Can't Visit His Burial Place - Nobody Can Tell Me Where It Is!

When I first began my research, my paternal Grandmother Edna Keener Malone had already passed away. She left very little in the way of clues for me, only what I came to term as "secrets". I had no idea who her father was, but I did know who her mother was. After floundering around for a bit, I finally tracked down another family member, wrote a letter and waited for a phone call. Uncle Marshall Kidwell, my great grandmother's brother, called me one afternoon and wanted to answer some of my questions. He had the answer I really wanted... who was Grandma Edna's father?

"Clarence Keener" was his answer.

May Kidwell and Clarence Keener were married in Fairfax County VA on April 18th 1923. Together they had three children Edna born Feb 11, 1924; Pauline born June 1, 1926 and Russell born October 1, 1927. I knew that May had another child with her second husband in May of 1929 so I began there and went backwards, looking for some clues as to what happened to Clarence. I found a death record for him in Fairfax County in January 1929 and ordered his death certificate.

Judging by the birth date of her next child, I naturally assumed that May and Clarence were no longer together at the time of his death. And judging by the 'clues' that I had hoped would be on his death certificate I was correct about that. Apparently she didn't provide any information and the response "Do Not Know" was listed for almost all of the areas on his death certificate. The only clue - he is listed as "Divorced" (which I still at this point don't believe to be correct but that's another story). I thought it was very sad that this man died, virtually unknown by the people who were around him, and I set out to find out where he was buried. The death certificate stated "Potters Field".

The folks at the Virginia Room in the Fairfax County Library attempted to help me but let me know that burials at that time were not put in a designated place in the county, nor were there many records. The potters field could have been in the backyard of the funeral home (which no longer existed), or it could be in an area that was now off limits because a bridge had been built and even another possibility was 'near' the parking area of the county school bus system. The records of these burials were simply not kept in one place, therefore making it very difficult to find them. I did find that later that year E. W. Groff charged the county $25 for the burial of Clarence, if only I knew where he put him!

Happy Anniversary Grandma & Granddad

April 19, 1941
Dorothy Leeming and William Patrick Bellew

Married at St. Mark's Church; Adams, MA

Yikes!

Has it been almost a week without a post here? I've been so wrapped up and time is just flying by!

I have been doing some research and I've been doing a lot of communicating with other researchers, but nothing "earth moving" is going on with my genealogy right now and honestly, I've had a bit of writers block. It seems that in reading some other genea-bloggers sites out there, many of us are experiencing a bit of a writing or posting slump right now. Not that I don't have plenty to write about - the thoughts just aren't coming to me at this moment.

I have managed to add yet another surname to my list - McDermot. This would be another Bellew connection that I'll be attempting to chase down - where oh where are the Ireland records? I must admit that I tend to rely very heavily on the internet for my research and while I can usually turn up lots of info, Ireland has really been a challenge for me.

So, it's quite possible that another week will slip by me here on Everything's Relative or I'll have an AHA! moment and my writing will pick up again.

Tombstone Tuesday - Samuel B. Keener

My 3rd Great Grandfather
Samuel B. Keener
b. Sept 11, 1809, d. Jan 9, 1897
Husband of Mary E. Johnston
Son of George Keener and Margaret Miller

This stone and many others of this line of the Keener family can be found on private property in the Keener Cemetery, in Taylor County WV. A great big thanks to Melissa Wisen - a distant Keener cousin of mine, who photographed the stones in that cemetery and made them available on the Find A Grave website and gave permission for me to use them here on my blog.See all of Melissa's memorials here, or visit Find-a-Grave to search for your own ancestors.

One Mystery Solved - An Uncle and The Mining Disaster

Another of my Bellew men was a bit of a mystery. Not one that I went chasing after too much, but an early death, not really much information. That is until recently.

William Bellew, the son of Patrick Bellew & Elizabeth Hall was my great grand uncle. Born in 1891 in Preston, Lancashire, England. I found his death record registered in 1910 and was told some years ago that he worked in the mines and died from that. Actually it was put to me "He worked in the mines... and he died". I never really knew what he died from - assuming (incorrectly) that it was of some disease caused by that kind of work.. but so young?

I've not been doing much lately with regards to my research and I was recently contacted by another researcher of this family. William's name flashed across my screen a few times in the last two days and I began to wonder what happened to him. This other researcher, I'll call them "D" suggested that I look into any mining accidents of the time. His death was not registered in Preston, but rather in Bolton.

Well a quick search on Google and it only took about two minutes for me to find what I was looking for. A website with an incredible amount of information and a major mining disaster in the history of England - actually listed as the 3rd worst ever in England - The Pretoria Pit Disaster - occurred at 7:50am on December 21, 1910. With 344 men and boys confirmed dead and only 3 survivors, it was a horrific tragedy. My Uncle William Bellew was among the dead, he was 19 years old.

The recovery of bodies was such an undertaking that they gave each one a number at the time it was located and marked it's position on a map of the mine. They also marked the last known place of the worker at the time of the explosion on the map - black numbers where they were working and red numbers where they were found. As I made my way around the site, getting the information for William I couldn't help but feel the loss of all these men but what really hit home was the map with little black and red numbers all over it. You could clearly see where the men piled up to make their escape from the disaster, only to succomb to the gas that was filling the tunnels where they spent their days. Each recovered body was given another number, Uncle William was recovered on December 24th 1910, he was recovery number 147.

All the personal details available for each man are also there on the site. William was living at 3 Library Street, Westhoughton (a lodging place for the miners). He was listed as born in Preston, body recovered 90 yards above No.2 jig (a term on the map). Identified by his father Patrick Bellew of 180 St. Georges Road, Preston. Cause of death was gas. He was survived by his parents Patrick and Elizabeth Bellew (both 47), and siblings John 21, Frances 16, Isabella 10.


Much of the information contained in this post and the images contained are from the following website:
http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Westhoughton/Pretoria/index.html

What became of George? - I may never know!

But I sure learned a lot about the hospital!
George Leeming, a son of Walter Leeming and Martha Ann Rayner.... patient at the Northampton State Mental Hospital for most of his life. George was born December 18, 1892 in Quebec Canada. He came to the US with his family in 1899. I find him in the household with his parents in the 1900 census - after that, nothing. I was curious about this boy so I asked Grandma what happened to him. She told me that he "needed help all the time" as she put it, and she has no recollection of ever hearing of his death. They admitted him to the hospital in Northampton and he never came home from there. For me of course this means "Another hunt is on!"

Looking into the hospital, I found that it actually had many names -The Northampton Insane Asylum, the Northampton Lunatic Hospital, The State Hospital (for wards of the state) - you get the picture. I found an interesting site 1856.org which is all about the Massachusetts State Hospitals.

This particular hospital is referred to as the "State Lunatic Asylum". According to this site, the hospital opened in 1858, when overcrowding of other state institutions had gotten so bad that they needed two additional locations. In 1858 they had about 230 patients and the hospital was known for it's moral care of them. By 1965 the much overcrowded location had over 2600 patients and by this time the place had become just a housing unit for the unwanted in society - the insane, homeless and helpless of us. The place finally closed in 1993 and after a short inclusion to the Register of Historical Places in the state, the main building was actually torn down in 2006, much to the dismay of many people who lived in the area who wanted the buildings saved. I also learned on another site that the grounds contained as many as 1000 burials of patients.

Still, I didn't know exactly why George was there so, entering uncharted waters (for me) I began looking into how I might obtain medical records for him. Because the place had been closed down for many years I contacted the Massachusetts State Archives and received a response from them today. Turns out, the state of Massachusetts has very strict rules when it comes to a person's medical records - as do most states I would assume, but because I'd never really looked into this before I had no idea what to expect. The Archives reply was this:
"Records containing medical or mental health information in the state of Massachusetts are very tightly restricted by law. You would need a judicial order authorizing the release of any such records. These restrictions do not end with the death of the subject or the age of the records. For more information, you could try contacting the Department of Mental Health directly"

I didn't realize the rules would be this strict for medical records for the dead and I do not believe that I will attempt to get a "judicial order" to find out what ever became of Uncle George, but I might contact the Department of Mental Health just to see if I can get anywhere - although I'm not hopeful. Some mysteries we just weren't meant to solve.

In the meantime, I learned quite a bit about this hospital, it's history, and a great group of people who fought to save the buildings. Check out the Opacity site to see more really great photos of this place. I hate to see old buildings come down!

Wordless Wednesday - What's the occasion?

Isabella Bellew Turner, her children Katherine, June and possibly Jack

her nephew William Bellew in back (my Grandfather)

not so wordless here... Everytime I look at this photo I wonder why my

Grandfather appears to be dressed like a butler.

Not in a slump - just searching for a piece of glitter on a beach

Okay so I'm not ALL in a slump, just not spending as much time writing to my blog (or reading others' for that matter - boy do I have some reading to do!). I think that I just need a break from it for a bit.

I posted previously that I wasn't sure what to do next. Since then I've realized that part of the problem - and I think we've all been there - is trying to do too many things at once, getting sidetracked with some relative that we just can't find, and spending too much time trying to find them when the outcome really isn't going to have an impact on truly anything - but for the life of me I cannot let it go!! Sometimes I feel like I'm searching for a small piece of glitter on a beach, a nearly impossible task and yet when you're not finding anything that you expect to find, you cannot stop looking.

I'm still researching, finding much on family that came from England that I never even knew about. My newly found cousin there has been researching also - it's wonderful to have another researcher's set of eyes and another brain to think things through. Just when I've thought "That's it! I cannot find him and I never will!" she comes back to me through email with another glimmering piece of information! It's great to have someone to bounce things off of and a take a second look!

English Cousin and I have been communicating pretty regularly and we're trying to solve some of the little mysteries of some of our shared relatives. Many we're now learning came to the US and we weren't aware of it. I probably have many more cousins here that I don't know - add another item on the list - go track those people down!

So, I have an idea what should take priority and yet I don't want to or just don't have the heart to do it right now. I have been updating my tree with the certs that she's shared and bits of new information so I guess I'm doing something but somehow I'm just not feeling it.

So, it may be a few days before I post again, hopefully next time I'll have something blog-worthy to write about. In the meatime I'll be out searching for another piece of glitter!

The Search Continues

My yearly "Looking for Hugh Bellew" message has been posted to the message boards, and while I was thinking about Uncle Hugh, my thoughts turned to Uncle Al. What if the same fate came to Hugh? Unfortunately I may never know.

After much contemplation, I decided to publish this photo. I had wondered how others would feel about it, when I told the story of Alfred Bellew in a previous post here, at that time I wasn't comfortable putting it out there. His story is a sad one, as noted in the caption below this photo.



I'm still searching for Hugh, or at least information on what became of him. I know he was born about 1916 in Preston, England, his parents were John Bellew and Margaret McCann Bellew. I know that he came to the US with his mother in 1926. I also know that he graduated from the School of the Holy Trinity in Central Falls RI, and went on to live in North Adams Massachusetts in the 1940's. The family last heard from him in the 1950s, at which time it is believed he may have been in the area of Chicago. What we don't know is what ever became of him after that - there was no further contact.

Military Monday - Unclaimed West Virginia Civil War Medals

I wrote about this some time ago but it seems that I have more readers now (thanks for coming by!) and it is well worth the repeat if someone can claim their Civil War Soldier's medals from my lovely state of West Virginia.

I have over the past year learned how hard it is to get something, anything, from the military. There is much paperwork, waiting, more paperwork, more waiting - you get the picture. I have yet to "nail down" an ancestor who was in the civil war but as research into their lives continues you never know! I managed to track down my Grandfather's WWII medals and think that all families should be reunited with their loved ones' military history.

As I wrote about back in December, I came across some interesting information on a WV site that I visit often. I found that they actually have a list of Union Soldiers from the state of West Virginia who never claimed their medals. The state made an effort at the end of the war to distribute them but still the archives is holding about 5200 (at last count) of the original 26,000+. I understand from reading up on this that these medals are still in their original packaging AND can be claimed by someone proving their relationship to the person. Note: According to the information below, it does not have to be a Direct relationship. I have seen comments from others stating that they claimed a Great-Great Uncle's medal.

Here's some info directly from the site:

"Many heirs of West Virginia Union veterans of the Civil War may be eligible to claim medals struck to honor their ancestors years ago. Most of the medals were claimed by the veterans themselves, their immediate families, or their descendants, but several thousand medals remain unclaimed. A list of the unclaimed medals is available in the Archives and History Library and on its website.

To claim an ancestor's medal, a claimant must submit his or her line of descent from the veteran along with documentation to support this line of descent. To establish line of descent, claimants must include copies of primary sources, including birth, death, marriage, will, deed, military,census, Bible records, etc. Old letters, diaries, marriage announcements, or obituaries may also prove helpful in supporting a descendant's claim. Please note that a family chart submitted without primary source documentation is not sufficient.

The claimant who establishes the most direct relationship to the veteran will be awarded the ancestor's medal six months from the date the fully documented claim is received by Archives and History. The purpose of the six-month waiting period is to allow for sufficient verification of the descendant's claim and for submission of counterclaim(s) by other potential descendant(s). In the case of equal claims, the descendant whose claim was received first will be awarded the medal."

If you know of a Civil War Union Soldier from West Virginia in your family's past, it's worth visiting the site just to check the list. I find it heartbreaking that these medals were never retrieved by the soldiers or their family to pass down to us....

Heres the website link: http://www.wvculture.org/history/medals.html