teenager. Then I decided I no longer wanted to be called that, but by my real name. Somehow I bent most of my relatives to my will and was able to change my appellation.

When I started school, Mike was put in charge of my safety, to walk me to our one-room schoolhouse each morning. He and I were among the last students to attend that school. After it was closed we rode the bus together to the city schools, but following Mike through the academic ranks was not easy. I was a well-behaved scholar and he was not. In junior high, one teacher asked if I was related to Mike Rogers. When I said yes, that I was his cousin, the teacher said only, “Oh.” That one word spoke volumes.

I had an English teacher who never seemed to like me. I got along well with most teachers because I was a good student. I was a favorite of English teachers, especially, because I enjoyed reading. I couldn’t figure out why this teacher never warmed up to me. Later, I learned that Mike had previously been in her class. He told me he got in trouble when she found girlie books in his desk. How unfair! After nine months of school, you’d think this teacher could have figured out that I was quite different from my cousin.

Mike’s family lived in an apartment upstairs in Grandad’s house, just up the hill from us. He and his brothers, and my brothers and I, were childhood playmates. In winter, we would ice skate on his grandfather’s pond and during summer we played baseball in my grandparents’ field.

Then time and distance separated us. My family moved to Florida and I saw Mike only a few times when we returned to visit. I did not know him as an adult. He married and moved to California, and I did not see him for a lifetime. I never met his wife or children.

I had led a rather sheltered childhood. The only people I knew who died were old people who had lived out their years. Even during the Viet Nam Era, most of those around me avoided the draft and I lost no one I knew well. At my 40^th high school reunion I was shocked to learn that some of our classmates’ lives had been snuffed out, at least one by suicide. Mike’s death was similarly unexpected.

When my grandparents were still with us, I made a point of visiting them often. I didn’t want to regret not spending enough time with them while they were alive. After I became interested in genealogy and family history, I found holes in my knowledge and often wish I could ask my elders about this or that person or event. Despite my efforts, I have regrets.

In the summer of 2009, Mike accompanied Uncle Buck to our family reunion. I had not seen him in over forty years and would not have recognized him on the street. He’d turned into an old codger with a grizzled beard. With over a hundred other relatives in attendance, I didn’t have much time to visit with Mike. I didn’t know I would never see him again. He was not supposed to die so soon.

And so I regret not having made more effort to know my cousin Michael. I also wish I had collected his stories. Living in close proximity to Grandad, what family history did Mike know that died with him? And with two more years at Barnum Hill School, what memories did he have that I lack? Must we always regret such missed opportunities?

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Edsel

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged Edsel, Family Heritage, Memories, Nancy Turk, William Lewis Rogers on March 31, 2015| 6 Comments »

Last week I saw an Edsel. It’s uncanny how one thought runs into another, and almost spooky when one of those random thoughts materializes.

It began in my writer’s group. One member was struggling to reword an awkward phrase about surnames from different languages. My mind meandered to my eighth grade social studies class. At the beginning of the school year, when the teacher called the roll, going down the list of Polish and Russian and Slavic names, he came to “Rogers”. He asked me, “What are you doing in Johnson City?”

Indeed, what was I doing there? My English-sounding last name seemed out of place. Most of my classmates were descended from Eastern Europeans who escaped persecution in their homelands and were attracted to well-paying jobs in the shoe factories. The Rogers had come here by a different route.

Although he lived in Pennsylvania, my ancestor William enlisted in the Union Army in Elmira, NY. After the war, he went to Albany to marry Nancy Turk. He and Nancy must have met before the war, probably in Upstate New York.

The Rogers are such wanderers. William took his bride to Wisconsin where he taught school. Later they homesteaded in Kansas. He returned to the East when he inherited his brother’s farm in Pennsylvania, then settled in West Virginia with some of his sons. For reasons I am unaware of, Nancy returned to the Johnson City area where her relatives lived. Most of her sons eventually followed her, including my great-grandfather John Thomas, whom I called Granddad.

For the better part of the Twentieth Century, there were quite a few Rogers in that part of the country. Granddad had four sons. Uncle Jim had no wife or children, but he made his mark by building houses, including my grandparents’, before he moved to California. Uncle Floyd and Uncle Buck had three sons apiece. My grandparents had only one who survived to adulthood, but he made up for it with three sons and six daughters before we moved to Florida. Notice I keep saying sons. I was the first girl born in the Rogers family in a century.

So at one time there were quite a few of us in Johnson City and surrounding communities. Now I’m not sure if any remain. We are such wanderers. Uncle Buck and Aunt Ora Mae migrated to her home state, Alabama. Their sons now live in Alabama and the Carolinas. Uncle Floyd’s have similarly dispersed. My family is spread around the globe.

One thought drifting to another brought me to the Edsel. In that same social studies class, one day we held a debate. A boy posing as Henry Ford defended his position, whatever it was, by saying he hadn’t sold an Edsel in over three years. Unprepared with facts to the contrary, I countered with, “You must have. I’ve seen dozens on the road.” After the debate, the teacher set the record straight, “The Edsel went out of production in 1960.”

That was so long ago. I couldn’t tell you when I had last seen an Edsel or even thought about one. The Edsel had been a mechanical and marketing flop in its day. Now, the few that remain must be worth a fortune. The word is so obsolete my spell-check did not list it. But that’s where my thoughts wandered that day in my writing group.

On the way home, I saw an old car coming down the road toward me. As it drew closer, I noticed the distinctive grill. It was an Edsel! What on Earth was it doing on that back road? And, more significantly, why in Heaven’s name was it driving through my thoughts?

You might ask, what do these two topics have to do with one another? Nothing, except they converged in memories of my eighth grade social studies class. Interesting, how the mind works.

If you knew what an Edsel was before you googled it, congratulations. You win the Geezer Award.

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Spirit of Christmas Trees Past

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged Christmas, Christmas trees, Family Heritage, Grandchildren, Grandparents, Memories, Pine Trees, Tradition on December 31, 2014| 1 Comment »

Almost all my life I have been fortunate to live in the country where wild trees are available for Christmas. The area I lived in as a child used to be dairy country. Once there must have been a dozen small dairy farms within a mile of our house. Through the years, one by one, they went out of business. Today, I doubt any remain in operation.

Back in the day when houses were heated with firewood, farmers maintained wood lots to ensure a steady source. My grandparents had more trees on their farm than many – havens for climbing grandchildren and shady places for the cows in summer. Most farmers seemed to begrudge the few square feet under trees where grass and crops would not grow and kept their pastures and hay fields cleared. Hence the importance of wood lots. When my father was a boy, he planted a corner of the farm in trees as a 4-H project. By the time I was old enough to play in the woods, his trees had attained some size, but young trees, just right for Christmas, grew from seeds they dropped.

There was no thought of buying a Christmas tree. We went to the woodlot and cut one of suitable size. A variety were available: pine, spruce, fir, and hemlock. As my brothers and I grew big enough, we would harvest the tree without adult assistance.

One year sticks out in my mind. I must have been twelve or thirteen. Grandma and Grandpa Masters lived over the hill in Finch Hollow. Grandpa hunted in the woods behind their house. That year he spotted several perfect trees on their property and offered us one. We had hiked cross-lots to their place in summer and thought it would be no problem to haul a tree over the hill on a sled.

But this was winter and snow was knee deep. We got over the hill OK and up to Grandpa’s woods where we selected our tree, cut it, and tied it on the sled. We warmed up in Grandma’s kitchen, sipping hot cocoa, before we pulled the sled down through the hollow and tackled the big hill. Wading through grass and brush in summer is one thing. Struggling through snow tangled in grass and brush is another. Cold as we were, asking for help was out of the question as we could not lose face. Besides, we were a good distance from any road and no one had snowmobiles. We made it over the hill and through the fields to our house, tree and all, frozen to the bone, but proud. And happy once we warmed up and put on dry clothes.

Our first Christmas in Florida, we lived in the Ocala National Forest where sand pines grow. Not as nice as fir or spruce, nevertheless, with their short needles and dense growth, the young ones make suitable Christmas trees.

Then I grew up and moved on. Today I live in pine flatwoods, too wet for sand pines but host to other varieties: long leaf, loblolly, and slash pine. While these grow into beautiful adult trees, they have long needles and their branch whorls are at least a foot apart. The saplings look like Charlie Brown Christmas trees, but when dressed in lights, ornaments, and tinsel, they are as pretty as any store-bought.

A few years when I had the money, I bought fragrant fir trees from a lot at a friend’s church. After they went out of the Christmas trees business, I resumed cutting trees from my woods or a neighbor’s. Occasionally we had cedar trees. They are very pretty with dense foliage to rival any spruce, but the branches are prickly. You almost need gloves to decorate them or your hands end up looking like you’ve been picking blackberries.

This year, my son Joel and his family spent Christmas with me. Did the children want me to buy a tree? No. The Spirit of Christmas Trees Past spoke to them. They remembered previous Christmas times when they accompanied me to find a tree. It was fun. It was tradition. That was what they wanted.

I was so busy with holiday preparations, Joel took the children out to the abandoned pasture behind my house. They were gone a long time, tromping through marsh and blackberry brambles, but fortunately no snow. They brought back the perfect tree. Almost perfect. One side had few branches, so we set it against the wall. The children helped me trim it, and I believe it is the prettiest Christmas tree I’ve ever had.

Is it the commercialization of Christmas that drives us back to old practices that have little place in modern life? What practical purpose does a Christmas tree serve? Besides the time and expense, I’m required to rearrange furniture to make room for a place to pile gifts. A table would do as well. Boxes of ornaments are hauled from the attic and hung on the tree. Not to mention the mess, tinsel and pine needles all over the floor. After Christmas, everything must be undone and put away. And why cut a living tree? A tree-hugger like myself should shun the practice, but I have never been drawn to artificial trees.

If only a fresh tree will do, I can afford to buy a pretty, well shaped fir which was grown for this purpose and whose scent is unequaled. But like my grandchildren, I am drawn to the woods this time of year, to bear the cold and brambles, to harvest a tree and bring it into my home. It has meaning beyond the large decoration crowding my living room. It is a connection with the Earth, with my roots. It keeps me centered and gives life a meaning that cannot be expressed in words.

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BINGHAMTON BUTTER TO TEXAS KOLACHES

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged antiques, butter churn, cultured butter, Family Heritage, Grandmothers, Kolaches, Memories, milk separator, Texas, Tradition, Travel on November 29, 2014| 1 Comment »

When I was a child, Grandma Rogers ran a little dairy with about half dozen milchers. She and my father milked the cows twice a day, morning and evening. When my brothers were old enough, they helped. After each milking, they carried the pails into her creamery where the milk was strained and poured into the separator. This contraption was about four feet tall with a large bowl on top to receive milk. Grandma would wind it up by turning a large crank on its side, and the milk would spiral through the machine, centrifugal force separating the lighter cream from the heavier milk. The liquids would exit through separate spouts to be collected in containers. Grandma always reserved some of the rich whole milk for the family. The skim milk was mostly fed to calves.

Her creamery was located in the cellar of the house, a short walk from the barn. That corner of the cellar was always clean and cool, even in summer. During winter, the furnace put out enough heat to temper the cold. Buckets and separator parts were washed in a double stone sink, and her large chest freezer doubled as a work bench. She had a collection of crocks imbued, I’m sure, with just the right microorganisms to ferment the cream.

When it was ready, Grandma took the cream upstairs to the kitchen. Instead of an upright dash churn such as you see in pictures, hers resembled a section of a barrel turned on its side. I’m sure her barrel churn was more efficient than the upright model. A crank on its side turned a paddle inside the barrel, beating the particles of butterfat together until they coalesced into a golden mass floating in buttermilk.

I used to watch her knead the butter and add salt, unless a customer wanted “sweet” butter for health reasons. She’d take about a pound of butter, form it into a block and weigh it with a spring scale which hung on a hook above the doorway. The scale supported a shallow pan for the butter. If the block was too heavy, she’d remove a little, if too light, add some. Once it was exactly one pound, she’d pat it into shape and wrap it in wax paper. I seldom saw her use a wooden butter mold such as you see in antique stores.

Butter route day fell on Thursdays. Since Grandma didn’t drive, her sister, Aunt Hazel, would take her. She always drove a Plymouth. When her car got too old, Aunt Hazel would get a new one, always a Plymouth. Unless we were in school, my siblings and I took turns accompanying them on the butter route.

Aunt Hazel would take us into Binghamton. Most of the butter customers were elderly ladies from the “Old Country”, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Armenia. The farm fresh butter may have cost more than store bought, but it reminded them of home. They were accustomed to cultured butter such as they had in the Old Country and found commercial butter a disappointment. I could not find Armenia on the map. I was too young to realize it had been swallowed up by the Soviet Union. Sometimes I wondered if all Armenians lived in Binghamton.

One day a customer’s daughter answered the door and hollered, “The butter lady is here!” I thought that was rather rude. My grandmother had a name. Her customers called her Mrs. Rogers. When I mentioned this to Grandma, she dismissed it, saying the young lady just didn’t know better.

These ladies baked delicious food with exotic names, and sometimes they’d offer us some. One was a Czechoslovakian fruit-filled pastry with a name that sounded like “ka-lach-key”.

Occasionally a butter customer would give me a nickel or a dime. After we completed the route, we’d shop at the A&P for groceries. Unless I decided to save my money for something else, I could spend it at the store. Nickels and dimes went a long way then. Back at Grandma’s house, she’d warm up canned soup for lunch. That was always a treat, a change from home cooked meals.

A lifetime later, I went to Texas for a niece’s wedding. Imagine my surprise when I spotted a donut shop advertizing “Kolaches, $1 or $11 a dozen”. How had these Old Country treats traveled from an eastern city to a cattle town half a continent away? Had people from Eastern Europe settled here, too? The girl behind the counter was Asian and she pronounced them “Ka-lat-keys”. I bought a dozen. This version was new to me. Instead of a fruit-filled pastry, it was a sausage wrapped in sweet dough. Texans like their meat. It was still delicious and reminded me of my “old country.”

I forgot to ask how Kolaches came to Texas. Maybe I need to go back and find out.

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ATTIC TREASURE

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged attic, Clothes, costumes, Family Heritage, Memories on January 31, 2014| 2 Comments »

On a cold, rainy day, when it’s not nice enough to work outdoors, cleaning out the attic is a worthy endeavor. Every year I have good intentions to do this, but the Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions. For once, this year I strayed from that road, at least in this regard. As a bonus, I uncovered a trove of treasure.

A genetic trait of the Rogers family is the propensity to save things. This goes back three generations, probably more. We are not hoarders as such. We just save anything that might be useful someday. This is a survival skill. Have you ever discarded or given away something you never use, only to need it six months later? That’s why we save things. My father used to make fun of me. He once accused me of saving old toilet paper. He was only exaggerating, of course (another family trait – have you noticed?) but he was a great one to talk. My widowed mother, who does not carry the trait, has been sorting through his stuff for over six years and there’s no end in sight.

My house has three attics, so imagine the trouble I can leave my heirs. In the little attic above my kitchen, I store holiday decorations. This winter I cleared everything out of there, including all the dirt and debris. I reorganized the Christmas stuff and stored it neatly in one area. There were a few boxes of Easter baskets and Thanksgiving decorations, plus some camping equipment and luggage. These were easily dealt with. Then I had to contend with an unbelievable pile of empty boxes, Styrofoam peanuts, and other packing material. Much of that was recycled or thrown away, but it’s wise to keep some in case I want to mail a package. Wise, but even wisdom needs its limits. I can’t keep ALL of it.

Last, but not the least challenging, was the large box of Halloween costumes. If you are a student of ancient history, you may remember when Curtis Mathis TVs had the longest warranty on the market. Well, I still have my TV and it still works. It came in a huge box which had sat in my attic full of Halloween things for over twenty years. I cannot recall when I last sorted through it.

I remembered many of the costumes stored there: a clown/scarecrow suit, some monster masks, square dance apparel complete with pantaloons and petticoats, and some tunics that could serve as Indian or medieval costumes. There were several half-surprises, things I had nearly forgotten: a box of grease paint (from my college days!), a variety of hats crushed by time, a battered wig, a wine skin, blouses from the hippie days, clothes from the 80s, and some men’s coveralls.

Then came the forgotten surprises. One old hat has a band made from a real rattlesnake hide. A plastic Transformers mask, perhaps Optimus Prime, had survived from the 80s. I found a straight jacket made of muslin, a hospital gown, and several almost doll-sized garments, including a little red and white cheerleader skirt. I made these for my girls when they were little. Very little. Several things may have started out as clothing later to become costumes: large full skirts, a garish pair of shorts like the surfing shorts popular in the 80s, a rather nice leather jacket “Custom Tailored in Hong Kong”, a wrap-around (and around and around) skirt, and some thrown-together pieces, costumes for fantasy characters.

It was fascinating to go through everything, trying to remember who wore them and when. But what should I do with them now? If I boxed them up, they could remain forgotten for another twenty years.

In another attic I found a solution. A clothes rack held old prom dresses, majorette outfits, and some coats and blouses. Many of those are an appropriate addition to a costume collection, so I unloaded the rack and set it up in the kitchen attic. I sorted through everything and restored the gowns and other articles to the rack. Then I hung up all the other costumes. The rack is very full. There is no room for anything else. Maybe I can find good homes for some items. Maybe my children will want some of them.

I threw out the old paper ghosts and pumpkins and even the grease paint and the old Curtis Mathis box. Everything has its life span. The few salvageable Halloween treasures now fit into a smaller box.

Today my attic looks less like a trash heap and more like those old attics you see in movies, festooned with period costumes. Everything is still dusty and could use a good laundering. After that has been accomplished, a fun thing to do on a rainy afternoon would be to introduce my granddaughters to the attic and let them go treasure hunting.

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IN QUEST OF MY ANCESTOR

Posted in Family History, Marie's Musings, tagged Battle of Wyse Fork, Family Heritage, Genealogy, Kinston NC, William Lewis Rogers on August 30, 2013| 7 Comments »

Before I became more than casually interested in my family’s history, William Lewis Rogers had been a shadowy figure in our past. I knew two of his sons, Uncle Will and Grandad, who were old men when I was a child. Family lore proclaimed W.L. was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and spent the night hiding in a corn crib where he had to fend off rats. We knew this about him because he kept a journal. But no one knew what became of the journal. It has been lost.

One summer, my sister Sue, our family genealogist, and I visited the county in Pennsylvania where W.L. had lived as a child. I helped her search records at their historical society for information on his family. We visited his mother’s grave.

Threads from diverse sources gather to weave a tale.

My daughter lived in Virginia Beach for a time. Traveling to or from her home, I took back ways to break the monotony of the usual route. Once I noticed a large bear by the road. It was a sign for a park, but later I could not recall where I was, or indeed what highway I’d traveled. On a later trip, back roads again, I spotted the bear and this time I stopped. Neuseway Nature Park in Kinston, NC has become one of my favorite places to visit when I’m in the neighborhood. There is no admission charge and the camping fee is almost indecently low.

Then my son moved to West Virginia. Well, we had ancestors in that state, too. Once Sue learned about my plans to visit there, she set me on the quest. Given a list of ancestor’s names and the location of the Hampshire County Library, which has a genealogical section, I reported, like a dutiful sister, intending to spend two hours in research. After three hours, I had to make myself stop. Not only did I need fresh air, I had to digest the volume of information I had acquired. I was hooked on genealogy.

W.L. Rogers had been born in Connecticut and died in West Virginia. Grandad always said, “Don’t go to West Virginia. They’ll kill you there.” Well, who killed William, and why? Unfortunately, my hours of research failed to solve the mystery. Could we find old newspaper stories or police reports that would answer the question? I would have to wait for another trip.

After West Virginia I proceeded to Virginia Beach. On my way home, I drove through Kinston. This visit was bittersweet because my daughter was moving from Virginia Beach and I thought I would have no reason to come through here again.

The following year, on my return to West Virginia, I searched through death records and learned the identity of my ancestor’s murderer–cancer! Cancer? So why did Grandad say he had been killed? Who knows! Grandad was more than a little paranoid. Knowing where W.L. was buried, I visited his grave. Below his name and the dates of birth and death was engraved, “Co. A 85^thRegt. NY Vol.”

One mystery solved, another reared its head. Sue obtained W.L.’s military records. Guess what – Gettysburg was fought in 1863 and he did not enlist until the following year. So much for family lore! What about the corncrib and the rats? Was that part true or did the family once have possession of some other soldier’s journal? We will not know until it surfaces.

But we did learn that W.L.’s regiment had fought in the Battle of Wyse Fork which took place near Kinston, NC. Was that what kept drawing me to the place? Now I had an excuse to go back.

Wherever I go seeking historical information, I find people who are not only proud of their history, but willing to share what they know. This was no exception. I had a nice visit with Shirley at the Kinston/Lenoir County Visitor’s Center and left with a wealth of information, including a driving tour of the Battle of Wyse Fork. Armed with the pamphlet and my camera, I set out to trace the footsteps of my ancestor.

W. L. may be forever nameless in the history books, but what a thrill it was to drive around the battle area thinking, I am in the footsteps of my ancestor. I could not help imagining what this young man, only 21 at the time, was thinking and feeling amid the noise and terror of the guns, death, and suffering. No, W.L. did not fight through three sweaty days in July, but through three cold days in March, in rain and mud and snow. I followed his path from Wyse Fork, through Kinston, and as far as Goldsboro but I lacked the time to visit everywhere his regiment went.

My quest is far from complete. We have documentation that after the war W.L. married Nancy Turk who, we believe, was part Cherokee. He taught school in Pepin, Wisconsin, then homesteaded in Kansas. Family lore has stories of the family’s experiences in Kansas. How much is true? I hope to find out.

Why did they leave Kansas? What adventures took him to West Virginia? I am still on the quest for this ancestor.

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MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged Barnum Hill School, Family Heritage, Memories, One Room Schoolhouse, Tradition on April 1, 2013| 4 Comments »

Let me take you back in time to a place that no longer exists.

On a warm day in early September, my mother walked me up the road to the corner of my grandparents’ hay field, where their property abutted my great-grandfather’s farm. There my cousin Mike, some two years older than I, met us. Mom returned to the house and the younger children, and Mike walked me the half mile up East Maine Road to Barnum Hill School. This one room schoolhouse had seen the education of my father and his brother and my grandfather and his brothers. Now I was the third generation, and Mike and I were the last of the family to attend.

Over time, memories become incomplete or altered but this is what I remember. I had not been introduced to the teacher or my classmates before this day. Having led a sheltered life, I felt intimidated by all those new people. There seemed to be such a crowd, but I estimate the whole school consisted of fewer than twenty children.

Small for my age, I sat in a front seat, the second row from the north windows. These were the old fashioned desks you see in pictures, the kind that were bolted to the floor. My “desk” was actually part of two units. Underneath the writing surface was a shelf-like compartment for books , and in front was a seat where another student could sit if an additional desk were added to the row. Those front seats generally remained folded up and not used, except on occasion to hold books or papers. My seat was attached to the front part of the desk behind me. To my left were three more rows. As you looked in that direction and towards the rear wall, the desks got larger, for the older children.

I was five and a half and this was my first school experience. The city schools offered Kindergarten to familiarize young children to the disciplines of formal education, but Barnum Hill started at first grade. As a concession, the first and second graders attended only until lunch time. Mrs. Cobley, our teacher, was able to give the older children more individualized instruction in the afternoons when her attention was less divided.

My mother had taught me to read and write my name, but in those days you did not learn to read until you were in first grade. Mrs. Cobley gave us a list of rules and wrote them on the blackboard. To avoid constant disruptions, we were to make silent requests by holding up a certain number of fingers. Mrs. Cobley could then grant permission for a student to sharpen his pencil, go the bathroom, etc. with a nod. The list seemed long and complicated. Since I could not read the rules, when I had to use the bathroom, I was in a quandary. I took a chance and held up one finger. Thank goodness, it was the correct signal and I was allowed to go.

We had electricity at Barnum Hill but no running water. Behind the school were two outhouses. The girls’ had three holes in the seat and the boys’ had two. That was in the days before potty parity, but it was an acknowledgement that girls usually needed more time to do their business than did boys. I don’t remember whether we had any way to wash our hands, but we did have a water cooler and paper cups in the classroom, and an oil furnace stood in the back of the room.

The school technically had more than one room. You entered through a small chamber where coats were hung in cold weather. Opening from this were two closet size spaces where an older student occasionally worked with a small handful of us younger children on reading.

That half day seemed very long to me. It was broken up by recess when we could eat snacks we brought and spend a few minutes playing outdoors. The school yard was a long triangle, boarded on one side by the road and the other two sides by farmland. The right size for a baseball diamond, the older children had time for a short inning during recess. Along the fences, chokecherry trees and other wild things had grown up into a hedge.

A first grade girl named Esther sat next to me in the first row. A few of the other children I remember were Marcene Ritch and her older sister Karen. They lived not far from me, on Lindberg Street. Granddad had sold a row of building lots and named the road after the great hero, Charles Lindbergh Another first grader was Larry who had a brother in the second grade, but I do not recall his name. They lived up Reynolds Road, at the top of the hill. Then there was Johnny McNish who lived next door to the school. The first and second grades were largest classes, then class size dwindled down to only two students in the sixth grade, a boy and a girl. They looked so big and mature to me.

I do not remember any child being driven to school. In those days the country road had little traffic and parents had less to worry about. Also, children then had more autonomy than they are given now. After the long morning, we were excused to go home. Those of us who lived down hill from the school walked together until our ways parted. The Ritch girls walked with me as far as Lindberg Street, and I was almost home, ready for lunch and a well earned nap

Today, few of the familiar places remain. My grandparents’ farm is now a school bus facility. Granddad’s house burned down a number of years ago. The old folks have passed on and my cousins live far away. I Google “Barnum Hill School (historical)” and find a website that shows its location, now overgrown with trees. Maybe it’s time to revive some memories.

http://www.placekeeper.com/New_York/Barnum_Hill_School-2492967.html

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FALLING OFF DUTCHESS

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged bareback riding, Belgian draft horses, Family Heritage, Hampshire County WV, Horses, Kidwell Cemetery, saddles, Tradition on December 30, 2012| 5 Comments »

I started to call this “Riding Dutchess”, but this title seems more apt. It is also a story about how events from the forgotten past can influence what we do today.
When I was in junior high school, most of my friends were horse crazy, which is certainly better than being boy crazy at that age. Few of the girls actually had horses, but one claimed to work at a riding stable and would talk about it. Her favorite horse, she maintained, was a descendant of Man of War. We were never sure how much to believe. Skepticism is a good mask for jealousy.
One of the privileged few, I did have a horse available to me, a Belgian draft horse named Dutchess. When I was small, Grandpa worked the farm with her and her teammate Jessie. After he got his Massey Harris tractor, the horses no longer had to work and would pass their time in the barn munching hay. My family was too sentimental to be good business people. Animals who had outlived their usefulness were kept around as pets. And they loved horses.
Jessie was a sweet tempered sorrel. One day I noticed her absence and was told she had been sent to a retirement farm for old horses. I did not question why she had to go to a special farm when she had actually been retired for years.
Fortunately, Dutchess stayed around for my horse crazy days. Not as even tempered as Jessie, she was almost as beautiful, a chestnut with a white blaze down her face. When I expressed a desire to ride her, my elders acquiesced. Grandpa built a mounting bench by the barn so I could climb aboard. I began feeding and grooming her and was shown how to bridle her. I was taught to put my finger into her mouth behind her back teeth, tickling her tongue to get her to accept the bit. That can be scary for a kid, even if the half-ton beast is a vegetarian. Soon I learned that Dutchess would open her mouth for me if I just put the bit up to her teeth. But that was the extent of her cooperation.
I was not allowed to use a saddle. I was told it was too dangerous, that I might fall off, catch my foot in the stirrup, and be drug to death. Apparently, tumbling down from sixteen hands high was an acceptable risk.
Possibly because she associated the outdoors with work, Dutchess liked to stay in her stall. The only way to get her to leave the barnyard was to use a switch. Only then could I coax her to carry me to my proposed destination, somewhere in the pasture. Grandpa said Dutchess had some race horse in her. I know that the moment I turned her head back toward the barn she would take off like a thoroughbred from the starting gate. I would grab her mane and if I managed to stay on, it was a wonderful ride. She had a smooth gallop, but if she trotted, I would bounce off. Sometimes she would wheel around without warning and make for the barn, leaving me behind in the mud.
My elders knew I was falling off. They could not help noticing how many times Dutchess returned to the barn without me. Once Grandma was walking down through the pasture as Dutchess and I went flying back toward the barn. Suddenly, Dutchess turned a sharp corner and I kept going straight. Grandma was alarmed, but I was unhurt.
Another time, my sister Jenny and I were riding Dutchess together, she behind me holding on around my waist. We made it to the farthest reaches of the pasture, turned around smoothly, and at breakneck speed down the hill, we came to the creek. Dutchess could not be bothered to slow down. We usually crossed the creek at the path built for farm equipment, but today she chose to jump over a deep part. What a thrill – just like in the movies! The three of us cleared the creek successfully, but when she landed on the far side, I could not hold on well enough for two of us. I guess kids were pretty indestructible in those days.
I didn’t fall off every time I rode Dutchess. I have a photo of myself sitting proudly on the back of a calm steed, but the times I fell off stick in my memory more than the times we successfully returned to the barn together. I was never injured and I was never prohibited from riding her but I could never understand why I could not use a saddle. Now I have the answer.

A Family Mystery Solved

Long before my father was born, when my grandfather’s parents were just newlyweds, on August 31, 1899, one Francis Marion Kidwell “bought a box of nails at a Higginsville, West Virginia store. The nails’ rattling spooked the horse. Since his feet were not completely in the stirrups, he died from being drug to the river.”
But what did this have to do with me? His sister, Mary Virginia Kidwell McDonald, was my great-great grandmother. I discovered this story last year when I was in Hampshire County, West Virginia doing genealogical research.
Uncle Frank’s death must have been a terrible shock to the family. This summer I visited the Kidwell Cemetery in Slanesville, West Virginia, where the graves are laid out in the usual neat rows, except for Uncle Frank’s, which lies at an angle to the others. It was as though his survivors wanted to make a statement that would impact the generations. It did.
This tale would have been told to Grandpa when he was a child, then some version to Dad when he was a boy, but I never heard it. Was this the reason I was not allowed to ride with a saddle? Unfortunately, neither is available today to enlighten me. So I asked my mother, who said Dad wouldn’t let any of us use a saddle because someone Grandpa knew about a long time ago was killed when his foot got caught in the stirrups. Three generations later, Uncle Frank’s name may have been forgotten, but the wisdom that stirrups were dangerous survived. Better just to fall off.
When I had children, they had a pony, but they showed little interest in riding her. We did not have a saddle. If they had asked for one, would Uncle Frank’s ghost have haunted my decision? Or would I have succumbed to reason and bought one? I hope so.
I am sure of one thing, that if I ever take up horse riding again, I will definitely use a saddle. But maybe I won’t ride to the store for nails.

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OLD JOHN SOKOL

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged Family Heritage, Memories, One Room Schoolhouse, School Bus, Tradition on August 30, 2012| 6 Comments »

When I was a small child, one room school houses were still in existence in some rural areas. One by one they were being closed as citizens succumbed to the progressive wisdom that children would be better educated in the large consolidated schools. I was fortunate enough to attend a little schoolhouse in the first grade. This was the same school where my father and grandfather had been educated in their days, but that’s another story. Unfortunately, by the end of that year, our school district had voted to close the school and bus the students to the education factories in town.

In our area, the county did not provide school buses. Each school district would contract with a bus company. Ours was a one-man operation owned by a fellow named John Sokol. Here was a character if ever there was one. He seemed to enjoy his job and most of his kids, and the students, for the most part, liked him.

On my first day of second grade, I stood dutifully at the foot of our sidewalk as the bus jiggled down the road toward my house. But I was small for my age, and along the road was a hedge of barberry bushes. I was already nervous about the new school and it did not help that, instead of stopping for me, the bus just kept on going! I heard the children on the bus yelling, and the bus screeched to a stop and backed up. Mr. Sokol said something about my being smaller than a bush and from that day on, he called me “Bush.”

I don’t remember any discipline problems on the bus. Even though Mr. Sokol could be as rowdy as the roughest boy, the kids behaved for him. I remember him laughing more than any thing else, but he was certainly no angel. Usually, if a child was not at the bus stop but could be seen running down the driveway, or if a parent came out and said Johnny was putting on his coat, he would wait for him. Mr. Sokol had some favorites among the children but there was one family he clearly did not like and I never knew why. The oldest boy was no longer in school but Chester must have been in high school at the time. Mr. Sokol would make unkind remarks about Chester, in and out of the boy’s hearing, and the older children would jeer Chester. The boy appeared to be clean, did not smell bad, and to my knowledge he was from a respectable family, but there may have been some past quarrel I was unaware of. If Mr. Sokol could leave Chester behind, he would. One morning the older brother came out and asked Mr. Sokol to wait for a few minutes. He did, but the second Chester came out the front door, Mr. Sokol drove away, laughing.

We made up a song about Mr. Sokol, to the tune of “The Old Gray Mare”:

                    Old John Sokol jumped in the Delaware,
                    Pulled off his underwear,
                    Smashed all the silverware.
                   Old John Sokol jumped in the Delaware
                    Many long years ago.

When we sang that song, he would laugh and laugh. Once he resorted to a serious voice and said there was some truth to it. He used to have a campsite on the Delaware River with an old school bus for a cabin, and he said he had jumped in the Delaware many times.

At the end of the school year, it was traditional for the bus companies to host a “bus picnic” for the students and their families at a local park. The usual fare was hot dogs and ice cream. I remember seeing a supply of Dixie cups packed in a cardboard box covered by a heavy gray army blanket. I wondered why they would cover the ice cream with a blanket on a warm day. The explanation that the blanket would keep it cold just didn’t make sense to my seven year old mind. Blankets keep you warm, right?

All good things come to an end. I’m not sure whether his treatment of Chester had anything to do with it, or what the reason was, but after a few years our school district stopped contracting with Mr. Sokol and went with the larger company that served much of the area. The buses were newer and probably better maintained, and our new driver was nice enough, but it just wasn’t the same. He was a quiet man who lacked Mr. Sokol’s sense of humor.

Eventually my family moved away. The last news I had of Mr. Sokol was a newspaper clipping my grandmother sent me. It showed an old school bus, our old bus, rusting in a field. In the caption under the picture some upstanding citizen was bemoaning the fact that the county was full of such “eyesores” and they should be removed.

I thought it was sad, not that the old bus was rusting in a field, but that someone would call it an eyesore. I thought about how beauty can be more than a well manicured roadside, and how memory, laughter, and tradition, while sometimes untidy, have an important place in our hearts.