Research for 3 branches of my family: Rogers, Booth and Swasey
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My own life and my opinions are shared at When I was 69.
REMEMBER: In North America, the month of September 1752 was exceptionally short, skipping 11 days, when the Gregorian Calendar was adapted from the old Julian one, which didn't have leap year days.
Thoughts of my mother, whose birthday was yesterday. Here's lots of photos of her. She died when 86 years old in 2003, and sadly had had dementia about 10 of those last years.
Happy Birthday Mom
Born March 26, 1917, San Antonio, TX
Baby portraits, Mataley Mozelle Webb, 1917
Her Grandma Eugenia Booth Miller and Mataley and 2 playmates, San Antonio, TX 1922 - I think it likely that this was around the same time as the following pictures however she marked her album.
Her mother, Mozelle Miller Webb and Mataley, 1924, the year Mozelle remarried to Fred Munhall
Fairy princess, probably the same year as pictures above, thought it is marked 1926
1929 House on Lafayette, San Antonio (Mataley was around 12 but looks much older to me.)
Jefferson High School, San Antonio, TX 1934
Don't you love the kids peeking out the window!
Mataley with her two younger cousins Patsy Rogers and Robert Rogers, San Antonio, TX 1934
Bridesmaid before 1936
Wedding Announcement, 1936
Nov 21, 1936 San Antonio, Texas
That's probably the San Antonio River.
Probably a photo that she wished had been destroyed, but somehow survived through the years.
Newlyweds and Mother in Law at shared Rogers home
George and Mataley (notice his hair at this time) from my father's album
A hunting we will go, trip with in-laws in Feb. 1937
My mother, Mataley, George Sr., Uncle Chauncey standing, Ada kneeling, my Dad, George Jr. sitting in front, at tent for camping trip 1937
Living on their own, on Washington Ave, Beeville Tx, sometime before 1941 (notice his hair is thinner)
Mataley in swing, (pregnant with Barbara,) while Ada and George Rogers Sr are cutting up, Dallas, TX 1942 (The senior Rogers were moving from San Antonio to Houston sometime that year.)
Mataley, George holding Mary Beth, Barbara in front, 1946, Dallas, TX
Barbara, Mary Beth and Mataley, 1947 Easter Houston, TX
St. Louis, 11/23/50 first snow
Mary Beth, Mataley, Barbara at chapel of Principia College, Elsah IL, 1950-51 probably
My parents moved to St. Louis to enroll me and my sister in Principia, the Christian Science school. We both attended through our 3rd years of college.
Mataley, Mary Beth and Barbara with Studebaker, Forest Park St. Louis, Mo 1952 perhaps
Mataley and her mother, Mozelle Munhall with Mary Beth in front, 1954 St. Louis, MO
Mataley, my cousin Claudette Rogers and Barbara, St. Louis, 1954
George Sr, Mataley in back, Barbara, George JR, Ada and James Rogers, St. Anne MO 1957?
Ada, George and Mataley, St. Anne MO, around 1957
Mary Beth, Mataley and Barbara, St. Anne MO, 19589-60 perhaps
George, Mary and Mataley in front of home they built in Clayton, MO, 1961
Family gathering at San Jacinto monument and restaurant. Barbara on left, Mary (back) Russell Heym, Mataley with hand raised, Lisa Miller on right, Zachery Miller climbing steps, probably 1978
Home in Houston, TX
Mataley and Barb at Disney World Epcot Center 1981
I haven't copied many other pictures of my mother that were taken during my adult years, while she became a grandmother. So there are lots of images in my mind that I don't have here to share. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into her life, 1917-2003.
My Irish roots may be somewhat Scottish...with more Mc and Mac in their names.
But today I'm going to go as far back as any from Dublin might go. This is about Thomas Pascall my 10th great grandfather. I have the first record of him as the father of Mary, by his wife Ann.
The record is actually of Mary's baptism, and lists Thomas as a cordwinder.
A cordwinder knows how to make ropes, a technique which industrialization made no longer necessary. It is not to be confused with cordwainer, which is a shoe-maker. Here's a video (sound is in Spanish) which pretty well shows the use of hemp to make rope cordage, with English subtitles.
The birth of Mary Pascall was sometime before she was christened on Jan 28, 1684. That record still exists in the church of St. Michans, in Dublin Ireland.
St. Michan's Church is a Church of Ireland church located in Church Street, Dublin, Ireland. The first Christian chapel on this site dated from 1095, and operated as a Catholic church until the Reformation. The current church dates from 1686, and has served Church of Ireland parishioners in Dublin for more than 300 years.
Built on the site of an early Norse chapel from 1095, the current structure dates largely from a reconstruction undertaken under William Robinson in 1686, but is still the only parish church on the north side of the Liffey surviving from a Viking foundation.
While the exterior of the church may be unimpressive, the interior boasts some fine woodwork, and an organ (dated 1724) on which Handel is said to have composed his Messiah.
St. Michans Church, Dublin Ireland, a Church of Ireland.
This church is not to be confused with the Catholic church of St. Michans, built in the 19th century also in Dublin.
Cemetery of St. Michans Church, Dublin, Ireland
Since Thomas and Ann had perhaps two daughters who were baptized, it can be assumed that Thomas Pascall was born sometime in the 1660s. We only have the baptism date for Mary in 1684.
I have no information on the family of origin of his wife Ann Pascall.
Mary Paschall Kennan, their daughter, married John Kennan, who had been born in 1682.
I became a bit irritated by the Ancestry records which other members have posted, from a Quaker record, stating Mary Paschall had drowned and was buried in the 5th month on the 10th day, in 1710. They then used May 10, 1710 as her death date. That is incorrect. In 1710 all of the calendars in Ireland and all the Great Britain possessions, used March 1 as the first of the year. Thus 5th month would be July. However, there's little likelihood that Mary Pascall was a Quaker, having been baptized (probably as a protestant) as well as having a burial record from St. Catherine's Church in Dublin Ireland (see below.) And the record of the Quaker Mary uses Paschall as her surname, not Kennan. If she had been Quaker, that is possible. But my leanings are that she was Church of Ireland...a protestant denomination.
St. Catherine's Church, on Thomas Street, in Dublin, Ireland, was originally built in 1185. It is located on what was once termed the "Slà Mhór" (Irish: Great Way), a key route that ran westwards across Ireland from Dublin. The church was rebuilt in its present form in the 18th century by John Smyth (or Smith).
St. Catherine's, Thomas St., Dublin Ireland
In 1177, the parish of St. James is mentioned as part of the Augustinian abbey of St. Thomas (from which Thomas Street got its name), and the church of St. Catherine was a chapel-of-ease to the abbey. By the end of the 13th century, the western suburbs had so increased in population that a separate parish was deemed necessary. This was provided for by splitting the parish of St. James and setting up an independent parish for St. Catherine's.
Both parishes were still subservient to the Abbey of St. Thomas, but in 1539 the abbey was dissolved with all the monasteries by Henry VIII. In the surrender made by Henry Duffe, last Abbot, were included "the Churches of St. Catherine and St. James near Dublin". Both churches, now independent, had new curates appointed by the crown... Over the following hundred years, both churches passed over to the reformed church, while Roman Catholic priests led a precarious existence tending to the larger part of the population, which remained faithful to the old religion.
The parish of St. Catherine appears to have been the only viable one in the area at that time — Roman Catholics eventually got the use of a chapel in Dirty Lane (now Bridgefoot Street) towards the end of the 17th century. Later, another St. Catherine's was founded in Meath Street to cater for the Catholic population.
The churchyard and cemetery lie to the rear of St. Catherine's. Originally dating to 1552, burials ceased in 1894. The cemetery is now a small public park.There is a plot which was provided by the Protestant Orphan Society for the burial of orphans, in the churchyard.
In honor of Women's History Month, March, here's another of my ancestresses.
Luci (Lucinda) Benson Gibbs Rogers was born on March 28, 1818, in Union District, South Carolina.
She moved with her family (though not all of them) to northwest Louisiana (Mount Lebanon, Bienville Parish) by 1846. Others of her family settled in Mississippi.
Somehow in the mid 1840s, she and other family members met the Rogers family which was traveling from Sevier County TN to Huntsville TX. She met a young man, George W. Rogers, who went to war in Mexico, then came back and married her and they moved to Huntsville TX. They apparently purchased property (1844) in Huntsville before he went to Mexico in 1846 where he contracted TB.
George W. started building this house for his wife-to-be in 1845, then went to war, came home to recuperate, and married in 1848 in Bienville Parish LA. The house probably was finished by then, and they moved to Huntsville TX.
Even though they lived in a huge home, and were noted to be among the most well-to-do in town, when Luci was ready to give birth to all her children except the first one, she went back to Bieneville Parish, LA, perhaps because her older brother was a doctor (Dr. Jasper Gibbs.) Her first child (my g grandfather George W. Rogers) was born in 1850 in the town of Huntsville. Her father-in-law, Micajah C. Rogers had been appointed postmaster in 1850 in Huntsville, and later would hold a high position at the prison that was formed there. He was also a founding member of the First Baptist Church of Huntsville.
And more background - Wikepedia said:
"In the 1830s, Ruben Drake moved his family from South Carolina to what he named Mount Lebanon, the first permanent settlement in the parish [to become Bienville.] As the Drakes were devout Baptists, they established a church and school, which evolved into Mount Lebanon University, the forerunner of Louisiana College in Pineville in Rapides Parish in Central Louisiana.[4]
"On March 14, 1848, the Louisiana State Legislature created Bienville Parish from the lower portion of Claiborne Parish."
Ruben Drake's brother had a daughter Laura Jane Drake, who married (drum roll please) Dr. Jasper Gibbs, Luci's brother. Ruben Drake's brother died early in Mount Lebanon, LA. I am guessing that the Gibbs and Rogers families who settled there must have been attracted by the religious and educational community formed by the Drakes.
Gibbsland LA, Bienville Parish, was a small settlement, named after Dr. Jasper Gibbs, Luci's older brother. I finally looked up the distance between Gibbsland and Huntsville, and its around 240 miles. When people traveled by horseback or wagons on roads that were just tracks through the woods or swamps, with fords across streams and rivers, it probably took a couple of days to get back and forth. But Luci chose to go back to Gibbsland for each of those 5 births, of whom 2 babies died within their first year. She was 42 when she gave birth the last time,
Bienville Parish Louisiana
Walker County TX (where Huntsville is)
I've mentioned elsewhere that Luci's husband, George W. Rogers, died when still in his 40s in 1864. Luci, who had married at age 30, became a widow at 45. That meant she had to have some assistance (probably relatives) to raise her children. Her mother lived only until 1864.
She herself lived until she was 66, and died and was buried in Huntsville TX in 1884. She also outlived her oldest son, William Sandford Rogers, my grandfather's father, who died in 1879. I wonder if she ever saw my grandfather George Elmore Rogers, who was born in 1877 in a nearby community in Texas.
That really brings this woman's life into my own, that she might have held her grandson, a man who I knew and loved when he'd grown into an old man.
Another bit of trivia that belongs to my Rogers family. The first born sons... Micajah was first born of Elijah and Katharine, George W. was first born of Micajah and Cyntha. And W. Sam was first born of George W. and Luci. Then W. Sam's first born was my grandfather, George E. Rogers. But my father wasn't born until the 4th child of George E. So the series lasted through 4 generations anyway.
Following the civil war, the freed slaves were living on their own, and their former owners were working harder to farm their own land. Luci Rogers and four of her children were on a farm in 1870 in Bienville Parish, LA while next door were black families also farming.
But she moved back to Huntsville, before the 1880 census. There she lived with one servant and a niece. I wonder if they were still in the huge mansion.
It's interesting to note that her husband was reinterred in Bienville Parish LA after having originally been buried in Huntsville TX. Then she herself was buried at Oakwood Cemetery - Huntsville, TX among three of her children, her mother, and various other members of her family.
I find her gravestone interesting, with her parents cited, but not her husband. I guess since their marriage was so short, she felt more a member of her family of origin.
Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week. No idea who these females are, and I don't have a photo of Luci Rogers. However, there is one of her husband, which I'll include at the last...
A repost about the Bass family of Texas, my great grandmother, Bettie (Elizabeth) Bass Rogers.
An edited version from my post on Saturday, December 14, 2013
My grandfather's mother was Elizabeth "Bettie" Bass Rogers. She was born in Old Waverly, San Jacinto County, Texas mid-February 1860 based upon her parents listing her as 5-1/2 months old on the 1860 census in Walker County, Texas (interviewed on July 31, 1860.) The original document shows her father Richard Bass as 40, and his wife 35, but the transcriptionist mis-read his age as 20. It does have a correction through it by pen on the original, so that's understandable. Bette was to have 10 siblings both older and younger. Her mother was Mary Elizabeth (Mae) Powell Bass (1825-1871) who I recently featured on this blog Here. Her father Col. Richard Bass lived through the Civil War, as a confederate soldier. (See HERE)
Col. Richard Bass headstone
Her early years in Walker County Texas on a farm (according to the 1860 census her father was a farmer) also had cousins as well as older siblings nearby. Her household also had a teenage cousin living with them, Emily W. Traylor, 16. Sister Julia A. was 18, brother James M. was 16, and sister Nancy C. was 7. All her older siblings were born in Louisanna, but Bettie was born in Texas. Her mother, Mary A. Powell Bass, also had family nearby; the next family listed on the census are the Powells, with 69 year old James M as head of the family. Nancy J. Powell was 36, John T. Powell was 27, and James E. Powell was 4 months old, and there was also cousin Nancy E. Traylor, age 11 living with them. I spent hours one night looking at the Traylor, Powell, Bass connection. How did it happen that the Traylor girls were living with a Bass family and a Powell family? Well, as most of you probably have already figured out, their mother had died, and they were raised by her cousins...one was Bettie's mother, Mary Powell Bass, and one was Nancy J. Powell. Mary Powell Bass's mother was Nancy Jones Traylor Powell, so they had a grandmother in common..
Mary Ann Elizabeth Powell Bass headstone
But back to Bettie Bass. In the 1870 census for Walker County, Texas, the county had grown from early settlement and the Civil War was over. Much probably looked very different from the time of 1860, but all we have in a Census record are names and ages, and where people were born, and sometimes where their parents were born. Thus the migrations of families can be traced.
Downtown Huntsville 1870s
By 1870 Richard Bass was a merchant rather than a farmer, now in the town of Huntsville, Texas. Bettie now had 3 younger sisters, Ella, (9) Minnie (7) and Mary (5). Her sister Sarah is 16. Wait a minute, she had an older sister named Nancy C. who had been 7 in the previous census. How could her name have changed that much? There's no answer offered. The oldest siblings are no longer at home, Julia A. and brother James M. Bass. Emily Traylor is now 26 and still living with them. I wonder if she had some kind of disability...a thought which just struck me, but since she hasn't married by then, maybe.
Downtown Huntsville in the 1870s
Bettie's marriage was in Willis, Montgomery County, Texas, on Dec. 14, 1876, when she was 16, a Thursday evening with the marriage performed by Rev. D. S. Snodgrass, according to Ancestry.com. She married William Sanford Rogers, age 26, but he only lived another 3 years after their marriage. William Sanford was known as W. Sam, according to his son, my grandfather. W. Sam Rogers had been born in Walker County, Texas, but in 1870 had been living with his sister-in-law Lucy Gibbs Rogers, in Louisiana.
Women's Clothing 1870s, not Bettie Bass Rogers
And then he married Bettie in Willis Texas. Perhaps the railroad coming into Willis gave some incentive for the family to move to Willis, and their 2 children were born there. My grandfather George Rogers was born Aug 28, 1877, and his sister Annie Lou Gibbs Rogers was born March 10, 1879. Their father died May 29, 1879 and is buried in Huntsville, Texas.
Willis became a community when the Great Northern Railroad decided to run a track from Houston to Chicago, and the Willis brothers donated their land in 1870 to the railroad. Willis grew in population after the trains began to travel through the town. There were hotels, dry good stores, and many other successful businesses in the 1870s and 1880s. The tobacco industry played a vital role in Willis' growth and development during that time. Other cash crops of cotton, watermelons, and tomatoes were an important part of the economy through the years. The timber industry, which still plays a role in Willis' economic growth, has been its most stable economic engine for over one hundred years. (Wikipedia)
The next census record of 1880 included the 19 year old widow, Bettie Rogers and her two children, living still in Willis, Texas, without any reported means of support. She is listed as head of the household. (There's no 1890 census available.) By 1900 Census (taken June 6) the small family is living in Galveston, Texas, with Bettie now age: 46; a widowed head of household, address 1828 Church St, living with son, George Elmore Rogers age 22, and daughter, Annie Lou Gibbs Rogers age 20. (George would become my grandfather.) Had they moved there closer to the 1880 census? Or perhaps just before the 1900 census? Nobody knows. George was 22 by the 1900 census, so it's very likely he's been helping support his mother and sister for at least the last 5 years. The city of Galveston definitely offered more opportunities for a young man's employment than living on a farm.
In 1900 B. Rogers lists her birthday as May of 1954, making her 46 years old. That census also has a servant living with them, Black, Marie Williams, age 23, as well as a "roomer" named Henry Runge (though listed as Runge, Henry) age 40, a German. But the poor census taker has listed his birth year also a 1854 like Bettie's...so we wonder if he's not 46 like she is. Later I've decided she wasn't born in 1854 because a sister had been born that year...but of course any of these records are subject to being updated. A short aside to refer back to the huge hurricane of 1900, as described a bit in my blog here. The family survived it, and I don't know any details about their lives during and after it. My cousin has said that my grandfather helped clean up all the bodies following the storm. I would imagine every able-bodied male helped with the clean-up. Then in 1905 my grandfather got married. His sister Annie Lou married in 1906.
There was no mention of his mother or sister attending his ceremony, which was held at the bride's home in Galveston, as recorded in detail in the society page of the Galveston Daily News. Other of my family members have said that the bride's family was against the marriage, but that's the kind of information that never gets written in records. However, to not have the mother or sister of the groom mentioned as attending, nor being part of the wedding, does support that theory. Published June 7, 1905
So the next report about Bettie Rogers is a reference on my grandfather's WW I draft card in 1918, where he gives her as his nearest relative, (and not his wife of 13 years.) Bettie is living at 22nd and L in Galveston, Texas. Then the census of 1920 (taken Jan. 8) lists Bettie Rogers "Age: 58; Marital Status: Widowed; Relation to Head of House: Mother-in-law," living with daughter, Annie Lou Wilson and her husband Patrick Wilson and Bettie's three grandchildren, still in Galveston. On July 17, 1924, at age 64, Bettie Bass Rogers died, as was printed in the Galveston city directory of that year. She was buried in Huntsville TX, according to her death certificate. Her son in law, Pat Wilson, knew who her father had been, but not her mother, in providing information for the death certificate. The certificate lists cause of death as "chronic myocarditis and pulmonary oedema," and her birthdate as Feb. 12, 1860, (rather than 1846).
My grandfather (born 1877) wrote in 1954, of having a Rogers/Ross guardian (an aunt and uncle) that had charge of himself and his sister. I always assumed Bettie died close to the same time as her husband, after her daughter was born in 1879. But the guardian doesn't seem to have had the 2 Rogers children in his household in any available census. The guardian was J. Elmore Ross, whose wife Alice Louella Rogers Ross, was W. Sam's sister. The Ross household in 1880 included a Rogers spinster sister, who taught music. The next available census of 1900 includes a "sister-in-law" named Tawry T Rogers, age 48, but with different parents than Alice Louella and the spinster music teacher! So she probably married into the Rogers family. I've never heard of her before, so there's a bookmark on future finding out who she was! Bettie Bass' date of marriage was Dec. 14, 1876 to William Sanford Rogers in Willis, TX, with Rev. D. S. Snodgrass officiating. Rev. Snodgrass also married the J.E. Ross couple on Jan 18, 1876. Bettie's birthdate is garbled through various years on census reports, which might have been her own doing. She didn't follow the tradition of going to live with relations, rather she moved with her young family to a new cosmopolitan city, Galveston. There were limited ways a widow could support her family, becoming a seamstress, or to take in boarders, or selling her skills otherwise. Most census records indicate she was "keeping house." She did have a "roomer" in the 1900 census.
My conclusion about my great grandmother is that she became a bit bohemian in a port town before the turn of the twentieth century. Life had dealt her cards which were difficult for a woman at that time. She may have tried to pass as younger at some times in her life. She may have avoided another marriage by being supported by man who was already married. She definitely seems to have had a life which was on the more shady side of society than the church-going public, those who wrote records of births, marriages and deaths for all to see.
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