That time I literally found myself in family history

In my last post, I referenced a collection of poems written by my grandmother ("Nana") on my dad's side. I have a confession to make about these:

I've never read them, or at least I don't remember having read them since they were given to me. 

Don't get me wrong, I was happy to have them. I put them on a shelf, and then in a tub with important papers, and was always glad I had a copy.

So you can imagine my surprise when I was flipping through the book this week while working on this blog and saw my own name pop out at me. Nana had written a poem about my first day of elementary school and I had no idea! (Maybe I did, I just don't remember ever seeing it before). So, as I've been writing about finding myself in family history, I literally just found myself in a piece of family history that I didn't know I was in. Pretty cool, huh?  So I guess it's true--you never know what might turn up in your family history, so always keep looking!

Here's the cute poem that my grandmother wrote, enjoy!

Family Heirlooms, or how a little red cup will outlive us all

A few weeks ago I was traveling home with my brother and his family after a small family get together in Montana, and we stopped by my parents’ house to pick up some things they had for us. We didn’t know it at the time, but they were preparing to hand off some family heirlooms. One item was particularly special: the “Charles cup”: a crystal-based glass that was made to commemorate my paternal grandfather’s eldest brother.  

 As we sat around discussing the cup and the story behind it, three generations of Hodgens were able to hear about and remember those that came before us. It was informal, but still a fun and special way that we were able to connect with each other and our family history.  Here’s the story behind the cup:

Charles (middle), my grandfather Marion (left) and their younger brother James (Right)

My grandfather Marion Hodgen was born in 1908 in California, the third of six children. Charles, the eldest of the family, was four years older than him and often took the brunt of their father’s harsh treatment, which resulted in young Marion hero worshipping his older brother. When Charles was 16, he contracted diphtheria during a large outbreak. When an overworked country doctor came to check on Charles, he turned the boy on his side, causing him to suffocate on the fluid in his lungs and die. 

The Hodgen family at Charles' burial

The family was devastated, especially the mother and Marion. Not only had he lost his friend, brother, and protector, but Marion had to take on the responsibilities of being the oldest boy, which included leaving school and performing manual labor to supplement the family income at age 12.

As a memorial to the lost son, a cup was made with his name on it that was displayed in their home for years. Marion inherited the cup, and decided he wanted it passed down to the oldest Hodgen male of each generation, and that's what we did. Something that meant so much to a grieving family a hundred years ago is still being cherished, and the original owners are still remembered.

The Hodgen family a few years before Charles' death.
The family was living in California doing agricultural work, and this is them in front of an almond orchard. 

I’m glad I was able to be a part of the passing-along of the “Charles cup” even though it wasn’t meant for me, because I was able to learn more about my grandfather who died when I was 12, and understand more about his family and where he came from. 

Tips 

While the “Charles cup” is extremely special to our family, it’s not because of the monetary value, but because of the emotional and symbolic value of it. If you don’t already have family artifacts that are being passed down, start your own! Here are some ideas:

• Is there something in your own life that represents a special person or event that you can share with others? A lot of times the things that are passed down in a family are special because of what they meant to the owner or how much they were loved. Other things that we’ve passed down in our family include a beloved punch bowl, a pair of bird figurines, a modest set of silver, a Christmas cactus, and long-used furniture. The most important part of the item being passed down is the memories and meaning attached to it.
• Are you finding a shortage of meaningful items that you could pass down? You can always create something. Journals are obviously very important in transferring family stories, but artwork, creative writing, letters, etc., can also be invaluable. Anything that will help future generations understand who you were will work. My grandmother, Marion’s wife Betty, was an avid poet in her life and often shared her poems with us. When she died, someone created a bound copy of poems she wrote and now as an adult I’m able to read them and get a sense of who my grandmother was in a way that I didn’t as a child.

 

Family heirlooms are a great way to bring the generations closer together, whether it’s something you’re inheriting or choosing to pass along. The key is to pass along memories as well to create family bonds that span the decades. 

What heirlooms are in your family and what are the stories behind them? Do you have other ideas of things that can become heirlooms? Please share in the comments section!

Finding juicy info from an unexpected source

I found some fun information recently about my five-times great grandmother Phebe Ann Morton Angell who I have been researching, and wanted to share with you! 

I was doing some absent-minded web searching the other day and started looking up her children and following sites I hadn’t looked into before. One thing led to another, and I found a memoir by her youngest daughter, Caroline! While this proved to be interesting in its own right, it turned out to be a hidden gem of information on Phebe. Being the youngest, Caroline was with Phebe as they journeyed with the rest of the early Mormons from New York to Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. 

Phebe's daughter Caroline Francis Angell Davis Holbrook.
Picture found at http://www.holbrook-family.com/reunion.htm

Many of her anecdotes include the phrase “mother and I,” giving me several first-hand accounts of things that happened to Phebe, albeit from Caroline’s perspective. Here are a few of my favorite highlights (in no particular order), with references to “mother” or “Mother Angell” meaning Phebe:

• In Nauvoo, here the people built a temple and many fine houses and laid out a fine city. Brother Joseph Smith built what was called the Mansion House, which was his home at his death. Mother and I built us a brick house. It was only one room, finished and comfortable. We built it by our own industry and lived there till the mob drove us away.

•  [In Nauvoo] Monday morning, when they started to the jail, Joseph on a black horse and Hyrum on a white horse, my eyes followed up the road as far as I could see them. I felt it would be the last time I would see them in this life.

• When in Missouri and brothers Joseph and Hyrum were in Clay County Jail, Mary Fielding Smith, Hyrum's wife, had a baby boy. Father Smith sent word to Hyrum: his wife had a boy, what shall it be named? He sent back word: when it was eight days old, have father come and name and bless him, and call him Joseph Fielding Smith. He is now President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mother Angell washed and dressed him and laid him on his grandfather's arms for the occasion, and looked after mother till she was alright. The enemies were prowling around us at the time.

• When I was twenty seven years old, I was taken very sick. Many thought my time had come to go; I thought I would not. I asked for seven sisters to come and wash and anoint me with oil; this was done. I began to mend from that very hour and got well. The sisters said my feet were as cold as though I was dead. I have lived over fifty years since.

I love these references to Phebe that add a few more pieces to the puzzle that is my great-great-great-great-great grandmother. While Mormon history is not for everyone, seeing firsthand accounts of historical moments that are important to my own culture through the eyes of my ancestors is a really special thing for me. Regardless of religion or culture, there are plenty of opportunities for you to find similar things in your family’s past that resonate with you.

Have you ever stumbled on genealogical information or cool family history stories by accident? Tell me about it in the comments?

Tips 

• Don’t be afraid to explore what might seem like peripheral people or names that aren’t your top priority. As this example shows, your target person may not have a journal or autobiography, but they might just show up in the journals of others. I found this particular document on a family history website created by the descendants of Caroline, and with a quick online search was also able to validate it as a real source. So keep an eye out for obscure paths to sources, and if you hit a roadblock in your searching, start following other names. You never know what you might uncover. Happy hunting!

Finding Phebe: The Adventure Continues! (part 2 of "My First Venture into Family History")

After striking out in my search for my great-great-great-great-great grandmother Phebe’s grave, I went back to the proverbial drawing board (read: Google) to see if I could find more details about the family plot she was supposedly in. I revisited the Find a Grave site and noticed that the picture of the cemetery they had assigned to Phebe was not the Salt Lake City cemetery. Intrigue!

Photo from findagrave.com

It was in fact the Mormon Pioneer Memorial cemetery, aka the Brigham Young family cemetery, and I lived right down the street from it! This actually made a lot of sense, and here’s why:

• When Phebe went west toward Utah, she did not travel with her husband James. I’ve come across different reasons and don’t know why for sure, but he was alive when she left.
• Phebe was socially very connected to the early leadership of the LDS church, including the first and second presidents, Joseph Smith Jr. and Brigham Young. She was known among the saints as “Mother Angell.”
• Her daughter Mary Ann married Brigham Young after his first wife passed away, and was his first wife under the practice of plural marriage. At some point, Phebe was also married to Brigham Young, who through polygamy was married to over 50 women—some of which were older single women like Phebe. Another of Phebe’s daughters was also married to Brigham Young.

What does this mean? The Young family cemetery might be the perfect place to find her!

I swung by one day after work and took flowers, excited to finally find her and to visit the cemetery that I had driven past many times without knowing what it was. It’s really more like a very small memorial park combined with graves that are scattered around an open grassy area. I found Mary Ann easily, as she was buried prominently next to Brigham.

Mary Ann's large slab headstone, courtesy of findagrave.com*

The rest of the graves were other wives of Brigham, and were erratically placed with smaller stones. I played a several rounds of “Grave marker or sprinkler head?” before I had the entire park scoped out, and still no Phebe. Could it be possible that after everything her remains had been through, she was again buried without a memorial? It didn’t sit right with me, but there clearly was no stone with her name on it.

Unfortunately, that’s as far as my search for Phebe has gone. I want to consult a professional to see if there is some official record of her burial somewhere, but it hasn’t happened yet. However, I won’t stop looking, and the journey thus far to find her has helped me learn a great deal about her and her family, which ultimately resulted in me—something I’m obviously very thankful for.

Tips

• If you’re facing a lot of family history and don’t know where to start, pick one person or immediate family to focus on. The rest aren’t going anywhere, and having a focus point will make it much easier to stay motivated.
• Pay close attention to the sources you’re looking at—one overlooked picture or sentence might have an important clue, and if you miss it you could end up on a wild goose chase.
• Just because you don’t find exactly what you’re looking for doesn’t mean you’re walking away empty-handed. Enjoy the search as well as the find!

*You may have noticed that many of my pictures are from findagrave.com. While I did take my own photos, I haven't been able to locate them. See my website page on "Preserving Your Memories" to read about how this is a really irresponsible and unhelpful way to manage your photo collection. :)

My first venture into family history (Part 1 of 2)

What was it that first got you interested in family history? 

When my brother mentioned needing to organize all the records he had inherited from various relatives, I was intrigued by the challenge and my editorial side got the better of me. As I began sorting through and indexing documents, I read the stories preserved there and quickly discovered that in my 27 years of life, no one in my family had thought to mention our early Mormon pioneer heritage to me—a heritage I was literally encircled by while living in Salt Lake City.

Up until a few years ago, the word “ancestor” would have sent me scuttling into a different room while avoiding eye contact. But somehow, on a muddy brown day in late fall 2013, it sent me tripping through the Salt Lake City cemetery. The most surprising part? I wanted to be there.

Phebe Ann Morton Angell (Young), my five times great-grandmother (through my paternal grandmother’s line), is who I was interested in finding that day. Not only had she witnessed some of the most trying and important moments in Mormon history as she crossed the country in the mid-nineteenth century, but she caused quite a stir after her death.

Buried on the family property according to the custom in 1854, Phebe was unearthed many years later during construction in 1908. The workers at first thought they had a murder mystery on their hands, but the remains were eventually claimed by family members that had been trying to locate her for decades. The article that reported on this concluded that she was re-buried in her family plot in the city cemetery. It wasn’t much to go on, but I felt like the star of a genealogy-themed Discovery Channel reality show, and it was exciting.

Armed only with the coordinates of possible family graves and a poor sense of direction, I did a fair amount of wandering and speculating about the people represented on the headstones I saw. But finally I scaled an incline, circled a scrubby bush, and found myself surrounded by Angells.

I stopped in front of Truman O. Angell, Phebe’s son and architect of the Salt Lake LDS temple (among other temples and buildings). 

Picture courtesy of findagrave.com

He is the brother of the man I am descended from, Solomon Angell. But Solomon is resting in Southern Utah and wouldn’t be joining us that day. I’d discovered a large clan of Angells, but Phebe was not among them. I took some time to greet my deceased distant cousins, but ultimately walked away disappointed. Where was she?

Stay tuned for my upcoming post, Finding Phebe: The Adventure Continues, to see what happened next.

Did you have a moment or topic that launched you into family history? Tell me in the comments below!

My hair color comes from where??

Has anyone ever told you that you laugh like your great aunt?

Or that you have the same stubborn streak as your great-grandfather?

Whether or not we knew them, our ancestors have a profound impact on who we are, from our personal traits to our socio-economic status. In discovering who they were, we only realize more of who we are. With my new website, Finding Yourself in Family History, I want to make getting started in this process easier than ever with inclusive lists of tips and resources to help even the busiest person jump start their family history journey.

This blog will track my own efforts in family history, so be sure to check back here for updates on my progress, and see what fun and crazy stories I uncover and best practices I develop along the way. You can even share your own with me!

They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Isn’t it time to see what kind of tree you fell from?