A Trip to the Dentist in Honor of Walter

   I think it's safe to say that most people drag their feet when it comes to going to the dentist; it's just not on most people's top 10 list for fun things to do.  Last week I had my checkup and cleaning at a new dentist office and I really liked their staff and their approach; but I wasn't so excited about the fact that they found a cavity! I made an appointment for a week later and told myself, "You've done this before. It's no big deal."

   Today's appointment was looming in my mind last night though and I had to admit I was dreading it.  I didn't really mind the thought of whatever they needed to do to my tooth, but I have to admit that I have a healthy fear of needles.  You can laugh if you like, but this morning I thought it would be a good idea to have a soothing cup of "Nighty Night" tea, full of calming things like passionflower and chammomile.  Just for good measure I threw in a few drops of Rescue Remedy, a Bach flower essence that is also supposed to be good for anxiety.  While drinking the tea I read a review that said the flower remedies have never stood up to a controlled trial, but I decided that even a placebo effect would be just fine with me!

   As I was driving to my appointment I started to think of my great grandfather Walter J. Thomas.  I never knew him, nor did my dad or his siblings.  But I feel that I have gotten to know him quite a bit through the stack of letters that he wrote to my great grandmother.  The letters were sent during the Depression while Walter went from one occasional job as a "time study" man working for the Bedeaux Company to another, sometimes with very long stretches in between.

Walter with my grandfather Wendell

  
Walter and my great grandmother had separated, exactly when I'm not sure.  But the letters I have are dated from 1930-1940.  Walter wrote faithfully and sent money when the struggles of the time allowed it.  Throughout the letters he documents the challenges that must have faced many Americans in those days.  At first the letters are optimistic and hopeful even in the event of difficulties.  Walter always says, "Things will be okay" or "Things will come out right in the end." By August of 1938 even Walter's optimism seems to flag.

   In August of 1938 he sends a letter from Chillicothe, Illinois, where he says that he had to go and live with his sister.  He says he left Bedaux because there was no work.  He tells how he has had no work since February 15th and could not find anything anywhere.  He tells that he had to sell his car to live on and used all that money traveling "all over the map" to find work.  He was turned down by the W.P.A. because he had moved around so much, even though he tried to apply in both Detroit and Toledo.  He writes, "I was flat broke and had no where to go."  He wrote to his sister Veda who said that their business was down to nothing but he was "welcome to come and stay with them."  She told him there was no work in Chillicothe or Peoria either but to come on.   In Chillicothe Walter works for a time at the ice plant but even that doesn't last long because the weather is uncooperative and he only gets a day or two a week.  In this letter, Walter sounds like he has nearly given up with despair.  He signs it, "I am sorry as hell I can't do anything.  I really am." 

   I can't help but wonder if he ever got anyone to look at his teeth by then.  In 1936 he sent a letter from Detroit addressed to his son Wendell.  He has a rare time study job in Detroit but he says, "I hope you and everyone are okay. I am well but am having trouble with my teeth.  I had to let them go for so long because I was out of work."  Earlier in the letter he says he hasn't really worked since 1932.

    There is a lot I may never know about Walter Thomas, but I do know that he sent money to my great grandmother and their son for at least 10 years through one of the most difficult times in American history.  My grandfather would have been about 18 years old by date on the last letter in my posession.  When I think of him going around the country in those bleak days looking for work, sending money to Blanche and Wendell, but not seeing a dentist for several years because he just didn't have the money, I feel humbled.  Walter was an educated man, who had graduated from Bradley Institute (now University).  He had the credentials and training to work and be a professional person.  But he went through some very dark times; that line about his teeth really touched me.  I thought about how that must have not only hurt physically but also must have affected his sense of dignity and pride to be so down and out that he couldn't even take care of his basic needs. 

   I thought about my great grandfather as I was driving to the dentist appointment that I didn't want to keep.  I saw the sign for my turn onto Union Street and I fleetingly thought about just driving on.  (I really don't like needles!)  But I thought of Walter, and I thought of how fortunate I was to be able to get proper dental care.  I turned on to Union Street with a different feeling than I had before.  I felt glad to have the chance to do what Walter couldn't; and that it was my responsibility to take care of what I have been given.  I pulled into the parking lot and thought of my great grandfather and decided that I would get my tooth filled in remembrance of him. 
   I wasn't very nervous after that and by 9:30 I was on my way out the door, feeling grateful.
  

Can't see the family for the relatives?

   I have been lost in the world of 23andme and trying to figure out what the astonishing quantity of data I have been given actually means.  I haven't gotten very far...
   23andme is a Genetic Testing service.  With a vial of spit, they can tell you more than you ever thought possible about your health and what conditions you have a greater, typical or decreased risk for based on your genome.  They also give you a report of which conditions you happen to be a carrier even though you may not have that condition yourself.  I really hadn't given much thought to the health information but it is quite interesting.  For example I learned that I am a carrier for hemochromatosis.  I had never heard of it and had to look it up.  But the interesting thing is that it is highly prevalent in people who are Irish or of Irish ancestry.  Fascinating!
   I was a lot more interested in what I could learn to expand my knowledge of my ancestry though.  Through the "Relative Finder" feature the 23andme service sends a report of how many people share matching segments of DNA on their chromosomes.  So far they have determined that I share matching segments with 351 people that have used the service.  That's really neat to know and seems like a lot of cousins...but what do I do with that information? 
   Some of the other participants have Public Profiles, which allow me to see their name and hopefully a list of surnames in their family tree.  So far none of my matches with public profiles have any surnames that seem at all familiar to me.  Others with some common surnames have no segments that match with me.  What to do?
   I have shared ancestry.com trees with some people in hopes that we could discover a common history.  So far that hasn't led to any discoveries of how we could be related.
   From others on the 23andme site, I have learned that there are off-site programs that attempt to process the sheer volume of data and find the connections in ways that go beyond the many features available on the official site.  One such utility is HIRSearch.  From the Facebook page for this site here is what it does:

HIR stands for chromosome Half Identical Region.

HIR Search compares your genome data against another person's genome and find areas where half or more base pairs match. These regions are markers of common ancestry.

After I entered my raw data from 23andme it has given me an easier to contemplate list of people I match and precisely where the match occurs.  Presumably if I find more than one, or several matches at the same spot, then the 3 or more of us should have the same common ancestor.  I think.  So far it has been some fascinating but mind boggling information.

Another offsite utility called GEDmatch.com merges GEDCOM trees, downloadable from ancestry.com or other family tree software and tries to find common matches.  It also has a function for uploading raw data from 23andme and another genetic testing site and finding not only matches but predicting the degree of relatedness based on those matches.  Since people enter their information voluntarily they can enter their email address and theoretically find it easier to connect with their newly found relatives.  The closest match that I saw of mine was a predicted 4th cousin; many were predicted to be 7th cousins or greater.  The challenge of how to discover the common ancestor shared with so many people is quite daunting; but incredibly compelling at the same time. 

People who have multiple close family members who have also participated in the 23andme process have more information for discovering the connections between themselves and others with whom they have a match.  If Bob Genealogy has a match with Susie Family it is really helpful for him to see if his father Tom Genealogy also matches with Susie at the same location on the same chromosome.  If he does then he knows that their common ancestor must be on his paternal side.  At least they can narrow down their search.  I realize it would be so much more illuminating to have my family members also participate.  I think that will be my next initiative...to talk them into it!

I haven't had any incredible discoveries yet, beyond the fact that I have 351 new relatives.  But I am just learning what can be done with the information.  All in all it has been incredibly fascinating and I would encourage anyone who was on the fence to give it a try. 

The Goffs All Together

My maternal grandmother's father, William Goff, was the son of Irish immigrants Thomas Goff and Annie Cleary Goff.  I know that Thomas came from Duncormack, County Wexford, Ireland.  I never knew much about my grandmother's father; and I always believed it was because he was an orphan. 

I knew that he was born in Cleveland, Ohio on March 24 sometime between 1872-1874.  His tombstone says 1873, his death certificate says 1874. The 1880 Census would indicate that maybe he was born in 1872.  I wonder how they decided on 1873 for the tombstone? And as long as we're throwing around possible years, my grandmother told me he was born in 1871. 


When contacting other family members as I started gathering information about my Goff history, I was told that William's mother Annie died when William was a boy, in 1882.  Our family thought that his father had put the children in an orphanage at that time.  The family was living in Dallas, Texas then.  I felt sad about this and wondered if it was just such a different time or were things really so bad that he couldn't have figured out how to keep them together?  This is the last record I have found that places all of William's childhood family in one place.

I wondered what ever became of all those other children? It just made me sad to think of them being separated.

Then when I began researching more about this family I discovered that Thomas, William Goff's father, married again, and had another large family.  What's more, it appeared that the woman he married had been a resident at the orphanage!  It just didn't make sense to me how my great great grandfather could have left his children at the orphanage and while he was at it found himself a new wife there!

 As I was considering this dilemma, I got in touch with another Goff descendant through ancestry.com  His family is descended from Thomas Goff and his second wife.  Their story was that Thomas never abandoned his children, but that he WORKED at the orphanage as a carpenter.  They said they remembered older relatives talking about "Willie," my great grandfather, as an older sibling.  They told me that Thomas had hired the young woman who later became his second wife to look after his baby.  Apparently my great grandmother Annie Cleary Goff had died in childbirth with a little baby John.  Thomas, who worked at the orphanage, found a young woman to watch his baby and she fell in love with the baby, and I guess Thomas too.  They married and had several more children.  This descendant of Thomas felt sure that if the older children ever lived at the orphanage it was only because their father was there as well; not because they were abandoned. 



The new version of my family history brought renewed interest in my research into the Goff family.  But I wanted to know beyond a doubt that it could be true.  So I sent an email to Buckner International, asking about their historical records at the children's home in Dallas.  I promptly sent back the form that they emailed me....and I waited.

I got a call today from a lady at Buckner's.  She said, "I found no records of anyone with that last name ever being a resident at Buckner's."  I think deep down I thought she would find something after all.  BUT SHE DIDN'T.

It seems that the family story needs to be rewritten.  My great grandfather did lose his mother as a child, but he wasn't abandoned by his father.  If he wanted to follow the cattle drive to Kansas where he met my great grandmother, Elizabeth, then I can only guess it was because of the sense of adventure that any young man would feel to be off on a great journey. 

But You'll Get Diabetes...!

This is me on my first birthday...

As you can see I had more birthdays after that, and like most kids with sort of regular American childhoods I had a birthday cake each time...

7th birthday with
my stepbrother Casey

15 years and
all about band

First time I had a party
with classmates

   That all seems pretty normal...you could even call it better than average.  I mean those are really cute cakes!  But it's surprising I got cake at all...

   This is my paternal grandfather, Wendell Thomas.
Wendell was born in 1922 and grew up during the Depression.  He had some difficult health issues early in life contracting what was known as Tuberculosis of the Spine.  He had surgery in Minnesota at what is now called the Mayo Clinic, although then it was called St. Mary's Hospital.  Wendell had to wear a brace on his back for years.

The Wendell Thomas Orchestra

   He came through it ok though and grew up to have a family of his own. When he was a man he learned to play the drums and had his own jazz band that played for clubs and parties.  It was called the Wendell Thomas Orchestra.  I would sure love to find a recording from that time period.  I love big band music jazz combos; I wish I could have heard them play!

Wendell Thomas plays the drums

   When Wendell was an adult he became an insulin-dependent diabetic.  I didn't know my Grandpa Thomas very well, but his legacy was felt often through the ubiquitous admonition whenever anyone saw me eating anything sweet..."But not too much; you'll get diabetes."
   I don't know if it was a common belief everywhere or just in my family, but I was raised with the wisdom that diabetes "skipped a generation."  Thus I lived with constant reminders to not eat too much sugar, watch what I ate, and "you know you're going to have to get your sugar tested when you're older...diabetes skips a generation...and you know about your Grandpa Thomas."  It was an incontrovertible truth I was raised on.
   Once when I went to the doctor in high school I had my blood tested for something completely unrelated to blood sugar, but when they called me in to the exam room, my heart sank because I was sure they were going to tell me that was it, the end of the road, the party was over, no more Hostess Honey Buns (my favorite at that time).  Diabetes was surely here now!  Imagine my relief when they told me I did or didn't have mono or something completely unrelated!

Wendell Thomas
Thanksgiving 1979

   I recently participated in having genetic testing done through 23andme.  I was interested for genealogy purposes, but read the health findings with curiosity.  One of the most triumphant findings of the whole experience was this:  Genetically, I am at a REDUCED risk for Type I diabetes and TYPICAL risk (no more or less than the general population) for Type II diabetes.
After all those years of having that injunction hanging over my head, I can now say that genetically I have no more chance of developing diabetes than anyone else!  It's kind of nice to have someone on my side after all these years.

John William Thomas: 1846 in Wales - 1918 in Illinois

John William Thomas

   When I arrived in Fairbury on the day of discovery, all I knew was that John W. Thomas' last known whereabouts were in 1910 at the age of 64 in Steuben, Marshall County, Illinois.  On that census he is listed as a blacksmith at the coal mine.  Since I couldn't find him anywhere else forward in time I assumed he must have died there and thought that maybe he would have been buried in that area. I went to Fairbury looking for his wife, my great great grandmother Turesa Jones Thomas, because her last known census occurred later in Livingston County, Illinois.
   When we arrived at the Dominy Public Library we looked through the local cemetery register that contained a listing of individuals interred in the Graceland Cemetery.  I started looking for Turesa's name but in addition to T.L. Thomas I couldn't believe my good luck when I found J.W. Thomas as well.  Could it be?  I began my love-hate relationship with microfilm readers and tried to see what I could discover in the town newspaper, the Fairbury Blade.  The cemetery book gave me a date so I started in on the right year for John W. Thomas barely knowing what to expect.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I scrolled to February and there he was!  J.W. Thomas!

   I was stunned;  and thrilled.  I just couldn't believe that after all the years of not knowing where the Thomases came from, I suddenly had more information than I could have guessed that I would discover.

Swansea, Wales

  My great great grandfather John *William* Thomas (William is my dad's name too!) really was from Wales after all! There were so many things here to explore--his other children, the names of the other family members at the funeral and the location of his origin in Wales.
   Where was "Swausea?"  Apparently nowhere.  But "Swansea" is definitely a known location in Wales.  After some investigation I have learned that it is a fairly common transcription error when reading handwriting to mistake a cursive "n" for a "u"; I believe this was the case in John William's obituary.
   "A man of sterling qualities" and a "peaceable citizen."  And surprisingly a Methodist; like me.  I was raised in the United Methodist Church, but all of my living paternal relatives were raised in the Catholic Church.  The patchwork of religious heritage in my family has been another welcome discovery.  With every new generation I discover that all branches of my family were a mixture of both Protestant and Catholic traditions.  I am glad they are all a part of who I am. 
   I was so satisfied to have found John William Thomas.  In a way, it felt like I had really found my family roots for the first time.

The Thomas Family and their Names

   Meet my great great grandmother and great great grandfather Thomas, and their children.  For years I had this photo and only my imagination to fill in the missing pieces.  The only thing I knew for sure was that the little boy standing in the back row was my great grandfather, Walter J. Thomas.
   I didn't know where they were from or what their names were or anything else about them.  We always guessed that "Thomas" was a Welsh name but we didn't really know anything certain about our heritage on the Thomas side of the family.
   I wondered about the tall young woman with the impossibly tiny waist in the back row; probably my great grandfather's sister.  What was her name?  How could she stand that corset?  When did corsets go out of fashion?  Around the 1920's. Maybe the younger sister was able to skip those altogether.  I hoped so.
   I posted this photo on various websites and ancestry.com looking for clues, hoping others with the last name "Thomas" might have a lead.  I posted what I thought was information about where they might have been from, but as I learned, I was wrong about that too.  For some reason the 1920 census stated that my great grandfather Walter was born in Oklahoma in 1889.  I later learned that he was not.  But this error led me on many wild goose chases.  It was the wedding license of Walter and my great grandmother Blanche that unlocked the secrets to the identities of the people in this photo.
   Tuesday's post was already devoted to the seated lady, my great great grandmother Turesa Jones Thomas.  Turesa gets the award for "most varied spelling of any ancestor."  I have seen her name spelled on various documents: Teresa, Theresa, Turessa, Thrasa, Treasy, and her middle name Lucinda.  I'm opting to go with the one that is "set in stone" on her gravestone, "Turesa."  Surely that is the spelling that she preferred since that is the one that presumably her daughters chose when they ordered the stone.
   The daughter with the tiny waist is Verna; she married Bert Cottrell and lived Peoria.  She was only 53 when she died. I would like to find out more about why she died because it seems so unusual that she died at such a young age.
   The younger sister is Veda.  She married Otto Woodruff and was listed as the next of kin in the cemetery book at the Fairbury library for some of the older relatives' graves. She was also the sister that my great grandfather Walter turned to during the Depression when he was out of work and needed a place to stay.  She had three children and lived in Chillicothe, Illinois.  Maybe her children know more about the remainder of her brother's life.  I would like to connect with them if possible.
   The stately looking gentleman who is the father of this family is my great great grandfather, John William Thomas.  I really thought I would find, at best, information about his wife on that first outing to Fairbury, Illinois.  I couldn't believe my luck when I looked in the cemetery register and found a listing with his name on it too!  His last residence was not in Fairbury according to the census records, but Fairbury was his wife's home town.  So when he died, it was his final resting place.  I learned more than I ever thought possible when I discovered that his obituary was resting safely in the town's newspaper archive...

Wednesday: Notes

Genealogy in Progress and To Do For this week...


1. Sent records request form to Buckner Orphan's Home in Dallas, TX. inquiring whether my great grandfather William Goff and siblings were residents there and if they have employment records for my great great grandfather Thomas Goff. 

2. Sent email to the Cathedral in Dallas inquiring about records concerning great great grandmother Annie Goff's grave location.

3. Checked Illinois Regional Archives Database website link to confirm the death date of great great great grandfather Theodore B. Jones in Fairbury, Illinois and doubled checked the turnaround time customary for requesting death certificates from the Illinois Department of Public Health.  Was going to call to ask if there was a problem with this form submission but see that it says to allow 8-10 weeks processing time.  I submitted the form right before Christmas so this is still within that timeframe. Very curious to know more about Theodore and how he died. Maybe a clue as to why no gravestone or obituary?

4. Sent an email to the Wayne County Ohio Public Library requesting a search for an obituary for great grandfather Walter Thomas. I wonder if his obituary would have been listed there as well as in Kissimmee since it was his last permanent residence before retiring to Florida and the home of his son and grandchildren? Florida obituary states interment would be at a later date, but death certificate says that Walter's remains were cremated. Does Walter have a grave??? If so is it in Wooster? Would there be information about this in a Wooster area obituary? 

5. Awaiting copy of vintage photo including cousin Crystal with her mother Linda. Will send to publisher of author Linda Capus Riley and ask to forward.  Will ask if she is the woman in the photo and if so then tell her I am her daughter's cousin and send my contact info.

6. Received electronic copy of great grandmother Elizabeth Osborne and William Goff's marriage certificate from cousin Douglas Ferguson.  Marriage date is October 6,( just like grandma and grandpa and Mom & Bob!)  year is 1900.  Need to determine how to get copy of original from Jasper County, MO. 

7. See what other sources are on the Missouri gen web site.

8. Visit Local FHL

9. Goal: See if I can contact any of Verna or Veda Thomas' living descendants.  Ask Sue Ann if she has made any progress with this.

10. Write letter to cousin JoAnn Rebuck re: great grandfather Albert Milton McElfresh and her connection to the McElfresh family.  Who was Albert's brother and where did they come from? Why did they move to Anderson? Did A.M. come alone or with his brother.