Monday, January 28, 2013

Another Page on my Genealogical Journey - Find a Grave!


Having used ancestry.com to find the Glessner grave sites in California recently, I decided to see what the site "Find A Grave" would be like if I volunteered to take a photo of a request. Well, there was a request for finding Gracie Page at Lakewood Cemetery here in Minneapolis after I joined yesterday, and Carpe Diem.....I seized the proverbial day and here I am this morning!  This is a cemetery  I have visited many times, mostly riding my bike through.   Our senators, Humphrey and Wellstone rest here.   So here I pulled up with the green pony in front of the Lakewood Building this morning after some snow and ice over the weekend. 


Chris was very helpful and friendly when I requested information about Gracie.  He explained the grave would be easy to find, as there is a family named monument to see above the snow.  Here he is providing me with a map to the location. 

As a seasoned researcher, I took some photos of the information in the files here.  Actual death dates and the plot and grave number. 

Bigger view with the map of the family plot on the left, very complete information in my experience. 

This is how the site looked when I arrived at section 8, lot 76....now to find the 5 markers under the snow and ice. 
I paced off 10 feet where Gracie's marker was supposed to be, and viola'. I scraped off the snow and used my car plastic ice scraper to find the lettering on grave #6
So Gracie becomes Grace Leona Page who died at age 16. 

Here on the other end, are grave's 1- 4 ,which when I scraped the ice off, I had difficultly reading.  Out of respect to Mother Earth and the Pages, I employed some of Trader Joe's Italian pink lemonade to melt the ice and scrape so each marker could be read. 
 The last interred Cora Page Sunderland, is in grave #4.  I had to scrape some sod-dirt off on her first name. Can mostly read it here 1871 - 1965.

 The closest grave, #1, with the camera shot is Stella Althea Page,  1864 - 1945.
Number Two is Stella Graves Page,  1829-1909


Then #3 is the Reverend Emery Harkness Page 1818 -1888.

So there you have it.  My personal experience starting the work on Find A Grave

You can search the site, go to
http://www.findagrave.com







Tuesday, January 22, 2013

One Hundred Years 1913 Photos from Cousin, Helen B. Lourie, Noah Elwood Weaver and Betty Eicher's Family Remembrences

National Bank of Cincinnati $10 bank note from the late 1800's, that I inherited from my Ohio ancestors. 


My father, Paul Henry Weaver (1910-1982), carried on a long time correspondence with his cousin, Helen Barbara Lender Lourie (1907-1981), who was born and lived in her youth mostly in Cincinnati, later she lived in Stearns, Kentucky, and finally in Rugby Tennessee.   The above photo of Helen is of her at 6 1/2 yrs of age and I found in my fathers archives after he died, age 71, in January of 1982 here in Minnesota.  
And another of Helen Lourie, PHW's Cincy Cousin as he would call her. 1924 and with a house cat likely at her home. She was listed as a stenographer living at 4756 Hamilton Ave in Cincinnati in the 1934 city directory.  She never married. 


Fortunately, I picked up the correspondence in 1978, prior to dad's death, and visited Helen in the forests of Tennessee that summer.  Reflecting her early involvement in restoration of the town of Rugby Tennessee, according to her Jan 20, 1978 letter to me, "I have been Secretary-Treasurer since its inception in 1966."   The Rugby Colony settlement was founded in 1880 by Thomas Hughes, English author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, and current information can be found on their website:
http://www.historicrugby.org/ and blog http://rugbyweek.blogspot.com


This is the back of the photo, likely in the penmanship of her mom or dad, unless she was very precocious at that young age.  Helen's mom, was Genevieve "Jennie" Oberhau, grand daughter of Louis Charles Oberhau and Dorothea Emma Lender, and great granddaughter of Fredrick Beno Lender and  Barbara Bohlender Lender.  Barbara Bohlender's younger sister, Eva Margaret Bohlender, married Franz Eicher Aug 23 1843 in Cincinatti Ohio. Thus the cousins here - Lenders and Eichers

Here is a photo in Noah Elwood Weaver's album looking northwest over the Paper Mill in West Carrollton, Ohio known as Friend Paper Company, where he worked during the decade of 1910-1920 when his son was young. 



My dad, Paul Henry, is seen here at the foot of the hill on the George Eicher farm, with his mom, Edna Eicher Weaver.  Edna is the youngest daughter of Henry Eicher and Emelina Helena "Lane" Paul, and granddaughter of Franz Eicher who homesteaded this farmland in Sect 15, Miami Twp, where she and her sister Esther and brother Charles were born. 

This is a composite photo, showing the open farm land in the Miami River Valley in 1915.   George Eicher, son of Franz Eicher had tobacco sheds and a barn on the land, near an apple orchard.   Henry Eicher who did not farm had a home on the Bellbrook Road where he had a garden, and lived with his first born daughter Esther Eicher under the top arrow, "Henry Eicher's Homestead"
Here are Henry Eicher and his grandson Paul Henry Weaver sitting on the seedling hothouse on the 2 acres he gardened and raised small livestock on.  Looks like a day to collect eggs here. 



Employees on the front steps of Friend Paper Company in West Carrollton, with Noah Elwood Weaver, (1985- 1973)photographer, standing on the steps.

Here on the same steps in 1984, is the author on the left with, wife, Susan Elizabeth Johnson Weaver on the right. Photo taken by cousin Bill Eicher (1927-2006) who gave us a tour of the Eicher-Weaver topography and sights in the Greater Miami River area on our way East, to Georgia, North Carolina and eventually Vermont!
Betty Eicher, with Henry Eicher, grandfather, and cousin Paul Henry Weaver ca 1915.

Betty Eicher, Born Ethyl Elizabeth Eicher Feb 22, 1913 daughter of Charles Albert Eicher, in Miamisburg just before the great flood, wrote the following in her memoir.  that she sent to her only sibling, Bill Henry Eicher, born in Feb 1927, 14 years her junior.   Betty became a school teacher in Franklin OH, having graduated from Ohio State University.   She had a life partner,  Mariam "Mary" Parker Brown, born in Franklin OH 24 Dec 1884 and the two of them moved to Lakeland Florida, well before the time of same sex union, much talked about today.


on pages 11-12,



Sunday, January 20, 2013

Greater Miami River Valley - Photographs by Noah Elwood Weaver

I inherited the photographer albums of my paternal grandfather, Noah Elwood Weaver (1885-1973) who made many images from the late 1890's, throughout the first half of the 20th Century.   Here he captures a canoeist on the Great Miami River at West Carrollton Ohio where he lived all of his married life, 1909 - 1973, 

The West Carrollton Dam at higher water on the Greater Miami. 

Recreation on the Greater Miami River, CA 1905, West Carrollton Dam, wading and boating. 
Springtime likely on the Eicher Farm, Sect 15, flowering dogwoods, Noah Elwood Weaver, unknown woman, Edna Eicher, Charles Eicher and unknown woman. 

Three women, Edna Eicher on right likely on Hydraulic Canal, West Carrollton. 

West Carrollton OH environs with Greater Miami River 1895. the Hydraulic, dark line above West Carrollton,  noting the Eicher farms in section 15. Other dark line through town is the Miami and Erie Canal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_and_Erie_Canal
Current Satellite View of the area. 
https://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&oe=UTF-8&q=West+Carrollton+OH&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x8840880c7663047b:0x1d88be21d7a15f5d,West+Carrollton,+OH&gl=us&ei=rG_8UIOnNtL2rAGo3IGgBw&ved=0CIwBELYD

Bridge across the hydraulic canal by West Carrollton and Evergreen Cemetery. 

Summertime view of Hydraulic Canal looking NW West Carrollton OH

Wintertime view of Hydraulic Canal looking NW West Carrollton OH
Downtown West Carrollton Union Building with Miami and Erie Canal bridge and interurban train CA 1910

Paul Henry Weaver (1910 - 1982) , son of Noah Elwood Weaver near a leveling lock of the Miami and Erie Canal in West Carrollton
Greater Miami River CA 1905 - six women and a man, near West Carrollton OH by Noah Elwood Weaver.  Edna Eicher, far right. 

Greater Miami River flood plain - Esther Eicher far left, Noah Elwood Weaver center front. 

Placid view of Greater Miami CA 1905.

Miami Township, West Carrollton 1875, with Erie- Miami Canal- Hydraulic Canal and Franz Eicher Farm Section 15. 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Minnesota to Yanqing China and Valley of the Flowers north of Beijing - Sept 2011

On a Saturday in August 2011, these are some of my friends who joined me for lunch at Khan's Mongolian near the Bloomington Airport to send me off on my 2 month journey to Australia and Asia. Ken Lessley and Cheryl, Andy's wife at the time, also attended.  Left to right, Jamie W, Tom W, Jeff H, Denny S, Don R, Jane N, Eric M and Andy M.   Thanks for such a great send off. 

By mid September I made it to Beijing on the fast train from Nanjing.  I stayed in SE Beijing with my friend Greg who was working as an editor for the Peoples Medical Publishing House in the Chaoyang District.  This is the Taxi that picked me up in the early morning and waiting for the Liu's who I met with Leo, my Carleton College Classmate, at a dinner in NE Beijing the night before. This is a housing area in NW Beijing. 

Driving north by Badaling through the Great Wall area, just north of Beijing, with more blue sky!

Entering the area of Yanqing in the valley north of the Great Wall.  I am still struck by the blue sky and lack of air pollution! 

Here are Legend and Jianqian Liu with the taxi driver as we arrive at our hotel in Yanqing. 

After a nice breakfast we took a small bus out to the site of the Polo Matches where 4 nations were represented.   Here is Oliver, a photographer working out of Dubai, who was kind enough to forward a photo of Leo and me,(See Below) yesterday, Jan 14, 2012, just in time to send it to the Carleton Voice, the Alumni Magazine of the College in Northfield MN that both Leo and I attended back in the late 1960's! 
Oliver Duran, provided this photo as a theme to British Polo Day.  Oliver works out of Dubai

The Four Nations Flags - Argentina, United Kingdom, China and New Zealand, with Leo. 

Entry of horses onto polo grounds.
                                             Entry of the horses with the 4 flags as captured by Tom W.


Two Carleton College Classmates Meeting in Northern China 1969 - 2011, Leo Lum and Tom Weaver.  I have submitted this photo to the Carleton Voice, in hopes they will include us in the Summer 2013 edition.