Parker Family Reunions

From about 1919 through the 1930's, members of the Parker family met in July or August for a family reunion. In the picture at the left, the only people who have been identified are Leroy Parker, his daughter Janet, and his wife, Ada Steen Parker, in the center of the front row. Joshua Parker (the grandfather of Leroy Parker) and several of his siblings, moved from Lincolnshire, England to Huron County, Ohio in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Two of Joshua's sons, George and James Parker, eventually moved to Perkins Township in Erie County, Ohio.

Below is a very brief article from the August 14, 1919 issue of the Sandusky Register, in the column which covered Perkins Township happenings.









According to newspaper accounts in 1922, the Parker Reunion was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Moos of Willard, Ohio. 66 attended the reunion, and the "diversions" were music, baseball, and horseshoe pitching.

Royal and Mary Clemons Dewey

Royal Dewey was born in Poultney, New York in 1825. He came to Sandusky with his family, where his father Jeremiah Dewey was one of the first jewelers of the area. Jeremiah died in the 1849 cholera epidemic. Royal Dewey continued in the jewelry business, for a time with his brother Hiram, and later he was in business by himself. Royal Dewey died on September 1, 1859, at the age of 34. He left behind his widow, Mary Clemons Dewey, and two small children, a son Hiram Dewey, and a daughter Ella.

Mary Clemons was born in 1832 to Mr. and Mrs. Elijah Clemons. Elijah Clemons was a pioneer settler of Sandusky, which according to author Hewson Peeke in his STANDARD HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY, was "a village in the midst of the woods and its chief prosperity was as a lake port." After the death of her husband, Mary Clemons Dewey taught school in order to support her family. She continued in this occupation for over forty years. Eventually Mary Clemons Dewey moved to Cleveland, where she died in 1923. Royal and Mary Dewey are buried in Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery. A biographical sketch about Mary Clemons Dewey is found in Peeke's 1916 STANDARD HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTRY.

McPherson Cemetery in Clyde, Ohio

McPherson Cemetery is located at the intersection of Routes 20 and 101 in Clyde, Ohio. The cemetery is named for James B. McPherson, who was the highest ranking Ohio soldier to die in the American Civil War.

General McPherson died in battle during the Civil War on August 22, 1864. The statue of General McPherson is pointing to the west. The website entitled Ohio's Yesterdays features an article about the General James B. McPherson Monument. The James B. McPherson Photo Gallery is found online at the Sandusky County Scrapbook.

















The historical marker at the McPherson Cemetery points out that several other significant individuals are buried at McPherson Cemetery, including George Burton Meek, the first U.S. serviceman killed in the Spanish American War, and Congressional Medal of Honor recipients Charles H. McCleary and Rodger W. Young. Emma Anderson, mother of author Sherwood Anderson, is also buried at Clyde's McPherson Cemetery.



Over 500 interments have been listed on Find A Grave for McPherson Cemetery.

Sadly, in August of 2010 vandals did thousands of dollars of damage to this beautiful cemetery, which features so many historic monuments. You can read news articles about the destruction done to tombstones at the McPherson Cemetery at the websites of the Sandusky Register and the Toledo Blade.

Sentimental Sunday: Visit to the Farm in 1959

In 1959, my mother packed up her four children, and we drove from Erie County, Ohio, to the farm of Clifford and Leona Lindsley in Sandusky County, Ohio. We played with the kittens, made tunnels in the hay loft, jumped off the sides of the spring house, and enjoyed our visit to the farm. On the way to the farm, outside of Bellevue, Ohio, we would enjoy the hills on Route 269, and could hardly wait to see what adventures would await us during our visit.

Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Lindsley were neighbors of my Parker ancestors, all of whom had prosperous farms in Perkins Township, Ohio for many years. In 1941, after the U.S. Army bought out a large section of land in Perkins Township for a munitions factory for the war effort, the Parker and Lindsley families had to re-locate. My great grandparents, Leroy and Ada Parker, moved to Sandusky, Ohio into an apartment, and continued to work at Cedar Point during the summers. Cliff and Leona Lindsley moved to a farm in Sandusky, County. The families whose farms were bought out stayed in touch, and had annual "Old Neighbors" picnics every summer.

While I never lived on a farm, so many of my ancestors before me did. Going to see "Uncle Cliff" and "Aunt Leona" at their lovely farm helped me to get a sense of what being a child on a farm would have been like. Those memories are so precious to me! Most all of my Parker ancestors are buried at Perkins Cemetery in Erie County, Ohio; and Mr. and Mrs. Lindsley were buried at the York Free Chapel Cemetery in Sandusky County, Ohio. Thanks for those wonderful "down on the farm" experiences! Below is a snapshot of an earlier generation of youngsters enjoying farm life in Perkins Township in the 1940's.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Make Your Own Poster

Randy at Genea-Musings posted this mission for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

Go to the http://www.imagechef.com/ website and explore their FREE offerings. Click on the "Create" button, or choose to make a slideshow or posters from their main page (there are more than one screen of poster backgrounds).

Here are my creations:

1. I am still trying to locate my Irish ancestors' homeland.


















2. Many thanks to my Great Grandma Ada Steen Parker for instilling the "family tree" bug in Mom, which was then passed down to me. What a wonderful gift!


















3. Thanks to my Mom and siblings for making the O-lympics, a family fun night last winter, filled with Orshoski family members, so memorable!

52 Weeks to Better Genealogy: Challenge 35

In Week 35 of the 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy series, we have been asked to examine the Daughters of the American Revolution Genealogical Research System. The Genealogical Research System of the Daughters of the American Revolution is located at this web address:

http://www.dar.org/library/online_research.cfm

In the Ancestor Search portion of the GRS, you can search for an ancestor who may have served in the Revolutionary War. I searched for William House from the state of Connecticut, and got this result:


















William House was a private from Glastonbury, Connecticut, serving under Capt. Jonathan Hale and Col. Erastus Wolcott. His wife was the former Elizabeth Risley. Looking under the section entitled Associated Applications and Supplementals, I see a couple familiar names: Julia and Jesse Taylor. By clicking on the box with a D enclosed in it, I can see more details about a descendant of William House.


















Julia House Taylor’s lineage is traced back to her Revolutionary War ancestor, William House. Also listed are birth and death dates, and the names of the locations of births and deaths. Some of the names of individuals connected with this D.A.R. record are not visible, most likely for privacy reasons.

If you know the National Number of a certain member of the D.A.R., you can search the GRS database by that National Number.

Under the third tab in the GRS database, you can search by the name of a descendant. I got this result when I entered the name of a distant cousin, Ethel House:










The birth and death dates of both Ethel House and her spouse Claude Minor are provided. Ethel’s Revolutionary War ancestor’s name is also listed: Samuel Stansbury. On the right side of this page is a link to information pertaining to how to order the D.A.R. application of the member.

This is just a very brief introduction to the D.A.R.’s Genealogical Research System. Experiment with names in your family tree to see what can be gleaned by searching this outstanding research tool!

James and Lydia Titus Selfe

The Ohio Marriages database at Family Search Labs provides us with the date of marriage of James Selfe and Lydia Titus as December 24, 1898, in Erie County, Ohio. James Selfe was the son of James and Elizabeth Selfe. The death certificate of James Selfe indicates that he was born in London, England in 1863. He died in Akron, Ohio on February 23, 1938.

We read in the book HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY, OHIO, edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich, that Lydia Titus was the daughter of Jared Titus and Elizabeth Hamilton. The biographical sketch about Jared Titus states that Jared was "a member of one of the old representative families of Kelley's Island." Lydia Titus Selfe passed away on August 4, 1919, as a result of lung cancer. Lydia Selfe was a resident of Kelleys Island, but she died in Sandusky, Ohio.

James and Lydia Selfe are buried in the Kelleys Island Cemetery. Their tombstone was created by Conrad Keim. The following article about the Selfe tombstone appeared in the August 4, 1920 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal. It describes the Easter lilies that were carved onto the stone as "the wonderful effects of a chisel in a trained hand." Conrad Keim signed his work in block letters that read C. Keim. You can see his name on the upper right portion of the base of the Selfe monument. (Click on the image for a close up view.)























The marker next to the tombstone of James and Lydia Selfe was placed there by the Womens Benefit Association of the MacCabees, #320, according to the inscriptions of the Kelleys Island Cemetery which are available at U.S. GenWeb Archives.