Serendipity Strikes Again!

Despite the many years of genealogy research under my belt, it did not take long before I quickly dubbed serendipity as my full partner in crime. There are just too many instances of important discoveries that seem to randomly fall into our laps from the oddest places - too many to ignore the Big 'S' and its importance. Years ago, I purchased a small, rectangular gold frame at an estate auction that seemingly housed a calendar print glued to a piece of cardboard. I was happy with the purchase, since all I wanted was the beautiful frame, but once I got it home, I discovered a gorgeous panoramic photograph of an unnamed church congregation from roughly the 1930s or 40s hidden behind the front print.

I really only had a few clues to go on when trying to figure out which church this group was sitting in front of: purchased in central Kentucky, "Lafayette Studios, Lexington Kentucky" embossed in the lower right corner, and a building cornerstone that read "Christian Church, 1894". Based on the size of the congregation, the location of Lafayette Studios and even the type of house sitting next to it, I arrogantly assumed this was a Lexington Christian Church. While I never conducted full scale research on the photo, it was always something I looked for when driving downtown. When leaving work, I would sometimes just take some extra side roads to view a different brick church that might fit the architectural mold. Over the years, it was definitely a church whose outer details were very committed to my memory.

Earlier this week, I was conducting some research for a patron, and was only having marginal success finding their family. Since church records and histories can have additional snippets of local history, I took a chance and picked up this book about the First Disciples-Christian Church in Georgetown Kentucky by Ann Bevins, 1981. I looked through the book and wasn't really having any luck, but when I went to put it back, it fell a bit out of my hands and onto the book shelf with the back cover flipping open as it came to rest. Since I hadn't looked at my panoramic shot in a year or two, I was having what I thought was an extreme deja vu moment - but apparently, my brain was pulling out this memory, and I was suddenly reminded about the photo and missing church. This is what met my eyes:

In an instant the mystery was completely solved. I had not only found my group and building in question, but also a full history of the congregation. Since I have lived in Georgetown for the past 10 years, the mere fact that this Church was in my town completely shocked me.....but then I read enough to realize that this beautiful building, built in 1894 and photographed here in 1939, had tragically burnt in 1947. The current structure was built in 1955, and did not resemble the 19th century brick in any way. So, Serendipity solves another mystery. I did not happen to have family members in Scott County in the 1930s, so for those of you who might be wondering about the identity of the peeps featured, here is a partial list as printed in the back of the book. I will confess that the 1939 image made me think of the 1940 census.....matching a name to a face in 1940 would be quite a treat! I think I'll wait until the index is finished to tackle that one!
C

Sepia Saturday - Sleeping Beauty

I know I'm a day late this week for Sepia Saturday, but when I saw the theme earlier in the week, I knew right away which photo I was going to pull out of the collection. She is labeled in our tin-type album as Mary Allender. With that name attached, I'm pretty sure I know where she fits into the family tree - and would like to assure everyone, that she is NOT a memento mori. About 20 years ago, a distant cousin of ours, Ron Woods, renovated the "Mary Allender Log Home" in Pendleton County Kentucky. I have put the title of the home in quotations to point out its connection to the little sleeping girl.

Ron named this house after his grandmother Mary Allender Carnes who was born and raised right there in the house on Hickory Grove Rd. She was born in 1882, the granddaughter of the original builder, James Jackson Allender. However, for those of us who are cousins from a different line, the "Mary Allender" name also fits our ancestry. James Jackson Allender was married to Mary Stout Allender - both making their home and establishing our ancestry in this beautiful dwelling. This original couple built the log home in 1856, although, poor James only got to enjoy it for about 11 years before he died of smallpox.

James Jackson Allender

The little sleeping Mary is one photo among many others in what I call "The Allender Album". According to a notation in the front, this album belonged to Mary Stout Allender. It is filled with photos of her children and grandchildren. Judging by the age of the photo, and when little Mary was born, chances are pretty good that this is Mary Allender Carnes who grew up with her father Benjamin Allender in the log home. After just a glance at the Allender lines from James and Mary, I'm not seeing any Allender girls named Mary within this time frame: except for Mary Allender Carnes.

As a side note, I've not visited the homestead for quite some time, and have not visited with cousin Ron since he opened the finished log home back in the early 90s. If you are still around cuz, shoot me an e-mail. I have a duplicate tin-type of this photo and if you too think this is your grandmother, we'd love for you to have the original duplicate. I also hear you have a stash of photos - we need to get together for a photo scan fest of our own! I'll be at the Wool Fest in a couple of weekends in case you run across this post!

Sepia Saturday - Family Travels

For this week's Sepia Saturday, the theme of travel or place was a welcome suggestion. When deciding which photos to post, a family pattern emerged. It turns out that one side of my family has been very travel savvy over the generations, while the other side was full of home bodies. The photo to the left is typical of my mother's side of the family. Kentucky farmers who loved posing with the cars, but hated traveling very far away. These two young men (Roy Watts and Bill Beyersdoerfer - brothers-in-law) were quite the road devils in the 1930s. They loved racing around the curving hillsides of Pendleton County Kentucky and "driving up closely to the bumper of an old couple's car to honk" their horn for a good laugh. Throughout the rest of their lives, they maintained this close relationship to each other and the roads. Roy remained addicted to taking leisurely Sunday drives, just to "go" somewhere and view his neighbors crops, while Bill complained of the slowness of "old" drivers when he was in his advanced 80s. I can imagine these two still racing the roads of heaven together as they did when first forming their friendship so long ago. The remaining images are a sampling of family travels from my father's side of the family.

The woman on the right is my great grandmother, Ruth Elizabeth Schilling Daniels. I have no idea where this is or whether these ladies went up in the plane, but Ruth was from the Ohio/Indiana areas, so that will have to be our default location for the time being.

Here is another photo from the Klondike Gold Rush collection. Someone on the Daniels/Schilling side of the family must  have been enormously adventurous to travel this great distance for the small possibility of finding gold! This mode of travel in that area is also the subject of another interesting point of trivia. These boats were often dissected once arriving at their location to provide building material for the shacks that housed the miners.

Grandpa Charles Daniels traveled extensively while serving in the military. He not only served in both the Pacific and European theatres during WWII, but took his entire family with him to live in France while he was stationed there during the Korean War. This is a view of his corner of Paris during WWII.

Grandpa Charles, celebrating the end of WWII in Marseilles, France (Front right) - would love to have tasted that bottle of French Champagne!

A piece of travel ephemera from Charles' collection - his ship assignment from 1943.

Before and after the war, Charles worked for the Cincinnati Union Terminal. Perhaps working along-side so many travelers kept his travel bug strong and active. The photos above and below were taken after his retirement from railroad work, and at a time when the fate of the Terminal was very precarious. For another Sepia Saturday post about the terminal, please see the Lincoln Park blog post.

That about wraps it up for the older travel photos. Charles and Bessie were some of our biggest travelers. They spent their retirement years travelling to Hawaii, several other states, and down the Mississippi on the Delta Queen - so many times I cannot count. In turn, their children and grandchildren have taken on the tradition of globe trotting like travel pros. Me, I'm a bit more middle of the road: have not travelled too far, but can be happy either way. I love a good trip, but enjoy being a home body as well.
Safe and happy travels everyone!
C

Sepia Saturday - Tree Memories

Reuss-Beyersdoerfer Clan

The suggested Sepia Saturday theme for this week, trees, inspired me to look back on my own family tree memories, and what better way to celebrate genealogy than by honoring the image of the tree. I attempted to pull some sepia images from my family collection - but as other bloggers have learned today, there are not many "tree" photos in our collections. The family image that you see to the left is my favorite "tree" image. To see this family group, standing proudly in front of this equally proud tree that towers over them demonstrates a perfect blend of history and symbolism.

My other favorite family image that includes a tree is this one of the Cox family in Pendleton County Kentucky. Most family group images we have utilize a more family focused composition. In other words, close enough to only see the people. This family photographer took a little artistic license and let the trees be even more prominent than the human subjects - or perhaps they were so new at taking pictures that they forgot to get closer.....either way, we get to see the expansiveness of the trees on this property, and not just the expansiveness of the prolific family unit!

Within my other family memories, trees have played a prominent role. I spent a huge chunk of my youth and adolescence traipsing around, climbing, drawing and adoring trees. I was an outdoors kid all the way. Nature and all of its complexity was, and still is, a dear friend. This image is from my grandparents farm in Bourbon County Kentucky - an old walnut tree that sits between a small field and the vegetable garden. That farm was not only a source of spiritual and mental health for me, almost as necessary as oxygen, but it also embodied all of the love my grandparents bestowed upon us when visiting. And don't get me started on the adventures! So many I cannot count! As a side note, this farm in the far western part of the county was certified a few years ago as home to the second largest tree in the state of Kentucky! An amazing old burr oak tree that sits in a valley, just below one of the ponds. Each tree branch is the size of a large tree trunk.....awe inspiring.

I have always regarded genealogy as somewhat of a spiritual journey. There is nothing as humbling as looking back across the generations and realizing that you are merely one addition to the long string of people that have come before you. Soon, you too will be nothing more than someone's memory. But in this realization, it bolsters my belief in life eternal. Time is ever flowing. And yet, when I think of the spiritual realm, and perhaps the place where our ancestors reside, there is no time. This final tree was captured on "film" just this past June while hiking up to Laurel Falls in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We all learned in school that the trees we see above the soil have a duplicate existence in size and proportion below the soil in the form of roots. I can remember thinking, as a child, that had to be a load of bunk.....they were asking us to believe in something we could not see. This is just another example of nature demonstrating to us that we only understand a small portion of the world we encounter. I've also heard it said that the spiritual realm is just as real as the world we can see with our eyes, like this tree and its roots - and if our roots are as important as most genealogists believe, our journey is never finite.

Wedding Déjà vu? Sort of....

Among the photographic heirlooms passed down from my Great Grandmother Nellie Cox Beyersdoerfer is this wedding portrait of my Great Great Aunt, Ada Beyersdoerfer Mueller. The first time I opened its folded enclosure I giggled - a lot. Despite the beautiful details in the photo's clarity, that veil looks like a lace monster that completely swallowed her head!

Beyond the giggle factor, I really do love this photo for its family historic purpose and beauty. As a farming family of little wealth, this formal portrait is the only one we have from the Beyersdoerfer side. Despite the birth of many girls, I haven't seen any other wedding portraits. (For those of you keeping track, Ada was Anna's sister from the Looking at Anna post)

As a special treat, a few years ago as I was studying the photo closer, I looked behind it, and found the wedding invitation perfectly preserved behind the happy couple!

The invitation reads:

Mr. and Mrs. John Beyersdoerfer request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Ada to Mr. Henry E. Mueller. Wednesday, the Twenty-seventh of September, nineteen hundred and twenty-two at eight o'clock A.M. St. Boniface Church, Northside, Cincinnati, O.

I grew up in Cincinnati, over on the west side, well above Northside geographically, but travelled through that city often on my backroads way to the University of Cincinnati as a college student. I had never seen this church from the main road down the center of town, but it was always on my radar to hunt down someday. When our family moved to Kentucky about 15 years ago, I still had this church on my to-do list, but it was far down the list, and I honestly doubted if I would ever get around to it.....until....

One of my younger cousins on my Dad's side of the family, still in Cincinnati, chose this same church as his wedding site just a few weeks ago. When I read where the wedding was to take place, I was thrilled! For the privacy of the living, I will not name names, but I will include some photos from my attendance....it turned out to be a stunningly beautiful church inside!! To attend the wedding of a cousin from Dad's side, while trying to imagine the 1922 wedding of an aunt from my Mom's side.....quite the Déjà vu moment!

Ok, that's sort of how it happened.....here's a tip....make sure you research places BEFORE you attend the events! I was wallowing in that family history moment, "documenting" the past and present with loads of photos. The photos were of course valuable for documenting the current family event, but after returning home, I remembered a conversation my Mother and I had while I was snapping photos outside.....we both thought the building didn't look too old....perhaps turn of the 20th century, but no older. So a quick Google search brought me to the official church website.

Turns out, the congregation dates back to 1853, but after several buildings, the current building dates from 1927. Ironically, my Mueller relatives got married the year after the congregation purchased this land in 1921 on the corner of Chase and Pitts Avenues, but they must have held their ceremony at the former building at the corners of Blue Rock and Lakerman Sts since this newer building was not yet constructed. Which means, I still need to go traipsing through Northside again to see if that older building still exists, so it returns to my to-do list.

As a post script of sorts, I was reading the church's official history, and it turned out to be more significant than I realized. Apparently, the first congregation was begun to accommodate the influx of Irish immigrants that were filling the surrounding Cincinnati areas very quickly. When the influx of German Catholics rapidly rose to match the numbers of local Irish Catholics, the congregation decided to split - ethnically. The Irish congregants split off to form St. Patricks and the Germans stayed to maintain St. Boniface. Which, of course, fits my German lineage on Mom's side.....the Mueller/Beyersdoerfer clan was part of the German half that kept St. Boniface. Ironically, the two halves that split reunited in 1991 under the St. Boniface parish due to dwindling numbers in both groups. That link above to the history of St. Boniface has a great slide show from the early days at the bottom of the page.

So, without further ado, here are some photos of the current St. Boniface church built in 1927:

Happy Sepia Saturday!

CD

11/20/10

Creepy Encounters

There are those moments, albeit infrequently, that we discover something among our research that sends a tiny little shiver down the spine.....or gives us goosebumps.....or makes us pass by it quickly because it's just plain creepy. History is full of genuine horror stories and unexplained phenomenons, and although I have never encountered the paranormal during my two decades worth of research, I have had my fair share of creepy encounters. For fun, I will include a few examples of what I mean.....tis the season to share the creepy....or put the family skeletons in the front room window!

Cemetery Creepiness:

These places are chock full of creepy. After all, as my mother always reminds me, I'm playing among the dead when I have to visit one for research. She uses the word "playing" because I actually enjoy roaming among these peaceful and beautiful places full of life memorials. However, there are times when we run across the death reminders, and they can be a little disconcerting.....

Here are a couple of examples of what I like to call the faceless figures. Time and weather have worn away the stones to the degree that no facial features remain....only a silent figure that stands guard over the lost loved one.....reminding us that time marches on and renders everything and everyone to dust.

Sometimes the site of a fresh grave with a mound of wilted flowers gives me a little shiver of creepy, but this photo below seemed to have a little dash of creepiness on the side. We were visiting Daniel Boone's grave in Frankfort Kentucky when I walked around to the backside of the monument. In the back corner of the iron fence that surrounds the rectangular tower, was this wilted token of remembrance. I suspected it was left by someone who had been in the cemetery for the purpose of funeral attendance and had this little rose leftover.....but then, it could be someone locally who does this regularly for old Daniel's tomb.....either way, the rose in wilted form on that dreary day was another reminder of our being like the flower that quickly fades.

And let us not forget the cracked above ground tomb.....getting the zombie vibe!

Those Eyes!

Let's face it.....we can all remember those odd family photos where the person's facial expression or fathomless eyes have almost made us jump back in startled response......

As exhibit A, I have this nameless, but pretty girl from my family. I know she is from my mother's side of the family, but from what branch, I am at a loss. However, those wide, pale eyes, while wearing white, among a white background.....so utterly ghostly!

And speaking of ghosts! From now on, when I read about Jacob Marley in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I am going to picture this face forever. Poor guy.....Jonathan Harrington is actually one of our nation's heroes as he fought at the Battle of Lexington as a young man in 1775. You can read about his life in Maureen Taylor's book The Last Muster - pg. 75.

The Headless/Faceless:

After generations of relating stories about headless horsemen and apparitions, finding a photo that has carefully had the face or head removed speaks to a certain level of creepy. In my opinion, the physical act of intentionally removing that face or head from the photo is evidence of a tremendous emotional moment from the past. Either great grief, or rage spurred that type of action, and an object that has been the recipient of great human emotion from the past, kind of makes my creepy meter go off......and then there is the obvious creepiness associated with a headless figure. Double whammy in my book!

My first example comes from the Library of Congress' newest digitized acquisition: The Liljenquist Collection. This photo of the unidentified Union Soldier with his headless lady was quite a shocker while perusing this magnificent collection. Perhaps because they couldn't just cut out the woman's head, but they had to sit and scrape away the image of her face.....evidence of a pretty disturbed individual?

My second example is from our family collection - little Granville Hampton. I am well aware of the special challenge that had to exist back in the day when photography lacked any high-speed capability. This meant children were hard moving targets to capture on film......so what was a mother to do? Drape herself in a bold fabric of course and hold the child still. Sorry, this registers on my creepy meter.
Open Caskets/Post Mortem:
Open casket and post mortem shots are pretty high on my creepy meter.....but I know it was highly popular once upon a time. The example below is the only open casket photo we have in our family collection. As you can see, it is of a baby, which removes the creepy, and replaces it with a twinge of sadness.....children in the caskets are hugely tragic, and due to the year range of the 1920s, I will not reveal the name of the little infant. As far as I can tell, she was not a family member, but a close neighbor from the northern part of Kentucky. Animals:
Yes, we have photos of dead moose from Canada in our family collection, and even a dead skunk that great grandpa John was skinning while drunk.....but those never creeped me out. This little guy below was a little creepy, because, how did they manage to capture his ears and tail in this perfectly erect state? And on second thought.....what did he see that made him so scared? Sure looks like he sees a ghost! For immortality purposes, the little guy's name was Spot...of course.
Hope you enjoyed this macabre posting.....what sort of creepy have you encountered? CD
10/29/10
Sepia Saturday #47

Sepia Saturday - The Allender Case

The title for this week's Sepia Saturday post is a small play on words. I refer to both a physical photo case as well as a bit of a mystery. My maternal great grandmother, Nellie Cox Beyersdoerfer, of Pendleton County Kentucky, was the keeper of the family photos. She had a ton, and some from the mid-nineteenth century. Among her plethora of tintypes and carte de visites is only one set in a double case, reminiscent of the daguerreotype or ambrotype presentations. This sixth plate sized double tintype portrait of a young couple came with a note from one of Nellie's unmarried cousins written in 1958. Pearl Allender, the author of the note, would have been the niece of the female subject. According to Pearl's note as seen here, the subjects were Tobe Conley, his wife Elizabeth Allender and their daughter Enola. The note includes Elizabeth's parentage (James Jackson Allender and Mary Stout) as well as the sad report that baby Enola died not long after this photo was taken. Pearl also goes as far as identifying the burial place of all three subjects. The location she gives is described in typical country style, by listing the current farm owners: "along side of road between Roy Biddles & George Norris." Thankfully, my mother who is from the area, had grown up knowing exactly where this was, because Nellie took her on little family field trips, detailing important locations - I like to think of her as the equivalent of a family history GPS system. She knew where each little event happened and was quick to sound an alarm instructing you to "turn here!"

In modern terms, this little family cemetery along side of the road would be on Thomas Road, just after it forks off of Hickory Grove Road, which is off of Highway number 10. The cemetery is nothing more than a farming family's plot, under an old tree grove, as owned years ago by the Conley or Connelly clan. I cannot locate a submission for this cemetery on Findagrave, and any pictures I took of the stones years ago are probably sitting on undeveloped 35mm film rolls. So, hopefully, when I head to the Kentucky Wool Festival in Falmouth in two weeks (October 1-3), I will head up the hill to snap some photos for submission.....if they can still be read. It's been years since I've seen them, but I will try nonetheless.

The case as seen above is one of those embossed faux leather pieces with a detailed scotch thistle in the middle on both sides - with the family name of Connelly, I'm not surprised at the motif choice! The portraits themselves are beautifully crisp and clear after so many years. Elizabeth is holding something in her hand to attract Enola's attention while the photo is being taken. Post production meant someone adding a little gold paint to the object, thus obstructing our view enough to prevent identification. Whatever it was, it must have worked because Enola is only blurred a little bit.

Since these beautiful portraits never made it to my original web site, this is the first time they are being shown to the public, and as such, required further study as usual. Based on Elizabeth's style of dress, I was guessing Civil War era. I went back to my records to determine her age range at the time of the war, and this is the breakdown for the family:

Children of James Jackson Allender and Mary Stout:

Elizabeth b. 1835

Jane b. 1837

Angelina b. 1839

George b. 1842

William James b. 1846

Charles b. 1853

Benjamin b. 1859

As the oldest, her clothes and age would put me in right range, but knowing the little girl died, I decided to head in that direction. Little Enola Jane Conley or Connelly was born in 1857 and died in the fall of 1859. While digging for this information, I also came across some other info about her parents. Tobe was actually named Thompson and the former was merely his nickname. The couple was married October 9th, 1856, and sadly, Elizabeth followed Enola to the grave within the next year at around the age of 24. Apparently, Enola was Tobe and Lizzie's only child, and from other relative interviews from the 1940s and 50s, Tobe had to have followed his small family in death, since they are all buried at the family farm.

However, as I was reviewing the basics from my own Gedcom, I came across another researcher who claimed Tobe went on to marry another woman in the fall of 1861 and later moved all of them to Illinois. Tobe and Eliza Ann Fryer's subsequent children have been listed, with their first child being a little girl - whom they named Elizabeth.

I always find it intriguing when our family lore can be mostly spot on when the factual records are researched, but can then stray completely off course in some instances. The people reporting that Tobe and Elizabeth and Enola were all buried on the Connelly farm were nieces and nephews of Elizabeth, and not children, which might make a difference here. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to remember not being able to find Tobe's grave among the others, but as proven with the story above, our memories can easily play tricks on us - the proof of our mettle lies in backing up those memories with documentation. I hope to provide the photos of that little cemetery within the next couple of weeks.

Until next time,

CD

9/18/2010

As a side note, I loved the flip side of Pearl's note....it was a receipt from the local grocers. Her bread was 48 cents, but she was credited for eggs worth $2.25. I love those little snippets of history....they too give us little insights.

Sepia Saturday - Tuna Hunting

Having grown up in the Cincinnati area, my childhood is full of memories that include activities along the Ohio River. Naturally, when I was out on an antique shopping spree, hunting for old photos, this one had a uniqueness and familiarity that immediately connected with me.

The photo was purchased somewhere here, in the central Kentucky region, and with our close proximity to the river - only a few counties away - I didn't give the photo much thought. I purchased it, put it away for awhile and would re-visit it from time to time as a curiosity, always with the intention of digging deeper into its past.

I always noticed that there was some writing on the back, but very faint. I could make out some letters, but never tried exceptionally hard, resigned to the fact that I may never be able to read the letters. I also noticed the photographer's stamp on the back from Pennsylvania, but as a border state to Ohio, and since photographers traveled quite a bit, I wasn't immediately drawn to Pennsylvania as a possible location - but I was open to possibilities.

As a piece of sepia curiosity, I pulled this out for our Sepia Saturday post, with the intention of connecting this to some unique resources for Steamboat Study. Since the photo does provide the name of the boat, "Tuna", I decided to try some of the registries out there that have been put up by some very enthusiastic hobbyists. However, I was very aware that the Tuna appeared to be quite a small vessel, and probably not one that would be recorded in these larger registries.

With no luck in the registries, and some categorized by state, I was pretty close to giving up on any fruitful search. I did come across a published registry from 1856 as digitized by Google Books, but it listed a Steamboat called the Tuna as one that burnt in Natchez in 1854. Of course, we can tell by the photo itself and the style of dress that we are looking at a photo taken post 1860s. One of my favorite segments of this photo is the couple in the foreground with their umbrella, turned to look at the photographer - very reminiscent of Renoir, Cassat, Monet, Caillebotte etc.

Just before this posting I took one last look at the writing on the back while standing in the sunlight. The pencil is very faded, but beyond the words "Military captain", I can make out the letters Jno. Above this line was the most faint line, but this time I could make out letters.....a long C word followed by Lake. I typed in how the word appeared in Google, and a couple of the suggestions sent me to Conneaut Lake in Pennsylvania! After looking into this lake, and how it looks today, I took a closer look at the photographer's stamp, which read: From F.E. Maas, Ground Floor Gallery, Conneautville, PA.

In conclusion, this appears to be a small excursion boat on Lake Conneaut. I'm not sure if the group is there honoring a military captain, or if someone there served in this role, but either way, the more scrutiny, the more these photos reveal their secrets. As a side note, the size of this little vessel reminds me of the tiny one seen in Steamboat Willie.....that old classic cartoon, also in sepia.

I have included some of the Steamboat and Conneaut Lake links that I came across - very interesting databases and photos.

Happy Saturday!

CD 9/4/10

P.S. Upon finishing this blog post and including the links below, I made a surprising new discovery. The very first Conneaut Lake link has a series of 4 small slide shows at the top of the page. While there, I noticed that the first block of slides rotates to a close up segment of the very same photo as the one I have shared with you! It appears this photo was mass produced in some format as a souvenir. I still believe it to be an original from the time period, but, even in my own family, we have duplicate cabinet cards that were purchased to pass around to different family members - I'm just not sure how many were produced. It makes me want to do further research into the availability of this photo, as the historical society may have an answer as to the event shown. I will provide an update later if I learn more!

Links of interest:

Steamboat Museum

A History of Steamboats

Steamboats.org

Steamboats of the Fifty States

Conneaut Lake

Conneaut Lake Historical Society

Sepia Saturday - Memory in Motion

While digging for a Sepia Saturday worthy picture from my collection, I stumbled upon this little trio pasted to my Dad's baby album. As the first child of four, the only son, and with a Dad overseas fighting in WWII, Grandma took lots of photos of little "Sonny". Apparently, he wasn't always receptive to the idea. Once his little sister Janet arrived, he was quite the photogenic pro. He went on to become a professional photographer himself, but it is fun to point out that the camera was not always his friend!

Perhaps it is even more fun to see Grandma's arm blurred as she tried to steady her pretty little boy. With the rapid succession of this memory in motion, and due to the miniature size, I'm thinking she chose a little photo booth in lieu of a local professional. I am so thankful she didn't toss the less than perfect shots and let us see the developing and fading of tears, and the work it took just to get this busy little guy to sit still!

CD
7/24/2010

Sepia Saturday - Looking at Anna

By all genealogical accounts, Anna Beyersdoerfer runs a high risk of becoming invisible to history. Known as the maiden aunt of our family, there are no pictures of her in a wedding dress, nor any of her holding babies. She had no descendants, and therefore, very few people to remember her. We have a few pictures of her, but none or next to none within the larger family gatherings. Anna seems to stand alone in artifact as well as she did in life. However, Anna recently made a grand showing that has piqued my interest in this very independent woman.

Born to John and Emma (Fliehmann) Beyersdoerfer in 1901, Anna was the youngest daughter of nine children. Her parents had a farm in Bracken County Kentucky, near the small town of Foster, which sits on the Ohio River. Both sets of grandparents, the Beyersdoerfers and Fliehmanns had large farms overlooking the river. Her family's small farm was tucked down in a valley known as Willow Creek. The steep hills of northern Kentucky meant a pretty challenging farm life, but her parents tapped into their German heritage and produced wine to sell in Covington as a supplement to their income.

According to census records, most of the children stayed on the farm to help well into their twenties. Marriage was usually the impetus to move on and begin a life for themselves, but when marriage did not appear as an option for Anna, she moved forward on her own, opting for life in the big city of Cincinnati Ohio. Her brother Lawrence and his family lived in Cincinnati as well, so she was not completely alone. However, she did not live with her relatives, but took a job as a domestic servant.

By 1930 she was residing in the home of Walter and Francis Klein up near Clifton. This couple apparently had no children and she was the only servant in their household. At the time, she was 28, and the Kleins were 44 and 38. Hardly elderly, this merchant couple also piques my interest. They must have had a decent size home to have a servant during the depression, yet, not a house full of servants, which demonstrated either a sense of modesty, or frugality in tough times. But at such a young age, with no children to care for, I can't help but wonder if they had a more exciting social life.

Skipping ahead to her death in 1988, we knew Anna had been a nurse most of her life. By 1951, she was listed in the city directory as a "nurses aide" at Bethesda Hospital. My mother visited her shortly before her death in Newport Kentucky, and she had a sharp, clear mind. She gave my mother details about the family history that we had never heard before. She included maiden names, burial locations, married names, etc. As an evident keeper of the past, her information turned out to be priceless as I began my own journey into our family history a few years later.

However, it is the time frame between about 1920 and 1951 that has set off my detective radar. An independent woman of the 1920s and 30s was not a common thing. Spinsters were, of course, fairly common, but Anna somehow did not fit that mold.

A few years ago, due to my main Journeys Past web site, a relative by marriage learned of my existence, and decided to send me some family artifacts they had in their possession. They were the family of Anna's brother Myron's wife. Ok, try to un-cross your eyes on that one! Anna's brother Myron married rather late in life to a woman names Eleanor, but they had no children. After Eleanor's death, her family found some items that belonged to Myron and they decided to graciously return the items to our family. After checking with the other Beyersdoerfer men, they unanimously chose me to be the recipient since they weren't all that interested in the family history - definitely a perk to being known as the family historian! I plan to write a piece about Myron soon, because his artifacts included some things from his service in WWII, and one picture in particular that had me up in the stacks of the library researching campaign locations....so stay tuned for that one.

Among Myron's things, was a photo of him and his sister Anna sitting on the front of matching cars. I could tell the cars were sitting at the farm on Willow Creek, and the back of the photo said "Myron & Anna, Brother & Sister, with our new cars, Ford bought same year, Richie Brothers auto Dealers took it." According to the license plates, the year was 1935, and both brother and sister look rather dapper in their fancy outfits and brand new cars. After a few minutes of awwing over this awesome photo, it suddenly hit me that Aunt Anna was a single woman in 1935. How could a single domestic servant make enough money to purchase a brand new car during thos tough economic times? I'm assuming Myron was still on the farm since family reports says he even lived there as long as Grandma Emma was still alive. But then, those don't exactly look like farmer duds. Interesting, since he would have been about 28 while she would have been about 33.

I'm not positive that Anna was with the Kliens in 1940, but in that year's city directory, Anna was still listed as a "maid", and living either in her own place, or in another family's household. Her new address was 2831 Vernon Place, which was in the same general Clifton area as her 1930 residence on Alaska Avenue with the Kleins. So needless to say, in 1935, she was still a domestic servant, and obviously a well paid one. I can't help but think there may be more to her story than she is telling us, but conjecture will only go so far until it reaches my frontal conspiratorial romanticized lobes, and loses all sense of reality.....so I will speculate no more.

Since researching her paper trail only created more questions, I started looking for more pictures of Anna. As I stated before, I'm having a really hard time finding her in the family group photos, but I did find a few more of her with two different men. Both men were from the area and about her age, but both went on to marry other women. I cannot say for certain that they were love interests, but in one photo from May of 1926, the two are sitting very close together and she is holding a small bouquet of flowers. She is obviously fairly young in the photos, no more than her twenties, but usually with that trademark tilt of her head and wry smile. I get the feeling I would have gotten along very well with the young Anna. I sense she had a tremendous amount of spunk and independence......or perhaps spunk and the determination to work hard enough to forget a broken heart? Sorry, couldn't help that one.

Even though I cannot remember meeting "Aunt Annie", as the younger generation called her, I remember her estate dispersal. We were allowed into a storage room full of shelves that were loaded with odds and ends. Her life was scattered about the room in the form of tangible objects. If she could have been there, what stories could she have told us about each item? Were there family artifacts there that were rendered silent as we passed by and therefore left to be sold to a stranger? My mother tried to locate things she thought looked old enough to be from the family. She picked up a depression era pink cherry blossom glass bowl, and a single glass goblet with bubbles in it. Several people in the room passed by a very large portrait that leaned against the shelves, until my mother recognized the face....it was Anna's mother, Emma Fliehmann Beyersdoerfer. Mom quickly brought it to the attention of my Grandmother (Anna's niece) Frieda, and they quickly saved Grandma Emma's portrait from the auction block. Reflecting back on the things we don't know about Anna, were there mementos among the possessions that spoke of lost or unrequited love? Sadly, or maybe appropriately, that remains Anna's secret.

CD

6/12/10

This is my first Sepia Saturday post - week #27! To join the fun, click here.