Brown Roots

  Exploration: 2022 week 36 of #52Ancestors When I saw the Exploration topic, my great-uncle Harry Jacob came to mind. I know him best for teaching viticulture at UC Davis, but when I interviewed his son Wendell in 2004 I heard another story. In 1919 after graduating from Ohio State University, Harry went to Alaska with a professor as a student assistant/laborer on a three-masted sailing ship, to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. At least Wendell thought that was the name, he wasn't sure. A little online research revealed that the professor was Robert F. Griggs, a botany professor from Ohio State. Originally sent to Alaska to study whether kelp beds near Kodiak could be used for fertilizer, he became fascinated with the ongoing effects of a major eruption the year before in 1912. With funding from the National Geographic Society, he led multiple expeditions between 1915 and 1919 to what is now Katmai National Park, and is credited with discovering and naming the Valley of Ten Tho

Favorite Name: Week 6 of #52ancestors One of the things I like about genealogy is all the names. I'm a credits junkie: I like to watch movie and TV show credits to spot interesting names. I began with someone else in mind, but then I realized it had to be Nonomoe Glenn. I never heard a story about her name, but the first four children were girls: Mary, Amber, Euphemia, and Joy. I can only surmise that when a fifth girl was born, their father said "No! No more!"  But who knows. They did go on to have two sons after that. My first thought was a pair of sisters who are cousins of Nonomoe. I think their names are just captivating: Daisie and Delilah Freshwater. They sound like a sunny meadow in springtime. In both cases they had a maternal grandparent who was a sibling of my great-great-grandmother Minerva Breece . I've been to several Breece reunions, which included descendants of several of the 10 children encompassing Minerva and her siblings, but I don't

In the Census - week 5 of #52ancestors You always have to take census information with a grain of salt. Sometimes a pound.  I haven't found anything truly startling in the census, but there was something unexpected that led me to a further understanding of my great-great-grandmother's relationships. Lucinda Layton married my great-great-grandfather, Albert Newton Brown, in 1858. After he died in 1868 she married Henry Cryder, who she divorced after 18-1/2 years of marriage. She was 46 when she married her third husband, Finley P. Mowdy, in 1888. They had a daughter named Grace who was about 8 when they married. I have a picture of an elderly woman labeled "Aunt Grace Mowdy", identified I believe by my grandfather's sister Alma. I had trouble finding them in the 1900 census. Eventually I found Lucinda in Cedarville Township, Greene County, Ohio, living with Thomas and Grace Lovett with a relationship of mother-in-law. The handwriting is admittedly hard to rea

Week 4 of #52ancestors - Invite to Dinner Which ancestor would I most want to invite to dinner?  I'd go with my grandfather, Chester Brown. He died when I was just a year old, and he's the only grandparent I have no memory of. Even my mother's mother, who died when I was 6, left me a handful of warm fuzzy memories. My father never talked much about him. When I asked what his job was, the answer was "mostly odd jobs here and there".  I don't know if that was because of who he was or because it was the Depression. Maybe some of both. I got the impression he was handy. My father kept some of his tools until late in life, when my parents sold their house to move into a retirement facility. When I was a teenager his life and death seemed like ancient history.  There was an old black and white photo of him on a side table at my grandmother's. In an era of color pictures and Polaroids, that photo might as well have been from 1900. I realize now that for my

Week 3 of #52ancestors  - Longevity I have 2 perspectives on longevity to discuss. The first is the usual type: how long someone lives. My father had a good long life, dying a few weeks before his 91st birthday. That isn't unusual longevity, but it is exceptional compared to his three immediate direct-line male ancestors who all died before age 60. My grandfather Chester Brown (Dec 1898 - Jun 1958) died at 59 after two heart attacks. His father, William Newton Brown (Oct 1864 - Nov 1910) died at 46. His death certificate lists the cause as "Exhaustion" followed by 2 blank lines, then "Pulmonary". Whether that means pulmonary exhaustion or exhaustion along with pulmonary issues, who knows. The contributory cause was tuberculosis.  William's father, Albert Newton Brown (1834 - Mar 1868) died around age 34. I don't yet know the cause of death, but this is not an inspiring heredity for longevity. My father had coronary artery disease, hypertension, and

Week 2 of #52ancestors There are so many candidates for a favorite photo. The one of my mother and her sister as little girls pushing a doll buggy full of kittens. One of my great-grandfather sitting on his front porch, leg across one knee, smoking a pipe. It's hard to pick one favorite, but I find it best to go with that first instinct. The one that came to mind as soon as I read the topic is a typical group photo in front of a house. My great-grandparents are in the middle of the back row. Octavus Chambers holds his youngest (at the time) child Lester, the only boy out of an eventual seven. To their right is Mary Jane (Havens) Chambers. Given the estimated date based on the children's apparent ages, we think she may be pregnant with my grandmother, Millie. The others are her relatives from the Havens, Barrows, and Bockoven families. Many of them had just been names and dates to me until I saw this picture, which came to me totally by accident.  I was at a Chambers