A Clearer View of Kate

My inspiration for the post this week came from a website that I use for exploring DNA matches.  The name of the website is MyHeritage.com and it came out with something new recently.  This new thing has nothing to do with DNA.  It really doesn’t even have anything to do with genealogy.  They came out with a photo editing feature.

And you can call me amazed!!!  I don’t normally use three exclamation points at a time, but this time it was appropriate.  I saw a little ad for the feature.  It showed a before and after for an old photo.  I didn’t believe it.  I was like, “There is no way possible for that to be true.  They took a clear photo and blurred it to make it a ‘before’ photo.  Then they used the original photo for the ‘after’ photo.”  I was not believing it.

But I thought I’d try it.  Why not?  I had tried their colorizing feature on some photos, but I didn’t really like the results.  But it was a free trial offer.  So I went on their website and tried it on a few photos.  It’s like magic!!  Even after seeing the results, I find it hard to believe.  It puts back details like strands of hair, eyelashes, and lip texture that look authentic.

Photo that was edited using MyHeritage.com’s Photo Enhancer to clear up the image of my great great grandmother Kate Phenice and her daughter Emma from 1890.

My favorite one is this old photo of my maternal grandmother’s paternal grandmother. (I am the son of Betty Lou Bucklin Landry, who was the daughter of Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin, who was the daughter of Harry Clifton Phenice, who was the son of Cathrine Jane Foster Phenice.)  So Cathrine or Kate was my great great grandmother.  The photo was taken in 1890 in Hitchcock County, Nebraska.  I estimated this date because her 8th and youngest child Emma Orra is in the photo with her, and she was born June 20, 1889.

Look how much better their faces look!  It really brings the photos to life.  I’ve already spent way too long looking at this photo.  I just can’t get over the details that were recovered.  I thought I’d do the same with the information about Kate’s life.  The details of her life were a mystery for a long time, but last year I figured out who her parents were.  I’ve discovered a few more details in the meantime.

Cathrine Jane Foster was born in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 16, 1848.  We have had that information for quite a while.  Some of it was on her headstone and other parts were in a newspaper article about her death.  There were lots of other details, as well, but nothing was said about parents or siblings.

I now know that she was the daughter of Morris or Moore Foster and Anne Magdaleen Milliron.  When she was born, Morris and Anne had been married for 5 years.  They were married on Aug. 30, 1843.  It was most likely in Mercer County, because that’s where they both were born.  I don’t know much more about Morris’s family, but I do know that the Milliron family had been in Pennsylvania for about 100 years.

Morris and Anne had their first son in 1845 and his name was James.  Their second son was born in 1846 and they called him Emory.  Cathrine was their first daughter and the next to be born.  I’m not sure when she started going by the name Kate, but that seems to be what she was known by most of her life. 

The next source of information for Kate’s life was the 1850 Census.  There are six people living in the household in Cherrytree, Venango, Pennsylvania.  There are 29-year-old Moore Foster, 24-year-old Ann Magdelene Foster, 19-year-old Thomas Foster, 6-year-old James, 4-year-old Emory, and 2-year-old Catharine.  This is a Census, so the names are spelled according to the Census taker.  I’m not sure who Thomas is, but it is likely a family member, such as a brother or nephew of Moore.

The main thing that is different is where they are living.  I have Cherrytree as the birth place for James and Emory.  I’m thinking that Kate must have been born in Cherrytree as well, because in 1852 her younger sister Hannah is born in Cherrytree.  I doubt that the family was moving back and forth from Mercer.  They are about 110 miles apart.  So at some point Moore and Anne moved to Cherrytree and started having children.

Tragedy struck a few months after the birth of Hannah in 1852.  Moore Foster died at the age of 35.  I don’t know how he died, but I’m sure it was a traumatic event in the life of little 4-year-old Kate.  Anne moved her family back to Mercer County.  I suppose she did this to be closer to her Milliron family members.

About a year later Anne Magdaleen Milliron Foster married George Richael.  Over the next five years, Anne and George had three sons.  Their third son Elias was born in 1858 and he only lived for two days.  This was likely another point of sadness in 9-year-old Kate’s life.  Anne and George had two daughters following this.  Then in 1864 they had a son that they named George, Jr.  Sadly, George, Jr. died a couple of days after his first birthday.

So in 1865 the family consisted of her mother Anne and step-father George, as well as her brothers James and Emory and sister Hannah.  There were also two step-brothers and two step-sisters.  It’s hard to know if that was a happy situation or not.  There was no mention of other family members in the article about her death, and some of those step siblings were still alive.  I’m thinking it wasn’t the best situation, since it doesn’t seem like it was talked about.  Otherwise her family wouldn’t have been such a mystery.  Or maybe it was just the forgetfulness of family through the years.

Either way, 17-year-old Kate was not sticking around!  She must have met Samuel Phenice around this time.  He was 21 at this time and had fantastic tales to tell about his soldiering time in the Civil War and his eyewitness testimony for the Lincoln Assassination.  They were married Sept. 27, 1866, in Hendersonville, Pennsylvania.

And the rest, they say, is another post.

Edited version with just Kate in the photo.