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.