Random Relative of the Week - Mar 9, 2009

[I haven't been doing so well with my Random Relative posts...it's been a month since the last one! I will try to do better in March.]
















Laura GRABER RITTENHOUSE

Born July 12, 1901 ~ near Apple Creek, Ohio

Died March 30, 1985 ~ Wooster, Ohio

Laura was my great-great aunt and as I mentioned in a previous Tombstone Tuesday post, she is the source of most of the information I have on the Graber side of my family.

What was so interesting about talking to Aunt Laura was that she was a link back to a generation beyond my grandparents, even though she was their contemporary in age. Laura was the youngest child in the Graber family and my great-grandmother [Ella GRABER SAURER] was the oldest in that family. When my great-grandma Ella was having her first child, her own mother [Emma ZAUGG] was having her last child. That is the source of this Wordless Wednesday picture from a number of weeks ago.

So, while my great-grandmother past away when I was not yet 5 years old, Aunt Laura came to my high school graduation ~ and was around many years after that! She was the keeper of a photo album in which she had picture of all the families of her brothers and sisters. Her father, Rudolph Graber - subject of last week's Wordless Wednesday post - had come to Ohio from Switzerland as a young man. Aunt Laura wrote about him for a county history book and I have her hand-written account. She was more interested in his descendants than in his "pedigree", but she did have a picture of his father and mother.

I was fortunate enough to inherit Aunt Laura's book from my grandmother. It was in one of those horrid magnetic albums, so I spent some time scanning the pages and then taking them all apart and carefully putting the pictures in an archival album. I also put the scanned pages into a Kodak Gallery album to give to my Dad and my uncle. As it turned out, several people saw the book and have ordered copies of their own. Most all of Rudy's descendants knew about "Aunt Laura's Book" because we all had to send pictures of ourselves to her periodically.

This is one of my real goals - to share all these one-of-a-kind items with relatives. It's one of the best things about technology...now, instead of this compilation of pictures and history that Aunt Laura made being just "mine", it can easily be shared with all Rudy & Emma's descendants!

Wordless Wednesday ~ 02/18/2009

[Laura Graber and her nephew Roy Saurer - probably about 1908/1909]

Random Relative of the Week

[In truly "random" fashion I am posting this on Monday instead of Sunday...but as the postcard itself says, better late than never!]


I believe this rather intense looking child could possibly be Edna GRABER born 18 Jul 1891 in Apple Creek, Ohio and died 27 Sept 1965.

The picture is on the front of a postcard that Edna sent to her sister, my great-grandmother, Ella GRABER SAURER.

The postcard is postmarked Apr 22 1913 and reads as follows:

"Dear Sister: Well how are you making it by this time? Did you mind what I told you about getting up before your birthday. I came pretty near forgetting about it until now. but they always say better late than never. How is the little girl have you named her yet. I suppose you will not know this picture it's not very good but I thought I would send it any way Don't forget to ansr. I Remain Your Sister, Edna"

Edna would have been married by this time and living in Rittman, Ohio. I don't believe that the picture would be of one of her children however, as the picture seems too old.

Oh, and the unnamed "little girl" would be my grandmother, Lela Mable SAURER, born March 21, 1913.

Random Relative of the Week ~ Jan 25, 2009

Olive Isabelle DUNCAN QUICK

Born October 15, 1910 ~ Louisville, Colorado

Died April 24, 1995 ~ Hamilton, Ohio

Ollie Belle as she was known, or just Belle in later life, was my Grandmother. While she is technically my Mother's step-mother, she and my Grandpa Quick were married when my Mom was only 3 so Belle is the only one I knew as "Grandma Quick".

I recently was able to scan a copy of this great picture of my Mom and Grandma on a horse. Please note the open-toed, high-heeled shoes Grandma is wearing! Hopefully they were only posing for the camera, and not going on a trail ride.

Random Relative of the Week

Cora Black Ritchie

Born January 25, 1921 ~ Cleveland, Ohio

Died December 16, 1996 ~ Clarksburg, West Virginia




This week's Random Relative is in honor of my niece who just started classes at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
While I don't know very much about Cora, I do know that she graduated, cum laude, from Miami in 1942.

Cora was the youngest child of Mary BENZIE and Thomas RITCHIE. I also have a married name for her of HARBERT, that I found based on a social security death record. Unfortunately she did not stay in touch with the rest of the family, or at least not with my part of the family, so I have not yet discovered if she had children or really any other information about her.


I do have the program from her graduation, on June 1, 1942.














I wish I knew more about her ~

Random Relative of the Week

Mary BENZIE Ritchie

Born December 7, 1876 ~ Inverurie, Scotland

Died February 21, 1961 ~ Garrettsville, Ohio





Mary, the oldest girl in the back, center is my great-grandmother. Pictured with her are her sisters. Left to right they are Lizzie, Mary, Helen and in the front, Jane. The imprint on the front of the picture is "R Brown Inverurie"

All of the Benzie sisters eventually ended up in the US.

Mary BENZIE's husband, Thomas RITCHIE was also born in Scotland. My Dad says that he loved to listen to them talk as they both retained their Scottish accents. My Dad also remembers when Mary died that they had such a hard time finding heather but that they eventually did. They had to have heather since she was born in the Highlands!

I have yet to track down exactly when Mary came to the US. I know that she did NOT come with her parents, James BENZIE & Hellen LUMSDEN as they remained in Inverurie and are buried there. Mary was still living in Inverurie as late as 1891 when I find her in the census of that year. By 1900 I believe she was living in the Boston area as I have found an entry that could possibly be her as a domestic servant on the 1900 census.

Certainly she and Thomas were both in that area by the end of 1900 when they were married in Cambridge, MA on October 17, 1900.

By at least 1902, when their first son was born, they were living in Ohio. Mary and Tom would have a total of 8 children, all of whom lived to adulthood. Their 4th child, David Washington RITCHIE was my Grandpa. He always said he was the "youngest of the oldest 4."

Random Relative of the Week

Caroline Flory Saurer
20 Mar 1844 ~16 May 1884

Well I know it's been less than a week, but I've decided that Sunday would be the best day for my Random Relative post of the week. It's a day where I have more time to reflect and just sort through my pictures. Besides, it's called "RANDOM Relatives" so who knows if the next one will really appear on Sunday!

Caroline FLORY is my gr-gr-grandmother on my father's side. The picture to the left is a large charcoal rendering of a tintype [see picture below.] Fortunately it was at least labeled on the back as "Caroline, mother of John Saurer." This picture intrigued me from the first time I saw it when visiting my Great Aunt Pearl [daughter of John Saurer.] I always thought that Caroline looked sad, or at least wistful.

I picked Caroline for today because she was the cause of one of my first truly thrilling genealogical moments. I had just started to seriously get into research. By "seriously" I mean actually looking for records to back up all the information I had collected over the years from hearing my relatives talk. I had quite a bit of information at this point because I just loved looking at old pictures and, of course, when people show you pictures they tell you about them. My fascination for pictures is really what propelled me into genealogy in the first place. But I digress.

On a trip to Apple Creek, Ohio to visit relatives I decided to run over to the court house in Wooster. Not really knowing what I was doing at this point I was fortunate that the person there was very helpful and pointed me to some indexes which had been published by the local historical society. I happily looked up births for quite some time and made copious notes. I found more children listed for Caroline and John Saurer then I was previously aware they had.

Then I decided to look for marriage records and bingo! There was a listing for John Saurer and Caroline FLORY. I felt so proud of myself ~ an actual new piece of information that no one else in my family had been able to tell me. That, however, wasn't even the thrilling part. This was just the index so I asked the nice lady about the actual record and she showed me where the big ledger-type books were kept. I looked up the record and nearly fell off my chair [really, it was hard to keep from shouting with glee.] The record had some writing next to Caroline's signature which was HER FATHER'S consent to the marriage because she was only 16! So, right there I was able to go back another generation. If that wasn't cool enough, I also found and was able to make copies of her father's will.

WOW! I was totally hooked for life. Of course I soon found out that not every single trip to a courthouse was going to yield up such treasures. I don't mind though. Looking at old records just fascinates me almost as much as looking as old pictures. It's a way of touching history.