There are people in my family who are fascinated with genealogy. For me, seeing the family tree laid out is interesting, but what really fascinates me are the stories that are found along the way by the family researchers. My brother loaned me some information on my mother’s branch of the family while I was visiting last week. I’ve only looked through one of the stapled stack of papers tracing different branches of the Daniel tree. Some of the stories about Civil War conscription and battles fought near the family homestead are similar to stories I’ve heard or read about the Mount branch on the other side of my family tree.
The Daniel stories tell of my great-great grandfather Peter who was conscripted by the Confederacy, but refused to fire into the ranks of the Union army because his brother was fighting on that side and he was afraid he’d accidentally shoot him. As soon as the opportunity arose, he became an ambulance driver.
Other family members fled from Arkansas to Missouri to escape the fighting, hiding under piles of quilts in the back of a wagon.
On the Mount side of the family, my great-great grandfather, William Ozro, was a giant of a man for the time. He’d be considered quite tall even today. He was nine years old and six feet tall when the Union army marched across the family farm in Kansas and tried to conscript him. His mother would have none of it and for the remaining years of the war, Oz had to disguise himself as a woman whenever he stepped outside the family home.
Nellie & William Ozro Mount, 1888
Some of the stories are horrifying. Women on both sides of the family suffered miscarriages and hemorrhaged for days until they bled out and died. Peter accidentally knocked a mole off his forehead. According to family lore, that was the beginning of a growth that eventually killed him. The cancerous tumor destroyed both of his eyes and his daughter recounted that the night his second eye was dislodged, his screams could be heard a mile away.
The same daughter had been born prematurely in 1877. I had heard a family story long ago about a baby girl born early, placed in a shoebox “bed” and kept alive in the days before incubators on the back of a wood burning stove. I had thought the story was about my great-grandmother Cleopatra Ann, but from the family history I’m reading, I’m sure now it was Cleo’s sister-in-law, Nancy Matilda Daniel.
Nancy Matilda's older brother John (my great-grandfather) and his wife Cleo Daniel.
Nancy Matilda was born two months prematurely. She was tiny, blind, and not expected to live but her father, Peter, had other ideas. This story makes no mention of the shoebox and the woodstove, but it tells of a determined father who sat up night after night watching his baby girl and feeding her whisky when she began to turn blue. Nancy Matilda lived to be 83 years old.
One story tells of a gap in the genealogical record caused by the misspelling of a name by a census taker (apparently a common problem encountered by genealogists). There’s a story about an accidental amputation while chopping wood, a funny story about a frightened man with diarrhea, stories of home remedies, long-winded relatives, wars, births, deaths, and even murder. And this is just in the first packet of family history. There are six more packets in the envelope, and this is just one small branch of the family.
Reading these stories makes me wonder what tales will be told about me a hundred years from now, and whether family historians will be able to figure out that Mimi, Ninny Kay, Vi, and Melinda are all the same person.
How do you think you’ll be remembered in your family lore?
Comments (18)
I love this post! These kinds of stories are so fascinating!
As THAT ancestor.
Great stuff. Much more interesting than charts and family trees.
I hope your still blogging away in a hunnerd years - but if your not I'll relate the tick stories
Fun stuff, Vi! Your blog will give future generations a pretty good idea of how you fit into the family, and who all those names belonged to!
LOL I want to hear the story about the frightened man with diarrhea. Evidentally folks suffered with Melanoma back then, not realizing what it was. My son-in-law just died with it, and they found it by him rubbing a mole with the towel after a shower, and it wouldn't stop bleeding. Sounds the same to me! How similar our life stories could be. I too, remmber of my mother telling of a little cousin, who's mother died in childbirth, and the baby was so small, they put HER in a box on the open oven door of a coal fired cook stove to keep her warm.
LOVED THIS POST!!!
Hehe! You shake any tree hard enough and some nuts will fall out... So there has to be a story that explains the "Ninny Kay" moniker. Spill - please? I really need a good laugh!
This was very interesting
Interesting post. How fun to have so much family history written down.
The eye dislodged....Ouch!
It's amazing how hard people had it back then. We are so spoiled, so pampered and don't even realize it.
100 years ago they had to deal with so many things we take for granted today.
Enjoyed your post.
This was fascinating.
As to your question, no, I won't.
I enjoyed reading your family history, because NO one has anything like that about my ancestors for me to read or enjoy. So, there won't be anything said about me or mine either. I'll only be noted by God, and that's good enough for me if He says I was good and faithful :).
Great stories! My family history is not so rich. Nor will it likely become richer.
Thanks for sharing. These are some lovely and some sad stories.
my brother in law is doing a bit of family research right now. it's really interesting.
my gran's family began in the united states during the jamestown settlement. my husband and i did some research into his family, and it turns out they have been in arkansas since before it was a state. they were various types of leaders in the northeastern part of the state.
hopefully your xanga will survive for your decendants to testify to what you were like.
i now need to go delete some of mine. ;)
Fun post.
I doubt I'll be more than a footnote.
This is so interesting! I love all of the stories. This makes me want to start researching my family to see what I can find : ]
Amazing stories. I've been working on my family tree for years and have it documented back to 1578. At our last family reunion earlier this month I met a distant cousin who has one branch all the way back to the 1200's and she gave me the information. Unfortunately her program isn't compatible with FTM so I will be spending even more than my usual 5-6 hours a day on it.
What cool photos! I love family history stuff. I'm in process of having family film reels turned digital. It's WAY more expensive than I realized, so now I have to get my parents and siblings to chip in.
I hope I'm remembered as an author who wrote what God wanted and touched lives. But we'll see.