Tag: Sara Jane Fesler

12 Ancestors in 12 Months, Genealogy, My Family Tree

Month 3: Females

Becky

The dynamic between mothers and daughters is one of the most intense relationships that I feel has ever been developed. I’m not sure why, exactly. I know for the past year especially I have had more issues with my daughter than I have at any other period of her life. Between skipping school, arguments about grades (apparently I’m offensive because I wanted C’s or higher? To be fair my son gives me the same amount of lip about it and as a person who got more A’s than C’s in high school, I feel I’m being generous), and the latest one seems to be about curfew (so angry at this she up and left a month ago and has yet to return, I’m quite confident she isn’t coming back, my hubby seems to hold out hope – she feels she is 18 and doesn’t need a time to be home, I feel she is living in my house and should still follow some rules, but let me add I’ve included if she just lets us know where she is she can stay out later, just let us know when you’re going to be home). But I digress.

I remember a year or so ago when I was researching my second-great-grandfather, Randall Childers, that one of his daughters knew where he was at when he up and left Pennsylvania and moved to Tennessee. Well, maybe I am overstating, I’m not sure if Jennie Childers May knew where her father had relocated, but seeing her name as the “next of kin” on his paperwork was a surprise to me.

I remember when first finding the memorial for Sara Jane Fesler on Find A Grave where in the paragraph below it stated the “issues” that Randall and Sara had in their marriage. When I saw that Randall had died in Tennessee, I just assumed he’d left his family behind for a different life. I was never approving of his marrying a second time, and I always wondered what Sara thought. Was she happy he was gone? Sad? Mad? I could see myself going back and forth between the latter two emotions.

But for some reason things changed for me when I found a document on Ancestry from the US Homes for Disabled Soldiers that noted in 1905 that Randall was a widower and that his next of kin was Mrs. A. S. May, I was somewhat blown away. I suppose there is that chance she had no idea… but what if Jennie knew? I don’t think I’d be happy if my dad told the government my mom was dead when she wasn’t.

But what if Jennie didn’t get along with Sara? What if she was a daddy’s girl? (As I myself am). Did she know of her dad’s new life in Tennessee? Did she keep such information from her mother? Did Sara even want to know? These are questions I’ll never have the answer too.

My own situation has really got me thinking about my own ancestors and how well all the mothers and daughters got along. I believe my mom got along with my grandma pretty well, at least I don’t recall her getting into any big kerfuffle with her. Now my older sister and my mom use to get into it, I didn’t as much but I watched and learned. I saw how mouthing off to my mother didn’t get my sister anywhere, so I would make my mom mad by sitting there and just letting her get her anger out. I often thought my mom wouldn’t even be that mad at my sister, she was just looking for someone to argue with and she happened to be an easy target. Well, maybe that’s being a bit too blunt, my mom knew exactly what to do to push my sister’s buttons. And frankly, my sister did the same to my mom.

I feel that females have much stronger emotions compared to men. Granted part of that could just be our ability to overthink everything. And I believe that these feelings tend to get the best of us, but this is what makes us females so wonderful.

Did you have some feisty females in your family? Feel free to share in the comments below.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, My Family Tree, Paternal Side

Week 32: In the City

Becky

This week’s theme for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is “In the City”. I’ll admit this one was hard, because most of the relatives I have focused my research on were born and died in Pennsylvania, in one of the following counties: Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Fulton, Huntingdon, or Somerset. Granted on my mom’s side they either came from England and settled in Ohio or they were born in Massachusetts and moved to Potter County, Pennsylvania. But finding someone who was born in a small town and moved to a big city was not anything my ancestors did.

But then I remembered my 5th-great-grandfather, Ebenezer Oakman, who was born in Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts and moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts

With land purchased from the Indians, Lynn, was founded in 1629, specializing in the manufacture of leather shoes, eventually becoming the ladies shoe center of the world, even getting Congress to place a protective tariff on the shoes.

In 1850 Lynn officially became a city and they had another claim to fame as the General Electric Company was born in 1892 by the merging of Edison Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric.

Today, Lynn is the 9th largest city in the state of Massachusetts and is close to 4 miles north of Boston located on the Atlantic Ocean.

Ebenezer Oakman

Ebenezer Oakman was born 8 August 1775 in Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts when it was still a part of British Colonial America, to Isaac Oakman and Elizabeth Lathe. He married Hannah Stocker on 13 October 1796 and they went on to have six children: Rebeca, Hannah, Elizabeth, Ebenezer Phillip, Sally, and Squires, all born between 1797 and 1805 (this was found using a document I found at AmericanAncestors).

In 1802 Ebenezer began a shoe factory in East Saugus with large expansions in 1807 and 1810, where he then had the largest shoe factory in the area. He would make the shoes in Massachusetts and then take them to be sold in Philadelphia, however in 1818 he moved the entire business to Philly.

One of the reasons for the move was that Ebenezer’s wife, Hannah, died on 27 March 1812. He then met and married Anna Bruce Ansley in approximately 1814 where they then had seven children between 1815 and 1832: Joseph, Robert, Agnes, Jane, Isaac, John, and William.

It appears around 1850 Ebenezer and Anna separated and he moved to and died in Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts at the age of 78 on 6 September 1854 (she moved to Illinois with Isaac).

My Lineage

I am related to Ebenezer Oakman through his oldest son, Ebenezer, through his daughter, Mary Elizabeth who was born in Philadelphia to his wife, Mary Catherine White. Mary married George Henry Fesler and their oldest daughter is my 2nd-great-grandmother, Sara Jane Fesler. She married Randall Childers and had Bertha Childers, who married the younger Andrew Jackson Blair and their son Leroy was my grandfather.

Here is the direct relationship from my grandfather, Leroy Blair, to my 5th-great-grandfather, Ebenezer Oakman using FamilySearch

As a girl who was quite fond of trendy shoes back in my college days (well, we can just sum it up as the 1990’s in general) I was really excited when I learned of my ancestors owning a leather shoe store. I’ve not yet uncovered what happened with the shoe store (one of the online blurbs I read stated they traded the store for land in Bedford County but at this time I have nothing to back this up), but I would love to know if maybe this company turned into a brand that I myself wore.

Always more to learn.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, My Family Tree, Paternal Side

Week 20: Cousin Bait

Becky

For this week’s theme for Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, the topic is “cousin bait”. Where I sometimes look ahead and in my mind begin processing what I’m going to write about for the upcoming week, this week I was a bit hesitant as I wanted to make sure what she meant by “cousin bait”. I know it’s meeting cousins essentially, and for all intents and purposes what I wrote about on my DNA week would work for this week too. In that post I wrote about the cousins that I have connected with that are DNA matches. But this week I will discuss 2 cousin’s I’ve met because of my blog.

My Morgart Cousin

It’s been close to two months since I was contacted via Facebook Messenger by Linda. I was surprised as they were doing some research on Peter Morgart and came across my blog. It caught me by surprised, but I suppose it shouldn’t have.

I wrote about Peter Morgart early on as I was so excited to find out my 5th-great-grandfather fought in the American Revolution at the battle of Yorktown and saw Cornwallis surrender to George Washington.

And here I had a fellow Morgart descendent find my post and then contact me!

I was just a little excited. Linda was away on vacation when she contacted me so we haven’t really delved into our families but we got as far as my 2nd-great-grandfather, George Washington Morgart, is the brother of her great-grandmother, Rachel Snell Morgart. There is about a 13.5 year age difference between the two, George being the oldest male, and Rachel being the second-youngest female (there were 10 total children born to their parents, Andrew Jackson Morgart and Rebecca Margaret O’Neal).

George Washington Morgart

George Washington Morgart was born 20 Aug 1849 in Providence Township, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a farmer, and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree as he became a farmer, too. When his father died 19 Aug 1870, George inherited his father’s land and the role to take care of the family as he was the oldest son. His brother, James Henry, was also to assist in taking care of the family, but he was just 12 when his father passed.

On 27 June 1872 George married Mary Ann Ritchey. They had at least 5 children that I can confirm, Charles Jackson Morgart, Edward Daniel Morgart, Anna Rebekah Morgart, Stella Mary Morgart, and Altie Pearl Morgart.

He died unexpectedly 5 May 1895 at the age of 45. He was a well-respected citizen and a practical farmer who “died tilling the same soil where he was born”.

Everett Press, Friday 10 May 1895 found using Newspapers.com

Rachel Snell Morgart

Rachel Snell Morgart was born 24 February 1863 in Providence Township, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. She was the 8th of 10 children born to Andrew Jackson Morgart and Rebecca Margaret O’Neal. But unlike George who farmed the land he was raised on, following the steps of his dad, Rachel went west.

In the 1885 Census for North Dakota Territory, at the age of 22 Rachel Morgart is listed as a teacher. In 1895 she married a farmer and minister, Daniel Halfpenny, who was also Canadian. In 1908 he became a Naturalized Citizen of the United States.

Rachel and Daniel went on to have 5 daughters: Dorothy, Ruth, Margaret, Mary Kathryn (Margaret & Mary Kathryn were twins) and Rebecca between 1896-1908.

She passed away 29 September 1937 in Fargo, North Dakota after being in a car accident on 5 September 1937. It notes that the car was driven by her son but I don’t see a son on any of the censuses from 1900 to 1920. Perhaps it was a son-in-law?

Minneapolis Star, 1 October 1937, found on Newspapers.com

My Childers Cousin

I think I spooked this cousin off because he had once done genealogy and found my blog as well. Our common ancestor is Randall Childers who I wrote about on the week that the theme was Multiple. We will keep him anonymous and just call him “He”, but he messaged me about 2 weeks after Linda and I was so excited about the brick wall he mentioned that I sent him my Thrulines of what options were being suggested for where the line stops and I never heard from him again.

Stupid, stupid, Becky.

But I have been a good girl and haven’t emailed him again. I’m here should he want to talk again. He descends from Randall Childers and Sara Fesler’s youngest son, Charles Peter Childers, while I descend from their daughter, Bertha. Bertha is also on the younger end of Randall and Sara’s children being seventh out of 9 children, with Charles being #9.

In Conclusion

I am so happy I have met both He and Linda. I look forward to being able to touch base more with Linda to put more pieces of our genealogical puzzle together. I am hopeful I hear back from He at some point. I really need to control my enthusiasm sometimes.

I enjoyed learning what I have about Rachel Morgart Halfpenny and find her so brave to head west to teach. I could never do something so adventurous. I wonder if her reason for moving west is something that has been passed down through her family. Her younger brother, William Baltzer Morgart, also headed west and was buried in Idaho, perhaps he has something to do with it?

As for George, his family fell apart shortly after his death. His daughter, Altie, died 3 months after he did with heart issues, his wife committed suicide 13 years later, and his oldest son did the same 9 years after his mom. Just sad. I don’t think my great-great-grandmother ever got over the loss of her first husband (she re-married Bartley Hughes who owned the farm next door a few years after George passed away) and daughter. I have yet to find anything to figure out why my great-grandfather, Charles Jackson Morgart hanged himself.