The Hail Storm of Ought-Nine

Thursday I talked about the weather and our ancestors, inspired by Florida's heat. This afternoon, that heat gave us another gift of weather to report for our descendants, a hail storm. Around noon, when my husband and I left our genealogical society meeting, grey storm clouds were beginning to form. The temperature was again in the 90 degrees F. territory, a formula for afternoon thunderstorms.

Not long after my husband and I got home from the meeting, with our daughter beginning to make brownies for a hostess gift for the family with whom we will have dinner tonight, my husband talking to our insurance company, still wrangling over issues to do with the day last December when an out-of-control driver smacked into me on a local bridge, and me on my computer checking e-mail and wondering what to discuss in my blog, the bottom dropped out. Rain came down like gangbusters, the wind whipped the trees every which way, and then we heard the thud of hail against roof, wall, and window.

The hail consisted in clear pellets about the size of marbles. It created a horrendous din as it pelted the house. I went out in the garage and felt the garage door. At this time of day -- the storm hit us about 2:20 this afternoon -- you wouldn't want to put your hand on the garage door, as it is quite hot. When I felt it during the hail storm, it was cold to the touch. I have to say it felt wonderful.

Fortunately, we sustained no damage. Our trees lost some leaves and small branches, and there were little ice pellets along with considerable puddles all over the yard. But it did give us something to talk about, and something to record and pass down, complete with photographs. We live in a wondrous age, indeed, when news can travel so fast, and when we can document events with instant photographs.

Investigating a Family Legend

I've talked about my maternal great-great grandfather, Charles Reed, before. This time, I'm going to discuss a family legend about him, and how I went about looking into it to see if there could be any truth to it.

The legend appears on a family group sheet sent me by a Reed cousin, who got the information from another Reed cousin in a letter. The legend states that Charles Reed stopped off in Washington, D.C., to hear Lincoln's Inaugural Address on his way home from war.

Right away, with the mention of Lincoln and war, we know this must have been the Civil War. And since Lincoln's First Inaugural Address was given on 4 March 1861 and the Civil War did not start until the firing on Fort Sumter on 12 April 1861, we can conclude that the reference in the legend must be to the Second Inaugural Address, 4 March 1865.

Now, the question is: Where was Charles Reed on 4 March 1865? Was he indeed on his way home from the war?

The answer is in his Civil War pension file, and that answer, alas, is no. Charles Reed was in the Civil War, having enlisted in Company H, 140th Indiana Infantry, in 1862. The unit mustered out 11 July 1865 in North Carolina. Sounds like the death knell for this legend. But Charles Reed was not present at the mustering-out, having been sent home on account of illness, to Jay County, Indiana, on 30 June 1865. Ah, well. Also too late for Lincoln.

But the story doesn't end there. Digging further into the pension file, I discovered that Charles Reed had been hospitalized in early March of 1865 for typhoid fever. The dates: 1 - 13 March 1865. The place of hospitalization? According to the pension file, his treatment and convalescence for typhoid fever took place at what was called Lincoln Hospital, in Washington, D.C.

Charles Reed was indeed in the right place at the right time. Is there any way of knowing for sure if he actually did hear Lincoln speak of conciliation and peace? "With malice toward none, with charity for all?" I may never know if he actually did hear the speech, but he certainly was in the right place at the right time.

When investigating a family legend, take what facts can be pulled from them and ask questions of them. The legend I was investigating stated that Charles Reed heard Lincoln's speech in Washington, D.C. I had a time (4 March 1865, deduced from other facts, such as knowledge of the date of the start of the Civil War, and the dates of the two times Lincoln was inaugurated as President). I had a place, Washington, D.C. And I had the pension file, with information about where Charles Reed was at certain times.

When I discovered that his unit mustered out in July of 1865 in North Carolina, and that Charles Reed had been sent home to Indiana on 30 June 1865, I didn't give up. I knew by these facts where he was or wasn't on 30 June and 11 July 1865. But that didn't tell me where he was in March of that year. Only further digging into the record, looking at every scrap of paper in the file, gave me the answer which holds the possibility that the legend -- though weak on some facts in that Charles Reed was not "on his way home from war" when he heard the speech -- just might be true.

I actually have some connection to Abraham Lincoln, however tenuous, on both sides of my family. Charles Reed may very well have heard Lincoln's second inaugural speech. And a paternal great-great granduncle was a friend and correspondent of Lincoln's, both men being Illinois lawyers. One of the letters they exchanged is in the Library of Congress. More on that at another time. And on another family legend from that side of the family, also involving Abraham Lincoln, should I get a chance to look into it.

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Source: Charles Reed, Civil War Pension Application File, SO 816,345, SC 697,707; Records of the Veterans Administration, Record Group 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Weather in our Ancestors' Lives

It is June, so the weather is really heating up in Florida. It was 95 degrees (F.) today, and will be hot tomorrow, too. My washer and dryer are in the garage, which faces west, with a metal door which really gets hot in that summer afternoon sun, and puts the temperature in the garage during a Florida summer day in the range of 110 to 120 degrees. This is the time of year I start doing my laundry at 2:00 in the morning!

Thinking of that got me to thinking about weather and our ancestors. Weather influenced our ancestors' lives at least as much as it does ours, and in many ways probably more. Florida's early pioneers, the Spanish, went mucking about in the jungly Florida forests in all the heat and humidity, wearing mail, plate, or quilted armor. Not only did they not have air conditioning, they didn't have Gold Bond powder, either! Even in the late nineteenth century, when my husband's great-grandfather Daniel McLeod Marshall arrived from Alabama and settled first in Apopka and then in Lakeland, the weather was not suited to the clothing! Men dressed in suits, sometimes three-piece suits, and women had dresses that covered just about everything. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable people must have been in 1883, wearing all those clothes in a Florida summer.

Further back, weather was very much a factor in the life of my ancestor Samuel Packard, who arrived at Hingham, Massachusetts, in August of 1638. Hingham at the time was only three years old, and conditions were fairly primitive. Add to that the fact that the climate in New England was harsher than that in England, both in winter and in summer. Samuel and his fellow immigrants were mostly farmers, trying to get a living in harsh weather out of rocky New England soil. There are not many people more dependent on and more influenced by the weather than farmers.

It is also now hurricane season in Florida. Hurricane season begins 1 June and ends 30 November. When I was a child, the season ended on 1 November. The extension of the season to the end of the month is no guarantee of coverage; several years ago, there was a hurricane in April. I remember my mother telling me about the hurricane of 1926 that hit Pensacola, where she was raised. She was nine years old at the time. Back then, there was not the predictive capability we have today. We know a hurricane is coming several days before it gets to us, and we have time to take precautions, from boarding up windows and clearing potentially airborne items from our yards, to evacuating.

The captains of Spanish treasure ships in the sixteenth century didn't have any foreknowledge of approaching hurricanes, any more than my mother's family did in 1926. Many such ships came to rest at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, driven there by hurricanes. Some peoples' ancestors from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries helped shipwrecked sailors and passengers on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Other people's ancestors lured the ships onto those shoals with false lights, so they could plunder the cargo. The rescuers were hampered by the weather, the "wreckers" abetted by it.

From sixteenth-century hurricanes to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, weather has been part of our ancestors' lives. We should try to find out what sort of weather events or climate factors may have influenced our ancestors' lives. And we would do our descendants a favor by noting important weather events in our own lives.

Double Vision in the Census

I have on two occasions found family members listed twice in a particular census. I have also found some apparently not listed at all.

In the 1860 census, my great-great grandfather Charles Reed appears to have been listed twice. On the 11th of June, 1860, he is in the household of his father, Harvey Reed, in Wayne, Jay County, Indiana (M653, Roll 269, page 15). He is shown to be 19 years old, and by occupation a miller.

On the 12th of July, Charles Reed, miller, 20 years old, appears in the household of Vinson Nidey, a landlord, in Jefferson Township, Jay County, Indiana (M653, Roll 269, page 69). Is this the same Charles Reed? I think it quite likely, even with the slight age discrepancy, because just a few lines down on the same census sheet appears the family of Francis M. Wright, including his 16-year old daughter Clarissa H., who very soon after became the bride of Charles Reed. It appears the young man relocated with courtship in mind, or became smitten soon after relocating. Could be the beginning of a love story which included separation during the Civil War, and later widowhood for Charles Reed. And there is also the possibility that Charles Reed had already relocated to Jefferson Township earlier, and had just been included in his father's household by whoever was the informant even though he was no longer resident there.

The second instance of double listing involves my father, Arden Packard, who enlisted in the U.S. Navy 22 June 1929, after graduation from high school in Pasadena, California. On dates recorded by the enumerator as 4-5 April 1930, in Pasadena (T626, Roll 168, ED 19-1208, Sheet 4A) he is enumerated in the household of his father, Walter Hetherington Packard. It is probable that he was not actually present in the household on either of those days, because on 5 April 1930, he was also enumerated at the U.S. Naval Training Center, San Diego (T626, Roll 191, ED 37-56, sheet 10B).

On the Pasadena enumeration, his father's household, there is no occupation listed for my father. The informant apparently did not tell the census enumerator that my father was in the Navy, otherwise the enumerator would not have listed him, according to Item 73 of the Instructions to Enumerators, which states in part: "If . . . any family in your district reports that one of its members is a soldier, sailor, marine. or civilian employee of the United States with a post of duty or station elsewhere, you should not report him as a member of that family." On the San Diego census sheet, my father, age 18 at the time, is reported as a seaman in the U.S. Navy, and shown as having been at work the previous day (4 April 1930). He was, therefore, not in Pasadena on the day his father's household was enumerated.

My mother's parents, Perry W. and Mary Reed, do not show up in the 1920 census. I have looked for them in their native state of Indiana, in Illinois, where they had lived while Perry worked in Chicago, and in Florida, where they did relocate early in 1920. Perry Reed was a railroad freight agent, who had gone from Indiana to Florida to become freight agent for the Gulf, Florida, and Alabama Railway. Around that time, probably in the spring of 1920, they went to Indiana to retrieve my mother. Briefly, my mother's birth parents were Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Reed, Perry's younger brother, and his wife Ruth Nave. Frank Reed was killed in a railroad accident in 1917, when my mother was not quite a year old. According to my aunt Margaret, my mother's sister, the Reeds "ganged up" on their mother. The result was that my mother was adopted by Perry and Mary Reed, the adoption having been finalized 15 June 1920 in the Circuit Court of Escambia County, Florida, in the First Judicial Circuit.

Perry and Mary Reed were enumerated in the 1910 census in Chicago (T624, Roll 271, Sheet 8B), and in the 1930 census in Pensacola (T626, Roll 316, Sheet 12A). I have not been able to locate them in the 1920 census, and my suspicion is that they were en route from Indiana to Florida at the time of that enumeration.

If you suspect an ancestor may have appeared twice, pursue the investigation. Use neighbors, as I did with Charles Reed -- a bride-to-be or groom-to-be may reside nearby. Use other records, such as my father's Navy service record. Read the instructions to the enumerators, and bear in mind that they were not always followed.

If you think you are having double vision, you may be right!