A Family Album Surfaces

The reason I took up genealogy many years ago was to see if I could construct a family tree on both my mother's and father's side. For the most part I've been fairly successful in tracing back both sides into the early 1800s, and a few into the 1600s, though like most genealogists I know of I have hit the wall on a couple of ancestors and probably will never find good information about them. 

After a few years I had a printable block diagram family tree with names, date of birth and date of death.  But they were just names with numbers; I didn't know anything about most of them. For me fleshing them out; discovering what they did, where they lived and why, and anything noteworthy about them is what genealogy is about. And sometimes, if you're lucky you discover enough personal information about someone that makes you feel like, "'Hey!...I know who this guy or gal is...I understand them!"  One such person is my maternal great-great grandfather, Bernard Henry Meyer, though he always used the name B H Meyer, which already tells me something about him.

Bernard was born in Hannover, Germany in 1820. He immigrated to the US sometime around 1850. An 1856 Iowa State census lists his occupation as Tailor. An April 16 1856 advertisement in the local newspaper confirms his occupation and the tone of it also says something about him to me.

He didn't stay in the tailoring business very long, By 1863 he was the owner and operator of a saloon on Main Street in downtown Lyons, Iowa, a tough Mississippi River town. These were the wild west days...the days of "check your gun at the bar" days. Perusing the pages of the Lyons Weekly Mirror from those days shows lots of fist and gunfights. Bernard's saloon had to be in the middle of the action. I wonder what he thought of and how he handled those incidents. The following news article indicates to me that he wasn't timid and probably had a temper.

Bernard died in 1879 at age 50 of tuberculosis and left a considerable estate behind him. There is more information about Bernard but not worth getting into, and besides I want to get to the family album mentioned in the post title. Bernard had a younger brother named Anton who had a grocery store not far from Bernard's saloon. Anton and his wife Sophia had six kids, one of whom was Louis B Meyer. Remember that name.

Last week I received an email from a woman in Los Angeles. She said that years ago her mother-in-law had purchased an antique album in a thrift store, for no other reason than that she liked it. The daughter-in-law has it now and was thinking of "tossing it" when she saw a small slip of paper between the pages that had the name Hulda Belle Terrell. Being into genealogy she did some research which ultimately led to me. I didn't recognize the name so dug into my tree and found that she was the wife of my first cousin thrice removed, Louis B Meyer. So thanks to the woman in California who realized what she had and that it might be meaningful to someone, the album is now in my possession. There are 43 photos but unfortunately none of them appear to be Louis or his father Anton. 

The above photo shows Hulda (right) at age 21, and her mother Mary Lucinda Chapel age 44. Knowing their respective birth dates I can date the photo to between December 16, 1893 and April 2, 1894. Hulda married my cousin Louis on September 13, 1894. Her father died on October 30 of that same year. 

The album is not in great shape but it looks to me that in its day it was top of the line quality. Whatever material was on the front cover is long gone. The back is beautiful and feels like soft carpet. I've done some gluing to secure the front cover and am working on preserving the interior photo slips. Hulda had eight siblings with four girls so it's possible that the two ladies shown are her sisters.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to identify any of the people but I'm going to try and if I'm lucky I'll hit on a few. That's what makes genealogy so rewarding.

The Process of becoming a US Citizen

By this time I'm sure, based on the number of emails, text messages, Facebook and Twitter postings plus WhatsApp sessions flying back and forth that the entire civilized world and portions of Georgia know that Maribel passed her citizenship interview/test in Montgomery, AL last Tuesday. Not to denigrate the time and effort that Maribel put into preparing, but it seems to me that passing the interview is pretty much a no-brainer, if you've spent some time studying the questions you will be asked. The fact that you're there for the interview means that the reams of documents you've previously supplied have already been fact checked and your eligibility for citizenship has been established. 

I don't know why we were sent to the USCIS field office in Montgomery; a four-hour drive when there are offices in Nashville and Atlanta only two hours distant, but in the past fifteen years I have learned not to be surprised at anything US Immigration does. Maribel is not yet a US citizen and won't be until she has taken the Oath of Allegiance at a swearing in ceremony. She was told she would be receiving information in the mail stating the date, time and location of the ceremony. I'm hoping it will be Atlanta or Nashville but who knows? 

Because of the pandemic I was not allowed into the building with Maribel so occupied myself by reading and people watching. There was a steady stream of people entering and leaving the building, some for the interview and others for the swearing in ceremony. Seeing that many people made me wonder how many people were naturalized each year. The statistics surprised me.

I found information for the year 2018 on the Homeland Security webpage. In that year there were 761,901 people naturalized. Dividing that number by 261 working days I arrived at 2,919 people naturalized every day. That's a lot of new citizens. That doesn't mean that they just arrived. To become a citizen you must prove five years of continuous residence in the US, or three if married to a US citizen. 

Some of the leading countries of those 2018 naturalizations are as follows: Mexico - 131,977; East India - 52,194; The People's Republic of China - 39,600; Philippines - 38,816; and Cuba - 32,089. The people I saw were overwhelmingly black which didn't make sense to me until more research reveled that in 2016 there were 4.2 million black immigrants living in the US, and that roughly one in ten blacks living in the US are foreign born. The vast majority of them came from Jamaica, Haiti, Nigeria and Ethiopia. Maribel will be joining an estimated 423,000 (as of 2017) foreign born Peruvians living in the US.

One day in the very near future Maribel will become a part of the Homeland Security naturalization statistics. It's been a long road and there is going to be a celebration when she has that citizenship certificate in hand.   

Boring!

The major headlines on any news sources lately feature Andrew Cuomo and his seeming inability to resist nature's urges, the status of Covid vaccinations, Biden's Relief package, (which no Republicans voted for yet over 70% of Americans favor it including 41% of  Republican voters. Makes me wonder if the Republican politicians are in touch with their constituents.), and various governors continuing to ignore medical experts by opening up their states. Nothing new...kinda boring.

I never thought I'd say this, but I miss the days of Donald Trump's antics when he would constantly stir the pot with his outrageous comments and actions, causing the public to eagerly eat their meals in front of the TV while watching news commentators ridicule the Trumpster, and democrats express their outrage. It was entertaining and always good for a laugh. 

Even the conspiracy theorists seem to be talking a break or at least I haven't heard any lately, though I do recall hearing something about Covid vaccinations causing something or other. Maribel and I are due for our second shot in a couple of weeks. I keep hoping to hear Doctor Fauci say that research suggests that the vaccines reverse the ageing process. That would be cool. If that happened I'd have a t-shirt printed with some clever slogan that I can't come up with at the moment. Maybe the image of a hypodermic needle and under it the word "OldNoMore!" 

Speaking of slogans; and this is completely off topic, nearly every antique shop we visit has those ubiquitous signs with the smiley face saying, "Smile...you're on camera", followed by the words, "shoplifters will be prosecuted!" There's something about those signs that irk me. What I'd like to do is place signs over them saying, "Prosecutors will be shoplifted!" 

Anyway, maybe there will be something interesting on the news tonight, like, "This just in!...a hippopotamus at the Miami zoo has learned to play Chopin's Nocturne in A-flat Major on the piano!"   

Let's Honor April 6th!

Recently I got to thinking about days designated as recognition/celebration days. There are nearly 1,500 national recognition days, recognition weeks and recognition months. That means that every day there are 4.1 somethings being recognized. February was Black History month. Now we're in the middle of Women's History month. June is Gay-Lesbian Pride month. There are lots of LGBTQ individual days scattered across the calendar year. There are hug your dog days, clean off your desk days, and probably even left-handed plumber days. Perusing a list on one internet site I was surprised to see that April 6th is Straight White Male Pride Day. I never heard of that. I've never seen it featured on any broadcast, internet or print media. Why is that?

Think about what the result would be if every straight white male were to disappear at noon tomorrow. Got a doctor appointment or surgery scheduled? Forget about it. Better stock up on groceries because the trucks won't be delivering any. And don't look for the mail truck. Or your package from FedEx. Got plumbing problems and the electricity went out? I hope you've got a creek nearby and lots of candles. And let's hope that those candles don't set your house on fire, because she's going to burn to the ground. Better gas up the car, because gas and everything else that is delivered by truck, which includes mostly everything is going to be in short supply. And if that car breaks down, sorry, no SWMs to fix it. Lets hope there are no spring tornados because those power lines that go down are going to stay down, and the bridges that get washed out will stay washed out. And your new house that's under construction?...better get accustomed to tent living.

The administration of business's from mega corporations to mom-and-pop shops is going to be disrupted for awhile. And don't even think about government. We're going to lose the President, some cabinet members, 76.5% of the House and 75% of the Senate. And let's hope that the country is not attacked because there won't be any military or police force to defend it. 

I think it's clear that straight white males are the backbone of this country. Yet while we're celebrating and recognizing nearly everything under the sun, April 6th - Straight White Male Pride Day silently passes by. Ain't fair. Ain't right.

A Very Good Day!

Finally, after waiting for months for a phone call from Walker County authorities telling us it was our turn to be vaccinated, it happened yesterday. And we had our first shots today. But neither the phone call nor the vaccinations came from any of the three different sites I had registered with in Walker County. 

Two weeks ago our friends Marge and Jim gave us a Covid hotline number in neighboring Catoosa County. I called it, expecting to be told that residents of other counties were not eligible, but instead was told that counties bordering Catoosa were welcome, and that I could expect a call within two weeks giving me a date to be vaccinated. True to their word the call came exactly within two weeks. 

The vaccinations are being given on a drive-thru basis in the parking lot of The Colonnade Catoosa County Civic Center. When told of the location I recalled images of colossal lines of cars with people waiting for hours to get their shots in California and other locations, but that wasn't the case here. We were in and out in 20 minutes, not counting the 15 minutes waiting in the parking lot to see if either of us had a reaction. 

We've been wearing masks, carrying hand sanitizer and maintaining distance for a year and will continue to do so, but having that first shot and knowing that the second one will give us a degree of protection and a freedom that we didn't have has taken a load off of our minds. I have never been so happy to have a needle in my arm. A big, big thanks to the Catoosa County Health Department!

 

Voices from the Shadows

I've recently made very modest donations to Illinois Congressman Andy Kinzinger's "Country First" PAC, and to the Jamie Herrera Beutler "Jamie for Congress" campaign and as expected  am receiving regular email newsletters which are mostly hyperbole, talking in broad terms about getting back to conservative principals, and taking the Republican Party back from Trump. And of course they also ask for donations. I agree with and support their basic intent but as of this moment I don't think they have a snowball's chance in hell of accomplishing anything. 

Private citizen Donald Trump has a stranglehold on the Republican Party. There are 161 Rebublicans in the House and Senate. Seventeen of them are on Trump's hit list. About a dozen of the faithful...the most vocal, far-right and I might add most obnoxious: the ones who get the media attention have made or will soon make their pilgrimages to Mar-A-Lago to genuflect at the master's knee. Mitch McConnel has caved in; first acknowledging his belief that Trump was in part responsible for the Capital invasion and has not yet escaped punishment, and lately pledging to support Trump when he runs in 2024. But I think Mitch's days are numbered. He crossed Trump and everyone knows what happens when you do that. 

There was a guy in the 1930s who promised to make his country great again. He talked of building a great economy, putting people to work again, reestablishing personal and national pride. At first he started with a small base of supporters, but the more speeches he gave, and the more internal enemies he identified so that the population had a common foe to focus on, the larger his base grew. He delivered on his promise to improve the economy, to put people back to work, to make the country a nation to be taken seriously by other countries. At the height of his power it was not the country but he who was worshiped, and anyone who did not fall into line or failed at their task as he saw it was eliminated, one way or another. In the end he overstepped his bounds; his lies, megalomania and inability to distinguish the possible from the impossible led to his own elimination. 

Back to the Republican party, what are the other 100+ silent Republicans doing? Where are their heads at? I suspect they're doing what politicians typically do, sitting back to see what path the party is going to take; if the party is going to break free or remain in Trump's control. I admire those Republicans who voted their conviction, probably knowing that they would be censored back home by their state political parties and many voters. I call that true courage. I'd love to see Andy Kinzinger, Jamie Buetler and the small number of others of like mind succeed in their efforts to refocus the Republican Party, and to produce a 2024 candidate who I could enthusiastically support rather than again voting for the lesser of the evils. But unless a critical mass of supporters come together, I fear that the the words of Andy and Jamie are just voices from the shadows.