Walter J. Harmon and Fanny Arnold

Walter Harmon and Fanny Arnold are my great-great-grandparents, through their son and eldest child, Edward Joseph Harmon.

Walter was born February 1857 in Whiteside Co, Illinois, likely in or near the community of Round Grove.  He was the son of Porter J. Harmon and Rebecca Armstrong, and one of six children.  When Walter was 19 his mother passed away, leaving some younger siblings without a mother in the house.

Fanny was born in Berkswell, Warwickshire, England on 7 November 1856, the daughter of Edward Arnold and Mary Arnold.  When Fanny was only about 4 years old, Mary died, leaving four young children.  Edward remarried to Emma Smith and had several more children.  At about the age of 10, Edward and Emma brought their children to Niagara, Ontario, Canada.  They settled in this area and as of current research, Fanny is the only child that I have found to have left Canada.  In about 1881, Fanny arrived in Whiteside Co, Illinois though by what route I do not know nor do I know the reason she came.

On the 16th of February 1882, Walter and Fanny were united in marriage.   Their first child, Edward, was born in 1883 and as a two-month-old infant the family relocated to Dakota Territory.   Walter and Fanny homesteaded property in Clark Co, Dakota Territory, in what is now Clark County, South Dakota.  It appears that Walter's sister, Adaline, and her husband Almon Zimmer, as well as their father, Porter Harmon all came together from Whiteside Co, Illinois.

Walter and Fanny had five children:

1. Edward Joseph, my great-grandfather, born 9 Jan 1883 in Whiteside Co, Illinois
2. Edna Barbara born 16 Feb 1885 in Clark, Clark Co, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota)
3. Ida Elizabeth born 13 Jul 1890 in Clark, Clark Co, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota)
4. Fannie Mary born 21 Mar 1892 in Clark, Clark Co, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota)
5. Morris Walter born 25 Apr 1896 in Clark, Clark Co, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota)

Their original homestead was in Mt. Pleasant township in Clark Co.  Research indicates that Walter's father, Porter, likely lived with Walter and Fanny on their farm until his death in 1897.  By 1910, the family had moved into the town of Clark and lived their until Walter's death on 6 Jun 1921.  According to Walter's obituary, he had suffered a stroke some years prior that left him unable to continue farming.  He died within days of my grandfather Fred's birth.  I always have wondered if Walter ever saw his grandson through which the family middle name of Joseph was passed along.


Fannie Arnold Harmon - July 1944

As a result of Walter's death, Fanny was a widow for over 20 years.  During her later years, she lived with her son Edward.  My grandfather Fred was the youngest of the children in the house, so he spent some of those years at home with his grandmother Fanny living with them.  Because she was only 4'10" tall, Fred had coined the term "Little Grandma" and I remember as a child hearing him refer lovingly to his "Little Grandma".  She died 12 Jun 1945, just mere months before my grandpa Fred returned from his military service in her home country of England.  I remember him speaking with regret that he didn't make it home in time to see her before her death.

Walter and Fanny are buried together in Rose Hill Cemetery, north of the city of Clark, Clark Co., South Dakota.  On my mother's recent trip to South Dakota, she photographed the headstones of her great-grandparents.


Photo taken June 2010


Please contact me for more information, especially if you descend from Walter and Fannie.  Please note that I have seen Fanny's name also spelled Fannie. 

©2009-2011 copyright.  All rights reserved.

Honored to be Ancestor Approved

I have been remiss in acknowledging the kindness of two fellow bloggers for awarding me with the Ancestor Approved Award originally created by Leslie Ann Ballou of Ancestors Live Here.  Back in December, Cheri Daniels of Journeys Past posted a comment to honor me with this award.  Last evening, I was pleased to received it again from Sue Edminster of Echo Hill Ancestors.  Both of these wonderful blogs were new (to me) and have been added to my Google Reader.  Please take the time to visit and add them to your feed.

Considering I haven't been a consistent blogger of late, I am deeply honored these ladies think enough of what I have done here to consider me for this award.  When I first received this award last spring, I posted my list of what surprised, humbled or enlightened me and that list is still appropriate today.  I hope you will take the time to revisit that post.

As for passing it on, I am behind (again) in my reading and have no idea who has received this or not.  At this time, I will defer passing it along but there are hundreds and hundreds of wonderful genealogy blogs written every day so please consider yourself honored.  I would be thrilled to read your list so please share.

©2011, copyright tracysroots

Looking Back at 2010 - Part 2

Because my computer is bogged down in an online backup, it is too terribly slow to try to upload photos of the things I discuss below.  Please look for those at a future date.

Please see Part 1 where I discussed my 2010 goals.

At some point this summer I realized that once my second daughter was born, I stopped making an effort to put up recent pictures of our girls and stopped updating photo albums. Two children became more than double the work and I really let things slip. As a way to make up for that and to document our lives currently, I decided to take the plunge to begin digital scrapbooking. I had successfully completed one traditional (i.e. paper) scrapbook a few years ago which both girls love to look at. It really hit me that the album I had made was of my older daughter at about the age my younger daughter is now. I knew I needed to make something for both girls that they could view (and laugh about) for years to come.

I have successfully completed one digital album that also doubled as a gift.  Last August we took a trip to the Oregon Coast.  My in-laws and two nephews joined us.  There were lots of wonderful memories from that trip.  For my mother-in-law's Christmas gift this year, I made a 10 page album with all the pages made digitally.  The bonus is that I can make copies for us as well.  Two albums for the work on one!  I am all about saving time.

The second way I decided to document our lives was to make an album (12x12 size) that documents each year's Christmas photo and letter.  Yes, I am one of these people that write a standard letter to enclose with the Christmas cards.  Because I send out over 40 cards each year I simply do not have time to write a personalized letter.   I was able to find letters dating back to 2000 which is probably the first year I wrote such a letter.  I am making an individual scrapbook page for each year from 2000 until 2003.  Beginning in 2004, I am doing a two-page spread that has one side with the letter and the other side with the Christmas photo of our family.  It has been a lot of fun to read about the major happenings in our lives like the year we got a new puppy and two weeks later I had thyroid surgery, or the first Christmas after 9/11, or the year our oldest daughter was born followed four years later by her baby sister.  It's amazing some of the details that I have forgotten.  This album is helping us to remember.

If you are interested in documenting the stories of our lives now, especially through digital scrapbooking, I highly recommend the following:

• Ali Edwards - Beautiful photography and with a strong emphasis on the story
• Cathy Zielske - First off, she's very funny, but she makes beautiful, simple pages.  She, too, emphasizes the story.
• Renee Pearson - She has a wonderful intro to digital scrapbooking class called Just The Basics. 
• Jessica Sprague - Extensive class selection on all things digital for scrapbooking, photo editing and design.  I have taken her Family History Album class as well as Up And Running, an intro to digital scrapbooking.  I also will be completing the followup for the intermediate level.

While I am no artist, I have created some pages that my daughters can look back on fondly and remember.  That to me has become one of the most important things I did in 2010.


©2010, copyright tracysroots

How One Little Word Will Guide My 2011

I will readily admit that I am not good at New Year Resolutions.  I always start out with a bang and fizzle in no short order as my work week rapidly expands to 50+ hours through mid-April.  By that time, I'm tired and have long forgotten what I wanted to do on January 1st.

I have been very intrigued by scrapbook blogger Ali Edward's One Little Word concept and how it guides so many people through their new year.  Once I started thinking about this concept, I realized that this is actually something that might work for me.  It's not a Resolution (which always get broken) and it's not a Goal (which I'm not so good at either).  It's just one word.  I can do that!

So then I started thinking about how I wanted this word to correlate to my family history research AND work with the memories my family is making now.  All of December I spent agonizing over this choice and realized that it shouldn't have to be agonizing....that's how I feel about resolutions and I didn't want this to end as those usually do.

While many people following Ali's blog or taking the class came up with very profound, thought-provoking words, I chose something simpler.  For me, my word is Completion. 

I started by making a list of the top 10 items I wanted to complete during the year.   And I don't mean start, lose interest in and abandon.  I mean complete, as in finish, be done with....well you get the idea.  I won't list them all right now, but I can say I have made great headway already on three of those items. 

First on the list was to sign up for Mozy Home.  I actually signed up on December 30th to take advantage of a coupon for a year's subscription.  I downloaded the program, selected the files to backup on my new computer and the external hard drive (in my case these are not duplicates) and it is has been chugging along ever since.  With over 30,000 files to backup, it's a slow process but one that I feel is very worthwhile.

The second and third items on the list are really the same project, just one for each of my daughters.  When I was a child, my mother saved the greeting cards I received for birthdays, holidays and Valentine's from school friends.  She put those in a scrapbook for me and it was always so much fun to look at all of the pages.  I wanted to do the same thing for my children so when my older daughter was a year old I gathered all of the cards and put them in an album....and that is where the project stopped.  She is now nearly 7.  So I started by tackling the smaller scrapbook for my two-year-old and I can happily report hers is complete through 2010.  I am still in the sorting and organizing phase for my older daughter but am very close to putting those into an album for her.

Already Completion is working for me.  Here it is the 11th of January and I have made progress.  While my list isn't static and I do expect to make changes over the course of the year, I will continue to work through them.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?


©2011, copyright tracysroots

Looking Back at 2010 - Part 1

To say that I will miss 2010 as a whole would be a lie.  While I will miss the ages that my children are at the moment (6 and 2) and the funny things they have done this year, the rest of 2010 can just go away as far as I'm concerned.  Between car accidents (my sister's and my husband's), my grandmother's health, my work that has kept me busier this year than in the past, along with a plethora of other unexpected things, 2010 has been a blur.

Because of all the extraneous stuff that has occurred, I also have sort of lost that urgent desire to work on my genealogy.  The first half of the year I continued documenting and researching and then June came along and it was downhill from there.  So when I set my 2010 goals, I was clearly being optimistic!  When I started writing today's post, I figured I would be very embarassed to say that I didn't do anything on my goals that I set a year ago.  However, I can honestly say that I did make some progress, small though it may be.  Here is a recap of where I am on my 2010 goals:

1.  I am continuing sourcing records in my database.  I have approximately 1900 individuals in my database and I left off sourcing at the 1880 census.  That means I still have 1900 through 1930 to go.....will I make it before the 1940 census is released?

2.  I wanted to complete the Illinois Prairie Pioneer Certificate on my ancestor Walter Harmon and his wife Azubah Hyde Harmon.  I made it as far as printing out the application and filling out a draft in pencil.  I did this so I could see what pieces I was missing.  Unfortunately, there was more missing than I thought and so it sat to collect dust.

3.  My third goal was to sort old photos with my mom and grandmother.  This is easier said than done.  We did spend several hours in late May sifting photos and trying to identify people, years and locations.  We laughed and shed a few years.  It was a nice way to spend a few hours.  I left my grandmother's with some things to scan.  And that's where this project ends for 2010.

4.  I set a goal to continue writing mini "bios" on my ancestors.  During 2010, I managed to do at least three more of these in addition to posting some updates on previous bios.  I was expecting to do more of these, but part of the problem lies in the need to scan some documents to add to the posts.

5.  My last goal was to write a few sentences on a near daily basis of what was happening in our lives.  I was able to maintain this for a few months and then chaos took over.  My entries became more sporadic and highlighted the "big" things and fewer of the daily tidbits of life with two small children.  Please read Part 2 of this series of posts to see how I am continuing to document our lives for the future generations.

There are a few other accomplishments that are worthy of a mention.  I have been attending a RootsMagic User Group at my local Family History Center.  I also attended the 2010 Fall BYU-Idaho Family History Conference in October and attended five very worthwhile classes.  Lastly, I know my blogging (minimal as it has been) has been worth it.  Several distant cousins and fellow researchers have contacted me regarding some of my posts.  Creating "cousin bait" through blogging has most definitely been worth the effort.

While my 2010 goals weren't a complete failure, they weren't a roaring success either.  Therefore, I bid adieu and good riddance to this year.  May 2011 be more successful.

©2010, copyright tracysroots

Carnival of Genealogy #100: My Family and a Murderess

This is written for the 100th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy entitled "There's One in Every Family".   My take on this theme is that every family has a sensational story, one that has morphed over time into something juicier than it probably was. It is my heartfelt sentiment that the story I present here absolutely does not happen to every family!

My Family and a Murderess.  That sounds just like a title for a fictional murder mystery.  Alas, this story is very true.  For anyone that lives outside of the state of North Carolina and perhaps more so out of the western North Carolina mountains, you've probably never heard of Frankie Silver, known as one of the few women in the state to be hung for murder.  I know I hadn't.

As I began my Mitchell County, North Carolina research, I tried to gain a general overview of the area, the people, the work they did, and what brought them there.  I don't even recall when I first heard about the story of Charlie and Frankie (Stewart) Silver, but I remember seeing snippets of information here and there alluding to the notorious crime.  Out of morbid curiosity, I searched the internet for information and read some books only to discover a sad story from the 1830s, and much to my surprise, with connections to my own ancestors.

THE MURDER

On a cold December day in 1831, a nineteen year old Charlie Silver was murdered by his wife, eighteen year old Frances "Frankie" Stewart Silver. Charlie was hacked to death with an ax and dismembered in their cabin in the mountains of what was then Burke County, North Carolina (now Mitchell County).  The story goes that Charlie had gone out hunting though Frankie may have suspected drinking and carousing.  He came home, perhaps drunk, an altercation ensued, and the result was the death of Charlie.  The facts are not all clear, but Frankie may have been protecting herself and their toddler from Charlie's violent behavior.  Or perhaps Frankie had just had enough and in a fit of rage attacked her husband.  Apparently aware of the violence she had committed and for the need to dispose of his remains, she cut up his body and burned it in their fireplace.

In any case, it was not disputed that Frankie bundled up her daughter and went to her in-laws home the next day asking for the whereabouts of her husband.  They hadn't seen him for a few days, since he had left on his hunting trip.  Apparently she then went to her parent's home.  The Silvers and other neighbors became worried when Charlie didn't return and a manhunt began.  Perhaps Frankie's story began to unravel then but suspicions were definitely aroused.  His remains were not immediately found, but an oily residue in her fireplace and the fact that a weeks worth of firewood was gone were strong suspicions for something amiss.  The very clean floorboards were lifted up in their small cabin and blood stains were found on the ground beneath. 

THE ARREST

There are a variety of things that cause great speculation even all these 179 years later. It was said that Charlie had a tendency towards alcohol, towards abusing his wife, and towards messing around with other women. There was speculation that Frankie may have acted in self-defense, or to protect their baby, while Charlie was on a drunk. Alas, no one knows what ever happened that night to cause her to ax him to death.

About a week after the murder, Frankie, her mother and her brother were arrested and taken to the jail in Morganton, Burke Co, North Carolina.  An inquest followed and her mother and brother were later released for lack of evidence, but Frankie was held over for trial.  She had a young lawyer who may not have fully explained her rights or what was likely to happen to her.  Since court met infrequently (usually quarterly), she was in jail for some time and quite a distance from her family.

THE TRIAL

A jury of Frankie's peers, all men, was gathered and the evidence presented.  Because of the laws at the time, a defendant was not allowed to testify on his or her behalf.  The conviction came swiftly with the jury never hearing from Frankie. Death by hanging was to be Frankie's fate.  At some point while awaiting execution, Frankie stated that she acted in self-defense.  Seven of the twelve jurors then came forward to petition to overturn the conviction.  An appeal was made to the state's Supreme Court.  Friends and neighbors of the Stewart family came forward on her behalf.  During the time leading up to her hanging, her family helped her to break out of jail.  She was found wearing a man's hat and coat walking behind an uncle's wagon when officials caught up with them.  But all these efforts were to no avail.

THE HANGING

It was a warm July day in 1833 when the hanging occurred.  Legend has it that her father stood in the assembled crowd and yelled up to Frankie as she stood on the gallows.  His supposed words:  "Die with it in you, Frankie."  A lot could be read into that statement and it has probably morphed into more than what ever really occurred that day.  What appears to be fact is her father was there to take her remains home to a final resting place.  Due to the rugged mountain conditions and the summer temperatures, it was a slow trip home.  As a result, she is supposedly buried in an unmarked location on the road outside Morganton.  A memorial has been erected in her memory near where she is believed to have been buried.

MY FAMILY'S CONNECTIONS

So what does this all mean to me?  First, I should begin by saying that at the present time I have not found any direct genealogical connection to either Charlie or Frankie.  However, my ancestors were neighbors of both the Silver and Stewart families.  As I was reading Perry Deane Young's book, The Untold Story of Frankie Silver, I discovered that some of the members of the inquest, a prosecution witness, and petitioners to the governor were my ancestors. 

My fourth great-grandfather, Isaac Grindstaff, appears as a witness for the defense.  According to Young, Isaac later identifies himself as a member of the inquest jury.  It should be noted that there was more than one Isaac Grindstaff in this area, but for this time frame, my ancestor seems to be the likely Isaac.

My fourth great-grandfather, Thomas Howell, served as a witness to the grand jury and later as a witness for the prosecution.  Thomas was a blacksmith and apparently made Charlie Silver's shoe buckles which were identified amongst the burned remains.

My fourth great-grandfather, Hector McNeill, as well as a John McNeill, a Dim McNeill and a Malcolm McNeill all signed an undated petition to Governor Montfort Stokes requesting he pardon the prisoner.  The document states that many of those signers were neighbors of the defendant and knew her to be of good character.

My third great-grandfather, Archibald McNeill, was the son of Hector and son-in-law of Thomas Howell.  Archibald's second marriage was to Sarah Ann Sparks Silver.  Sarah was the widow of Reuben Silver, brother to the murdered Charlie.  According to Cabins in the Laurel by Muriel Earley Sheppard, Arch built a cabin backed up to the same chimney where Frankie committed her crime.  Sheppard writes the original cabin was gone but the chimney and fireplace were in strong condition.  She goes on to state that Arch's wife (Sarah) found one of Charlie's "shoeheel irons jammed into the stones of the fireplace."  The said victim was Sarah's former brother-in-law and were made by Arch's former father-in-law. 

Oh what a tangled web.  And such a sad, sad story.  This month marks the 179th year since this crime occurred.  The truth behind the murder may never be known and speculation still runs rampant.  I hope the victims, for I believe Charlie and Frankie were both victims, rest in peace.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING:

I know that I have not done justice to the story of Frankie Stewart Silver.  Any errors in the above information are mine.  For further information, please consider reading the following books or visiting these websites.

The Untold Story of Frankie Silver by Perry Deane Young.
Wikipedia's page on Frankie Stewart Silver
Charlie's memorial at Find A Grave
Frankie's memorial at Find A Grave
A summary from the North Carolina Museum of History.
For a fictional account, I recommend The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb
The Burke County Visitor's center has an article
The Frankie Foundation which produced a play describing these tragic events
Cabins in the Laurel by Muriel Earley Sheppard

December Dates in My Family History

6th - anniversary of Porter J. Harmon and Rebecca Armstrong, my 3rd great-grandparents, in 1849 in Whiteside Co, Illinois

9th - anniversary of Rev. Isaac Grindstaff and Mary Jane Woody, my 2nd great-grandparents, in 1872 in Mitchell Co, North Carolina

13th - death of Solomon Scherer or Sherer, my 4th great-grandfather, in Nodaway Co, Missouri

25th - anniversary of Robert Nelson McNeill and Margaret Ledford, my 2nd great-grandparents, in 1877 in Mitchell Co, North Carolina

28th - birthday of Sarah Jane Johnson, my 2nd great-grandmother, in 1856 in Randolph Co, North Carolina