Tag: Ancestry

Letters II

First published August 29, 2015.

Here’s another letter that I found among the pictures left by my great-grandmother. At first I had trouble figuring out who this letter is from and who it was written for. The letter starts off with “Dear Ones” and is signed from L.H. I had originally thought this letter was to Lucy Lamb Husted, my great-great-grandmother but after further review I think that this letter is from Lucy to her children, thus the “Dear Ones”.

There are some other people mentioned in this letter, the first is Nate, who I haven’t been able to identify. I’m assuming that Lucy when to visit her mother, Adella Lamb, who she mentions later in the letter, up in Litchfield, Connecticut. I will look more into who this Nate is because I also have many unidentified pictures taken in Litchfield and Nate might be in them.

Lucy also mentions a letter from Aunt Kate. This can be Lucy’s sister, Kate Lamb Osborn or Lucy’s Aunt, Kate Lamb Fuller. Seeing as this is a letter to her children “Aunt Kate” is probably Lucy’s sister.

Here is a scan of the letter, but I will also transcribe it below

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6-11-23

Dear ones

Just a line I expected a line from you today but it was Aunt Kate’s in stead. I some times wish you were here there is lots of things toshow you & shure you will never know or rather never relise if I do tell you. I have my mind made up & that is pure & simple.

Nate is working today & I am alone here inthe house. If it has not rained by this time water the grass onthe lawn & the hedge yong ones

I suppose you have sprayed the patatoes by this time one – heaping table spoon full to every quart of water

How many chickens have you & do you change them 2 times a day dontput them on the new lawn

The sour cheries here are almost ripe. grapes are in blosomhere

I went over to the little church last night the one you have apicture of. It is now 4pm & Nate will be home for super at 5:30 will stop for to do the chores. Don’t you wish you were to ride fancy water & fed hur

Nate has only got 3 hens is or wants to set &another is blind with one eye

I made a cake yestuday & it urned out fine

Mama spoke of waren & North Ave I think she is mistaken Waren St does not go to North Ave. What did Mr Gill say about old lumber

Well I have bento see Mother once more I stayed with her about theee forts of an hour she did not talk much tonight she sed she felt like sleaping she told Me not to be mad but asked Me if I would gohome & let her sleap. She seam real good one day & them worse the next Well no for that report card of final report What shall it bewho has the best who is pasing this time

I canot dooall of the work Nate told Will look again tomorow & see what I can find. I will not say that I am geting fat but I am feeling fairely good but I am not satis fied Now May you hug Louise forme & be a good girl that is the kind that dady likes

Robert do you have much time after you get the hoeing done wellwe will all take a day of when I get home & have a ridee in the car to If itseams hot for that [?] let mr Brenon have it ask what they think of it

Ihave sed all for this time

Love to all hug Louise forrme

L.H.

This letter was hard for me to transcribe. It was much lighter than the other letter, making it hard to read. There are some words that I could not figure out some of the words, even by increasing the contrast on the letter. The grammar and spelling mistakes make this a hard letter to read and understand.

I like the part of this letter that is clearly a mother making sure her children take care of their home. She gives instructions on how to spray the potatoes and to make sure that the chickens don’t go on the new lawn. She tells them that if it hasn’t rained, to water the grass.

I also find it interesting that Lucy asks to “hug Louise for me”. In 1923, Louise would have been just a year old. I feel like it would have been hard for a mother to leave her infant for a length of time. That’s what makes me think that Lucy went to see her mother because her mother was ill. Adella does make a comeback from whatever illness that she has because she lived at least until 1957 and the age of 94.

My great-grandmother Mae or in this letter “May” would have been nine years old and her brother Robert, thirteen. Lucy never mentions their father until the very end of this letter “be a good girl that is the kind dady likes”. I imagine a thirteen-year-old and a nine-year-old and a baby running a small farm but that is not likely. Lyman M., Mort as he is called in other letters, Lucy’s husband, probably was home tending to their farm.

I would like to know how long Lucy was away from her home, some of the things she talks about makes it seem like she was away for awhile, like how she baked a cake. I also don’t know how long letters took but I’m assuming they weren’t too fast.

Overall I think that this letter is an amazing thing to find. I love the fact that my great-great-grandmother sat down at a typewriter and I can hold in my hand the letter that she wrote. I think that feeling connected to my ancestors is one of the main reasons that I love doing this research. Even though Lucy never knew me, I can still feel like her granddaughter, even if it is her great-great-granddaughter.

Photographic Evidence: Husted/Stanton Family

First published August 25, 2015.

While researching the last photo that I wrote about, I started thinking about a family portrait that I had.

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This picture was taken in Davenport, Iowa, so I assumed that it pictured my great-great-great-grandmother on the left, Sarah J. Husted, and her husband, Lyman B. Husted in the middle of the picture. The man in the back of the picture, who looks a lot like my father, I thought was my great-great-grandfather Lyman M. Husted. I figured the children were those of the woman on the right, who was a sister of Lyman M.

However, going through the steps to date Lyman B.’s previous photograph got me thinking that my initial assumptions were wrong. This sent me on a crazy chase to figure out who these people were in this picture.

I found some old newspapers from Davenport, Iowa that showed a divorce between Sarah J. and Lyman B. I’m not sure if this divorce went through but she shows up in later newspaper articles remarried as Sarah J. Owens. However by 1900 she was going by Sarah J. Husted again. This might be because of inheritance money that was discovered in Connecticut (I’ll talk more about this in another post). Anyway, Lyman B. was 67 when he died and I do not think that this man in this photograph is 67.

I think that Sarah J. is still the woman pictured to the left, however I think the man sitting in the middle is Jehial (or Jehral as I have previously misspelled his name) Stanton her father. In my collection of photographs, I came across a small newspaper clipping (sorry that it is crooked):

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This indicates that her father was living with her at some point when he was older. He is also blind, and I might be reading too much into the picture, but he is not looking at the camera the way the other adults are. My next question to answer was: What year was Jehial Stanton born?

This question actually took me awhile to figure out, probably because I had some wrong information. I originally thought his name was Jehral Staton, which I believe I acquired from an obituary of Sarah J. Husted. This made it hard to find any information, but once I started digging I found his correct name. Jehial Stanton was born July 4th, 1823 (based on this clipping and census data). That means that this newspaper clipping was from July 3rd, 1906. So by 1906 he was living with his daughter in Davenport.

I had a difficult time dating the fashion in this photo, but based on the women’s dresses, I think that it was taken sometime between 1900 and 1910. My next question to answer was: Who are the other people in the picture?

The younger man standing up in the middle of the picture is not my great-great-grandfather Lyman M. If this picture was taken between 1900 and 1910, he might have already moved back to his extended family in Connecticut. He does show up in the 1900 Federal Census living with his mother and brother (Sarah J.’s name shows up at the bottom of a page):

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However, I no longer think that the young man in this photo is Lyman M. Husted but rather his brother James Elnathan Husted, called Elnathan (also listed in this census). If both sons lived with Sarah J. at the time of this photo, I would think that they would both be in the photo.

Finally, who is the woman and the children? Sarah J. Husted had no female children so my previous theory was wrong. I do not think that this woman is Elnathan’s wife, Lola Husted. On his World War I draft card Elnathan listed that his address was the same as his mother’s and his mother was his next of kin whereas on his World War II draft application, his address was in another state and his next of kin was Lola and this photograph was definitely take before World War I.

Looking back at the 1900 Federal Census, an Effie M. Williams, Sarah J.’s niece, and her children, Charlie O. Williams and Effie B. Williams, are listed as living with Sarah J. The children in this photo, if it was taken between 1900 and 1904, would be about the same age as Charlie O. and Effie B. and the woman on the right of the photo looks to be in her mid twenties, as Effie M. would be. Although I tried, I could not figure out who Effie M.’s parents were.

So my conclusions at this point are that the people in this photo are Sarah J. Husted, James Elnathan Husted, Effie M. Williams, Jehial Stanton, Charlie O. Williams and Effie B. Williams.

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Photographic Evidence: Lyman B. Husted

First published August 22, 2015.

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This is a photograph of Lyman B. Husted, or at least a photograph of someone with the name Lyman B. Husted written on the back. We found this photo in the box of pictures belonging to my great-grandmother, so I’m going to assume that this is indeed Lyman B. Husted, her grandfather and my great-great-great-grandfather. I was very excited to find this picture because it was very old, on a piece of metal and there was a name on the back. Recently I’ve been reading Family Photo Detective: Learn How to Find Genealogy Clues in Old Photos and Solve Family Photo Mysteries by Maureen Taylor. It is a very good resource and I thought I would use some of the techniques in the book to decode this picture.

The bottom of the photograph is full of clues. “TIMPE”, I believe is the photographer and the picture was taken in Davenport, Iowa. Lyman B. was still living in Connecticut in 1860 according to the 1860 Federal Census. I’m not sure why he moved to Iowa, but he at least was there by 1877 when he married his wife, Sarah J. Staton, in Iowa. Lyman B. died in 1897, so I’m thinking that this photo was taken at some point between 1861 and 1897.

This photo is a tintype photograph, which were introduced in 1856. They fell out of fashion by the end of the century because of the advent of paper photographs. This doesn’t help too much with dating the photo.

Based on the information provided in Family Photo Detective about dating fashion I think that this picture was taken between 1860 and 1870. The collar looks like a standard folded down collar that is worn today. In the decade prior, men wore popped collars that almost touched their cheeks. In the decade after, men wore thicker collars. Also during this time period, men had facial hair and their hair was parted to the side and a little bit longer. Deciphering mens fashion is difficult so I could be totally wrong about this. However if this photo was taken in this period he would be between 30 and 40 years old, which I think is accurate based on how old he looks.

I don’t know why Lyman B. took this photo or why he moved to Iowa, more family mysteries to solve.

Letters

First published August 16, 2015.

In a box of pictures that belonged to my great-grandmother, I found some letters. This letter is from my great-great-grandmother, Lucy Lamb (highlighted in blue) to probably my great-great-great-grandmother Adella Bunnell (highlighted in yellow). She mentions “Mort” who is her husband, Lyman Mortimer Husted (highlighted in red). I’ve included a quick family tree to show these relationships.

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I thought that this letter was really fun to read and gave a good glimpse of like back in 1923. Here’s a scan of the letter, I will transcribe it below.

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Bridgeport, Conn.

Jue 3. 1923

Dear Mother – You wonder why Lucy dont write because she is doing Mort work in the garden The potatoes are up enough so the beans squash and other things are most in, Yes the early potatoes are rakes and the late potatoes as far as we have planted,

The car runs allright Frank says now you are out with your mother dont be in a hurry to come back he said he would help you here all he could but had a lot fo work to do, You have the fraim and saddle from Earnest England wheel they want $ 2. & told Robert they had the wheels ***** if you take it. Louise went from where mother sit when she was here out in the kitchen, Frances Vanderkruik can ride Marie wheel & robert think thinks he ou ght to have one,

The vegatables are up, We dont get any rain its is thundren now but the most of the rain went over just A little The black berries are in blossom some of them, Mays report card is a little better this time

Mr Brennen wanted to know how mother was * when is mMr Husted coming home,

DO you feel any better out there in that different air, Dave Gregory went to work since Red moved O Frank had a spill turning a round a car down in from front of the store when he came up & hurt his leg havnt seen him since. Robert made a wind mill & put it on the post the same as he had the other one

Robert liked to run the planter & got the rows pretty good for the first time Ma make Mort read this to you & tell him to help Nate the same as you made nate help

Mort here Hope you will get along alright I have written most of this to Mort but you dont care if he reads it to you doyou? May has said more then once I wish I would be out there with Daddy. Now I have said more then Mort We are all well & tired.

Yours, Lucy

P.S. Mr Gill came tonight saying if you wanted old house lumber they are tearing down the houses on North Ave and Warren St.

I know that “May” in the letter is my great grandmother, she would have been around 9 years-old at the time of this letter. I’m glad that her grades got better. “Robert” is my great great uncle, “May’s” brother. I’m not sure if “Mort” wrote this letter as Lucy dictated it. That would make the change in tenses more explainable. I also think that Mort is delivering the letter to Lucy’s mother, because she asks Mort to read the letter to her. I don’t know when Adella Bunnell Lamb died but perhaps she moved away from her family at this time, possibly with another one of her children, because Lucy asks her how she is feeling in the “different air”.

Hopefully as I post more pictures from my great grandmother’s box, I’ll be able to link those to the people mentioned in this letter.