Belonging to Sarah Violet

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 41  (Oct 11-17)

Prompt: Passed Down

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 I’ve written about Sarah Violet Herndon before because she was difficult to find. She died young at age 34 and my Grandmother loved and missed her mother, Sarah Violet, even after my grandmother became a great-grandmother. It was through her treasures and researching her life that I came to love her. 

 Sarah died when my Grandmother was only 15 years old, but she still left an imprint on the family. She also left several items that my Grandmother passed down. I don’t know what else other members of the family have but I have a quilt and a bowl.

 Grandmother, Gladys, passed the bowl down to my mother, Gwonda, because she looked like her Grandmother, Sarah Violet.  It eventually came to live with me.  Gladys handwrote a note when she passed down the bowl. It states, "Gwonda, This bowl was my Mother's - your Grandmother whom you look a lot like.  Mother"

It is uranium glass and glows under a black light.  Uranium glass can have up to 25% uranium, although most were much less than that. According to Wikipedia uranium glass “fell out of widespread use when the availability of uranium … was sharply curtailed during the Cold War in the 1940s to 1990s. Most are now considered antiques or retro-era collectibles”.

 In doing research on it, several websites indicated that most uranium glass only has trace amounts of uranium and are not more hazardous to use than lead glass. Of course, one website states that leaded glass is not dangerous unless you eat or drink from it.  Others indicated that cutting the glass and sending fine particles in the air would be a very bad idea for both uranium glass and leaded glass. 

 I plan on keeping this beautiful passed down bowl as a display piece and not eat or drink anything from it.

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.

Sarah Violet Herndon

I feel very blessed. Thanks to Don Ivey, I now have pictures of my great grandmother, Sarah Violet Herndon. She died at age 34 when my grandmother was only 15 years old so no one in our family had ever seen a picture of her. James Wesley Ivey was Violet's 3rd husband. I found them on the 1920 census record several years ago in Cotton County, OK. See my posting on March 11, 2011.

James Wesley Ivey who normally went by Wesley was living near Gladys in the 1930 Stephens County, OK Census. Gladys had recently married Thomas Ocie McCarley. They were living next door to Sid McCarley, Ocie's Father, and the next family included Wesley Ivey, his brother, and his wife, and his parents. His brother, Grady, was listed as the head of the household.

The second picture is of Wesley Ivey with Violet driving. Did you notice the rose in the radiator?