Searching For George Brought Sadness

 

I'm still working on photos. I have made a huge dent though. Two large folders are done, and I am working on the next folder, which is larger than the last one, so I will be in it for a while. But they are correctly named and meta data added.

When I need a break I type out obits to add to the program. I have 9 left to do. No problem there! I think an obituary is my favorite source. Yes, I know they are not always right, but for the most part they are. They have a lot of hints in them that can get you to the next step. Anyway, I had a George M. Woodson that did not seem to fit anywhere into my family. I was fairly certain that he should fit in. As I was typing out his obit, the only person I recognized listed was an aunt, Cora Woodson Jaynes. I had no siblings listed for Cora in my program, though I knew her parents names. George died in Italy in 1943. I made the assumption that he was brought home for burial. I then went to Find-A-Grave. No George buried in Indiana. When I removed the place of burial, George Marion Woodson popped up, having died in Italy in 1943. He was buried in Italy. I know, duh. In my defense, most of my people that died on foreign soil in WWII were brought back for burial, at least they have grave sites in the county. I'm not going to check that they are in them! 

Then, another problem. He had no parents or siblings listed on his page on Find-A-Grave. I knew from the obit that his parents were Louis and Mary Woodson. So I went looking for Louis Woodson. No luck there. I had not searched for Cora on Find-A-Grave before, so I tried that. I found her, her parents and siblings were listed. Interesting. There was a Lewis. Not Louis. Spelling can give me a headache. On his page there is no George listed as his son. In the newspaper obit I have, a John Bias was listed as an uncle. Lewis Woodson married Mary Belle Bias. On FamilySearch it was all laid out. In the obit was listed a Mrs. Reichenba and a Mrs. Mae Wheeler as sisters, while in another little blurb article about his death, sisters were listed as Mae Woodson and Mrs. Lucille Reichenba. I know where he fits now. They were all listed as children of Lewis Woodson. There was no death information on George. He was 25 when he died with no wife or child, and obviously forgotten over time. I will have to go and remedy that (and hope it stays corrected). I'll add the obit as well. Now to find sources to go with it all.

This talk about WWII got me thinking about my uncle, Ermil Trapp. He was killed in the Battle for Metz, France in 1944, part of a tank brigade. My mother, a 9 year old at the time, remembered going to meet the train carrying his body home for burial. I know that this ritual happened over and over again. I put their obits and stories on the Jackson County INGenWeb site when I was the CC there. I remember typing out the obits for two brothers. They were the only children the family had. This family gave their all, and I don't know how they kept from falling under the weight of sorrow. I would have to limit myself to only one obit and article a day because I would feel sick after doing more, I wanted to cry all the time. 

These guys are the original Antifa. They gave their lives so we would not have to live under Fascism. It's time to remember that, the price they paid for this freedom we have, and hold it dear.  

Picture from Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/images/search/tree/)

Photos, Photos, and More Photos

 Alex Trebek is gone.

2020 just needs to be over. 

I have been working behind the scenes for a couple of months getting to all those things I have put off for years. I've just finished organizing and going through each and every one of my digital photos. It says I have 38,558 files. Those are only photo files. ONLY photos. I am a little surprised and alarmed because I still have several albums to scan, and I bet I will run onto another folder full at some point. I still have work to do inside each folder, as I want to make sure they are all tagged. Some are and some aren't at this point. Also, I may consider that I do not have to keep every photo. It's hard for me to throw them out, but I don't have to keep every photo. Right?  I don't have any problems arguing that I do need to keep them all, but the number of files is overwhelming. I'm spending some time thinking about what to do. 

I scanned each album as it was organized by the owner of the album. Each page had several photos on it that I would "cut" apart to make individual photos. I have the original album pages in a large folder listed as "Main Album". I'm thinking I could cull the main single files down to a nice overview of the years, and keep the "albums" together as they are. I have my grandmother's, my dad's, my mother's, and so on. Until recently they were only kept on external hard drives and DVDs. 

I want to get them pared down and maybe upload most to Google Photos. I just bought a book by Lisa Louise Cooke called "ULTIMATE Genealogist's GOOGLE Toolbox". I watched her video on YouTube about Google Photos and was impressed, not just with Google Photos but with the price for more space. I will certainly need more space than the free space that I have left. I had originally bought the book for all the rest of the information in it, but really got a bonus with the Photos part. I did not know what was offered in Photos.

When I need a break I type out an obituary. That is the next thing on the list to do. I have an enormous file of obits that need typed out and entered into my database. So that is the next chore. After that, articles and books. Plus research. 

It's going well. So far.

A Sort Of Rant.

There must be a better way to communicate. Particularly in the genealogy community. It's been a long time since I've had a really good genealogy discussion.

I have a hard time enjoying Facebook anymore. I dislike the politics and ethics of the founder. I dislike the trolling. A lot of people in the genealogy community have said it has helped them enormously, but I haven't found it to be so. By the time I have read through my timeline I am tense. There is a new facebook-like community called LIKER. (https://www.liker.com/) It seems to be politics. I did not find any genealogy mentioned, but there were other categories. You have to sign up to see them, I did not. It bills itself as a liberal social media. We need conversation between everyone, all thoughts and beliefs. Right now that is impossible. Makes me think of something I heard many years ago, I don't know where, but it jumped into my mind. What is the sound of one hand clapping? That's what a conservative network or a liberal network would be. One hand clapping.That's where we are.

Then there is MEWE, which I tried. (https://mewe.com/) Didn't work out and we broke up. Maybe it has changed now, since that was a long time ago. It was pretty quiet, but it promises not to sell you to the highest bidder. At a certain point you have to pay, only so much free space. The only invites to me, were from men wanting to meet women. Yeah, I'm Debbie Downer, not interested.

I want to find genealogy discussions that are going on without joining a million groups to cover everything. I want my interests separate, not all jumbled together. I do more than one thing. I don't want to support the FB guy. I want a certain amount of privacy. I continue to get recommendations to friend people I follow on Instagram. NO. I have two sign-ins that are different, one for FB and one for Instagram. I have not connected them in any way. How did he even know? I don't know what to do about that, but I want to stop it.

I want too much. I know. It is a sad state of affairs.

I want 2020 to be over. 

 

Who Am I?

I saw people online posting this in the last week. It started on Mother's Day. I, of course, am late. But I will post it here just the same. I thought it would just be a list, no big deal. But when I thought it through, had the actual list in my head, it seemed profound in some way. Touching me more than anything has in a long while.

I AM
Sherida, daughter of
Madelyn, daughter of
Della, daughter of
Olive, daughter of
Margaret, daughter of
Elizabeth, daughter of
Catherine, daughter of
Rebbecah.



So simple, yet not. I am the sum of all of these women. I hold their pain and their joy.

Yoga Tree image created by mohamedhassan - from https://freerangestock.com/

Words of Wisdom by Me #0,000,001

(Because I'm sure I have a million of 'em.)

Do not sew at the machine all morning in a black t-shirt and then leave the house without checking yourself! 
You're welcome!




Working on a baby quilt for my nephew. My sister asked for it. So that brings together the sewing part of this blog with the genealogy part of this blog. New entry onto the tree!! The little bud is due in May! 



 Image by: Pixabay

The Tail of Garfield

When I have a minute, I will go into a file, in this case the Garfield Bohall file, and I will transcribe a newspaper clipping. I had decided to work on the Bohall family for a while, getting their sources in and the transcriptions done. I just picked Garfield at random. I transcribed his obit and the church listed was one I had not heard of before. The Wertz Memorial Evangelical United Brethren Church in Columbus, Indiana. I can not leave it alone. One half hour transcribing session turns into a full month obsession with one person.

I found a .pdf file at the Indiana State Genealogical Society on the history of the church. That turned out to be the least interesting part of the story of Garfield Bohall.

In the beginning was the obit:

Garfield Bohall Dies At Home in Columbus

Garfield Bohall, 66, Columbus cabinet maker who formerly lived in Brownstown and Seymour, died early Friday morning at Columbus. Death followed a long illness.

Funeral services will be conducted at 3 o'clock Monday afternoon, Daylight Saving Time, from the Hathaway Funeral Home in Columubus. The funeral party will come to Seymour where burial will be in Riverview Cemetery.

Mr. Bohall was born south of Brownstown on what is known as the old Terkhorn farm, the son of William D. and Serilda Bohall. He was married to Minnie Staley of Brooklyn, Indiana, and they were the parents of two children. Following her death 16 years ago, he married Maudie Allen in Columbus. He moved to Seymour from Brownstown and about 25 years ago, moved from this city to Columbus. He was a member of the Wertz Memorial Evangelical United Brethren Church in Columbus.

Besides the widow, he is survived by a son, Raymond Bohall, of Orlando, Florida, a daughter, Mrs. Merle Allman, of Brownstown, three step-children, eight grandchildren and a brother, William Bohall, of Columbus. Two brothers and a sister preceded him in death.

I decided not to go off the rails completely and leave the church file to read later. Meanwhile, going to the next article to transcribe, I forgot about my half hour limit and rode right off the rails, whatever that means.

The next article was stunning. I know, I know. I should not have been so shocked since I downloaded the article. I seldom read them online, so it was just downloaded into his file to read and transcribe later. So I was in shock. Why did I not see this earlier? Here is the article:

LIFE SENTENCE

Given Garfield Bohall For Killing His Brother

After being out all night the jury in the case of Garfield Bohall, charged with the murder of his brother Thornton, returned a verdict Saturday morning about 9:30 o'clock, finding the defendant guilty of murder in the second degree and fixing his punishment at life imprisonment in the state prison at Michigan City. His attorneys have given notice of their intention to file a motion for a new hearing.

The case occupied the attention of the court from Wednesday until Friday evening about 4 o'clock. The jury was composed as follows: Herman Brandt, August Bobb, Chas. Lambring, Washington township; John D. Summa, Chas, Huber, Salt Creek; Woody McNelly, John Beavers, Owen; Granville Tabor, Hamilton; Elmer Henderson, Chas. Weddle, Carr; Herman Neirman, Grassy Fork; Albert Singer, Driftwood.

The crime for which Garfield Bohall is sentenced to prison for life, was committed on the 28th of November 1909. On that day he and his brothers were at their father's home in Seymour where they found a jug of alcohol, which they began drinking and which ended in a quarrel. Thornton Bohall had started home, but just as he had taken a few steps outside the gate Garfield fired, the bullet striking Thornton over the left eye killing him almost instantly.

A plea of accidental shooting was set up in which the defendant was sustained by his parents and other members of the Bohall family, with the exception of the widow of Thornton Bohall. However, the accidental theory was nogt borne out by the testimony of outsiders who were on the scene about the time the shooting occurred.

This was the second trial of this case, the first jury failing to agree. Nine of them, it is said, were in favor of life imprisonment.

The Indiana Digital Archives show that Garfield Bohall was sentenced on December 7, 1910 to the Indiana State Prison at Michigan city, Indiana. There were no other records and no image. Just my luck.

In the 1910 census Garfield was listed in Brownstown, Indiana as an inmate of the Jackson County Jail. He's 29, and married. I found a marriage certificate for Garfield and Minnie Staley at FamilySearch. They married on June 26, 1906 in Morgan County, Indiana. She apparently did not wait for him to be released into her loving arms. At some point before he checked into the state prison, he became single.

I went looking for the 1920 census for him and it was not hard to find. There he was, Indiana State Prison, Michigan City, Indiana. Garfield Bohall, 38 years old, single, his occupation is listed as a weaver. The Bohall family were all basket makers, so perhaps that is what weaver meant, though I am not sure. His obit stated he was a cabinet maker when he died, and I have noticed that several of the Bohall family members list that later in life. Probably just saying they worked with wood would be enough.

I have not found what day he was released, but the next record that I have is for November 6, 1926 when he marries Maude Allen, a widow, in Bartholomew County, Indiana. He is listed as divorced. At any rate, he 'got out of the big house' sometime before 1926.

Just some great quarantine fun!



Sources:
Indiana State Genealogical Society
http://www.indgensoc.org/
Wertz Memorial Evangelical United Brethren Church in Columbus, Indiana 1892 - 1959
Compiled and Presented To The Wertz Memiral Church On Re-Dedication Day, July 19, 1959 By The Historical Committee Composed Of: Mrs. James Coles, Mrs. Forrest Noblitt, and Mrs. Lula Griffith

Obituary of Garfield Bohall
Newspaper Article
The Tribune
Seymour, Indiana
September 20, 1947
Page 1
from: Newspapers.com

"LIFE SENTENCE"
"Given Garfield Bohall For Killing His Brother"
Newspaper Article
Jackson County Banner
Brownstown, Indiana
October 19, 1910
Page 1
from: Newspapers.com

https://secure.in.gov/apps/iara/search/
Indiana Archives and Records Administration (IARA)
Department of Correction Records at the Indiana State Archives
Indiana State Prison, Michigan City, Indiana

"Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV99-WHTM : 10 December 2017), Eugene T Wilson in entry for Garfield Bohall and Minnie Staley, 26 Jun 1906; citing Morgan, Indiana, United States, Marriage Registration, Indiana Commission on Public Records, Indianapolis; FHL microfilm 007578357.

"Indiana Marriages, 1780-1992", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XFWW-Z82 : 13 January 2020), Arthur Barringer in entry for Garfield Bohall, 1926.

"United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKP3-27G : accessed 28 April 2020), Edd Jerall in household of Jerry Mcosker, Brownstown, Jackson, Indiana, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 58, sheet 8B, family 167, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 357; FHL microfilm 1,374,370.

"United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFWZ-8XX : accessed 23 April 2020), Garfield Bohall, Michigan City Ward 3, La Porte, "United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFWZ-8XX : accessed 23 April 2020), Garfield Bohall, Michigan City Ward 3, La Porte, Indiana, United States.
 
Image by Pixabay

Blogoversary - 12 Years Today!

Today is my Blogoversary! I started TwigTalk 12 years ago on April 26, 2008. A lot has happened during that time, good and bad. But I am still here, still blogging.

Sometimes it helps to reset goals and grow outward. My goal is to blog more, and not only make more progress in my family history research, but to add my own life history to this blog.

The Here and Now

I think everyone is feeling stressed right now. I usually don't get out much and I am an introvert, but still I feel a lot of stress,. Also that horrible feeling of being locked in. I have been reminding myself that this is not really much different than my usual days, but somehow it's not working. I don't believe me. I am still stressed. I still feel like I'm going to break, or most likely scream. I should think that everyone is feeling the same.

As you can see in the photo, I am doing my important reading. My dad always called the Sunday comics pages, the funnies. They got passed around. (ca. 1967 or '68)

This was the year I was going to get everything in order,  organized, connected, and just generally perfect. I am working on it. Today it was get the blog in order. Clean it up. Renew it. This is still TwigTalk, but I have realized that I am one of the twigs. So I am adding myself and my interests here with all my genealogy.

I have gotten quite a bit done. I still have a huge list. It is only April, but I feel like it is time to put the tree up 'cause this year of hell must surely be about over. I know, I know, deep breath, relax. I'm good. Really.

In the good news department, my sister found me a package of toilet paper. How exciting is that!? I have not found a bottle of alcohol, that I would have needed anyway, nor a bag of flour. I did have a new bag of flour in the pantry from January, so I am very lucky there. I will need another bag sometime in the near future. I had masks left from the 2 years I had to wear them after the BMT. I will probably make a few myself, the ones that can be washed.

Who knew what excitement 2020 would bring. Or the sheer terror it would inspire in the vulnerable. I have quite a few in my family that fit that category, including myself.  Everyone please take care of yourself and be well.