Genealogy - Diggin up Dirt

It was no secret in the family that my great grandfather Van Houtte was a miserable man. There is a story that is told about a door that needed to be put on the family home. Although he would bring a bag of candy home for the children on pay day he never bought things that were needed for the house. The door was ordered and it came in, just as they do now without hinges or a lock. My Great grandmother, Clemence Mary, got a neighbor to hang the door with old hinges and purchased a lock set at the lock hardware store. They had been keeping the door shut with a nail. My great grandfather, Emil Victor, asked how much the lock set cost and decided it was too much and took it off the door and took it back.

A month later Emil went into town and bought another lock set that he claimed was the same price as the one that he had taken off of the door. All of this happened before 1920. Much to my surprise I found 2 articles on newspaperarchive.com that helped support the story of Emil’s temper and started gossip about Clemence.

McKean County Miner, June 19, 1919

 

Beefsteak and the Boarder

 

Sheriff E. W. Jones and Deputy Sheriff, C. C. Choate served as members of a Belgian relief committee Sunday, when they were called to Mt. Alton to straighten out the marital as well as martial troubles of one Victor Van Houtte, a Belgian.

 

Their findings were as follows: Victor works in a chemical plant at Newton. His wife keeps the family home at Mt. Alton and also a border. Victor usually spends the weekend in the bosom of his family and upon arriving on one such occasion recently found the boarder in his wife’s bedroom. With commendable fortitude he passed up this irregularity, but the following morning when the “missus” fed him bread and black coffee and produced delicious beefsteak for the boarder he decided he had a real grievance and chided his wife rather sternly.

 

However, open hostilities did not result until last Sunday when his wife criticized his methods of gardening while he was hoeing in the truck patch with the sweat of honest toil dripping from his brow. This was too much and the long suffering husband pursued his wife and threatened her with the hoe. She escaped and sought the protection of the strong arm of the law. The relief commission responded and after hearing both sides of the case impressed upon the belligerents the beauties of peace and strongly advised them to avoid strife in the future and from outward indications succeeded in patching up the difficulties.

A week after the publication of their fight another article appeared in the Mckean County Miner:

McKean County Miner, June 26, 1919

 

Van Houtte Was Arrested

 

Upon a surety of the peace warrant Victor Van Houtte, who is employed in the chemical plant at Newton, was brought before Justice Gleason by Constable Dickinson, Saturday and after a hearing held under $300 bail for his appearance at court. His wife was the complainant in the case and claims that her husband threatened her with a garden rake and double-bitted axe and that his general conduct has become unbearable.  Mrs. Van Houtte is described as an entirely respectable hard-working woman, the mother of four intelligent children, three of whom appeared at the hearing and testified in their mother’s behalf. The husband appears to be insanely jealous without apparent reason. Van Houtte secured bail some hours after the hearing and was released from custody but must face the charge at the next term of court.

By the time the Census was taken in 1920 Clemence was living in Bradford with her children and Emil was still living in Lafayette.

I have wondered for some time if purchasing a membership with newspaperarchive.com would be valuable to me. I wondered if there was going to be different newspaper articles available from what was posted on ancestry.com. To my surprise it has turned out to be very valuable.

My paternal great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Burgess, was in the Civil War and was at one point in time one of only seven survivors. I found many articles on newspaperarchive.com with mention of him in it, including his obituary, which did not mention his deceased wife at all. I knew that her first name was Mary and that she was alive up until 1920 but that was about all I knew about her.

I started reading every article with the mention of B.F. Burgess in it. For once the tendency in the late 1800s and early 1900s to post everything about every move made by residents in the newspaper was about to pay off. I found this article:

Olean Evening Herald, June 22, 1920

 

Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Burgess and family of Olean visited at the home of Mrs. Burgess’ brother, John Donigan, Sunday.

I now knew her maiden name and was about to discover a whole lot more. I kept reading the society articles and found not only that she had a brother named John but had one name Thomas also. It was at this point I was about to be confused. One of the articles mentioned siblings named “O’Keefe.”

I had been searching the census records in the Olean area to find the Donigan family that would have a Mary, John and Thomas, pretty common names for an Irish family. It all became clear when I found Mary’s brothers living in the Olean area as step children of Patrick O’Keefe. Mary’s mother, Mary, had remarried after her first husband, James Donigan’s death about 1860 – 1865. I found 6 children from the marriage of James Donigan and Mary and another 2 children from her marriage to Patrick O’Keefe.

Of course since I have solved the problem of Mary Donigan, I have now created more problems, like the names of James Donigan’s parents and Mary’s mother’s maiden name and then her parents and then…. It never ends.

This is Dad's army photo. On the back of the photo, signed by each of the members of the photo are the names of each soldier. My uncle, my mother's brother, is in the front row. This is before mom and dad were married.

Photo –

Front row Left to Right –

Russ Duint, Erie, PA, Norbert Walkiewicy, Erie, PA, James E Hollenbeck, Erie, PA, George Hamilton, Erie, PA, Sargent Roebuck, Dale West, Bradford, PA, Dub Strohmeyer, Erie PA, Fred Bubl Jr., Erie, PA, Eugene Walker, Hazel Hurst, PA

Second row –

Herbert Schmalenbach, Erie, PA, Jack Sherman, Steve Frolch, Erie, PA, John Heintz, Erie, PA, Dick Van Houtte, Bradford, PA, Deek Taylor, Bob Schwab, Duke Center, PA

Third row –

Darurn Turner, Eldred, PA, Ray Fronchnett, Erie, PA, George Hoetzl, Erie, PA, Charles Swartz, Mt Alton, PA, Chet Chojnathi, 120  41^st, Erie, PA, Philip L. Smith, Eldred, PA

Back row –

Len McLaughlin, Erie, PA, Bruce Sherwin, Bradford, PA, Clarence S. Lube, Erie, PA

It took reordering blotter paper three times before I was finally able to try flattening out my dad’s army group photos. The smaller of the two photos has the names of the soldiers in the photo on the back.

I got a Tupperware container out because of the tight seal, and found a smaller plastic container that would hold water to place inside. I added warm water to the small bowl and set it inside the Tupperware with the 2 separate rolled up photos and waited. I checked them every couple of hours and could feel the paper backing starting to become less brittle.

After about six hours I found I could unroll the photos without them wanting to bend. I folded the blotter paper in half to make a folder and carefully inserted the photos into the homemade folder. I grabbed some heavy books to help flatten out the photos and I now have them resting on the counter.

Tomorrow I should be able to scan them in and share them.

I decided that I needed a better way to organize my photos if I am going to be scanning in gazillions of old slides. I want to be able to identify them by the people that are in them, date or holiday and the place they were taken. The file name just isn’t long enough to get the needed detail.

I did a bit of searching and found CyPics, Photo Album Software, v3.6. After downloading the trial software I copied a selection of photos into a separate file and started playing with the setup. It claims to be easy to learn, but there are a lot of steps and knowing a bit about data base set up helps, a lot. It builds an Access data base in the background and with the tool you are entering information into the tables allowing searching and sorting.

All of this required a very deep breath before plunging in. I have played with Access a couple of years ago, I was at that time determined to figure it out. My first try had been a success and then it was all down hill after that. There is a tutorial workbook with CyPics that helps step you along and explains at a high level what the data base verbiage means. You can get as detailed or as simple as you choose. I am currently still struggling with the difference between Keywords and Attributes and what each will do for me when completed.

I have a 30 day trial to get use to the application and decide if it is what I will use for the new files I will be loading. I am considering trying it out with the family files I already have. From what I have learned so far you can create CD and DVD slide shows, pdf color sheets organized with selected information and can email photos with captions. I played with the pdf version of a photo book and was happy with the results.