Same Person???? Jessie Pool VanGilder

I love to have photos of my ancestors. The coined phrase, "A picture is worth a thousand words" is certainly true for me and genealogy blogging. This week, while working on a blog about Sarah Ann Pool Pinyerd, I was scrapping the bottom of the barrel when it came to a photograph taken of her. Then I remembered a three piece group of photos sent to me by another Pool/Poole researcher, my cousin, Dr. Robert Poole Wilkins.


It was a xerox copy of a Pool Family Reunion photograph taken circa 1923. Some of the folks were identified and when he sent it to me I noticed that my paternal great grandmother, Jessie Pool VanGilder was among those named. I looked at her, measured the face up with other photos I had of her and decided that it was NOT Jessie.


This week it dawned on me that perhaps the identified woman was not Jessie, but her sister, Sarah Pool Pinyerd. I knew that Sarah was a regular attendee of the Pool Family Reunions as there were mentions of her travel to Morgantown for these events in her local newspaper.


Now I have a more sophicated photo program than when I first received the Pool Reunion photo. I rescanned the poor quality xerox, changed it into a photo of older quality and enlarged just the woman in question. The face still did not seem to be that of my great grandmother VanGilder......however, her dress caught my attention BIG TIME!


Scrolling back through my VanGilder photos I stopped at one in particular. It is a photograph of my Great grandmother VanGilder sitting beside her daughter, my grandmother, Sarah VanGilder Hughes. I can almost date the photo as Great Grandmother VanGilder's goiter is still showing and she had it removed in 1928.

However, it is the DRESS that I enlarged and studied.....the dress is the SAME on both pictures. I had to chuckle at her choice of this outfit to wear to a family reunion.....usually folks get "duded up" for such occasions....lol. However, notice that Jessie is holding a summer hat on her lap ;-)

My great grandmother probably "traveled light". She was a cook on a riverboat during the 1920's and moved around alot up and down the Monongahela River. I highly doubt that she had a large wardrobe. She probably had one good dress for church and events that became a work dress as it wore out. Maybe these two photos show the life of this particular dress.....new for the reunion and gently used for the second photo.

I guess the lesson learned here is that a photo has to be dissected when trying to identify a person.....the face is not the only identifier....and this blog has turned into the genealogy of a dress!

© 2011, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser

Friday Family ProFile--Sarah Ann Pool Pinyerd

Several years back was thrilled to find numerous family related articles in the personal columns of local newspapers in North Charleroi and Monessen, Pennsylvania on Ancestry. The reporter was my paternal great grandaunt, Sarah Ann Pool Pinyerd. I have also seen it spelled Sarah Ann Pool Pinyard.

Known in the family as "Sallie" and "Aunt Pinny," she seemed to have a direct line to the local newspapers and each and every visitor was duly noted in the "Personal" section of the North Charleroi column. What can I say but THANK YOU Aunt Pinny.

The various news briefs gave me a snapshot into the movements up and down the Monongahela River during the early 1900's of her sister, my paternal great grandmother, Jessie Pool VanGilder. It was the basis of a brief summer trip back in 2006.

Like so many pieces of research, this one was so exciting when found and then it went back on my back burner for several years. Recently, I was jogged back into Pinyerd/Pinyard research by a fellow genealogist from Texas, who contacted me regarding his Pinyerd relation. I thank him too, as wandering around the web collaborating, I was able to locate the death certificate of Aunt Pinny's husband, John A. Pinyerd...a long missing document.

There are no descendants from the marriage of John A. Pinyerd and Sarah Ann Pool Pinyerd. I am blogging about them solely for those in my family who might be interested in knowing a little more about two interesting ancestors and because Aunt Pinny appeared to be a wee bit of a feminist.


Sarah Ann Pool, daughter of Sampson Frum Pool and Sarah Louise Harner was born in Monongalia County, West Virginia on October 9, 1868. The Pool family lived on a farm in the Morgan District outside Morgantown, West Virginia. Other than census reports, there is no document giving a clue as to Sarah's life until her marriage to John A. Pinyerd on December 28, 1887. Of interest to me is the place where the wedding ceremony took place---Sarah's maternal uncle, Joseph Harner's farm. Rev. Samuel Hitchens of the Methodist Episcopal Church performed the ceremony.

John A. Pinyerd, son of Jesse Pinyerd and Melvina S. Rider, was born on October 20, 1859 in Greene County, Pennsylvania. When John married he was listed as a blacksmith on license.

The first census for the Pinyerds in 1900 is in the Clinton District, Monongalia County, West Virginia. John is not listed, which makes me think that he is already working on a steamboat and is on the river when the enumerator came to the door. The Pinyerds own a farm free and clear of mortgage. Living with Sarah is her cousin, Charles Wesley Pool, who is working the farm for her. This census asks the woman if she has had any children and Sarah's response is no.

By 1910, the Pinyerds have moved to North Charleroi, Pennsylvania, which will be Sarah's home until her death. The house is located on Fourth Street near Lock 4 on the Monongahela River. A perfect location for John as he is able to have easy access to the steamboat. On this census Sarah's information lists that she is the mother of one child who is no longer alive. I have been told by a family member that Sarah had a baby; however it died young. Somewhere I picked up the name of Violet L. as the baby's name. John's occupation was consistently listed as a marine engineer....is that a fancy name for working on a steamboat?????



The Pinyard Home in North Charleroi
as listed in the 1930 Pennsylvania Census

 
In 1915, Sarah has a house at Lock 4 up for sale. According to the advertisement, it appears to be modern for the time....finished attic, cement basement floor, wired for electricity and two squares from the electric car line (streetcar). I don't know if the advertised house was sold and the Pinyerd's moved to another home on Fourth Avenue, or if it is the house she is enumerated in on the 1920 and 1930 census and pictured above.

I must make mention here, that Charleroi and North Charleroi are built into a hill rising up from the Monongahela River. When my brother and I drove up one of the streets, I had the feeling that the car would flip over from end to end. Walking up one of those streets would test the cholesterol buildup in anyones heart. It would most assuredly be advantageous to be only two streets up from the river!

Sarah was an active member of the North Charleroi community and with her family. There are countless little mentions in the local papers of various family members and friends coming and going from the Pinyerd home. Parties and club events were hosted by Sarah and her sisters appeared to actually live in the Pinyerd home for periods of time during 1915-1925. In fact, Sarah's mom, Sarah Louise Harner Pool was living with her daughter when she died on August 5, 1911.


I was thrilled to find that my paternal grandmother, Sarah VanGilder Hughes, visited her aunt in North Charleroi a couple of times before she married my grandfather.

Several of Sarah Pinyerd's community memberships listed in the local newspapers included: Victory Knitting Club, The Home and Hospital Club and the Needlecraft Club.


At some point in time, Sarah opened her home up as a maternity hospital. She is listed as a nurse, but I have no idea if she actually was a nurse that completed a degree or perhaps she was a midwife. At any rate, there are listing by 1924 of the Pinyerd Private Hospital operating out of her home. Pregnant women would come and stay in rooms in her home. She would take care of them until the baby was born and for several days following. Dr. A.S. Sickman (great name for a doctor...lol) made house calls to the Pinyerd Hospital. He was involved in an automobile accident, which was reported in the local newspaper as he was on the way to Sarah Pinyerds.

Sarah operated her home maternity hospital through 1939, at which time it was called the Pinyerd Maternity Home. According to the local newspapers, countless babies were born under Sarah's care. She was quite the entrepreneur. By my calculations, Sarah was running her home hospital from about age 50 through age 70.

Other community involvement for Sarah Pinyerd: She was appointed to the Advisory Committee for the Hospital Building Fund Campaign AND in 1925 she ran for two elected offices--School Director and City Council. She lost both.

Sarah also donated to a variety of community based organizations...among them the fire department ambulance fund and the flood relief fund. From the various newspaper articles she was generous with everyone....family, community and friends. She gave of herself, her home and her income. Truly, someone to be admired.

When when I interviewed one of her grandnieces, she replied......"Aunt Pinny kept an immaculate home. She would put newspaper on the floor to catch any droppings when children were at her home and having food at the table. There was also a feeling that she had one child who died when they were infants or very young. Aunt Pinny served her patients off her Limoges china."

After doing research on several of the "Pool Women," those girls raised in the home of Sampson Frum Pool and Sarah Louise Harner Pool....I must say they had true grit. Sarah's sisters lost husbands early in their marriages either to death or divorce and made their way in the early 1900's, when there were no safety nets provided for wives or children....ie life insurance, etc.

Sarah remained married, although I don't think that her husband was present much of the time. Or, if he was, she was an independent spirit...she had her own business, entertained and traveled during much of their married life. I noticed that there is very little mention of her husband in the local newspapers.


Before her death she was a patient at the Pugh Nursing Home in Morgantown, West Virginia and she died at age eighty-three at the Charleroi-Monessen Hospital on June 19, 1952. She was cremated and her ashes were interred along with her Pool family at Mt. Union Cemetery, north of Morgantown, West Virginia. I have visited that cemetery and there is no tombstone.


Her husband, John A. Pinyerd, predeceased her on February 2, 1951, at age ninety-one in Bucyrus, Ohio and he was buried with some of his family in Oakwood Cemetery. Several of John's brother's lived in Bucyrus. It is unknown if Sarah and John were separated or perhaps he was visiting in Bucyrus and died. His death certificate lists that he is married; however, Sarah and John are buried in separate cemeteries in separate states.



A timeline for Sarah Ann Pool Pinyerd on timetoast.

Sources:

-1900 West Virginia Federal Census, Clinton District, Monongalia County, ED 79, Sheet 5.

-1910 Pennsylvania Federal Census, North Charleroi Borough, Washington County, ED 221, Sheet 5A.

-1920 Pennsylvania Federal Census, North Charleroi Borough, Washington County, ED 203, Sheet 5B.

-1930 Pennsylvania Federal Census, North Charleroi Borough, Washington County, ED 63-90, Sheet 21B.

-Monongalia County, West Virginia Register of Births, Eastern District, Year 1868, page 115. (For Sarah Ann Pool)

-Ohio Death Certificate, John A. Pinyerd, Crawford County # 07274.

-Obituary of Sarah A. Pinyerd, The Charleroi Mail, Charleroi, Pennsylvania, Monday, June 23, 1952, page 6.

-The Charleroi Mail, Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Numerous articles found on Ancestry.com.

-The Monessen Independent, Monessen, Pennsylvania. Numerous articles found on Ancestry.com.

-West Virginia Marriage Records, Monongalia County, Book 2, page 166.

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.

© 2011, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Treasure Chest Thursday--Andrew Jackson Brice Medal

     Andrew Jackson Brice, born about 1921 in Pennsylvania, was the son of Andrew E. and Emma C.Brice. The family is enumerated on the 1930 Pennsylvania census and are living on 925 Jackman Avenue in Avalon, a town in the Pittsburgh area on the Ohio River.

     I found nothing on the web regarding Jack Brice and his football accident at Avalon High School back in 1937. Perhaps it has been lost in history. I am not living close enough to Pittsburgh to go through the local Bellevue-Avalon newspapers to have a better understanding of the events leading up to and following Jack's death.

     Both of my parents attended Avalon High School and likely were friends with Jack. Especially my Dad, as he was the quarterback for the school's football team and was present when the accident occurred. Jackman Avenue is near the street where Dad lived and isn't that far from the house where Mom grew up. Certainly, if Jack is enumerated at age 8 on the census, he probably attended school with Mom and Dad until his death.

     My remembrance of this event was that Jack suffered a head injury during football game and died. As Dad once told me, it was back in the days when there was very little protective gear for a football player to wear...especially head gear.

     As a memorial to Jack, the athletic department decided to award the best football player each year with the Jack Brice Medal. The first one, given in 1938, was awarded to my Dad, George VanGilder Hughes.
 

Avalon H.S.GEORGE HUGHES1938

JACK BRICE

MEMORIALMEDAL
Rest in Peace Andrew Jackson Brice
Died October 12, 1937

Sources:

- 1930 Pennsylvania Census, Avalon, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Page 5A, Enumeration District 494.
- Avalon High School Annual, Class of 1939, Avalon, Pennsylvania.

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.

© 2011, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Marriage License--George Henry Hughes and Sarah Margaret VanGilder

     Proof positive....if you wait long enough....it will someday appear online! Just found this on the West Virginia marriage documents website...WAHOO....my paternal grandparents..aka Grams and Pop Pop. What's in a Name? If there was ever any doubt that Grams decided at some point in time during her life that the spelling "Sara" was more dramatic than "Sarah"....this is it. She was "Sarah" when she married and I have "Sarah" when she was born; however, over the years it became "Sara" and "Sara" it stayed. During my years of family research I have "caught" her having "fun" rewriting history with "new" names. For instance, my Dad, her son, always thought that her middle name was Margaretta, not Margaret....AND....she decided to "change" the spelling of her maiden name from VanGilder to VanGuilder. All of my Dad's documents have VanGuilder as his middle name rather than VanGilder. Actually, she also tweeked her other son, John Aiden Hughes' name....in England it is spelled Aidan....in fact Aidan is heavily scattered throughout the West Hartlepool Hughes lineage due to the fact that they lived and attended St. Aiden's parish. And, now that I think of it....she even had fun with my name....my nickname has always been Lin or Lindee and Grams would write it Lynn. Grams was a fun loving, warm hearted woman....the grandmother any grandchild would beg to go visit....and I did. As I have blogged before, it was not unusual for me as an elementary school girl to jump on my bike and pedal from our house over to Bellevue (about 3 1/2 miles) and simply arrive, unannounced. So in my mind, who cares about name changes, we aren't talking Romeo and Juliet here, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." ......name....smame.....LOVE THAT GRAMS ! George Henry Hughes and Sara VanGilder Hughes Tombstone Tuesday © 2011, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser

St. Patrick's Day--McGoey Marriage License

Marriage License of Michael Joseph McGoey and Clara Green

Compliments and research of Carol Ann McGoey Heidrich

© 2011, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

My Irish roots:

Orr--maternal side
McElroy--paternal side

Stories in Stone--C. Heinze

This past week I was sitting in Cumin, a delightful Nepalese/Indian restaurant in Wicker Park, a Chicago neighborhood, having a sumptuous lunch buffet when I noticed a "Story in Stone" right across the street. Atop the windows in stone, C. Heinze and the date 1878

Usually I don't make a habit of researching a Story in Stone in a large city as I have found that it becomes too difficult to nail down the family. With a surname like Heinze, though, I thought I might have at least a chance even in a city the size of Chicago. And I was right!

The Heinze store is located across from Cumin on North Milwaukee Avenue. I did not take a close-up of the number on the Heinze building; however Cumin is listed as 1414 North Milwaukee Avenue. When I located the family of Charles Heinze, a butcher, in the 1880 Illinois Census, the address listed was 1067 Milwaukee. This is the only C. Heinze in the Chicago area in 1880. Building numbers do change from decade to decade as additional houses and shops are built, so this address could well be what is today listed as 1415 Milwaukee Avenue.

In 1880, the Heinze family was living in an apartment building with several other families. One is a baker and one is a grocer. It makes me wonder if they all had a grocery business together in the Heinze Building or if Charles ran his butcher shop out of that store front alone. Looking at the size of the building, it would be possible for several families to live in the rooms above the shop.

The census also lists that Charles two sons, Herman and Henry are also butchers and young Charles was a butcher apprentice. It was a family business.

Charles Heinze born about 1821 in Prussia
Wilhelmine Grusches Heinze born about 1823 in Prussia

The Family of Charles Heinze and Wilhelmine Grusches:

1. Herman Heinze b. Oct 26, 1853 in either Wisconsin or Illinois. d. Jan 16, 1926, Chicago, IL. Buried at Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, IL. Made his living as a butcher.

2. Henry Heinze b. 1955 in Chicago, IL. d. Mar 16, 1928 at Bremen, IL. Buried in Chicago, IL. Made his living as a butcher.

3. Charles Heinze (Charles M. Heinze) b. Jan 14, 1864, Chicago, IL. d. Aug 17, 1928, Chicago, IL. Buried at Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, IL. Made his living as a butcher.

4. Agnes Heinze b. 1872, Illinois.

5. Lillie Heinze (Lillian C. Heinze) b. Nov 1, 1873, Chicago,IL. d. Jan 28, 1946 Chicago, IL. Never married. Buried at Holy Sepulchre, Worth, IL.

6. Willie Heinze b. 1876 Illinois.

I was able to follow Charles, Jr. and his brother Herman through the early 1900 Chicago censuses. They worked as butchers and Herman, who never married, lived with his younger brother Charles until their deaths. The address listed on the 1910 and 1920 census was 1415 Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL. The brothers were operating a butcher shop out of the store front in the Heinze Building. Henry continued to work as a butcher, but not in Chicago.

I was not able to locate death records for Charles and Wilhelmine, nor a marriage record for Agnes.

Sources:
-1880 Census, Chicago, Cook, Illinois; Roll: 196; Page: 438A; Enumeration District: 150.

-1900 Census, Chicago Ward 14, Cook, Illinois; Roll: T623_261; Page: 17A; Enumeration District: 418.

-1910 Census, Chicago Ward 16, Cook, Illinois; Roll: T624_259; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 0768.

-1920 Censue, Chicago Ward 16, Cook (Chicago), Illinois; Roll: T625_327; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 957.

-Heinze, Charles, Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947. Digital Folder Number: 4206135, Image Number: 2820 , Film Number: 1892224, Volume/Page/Certificate Number: rn 24892.

-Heinze, Henry, Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947. Digital Folder Number: 4008217, Image Number: 1402, Film Number: 1614308, Volume/Page/Certificate Number: cn 9158.

-Heinze, Herman, Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947. Digital Folder Number: 4204779, Image Number: 1575, Film Number: 1877729, Volume/Page/Certificate Number: rn 1495.

-Heinze, Lillian C., Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947. Digital Folder Number: 4005309, Image Number: 755, Film Number: 1985094, Volume/Page/Certificate Number: Item 1 cn 3207.

© 2011, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser