The Children of Jacob & Mary Heilman

Recently I wrote about Jacob Heilman, Civil War veteran.  This piece is about his children.

Jacob Heilman (1819-1907) was born in Bavaria, as was his wife Maria Baker (1832-1912).  He and Maria (pictured above) were married in Ohio in 1850 and they spent the rest of their married lives there, first in Defiance County and then in Henry County.  Twelve children were born between 1852 and 1879.  Two died in childhood—Jacob at age two in 1861 and Minnie at age two in 1878.  Ten more survived to adulthood:

Sarah married George Patten and died at age 23 in 1875, a few weeks after the death of her baby daughter Jenora.

Mary Ann married Thomas Garver, a preacher.  After the birth of three sons (who predeceased her) and two daughters (who survived her), she died at age 31, of “consumption” (tuberculosis).  Thomas later married her sister Ellen.

Martha (known as “Matt” all her life, and pictured above) was said to be very short.  She never married and worked as a servant in several households, later living with her widowed mother until her mother’s death.  After that she lived on her own, and then with brother William, until her death at age 88 in 1943.

Elizabeth, called “Lib,” married John Overly and they had six children.  They lived a quiet life, and she died in 1932 at age 74.

Ellen married Thomas Garver after her sister Mary Ann’s death left him a widow.  She and Thomas had five children before Thomas’ death left her a widow at age forty.  When Ellen died in Michigan in 1941, her body was returned to Ohio and buried next to Thomas, with her sister Mary Ann buried nearby.

John never married.  He lived with his older sister Elizabeth Overly as a young man; then with his parents; then with his widowed mother and sister Martha; the with his nephew Jacob Overly and family.  He died at age 73 of cirrhosis of the liver and was buried near his parents.

Kathryn married George Brubaker and they had seven children; the first two predeceased her.  Like nearly all the Heilman siblings, she lived all her life in Ohio.  She was the last of the Heilman siblings to die, in 1961 at age 94.

Emma married a Garver, like her sisters Mary Ann and Ellen—Thomas Garver’s brother Charles.  She and Charles had nine children and they settled in Michigan.  It is said in the family that she liked to quilt, and would say “By cracky,” “Oh, Lordy,” or “Oh, catshit!” when her thread would break.  She kept the family farm going after her husband’s death with the help of her son Roy, until his death two years later at age 26.  After that she lived with one or another of her children until her death at age 73 in 1943.  She is my husband’s great-grandmother.

Ernest (pictured above) married Alta Mae Brubaker and they had four children.  He died in 1916 at age 43.  The notice in the Northwest News said, “Mr. Ernest Heilman dropped dead Sunday while riding in his automobile.  Heart trouble was the cause.”

William, the youngest, married Leah Blanche Siford and they had eight children.  According to family historian Dale Garver, William worked in the mills and made canal boats until those businesses closed up shop.  From there he worked clearing land and settled with his family on a farm in Henry County, Ohio.  He died in 1955 at age 76.

The Children of Warren and Addie Alwood

I’ve written before about Warren Charles Alwood, who was a good and faithful man.  Warren and Addie raised six children…  The first three had no surviving children of their own.  The next two had thirty surviving children between the two them!  And the last had just one surviving child.

Franklin Mark-Alwood:  Franklin was born to Addie Mark five years before she married Warren.  Since the math didn’t add up, I dug up a birth record.  He was born to Addie in Ohio, out of wedlock, no father listed.  But after their marriage, Warren raised Frankie as his own, calling him his “son” in the census records.  According to Franklin’s obituary, he had suffered from some type of spinal problem since babyhood.  He died in 1900 at age 13 of typhoid fever.

Irvin Burgoyne Alwood:  Irvin’s 1918 draft card describes him as medium height and build, with blue eyes and light hair.  He served in the U.S. Army Infantry in World War I, as part of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe.  Later he worked in a foundry—not easy work!  Irvin had no children with either of his wives.  He died in 1963 at age 71 and is buried with second wife Leah.

Wayne Nedry Alwood:  Wayne served in World War I as a private in the 337^th Infantry.  His draft card said he was tall, slender, with gray eyes and dark hair.  Wayne never married; his niece Denise Haring said that he fell in love with a girl whose parents didn’t approve, and they moved her away, and he was so brokenhearted that he gave up on marriage for good.  In the 1920 census he lives with his father and little sister Beulah; in the 1930 census he lives with his sister Floy and her family; by 1940 he lives with his cousin Alice in Ohio.  Wayne died in 1948 in his fifties at a VA hospital in Michigan from heart disease, which he probably inherited from his mother. 

Hazel Irene Alwood:  Hazel married at sixteen and had fifteen children, fourteen of whom survived to adulthood to have children of their own.  She and husband Walter Garver were farmers.  (I’ve talked about her family in another post.)  Hazel died at age 72.

Floy Dell Alwood:  Floy outdid her sister Hazel in the effort to produce the most grandchildren for Warren—she and husband Charles Haring had sixteen children!  The family is pictured below.  Floy’s death was a very tragic one…  As two granddaughters told it in a family cookbook/history book, Floy worked at a local laundry to help support her large family.  One day she was told of an automobile accident involving one of her daughters and a friend in which, she was told, her daughter was killed.  Floy had a heart attack that day, and died shortly after, at age 61.  As it turned out, her daughter had survived the accident.

Beulah Marie Alwood:  Beulah lost her mother when she was only six and was raised by her father, with the help of her brother Wayne.  (Below is a photograph of Beulah and Wayne around 1912.)  Beulah grew up to marry local farmer LaDoyt Alverado Carey and they had two sons.  The older one, John, died at four months due to accidental strangulation.  What a tragedy!  I wonder how it affected their family?  Beulah died at age 57.

I love to trace the paths of a married couple and all their children, not just the one who is a direct ancestor.  In genealogy they call it “descendancy research.”  I call it “finding the stories.”

The Wallin Siblings: Blazing a Path

“We grew up together in the same Nebraska town…. buried in wheat and corn… burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky… blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron.  We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it.”  ―Willa Cather, My Antonia

I recently wrote about my great-grandfather Frederick (F.I.) Wallin and his wife Christina, my Swedish “gateway ancestors” on the Wallin branch of the family tree.  Here is the family in Nebraska around 1903.  In the back are Aurora, Ray, Isador, Ithel, and Inez; my grandfather Sture Nels is standing in the middle; and great-grandpa Frederick, young Leonard, and great-grandma Christina are seated in front.  Such fine Swedish names!

Unlike the Peterson branch of the family, the Wallins all lived to adulthood to marry and, in most cases, have families of their own...

Isidor Hilmer (1879-1977) was called “Ike.”  He and his sister Inez were born when the family was still in Chautauqua County, New York, before they went west to Nebraska.  Ike was married twice and had five children with first wife, Selma Nyberg.  It is said he lived long enough to see six generations.  He died in Idaho at age 98.

Inez Christine (1884-1960) was married three times, the first time at age 16.  Her second husband, John Wade, was a steam railroad bridge builder.  Inez had two daughters, and she died in Los Angeles at age 76.

Frederick Iranus (1886-1944) was called “Ray.”  He was a carpenter.  He married twice—first to Esther Dahlberg, with whom he had four children, and then to Dorothy Farnum Kaiser, a widow who was his housekeeper after his first wife died.  Dorothy lived only four more years, leaving Ray a widower for the second time at age 54.  He died four years later.

Ithel Georgianna (1888-1944) was married to Ellis Passmore when she was 20 and he was 33, and they had three children.  Ellis was a civil engineer for the Burlington Railroad and later the CB&Q.  After Ithel (pronounced “ee-thel”) died at age 56, Ellis moved to California.

Aurora Linnea (1890-1976) was a schoolteacher, both before her marriage (in Nebraska) and afterwards (in California).  She and her husband Elmer Levene had no children, but Aurora’s mother Christina lived with them after her father Frederick died.

Sture Nels (1892-1979) was the only one to move east—to Illinois—which he did after the Great Depression and the droughts of the 1930s took their toll on the Great Plains farmers.  Sture was in a near-fatal car accident in Iowa in September 1940, while making final arrangements for the move.  Sture and his wife Sara had five children, four of whom lived to adulthood.

Leonard Carl (1898-1977) and his brother Sture both served in World War I.  Leonard and wife Helen Carmichael had two children.  Leonard ran a general store in the hotel that his father built around 1920.  Later he later moved to California to take a job with Boeing Aircraft, where he died at age 78.

So the first generation to come were Nebraska farmers; and the second generation moved beyond the Nebraska prairie to other places and things; and the third generation went to college, if they were willing to work hard; and my generation grew up believing that we could achieve anything we wanted—in no small part, I now know, because of the path blazed by those who came before.

The Children of Robert & Elisabeth Mosey

I really like “descendancy research”—following all the children of a particular ancestor down through time, rather than just one.  It uncovers lots more stories, and gives a fuller picture of the family.

Robert and Elisabeth Bennet Mosey, my husband’s great-great-grandparents, had eight children who survived to adulthood.  Pictured here left to right are Jane, Martha, and Sarah Elizabeth; Richard, Frank, John, and Lewis.  Perhaps Maria was living in Nebraska at the time. (Three more sons—Lesven, Daniel, and Robert—died in early childhood.)  Four sons and four daughters…

Lewis:  Lewis—my husband’s great-grandfather—was the only one to fight in the Civil War, serving in the Indiana Infantry.  Afterwards he married a girl from his childhood home in Lorain County, Ohio—Hannah Wilkinson—and they settled first in Allegan County, where his parents lived, and then in Michigan’s “Thumb,” across the state from the rest of the Moseys, where he was a successful farmer.  Hannah died in her forties, and he remarried twice.

John:  John was a farmer and a barrel maker.  Like his brother, he was married three times, but word in the family has it that none of the marriages were happy.  He had no surviving children and is buried near his parents with his third wife Helena.

Francis (Frank):  Frank was a farmer and a carpenter.  He and his wife Jennie had four children, one of whom died in infancy.  He was widowed at age 43 and lived as a widower until his death at age 89.  He was a member of the IOOF (Independent Order of Odd Fellows), which would be good topic for another blog post.

Jane:  Jane had no children of her own, but her husband William Orr had eight grown children from his previous wife.  They were married only eleven years before William died, leaving her a widow at age 49.  Jane then lived with her widowed brother Frank for a time, helping him with his home and children, and then her sister Elizabeth.

Maria:  Maria is the only one who lived outside of Michigan for any length of time.  She and her husband Alonzo Brant lived in Banner and Kimball Counties in Nebraska for a number of years, where he was a farmer and a “stock raiser”—and also a bit of a hell-raiser, according to some accounts!  They had two children who both died in childhood.  After her husband’s death, it is said she returned to Michigan.

Martha:  Martha married Jasper Dennis at age 17 and was widowed at 33.  They had six children.  Her husband died in Tennessee, and there seems to be some mystery around this fact which no one wanted to talk about.  Later in life she lived with her sister Elizabeth.  She died at age 72 and is buried near her sister Jane.

Richard:  Richard married for the first time at 33, and he and his wife Jennett had three children.  He seems to have lived the most uneventful life of the entire lot!  (But perhaps there are things yet to be discovered which will spice up his story…  It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened.)

Sarah Elizabeth:  Sarah’s husband, John Orr, made his living as a teamster.  (Wikipedia: “a person who drove a team of draft animals, usually a wagon drawn by oxen, horses, or mules.”)  In 1910 her widowed older sister Jane lived with their family, and in 1920 her widowed older sister Martha lived with them.  The 1910 census says that this was her second marriage—so she may have a past that I haven’t yet discovered.  (Either that, or the census taker was mistaken.)

Genealogy is a journey, and there’s always more to discover.

The Nortons of Miami Beach

One of my recent clients is a Miami native—and I mean native.  Her father’s ancestors have lived in the Miami area since it was nothing but orange and lemon groves—and her ancestors planted some of those.  Her great-grandparents were Edwin and Caroline Norton (pictured).  A page from their family bible and a few old family stories began my look at the Nortons, and a bit of research filled in the rest.

Edwin Blake Norton and Caroline Francis Kraker were married in Florida in 1872.  They lived in Bay Lake by the time of the 1880 census, where E.B. may have taught school.  By 1894, they were tending orange groves in Kissimmee and welcoming their eighth child, a daughter named Francis.  But Caroline’s death, followed by a freeze that destroyed the orange groves, meant Edwin had to start over.  By 1900 Edwin moved with his younger children to Miami Beach, eventually moving in with son William, where Edwin died in 1918.  A picture survives of William’s home on 1228 Collins Avenue—today the site of the Hotel Impala.

But what of the widower Norton’s eight children?

·       William Eubanks Norton became a public servant, and a good one.  He was Dade County Deputy Circuit Court Clerk, among other things, and he did his job so well and faithfully that at his death he was called “The Grand Old Man of the Courthouse.”

·       Edwin Massa Norton was nicknamed “Doc” because of his career as a pharmacist. He was said to be a kind and gentle person and a good family man. He married Elizabeth Miller and had five children.

·       Penny married William C. Lightsey.  It is said in the family that W.C. was a member of the posse that went after the legendary Sam “Sure Shot” Lewis, an infamous Miami saloon owner who killed two men in 1895.   

·       Lewis Greenwood Norton worked in the Dade County Tax Assessor’s office but was best known for his long litigations with the City of Miami Beach over a piece of land he tried to obtain title to as a homesteader, and upon which he lived from 1917 to 1926.  He died in 1930 at age 51 from “an attack of acute indigestion.”

·       Julia married James S. Peters, an early Miami pioneer who came to the area in a horse and wagon in the 1890s, became a tomato farmer with his brother, and lived in a town there (Peters) which was named after his family.  Julia died at age 95 in Miami.

·       Louise (Lula) married Lemuel Bowers and lived a quiet life.  She had five children, married twice, and died at 82.

·       George Cason Norton was a sergeant in the U.S. Army in WWI and a druggist by occupation.  He married Julia Kimbrell; they had just one child, George Jr.  It is said in the family that he died after being hit on the head during a robbery. 

·       Francis was the baby of the family.  Her mother died shortly after her birth, so “babied” was exactly what she was, by her seven older siblings.  As an adult her husbands weren’t always so willing to make her the center of attention...  But eventually she found her soulmate, Roy Crews; I talked about him in another story.

The Nortons made their mark on Miami, and many of their descendants still live there today.  I guess that’s what people mean when they say “roots.”

The Petersons - Sunshine and Shadow

My ancestors ran the gamut from black sheep to outstanding citizen.  But life isn’t fair…  Those who honor faith and family, who play by the rules, sometimes suffer plenty of tragedy anyway.  Consider my Peterson ancestors.

My great-grandparents were Carl Peterson (1861-1917) and Emelia Fryksdal Peterson (1861-1933).  From all indications they were a close and loving family—Carl’s obituary was titled “Another Good Man Gone.”  Eight children were born to them, all surviving to adulthood—but their adult lives were a mixture of sunshine and shadow, with plenty of heartbreak to go around.

Carl Jr. lived in California for a time before returning to his roots and taking over the family farm in Nebraska.  He and his wife had a daughter and a son; their baby boy died of whooping cough at 11 months.  Carl died young, at 53. 

Anna was a schoolteacher.  When her father died at age 57, she took care of her mother and sisters until they were settled with relatives or in homes of their own.  She married at age 37 and after a yearlong honeymoon, settled down to raise a family—only to die at 40, shortly after having her second son.

Theodore (Ted) was an engineering student at the University of Nebraska when he was drafted into the army.  He did not survive World War I; like so many other soldiers, he died of influenza in 1918, in an army camp in Illinois.

Emma lived on her own in Chicago, working as a nurse, and then bought a house in Montgomery, Illinois, where she worked at Copley Memorial Hospital until she retired at age 72.  Emma was very independent—she renewed her driver's license (for the final time) at age 91.  Emma never married, and she died at age 102.

Sara married Sture, her baseball-playing sweetheart, after a seven-year courtship (interrupted by WWI).  They lost their first child shortly after birth—a hidden sorrow that Sara never talked about.  They relocated to Illinois around 1940—Sture had a near-fatal car accident during the transition.  Sara outlived her husband and died in Illinois at age 91.

Signe was a schoolteacher and an excellent artist; some of her paintings survive.  She married a Nebraska farmer and had four children.  Their oldest son Jack died of a brain tumor at age 31, leaving a widow and young daughter.

Hilma, another schoolteacher, married and moved to Minnesota, where she and her husband Harold had three children.  Their only son, Harold Jr., drowned in a lake in Canada at age five.

Therese was bright and educated, but troubled.  After graduating as salutatorian of her high school class and becoming a schoolteacher, she died at age 30 in a mental hospital near Chicago.

This photo shows the four surviving sisters in later life—Emma, Sara, Hilma, and Signe.  They had seen much sorrow, including losing four siblings.  I lived near my grandma Sara and saw her often.  She had learned to take the good and the bad in stride, and was an inspiring example to me of surviving setbacks and appreciating the joys in life.

Black Sheep Sunday: The Four Sons of Charles Anderson

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to believe.  I love a good skeleton in the closet as much as the next genealogist—a black sheep in the family—but this stretches the bounds of credibility.

My maternal grandmother, Clara Anderson Erickson (1892-1967), had four brothers—George, Charles, Howard, and Lester.  Grandma Erickson was a farmer’s wife—but if you scratched deeper, she was a schoolmarm, and a tough one.  Once you fell from her good graces, there was no going back, and her four brothers had taken that fall.  When Grandma died in 1967, none of her brothers were notified, because she hadn’t seen nor heard from any of them in years.  But—could all four of her brothers have been the bums she said they were?   

Clara’s father was Charles Anderson (1859-1916), whom I’ve written about before, and he was a bona fide Black Sheep.  But what about his boys?  Here is what my mother told me about her four uncles many years ago—probably repeating what her mother Clara had told her—and it is not pretty (nor is it substantiated in any way):

“I have no idea where George is. For some reason, he changed his name from Anderson to Adams—no one knows why...  Charles was married three times. The first time he married really young. After they got a divorce, neither parent wanted the two boys, so they were adopted out…  Howard left his wife and little child and never came back. His wife hid his Mason ring, and he got so mad that he left her…  Lester never married, and never worked. He lived at a shelter or mission in Joliet. He seemed to be kind of odd. Once in a while, as I was growing up, he’d walk out to see us.”

Whoa, there!  Mom didn’t paint a very flattering picture of the Anderson boys.  Could all of this possibly be true?  I’d really like to know!  If anyone out there knows anything about the four sons of Charles Anderson and Emma Hanson Anderson—good or bad—I’d love to hear about it.  Here is what I do know about them, from my own research (census records and WWI draft cards, mainly):

·       George Francis Anderson (1889-??).  Born in Lemont, Illinois, as were his brothers.  House cleaning contractor (self-employed) in 1917. 

·       Charles Grover Anderson (1893-1972).  Spouse Ruby Roberta Parker.  Chauffeur in 1917 and 1920.

·       Howard Louis Anderson (1897-??).  Stoneworker in 1917 and metal polisher in 1920.

·       Lester Michael Anderson (1900-??).  Laundry worker in 1917.

Can anyone out there set the record straight and save the reputation of this family? 

The Carriveau Curse

My husband’s maternal grandmother was a Corriveau by birth.  They were a family who seemed to live under a shadow of misfortune. 

The patriarch of the family was Laurent Corriveau, who came from Quebec to Michigan in the late 1800s after his young wife died (probably in childbirth).  He and his second wife Eugenie, who went by “Annie,” settled in Huron County, Michigan—“The Thumb” as Michiganders say—where they began to spell their last name “Carriveau.”  In the 1910 census Annie reports that they had “thirteen children, eleven still living.”  Nine are shown in this picture, with Larry and Annie front and center.

Those eleven children, all long dead now, had interesting lives...  One of the sons, who took over the family farm after he was grown, spent some time as an “inmate” at Pontiac State Hospital—an “insane asylum” as they were called then.  Another was the “responsible son,” who had no children of his own, but took in a younger sister after her divorce and was guardian of a nephew.  Another son was a hunchback, according to his WWI draft card.  One daughter was married young and had nine children—six of whom she raised alone and in severe poverty, dishing out some “pretty severe punishments” on them, according to one son.  Another daughter married at age 16 to a man of 55; the last two of her many children were most likely the children of her husband’s nephew.  (After her elderly husband died, she lived with the nephew for many years as man and wife.)  Another daughter, it was said by her nephew (my father-in-law), committed suicide.  Eliza, my husband’s grandmother, died in her thirties after she fell backwards and was drenched in boiling oil.  One of Eliza’s sisters married an abusive alcoholic at age 16; she and her two young sons ended up living with her brother.  Another sister also married young, to a man of the same last name (brothers?), and she ended up the same way—leaving him, and moving back in with her parents.

One son was a steeplejack who returned to Canada as a young adult, and apparently escaped the family curse (as far as I know)—as did one other son, the youngest. 

How I came to research the Carriveaus is a story I told in a post called “For the Love of Norman.”