Heirloom from my Grandfather ~ 52 Ancestors #8

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and this week's writing prompt is Heirloom.

My maternal grandfather, Lowell Townsend Copeland, lived from 1900 to 1974. I wrote about him several years ago at My Grandfather, Toby Copeland.

He loved to travel and when he was a teenager, he spent several weeks traveling in Wyoming and Montana. I shared a series of photographs from these travels at the following posts:

Grandfather Out West
Grandfather Out West - Photos #2
Grandfather Out West - Photos #3

Sometime in the 1970s, my widowed grandmother sent some items to my mother to give to my brothers as a Christmas present.

Three very small porcelain dishes, a knife, stirrups, and a beaded case. The card with my grandmother's unique handwriting says:

To Margot
A few momentoes [sic]
of your Fathers I
thought your boys
might like - Love, Mother

Although my mother can't remember exactly when she received this, my brothers were likely not much older than ten-and-a-half, nine and seven-and-a-half. She wasn't about to give them a six inch knife!

However, she held on to these and passed them along to me several years ago when she moved out of the house I grew up in. Instead of becoming playthings, they are heirlooms from my grandfather's childhood and young adulthood.

Valentine from Marguerite to Percy ~ 52 Ancestors #7

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and this week's writing prompt is Valentine.

My great grandparents, Percy Earle Hunter and Marguerite Lysle, were very happily married. This is the couple whose photograph I shared at 52 Ancestors #2: Favorite Photo.

In my collection of family memorabilia, I have the following valentine, sent from Marguerite to Percy for Valentine's Day, 1923.

The envelope was addressed to Mr. P. E. Hunter, 836 North Highland Avenue, Pittsburgh, which was where the family lived during the 1920s and 1930s.

Bezaleel (Favorite Name) ~ 52 Ancestors #6

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and this week's writing prompt is Favorite Name.

As I have shared before, my interest in genealogy started with my Chapin ancestry. The name of my 4th great-grandfather, Bezaleel Chapin always fascinated me, as it's an unusual name.

A quick search of the given name Bezaleel [exact spelling] in federal census records at Ancestry.com produces fewer than 30 in any given year and even fewer by the 20th century. Too bad my ancestor didn't live long enough to appear in more records.

Bezaleel Chapin was the son of Ephraim Chapin and Jemima Chapin (who were second cousins 1x removed). He was the seventh of eight children of his parents. In fact, two of his older siblings were twin boys, born in August 1764: Benjamin and Bezaleel. Benjamin survived, but the first Bezaleel died at about six weeks of age. It was common at this time for parents to name a later child after an earlier one that died.

He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts:

Springfield Births, p. 246, Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, Ancestry.com.

~~~~~~~
Bezaleel Chapin Son of Ephraim Chapin
& Jemima Chapin of Springfield was born
March 21st anno Dom. 1769
~~~~~~~

Different Names and Ages In the Census ~ 52 Ancestors #5

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and this week's writing prompt is In the Census.

I have several great great grand-aunts who didn't age ten years between the ten years of federal census records.

I also have one whose name is different in every census record I can find her in!

Second great grand-aunt, Isabelle Lysle, was born 7 March 1840, in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, according to an 1889 passport application, but she had to have been born before 1840 based on census records. She married James S. Whigham sometime in the 1860s and he died in 1886. They had no children and she is later found living with and traveling with her unmarried sisters. She died in May 1924 in Manhattan, New York.

1 June 1850 U.S. Census record: Isabella Lysle, age 13 (born 1836-1837)
1 June 1860 U.S. Census record: Bell Lysle, age 22 (born 1837-1838)
1 June 1870 U.S. Census record: Isabelle Whigham, age 30 (born 1839-1840)
1 June 1880 U.S. Census record: Bella Whigham, age 38 (born 1841-1842)
1 June 1900 U.S. Census record: Isabella Wigham, age 48 (specifically reported born March 1851)

Although I have found her sisters, Eliza and Caroline, in Washington, D.C. in 1910, I have not been able to find Isabelle in the 1910 or 1920 federal censuses, or the New York 1905 or 1915 censuses, but I did find a death notice telling me that Isabel Lysle Whigham died in May 1924 in Manhattan (which is why I looked at the state censuses). (Her sister Caroline died in Washington, D.C., in 1914, and sister Eliza died in Pittsburgh in 1928.)

In October 1889, when she applied for a passport, she signed her application as Isabella Whigham and reported her birth date as 7th day of March 1840.

From U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925,
Roll#341: 16 Oct 1889-30 Nov 1889 at Ancestry.com.

Isabella / Isabelle / Belle is described in her passport application as follows:
Age: 49 years
Stature: 5 feet, 3 1/2 inches
Forehead: oval
Eyes: gray
Nose: straight
Mouth: medium
Chin: pointed (I think)
Hair: brown
Complexion: medium
Face: square

She applied for the passport in the fall of 1889 along with her two sisters, Eliza and Caroline. According to their passport applications, they were planning to travel for about a year. The identification section which is an affidavit that the person applying for the passport is who she says she is, is signed by her brother, George Lysle, Jr.

This application has the signature of my second great-grandfather and his sister, my second great grand-aunt, Isabella. (Same on the applications for Eliza's and Caroline's passports.)

Her gravestone in Union Dale Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was engraved with yet another name: Isabel L. Whigham and dates of 1836 - 1924.

Union Dale Cemetery (Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania), Isabel L. Whigham marker,
Lot 32; Range 1; Section A; Division 3; personally read, 29 August 2017.
(Photograph taken by the author.)

A cautionary tale about not trusting any one source for a person's name or age.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Census sources:
1850 U.S. census, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Allegheny City, p. 192 (stamped), dwelling 335, family 367, Isabella Lysle in George Lysle household; image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 January 2010); citing NARA microfilm publication M432, roll 744.

1860 U.S. census, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, McKeesport, p. 413 (stamped), dwelling 756, family 775, Bell Lysle in George Lysle household; image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 2 January 2010); citing NARA microfilm publication M653, roll 1063.

1870 U.S. census, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Mifflin Township, p. 15 (penned), dwelling 107, family 118, Isabelle Whigham in James Whigham household; image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 27 December 2009); citing NARA microfilm publication M593, roll 1294.

1880 U.S. census, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, [City/Town], enumeration district (ED) 69, p. 420A (stamped), dwelling 29, family 36, Bella Whigham in James Whigham household; image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 27 December 2009); citing NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 1090.

1900 U.S. census, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Pittsburgh, enumeration district (ED) 232, p. 14 (penned), dwelling 231, family 249, Isabella Wigham in Caroline Lysle household; image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 4 October 2009); citing NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 1362.