52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #7 ~ Happy Birthday Mom!

Written for Amy Johnson Crow's Challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. (click on the icon in the sidebar for details at Amy's blog) 

First, just the facts:

Name: Jacqulin Ann Quick
Born: 17-February,  Denver, Colorado
Married: Donald John Ritchie, 18-Aug-1957

Relationship: My mom!


Since the day this posts will be Mom's birthday, it only made sense that she would be the focus of my post for this week.


My Grandpa Quick was a great picture taker so I am fortunate to have hundreds of pictures of my mother when she was little.  I couldn't even begin to show them all here.  I am also fortunate that he dated them and also added comments.  Now sometimes those comments don't actually tell me WHO is in the picture, but with the help of my Mom we can usually figure it out.


I have a whole sequence of these pig pictures and there is a great story that goes with them.  A number of years ago I had my nieces and nephew interview various people at Christmas and one of the stories I had asked for was about these pigs.  It was my first attempt at putting audio and pictures together.  It can be seen/heard here.

My Mom lived in Denver until she was nine.  Besides all the candid shots, her Grandmother (Nelle Eickelberg) would take her each year on her birthday to have a formal portrait done.  I think my favorite of those has to be this one.  Back in the days when pictures were hand-colored my Mom often appeared with brown eyes, although her eyes are blue.  It's just that she has very dark blue eyes and they were often mistaken for brown.  I have those same eyes.

Jacqulin Ann Quick, age 3

Jacqulin Ann Quick, age 5

When my sister's twins were in 4th grade, they had to write about one of their grandparents.  My nephew, Colton, chose my Mom and here is one of the things he wrote, 

"The naughtiest thing she did when she was young took place at the City Park in Denver. All the children, in each age group, were each given a basket and told to go out into the grassy area and pick up the Easter eggs. There was a boy beside her, who kept following her,and every time she would find an egg he would push in front of her and grab it. She finally got tired of his actions and when she found the next egg she stepped on it and smashed it before he could pick it up. She did it three times before he would leave her alone."




My parents met when they were in college in Oxford, Ohio at Miami University.  I love this picture of the two of them. My dad apparently had to sing to my Mom - a performance that we haven't gotten him to repeat for us!



If there was just one picture of my Mom that I could have, it would have to be this one.  It was taken when she was in college and it's my Dad's favorite picture.  He has carried it in his wallet since they were in college and whenever he would get a new wallet it is always the first thing that goes in there.  I can't remember the first time I saw it ~ because it was always there.   He now has this picture in puzzle version thanks to his grandkids.


In order for this blog post not to be a book, I'll skip ahead to today - or at least to a recent picture.  This was taken when my parents and I went to Scotland touring all the places my Dad's ancestors had lived.  I rained quite a lot while we were there, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a fantastic trip!

Happy Birthday Mom ~ thanks for being the best mom in the world! 

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Nelle Eickelberg

Nelle and John Quick

To go along with my post on Nelle Eickelberg yesterday, I thought I would post her gravestone today. 

Nelle is buried in Denver's Fairmount Cemetery next to her second husband (and my great-grandfather) John Quick rather than with her third (and final) husband Richard Heflin. She was not able to be buried with her last husband as he was buried in Fairmount's Garden of Honor which is reserved for veterans. 

An interesting note is that John's brother Edwin is also buried here although there is no stone noting that.  I found this out the last time I visited and stopped in the office for a map and to ask where to find this plot.  The nice lady there not only looked up the location but offered the information of everyone buried there.  I hadn't known that previously.  It always pays to chat with people.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun ~ A Tad Late

I know that's I'm late to the party - and on top of that, I'm going to cheat! Several years ago we did a similar exercise for SNGF and I've mostly copied it here. I did do the extra credit pie chart for this go round.

So, here is our "mission" from Randy Seaver over at Genea-Musings:

1) List your 16 great-great-grandparents with their birth, death and marriage data (dates and places). [Hint - you might use an Ancestral Name List from your software for this.]

2) Determine the countries (or states) that these ancestors lived in at their birth and at their death.

3) For extra credit, go make a "Heritage Pie" chart for the country of origin (birth place) for these 16 ancestors. [Hint: you could use the chart generator from Kid Zone for this.] [Note: Thank you to Sheri Fenley for the "Heritage Pie" chart idea.]

4. Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a post on Facebook or google+.

 Here is mine - copied from my original post from August, 2009.

1. James Ritchie ~ born on 4 May 1844 at Blebo Craig, Kemback, Fife, Scotland. He married on 26 Jun 1868 in St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. He died on 7 Oct 1891 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Ethnicity – Scottish.

2. Jane Swinton ~ born on 13 Aug 1846 in St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. She died on 31 Dec 1912 in Strathmiglo, Fife, Scotland. Ethnicity – Scottish.

3. William Benzie ~ born on 18 Oct 1843 at Oyne, Scotland. He married on 20 Jun 1874 at Inverurie, Scotland. He died on 3 Mar 1922 at Inverurie, Scotland. Ethnicity – Scottish

4. Hellen Lumsden ~ born in 1849 in Udney, Scotland. She died on 16 Apr 1919 in Inverurie, Scotland. Ethnicity – Scottish

5. John Ulrick Saurer ~ born on 23 May 1823 in Berne, Switzerland. He died on 24 May 1899 at Apple Creek, Ohio. Ethnicity – Swiss-German.

6. Caroline Flory ~ born on 20 Mar 1844 in Wayne County, Ohio. She died on 16 May, 1884 in Apple Creek, Ohio. Ethnicity – Swiss-German.

7. Rudolph Graber ~ born on 13 Sep 1853 in Berne, Switzerland. He married on 15 Mar 1881 in Apple Creek, Ohio. He died on 5 Aug 1918 at Apple Creek, Ohio. Ethnicity – Swiss-German.

8. Emma Zaugg ~ born on 13 Sep 1860 at East Union Twp, Wayne County, Ohio. She died on 7 Sep 1919 at Apple Creek, Ohio. Ethnicity – Swiss-German.

9. Edwin S Quick ~ born circa 1855 in Maryland. Ethnicity – Unknown.

10. Susie H Hungerford ~ born 09 April 1867 in Prince Frederick, Maryland. She died 02 Jul 1937 in Baltimore, Maryland. Ethnicity – possibly English.

11. William Eickelberg ~ born on 24 Mar 1863 in Mecklenburg Strelitz, Germany. He married on 1 Jan 1884 in Charleston, West Virginia. He died on 11 Dec 1934 in Denver, Colorado. Ethnicity – German.

12. Nellie Auflick ~ born on 29 Apr 1864 at Minersville, Ohio. She died on 27 Sep 1940 in Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio and is buried in Denver, Colorado. Ethnicity – English.

13. Henry Evans ~ unknown

14. Alma ~ unknown

15. August Heinrich Nissen ~ born abt 1850 in Schleswig Holstein, Germany. He died 06 Apr 1914, Broomfield, Colorado. Ethnicity – German.

16. Anna Elizabeth Parkson born abt 1856 in Ohio, Died 11 May 1900 in Broomfield, Colorado. Ethnicity – German.

This was a very interesting exercise! My ethnicity is 25% Scottish, 25% Swiss-German, 18.75% German (or 43.75% Germanic), 12.5% English and 18.75% anybody's guess.

And here is my extra credit pie chart:

This was fun ~ thanks Sheri & Randy!!

Fearless Females ~ Day 2

Fearless Females: 31 Blogging prompts to celebrate National Women’s History Month is brought to us by Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist. Be sure to take a look at her post showing the whole month’s worth of prompts and then jump in and play along!

March 2 — Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

This is an easy choice for me.  I've chosen Nelle EICKELBERG, my great-grandmother and the original "Random Relative" of my first post.

I'm not sure when this photo was taken but it's always been one of my favorites of Nelle.  Her son, my Grandfather, Jack H QUICK used to tell this story about his mother.

On his very first day of school the teacher asked his name and he replied, "Jack H Quick."  She promptly told him that "Jack" was just a nickname and his real name must be John.  She also quizzed him on what the "H" stood for and refused to believe him when he said he didn't have a middle name, it was just Jack H Quick.  Throughout the whole first day the teacher called him "John."

Upon arriving home from school little Jack told his mother about his first day.  He wanted to know if his real name was indeed John and why his mother had never told him that.  Nelle did not think much of this story and the next day marched down to school with her son.  She told the teacher in no uncertain terms that she had named her son JACK and JACK was what she expected him to be called.  [She also straightened her out on the middle name issue.]

While I believe the picture above was taken prior to that time*, somehow whenever my Grandfather would relate this story I always saw Nelle sailing into that school wearing this hat!  She was not someone to be trifled with ~ truly as "fearless female"!



 *My Grandfather was born on July 3, 1911 and so would have started school about 1916/1917 and the style of dress seems to predate that.

 .

Every Family Has One ~

…a favorite place that is. Or maybe I should say a place that is deeply a part of the family.

Colorado is, without a doubt, our family’s favorite place to be.  It's also the state that defines my mother's side of the family.

William Eickelberg Family

 My family’s history with Colorado goes back many, many years.  This picture of William and Nellie (Auflick) Eickelberg and family would have been taken in roughly 1887/1888 because the baby in the picture, William Jr was born Feb, 1887.  The family moved out to Denver sometime between William, Jr's birth and the birth of his older sister (my great-grandmother) Nelle who was born in 1885 in Indiana. Eventually Nellie Auflick [the mother in this picture] would see her own parents and both her younger brother's and older sister's families move out to the Denver area.  I've posted a picture of Thomas and Margaret Auflick's gravestone in a previous post.


Although I don’t have any pictures, I do know that the Nissen side of the family (my mother's mother's side) was also in Colorado around that time as they were enumerated in Colorado’s 1885 state census.  They lived near Denver, in what is now Broomfield.  On our recent trip to Colorado I was able to stop at Riverside cemetery and photograph this gravestone.  Anna is my great-great-grandmother.  Her husband, August Henry Nissen is also buried in this plot although his name was not on the stone.  He died 06 April 1914. 

Jack H Quick

My grandfather Jack H Quick – the son of the cute little girl in the picture above – was born in Colorado in 1911.   He lived there for the first 30 some years of his life.  I don't know where the picture to the left was taken, but it was someplace in Colorado where he is taking his first steps.

Jack & Belle Quick far right

I know that he and a buddy climbed Long's Peak many times.  They liked to camp up there.   The mountains were always a big part of his life and he spent vacations in a cabin above Denver that his mother owned.  I have numerous pictures of outings that he took with his wife and other couples up to that cabin. 
Not only did he spend time there, but all of Nelle's children and grandchildren spent time at the cabin. My mom is the cutie-pie right in the front with the floppy hat.  They are sitting out on the porch of the cabin.

Jacqulin Ann Quick,

My mother was also born in Colorado.  For the first 8 years of her life, her grandmother would take her to Dewey Studios in Denver to have her picture taken on her birthday.  I have a beautiful group of pictures of her taken there including this one on her 4th birthday.  So, for my mom, both of her parents were born in Colorado and several of her grandparents were as well.  The Colorado mountains are definitely a part of her ancestry!

While I was born in elsewhere, I've been told that I took my first steps in Colorado. My mother and her parents had taken me out to Colorado to visit some relatives that still lived here. I liked the state so much even then that I decided to start walking.

Much later we took an extended summer trip again going out to Colorado to visit my Mom's Aunt Pearl.  My mom took this picture of us that, surprisingly, did NOT cut off any of our heads!  We had a wonderful time and I remember so vividly being up in the mountains standing on top of a snow drift in June - I thought that was amazing! 

We also stayed in that very same cabin of my great-grandmother's.  She was still alive and we visited her and she came up to the cabin with us.  The thing I remember about that cabin - there was no indoor plumbing but the outhouse has a fancy green toilet seat!  Oh, and did I mention the player piano??  Yes, the cabin had a player piano!

We didn’t get to come out as much after that, but when my youngest sister - the cute baby in the sunbonnet - had her first child the family started going to Estes Park for vacation.  The first year is was just my parents and sister's family.  But that started a new tradition and we began going out almost every year.  My nieces and nephew have wonderful memories of hiking in the mountains.  Here they are taking a break and getting their feet wet in a cold mountain stream.

Codi, Colton, Kyli

We also like to drive up what one of my nieces called "the scary road" which is the old Fall River road up to the top or Trail Ridge.  It's a dirt road which now can only be traveled one way - up.  Along the way there are places to pull off and things to see or short trails to follow.  It is usually fairly cold and here one of the girls has "borrowed" her daddy's shirt!

As recently as last week my parents and sister (NOT the baby in the sun bonnet) were out spending Thanksgiving in Estes Park.  We hiked several mornings and one day even got to snowshoe.  My Mom took this picture of my sister and I up at Bear Lake.  Oh my goodness was it cold - and this was the warmest day of the week!


So here's to Colorado, sometimes our home, sometimes our home away from home, but always that place where family memories are made!

Thanks for the poster fM!

This post was written for the 100th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: "There's One in Every Family" to be hosted by Jasia at Creative Gene. Jasia is looking for 100 posts for this edition - So let's all help achieve that...I'm sure we all have something to share!

Treasure Chest Thursday ~ Family Stories

Using the holiday week (and vacation) to catch up on my reading, I was browsing through the hundreds of genealogy blogs I like to follow. I came across a post comparing family stories to gossip and not only that but pointing out that, “gossip is one of the worst traits of humanity.” Wow – so that is pretty much my whole blog. Fortunately, I don’t find the need to believe something just because I’ve read it.

For me family stories are a treasure. They are what put the flesh on the bones of dates and events. I hope that someday I can be that person that Randy Seaver wrote about in a recent blog post.  Being the “spinster aunt” I have a good start – now I would like to work a little bit more on the “wealthy” part!

So, why do I think family stories are important? Well, someday it’s possible that one of my nieces’ or nephew’s children might also be interested in genealogy. They will be able (hopefully!) to find when my mother, their great-grandmother was born, and married and (by then) died. I want them also to know what she was like. After all, she was their mother’s or father’s grandmother – and someone that had a big influence on that parent’s life. She was the “Nannie” that made them quilts and took them hiking out in Colorado almost every summer of their childhood. Maybe they are now vacationing in Colorado as well – a tradition passed down from the time of my own grandfather. There are so many stories I can leave for them so that they will have a better picture of my mother.

A story that I still treasure was told to my by my grandfather – Jack H Quick. He told about being somewhere with his mother and his mother's grandmother, Louisa Eickelberg. He called her "little grandma" and she would have been in her eighties at this time. As they had a number of things to do, and grandma wasn't as spry as she once was, they sat her down in the park and went about their other errands. When they came back grandma was not there. They finally found her in an area where someone was giving airplane rides! As they took grandma out of line (!!) she told them that she had ridden in a ship, a covered wagon, a train, a car and now she wanted to try out this airplane.

Is this literally true? I have no idea because clearly the conversation was not recorded.  She lived to be 92, dying in 1928 when my grandfather would have been 17 so he certainly knew her well enough to have formed an opinion.  Of course he only knew her at the end of her life, but I still treasure this small glimpse of someone I could never know other than through just a few cold facts.

So, that’s my opinion and I’ll keep collecting and recording the stories with the hopes that someday someone in the family might be as interested in them as I have always been.

Family Events ~ Oct 25 - Oct 31

October 25 ~ On this day in 1937 my grandfather, Jack H QUICK and Olive Isabelle BRADDOCK (nee DUNCAN) are married in Castle Rock, Colorado. This is the second marriage for both.  These pictures from my grandpa's photo album, dated 11-1-1937 were taken during their honeymoon at the Grand Canyon although the background is so faded it is hard to tell.  Fortunately for me, he labeled all his pictures.

October 27 ~ This day is marked by the death in Hempstead, Arkansas in1889 of Margaret Amanda MOUSER, the 4x great-grandaunt of my nieces and nephew.

This day is also marked by the death in Colorado in 1912 of my great-grandfather, John H QUICK.  My grandfather was a 15 months old at the time of his father's death.  This is one of only two pictures I have of John.

October 29 ~ This day is marked by the death in Oyne, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1929 of Helen BENZIE my 2x great-grandaunt.

October 31 ~ This is a busy day in family history!

First, on this day in 1802 in Oyne, Aberdeenshire, Scotland my 2x great-granduncle, Alexander Benzie is born.


This day is also marked by the death in 1892 of the 5x great-grandfather of my nieces and nephew, John Daniel Mouser.  There is a wonderful memorial for him on Find-A-Grave with a picture of his gravestone and some great additional information regarding his will and the names of all his children.

Also on this day in 1896, my great-granduncle, Raymond Rudolph GRABER is born in East Union Twp, Wayne County, Ohio.  [picture to the left is Raymond]

And last, but certainly not least - on this day, an unspecified number of years ago, my brother-in-law, Christian Mathis MOUSER was born.

Happy Birthday Chris!

More Fun at the Midwest Family History Expo

Another person I got to meet at the Family History Expo was Lisa Alzo, who writes the great blog at The Accidental Genealogist.

Not only did I get to meet Lisa but I also got to hang out with her at the blogger table and I attended her great class on “Finding Your Female Ancestors.”

While Lisa certainly gave us some great tips on locating female ancestors, I would say that the session was about so much more than just finding them.  It was focused on finding out about them, about telling their stories. Lisa has such a passion for this topic that it was just contagious. (Be sure to see who else Lisa has inspired by checking out Susan Petersen’s post on this same session.)  

Giving these female ancestors a voice is something that Lisa wants us all to do and she has done just that in her book, Three Slovak Woman.  She exhorted all of us to do the same.   Lisa's enthusiasm and passion for the subject started me thinking about a number of women in my own family tree. While I can't imagine that I could actually write a book, I can at least begin to document the struggles some of my ancestors had and try to better understand their lives.

I have this picture which is labeled simply “Four generations”

The little boy is my grandfather, Jack H Quick (1911 - 1999) and I can easily identify his mother (Nelle Eickelberg 1885 - 1970) and her mother, his grandmother (Nellie Auflick 1864 - 1940) from the many other pictures I have of each of these woman.

So, is the older woman Margaret Hannington (1830 - 1914), Nellie's mother, who died when Jack was 3 1/2?  He looks young enough in this picture to make that possible.  Or is this perhaps Louisa (1835 - 1928), wife of William Eickelberg, even though that would make her Nellie's mother-in-law and not her mother?

I do know from my Grandpa’s stories that his great-grandma Eickelberg did live with them for a time. He used to call her "little grandma" and apparently tormented her because she couldn't chase after him!  He once told me that he had to be careful to stay out of the reach of her cane or she would whack him with it. (and from other stories he's told me I'm sure he richly deserved to be whacked!)

Regardless, both women are people I should know more about. Both followed roughly similar paths, coming across the ocean to first settle in Ohio and then end up in Colorado.  Margaret came from England while Louisa came over from Germany without that advantage of knowing the language. Margaret moved from Ohio to Colorado with her husband, Thomas Auflick while Louisa buried her husband in Ohio and then later moved to Colorado when her daughter's family left Ohio.

I often wonder if Louisa wanted to go?  Of course with no other family that I have found - she was living with her daughter -  there was probably no other option. Her name was on the other side of her husband's marker I found in the Minersville Hill Cemetery in Ohio so clearly she intended to be buried there.  Of course Margaret had buried 4 children in Ohio and no woman's life in the mid-1800's was going to be an easy one!

So, I need to start understanding more about what their lives might have been like.  Even if I don't write a book, I can pass that knowledge on to future generations at least informally. It's up to me to make sure that they don't become anonymous names and dates on my pedigree chart!





“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman”. ~ Virginia Woolf

Family Events ~ September 27 - October 3

September 27 ~ On this day in 1839 my 2x great-granduncle James BENZIE was born in Insch, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

This day is also marked by the death of my 2x great-grandmother, Nellie [AUFLICK] EICKELBERG in Pomeroy, Ohio. (See my post here for my discovery that she died in Ohio and NOT Colorado as I had always assumed!)


Finally this day is also marked by the death of my great-grandaunt, Edna Mary [GRABER] SAURER in 1965.



September 29 ~ On this day in 1912 my grandmother, Ruth Penrose [Evans] QUICK [?] was born in Broomfield, Colorado. Her actual birth date was something I had been looking for over the past many years. I need to write about her for a Madness Monday post as there are still many other things I need to find out.

September 30 ~ On this day in 1832 my 3x great-grandmother, Anna Barbara [BARTCHEY] ZAUGG was born in Switzerland.

This day is also marked by the christening of the above James BENZIE.

October 2 ~ This day in 1885 is marked by the death of my 3x great-grandaunt, Margaret GOURLAY in Ceres, Fife, Scotland.

October 3 ~ On this day in 1906, Cotys Milner MOUSER, my brother-in-law’s grandfather, is born in Louisiana.

This day is also marked by the death, in 1924 of my 2x great-granduncle Alexander RITCHIE in Toronto, Canada. I’ve posted a picture of his gravestone in a previous Tombstone Tuesday post.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Baltimore

In this picture you might notice a remarkable LACK of actual tombstones for a Tombstone Tuesday post!

I was looking for Susie (Hungerford) Quick, b April 9, 1867, d July 2, 1937 both dates according to her death certificate. It also stated that she was to be buried in Mt Olivet Cemetery.

The information on the website wasn't quite making sense to me as most people had plot information that corresponded to the lettered sections on the map. For Susie [and a few others that I'd noticed], the entry read "Olivet xx" with just a number. When I called for further information, they explained that Olivet was actually section L and that those were generally unmarked graves. As the nice lady so carefully put it, they were "single" burials rather than family plots. So, it appears that Susie, who at this point was a widow with 2 of her 3 sons also pre-deceasing her, was buried in a potters field possibly due to the fact that it was 1937 and I would guess that money for such luxuries as gravestones was probably not plentiful.

I then took a drive over to Louden Park Cemetery where I was able to find the resting place of her son, my great-granduncle, Charles Quick, b November 11, 1889, d February 16, 1955 according to his death certificate. This was a huge cemetery, but very well marked and the person at the desk gave me very good instructions. I found Charles almost immediately. I looked around for a little bit and found some other Quicks as well. Now I just need to work on identifying them and figuring out how everyone "fits together.

Isn't that the most fun part of a research trip - coming back with even MORE questions than you started with!!