Roger White

Roger Thomas (Jock) White--younger brother to Granddad Jerry--was loved by his family. He worked hard to help out and was well-liked by his peers. Unfortunately, he died when he was only a teenager. I recently interviewed Granddad Jerry about him, and this post contains the information I learned.

I happened to stumble across Jock's death certificate when looking for records on Clifford Winspear White. It gave details of Roger's passing. Roger was in a car accident when he was only 16 and died soon thereafter from head injuries. The death record says that he lost control of the car due to speeding and hit a tree and a ditch.  It was a poor section of road. (source: Dad) It also shows that the accident happened around  8:15 PM. He died just 30 minutes later, at 8:45 PM, according to the coroner.

This information is from the interview with Granddad Jerry: 

1. What’s your favorite story about him? 3 stories: 

1. How Roger got the nickname Jock. Granddad had toy dog with a red ribbon that said, “My name is Jock”. When Jock was born he was named Roger, but Granddad insisted on calling him Jock. Granddad Cliff would only call him Roger.  By the time Jock was a teenager, most people called him Jock. 
2. Never really fought with Granddad much. However, if Granddad could have gotten his hands on Jock one time he "woulda pulverized him!" There was a long driveway to the house about 150 feet long. Granddad bent over to pick up something, and Jock shot him with a BB gun from about 50 feet away.  Granddad was so mad he chased him to the house but Jock had locked all the doors. Granddad ran all the way around the house to find a way to get in to him -- and Jock did it all just for "fun." 
3. Used to play at Whiteacres a lot. Jerry was usually the youngest kid there. Small town. All kinds of kids played at Granddads – Granddad told me it was like Tom Sawyer where he plays with the Judge's kids down to the Huck Finn-type kids. 

2. What did he look like? 

Dark hair, a little taller than G’dad – maybe 5’9”

3. What kinds of things did you do together? 

They used to play board games in the house. Occasionally they'd play pick-up baseball, sometimes football or basketball. When Granddad was about 16, they shared chores like milking the cow. Jock would milk in the morning and Jerry would milk in the evening. There were sharecroppers taking care of farm when Cliff left, but when Granddad was about 16, Jo bought a tractor. Jerry and Jock would switch off; Jerry’d go to baseball practice when he got out of school, and go to sleep as soon as he got home afterwards. Jock worked from about 3 PM to 11 PM and Jerry would plow the fields from 11 PM to 7 AM. Granddad didn't recall any particular instance, but said they probably did things like haying together. The two would chase the cows around. They rode horses together to get the cows. Jock rode Babe and Jerry rode Gale. Neither were tall enough to get their foot in the stirrup from the ground, so Jerry helped Jock to mount. He would climb hand over hand up the stirrup to get on Gale. The mare would start walking as soon as Jerry's feet left the ground so he had to climb quickly because Gale would start trotting after about 150 feet. Jerry had a friend--Jack--who would give rides to Jerry and Jock on his bike. Jerry would ride on the bar between the handlebar and seat and Jock would ride behind. They also played policemen on their bikes.

4. How did he dress? 

He wore jeans and in the summer went barefoot. Granddad’s jeans had patches on patches, so Jock’s probably did, too.

5. Was he quiet or talkative? He was an average kid.

6. What did he like to do? Didn’t like to read like Jerry did. He liked farming more.

7. Did he go to church? 

Yes, Catholic church with Jerry and Jo. Sometimes they wouldn't go, but they went more often than not.

8. How was he like you? 

He liked sports, was competitive but not as much as Granddad is. He was a starter on the baseball team when he was a sophomore. Was more mechanical than Jerry. Good student (but that wasn't very important for either of them). Jock was relatively popular with his schoolmates. He was also in school government.

Jerry was still sort of living at home when the accident happened, but going to college. His official residence was Whiteacres, but it was his freshman year and he was living at the dorms at UC (University of Cincinnati). He came home on weekends to do farming.

Docia Connell

Docia L. Connell was born on February 14, 1886 and was the oldest child of Robert Jackson Connell, and was thus Granddad JC's aunt. As the oldest child, I'm guessing that she felt a lot of responsibility for her younger siblings and their children. I also guess that she liked young people, and I'm basing these two facts on the 1940 census record that shows her younger brother Ralph along with her nephews Norman and Wilbur living with her. According to the census record, these boys had been living with her for at least 5 years, as it shows "same house" for residence in 1935. My mom also mentioned that Docia's brother Luther also lived with Docia at one point (source: Granddad JC). The 1930 census also shows that he lived with her, along with his 3-year-old son, also named Luther. They were probably living at 1214 Fair St. at the time.

In her early 20's, Docia was a nurse and lived in Columbia, SC. She lived with many other nurses, as you can see in the 1910 census shown below.

Docia maintained her tie with nursing, even after changing her profession (to seamstress) and becoming a widow, as you can see that she had two nurses lodging with her at the 1940 census. The census indicates that she lived at 216 Haile St. in Camden, SC. That's so cool to me because I'm sure I've driven by that spot  scores (if not hundreds) of times coming home from school.

1910 Census for Columbia, Richland County, SC
1930 Census for Camden, Kershaw County, SC
1940 Census for Camden, Kershaw County, SC

I'm pretty certain that the Norman listed as living with Docia during the 1940 census was Granddad J.C.'s brother, even though his age is wrong and he's listed as living with his parents on their family's recording in the census. I couldn't find any other Norman Connells in South Carolina that were born around the same time, and I think that's pretty good evidence. I don't know which of Docia's brothers is Wilbur's father, though, and I'm not interested in doing the research (at least not right now) to find out.

Docia's death certificate has some really good information on it: her date of birth (which can help us pinpoint the date of her parents' marriage) and her mother's name: Mildred Bowers. With all the names listed for her on FamilyTree, I was kind of confused.

There's also a death certificate for Docia's husband, Stephen M. McCaskill. Stephen was a doctor, and I imagine that Docia got to know him while working in the hospital with him.

There was another woman the family called "Aunt Docia" because she looked just like the real Aunt Docia. However, the other woman was actually a cousin of some sort and her name was Gladys -G'dad JC

"Nurse's class of 1908
SC State Hospital"
Docia Connell is on the right.
Also pictured: Minnie Stevenson, Minnie Caskey

Mollie Elizabeth Chambers

Mollie Elizabeth Chambers was Great-Grandma Lucy's mother. I'm guessing that Grandma Lucy learned most of her amazing cooking skills from her.

Mollie is in the center

John and Mollie Henize, circa 1940

Parents: Thomas Chambers, Lucy Jane Bishop

Birth: November 1, 1868 in Green, Brown, Ohio (it's a real place! And of course it's close to Amelia)

Marriage: March 2, 1890 to John Henry Henize. She was 21 and he was 25, almost 26.

• Children: Thomas Christopher (Chris), Frederick Raymond (Fred), Vesta May, Ralph Lawrence, Harley Clyde, Walter Floyd, Ora Bery (Bery), Dora Bedah (Bee), and Lucy

Death: December 9, 1946

I found a record of her birth* on FamilySearch, but there was no image associated with it. I'm guessing her parents didn't know what they were going to call her yet, because her name is listed only as "Chambers."

The 1870 Census doesn't give us much information, but we can still learn important things from it. First, this census page is from Green township, Brown county, Ohio. Mollie was still living in the town where she was born. Second, Mollie had an older sister named Carry B and her father was a farmer. We can see the value of their home was above average, but not much (a little bit further down the page we see a home valued at 3,500). We also see that Mollie is close in age to her sister and the second oldest child of her parents.

In the 1880 Census, we see that Mollie's mother went by Lucy Jane. We also learn that Mollie's maternal grandfather was born in New Jersey, and that her paternal grandfather was born in Pennsylvania. Her father still worked as a farmer.

I couldn't find Mollie in the 1890 or the 1900 censuses, so we're skipping a large portion of her life here.

Here in the 1910 Census she's been married for about 20 years. You can see that Mollie's oldest child is 19 years old at this census. I also noticed that she has a son named Fred. I think she named him after her brother Frederick. Maybe they were close and she liked the name a lot because she liked the person so much. The only other person that shares a name with someone in Mollie's family growing up would be Lucy, who appears to be named after Mollie's mother.

One thing from this census that I think is interesting is there are two columns to indicate how many children a mother has borne and how many of those children are still alive. I think this is a really useful tool for people working on family history because they can see if they need to look for records of any other children.

We also see that Mollie worked at home. She was a farmer's wife, which meant a lot of work for her. However, they owned their house without a mortgage, so they must have been at least modestly well off.

1920 Census: Here we get another little snapshot of Mollie's life. It may look like things haven't changed very much--John still farms, he still owns his land, they live in the same place--but look at the number of children listed with them. What mother feels her life is the same after one of her children moves out on his or her own? And at this point, three of Mollie's children have moved out on their own. One of her adult children--Vesta--is still at home but working the adult job of teaching. The baby of the family is already 12 years old. Thankfully, many of her children stayed close, so she was able to see them often and whenever the family had family reunions.

By the 1940 Census all of Mollie and John's children are long gone. The two are in their 70's . They own their own farm and live in the same house they have lived in for years. John still works hard (it lists that he worked 52 hours during the preceding week on his farm) and I would imagine that Mollie does, too.

I couldn't find a death certificate for Mollie, but I did find one for John. He passed away in 1948 and was widowed at the time. The information on FamilyTree shows that Mollie passed away just two years before that. She was 78 years old.

*There is another record of her birth, but it looks like a duplicate or near duplicate of the first one.

More records for Robert J. Connell

I found Robert Jackson Connell's death certificate!

The certificate lists some useful information: First, it is the only source I've found so far with his full name (Robert Jackson Connell). Also Robert's father is listed as Col. S.J. Connell; his mother as Mary Stevens--this is valuable because it contains his mother's maiden name. It's also valuable because we learn that S.J. Connell was a colonel and therefore served in the military at some point (probably during the Civil War). It shows that he was buried in the "Malvin Hill" Cemetery (I'm guessing it was actually Malvern Hill and someone just didn't understand the accent when they were writing up the certificate). Because of where he was buried, I'm guessing that he was a Baptist. Malvern Hill Baptist church is close enough to Robert's farm that he could have easily attended every Sunday.

The death certificate also shows that the undertaker was C.G. Kornegay. That is just really neat to me because I know the son of one of the Kornegays that runs the funeral home, and he's a nice guy. It also gives me that nice feeling of small-town-ness that I love about Camden.

Robert Jackson Connell

Robert Jackson Connell was born 5 years before the Civil War broke out. He moved his family from Lancaster, SC to Camden, SC. He also lived through the turn of the century, WWI, and passed on shortly before World War II.

Parents: Stephen Jackson Connell, Mary Jane Graham Stevens
Birth: April 1856 in Lancaster, SC.
Marriages:

1. Around 1882? in Lancaster, SC to Matilda Bowers, my great-great grandmother. Robert was about 26 and Mathilda was about 23. They had 5 children: Docia, Broadus Robert, Luther Wilburn, Charlie Lee and Cora Lee. Charlie and Cora were twins.
2. Around 1900 to Laura Rowe. Robert was about 44 years old at the time, and Laura was about 27. I haven't seen any record of children that the two of them had, but Laura helped raise the children that were still at home from Robert's previous marriage.
3. Around 1927 to Maggie Dabney. Robert had adopted Ralph Leon Connell who was left on his doorstep when Ralph was just a baby and married Maggie when Ralph was about 5 years old. Robert was 71 and Maggie was only 25 when they married.

Death: August 3, 1934. Robert was about 78 years old.

I didn't find as many records for Robert as I did for Broadus and my other great-grandparents; I think it's because any records of Robert are older and thus less likely to be extant than records of Broadus. This is what I did find:

1870 Census:

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Robert's family was living in Flat Creek, Lancaster County, South Carolina when this census was taken. You can see that Robert is the oldest child in his family. He was 13 years old and helped on the farm. He had not attended school in the last year, even though two of his siblings had. I'm sure it was because his father needed help on the farm. You can also see that his mother went by Mary Jane. The two numbers in the middle on the same line as his father are the value of the real estate they lived on and the value of Stephen's personal estate. I think that Stephen owned his land--there are other people who didn't have a value in the box for the value of their real estate, so I think those other people must have been renting. Anyway, the next highest value for real estate on this page was $514. His personal estate was not valued as highly as some of the others on the page, though.

1880 Census:

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This one's interesting. Robert is working as a farm laborer with the Belk family. His name is on the bottom line. There's no irrefutable proof that this is the Robert Connell that's related to us, but he's about the same age and still in Lancaster County, SC. This is a different town than he grew up in--Gills Creek--but I think that the chances of this being a different Robert Connell are very low, especially considering that I didn't find any other Robert Connells living in Lancaster County at the time. I'm guessing that the person the census taker was speaking to didn't know Robert's exact age because this lists him as being 21 here when he was 24 according to the birth date on his death record and 23 according to the last census. Other details fit, though, because Robert didn't marry until about 1882 or later, and this 1880 census lists him as single.

1920 Census:

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30 years passed between the last census I found Robet in and this one. As you can see, Robert is in his 60's (according to the birth date I have, he's 64, but this census lists him as 62). He married, had children, and then remarried. He owns his own farm near DeKalb township (DeKalb is north of Camden, on the way to Lancaster but in Kershaw County, but I think this is probably near Canada Dr. on the east side of Camden because Broadus is settled nearby), but it has a mortgage on it. All of his children have grown up and moved out except his two youngest sons, who help him on the farm.

1930 Census:

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In this census we see that Robert has married again. According to our records, he's around 72 or 74 by this time, but he told the census taker he was only 67. I think it was probably more that he lost track of his age than that he was ashamed of it. He also has a very young child, Ralph. I couldn't find any other information on Ralph, so I asked Granddad J.C. for information about him, and I wrote a post about him.

There's a column on this census that lists the age at first marriage that I forgot to label. It lists Robert as being 21 when he first married (probably another memory lapse. It HAD been a very long time since then) and Maggie as 25. Since Maggie was only 28 when this census was taken, I assumed that her first marriage was to Robert. I wish I had more records because this is such a mystery! I wonder if Laura (Robert's second wife) was alive when they adopted Ralph and if Robert married Maggie because he needed help with Ralph. If Laura wasn't still alive when the boy was adopted, I have no idea how Robert thought he was going to be able to take care of a little boy. It is a puzzle.

We also see from this that Robert still worked as a farmer. Since he lived so close to his children--Broadus's family was on the census just a few lines up from Robert and Robert's son Charlie's family is listed on the very next line after Robert's family--I'm guessing that they all worked together on their farms. On this census, I included Great-Great-Uncle Charlie Connell just so you could see a little about him. The census says that he worked as a bus driver for the public schools and was a veteran of WWI (it just says WW here because WWII hadn't happened yet). Even though he worked as a bus driver, he's listed as living on a farm, so I'm sure he did both.

J.O. Thompson: Magic Tricks with Tobacco

I recently got a recording of some stories from a Thompson family reunion. I transcribed a few of them, and they'll be popping up on the blog over the next month or so. The following stories are both about J.O. Thompson.

Uncle Bob shared this story, and I think it's a good introduction for the next:

I never really knew him [Granddad Thompson] very well. I got back here when he was about ready to pass on. He was always chewing tobacco. I never knew anything about tobacco--you know in our family nobody chewed. You know, he looked like he really liked it. So I said, “Hey Granddaddy, can I have some of that tobacco? So I can chew some?” He said, “Sure, son! Here, son!” So I put some back and started chewing. I didn’t know you were supposed to spit it! So I was swallowing the juice. I was chewing it like chewing gum. That was one of my first experiences with Granddaddy. He was a funny guy.

One line from that story--"He was always chewing tobacco," made this next story seem more relevant. This one's told by my mom's cousin Wayne Thompson. I really enjoy his story telling style of quoting without introduction. It keeps you on your toes!

Granddaddy kept saying, “I can kill a snake if you bring ‘im to me.” So we was down there in the plum bushes picking plums and we saw a green snake about 20 inches long. “Let’s catch that snake. Take ‘im to Granddaddy. I wanna see ‘im kill it!” So we caught the snake and brought ‘im up there. “Granddady we got you a snake! We wanna see you kill it.” He says just a minute. Take that ol plug of brown mule [chewing tobacco] and cut the corner off it with a knife he always kept razor sharp. He set there and chawed and chawed and chawed. We kept lookin’ at him. “You better gonna get ready to kill it, y’know? We have it here.” So he turned to us and, “watch this,” he said. He spit there on the snake’s head and, “wraaaagh!” the snake said and when that snake come up and “wraaagh!” he spit again right there in its mouth. Chewing tobacco, brown mule. Anyhow, that snake wiggled and carried on awful “My God, this man’s killin’ me.” He spit on him the third time in three spots he died. It killed ‘im! It killed the snake.

Sounds like someone enjoyed fascinating little boys with how powerful his spit was! 

There's another story that Mom told me about J.O. Thompson that was pretty funny, too. She said that whenever he'd located a honey tree, J.O. would work up a sweat and make sure his B.O. was all over him, and then he'd go and get the honey. The bees never bothered him because he smelled so bad!

Grace (nee Campbell) and J.O. Thompson

Great-Great Uncle Ralph Connell

Ralph Leon Connell was found on Great-great-granddaddy Robert J. Connell’s doorstep. Robert J. was 66 years old. I don’t know when exactly Ralph was left on their doorstep or how old he was, but Ralph was living with Robert J. and his young wife Maggie in 1930 when the US census was taken.  That census is actually how I learned about Uncle Ralph.

At first I thought Robert J. and Maggie were his parents, but I noticed from the census that Maggie and Robert J. were married about 3 years after Ralph was born.  Another thing is that Ralph was living with his sister (our Aunt Docia) when the 1940 census was taken, and not with Maggie (Robert J. had passed away). I thought, “Well, maybe Ralph was from Robert J.’s second marriage,” but I couldn’t find anything that supported that hypothesis. I thought Granddad JC would probably know something about it, so I sent Mom a quick e-mail asking if she’d ask Granddad about his Uncle Ralph. And that’s how I learned this intriguing information about him!

So Granddad said that he’s pretty certain that Uncle Ralph is related to us somehow, but doesn’t know exactly how. He said that Ralph moved in with Aunt Docia when he was 9 or 10. That was a year or two before Robert J. passed on. Some of Granddad’s older siblings were also living with Docia when the 1940 census was taken, so I think she must have liked having her younger brother and nephews around. 

Ralph enlisted in the army and fought in WWII. When he was on an R&R (rest and relaxation) break in New Zealand, he met and married his wife. Their son was born soon after, but unfortunately, Ralph had already been called back to active duty. As far as Granddad knows, Ralph never married again. Granddad didn’t know any of the details, but Ralph came back to South Carolina after the war and eventually moved out West, where he passed away. I found a record showing his date of birth, the date he passed away, and that he passed away in Los Angeles, California. He was only 57 when he died.

New information on Broadus Connell!

I was playing around with search parameters in FamilySearch, and I found a new record for Broadus Connell! The new record I found for Broadus is his WWI draft card:

Click to enlarge

You can see his signatureat the bottom of side one. His handwriting wasn't that great, but I think it's awesome that I have seen something written by his own hand! Other important information here is that he was living in Camden, but was born in Lancaster, SC. This is the first record I've seen with his date of birth on it, too (March 31, 1891). There's also a (short) physical description of him! He was "stout" with blue eyes and dark brown hair. From the picture we have of him, you didn't have to have much extra padding to be considered "stout!"

Connell Migration

In the past five years or so, some of our family members involved in family history work learned that there were Connells in Texas that pronounced the last name the same way we do! With a little bit of searching, they found out that we're related.

Turns out that when Granddaddy JC's ancestors moved to South Carolina, they were planning on going much further west. The Connell clan (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.) was moving from North Carolina and planned on settling somewhere in the West. By the time they reached Lancaster, SC, some of the family got sick and had to stop. The rest of the family kept going while the recuperating ones planned on catching up later. However, the family in Lancaster found a great deal on land right there in South Carolina and decided to stay. I imagine they had also made friends during their extended stay in Lancaster.

When I first heard this story, I imagined it taking place around oh, say 1850. However, the earliest Connell ancestor in South Carolina was born there in 1828, and he had siblings born there as early as 1810. I'm guessing that's about the time the migration took place. It makes sense, because the Louisiana purchase took place in 1803. The Connells were probably thinking to take advantage of all the empty land there.

Before the move, the Connells lived in North Carolina for at least one generation. Before that, they lived in Virginia, all the way back to somewhere between 1625 and 1700. According to the information on Family Search, the next ancestor back came from Renfrewshire, Scotland. Since the surname Connell is usually traced back to Ireland, I wonder if we pronounce our name differently because our ancestors were from Scotland, instead of Ireland? Put your opinion in the comments!

I haven't reviewed any of the sources for the information on this page, so please forgive me if any is incorrect.

Recipes from Our Grandparents

So my sister Rachel has a food blog, and on it she has a lot of recipes from our grandparents. Here I'll make it nice and easy for you to access their recipes!

Tuna Cheese Swirls from Grandma Izzy. I remember my mom making these sometimes when I was little. I loved them! I tried a recipe I found in a cookbook, and it was disgusting. This recipe looks like it will be much more delicious.

Cheesecake from Granny Jo

Six recipes from Grandma Kathleen, some of which probably came from Grandma Lucy (her mother):

1. Pistachio Salad - one of my favorite fruit salads growing up
2. Pecan Surprise Bars - this looks delicious. I think I've been deprived all my life.
3. Amish Broccoli - I heard this one came from Grandma Lucy. 
4. Chicken Enchiladas - This one also looks really delicious.
5. Lemon Jello Cake - This cake is DIVINE. It's also dairy free!
6. Pasta Salad - also dairy free

What We Get from Our Scottish Roots

Recently I've been reading up on Scotland and Scottish roots in America to better understand the people that we came from, as I know we do have Scottish ancestors. Until today, I hadn't come across anything that I felt was worth sharing. Today, however, I found some awesome stuff in a book called "How the Scots Invented the Modern World" by Arthur Herman. The first half of the book is about Scots in Scotland, and the second half (which I started today) is about the Scots in America. I'm going to use several direct quotations from the book, because they are just put so well.

"They said ... 'thar' for 'there,' 'critter' for 'creature,' 'nekkid' for 'naked' ... and 'young-uns' for 'young ones.' They were always 'fixin' ' to do something...The language was also shamelessly intimate and earthy: passersby were addressed as 'honey' ...

"Ulster Scots [the Scots Irish] were quick-tempered, inclined to hard work followed by bouts of boiserous leisure and heavy drinking ..., and easy to provoke into fighting. The term used to describe them was rednecks, a Scots border term meaning Presbyterians."

I have to say, I have been teased about saying "nekkid" instead of "nay-kid" like people in other parts of the US. I've also noticed a divide between my family in the South--friendly, gregarious, opinionated, fond of sports--and my family in the North--also friendly but more reserved, a bit geeky, leaning more to technical issues. My dad's side (Northern side) has a lot less heritage from the Scots.

Herman also describes the intense religious zeal that was typical of the Scots (note the previous reference to Presbyterians), and which is also typical of Southerners, as we know.

Some of the characteristics I read about also reminded me of things I've learned about J.O. Thompson: He was zealous about the Gospel and he was "inclined to hard work" and was a little rough around the edges, as this post by Laura shows.

Thompson, Campbell, Dunn, Peebles, Alexander, Wallace--all Scottish surnames. Connell and Dunn are either Irish or Scottish surnames. These are all names from our family tree.

**Edit: the second half of How the Scots Invented the Modern World only has a few chapters about the Scots in the United States. There are many chapters about Scots in Scotland and England, as well.