Category: Phenice

H. C. and Daisy With the Kids

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The Harry Clifton Phenice and Daisy Henrietta Martha Keys Phenice family circa 1934.

Here’s an interesting photo of the Phenice family in the mid 1930s.  At least that’s my estimate of the date that it was taken.  The photo is not the best photo as far as clarity and balance is concerned, but it is almost ninety years old.  The person whose face is the hardest to make out is my grandmother’s, who you can see second from the right in this photo.

When my grandmother was born in 1906, her parents H. C. and Daisy gave her the name Myrtle Sylvia.  In 1930 she married her sweetheart Fred and acquired the last name Bucklin.  If this photo was taken when I estimated, she and Fred would be parents already.  Their first daughter Sylvia Daisy was born in 1931, and in 1933 their second daughter Betty Lou, my mom, was born.  (They would later have Alma, Loris, and Austin.) Now that you know how I connect to this photo, let’s see who everyone else is.

In front and center are my great grandparents Daisy Keys and Harry Clifton Phenice.  Daisy was born in 1876 in Hackney, London, Middlesex, England.  She came to Louisiana with her mom and siblings in 1887.  Harry was born in Butler County in Pennsylvania in 1874.  By the time he was six, his family had moved to Nebraska to homestead.  So Harry grew up on a farm in Nebraska.  When he reached the age of 24, he struck out on his own and arrived in Louisiana in 1898.  He married Daisy in 1900 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and started a farm and family of his own.

Sylvan Austin was their first child and he was born 11 months after they were married.  You can see him on the far left in the photo.  He  married Mary Bucklin in 1926.  They never had any children.  The next child born to HC and Daisy was Grace Leona, who was born in 1903.  She can be seen standing next to her father.  She had married Ray Sowder in 1929 and they did not have any children at the time of this photo.  They would later have two daughters by the names of Patricia and Flora.

The next child of HC and Daisy was my grandmother Myrtle, who we have already discussed.  My good old Grandma!  After Myrtle came Henry Charles, who was born in 1909.  He was the middle child and he can be seen standing next to his mother.  He was married to Irma Hetzel in November 1934.  They later were the parents of Wayne, Charles, and Diane.  After Henry Charles came Bernard Orville, who was born in 1911.  Orville can be seen second from the left in the photo.  He got married to Elta Whitman in the same year that Henry and Irma were married, but they were married in January of 1934.  They had five children together: Marilyn, Kathleen, Linda, Paul, and Carol.

That leaves two more children of HC and Daisy.  Their youngest son was named Warren Algernon and he was born in 1916.  He is the son in the middle of the photo standing between his parents.  He would get married to Wilma Hylton in 1939 and they had four children.  Their two sons were named Terrell and Kevin, while their daughters were named Julie and Lisa.  The last child of HC and Daisy was Martha Marguerite, who was born in 1918.  She can be seen on the far right.  She was a just a single young adult at the time of this photo.  She would marry Thomas Hill in 1943.  Their children’s names are Shelly, Darla, and Warren.

As I was writing this, I realized that I have a lot of memories of my grandmother’s siblings. I remember seeing Uncle Sylvan, Uncle Henry, Uncle Warren, and Uncle Orville from time to time.  I remember lots of laughs at Grandma’s house when Aunt Grace and Aunt Marguerite would come around.  But I don’t have many memories of Grandpa’s siblings.  I remember hearing about them occasionally, but we didn’t see them much.  My dad’s parents were about a decade older than Grandma and Grandpa, and that made a big difference.  Pee Paw and all of his siblings died before I was even born.  Mee Maw and a few of her siblings were alive when I was a kid.  I have just one memory of any of them.

So I think of the children in this photo as my extra aunts and uncles.  That’s what we called them.  There was no “Great Aunt Marguerite” or “Grand Uncle Orville” when we saw them.  Even though we already had 22 ‘real’ aunts and uncles, I appreciated those extra ones.  I appreciate them even more now that they’re gone.

The Phenice Family in Nebraska Circa 1935

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Phenice family circa 1935

Here is a really nice old photo of the Phenice family from around 1935.  I got this from my cousin Diane Phenice Prejean who shared it with me at the Keys Family Reunion last year.  I had never seen the photo before, so was excited to be able to get a digital copy.  I recognized most of the people in the photo since I have been collecting old photos of the Phenice family for a few years now.

The oldest person in the group is in the center of this photo.  That would be my great great grandfather Samuel Charles Phenice.  As you can see, he was a quite elderly man at the time.  He was born in 1844 and died in 1939.  I estimated that this photo was taken a few years before his death.  His wife Cathrine Jane Foster Phenice had died in 1921, leaving Samuel a widower for almost 20 years.  Besides having been married for 54 years, Charles and Kate (as they were known back then) had eight children together between 1868 and 1889.  Their 6th child named Mollie was born in 1881 and lived less than a year.  The others lived to adulthood.

The oldest child was a boy named Chauncey Austin who was born in 1868.  I have never seen a photo of him. (I have since found one!  Check it out here.) He moved to Colorado and must not have coordinated his visits home with his siblings.  If he did visit home.   He and his wife Anna Stockton had four children together.   Anna May was the oldest girl and she was born in 1869.  You can see her in this photo 2nd from the left.  May, as she was called, married a man named William Taylor and they had a family that lived in Trenton, Nebraska.  That is in the same area that Samuel Phenice homesteaded in the late 1890s.  Samuel was close to his daughter’s Taylor family.  He was living with a Taylor grandson at the time of the 1930 Census.

The third child was another son named William Emory born in 1871.  I’ve never seen a photo of this son either!  He lived in Colorado and California.  His four children he had with his wife Ethel Hohn were all born in Colorado.  The next older son was James Edmund “Edd” who was born in 1872.  I think he had an accident when he was young that resulted in him being deaf.  He was never married and lived with the family in Beaver City until his death in 1944.  He was a handsome young man and I can still recognize him as the man on the far left in this photo.

The fifth child was my great grandfather Harry Clifton, born in 1874.  It’s interesting that Charles and Kate had their first five children in just over six years, and then the last three were born over the next fifteen years.  The earlier children were born in Pennsylvania mostly, while the latter were born in Nebraska when they were homesteading.

We all know that H. C. left Nebraska in 1898 and came to Louisiana, where he married English immigrant Daisy Keys.  He also was known to ride his bicycle across the country to Colorado three times.  He rode from Trenton, Nebraska, to Denver.  I’m not sure about the details.  Surely it happened before he had moved to Louisiana, so it most likely was when he was in his early twenties.  He was about sixty years old in this photo and I doubt that he rode his bike from southern Louisiana to get there.  He is seen third from the left between his sister May and his father Samuel.

The sixth child was Mollie, who I mentioned earlier.  She was born June 12, 1881, in Seward, Nebraska.  She died as an infant and was probably buried in that area.  Samuel’s father Daniel probably died in the same area.  He was alive and living with Samuel and family in Seward during the 1880 Census on June 23, 1880.  I assume he died in the Seward area.  He wasn’t alive in 1885 when Samuel began homesteading in the Trenton area.  So it is likely Daniel and Mollie were buried near each other in Seward.

The seventh child was Lola Myrtle born in 1886 in Seward.  I saw her marriage certificate this summer when I went to Beaver City.  She was married in 1906 to Frank Cozad and they had six children together.  They lived in Alamena, Kansas, which is very close to Beaver City.  This photo was most likely taken in Alamena.  Samuel lived with his youngest daughters the last few years of his life.

His youngest daughter was Emma Orra born in 1889 in Trenton area.  She was married to Charlie Quillen in 1909 in Beaver City, and they had five children together.  She lived in Beaver City most of her life, so this photo could be from that area as well.  Myrtle is the one standing to the right of her father Samuel.  On the other side of her is her younger sister Emma, and I think the man on the far right is Emma’s husband Charlie.  At least he looks like other photos of Charlie that I have seen.

I’ve wondered if H. C.’s daughter Myrtle (my maternal grandmother AKA Grandma) knew her aunts and uncles on this side of the family.  I know that her younger sister Marguerite only visited the family up in Kansas/Nebraska once.  I haven’t seen Grandma in any of the photos from there.  I know that she knew her Keys aunts and uncles because they all lived nearby.  So the family lost touch because of distance.

But now we are making new connections with our cousins through modern connectivity.  DNA testing helps us to identify some of these relations.  Social media allows us to keep in touch with them and see some of what they are doing.  I’ve always wondered what my family in other parts of the country had for dinner.

And now I know.

Just a Lazy Day Circa 1938

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Betty, Marguerite, Alma, Myrtle, Daisy, and Sylvia circa 1938

Here’s an old photo that could easily be overlooked.  I really don’t remember where it came from.  I’ve scanned old photos and slides, I’ve taken photos of other people’s photos, and I’ve collected digital files from other family members.  For some reason I think it’s an old photo I scanned, but I can’t put my fingers on the original.

It’s funny how some photos are overlooked in a photo album.  Maybe it was small or the people were a bit blurry, but it wasn’t something that stood out to me.  But when I start to look through photos to scan, I start to notice details about photos that are interesting.  And sometimes the scan is much better than the original photo.

Since I can’t find the original right now, I don’t know if the scan looks better.  But there is something sweet about this old photo from around 1938.  On the far left is my mom Betty Lou Bucklin standing at what I think is the back of someone’s house.  I’m thinking it is her Phenice grandparents’ home because that grandmother is in the photo, as well as a Phenice aunt.  Mom would have been 5 years old at the time. Looking toward her is her Phenice aunt Marguerite, who was a single girl of 20.

In front of Marguerite is one of my mom’s younger sisters Alma.  She is a happy little 3-year-old girl in this photo.  The next person is uncertain.  I’m thinking it could be Marguerite’s older sister Grace.  She was 35 at the time, so that might be right.  Maybe someone else knows who she is for sure.  (See update.)  The woman who is sitting on the steps is Marguerite and Grace’s mom, Betty Lou and Alma’s grandmother, and my great grandmother, Daisy Henrietta Martha Keys Phenice.  She would have been the 62-year-old matriarch of this little group.  The 7-year-old girl on the tricycle is my mom’s older sister Sylvia.

It just seems like an idyllic spring or summer day.  Spending time with family doing little or nothing, but enjoying every minute of it.  You can’t go wrong with that.

11/10/2018 Update: After much discussion among the cousins (and Aunt Loris) on Facebook, it has been determined that the unidentified woman in the photo was my grandmother Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin. That was a nice surprise. It makes the photo that much more special to me. So this photo shows three generations of my family along my maternal line.

I also was able to figure out where I got the image. It was from a group of old photos that I copied for Grandma back around 1979. She let me borrow some of her favorite photos to photograph with my old SLR camera, and this was one of them. I rediscovered the old forgotten negatives a while back. It makes even more sense that it was a photo of her with her mom, sister, and daughters. One that she cherished. And now, so do I.

Sunday Dominoes

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I couldn’t decide what to write about today.  There was a photo of my mom with her Phenice cousins that I had thought about posting.  I talked myself out of that one because I had shared it in a comment once before.  I considered a photo of  my grandmother’s Phenice family, a photo of her father’s family, and a photo of my mom with her grandmother.  I ruled those three out and went back to the photo of my mom with her cousins.

Harry Clifton Phenice playing dominoes with his son-in-law Ray Sowder on a Sunday afternoon in 1945.

Evidently I changed my mind again, because this is not a photo of my mom with her cousins.  When I got home from work, I looked through the old Phenice photos and this one caught my eye, even though I have used it once before in a comment.

On the left is my great grandfather Harry Clifton Phenice. (My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry, her mom was Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin, and her father was H. C.)  He is playing dominoes with his daughter Grace’s husband Ray Sowder.

My mom talked about how this was a regular event at the Phenice get togethers.  She actually gave me a set of dominoes that she said were from him.  The dominoes I got were not the ones shown in this photo.  I have some ivory colored ones, and these are black with white pips.  And though it looks like smoking the pipe was another part of the ritual, I didn’t get the pipe!  Nor the old 7-Up bottle, both of which would be more likely to contain some trace amounts of DNA.  Oops, there I go on my DNA testing craze.

So H. C. must have enjoyed games.  The same can not be said for his granddaughter.  Mom was not too fond of games.  I guess I am similar to him in that way.  I also like to keep score, like he is doing in the photo.  I like how the photo catches them right in the middle of the action and H. C. is looking intently to see what domino Ray is playing.  That dominoes game looks like serious business.

The Keys Family Circa 1938

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The Keys families in Elton, Louisiana, around 1938.

Here is another great old photo that I wish I had. I guess I kinda have it already, but this is a rather poor resolution of the photo. I can still make out who many of the people are in the photo, but there aren’t many more details that can be made out.

The photo was taken in Elton, Louisiana, in about 1938 in front of the home of Leonard and Edessa Keys. This is my mom’s extended family. My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin and she is the girl standing in front of the adults with her hands down by the side of her dress. Her younger sister Alma is to the left with the blonde hair and it looks like she may be getting ready to dance a jig. Their older sister Sylvia is the older girl sitting in the front. I’m not sure who the child on the left of her is, but I’m thinking it could be younger sister Loris. The young girl on the right is Marilyn Phenice, my mom’s first cousin.

I’m hoping that someone else in the family has a better copy of this photo. I found this scan in a group of photo scans that my dad gave me a few years ago. It seems like my mom should have had the original photo since my dad scanned it, but it may have been lost in the moves and clean ups. So if you do have a better copy, send me the best scan you can make. I’ll clean it up and share it with everyone on here.

Let me go ahead and try to name a few more of the people seen in the photo. The reason I named it the Phenice/Keys group is that central in the photo are my mom’s maternal grandparents Harry Clifton Phenice and Daisy Keys Phenice. Also present are some of their children. But the bigger influence on the name was the fact that at least two of Daisy’s siblings are in the photo.

Grandpa Phenice (H.C.) is standing in the center holding his hat. Standing between him and my mom is Daisy. To the right and behind H. C. is my grandmother Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin and my grandfather Fred Bucklin. Now that I look at this photo more closely, I realize that I’ve posted a Fred Bucklin family photo that was taken on this same day. I called that one “Depression Era Bucklin Babies.”  That photo confirms that the little girl in front of Betty Lou in this photo is Loris.

Now, who else do I see? There’s Aunt Marguerite second from the left. She’s pretty easy to recognize. (Imagine my embarrassment if I’m wrong about that!) To the right of her are Henry Phenice and his wife Irma Hetzel Phenice. Then there is Orville Phenice. (He and Myrtle, Marguerite, and Henry are children of H. C. and Daisy.) I’m thinking that Orville’s wife Elta Whitman Phenice is standing behind and between Daisy and H. C. Orville and Elta are the parents of Marilyn.

The man standing to the right of H. C. is Daisy’s older brother Leonard Keys. I suppose that could be his wife standing next to him. She’s kinda cute and Leonard’s wife Edessa May Havenar was a cute young girl. (Her identity had been confirmed by her granddaughter Carolyn Segraves Conner. She also informed me that the girl on the far left was her mother Edith Keys.) Between/behind Leonard and Edessa are two men. The one in front is Warren Phenice, another son of H. C. and Daisy. The other man looks like he’s standing on something in the background.

To the right of Edessa are four more people. The first woman is Daisy’s younger sister Mabel Keys Miller. The woman kinda standing in front of her and facing toward the middle of the photo looks somewhat familiar. I think she may be Mary Bucklin Phenice. But neither of the two men around her look like her husband Sylvan Phenice, so that could be incorrect. I have been told that the man on the far right is Ray Miller, the son of Mabel Keys Miller.

I’ll be editing this post as I get feedback from the cousins about the identities of unidentified or mistakenly identified individuals. Maybe I’ll even get an ID on the hidden person.

So that’s what this post is all about. I want a better version of the scan and I want more people identified. Oh, yeah, and I want everyone to enjoy the old photo of my family.

March 30, 2019 Update

I said that if I ever got a better scan, I would clean it up and share it with everyone.  So that’s what I’m doing.  My cousin Mary brought an original copy of the photo to me yesterday.  She got it from our 2nd cousin Kristie.  Thank you Mary and Kristie.  Kristie’s a cousin from the Bucklin side of the family, so she was okay with letting go of photos of the Phenice family that she is not related to. 

The photo is much sharper than the old scan that I had previously.  You can see the faces of everyone so much better.  You can see that Aunt Irma is looking to the side at something.  You can also see that Aunt Sylvia is sticking her tongue out.  I thought she looked a bit mischievous in the photo!

I got several photos.  I know who a few of the people are, but there are several photos that have unidentified people in them.  Either way, I got some new old photos and that is always exciting!  They’re supposed to be people in the Phenice family, but I’m not so sure.  I’ll have to explore a bit. 

So here is the new and improved version of the photo. 

1938 photo of Keys and Phenice families includes: back row – Edith Keys Segraves, Marguerite Phenice, Henry Phenice, Irma Hetzel Phenice, Orville Phenice (holding Kathleen), Daisy Keys Phenice, Elta Whitman Phenice, Harry Clifton Phenice, Fred Bucklin, Myrtle Phenice Bucklin, Leonard Keys, Warren Keys, unidentified man in background, Edessa Havenar Keys, Mabel Keys Miller, unidentified man looking to the side, Mary Bucklin Phenice, and Ray Miller; standing in the front – Alma and Betty Lou Bucklin; sitting in the front – Loris Bucklin, Sylvia Bucklin, and Marilyn Phenice

The Bucklins of Hathaway 1948

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Alma, Betty Lou, Austin, Sylvia, and Loris Bucklin in 1948. They are the children of Fred D. Bucklin and Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin. (edited photo by Van Landry)

It’s time for a Bucklin photo!  And this one from 70 years ago seems like a nice one to share today.  Just a simple family portrait from the young family out in Hathaway.  I’ve always liked this old photo.  I even have it framed and hanging in my “dining room” here at home.  (Not its own room.  A large open room that includes kitchen, living, piano, and dining table.  An “open concept” if you will.)

Would you call it a family portrait?  I suppose you could, but I usually think that would include the parents in the photo.  This one doesn’t.  It’s just of the children of Fred and Myrtle Bucklin in 1948.

When I got this photo, it didn’t have the date on it.  So I looked through all of Mom’s old photos and decided on 1948 based on one main thing.  It was the only year that Mama didn’t wear bangs.  She was definitely a bangs type of girl, but I guess she decided to grow them out at least this one time.  Evidently she did not like the look for herself.  Snip, snip.

The photo includes Alma, Betty Lou (my mom), Austin, Sylvia, and Loris.  They are situated rather symmetricly in the photo, yet the door in the background is off-center.  I could have edited it to make it better, though that would have been a subjective thing.  Like I’ve said before, sometimes the imperfections give it more charm.

This brings me to another issue.  I’ve never really liked photos of myself with my eyes closed or looking way off to the side, particularly for posed photos like this.  So I always wondered if Aunt Loris liked the way her eyes are to the side in this photo.  So I changed them.  Now you may or may not be seeing the edited version.  It depends on what Aunt Loris says.  If you see the eyes to the side, she has decided that we should go with the original version (or I haven’t changed it yet).  If you see eyes forward, that’s what she wanted.

So, Aunt Loris, what is it to be?

Visits in the Past

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I thought I would continue with the theme from two weeks ago.  That was the post of my visit to southern Nebraska to see the final resting place of my great great grandparents Samuel Charles Phenice and Cathrine Jane Foster Phenice – or Charles and Kate as I have come to know them a little better.

But before it was their resting place, it was their living place.  I’m not really sure when they moved to the Beaver City area of Nebraska, but it was sometime shortly before the turn of the century.  That was about 120 years ago.  I’ve posted a few photos of Charles and Kate and other family members in the past, but the topic of this week is about visits to the area by the next generations.

I’m sure other cousins from my own generation have visited there and I think some may live near that area.  I don’t think my mom ever went.  Some of her cousins may have, but I don’t have any photos of that.  But I do have a photo from a visit by my grandmother Myrtle Phenice Bucklin’s generation.

Extended Phenice family in Almena, Kansas, circa 1939.

This photo was probably taken in Almena, Kansas, around 1939.  At that point Kate had died in 1921 and Charles had gone to live with his daughter Myrtle Cozad in Almena, which is 14 miles south of Precept.

I know that it is from 1939, because it has Aunt Marguerite in it.  She was a Phenice (who married a Hill) and sister of my Grandma.  She wrote her memoirs (Marge’s Memories) and mentioned that she only went up there once and it was just before her Grandpa Phenice died.  If you remember from other posts, Samuel Charles Phenice died on Sept. 15, 1939.

I’m thinking this photo was taken in the summer of 1939.  You can see Marguerite third from the right on the back row.  She’s looking over to the left toward her sister-in-law Irma Hetzel Phenice (in the black skirt) and sister Grace Phenice Sowder (holding the hat).  On the top right is Marguerite & Grace’s brother Warren Phenice.  I think the three girls who are second from the right on the top through bottom rows are the daughters of Myrtle Cozad – Pauline, Ruby, and Leora.  At least it looks like the same people I’ve seen from other photos.

The other person I recognize is another son of Charles and Kate.  He is second from the left sitting on the middle row.  His name was James Edmund Phenice, but everyone called him Edd.  Of course, Grace and Marguerite probably called him Uncle Edd.  He is buried next to his parents.  I could kick myself now because I forgot to take a photo of his headstone!  Now I’ll have to go back!

I’m not sure who the other family members are in this photo, but I’m thinking some of them are Quillens, because they also lived close by.  Maybe some of their descendants will be able to help us identify them.  Wouldn’t that be great?  (Heard from Michelle Quillen!  She says that the man front and center is Dean Quillen, son of Emma Phenice Quillen.  His wife Evelyn Satter Quillen is sitting directly behind him and she is holding their oldest son Kenneth.)

Top: Daisy Keys Phenice, Lola Myrtle Phenice, and Emma Orra Phenice; Bottom: Harry Clifton Phenice and James Edmund Phenice.

You’ve all seen this next photo before.  I posted this one in November of 2015.  It is such a great photo.  I had estimated the date of the photo to be 1900 when I originally posted it.  I looked at it a few months ago and realized that the date had to be incorrect.  Emma was only 11 years old in 1900 and she is obviously older than that in the photo.  I posted  the photo on Facebook to request a possible date and I was told it was probably taken between 1905 and 1910.  That seemed reasonable and fit better with Emma’s apparent age.

I also wondered where and why the photo was taken.  Daisy and Harry were married in 1900, so that would have been a reason for the three Phenice siblings Myrtle, Emma, and Edd to come down for a visit.  But we’ve already ruled out that early date.  I didn’t know of any visits that Daisy made up north, but it seems like she would have visited.  Yet I didn’t see her in any of the photos of other visits that I’ve seen.  So when was it?  I decided on an estimated date of 1907 a week or so before I visited Nebraska.

But then I found a clue in Nebraska!  Yay!  When I had looked up information before we arrived in Beaver City, it showed that the library would be closed on Saturdays – and we were there on a Saturday.  After having a tasty Beaver Burger at the Beaver Bar and Grill, I thought I’d go to the thrift store to see if I might find a memento from my visit.  At the thrift store, the attendant was very nice and friendly.  Come to find out, her husband was related to some of the Cozad family too.  She also told me about the library being open, so we hurried over before they shut the door.

1906 wedding record of Lola Myrtle Phenice and Franklin Pierce Cozad

In the local history room I found a binder with the name Phenice on the spine.  It was collected information about our family!  The friendly thrift store attendant showed up at the library with her husband and helped us find a few things.  One of the things I found was that Samuel Charles and Cathrine Jane went by Charles and Kate.  I’ve already told you that, though.  But on the March 19, 1906, wedding record of Myrtle Phenice and Frank Cozad, it showed that one of the witnesses to the wedding in Precept, Nebraska, was “Mrs. H. C. Phenice.”

The only H. C. Phenice in that family was my great grandfather Harry Clifton.  And his wife was Daisy Keys.  So there it was!  Evidence of Daisy visiting up north at a formal family event.  Plus the time was around the time I was thinking that photo must have been taken.  They must have had a nice time.  They gave birth to my grandmother nine months later and named her after the bride.

So for now, I’ll say the photo was taken in March 1906.

Now on to other mysteries.

 

It Could Have Been Gomorrah

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Reenacting a photo of my great great grandfather at Maple Creek Cemetery in Precept, Nebraska, in June 2018. See how windy it was.

I wasn’t sure I was going to do a post today, but I found a Wi-Fi spot to do a little work. I decided to post about my recent adventure since that’s the only photos that I have access to right now.

I mentioned the trip to Nebraska to visit the graves of my great great grandparents a few weeks ago, and decided to reenact one of the photos that I posted. That’s the photo of me standing next to the headstone in the cemetery.

Before we went to the cemetery, we stopped in the small town of Beaver City, Nebraska. At the library I found some information about my great great grandparents Samuel Charles Phenice and Cathrine Jane Foster. On two of their children’s marriage certificates, I saw that they went by the names Charles and Kate.

Charles and Kate lived in the small community called Precept, Nebraska. The early settlers picked the name by choosing a phrase from the Bible at random. It’s a good thing they didn’t pick Gomorrah! I also found a photo in a newspaper clipping that showed the church of Precept. It’s the church that Charles and Kate must’ve gone to. Their daughter was married there and Kate’s funeral was held there.

I’m glad I found that photo because it helped me to identify the church when I saw it on the way to Maple Creek (pronounced ‘Crick’ by the locals) Cemetery. The church was moved in 1927 from the cemetery area to the ‘town’ of Precept.

The church in Precept in 2018.

It seemed odd to me that they would make the effort to move the church less than 2 miles away to another secluded area. I suppose there must’ve been more people living in that vicinity. Nothing but fields and clouds for miles around. And an old abandoned church.

Which made the cemetery that much more surprising. It was immaculate! I’m glad to know that their graves are well taken care of. Maybe some of you want to check it out someday.

I had to get creative with this one. Her name is very hard to read when you look at it straight on. Now I know how she spells her name!

The Phenice plot. Kate was buried here in 1921 and Charles was buried in 1939.

Maple Creek Cemetery in Precept, Nebraska, is such a well-groomed cemetery. Very impressive.

Digging Up Bones

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S. C. Phenice visiting his wife’s grave circa 1930.

I saw this photo for the first time just over a year ago.  I got it from my second cousin once removed (my mom’s second cousin) Mona Quillen.  It’s kind of a sad photo.

It’s a photo of my great great grandfather Samuel Charles Phenice at Maple Creek Cemetery in Precept (Furnas County), Nebraska.  He is holding a grandchild or great grandchild as he visits his wife Catherine Jane Foster Phenice’s grave.

We all know the tragedy of Catherine’s death.  Her clothes caught fire in her home just before Christmas in 1920.  She was burned terribly and died as a result of her wounds on Jan. 7, 1921, at the age of 72.  She and Samuel had gotten married Sept. 27, 1866, in Hendersonville, Pennsylvania.  (They were both born in Mercer County in Pennsylvania.)  So at the time of her death, they had been married for 54 years.  Samuel went on to survive Catherine for another 19 years.

So I’m pretty sure this was just one of many of the visits that Samuel made to this graveyard.  That means this photo was taken sometime between 1921 and 1939.  In 1930 he was living with his youngest daughter Emma Quillen (Mona’s grandmother) and her family. (According to 1930 Census.)  Since he was living with that family and the photo came from that family, I’m thinking that the photo was taken around 1930 or so.  So it’s possible that the youngster in the photo was Emma’s youngest son Harry Lincoln Quillen, who was born in 1927.  Samuel died in 1939 and was buried with his beloved wife.

The reason I’m posting this photo is that I’m planning on visiting their grave site at the end of June.  “Digging up bones” is what my mom called these types of visits.  Mona and Michelle Quillen (my 3rd cousin through Samuel & Catherine) suggested the visit to the graveyard last year and I’ve decided to do it.  I’m not sure if they are going to make it or not.  I’m hoping my brother Rob (& his wife Robyn) will make it, too.

So anyone else who might want to meet us there, we’ll be at Catherine and Samuel’s grave shortly after lunch on Saturday, June 30, 2018.  We will not actually be digging, so no shovels are needed.

 

An Orthographic Centennial

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“What is he writing about this time?” you may be asking yourself.  Even if I had mentioned to you what I was writing about this week, you might think that I had changed my mind.  (Or that I’m out of my mind.  Your pick.)  Last week my sister Jamie suggested the topic for this week’s post.  She said that since it was one hundred years since my maternal grandmother Myrtle Sylvia Phenice received a certificate to acknowledge her superior spelling skills, I might consider writing about that.  So I agreed.  Thus the title.

I like to have an interesting title to my posts, which I hope none of you find surprising. Otherwise I have failed miserably!  So I thought I would find a synonym for the word “spelling.”  The word that came up was “orthography.”  Orthography means “the conventional spelling system of a language.”  But I used the adjective form of the word.  In my line of work (drafting or technical drawing), the word “orthographic” has a different meaning.  It is defined as “a method of projection in which an object is depicted or a surface mapped using parallel lines to project its shape onto a plane.”  As you can tell, it is a very different meaning.

So the word has a double meaning.  And hopefully I used the adjective form of the word accurately for the title.  Because it’s supposed to mean a century full of words spelled correctly.  Wasn’t that interesting?  Aren’t words fun?  I think so, and I think my grandmother felt the same way.  She was a stickler for spelling words correctly and speaking with the proper grammar.

April 1918 – My grandmother Myrtle Phenice received recognition for her spelling prowess.

It started early for her, because one hundred years ago she was only eleven years old when she participated in the State Spelling Test.  The test occurred in March, but she didn’t receive her certificate until April.  I’m sure she was very proud of this accomplishment, otherwise we wouldn’t be looking at this old piece of paper.

And if you read it, you’ll see that she spelled five hundred words correctly.  I don’t think I ever had a spelling test with five hundred words on it.  How did they do that?  Pronounce 500 words for a large group of students while making sure that they all heard it pronounced accurately?  That sounds like a monumental task in itself!  It does say that the test was on March 28th and 29th, so I suppose it was spread out over two days.  She was in the second or third grade, so she must have been well-behaved as well.

1920 – Myrtle Phenice at it again.

As you can see from this second document, she repeated the feat two years later.  This time it was only 100 words and just one day.  But she got them all correct again!  That’s an accomplishment.

I wonder if there is a spelling gene?  A few markers in the chromosomes of people who are good spellers?  If there is, I think I got it.  I have always been a good speller, if I may say so myself.  I was looking through some old documents the other day and came across my old report cards.  I always thought that math and science were my strong subjects, but it was spelling that was the only subject I only made As in.  I don’t have any certificates to prove my point, though.

My niece Kelli is an excellent speller like her great grandmother.  She won a district spelling bee when she was in the third grade. (Let’s hear three cheers for Kelli!!!)  When I went to the Keys family reunion last summer, the topic of spelling came up.  It’s funny to hear that other family members are sticklers for incorrect spelling and grammar as well.  It’s that old question of nature vs. nurture.

Grandma was a teacher after all and I’m sure she wanted her progeny to be the best spellers they can be!  Her sisters were also teachers with the same proclivity.  So don’t disappoint them: lets irradicate mispelled words!

 

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