Throwback Thursday - Early Christmas for Genealogy Society

Christmas came early for the Lake Havasu Genealogical society - but the gift did not come in a sleigh from the North Pole. It took a moving van from Arkansas to deliver the early Christmas Present.

Over 800 pounds of books, periodicals, manuscripts, and papers were unloaded from the moving van.

The donation of genealogy material came from Willie Lee Jones, 79, a seven-year resident of Lake Havasu City. Mrs. Jones is the widow of Edward Warren Jones who died October 5, this year (1996). Mrs. Jones donated the personal genealogy library of her sister, Jessye Ann (Welch) High, deceased, of Mountain Home, Arkansas.

Photo contributed by S Maurer, Dec 2004 to Jeanette Perrin Coaly, Coaly Orchard a Book written by Jessye Aggansas "Jessye Ann" Welch High.

a microfilm reader and several rolls of film were included in the shipment, along with over 200 hard cover reference books, files, manuscripts, loose papers and 21 large family history portfolios representing "work-in-process" materials.

When asked to place a value on the donation, society president Nelson "Woody" Woodell said it would be several months before everything is inventoried and we know what we have. "It is a gift worth several thousands of dollars," Woodell said.

Members of the society unpacked the shipment in the garage of Dale and Corinne Wise next to the location of the society's public genealogy library. Members sorting the materials would find an interesting book, sit down an start reading. "It took a long time to get things unpacked," said Corinne Wise. "I would look around and everyone was sitting down and reading - the unpacking and sorting became a very slow process," she said.

Willie Lee Jones made the donation to the local society in honor of her sister as a memorial, and Mrs. Jones said she wanted her sister's genealogy materials put to a good use.

Willie Lee Jones and Jessye Ann High are daughters of David Delbert Clinton Welch and Nancy Younger Oldham. The Welch family are descendants of President Thomas Jefferson.

Jessye Ann High had accumulated the genealogy materials and personal library as a life-lone serious genealogist. Her accumulation includes thousands of letters and vital record documents, stacks of notes, and loose sheets of paper. One of the items found in the shipment was a hand written copy of the 1890 census on lined three-ring notebook paper, over 4 inches thick.

Included in the microfilm are three rolls of the 1790 census, one roll of the 1810 North Carolina census and a rare Rowan County, North Carolina county court Docket Book for 1773-1800. Goodspeed's History of Pennsylvania is complete on three rolls of film. A roll of film on the 1890 special Census of Oklahoma and Indian Territories, and five rolls on the 1910 Oklahoma census were in the donation.

While many states are represented by the vital records books, most of the reference books are for Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Family surnames in the "work-in-process" portfolios include Bishop, Danney, Darwin, Heath, Jefferson, Markham, Maxey, McCallum/McCollum, Oldham, Shults/Shultz, Smith, Sullivan, Vickry, Walker, Widler/Wyler and Younger.

Librarian Gloria Harrington has the task of classifying the books and entering them in the card catalog file. The society operates its library on the Dewey Decimal system and the books will be numbered for location on the shelves. "Preserving and making the loose papers and materials available for researchers will be the biggest challenge," Mrs. Harrington said. "We need to organize this material so people can use it." she said.

"There was so much material - all packed in boxes - on the moving van, we don't know what we have" librarian Harrington said. Society members helping unload the 800 pound shipment were overwhelmed with the size and extent of this personal genealogy library.

The society is working with Willie Lee Jones on a suitable memorial for her sister. In addition to marking the donated books with a memorial book plate, the local society will be planning some other type of memorial for Jessye Ann High in its public library.

At the time of this article, the Genealogy Public Library was located in the Home of Dale and Corinne Wise's home at 2283 Holly. It's current location is 2126 N McCulloch Blvd, Suite 17 located in the Shambles Village of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

The History of the London Bridge

There has been a bridge across the Thames for over 2,000 years. The first bridge was built by the Romans in 43.A.D. They built a temporary pontoon bridge which was planks laid across a row of anchored boats, or they may have used ferry boats. Soon the first London Bridge was built.

In 1821, a committee was appointed by Parliament to consider the condition of the bridge. The arches had been badly damaged by the Great Freeze, so it was decided to build a new bridge. Plans were submitted and rejected. This bridge would have to be quite different from the previous London Bridge as the old prints were for horse drawn carriages. In 1824, John Rennie's plans were accepted. The bridge was built 100 feet west of the old Bridge. On June 15, 1825, the first stone was laid by the Lord Mayor of London, John Garratt, in the presence of the Duke of York. six years later William IV and Queen Adelaid opened the New London Bridge and the old one was demolished. The Thames narrows 900 feet at this point.

This London Bridge was built out of granite which was quarried on Dartmoor. It was a structure of 5 arches, overall dimensions where 928 feet long and 49 feet wide.

In 1962, it was discovered that the London Bridge was falling down, sinking into the Thames because it was not adequate for the increased in traffic. Robert McCulloch learned that the British Government was putting the bridge up for sale. He submitted the winning bid for $2,460,000. Plans were made to move and reconstruct the bridge in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Each piece was marked with four numbers. The first indicated which span, the second noted which row of stones, and the last tow numbers indicted which position in that row. It was discovered, while dismantling the bridge, that there were code numbers on each stone when it was originally built: Rennie must have used the same system when the sections left the quarries.

Reconstructing the Bridge in Lake Havasu City was done in the same manner as the Egyptians built pyramids. Sand mounds beneath each arch were carefully formed to the profile of the original Bridge arches, serving the same function as molds. When the work was completed, the sand was removed. A one-mile channel was dredged and water was diverted from the lake, under the bridge, then back into the lake. Thus the peninsula became an island.

The bridge was shipped by boat 10,000 miles to Long Beach, California. From there it was trucked to Lake Havasu city, where it was stored in a seven-acre fenced storage compound. On September 23, 1968, the Lord Mayor of London, Sir gilbert Inglefield, laid the corner stone. Robert Beresford, a civil engineer from Nottingham, England was in charge of the reconstruction of the London Bridge in Lake Havasu.

As a guideline, he had a copy of the original plans drawn by John Rennie. During the reconstruction, Mr. Beresford drew sketches of the bridge in different phases of construction. There are a limited number of these prints. When Mr. Beresford returned to England, he gave exclusive right to D & P Antiques in Lake Havasu City to sell these prints.

The Bridge was completed and dedicated on October 10, 1971.

John Andrew Driscoll

by Denyce Cribbs

In my last post, I shared what I was able to find about Lawrence Kevin Driscoll who had served in WWII, as we knew from his Navy discharge certificate having been donated to our library.  I was interested to look back into his family tree and looked closer at his father, John Andrew Driscoll (1891 – 1957).  That research revealed a couple of things that are common when doing genealogy:  conflicting information when it comes to dates and places, and buried secrets.

In following John’s records, I was able to find draft cards for both WWI and WWII, census records going from 1940 back to 1900, along with birth, marriage, and death index records for Cook County, where he was from.  Notably, what was listed in each census for his “father’s and mother’s birthplace” seemed to change.  Their birth places were listed as “Ireland” when he was young, and then changed to “Pennsylvania and England” when he was seventeen.  It rang true that a young man trying to get a job would disguise his Irish roots.  At this time in history, anti-Irish sentiment was still strong, with signs being posted in windows that said, “Irish need not apply.”  In one census, John’s parents are listed as being from Illinois, but this is a common mistake I’ve seen many times in genealogy.  The “father’s birthplace” is many times listed as the head of household’s birthplace, regarding himself as “father” and not noting that the census taker means to collect the birthplace of HIS father.

Then the most interesting discovery occurred in the 1900 census.  John was found as a 10-year old boy in St. Joseph’s Providence Orphan Asylum in Cook County, Illinois.  According to ChicagoAncestors.org (https://www.chicagoancestors.org/place/st-joseph-provident-orphanage) this Roman Catholic orphanage for dependent boys was in operation from 1885 – 1911.  Today, as you can imagine, many descendants are trying to get records and information about this orphanage.  Over 100 people are listed on the census page, including Mother Xavier Mahoney, eleven nuns, and scores of boys, including John Driscoll and his five-year old brother, Walter.  One can imagine that this piece of John’s history was never discussed with future family members, as was common practice at the time.

John went on to live a productive life, get married, and have several children including Lawrence Kevin Driscoll, the subject of my previous post. Although 8^th grade was the highest he achieved, he had a career as a machinist and street car motorman. We will likely never know the circumstances that landed him and his brother in the orphanage in 1900, but he serves as a good example of someone who just got on with it and made a life for himself.

Lawrence Kevin Driscoll

by Denyce Cribbs

In looking through our library’s surname files last summer, I came across a folder that had just two items in it.  One was a USN Certificate of Honorable Discharge from 1946, and the second was a Funeral Mass booklet from 1962.  Both were for Lawrence Kevin Driscoll.  I decided to find out what I could about him and his family.

I was able to find Lawrence on Ancestry, and his records showed that he had been a Navy coxswain in WWII, which I learned meant that he was one of the pilots of landing craft.  He had also earned the WWII Victory Medal, as evidenced by his headstone application for veterans.  A WWII muster roll listed him as serving on the USS LST-815 in March of 1945.  According to NavSource Online (https://www.navsource.org/archives/10/16/160815.htm) the LST-815 was at the invasion beaches at Okinawa on D-Day. I happened to be working on this surname file on July 4^th, so I was very moved to have discovered Lawrence’s service and be able to honor him here.  

  

Next, I found a page in his Funeral Mass booklet listing his family.  His parents were John and Agnes Driscoll.  I wanted to find out more about John, and I’ll talk more about that in my next posting.  Lawrence has siblings listed as John, Patricia, and Therese.  His wife was Margaret, and his children were Diane and Larry. In following the Ancestry records, I was able to see that Larry Jr. had lived in Lake Havasu City, and is buried in Kingman, AZ.  It is through him that our library surely attained the discharge certificate and Mass booklet.  Lawrence’s other child, Diane, has also passed away.  The Mass booklet contains pages of signatures from his loved ones, many signing #5220 next to their names, to signify the VFW post that Lawrence belonged to in Illinois.  Notably, one comrade, Ben Babbitt, signed “96465 Normandy” next to his signature.  Thank you to all those fine men who served with Lawrence Kevin Driscoll.

The Cabin Home (Part 2)

The Cabin Home (Part 2)
by Denyce Cribbs

In my last post, I wrote about a booklet I found in our library called, Pictorial History of The Cabin Home in Garden of Eden, written by S.P. Dinsmoor.  Dinsmoor built a stone cabin in 1907, along with a sculpture garden, on his property of Lucas, Kansas.  I was curious to find out what happened to the property after he passed away. 

Samuel Perry Dinsmoor (1843 – 1932)

First, I was surprised to find that the booklet is still available on Amazon, in very limited quantities.  Surely, one of the first examples of “self-publishing” during its time, it survives as a self-published paperback in the modern age.

Also, I found that the property does indeed survive today.  In fact, the sculpture gardens are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tours are offered for $6 per person (well over the $1 fee that Dinsmoor called for in his will, and wrote about in his book).  According to the Kansas Sampler Foundation website,  (http://www.kansassampler.org/8wonders/artresults.php) Dinsmoor’s Cabin Home survives as one of the “Top 8 Wonders of Kansas Art.”  The website describes The Cabin Home currently:

The Garden of Eden is a world-renowned grassroots art site with one of the most fascinating (and bizarre) sculpture gardens in the world!

In 1907, at the age of 62, Civil War veteran Samuel Perry Dinsmoor began construction of this unusual site by building a structure of limestone logs, (some up to 21 feet long) for the family home. Then, using 113 tons of cement, Dinsmoor built 40-foot tall trees to hold his larger than life figures for his sculpture garden. He stopped working on the sculpture in 1929 because he went blind.

Tour guides help observers become fully aware that every part of every cryptic sculpture has meaning about Populist politics, modern civilization, and the Bible that connect like a dot-to-dot puzzle. The humor and message that he conveys through the sculptures amazes visitors.

Dinsmoor also built a mausoleum to house his mummified remains! Always a jokester, he claimed he would wink at anyone who paid to tour the garden. His vision was accurate and today the Garden of Eden supports itself through admissions. While Dinsmoor was building and creating locals tried to run him out of town. Decades later, the Garden of Eden became the town's main attraction and today Lucas is known as the Grassroots Art Capital of Kansas.

The Cabin Home Today

The Cabin Home (Lucas, Kansas)

The Cabin Home (Lucas, Kansas)
by Denyce Cribbs

In digging around the surname files in our library, I came across a little booklet in the Dinsmoor file entitled, Pictorial History of The Cabin Home in Garden of Eden.  Written by S.P. Dinsmoor, it’s a journal of sorts about the home and surrounding gardens that the author constructed in Lucas, Kansas. 

Dinsmoor served three years in the Civil War, claiming to see the capture of Robert E. Lee.  Following the war, he taught school in Illinois for five years.  In 1870 he married his first wife and became a farmer.  He eventually moved to Lucas, Kansas in 1891, and built his Cabin Home in 1907, and later the surrounding grounds which he named Garden of Eden.  He married his second wife in 1924.  He was 81 at the time, and she was 20 years old.

The cabin he built was distinctive in that the logs were all made of cement.  Dinsmoor states:

There were eleven rooms besides the bathroom, three halls, two closets with cave and light plant under back porch.  The porches, side walks, fence, strawberry and flower beds, fish pool, grape-arbor, three U.S. flags, Adam and Eve, the devil, coffin, jug, visitors’ dining hall, labor crucified, two bird and animal cages, and was house are all made with cement.

Dinsmoor goes on to describe the Garden of Eden that he created on his grounds, consisting of Adam and Eve cement statues, the Devil, Cain and Abel, and other creatures to complete his rendition of famous Bible stories.  Eccentric to be sure, he also built his own mausoleum and coffin, complete with instructions for their use after he passes away.  He states in his will that no one besides his descendants shall enter his mausoleum for less than one dollar, so that profits from visitors can be used to maintain the place.  He builds his own coffin to have a plate glass lid so he can break out on the final Resurrection Day.  At the foot of the coffin he places a jug so he will be prepared with water on the final day of reckoning.

This little booklet in an interesting legacy of a man’s creativity, complete with photos on every page.  It gets my curiosity going, though, about what comes next.  Does the Cabin Home still exist?  Is Dinsmoor buried there? I’ll try to answer those questions in my next post.

e-Conference March 24, 2018

Saturday, March 24
8:30 am - 3:00 pm (Mountain)

Early Bird (by March 14): 
$19.99

Regular Price: 
$24.99


Our Ancestors have fascinating stories. Are we finding those tales? In this eConference hosted by the Lake Havasu Genealogical Society, we will examine non-traditional records rich with in-depth details about your dearly departed. eConference is open to anyone with an internet connection who is ready to have fun while learning!