Happy Father’s Day, 2018

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Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there, whether living or amongst the ancestors.

My own father, Keith V. Black, died a little over two years ago. I miss him sorely, but he left a lifetime of memories that will keep him forever alive in my heart and in the hearts of those who loved him. My dad was a complex person with several sides to his personality. He was always young at heart—in many ways, he was a teenager well into his seventies. He was an outdoorsman, an enthusiastic participant in the car culture of 1950s Van Nuys, an aspiring photographer, a businessman, an enthusiastic early adopter of technology (he computerized his business in 1978), a passionate fan of music of all genres, an artist, an avid learner, a solitary recluse, and an outgoing man who made friends wherever he went.

He was also a father who was terribly proud of his kids. We may not have always known just how proud he was of us, but as I’m going though his papers I’m learning just how much he defined himself as being the proud father of two children he loved more than we knew.

Here are a few shots that capture my dad doing what he loved more than almost anything else—being a dad. Continue reading →

Some Lake Odell photos 1962–1963

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I was going through a box of photos my mother had saved from her childhood and early marriage years, and I came across this collection of photos from Lake Odell in 1962 and 1963. As Lake Odell brings back fond memories for many in the Askew, Prettyman, Flaten, and Montgomery families, I thought I’d share them with you.

Odell Summit Lodge was run by members of my family until it was accidentally burned down in November, 1971. It was owned by my grandmother Harriet (Askew) Prettyman’s two brothers and one of her brothers-in-law—Bob and Frank Askew and Howie Flaten. The three men and their spouses lived at the lake year-round and together with help from other family members, they ran a lodge, rented out cabins, ran a store, rented boats, and served up meals. Every summer, members of our extended family would travel up to help run the lodge in the busy season in exchange for a nearly free vacation.

I’m gradually accumulating enough info on the decade-long run of the Odell Summit Lodge to write a history of our period of its history, from its purchase by members of the Askew clan, to the building of a new lodge, to the accidental burning of both old and new lodges, to a last-ditch effort to rebuild the resort after it burned. But that’s too much for a lazy Sunday. For today, I’ll just present the photos from 1962 and 1963. Continue reading →

More early Disneyland photos

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Dan and Polly, this one’s for you. For those of you who are regular, long-time readers of my blog, you know I’ve got a sweet spot for Disneyland history. I’ve previously published two posts (this one and this one) on photos I found of my father, uncle, cousin, and grandparents visiting Disneyland on opening day on July 18, 1955. So you can imagine how happy I was when I stumbled upon some new photos of Disneyland in the 1950s.

This time, they’re photos taken (presumably by my mother) in July, 1959, just four years after Disneyland opened its doors to the world.

Unfortunately, my mother took photos as I did in my teens—careful to make sure none of those pesky family members got in frame lest the shot be ruined. Sigh. Teenagers. Amiright? Continue reading →

Mayflower descendancy, part 5

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Just a quick post to update you on where I am after another three weeks on my Mayflower Society quest. The quick answer: I spent two weeks hearing nothing from the California Historian of the Mayflower Society, and making depressingly little headway on my own. I sent off more requests for birth and marriage certificates and made relatively little progress (I did make a few small discoveries that I’ll share with you below).

And then—bam!—the long-awaited letter from the California Historian arrived with my worksheet and a handy three-page guide to proving my Mayflower line and preparing my lineage papers. I say “bam!” because that guide indicated that I might already have everything I need to establish my line. The standard of proof, while tough, is nowhere near as tough as I imagined it would be. Continue reading →

Aunt Dot’s high school graduation

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I was lucky enough to know my dear “Aunt Dot” well into my college years. Aunt Dot was Dorothy Mary Bailey (1896–1987), and she was my grandmother Dorothy Ruth (McMurry) Black’s aunt, so she was my great-great-aunt. She was an impressively graceful, charming, loving, and selfless woman. In fact, she also appears to have been a poised little girl as well. You can see for yourself—she’s the little girl in the center of my site’s banner photograph.

Dorothy and her husband Clarence had no children of their own, and treated my grandmother as the daughter they never had. I often felt that I was also the great-grandson they never had. In any case, when Dorothy died, she left everything she had to my grandmother. When my grandmother died, it all passed to my father, and with my father’s death two years ago, I inherited a lovingly cared-for set of photos, letters, documents, and other artifacts that I’ll be sharing with you over the coming years.

For today’s post, I’d like to share Dorothy Bailey’s high school graduation program. Dorothy graduated from William Winlock Miller high school 104 years ago today—May 28, 1914. Continue reading →

John Ogden “The Pilgrim” (1609–1682)

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I just bought myself a little pre-Father’s-Day present to start reading on an upcoming long road trip this weekend: Jack Harpster’s 2015 John Ogden, The Pilgrim (1609–1682), and it arrived in the mail today. I’m really looking forward to reading it over the next couple of weeks. I ordered the 1858 Vinton genealogy a few days before this, but that looks like it’s not going to be here until mid-June. So it was totally reasonable getting another book in the meantime, right?

I also figured that with all the attention I’m spending on joining one or more hereditary societies this year—all of which are currently based on my father’s side of the family tree—I shouldn’t neglect my mother’s side of the family. So mom, uncle Dan, Jill, and all of my Askew kinsfolk reading this: this one’s for you.

To give you an idea of how far back we’re going, John Ogden is my 11th-great-grandfather. He was the great-great-grandfather of our Revolutionary War ancestor, Benjamin Woodruff (the subject of this post and this post). John Ogden was even distant history for Benjamin Woodruff—John Ogden the Pilgrim had been dead for 62 years by the time Benjamin Woodruff was even born. Continue reading →

Skiing sillyness

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I often like to tie my posts into larger research or historical contexts, or to publish a post on a significant anniversary that the post discusses. Sometimes I’ll take a deep dive into a mystery photo or object to see if I can discover some previously lost context. And then there’s today’s post. I suppose this can be a new category of post—silly things that make me laugh.

Without further ado, here’s the photo that made me laugh today: Continue reading →

Catharine Nobel: professor of religion?

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In researching my Mayflower line, I was looking into previous research on my third-great-grandmother Catharine Noble (1826–1911), daughter of Solomon Noble Jr. (1783–1858) and Dorcas Vinton (1802–1837). I came across a volume I keep encountering, but have yet to fully exploit: Vinton, John Adams (1858) The Vinton Memorial: Comprising a Genealogy of the Descendants of John Vinton of Lynn, 1648: Also, genealogical sketches of several allied families, namely, those bearing the names of Alden, Adams, Allen, Boylston, Faxon, French, Hayden, Holbrook, Mills, Niles, Penniman, Thayer, White, Richardson, Baldwin, Carpenter, Safford, Putnam, and Green, with an appendix containing a history of the Braintree Iron Works, and other historical matter. You’ve got to love those ponderous Victorian titles!

[In a related development—I’m excited to report that I just found an original copy of this rare book for less than $20 online, and so I’ll soon have it permanently on my bookshelf, and will almost certainly be diving deeper into this line over the next several months as a result.]

On page 173 of this volume, Catharine is listed as being the eldest of the five children of Solomon Noble Jr. and Dorcas Vinton (who was in turn the daughter of Seth Vinton and Polly Rider): Continue reading →

Mayflower descendancy, part 4

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Today’s post is an update on my quest to join the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (or “Mayflower Society).

I mailed off my application, fees, and dues to the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Sate of California on May 1, and hope to hear back from them with a worksheet in the coming week.

I finally received the two Washington birth certificates I wrote away for (for my father and paternal grandmother), and I’ve got to say I’m a bit disappointed in the results. Whereas previously I’ve gotten a certified photocopy of the actual record, this time I was only given incomplete transcripts of the originals. I suppose they’re trying to prevent undue wear and tear on the originals, but it’s still disappointing. Continue reading →

Zygonia Shearer’s guardianship

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Today’s post is about a trio of documents that resulted from some archival research that my wife arranged for me as a present right before we became parents 3½ years ago. It’s taken that long for me to get back to this. I was looking for anything I could find on the life and death of my biological patrilineal great-grandfather, Zygonia Ray Shearer. What I got back from the Wayne County, Iowa, archivist was a brief unprovenienced obituary for Ray, and a set of three papers with a post-it note that read “Found among our guardianship papers.”

These papers tell a story of Zygonia’s childhood about six years after his father died suddenly and tragically by falling off of his house and bursting his abdomen open by landing on a stump. Zygonia wasn’t even 2½ years old when his father died, and he would have been about 8–9 years old when the following legal proceedings were recorded in 1903. His younger sister wasn’t even born when her father died; Mary Belle (Coddington) Shearer was just three months pregnant with Annetta when Gilbert Matthew Shearer died in 1897.

There are some legal concepts involved in these papers that I don’t pretend to fully understand, so for my readers who happen to be lawyers, please do let me know of any context that I may be missing. For instance, why would two minor children need a Guardian ad Litem if their mother was around to make decisions for them? Continue reading →