Compassion - Vesta May Cowdrey (nee Henize)

So in the pictures that Rachel sent me, I found a lot of this young man (or maybe these two are brothers?):

I asked Grandma Kathleen about the picture on the left, thinking these two were the same person. Grandma replied saying that his name is Danny Lightner. The caption for the picture below, however, is "Vesta, Jackie Lighten, Mary Louise". Grandma told me, "Aunt Vesta and Uncle Herman frequently took in boys who needed help. They would help out with some farm duties, but treated as part of family. This boy was Danny Lightner. He was with Aunt Vesta for - maybe 5 years."

I think it's sweet that we have people in our family like Aunt Vesta and her husband, Aunt Docia, and Robert Jackson Connell who had the generosity and compassion to take in children who needed help.

Mary Louise, Vesta, Jackie Lighten

Aunt Vesta

Mattie Elizabeth Young

Parents: John Zachariah "Zed" Young, Elizabeth J. Owens
Birth: November 22, 1869
Marriage: About 1892 to Henry W. Marcus. Laura was around 22 or 23, and Henry was about 30. They had two children: Leila and Laura.
Death: May 16, 1915

I couldn't really find much information on Mattie Young. I did find one census record for both before and after she married Henry Marcus, which each have interesting information on them.

Mattie was the oldest of her siblings; she must have been expected to help out a lot with the house. From what I've read about how age-order affects the psychology of an individual, oldest children tend to try to be examples, are more likely to be perfectionists, and feel more responsible for things that need to get done. This makes sense, because in order for her family to be successful, they needed her help to get all the work done around the house and farm. Th 1880 census lists Mattie's father's occupation as "farm labor" -- I'm not sure if that means he worked on his own farm or on someone else's farm. I imagine that as the first child, Mattie's name was picked out long before her birth, unlike her younger sister Julia (listed as "infant" in the 1880 census).

By 1900, Mattie and Henry had been married for 8 years (according to the census taker, anyway). When they married, Henry already had a son, Ivy, so Mattie started out married life with the extra challenge of having a child already part of the family.

Mattie was only 45 when she passed away in 1915.

1880 Census Cedar Creek Township, Lancaster, SC

1900 Census DeKalb Township (in or near Camden), Kershaw, SC

Laura Marcus's death certificate

Unfortunately, there was no image related to the document I found, but I found an indexed version of Laura's death certificate! There really isn't much information in the indexed version, but at least it's there.

The information in the record are Laura's date of death, her husband's and her parents' names -- Broadus Connell, Henry Marcus and Mattie Young.

John Henry Henize

John Henry Henize was a hardworking farmer. He owned his own land, as his father did before him. John lived in the same area all his life--in Brown County, Ohio.

The second picture in this post is of John with his wife Mollie.

Parents: Christian Henize, Elizabeth Kantz

Birth: May 31, 1864

Marriage: March 2, 1890 to Mollie Chambers. He was 25 and Mollie was 21. They had 9 children: 

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

Death: November 30, 1948 of heart disease. John lived to be 84 years old.

Records located for John Henize:

1870 Census

1910 Census

1920 Census

1940 Census

Death Certificate of John H. Henize

Pictures of Wallace children

There are so many great pictures of Grandma Kathleen's family! Also, who knew that Grandma had blonde hair when she was little? Just like so many of us :)

Uncle Cecil with Kathleen. Isn't this the most amazing picture?

The following picture was labeled "Janet, Kathleen". I know that Kathleen is the littlest girl in the picture (from the picture above with Cecil), and I'm guessed that Janet is the one on the far right. However, on further inspection of other pictures taken on the same day, I found one that was labeled with Cecil and Janet. Janet is the other blonde little girl in the picture!

Georgiana, Janet, Kathleen (two in middle), Grace

This picture wan't labeled when Rachel scanned it, so we don't know who she is. Grandma says that this is probably Grandma Lucy when she was young, and that this young lady (below) was not from her generation--she would have recognized her otherwise.

Probably Grandma Lucy