The Ah-Ha of genealogy

I am reading all kinds of details, all the time.  You never know when one will stick in your mind.  There was a middle of the night memory which came to me, remembering 2 women who came to my grandmother's wedding from Houston to Galveston, and I had no way of knowing who they were.  When I had checked the siblings of her parents, and her husband's, there just wasn't anyone by the name of McCall, the one I remembered.

But recently I'd been looking at the various step-children and children of the Elizabeth Granger Sweet and Sidney J. Sweet household.  And there had been a step-daughter who married a McCall.  Frances Ada (Fannie) Sweet McCall.  Could she have been one of those visitors from out of town to the Galveston wedding? The other step-sister was Mary E. Minni Sweet King.

First I had to find the clipping of the newspaper notice of the wedding of Ada Phillips Swasey to George Elmore Rogers, Sr. in 1905.  Thank heavens it was still there on Ancestry!

The Galveston Daily News of June 7 described the gown, the setting, the flowers, and some of the people. There's this final paragraph...

"Among those from out of town in attendance were: Mrs. McCall and Mrs. King of Houston, aunts of the bride; Mrs. N. C. Munger and Mrs. W. A. Grant of San Antonio and Mrs. Sherwood of Houston

But Mrs. McCall was stuck in my memory cells, and suddenly I knew she had been the step-daughter of "Grand Aunt," Elizabeth Granger Sweet. On Ancestry a wife doesn't have listed the step-children who had been born to a first wife, unless you look under the listings of her husband. So it took me some real delving to find that when she had married Sidney Sweet she suddenly had 2 daughters.

I wonder if Grand Aunt Lizzy came to the wedding.  If her 2 step-daughters did (for Mrs. King was the other one) then perhaps her own children Uncle Chauncey Sweet and Aunt Lucy Sweet Chamberlain (living in Galveston) did as well.  Then I noticed Aunt Lucy died in 1905 so maybe she didn't make it to the wedding.  It was a small affair in the parlor of the house, after all.  I don't know who the Mrs. Munger and Grant and Sherwood are yet...  But to come all the way from San Antonio in 1905 was pretty impressive, so those 2 women must have had a connection to the Swaseys.

Uncle Chauncey Sweet had not only his own mother "Grand Aunt Lizzy" living with him in 1900, but the 2 nieces, Ada and Stella Swasey were also listed in his household. It is strange because they were also listed in the household of the Alexander Swasey parents, who at least offered Ada a venue for her wedding.

There was a rumor that my grandmother Ada's family disapproved of her marrying Poppy, George Rogers. Since he and his sister had been virtually orphaned, and had guardians as well as a mother that apparently had little to do with their lives, they didn't have an "established family" to speak for their heritage.  It's too bad, because they had plenty of ancestors from "first families of Virginia," but didn't know about it. And George Rogers had been working since a teen to support himself and sister (and perhaps mother as well.)

Ada's sister Stella Swasey, who was just a year younger than my grandmother, was her maid of honor.

Ada P Swasey Rogers with her first son, wearing her wedding dress.

And who was Charles Olgivy, the best man? I know Anna Lou Rogers as bridesmaid, as she was Poppy's younger sister.  Then a groomsman, Louis White, is also unknown.  It's likely that Charles and Louis were young friends who weren't part of my grandparent's lives when I knew of them.  Or even if they had been, I don't remember them telling me about their friends.  After all, do you know your grandparents friends?

But with the great internet as my resource these days, perhaps I can learn more about my grandparents' lives.

"Dear Nan" Zulie Granger Swasey (mother of Ada Swasey Rogers)

 Aunt Lucy Sweet Chamberlain (or maybe Zulie Granger Swasey ..or  Ada Phillips Sweet?)

I find my grandmother may have made an error on the 2 photos above, calling both of these Lucy Sweet Chamberlain.  They don't look like the same woman at all to me. I'm thinking the penciled description on the second one makes it more likely, because it was before she married.

This was "Auntie" (Ada Phillips Sweet) who was Chauncey Sweet's wife, and who hostessed the household of her mother-in-law (Grand Aunt) and nieces and nephew in 1900 Galveston.