Postcards from Christmas Past

Some of my favorite items that were found among my father's belongings after his death was a collection of old postcards he had received as a child. These are from Albertson relatives.

from Uncle Ernest

from Uncle Calvin & Aunt Lulu

from cousin Iona

An Ancestor's Birthday--Julius A. Falk

It was on December 4th, 1880, in Avoca township, Iowa County, Wisconsin, when my maternal grandfather, Julius Adolph Falk was born. Both of his parents, Ludwig Falk and Anna Louisa (Boehm) Falk, were born in the Posen Province of Prussia. They were German speaking Protestants who had immigrated to the United States in 1858. Julius was their youngest son, with at least 11 older brothers and sisters and 4 older half-siblings. By 1905 Julius had moved to Linn County, Oregon, where he married Florence Edna Bond in 1910. He continued to live there on his farm with his family until his death in 1944.

Read some more about him on my website:
http://www.joanneskelton.com/p5.htm

Marriage places for 3rd Great-Grandparents

I read the post from Randy Seaver on Geneamusings for the Saturday Night Fun about publishing a map of my travels and/or mapping where ancestors lived or were married.
http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/05/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your_23.html

I would have to do a certain amount of thinking to create a travels map, but I could produce of map of where some of my ancestors were married. I didn't get this completed on Saturday night, but did have fun working on it.

Twenty-four of my 3rd Great-Grandparents were married in the United States, so I created the following map with the following legend for those twelve marriage:

1. red for 1 marriage (Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina)
2. amber for 2 marriages (Indiana)
3. blue for 5 marriages (Ohio)

After I made the map I was a little surprised to see how close together they were.

Emma Albertson, Artist

After my father, Lester Albertson, died in 2004, the time had come to go through the many papers in the “office.” It was there that I found a picture which was a scene of a rock formation and it appeared to be a watercolor, done in shades of brown.

It was signed Emma Albertson.

Even though I have been doing Albertson research for over twenty years, I did not remember anyone named Emma Albertson. I had no childhood memories of ever seeing that picture, so it must have been hidden away for a long time. I checked through the children of my grandfather’s brothers and there was no one named Emma, nor was any of the son’s married to someone named Emma. So, who was Emma? Certainly she must have been a fairly close relative to have sent our family a picture she had painted.

So now I needed to check my great-grandfather’s brothers.

My great-grandfather, Nathan Elias Albertson (1849-1917), had three brothers: William, Jesse and George. George died as a young child. The 1900 census showed Jesse in Marion County, Indiana, with four daughters: Sabina, Esther, Elizabeth and Gertrude. This census showed William in Kossuth County, Iowa, with two daughters: Dora E. and Jennie R. Looking back at the 1895 Iowa State Census, I discovered William in Hardin County with two daughters, Myrtle E. and Dora E. Maybe William needed some more investigation. Since the Albertsons had been Quakers for many years, I checked the published Iowa Quaker Records. The Honey Creek Monthly Meeting in Hardin County listed William Albertson with three daughters: Myrtle, Emma D. and Jennie R. Here was Emma. Apparently her name was Dora Emma or Emma Dora and was switched in various records. Hurray, I had found my Emma Albertson.

Now I wanted more information. Where was she in 1910? She and her younger sister Jennie were living with their parents in Boulder, Colorado. Emma was listed as Dora E, age 24 and still single. In 1920 William and his wife are still living in Boulder, but neither of the girls is living with them. A census search for Emma Albertson in 1920 produced no results. She was probably married by now. How would I find her married name?

Then one of those serendipity moments that happen ever so often in genealogy did happen. I had continued to sort through my father’s papers. One interesting item was the “Cherished Memories” book provided by the Poole-Larsen Funeral Home at the time of my grandfather’s funeral in April 1948. There were pages for Relatives Attending, Friends Who Called, Flowers, and Cards of Sympathy & Letters. So there were eleven pages of names to go through. On the eleventh page, the next to last entry, there she was: Mrs. Emma Albertson Scholz, Greeley, Colo.

With a name and a place, the research continued. Scholz was not a very common name, so I found Emma on the 1920 census as Dora E. Scholz in Adams County, Colorado, with her husband Albert. On the 1930 census they were in Weld County, Colorado with a daughter Alberta. Greeley is in Weld County, so next I used the USGenWeb website on the Internet. Weld County has a master index online and Dora E. Scholz had two listings. She was in the Probate Index and the CemBkII, page 204. The Weld County, Colorado Tombstone Inscriptions book had been filmed by the Family History Library, so I ordered the film, #1597899, through the Cottage Grove Family History Center. In Volume II, page 204, I found “SCHOLZ, Dora E. 1885-1958 (d. 8 Feb. 1958 72 y) ‘Mother’.” Now I had an exact date of death, so I used the online free obituary lookup page . My luck was holding. There was a volunteer for Greeley in Weld County. Soon in the mail came a copy of the death notice and obituary for Mrs. Dora E. Scholz. Included in these was the following information: “Mrs. Scholz, widow of Albert E. Scholz, retired from the Greeley school system in 1951. She had taught industrial arts and art.”

I continued to follow up clues on this family and eventually received a copy of her father’s obituary from Boulder, Colorado. His obituary from 1927 includes a listing of surviving children and there she is: Mrs. Emma Scholz.

It was 129 years today, on March 14, 1886 that Dora Emma Albertson was born. Although I don't have a photo of Dora, I do have this picture to remember her by.

A Special Friday the 13th

According to the story told to me by my father, it was on Friday the 13th that the Halsey Christian Church and the Harrisburg Christian Church had a party. My father, Lester Albertson who was a member of the Halsey church, attended that party. My mother, Wilma Falk who was a member of the Harrisburg church, also attended that party. Wilma and her younger sister Lois were brought to the party by someone who has never been identified to me. But he or she had to leave early so Wilma and Lois needed a ride home. They lived about halfway between Halsey and Harrisburg and Lester agreed to take them home. So my father always thought that Friday the 13th was a day to celebrate, since later he and my mother were married for over 48 years until her death.

In thinking about this I began to wonder exactly which Friday the 13th was that fateful party. My father's baptismal certificate was dated March 28, 1928. Among my father's belongings which I found after his death was a group of letters which my mother had written to him before they were married. The earliest letter was dated October 4, 1929. So the Friday I was looking for should be between March of 1928 and October of 1929. Using a perpetual calendar, the following Fridays were found: April, 1928; July, 1928; and September, 1929.

My mother graduated from Harrisburg High School May 31, 1929. I couldn't remember any stories about her dating my father while she was in high school, so that would make September 13, 1929 the most likely date. Was there any other thing I could do to find it that was correct? I remembered that the Eugene Register-Guard was online at Google News Archive, so thought maybe I could check and see if there happened to be any mention of a church party on that date. Eugene is about 20 miles from Harrisburg and often included items from the surrounding areas. After browsing several of the online issues I hit paydirt. On September 18, 1929, the following item was found in the Harrisburg section: "The Halsey Christian Endeavor entertained the Harrisburg C. E. Friday evening. A number of the local members attended and report a fine time." I'm sure that my father always thought that he had a fine time on that Friday the 13th.

Which One is Francis Hockett?

In my father's photo collections were these two pictures. 

• Left:  on the back was written Grandma & Grandpa Albertson.

• Right: on the back was written Grandma & Grandpa Hockett  

It appears to be the handwriting of my grandmother, Lucie Smalley Albertson. Then the photos would be the grandparents of her husband, Oran Jesse Albertson.  (Left: Benjamin Albertson and Sabina March. Right: Francis Hockett and Rebecca Hartley.)  When I shared these with an Albertson 2nd cousin, he stated he had the same two photos, but the identities were switched.

So is there anyone else who has these photos in their collection and could vertify who is who?

Marriage of Roy Bond and Grace Smith

It was 98 years ago when Roy Bond and Grace Smith were married, February 10, 1917, at Glide, Oregon

See: http://www.joanneskelton.com/p407.htm
Photo courtesy of Robert Bond.