Before I Forget

          When I was a kid two of my favorite cartoon show hosts were Captain Sacto and Skipper Stu. Sacramento's station KCRA showed Crusader Rabbit cartoons, among others, and the handsome Captain Sacto had this stirring opening:

          "Captain Sacto to control tower, tell all the boys and girls I'm coming in!" America had entered the space age. I wasn't the only one in first grade who dreamed of becoming an astronaut. When playing outdoors with my buddies, Jackie, Terrie and Clifford, all play would stop when a jet flew overhead. What secret mission was the pilot on? Had he detected a Russian fighter jet over California airspace? Was it Captain Sacto in that jet!

          A friend's mom got us into KCRA's studio for her son's birthday celebration. My parents told me I was struck dumb when Skipper Stu waved a microphone in my face. He asked my name and what school I attended. I recall only bright lights and cameramen everywhere. Good grief, how could I speak in the presence of my two idols? 

          These men are both gone now. Captain Sacto was Harry Martin in real life. When I was five years old I would have told you that my Daddy resembled him:

          I've long wondered why several fellow family historians record a marriage of my 2ndGreat-Grandmother to a Mr. Carman.

          Many family trees have our Hannah with CARMAN as either her maiden name or her surname at the time of her marriage to Samuel Leeper in 1853. Tonight I reviewed the sources attached to these trees, and found a clue.

          But first, a brief timeline of our Hannah.

          My paternal ancestor Hannah was allegedly born in 1824 at a location the 1870 U.S. Federal Census indicates as "Hamburgh." That is the only reference I've found listing Hamburg as her birthplace. She first appears in a U.S. Census in 1860. Both the 1860 and 1880 Federal Census indicate only a birthplace of "Germany."  However, her four young sons have "Saxon" as their birth location in the 1870 census. Saxon = Sachsen or Saxony. There were several thousand German immigrants living in southeast Texas before the Civil War. I imagine few census takers spoke their language. So spelling errors must be considered.

          With that in mind, the very first surname I find attached to Hannah is in her April 19, 1853 marriage certificate to Samuel Leeper. Written in cursive, it appears to be Wosta. Or Woste. Is it a maiden name or a married surname? Maiden names were traditionally requested. And why does she not have the same last name as each of her four young boys: Louis Wiser, Barney Wiser, Amiel Wiser, and Henry Edward Wiser? Because of her different surname, I'm inclined to think Wosta is her maiden name. Have you a different opinion?

          My cousin-researcher, Doris Weiser Jarvis, obtained a certified copy of Hannah and Sam Leeper's marriage certificate. Mrs. Jarvis shared this transcription to the copy attached below:

   The State of Texas, County of Galveston. "To any regular ordained Minister of the Gospel, Judge of the District Court, Judge of the County Court, or Justice of the Peace. I hereby authorize any one of you to celebrate the rites of matrimony between Samuel Leeper and Hannah Wosta and due return of your proceedings hereon to me, at my Office, make within Sixty Days, as the law directs." Signed my county clerk, and certified by F. B Whiting, Justice of the Peace. Marriage celebrated on 19th day of April A.D. 1853. 

-- Galveston County Courthouse, Record Book No. B, pg. 87, numbered 214.

          No immigration record has yet been found. Several of us have spent hours searching. But my Great-Grandfather Amiel Wiser told his daughter Nora that they had immigrated from Germany when he was six years old. He was born May 31, 1845. (Our only proof is his headstone). So his family may have immigrated about 1851? Amiel was also known as Lemuel or Emeal. His daughter Nora spelled her dad's name as "Emeal" in her letter to her nephew, Urban Weiser, dated June 11, 1957.

          Urban's daughter Doris W. Jarvis transcribed her Aunt Nora's letter and shared this excerpt in July of 2004. I am ever so happy to have it! 

 "I couldn't tell her much for our parents never did talk much about the family. I heard Dad (Emeal) say he came over from Germany when he was six years old. A Mrs. Lafore raised him. And I talked with Mrs. Lafore once when Ed and I was going down to Double Bayou to see old Dr. Morgan. She lived at the mouth of the Bayou there where Dr. Morgans office was. She took me over to her house and showed me the organ our Dad used to play on when he was a little boy. When Dr. Morgan told her I was Lem Wiser's daughter she grabbed me and hugged me. I thought she would never let me go, then she took us over to her house and fixed us a nice dinner, and wanted to know all about our Dad, how he died and where he lived. I don't know why Dad never did tell us about her. Dad had two step-sisters Aunt Racy and Aunt Hannah. They were twins. Old Mrs. Weiser seemed to have married three times, as Aunt Racy and Aunt Hannah's names was Mason."......"Uncle Sam Leaper, (son of Hannah and Sam, Sr.) if you remember, lived with us awhile. and moved there close to Uncle Ben Abshier's, and he died at Ed Clayton's home. Ed Clayton was Aunt Racy's son." (Unquote.)

          Hannah's daughters, Rosa Theresa and her twin sister Hannah (or "Lina") were born June 18, 1860. Rosa's name appears as "Racy" in one census, as spelled by her niece Nora, above. The twins appear on census records with the last name of Leeper. However, Sam Leeper had died April 1, 1855--five years before the twins' birth according to his direct descendant Norma Webb Broach.

          Researcher Norma Broach Webb (1929-2004) has Sam Leeper's death date in her brief biography of her 2x GGrandfather in the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Patriot Ancestor Album, Vol. 2. (Published 2001, Turner Publishing Co., and available via Google Books). 

          And as for Hannah's twin daughters? I have not found any record showing Rosa or young Hannah with the last name of "Mason" as indicated by Nora Wiser in her letter of 1957. Not yet. I've researched any/all Masons living in southeast Texas. Have found only census pages showing twin sisters' maiden name of Leeper or Leaper.

          Indeed, Rosa's marriage certificate with Josephus S. Clayton reads:

"The State of Texas, County of Chambers Clerks office 29th May 1878, To any ordained Minister of the Gospel, Judge of the District or County Court, or Justice of the Peace, Greeting; You are hereby authorized and directed to celebrate the rites of matrimony between Mr. J.S. Clayton and Miss Rosa Leaper. Herein fail not and of this License made due return within Sixty days as the law directs. Given under my hand and official seal at office in Wallisville this the 29th day of May A.D. 1878." Signed by Jno. R. Wooten, Clerk. "Received 6th June 1878 and executed same day by meeting the within named parties at the home of Mrs. Hannah Leaper at Double Bayou, Chambers County in the holy bonds of matrimony." Signed: J. W. Hankamer, Justice of the Peace

          Nor can I find any record of Hannah marrying a Mr. Mason or any Mason who lived near our Hannah in Chambers or Liberty Counties in Texas. I will continue to search, as my Great-Aunt Nora's letter points to a Mr. Mason as the father of Hannah's twin girls. Family history is indeed a challenge for part-time sleuths!

BACK TO MR. CARMAN:  So what is the source for my cousins who list Hannah with the surname of Carman? When I first saw this name attached to Hannah's many trees online, I scoured censuses in southeast Texas in for neighboring Carmans. In a gentler time a woman having a child outside of marriage was scandalous. Admiration for my 2xgreat-grandmother would not wane were I to discover the twins and/or other children of illegitimate birth. But I found few Carmans.  

          Cousin-genealogist Kevin Ladd (1954-2014) once wrote: 

          On May 19, 1839 Hannah's future husband Sam Leeper married Lucy Marie Carr in Galveston, Texas Republic. It was his second marriage. His first marriage in Washington County, Virginia in 1816 to Sarah Bonham sadly ended in 1823 with her death. Sam appears in tax records for 1840 and 1846 in southeast Texas. That clever Sam, age 55, appears TWICE in the 1850 Federal Census: Once at Galveston while living in the household of Mr. J H Fredenburgh, and also as Sam "Leiper" at his home in nearby Liberty. Lucy also appears in the Liberty census with her daughter Emily and her husband James Yeoman. Perhaps to assist in taking care of their one-year-old grandson, William? To further confuse researchers, a "Saml Luper" appears August 24, 1850 in a "Federal Census Non-Population Schedule" for Liberty, Texas. Our Samuel had fought at both Bexar and the Battle of San Jacinto and had been awarded hundreds of acres of "bounty land" for his military service. Land that was bequeathed to his widow, Hannah Leeper. If you've registered, please see this link of Hannah Wosta's 1853 marriage to Samuel Leeper:

  https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F6YY-CN1

          Am I missing something? If my ancestor Hannah married a Mr. Carman I would love to see the source. She evidently met with some gentleman in late 1859 (as evidenced by her twin daughters' birth on June 18, 1860). But why he wasn't living with our 36-year-old Hannah in 1860 or in the later 1870 census, I can't explain.

         I welcome comments on our Hannah. She's one of my favorite genealogy "brick walls." FamilySearch is free, but requires registration. Hannah and her boys appear in the 1860 Federal Census on this FamilySearch page:

         https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MXFX-MJC  

_________

Texas, County Marriage Index, 1837-1977, database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F6YY-CN1 : 22 December 2016), Samuel Leeper and Hanna Wosta, 19 Apr 1853; citing Galveston, Texas, United States, county courthouses, Texas; FHL microfilm 1,008,865

"Shadowy digital libraries want to hold all the world's knowledge and give it away for free."

          Sarah Laskow has an excellent piece in Atlas Obscura from April 21, 2016 on pirate libraries:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-rise-of-illegal-pirate-libraries 

          The article has lovely images from photographers David Iliff, Marcus Gossler, and Bruno Delzant. Click on their names to see from which libraries these photos came. 

          IF ONLY:  Imagine being able to reply to "What is it you do again?" with "I'm a pirate librarian."

(This post is in response to a query to Diane on Christmas Day 2016)  Draft cards are a great resource, and often provide descendants the only clues as to someone's height, hair color, and occupation. Without them, the number of GINGERS in our families would be lost! I know you have access to the printed family histories, but you may not have seen the draft cards. 

          Attached are two pages from Dewey Grady Gaston's World War I draft card dated September 12, 1918. Please note that 19 year old Grady answered questions from the Montgomery County, Arkansas draft board registrar, L. L. Wilhite, as follows:

1.  His occupation is "B & B carpenter" for the "Mo.Pac.R.R. Co." and written near that is "A.C. Roberts Gang No. 4 - Monroe, LA." So he was working for the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. Specifically for the A.C. Roberts' Gang No. 4 out of Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. It implies he came home from working in Louisiana to register in Montgomery County. Or am I reading it wrong? It sure looks like "LA" is the state for the town of Monroe.

2.  The back side of the draft card has his physical description. Grady was a ginger! RED hair, blue eyes, medium build and height. 

3.  I love his mom's nick name: Dollie. I find that her legal name at birth was: Mary Elizabeth Spriggs, born in Woodruff, Arkansas. I don't find a town by that name. Perhaps it was a local town that has since died? There is a Woodruff County in the Arkansas Delta region. Correct me if I'm wrong.  (Hmmm, why is it southern folk have go-by names? It can be a challenge to locate records when they have many names with many spellings, grrrr.)

You just told me about her dad, Elijah. That was a BIG help because earlier today I could NOT make out his name from the 1900 Federal Census. Here's a snippet from that page. Well, TWO snipped pages below. Elijah Spriggs is living with his daughter, Dollie, and her husband, Charlie Gaston, in their South Fork, Montgomery County, Arkansas home. (Charlies is 22; Dollie is 25. And Baby Grady!)  Elijah is widowed, and indicated his birth place was South Carolina. BUT WHAT I FOUND MOST INTERESTING? Note his answer to the census taker when asked his mother's birth place:  Ireland. If this be true, then presumably J & Z's fourth-great-grandmother was Irish. Read the last lines in both these images, as they relate to "poor old Elijah." (I couldn't resist the Hank Williams' song reference)

          Grady in his younger days, and a lovely photo of him and his wife Anna Edna (Fiddler) Gaston:

          Gene Singleton enlisted on March 25, 1944 and mustered out of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division on June 3, 1946 in World War II. Tell me, did he serve on the European or the Pacific front?

 (working on this today.... to be updated shortly)

      Land records from 1899 to 1907 for citizens of the Five Civilized Tribes were just uploaded onto Family Search's website--for free viewing. Did you get that? FREE! Fold3, an Ancestry-owned site, has had this database--but for paid subscribers only. 

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1390101?collectionNameFilter=false

      The Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory were: Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw.

      Citizens of these tribes who were (1) then living in Indian Territory and (2) whose membership had been approved by the Dawes Commission were allotted land previously held in common by each tribe. Natives had the option of improving their property or selling to land-hungry settlers moving into northeast Oklahoma.

      When people learned to capture that black ooze puddling on their land, millionaires were created. Construction boomed, tent "cities" housed immigrants from other states eager for work and the chance to buy land. Non-Native residents pushed for greater economic control. Demands were made for statehood. President Teddy Roosevelt signed the docs making Oklahoma a state in November of 1907. 

     The only family I've found on this database descend from my mother's first cousin--twice removed. Thomas Jefferson Coffee, great-grandson of Irish immigrant, Ambrose Coffee, was born in Missouri. He married Louella Christian in 1888. She had Dawes Enrollment No. 3046, and Tom was "adopted" into Louella's Chickasaw tribe by marriage. They raised their family in Marshall County along the Texas/Oklahoma border. See Louella's documents at the link below.  Click the arrow on the upper left of that page to scroll the many documents within Louella's folder or to resize the images. Pretty nifty, eh?

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-61B9-G87?i=1093&wc=MXHP-M38%3A967441201%2C967570901%3Fcc%3D1390101

(Again, forgive my clunky URLs as I know NOT how to make them short and sweetly clickable)

      My Coffee cousins might be interested in seeing two grainy pages of Tom Coffee's actual Application for Enrollment into the Chickasaw Nation in December 1902. As a reminder, Tom was a first cousin to our John Willis Coffee. See both pages:    

I'm reading old newspapers today while someone elsewhere in the house is loudly cheering his West Virginia Mountaineers' football game.

Here are some odds and ends collected from the Kansas City Star newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri. I hope my Coffee cousins enjoy these clippings:

Five year old Guy Coffee, Jr. made the FRONT PAGE, of the November 2, 1939 Kansas City Star with news of his stolen fire truck. Some of my Coffee relatives will recall that Guy's grandmother Daisy was the first of our John W. Coffee's three wives.

Tragedy averted! Fire truck was returned. Saints be praised. November 3, 1939 at page 19:

From Thursday, June 6, 1946, page 3, Kansas City Star:

From January 12, 1936, Guy Coffee, Sr. played with a bowling team from Boonville, Missouri. He is listed here with the "Three O'Clock Squad." 

From the Sunday, September 23, 1945, Kansas City Star at page 22:

And Mrs. Guy Coffee was both president and an active member of the Missouri-Kansas Cat Club. I would have loved talking with her, as I too enjoy cats. See both images in the gallery: the first article ran on page 20, April 20, 1949, and the second is from Tuesday, April 19, 1949, page 8.

The elder Guy Coffee kept a pet raccoon names Jimmy at Kansas City's shelter. How cool is that! 

Guy Coffee, Sr.'s mother, Daisy Franke, raised Pomeranian and Pekingese puppies. I found several newspaper ads with puppies for sale, breeding,  and/or boarding.

Daisy was also a cat person, as I found a Lost Cat ad from August 1935 that read: "LOST -- Red, Persian, male; neuter; reward. Daisy Franke, 3117 Chestnut, LI.6368". I hope she found him. And do you suppose "LI.6368" was her telephone number? 

See this announcement of Daisy Franke's  speech to the Missouri Valley Toy Dog Club on March 25, 1934 at the Baltimore Hotel. I would have liked to have heard her AND the meeting of the ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic-- "General Grant Circle No. 31." 

Until only a few decades ago, newspapers referred to married women by their husband's name. Mrs. Coffee was born Mary Ruth Alexander. She married Guy Coffee, Sr. in Kansas City on April 24, 1918. But Ruth's name did not appear in her father's obit of Monday, July 15, 1935, page 3:

--By the way, West Virginia beat Texas Tech: 48 to 17. BOOM!

This article caught my eye. 

Traces of Texas, a Facebook group I enjoy, shared this excerpt from author James H. Cook in his book: "50 Years on the Old Frontier," 1923.

"I had succeeded in transplanting myself from a state [Michigan, about 1875] where the people .... good citizens who loved God and nature ----- had accepted and, as a rule, lived up to the Ten Commandments; where, when trouble arose between men, it seldom was carried to a point beyond a fist fight. But in the section of Texas I had now entered, different conditions and codes prevailed. The War of Rebellion [Civil War] then so recent, had caused numerous men who had survived it and who had committed all sorts of desperate crimes, to seek refuge in the wilds of the land of chapparal and cactus, where the strong arm of the law seldom entered, and where, when it did, the refugee would be apt to have the best of it. A majority of the ranchmen in the country preferred aiding a white refugee to helping bring him to justice. The preference sprang from a motive of self-protection, for the enmity of such characters was a most dangerous thing. As there was in that section but little employment other than working with stock, naturally these men took up the life of the cowboy ---- when their time was not occupied dodging State Rangers or robbing stages and small settlements. Almost every dispute had to be settled with a gun-or-knife fight or else assassination. Such people, added to thieving bands of Mexicans and Indians, wild beasts of many sorts, and other terrors such as centipedes, tarantulas, and rattlesnakes, were a help in making life interesting ...

I did not let anyone know where I hailed from. A 'blue-bellied Yankee,' even if he were but a boy, was about the most unpopular thing in Texas at that period. With many people, anyone who came from the country lying to the north of the Red River was a Yankee."

          Meet Merle Haggard's parents on their wedding day November 16, 1919 in McIntosh County, Oklahoma. Flossie Harp and James Haggard were married at the home of John Harp. She's very pretty. And Merle resembles his father, don't you think?

          Their Marriage License has different ages for the couple than listed in their Application for Marriage License. Flossie is either 17 or 18, and her young husband, 20 or 21. Checotah was their current residence, and is not far south from the Muskogee that Merle later made popular in song. 

LINK to marriage record: http://www1.odcr.com/detail?court=046-&casekey=046-MLI+0600610

          Miss you, Merle. Rest well, you old troubadour.

Mahlon Jordan James is my very photogenic maternal 3xGreat-Grand Uncle. Son of John Abraham James (born Barren County, Virginia in 1790) and Rachael Anne Bray James (born 1794 Chatham County, North Carolina), Mahlon was the eighth of 12 (known) children. Word! 

Hear me now, People! When in my dotage I'm asked what was the greatest achievement of the Twentieth Century? Two words: BIRTH CONTROL.

Allegedly born in Missouri 1828 (with only his grave marker as "proof"), Mahlon married Jane Campbell in 1860. They made a home in Moniteau County, Missouri for their ten children. Their last child was Jesse James (1877-1906). Pranksters that they were, I'm certain they named their youngest Jesse for one reason: to confuse descendants into believing they are related to the infamous bank robber. Not so. THAT Jesse lived in nearby Clay County. 

Uncle Mahlon and Aunt Jane lived long. I hope they prospered. She died in 1914 at age 75, and Mahlon lived to be 96 years. They are both buried in the Highland Cemetery in Moniteau County. I appreciate Larry Hutchison for sharing Mr. James' marvelous photo. 

NOTE TO COFFEE COUSINS: You too are related to Mr. James through John Willis Coffee's mother, Nancy James (wife of John Hanna Coffee).