The prompt for this week’s #52Ancestorsin52weeks is “The Bachelor Uncle”. No one fitting that description came immediately to mind, although I’m sure there is one or two lurking in our family tree. Speaking of family trees, I have been creating one on Ancestry.com, and there are over 500 people in it! Did I mention that I love research, and love data?  If you are interested in browsing through the “Shelly and Horn Family Tree”, below is a link. I don’t believe that it is necessary to have an Ancestry account – you can sign on as a “guest”. Please let me know if it works – apparently this is a new feature that is being tested. https://ancstry.me/2tJTxP0

Back to the prompt. Not having any luck with “The Bachelor Uncle”, I thought I’d share a bit about our “The Maiden Grandmother”, Sarah Lucille Reeves Horn (Lucille). My mother’s mother, Ruby Bigler Horn, died in 1951, five weeks after my brother Bill was born. I haven’t forgotten Grandma Ruby – I’ll have more about her in a future post. Grandpa Horn (Buel Edward Horn) was a Methodist minister, and, apparently “quite a catch.” I’m not sure how he and Lucille met, but she was very active in her Methodist Church (Rockville, IN), and I assume they met there. There is a rather funny story about them which involves my dad:  When my Dad (Bill) asked Buel and Ruby if he could marry their daughter (Marjorie), all Buel asked him was “Do you have a place to live?” And in 1953 or so, when Buel (age 65) and Lucille (age 52) came to tell Marjorie and Bill that they were going to get married (can you picture them, holding hands, sitting on the edge of the couch in the living room?), Daddy straight up asked them “Do you have a place to live?”. They were married a week after I was born (1953), and did have a place to live, as it turned out.

Sarah Lucille Reeves was born 18 Feb 1901 in Indianapolis, Indiana. She was the only child of Perry Willard Reeves (1878 – 1946) and Blanche Marie Cole (1879 – 1950). Her father, Perry, worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad (he was a conductor) and in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s lived in Washington D.C. where he had a position that had something to do with the railroad in the Hoover administration. Hoover was president from 1929 – 1933, and the 1930 census has the family living in D.C. They were part of “Washington Society” and I have some gorgeous dresses that belonged to Lucile from that time period. Lucille was a fine singer and taught piano and voice to many students. She received her teaching certificate from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in 1932. She also studied at Julliard.

Lucille never married until she met my grandfather. Apparently she had some suitors but they did not “measure up.” The family bought the “Buillion Farm” near Bellmore, IN for $6000 in 1933, after Hoover was defeated by FDR. Lucille, her parents, and her mother’s older half-sister, Minnie Cole Moore, lived on the 100-acre farm. She cared for her aging parents, and Minnie, managed the farm, was very active in church life and nursed her parents through their final days. After Buel retired, they moved to the farm and he “played” at being a farmer. I have many wonderful memories of going to visit my grandparents at the farm (see below). Lucille was handed an “instant family” of two step-daughters and six grandchildren. She taught me how to gather eggs and pluck a chicken, a far cry from Washington Society!

Lucille was well traveled. She kept postcards of all of the places she had visited – from New York to California, and I have several “tourist picture books” that she kept. I imagine some museum would love to have them. The farm became a repository of her parents’ furniture, her aunt Minnie’s furniture and items belonging to Ruby Horn (my mother’s mother) and Buel Horn. Even my other grandmother, Geneva Shelly, stored furniture and other items at the farm when she moved into assisted living in nearby Greencastle. Somehow, Lucille found places for all of the family possessions, and the farmhouse was neat as a pin, both inside and outside. She was both thrifty, and a “keeper of memories”. In 1988, she moved from the farm to the same assisted living facility in Greencastle where my Grandma Shelly lived out her last 15 years (Asbury Towers) and settled into a two bedroom apartment

In 1995, after she had a stroke and could no longer live on her own, my mother, brother Jim and I went to Greencastle to clean out her 2-bedroom apartment. That was quite an experience, and it was a virtual treasure-trove of books, papers, photos, furniture, music, old letters, china, vintage dresses, fur coats, magnifying glasses, etc. Although she was an only child, Lucille was not a lonely one. Her extended family on her mother’s side lived close by in the Mansfield area, Parke County.  When cleaning out her apartment, I found an assortment of mostly unlabeled photos from the early 1900’s that are just gorgeous. I sent them to a historian in Parke County, IN, and he posted them on the web. Here is the link.

http://www.ingenweb.org/inparke/Families/ReevesHorn/SarahLucilleReevesHorn.htm

And here is a photo of Lucille’s Aunt Minnie from the collection:

One of the very cool things about this “maiden grandmother” was that she was a thinker. As an adult, I was privileged to have had several conversations with her about her faith (she came late to it, as her parents were not particularly religious), her world-view (she was pretty liberal), and her family. As I mentioned earlier, Lucille was thrifty, and there was not a scrap of paper in the apartment where Lucille had not written in the margins or on the back. I don’t believe she bought a notebook or packet of paper in her life, but she was a prolific writer. Here is a sample of her writing, hand-written on the back of three cardboard inserts from a package of “Hanes Panty-Hose”. I don’t know if this was a talk that she prepared, or just her personal musings.

            “Experiencing God’s Love

            “One way we can grow in our relationship with God – in learning to be a part of God’s love is to share in the experiences of women of the past.

            “Through a study of the writings of Julian of Norwich who lived from 1342 to approximately 1423, Nancy Carter Goodley discovered that not only Julian but other women of that time looked upon Christ and God not only as a father figure but also as encompassing the virtues of the mother, as expressed by Anselmo’s Prayer to St. Paul which includes these words: “But you, too, good Jesus, are not you also a mother? Is not he a mother who like a hen gathers his chicks beneath his wings?”

            “By seeing the feminine qualities in God, Julian was better able to understand divine love. It gives an expanded image of God when we consider the truly feminine ways of expressing love – To the Fatherhood of God we can add the qualities of Motherhood.

            “We might ask ourselves what image we have of God and has our concept of God changed over the years. When I was a child God was like my grandfather – only more so. My grandfather was sometimes stern. He had a long beard and blue eyes that seemed to look right through one to the inner self of me – but he was kind, he loved all of us. He was understanding with a delightful sense of humor.

            “That image seems to have filled my needs then and still does today, but I can understand how Julian, in his concept of God, would add more feminine qualities such as my mother passed on to me and which we find expressed often by Jesus.”

 I thank God for the wonderful childhood experiences I had with this “maiden Grandmother”. Although it is sad that I never knew my mother’s mother, God blessed our family with the marriage of Buel and Lucille Horn. A few years ago, I put some of my childhood memories to paper and thought you might like to experience one child’s point of view of “the farm”.

     My other grandparents had a farm outside of Rockville, Indiana, near the tiny town of Bellmore.  What wonderful memories that place still holds for me.  Every child should have access to a farm; the smell of hay, the dew on the grass in the morning, the hot sun on berry brambles, the grasshoppers in the corn and the cool dampness of the woods.  Going into the chicken house to gather eggs, and the stink of the chicken coop.  My mother’s father father was not a tall man, but he seemed big to me, and he had big hands.  My grandmother Lucille seemed to be nervous around children; she was my mother’s stepmother; an “old maid” who had married my grandfather at age fifty-three after my mother’s mother died.  Still, in retrospect, she did pretty well, with a ready made family. I appreciated her more as I got older. The farm house had thick walls that kept it cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  The front porch had been enclosed, and my grandfather’s study and later on the dining room was out there.  An enormous hydrangea bush with burnt copper flowers almost covered the door to the porch, making the entrance like that to a cave.  A weeping willow tree stood out front, and the lawn sloped, making it wonderful to do somersaults down it.  Cicada skeletons clung to the bark of the willow tree, and past the mown grass the lawn turned into a field of corn or a pasture, depending upon the need.  It was hard to walk in this area since the grass grew in uneven clumps.  Blackberry or raspberry bushes grew and there was a small stream meandering through the pasture.  The lane leading up to the farmhouse was one-lane and when I was little, seemed endless.  It passed the farmhouse, past the back field and then turned to the right when the woods started. 

Once we went on a walk through the woods, looking for mushrooms.  I saw a luna moth – green and translucent in the cool, damp darkness.  There was a magic tree there, with a vine growing straight through the middle of the tree, and an old well, with a pump rusty and frozen with age.  The barn was enormous, with hay stored in the hayloft.  We would climb up with my grandfather and look for kittens.  There were always kittens, scrawny and wild.  The momma cat would catch rabbits and bring the carcass back for the kittens – and they would get blood-stained faces from their meal.

My grandfather raised hogs one year – enormous pink-snouted beasts that trampled in the mud and looked at me with their beady little eyes.  I preferred the sheep, and used to gather the wool off of the barbed-wire fence.  The farm house was full of books, and had my grandmother’s grand piano in the living room.  The stairs to the upper floor had a landing with a wide window seat.  We would sit there and read and listen while my grandmother taught piano and voice.  She had an hour-glass shaped egg timer filled with fine sand that we would play with.  I loved to watch the sand fall into a miniature mountain.  Upstairs was a bath with both rainwater and well-water spigots.  I forgot which was which, but I believe that the rainwater was not heated.  When we washed our hair in rainwater it always came out soft as rain falling on the roof.  I love to use soaps and powders that remind me of washing in rainwater. 

The tub was footed, and the bathroom tiled in pink.  There were three upstairs bedrooms – the largest one was papered with pink and green cabbage roses.  On summer nights we would open the windows and listen to the insects calling.  It was in the days before air conditioning.  I expect that that farmhouse is still not air-conditioned – it’s walls were almost a foot thick so it was very cool at least downstairs in the summer.  We would lie on the beds, the windows opened to the night, and sweat!  My grandfather had a huge garden, and an old maple tree with a swing tied to its lower branch.  The lawn did not have grass, it had some sort of broad-leaf which had little pockets of shade underneath.  It was wonderful to walk on barefoot, so cool and wet underfoot.  My grandfather had an old collie dog named Ginger, in addition to the barnyard cats.  Ginger liked to chase the chickens.  We would go into the chicken yard, walking rather carefully to avoid the chicken poop and crawl into the chicken coop and look for eggs.  Several times, an old rooster “gave his all” and became our lunch.  My grandpa would catch one, and cut off its head with an axe on an old stump back by the ancient outhouse.  He would get most of the feathers off, and then take it into the house for my grandmother to finish plucking.  He never would let me witness the chopping although Bill got to. I will not pluck a chicken to this day!

The prompt for this week’s #52Ancestorsin52Weeks is “At the Courthouse”. I believe it is in the nature of prompts not to be taken literally, so this week I’d like to tell you about three women:  my paternal grandmother, Geneva Ellen Lewis, her mother, Ida Hannah Lane and her mother, Rhuanna Alkire. Ida and Geneva are but two examples of “motherless children” in our family, as there are many women on both sides who died young, often of complications of childbirth. Their husbands often remarried soon after their wives died and had another family. As with the nature of blended families, sometimes it was good, and sometimes not so good. Often, there was quite a span in age from the first child to the last, with the firstborn children often caring for their younger siblings. One of our ancestors, Wiley Horn, was appointed guardian (Court Records, Logan County) of three of his younger half-siblings. So, there’s my use of the prompt “At the Courthouse”!

Attribution: My dad had a 1^st cousin, Miriam Jackson Roberts, the daughter of Florence Lewis Jackson. Cousin Miriam was a tiny, lively, brown-eyed brunette who lived in Texas with her husband and three sons. She was also a fantastic genealogist in the days before the internet. She put together a binder filled with interesting stories, family pedigrees, newspaper articles and photocopies of family photos. This is a treasure-trove of information about the Lewis family. Thank you, cousin Miriam!

Geneva Ellen Lewis (known to me as Grandma Shelly) was the second of six children born to Joseph Milton Lewis and Ida Hannah Lane. She was an “old maid” schoolteacher in London, Ohio, met and married William Austin Shelly at the age of 30 and went off to Chile. She knew how to “seize the day”.

I remember her very well since she died in 1984 at the age of 95. When I was child, she lived in Greencastle, IN, in the same house where the family settled after their return from Chile in 1936. The house had two stories; one bedroom downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. It smelled musty, like old houses do, but never bad. There was a living room and a dining room in the front of the house, a kitchen behind the dining room, a bathroom and the one bedroom on the first level, behind the living room. The house was built on a hill and off of the kitchen to the back was a narrow set of stairs leading down to a half-basement. There was an opening so that a car could be pulled into the basement but I’d hardly call it a garage! There were shelves filled with jars of home-canned goods:  tomatoes, green beans, carrots, beets, etc. My grandmother was a wonderful cook and would often send us down to get a jar of something for the meal. The basement was not well lit and the jars had several coatings of dust, but it was a marvelous place. There was lots of wonderful junk in the basement – an old sewing machine that I would give my eye teeth for, old furniture, bicycles, tires, tools, etc. There wasn’t much of a back yard since the ground was pretty steep, but there was an orchard with cherry trees that my Dad used to clean up when we’d visit. He always ended up with a case of poison ivy!

Our ability to remember is closely linked to our sense of smell, and one thing that immediately takes me back to the kitchen in my grandmother’s house is the smell of making strawberry jam. I helped her make jam on several occasions, always in the summer. We lived about an hour away from Greencastle, and visited her often. Especially memorable was when my cousins came to visit. We would sit around the dining room table and we could put away some jam! There is nothing better.

The front of her house had a steep (to me, anyway) hill that we would roll down as the evening set in. She had a wide front porch with a porch swing and Grandma would sit and rock and watch us play in the yard. We’d catch fireflies in jars, and go on walks through the neighborhood. The house didn’t have air conditioning so I suppose that the evening air was a welcome change from the hot, humid Indiana summers. My grandmother didn’t own a pair of “trousers” – she wore dresses (and corsets) all her life. After we moved to California, she came to visit us in the winter for 2 – 3 months at a time. She would sit next to the sliding glass doors and mend anything that needed mending. She taught me how to darn socks and taught my mother how to quilt. She had a pretty severe stroke on one of those visits (1967), and spent the rest of that visit recuperating. She was stubborn and worked her way back to being able to speak without effect, and ended up walking with a cane, after not being able to walk at all. When she was 80, she moved to Asbury Towers, a Methodist-affiliated assisted living facility in Greencastle. She died when she was 95, and is buried next to William Austin Shelly.

The reason why I titled this blog “Motherless Children” was that both Geneva’s mother, Ida Hannah Lane, and Ida Hannah’s mother, Rhuanna Alkire died during their childbearing years, leaving their children to be raised by family members. I don’t know enough about my grandmother’s grandmother, Rhuanna Alkire, but it struck me as a sad coincidence that she died right after the birth of her youngest daughter, Ida Hannah Lane, of the same disease (typhoid fever).

Rhuanna Alkire (16 Feb 1819 – 8 Aug 1859) married Solomon Lane in 1841 and had 8 children. Her youngest, Ida Hannah, was born on 13 Apr 1859, so was only 4 months old when her mother died. Her father, Solomon, remarried and had several more children. As an infant, Ida Hannah was adopted by the Ref. Forgus Oliver Perry Graham (F. O. P) (1816 – 1898) and his wife Elizabeth E. Robinson (1818 – 1898). The Grahams were cousins of Rhuanna Alkire. When Solomon and his new wife, Sarah Jane Triplett, moved to Missouri in 1868, they left Ida Hannah in Ohio, in the care of the Grahams. She kept her surname, and remained very close to the Graham’s. The Graham’s hosted Ida wedding, and, as we shall see, this same couple provided care for Ida’s third daughter, Mary, after Ida’s death.

Ida Hannah Lane and Joseph Milton Lewis were married on 23 Feb 1886. Cousin Miriam photocopied a newspaper article describing their wedding:

“A notable social event was the marriage last Thursday of our genial farmer friend, Jos. M. Lewis of Oak Run Township and Miss Ida Lane at the residence of F.O.P Graham in Pleasant Township. About fifty of the immediate relatives and neighbors were invited and nearly all graced the occasion with their presence…. The bride was dressed in a traveling dress of brown rough goods tastefully trimmed with satin and the groom wore the conventional black suit and satin tie. After the ceremony an elegant dinner was served with for the number and richness of the good things included in the menu almost baffles description and was hugely enjoyed by all.”

Geneva Ellen Lewis (aka Grandma Shelly) was the second daughter of Joseph Milton Lewis and Ida Hannah Lane. She was 10 years old when her mother died (1898). Joe and Ida had six children:

•  Florence Lewis (1887 – 1975) m John Byers Jackson

•  Geneva Lewis (1888 – 1984) m William Austin Shelly

•   Mary Lewis (1890 – 1978) m Edgar P Purviance

•  Graham Heath Lewis (1891 – 1982) m 1. Margaret Gregg 2. Aleda Maria Dawald

• Burnham Caylor Lewis (1894 – 1969) m Anna Roggenbauer

• Wanna Francis Lewis (1898 – 1988) m 1. Robert Kraner 2. Loren Darling

The following is from “The Lewis Family” binder, courtesy of Cousin Miriam Roberts:

“Ida was not well after the birth of Wanna (4 Apr 1898), so Wanna went to live with Margaret Carzdafner Lewis (her paternal grandmother) and her two aunts, Blanche (Pet) Lewis and Cinderella Lewis who were still living at home. Cinderella was 22 years older than her sister. Pet later married Sam McCollum but Cinderella never married. It was 4 years before Wanna returned to her family. Mary, the third child, went to live with F.O.P Graham and his wife when she was 4 years old. Their house was only about 5 miles down the road. The Grahams were the same couple who adopted Ida and raised her as their own. Mary called them Grandpa and Grandma. Mary started to the Robinson School near their home a few weeks before she was 6 years old. The school teacher boarded with the Grahams and she took Mary to school on the handle bars of her bicycle.

“Joe’s diary tells of the death of his wife. She had typhoid fever. He wrote

Oct 11, 1898 “Ida taken sick”

Oct 12, 1898 “Doctor out”

Oct 13, 14, 15, 16 “very sick Doctor out five times”

Oct 16 (Sunday) “very fine day”

Oct 23  “Doctor has been here every day this week

Oct 26 “fine weather cribbing corn”

Oct 30 “Ida very sick cold damp day”

Nov 4, 1898 “my wife sadly and sorrowfully passed away at 7 AM.”

Nov 5 “sad day little rainy”

Nov 6 “funeral of my wife very large attendance rough day”

“Florence was 11 years old, Geneva was 10, Mary was 8, Graham was 7, Caylor was 4 and Wanna was 7 months. Joe was 40 and Ida was 38. The family had moved to a farm near Newport, OH, 4 miles from London, OH. Soon after Ida’s death they left the farm and went to London to live with Joe’s mother, Margaret Cartzdafner Lewis, and her two daughters, Cinderella and “Pet” (Irene Blanche). (ref. 1900 US Census). Joe continued to manage the farm by driving back and forth every day. Graham Lewis mentioned that the family attended the Methodist church and he remembered that they had family worship at home.

“After living with Grandma Lewis for several years they moved back to the farm and Joe hired a housekeeper. This was not very satisfactory. He remarried 15 Oct 1901 (almost 3 years after Ida died). His new wife was Sue (Susan Catherine) Rhodes of Lancaster, Fairfield Co, OH. Joe and Sue did not have any children.

Note: I remember my grandmother telling me how it fell upon her to look after her younger siblings after her mother died. If Mary and the baby (Wanna) were living with other families, she primarily looked after Graham and Caylor which may explain her preference for taking care of boys! Apparently, where they lived was not close to the public schools, so when Geneva and Florence were old enough to attend high school, they stayed with relatives (their aunt Anna Lewis Bryan and husband Martel) in London, OH.

“All of the children graduated from high school except Graham. He helped his father on the farm. Three of the girls (Florence, Geneva and Mary) taught school. After Wanna graduated from high school, she went to Bliss Business College in Columbus, OH and got a business education.”

Wanna made an oral history (tape recording) of her childhood memories which she shared with cousin Miriam, who wrote:

               “She had an unhappy childhood because Sue and Joe had problems in their marriage. Her stepmother Sue would pout and she didn’t seem to care for the children in a loving way. At least that is what I decided after hearing all the stories of the girls living with aunts and their grandmother a lot. Graham never mentioned Sue as a problem and he did stay home, helping with the farm. Wanna said Sue was never “a mother”. Wanna stayed with Sue and Joe when he (Joe) was ill and dying. She quit her job and went back to London (Ohio). After Joe died in 1934, cancelled checks were found in the garage that indicated Joe had shelled out money to Sue for a “Charlie Fricker” to pay his debts. I do not know how he was related to Sue, but Wanna said “Papa kept Charlie out of jail”. This is why Sue and Joe had problems. She would pout and throw a fit until he gave her money for Charlie. This went on for years. Wanna said Joe died of a broken heart. She felt very strongly about this.”

So, who is Charlie Fricker?? I’m trying to find out. Susan Rhodes Lewis was not buried with her husband Joe – he was buried next to Ida in London, Ohio.  Sue was buried in her hometown of Lancaster, Ohio (Fairfield County) in Forrest Rose Cemetery. Guess who else is buried in that same cemetery? A pile of folks with the last name of Fricker. I have found two Charles Frickers that lived in Lancaster in the early 1900’s. Charles F Fricker (1866 – 1940) and his wife Clara are buried in Forrest Rose Cemetery.

Cousin Miriam included the obituary of Susan Rhodes Lewis in the blue binder. Apparently, after Joe died in 1934, Sue went to live with Charles and Clara Fricker until her death (27 Dec 1935). “She leaves to mourn her loss, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fricker, six stepchildren whom she loved and cared for, for many years.” It seems strange to me that the Frickers should be listed first in the obituary, and stranger still that Sue went back home to live with them after Joe died.

I’ll probably never know their connection, or if this is even the Charlie Fricker who gave my great-grandfather such heartache and cost him money. Perhaps Sue had a thing for Charlie (he was 10 years her junior) or perhaps they were distant relatives. I’m still pulling on that thread!

Note: One more thread that I’m pulling on. I was wondering how in the world that Joe Lewis met and married Sue Rhodes. Sue’s father was Dr. John H. Rhodes of Lancaster, Fairfield County, OH. Joe was a farm manager and hardly ran in the same social circles. John Rhodes’ mother, however, was Anna Cartzdafner (b 1796 in Frederick Co, Md). Recall that Joe’s mother, Margaret, was a Cartzdafner, also born in Frederick Co Md (1831). The name is sufficiently unusual that I am pretty sure it is the same family. Margaret’s father was Michael Cartzdafner (b 1795 in Frederick Co, Md), so I’ll bet Margaret Cartzdafner Lewis and John Rhodes were cousins. I can imagine that Margaret, getting older and realizing that Joe needed to remarry (with all those kids), contacted her cousin John Rhodes, who just happened to have had an older, unmarried daughter. This may have not been a match made in heaven, but everyone survived, and even thrived. Below is a photo of a family reunion of the Lewis family, taken in 1942.

The back row, from left:

Gege Shelly (Geneva Louise), Nana McCollum, Sue Shelly, Loren Darling, Lucille Purviance, Shirley Lewis, Miriam Jackson, Russell McCollum, Edgar Purviance, Mary Louise Lewis, Wanna Darling, Bill Shelly

The front row, from left:

Dorothy Morgan and baby (cut off), Jean Ellen Jackson, Blanche (Pet) McCollum, Orpha Woolsey, Mary Purviance, Florence Jackson, Dorothy Jackson, Anna Bryan, Geneva Shelly, Margaret Lewis

The prompt for this week’s blog post for #52Ancestorsin52weeks is “Family Photo”.  I’d dearly love to have a family photo of the three men that I will tell you more about this week. The date generally accepted as the birth of photography is 1839 and the youngest of these men died in 1834. Nevertheless, I’ll try to paint a “Family Photo” of three generations of our ancestors who were early American Patriots (cue fife and drum, please).

I mentioned in a previous blog that our direct Horn ancestral line has three men (father, son and grandson) that fought in the Revolutionary War (April 19, 1776 – September 3, 1783).

Henry “The Quaker” Horn (21 Nov 1716 – 1 Apr 1798),

Isaac Horn, Henry’s second-oldest son (7 May 1742 – 1782) and

Nathan Horn (27 May 1762 – 1834), grandson of Henry and eldest son of Isaac.

 All three of these men served in North Carolina regiments. Several other sons of Henry “The Quaker” also fought for independence.

Henry Horn (The Quaker) was also known as “Second Major Minuteman Horn”, served in the 3^rd North Carolina Regiment from 1781 to 1782 under Captain Edward Yarborough. He was discharged 4/22/1782. http://www.carolana.com/NC/Revolution/patriots_nc_capt_edward_yarborough.html

Isaac Horn, Henry’s second eldest son, was a captain in the Halifax District Minutemen from 1776 – 1778. http://www.carolana.com/NC/Revolution/revolution_battle_of_moores_creek.html

He served under Lt Col. Henry Irwin and Col. Nicholas Long in Edgecombe County (1777) then Nash County (1777 – 1778). He participated in the battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge (27 Feb 1776), renowned for being one of the first Patriot victories (Ref. Moore’s Creek National Battlefield). Isaac died at the age of 40 (1782), one year before the end of the war. I don’t know the circumstances of Isaac’s death, nor where he is buried.

Nathan Horn, who was only 14 when the war broke out, nevertheless served for 6 months (see below) and participated in a sort of “home guard” for over 2 years, harassing the British soldiers. He was only 20 when his father died.

I have been learning quite a bit more about history than I learned in school by traveling back to the times of the family ancestors. I always strived to make chemistry relevant to my students, and here are the ancestors, doing their grave-side best to make history relevant to me! Here is one thing that was surprising (and relevant to this story) to me:

A Note Regarding Revolution War Pensions

During and after the Revolutionary War, three types of pensions were provided by the US Government for servicemen and their dependents:

• Disability of Invalid Pensions – servicemen incurring physical disabilities in the line of duty
• Service Pensions – awarded to veterans who served for specified periods of time
• Widow’s Pensions – awarded to women whose husbands had been killed in the war or were veterans for specified periods of time.

            These pensions were not terribly generous by today’s standards. For example, the Widow’s Pension offered half pay for seven years to widows and orphans of officers (not enlisted men). There were many subsequent Acts of Congress passed that affected veterans of the Revolutionary War. Prior to 1818, Congress only granted pensions to Revolutionary War veterans who incurred disabilities. After March 18, 1818, Congress granted pensions to uninjured veterans for both officers and enlisted men. These pensions were also for life – not seven years.

            It wasn’t until June 7, 1832 that every Revolutionary War veteran (officer or enlisted man) who had served at least two years in the Continental Line or State troops, volunteers or militia, was eligible for a pension of full pay for life. Veterans who had served for less than 2 years and more than 6 months were eligible for less than full pay. Nathan Horn applied for a pension for his Revolutionary War military service in 1833 but was rejected. I found a sworn deposition describing his military service in the records of the Logan County Courthouse made the year before he died.

            Born in 1762, Nathan Horn was the elder of two sons of Isaac Horn (1742 – 1782) and Edith Richardson (1741 – 1801). The family was Quaker. According to the U.S. Encyclopedia of American Quaker Geneaology (Vol 1 page 8) and U.S. Quaker Meeting records, 1681 – 1935, Isaac Horn was the son of Henry Horn “The Quaker” and Ann Purcell Horn (1723 – 1797).

By this Quaker meeting record, Henry and Ann had 13 children. Our ancestor is their third-born, Isaac.

Henry “The Quaker” Horn(e) born 21 Nov 1716 and Ann (his wife) born 1 Apr 1723

1. William born 30 Mar 1738; died 1791
2. Ester born 6 Apr 1740
3. Isaac born 7 May 1742; died 1782
4. Henry, Jr. born 10 Jun 1744; died 1785
5. Jacob and Mourning (twins) 10 Mar 1748; Jacob died 1826; Mourning died 1829
6. Phebe born 14 Sep 1749; died 1805
7. Joel born 14 Aug 1751; died 1793
8. Thomas born 24 Mar 1753; died 1807
9. Charity born 18 Nov 1755; died 1781
10. Selah born 13 Jun 1758; died 1760
11. Demarias born 31 May 1760; died 1760
12. Jeremiah born 14 Jan 1763; died 1811

I have found reference to several other children, all of whom died in infancy. Missing from above is Mary Horn (1745-1745), Anne (1749-1749) and Jane (1752 – 1752) as well as Elias Horn (1740 – 1826).

Also, in the same Quaker meeting record is listed “Nathan Horne, Son of Isaac Horn and Eady his Wife born 27 May 1752.” I believe this date is in error; Nathan died in 1834 and had made a deposition regarding his Revolutionary War service, at which time he stated that he was 71 years old. That would put his birth year as 1762.

Nathan spent his early years in Edgecomb County, which was formed in 1741 out of Bertie County, North Carolina. Like many other colonial counties, Edgecombe’s boundaries changed a few times until it reached its current edges. In 1746, part of the county became Granville County; in 1758, another part was used to create Halifax County; and in 1777, yet another small portion was used to establish Nash County. The county seat of Edgecomb County is Tarboro and the largest city is Rocky Mount, with parts of that city being in Nash County.

Ref: North Carolina History Project https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/edgecombe-county-1741/

Note: Several Ancestry.com family trees have listed a “Nathaniel Duncan Horn” as the son of Isaac Horn and Edith Richardson Horn but I believe that this is incorrect. The son of Isaac and Edith Horn is Nathan in the Quaker meeting records and many court documents that I have found in Logan County, KY (Logan County Genealogical Society, Russellville, KY). Nathan’s tombstone (see below) has his name as Nathan, not Nathaniel, and there is no middle initial.

Westward Ho!

The Horn families (and there were several families – note how many children Henry and Ann had!) moved west – from Virginia/North Carolina to Kentucky to Missouri in the early to mid-1800’s.

Nathan Horn, the youngest of our Revolutionary War soldiers, moved to Logan Co, KY in 1808 and died in 1834 in Simpson Co, KY (formed from Logan Co). I’m pretty sure he didn’t actually move – Simpson County was established from part of Logan County (see below). Nathan was married 3 times; Nancy Jennings was his first wife. They were married in 1780, in Montgomery County, NC and had six children. Nancy died soon after her last child was born, in 1801 (age 37). Nathan remarried in 1802 – his second wife was Sarah “Sally” Harris. Nathan was married to Sally when the family moved to Kentucky. They had six children as well, and Sally suffered the same fate as Nathan’s first wife. She died in 1822, soon after her son Henry Horn (1822 -1904) was born. Nathan married for a third time (in 1822) to a woman named Elizabeth Cleaves. I haven’t found any evidence that they had children.

Nathan Horn (1762 – 1834) m Nancy Jennings (1764 – 1801) in 1780

1. Wiley Horn (1785 – 1845) (our next ancestor)
2. Hansel Horn (1786 – 1840)
3. Celia Horn (1787 – 1860) m Alexander Harris
4. Reddick Horn (1791 – 1858) m Milly Stribbling
5. Eda Horn (1796 – 1877) m John McAdams
6. Thomas Horn (1801 – 1879) m Sarah Blalock

Nathan Horn m Sarah “Sally” Harris (? – 1822)

• Joel or Joe Horn (1805 – 1875)
• Elizabeth Horn (1808 – 1892) m John Carpenter
• Priscilla Horn (1812 – 1877) m Daniel Morris
• Jackson Horn (1820 – 1891)
• James Horn (1821 – ?)
• Henry Horn (1822 – 1904)

Nathan Horn m Elizabeth Cleaves (1806 – ?) in 1822

When I started looking into the Horn family, I had no clue as to when (or why) Nathan moved from North Carolina to Kentucky. I was fortunate to be able to spend a few days at the Logan County Genealogical Society last summer. They are located in Russellville, KY, about an hour from where Mary lives, in the former county jail. The interior walls are of white-washed stone, and over a foot thick. One of the frustrations of doing genealogical research is finding that the records that you are looking for were destroyed in a courthouse fire. Not so in Logan County! I asked the women who worked there how they could have been so lucky, especially during the days of the Civil War. They responded, “Well, we knew when to be Confederate, and we knew when not to be.”

Due to the help of the women who work in the Logan County Genealogical Society, I found that Nathan and family moved to Logan County, KY in 1808. Tax lists in Franklin, Simpson County, KY indicate that Nathan was taxed in 1809 and 1810. Real Estate Conveyances (Deed Book C page 306) indicate that Nathan Horn purchased 266 + 2/3 acres of land from Thomas Baird et al on 27 Mar 1811 for $1000. An additional 124 acres was purchased from Thomas Baird on 19 Jan 1814 (Deed Book D, p 105). The original land was described as along the Gaspar River. Note that, due to the changing county lines in this time period, Nathan purchased land in Logan County but ended up living in Simpson County, as Simpson County was formed in 1819 out of Logan and neighboring Warren counties.  Unfortunately, the records in Simpson County are not as complete as those in Logan County due to a fire in the courthouse.

Nathan’s sons Wiley and Reddick also made multiple purchase of land in Logan County from 1816 to 1853.

After Sally Horn died (1822), Nathan married Elizabeth Cleaves (Logan County Genealogical Society, marriage record 11 Mar 1822). Elizabeth Horn was buried on Akers Farm in Logan County (Horn/Campbell Cemetery). A partial gravestone attributed to Nathan Horn has been found, but not in the same cemetery. The grave marker (see photo, below) was discovered under a barn that had been torn down nearby. Nathan may have been buried next to Elizabeth but his tombstone was used as a foundation stone for the barn. The stone was retrieved but the whereabouts of his earthly remains are unknown.

Nathan died in 1834. A year prior to that (May 22, 1833), he applied for a pension for his Revolutionary War service but was rejected. The reason listed was “service under 6 months”. In the records at the Logan County Genealogical Society, I found Nathan’s sworn testimony and description of his service. I think that it is very cool to have been able to touch the original court record in Logan County and also find it rather sad that Nathan Horn could not read or write, as evidenced by “his mark”. How much we take for granted.

Regarding the Revolutionary War service of Nathan Horn

In 1832, Congress passed an act whereby soldiers that served in the Revolutionary War (and other conflicts?) could apply for a military pension. On May 22^th, 1833, Nathan Horn appeared in court in Simpson County, KY) to swear to his military service (U.S. Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrants Files 1800 – 1900).

“On this twenty second day of May 1833, personally appeared in open Court, before the Circuit Court of Simpson County, now sitting, Nathan Horn, a resident of Simpson County and State of Kentucky, aged seventy-one years, who being first duly sworn according to law, doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress, passed Jun 7, 1832.

“That he entered the service of the United States under the following named officers and served as hereinstated.

“He was born in the County of Nash and State of North Carolina on the 27^th day of May 1762 and resided in Nash County until the latter part of the year 1778 where he entered the service of the United States as a drafted Militiaman under General Ash and served five months and received a regular discharge which he has lost. From North Carolina he was marched through South Carolina to Georgia and was in the Battle at Briar Creek on the third of March 1779 and swam the Savannah river with a number of others at that ??. He recollected the names of some of his officers during this campaign, among whom were Major Henry Horn (his uncle), Captain Edward Clinch and Lieutenant William Hall who were his immediate commanders; also Sargeant Lane Caster who was killed or drowned at in the ?? at Briar Creek and he S. Horn appointed in Lancaster places(?)

“Shortly after the engagement at Briar Creek he received his discharge and returned home to Nash County, North Carolina where he remained until late in the Autumn of the year 1779 when he again entered the services of the United States as a volunteer in a light horse company and served two years under the following officers, Colonel John Joseph Clinch, Captain Howell Ellin, Captain John Bond and Captain John Lowre (?) Under these men he served alternately as he and his company were confined to the suppression of Tories in the County of Nash and the adjacent counties in North Carolina, thirty of whom his company took at one time and conveyed to Halifax Jail, North Carolina.

“He knows but one man now living who served with him in the light horse company, whose name is Abraham (?) Drake and whose certificate is herewith enclosed and made a part of this declaration. He further states that Sg. Drake entered the service about one year before he S. Horn did. He well recollected to have served out his just period of service, being two years which expired soon after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, but whether he received a discharge or not he cannot now recollect. He acted as trumpeter during a part of his term of service as light horseman. He was therefor engaged in the service of his country five months as a drafted Militiaman, during which time he was engaged in no civil pursuit and two years as a volunteer Light Horseman during which times also he engaged in no civil pursuit but was constantly and uninterruptedly engaged in the service of his Country. After the war he removed from Nash to Montgomery County in North Carolina where he resided until the year 1808, in which year he removed to his current residence in Simpson County, Kentucky.

“He hereby relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present and declares that his name is not in the pensiln roll of the agency of any State.

“Sworn to and subscribed this day and year aforesaid.

“Nathan Horn X his mark”

The prompt for this week’s blog post for #52Ancestorsin52weeks is “Love”. Considering that today is St. Valentine’s Day, it is appropriate! There are abundant love (and loss) stories in our ancestral line. One that I wish I knew more about was that of Geneva Lewis (my paternal grandmother) and William Austin Shelly (my paternal grandfather). It is amazing to me that she married him about 6 weeks after meeting him, and a few months later, followed him to South America. I wish I had asked her about that! Another love story is that of my parents, William Lewis Shelly (Bill) and Frances Marjorie Horn (Marjorie). They met when Bill was the sound engineer at a college radio station (DePauw University in Greencastle, IN). Marjorie was singing (live) as part of the program. After they were finished, he asked her to go with him and a few friends to a coffee shop , and maneuvered to sit by her in the booth. They started dating and were married a year later. The heart knows what the heart wants, at least for the Shelly/Lewis family.

There are many other kinds of love besides romantic love, and this week I’d like to celebrate the love of a child for a parent. For the last 27 years, Valentine’s Day has been a difficult holiday for me and others in our family. Several years ago, I did a series of Facebook posts for the “younger generation” so they could learn more about their grandfather, William Lewis Shelly (1923 – 1992). The only grandchild old enough to remember him is Jim’s oldest daughter, Carolyn. His youngest grandchildren (McKenna and Brianna) were not even born before he died. That is a darned shame, since he would have been a wonderful grandfather to his six grandchildren. I am certain that he would be over-the-moon proud of the wonderful young adults that they have become.

I am using this blog post to republish what I wrote for his grandkids years ago with a few more photos. I hope you can appreciate the man he was, and know why I chose it for this week.

Te amo mucho, Daddy.

Mi padre (su abuelo) nació en Chile porque mi abuelo era misionario de educación con la iglesia metodista. Su familia vivía en Iquique, Santiago y Concepción. Su hermana mayor permanencía en Chile y entonces, tenía 4 niños, Jeanette, Mimi, Gastón y Cecelia. El tenía mucho amor por Chile y su familia en Chile.

Spanish was your Grandfather’s first language and he spoke it beautifully. His older half-sister, Mary Isabel, married a Chileno, and stayed in Chile. Your grandfather loved his Chilean nieces and nephew and they, in turn, loved ¨Tio Billy¨. 

When your grandfather was 12, the family returned to the US because his dad (my grandfather) was in poor health and, during the Great Depression, churches did not have much money to contribute to foreign missions. They returned by ship via the Panama Canal, and apparently my father liked to hang out (literally) with the sailors, up in the rigging.  They settled in Greencastle, Indiana. Can you imagine a 12-year-old boy and his sisters (Gege and Susanna) adjusting to life in a tiny college town in the middle of Indiana after being raised in Chile? Spanish was their “secret language”. His father died suddenly when your grandfather was 15, and he worked and went to school to help support his family.

Your grandfather served in the army during World War II. He never talked about it. He did, however, learn to smoke cigarettes and drink Scotch. He had a toothache while serving in Europe, and his buddies treated him to their version of dentistry. They pulled his tooth and left a gap that you could see when he smiled, for the rest of his life. He also learned many risqué jokes and bawdy songs, to which he sometimes treated us after dinner, glass of wine in hand. “She stood right there in the midnight air and the wind blew up her nightie ….”  He didn’t like being a soldier and had no desire to revisit Europe, even years later. After the war, he went to DePauw University in Greencastle, where he met your grandmother. They were married on January 29, 1949. They had a very loving relationship, filled with respect for each other and true affection. They were partners in the truest sense and complimented each other in personality. They shared their faith, their values and love for their children.

Your grandfather earned a BS in Physics from DePauw and had started to take some graduate courses at Purdue University. He always said he quit his graduate studies because “he’d rather sleep with Marjorie than a physics book.” Like many people of his generation, he made choices and sacrifices and going into debt simply wasn’t an option. After they were married, he went to work for General Motors. They settled in Speedway, Indiana and started a family. Bill (William Buel) was born in 1951 and I came along in 1953.

Four kids and one move (to California) later, your grandfather worked in the aerospace industry. He helped design fuel cells for the Saturn V rockets which put men on the moon – he was a real rocket scientist! He was very proud of being part of the space program and studied astronomy in later years. He survived many layoffs as the government funding dwindled after the moon landings. He did lose his job once, and was out of work for about 3 weeks. It must have been a trying time for Bill and Marjorie since they had four kids to feed, but they protected us from their concerns. He landed a job at Hughes Aircraft, which required him to commute across the LA basin, easily an hour each way. His work was highly classified, so we didn’t really know what he did! He loved learning about new advances in technology. He loved all of the latest gadgets and, if he were still alive, would have been the first in the family to have a smartphone, i-pad or fit-bit. He loved living in Southern California because it reminded him of Chile, and he could speak Spanish, which he did whenever and to whomever he could.

Your grandfather loved music and he loved to sing. He also was a good dancer and he and my mother would do the jitterbug in the living room when we (and they) were younger. He was a founding member of the Fullerton Civic Light Opera Company and performed minor roles in many shows. He loved being part of musical theater! He had a beautiful tenor voice and sang in church choirs his entire life.

Your grandparents had lots of friends in the choir and I remember parties where they would gather around the piano and sing the old gospel songs – in four-part harmony, of course. He loved to sing in Spanish and, as a result, all of us know Chilean nursery songs (Los pollitos dicen pio pio pio…), and the Spanish version of many hymns “El conmigo esta, puedo oir su voz….” (In the Garden). A family favorite is the “Misa Criolla”. We sang “Santo, Santo, Santo” (Holy, Holy, Holy) in Spanish at his funeral. He loved classical music and would tape radio programs that featured his favorites. I kept a cassette tape of the Messiah that he made for me in my car for years. His favorite piece was the Saint-Seans Organ Symphony in C-minor. He called us into the living room to listen to it on more than one occasion. I can’t listen to it to this day without weeping at the sheer beauty of it.

A few weeks before your grandfather died, Bill and Marjorie went on a cruise to Mexico to celebrate their 43^rd wedding anniversary. He got off of the ship, went out to tend to his vegetable garden in the back yard and then went to the hospital. It didn’t look good. He had congestive heart failure, kidney disease and he had stubbed his toe a few months earlier. Since he had such poor circulation in his legs, the toe was not healing. They considered amputation but it was not happening with his other health issues.

I was able to spend a week with him during that time and Jim and Jayne came in from Arizona. Allyson, Bill and Janet were local, and his sister, Sue Hennum, flew down from Oregon. Being an early bird and on Eastern time (3 hrs ahead), I spent time alone with him in his hospital room in the wee hours of the mornings. I cherished those hours that we spent together. He was very sick and weak, but he knew where he was, and that we were there. On February 10, he asked my mother if he was dying. She gave him the facts: “Your toe is bad, your heart is very weak and your kidneys are shot.” He thought about that for a moment, and then said “Shit”.  Nothing more, nothing less. He loved life.

February 14th, 1992

He died late in the afternoon on a Friday – Valentine’s day – with my mother by his side.

Your grandfather was a kind, generous and intelligent man of faith who loved his family, his Chilean heritage, science, technology, music and gardening. I am blessed to have known him, and blessed to be his daughter. Carolyn and Tyler, you share his zest for life and friendships, for having a good time and the enjoyment of working with your hands. Megan and Mary, you both share his love for the natural world and the creatures in it, and his ability to master complex scientific concepts. Mckenna and Brianna – your legacy is his musical talent and love for the performing arts, especially musical theater.  He would be so proud of all of you. Tonight, I invite you to raise a glass – mine will contain Johnnie Walker Red – and offer this toast to the ones you love, in his memory:

Salud, amor y pesetas y el tiempo para disfrutarlas. (Health, love and money and the time to enjoy them)

In loving memory, William L. Shelly (3/14/23 – 2/14/92).

The prompt for this week’s blog post for #52Ancestorsin52weeks is “Surprise”. That is a great prompt because there are so many surprises in genealogical research. Of course, if you know precious little going into the research, like I did, almost everything is a surprise. I have found several coincidences along the way as well.

I have not finished with the Shelly’s yet, but I thought that this week’s prompt fit better with the Horn ancestral line. There have been many surprises and one major coincidence with that work, so going forward I’ll bounce back and forth between Shelly’s and the Horn’s. I have also expanded my research into Greg’s family (McClosky and McGovern) so will address those intrepid Irish and Lithuanian ancestors of my husband and therefore, our children, at some future date.

First, the coincidence:

Our daughter Mary graduated from vet school in May, 2017. Prior to graduating, she did an 8 week “preceptorship” at a vet clinic. Mary chose to do her preceptor work in Russellville, KY. While she was working in Russellville, she interviewed with a large veterinary practice about an hour away, in Clarksville, TN and she accepted a position at that clinic after she graduated. It turns out that Russellville is the county seat of Logan County, KY, which is exactly where my mom’s Horn ancestors lived from ca 1800 – 1850.  Of all the places in the United States that Mary could have picked to work during her preceptorship, she picked the exact county where her 6-times great grandfather, Nathan Horn, settled in 1808.

My mother, Marjorie Horn, mentioned that her grandfather, Marshall Patrick Horn, was born in Logan County, KY in 1853. When I was visiting Mary in the summer of 2017, I started working on the Horn family tree, and was amazed to realize I was sitting less than an hour away from where they had lived. On a subsequent visit (2018) I borrowed Mary’s car and spent several days in the Logan County Historical Society with some wonderful women who helped me find all sorts of interesting ancient documents about the Horn ancestors. Mary is living and working less than an hour away from the farm belonging to her 6 times great grandfather!

Our Horn ancestors came to this country well before the Revolutionary War (1776 – 1783), and settled in Virginia/North Carolina. I have not sorted out the information regarding these pre-Revolutionary War Horn ancestors, but have recently found a reference to work done several years ago by another researcher. As you can imagine, records are a little sketchy and more than a little complicated! As I sort this out, I’ll keep you informed.

The Horn families (there were several related families) moved west – from Virginia/North Carolina to Kentucky to Missouri in the early to mid-1800’s. I have found it easier to associate them with the places they lived, as follows. I am relatively certain of the following direct line:

Virginia/North Carolina:

William Horn (Margaret Neal) born 1690 in Nansemond, VA; died 1754 in Edgecomb Co, NC. They had eight children, including Henry (below).

Henry “The Quaker” Horn (Anne Purcell) born 1716 Nansemond Co, VA; lived in Wayne NC; died 1798 Wayne Co, NC. They had 14 children, including Isaac (below)

Isaac Horn (Edith Richardson) born 1742 in Wayne NC; died 1782 in Edgecomb Co, NC. He died at age 40 after fighting in the Revolutionary War. Isaac and Edith had two sons, Nathan (see below) and Jacob.

North Carolina/Kentucky

Nathan D. Horn (Nancy Jennings) born 1762 in Rich Square, NC; moved to Logan Co, KY in 1808; died 1834 Simpson Co, KY (formed from Logan Co). Nathan was married 3 times; Nancy was his first wife. They had six children and Nancy died soon after her last child was born. Wiley Horn (see below) was their 2^nd eldest son.

Kentucky/Missouri

 Wiley Horn (Elizabeth Morgan) born 1785 in Nash Co, NC; moved to Logan Co KY with father Nathan and then moved to Missouri ca 1840; killed by a slave in 1845, Missouri. One of their sons was Nathaniel D (below)

Nathaniel D. Horn (Sarah Frances Dawson) born 1814 Logan Co, KY, moved to Missouri and died in 1887, Bates Co, Mo. Nathaniel and Sarah had six children, including Marshall Patrick.

Marshall Patrick Horn (Sarah Elizabeth Robbins) born 1853 Logan Co, KY; died 1926 Skidmore, Mo (my great-grandfather)

Buel Edward Horn (Ruby Bigler) born 1888 Skidmore Missouri; died 1962 Bellmore, Indiana (my grandfather)

Frances Marjorie Horn (William Shelly) born 1926 (my mom).

Knowing nothing except that my mother’s grandfather (Marshall Patrick Horn) had been born in Logan County, KY, I was surprised to find out that:

1. They were originally from North Carolina/Virginia and were owners of enslaved people.
2. Three of them (Henry “The Quaker”, Isaac and Nathan) fought in the Revolutionary War. Several of them were “kicked out” of the Quaker community in North Carolina.
3. Isaac Horn (1742 – 1782) died at age 40, before the Revolutionary War ended.
4. They had large families and suffered the deaths of many of their children and spouses. Nathan, in particular, lost two of his three wives soon after their last child was born; often remarrying within a few months of their death. Someone had to care for the children while the men worked the land.

Following is an excerpt from my notes from my first foray into this family, summer 2017.

“Henry Horn “The Quaker” (1716 – 1798). Henry Horn also fought in the Revolutionary War (he also got booted out of the Quakers but I don’t know if that is why) and lived in Edgecomb County NC.  Isaac Horn (1742 – 1782) was one of 17 children of Henry “Q” and fought in the Revolutionary War (captain in the Halifax District Minutemen (1776 – 1778) and served at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, the site of the first Patriot victory in the American Revolution. One of Isaac’s brothers (William Horn, 1738 – 1791) also fought in the Revolutionary War. Note that Isaac was only 40 when he died and the Revolutionary War was not over until 1783 so it’s likely that Isaac was killed in battle or died of his wounds.

Isaac’s son (Nathan Duncan Horn, 1762 – 1834) and grandson (Wiley Horn, 1785 – 1845) moved to Logan County KY before 1814. Isaac’s great-grandson (Nathaniel D, 1814 – 1887) was born in Logan County, KY. Between 1838 and 1840, Wiley Horn moved from Kentucky to Missouri.  His son (Nathaniel D.) and grandson Marshall Patrick Horn (1853 – 1926) (our great-grandfather) moved to Missouri later, since Marshall Patrick was born in Logan County in 1853. I don’t know when they moved to Missouri. Our grandfather (Buel E. Horn, 1888 – 1962) was born in Missouri. I’d love to know why they left NC and why they moved on to MO. They were farmers and owned slaves, in fact Wiley Horn was murdered by a slave in 1845 in MO. I’m sure I’ll find a confederate soldier or two.”

Last summer (2018) I was able to do more research at the Logan County Historical Society and was able to “put some flesh on the bones” of our Horn family tree. I found incredible records – marriage certificates, land purchases and sales and court documents. I was actually able to touch the original documents, including the transfer of ownership of an enslaved girl named Elender (about 12 – 13 years old) to Nancy G. Wallace (nee Horn) in 1843. Apparently, Wiley and Richard were not fond of Nancy’s husband because they arranged that the enslaved girl be returned to the Horn family if something were to happen to Nancy and that she not become the property of her husband.

I have quite a bit more information about the Kentucky Horn’s including a deposition made by Nathan in 1832 regarding his Revolutionary War service, but I’ll save that for another blog post.

Next week the prompt is “love”, appropriate for St. Valentine’s day.

This week’s prompt is “At the Library”. I’m sure that they were intending to pay homage to the incredible resources that are available in our public libraries, but I’m going to take a different tack. I’m going to dive into the Science Library and celebrate the matriarchy!

Today my mother (Frances Marjorie Horn Shelly) celebrates her 70^th wedding anniversary. She and my dad (William Lewis Shelly) met in college after he returned from the war (WWII, ETO) and were married on January 29, 1949. Dad died in 1992, so they didn’t get to celebrate past their 43^rd anniversary, but their union is celebrated by their grateful offspring every year. This year is no different – Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

In honor of my mother, and with a nod to a good Science Library, here are some basic reproduction and inheritance principles. Feel free to skip to the next paragraph if bored! Since you have been in middle school, you know that reproduction occurs when an egg is fertilized by a sperm (when two people love each other very, very much…..) The sperm is primarily a self-propelled vehicle for half of the nuclear genetic material for the offspring (23 unpaired chromosomes). The egg furnishes the other 23 chromosomes, so that the resultant fertilized egg contains a nucleus with 46 paired chromosomes, half from the male parent and half from the female parent. The nuclear chromosomes (nuclear DNA) are responsible for you having “Dad’s eyes” and “Mom’s great legs”. The male parent contributes either an X or Y chromosome as one of the 23 chromosomes and the female parent contributes an X chromosome. A male child is XY and a female child is XX (usually!). So, you say, why go over all this in a genealogy post? Because, there is much more to the story than just X and Y – we all have a special inheritance from the matriarchy!

There is so much more to a cell than the genetic material in the nucleus. The egg from the mother contributes all of the remaining cellular material to the developing organism – the cytosol, ribosomes, vacuoles, Golgi apparatus, rough and smooth endoplasmic reticulum, the cellular matrix, the mitochondria, etc. If you have studied biology, you may remember that “The Mitochondria is the Powerhouse of the Cell”, and, every blessed mitochondria that you have comes from your mom (and there are approximately 2000 of these “powerhouses” in every cell)!  Mitochondria have their own DNA, and replicate by binary fission, similar to bacterial cell division. When the energy needs of a cell are high, mitochondria grow and divide. When the energy needs of a cell or low, mitochondria are destroyed.  All of the metabolic processes that transform sugars and fats into energy for your body comes from your maternal inheritance. Thanks, moms!

Side note: Sperm have mitochondria, else they could not be self-propelled, but they do not contribute genetic material and are tagged for destruction after fertilization.

So let’s raise a glass and give thanks to the Matriarchy for providing us with cellular materials, including the incredibly awesome mitochondria, powerhouse of the cell.

My matrilineal line:

Megan Elizabeth McClosky and Mary Evelyn McClosky (my fabulous daughters)

Gail Carolyn Shelly  (me)

Marjorie Frances Horn (Mom)

Ruby Bigler Horn (1892 – 1951)

Alice Alberta Lapp Bigler (1861 – 1934)

Charlotte Emily Frances Kelley  Lapp (1821 – 1877)

Mary Elizabeth Clarke Kelley (born 1796)

My personal matriarchy takes me back to Canada in 1796 so there is more work to be done here! I see a potential visit to Ontario!

We are so fortunate to have Marjorie Horn Shelly with us still. I talk with her every day. Although she has some physical problems, her mind is still sharp. We discuss books, politics, daily events, family issues and her health. She ALWAYS thanks me for calling, says she loves me and sends her love to my husband and daughters. How lucky I am!

A few days ago, I asked Marjorie about her earliest memories. She was born in 1926 and was a child of the Great Depression. That period left its mark on those who lived through it, and Marjorie was no exception. To this day, she hates to throw anything away that could be used by someone else. When we were growing up, she saved plastic bags, aluminum foil, rubber bands, and slivers of soap because you can mush them together to form another bar. If you were a child during the Depression, you learn to conserve and go without.

One of Marjorie’s earliest memories was when she was in kindergarten. She went for half-days, which was typical, and she heard someone say it was 12:00. She ran home to look at the clock to see what “12:00” looked like. Her grandmother, Alice Alberta Lapp (1861 – 1934) would ask Marjorie for a kiss on her cheek and give her a piece of cheese as a reward. Marjorie had one sister, Alice Virginia (Ginny) Horn White (1923 – 1999) who was three years older than she. Many of her childhood memories involve Ginny. One time, they were crossing the railroad tracks to school and she fell on the gravel and skinned her knees. Ginny pulled her up and covered the skinned area with Marjorie’s long knit stockings. When they got home, her mother (Ruby Bigler Horn) had to soak off the stockings due to the dried blood. Apparently, that was painful! When Ginny started school, she decided that she would play school, always taking the role of the teacher. Marjorie, three years old at the time, was her first unwilling pupil. Ginny went on to teach high school English and was proud that one year, her students made t-shirts declaring “I survived White”. She was a dedicated teacher and musician.

Marjorie’s father, Buel Edward Horn (1888 – 1962) was a minister with the Methodist church in Indiana, and the family moved quite a bit when she was growing up. She was born in Hammond, Indiana and the family lived in Gary, Whiting, South Bend and Terra Haute. In Whiting, a number of railroad tracks went into Chicago from the East Coast.  During the Depression, many men were homeless and would ride the rails looking for work. These “hobos” marked the back doors of people that were known to provide meals, and Marjorie remembered many times that her mother would share their dinner with strangers. They never came inside, but took what food could be spared and ate in the back yard. In Hammond, the men would shoot rabbits and bring them to the church for a community rabbit dinner. Buel had worked in his father’s butcher shop growing up and knew how to handle meat. He was in charge of preparing the rabbits and once contracted tularemia (rabbit fever) from infected meat. He was very sick for over a week. Marjorie said that that left an impression on her since her father was rarely ill. Marjorie contracted scarlet fever when she was 10. At that time there was an epidemic and her father and sister had to move out of the house for three weeks. Ruby told her that one night she had a particularly high fever and Buel came home to help her, breaking the quarantine.

Both Ruby and Buel loved music, and Ruby played the piano. Buel did not have any formal musical training because his family could not afford it, but they were both insistent that their daughters get a musical education – a tradition that Marjorie carried into her own family. She was six when she started piano lessons and she had loved to sing from a very young age. At the age of 12, when the family lived in Whiting, she began to take voice lessons from the organist/choir director at the church (Mrs. Carolyn Hyle). Mrs Hoyle taught Marjorie to sing a solo that very first lesson – “Verger Clad” by Haydn, an oratorio from “The Creation”. She never was one to start with simple stuff! As the family changed parishes – a practice of Methodist churches at that time – Marjorie went back to Mrs. Hyle when she could. When she studied music at DePauw University, she got Mrs. Hyle’s input before she started working on her pieces. She also sang on live radio, and met her future husband when she was singing for a program at DePauw, and he was the sound engineer. She has sung in and eventually directed church choirs most of her life. She instilled a love of music and considerable musical talent in all her children and grandchildren.

Marjorie married William Lewis Shelly on January 29, 1949. They lived in Speedway, Indiana as newlyweds and their first son, William Buel Shelly was born in July, 1951. Marjorie’s mother, Ruby, had a stroke five weeks later, and died after three days in the hospital. Marjorie and Bill were living in a suburb of Indianapolis (Speedway) and needed to travel to Crawfordsville, about an hour away. The burial was to be in Gary, which was farther still, so it was difficult to manage with a new baby. Marjorie had developed a deep friendship with one of their neighbors, Evelyn Coffey. Evelyn didn’t even ask if she could help – she just stepped in and took care of the baby for as long as was needed.  They even brought the baby to the wake so that Ruby’s friends could see her first grandchild.  Marjorie and Bill remained fast friends with the Coffey’s, Evelyn and Dick, their entire adult lives.

William Lewis Shelly died on St. Valentine’s Day, 1992, two weeks after they celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary. I love this photo of Marjorie and Ginny, taken in the back yard of my parents’ house in California the day of the funeral. My dad was a fantastic gardener, so you can see his spirit as well as his love for growing things in this photo.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

The prompt given by the creators of “52 Ancestors in 52 weeks” for Week 4 (January 22-28) is “I’d Like to Meet”. There are many interesting people in our family history that I would like to meet, but if I had to choose one, I would most like to visit with my dad again, William Lewis Shelly (1923 – 1992). There are so many questions I would like to ask him, from his childhood, to his education and work life, to his retirement, to his thoughts on where technology has taken us, and the current state of the divided political landscape in the US at this point in time. One topic that seemed to be “off limits” was his service in WWII. He was drafted, he served in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) and came home. He did not speak of his experience.

That said, the genealogical journeying of both Shelly and Horn ancestors has revealed that the Civil War (US 1861- 1865) impacted both ancestral lines in a most personal way. The sons of Daniel D. Shelly (1793 – 1880), from Cass County, Indiana, fought and died for the Union. Nathan Horn (1762 – 1834) was born in North Carolina and moved to Logan County, Kentucky in 1808, He was a slave owner. His son, Wiley Horn (1784 – 1845), was purported to have been killed by a slave after moving to Missouri. One of Wiley Horn’s sons, John Horn (1810 – 1861 or 1864) may have been a member of the 24^th Missouri Volunteers and, if so, died of “Febris Typhoides”.

Personal Note: one of the many charming things about studying genealogy is the creative, multiple spelling of last names.  “Horn” often shows up as “Horne” or Harn/e and “Shelly” may be spelled in a variety of different ways, often as “Shelley, Skelly, etc.”. Genealogical research sometimes involves a guessing game, with contextual clues allowing one to piece together complicated family ties. It appears to be true that “Dead men tell no tales” and multiple variants of surname spelling can be a pain!

The Shelly family was impacted “to a man” by the Civil War. Both Daniel D Shelly (1793 -1880) and his wife Catherine Gephart Shelly (1804 – 1876) were alive for some years after the war ended. They already knew the loss of several of their children and lived to see all of their adult sons enlist for the Union except for their youngest son, David R. (1847 – 1923) who was only 14 when the war broke out.

Daniel and Catherine’s oldest child, a daughter named Margaretta (1824 – 1838) was 14 years old when she died, and their eldest son, John (1827 – 1832) lived to be only five years old. The next child, Moriah (1829 – 1830) was a year old when she died. Son Henry, born the following year (1831), lived to see adulthood but died at the age of 34 near the end of the Civil War (1865, North Carolina) . Jacob (1837 -1865) also was lost to the conflict (Battle of Selma). Our direct ancestor, George Washington Shelly (1841 – 1914) fought in the war but, fortunately for all of us, survived. Nelson, George’s older brother (1835 – 1897) was also a veteran, and younger brother Benjamin Franklin Shelly (1842 – 1920) was a disabled veteran who spent the last years of his life in a home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. He suffered from “defective vision and hearing, cardio hypertrophy and other ailments”.

With the aid of both state and government files, I have gathered information on these Union soldiers that I would share with you. I hope you will join me in thanking them for their service.

Children of Daniel Shelly and Catherine Gephart

Name              Born – Died     Age at death   Civil War Service

• Margaretta       1824-1838       14 years          No

• Susan              1825 – 1896

• John                1827 – 1832    4 – 5 years      No

• Moriah             1829 – 1830    1 year              No

• Henry              1831 – 1865    34 years          Yes

• Daniel Jr          1833 – 1895                            Yes

• Nelson             1835 – 1877                            Yes

• Jacob M          1837 – 1865    28 years          Yes

• George W       1841 – 1914                            Yes

• Benjamin F      1842 – 1920                            Yes

• David R           1857 – 1923                            No

• Nancy  C         1849 – 1928                            No

Details of Civil War Service

Henry Shelly (1831 – 1865) – Henry (30) and his younger brother George (20) both enrolled on 8/29/1861 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Their initial service was with the 39^th Reg Infantry but the designation of that unit became the 8^th Cavalry in Oct 1863. Henry died on 4/4/1865 in Wilmington, NC. “Wounded in action on 3/10/1865 and sent to hospital. No discharge furnished.” A pension application was filled out by Henry’s widow, Elizabeth Bering Shelly, of Cass County IN stated that Henry (Private, Co D, 8^th Ind Cav) died at Wilmington, NC of “wounds” on April 4, 1865.

Many major battles and minor skirmishes were fought by this regiment. Major battles were Shiloh, Corinth, Miss and Stone’s River (1862), Chickamauga (1863), Atlanta, Jonesboro, Waynesboro (1864) and the advance on Raleigh, NC (1865). Interestingly, the regiment was on furlough April – May 1864, during which time Henry Shelly married Elizabeth Bering (21 Apr 1864). He was Daniel and Catherine’s oldest living son and left no children.

Note: A Muster Roll of the 8^th Indiana Cavalry, Company D (aka 39^th Indiana Regiment (Howard County) lists both “Shelley, George W. and Shelly, Henry” as having both mustered on 8/29/1861 and that they both mustered out on 20 Jul 1865. Since this is a secondary source, I’m pretty sure that the Pension Application is the correct source and Henry did die of his wounds just prior to the end of the war.

George Washington Shelly (grandfather to William Lewis Shelly and my great-grandfather) served alongside his brother Henry (8^th Indiana Cavalry, Company D). He was discharged on July 20, 1865 in Lexington, NC at age 24. He returned to Cass County (Franklin Township) and married Sarah Bell Newcomb in 1869 and proceeded to father a pile of children, including William Austin Shelly. More about them in a future post!

Daniel Shelly Jr – enrolled 8/20/1862 in the 5^th Indiana Cavalry at age 29. He was discharged after only 2.5 months (11/12 1862) due to “physical disability”. Ref: Indiana Digital Archives; https://secure.in.gov/apps/iara/search/Home/Detail?rId=1154854

Nelson Shelly – enrolled in the 34^th Regular Indiana Infantry, Co H. as a Private. He mustered in on October 7, 1861 and was “transferred to V. R. C (?) because of wounds received in the battle of Champion’s Hill (part of the Vicksburg campaign)”. Reference: http://www.civilwarindex.com/armyin/soldiers/34th_in_infantry_soldiers.pdf  see  page 126. “The regiment was assigned to Hovey’s division, 13^th corps and took part in the Vicksburg campaign…. At Champion’s Hill it captured the 46^th Alabama, with its colors and field officers, losing 79 men in killed and wounded.” http://www.civilwarindex.com/armyin/34th_in_infantry.html) The 34^th Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment, nicknamed “The Morton Rifles” was organized at Anderson, IN, and mustered in September 16, 1861. It had the distinction of fighting in the last land action of the war, the Battle of Palmito Ranch, Texas (May 12 – 13, 1865). Engagements also included the Battle of Island No. Ten, Battle of Port Gibson, Battle of Champion Hill and the Siege of Vicksburg.

Jacob Moriah Shelly – enrolled Mus Co G, 15^th Indiana Infantry on 6/14/1861. He transferred as a veteran to the 17^th Indiana Infantry, Company K on 5/31/1864 as a Private. The 17^th Indiana Infantry Regiment was organized at Indianapolis, Indiana and mustered in June 12, 1861 under the command of Lt. Colonel John T. Wilder. It became attached to the Army of the Ohio and then Army of the Cumberland and finally to Wilson’s Cavalry Corps, Military Division Mississippi.

Jacob was killed in action on 4/2/1865 in Selma, AL  The Battle of Selma was fought on April 2, 1865. It formed part of the Union campaign through Alabama and Georgia, known as “Wilson’s Raid”, in the final phase of the war (Wikipedia, Battle of Selma). The Union Army forces, 13500 strong, under Major General James H. Wilson invaded Alabama. They were opposed by 2000 Confederates, mostly boys and old men, under the command of Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The Confederates suffered a stinging defeat, and losses of 2700 were reported, mostly prisoners. Lt. General Forrest escaped, but not before killing a Union trooper, the thirtieth he killed in personal combat during the war. The Union forces lost 359 men in battle, one of them 28-year-old Jacob Shelly. He was unmarried and had no children. He is buried in the National Cemetery, Marietta, Georgia.

Benjamin Franklin Shelly – enrolled on 10/7/1862 in the 46^th Indiana Infantry, Company B as a recruit. http://www.civilwarindex.com/armyin/soldiers/46th_in_infantry_soldiers.pdf

He was discharged on 9/4/1865 in Louisville, KY. He lived in the US National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers from 10/28/1916 until his death on 11/9/20. The 46^th Indiana Infantry was organized at Logansport, Indiana on 12/11/1861 under the command of Colonel Graham Newell Fitch. Logansport is the county seat of Cass County. Engagements included Battle of Island No. Ten (in the Mississippi River), Battle of Saint Charles, Battle of Port Gibson, Battle of Champion Hill, Siege of Vicksburg, Bayou Teche Campaign, Red River Campaign and the Battle of Sabine Crossroads

Chile, S. A. 1904 – 1935

My grandfather, William Austin Shelly, was an educational missionary in Chile from 1904 – 1935. He was born in 1873 and was 31 when he “was called” to the missionary field. He was an educator – a science (botany and zoology) and English teacher and also a man of faith. In the latter years of the 19^th century and early years of the 20^th century, missionary work reached its peak. Methodist women, forbidden to raise money for missionary work, nevertheless funded, through lifetime memberships and dues, many educational missionaries.
“Education has been one of the most consistent features of Methodist mission from its beginning to its present outreach. Wherever Methodists have gone in mission, whether the coalfields of England, the American frontier, Asia, Africa, South America, and beyond, they have started schools.”  David W. Scott, “Education in the history of Methodist mission”

https://www.umcmission.org/find-resources/new-world-outlook-magazine/2018/november-/education-in-the-history-of-methodist-mission

William Austin Shelly was an imposing figure, tall in stature, with a strong jaw and piercing expression. He had a full head of light brown, then white hair and held himself erect in the several photos that I have of him. He died when my own father was only 15 years old, leaving a wife and three children under the age of 18. My father didn’t share many memories of his father, but one in particular was notable. “One day, I was racing through the living room on my way outside, and my father, sitting in a chair in the living room stopped me. “Son,” he asked, “Do you have any troubles with your passions?” My father gulped, and quickly said, “No, sir”. He was allowed to continue on his way, and that was the extent of his sex-education.” William L Shelly, personal account.

William Austin was born in 1793 to a farming family in Cass County, Indiana. The Civil War had been over less than 10 years before, and his father, George Washington Shelly (1841 – 1914), and several uncles served in various Indiana regiments. Two of his uncles, Henry (1831 – 1865) and Jacob (1837 – 1865) were either killed in action or died of their wounds.  William Austin’s mother was Sarah Belle Newcomb (1850 – 1897). He was the fourth of eleven children, at least nine of which survived childhood. His mother died at age 47 – her last living child was born when she was 42 years old. According to his obituary, William Austin was a teacher of high school botany and zoology in Greencastle, IN. He attended DePauw University where he met Jessie Tribby. They were married in 1904 (William was 31) and their first child, Mary Isabel was born in April 1905. With a 3-month infant in tow, they made the 5 week journey to Chile as educational missionaries.

The family returned several times during the early years of the 20^th century. In 1918, Jessie made what would be her last trip with the family to the United States. After arriving in October, 1918, she contracted the flu (Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 which killed 20 – 50 million people worldwide) and died in December, 1918. William stayed in the US with his two children, and in the fall of 1919, met Geneva Lewis, a schoolteacher residing in London, Ohio. They were married just a few weeks after they met (Jan 1, 1920) and returned to Chile in March, 1920. They had three children, Geneva Louise (b 1920), William Lewis (b 1923) and Susanna (b 1928).

My father, William Lewis Shelly, told us several stories about growing up in Chile, and I wish I could have heard more. Spanish was his first language since my grandmother (Geneva Lewis Shelly) was a teacher and the children had a “nana”. He would sing Spanish nursery rhymes to us which I sang to my children as well. He was a small, agile child and retained that agility into adulthood. He definitely favored the “Lewis side” of his family in stature, fine boned and lithe. He told us that when the family returned to the States when he was very young, they actually had to tether him to various immovable objects on the boat so that he would not fall overboard. When they returned to the States for good, in 1935, he was 13 and apparently was allowed to climb up into the rigging with the sailors (or at least he did without permission). My father and his sister Geneva Louise (Gege) retained their knowledge of Spanish their entire lives. Can you imagine what it was like for two teenagers to relocate from Chile to the middle of Indiana farm country? They often spoke Spanish with each other although they had a difficult relationship at times. Gege suffered from dementia in the years prior to her death, and spoke in Spanish much of the time. Cecelia told me that, before her mother Mary Isabelle died, she spoke only in English. First languages do not desert us, even when our faculties do.

Some interesting documents that I have found in my search for information regarding William Austin Shelly include

A ship’s passenger list (SS Abangarez) sailing from the Cristobal Canal Zone (leaving October 18, 1918) to New Orleans, arriving October 25, 1918, listing

• William Austin Shelly, age 45, born Feb 13, 1873 in Galveston, IN;

• Jesse Tribby Shelly, age 37, born Jan 2, 1881 in New Richmond, IN;

• Mary Isabel, 13, born April 17, 1905 in Greencastle, IN and

• James Austin, 10, born October 23, 1907 in Concepcion Chile (American Parents)

A ship’s passenger list (SS Santa Cecilia) leaving Valparaiso, Chile on March 11, 1935 and arriving in New York on April 1, 1935, listing

               William A Shelly, age 62, born Feb 13, 1873

               Geneva L Shelly, age 46, born May 15, 1888, London, OH

               Geneva Louise, 14, born Nov 15, 1920, Concepcion, Chile

               William L, 12, born March 14, 1923, Concepcion, Chile

               Susanna, 7 born Jan 14, 1928, Iquique, Chile.

               All three children were “registered at the US Consulate, Santiago, Chile” claiming their American citizenship due to their American parents.

I have also found

An application for a US passport issued 1 Jul 1916 which has a photo of William Austin at age 43

A Certificate of Registration of American Citizen with the American Consulate in Valpariso, Chile (Counsul Alfred A. Winslow) stating that William Austin Shelly arrived in Chile on September 9, 1905 with his family for the purpose of “Christian Education”. “His citizenship of the United States is established by Connection with Methodist Mission, 150 5^th Ave, New York”.

A second Certificate of Registration of American Citizen with the same American Consulate was filed in 1920, upon the family’s return to Chile with newly wed Geneva Lewis Shelly. It states that “I last left the United States on March 13, 1920, arriving at Concepcion, Chile on April 13, 1920, where I am now residing for the purpose of Missionary educational work on behalf of The Methodist Board of Foreign Missions (American) 150 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y.” This document also states that he resided outside of the United States in Chile, from 1905 – 1910 and 1911 – 1918, that he is married to Geneva Lewis Shelly, born at Chrisman Chapel, Ohio on May 15, 1888 and that he had two children (Mary Isabelle and James Austin) by his first wife, Jessie Tribby, who died on December 15, 1918 in Greencastle, IN.

US WW I Draft registration card, stating that William Austin Shelly, age 45, resided outside the US

The family returned to the United States in 1935 and would not return, although the children returned to their first home as they could. The missionary funding, probably a victim of the Great Depression, was drying up, and William’s health was not good. They settled in Greencastle, IN, and he died three years later. His obituary, published in Greencastle’s Daily Banner on the day of his death, thus the headline “ W. A. SHELLY DIED SUDDENLY THIS MORNING” lists his occupation as “deputy assessor of Greencastle township and was engaged in this task when stricken.” His teaching credentials were impressive:  he was a professor in Walden University, a teacher of botany and zoology in the Greencastle high school and a teach of “superior class”, English College, Iquique Chile. He also served as principal of the Superior School in Colejio Americano, Concepcion, Chile and president of Santiago College, Santiogo Chile. In 1920, he taught English in the University of Chile and then became educational director of the Methodist Episcopal Mission Schools of Chile. According to my father, he died of a massive heart attack and there was nothing anyone could do.

Asi tuto wawa, que viene la vaca,

Con sus patos d’oro, y sus pies de plata.

Esta wawa linda, no quiere dormir

Porque no le trien, flores del jardin.

Los pollitos dicen pio, pio, pio,

Cuando tienen hambre, cuando tienen frio.

La gallina busca el maiz y el trigo

Y les dan comida, y presto abrigo.

Additional Information on Jessie Tribby and William Austin Shelly

I was fortunate, through Ancestry, to contact a descendant of Jessie Tribby (Dave Tribby) who is working on a book about the descendants of his 3-times-great grandparents, Jason Tribby and Sarah Tarvin (Jessie Tribby’s great-grandparents). 

From Dave Tribby 9/4/2018: Many thanks for sending your message! Jessie Tribby Shelly was my grandfather’s first cousin. They grew up in the same town (New Richmond, Indiana), but my grandfather was about 20 years younger so they may not have really known one another. Cecilia is my 3rd cousin. I’m glad you enjoyed the Shelly information in my tree on Ancestry. The passport photo was an amazing find! Sadly, it was likely one of the last photos of the family, as Jessie would die in the Influenza pandemic only a few months after they arrived in Indiana from Chile. Great to hear that you have maintained a connection with your Chilean cousins.

From Dave Tribby’s book in progress: “Three of James’ daughters (James Tribby) worked in Chile as teaching missionaries in the early years of the 20th century. Jessie was the first to go. Less than two years after her 1904 marriage to William Shelly, and only months after the birth of their first child, Mary Isabelle, the Shellys left Indiana for South America. Jessie’s older sister, the widowed Mrs. Etta Archey, joined them three years later. In 1908, Jessie and William had a son, James, in Santiago, Chile. They all returned to Indiana in late 1910, due to the serious illness of Jessie and Etta’s mother. The Shellys returned to South America within a few years. The youngest Tribby sister, Ruth, joined them in 1915, and she eventually became assistant director of the Santiago English College. In 1918, the Shellys returned to Greencastle, Indiana, “for a two years’ stay with the hopes of educating their children.” Unfortunately, she caught influenza which developed into deadly pneumonia. Ruth remained in Santiago, and in 1920 married an astronomer, Charles Huffer, there. Their daughter, Helen Marie, was born in Santiago the following year. The Huffers returned to the United States in 1922.

“11.6.3.3 JESSIE E. TRIBBY was born 2 Jan 1881 in New Richmond, Montgomery Co., Indiana, the third child of James William Tribby and Mary Lydia Curnutt. She grew up in New Richmond and then attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Putnam Co., Indiana. The 20 Sep 1900 New Richmond Record reported, “Misses Nettie Vaughn and Jessie Tribby left Tuesday afternoon for Greencastle where they will enter DePauw University School of Music.” (Two years later, Nettie Vaughn would marry Jessie’s second cousin, 11.4.5.1 James Everett Burris.) A 1915 listing of DePauw alumni lists her as “ex-DePauw, Music, ’03,” indicating that she did not complete her degree.

Jessie married William Austin Shelly 1 Jun 1904 at the home of her parents in New Richmond, Montgomery Co., Indiana. They had two children. Jessie and William met at DePauw University.

Their first child, Mary Isabelle, was born in April 1905. Three months later, the family made a five-week journey to Chile where they took up missionary and teaching work for the Methodist Episcopal Church in Inquique and Concepción. Their son, James, was born in Chile. After being in Chile for five years, the family returned home in October 1910, shortly before Jessie’s mother died. The Shellys returned to South America a year later, resuming their missionary work in Santiago, Chile. They returned to the United States in 1918, the final leg of their journey on the SS Abangarez arriving in New Orleans, Louisiana, on 25 Oct 1918.

Jessie T. Shelly died 19 Dec 1918, age 37, at her home in Greencastle, Putnam Co., Indiana, of pneumonia after being ill for a week from influenza. She was interred in Forest Hill Cemetery, Greencastle.

Ref: Family records compiled by Joan Tribby Oppy. “Mrs. Wm. Shelly Former County Woman Succumbs,” Crawfordsville Daily Journal, 21 Dec 1918, p.1. “Mr. W. A. Shelly Has Passed Away,” New Richmond Record. Jessie Tribby Shelly, death certificate no. 46824, Indiana State Board of Health. Find A Grave memorial # 23241174.

WILLIAM AUSTIN SHELLY, husband of Jessie E. Tribby, was born 13 Feb 1873 in Galveston, Cass Co., Indiana, the third child of George W. Shelly and Sarah B. Newcomb.

His entry in the 1915 Alumnal Record DePauw University (pp. 264-265, listing the class of 1903 alumni of Asbury College of Liberal Arts Baccalaureate Degrees) describes his career up to that point: William Austin Shelly, Teacher, Casilla 67, Santiago, Chili, South America.    B. Sc. Born. February 13, 1873, in Galveston, Indiana. 1903-04, professor in Walden University, Nashville, Tenn.; 1904-05, teacher of Botany and Zoology, High School, Greencastle, Ind.; 1905-06, teacher of superior class, English College, Iquique, Chili; 1906—, same, Celejio Americano, Concepcion, Chili; 1911—, president of Santiago College; 1915, professor of English University of Chili. Married June 1, 1904, Miss Jessie E. Tribby, of New Richmond, Ind.; ex-DePauw, Music, ’03.

Following the death of Jessie, William married Geneva Lewis 1 Jan 1920. They had three children, Geneva Louise Shelly (1920), William L. Shelly (1923), and Susanna Shelly (1928), all three born in Chile.

A letter attached to William’s 1920 passport application noted that he “…is a regularly appointed missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church Board of Foreign Missions. Mr. Shelly who has been in Chile, South America for many years is home on furlough, and is planning to sail for that field on February 21st. He will be accompanied by his wife, Geneva L. Shelly, and their children Mary Isabelle aged 15 years, and James aged 11 years.” The family was in Chile until Mar 1927, but returned in 1930.

On their final trip back to the United States, William and Geneva Shelly and their three children sailed from Valparaiso, Chile, 11 Mar 1935 on SS Santa Cecilia and arrived in New York City 1 Apr 1935. William and Geneva made their home in Greencastle, Putnam Co., Indiana, where William became deputy assessor of Greencastle township.

William A. Shelly died 2 May 1938 at his home in Greencastle and was buried 4 May 1938 in Forest Hill Cemetery, Greencastle.

Ref: Family records compiled by Joan Tribby Oppy. 1904 Montgomery Co., Indiana, marriage record.

“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, nothing can stop you.” Unknown

The prompt for this week’s work is “Challenge”. From a genealogy perspective, the challenge that looms largest for me is what to do with the information I have gathered. There comes a time (or maybe not, see the quote, above) when people are interested in “who they are”. I have five cousins and three siblings (baby-boomers) and six children or nieces/nephews (millennials) that are biological descendants of the Shelly/Horn marriage of William and Marjorie or their siblings. Some of the millienials have expressed interest in their family history, but most are busy with their too-little-time professional lives. I am hoping that by documenting the work in a weekly blog, they will have something to kick-start their own genealogical wanderings, should they be so inclined.

As for me, I started my genealogy journey in 2002 – 2003. I don’t remember why, but I started wondering why my paternal grandfather (William Austin Shelly) spent 30 years as a missionary in Chile, SA at the turn of the last century. I didn’t know anything about him – not even when and where he was born – because he died when my father (William Lewis Shelly) was 15 and my father had been dead for 10 years. I dove into Ancestry with a free two week subscription and found that William Austin Shelly was born 13 Feb 1873 to George Washington Shelly and Sarah Belle Newcomb in Deer Creek, Cass County, IN. He had 10 siblings, most of whom lived to adulthood. He attended college in Greencastle, Indiana when he was in his late 20’s, married Jesse Tribby in Montgomery County, IN in 1904 and was soon off to Chile with his wife and eldest child in tow. I have found passports and ship’s manifests of his several journeys to Chile. The trip was a lengthy one – embarking in New York City and a month later disembarking in Santiago, Chile. William’s second wife (see below), my grandmother (Geneva Lewis Shelly) described the ship’s passage through the locks of the Panama Canal, opened to commercial traffic in 1914). I found a very cool photo taken in 1918 for the passport that the family needed to return to the United States. Back then, passports were held by the “head of the household” and the rest of the family was listed under their name. William A Shelly received several passports during his life. His passport description at age 43 has his height at 5’ 11 ½ “ with a high forehead, medium nose, light hair, smooth complexion and gray eyes. He was a handsome, serious looking man in the several photographs I have. A few months after I started looking into the past, my aunt Susanna Shelly Hennum (youngest daughter of William Austin Shelly, called me out of the blue, and asked if I would like to accompany her on a trip to South America (Argentina and Chile) because “my Spanish was better than hers.” I have a number of Chilean cousins who are descendants of William Austin and Jesse Tribby since their eldest child (Mary Isobelle) married a Chileno, much to the chagrin of her father. Jessie sickened and died in the great flu epidemic in 1919. They were on sabbatical from their missionary work at the time. William was left with two young children. While on a trip to the Midwest to raise funds and give lectures on the importance of missionary work, he met Geneva Lewis, a 30-year-old schoolteacher in Columbus, Ohio. Six weeks later they were married (Jan 1 1920) and headed back to Chile.

When I posted the above photo on line, I got an immediate response from Cecelia Harismendy de Shelly, Mary Isabelle’s daughter. When I was growing up, Cecelia and I were “pen pals”, and I have treasured knowing her my whole life. She wrote (in Spanish, translation mine):

Her (Mary Isobel’s) father and brother were also sick, but my mother, no. She remained alone until she went to stay with her aunt Etha Tribby, until my grandfather met Grandma Geneva (my grandmother) and they returned to Chile, where they lived in Concepcion where Aunt Gege, your (my) father and then Aunt Sue was born in Iquique. My mother ended her schooling and she was sent to Columbia, Ohio to Wesleyan University to study to be a concert pianist. Before she finished her studies, her father (Wm A Shelly) told her to return to Chile. She went and never returned to the US. She was very alone, then met my father and was very happy. We did return in 1965 to celebrate Christmas with my grandmother (Geneva Shelly), and she received an offer to work at the University (DePauw, in Greencastle, IN, I’m assuming)  but she told them “no”, my country now is Chile.

Although this post prompt is “challenge”, I don’t see genealogy research as a particularly challenging, since I like to do research. There are plenty of challenges when the information is not readily forthcoming! A major mystery is the birthplace and ancestral line of Daniel D. Shelly (born 1 Apr 1793, died 3 Mar 1880) and his wife, Catherine Gephart (b. 1804, d 1876). They were married in 1823 and are buried in Cass County, IN. I have not been able to find parents for Daniel. Their son, George Washington Shelly, was William Austin Shelly’s father. So far, my Shelly line stops with Daniel D Shelly. Compounding the mystery is the various spelling of “Shelly” (Shelley, Shelling, Skelly, etc). I have found a few references to Daniel’s birthplace as York, Pennsylvania but have not verified it yet.

There are a myriad of other challenges besides running into ancestral brick walls. Since I am retired, I have the time, but not necessarily the money to wing off to places in the US and Europe, chasing down ancestral clues. I wish it was as easy as it appears on the show “Who Do You Think You Are”, sponsored by Ancestry. I do not have a problem digging into online records and the one foray into Russellville, KY’s archives was most satisfying. Several other “mysteries” I hope to chronical in this blog. Having just had the basics of American History, and not being particularly fond of it, I find myself re-learning history in the context of my ancestors, which is challenging but much more fun than studying wars and other random events in high school!

Finally – staying the course. There are so many rabbit holes in genealogical research! While that is some of the fun – you never know what you will find – it is very easy for me to get going down a path and forget why I started in the first place. Hopefully documentation will help that.  I found a very cool photo (below) that is an aluminum casting of an ant colony. There is so much more below the surface, whether rabbit holes or ant colonies!

Thanks for joining me! My name is Gail Shelly and I am taking the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. I am a week behind, so I have a little bit of catching up to do.

Genealogy research can be daunting but very rewarding, if you are curious about the people that share your nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. I would like to share information I have found so far, and will use this blog to prompt me to keep at it.

First things first. My immediate ancestors (my parents) are William Lewis Shelly (1923 – 1992) and Francis Marjorie Horn (Marjorie Horn Shelly) (b 1926). They met and were married in Greencastle, Indiana, having both attended DePauw University after World War II. William (Bill) Shelly, served in the US Army in Europe and came home to Greencastle where his mother and unmarried sister (Susanna Shelly Hennum) lived. He attended the University on the GI Bill. Marjorie Horn, a “Preacher’s Kid” probably had reduced tuition as well. Bill earned a degree in Physics and Marjorie earned a degree in Music Performance. Formal education was very important to both sides of my family. Marjorie would later earn her Master’s Degree in Music at California State University, Fullerton. Bill was hired by General Motors and the family moved to Speedway, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis.

I was born in Coleman Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1953, the second of four children. My siblings are William Buel Shelly, b 1951; Allyson Elaine Shelly, b 1956 and James Edward Shelly, b 1959. Marjorie and Bill moved the family to Fullerton, California, in 1962 for an employment opportunity. Bill worked for Western Gear, then McDonald-Douglass and Hughes Aircraft. While at McDonald-Douglass, he helped with the design of the fuel system for the Saturn V rockets that took men to the moon. While at Hughes, he had a security clearance that did not let him talk about his work. It probably involved intelligence gathering via satellite. Marjorie supplemented the family income with piano lessons and, after earning her Master’s, taught adult education classes at community colleges. She also directed a church choir for years.

The genealogy work I have been doing has centered on my parent’s ancestors. I have found that my mother’s people (the Horn ancestral line) goes back, in this country, to colonial days. Three of her ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. I hope to introduce you to these Horn ancestors as we continue this journey. I have traced the Shelly ancestral line to the mid 1800’s, but have not been able to find out much about them earlier than that. Perhaps we will discover some additional clues!