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.
