The Shenanigans of John Coleman Durham

The 4th Great Grandparents of my grandchilden, Ashley and Kolby, are John Coleman Durham and his wife Rachel Black.  They were married in KY on August 5, 1869.  Rachel was born with a birth defect, a club foot.  We do not know which foot or how badly turned in this foot was.  She was able to walk and to travel, and travel she did - to court to defend herself against her husband's filing for divorce!  Divorce was uncommon in the 1800s and would have led to a great deal of gossip, no doubt.

4th GGrandaddy John was a school teacher who had five living children with his wife Rachel in Kentucky.  His eyes strayed.  They became focused upon his first cousin, Martha Washington Durham, whom he met while teaching in Missouri.  John filed for divorce against Rachel and he alleged that she was unfaithful, but nothing about his own wandering eye for Martha.

Back home in Kentucky, Rachel got notified of the divorce and the court date...in Missouri. To fund her trip to Missouri, she sold her cow for train fare. She also gathered letters attesting to her good conduct from the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church. Having no luggage, she packed her clothes, letters, and necessities, placing them in a flour sack for the trip. From the sale of the cow, she received enough money for the trip to Missouri and the trip back, and it was her intention to bring her straying husband back to Kentucky on that return trip. She was extremely gutsy to say the least. With her limited funds, she did not have the monies needed for a room at an inn or for transportation or even food while in Missouri. John knew she was arriving, but he did not come to the train station to meet her. A minister who happened to be at the station helped Rachel by providing shelter and transportation to the courthouse.

John, who had failed to come to the station, also failed to come to the courthouse! No information is known as to whether John got his divorce, but, guess what? I seriously doubt it.

Rachel showed extreme courage in her trip to Missouri. Traveling alone, hard. Traveling with a club foot, likely hard. Traveling with no funds, hard. John abandoning her completely, hard.

When she returned to Casey County, Kentucky, she did get her cow back though. That is a good thing. The milk cow was either bought by her brother Andrew Black or retrieved in some way by him, and returned to her and the children.

So what happened to 4th GGrandaddy John? If John married Martha, he was a bigamist. If he only lived with her, then he could not marry her until after Rachel died in 1913. Did Martha ever really marry John?  Don't know so far. She is listed on his death certificate as Martha Durham, but when you are first cousins, you often share the same surname. Martha and John had six or more children together. John died in 1926.

A side story: John was the son of Kentucky Jim! 5th Great grandaddy! He married Jane Coleman, whose surname has been popular within the family.


James Durham lived in KY but moved to MO to be with other family members in that state around 1850. By 1852 he was back in KY swearing he would never, ever, live in Missouri again. His family affirmed it when they nicknamed him forevermore as Kentucky Jim!

Front Row LtoR:  KY Jim, his daughter Mary Magdalene Durham with her son,  child Roscoe Durham standing by his mom, Rachel Black Durham,  child Dewitt Raney, father Proctor Raney with Aurora Durham Raney who has her hand placed on her husband's shoulder on the right side of the photo.  Aurora is a daughter of John Coleman and Rachel Black Durham.  

Rear Row LtoR:  Arvina Raney daughter of Sally Jane Durham and Joseph K. Raney, James Durham with his arm on shoulder of his brother John S. Durham (sons of Rachel and John Coleman Durham, in widow's black is Mammy (Sally Jane Durham Raney; daughter of Rachel and John Coleman Durham).  Note:  James Durham Family (KY Jim)" photo courtesy of Regina Baldock's site at Ancestry.com.  Thanks! 

Grandpa Reynold Benedict Freitas

                       

Aunt Leia adored her Grandpa Reynolds (Reynold Benedict Freitas).  She has shared that he was a most memorable man who was dearly loved by his family.

One of the wee stories she tells about her Grandpa is the way he would refer to people as "donkeys." 

For example, if he was driving down the road in Hawaii and encountered a total jerk who tried to cut him off, he would simply say "What a donkey!" And then he would just keep on going with a cool temper and not an ounce of road rage or horn tooting.  Good for you Grandpa Reynolds!

Margie and Annie Mae Bennett & Kolby and Bruce Durham

Can you guess which one is my Mom Marjorie Bennett and which one is my Great Aunt Annie Mae Bennett?

Annie and my grandfather Charlie Bennett, dad of Marjorie, were siblings. 

Annie lived in California and Mom lived in Maine.

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                  This is Kolby.

Check out the eyes and curly hair.

Which one is his great grandfather Bruce Durham?
Or are they both Bruce?

Email me for the answer if you are unsure.

Vannie Cunningham - Her Way of "No"

My great great grandparents were Henry Bright Cunningham (Sr.) and Vannie Harriman Crocker of Belfast Maine.  They married in 1877 and when Vannie was 21, she gave birth to my great grandmother, Alvra "Allie" Cunningham.  So Scottish!

They moved in 1880 to Natick Massachusetts where Henry worked at a shoe factory.  In 1907 Henry died of the dreaded TB.   Vannie moved back to Belfast Maine.

My father was fortunate, as were my sister and I, to personally and lovingly know one of our great grandmothers.  We knew Alvra; Dad knew Vannie.



When my father knew Vannie she was a "Rackcliffe" and involved in the Rackcliffe Funeral Home business in Belfast Maine. She had married Samuel Nichols Rackliffe of Belfast Maine in 1910 in Searsport. He died in 1918 leaving her twice widowed.

My father told me that Vannie used an unusual expression of "Don't do so", which he occasionally heard from her..."Don't do so, Bobby!"

Vannie died sometime after 1940, in her 80s, when she came down with pneumonia and died within three days!

Charlie Cator Runs Away Twice!

My husband's grandfather is Charles Conrad Cator, Jr.  He was known as Charlie, Buck, CCC Jr. and Granddaddy. He was raised during his father's second marriage by a stepmom nobody seems to consider fondly.  Stepmother Lavinia Cator is reputed to having been "mean." An example of punishment was to put her stepson in a bath that was iced and ice cold and make him stay there for a long time. There was a custody battle brought forth by a relative, but it failed to remove Charlie from his father's house and from mean stepmom.  CCC, Jr. was born, we think, in 1895, so in 1914 he was about 18 or 19 years old.   Charlie made the Washington DC Herald newspaper on March 7, 1914 as a runaway who disappeared on March 6th with 5 other teens.  Rosa (16), Lillian (17), and Lena (17) were missing along with 3 boys, Charlie (15!), Walter (19) and Gottlieb (18).  Don't really know where they went and why, nor what happened to them as I couldn't find a follow-up story.  But...it must have something to do with the same day article in the Washington Post.  

Interestingly, this article in the Herald does NOT mention his future wife, Ruth Ridgeway, as a runaway, but the Washington Post articles of the same day and year report on only Charlie at 18 and Ruth at 19.  They were in love.  She was a fun-spirited young woman and Charlie would love her greatly for many years to come. 

Charlie had worked for the train yard and been coupled by two trains, resulting in injuries requiring a year in the hospital.  Physical therapy for his arm, for example, was holding a bucket and adding a piece of coal each day till his arm finally straightened and became strong.  Charles was again working at the Union Station in DC as a call boy in 1914. In railroad slang that means Charlie was the guy who made sure each crew member was scheduled for regular runs and aware of extra runs to be completed.

He arranged for three days of leave to get married.  Sounds like a good plan, doesn't it?  Charlie's huge mistake?  He told his stepmother that he intended to marry Ruth "at once"!  Egads!  Mistake, mistake, mistake.  She told him, "I'll see about that; you're too young to get married!"  Charlie fled the house and called Ruth.  

Mean stepmom stopped Ruth and Charlie from getting a marriage license at Rockville MD. Evidently Lavinia got the word from somebody that they were going to elope to Philadelphia and she called the Philadelphia Police Department.   Then she heard they might elope to Camden NJ, so, what does mean stepmom do?  She telegraphs the clerk of the court in Camden to stop the two runaways!  You get the gist.  Every time she heard of a new possible marriage location, she attempted to stop the wedding saying that he was too young to get married (at 19!) and can't support a wife. She wanted him to wait till he was 21 even though dad, Charles Conrad Cator, Sr. was okay with the marriage. Mean stepmom also alleged that he was not well and she feared for his health. Hummm. 

So, did they get married?  YES! 

After mean stepmom contacted 50 towns to stop them.  Can you imagine her determination?  Don't understand her reasoning since Charlie's dad was okay with it. Lavinia overlooked Frederick MD.

Charlie and Ruth became Mr. and Mrs. Cator in Frederick MD.  

Mean stepmom may have been persistent, but Charlie and Ruth were in love.

They would have three children, one being my husband's Mom, Bernice.  Nice.

Eat Your Peas with a Knife! Willie Eaton Sr/Jr

Capt. William Eaton, Lost at Sea

Capt. William M. Eaton was my Great Grand Uncle.  He was born in 1844 in Maine and died January 15 1890 in Tampico Mexico...at sea.

At age 45 GG Uncle William was lost at sea, one of many of my ancestors who were sea captains, and unfortunately one of several lost at sea.  I am uncertain as to how he was lost at sea, but he did lose the Schooner W. W. Hungerford while it was under his command and this is likely the ship he was on at the time of his death.

"He had a son William, Jr that we all called Uncle Willie", my mom said. My mother told me that he "loved to eat his peas off a knife."  What!  How?

Did he learn this from his dad?  Did Willie line them all up and then lean into them, scoop them with the knife's edge, or did he swish them with his potatoes and then eat the potatoes and the pea glob off the knife?  Or perhaps he stabbed them one at a time!

Of course, he could have used honey as the old rhyme says.  

I eat my peas with honey 

I've done it all my life 

It makes my peas taste funny 

but it keeps them on my knife

More family memories at: https://catorfamilies.com/genealogy/eaton.html 

Betsy McCall Paper Dolls - Donna and Caren

Caren and I loved playing with paper dolls – by the hour.  We played "house" with them, we played "vacation" with them; we imagined with them.  We even read to them.  We designed and cut out new clothes for our paperdolls.   They lived in our dollhouse.

In May of 1951, McCall's Magazine introduced Betsy McCall paper dolls.  We collected them thanks to Mom, cut them out and had fun, fun, fun!  

The 1930s - 1950s were the Golden Age for paperdolls because they were so affordable, or even free, and would entertain imaginatively for hours. New paper doll books were special! 

Patrick and the Helmet Guys in WWII

Young Patrick with his Mom Bernice

My husband, Patrick, was a boy during World War II and lived on the eastern coast near the District of Columbia.  He recalls responding to blackout alerts and drills to turn out the lights and close the curtains.  After all, if the enemy planes couldn't see targets below, they would be less likely to drop bombs and initiate gunfire upon America again.  Pearl Harbor had been a foreboding event.

Everyone listened for a series of intermittent siren blasts of pending air raids or drills.  When my husband  was able to see out at night, Patrick would lie in his bed and watch the searchlights and would see the helmet guys"  (Civilian Defense Air Raid Wardens) walking and cruising about the neighborhood, checking for lights that remained on or failed to be sufficiently dimmed during blackout times.  These were scary times for all, old and young.

In an alleyway, the "helmet guys" kept a big box filled with sand, tools, and hoses in case of fires or bombing.  After the war ended, some men broke into the nearby box to split up the tools and other materials.  Baby mice scattered everywhere, startling the men, one of whom killed the mice with a shovel.  Patrick remembers thinking as a boy that these mice were the last casualties of World War II.

1942 public service announcement song from Tony Pastor and His Orchestra:
“Obey Your Air Raid Warden.”

One, be calm.  Two, get under shelter. Three, don’t run. 

Obey your air-raid warden.
Four, stay home. Five, keep off the highway. Six, don’t phone.
Obey your air-raid warden.
There are rules that you should know,
What to do and where to go,
When you hear the sirens blow,
Stop, look, and listen.
Seven, don’t smoke. Eight, help all the kiddies.
Most of all, obey your air-raid warden.
Stop, look, and listen.
Dim the lights,
Wait for information,
Most of all, obey your air-raid warden.
Stop the panic,
Don’t get in a huff,
Our aim today is to call their bluff.
Follow these rules and that is enough.
Obey your air-raid warden.

A Sparkler Bridges Heaven and Earth (Southworth)

My Great Aunt Jane Southworth was 1 year old when her niece sweet, sweet baby Ann Southworth was born. This aunt, her niece, and my Dad Bob Fuller played together as they grew up in Belfast Maine. Different generations so close in age!

Ann, though, lived only five years. When she died my father was 2 and my Aunt was 6. Ann got sick with respiratory diphtheria  a then common bacterial infection, prior to the DPT immunization against it. In 1925 there was no such shot. Diphtheria usually passed from person to person by coughing and sneezing. In olden days it had even been called the "strangling angel of children."

Approximately a year or two after Ann's death, my Great Aunt Jane was playing with a sparkler on the streets of Belfast. It caught her outfit on fire and severely burned her underarm and breast. Jane said then and always that Ann stood beside her and "told me to lay down and roll over", which is exactly what Jane did. The fire ceased, but Jane was ultimately scarred from the sparkler. Jane was forever thankful to sweet Ann, a child who had appeared to Jane as an angel to save her.

Sparklers were not allowed in my childhood.


For Ashley: Ann's parents with Dana and Hazel Southworth. After Ann died, they moved to Boston from Belfast. Hazel became a violinist with the Boston Pops Orchestra.

"...family is the link to our past, bridge to our future."

                                                             Alex Haley

Snippets of Biographies - Why?

My parents, me and my little sister in the 1940s

I am Donna Cator and over the decades I have become the family genealogist...a collector of photos and family history.

My family history works are available in my website https://catorfamilies.com/

One of the problems that I have encountered is research is time consuming and the catorfamily.com, although written in other than typical tree form, still stumbles when it comes to sharing the family memories and researched family snippets that tell the underlying tales of a strongly bridged family.  For my sons and their sons and daughters, and for their future generations, for my husband, and for my sister and her family, and for my many cousins, and for all the cousins of the various branches of our rooted tree, I offer this easier-to-follow blog to be filled with photos and small tales of our kinfolk, far and near, and in heaven or still on earth. And, so, I begin....with love.

 "There is properly no history, only biography." 

                                          Ralph Waldo Emerson