Best of All He Loved the Fall

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961)

Ernest Hemingway Memorial on Sun Valley on Trial Creek Road

Best of all he loved the fall,

the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods,

leaves floating on the trout streams.

And above the hills

the high blue windless skies.

Now he will be a part of them forever.

------Ernest Hemingway, 1939

The summer before my thirteenth birthday, I went to stay with my cousins in Burley, Idaho for two weeks. My uncle was an attorney who had good friends living in Sun Valley, Idaho. Uncle Dean and his family were invited to spend the 4th of July at his friends' lovely home. This meant I went along and visited Sun Valley for my first time.

After a two hour drive, we arrived in Sun Valley on July 2, 1961 and settled into our accommodations. Our host and hostess had a barbecue ready with hamburgers for the kids and steaks for the adults. As we were smothering our burgers with ketchup and pickles and loading our paper plates with potato chips, our host announced he had just heard on the news that Ernest Hemingway had shot himself at his home a mile away. The great writer was dead.

My uncle and aunt reacted with shock and sadness. None of us kids really understood the gravity of the situation. Of course I'd heard of Ernest Hemingway, but I hadn't read any of his books yet, nor did I realize at my tender age how famous he was. My only thought at the time was "Is his suicide going to ruin our barbecue and our stay in Sun Valley?"

In deed, a somber mood prevailed the town throughout the Fourth of July. There was no parade or fireworks.

We drove near his home and saw the many police cars and the yellow tape forbidding entrance of spectators. The day of the funeral cars lined the highway to the Ketchum cemetery for miles. The entire cemetery was literally filled with flowers, more flowers than I had ever seen in one place.

Their were seven children in our holiday household, ranging in age from nine to fourteen. We did our best to entertain the adults to keep their minds off the death of Papa Hemingway, the most famous resident of Sun Valley. Our hosts had a pile of 45 records which we danced and sang along, acting out the words. We dressed up in costumes and sang "One eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater . . ." and "Ooo, eee, ooo ah ah ting tang, Walla walla, bing bang. . ." The adults laughed, rolled their eyes and took another sip of their high-balls.

Years later as I read the works of Ernest Hemingway, I would look back nostalgically on my first visit to Sun Valley. It was horrible and wonderful in the same breath.

I came to understand Hemingway's depression on a first name basis, dealing with it myself most of my adult life. Perhaps because of Ernest Hemingway, I came to realize the dichotomies which exist in so many circumstances of life. We can love and hate at the same time. Something can be beautiful and ugly. Hemingway loved life to the fullest. He drank and consumed life, yet he took his own. He felt deeply, fervently, passionately and yet in the end he also felt empty.

I have gone to Sun Valley as an adult and the feelings of my youth come rushing back. Visiting his gravesite and putting pennies on his grave, I realize what a trivial gesture it is. But how do you honor a great and talented man?

Ketchum, Idaho Cemetery--Ernest Hemingway Gravesite

Gravestone covered with pennies


Let us remember how he lived, not how he died.

Extra! Extra!

Denton Journal -- Denton, Maryland, 9 August 1873

To me, part of the fun of genealogy is pouring over old newspapers. Besides finding birth, death, engagement and wedding information, it is just plain entertaining--seeing the advertisements and getting a feeling for the time and place in which an ancestor lived.

It used to be that these newspaper searches were carried out in libraries, using a microfilm reader. Other than some obituaries, most of the microfilmed newspapers were not indexed, so searches could go on and on for hours or days.

Now that so many newspapers are scanned and available online with fairly good indexing, you can read the newspapers in the comfort of your own home whenever you want.

With my trusty laptop, I've found some interesting obituaries for my husband's ancestors, while sitting in my Laz-E-Boy and watching mindless TV. (at Ancestry.com) When I think of the hundreds of hours I spent looking for my family obits at the Family History and Salt Lake City libraries, it boggles my mind.

My husband's ancestors settled on the Delmarva peninsula (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia) in the 1600s. His parents were both born in Delaware and finding genealogical records has been difficult. Fortunately, I've had good luck recently searching the Denton Journal and the Salisbury Times. Not only have I found obituaries, but I have also found articles with descriptions of weddings and items telling about ancestors' church and community activities.

Obituaries and wedding articles are crucial, because they usually list the names of relatives.

It has opened up a whole new world. I feel like I'm getting to know my husband's family member who have long been dead.

Published in the Denton Journal, I've found moving tributes to loved ones who have passed on. Where else would you find such prose or poetry? For instance, this homage for an ancestor was recently found.

Memoriam in Denton Journal, (Denton, Maryland)
4 February 1911

"Days of Sadness come o'er us,
Tears of sorrow silently flow
Fond memory keeps our father near us,
Though Heaven claimed him two years ago.
Down in our hearts we know it best,
That our dear father should be at rest,
For anxious cares reach never
To the mansions of the blest"
---A Daughter

Besides the obituary, the following tributes were found for Mr. John W. Wood, a relative:

17 Jan 1920 Denton Journal
Mr. John W. Wood, a well-known citizen of Henderson, died on Saturday morning of paralysis, aged seventy-two years. His death came as a shock to his many friends. Although in poor health a long time his death was unexpected at this time. Mrs. Wood and four children survive. The children are Mrs. Clayton Melvin, Henderson; Mrs. Alfred Carter, Henderson; Mrs. R. H. Sylvester, Goldsboro; Miss Bertie Wood, Goldsboro; and two brothers, Rev. G. E. Wood, of Girdletree, and Mr. James T. Wood, of Easton; and two sisters, Mrs. Laura Draper, of Annapolis, and Mrs. Katherine Butler, of Denton.

6 Mar 1920 Denton Journal
In Memoriam.
In sad but loving remembrance of my dear husband, John W. Wood, who departed this life January 10th, 1920.

It's sad that one we cherish
Should be taken from our Home,
But the joys that do not perish
Live in Memory alone.
All the years we've spent together,
All the happy, golden hours,
Shall be cherished in remembrance.
Rest, dear husband, thy work is o'er;
Thy willing hands will toil no more.
A faithful husband, true and kind,
A better father you could not find.
---By his loving wife, Mrs. J. W. Wood

8 Jan 1921 Denton Journal
In sad bur loving remembrance of my dear father, John W. Wood, who departed this life one year ago, January 10th, 1920.

A sad year with all its changes,
Since death strangely bade us part,
But, dear father, all these changes
Cannot take you from my heart.
We cannot understand why we must part
From those we love so dear;
But God, who doeth all things well,
Will some day make it clear.
---By his Loving Daughter, Bertie O. Wood

Don't forget about newspapers when you're doing research. They are a rich, vital, fascinating source of family information.

Genealogist's Psalm

Genealogy is my pastime,

I shall not stray.

It maketh me lie down and examine half-buried tombstones.

It leadeth me into still courthouses.

It restoreth my ancestral knowledge.

It leadeth me in the paths of census records and ship's passenger lists for my surname's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the shadows of research libraries and microfilm readers,

I shall fear no discouragement,

For strong is the urge within me;

Curiosity and motivation--they comforteth me.

It demandeth preparation of storage space for the acquisition of countless documents.

It anointeth my head with burning of the midnight oil;

My Family Group Sheets runneth over.

Surely birth, marriage, and death dates shall follow me all the days of my life;

And I shall dwell in the house of the family history seeker,

Forever.

Amen.

*****

A visitor to the Family History Library was heard to say, "Coming to this library is better than going to Las Vegas, because you always come out a winner!'

Potters of the Gathering

Great Grandfather -- Bedson Eardley

My great grandfather was one of the first pioneer potters in the the state of Utah and he is finally getting the recognition he deserves. An exhibition which has been ten years in the making, opened recently at the Iron Mission State Park Museum in Cedar City. Of course, other pioneer potters works are featured as well, but the Eardley pottery plays an important part.

One man, an antiques' dealer, has snapped up all surviving Eardley pots available and for the first time he is loaning them to this historic exhibit. Tim Scarlett, an assistant professor at Michigan Tech, has been studying the early Utah potters and their wares for ten years. His study includes archaeological digs, mapping and reconstructions.

I've been involved only on the periphery as a descendant and as the author/compiler of the Eardley family history. I do not own a piece of Eardley pottery and have only viewed pieces in museums, so I'm excited to see a large number of pieces together. I do own Bedson's pottery ledgers (circa 1864-1892) and have loaned them to the museum as part of the exhibition.

Read more about the exhibition on Michigan Tech web site and about

Iron Mission State Park Museum where the pottery exhibition is now on display.

Eardley Pottery in Potters of the Gathering

Listen to the radio report about the exhibition on

KUER.

The history of my Eardley ancestors began in an area of Staffordshire, England known as “the Potteries” in and around Stoke upon Trent. By virtue of their place of birth, the Eardleys were potters by profession. Although Bedson Eardley was not born in “the Potteries,” his father and grandfather were and Bedson spent much of his youth as a pottery apprentice in that area.

The Staffordshire potteries, in the Midlands of England, has a more distinctive heritage than many of the better known parts of Britain. It is here that a skilled and industrious workforce, located in an isolated rural backwater and, often with wretched working conditions and simple tools, made objects of great beauty which won a worldwide reputation.

During the 17th century, the community of potters working around Burslem began using coal as a fuel in their kilns and this appears to have given them an economic advantage over other rural workshops still dependent on diminishing supplies of timber. Coal was abundantly available throughout the area known as the Staffordshire Potteries.

The slender supply of ivory clay was soon consumed, but the red firing “Etruria Marl” still occurs in abundance. From the late medieval period Burslem potters are known to have supplied Midland markets with simple butter pots and other domestic wares. There competitive prices were noted as far away as Nottingham. By 1710 Burslem had become a prominent pottery center, probably the largest in Great Britain, and had acquired a name.

When one thinks of the famous Staffordshire potteries, the names Wedgwood, Spode, and Royal Doulton immediately come to mind. The beautiful porcelains and fine bone china are still in production and are owned by royalty throughout Europe.

Perhaps one of the most famous names to emerge from the Staffordshire Potteries is Wedgwood. Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795), often described as the “Father of English Potters,” apprenticed under Thomas Whieldon and later became his partner. Wedgwood was instrumental in introducing a new species of earthenware–with a firm and durable body, covered with a rich and brilliant glaze which bore sudden vicissitudes of cold and heat without breakage.

The ware was manufactured with ease and sold cheaply and because it so pleased the Queen, it was known as “Queen’s Ware.” His experiments are credited with the invention of several other species of earthenware and porcelain, namely: Terra Cotta, Basaltes or Black Ware, White Porcelain Biscuit and Jasper. Wedgwood combined art with industry and was acclaimed as an artist, scientist, inventor, progressive manufacturer and humanist.

With so many pottery workers turning away from the traditional Anglican church, it is little wonder that the LDS missionaries had such good success in the area during the 1840s. The Mormons not only preached of a more positive after-life in which everyone would be reunited with their loved ones, but they also told of a better earthly life in America in their “Zion.” Four Eardley brothers heard the word, were baptized and cast their lot with other Mormon immigrants. Utah needed potters and the Eardleys needed opportuntity, so they eft behind the rapidly blackening skies of Staffordshire, England.

In 1710 there were around 500 people employed in pottery manufacture. In the Burslem area alone, by 1760 this had risen to 150 manufactories employing 7,000 people. And by 1785 15,000 people across the area were working in the Potteries.

Swadlincote, where my great grandfather Bedson was born, was a small south Derbyshire village noted for coal mining, pottery making and metal working. Bedson’s father had moved there from “the Potteries” in Staffordshire in order to secure a better standard of living for his family and better working conditions for himself. The "Potteries" were becoming densely populated and extremely polluted with smoke and soot from the ever increasing number of “potbanks” or factories.

Seven months after Bedson's mother, Elizabeth, died in 1839, his father, Edward, died in Swadlincote of “consumption” at age forty-five on March 5, 1840. His illness, tuberculosis, was caused or worsened from breathing pottery and coal dust. Sons William, age sixteen, John, fourteen, James, ten and Bedson, not yet eight, were left orphans. They returned to Stoke upon Trent, because apprenticeships in the potteries were more readily available.

Industrial disease was prevalent in the Potteries and mortality rates were high. The main problem, diagnosed at an early date, was lead poisoning since lead was used in the glazing process.

The next serious health risk endured by potters was pneumoconiosis caused by inhaling flint dust particles, often with fatal damage to the lungs. It was a lingering illness, which took many decades to diagnose and control. It is likely that many small master potters could not afford improved buildings, sanitary arrangements, welfare, ventilation or supervision for their workers. It will probably never be known, or completely understood, what part the deplorable pottery conditions played in the early deaths of Edward and his wife Elizabeth Eardley.

Much of our heritage is determined or greatly influenced by the occupations of the fathers.

What occupations shaped or altered your ancestral families? How does you's or your husband's occupation effect the life-style of your present day family?

Thanks Linda and Judy!

After months of wondering whether I should continue to blog, I opened my site today to find this cute award--"One Lovely Blog Award"--not just from one person but two.

Linda at Flipside and Judy at Genealogy Traces mentioned me on their blogs. I am honored and heartened to know that someone reads what I write---even if I don't get comments! I am encouraged and will continue to blog.

Of course, the idea behind presenting the award is to pass on the encouragement by awarding seven deserving blogs.

I could nominate dozens, but here are the seven I picked for the "One Lovely Blog Award":

Marty at Travelin' Oma's Library

Sherie at Sher-ing Time

Kate at Kate's Plate

Pat at Past Imperfect

Andrea at Colouring Outside the Lines

Liv at One Year of Beauty

Keri(th) at Tales from the Lone Star State

None of the above are genealogy blogs per se, but all are worth a look and a read.

Thanks again Linda and Judy.

How Do You Live Your Dash?

I read of a man who stood to speak

at the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone

from the beginning --to the end.

He noted that first came her date of birth

and spoke the following date with tears,

but he said what mattered most of all

was the dash between those years.

For the dash represents all the time

that she spent alive on earth--

and now only those who loved her

know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,

the cars, the house, the cash.

What matters is how we live and love

and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard--

Are there things you'd like to change?

For you never know how much time is left,

that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

to consider what's true and real,

and always try to understand

the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,

and show appreciation more

and love the people in our lives

like we've never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect,

and more often wear a smile--

Remembering that this special dash

might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy is read

with your life's actions to rehash--

Would you be proud of the things they say

about how you spent your dash?

(Author Unknown)

Finding Uncle Jake

J. W. Clifford aka Jake Kloepfer

"Uncle Jake" was my maternal grandfather's uncle. My great grandfather Philip Kloepfer was born in the tiny German town of Altleiningen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Bayern in 1861. His mother Elisabetha Kloepfer was unmarried at the time and no father was listed on the Lutheran baptismal record.

Elisabetha Kloepfer (b. 1834) had given birth to another illegitimate son, Heinrich Kloepfer, in 1854, but his father was recorded as Nikolaus Rehy in the Altleiningen parish register.

The family story, passed down through the generations, is that Nikolaus Rehy immigrated to America before Heinrich's birth. He promised Elisabetha that he would find work and build a home for them. Then he would return to Germany, marry her and take her and their son back to the United States.

Nikolaus did immigrate and found work, but he never returned to Altleiningen for Elisabetha. He married in the U.S. and had a family with another woman. Elisabetha was broken-hearted and obviously had a relationship with another man. Thus my great grandfather.

Nine years after GG-father Philip was born Elisabetha had another illegitimate son, Jacob Kloepfer in 1870. Again, no father was listed on the baptismal record.

When Jacob was five-years-old, Elisabetha moved to Mannheim, Baden, Germany where Philip was apprenticing as a stone/brick mason. There she married Georg Schneider and proceeded to have two sons by him. Both died as infants.

In 1876 at the age of twenty-two, Heinrich Kloepfer joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Two years later he decided to immigrate to Utah. No one knows if he planned on trying to find his father.

Evidently, Elisabetha was weak and ailing at that time and asked Heinrich (Henry) to take his eight-year-old half-brother, Jacob, with him. After traveling by boat up the Rhein, Jacob and Heinrich sailed first from Antwerp and then from Liverpool on 15 Jun 1878 on the S.S. Montana.

Philip immigrated in 1881 after finishing his apprenticeship. At the age of forty-seven, Elisabetha died three months after her son Philip left Mannheim.

When the 1880 U.S. Census was enumerated in Wellsville, Cache, Utah, ten-year-old Jacob was listed as Jacob CLIFFER, the adopted son of James and Sarah Park. Jake's brother Henry had married and was living with his Swiss wife in nearby Providence, Cache, Utah. The Kloepfer name was spelled CLEPERED in this record.

It is hard for us, in this day and age, to imagine why names weren't spelled correctly in the 19th Century records. Obviously, non-Anglo-Saxon names were more difficult to understand and spell. But even common names were often misspelled in the records, making research that much more challenging.

J. W. Clifford and Luella Temple, a Burlesque Team, 1908

When Jacob became a naturalized U. S. citizen in Cache County, Utah, he was using the name Jacob SCHNEIDER, his mother's married surname. How on earth could his name be found in the records if we didn't know the circumstances of Jake's life?

Uncle Jake became an actor in vaudeville, silent movies and the early "talkies". He went by the stage name J. W. CLIFFORD, very close to the name used in the 1880 census.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find Jake's name in the 1900-1930 census records. Which name was he using at the time those records were enumerated? More importantly, how was his name interpreted by the census taker AND then how did the indexer interpret what the census taker wrote?

Uncle JakeCirca 1930s

When I became interested in genealogy many years ago, I asked my mom what she remembered about her great-uncle Jake. When she was growing up in Boise, Idaho, mom said Jake showed up at their home every two to three years and asked her father for money.

Mother didn't remember Jake being an actor. She thought he was a vagabond who traveled a great deal and never married, but she didn't know his traveling was because of his vaudeville troupe.

Memories are never perfect. People remember very different things about the same event. Two people might view the same person in entirely different lights. This is the case with Uncle Jake.

My mother's cousin Naomi Kloepfer Roberts remembered in 2001 that Uncle Jake had a money bag that he wore around his neck and it was always full of money. "He was rich and always had lots of money. I asked if he had more than what was in this bag around his neck. 'Oh, yes!' He was so rich and he had travelled everywhere."

Naomi remembered he was in vaudeville and played parts. The part she remembers everyone talking about was when he played Jiggs in Maggie and Jiggs. "He would often entertain the grand kids by playing the part of Jiggs with one of Uncle Fred's girls as Maggie."

Family members remembered that Jake died in Los Angeles in the 1960s. I searched the California death index under all his various names, but couldn't find a listing under Kloepfer, Clifford, or Schneider. I finally searched with his first name only, looking for a Jacob, born in 1870 in Germany and died 1960-1970 in Los Angeles. It worked!

I found his death listed in the index under the spelling Jacob KLEPSER, born 14 Feb 1870 Germany, died 16 May 1962 in Los Angeles. He was ninety-two. He died when I was twelve and I don't think I ever met him. I would certainly have plenty of questions for him now!

Some Guidelines for Searching Names:

• Never assume your ancestor's names were always spelled the same way you spell them now.
• Sometimes, you'll need to be creative in figuring out how a name could be interpreted or spelled.
• Remember that every time a human writes a record there is a possibility of error. With each generation (or compilation), there is the chance of additional errors.
• The first letter of a surname is important--think about how a capital letter might be mis-interpreted. "R" might be read as "B" when indexing. "S" is often mistaken for "L" in hand writing, etc.