News to me!

You know my goal is to share the family stories, facts, and details I already know.  However, yesterday I stumbled upon a couple interesting pieces of information that were new to me and that I wish to share. Discovering new family details is exciting for a family historian.

Since I was already in the area, I decided to stop by our local genealogy library and look at the index of  Greene County deaths. I wanted to confirm the death date of Myrtice Avril Smith, the 5th child of Hiram and Stella Smith. Sure enough, she died May 19, 1913 as her gravestone says. Out of curiosity, I decided to go to the Court House to further check some facts on this death. The cause of death was listed as pneumonia and whooping cough. She was 4 months and 19 days and had been sick for five weeks. I also found an error in the record. It says she was buried in Glidden. This is not so. She is buried in The Scranton Township Cemetery next to her parents.  Of course, in reality they are buried next to her. Stella's parents, John M and Ginevra Vorhies, both of her brothers, Eugene and LeRoy and families are all buried in close proximity. After all the years I have visited these graves, I never realized little Myrtice was the first internment in this grouping. ( The Withrows are in another section. Aurilla would have been the very first family internment.

As long as I was at the courthouse and had found these huge books of records so fascinating, I decided to look up a couple other death notes.  What could I learn about Bert and Nina's first born child Lena?   She was born on October 31 and died the same day. Interestingly enough, she was also buried October 31. The record shows that the baby was premature, only seven months developed. Now the really interesting question. There is a column in these records that lists the funeral home/mortuary involved. In this column the words "none called" is recorded. Now what does this mean? I know where Lena and her brother, who also did not survive infancy, are buried. Who dug the hole? Was there some sort of box used or not? I am so curious about this.

Lastly, I discovered something that really surprised me, and I think it is an important piece of information for all my female cousins in this familial line to know.  Great Great Grandmother Ginevra Withrow Vorhies' cause of death was carcinoma of the uterus.