Wisteria

When I was a baby family historian, I ended up researching every Watts in the county of Halifax, Virginia to determine my direct line and found out that all the Wattses there were related and descended from one progenitor. Then I could never get out of Halifax County as the origins of the one progenitor has proven elusive ever since. After nearly 35 years of researching my family history, I don't often find any new data on these family lines, but I guess I'm always curious and hopeful. The Watts family has been one that I'm always looking for more. So there I was the other day, on Familysearch.org looking for a Watts in Halifax County, Virginia. I don't even know how I happened to stumble onto this record or what I was looking for in the first place. I do know that October is the month when I always think of my grandfather as he took his first and last breath in that month with 96 years in between those two moments. These are his ancestors, too, so perhaps he was n...

 

  Although this mysterious sounding missive from an affectionate and unknown friend seems somewhat secretive, I can tell you the identity of the person who penned the words and provided his initials as a clue:   William Lewis Hardy (1874-1957) William Lewis Hardy was the son of Joshua L. Hardy and his wife Martha Susan Sizemore. William married Alice Samantha Lovelace (1880-1903) on 14 November 1897. Alice was the daughter of Isaac Newton Lovelace and his wife Martha Rebecca Stiller. I am guessing the above note was written to her prior to their marriage. This cabinet card photograph of him may have been taken around that time as well. We know it was taken in Hopkinsville (Christian County), Kentucky. Although part of the photographer's imprint at the bottom is torn, we can infer from what's left that it was likely done by Clarence Anderson, a photographer who worked there from sometime after 1877 to the early 1900s. Below is another piece of paper on which Alice wrote a song...

  This is a digital copy of a black and white copy of an original paper cdv photograph of William C. Stiller (1827-1907) and his wife Sarah Caroline Howell (1830-1917). It was given to me by my great-aunt, Ruby Hardy Vaughan, who identified it on the back as her Stiller great grandparents although she thought his first name was George. William and Sarah were the parents of Martha Rebecca Stiller who married Isaac Newton Lovelace. Martha and Isaac's daughter Alice was Ruby's mother.  William was one of the pioneers of the Sinking Fork Christian Church Disciples of Christ located in Christian County, Kentucky. He was #4 on their 1893 membership list. His wife was listed as #41 also in 1893. (Reference: Sinking Fork Christian Church Disciples of Christ 1893 to 1996: A History,   compiled by Betty McCorkle, published by Christian Women’s Fellowship, 1996.) I am forever grateful to my friend Betty McCorkle, who compiled the church's history back in 1996. Betty died at the age ...

  Martha Sizemore Hardy. CDV ferrotype . I have been meaning to do a blog post to include Martha Hardy's Cure for Dropsy and Salve Receipt ever since I first posted about it back in 2019 in this post entitled "Music Circles."    I see I posted that in the month of January and it is January now, albeit four years later. A lot has happened in that four years, but I'm happy to say I am still here and so is this receipt from the year 1883, one hundred and forty years later. Receipt, of course, is an old term for recipes.   At some point, I may also do a blog about the project I did for my sister with her mother-in-law's recipes. It remains one of my favorite creative endeavors and the project sparked my recall of the receipt in the first place. But let me not get distracted again.  It was thirty-one years ago that I stumbled across this piece of paper with writing on both sides. I have told parts of the story before but not all the details. I did a quick blog...

I did a quick post for Wordless Wednesday showing a colorized version (thanks to Scott Janicki) of the photograph below. I thought I should make a post showing the whole cabinet card photograph to provide further details. The photographer's imprint indicates it was taken by M.T. Hills of Attica, NY. There is absolutely nothing written on the back besides the price I paid for it at a local antique shop. We likely may never know the identity of the child pictured but just in case, these details might provide the clues needed. We cannot say for absolute certainty, but judging from the hair part, this may be a little girl. Girls commonly wore their hair parted in the middle in the 19th Century. See this blog here for further information on image guides for 19th century children. According to that blog, plaid was a popular pattern for boys, too.

Our roots are scattered. These are not the times when people are sitting on the porch talking about the ancestors. These are not even the times when people are living near those who might be talking about the ancestors. We have to learn to listen for the ancestors ourselves. And write down the stories they want told.