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.