If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Police Station

Curt Garfield's grandfather Seneca Hall was the first police chief of Sudbury, Mass.

Standing in his yard on Boston Post Road, Hall would watch for speeders by seeing how quickly the car passed stripes painted on telephone poles, Garfield writes in "The Parson's Cat."

"Once he was sure that his victim was over the limit, he would sound a blast on his police whistle. The yahoo in question would generally screech to a stop as grandfather put on his hat, pulled his ticket book from the bib pocket of his overall and proceed to write out a speeding violation."

When asked what the police station looked like when he was a boy, Garfield had no problem recalling.

"It was our kitchen." [Link]

Columnist's Crossing Confirmed

Cape Breton Post columnist Rannie Gillis recently wrote of a childhood trip to the U.S. One of his readers thought his story needed documentation.

It was only two weeks ago — Monday March 31 — when I received the following e-mail. “Hello Rannie, I was just reading your column “Columnist relives bus trip to Boston when he was a toddler” and thought you might like a souvenir of that trip. Here are the United States border crossing cards for you, your brother and your mother. I enjoy reading your column. Regards: Juanita MacDonald, Whycocomagh.”

Enclosed, as attachments, were scanned images of three United States Custom’s border crossing cards. The cards, dated August 3, 1946, appeared to be a little bit larger than a traditional recipe card and contained a wealth of personal information on myself, my brother and my mother.

As this was the same day that my column about travelling from Sydney to Boston on a bus appeared, you can well imagine my shock and surprise at receiving this very personal information and from an unknown woman in Whycocomagh, of all places. [Link]

Yes, Ancestry.com's Canada to U.S. Border Crossings database is available even in Whycocomagh.

Grandma's Middle Finger

Jeri Mills' interest in family history was sparked by her grandmother's "funny-looking finger."

"One of my grandmother's middle fingers would never bend," Mills said, "and I was curious to learn why it wouldn't."

Mills questions about her grandmother's finger went unanswered for many years, she said.

"She was reluctant to talk about it, but when I got older I asked her again," Mills said.

That was when Mills learned that when her grandmother was a child, she was involved in a train wreck while fleeing the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1800s. [Link]

Thar's Gold in Them Thar Hills

An Arkansas man is searching for Confederate gold buried to finance a second Civil War that never happened. The Freemasons, John Wilkes Booth, and Jesse James were all involved.

Bob Brewer was 10 when his great-uncle, W.D. "Grandpa" Ashcraft, pointed it out on a logging trip 57 years ago.

"He said, 'Boy, you see that tree? That's a treasure tree,'" Brewer recalled on a recent visit to the site. "'You see that writing? If you can figure out what that is, you'll find some gold.'"

The old man didn't elaborate, but his words stuck with Brewer through childhood and two tours of duty in Vietnam as a Navy helicopter crewman. So did memories of Grandpa's frequent, unexplained horseback rides into the nearby Ouachita Mountains. [Link]

Lincoln Made His Own Memorial

Just before he left Illinois for his first inauguration, Abraham Lincoln stopped by a cemetery in Coles County to visit the graves of his father and step-mother. It was Gale Baker's grandfather, John W. Baker, who showed Abe where the bodies were buried.

At the time, the burial sites were mostly unmarked, so Abraham Lincoln carved the initials of Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln on a piece of wood to serve as a rudimentary grave marker.

At least, this is the tale handed down to Gale Baker from his grandmother, Susan D. Baker.

Abraham Lincoln “found those graves and then went to Washington and was shot there,” said Gale Baker, 90. “That’s the story as she told it.” [Link]

If I remember correctly, some other stuff happened between his going to Washington and getting shot.

Family Story Has Legs

I. A. Hutchins shot a weird wolf-like creature back in 1886. He sold the animal to a taxidermist Joseph Sherwood, who called it a "ringdocus" and put it on display.

“I never doubted the story,” said Jack Kirby, grandson of the settler who shot the animal.

After reading a Halloween-themed Chronicle story about local legends of strange creatures, Kirby tracked down the mount in the Idaho Museum of Natural History in Pocatello.

[Loren] Coleman and [Jerome] Clark suggested that a DNA test should be done on the mount to determine what it is. Kirby, however, was not so certain he was ready to end a mystery that had been passed down by his family for four generations.

“Do we want to know?” he said. [Link]

Man Finds Spoon, Loses Arm

Descendants of John W. Matheny donated some of his belongings to the Botetourt County (Va.) Historical Society, including a very special eating utensil.

According to family lore, said Jim Keyser, Matheny had found the spoon on the battlefield earlier and stuck it in his left breast pocket. While the battle raged around him a Yankee pumpkin ball hit him in the chest bending the lip of the spoon and sending the musket ball into his arm. He lost the arm from the resulting wound.

“All of our lives that spoon hung attached to the frame that held our great-grandfather’s discharge papers from the Confederacy,” said Keyser. [Link]

You Can't Get That Kind of Service on eBay

Russell Crowe's great-grandfather was an auctioneer in Kelowna, B.C., "known for breaking plates and reciting poetry."

"[Mr. Crowe] wasn't the greatest auctioneer in the world; he liked to talk too much instead of sell," [Bill] Whitehead recalled. "He used to tell stories about how you could pick up a heavy dinner plate and pound a nail into a wall without hurting it. He'd ask for a 10-cent bid on something and somebody would offer a nickel and he'd get mad and throw the cup on the floor."

Instead of turning off potential buyers, Mr. Whitehead said the trick got customers' attention and turned into a regular feature. He added that Fred Crowe used to frequently recite verses while selling items, a favourite being about blue willow pattern of china. [Link]

Unwitting Witness to History

Descendants of Wilmer McLean gathered on Monday for their first tour of his house in Appomattox, Virginia—the same house where Grant accepted Lee's surrender at the close of the Civil War.

The oft-repeated irony is that McLean, who lived in Manassas, had moved to Appomattox after the first Battle of Bull Run to escape the war.

“He used to say that the war started in his front yard and ended in his parlor,” said Patrick Schroeder, a historian with the Appomattox Courthouse National Historic Park.

According to Charlotte Lageman, McLean’s great-granddaughter, “a family story is that a cannonball came through the chimney and fell into a pot of soup he was cooking in Manassas. That’s when he said, ‘This war is getting too close.’” [Link]

[Photo credit: McLean House by Mike McBride]

Once Upon a Time There Were Three Brothers...

I was once a student of comparative mythology, so the notion that some family legends might spring from the unconscious mind appeals to me.

The legend of three brothers emigrating together to America and then splitting up to settle in different parts of the country is a common myth. Some ascribe the myth to genealogical laziness, but it may have roots in the "three brothers" theme found in medieval folk tales, "in which an aged king sends his sons on a quest for some magic, rejuvenating water in a distant land." Professor E. Washburn Hopkins traced the story back to "Fountain of Youth" stories told in ancient Persia, Ireland, and elsewhere.

The Persian version substitutes for three brothers two brothers and a sister; the Keltic version turns all three into girls. Elsewhere the three are brothers, the trio still preserved, perhaps, in the numerous American families (of eight or nine generations) who independently trace their origin to "three brothers who came to America in the seventeenth century to seek their fortune." How widespread this myth is, may easily be learned from casual inquiry. I once sat at table with half a dozen unrelated people, four of whom stated that this was their "family legend." Of the four, three admitted that it was a legend without historical foundation, "a myth"; one insisted that it was certain. [Link]

Save the Story, Fudge the Facts

J.K. Thompson and Robert Beasley agree how Elroy, North Carolina, got its name, though they disagree on the details.

"My mama used to say Jimmy Long took the first two letters of his wife's name (Ellen), and he had a son named Roy," Thompson said. "(He) put them together and called it Elroy."

Ellen was actually Long's second wife, Beasley said. And while his research has not turned up a son named Elroy, Leroy or even Roy, he shrugged it off with the explanation that his great-grandfather "probably called one of them Roy." [Link]

Perhaps he called one of his sons "Roy" so he could name the town after him.

Dads Say the Darndest Things

Visiting PostSecret is part of my Sunday ritual. In keeping with today's theme, some readers have sent in tall tales their fathers told them. A couple of examples:

-----Email Message-----
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 5:12 AM

My dad used to say that inside of the car's air-bags was uncooked popcorn. When you wrecked the popcorn would pop and you would have a snack until help came.

-----Email Message-----
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 6:55 AM

My dad told me the worst swear word you could possibly say was "Bostonian". It meant "someone who has no private parts." My brother and I used the word until we were teenagers and my father giggled every time we said it, right before he sent us to our rooms.

Too Sick to Sink

Dee Peters' great-grandmother Matilda Tovey probably made the right decision back in April of 1912.

Her young son, Jack, had suddenly come down with an illness just before the family was to leave for Canada.

Given the sick lad's condition, the prospect of a weeklong sea journey across the Atlantic in third-class was enough for the Toveys to postpone their trip and take the next ship out.

A few days later, they learned that Jack's illness had saved their lives.

"They were all ready to get on the Titanic," says Peters. [Link]

He Didn't Know When to Fold 'em

If her great-great-grandfather had been a better card player, Sophie Parkin might be living in Craig-y-Nos Castle in Wales.

Today the estate is worth around £2.5m but Sophie, 45, will never see a penny of it, nor will she ever live within the castle’s grey, stone walls.

Because, according to Sophie’s grandmother, the wealthy landowner was also a bit of a gambler and it was only a matter of time before the castle slipped out of his hands.

The winner of that fateful game took pity on the poor family and allowed them to stay on in the crofter’s cottage, but private schooling had to be swapped for hard work as their life of privilege disappeared before their eyes. [Link]

[Photo credit: Craig Y Nos by The Welsh Knight]

Grandmother Not as Dead as He'd Thought

Ian Scott was able to confirm a family story concerning his father and a woman he met while visiting a hospital for the mentally ill.

As the story goes, according to my father, he met a woman that was supposedly “insane” in Belfast who called him “Hugh Scott.” This took my father by surprise; his father was Hugh Scott. My father apparently told the woman that he was John Scott, son of Hugh Scott - and this woman - Annie Moore (today I’ve discovered her official registered name was Anna Moore) then told my father that she was his grandson.

My father replied, “Oh no, that can’t be. My grandmother is dead.”

Annie Moore, according to my father then replied, “Oh, is that what they’ve told you?” [Link]

Empty Wallet Full of History

Russell Martin Harris has donated to the Mormon church a wallet carried by his great-great-grandfather.

It was that ancestor, Martin Harris, who mortgaged his farm to get the $3,000 needed to print the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon, the central text of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Family folklore holds that the soft, caramel-brown wallet carried the cash to the printer, Russell Harris said.

Through the years, Russell Harris has shared that same story, showing off the wallet to small groups.

"Everybody wanted to open the billfold and see if the money was still there," Russell Harris said. "It was always empty." [Link]

One Family's Myth Communication

Representatives of the English and American branches of the Perrotin family reunited in California last week after a century apart. Each had heard a different explanation for the loss of contact.

From the stories her great-aunt told her, Linda Tully of San Jose always assumed that her English cousins died in the bombing "blitz" during World War II. Jenny Murray of Gloucestershire, England, had been told that her cousins in the new world perished during an earthquake in Mexico.

So how did those stories get started?

Well, there were earthquakes in Mexico: But Tully says she's unaware they killed any of the family. And the closest Jenny Murray's family came to the "blitz" was that her father extinguished incendiary bombs dropped near his home some 100 miles west of London. [Link]

102 Years' Worth of Stories to Tell

102-year-old Florence Hastings has received Bethel, Maine's Boston Post Cane as oldest resident of the town. (My grandmother grew up not far from the Hastings farm, and was awarded her adopted town's cane a couple of years ago.) Florence—whose grandchildren I went to school with—got a great write-up in the local paper this week, complete with wonderful anecdotes.

The Hastings’ children arrived in the late 1920s and through the 1930s — Ginny, Mary Alice, Sonny and Ann, the youngest.

Florence recalls that when Ann arrived, Sonny gave the doctor a handful of play money in “payment.”

“A few weeks later Sonny reported to Dr. Twaddle that he wanted his money back because her head was wobbly,” said Florence. “The good doctor checked her over, patted her head a few times and told Sonny that in few weeks her head would be fine.” [Link]

Read also of the time Florence was a teacher and gave out cats as rewards to her students, and of how Sonny tried to help the war effort by putting diapers on fireflies.

They Made a Big Production Out of It

ThinkFilm just picked up North American distribution rights to the 2005 indy feature The Last Confederate: The True Story of Robert Adams (formerly known as Strike the Tent). The Civil War-era film about a man from the South who falls for a gal from the North was written and produced by descendants of Robert and Eveline (McCord) Adams, and stars their great-great-grandson Julian Adams as Robert, and Julian's father Weston as "Grandfather Adams."

To ensure authenticity of their family’s story, Julian and Weston turned to the wealth of diaries, letters, and family documents surrounding Robert and Eveline. Records of Robert’s enlistment in the Confederate Army, his military service records, and his prison documents from Elmira, New York, also brought the elegant and horrible details of his story to light. [Link]

Founding Father Found Fathering

James Madison was a protégé of fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson, and succeeded him as president. Could the two men have had something else in common?

[Bettye] Kearse, a practicing pediatrician who has a doctorate in biology, has traced her pedigree back to a slave named Mandy who bore a daughter, Coreen, with James Madison Sr. Coreen, also a slave, bore a son, Jim, with her half-brother, James Madison Jr. Since James and Dolley Madison never had children, Kearse could prove that Madison's only descendents are Black.

Kearse, of Dover, Mass., says the foundation of her claim is based on oral history. When Jim was sold, Coreen reportedly told him "always remember you're a Madison." [Link]