Week 14: Brickwall

    "Brick walls, we all have them. That stubborn, well built, solid brick wall that we just can not break through. We throw sticks, rocks, dynamite, whatever we can get our hands on, but just like with the big, bad wolf, we can not blow that darn thing down. It's frustrating. It's annoying. It's maddening. It makes us throw our hands up in anger and walk away. But, then all of a sudden, a crack appears and we have hope. It's not as permanent as we would like it to believe. So we do our best to chip it away, piece by piece. It may take months or years before we finally see through it, but we make progress." Excerpt taken from my blogpost: Brick walls - We all have them

     I've talked about my brick walls a lot in my research. My biggest brick wall without a doubt has been my 3rd great grandma Maggie Helfrich. I've mentioned her so many time in many blog posts. If you wish to read those posts, click on her surname in the surname list to the right. All the posts that mention her will come up. She has been married multiple names so the surnames to click on are: Molten, Dennis, & Helfrich.
     Since, she has been my main focus for a while now, I decided to chose another brick wall to talk about today. I do have a few to choose from. (We all do lol) Yet, this particular woman's brick wall has been there about as long as Maggie's brick wall. I am talking about Eliza Rickards, my husband's 2nd great grandfather's first wife. She passed away so young, that there is not much about her. It's actually her headstone I am standing next to in the photo on the right hand side of my blog. Her headstone (along with her husband and daughter) is also in the banner photo at the top. Tracing her has been so tricky. I've been working with a couple of distant relatives trying to piece together the puzzle of her life. It's possible we may never find more than we have right now, but I am still hopeful.
     Eliza Jane Barkley was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania sometime around 1838 to Andrew Wray Barkley and Elizabeth Holtzworth. She was the 6th child out of 13 children. This is the first kink in the chain. Her birth date is unofficially listed as Jan 24, 1893, but that is just three months before her sister, Mary, was born. That's impossible. Her sister's birth is verified by a death certificate, but that's all there is. With this conflicting evidence, we considered the fact Eliza was adopted by the Barkley family, but that also has yielded no results.
     When she was around 6 years old, her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri for a time. But by the 1850 census, they were all back in Pennsylvania. From there, things are kind of blurry up until we find her in the 1860 census, living with her Half Sister, Amelia Jones, in Liberty, Missouri with the surname of Graham. She is listed as being married, but we have never found out to whom.

     After that, she met and married my husband's 2nd great grandfather, Joseph Henry Rickards. She married him before he went off to serve in the Civil War. As you can see in the record below, there is parenthesis next to Eliza's name. Based on the record I found in the Clay County Missouri Marriage Record book at the St. Louis County Library Headquarters:

Names in parentheses ( ) in the bride's column indicate maiden name. When no name appears within a set of parentheses, this indicates that the bride was referred to in the record as "Mrs." Surname-looking names in a bride's entry (e.g., Mary Turner Smith) suggest that there was a previous marriage, but in copying these records I assumed nothing.

The following the copy of the original record held at the Missouri State Archives. It was impossible to read, so I requested help from the Archivist. This is what she said:

"We were able to read the marriage record on our microfilm and it does say Mrs. Eliza Graham. Unfortunately, the microfilm will produce a copy about the same quality as what you got from Ancestry. Please let us know if we can help you with any further research." - Reference Staff Missouri State Archives

     Yeah I know it's hard to read. That's why I requested help. Trying to pick out that one word of "Mrs." or "Miss" was very hard. This is a copy of a copy that I found at the Clay County Archives.

     Definitely easier to read for sure. But you want to get as close to the original as you can because things can get lost in transcription. After seeing these, you would think, "Yes, ok, she was married before to a Graham." Oh if it was only that simple. Let me show you the documents that gave us much trouble in coming to this conclusion

     The two first images are copies of the index for the Clay County Marriage Records. The third image is a transcription of the newspaper article for their marriage. As you can see, it clearly says "Miss". Seriously??

     Even with these sources, they still never helped us find her first husband or how she got the last name of Graham. OH but it doesn't stop there. Sadly, her life tragically ended on April 19, 1867. Just four months after giving birth to their daughter, Maggie Jones Rickards. And even though we know this, we do not know the cause of death. All we have is speculation. It could be from a difficult birth. But we do not know. 

     So here is the summary of what we can not prove of Eliza Jane Rickards nee Barkley's life:

• Correct Birth date 
• Natural Born or Adopted child of Andrew Wray Barkley & Elizabeth Holtzworth
• Marriage to unknown Barkley
• Cause of Death

     We may never find the answers to these questions. While it's frustrating for us to hit these brick walls, we have to accept that the records just may not exist anymore. Fires, floods, bugs, human action along with other things are the reasons we can't solve these mysteries. Every day historical societies, libraries and archives are doing everything in their power to digitize as much as they can so these records will not be lost forever. If you can, consider volunteering your time to help them out so it can be done faster. Until then, we just keep trucking along, chasing rabbits down holes, and hopefully one day, we just might find the trail that leads us to our answers.
     I will close this blog with the obituary that was posted to Eliza Rickards in the Liberty Tribune on May 17, 1867. This is the transcription of the obit. Thanks to my friend Chris Harris who located this for me just on a whim one day. Happy Searching all!

I have no language that can describe the sorrows of a desolate, grief stricken heart, and yet I think the death of Mrs. Eliza J Rickards deserves something more than a passing notice. Her's was no ordinary death-bed for over four months she suffered as few suffer on a dying bed; and now we witness these no more, we can realize that she is indeed gone. Her voice is no longer heard—her chair is vacant—the mortal has “put?” on immortal, and we will never know her again as she was in this world; but oh “?” how many scenes will memory recall and bring her vividly before us again. She was not afraid to die, and why should we fear for her. Has not He told us when we are weary and heavy laden to “Come unto Him” and find rest”? Best of sisters and kindest of husband's, I know that you feel that you cannot give her up; but He does “all things well.” There are many others that grieve—the aged father and loving mother, brothers, and sisters; in a word, all except the smiling babe, for whom she cheerfully gave her own life. Rest, gentle friend, little Maggie is kindly cared for—even a mother could do no more. Eliza J Rickards was born January 24th, 1839, was married November 18th, 1863 and died April 19th 1867 at 10 o'clock and ?? minutes, a. m. Liberty Tribune newspaper 1867-05-17

Week 13: In the News

     So I skipped Week 12 for the 52 to Ancestors, but I did post a comment on the facebook group's page about the ancestor that fell into that category. I just wasn't prepared to write a long blog post about him. So onto the next week. This week's post is entitled, "In the News". Newspapers have been around since we have been able to publish materials. It used to be the quickest and most efficient way to get the news out to so many people. I didn't matter what it was. If it was news, it could end up in the paper.
     So in thinking of who to write about for this topic, there were many ancestors to chose from. Newspapers have been very helpful to me in my research. I've learned of when marriages took place, traced a traveling minister, tracked a murder investigation, but the one article that sticks out the most is the one mentioning Alberta Huerner nee Strawhun. She is my great Aunt on my father's side. I never got a chance to meet her as she passed away four years before I was born. She was married to my great Uncle Lee (Leroy Huerner), a very sweet man. Loved him very much. We would visit him when we would travel down to Bull Shoals Lake in Arkansas. Both he and his wife very active in the Oakland, Arkansas community for years. But before that, in 1937, Alberta was featured in the St. Louis Post Dispatch for a small, but courageous act. She saved the life of a young woman from drowning.
     All the Strawhun siblings were very athletic and extremely active. So swimming was something Alberta was very comfortable with. According to the clipping they had went to Newburg for a family outing. Great Grandpa, Robert Strawhun, was originally from Newburg, but had moved to Kirkwood to be a fireman. They were down at Little Piney River near Newburg, Missouri, more than likely cooling off from the hot weather, when all of a sudden, they noticed a young woman in danger. She had been bathing in the river when she all of a sudden lost control. She could not swim, and if you are not familiar with the current a river can have, it can sweep you under very fast. I've been told many stories from my dad's side of the family about how dangerous the river current can be, even for the most experienced swimmer. Those undertows will pull you under before you even know what's going on. So for someone who didn't even know how to swim, this was a particularly dangerous situation. Aunt Alberta was quick to jump into action. She swam over to the young girl, Mary Gilbert was her name, and grabbed her by her bathing suit just as she went under. She was able to get her to safety with no problem.
     It was a good thing the family decided to go there for the day. Aunt Alberta was at the right place at the right time. I'm so glad the St. Louis Post Dispatch ran a small story on her otherwise I never would have know this. They even included a picture of her. What a treasure!
     Have you found any interesting stories about your ancestors in the newspaper? Share them in the comments.

St. Louis Post Dispatch - July 13, 1937

St. Louis Post Dispatch - July 12, 1937

Week 11: Large Family

     When you come from a family that has heavily German Catholic roots, there is a good chance you come from a big family. Maybe not quite as big as a Greek or Italian family, but probably following right behind. My dad's family is Catholic and we have German roots that came over to the US in the early 1800s. The average family size for the family going back was 8 (2 adults and 6 kids). Well, would you believe, my dad is the oldest of 9 children? And yes, they all are still living to this day. So let me introduce you to my Fuchs Family.
     My dad Dennis, Uncle Mike, Aunt Patty, Aunt Sandy, Uncle Kevin, Aunt Karen, Uncle Marty, Aunt Shelley, and finally Uncle Chris. By 1960, they had a full house! Or should I say, a full barn! Yes, you read that right. By the time Uncle Chris came along, they were living in a barn. It had two rooms: Upstairs and downstairs. Grandma did her best to make it a home for everyone. The barn has since fallen down, but Uncle Marty owned the property and has kept pieces of wood so he could create beautiful frames for all his siblings to hold photos of the barn.
     And just like with all families, add a little love, and it grows. All but two of the siblings are married, and then 7 out of the 9 couples had kids. But wait, there is more. Now those kids are having kids. OH dear me, it's like gremlins all over again! LoL just kidding. But here are the final totals:

Aunts, Uncles & Spouses: 16 

Children: 19 

Grand Children: 25 (and growing) 

Great Grand children: 3 (and growing) 

     As you can see, we have quite the crew. For the holidays, we have to rent out a hall, just to hold us all. Here are a few photos from the last get together. We are blessed to have all the Aunts & Uncles still living. Sadly, though, through the years, we have lost a few cousins. But they are still counted as part of the family. Here are some photos of our family.

The Original 9 on Easter in 1962

The Original 9 at Christmas in 2018

Aunts, Uncles & Spouses

Children & Grand Children

     For years we have gathered to celebrate many holidays from Christmases to Thanksgivings, even birthdays and graduations. We are so blessed to have the family we do have with us. We wouldn't be able to have these celebrations without the ancestors that came to St. Louis in 1830. In 1953, the Fuchs family got together for the first annual family reunion of the descendants of Frederich, Franz and Andreas Fuchs; the first of the Fuchs family to come from Bavaria. This photo below was published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat in the September 1953 issue. It represents six generations of the Fuchs family, and as you can see we are still growing.

Week 10: Bachelor Uncle

     What an obscure subject. Definitely one that requires you to stop and think. Bachelor Uncle. Who in my tree hasn't been married that I haven't already talked about. While I'm sure if I go back far enough in my tree, I would find someone, but I think I have the perfect ancestor to write about this week. And he actually is an Uncle of mine, through marriage. Uncle Keith Rickards. (Not Richards lol)

Keith & his Grandpa Rickards

     Keith Warren Rickards was born on December 5, 1937. He was the first born child of Joseph & Lilly Rickards. He was the brother of my father in law. I never got the opportunity to meet Uncle Keith because he died on September 19, 1989; many years before I ever met my husband. I've been told stories, shown photos and even visited his grave. He was a very special man, and he was never married. The short time he was on this Earth was a blessing for sure. Why do you ask? Because Uncle Keith was born mentally retarded.
 

Keith with his father & brother

     Lilly found out when he was three years old. The doctors told her to lock him up in an institution and forget about him. She could not do that. That was her child. But she knew, it was more than she could handle. So he was admitted to a local rehabilitation center when he was 5. I'm sure that was probably the hardest decisions of her life. Although, he was living there, he was not out of their lives. She was up there visiting as often as she could. You see, she still had another child to raise; my father in law. He was only 2 years old when his brother was admitted. Keithie, as she called him, was getting the best care he could to learn how to grow up and become an adult.

     In later years, Lilly took a job at the rehabilitation center in the gift shop, so she could be close to her son. She loved him with all her heart. Her baby. Her first born. She was interviewed for an article for the St. Louis Post Dispatch celebrating Mothers. You can read in her own words, what she thought, how she felt, and some details about his life. My husband has no memories of when Uncle Keith was alive, but does remember attending his funeral. He said it was the first time he saw his father cry. He is buried right next to his mom and dad. He lived until the ripe old age of 52. While normally that seems young, but for what he was born with, he lived a long full life.

Dad, Brother, Keith, Mom

The last photo ever taken of Uncle Keithie

Brick walls - We all have them

     Brick walls, we all have them. That stubborn, well built, solid brick wall that we just can not break through. We throw sticks, rocks, dynamite, whatever we can get our hands on, but just like with the big, bad wolf, we can not blow that darn thing down. It's frustrating. It's annoying. It's maddening. It makes us throw our hands up in anger and walk away. But, then all of a sudden, a crack appears and we have hope. It's not as permanent as we would like it to believe. So we do our best to chip it away, piece by piece. It may take months or years before we finally see through it, but we make progress.
     I know you are probably asking, "Why are we talking about masonry?" LoL! Because this brick wall I am referring to is our genealogy research. Those illusive ancestors that we just can not get past. I know you have a few of them. I have a few of them. They have literally put up a road block in our research, and we can not walk forward any further. How does this happen? Could be records were destroyed. Could be our ancestor lied about some information. Could be we are looking in the wrong area. Whatever the reason is, it is maddening! Sadly, some mysteries will never be solved. As hard as we try and as much we throw at our brick wall, it may never come down. But that is not always the case. There may be a key out there that just unlocks a hidden door in that brick wall. We must not give up. We must continue our work. We must do a reasonably exhaustive search to eliminate all possible avenues. Don't give up. Keep pushing forward.
     I'd like to share with you some of my brick walls from my tree. Some have been solved, others have not. Some just have a few missing bricks. But I want to share this to encourage you to not give up. With the advances in DNA and records being digitized every day, you may still break through. So here are a few of my brick walls.

Joseph Melchoir Ilg & Margaret Buer's marriage

This was my first brick wall I encountered when I started doing genealogy research back in 2012. I was told Joseph and Margaret were married July 23, 1919. I had this information written in the family datebook along with other pieces of info backing this up. Well you can imagine my surprise, when I found them both in the 1920 census, but they were both still single and living with their own families. I had known they had went to Detroit, Michigan at some point because my grandma was born there. I looked everywhere in St. Louis for their marriage record, but no luck. Then finally with the help from another genealogist, they located the marriage record in Detroit. That makes sense. But what did NOT make sense was the date. The marriage record stated they were married July 23, 1920 - not 1919. Uh oh... that means they were pregnant when they got married since my grandma was born September 9, 1920. So they went away to Detroit to get married and hide the truth. I mean, they never would have expected years down the line, their marriage record would be put online and their great grand daughter would just happen to come across it. Sorry Great grandma and grandpa, but the truth has come out. Oh and they went to great lengths to hide it too. So as you can see this brick wall is solved. The reason it was a brick wall to begin with was they had lied and purposely recorded the date wrong.

Jacob Helfrich & Family
My 3rd great Grandma Maggie Molten had two husbands in her life. One being Jacob Helfrich, her second husband. This information was written in the family date book. Sadly, there was not a lot of details about Jacob Helfrich.

I had no birth date, marriage date, parents, residence, nothing. So tracing him and connecting him to his family was going to be difficult. For four years I was stumped, not knowing how to proceed. He had been killed in an accident according to the date book and he was not buried with Grandma Maggie. Maggie was listed in St. Louis in the 1900 census as being a widow. The last census I had for Maggie before that was the 1880 census where she was still married to her first husband. So that doesn't help. I checked City Directories but found no help there. Then one day, I was looking more closely at Joseph and Margaret Ilg's marriage record (the same couple mentioned above) and one of the witnesses was an Emil Helfrich. Hey, there is a connection! Finally my first tangible piece of evidence that there is a Helfrich attached to my family. So I decided to trace Emil to see where he led. I documented this trail in another blog post: My Helfrich Connection. Long story short, through this marriage record and tracing his line, I was able to reasonably deduct which Helfrich family I was connected to. That brick wall was finally solved.

Nicholas Buer
Ah... the elusive Nicholas Buer. One of my biggest brick walls. I've had this wall since I started my research in 2012. What I did have was very little. I had no birth date nor death date. I had estimates based on Census records. Little by little over the years I have chipped away a few bricks from his wall, but not much. I have not done a completely exhaustive search on him yet. This will take me going to some libraries and historical societies in Jefferson County, Missouri. Maybe one day, I will break through and find him. I know he came from France, but no clue where in France. I can't even begin to trace back there yet until I find everything I can in the US. One day.... I have hope, one day....

Maggie Molten
My biggest and longest brick wall (next to Nicholas Buer), my 3rd great grandma, Maggie Molten. Like Nicholas, I haven't been able to trace her back any farther. But what makes it even more frustrating is she was born in the US. It's not like she came from another

country. She was born in Nashville, Tennessee. And what also makes it frustrating is the fact information was purposefully hidden or lied about. Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to trace you if you aren't going to give me the truth? Well, I've had to glean each record I came across for any hints or leads to help me trace her. Slowly (and painfully) I've been pulling the bricks down, one by one. I still can't find her parents, but I've been filling in gaps from her life, trying to make sense of things. One day, grandma. I will trace you. I've wrote a few blog posts about my journey trying to trace her. Check them out here:
Found it! The Marriage Record for Jacob & Maggie
The Search for Maggie Molten continues...

As you can see, some brick walls have come crumbling down while others still stand tall. Maybe weakened somewhat, but still standing. I'm not giving up. I have hope. One day I will be able to blow these suckers up!

Share some of your own brick walls below. Have you broken them down? Are they being stubborn and not falling? What techniques have you used? I'd love to hear about them.