Carnival of Genealogy: Gulf Coast Summer 1962

Right: Craig and The World's Smartest Sister at the beach in Rockport, Texas, August 1962.


As far as I recall, my first time at a beach was in the summer of 1962. Later that year, at age 8, I did my first major writing project. It's presented here just as it was written 46 years ago, including photographs (the notes are new).

From the book My First Vacation Trip, copyright 1962, by Craig Manson


The Book Cover


My brothers, sister, and I live in New Mexico. On July 28, 1962, my Nana¹ came for a visit. She wanted to take my sister and I on a trip to Texas. Arrangements were made. So my Father, Aunt², and I went to buy my sister and I some "swimming clothes." When we came back, Nana sat down at the sewing machine and made us some beach jackets. Father readied my fishing line.

At last the day came. On Sunday, August 5, 1962, we left for Houston, Texas. The ride was comfortable³,. . . . .Next morning, I was up at 4:00 with Nana and later my sister got up at 5:00. I changed clothes in the men's room. Sister combed her hair, and Nana got ready too. At 11:00 we arrived in Houston. The train backed into the station. On the platform we met Uncle Herman⁴,. I relaized that in Texas, it's quite hot! Uncle Herman drove us to his house. At the house, we met Aunt Ida⁵.

Left: Sister with Uncle Herman Walker

[After several days in Houston, it's time for our travelers to move on!]

. . . Mrs A. Dolphin⁶ took us to the Greyhound bus depot where we would leave on a bus bound for Rockport, Texas. There we would meet my other Aunt Ida⁷ and Uncle Johnny⁸. It took us 5 hours to get there. . . . When we met Aunt Ida and Uncle Johnny, it was quite joyous because we had not seen each other since 1958. After we had unpacked, Uncle Johnny took us down to the beach where we went swimming as we did every day.

Above Right: We play in the Gulf

When we went fishing, I caught mostly catfish, but sometimes I caught perch and trout. Sometimes we went to visit cousin Ethel⁹ and Rabbit¹⁰.
One day Rabbit took us to Taft where we met Aunt Pearl¹¹. Aunt Pearl owns a motel and cafe in Taft. So we stayed at her motel. When we got back [to Rockport], Aunt Maria¹² and her husband¹³ came to take us to Corpus Christi.

In Corpus Christi, I long talked with Uncle Leroy¹⁴ who I had not seen once before in my life. After staying in Corpus Christi one day, we started back to Houston.

Right: On the shrimping dock



Below: Modeling the "beach jackets" Nana made

NOTES

¹My paternal grandmother, Jessie Bowie Manson (1909-1973), then known as Jessie Manson Givan.

²My mother's sister, Delorise Annrie Gines, then 22 years old, and spending her summer break from college with us.

³In pre-Amtrak times, "the ride" was the Atchison,Topeka & Santa Fe RR's Super Chief.

⁴Herman Walker (1906-2002), Nana's brother.

⁵Ida Mouton (1910?-1992), Uncle Herman's wife.

⁶Alice Dolphin, who was a major figure in my fathr's early life story.

⁷Ida Bryant (1895-1991), widow of Nana's uncle, Sam Bryant (1881-1951).

⁸I have no present clue as to this person's identity or actual relationship to me.

⁹Ethel Bryant (1903-1996), daughter of Isaac Bryant (1879-1936), Nana's uncle.

¹⁰I have no present clue as to this person's identity or actual relationship to me.

¹¹Pearl Bryant Richardson (1897-?), Nana's mother's sister.

¹²Should be "cousin Maria." Maria Bryant (1905-?) was Ethel's sister (see note 9).

¹³I do not know his name.

¹⁴Leroy Goins, aka Leo R. Bryant (1924-1983), Nana's brother.

Doing Some Hard Genealogy With Catholic Records

So I broke away from all the other toys to actually do some hard genealogy. I've written many times about Record Search at FamilySearch Labs. I noted awhile ago that I had found there the records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, which includes an area of my research interest, the village of Prairie du Rocher in Randolph County, Illinois. That's location from whence come the Micheau/Mischeaux family that I've been studying.

A few months ago, I translated and transcribed a number of the records relating to St Joseph's Chirch in Prairie du Rocher as well as Our Lady of Lourdes Church in nearby Sparta. It took a combination of skills that I've honed doing indexing for FamilySearch and my certainly imperfect recall of church and law Latin and the bits of genealogical French that I've picked up in the last few years. But I think I've got it right.

Having translated and transcribed some of the relevant records, I have now put them to some use.

I'm interested in the origins of the Micheau/Mischeaux line in French Illinois. Early in my research, I traced a line of present day family members back to George Micheau (1852-1942). That wasn't very hard because still-living family members recall him vividly. He was born in Potosi, Washington County, Missouri, lived in Prairie du Rocher, and died in St Louis. According to family members, he was married twice: first to Emma Roy, and then to someone the living family members recall simply as "Grandma Rosie." I also knew from the 1870 census that George Micheau appears that decade in the household of a senior George Micheau (their names were spelled "Misho" in that census). The 1870 census did not explicitly show relationships, but presumably, George was the son of George. I cannot find the family at all on the 1880 census.

So what did the church records add to my knowledge of this family? First, I found a death notice for Emma Roy. I had known that she was born in 1855, but not much more beyond that.

[Click to enlarge]
Death Registration, Mary Emma Roy, page 120, Liber Defunctorum, Ecclesia St Joseph, Prairie du Rocher, 1864-1956, Records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois (retrieved from Record Search Pilot, http://labs.familysearch.org)

The Latin reads:

Die 12a Julii 1900 obit Maria Emma Micheau uxor Georgii Micheau, annos circa 46 nata, ejusque corpus sequenti tumulatum est.

And I translated it:

Maria Emma Micheau, wife of George Micheau, died on July 12, 1900. She was about 46 years old. She was buried in the general burial ground.

We learn her full name and her date of death. There is also a death notice for "Grandma Rosie," but it is in English:

[Click to enlarge]
Death Registration, Rosine Micheau, page 199, Liber Defunctorum, Ecclesia St Joseph, Prairie du Rocher, 1864-1956, Records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois (retrieved from Record Search Pilot, http://labs.familysearch.org)

Now we know a bit more about Grandma Rosie, including her maiden name. Then, a curiosity: recall that Rosine was George's second wife who he married after the death of Emma Roy. But when he died in 1942, here's what the priest wrote:

[Click to enlarge]
Death Registration, George Micheau, page 221, Liber Defunctorum, Ecclesia St Joseph, Prairie du Rocher, 1864-1956, Records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois (retrieved from Record Search Pilot, http://labs.familysearch.org)

Does this tell us something about the family or about the pastor or both?

Moving on to the elder George Micheau we find notice of his death too, on page 136 of the same set of records, also in English. The page follows another which is headed "1906."

Died May 13th George Micheau, the oldest colored member of the parish in his 94th year, as verified by the following extract of the baptismal record of 1813, viz.:

[Click to enlarge]
Baptismal Registration, George Micheau, unnumbered page included with Records of St Anne du Fort de Chartres, 1721-1765 Records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois (retrieved from Record Search Pilot, http://labs.familysearch.org)

This baptismal registration was found with the records of St Anne's Church at Fort de Chartres, Illinois, which existed before the church at Prairie du Rocher was constructed in 1765. It is in French:

Le vingt deux fevrier mil huit cent treize a ete baptiste George ne de Julie esclave de fem Mv LaChange ont ete parrein Ignace et marrein Marguerite tous deux esclaves de Mde Ve D'Amour.

What does this mean? I have an idea, but help us out, you French scholars! More to come!

Accents

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The Importance of Family Stories: The Fable of Jack and Jill

This is a "lost" post, originally intended for publication on Wednesday, 28 November 2007. It was discovered in the "Draft" file on Wednesday, 31 May 2017 (a mere nine and half years late!).

I know two young persons who are about to get married. For the sake of this story, let's call them Jack and Jill [certain other personal identifying information has also been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Dates and places of genealogically significant events have not been changed.] They live somewhere in the United States of America. Jack, 32 years old, is an assistant professor at a well-known university. Jill, also 32, is a chemist for a small private company.

Jack identifies himself as an African-American. Most people would call Jill "Caucasian" or "white."
But if you know her, you get the impression she doesn't spend a lot of time concerned about "what" she is in these terms. And therein lies the root of Jack and Jill's "problem" as they approach their wedding day. Jill, it seems, has some relatives who are glad she's getting married; but that her fiance is a black man, well, not so much. Some of the objections have been so intemperate that Jill after much angst, has decided not to invite certain relatives to the wedding.

Jill had thought that if only her relatives got to know Jack as a person, they might see things differently. That hasn't worked because they aren't interested in getting to know him. But suppose her relatives knew what I know about their family history . . . .

Jill knew of my interest in genealogy and awhile ago, she asked me to help her learn something about a relative, now deceased, that her mother had mentioned. Here's what I discovered as I pursued that mission:

Jill's mother's maiden name is German. Jill's great-great-grandfather, Johannes R., came to New York from Bavaria in 1847. Johannes settled in Queens and married another German immigrant. Their son, also named Johannes, also married another German immigrant. A third Johannes was born of this marriage.

Johannes III left New York when he entered the service during WWII. After the war, Johannes III ended up in Texas where he met and married Conseulo G. Conseulo was the daughter of Cristiano G., who was born in Mexico but crossed the border at will and maintained a residence in Texas and in Mexico. Jill's mother, Barbara, is the fourth child of Johannes and Conseulo.

Jill's paternal great-great-grandfather was Pedro M., born in Cuba in 1866, the descendant of African slaves. He married Maria, whose paternity is unknown, in Puerto Rico in 1890. In 1905, Pedro and Maria moved to Hawaii. In Hawaii, Pedro and Maria raised their sons, including Ricardo M., who was to become Jill's great-grandfather. Ricardo married Victoria S., whose family had immigrated to Hawaii from the Philippines. Victoria's family was of the Ibanag people. In 1920, Ricardo and Victoria had a son, Estaban. Soon thereafter, Ricardo moved his family to California. In California, Estaban grew up and met Anna T., whose family had come from Mexico. Anna had been born in Mexico. Estaban and Anna married and in 1945, had a son which they named Stephen. In 1966, Stephen met Barbara R. and they were soon married. Jill is their only child.

Suppose Jill's recalcitrant relatives knew their own family history. Would they behave differently toward Jack? I suggest that it really takes something more than just the facts. That is a knowledge of family stories that makes the names come alive for them. If they knew Grandpa Pedro through family stories, they might feel as if they really knew him.

Jack and Jill were married in 2007 and today are the happily married parents of two children.

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The Missouri Insurance Company

In the first half of the twentieth century, it was a common practice of many immigrant families and African-American families to purchase life insurance policies on their infant children. Indeed, as late as the 1990's, an otherwise respected baby food company was sponsoring such insurance policies.

Why would someone purchase a life insurance policy on an infant? Isn't the textbook purpose of life insurance to provide for the survivors' needs in the event of the insured's premature death? Well, that's one of the purposes. The families who bought these policies [and my family was one] were told that the policies were a way to "build wealth" or to provide a "nest egg" for the young person's adulthood. Sometimes the less-educated or illiterate were simply told that it was a way to "protect" their child.

The policies that were sold in this manner were a species of "whole life" insurance (now sometimes called "permanent insurance"), which simply put, require premiums to be paid for the insured's whole life or for some other specified period until the policy's "cash value" is fully paid up. The insurance component remains in effect as long as the premiums are paid (i.e. for one's whole life--in practice usually to age 95, although I understand now in some cases, it can last to age 121!). The cash value is accumulated from a portion of the premium paid. The policy can be surrendered at certain points for the then-accumulated cash value. (This is a simplified description of what today is a somewhat more sophisticated product).

In the case of these policies on infants, the premiums were payable at least until age 18 or 21 to receive the maximum death benefit; and could be paid longer for a greater cash accumulation.

Whole life and its more recent companion product, universal life insurance, can be good investment vehicles in a well-planned and well-managed portfolio. But the folks buying these products in the first half of the twentieth century rarely had access to financial or estate planning information. And truth be told, they would have been better off in most cases putting their money in the bank.

Today, these policies don't turn up often because of the greater access to other investment and saving vehicles. More people can buy stocks and bonds today than ever could be before. These instruments are no longer just for the wealthy.

One company that sold the infant policies was the Missouri Life Insurance Company, formed in the 1830's as the first insurance company in St Louis (see Missouri History Recalled During Past Week, The Sikeston Herald, March 13, 1936, p.3, available from Newspaper Archive.com). In 1907, the company was issued a corporate charter by the Missouri Legislature. The company existed as a major business force in St Louis and Missouri for more than eighty years.

In 1956, the company changed its name to Life Insurance Company of Missouri (Business Notes, The Sunday News & Tribune [Jefferson City, Mo.], April 15, 1956, p. 9). But in 1957, it was taken over by Cincinnati-based Western & Southern Life Insurance Company, which remains in business today.

These infant policies will eventually become known as a bit of socioeconomic and anthropological ephemera.

Below is a copy of a policy sold by the Missouri Insurance Company in 1953. In addition to the death benefit, there are "Accidental Death Benefits" and "Dismemberment Benefits." The premium on this policy was $0.76 weekly for maximum death benefit of $1000 if premiums were paid for 18 years.

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