Happy birthdays

Today is my oldest granddaughter's birthday.  Cayenne is in college now, and I'm so thrilled for her. I was glad she weathered Irma the hurricane at home in Tampa with her family, rather than staying at college (where she's only been a month) in Jacksonville, FL.

Proud dad, Marty. (Just grabbed this from his Facebook post, (somehow I didn't have it before 11:30 am today)

Cinnamon a proud mom with her new grad, Cayenne.

End of August was not only my paternal grandfather, George Rogers' birthday on the 28th, (more about him HERE) but also my son, Russ' wife Michelle's mom, Joanne. Wish there was a term for co-mother-in-laws.

"Poppy" 1877-1960, George Elmore Rogers Sr. a Texan all his life.

A lovely family photo from way back - Michelle on left and her mom Joanne on right (birthday Aug 28)

I just found out my neighbor across the way has his birthday Aug. 27, while mine was the 23rd.

Another person in my church community has the same birthday I do (1 year older) and she's also a clay artist!

Remember I like to make funny faces at my age!

Beginning of September, my maternal grandmother (above) Mozelle Miller Munhall (1897-1960) just had her birthday on the 8th.

My paternal great-great grandfather had his on Sept. 10, (Alexander G. Swasey, 1784-1861) born in Swansea, MA, died in Newport, RI. He was a mariner and ship builder and wood carver.

Did I forget my youngest son, Tai, who had his birthday on the 4th of Sept?

Tai as a teen (who just turned 38!)

Or my middle son, Russ, who had his birthday a week before mine, on Aug. 16? His wife is Michelle, pictured above with her mom and dad and sis.

Russ who just hit his half century mark!  Congrats to you!

So many children...growing up, getting older, and living such interesting lives!

Next birthday in my family is Michael, my oldest grandson! But not till October...

Michael on left, Cayenne middle, and other brother, William on right!

And in case you read my recent Rant about Birthdays blog, here are the mothers of the birthday folks, the ones I know anyway.  Congratulations to birthing such wonderful people!

Cinnamon Arkwright Heym, mother of Cayenne and William.
Betty Bass Rogers, mother of George Rogers, Sr.
Rose Kinsella Fiore, mother of Joanne
Mataley Munhall Rogers, mother of myself
Eugenia Booth Miller, mother of Mozelle Munhall
Sarah Helon Swasey, mother of Alexander G. Swasey, Sr.
Myself, Barbara Booth Rogers, mother of Marty, Russ and Tai.
Deborah Lewis Thurston Fernandez, mother of Michael

More on Willis TX history

It's a bit ironic to me that people are living in Willis TX and know a lot about the history.  They could tell me stories (I hope) about where my grandfather, George Elmore Rogers, had been born in 1877.  But their stories wouldn't include my grandfather probably.  So I can keep imagining what his boyhood might have been like.  I haven't found any record of where he lived between ages 2 and 22, so I'm assuming some of that time continued to be in his birthplace.  Here are some more facts, photos and assumptions about Willis, TX.  Thanks to Traces of Texas on Facebook, as well as The City of Willis Texas, and the Handbook for Texas Online.

Ah, more history of the town emerges. A cigar box with the daughter of the owner's picture leads to this...

WILLIS CIGAR FACTORY. Willis Cigar Factory, one of eight cigar-manufacturing operations in Willis, was founded in the 1870s by Capt. Thomas Wesley Smith, a Civil War veteran and former sheriff. Smith moved to Texas as a boy in 1845 and was involved in a mercantile interest, which he moved to Willis in 1872 before he entered the tobacco business. Area farmers found the Montgomery County climate and soil conditions favorable for tobacco production, and high quality local varieties, including Sumatra and a type from the Abajo district of Cuba, won international awards in Chicago and Paris. Prisoners from the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville were used for labor in the tobacco fields. The business flourished in the 1880s and 1890s, but began to decline after the Spanish-American War. Owen Smith took over the firm after his father's death in 1901, and the business failed to compete when tariff laws on Cuban tobacco were lifted and employees demanded higher wages. Labor dissatisfaction became apparent when employees began to load gunpowder, or caps, into the cigars. The original factory building was abandoned by 1910 and burned in the 1930s.  Source: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online

Remember a former post where I showed a photo of those prisoners working the tobacco fields.

1890s photo of the Carson Morris Comany store, with a small Millinery next door.

1912 map of Willis, Texas

The intersection of Interstate 45 and Highway 1097, looking north, present day Willis, TX.

My Houston cousin says she drives this route every day on her job!

May 2016, aerial view showing planned roadwork, Willis, TX.

 A photo (undated) of Dr. W. Powell who features prominently in the early history of Willis and in the communities locally that preceded it. Dr. Powell migrated to Texas, served as an Asst. Surgeon with Hood's Brigade in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War, moved to Willis in 1872 where he became the leading doctor in town, delivering dozens of babies during his career and traveling to sick patients by buggy. Dr. Powell also owned the first motorized vehicle in Montgomery County, invented a bandage truss for hernia's and his home at the corner of Wood/Stewart Streets still stands. The home, built in 1872, has been significantly reduced in size since Dr. Powell's heydey when it was used at times as a makeshift hospital. The house was purchased in 1946 by Justice of the Peace R. Jordy and was the site of over 100 wedding ceremonies. Dr. Powell, and his home as well, could rightfully say they've served Willis providently.

Home in Montgomery County, TX

The daughter of prominent Montgomery merchant Peter Willis (namesake of the city of Willis) was named Magnolia and was born in her parents’ 1854 home in Montgomery, which was named for her: “Magnolia.”

After the Civil War, Peter Willis and his brother Richard Willis moved their families to Galveston where their mercantile business flourished. Magnolia Willis grew up to marry Galveston entrepreneur, George Sealy, who in 1911 named his new petroleum company for his wife—Magnolia Petroleum Company, (which later became part of Mobile Oil.)

On June 20, 1872, the notorious Texas outlaw John Wesley Hardin and local (Willis) resident Duane Murchison are involved in a gun-fight in the streets of Willis. The shootout started according to Hardin when "some fellows tried to arrest me for carrying a pistol, but they got the contents therein instead". Hardin would go on to later have at least 27 murders to his name and would be killed in 1895 in an El Paso saloon, he is pictured here.

I appreciate the City of Willis Texas facebook page, where these great historic photos are shared.

Today's quote:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.  Margaret Mead

I'm sharing this post with the world-wide site Sepia Saturday, though it has little connection to the meme of this week.

Poppy's birthplace

Not everyone would get excited about finding pictures of the place where their grandfather had been born.  Just a bunch of genealogy freaks like me.

Traces of Texas, a Facebook site which frequently shares old vintage photos that it's members have sent in, posted some from Willis, Texas last week.  And it wasn't just one photo, it was a Facebook site for the City of Willis Texas!  I felt like I'd struck gold.

That's because the last article I found on the town had said it wasn't anything anymore, because the railroad had passed it by when it was where people could travel.  Ah ha, not so any longer!  Of course I knew that, but didn't search any more. And my grandfather never told any stories from his life.  He was a joker, and always had the family laughing. I think he coped with some tragedies in his life by learning that shared laughter was a glorious thing. He only lived until the year I graduated high school.

Poppy (my father's father) was born in Willis Texas, on August 28, 1877.  George Elmore Rogers, Sr.

Posted on Facebook by - Traces of Texas June 13 at 5:00pm · 

The City of Willis, Texas graciously shared this wonderful circa 1900 photo of downtown Willis. The city has a nice webpage with all sorts of historical photos and current information about Willis.

1880 Census from Willis Texas.

George Rogers is line 18 in the household #183, of widow Betty Rogers, who was "keeping house." He was 2 at that time, and his little sister was 1 year old.

His sister had been born in March, and his father died in May of 1879. George's father, William Sanford Rogers died at age 29 and was buried in the Rogers family plot in Huntsville, TX, where he had been born and raised.  However by the time he was an adult, he met and married Betty (Elizabeth) Bass of Old Wavery, TX in Willis TX on Dec 15, 1876.  The information on this wedding includes the pastor being Rev. D. S. Snodgrass.

It's funny how some details are carried along, and others lost.  Why did they move to Willis?  How did they meet? What killed him so young? Was Betty Bass Rogers really only 19 and widowed with 2 children as it says in the census? (No definite records of her birth have been found and she gave different ages on different census records.)

And how did the widow survive? I think in those days she would have moved in with relatives.  She had several sisters.  And her husband had a fairly large family.  But perhaps in 1879 things were difficult. However, there she is in the census of 1880 living with her two children in Willis, Texas.

I have a census record from 1900 where my grandfather again was still living with his mother and sister, but then in Galveston, TX, which was a city much like Houston is now.  By that time he was 22 and working as an accountant.  That census was taken in June of the year of the horrible Storm of 1900 which came in September and wiped out much of the city and as many as 6000 lives.  My grandfather not only survived, but I'm sure he helped in the massive cleanup afterwards.

I'm reposting some photos that were on the City of Willis, TX  Facebook page, HERE.

Hotel on corner of Montgomery St, Willis TX, around the turn of the Century (1900)

1910 Willis Saloon, Billiy Wilson and J. P. Paddock with a mascot on the bar.

Where was this saloon?

The Willis City person said, "I believe it was in one of the old brick buildings of the downtown strip still standing."

Look at the first photo where there is, indeed, a Saloon depicted! 

OK, there is much more I can learn about Willis, TX.  I'll do that, then do some editing and share with you later...the things that seem pertinent at least.

And I'm sharing this with my Sepia Saturday friends, though it has nothing to do with the meme for this week.  But you might enjoy seeing what the others have posted HERE (down where all the names are listed.)

Galveston to Fort Worth

Why would my grandfather, George Elmore Rogers, move from Galveston TX to Fort Worth, with his wife, Ada Rogers and children?  He was the bookkeeper for a Wholesale Fish business at the time of the census of 1910, and had built a lovely home for his family. 

Rogers home built by George Rogers, Sr. Galveston, TX

In 1916 there were two events which were pretty momentous...his oldest son, Elmore (10 years old) died of an accidental drowning just 3 weeks after Ada Rogers gave birth to her only daughter Ada Mary.  My own father, George Junior (called Junie) was 2 years old at the time.

But little Ada Mary's life was short and by records that exist today on Ancestry, probably had a tragic ending.  For a family which relied upon prayer and not medicine, according to the death certificate, her having glaucoma for at least 8 months probably affected her brain.  Whether medicine could have offered anything besides pain relief, I don't know.  She died in 1919 just short of 3 years of age...in Houston, TX.  That was where my grandmother's mother was  living and offering healing as a Christian Science practitioner.

I think my grandmother and her daughter probably spent a lot of the last months of Ada Mary's short life in Houston. 

I believe my grandfather worked as a bookkeeper at a meat packing plant in Fort Worth for a Mr. Dumble.  The Rogers moved from either Galveston or Houston between 1919 and 1920 so were living in Fort Worth, TX by the census of 1920.  My father was only 6 at the time.  And two years later their youngest son, James, was born in Fort Worth.

Beef in a meat packing plant in Texas

My cousin, Patricia Rogers, has posted on her Ancestry site the following about the George Rogers Sr. family.  Her source was probably her father, James.

They resided in Galveston until 1918, at which time they moved to Meadowbrook Drive in Fort Worth, Texas, where he (George Sr) was employed by the Fort Worth Packing Company as office manager. This began a friendship with the company Manager, Norman Dumble that lasted twenty-five years.

I believe the Dumble ranch was a favorite place for the young men to learn how to hunt.  My father (Junior) is pictured above, and there are also pictures of him and my mother before they married in a similar setting.

My parents before they married, probably at the Dumble Ranch

The Rogers home

There's also a story about the Fort Worth home that burned and how my grandfather once again built a brick home for his family, while they resided in a garage.

The Rogers family endured hardships, which weren't unusual for that time in US and Texas history.  But as I knew my grandparents when I was young, they always had a positive attitude, and were cutting jokes at every opportunity.

So this is my contribution to a meme dealing with butchers and packing plants.
 
This week's Sepia Saturday post...click to see more!

Correcting my misinformation

The things I've learned since I posted about my great Aunt Annie Lou Rogers Wilson...
HERE ARE OLD damaged PICTURES.

But my 2013 post showed things I had yet to learn.



Though my grandfather didn't tell me about her...nor about his own upbringing, I believed what someone in the family told me, or wrote somewhere.  That the Rogers children (Auntie Annie Lou as well as my dad's father, had been orphaned and raised by cousins.  Not true.

Their mother was still alive and they were even living with her by census data in Galveston, Texas. She lived until 1924.  I just noticed on her death certificate that she wasn't buried in Galveston, but in Huntsville, where her husband's family had lived.  Now I can see if I can find her grave there.

However, there is a letter stating that the cousin did have guardianship of the youngsters, written many years later by my grandfather.

And he and my father were indeed given the middle name of Elmore, but I was able to chase down the Revolutionary War hero of that name, Elmore Ross, who was an ancestor of their cousin with whom they had guardianship.  I never found any census data showing they lived with the cousin.  He even lived in another town in Texas.  I think he had been a mentor to my grandfather, at least.

My grandfather's own father did die when he and his sister were ages 1 and 2.  And their mother did move from her own town of Waverly to Galveston.  I have no information on how she lived, but it might have been pretty tough in a big port town at the end of the 19th century.  Remember Galveston was the big shipping port before Houston ever became one.  So perhaps the children were living with that cousin some of their lives, just not in records that I've found yet.

In the last two years I've spent several hundred hours learning about my ancestors, and how many of us make mistakes over on Ancestry DOT com.  That's why my own genealogy is private at this point.  My cousin, Patricia Rogers (also a descendent of George Elmore Rogers, Sr.) has made her genealogy public however, so there are records on it which are available for other searchers.  My records in my blog do contain my own mistakes.


I'm posting these for the theme at Sepia Saturday this week...HERE.

Quote for today:

There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe. The horizontal threads are in space. The vertical threads are in time. At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual, and every individual is a crystal bead. And every crystal bead reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net, but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe.

Rig Veda