What Ever Became of Evelyn?

Joe Manning (see this post) is now looking for info on Evelyn Casey, a mill worker photographed by Lewis Wickes Hine on June 17, 1916. The Fall River (Mass.) Historical Society thinks it's found the right family.

There were nine people in the Casey household, including parents Michael, 39, and Johanna, 38. Michael Casey was a janitor at the Coughlin School.

Siblings included Francis, Margaret, Edward, Angela, Joseph and Mary.

Evelyn Casey continued to be listed in city directories as a weaver living with her parents until 1922, when she may have married and taken her husband’s last name.

Are the Evelyn Casey in the photo and the Evelyn Casey in the records the same woman?

It’s a good bet, but there’s probably someone out there who knows for sure. If Evelyn Casey was born in 1902 and died at 70, then some daughter or grandson remembers her dying in 1972. [Link]

Recognize the Writing, Dad?

Finally an answer to that postcard mystery in Stratford, Connecticut. East Sumner, Me., native James Merrill was intrigued by the story, and sent a copy to his daughter, Harvard librarian Jan Merrill-Oldham.

"It was the unmistakable handwriting of my mother Alice (Merrill), and I just stared at it and couldn't believe the story was saying it was written by someone else," she said. "I called my father and teased him and said, 'Dad, don't you even know your own wife's handwriting?"'

He took a closer look and realized his wife of 64 years, Alice Merrill, had, in fact, written the postcard.

"I felt pretty foolish when I realized it," James Merrill said. [Link]

93-year-old Alice doesn't remember sending the card.

[Thanks, Nancy!]

Sometimes a Pile of Rocks Is Just a Pile of Rocks

Children have long been told that a mound of stones in First Presbyterian Church cemetery in Concord, N. C., marks the resting place of a Native American chief. Truth is, the rocks were put there by university president William Macon Coleman in 1910.

On his visit to the cemetery of his Mahan ancestors, he found it full, abandoned (the old church had moved to the corner of Spring Street and West Depot Street, which is now Cabarrus Avenue) and rundown, seedy and jungle-like.

Coleman, [E. Ray] King wrote, decided to honor his Mahans, so he brought big rocks from across Cabarrus County, perhaps some even from old Mahan dwellings, and left them in the garden. (King didn't know how he planned to use them.)

Then, without explanation, Coleman left town, leaving no directions as to their use.

"Public memory is short," King wrote, and during a later cleaning of the graveyard, a worker dutifully tossed the stones into a pile.

Voila! Instant mound. [Link]

Alice Doesn't Live There Anymore

People in Stratford, Connecticut, are trying to figure out who sent Town Manager Harry B. Flood a postcard back in 1957. The card—which turned up at the town office only recently—was mailed from East Sumner, Maine, and read "Hi, Enjoying this rather fallish weather. It was 44 degrees yesterday. See you next week. Alice."

The mystery woman could be Alice McHugh, a 1938 U.S. and world champion duckpin bowler who died in 1986.

"A man claiming to be her relative showed us a handwriting sample on her will that to me appears very similar to that of the Alice who signed the postcard, and she is said to have traveled extensively on trains because her husband worked for the New Haven line," said Jerry Gillespie, head of adult services and reference at the Stratford Library.

Another contender is Alice (Standish) Staples, whose daughter was an assistant town clerk in 1957. Or perhaps it was Alice Flynn.

Several people have contacted the mayor's office and library to say a woman named Alice Flynn worked in the town clerk's office in 1957 — though no records of her have been found in area phone directories from that time.

But library researchers say she could be the most likely of the candidates so far, and are combing town employee records for her name. [Link]

Mona Lisa Gherardini Men Have Named You

A year after researchers found the resting place of Lisa Gherardini and some of her living descendants, it has been confirmed that the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo was the model for da Vinci's most famous portrait.

[Library director Veit] Probst has now revealed that dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book at Heidelberg University library by its owner in October 1503, first found by Armin Schlechter, a manuscript expert, confirm once and for all that Lisa del Giocondo was indeed the model, and her husband most likely the man who commissioned the portrait. [Link]

There Was No Body There

Last weekend, archaeologists finally started digging for missing duelist Charles Henry Dickinson in Jim and Laura Bowen's front yard.

“The day we moved in, the guys across the street came in and said, ‘Have you heard about the body? Are you going to help excavate it?’” said Mr. Bowen, as he watched with his daughter, Lily, in his arms.

Several hours of digging turned up nothing.

The archaeologist leading the dig, Larry McKee, his jeans streaked with mud, announced to onlookers and his tired crew, “I think we’re going to call it, guys.”

The Bowens looked out from the porch as workers replaced the sod, saying they might continue after more research.

“We should let them dig up the whole yard,” Ms. Bowen said, “just to settle it once and for all.” [Link]

Postcard Samaritan Strikes Again

Doris Alman of Mason City, Iowa, was sent a postcard mailed by her parents to her grandmother back in 1968.

Alman turned her attention to the envelope the card was mailed in, wondering who sent it to her.

The No. 10 envelope has a one-line return address: Lost Postcard Rescue Dept.

The envelope has a 41-cent Gerald Ford postage stamp and the postmark shows it was mailed from Brooklyn, N.Y., on Nov. 21, 2007.

That’s where the mystery rests for Alman.

“I have no idea who it came from,” she said. “You would almost have to think it was someone who does genealogy because our last names are different.” [Link]

Sound familiar? I blogged last January about a similar case in South Carolina.

The envelope the card came in was postmarked in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Dec. 9. The return address is an e-mail account held by someone using the moniker "lost.postcards." [Ned] Hethington has e-mailed the account several times but has yet to receive a reply.

You Won't Find Tooties Under the Floor

Scottish postmaster Jonathan Creed tore down a partition at his office and found a creepy message written behind.

Imitating an inscription more commonly found on a gravestone it read: "In loving memory of John Tooties Q.C. who died on the 12th Day of March. Foul Play Suspected. 1958. 4ft below he lies."

Jonathan found himself faced with the horrifying prospect that a murder had been committed, possibly on his premises, with the victim buried deep beneath his floorboards.

An investigation turned up the "victim": 70-year-old John "Tooties" Sutherland, who worked on a construction crew as a young man.

[O]ne of their favourite pastimes was to scrawl messages on plaster or walls which were going to be covered by wallpaper or partitions.

"We came across it all the time ourselves. We'd pull a wall away and shout: 'Hey! Look at this – so and so was working here in 1858' or some such date. We always found it very interesting and I suppose we learned from that," he says. [Link]

Man Buried Without His Organist

Archaeologists hoped to dig out the long-buried gravestone of Methodist preacher James Gwin in Vicksburg, Miss.

What the excavators did not expect to find under years of dirt and grass was a second crypt, bearing a name unfamiliar to the researchers. The tomb of Elizabeth P. Mosby lay next to the reverend's, and the dates inscribed appeared to show she died on Sept. 11, 1841, barely a month after Gwin. She is named on the stone as the wife of J.C. Mosby.

Who was she? Why bury her here? Why were her remains so close to Rev. Gwin?

"Perhaps she was the organist," quipped Hobbs Freeman, a local artist who rode along on the excursion. [Link]

As it turns out, Elizabeth was the daughter of Reverend Gwin.

Belle Letters May Identify Corpse

Belle Gunness was a serial murderess responsible for at least ten, and perhaps as many as forty or fifty deaths. She made a practice of enticing bachelors to her Indiana farm with advertisements in matrimonial columns, and then offing them.

Now Andrea Simmons wants to find out whether Belle is the same woman whose burned, headless body was found in the cellar of her farmhouse following a 1908 fire, or whether she escaped, as many suspect.

Simmons got permission from 63-year-old Suzanne McKay, a great-granddaughter of Nellie Larson, Belle’s older sister who lived in Chicago, to exhume the body. Because of the number of generations that have elapsed and the fact that McKay and her sister are descended from Larson’s son, Simmons said the forensic anthropology team decided not to use their DNA. The best DNA comparisons come from an unbroken line of female ancestors.

However, Belle’s letters to Andrew Helgelien, which once helped entrap him, could now help determine whether his killer got away with the farmhouse deaths, too. Some of the envelopes that Belle sent to Helgelien and his brother will be used to provide hoped-for DNA from dried saliva under the stamps and places where the envelopes are sealed. [Link]

For those who like this sort of thing, gruesome crime-scene photos may be found here.

A Meticulous Grave Robber

The body of Sarah Symonds was dug up in Hillsborough, N. H., sometime around Halloween.

Someone dug up her coffin and her remains, leaving behind only a few shards of wood, a meticulously dug hole -- and a mystery for the local police.

"It was dug in a very strange manner. It's perfect," said Hillsborough Police Chief Brian Brown. "You'd have to see it. The sides are all squared. The bottom's level."

"We just don't have any answers right now," he said.

Gilman Shattuck, 80, a resident who is active in the local historical society, said he had researched Symonds since the incident had hit the news and learned she was born on March 29, 1794. Her headstone listed June 18, 1824 as her date of death. She was never married. [Link]

Where the Grass Don't Grow

Back in 1806, future U.S. President Andrew Jackson shot and killed a man in a duel. Now Jim and Laura Bowen of Nashville, Tennessee—together with a descendant of the fallen man—want to see if he is buried in their front yard. According to a 1955 newspaper clipping attached to their petition (pdf), the location of the burial won't be hard to find.

In the searing heat of last summer's drouth the grass and ivy in the front yard of J. M. Southall at 216 Carden Avenue, just off West End, first began to wither and die on a spot approximately three by seven feet under an ancient hackberry tree near the street. This indicated to the owner that at this point for some reason there was an unusual thinness of the soil.

Reference to Mr. Southall's deed shows that here is located the grave of Charles Dickenson [sic], killed in the famous duel with Andrew Jackson. When this area was opened as a sub-division a number of years ago; and the flat stone marker was covered shallowly by an earth-fill, the last visible evidence of Dickinson's mortal remains was obliterated.

Sons' Sub Search Successful

Here's an update of a story I blogged about last year. The sons of a World War II submarine commander have likely found their father's resting place on the floor of the Bering Sea.

The discovery of the USS Grunion on Wednesday night culminates a five-year search led by the sons of its commander, Mannert Abele, and may finally shine a light on the mysterious last moments of the doomed vessel.

"Obviously, this is a very big thing," the oldest son, Bruce Abele, said Thursday from his home in Newton, Mass. "I told my wife about it when she was still in bed and she practically went up to the ceiling."

As news of the search spread, several relatives of the Grunion's crew banded together to locate others with ties to the lost men. To date, the relatives of 69 men are following the progress of the search, said Mary Bentz of Bethesda, Md., whose uncle died on the Grunion. [Link]

Relatives of every crew member save one—Byron Allen Traviss of Detroit—have been located.

Bentz knows little about Traviss beyond his birthplace, Detroit, the name of his father, Russell A. Traviss, and his 1942 address, 4344 Tireman St.

The address is now a vacant lot. Neighbors said they never heard of Traviss.

Detroit directories from the 1930s listed the name of his wife as Ann and his jobs as electrician and autoworker. [Link]

You can contact the search team through their website if you have information on Traviss' family.

Update: A day later, and a relative of Traviss has been found.

Like a Community Barn-Raising, Only Different

The Mad Trapper of Rat River has been exhumed in Canada's Northwest Territories. A production company hopes to use DNA to finally identify Albert Johnson, "a gun-toting trapper who led the RCMP on the mother-of-all police chases across the Arctic during the depths of the Great Depression."

A film crew exhuming the body of the legendary outlaw in an effort to finally identify him had to dig two holes to find him — and wound up relying on the memory of a 92-year-old woman to successfully get DNA samples.

"We thought he was going to evade us one last time," Carrie Gour of Myth Merchant Films said Wednesday of the Alberta-based film company’s attempt to find an answer to one of the North’s great enduring mysteries.

Far from a macabre, horror-movie ambience, Gour described the exhumation as "magical."

"It was like a community barn-raising — only different." [Link]

Salford's Sioux

Excavations for a new BBC building in Salford, England, may turn up the burial site of a Sioux warrior.

The 120-year-old mystery of the whereabouts of the final resting place of the 6ft 7ins brave known as `Surrounded by the Enemy' may lie under Salford Quays. The horseman, a member of the Oglala Lakota Warriors of South Dakota, died during a visit to Salford with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in 1887/8.

Local councillor Steve Coen says there may be living proof of Native American presence in Salford.

"It is very possible that there may be descendants as they were here for a long time and they were certainly very friendly with the local population."

One Sioux baby was born in Salford and was baptised in St Clement's Church before slipping out of the history books. [Link]

Chamber of Secrets

The town of Upton, Massachusetts, has taken possession of a mysterious man-made cave called the "Upton Chamber."

Barbara Burke, chairwoman of the Historical Commission, says the chamber is perhaps three centuries old. She bases that on an 1893 newspaper article, which states that elderly residents at the time said their ancestors had talked of the cave and and did not know who built it.

Some say Colonial settlers might have used the chamber to store ice or vegetables. Others think it may have been a Native American ceremonial site. [Link]

Still others think it was built "under the influence of Irish monks in the 8th century."

Lost Colony Might Be Found in Their Genes

DNA tests may help solve the 420-year-old mystery of what happened to the Lost Colony on Roanoke Island.

As director of DNA research for the Lost Colony Center for Science and Research, [Roberta] Estes will manage a multidisciplinary approach to tracking roots from a "most-wanted list" of people who might have connections to the Roanoke colonists or to the 16th century American Indians - or to both.

Testing of American Indian remains or known descendants of the colonists in England might be part of future research, Estes said. [Link]

Papered-Over Profile Puzzles Prolific Parents

A couple in New Salem, Pennsylvania, discovered a man with a big head hiding in their home.

The drawing was discovered under two layers of wallpaper and glue, said Susan Wood, who lives in the home -- at 38 E. George St. -- with her husband, Robert Wood, and nine of their 10 children.

The writing beside the man's profile reads "Papered by M.H. Glatfelter 1911 Sep 24," Susan Wood said.

Until the family can find the true identity of the man on the wall, he will be called by another name.

"We call him Ghost Glatfelter," Susan Wood said. [Link]

Time to Get a New Horse

Who knew that you can tell time using a top-hatted man sitting on a dead horse? Colleen Fitzpatrick, Andrew Yeiser, and Sharon Sergeant figured out that the now-famous photo was taken on Sept. 21, 1871, at 4:30 p.m. (give or take a few seconds), having noticed that the shadows in the photograph run east-west—a phenomenon that they say occurs only on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.

Considering a top hat and tails are not the proper attire for Sheboygan in March when the average temperature is about 32 degrees, the date the picture must have been Sept. 22-23.

What about the time of day? Mr. Dapper is not only holding down the dead horse, he is also acting as a sundial. By measuring the length of his shadow on the street, Colleen and Andy were able to calculate the angle of the sun in the sky. This told them that the photo was taken at 4:30 p.m. (Time zones were not used until 1918, so there is no need to correct for standard time.) [Link]

The first of two articles on their findings appeared in The Sheboygan Press yesterday, with the second installment coming next week. The team claims to have found a "full-sized steam-belching locomotive" in the picture, but I could find it only if it wore a red-striped shirt.

You can see more clues and join the hunt at Ancestral Manor, or try your hand at the latest photo quiz at Forensic Genealogy.

Previously at The Genealogue:

• You Can't Beat a Dead Horse
• A Very, Very Calm Horse
• Let's Beat That Dead Horse One More Time
• Genealogists Study Groh's Anatomy
• Still Beating That Dead Horse

No One Knows Doug and Sandy

A burial service is planned this spring for four sets of remains dug up in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, ten years ago. Efforts to identify the people—possibly a family, one of them wearing a ring inscribed "GW 1813"—have failed.

Despite the discovery of a key personal effect and exhaustive searches of burial logs and city historical records, no one could ever put a name to the four. The closest the city came to naming the remains was former police Lt. Jim Backes' habit of calling the male and female "Doug and Sandy" after how the bones were retrieved and the type of material in which they were found. [Link]