Tombstone Tuesday - On Thursday - October 29, 2009

Tuesday got away from me so we have Tuesday’s Tombstone …on Thursday this week.

I found some more Metal tombstones last week. They were found at a Transfiguration Catholic Cemetery in Lake County, Illinois. This is the grave of Daniel Whalen. He died November 21, 1855 at the age of 52 years old. I was hoping to find more information about this couple but I do not find anything. I will continue to investigate. The original stone indicated that he was born in Wexford, Ireland in 1803. Many of the people buried in the cemetery are from Ireland. These metal tombstones were not manufactured until the 1870’s so I can assume that his wife, Mary had this monument placed after his death or at the time of her death. She was Mary Wadding who died at age 60 on March 10, 1881. These are such beautiful monuments.

Daniel Whalen orginal tombstone from 1855
 

Daniel Whalen metal monument placed some time later - on the right

The back side of monument has Mary Wadding listed as Daniel's wife.

Where, oh where has Susannah gone?

I have looked for her everywhere. Susannah was born the seventh child and the third daughter of Martin and Polly (Welch) Overly in around 1811. I say that because in Census records I would find a different birth year for each record. So I decided to settle on the year that the Overly / Oberlin researchers show for her birth year. Thankfully, there was extensive Overly / Oberlin research done prior to my family history project. Some time I will do a blog on the Overly Oberlin family and the brothers who arrived here from Germany.

It is believed that Susannah was born in Ohio. She married James Smith in Darke County, Ohio on December 9, 1830. They would remain in Darke County until about 1847. They would leave Ohio heading northwest to Fort Wayne Indiana with several other young adventurous families from Ohio. It is likely that they we in search of land new opportunities. A previous Blog “Branching out from here…” cover the move to Fort Wayne with the other Ohio Families.

James Smith and several of the Smith children are buried in the Cemetery at Nine Mile Indiana. Susannah’s name is listed on the tombstone but there is no record of her death or burial with the cemetery. I just can not find her. She is listed in the 1870 census and she is living with several of her children with others living near by. By the 1880 census, she is no where to be found.

So I decided to search for her daughters and there families in hopes of finding her living with them. Up to this point I had not found many of the daughters because Susannah had mislead me to believe that the daughters’ were still living at home in 1860. The first daughter I found was Mary Ann. She had married Jonathan Kimble on October 20, 1853 according to the marriage records for Allen County Indiana. Mary Ann and her family would settle near Camp Charlotte, in Pickaway County Ohio by the 1860 census. She has had four children by 1860. Listed in the Federal Census are the following children; Jacob (1854), Susannah (1855), James (1858) and Mary Ann born in 1859. Also listed with them is Amos Kimble (age 20) and Margaret Waters (age 16). By the 1870 Census, Jonathan Kimble and his new wife Sarah Jane (Maples) Kimble are living next to the newly widowed Susannah Smith with one son, James Kimble. By 1880, Susannah is gone and so is Jonathan Kimble. I do find Smith children who are in the area. I would assume that if Susannah were still alive she would be living with one of them.

Mary Ann, the first wife of Jonathan, is one of the Smith children buried at Nine Mile, Indiana with her dad. She died in 1863 five years before James. Mary Ann and her daughter, Susannah are buried together. Mary Ann’s daughter is named after her Grandmother. Jacob and Mary Ann Kimble, children of Jonathan and Mary Ann seemed to have died prior to the death of their mother but so far I am unable to find them also. I keep looking for them in Ohio.

And I keep looking for Susannah. I looked to see if she remarried. I looked for her with her children. I looked for her in Indiana and in Ohio. I looked for her with Overlys', with Kimbles’ and with Smiths’. I keep the search going because I know that she is patiently waiting for me to find her. I am certain that she is giving me clues that I have just not found yet. She remains a "needle in my haystack".

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.