A family historian’s gold mine……..

As I left the restroom of the Nine Mile United Methodist church it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I could see the light from the stairway, leading to the exit I would use, but in the shadow to the right of the exit way I could see something else. Something hanging on the wall it seemed. As I got closer, I could see that a beautiful blend of fabrics were used to create a wonderful hand made quilt. I was simply astonished to find it here of all places. I just had to find the light so I could get a closer look.

My father had encouraged me to learn to sew when I was a child. He had 6 kids and it was not easy to keep us in clothes especially the 4 girls! So he promised us that he would provide us with fabric if we learned how to sew. And we did, all of us. The sewing machine was rarely quiet.  And he kept his promise and kept us in fabric until the day he died.  In recent years I had started to quilt so to find this quilt made me really get excited.

I felt my way around the room until I found a switch and I flipped it on. Turning to look at the quilt, I was truly amazing. Chills ran up and down my spine and the hair stood on the back of my neck as I moved closer to the quilt so I could get a better look at it. It was just a few years shy of 100 years old and in very good condition considering its age. It is a Crazy Quilt pattern made by the Ladies Aid society in 1906.

Suddenly I realized that this might be the most important clue that I could have found today. The most amazing thing is that each piece of fabric had a church member’s name embroidered on it. “Could this tell me if I had family members here?” I thought. I could barely contain myself. I really need to get back on the road toward Chicago but some how I had to capture these names, just in case there was a Smith on it! I grabbed my camera and started to snap pictures.

I very carefully zoomed in and photographed each block starting at the top row and worked my way from left to right. Twenty blocks later I reluctantly had to leave but I knew that I would be back, I just knew it!

I was so excited on my drive home. I thought I would never get there all I could think about was the names on the quilt. How many were there? How are they related to me if at all? As I drive and sorted this out in my head I decided, even if there was not a single relative on the quilt it was still a huge find for the Nine Mile Area. Just think of how many people this actually places in the area in 1906. Even though I had only been doing my family history for a short year or two, I knew that this was a huge find.

When I got home, I raced into the house and powered up my PC. I would work until the wee hours of the morning uploading pictures and looking at all the names. It would take me most of the week to transcribe them. Some of the names were difficult to read but that is OK because it just means that I will need to return for a visit again in the future. There are 295 names on the quilt. I have in the years since this discovery spent many winter nights investigating the people whose names appear on this quilt. It will be a few more years before I will have gathered all the information that I need to put the story on paper. While I am not related to most of them, because of my investigation I feel like I know them. These people have continued to build the church which my family and 8 other families started in 1853.

Tombstone Tuesday - October 20, 2009

While these people have no connection to my family I thought I would add it anyway as an interesting side note.  Yesterday was one of our few Indian summer days of this fall so I stopped on my way home from my PMP Study Group session at two interesting cemeteries along Illinois Route 176 and took some pictures of some interesting tombstones.  I have not added them to findagrave.com yet but I will.  The first cemetery was Ivanhoe which dates back to 1852.

As you can see there are many old stones and this is a very well mantained cemetery.  It is beautiful on a fall day.  I found some interesting tombstone style which I have never seen before. 

These are metal tombstone monuments for the wives of John Ragan.  Hannah Ragan died at the age of 32 in 1847 and Hepsibah died in 1884 at the age of 80. These monuments are beautiful  and so well preserved.  Granite stones which date back to 1870's may not be legible.

 In all of my years of investigating cemeteries, I had never seen a metal monument.  So I got on the internet and did a bit of reserach.  These metal stones are cast from zinc.  Zinc forms a coating of zinc carbonate which when exposed to the weather, is rust resistent but turns to this light blue hue.  Two men were creditied with the perfecting of casting these types of monuments in 1873, they were M.A. Richardson and C.J. Willard.  They did not have the capital to start a factory so they contracted with W.W. Evans.   Evans eventually gave up on the idea and sold the rights off to Wilson, Parsons & Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. 

These monuments were available from 1874-1914. The government took over the factory during WW1 for the manufacturing of munitions.  After the war the demand for the metal monuments was never revived. The company was dissolved in 1939.  Several subsidiaries operated the midwest, one opened in Detriot in 1881, called Detroit Bronze which operated for 4 years before closing.  In 1886 in Chicago, American Bronze opened. It operated for 23 years before closing in 1908. In Des Moines, Western White Bronze Company operated for twenty two years, closing in 1908.  Thanks to Mark Culver for his article on "Metal Monuments of Greenwood Cemetery"  which helped me to learn about the origins of these beautiful monuments.

This is also a metal monument from the same Ragan family plot. The next Photo is of rounded top stones which I thought were unique too.  I do not recall seeing stones that were this thick with rounded tops before.

This is the Traut Family Plot.  The first stone is for Catherine Ann Traut who died at the age of 90 years old on January 13, 1904.  The middle stone was for Michael Traut who died November 26, 1880.  The last stone is for John H. Traut, son of Catherine and Michael Traut who died in 1871 at the age of 25 years and 10 months.  These stones a very hard to read as compared to the metal ones which we looked at earlier.  I hope you enjoyed your fall tour of the Ivanhoe cemetery as much as I did.

Many of the Genealogy Blogs do a article on Tuesdays called Tombstone Tuesday so I thought I would join them since I am so interested in cemeteries.  Northern Illinois has some interesting old, unique cemeteries which I like to visit so I will take you along!

The Church that it has become…

Early in my family history search I came across a gold mine for a family historian. I was visiting the Nine Mile Church for the first time to try to verify that the James Smith buried in the cemetery was our “James Smith”. I had knocked on the door of the parsonage in hopes of being able to talk to the Minister of the church. I wasn’t even sure that this house was the parsonage but it looked like it was. It was a nice brick home much like the homes that my Grandparents had lived in while Grandpa Everett was a minister. The brick looked like the same as the bricks the church had been built with.

Eventually a middle aged woman answered the door. She was dressed in a nice pair of dress slacks with a very pretty blouse. I sensed that she was on her way out of the door for a very important meeting. I explained who I was and what had brought me to Nine Mile Indiana. The reaction on her face was a bit of surprise followed by a large warm smile. She offered her hand to me in a warm welcome. We chatted about the church a bit but she did not know much about its history. At this point in my search I could not be certain if this was my family or not. I had hoped the find out that the church had lots of old records and they would be able to answer all my questions! For a Family historian this is the equivalent of hitting the lottery! No such luck for me this day!

She was a very nice lady and as it turned out she was the minister. It bought a smile to my face. Oh much had changed since the days that Grandpa Everett was a minister. In their day, Grandma Lillian would have been answering the door. She would have had a dress on with her apron wrapped around her waist careful to wipe her hands before opening the door and inviting you in. The parsonage door was always open to visitors.

My sense that she was on her way out the door turned out to be true; she was headed to the hospital to visit with a church member. She asked if I wanted to see the church. “I’ll unlock it for you and when I return in an hour or so I’ll close it up then.” I told her that would be wonderful. We walked across the street chatting about the church and the quaint cemetery which surrounds it. She unlocked the door and opened it for me. Inviting me in, she said “enjoy your visit and I hope you find what you are looking for.” “I’ll be back in an hour or so to lock up”, she said. I went into the church and she walked back to the parsonage getting in her car and driving away. I thought to myself that it is a shame that we must lock our church doors these days. In Grandpa’s day, the church was always open. You never knew when someone would need to have a few minutes with God.

The church looked very much like the churches of my childhood. In the vestibule there were stairs leading up to the sanctuary or down to what I imagines were Sunday school rooms and a nursery. As I walked into the sanctuary, my thoughts turn to Grandpa Everett, wondering if he had ever been here. Could this have been his church? As I sat in the back of the church in the pew, I took in the beauty of this sanctuary. It is arrange much like a Theater, the pews fanned out with the focal point being the alter. It was not large but very warm and inviting.
 

It felt good to sit here. It felt as if I belonged. The windows allowed the warm sun shine to bath the room in a rainbow of brilliant color. It is a beautiful room. As I sat there I couldn’t help but wonder if family members who I had not met had sat in these seats. I just knew this was a place that I was supposed to have found. So many baptisms, marriages and funerals were conducted here. Families have begun, flourished and been returned to their maker within the comfort of the walls of this sanctuary.

I sat there in the peace and stillness of this beautiful church, with God, Grandpa Everett and other family members who I had not met yet but was certain that I would meet them soon.

I was disappointed to find out that there were no Church records to speak of. “Oh we have a dusty old box in the corner of the Office downstairs which might have a few things in it” the minister had stated, “but probably nothing that will help you much.”

I decided that a trip to the wash room downstairs would be necessary before I got back in the car and headed to Chicago. The basement was dark. They had a nice fellowship hall, a kitchen, a nursery and restrooms. When I came out of the rest room, I was thinking about the church as I walked toward the stair way to leave. To the left of the stairway hanging on the wall, was a quilt. I was at first startled but soon intrigued by it. It has become the most exciting find for me in my family history search so far. It was my winning lottery ticket!