history and genealogy, by Fred Dews
On Memorial Day 2024, I’m recalling the service and sacrifice of another soldier who shares my surname Dews. We’re not directly related, but I’d like to share what little I have been able to discover about this (possible) very distant cousin, Joseph Garrett Dews. He was declared dead on June 3, 1951, in the Republic … Continue reading Memorial Day Tribute to Joseph G. Dews, Korean War artilleryman
My (step) great-grandmother Georgia Josey Hawthorne (1889-1984) was known for, among other habits, quilting. As a kid visiting older relatives in East Texas, and even in my own home in Dallas, I was constantly in the presence of if not using a quilt that she had made, or that one of her sons—my great uncles—had … Continue reading Granny Georgie’s quilts
My most recent immigrant ancestors emigrated to the United States from western Europe in the 1870s and '80s, all on my dad's side. His father was the son of an English immigrant father and a mother whose parents were Swedish immigrants. My dad's mother was the daughter of parents born in the United States to … Continue reading Mom’s corn fritters
This post replies to this week’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” theme from Amy Johnson Crow: “Social.” I've been scanning thousands of slides I inherited from my father that cover the years from the mid-1950s into the late 1980s, corresponding to his college days and then into his 50s, when the landscape of his life … Continue reading Bill and Sarah’s parties
This post replies to this week’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” theme from Amy Johnson Crow: “Document.” I found in my late mother's mass of papers a photocopy of a handwritten note titled, "Mama's Last Words, Effie Wrote Them Down." The script of the note is cursive. Somebody typed the title across the top of … Continue reading Mama’s Last Words
This post replies to this week’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” theme from Amy Johnson Crow: “Negatives” Of all the family history topics that rank in a list of negatives, having slavers in the tree must rank among the most negative. I've been pondering the fact of enslavers in my family tree for some time … Continue reading Enslavers in the family tree (part 1)
This post replies to this week’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” theme from Amy Johnson Crow: “How do you spell that?” "Kelly" is one of the top five most common Irish surnames, along with Murphy, Byrne, O'Brien, and Ryan. My wife's paternal grandfather was a Kelly, and his paternal grandfather Sylvester Kelly immigrated from County … Continue reading When Kelly is not an Irish surname
This week’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” theme from Amy Johnson Crow is “Sisters,” and I certainly had a number of options, including the daughters of my great-great grandmother Whilamina Marckhoff, seen in the photo at the bottom of this post about her family's immigration story, on the "52 Ancestors" theme "Foundations." But I decided … Continue reading The Hoagland sisters of Red Oak, Iowa
This week’s theme in Amy Johnson Crowe’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” is “Joined Together.” I don’t have any carpenters in my family tree so I turned to a more obvious choice: how my parents became joined together in marriage. Bill and Sarah met in college at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale, Illinois. Getting … Continue reading When my parents “joined together”
This week’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” theme from Amy Johnson Crow is “Flowers.” I found this idea difficult to develop a post around, thinking on ancestors and relatives with flower names or someone with a history of flower-keeping. Neither idea sparked my interest. But then I mentioned the theme to my wife, who immediately … Continue reading Cemetery workings
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