spirits

The Last Pair of Shoes

Posted on by dvn ms kmz time travel

Happy New Year! I hope you all have had a wonderful first few weeks of 2018. Holidays bring so much excitement into our home that it seems to take the first half of the new month to get adjusted and back into the swing of things.

Honestly, I would have happily taken another few days off, but I couldn’t.

For the last week, my uncle has been begging me to talk to him. Incessantly pestering me. Do you know how annoying that is? He showed up in my dreams. When I should have been concentrating or working on something else, he would pop in and disrupt whatever train had been chugging along.

The last straw was a few nights ago, when I found myself dreaming of him, once again. It was time to do some super sleuthing. Well, not that much, because how hard can it be to gather information on a 7 year old boy?

Apparently, getting to know a 7 year old boy, whom several of your immediate family members knew, is actually pretty difficult.

Ancestry, of who I have come to rely on to pick up the sent, kept coming back to me empty-handed. I swear she just walked to the doors of her cavernous rooms, glanced around and then came back and said, “I didn’t see it.” I sent her back three or four times to double check and each time, it was the same, unapologetic response…

Family Search wasn’t much help, either, though it did return with a headstone picture. This would have been fantastic, if I hadn’t taken the picture.

Mom and Nana were of minimal help. When asked to tell me about him, both immediately began to describe for me his last months- the hospital stay, what he looked like at the time and his and their reactions to seeing him thusly.

 

Born on April 3, 1954, Edward Lothario Jackson was a happy boy. He loved running and playing outside, especially with his wagon. He probably played the most with my mom, because they were closest in age among all the children. He learned his recitations (poems Nana and Granddaddy selected for the children to memorize and then recite on request) fairly quickly and loved to recite those poems for anyone who would ask. Though he went to school very briefly- a single semester- he did very well and made good marks. He smiled a lot and was very loving. He was given the nick name (which is was only used by the family and surely would have faded away by the time he reached 10) of Turdy Boy- though no one could recall how he came to acquire such a name. Perhaps, as Nana suggested, it was because Lothario was so hard to pronounce or maybe they were teasing him because of his habit of thumb sucking.

According to mom, he resembled my brother a bit (an interesting tid-bit, because when he visited with me in my dreams, he had a cherub face-  mixture between my brother and the baby)

One morning, in March of 1961, he fell over as he got out of the bed. When Nana tried to help him stand up, he could not. He was taken to the only hospital in the area, Mary Washington, located in Fredericksburg, Virginia. There was only one pediatrician in the area and he called MCV, a bigger hospital, an hour south in Richmond. The consulting doctor came and the two concluded he was being affected by encephalitis or lead poisoning. It was suggested that he be transferred to the big hospital for treatment. This was not to be, as Nana and Granddaddy didn’t know anyone in Richmond, who they could stay with for the duration of his hospital stay. Instead, he went north to Children’s Hospital in Washington, DC.

Lothario's Shoes.jpg

These are Lothario’s last pair of shoes. Shoes, he would never outgrow and never wear again.

Almost immediately upon his arrival, doctors discovered he was afflicted by neither of the aforementioned illnesses. Little Lothario had a tumor on his brain. After two surgeries, doctors would know that his cancer would lead to a fast approaching death. There was no mass of cancer for them to operate on, as it had latched on and spread throughout his brain, like a spider web.

One week before the arrival of death, his brother and sisters, as well as other family members gathered in his hospital room to say good bye to a brother, son, nephew  and cousin. This is the traumatic memory that has stuck with his survivors… In sharing his story, I hope to erase this vision, which has cemented itself in the minds of those who remember him and replace it with the delightful boy he was.

I imagine his imminent death would be painful and stressful, as he would loose his faculties… First his speech and then his sight, it is unclear if he lost the ability to feel, but doctors assured Nana that he could hear them up until the end.

Having so little to share about him, I have to wonder why he has so persistently been at me to visit with him…

Lothario

 

A few months ago, just before my children’s father left this land of the living, my father came and visited with me. He didn’t speak, didn’t present a story or nugget of information- he just sat with me a moment in my dreams and then disappeared leaving two butterflies behind. When my father died, a group of butterflies flew up into the sky as they were bringing him out of the church… From that moment on, every sighting of a butterfly has brought with it a peaceful understanding and remembrance of him. And so, I knew deep within the recesses of my brain that my former husband would soon be taking his last breath…

Earlier this week, doctors said that there was nothing left they could do for a family member- who has a brain tumor, which from my understanding has spread out so much cannot be operated on or removed… Could little Lothario be coming to prepare me for yet another death?

No one knows and certainly, only God can determine the time when someone’s dash is at an end. I find comfort in knowing that sometime’s the stories the dead tell me help to make be better prepared to accept things happening today.

Have you ever had an experience where an ancestor’s story seemed to mimic a story of a living family member? Did it bring you comfort and/or peace or some other feeling? Leave me a comment and let me know. And you know, I’ll never turn down a like or a share- so be free with those, too!

F.A.G. Credited With Finding Missing Couple

Posted on by dvn ms kmz time travel

Late last night, Perry and Ada Johnson, along with two of their children were found- as presumed- still dead in a Gretna, Louisiana cemetery. Early reports indicate the pair had been hiding out in FAG’s archives for at least two years, sources close to the case have said. It is unclear as of yet why the couple were not found in previous searches of Find a Grave or why they chose to reveal themselves at this time. A cursory search of the McDonoghville Cemetery’s and us airforcewife’s photos have turned up zero results as to the whereabouts of any remaining family.

Perry Johnson gravestone.jpg

Ada Johnson gravestone.jpg

Still unaccounted for are the couples children Earline (who may be yet among the living) of Gretna, Joseph, Perry Jr, Herman, Roland, and Aaron all presumably of Gretna and all probably long dead. It is possible that there may be another daughter, however this information can neither be confirmed or denied at this time.

It is believed that someone in the area knows how to find other members in the Johnson family, as evidenced by the fresh (at the time of this photo) flowers on Ada’s headstone. Could that someone still be placing flowers at the grave site?

Any persons with information on the Johnson family of Gretna, Louisiana is asked to comment immediately on this thread or email the author directly.

***

As if having the surname of Johnson wasn’t hardship enough, I have the added challenge of having little to no information at all. My grandmother, who was divorced from my grandfather (Roland) for years prior to his death in 2005 has requested that I not bother her with ‘this nonsense’ any more. Just before this pronouncement, I vaguely recall her mentioning a LIVING sister and that she had no recollection of the people I was ‘pestering’ her about. My mother believes there is a living sister, but doesn’t know how old she is or where she is living- nor does she have a copy of the obituary (which is shocking because between her and my Nana, there is a copy of EVERYONE’S obituary) and both my grandfather’s children (my father and my aunt) have left this world, taking all the information with them. My mother also promised to see if she had this sister’s address, though it has been twenty four hours without any mention of an address or a name, so my hope meter is falling with each passing minute.

Simply finding Ada and Perry on FAG was a great discovery for me and I truly do not know why I didn’t see them all the other times I have searched for them on the FAG site, but I am glad to have finally found them. I am hopeful that tomorrow will allow for me to dedicate more than a few spare minutes into digging deeper into this developing case.

For now, I am going to rest up for the challenge that lays ahead of me…

Have you ever wanted to put out an APB on one or more of your ancestors? I would love to hear about it- did you eventually ‘get your man’? If so, what are some of the tricks of the trade that worked for you? If you haven’t found your missing person yet, what are some of the things you have tried thus far?

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts and opinions! And of course, if you are in the LA area- especially Gretna, Jefferson Parish and want to volunteer some on the ground man power- it is absolutely welcome and appreciated!

And as always, if it made you smile or even chuckle- please give a like and a share, thank you and see you next time! 

Photo Credit- us airforcewife, Find A Grave member

Robbing or Rocking the Cradle?

Posted on by dvn ms kmz time travel

Just before Christmas, I found a few quiet minutes to myself and I told myself I was going to spend those very precious moments catching up on emails and being a responsible adult. Yeah right. I don’t think I even passed go as I headed straight to where else? Facebook. On this particular day, I didn’t even get to become engrossed in the lives of my friends. No, I came across Mick Jagger. More specifically, an article announcing the birth of Jagger’s eighth child demanded to be read. If you missed it, let me give you the low down… Good ‘ol Mick, who was seventy-three and his girlfriend (wife?), who was thirty, welcomed a bouncing bundle of joy to this world. No need to adjust your screens or search for your glasses- you read that right. Mick is seventy-three with a new born. This, however, is not what gave me pause… His new baby is two years younger than his GREAT GRAND CHILD.

This disturbed me. I was baffled. And not for the reasons you would automatically assume, either. I wanted to know what this tree would look like. I wanted to know if others had branches like this.I wondered how his grown children and grand children felt about this new addition. I wanted to know if they welcomed the girlfriend/wife with open arms… I mean she is younger than them, afterall…

Faster than you can say supercalifragilisticexpialadocious, I had posted the article to my favorite genealogy sites and invited my dearest friends near and far to sound off.

I remember asking if people felt this kind of relationship was more prevalent then (1800s and earlier) or now (1900s and later). I wanted to know why a young woman would submit to such an older husband. Most of the answers I got were things like financial support or pensions that would outlast the old man’s breathing days. In fact, I learned that the US was still paying out pension plans from the CIVIL WAR. Almost, no one, however, said love and without realizing it, I had begun to tell my own story…

I have been the younger woman. I have been the girlfriend younger than the children. I have had to navigate the very minefields I was questioning. And I did it all for love. Nothing more, nothing less.

But before I could explore this tangent that I found myself on, the dead began tugging at me. I couldn’t remember their names (and honestly I never went and looked for them), but I could remember their story (which resembled Mick Jagger’s more than my own)… For months I tried to find the parents of three children, of whom the census told me, belonged to parents who would have been in their late fifties and early sixties at the birth of the first child in question and nearly seventy at the birth of the youngest questionable child. Prior to reading this article, I was convinced that these children were grandchildren and that it was my duty to find their elusive parents. I asked family members if they had found the missing parents or any proof that the parents had once existed or if they might even be children of one of the children still on record as living at home. I remember during these quests, that these dead people in particular were eerily quiet. Eventually, I let it go, convinced that they would talk when they were good and ready and not a moment before.

It seemed as if Mick Jagger made them want to talk. They didn’t say much, but they did make me question if I had been chasing a story that wasn’t even there. They left me wondering how often we as family historians travel down the rabbit hole only to discover that we created the rabbit hole to begin with and there was nothing really there. How often do we overlook the facts right in front of our faces because they are to outrageous?

Reading the Mick Jagger article gave me reason to reevaluate the authenticity of the stories I am telling, even though I am quite sure that was not the author’s intent to do so. So, congratulations to Mick and his lady and thank you for reminding me that sometimes I only need to tell the story that is there and sometimes I can look at my own life and gain an understanding of the thoughts and feelings of my ancestors in days gone by.

I would love to know if you have ever read something completely unrelated to your genealogy work, but that made you think of ways you could improve your genealogy/family history work. What did you read and how did it enhance the way you do what you do? Thanks for sharing and please give this a like and a share!

See you next time!

THANKSGIVING DAY…

Posted on by dvn ms kmz time travel

It has been a very long time since the dead have talked to me… Or maybe it has been a really long time since I have taken the time to listen to them when they start speaking. Either way, a long time it has been. Two days ago, Thanksgiving to be exact, the chatter started up loud and clear.

Oddly enough though, I couldn’t really pay attention to the dead and their stories because the living story begged to be told.

SO. Here it is. The living story that the dead are begging me to tell so I can get back to them and THEIR stories…

I searched all over for a picture of a Thanksgiving food fight that I could insert here in order to convey the level of disaster Thanksgiving was for me, but I couldn’t find one (at least not one that clearly defined who I needed to give credit to and thus, I chose none for fear of being searched out by the copyright police).

To be fair, there was no literal food fight and the ‘fight’ was probably only felt by me, but still…

I guess the best place to start is dinner… I got drafted to the adult table. After living 37 years, I made it. Except, that totally isn’t where I wanted to be. I would have much rather have squeezed into a place at the kiddie table with my sister, kids and nephew, but that just wasn’t in the cards for me this year.

Dinner was completely awkward and uncomfortable- FOR ME. My brain (you’ll remember, I have been recovering from a brain injury) decided to play random tricks of reality on me and I found myself making comments on people that were relevant 15 years ago, as opposed to the 1 year ago my brain told me it  had been. I tried to join the conversations going on around me, but no one was having any of that. My brief forays into the conversations were met with barely concealed eye rolls or one word replies, that left little room for me to continue. I tried to interject accomplishments about my kids and myself- all to no avail.

Dinner sucked and I found myself wishing I had stayed home.

After everyone had finished eating and most everyone had left the table, the conversation somehow turned to the ancestors… I perked up. I was ecstatic. This was a conversation I could participate in. After retrieving ‘the books’, I sat down with my phone in hand ready to take notes and share.

But, as I sat listening to the information being passed on, I began to have questions and things weren’t adding up right… So, in a small lull in the conversation, I asked the only question I would be allowed, “how do you know that these people are in our family?” (Some names had been retrieved from the courthouse that have the same sir name as that side of the family and now they were being presented as our ancestors because of their general proximity to where documented ancestors came from. I had theories on these people being in our family, but no proof or documentation, so I genuinely wanted to know how to document these people.) The answer I got was not satisfying. It was vague. It was, “because I knew people who knew first hand.” (This may have been true for people further down on the list of names, but I was speaking of the first few names on the list- of whom no one would personally know, as they were born or lived in the late 1700s and early 1800s. I tried rephrasing my question and another relative was quick to answer, “I get what you are saying and I get what [person] is saying, too. A lot of our history is going to be word of mouth and not written down.” Hmmm. I don’t believe that. And as I am the one who has spent countless hours in courthouses and cemeteries gathering information, I know that there is always something to document a person’s life, existence and connections- sometimes, those things are just very well hidden.

After that, I was shunned from the conversation and accused of disturbing the order of documents (that I had never seen). Documents were pulled out and shown- but not to me. Alas, no one was interested in the things I had gathered or wanted to share…

And that’s how my Thanksgiving went. It was not the time of my life.I probably won’t go back for any more holidays and that’s okay.

There is good coming from my Thanksgiving disaster and that is the dead people started shouting at me again or I started hearing them again or whatever. Last night and into the wee hours of the morning, I was chasing down cousins long dead and they were showing themselves to me. Those names that were thrown about during the aforementioned Thanksgiving dinner are rattling around in my brain, begging to have their fair share of talk time. I can’t wait to dig in and hear the stories they are obviously begging to tell and who knows? Maybe I will eventually find them sitting on a branch in my tree…

Come Out, come out wherever you are!

Posted on by dvn ms kmz time travel

Jackson Harbert JrWe have all shouted those words at some point. They usually come when you are playing a rousing game of hide and seek and you are ‘it’ and you have given up your search of hiders… Or maybe, you’ve said them as a parent looking for your all to quiet children. I can recall saying these words in both situations. However. I never thought I would be saying them to a dead soldier.

That’s right. After weeks and weeks (sixteen, to be exact) of life keeping me to busy to talk with the dead or hear them when they were speaking or even check in on them and see how they were doing, I found myself uttering these words to a not so long dead relative….

His name is Jackson Harbert, Jr. Born 23 January 1914. Died 29 December 1989.

But before I get into this any further, I guess you need some back story information, right? Well, listen up kiddos because here it is. When I was twelve and many moons before I would become addicted to this drug called ‘genealogy’, a.k.a ‘family history’, my dad died. In 2005 and still before the moon would rise on my addiction, his father (my grandfather) died. And finally, a mere four months before my ‘awakening’ his ONLY sister would join them. His mother- my grandmother, still enjoys life on this side, however she has absolutely no interest in aiding and abetting me in this endeavor and I am told there may be two aunts (one from each side of his family) still walking and talking among us. But I have never met them and they wouldn’t know me if we stood right next to each other in the street. The point is, researching anything on my dad’s side of the family is hard on normal days and virtually impossible on nearly every other day.

So, last week, I finally managed to grab a few minutes and someone in my dad’s line had started whispering to me. And so it began. I started looking over the Johnson tree and its all to few branches. After some minutes or maybe even sixty of them passed, it finally jumped off the page and into my lap. Jackson Harbert, my 2x great-uncle, was a SENIOR. That means he had to have a son! By this time, the faint whispers had become a bit more audible and even more pressing. I was being encouraged to keep looking and to not stop. So, of course, I kept at it. I did finally find my 1st cousin, 2x removed in a Find A Grave record.

That was the ONLY thing I found. But, I learned a lot… For example, He was a WWII veteran. He died in 1989 and he was buried in Charlottesville, Virginia.Now, this is about the time my cousin decided to hide and when I started whispering, “come out, come out wherever you are”.

When I first sat down to take my few precious moments to do some investigating, it was approximately 9:3-pm. A quick glance at the clock told me it was going on 4am. My cousin was still playing this ridiculous game of hide and seek. By now, I was half begging and half screaming those infamous words, “come out, come out wherever you are”. He did not come out and I had to face a full day without any sleep and without the satisfaction of finding the hider…

I thought I had struck gold when one of my friends and non-genealogy enthusiast actually VOLUNTEERED to go to the cemetery and do some sleuthing for me. She agreed to go to the office and ‘badger’ them for the requested information. I just knew I was going to end the day victor of this hide and seek game… Do I even need to tell you that that’s not what happened? Must I tell you that there was no office or office person or anything/anyone of which answers could be extracted from?

My cousin, who had started this game, was mocking me. And he continued to taunt me, whispering in the dark of night, “come and find me. If you can.” I really wanted to wring his neck. I eventually took my frustrations to Facebook, where wonder of wonders, I was thrown a bone. Someone found his wife. I’m not sure how and wasn’t given a clear answer when I asked, so I was very leery of the information I had been given… A quick run to Ancestry proved fruitless, which is unsurprising, because according to this new ‘source’, she is quite possibly NOT pushing up daisies. I was even given a possible address to contact her. As of right now, I haven’t taken the plunge to contact  But her… But, I will.

It would be great if I could say this is where this thrilling game of hide and seek came to an end, but no. It appears that Jackson Harbert, Jr. has invited someone else to play… Carrie Oliphant has decided to play. I have no idea who Carrie is or how she fits into this tree or if she even is a part of this tree- all I know, is that she died and Jackson was the executive of her estate. (January 17, 1943. Waxahachie Daily Light from Waxahachie, Texas · Page 4)

So, here I go again… come out, come out wherever you are…

 

Big thanks to my Genealogy Chit Chat Family and all of my ‘sources’ within the group. And an especially big thank you to Sj- a super detective. Thank you to all of you who will read this and jump right in to help me solve this mystery- let me know if you need more info 🙂

 

Haunted by the Junk Drawer

Posted on by dvn ms kmz time travel

https://i0.wp.com/www.amyvolk.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/junk-drawer-pattywest-blogspot.jpg

There is absolutely no denying it. We all have one. And more times than we will ever admit, we have wondered where something was only to remember that it (whatever it is) is in the junk drawer and in the junk drawer is where it will stay, because who really has the time or inclination to go searching through the junk drawer? If you’re anything like me (and I’m pretty sure you are), you have duplicates of things simply because you’d rather not waste valuable time ‘cleaning’ the junk drawer… Am I right or am I right? Junk drawers come in all shapes and sizes, but for me and my dead people, it is Ancestry’s shoe box and the yellow spiral notebook. If I am out ‘in the field’ any questionable tidbits or I want to look into this further things get jotted down in the yellow spiral notebook and if I am browsing through Ancestry’s bazillion records and I come across a this might be so and so document it gets tossed into the shoe box. There’s no shame in my game and I will readily admit that once something goes in, it almost NEVER comes back out- no matter how good my good intentions may be.

Clearly, my junk drawers could use some love, affection and attention. I keep telling myself that one of these days I need to make it my weekend project- especially now that winter is upon us and I won’t be doing a whole lot of outdoor exploring any time soon. Except, I always find something else to do…

That’s when my dead people came to the rescue. Or rather they became extremely bothersome, like they don’t know what it’s like to have things to do or something. Anywho… My dead people have been extremely quiet as of late- I think they were offended by something I said- and I had nearly given up hope that I would ever hear from them again, until about two or three weeks ago.

Are you familiar with the Freedman’s Bureau? (I really, really hope so, otherwise I am not entirely sure I want us to continue in this friendship…) I was checking my email (read deleting all the junk mail) when I came across an email from what I thought was The Freedman’s Bureau. I started shaking from excitement. (I know this particular bureau is no longer in existence and has been disbanded for quite sometime. I get it. However, remember brain injury. And that sometimes makes me read things that words don’t actually say.) I didn’t even open it. I was very diligent in continuing with the task at hand and getting rid of all those pesky emails. Then I sat down to see what kind of interesting documents or clues or what have you there would be. I opened the email. I didn’t understand what was happening. Why was the Freedman’s Bureau sending me information on debt? Was one of my ancestors in debt and they (I can’t even begin to tell you who I thought they were) had found these debtor records? I clicked out of the email. Reread the sender information. Freedman’s Bureau. I clicked back into  the email. Now my brain decided to slowly start working again… Freedom Debt Relief. Umm, what? I really thought this was my sister’s idea of a sick joke or something, so I clicked out of the email again. Ohhhh. Can you just imagine the look of disappointment on my face as realization dawned that I had misread things? Yeah, I wish I could have seen it too. Once my dismay ebbed. I determined that it was the dead people back from where ever and they had been talking to me again. Okay I need to search the Freedman’s Bureau of records. But for who? It would have been to much like right for them to give me a name along with their hint, you know? But, I was in the middle of things and so I just scribbled a quick note in- you guessed it- the yellow spiral notebook.

Days later, my dead people upped the ante. I was asleep and I dreamed that a Union Civil War Soldier was staring at me through the sliding glass door. This dream was so intense, I woke up and was terrified that someone was looking through the blind covered glass doors. It was so real, I could almost make out the name or whatever those scratch marks on the side of his Union cap said. Almost. Alright this was confirmation that my dead people weren’t mad at me anymore. Again, I made a quick note in the infamous yellow spiral notebook. After all, I had a pleasant little nap to get back to…

Later that same night, I had another dream. This time a baby was playing on my back while I slept in the dream. Again, it felt real, extremely real. So real that I woke up calling my daughter’s name to ask her why she had put the baby on my back while I was asleep. Her name became stuck on the tip of my tongue, as I realized that the baby was actually in his crib and sound asleep. Again in it went into the yellow spiral notebook, to keep the others before it company.

If you’re keeping track, this is the run down of things thus far- I need to go to the Freeman’s Bureau and see what that will turn up, I needed to look more closely at any male relatives that served in the Civil War and someone had a baby that didn’t live, I assume.

Then last night came the incessant tapping at my widow. It was nerve wracking. It was terrible, really. Because unless someone was playing a truly fantastic game of ‘Knock, Knock Ginger’ (I didn’t grow up calling it Ginger, but I am grown up now and Ginger sounds so much nicer), then there was no one there. And then my toilet flushed- all by itself. That’s when I called the girl-child’s daddy.

I get it. My dead people missed me and they are wanting me to find them. In the junk drawer… oh boy.

Anyway, I am rambling all over the place, when really all I needed to have said was “check your junk drawer people”- but that would have been boring and there is already enough of that in the world, don’t you think? Well, that’s what I will be doing ALL DAY on Saturday and Sunday too- if I can sneak away. You should join me! I know you have a junk drawer- but have you gone through it recently? What kind of things did you turn up? I am eager to hear your success stories (and your failures- if you must). Leave me your comments and don’t forget to like and share!