Genie Road Trip

This is my 2^nd Great Aunt Grace (Packer) Elliott and my Great Grandmother Cora (Packer) Shea. It was taken at the home of their parents around about the early 1920s.  I could certainly be mistaken but I think Grandma Shea is wearing a wedding band which would make it 1922 or later. Ninety percent of my earlier pictures of Aunt Grace have a very sour expression. This one’s more “trying-not-to-look-like-I-could-possibly-be-happy” and it is very similar—both due to features and the expression—to at least two of my close living relatives. Any guesses?

Happy hunting!

Jess

These are the headstones of John Long and John Long Jr, at Pioneer Cemetery in Rockford, Michigan. Per John Jr.’s entry in Chapman’s History of Kent County, John Long brought his family to the area in 1844 and settled in Sec. 27. John Jr. married Maria Chaffee and they had two children William H. and Hiram. William H. married Almeda Porter the sister of my 3^rd Great Grandfather George Porter.

Happy hunting,

Jess

I love this picture! These are the oldest of the Trotter brothers—three of my uncles and my father. This was probably taken around 1965 or 1966 based on their sister’s graduation photo on the mantel behind them.

Happy hunting,

Jess

Today is the 126^th Anniversary of my Grandma Porter’s birth. This makes her and Grandpa Porter’s headstone the perfect pick for this week’s Tombstone Tuesday. This is the resting place of Lula Vanche (Holden) Porter and her husband Charles Erwin “Winn” Porter. The photo is from Courtland Cemetery in Courtland Township, Michigan the final resting place of many members of the Holden and Porter families. It was taken by me in the winter of 2002.

Happy Hunting,

Jess

This is a somewhat arbitrary fact pulled from my database program, given I’m still missing a bunch of birth dates. But with the dates that I do know, there are just short of 200 people born in September. And more importantly, there are nine people who have birthdays today—and three of those are very important people in my life: my Grandpa Bill would have turned 84, and my Great Aunts, June and Donna are both celebrating birthdays today.

For some reason I couldn’t find a nice 1960s shot of Aunt June.

The honorable mentions of the day are all more distant relatives:

• Elizabeth Botruff (the sister-in-law of my 4^th Great Aunt Livina Botruff)
• Fannie Eldred (the 2^nd wife of my 3^rd Great Uncle Floyd Clifton Porter, Charles’s brother)
• Peter Lorne Chesney (the grandnephew of my 3^rd Great Aunt Sarah Maria (Packer) Chesney)
• Peter Dowdall (the  first cousin once removed of my 2^nd Great Grandmother Ellen (Cunningham) Shea)
• George Delbert Covell (my 2^nd Cousin, four times removed)
• Robert John Rennick (an honorary nephew of my Great Grandmother Flora Packer)

Happy Birthday to you all!

Jess

This is the only picture I’ve been able to find of my Great Great Grandfather William Amos Johnson. He is the young gentleman in the center of this Johnson Family picture.

This is a photo that was printed in Cannon Township 1837-1983, a publication of the Cannon Township Historical Society (Kent County, Michigan).  The others in the portrait are: his brothers Herbert and Freeman both standing, and then, seated in front: his sister Sarah (Johnson) Cramer, his father William Suffling Johnson, himself, his mother Mary (Gordon) and his sister Edith (Johnson) Miller. The picture was taken around 1890.

Happy hunting,

Jess

This is the headstone of my Great Grandparents. I never met either Harrison or Rhodie but I’ve heard stories and seen fabulous pictures. They are buried in the cemetery at the Palestine AME Church in Johnsville, Bradley County, AR.

I learned more about my family walking around this cemetery with my Father, Aunt, Grandmother, and a few cousins for a couple of hours in 1999 than I did in years of solitary research. It is a memory I treasure.

Happy Hunting!

Jess

This is a Bailey family picture. That’s definitely my Grandpa Bailey’s mother, Lizzie, in the back but I’m not sure which sons are pictured here. Yes, Aunts and Uncles, this is a test to see who’s reading.

Happy hunting,

Jess

I now feel like I have just enough of a backlog of digital images to participate in the meme “Tombstone Tuesday”… so, the next up is in honor of my Great Great Grandmother who was laid to rest 84 years ago yesterday.

This is the headstone for my Great Great Grandmother Lena Grove (Baker) Johnson. She was the 5^th child and youngest daughter of Eugene and Amelia (Grove) Baker born 16 Apr 1884. At the age of 18 she married William Amos Johnson, the youngest son of William Suffling and Mary (Gordon) Johnson. The family spent a number of years in Traverse City, Michigan where William worked as a plumber but in 1923 they moved back to Rockford, Michigan. She died five years later on 03 Sep 1928 after a six month illness leaving one grown son, Robert Eugene, and a 10 year old daughter, Betty Lou.

Lena is buried with her husband in the Rockford Cemetery, in Rockford, Michigan. When you take the main entrance to the cemetery if you follow the center path and take the next left the Johnson plot will be on the left hand side of the path. Interestingly on my last trip the stones were essentially in the right location but up out of the ground beside their normal spots. Given the tremendous shifting over the years I’m not terribly surprised.

Happy hunting,

Jess