Ancestors on the move

Movers and shakers...very interesting to think about.

Many farmers and wives and children get up every morning, and feed the animals and go about their chores.  Daily work is determined by season often.  For the children there is school during the months their families don't need their hands helping with crops.
Yes, I'm again talking about my ancestors.

Consider how many people depended upon the land for their livelihood for so many years.  These were the people who settled, built buildings, tilled land, planted, tended, harvested, and put up the results of their labors for winter food.  They would feed animals daily, milk cows or goats, make sure there was pasture for them, and work from sunup to sundown...then eat good home prepared, and home raised foods.

These people kept doing that year after year, all their lives.

Why would they leave and take off with a wagon load of goods to make a new place into home?

Several thoughts come to mind.  Politics.  Markets.  There may have been increasing prices of taxation, or the area where they lived no longer was affordable for some reason or another.  Maybe the price of a cash crop suddenly plummeted.  Was there a war?  A depression because of a war?

Drought, or floods.  The area might have had several years of poor crops, in which people might have hoped somewhere else had better land.  Did they know about rotating crops or just use up the land with what was most easily grown and sold?  Just because they were my ancestors doesn't mean they had educations as good as I did.

Disease, persecution (religious tolerance not always being practiced), and lack of opportunity could have also played a part in the decisions to "go west." Or south in the case of many of my family members.

From New England, ships went to Florida and then New Orleans and Texas.  From Virginia and North Carolina, wagons took pioneering families to Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Texas.

And when I say opportunities, I am reminded that when families had 12 children, many of them would grow up and marry, but all the land had already been claimed, all the businesses that could support that community had already been established, so young people obviously felt drawn to a new frontier.

Then there were the soldiers who had fought for their country, only to be paid in land in areas that had not been settled yet, so they took their families there in order to prosper.

Did my ancestors know a trade or have a skill which would have been welcome in a new community?

Today, we don't have those opportunities, so we seldom think about how the people must have thought before leaving behind all they knew.  But we do know how a mobile society means we no longer live where we grew up, by the time most of us retire.

So families are scattered to the four winds.  And with the internet, I can again feel somewhat close to my family members...indeed, become friends with people all around the globe. 

Ah the Somerset Bowers

Alexander G. Swasey Sr. has been the subject of much of my posts lately.  His father was Jarmathmel Bowers Swasey. That Bowers is the direction we go today...

His mother of course was a Bowers of Somerset, MA, married to Joseph Swasey (1714-1801)

She was daughter of Jonathan Bowers; he had been born in Cambridge, Charlestown, MA, but lived in Somerset, and he was one of the well to do founders of the town.

I will try to bring a you copy of the news article from 1905 from the Boston Sentinel, which scathingly speaks of Jonathan's rise to riches, and then speaks mainly about his youngest son and his adventures.

But Mary Bowers Swasey is mentioned in it as well.

Oh fiddlesticks...it's a huge PDF file, which I've been able to copy into WORD as an image, but it doesn't translate to jpg, so can't show the original newspaper to you here.  I would love to!  It's so fun of ads, and pictures of various Bowers' houses...I'll keep working on it.

Jonathan Bowers house, 616 Main St, Somerset, built 1723

And there was a quilt done of the various historic homes which includes this view of the house.

It's third down from the top, second column from right, if you can try to focus upon it.

Part of the original Bowers property is the grave yard, established in 1708.

 Mary is bottom of right hand column.

There are some wonderful original census reports of Somerset, which will give me a glimpse at how the Bowers and Swaseys were living close to each other...and perhaps I can guess at birth date for Mary.  I only know she appears in 1823 in the Boston directory as a resident of a boarding house, as widow of Joseph Swasey.

Happy Birthday Cayenne

She's 16 today, so I celebrate that my oldest granddaughter is now a beautiful young woman!

Her nuclear family has changed drastically in the last year, gaining a new step father and step brother.  But she is still close to her older brother, Will, who is holding her above.

I've given a few historic pics of her over here.  

Root beer

A lovely accompaniment to a hamburger at lunch in Saluda, NC the other day. Sometimes the small things give pleasure in our lives.

On camera

Way before the days of selfies, people were using film as individuals to record the events around them.

My father, George Rogers, Jr. is the subject of today's collection, recalling some of the poses, or perhaps more candid photos that were taken of him.

Changing a tire in 1936

Not sure which of the Rogers brothers the man with the camera is, but he's obviously unaware that another camera has caught his efforts to capture the moment.  Inner tubes, that was the secret to tires in those days...and out on rough land, a puncture often easily occurred.

I offer this as a Sepia Saturday link Here.  Check out what others have come up with on this theme...or not.

My father on his own wheels, with his eyes closed, probably around 4 years old, with two years older brother Chauncey closer to camera.

A younger photo, where older brother has the vehicle (what a car! while it looks as if my father has a bucket on his head, or is that a hat?

At last there's a younger brother, James, being held by Gummy (Ada Rogers) and (supposedly) my father stands (in uniform) gazing at the subject of this photograph with a disdainful look.  I am not sure this is actually my dad, who would have been 8 years older than James, thus around 9 for this pic, and this chubby fellow looks closer to 6...but it's my guess, and these people aren't around to ask any more.  For now, I'll let my father laugh over the mistake, if it is one.  This frame house of that porch in Fort Worth, TX, did burn in a fire, and was replaced by a brick one soon after.

Here are the posers...in San Antonio...Poppy (George Sr,) Alex, Chauncey and George Jr. who seems to think he's an Indian.  (Incidentally, in Texas our family would say "Elick" for Alex.

My father holding a rifle, on a ranch.  I don't know what they were hunting in 1936...and the Dumble's ranch would have been Poppy's boss' property.

But my father did get his picture with a deer on the fender of his car.

George Jr. hit a deer

I wonder why the caption has said he "hit" a deer.  I hope it means he hunted it, rather than hit it with the car...

The Swaseys of New England etc

In honor of Alexander G. Swasey Sr, whose birthday is today, I continue to research his roots in New England.

Benjamin Swasey's book, Genealogy of the Swasey Family, (1910) is offered where it mentioned my ancestors...photos of the ebook.

 

Entry 84 is Jerathmel Swasey...listed as Seventh Generation, a son of Jerathmel, Joseph, Samuel, Joseph, Joseph and John

Each of those fathers names represent a generation.

Thus:

1. John Swasey

2. Joseph

3. Joseph

4. Samuel

5. Joseph

6. Jerathmel

7. "Jarathmel, sea captain," (the number 84 with details given above) b. unknown date, "Swansea, MA, d. bef 1847, m. Eliza B. Davis, b. May 11, 1798, d. in New York City, 1873, dau of Benjamin and Sarah (Bowers) Davis.  She was app. adm. of his estate Oct 5, 1847. He commanded sailing vessels in the East Indies trade."

How was he related to my ancestors, since he wasn't a direct grandfather apparently?

Before working with his children (8th generation) I chose to continue the 7th generation since Swaseys arrived in America.  At the bottom of the same page will be found number 85, and "Alexander G. Swasey, sea captain."  The same parentage is given so he is brother to 84 Jarathmel who died around 1847.

"B. in Swansea Mass, Sept 10, 1784, d. in Newport, RI, Oct 28, 1861; m. Ruth Woodward, b. Sept 6, 1788, d. Mar 4, 1842. 

"He was a wood carver by trade but engaged for many years in command of ship to the coast of China."

Here's the next page in the book:

Children of Alexander G. Swasey and Ruth Woodward Swasey

 I again am going to offer the pages of the children, but skip their details and keep looking at AG Swasey's seventh generation.  (You'll notice a different numbering system is used for each generation in B.Swasey's book.)

Children continued, of AG and Ruth Woodward Swasey

Last listing of children of AG and Ruth Woodward Swasey

Seventh generation Stephen Swasey, not a son of Jerathmel Swasey but of Samuel Swasey, who must have been his brother.

So 86 Stephen Simmons Swasey was a cousin to AG Swasey Sr. since their fathers were brothers.  Again I chose to not follow that line, since my focus is to figure out the first 7 generations.

I also found it interesting in Mr. B. Swasey's book that he had a source who was still alive when he interviewed her, in 1903, the granddaughter of 84 Jerathmel.  Another cousin.  But a great primary resource.

Grandmommy

Happy birthday to Mozelle Booth Miller Webb Munhall
 b. Sept. 9, 1897 Hillsboro, TX,
m 8.7.15 Albert Webb (1891 – 1919)
m. Mar 27, 1924 Frederick Munhall (1890 – 1927)
d. 1960, San Antonio, TX

Statistics don't say what a big hearted, but sad woman, my Grandmommy was.

I honor her life on the 117th anniversary of her birth.

Last year I posted a bit about her life Here.

I've been spending many hours looking at various ancestors, trying to learn more about their lives.  They were full of passions, loves and hates, beliefs and fears, courage and instincts, talents and foibles.  They walked each day through, from waking to sleep, occupied just as I am in whatever activities consumed them.

My grandmother was one of the most talented people in my family, able to tailor beautiful materials into clothing for anyone.  When we moved from Texas to St. Louis, she would receive measurements of my sister and myself, then sew intricate dresses that fit perfectly.  The cloth might be a bit strange, from her knowledge of dresses for ball gowns we would have plaid taffeta dance dresses when the other children wore wool or cottons.

I don't know if I have shared how difficult it was for my mother growing up with her mother.

My mother often told me that she was raised mainly by her grandmother, after whom she named me.  Mother also had a young aunt who never married, and she spent a lot of time with as a child.  Grandmommy had had 2 husbands die when she was quite young.  I never heard what my grandmother was doing while my mother was with her own grandmother...but only know that when I later was visiting her she did show signs of a disease that impacted both my mother and myself...alcoholism.

I worked to understand that disease and how it affects the children and even grandchildren around it.  There's an understanding of a secret that must not be talked about.  There's also a sense of lack of control of your life, that the alcoholic person can erupt at any time in unexpected and dangerous ways.  To deal with those conditions, people who live with an alcoholic try to have some control over their lives, no matter how small.

That is how I grew up thinking that my mother hated Grandmommy, but then would make efforts to visit her.  A very confusing set of emotions, love/hate, fear/control.  It was just a process that was the reaction to the disease, where a person would drink and get completely out of control, either being very nice, or maybe the opposite.  Of course my mother had her own way of coping, she went for religion.  I went for counseling.  And found out all the dynamics that were true in my life had been studied and explained by some other people already.

1926 photo of Mozelle with her second husband, Fred Munhall on the right, and his brother on the left.

Grandmommy did show her loving nature, probably in irrational ways.  I remember driving to Monterey, Mexico with her to visit her sister Dorothy Buchanan one summer.

We were in Great Aunt Margaret's big old car (Oldsmobile maybe?) and at one point on the dirt road to the ranch we had to cross a stream bed, then go up a steep hill.  I was in the middle of the front seat, and remember pushing on the dash board to help the car go up that hill.  Now-a-days a four wheel drive vehicle would be called for, but this was in the 1950s.

Scenes from Great Aunt Dorothy's ranch, somewhere in Mexico

Then we ate in a French Restaurant, Luisanne, and I wanted to try frog legs.  What?  My mother kicked me under the table.  Never in my life had my leg been kicked, and I didn't really get the message.  Here she was trying to let me know that that would be a foolish expense, but not getting through to me.  I was maybe 11.  I got the frog legs...and liked sharing tastes (just like chicken) with everyone else.  But mother fumed at me for days afterward.

My dear Grandmommy had insisted that I could order whatever I wished from the menu.  She who worked as a seamstress to make her living, often living with friends and relatives rather than in her own home, glady paid for a very expensive dish for my curiosity.

Mother was of the opinion that grandmothers and grandaughters get along better than mothers and daughters.  

My grandmother hated trains (where her father worked as a conductor all his life) and would only travel distances by airplanes.

Visit by Mozelle to Houston, (1948-9) with Mary Beth on left, Barbara on right.