Sunday's Obituary - Eleanor Prosser nee Brown

I decided to prepare some posts on the Neil and Bridget Brown (nee Brown) family. I recently uploaded my family tree onto Ancestry. I had been holding off wanting to get everything just perfect before uploading it. How silly is that though! Are we ever truly finished with our family trees? No! So I uploaded it, but kept it private. I know some people think it's counter-productive to keep it private, but I disagree. I can still interact with others and they can interact with me, but they have to contact me for most information as opposed to just copying it and running away. Isn’t that what we want anyway?

So as I was clicking on the little leaf-hints after uploading my tree I saw that someone else had a tree with people from my Brown line. I contacted her and asked if she wanted to collaborate. Since I was looking at this line’s information and hadn’t shared much I figured that now was a good time.

“Eleanor Brown Prosser

Hazleton Standard Speaker,
14OCT1972, pg 16

Mrs. Eleanor Brown Prosser, of 635 N. James St., died at 9 a.m. yesterday in St. Joseph Hospital, where she had been a patient since Sept. 22.

Born in this city where she spent the greater part of her life, she was a daughter of  the late Neil and Bridget (Brown) Brown, and was a member of St. Gabriel’s Church.

She was graduated from the former St. Gabriel’s High School and the Hazleton State General Hospital School of Nursing.

She was preceded in death by a brother, Neil and a sister, Mrs. William (Rita) Dermott.

Surviving are three sons, Thomas J., of Camp Hill; Robert C. and J. Paul, both of Reading; five grandchildren and the following brothers and sisters, Mrs. Nancy Harkins, Newark, Del.; Mrs. Clyde (Mary) Barth, James and Charles Brown, all of this city; Eugene, of Levittown; Paul, Meadville; John, of Philadelphia; and Mrs. Charles (Joan) Cann, this city.

The funeral will be held from the Boyle Funeral Home, 100 S. Wyoming St., at 9 a.m. Monday, with a Mass of the Resurrection in St. Gabriel’s Church at 9:30. Interment will be in the Calvary Cemetery, Drums.

Friends may call from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday.”

What wasn’t mentioned in this obituary was Eleanor’s husband’s name. I’ve seen plenty of obituaries where the spouse was mentioned and not the parents, but I haven’t seen many where the husband was left out. My assumption is that Rodney died before his wife. To me the fact that he isn’t listed as surviving Eleanor implies this, but I’ll have to see what I can turn up. So far nothing on Ancestry or Newspapers.com confirms this, but I have little on Rodney to start from. He was a member of a family tree that my late cousin, Nancy O’Donoghue nee Brown, sent me and she had no dates of birth or death for him. As for Eleanor, she is my first cousin twice removed.

Funeral Card Friday - Eugene Dart

Thank you to Sally Marcelle for kind
permission to share this on my blog

I have a lot of memorial/funeral cards in my possession. As I was working on my family tree on Ancestry.com one of the hints that I was given was this memorial card. It was uploaded by Sally Marcelle to her family tree. Rather than just grabbing it and posting it here or attaching it to my tree I emailed her to ask permission to share it. She very kindly granted it.

Eugene Joseph Dart was the child of Jean Baptiste Dart Sr and Marie Josephe Podor. They had six or seven (I just potentially found a new one, but haven't confirmed it yet) children: Jean Baptiste Jr, Marie Julienne, (Ferdinande...maybe), Jules Joseph, Eugene Joseph, Marie Antoinette Josephine, and Desira. Eugene is my husband's great, great grandfather.

On April 29, 1871* in Robinsonville, Wisconsin Eugene married Josephine Hermans in the Robinsonville Chapel. Together they had 12 known children: Louisa, Charles Antone, Jean Baptiste, Odile, Adolphe, Jule, Desirea, Mary, August Joseph, William, Eli Joseph, and Wilbert. Their daughter, Mary, is my husband's great grandmother.

Eugene and Josephine are buried in St. Martin's Cemetery in Tonet, Wisconsin.

*According to Josephine's obituary the couple was married on 30APR1870. Eugene's has 30APR1871. The Wisconsin Marriage Index they were actually married 29APR1871. I'll have to see if I have a hard copy of that certificate in my possession or if I'll need to pull one over Christmas when I'm back in Wisconsin.

Sunday's Obituary - Sarah Jane Lee nee McConnell

The Pittsburgh Daily Post, 12MAR1902, pg 5

I'm continuing on with my Lee family posts. I've got a number of them in the works and hope that by preparing and sharing them I'll find that piece that links them in my tree. Even if I don't find it now I'm sure it will present itself at some point.

"LEE - On Monday, March 10, 1902, at 4:20 p.  m., Sarah Jane Lee (née McConnell), wife of Thomas Lee, in her 70th year.

Funeral from her late residence, 42 Melrose avenue, Allegheny, on Thursday morning at 8:30 o'clock. Requiem high mass at Church of the Annunciation at 9 o'clock. Friends of the family are respectfully invited to attend."

The Pittsburgh Daily Post, 11Mar1902, pg 3

"Mrs. Sarah Lee

Mrs. Sarah Lee, 73 years old, died yesterday at her home, 73 Melrose avenue, Allegheny. For some time she had been troubled with slight ills, owing to her advanced age, but was not taken seriously ill with pneumonia until Thursday. Mrs. Lee was born in Blair county, near Altoona, and came here about 50 years ago with her parents, settling in Allegheny at the time. She was soon married to Thomas Lee, who survives her besides five children."

Her obituary starts out pretty well, but then it fizzes out. We start to get a lot of information about her early life (although the names of her parents would be nice) and then she's married and has five kids. End of obit. It's like it was hurried. I know her surviving children are Frank, Edward, and Carrie Lee, Gertrude Menges, and Grace Laughlin. I know that Charles isn't mentioned here either but was in the 1880 census and then dropped off the planet. I'm assuming he died, but I haven't found anything to confirm that yet.

Another thing I noticed about the obituary is that it says she was 73 when the death notice says 70 (and her tombstone confirms 70) and it has 73 for her address when the death notice has 42 (and if memory serves me correctly this was the number in her hubby's obit too). It really adds to the sloppiness of the obituary, but I won't complain too much. I'm glad to have one at all!

Wedding Wednesday - David Menges and Gertrude Lee Get Hitched

The Pittsburgh Dispatch, 20SEP1891, pg 12

Well if I ever figure out where to place the Pittsburgh Lees in my family tree I'll have wedding information for David and Gertrude!

"Thrown wide open were the portals of St. Peter's Pro-Cathedral, Allegheny, last Tuesday evening to admit Mr. David Menges and Miss Gertrude Lee, who had decided to enter the matrimonial state. The bride was attended by Miss Annie Walsh, while Mr. Charles Lee, a brother of the bride, acted as best man. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. F. F. O'Shea. A reception was held at the residence of the bride's parents."

Talk about an embellishment of an article! No mention of the groom's parents or siblings nor of the bride's (at least not by name), but the article will give me a wedding date and place...and something else.

There's mention of Gertrude's brother, Charles. Charles wasn't mentioned in her obituary. A good assumption is that he passed away before she did, but he could have been left out in error or due to an unknown family conflict. It does give me another sibling to look for though.

Tombstone Tuesday - Thomas and Sarah Jane Lee nee McConnell

Photo taken by Bill Bodkin and added to FindAGrave by Liz Freeman.

When you've got ancestors with a surname like Lee you don't hold much hope for easy discoveries. You generally get too many results. I've been lucky recently because between the Pennsylvania death certificates going online and subscribing to Newspapers.com I was able to narrow down my search parameters enough to find the death certificates and obituaries for Thomas (past post) and Sarah Jane (future post). In those gems I saw that they were buried in Calvary Cemetery, Pittsburgh, PA. I was not only surprised to find there were memorials for both of them in the cemetery on FindAGrave, but there was a photo for their tombstones.

I was so happy when the memorials were transferred to me for care by Liz Freeman. She really made my day with that. As for the photo credit, Liz was helping Bill Bodkin to get his tombstone photos on FindAGrave and hasn't been able to get in touch with him for awhile. So I thank and credit Bill with this photo and Liz with her help getting it on FindAGrave and I hope that despite his email silence that all is well. Both of their efforts have helped this researcher with a very difficult line in her family tree.

Medical Monday - Hubert Brown

Cause of Death - Hubert Brown

In a previous Pennsylvania Death Certificate Appreciate Society Wednesday's Child post I talked about Alice Brown, a child of Thomas and Mary Brown nee Barrett, that I was able to neatly place into a fabled male-twin slot in my family tree. I also mentioned that when finding her death certificate online I also found another for a child my family knew nothing about and how he died. This is his story.

Thomas and Mary had six known children: Marian, Thomas Jr, Edward, Walter, Alice, and Hubert. Alice and Hubert were my newest discoveries. Hubert was born on November 10th 1915 and died on November 29th living only 19 days. His cause of death was listed as "enteritis and diarrhea." Gastro-enteritis causes diarrhea which can lead to severe dehydration, malnutrition, and death. How did this little guy get gastro-enteritis?

I found a book/journal excerpt on gastro-enteritis in infants (which works out well since those were the words I searched on Google) and I was pretty horrified at what I began reading. Written about 50 years ago the author of the piece chalked up infants getting this sickness to living in impoverished, filthy conditions. I've got to say that I got the impression that the author looked negatively upon those that had infants suffer and die from this. Did he say that? No, but reading "...In areas where poverty, poor housing, and malnutrition still go hand in hand with ignorance this scourge continues..." doesn't make you feel that he thinks much of the poorest of families. Regardless, it made me wonder what conditions my ancestors were living in. My great grandfather worked in the mines which wasn't the cleanest job in the world, but my great grandmother was a teacher. Hardly ignorant. My mother has nothing but good memories of her grandfather and the time she spent with him. All of the children that survived to adulthood earned bachelor degrees or higher (although I'm told my great grandfather didn't believe in women attending college, my great aunt Marian did anyway and excelled). Not exactly an ignorant family. So how did this infant come down with gastro-enteritis?

As I continued reading this excerpt something caught my eye. The word "giardia". It might not mean much to many reading this, but when I was growing up in Hazleton we would get boil advisories for giardiasis in the water. It was always a pain to have to boil our water before using it. Those advisories were during the 70s and 80s. I've moved away so I don't know if they still deal with these pesky protozoans, but I can imagine they do from time to time throughout the region. So if we were dealing with them when I was a child and the article mentions them is it possible that this was what may have caused the gastro-enteritis in Hubert? Giving water to babies wasn't unheard of. It still happens even with breastfeeding mums. We all know that formula is mixed with water, but when my boys were born (the youngest is nine years old) I had to specifically say to not give them water between breastfeedings. It wasn't because of any fear of water-borne infection, but because I didn't want anything interfering with my milk coming in. So if water is still sometimes given to infants it's certainly possible that it could have been given to one 100 years ago causing an infection. Giardia could have laid the whole family up with severe diarrhea and enteritis. When these things happen in infants they can be deadly while someone older and healthier could recover.

I won't ever truly know how Hubert got sick, but I do feel for his parents. They lost Alice in January of 1914 and then another child in November the following year. Alice and Hubert were their last children and both died. They had to have been devastated. Like Alice and most of her family, Hubert was buried in St. Gabriel's Cemetery in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. I haven't been able to find a marker for him yet and I don't know if one exists, but I created a memorial for him on FindAGrave. Rest in peace, Hubert.

Wednesday's Child - Alice Brown

Excerpt of Alice Brown's Death Certificate

Thank goodness for the Pennsylvania Death Certificates being online! I was able to discover that my great grandparents, Thomas and Mary Brown nee Barrett, had two children that I didn't know about previously. Today's post is about one of them.

I came across Alice Brown's death certificate accidentally. I was actually searching for Barretts who died in the Hazleton, PA vicinity and she popped up because her mom's maiden name was Barrett. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. We never knew about her. My mother's middle name (and the name she goes by) is Alice, but we have several Alices in the family tree that she could have been named for. This discovery added another possibility and was certainly interesting news to my mom.

We were surprised that she was never mentioned especially since my grandfather (her brother) would have been about 5 when she died. He would have remembered her. What was more surprising was that she was a twin.

We knew that Walter Brown (another child of Thomas and Mary Brown nee Barrett) had a twin that died and everyone believed the child had been stillborn...and was male. Well as it happens I was updating great uncle Walter's information on his FindAGrave memorial right before beginning this post and had just put in his birthdate of February 3rd 1911 when I looked at Alice's death certificate and saw that was her birthdate as well. She was the twin of family legend.

Alice died of pneumonia on January 16th 1914 at 4 a.m. and was buried in St. Gabriel's Cemetery. There is no known tombstone for her although I did create a memorial for her on FindAGrave. This little girl...my great aunt...was always remembered because of her twin and we remembered her without a name and as the wrong gender. Now we can remember her properly and someday maybe I can discover where in Saint Gabriel's cemetery she is buried.