Thursday, May 29, 2014

52 Weeks of Sharing Our Memories - First Dance

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Writing our Memories by Lorine McGinnis Schulze at Olive Tree Genealogy who has challenged us to write our memories for our future generations.

I don't remember going to a single dance while I was in high school. I couldn't dance (still can't), so I tried to avoid them. Plus, I'm an introvert with a capital "I," and going to a dance would have filled me with so much fear and dread. I probably didn't go to a dance until I was in my 30s, and even then, it was difficult for me to do. My parents liked to dance and would go to dances, but not me. Well, I liked to dance in private when I was a kid while no one was watching.

I took ballet when I was a kid until I was ten. I know that doesn't count as going to a dance, but at that age, I don't remember being afraid of being on stage. I was usually more excited than fearful. There was something about the crinkling sound and smell of our new costumes, the rushing around backstage to change, and being able to wear red lipstick that added to the excitement!

Ready for my dance recital! 

Catherine


Wednesday, May 28, 2014

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #21 Theodosia Robbins

Born on February 15, 1742, in New Jersey, Theodosia Robbins was my maternal 5th great grandmother. It's possible she was born in Burlington County, as that's where her parents Nathaniel Robbins (or Robins) and Ruth Vanroom were married on October 7, 1741. (Either these dates are incorrect, or she was already on the way when her parents married.) A Bible record attached to a tree on ancestry.com lists her siblings as Vanroom (b. 1743), Ann (b. 1747), Abel (b. 1749), Nathaniel (b. 1752), Susannah (b. 1754), Obadiah (b. 1761), Job (b. 1764), and Ruth (b. 1769).[1]

Theodosia was a Quaker. I've found several mentions of her in Quaker Meeting Records on ancestry.com. I haven't found a marriage record, but she married Henry Rulon, son of David Rulon and Exercise Allen, prior to the birth of their first child in 1758. She gave birth to ten children, 9 boys and 1 girl: John (b. 1758, my 4th great grandfather and the father of Sarah Rulon), Benjamin (b. 1761), David (b. 1763), Nathaniel (b. 1764), Moses (b. 1767), Henry (b. 1769), Jonathan (b. 1774), Abel (b. 1779), Anna (b. 1782), and Ephraim (b. 1784).

It looks like Theodosia and Henry and their family lived in Cumberland County, New Jersey. Henry is listed in several tax lists in that county. Henry died on February 8, 1810, in Cumberland. Theodosia out-lived him by 15 years and died on February 26, 1825.

Cumberland County, New Jersey, as of 1758 where Theodosia Robbins and Henry Rulon lived (from http://www.randymajors.com/p/maps.html)


Catherine

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by genealogist Amy Crow at No Story Too Small.



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[1] Ancestry.com U. S. Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1994, Green Street Monthly Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Births 1728-1884, Deaths 1798-1885, birth record for Theodosia Robbins; Ancestry.com. New Jersey Marriage Records 1683-1802, for Nathaniel Robins and Ruth Vanroom; Ancestry.com, Bible record for Nathaniel and Ruth Robbins, from the GSNJ Bible Collection #4364, added by SaraHoffman505.

Monday, May 19, 2014

52 Weeks of Sharing Our Memories - Grade 12

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Writing our Memories by Lorine McGinnis Schulze at Olive Tree Genealogy who has challenged us to write our memories for our future generations.

I mentioned in my earlier post about 10th and 11th grades that in 11th grade we started going to school half days because there were so many students. Half of us went in the morning and the other half went in the afternoon. I had to go in the afternoon in 12th grade. I hated it! I don't remember exactly what time I had to be at school, but I didn't get out until 4:00 pm. Sitting through my last class was misery. It was bookkeeping and I was bored.

This is me in November 1971 at Jekyll Island, Georgia.
As you can tell from my pouty expression, I didn't want my dad taking my photo.

I'd work in the mornings at my family's wholesale grocery business, The A. S. Pendleton Company, until about 11:00 or 11:30 or so. Then I'd drive my dad's Buick Skylark to my friend's house across the street from the school. We'd go to Berger Chef on Ashley Street with our hair in curlers and get a double-decker burger nearly every day. I'd wolf that down and then go to class.

I think my first class of the day was Spanish. I could barely keep my eyes open and would sometimes fall asleep. I'd stay up way too late at night talking to a boy I liked and later married (and divorced). Plus, I had to be at work at 7:00 am! I worked in the "cigarette room" stamping cigarette cartons with the tax stamp. The cigarette room also had medicines and toiletries and such. I kept the candy room stocked, too. Talk about letting the fox guard the hen house! It sure was difficult to work around all that chocolate, but I managed to do it without sneaking any candy.

I had no desire to go to college (that came over a decade later) and couldn't wait for high school to be over. I really disliked school. I haven't been to a single class reunion. I felt like a fish out of water the entire time I was in junior high and high school. I just never felt like I fit in, so why pretend.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #20 Exercise Allen, Quaker

Not long after ancestry.com uploaded U. S., Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1994, I received an email from them with hints for Exercise Allen and her father Henry Allen. What a surprise! I had no idea we had Quakers in our family. Exercise is my maternal 6th great grandmother.

I've always wondered about the name "Exercise." What did it mean back then? Did it mean the same as it does now? She may have been named after her maternal grandmother Exercise Shattuck.

Exercise Allen was born on October 18, 1705, in Shrewsbury, Monmouth County, New Jersey, to Henry Allen and Hannah Corlies. Her siblings were Jacob (b. 1704), Moses (b. 1707), Zachariah (1709), and Patience (b. 1711). Her paternal grandparents were Jedediah Allen and Elizabeth Howland.

Exercise's mother Hannah died in early 1712, not long after the birth of Exercise's sister Patience. Exercise was only seven years old when her mother died. It must have been hard for such young children to lose their mother. Exercise's father Henry married again in about 1714 to Abigail Adams and had at least seven more children.


Exercise Allen's siblings and half siblings 
(the Shrewsbury, New Jersey, monthly meeting, 
from U. S., Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1994 on ancestry.com)

Exercise married David Rulon, my 6th great grandfather (and great grandfather of Sarah Rulon) in 1724. I wonder if David was a Quaker, too. His father was Ruel Rulon, a French Huguenot who left France to escape religious persecution sometime in the late 1600s or early 1700s. I found a birth notice for Exercise and David's son Henry (my 5th great grandfather) in the Quaker meeting minutes, and I found several references to a David Rulon in the Quaker records. I haven't yet found if it was David who became a Quaker or if it was his father Ruel.

Exercise gave birth to at least 13 children: Catherine, Hannah, Mary, Henry (my 5th great grandfather), Eunice, Patience, Lydia, John, Phebe, Dorcas, David, Jonathan, and Abigail. The ancestry.com index for the Quaker meeting notes gives son Henry's birth place as Philadelphia, but I believe that's where the district meeting place at the time. "Greenwich Monthly Meeting, NJ" is typed on the first page of the digitized record, and on the page where Henry's birth is recorded, the residence is unfortunately left blank.

I have that Exercise died in 1770, but I don't know if that's correct. David died on March 15, 1778.

Catherine

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by genealogist Amy Crow at No Story Too Small.



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Tuesday, May 13, 2014

52 Weeks of Sharing Memories - My Mother the Artist

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Writing our Memories by Lorine McGinnis Schulze at Olive Tree Genealogy who has challenged us to write our memories for our future generations.

I've written before about my mom's artistic talent in my post Artist in Residence. In that post, I go into more detail than what I'm including in this post, and I shared some of her art.

I wanted to be artistic like my mom! When I was growing up, it seems she was always painting, drawing, and crafting--always creating. Like I wrote in my previous post, she taught me to sew, knit, needlepoint, and embroider. But I wanted to paint and draw, too! I tried.

My mom graduated in 1947 from Georgia State Woman's College (now Valdosta State University) with a degree in art. I can remember watching her with fascination as she drew and painted. While decluttering and cleaning up the studio at our parents' house, my sister and I found some of our mom's old sketch books and paintings.

Stack of Mom's art that my sister and I found


Here are a few examples:







There are artists on both my mom's maternal and paternal sides of her family, so it seems she was destined to be an artist. Instead of inheriting her talent, I got my dad's writing bug.

Catherine

Monday, May 12, 2014

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #19 Sarah Rulon

Sarah (Sallie) Rulon was my maternal 3rd great grandmother and one of my French connections. Her 2nd great grandfather was Ruel Rulon, a Huguenot immigrant from France who came to America for religious freedom.

One of at least seven children, Sallie was born on February 19, 1785, in New Jersey (possibly Cumberland County) to John Rulon and Sarah Burt. The siblings I have listed for her are John, Deborah, Lydia, Mary, Theodosa, Henry, and Anna.

Sallie married John Adam Redles, a German immigrant, on May 19, 1806, in Cumberland County, New Jersey. John had just landed in America four years earlier in 1802.

Marriage record for Sarah (Sallie) Rulon and John Adam Redles [1] 

Sallie gave birth to at least four children: Ann (b. 1809), Elizabeth (b. 1811), John Adam (b. 1817, my 2nd great grandfather), and George (b. 1821).

Sallie is listed twice in the 1850 U.S. census for Philadelphia: Once with her husband John Adam in the Chestnut Ward of Philadelphia on August 19 and once with her son George Redles in Germantown two days later on August 21.[2] (At the time, Germantown was a suburb of Philadlephia.*) She died seven months later on March 8, 1851, so maybe she had taken ill in the summer of 1850 and had gone to live with George and his wife Dorcas.

Sallie's funeral was to start at her son George's house in Germantown the following Monday after she died, with burial to follow. According to her findagrave.com memorial, she's buried in the Hood Cemetery in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her husband John Adam died eight years later on August 13, 1859. His funeral also started at their son George's house.[3] I don't yet know where he is buried.

Catherine

* Thanks for the correction cousin Amy! I mistakenly said in the previous sentence that Germantown was part of Philadelphia.

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by genealogist Amy Crow at No Story Too Small.



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[1] "New Jersey, County Marriages, 1682-1956," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VW55-295 : accessed 12 May 2014), Adam Riddels and Sarah Rulon, 19 May 1806; citing p. 75, Cumberland, New Jersey; FHL microfilm 853720.

[2] 1850 U. S. census, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Philadelphia Chestnut Ward, p. 464B, dwelling 115, family 144, Sarah Redles, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 May 2014), citing NARA microfilm publication M432_813; 1850 U. S. census, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Germantown, Philadelphia, p. 230B, dwelling 574, family 604, Sarah Redles, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 May 2014), citing NARA microfilm publication M432_824.

[3] Death notice for Sarah Redles, Public Ledger, Philadelphia, 10 March 1851, online archives (www.genealogybank.com : accessed 12 May 2014), p. 2; Death notice for Adam Redles, Public Ledger, Philadelphia, 15 August 1859, online archives (www.genealogybank.com : accessed 27 December 2012), p. 2

52 Weeks of Sharing Memories - My Favorite TV Shows

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Writing our Memories by Lorine McGinnis Schulze at Olive Tree Genealogy who has challenged us to write our memories for our future generations.

I don't remember what I watched on TV before the age of four. Probably just cartoons on Saturday. I do remember watching The Wizard of Oz in black and white on TV one evening with my mom. I didn't like it then. It scared me.


Here I am in my footy pajamas (I think I'm supposed to be a bunny rabbit)! Our black and white TV is in the background. We had it for years. I don't remember when my parents got their first color TV. 

After we moved to our current family home when I was going on four, I remember watching game shows sometimes during the weekday with our across-the-street neighbors in the summer (but we mostly played outside). My favorites were Let's Make a Deal with Monty Hall and Hollywood Squares with Peter Marshall. I sometimes watched The Mike Douglas Show in the afternoons. During lunchtime, the soap operas would start coming on--The Guiding Light and The Secret Storm are two that I remember. My favorite cartoon was Mighty Mouse!

Several shows that I watched at night over the years when I was a kid are The Dick Van Dyke Show; The Andy Griffith Show; The Danny Thomas ShowRawhide (with a young Clint Eastwood); Bonanza; Wagon Train, The Virginian, Gunsmoke, The Real McCoys; The Wild, Wild West; Perry Mason; Petticoat JunctionLost in Space, and Gilligan's Island. I watched Green AcresThe Beverly Hillbillies, and Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. sometimes, because some of my siblings watched them, but I really disliked those shows. They just weren't that funny to my young mind.

By the time I was in junior high, I'd rush home every afternoon to watch Dark Shadows with Barnabas Collins the vampire, and I'd get upset when I was late getting home. It came on at 4:00 p.m.

Writing this post, as with all the others in this 52 Weeks of Sharing Memories, sure brought back childhood memories! I had forgotten about some of the shows I watched until I started researching!

Catherine


Sunday, May 11, 2014

Happy Mother's Day!


My beautiful mother!
First, there was one (Mom and me). Then there were.....

...five. Mom with her brood. Left to right, Helen, Melissa, John, Andy, and me.

The house was quiet only when we were asleep!

Catherine

Monday, May 5, 2014

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #18 Elizabeth Densler

I have very little information about my 4th paternal great grandmother Elizabeth Densler, and I haven't done any research (yet). She may have been born around 1760. Her parents were Henry Densler and Catherine Barbara (I don't know if that's her middle name or maiden name). The Denslers were  part of the Salzburger migration (beginning in the early 1730s) from the area of modern day Austria who settled in the Salzburger community of New Ebenezer in Effingham County, Georgia. Elizabeth was probably born here.

Effingham County, Georgia, as of 1825 (map from http://www.randymajors.com/p/maps.html)

Elizabeth married Christian Lebreth Dasher, also a Salzburger descendant, sometime before 1786, as that's the year my 3rd great grandfather Christian Herman Dasher was born. I have him listed as their eldest child. Their other children were Rosanna (1788-?), Elizabeth (1790-?), John (1792-?), Catherine (1794-?), and Gottlieb (1799-1873). There may have been another son named Samuel.

I found a typed transcription on ancestry.com of Christian's will which says the will was dated October 18, 1808, and probated on April 3, 1809. Since Elizabeth is mentioned in his will, she must have died at least after the will was probated. They were still living in Effingham County when Christian died.

Catherine

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by genealogist Amy Crow at No Story Too Small.



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