Working on Wednesday: George Marion Tomlinson (1839 - 1922) Farmer

We're fortunate to have several pictures of this maternal great great grandfather although none of him as a young man so we don't know when he began to sport the short beard we see in all the photos.*

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

The first record we've found for George Tomlinson is in the 1850 U.S. Census when he was 11, still living with his parents Jesse and Catharine (Gaskill) Tomlinson in Madison County, Ohio.

["United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-6QL2-JB?cc=1401638&wc=95RW-JW1%3A1031310001%2C1031549001%2C1031403901 : 9 April 2016), Ohio > Madison > Union > image 31 of 40; citing NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).]

The Tomlinson's moved to Washington County, Iowa, in about 1856 and four years later we find George and his 13-year=old brother Albert living with their widowed mother.**  Catharine's occupation is the only one listed, that of Farmer but we can be sure that 21-year-old George was doing his share of the work.

["United States Census, 1860," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9B9V-SXF?cc=1473181&wc=7QXT-G4G%3A1589426666%2C1589422318%2C1589428167 : 24 March 2017), Iowa > Washington > English River Township > image 12 of 34; from "1860 U.S. Federal Census - Population," database, Fold3.com (http://www.fold3.com : n.d.); citing NARA microfilm publication M653 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).]

On Christmas Eve of the same year, George married Elizabeth "Betsy" Taylor and their daughter Rufina was born January 3, 1863. When George registered for the Civil War draft six months later*** he was listed as "married" which marks the last time we can assume that Betsy was still alive. Thereafter she disappears completely from the records.

[Ancestry.com. U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Consolidated Lists of Civil War Draft Registrations, 1863-1865. NM-65, entry 172, 620 volumes. NAI: 4213514. Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau (Civil War), Record Group 110. National Archives at Washington D.C.]

Three years later on March 27, 1866, George married Amanda Darling (who happened to be the sister of one of my great great grandmothers Mercy Ann Darling Webb Walsh) in Jones County, Iowa.

In the 1870 U.S. Census record dated as of June 6th, George and his family were living in Greenwood County, Kansas, and had moved there sometime after the September 1869 birth of Albert, the youngest child listed.

[Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: 1870 U.S. census, population schedules. NARA microfilm publication M593, 1,761 rolls. Washington, D.C.]

By 1880 the Tomlinson household had grown, including several of George's extended family.

[1880 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Original data: Tenth Census of the United States, 1880. (NARA microfilm publication T9, 1,454 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29.

National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

Although we don't know exactly when George and Amanda left Kansas for Colorado, this 1893 list of electors who hadn't voted in the recent general election.

[Boulder Daily Camera (Boulder, Boulder County) Monday, December 11, 1893

Page: 3 http://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/]

By 1900 only their daughter May and grandson William (Albert's son) were living with George and Amanda on their farm in Boulder County.

[1900 United States Federal Census. Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.Original data - United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.:

National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 18]

Mabel (who didn't marry until 1915) was the only other person living with her parents at the time of the 1910 U.S. Census. They're living on a country road in Boulder County.

[1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910 (NARA microfilm publication T624, 1,178 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census,

Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

Finally, in the 1920 U.S. Census, George no longer gives his occupation as a farmer; my 80-year-old great great grandfather and his wife are listed as have "none" in that column.

Amanda died in April of the following year and by that November George's health had declined so he entered the Boulder Sanitarium where he died on August 30, 1922.

[Longmont Ledger, September 8, 1922 .Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection]

George and Amanda are buried in the Niwot Cemetery.


*Here's a group portrait taken at the same time as the the one I extracted George's image from in this post; here's the golden wedding anniversary celebration of  he and his second wife in 1916; and here's a 1918 snapshot of he and his clan returning home from camping.
**Jesse died in 1857.
***The occupation of every man on the page was listed as Farmer.
© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Opal May Slater (1890 - 1973) Part 1

Christine and I have already shared images of this maternal great aunt including posts showing a 1902 group portrait of Severy, Kansas, grammar school graduates with Opal and her brother Harry* sitting in the front row; a high school group photograph, also in Severy; a picture of the 1908 Severy girls' basketball team; a 1912 newspaper clipping about the Aesthetic Dance movement in Boulder; a late 1930s photo with her mother Rufina and a friend; and a 1954 snapshot of her and her brother Harry's wife and youngest son and his new bride Washington, D.C. But Opal, who I've been told had a great influence on my mother Alta, certainly deserves a closer look at her many achievements.

Here's a picture of her at the time of her high school graduation, probably in 1908.

[Detail of graduation group portrait. Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

She went on to graduate from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1915, a year later than her younger brother Cecil, and she continued the teaching career she'd begun in Kansas before the family moved to Colorado.

Here are the 1910 and 1920 U.S. Census listings for Opal (the yellow lines), first in Kansas and then in Colorado.

[Year: 1910; Census Place: Twin Groves, Greenwood, Kansas; Roll: T624_441; Page: 11A;

Enumeration District: 0037; FHL microfilm: 1374454. Source: Ancestry.com]

[Year: 1920; Census Place: Boulder Ward 3, Boulder, Colorado; Roll: T625_156; Page: 10B;

Enumeration District: 51; Image: 466.Source: Ancestry.com]

But Opal wasn't done with her education and she set her sights high, becoming one of the first group of women to be awarded a Harvard degree from their School of Education** in 1921. (Yes, THAT Harvard!)

Come back next week for more about this amazing woman.


*My grandfather.
**M. Edu. according to a newspaper report.

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Anna Delilah Webb (1891 - 1973)

There's never been any doubt that my maternal grandmother married Harry Allen Slater on September 15, 1916, in Boulder Colorado. After all we had their marriage certificate and a newspaper clipping about the event from her local Knox County, Nebraska, newspaper.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

So this morning when I opened our Ancestry.com tree and saw this hint for Harry A. Slater I decided to check it out.

This database links to a FamilySearch image which we'd already added to my grandparents' profiles but hadn't put in a post yet.

[Ancestry.com]

We haven't found a wedding photograph of the couple although there may be one lurking in the Slater family archive.

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Slater

When she handed this uncaptioned photo over to me to scan back in 2011, Cousin Sue said to me, "If you can figure out what this one is, you're a genius."

Alas, if that's the test of genius, I fail miserably. But there are some things I've been able to discover.

First, since the car parked closest to the viewer appears to be a 1940 Chevrolet which doesn't look particularly new, the photo must have been taken after that model's release.* 

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

The next snapshot seems to have been taken at the same time and shows a group of little girls posed in front of their school.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

City directories for 1940 and 1943 Boulder area list Alta as a resident of Niwot though no occupation is given.** And her brother Jack's obituary published in January of 1944 includes the information that she was teaching in Arizona at that time.***

So I'm guessing that these two photos were taken while she was teaching in the Boulder area before Alta left for Arizona, probably in time for the start of school in September, 1943.

Maybe someone will recognize the school.


*The vehicle parked next to it is a 1939 Chevy. The last car is at least a decade older and there's not enough of it showing for me to identify its make. The angle of the cars makes it very difficult to recognize the license plates.
**From her 1983 interview in Casa Grande we learned that Alta  "When I got out of school there wasn't anything I could do," Alta laughed, "so I had to go back and get teaching credentials." Records show that Alta was gaining experience as a teacher as early as October 1938.
***Only the state is mentioned.



© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Rufina Ellen "Fina" Tomlinson (1863 - 1943), Part 2

I just realized that two months have passed since I posted the first part of the story of this maternal great great grandmother, ending with the death of her husband Lewis Logan Slater on July 19, 1905, leaving her a widow with four children.

["Slaters in Severy:" I think Fina is the woman in white standing on the far right next to her mother-in-law Sarah Matthews Slater; Opal is the young woman standing in the middle of the group.]

By the 1910 U.S. Census, only her two younger children were still living with Fina on Main Street in Severy, Kansas.* Her occupation was listed as dressmaker and daughter Opal was teaching at a local school.

[Enumeration District : 0037; Description: Twin Groves Township including Severy City. Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910 (NARA microfilm publication T624, 1,178 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. ]

[Main Street, Severy, Kansas, 1911; Images of Kansas Towns and Cities.

Special Collections and University Archives, Wichita State University Libraries]

By 1911 she and Opal were listed as residents at 803 Marine Street in Boulder, Colorado, where Fina continued her dressmaking business. Cecil wasn't in this directory--he would have been barely 18 by then and perhaps considered too young to be included.**

[Title : Boulder, Colorado, City Directory, 1911. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.]

Two years later Cecil, by then a chemistry student at the nearby University of Colorado, had his own directory listing. The family had moved to 902 Marine Street and Fina supplemented income from her dressmaking business by renting out furnished rooms.

[Title : Boulder, Colorado, City Directory, 1913. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line].

Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.]

The 1920 U.S. Census enumerator found Fina and Opal living at 863 Marine Street in rented quarters that they appear to share with Martin Little and his wife Anita. Fina was still engaged in dressmaking and Opal was teaching at a local high school.

[Enumeration District : 0051; Description: Boulder City, Ward 3 (part) including Boulder Calaboose (No inmates), bounded by Pearl, 12th, University Ave, City limits. Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. ]

Two years later Fina's father George Marion Tomlinson died at a local Sanitarium on August 30th, 1922, having been ill since the preceding November. His second wife, Fina's step-mother Amanda Darling had died seven month before then.

We know from city directories that Fina remained in Boulder until at least 1932, living by herself while her sons Harry and Pete were living in Niwot; Opal was practicing law in Boston; and Cecil was working in Louisiana.***

Something (perhaps health reasons) made Fina decide to move to Omaha, Nebraska, and by 1935 she and Opal were renting apartment #19 at 202 22nd Street.

[Enumeration District : 94-47; Description: OMAHA CITY WARD 3 (AREA B - PART).  Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls.]

(We can catch glimpses of the building in these c.1940s snapshots of her grandson Jack Slater on a winter visit. You can see a picture of Fina and Opal taken during this period here.)

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

 [Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

Rufina Ellen Tomlinson Slater died  of myelogenous leukemia at St Joseph's Hospital in Omaha on July 13, 1943. She was buried in Twin Grove Cemetery in Severy, Kansas, where her husband Lewis Logan had been buried nearly four decades earlier.

[Creighton Memorial St. Joseph's Hospital, our lady of Victory in the background; The Tichnor Brothers Collection, Boston Public Library,

via digitalcommonwealth.org ]

[Find A Grave Memorial# 14305165. Photo by Judy Mayfield (#46636512)]

*Pete had obviously left the nest but I haven't been able to locate him in the 1910 census. My grandfather Harry was working as a pharmacist in Greenfield Township in Elk County, Kansas.
**I don't know who William T. or J. Archie Slater who are listed. There was a cousin named William T. but he appears to have moved to South Dakota by 1906 and remained there until at least 1940. In 1910 his oldest son another William T. was only 13.
***Opal and Cecil are long over-due for their post here and I promise I'll get to them soon.




© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Slater Family Reunion

If only I knew who any of these people are! (Could that be Rufina sitting by herself on the ground in the middle?) From the clothing styles I'm guessing this was taken sometime in the 1930s at the Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Tomlinsons in Hats

Actually only a couple of these fashionably attired young women are Tomlinsons--my great grandmother Fina's two half-sisters, Martha "Matt" E Tomlinson Burke (standing, top) and Mabel May Tomlinson Scott (seated, right). The picture was probably taken around 1893-96 based on the style of their clothes and hats.

Sadly we don't know who their friends are.

However the photographers are well known, Joseph Bevier Sturtevant, a colorful character who called himself "Rocky Mountain Joe," and his first wife Anna who opened a studio in Boulder in about 1884.*

*You can check out some of the Boulder scenes Sturtevant photographed during his career here.


© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Harry Allen Slater (1888 - 1956), Pharmacist, Farmer, Contractor

His widowed mother Rufina Ellen Tomlinson Slater wanted her children to seek professional careers (like their father Lewis Logan Slater, the lawyer) so my paternal grandfather Harry Allen Slater trained as a pharmacist while he was still living in Kansas, receiving his license in 1908. 

[The National Druggist, Volume 38; Publisher: H. R. Strong, 1908.

Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized: Nov 5, 2009]

According to the 1910 U.S. Census, 22-year-old Harry was boarding in the township of Greenfield in Elk County, Kansas, and working as a pharmacist.

[Year: 1910; Census Place: Greenfield, Elk, Kansas; Roll: T624_439; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 0119; FHL microfilm: 1374452. Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910 (NARA microfilm publication T624, 1,178 rolls).

Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. ]

We know that Harry played baseball for his employer's team in Kansas. (Unfortunately I haven't been able to decipher what the drugstore's name was.)

[Harry-second row center, Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

By 1916 Harry moved to Colorado, probably following his Tomlinson relatives, and he was working as a registered pharmacist as noted in the newspaper announcement of his marriage to Anna Delilah Webb (1891-1973) on September 15th of that year.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

But Harry wasn't happy with a job that kept him indoors and he left the pharmacy behind soon after his marriage.* He listed his occupation as a self-employed farmer in Niwot, Colorado, on his June 5, 1917, World War I Draft Registration Card.

[Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Original data: United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls. Imaged from Family History Library microfilm.]

Just as Harry was entering into farm life, a lot of  national attention was being given to the advantages of building silos out of concrete. It's clear from the pictures below that Harry was familiar with the silo building techniques shown in this bulletin from the Agricultural Experiment Station of the Colorado Agricultural Station published three years earlier.**

[Silos and Silage in Colorado, H. E. Dvorachek, Agricultural Experiment Station of the Agricultural College of Colorado, 1914.

Source: Google Books. ]

[Harry (right) building a silo 1917. Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

And that draft registration form is the only time I've found that Harry called himself a farmer. I think he found a contracting business more rewarding than farming.

After his brother Pete returned from serving in the Marines in 1919, they went into business together.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

In the 1920 U.S. Census, the focus of Harry's occupation is building silos "etc."

[Year: 1920; Census Place: Niwot, Boulder, Colorado; Roll: T625_156; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 29; Image: 51. Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

Original data: Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls).

Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. ]

[Detail of above]

But by the 1930 federal enumeration the Slater Brothers had left silos behind.

[Year: 1930; Census Place: Niwot, Boulder, Colorado; Roll: 230; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 0025; Image: 957.0; FHL microfilm: 2339965. Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002.

Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930. T626, 2,667 rolls.]

[Detail of above]

In the 1940 U.S. Census, Harry and Pete were living on the same street; both were engaged in plastering. From the columns on the far right, we can see that Harry worked 29 weeks during 1939 (and earned $800) while Pete only worked 12 weeks during the same period for $350.***

[Year: 1940; Census Place: Niwot, Boulder, Colorado; Roll: T627_457; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 7-24. Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls.]

[Detail of above]

The Harry and Pete are listed in Polk's Boulder City Directory for 1951.

[Residence date: 1951 Residence place: Boulder, Colorado. Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.]

My grandfather died from stomach cancer on October 8, 1956 at the age of 68 and is buried in Mountain View Memorial Park in Boulder. Apparently some of the walls he built are still standing in Niwot.


*And apparently his mother Fina never forgave his wife Annie for letting him do this.
**Google Books lists a number of other titles on the subject.
***Family stories tell us that Harry also became a stone mason and that he "bossed" a crew of workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression. (There are several photos and a description of the CCC camp in Boulder here. To read a short history of the CCC in Colorado, look here. (PDF)

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.