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.

Happy 55th Anniversary, Mom & Dad!

My parents celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary this weekend. Here's a recent photo of them, but for a glimpse at their wedding in Houston, Texas, in 1953, see the Carnival post on weddings here.


[Updated 7/18/08, 10:15 PDT to add photo. Blogger was having an upload problem earlier. Previous post deleted]

A Memorable Visit

In my Jamboree posts the week before last, I alluded to a special mission I had attended to as part of my trip to Southern California. I took part of the time I was there to meet my father's step-mother.

I never knew that my father had a step-mother, as such, until the last few years, or so it seems to me. My parents tell me that I had met her (let's call her Miss Mary) at my brother's wedding 25 years ago in Los Angeles, but I have no recollection of that at all. In any event, I would have been 29 years old at the time, and that would have been the first I'd heard of Miss Mary.

In the last few years, I've become aware that my father has kept in regular contact with Miss Mary, calling her about every other week and writing her from time to time. A few weeks ago, he couldn't seem to reach her. She's 94 years old and lives alone. Dad called me, quite concerned, and asked if there was anything I could do. I first checked with various sources to ascertain if she had died; these were inconclusive at best. I dialed her number on the chance that Dad had dialed the wrong number. The number just rang and rang without being answered.
When I tried later, it was busy. A final try got a ring, but no answer.

After consulting several geriatric and law enforcement professionals, I called the Los Angeles Police Department's division station for Miss Mary's area. I explained who I was and that I wanted them to go to Miss Mary's address for a "welfare check." The officer on the telephone said they would do that.

Within an hour, I received a call back from the LAPD. They were at Miss Mary's place and they had found her "little dehydrated, a bit disoriented, but otherwise fine." They gave her water and juice. I conveyed the message to my father immediately after I received it.

On the Jamboree trip, I had planned to visit the grave of my paternal grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie (buried under the name Jessie Manson Tidwell), which is in Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California, a thirty minute drive from Burbank. But I realized that her grave will always be there (or at least for a very long time) and Miss Mary may not always be here. So I decided to go see Miss Mary.

Miss Mary lives in a usually quiet area of southwest Los Angeles near the 110 freeway. (That morning it was not quiet, however, as LAPD helicopters roared overhead tracking a fugitive and LA news media choppers swarmed around the law enforcement airplanes).

I rang her doorbell and waited. I could hear a television on inside and voices, also. When nobody came to the door after a decent interval, I took out mt cell phone and dialed Miss Mary's number. I heard the telephone ring and a voice said, "Somebody's calling me." Nobody answered the telephone, so I left a message saying who I was and why I was there. Then a woman's voice said, "Somebody's at my door. Let him in."

A woman of about 30 years old opened the door and smiling, said,"Come in." I stepped into a small but uncluttered living room. At the back of the living room, I saw Miss Mary.

"Miss Mary," I said, "I'm . . . . " She cut me off quickly.

"I know who you is," she said curtly. "You your daddy's son." She was coming toward me in a walker, but at a pretty good speed and with a decent gait. Her voice was clear and strong.

"Sit down," she commanded. And to the younger woman, "Get him a cup of coffee."

"Uh, I don't drink coffee, Miss Mary."

"You don't? Well, the you're no friend of mine!" I actually couldn't tell if she was joking or not. I sat down on her sofa as she sat in a chair across from me. She was wearing a pair of blue slacks and a pressed pink shirt. She seemed to be sizing me up.

"What on earth possessed you to call the police to come to my house the other day?" Miss Mary demanded, her Texas drawl unseasoned by more than six decades in southern California.

Again, I wasn't sure if she was angry or not.

"I-I, uh, well, Dad was . . . we were concerned about--" I stammered.

Miss Mary cut me off again. "No, that wasn't it," she said forcefully. I started to protest, when Miss Mary held up her hand and said, "It was the spirit of the Lord made you call the police." Her facial expression softened into a smile.

"Yessir, it was the spirit of the Lord!" she exclaimed again. "How else would you know to call Los Angeles from Sacramento to save my life? It was the Lord's doing!"

Miss Mary had a bit more dramatic take on the situation than the LAPD had. She said she had fallen asleep the night before and had not turned on her air conditioner because the evening was cool. She slept on the sofa until the mid-morning hours. By that time, the heat wave had commenced in LA and Miss Mary was sweating and drained of energy. She said she couldn't get up to get water or to turn the air conditioner. After awhile, she could barely move at all. She knew she would die if she couldn't get up. She was preparing her self mentally for just that occurrence when the police showed up. The sofa being close to the door, she was able muster enough energy to let them in.

"They were like angels," Miss Mary said of the officers. "I'm going to witness about this in my church!"

After these preliminaries were over, we started discussing family matters. Miss Mary had been born in Cameron, Texas, 12 or 15 miles from my grandfather's birthplace in Rockdale, Texas. Contrary to family legend which said that they had never met until both ended up in Los Angeles, Miss Mary said that she and my grandfather had known each other in Texas. She said that she and a girlfriend left Texas in about 1941 to find better jobs in California.

When they got to LA (they went by train), they almost immediately found wartime jobs in a shipyard. A few years later, on the way to work on a bus, she ran into my grandfather, by then divorced from my grandmother. They renewed their acquaintance and later got married.

Miss Mary confirmed several details of family history that I was not sure about. Having grown up in the same county as my grandfather, she knew his family. For example, I asked her if she knew my grandfather's father, Otis Manson. She said, "He was a white man; he took good care of his family."

And who was his father? I asked. Miss Mary replied, "I don't know. You know, people didn't talk a lot about things like that in those days."

The census records describe Otis Manson as variously mulatto or black. But Miss Mary's declaration added credence to my father's story of having seen a white man on a horse in Midland County, Texas, in 1948 and being told, "That's your grandfather." What she said is also consistent with my theory that Otis Manson was the son of George Preston Birdsong, scion of a landed Upson County, Georgia, family, and Matilda Manson, a free woman of color who lived near George Birdsong. [By the time Miss Mary was born in 1914, George Preston Birdsong had returned to Georgia and died in 1905].

Miss Mary pointed out that at age 94, she cooks and cleans for herself and goes to church. [The younger woman with her that day is sent out by an agency at certain intervals to check up on her].

Miss Mary told me the basic genealogy of her family, the details of which I had already researched before starting my trip. But you know, there's just something special about hearing a living person describe their family when the vital facts square with your research!

It was a wonderful hour and a half spent with the most interesting and energetic 94 year old I've ever met.

Before I left, we took some photos. And that's the saddest part of the story. It was a new camera and I wasn't completely familiar with its operation. I either deleted the photos or never actually got them on the memory card. Which means I'll have to go back!

Decoration Day Roll Call

Today, we honor our war dead. If I could, I would be placing decorations on the following family veterans gravesites:

Charles Troy Bowie (1915-1945), U.S. Army, Epinal American Cemetery, Epinal, France.

Rene C. Mischeaux (1948-1969), U.S. Army, Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Bruno, California

They both gave "the last full measure of devotion" in service to our nation.

While we're here at our virtual national cemetery, we note the service of these other relatives, who, while not war casualties, nonetheless served valiantly:

Zeke Johnson (1847-1933), 18th U.S. Colored Infantry, Blue Ridge Cemetery, Kansas City, Missouri.

Frank William Gines (1935-1999), U.S. Army, Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver, Colorado.
Henry Edward Gines (1935-1993), U.S. Army, Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver, Colorado.

Perry Wesley Gines (1928-1986), U.S. Coast Guard, Leavenworth National Cemetery, Leavenworth, Kansas.

Richard Edward Gines (1926-1996), U.S. Army Air Forces, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

Bobby G. LeJay (1938-2007), U.S. Army, Carver Memorial Cemetery, Shreveport, Louisiana.

Herman L. Brayboy (1935-1996), U.S. Army, Zion Rest Cemetery, Shreveport, Louisiana.

William G. Wells (1929-2005), U.S. Navy, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, St Louis, Missouri

There are 363 Bowies, 246 Mansons, and 168 Birdsongs buried in America's National Cemeteries.

Epinal American Cemetery, Epinal, France
Final Resting Place of Charles Troy Bowie of Longview, Texas

My FOIA Request Update

A few weeks ago, I used the State Department's online "FOIA Request Generator" to request the passport files of my grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie (1909-1973). I received an email acknowledgment fairly promptly. Last week, I got the first actual response. Reasonably enough, the Government wants me to show that she either is dead or authorizes me to see her file. It's not quite as simple as sending them her death certificate, however. She was married three times and the name under which she applied for a passport was the name she used during her second marriage, Jessie M. Givan. When she died, she was known as Jessie Tidwell. So in addition to proof of death of Jessie Tidwell, I will send her SS-5 (Application for Social Secuiryt account number) which lists her as both Jessie Beatrice Bowie and Jessie Bowie Manson; an extract from the 1940 marriage records of Aransas County, Texas, which shows "Mrs. Jessie Manson" marrying one Exa Givan; and a page from the California State marriage Index for 1964 indicating that Jessie M. Givan married George Tidwell. That should do it, don't you think?

Resources: California Voter Registrations 1900-1968

Ancestry.com has just added California Voter Registrations for the years 1900 to 1968. I tried this out last night.

My great-uncle, Carl Edward Manson (1893-1966), was the first family member to migrate to California from Texas before World War II. I found him and his then-wife Mary on the 1940 voter rolls registered at 5820 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles. Thereafter, I can follow him as he moved to several other residences over the next 14 years. Although he lived until 1966, Carl is not listed on the voter rolls after 1954.

I can also tell from these records that Carl started off in California as a salesman before the war and then went to work in an aircraft factory after the Pearl Harbor attack. But it seems that after 1944, California (or may just Los Angeles County) stopped listing occupation on voter registration.

I also found my grandfather, Quentin Manson, Carl's brother, on the L.A. County voter lists from 1946 to 1954. He had moved there after he got out of the Army after the war.

While Grandpa Quentin was always a Democrat, Carl started as a Republican and frequently switched back and forth between the major parties.

This set of records is a great genealogical resource. Note the following:

• Most records include addresses.
• Many records include occupation.
• All records have party affiliation, perhaps giving a glimpse into where your ancestors stood on the issues of the day.
• The records are for every even year, because the U.S. House of Representatives and the California Assembly are elected every two years.
• The search feature will mislead you once in awhile; and after 1956, the records are slightly more difficult to use, for some reason.

I give this resource a 90% grade and recommend it highly. Hopefully, Ancestry can work out the minor search issues.

History Comes to Dinner

Actually I'm going to dinner at the home of my great-great grandmother, Matilda Manson, in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas, on a day in 1900. Grandma Mattie has been kind enough, at my suggestion, to invite her son Otis, and his wife Bettie Sanford, as well as Bettie's 90 year old father, Billie Sanford. Bettie is pregnant with their fourth child, my great aunt Julia Mattie Manson. They'd left at home their three sons, seven-year-old Carl, six-year-old Otis Preston, and three-year-old Silas Leroy. I wonder who's babysitting.

But most interestingly of all, Grandma Mattie has invited Otis's father, 59 year old George Preston Birdsong, and his 55-year-old brother Albert Hamill Birdsong. Preston and his brother live in the nearby town of Cameron which is the Milam County seat.

To recap what will make this an interesting dinner, George Preston Birdsong is the son of the late George Lawrence Forsyth Birdsong and his wife Susan Thweatt. The Birdsongs were a prominent landowning and slaveowning family in Upson County, Georgia, through most of the 19th century. Larry Birdsong in fact was a deputy sheriff of Upson County and served as a captain in the local militia which was called to duty with the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The Birdsongs owned a number of slaves, but Matilda Manson was not among them. Matilda was a free woman of color who had been born in neighboring Talbot County. At some time during the 1870s, soon after Larry Birdsong had died in 1869, Matilda Manson and George Preston Birdsong found themselves living next door to each other. Preston appears to perhaps have been estranged from the rest of his family, who lived some distance away. In 1884, Preston, Matilda, her son Otis, and Preston's brother Albert all took off for Texas.

The family lore about Matilda and Otis's absconding to Texas is told here. That story is not true. Family lore also has it that every Sunday Otis would take his family down to the train station in Rockdale Texas where they would await a train from a neighboring town. When the train arrived a white man would get off the train visit with them and give them money. Then he would get on the next train going back until the following week. This appears to be true.

Preston and Albert worked in Cameron. Preston lived with a couple of brothers from what is now the Czech Republic. (At that time it was known as Bohemia). One brother was a bartender, and the other was a salesman, according to the 1900 census. Preston worked as a night watchman.

Dinner this evening should be very interesting. I don't think Preston has ever met Otis's wife Bettie. Likewise I don't think Bettie's father Billie knows anything about Preston. And I'm eager to hear some stories from all the parties concerned. For example, I want to know what it was like when Preston and Matilda got together in Georgia. I want to know exactly why they left Georgia. Where they run out of town as I suspect? Or did they leave of their own volition? Why did Albert come along? And why of all the places in Texas did they choose Rockdale? How did they get to Rockdale from Upson County, Georgia? According to the book, A Frontier Link with the World: Upson County's Railroad, by historian David E. Paterson, Preston had been for a short while an engineer on the railroad in Georgia. Did they take a train from Georgia to Texas? What did it cost? How long did it take? What was their relationship like as they traveled and once they got to Texas? And what was Preston's relationship with his family like after he left Georgia? Did he receive letters from them? Did he write to his mother? His mother died in 1892 while he and Albert were in Texas. Did they know of their mother's death at the time? Did they return to Georgia for her funeral? And since this dinner takes place in 1900, I obviously know some things that are about to happen that they don't know. I won't tell them but Preston returns to Georgia in just a few more years, and he dies there in 1905. Albert also returns to Georgia but he lives until 1921.

And as for Matilda, I'm curious what became of her mother Jane. And what became of her sister Mary? Did Matilda and Mary know their grandmother, a Scots-Irish woman named Charlotte? What exactly was it like to be a so-called "free woman of color" in Georgia in the 19th century? What did Matilda and Mary and Jane do during the Civil War? Where were they during the Civil War? And for Billie Sanford, how did the Sanford family of Virginia into which he was born in slavery, treat their slaves? Billie followed the Sanford's from Virginia to Tennessee to Texas. Where did he meet his wife Emily? Had he been married before? What did he think of Otis marrying his daughter Bettie? Who were his brothers and sisters? Did he remember his parents from Virginia? To what did he ascribe his long life? (Here in 1900, Billie doesn't know that he will live another 16 years in die at the age of 106).

I'm interested in seeing Matilda's dwelling. I'm wondering what she's going to serve for dinner. Will it be a recipe from Georgia? Or perhaps it will be something she's learned since she moved to Texas 16 years ago. What ever, I'm sure it will be delicious. After dinner if it's not too late, maybe we'll walk over to Otis and Bettie's house. Perhaps they'll invite Bettie's sister Addie and her husband Abe White over for coffee.

Tomorrow if the weather's good, I'll do something really daring. I'll stroll over to the home of Reuben Henry Sanford, the son of the woman who brought Billie Sanford as a slave to Texas from Tennessee. Now that will be interesting!

The other things that I know but can't tell Otis and Bettie tonight are that their son Otis Preston and their daughter yet unborn Julia Mattie both will die of tuberculosis in 1912. So it will be an interesting joyous yet bittersweet evening.

Where Were They in 1808?

Awhile ago, the challenge issued by Lisa was to describe where one's ancestors were in 1908. I blogged about that here. Now the topic is where one's ancestors were in 1808. Many bloggers have written about this already; I'm just getting caught up.

1808 was a signal year for some of my families. That was the year that Congress banned the Atlantic slave trade from the United States. The U.S. Constitution of 1789 had provided in Article I, section 9:

The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.

This somewhat obtuse sentence was one of the several compromises in the Constitution on the issue of slavery. The importation of slaves could not be banned by Congress for two decades after the Constitutional Convention. Note that states were free to ban slavery at any time; and several had done so prior to 1808.

Manson: Charlotte Manson, the likely first ancestor born in America, was probably still with her Scots-Irish parents in South Carolina or northern Georgia. We have not yet discovered her parents' names.

Gines: I have no information about the Gines family that goes back to 1808. I do know that they likely came from the Carolinas.

Bowie: James Bowie, free man of color, is believed to have been born in the 1790's in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, and probably was living there in 1808.

Brayboy: William Brayboy was born into slavery in South Carolina in the 1790's. I do not know where in South Carolina.

Johnson/Carpenter: Benjamin Carpenter had been born in 1745 in Gloucester, New Jersey. In 1808, he and his wife, Elizabeth McFarland Hughes, lived in Harrison County, Virginia (now in West Virginia). Their son William, grandfather of Ezekiel Johnson, was born in Harrison County in 1790.

LeJay: I am reasonably certain that my LeJay ancestors were held in bondage in South Carolina in 1808. They were most likely in the eastern part of South Carolina.

Birdsong: John Birdsong III and his wife, Elizabeth Latimer, had moved to Oglethorpe County, Georgia, by 1808.

Sanford: The earliest known ancestor in this family, William Sanford, was born into slavery in Virginia in 1809.

Bryant, Long, Gilbert, Martin: I have no information on these families in 1808.

Where Was Your Family in 1908?

Lisa, who has the energy to write several interesting blogs, posed the question, "Where was your family in 1908?" on, appropriately enough, her 100 Years in America blog.

A century ago, neither of my paternal grandparents had been born yet, although one, my grandmother Jessie Beatrice Bowie, was just a year away. Her parents, my great-grandparents, Hattie Bryant and Elias Bowie, Sr., had recently met and were living in San Antonio, Texas. Hattie's and Elias' parents were also in Texas. Guy Bryant and Maria Martin lived in Rockport, Aransas County, Texas, in 1908. Guy was a butcher. John Wesley Bowie and Amanda McCray made their home in the east Texas town of Longview in Gregg County. They lived at 114 Morgan Street and 63 year old John did "odd jobs."

My other paternal great-grandparents, Otis Manson and Bettie Sanford, lived on a farm near Rockdale, Milam County, Texas. My great-great-grandmother, Matilda Manson, lived near them. Bettie's father, Billie Sanford, a 98 year old former slave, was still alive, also in Milam County. Billie would live to be 106 years old.

My maternal grandfather, Eddie Gines, was 10 years old and lived with his parents, Richard William Gines and Sylvia LeJay, at 1540 Ashton Street, Shreveport, Louisiana. Great-grandpa Dick was a fireman at Shreveport's electric powerhouse. I know nothing of Dick's parents. Sylvia's parents were Lewis LeJay and Syntrilla Brayboy. By 1908, Lewis had probably passed away. Syntrilla, however, still lived in De Soto Parish, Louisiana, not far from where she had been held in slavery.

My maternal grandmother, Annie Florida Corrine Long, was six years old and lived with her parents, James William Long and Mary Elizabeth Johnson. Their house was at 2711 Wyoming Street, on the west side of Kansas City, Missouri. Great-grandpa James was a Baptist preacher and in 1908 was the pastor at Kansas City's Sunrise Baptist Church. His parents, Richard and Pauline Long, were deceased. My great-great-grandfather, Zeke Johnson, was still alive and well in Kansas City. My great-great-grandmother, Sarah Gilbert, may have been alive in 1908, but this is not certain. Zeke's father, Dan Carpenter, was alive at age 83, in Clay County, Missouri, just north of Kansas City. He died at age 95. There is some evidence that Zeke's mother, Harriet Mitchell, was alive and living in Johnson County, Kansas, but this is not certain. She would be about 83 years old as well.

In 1908, none of these ancestors could have foreseen me and life as it is today.

Important Genealogical Tip: Try, Try Again!

An important tip in genealogical research is to re-plow ground you've already been over before. And if that's not productive, do it again!

Why?

Because it works.

Miriam at Ancestories had a Christmas Day surprise when she finally found some elusive in-laws for whom she had searched for years. In an idle moment, she tried again on-line and there they were.

Coincidentally, I had a very similar experience on Christmas morning as well! For a number of years, I've wondered what became of my grandfather's brother, Otis Preston Manson. I knew he had been born in 1894 based on Milam County school records that I found at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. But he doesn't appear on the 1920 census--and seemed to have simply disappeared.

Yesterday, while I--like Miriam--was waiting for the rest of the household, including guests, to stir, I Googled Otis Preston Manson, just on the chance that I'd missed something in the past. And was I surprised when that search turned up a transcription of his death certificate! It was contained in Genealogymagazine.com. That's a source I rarely use (but you can bet I've spent some time with it now!). Turns out that Preston, as he was known, died in 1912 at the age of 18. The transcription doesn't have the cause of death, so I immediately ordered a copy of the certificate itself from the state of Texas. I used the convenient process found on Texas Online. It should arrive in 10-15 days.

Preston's sister Julia also died in 1912 of tuberculosis. She was just 12 years old. I'm guessing that Preston also died of TB. We'll know shortly.

Going back over area that I've covered before has frequently paid off for me. It did again today in a big way. See the next post. So don't hesitate to review where you've been and look where you've looked before. At some point, something always turns up.

Christmas 1958

Craig, Baby Sister, and brother with Sankt Nikolaus in
Frankfurt am Main

The World's Smartest Sister

Later this week, my little sister will celebrate her 50th birthday. [Can that really be? Wow!]. When she was born, my father was a lieutenant in the Army, with the grand salary of $200.00 per month. We lived at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I think I've mentioned this before, but at the time, housing was a critical issue at "Fort Lost-in-the Woods." The Army had ordered double-wide trailers for the senior NCOs to live in. Junior commissioned officers, like my father, were given the crates the trailers came in for their families! So when my sister was born, we lived in a wooden box.

She was different from the beginning. She was the first girl in what was now a family of three children. When my mother came home from the hospital, my sister had to stay for a few days. My mother said to me and my younger brother, "Your sister is beautiful! She has long red hair!" And indeed she did.

My Little Sister, c. 1958

She seemed to take command of the household from the moment she arrived there. She had strange habits as she grew. She had a pink tub in which she was bathed; she carried that tub about the house with her constantly. When she tired of carrying the tub around, she would put it on the floor and curl up in it.

We moved from Fort Leonard Wood to Indianapolis, Indiana, and then to Germany while my sister was still a toddler. In Germany, my youngest brother was born, so my sister was no longer the "baby of the family." She seemed not to resent this change in status. Later we moved again. She claims not to recall our transatlantic flight to McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, followed by a transcontinental train ride to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where we picked up a brand new Rambler station wagon. We drove from Wisconsin to Albuquerque, New Mexico, stopping in Kansas City to visit family.

In school in Albuquerque, my sister blazed her own trail. She got tired of her teachers saying "Why can't you be like your brothers?" The question made her only more determined to follow the beat of a different drummer.


Left: Craig and Sister on the dock at Rockport,
Texas, 1962

My sister and I had a typically contentious big brother/little sister relationship. I thought she was ignorant and frivolous; she considered me a pretentious prig. One infamous bit of family lore involves the day that I, as Captain of the Safety Patrol, threatened to arrest my sister for her disorderly conduct on the playground. She, of course, mocked and defied my authority, until her teacher appeared. Thereupon, she broke into tears, and immediately had the teacher's sympathy for whatever had been going on. (She had failed to line up at the bell and to be quiet in line). I was reprimanded for abuse of authority.

She was enamored of The Monkees, especially Davy Jones. By the time we moved to California, the Jackson Five commanded her attention. I'll never forget holding her on my shoulders (for what seemed like forever) so she could see better at a Jackson Five concert in the Cow Palace [which despite the name is not in New Hampshire, but in Daly City, California.]

I was gone to college by the time my sister got to high school, so I don't really know about her high school years. I gather these were somewhat difficult times. On the one hand, she was extremely popular and was elected to the spirit squad as the school mascot. (The school teams were nicknamed the "Toreadors." The mascot was always a girl who wore a Mexican bullfighters' costume, the key feature of which was a miniskirt and boots. It was a much sought-after position). On the other hand she paid little attention to her schoolwork. She changed her first name to something that evoked a Latin American Communist guerrilla. She called our father "Fred" (as in Flintstone, and not his name at all) and our mother by her middle name. She left the church that we had all been raised in.

Immediately after high school graduation, she and a friend moved to San Jose. She got a job and eventually got married. I was mostly not around her during this period, but we continued in our respective semi-contempt for each other.

It took a tragedy fro me to see my sister as she really is. In February 2005, her only child was killed in a car accident. He was 19 years old. As my sister grieved, she displayed a grace and strength that I had never seen in her or in few other people for that matter. I saw how her son's high school and college classmates looked to her for guidance and assurance, and I saw how she comforted them. It made all the difference in the world to them and to me.

My sister is an executive at a Silicon Valley technology company despite not having finished college. She owns a home and other property in one of the nation's priciest areas. She has more friends than I can count. And she did it all in her own unconventional way. She's still never going to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, but she is in fact The World's Smartest Sister. Happy Birthday, Sis!


Craig and Sister just before rehearsal dinner for our
brother's wedding, Fort Bliss, Texas, 1982. Guess who looks exactly the same 25 years later?

Veterans Day

In Appreciation: Veterans Day 2007


In 1954, Congress and President Eisenhower re-designated Armistice Day as Veterans Day to honor all veterans, living and dead.

My uncle, Richard Edward Gines, served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Forces at the end of World War II. Following his discharge, he continued his education at New York University. He then was employed as a financial writer by The New York Herald Tribune. Later, he became a manager in the air freight industry. He died in 1996 and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

My uncle, Perry Wesley Gines (left) and a "Coastie" friend in the late 1940s. Perry served more than 33 years in the United States Coast Guard. He retired as a CWO-4 (chief warrant officer-4), one of the few African-Americans to reach that rank. He died in 1986 and is buried at Leavenworth National Cemetery in Kansas, with his wife, Kay Frances. The Kay Frances and Perry W. Gines Scholarship at the University of Alaska is named for them.

My grandfather, Quentin V.H. Manson, a jazz musician, served with the Army Band at Camp Wallace, Texas, during World War II. After the war, he moved to California and was part of the vibrant jazz scene in central Los Angeles. He died in 1987.


My great-uncle, Carl Edward Manson, shown in front of his Los Angeles millinery shop, c. 1966. He has a World War I draft card on file, but I don't know if he actually served. One clue, however: his wife is buried at Riverside National Cemetery and is listed as "Wife of -- --." Carl's actual burial site is unknown.



My father is pictured outside his mother's home in Pasadena, California, on his way overseas in 1965. Commissioned through ROTC in 1955, he served tours of duty in Germany, Korea, and Vietnam. He retired as a lieutenant colonel and commenced a long second career as an administrator at San Jose State University in California. My parents continue to reside in San Jose.


OTHER VETERANS

My twin cousins Frank W. Gines and Henry E. Gines were both veterans. Frank served seven years in the Army as a paratrooper, earning numerous awards and decorations. Following his military service, Frank worked at the Rocky Flats nuclear plant in Colorado for 24 years. He was also a minister of the Gospel, having attended Western Baptist Bible College. He worked at several churches, ending at his death as assistant pastor of the Mount Sinai Baptist Church in Denver. After his retirement from Rocky Flats, Frank took a part-time job as head of player security with the Colorado Rockies. He passed away in 1999.

Henry Gines was a Vietnam veteran who attained the rank of sergeant major in the Army. Henry and Frank are both interred at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Colorado.

ALMOST VETERANS?

My great-uncle Benjamin Franklin Long has a World War I draft card on file, as does my grandfather William Edward Gines. However, I can't find any record of their actual service. My great-uncle Clarence Long also has a World War I draft card on file, but it's likely that he did not serve. To the question "Where employed?" on the draft card, Clarence candidly noted that he was a "Prisoner, Municipal Farm," in Kansas City.

The Next Generation

Happy Birthday (12th) to Dallas Miller Manson of San Jose, California! His parents are David Q. Manson and Creola Lee Miller Manson. His grandparents are Harold V. Manson and Lillian Gines Manson of San Jose; and Louis Mannuel Miller and Eleanor Edwards Miller of Los Angeles.

My Families' Weddings

She's there every morning, watching me, this pretty teenager. Her eyes dipped slightly, confident yet demure; slender and shy. She grips a rosary in her hands. A long veil falls down her back to the floor where it merges with the pool that is the train of her dress. She watches me, this teenager from across the room, from across more than six decades, perched above the fireplace.

The picture is of my mother-in-law, Edna Mary Micheau, on her wedding day in 1940. Still healthy now past the mid-point of her eighties, she doesn't speak much of that day anymore. Her reticence serves to remind me that I don't know much about weddings in my family.

The first wedding of record that I know of is that of Ezekiel Johnson and Sarah Gilbert. According to records in Clay County, Missouri, they were married 140 years ago this year, on September 5, 1867. Zeke was just back from his service in the Civil War. What kind of wedding did they have? I don't know. The records say that the officiator was Richard C. Morton, M.G. [Minister of the Gospel]. The Reverend Morton performed a number of weddings in Clay County; like a lot of people there, he was from Kentucky.

The second wedding of record that I know about was that of Guy Bryant and Amanda Maria Martin Pane. According to the records of Aransas County, Texas, they were married on June 28, 1882, in Rockport, Texas. John F. Cooke, M.G., presided. Maria Martin had been married briefly before to one James Henry Pane. They had been married in June of 1878; it's not clear when they split. Her son from that marriage, Isaac Pane, was born in November 1879. He later began using the surname "Bryant."

I have no artifacts of Guy and Maria's wedding either.

James William Long married Mary Elizabeth Johnson, the daughter of Zeke and Sarah Johnson, on May 30, 1888, in Kansas City, Missouri. Mary was just seventeen and Zeke had to sign giving his consent. Zeke was illiterate, so the record shows "his mark." What kind of wedding did they have? I don't know.

The marriage license of James William Long and Mary Elizabeth Johnson
(click to enlarge)

On August 19, 1890, Otis Manson married Betty Sanford in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas. Three days later, Betty's younger sister, Addie, married Abe White in the same town.

All of the above set the stage for the wedding that really matters. On July 19, 1953, in Houston, Texas, my parents married. They had a Catholic wedding with Father Ralph Urma McLane presiding. You've no doubt already figured out that July 19, 1953 was a Sunday and some of you know that Catholics typically do not have weddings on Sundays. The problem was that both my parents worked six days a week back then and their bosses wouldn't let them off on Saturday even to get married. It was much simpler to ask the bishop to let them get married on a Sunday! And with His Eminence's blessing, they got married on a Sunday!

They had a twelve hour honeymoon at a place loaned by a friend. They were back on their jobs Monday morning!

My parents on their wedding day, July 19, 1953, in Houston, Texas, with my paternal grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie

HARP is Off to a Great Start!

HARP, the Historical Appellate Review Project, has had a great launch. We are already pursuing several cases and have had inquiries about several more. These may take months to resolve, but we'll tell the stories here!

A HARP Case

One of the HARP cases I'm pursuing for my own family is that of my great-grandmother, Bettie Sanford Manson. She was born in 1872, one of four daughters of Billie Sanford and Emely Scott. She married Otis Manson in Rockdale, Texas, in August of 1890.

My father says he only saw his grandmother once--that was in 1948 in Midland, Texas, where she and Otis had moved their family in 1947 for reasons still not clear to me. He says that he saw her from a distance--she was standing out in the middle of a field. The family would not let him get any closer, explaining to him that she was mentally ill.

In an index of Milam County records, I found two cases in the 1930's concerning a conservatorship for Bettie Manson. When I tried to get the records, I was told that they were sealed and I would need a court order to unseal them.

I would like to know the reasons for the conservatorship and especially who applied for it. Otis Manson was an illiterate man; did someone persuade him that his wife was mentally ill? What was the evidence that she was mentally ill?

In this case, HARP will be going to court in Texas to move to have the records unsealed. Bettie Manson, her husband, and all of their children are deceased. Only three of her grandchildren remain alive; my father is one of them. As far as I know, none of her great-grandchildren recall her. She died in 1955 and her oldest great-grandchild was born in 1951. So there should be little reason to keep these records sealed.

This case will be interesting for its procedure as well as its outcome. It will be instructive as to how HARP goes to court. Stay tuned!

Whatever Happened to Mary Manson?

My great-great-grandmother, Matilda Manson, had a sister, Mary, born in about 1846. [See 1850 US Census, Talbot County, Georgia]. The 1850 census is the only one in which Matilda, Mary, and their mother, Jane, appear together in the same household. In fact, it may be the only census in which Mary appears at all.

Mary next appears in a record in 1853. In that year, she was the donee of a parcel of land conveyed "with love and affection" by one Nathaniel Brown, a 60 year old white man in Taylor County, Georgia. Thereafter, Mary Manson disappears from recorded history. What happened to her?

She may have gotten married; she may have died; she may have left the state. But this is a tremendous challenge. I really want to know what happened to Mary Manson. I'm checking tax records and land records. Georgia vital records are sparse in this period.

Now there is a Mary Manson living on the large plantation at Turkey Creek in Wilkinson County. I doubt that this is the same person. Those at Turkey Creek were all slaves--Mary was a free woman of color.

So this is Mystery #1: what became of Mary Manson? I hope I can solve it!

Debunking A Family Myth

I've written about this before, but it fits this topic exactly, so I've reached into the archives and dusted this one off.

Matilda Manson is listed in the 1850 census of Talbot County, Georgia, with her mother, Jane Manson and her sister, Mary Manson. Matilda's age is given as 6 years old; Mary is reported to be 4, and their mother Jane's age is listed as 24. All three are described as "mulatto." Matilda next appears in federal census records in 1880 in nearby Upson County as 30 year old "Mat" Manson with a 9 year old son, Otis. They are both described as "mulatto." Sometime during the 1880's, Matilda and young Otis relocated from Georgia to Milam County, Texas. Otis married Bettie Sanford (1872-1955) and they had seven children. Matilda Manson was my great-great-grandmother.

I asked my father why Matilda and Otis left Georgia for Texas and he said:

She was Spanish. And he [Otis] was the only Spanish boy in school in Georgia at that time. So I think he was being picked on . . . and she decided they had to leave . . . That's what I heard--that she was Spanish.

No doubt they had to leave when somebody realized that she wasn't Spanish.

So Matilda Manson and her son Otis had to leave Georgia . . . .okay, but why did they chose little ole Rockdale in Milam County, Texas? Well, maybe they knew somebody there.

For months, I stared at the 1880 census of Hootenville, Georgia, until I saw it. Right there on the first page it says:

1 1 BIRDSONG, GEO. P. M W S 38 Farmer

2 2 MANSON, MAT F Mu S 30 Servant, House
- - ---------, OTIS M Mu S 9 At Home
- - McCRARY, ELIZA F B S 18 Farm Laborer

3 3 DAWSON, ELLEN F B S 22 Farm Laborer
- - ---------, JOHNSON M Mu S 5 At Home
- - ---------, HORACE M B S 3 At Home
- - ---------, FANNIE F B S 20 Farm Laborer
- - --------, MAT F B S 3 At Home


To decipher that: At the second household in the neighborhood (2), which was also the second household visited by the enumerator (2), the enumerator recorded that he found "Mat" (Matilda) Manson, a female (F), mulatto (Mu), who was unmarried (S) and thirty years old (30). [Age in the 19th century censuses is often an estimate or a guess. With no government records, limited literacy, and few compelling reasons to know one's exact age, enumerators and citizens sometimes missed the mark by as much as a decade. In this case for example, we know that Matilda was older than thirty in 1880, because she is listed as six years old on the 1850 census of Talbot County]. She was a household servant.

"Next door" to Matilda (that is, in the next household in the neighborhood), lived Ellen Dawson, a 22 year old farm worker, and her two sons, Johnson and Horace. Also in that house were Ellen's 20 year old sister, Fannie, and her young daughter, Matilda.

If Matilda was a household servant, whose household was she serving? If her teenaged ward Eliza McCrary was a farm laborer, just whose farm was she laboring on? And who were the Dawson sisters working for? Well, it's not as if they were commuting anywhere in 1880 in Hootenville, Georgia. What about the farmer who lived "next door" to Matilda and Otis? Maybe they worked for him . . .hmmmm. . . .

"The Farmer Next Door" was George Preston Birdsong, born May 25, 1841, died 1905. (The Birdsong Family website is a useful). He wass the eldest son of George Lawrence Forsyth Birdsong and Susan Francis Thweatt Birdsong. Several interesting and unusual facts about George Preston Birdsong can be gleaned from available sources. First, according to information on the Birdsong family site, he was one of twelve children, nine of whom were boys. Apparently, three of the boys did not survive into adulthood. Of the six surviving sons, George and his brother Albert are the only ones for whom there appear to be no record of marriage. As shown above, even as late as age 38, George remained single.

George Preston Birdsong lived with his mother and brothers at least until he was nearly thirty (see 1870 census of Upson County, Georgia) on property his mother had homesteaded in 1868.The Birdsongs were collectively and individually well-off after the Civil War. Mrs. Birdsong's real estate was valued at $3,000, while George's personal property was worth $350--not insignificant sums for the Reconstruction Era. Before the War, the Birdsongs had one of the top-valued farms in the county. George was a veteran of the War, having served with his brother in Company K, 5th Georgia Regiment, which unit surrendered to Federal forces at Greensboro, North Carolina, in April 1865.

So in 1880, when he appears to be living alone, George P. Birdsong (a) has survived the deadliest war in American history; (b) is accustomed to family living; (c) seems to be a successful farmer. In other words, he would seem to be a highly desirable marriage prospect and being a man of his time, would seem naturally to gravitate toward marriage and a family of his own. And yet, approaching 40, elderly in relative terms, George Preston Birdsong remained unmarried, without a family of his own, or . . .so . . . it . . . would . . . seem . . . .

As has been noted, Matilda Manson and her son Otis left Georgia for Milam County, Texas, sometime between 1880 and 1890. By 1890, Otis had married Bettie Sanford. By 1900, the year of the next available census, Otis and Bettie had three sons and Matilda lived nearby in Rockdale.

Rockdale, Texas, is about 15 miles from Cameron, the seat of Milam County. The 1900 census shows George P. Birdsong living in Cameron.

The second son of Otis and Bettie Manson is named Preston, which is George Birdsong's middle name.

So now we start to get a picture of why Matilda and Otis went to Texas. That picture is rounded out by another family legend. According to this family legend, Otis and Bettie would take their children to the train station in Rockdale occasionally. They would wait for the train coming from Cameron. A white man would get off that train, visit with the family and give them money, then leave on the next train back to Cameron.

I wonder what the Birdsong family legend is about why George Preston Birdsong went to Texas? Maybe because he was involved with a "Spanish" lady?

Confirming & Debunking Family Myths, Legends and Lore

I have a host of family legends that I have not been able to entirely confirm or debunk.

Legend #1: My gg-grandmother, Sarah Gilbert Johnson, was an Indian. I haven't found any evidence that she was, mainly because I've found no evidence of her except an entry in the Clay County (Mo.) marriage records and one census record. Family members say that her daughter, Mary Elizabeth Johnson, who died in 1946, said her mother was an Indian. Living family members who knew Mary Elizabeth Johnson say she had "Native American features" and wore her hair in two long braids until the day she died.

The "Grandma Was An Indian" legend exists in many families for many complicated reasons. It turns out to be false more often than true. But who knows in the case of Sarah Gilbert Johnson?

Legend #2: Somebody named "Carl" in my father's Georgia family tree was Jewish. I've found no evidence of this, though my father keeps asking if I have. One of my father's uncles was named Carl. He was not Jewish to the best of my knowledge,. In one version of the story, this person came to Georgia from Florida. Now, I am missing at least two male ancestors in that branch of the family, both of whom were likely Caucasian.

The "Grandpa Was A Jew" legend crops up rarely, but occasionally in ostensibly non-Jewish families. Slightly more frequently, for complicated reasons, the fact that Grandpa was Jewish may be hidden.

Legend #3: My great-grand father, Richard Gines, was French, or spoke French. Although I've found no evidence of this, there is a plausible reason that people believe this. He was born in Louisiana and he married Sylvia LeJay, whose surname is French. Curiously, no one ever says that she was French, though this might make some sense.

Legend #4: I'm related to Sir Patrick Manson(1844-1922), the Scottish physician who was the first specialist in tropical medicine. While possible, I doubt that this is true. I started this "legend" myself when I was in high school. Why? I don't know.

Legend #5: One of my father's aunts left Texas to return to Georgia to find "the rest" (i.e., "the white people") of her family. When she got to Georgia, she found the "family," knocked on their door, and was rudely dismissed. She went to Atlanta and was never heard from again. Not true. The aunt in question likely was Julia Matilda Manson (1900-1912). She died of tuberculosis at age twelve. [Citation: Milam County Death Records, Vol. I, Milam County Genealogical Society, 1998]. This may have gotten started as a way to explain to her siblings and other folks her untimely death ("she ran away to Georgia and we never heard from her again").

Legend #6: One of my mother's aunts, Mary Beatrice Long, died when she fell into a lake and drowned while on a church picnic. Not true. Mary B. Long died on May 6, 1921, of tuberculosis. She was sixteen years old. [Citation: Death Certificate No. 12145, Mary Beatrice Long, Missouri State Board of Health, 1921; available from Missouri State Archives website at
http://sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/deathcertificates/]. Again, the far-fetched story may have been a tale to explain an untimely death. The several family members from whom I first heard this story now claim they don't remember telling it.

The biggest myth in the family is one I've written about before. I've dressed it up again for the next post.

Product Review: Find-A-Grave

The geneablogosphere has been buzzing lately with news of exciting partnerships, new databases, and innovative technologies--all of which I'm very enthused about. This morning, however, I was reminded that some of the existing, older research products out there remain highly valuable and worth revisiting from time to time.

I had not visited Find-A-Grave in quite awhile, but I ended up there this morning in the course of a lengthy Google search. At Find-A-Grave, I found details and photos about several folks whose names have turned up in this space. As a result, I found information that I had not seen anywhere else.

For example, I've written about Daniel Henry Sanford. I did not know his exact date of birth, nor did I know his wife' s complete maiden name. At Find-A-Grave, there was this post. This great contribution by Ronnie Bodine tells us D.H. Sanford's date of birth, his wife's complete maiden name, and gives us not only picture of the gravesite, but a nice photo of Daniel and Texonia together.

Someone else has contributed this photo of Daniel's father's gravesite. I also came across an entry for a Mrs. E.G. Sanford of Milam County. That's a name I'd never heard before. She must have some relationship to the other Sanfords in Milam County. I haven't found her in any census record yet either.

Find-A-Grave also has entries for Izola Manson (my great-uncle Carl's wife) Perry W. Gines (my uncle) and his wife Kay.

Find-A-Grave depends on data contributed by users. There are some users who have contributed thousands of photos and other information. [Several years ago, I contributed this information on Amanda McCray Bowie. I noticed today, however, that my photo has been replaced by another one. I think mine was better.]

There are thousands of entries on Find-A-Grave. It's simple to use and simple to contribute. When you're scanning gravesite photos for your own use, help other researchers by stopping in at Find-A-Grave and sharing what you have.