Bearded
For 2023, I’m writing responses to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Days prompts provided by Amy Johnson Crow on her ”Generations Café” website and Facebook page.
I never knew my maternal great-grandparents. They died in 1926 and 1930, when my mother was under 10 years old. I don’t remember her telling any stories about them; my mother’s family had moved from Texas to Arizona in the early 1930s and she didn’t talk much about those early years.
Neither of these pictures was in my parents’ collection of old family photos. I found them in Thelma Anderson’s 1962 Workman Family History, a 700-page history of this family from the time they arrived in New Amsterdam in the 1640s through the 1950s. I am in this book, together with my parents, siblings, and more distant family. Mrs. Anderson did her research the old-fashioned way – spending decades driving around the country visiting libraries, courthouses, and cemeteries to compile the story of this family. When the book was published, she made them available to everyone in the book. My mother bought a copy, and I have it now
These two pictures were on a page devoted to this part of my family. It included pictures of other family members, along with a picture of the house the family lived in while they were in El Campo, Texas.
My great-grandfather’s beard stands out in these photos. I think he probably sported this beard for his entire adult life. I have found a lot of pictures of the 1889 Oklahoma Land Run – which Tom participated in to get the land they settled on in Guthrie, Oklahoma – and I always look for a man with a beard. I haven’t found him yet in these random photos, but I’m always looking.
From other information, I have pieced together a bit about Tom. He was apparently not a very nice man – at least, to hear what some of my cousins have said about the stories they were told. After Mary died, he remarried – badly, apparently, because after his death I found his second wife in a census record, which shows that she had reclaimed her maiden name.
I have another great beard I want to share with you.
I’ve written about these folks often enough to feel like I know them. They married in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1867, and had seven children over the course of 10 years, including my great-grandfather Howard P. Ellefritz. Two of the children died – one at birth and the other at the age of five. This is the obituary that appeared in the ”Carthage Republican” in January of 1995.
It’s not hard to figure out the cause of the “something of a cancerous nature on the lower lip” that led to Solomon’s death; the picture shows a pipe firmly gripped over his impressive beard. Formal photos were not very common in those days, and the fact that Solomon chose to have his pipe in his mouth when this picture was taken shows that this is how everyone knew him.
Flat. Very flat. Going to try to find a boat. Windmills are interesting structures. Not quite as I expected. Lots of wind turbines, as well as solar panels, on the way here.
Radiant floor heating in the living room. Lovely. Radiators don't seem to be working in the rest of the house. Fairly chilly, as we expected. Glad for all the layers I'm wearing.
Interesting. Beards. Don’t dig them.