The Middle Child: Nick Ferguson

James L. Ferguson and Eliza Callin's middle child was a boy born in 1843. I don't know if I'm making too much of his name, but it always struck me as a unique choice among the many Johns, James, Williams,  and Georges in use by the rest of the family. It may have come from Charles Dicken's third novel, Nicholas Nickleby, or James and Eliza may have learned it from reading about Czar Nicholas I of Russia.

Regardless of the origin of his name, from the age of five Nicholas P. Ferguson (1843–1912) grew up on his father's farm in Jackson township, De Kalb county, Indiana. He was eighteen years old when the Civil War broke out, and as we discussed last week, his two older brothers enlisted; Nicholas does not appear to have done so, though there are a number of people named "Nicholas Ferguson" in other states who did. It is possible I simply couldn't tell that one of them was our Nicholas Ferguson!

Nicholas married Latita "Lettie" Kiester (1850–1930) on 26 April 1868 in De Kalb county. Poor Lettie is one of those people with a name that the people taking and transcribing records simply cannot grasp - her name appears variously as Letitia, Luticia, Letechia, and even Delotea in one source. And her surname gets the same treatment, rendered as everything from "Kester" to "Keister." The Callin Family History spells it "Latita Kiester," so that's what I've used here. The records also diverge on her birthdate; for example her obituary says 22 September 1850, but the 1850 Census that lists her with her family (Peter and Lydia Keister) was taken on 2 August that year, and most other sources indicate that she was born "about 1849."

You may recall that Nicholas's grandmother, Elizabeth Simon Callin, was living with his family during the 1860s. She died in 1864, just a few years before his wedding, and his mother, Eliza Callin Ferguson, died just two years after, in 1870. All of Nicholas's surviving siblings were grown by then, and his father went to live with Nicholas's younger brother, John. Nicholas established his own farm near Auburn, and he and Lettie raised their family there, until retiring from farming and moving into Auburn around 1900.

In 1912, when he was 67 years old, Nicholas was sent to the Lutheran hospital in Fort Wayne for a surgical procedure, and he died there on 26 January 1912. Lettie survived him by 19 years, eventually succumbing to a five week illness in 1930 and dying at the home of their youngest daughter, Dorothy Ferguson Mitchener.

Nick and Lettie left behind seven children. This week, we'll only have time to look at the eldest:

     I. Mildred Ferguson (1870–1952) was probably named for her aunt Mildred Ferguson Ettinger. She married her first husband, William Newton Penland (1867–1953) on 30 April 1896. They were not married for long; in 1900, Mildred was listed in the home of Fillmore Squires as his housekeeper. At that time, the Census said she was married, but she and her three-year-old son, William, lived in the Squires household, and her husband was nowhere to be found--at least not in the 1900 Census.

William Newton Penland turned up in Osborne county, Kansas in 1905, and by 1910 he had remarried Anna R. Simon (1887-1982). They would have three children between 1910 and 1914, and then relocate to Los Angeles county, California, in the early 1920s. They would remain in the Alhambra area until their respective deaths.

On 7 January 1905, Mildred remarried, too; her second husband was Fillmore A "Phil" Squires (1861–1948), whose name you may recognize as her employer in 1900. Phil was widowed some time prior to 1900, and had a son, John H.L. (or Leroy) Squires (b. 1877), from his previous marriage. By 1910, Mildred and Phil had two daughters, as well.

They raised their step-sons and their daughters in the Auburn, but at some later point, the couple moved to Muskegon, Michigan, where they died a few years apart. Since that is where Lavornia and her husband were living, also, that they may have moved there together.

     A. William Everett Pendland (1896–1981) was raised by his mother and step-father, and as far as I know, he never had contact with his father; particularly after the elder William Penland remarried and relocated to California. Everett appears to have preferred the spelling of "Pendland," while his father's records use "Penland."

William married Nellie M Emerick (1897–1990) on Christmas Eve, 1919, and they lived in Fort Wayne, where he was president of the General Printing Company during the 1920s. He and Nellie raised a son and daughter in Auburn, and lived out their lives there after he retired from business.

     1. Iris Maxine Pendland (1920–1980) married Lawrence Leroy Wible (1920–2003), and they had three sons and a daughter, all but one of whom are still living. Larry was a realtor in the Auburn area, and he retired in 1985. After Iris died in 1980, Larry remarried; his wife survived him.

     a. James Robert Wible (1958–1981) graduated from Waterloo High school in De Kalb county, Indiana. He died at age 23 in Los Angeles, California.

     2. James William Pendland (1926–1980) served in the U.S. Army during World War II as a Corporal. He graduated from the Indiana University School of Business and the I. U. Law School. He went to Lawrence County after receiving his law degree and practiced for a brief period in Mitchell before moving his practice to Bedford, where he was a practicing attorney and Lawrence County Public Defender. He was married several times, but left no children of his own; his wife and stepson are still living.

     B. Lavornia Squires (1905–1998) married Harry G Julian (1901–1979) on 23 March 1929 in Defiance county, Ohio. Harry was a salesman, and the couple moved quite a bit, living in Grand Rapids for a few years, then Indiana, then Ohio, and ending up in the Muskegon, Michigan, area. They also had an address in Pinellas county, Florida. They do not seem to have had any children of their own.

     C. Ruth Squires (1908–2005) and her sister were involved in a car accident in 1924, in which the car they were riding in was struck by a freight train. Two passengers were killed, and Ruth sued the driver and the railroad for her injuries.

Found on Newspapers.com

Ruth married Arol A Draime (1903–1967) on 15 September 1927 in De Kalb county, Indiana, and they settled in Willard, Huron county, Ohio, where they raised their daughter and three sons. Arol worked for the Baltimore & Ohio railroad as a chief clerk for 45 years. Incidentally, they were married by the Rev. Joseph W. Ferguson, whom you may recall from last week's post.

     1. Richard Eugene "Dick" Draime (1929–2001) was too young to fight in World War II, but he enlisted after graduating from Willard High School, and served in the newly established United States Air Force. He was stationed at Scott Air Force Base when he was married in 1951, and returned to the Cleveland area after his enlistment was up.

Dick was married several times, but I have not seen any records indicating whether he had any children; each of his wives may still be living, as well. Since Arol's 1967 obituary says that he left behind 17 grandchildren, I'm willing to bet that at least a couple of them were Dick's children!

     2. Donald A Draime (1930–1995) married his wife, Louise Ann Cline (1932–2004), probably in the 1950s. There was another Donald Draime family living in Canton, Ohio, during this time; unfortunately, all of my searches kept finding information about that other family, so I know very little about Donald and Louise.

     3. Beverly Ann Draime (1931–2012) was married twice; first to a boxer named Marlen "Mike" Roose (1927-2009), and in 1956, to Angelo J "Cap" Caporini. Mike Roose was a top-ranked amateur boxer in California, but he also served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and as a U.S. Marshal in Ohio. He married Beverly around the end of the war, and they had two children before they split up around 1951.

Mike remarried Maxine Faith in 1952, and in 1956, Beverly married Mr. Caporini, a veteran of the U.S. Army; they also had two children after moving to Ontario, Ohio. When she died in 2012, her daughter, step-daughter, and her three sons were all still living. Beverly left behind 12 grandchildren, 2 step-grandchildren, 9 great-grandchildren, and 8 step-grandchildren.

     4. David Max Draime (1933–2006) was a U.S. Navy veteran and graduate of Kent State University who established the Stoneridge company in 1965. The company produced wiring harnesses for the agricultural equipment. The company grew from five employees at the original factory to 6,000 employees on four continents. Max's son remained the company's director at his death.

I'm not renowned for my skills at mathematical computation, but if Arol Draime's obituary was correct, and he had 17 grandchildren in 1967, then there are 12 unaccounted for in my records. That is a lot of Draime family to track down! If you happen to know any of them, please send them this blog post, and let them know about our work, here.

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A couple of administrative notes:

1. My time management skills are not great, and I have been struggling to stick to a weekly posting schedule on this blog. It isn't that I don't want to put the time in - I do! - it's just that I have a number of other projects related to the grand "Tad Callin Retirement Plan" that I haven't been keeping up on. So for the next few posts, I'm going to do my best to stay on the weekly schedule, but I expect it will slip to a bi-weekly or even monthly post over the summer.

2. Since there will be empty space in the schedule here, I would like to extend an invitation to all of you: If you're related to me, and have a story about the family you'd like to share, I am always happy to put up guest posts. They don't have to be long, they don't have to be "proven" - family lore, photos (identified or not) and memories are all part of the family history.

And, as always, if you've come across this blog because you're one of the living descendants of someone I've written about, I'd love to hear from you! I am sure I've made some mistakes or left a lot out - I don't post information about living people, so if I can't tell whether they're still living, I err on the side of caution and don't write about them.

Please drop me an email (I am callintad at gmail), Tweet at me (@tadmaster), or find me on Facebook (we have a private Callin Family History group there) and help me make this history more accurate and complete.

Thank you for following along!

The Second James L. Ferguson

The sixth child of James L. Ferguson and Eliza Callin was a boy named after his father. He was their second son, born in Ohio, and at about 8 years of age, his parents moved the family to Indiana.

James L. Ferguson (1841–1907) married Margaret Walters (1845–1926) on 9 April 1865 - the same day that Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court house, signaling the end of the Civil War. James served in the war, having enlisted in Company B, Ohio 11th Infantry Regiment on 20 June 1861. He mustered out on 21 June 1864.

I imagine that the joy of the wedding and the end of the war was dampened by the death of James's older brother, George, in February 1865. The Callin Family History says that George was killed in battle on the Potomac, but I believe George was serving in the Indiana 13th Infantry Regiment, which was in North Carolina in February. Whatever the details were, the loss could not have been easy to bear.

James and Margaret began their family on a farm near his parent's farm in Jackson Township, DeKalb county, Indiana. They had six children over the following 15 years, four of whom survived to adulthood. Some time during the 1870s they relocated to a farm in Union township, and in March 1906, a downturn in his health forced James to move into Auburn, where he died of heart disease in June 1907. She was sick for a long time with Bright's disease and neuritis and was bedridden for two years before she died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Jennie Kosht of East Seventh street, Auburn.

      I. Sarah M. Ferguson (1867–1881) died at age 13, of unknown causes.

      II. Mary Jane 'Jennie' Ferguson (1869–1963) married Emmett Kosht (1869–1920) in 1892. They had a baby that year which died in infancy. Emmett died in 1920, leaving his estate to Jennie and their son, Walter. Jennie's mother, Margaret Ferguson, likely moved into their home around 1924.

      a. Walter Markley Kosht (1904–1925) graduated from Auburn high school with the class of 1924, but was taken to the Irene Byron sanatorium for treatment for tuberculosis in February 1925 and died on 31 July 1925.

After losing Emmett, Walter, and her mother in just a few short years, Jennie remarried John H. Flemming (1867-1944); as of 1930, they were living in Jennie's home. That is where Jennie remained after John's death in 1944, until about 1962, when her health deteriorated to the point where she needed to move in with the Ruchel family in Jackson. She died there on 3 April 1963.

      III. Rev. Joseph W Ferguson (1871–1963) married the younger sister of Emmett Kosht, Cora I Kosht (1871–1927), early in 1891. "In his early days" he served as a deputy sheriff in De Kalb county. In 1892, he entered the ministry of the United Brethren church, and he was sent to minister in the Hicksville, Ohio, area. He took his young family to Ohio, about twenty miles from Auburn, where they remained until Cora's health began to deteriorate in the 1920s.

Joseph resigned his ministry so he could stay in Auburn and tend to Cora. In February 1927, she died in their home "from a stroke of apoplexy."

After Cora died, Joseph remarried Delia Hassig (1893–1977) in November 1927, in Coldwater, Michigan, and returned to his ministry. Over the course of his career, he estimated that he officiated at 3,400 funerals; when searching through the Newspapers.com database for his obituary, there were many other obituaries listing him as the officiating minister, right up through the last months of his life. In 1962, his health began to fail, and he died in November 1963 at the age of 92.

      a. Justus A Ferguson (1891–1910) was born in September 1891, in De Kalb county, Indian, and grew up in Ohio, where his father's ministry had taken the family. He died 24 April 1910 in North Baltimore, Wood county, Ohio, at the age of 18, and was buried in Woodlawn cemetery, Auburn, Indiana.

      b. Ford M Ferguson (1904–1978) married Florence Ferne Hook (1906–2000) in April 1927, just two months after his mother died. Ferne was born in Hicksville, and that is where they were married, but they settled in Auburn, where they raised their daughter, who is still living. Ferne worked as a bookkeeper for Messenger Corp. for 19 years, and served as a deputy auditor for De Kalb county for 9 years. She retired as secretary of the Auburn Street Department in 1985.

      IV. Elmer Ellsworth Ferguson (b. 1875) died in infancy.

      V. Terry Victor Ferguson (1877–1961) married Grace Beatrice Rush (1882–1975) on 2 June 1900 in Hicksville, Ohio, probably by his older brother, and settled his family on a farm near Auburn, Indiana. This family suffered several severe tragedies, such as the 1935 hunting accident in which Terry was shot in the face by a shotgun, nearly costing him an eye. He was 55 years old at the time. After her retired from farming, Terry enjoyed good health until the late 1950s, when he moved into the Sheehy nursing home, where he died in 1961.

      a. Harold R Ferguson (1902–1995) married Freda M Warfield (1902–1989) on 28 November 1923, and as far as I know, they raised one daughter, who is still living.

      b. Chalmer Ferguson (1908–1970) is someone who will require more research. He was born 24 November 1908 in De Kalb county, Indiana, probably on his father's farm outside Auburn. He had a cousin with the same name (about whom we will learn more next week), and I was not able to easily distinguish between them in the Indiana records databases.

This Chalmer Ferguson was definitely living in Portland, Indiana (Jay county) in 1944, and he was married three years later in Butte, Montana. He married Louise Walter (b. 1917) on 7 March 1947, and the Montana marriage record lists his parents' names. There is also a Chalmer Ferguson listed in the Anaconda, Montana, city directory that year, and since the towns are 24 miles apart, I'll allow that this is our boy.

Less certain are marriage records which only list the bride & groom and the date. A Chalmer Ferguson married Danell Armstrong Sparks (1916-1993) on 3 September 1957 in Nez Perce, Clearwater county, Idaho. According to his father's obituary in December 1961, Chalmer was living in Orofino in Clearwater county, Idaho, so I'm inclined to accept that this is the same Chalmer. Danell Ferguson died in Orofino in 1993, so I presume they were together during his last thirteen years.

If anyone out there is/knows a descendant of this man, I'd love to find out more about him!

      c. Fidelis Lucille Ferguson (1916–1936) died of a heart attack at the age of 21 in the State hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She was committed to the state school for the feeble minded at Fort Wayne in August 1934.

      d. Thomas Woodrow Ferguson (1917–1944) went by the name "Joe" growing up in Auburn; probably in honor of his uncle, the Rev. Joseph Ferguson. He attended school at St. John's and East Keyser, and graduated Auburn high school in 1936. He was working in Dayton, Ohio, and married to Mable Campbell when World War II broke out, and he enlisted in the Army August 22, 1942. He received his training at Atlantic City and was sent overseas on January 10, 1943 to be stationed in China for nearly two years.

On his last furlough before deploying, a baby girl was born to the Fergusons. They named her Helene. Sadly, she died that day: October 14, 1942. Mabel went back to Auburn, where she lived with Joe's parents and found work at the Donna beauty shop. He went back to New Jersey, and shipped out for China.

In the summer of 1944, Corporal Ferguson wrote home to let the family know that he had been sick with typhoid in July, but that he was getting better. On 24 August, however, his fever returned, and he died. He was buried in an American Military cemetery at APO 627, which his commander described in the letter to Joe's parents as "nestled in a broad fertile plateau over six thousand feet up in the mountains."

I do not know what became of Mabel, but I hope she lived a long, happier life after these awful years.

      VI. Thomas L Ferguson (1880–1958), the youngest son of James and Margaret Ferguson, married Mary Jones (1881–1960) on 13 April 1901 in Hicksville, Ohio - likely married by his brother. Thomas was a farmer and a railroader, and after he retired from those activities, he and Mary ran an apartment house in Auburn for nearly 30 years, until his death in 1958 from heart disease and complications from diabetes. Mary followed him a couple of years later, after suffering from cancer for two years. They left no children behind.

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As I put the finishing touches on this post, I was struck by just how sad the last half of it has been. With the exception of the adventurous Chalmer, who may have left behind a number of children for whom I simply found no records, the Fergusons in this branch of the family seem to have had few or no children, and suffered numerous tragedies. It's easy to forget sometimes how much life can go on between the dates at the beginning and ending of each person's story.

These were people living through the "Turn of the Century" - they saw the 20th Century begin, with all of the wild inventions, booms and busts, history-changing wars, and disease-defeating scientific progress. They traveled, they learned, they loved...and when they lost, they picked up and kept trying.

There were only a couple of daughters mentioned as still living within these paragraphs, but I hope there are more whom I simply didn't find. I hope they find out about this blog. And if they do, I hope they'll tell us a bit more about these people and the lives they led between the tragedies.

And next week, I hope we'll find a few more victories, with fewer of those tragedies to go with them!

Cardinal Rules

• Rule number one: You are never "done" with your family history.

This project to update and document the descendants of James Callin is something I've been working toward for twenty years or so. And in the past, when I've gone over what I know about the part of the family we'll be looking at today - Margaret Ferguson and her descendants - I have never been able to find much beyond what the Callin Family History told me:

"Record of Margret Ferguson who was the 4th daughter of Eliza Callin Ferguson who was the 3rd daughter of John Callin who was the 2nd son of James 1st.

Born 1839, died 1902.
Married to Jerome Gallaher.
To this union two children were born:
Mary, married.
Helen, married, two children."

So when I began drafting this post, I expected that to be all I could tell you about Margaret Jane (Ferguson) Gallaher. Assuming I could scrape together names of the husbands of Mary and Helen, and find out the names of Helen's two children, I might have bare-bones minimalist biographies of six or eight people, tops.

• Rule number two: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Evidence is the life blood of this project. Without documents that say when and where people lived, and what they did there, I can't rule out anything. And for the longest time, I could only find bits and pieces of this family's story - while the rest was a great, empty possibility.

Then I found an obituary...

Jerome Bohan Gallaher was born 23 August 1833, in Litchfield, Connecticut. He was one of eight children and moved westward when he was a young man settling at various points in Ohio and Indiana. He married Margaret Jane Ferguson (1839-1901) on August 15, 1858, in DeKalb county, Indiana, and they had two daughters: Mary (or Mollie), in 1860, and Helen in 1862.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Jerome enlisted in the 2nd Indiana regiment, in which he served until 25 August 1865. At the time of mustering out he had attained the position of Quartermaster of his regiment. After the close of the Civil War the Gallaher family moved to Black River Falls, Wisconsin, where Mr. Gallaher engaged in his old business of photography. In 1872 they moved to the newly incorporated town of Chippewa Falls, where they resided until the early 1890's, when he settled on a homestead outside of town.

Margaret preceded her husband to the grave in May 1901, and after that he lived alone most of the time on his farm. For the last two years of his life, he had been rather feeble, but when his friends planned to have him come to town where he could be looked after, he always vetoed their plans, expressing the wish to remain on the old farm as long as he lived. He died in January 1912.

     I. Mary A (Mollie) Gallaher (1860-1913) married William John Ickstadt (1865-1906) in September 1883. William took her away to the neighboring town of Edson where he was appointed as postmaster in October 1883, and he became a prominent real estate and business man in the Boyd area. In 1906, at the age of 47, he drowned in a boating accident on Pike lake. Mollie only lived another seven years, dying at 53.

     A. Jerome Monroe Ickstadt was born on 19 June 1884. He married Marie A Street in Boyd, Chippewa county, on 20 May 1912. The couple settled in Fond du Lac, where Jerome was a fireman with the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad company. The last record I have found for them placed them in Fond du Lac in 1921; there is another placing Marie in that town in 1924, but with no further listing for Jerome. I have found nothing to indicate when or where either of them died, or whether they had any children.

     B. Alice Mae Ickstadt (1888–1973) married Louis Floyd Shilts (1894–1947), probably around 1910. Louis was a veteran of World War I, and he worked as an auto mechanic in a Chippewa Falls garage. Mae taught in the local schools.

     C. Arthur J Ickstadt (1890–1927) grew up in Chippewa county, and worked at the State Home - what is now known as the Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled. He married Louisa Rosalie Krenz (1894–1959) around 1925, and she was pregnant with their second son when he died in March 1927. The state later awarded her $7,000 in settlement, one month before the birth of that second son.


Found on Newspapers.com

       1. Donald W Ickstadt (1927–2013) graduated from Chippewa High School in 1945, then served one and ½ years in the Navy aboard the USS Chara and the USS Parikutin. He matriculated at Wisconsin State College at Eau Claire in 1947 and graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Sciences, Physical Education/Secondary Education. He then attended the University of Southern California graduate school in 1952. Married in 1954, his wife, three sons, and two daughters are all still living. Don worked in employment services for the state of Wisconsin his whole career, retiring in 1987.

       2. Arthur Joseph Ickstadt Jr (1928–2013) was a Veteran of WWII and the Korean War. After leaving the Army, he settled in the Seattle, Washington, area. His mother, Louisa, died there in 1959. Art was survived by his wife, son, three daughters, and "16 Grandchildren, 13 Great-Grandchildren, 1 Great-Great Grandchild and numerous nieces and nephews."

     II. Helen J Gallaher (b. 1862) and her husband, Wesley J. Gregg (b. 1851) presented a few challenges to this researcher. First, there is a marriage record for a Helen Gallagher in 1879, which, even though the database does not link the bride record to the groom's record, seems to imply that she married a man named Amasa Nichols. Until I found Jerome's obituary, I did not know to look for Mr. Gregg, but once I did, I found Helen and Wesley in the four Census records (1900-1930), which indicated they were married in 1885. The birth record for their younger daughter, Jennie, lists Helen's maiden name as "Nichols," so I assume that 1879 record is correct. (And looking through the Chippewa county marriage records, Amasa Nichols seemed to marry quite often; there may be a whole other story there!)

But, Wesley appears to have farmed and worked for the railroad as a clerk for a time; and they raised two daughters. As of 1930, 79-year-old Wesley and 69-year-old Helen were retired and living on their farm. I have not been able to determine when they died or find any records of their burial, but I know from some mentions in the Eau Claire Leader that they were living in the area in the 1920s, and the 1930 Census shows them in Arthur, in Chippewa county.

     A. Ruby Gregg (b. 1883) grew up in Chippewa Falls, and appeared on the 1900 Federal and 1905 State Census in her parents' home. She would have been 21 in 1905, and the 1907 Chippewa Falls city directory indicates that she lived at home while working as a domestic servant for the Mcgilvary family. After that, however, the trail of records dries up, and I can't tell what happened to Ruby.

     B. Jennie H Gregg (1887–1931) married George Jerome Cardinal (1887–1963) on 9 December 1905 in Bayfield, Wisconsin. George was a musician and decorator, and was listed as a painter in the Census and city directories. The couple had nine children before Jennie's death in 1931 at the age of 44.

      1. Wesley G Cardinal (1906–1982) married Katherine Quinlan (1910–??) in about 1930. Wesley was listed in the 1930 Census in his family home, working as a painter/decorator, like his father. In 1940, he and Katherine and their two sons were renting their own place in Chippewa Falls, and Wesley was a musician in an orchestra. They may have had more children after the 1940 Census, but I have only managed to track down the eldest. I assume any other children they had are still living, or my searches would have turned up something. (Though, searching through results for people with the name "Cardinal" is surprisingly difficult.)

       a. Peter Paul Cardinal (1931–1997) served in the U.S. Navy during both the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, according to his grave marker. Based on the incomplete information I have found, I would guess that he enlisted in the early 1950s. He was married by 1959, when he is listed in the city directory for Memphis, Tennessee, which is near the Naval Support Activity Mid-South Naval Base in Millington. And he received a commission as an ensign on 1 July 1963. He attained his highest rank as a Lieutenant on 1 January 1967, and retired 1 August 1978. When he died, he had been living in Pegram, Tennessee.

      2. Linus Cardinal (b. 1909) is another minor mystery, in that I lose track of him after 1930. There are two items in the November 1921 Eau Claire Leader newspapers that describe how he was wounded when a gun discharged, and was later rushed to the hospital with "lockjaw" (probably tetanus) from the resulting infection. That happened when he was 12, and we see him listed at home in the 1930 Census, when he was 21, so we know he survived that episode, at least.

      3. George P Cardinal Jr (1910–1997) appears to have served in World War II, but like his older brothers, left little in the way of records, and his obituary does not seem to be online. I have not been able to find anything between the 1930 Census and the records of his death in Elk Mound, Wisconsin. His wife is still living, and I assume any children they have are, too.

      4. Jane Rosemary Cardinal (1914–1991) married Lloyd A Fransway (1910–1966) and they had five sons and seven daughters, in total. Most of them are still living. Lloyd was a painter, employed by Mikesell's Painting contractors for 25 years; he was the union president of Painters Local 259 from 1958 to 1964. He and Jane took in her three youngest siblings some time after the death of their mother; Lyman, Betty Mae, and the brother who is still living were all listed as Lloyd's foster children in his 1966 obituary.

       a. Mary Jo Fransway: died in infancy.

       b. Patricia Jane "Patty" Fransway (1935–2012) was married to Arthur Sedani (1935–1978), and they had two sons who are still living. Patty worked at the Chippewa Woolen Mill, Creamland Dairy, and the Northern Center for the Developmentally Disabled in Chippewa Falls until she retired. She mentored students through the Chippewa Falls Mentoring Program, headed up the spring and fall suppers for Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, and oversaw funeral luncheons. Patty was a beautiful seamstress and was a member of the Quilters and the Altar Guild.

       c. Lloyd Archie Fransway Jr (1937–1998) was a veteran of the U.S. Navy, serving from 12 May 1954 to 14 November 1957. He married at the end of 1960, and his wife and three sons are still living. They also had a daughter.

      i. Robin M Fransway (1961–2011) attended Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. She lived in the Powell/Cody area and worked as a secretary and bookkeeper, raising her daughter, who is still living. Robin married on July 7, 2001, and her husband is still living, also.

       d. Anthony L "Tony" Fransway, Sr (1945–2009) served in the U.S. Army National Guard for eight years after he graduated high school. He married in 1968, and his wife, son, and daughter are all still living. He worked at Amoco-Pactiv for 39 years until he retired in 2004. He lived in Chippewa Falls his entire life.

       e. Laura Fransway (1946–2013) grew up in Chippewa Falls and graduated from Chippewa Falls Senior High in 1965. She married in 1977. One daughter and one son are still living. Over her lifetime, she worked for Amoco Chemicals, Whitetail Golf Course, Viking Bowl and retired from the Myrtle Werth Hospital. She was a member of Barum Lutheran Church in Elk Mound.

     i. Chad T Brown (1977-2002) was the oldest son of Laura Fransway. He graduated from Colfax High School in May of 1995, and was employed at Big Timber Saw Mill in Colfax until the time of his death from cancer. He was 25 years old when he died.

       f. Samuel Cardinal "Sammy" Fransway (1960–2003) was employed by Markquart Motors for the 14 years before he died. Sam was also a Chef at a number of local Wisconsin restaurants, as well as in Florida. He owned and operated Sammy's Saloon in Chippewa Falls from 1983 to 1987. He left behind one son.

      5. Kathryn Arlene Cardinal (1916–2007) married Fenton Norman Goss (1914–1999), and they left three sons and two daughters, still living. Fenton served in the U.S. Army during the last few months of 1946.

      6. John Samuel "Jack" Cardinal (1919–1990) served in the U.S. Army throughout World War II, from 6 April 1942 through 18 October 1945. He married in October 1946, and settled in the Detroit area with his wife, who is still living.

      7. Lyman Eugene Cardinal (1921–1977) served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. If I'm reading the records correctly, he enlisted in the Army in 1940, before Pearl Harbor, and switched to the Navy ten years later, retiring after twenty years in October of 1960. He and his wife settled in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. They had at least one son, who is still living.

      8. (Still Living) Cardinal - there is one son from this family still living. Here's hoping I don't need to update this entry until he is good and ready!

      9. Betty Mae Cardinal (1926–2015) graduated from Chippewa Falls High School and worked at the A & P Store, where she met her future husband. On April 18, 1948, the two were united in marriage in Chippewa Falls. They resided in Chippewa Falls where Bette worked at the Northern Center as the food service supervisor, retiring from there in 1986. She left behind her husband and two daughters.


And there you have it: just one timely find can add dozens of people to the family tree!

Ettinger Generations

Just to recap:

On 8 March 1860, William Ettinger (1837-1920) married Mildred Ferguson (1837-1911) in DeKalb county, Indiana, and they set up a home in Auburn before moving to Waterloo, where he worked as an undertaker and cabinet maker. Over the following twenty years, the family lived in DeKalb county, and William and Mildred raised eight children; three sons and five daughters. We looked at the two elder children last week:

• John Clark Ettinger (1860–1927)
• Clara Ettinger (1862–1931)
• Flora Ettinger (1866–1941)
• Lyda Ettinger (1868–1950)
• Catherine "Cassy" Ettinger (1870–1959)
• George Daniel Ettinger (1873–1961)
• William Hurben Ettinger (1879–1933)

The Callin Family History presents them this way:

• John, married, two children were born.
• Clara, married, two children, one living -- Rude.
• Flora, married ---. Neff.
• Eliza, married --- Eberly, three children
• Cassy, married ---. Fawcett.
• George, married, one child.
• Herbert, unmarried.

As we discussed in the last post, John and his wife did not have any children, and Charles Rude abandoned his wife and young son early on, as opposed to having two children. The CFH also lists "Eliza" as Lyda (or Lida)'s name; the 1870 Census actually appears to list her as Elizabeth, and the then-newborn Cassy as "Lidia," all of which is very confusing. And of course, "Herbert" is not the youngest son's name, despite being listed as such even in one of his obituaries.

But I'll try to set the record straight, and if anyone finds more evidence, please let me know. Most of the below came from the usual Census records, Find a Grave memorials, and an unusually plentiful number of newspaper articles from Newspapers.com!

Flora Ettinger (1866–1941) married James L Neff (1859–1937) on 26 May 1898. They lived in Williams county, Ohio, where James owned a brick factory. They did not have any children, as far as I can tell.

Lyda Ettinger (1868–1950) married Walter R Eberly (1870–1958) on 30 October 1895. They had three children in Indiana, then moved to Tecumseh, Michigan, where Walter ran a foundry in 1900, and owned a steam laundry in 1910. Lyda's brother-in-law, Charles Rude, was involved in a laundry business in Tecumseh, as well, according to his 1900 Census record. It may be that Mr. Rude sold the business to Mr. Eberly before leaving his family for parts unknown. Whatever the case, Walter owned that business at least until 1940.

     1. Cyrille Eberly (1896–1990) married Carl Frederick Wellstead (1897–1978) on 23 August 1923. Carl was from Perrysburg, Wood county, Ohio. He married Cyrille in Hudson, Michigan (in Lenawee county, not far from Tecumseh), and they made their home in Perrysburg. Cyrille was a teacher of home economics, and Carl worked for 21 years at the Rossford plant of the Libbey-Owens Ford Company. He also served for six years as the village clerk of Perrysburg. The couple raised two sons and a daughter, one of whom is still living. (Their surviving son had seven children of his own!)

      a. Frederick Charles Wellstead (1924–1994) married Marjorie June Lafleur (1924–2006) around 1950. Fred enlisted in the U.S. Army on 28 July 1943, when he was 19 years old. Marjorie joined the Cadet Nursing Corps in 1944, and graduated in 1947. The couple raised a son and two daughters, all of whom are still living.

      b. Lydelia Ann Wellstead (1927–1987) married about 1950, and lived with her husband in New York until her death in 1987. Her husband is still living; I do not know whether they had any children.

     2. Ralph Arlington Eberly (1898–1980) married Lucille Margaret (1903–1976) around 1925; I have not found any records to tell me her maiden name. The couple raised a son in Chicago, and as near as I can tell, he is still living. Ralph and Lucille moved to Iowa some time after 1940; they were in Sioux City in 1942 and in Clinton in 1953. After they died, they were buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Hudson, Michigan.

     3. Earl G Eberly (1899–1974) was teaching at the high school in Hudson when he married Thelma O Tripp (1899–1982) on 9 October 1919. They were only married for four years, divorcing in 1923, but they had a daughter, Georgiene. Earl later married Elva S Reece (1900–1986), and ran his own laundry service for 30 years. He and Elva were very active in the community of Hudson.

      a. Georgiene M Eberly (1920–1986) stayed with her mother after Earl and Thelma divorced. Thelma remarried in 1934, when Gene was in her early teens. Gene graduated from the University of Michigan in 1942 with a Bachelor of Science in Zoology, and went on to have a long career as a Medical Technologist at Mercy Hospital in Jackson Michigan. Gene mentored younger med-techs, taking new technicians under her wing and she is fondly remembered today for her kindness.

Gene was a big outdoors person. She loved birds and bird watching. She loved hiking and boating and had been all over the place doing these things. She took care of her step-father when he became ill and after his passing, she was extremely close with her mom.

Catherine "Cassy" Ettinger (1872–1959) was the youngest of the five Ettinger daughters. She married Alphonso Dexter Fausett (1870–1935) on August 6, 1911.

Dexter had been married in 1896 to a lady named Alice Shultz, who died in June 1909. They had a son who died in infancy and a daughter, Irma, who would later marry O.V. Winks, of Liberty, Indiana. A few years after Cassie and Dexter were married, they adopted a son, Robert.

     1. Robert K Fausett (1916–1995) was born June 18, 1916, in Naperville, Illinois, and grew up in Waterloo, De Kalb county, Indiana. He married Nina V. Wilkins (1916–2009) on June 4, 1938. In 1947, they moved to Indianapolis where Robert was employed as draftsman by Spreuer and Son of LaGrange. They had one daughter in the 1950s, who is still living.

George Daniel Ettinger (1873–1961) married Almeda J Frederick (1878–1962) in August of 1895. He worked at the old McIntyre Buggy factory in Auburn for many years. They had one daughter, and joined the Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1910s. They remained members of that church for the rest of their long lives.

     1. Mildred L Ettinger (1896–1973) married Paul Harold Cosper (1894–1988) on 21 May 1919. They lived in Auburn, not far from Mildred's parents. When George's health began to fail, Mildred filed for guardianship of his estate. It does not appear that the Cospers left any children behind.

William Hurben Ettinger (1879–1933) was born 23 November in Waterloo, and from his graduation in 1898 from the Chicago Embalming school, he was a funeral director there. He married a popular school teacher named Bertha B Bemenderfer (1881–1975) on 2 June 1912.

They were a well known and well liked couple in Waterloo, and he was also serving as the town marshal at the time; so their wedding was considered quite the event. And on that occasion, it would seem the town expressed their affection for their marshal in a most unusual manner:

 Sometimes the man who loves a joke is required to accept what is coming to him, which was the case of town marshal, W.H. Ettinger, Monday night.
 His marriage took place Sunday evening and Monday evening the Progressive Literary club arranged for a reception on the newly wedded at their home on Marion street.
 About the time the guests began to arrive word came to the marshal that the night watch had arrested an unruly fellow and needed help. Faithful to his duties, he rushed to the engine house to give assistance and he found, as his joking friends thrust him into a cell by main force and locked the door, that the unruly prisoner was the marshal himself.
 At first he did not appreciate the joke and how could he? His friends were notified and many came marching to the cell door viewing the "culprit" and enjoying his discomfort no doubt, for over two hours when he was released and allowed to go to his happy home where he and his wife were given an old fashioned noisy belling.
 During his "incarceration" the members of the P.L.C. having concluded their reception at the Ettinger home, marched in a body to the engine house where they filed into the cell and extended their sympathy to the marshal. During the long two hours the crowd told the marshal about the good things to eat in waiting at his home, and one of the crowd played Home Sweet Home on a squeaky old fiddle.

And with that, we conclude our visit with the Ettinger family. There seem to be a lot of Eberly grand-children and great-grandchildren for us to reach out to and get to know, but that will have to wait for another day.