Horace Scott and the Civil War

The father of Frank Scott (the pickle proprietor of previous posts) was Horace L. Scott, my great-great-great grandfather. Horace was born in New York, around 1842, and died in Illinois, around 1870-1875.

If it weren’t for the Civil War, I would know almost nothing about Horace.  His headstone is a military-provided headstone, and nearly all the records I’ve been able to find that reference him are military records. Continue reading

Frank Scott through the years

I thought I’d have a change of pace for today’s post. Rather than researching a single photo, I thought I’d gather together a series of photos I’ve got of someone I’d like to know more about; in this case, my great great grandfather Frank Scott.  I’ll lay out the photos I’ve got and the approximate dates of each, and we’ll get to see what Frank Scott looked like through time. Continue reading

Hit the road, Clyde

Among the handful of photos my grandmother Harriet Prettyman gave me in August 2012 were these two curious images.  When I asked her about them, she said her father, Clyde Lawson Askew, was a hardworking man who did many different kinds of jobs.  One of his jobs, she said, was that of road builder, and these were pictures of a project he had worked on.  In fact, she said, she had been told that he’s pictured in both photos, somewhere among the faces. Continue reading

The Pickle Factory, part 1

Pickles in a bottleMy family, like most families, has its share of tall tales, embellished truths, imagined histories, and shared deceptions.  I’ve heard about the Cherokee princess, the honeymoon murder, the drunk-driving triple homicide, and the ornery slave owner.  As I’ll discuss in later posts on these topics, none of these inherited truths turned out to be quite what we believed it to be from the stories that were passed down to us.

When I heard the story of the “pickle factory,” I assumed this was just another embroidered memory.  My grandmother Harriet told me this story later in her life (I believe I first heard this story in 2005).  She told me that her grandfather on her mother’s side, Frank Scott, had a pickle factory in Menahga, MN, and that when she and her siblings visited him, he would give them a huge barrel of pickles that they would take back to Wadena and share with their friends. Continue reading