My Trails into the Past

Learning about our family history is exciting. We’re hoping to find interesting people who have done interesting things--maybe even outstanding things. We’re hoping to connect to famous people in history. Sometimes we do, but most of us have ancestors and family members who just lived normal lives, working hard at surviving and making a life for themselves and their families. Along the way, we discover family members who struggled with surviving and supporting themselves or their families. They may have even abandoned their families. We ask ourselves why? Often these stories don’t get passed down through the family and we don’t learn why. Often the root cause is mental illness, something we only recently talked about in our culture. In the past, a person with mental illness may have been sent away to a hospital or home and forgotten. It’s a shock when we discover a family member in a mental home or hospital through a census record or an obituary. My first experience with this is ...

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. Although I do not have many rich people in my family, no one is really very poor either. So I settled on writing about poor health. Throughout his life, my great-granduncle, Rev. Albert M. Hork, had poor health. He died of interstitial nephritis, which is an inflammation in the kidney. The attending doctor did not know how long Albert had this condition. Contributory to this was gastritis (an inflammation of the protective lining of the stomach) and anemia. He was only fifty-eight years old. [1] My great-grandfather, Johan Anton Hork, came to the U.S. in 1870 aboard the SS Idaho. [2] For the longest time I had thought he was the only one who came to America. However, a news article about his death in She...

Raymond Joseph Hork was the eighth child of John Anton Hork and Julia Ann Sievert. He was born on 11 Nov 1889 in Stuart, Guthrie Co, Iowa. [1] The family had lived there at least since 31 Oct 1886, when his next oldest brother, Anthony was born. [2] By the 1890’s, they were living in Oregon, where the next sibling, Urselle was born. [3] Raymond lived a short life, dying on 1 Dec 1917. [4]    He was only 28 years old. So what happened in his short life? Two census records give some minute detail. The family finally settled for good in Hamilton, Ravalli County, Montana, where they were found in the 1900 census. [5] His father was a tailor and they were renters. Raymond was listed as being born Nov 1890 and 9 years old. In 1910, he was a 21 year old, living at home with his widowed mother, Julia, three brothers, Albert, Tony, and Cyril, and two sisters, Carrie and Urselle. Raymond was a printer. Newspaper accounts give some information. He was invited to children’s part...