52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 20 Two Cousins in the Civil War (reprinted from 2013)

My husband's Ferguson ancestors were a family of soldiers. They can be found in every war since the Revolution serving their country. This is one of the stories I have found.

Parson's Battery Position
photo - Wikipedia

On 12 April 1861, the day of the first battle of the Civil War,brothers William Fergason and Jeremiah Ferguson were farmers in the small community of Willow Hill in Jasper County in southern Illinois.  The crops typical of the area included buckwheat, Indian corn, oats, wheat, potatoes, and apples.  There were also a few cows, pigs, and chickens in addition to horses used for plowing and transportation.  Soon their concerns about the price of seed or too much or too little rain would turn to worries about the was as each man watched his oldest son go off to war.

Jeremiah was the first to wave good-bye to his son George W as he enlisted on 14 Aug 1862 in Granville, IL.  He was twenty years old and 5 ft 9 3/4 in tall.  He was assigned as a private to Company E of the 123 Il  US Infantry and mustered into the unit on 6 Sep 1862.  His unit was sent to Louisville, Ky then on to join the the 3 brigade of the 10th division of the Army of Ohio under the command of General Buell.  After chasing General Bragg's army into Kentucky they became involved in the Battle of Perryville.  This battle became known as the bloodiest battle of the Civil War with casualties in excess of 7,677 from both sides.

On the Union side 894 soldiers died.  George W Ferguson was killed in action on 8 Oct 1862 at Perryville, KY.  It had been less than two months since he had enlisted.

 

The Battle of Perryville
photo - Wikipedia

On a cold winter day William A Ferguson, son of William and nephew of Jeremiah joined the Union forces.  7 Feb 1865 Captain Scott enlisted William for 1 year at Olney, Illinois.  He was a Private assigned to Company B 155 IL US Infantry.  William joined the army with Oliver Allison another 18 year old farmer from Willow Hill.  They moved to Louisville, KY and then to their mission to guard the block houses of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad from Nashville to Duck River.  They were mustered out on 4 Sep 1865 at Murfreesboro, TN by Captain Wilson.  William returned to Willow Hill to marry and continue farming.

Cousins George and William Ferguson shared many things, but both did not return from war.  They shared grandparents, occupations, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  They even both had grey eyes.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 19 “Nurture”

google images

Nurturing is “the process of caring for and encouraging the growth or development of someone or something.”[i]

Nurturers not only provide food, clothing and shelter, they also instill the values that are important to them. Things like respect for themselves and others, willingness to serve the community, patriotism, love of knowledge and the love of God.

Among my ancestors, the women were the primary nurturers. This is probably true of most families, and I say primary because the men were also nurturers to a degree.

My grandparents and grandparents instilled the love of God in us by being role models in the practice of religion.

My maternal grandparents nurtured their children with a love and respect for education by sacrificing to provide a good education to all of their children. All of their children finished high school and most of them attended some college. This was in the early 1900s when it was not common to attend school for so long. In fact, I was very surprised to find in the 1940 US Federal Census that both of my grandparents had finished high school before leaving Ireland for the United States.[ii]

Volunteering was another quality that was modeled in our lives, again by showing and doing not by preaching. We quietly observed as our mother, a busy mother of nine, found time to serve as a youth leader, and later she volunteered to hand bead sweaters for a charitable group to raffle in a fund-raising project. As a result, most of my siblings have volunteered in their community as room parents, youth leaders, teachers, hospice workers, and community leaders. I feel that this is an important aspect of life and one that is easily passed down in a family. Children imitate what their parents do.

As time passes, I watch with pride as each generation passes these values down to the next generation. This, I believe is how our civilization will survive.

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[i] google

[ii] Year: 1940; Census Place: Chicago, Cook, Illinois; Roll: T627_982; Page: 9B; lines 57 and 58, Enumeration District: 103-1927; ancestry.com, images online, accessed 11 May 2019,  https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/2442/M-T0627-00982-00637/144292794?backurl=https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/112758812/person/3201042

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 18 “Road Trip”

Every year our family took a road trip. Every year to the same place. Every year to “Aunt Kathy’s Cottage”. It was such a special place that it was always capitalized when we spoke of it.

Our time was always the last two weeks of August. In a time before time-shares, we had a specific slot of time to use “Aunt Kathy’s Cottage”.

Lady Jane cottage owned by Aunt Kathy

First a little background about “Aunt Kathy’s Cottage”. At some time during the 1930’s my Uncle Jack purchased a small cottage on the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan. It was in a little community where the houses lining the beach road were known by name rather than street numbers. Names like “White Waves” and “Swiss Chalet” or family names since the houses stayed in the same family for generations. Uncle Jack named his cottage after his wife Jane, calling it the “Lazy Jane”. Aunt Jane was not amused! The cottage was quickly renamed the “Lady Jane” and soon Uncle Jack sold it to his sister Kathleen.

Kathleen never married but she kept the cottage for the use of other family members. Each of her siblings and their families had their assigned time slot and the cottage was rented out for the month of July in order to cover the taxes and other maintenance costs.

Ready to leave for Long Beach

So each summer about the fifteenth of August, mom would begin packing for the annual road trip to Long Beach, Indiana. In the late 1940s and early 1950s the trip from Elmhurst, Illinois to Long Beach, Indiana tool about four hours. It was a time before expressways and toll roads. Dad would load the white canvas laundry bags that held our clothes. Sometimes there were three of the huge white bags to stuff in the trunk, it depended on how many of us there were at the time. In the beginning three or four children, later all nine children would pile into the pale-yellow station wagon. Provided there were no flat tires, traffic jams, or weather delays, we would arrive at the cottage about four hours later, hot and thirsty. As soon as we were released from the car, off would come shoes and socks and down the steps we would race onto the sand and then to the cool lake waters.

The next two weeks would be spent barefoot and on the beach! The routine was breakfast, beach, lunch, rest time from 1 to 3 (to keep us out of the hot sun and it was also a time when polio was a major concern), back to the beach, dinner, beach till dusk and then read, board games or card playing until bedtime, There was no television or telephone at the cottage. It was an idyllic time. Because we went at the same time every year and there were other families that did the same, we had friendships to renew.

At Long Beach circa 1957

Mom and dad didn’t get a vacation though! Barefeet and beachtime meant there was always sandy floors to be swept even though we rinsed our feet at the back door. The kitchen stove was a gas stove that required that each burner be lit with a match each time it was used. The toaster was one that toasted 2 slices but only one side at a time, so you needed to manually turn the pieces before they burned. There was no washing machine or dryer so when it was time to do laundry, mom would pack up the laundry bags and dad would drive her into Michigan City to the laundro-mat. While mom did the laundry, we would go to the local dairy for a milkshake. Dad always worked on repairs and maintenance such as painting or replacing the outside stairway or re-carpeting the inside stairs. They truly sacrificed to provide us with summers to remember!

Labor Day weekend we would pack the car back up and do a final sweep out of the cottage before the long ride home. The day after Labor Day, we would go back to school, thus ending another summer adventure.