McCormick Family Obits

I'm reading Newspapers.com this rainy afternoon. Found a few McCormick obits of people my GGrandmother Elta (McCormick) Coffee or her parents may have known--beginning with her dad's obituary:



Obit of Elta's father's father, William S. McCormick, Sr.:


via Carroll Daily Times-Herald, Carroll, Iowa, p. 2, on August 21, 1945.


via Gibson City Courier, Gibson City, Illinois, p. 4, March 20, 1914.


via The Decatur Review, Decatur, Illinois, p. 24, on May 18, 1950.


A grandson of William S. McCormick, Sr., via Redlands Daily Facts, Redlands, California, p. 6, April 25, 1961.



Vada, daughter of Firman and Lucinda McCormick, was the g-granddaughter of William S. McCormick Sr and his wife Mary Morgan McCormick.  via The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, p. 45, May 26, 1997.



A grandson of William S. McCormick, Sr., via Des Moines Tribune, Des Moines, Iowa, p. 8, April 20, 1959.


Another grandson of William, Sr., and our GREAT Aunt Helen's cousin, via Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico, p. 84, April 10, 1983. (Postscript to Coffee cousins:  my app's relationship-counter ALSO indicates Helen and Wilfred were 4th cousins via a distant Van Doren ancestor-cousins who were married). #Agoodygoody



This was Roscoe and Margaret's son, and grandson of William McCormick Sr. and wife Elizabeth Mount Van Doren. 


1882 Murder Most Foul

Front page of The Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, on November 9, 1882.  



Highlighted in yellow on page 4 of this paper is a brief account of Willie Berry's death at the hand of my maternal 2x Great-Grandfather, Welcome Wilhelm.


Other articles have mentioned different locations for the murder scene (as posted elsewhere on this blog) and used initials only for the given names of the two men. Dear editors, please do not use initials. Ever.

I have since made acquaintance with many Texas records in search of Mr. "W. Berry." #manyverymany

So on this lovely April day of pandemic shelter-in-place I am HAPPY to have learned Mr. Willie Berry's full name.

With a name and possible birth location, I hope to learn more of William or Willie Berry's past. Did he have family in Texas? If married, was his wife pregnant with their eighth child when he was killed, as was my GG-Grandmother Mary Wilhelm? I hope to find him in a Kentucky census. Let's hope "Willie" wasn't a nickname. 

How on earth did he get crosswise with Welk Wilhelm?

Let me re-phrase that.

What on earth provoked Welk to shoot Willie Berry?


Source:  The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 199, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 9, 1882, newspaper, November 9, 1882; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth462323/m1/4/: accessed April 2, 2020), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; .

Cobb Tells Naharkey's Story

          Today's TulsaWorld newspaper has a guest columnist's piece on an appalling land grab 100+ years ago in Creek Nation, Indian Territory. No, not THE big land grab when the U.S. Government broke its zillioneth contract with indigenous peoples by declaring their territory the 46th state in 1907. This is about a woman cheated of control of her very own allotment. 

          Written by a former Tulsan and a forever-Okie, Russell Cobb adapted the story of Millie Naharkey from his new book, The Great Oklahoma Swindle: Race, Religion, and Lies in America’s Weirdest State. 

https://t.co/CNXx8iOFOC?amp=1

          (I pray my link leads you to the article. Holler, if not). 

          Because I can't wait for Prime to bring Cobb's book to my doorstep (we ARE practicing "social distance" in lieu of Covid-19), I plugged Millie Naharkey's name into Newspapers.com.

          From the front page of an October 5, 1922 newspaper:



          Because front pages of old newspapers rock, here's a partial shot from the same paper. Look who was en route to Muskogee that week. See "Comrades Attention!" at the top:



          I was happy to learn from Cobb's article of Millie Naharkey's hard-fought legal victory against Charles Page, head of the corporation named "Sand Springs Home." Good for her!  Although she saw little of the profit from the land thanks to her guardians at 1st National Bank of Tulsa. Imagine what the Bank's lawyers hourly fee was to represent themselves in that lawsuit, I mean, Ms. Naharkey.

          Having her repeatedly declared "an incompetent Indian" before a judge and then stealing her inheritance!  Reminds me of Wells Fargo's recent fine for twice setting up fake accounts under customer's names so it could profit by moving money around--without knowledge or approval from customers, FFS.  

          Have you ever wished bankers could be tarred and feathered?

https://law.justia.com/cases/oklahoma/supreme-court/1936/23023.html

         
          If you also read Newspapers.com, here's the 1922 article's link:  https://www.newspapers.com/image/608081786/
 

Happy Birthday, Johnny Cash and Uncle Larry


“I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read.”

I once saw Johnny sing with June Carter at the church his parents once attended in Meiners Oaks--outside of Ojai, California. He had returned for a revival in the mid-1970s.

Saw him again at a funeral in Bakersfield on the side of a hill. Toni might correct me on that. In the spirit of Harold & Maude, we had crashed the event that hot summer day to catch site of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. 


And Happy Birthday to my Uncle Larry who turns 80 today. He's now old enough to run for president.

That's Larry in 2006 with his favorite sister-in-law, Elta. 

I Love This Obituary

          No, I do not know this man. I ran across his obit while looking for a second cousin. Mr. Borst and my cousin are "resting" in the same "memorial garden."

          Whoever wrote his obit, I want her/him to write mine in 40+ years. 



9/21/1936 - 6/22/2019

This is the story of James Edgar Borst. Jim was a wonderful man that was loved, is missed and will always be cherished. "My Honeybun" as he liked to be called by his wife, was an amazing husband, father, uncle, brother and son. 

This is intended to capture Jim's spirit, not his resume. However, his successful businesses and accomplishments are how he was most commonly known. Owner of Jim Borst Auto Repair, Manager at McCullough Corp, Service Manager of Tucson Harley Davidson and concluding his career at Ace Hardware of Green Valley at the age of 78.

He loved his mom, Hazel M. Borst (deceased) who with the help of his grandparents (Euans) reared Jim after his father Edgar's death when Jim was 11. He worshipped his older sister, Phyllis Westfall (Carson City, NV) and cherished his younger sister, Suzanne Hess (Tucson).

Jim married Sydne Ann (deceased) his high school sweetheart and they had three sons, Tony (Tucson), Tim (deceased) and Todd (Benson). Jim married Sabra in 1988. She taught him how to two-step and he taught her how to ride motorcycles. Together they took up golf when he turned 75! Although the scorecards never saw the light of day, he loved to laugh out loud about the fun he had.

He had a life-long affair with root beer, coca cola and Blue Bunny Homemade vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and pecans.

Jim took fashion cues from no one. His signature look was western boots and Wranglers.

Jim was a very private man. If you wanted to know his cause of death, he would have told you that it was none of your business. If you asked Sabra, his beloved wife would tell you Alzheimer's. Although his prognosis was dire, he battled on, lived his life and survived several years beyond the expert's expectations strictly on his terms.

In honor of his wishes, Services will be private for family only, free of any type of "theme". Interment is at Green Valley Cemetery, Green Valley, AZ.

In lieu of flowers please make donations to the , #ENDALZ; https://act.alz.org/donate

(Published in the Arizona Daily Star on June 30, 2019)

His photo looks nice, too:   https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/200790898/james-edgar-borst





Curb Their Enthusiasm

There isn't anything more difficult for me in family history than searching for the first OR last name of a female ancestor. Women were rarely listed on federal censuses before 1850. Daughters and wives were mentioned in wills, marriage records, and an occasional land record (should her husband die before her). The ubiquitous family bible disappeared when the third wife of the patriarch became a widow. 

Did you know in gentler times society mandated a lady's name was not ever to appear in a newspaper article except when engaged to be married, in a wedding announcement or an obituary? It was not socially acceptable. Even then, a lady may have been identified as "the daughter of J. P. McMurry" or Mrs. Kenneth L. Watson--with no first name.

Newspapers contained news of a coarse nature. It wouldn't do to have an article of Mrs. Bullock's glorious trip abroad on the same page as Goody McCormick's third arrest for public intox.  ("The term "Goody" is an old expression that is short for 'Goodwife.' It is a polite title once given to married women among the poorer classes." You're welcome).

I thought those times were long past. 

But I found this today while pulling an obituary from the February 10, 1969 Columbus Evening Dispatch, p. 27 (Ohio). Imagine the need to protect against men seeing the name or photo of an "attractive matron" while reading the morning paper, I can't even!  By all means, cover up, girls. Look upon no man when out and about. The subtext is clear: We are responsible for the wayward arousal of men.


Yet I find plenty of bra and lingerie advertisements in the papers of the 1960s. 

Elizabeth Post, remove thy girdle. Let your freak flag fly! It was 1969, for crying out loud.