Monday Is for Mothers: Aunt Ann?

I believe the woman in this portrait from my great grandmother's photo album is Elizabeth Anna Worden Peregoy (1839-1887) because there's a note that says "Aunt Ann" and she's the only relative that I know of who could be called that. If I'm right she's one of my maternal third great aunts--her brother Dick Worden* is my great great grandfather.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

Originally born in New York State, she moved to Iowa with her parents in the early 1850s and married Stephen W. Peregoy (1836-1883) in Brown Township, Linn County, in 1862.

Stephen enlisted in Company G, Iowa 4th Infantry Regiment just after the birth of their second child C.J.** in 1864 in Fairview, Jones County and served about seven months before he was mustered out on May 31, 1865.***

By the 1870 federal census the Peregoy family, with the addition two more children, were living in Richmond Township, in Ray County, Missouri. Ten years later they had moved on to Bourbon County, Kansas, with their five surviving children.***

Records indicate that Stephen died in Fairview in 1883 and his wife survived him by almost five years, although we don't know the exact date or place she died.



*I've written about my ancestor's Civil War experiences on this blog, starting here.
**We only know his initials and C.J. died in 1867.
***Given that date and that he was in Washington DC at the time, it's very likely that he had marched in the Grand Review of the Armies a week earlier.
****Their daughter Rachel, born in 1866 died at the age of 11.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Clinton Samuel Tomlinson (1860 - 1904) & Ann Eversole Tomlinson (1868 - 1949)

Clinton, my first cousin three times removed, attended Northwestern University, Class of 1886 and was undoubtedly the first of his family to graduate from college.*

[Commencement program for Northwestern University. 28th annual commencement, 1886.

Source: Internet Archive]

His first job after graduation was as the editor of the Boone (Iowa) Republican which remembered him respectfully years later:

[Boone News Republican, December 6, 1915, p. 43]

As stated in the above piece, after two years Clinton's next step was the editorship of the Daily Republican in Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, which is where he met and married 23-year-old teacher Ann Eversole in 1891.

By 1900 the couple were living in Chicago and Clinton was the editor of the Chicago Dry Goods Reporter, a trade publication of the garment industry.** No occupation is listed for Ann.

[Dry Goods Reporter. Chicago, January 1900. Source: Hathi Trust Digital Library]

However Ann Eversole Tomlinson's name appears in newspaper stories across America later that year.

[Chicago Daily News Thursday, Apr 19, 1900 Chicago, IL Page: 5.

Source: Genealogy Bank.]

Clinton's view of his wife's possible inheritance appeared on the same day as the above article:

[19 Apr 1900, 2 - Chicago Tribune at Newspapers.com]

The next information I found about the couple is Clinton's 1904 obituary

[30 Oct 1904, 5 - Chicago Tribune at Newspapers.com]

While I haven't found any further newspaper reports confirming the amount Ann received from her ancestor's estate, her lifestyle as a widow seems to indicate that she was a wealthy woman. Next week we'll look at her career after Clinton's death.



*With honors too.
**Many editions of the Dry Goods Reporter are available digitally through the Hathi Trust and Google Books. They offer a fascinating insight into the fashions of the times.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Porter Worden (1811 - 1891) Cooper & Farmer

If we had to rely only on the census records to follow this 3X great grandfather and his family we wouldn't know about several of the places he and his wife Hannah lived after they left their home state of New York. Fortunately his 1891 obituary in the Anamosa Eureka has come to light.

[Detail of a joint portrait of Porter and Hannah Leonard, c1860, Anamosa, Iowa.

Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

[Iowa  Anamosa  The Anamosa Eureka   Thursday , February 26th , 1891.

Source: Digital Archives of the Jones County Genealogical Society.]

                  PORTER WORDEN
   Died, at the residence of Thurston Joslin, his
son-in-law, Feb 15, 1891 Porter Worden. He was
born in Oswego county New York, May 12, 1811,
was married to Hannah M. Leonard in the year
1838, ten children being the fruit of this union.
He came to Iowa in 1853. In the course of time he
moved to Missouri, lived in Nebraska for a time
and later returned to Iowa. In early life he
united with the Methodist church but in after
years united with the Baptist church at Fairview,
of which he was a consistent member at the time
of his death. The companion of his youth died in
Nebraska in January, 1887, at the age of 74 years.
They leave a family of eight children living. Six
of them were present to assist in caring for him.
He was a great sufferer in the last days but mur
mured not. He looked forward to the time when
he would soon be free from trouble. He fell asleep
in Jesus. His remains were followed to the church
by many relatives and friends, where services were
held, and then they bore him to Wilcox ceme-
tery where he now rests to aait the summons to arise.
  Mr. and Mrs.Joslin wish to tender their thanks
to the friends for their kind assistance in this
time of trouble.
                                      D. GIVEN, Pastor.

The information in the obituary would have been supplied by his children including Polly Ann Joslin and it mostly agrees with the records we have except that Porter was actually born in Cayuga County, New York--his family moved to Oswego when he was about five years old.

Hannah's family lived in Jefferson County, New York, and that's where she and Porter were living at the time of the 1840 and 1850 federal censuses. They moved to Iowa* within a year of her father Isaac Leonard's second marriage to a much younger woman.

His occupation was listed as "Cooper" in the 1850 U.S. Census, but in all later enumerations he was a farmer.

*First to Linn County before moving on to Fairview in Jones County by 1870. Neither their move to Missouri, possibly in connection with their daughter Elizabeth Anna and her husband Steven Peregoy who moved their family to Missouri around 1870, nor their sojourn in Nebraska (and Hannah's death there) would be known except for the obituary. Since their granddaughter (and my great grandmother) Elnora Worden Webb and her family had moved to Know County in 1885 it's likely that influenced Porter and Hannah's move there.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Currey - Summer, 1957

Written on the cardboard slide holder of this photo is "1957 - Curved driveway at home - truck + trailer" which indicates it was the start of the shortest summer trip we ever took.

Probably taken sometime in late May--we usually left before the official end of the school year--it's not evident from this photo, but I was just coming down with chicken pox, a particularly uncomfortable situation as we headed east across the desert toward toward our goal--Arkansas.*

Lured by tales of cheap land that would eventually lead both of Dad's sisters to leave San Diego, this was to be an exploratory trip. However, from our first night in Arkansas which ended in Dad's admission to the Fayetteville hospital due to his first kidney stone attack to the trailer fire closely following a flat tire on the day we fled the state several weeks later,** a series of unfortunate events made it clear that the Fates had decided against any such move on the Curreys' part.***

We were back in San Diego County in July and spent the rest of the summer camping in the Lagunas.**** It was the most "normal" summer vacation I ever had.

[From my personal collection]

*The swamp cooler on the truck's passenger-side window is a clue that we were expecting hot weather ahead.
**Midway through the trip we crossed into Missouri for a pleasant and uneventful visit to Roaring River State Park.
***And Mother and Dad had quickly realized that desirable land in Arkansas wasn't cheap either.
****So far I haven't been able to locate any other photos from the Arkansas trip. Perhaps the curse continues?


© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Missouri, Death Certificates, 1910-1962 now on Ancestry

The Ancestry search form for the Missouri, Death Certificate, 1910-1962.

"Missouri Death Certificates, 1910 - 1964" has been available free for years from the Missouri Digital Heritage through the Missouri Secretary of State's office.  Now it looks like Ancestry has incorporated a search form for that collection through its Ancestry Web Search.

You don't have to have an account with Ancestry to search these records, it just provides a link to the Missouri site--Ancestry already does this with FindAGrave, among other sources.  While the FindAGrave search form on Ancestry is a big improvement on the original site's search form (as I covered here), I found the Ancestry search form for the Missouri Death Certificates to be only slightly more flexible (you can search exact date of death instead of just year and month, and you can also search other locations beside death place).

The advanced search page for the Missouri site.

For an Ancestry user this is a nice addition to the search.  If you are not an Ancestry user you can go directly to the free Missouri site.


A "Brief History of Vital Records in Missouri" here.  There is also a "Missouri Birth & Death Records Database, Pre-1910" that is not as comprehensive as the 1910-1964, but still worth a look.  Ancestry has a collection, "Missouri, Death Records, 1834-1910," that may or may not contain the same set of records as the pre-1910 mentioned above (it's not clear to me, although the Ancestry database description indicates that it comes from the Missouri state archives).



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.