Genealogy Library - Day 3

Will someone please invent a time machine so I can go back to 1860 and find out if Florence and Frances are the same person??? Or slap the census taker who wrote down her name as FLARNCE? Dude. 

FLARNCE (must always be capitalized) is frankly an awesome name, and while I'm still at the genealogy library and haven't had the chance to try it yet, I imagine it must be a fun name to yell (Kid #2 also pointed this out). Watch out, future pets, one of you will be definitely named FLARNCE - not that you can read this warning.

In other news, I'm reading the obituary of my aunt/cousin Dicie (none of that is a typo) and having a heck of a time figuring out her surviving people. For one thing, one of her half-sisters, a Mrs. Jim Sherfey, is not among my people, and now we get to play "process of elimination" to see which of her sisters Jim Sherfey was married to. (Hopefully it was FLARNCE.) 

Secondly, it's possible that Dicie's "grand nephew" Frank is actually her unmarried daughter Bertie's son - according to Frank, Bertie indeed was his mother. But is this true? 

There was a cute story about how Dicie had been raising Frank since he was brought to live with her from the age of two years old. Bertie was 41 when he was born, so it's possible that she was Frank's mom. I hate to possibly besmirch anyone's name by accusing anyone of giving birth out of wedlock or creating sweet fiction for an old lady's obituary, but in reality, we know people did stuff like this, especially back in ... forever. 

On the other hand, and tossing the whole thing into a tornado, is the fact that Dicie's father had five wives and a total of ten children - only the first four wives had children. Even before Dicie's obituary came on the scene, her family of origin was a fun mystery/nightmare to unravel, and now we get into the big question of whose kid Frank is. 

Frank may very well be Dicie's great nephew, considering she had nine half-siblings and it's possible one of them let her, or needed her help to, raise Frank. He was ten when she died in 1933. I have his obituary, Social Security application, World War II draft application... he's extremely well documented but heck if we'll ever know who his parents are. I wonder if anyone in his family has taken a DNA test. Who knows. 

One thing I do know is that yacht rock is the perfect accompaniment for genealogical research - one must avoid being caught grooving too hard by the staff, though. THAT'S HOW MUCH I FEEEEEEEEEL.... 

LATER: I just found Dicie's missing sibling, Mrs. Jim Sherfey! HOLY HECK I have never heard of this sister. COOL. Dicie's dad now has eleven children and I'm geeking out big time. Her name was Jerusha Keen, and YA MO BE THERE

P.S. I went ahead and merged Florence and Frances. Their missing census records synced up perfectly, just like THAT FROZEN CONCOCTION THAT HELPS ME HANG ON

Genealogy Library - Day 2

Well hello again from Salt Lake City. 

Today I find myself in the classic genealogical version of "fish or cut bait?". Do I spend time cleaning up my family tree, something I can do at home, or do I research the snot out of my brick walls? Research seems like an obvious choice, especially right now while I'm surrounded by books and films and fiche, but the idea of being thorough and perfect is SO tempting! The MyTreeTags on Ancestry are just way too much fun. 

I haven't mentioned this yet (I don't think) but last month, I counted up my couples - great grandparents, 2nd greats and 3rd greats - divided them by 365, and assigned them a yearly spot on the calendar. Each couple has six days when I'll be focusing on just their family. My greats are mostly finished - sometimes I find a new surprise; my 2nds are in varying stages of done but a few stragglers still need help, and with the 3rds - things will get especially exciting around June 18, when they will start their time under the microscope. 

I needed some way to decide whom to work on, when. Otherwise I could lose my mind. Some families' facts have been well documented for a long time, and other families are still hidden under a rock. It's so easy to get caught up in the voluminous information for the established families and let the lesser-known folks wither on the vine.

This week belongs to Elijah Keen and Rebecca Morgan of Tennessee. Eli was a Union soldier in the Civil War, which I think is pretty remarkable, since Tennessee was the last state to secede from the United States. I can't even imagine the stress those folks were under as they had to decide which faction to join. Not all of my ancestors during that era chose the better cause, but Eli did and I'm proud of him. It couldn't have been easy. 

Okay, back to it. 

LATER: Just found another enslaver ancestor.....yuck. 

Mr. and Mrs. Keen

Famous Cousins

Dr. William Williams Keen was United States' first brain surgeon, who once participated in a procedure removing a cancerous tumor from the jawbone of President Grover Cleveland.

His grandson, Dr. Walter Freeman, was famous for his practice of transorbital lobotomies. Thousands of mentally ill Americans, and some not mentally ill, underwent these operations at his hands, not too many decades ago.

Drs. Keen and Freeman are descendants of my Keen ancestors from Pennsylvania.

I'm... not sure how to feel about this. :)

They'll Live Forever As Long As Someone Knows Their Names

Mom called last night and we chatted about - guess what! - dead people. She loves sharing her memories, and I love writing them down. Here’s a sampling:

~ Even with the hard life Grandma Keen led, she was always kind and sweet. She would tell my mom (her granddaughter), “Kindness is free. It doesn’t cost anything to be kind.” She was an excellent seamstress and sewed wedding dresses for the local girls. With the money she earned, Mom said, Grandma and Grandpa helped put Uncle Ralph, their son-in-law, through medical school. Here are Grandma and Mom with a doll Grandma made for Christmas. Mom looks politely excited - she was a tomboy and didn't play with dolls, but she loved her Grandma.

~ During summers, Mom used to visit Aunt Marguerite and Uncle Ralph in Portland. They were quite "comfortable," and Mom observed Marguerite's shopping habit of calling up local department stores like Nordstrom or Meier & Frank and having clothes delivered to her home. She’d pay for the ones she liked and send the rest back. If Aunt Marguerite found a blouse or dress she liked, she bought one in every color. She had huge drawers full of nylons, etc. She always wore sunglasses and beautiful jewelry and kept her eyebrows immaculately plucked. Mom said Uncle Ralph must have visited China during some part of his World War II service, because their home was decorated like a Chinese restaurant, down to the red-fringed lamps. Here's Aunt Marguerite in 1962.

~ Uncle Ralph could be really funny. My grandparents were fighting one day, and Uncle Ralph (Grandma’s brother-in-law) turned on a tape recorder and set it behind the couch and recorded their quite lengthy argument. Uncle Ralph played it back for them later. Grandma was ready to kill him, Mom said. He bought Mom a parakeet when she was six, whom she named “Trixie,” and Mom had the bird until she was about sixteen. Here we have Uncle Ralph with his daughters, Patricia and Chickie, and Grandma Dot.

~ Here are Grandma Dot and her sister Kathleen in the 1930s, outside the family home in Walla Walla, getting ready to go somewhere. Kathleen, it turns out, was something of a backseat driver. Mom remembers driving to Wallowa Lake with Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Mel one summer, and it was "Melvin! Melvin! Turn here! Melvin!" all the way there. To her credit, Kathleen did have a Ph.D. and an important job and was pretty darn smart, so I imagine she was someone worth listening to. You can read more about her here.

With these pictures and stories in mind, I hope we're all working on two things:

1) Take time to write down something about your life. Someone will be interested in hearing about you someday - wouldn't it be nice if they could hear it in your own words? (Instead of hearing, "She was a backseat driver" - or worse - from someone else?)

2) If you can, interview older family members who remember a generation or two farther back than you do, and write down what they say about these loved ones who have left us. Though they may be scanty or imperfect, these records are precious.

Photo of the Week: 24 February 2008

(Click on the picture for better detail)

From left to right: Grandma Alice Johnson Keen, her sister-in-law Maude Leah Keen Torvanger, and Maude's husband Bert Martin Torvanger.

I never met Uncle Bert, but we used to visit "Aunt Maudie" sometimes at her apartment in Walla Walla. I LOVED the smell of that place - old, musty, creepy - and the funky old elevators with a window in the door so you could watch yourself move between floors. It was dark and dusty in the hallways, but Maude's apartment was sweet, small and cheerful. She had funny old mauve couches that we kids would smile to each other over, and she would give us money as gifts. Mom said she boiled the coins and washed and ironed the bills before she gave them to us, and we always thought that was funny. Now I think it's absolutely adorable of her. Awww... she wanted our money to be clean.

Aunt Maude never had any children, so Grandma Dot and her sisters were Aunt Maude's heirs. Grandma Dot gave Mom some of Aunt Maude's things, and I remember old nightgowns and pillowcases and sheet sets floating around our home, all marked with the name "Torvanger."

Aunt Maude and Uncle Bert apparently bought some interest in an oil well in Oklahoma. Years later, about 2002, I was contacted about my family tree on Ancestry.com. Someone from the oil well share company was trying to find Aunt Maude's heirs because we were owed some money, and Mom and I got all excited. Wooo hooo, here comes the cash!

Reality sank in when we learned how much Mom and her three siblings would be receiving. So far, with long distance phone calls, gas money, and legal copies of Aunt Maude's and Grandma Dot's wills, it's cost Mom more than she would have earned from the oil well, just to get this thing hooked up. We're not quite as "in the money" as we once hoped - but that 25 cents a month sustains our Bazooka bubble gum habit, and really, that's all we can ask for.

Photo of the Week: 13 January 2008

(Click on the picture to make it bigger)

My grandmother Alice "Dorothea" Keen Dysart and me, shortly after my birth. After I was born, she came to our apartment in Seattle and visited us (notice my parents' fun cement-block bookcase behind us). I was born two days after her birthday.

"Grandma Dot" always had a beautiful yard and garden. My brother B.C. and I visited her and Grandpa for a week one summer, and since we lived on the Oregon coast and were used to milder weather, their town (Walla Walla, Washington) seemed incredibly hot. The sun would heat up their boxwood hedge by the front porch and make it smell so wonderful - the scent still reminds me of Grandma's house.

She was a funny, feisty, peppery little lady. She loved chocolates, and would buy herself a box, eat a few chocolates, hide the box, forget where she hid it, and buy herself a new box. After she died, almost-full boxes of chocolates were discovered here and there all over the house. Other than that, her house was immaculate. She played the organ and kept a notebook of the songs she practiced or played. Sometimes we'd go to her house and her organ would be turned up so loud, she couldn't hear the doorbell, but we could hear her outside. Judging from her 8-track tape collection, she loved Elvis Presley and Tom Jones. One funny discovery was a tape called "Music to Strip By."

Grandma loved keeping up with the local law enforcement, fire department, and ambulance activity, and always had at least one police scanner turned on and making noise on her hutch. She liked keeping track of the numbered codes of each department and would type up lists of the codes to post near her scanner, so she could see who was doing what. When she died, I inherited her manual typewriter and one of her half-finished scanner code lists was still in the typewriter case.

Her memorial is here.

The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Archives at Ancestry.com

... have been my latest online haunt.

I found them several years ago, when our family history centers were still affiliated with Ancestry.com. Mom and I spent a fun evening looking at old pictures and reading detailed descriptions of family weddings, Uncle Denton's speeding tickets, and Uncle Charlie saving a boy from a wild deer in Pioneer Park. At that time, the online archives included the years 1945-1954.

Yesterday, while writing a timeline, I stumbled upon them again. While some years are still missing, more recent archives are available now. Last night I found the wedding announcement for Aunt Nancy's marriage to Uncle Steve in 1973, and read about the day in 1971 when my grandparents received a phone call from my parents to say my brother was born; ten hours later, another call came from my uncle and aunt to say that my cousin Candace was born. Our great-grandmother Alice Keen called the newspaper to report it, and they were kind enough to print the story.

While I feel a little sorry for the must-have-been-bored-out-of-their-minds newspaper reporters, who were on hand to capture such events as Uncle Doug earning Gold and Silver Arrow Points at his Cub Scout pack meeting and great-grandfather Carl Dysart winning a free Christmas turkey, I'm grateful to them for doing such a great job in capturing these fun little life moments. I'm also glad my family spent so much time in Walla Walla, where no detail went unnoticed.

Timeline: Enoch Newton Keen & Elizabeth Rebecca Crumley

14 May 1879 - Enoch and Lizzie married in Independence, Grayson, Virginia
*1880 Census
29 March 1880 - First child Orlan Duette "O.D." Keen born in Fall Branch, Washington, Tennessee
26 October 1883 - Second child Lonnie David Keen born in Johnson City, Washington, Tennessee
9 November 1885 - Enoch's father Eli Ashley Keen died in Fall Branch; buried in Fall Branch
28 November 1886 - Third child Walter Eli Keen born in Johnson City
16 July 1887 - Walter Eli Keen died in Johnson City
10 July 1888 - Enoch's mother Rebecca Morgan Keen died; buried in Fall Branch
14 November 1888 - Fourth child Wildie Herbert "Bill" Keen born in Johnson City
15 September 1891 - Fifth child Lola May Keen born in Fall Branch
31 January 1893 - Sixth child Maude Leah Keen born in Fall Branch
4 September 1897 - Lizzie's father Rev. Fleming David Crumley died in Fall Branch; buried in Fall Branch
*1900 Census
13 November 1901 - O.D. and Bertha Olivia Crouch married in Morristown, Hamblen, Tennessee
18 January 1903 - Grandson Ward Rothwell Keen born in Fall Branch (O.D. & Bertha)
1 August 1905 - Granddaughter Ena Vasta Keen born in Walla Walla, Walla Walla, Washington (O.D. & Bertha)
22 March 1906 - Lizzie's mother Mariah Woodrow Snodgrass Crumley died; buried in Nickelsville, Scott, Virginia
28 August 1907 - Grandson Lawrence James Keen born in Walla Walla (O.D. & Bertha)
*1910 Census
4 November 1910 - Grandson Lester Orlan Keen born in Walla Walla (O.D. & Bertha)
25 June 1912 - Bill and Alice Muriel Johnson married in Coeur d'Alene, Kootenai, Idaho
16 May 1913 - Grandddaughter Elsie "Marguerite" Keen born in Walla Walla, Walla Walla, Washington (Bill & Alice)
23 June 1916 - Lonnie and Margaret Beaetta Tate married in Coeur d'Alene, Kootenai, Idaho
9 December 1916 - Granddaughter Esther "Kathleen" Keen born in Walla Walla (Bill & Alice)
18 June 1917 - Granddaughter Virginia Margaret Keen born in Ritzville, Adams, Washington (Lonnie & Margaret)
17 September 1917 - Lola and Louis Henry Beinder married in Walla Walla
5 December 1918 - Granddaughter Marguerite Beinder born and died in Walla Walla (Lola & Louis)
23 January 1919 - Granddaughter Alice "Dorothea" Keen born in Walla Walla (Bill & Alice)
5 December 1919 - Granddaughter Mary Rose Beinder born and died in Walla Walla (Lola & Louis)
*1920 Census
8 March 1921 - Granddaughter born (living)
21 June 1921 - Maude and Dr. Harvey B. Thompson married in Portland, Multnomah, Oregon
9 February 1922 - Grandson Louis Newton Beinder born and died in Hockinson, Clark, Washington (Lola & Louis)
27 November 1922 - Granddaughter Bernice W. Beinder born and died in Sutherlin, Douglas, Oregon (Lola & Louis)
13 April 1923 - Granddaughter born (living)
10 March 1924 - Granddaughter Violet LaRose Keen born and died in Walla Walla; buried in Walla Walla (Lonnie & Margaret)
5 April 1924 - Grandson Charlie Hart Beinder born and died in Sutherlin
1 December 1925 - Granddaughter Lois Lucille Beinder born in Coquille, Coos, Oregon (Lola & Louis)
2 December 1925 - Granddaughter Lois Lucille Beinder died in Coquille (Lola & Louis)
17 November 1926 - Grandson Burton Thomas Beinder born and died in Swisshome, Lane, Oregon (Lola & Louis)
17 December 1926 - Granddaughter born (living)
24 May 1928 - Grandson born (living)
13 November 1928 - Grandson Pal Arthur Beinder born and died in Dunsmuir, Siskiyou, California (Lola & Louis)
*1930 Census
20 July 1930 - Granddaughter born (living)
21 February 1932 - Lizzie died in Walla Walla; buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Walla Walla
7 March 1933 - Maude's husband Dr. Harvey B. Thompson died in Walla Walla
1 May 1935 - Maude and Bert Martin Torvanger married in Walla Walla
21 June 1937 - Granddaughter born (living)
*1940 Census
17 May 1942 - Enoch died in Walla Walla; buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Walla Walla

And Her Name Is Diana Brandon

Anyone who has any kind of genealogy inklings will be happy for me: last night I had one of those deeply-satisfying genealogy research experiences that reminded me of going out to dinner, eating a HUGE meal that tasted wonderful, and waking up in the morning still full and still thinking "YUM!!!!" Yes, it was that good.

I have an uncle, William Arthur Armstrong Keen, who was a Baptist minister in Tennessee. He had (I thought) four wives and numerous children, including a girl named Dicie Diana Keen who married her cousin, Vanzandt Keen. Dicie was lucky because she got to keep her initials all her life, which I'm sure was important to her.

After years of wondering, and finding out little bits of information about William and his family, I found that he had eight other children but no Dicie was included among them. It was pretty easy to figure out which children went with which wives, but Dicie was a mystery. She didn't show up in any censuses with her family. The wives I had dates for didn't fit with her being their child - some of the wives, all I had was their first and last name. I didn't even know what order they were in (Wife #1, Wife #2, etc.).

Fortunately Ancestry.com hosts a family tree site. This very lovely man who lives in Denver, Colorado, had also researched William and his family, and not only did his family tree give me awesome pieces of missing information last night - they were all documented. YES. They all had a source. You always hesitate with stuff that doesn't come directly out of a book or a microfilm, but all this stuff had a source. Did I mention all of it had a source?

Finally, after all these years of not knowing who Dicie's mother was - which one of the four, except it ended up being FIVE, wives of William Keen - her mother is Diana Brandon. I don't have actual proof of it yet, but it fits. It was very common for women to die in childbirth back then - William lost at least one of his wives this way - and Diana's death date and Dicie's birth date are almost the same.

What I think happened was, William and his first wife Hiley had four daughters, then Hiley died. William then married Diana (I have their marriage date from this nice man, and a source), and I think they had Dicie. All the censuses I've seen her in, Dicie lived with the Jesse Crouch family. I think, having already lost two wives and with four little girls to raise, William let his newborn girl be raised by this family until she was married.

The clincher was when I looked up Diana's family in earlier censuses and found her as a child with her parents. Guess what Diana's mom's name is... it's Dicey. Such a strange little name can only be a family name. So there we had it - Dicie Diana Keen. It seems so obvious to me now, but there's no way I would have known if I hadn't found this nice man's family tree last night.

Long story short: I woke up full this morning. Yay!!!!

Back At the FHC

Yay! My fellow staff member's rotator cuff surgery is over with and our shift started again tonight. We had one patron and we had the night to ourselves. I made some good progress.

I put my S surnames into PAF Insight and got some good dates, and while I was thus employed, I noticed that cousin Enoch Shackleford died in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1921, and was buried in his hometown. Wondering if he may have been in prison (I didn't know the guy - stranger things have happened), I looked for him in 1920 to see where he was living. I'm thinking the Leavenworth death place might be a mistake because his entire life, he lived in Greenfield, Dade, Missouri, and barely moved until he was buried there.

At any rate, once I found him in the 1920 census, it opened the door to his whole family. I found all four of his children (all I knew is that he and his wife HAD four children), almost all their spouses, and the grandchildren. I found birth dates and places I hadn't had previously (love that 1900 census) and made some serious progress on that family. And it just dropped out on my lap, practically. I considered my night successful.

Until next week!