Someone asked a question the other day: if you've done a bunch of genealogical research, why would you take a DNA test? What if it proves that all the lovely records you've painstakingly accumulated are wrong and you have to toss them out and start over?
I don't even know what to say about that. I suppose different people have different reasons for doing genealogy. For me, it's to learn about history and to better understand the forces that shape people, including myself. Finding unexpected parentage is just another factor to consider. As far as Henry Frantz and my maternal grandmother were concerned, they were father and daughter; he had tremendous effect on her life and it would be silly to "toss that out" just because it turned out they had no DNA connection. On the other hand, my paternal great-grandmother, Minnie, knew that the Mohrs had adopted her. It seems likely that figured into her unhappiness with them and her decision to run away with a (faithless) young man.
Now, Grandma Inez's biological father, bachelor Sebastian Farmer, worked for Henry Frantz and they all relocated from Illinois to Iowa together. Was he, in fact, a part of Inez's life, as a "family friend"?
That's one of the biggest problems with integrating friends into the family picture -- we so often have no record of who -- or how important -- they were. I'm so lucky to have a few records -- and even more personal mementoes -- that provide information about my ancestors' chosen companions.
My intention this week was to just sketch a light-hearted roundup of those friends. However, as I worked through the material, I realized that I knew a lot more about the friends my women ancestors had -- not least because of the huge influence many of them had on my own life. Mom, Grandma Inez and Great-grandma Dora all had to raise children on their own after they were widowed and, in every case, their friends rallied around them to help, effectively becoming a part of our family, with at least as much influence on "how I turned out" as my actual relatives. So, yeah, ladies, this is All Your Fault!
Like Patrick and me, Mom went through twelve years of school with the same forty or so classmates. Her youthful partners in crime, though, were mostly her basketball teammates like Naoma "Namo" Perrin and Virginia "Bris" Bristle.
Mom began working at the office of the local newspaper, The Woodward Enterprise, while still in school. The editor, Hal Schiltz, took her under his wing, especially after her father died in 1941. And when Hal enlisted during WW II, Mom helped his wife, Portia, keep the paper going. Mom and Portia became fast friends with a long correspondence, even after Hal and Portia moved west to Portland, where Hal became editor of the Oregonian.
When Mom moved to Michigan, the newspaper business provided her with more good friends. Carl Parker sold ads for the Monroe Evening News and he and his wife, Ida Mae, were her first friends in her new home. Can you see the difference between the quick-tanning Ida Mae and Mom's pale "only burn, never tan" skin? I loved the Parkers and, in particular, have never met anyone else like Ida. If I've ever known anyone with psychic ability, it was she.
In California, Mom made friends with other women in our neighborhood, but her closest friend was Shelly Lagatta, mother of one of my classmates at A-Lane Christian School, the somewhat loony but educationally-effective one-room parochial school I attended. Shelly sent this picture to Mom twenty-five years later, so they, too, continued to correspond throughout the rest of their lives.
Back in Woodward, after Dad died, it was Mom's long-ago school classmates and basketball teammates that had stayed in the area that circled around to support her and help to raise us kids -- Beverly and Lucille Patrick and Merridee Newell, in particular. Bev and her husband, Bob Boyles, operated the town's only grocery story, Bob's By-Lo. Lucille was the only nurse for the town's only doctor. Merridee had been in the Women's Air Service Pilot corps during WW II, ferrying fighter planes to Europe, and then had opened a pilot's school in Colorado with her husband, Alan Snively, before returning to the family farm in Woodward to raise their boys. She encouraged Mom to take on the volunteer task of collecting and distributing Christmas toys to the residents of the State Hospital School, where Merridee worked in the HR department, and the two of them ended up working together for the next twenty-some years before Merridee retired and went on to serve as a volunteer in a variety of national parks. And, although she hadn't grown up in Woodward, Nancy Bryant had also lost her husband, a Woodward native, way too soon. With a degree in Drama from the University of Florida, Nancy was effortlessly elegant and so much fun.
These women were there every Christmas Eve, helping to put together Patrick's toys "from Santa," to much whiskey-fueled merriment. We went on vacations with them, especially to Merridee's family's cabin in the Rocky Mountains. I saw lots of plays because Nancy was in them, and these women banded together to start a community theater in Woodward. Bev was the one with Patrick and me when Dad died; Lucille was always supportive and calm, no matter what youthful crisis I was having. Merridee was so disappointed I didn't choose an Ivy League College, or at least one of the Seven Sisters, but every one of them encouraged my choice to go to college despite a complete and utter lack of any money whatsoever to pay for it, even if their own daughters had chosen differently.
Grandma Inez is second from the left in the above photo, with Mom in front, 7 years old. This picture intrigues me as a glimpse into Inez and Shug's social circle. George H. Booth was a photographer for a time in Perry, Iowa, where Inez grew up; My hypothesis was that the initial connection was probably between Inez and Rae, George's wife. Obviously, the Thomas family was close enough to the Booths to travel from Woodward to Cleveland to visit. It's good to have these reminders that our ancestors were real people, with full lives about which we may only ever know bits and pieces -- and it's fun to exchange theories about how they knew one another with George and Rae's descendants, some of whom are also avid genealogists!
When we visited Inez in Woodward, her chums were always much in evidence and, after her death, they became part of Mom's support system and were "Aunties" to Patrick and I as we grew up. Bessie Mae Royer, Esther Cooper, Mabel Longshore, and Olive Wells were the ones with whom I had the closest relationship, but there was a strong network of women in town that had been through a lot together and looked out for one another -- and for us.
Pictured below are Mina Robbins, Inez, Ina beck, Esther Cooper, with Mabel Longshore in front. This may have been Bridge Club but I think it more likely that it was a Republican Women's get-together. Mabel ran unsuccessfully for the Iowa House in the 1950s. Ina was the town librarian when I was growing up but that was rather incidental after her previous accomplishments, and Mina had a finger in everything that happened in Woodward. I think Bess Royer, the doctor's wife, must have taken the picture as that's her house.
These women were members of every community organization, from the Legion Auxiliary to Eastern Star. They taught me things they thought everyone should know, like how to achieve lofty puff pastry and proper forms of address for introductions, but also gamely endeavored to get me to take some interest in civics and the working of government. At one point, I glumly returned from a scholarship interview in which the patriotic group awarding the money had asked what I would do if I met a communist. I shrugged and said "shake hands, say 'how do you do?' and make a pleasant comment about the weather, I suppose." Did the desired answer involve some kind of denunciation? We'll never know, but the Aunties were most displeased with the question setup: obviously, one must be civil; good manners are never wrong and immediate confrontation is no way to open a dialogue. If the interviewer didn't recognize that, he had no business holding the position he did. Talk soon turned to who might run against him in his next organizational election. The Aunties were in their 80s, mind you, but, make no mistake, baby, this was the Room Where It Happens.
Mom wrote that her grandma, Dora, often got together with her sisters, Minerva and Laura, and that the three of them were close friends and support for one another throughout their lives. Dora was very proud of her early schooling and remained friends with the surprisingly large number of women with whom she attended the country schools around Woodward. She kept her "Memories" book, which I now have; it includes sweet messages from many of the girls and boys with whom she grew up, as well as an acknowledgement of her dedication to education from her then-Sunday School Teacher and later husband, George Thomas.
The woman in this picture is one of Dora's classmates from Oak Grove School in People's Township, Dallas County, Iowa. I love that, in a time when there were so few photographs, I have one that shows two long-time women friends.
While I know the names of my father's and grandfathers' friends, I didn't know them as people. And, I have to admit, until I did a few internet searches to find maiden names, I hadn't seriously considered just how accomplished, open-minded and resolute the women were that had circled around the women in my family after they were widowed. These were small-town wives and mothers but I can testify that they were also ferocious proponents of pursuing education, seizing opportunity and supporting democracy and a society that embraced integrity, compassion and intellectual curiosity. We were all very lucky to have such good people as friends.
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