My Trails into the Past

In Silver Bow County, Montana, the school districts took a census of children in their community. They counted children as young as infants up to twenty years of age. This helped them determine the number of classrooms and teachers needed. Here is the page from the 1910 school census for School District No. 1, where my 2x-great-uncle, Michael & Sarah Sullivan’s children were listed. [1] The bonus in this school census for me is that the published census included each child, their birthdates, ages, parents’ names, and addresses. I can use this information to support the birth of the child and their parentage. Of course, this derivative record is not as reliable as a birth certificate. Still, if no birth record was created or the birth record is not available due to access restrictions, then this is a suitable alternative, as the parents likely gave the information. Finding School Census Records In checking the FamilySearch catalog using the keyword search of “school census,” I ...

When my father went off to work, it was to grocery stores or supermarkets as a produce clerk or produce manager. He worked for several different stores, but the longest was for LoRay Market and Safeway. Safeway When we lived in Pittsburg, he worked at Safeway. The city directory just says clerk, not specifically produce clerk. The directories from 1955 to 1962 identified his place of work as Safeway. In 1963, they purchased a home in Walnut Creek. My father may have already been working there, and buying a house closer to work was more desirable. LoRay The LoRay store in Walnut Creek was only a few blocks away. There were three or four LoRay stores in the county. The name came from merging the owner's and his wife's names. My father always drove to work, primarily because he started work at 5ish. This gave him time to put out all the produce that had been removed from the shelves and put into cold storage refrigerators. I believe this was before they created refrigerated displa...

Play time was always a fun activity for my daughters. I encouraged play using their imagination and their physical skills. So, we spent a lot of time at the park where they played on the play equipment. I also encouraged them to use their own imagination in playing. We had almost no electronic devices—only a PC. However, they had blocks from Lincoln Logs to Legos, where they built towns. They always put the Lego kit together with the instructions, but afterwards the pieces became part of a big bin where their imagination in building could go wild.   I am glad I raised my daughters before so many electronic devices were available. They did have a few PC programs. One program had them design amusement parks, and another create ice-skating routines. I felt these games allowed them to use their imaginations in play. #52Ancestors-Week 34: Playtime This is my eighth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow ( https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/ ) at  Genera...

Ludwig Wilhelm Wollenweber (1822-1873), my husband’s 2x-great-grandfather, had interactions with the courts while living in Louisville, Kentucky. It mostly had to do with his occupation of selling liquor. Newspaper articles give us some clues. Court record minutes give us the proceedings, but not the details. In the 1860s, Louis ran a saloon at 90 West Market Street, between Third and Fourth Street. Here is a map showing the Market Street between Pearl & Fourth Street. Not sure why Third was called Pearl here. [1] His saloon was often the place for meetings. The Second Ward Democratic Club held their meeting at Wollenweber’s. [2] He was an inventor and manufacturer of cures. An ad for his “Celebrated Stomach Bitters,” is here: [3] He received patent no. 132,424 for a “Medical compound” made up of “angelica root, calamus root, gentian, herb absinthe, Peruvian bark, orange peel, nutmegs, cloves, laurel leaves, and anise seed, all added to a one-fourth barrel of soft water, previo...

As I researched the funeral Masses of my Catholic family members, I often found that the recitation of the Holy Rosary preceded the funeral Mass, or was said the previous evening. My grandmother, Anne M. Hork, died on 14 February 1979, and her funeral was held on 17 February at St. Matthews Catholic Church in San Mateo. I was present at the funeral, but I don’t remember much about it, except for the nice wake we had following it at my Aunt Virginia’s home. According to her funeral card, the Holy Rosary was recited ten minutes before the funeral Mass. Now, ten minutes is not enough time to recite the whole rosary, so I imagine they did only a portion. This past week, I attended the funeral for my cousin, Melanie. We also recited a portion of the rosary before the start of the funeral Mass. I am sure not many in attendance knew what to recite. We had no reading aids to follow along. It had been many years since I learned the parts of the rosary. It was not hard to find online. If y...

In 2004, John Quigley retired as a judge for Napa County, California, and his six living cousins attended his retirement party. He was the son of Ethel Sullivan and Vir Quigley. Pictured from left to right: William “Bill” Hork, son of Anne Sullivan and William Cyril Hork; Margaret Patterson, daughter of Loretto Sullivan and James Patterson; John Quigley; son of Ethel Sullivan and Vir Quigley; Mary Brehaut, daughter of Loretto Sullivan and James Patterson; Lorene Waldron, daughter of Anne Sullivan and William Cyril Hork; Virginia Gertridge, daughter of Anne Sullivan and William Cyril Hork; and June Stewart, daughter of Anne Sullivan and William Cyril Hork. Loretta, Anne, and Ethel were the daughters of John H. Sullivan and Anna M. Gleeson. Their two other children were Helena “Nellie” Goe and John Cyril Sullivan. Only Nellie had children and they were deceased by 2004. #52Ancestors-Week 29: Cousins This is my eighth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (...

Three Gleeson sisters were school teachers. Elizabeth (1865-1942), Helena Mary (1867-1950), and Margaret T. (1873-1941) grew up first in Carleton County, Ontario, Canada, and then moved to Davison County, Dakota Territory in 1879. By the 1890s, Elizabeth and Helena were living in Anaconda, Montana, and worked as school teachers. Margaret arrived before 1900 and followed in their footsteps. None of these women married. Helena and Margaret taught school for their entire life. Elizabeth had other adventures after teaching for a few years and ended up being a landlord in Los Angeles. However, what do school teachers do in the summer months? Take trips. Newspapers reported on these trips, so it is interesting to see where they traveled. Summer of 1899 “Miss Elizabeth Gleeson left last evening via the Northern Pacific for South Dakota on a visit to her former home.” [1] Her parents still resided in Mitchell. The Northern Pacific Railroad line traversed from Seattle to Minneapolis. A ...

Whenever I come across a new website where I can do some searching, I use a couple of surnames to test out the site. I try my unusual surnames first, like Coor, Hork, Gleeson, or Hutson. Of course, it depends on the database’s subject. I certainly would not search in a northern state for a family with southern roots. Sometimes, I get nothing from a database. It’s frustrating, but before I give up, I test out the database with more common names such as Smith, Johnson, or Jones. If I cannot get any returns with those names, it means I need to dig deeper to see what the database does cover. My husband’s friend has me conduct research, and one of his family names is Hulaniski. Now, that name is pretty rare, and I can almost use it globally in a database search without using place filters. It is one of the first names I used when FamilySearch released its full-text search capability. What names do you test a database with?   #52Ancestors-Week 26: Favorite Name This is my eight...

My 2x-granduncle, Reginold Lancaster, married Eda Pearl Ralston on 30 July 1920 in Los Angeles when he was thirty-two years old. She was thirty-five. [1] This was her second marriage, having been divorced from Eugene De Lartigue. Eda Pearl Ralston was born in December 1880 in Wyoming to Ellis Ralston and Flora Sackett. In 1880, her parents were living in Cheyenne, Laramie County, so it is possible that this was where she was born. Her father was a railroad engineer. [2] By 1900, her mother was a widow living in Los Angeles County, California, with three children: Eda, aged 19, Ruby F., aged 17, and Earl E., aged 15. [3] Actress Sometime before 1902, Eda began working as an actress while living with her mother and brother at 3680 South Grand Avenue. [4] In the earliest news found in October 1901, she was a whistling, song and dance soubrette at the Unique Theater on South Spring Street in Los Angeles. [5] Variety was a weekly newspaper that covered actors and actresses. Eda R...