Week 19- Orphans, A New Blog, and Podcasts
Welcome to week 19 of 2018 and week 2 of my short hiatus from blogging about my own personal family (and my husband’s). Just this week and one more and I’ll get back to blogging about our families. During my hiatus, I’m posting information that is not easily found elsewhere. In case you’re just joining me I’ll let you know that I’m posting records of children who passed through the Jasper County Alms House (the “poor farm”) near Carthage, Jasper County, Missouri. Today I’ll be posting about one family and I’ll also be recommending one blog I just found and a couple of podcasts I’m enjoying.
Let’s start with the blog. I just finished watching the most recent season of Relative Race on BYUTV. (If you don’t get BYUTV, contact your satellite or cable company. It’s a family-oriented channel with lots of genealogy and family-friendly programming available.) On episode 8 of Relative Race (Season 3, original air date 22 April 2018), there was a brief mention that Team Black (Johnathon and Rebecca HOYT) had met a relative who podcasts her family history and this relative (Dru MATTIMOE) interviewed Team Black for her podcast. For a long time now, I’ve been thinking about creating a podcast that goes along with my blog so this bit of information caught my attention. I did a little internet sleuthing and found Dru! Before finding Dru though, I found her blog- Coffee and Headphones. The first post I read was entitled, Relevé, Plié. The link above will take you right to that post. Before I could read even a word of her post I was immediately taken back to my childhood ballet and tap days. Some of my friends and I were in dance classes when I was little. Here is a photo of my friend, Genita (on the right), and I in our dance costumes for the tap portion of our dance classes. This was right before a performance. We were standing in her grandma’s yard right next door to my house on the “old highway” in Jay, Delaware County, Oklahoma. Her grandma was my babysitter for several years when I was young. I was probably about 8 or 9 years old in this photograph.
I happen to work at the same high school where Genita’s daughter attends now and I saw her within a day or so of reading Dru’s post and thinking about Genita and our dance days. Maybe I’ll take a copy of this photo to her daughter one day before school’s out.
Yesterday I got to talk with Dru. (I was trying to fix the lawnmower yesterday so I hope I didn’t look too wild and crazy for our video chat!) I enjoyed our conversation and I’m looking forward to following her blog as well as her podcasting adventures. So GO READ DRU’S BLOG! I’m enjoying it and I think you will too, especially if you like a little ‘Hollywood’ to go with your history! Speaking of podcasts, I’m in the car often so I listen to a lot of podcasts. I was recently listening to an episode of Always Listening and the host, Joel SHARPTON, recommended Tyler Mahan COE’s podcast Cocaine and Rhinestones (which is both a podcast and a blog that follows along with the podcast). Tyler podcasts the history of country music. Now, I’m not the world’s biggest country music fan but something Joel said caught my interest so I flipped over to Cocaine and Rhinestones and I was hooked on the first episode (which for me, by the way, was Season 1, Episode 3, The Murder Ballad of Spade Cooley). I’m about halfway through Season 1 right now. Go take a listen. Season 1 is all about the old names in country music- the ones my dad played in the cassette player of that dinky little Datsun pickup that my parents somehow managed to fit two adults and three children into back in the days when seatbelts were optional (and rarely used). Sure wish I had a photo of that pickup truck. Here’s a similar one found at CFI America:
Don’t make the mistake of looking at this pickup as anything close to a full-size pickup truck. These things were TINY!!
Now for the orphans. If you aren’t interested, you can cut out now. It won’t hurt my feelings. If you are interested, read on.
Above is the cover and description of the records for anyone interested. Below is the first page of the transcription. I’ll be skipping the second child (#2- Elija ROBINSON). Just yesterday I made a breakthrough on Elija so I’m saving that for next week so I can research it a little more. This week I’ll be discussing children Rhoda and Eva MALONE and their mom, Mary MALONE (#5-#7 on the list).
Here’s what I know about the MALONE sisters. Mary MALONE came to the alms house with her two daughters- Rhoda and Eva- in February of 1883. Mary was born in 1842 in Illinois. She died (presumably at the alms house since it’s in their records) in August of 1886. She came in with her daughter Rhoda who was born in 1863 in Illinois and her daughter Eva who was born in 1874 in Illinois. I want to be clear here, I am presuming relationships based on the same last name and that they were all admitted to the alms house in February of 1883. There is no disability listed with Mary’s name or the girls’ names. Perhaps Mary was too sick to continue caring for herself or the girls anymore or perhaps she was too poor to do so and couldn’t find enough work. I don’t know. The above is literally all the information I had to go on.
So Mary would have been about 41 years old when she was admitted and 44 years old when she passed away. Rhoda would have been about 20 years old and Eva about 9 years old upon admission to the alms house. There is no discharge date for Rhoda or Eva. Looking at all the MALONE families in the area at that time, I think the most likely family for these people was the family of John and Mary “Polly” (HENDRICKS) MALONE. This family (at least the mother and children- I’m not sure about the father) moved from Adams County, Illinois sometime between 4 July 1870 and 15 June 1880 to Jasper County, Missouri. In 1880, Mary (sometimes listed as Polly) had the following children: Rhoda (born about 1863 in Illinois), Adam (born about 1866 in Illinois), Hiram (born about about August of 1869 in Illinois), and Eva (born about 1874 in Illinois). With this information, the gap in age from Rhoda to Eva makes a little more sense! Mary was a widow in 1880. She and her children were living in Preston, Jasper County, Missouri. I can’t find Rhoda in 1900. Eva is a servant in the Arnold household in Golden City, Barton County, Missouri. Adam is living with Hiram and Hiram’s family in Richland, Barton County, Missouri. Hiram, Adam, and Eva all married and had children. Adam passed away in 1921 (of Paresis), Eva in 1943 (of Myocarditis), and Hiram in 1950 (of Pneumonia and infirmities of age). I have contacted a member of this family and am exchanging information with her in an effort to figure out if this is the correct family and, if so, to link the family’s alms house years back into their historical record. In case you’re wondering why I didn’t bring up the death record of Mary, there isn’t one that I can find.
If you’ve made it this far- thanks for reading. Don’t forget to check out Dru’s blog, Coffee and Headphones. Also check out Tyler’s podcast, Cocaine and Rhinestones (or, if you just aren’t interested in country, maybe check out Joel’s podcast, Always Listening, which introduces you to new podcasts). You can also check out my sister-in-law’s blog at Down in the Root Cellar.
Take care of YOU this week!
Until next time,
Lisa @ Days of Our Lives blog
