Music for Sepia Saturday

  My cousin teaches music. I guess he'd know a lot more about it than I do.

 I must share a photo of my cousin, John Fitz Rogers, who teaches composition (and other musical things) at The University of South Carolina, Columbia SC. He visited me last fall. So proud of him.

And of course he composes also!

This is a very brief description which leaves out a lot of his achievements. But I'm just a cousin...

"Intarsia" by John Fitz Rogers

Performed by The University of South Carolina Wind Ensemble Cormac Cannon, conductor

If you'd like more info about John Fitz Rogers, check out his web site, with much better bio. https://www.johnfitzrogers.com/

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week, whose theme has operatic aspirations. I think the modern take that this piece has stretches my appreciation of music!

Laura Rogers, historical leader in teaching music in Texas

 Sepia Saturday is focused on music this month...so I am reminded of my music teacher Great Grand Aunt Laura Rogers of Mexia, Texas.

 Here's the Historic Marker for Laura Terrissa Rogers, a music teacher in Mexia, Texas from 1880-1920. (Text is given below so you don't have to strain your eyes)

"Miss Rogers Music Room, Built opposite public school, for Laura T. Rogers, who (1880-1920) taught piano and choral music from 7 am to 7pm 6 days a week, 8 months in year. Had 4 pianos used all day, 8 pupils often played in unison. Auditorium with overflow seating in the yard, staged recitals and dramas. A church organist/choir director 35 years Miss Rogers kindled cultural interests in pupils of two generations. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1965.  (Note, the historic marker gives the wrong year for her death which was in 1922.)

She lived with her married sister, Alice Luella Rogers Ross, and remained single all her life. But she was a very active woman...and much admired by her relatives and pupils.

Laura's sister Luella married John Ross when she was 22, and moved to Mexia TX, where he first he worked as a store clerk, and Laura apparently lived with them early on. She is on the census with the Ross family continually until her death in 1922.

Great Great Aunts Laura and Luella's brother was my direct ancestor, my father's grandfather, William Sandford Rogers. 

Aunt Laura would have been living with her sister's family when my grandfather, George E. Rogers Sr,  and his little sister Annie were under the guardianship of the Ross family following their father's death. Their mother, Betty, must not have been able to care for them, nor could anyone in her family, because the Ross family were made their guardians, with my grandfather just two years old, and his sister Annie just one. I didn't realize their mother had continued living in another city until I read a census in Galveston which included her and her 2 children, later in their childhoods.

John Ross was the manager of the water works of Mexia, Texas as of the 1900 census. And his sister-in-law, Laura, in 1900 at age 48 she is listed as unable to read, but can write. By the 1910 census after the death of her husband, L. Ella (Luella) Ross (56) was head of household, and Laura would have been 57 and is listed as blind.

GG Aunt Laura had been the second oldest child born to my GGG grandparents, George and Lucinda Rogers of Huntsville TX, but both Laura and her one-year younger sister (Alice) Luella were both born in Mount Lebanon, Bienville Parish, LA, where their mother's family lived. My great great grandfather William Samuel (W. Sam) Rogers had been the oldest child, born in Huntsville TX. Their mother, Lucinda Gibbs Rogers had a brother who was a doctor in Mount Lebanon, LA, which could have been the reason she went there to have her babies. With two younger brothers who died in their first years, perhaps Lucinda had trouble with carrying her children.  They had one younger brother, George W. II, who lived to be 18 years old, born in Mount Lebanon. 

Laura Terrissa Rogers is buried in the Mexia City Cemetery, as well as her sister Laura Rogers Ross and her husband John Elmore Ross.

An article in the Mexia Daily News on June 25, 1965, describes as the second place to visit on Mexia's Tour is Laura T. Rogers' Music Room.

This text (below) was given as an address during an event to honor of Laura Terrissa Rogers at her "Music Room" in Mexia Texas. The date attached in Ancestry is 1886...which  was early in Miss Rogers' career. If it was 1986 that's after the  death in 1956 of Thomas Chatham who wrote the note at the  top) So at this point I only know in 1965 there was a celebration. When the one was that is in the first paragraph of the following text, I'm not sure.

It also includes some interesting information about my great grandfather, George W. Rogers, and his father M.C. Rogers. The only thing I've found that is inaccurate is the statement that George W. Rogers was "only parent to Luella and Laura Rogers." He also was the father of William Sandford Rogers, (1850-1879) my Great Grandfather!

Thomas Chatham, who signed the note at the top of page one, was son of Mrs. Lamar Ross Chatham, daughter of John Elmore Ross and Luella Rogers Ross. So Laura was his mother's auntie.

AND an update regarding that first paragraph of the San Antonio's Texas Institute of Cultures...I found it is still in existence but struggling to continue due to funding shortages. I emailed them with that first paragraph, and they called me back on Wed. Jan 10, 2024 and said they had no records of the event I was referring to. I asked if they had records from 1965...thinking that wasn't all that long ago, but she continued to just say they had no records. She referred me to the San Antonio library's genealogy reference section. I said I should also try the Mexia Library and Historical Societies, if they exist. So that was a dead end for now!

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week.

Sod house construction

 Photo: A homesteader and his family in front of their sod house in Cherry County, Nebraska. C.1900 (Photograph by Solomon D. Butcher)

In a 1959 correspondence from Ollie M. Hoback to his half-sister, Mrs. Clay Jenkins, an account unfolds detailing the construction of a sod house by his father on the vast Nebraska prairie. The letter provides insights into this bygone era, capturing the essence of the laborious task undertaken by Ollie's father.

“In the fall of 1883, my father, Isaac Newton Hoback, built a sod house astride the section line, whereby one half of the house was on his homestead, and the other half on presumption land. The law said the homesteader had to make the homestead his home (and only home) for at least six months of the year.

On a presumption, one had to live on it six months and pay $1.25 an acre. By this method, one could live in one end of the house for six months, and then move to the other end for six months, satisfying the law.

Our land was about three miles from McCook, Nebraska. I watched Father plow the sod for his house. The Buffalo Grass roots held the sod together for great lengths—a mile if you wanted to plow that far. The sod would turn over just like a board.

After the first furrow was turned, the second one would lay down and fit into the furrow space left by the first one. The field would just lie there like a smooth black expanse. Any fair team of horses could pull a twelve inch plow, so the sod strips were four inches thick, twelve inches wide and cut the length you wanted to use for the width of your house walls. Father used a sharp spade and a measuring stick for uniform size.

He took the regular bed off the wagon and laid flat planks on to make a flat bed. He picked up the cut sods and hauled them to the house, building the house walls as he unloaded the wagon. He drove the wagon along side the sod strips, loaded, and pulled the wagon so near that the sod could be placed right in the proper wall location.

When the walls were about five feet high, he started standing on the wagon bed to place the sods. There was no mortar or daubing for the sod house, nor was there a foundation.

The first block of sod was laid grass side down on the grassy ground. Subsequent blocks were also laid grass side down and the grass acted as a sealant and a mortar to seal sod to sod.

Read more: https://amzn.to/3S32M8W

Also thanks to History Shortcut Facebook page