Good Deeds of Many Researchers

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 47 (Nov. 18-24)
Prompt: Good Deeds
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As I thought about what to write this week, I started multiple times with different subjects but nothing really stood out for me until a couple of days ago when a distant relative did a good deed. Over the years, I have had a multitude of distant relatives help me with my genealogy.  Starting with Katherine Walter from Tyler, TX in the 70s who shared her work on our mutual McCarley line.  Over the years, I have documented her work and expanded on it in many places. She was a meticulous researcher and I wish she were still here to continue collaborating. She was patient with me as a beginning researcher who was eager to learn and I have learned that she helped other McCarley researchers get started. 

Then there was my Grand Aunt Nina, sister to my Grandmother,  who in the 80s sent me through the mail some tin type pictures to copy and send back to her. She knew my Dad but not me so I always felt very honored that she trusted me to send them back. 

Descended from a sister to my great grandmother, Bernice Ammann Irwin, sent me a binder with information about my Maddy family.  It was copied from original type written pages with pictures.  Over the Xerox copied pictures, she glued photographs. I didn't check her work for many years, but when I did start documenting, it was all correct, except for leaving the e out of my maiden name.  I was thrilled to see my family listed with all of my siblings. I still treasure that binder with all the pages encased in sheet protectors.

In 2014, Don Ivey, who is descended from my great grandmother's third husband, sent me pictures of her. Sarah Violet Herndon died when she was only 34 years old and no one in my family had ever seen a picture of her.  Don's sharing those pictures caused excitement among many members of my family. My Grandmother considered James Wesley Ivey her father, and she had very fond memories of him.  She had also told us that my Mother looked like Sarah Violet. The pictures do show a remarkable resemblance, but they also show that one of my cousins bears some resemblance to her, also.  One of the pictures  has her and Wesley driving an early model car with a flower in the radiator.  I can't help but believe that Wesley must have been fond of Sarah Violet even after the divorce to have kept her pictures and passed them down in his family. 

This week, I received a picture of Cassie McCarley from a descendant of my great grandparents. I am so grateful to Trinity and her brother, Rob, for sharing this picture. Cassie died when she was only 3 years old and I have researched for her records off and on for many years.  My Grand Aunt Viola is also in the picture and while I have memories of her and pictures of her as an older woman, this is the first picture of her as a baby I have seen.

One of the purposes for my blog is to share with the rest of my family, not just the dates and places of our ancestors, but their stories. Without the good deeds of many distant relatives, I would not know nor be able to share their lives.

Japanese Language

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 46 (Nov. 11-17)
Prompt: Different Language
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 This week I am not writing about my ancestors, but about my grandchildren’s ancestors.

 As I sat at the dining room table with my mother in law and her friends, I let the conversation wash over me as I cut vegetables in the precise manner for sukiyaki. I didn’t understand what they were saying so it was easy to zone out.  Suddenly, my mother in law turned to me and asked me a question in Japanese, and I answered in English.  I don’t know what she asked me, but my answer satisfied her, and she turned back to the conversation. Neither she nor her friends ever realized the question was in Japanese.  I knew by the tone that it was a question and replied, "I don't know".

 My father-in-law met and married Asa (Smoky) Inage while he was in the army and stationed in Japan.  He had gone to Japanese language classes and he frequented areas outside of the military base and tourist areas.  They moved to the United States when my husband, Robert, was about 4 years old.  At the time he spoke Japanese and very little English.  Once Robert started to school, he learned English rapidly and mostly forgot the Japanese that he once knew. 

Robert in a cornfield in Japan

Robert did remember a few words. He had a Japanese pet name for me, but he refused to tell me what it meant.  I knew whatever it meant; it wasn’t flattering.  Eventually I became so annoyed, that I started threatening to ask his mother if he did not tell me.  He would just laugh saying, “You wouldn’t dare”. 

One day, we were gathered around that same dining room table, when I ask Mom what “ketzu magare” meant. She started giggling and covered her mouth with her hand. My father-in-law laughed out loud. I waited, while my husband blushed. Eventually, while  turning just a little red, Dad told me that it meant “dumb head”.  I did not believe  that for one minute. I still don’t know what it really means. The spelling is probably very wrong as the Japanese translators online won't tell me either.  

 Smoky taught our daughter the Japanese word for bathroom (benjo), because it was more polite to use in public. We use a few other Japanese words, like hashi (chopstick).  Once when I was singing “London Bridges” to our young daughter, Robert started singing along with us in Japanese. He was just as surprised as we were because he didn’t know the song until he started singing it.

 I wish now that we had learned more while we had the chance.

Santa Claus

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 44 

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Prompt: Bearded 

It was a dark  and stormy night.

 I've always wanted to start a story with that line, and it really was a miserable night with snow steadily coming down.  A young girl answered the door late on Christmas Eve.  To her shock, Santa Claus stood in the door covered with a light sprinkling of snow.

 Well, it wasn't really Santa Claus, but he had a big bushy white beard and that was her first reaction.  It was really her Grandpa, Mitchel McCarley, who had come to visit.  He rode a horse from Carter County, Oklahoma to their house in Nocona, Texas in the freezing sleet and snow.  

Over the next few days, he became very ill with what was probably pneumonia.  He passed away almost 3 weeks later on January 16, 1916. 

His granddaughter remembered him being laid out in her bedroom for the few days that it took to get warm enough to have him buried in Nocona Cemetery.

When I heard this story it made me realize how traumatic it must have been on such a young girl to first think that Santa Claus had come to see her and then for him to  die and be laid out in her bedroom.

I have heard this story from a couple of different distant cousins. I'm not positive who the granddaughter was. I was told but just don't remember right now.  I thought it was Wanda but in checking records, she was not born until well after this date.  I suspect it was Loda Mae Stout, daughter of Sarah Alice McCarley and Henry Clay Stout.  Loda would have been about 5 years old when her Grandfather died and her family lived in Nocona in 1920.  If you know who it was, let me know and I will update this story. 

Mitchel Wilburn (Walter) McCarley,
born September 1846, Mississippi
died 16 January 1916, Nocona, Montague Co., TX

Serious Foretelling

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 44
#52ancestors
Prompt: Scary Stuff 

I don't think it is really so scary but rather cool to think that my family has "powers". I don't have powers but sometimes I know who is on the phone before I answer it. I also learned that I could witch for graves, sort of like water witching, but it worked for almost everyone in the group I was with so I don't know if that is a power or if it is some kind of science we just don't know yet.

 My grandfather, Thomas Osa (Ocie) McCarley, had powers and so did his Dad, Sidney E. McCarley.  I've mentioned before how Grandpa could find water by using a forked branch, but he also had some serious foretelling.  When my mother was young, they had a cellar in the backyard. The kind that had a small hill with a slanted door in the side. The kids would climb the mound of dirt to the top of the door and slide down it.  It was a regular part of their play to slide down the cellar door. One morning before Grandpa left the house, he told Grandma not to let the kids play in the backyard that day.  Mom thought it was strange, but they did what their Father told them and played in the front yard that day. That night while they were asleep, the root cellar caved in. 

 One of my Mom's second cousins told me about my great grandfather, Sid McCarley's powers.  When Ron was young, he had warts all over his hands and they had tried everything to get rid of them. His mother took him to see his Uncle Sid. My great grandfather, took Ron's hands inside of his hands and rubbed them all over very strongly.  Ron's hands got warmer and warmer as he rubbed until they were almost hot. His Uncle Sid then told him to go home and tomorrow the warts would be gone. The next day, the warts were gone.

I have never heard Sid called Leprechaun in my family but I was told that was his nickname. Maybe he had other powers, too.

 When my mother had a bad feeling about something, we knew not to even try to change her mind. What if she had the same kind of powers that her Dad had? She probably saved us several times by not letting us go somewhere that bad things were going to happen. To this day, I watch for a white car crossing Hwy 180 between Weatherford and Mineral Wells that she predicted would cross in front of us causing a wreck.