Do You Play Favorites?

Marian Pierre-Louis over at Marian's Roots & Rambles asks, "So I want to ask you folks - Why do you have favorite ancestors? How did you select them?"  Several other bloggers have picked up on this question including a post from Randy Seaver and one from Ken Spangler.  This question fascinates me so I thought I'd play along.


I do have several "favorites" but I don't have as logical reasons for picking them as the others seem to.  I can't really even seem to explain how it happens.  One of my favorites is Emily Jane "Jennie" SAURER.  I have no pictures of her which makes it even more odd that she's a favorite. I remember my Grandma Ritchie (nee Saurer) telling me about Aunt Jennie - everyone loved Aunt Jennie she said.  This would have been something she heard, because Aunt Jennie died before my Grandma would have been old enough to even remember her.  She did have older siblings however so she might have heard it from them.

I have some china that was Jennies that my Grandmother left to me and I display a cup & saucer in a cabinet.  Oh, it's not very good china - but the story was that her husband, Harv Senff, sent away for it just because she wanted it.  I might need to get the rest of that china out of the attic and just used it for some occasion.

She died very young - only 36 - and they had no children.  I always found it rather sad that this funeral card only has her name as "Mrs Harvey Senff" - with no part of her name even included!  Even her gravestone is somehow just a little bit different than any of the surrounding stones - it always draws me to it when I go to the Apple Creek Cemetery.

Maybe one of the reasons that I've always considered her a favorite is that she is the daughter of Caroline FLORY.  I've written about Caroline before here and here.  I've always thought that her picture looked just a little bit sad.  Oh I know they were always solemn in pictures back then, but her eyes just look sad to me.  While I have a picture of her mother, I have no pictures of Jennie. I would think there was at least a wedding picture taken, but it's not something that's come down in my part of the family.