Hacienda Circle

2011-12-07T07:57:00.001-08:00

"a date that will live in infamy" -- and she was there

70 years ago today, our mother, Lavinia Cresap, was an eyewitness to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Here is her account, written that night and in the days afterward. At the bottom is a reference to her in an Army officer's diary. Six months after the attack, she married our father (he is mentioned in her entry on the 14th). She was an amazing woman.

Honolulu, T.H. - Dec. 7th, 1941

“It couldn’t happen here!” - did we say that?

Yet it has and we have come through a day and night that none of us dreamed about. Right now I am writing in the darkness of a schoolroom - sitting beside the window watching the occasional trucks go by and listening to the restlessness inside. It is a very long night and everything is in complete darkness; not a light of any sort inside or out. The trucks that go by are just moving masses on the road. And it is storming, windy and raining, but the moon is full and occasionally comes from behind the clouds and makes things very clear.

Here in the room we are sleeping under desks and tables of every description with a blanket beneath us and just coats and sweaters over us. It is about four o’clock and all the children are finally sleeping but most of the women are awake and talking and joking. At last all the crying has stopped. I think that has been the most trying thing this night – and yet you just can’t spank them at a time like this, and for the most part the children have been very good.

It is still hard to believe what has happened and realize that this is only the beginning. I find it so hard to comprehend. Such a complete surprise!

This morning we were awakened by planes flying over the houses, very low, and guns popping and bombs falling. It was eight o’clock and all were still in bed taking advantage of Sunday morning. Everyone thought it was a practice of some sort. We rushed out of the house in robes to watch the proceedings, watch the bombs falling. I kept saying to Carl - “I didn’t know there was a practice bombing field on the other side of Wheeler!” Then the planes flying over our houses started machine gunning the houses and the bullets dug into the ground and walls around us. Only Col. McNair rushed out of his house across the street completely outfitted shouting, “It’s the Japanese – can’t you see the rising suns on the planes!” And we thought “Oh, it couldn’t be!” Carl dressed immediately and dashed up to the headquarters. Two minutes later he dashed back, “It is the real thing! Guess I won’t be back for lunch.” He packed a few things and was off again.

No sooner had he left, when around came the messengers telling us to take a warm coat and a blanket and go immediately to the Saliport of the 21st. (Sorry to interrupt - but here at the window I see a group of Army trucks going past - dark, not even the blackout lights on. Just heard that Shafter had been bombed too and that 250 were injured. Wonder how Joel is – OD at the Crater!)

After we assembled in the Saliport we went into the kitchen and started to butter bread and make hot water for tea and coffee. Most of the people had had no breakfast and the children were hungry. All the electricity had been turned off except one small electric burner. We hunted around and found the sugar and cream. At the same time we tried to keep the store open so that the soldiers could come in and buy cokes and cigs. From the windows we could look out into the quadrangle and watch the companies line up. Once there was another attack, but by that time the anti-aircraft guns were operating and no damage was done.

After about an hour and a half, we were told that we could go back to the houses and pick up a few other things so Mary Alice and I dashed back and put what we thought we would need into a large laundry bag and went back to the Saliport. By that time the order had come out that we could return to our houses for the night. All afternoon we had conflicting reports – “Go back to your houses and await further orders.” - “Go to the Saliport.” - Return to your houses, return to the Saliport. We didn’t know just what to do! We finally decided to pack our small bags and leave them at the 21st and then await further orders at the house - and it was a good idea. About six o’clock the orders came around to go to the 21st. When we arrived this time, we were told to await convoy to be taken into the city. It was almost dark and not a light was on anywhere. It was cold and the women with children were having a very difficult time. MA and I adopted two small boys for their mothers - they kept us busy. It seemed ages before the busses arrived to convoy us - and in that time we heard a million rumors. We were going to be taken immediately to transports and shipped home! Imagine such a thing going around! But everyone was on edge.

The buses finally arrived and then started the longest and most harrowing ride I have ever had. (It rivals the one I had with Dad that stormy night from Baguio.) We were just packed in with all our belongings – the bus driver was an oriental and many were sure that he would wreck us. It was still raining - cold. The bus seemed to crawl along - couldn’t travel over five miles an hour - children screamed all the way – as we passed Pearl Harbor we could see the fires burning – the same at Hickam Field. None of us had any idea just how much damage had been done. It was almost eleven o’clock when we arrived here at the school, yet it was all locked up. No orders seemed to have been received that we were coming and we had to find the janitor to get into the rooms. Everything was confused. But at least, we were not on transports. The women with small children were most in need of help and care, and we tried to settled them first of all.

Now, as I say, everything is quiet except for the buzz of the mosquitoes – they are frightful tonight, we feel that we are being eaten alive. But soon it will be morning.

9th
Tried to get back into the mood of the night of the 7th, but too much has happened since then, and now, here we are as settled as can be in town with Alison Coulter and so I will try to retrace my steps.

I neglected to tell of our preparations at the house before we left Schofield the day we left. Mary Alice and I packed many things and piled other things on the beds so that they would be easy to pick up in the event of a hasty departure. And isn’t it a good thing. If we should have a chance to get back to Schofield, we would just have time to take those few things. Though now as I write the possibility of going back every seems remote. We haven’t heard a word from Carl since he left Sunday, but have heard that there were no casualties in the 21st. Joel came in for just a minute last night and said that all was well at Shafter and that the casualties were very slight. However, we have no way of knowing what actually happened at Pearl Harbor or Hickam Field. We did learn all sorts of things (probably some of them rumors, but some actualities) that had been done from the inside to aid the Japanese in their bombings here.

We were amazed to find out that at Eva Plantation, the cane fields had been planted in a perfect arrow pointing toward Hickam and Pearl Harbor to direct the planes! To find out that right in Wahiawa one of the most prominent business men, owner of Castner’s Store, had a powerful radio set in his basement and was caught “red-handed” sending directing messages to the planes. Another man (German) prop. Of the beer garden on the post was in the hills signaling messages to the planes.

So much of this attack was prepared from the inside - makes me think again and again of Leland Stowe’s reports in “No Other Road to Freedom.”

Yesterday morning we were up early - at daybreak, and how good it was to see the light. It was still dreary and storming, but the mosquitoes were gone. These children are just a mass of welts. The first thing to think about was breakfast - none of us have eaten since noon yesterday and some not since breakfast. The Principal of the school had arrived and during the night the Army had brought food in – bread, butter and fruit. So we made coffee and cocoa and served breakfast – first to the children and then to the adults. Then to start planning what to do during the day. We learned that we were to contact anyone in town where we thought we might stay for a couple of days while plans were being formulated as to what to do next. I had tried to contact Pauline the day before from Schofield to let her know that we were safe and not to worry and to find out how they were; none but official calls were being put through though. I called her at once and found that Joel and Alison had been trying to get us and wanted us very much to stay with them – Alison was alone because Joel was out on the post the whole while. So I called her and she had not yet left to go to work at Shafter (the offices were open) and we arranged to out there from Pauline's. At the same time other people were arranging to stay with friends and those who knew soon were having arrangements made for them. As it happened the Webers went to the Majers, who had called in and said that they had room for evacuees. So at last I met the Majers. We were taken to Pauline's and there visited the rest of the day – restless because we had had so little sleep and because there seemed so much to do, yet no knowing just what. Russell was terribly busy working on Civilian Defenses – he kept us informed about what had been going on. We heard that parachuters had landed and that all but two had been killed. There were no further raids and everyone was expecting another at any minute – but now were prepared for anything.

About five o’clock Joel called and came over and got us - and here we are. We got dinner in the dark and ate it in the dark. Complete blackout was ordered and we didn’t have time to do the house, but did fix up the bedroom We had lots of fun eating and wondering just what we would get when we took a bite.

Then this morning when we got up we had already decided that we couldn’t just sit quietly and Alison was going off to the office to work. We thought that we might go and send messages to our families to let them know that all was well and then go to the hospital and see what we could do. They were calling desperately for blood too.

We fixed up the house and then about noon went downtown. First of all we went to the Cable office – it was crowded, but we managed to get in and send a message, being told at the time that it might not go out for a week and perhaps it might not go out at all. From the cable office we went to Queen’s Hospital and rolled bandages and wondered what to do next. At three MA went on home and I had to stay and give a blood test. At the hospital the hall was lined up with people giving blood and many of them were orientals. We lined the hall and waited until they called our numbers then went upstairs to the hospital room. The doctors were terribly busy – this blood they were just taking for the plasma for transfusions, though at the same time they were typing it so that it would be on record. We went into a long corridor and into a small room where there were three cots laid out and here they tested us and took what they needed. It was about four o’clock when I was through and just as I went down stairs and started out of the building an air raid signal sounded and so none of us could leave. I worried about getting home, but no sense in doing that – we just had to wait for the all clear signal. At that time the President’s speech was being broadcast so we turned on the radio to listen. Shortly after he started to speak, his wave was cut in on by some foreign short wave and we couldn’t hear a word! Things like that we have read about in Europe!

When the all clear was sounded I dashed out to catch the nearest bus going up the Manda Valley. When I reached the corner another air raid sounded, but there was nothing to do but walk until the bus came along. I joined another girl – also walking toward the valley – and together we tore along until someone came by and offered us a ride as far as Punaho School. There we thumbed a ride on a cement truck up the valley to the corner of our block and from there we ran. She had about two more blocks to go than I. At home everything was fine. And the all clear sounded just as I walked in the front door. Again it was fun! At the table Alison told us that at Shafter they were desperately in need of people to work teletype machines. I thought that I could pick it up easily since I had operated one for practice at business school. So we planned to go to Shafter the next morning and see if we could help

- - - - - - - - -

10th
We have all been terribly busy. All day long we have been working at Shafter and it has been nerve wracking business. They do need people. When we went down they immediately put us into the signal room and showed us what to do. The only thing that was a little difficult to get used to was the form used in taking down the message. The other things were easy – just a case of getting used to the machines. All of the men were very nice. They were completely worn out – I have never seen so many that have worked on and on with little or no sleep – no time to change clothes – no time to shave. They were tickled to death to have the relief. There were only four of us and they were looking for 12. I thought of the work I had been doing at Wheeler and decided to ask for a transfer to this office – anyone can do typing and I thought that if I could work in here I could really help. At noon I called Wheeler (the first time that I had been able to reach them – I had tried Monday and Tuesday with no luck) and told them about the situation. But no luck – they said they needed people too and to come out the next day if I could find a way. That being out – I went back to work the rest of the afternoon and planned on hitch-hiking out the next morning.

We have had no more attacks and it looks very much as though they were through for a little while although there is really no way of telling that.

Tonight we have talked about all the possibilities there are – and Alison says that she will be alone so that I could stay here for just a little while until I got settled in town. I thought that I would ask for another transfer depending upon what kind of work they gave me to do at Wheeler. In the paper tonight I learned that transportation would be provided to people going out to Wheeler tomorrow and so I am off and will stay there tomorrow night and try to contact Carl for MA and drive in Saturday again.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
14th
Truthfully, I don’t feel much like writing, but perhaps once that I begin things will come to me. This account has been neglected for a long time.

We are back home at Schofield. It has been a beautiful day and very very quiet.
The most part we have spent packing and visiting and talking endlessly about what is apt to happen and how to prepare for anything. MA and I have packed up all her things in trunks and I have put my non-essentials into my trunk. We had all the furniture piled up in the front room, but have decided to put it around again (just the furniture) so that it may easily be gathered together yet we can live in it. The men came around this morning and blacked out the middle room and the bathroom and gave us a blue globe to use so that at least we can live in a semblance of light at night – it gets dark so early now.

At noon we went out for lunch – it much the simple thing to do. Mary Alice came out from town yesterday and we talked all hours of the night – she was so undecided as to what to do – whether to work in town or try to get a job out here. It is really better to stay here and now that that is decided we are both happier even though I do have to move into town. Yesterday, they told me at Wheeler that the office was moving to town with headquarters at Shafter and that I would have to do – if I had a place to stay. I did, so off I go, we go in Monday morning. That is the reason that I got today off – to get some of my things into town. This afternoon I took the car and took my suitcase to Alison’s. had lunch with her at Shafter and told her the new set-up. Hope it will work out for a little while. Am worried about staying with them as I know that Joel will be home most of the time and I hate to disrupt their household – however, I hope to find a place in town and get located before long. Now that MA is safe and happy here, I think it will be alright.

But enough of all this. I ought to be describing some of the things that are happening here. Everything is quiet – in front of all of the houses are two or three bomb shelters – trenches dug and covered so that in case of attack we could easily go out and get into one of them. All are camouflaged with grass and with plants of all descriptions.

All afternoon, since I got back from town, we have been going around visiting the other people who returned to their homes. All of the 21st is back, the 9th and the Engineers too, I think. We have heard more and more rumors – tales of things that had happened these past days. Mary Alice has seen Carl and he has gone out again. This morning we packed his foot locker to send out to him – clothes, etc. We think of how lucky we are that all the people that we know are safe and uninjured. That day at the hospital I met so many women who had been at Pearl Harbor and seen the horrible things that happened there. Some from Hickam. Many of them didn’t know even then what had happened to the people they knew.

MA and Margaret Easly and Sara have decided to get together at night in one house so that none of them will be alone. I rather dread going into town – not afraid of anything there, but the idea of leaving MA here. Tonight I had a letter from Jack from New York. It was written last Saturday night – so I still don’t know where he is in the Army, but in it he is, I am sure.

16th
My second day in town. The office is set up right across from the Hawaiian Ordinance Dept., and the buildings aren’t finished yet. We are not busy and that is the reason that I am taking time to type all this out. Yesterday morning I thought I would go mad waiting to come into town, but we got here by noon and worked all afternoon. Called Alison and we went home together – J too -- and got dinner then talked to Alice for a little while and after playing some records – to bed.

This day has been very quiet so far – hope that we will be busy soon. Have found of a place to rent and have my fingers crossed on it, and that Storey will come in and share it with me. – Well, enough how.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wheeler Field, Oahu, Dec 7.

"Nice going on the part of our secretary, Miss Cresap. She called, Sunday, soon after the attack, asking if she could help. With spirit like that on the part of the women, our thumbs are up and our chins out-thrust...” The Honolulu Star Bulletin reprinted a diary kept by Corporal Franklin Hibel, US Army Oahu.

Birthday Bio -- Mom -- Lavinia Cresap, Mrs. John B. Gilbert 16 June 1915 - 10 Dec 1997

2011-06-16T17:49:00.000-07:00

She was the oldest of four children born and raised in the Phillipines.
She matured very fast -- pictured here she is only 10 years old, her sister, Florence on the right is only 2 years younger. left to right: Ida May, Lavinia, Andrew Bruce, Florence Cresap
She grew to be nearly six feet tall, had the carriage of a queen, but was a bit of a trickster.
She always seemed like a fairytale figure.
She could play harmonica, stand on her hands, make the best billy goat cookies and grape jelly.
She learned to fly a plane in the 1920's landing on dirt fields and soloing over Clear Lake.
She was the first in her family to go to college -- University of California, Berkeley class of 1936.
She managed to be at great world events -- the 1936 Berlin Olympics where she saw Hitler, Mussolini's Italy, and Pearl Harbor the day it was bombed.
She stood up against McCarthyism, helped establish the first Orinda library, volunteered at Contra Costa County's juvenile hall, and was on Cal's scholarship committee.
She was an active member of St. Stephen's Episcopal congregation in Orinda and the DAR.
She was an independent voter.
She was a founding member of the first book group I ever heard of back in the 1950s.
She was clever with her hands -- a terrific seamstress and weaver.
She loved to sail.
She was rarely idle, and each Christmas her Wizard of Oz and angel figures adorn our tree.
She raised four rascally children while her husband traveled at least half the time for his job.
She loved her grandchildren and kept the freezer full of popsicles.
She is missed every single day.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Birthday Bio -- Dad -- John Baptiste Gilbert III "Jack" 26 March 1915- 3 Aug 1999

2011-03-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

left to right-- Jack, sister Betty, mother Willa Truman (Sale) Gilbert

Gilberts at Tahoe (every summer): l. to r. Grandma Kate (Kelly) Gilbert (literally, step-Grandma), Jack, unk woman, unk woman with toddler, cousin Annette (Elsie Annette Gilbert Braue), Auntie Kate (Kathryn Ruth Gilbert Kohn), Grandad (JBG I).

Jack around the time of WW II. Perhaps after he had graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in economics. Perhaps while he was working for Zellerbach Paper Company in San Francisco. They held his job for him during the years of war, then promoted him until eventually he was on the Board of Directors of Crown Zellerbach Paper Company and Senior Vice President of Marketing. His territory included all of the US and Canada.

Eventually the army would train him in the desert but send him to Attu, Alaska to a bloody battle, then teach him Chinese but send him to India to over see some reparations.

Lavinia Cresap and Jack married in her parents' living room on Piedmont Avenue in Berkeley while he was on a short leave from the army. She would live with him in army quarters in Tyler, Texas and in Georgia before he posted to Attu.

After the war, with three children and one gestating, Jack and Vin bought in Orinda next door to a cricket pitch that Mr. Nye, an Englishman who lived in the house you see here had (later the Martins built on the cricket pitch). They built a 900 square foot house with a beautiful view.

Little Jackie watched with pride as the house went up. That's the 4th fairway of the Orinda Country Club beyond the outhouse.

What kind of car did he drive then? Anyone recognize the hood ornament?

900 square feet proved too small for a family of six so they made a living room out of the yard and added on a bedroom for themselves above the garage.

We drove around in that gorgeous Ford woodie or in the Model T we called Tillie that's parked in the garage. And we had a tailless dog named Trixie who Uncle Bruce (Cresap) is talking to here.

Each summer included a week at Berkeley Tuolumne Camp and a back packing trek into the Sierra to fly fish and hike and gaze at the stars.

Occasionally Mom got a trip to the beach which she loved.

photo taken in patio of house where they spent their wartime honeymoon -- I think it was in Pismo Beach, but it might have been Pacific Grove.

clockwise from Jack on the left -- Jack, Mom, Dad, Tommy (called Cres since age 6), Joan, Vinnie (me)

A Christmas in the seventies -- photo taken at Jack and Dianne's in Orinda.
left to right:
front - Cres, Dad, Jack jr
standing - Mom, Joan, Vinnie

We celebrated their 75th birthdays at a bash at the Orinda Country Club. Surrounded by their loving grandchildren and a host of good friends and extended family.

Katie Schwarz is between them with her arms around each of them.
from left to right behind them:
Debbie Gilbert, Kim Schwarz, Jay Gilbert, Carson Gilbert, Dana Schwarz, Darcy Gilbert

Happy Birthday, Dad, wherever you are.

Birthday Bio -- Granwilla -- Wilhelmina "Willa" Truman (Sale) Gilbert 1887-1986

2011-03-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

We called her Granwilla.

Her husband, Louis Jules Gilbert, called her Billy.

She was christened Wilhelmina Truman Sale at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Rafael.

She liked to be called Willa.

She was born in San Rafael, 24 March 1887, the youngest of 4 daughters born to Elizabeth Anne "Annie" Walton and William Truman Sale.

Her name is a dead give away that they had given up on having a son.

Her parents were English immigrants from Warwickshire who met and married in Marin County, California.

Just one English relative, her mother's sister Eva (Martha Evangeline Walton Harbord), came to the US to visit, but she was a pen pal with her cousins in England though she never went there. Aunt Eva from England is on the left below, Annie next to her. Willa is 2nd from the right with sister Kit's arm around her. Sister Eva is in front. Unidentified male friend in the middle, and the Marin hills in the distance.

Her cousin, Tom Hackett's daughter, Winnie (Hackett) Miles renewed the family connection when in the 1960's she came to Berkeley to visit her son, Roger Miles who was at Cal as a visiting math professor. Willa loved Winnie who eventually stayed for weeks with her. I met Tom in Chippingnorton, England in 1966 and stayed with Winnie and Leonard Miles at Haverigg, their beautiful home and garden on Burford Road. Our extended families are still in touch -- Walton, Miles, Hackett, Boddington, Gilbert, and more.

She played the violin beautifully -- both in an early symphony in Marin County and in a string quartet in Berkeley that played regularly on the radio. As a girl she took a ferry to San Francisco for lessons.

She came by her musicality naturally. Her mother's uncle, Willam Thomas Atkin, was a pianoforte maker in London. Her sister, Eva, taught voice and sang in Alameda. Her son (our dad) studied and performed under Eva's guidance, and was in the Cal glee club with his trained baritone/bass voice (he was a policeman in Pirates of Penzance).

Her family moved to Alameda when she was in college and she remembered the 1906 earthquake with seriousness. The family slept in the downstairs living room for days during the worst of the aftershocks. She walked to catch her ferry to go to classes at Cal where she was a sophomore but was told at the dock that all the male students were in San Francisco fighting the fire and classes were cancelled.

She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1908, and could read Latin until her death at 99 in Orinda. She asked me in 1968 when I graduated if the senior girls still wore white every day of senior week.

She eloped with Louis Jules Gilbert 4 Feb 1911. They got married in her sister Kit's Stockton living room, then lived in the big Gilbert house in Alameda (as Louis' father demanded of both his elder sons and their wives) until she convinced Louis he could commute to San Francisco just as easily on the ferry from Marin County as from Alameda, and they moved to San Rafael where their children were born and raised.

She had two children in San Rafael -- our aunt Elizabeth Anne "Betty" Gilbert and our dad, John Baptiste Gilbert III. They eventually moved to Alameda then Berkeley.

She spent 45 years as a widow -- Louis died just before Christmas 1941 after lingering in a SF hospital with a failing heart. He never knew his grandchildren, us.

She played the piano almost as well as she played the violin. We could hear her as we walked up to her door on our visits.

She was the first person I knew who had a TV -- a huge wooden console with a tiny green screen.

She walked down many stairs from Eucalyptus Road to Star Grocery on Claremont Ave. in Berkeley to buy treats for her cat who was allowed to sleep on the center pancake grill on her gas stove.

She kept sourdough starter in her refrigerator, always. And brought sourdough biscuits to Thanksgiving. She also brought tomato aspic which I loved but my brothers did not.

She kept a box of wooden spools and shoelaces, and one noisemaker for us to play with in her kitchen nook though children were to be seen and not heard. I was a little afraid of her as a child.

She taught me to play solitaire.

She created a gorgeous garden which even had gladiolas, irises, and calla lilies streaming down the steep back hill beyond the curved paving stone patio, lawn and flowers. We could see and hear the Sacramento Northern Train come through the tunnel into Oakland from the backyard, and later could see Highway 24 winding its way east to the Caldecott Tunnel.

She pronounced the flower impatiens impottyens.

She had a high trilling tinkly laugh.

She came to dinner at Hacienda Circle every other Sunday night, and we always had leg of lamb. She had a tender gut and ate a limited number of things -- chicken, lamb, rice, aspic, sour dough biscuits, and occasionally a hot buttered rum.

She knit, sewed and designed her stylish clothes.

She carried herself with great dignity and was always trim. She took long daily walks well into her 90's.

She announced at 99 that her time had past, and she quietly stopped eating.

She died 8 May 1986.

She had two children, four grandchildren, seven great grandchildren, and now 15 great great grandchildren.

She has a beautiful great great granddaughter named for her, Willa Cerys Holt.

Happy Birthday, Granwilla. I'm still in awe of you.

Birthday Bio -- California Genealogical Society & Library -- 113 years old today

2011-02-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

CGS is thriving.

Today's Workshop (Saturday, February 12, 2011, 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.) New York City Research Part II with Steve Harris, CGS President (pre registration required -- free for members, $20 for non members) will be in our newly expanded classroom space which we are setting up to have internet access for our out of area members. His nation wide city directory collection is across the hall and available to us.

Friday, February 18, 2011 from 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m., member Anita Wills will give two talks which are free and open to the public on African-American history and research.

Saturday, February 19, 2011 from 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. is another pre-registration workshop Comparing Genealogy Software with Kathy Watson, Gary Darnsteadt, Lisa Gorrell and Glenn Koch.

Our workshops are extraordinary and our members even more so -- warm, welcoming, knowledgeable. Our library is open Thursday and Friday 9-4 and Saturday 10-4. Free for members, $5 for non members. Check us out. We have information for everyone, even those without California ancestors. Our New England collection is superb.

Check us out.
The CGS website http://www.californiaancestors.org/
The blog (run by the inimitable Kathryn Doyle) at http://blog.californiaancestors.org/

Happy Birthday to all of us!

The full article about the 1812 Hurricane

2011-02-04T16:37:00.001-08:00

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010BAMS2937.1

More on the hurricane of 1812

2011-02-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/hurricane_1812.htm

Geographer Recreates ‘The Great Louisiana Hurricane of 1812’

2011-02-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

Geographer Recreates ‘The Great Louisiana Hurricane of 1812’

Countdown to the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War

2011-02-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/women-at-war/?ref=opinion

Despite, or maybe because of, what I wrote below in the Birthday Bio for Lavinia Murdoch (Bruce) Cresap, I've avoided Civil War histories. I become melancholy just thinking of it.

One week from today will mark the anniversary of the establishment of the Confederate States of America one hundred and fifty years ago. Perhaps it's time to begin to learn more. This article is a nice start. Women and literature -- one window in.

New online today! Baptismal registers for St. Louis Cathedral New Orleans for Free People of Color and slaves 1777-1801

2011-02-01T14:48:00.001-08:00

http://www.archdiocese-no.org/archives/sfpc.php

The registers are divided into 5 year groups.  Two links are provided for each year group, 
    • the first link being to an index of sorts (either chronological or alpha-chronological by the first letter of the name), 
    • the second link being the actual images of the registers.  

The registers for whites were maintained separately by the church and are NOT included on the website.  But whites are frequently mentioned in the entries either as being owners of various slaves, or as godparents to the infants being baptized.

Birthday Bio: Lavinia Murdoch Bruce born Jan 20th 1850 -- died March 16th 1886

2011-01-20T09:12:00.000-08:00

When Lavinia Murdoch Bruce was born 20 Jan 1850, she was named for her mother, Lavinia Murdoch Thistle, wife of Henry Magruder Bruce, just as I was named for my mother, Lavinia Cresap, who was Lavinia Murdoch Bruce’s granddaughter. I sometimes think of us as the four Lavinias. Today’s birthday bio is for Lavinia #2.

Lavinia #2 was the 5th of 8 Bruce children. When she was born, the eldest ,George Normond Bruce, had already died at 3 years 8 months in 1847. When she was just 16 months old, her older sister, Sarah Magruder Bruce, also died (aged 6y 4m). Lavinia #1 buried her elder daughter just a month after birthing another child, Henry Clagett Bruce. And he died a short 11 months later. In the end, Lavinia #2 was one of 5 surviving siblings.

Losing children wasn’t the only tragedy to hit this family. Although Dad was a successful lawyer, they lived in Cumberland, Maryland, and Maryland attempted neutrality during the Civil War. This guaranteed armies sweeping back and forth laying waste to the area. It also guaranteed brothers fighting against brothers.

Lavinia’s father was a staunch Union man, and one of her uncle's was Col. Robert Bruce, Union. But her aunt, Elizabeth Bruce, married Col. Walter Gwynn of the Confederacy and they were stuck in the siege of Vicksburg. After the Civil War, another uncle, Upton Scott Bruce, despite being married and having had 9 children before the war, spent the rest of his life alone in a wild state. According to Charles E. Hoye in his article on the Bruce Family in "Garrett County History of Pioneer Families" in the "Mountain Democrat" of Oakland, MD September, 1937 Upton Bruce, Jr. "led a half wild life in the woods east of Oakland until some ten years after the Civil War. How or why he came to this condition we do not know, but old residents of Oakland remember that Upton Bruce used to live with Lewis Thompson in winter, his board and clothes supplied by relatives in Cumberland. But in summer he would go out into the woods, build himself a little shelter and spend the days roaming in the woods; so he lived a harmless but useless life, shy of adult company but willing to talk to the curious boys who sought his retreat and marveled to see his long hair and beard and ragged clothes. His most faithful friend was Eli Trudy, a former Bruce slave who resided in Oakland after the Civil War. Old Eli did what he could for "Marse Upton", taking to him newspapers and food at intervals. - So ended the history of the Bruce's at Ryan's Glade."

The emotional effect of the Civil War on Lavinia’s family is impossible to know, but events around her were dramatic. When she was 13, Stonewall Jackson's brigade rode through Cumberland on its way to Gettysburg, and Lavinia's 16 year old brother, Maynadier Thistle Bruce, ran away from his Union supporting father, took a horse and joined the Confederates. He stuck with them, eventually joining McNeil’s Rangers, and afterwards settling in Texas. Many of Maynadier's escapades were written up in Four Years In the Stonewall Brigade, published in 1893 by John O. Casler.

At age 25, on 16 November 1875 in St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Cumberland, Lavinia married her 2nd cousin, Robert James Cresap. He had recently buried his first wife and a namesake son. His marriage to Lavinia may have been arranged as was her younger sister's, Grace Neill Bruce's marriage to Martin German which took place in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1885. Both Grace and another sister, Julianna Bruce (who married J. Byers Smith in Lavinia's living room in Cincinnati) moved to San Diego, California and eventually brought their widowed mother, Lavinia #1, to live with them there. My grandfather bought the family heirlooms from his Aunt Grace in the 1930's.

After their marriage, Lavinia #2 and Robert returned to his home in Cincinnati, Ohio where they lived for 11 years. They had five children. The first, another Robert Jr., died at 5 months. The 2nd child was our grandfather, Andrew Bruce Cresap. The 3rd, Eloise Josephine Cresap lived into her 40’s but, sadly, died a suicide. Her unhappy marriage to Charles B. Weltner, also was said to have been arranged. The 4th child of Lavinia and Robert, James Henry Cresap, died at 8. Lavinia didn’t mourn these two children because she was already dead when they died. She did not survive the birth of her 5th child. He was a 3rd Robert James Cresap, jr., and he died one day after birth. Lavinia #2 lingered for 4 more days, and died in Cincinnati, Ohio aged 36 years, one month and 25 days.

Grandad missed his mother always, and when he lived in the Philippines he had a portrait painted of her from the first small photo shown above. The portrait is presently in Orinda at the home of Ida May (Cresap) Sipe.

Grandad and his mother.

Happy Birthday, Lavinia.

JBG III about age 2, San Rafael, California

2010-12-16T17:41:00.000-08:00

John Baptiste Gilbert III -- 1915-1999

Heading for Hillmorton -- the plan

2010-06-17T19:22:00.000-07:00

We'll be meeting on 4th of July in Hillmorton, which was a village but is now part of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. "We" are whoever of the descendants of James Walton and Sarah Favel Atkin want and can come. We'll share a midday meal at Badseys Bistro http://www.badseys.co.uk/ which has a menu to please even the most foodie Northern Californian. The Bistro sits right by the Oxford Canal at the Hillmorton locks. The Vicarage of St. John the Baptist, a mid 13th century church, is a few humdred feet across the canal. And that is where Annie Walton and her five silblings were born and raised.

Birthday Bio -- Pi's mother, Ida May Rees Arnold, born 24 May 1855 Ohio, died 15 June 1891 Ohio

2010-05-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

Ida May Rees was the 2nd of three girls born to Elizabeth Rathmell and Benjamin Rees, a successful farmer at Rees Station near Groveport, Franklin County, Ohio (he served in the Ohio legislature).

Ida May front left in both pictures

Her mother died at 31 when Ida May was five. Her father remarried and she was close to her half sisters. Ida, like her mother, would die young leaving small children, including a five year old daughter, Grace, who would become our grandmother, Pi.

On New Year's Day 1879 Ida May married a school teacher, Charles Eber Arnold, who was born and raised on a farm nearby. He was well over six feet tall, she was tiny. He could hold an arm straight out, and she could walk under it. I have a dress of hers in a trunk. It is very small. Charles, alas, was not bound for success, though my mother said when she met him the one time, she thought him very handsome.

The young couple had a son, Eber Thomas, born on 16 Nov 1879. He lived only 8 months. They moved to Johnstown, Licking County Ohio where their 2nd child, Charles Garfield was born 17 March 1881, but husband Charles wanted to try his hand at sheep ranching in Kansas so the family headed west. A daughter, Elizabeth was born 11 Feb 1884 somewhere in Kansas, perhaps in Fall River where they settled long enough to have two more children, Grace (our grandmother, Pi) born 11 March 1886, and Clyde born 1 April 1889.

clockwise from left: Elizabeth, Charles Garfield, Grace, and Clyde.

Not only did the sheep not thrive, but Ida May sickened and returned to Ohio where she died at the home of a sister on 15 June 1891. The Eureka, Kansas newspaper, the Democratic Messenger noted on July 3rd, page 2 column 6 "Mrs. C.E. Arnold died in Ohio." After her death, Charles put the children in and out of orphanages when he felt unable to care for them.

Elizabeth

Grace, "Pi"

Clyde

Pi said the years in the orphanage were the happiest years of her childhood -- although her father taught her to read, he had a heavy hand, used her as a servant, didn't comb her hair, or provide her with shoes, baths, or regular meals. Both her brothers ran away -- Clyde as a young teenager who was never seen again. Older brother Charles Garfield surfaced in Utah married to a beautiful Mormon woman, Maud Winget, with whom he had four children before they divorced. He wrote a sad letter to her late in life regretting their parting. Elizabeth died a tragic death just after WWII -- an impoverished woman living in a single occupancy hotel in Oakland, she believed her son was coming home from the War so she climbed the hills of San Francisco to watch for his ship. She had been told that his ship sank near the Philippines just two weeks before the war ended, but she didn't believe he was lost. Pi was eventually taken under the wing of one of her father's sisters (I think it was Ada Orilla Arnold) and entered the Miami Valley Nursing School where she completed a three year course to became a certified RN.

Pi, a proud RN

Charles Eber Arnold married a 2nd time after Ida May died but he had no more children. The one time my mother and her siblings met their grandfather, it was after Pi and Grandad had returned from the Philippines. Mom was about 13. Charles was then living in Los Angeles (where he is buried) and working as an auto upholsterer. He had no interest in knowing his daughter, Grace, or any of her children and they never saw him again.

Ida May Rees Arnold's young death changed everything.

Charles Eber Arnold lived long but didn't thrive.

Ida May Rees Arnold is buried near Groveport in Walnut Hill Cemetery, Franklin County, Ohio. Her maternal grandparents, her daughter Elizabeth, and a plaque for Elizabeth's son lost in WWII are nearby.

Birthday Bio -- James William Cresap -- 11 May 1814 Maryland--26 July 1847 Louisiana

2010-05-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

A great grandson of immigrant Thomas Cresap, James William was born on 11 May 1814. He was our great great grandfather. Leaving Maryland not long after his father died James William traveled to New Orelans where his older brother, John Swearingen Cresap lived. Soon James Wm married a creole beauty, Martha Bauduc, daughter of Pulcherie Cassou. Pulcherie, born in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), had three children by Joseph Theodore Bauduc (and at least five by others): Louise Josephine Bauduc, Joseph Theodore Bauduc, and Martha Bauduc, all born in New Orleans, all gens de couleurs libres. James William Cresap died in Williamspoint, Point Coupee Parish 26 July 1847. Martha never remarried.

28 July 1847 Louisiana Courier, p 3
DIED
On the 26th inst. in the parish of Point Coupee, JAMES WILLIAM CRESAP, aged about 30 years a resident of this city. His friends and acquaintances are requested to attend his funeral this afternoon at 5 o'clock, from his late residence on Constance street, between Richard street and Felicity road, without further notice.
[Cumberland, Md, papers will please copy]

James William's widow and sons: Martha Bauduc Cresap, Robert James Cresap (Grandad's father), John Van Cresap

Heading to Hillmorton -- for July 4th

2010-05-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

This July 4th will be exactly 133 years 9 months and 4 days since Elizabeth Anne "Annie" Walton arrived in New York City. She was a servant to Catherine (Parkin) Fisher, wife of Morton Coates Fisher (an American engineer who had fallen for an English girl, married her, and was bringing her to California with him where he had been hired to build levees.)

They boarded the S.S. Brittanic in Liverpool and sailed to New York where they arrived 30 September 1876.

Annie had been in service at least since 1871 when the census counted her family in Hillmorton, a village now a part of Rugby, in Warwickshire, England. They mentioned her on the census as unmarried and "in service, out of place" which I guess means she wasn't living at home then.

After Annie settled in the United States, she wrote to her family for the rest of her life, but never saw England again. She met a fellow English immigrant in San Rafael, Marin County, California, Joseph Truman Sale. She married him in 1878 and stayed put. They had four daughters, the youngest my Grandmother, Willa Truman Sale. Granwilla was penpals with her cousins in England but never met them. In 1966 when I first visited England I met her first cousin, Tom Edward Hackett at the home of his daughter, Winnie (Hackett) Miles. Winnie's son, Roger Miles, had been a math professor at Cal, and when Winnie visited him, she contacted Granwilla and re-started the family connection. Since then, my parents, Jack and Lavinia Gilbert, my nieces, Debbie and Darcy Gilbert, my daughter Kim Schwarz, our English cousin Jim Hackett and his son Colin, cousin Gillian Miles and Roger, as well as Maurice and Gillian Walton and their daughters Kate and Liz, and Tony Walton's family, and Maurice's sister, Diana and her husband Mark and their daughter -- and others I'm probably neglecting -- have met here in the U.S. and there in England on numerous occasions.

So this July 4th in Hillmorton where Annie and her siblings were born and raised, those who can will meet again.

We're heading to Hillmorton!

Here's Annie before she left home.

104 years ago today -- The San Francisco Earthquake

2010-04-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

We Gilberts grew up hearing many stories from the old ones about the great SF quake of '06. Scott & Gilbert Manufacturing Chemists, the family business, had to relocate temporarily to Alameda, where our patriarch John Baptiste Gilbert I and family lived. Granwilla (then Willa Sale who later would married JBG I's son Louis) headed for the Alameda ferry, as usual, to go to class at Cal but was told at the dock that all classes were canceled and the male students enlisted to fight the fires in the city.

But for this year's 104th anniversary of that fateful day I'm going to tell of my Uncle "Owl" Kohn (Al, but he wore great square glasses and looked like and was called Uncle Owl). He was married to Kate Gilbert, our dad's aunt, and they threw the glorious Christmas Eve party all the years of the my childhood.

Uncle Owl was almost five years old the night the quake struck, and usually he slept on a cot in the attic near where the chimney rose through the roof, but that night he had gone to bed and a mouse had scurried across the floor of his room and scared him. So he crept down to his sister's room and begged her to let him sleep there.

The quake hit at 5:13 a.m. and leveled their chimney. If Albert had been sleeping in his bed, he would have been killed. All his life he said, "I was saved by a mouse."

The Kohn family lived for awhile in a makeshift tent city at the Marina that survivors set up while they watched the fires burn then rebuilt their homes.

Al's father, Bernard Kohn, was Secretary of the Luxembourg Benevolent Society, and received an official offer of help for Luxembourgians from the Netherlands Embassy.

Dear Sir,
    His Ex. Mr. Eyschew, Minister of State of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, requests me to see you in regard to extending in the name of his Government, some financial aid to such of your countrymen who are momentarily in distress as a result of the terrible calamity of April 18th last.
    Would it be convenient for you to call on me in Oakland so that we could talk the matter over any day or hour (including evenings) provided you let me know before hand so that I can act accordingly, will suit me!
    Awaiting your answer
I am, Dear Sir,
        your’s very truly,
            [Wolf Marsils]
        Consul for the Netherlands

Our legacy -- Honoring Confederate History Month -- with Ta-Nehisi Coates

2010-04-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

Keep in mind, if our ggrandmother Martha (Bauduc) Cresap had not lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, but across the river in Kentucky, despite having been a free person color from birth, she could have been sold down the river any time.

The Rise and Triumph of the One-drop Rule, a book by Frank W. Sweet documents the legal cases that defined the rules in various states over time.
from the book's abstract:
Genealogists were the first to learn that America’s color line leaks. Black researchers often find White ancestry. White genealogists routinely uncover Black ancestry. Molecular anthropologists now confirm Afro-European mixing in our DNA. The plain fact is that few Americans can truly say that they are genetically unmixed. Yet liberals and conservatives alike agree that so-called Whites and Blacks are distinct political “races.” When did ideology triumph over reality? How did America paint itself into such a strange corner?
Americans changed their concept of “race” many times. Eston Hemings, Jefferson’s son, was socially accepted as a White Virginian because he looked European. Biracial planters in antebellum South Carolina assimilated into White society because they were rich. Intermarried couples were acquitted despite the laws because some courts ruled that anyone one with less than one-fourth African ancestry was White, while others ruled that Italians were Colored. Dozens of nineteenth-century American families struggled to come to grips with notions of “racial” identity as the color line shifted and hardened into its present form.
This 542-page book tells their stories in the light of genetic admixture studies and in the records of every appealed court case since 1780 that decided which side of the color line someone was on. Its index lists dozens of 19th-century surnames. It shows that: The color line was invented in 1691 to prevent servile insurrection. The one-drop rule was invented in the North during the Nat Turner panic. It was resisted by Louisiana Creoles, Florida Hispanics, and the maroon (triracial) communities of the Southeast. It triumphed during Jim Crow as a means of keeping Whites in line by banishing to Blackness any White family who dared to establish friendly relations with a Black family. This analysis of the nearly 300 appealed court cases that determined Americans’ “racial” identity may be the most thorough study of the legal history of the U.S. color line yet published."

The parts I've read have been instructive, astounding, and heart breaking. We all carry this load.

Tombstone Tuesday -- sometimes a sad repetition

2010-04-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

When my grandmother Pi (Grace Arnold Cresap) was almost six, her mother (Ida May Rees Arnold) died. The same thing had happened to Ida May. When she was almost six, her mother (Elizabeth Rathmell Rees) had died, too. Two little girls, sad.

Ida May Rees born 24 May 1855 in Groveport, Franklin co. Ohio died 15 June 1891 in Ohio at the home of her sister. She married Charles Eber Arnold 1 Jan 1879 in Franklin co. They had five children: Eber Thomas (who died at 8 months), Charles Garfield, Elizabeth, Grace "Pi", and Clyde (who was one when he lost his mother).

Elizabeth Jane Rathmell born 11 Sept 1820 near Groveport, Franklin co, Ohio died there on 16 Feb 1860. She married Benjamin Leonard Rees. They had three daughters, Mary, Ida May, and Anna Elmyra.

Elizabeth and Ida May, mother and daughter, are both buried in Walnut Hill cemetery, Hamilton township, Franklin County, Ohio.

Tombstone Tuesday -- new mysteries from Find-A-Grave

2010-04-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

It's always good to check back with active websites. Find-A-Grave as of today has 44 million graves recorded. It even has a photo of my namesake, Lavinia Murdoch (Thistle) Bruce's tombstone -- she was the first of us four Lavinias. I knew she was there in Mt. Hope Cemetery in San Diego, but haven't yet managed a visit. She spent her last widowed years in San Diego living with her youngest daughter, Grace (Bruce) German and son-in-law, Martin German. I live with some of their furniture and the portraits of Lavinia's grandparents (Daniel Cresap Jr. and Elizabeth Swearingen) which she brought to with her to California from Maryland. Grace was the aged aunt who banged her cane on the floor and demanded my mother come up and listen to her stories of family. She intoned, "You're so proud of your Cresap heritage, but they were nothing. It is your Bruce family you should be proud of." My mother always regretted she didn't really listen to the stories.

I did NOT know until I saw this tombstone that Lavinia Murdoch Bruce nee Thistle is buried with a J. Byers Smith and a Rosamond Windsor Bruce. I don't yet know who they are, and I thought I was pretty up on this family. I am indebted to the photographer who posted this on the web, he reminds me that there is so much more to learn.

Lavinia Murdoch Thistle b. 2 April 1817 in Cumberland, Allegany, Maryland, d. 17 August 1896 in San Diego, California, m. 1 Nov 1842 by the Rev. Mr. A. Samuel Buel, Episcopal Minister to Henry Magruder Bruce (b. 10 July 1808 in Allegany County, d. 15 Sept 1865 Cumberland). Lavinia was the 5th child of 12 -- a daughter of Thomas J. Thistle (a Scots-Irish immigrant) and Julianna Cresap of Cumberland.

Easter 1952 at Hacienda Circle

2010-04-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

left to right: Joan, Jack, Cres, Vinnie

l to r: Joan, Jack, Cres, Vinnie

Easter was new clothes, white gloves, an egg hunt at dawn, church, leg of lamb with Granwilla, and an egg war with confetti-filled eggshells. We saved the shells for weeks -- ate many scrambled-egg meals so we could put a pin prick on one end of a raw egg, and chip out tiny hole on the other, then blow the raw white and yolk out to keep the shell. We dyed the eggs pink, yellow, lavender, and blue then stuffed confetti inside. What a war we had. After the egg hunt, we snuck up on one another and smashed eggs down on each others' heads. We lobbed confetti-filled eggs across the yard. Mom brought this tradition from her Spanish imbued Philippine childhood. How she laughed with joy as we cavorted.

Happy Easter family.

Tombstone Tuesday. Pi's mother, Ida May (Rees) Arnold 1855-1891 Ohio

2010-03-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Walnut Hill Cemetery, Hamilton township, Franklin County, Ohio. My great grandmother who died when my Grandmother "Pi" was five.

Ida May(Rees) Arnold left four children. She was the daughter of a successful farmer but her husband, Charles Eber Arnold, did not do so well. He was first a teacher, then took her (with her inheritance) to Kansas to farm sheep. That's where my grandmother, Grace Arnold, and her younger brother, Clyde, were born in Fall River, Greenwood County.

After Ida May's death at 36, her widower put his four children in and out of orphanages as he moved on. Pi said those were the happier times for her because they didn't beat you in the orphanage. When she was 16 she told her father, "Next time you hit me, I'll go out on the porch and scream for all the neighbors to hear," and he didn't hit her again. His sister steered her to Miami Valley nursing school where she became an RN. But when, years later, Pi brought her children to meet her father -- in the late 1920's when he was living in Los Angeles with his second wife -- he didn't care to know her or his grandchildren. My mother (who was 13 when she met her grandfather) said he was very tall and very handsome and utterly uninterested. They never saw him again.

Sadly, Clyde ran away when he was about 13 and no one ever knew what happened to him. Pi's older sister, Elizabeth, had one son (her story next Tombstone Tuesday) and died in grief over his WWII death. Oldest brother Charles Garfield Arnold, married a beautiful woman, Maud Winget, and had four children. But their marriage floundered over family and religious differences, and he regretted the loss bitterly. We have a very sad letter he wrote to her.

Pi used to say to me, "Vinnie, you just never know what will happen in this world." She surely knew.

Monday Map -- modern road maps yield clues to the past

2010-03-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

Granwilla's mother (Elizabeth Anne "Annie" Sale nee Walton) was born and raised in Hillmorton, Warwickshire, England. Annie came to California in 1876 as a lady's maid. In San Rafael she met and married William Truman Sale (also an English immigrant). None of her siblings left England, and the family has kept in touch for 138 years.

Annie's father. James Walton, and her grandfather, William Walton, worked on the Oxford Canal, a 78 miles long narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Coventry via Banbury and Rugby. When the railroad came through, Annie's father switched jobs and her brothers became life long RR men. The Walton family lived for many years in Hillmorton's St. John the Baptist parish house (the vicar prefering his much nicer place down the road).

A modern English road map circles St. John the Baptist for us and shows its proximity to the canal and the RR tracks. The map also allows us to see how the once self-contained town of Hillmorton became part of a sprawling Rugby

Our Waltons never lived more than 200 yards from a canal or a railroad. I marked in yellow both the Hillmorton rectory house and the street they moved to in Rugby to be near the train depot.

In 2006 cousin Jim Hackett and I visited the houses where our Walton family was enumerated on the 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891 English censuses. It was a grand day.

The rain stopped, and Jim I walked from the rectory house to the Hillmorton locks -- just a few hundred feet away. This July 4th we'll meet at Badsey's Cafe Bistro and Pub (on the right) to share a pint and toast our kin.

Modern canal boats at Hillmorton wharf.

An old map showing how the Oxford canal was straightened back in the day

Note: apologies to the authors of both the new and old maps -- I found them early in my genealogical days and neglected to note the sources, not a mistake I would make now.

Tombstone Tuesday -- Mausoleum -- another way to go

2010-03-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

Our John Baptiste Gilbert I, his 2nd wife, Kate Ruth Kelly, three of his children (JBG II aka Buv, Seabury Mastick, and Kathryn Ruth aka Auntie Kate) plus Buv's wife, Elsie Jorgenson, are here at Chapel of The Chimes in Oakland, California -- a beautiful Julia Morgan designed building.

Last year four of us made a visit. Mastick's daughter, Marcia, brought flowers -- he died of a burst appendix when she was only six. Her son-in-law got the ladder and vases while her younger daughter and I looked on. We all paid our respects. Although both Mastick and Auntie Kate were married, they are buried together -- brother and sister -- and their spouses buried elsewhere.

The above flowers are for Mastick and Kate.

JBG II "Buv" and Elsie.

Here rests our patriarch, JBG I, and his beloved 2nd wife, Kate Kelly. The spot above them is empty because my dad (JBG III) moved his father, JBG I's eldest son, Louis Jules Gilbert,to rest beside his wife, Willa Truman Sale, at St. Stephen's in Orinda. Louis died in 1941 and Granwilla in 1986. She wanted her Louis with her, and my dad (their son) complied.

Requiescant in pace

Monday miscellany -- time traveling with our ancestors

2010-03-15T06:28:00.000-07:00

One of the great thrills of genealogy is traveling through time and space to where and when our ancestors lived.  Finding their records and imagining their lives requires us to read history.  Haiti has been in the news, sadly, since the recent earthquake.  This half hour podcast is an excellent brief history of Haiti. Our San Domingue families -- Bauduc, Cassou, LaClotte -- evacuated to Santiago de Cuba from Jeremie sometime between Thermidor 15 (July 3) year 12 (1803) end of Brumaire (October) near the end of the revolution. They were expelled from Cuba six years later.  Between May and July of 1809 thirty-four vessels from Cuba brought nearly 5800 persons to New Orleans-- whites, free mulattoes, and black slaves in almost equal numbers. Our family was among them.

To hear the history, broadcast on 3 March 2010 at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/,(second tab down), go to rearvision and choose the "Download Audio" option.  It will start playing immediately.  Or use the link above. One of the authorities being interviewed is Dr. David Geggus from the U of Florida, Gainesville.

Monday miscellany -- Grandad obtains a patent

2010-03-01T09:05:00.000-08:00

Pi and Grandad (last week's tombstone Tuesday) were married 19 May 1914 in the Methodist Episcopal Church, Manila, Philippine Islands. They had their first child, our mother, Lavinia Cresap, on 15 June 1915 in Manila, and their second child, Florence Cresap on 8 April 1917 just two days before the following patent was issued:

1917 US Patent
Cresap, Andrew B., Manila, Philippine Islands.manufacture of agglutinated rice-kernels. No. 1,221,973; April 10; v. 237; p. 372.

He was eager to build a business having mustered out of the army, met Grace Arnold, married and decided to stay in the Philippines. As far as I know, it never had anything to do with manufacturing agglutinated rice-kernels -- rather, it was a trucking business from the docks. But we will explore this.

Next week: how "Candy" and Grace, two young people both coincidentally from Ohio, ended up in the Philippines in the first place. Sneak preview: he was a medic in the U.S. Army (first in Puerto Rico then in the Philippines) and she was a registered nurse (first in Hawaii then in the Philippines).

Tombstone Tuesday -- Pi and Grandad -- easy to mow over in death, but my heroes in life

2010-02-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

Andrew Bruce Cresap born 11 July 1878 Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio

died 8 April 1858 Berkeley, Alameda, California

Grace (Arnold) Cresap b. 11 Mar. 1886 Fall River, Greenwood, Kansas

died 5 December 1972 Moraga, Contra Costa, California

Sunset View Cemetery, Berkeley, Alameda Co.,California

Pi and Grandad

married 19 May 1914 Methodist Episcopal Church, Manila, Philippine Islands

Tombstone Tuesday -- my grandmother's grandmother

2010-02-15T20:13:00.000-08:00

Walnut Hill cemetery, Hamilton Township, Franklin Co., Ohio
Elizabeth Jane (Rathmell) Rees, born 11 Sept 1829 near Groveport, Franklin Co., Ohio, the daughter of Thomas Rathmell and Mary Smith. She married Benjamin Leonard Rees on 14 April 1853 in Franklin Co.
They had three daughters--one, Ida May Rees married Charles Eber Arnold -- my grandmother Grace (Arnold) Cresap's parents. So...Elizabeth was my grandmother Pi's grandmother. Elizabeth died at age 30 leaving three small girls who were eventually raised by a loved stepmother, Sarah (Glick) Rees, who had six children with Benjamin L. Rees. Below is a picture of Ida May Rees with three of her half sibs.

front left, Ida May Rees (Pi's mother-b. 24 May 1855)); right, Florence (unknown); rear left are three of Ida May's half sisters, Alice, Grace, and Edith Rees; Ohio -- tintype -- c.?

Tombstone Tuesday -- St. Louis Cemetery #1, New Orleans, Louisiana

2010-02-09T07:36:00.000-08:00

Our 2nd great grandfather, James William Cresap, probably is here in St. Louis Cemetery #1 in the small section in back for Protestants. He died 16 July 1847. His wife Martha Bauduc's grandmother, who James William knew well, rests in St. Louis Cemetery #2. She died in 1843.

The grandmother (my 4th great), Marie Francoise Laurence LaClotte, gens de couleur libres, was born about 1768 in Pestel, Jeremie, San Domingue (now called Haiti). In 1803 Laurence and her daughter, Pulcherie Cassou, fled the Haitian revolution for Cuba sometime between Thermidor 15 (July 3) and Brumaire (October) year 12, as the French calendar adopted after their revolution put it. Some of Laurence's siblings also fled to Cuba: Jeanne, Eugenie, Maria Collette, and Jean Baptiste Edouard. They all lived in Santiago de Cuba for about six years, but when the Spanish kicked the French out of Cuba (1809-1810) they all fled again to New Orleans.

There were other siblings who stayed on the plantation in Pestel with their mother, Marie Louise Samore dite* Bumba: Georges Toussaint, Emilie Melanie, Josephine dite Zelmire, St.Cyr, and Elizabeth. Their father, Jacques Pierre LaClotte, a Grand Blanc, had recently died. Edouard, who came to New Orleans and fought in the battle of New Orleans under Andrew Jackson, eventually returned to Haiti.

I'm pleased to tell you all that the one cousin I am in touch with in Haiti, Didier Gilles, who descends from both Georges and Zelmire, survived the recent earthquake, as did his family. Alas, their house did not.

On November 1st each year, the folks of New Orleans celebrate their dead.

*dite is a French term meaning "called" so it denotes a nickname.

Tombstone Tuesday -- Cuffy's Cove Cemetery, Mendocino County, California

2010-02-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

The original Hacienda house about 1950

2010-01-21T12:09:00.000-08:00

Gilberts at Tahoe mid 1920's

2010-01-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

left to right: Kate (Kelly) Gilbert, our Dad -- Jack Gilbert (aka JBG III), unk,unk,unk, Annette Gilbert (later Braue), Kate Gilbert (later Kohn), and our patriarch, the original JBG -- John Baptiste Gilbert.

Tombstone Tuesday -- two tombstones for the same person, in two counties

2010-01-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

Last week I put up the tombstone of Charles Arnold, our grandmother "Pi" 's great grandfather. It was pretty darn hard finding her grandmother, the wife of Charles' son, Jacob Arnold, because Pi's grandmother's name was Mary Jane Smith. Believe me, it doesn't get harder than looking for a Mary Smith.

The one clue we had was that Jacob Arnold had two wives and that his two wives were first cousins, and that his first wife was named Orilla Smith. Well THAT is easier than Mary. So I looked for Orilla Smith hoping it would lead me to Mary. Eventually it did, but along the way I came across a phenomenon that may not be as odd as it seems -- two tombstones for the same person. Below is a very pregnant Mary Jane Smith with her husband, Jacob Arnold.

Orilla died at 33 in 1850 after having 5 children with Jacob Arnold. She was buried in her father's family plot in the Copeland/Curtiss cemetery in Genoa twp, Delaware County, Ohio -- just on the edge of a 20th century reservoir. Jacob then married her 1st cousin Mary Smith and had seven more children -- one of them being Pi's father Charles Eber Arnold.

When Jacob died in Madison township, Franklin County, Ohio, his children by Orilla erected an obelisk to him. They put Orilla as his wife on one side. So...Orilla has two tombstones. Our Mary Jane Smith Arnold has a small plaque on the ground near the obelisk. I leave it to others to explain it all. I just present it here. And just for fun I present a picture of our grandmother "Pi" (named by my big brother Jack who tried to call her what she called him, "Sweetie Pie," and could only get out the "Pi" and the name stuck.)

Tombstone Tuesday

2010-01-04T19:59:00.000-08:00

Charles Arnold, born in Morristown, NJ, married Elizabeth Wolf in Morristown, moved to Ohio in a covered wagon, active member of Presbyterian church in Ohio, died in son Victor's arms, buried in Galena, Berkshire township, Delaware County, Ohio. My maternal 3rd great grandfather. He is not buried in the same cemetery as his wife, Elizabeth, who predeceased him. She is in Jersey Cemetery, Licking County, Ohio.

reminder to self: don't creat genealogy blog while under deadline for book

2009-12-23T20:18:00.000-08:00

Christmas at Hacienda Circle. Dreams of the future and nods to the past.

December 7th, 1941 -- "Nice going on the part of our secretary, Miss Cresap..."

2009-12-07T05:18:00.000-08:00

Tombstone Tuesday -- a Bogus tombstone? Hardly

2009-11-30T18:37:00.001-08:00

The attached NY Times article from 1901 (click on the headline above) includes a biography of Michael Cresap who died of disease at age 33 while leading troops during the Revolutionary War. The article starts out talking about two absolutely bogus tombstones in Trinity Churchyard in Manhattan, then turns to Michael's story. They tell it faithfully, but the reader is left to believe that this tombstone is also bogus which is not true. What IS true is that it was erected later than the time Michael died. But he is certainly buried there. Earlier in his life he was accused of murdering the Indian Chief Logan's family and Thomas Jefferson even read the event into the Congressional Record to make it live forever in infamy. That too was untrue. What was true was that Michael was a charismatic young man who died much too young. He was beloved by his troops, the original Yankee Doodle Dandies, and his funeral was written up in the New York City papers with illustrations of the parade. Michael's younger brother, Daniel Cresap, Jr. who served as a lieutenant under him in the Revolution is our 4th great grandfather. Daniel's portrait and that of his wife Elizabeth Swearingen are in places of honor in my dining room.

The below from Tercentenary History of Maryland, Vol. I, Matthew Page Andrews, at 542-544, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago and Baltimore (1925).

    When the letter from Congress authorizing the enlisting of two companies of Maryland "light infantry" had reached Frederick, it was resolved that the companies be raised immediately, the first to be under the command of Captain Michael Cresap, with Thomas Warner, Joseph Cresap, Jr., and Richard davis, Jr., lieutenants; the second to be under Thomas Price, captain; with Otho Holland Williams and John Ross Key as lieutenants. Michael Cresap has but recently returned from active Indian fighting in what may be called the first step towards the acquisition by the United States of the great Northwest, the second step being the expedition of George Rogers Clark, and the third and last the donation of that territory by Virginia, in deference to the insistence of Maryland; for Maryland, as will be seen, refused to accede to the first Union until this territory was so ceded. Michael Cresap had been falsely accused of murdering the family of Chief Logan (Cf. Brantz Mayer's Tah-Gah-Jute, and Jacob's Life of Cresap). He was the youngest son of Colonel Thomas Cresap.

    Apparently there was magic power in the Cresap name; so that the mere word that Michael Cresap was to command one of these companies brought daring riflemen 100 miles and more from the farthest reaches of western Maryland. They had left behind in the forest their families and their all to march to the far-distant camp at Cambridge.

    Not to be outdone, the nearby Virginians were organizing under Captain Daniel Morgan at Morgan's Spring only twenty-five miles away. The rival companies of Virginia and Maryland riflemen met at Frederick, and it became a point of pride as to which company should beat the others in the race to be the first at Boston. In Force's American Archives there is to be found a "letter to a gentleman in Philadelphia" dated Fredericktown, August 1, 1775, which thus describes the appearance of Cresap and his men: "I have had the happiness of seeing Captain Michael Cresap marching at the head of a formidable company of upwards of one hundred and thirty men from the mountains and back woods, painted like Indians, armed with tomahawks and rifles, dressed in hunting-shirts and moccasins." The writer, himself perhaps a visiting Philadelphian of the then "effete East," was particularly amazed at a special display of the marksmanship of these men, described as follows: "A clap-board, with a mark the size of a dollar, was put up; they began to fire off-hand, and the by-standers were surprised, few shots being made that were not close to or in the paper. When they had shot for a time in this way, some lay on their backs, some on their breast or side, others ran twenty or thirty steps, and firing, appeared to be equally certain of the mark."

    Although Cresap was then in such ill health that he fell a victim to a fever less than three months later, his company was among the first to reach Cambridge. Cresap and Morgan marched together from Cambridge to Roxbury and their arrival was described by Thacher, in part, as follows: "They are remarkably stout and hardy men; many of them exceeding six feet in height. * * * They are now stationed on our lines, and their shot have frequently proved fatal to British officers and soldiers who expose themselves to view even at more than double the distance of common musket shot."

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

2009-11-28T19:33:00.000-08:00

Tombstone Tuesday

2009-11-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

Occasionally while visiting ancestors' graves I pull over to snap a picture of an unusual tombstone. This one is in Rose Hill Cemetery, Cumberland, Allegany, Maryland. I have cousins there -- Cresap, Bruce, Magruder, Swearingen, and more -- but this tombstone is for a stranger. Quite lovely in its way, like an offering.

Monday Maps: Family maps by Gregory A Boyd

2009-11-23T13:46:00.000-08:00

If you have a family covered in one of the hundreds of family map books published so far by Gregory A Boyd, you are very lucky. The books published by Arphas http://www.arphax.com/ show entrymen, dates of purchase, waterways, cemeteries and so much more. If you use them in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management web site at http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/ you may be rewarded with printable original deeds. I recently used them while working on a families in Guernsey County, Ohio and Carroll County, Indiana. These books were invaluable.

Genealogy can be painful

2009-11-19T11:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.newsweek.com/id/218065Genealogy exposes things sometimes better left alone, it also exposes things that need to be seen and held close even if they hurt. I understand Raina Kelley's feelings here, but I hope she keeps on with her ancestral diggings. What will stab her heart one day will soothe it the next. We are now. They were then. We are all of a piece.

Tombstone Tuesday

2009-11-16T16:49:00.000-08:00

Dead at 31 after birthing eight babies, moving west by wagon, then living in a pioneer cabin...and the History of Franklin and Pickaway Counties Ohio (Williams Bros 1896--republication 1980) dares say she died from a "feeble consitution." I'm not buying it.

"...Charles Arnold, son of Jacob and Elizabeth Arnold was born September 29, 1788. He married Elizabeth Wolf, daughter of Thomas Wolf, who was born August 29, 1788, and about the year 1818 emigrated, with their small family to the then wilderness of Ohio. The box of the wagon in which they traveled was made their home until a cabin could be built. With good health, but with no capital, other than his hands, with which to gain a living for himself and family, he entered upon the hardships and privations of a pioneer's life, under which the feeble constitution of his wife sank until she died, April 2, 1823, leaving behind her eight children, the youngest but fifteen months old. These children were: Jane H., Abraham B., Margaret, Charles, Stephen, Jacob, Harriet, and Victor..."

Monday Maps

2009-11-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

Click on the title today Monday Maps, then bookmark on your toolbar the mapping page that comes up -- it's an essential resource.

Because most records in the United States are kept at the county level, it is essential to know what county your ancestor lived in during a particular time. Their records will be found at the county seat of the county they lived in AT THE TIME the records were made despite earlier or later county boundary changes.

Boundary lines for towns, counties, and states evolve --e.g., some counties simply disappear or are are gobbled up and renamed as land in nearby towns or states -- we can lose our family records despite our ancestor never having moved.

My immigrant Cresap ancestor, Thomas, lived in Oldtown, Maryland for over 40 years. During that time he lived in the Maryland western territory, Frederick County, Washington County, and finally Allegany County. All that time he was in the same house on the same meadow.

First find your town either on Wikipedia or using the "Place" search on the The Family History Library catalogue page http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp I have the library catalogue bookmarked on my toolbar next to a folder marked maps where I keep the 101 site and other marvelous maps. The place search is a quick way to find what county a town is in.

Then use the FREE AND ESSENTIAL online map resource from Family History 101 at http://www.familyhistory101.com/map_county.html This is a great website for many reasons, but just play with the maps. Go to your state, pick a year, watch the county boundary changes, and find your folks.

Monday Map

2009-11-01T17:37:00.000-08:00

After just saying I don't go across the pond, I must amend. I do go across the sea to Haiti, formerly known as Saint Domingue. We have creole kin from there, and other kin I'm seeking who I suspect to be creole. One branch is on my mother's Cresap side, the other on my father's Gilbert side. Have I told you how much I love being a mutt? Well, I do!

This map from the Library of Congress online collection shows our LaClote and Cassou plantations right next door to each other. The map is titled

Plan du canton de Plimouth et partie des Baradéres. Par Fregnel

Though I found these families in New Orleans, this map shows where they lived before that. Long live creoles! Thank you Maurice in St. Louis for finding this and so much more.

Across the pond...or not.

2009-10-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

The trail leads from you to your two parents, okay maybe more with step-parents and foster-parents, but still it is a pretty straightforward route. But you have 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 gggrandparents, 32 ggggrandparents and on.

Early on I decided to stop at the pond.

I research back to my immigrant ancestor on any given line then stop. The single exception at this point has been my English cousins.

My grandmother Granwilla's parents are relatively recent immigrants. William Truman Sale and Elizabeth Anne "Annie" Walton came to California in the 1870's. They met in San Rafael, Marin county where they married and raised 4 daughters. They were the only ones in their respective families to come to the US. Granwilla and her sisters were required to be pen pals with their English cousins on their mother's side. The next generation, my father and his sister, were expected to keep the tradition going. I have done the same. When I visited Europe in 1966 I met one of my grandmother's 1st cousin pen pals, Tom Edward Hackett, 86. Granwilla was then 79. They never did meet in person.

Over the years I've gotten to know a few cousins well. We correspond and visit when we can. Tom's grandson and I spent a day in 2006 visiting all the houses our ancestors listed on their English census records going back to 1851. They lived in Warwick, Rugby and Hillmorton, Warwickshire.

These are Tom's children, Ted William Hackett and Winifred "Winnie" (Hackett) Miles.

Monday Map

2009-10-26T09:42:00.000-07:00

Maryland -- with western county boundary change dates, and notes I've added. This is the most useful map I've found for western Maryland basic research, and I found it early. Too early to have known to mark the source. I haven't found it again, but when I do I will thank the mapmaker profusely.

After the Bombs -- The Power of WWII, part 2

2009-10-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

Bombs Fall – Real Bombs
One month and 15 days after Vin moved to Hawaii the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. They strafed the ground where she stood at Schofield Barracks staring up as the planes flew over.

Jack was in New York City for work when he heard news of the attack. He went to a pay phone and called Hawaii. Vin answered, and he heard her voice. “You’re safe,” he said. “Yes.” Then the operator cut in to ask if this was an official call and the phone went dead.

War and Love

Jack was called up to active duty with the 114th Infantry. Confusion about what to do with civilians at Schofield Barracks reigned for almost 4 months, but Good Friday, 3 April 1942, Lavinia and Mary Alice sailed together on the Aquitania from Honolulu to San Pedro, California. The Cunard liner zigzagged its way across the Pacific to avoid attack arriving April 11th . Too big to dock in San Pedro the ship anchored in the harbor and ferried passengers to shore from Catalina Island. Vin and her friend made their way north to Berkeley.

Two months later Jack and Lavinia were married.

Given a 2 week medical leave to take care of the “jeep seat” he had acquired since being in the Infantry, Jack asked and Vin agreed. “I got him in a weak moment,” she always joked, “and my first wifely duties included bandage changes.” Her wedding dress was a formal dress off the rack, her veil borrowed.

The next three years were dominated by love and war.

Before the bombs -- The power of WWII, part 1

2009-10-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Whether our parents would have married eventually is an unknown. What is known is that the bombing of Pearl Harbor made it happen as it did. I’ve always believed that World War II was the most powerful influence that shaped our family.

Boy meets Girl
Lavinia Cresap and Jack Gilbert were set up as blind date bridge partners by mutual friends. They enjoyed the evening, but she almost didn’t date him again at all. They commuted to San Francisco on the same train which went down Claremont Avenue in Berkeley and Oakland then across the Bay Bridge to SF. She had gotten on one stop before he and saw him coming down the aisle toward where she sat. She smiled up at him as he walked right by, oblivious of her. She blushed with embarrassment. A few nights later he showed up at her house with flowers to begin his wooing. He simply never saw her on the train, his mind already on work.

Their courtship included many dates, but one where she said he kept asking if she didn’t want a drink – an aperitif, wine with dinner, an after dinner brandy. This was at the Brookdale Lodge at Boulder Creek in the Santa Cruz mountains where they had gone with married friends to spend the weekend. She said, “You’re trying to get me drunk to seduce me.” He joked, “Candy’s dandy, but liquor’s quicker” which set off her alarms bells for a good long while. She famously told her dear friend (later my Godmother), “Whatever I do, don’t let me marry him.”

Jack and Lavinia had both graduated from Cal in 1937 but didn’t meet there. Soon after graduation he began his work with his lifelong employer, Zellerbach Paper Company, and she began work for Dupont as a bookkeeper. In ROTC as an undergraduate he was already on active reserve with the army. His job involved a lot of travel – over his working life perhaps two weeks out of every month. And he wasn’t all that eager to settle down.

Boy Loses Girl
Her parents, Andrew Bruce Cresap and Grace (Arnold) Cresap thought their eldest daughter needed to get away. So in 1941 when her good friend, Mary Alice married Carl Kindt and moved to Schofield Barracks where he was stationed in the Army, Vin’s parents convinced her to sail for Hawaii and stay there awhile – keep Mary Alice company, get a new job, and maybe meet someone new.

16 Oct 1941 Lavinia Cresap, 26, sailed alone on the S.S. Lurline from San Francisco to Honolulu. She arrived Oct 22nd.

Timelines--breathing with kin--past, present, past

2009-10-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

A basic rule of family research is to start with what you know and work backwards through time. But a few years back I heard a talk by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak where she defended a sort of accordion style of research where we sometimes hop over a generation then work our way back toward the present. It is a style that suits me well. I recall my mother playing the harmonica as I do this because researching like this is almost like breathing in and out to hear the music of our ancestors' lives passing through time.

A helpful tool to keep things straight is with timelines. I start each one with a birth or a marriage. Some of my timelines run to 50 pages because I attach my sources to them as well. I'm hoping this will help when I'm ready to write my family histories.

A fun way to see what was happening in the world when your ancestor lived in on http://www.ourtimelines.com/
Just plug in your kin's birth and death dates and the site generates a world events timeline.

Tombstone Tuesday

2009-10-20T05:05:00.000-07:00

My 3rd great grandparents, Robert Cresap (21 Sept 1767 - 4 Sept 1827)) and Susannah Stull Swearingen (4 Aug 1773 - 8 June 1851), first cousins who married 9 May 1795, repose 3 miles south of Cresaptown, Allegany, Maryland, Rte.200-S, Rawlings. Near the "Wilson" farm, beside the railroad tracks and the Potomac River.

I come from the youngest of their 11 children, James William Cresap, who went south to New Orleans and married a beautiful creole woman, Martha Bauduc.

Sheriff George Swearingen, Susannah's nephew, said he and his family were on their way to visit Aunt Susannah on 8 Sept 1828 when his wife's horse stumbled and she was killed. But their toddler, Mary, said daddy hurt mommy and officials who exhumed Mary Catherine (Scott) Swearingen's body agreed. George fled with his mistress Rachel Cunningham who he had scandalously kept in Hagerstown, but he was recognized and apprehended on a flatboat entering New Orleans and was returned to Maryland. After an 8 day trial he was convicted. On 2 Oct 1829 over 6,000 came to see George on the gallows on the west side of Will's Creek. He had been one of the most popular men in (then) Washington County, Maryland. I'm betting our James William Cresap, 15, came to watch his 1st cousin, George, 29, hang.

*George Swearingen's confession is printed in full in Chris H. Bailey's The Stulls of Millsborough--a Genealogical History of John Stull "The Miller" - Pioneer of Western Maryland. Publisher Chris H. Bailey, 31 Prospect St, New Hartford, CT, 06057 (Mar 6, 2000).
**On 15 June 2005 I read the original transcript of his trial dated 25 Sept 1829 at the Washington County Historical Society, 135 W. Washington St. Hagertown, Maryland 21740

Red dots are where we Schwarz's have lived

2009-10-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

Where do you go, I asked, with genealogy?

2009-10-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

I probably was born to this, and certainly named to it.

My birth year, 1945, the most popular girl's name in the US was Mary followed by Linda. The top ten included Susan and Sharon. It did not include Lavinia. My maternal Grandad's mother, Lavinia Murdoch (Bruce) Cresap died when he was seven, and he named his first born, my mother, for her. And I was named for my mother. I would learn later that Lavinia Murdoch Bruce was named for her mother, Lavinia Murdoch Thistle, who also married a Cresap. I had to explain my name on the first day of school every year. "What an unusual name," the teachers would exclaim.

But I only got into genealogy ten years ago, right after my father died. My mother had died 16 months earlier and us four children had the task of dividing up their stuff. I "the family historian" as Dad said, was willed the boxes of photos, and my mom's DAR files. I stared at them and almost put them in storage. But my friend Pam offered a trip out of town. "Just to get away," she said. She was going to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City to do genealogy which she had been interested in for years. "What's genealogy," I asked, "and where does that take you? She answered brightly, "I think you'll like it. It takes you anywhere you want to go. That's the joy of it." "But I don't know how to do it," I whined. "I'll teach you," she replied.

I grabbed a binder from my newly inherited boxes and flew to Utah. I didn't know what was in it, just that it had to do with my mother's mother, "Pi" (short for sweetie pie which she called my brother, her first grandchild, and he tried to call her the same but only got the "pi" out and the nickname stuck). We lived with my Cresap grandparents in Berkeley off and on during the first 5 years of my life, and I adored her so I took the notebook with Grace Arnold written on it.

This slim blue binder contains tintypes, old letters from my grandmother's aunt to her, sepia photos, baptism certificates and more. I would never risk traveling with these original documents now, but I knew nothing then and into the library I went with my beginnings. I grasped pretty quickly that I had entered a world I loved, a world of transitions, epiphanies, and movement. I have learned that Genealogy will break your heart, and it will mend it again. So many things I've collected over the years fit into it -- old maps, for instance.

Right away I learned I'd be tracing migrations, and that records are mostly kept at the county level. So I bought a big US map with present county boundaries on it and I labeled my families with color -- red for Dad's dad, (Gilbert) yellow for Dad's mom (Sale), green for Mom's dad (Cresap), and blue for Mom's mom (Arnold). I outlined the places each family lived in with their color -- the rainbow being California. Then I slowly began to mark their migrations west.

Tombstone Tuesday

2009-10-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

Jude visits Thomas Cresap, his immigrant 8th great grandfather

Our sweet sixteen great great grandparents

2009-10-10T20:28:00.000-07:00

Gilbert/Hosack, Duggan/Croke, Sale/Truman, Walton/Atkin, Cresap/Bauduc, Bruce/Thistle, Arnold/Smith, Rees/Rathmell. We also have a passel of early Cresap/Swearingen marriages and Magruder, Key, Farrell and Boisfeuillet kin plus others.

John Baptiste Gilbert III "Jack" and Lavinia Cresap "Vin" wed 21 June 1942 in her parents' living room, Berkeley CA

2009-10-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

My 1st post

2009-10-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

Welcome,
to Hacienda Circle, built in 1949, the home of a motley crew with DNA from England, France, Scotland, Ireland, Africa, Germany and Holland. By boat, wagon, and RR they came west -- speaking English, Gaelic, French, German, and Dutch. Some were slaves, some owned slaves. Black, white and both, Catholic and Protestant, they settled in then left cities -- Savannah, Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, New Orleans, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Alameda, Berkeley. They left farms in Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. And after all this, we ended up at Hacienda Circle. I am very grateful.