Tombstone Tuesday - Maple Grove Cemetery, Ravenna, Ohio

In 2007 we visited Ohio looking for cemetery records for my husband's Mason line.  These pictures come from the "MAPLE GROVE CEMETERY in Ravenna and Ravenna Twp.; 6698 SR 44, .3 mile north of Ravenna City limits on the east side of the road; originally named Evergreen Cemetery." according to the Portage County Historical Society .  There are other graves in the newer section of the cemetery but these draw a certain emotion just looking at them.  It was a sweltering day and near closing time for the cemetery and we had little time. Maple Grove is actually a beautiful cemetery with a lovely, peaceful lake. These graves are located toward the front of the cemetery way over on the right hand edge.  Maria (1820-1865) and Samuel Mason (1813-1852) were my husband's ggggrandparents. They had three children, Albert G (1846-1916), Samuel (1848-1856), and Amelia (1851-1852).  To the far right are Samuel, Maria, and Amelia's headstones. These tombstones do haunt me.

More About Daddy

James Hoard McManus, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, January 31, 1920, was the son of James Hoard McManus (1887-1971) and Ida Ruth Eaglebarger (1896-1927).  His mother died at the age of 31 of breast cancer leaving a husband and two small children. The 1930 census shows the family enumerated under the name James H. Mcmannus as boarders in the Wisener household.  I remember my father talking about living with the Wisener's but, at this time, I don't know how long they stayed there.  I know my aunt went to live with her aunt and, most of the time, my father stayed with his father. My grandfather was a machinist with the railroad and my father sometimes lived with him and sometimes with relatives.  Daddy talked about living in the bathroom and sleeping in the tub. He built a shelf over the tub to hold his clothes.

He went to Louisiana State University for a two years prior to World War II and enlisted in the Army Air Corps 22 Dec 1941.  Daddy never fought in the war, spending most of his time working on transport planes.He was released from the service after the war in California and decided to stay.  He met my mother at UCLA saying that they were in a class together and he heard her southern accent, the only one in the room, and decided he had to meet her.  They were part of the post WWII marriages that produced the baby boomers of today, living in track homes that were built by the thousands in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

Daddy

My father was a traditional dad of the 50's.  My mother raised us kids and my dad worked.  I don't even think there were sports activities like there are today, but Daddy, and we all called him Daddy, was not a coach.  Daddy was always there but not there.  He worked long hours, he always drove, he sat in the living room and read the papers.  Those are the most significant things I remember about him when I was a child.  My father died at the age of 74. He was the last living grandparent my children had.

My father was James Hoard McManus. When he signed his name, the c was always raised with two little lines under it.  Daddy was left handed and color blind, traits he's passed down to his grandchildren and great grandchildren.

His name has always been a puzzle to me.  My father was James Hoard McManus, his father was James Hoard McManus, and his grandfather was James Hoard McManus.  None of them were officially juniors or seniors.  My father went by James Hoard McManus Jr. for a long time. I've always pronounced my maiden name as "MicManus" although my father pronounced it "MacManus." We called him Daddy, my mother called him Jim and his colleagues and friends outside our family sphere called him Mac. I remember being in the car one time and getting gas. The attendant called him Mac not Jim and that surprised me. But I digress.

Hoard is not a common middle name and you would guess that it was possibly a mother's maiden name. Not so, but close.  Thomas Hugh McManus (1815-1865) and Johanna Wild Tritt (1829-1915) were the parents of the first James Hoard McManus (1849-1905). Johanna's father was Baker Tritt who died in 1835 when she was six year old.  Her mother Verona Regular Wild married second Daniel Hoard (1787-1869) in 1849 the same year Johanna married Thomas Hugh McManus.  Johanna and Thomas named their first son James Hoard McManus.  What surprises me is that this name then continued down two more generations.

I will continue my story of my father in a part 2.

Ebenezer MacIntosh

While researching my husbands family, I discovered that his 4th ggrandfather is Ebenezer MacIntosh.  MacIntosh was the leader of the mob of Indians that were part of the Boston Tea Party.  What a fascinating person to research.  I've been trying to find some books/articles that were written about him and am having some trouble.  My first difficulty has been finding Anderson, George P., “Ebenezer Mackintosh: Stamp Act Rioter and Patriot,” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume XXVI, Transactions 1924-1926.  On the society website it says that the Transaction is not for sale.  An email requesting to purchase a copy of the article led to another email saying that you can't purchase the article just the Transaction.  (By-the-way, what is a Transaction?) Not listed in the Family Search catalog. I've now written to NEHGS to see if they have a copy and can copy the article.  I'll keep looking. 

Researching Ebenezer MacIntosh is difficult because his name is spelled so many different ways. I've found the first name spelled Ebenezer or Ebeneezer.  His last name has even more varieties including the spaces - MacIntosh, Mac Intosh, McIntosh, Mc Intosh. Guess everybody has this problem.

Other books I'm looking for are, none of which are in the Family Search Catalog nor Fullerton University Library:

"Mackintosh, Ebenezer". 1999. American National Biography. 14.   (World Cat says they have at Kansas State.)

Jones, Calvin L. 2000. "Captain General of Liberty Tree": Ebenezer Mackintosh and the "lower sort" crowds in pre-Revolutionary Boston, 1765-1774. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Houston, 2000.   (WorldCat says at the University of Texas)

Mills, Jane Johnston. 1979. First cap'n general of Liberty Tree: a biographical novel based on the life of Ebenezer Mackintosh, 18th century Boston shoemaker. La Jolla, Calif: Jupiter Books. (Fiction but should be interesting although it is out of print)

Anderson, George Pomeroy. 1924. Ebenezer Mackintosh, Stamp act rioter and patriot, c by George Pomeroy Anderson. Cambridge: J. Wilson and son.  (WorldCat says they have at a number of East Coast libraries and Institutions. I contacted the New York Public Library and they say it is the reference area and not available for interlibrary loan. Other possibilities are Yale, Harvard,  Boston Athenaeum, and the University of Colorado at Boulder )

 Anderson, George Pomeroy. 1924. Ebenezer Mackintosh Stamp act rioter and patriot. Cambridge: J. Wilson and son. Available at Yale on microfilm. 

Beginning the Journey

I started this blog to record the discoveries I come across while researching my family tree.  It's hard to start because I am starting in the middle.  I want this to start from the beginning but that can't be. So - this is the beginning of the journey.

This last weekend, my husband and I attended the SCGS Jamboree in Burbank.  Ancestry provided a setup to digitize attendees pictures.  My mother-in-law was an avid scrapbooker, not like they do now but by cutting circles around pictures and mounting them with glue in construction paper  scrapbooks.  The books are now falling apart and I am so grateful that I was able to digitize almost 200 pages.

Some of the pictures are fantastic. It's a little late for Memorial Day and a little early for 4th of July, but this seemed the best start for my blog.

My husband Bill's grandfather was August Hopp. Born in 1878 in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He served during the Spanish American War  as a bugler with Company A Infantry, Hood's Regiment of New Orleans. These pictures are from that time.

Agustus Ignatz Hopp  known as Gus Hopp.  Born 20 June 1878 in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana.  He appears in the World War I draft registration in New Orleans and is enumerated in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California in the 1920 Census. Gus Hopp died 11 March 1932 in Alhambra, California and is buried in the Melun Tomb in New Orleans.

Gus Hopp was married to Henrietta Clementine Schmidt (7 Aug 1894), 16 years his junior on 3 June 1911 when he was  almost 33 and she was not yet 17.  They had two children Roy Clyde Hopp and Cleo Dorothy Hopp.  They were married almost 20 years on his death at the age of 53.