Maria's Family History Blog

I'm passing on the link to Maria's blog--the one on which she writes about the Bishop family of Ohio.  She has discovered some very interesting tidbits on this family who has remained in the area for over a hundred years.

Meet Some Families of Logan County, Ohio

Holding a Silver Dollar

Leslie Jerome Thaden was a small boy during the time now known as the Great Depression.[1]  He was young enough that he didn’t realize his family was considered poor.  It was life as he had always known it, and he doesn’t remember ever hearing anyone refer to the times as a Depression while it was going on.  He didn’t realize there was any other kind of life. 

Life as he knew it consisted of some of his unique chores.  It was his job to walk the neighborhood and scout around for scrap wood his family could use in their fireplace.[2]  On the journey he also picked up any glass bottles he found.  He then sold these to bootleggers.[3]

He earned money in other ways as well.  He sold newspapers on the street corners.  His was the voice one would hear yelling, “Read all about it; the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor!”  He also sold candy.  He stocked up from a corner grocery store then ventured out to see how many he could sell.  He also shined shoes; he made his own shoe shine kit and set up on the sidewalk to earn a few cents.[4]  He then turned his earnings over to his parents. 

Les lived in the city of Jacksonville, Florida, and remembers distinctly the lines of men waiting for food and for work.  His own father was self-employed and Les recalls his family was never hungry; they always had something to eat.  His father was often paid in kind and brought home food in return for his services as a night watchman.  Through this bartering, Les’ father was also able to provide presents at birthdays and Christmas for his wife and five children. 

Sometimes, when his father needed to buy food, he didn’t always have the money, but he had a 1900 silver dollar that was very special to him.[5]  The grocer would hold the silver dollar in exchange for some groceries until Les’ father could pay the grocer what he owed. 

The children of the Depression era were very resourceful and imaginative.  They played their pretend games with all sorts of items.  They played grocery store with items such as grass, leaves, and sticks and old cans from the garbage.  Les made his own pop guns using bamboo, china berries, a clothes pin, and a slice of rubber from an old inner tube.  He also made his own scooters, toy sailboats, and go carts. 

Some people say America is in an economic crisis today because many people are losing their jobs and homes, and many businesses are folding.  Les acknowledges that these unfortunate events are occurring; however he does not feel the people of this country are suffering as much as the people were during the Depression of the 1930s—not when he sees individuals still spending money on sports and restaurants, not when he sees people still using cell phones and frequenting the mall, not when he sees folks making trips to Disneyland and sailing on cruises to Mexico. 

He will be the first to acknowledge that people didn’t have these sorts of items or opportunities when he was a boy.  They had so few of these extras that would have been considered luxuries back then but are considered necessities today.  Since these luxuries didn’t even exist, they didn’t miss them.  He realizes that his mother cooked their meals from scratch only because meals in a box or can or in a frozen dinner tray simply did not exist.  He also adds that his mother did a lot of clothing repair.  Interestingly, mending is a dying art today.  Since his family lived in town, they didn’t even have a car.  They walked everywhere they went or rode the street car.

Les concludes that the times were harder on the population during the Great Depression, even though they didn’t have as much to do without as people would today.  If the people of today had to start living as he did as a boy, they would have no cell phones, no television, no computer games and no ipods.  They would have no fast food and less variety of food in general and no electric refrigerators.   They would have only one or two pairs of shoes and their clothes would be mended many times over and perhaps remade.  If he sees people living like this again, he will feel satisfied that the current economic crisis can be compared to the Great Depression.



Les' father, Herman Meigs Thaden juggles a happy baby Charles Herman on
 his hip c1925.  He holds his hat in his left hand.  Les says his father never went
anywhere without his hat.  Notice the strap across his chest and the law
  enforcement badge pinned to his shirt.  The strap perhaps held his holstered
     pistol.  Some say he was a deputy; others say he worked for the police
    department.  Perhaps his association with city law enforcement had something
      to do with his job as night watchman for the downtown businesses on his beat. 

 

Angela Thaden Hahn

29 April 2009

---

[1] Les Thaden was born in 1928.

[2] Interestingly, homes in Jacksonville, Florida, were built with fireplaces.  There are a few mornings and evenings during the Jacksonville winters that can be chilly.

[3] Bootleggers are usually associated with the Prohibition years of the 1920s.  Perhaps in actuality, Les’ bottles were sold to folks who processed their own spirits.  Most everyone during the Depression years had to be frugal with recycled items of all kinds.

[4] Les came from a Syrian merchant background.  Though he doesn’t remember, it is quite possible he stocked up at the store of a Syrian owner.  By selling the merchandise, he was simply peddling.  Many Syrian merchants operated in this manner.  Likewise, with his shoe shine kit, he may very well have set up outside the Syrian and Greek owned shoe shops and dry cleaning businesses.

[5] This 1900 silver dollar may have been special to Les’ father because that is the year he was born. 

How to Do Better on Tests and Job Interviews

Boost your chances of getting a job or passing an exam... by thinking about your ancestors for five minutes

Reading Old Newspapers

At Chronicling America, old newspapers from Holt County, Missouri have been digitized .  Our direct ancestor, Samuel Hahn, left the county in the mid-1860s, but much can be learned about his brothers, Richard and Daniel Hahn, who remained in the county until they died.  Trying different search terms has produced many articles that help to piece together Daniel's very large family.  The articles also open a peek into the daily life of Daniel Hahn, one the county's first and respected citizens, a successful and wealthy farmer, who lived to be 83 years old.  You can read some of these articles at Daniel Hahn (1813-1897).

My Favorite Genealogy Reads

About.com.Genealogy
DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog
Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
Genealogy Insider
Genealogy Tip of the Day
GeneaWebinars

Youth Genealogy

The Back in the Day Youth

How refreshing to see young people involved in their family history.

Letters from the Old Country

How fun to receive last week a tube full of documents pertaining to Herman Thaden and his family.  There was a patent for the airship and a brochure explaining the wonders of this airship for potential shareholders.  There was also a news clipping featuring the airship in an Atlanta German-language newspaper.  Many letters accompanied these documents, written by Bernard Thaden to relatives back home.  All are written in German with the exception of some written to his sister's family.  Curiously, his sister also lived in Ostfriesland but must have had no trouble with the English language.  Incidentally, Bernard's English was better than most Americans'.  The translation of these letters will be a challenge, especially since the script is Old German and more especially since they are most likely written in the plat Deutsch of Ostfriesland.  These papers were discovered  in an old trunk, by a Strenge cousin, in the attic of the Thaden home in Dornum before it was torn down. Thanks to Cousins Christoph and Lenchen for securing such nice scans of the documents and then sending them to me.  They truly know the value of good family history research!

iGoogle

I have discovered iGoogle!  It takes awhile to set this up, but with the help of Lisa Louise Cooke’s The Genealogist’s Toolbox I have set up a web page that has all the tools I need at the ready for my writing and research.  I feel so organized!

City Directories

I have been working with city directories from Kansas City, Missouri, during the years of 1891 to 1915.  They are very easy for me to get to because they are located in one of the many databases within my public library's special collections.  I can view pdf files of each page of the directory, save them to a thumb drive or print them right there.  I like to have paper copies of the city directories so I can shuffle them around at will.  Many of our families are listed in the Kansas City directories, but currently I am studying the De Mayo family.  Frank De Mayo, the elder, first appears in the 1891 directory.  This supports evidence that he arrived in this country in 1890.  It would appear he went straight to Kansas City after landing in the U.S.  As the years go by, other De Mayos appear in the list showing the same residential address as Frank.  These are most likely his children.  Upon further study, another family starts to form around Vito Demaio.  One of his children turns out to be Albert, who was also listed as one of the pall bearers for Frank's son.  This is a good indication that Frank and Vito are related.  By following the directories from year to year, I can see that Vito died around 1904.  With that information I can look for a death certificate that may give me clues to his possible relationship to Frank.  With the addresses listed in the directory, I can go to old maps to see where these places are located and their proximity to the churches, parks, and places of employment.  City directories are both fun and informative.  I have spent hours with these already.

A Glimpse of Little Italy

Kansas City is one of several towns harboring a Little Italy community.  Many Italian immigrants called this small triangular grid, in Kansas City's north end, home in the 1900s and 1910s.  Eventually, many Italians moved from the enclave to other parts of the city.  But in its heyday, the neighborhood of narrow streets bustled with activity.  Men played bocce ball in empty lots. Many families kept a goat in their yard.  The residents were hard workers.  Mom and I were curious about where the DeMayo family lived after arriving in America so we took a stroll to see what culture we could find.  A funeral was just at its close when we walked by the Holy Rosary Catholic Church.  As the dark, stout mourners exited the heavy wooden doors, they bid each other goodbye with a kiss on each cheek.  This little neighborhood is now home to some Viet Namese immigrants and the appetizing smell of Asian food hung in the air, trapped between the close buildings.  I bet when the DeMayos lived there, the smell of marinara sauce greeted the noses of passers-by.  Many of the business still bear Italian names and even the fire hydrants are painted in Italian colors. 

Good Times

While in Kansas City, my mother took me to Askew Avenue, where she lived as a little girl in one of the rooms of this house with her daddy and mama. She recounted many happy memories here. This little house was shared by three families, and my mother lived in the middle part of the house accessed by a private entrance, now made into a bay window.

The boarded-up house, now condemned, sits on a corner lot.

Mom walked one block and through a passageway under Monroe Street to reach her elementary school, also now boarded up.

Crossing Askew Avenue was 27th Street, the main street through the neighborhood, lined with mom and pop shops. My mother went on errands for her mama to the little grocery store a few doors down behind their house.

The neighborhood of painted houses and trimmed yards was once shaded in safety by leafy canopies atop gigantic trees. Today, the sad homes and forgotten school await their fate in an almost treeless ghost town of boarded stores. There is an eerie, uneasy feeling in the neighborhood now. There is no sign of life until a small car slows in curiousity and then speeds past us.

It's sad how pleasant things change. Mom's daddy died and she and her mother moved away from her home and her school and her relatives. She can never really go back to this happy place on Askew Avenue for it has gone the way of many old city neighborhoods and no longer exists. But the memories of a happier, simpler, safer time are pleasant.

Missouri River Bottom Land

Nestled in Platte County, Missouri, in the bottoms, under an overcast sky heavy with moisture, lies a small parcel of twenty acres that was once owned by Hiram McDaniel in the 1850s. Where the ground drops off to the west is the life-giving Missouri River. Kansas trims the horizon. Bluffs rise from the bottoms to the east. A neglected house, weathered brown, sleeps on this land. How long has it been there? Who lived in it? There once was a house on this land filled with the purposeful movements of Janettie McDaniel and chatter from the children, Lucretia, John Hiram, and James. Today, remnants of dried stalks and cobs indicate that corn is grown in the dark gray clay. Did Hiram grow corn, too? The bottoms continue to be home to hard working farmers like the McDaniels.

My brother and his family are touring Ostfriesland. They have met up with our German cousins, the Gericke family. How wonderful to have personal tour guides to take them on a family history journey through the land of our immigrant ancestor, Hayo Eberhardt Thaden, known as Herman in America. There's just something special about walking the same village streets, stopping by the town's Lutheran church, gazing up at the windmill at the village entrance, shopping in the same merchant district as did the Thaden family in the 17 and 1800s. It certainly brings one closer to forebears with a deeper respect for the sacrifices and triumphs of their lives.

Photo of Bockwindmuhle from Panoramio at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/48902976

Cemetery Haunts and Jaunts

Over spring break I drove with my parents and brother back to Kansas City to meet new relatives and conduct some research. Our cemetery experience was disappointing, yet rewarding at the same time.

There used to be an old register for Woodlawn Cemetery in KCK, which has seen its fair share of troubles over its 140 year history. My mother has seen this book; now no one knows where it is. Researchers have to rely on the printed cemetery index which doesn’t include helpful information typically found in a register, such as parents’ or spouse’s names, cause of death, place of birth, etc. What a shame this precious book has been misplaced or even destroyed as was suggested by local history staff at KCK’s public library.

On the other hand, Calvary Cemetery in KCMO is well staffed and maintained yet help was very hard to get. Their policy allows two free lookups and each additional lookup costs $10.00. Our two free lookups provided us with only the block and lot numbers and a copy of the cemetery map with highlighted directions to the gravesites. With additional genealogical information from the card file in her hand, the staff member would give us no more. She wouldn’t even take our names to pass on to the lot owners, citing the Privacy Act. But cemeteries are not subject to the Privacy Act unless they are federally owned. Calvary’s staff is either misinformed or lazy.

We did not come away entirely empty-handed from these two cemeteries. At Woodlawn we noticed stones bearing the names of Hoffman next to the empty spot where Albertson markers once stood. Next to a Bright monument lay stones for Pearson and Little. Hoffman, Pearson, and Little are recent discoveries in the family history and finding their graves by accident was a pleasant surprise.

A similar experience awaited us as we unexpectedly happened upon a Corti marker next to a monument for De Mayo—one of our two free lookups.

Challenges aplenty await the researcher without unnecessary obstacles such as lost registers and uncooperative staff. Yet perseverance and patience pay off with gentle little surprises.

A Lay Webmaster's Best Friend

I have discovered Google Sites! Wow, what an easy way to create a family website! It’s much simpler than the way I was snailing them out on Rootsweb’s host. Though it was easy enough with the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) feature, it still lacked the pleasant layout options Google has to offer.

I started with Arachnophilia’s template which was a handy tool, but I still needed to learn some HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), a secret code for webmasters. Eventually I memorized some of it and the writing went a bit faster. One little mistake, though, could make my web page look really whacked. Therefore, it was very time-consuming.

I’m so happy with Google Sites, and now I am transferring all my web pages over to sites.google.com/site/hahnfamilyandthadenfamily and it is going very quickly. Knowing that creating a new page or updating an existing page won’t be drudgery, I’m more apt to add more content.

The Family Historian

How can I spend so much time on family history? It’s easy. It’s sooo easy. When I’m not gardening, or maintaining the kitchen and our food supply; when I’m not cleaning, flinging, and keeping our house in order; when I’m not working out to get fit or working at my paying job; when I’m not mending, beading, or needlecrafting while enjoying a Western with my honey—I’m deeply engrossed in the family history, my most favorite hobby.

I’m in the process of writing my third family history book. I write from the facts I have already collected and in doing so, I develop more questions. Then I conduct further research to get the new questions answered.

While writing, I am studying to receive my certification in genealogy. I have a manual of standards and I take online classes in methodology while looking forward to my FamilyTree magazine. I learn professional practices which I put to use in my personal research and in the various other projects I have adopted.

Findings for my own genealogy are documented and uploaded to Rootsweb’s online database. I also maintain a family history website featuring the surnames and individuals I am currently researching. I post to this blog with fascinating tidbits for my immediate family members and other interested cousins.

My website has been hit by researchers googling for the people about whom I have written. Three previously unknown cousins have come forward to introduce themselves to me after discovering my website. Other researchers have found my Rootsweb submission and have contacted me for the purpose of collaboration.

On occasion I have found it necessary to spend some time on a case study. I have published the results of these studies on the internet as well, and one of my articles has been printed in a genealogical society newsletter.

For the past several years, I have taught a family history class during Sunday school. The students and I have covered numerous topics while I share with them the things I have learned in my own trial and error and success.

I recently joined a group of volunteers who help researchers from out of town locate local facts. So far I have had four satisfied “clients.”

Knowing the value of oral history has prompted me to begin recording and transcribing the personal story of Fred Ferguson, a long-time Colorado resident, while still working on the transcription of my own parents’ stories.

Having an interest in the town of Fountain led me to the ongoing project of publishing the research of one of the town’s early residents.

Currently, I belong to the Ostfriesen Genealogical Society of America and am waiting to hear from the newsletter editor how I may get involved as a volunteer. Meanwhile, I’ve got the gears turning in my head as to how I will transcribe and photograph a local cemetery plot that is so tucked out of the way, its existence is doubtful well known.

In this season of my life I am allowed to spend a lot of time on what I love.

To Be American

As my body was arousing this Saturday morning from a restful sleep, I was thinking. Sometimes I get my best thinking done before full reality sets in, when there's still room for imagination in my brain. I was thinking about the term Native American. This is not about Native Americans of indigenous descent. This is about native Americans like me of Heinz 57 descent. To be a native means to be born in a certain place. I was born in America; that makes me a native American, right? I cetainly can't be a native Brit or a native German, or a native Syrian. Even the native Syrians in my family tree were descended from Greeks and quite possibly others. The native Sicilians in my children's family trees were decended from Arabs; they did not call themselves Arab Sicilians. So why do I have to call myself a European American or an Arab American? Why can't I be a native American? After all, it seems pretty much agreed that the indigenious Americans originated somewhere else. Perhaps they should more correctly be called Siberian Americans. No, I guess that won't go over too well. In the meantime, I hope it will be okay for me to call myself an native American, born and raised in America, as were my parents and grandparents and many more before them.

Separating the two Mary Albertsons

Imagine my dismay at finding our Mary A. Albertson combined with another Mary A. Albertson. Our gal had the right parents but was hooked up with the wrong spouse. The other Mary had that other spouse but was linked to our Mary's parents. What a mess!! Read how I straightened that out. In the meantime, the two are combined into one until the owners of those published family trees make the necessary adjustments.