Death by Organic Vegetables: The Lewis L. Meeker Family and Toxic Fungi

We think of growing our own vegetables, or picking fruit ourselves, as a good thing. The Lewis LeRoy Meeker family must have thought so too when they went mushroom hunting in the woods one fine weekend in August 1915. Mushrooms were a family favorite and they had them for break on Tuesday morning, August 17. By Sunday evening, four of them were dead, and the mother was very, very sick.

This family tragedy happened in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I stumbled on it while researching Nellie Larabee Meeker's family in the Michigan newspapers. The Abraham L. Meeker family lived in Muskegon Heights, and a line in the community news said the family was called to Kalamazoo as family members had succumbed to poisonous mushrooms. Naturally this story needed to be followed further. I love mushrooms.

GenealogyBank has the Kalamazoo Gazette, and it was easy to follow the story through its pages. The family picked the mushrooms themselves as they were a favorite food of the father. That took me aback. I had often gone mushroom hunting with my father. We looked for morels and he always found them. I couldn't tell one from another, but he always knew which ones to pick and which ones to avoid.

Gilbert, 10, died first, followed shortly by his father. Then two daughters, Jessie (18) and Ruth (16). Mother Josephine was very, very ill and was not told of their deaths until several days after their funerals. All the children did not die, however, as two daughters were grown and married and son Henry, 12, was visiting in the country when the family ate the fatal meal.

The Kalamazoo community really came together after this family tragedy. The Gazette started a subscription list after the City Council voted $100 to help the family. More than $600 was raised, double the amount needed to pay the funeral costs. Funds came from all over, including money sent by a sailor on the U.S.N.S. Florida.

Apparently death by fungus was rampant in Michigan that year. State health authorities issued alerts and instructions on telling poisonous from non-poisonous mushrooms. After reading them, I wouldn't trust my ability to tell one from the other. I'll stick to the grocery store.

Josephine later married Michael Burns and Henry married Eunice Wagner in 1922, and they had 2 children listed in the 1930 census. Apparently he stayed in Kalamazoo because he died there in November 1976. Eunice died in 1971.

Poverty in Texas

As I traced the children of William Dean Rutledge and his wife, Susan Virginia Johnson, I was struck by his daughter Mary's life. She married William Brooker Courtney in Richmond County, Virginia on 1 November 1887 and, like so many others, moved to Texas.

The 1920 and 1930 censuses shows William, his children and some of Mary's siblings working in cotton mills in Texas. Since so many of them were working in the mills, I couldn't help but wonder if they were struggling financially.

Mary's death certificate confirmed my suspicion.

She died of pellagra in 1930, in Bell County, Texas.

The Coolest Occupation I've Found Yet

Enough with the deaths. There are other interesting things one finds in genealogy. Like occupations. Today I found one of the best.

Eula Rutledge married James A. Haubenrich in Shelby County, Tennessee on 27 February 1922. And, unbelievably, the census enumerator spelled his last name correctly so he was easy to find in the 1930 census.

They'd moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he was employed as an inspector in a baseball bat factory.

Women Did Die From Clothes Catching Fire

I'd always heard women died when their clothes caught fire, but thought that happened in the 18th century. Well, it wasn't a problem just in the ancient past. Willie Ruth Reyno Varner died in 1958 from third-degree burns after her clothes caught fire when she brushed against a wood stove.

The Gilmore Mirror tells the whole sad story. On 12 February 1958 she was holding her sick two-year-old son when it happened. She kept her wits about her, wrapping a blanket around herself, only to have it catch fire too. She ran outside and rolled in the snow and that killed the fire. By sheer chance her husband came home very shortly after she put out the fire, and drove her to the hospital. She received many blood transfusions, but medical science wasn't advanced enough then to save her.

Who Does This Child Belong To?

Often one will ask a census search to give you everyone of a specific surname in a county. Sometimes odd things crop up when you do. Over a month ago the results of a1920 census search of Rutledges in Upshur County, Texas, turned up a stray. A one-year old boy, Dean Rutledge, is listed as "grandson" in the William T. Foster family. So I made a note of him, a mystery to be solved. In the 1930 census a "Dan Rutledge" of the age Dean would have been 10 years later was living with the Oliver Carmack Rutledge family.

However, the marriage information on the 1930 census for Oliver and wife Viola, and the ages of the other children led me to believe Dan was the son of a first wife. And a search of the Texas Birth Index located a Dean March Rutledge born in Upshur County in 1918.

Were Dean and Dan the same person? Today I think so because a Georgie F. Rutledge is buried in Morris Cemetery, Pritchett, Upshur County, Texas. The dates on her grave marker are 1896-1918. In the 1910 census Georgia Ann Foster is living with her father, William T. Foster, on the farm next door to Oliver Rutledge. Coincidence? I think not.

Oliver was single when he registered for the World War One draft on 5 June 1917. My best guess is he married Georgie shortly afterwards and she died when her son was born. Maybe someday someone will read this entry and confirm it.

Suicide by Shotgun: Susie Pitman Rutledge

The grave marker transcriptions for Morris Cemetery, Pritchett, Upshur County, Texas on line at TXGenWeb had a curious little notation: "Rutledge, Susie Lee, unmarked (info from old records)" This was unusual because there were so many Rutledges in the cemetery with lovely gravestones. The son of one of them, Elbert Thurston, had a wife named Susie in the 1930 census. Her age in that census would make her a suitable candidate for this burial.

Off to the Texas Death Records online at FamilySearch.org. Sure enough, there's Sue Rutledge, died in Harrison County, Texas, on 6 Sep 1938, 2 days later than the notation on the cemetery site, but with a birthdate that matches it.

She was 27 years 11 months and 14 days old when she died. Well, "died" is the wrong verb. According to the death certificate the cause of death was suicide by gun shot, from a 410 gauge shotgun, in her home in New Hollisville, Harrison County, Texas. She left her husband with three small children, the youngest only 2 years old. Newspaper accounts say she left letters to various members of her family.

She was living at a tourist camp near Lubbock when she shot herself. She and her husband started out farming in Upshur County (at least that's what they were doing in the 1930 census). Later they moved from Upshur County to Gregg County, where two children were born, then on to Harrison County.  In 1940 Elbert was an inmate at a State Prison Farm in Fort Bend County, Texas. I coul

Thousands of farmers lost everything in the Great Depression. This family was one of them.

A Freak Accident on a Swing: Kenneth Lee Rutledge

There has to be a tragic story connected to the death of an 8-year old boy in 1964. Kids in the 1960s didn't die often, not like in the 1860s.

While going through the grave markers at the Gilmer City Cemetery in Upshur County, Texas (with much gratitude to the Upshur County Historical Commission, Eva Joyce Richardson, Geraldine Little Braswell ; Sandy Spann for their efforts), I came upon Kenneth Lee Rutledge, 10 May 1956-8 June 1964.

There was no death certificate in the online archives, so he must not have died in Texas. But why is he buried there? And whose child is he? Some poor family lost a child.

Kenneth was born too late to appear in any census records. NewspaperArchives.com has The Gilmer Mirror online for the 1950's and 60's. Nothing beats newspapers for finding the stories behind a tragic event. And this paper was no exception.

Poor Kenneth died in a freak accident at a day nursery in Las Vegas, where his family lived. He was on a swing that hung from chains. It seems they became twisted. Somehow his head was caught up in the twists, and he fell off the swing and broke his neck. He was probably buried in Enon Cemetery because his parents and grandparents were from Gilmer, and his family wanted him buried back home.

The Lost Children of Mr. and Mrs. Marion & Lillian Petty

My heart goes out to Marion Lee Petty. His family is buried in Enon Cemetery, near Gilmer, Texas. He shares a grave marker with his two wives, and his first is buried with an infant son. They both died in 1920.

Poor L.P. Petty, son of Marion and his second wife, Lillian Lansdale, died of appendicitis 17 July 1939. The poor little boy was just three years old. I wish I knew the little boy's first and middle name. Both his birth record and the death certificate list him as L.P.

His sad little grave marker in Enon Cemetery, outside of Gilmer, Upshur Co., Texas has a simple but heart-breaking inscription:

L.P. Petty

Son of

Mr. and Mrs. M.L. Petty

Feb. 14, 1936

July 17, 1939

Darling

We Miss Thee

As if his family hadn't experienced enough anguish, they lost another child in 1943:

J.W. Petty

Son of

Mr. and Mrs. M.L. Petty

April 24, 1943

April 24, 1943

Asleep in Jesus

Another Sad Death: Bernice Sturdivant Walkup

I'm still tracing descendants of David Rutledge and Mary Howell using the Texas death certificates online at PilotFamilySearch.org. These certificates can be quite helpful as they list parnets names and birthplaces. A search on the parents will often locate children born and married between the 1880 and 1900 census. We use everything we can to make up for the loss of the 1890 census.

Usually people have died of natural causes, but every once in a while something unusual appears. Something tragic. Like Bernice Sturdivant Walkup's cause of death..

Bernice is the daughter of Robert Ewing Sturdivant and Minnie Rice. She was born 3 August 1912 in Seymour, Texas and married Leiland Walkup, and they were living in Wichita Falls at the time she died.

According to her death certificate, she died 21 March 1953 from second and third degree burns after her house caught fire around noon. According to the physician there was a five hour interval between the cause of the injury and her death. She must have really suffered.

Civil War Ancestors on My Side, and Family Stories

My family (Watsons and Villigers) missed the Civil War. All my Yankees were either too old or too young, even though they lived in prime recruiting states (Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin). Even collateral service was scarce. Two of my mother's maternal grandmother's brothers (Feltons) served; one for just six months. But I guess Dad's 33 years of military service makes up for a lot.

The Civil War always makes me think of my mother. She spent her freshman year of college at The College of William and Mary. Before she moved to Williamsburg, she had never met anyone who gave that war a second thought. And she ran right into people for who did. She used some of her experiences there to explain why she spent the next three years at the University of Illinois.

One of the friends she made at William and Mary told Mom about her 8th grade graduation ceremony. Her grandmother walked up to the door to go in, spotted a picture of Abraham Lincoln on the wall and turned on her heel and walked out, refusing to step foot in the building.

Mom turned in a long paper on the Civil War for a history class at W&M. When it was returned to her, it had red ink all over it. Wherever she had used the term "Civil War" the instructor had crossed it out and written above it "The War Between the States."

Aunt Ruth (Ruth Palmer Short) comes to mind as well. She once told me that she always knew she would never get far in Dallas society because she couldn't join the Daughters of the Confederacy. We laughed because coming over on the Mayflower and fighting in the Revolution just wasn't good enough.

Now my daughter isn't eligible for the UDC either, because her father's ancestor chose not to return to his regiment after spending six months as a POW. 

What If Capture Saved Their Lives? William and Mathew Rutledge in the Civil War

Yesterday my husband and I were discussing his ancestor's CSA service, and he said something that sets one thinking (something he often does). He wondered if being captured at Island No. 10 saved David and Mathew Rutledge from being killed at Shiloh.

There's no question the 1st Alabama, Tennessee & Mississippi Regiment had a terrible time. First they served in miserable conditions at Fort Pillow, New Madrid and Island No. 10. They when their commanding general surrendered his entire army, they were loaded onto steamboats, then trains and taken to prison camp in Chicago. The men were transferred to Camp Randall at Madison, Wisconsin, then back to Chicago. Many of them died of disease in those camps. Only one died of wounds–he received them when his faulty weapon exploded in his face.

The survivors were exchanged in September 1862. Jim's ancestor, and his brother, were sent home on furlough. Neither of them returned for duty when their leave was up, making my daughter ineligible for membership in the Daughters of the Confederacy.

I am reading "Island No. 10, Struggle for the Mississippi Valley," by Larry J. Daniel and Lynn N. Bock (University of Alabama Press, 1996), and one theme recurs: how poorly armed these men were.

The regiment was formed in September 1861. On page 10 the authors say the 1st Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi Regiment was still not armed in January 1862.

On pages 25-26 the authors continue their discussion of the 1st's arms. "…on February 26 (1862)... guns were only a notch above worthless. The rifles, prepared in a Memphis shop, had mainsprings that often broke. Only days earlier, a shipment of eighty such rifles had been received, twenty-four of which malfunctioned when test-fired. Some men in the outfit had only old squirrel guns and shotguns, and others remained unarmed. Indeed, there were only twenty-five decent arms in the entire regiment."

Still the men boarded a steamship for their post, and just before it left they received another shipment of 180 Memphis rifles, and (page 26) "inferior as they were, the weapons were an improvement on nothing at all."

On page 47 the authors report one company of the 1st had no weapons at all. Was it the Rutledges' Company H?

Forgotten Diseases and Fred Elgin Rutledge

We have come so far in our understanding of disease that we forget how well-off we are until we run smack into something that reminds us. I hit something yesterday, the death certificate of Fred Elgin Rutledge.

He died 29 March 1933 in Shelby County, Tennessee, of "pelagra." I vaguely remembered it was some kind of disease like rickets, that was related to some vitamin deficiency. So off to Google, and the discovery of a forgotten hero, Joseph Goldberger, a member of the US public health service.

Pellagra, to spell it correctly, was a common disease in the South, but in the 1910's it became an epidemic. It causes mouth sores, skin rashes, loose bowels and even mental deterioration, if untreated. Mr. Goldberger's extensive observations led him to conclude that the typical diet of the Southern poor, cornbread, molasses and a little pork fat, led to the disease. He experimented by proving it by changing the diets of some volunteer prisoners. He never found what was missing in the typical diet that led to the disease (niacin), and had great difficulty convincing people of the link.

Now due to the inclusion of vitamins in flour and practically everything we eat, pellagra is a forgotten disease. I wonder if the average US doctor would even be able to diagnose it.

Rutledges in the 1st Alabama, Tennessee & Mississippi Infantry and the 16th (Logwood's) Cavalry

One of the rules of thumb of genealogy is periodically review your source material to see if you spot something that you missed before. Late last week a search on Ancestry.com yielded a Confederate prisoner of war record for an M. Rutledge. So I dug out the copy of Mathew/Mass Rutledge’s applications for a Tennessee Confederate pension that I’d ordered from Tennessee a few years ago. Sure enough, I did learn something new.

We knew from a search on the NPS Soldiers and Sailors data base that Mass and his brother David (my husband’s ancestor) had served in the 16^th (Logwood’s) Cavalry under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and that the units they served in were reorganized several times. This information was verified by the service record cards we found at Footnote.com back then. And we read about this cavalry at the time. It seemed they rode all over everywhere in western Tennessee and Mississippi.

For the life of me, I don’t know how we missed the statements that he’d been taken prisoner on Island No. 10, and had been sent to near Chicago and Wisconsin. We must not have been paying attention.

For the last four days I’ve been validating the applications, both of which were denied because the state could not verify his military service. That’s highly probable since at the time he applied the Confederate records had not been compiled. By the time Mass applied for the pension the first time, he was 76. Memories were a little faded and his handwriting was horrible. When the state wrote the US Department of War the letter had the wrong regimental information, and when they wrote for the second application, with a different regiment, Washington wrote back to see their earlier letter. Now maybe the clerk had a big pile of these verification letters on his desk, but one had to smile at this second letter given the reputation of government employees.

Mass reported he had served in the 1^st Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi Regiment Co. H., taken prisoner at Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River, spent time at prisoner of war camps near Chicago and in Wisconsin and exchanged in the fall of 1863. All 145 reels of Confederate prisoner of war records at the National Archives have been digitized and are online at Ancestry.com. Sure enough, I found record of David and Mass’s capture/surrender, transfer to Camp Douglas, near Chicago, to Camp Randall, near Madison, Wisconsin, then to Cairo, Illinois for exchange. And there was another set of service records for the 1^st Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi Infantry.

By the time all was said and done, I’d read a great deal about the campaign for New Madrid, Missouri and Island No. 10 on the Mississippi, prisoner of war camps, the fulough/exchange cartel under which David and Mass were released, and their subsequent service with Forrest’s cavalry. And why their regiments were so often reorganized. It turns out that’s one of the fastest ways to get rid of colonels and lieutenant colonels you aren’t happy with.

I was most entertained by the story told in the Osprey Men-At-Arms book, “Confederate Army 1861-1865 (5) Tennessee and North Carolina.” Apparently the Tennessee regiments of the 1^st Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi Infantry reported for duty with no weapons. Their commander ordered wooden guns cut so the troops would be able to practice the manual of arms. The regiment was eventually armed with a mixture of civilian firearms, including flintlocks, shotguns and old rifles. The commander of the cavalry regiment the Rutledges joined said it was actually mounted riflemen!

Walloping in Despair

After I wrote about childhood stories, I thought about all the other members of my family whose stories should be told. I hope I have enough time and energy to do it. And this train of thought started me thinking about all the people in my life I have known and loved, and who my children won't ever know, and a deep sadness started to come over me. And tears.

Then I remembered another story.

My son was six when I was unpacking things and putting them in one of the curved glass china closets that I inheirited (I have one from my Dad's great-grandmother and one from my Mom's great-grandmother). As I put each object in its place I thought about the person who gave it to me, or who owned it. These memories overwhelmed me, and I sat down at the table for a good cry. My son came over to me to see what was wrong. Mommies aren't supposed to cry.

I stammered out that I was sad. I had things instead of people.

He patted me on the shoulder and said, "Mom, don't wallop in despair."

Isn't that just what we do? Beat ourselves up with sadness at our loss instead of cheering ourselves up with the joy these people brought into our lives.

Out of the mouths of babes.

Childhood Stories that Define a Person

Sometimes there's a story from a person's childhood that sums up that individual's personality. I believe people are born with certain genetic traits that determine how their minds work, how they think, and that influences everything they do in life. And the things they say and do as children are very revealing, and will tell you all about them, if you only listen.

My daughter's story happened when she was very little, about three. She was in our breakfast nook, reaching as high as she could for the light switch on the wall. I was walking through, noticed it, and said, "Here, honey, let me do that" and I switched on the light. She gave me the dirtiest look I've ever seen from a kid, stretched up and turned off the light, then turned it on again. And went back to whatever she was doing on the floor.

My mother's happened at about the same age. She always had straight hair, that just wouldn't curl. Her sister had naturally curly hair, the kind that you could wrap around your finger and it would fall into perfect sausage curls, like Shirley Temple's. So Grandma would wrap Marion's hair in rags every night, and Mom hated it. One day Grandma walked into the kitchen to start breakfast, and found a pile of hair on the floor. Beside it was the scissors she kept in a bowl on top of the ice box. After she calmed down, she learned my mother had left her bed, climbed up on the cold stove to reach the scissors, then sat on the floor and cut off all her hair. And went back to bed. My mother never had long hair again, and all her childhood photos show her with a bob long before it was fashionable.

My husband's occurred his first day of kindergarten. His Mom, thinking it might be hard for her first-born child to be away from home, went to the school to meet him as he came out so he would have the comfort of her presence. He walked up to her and said, "What are you doing here?"

One day when my son was about two we learned he had what my daughter calls "a strategic mind." We taught our children there were things they could touch and play with, and things they couldn't. Among the verbotten things were the objects in the oak china closet in the breakfast nook. One day I was doing something in another room and he asked me to come to him. As adults often do, I told him, "In a minute." A few moments later he asked again, and I gave him the same answer. We went through this routine a couple more times. Then silence. Then I heard the doors to the china closet open. I ran to him, and he was just sitting there, opening and closing the doors, knowing it would bring me running.

I wonder what mine was.

The Pike County Courthouse Fight

Towards the end of the 19th century the courthouse in Pike County, Illinois needed to be replaced. The citizens were facing a tax levy to pay for it, and as is always the case, people were tight with money. My great-great grandfather and a bunch of cronies saw this as an opportunity to get the county seat moved to their town, so they started a movement to accomplish that.

The New Courthouse
(as pictured in the Barry Adage)

Privately-raised money was pledged to pay for the courthouse if the county seat was moved from Pittsfield, to Barry. Enough signatures were gathered on a petition that the county was forced to hold an election. The citizens of Pittsfield pledged funds equal to the amount promised by the Barryites. Campaigning was fierce.

When the votes were counted, the county seat stayed in Pittsfield and very little taxpayer money was used to build the courthouse because of the funds pledged by the citizens of the county seat. The new courthouse is still in use today, and very attractive it is.

My father was very close to his grandfather. Whenever Dad told us this story he always ended it by saying his great grandfather said he and his friends started the whole thing just to get Pittsfield to pay for the building.

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Mourning the Loss of a Child: Touching Grave Markers

When I recompiled Aunt Margaret Cooke's listing of all the descendants of Aaron Bonnell, I compared the several different versions she'd typed. I discovered that between the fourth and fifth versions she'd decided to drop off all the children who hadn't survived to adulthood. I'm sure she did it to reduce the typing workload since this was the days before photocopiers. But I found it sad, and put them all back in.

Every time I find the memorial for an unassigned child on FindaGrave I try to connect him with his parents. Every one of these children were loved in their lifetimes and deserve to be with their families, even if it's only through links on the internet.

Some of these children have lovely epitaphs on their grave markers. When I find one, I'll add it here. We are so fortunate to live when child mortality rates are so low.

In Oak Hill Cemetery, Bettie, Upshur County, Texas this marker sits, lasting monument to a parents' love for their child. The poor lad didn't live long enough to be named.

Infant Son of

A.A. &  J.L. Rutledge

Born Sept. 15, 1896

Died Sept 20, 1896

A little while on

Earth he spent

Until God for
Him his angels

Sent.

In Flauvanna Cemetery, Upshur County, Texas, George Richard Ball and his wife Clementine (Rutledge) Ball buried their daughter Angel.

She was one day old.  Her epitaph:

                A little flower of love
                That blossomed but to die.
                Transplanted now above
                To bloom with God on High.

Little Angel Ball

Over the last few days I have been tracing the Rutledge family branch who moved to Williamson County, Texas from Independence County, Arkansas. Fortunate indeed is the person doing research in Texas. Between Ancestry.com, FamilySearch's pilot program and the actions of many dedicated volunteers in their counties, a researcher can find much online.

Clementine married George R. Ball in Florence, Texas and moved with him to Fluvanna in Scurry County. They had many children, who stayed in Scurry County. Many are buried in Fluvanna Cemetery.

And there I found a photograph of another poignant grave. Angel Ball, daughter of GR and Clementine, died when she was one day old. Her tombstone has this poignant inscription:

A little flower of love

That blossomed but to die

Transplanted now above

To bloom with God on high.

The 2010 Census

The census bureau has spent millions on ads to encourage people to fill out and return the 2010 census forms. As someone who uses old census records all the time to track people, I firmly believe in completing the forms.

But this year the absurdities of the 2010 firm really struck me.

First of all, they wanted you to return the forms almost immediately, even though the count was supposed to be "as of April 1." And the instructions were explicit about how to handle visitors and people temporarily staying in the house.

Then there were all the blatant efforts to assign people to ethnic and racial categories. I protested apartheid and refuse to participate in the collection of data that could support it here. My daughter will remember that her high school refused to enroll her until I checked off one of several dozen micro-racial divisions. The idiotic bureaucrats absolutely insisted a box get checked off, so finally my daughter took the sheet of paper and randomly checked one.

So we discussed the form extensively, and decided to fill the form out on April 1, giving only our names and the number of people in the house. Our descendants will just have to get their information about us from the extensive records I plan to leave.

Update: My daughter was asked to fill out a census form by her dorm floor's resident advisor. Her descendants are going to wonder why she was born in Norway.

When Did Little Lottie Really Die?

It always saddens me when I find children's tombstones. We today are so fortunate the child mortality rate is so low. We don't have to mourn the loss of children like our ancestors did.

Lotte Louise Rutledge died when she was 3. Or was she 4?

Her tombstone says:

LOTTIE LOUISE

daughter of J.D. and M.M.

RUTLEDGE

born Sept. 6, 1908

died June 10, 1911

The record of her death filed with Shelby county says 19 June 1912, according to the death index on the Shelby County website.

Indexes can be wrong, so I sent an e-mail to Tom Leatherwood, Shelby County Registrar of Deeds, asking about the discrepancy. I also took the opportunity to tell him how much I appreciated the website and online records.

I sent my message at 7:14 pm PST A member of his staff replied 1:56 pm PST the next day. Talk about service!

They explained they could not correct the online index as it accurately reflected the death record, and attached the image of the page to prove it. Wow!

The death record clearly says Lottie died 19 June 1912. It was reported with several other deaths on 7/8/12, so perhaps Dr. Parrot reported didn't accurately report her death. And who would care. Poor Lottie was dead, and what the doctor reported would probably not have mattered to her grieving family. Perhaps he did accurately report her death, but the indexers misinterpreted the listing. The clerks recorded it on a page labeled "1911-12."

No matter when it happened, her death was a tragedy for her family.

A Tragic Death: Lottie's Brother John Clinton Rutledge

Everyone loves unusual deaths and family genealogists are no exception. On my side of the family I am particularly enamored of the McClelland murders that made the newspapers all over the US, and the distant relative of my Dad's family, a young man from a made-themselves-rich family who ate lunch with his mother and sisters, then quietly went into the family barn and blew out his brains with a shotgun. That made all the papers in Quincy, Illinois.

Today I found the tragic story of John Clinton Rutledge, a young man variously noted in census records as Clinton or John C. He was little Lottie Louise's brother and lived with his mother on the family farm in Collierville, Tennessee.

Tom Leatherwood's fabulous site had his death certificate. He fell from a pecan tree at his home, broke his neck and crushed his skull.

He was buried with his parents, Lottie and other members of his family in Bethany Christian Church Cemetery.

The Egyptian Afterlife and Genealogy

The ancient Egyptians believed they would live forever after death as long as their name was remembered. So they wrote their names everywhere because they knew their descendants wouldn't remember the names of their ancestors.

Family historians and genealogists look for those traces, and in a sense bring people back to life.

The first traces to follow in US genealogy is census records. You find a person when he/she is first listed with his/her parents, and follow that person every 10 years until he/she dies. Every once in a while a person just "disappears" and can't be found in a census. The challenge, and the fun, is finding out why.

Sometimes he or she was just skipped in a census. My grandfather Villiger wasn't listed in the 1910 census. I knew exactly where he was living at the time and went down to the National Archives to look through the maps of the enumeration districts for that census. Sure enough, they showed his block wasn't included in any district. The borders were not contiguous in that part of East St. Louis. Of course he and his parents, brothers and sisters were all listed in the city directories for several years before and after 1910.

You look for the person's spouse, and if he or she is listed as widow or widower, you know the person died. But if he or she wasn't married, or you don't know who he/she married, it's more challenging yet.

Sometimes the census enumerator can't spell or the indexer has misread the handwriting. Thank heavens for the multiple search criteria you can use on Ancestry.com. Sometimes a search for "Oscar born in Tennessee within 5 years of 1867" will pull up the missing person in a place you'd never expect, with a last name garbled beyond recognition.

My grandmother and great-aunts hunted for people when census records were only accessible on microfilm reels. They sat in darkened rooms, squinting at screens, hoping to find the family they wanted. It was so much easier when the families stayed put. But of course, this is America, and they didn't. I have notes in my Aunt Margaret's chicken-scratch handwriting (she had terrible arthritis) where she wrote down every McClelland family she found in the 1850 Ohio census. I often wonder how many hours it took her to find them all.

When children vanish, it's usually because they died. These children are special to me, as they were to their parents. I like to learn all I can about these youngsters, bringing them back to memory as the ancient If they are young, and the family had a bit of money, they can often be found in the family graveyard as many county historical and genealogical stories have transcribed cemetery listings and put them online.

Today I found Lottie Louise Rutledge, youngest child of John D. Rutledge and Martha May Wiseman. She was only 3 when she died. Her father's tombstone has no dates on it in the Bethany Christian Church Cemetery in Collierville, Tennessee. But Lottie Louise has a beautiful granite grave marker:

Lottie Louise

Daughter of J.D. and M. M.

Rutledge

Born June 6, 1908

Died June 10, 1911

Their grave markers were among those we photographed in 1991, but until this afternoon I did not know how they fit in to our family tree.

It saddens me to think of the grief her mother felt, and the grief of J---'s great-grandfather and mother for their infant son, who lived only three days and has his own marker in the same cemetery as Lottie. That brings them back to life again, if only for a little while.

Why Am I Blogging

My husband Jim once said the fun in genealogy is solving the mysteries. He doesn't have the bug, but he nailed the attraction.

The fun is in tracking down clues that lead you to the elusive ancestor, the person that everyone in the family knew existed, and maybe even knew, but the information needed to trace him/her is so scattered, and incomplete, to make the person a mystery. My family had several that my elders had worked hard to trace, but Jim's had more, and no one had worked to find them.

All genealogists and family historians love the chase, and always want to share the stories of their hunts. Most of us have no outlet to do this because our families are either disinterested, sick of hearing them or less than thrilled with the amount of time we spend on our hobby. My husband even created a new verb to describe the time I spend on my computer - "Sweding" - coined the summer I spent practically every waking hour on Genline pouring over Swedish parish records.

This blog will be my place to share. Maybe something in it will help someone else. Maybe readers will just enjoy the stories. Maybe it will do nothing more than record my ramblings as I hunt.