My cousin Kate Keller and I have collaborated to collect newspaper articles about our common ancestors, great grandparents Joe and Emma (Strait) Becker and their many descendants. We really struck gold on the Chronicling America section of the Library of Congress web site. The article at left is an example of what we've found from the Great Bend Weekly Tribune of 1913.
Let me break it down for you. The opening sentence refers to Ellen Howard. She married Lew Becker, one of the sons of Joe and Emma Becker.
The next sentence refers to Edna Smith, who, four months after this article was written, married "Bert" Becker, another son of Joe and Emma Becker.
The third sentence says Beatrice Stevenson is working at F. Becker's. F. Becker refers to Fred Becker, the oldest son of Joe and Emma. And Beatrice was the youngest sister of Fred's wife Ethel Stevenson Becker.
The fifth paragraph is about Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Flanders. Clarence was a brother to my grandfather Milo Flanders, who married Nannie Becker, a daughter of Joe and Emma.
The sixth paragraph mentions Mr. and Mrs. J. (Joe) Becker, their son-in-law and daughter Mr. and Mrs. W. H. (Will and Mabel Becker) Lillich.
The eighth paragraph tells us that Opal and Roberta Diggs (unknown to me) and Edna Becker took dinner Thursday with Mrs. G. P Amerine. Edna Becker is the grandmother of my 2nd cousin Kate Keller and one of the daughters of Joe and Emma.
The final paragraph in this news article mentions Mr. and Mrs Fred Becker (Joe and Emma's oldest son), Albert "Bert" Becker, their 6th child, again G. P Amerine, a neighbor at Route Three, Mr. and Mrs. Jos. ("Joe") Becker, and their daughter Edna Becker again, who all attended the ball game at Great Bend (Kansas, my home town).
You might think that's not much information to bother to clip. But to me it says a lot. I can see who went places with other members of their family, how they associated with friends and neighbors, I see they had time and desire to attend sporting events, I see that they took parents with them when they went places, or the parents took their grown children with them, etc. In 1913 Joe Becker was 52 years old and Emma was 45.
As I reviewed this article, an example of many that I collected, I was curious about the Mr. and Mrs. G. P. Amerine mentioned. On August 19, 2012 I wrote a story here on my blog about an Amerine family in my home town of Great Bend, Kansas. I invite you to click the link and read the short story. I found the ancestry of G. P. Amerine online and learned that he was indeed related to Loren Amerine, one of the subjects of this previous post. As I looked through more of that Amerine ancestry, I was astonished to see the name Flanders. As I mentioned above, my mother's father was Milo Flanders, who married Joe and Emma Becker's daughter Nannie. I'm looking at Amerine ancestry and see the name FLANDERS?? I'm so easily astonished and this really grabbed my attention. I've prepared a chart here that shows where the Flanders name fits into Loren Amerine's relationships.
I'm at the bottom left, M. Rebecca Margheim. At bottom right is Loren Amerine, with three of his children listed, Kent, Clyde and Elaine.
This cute little guy above is Clyde Amerine. Clyde was in the same classroom as my brother and I all through grade school, and attended Junior and Senior high School with us. A classmate can feel like a relative after you've attended school together for 13 years!
Pictured above is Elaine Amerine with her husband Glenn Mull. Sadly, they both perished in an airplane accident in Feb. 2014. You can read about that here. My dad worked for Glenn Mull the last two years of his working career.
Clyde and Elaine's oldest brother was Kent Amerine. I was recounting this story to my husband last night after I prepared the chart posted above. I told him it was sad that Kent Amerine was one of the casualties of the Viet Nam war who was from my hometown. I was indeed surprised this morning when I reviewed my news feed on Facebook when I saw that just today that the Barton County Historical Society Museum and Village posted this photo of Kent, along with a story of his loss of life along with other Barton County residents in that war.
My curiosity was aroused about the Amerine family yesterday afternoon as I read the news clippings mentioning my Becker and Flanders ancestors and their association with their neighbors, the Amerines. I discovered the connection to our two families and drew up the chart shown above, and this morning, my hometown Historical Society posted a photo and tribute to Kent Amerine on their Facebook feed. Now what are the chances of that happening? I think there's a message in here somewhere!
One of the messages is to pay attention to the names! I'm fortunate to find it easy to remember names and find them meaningful. I love discovering new connections and I find great value in knowing more about the daily lives of my ancestors. I'm blessed to be able to collaborate with cousin Kate, who introduced me to the Chronicling America site and shares my interest in all that we find in those 100+ year old newspaper articles!
Last Friday afternoon my husband Larry and I drove through our local Lakeside Cemetery to photograph a grave for Find-A-Grave.com. We were about 20 feet from the grave when I noticed this small headstone for Debra Kay Bortz, Nov 6-Nov 8, 1956. I was fairly sure that I knew the parents of this little infant. My step-mother was Phyllis Jean Jones Margheim and her step-mother was Laura Casper (Maupin) Evans Jones. Laura's daughter from her first marriage was Helen Marie Evans Bortz, the wife of Lester Bortz. I knew as I grew up in Great Bend, Kansas that Helen and Lester Bortz lived in Canon City, Colorado. By the time I moved to Canon City, Colorado in 1987, Helen and Lester had moved with their large family to Ft. Collins, Colorado.
As I continued my genealogy research about 8 or 10 years ago I contacted Lester Bortz for added family information I thought he could provide on his mother-in-law's family line. I've had the privilege of visiting with Lester on the phone and in the last few years my father, Ernest Margheim, former Great Bend, Kansas resident and current Canon City, Colorado resident, has had numerous phone visits with the now 100 year old Lester Bortz! Lester and my dad have much in common as each of them are former Kansas residents, members of the same Jones family, and live alone in their advancing years.
I asked my husband to stop his truck so I could photograph this small gravesite of Debra Bortz. I wanted to verify when I got home that this was indeed a daughter of Lester and Helen Bortz. Then we proceeded to locate and photograph the gravesite to fulfill the Find-a-Grave request.
I posted this picture of Debra's headstone on Facebook Friday evening. One of the people who commented was Elaine (Amerine) Mull, a friend of mine from my hometown of Great Bend, Kansas. Actually Elaine's older brother Clyde was my classmate from kindergarten through high school. It also happens that my father, Ernie Margheim, was employed in Pawnee Rock, Kansas at Mull Farms by Elaine and her husband Glenn Mull from about 1996-1998. My dad was employed at Great Bend Packing as a Controller for his 54 year career (1940-1994). Upon his retirement from that employment, he found that he wasn't content to stay at home since my mother was still working at Great Bend Packing, so Dad attended classes at Barton County Community College, then continued to work through his employment in the office at Mull Farms.
My post on facebook caught Elaine's eye as she commented that her grandmother was a Bortz. I knew the name of Elaine's father Loren Amerine because, as a prominent electrical contractor in Great Bend, KS, he was the employer of my first husband at the time of our marriage in 1971. I searched Ancestry.com to find any listing of the ancestry of Loren Amerine, so I could see the detail of Elaine's Bortz connection. I found it and compared the names listed with those in my RootsMagic database that were related to Lester Bortz. This is what I found:
Elaine and the infant Debra Kay Bortz are second cousins! I love discovering connections like this. In fact, it's one of my greatest pleasures as I research my family's history. I've shared this chart now with Elaine and in return, she has shared treasured family stories with me by email. And it all came about because of our efforts to provide photos to those who request them through findagrave.com. Blessings come to those who serve.
My cousin Kate Keller and I have collaborated to collect newspaper articles about our common ancestors, great grandparents Joe and Emma (Strait) Becker and their many descendants. We really struck gold on the Chronicling America section of the Library of Congress web site. The article at left is an example of what we've found from the Great Bend Weekly Tribune of 1913.
