Augusta Stryker

Augusta was the daughter of Amelia Johnson Stryker. She was a first cousin to my grandmother, Laura Ely Callery.

Vera Avis Henry Morrison

Vera was the daughter of Clara Evans and Daniel Henry. She married Floyd Morrison. Vera was first cousin to my dad, Ivan Evans.

My Evans family

My Evans family has always been a bit of a mystery. I have been working on my grandpa Lyles' family forever! This week I was contacted by a cousin in Oregon that was in the Clara I Evans line. I was so happy! Karen (cousin) sent me an obit and pictures of her grandmother Vera Avis Morrison, a daughter of Clara Evans and Daniel Henry. I am so grateful for her help and look forward to finding more information about my family.

The Chosen

"The Chosen"
We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes.

Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do.

In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us."

How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say.

It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying - I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.

It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family.

It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers.

That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before."

by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943."

A blessed find

For years I have been researching my Callery family line. It has been a mystery for so long. My grandfather had 8 sisters of whom I knew nothing. Recently I have found some very surprising information.

My great aunt Josephine was in a convent and left after her sister sewed money into the hem of a skirt and sent it to her! Their parents were quite unhappy and blamed Josephine by not having anything else to do with her. Source was her granddaughter with whom I had a convo.

In 1895, my great aunt Julia Callery Toohey, was a young married woman living in Duncombe Iowa. As she set about her daily chores she was overwhelmed by a fire and was burned so badly she died from her injuries, 3 Jan 1895. How sad to think she was alone when this happened. Source Webster County Bio of James Toohey.

I am still searching for information but just having some insights to the lives of my family helps me with my daily life.