Rosemary Beddingfield, a lifelong good friend

Yesterday I lost a dear old friend.  We went through school together from about 7th grade till 12th grade, with her maybe being in another school one year of that time.

I was the bridesmaid for her wedding, while our other friend, Diane, was her maid of honor.  That was her first wedding.  Back in 1962 or 3, I think.  She then moved with her husband to Alaska, where she gave birth to her 2 sons.

A couple of years ago Diane (left) met Rosie in Washington State for a visit

Many years later she had divorced and remarried George, and they raised the boys in New Mexico I think, then Washington State (or maybe the other way around).  This is the part of her life when I wasn't in touch with her.  They moved to where George was originally from, North Carolina, and about that time I found her on the internet.

George and Rosemary Beddingfield

So from 2000 until a month ago, we wrote each other emails daily, with only a few times without emailing, and often writing several times a day.

When she was hospitalized, I suddenly had no one to talk with...except friends who I've made in the last 10 years or so.  Rosie knew ALL my secrets, after all!  I finally started sending her a card in the hospital everyday, but too late apparently.

I wish I could find the high school photos that I know I used to have, somewhere in all my digital folders.  I'll keep looking for them!

I visited Rosie and George when they lived in North Carolina before I retired, and then they helped me find my first apartment here ten years ago.

 She's wearing the witches hat which I gave her, Halloween 2014.

Rosie and George moved to Tacoma WA to be closer to her sons about 8 years ago.  Her battle with cancer started about 7 years ago.

A friend and Rosie wished George a happy birthday last year.  This year she was hospitalized when his birthday came around.  She would cheer everyone around her, and had such a positive attitude that she would be going home.  She survived the cancer and the treatments in that way.

 Last year (2017) Halloween party, she was a little devil.

Her Facebook profile, very blurry

Huginn and Munnin, Norse ravens on pendant.

 Rosie had a crow or raven as her totem animal.  I know her spirit is now flying with the crows.  Free of the cancer and the drugs, at last.

But my home is full of things she gave me, and my heart is torn from the wound of her death.  I know our love, and that of her family and friends, and especially her cats, will continue.  It's just a shock to have an empty space that is Rosie shaped in my physical universe.

Updated March 4, 12:15 pm

The CSA Ella Warley, a repost

A repost (from 8.2.13) about:

Captain Alexander G. Swasey's ship the Ella Warley

Somewhat nautical, the Swasey family began building ships in Massachusetts.  Then some sons moved south then west...Charleston, SC and eventually to Galveston, TX.

When the Civil War broke out, Captain Alexander G. Swasey, Jr. was committed to help the South. I have copies of records where he had signed ship's manifests from Europe to America, as well as one from Charleston to New Orleans which had listed one slave.  Today I have cultural guilt for this but remember that the times before the Civil War meant that the entire culture of the South depended upon the labor of slaves.  It was a way of life, though it was wrong to have an entire race deprived of freedom.  Any black people who were freed may have been rare before Lincoln's address and Emancipation Proclamation, and many had to use the Underground Railroad to go north where they would receive respect and opportunities.

Captain Swasey began blockade running with the S.S. Ella Warley, a 212 foot long side wheeler mail carrier steamboat.  Apparently Captain Swasey didn't spend very long as a blockade runner before being captured, and spending the rest of the war, and most of the rest of his life in (Libby Federal Prison * see NOTE below)

An interesting post about the Ella Warley may be found here. 

I'm very glad this (above) was posted July 16, 2013...just in time for me to forward it to you here.  I am thrilled by the interview with the pilot...where he probably was trying to cover his asterisk when caught with all those guns, by playing dumb.

Captain Swasey's first trip was in Jan. 1862, and he was captured in April 1862.  The Ella Warley having been captured by the Union, went on to other activities.

"The Ella Warley belonged to E. Adderly, of Nassau, a British subject.  The South had looked to Britain to continue helping their commerce of cotton exportation, and initially there was good support of shipping received by investment in ships from British companies.  This is one of the ships that was part of that trade.

This was Captain Alexander G. Swasey's home in Charleston, SC, (as it appears today.) 

 Here's an interesting book that covers the pursuit of blockade running during the Civil War.

Captain Alexander G. Swasey, captain of the early blockade runner Ella Warley from January 1862 until his capture on April 25, 1862 (from a private collection).

 He was my grandmothers' grandfather, so my great great grandfather.


*NOTE: I was incorrect here, he didn't die until 1866 in Charleston, which fact came to my attention by a comment below.    
***NOTE second. He wasn't even in Libby Prison, which is what my family had told me. Oral History is often a bit wrong on names. 

14 comments:

Joan said...

An interesting post. Blockade running was probably quite lucarative, and certainly had a flair of drama to it. You must have many stories to tell.

August 2, 2013 at 6:51 PM

Brett Payne said...

"Cover his asterisk" - I've not come across that one before. It doesn't work quite as well with UK English pronunciation.

August 2, 2013 at 7:05 PM

Alex Daw said...

Yes I hadn't heard of covering one's asterisk either...or blockade running, I'm ashamed to say. I learn so much from Sepia Saturday.

August 3, 2013 at 12:22 AM

Jackie said...

Hello
This is my first sepia Saturday
I am learning so much as I visit everyone!
What lovely verandas he had around his house, I bet he had great views all around in those days
Jackie
http://scrapbangwallop.blogspot.com

August 3, 2013 at 3:31 AM

Wendy said...

Blockade running - cool! Isn't that what Rhett Butler did too?

August 3, 2013 at 8:09 AM

Karen S. said...

How lucky are you! This is just awesome, to be a part of!

August 3, 2013 at 12:22 PM

Bob Scotney said...

Well it's a saying that will come in useful sometime I'm sure. Super picture of the ship.

August 3, 2013 at 1:48 PM

Boobook said...

Are you really saying he never got out of prison? How much longer did he live?

August 4, 2013 at 12:54 AM

B. Rogers, Living in Black Mountain said...

Hi Boobook: His death was in 1866, at an address not his home but in Charleston. "His cause of death is given as Phthisis." His grave was not marked according to a cousin of mine who looked for it a few years ago, but is in another family's plot. I guess I made a mistake in saying he died in prison.

August 4, 2013 at 8:00 AM

Little Nell said...

Well I've learned something new too. I'd never heard of blockade running in the Civil War. How lucky you are to have copies of those documents.

August 4, 2013 at 8:25 AM

anyjazz said...

A new bit of history for me. It is wonderful that you have those documents. Fine post.

August 4, 2013 at 7:25 PM

whowerethey said...

Fascinating post - thank you!

August 4, 2013 at 11:02 PM

Gail Perlee said...

I was surprised by how many didn't know about blockade running. I learned about it from reading historical romance novels. It's amazing how much history you can absorb in such a fun way!

August 5, 2013 at 1:34 AM

Sharon said...

Love it. "Cover his asterisk" Think I will use that one :)

August 5, 2013 at 8:10 AM

Was he known as Alec or John? I don't know for sure.

Alexander John Swasey

1853–1913

Birth MAY 20, 1853 • Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina,

Death OCT 4, 1913 • Galveston, Texas

He was married to Zulieka Granger Phillips Swasey.  He was my grandmother Ada Phillips Swasey Rogers' father. This is my second post about him...see the earlier one here.

He was a bookkeeper, and so was my grandfather, George Rogers.  Mmmm, what's that they say about marrying your father?

Alexander Swasey's mother was Anna J (Fanny Tylstra) Zylstra Swasey.  There was difficulty reading the census, and apparently even the family believed her name had been Fanny Tylstra.  But I saw the "Z" in longhand on a census report, and changed my Ancestry notation for her name, and found more of her family.  Unfortunately I've never found when or where she died.

She had lived in St. Augustine FL where her brother was the postmaster. (See this old post about them!) Alexander's father was Captain Alexander G. Swasey, a nautical man who spent most of the Civil War in prison in a fort in Boston Harbor.  He had been a blockade runner for a short time for the Confederacy.  He died shortly after the end of the war, when Alex John was just 12.

Alexander John was born in Charleston, SC in 1853.  He married Zulieka Phillips Swasey in Galveston, TX in 1884 where they lived until 1907.

My grandmother was married in the Swasey home in 1905 in Galveston.  I don't know if her l year younger sister had married before Alexander John and Zulieka moved to Houston by 1907.

They lived in Houston until Alexander died in 1913.  His wife lived until 1935.  They are both buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Galveston TX

Mary C. Phillips Gainer

Late wishes for Mary C. Phillips Gainer's birthday on Feb. 27, born in 1803.

I know very little about her first husband, William Phillips Sr., born in South Carolina.

And just as I typed this, a William C. Phillips was listed on my ancestry tree for my grandmother's family.  In 1820 this William C. lived in Montgomery County, GA with:

Free White Persons -Males - Under 10	2
- Males - 10 thru 15	1
Males - 26 thru 44	1 (Head)
Females - Under 10	2
- Females - 26 thru 44	1 (wife?)
Free White Persons - Females - 45 and over	1 (mother of head or wife?)
Slaves - Males - 26 thru 44	1
Slaves - Females - Under 14	2
Slaves - Females - 26 thru 44	1
Number of Persons - Engaged in Agriculture	4
Free White Persons - Under 16	5
Free White Persons - Over 25	3
Total Free White Persons	8
Total Slaves	4
Total All Persons - White, Slaves, Colored, Other	12

If William C. Phillips is Mary C.'s husband, he would have been born between 1776-1794.  Mary was not born until 1803, so it's unlikely she was the wife in the 26-44 age bracket. And there's an elder female over 45 as well, another unknown.

The children in the household wouldn't have been Marion born in 1823 and William Phillips Jr. born 1832.  So these 3 boys and 2 girls in the 1820 report don't seem to have existed in later census reports of the family. Conclusion: Not my William Phillips Sr. family (at least not one with Mary C.)

There's a family with William Phillips in Early County, GA in the 1830 census:

Free White Persons - Males - 5 thru 9	1 (Uncle Marion b. 1823?)
Free White Persons - Males - 20 thru 29	1 (Head or?)
Free White Persons - Males - 30 thru 39	1 (Head ?)
Free White Persons - Females - Under 5	1
Free White Persons - Females - 10 thru 14	1
Free White Persons - Females - 20 thru 29	1 (Wife)

And yes, they also had slaves.
Much more likely that this William Phillips is the father of William Jr. who married Mary Hull Granger from Massachusetts when they met in Galveston Texas in 1855...on my Ada Phillips Swasey Rogers family tree.  I blogged about Uncle Marion a few years ago Here,

And I told some of the story of Mary Granger and William Phillips Jr. here.  and here and HERE.  
and Here about some pre-Civil War and post-Civil War correspondence.
And this is my post about William Phillips Jr. during the Civil War.

But back to Mary C. Phillips Gainer.  The C. might stand for her maiden name which is still unknown.

The 1860 census would have her birth year as 1804...which is still possible.

Mary C. Phillips Gainer died Oct 2, 1866, and Samuel Gainer, died June 11, 1867, buried in Spurger Hill Cemetery, Tyler County, Texas. Their daughter-in-law, Mary Granger Phillips who died in 1860, is also buried there. Uncle Marion lived until 1907 and is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Woodville, Tyler TX.

I just have searched a bit more for info on Ancestry about William Phillips Sr. and found that indeed he died around 1836, and Mary C. Phillips was administrator for his estate probated from 1837-38.  She was very adept at counting the value of everything her husband had left. And since the probate records are in Early County, GA, it is clear that the census of the family in 1830 must be the same one.

In 1841, Jan 5, she is listed on a marriage license to Samuel Gainer.  Their wedding is Jan. 7.  He had been married previously also, in 1838, but doesn't have a female living in his household in the 1840 census.  At that time he lived with 2 young men (20-29) and was probably the elder of the household (40-49).  It also states "Persons Employed in Learned Professional - Engineers 2."

It is listed that Samuel Gainer had been born in North Carolina, in 1896.  I have no further information on his family of origin.  But I do know he was considered a Judge.

In 1850 the Early County Georgia census says (though it transcribed his name as Griner)

Samuel Gainer	54 occupation Lawyer, born NC
May C Gainer	47 born Ga
William Phillips	18
Marion Phillips	27

There is no mention of a daughter...though one appeared to the family and claimed to be William and Marion's sister, Ghidora Phillips, born around 1841, following the Civil War. I have a copy of a letter she wrote asking for aid. That was after Grandpa William Phillips had died about 1836, and before Grandma Mary Phillips married Samuel Gainer in 1841.  Maybe a bit suspicious, eh?

That 1850 census is also the one that led me to understand that the Gainer/Phillips family lived in the town of Fort Gaines, Early County, GA...and I wrote about it HERE. 

By 1860, everyone lived in Woodville, Tyler County, Texas.

W Phillips	27 Farmer (William JR) worth:640 real estate
M H Phillips	27 wife (Mary Hull)
M G Phillips	2 female (daughter named Zulieka Granger Phillips)
Sam Gainer	65 Farmer worth: 5000 real estate
M C Gainer	56 (Mary C)
C A Mills 14 male (?)

So I don't have any further information on Mary C.'s family of origin, nor of William Phillips Sr.  It's one of those branches that doesn't go any further back.  But every time I look, I learn more about the families on my trees.