Monday Is for Mothers: Violet Cora (Porter) Cook, Her Son Calvin & Dallas Baby Camp - 1927

Violet is one of my paternal grandmother's sisters which makes her my great aunt. As far as I can tell she married a man named Roy or Ross Cook sometime between 1925, when she was listed in the Dallas City Directory and 1927 when Calvin was born in Wichita Falls, Texas.

As you can see in Calvin's birth certificate, his father's given name is listed as Roy (or possibly Ray).

[Ancestry.com. Texas, Birth Certificates, 1903-1932 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas Birth Certificates, 1903–1932. iArchives, Orem, Utah.]

Although Roy (or Ray) Cook isn't an uncommon name and there are several candidates for Calvin's father, I'm not prepared to claim that any of them are the right man.

Baby Calvin only lived for one month and 1 day before his death in Dallas. According to the death certificate he was born prematurely.

[Ancestry.com. Texas, Death Certificates, 1903-1982 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas Death Certificates, 1903–1982. Austin, Texas, USA.]

What caught my eye was the place of death, Dallas Baby Camp. So I decided to do a bit of research which led me to a 1947 newspaper clipping about its history.

[3 Jan 1947, Page 3 - The Courier-Gazette at Newspapers.com]

I also located this article published five years ago by the Dallas Morning News which gives a more comprehensive overview of the Baby Camp.

[Dallas News powered by the Dallas Morning News]

The next public record for Violet is the 1930 U.S. Census where she's a widow living in her mother's house (along with several of her sisters, including my grandmother and my father).

In the next census ten years later, Violet, now single, was still living with her mother and extended family. She died in 1944 and here's her death certificate which states that she died of encephalitis of 15 years duration which would put the onset of the disease back to 1929. Perhaps that's why in both the 1930 and 1940 federal enumerations no occupation is listed for Violet.

[Ancestry.com. Texas, Death Certificates, 1903-1982 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas Death Certificates, 1903–1982. Austin, Texas, USA.]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fashion Question? Whoopee Booties - The Style Success of the Season

Do you think one of your ancestors might have worn these in 1929?

[Sears Roebuck catalog, Fall 1929 - from the witness2fashion blog on Wordpress]

I found this image on one of my favorite blogs: witness2fashion which is a great resource, especially for "ordinary" clothing styles of the 1920s and 30s.*

I can picture my paternal grandmother Letta Estella Porter (1901-1974) donning a pair, though it doesn't appear that's what she was wearing in this snapshot taken in Dallas, Texas, on August 18th of that year.

[Courtesy of James E. Turnbull III]

*The blog also covers clothing styles of other decades as well.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Letta Estella Porter (1901 - 1974)

I have three pictures of my paternal grandmother, all courtesy of a descendant of her youngest son James Edward Turnbull.

The oldest one, probably taken in Gulfport, Mississippi, in about 1909, shows Letta Estella in the middle surrounded by her mother and siblings. Her brother Herbert's holding a cute dog but no one is looking very happy.

[Orville Porter - upper left, Chester Porter - lower left, Herbert Porter - upper center, Estella Porter - lower center, Caroline Celestine Porter - upper right, and Violet Porter - lower right. Mother Caroline "Carrie" Celestine Avery has Violet on her lap.

Courtesy of J.E. Turnbull, III.]

In the next picture Letta Estella and her third husband James Edward Turnbull look like they're really enjoying themselves. I've included the back of the photo which someone has dated August 18, 1929, in Dallas, Texas.

[Courtesy of James E. Turnbull III]

[Courtesy of James E. Turnbull III]

The final image of my grandmother is a formal portrait which looks like it might have been taken in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

[Courtesy of James E. Turnbull III]

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Bird's Eye View Maps

Ad for the upcoming Boston bird's eye view map in 1865.
"Bird's Eye View of Boston," ad, Boston Evening Transcript (Boston, MA), p 3, col 4, 13 Jan 1865; digital image, GenealogyBank (http://www.genealogybank.com : accessed 15 Oct 2015).

A while back I did a brief post about the bird's eye maps available at Big Map Blog.  Today I will give some more examples and places to find such maps.

The map is 2ft by 2ft 10in, and went for $10 (a relative value of about $150 in today's money).  Follow the link below to see the map, which you can zoom way in on.  "Bird's eye view of Boston," map, drawn by B. F. Nutting and created by J. Mayer & Co, published by B. B. Russell & Co (Boston), 1866; digital image, Digital Commonwealth Massachusetts Collections Online (https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:x059cb10w : accessed 15 Oct 2015).

Same basic view in 2015 via Google Earth with 3D buildings.  What a world we live in when I can just generate this view on the fly in a few minutes, while Nutting et al had to spend months producing one view!  The original lithograph was supposed to be about 2000 ft elevation, this view is about 2700 feet.  I guess some of the harbor has been filled in since 1865.

Lower left of the map, showing trains (today's North Station). 

Closeup of some of the wharves.

Closeup of the Frog Pond area (the "Common and Public Garden").

Amon Carter Museum's "Texas Bird's-Eye Views" has some great information, including artists' bios, and teaching resources (which are geared for public schools but can be used by genealogists to think about different ways these maps can be used).

A call for subscribers.  "Bird's-Eye View of Dallas," Dallas Weekly Herald (Dallas, Texas), 28 Dec 1872, vol XX, issue 16, p 2, col 1; digital image, GenealogyBank (http://www.genealogybank.com : accessed 15 Oct 2015).

These calls for subscribers proved successful:

Snapshot of Herman Brosius. Bird’s Eye View of the City of Dallas Texas 1872, 1872. Lithograph (hand-colored), 15.8 x 22.9 in. Lithographer unknown. Dallas Historical Society.

If you go to the site you can zoom way in, and the accompanying text includes some more detail and discussion on selected buildings/structures, as well as comparisons of later similar maps:

An example of the Texas Bird's-Eye Views features.  I love this kind of analysis.

I'm a fan of maps in general, but these "3D" or panoramic maps take things to another level by presenting cities the way we usually see them, not directly above.  If you have ancestors in cities at the time any of these maps were produced (you can start at Texas Bird's-Eye Views (for Texas), Big Map Blog, Historic Map Works,  David Rumsey Map Collection, and of course the Library of Congress) you have an opportunity to understand better where they were living and how that would impact how they lived and what they did.




© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.