52 Ancestors – Week 29 Challenge

    

This week I am writing about my personal experience when this country met the challenge of putting a man on the moon. It was fifty years ago yesterday! Although it’s not about an ancestor, I am an ancestor to my descendants.

My husband and I got up early that morning, we had things to do and places to go. Friends had invited us to attend the Air Show in Sandwich, Illinois that afternoon and we needed to get our children ready to spend the afternoon with a babysitter. Once everyone was ready, we said goodbye to the kids and headed off to Sandwich to meet our friends Bob and Judy at their brother-in-law’s house in Sandwich. He was the editor of the local paper and got us free tickets.

We got to Sandwich about noon and met our friends. It was common at that time and place to offer guests a “Grand Tour” of the house. We saw a beautiful Victorian house that was well updated and furnished. The special surprise was in the kitchen where we first witnessed the miracle of the microwave over. Imagine it could heat a hot dog in less than a minute and warm the hot fudge without melting the ice cream! That was only the first amazing experience of the day.

It was a hazy Summer Sunday and the Air Show was scheduled to begin I believe at 1 PM. In addition to airplanes doing stunts and seeing sky divers perform, the featured attraction was Bob Hope! We got there early so we could have a front row (or close to that) seat. We had a huge blue and white blanket that we spread out on the ground and settled down to wait for Bob Hope to appear. We were also to see Ginny Tiu and her sisters do their singing act.

We waited and waited in the Summer heat. Ginny Tiu and her sisters performed for us and we waited some more. Finally, the audience heard the announcement that Bob Hope would not appear until the astronauts had safely landed on the moon. The audience was disappointed, but nobody left. I think it was about four o’clock when Bob Hope appeared and was greeted with loud cheers because we knew that the astronauts were safe, and we could all enjoy the show.

It was a great show!  A wonderful ending to a great day. But it wasn’t really the end of the day, since when we got home again we stayed up late to take pictures of the walk on the moon off out television screen!

Men on the moon! 20 July 1969  photo taken by Dave Peterson 20 July 1969 from television screen.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 6 “Surprise”

This week’s theme is “surprise” so I will tell you about the surprise I got when I ordered a compiled Service Record for one of my husband’s mysterious Swedish ancestors.

Oloff Hanson is my husband’s great-great-grandfather and he first appears in the 1860 [i]census with his wife Mary living in Michigan City, La Porte, Indiana. As recorded in the census he is a Swedish born fisherman. Oloff’s wife Mary was reported to have been born in Hanover, Germany in 1842.

Oloff and Mary had eight children between 1860 and 1879. They remained in Michigan City until they appear in the 1880 census living in Chicago, Cook, Illinois.

All of the children are reported as having been born in Michigan (It appears that the census taker heard Michigan but not City as the actual records are for Michigan City which is in Indiana.) in the 1880[ii] census taken in Chicago.

Oloff died before the 1900 census was taken and I could find no trace of a widow in the census and no obituary record.

I was at a standstill with the family.  Even two trips to Salt Lake City with finding something out about Oloff as a priority were unsuccessful except for finding out that he had served in the Indiana Calvary during the Civil War. He was honored by La Porte County, Indiana in 1867 for his service in the war.

What did I know about Oloff? I knew he was born in 1824 or 1831, that he appeared in the census in 1860, and 1870 in Indiana and the 1880 census in Illinois. He served In the Civil War and fathered eight children.  Those are the only documented facts I had for Oloff.

I had no record of Oloff coming into the United States and found no marriage for Oloff and Mary. I had no place of birth or names of parents for Oloff.

Having no success with finding other records for Oloff, I sent for his Compiled Service Record from the National Archives hoping it would hold his Letter of Intent, which I hoped would tell me where in Sweden he came from.

It came faster than I thought it would and held several surprises! His biographical record told me that he left Sweden and traveled first to Germany before coming to the United States. While in Germany he met Marie(Mary) Hepke and they were married in the American Consulate in Hamburg. I further learned the names of all of his children and that Mary had died in 1881 in Chicago.

OK, I still don’t know where Oloff was born but I know where he was married and about when. I know when and where Mary died and since I found her death record, I know she died as a result of childbirth. I also know that I need to look for Oloff, a Swedish man leaving Hamburg with a wife born in Hanover.

I haven’t quit looking for Oloff! I'm just taking a different path,

---

[i] Year: 1860; Census Place: Michigan City, La Porte, Indiana; Roll: M653_275; Page: 389; Family History Library Film: 803275;  ancestry.com, online images, accessed 10 Fem 2019

[ii] Year: 1880; Census Place: Chicago, Cook, Illinois; Roll: 195; Page: 163B; Enumeration District: 141; Ancestry.com ,images inline, accessed 10 Feb 2019; Tenth Census of the United States, 1880. (NARA microfilm publication T9, 1,454 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 52 "resolution"

I

It’s week 52 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge and the prompt is “resolution”.

At this time of the year I usually review the genealogy goals that I wanted to accomplish this past year and determine what I want to accomplish for the coming year.

Last year one of my goals was to finish documenting my children’s Patriot Ancestor connection for an application to the DAR since this was a leftover from 2017 goals. Guess what it’s at the top of my list this year! I am determined that it will be completed this year.

I joined this challenge last year in hopes of increasing the number of my blog posts. This worked so well that I am joining again. Of the 52 weeks of prompts, I have posted 45 times. I think this is a big improvement over the 21 blog posts in 2017.

I will continue the “Do Over “that I began in 2016 and continue adding source citations to all individuals and facts and may re-visit some of my older blog posts to see where they can be improved.

I still volunteer weekly at my local Family History Center and am program chair for the local genealogy group.

Other hopes for the coming year are for more information on my husband’s mysterious Swedish ancestors and furthering my knowledge of my Irish 2^nd great-grandparents.

Check back next year to see how I did.

52 Ancestors in 51 Weeks - Week 36 "Work"

In honor of Labor Day, the theme for this week is work. As I look at the occupations that have been documented within my family history. There have been musicians, teachers, butchers, grocers, iron workers, sellers of real estate, travel, insurance, spirits, and grain. There have also been fishermen, soldiers, telephone workers, and jewelers. One occupation that seems to run through several lines is railroaders.

The first in the line of railroad workers was Leopold Peterson, a Swedish immigrant who settled in Boston, MA in 1869-70.[i]

Leopold lived and worked in Boston as a cabinet maker, suggesting some kind of training or apprenticeship in woodworking. In 1873 Leopold married Caroline Neilsson and they began their family with the birth of Anne L in 1874 and John William in 1876.

                                             PULLMAN CAR INTERIOR

Photo credit: Chicago Historical Society

Shortly after Leopold received his citizenship papers in Boston, the family moved to Chicago. IL. The Chicago voter’s registration shows that Leopold had lived in Chicago for 10 years and had been naturalized in Boston in 1877.[ii] 

Census records for 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920 all record Leopold as a carpenter or cabinet maker, with the 1900 census showing that his two sons Frank and Edwin were also working at a “car shop”. Frank was a machinist while Edwin was a 17-year-old car painter. While there is no specific mention that Leopold worked for the Pullman Company in Chicago, the fact that the family lived in the Hyde Park area of the city and the Pullman Co used carpenters/cabinet makers and car painters indicates to me that he did, indeed, work for the Pullman Co.  A query to the South Suburban Genealogists, who hold the Pullman records did not yield results.

Leopold’s son Edwin left the Pullman Co to join the Chicago Park Police, but his son Harold would return to railroad work and co-incidentally Harold’s father-in-law Murl Ferguson also worked for the railroad. Murl and his brother had left farming in southern Illinois for Chicago and work on the railroad  sometime during the 1920’s. Another of Leopold’s grandsons, Earl Gibney Peterson, also worked for the railroad joining the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad on 13 Oct 1947 as a trainman.[iii]

The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad was a major employer in the Chicago area and like the telephone company often hired the children and siblings of their employees.

Over time the industry has changed with automation playing a large role in the changes. Currently my son-in-law is working for the railroad as a conductor. Today freight trains only use a two man crew but the crew is limited to working twelve hours or less. Other safety measures control rest time and training.

The railroad has been a steady employer and many families can count themselves as recipients of the benefits of “Working on the Railroad”.

---

[i] US Circuit Court -Boston, Massachusetts. 1791-1992 M1299. Naturalization Records. , Boston, MA.

[ii] Ancestry.com. Chicago, Illinois, Voter Registration, 1888 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2001.

[iii] Chicago and North Western Railroad Employee Records. Chicago & North Western Historical Society, Berwyn, Illinois.