Sepia Saturday: A Family Gathering and a Well Identified Photo, 1920

Heavenly to have a well identified photo of so many family members!

Back row: Florence Byram Travis and Joe Travis, Namond "Ray" Proctor, Thomas Riley "Ned" Travis, Millie Travis Proctor and Dan Proctor, Sicily Island Page Travis (Ned's wife).
Middle Row: Everett Proctor, Bess Travis Hayes, Grace Travis (Ned's daughter), Laura Fleming Travis (Thomas Perry's wife), Cleo Proctor, Thomas Perry Travis (Ned's son).
Bottom Row: Velma Settle, Charles Proctor, Roy Proctor.
The unidentified little boys are probably Thomas Perry's sons Everett Earl (with Thomas Perry) and Francis (in front of Ned). I don't see their older brother Thomas.
I wonder who the photographer was...?

This photo was taken at a Travis family reunion in Sidney, Iowa in 1920. My great grandparents, Dan and Millie Proctor had driven from their home in Renton, Washington to Sidney with their children Ray, Roy, Cleo, Charles and Everett (my grandfather). They had slept in tents off the side of the road on the drive out, sometimes having to clear the roads by hand as they progressed. A long, hard trip, but by all accounts, it was a grand time!

Please visit my friends over at Sepia Saturday for more posts like this.

Sepia Saturday: William Emery Travis - a brief sketch

William Emery Travis c.1880s

This photo is one of the oldest in my collection. It was in the possession of my grandmother Aune Proctor. Written on the back it said, "Will Travis, brother of Everett's mom...Millie (Amelia Travis Proctor)."  By looking at my family tree, I can see right away that my great grandmother Millie had two brothers who could fit this description - William Emery Travis and Wilbur Reuben Travis. Since I know that Wilbur went by the name "Rube", I am quite sure that this "Will" must be William Emery. He was born November 20, 1859 in Sidney, Iowa to Abraham and Ruth (Stoalabarger) Travis.

Will's life is fairly easy to document. In the 1860 Federal Census he is living with his parents and, at six months old, is still unnamed. Abe and Ruth must have had a difficult time naming their children, since my great grandmother Millie is also recorded as unnamed at five months old in the 1870 Federal Census. Will appears to have continued living with his parents in Sidney until he married Minerva Henrietta McCluskey (known as Ettie) on February 16, 1888. By 1900 he is living in Brock Village, Nemaha, Nebraska working as a peddler and grocer of dry goods. In 1910 he is a landlord at a hotel on Main St in East Muddy, Richardson, Nebraska and in 1920 he is a hotel keeper in Weeping Water, Cass, Nebraska. In 1930 he is in yet another Nebraska town named Gresham in York County where he is working as a restaurant proprietor. He died at 80 years old in that town on April 6, 1940.

Will and Ettie had six children between 1888 and 1899. According to the 1900 Census, five survived. They were Donald, Walter, Thomas, Herschal Abe and Millie (probably Amelia named after her aunt and my great grandmother).

Now I have the basics of his life, but I sure would like to fill it in with some stories. It appears that only the descendants of Herschal Abe have dabbled in genealogy so far and the ones that I have contacted have not returned my messages. So, for now, I will close this brief sketch of the handsome young man pictured above. Hopefully, someone will find this post someday and tell me a little about Will.

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Wedding Wednesday: Daniel Hewitt Proctor and Amelia "Millie" Travis, 1900

My great grandparents, Daniel and Millie (Travis) Proctor, Wedding- 1900

Right up front, I want to say that my grandmother Aune Reini Proctor said that Dan and Millie were the nicest people she ever met. Since she was their daughter-in-law, this is pretty significant. Aune met a lot of people in her 96 years of life and I never heard her say the same thing about anyone else. For this alone, they deserve to be remembered. Fortunately, this is not all that I know about them.

Thanks to the wonderful people over at Iowa Old Press who have transcribed and posted so many gems about my Travis family, I found their wedding announcement:

THE FREMONT COUNTY HERALD
October 25, 1900

Married
On October 24, 1900, at 7:00 o'clock p.m., Mr. Daniel H. Proctor and Miss Amelia Travis, Rev. E. Dickinson officiating. The wedding was a quiet one and took place at the home of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. Travis, the immediate friends of the contracting parties only being present, with Livingston Mitchell who played the wedding march. The couple left on Tuesday morning for Omaha and will make a tour through Kansas to look up a location for a home. Their many friends extend warmest greetings and prayers for their happiness and success. 

Millie was 30 and Daniel was 34 when they married - unusually late for a first marriage in those days. I have found no evidence of an earlier marriage for either of them and in the 1900 Federal Census, just prior to the marriage, both lived with their tight-knit families. The Travises were one of the founding families in this area of Iowa and Millie was born and raised there, so it is a bit surprising that their wedding was such a quiet affair.

Daniel's family had moved from Equality, Illinois, the place of his birth, to Sidney sometime between the 1880 Federal Census and the 1885 Iowa State Census. I have not yet discovered what precipitated this move by Daniel's widowed mother, Mary Hewitt Proctor, and her children. Judging from the number of Proctors there in later censuses and in the cemeteries, it appears that others from the extended Proctor family may have been involved. Daniel's father, Ephraim, passed away in 1875, so Mary and the children may have been somewhat dependent on family members who decided to relocate. (Whatever it was, I am thankful!)

I had never heard that Dan and Millie considered living in Kansas before reading the snippet above. I have wondered what motivated them to move away from Millie's well established family in Sidney and settle in the Seattle area. This tells me that they had planned to move from the outset of their marriage, so it wasn't a spontaneous or rash decision. Judging from their children's birth dates and places, they came to Washington State between March 1903 and March 1905. Since their daughter Cleo Proctor Cavanaugh wrote in a letter from 1990 that she was born in the first house that Daniel built at 4221 Ferdinand St, Columbia City, they must have been there for awhile before her birth in March 1905 to allow time for the construction, thus narrowing the window.

4221 Ferdinand St, Columbia City, WA

I was so happy to find on my recent road trip to Washington that it still stands along with several other houses that Dan and his sons built. Isn't it pretty? It really was special to be able to touch something that my great grandfather created over 100 years ago.
[Update - Thanks to Scott R's comment below, I did some research on the house. Apparently, the current owner is running a yoga studio out of it (it must have good energy!). I will have to take a yoga class next time I am up there. Also, the state archivist is in the process of retrieving a photo of it from 1937. It was built in 1904.]

Millie and Dan spent the rest of their lives in the Seattle area and raised a happy family of four sons and one daughter. I have many photos of them in their later years, but I especially like the one below for the following two reasons:
1) They look every bit as pleasant as my grandmother Aune described them.
2) I am quite confident that I recognize the shadow on Millie's dress.

I find it a fitting metaphor that just as Aune's remembrances of Dan and Millie shaped my understanding of them, her silhouette is clearly visible in this image. In our search for our ancestors, we often find ourselves "chasing their shadows," so be sure to find out all you can about your family history from your older relatives. It may be the only real chance that you have to get to know those who have gone before you.

Sepia Saturday: Dating a Photo

Courtesy Jack Cavanaugh - Kent, WA

This is a Real Photo postcard of the Gordon home in Sidney, Iowa taken around the turn of the last century by "J.F. Lewis of Sidney, Iowa". According to various issues of the Fremont County Herald, Mr. Lewis opened a photography studio in Riverton, Fremont County in 1889 and ran his business from there until his studio burned down. He then moved to Sidney, Fremont County where he was again eventually burned out, moving West in 1917. I haven't yet been able to find the exact date that this move to Sidney happened, so it is difficult to date the photo from the photographer alone. Fortunately, I do have some other information from the back of the photo that should help to date it. The home is identified as that of Sadie Gordon, my great grandmother Millie Travis Proctor's sister. From other photos I recognize Sadie (Sarah Eveline Travis) as the woman standing on our left, so the man sitting next to her is most certainly her husband Andrew Marion Gordon. They married in 1893, so that narrows the date to after that year. A close-up of the photo gives me more clues. Although the three people on our right are unidentified, I have a pretty good idea of who, at least, two of them are. Sadie's parents were my 2nd great grandparents, Abraham and Ruth (Stolebarger) Travis. I own one photo of each (below).

From comparing these to the postcard, I am pretty confident that the elderly man and woman are Abraham and Ruth. Since Ruth died in June 1901, that further narrows the date to between 1893 and 1901. The photo that I have of Ruth was taken in 1893, so the postcard must be a few years later since she looks substantially older. It is pretty exciting to me that I have most likely discovered another photo of my great great grandparents!

I'm not sure about the younger woman standing on our right, but it is possible that she is my great grandmother Millie. She married my great grandfather Daniel Proctor in Oct 1900. Prior to that date, she was living with her parents in Sidney. The body, stance and arm look very much like hers from later photos that I have, but the face doesn't look quite like her wedding photo. I would conclude that it was another of the Travis sisters, but I have seen photos and it definitely isn't them. Below is a direct comparison of the young woman in the postcard versus Millie in a full length photo from later years and a close-up from her wedding photo in 1900. Could it be her? Looking at it like this, I think it just might be!

From all of this, I think I can safely conclude that the photo was taken no earlier than about 1897 and no later than June 1901. If that is Millie in the photo, that further narrows the time frame to before Oct 1900. The Gordons lived at 21 Clay St, Sidney Town, Iowa in the 1900 Federal Census, so I can further conclude that this photo was likely taken at that address.

Pretty neat what you can do with a little research!

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Mapping Out a Life: Joseph Travis

Courtesy Jack Cavanaugh -Kent, WA

Last spring, we went on a roadtrip to visit relatives in the Seattle area. While there we had a mini-reunion for my mom with her Proctor cousins. During the get-together, our host, Cleo Proctor Cavanaugh's son Jack allowed me to go through his late mother's photo albums and scan family photos. Over the next few months, I am going to post some of them here and discuss the people in them.

This photo is of Joseph Travis and his wife Florence Byram Travis of Sidney, Fremont County, Iowa. He was the brother of my great grandmother Amelia "Millie" Travis Proctor. As you can see from the writing on the photo, it was taken in July 1913. It is a Real Photo postcard and was sent through the mail from Sidney to Seattle. On the back, it discusses Millie and Joe's father Abraham Travis' deteriorating health, who died on January 5, 1914. Their mother was Ruth Ann Stolebarger Travis who passed away June 23, 1901.

Joe (26 Dec 1866-21 Nov 1942) lived his entire life in Fremont County, Iowa. Like most of his siblings, he didn't marry until relatively late for that time and did not have any children. He and Florence married on October 6, 1897.  He appears to have lived a pretty simple life, running a farm and spending time with his eleven siblings. Most of the Travises stayed in Sidney and they remained a very close family.

Julia M. Travis' book All in the Family discusses this family in great detail and is, undoubtedly, what first sparked my interest in genealogy when it was published at the end of 1975. Detailing the many descendants of Asa Travis, the book included me and my family in its pages - very exciting for a six year old.

To get a better look at Joe, I cropped and enlarged the photo below. His horses made the cut since they were probably an important part of his family.

Ruth Ann Stolebarger (Stoalabarger), 1893

My great great grandmother Ruth Ann Stolebarger Travis

Every time I look at this photo, I wonder...

Here is what I know:
Ruth Ann Stolebarger Travis was sixty-one when this photo was taken in 1893. She was born on June 3, 1832 in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania and was a redhead.
The first trace I find of her family is in Union, Huntingdon County, PA in the 1830 Federal Census, though her eldest brother Ephraim is said to have been born there in 1823. Ruth's other siblings were Thomas (1825), Almira (1842) and Martha (1843).
In 1843, Ruth moved with her parents and siblings to Jefferson County, Iowa.  Her father John Stoalabarger passed away soon thereafter and her mother married Samuel Berry in 1846 and had one more son, William (1849).
Ruth Ann married Abraham Travis on March 20, 1852 in Fairfield, Iowa. On May 6, 1852, the newlyweds moved to Sidney, Iowa and, by all accounts, lived a wonderful life there as one of the town's pioneer families. Ruth Ann was extraordinarily lucky in that all twelve of her children lived into adulthood and none predeceased her.
To the town's great sadness, she passed away on June 23, 1901 at the age of 69. Her obituary stated that her funeral was so well attended that townspeople were forced to stand outside in the hot street, straining to hear the eulogy.

Questions:
There is a lot of mystery surrounding Ruth Ann's parents. Her father John is said to have been born in the Upper Rhine area of Germany c.1800, but, to my knowledge, no one has ever found any documentation of this. Additionally, her mother Sarah's maiden name is unknown.
One of the biggest problems in researching this family is the name "Stolebarger." It is a very difficult name that was spelled differently on virtually every record. The most common spelling seems to be Stoalabarger, but I have also seen it as Stolebarger, Stolabarger, Stulebarger, Stuhlberger, Stuleberger, Stulabarger, Stella Barger and more!  Furthermore, I have not been able to find a record of anyone with a similar name on any passenger records at all! I sometimes theorize that the name was originally something more traditionally German, like Stahlberger. Unfortunately, that hasn't led me anywhere either.

For now, I am just very happy to have such a good photo of her from so long ago.