Hardship in an Appalachian Family

Cumberland River, collection of the author

Southeastern Kentucky was not an easy place to live in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Much of the land was still wild; many residents lived along water courses called branches or creeks.  People were poor, living as subsistence farmers on plots of rocky ground.  If their crops produced well, they might sell the extras in town.  Many men had hazardous jobs in coal mines.  This part of the country was a dangerous place to live.  Violence was well known in the area, and newspapers as far away as Lexington and Louisville would often report on the deadly feuds. People had little or no medical care and often died of disease or injuries.  

 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

  

Charlotte "Lottie" Allen was born to William Allen and Mary Miller in 1886 in Whitley County, Kentucky.  She had three older brothers, including my grandfather, Richard O. Allen.  Her mother was pregnant with her younger brother when her father died, and Lottie was only one year old.  Very little is known of the family, except for my grandfather, between 1880 and 1900.  Lottie's mother, Mary, marries her fourth husband, Frank Letcher, a newspaperman.  Lottie shows up for the first time on the 1900 census.  She, her mother Mary, grandmother Crusie, and her three brothers are living in Frank Letcher's home.  She is 13 years old.

              

McVey Marriage Document, collection of author

That same year, Lottie married Daniel McVey, a thirty-five-year-old neighbor.  He lives a few houses down from her family.  She was fourteen, though the marriage license claims she was 16.  She had a daughter, Pearl, in 1904.  She divorced Daniel sometime before February 1908, when a newspaper article speaks of the burial of Lottie's "little son," who died of cholera that February.  

                                     

                                              Death Notice of Child, Mountain Advocate, collection of author

The next we know of Lottie is her marriage in 1908 to a widower with three young children, William Sherman Bailey.  She was 22 years old.  William was one year younger than Lottie.  She and William married in Knox County, Kentucky, where they remained through the 1910 census.  Her daughter, Pearl, was living with her mother and William in 1910.  By 1920, the family was living nearby in Harlan County.  They had six children between 1910 and 1922.  The family moved quite often following William's work.  William was an educated man for his time and place.  He even taught school when he was a very young man.  He worked farming and building train and road bridges.

                                                                 Bailey Marriage Document, collection of author             

                                           William Sherman Bailey, Lottie Allen and child, courtesy of Bailey family

Their youngest daughter, Alena, was born in Rockcastle County the same month her father William died, September 1922.  When William died, Lottie was left alone with at least seven children in the home.  All of Lottie's children were living with neighbors by 1930.  The oldest of her children lived with a half-brother.  The other children were listed in the 1930 census as adopted or as a boarder in neighbors' homes.  One of Lottie's grandsons told me Lottie had been very ill with tuberculosis.  Because of this, the authorities took all of her children and gave them away on the steps of the courthouse.  Family stories tell us she fought this with everything she had.

                                                         

                                               Lottie Allen, courtesy of the Bailey family

Further examination of the existing records showed that William died of tuberculosis at age 43.  His first wife died at age 30.  Her death did not appear to be childbirth-related; perhaps instead, she also died of tuberculosis.  Her two oldest children, Mary and Richard, died of tuberculosis at ages 29 and 43, respectively, and Lottie's oldest son, Leslie, died of tuberculosis at age 40.  Because Lottie was so ill, Richard took her in and took care of her for the rest of her life.  She died in her 30s of tuberculosis.  One of her grandsons remembers visiting an abandoned cemetery in Harlan County.  His dad told him Lottie was buried there.  He thought a simple fieldstone may have marked her grave.  There is no record of the burial.

William Sherman Bailey, Lottie Allen, and children, courtesy of Bailey family

The poor-quality photograph of a smiling Lottie standing in a field seems symbolic of a woman, somewhat shaded in the mist of time, a woman we know only through a few records, photographs, and family stories.  We know she suffered hardship with the loss of her baby boy and her husband.  We know she lost her children.  We know she died relatively young.  We don't know whether she was happy, though she appeared to be, at least for the one day when her photograph was taken in that field in Indiana.

                                     

                          Lottie Allen in a field in Indiana, courtesy of Raymond Bailey 

 

 

Ohio County Agent Becomes a Naval Officer on a Liberty Ship During WW II

                                                                Eldon F. Studebaker, courtesy of Stephen Studebaker

Eldon E. Studebaker, a young Church of the Brethren member, watched as his friends signed up to fight in WWII.  The members of this church had a long history of being pacifists, but for some, this war was different.  After what I am sure was a great deal of soul searching, Eldon signed up for the Navy in May 1944.  He had completed his education in agriculture at Manchester College and Ohio State University.   Because he already had a degree, the military sent him to Princeton and later to the Armed Guard Training School in Norfolk, Virginia, for further training.  His college education and military training allowed him to obtain the rank of Ensign quickly.

Newspapers.com, The Journal Herald, Dayton, Ohio, 4 Mar 1945, Page 10

The Navy assigned him to the liberty ship, S.S. Harold T. Andrews.  He commanded a twenty-four-man armed guard aboard the Andrews, where most of the crew were civilians.  Liberty ships served various purposes in the war, including carrying food, fuel, vehicles, and aircraft.  Some were used as troop carriers or for transporting prisoners of war.  The Navy used some of these vessels as hospital ships.  Eldon’s ship was carrying Coca-Cola syrup, uniforms, and Studebaker trucks.

                             Liberty Ship Harold T. Andrews, photo taken by Eldon F. Studebaker, courtesy of Stephen Studebaker

Their ship left Rhode Island and crossed to the Pacific through the Panama Canal, heading for Manu, just north of Papua, New Guinea.  Manu had been a hotly contested island, finally liberated from the Japanese by the Americans and Australians in February 1944.  The island was significant to the United States because they used it as a supply hub for shipping items to many other conflict areas.

Map of Manu and  Seeadler Bay, Wikipedia

After a harrowing journey across the Pacific, Eldon arrived at what he called Manu Bay (probably Seeadler Harbor) in Dec 1944.  He photographed his ship in the harbor on December 25, 1944.  Luckily, he avoided the terrible explosion of the U.S.S. Mt. Hood one month earlier in the same harbor.  The Mt. Hood carried ammunition when she went up, killing many sailors on board and sinking seven smaller nearby vessels.

                                                                The Explosion of the U.S.S. Mt Hood, Wikimedia

The days must have seemed long for the men who spent weeks at sea.  Many of the men gambled, but Eldon did not join in.  He noted that when the ship got to Manu, a couple of the card sharks had the rest of the crew’s money.  Eldon spent time reading his prayer book, keeping a journal, and making sketches in the margins of the small book.  He wrote many letters home to his beloved Ruthy and his small daughter Nancy.  Eldon was a farm boy, learning to carve with a pocket knife as a child.  While at sea, he carved things that he saw, including a native outrigger he had photographed from the deck of his ship.  This treasure is in the collection of his son Stephen, who was born during the war.

Photo of an Outrigger Canoe by Eldon F. Studebaker, courtesy of Stephen Studebaker

Back of the Outrigger Canoe photo, courtesy of the author

               Carvin g of an Outrigger Canoe carved by Eldon F. Studebaker, courtesy of the author

    

Originally published in Generations, the newsletter of the Southwest Colorado Genealogical Society.

A Backwoods Cemetery and a Civil War Mystery

Several years ago, a trip to an abandoned cemetery in southeast Kentucky led me to a small project to learn more about a young man remembered on a headstone in this seemingly forgotten place.  My niece and I visited this cemetery to locate the grave of my 5th great-grandfather, Lewis Green, a Revolutionary War veteran.  His marker was easy to identify, slightly outside the cemetery's perimeter.  

                                                      Lewis Green Marker, courtesy of the author

It was high summer, hot and humid as blazes.  Anyone who has hiked in southeastern Kentucky knows how overgrown the area is.  We could not explore deeply into the cemetery.  However, our small search outside the cemetery boundaries was enough to give me a case of poison ivy.

                                                Kirby Cemetery, Bell County, Kentucky, courtesy of the author

We photographed several graves, but I did not look at the photographs until I returned home.  Eventually, I examined all of them and was excited to find one that, with further research, might have a story associated with it.  The stone was of a soldier who died during the Civil War.

                                                                    Grave of Robert Green, courtesy of the author

Private Robert Green, CO K, 64th NC INF was a Confederate soldier.  The headstone says, "BURIED AT OAKWOOD CEM. CHICAGO IL." This inscription is what piqued my interest.  Why would a Civil War soldier who died in 1864 be buried in Chicago?  A little research led me to a story from the war that I had not previously known.

Robert appeared to be a Confederate soldier or a Confederate irregular, though many of his family members became Union soldiers.  Whether Robert was part of the 64th North Carolina or whether he simply attached himself to this unit while they were attempting to hold the Cumberland Gap is unclear.  Though the battle was bloodless, over 2000 Confederate troops ultimately surrendered to the Union army between the 7th and 9th of September 1863.  Some Confederate soldiers escaped, but Union soldiers took Robert and 287 fellow soldiers to Camp Douglas, a notorious Union prisoner-of-war camp on par with the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp, Andersonville.  Officers who were captured were taken to Camp Johnson in Ohio.

       General Ambrose Burnside's Union Forces Passing Through the Cumberland Gap, September 1863, public domain

Thousands of prisoners brought to this Chicago camp never went home.  Records show that one in seven prisoners died at Camp Douglas.  When they died, they were interred in two small cemeteries on the grounds of Camp Douglas, along the shore of Lake Michigan, in what was later called the City Cemetery.  

                                          Camp Douglas, Chicago, Illinois, public Wikimedia Commons

                                                            Camp Douglas Prisoners, 1863, Wikimedia Commons

Flooding caused the removal of some of the later burials.  Eventually, workers moved all the burials to a mass grave in the Confederate Mound section of the Oak Woods Cemetery.  General John C. Underwood, regional head of the United Confederate Veterans, dedicated a monument of a Confederate soldier in this section of the cemetery on May 30th, 1895.  Ten thousand members of the public and President Grover Cleveland attended the ceremonies.  In 1911, the Commission for Marking the Graves of Confederate Dead raised the monument above ground level and added the names of the Confederate dead, including Robert Green's.  

                                 Confederate Mound, Oakwood Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois, public domain

Robert died of dysentery in the camp at age 28, one year after the date of his capture.  Robert left a wife and several children behind in the hills of Kentucky, just a few miles from where the Battle of Cumberland Gap occurred.   His wife applied for a pension in 1916.  The information collected by the Adjutant General did not show Robert on any muster rolls, nor did he find any enlistment record.  His wife, Matilda, may not have received any pension for Robert's service.  Robert is my 1st cousin, four times removed, and is the grandson of Lewis Green.

   Matilda Jackson Green's Pension Request, Family Search

Letter in Response to Pension Request, collection of Nathan Long

Thank you to Nathan Long, who corrected some errors in this blog and shared some of his extensive knowledge with me.

One Family's Contribution to the Union During the Civil War

 

George W. Putman and family, circa 1914-1918, courtesy of the Wendy Allen

My great-grandfather, George W. Putman, was a Civil War veteran.  He had one sister, Mary, and two brothers, Horace and Thomas.  George and both brothers all served in the Civil War.  I can't imagine the family's anguish as their sons went off to fight in that very bloody war.  All three brothers served in the 58th Ohio Infantry, Company I. Mary's husband Samuel also served in the Civil War in a different unit.

 

The men of the 58th Ohio Infantry saw service in many bloody conflicts, including the battles at Shilo, Chickasaw Bayou, and Chickasaw Gorge.  The unit was involved in other combat, including the Siege of Vicksburg.  Many soldiers from the 58th acted as provosts for two years in Vicksburg after its fall. 

 

George and Horace mustered out at Vicksburg, Mississippi, near the war's end. Horace left Vicksburg when the unit disbanded on January 14th, 1865.  He had served three years, two months, and 23 days.  George stayed in Vicksburg, finally heading home on September 16th, 1865, a few months after the war's end.  George and Horace moved to southeastern Nebraska, both raising large families there.  

George's Headstone and GAR Marker, Find a Grave, courtesy of Vicky Wiemer

 

Thomas was not so lucky.  He was wounded at the Battle of Shilo, along with 42 of his comrades.  He survived the battle only to die on July 18th, 1863, aboard the gunboat Lindon while performing patrols along the Mississippi.  The gunboat had six twenty-four-pound howitzer guns.  As a crew member and soldier on the Linden, he participated in several missions that contributed to Vicksburg's capture.  Shortly after the fall of Vicksburg, when Thomas died, the Linden was performing convoy and reconnaissance duties along the Mississippi.  The Lindon survived various mishaps, finally hitting a snag in the Arkansas River in February 1864.  The crew could not refloat it.  After stripping the vessel of all weaponry and valuable supplies, they abandoned it later that year.

USS Linden ("Tinclad" No 10) at mooring, courtesy of Wilson's Creek National Battlefield

 

The regiment itself lost a total of 305 men.  Three officers and 85 enlisted men were killed, while two officers and 215 enlisted men died of disease.  Records indicate that Thomas was one of those men who died due to disease.

Originally published in Generations, a newsletter of the Southwest Colorado Genealogical Society.

A 19th Century American Railroading Story

"Pap Russell was a railroad man" seems like a fitting epitaph for William Hall Russell, my 2nd great-grandfather.   But it took a lifetime of work to gain that title.

                                                        Train Engineer Paps Russell, courtesy of Wendy Allen

Since the 1730s, William's ancestors lived near Brookline, New Hampshire.  His parents, Campbell Russell, and Lucretia Melvin, married in 1819 and resided near Brookline's forests.  William was born in 1835, the last of the nine children born to the couple.  His father died when he was three.  Life became very difficult for his family.  While Campbell was alive, they cut trees, made charcoal, and sent it to the forges in North Chelmsford.  They also farmed part of their land, which continued after his death.  

 

In 1848, the family moved to Nashua, New Hampshire, believing they could find factory work.  William worked in a cotton mill for a year.  He did not like working indoors, so he left, looking for a job that allowed him to be outdoors.  He spent a year as a peddler carrying his wares in trunks strapped to his back.

                                        Young Doffers in the Elk Cotton Mills, courtesy of the Jewish Museum

When William was sixteen, he made a choice that would change the course of his life.  He started work as a section man for the old Fitchburg Railroad near his home in Nashua.  When fall came, the railroad paid him to watch the engine for the winter.  Perhaps that cold, lonely winter with the train helped him decide what he wanted for his future.

 

In 1852, when he was seventeen, he moved from New Hampshire to Ohio to continue his railroad work.  He laid tracks from Springfield to London, Xenia to Dayton, and Springfield to Delaware.  When he completed his work on these routes, he became a fireman on one of the trains.  Firemen tended and maintained the fire that kept the engine running and many other tasks that ensured the engine kept running efficiently.  It was a hard, dirty job.  He was allowed to fill in for a vacationing engineer.  When the engineer returned, he returned to the hard labor of shoveling coal for the engine.  But by the following year, he was again an engineer on the train.

                                            Shoveling coal into the engine's firebox, courtesy of Erik Lyngsoe

He married my second great-grandmother Sarah Elizabeth Butts in 1854.  They would have three children, including my great-grandmother Mary "Birdie." By 1856, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and found low-paying work at a railroad standstill, eventually moving to work as a railroad switch installer.  From a letter of recommendation, we know he ultimately worked as an engineer in the Nashville area for several years leading up to the Civil War.  

Control of the Louisville & Nashville railroad was essential to winning the war.  The military used the railroad for carrying supplies and sometimes troops.  Fighting happened up and down the rails.  While the war raged on, both armies destroyed and rebuilt the tracks numerous times.  After the Battle of Nashville, city leaders evacuated the city, and the railroad fell under the command of the Union.  William decided he did not want to move his family south and kept them in Nashville. 

                                                   Louisville & Nashville Rail Map, Wikimedia
 

When the federal army came into Nashville, he met an old friend from a previous job, John B. Anderson.  Mr. Anderson was now the Superintendent of the Military railroad division in the Nashville area.  Mr. Anderson gave William the job of setting up and running the first engine sent in by the government.  He ran the engine, Little Jupiter, until the Union returned the line to the company at the war's end.  He continued to work for the government after the war in railroad procurement.  He was also known as a master railroad mechanic.

                    Nashville, Tenn. railroad yard and depot with locomotives at the time of the Battle of Nashville, public domain

                                                                    Nashville, Tenn. railroad yard, public domain

Eventually, he moved to Kentucky, where he would finish off his forty-four-year career with the railroad, forty years spent as an engineer.  His wife, Sarah, died in 1888.  In 1890, he returned to New England to marry his cousin, Sarah Russell.  She would raise my great-grandmother, Birdie, in Louisville and Bowling Green, Kentucky.  William died in Kentucky in 1901.

                                                            Obituary of William Hall Russell, Newspapers.com

Both of Russell's sons became railroad men.  On the 1880 US Federal Census, his 20-year-old son, C.W. Russell, was listed as a railroad fireman.  His brother, Thomas, was listed as a train engineer on the 1900 and 1910 census.  Thomas was a 35-year member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers at his death.

 

I have found many newspaper articles about William and his work with the railroad.  One was an extensive article about his life; the others were short, descriptive vignettes.  These articles supplemented census and town records, giving a much fuller view of the life of William "Pap" Russell.

 

Two of my favorite short articles give insight into Williams's work and life.  The first describes:  

"This old veteran, who is now on the Elkton & 

Clarksville run, while on duty never sits down,

but in a standing position, ever on the lookout 

for an open switch or an obstacle on the road.  

He claims that an engineer is more apt to 

forget his duty when sitting down, and that many 

of the accidents are caused by the engineer 

sleeping while on duty."

  

The second tells a harrowing tale:

 

"Pap" Russell, one of the oldest locomotive engineers 

in the employ of the L.&N., was struck by his own 

engine in the Guthrie yards Saturday night and it 

was at first thought he had been fatally injured.  He 

had just had supper and coming out of the hotel undertook 

to cross the track in front of the engine, which was in the 

charge of his fireman.  The locomotive knocked him down 

and when picked up was unconscious condition.  He was taken

to the hotel and Dr. Marshall was immediately summoned. 

An examination showed no bones were broken, but 

the shock had paralyzed the old man and it was 

about two hours before he showed signs of relief."

 

 

"Locomotive Blasts" The Bee (Earlington, Kentucky), 23 November 1893, p. 3, col.  4;  digital images Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com/image/145526788/?terms=Paps%20Russell&match=1 : accessed 2 August 2021)

 

"Struck by His Own Engine." Hopkinsville Kentuckian (Hopkinsville, Kentucky), 19 June 1895,  p. 1, col.  3; digital images Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com/image/68182254/?terms=Paps%20Russell&match=1 : Accessed 2 August 2021)

 

 

 

A Visit to the Prague Jewish Ghetto

 

                                                       Pinkas Synagogue, Wikimedia Commons

In 2013, a friend and I did an extended tour of Eastern Europe.  I found the Pinkas Synagogue and the Old Jewish Cemetery in the Prague Ghetto one of the most impactful places I visited.  The Jewish Museum of Prague administers the synagogue and cemetery.

                                           Detail of the Pinkas Synagogue, courtesy of the author

The Pinkas Synagogue, founded in 1535 by the Horowitz family, was built in a late Gothic Style and is the second oldest building in the Prague Ghetto.  There was originally a house of prayer on the site when Aaron Meshulam Horowitz rebuilt the property.  Builders remodeling the synagogue added Renaissance features, a women's section, and a women's gallery in the mid-seventeenth century.  Floods have damaged several areas in the synagogue, including the names on the walls.  Workers repainted every lost or damaged name.

                                               Interior of Pinkas Synagogue, courtesy of the author

When I visited here on a late summer day, I was mesmerized by the 80,00 names painted onto the walls of this house of prayer.  These were the names of victims of the Holocaust from Bohemia and Moravia.  The enormity of the crimes committed against humanity was self-evident in this quiet, prayerful place.  I stood in silence, unable to fathom the cruelty of one group of human beings against another. 

                                            Names of Holocaust victims, courtesy of the author

Another synagogue room contained the art of children held prisoner at the Terezin Concentration Camp.  The combination of horror and hope expressed by these dear children brought me to tears.  Terezin was a concentration camp 30 miles from Prague.  The Nazis sent over 150,00 Jews to the camp, including 15,00 children. Terezin was not a death camp, but more than 33,00 people died from disease, lack of medical care, and starvation.  The Gestapo transported many prisoners to extermination camps such as Treblinka and Auschwitz.  Only 17,247 people survived their time at Terezin or the other camps they were sent to.  Ultimately, less than 150 children survived.

                                                        Children's art, Pinkas Synagogue, courtesy of the author

 

The art of the children of Terezin was part of a secret art program organized by the artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis.  Friedl was a prisoner at the camp.  She used art to help the children express themselves, a way for them to develop imagination and emotion.  The Nazis sent Friedl and many children to Auschwitz, but she hid two suitcases filled with 4500 children's drawings before she was sent to the death camp.  After the war, some of the drawings were recovered and sent to the Jewish Museum in Prague.  Many of the drawings are still contained at Terezin.  

                                                            Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Wikimedia Commons

 

Visitors can only access the Old Jewish Cemetery, one of the world's oldest surviving Jewish burial grounds, through the synagogue.  The first burials were interred in the early 1400s.  The last burial was in 1787.  Land for Jewish graves was scarce.  People were buried on top of each other here, with small amounts of dirt between them.  In some places, people were buried ten deep.  There are 12,000 highly personalized headstones in this resting place for many of the original Jewish families of Prague.  People have left pebbles on some stones, which is no longer permissible.  They are often left to keep the soul where it belongs or to indicate the deceased's memory continues to live.

                                                           Old Jewish Cemetery, courtesy of the author

                                                           Old Jewish Cemetery, courtesy of the author

Thank you to Frank Fristensky for communications on children's art at Terezin.