Who We Were, Are & Will Be Our Family: April 2021

30 April 2021

Gibson Brothers Trucking Begins Work in Williams, Arizona

From the Williams News (Williams, Arizona) 29 Jun 1928, Page 1 --

Gibson Bros. Outfit Working for Lbr. Co.

Gibson Brothers, of Dallas, Texas, arrived in Williams on the 21st with a fleet of twelve trucks and a force of sixteen men.
The Gibson Brothers have taken a contract to haul logs for the Saginaw and Manistee Lumber Company, from their camp located about nine miles south of town.
Their outfit consists of nine International trucks, one Coleman, and two Outo-cars with a combined carrying capacity of 120,000 pounds at one haul, or approximately 21,600 board feet.
Three trips are now being made daily from the camp to the mill, but the firm plans to add another loading crew a little later, which will enable each truck to make four or five deliveries a day. With three deliveries a day, approximately 65,000 board feet are delivered to the mill daily, and as stated above, this will be considerably augmented with the addition of another loading crew. Bruce Gibson, Ira Gibson, and Wallace Gibson comprise the firm.
It is estimated that from eight months to one year will be required to complete the hauling from this camp.

Bruce Gibson (1902-1994) was my maternal grandfather. He would later become the sole owner of the trucking company.

29 April 2021

Prohibitionist A.H. Needham Forced to Take a Drink at Gunpoint (Fakes It?)

The following newspaper clipping was taken from an article celebrating the hundredth birthday for Dr. J.H. Murray, the first town doctor for Arnold, Nebraska, Arnold Sentinel (Arnold, Nebraska), 15 Dec 1960, Page 8 --

Thirsty Cowboy
He recalled one day a cowboy came into town from up the river fully rigged out but very thirsty even though he had crossed a river often.
George Root owned the drug store at that time.
This day the druggist and his wife left town and the doctor was asked to watch the drug store. The thirsty cowboy came to the drug store and wanted a bottle. He was told the druggist was out of town. He came back the second and third time to get his bottle, but the doctor wouldn't sell it to him. He left real angry. Later the men were all sitting on a log watching a game of croquet when the cowboy came back all tanked up.
He insisted that every one drink with him. Some of the boys were willing, but A. H. Needham was a non-drinker and refused. The cowboy took out his revolver and insisted, so AI put the bottle to his lips.
Soon he got on his horse and went galloping down the street to the south shooting at the store fronts.

As I reported HERE my g-grandfather Arthur Herrick Needham (1831-1921) was one of, if not the leading proponent of prohibition in Custer County. The article mistakenly calls him "Al."

28 April 2021

Wordless Wednesday

Paul E. Walker (1929-2019), age 90

Miss you.

27 April 2021

Arthur H. Needham, Prohibitionist

From The Daily Gazette-Journal (Hastings, Nebraska), 18 Aug 1887, Page 1 --

PROHIBITIONISTS
THEIR WORK FINISHED
They Complete Their Convention Work
and Nominate a State Ticket— Judge
O B Hewitt, of Hastings,
a Candidate

The Third Party's Ticket

The result of the convention of prohibitionists of the state, held at Lincoln, was the adoption of a platform, the selection of a state central committee and the nomination of a full state ticket.

THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE.

The state central committee selected is made up of the following named gentlemen, one from each county:
. . . .
Custer — A H Needham
. . . .

Arthur Herrick Needham (1831-1921) was my great-grandfather on my father's maternal side. I am finding prohibition (and temperance) on both sides of my father's ancestry. I don't ever remember my paternal grandfather (my grandmother was deceased) drinking any alcohol, and neither do my cousins.

26 April 2021

Obituary For Harvey Rowan Mack (1895-1969)

From the Springfield Leader and Press (Springfield, Missouri), 30 Sep 1969, Page 22 --

HARVEY ROWAN MACK

Harvey Rowan Mack, 74, of 2324 Mt Vernon, died at 1:15 p.m. Monday in Foster Nursing Home here.
A lifelong resident of Spring field, Mr. Mack had been in ill health for two years. He was veteran of World War I, and had retired after working for Frisco for 40 years,
Survivors include two daughters, Mrs. Mary Ann Witt,, 2324 Mt. Vernon, Mrs. Patricia Lee VeHorn, Rushville, Ind.; three brothers, Lester, 721 West High, Robert, Brighton, Earnest, 404 East Madison; a sister, Mrs. Edith Helfrecht, 827 West Whiteside; eight grandchildren and two step-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Klingner Chapel with the Rev. William Spindler officiating. Burial will be in Greenlawn Cemetery.

As I discovered here Harvey Rowan Mack was the blessed young man who inherited his grandfather Capt. Harvey J. Dutton's officer sword that he carried in the Civil War.

22 April 2021

Gibsons Arrive in Arizona from Texas

From the Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona) 28 Jun 1928, Thursday, Page 15 --

Ira Gibson, Wallace Gibson, Bruce Gibson and their father, C. L. Gibson, arrived here Friday with 14 trucks, their families and household goods, and will locate here permanently in the trucking business. For several years they have been engaged in hauling gas pipe in Dallas, Tex., and they began work here this week in trucking logs from the timber, four miles south of town, to the lumber mills. Their families have rented houses here.

Bruce Gibson (1902-1994) was my maternal grandfather, and his father Charles Lewis Gibson (1858-1938) was my g-grandfather, of course. This article pinpoints the year and date they migrated to Arizona.

If the genealogist is committed to spending hours researching, Newspapers.Com is a worthwhile site. Yes, it has a search engine, but it is not sophisticated. The responsible researcher uses it as a tool, but does his/her own research.

21 April 2021

Artifacts

I read with some excitement recently that very soon scientists will be able to affordably retrieve the DNA of our late ancestors off of family artifacts and test it for us. This is very exciting! Genetic genealogy has been a gift to my research, and it is easy to imagine what is on the other side of the horizon, in example identifying nameless faces in photographs of our ancestors.

I have always enjoyed that existential connection to my ancestors. It feels special to walk where they walked; to visit a building they lived in, and to handle something they touched and owned a hundred years ago. They were real people with lives, and artifacts make them more real to me.

About a year ago I set about locating the same regimental flags that my gg-uncle served under and my gg-grandfather died under in the Civil War. It took a couple months, but I finally tracked them down, there are two sets, one is stored away in the McClean County (IL) History Museum, the other is stored in the State Armory at the state (IL) capital Springfield.

The bug that bit me next was trying to track down my gg-uncle Capt. Harvey J. Dutton's (1836-1928) officer's sword from the Civil War. I talked about the prospects with my cousins. First I would need to research all his descendants, then try to locate and make contact with them, all without knowing if the search was going to be fruitless and all my time wasted. With most family artifacts it only takes a few generations of separation before families forget what made it special in the first place? Who did it belong to? Why did we keep it? So I asked in my mind, did the sword become a toy that people played with? Did it get sold in a garage sale?

No. I decided no, unless I had direction, I was not going to go down that road. And then this happened. I discovered a newspaper story, from The Springfield News-Leader (Springfield, Missouri), 25 Jan 1928, Wednesday, Page 3 --

DUTTON PROPERTY LEFT TO SEVERAL CHILDREN

Each of the five children of the late H. J. Dutton, Civil War veteran and for many years a resident of Springfield, is to share in the estate, according to the terms of the will filed yesterday. A property on East Harrison street is left to Florence E. Mack, property in Florida goes to Clarence A. Dutton, a son; Norma E. Mack receives a property on Lyon avenue, Bertha I. Dunlap will have the property on West Chestnut street, while a property on West Locust street goes to another daughter Gertrude L. Coover, and her husband Guy Coover.

A sword carried by the veteran in the war between the states is bequeathed to a grandson, Harvey R. Mack.

R. E. M. Mack and A. O. Mack are appointed executors of the will.

Uhh, yeah, where I am from? That counts as "direction." Besides, when that bug bites you, sometimes you have to wonder if it is an agent of providence?

Harvey Rowan Mack died in 1969, in Springfield, Missouri. He had two daughters. And so it begins.