Saturday, March 9, 2019

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- A Fearless Female Writing Prompt

It's Saturday Night, 
time for more Genealogy Fun!!


For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I want you to:

1)  Read Lisa Alzo's blog post "Fearless Females Blogging Prompts Series Returns for 2019"
 on her blog, The Accidental Genealogist

2)  Choose one of her daily blog prompts from the list (this is March 9th, do that one if you don't want to choose another), and write about it.

3)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a comment here with a link to your post.

Here's mine:

I'm going to choose the March 8th prompt:  "Did one of your female ancestors leave a diary, journal, or collection of letters? Share an entry or excerpt."

My great-grandmother, Della (Smith) Carringer (1862-1944) kept a scrapbook, wrote letters to family and friends, and kept a journal for at least one year, 1929.  I have transcribed the journal in my Della's Journal series.  

I have transcribed several of the letters that were in the "collection" of artifacts, ephemera and papers.  One of them has been very useful - a rough draft of a letter she wrote to at least one sister or cousin, and perhaps to several of them.  Here it is:

Letter from Della (Smith) Carringer to her "cousins" (unspecified). Undated, although it is probably October 1903. No envelope. The letter is on “Greetings from Southern California” letterhead, with three pictures (copyright 1901 by Edw. H. Mitchell S.F.):

San Diego
510 Watkins Ave.

Dear Cousins,

Your good letter recived and I was so surprised to hear of two more boys in the family but I know George is proud now the men always are when it is a boy. I always wanted a girl I think they are just as nice don’t you? Wish I could have had my two boys to raise together. Hope you all can keep yours they are so much company one for the other. But I am thankfull for my one boy. He will be twelve next month. He is doing nicely in school now. 

If it is not to much trouble when you write next time give me the childrens ages for I want to set down all of the cousins children and see how big a tree we will be in fifty years from now. Davie was fourty the 15th of this month so that makes the fourth to enter the four tens if Orpha & Nellie had lived. 1 I am the oldest. 2 Orpha next then 3 Nellie & 4 Davie. 5 (Ada dead). 6 Mary Dyar. 7 Matie Smith. 8 (Aggie Smith dead). Then 10 George 9 Myrtle Crouch. 11 Amy. 12 Willie C. 13 Lutie S. (dead). 14 Louie. Bert Vaux 15 (Ralph Crouch dead), 16 Bert Vaux. 17 Guy Vaux dead 19 Callie. I think 18 Gean Woodward was older than Callie but I do not know for shure. You know from there down Myrtle is older than George for I can remember her saying Monkey for Munger when he was a baby. You know from there down this younger generation of cousins.

20 Ada Woodward. 21 Verdie Dyar. 22 Roy Dyar. 24 Nellie Woodward. 23 Devier Carringer. 26. Chester Dyar. 27 Lyle Carringer. 25 Eva Smith. 28 Vern Dyar. 29 Ellen Doctor. 30 Lezzie Doctor. 31 Grace Doctor. 32 Mable Smith. 33 34 Will Cruchs 2 girls. 35 36 37 Amy 2 boys 1 girl. 38 39 40 Geo 2 girls 1 boy. 41 Orpha 1 girl. 18 Grand chil, 23 G Grand chil.

[no further information]

I quickly figured out who the "parents" of this family are - it's Samuel and Mary Ann (Underhill) Vaux.  Note the 18 grandchildren and 23 great grandchildren comment.  The names of the children given on the list above are all children of the children of Samuel and Mary Ann (Underhill) Vaux. 

I think that this letter was sent to Della's aunt, Celia Ann (Vaux) (Redfield) Munger in Belleville, Kansas because she refers to George's having just had a son - George is certainly George Francis Munger of Belleville, who had a son, Frank E. Munger on 30 May 1903, and had two daughters before that.   The second boy that Della refers to is probably Amy (Munger) Doctor's son, Peter Doctor, who was born in August 1903 in Belleville.

I really do think that Della would be ecstatic that someone in the family found her collection and has used it to create a family tree.  I also think that she would be amazed at what I've found in her ancestry, and in her husband's ancestry also. 

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Copyright (c) 2019, Randall J. Seaver

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2 comments:

Lisa S. Gorrell said...

I loved the recipes from my grandmother.

https://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/2019/03/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-fearless.html

Linda Stufflebean said...

Here is my post: https://emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/2019/03/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-35/ Now, I would love for a cousin to say they have a photo of Elida!