Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Lillian Waterman's Obituary ~ I Have Questions


MyHeritage recently introduced a new newspaper website called OldNews.com. The other day I did a search in OldNews.com for Homer C. Waterman, my maternal 2nd great-granduncle, and an obituary for his daughter, Lillian, was listed in the search results. I had never seen her obituary before. It contained some intriguing family history information.

I also found Lillian's obituary on the Library of Congress Chronicling America website. The digital image of her obituary from Chronicling America is what I am sharing today.

Here is Lillian's obituary, dated 29 January 1931, in the Morgan County (Ohio) Democrat newspaper1:



Transcription of Lillian's obituary:

Miss Lillian Waterman Dies

   Lillian Waterman, aged 77 years, mention of whose critical illness was made in this paper last week, passed away at the family home in East Bloom, Sunday evening. For several days preceding death, her condition had been very critical. She was a daughter of the late Dr. Homer C. Waterman and wife of Zanesville, and was born at Middleport, Ohio. For many years she and her brother-in-law Elmer E. Richardson and wife made their home together. The deceased for a number of years had been an invalid, and for the last three years had been blind. Notwithstanding her afflictions, she was bright and cheerful until the last. She was conscious of the fact that she was soon to be taken from this earth---a change which she expressed to those about her she cheerfully welcomed. Surviving are a brother, William Waterman of Rockwell City, Iowa, and a sister, Mrs. Ralph Ebert of Zanesville. Three sisters are deceased---Mary, who was the wife of Willis Helmick of Zanesville; Clara, who died in infancy, and Helen, wife of Elmer E. Richardson, who died last June. Miss Waterman was a good musician, and for some time was church organist at Mt. Zion. She was a member of the Universalist church.
   Funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon at 2 o'clock, at the Wesley Chapel church, and interment was made in the church cemetery.

This obituary provides additional family history information and clues including the following:

Name of Deceased: Lillian Waterman
Age at Death: 77
Place of Death: Family home in East Bloom
Day and Date of Death: Sunday, 25 January 1931 (based on date of newspaper article and January 1931 calendar)
Father's Name: Dr. Homer C. Waterman
Lillian's Birthplace: Middleport, Ohio
Surviving Family Members Mentioned:
Brother: William Waterman of Rockwell City, Iowa (his location on January 29, 1931 can be added to his timeline)
Stepsister: Mrs. Ralph Ebert of Zanesville (Jennie Metcalf)
Deceased Family Members Mentioned:
Sister: Mary, wife of Willis Helmick of Zanesville
Sister: Clara, who died in infancy
Sister: Helen, wife of Elmer E. Richardson (Lillian lived with her and Elmer for many years)
Date of Helen (Waterman) Richardson's Death: June 1930
Lillian's Church Membership: Universalist Church
Date of Burial: Tuesday, 27 January 1931 (based on date of newspaper article and January 1931 calendar)
Place of Burial: Wesley Chapel Church Cemetery

There is so much helpful family history information in Lillian's obituary, including married names of her sisters, which is amazing! Here are some things I could do with the information provided in this obituary: order Lillian's death certificate, research Universalist Church records for any mention of Lillian or her family members, research cemetery records, research the lives and families of Lillian's brother and sisters. The obituary also stated that Lillian's illness was mentioned in the newspaper the previous week. I will be looking for that article to see if there is any additional helpful information. 

My family history records already include information about Lillian's parents and her siblings, Helen, William, and Mary. But I did not know anything about her sister Clara, who died in infancy. In Lillian's obituary, another sister is mentioned as Mrs. Ralph Ebert. This was Lillian's stepsister, Jennie Metcalf. Lillian's mother, Sarah Rathburn, died in 1874.2 Lillian's father, Homer, married Nancy (Kenison) Metcalf in 1877.3

I have questions about Lillian's sister, Clara, who died in infancy. Was she the daughter of Homer and his first wife, Sarah, or Homer and his second wife, Nancy? Where was Clara born? Where and when did she die? What was her cause of death? In what cemetery was she interred? I have done some research to find Clara on Ancestry, FamilySearch, Find a Grave, and BillionGraves, but haven't found her yet. I will continue my research efforts to find Clara.

Obituaries and newspaper research in general are valuable family history resources. What family history discoveries have you found through your newspaper and obituary research?

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2024 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved 



1 Library of Congress, "Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, database with images, Morgan County Democrat (McConnelsville, Ohio) (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87075008/1931-01-29/ed-1/seq-1/ : accessed 19 March 2024), "Miss Lillian Waterman Dies," obituary, 29 January 1931, p. 1, col. 2, image provided by Ohio History Connection, Columbus, Ohio.
2 "Ohio, U.S., Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center Obituary Index, 1810s-2016," database with images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 18 March 2024); Mrs. Sarah A. Waterman, citing Gallipolis Bulletin, 25 February 1874, p. 3, col. 1, Bossard Library (Gallipolis).
3 "Ohio Marriages, 1800-1958," database, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XDK4-82Q : accessed 14 March 2017); H. C. Waterman and Nannie Metcalf, 16 September 1877.

Monday, March 11, 2024

My Adorable Grandparents


For several months I've been working on a large family history project. I've been scanning photos, slides, and negatives of various sizes that I inherited from my parents and my maternal grandparents. I've also been scanning photos and negatives from my own collection. 

I finished scanning all of my parents' and grandparents' slides and have lately been focused on scanning photos and negatives.

Some of the images I've scanned from my parents' and maternal grandparents' collections have been new-to-me images. In other words, I don't remember seeing them before. So that has been fun!

Today I'm sharing a new-to-me image of my maternal grandparents, Debs Warren Webster and his second wife, Willis Quillin Webster. I remember Willis very well. She married my grandfather when my mom was a little girl. Debs' first wife, Sarah Vasques Madeira (my mom's mother), passed away when my mom was almost four years old.

This adorable photo of my maternal grandparents was scanned from a medium format negative. It looks like Debs and Willis were on a trip.

The negative envelope did not provide a location for my grandparents trip, but there's a hint on the chalkboard on the building in this photo. The word Crannell is written on the chalkboard. And Crannell is also on the side of the building behind my grandfather, and it's in the sign above the chalkboard. I did a Google search for Crannell and it's a "former settlement in Humboldt County, California" and used to be a "company town for sawmill workers of the Little River Redwood Company."1

I'm not sure what kind of building this was, but I think it may have been a store. On the side of the building behind my grandfather, I think the word Store is under the word Crannell, but Store is partially hidden by my grandfather. What do you think?

Check out that old phone booth near the entrance of the building and check out my grandparents car! So awesome! I'm not an expert in vintage cars, so I did a Google image search for the car and it looks like it was a Renault Dauphine.

I just love this photo of my grandparents! It looks like it could have been an advertisement in a travel brochure.

I'll share more photos from my scanning project in future posts.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2024 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved



1 Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), "Crannell, California," rev. 18:33, 29 November 2023.

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Going Down Memory Lane ~ My Storyworth Book


On Mother's Day 2022 my children and their spouses gave me a one-year gift subscription to Storyworth. Storyworth is a service that provides a way for people to write stories from their lives each week and then have these stories printed in a book.

Each week Storyworth sent an email to me with a question about my life. I could either answer that question or choose another question to answer. Storyworth included a list of question options on their website. For more question ideas I also turned to FamilySearch's Blog Post, 52 Questions in 52 Weeks: Writing about Your Life Has Never Been Easier. The way I did it was that before the questions were sent to me each week, I chose or even wrote a question that I wanted to answer that week.

My gift subscription includes a free black and white bound book with my weekly questions and answers about my life. A full-color option is also available, which is the route I'm choosing. The full-color option is not free, though, but will be discounted using the gift subscription.

My free gift subscription officially ended on June 6, 2023, but I had a 3-month grace period to finish up, which ended on September 6, 2023. I am in the final process of reviewing my book and will order it soon.

During the weekly question period of my gift subscription, I spent a lot of time going through mementos, my diaries and journals, my parents' diaries and journals, photos, letters, cards, etc. to answer my weekly questions. This was a labor of love and although it took a lot of time and effort, it was actually a lot of fun to look through my mementos, diaries, etc. It was also fun reminiscing with my brothers about our lives when we were growing up. I definitely went down memory lane during the time I was writing my life stories. And that phrase is how I closed each week's story: "Thanks for going down memory lane with me!"

I wanted to make my life stories fun and interesting, so I included lots of photos, diary entries, etc. My Storyworth book ended up being two volumes. I will need to pay full price for the second volume, but that's okay.

I hope that my descendants enjoy learning about me and my life from the pages of my Storyworth two-volume book.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana Last

© 2023 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

Friday, May 19, 2023

A Favorite RootsTech 2023 Class Session

One of my favorite RootsTech 2023 class sessions was "How to Milk a Source for All It's Worth" by Amy Johnson Crow. It was an excellent class. I highly recommend this class whether you are a beginning, intermediate, or advanced family history researcher. 

The description for this class is as follows: "If you’re finding a record, pulling out a fact, and then moving on to your next search, you’re probably leaving valuable clues behind. See how to get everything you can out of each source that you use."

In her class, Amy Johnson Crow pointed out that a source can help us with our immediate research and it has the potential to help us with ideas for other sources to research.

Using examples, Amy demonstrated how to get all the information we can from a source.

To view Amy's excellent class, click on the following link ~ How to Milk a Source for All It's Worth

RootsTech.org has provided great year-round learning opportunities on their website. In addition to Amy Johnson Crow's wonderful class, RootsTech has class sessions from multiple speakers, subjects, and RootsTech years available on the Video Library tab of their website. Here's the link to the RootsTech Video Library ~ RootsTech Video Library 

You can also search the full video library using search filters such as Speaker, Year, and Content Type. To search the On-Demand Video Library, click the following link ~ RootsTech On-Demand Video Library

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2023 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

Thursday, April 13, 2023

My 11th Blogiversary

Oops! I missed my blogiversary again. Ugh! My eleventh blogiversary was actually on April 5th. Wow! It's hard to believe it's already been eleven years since I began this blog.

THANK YOU

Thank you to my wonderful readers for taking the time to read my posts and for leaving comments over the years. I appreciate your support very much!

BLOGGING YEAR IN REVIEW

Here are my posts from the last year (since my last blogiversary).

I Did It! I'm a College Graduate! - May 9, 2022

My AncestryDNA Ethnicity Inheritance Results - July 13, 2022

RootsTech 2023 Influencer - November 1, 2022

Fun With the New MyHeritage AI Time Machine - November 19, 2022

Enter to Win a Free In Person 3-Day Pass to RootsTech 2023 - January 9, 2023

RootsTech 2023 Keynote Speaker ~ Jordin Sparks  - January 20, 2023

And the Winner of the RootsTech 2023 3-day Pass is... - January 23, 2023









My RootsTech 2023 Recap ~ Saturday - March 15, 2023

Again, thank you for taking the time to read my posts!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2023 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

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