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Wordless Wednesday 8/18/2
Posted in Coble, Wordless Wednesday
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In the City – Week 32 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
A Tale of Two Railroad Cities
John Peter Anthony (Antony) spent his adult life working for the railroad. John was born June 6, 1861 in Heilenbach in the district of Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prum in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany to Jacob Johann Antony and Otillia Endres. He emigrated to America with his family in 1880 and settled in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He married Gertrude Schmidt on February 23, 1886.
The 1900 US Census shows that John was a naturalized citizen and that he was a Car Inspector for the railroad in La Crosse. By 1905 he was working as Car Repairer for the railroad according to the Wisconsin Census.
“During the second half of the 19th century, La Crosse became an important center for steamboats, lumber mills, railroads and brewing.” www.wisconsinhistory.org In fact, the lumber industry relied on the railroads for its survival. By 1886, the La Crosse railroad system consisted of six lines. www.footstepsoflacrosse.org These industries were essential for the growth of La Crosse as a city. In 1880 (when John arrived), the population was 14,505 but grew to 42,699 by 1900. In 2020, the city of La Crosse had a population of 50,699.
John and Gertrude were raising their family during the late 1880’s and early 1900’s. They had 10 children (tragically, four of the children had died by the time my grandmother, Annie, was born in 1905).
More misfortune was in store for this family. According to the information that John and Gertrude’s son Peter told his family, the oldest son Henry contracted Tuberculosis or Consumption, which was the leading cause of death in the early 1900’s (followed by pneumonia). Unfortunately, TB gradually destroyed the lungs of patients. www.circulatingnow.nlm.hih.gov There was no reliable treatment at this time and very few patients recovered. Henry’s doctor told John and Gertrude that Henry might do better in a warmer, dryer climate than La Crosse.
La Crosse sees heavy snow averaging 11 inches a month in both December and January with snow common for six months of the year along with very cold temperatures and substantial rain for five months. Looking for a city with a dry, warm climate, the family decided on San Bernardino, California.
My grandmother, Anna Agnes Anthony, was born in 1905 in La Crosse and shortly after her birth, the family moved to San Bernardino.
San Bernardino has been another city with significant population growth. In 1900 the population was 6,150 and by 1910 it was 12,779. In 2020, the population was 214,706. It was a city where the railroad was a major focus and a vital contributor to the economy. According to www.sbcity.org, “In 1875, the Southern Pacific Railroad came into the area. In 1886, the Santa Fe Railroad arrived in the area and San Bernardino became Santa Fe’s ‘gateway’ to Southern California.” The 1910 US Census shows that John was a Car Repairer in the Railroad Shop. His obituary states that he worked for the Santa Fe Railroad.
Unfortunate, this move did not have a happy ending. My mother had the understanding that Henry, just 19, died when he was struck in the chest by a baseball. Since my grandmother was so young, she had no firsthand knowledge and probably heard snippets of conversation surrounding his death. While Henry may have been hit by a baseball, it is more probable that he actually died of tuberculosis since there was no cure. (His obituary does not state a cause of death.) Henry Anthony died on August 9, 1906 in Redlands, California.
Favorite Name – Week 31 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Common or Unusual?
The most popular name in my family tree is John. Then there is Stephen, Malcolm, Francis and Frances, Mary, and Sarah. Some of the more unusual women’s names in my tree are: Elvira, Orriminah, Otillia (nicknamed Tilly), Droucilla, Hawise, and Frethaesant. A few of the more unusual names for my male ancestors are: Elfreth, Servatius, Micajah, Minicus, Absalom, and Leonhard.
According to www.names.org, my name, Jacquelyn, means “may God protect.” It is the 732nd most popular girl’s name. From 1880-2019 the Social Security Administration has recorded 84,714 babies born with the first name Jacquelyn in the United States and 1951 was the year that my name was recorded the most times.
According to www.genealogybank.com, “most European surnames can be traced back to the Medieval times in the 13th and 14th centuries. During this period, last names were recorded as societies started collecting taxes and became more bureaucratic.” At this point, last names were chosen to be practical. They were often linked to “occupations, geographical features such as where your home was in the village, a nickname, physical feature or even a combination of the mother’s and father’s names.”
Here are the meanings of my four main ancestry lines:
Watkins – Welch: an s designates “son of” so Watkins means son of Watkin or possibly son of Walter.
Vandyke – Dutch: topographic name for someone who lived by any of the many thousands of dikes in the Netherlands.
McLeod – Scottish: mac means son of so McLeod is son of Leod. It is a Gaelic term from the Old Norse name Ljotr which means ugly. (According to Churchill, it means son of Clode from Claudius the second emperor “who through fear of death, buried himself alive, being plucked by the heels out of a hole to be set upon the throne.”)
Antony – German by way of a Roman Clan: (Antonius to Antony to Anthony) meaning praiseworthy or priceless.
When doing genealogical research, common names can be complicated. It can sometimes be challenging to find the “correct” person who is your ancestor. I am trying to find more information on my 2nd great grandmother who I believe is Mary Stewart. (My grandfather, Malcolm McLeod, was born to John McLeod and Sarah Liggett. John was born to Malcolm McLeod and “I think” Mary Stewart.) I found the name Mary connected to Malcolm and Stewart was listed as the mother’s maiden name on the California Death Index for John. Also, when John immigrated to the United States, John listed John Stewart as a cousin on the Manifest of Alien Passengers in the section titled “the name and complete address of nearest relative or friend in country whence alien came.” It’s logical that John Stewart was the cousin of Mary Stewart McLeod.
John McLeod in the California, U.S., Death Index, 1940-1997
| Name: | John McLeod |
| Gender: | Male |
| Birth Date: | 7 Sep 1863 |
| Birth Place: | Canada |
| Death Date: | 23 May 1942 |
| Death Place: | San Bernardino |
| Mother’s Maiden Name: | Stewart |
| Father’s Surname: | McLeod |
Wordless Wednesday 8/4/21
Posted in Coble, Wordless Wednesday
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Health – Week 30 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
“A Little Progress Each Day Adds up to Big Results”
“Too much of anything will work against you. Limit your intake, spending and commitments. Change begins with you; focus on being your best instead of trying to change everyone around you.” This was my horoscope on July 20, 2021 in the Las Vegas Review Journal. It also happens to be part of my philosophy of life.
As a fairly recent retiree, a major goal of mine is to live as long as possible while remaining as healthy as possible. Truly, good health cannot be underestimated. Many health issues are beyond our control and certainly DNA can influence our health. Some people choose to have genetic testing to determine if they have a predisposition to certain issues. Those of us who do genealogical research may discover patterns of health afflictions. (Many of my ancestors have suffered with heart disease so I feel that it is important to take a proactive approach to my health.) “We can’t change our DNA but we can change how it functions.” https://www.lakewayspinecenter.com/genes-vs-lifestyle/
While I have regular check-ups in the hope of catching any major issues as soon as possible, I focus on lifestyle choices. I am a firm believer in moderation and balance. Denial and fear are not good options to health and happiness.
The basics certainly apply:
- Exercise – I would say that my exercise style is “lazily active.” Strenuous exercise and participation in sports is just not my thing so I focus on movement. Years ago I read an article that stated that “sitting is the new smoking” and I took that to heart. I wear my Fitbit and aim for 11,000 steps a day and receive a notification if I have been sitting too long and haven’t gotten at least 250 steps that hour. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, moving more can literally save your life. “For adults ages 25-29, around 10% of deaths can be contributed to getting less than 150 minutes of activity a week; for adults age 70 and older, it’s 9%.” In a different study, AARP reported that “older women who averaged 4,400 steps per day compared with just 2,700 steps were 41% less likely to die during a follow-up of 4.3 years.”
- Sleep – ideally, most people should get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep every night (I generally get between 6 and 8 hours a night). Establishing a sleep routine is helpful. According to www.verywellhealth.com, quality sleep “keeps your heart healthy, regulates blood sugar, reduces inflammation, improves memory, helps the body repair itself, and reduces stress.”
- And speaking of stress…according to AARP, “Chronic stress is also a well-established contributor to deaths related to immune system suppression, diabetes, arterial plaque buildup (atherosclerosis), psychiatric illness, and possibly cancer.” It really is important to take time to relax and be calm.
- Diet – being selective in your food choices is essential to living a healthy life. Balance and moderation are key ingredients to a healthy eating plan. If I eat well the majority of the time, the occasional splurge can be very satisfying. I’ve discovered that I do better if I limit sugar, limit salt, and limit processed foods. Recently I’ve read several articles that discuss how eating walnuts daily can help decrease inflammation in the body so I usually have a 1/4 cup of walnuts for breakfast. For the most part, Gary and I follow a modified Mediterranean Diet. According to www.everydayhealth.com, a Mediterranean diet “reduces risk for heart disease and stroke; may prevent cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s; may stave off and manage Type 2 Diabetes; may help prevent certain cancers; may help ease depression; and may help with weight loss and maintenance.”
One of our very favorite meals is what we call Mediterranean Supreme. Most weeks, Gary makes up a big batch (it does require lots of chopping) and we eat it for our main meal for two days. (When possible, we eat our main meal at lunch and have a light dinner or evening snack.) It also works well as a side dish.
Ingredients:
- 2 cans garbanzo beans – drained and rinsed
- 4 cucumbers, seeded and diced
- 1 bunch red radishes – diced
- 4 celery stalks – diced
- 1 small red onion, diced
- cherry tomatoes – sliced in half
- 1 jar sliced Kalamata olives, drained
- lemon – zested and juiced
- olive oil
- Feta cheese
- Pepper to taste (fresh cracked is always best)
Directions:
- Drain beans and olives, place in large bowl.
- Add rest of vegetables, lemon zest and juice.
- Before serving, add the Feta cheese, olive oil, pepper and toss.
The nice thing about this recipe is that you can adapt it as you wish; add more or different vegetables or more beans. We often substitute green onions for the red onion. We’ve added green and red bell peppers or chopped zucchini. We’ve also added artichoke hearts. Once, we had a few extra anchovy stuffed olives so we threw those in. We like the Baklouti Green Chile Pepper oil from our local Olive Oil store so we usually drizzle that over the salad along with a very flavorful extra virgin oil.
Posted in Coble, Current Events
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Fashion – Week 29 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
From Little Annie to Granny Annie
Fashion is one way that we reflect our personalities. As we choose clothes, we select styles that showcase our personalities and the culture of the time. Fashion allows us both to fit in and to distinguish ourselves from others. Our fashion choices change throughout our lifetime.
We’re going to take a journey and see the progression of Little Annie to Granny Annie.
My grandmother, Anna Agnes Anthony, the beloved youngest daughter of a devoted German American family was born on July 25, 1905 in La Crosse, Wisconsin to John Peter Anthony (Antony) and Gertrude Schmidt Anthony. Shortly after her birth, Annie and her family moved to San Bernardino, California. The family settled in and made San Bernardino their home. Annie’s father worked for the railroad in both cities. By 1910, of the 10 children that John and Gertrude had, there were only five surviving children: Peter, Mary, Barbara, Christopher, and Annie.
As a young woman, Annie was quite fashionable. Annie met and married handsome Malcolm McLeod whose family immigrated to San Bernardino from Ontario, Canada when he was two. Annie and Malcolm married in 1923 when Annie was just 18 and Malcolm was 23. Their son, William, was born in 1930 and their daughter, Geraldine (Jerrie), was born in 1938.
Then her marriage tragically fell apart (I discussed this in my blog of July 2, 2021 titled Conflict. https://journeyingwithjacque.com/). Annie then was on her own, raising her children and trying to provide for her family by waitressing.
Annie (Ann) then met Jack Jacobs and her fashion style changed dramatically. Jack was truly a cowboy. Annie discovered that she loved the desert and the western lifestyle. Sometime before 1966, Jack and Ann took jobs at the Grand Canyon. Jack led mule rides down the Grand Canyon and Ann was a waitress at the restaurant. She told me that she found being a waitress gratifying because she relished talking to the customers. She especially enjoyed when she served German tourists at the Grand Canyon because she always surprised them when she spoke German to them.
Annie spent the last several years of her life living in Wendon, Arizona where she was known to the whole community as Granny Annie. She took great pleasure in this.
Annie’s best fashion accessory was her charisma. She loved people and never met a stranger. When I was a teenager I would get embarrassed when we would be shopping and a song came on that she liked and she would sing and dance in the aisle. Of course, everyone else loved it. She really had an oversized personality.
Wordless Wednesday 7/21/21
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Transportation – Week 28 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Westward to Kansas, the Amazing Land of Opportunity
I’m 12 years old. I’m old enough to join the cattle drive to Kansas. I can keep up with those older guys who are 23 or 24. I may not have all the skills they have yet, but I can help cook and I can wrangle the spare horses.
Okay, I wasn’t expecting it to be this hard. Even during the day, the coulees were just sometimes in front of you before you could even see where you were going. At night if there was a storm, the cattle would just start running and you’d hear that low rumbling noise along the ground. I’d have to jump on my horse and help the other guys round them up before they scattered all over. It was awful because you’re running your horse as fast as you can without being able to see anything. Even on a calm night, we would have to sing lullabies to settle the cattle down. The worst part of the cattle drive though was just being so tired. We never ever got enough sleep. Why, we would even sometimes rub tobacco in our eyes just to keep awake.
My grand-aunt, Winifred Watkins Walker, told me that her father, my great grandfather, John Calvin Watkins, shared the story with his children of him joining a cattle drive at the age of 12 as he headed west to Kansas. She didn’t tell me if she believed it. (A dry sense of humor seems to be a shared family trait; this was certainly true with my grandfather, my father, and my brother.) In the 1790s there were cattle drives from Tennessee to Virginia, but I could find no evidence of any cattle drives between West Virginia and Kansas. According to Wikipedia, between 1850 and 1910, “27 million cattle were driven from Texas to rail yards in Kansas for shipment to stockyards in Louisiana and points west.” By 1890, “the long trail drives increasingly became more difficult because the open range was divided up with barbed wire fences.” www.cowboysindians.com
My great grandfather, John Calvin Watkins, was born on May 24, 1869 in Taylor, West Virginia. His parents, Samuel and Susanna Watkins, had 10 children. According to the 1870 census the entire family lived in West Virginia at this time. Samuel died on September 4, 1874.
As mechanization and the industrial revolution took hold in West Virginia, farming was less profitable. The railroads began encouraging people from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, and New York to head west to Kansas where crops were cheaper to raise and where they could be assured of a “temperate climate, excellent health, pure and abundant water.” 1876 advertising flyer for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad
After Samuel’s death and before 1880, two of John Calvin’s brothers migrated to Kansas. In 1881, it is likely that when John was 12, he, his mother, and several other siblings moved to Kansas to join his older brothers, Richard and William. The family probably arrived by train because the railroads often offered “free or reduced-rate transportation to Kansas.”
“Those who settled Kansas occasionally may have found conditions as agreeable as the railroads had advertised. But they also faced drought, harsh winters and summers, jackrabbit attacks, grasshopper infestations, dust storms, financial downturns, and dwindling populations. In the 1890s, the railroads stopped advertising Kansas.” https://www.kansas.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-story-of-kansas/article1053043.html
The Watkins family (including John Calvin and his mother Susanna) settled in Plum Grove, Kansas, a town which no longer exists.