Life at the Home20

As I have said, I haven’t done much research in the past five years or so.  I am currently reacquainting myself with file after file of collected census records, pictures, tombstone photos, printed webpages, handwritten notes and emails.

Of particular interest tonight is an email I received from a fellow Eiland researcher dated September 29, 2001 when I had an AOL account.  I am so glad I had the smarts to print this out.  It really expresses one of the best things about genealogy - meeting cousins and forming new bonds that will hopefully last a very long time.

This email was very lengthy but held a tremendous amount of emotion from a 21 year old young lady who was compelled to study her family tree because of the serious illness of her father.  She researched her family strictly through message boards because she did not have the extra money to spend on website subscriptions and certified copies of vital records.  She hadn’t had much luck until she requested some information from me by email.  Apparently I had the right answers.

She told me I had “given her a gift” that she “would cherish forever” and that she was going to surprise her father with her “secret” research that morning.  I am so glad that I was able to help her father “forget his troubles” for just a little while.

Unfortunately I have lost contact with this young lady but I am trying to reconnect.  I am anxious to get an update on her and her family.  Her father was in remission at the time she wrote the email but said that he had been very depressed.  The cancer had taken his larnyx, voice box and rerouted his trachea.  There had been numerous infections and setbacks over the months.

While I cannot imagine what this family has been through, I hope that the discovery of their heritage may have helped them to some degree find some diversion from their problems and strengthened the bonds between them.

Note:  This post was submitted for the Carnival of Genealogy, 53rd Edition: The Carousel hosted by Jasia at Creative Gene.

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While on Facebook, I received an invitation to participate in the GeneaBlogger’s Picnic this week.  I had to think about this one.

My family was never big on picnics that I can recall.  I grew up in Northwest Texas and picnics were more trouble than they were worth.  Between the wind blowing everything off the table and the dirt getting into the food - well, we just stayed home.  If the weather was nice we’d go out to the back yard.  If the wind picked up, you could easily move indoors.  Even at Aunt Jewel’s house we’d just pile up at the kitchen and dining room tables.  The player piano was in the dining room anyway.  You couldn’t beat that.

So I don’t remember much when it comes to family cooking. Uncle Wayne liked to fish so we ate rainbow trout at his house.  Uncle Winston had working bird dogs that we weren’t allowed to play with so we ate quail at his house (the one with the player piano).

Closer to home, I remember sitting down at my grandmother’s table one night, eyeing the mashed potatoes.  I got a huge helping.  It was mashed turnips.  She made me eat the whole thing.  I never ate a turnip again.

She had a dish she called goulash.  Now we’re not what you would call an ethnic family of any sorts so it wasn’t true goulash, in the Hungarian sense anyway.  When I would ask my grandmother “what we were” she had a standard answer, “English, Irish, Scotch and French”.  She never elaborated but I found out years later that she was dead on.  Anyway, back to the goulash - all she did was brown some hamburger meat with onions and bell peppers, add some noodles, canned tomatoes and cheddar cheese.  I craved that stuff and still make it today.

Her specialty, however, was smothered steak.  I think that was what she served with the mashed turnips that fateful night I mentioned earlier.  It was simply round steak browned with onions and simmered in gravy for about an hour.  I still cook that as well.

Now I also loved her roast beef with potatoes, carrots and gravy but I always knew what came the next night and I hated it - hash.  She would put all the leftovers from the previous night together and serve over toast.  I couldn’t stand for the toast to get soggy (from the gravy) and I would eat as fast as I could, which got me in trouble, of course.  But wouldn’t you know, now I love hash.  She had a good thing going after all.

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Hank Jones uses several words and phrases to describe the meaning of serendipity in his book Psychic Roots.  I’d like to use these words and phrases to share a few of my stories.  The first is “fortuitous luck”.

Several years ago, GetAlong and I took an extended vacation around Texas.  I had accumulated enough genealogical facts and theories that it would take us a good week to make the journey.  This trip was more about getting photographic evidence of what I knew existed than it was about searching for the unknown.  Digital cameras were over $1000 at the time and considered a luxury.  By the time we arrived in Lockney (Floyd County)  we were adept at locating the city cemeteries.  They are usually located on one of the main roads going into or out of town, not necessarily the highways, but the roads frequented by the locals.

Lockney Cemetery is in the heart of west Texas, desolate, windy, dusty, dreary even.  The grass was dying in the summer heat and the trees were scarce.  You can see everything for miles and miles.  Well, except for the jackrabbit that almost gave GetAlong a heart attack when he jumped out from behind a tombstone.  GetAlong had never been to West Texas.  I was born and raised there so I was actually looking for jackrabbits.  From the look on his face you would have thought a ghost had reached out and grabbed him.

I had not come across a published transcription of the cemetery but I knew enough family members had lived and died in Lockney that several had to be buried there.  Sure enough we found the graves of Rush and Dezzie Hadley, then Charlie and Martha McCollum and some others.

Charlie was the son of Newman Theodore McCollum and his wife, Susan Caroline Nichols, known as Carrie.  Now there IS a published transcription of the Alabama cemetery where N. T. McCollum was buried and includes a complete description of his tombstone.  It’s a little more detailed than most.  There is no mention of Carrie’s tombstone but since the cemetery is supposedly in disrepair I had assumed hers had been destroyed.

Imagine my amazement when I discovered the grave of S. C., wife of N. T. McCollum, next to that of Charlie McCollum.  It was the last thing I was looking for when I got there and probably the most treasured finding from the whole trip.

Later I found out that she was visiting Charlie in Lockney when she became ill.  She made him promise to take her body back to Alabama if she died but Charlie obviously didn’t comply with her wishes.  I wonder what that says about his true character.

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My great grandfather’s only sibling was a younger sister named Ada Caladonia Hadley.  She was born July 30, 1869 near Cleburne in Johnson County, Texas.  The family moved to Callahan County a few years later where their father, Thomas B. Hadley, would become a prominent citizen and county sheriff in the late 1890’s.

Ada married Frank L. Alvord, son of Joshua Alvord and Lucy Leavenworth, on December 27, 1888 in Callahan County.  They had 4 children:

• Ruby Ree Alvord, 1889-1890
• Mabel Alvord, born May 24, 1892
• Frank Hadley Alvord, 1894-1900
• Boyce Edwin Alvord, born March 22, 1901

Ada and Frank lived on a ranch in Shackleford County, just north of Callahan County.  Thomas Hadley owned land there as well.  These photos were taken probably in the early 1950’s while my mother’s family was on a vacation in the area.

This is Aunt Ada with my grandmother, Melba Hadley Eiland, and her brother, Edwin Hadley.

This is Aunt Ada’s house.

And this is the bunkhouse.  I would really love to find out if either structure is still standing.

Ada Hadley Alvord died May 16, 1960 in Callahan County, Texas and is buried in Ross Cemetery in Baird near her parents and brother.  I do not know the whereabouts of her surviving children.

Edit:  I was not going to post this photo because it was so blurry but I got to thinking that someone might recognize the two people to the left.  I do not know who they are so I suppose they may be one or both of Aunt Ada’s children.

Unknown, unknown, Aunt Ada, Edwin Hadley, Melba Hadley Eiland, and Lucille Hadley (Uncle Edwin’s wife).

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I caught a PBS rerun tonight called “A Cemetery Special“.  Apparently it originally aired a couple of years ago just before Halloween, although there was nothing scary about it. The producers visited several historic cemeteries across the country, each with its own special qualities.

• One of the oldest cemeteries in the country is Mount Auburn.  It sits on a hill overlooking Boston and is known for its parklike setting where many people visit just to enjoy the serenity of the surroundings.
• Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh was the site of a recent rededication of a Civil War grave which had been incorrectly inscribed for decades.  The location of the grave was facilitated by a man who enjoys walking among the numerous military graves there.
• Key West Cemetery in Florida has an eclectic mix of burial customs, both below ground and above, even a “double-decker” of sorts.  And wild roosters live among the trees there.
• Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, another parklike setting, is known for Daffodil Hill and the grave of President Garfield who was assassinated.
• Oakwood Cemetery in Atlanta has 6900 Confederate graves but only a handful of Union soldiers are buried there.  There’s a restaurant across the street called “Six Feet Under”.
• Waterloo, New York, known as the Birthplace of Memorial Day, really knows how to honor their fallen heroes.  Several ceremonies take place in the city’s cemeteries every Memorial Day and all the military graves are decorated with flags.
• All graves were removed from San Francisco about 1905 due to extreme neglect and moved to an area outside the city.  Seventeen cemeteries now reside in that area, representing a wide variety of cultural backgounds and include a Fung Shui cemetery for Buddhists.
• Finally, in Fairbanks, Alaska, the recently deceased are stored through the winter for burial in spring.  Birch Hill Cemetery has a very “natural” setting with numerous Alaskan native graves colorfully decorated with folk art type pieces.

Many of the cemeteries conduct tours on a regular basis so be sure to visit if you’re in one of these cities.  The architecture, gardens and artwork are beautiful.  The show is available on DVD and well worth the time.

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