The 1877 Knapp Case--Walter Knapp and Isaac Knapp

Twentieth Century History of Sandusky County 
and 
Representative Citizens 
edited by Basil Meek, 1909

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2025, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Challenge--Great Grandma Nance's Foil Christmas Bells

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to give a try for the second year. 

     The prompt for week # 5 (January 29-February 4) is Challenge.

     I actually challenged myself last year in a 52 Ancestors Week blog.  I had blogged about an heirloom that once belonged to my husband's paternal great grandmother, Isabelle Smith Hiser Nance.  I noted that I had not blogged much about my husband's ancestors.  Now, I have another one. 

     When a new year begins, I begin to work on the chore of, as we say in Pittsburgh, redding up.  I spied this large red box on a shelf and remembered it was from Ted's side of the tree.

Identification found on the bottom
of the container written by my
husband's mother, Helena Mae Smith Hiser

     I found it when cleaning out his mother's (Helena Mae Smith Hiser) condo back in 2009.  I also remembered what it contained.  Several strands of tin foil paper Christmas bells that were hung in Great Grandma Nance's windows in the 1940's.

     There are two different types of bells.  The red set has red cellophane covering the bell with tiny white beads on the edges.

     

     The gold bells are covered with foil.  At the top of the strand of bells is a star shaped foil hanger, one white and the other one red.

     There are no maker's marks on any of the bells.  After numerous search attempts to find an identity to the bells I found that paper mache was covered with foil in the mid 20th century.  These bells do not have paper mache under the foil.  

Great Grandma Nance's Bells

Etsy sale Christmas Bells

     Finally I found some foil bells for sale in Etsy and they matched Great Grandma Nance's.  Oddly they are for sale from a seller in my town.  Talk about a small world!

Also on Flipside:

Nance, William and Isabelle Smith Hiser--Christmas Card

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2025, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Overlooked--Pop Pop's Work on Two Major Projects

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to give a try for the second year. 

     The prompt for week # 3 (January 22-28) is Overlooked.

     I have certainly failed to blog about this subject.  I have done the research in bits and pieces and actually wrote the piece years ago--just never added it to Flipside.  My issue was dissecting the real from the apocryphal.  

     Aunt Faith, Faith Carol Hughes Roolf, my primary informant for the paternal side of the family talked of how her father and my paternal grandfather, George Henry Hughes, worked on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge and the Pittsburgh Civic Arena during his employment with the American Bridge Company.  My father, George VanGilder Hughes, also spoke of his Dad's work on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge.  

     Like so many of you, I have found apocryphal stories about family members.  Going down the rabbit hole to find the truth is the challenge.  

George Henry Hughes
Draftsman, American Bridge Company
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

George Henry Hughes--My Pop Pop

     My paternal grandfather was employed as a draftsman at American Bridge his entire working life.  He had a talent for drawing.  His education was typical for his age, eighth grade.  No college, no structural engineering education degree.  He was born in England in 1898.  His family immigrated in 1908 and came to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Pop Pop's father, John George Hughes, was employed in the steel mills, first with Jones Laughlin on Pittsburgh's South Side and then relocating the family to the new company town, Woodlawn, Beaver County, Pennsylvania.  

American Bridge Company 1915

Woodlawn Ambridge bridge

     In 1913, fifteen year old Pop Pop began as a draftsman with American Bridge across the Ohio River from Woodlawn.  He retired in 1961 after forty-eight years of service.  How many folks today can say that they stayed with a job that many years.  

     I blogged about Pop Pop's employment with American Bridge back in 2009--the infancy of my blog.  I did list the Golden Gate Bridge as one of the projects he may have worked on.  Humm  

     Time to, hopefully, set this overlooked story straight.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Civic Arena

  

     The easiest one to research.  Aunt Faith's story about her father's part in this American Bridge construction was in the mid to late 1950's (my guess on the era).  She described watching her father sitting at the dining room table at night and working with various sized blocks? deciding on whether or not there could be a retractable roof.  

Scanned from the American Bridge Connections
Summer, 2012
page 18

     American Bridge did construct the Civic Arena, although they were not the architect, general contractor or the structural engineer on the project.  Ground was broken in 1958 and completed in 1961.  

   I am buying into this story of Aunt Faith's.  American Bridge probably had the contract in hand to build the Civic Arena before she married or just afterward.  She would have seen her father playing around with some sort of blocks to see if the circular structure would hold a roof and probably had some sort of thin blocks to try to put a roof on it.  Although a draftsman, Pop Pop had seniority and American Bridge would have had their department making model superstructures of the building.  

     I should add here that on the 1950 Federal Census, Pop Pop is listed as a structural engineer.  Also adding that I grew up in Pittsburgh and did go to the Civic Arena in the early 1960's.  I did not know that my grandfather's company built it and that he played around building models of it in the late 1950's. 

San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge

     Both my Dad and my Aunt told family members that their Father worked on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge.  I have found no mention of it on the various American Bridge Company's websites.  

     In 2004, I jumped back on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge research and found this on the Internet.  This information on Frederick Ashley Pneuman, employed at American Bridge Company is listed as responsible for the cable engineering on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge on his college website.  No one can argue that the cables are VERY important ingredient to the design of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge.  😉  

  

The Ithaca Journal
December 10, 1942
page 3

     His obituary also mentions that his inventions were used on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge.  

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

     The obituary also mentions that he worked on the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge.  This was one of the important structures done by the American Bridge Company in 1932.  

     I think my Dad and Aunt had their memory about their Dad's involvement with these two bridges a little confused.  Pop Pop probably worked on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge at his draftsman table in Ambridge, Pennsylvania along with other engineers.  Pop Pop would have been thirty-four years old and with American Bridge for nineteen years.  In 1932 my Dad would have been eleven and Aunt Faith, a newborn.  Neither would have had an actual memory of this event.  

     Frederick A. Pneuman, employed with American Bridge, probably worked on the cable design for The San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge on his own.  

 

 I am calling the story of George Henry Hughes and The San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge apocryphal.

  And the bridge work done on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge with the assistance of George Henry Hughes, draftsman at American Bridge Company, as TRUE.  It is very easy to understand the confusion.  Both bridges were constructed during the same decade, in the same area and with similar names.  The Golden Gate Bridge is the more famous and that is the bridge Dad and Aunt Faith attributed to their Father.  

     Years back, I remember when we attended a birthday celebration for Aunt Faith, she was handing out several pieces of Hughes memorabilia.  I believe one was a small framed picture she attributed as coming from her mother's estate and was a picture of a bridge.  It was given to my cousin Dave.  I thought I took a photograph of it and that the picture was of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.                      

Credit and further information about American Bridge and Ambridge:  Paul Hertneky, American Bridge Builds a Town....and a Nation, March 18, 2011.

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2025, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Nickname--Charles Stark

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to give a try for the second year. 

     The prompt for week # 3 (January 15-21) is Nickname.

     Last year the ancestor challenge also had a nickname theme and I blogged about mine.  

     I have always been a person who assigned nicknames to folks, both family and friends.  My grandparents--Teek, Grams and Pop Pop; my sons--Big Ar and Bucky Bee or Buck; my pledge in college--Lutterbein became Lima Bean; children I babysat and on and on......

     I have countless blogs about the Civil War soldier in the tin type pictured above.  My maternal great grandfather, Charles Stark, was born in Germany, immigrated to America in 1860, traveled to Pittsburgh and was mustered into service in 1861.  After the end of the war he re-enlisted and went west to the Dakota's probably to fight Native Americans.  This is a capsulized version.  A more detailed blog about Charles Stark is on Flipside as well as several other items about his life.  

     When my maternal grandmother, Martha Marie Frederick Stark, died, my Mom found a large box with a collection of "old" stuff in her apartment.  It was a collection of all sorts of items.  Turn of the 20th century jewelry, old metal opera purses, sterling silver initialed teaspoons, Dresden Christmas ornaments and a tin type of a Civil War soldier.  This box of Stark/Frederick memorabilia came into my possession.   

     When I began my genealogical research, I remembered "the box" and was able to locate it in the attic.  Questioning my Mother about her roots was pretty much a blank.  She had no knowledge of her grandparents on either side.  

     The tin type of the Civil War soldier took me by surprise.  He was the first one I found in my family to be in the Civil War in my early discovery years.  

     Who was this fellow?  I knew of my Frederick great grandparents from census reports.  It was not my maternal great grandfather, Alfred Frederick.  My Stark great grandfather?  I didn't even know his name.  After more research, I found my maternal grandfather's death certificate and saw he and his father had the same name, Charles Stark.  

     During these early years I had to send in a form to get a copy of his Civil War pension file.  (so much easier today).  When it arrived it proved to be quite a bonanza.  

From Charles Stark Pension File
Assignment of a male guardian
Jacob Colmer
September 30, 1890

     The tin type was most definitely my maternal great grandfather.  Also part of the file were copies of the five Stark kids birth certificates and a surprise.  Apparently my Great Grandfather was hospitalized in the Allegheny City Home in 1890 at age forty-five as a lunatic.  Now it was apparent why no one ever talked about him or knew of him among my Mother's generation.  

1890 Pittsburgh Daily Post,
Sep 15, 1890,
page 3

1895 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 27 April 1895
  Page 2

     We speculated that perhaps his lunacy was caused by his long military service today known as PTSD.  I held on to this theory until I subscribed to the newspaper website through Ancestry.  Charles Stark obituaries told the tale of a man who was financially well off; however, through some poor financial choices, lost all his money causing his mental downfall.

    And where does this all lead to the topic of this blog--Nickname?  Not made by me.  One day my husband made the flip comment, "That must be where the term stark raving mad came from".  And a nickname was born--Stark Raving. 

Also on Flipside:

Charles and Wilhelmine Stark Part 1

 Numerous individual blogs about Charles Stark are on Flipside

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2025, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Favorite Photo--Baby Me

Linda Lee Hughes
and
Martha Jean Stark Hughes
First Day Home
May 1947

 

Linda Lee Hughes
with mother, Martha Jean Stark Hughes
Summer 1947

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to give a try for the second year. 

     The prompt for week # 2 (January 8-14) is Favorite Photo.

     I have blogs under my name on Flipside; however, most are of physical things that have been important to me throughout my life......not many photos.  I have posted numerous photos of my ancestors with their blog.  I decided to take this opportunity to post a few of my favorite photos of me.  😇

Scanned from my Baby Book

     I'm not sure what the occasion of these pictures was; however, there are printed photographs and my father, George VanGilder Hughes, also took motion pictures of this day.  I can guess that it was probably my christening which occurred on October 12, 1947 at five months eleven days.                             .

     There is a blog on Flipside about the outfit pictured and when I wrote it I believed it was my baptism dress.  I also noted that the entire dress, including the booties was something my Mother saved and I still have it.

     My Dad did take generation photographs.  The Hughes Women:  my paternal great grandmother, Elizabeth Ferdinande Olesen Hughes; my paternal grandmother, Sarah Margaret VanGilder Hughes and myself, Linda Lee Hughes.  My maternal grandmother, Martha Marie Frederick Stark is also pictured.  

     Dad must have passed his camera off to one of the ladies for this shot.  My father, George VanGilder Hughes; my paternal great grandmother, Elizabeth Ferdinande Olesen Hughes; my paternal grandfather, George Henry Hughes and myself, Linda Lee Hughes.  

     Here I am sitting in Mom's lap, all dolled up. 😊  

Scanned from my Baby Book

     And yes, I did have all that dark hair from day one.  😁

There are numerous blogs on Flipside about all these family members.

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2025, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



In The Beginning

     

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to give a try for the second year. Last year I made it until the end of May. Then summer, gardening and vacations took over my life. Here we go again.

     The first prompt for week #1 (January1-7) is In The Beginning.

     In the beginning, I had next to no idea of my ancestors past my living grandparents and one great grandmother. I worked full time, had two children and continued working.  Genealogy was not something I had any interest in and probably couldn't even spell it.   

     Roots on television is my memory of the beginning of my ancestry interest.  My eldest son had to do a Roots project for school, and I believe it was after the 1988 airing of Roots: The Gift.  

     We had an early home edition of a computer and a land line.  My parents were of little assistance in getting me back more than a generation.  I had old photo albums on my Mom's side of the family.  My father supplied a family chart of the Vanguilder's which I later found that the surname was misspelled. 😁

     Back in the late 1980's and early 1990's, there was some information on the Internet.  USGenWeb and RootsWeb are two I remember.  With a lot of trial and error in search engines, I was able to find that my Mom's Mom was born in Columbiana County, Ohio and I was off and running.  

     I'd drop my kids off at school and head to the Cleveland Museum of History where there was a room full of old census microfilm and books.  Columbiana County, Ohio had an active historical group and there were books of marriages and burials.  Hallelujah 

1880 Ohio Census
Columbiana County, Fairfield Township
June 19, 1880

     The memory of the first time I scrolled through the 1880 Columbiana County census and found my grandmother and her family still sends goosebumps up my arms.  

     Family Tree Maker became my program, then Ancestry, Find a Grave, GeneaBloggers and two online newspaper subscriptions one in the UK and one in the states.  Two genealogy websites and a blog later, I am at 2025 and still poking around looking for some new piece of information.  

     Over the decades I have accumulated numerous family items from pottery that made it across the pond in the early 1900's, tin types, cabinet cards and carte d'visites, etc.  

      Flipside is slowly becoming the repository of photos and stories about all this memorabilia as well as biographies of my ancestors.  Even after thirty-five years of research I still have some brick walls.  

     And what makes all this worth it?  Occasionally I receive an email from a distant relation who has located me through my family website or Flipside and we share information.  

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2025, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser