On Thus Day - June 21st

On This Day...

1742 - Birth: Elijah White, Bolton, Tolland County, Connecticut

1813 - Birth: Abraham Wiseman, Nelson County, Kentucky

1836 - Birth: Catherine Straughan, Grantsburg, Crawford County, Indiana

1847 - Marriage: Timothee Melancon and Ursule Beaudreau, Stanbridge, Canada

1859 - Marriage: Bernard Kunkel and Maria Eva (Ort) Mehling, Rothenbach, Germany

1868 - Marriage: Halvor Omdahl Bjorgufson and Ingebjorg Marie Gjermundsdatter, Lardal, Norway

1905 - Residence: Julia Haehn, Holdingford

1905 - Residence: John Haehn, Holdingford

1905 - Residence: Sebastian Funk, Albany

1905 - Residence: Regina Maehren, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Minnie E Henz, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Edward Mathias Henz, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Matilda B Henz, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Christian William Henz, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Lawrence Lawrence Henz, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Lauretta Keppers, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Gerome John Keppers, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Loretta Gertrude Keppers, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Anna Mary Kraemer, St Cloud Ward 4

1905 - Residence: Caroline Susan Keppers, St Cloud Ward 4

1918 - Death: Peter Ludwig, Stearns, Minnesota

1958 - Death: Anna Catherine Carpentier, Morrison County, Minnesota

 
Whoo!  That's a long list, thanks to the Residence entries.  I don't know why, but apparently Minnesota's 1905 State Census used the date of recording as the date of residence, rather than some arbitrary cutoff date.  Makes more sense to me, truthfully, more accurate.



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

On This Day - June 4th

On This Day...

1838 - Birth: Seaborn Calvin Nickens, Livingston Parish, Louisiana

1839 - Death: Georg Steichen, Kehlen, Capellen, Luxembourg

1841 - Birth: Joannes Zwilling, Wallenborn, Eifel, Germany

1850 - Death: Clarissa Day, Granby, Hampshire County, Massachusetts

1878 - Marriage: John Ambrositch and Mary M. Keppers, Saint Joseph, Stearns County, Minnesota

1892 - Death: Mary Elizabeth Roberson, Crawford County, Indiana

1894 - Marriage: Adam Keppers and Johanna Grunloh,

1905 - Residence: Elizabeth V. Lommel, Albany

1905 - Residence: Gertrude A. Lommel, Albany

1905 - Residence: Edmund Christopher Lommel, Albany

1905 - Residence: Anna M. Friedrich, Albany

1905 - Residence: Joseph Peter Lommel, Albany

1905 - Residence: Wilhelmine C. Lommel, Albany

1911 - Marriage: Albert Cyrus Durand and Ruth Sawyer, Lincolnville, Maine

Note the Residence entries.  You may also have seen them for yesterday's entry.  In fact, all of this week contains Residence entries.  I'm not sure if they were entered differently, or Minnesota used the date of the census taker's visit as the Residence date, or some other reason. 



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

On This Day - May 1st

On This Day...

1649 - Alternate Birth: Samuel Foote, Wethersfield, Hartford County, Connecticut

1649 - Birth: Samuel Foote, Hatfield, Hampshire County, Massachusetts

1673 - Marriage: James Olmstead and Phoebe Barlow, Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut

1688 - Birth: Anna Sophia Britzius, Achtelsbach, Birkenfeld, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

1772 - Death: Joannes Zwilling, Wallenborn, Eifel, Germany

1846 - Birth: Catherine Mary Mathews, Bark River, Ottawa County, Wisconsin

1855 - Marriage: Dominic Lommel and Gertrude Adeline Lemm,

1868 - Birth: Joseph J. Kunkel, Jefferson Township, Marshall County, Iowa

1869 - Birth: Anna Gertrude Keppers, Avon, Stearns County, Minnesota

1870 - Death: Leonard Fruth, Saint Wendel Township, Stearns County, Minnesota

1873 - Burial: Rebecca Higginbotham, Shipp Cemetery Near Springdale, Mississippi

1873 - Death: Rebecca Higginbotham, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana

1875 - Residence: Katherine Theis, Louisville, Scott, Minnesota, United States

1875 - Residence: Theresia Hartmann, Louisville

1875 - Residence: Anna Margaretha Theisen, Wakefield Township, Stearns County, Minnesota

1875 - Residence: Margaret Keppers, Avon

1875 - Residence: Margaret Keppers, Avon

1875 - Residence: Adam Keppers, Avon

1875 - Residence: Nicholas Simplicius Keppers, Avon

1875 - Residence: Elisebeth Geis, Sand Creek

1875 - Residence: Charles E. Edgerton, Ramsey, Minnesota

1875 - Residence: Theresia M. Theis, Sand Creek

1875 - Residence: Michael Ellenbecker, Luxemburg

1875 - Residence: Nicolaus Ellenbecker, Luxemburg

1875 - Residence: Elizabeth Mary Keppers, Avon

1875 - Residence: Maria Anna Terwey, Avon

1875 - Residence: Adam Keppers, St Joseph

1875 - Residence: Johanna Hundzek, St Wendel

1875 - Residence: John George Fruth, St Wendel

1882 - Death: Ann Martha Palmer,

1885 - Residence: Peter Francis Keppers, Avon

1885 - Residence: Susan Catherine Keppers, Avon

1885 - Residence: Anna Gertrude Keppers, Avon, Stearns County, MinnesotaAvon

1885 - Residence: Adam Keppers, Avon

1885 - Residence: Johanna Geis, Sand Creek

1885 - Residence: Frank Monroe Whitman, Owatonna Ward 2

1885 - Residence: Clarence L Whitman, Owatonna Ward 2

1885 - Residence: Elizabeth Mary Keppers, Avon

1885 - Residence: Michael Fruth, St Wendel

1885 - Residence: Eva Johanna Fruth, St Wendel

1885 - Residence: Johanna Hundzek, St Wendel

1885 - Residence: Clara Fruth, St Wendel

1904 - Death: Eleanor C. Conkling,

 
My goodness that's a long list!  But a quick perusal will show that most of it is Residence type listings.  These are from two separate Minnesota State Census entries, the 1875 and the 1885.  Both years used May 1st as their residency date.  I like that Minnesota used a 10-year cycle like the US Federal Census, but chose to do it at the half-decade points.  This gives me a finer grained picture of where my Minnesota people lived, and a closer idea of when they moved. 

Have you checked your state censuses? 


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

Tuesday's Tip - Library!

A little late, and a little short, my tip for this week is to check out your local public library's offerings.  I know it gets said often, and we go and look at a few things and think we know what is available.  But take a few minutes to ask staff, they may have some resources you were not aware of!

Case in point:  I recently visited my local public library with my son's Boy Scout troop.  They were working on the Genealogy Merit Badge.  The merit badge counselor decided to hold one meeting at the library so the boys could see what was available, and do a little research.  Great, I thought, I know what's on offer and can help them look for information.

Lo and behold, I was totally unaware that my local library had a copy of the Minnesota State Census on microfilm!  Some of you might be thinking, Duh!  But I had just not thought of it as something they would have.  I've used their Heritage Quest database access to access images online, sure, and I've browsed the collection of county histories in the reference section, but that was about it.

My family isn't from this state and county, but my spouse's family has been in this area for many decades.  I have a whole bunch of microfilm I need to check out now!  The night of the Boy Scout trip, my son used those state census films to research on of his ancestors in this area, and we ended up finding several others on that film as well. 

Back to the Library!

Tuesday’s Tip – What advice would you give to another genealogist or family historian, especially someone just starting out? Remember when you were new to genealogy? Wasn’t it great to find tips and tricks that worked for others? Post your best tips at your genealogy blog on Tuesday’s Tip. This series was suggested by Susan Petersen of Long Lost Relatives and, in fact, this has been an ongoing series by Lynn Palermo at The Armchair Genealogist and by Miriam Robbins Midkiff at AnceStories: The Stories of My Ancestors.  .  (Blurb shamelessly stolen from Thomas McEntee at Geneabloggers.)

52 Weeks of Personal genealogy - Week 4, Home

My family moved a few times while I was growing up, but we finally settled down and spent the most time on the north side of St. Cloud, Minnesota.  In the summer 1f 1971 my parents rented a small cracker-box of a house across the street from the railroad yard.  Not very attractive, but affordable on what they were earning.  I don't know much about the origins of the house or previous owners.  I do remember we had a good landlord who came over  at least once to help with a problem with the house - the well pump, I think.  We had  a well for all of our water, with a big pressurized tank in the basement.  City water was not yet available on our street.  I still remember that as some of the best tasting water I've ever had, although now it's not as good as I remember.

As I mentioned, the house was small.  It also apparently had been built smaller, then added on at some point, as the roof line was awkward at one point.  It was sheathed in a pink asphalt shingle-like material.  It had no porch or deck, and a single-car detached garage with white wood siding.  It had a living room, a small kitchen, a TINY bathroom with a half-sized tub and no shower, a dining room and a single bedroom.  The basement was full with concrete block walls.  As we were a family with two adults and two kids, we needed more bedroom space, so the dining room became a bedroom for a while for my brother and me.  We had bunk beds because two beds wouldn't have fit any other way.  Later we built a bedroom in the basement for us.  Nowadays that's really frowned upon, as we didn't have egress windows or anything.  As I got a little older, I wanted my own room, so we divided that room into two small rooms.

Things pretty much stayed that way until May of 1979 when my youngest brother was born, complicating the space arrangements.  I don't even remember what we did to cope.  In 1987 I enlisted in the Navy and moved out, easing the space issues a little.  After I left, a number of remodeling projects occurred.  A front porch/deck was added.  The house was resided in something other than asphalt, and in a cream color with trim added to make it look half-timbered.  The roof was replaced a couple of times, once while I was still home, then once more quite recently to repair some leaks.  Insulation was added.  A back deck was added, and a patio off of that.  The garage was painted to match the house color.  My other brothers eventually moved out as well, leaving just my parents living in that house.  It's a decent size for a couple without kids. The only real problems with the house yet are that it evolved very hodge-podge over the decades, and that it is in serious need of upgrades to the infrastructure.  Electrical outlets are all still two-prong, and plumbing needs a look-see.  Light fixtures are almost nonexistent, so everything is plug-in lamps.  The electrical service is still through a fuse box!  It's all plaster and lathe, so redoing the electrical would entail gutting the place and dry-walling.  At some point, city water was run to the house, and cable TV, so it's not entirely stuck in the mid-20th century. 

My folks still live in that house, almost 40 years later.  We still gather there for holidays.  Me and my family, my middle brother and his wife and now 7 kids, and until recently, my youngest brother and his fiancee.  That little house gets awfully crowded during those holiday gatherings!  One of the great things is that we're all still close enough to gather, again except for my youngest brother and fiancee who recently moved off to Florida.  Growing up, we had no nearby relatives, so having family gatherings was rare and involved a lot of driving.

What was your home like when you were growing up?  Talk about it in the comments below!

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy - Week 3, Cars

Cars!  Some of my earliest memories involve the family cars.  My father was a Plymouth man.  We always had the big land yacht Plymouths, Belvedere's and Fury's when I was young.  I recall a blue one and a white one from when I was very young.  Bench seats and huge trunks, automatic shift on the column.  BIG V-8 engines.  Seat belts were mandatory equipment by the time I was aware, but rarely used.  Car seats were unheard of.  I recall once standing in the middle of the front bench seat between my parents, with another adult sleeping across the bench seat in back, when we missed a turn and went off-road into a large ditch area.  I bit my tongue.  Other than that, everyone was okay.  I may have been three years old, but I'm not positive of that.

In about 1976, my father made his first departure from the Plymouth line.  He bought a white 1974 Ford Custom 500.  And regretted it the whole time he owned that beast.  That car just had its own philosophy that didn't mesh with Dad's Plymouth mindset.  We kept it for a long time, though, as I drove that car when I started driving in 1982.  It had a V-8 engine, the 351 Windsor.  Not the Cleveland variant that powered muscle cars of the era.  It leaked oil.  It rusted, Dad patched it with Bondo.  It died mysteriously, Dad talked with a guy from church who was a Ford man.  They made it work again.  I don't remember for sure when we disposed of it, but I think it probably went straight to the crusher of whatever junkyard received it after we traded it in on the next car, a pale blue 1980 AMC Pacer.

Yeah.  AMC Pacer, almost all glass upside down goldfish bowl, hatchback.  HOT in the summer, the air conditioner could barely keep up.  This thing had bench seats in front, and automatic transmission on the hump in the middle.  The straight six cylinder engine had enough power.  Rear defroster was a new thing for us, and in Minnesota it's an important feature.  So much glass meant a lot of window scraping in the winter, we appreciated not having to scrape the rear window as well.  We had that car for a number of years as well.  It also got rusty toward the end, as most American cars of that era did.  Cars now have much better design to avoid water collecting, better rust-proofing, and in many cases, plastic body panels that they don't rust out anywhere near like they used to back in the day!

Me driving the 1992 Chevy Citation

In 1992, my paternal grandmother (she who infected me with the family history bug!) died.  My father inherited her car, a maroon 1985 Chevrolet Citation with about 5,000 miles on it.  A 7 year old car with 5,000 miles!  Like new!  That car was a 4 cylinder with manual transmission. By this time, I was away in the Navy, so I don't know how that car ended.  Mom got a Reliant K car at some point.  When Dad retired, he bought a Pontiac Grand Am that he still has.

In 1984, my girlfriend (who became my wife) bought a gold 1973 Mercury Montego.  Mercury was just a fancy name for Ford.  It had the same 351 Windsor engine as my family's Custom 500.  It also leaked oil.  I'm told that oil leakage was a feature of that engine.  It had many of the same issues as the Ford mentioned above.  In 1986, she bought a brand new white Chevrolet Spectrum, a model soon shifted to the Geo brand.  It was a 2-door hatchback with a 1.6 liter 4-cylinder engine and manual transmission.  Learning experience!  I had picked up stick shift somewhere, but she had not.  She bought the car with my assurance that I would teach her how to drive it.  She learned well, and that car went with us when we married and moved to Virginia Beach, VA when I enlisted in the Navy.  We kept that car until a few months before I got out of the navy. We traded it for a blue 1991 Isuzu Stylus, about which more later. 

1986 Chevy Spectrum getting a cleanup

Before this point, I had needed a second car for driving to work on the Navy base and back.  I picked up an old red VW Beetle, which was very temperamental, but I liked it when it worked.  I later decided I would prefer the VW Bus for the added space.  I found and purchased one in 1990, a 1979 with the 2-liter air cooled flat four engine with hydraulic lifters.  It was beige over brown in the 2-color scheme a lot of those had at the time.  I picked up the Idiot's Guide for VW owners and read it.  I needed it.  Mostly, though, this van ran pretty well, after we found the fuel clogs in the tank.  I fell in love with that van!  It was the last of the old bread loaf style vans.  When we left Virginia to move back to Minnesota, some of our household goods went into that VW van.  About 1/3 of what we owned, I'd guess, which meant it was packed from the front seats back, there was not even air spaces.  I sat in the driver's seat, and our dogs rode on the passenger side in front.  Even loaded up this way, that thing was fast for a VW.  On the freeway, the speedometer showed 82MPH, and truckers I passed were chatting on the CB about it, saying they'd never seen one of those go that fast.

The aforementioned Isuzu Stylus was a sporty little 4-door with a 1.6 liter 4-cylinder engine and manual transmission as well.  We got the upscale model with handling package by Lotus!  It handled like a dream, and would do in excess of 100MPH, when the front end would start to float.  Or so I'm told... *wink*  That car was great fun on dry pavement, but really not suited at all to Minnesota winters.  It was light enough, and the tires on it were for performance, not snow, that we had very poor traction.  We kept it a couple of years after returning to Minnesota, but eventually ended up trading it in on something more appropriate for the area, a maroon 1988 Chevrolet Astro Extended Van.

My wife had misgivings about driving something so big after years in smaller compact cars, but quickly fell in love with the traction and visibility it offered in the winter.  It also had anti-lock brakes which came in very handy in icy Minnesota driving!  It was large enough to accommodate our growing family, easy to get kids and gear in and out.  It was even large enough to carry everything we needed to go camping.  During this time, we were both working, so I needed something to drive.  The VW Bus quickly rusted in the Minnesota winters, so I garaged it until I could restore it. I went through a series of $500 junkers that were sufficient to get me to work and back.  I remember a Chevrolet Caprice and a Chevrolet Celebrity wagon.  That one had stick, which amused me, a small station wagon with stick shift!  Eventually, I got a dark blue 1990 Chevy Astro, a base model old thing.

We were a two Astro (and one VW) family.  Eventually I realized I was never going to have the time and money to do the VW justice, so I gave it to a friend of my brother-in-law who wanted to restore it for his sister to drive.  I just wanted to see it fixed up and back in use.  He did restore it, and did a great job, but his sister didn't like driving it, and last I heard, it sits in her yard.  I wasn't real fond of the pea-green color he painted it, but that was no longer my worry.  I wish I could afford to buy it back!  The low-end Astro died, so we got a white 1998 GMC Safari (GMC's version of the Astro - we had certainly become a family of van enthusiasts!) for her to drive, and I started using the older Astro.  A couple of years later, I got a job some distance away, and rather than throw half my pay into a gas guzzling all-wheel-drive van, in 2007 I traded it in on a champagne colored 2000 Toyota Camry. This is the car I am driving today. 

To come back to the beginning of this post, I spoke about old cars rusting out and dying relatively young.  If you got more than 50-75 thousand miles out of a car you were doing well, and rolling the odometer over 100,000 was newsworthy.  The cars would generally rust to pieces even if the engine and drive train were still functional. When I bought the Toyota in 2007, it was already 7 years old and had 160 thousand miles on it!  The car was in great shape, obviously the previous owners had cared for it well, and those were all highway miles.  The car still shows almost no rust.  I had an unusual happening, the main bearings went in the engine, so I had to replace it. Everyone kept saying how unusual it was for this to happen in a Toyota.  I should get many more years of service from this car.  Back when I was a kid, cars might sell with a 10,000 mile warranty.  Now it's not unusual for new cars to sell with a 10-year, 100,000 mile warranty.  As much as we gripe about car problems, they are extremely robust and reliable compared to 30+ years ago.  Think about that next time your car demands a little TLC!

If you've stayed with me this far, congratulations, and thanks for reading this novel!  What cars did you and your family own when you were growing up?  Do you have any interesting stories?  Share them in the comments below!