Helbling Family (Click for Family Tree)

with blossoms today!

Queen of the angels,

One lucky girl from the parochial school would be chosen to carry the crown of flowers, and a number of others carried flowers as they walked in the procession. There was a special side altar during the month of May with a most beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary, looking down upon all with her loving, accepting gaze- one could feel the love all around her. A crown of flowers would be placed on her head once the procession of girls arrived at the altar, crowning Mary as “Queen of the May.”

After the Queen was crowned, the other girls in the procession would lay flowers at the feet of the statue. The flowers would be replaced throughout the month so they were always beautiful.

After school, some who were not so lucky to be chosen for the procession would sneak into the church, and lay our little picked clover flower crowns and dandelions at Mary’s feet. The weed flowers never seemed to be there the next day, although the other flowers were. It didn’t matter though- all the little girls not chosen for the procession knew that Mary loved them just as much.

Mary Theresa Helbling was lucky to be chosen as one of the girls in the procession at St. Mark’s Church in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1932, when she was seven. The caption in the family picture album states it was April, so maybe the procession happened on the last day of the month, or the month noted was in error. Either month, it was one of the high points of Mary’s long and faithful life. Even fifty or more years later, she was so very proud to have been chosen to be in the procession.

Having her beloved Virgin Mary to pray to was important throughout Mary’s life. She was proud of being named after the Mother Mary, but did not know that she was named for her great-grandmother as well, Mary Theresa Knipschield Helbling. There were many girls named ‘Maria’ or ‘Mary’ in the Helbling family. That name continued to be passed on through the generations, showing the importance of Our Lady and homage to her throughout the years among Catholic families, including  the May Day ritual.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) ‘Queen of the Angels” by John McDermott- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7SbG8JCO68

2) May Baskets were another tradition Mary spoke about. Small cones of rolled paper had a handle attached, and they were filled with flowers or sweets. The basket would be left on a door handle of a friend or neighbor, and young men also left them for girls they would like to court. See http://www.npr.org/blogs/npr-history-dept/2015/04/30/402817821/a-forgotten-tradition-may-basket-day

3) Helbling family photo album.

4) Of course, the May Day procession foreshadowed the sacrament of marriage, too, with many of the same trappings. Pun intended with the word ‘trappings’? Not originally, but maybe in a Freudian way. Nevertheless, all good little Catholic girls wanted to get married and have babies, and be a good mother like Our Lady.

 

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.

Beerbower Family (Click for Family Tree)

An ‘amanuensis’ is a person who  has been employed to take dictation or copy manuscripts. As family historians, that is a huge part of our work. It is especially important for items handwritten in script, as today’s generation is hardly learning cursive in school; with the advent of computers, so little is written with a pen or pencil, and future generations may look at cursive writing like it is a foreign language. Handwriting is very hard to OCR (though they are working on it), so it is very important to get manuscripts transcribed; transcription will also help with Google searches to make more knowledge available to all.

While Samuel T. Beerbower’s obituary is not in cursive, the digitized newspaper is very hard to read. We have looked at a couple of sources for the image and they are all challenging to read. We are still hoping to find a better copy, but for now this will have to do, and posting the transcription on the blog will allow Google and other searches to pick it up for other Beerbower descendants.

Another thing transcribing helps one to do is to check facts, dates, places, etc. Dates especially can be hard to read- for instance, the marriage year above seems to be 1847, but by cross-checking what is already known with blowing up the image as much as possible, we know the date should be 1867. Of course, obituaries, like death certificates, often have errors, as they depend on accurate recall during a time of great stress by an informant who probably was not present for most of the events.

Samuel T. Beerbower’s death was 10 July 1902.

 

A PROMINENT
CITIZEN DEAD

Samuel T. Beerbower Dies Early This
Morning
—————————
AFTER AN ILLNESS OF
ABOUT EIGHT MONTHS
—————————
Suffers an Injury to His Right Leg by
Jumping Out of a Wagon Compli-
cations Arise and He Never Recov-
ers- Leaves a Widow, One Son and
Many Friends

Mr. Samuel T. Beerbower of east
Center street died this morning at 7
o’clock after an illness extending over
a period of eight months.

Mr Beerbower jumped off a wagon
last October and severely injured his
right leg. He was confined to his bed
and, owing to his advanced age, a com-
plication of diseases set in. He would
rally at times, but just as often he suf-
fered relapses and gradually grew
weaker. His life has been despaired of
for some time and the news of his
death this morning did not come as a
shock to his many friends.

Mr. Beerbower was born in Frank-
lin county, November 10, 1842. He was
the oldest of nine children and moved
to Marion with his parents when he
was but a little over a year old. His
youth was spent in this city, and at
the breaking out of the war, at the age
of nineteen, he enlisted in company A,
Sixty-Fourth Ohio Volunteer infantry.
He served in the Army of the Cumb-
erland and was in the battles of Per-
ryville, Stone River, Chattanooga,
Chickamauga and Mission Ridge. In
the latter battle he was struck by a
ball in the right shoulder. This wound
confined him in hospitals in Chatta-
nooga and Nashville for over three
months, the wound causing paralysis
of the right arm and hand. He receiv-
ed an honorable discharge March 22,
1864.

In 1865, having recovered from his
wound, Mr. Beerbower accepted a po-
sition with the firm of Lucas & Sef-
ner. Later he was employed by Reed
& Yake, and in 1868 he was appointed
postmaster by President Grant. he
served thirteen years in that capacity.
He was united in marriage with Miss
Irene Peters, January 13, 1867, and two
children were born to the union, one of
whom, Cornell, survives.

Mr. Beerbower leaves, beside his wife
and son, a large number of friends to
mourn his death. He was an honored
and highly respected citizen and was
a member of the Elks, Odd Fellows,
Knights of Pythias and the G. A. R.
He had gone through the chairs of
most, if not all, of the various lodges
of which he was a member.

The funeral service will be held at
the late residence of the deceased Mon-
day afternoon at 4-o’clock. The re=
mains will be placed in the vault.

The remains may be viewed from 2
to 4 o’clock Sunday and 10 to 12 o’clock
Monday.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) Obituary citation as above. Via Ancestry.com-

http://interactive.ancestry.com/6431/news-oh-marion-mariondlystar.1898_06_11_0008/471018504?backurl=&ssrc=pt_t4049043_p-1645243095_kpidz0q3d-1645243095z0q26pgz0q3d32768z0q26pgplz0q3dpid_m1&backlabel=ReturnToTree&rc=1742,479,1894,521;2275,3192,2431,3221;2535,3192,2795,3221

2) Transcribed by the author.

 

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.

Beerbower Family (Click for Family Tree)

[We apologize for the quality of this image, but since the last 2 updates of WordPress, images are blurred like this when enlarged for the blog. If you click on it, however, it will be very readable. Sorry, no time to figure this out-  have already spent a lot of time trying to no avail, and would prefer researching and writing to fussing with a stupid computer program.]

[Edited 27 Apr 2015 to add: see 27 Apr 2015 post for transcription.]

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) Citation as above. Via Ancestry.com-

http://interactive.ancestry.com/6431/news-oh-marion-mariondlystar.1898_06_11_0008/471018504?backurl=&ssrc=pt_t4049043_p-1645243095_kpidz0q3d-1645243095z0q26pgz0q3d32768z0q26pgplz0q3dpid_m1&backlabel=ReturnToTree&rc=1742,479,1894,521;2275,3192,2431,3221;2535,3192,2795,3221

 

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.

 

Helbling Family (Click for Family Tree)

Browsing my files for other photographs for other posts, I came upon this one that I had not really noticed before (more Heritage Ramblings). Anna May Beerbower Helbling was good at keeping photos in albums (lucky us!), and she labeled them well most of the time (even luckier us!). This photo was in an album from 1931.

Growing up in the northern St. Louis suburbs, Lambert Airfield was an integral part of life. The whole family would load up in the two-tone blue AMC Rambler station wagon, circa 1960?- and head out for the parking area across from the main runway at Lambert. We took popcorn and snacks, and watched the planes come in and fly out, and just talked as a family. As we got older, we didn’t want  to go with family, but instead went with boyfriends…

The history of the airport is interesting. It began as a launching base for hot air balloons in Kinloch Park. The Wright Brothers visited the field, bringing their aircraft and pilots on tour sometime between 1910-1911. President Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to fly, and he did so from Lambert in 1910. The first experimental parachute jump took place at the Kinloch base. The field was purchased by the Aero Club of St. Louis along with the old Kinloch Racing Track plus 170 cornfield acres, and became the Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field. A passenger terminal and hangars were built after the property was purchased in february 1925 by Albert B. Lambert, for whom the field was named. Lambert was the first St. Louisan to receive a pilot’s license, and a major supporter of Charles Lindbergh.

Charles Lindbergh played a role in early Lambert Airfield history before his famous flight across the Atlantic- his first job flying was ferrying air mail from Lambert Field. In 1927, Lindbergh had been at Lambert one week before he went to New York to begin his historic flight to Paris. “The Spirit of St. Louis” replica plane that hung in the concourse was always a favorite stop when we would go for a day’s visit to the airport, or to meet family- back then, you could be waiting at the gate for loved ones and watch them walk down the rolling open stairway and cross the tarmac from plane to terminal. That same year as Lindbergh’s historic flight (1927), the airport was sold to the City of St. Louis, and it became the first airport owned by a city in the US. The airport complex included a Naval Air Station (there are lots of pilots in the Navy) which became an active duty base during World War II and a base for manufacturing by McDonnell Aircraft and Curtiss-Wright.

This is how airplanes of that era looked:

G.W. Helbling was a prodigious reader, thinker, tinkerer (he developed a vibrating bed for his wife who suffered from bedsores likely due to diabetes and being bedridden), and man of many interests even though he never received formal education beyond the eighth grade. It is highly probable that he was very interested in flight.  He got married the year after the Wright Brothers completed their first powered flight in 1903, so was old enough to follow the developments of the industry. Knowing him, it is highly likely that he attended the Wright Brothers’ flying exhibition.

It is wonderful to have at least the caption in the photo album for this picture, but we do so wish there was more information. Had G.W. gone to Lambert sightseeing like his descendants did, or was he out there to pick up a fearless airplane passenger? Was he out there just to watch “those daring young men in their flying machines”? Or maybe even take a flight himself? We probably will never know, but what a treasure we have found in this image!

The old cars give us a comparison to see the size of the airplane hangars of the day. G. W. died in 1971, so he did see a lot of expansion and changes at Lambert-St. Louis Airport, including the addition of the iconic terminal built in 1953-6.

Below is Lambert airfield in 2010- with its 9,000 ft. runway and redesigned terminals, G.W. wouldn’t recognize it!

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) Additional Lambert-St. Louis images: https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x87df36b4c56388f1:0x9dabcdbc663077a6!2m5!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i100!3m1!7e1!4shttp://www.panoramio.com/photo/91063151!5slambert+st+louis+airport+terminal+1959+-+Google+Search&sa=X&ei=PnQ2VcrmMvG0sAT814CIAw&ved=0CIcBEKIqMA4

2) Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambert–St._Louis_International_Airport

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Exhibition_Team

3) CardCow.com– a great resource to buy old postcards, and they generously allow posting of their images with attribution and a link.

 

 

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.

Beerbower Family (Click for Family Tree)

Last week’s “Military Monday: Samuel Taylor Beerbower’s Civil War Service” told of the battle in which Sam was wounded, Mission Ridge near Chattanooga, Tennessee. (AKA Missionary Ridge.) Although honorably discharged due to the paralysis of his right hand and arm, Sam went on to live a long and full life in Marion, Ohio. The Civil War was always remembered, though, and special days, such as 25 November 1863, were always close in mind.

Sam and a fellow who also served at Mission Ridge got together yearly to celebrate their survival and how the Union forces took what should have been an impregnable Confederate line:

It was 32 years later, and the comradeship of the military had once again brought together the men who had endured. (The ‘Encampment’ would have been their G.A.R.- Grand Army of the Republic- post for those who fought in the Civil War.)

Men with military service were honored by their communities for many years, in many ways.

The following article uses the word, “caned” in a humorous way, but it was no laughing matter in 1856 when, on the floor of the US Senate, SC Representative Preston Brooks used his gold-headed cane as a weapon to almost kill MA Senator Charles Sumner who had given an anti-slavery speech two days before. It was premeditated and well-planned-Sumner was along in the Senate chamber, writing, when he was assaulted by Brooks whir accompanying Southern state representatives looked on and kept others from intervening. Thankfully the caning was stopped but only after the cane broke into many pieces due to the violence of the attack, and Sumner almost died. Ironically, Brooks hurt himself on one of his backswings to hit Sumner- a metaphor of what would happen with The Civil War, with the South starting it, but ending up being the loser economically, socially, etc. after the war. This horrific caning incident was yet another break in the chain of the Union, leading up to the Civil War.

Thankfully Sam’s regiment was quite a bit kinder.

 Prior military service brought together people for social reasons as well. Sam’s wife Irene Peters Beerbower was a very active member of the G.A.R. ladies’ section, and held various posts within the group, even elected as an alternative delegate to a larger convention.

 Used to military life, many of the Veterans joined fraternal organizations that had a military sort of organization, uniforms, and even military-like rituals. Sam was a member of the Elks Lodge (and elected Exalted Ruler of Elks in 1873), the Kosciusko Lodge, No. 58 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF, another fraternal and service organization) where he served as Noble Grand (N.G.), or presiding officer, in 1883, and his wife participated with the female arm of the IOOF, the Rebekahs. Sam apparently participated with other groups as well:

Even in his last months, friendships developed through Sam’s military service and fraternal orders were important:

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) See citations for each article. The Marion Daily Star is available with a subsription to Ancestry.com.

 

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.