This is a class portrait from Kalamazoo High School, Kalamazoo, Michigan (1941)

Kalamazoo High School, Class Portrait, Class of 1941

High Resolution Scan: Kalamazoo High School Class of 1941

Velma Bostic, Class of 1941

This is my husband’s grandmother, Velma Isadora (Bostic) Green.  She’s in the middle wearing the glasses.
In the large group portrait, she appears in the upper left corner.

Mary Rose Dreffs, marking the burial site of Walter Anthony Dreffs

Recently I was scanning in a few hundred pictures from a box my mother had in the pole barn.  I ran across this photo of my grandmother, Mary Rose (Stroik, Kasper, Karpuk, Dreffs) Romaine.  She is kneeling in a cemetery.

At first I didn’t take much stock in this photo.  Then, I tried to figure out when it might have been taken.  I got to thinking… I’ve seen that style of gravestone before.  A closer look at the image showed that the grave she is next to is one of Andrew Allen Kolba.  I know this because I can compare it to pictures I look of this location on that trip in 2000.  This must have been taken in Floral Gardens Cemetery in Bay City, Michigan.

I took a trip there in August 2000 to photograph the grave of my grandfather, but his grave is not in this picture.  I looked at this picture again and noticed that Grandma was kneeling in a peculiar location.

Grave of Walter Anthony Dreffs (Taken February 1972)

Then it hit me!  My Grandma is kneeling at the burial site of her late husband, my grandfather Walter Anthony Dreffs.  The cemetery office told me that my Mom purchased a marker for her father on January 19, 1972.  Grandma must have been showing my Mom where her father was buried so she could buy the marker.

Walter Anthony Dreffs is buried at Floral Gardens Cemetery in the “Garden of the Last Supper”, Lot 209, Space D.

I was fortunate enough to visit the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana in July 2011.  I had three glorious days to research as much as possible.  All of that research amounted to a massive pile of photocopies from various branches in my family; 259 pages to be exact!  That’s a lot of paperwork.  I knew once I got it home, it would be really difficult for me to scan it all in with my little home all-in-one machine. I was also worried about checking it in at the airport; who knows if I would ever see it again?

Lucky for me (and you) there is a little copy shop called OfficeOne around the corner from the Allen County Public Library that has a high speed scanner.  Simply feed in your stacks of copies (I sorted mine by Surname) and they will scan directly onto your USB thumb drive. I had one PDF file created from each stack and named to correspond to the surname, but you can choose to scan each page as a JPG individually.

Sure it costs money, but what is your time worth?  I made 259 copies at the library at 10 cents each, and promptly had them scanned in at OfficeOne for 10 cents each.  I can say without a doubt that my time is worth way more than $25.90, especially when it equates to immediate digital access to share my research with my family around the country.  I was able to email the PDFs to my family members from my tablet while I was waiting at the airport.

If you’re looking for a place to scan in all of your ACPL research before you get back in the car or head off to the airport, check out this copy shop.  The staff was friendly, their equipment was new and I felt very comfortable working with them. They were able to scan everything in while I waited, and showed me how it all looked, verifying all the files on my thumb drive before I walked out the door.

Office One
1021 S. Calhoun Street
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46802
www.officeonesolutions.com
(260) 424-1212

I found this portrait along with the Baptism of the girl I wrote about last week on Mystery Monday.  I believe this is a young couple from one of the Karpuk, Stroik or Dreffs families.  I don’t think it is Rose Karpuk and Ed Dreffs.  They were married February 9, 1946. However, Aunt Rose didn’t wear glasses.

My mother believes this is Marie D. Betlinski and her first husband Mr. Dabrowski.  Marie later remarried again and when she died her last name was Augustyniak.  She was born June 26, 1911 and died January 7, 2007 in Bay City, Michigan.  Marie was my grandmother Mary Rose Stroik’s best friend.

This photo seems to be earlier than the 1940’s.  If anyone out there is good at determining the age of a photo by the style or the clothing, please chime in below in the comments!  I need some help with this one.

Happy Couple, Chicago

What really struck me about this portrait is the inscription at the bottom of the beautifully embossed paper frame:

Z. Rozanski, 1073 Milwaukee Ave., Chicago

The inscription reads, “Z. Rozanski, 1073 Milwaukee Ave., Chicago.”  Now to most people, this is a clue that the couple was married in Chicago.  That got me thinking; I don’t know of anyone from these families who moved to or lived in Chicago during the first half of the 20th century.  Marie M. Betlinski was born in South Chicago, Illinois so it is likely this is her wedding portrait.

Milwaukee Avenue… I have seen Milwaukee Avenue before in my research.  Where did I see it?  EUREKA!  My husband’s family was from Chicago.  Andrew’s great-grandfather Andrew JÄ™drzej Dominik was a portrait photographer in Chicago starting around 1915 until he moved to Arizona in the early 1950’s.  In fact, the 1916 Chicago Polk City Directory lists his place of business at 923 Milwaukee Avenue, just a few blocks down from the studio of Z. Rozanski at 1073 Milwaukee Ave.

By the 1930’s, Andrew’s photography business had moved to a new address.  Scholl Studios was relocated to 1563 Milwaukee Avenue.  We have an original portrait envelope from the studio with the new address printed on the front.  It even says “between Damen and North Avenues” so you can be sure to find it:

Scholl Studio Photographs, 1563 Milwaukee Ave, Chicago

Milwaukee Avenue must have been Chicago’s Photography Central in the early 1900’s.  It’s just neat to see the family lines crossing like this.  To think that my husband’s family who moved to Arizona in the 1950’s could easily have photographed someone so close to my mother’s family from Michigan in Chicago is just a little crazy to me!  I’m hoping someone out there can tell me who the happy young couple is above, or at least help me date the portrait a little better.

Good luck solving your genealogical mysteries!

Obituary for David Lee Fitzgerald

Obituary for my great Uncle, David Lee Fitzgerald.  Published in The Times in Valparaiso, Indiana on March 5, 2009.

DAVID L. FITZGERALD
DAVID L. FITZGERALD, PORTAGE, IN.  David L. Fitzgerald age 65 of Portage passed away Wednesday March 4, 2009.  He was born on September 22, 1943.  David worked at Main Street Body Repair in Griffith.  He was also a member of Grace Baptist Church, and the Sons of the American Legion #502, and loved to play horse shoes.  David is survived by his daughters: Candice and Barbara; brothers: Lewis (Joann) of Lima OH, Richard of Chesterton, Robert (Irene) of Portage, Delmar (Thelma) of Fruitland Park, FL, Charles “Larry” (Theresa) of South Haven, Thomas of Maine and Bryce (Maryann) of Indianapolis; sisters: Katherine Kimmerly [Kemmerly] of Crown Point and Florence Cole of Valparaiso; neices: Dawn (Felder) of IA and Cristal (Earl) Tapley of Portage; and many other nieces, nephews, family members and friends.  David was preceded in death by his parents: Voredell [Vondall] and Jennie Fitzgerald; and son, Richard Scott.  A visitation for David will be held from 10:00-11:00 a.m. on Friday March 6, 2009 at Rees Funeral Home – Brady Chapel, 3781 Central Ave., Lake Station.  A funeral service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Friday immediately after the visitation.  Burial will be at McCool Cemetery in Portage.  For further information please call Rees Funeral Home at (219) 962-1606 or online at: www.reesfuneralhome.com.

Check out my Ancestry Family Tree for David Lee Fitzgerald.

See the grave of David Lee Fitzgerald on Find A Grave.

This week we take a look at the lineage of the Richards surname as it pertains to my family’s history.

Richards Family Portrait: Ann, Benjamin, May, and Frank

Earliest Known Ancestor

My 3rd great-grandfather was Benjamin F. Richards.  Benjamin was born 14 May 1821 in Kentucky, and died 18 Jan 1911 in Eagle Creek Township, Lake County, Indiana.  He married Ann (nee Henderson or Smith) around 1858 and the couple had two children that survived to adulthood: Francis “Frank” Richards (1861 – 1936) and my 2nd great-grandmother, the lovely May Richards (1866 – 1959).

The general Fisher research community seems to agree that the line goes back to Johannas Frederick Wolf Reichert who was 1660 in Augsburg, Wurtenberg, Germany.  He brought the family to the USA and died in 1748 in New Hanover, Montgomery, Pennsylvania.  Johannas would be my 7th great grandfather.  However, I have not done the research to prove this line fully.

Lineage of the Richards Family

Lineage

Jessica Marie Cole > Douglass Lyal Cole > Florence Mae Fitzgerald > Jennie Mae Fisher (1909 – 1993) > May Richards (1866 – 1959) > Benjamin F. Richards (1821 – 1911) > Samuel Richards (1794 – ) > George Peter Richards (1755 – 1822) > Matthias Reichert (1719 – 1775) > Johannas Frederick Wolf Reichert (1660 – 1748)

Items of Interest

• Benjamin and Ann Richards are listed on the 1910 US Census, Eagle Creek, Lake County, Indiana (ED 43, Sheet 4B, Lines 64-65).  Benjamin is 90 years old and his wife Ann is 82.  They have been married for 52 years, and had five children but only two survived.  Curiously, he is listed as being born in Ohio and his parents in “The United States.”  She is born in Ohio while her father was born in Vermont, and her mother in Tennessee.  I am very intrigued by the words under Benjamin’s occupation: “Own Income.”  Was he independently wealthy?  Very interesting.

Family Notes

• I’d like to locate the three children of Benjamin and Ann Richards that did not survive that are listed on the 1910 Census.
• In a letter from Harold Richards to my father Douglass Cole dated April 30, 1982, he said that he thinks Benjamin and Ann may have had a baby girl that died young.
• Harold Richards also said that Benjamin Richards’ father, possibly Samuel Richards, was “probably married twice.”
• I’d like to locate the graves for Benjamin and Ann Richards.

Additional Information

Check out my Ancestry Family Tree for Benjamin Richards.

Kendall / Pine Grove Township School Class Portrait circa 1926

This adorable class portrait has been passed down in the Green family for 80 years.  My husband’s grandfather Max Earl Green is seen here posing with his classmates in circa 1926.  He lived in Pine Grove Township within Van Buren County.  He may have attended school in Kendall or Gobles, Michigan.

Max is the cutie in the middle row, third from the left.  He has on overalls and his fire red hair shines through even in the black-and-whitest of pictures.

If anyone out there can identify anyone else in this photograph, or perhaps clue us in as to what school this was, please leave a comment below.  Thanks!

What is RSS and how can it help you organize all the genealogy blogs you like to read? Let’s find out.

RSS is a web syndication platform.  Simply put, it “feeds” information to you that you wish to see.  You may have heard “RSS feed” or “web feeds” when looking at some of the blog content.  The most popular RSS readers are Google Reader and Feedburner.  Both of them are now owned by Google.  I use Google Reader and it works perfectly.

Google Reader Categories

Let’s say I want to “subscribe” to your blog (or any website, for that matter).  I simply paste in the URL to the website I want to get “fed” content from.  For example, the URL for my website is https://jessicagreen.com/wordpress.

If you “subscribe” to that URL in your feed, anytime I post new content here it will show up in your reader program for you to enjoy.  This includes text, pictures, audio, video and any other type of content that is posted.  The RSS reader will standardize the format (sometimes in a good way, sometimes it can mess things up!) and present it to you in an easy to review stream of posts, kind of like reading through your email.  If you’d like to visit the site, simply click on the title in your RSS reader and it will take you there in your browser.

Google Reader allows you to group your feeds together into categories which makes it easy to organize your content. I have groups for many of my favorite topics that I enjoy reading about, such as Baking, Crafting, Photography and Travel.

You can also take bundles of feeds that other people have shared and add them to your reader.  As an example, I have a category called “Geneabloggers.”  That category has a whole bunch of feeds in it that automatically show me all of the Geneabloggers topics that I am interested in, such as Tombstone Tuesday and Sentimental Sunday.  I don’t have to go to those blogs individually to see the content – it is “fed” to me via RSS.

To get started, simply create an account on Google Reader.  If you already have a Gmail account, then look up at the top of your inbox and you will see a link to Reader in the top menu bar.  Then, you can subscribe to my dear friend Sarah’s Genealogy News and Blogs bundle which she has kindly shared with the world. You may also wish to subscribe to my bundle of Geneabloggers Prompts.    There are just a few in this bundle; dozens more are also available on the Geneabloggers website.  Don’t forget to add their website to your feeds as well!

Google Reader's "More like this" feature

Once you have subscribed to the websites or bundles you would like to receive content from, reviewing them is very similar to perusing your email inbox.  Once you read an item it will be marked as read.  You can use your up and down arrow keys to move from one item to the next, or the keyboard shortcuts (use “J” to go to next, “K” to go to previous).

I’ve attached a few screenshots of how my Google Reader is set up so you can see an example.  It’s really excellent for reviewing massive amounts of online content quickly.

Did you know you can get lists of “Recommended Sites” based on what you read every day?  You can also choose a particular website feed click on it to read all of the content from that website.  Select “Feed settings” and show “More like this” and it will give you links to other sites that are similar to that one.  It’s amazing!

Geneabloggers Prompts

If you’re already accustomed to using RSS feeds to review your favorite blog content, then you know Geneabloggers is an absolutely incredible resource for the blogging community.  If you aren’t a member, you’re seriously missing out!  Their site makes using RSS feeds incredibly easy, because they have done all the work for us already, and deserve many thanks! You can send your thanks via any amount of monetary Donation right from their website using Paypal.

With that in mind, do you know how to take full advantage of the Geneablogger prompt roll-up widgets?

Let’s say you want to automatically get “fed” in your reader every blog post for Funeral Card Friday.  In the prompt post, there is a button at the bottom of the feed that says “View all” that you click on.  The URL that it takes you to will be the one you put in your RSS reader to “subscribe” to (for example: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/16209268016599136195/label/Funeral%20Card%20Friday).  Now, anything that shows up in the Geneablogger “roll-up widget” will show up in your feed.  It’s that simple!  Once you add all the feeds you want to see, everything will be delivered in a nice little organized package right to your RSS reader.  You can spend more time reading all the wonderful content put out there by all of our fellow bloggers, and less time searching for it.

I hope that helps you understand a little more about what RSS is.  It’s a tool that no genealogist who enjoys reading other genealogy blogs should be without.

I’d also like to thank fellow Geneablogger Patti who prompted me to write this post.  Visit her lovely blog, Fill My Cup…with Beauty to read about her genealogical journey.

Daniel Ray Dreffs, circa 1970

This is a picture of my wonderful Uncle Danny (Daniel Ray Dreffs) while he was serving in the US Army in 1970 at the age of 18.  The picture was taken inside his mother’s house in the living room by the front door.

What drives me crazy about this picture – and don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful – are the two portraits inside the portrait.

Did you notice the portrait of the graduate on the wall to the left?  Who IS that??  My grandmother had 12 children who lived to see 18 years old, and many of them did not graduate from high school so this portrait intrigues me.  It may have been one of my cousins.

Check out the portrait on the television.  Clearly it is a military portrait with a flag in the background.  It might have been Uncle Danny or it might have been Randall Dreffs, another family member who was in the Army.  I’ve never seen that portrait outside of this photo.

Did you see the portrait of the woman on the table?  I believe that is Uncle Danny’s mother, my grandmother Mary Rose Stroik.  I have never seen that portrait in person and cannot be sure.  It is a mystery, and it’s driving me mad!

Obituary for my beautiful cousin Shannon Elizabeth Roe, published September 24, 2009 on the Randall & Roberts Funeral Home Website in Noblesville, Indiana.

Obituary for Shannon Roe

Shannon E. Roe, 31, Noblesville, passed away Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at home. She was born July 28, 1978 in Crown Point, Indiana.

Shannon was a 1996 graduate of Noblesville High School and a server at the Olive Garden Italian Restaraunt.

She is survived by sons, Chad Pharis & Jacob Giordano; mother & stepfather, Patricia & Bret Cole; sisters, Courtney Cole & Sara Cole; and grandparents, Vernon & Vivian Roe.

A visitation will be held on Friday, September 25, 5:00 – 8:00PM at Randall & Roberts Funeral Home in Noblesville.

Check out my Ancestry Family Tree for Shannon Elizabeth Roe.