Eric Madriguera & His Orchestra- “A Man, A Moon, and A Maid,” Side A. This record belonged to Mary (Helbling) McMurray and her husband Edward A. McMurray, Jr.
Eric Madriguera & His Orchestra-“Cuban Yodelin’ Man”, Side B. This record belonged to Mary (Helbling) McMurray and her husband Edward A. McMurray, Jr.
Notes, Sources, and References:
This record belonged to Mary (Helbling) McMurray and her husband Edward A. McMurray, Jr. It is a vinyl, 10″, 78 RPM, Picture Disc released in 1947. The genre is Latin music. Wonder if they thought of themselves with Side A- they had just met in 1947 and it was love right away. The “Cuban Yodelin’ Man” is hilarious- not much snow in Cuba! But yodeling was popular at that time in a number of musical genres, including classic country.
This is a perfect example of how technology changes- we don’t have anything to play this on anymore!
Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.
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 2013-2017 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 or use of our blog material.
Three generations of McMurray Dads: Dr. Edward A. McMurray, Sr. on left, his mother Lynette (Payne) McMurray holding his son Edward A. McMurray, Jr., and her husband and Dr. McMurray’s father, Will McMurray, on right. circa 1924-5.
McMurray Family(Click for Family Tree)
Today, Father’s Day, is a great day to get sentimental about the dads in our family- we wouldn’t be US without them!
Notes, Sources, and References:
Family treasure chest of photos.
Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.
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 2013-2017 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 or use of our blog material.
Memorial Day in the US is a day that we honor those who have served our country to preserve our freedoms. It was meant to remember our heroes that have fallen in war, and those who were lucky enough to come home, but are no longer with us.
Edward A. McMurray, Jr., is one of the latter. Despite the dangerous places he served, he was one of the lucky ones to come home, and he came home healthy.
We are all blessed to have known his quiet dignity, his honor, and his love of this country.
Notes, Sources, and References:
Family photo, hidden in a basement for many years.
Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.
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 2013-2017 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 or use of our blog material.
Taxes seem to follow us everywhere, and they did for our ancestors as well. Whether called an ‘excise tax’ (which was really an ‘income tax’ in this instance) to pay for the Civil War, as in the case of this ancestor, taxes on beloved British tea that would ignite a Revolution, or even going as far back as tributes to the chief of our ancient ancestor’s tribe, it seems we seldom get to keep all our earnings.
Taxes provide a “treasure chest” for our counties, states, and country to take care of infrastructure, provide employees and offices for essential services, etc. The old tax lists are also a treasure chest for family historians.
The life of Alfred Payne (1815-1895) is of interest because he was the brother of Rev. Joseph Hitchcock “J. H.” Payne, the great-grandfather of Dr. Edward A. McMurray. The above tax list from 1864 places Alfred in Fremont, Lake County, Illinois, to which at least two Payne lines migrated. It also tells us a bit about how he made his living. We know from censuses that he was a farmer, but he apparently also manufactured a significant amount of sorghum syrup.
At that time, the government had instituted the first income tax, to help pay for the Civil War. The tax laws were such that if one made $600 or less per year with a particular product, and if the product was produced by the farmer or his family, it would be exempt from duty. Alfred’s sorghum syrup production was more than double that dollar limit, so he was required to pay a 5% tax on the product they manufactured.
Alfred was taxed on 2,200 gallons of sorghum syrup. (It is unknown as to what the time period was for that much production- it may have been his annual production for 1864.) The syrup was valued at $1,320- that would be about $19,000 in today’s money. Most of us today would gladly exchange our tax rates with his 5%, which worked out to $66 in 1864, equivalent to about $960 today. We don’t know Alfred’s specific views on slavery, but most people in the family were staunch abolitionists, as were many in the town of Fremont and the members of the Congregational Church where Alfred was a charter member. So Alfred may not have minded the tax too much, since it was helping to pay for the war to end the cruel institution of slavery.
Alfred Payne is found on the December 1865 tax list as well, this time listed as a manufacturer for 7 months. His tax bill was $5.83. Sadly there is no more detail available, but he could have still been making the sorghum syrup since he was listed as a manufacturer.
In May of 1866, Alfred was listed in Bowen as a “retail dealer” and his tax was $10. Again, that is the only information…
◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊
So just what was Alfred manufacturing, and what was it used for?
Sorghum syrup is made from a plant called Sweet Sorghum— there is a grain sorghum, too, which is not as high in sugars— both originally from Africa. The plant itself looks much like corn, but it can be grown under much drier conditions than corn. In the US today, sorghum is mostly grown in the south, but back in the nineteenth century, it was a common crop in the midwest as well. (Some of today’s farmers in the midwest sow it as a cover crop and winter food for pheasants, so that the hunting—and meat— is good.)
Sorghum almost ready to be harvested in Uganda, via Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Today sorghum is used to produce biofuels, but as in the old days, it is also used for animal feed. The harvested plant is packed tight into silos with little air movement, for anaerobic fermentation. This silage keeps well over the winter when grass is scarce, and is fed to ruminants like cattle and sheep. When made into a syrup, sorghum is used as a sweetener– again, just as in Alfred Payne’s day.
“Grinding sorghum on the farm of J. W. Stooksberry, Anderson County, Tennessee. This land will be inundated by the waters of Norris Dam reservoir.” Image by Tennessee Valley Authority, 25 October 1933, public domain via Wikipedia/NARA. (Click to enlarge.)
The sorghum would be cut down at the end of summer, in September or October, and often juiced right in the field. Alfred Payne likely had some sort of a press for the sorghum on his farm, draft animals to turn the press/juicer, and a large cooker to reduce the sorghum juice down to a thick syrup.
As the stalks of the plant are crushed between the rollers of the press, a bright green juice is extracted. It would be cooked as soon as possible, so stacks of firewood would have been made ready for tending through the day and probably even the night. Boiling for hours would kill most of the bacteria that could spoil the liquid, and the heat would turn the juice into a golden amber colored, thick liquid. It would take about 10 gallons of the fresh juice to make just one gallon of syrup. Alfred and his family and any workers would have harvested quite a number of acres in order to produce 2,200 finished gallons of sorghum syrup. And they would have celebrated the harvest as the syrup cooked, eating and maybe dancing away the long hours of the night.
“Grinding sorghum on the farm of J. W. Stooksberry, Anderson County, Tennessee.” Image by Tennessee Valley Authority, 25 October 1933, public domain via Wikipedia/NARA. (Click to enlarge.)
Sorghum provides minerals that cane sugar and high fructose corn syrups do not, especially if it is minimally processed. Our ancestors used sorghum as a ‘tonic’, and would have used sorghum syrup in pies and cakes, drizzled on their biscuits or rolls, etc. Sorghum has a rich, earthy flavor similar to molasses, though a bit different. If you want to try some, make sure you get 100% sorghum- sometimes they mix it with other products. It is very good over pancakes or biscuits, and really makes excellent cookies, too!
Alfred PAYNE on November 1864 Tax List in Fremont, Lake County, Illinois from U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862-1918, Ancestry.com.
Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.
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 2013-2016 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 or use of our blog material.
Our Congress really does get important things done… and they really can work together if they try. Think back to 1990 when, with overwhelming approval, both Congress and the House passed S.J. #366 to declare ‘National Doctor’s Day.’ The bill had just been introduced that year, and Pres. George H.W. Bush signed it in October- less than 10 months from start to finish! Public Law 101-473 thus took effect on March 30, 1991, proclaiming March 30 as a national day to celebrate the contributions of physicians throughout our history.
We do have at least two ancestors who were physicians, and one uncle.
Dr. Edward A. McMurray and his wife Elna Mae Kenner McMurray in the 1939 Newton, Iowa City Directory. His office was in the bank building at that time, and his home was on S 8th Ave. W. (Click to enlarge.)
Dr. Edward A. McMurray
Both of the sons born to William Elmer McMurray and Lynette (Payne) McMurray, Edward A. McMurray (1900-1992) and his brother Herbert C. McMurray (1911-1989), became doctors.
Herbert McMurray, Newton (Iowa) High School Yearbook, 1929. Herbert was one of only six young men at Newton High to be inducted into the National Athletic Honorary Society. The Society required high academic achievement as well as outstanding athletic work. (Click to enlarge.)
Within the family, Edward was lovingly called, “The Doctor.” He specialized in Ear, Eye, Nose, and Throat problems, after a residency in New York City around 1940. (His son Edward A. McMurray, Jr., remembered going to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City with him one summer during that residency.) Back then, ‘The Doctor’s’ specialty was known as “EENT.” Now that specialty has split- we have opthamologists- doctors who specialize in eyes only, and other doctors called ‘otorhinolaryngologists’ or ENTs, who cover the ear, nose, and throat areas. But Dr. McMurray could do it all, and his out-of-state grandchildren got their annual eye (and ENT) check when visiting him in Iowa!
I have already written a detailed post about the medical career of Dr. E. A. McMurray (1900-1992) in Newton, Iowa- see “Workday Wednesday- Dr. Edward A. McMurray.” His brother Herbert C. McMurray (1911-1989) practiced in the Ballwin, Missouri area.
Dr. John H. O’Brien
If you are a descendant of Gerard William/William Gerard “G. W.” Helbling (1882-1971), then you are also descended from Dr. John H. O’Brien (1808-1887), who was G.W.’s maternal (mother’s) grandfather. Dr. O’Brien was born in Ireland and attended the University of Dublin. A letter to the University has not provided any specific information about him as a student, although there was a Dr. John O’Brien working there as the Librarian of the King and Queen’s College of Physicians in 1841. This cannot be the same Dr. John O’Brien, as our known ancestor had immigrated to America in 1831. (Perhaps it was his father or an uncle? O’Brien is a common name in Ireland though so the Librarian may not have been related at all.)
Dr. O’Brien immigrated in 1831, and was in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania by 1832. It was a tough time to be a doctor in western Pennsylvania- a cholera epidemic, spread by contaminated water, was taking place on the frontier.
The inscription on his headstone was very appropriate for a physician:
Blessed is he that understandeth concerning
the needy and the poor, the Lord will deliver
him in the evil day. -XL Psalm
Dr. John H. O’Brien- headstone detail (Click to enlarge.)
Dr. O’Brien and his wife Jane (Neel) O’Brien were early settlers of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania suburbs, and he was a successful doctor in the Pittsburgh area. (He is often listed as “J. H. O’Brien” in directories.) A previous post tells a bit more about Dr. O’Brien and his family: “Tombstone Tuesday- Dr. John H. O’Brien.” We will tell more of the family story in upcoming posts.
◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊
All of these doctors would be amazed at today’s healthcare. Dr. E. A. McMurray, who died in 1992 but had been retired for a number of years, saw the beginnings of this incredible age of medicine. Dr. O’Brien, however, may have been paid in farm products, especially in his early years in America and while on the frontier, where hard cash was hard to come by. (If memory serves, Dr. McMurray was sometimes paid with goods as well, especially in his early years as a general practitioner in a small town with surrounding rural areas.) The ‘germ theory of disease’ was not fully understood or accepted until at least the 1850s, and really into the 1880s. John Snow wrote his theory of the transmission of cholera in 1849, and mapped cholera epidemics in London in the early 1850s. Not fully accepted even when he stopped the epidemic, it was too late for our Dr. O’Brien to use this information to help stem the disease in Western Pennsylvania. Viruses were discovered in the 1890s, after Dr. O’Brien’s death and just 10 years before Dr. E. A. McMurray was born. Some arsenic-based synthetic antibacterials had been used after 1907 for some diseases, but Dr. McMurray was already through medical school when penicillin was described in 1928; antibiotics were not widely available, however, until after World War II.
From using genetics to determine treatment, to the incredibly complex machines we have available for diagnosis and treatment, to how medical care is paid for (and how insurance companies think they know more about appropriate patient care than a personal doctor), today’s medicine would be astounding to all these learned doctors!
Notes, Sources, and References:
“Dublin Almanac and General Register of Ireland for the Year of Our Lord 1841,” p. 151, Ancestry.com.
More mentions of these men can be found on our blog by searching for the names “McMurray” or “O’Brien.”
For our younger readers, a brief explanation of our title is probably warranted. In earlier times, if someone got sick in a theater or hotel, the cry, “Is there a doctor in the house??” would go through the audience and hallways in order to get fast medical assistance to the victim. (It became a great comedy routine, too.) There were no cell phones, and even no phones at all, of course, depending on how far back one goes. In fact, calling 9-1-1 for emergency assistance was not instituted in the United States until 1968, and many communities did not have this resource available for its citizens even into the 1980s. (Probably before you were born.)
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.
