Carnival Carousel: Harvesting & Sharing the Bounty

Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, I've been blessed with a bounteous trove of genealogical riches, nearly more than one person can handle. We've been slowly and carefully going through boxes of documents and photographs (and at the rate we're going, we're likely to spend the next 15 years at this!

For this Carnival, I thought I would give you a glimpse of some of the stuff. You'll see the challenges and the joys ahead. You can enlarge any image by clicking on it.

First, there is this curious picture below, which I call "Children in Wagon." I think that there are actually two, maybe even three adults in the picture. I have no idea when or where the photo was taken. I do suspect that it was taken in either Illinois or Missouri. On the back of the original is the handwritten notation "For Francis." That could refer to a number of family members, none of whom seem to be in the picture. Or it may refer to someone other than a family member. The problem is that the people most likely to know have all passed away.

"Children (?) In Wagon" (Photographer unknown; original in possession of Craig Manson, Carmichael, California)

The photograph on the right I labelled "Young Woman." Again, we have no idea of the woman's identity or when the photo was taken. We do have several clues, however. On part of the original which I have covered with the frame here, there is the embossed name and address "Maxwell, 2607 Lawton Ave, St Louis, Mo". This apparently refers to photographer William C. Maxwell, who had a studio in St Louis from at least 1910 until at least 1915. See Early St. Louis Photographers. I haven't found any evidence that the business still exists.

The other potential clues about "Young Woman" are that this was actually a post card. I've come across several post cards with identifiable family members in them, leading me to believe that this was a popular way in which to send pictures in the early part of the twentieth century. Below is the "Young Woman" post card. You can see what kind of shape the photograph is in by looking at the post card back.




There is an address on the post card. To me, it appears to be:

"Miss B. Mc. Quin
2828 Morgan
St Louis
Mo"

And I'm not sure that it isn't "McQuin." There were families named Quin and McQuin in St Louis in the period that Maxwell could have made the portrait. But beyond that, nothing else is known to me about the photo.



The next photograph I call "Surly Woman, Distracted Man." I have no idea who these people are or when or where the photograph was made. I presume that their clothes are a clue. Notice how the man has his right hand tucked inside his coat. And what does the sign behind the man's head say? Another challenge for you photo-sleuths!








Finally, I've come to realize that a lot of the material may be valuable to researchers looking at other families. So from time to time, I'll share some things that may be of broad interest. Today, somewhat apropos of a Carnival, here's a list of couples who were feted on their 50th (or greater!) wedding anniversary in the Archdiocese of St Louis in 2001. See if one of your surnames is there! [Click on pages to enlarge].

William George Micheau, 1880-1949

Born 31 Dec 1880, Prairie du Rocher, Illinois
Died 15 Nov 1949, St Louis, Missouri
Occupation: Barber*
Parents: George Micheau, Sr. & Mary Emma Roy
Spouse: Clara Robinson (or Roberson), 1885-1938

*"It will doubtless be observed by the reader, that a majority of our colored aristocracy belong to the tonsorial profession; a mulatto takes to razor and soap as naturally as a young duck to a pool of water, or a strapped Frenchman to dancing; they certainly make the best barbers in the world, and were doubtless intended by nature for the art. In its exercise, they take white men by the nose without giving offense, and without causing an effusion of blood."

Cyprian Clamorgan, The Colored Aristocracy of St Louis (1858)

A St Louis Belle

19 year old Edna Mary Micheau
on her wedding day
1940

Lynne "Angel" Harvey, 1916-2008, Good Day!

As both my regular readers know, I'm an old radio guy--that is, an old guy who used to be on the radio (more than thirty years ago!). So I was especially saddened to read the following press release from Washington University in St Louis.

Following in bold type is Washington University Press Release

May 6, 2008 -- Legendary news producer Lynne "Angel" Cooper Harvey, wife of broadcaster Paul Harvey, died Saturday, May 2, at the couple's home in River Forest, Ill., following a long battle with leukemia. She was 92.

"Angel Harvey was a distinguished Phi Beta Kappa alumna of Washington University in St. Louis and also the recipient of an honorary doctor of humanities degree," said Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. "She was a role model and inspiration for our students and graduates, and her stellar achievements in the field of journalism and broadcasting are equaled only by her love for education and by a deep concern for the arts and for those in need.

"She was a woman with a gracious, generous heart and she will be missed by this community," Wrighton added. "Washington University extends its deepest condolences to her husband, Paul Harvey, and their son, Paul Harvey Jr."

Born and raised in St. Louis, Angel — as she was universally known — earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree in English from Washington University. Hired to develop a program on education for St. Louis radio station KXOK-AM, she soon met Paul, then a young reporter at the station. On their first date he proposed and the couple married in 1940.

During World War II Paul joined the Army Air Corps and Angel moved to his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she took a job with the local CBS affiliate. There she became one of the first women in the nation to run an entire radio broadcast, spinning records and reading the news from 4 p.m. to midnight.

In 1944 the Harveys moved to Chicago and soon launched "Paul Harvey News" on ABC affiliate WENR-AM. With Angel as producer, the program quickly became the most listened-to newscast in Chicago and helped pioneer the 10 p.m. newscast, which soon became a national standard.

In 1951 the ABC Radio Networks began broadcasting "Paul Harvey News and Comment" on stations coast-to-coast and in 1976 expanded "The Rest of the Story" — a long-running feature on "News and Comment" — into its own broadcast. Both shows would reach an estimated 25 million listeners on more than 1,200 radio stations as well as 400 Armed Forces Network stations around the world.

In 1968 Paul and Angel launched "Paul Harvey Comments," a nationally syndicated television series that ran for 20 years. It was soon joined by "Dilemma," a prototype for the television talk-show genre. In 1997 Angel became the first producer inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame and in 2001 received a Lifetime Achievement Award from American Women in Radio and Television.

A dedicated alumna of Washington University, Harvey was a Life Member of the William Greenleaf Eliot Society's Danforth Circle and a member of the Phoenix and Chicago Regional Cabinets. In 1997 she received a Founders Day Distinguished Alumni Award and in 2001 received the Robert S. Brookings Award for her support and advocacy on behalf of the university.

In 1999 Harvey established the Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Chair in English, held by Wayne Fields, professor of English and director of the American Culture Studies Program, both in Arts & Sciences. In 2000 she created the Lynne Cooper Harvey Fellowships, which support graduate students in American Culture Studies, and in 2003 created the Lynne Cooper Harvey American Culture Studies Scholars program, which supports undergraduate students.

The annual Lynne Cooper Harvey Writing Prize, awarded for outstanding writing about American Culture Studies, is named in her honor. In 2004 Harvey dedicated the June S. Courson Courtyard, part of the university's new Earth & Planetary Sciences Building, in memory of her sister.

-30-

What a remarkable woman! I was raised on Paul Harvey News and Comment on the ABC Radio Networks. Every day when we came home for lunch, Dad would already be there for his lunch and Paul Harvey was always on. We heard him on KDEF, 1150 AM in Albuquerque. [Note the images from a bygone era--Dad home from work, kids home from school, all for lunch; no TV on, just the radio]. And we had no idea that a woman played such a key role in that program. Even later as a radio guy myself, I did not comprehend the full extent of her talents. As Paul might say on another of their programs, "Now you know the rest of the story."

Condolences to Paul Harvey and son, Paul, Jr. (himself a radio producer). And may the "Angel" of the airwaves rest in peace.

Edna Mary Penny Wells 1941-2008

Edna Mary Penny Wells died last week in St Louis, Missouri, just a few days shy of her 67th birthday. She was the daughter of Edna Mary Micheau of St Louis and the late Ralph Penny; and the granddaughter of the late Joseph Perry Micheau and Edna Lewis.

She was the third generation daughter named Edna and hence she was nicknamed "Li'l Ed." She hated that nickname, yet it stuck until her death.

Edna Mary Penny was born on April 27, 1941 in St Louis, the eldest of four children. She was quite a talented child, learning the piano as very young child. She could play at a professional level by age seven, and as a teenager, the sounds of Gershwin as well as the classics wafted from her room as she played. But for reasons known only to her, she did not pursue music much past her teens.

The great influence in her life was her husband, Bill Wells. They were married for over thirty years until his death in 2006. A gregarious and likable police officer, Bill nurtured her dreams. Her family believes that a broken heart may have been a major factor in her death.

Edna Mary was interested in many things, among them, genealogy. She was among the early group to use the Internet for genealogical research and she was exploring DNA as early as 1997--unusual for someone without a science background. She was the person who first discovered the story of her great-grandfather's family's escape from slavery, recounted here in part. She joined us on our research trip last summer when we went to Prairie du Rocher, Illinois.

Intelligent and beautiful, Edna Mary was not an easy person to get to know. And near the end, she seemed push her family and friends away, as if she was saying, "Don't stand in the way of my journey." But taking charge of Edna Mary's apartment this week, her sister said she found ample evidence that many people loved and cared about Edna Mary, and they don't understand why she had to die alone.

Edna Mary Penny Wells is survived by her mother, Edna Micheau Penny; a brother, Claude Penny of Dallas, and a sister, Margarett Penny Manson, of Carmichael, California. Other survivors include her two aunts, numerous cousins, and nieces and nephews.

A Little Photographic Treat from The Research Trip

[Posted from Los Angeles, California]

In several posts in the last year, I've mentioned the Oblate Sisters of Providence (see The French Negroes of Illinois series, here, here, and here; and the Gunsmoke post). In St Louis, I found this photograph of Sister Mary Philomena (nee Emma Micheau) and Sister Mary Celestine (nee Adelaide "Addie" Francis Micheau). That's Sister Philomena on the left and Sister Celestine is on the right. The woman in the middle is Mary Angelique Micheau (1873-1959), also known as "Nin."

Addie and Nin were the daughters of George Micheau (1852-1942). Emma, the daughter of Marshall Emmanuel Micheau (1878-1954), was their niece.

Nin was not a nun.

A Couple of Uploads from Photo Grrl

Right: Our author takes a stroll off the train during a lenghty stop at Albuquerque.



















Left: Craig at St Louis Public Library, 7/23/07










Left: Kansas City Union Station, 7/19/07

The Reserach Trip Gets Much, Much Better

[Posted from the St Louis Public Library, St Louis, Missouri] Life on our big research trip has gotten much, muuch better! On Friday, I explored the well-maintained genealogical collection of the St Louis Public Library at the central branch downtown, as well as the archives of the St Louis Post-Dispatch and the now-defunct St Louis Globe-Democrat. The complete archives of these newspapers are available only on microfilm at the St Louis Public Library. On Saturday, we headed across the Mississippi River to the town of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. We had several pleasant surprises there, from a friendly and helpful encounter with the local police, to an enlightening chat with the parish priest, and then, most surprising of all, a chance encounter with an internationally-known historian!

On Sunday, we basically rested, but found time to go through and scan a treasure trove of old photographs. On Monday, we found another cache of old and valuable photographs. Today, we're back in the library in the morning, and then out Calvary Catholic Cemetery in the afternoon.

So lead has turned to gold. And I've learned a few practical things as well. Later, I'll write about all the things I've mentioned here as well as the practical lessons learned.

We're headed to Kansas City tomorrow.

This Trip Has Got to Get Better Because . . .

. . . well, just because!

[Posted from the St Louis Public Library, St Louis, Missouri]--So just after I completed the last post from Kansas City Union Station, Amtrak announced it was time to board the train for St Louis. Except that this day, it wouldn't be a train, it would be a bus! Why? An Amtrak spokesman explained, "There's just too much freight on the line today. A passenger train would run four or five hours late. So we put on a bus."

For those who don't know, America's railroad infrastructure is owned by companies who move freight, not passengers. Amtrak uses the lines by the grace of those companies and freight has priority. An Amtrak train can be ordered to stop and allow freight trains to pass. That's the main reason that Amtrak runs late. An Amtrak employee told me that on one occasion going into Los Angeles aboard the Sunset Limited, the train sat near Palm Springs, California for eleven hours because "those freights just wouldn't let us in."

In any event, Amtrak thought is was doing us a favor by using a bus instead of a train between Kansas City and St Louis. After all, as they pointed out, the bus would actually arrive an hour and half earlier than the scheduled arrival time for the train.

So 65 St Louis-bound passengers boarded a bus hired by Amtrak.

I must say that this bus was a unique form of torture. Forget Guantanamo, let's have Congress investigate Amtrak's bus contractors! The seats were smaller than economy-class airline seats and the over head storage bins were as roomy as a residential mailbox. I sat holding some of my luggage on my lap for four and a half hours. And there was no room to get up and stretch your legs during the trip.

About thirty miles outside Kansas City, a monsoon struck. It rained so hard and the visibility was so bad that cars were sliding off I-70. Others simply pulled to the side and stopped. The bus kept on going.

The bus detoured off of I-70 to stop first at Kirkwood, Missouri. This added about thirty minutes time to our confinement. Then in St Louis, the bus driver bypassed St Louis Union Station. Why? Because the train station isn't in Union Station.

The St Louis Amtrak station is located a permanent shack of sorts several blocks from Union Station. Twenty years ago when I first visited St Louis by train, this location was described to me as "temporary." Oh, well. There is a freeway overpass just in front of the station. Since the rain was still falling in build-an-ark proportions, the bus driver and Amtrak personnel aboard the bus decided it would be best not to have people disembark in the unsheltered area near the station door, but under the relatively protected overpass. What they didn't count on was the fact that the area under the overpass had flooded and passengers stepped off the bus into ankle-high rushing water.

I had spied a lone cab sitting under the overpass. The GeneaBlogie staff photographer (more about this person later) lept off the bus, jumped ahead of a family with young children and commandeered the cab. [She felt bad about this, but as she pointed out, there were too many of them to fit in just one cab].

Once in the cab, we set off for our destination. [The cab driver opined that the Amtrak station was not a railroad station as much as simply a railroad track]. As we came off the freeway, the cab hit an area of deep standing water and the engine began to sputter. Miraculously, it kept going. But every time we came to a stoplight, we were uncertain as to whether the journey was going to end right then and there.

Well, we made it and after a good night's rest, I'm here in the St Louis Public Library, which has free wireless Internet service and a huge History/Genealogy section which I'm about to dig into. Tomorrow we're headed to Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, which figured prominently in the series on the French Negroes of Illinois.

So it's got to get better!

GeneaBlogie's Mid-Summer Project!

Over the last four or five weeks, I've teased a bit about some great project that's on its way. Well, the teasing is over and our great project has begun! Here it is: we are headed to Missouri on a major research trip . . . but the deal is we are going via Amtrak and for the first time ever there will be live genea-blogging from on board several Amtrak trains! By the time many of you read this (probably Monday a.m.), we expect to be settling in on Amtrak's Coast Starlight enroute from San Jose, California, to Los Angeles. We will overnight in L.A., then on Tuesday evening board Amtrak's Southwest Chief headed from Los Angeles for Kansas City. We'll arrive in Kansas City on Thursday morning. After brief lay-over, we head for St Louis on Amtrak's Anne Rutledge. We'll spend several days in eastern Missouri and southern Illinois, with planned excursions to Ste Genevieve, Missouri, and Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, among other places.

We'll head back to Kansas City to research in Clay County, Platte County, and Jackson County in Missouri, and Wyandotte County and Johnson County in Kansas. Then it's back home the way we came.

We'll be uploading photos (and may be video) all along the way.

As I said, we'll be posting from aboard the train!

I hope you'll join us!