On This Day - The Anniversary of the Birth of William Joseph Hork - April 23, 1930

         Today would have been the 83rd birthday of my father, William Joseph Hork, born in 1930 on April 23.[1] According to his birth certificate, he was born in Ontario, San Bernardino County.  He had always said he was born in Cucamonga, California.  Maybe they were living in Cucamonga, or maybe he just like saying the town's name.

      Bill’s parents were William Cyril Hork and Anna Marie Sullivan.[2]  Bill was the fifth and last child born to Cyril and Anna.  He had four older sisters, one who died just days after birth.

      His childhood was tough.  He was born in the early stages of the great depression.  His father was a drinker and couldn’t keep a steady job.  He was but a young fella when his mother took the courage to leave Cyril and raise her four children on her own.

      He did have fond memories of living in Southern California among the orange groves and playing with his cousins, the children of Anna’s sister, Loretta Patterson.  In 1940, the family moved to Napa, California, another rural community, to live with Vir Quigley, the widowed husband of Anna’s sister, Ethel.  In Napa, he was in Boy Scouts and played football on the high school team.  His mother worked in Vir’s café at first, then taught school in one of the one-room schoolhouses.

      After high school, he and his mother lived in Concord, California.  He worked at service stations.  He met and married my mother, Lela “Lea” Nell Johnston, and together they had six children, raising them in Pittsburg and later Walnut Creek, California.

      Lea passed away at the young age of 57 in 1992.  Bill lived out the rest of his life in their home and later in a smaller condo, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, for whom he loved to cook.  He rooted for the 49ers and Giants, dabbled in the stock marked, and gardened.  Bill passed away 13 Oct 2007[3] at the age of 77.

      Happy Birthday, Dad!

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[1] State of California, Department of Health Services, Certification of Vital Record, Standard Certificate of Birth, San Bernardino County, California, William Joseph Hork, 1930.

[2] ibid

[3] State of California, Department of Health Services, Certification of Vital Record, Death Certificate, Contra Costa County, California, William Joseph Hork, 2007.

Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past

Wedding Wednesday - 50th Anniversary of Thomas Davey & Mary Nicholas 23 May 1882

   I was researching in NewspaperArchive.com, searching for newspapers in Jeffersonville, Clark county, Indiana for any article about the Davey and Wollenweber families.  I found some gems and this is one of the best.

   In the 24 May 1882 issue of the Jeffersonville Daily Evening News, on page 2, was a very nice article about the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Davey. The story starts out with some facts about their nuptials in Cornwall and then some very nice things about Mr & Mrs Davey:

"Golden Nuptials," A Pleasant Celebration by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Davy.
    Mrs.[sic] Thomas Davy and Miss Mary Nicholos were married May 23d, 1882 at St. Agnes Church, St. Ann's Parish, Cornwall, England, by Rev W. V. Snowe.  This venerable and highly respected couple have been living in Jeffersonville for twenty-three years.  They are greatly respected by their many friends in this city for their many virtues as good citizens. Mr. and Mrs. Davy have raised a large family of children, all of whom bear good characters, and have followed the scriptural injunction "honor thy father and mother."

   Note there were several misspellings: Davy for Davey and Nicholos for Nicholas.

   One of the best part of the article was where it listed their living children along with their residences.  This will give me clues as to where to find them in census and city directories.  Here is the transcription:

   Mr and Mrs Davy have seven children living to wit: Mrs. John J. Flynn, of Jeffersonville; Mrs. Wellman, of Cincinnati; Thos. Davey, of Carthage, Mo.; Mrs. Mary Hawkins of Lawrenceburg; Mrs. Colby, of New York; Mrs. Rose McFall, of Indianapolis; and Fred Davey, of Carthage, Mo.  Those present of the children last evening were Mrs. Flynn, Mrs. Wellman and Mrs. McFall.  Also Mrs. Elwood Dedrick, grand-daughter of the bride and groom.  The others were kept away by unavoidable circumstances.

    Mrs. John J Flynn is Thomas and Mary's eldest child, Elizabeth.  Mrs. Wellman is their second child, Susan. Thos Davey is their third child, Thomas Nicholas. Mrs Mary Hawkins is Mary Jane Davey, and a new surname for me!  Mrs. Rose McFall is Catherine Rose Davey, and Fred Davey is their youngest son, the only one born in the United States.  He is our ancestor; my husband's great grandfather.

   The last paragraph has more flowery narrative about the couple, written in that 20th century prose:

   The News congratulate Mr and Mrs Davey, as well as their numerous progeny on this very happy occasion, and altough [sic] Mr and Mrs Davey are now 75 and 71 respectively, we trust there are many years of quiet happiness in store for them. But be this as it may, it can be truthfully said they have lead a noble life.  Mrs. Davey has always been active in the temperance reform, and her husband has ever stood conscientiously for every measure he believed to be for the public good.  There are few better people than Mr. and Mrs. Davey, and they are well deserving of the good old age they now enjoy.

   These accounts of milestones when written up in newspapers can bring such depth to your family history and many clues for you to further your research.  If I hadn't already known about their marriage in Cornwall, this accounting would have given me clues to which parish they were married in.  Surprisingly, the information  completely coincides with the marriage records from Cornwall.  If only the information about when they arrived in the U.S. was consistent.
 

Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Where My Father's Family Was in 1913

Randy Seaver, a blogger at Genea-Musing, has created a wonderful blog theme called Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  Here is today’s mission:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:
1) Determine where your ancestral families were on 1 January 1913 - 100 years ago.
2) List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible). Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist?
3) Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status or Google+ Stream post.

Here is the location of my father's family in 1913:

601 South 5th Street, Hamilton, Montana

• My grandfather, William Cyril Hork, and my great-grandmother, Julia Ann Sievert (William’s mother) lived at 601 South 5^th Street in Hamilton, Ravalli Co, Montana. [1] I have a recent photo of the house.

• My grandmother, Anna Marie Sullivan was attending Montana Normal School and lived in Dillon, Beaverhead, Montana.  A photo of the school is here.  

• My great-grandfather, John H. Sullivan (Anna Marie’s father) lived in Anaconda, Deer Lodge Co, Montana.  There are a lot of John Sullivan’s and it is difficult to be sure which one is correct in the Anaconda, Montana 1912 city directory.  John’s wife, Anna Marie Gleeson, had died in 1912.

• My great-great grandfather and grandmother, John Gleeson & Margaret Tierney, were living in Portland, Multnomah Co, Oregon at 410 Ross.[2]  I believe this is a photo of the house.

Gleeson Family in Portland, Oregon

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[1] Missoula and Hamilton City Directory, R.L. Polk & Co, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), 1913, p 436, Julia (wid John) Hork.

[2] Portland City Directory, R.L. Polk & Co, microfilm, Sutro Library film 311, San Francisco, CA, 1912, p 611, John Gleeson.

Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past