Leaves & Branches

Over the past couple of days I have been doing a lot of newspaper research.  I love reading old newspaper articles.  The minute detail of every aspect of small town life can be entertaining.  Can you imagine supper at your parents’ house making the local news?   How would you like the neighbors talking about the reason for your recent hospitalization over a game of cards?  Few details of small town life were off limits in the local newspapers. I will focus this post on the tidbits I found on my maternal grandmother Mary Jane Dudley Donaldson’s family.  Her uncle L.J. Dudley was an attorney and his travels throughout Highland and Clinton Counties were well documented in the local papers.  The News Herald of Hillsboro had a tantalizing tidbit about one of L.J.’s trips in its May 6, 1897 edition:  “There must be something attractive in Wilmington for L.J. Dudley, as he has been there twice in one week.” I’m intrigued, as I am sure were ...

Well, I still haven't found that spark that will again make my family history research an obsession again.  I keep trying to find that one record that will open the door to new avenues of research.  It will come - it always does - but right now I'm still in a rut. This morning I was searching for some good cooking blogs to follow.  In the process, I came across a couple of blogs about "orphan photos" - old pictures the bloggers have found or purchased and for which they have no information.  This inspired me to post some of my orphan photographs. I found these photos in a chest containing photos and documents that belonged to my maternal grandmother, Mary Jane Dudley Donaldson (1898 - 1976).  I believe that many of the items in the chest were passed down to her from her mother, Mary Elizabeth Shaper Dudley (1861 - 1947).  I believe that most, if not all, of the photos are family and friends of the Dudley and Shaper families of Clinton and Highland Cou...

A few years ago I was looking through a collection of family photographs and mementos.   I was struck by the number of photos of my grand-uncle, Charles Henry Dudley and his family.   Uncle Charlie was the eldest son of Jesse and Mary Shaper Dudley and brother of my grandmother Mary Dudley Donaldson.   He was born October 18, 1878 in Clark Township, Clinton County, Ohio.    Below is the earliest photo I have of Charlie.      Charlie grew up in Clark Township with his brothers Lew, Frank, Ab, Tom, and Clarence.   By the time my grandma was born in 1898, Charlie was already a young man.   Just a little over a year later, Charlie married the pretty Anna Dora Meyer and they made their home in Clark Township near his aunt Marietta Dudley Himes and her family.   Charlie worked as a day laborer. Charles & Anna Dudley   On August 14, 1900, Anna gave birth to the couple’s first child, Walte...

I am titling this post "Mystery Photo No. 1" because I have many old photographs that are a mystery to me.  I plan to share more of these pictures in the future and hope that readers will post comments to help answer some of my questions. I will begin by admitting my ignorance of rural life.  I have always lived in the suburbs and have spent over 20 years working in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio.  So, please forgive me if I am unable to identify some objects in this photo that are obvious to you.  Just roll your eyes at my ignorance and post a comment to help me out!  Enough about my shortcomings; here's the photo: We are almost certain that this photo is from my maternal grandmother Mary Jane Dudley Donaldson's family.  The photo is printed (not mounted) on cardboard and there is no photographer's mark.  The photo as it appears above has been cropped, but there is a white border of approximately one-half inch above the picture.  ...

In honor of my maternal grandmother's birthday, the story of her early life in her own words: I was born June 26, 1898 in a big one room log house. I was the youngest of seven, six boys all born in this house. It was in Clinton County, Ohio on a mud road called Mud Switch. It was a big event when I came along with six brothers and I stood a rough time. We built two other rooms later. We had three acres of ground my father gardened for food. My mother canned a lot of vegetables and dried beans and corn. We all picked blackberries and grapes to can and make jam and jelly. My father cut wood and cross ties for the B & O Railroad also fence rails. There was a woods across the road from where we lived where my father worked. It was owned by S. S. Puckett who had a [illegible]. I would go with my father in the woods to play. I would gather hickory nuts, hazel nuts, and acorns. My father would trim a big tree when he cut it. I would help him pile brush and he would cut a big ...

One family heirloom in my possession is " Detsie's cup." I don't know anything about this cup, except that it supposedly belonged to Detsie Ballein (pictured at right), the eldest child of Elma and Hite Ballein and the sister of my paternal grandmother, Jennie Esther Ballein . It's just a small metal cup with a little handle and some engraving on it. Perhaps it was a gift from first time parents to their little girl. Detsie was born January 10, 1897 and died on August 27, 1899. It occurs to me for the first time that I don't even know where Detsie is buried. A little lost life; one of many in the days before advances in medicine. And, sadly, a life often forgotten in the course of genealogical research. My maternal grandparents, Mary and Edd Donaldson, also lost two children. Ernest Mitchell Donaldson, known as Mitchell, was born in 1922 and died as an infant on January 8, 1923 from pneumonia. I don't believe I have ever seen a picture of Mitchell...

I am in the process of organizing the notes, pictures, and memorabilia I have compiled from years of researching my family tree. This afternoon, I looked through one of my Grandma Donaldson's scrapbooks, which contains greeting cards she received from the late 1960s to her death in September 1976. Like her mother, Mary Shaper Dudley, she saved things that, to some people, might seem meaningless and needed to be disposed of. However, these "meaningless" remnants give us an important glimpse at their lives and what was important to them. My great-grandmother kept hundreds of mementos of her children. She had dozens of pictures of her eldest son, Charlie, including one in front of the Packard factory in Detroit, where he was employed. She kept the funeral card and newspaper clippings from Lew's death in 1906, when he was struck by a train. She saved postcards from her son Frank telling about his travels around the country, a photo of Ab in his army uniform with his wife ...

My maternal grandfather, Eddie Earl Donaldson, was born to David Scott and Mary Cordelia Lamb Donaldson in Elwood, Indiana on May 30, 1897. My grandmother, Mary Jane Dudley Donaldson, said that while she was married to him, she never lived in one place for too long. By 1910, his family had moved to Missouri and they then moved on to Oklahoma. We don't know if he actually moved to Oklahoma with them. By 1915, he was living and working in Cincinnati, Ohio. We aren't sure why he chose to move to Ohio. One of my grandmother's brothers, Charlie, worked with my grandfather. Charlie brought him home for a visit and introduced him to my grandmother. They were married December 7, 1915. Throughout their marriage, my grandparents lived in numerous locations in the Cincinnati area and Clinton and Highland Counties, Ohio. They also lived briefly in Oklahoma, where his World War I draft registration was completed. Throughout their marriage, my grandparents often lived apart, my grandmot...

My mom wrote the following memories of her mother, Mary Jane Dudley Donaldson: My Mom was a strong woman; she had to be. Although she was only about 5’4” and weighed around 115 pounds, she was wiry and energetic. When I was seven years old, my Dad, Eddie Earl Donaldson, died, leaving my mother with a year-old baby and three other children aged fifteen and under. This was during and shortly after World War II. When I was nine, Mom sold the Dodge car Dad had left (he had no insurance, only the car) and put the $50 she got from the sale on a house in Afton, Ohio. There was a house, a dilapidated garage/shed, an outhouse and a chicken coop. Mom planted a half-acre garden (by hand and a hand-pushed plow) and bought a few chickens and a couple of roosters. She canned the vegetables she grew, as well as blackberries we would pick in the summer. Dandelions were Mom’s friends. She would pick the greens and either cook them or wilt them with hot vinegar, sugar and bacon grease and chopped up har...