The Wedding Planner

My uncle Alton Green has the family record for the most weddings.

Uncle Al for many years made a living playing music. He played the trombone in swing bands in the 1930s and 40s. I guess it was not a career that lent itself to a stable family life. After WWII he took over a candy vending machine business from my Dad in Jacksonville, Florida but it didn't help his love life.

His first wife was Frances Scott who he married in 1927 in Sarasota, Florida. In 1936 he married Beatrice Armond in St. Johns County Florida. In 1941 he married Alta Pauline Catherine Wells Perry in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1951 he married Gladys Williams in Jacksonville, Florida. His last wife was Era "Dinah" Dorough.

He officially was married to five women but he married Dinah twice once in the late 1950s and again in 1963. Later in life he lived with a common law wife named Mary. I never knew her last name. The amazing thing is that with all the women in his life he never had any children!

He married an Indian Princess

There are a couple stories you hear over and over when doing genealogy research.

Such as, there were three brothers who came over on a ship from England/Scotland/Ireland in the 1700s and got off at different cities. All of the (whatever surname) in America can be traced back to the three brothers. I have seen this story dozens of times.

Another one; he cleared a homestead in North Carolina, Georgia or Alabama in 1820 and married the daughter of Chief "About to be move to Oklahoma." She was an Indian Princess but took on the manners and dress of a white woman.

The last one, having Indian blood in the family tree is a strange one for me. I can't imagine any of my grandparents ever claiming to be part Indian, Native American, Cherokee or Seminole. Growing up in the South, having any connection to a minority group in the 1950s would have been very unusual. But today, many people claim to have a full blooded Native American great grandmother, or father when the reality is very different. In fact I haven't been able to document any family connection to Native American blood and have run down probably ten or more stories.

I had people on both sides of my grandmother Ila Rowell Green's family tree claiming that the other side was full blooded Cherokee. They even sent me photos to prove that this or the other ancestor was Indian. But they both claimed it for the other side. One side said Joseph Rowell was Cherokee and one side claimed it was his wife, Versanoy Smith.

In my research I have proof that neither were Native American. Joseph Rowell's father was William Rowell who came from South Carolina to Florida soon after it was sold to the US. He settled in what is now Taylor County Florida. Now some would say he had to be Indian. If so then he fooled a whole lot of people because he was chosen as a Captain in the Florida Militia during the Florida Indian Wars. He served several tours, very successfully driving the Indians south so the northern part of the State would be available to settlers. I found an old newspaper article about his military exploits at the University of Florida library.

So it must have been Versanoy who was passing as white, right? Well her father, Seth Smith was a well known Missionary Baptist minister and elder who founded the Missionary Baptist church in Taylor County. His father was a Methodist minister in Georgia. Pretty white bread on both sides.

25 free iTunes

This is the subject line on emails I send to my kids every so often. With it I am sure they will click on and read the email.

Normally it contains a link to an article about how important it is to use sunscreen. Both my parents had red hair and fair complexion. One family tradition I wish we could break is having to deal with skin cancers but considering the matching set of genes and growing up in Florida that probably won't happen. My grandfather on my mother's side died from melanoma in 1965 and not only both parents but all my siblings have had at least one case of skin cancer.

They showed me what poor was

My Dad's first cousin, Hubert Horne, told me about visiting their great uncle, John T. Hogan in Taylor County Florida.

John Hogan died in 1940 and Hubert was born in 1929 so he had to be pretty young at the time. Hubert was born and raised in Cortez, Florida but his both his father and mother had relatives in Taylor County so he went up there to visit. He spent the night at least once with John and his wife Hester Williams Hogan.

His memory of John Hogan's home was "those folks were poor, in fact they showed me what poor was."

They lived in the Warrior Swamp area about 10 miles south of Perry, Florida on a farm they bought from my Grandfather, Millard Fillmore Green. There was no electricity or running water in the house.

To light the house they used tin cans filled with hog fat and lit by a string. There was no cover or anything on the can so if it spilled over the house probably would have burned down.

Hubert said "those folks were just poor!" The only picture of John Hogan shows him dressed pretty nicely so I guess he had some money or maybe he was just thrifty! I found this old tin type photo in the Andrew Green family bible.

John T. Hogan died October 24, 1940 and was buried in the Spring Warrior Church of Christ cemetery in Taylor County Florida. Many of the Hogan family relatives are buried there.

As far as anyone knows now, they were members of the Church of God and this part of my family had no connection to the Church of Christ until my Dad joined in 1948. Why they are buried in a Church of Christ cemetery, when there were two other cemeteries in the area that had other family in them is a story for another day.

They don't make 'em like they used to

My dad was one of five boys born to Millard Fillmore and Ila Rowell Green. Their mother died very young and my grandfather was left to raise the boys on his own. The youngest was a year old when his wife died. He re-married once but soon discovered it was a mistake and divorced the woman.

The boys grew up in a tough time, my dad graduated from high school 8 months after the start of the depression. Somehow my grandfather knew the local bank was about to fold and pulled out his money in time but money back then wasn't worth a whole lot.

Four of the boys enlisted in the service. My dad made it his career but for his brothers it was probably for survival.

Two of the brothers died in the 1940s, one during the war and one soon after it ended. My grandfather had also lost a brother (who was run over by a train) and all three of them were buried in the family plot he bought when his wife died in 1915.

The matching markers he put on the four graves were made of concrete and had their names and dates molded into the block. After fifty plus years of exposure the concrete had worn away and was no longer legible. Someone had replaced the marker on my grandmother's grave with a marble column in the 1970s.

I contacted the VA and obtained new markers for my uncles. Since they were veterans and their graves were no longer marked the VA sent them at no charge. On my to do list is to obtain a marker for my great uncle.

Lost at Sea II

Sometimes you come across an obscure fact or story by accident that consumes your genealogy research time for a while.

I have been looking for information on my Wilson family relatives for many years with limited success. My great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Wilson was one of 25 children born to Moses Wilson so you would think there is a lot of information about them, but so far they have been elusive.

The Florida Archives put WWI service cards online about 5 years ago and I started looking for cards for family members. After searching for the closer relatives I started searching for surnames and found one for John T. Wilson and a reference to his father being Jasper Wilson. I knew Benjamin had a brother named Jasper so I checked the 1900 and 1910 census records, located Jasper and sure enough he had a son who matched the card.

The card showed John T. Wilson died during the sinking of the Otranto on October 6, 1918. He left US soil on September 25, 1918 heading for action in Europe after spending three months training in Georgia.

The Otranto was a troop carrier going to England when it collided with an English navy ship, the HMS Kashmir in rough seas just off the coast of Scotland. The Otranto was badly damaged and went down near Machir Bay. There were over 1,000 soldiers onboard the Otranto and 431 lost their life that day.

75 of the dead American soldiers were buried overlooking the Scottish coast in what is now a small US military cemetery. 43 of them were never identified.

John Wilson was buried in the Brookwood American Cemetery in Brookwood, England. This small US Military cemetery contains 468 graves arranged around a marble chapel.

Recently I was given a WWI era photo of my great grandfather, William T. Fulford, taken when he traveled from Cortez, Florida to the Fort Benning Army base in Georgia to visit his son Clayton who was in basic training.

As it turned out, Jasper Wilson went with him to visit his three sons who were also in the Army and stationed at Fort Benning. Harry and Arthur Mann from Cortez, Florida had a brother, Roy there also so all four men drove up together. Harry Mann was married to Jasper Wilson's daughter.

I've identified Jasper Wilson in the picture, the shorter of the older men with white hair, but don't know which of the men is John T. Wilson. I suspect it was the last photo taken of him.

The oldest living Confederate Veteran

My great great Grandfather was William Augustus Lundy. If you Google "oldest living Confederate Veteran" you will see his name and reference to him living until 1957.

William Augustus Lundy did serve in the CSA, but in the Biographical Rosters of Florida's Confederate and Union Soldiers 1861-1865, he is listed as a refugee (deserter) from the Confederacy.

It's not clear if he actually enlisted in the CSA or just went along with his older brothers who had joined. I haven't found any CSA enlistment papers for him.

He did enlist in the Union Army, 2nd Florida Cavalry, Company C on April 21, 1864 at St Vincent Island, Florida as a musician. He was only 15 years old at the time. His older brother Matthew also enlisted in the 2nd Calvary.

William Lundy left his home in Taylor County after the war, some say because the locals didn't appreciate those who fought on the Union side. He moved to Manatee County and discovered the Fountain of Youth. (I'll tell that story later) He died in 1903 at age 55.

The confusion over William Augustus Lundy being the oldest living confederate veteran came up because another man named William Allen Lundy made the claim in the 1950s. By accident or incompetence many of the news accounts of his claim listed the war record of my ancestor, has fame over the fountain of youth and growing oranges and even his complete name. I'm not sure if William Allen Lundy used my ancestor's background on purpose or not but since my ancestor and his wife were deceased at the time, news accounts attributed the life events for William Augustus Lundy to the other man.

A Joint Resolution of Congress on July 18, 1956 authorized a gold medal to be struck and presented to the only four surviving Civil War veterans, including William Lundy. William Allen Lundy died in Crestview, Florida on September 1, 1957. After his death some questioned his claim to be the oldest CSA veteran and said he was not born until much later.