The purpose of this series has been to observe Women's History Month by honoring and celebrating various women in my family history who were interesting to me. Some of the women that were topics in the blog posts contributed to who I am by nature (DNA) and others by nurture (hands on care) but I believe they all gave me some of their convictions and perseverance. Intergenerational empowerment is real. What follows is an index to the various posts. Each woman's name can be clicked on to follow a link to the post that was about her. Following is a video, be sure to click on it to enjoy it.
There is probably no really effective way to articulate the impact a mother has on a person's life. No doubt myself, my siblings and my father were very fortunate to have had my mother in our lives. Charlotte Ann Rairigh was born in 1930. In 1953 she married my dad and they had four children. Some of the gifts I feel my mother gave to me was the value system she stressed upon us. Education, thriftiness, and diligent work were all things that she impressed in our minds as we grew up. She was a very intelligent woman and very much wanted her children and grandchildren to move on up the economic ladder. At times she could be too controlling but she grew as her children grew and by the time of her death in 1990 she was no longer trying to direct my life choices. As an adult the thing that looking back I appreciate very much was her sense of fairness. Whatever she did for one of us she equaled out by doing something of equal time and value to each of the others. When I was young she was interested in family history and doing genealogy. That was back in the 1960’s and 1970’s and before the age of the internet so she did a lot of snail mail correspondence. I remember being taken on lots of “family field trips” where we all had to walk around cemeteries and look for particular names on stones. I didn’t appreciate it at the time but about ten years after her death her family tree cardboard box came into my possession. It brought her back to me to see her hand written notes, remember the places we had been and to read the letters she had written back and forth with other more distant family members. There were some old photos and bibles in the box. To make a long story short I was hooked and have spent many hours enjoying my hobby of genealogy. Also my mom had started nursing school when she was young and quit her training to get married. Later she went back and finished. So my nursing career interest was fueled by watching her complete her RN.
Charlotte Rairigh ~ 1950 or so
Please enjoy the video that follows about the history of nursing in America.
Thelma Funk was born in Indiana in 1911 and in 1930 she married Loyd Rairigh. This union produced three children, one of which was a daughter who was my mother. Loyd and Thelma subsequently divorced and in 1943 Thelma married a man named Waldo Reed. I knew her as "Grandma Reed". Going to my Grandma and Grandpa Reed's house was a delight to me. I spent many weekends with them during the school years and many weeks during summer breaks. The one thing that stands out in my memory about their home is order. Thelma was an excellent housekeeper. Her home was extremely organized and very clean. Nothing was out of place and she had her household tasks arranged by days. There was a day to do laundry, a day to iron, a day to dust, to vacuum, a day to clean bathrooms and the list goes on with tasks divided into a tight schedule. Of course, clothes were less synthetic then, but she did actually iron underwear. No doubt, I found emotional safely in the routine of my grandparents home. Among the many fond memories I have of Thelma one stands out - her reaction when, in the early 1970s, phosphates were removed from laundry detergents. She must have sputtered for at least a year about the inadequate state of laundry soap. But why were the phosphates banned? Because the chemical phosphate causes the algae in water to reproduce at very fast rates when it reaches the lakes and streams. This over abundance of algae uses up the oxygen in the water and the fish die. I can remember a camping trip in the mid 1960s to Northern Ohio's lake Erie. The beaches were covered with dead fish that had washed ashore. Banning the phosphates allowed some of the damage to our waterways to be reversed. I found an article online dated 1970 that explains it well. It can be found HERE. So while the reasons for the ban were important, in Thelma's mind it was hogwash and her clothes were not clean enough as a result. While searching online preparing to write this blog I discovered that phosphates are an issue again. Calls have been made to remove it from automatic dishwashing detergent and it seems there is still remaining phosphate use in some laundry soaps too. Phosphorus is a fertilizer so run off from farmer's fields are an issue too. Also since animals eat the fertilized feed their feces is high in phosphorus and therefore run off from feed lots is high is phosphorus too. The following video explains the role of Phosphates and the chemical Phosphorus in our lives today.
Alice Wilson was born in Kansas in 1886 and in 1891 her mother married Aza Hiner. In 1907 Alice married Oscar Rohrer who was a widower with a young son age three and a half who was my father's father.
Oscar and Alice Rohrer Wedding
Alice Wilson Rohrer and her Hiner half siblings became a great treasure for my family. I was an adult before I realized the Hiner aunts, uncles and cousins were not blood relatives.
Alice Wilson Rohrer and Fanchion Hiner Stair
Fred Edwin Rohrer, Alice Wilson Rohrer, and Oscar Rohrer
The woman I knew as my great grandmother raised my grandfather and then when her husband died in 1938 and my father's parents had divorced, Alice began the task of raising my father who was six and a half. When I was a toddler she lived in an apartment behind the house that my parents, siblings and I lived in. Although we moved away, she remained in that apartment until her death in 1978 and during my junior year in high school I lived with her there. My memories of her are varied and many. Every year she made home made pecan sweet rolls for Christmas morning breakfast and their aroma was wonderful as we opened our gifts. Her cooking was wholesome but the type of foods that fueled a farmer for the hard work they did in the early 1900s. And having lived on the farm throughout The Great Depression she wasted not one thing. I can remember her sitting and cutting her wore out sheets and clothing items into strips, sewing the strips together into one long strip and rolling it into a ball. She would then crochet these balls of fabric strips into rugs. I found a description of how to do this online HERE. She shared with us many stories about the family and about life on the farm. She told colorful stories of putting an extra pie to cool in the window sill for the bums to steal because she knew they would be hungry and how they always let hungry travelers eat left overs out on the back porch. She spoke of crossing the Wabash River in the farm wagon in order to go to town. But her most enthusiastic stories were about threshing times and how busy it was to cook for the farm workers during that time. I am awestruck when I think of the way the world changed in her 91 years of life and how much adapting she had to do along with it. She was very non judgmental and always welcomed us with open arms. My life was enriched so much to have known her.
Alice Wilson Rohrer
Please take time to enjoy the video that follows about threshing on the midwestern farm.
My father's mother I knew as "Grandma Dorie". She was born in 1908 in Miami County Indiana. In 1928 she married Fred Rohrer and my father was the result of that union. They divorced in 1933 and she later married Robert Whitehouse.
She passed away in Fort Wayne Indiana in 1994. I remember her as my pretty grandma. She took great pride in her appearance and where ever she went heads turned. Another thing I remember about her is playing card games and board games with us. She always wanted to have a good time. Along with games she was the best cook ever. Her specialty was candy. In fact for a time she worked at Wayne Candy Factory in Fort Wayne Indiana. I fondly remember her home made fudge that was her contribution to the Christmas meal. I consider the greatest gift she gave to me was the desire to sparkle. While I am sure I don't pull it off as well as she did, it is my goal to be a bit girlie in my presentation. One of the things that Wayne Candies was known for was the BUN candy bar. It is still made but by another company and has never been a bar but is instead round. I love them. I found a copy cat recipe online for them that follows:
Sarah Armstrong was born in 1766 in Derry Ireland. Her parents died and she immigrated to America in 1774 with her uncle and her brother. Her uncle settled near Germantown Pennsylvania and was a paper maker. Her brother fought in the revolution. I have never been able to find out enough about Sarah to satisfy my curiosity. She caught my interest because she immigrated to a new land as an orphan. I continue to search for more information about the family. I suspect, since she immigrated from Ireland in the late 1700s instead of the mid 1800s, that she was Scots Irish. I have not confirmed that but the majority of the people that immigrated from Ireland during that time frame were Scots Irish. More can be learned about the Scots Irish HERE. Hopefully, more information about this family will be found in the future. Periodically I do a new search and send out a new email query. In 1787 Sarah married John Jacobs and they settled in McVeyTown Pennsylvania and had eleven children. One of their sons was named David who had a son named David George. David George had a daughter named Carrie Bell. Carrie married Anthony LeRoy Shively and their daughter was my father's mother. Please enjoy the video that follows. And click on the images to read more.
(further information and photo credit for above painting can be found HERE)
Margaret Lewen was born in London England in 1613. In 1629 she married George Lamberton. The couple immigrated to America and had seven children. George was a sea captain. I honor Margaret in this blog post because for her to have been living in New Haven Connecticut in the first half of the 1600's with seven children and having her husband away at sea for his job must have required a lot of courage. But tragedy struck in 1646 when George started out in his ship , The Great Shippe, with 70 passengers and cargo for England. The ship never reached it's destination and was lost at sea. One of the women passengers was the wife of Stephen Goodyear and Margaret Lamberton eventually married Stephen and had three more children. I admire Margaret for not only her courage but her ability to survive and provide for herself and her children. One of Margaret's daughters by George Lumberton was named Mercy and she married Shubael Painter. They named their daughter Margaret who married Captain Richard Morris. Margaret and Richard had among their children a son named Richard Jr who had a son named David. David Morris and his wife Hannah had nine children and two of them have lines that go down in my tree. Their son Charles had a daughter named Maria who married Cornelius Sullivan. They had a daughter named Amelia Jane who married Samuel Patton. Samuel and Amelia had a daughter named Clara who married LeRoy Shepler. And they had a daughter named Georgia who married William Harvey Rairigh and their son was my mother's father. Back tracking to David Morris and his wife Hannah who had the son named Charles, there was another brother named David Hamilton Morris who had eleven children including a daughter named Martha Jane. Martha Morris married Francis H Sullivan and among their eight children was a daughter named Aimme who gave birth to an illegitimate daughter named Leona. Leona married Oscar Rohrer and died shortly after giving birth to a son Fred. Fred Rohrer was my father's father. Another interesting fact about the story of Margaret Lewen is that 200 years after her husband was lost at sea, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about the incident. It is called The Phantom Ship. Please enjoy the video of the poem that follows.
Cora Gillingham was born in 1881 at Richland Center Wisconsin the ninth child of twelve in a Irish family. She was the fifth daughter and her mother did not need her in the house doing chores so she ended up out in the sheep fields with her father. She developed a keen sense of the out of doors from this experience and when she went to school she excelled in the natural sciences. After her schooling was completed she taught school for seven years and then married a man named Jay Sheafor. She had five children and worked extremely hard and had a busy life. She always took time to notice the wild life and birds on the farm and to teach her young children about the natural world. At one point she had a serious illness and had resulting poor health. After she recovered as much as possible she resumed her farm wife duties and continued to raise her children but she added the art of writing to her activities. She wrote books, stories and poetry. She was also the topic of an article in the magazine The Farmers Wife. Cora's husband Jay's father was Francis Sheafor and his father was named Squire. Squire Sheafor was the son of Jacob Sheafor who had a sister named Elizabeth. Elizabeth Sheafor married Isaac Southard Patton and then had a son named Vincent who had a son named Samuel. Samuel had a daughter named Clara. Clara Barton Patton married Leroy Shepler and had a daughter named Georgia who married William Harvey Rairigh. Harvey and Georgia had a son named Loyd who was my mother's father. Please take the time to read through the images of articles that follow. If you click on them they should open up large enough to read the print.
Amelia Jane Sullivan was born in 1845 in Miami County Ohio but while she was still a baby migrated with her parents to Miami County Indiana. Her father was a teacher, and it is my understanding that she also taught prior to her marriage to Samuel Patton in 1863. Since Sullivan is one of my Irish lines, and today is St. Patricks Day, I chose to honor Amelia today. Somewhere in my file cabinet I have school records of students and grades for Nead School in Nead Indiana that if I remember right were written out by Amelia. I looked in the file cabinet prior to this blog and could not locate where they are filed. I was a little limited on how long I could stand on one leg and look through files with my broken leg though so if I ever discover my memory did not serve me right I will add a comment to this blog correcting the information. But I feel confident they were Amelia's. At any rate, Samuel and Amelia had seven children and one was a daughter named Clara Barton Patton who married Leroy Shepler and they had five children, including a daughter named Georgia who married William Harvey Rairigh. Georgia and Harvey were the parents of my mother's father. School in the midwest during the 19th century was different than it is today. You will find a list of differences HERE. Please feel free to click on the preceding link for more information and enjoy the video that follows. Note that the school shown in the video would have been earlier in the 1800s than Amelia would have been teaching and it is located in Northern Ohio instead of Central Indiana. Nead School still stands today but in a new building.
Mary Adams was born in 1818 in Alabama and in 1836 married Samuel Maverick. At the end of 1837 they migrated to Texas and she may well have been the first American born white woman to live there. She is credited with giving birth to the first American white child born in Texas. She made a significant contribution to Texas in that she kept diaries and journals of her experiences. During her life time she was present at Comanche raids, battle times of the war with Mexico fought in order for Texas to become a state of the United States, and she was active in the confederate relief effort. She also attempted to revive the dying art of home spun cloth production in order to supply the need of the Confederate cause. In 1895 her son helped her consolidate her diaries and have them published. Her words are often quoted in studies of Texas pioneer life. For those interested in reading her memoirs they are available online for free HERE. Mary Ann's mother was Agatha Lewis whose father was William Lewis. William's mother was Elizabeth Givens and she had a brother named John. John Givens had a son named William who had a son named Robert. Robert Givens had a daughter named Mary Polly and she married George Duffield. George and Mary had a daughter named Isabella who married Robert Norvell. They had a daughter named Emma who married Bert Coffman. Bert and Emma gave birth to my children's great grandmother on their father's side who would have been my ex father in law's mother. Please follow the link in the text above to read Mary Adams Maverick's memoirs and enjoy the short video that follows.
Mary Etta Hildebrand was born in 1875 and married Harry Funk in 1900. They had six children, the youngest of which was my mother's mother. While Mary was pregnant with my grandmother, her youngest child at the time was a son named Wayne. In July of 1911, two year old Wayne was playing outside with his older brother Harold. When Harold was called to the house, Wayne climbed up a fence that was adjacent to the watering trough for the cows. He fell from the fence face first into the cement water trough and drowned in 13 inches of water. Every time I read this story my heart goes out to my great grandmother who I never knew but was named after. Anyone who has ever walked a cemetery, as family history buffs often do, knows it is impossible not to be struck by the amount of children who passed away in earlier times. Every family in the 19th and early 20th centuries seems to have multiple tragedies related to losing children. The following quote can be found HERE and explains some of the caused of childhood deaths in our history:
At the beginning of the 20th century, the leading causes of child mortality were infectious diseases, including diarrheal diseases, diphtheria, measles, pneumonia and influenza, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, and whooping cough. Between 1900 and 1998, the percentage of child deaths attributable to infectious diseases declined from 61.6% to 2%. Accidents accounted for 6.3% of child deaths in 1900, but 43.9% in 1998. Between 1900 and 1998, the death rate from accidents, now usually called unintentional injuries, declined two-thirds, from 47.5 to 15.9 deaths per 100 000.
I feel very fortunate to have raised my children after the discovery of antibiotics and to have gotten them to adulthood without a mortal wound from an accident or a fatal disease. It must be the most severe angst that exists to lose a child. Please feel free to follow the link in the text and to enjoy the quiet moment of the video that follows.
The Last Hundred Years Trilogy by Jane Smiley begins with the book Some Luck which I reviewed in January. Last night I finished reading Early Warning which is the second book in the series. In this second book. the children that were the main focus of the first book, are having children, who are growing up, and by the end are having their own families. The book begins with a lot of people feeling paranoia about the possibility of a nuclear bomb landing in their back year and next, moves through Vietnam. One of the grandchildren of the original couple in the first book is killed in Vietnam. The book relates one character's near miss brush with the cult of Jim Jones. And continues while various family members divorce, come out of the closet, get cancer, have affairs, have mental breakdowns and some die. I am really enjoying this series and have downloaded the third one on to my kindle to begin this pm. Please click on the author's name and book title above to follow the links to more information. And enjoy the video that follows.
Mary Fleming was one of the "four Maries" who were childhood playmates of Mary Queen Of Scots and grew up to become her ladies in waiting. Mary Fleming married William Maitland, and although William's loyalty to the queen often seemed to be in question, he and his wife were residing in and refused to surrender, Edinburgh Castle, which was held in the party of Mary Queen of Scots, during a siege to capture it by the opposing regent to the throne. William Maitland and his wife Mary Fleming Maitland were charged with treason. He died before coming to trial and she was stripped of her personal diamonds and rubies which were given to her by her queen. Mary Fleming was born in 1542 and her mother was Lady Janet Stewart who was the illegitimate daughter of King James the IV by Isabelle Stewart. Isabelle Stewart later married Sir Thomas Whipple and they had a son named Thomas who also had a son named Thomas. This third Thomas had a son named Matthew who had a son named Matthew whose son was Captain John Whipple. Captain John immigrated to American and married Sarah Hutchinson and they had a daughter named Abigail. She married Stephen Dexter and they had a son named Major John Dexter who had a son named Jeremiah. This Jeremiah had a son named Jeremiah who had a son named Willoughby. Willoughby's son was named Ira and Ira's son was named Duncan. Charles Edward Dexter was Duncan's son and my husbands grandfather. There is much online to read about Mary Flemming Maitland. Some of the sites I found interesting can be found HERE, HERE, and HERE. There is an old Scottish folk song entitled Four Marys that has some interpretations online that I don't agree with on its origin and meanings but nevertheless is an appropriate and interesting song. Please watch the video that follows which is of one of many performances of that song.
Any family relationship between Anne Marbury Hutchinson and my family is somewhere between iffy and no place, but I wanted to honor her in this part of my Women's History series because there is that remote possibility of a connection and besides, she is the mother of Women's Rights and Religious Freedom in America. Anne Marbury was born somewhere around 1591 in England. She married William Hutchinson sometime before 1634 when they immigrated to Boston with their eleven children. Anne was a preacher's daughter and a nurse midwife. She was very educated for a woman of her times. She disagreed with the church and political leaders of Boston about their church doctrine of good works and rules and was an advocate of free grace. She held studies in her home. She became a popular religious leader among the citizens of Boston so the leaders of the church and government who didn't think anyone should disagree with them had her arrested. They also didn't think a woman should be allowed to say any thing critical. They excommunicated her for heresy and she fled to Rhode Island which was a more liberal environment. After her husband died she moved again to New York where all of her family but one daughter were killed in an Indian raid on their cabin. Please click HERE to read more about her.
Since only one of her children lived she doesn't have a lot of lines of descendants but any connection to my family would have been through her husband William's family anyway. In reading the family linage books of the Hutchinson family it is clear that there are a lot of mistakes. It is my personal conjecture that the person that traces down to my family is through her husband William's brother Edward. My Catherine Hutchinson's father being Edward is based on conjecture. The book "Direct Forefathers And All The Descendants Of Richardson Sands" byBenjamin Aymar Sands states on page 55 that Catherine was the daughter of Captain Edward and Sarah Hutchinson. Captain Edward Hutchinson was not married to Sarah but his uncle Edward who was a baker was married to Sarah. So I am basing placing my Catherine as Edward the baker Hutchinson's daughter based on that source and the fact that there doesn't seem much information about Edward the baker Hutchinson's children to prove or disprove Catherine's place among them. I will continue to look for more information to substantiate or disprove this theory. Catherine married John Walker and had a child named Sarah who married James Sandys. They had a son named James Sands who had a daughter named Bathsheba. Bathsheba Sands married Thomas Everett. They had a son named John who married Maria Holder. For a long time I believed that Peter Moyer/Meyer of my lines married John and Maria Everett's daughter Maria, based on the following sources -LEHIGH COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA AND A GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF ITS FAMILIES BY CHARLES RHOADS ROBERTS, REV. JOHN BAER STOUDT, REV. THOMAS KRICK, WILLIAM J. DIETRICH, Vol III and also - Anniversary History of Lehigh County, Vol. III, Copy write 1914. But new information came to light in the form of a compilation of pastoral records of a Rev Hilffrich. I ordered and viewed the microfilm of those records and conferred with other researchers whom I trust and I decided that based on the other family members included in the pastoral records the Peter mentioned in them is ours and his two wives were Magdalena Schmidt and after her death, Anna Maria Frey. Never the less, the Everette family, the Moyer family, and the Frey family were neighbors and friends and most likely there is a marriage connection in there somewhere, probably with a different Peter and Maria. In fact upon the death of a Frey couple the Everett's raised one family of Frey children. So I have left Ann Marbury Hutchinson in my tree - although disconnected - because I think I will eventually find a place to plug that line back into. To move on down from Peter Moyer/Myer that is ours to my line, Peter and his first wife Magdalena Schmidt had a son named Peter Moyer who had a daughter named Amelia and she married Solomon Zelner. Amelia and Solomon had a daughter named Sarah Amanda who married Herman August Funk. Their son was Harry Elbert and his daughter was Thelma Funk who was my mother's mother.
There is a lot of great information online about Anne Marbury Hutchinson in addition to the link that I provided. Those that are interested can easily google more information. Please enjoy the video that follows. It is one of many videos that can be found on YouTube about her life.
Elizabeth Bair was referred to as a "Southern Lady" in the biography of her husband that is contained in the book "Two Centuries Of the Church Of The Brethren In Western Pennsylvania 1751-1950". I have never been able to locate who her parents were. Bair is a common name with many spelling variations and, is often the case, the women in family histories are poorly documented. I am not quite sure when she married her husband George Rairigh but the first child that I have for them was a son named Samuel who was born in 1816. George and Elizabeth had a farm in Cowanshock Township, Armstrong County Pennsylvania. On the map above of Pennsylvania, Armstrong County is red. On their farm, George and Elizabeth had a log house, a log barn and six children. As if that was not hard enough on Elizabeth, George decided he was "called" to be a circuit rider preacher. Since he could not read she taught him to read German so he could read aloud the scripture text. And when his congregations requested he read in English she taught him to read in English too. He traveled his circuit some on horseback but mostly he had to walk it so it took him 26 weeks. It was up to Elizabeth to manage the farm while he was gone. I chose to honor Elizabeth in this blog series because she amazes me that she would be so supportive of her husband in something that would cost her so much sacrifice and hard work. It makes me wonder if there was any way she could have put her foot down or if she had no choice. My mother's maiden name was Rairigh so this is a direct line of mine. My mother's father was Loyd Rairigh, his father was William Harvey Rairigh, his father was James Quinter Rairigh, and his father was Samuel Rairigh. Elizabeth and George were Samuel's parents. Since George died at age 63, Elizabeth went to live with Samuel and died in his home in Darke County Ohio in 1868. I was unable to find a good video on the area of Pennsylvania that is west central. But I did find a couple of excellent ones on the Pennsylvania Dutch community that is located in South Eastern Pennsylvania. This is the same group that some of the members migrated on west to where Elizabeth and George were. I am sure there farm was much more humble than the ones on the video but the culture would be similar. Please enjoy the videos and view the photos of the book that has the biography of George.
Mary Draper was born in 1732 to Irish Immigrant parents in Pennsylvania. In 1750 she married William Ingles and they migrated to a small Scots Irish settlement in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. In July of 1755 while she was heavily pregnant with her third child and the men were out in the fields the community was raided by Shawnee. Some of the settlers were killed and some were taken captive. Mary was one that was taken captive. The Shawnee took their captives 500 miles away. One day Mary grabbed her chance to escape. Using the Ohio River as her guide she walked home. You can learn more about Mary's ordeal HERE. An Indiana author named James Alexander Thong wrote a book about her. To prepare for the book he donned his back pack and walked in her foot steps. It is a wonderful book which I reviewed a few years ago HERE. There has also been a TV movie made about Mary Draper Ingles. She deserves to be honored in this blog for her courage and her amazing survival story. She is not a direct ancestor of mine. She is very indirectly related to my children. But I am proud to have her information included in my family history even if the connection is very remote. My children's father's paternal grandmother, Hazel Fan Coffman Lyle, has many famous lines in her tree which have interesting historical men. This is the line that also traces indirectly to Mary Draper Ingles. Hazel's mother was Emma Norvell, Emma was the daughter of Isabella Givens Duffield and she was the daughter of Mary Polly Givens. The father of Mary was Robert Givens and he was the son of William Givens. Captain John Givens was William's father. John was the brother of Elizabeth Givens and she was married to Brigadier General Andrew Lewis. whose brother was Thomas Lewis. Thomas had a daughter named Agatha and she married Colonel John Stuart. One of their daughters was Jennie Lewis Stuart who married Major Robert Crockett. Robert Crockett's sister was Jane Crockett and she married John Draper whose father's name was also John Draper and he was the brother of Mary Draper Ingles. Please take time to follow the two links in the text above and enjoy the video that follows and can also be found HERE.
