Memorial Day 2016

Elizabeth Sheafor Patton

1785 -1875

In the strictest definition,  Memorial Day is a time to remember those individuals who died while defending our country.  In 2014 I used this blog to commemorate one of my ancestors that died while being held on  a British prison ship during the Revolution.  That blog can be found HERE.   But many of us choose to remember  on Memorial Day those who have died that we particularly miss.  And since I have not found that many family members that died serving our country, I am  going to use this Memorial Day blog to commemorate three men that defended our country and that are now dead but did not die while serving in our armed forces.  And in doing so I not only hope to call attention to their service but to take time to remember the war in which they served and those individuals that did lose their lives in that war.   

The woman in the picture at the beginning of this blog is Elizabeth Sheafor Patton and she was the daughter of Peter and Catherine Sheafor.   Her father served in the revolution  and afterwards returned to Somerset County New Jersey and married her mother.  Elizabeth was born in New Jersey.  The family moved to Mercer County, Kentucky and five years later moved on to Butler County, Ohio.  In 1806 Elizabeth married Isaac Patton.  By 1832,  they had moved to Indiana where Isaac died in 1840.  He is buried in Williams Cemetery in Cass County, Indiana.  Elizabeth went to live with her son Samuel in Anderson County Kansas and is buried there.  But it is not Elizabeth that I am intending to call attention to in this blog.  It is her husband Isaac and her brothers Peter and William.  These three men in her family served in The War Of 1812.   Elizabeth would have  had two small children by the time her husband was serving in the War of 1812.  And her brother Peter would have also had two small children.   Her brother William would have been  a newly wed.  

While we are all aware that there was a War of 1812,  some of us are not as knowledgable about it as we are of some of our other wars.  So first I wanted to start with a quick over view of what the war was about and what happened.  I especially like the map in this short video and I feel the film gives a quick over view.  

The three men in Elizabeth's life that served in the War of 1812 served in three different regiments.  Her brother Peter served as a private in Colonel John Delong's 1 Regiment.  I have not yet been able to locate where this group were during the war.  Elizabeth's husband Isaac served under Captain Daniel Heston and I am not sure where all this group was either.  I know Isaac was sick some from his pay records. 

Elizabeth's brother William served as a Lieutenant and I was able to find a bit more information about his unit.  In fact his records from the war  are in a county history for Butler County Ohio.  It can be read HERE along with a story of him getting in trouble for falling asleep at his post.  In reading the portion of the county history at the preceding link,  it is clear that William's group saw action at Camp Meig.  I was able to find out about that battle as it is listed at the following link under the heading "First Siege". This battle was one that went well for the United States.  

Finally, in order to connect the dots as to where these people fit into my family history I will explain as follows.  Elizabeth and Isaac's son Vincent had a son named Samuel.  Samuel had a daughter named Clara Patton who married LeRoy Shepler.  Their daughter Georgia married William Rairigh and had a son named Loyd who was my mother's father.  

In closing, I wanted to share this video in order to honor all those who served in the War Of 1812.  It is about the Ohio grave sites of War Of 1812 veterans but also will give us pause to those from other states.  

A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire

A Lion Among Men

by

Gregory Maguire

The third book in Gregory Maguire's Wicked series is A Lion Among Men and is the story of the Cowardly Lion.  I reviewed the first book Wicked HERE and the second book Son Of A Witch HERE.  And as I mentioned before, while fantasy is not my normal genre, I have really been enjoying this series.  The theme of this third book varies a bit off the good and evil theme as it deals with relationships.  All the books have dealt with relationships but due to the lions failures in life and failures in relationships this third book seems to focus on them even more than the first two.  For example on page 79 the following is observed about the lion:

He hadn't yet had enough experience with humans to know that the thing they hold dearest to their hearts,  the last thing they relinquish when all else is fading, is the consoling belief in the inferiority of others

To me this says a lot about how we often interact with others by viewing them down the length of our noses.  Because it is clear that we often like to think we are a little bit smarter, a little bit more educated,  a little bit richer,  and a little bit better looking than the next person.  

Through out the book the lion's loneliness is significant.  He fails at relationship after relationship.  So the book has a sadness to it.   It is a biographical work about the cowardly lion's life but it also clears up questions and details from the other two books.  Especially about Yackle.  Things are explained about Nor and about Elphaba's cat too.  Another main theme is the impending war between the Emerald City and Munchkinland over a source of fresh water.  Yackle says the following:

The smallest indivisible part of a nation worth defending is not a field, a lake, a city, an industry, but a child. 

As you can easily see by these quotes,  the third book in the Wicked series continues to be full of underlying meaning.   Religion,  politics and relationships continue to be explored though out the novels.  I have already downloaded the fourth and final book onto my kindle and am anxious to get started on it.  I highly recommend this series.  It is very different but worth the effort to get into the world of OZ and experience many of the issues in our world in a different reality.  

Please follow the links above to more information and enjoy the video that follows.  

Happy Mother's Day 2016

Happy Mother's Day!

I have noticed a few of the bloggers on my newsfeed have been posting their uninterrupted maternal lines as far back as they have pictures.  My first picture to post would be three generations back and my last picture is of my three children taken in the late 1980s.  My daughter does not yet have a daughter so no daughter of her's to post a picture of at this time.

Mary Etta Hildebrand Funk

Thelma Funk Rairigh (Reed)

Charlotte Ann Rairigh Rohrer

taken 1949

Mary Ellen Rohrer (Lyle, Mayberry, Darnell, Dexter)

taken 1985

Nicole, Nicholas and Scott

taken late 1980s

My Genealogical Society Annual Conference Experience

Last week, Thursday through Saturday,  I attended the Ohio Genealogical Society's Annual Conference.   After registering at the beginning of the year, when my fall and subsequent broken leg occurred the end of February,  I was not at all sure I would get to attend the conference.  So I was glad when the Dr upgraded my status to weight bearing and my friend Linda agreed to come down from Indiana and be my caregiver for the event.  Although I was able to get around most of the conference on crutches,  it was very helpful to be pushed in a wheel chair to breakfast on Friday morning and to have my breakfast buffet items be carried to the table for me,  along with many other other  things she did to make the event possible for me.  I was not yet driving so even getting to and from the event would have not been possible.  Bruce was also a great help and dropped me off at the conference center and would have picked me up but it just would have been a lot harder without Linda and I would have been limited to the meals offered at the Great Wolf Lodge.  We ended up going out to Ruby Tuesdays for supper Thursday pm and to Perkins Pancake House for breakfast Saturday morning.    Spending most of the time on crutches I was unable to manage the camera I packed but some photos can be viewed on the OGS FB page HERE.   And more about OGS can be found on their website HERE.   I am not, by history,  a joiner.  I work second shift which does not lend itself to attend organization type meetings and I am pretty introverted in general.  But I became interested in a lineage society that honored and maintained memorials for the women who were persecuted early in our country's history as witches called the ADEAW.  Unfortunately, although I tired to get my application completed for their organization,  I lacked documentation for one generation.  But the work I did allowed me to apply to Ohio's First Families lineage society.  So on Friday night at the conference I was inducted into that lineage society.  Here is a picture of Linda and myself at the banquet and induction ceremony Friday night along with a picture of the certificate and pins I was presented with.

I enjoyed the workshops I attended very much.  Even though I was not able to tolerate going to all the workshops available and spent some down time due to my leg,  the ones I went to were very worth while and I am sure the ones I missed were too.  Luckily  outlines of the one's I did not choose are available in the downloadable syllabus with bibliographies so I will be able to review the information at my leisure.  I did not arrive at the conference till Thursday afternoon because I had physical therapy Thursday morning for my leg.  But the first workshop I attended was Land Office Records In Ohio: A Researcher's Guide,  was presented by Thomas J Rieder and was sponsored by the  Ohio History Connection.  During the three o'clock workshop on Thursday I got checked into my handicapped suite at The Great Wolf Lodge and Conference center in Mason Ohio where the OGS conference was taking place.  But at 4:30 pm I was back at it and my workshop was Desperation, Displacement, and Deuteronomy: Colonial Germans,  presented by Sharon Macinnes.   Among other things she explained the push and pull factors of the Pennsylvania Dutch community's immigration to the New World in the 1700s.  On Friday morning at 8:30 am I was enjoying  the presentation: From Deutschland to Ohio:  German Newspapers At the Ohio History Connection by Jenni Salamon.   During the ten am workshops on Friday I chose to visit the exhibit hall and browse though the vender's booths,  following which I got into one of the restaurants at the lodge to beat the crowd and then sat in my room with my leg up and an ice bag for a bit.  At 1:30 pm my workshop was a real treat.  It was entitled Where Does It Say That?  Learn to Love Indirect Evidence and was presented by a very funny and entertaining Chris Staats.   Followed by a 3 pm workshop presented by Elissa Scales Powell called How Did My PA Ancestor Get There?  Migration Trails West.  Then at 4:30 I was back in the audience of Chris Staats for Analysis and Correlation: Two Keys to Sound Conclusions.   Which gave me time for a little ice on my ankle back in the room and to get ready for the banquet where I was inducted into the First Familes of Ohio that I mentioned earlier.   Saturday morning we went out to breakfast and started a little later with the 10 am workshops.  I enjoyed James M Beidler's presentation of Online German Church Registers,  Duplicates and Substitutes.  He also had a booth in the vender area and did a wonderful job both places.   We snuck out to Kohl's during lunch because we had had such a late breakfast but grabbed a DQ before returning to the 1:30 workshop which was by George Morgan and on the topic The U.S. Naturalization Process: 1790 - 1954.   Since we were pretty much exhausted we ended our day with the three pm workshop entitled Colonial Wars to the War of 1812 by Debra Mieszala.   I would have liked to attend the 4:30 pm workshop on Citation for Beginners because I need to improve in that area  but I was just mentally saturated so we headed home.  It was a very worth while event and I encourage others interested in genealogy to attend a conference near them or to even travel to one that is in an area one is researching.  Enjoy the video that follows about genealogy conferences.