The Green Family Grandchildren, circa 1925. Likely taken in St. Louis, Missouri. From left: Gertrude Broida, Preston Green, Helen D. “Sis” Ledwidge with Harold Green in front, Esther S. Stampfer, and Sarah Jane Ledwidge. (Click to enlarge.)
Reverse of The Green Family Grandchildren, circa 1925. Likely taken in St. Louis, Missouri. From left: Gertrude Broida, Preston Green, Helen D. “Sis” Ledwidge with Harold Green in front, Esther and Sarah Jane Ledwidge.
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) Abraham Green (1866-1931) and Rose Brave/Braef/Brafe Green (1866-1936) had four children: Ann Green, Estelle Gertrude Green, Bess Dorothy Green, Herman L. Green, and Mary Cecelia Green (1895-1991; never married).
2) Gertrude Broida was the only child of Bess Dorothy Green and Philip Broida. Gertrude married Irving I. Cooper.
3) Preston M. Green (1915-2003) and Harold B. Green (1922-2007) were the sons of Herman L. Green (1894-1973) and Bess Catlin Green (1893-1951).
4) Sarah “Jane” Ledwidge (1907-1991) and Helen D. “Sis” Ledwidge (1911-1980) were the daughters of Estelle Green (1887-1977) and Charles Patrick Ledwidge (1882-1959). Jane married married 1) Roy Barton Marshall with whom she had Charles Roy Joseph “Tex” Marshall (1929-1993); and 2) Unknown Burnham, with James Burnham, Norraine “Raynie” Paul, and Patrick Burnham their children. Sis married Edgar A. Bill (1907-1996) but they had no children.
5) Esther S. Stampfer was the daughter of Ann Green (1885- ) and her first husband, Samuel Stampfer (1882-1967). Esther married James Alexander Hall (1902-1994).
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
In January of 1952, Harold L. Green wrote music to add to favorite lines from a poem that his paternal aunt, Bess Green Broida, dearly loved. The poem was written in 1856 by John Greenleaf Whittier:
The Eternal Goodness
I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
God’s mercy underlies.
And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.
No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.
And so beside the silent sea
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
(Lines 61-80)
Hymn composed by Harold Green, based on a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. It was dedicated to Bess Green Broida. (Click to enlarge.)
Back in the day, these lines were probably memorized, and/or written on a scrap a paper placed in a bible or other special book. Perhaps Bess sang this as she worked or prayed, or shared it with her congregation. Bess obviously cherished this gift, as it has been preserved and passed down in the family.
Harold was the son of Herman Green (1894-1973) and Bess Catlin Green (1893-1951). His brother was Preston Green (1915-2003). Harold was born in Missouri, likely St. Louis, on 04 December 1921.
The talent displayed in this gift for his aunt when Harold was 30 years old played out in his life- ‘played’ can be taken literally here as well, since Harold was an organist and taught at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He shared his talents with his students and helped to develop theirs for 35 years. Harold also played the organ at Congregation Shalom (Harold was Jewish.), the Fourth Church of Christ Scientist (His aunt Bess was a Christian Scientist.), and at Sherman Park Lutheran Church.
Harold died 29 May 2007 and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) Family treasure chest.
2) “The Eternal Goodness” by John Greenleaf Whittier, written in 1856. The words are public domain. The poem in its entirety may be seen at http://www.bartleby.com/42/792.html.
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
Obituary of Rose Braef (Brave) Green in The American Jewish Outlook [Pittsburgh PA], Friday, January 10, 1936. Vol. 3, No. 5, Page 11. Posted with kind permission of the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project.Green Family(Click for Family Tree)
Mrs. Philip Broida was Bess Dorothy Green Broida.
Mrs. Charles Ledwidge was Estelle Green Ledwidge.
Mrs. Charles White was Ann Green (Stampfer) White.
Miss Mary Cecelia Green of St. Louis was a career woman who never married.
Herman L. Green married Bess Catlin.
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) The Pittsburgh Jewsish Newspaper Project may be found at http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/pjn/index.jsp
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
Eleazer John Beerbower and Matilda L. McKelvey- marriage information from “House of Bierbauer- Two Hundred Years of Family History” by JC Culver and CW Beerbower, 1942, page 146.
Canal Winchester, where Ollie was from, is in the central part of Ohio, in both Franklin and Fairfield Counties; plain ‘Winchester’ is in the southern section, in Adams County; it is also the township name. Apparently there were up to five towns and at least one township in Ohio named ‘Winchester’ at some point in the 1800s, so “Canal” was added to Reuben Dove’s town to distinguish it from the others. Apparently “Canal” was sometimes used, sometimes not, in referring to Canal Winchester, depending on the fortunes of that waterway located in town.
So where did the McKelvey-Beerbower marriage take place in 1839? In which Winchester, Ohio?
Adams County Marriages do not list either the bride nor groom under M or B headings, thus that may be the wrong Winchester. BUT a Thomas McKelvey is listed there in A History of Adams County, Ohio. It appears that most in that family changed their names to Kelvey, but details on each son are not listed. So there may have been some McKelveys in Adams County. More to research.
The McKelvey Family History, 1931, online at Family Search, lists family that was mostly in Illinois and Iowa. No Matilda was found with a search, and the book has been perused up to the last dates possible for Matilda and family, with not a speck of information that is useful for our line at this point in knowledge.
A kind McKelvey researcher (EH) provided his genealogy from his ancestor James McKelvey (b. 1766 in County Antrim, Parish of Clough, Ireland, d. 1843 in Portage Co., OH). None of our direct line is listed in his excellent genealogy, unfortunately. Around the time of Matilda’s birth in 1823 and her marriage in 1839, this researcher’s ancestor’s were in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and Portage County, Ohio, places about 250 miles apart; it is a bit less than 150 miles between Portage Co., OH and Franklin Co., OH. Some researchers/records state Matilda was born in Massachusetts, some say Missouri, so this line is probably not directly related. This James McKelvey apparently had brothers who immigrated to the colonies from Ireland, so that may be a clue to work from. (An aside: I found this researcher through an old query online, and the email still worked! So try all those old queries, no matter their vintage- you may just find another clue.)
The “Adam Smith Family Tree” on Ancestry.com lists a James McKelvey who has daughters Susan b. 1849 in Canal Winchester, Emma b. about 1852, possibly in Canal Winchester, and Matilda, b. 1854, possibly in Canal Winchester. I have a message out to the owner through Ancestry’s service. This James could possibly be Matilda McKelvey Beerbower’s brother.
We really need the names of Matilda’s parents to move further back in our family history. The best chance of finding those might be on a marriage record. A note to both the Franklin and Fairfield county recorders is probably a good next step to see if the marriage record exists from Canal Winchester, and if so, if it contains the names of Matilda’s parents. (Marriage records in the town began much later, so this will probably not be useful.) I also have an email out to the Canal Winchester Area Historical Society, in hope that they may be able to point us to some good resources in the area; trying to find old newspapers for the area might be helpful as well.
If any of our good readers have more information about the McKelveys of Ohio, please share!
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) McKelvey-Beerbower marriage information on page 146 of House of Bierbauer. Two Hundred Years of Family History, 1742-1942 compiled by James Culver Bierbower and Charles William Beerbower; Published under the direction of Beerbower History Committee, 1942.
2) A History of Adams County, Ohio, by Nelson Wiley Evans, and Emmons B. Stivers, 1900. Page 849-850.
6) Adam Smith Family Tree accessed online at http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/63019822/person/34096858743. Wife is Magdalena Bareis (b. 19 Mar 1835 in Germany, d. Canal Winchester, OH). Daughter Susan McKelvey (b. 04 Aug 1849 in Canal Winchester) m. to Adam Smith in 1869, 11 children including one named Olive who d. young. Daughter Emma McKelvey b. about 1852,
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
Ollie McKelvy of Canal Winchester visiting cousins in Marion, Ohio. Marion Daily Star [Marion, Ohio], 04 September 1880, page 81. Posted with kind permission for non-profit use only.Beerbower Family(Click for Family Tree)
Transportation is the lifeblood of a nation, especially a young nation such as the United States in the early to mid 1800s. Ways to move people, products, and farm produce (both the vegetarian-type as well as the carnivore-preferred) were necessary for cities and towns to develop, and migration to proceed westward. Commerce was imperative to provide markets to farmers and manufacturers, and to make the US a world trading partner.
When the Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the country overnight, the heavily forested or wide-plained US with its vast distances presented logistic problems for trade and moving people. Our rich waterways had long provided a fairly easy road to markets and new places, but were limiting when an overland portage was required to move a product between two rivers or lake systems. “The Canal Era” began great private and public work projects in 1791, and linked the large expanses of our young country.
By 1830, the US had over 1,000 miles of canals.
By 1840, 3,326 miles of canals had been built at a cost of over $125 million, and the completed miles of the new railroads was about the same.
Canals allowed the cost of transportation to drop from about ten cents per ton mile to less than one cent, thus increasing profits as well as opening new, more distant markets for producers and manufacturers.
Canal Winchester was a city that developed along the 308-mile-long Ohio and Erie Canal. Completed in 1834, this canal finished the privately financed inland waterway that included the Erie Canal, and stretched from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River; it essentially linked New York City to New Orleans by water. This opened up settlement in northern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and our McKelvey ancestors were a part of this great era.
In 1828, the Ohio & Erie Canal was planned to go right through the wheat field of Reuben Dove in Fairfield County, Ohio. Although he planned to sue the state, he was instead encouraged to lay out a town as being a more profitable venture, and that he did. He called it Canal Winchester, and we know that at least one McKelvey family lived there in 1880.
The area only had a stagecoach run in the early 1800s; when the first canal boat floated through in 1831, it changed the area completely. The Ohio & Erie Canal brought work: on the canal itself, like barge operators and mates; and work alongside, such as hotels and restaurants, warehouses, and markets. Farmers could increase the size of their fields as they now had a way to transport excess grain, and agriculture thus became big business in the area, changed from mainly subsistence when there was no practical way to get grain to market. The railroad came through in 1869, making the canal less efficient due to the speed and capacity of trains, but the city continued to prosper as it moved with the times.
By 1850, railroads had surpassed the number of miles of canalways, with 2.5 times as many miles.
By 1860, railroads had about eight times the miles of canals, and The Canal Era became The Railroad Era.
Maps are important resources in family history research, and a source we often forget to use to help find clues.
From the newspaper article above, we know that:
Miss Ollie McKelvey lived in Canal Winchester, Fairfield &
Franklin Counties, Ohio in 1880.
Researching the above Canal Winchester, Ohio on maps and checking how far it was to Marion, Ohio, where cousin Sam lived, I realized that Canal Winchester was also close to Pickerington, Fairfield County, Ohio. That place was somewhere some ancestors had lived, I remembered, and sure enough, looking at family group records showed me that Matilda and Eleazer Beerbower most probably lived in Pinkerington, as their infant twin sons are buried there. Son Polaski only lived ten days, and Caspar just short of nine months when he died, so likely the family lived there or nearby during the year 1840. (Matilda was just 17 when the twins were born on 1 April 1840.) Embalming was not prevalent until the Civil War, so they probably would not have traveled far for burial, and may have been living in the area. It is easy to imagine that, even if they had moved away, in their grief they wanted the twin boys to be together in eternity. Their son Samuel T. Beerbower (the above host to Ollie) was born 10 November 1842 in Fairfield County, and their next child likely was as well: George Beerbower, born 10 August 1844 (in Marion, Ohio per my records, but now that is questionable). George died just three days later, and was also buried in Dovel Memorial Cemetery with his infant brothers.
Canal Winchester, Ohio, is located southeast of Columbus, Ohio; Marion, where Ollie was visiting, was due north of Columbus. There are about 60 miles between the two cities, but train service abounded in Ohio in those years, so the trip may not have been too taxing. Since Ollie apparently traveled alone, that is another indicator of the ease and safety of the trip.
Samuel T. Beerbower’s biography in the History of Marion County, Ohio, 1883, notes that his family moved to Delaware County, Ohio in 1849, and from there to Marion, Ohio in 1850, then finally to Indianapolis, Indiana in 1867. It was thus a short window of time (~1839-~1849 possibly?) that the McKelvey-Beerbower family resided in Canal Winchester/Fairfield County, Ohio, but apparently other family lived there, and stayed, as Ollie McKelvey did. Further research in that locality may provide more of the story of the McElvey family.
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) An excellent set of pictures of the Ohio and Erie canal-
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
![Obituary of Rose Braef (Brave) Green in The American Jewish Outlook [Pittsburgh PA], Friday, January 10, 1936. Vol. 3, No. 5, Page 11. Posted with kind permission of the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project.](https://i0.wp.com/heritageramblings.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/1936_0103_BRAVE_Rose-GREEN_Death-notice_The-American-Jewish-Outlook_Pittsburgh-PA_Fri-Jan-10-1936_v3_n5_p11_PJNP.png)
