52 Ancestors - Week 21 - Nicknames

52 Ancestors – WEEK 21 – Nicknames 

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

My great-grandfather Charles Wesley Thomas was born in 1882 in small coal mining town in western Pennsylvania called Nemacolon part of Greene county. His family were Welch and immigrated to America in the 1760's.

My father always called him "Bumpy". I used to ask why and he would jokingly laugh and say that when he died[1], he had a sudden heart attack and fell down the cellar stairs. The vision in my head of him bumping his way to the bottom made sense. His obituary in the Connellsville Daily Courier upheld the story with his nickname listed.[2]

Later, when I was older, I interviewed my Dad and he told me that at age 9, his first job was in a coal mine as a "trapper boy" who hooked the coal cars together. He also told me he played baseball in the minor leagues. Charles obituary says only that he was a “well-known sandlot baseball player.” Well for me that is close enough.

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[1] Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1970, digital images (ancestry.com: accessed 21 May 2024) record for Charles W. Thomas, 9 April 1952, certificate 33690. Cause of death listed as coronary occlusion.

[2] Obituary, GRIM REAPER, Charles Thomas, The Daily Courier, Connellsville, PA, April 10, 1952, p. 2.

52 Ancestors - Week 19 - Preserve

 52 Ancestors – WEEK 19 – Preserves

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

The summer's are hot and long in southern Mississippi and the growing seasons are also. So there is a LOT of produce when you put in a garden, but that means there is also a lot to preserve. My mother-in-law and her extended family taught me to can and freeze the harvests.

I remember sitting on barstools in her kitchen and snapping bushels of green beans and putting them in the boiling water. The counters were lined with dozens of mason jars we had cleaned and staged to be filled. We would laugh and visit and work long hours.

Sometimes we would drive up to "the country" which was a little community called Necaise Crossing about 20 miles farther down the highway from our farm. Aunt Ethel and cousin Collie and their families had acres of gardens. The corn, the crowder peas, and the cucumbers were so plentiful. Again, the family gathering going there to pick and eat a lunch of seafood gumbo and sweet iced tea are some of my fondest memories of my Mississippi days.

When the shrimp were plentiful my husband would go to the docks in Biloxi or Gulfport and buy 100 pounds and bring them home in a cooler. It would actually cut my fingers to clean the tails off so many shrimp. We would freeze them in Ziplock bags with water.

I especially enjoyed learning to make jellies and jams. We made scuppernong jelly with the native grapes that grew on the farm and fig jam from the fig bush outside my mother-in-law Florence's well house.

I loved seeing the shelves full of lines and lines of colorful jars filled with the fruits of our labors at the season's end. There is nothing more satisfying than opening a jar of homemade tomato sauce and preparing a pasta dish in the winter and every bite tastes like summer.

52 Ancestors - Week 18 - Love & Marriage

52 Ancestors – WEEK 18 – Love & Marriage

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

As I was working my way through obtaining documentation about my grandparents on Mom's side, I was not able to find a marriage record for Donald O. Mahanna and Margaret Robson in Washington County, Pennsylvania where they lived.

I decided to check the adjoining state of West Virginia, and there it was. They, and many other members of our family it turns out, went over the border to get hitched.

They did on January 20, 1927, in Wheeling, West Virginia.[1] Like is often the case, their first child was born in April of 1927. The marriage record said the groom was 23 and the bride 21. She was actually only 18 and he was 22. So………

By the 1930 census[2], this little family was reporting the true ages to the enumerator, but still not being truthful about the length of their marriage (adding that extra year to make their child born in wedlock).    

MAHANNA, Donald, head, Age 24, married at age 20

MAHANNA, Margret E., wife-H, Age 21, married at age 17

MAHANNA, Donald, Jr, son, age 2 11/12, single

I do believe that when Donald, Jr. joined the Navy, his true birthdate was recorded and shows up on many records after that.

As the little song goes – “first comes love, then comes marriage….”.

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[1] Vol 85, p 412, 1927

"West Virginia, County Marriage Records, 1776-1971", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BJ-8F6Y?cc=4375852 : 18 July 2022), > image 263.)

[2] 1930 U. S. Census, Washington County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Washington City, p. 261 (stamped), ED 123, sheet 12-B, dwelling 248, family 278, Donald O. Mahanna; NARA microfilm publication T626.

52 Ancestors - Week 17 - War

52 Ancestors – WEEK 17 – War

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

I can't talk about war. I hate war. War causes pain and suffering. War has long-term effects on families.

War makes no sense to me. I was proud to serve in the Army. My father, my husband, and my brother were all proud to serve their country. I know we need a strong military to protect our freedoms and way of life. 

But I can't glorify war. I can't understand war. My heart aches for those currently in war zones. 

52 Ancestors - Week 16 - Step

 52 Ancestors – WEEK 16 – Step

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

When I was first married at the age of 20 to a man who was 38, I immediately became a stepmother. My new family included a 13 year old girl and a 15 year old boy. They had a mother, I was barely older than them and they did not live with us. So I was stepmother in name only.

I used to tell them--think of me more like a sibling or young aunt. We got along because of our age. I made a huge effort to make our time together normal. I encouraged their father to keep close contact. We were stationed in Alaska and flew them both up in the summer. There were wonderful memories.

My husband and I adopted a son and he loved his siblings, even though there was a huge age difference.

They married and had children and I became a grandmother at a super young age. But I loved them all. My son and their children spent many days together on our farm in Mississippi.

After their father passed away, I met another man. With him came three more stepdaughters, aged 5, 7, and 10. We got married and now I have been in their lives a good long time. They are starting to have children, so I am step-grandmother again.

I have step-great grandchildren from my first marriage.

For someone who was not able to have children naturally, I stepped happily into the role of mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.