McMurray Family, Burnell Family (Click for Family Tree)

Little Harvey Burnell was the second child of Joseph Burnell, Jr.(1756-1841) and Martha Gilbert (1761-1837). Harvey Burnell is a first cousin, at least 6 times removed depending on the generation of you, dear reader, but this inscription on the headstone is so poignant that it needs to be shared.

The first child born to Joseph and Martha Burnell was a girl, Elizabeth Burnell, born 24 February 1783 in Massachusetts, likely Chesterfield. They had been married for just over a year, and the anticipation of a large family was probably on their minds quite a lot. Of course, in those days a son was always the most desired, especially for a first child. They likely loved little Elizabeth dearly, but were anxious for a son to carry on the family name and inherit.

Little Harvey Burnell’s birth would have been eagerly awaited, and he appeared in this world on 18 June 1785 in Chesterfield, Hampshire, Massachusetts. Martha was 23, and Joseph 28, when they added to their family. Oh, the excitement there must have been, and how proud the parents! Joseph was a first-born son himself, so would have known what to expect for this new little one. Harvey was likely quite doted upon, and would be groomed for the future of the family to be placed in his hands as he got older. Like all parents, Joseph and Martha probably were filled with big hopes and dreams for this first-born son.

Those tiny little hands, though, were sadly not to become big hands that could guide the family and fulfill its dreams. Little Harvey only lived to be 13 months old. We don’t know if he was a sickly child or if an accident or sudden illness took him from his loving family. Whichever of these events, little Harvey left this world the next summer, on 21 July 1786 in Chesterfield. He was buried in Center Cemetery in Chesterfield, where over 20 of his ancestors and relatives are buried. The hopes, the dreams, and his future with the family were buried along with the little boy.

The inscription on the headstone reads:

Harvey

Son of Joseph

& Martha

Burnell

DIED

July 21 1786

Æ 13 Mon.

Make no depen-

dence on smiling

infants.

 

For anyone, but especially a parent who has lost a child, the last line of the inscription is likely to bring tears, and renewed heartache.

Martha and Joseph were probably more subdued with the next pregnancy, making no dependence on their dreams for this next child. This new Burnell was born on 23 March 1787, also in Chesterfield, and the babe was male; they named him Harvey Burnell. He thankfully was able to weather the perils of childhood in that century, and lived to be 47. Martha and Joseph were then blessed with their (probably) hoped-for household of children: Chester Burnell, born 1788; Asenath Burnell, b. 1791; Eli Burnell b. 1792, Newton Burnell b. 1794, Baxter Burnell b. 1797; Nancy B. Burnell b. 1798; Francis Burnell b. 1801; and Levi Burnell, b. 1803. They had a total of 9 sons, 8 surviving into adulthood, plus 2 daughters.

Martha and Joseph were, after all,  able to depend on the faces of those smiling infants, long into their later years.

 

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records 1620-1988. These Ancestry.com records are typed (so transcribed from the original) and call the family “Burnal.” Harvey’s death is listed as found in Book 2, Page 2.

 

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Roberts Family, Daniel Family (Click for Family Tree)

Cooking was an integral part of the life of a farm wife. Edith Roberts McMurray Luck inherited the cooking gene from her mother, Ella V. Daniel Roberts. Edith wrote in her family stories:

Mama was an excellent cook. Nothing fancy, but just good country cooking. There was always room for another pair of legs under our table. Always enough for another mouth. I still feel I should do the same thing. Funny how these teachings stay [w]ith us. 

One of the most special stories that Edith wrote to her grandchildren was entitled, “A Winter Afternoon 1904.” Edith was just five years old, and it was amazing how she was able to so clearly remember incidents from her very early years. She reminisced:

Mother and I had had a nap and I was playing in the kitchen, while Mama was taking out of the oven huge loaves of bread and a pan of six inch high biscuits.

There must have been a dozen in this particular pan she always used for these biscuits. The fragrance from the freshly baked bread was delightful. The golden-browned tops were well greased, making them even more delicious to eat. Mother used a potato water starter. I don’t know just how she did it. I do know that sister was always warned not to upset the cup of starter on the table in the pantry. She baked once a week.

Of course, during harvest season Ellie Roberts would have been baking probably every day, as there were a lot of hired hands to feed. She would have had help though, with neighboring women coming to the Roberts farm to assist in the kitchen, and then Ellie Roberts would go to one of their farms when the threshers moved on. Add in the extra women, young girls who helped, and little children, and there were a lot of mouths to feed!

Edith continued her story:

It was about time for the kids to come home from school. If I timed it right I could stand on a chair and watch for them to leave the school grounds. We were just a quarter of a mile from the school-house. This afternoon I was standing on a chair jugging from one foot to the other with a carpet ball in my hands. A big basket of them was under the resevoir [sic]. Also near the stove was a tall can of thick cream. It was being warmed to churn the next morning. Mother had warned me to be careful. Finally, while I was shouting; “They are coming, they are coming.” she said sharply; “Edith Mae Roberts, if you drop one of those carpet balls in that cream you will get a hard spanking.” Under my breath I said; “I wish my name was not Edith Mae Roberts.” I was teased about this for years. “So you don’t want to be called Edith May Roberts huh?”

The kids came in all hot and breathless and covered with snow. All hungry as little bears. I knew mother would fix them one of those fresh biscuits and I would get half of one too, with either plum butter or apple butter on it. Delicious! I can almost taste them now.

**********************

The above recipe was a family favorite. We don’t know if it was passed down from her mother or if Edith found it elsewhere. These cookies are unique and totally delicious, especially when frozen and ‘liberated’ from the deep freeze in the midst of a hot Iowa summer without air conditioning.

Like most family recipes, it was told to the writer as Edie was cooking, and she had made the recipe so many times that she didn’t think about things like whether or not to drain the pineapple, which is likely the way to go- it will depend on the moisture in the air when you are baking, and you may need a bit of the juice. These are excellent without the nuts, too, although pecans are very good in them. If the kitchen is warm, pop the dough in the refrigerator for a bit to firm up before baking, or the cookies will spread out too much. The bottoms of these cookies brown quickly, as do the pineapple bits, so do not use a dark pan- an insulated sheet might work better, though of course such things were not available to Edith or her mother as they baked in a wood-fired stove and later Edith’s prized electric oven.  Edie always added a buttercream icing after cooling that was delicious plain or with additional crushed pineapple mixed in. The yield of 3-4 dozen was for farmhands and threshers, it seems- they are very large. Smaller cookies puff up taller and have a better icing:cooky ratio per results of many taste tests over the years.

 

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) Family recipe.

2) “The kids” coming home from school would have been Edith’s brother George A. Roberts, Jr. and their sister, Ethel Gay Roberts.

3) The above is not Edith’s handwriting- that was challenging to read. She typed most of her recipes but this one was written as she told it, probably sometime in the 1960s or early 70s.

 

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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.

 

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Elsie Janis’ real name was Elsie Bierbower (or Elsie Beerbower), so if you are a Helbling or Bierbower cousin, you may be related to this very-famous-in-her-time comedienne, actress, singer, mimic, and entertainer of our troops in World War I. Those troops gave her the nickname, “Sweetheart of the A.E.F. (American Expeditionary Forces)” and she truly earned the accolade.

Why is this a “Wishful Wednesday” post? It is because Elsie’s 1st cousin once removed, Mary Theresa Helbling, wanted so much to be a singer like Elsie. Mary’s mother, Anna May Bierbower Helbling, was Elsie’s cousin, and talked about her often as Mary grew up. Mary also loved the movie magazines and cut paper dolls from them, when she was allowed to have such expensive and scandalous magazines. By that time Elsie was mostly a writer for the movies- she never transitioned well from the stage to talkies as an actress. Elsie led a glamorous life though, and was often pictured in the magazines. Mary, when young, wished she had a life like that too.

Mary also loved to sing- she had a very beautiful voice. She loved listening to light opera and singing along to it and all the wonderful old movies with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and the fabulous musicals of the 1950s and 60s. Her voice was good enough to have sung on the radio back in the late 1930s or 1940s- wish I could remember more about that. Later, Mary and the love of her life, Edward A. McMurray, Jr., would sing together around the house, with a beautiful harmony and sometimes mooney-eyed in-love looks at each other even when they knew the kids were watching.

This is also “Wishful Wednesday” because I wished for so many years to be able to hear Elsie’s voice. There was a university in Idaho, IIRC, that had old recordings, including those of Elsie. Back then, I wrote a letter on paper (!) and sent it to them, asking if there was any way they could record Elsie’s voice on reel-to-reel tapes (!!) for me. No answer, despite repeated requests, even once the internet started up and I sent an email. (Maybe because I was not a scholarly researcher?) Many years later, there are now digital recordings of her music available to the public- even on iTunes. Wonder what Elsie would make of that???

Downloading Elsie’s music was my first time for music with ‘Explicit’ material. I was sort of shocked- why would Elsie’s music be labeled as such? I then realized that some of the material was racist, such as that from minstrel shows or musicals that showed the races in the context of their times, the late 1800s-early 1900s, not our times. (Still hard to listen to some of those songs because of that.) I have also been able to buy one of her records on eBay, but no longer have a turntable so have not been able to listen to it.

The internet sure has made the amazing world of the past available to us all in seconds, and even while in our pajamas! It is wonderful to have my wish to hear Elsie come true; sure wish Mary would have had that opportunity.

More to come about Elsie’s interesting life!

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) See the International Movie Database at  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0006059/ for details about the stage musical and movie, “The Slim Princess.”

2) Elsie Janis Find a Grave Memorial # 10334. The bio is inaccurate although I have contacted the person many times. The family links were finally changed but it still erroneously states that she was the daughter of Lou Bierbauer. See also the memorials for her family members on Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10334. A Bierbower researcher had also added a memorial for her: Memorial # 33617289 at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSvcid=186286&GRid=33617289&.

3) “Sweetheart of the A.E.F.” is the title of the audio CD that contains 20 of her most popular songs. It is available on smile.Amazon.com and iTunes.

4) Remember Mitch Miller and Sing Along with Mitch? It ran from 1961-1966 on NBC. Mitch had a male chorale and also featured other excellent singers, like Leslie Uggmans, on the show. (Bob McGrath was one of those in the chorale; he later went on to be a long-time host of Sesame Street.) Mitch is regarded as the inventor of today’s karaoke, as the program featured the words shown on the screen, so the whole family could sing along. (There was no bouncing ball though.) For more information, see the Archive of American Television– http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/shows/sing-along-with-mitch. YouTube has videos of some performances: Sing Along with Mitch, Part 1 of 4– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dY9gtYeHhk. (The commercials are wonderful- frozen foods were just becoming popular. I remember the whole family eating frozen TV dinners on the folding metal TV trays while watching Mitch!)

5) Sheet music and photo of Mary Helbling in personal collection of the author.

 

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

 

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post, 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.