Longevity

#52 Ancestors in 52 weeks

When I see the word longevity, one name pops to mind. Hallie Augustus. I have found a few ancestors that have lived longer than 100 years, but I didn’t actually know them. Grandpa Augustus was doing great on the day of his 100th birthday party. He still lived alone and was looking forward to planting his garden. Spring was just around the corner. He was born March 19, 1890. His party, 100 years later, was well attended by friends and family flying to the Midwest from all over the country. It truly was an event to remember. 

A few months later, Grandpa was gone.

About a month after the party, Grandpa went to get his mail one day, fell and broke his ankle. While hospitalized, he talked and planned for his summer garden. He needed to get home and get going with the planting. It was almost May. While he was talking of tomatoes and peppers, his two children and the Dr. were talking of his need to remain in the Long Term Housing facility of the hospital once his ankle was healed.  He was not actually taking good enough care of himself on his own anymore.  

In time the ankle healed and the truth of his new residence became clear. Grandpa died June 20, 1990 only a few weeks after becoming a resident of Long Term. As my husband said of his Grandfather Hallie Augustus, "Grandpa was determined to get out of there one way or another".

I learned from Grandpa Hallie the power of the will to live. He had lived 100 years on his own terms. And he finished his life the same way.     

Friday Fun

Deciding what a blog entry topic is going to be can be challenging or easy. It is easy if one is writing about an event which takes place over several days. For example, it was easy writing from my aunt's journal in 1988. It was also easy and fun to discover and visit the Grisso mansion which needed several sessions to get the whole story told. I loved writing about my 3rd great grandmother, Sarah Jane Swartzel Withrow. There is still so much to share about the Wrights, Grissos, Tolsdorfs, Augustus and other various branches.
      Sometimes when the publish button is pushed on a post my first thought is "now what?" This was the case today. Sometimes as soon as the "now what" thought bubble forms in my mind, I am given the answer unexpectedly. Such is the case this week. The same day I published the last Wordless Wendesday, the mail came. In the mail was the local Scranton Jounal. And in the newspaper was a picture from the past of some very cute little boys. They were called the Sox and the picture was from 1956.  Even though the picture is not as clear as one would hope, those little faces are still recognizable. Read the names carefully and you will see how it belongs in my blog, a blog which I hope one day will be read by my grandchildren and their children too.

March 5, 2016- Blogiversary

I have learned while surfing around in the Blogsphere that bloggers often make mention of their blogiversary - which is the day their blog started.

Thus, I would like to announce that today is my 1st blogiversary. My first published post was on March 5, 2015 and is titled Getting Started.  Recently, Blogger added a new feature called Featured Blog. It can be found on the right hand side of the screen. Readers can go there to re-read this first post if interested. Those who receive email posts may not be able to see this feature. I hope you will take some time to check out the blog itself (www.margietolsdorf.blogspot.com)  and view this feature along with the others I will be mentioning. This first feature blog is the very first writing I posted one year ago. I will be changing this feature blog from time to time, but I will alert you when that happens. 

After a year, I have created a jumble of posts about my dad's family, my mom's family, my husband's family, my travels, my treasures, my photos, my mom's calendar, etc., etc. The jumble just keeps twisting and turning. Of course, one can go to the blog archive on the right hand side of the screen and find any one of the past year's 170 posts. Too much work for most casual readers. Some future family genealogist might dig through it all, but most readers are not going to do that.

I have tried to find a way to help readers find a particular reading that has to do with their surname or other interest. I thought I had found it when I created the Index Page. Have you ever tried it? The Index Page is a tab at the top of the blog. The tabs are Home, Photo Album, About Me, and Index Page. The Photo Album has been neglected, but the Index Page is full of information. It is a stationary page that just sits there unlike regular posts which pile up one on top of another somewhat like placing one piece of paper on top of another.

The second feature on the right of the screen is called Search Cousins.

Again, I believe these can only be seen from the actual blog. The right hand column is cut off when reading a post in email.

Call me a slow learner, but as I am goofing around, I realize what a great feature this is. Suppose you are a cousin on my husband's mother's side of the family. A post about the Bordens, my father's maternal side, is not of much interest to you. But by using the Search Blog window, one can insert Reeder and the posts with that name will come up.  This along with the index should get you to your surname of choice whether it be Augustus, Wright, Tolsdorf, Grisso, DeHart, Phillips, etc. Information on these surnames is not equal at this time. Genealogy is a slow process.

The next features show:

Geneabloggers- This takes the reader to an online community created by Thomas MacEntee. My Cousins blog is listed in this community under Genealogy Blog Roll.

Translate - I am happy that I included this feature since I have had responses from places like Spain, Poland, Ukraine, etc.

Follow by Email - I believe this is a feature used by several of my regular readers. It makes my ramblings easily accessible and readers don't have to remember to go to the site.

Between the featured posts, search blog window, and blog archives, you should be able to consolidate the posts that feature your particular branch of your particular tree.

Blog Archive This is where my almost 170 blog entries are stacked one on top of the other like a pile of papers. The last dated entry is always the one on top.

(Click on colored words to go directly to the example)

I continue to learn new features on the Blogger Platform and to try different ways to present our families' stories to whomever might be interested. Often I share part of my mother's diary calendars on Mondays With Mary. Wednesday is a good day for a short post featuring a photo like this one from last week. And even though this is a genealogy blog, it is my blog to post items of interest to share  and also leave a little of myself on these pages for my grandchildren to know me better.

Thank you to all my readers on this -  my first blogiversary.  I hope you will stick around for another year.  Thanks for reading.

Augustus

Augustus is a surname not yet mentioned much on this blog.  This is my husband's mother's maiden name. My husband grew up close to his Augustus grandparents. They had two children, his mother and her brother. Each of those children had five children. Grandpa Halle and Grandma Ina Augustus were special to their ten grandchildren. My husband and his first cousins enjoyed family times together and when I came into the family, I felt very much a part of the group.

Grandpa Halle is the fellow that made it to 100. His birthday was a grand affair with lots and lots of family and friends in attendance. At the time of the party, he was still living at home alone and taking moderately good care of himself.

Grandpa Halle was one of five children. His parents, Sherman and Lizzie, lived in Scranton where Sherman was mayor at one time. We have a great photo of them in front of their home there. The photo will make its way to this blog but not until a return from my winter haven. I didn't bring any of the Augustus files with me when we came south. I had determined it was a winter for trailing the Wrights. (My father's family)

Now don't I wish I had those files. Here is why.

Four of my husband's first cousins actually live in the area of our winter home.  One is getting interested in the family genealogy and is aware that some of the grandchildren of Grandpa Halle's sister, Wilda Estelle Augustus Smith also live in the area.

Contacts and arrangements have been made and we are off on Sunday to meet some second cousins and second cousins once removed. I do have some photos I hope they can identify. I am also anxious to share genealogical information. The Augustus line might be our closest line to royalty. Hallie Joseph Augustus, his sister Wilda, and their three other siblings are the 4th great grandchildren of John Augustus who was born in Hanover, Germany. It is believed by many descendants that John Augustus (1735-1809) was fathered by KING GEORGE II of the House of Hanover.  Some claim the christening records are locked away in the Tower of London, never to be seen by the public.

I do not intend to follow this mystery/family tale/ lore at the present time. Instead, I am concentrating on the lower branches of this family tree and looking forward to meeting other descendants of John Augustus of Hanover, Germany. I wonder if they have ever heard this story. I will let you know.

Pennsylvania to Iowa 1860

I am thinking that I need a "new system" to alert my readers to which family tree I am climbing now that I am starting to jump around a bit.  The post from July 1 was about my maternal side. Today, the information is about my husband's maternal side. I am open to ideas. Anyone? Anyone? 

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Minerva Jane Marsh Reeder (1860-1953) was the fourth of six children. They were the children of Richard and Celestia Phillips Marsh who moved from Pennsylvania when Minerva Jane was just a baby. They stopped in Illinois first.

The baby of this family was Fanny. See Aunt Fanny (1873-1956) It is Fanny's research and writing that I am using to share this part of my husband's maternal family story. Among these records is a writing by Dwight, the third child of the family. I just have a feeling that Aunt Fanny convinced him to do this.

He writes of the family home in Warren County, Pennsylvania and their move to Illinois about 1860.  He says they started out with a team and a wagon.  There were four children. Joseph Merritt about 8 years old, Florence about 6, Dwight about 4, and the baby Minerva Jane (direct line ancestor). The trip included arriving at a railroad, loading everything on the train and eventually arriving in Princeton, Illinois.

He included a story that I found to be very, very sad. "My uncle and family started with us but we had not travelled many days when one of my cousins fell out of the wagon and was run over and killed so the family returned to Warren County". I wonder if this uncle and family were on Dwight's mother's side or father's side.

His mother's maiden name was Phillips.  Celestia Phillips was the daughter of Elijah Phillips and Ellen Thompson Phillips. I am explaining this lineage because Dwight mentions one of his great-grandfathers in his writing.

He mentions that Great Grandfather Thompson came from Pennsylvania to Illinois at the age of 99 years.  While there he jumped on a horse and rode.  He lived to be over 100 years old. So, Dwight and our Minerva Jane's mother Celestia was the daughter of Ellen Thompson Phillips and her father would have been Caleb Thompson, the Great Grandfather Thompson to whom Dwight is referring.

He also mentions that his great grandmother Phillips lived to be 97. So, longevity is on not just from Grandpa Halle Augustus (1890-1990) my husband's maternal grandfather, but from my husband's maternal, maternal, maternal, maternal, paternal side too. Doris/Ina/Minerva Jane/Celestia/Ellen/Caleb Thompson.

Ina Reeder Augustus, Minerva Jane Marsh Reeder, Celestia Phillips Marsh

Three generations of Grandmothers

Aunt Fanny (1873-1956)

Just as I knew my great aunts and uncles that lived in Greene County when I was growing up, my husband and his siblings knew theirs. Families stayed around the same areas for generations, and we have been able to savor wonderful memories of those relationships.

As I mentioned in Another Limb? I want to start climbing around in the Augustus, Reeder, Tolsdorf trees as well as my own family trees since I have a phenomenal resource in my mother-in-law.  I just learned about Aunt Fanny. Like I said, my husband and siblings knew their great-great Aunt Fanny, but my kids, their kids, some of the other grandchildren have likely never heard of Aunt Fanny. She was the younger sister of my grandchildren's great-great-great grandmother, Minerva Jane Marsh Reeder (1860-1953).

According to my mother-in-law, Aunt Fanny was an especially loved aunt by her niece, Ina Reeder Augustus, mother of my living source. I think I would have really liked Aunt Fanny too. She wrote a couple of documents that I think should be shared.  It appears that Aunt Fanny shared my interest in preserving family information. The following is one of  her documents. Fanny is discussing her parents, Richard and Celestia Marsh. Our decendancy would look like this:
Celestia Phillips and Richard Marsh/ Minerva Jane Marsh and Edward Reeder/Ina Marie Reeder and Hallie Augustus.

We have all read similar writing about the olden days. There is really nothing too new here except that these are our people.  Our Aunt Fanny wrote this in 1941.  What a precious souvenir to have her words.

Reeders, Reeders Everywhere

I've heard my husband's family talk about Edward and Minerva Jane Reeder. I have seen their picture and know that my sister-in-law bears her middle name.

Edward and Minerva Reeder

Edward and Minerva had four children. Our line comes from their daughter, Ina Reeder Augustus. Her siblings were Jennie Lind Reeder White, Charles Reeder and Archie Reeder. Ina's older grandchildren including my husband remember some of them.  It seems that summer picnics at Chautauqua Park in Jefferson, Iowa were quite an event.

My interest and curiosity in earlier generations was piqued when I discovered Edward, his siblings, and parents had lived in Greene County, Iowa since about 1875. Edward's parents were John Morris and Elizabeth.

John Morris Reeder (1839-1935) married Elizabeth Neely (1837-1909) in Cedar County, Iowa in 1868.  According to John's obituary he was born in Palmyra, Missouri, May 5th, 1839.  His mother passed away when he was two years old and he went to live with an aunt.  In 1843, they moved to Ohio where he resided until he reached manhood.  Mr. Reeder, with his aunt, then came to Cedar County, Iowa where he married Elizabeth Neely.  The obituary goes on to say that Mr. and Mrs. Reeder resided on a farm in Cedar County where four sons and three daughters were born to them.  Their eighth and last son was born in Greene county in 1878.

John Morris and Elizabeth Neely Reeder's children were: Edward Maurice (1858-1949), Charles M.(1860-1882), Ella (1861-1934), Emma R. (1863-1934), Martin Ellis (1864-1940 ), Harriet (1865-1937), George Leonard (1874-1942), and William John (1878-1952).

Each of John Morris Reeder's eight children could be an interesting research project, but I am going to save that for later and only if I feel there might be an interest.  I was amazed to learn that the parents of our Great Grandpa Edward Maurice Reeder and all of his siblings were long time Greene County residents.

Mr. John Reeder operated a meat market for a few years after which time, he retired and lived in Jefferson.  Mrs. Reeder preceded her husband in death in 1909.

Interesting, interesting.   John Morris was a widower for 24 years and he ran a meat market after having been a farmer.  He also had a sister named Elizabeth that went by Lizzie. She attended functions with him and they took a trip together in 1924 to Ohio.  From the newspaper of September 24, 1924:

     Mr. John Reeder and his sister, Elizabeth Reeder, leave tomorrow for a visit to their old home near Cincinnati, Ohio, where they will be guests of relatives. 
     Mr. Reeder has not been back to the old home for exactly half a century, and is looking forward to the trip with anticipation.         .

I have determined through various records that William, father of John Morris Reeder, remarried about a year after his first wife, Nancy Martha Morris, died. It is rather obvious that John's middle name must have come from his mother's maiden name.  I wonder about this second family. William and his second wife had children, but evidently they did not raise John. Did they stay in Missouri or go back to Ohio too? Was John's aunt a sibling to his mom or his dad or was she really even an aunt? 

Earlier I mentioned the family picnics that my husband and his siblings remember. Looking through the http://jefferson.advantage-preservation.com  pages many of those picnics are detailed. The one I found the most fun was from 1929.

The August 8, 1929 issue of The Jefferson Herald reports on the Reeder Reunion at Chautauqua Park in Jefferson, Iowa.  The family decided to have the picnic every year  on the first Sunday of August.  There were numerous families listed as attendees.  The names that most interested me were J.M. Reeder and his sister, Lizzie, and Mrs. and Mrs. Hallie Augustus and family This would make my 97 year old mother-in-law just eleven years old and her brother about eight.
 
The last paragraph states, "There are 104 descendants of the Reeder clan, a number of whom were unable to be present Sunday."  So, if there were 104 in 1929, I wonder how many there would be 86 years later.  I did a little estimating and came up with a 1728+ totally unscientific guess. I don't think the park has enough picnic tables for the Reeder Reunion anymore. 

Cemetery marker for Edward and Minerva Reeder.  See their picture above.

Cemetery marker for the parents of Edward Reeder

Interesting marker with parents on one end and Edward's brother, son of John Morris and Elizabeth on the other end.

This appears to be the original marker for Charles M. Reeder.

Another limb?

I have been asked if I am going to write about other branches of the family besides my mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's side, I find it hard to believe I am still out on that maternal limb so far and not anywhere near finding an end to it. There are the collateral Vorhies that I now have boxes worth of pictures, papers, and treasures to sort and report. I haven't even finished with my mom's parents or siblings. Then, there are the Grissos. They will go on forever. There is so much research already completed. However, I would like to study and understand the few pictures I have of grandpa Bert Grisso's siblings. Of course, one cousin is curious about the Grisso Mansion in Oklahoma, (Yes, we are related) and I have a great article about a Grisso Cemetery in Arkansas. What about the Wrights, Bordens and DeHarts on my dad's side? Then, my big worry is that if I veer off into other branches and limbs, I might lose a few devoted cousin readers. Well, what I need  to focus on is that all the family limbs and branches I write about are all ancestors of my grandchildren. I hope cousins on all sides will stick with me.

How many times do you hear people say that their most valuable resource for family information is gone. They lament the loss of this valuable asset. Keeping this in mind, I am going to turn to a branch of my husband's family next.  My husband's mother is 97 years old and has a sharp memory. I think the time has come to climb into this family tree.

As I read various blogs, I scan the surname list hoping to see if I can make a connection. Recently, I came across the name Reeder. Reeder was my husband's maternal grandmother's maiden name. Ina Marie Reeder Augustus (1893-1978) was the daughter of Edward  Maurice (1858-1949) and Minerva Jane Marsh Reeder (1860-1953) Ina was one of four children. I asked my mother-in-law about the Reeder's ancestry. I wondered if she have any information on them. She said no but that there had been a family story which told that someone in that family had held the hat of Herbert Hoover when he was inaugurated president. How happy I am that this story surfaced. 

With a little more research, I discovered that the parents of Edward Reeder, John Morris and Elizabeth Reeder, are buried in the same cemetery lot as Edward and Minerva Reeder (block 3 lot 32) in the Jefferson, Iowa cemetery. I have also found that when I tell her about some of my research discoveries, she confirms my findings and expands. What a treasure she is.
      So, I think I will try to find more information on the Reeder family.  Here is a picture of Edward and Minerva Reeder, my husband's great grandparents.

Dedication

     Well, here I go.  But where will I start?  There are Grissos and Smiths, Wrights and Bordens, Augustus and DeHarts, Tolsdorfs and Beiers.  There are Grossmans and Vorhies, Kerins and Reeders.  You get the idea.

      I am starting with the Smith, Vorhies, Withrow line, and I am dedicating these first entries to two family members we lost in January of 2015.  First is my mother's brother, John Hiram Grisso (1924-2015). I was born on his 21st birthday on February 21, 1945 while he was serving in the Atlantic during WWII. This connection made him very special to me.  I felt his absence profoundly this year on our birthday.

     My second dedication is to his first cousin, Jean Stevens Johnson (1929-2015).  In genealogy terms, she is my first cousin once removed. She and my mother were first cousins. On January 2, I called Jean with the news of John's passing.  We had a sad but lively conversation.  I spoke of my discovery of the grave of the parents of my Great Grandpa Hiram Lee Smith's parents in Tucumcari, New Mexico far from our Midwest roots.  George Smith (1842-1932) and Mary Smith (1847-1924) were great grandparents of Jean and John.

     Jean was my go to person for family memories and fact checking.  As happens too often, our best resources are gone too soon.  Jean died four days after her cousin, John,  and two days after our conversation.

     My life is richer because of these two family members.