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Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- What Happened On Your Mother's Birth Date?

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:

It's Saturday Night again -

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of GeneaMusing:

1) What day was your Mother born? Where was she born?  What day of the week was it?  Tell us how you found out.


2) What has happened in recorded history on your mother's birth date (day and month)? Tell us how you found out, and list five events.

3) What famous people have been born on your Mother's birth date?  Tell us how you found out, and list five of them.

Here's mine:

My mother, Lela Nell Johnston, was born on 21 August 1934 in Stephenville, Erath County, Texas. It was a Tuesday. She supposedly was born at 3:20 a.m., but her birth certificate was created nine years later, so I’m not sure if it is true or not.[1] A website, On This Day, gave me the day of the week, but any perpetual calendar could do that, too. She was a Leo and very proud of that.[2]

News of the Day:
None of the websites had much of importance happening on that day. Two famous people were born on the same day: Paul Panhuysen, a Dutch composer and visual and sound artist, and Sudhakarrao Naik, an Indian politician.[3]

According to “August 21, 1934” on Wikipedia, an international Jewish conference in Geneva declared “that the boycotting of Nazi Germany would be redoubled until the rights of German Jews were fully restored. Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise said that the boycott would not be abandoned until the Nazi regime canceled every law or practice ‘violating human freedom, political equality and the ideals of civilization.’” Also, the Minneapolis general strike ended after three months and martial law was ordered lifted from the city. This strike involved teamsters against most of the trucking companies.[4]

However, on that day in other years, I found[5]:

1680 – Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe from the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt.

1770 – James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1831 – Nat Turner leads black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, which will claim the lives of 55 to 65 whites and about twice that number of blacks.

1858 – The first of the Lincoln–Douglas debates is held in Ottawa, Illinois.

1959 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. Hawaii's admission is currently commemorated by Hawaii Admission Day.

Famous People born on August 21:

1904 – Count Basie, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (d. 1984)

1930 – Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (d. 2002)

1938 – Kenny Rogers, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor (d. 2020)

Bonus:
I looked at newspapers published the following day, only in Stephenville, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune was a weekly paper. Here are some of the news items on the front page.


I also searched the paper looking for an article about my mother’s birth. I didn’t find one until I searched for “Johnson” instead of Johnston. It’s a nice little article found in the 31 August 1934 issue on page 6. Both of the papers were found on the The Portal to Texas History.



[1] Texas Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics, Birth Record of Lela Nell Johnston (certificate copy), Vol 14, no 516, FHL film 1428140.

[2] “August 21, 1934: What Happened on August 21, 1934,” On This Day, (https://www.onthisday.com/date/1934/august/21).

[3] “August 21, 1934,” Dayinhistory.net (https://www.dayinhistory.net/?m=August&d=21&y=1934&go=Go).

[4] “August 1934,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_1934#August_21,_1934_(Tuesday)).

[5] “August 21,” Wikipedia  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_21).



Copyright © 2021 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

  1. Both of us have Nat Turner associated with our mothers' birth dates. How's that for an amazing coincidence?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love that you were able to find the newspaper announcement of her birth. If the Calais (Maine) Advertiser would ever get digitized, I think I'd find my mother's, too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sure in time, more papers will be digitized. Sometimes, the big companies won't have it, but the local library might. Our local library digitized their microfilm collection up to 1924 and hosts it on their website.

      Delete
  3. Very cool that you found a newspaper announcement of your mother's birth!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had looked before, but using the other common spelling really helped this time.

      Delete

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