The Two Annie Laura's

Annie Laura Massengale Collins

Born on June 30, 1882 to William Marshall Massengale and Louisa Elizabeth Kyle Massengale. She married Floyd Amos Collins in 1902 and had one child, Willie Edna Collins. Willie Edna married John Albert Nicholson. Together they had one child, Floy Anna Nicholson. Floy Anna broke the family tradition of having one child when she married Leonard Osborne Sullivan and gave birth to seven children, one dying at birth. Her oldest child, Anna Lynn Sullivan married James Carroll Penny and had three children. I married their middle child, James Carroll Penny, II and had three children. I named my middle daughter Annie Laura after my husband's great-great grandmother, Annie Laura Massengale.  Upon her 16th birthday, Annie Laura was given a ring by her parents. This ring has been passed down from generation to generation and was recently given to my daughter Annie Laura for her 16th birthday, and so this ring has now made a full circle.

Annie Laura Penny

My Papaw Lewis

The Old Clock

My great great grandfather, John Albert Lincoln Widener brought this clock with him to Texas from Arkansas in the late 1800's. It's a Seth Thomas shelf clock made of mahogany wood. After his death, my great grandmother, Arrelsey Ann Widener Stafford, inherited it. After Arrelsey passed away, there was a great debate among her children about who would get it. The clock had stopped working many years before this, but all of her children fought hard over it. Thankfully, my grandfather was the one who ended up with it. The first night that he placed it on his mantle, during the middle of the night, it started working and at midnight, it chimed twelve times, then stopped working again and has never worked again since. My grandpa always said that it was his mother's way of saying that the clock was in the right hands. It sort of spooked everyone  and my sister even says that the clock gives her the creeps, but I think it is a very cool story. The clock is now in my father's possession and I'm hoping and praying that one day I will inherit it.

Wordless Wednesdays

Lotspeich Connection

I discovered an interesting fact yesterday as I was researching my Uncle's family tree for him.  I found out that his ggg-grandmother's name was Sarah Lotspeich.  I immediately recognized the name Lotspeich from my husband's family tree. It's such an unusual name that it struck me at once to go to his tree and look it up. It turns out that my husband's ggggg-grandmother's name is Elizabeth Lotspeich, whose father's name was John Christopher Lotspeich born July 11, 1750 in Frankenthal, Schwandorf, Bayern, Germany.  When I looked to see what Sarah Lotspeich's father's name was, I was excited to see that it was the exact same person, John Christopher Lotspeich who had the exact date and place of birth and who had daughters Elizabeth and Sarah listed.  This new information confirms that  my husband and my uncle are blood related. They share a common ancestor, John Christopher Lotspeich who is my uncle's 4g-grandfather and my husband's 6g-grandfather, which makes them 5th cousins twice removed.

Old Family Letters

This is an old letter written to my great grandmother (Winnie Johnson Parten) from her father (Joseph Green Johnson) during the time he was living with his younger daughter, Maude in Cleburne, Texas. Joseph Johnson passed away the follow June.

Wordless Wednesdays

Cryer Creek Baptism

circa 1900

Navarro County, Texas

Little Lizzie Beth

Lizzie Beth aka L.B. Parten

LB's story is quite a sad one. She and some other children were outside playing enjoying a nice summer day. Her mother was having a wash day. During that period of time, wash days meant filling up a large cast iron washpot with water and heating it outside over an open fire until it was boiling hot, then the clothes would be put into the pot stirred around for a while using a heavy duty stick of some sort, then placing them on the rub board to scrub down, then dunked back into the boiling water for a good rinse.

A neighbor boy was chasing LB and others with a dead mouse when suddenly LB tripped and fell back into the washpot.  She was immediately rescued from the pot of boiling water and taken in the house and the doctor was summoned. She only lived a short time and then passed away leaving a family stricken greatly with grief. The poor boy who chased her with the mouse was said to have never recovered from the incident and was never in his right mind even in his adult years. A terrible tragedy took two lives that day.

Fifteen days after the death of her daughter, my great-grandmother, Winnie gave birth to my grandmother, Margaret Evelyn. My grandmother would never know her big sister but perhaps her birth helped this family through a very tough time in their lives and helped to soften this great loss.

Madness Monday

Ursl, Earaley, Erly,Ursula, Unice, Jane........and it goes on and on. My maternal ggg-grandmother has been a source of great aggravation and pure madness for me over the past ten years.  I'm really not exactly sure what her full name really is. I believe it is Unice Jane Aarons. I only just figured out her maiden name of Aarons recently. Every census record, birth records of her children, her death record, marriage record and every other record or document I have found has her name listed as something different. There are no two alike. Her birthdate is always the same, May 1844, and her birthplace is always Louisiana. According to some census records I found, her parents are possibly Andrew and Angeline Aarons. I am still working on this line to find further proof. It has definitely been an maddening experience.