Does Bruce look a little like Papa?

Here's a photo of Papa, Donald Lawder, Sr., taken in Paola, Kansas in 1891 perhaps.  Papa was born in Paola, and lived there from his birth in 22 Sept. 1889, until 1895 when he moved with his parents, Alice VH and Paul Lawder, his step-sister Mary (aka Aunt Dot)  to Kansas City, Missouri.

"Disappeared in Mexico" in 1918; Papa's vaguely recalled brother, Charles

While in Mexico, I got to wondering about the b&w photo of a man in his 30s with a woman and child.  Hand-written on the back are the words "Charles V. Lawder with his wife and child in Mexico City.  Please return [the photo] to Mrs. Alice V.H. Lawder, Clark Street, Chicago".  And we know (see earlier post) that there was an article in a Chicago paper in 1919 about Charles' disappearance in Mexico.  And we now know that Charles was Papa's half-brother, Alice's son by her first marriage.  Anyway, I didn't do any Mexico-specific research, but just spent a couple of evenings on Ancestry.com.


Bingo:  I found Charles and his Swedish-born wife, Anna Maria Nylander, living in Savage Basin, Colorado in 1910.  He was a shift boss in the Tomboy gold mine at 12,000 ft. of altitude, just above Telluride.  Shortly after that, they moved to a gold mining community in El Oro, Mexico.  They had a daughter born in 1912, Alice Maria, presumably named after Charles' (and Papa's) mother Alice.  In 1918, Charles died at the age of 40, not killed by Pancho Villa or anything "romantic" like that, rather he took ill with pneumonia and died three weeks later in November 1918.  I saw the scanned copy of the death report filled out by the American Consulate in Mexico City.  And also the passport application that Anna Maria Lawder filled out just 3 months later in order to leave Mexico to return to the US.  (Mike and I were in the neighborhood where she was staying in Mexico City at 51 Calle Madrid).  On the application, she lists her maiden name as Nylander, her year of immigration from Sweden to Ellis Island as 1895, and indicated that she was heading to Chicago with her daughter.  She received her passport 6 months later.  


Then the record goes blank for 11 years.  Did she go to Chicago to meet Alice V.H. Lawder, her mother-in-law?  Did she see her brother-in-law, Don Lawder (Papa)?  Did Papa even know that his brother had been a real miner/foreman?  He must have.  I lose track of Anna and Alice until 1930, when Anna M. Lawder and her 17 yr. old daughter Alice M. Lawder turn up in East Orange, New Jersey in the federal census.  That's the last I have found, of Alice (cousin to Don Jr., Wally and Nancy) but I know that her mother died in 1978 at the age of 101, in East Orange, NJ---unbeknownst for nearly 50 years to her nearby Connecticut relatives (us!).

I'm going to Delaware, Ohio ---home of Van Houtens and Lawders

I just wrote this letter to the Delaware, Ohio History Museum to see if I can get some advance help in using my couple of days there.  I have about 20 people on my family tree who were born or lived in Delaware, Ohio, both Van Houtens and Lawders.  The letter gives you an outline of why it's an important place for us and this link gives you a picture of it in the early 20th c Vintage postcard views of Delaware, OH:

Hello,

I 'm planning to visit Delaware (from my home in Massachusetts)  for 3 days next month, May 23-25 just for the purpose of finding out more about my family connections in Delaware.  I have been working with ancestry.com and related resources and am really excited about having a chance to visit.  I hope you can help me do some advance planning to use my visit well.  Here are the family connections in Delaware that I know about ( I have more details on them, but am just giving you the names an rough dates at this point):

Margaret [Lightpipe] Van Houten moved to the Delaware area in the 1840s from New Jersey after her husband David Van Houten died.   She brought 8 or so children, some adults, one of whom was Peter R. Van Houten.  Peter and his 2nd wife Sarah Thrall are buried in Sunbury Cemetery in Delaware.  Peter had a daughter from his first wife (Alice White), Mary Rebecca W., who was raised by Peter and Sarah.  Peter and Sarah soon had a daughter of their own, Alice J. Van Houten (b. 1855 in Delaware, OH), my great-grandmother.  She took some classes at Ohio Wesleyan Seminary, married a dentist in 1875 (Alonzo Lumbard, b. 1847 in Ohio) and they were living at 1 David St. in 1880.  They had two children, Charles V. and Mary.  After Alonzo died, Alice moved to Pleasant Hill, MO with her two children to marry Paul Lawder (b. 1865 somewhere in OH), my great-grandfather.  Paul Lawder's father, John Lawder, was living in Delaware,OH in a boarding house in 1850, possibly as a student, before he became a lawyer.  John Lawder was born in New Philadelphia, OH.  From 1888 on, the my direct family story moves to the Kansas City, Missouri area, but there were lots of Van Houten cousins still in the Delaware area.

I have a few daguerreotypes that I'll bring with me.  The principal artifact that I have is a hand-written diary of Peter R. Van Houten, Methodist-Episcopal itinerant minister in the years 1845-1851.  The diary was  dictated by Peter since was blind and is mostly a dry account of his preaching travels, where he stayed overnight, the verse he preached on, and the locations.  The tone changes dramatically in the final pages where he recounts the bedside conversations with his dying wife, his first wife Alice White (b. in PA, died and buried in Sunbury Cemetery in 1851).  I can send you my transcription of this part of the diary if it is of interest to you.  

So, that's the outline!  I would love to see any locations in Delaware (the cemetery, the college, the street locations where any of them lived), the general feel for the town in the latter half of the 19th century.  And I'd like to know more about your research resources.  I'm curious how the Van Houten Lawder connection came about, possibly through the church connection.  Paul Lawder's mother was an active volunteer in the ME church in Missouri.  One puzzle is why educated young widow, Alice V.H. Lumbard, goes to Missouri to marry the somewhat younger and deaf-since-birth Paul Lawder.  I am imagining Paul's mother, Marion, reaching through the Ohio ME church connections for a suiitable wife for her hard-to marry son.  (Marion and her husband John Lawder actually had 4 deaf children, the oldest three of whom were born while the family was still in Ohio).   Anyway, the stories go on.  I did have a chance to visit the Kansas City, MO area, including Pleasant Hill and Harrisonville, last June and enjoyed picturing the Lawders there.  They came as Ohioans taking advantage of the defeated confederate state of Missouri.....

Any suggests that you have for my visit or for research that you might be able to do in advance for a fee, I'd be interested in.

Many thanks,

Jaymie Chernoff

What They Wore (2nd of two posts)

What They Wore

My dear daughter----

As sentimentality is one of the virtues--at least I term it thus--that the greater part of mankind possess and I know that my girl is in possession of this “virtue” I have here collected a few reminiscences from time passed, which have belonged to Mamma--Olga and Lulu, whose departure from the earth state, is well nigh forgotten and as I am growing old--and I fear after my death these things will be ignored, I have arranged them--as you see--in such a manner that they can easily be preserved, and I am certain that your children and grandchildren will find them more interesting as the years roll on, and you can continue to add articles to the treasure box, as you may see fit.  --I will also send  you the Daguerreotypes of Mamma & Pappa--some of whose letters, written to me from Memphis, two months before leaving the form of dust, & I will also send you.  You know, dear, that by rights they belong to Viggo, and shall give him the balance--3 or 4-- but if Florence or Ellinor would copy them, they are welcome to--and you certainly ought to have them all. I intended to also send you some of your own dear father’s letters, written from Missouri, during the time your Howard was born--but I began to glance over them just now, and became so interested that I concluded Pa & I read them together before you get them.  --The silhouette is a “Brenta” but I dare not say whether it is of my  mother’s brother --or her mother’s brother.  With love you and yours and many good wishes for a merry Christmas, both from Pappa and myself--not forgetting Mrs. Henriksen--I am, darling, your loving Mother----Emily Olsen


Note from Jaymie: The above is the transcribed introduction in the hand-stitched paper book of fabric swatches that Emily Olsen gave to her oldest child, daughter Anna Olsen Grund ("Aunt Arna" to Nancy, Wally and Don).  The book was made before 1906 when Emily was in her 70s.  The photos above show swatches of dress fabrics sewn into this paper book of "reminiscences" by Emily Olsen.  The swatches are from dresses, collars, wrappers, polonaises, worn by family no longer living:  her mother Anna Miller, her daughters who died young, Lulu and Olga.

Back to the story: Rynd Jay Lawder murdered 11/27/1905

It's taken me a long time to get back to the story.  In yoga class today, the theme was related to the Day of the Dead (yesterday and today) and the importance of remembering our ancestors with gratitude while we learn from them, "alchemize the negative" and move ahead.  I took it as a mission to start up with the blog again.  OK, remember John F. Lawder (1833-1908), the attorney in Pleasant Hill, Papa's grandfather, and father of the 4 deaf children?  He had seven siblings (all born in Ohio), the youngest one being Rynd Edward Lawder (1837-1890).  Both John and Rynd served in the Civil War but Rynd seemed to do very well.  He ended the war with the rank of colonel, was awarded 320 acres in Texas as a reward for his service and got a plum government job in eastern Missouri, Revenue Collector for Audrain County.  He married Hannah and used some of his money to acquire a mine near the Salt River.  Their youngest of their three sons was named Rynd J., called "Jay".  A promising young man, Jay went to U. of Tennessee and played football (right end) before coming home to take over the mine.  Maybe too sure of himself, this "bachelor and member of a prominent and wealthy family in Mexico Missouri" , and took liberties when pretty 26 year old Alva Bailey came into the mine office one day.  She was collecting the wages for her husband, Edwin Bailey.  Jay evidently won her "with a single kiss"  .... and her husband learned of the affair in late 1905.  Knowing that Jay Lawder would be boarding the train to Chicago on November 27th, Edwin Bailey takes a gun and waits for him, shooting Lawder dead at the station.  How do I know these juicy details.... they were reported in newspapers all over the country every day of the trail the following year.  From Fairbanks, Alaska to the Washington Post and the NY Times.  The dramatic finale came in September 1, 1906 when the jury voted to AQUIT the Baileys (husband and wife were charged in conspiracy) on the basis of "the unwritten law".  I kid you not.  Honor crimes not just in Sicily, but in the Show Me state in the 20th c.  [You can read the whole article if you are an ancestry.com member: Fairbanks Daily Times, Sept. 2, 1906, Headline: "Defense--Unwritten Law".] There's something ambivalent in the portrayal of the lovely Alva, now pregnant with Jay's child.  For example she has NAMED THE BABY 'JAY'.  Ah romance.

So what has this to do with us?  Jay's father and Papa's father were cousins, so Papa and Jay were like Jaymie Hyde and Nina Chernoff in their connection.  Could be close or far depending on the family communication.  Did Papa know of it?  The whole country was following it; could the Lawders just a few hundred miles away in the same state not know of it?  Papa was just 17 years old at the time of the murder and trial.  Yet, to Nancy Wolcott's knowledge, Papa never spoke of this story or any other Lawders other than his mother and sister.  His grandfather John, uncle to Jay, was still alive and practicing law, as was Papa's father Paul (1865-1915).  How could a story teller, a former newspaper writer, not use a story as good as this one if he knew it?

A Faint Meteor

With young Rynd "Jay" Lawder on my mind, murdered at age 29, I am puzzling over the universal interest in dramatic life turns, however insignificant the protagonists.  I noted this line in one of Abigail Adams' letters recently (I noted it recently; she wrote it in the 1770s):"Fame without honor would be like a faint meteor gliding through the sky, shedding only transient light."