Happy Birthday, Mommy

About 1945

Today is the 91st anniversary of my mother's birthday.  It has been a little over seven years since she died.

Mommy was one of the reasons I started genealogy: she knew nothing about any of her grandparents and she especially wanted to know something about her mother's ancestry.  Later, my research showed that only one of her grandparents had lived to see her birth and that grandmother died when my mom was 18 months old.

It was only when we were clearing out the house after my mother died that we found an old letter literally stuck between two boards in a high closet.  That 'find' eventually led me to connections that proved that my mother's mother's parents were Patrick Keating and Catherine Dooley.  My mother would have been so tickled to have that info.

Summer, 1948; Temple City, California

With every new thing I find, I think about what she would have said and how her face would have looked when I told her.  Here's the earliest surviving photo of the two of us.

I miss you, Mommy.

Founders Memorial Park: History to be Repaired!

For a little over a year, I have been volunteering with Find A Grave, answering people's photo requests for cemeteries near here.  I enjoy it a great deal and people are always very appreciative.  I hope it, at least partially, repays the kindness of all the volunteers who have fulfilled my requests across the nation.

One of the first requests I received was for a cemetery in the city of Whittier that I had never, ever heard of and that was supposedly in the same neighborhood as my dentist's office.  How could that be?

Long story short: Founders Memorial Park, aka Whittier Cemetery, was actually two adjacent cemeteries near Uptown Whittier that were abandoned by the 1930s.    The earliest burials were from the early 1880s and continued until at least the 1930s (and possibly into the 1950s).  In 1968, the city took over and eventually made them into a beautiful park of about 4 acres.  Attempts were made to contact family members.  Remaining headstones are now kept at the Whittier Museum.  The museum website includes a brief story of the cemeteries and a listing of all the known burials.  I had been driving by this park every six months and had no idea of its history!

Each cemetery is commemorated with a large,  double-sided memorial. There are a few benches and some paved pathways.  It was purposely kept simple and meditative.  There are no picnic tables, no playgrounds, and no ball courts ... just lots of older trees and the very appropriate memorials.

The memorials feature large bronze plaques with the names of those who are buried at the site.  Unfortunately, just a few days before my first visit to the site, vandals had defaced one side of the Mount Olive memorial and stolen the title plaque and 5 of the name plaques, probably for their metal value.  In my September 2012 photo showing the defaced side, you can see how lovely the overall park is and you can make out the Broadway Cemetery memorial in the distance.


But driving by for my dentist's appointment in November 2012, something didn't look right from the road. I parked to investigate and was extremely saddened and very angry to see that the remainder of the plaques had been stolen and both memorials attacked ... for lack of another word.  Here is what was left of the 4 sides of the 2 memorials:

I was so very upset. Last month, though, there was finally some good news!  The city of Whittier has just made their budget for 2013-2014, and although it will require going into the reserves, repair of the Founder's Memorial Park memorials has been approved.  The estimate is that repairs will cost $50,000 (boy, that seems low...) and insurance may cover some of it.  The newspaper article did not say how or if the repairs will attempt to prevent such damage in the future....

Blogiversary and the Strangest Census Page Ever

Happy 3rd Blogiversary to me!  This has been a slow year for blog posts, but GreatGreats is hanging in there.  I think the other stuff is getting under control and I can back to genealogy pretty soon...

Alhambra CA; ED 19-668, ancestry image # 20 of 42

My anniversary post is about the strangest census page I have ever seen....  The 1940 census is not a big deal to me--I'm pretty solid for all of the 1900s.  Looking for family in 1940 is just a curiosity, but a couple of nights ago, I succumbed and searched for Grandpa Porter.  Quick and easy, he was right where he should have been with Grandma and Uncle Bill: on Westboro Avenue in Alhambra.  But where are mom and Uncle Ray? 

I ran a general search for Ray and Mom.  They came up at the top of my search, nineteen pages after their parents and brother.  According to the index, they are childen of and in the household of Ethel Magnuson, along with 14 other people, all listed as part of Ethel's family.  Hmmm...Ethel's "family" live on different streets and have lots of different surnames!

Alhambra CA; ED 19-668, ancestry image # 39 of 42

Leaving the index and going to the actual image is where I found the strangest census page I have ever seen!  Notice that house numbers, visitation numbers, surnames, ages, and birthplaces are all over the place.

Here's a part of the left margin.  By the many hand-drawn, horizontal lines and the street names for every couple of entries, it's "clear" that for whatever reason, the enumerator used this page to enter names somehow left off of their rightful page.  It is obvious that the enumerator never intended for these entries to be new households.

For Mom & Ray, the visitation numbers on the image 39 match that of their parents' on image 20. But few of the visitation numbers on image 39 are indexed as written.  All entries on images 39 and 40 appear to be additions by the enumerator.  Image 41 is marked that it was done by the "OFFICE."  Image 42 is entirely blank.

Some of the entries on these 42 pages are indexed correctly as residing in Alhambra.  However, many are indexed as residing in San Gabriel.  I can understand how the "San Gabriel" got there, but why is it inconsistently?

I've started annotating/commenting on Ancestry.com's  indexed info on these 3 pages.  It will take quite a while to "fix" all the transcription (and enumeration) errors and to add comments to make it easier for researchers to "reunite" families.

So, yet another example that we must always check the original image and read the whole page!

Happy Birthday, Daddy

My father was born 98 years ago today in Logan Canyon, Utah.  I can't believe that it's been 29 years since he died.

 
This photo is my newest treasure from Aunt Lelia.  She just received the photo from someone but she doesn't remember who (probably a Bannard descendant).  I have no other group photos like this one.  I am so glad that Aunt Lelia thought to share it with me and that Cousin Gary helped her send me a copy.  Also, it was very thoughtful of her to label everyone; otherwise, I would have been doing a lot of guessing....

Standing, left to right:  Mickey, Lelia, Flora, my father, Anne, Fred (barely a shadow over Wyla's right shoulder), Wyla

Seated: Bertha, Anne Matilda (Causier) Carr, Jane

Front: Barbara, Jessie, Margaret

The family groups are:
Anne Matilda (Causier) and 3 of her 7 children: Jane, Bertha, Anne
Bertha and 5 of her 8 children: my dad, Mickey, Lelia, Wyla, Barbara
Jane & husband Fred with 3 of their 4 children: Jessie, Flora, Margaret

The location is most probably somewhere in Los Angeles County, possibly in the North Hollywood area.  We don't know who is holding the camera (perhaps Ray B?) and Lelia doesn't remember the event itself.  It has to be before my great-grandmother Carr's death in 1940.  Guessing from Barbara's apparent age, I think the photo is 1938-9.  Ray H. died in late 1937, but maybe the photo is earlier and he's the photographer.  However, that would make Barbara younger than 6. Does she look that young??

Great Resource: Los Angeles City Directories

My biggest problem in tackling the "To Do" piles is that even just one brief item to check out in a newsletter can keep me busy all afternoon! This week, it was one tiny, little article in the May 2010 Questing Heirs Genealogy Society's Newsletter [1] reporting that the Los Angeles Public Library had added the 1923 edition of the LA City Directory to their digital collection.

I have made the trip to the Los Angeles Public Library in downtown LA a few times; their genealogy collection is quite good. I have used the cumbersome microfilm copies of the directories to track approximate arrivals in and movement around Los Angeles for my Hegwer, Porter, and Keating lines. But I had no idea that any of the directories are online! Wow! And anyone can access them from home: no library card required! (Of course, if you do have a card, there are lots of other databases you can also access.) Note that this is the library of the City of Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County library system is a completely different entity [2].

Access the directories at http://www.lapl.org/resources/en/.  [Personally, I cannot find a way to easily get to this link from their home page!]   Select the link to the 'Los Angeles City and Street Directories.'  Once you get there, the search engine for the site is super easy. Of course, just to test it, I put in my names and found some new-to-me info!

This image is from p. 1082 of the 1942 Los Angeles City Directory.  Leonard Benjamin HEGWER was one of Great-Uncle Henry Hegwer's children with his second wife, Flora Wallace. A meterman with the city power company, Leonard appears in the 1929, 1936, 1938, 1939, and 1942 Los Angeles directories, each time at a different address! Interestingly, the listings also vary by who else is recorded with him:

1929 -- alone

1936 -- Louise I.

1938 -- Louise T.

1939 -- alone

1942 -- Dollie

The 2 listings where Leonard is listed without another name don't bother me; I know there are many instances where the directories do not show spouses. My records show that a marriage license was issued in Los Angeles for him and Louise Isabelle Ferguson in 1924, but I don't know if 'Dollie' is Louise.

Genealogy lessons for today

• The newsletters from local genealogy societies can have all sorts of wonderful goodies in them.
• Freely accessible digital collections at libraries are rapidly growing.
• Working on the ToDo pile can create more to do!
• Leonard is very collateral for me, so I probably won't spend any more time on his marriage(s?), but it does remind me that new info can turn up when you least expect it.

Line of Descent

Carl Benjamin Hegwer = Maria Rosina Ilgner

Henry Hegwer = Flora Wallace (his second marriage)

Leonard Benjamin Hegwer = Louise Ferguson and/or ????

Disclaimer & Notes

I do not receive any special consideration from any of the entities mentioned in this blog post.  I have a library card for both libraries mentioned and I am a Questing Heirs member.  For the directory image, first I saved and printed the page I wanted.  Then I took a digital photo of a portion of the page and cropped it.

[1] Questing Heirs Genealogical Society meets in Long Beach, California. Both their monthly newsletter and monthly meetings are always very interesting.  Past issues of the newsletters are available to anyone at the website.

[2] A library card from the Los Angeles County Library is free to temporary or permanent county residents.  I can access Heritage Quest from home and use my local branch for inter-library loans for lots of genealogy sources!