Cousins Meet for the First Time

Well, today has been very special and very rewarding.  Gene met his cousin, Rita, for the very first time.  Here’s their interesting story.

In the fall of 2008, we spent a couple weeks in central Ohio doing a little research on Gene’s family history.  Each day during those weeks, I would post on our trip journal (Homeward Bound) where we went and what we learned.  Of course, in tracing your ancestors and visiting cemeteries, family names are important and many of those names would appear in my trip journal.  When doing a Google search, those entries in the trip journal popped up.  That is how Lee and Rita learned we were relatives.

Rita, the Curp, contacted me via the guestbook.  We have been corresponding for several months and have exchanged family history information and photos.  Today, Gene got to meet his cousin, Rita, and her husband Lee.  Rita’s grandfather and Gene’s grandfather were brothers.

We really had very little to add to Lee’s extensive research.  He has been working on recording the Curp family history for some 30 years.  What dedication!  We are very grateful and appreciative to him for sharing that work of love with us.

We spent the afternoon telling family stories, looking at old photos, and sharing tidbits of our lives.  We hope to visit with them again, if not this trip, then one in the future.  We never know when our paths may cross again.

That’s it for tonight.  Tomorrow we are going to Orlando with Bill and Helen for the Montana Owners Club luncheon.  That’ll be fun.

A Family History Adventure

Whenever we are in Nashville, I always like to take a day for a trip to the area where my grandparents lived.  I am ever on a quest to learn about my family history and not just the names of ancestors, but to see the places where they lived and hear the stories about their lives.  I have really waited too late for some things and those who could have shared their knowledge have gone on to a better life.  Still, I enjoy visiting those old home places and recalling some of the grand times I had as a child.

My grandmother as a teenagers

So, last Friday, I gathered up my uncles and we headed to the country.  The country on this particular day was Hickman County--the area where my mother’s parents lived.  I was especially in search of my great-grandparents’ homesteads.  I didn’t have much information to go on.  I only knew that my grandfather was raised on Taylor’s Creek and that my grandmother grew up on a farm located at the head of Wolf Creek.

My grandmother's parents

Armed with my computer and air card, the Tennessee Atlas & Gazetteer, and the knowledge of my two uncles we set out.  Right away I found that I had relied too heavily on the childhood memories of my two uncles.  They neither one could recall ever having been to either Taylor’s Creek or to a home on Wolf Creek belonging to their grandfather.  It is true that all but one of their grandparents had died before either of them were born.

With the map, however, we were able to find Taylor’s Creek.  Taylor’s Creek Road (a dirt road in relatively good condition) runs parallel to the creek for about 3 miles, but there is no sign of any homestead anywhere along the length of the road.  I was able to get some great information out of these boys.  On the way to Taylor’s Creek we drove past Lowe’s Bend where my grandfather went to school.  I had been by the school many times since it is on the way to the cemetery where many of my ancestors are buried.  As we passed the falling down building, one of my uncles mentioned that after it was a school it had been a church (that I didn’t know) and that he had at one time preached there.  Now that is good family history information.

My grandfather's parents

At the end of Taylor’s Creek Road we found ourselves in the tiny community of Vernon.  In the early days of the county, Vernon was the county seat.  We are fortunate enough to have a stack of “love letters” exchanged by my grandparents when they were courting.  Many of those letters were post marked in Vernon. It is amazing today to think of my grandfather living on Taylor’s Creek and my grandmother living on Wolf Creek, a total distance of about 10 miles apart, having to communicate via the postal service.

Hickman County Courthouse on the square in Centerville

Having searched the length of Taylor’s Creek Road for any sign of an old homestead, we went in search of lunch.  We made our way back to Centerville, now the county seat having been moved from Vernon in the 1820s.  A favorite of my entire family is Breese’s Cafe, a meat and three on the square.  The food’s not the best, but we’ve been going there (since it was the only place) for so long it has become habit.  Still being full from our over indulgence on Thanksgiving, we all just ordered sandwiches instead of meals.

With a little nourishment, we were ready to continue our search.  We all knew where Wolf Creek was located.  You can almost see it from where my grandparents lived on Briar Pond.  Carl and Edd could dredge up a little more memory here and we found a place that seemed to look familiar.  There were also two falling down houses that looked as though they could have been from the late 1800s.

Although we cannot be sure exactly where my grandparents’ lived as children, we at least feel we past the places where they would have played as children, saw the fields where my grandfather drove the plow mules and where my grandmother picked vegetables for dinner.

We also passed by the farm they owned as adults and where my mother, my uncles, and my aunts grew up.  I spent a lot of time there myself as a child and young adult.  That place is sad to me now because it is nothing like it used to be.  The farm house was sold, taken down and moved to Georgia somewhere several years ago.  The barn, where my cousins and I played so many hours, has been torn down.  The chicken houses, smoke house, and out house no longer exist.  There is a new house on the property now and it is oriented perpendicular to the way my grandparents’ home sat.  I almost don’t recognize it any more.

Since we were driving along roads all around the area of my grandparents’ farm, every bend in the road and every farm house brought back a memory.  We were regaled by childhood stories, most of which I have heard over and over, some of which I lived through.  It is these stories I cherish so much and am grateful for this oral history.  Every time I make this trip a new piece of information emerges.  I love it.  I’ll continue to seek the story of my heritage.

The First Harper in Tennessee

The weatherman announced that the rain would be ending this morning, so I gathered up my uncle and mother and we headed to Perry County.  Since my last trip to the country I had found a little more information about the location of the old Dudley Cemetery and was more confident we would be successful in finding it today.

Myself with my Grandmother and Grandfather

We met at my mother’s house and managed to drive about 5 miles before stopping for Cappuccino.  An overdose of sugar and caffeine is sure to help any search.  With the aid of the GPS and having been down Lost Creek Road a couple weeks ago, we were able to go right to the vicinity of the cemetery.  There was a country lane along the edge of a cow pasture which seemed to be the way to go.  However, there was a locked gate and a well placed “No Trespassing” sign between us and where we wanted to be.  After knocking on the door of the nearby house and getting no answer we decided to jump the fence.  The barbed wire was a little inconvenient and we had to be careful where we put our feet so a not to get in a cow pile, but we managed to avoid falling, cutting, or squishing.  But we also managed not to find the cemetery.  As we were making our way back to the truck, I noticed a clump of trees behind the house that looked like a swell place to put an old cemetery.  We hit the jackpot and found the marker of my great, great, great grandfather, the first of our line of Harper’s to settle in Tennessee around 1800.  Surprisingly, the stone was in really good shape.

Here we go--up...

and over.

Wiley V. Harper, my ggg grandfather.

From there we drove to Hickman County and past the farm my grandfather owned.  I can remember him telling me for years that the new road was coming and eventually it did, cutting his farm in two.  Well, it wasn’t his farm by that time because he did not live to see the new road he spoke of for so many years.  Their old log home had been sold and the new owner had taken it apart log by log and moved it to Georgia.  The barn which I played in as a child along with many of my cousins, has fallen down into a heap of decaying wood.  There is now a partially finished block house on the site of the long gone chicken coop and car house.  Nothing much remains of the place of so many of my fondest childhood memories.

We drove past the homestead without even stopping and continued on toward Wolf Creek Cemetery.  This short 3 miles or so took us past where my mother and uncle had both gone to school (that building is also long gone) and the grist mill where Edd, as a boy, had brought corn to be ground into meal. At the cemetery we found the tombstones of two women who were cousins of my grandmother, but we were unable to find the one I was most interested in—my grandmother’s aunt Josie.  Again, like in all the old cemeteries, there are many tombstones which are weathered beyond readability. Hers must have been among that group.

Wolf Creek cemetery

Our stomachs were starting to growl, so our next search was for lunch.  In our opinion, there is no better food to be had in Hickman County than at Breece’s Cafe on the square in Centerville.  It is good country cooking and today I had pulled pork BBQ, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, turnip greens, and white beans for a mere $4.99.  My lunch was less than the cappuccinos we’d had at the beginning of this adventure.  While I was eating, I noticed a statue of Minnie Pearl in front of the courthouse.  Minnie grew up in Hickman County so to end our day it seemed appropriate to have our picture made with this famous fellow Hickman Countian.

Us and Minnie

Another Cemetery Hunt

We finally got a day with no other pressing matters to spend in search of family burial grounds.  Knowing that Gene would not really appreciate curvy dirt roads, I studied the map and devised a route which accomplished my goal by staying mostly on primary country roads.  I lucked out and all the roads were paved, even the ones that had been dirt the last time I made this trek.  We got an early start, which was good because it took longer than I thought it would.

We drove down Hwy 100 to Centerville in Hickman County.  I had taken this same route hundreds of times over my lifetime.  When living in Nashville as a child, we visited my grandparents almost every weekend and my brother and I lived there during the summer months.  During these summer stays, my grandfather would drive me around showing me all his special places—where he went to school, where he lived, where my grandmother lived as a child.  I can very well remember going for those rides, but as a child I had no concept of direction or distance.  Today I can remember being in the car and seeing the building or house, but have no idea where those places are located.  I can also very well remember going for dinner on the ground on Decoration Day at the cemetery.

Today I wanted to visit Chessor Cemetery.  That wasn’t difficult to find.  I had been there often as a child, but also a few times as an adult.  Besides, it is on Chessor Cemetery Road which is very clearly marked on the map.  Luckily, HWY 438 was very near by.  We are related to several folks buried here, but the primary one I was interested in was my great grandfather John Dee Harper, my grandmother’s father.  We found the row of Harpers easily enough, but John Dee was not among the headstones in that row.  We found his brother Samuel and wife and we also found his sister Sally and her husband.  We even found his stepmother Helen Fain Harper, but not John Dee.  There are at least 3 other family members buried at this cemetery that I know of that we did not find.  There were, like in so many old cemeteries, many tombstones which were illegible.  They are, no doubt, among those that couldn’t be read.  I was disappointed.

Chessor Cemeetery

John Dee and Mary Etta Daily Harper, my great grandparents.

Back out on Hwy 438 we headed west to connect with Hwy 13 toward Lobelville in Perry County.  My grandmother was from Perry County.  Both her father, John Dee and his wife, Mary Etta Daily, lived there.  The Harpers came from Halifax, North Carolina in the early 1800s.  The first Harpers to settle in TN were Wiley V (John Dee’s grandfather) and his wife Sarah. They had several children born in Hickman County and then died in Perry Co.  I learned just this week in my research that Wiley V and his wife are buried in Perry Co on Lost Creek Road.  My goal today was to find that cemetery.

Carroll and Susan Daily,
my great great grandparents.

It just so happens that Lost Creek Road is intersected by Russell Creek Road.  It is on Russell Creek Road that the Daily’s are buried.  I know very little about the Daily’s.  I know that my grandmother’s grandparents were Carroll and Susan Daily.  Only this week did I learn from the 1850 US Census of Perry County that Carroll’s father was John Daily.  The Daily Cemetery on Russell Creek Road is a very small family plot with only 4 tombstones still standing and 2 field stones with no legible markings.  In searching the Perry Co Cemetery records I cannot find a John Daily or wife Sarah listed.  John died before the 1860 census, Sarah being listed as the head of household, and in the 1880 census Sarah was living in the household with her son Carroll and his family.  I would not surprise me if these two fieldstones were the grave markers for John and Sarah Daily.

Daily Cemetery

Down the street at Lost Creek Road we searched for the Dudley Cemetery where John Dee’s grandfather, Wiley V Harper, is said to be buried.  We made two trips down the road and found 2 other cemeteries, but not the one we were looking for.  Again, I was disappointed.  Finding this cemetery is a high priority for me so I will give it another shot another day.

Ice cream at McDonald’s on the way home and we called it a day.

A Day of Internet Research

We woke up to a very brisk day this morning.  Although our thermometer registered about 38, it must have been at least freezing because the left over ice that wouldn’t fit in the cooler was still frozen this morning on the picnic table.

After our walk, I settled into a day of research in an effort to find any information about my great grandparents (my mother’s mother’s parents).  My grandmother was a Harper—a very common name.  When I was a child, she often told me that she was part Native American.  She didn’t know how exactly, but she had always been told that.  In reading many, many entries on the Harper Genealogy Forum, I have discovered that apparently every Harper has been told the same story.  There was even one writer who suggested that Harper was a tribal family name.

I did find, however, one Annah Downing was a full-blooded Cherokee.  Annah married a Harper (no first name was given) and they had about 10 children.  One of those children was a daughter named Anna who married Archibald Connelly.  Anna and Archibald lived for a number of years between about 1820 and 1840 in Hickman County.  It is possible we could be related to Anna Harper (one-half Cherokee) and Archibald Connelly.  As yet, I have not found a connection.

Carroll and Susan Daily

My grandmother’s mother was Mary Etta Daily Harper.  The Daily’s have always been a mystery to me.  I know that my great grandfather was Carroll Dock Daily and his was married to Susan McCaig, both born in Perry Co.  I had never been able to find any other information about that family.  Today, I got a real break at the Perry Co GenWeb site.  In the past couple years, the volunteers there have really made some improvements in the site and added a tremendous amount of data.  One of the things they’ve added is the 1860 census. Carroll’s name popped up on that census and I was able to learn the name of my great-great-great grandfather—John Daily.  Plus there was a list of 8 other siblings.  That made an all day session with the internet worthwhile.  Another thing that the Perry Co GenWeb site has added is cemetery records.  It appears they have every cemetery in the county listed with it’s location, and tombstone information.  The Daily cemetery was listed along with the 4 tombstones there including Carroll Dock, Susan, and Mary Etta Harper.  I haven’t completed my search through all the cemeteries listed, but so far I have not found a tombstone for John Daily or his wife Sarah.

John Dee and Mary Etta Daily Harper

If we can get the refrigerator fixed tomorrow, then Friday we will make a trip to Hickman County.  The first order of business is the refrigerator, so that is what we will be dealing with tomorrow.

A Lazy, Rainy Day in Nashville

The rain started sometime in the night and continued most of the day.  It is a slow, steady, soaking rain and greatly needed in these parts.  We each continue to complete chores on our lists.  We certainly won’t have time to be bored while in town.

My Aunt Betty and her daughter Joan

I used this drab day to get myself organized to work on family history.  I already have a lot of information and much of the genealogy back to the early 1700 so my focus is on seeing the area where the family lived when they migrated to Tennessee and hear the stories of their lives.  As in Ohio, I want to visit the cemeteries (most of the ones in my family were searched out years ago).  There is one that I think exists, but I’m not sure where.  I want to try to find that.  My mother’s oldest sister was born in a house in a place called Taylor’s Creek.  I’d like to find that, if possible.  Then there are the hours of plodding around the internet to find new information.  With Nashville being the state capitol, the State Archives is located here.  We may find ourselves spending some time there, as well.  I’m going to start with my mother’s father’s side of the family—the Lancasters.  I have quite a bit of information on them already, but am always looking for anything new.

First time ever to use disposable plates at my mother's.

As with Gene’s family, I also have a stack of photos which I can’t identify.  I have a little bag with paper, pen, my family notes, and the sack of photos.  It will be my constant companion.  This time I am going to add a piece of dark chalk or charcoal and parchment paper to do tombstone rubbings.  I regret not having that in Ohio for some of the stones which were too deteriorated to read.

Uncle Carl on his 80th birthday

Get ready for the stories to be told about my family.  They are many, they are varied, and they are all hysterical.  Perhaps the best thing we Lancasters do is eat.  If there is food, we are there.  And where the Lancasters are gathered, I am usually there with the camera.  Come along for this journey—it’ll be a hoot.

A Day to Regroup

Boy, did I need a day to stay home, do laundry and a little cleaning, and to generally relax. It has been a whirlwind of activity for the past 10 days. It makes me feel my age. I really feel good about all the information I have been able to collect while we’ve been here. Between the internet research, conversations with family, visiting cemeteries, and just driving around the country side I have managed to put together a family tree for the Ashcrafts dating back thirteen generations to Richard Ashcraft born in England around 1600. It may never be completely finished and I will continue to work on the family connections, but not to the extent I have this week. I have been disappointed to not find any information about the Reids. So far I have not had a response to my inquiry on the Reid genealogy forum. Maybe I’ll get a lucky break there.

Always time for ice cream.

In between chores, I have been refreshing my memory on the Curps. They will be our focus for the next few days. This family came to America more recently than did the Ashcrafts, so I only have a few generations for the family tree. However, we have more detail of the members and, thank goodness, no unidentified photos.

Tomorrow we are moving south to Chillicothe. The Curps settled in the area sometime in the early 1800s. The family patriarch in America, Frederick Curp, was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church by Bishop Asbury, himself. He came to Highland or Ross County, Ohio from Pennsylvania to work for the church in that area. It is my understanding that there is a Curp Cemetery located on the church property where Frederick preached. We are hoping to find the cemetery where Frederick and his wife are buried. It would be a real bonus if the church building were still standing. So stay tuned.

Corders and Curps, Part II

My head is still reeling from yesterday, but after having the day to digest and sort out the facts I think I can safely say there are just too many twists and turns and it all makes my head hurt. It makes Gene’s stomach hurt. I think we’ve had enough of family history to last a while, maybe forever.

We were struck by the abject poverty suffered by these families during the 1920s and 30s. Doris and Pat were born in the 30s. Doris told of being given sugar water because they couldn’t afford milk. She also told of sharing a graham cracker with her mother which had been given to them by a friend. The story is so sad, not only that they had to share a single graham cracker, but also because the friend, generous as she was, could only afford to give them the one cracker. Why do I complain about anything? There were also many stories about night clubs, drinking, and wild parties as the 30s gave way to the 40s, prohibition came to an end, the war started and the economy improved.

One of the main things we want out of this journey into the past is to hear about the lives of our parents and grandparents. Thus far, so many of the stories told have been hard to hear. But in the hearing we gain a better understanding and fuller appreciation for the people whose lives have shaped our own. Often as children we want to lay blame at our parents’ feet thinking we would have made better choices and done things differently. We can’t know why people do certain things unless we have walked in their shoes-experienced their life’s hardships. The lesson we are remembering is to hold tight to God’s teachings of compassion toward others, even in what we might perceive as their failings and try to live so we can be proud of ourselves.

This evening we met Doug and Cheryl for dinner and farewells for this visit. Tomorrow will be a chore day for me (a work day for Gene) in preparation for moving on Wednesday. We are headed a littler farther south to see what more we can find on the Curps.

Corders and Curps

Oh, my, what a day. There is no way I can relate this story in just one telling; it requires at least 2 parts. We left Zanesville early this morning and headed into Columbus to pick up Gene’s half sister, Doris. Doris had arranged for us to visit with Pat Corder. I think I better include a little background here. Gene’s mother had been married prior to her marriage to his father to a man named Harold Martin. Gene’s brother, Doug, is really his half brother—Doug’s father being Harold. Harold Martin’s parents were Thomas and Bertha Corder. Pat Corder’s grandmother was Bertha Corder’s sister. My pile of unidentified photos contained, I was sure, many of the Martins and Corders. We were anxious to spread our photos before Pat having all faith she could tell us who they were and what relationship they had to Edna.

Doris and Pat

 After a few missed turns and a couple phone calls to Doris, we finally ended up on her doorstep. We took a few minutes for hugs and greetings then piled in the truck to drive back to Newark, where Pat lives. From the time she opened the front door until we left some 3 hours later, she never stopped talking. She was a wealth of information. We learned more in those 3 hours than we had all week. I couldn’t write fast enough. Pat was also kind enough to make copies of several obituaries for me.

Gene and Doris

We knew that Doris was somehow related to the Corder’s through her mother’s side, but we didn’t know how. We were surprised to learn that Pat’s mother and Doris’s grandmother (her mother’s mother) were sisters. We didn’t realize they were so closely related. Doris, as a child, spent a great deal of time at her grandmother’s following her parent’s divorce. She, Pat, and Pat’s older sister became very close. More surprising than that was the story that Edna and Doug lived for a short period of time following her divorce with one of the sibling of Bertha Corder, her ex-in-laws. All of this certainly explained why there were so many Corder pictures in Edna’s photo album. She even had a photo of Pat’s father as a boy of about 4 years old. Incredible!

John Corder's house in Virginia

Along with the identity of the folks in the pictures and the relationships between all the Ashcrafts, Corders, Martins, and Curps there were the stories. One right after another of trips to the candy store, roller skating, breakfast of toast and coffee, and the painting of John Corder’s house.

Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow.

A Day Chasing the Dead

We left the house early and after a quick stop for coffee at Tim Horton’s we set out in search of Broomstick Cemetery. Gene had been able to find directions from the internet so it wasn’t a total stab in the dark. We made a wrong turn and ended up in Dresden, the home of Longaberger Baskets. It was early Saturday morning and the streets of this tiny rural Ohio town were already buzzing with basket shoppers. We saw not one but two tour buses pull into town as we were trying to get turned around and back on the right path to the cemetery.

Broomstick Cemetery

Maybe Daniel B. Ashcraft

Literally, over hill and dale we finally found what we were looking for on gravel county route 68. This was the cemetery where Gene’s GGG grandfather is buried, the first Ashcraft to come to Ohio in 1808. We were very disappointed in not finding his gravesite. Many of the tombstones were illegible. We found one that might possibly be him, but we’re not sure. We found his son, Jacob and wife, as well as a grandson, Jesse. I have three photographs of Shelda standing by tombstones, one is an Ashcraft and the other two are McKees. We have not yet been able to locate the cemeteries where these photos were taken. The search never ends.

One of the tombstones that can't be found.

After leaving the cemetery, Gene wanted to continue on route 68. What a stroke of luck that decision was. We eventually came to the junction of route 80 and, would you believe, Ashcraft Rd. In the area we found a young man out in his yard and we ask about cemeteries in the area. He told us that all the land in the area had belonged to the McKee family. (Two McKee boys had married Ashcraft girls and one Ashcraft boy married a McKee girl, so the families are related.) Following Ashcraft Road, we did not find a cemetery, but it was exciting to be on the land of the first Ashcrafts in Ohio.

We stopped again at Frazeysburg Cemetery to double check we hadn’t missed anything there, then home for the day. Our time in Licking County is coming to an end. I may have to save the search for Ashcrafts for another visit.

Tomorrow, we are meeting with Gene’s half-sister, Doris, in Columbus. I will turn my attention to the Curps. Doris is several years older than Gene so she may know something about the Ashcrafts, but I really doubt it. They were mostly dead before she came into the family. We have a fist full of nonAshcraft photos for her attention.

Visiting With Cousins

I spent most of the day surfing the internet for some clues to the family mysteries. I found a great site to fill in gaps in the Ashcraft history, especially some of those tombstones I got pictures of on Monday. One thing just jumped out at me late last night. I had assumed all the Ashcrafts in this area were buried at Frazeysburg Cemetery. In my notes, I had Broomstick Cemetery listed as the place of burial for Daniel B, Gene’s GGG grandfather and I thought that was in West Virginia. Last night I was looking at the Coshocton County Genealogy site and low and behold there was a picture of Broomstick Cemetery. Now I am certain there is another cemetery to be found. The library did not have the book I wanted to see, so will put that on the back burner for now. I was able to find out that the book is still in print and available for purchase from the author. I want to see a copy first before I spend $35 for something that may have little if anything to do with our line of Ashcrafts. Still no luck with the Reids, however, I did post a query on the Reid forum. Hopefully, I’ll get a response.

Edna and Gladys, 1926

This afternoon we went for a great visit with Wanda and her husband, Carl. Doug and Cheryl were there also. We had great fun and laughed at many old memories and stories. Wanda’s mother, Gladys, was Gene’s mother, Edna’s, older sister. Wanda was not much help as far as identifying the old photos, only able to identify one person. Every little bit helps, but still I had placed a lot of faith in Wanda. They did tell a lot of stories about Edna, Gladys, and Shelda, grandma Ashcraft. Everybody liked to visit with grandma because she was so much fun—always having a good time. Shelda apparently liked to get dressed up and go shopping with Pearl. They were unable to verify that Pearl was Shelda’s sister, but at least I have a name to go with the face in the photo. Gladys, being older, liked to boss everybody around and would get mad if those being bossed didn’t do what they were told.

Shelda (R) and Pearl at Woolworths

Several stories were told about baby Gene, also. Wanda said she liked to visit at Aunt Edna’s because she liked to watch Gene. He was a happy child. There was a great deal of talk about his bathroom habits. Maybe more information than we really needed or wanted.

Gene and Doug

Wanda and Gene

Carl

Cheryl and myself.

Tomorrow we’ll go in search of Broomstick Cemetery in Coshocton Co. It’s not far from here, about 10 miles. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky.

A Day of Research

The day dawned without rain but with plenty of fog. So much fog in fact, that schools were delayed by 2 hours. That is the first time I have ever known schools to open late due to fog. It was true, you couldn’t see your hand before your face. But by midmorning, it was a glorious fall with a big blue sky.

View out my window as I work

It was a great day to be outdoors, but I stayed focused on the family history with my nose in the computer until late in the day. I was able to plug in a few more names in the Ashcraft history then I got a big break about noon and found on the Genealogy.com Ashcraft forum a reference to a book on the family in the Genealogy Room at the Licking County Public Library. That got moved to the top of my list for tomorrow. That was a real morale booster and it got my blood flowing and my brain working again. I also went back to photos that I have already on CD. I found one of Shelda taken at a cemetery. I had always assumed that any photos of Ashcrafts at a cemetery would be at Frazeysburg. However, it was obviously a tombstone we had not seen on Monday and one that couldn’t have been missed. Saturday we will go out searching for the missing cemetery.

I was not so lucky with the Reid research. That always comes up a dead end. I just don’t have enough names in that family to go on. Gene has a cousin who is several years older than both he and Doug. We, with old photos in hand, are descending on her tomorrow afternoon. Maybe she will be able to put a few names with the faces in the pictures as well as give me a few more clues about the Reid’s. She is my last hope among the living relatives.

View of the Y-shaped bridge

Traffic light in the middle of the bridge

Late this afternoon we took a break and drove downtown Zanesville. One of the area attractions is the Y-shaped bridge. This unusual bridge crosses the confluence of the Muskingum and Licking Rivers. Zanesville is the county seat for Muskingum County and the courthouse is rather impressive for a small rural town in central Ohio. St. Nicholas Catholic Church may not be the largest congregation in town, but they have the most impressive building.

St Nicholas Catholic Church

Zanesville Courthouse

Tomorrow it is off to the library and then back to Newark to visit with cousin Wanda. It’ll be another busy day.

The Search Continues

Well, so much for my plan of staying home today and working on the information I collected yesterday and trying to get myself organized with a list of questions to ask the relatives when we see them. Gene’s conference call turned out to be mid-afternoon and with the sun shining this morning and a forecast for rain tomorrow, we decided we would take advantage of the good weather and drive into Newark again to find the second house he lived in as a child. Close by is the cemetery where his parents are buried.

Gene (baby) and Doug at the house we saw yesterday.

It was a good trip. We went to the cemetery first and visited a while at his parent’s grave site. With a little help from the grounds people, one of whom has been working at that cemetery for 33 years, we were able to quickly find the grave sites of Gene’s paternal grandfather, two uncles and an aunt. I don’t want to get into the Curps just yet because the majority of the Curps are buried near Cincinnati and will tell those stories when we get there. It is confusing enough with so many Ashcrafts to deal with.

We had to make 3 passes before we were able to locate his boyhood home. The neighborhood has changed a great deal in 50 years and the only thing that helped us to find the house was the driveway. There was a circular driveway then and it is still there today. Unfortunately, we were unable to get a picture because the street was very busy with no place to pull off for a few minutes. We felt a little uncomfortable pulling into the driveway, especially since the circle went practically upon to the porch. So we passed by a couple more times at 50 miles an hour and stared as best we could.

Down the street from the house was a market which was there when Gene was living in the neighborhood. Gene went in to get a coke and felt compelled to relate this story which happened when he was about 7. His dad took him in this very store one day to buy a cold drink. With drink in hand, little Gene stuck the straw in the bottle and began to suck, and suck, and suck to no avail. With one last suck the fly which was either lodged in the straw or in the bottom of the bottle made its way up and into Gene’s mouth. I didn’t ask and I don’t want to know what happened to the fly after Gene bit it in two with his little baby teeth.

Gene about the age of the fly incident

Farther down the road is Ye Old Mill, the Velvet ice cream plant. Yes, they were making ice cream today and yes, we had some. We went there, not for the ice cream (well not entirely), but because we had a photo of a Reid family reunion which was at Ye Old Mill in 1934. Shelda Ashcraft was a Reid. That is a very large family that I know very little about.

Reid Reunion at Ye Old Mill in 1934

Because we did this instead of staying home this morning, I got behind in my chores for today. While I am writing this story and trying to get it posted, Gene is being a super husband and doing the laundry. Divide and conquer—we do it often.

Ye Old Mill today

Tomorrow, I’m taking my pile of pictures to Doug’s house in Lancaster. I’m hoping he can remember who some of these folks are.

Frazeysburg Cemetery

What a day. We got together this morning with Gene’s brother and his wife then drove over to Frazeysburg Cemetery where many Ashcrafts are buried. The cemetery is large, sitting between cornfields on two sides and highway 16 in the distance. The remoteness of the area has left the cemetery much as it was when Gene’s grandmother, Shelda, was buried there in 1952. We found graves of 93 Ashcrafts, which is a far greater number than I have identified in the family tree. I’ll be spending tomorrow going through each one of these names and trying to plug them in where they belong within the group. Among the tombstones were Gene’s grandfather, Charles S., his great grandfather, Josiah, and his great-great grandfather, Daniel A.

The search is on.

Over lunch at Longaberger’s, Doug related several stories from his childhood and memories of grandma Shelda. We had good laughs over several of these stories and were surprised at others. We did not know that Edna had sent Doug one summer to what she had called a “health camp”. The purpose was to fatten Doug up a little. Doug was a skinny little kid; that’s pretty obvious from his pictures. Doug didn’t like the camp—he didn’t like being away from home even though the camp facility was near his neighborhood. So every few days he would run away. He always ran to the safe haven at grandma Shelda’s. When the camp couldn’t find Doug, they’d call Edna, she would tell them to go to Shelda’s. It didn’t take many times before the camp officials learned the routine and whenever they missed Doug, they would go over to Shelda’s and drag him back to camp. I guess grandma Shelda felt sorry for Doug and to help him plan his escape suggested he run away to Aunt Gladys’s house so the camp couldn’t find him.

Briefly, about our lunch spot--Longaberger is a basketmaker in Frazeysburg. There are factory tours available and several gift shops as well as the restaurant. Our focus today was family history so we stopped by for lunch then went on our way. However, if we have a couple extra hours this week, we may go back to do a little holiday gift buying. It is my understanding that Longaberger baskets are somewhat of a collector’s item.

Charles and Shelda's home.

First house Gene lived in.

After lunch we drove into Newark and Doug did the old homestead tour for us. We saw many of the houses where relatives had once lived and the old Heisey Glass factory where several of the men in the family worked. It was pretty amazing to us that this large extended family lived and worked within a 2 or 3 mile radius of each other.

We got back to the Montana about 5 o’clock, pretty exhausted and overwhelmed with all we had seen, done, and heard today. We are off to a good start.