Gertrude had a baby brother?

Receiving loads of old papers and photos has been a godsend for me as a family historian, but sometimes they come in like a tsunami and I don’t have time to properly pore over everything before I must turn my attention back to work and the rest of my life. So it was with me and a couple of boxes of family-history-related items I brought back with me from my grandmother’s house after talking with her for several hours about family history. Normally I would have taken months to go through every last tidbit I brought back, but before I had a chance to do that I travelled to my grandmother’s home town (Wadena, Minnesota) for 10 days and I came back with enough data and scans to occupy me for a couple of years.

Among the items I brought back from my visit with Harriet were a number of photos and written notes that Harriet herself had inherited from her aunt Eva (Scott) Martes, who died on November 22, 2006. Eva was the younger sister of my great-grandmother Gertrude (Scott) Askew (1897–1980). I had time to scan a few hundred photos and sheets of notes before I had to set the project aside to prepare for my Wadena visit. Continue reading

Horace catches his death of cold

F5.largeIn a previous post, I introduced Horace L. Scott, my 3rd-great-grandfather (he was the paternal grandfather of my great-grandmother, Gertrude (Scott) Askew). In that first post, I laid out all I knew about Horace at that time. Horace was born in New York, around 1842, and he served in the Union Army during the Civil War. While serving in that war, he appears to have either been injured or become ill, as he applied for an invalid’s pension in 1870, five years after the war, when he was only about 28 years old.

Sometime between 1870 and 1875, Horace died and was buried in Alden, Illinois. His widow Caroline and their children moved to Deer Creek, MN, to live with her parents. Was Horace wounded in the Civil War? Was that the cause of his status as an invalid after the war? Did it contribute to his premature death?

I applied to the National Archives for copies of Horace’s Civil War service records and any pension applications that he, his widow, or his children might have filed. I recently received two packages from the National Archives with 65 pages of scanned documents about Horace. One of the packages contained a copy of Horace’s Civil War Military Service File, and the other package contained a copy of his Full Civil War Pension File. Among the pages of these scanned documents were answers to my questions about his infirmity and death.

Continue reading

A postcard to Frank Scott from his sister Mate

Another quick post while I’m scanning photos.  This one is an Easter-themed postcard written to Frank Scott by his sister Mary “Mate” Scott on Saturday, April 11, 1914—the day before Easter.  She’s not a big fan of punctuation, and he’s apparently not the greatest correspondent.

The postcard was mailed from Deer Creek, MN, to Menahga, MN, a distance of about 30 miles.

Continue reading

Mary E. “Mate” Scott’s obituary (1943)

Mate Scott (aka Mrs. A. D. Peck) was the older sister of my great grandfather Frank Scott. I’m posting her obituary here because when I found it inside a ca. 1895 bible, it added information to the story of Frank and Mate’s father, Horace L. Scott. In an earlier post on Horace Scott, I stated that he died in Alden, Illinois (where he’s buried), at some point between the 1870 census and the 1875 Minnesota census. That was about all I knew about his last years. Facts presented in his daughter’s obituary help fill in some of the blanks. Continue reading

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