Tuesday's Tall Tales - Run Out of Town

I've got this great uncle that's always fascinated me.  The bad boys always do.  He was the first bad boy I found in my family tree (not the last) and I was always interested in finding out if the tales were true.  This is what I had to go on...

Thomas Joseph Brown Jr. was the son of Thomas Sr and Mary nee Barrett and was born around 1905 in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.  I was told that he was run out of town because of gambling and booze during prohibition.  He relocated to Elmira, New York, about a 2-1/2 hour drive (133 miles away).  What did he do in Elmira?  I'm told that he ran a whore-house.  Um...kay...My Uncle Ed also believed that Tommy joined the Army at some point, but it may not have been that long a tour of duty.

So I'm not 100% sure about the year of his birth.  It was estimated on the U.S. Census, but it should be close.  I was able to find a record for a Thomas J. Brown who served in the Army.  He enlisted in 1942 from Chemung County (Elmira is in Chemung) and was born in Pennsylvania in 1905.  Should be mine, but for some reason I never requested his military records.  I guess I wasn't so convinced it was him.  I'm half Irish and our names are fairly common...Brown?  Yeah, just think of how many Thomas Browns there could be.  I know, looking back at it I can think to myself that I was an idiot for not realizing it was him.  Call it inexperience!

No whore house found though.  Nothing verifying that he was "run out of town".  As far as we know he never married.  My uncle Ed (and he's been right or very near it with almost everything he's told me about family) said that he was buried in unconsecrated ground because of the things he'd done.  My grandfather, Edward Brown Sr, was said to have gone to Elmira to try to secure a burial place for him and perhaps to permit his burial in consecrated ground.  If he was successful, I don't know, but I did finally find his final resting place.

Last week I was fulfilling a request on Find A Grave and when I was done I decided to side-track myself a bit with my own family.  I tried locating Barrett relatives that moved to Buffalo, New York.  Not having much success with concrete matches, I turned to another line, and Tommy was the first I thought of.  He popped right up too.  The memorial had been there for years.  I couldn't believe it.  Had I really not searched for him on there before?  Either way, he was there, waiting for me to find him, nicely tucked away in Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira, NY....a veterans cemetery.

I immediately requested a picture of the gravestone and requested that his memorial be transferred to my care.  Within one, maybe two days, both had occurred.  I don't know why I was so delighted to find him.  I never knew him.  I was born 15 years after he died.  Perhaps it was the love of the hard find!  My uncle Ed was right again though.  Tommy died in 1957.

I've already sent away for his death certificate and military records.  With any luck I'll see them sometime in 2011, maybe 2012.  That won't stop me from finding more information though.  When I travel back to the Northeast this summer, I'll be diving into the local newspapers, both in Elmira and Hazleton.  I'll be checking for the obituary and see if it gives any clues to his purported shady past.  With any luck I'll find a picture.  What did he look like?...apart from being 67-inches tall and 107 pounds (short, skinny bugger!).  So many more questions and the tall tale hasn't been confirmed or denied, but I've got more to go on and that's just what I needed!

Tuesday's Tall Tales! - Discovering a Connection to a Basketball Legend, Part II

Excerpt from the 1930 US Census.  Charles Jr still at home with his widowed father and unmarried.

Hubie Brown.  Apparently he's a name that many basketball fans know.  I don't watch basketball.  It's a shame, I know...Final Four going on and all...a grandfather that was the basketball coach at the local Junior High...a baby sister that was a basketball phenom in elementary and middle school (very surprising considering she's shorter than me and I'm a giant 65-inches tall!), but when my cousin, gave me this article and told me that we were related to "The Great Hubie Brown", I kind of just looked at her and said, "Um, who?"  Of course, at that, my mom, who was sitting next to our cousin, just stared at me like she didn't recognize me as her own child...how could I not know who Hubie Brown was!?!

The article was still relatively new when my 2C1R, Nancy O'Donoghue nee Brown, handed it to me in the Knotty Pine restaurant in Hazleton, PA on our first meeting.  I had met Nancy online while researching and we realized we had a connection.  We promised to get together when I visited Pennsylvania next and we kept that promise, my mom, husband and child in tow.  Our genealogical relationship, while cut short by her death, was incredibly fruitful.  Researching a common surname is never easy and we made some excellent dents in our Hazleton "Brown" family.

We were never able to figure in how this Basketball Hall of Fame coach fit into our tree though.  It's not hard to do research on Hubie.  There's a lot out there, but when researching we need to make sure that we don't force a fit into our family tree for the sake of verifying a Tall Tale/Family Legend.  There was quite the write up on Hubie by Sports Illustrated back in 2007 so I started looking there.

The article verified that Hubie's parents were Charles Brown and Anna (no surname given, so perhaps the Hazleton, PA newspaper was correct with the "Brislin" surname), however according to Hubie and his wife he was an only child...I suppose the Hazleton Standard Speaker didn't only screw up on the section title to that article!  Actually, you can see that Charles had a sister name "Geneive" in the 1930 census.  Perhaps that is where the confusion lies!

There were only 3 Charles Browns in Hazleton, PA in the 1930 Census, and I've got two of them in my tree.  Charles Sr. is the son of Neal Brown Sr, my great-great grandfather.  Charles Sr married Annie Lugrand [sic] and had 9 children that I know of.  I've found them easily enough in the census records and Nancy's research had verified this.  Charles Jr is where Nancy and I assumed Hubie fit in, but we couldn't be sure.  We didn't have a wife listed for Charles Jr and as of the 1930 census, Charles, Jr was 28 and still living with a widowed Charles, Sr.  No marriage yet to Anna Brislin.

So do I just sit here and wait patiently for one more year until the 1940 census comes out to locate Hubie and verify that his Charles is my Charles Jr?  I don't have that kind of patience.  What I can do since I know that he was Catholic and was born in Hazleton, PA is contact my family church and request information on my Charles Jr since he would have most likely been married in there (Saint Gabriel's Roman Catholic Church).  I can also request a marriage certificate for Charles and Anna to find their parents' names, or look up some obits in the local newspaper when I return home during the summer, or request the New Jersey microfilm on interlibrary loan.  I'm not at a dead-end, I'm just swimming through mud right now.  Slow, but easy to stay afloat!

I suppose I could also simply write to Hubie Brown and ask if Neal Brown and Nancy McCoy are his ancestors.  From what I've read about him, he'd probably appreciate the brass it would take to send a letter like that to a stranger! While I've got the brass, it's not really my style.  I'll write if I find a link.  Not to say "hey" to a famous distant cousin.  Rather to ask..."So what about those ancestors of ours?  Got any intel for me?"  Now that's more my style.

So, have I busted this tall tale?  There's still work to do so we'll give it a Myth Buster's "Plausible" for the next few months.  Then we can change its status.  Right now though, To Be Continued...

Tuesday's Tall Tales! - On the run from the Czar

Tabor, Czechoslovakia at the end of the 19th century

My maiden name is Tabor.  From what I've encountered, this is said to be a Czech surname, but my Tabor ancestors aren't from the former Czechoslovakia, so why were they called "Tabor"?  Time for some tall tales, courtesy of my dad......

My great-grandpa, Adam Tabor, and his brother were on the run from the Russian Czar.  They were caught cutting down and selling trees that were the czar's so they fled to the United States.  They didn't take the direct route.  Apparently, they feared the czar's men would be able to catch them more easily if they took a direct route, so instead they traipsed around Europe for a bit and found themselves in a town named Tabor in what used to be Czechoslovakia ("B" on the map).

Now why did they pick this city's name for their own.  Well, I'm told that it was a rough, bad-ass town and they fancied the comparison with themselves, so Tabors they became.  My dad says that they eventually went through Germany and then on to England before heading over to the US and eventually settling down in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Quite the journey.


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What are the nuggets of truth in this rather tall sounding tale?  It's hard to tell.  My great aunt, Lillian Ruminski nee Tabor, is the only surviving child of the above-mentioned Adam and his wife Jadwiga.  I've only had the privilege of sitting down with my Aunt Lillian once in the past 10 years.  My father was there and let's just say that he polluted the pool more than a little.  I asked him before driving to visit to please not answer questions for her.  The answers needed to be from her and unprompted or his tales and memories could influence her answers.  Sadly, my father rarely does anything he's asked, but I gotta love him.  Unfortunately, his need to interfere could mean that I'll never know the truth.  What Aunt Lillian did manage to tell me, was that her father didn't like to talk about his past.

Adam and Jadwiga are the couple on the left.

So now what I actually know about my great-grandfather...

Adam was born between 1874 and 1885 in Russia (this later became Lithuania in later censuses as borders changed, which is helpful at narrowing down his region since Russia is rather large!).  He arrived in America between 1884 and 1890 and became a citizen in 1896.  He married Jadwiga Paszkawicz on April 2, 1902.  They had four children, Aldona, Clarence (my grandpa), Adam Jr, and Lillian.  He passes away in 1958.  He ran a shop in Scranton and joined the Polish National Catholic Church because (according to Aunt Lillian) the majority of the people that patronized his store belonged to that church.

I've never been able to find that "brother" of his.  The only thing I have is a picture of Adam and Jadwiga with another couple and children.  I've been told that the other gentleman is his brother, but no name is given and really just hearsay. I haven't been able to find his passenger record or naturalization papers, but I'm working on it.

Should we disregard these tall tales that our colorful family members pass on?  No.  They could hold that little piece of truth that can break through a brick wall or two.  If nothing else they're entertaining when taken with a tablespoon of salt!