Monday, July 25, 2022
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Marion Hollins, my 8th cousin twice removed
Hollins was an elite amateur golfer, winning the US Women's Amateur in 1921 and the Pebble Beach Championship a record seven times. She also captained the inaugural USA Curtis Cup team in 1932. On the basis of a shared strategic golf course architectural philosophy , she forged a fruitful and enduring design collaboration with Alister MacKenzie on multiple projects including Pasatiempo, Augusta National and Cypress Point. MacKenzie extended her full credit for the idea of making Cypress Point's iconic 16th hole into a dramatic "one-shotter". This hole endures today as a testament to her capability as a player and her vision as a golf designer/architect. Yet among her many accomplishments, none exceeds her role in developing the Monterey Peninsula into a golf Mecca. In particular she will always be remembered as the inspirational driving force behind the founding and formation of the Cypress Point Club. In 2020, Hollins was elected to the 2021 (now 2022 due to the pandemic) World Golf Hall of Fame, along with Tim Finchem, Susie Maxwell Berning and Tiger Woods.
Friday, May 27, 2022
Charles Winslow Gates, Governor of Vermont, 7th cousin 3 times removed
Thursday, May 26, 2022
Remembering my relatives who were KIA in the World's wars
Edwin F. Adams, 1862, Civil War; 2Lt. Arthur Jay Allred, 1943, WWII, Morocco; 1Lt. John W. Anderson, 1944, WWII, Italy; Cpl. Alvah Ernest Avery, 1918, WWI, France; Captain Kenneth Frank Backus, 1975, Vietnam; George Eastman Barnes, 1847, Mexican War, Chapultepec; Captain Oliver Bates, 1775, Westford, Mass; Capt. Paul Jennings Bates, Jr., 1971, Vietnam, Quang Tri; Cpl. Walworth Wade Boynton, 1864, Civil War, Fairfax, Virginia; HM3 Philip Sherwood Bryant, 1968, Vietnam, Quang Tri; Pvt. Henry J. Butterfield, Civil War, Gettysburg, PA; Andrew Jackson Clark, 1864 Civil War, Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Cpl. Henry James Clark, 1864, Civil War, Spotsylvania, Virginia; Sgt. Vincent Allen Clark, 1968, Vietnam, Vietnam; Major Allen Joe Conley, 1944, WWII, Italy; Lt. Joseph Allen Davis, 1863, Chancellorsville, Virginia; SSgt. Willis M. DeForest, 1945, WWII, Italy; Benjamin Franklin Eastman, 1864, Civil War; Lt. Kenneth Elvin Eaton, 1944, WWII, Italy; Maj. Virgil Loren Emerson, 1943, WWII; Charles Ainsworth Etherington, 1864, Civil War, Dallas, Georgia; Irving Lee Stone Farley, 1944, WWII; Sgt. Roger Wayne Fellers, 1970, Vietnam, Vietnam; PFC Raymond L. Fish, 1945, WWII, Germany; Capt. Herbert Donald Fogg, 1943, WWII, Tunisia; William Follett, 1864, Civil War, Resaca, Georgia; Dennis Alan Getty, 1967, Vietnam, Vietnam; Sgt. Jamie Gray, 2004, Iraq War, Baghdad, Iraq; Maj. Mason Wilbur Gray, 1918, WWI, France; James N. Hamilton, 1865, Civil War; Capt. Abner G. Heald, 1863, Civil War, Chickamauga, Georgia; Benjamin Franklin Heald, 1864, Civil War, Spotsylvania, Virginia; Capt. John Avery Heald, 1865, Civil War, Prince Edward County, Virginia; Capt. Donald B. Holyoke, 1944, WWII; Cpl. James Bingham Huntington, 1864, Civil War, Kennesaw, Georgia; WO Dee Aaron Hyden, 1969, Vietnam, Quang Tri; Jesse Lynn Johnson, 1944, WWII, France; Hanford D. Kinney, 1863, Civil War; Newcomb Kinney, 1864, Civil War, Virginia; Henry Rudolph Kramer, 1918, WWI, France; Sgt. Daniel Lamson, 1862, Civil War, Virginia; LCpl. Rexford Adelbert La Rock, 1966, Vietnam, Quang Tri; Granville Loring Marean, 1942, WWII; 2Lt. Lindsay LaRue McCall, 1943, WWII; Asa Heald Melvin, 1864, Civil War, Petersburg, Virginia; Sgt. Augustus J. Miller, 1863, Civil War,\ Louisville, Kentucky; 1Lt. Willis Bryant Moulton, 1944, WWII, Niedersachsen, Germany; Lt. Albert Mason Murdock, 1865, Civil War, Petersburg, Virginia; Theodore Carroll Newcity, Jr., 1967, Vietnam, Vietnam; SSgt. Gail M. Omholt, 1945, WWII, Manheim, Germany; PFC Raymond Boardman Parkhurst, Jr., 1945, WWII, Germany; Pvt. Charles Nevins Parkhurst, 1862, Civil War, Stafford, Virginia; Dr. Phineas Parkhurst, 1778, Revolutionary War, Boston, Massachusetts; Ira A. Payne, 1863, Civil War; Pvt. Shattuck Parker Peck, 1865, Civil War, 1865, Petersburg, Virginia; Sgt. Edwin Darling Pickett, 1863, Civil War, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Steven S. Pierce, 1862, Civil War, Pittsburg Landing, Virginia; Corp. William Putnam, 1864, Civil War, Cedar Creek, Virginia; Pvt. George E. Reed, 1864, Civil War, Reams, Virginia; Theodore F. Ripley, 1863, Civil War, Memphis, Tennessee; 1Lt. William E. Sharp, Jr. 1945, WWII, Belgium; Howard Allen Shepardson, 1943, WWII, Papua, New Guinea; George Loring Sherman, 1864, Civil War, Spotsylvania, Virginia; PFC. Ralph Everett, Sherwin, 1944, WWII, France; Waldo Sherwin, 1864, Civil War, Washington, D. C.; PFC Charles J. Siffrinn, 1944, WWII, Italy; William Lewis Sisco, 1945, WWII; Sgt. Adoniram Judson Slafter, 1863, Civil War, Knoxville, Tennessee; 2Lt. Albert Slafter, 1863, Civil War, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Pvt. Edward Albert Spalding, 1865, Civil War, Memphis, Tennessee; Homer Spaulding, 1862, Civil War, Shiloh, Tennessee; Lt. Joseph Spaulding, 1775, Revolutionary War, Boston, Massachusetts; Oscar Spaulding, 1862, Civil War, Culpeper, Virginia; Lt. Richard Arnold Storrs, 1918, WWI, France; Pvt. George Stowell, 1864, Civil War, Vicksburg, Mississippi; 2Lt. Gaines Randall Stuart, 1944, WWII, France; Leader Ray Thaldorf, 1945, WWII, Luxembourg; SSgt. Garth G. Thurston, 1945, WWII; Capt. John Harvie Underwood, 1945, WWII, Germany; Corp. Mark Dee Vincent, 1970, Vietnam, Vietnam; PFC Michael Frederick Walker, 1968, Vietnam, Tay Ninh; Ruvillo R. Walker, 1865, Civil War, New Orleans, Louisiana; Pvt. Leland Standford Westover, 1917, WWI, France; FO Devoe, Wolf, 1944, WWII, Belgium; Lt. Warren Kenneth Wright, 1944, Northern Mariana Islands
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
John Davis, 4th Cousin 6 times removed
U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, Massachusetts Governor. He attended Leicester Academy, graduated from Yale College in 1812, studied law, was admitted to the bar and commenced to practice law in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was elected as a open candidate to the Nineteenth Congress and to the next four succeeding Congresses, serving (1825-34), when he was elected the 14th Governor of Massachusetts, serving (1834-35). In 1835, he was elected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the United States Senate, serving until 1841. After his term, he was again the 17th Governor of Massachusetts, serving (1841-43). In 1845, he was elected as a Whig to the United States Senate, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Isaac C. Bates, was reelected in 1847 and served until 1853. Among the founders of the State Mutual Life Assurance Company in 1844, after leaving politics he served as its president of the company until his death at age 67.
Monday, May 2, 2022
Katherine Rolston Ward Fisher, 8th Cousin twice removed
Biographical Database of Militant Woman Suffragists, 1913-1920
By Kathleen Smith
Teaching Professor, Georgetown University with research assistance from Pamela Nakahata Smith
Assistant Editor of The Suffragist; Recording Secretary, Washington, D.C. branch of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage
Born on October 20, 1871 in Massachusetts, Katharine Rolston Fisher, (aka Katharine Ward Fisher) was the daughter of Francis D. Fisher and Sarah E. Fisher (née Dix). She was the great-granddaughter of Revolutionary War Major General Artemas Ward, whose house in Shrewsbury exists as a museum to this day. Apparently never married and without children, Rolston Fisher passed away in her home state on January 1, 1950.
Katharine Rolston Fisher worked variously as a bibliographer, writer, and clerk. Between 1898 and 1900, she contributed articles to the Boston publication The Congregationalist. 1901 saw the publication of Elements of the Theory and Practice of Cookery: A Textbook of Household Science for Use in School, coauthored with Mary E. Williams.
On July 9, 1902, the New York World reported on a suicide attempt by Katharine Rolston Fisher, whom the newspaper identified as the librarian of the Manhattan-based Charity Organization Society. Friends and family interviewed by the paper expressed puzzlement about her leap from a Brooklyn bound ferry, noting that the twenty-five-year-old was in good health and had not suffered any romantic disappointments. She was living in California in 1909, but by 1911 she had returned to Brooklyn, N.Y.
Rolston Fisher's involvement with the suffragist movement can be traced at least to 1915 when the Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) reported that "Miss Katharine Rolston Fisher of California, a woman voter" had been brought on by Lucy Burns as an assistant editor for The Suffragist. A year later, according to the Washington Herald, she was elected recording secretary of the Washington DC branch of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. For the April 1, 1916 issue of The Suffragist, Rolston Fisher penned an article supporting the strategy of asking women in those states that had granted women the franchise to use their electoral power to elect proponents of federal action. She also was part of the Congressional Union's delegation to the Republican National Convention in Chicago in June 1916. In spring of 1917, Rolston Fisher participated in calls on congressmen to lobby for suffrage.
The September 22, 1917 issue of The Suffragist features a photo of Rolston Fisher holding an empty pole after the banner she and another picketer had been holding had been torn away by a group of sailors. The picket in question on September 13, 1917 had also resulted in Rolston Fisher's arrest. Along with five other demonstrators, she received a sentence of thirty days in the workhouse at Occoquan.
Rolston Fisher played an important role in publicizing the poor treatment of prisoners in the workhouse; while still in prison, she began to spread word of rotten food, proximity to prisoners with infectious diseases, pressure to perform manual labor while undernourished, withholding of mail, and denial of visits with counsel. As she would write in "From the Log of a Suffrage Picket," "We learned what it is to live under one-man law. The doctor's orders for our milk and toast and even for our medicines were countermanded by the superintendent, so we were told." Based on her time in Occoquan, Rolston Fisher also penned the poem "The Empty Cup" describing the harsh treatment of suffragist leader Lucy Burns.
The US Census of 1920 placed Rolston Fisher in residence at the 'Suffragist House' (NWP headquarters) at 14 Jackson Place, Washington, D.C. and listed her profession as a government clerk. According to Doris Stevens, she worked at the U.S. War Risk Bureau. In or around 1923, she wrote a pamphlet "Lucretia and Elizabeth, London 1840-Seneca Falls 1848," a copy of which can be found in the Library of Congress Special Collections. Rolston Fisher continued to reside in Washington, D.C. for the next twenty odd years while working variously as an author and bibliographer.
Selected Sources:
Adams, Katherine H. and Keene, Michael L., Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008)
"Edith Goode is Suffrage Head," Washington Herald, June 25, 1916, p. 7.
"Her Woe a Secret, Girl Tries to Die," New York World, July 9, 1902.
"Plan of Suffragists to Petition Congress," Evening Star, September 9, 1915, p. 22.
Rolston Fisher, Katharine, "Concerning Appeals," The Suffragist, April 1, 1916, p. 7.
Rolston Fisher, Katharine, "From the Log of a Suffrage Picket," The Suffragist, October 13, 1917, p. 9.
Rolston Fisher, Katharine, "The Empty Cup," The Suffragist, October 17, 1917, p. 8
Stevens, Doris, Jailed for Freedom (rev. ed), ed. Clare O'Hare (Troutdale, OR: NewSage Press, 1995)
"Portrait of Katharine Rolston Fisher, n.d.," National Women's Party Records, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, container I:150.
Monday, March 21, 2022
Medal of Honor Recipent, my 6th cousin, 4 times removed, Francis Snow Hesseltine
Civil War Medal of Honor Recipient. He served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Union Army in the 13th Maine Infantry. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for action on December 30, 1863. His citation reads "In command of a detachment of 100 men, conducted a reconnaissance for two days, baffling and beating back an attacking force of more than 1000 Confederate cavalry, and regained his transport without loss."
Sunday, March 13, 2022
Monday, March 7, 2022
Mary Chaffee Heald - 7th Cousin once removed who had an active life.
Mary Chaffee Heald was born in Canton, IL, 1 Aug 1895. She was married in Winnetka, IL, 6 Jun 1931, to Spencer Rehbock Heindel (b. Freeport, IL, 16 June 1893, son of Albert Jacob and Leonore Fredericka (Rehbock) Heindel). After graduating from Canton High School in 1913, Mary attended Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, from 1913 to 1916. While a student at Oberlin College, she met future author and playwright Thornton Wilder, who was dating a close friend of hers. She also dated future 1940 presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, who was briefly staying with his brother Eddie, a student at Oberlin. Her Oberlin education was interrupted by the sudden death of her mother after which she stayed home to keep house for her father. Returning to college, Mary received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Beloit College, Beloit, WI, in 1922. She later earned a Bachelor of Library Science degree from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, in 1929. After her Beloit graduation, she taught one year of high school English at Stockton, IL, also meeting her future husband in the process. She then taught two years of mechanical drawing and general mathematics at Painesville, OH, high school. Following these three years of teaching, she held library positions at Columbia University, Rutgers University, and the University of Chicago. She then married in 1931 and moved to Dixon, IL, to raise a family. After her sons were both in college, she began working again, this time as head cataloger for the Dixon Public Library, totaling twenty-one years of service, retiring at age 80 in 1976. Mary was a sixty year resident of Dixon, Ill.Mary's great passion was family genealogy. Through her research at Chicago, Madison, Boston, New York, and Salt Lake City libraries and many trips to New England, she identified over 1000 ancestors. At the conclusion of this research, she privately published the first volume of the Heald-Chaffee Genealogy in 1976 at age 81. The second volume followed two years later in 1978. She also wrote two manuscripts containing her recollections of childhood and family as gifts for her grandchildren, both written in 1984 at age 89.
Organizations to which she belonged include P.E.O.; The National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution (qualifying for membership with ten revolutionary war ancestors); National Society Women Descendants of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company; and Pi Beta Phi social sorority. Mary's hobbies, beside genealogy, included photography; bird watching; reading historical novels, biographies, and travel books; weaving (once recognized as one of 13 state winners of the Illinois "Art is Ageless" competition in 1988); and travel. She made six trips to the British Isles, Scandinavia, Europe (including Italy and Spain), and Africa. Also traveled extensively in the U.S., including experiencing the Colorado River raft trip in 1968 at age 73.
Mary died in Mt. Lebanon, PA, 30 Dec 1995 (age 100).
Daniel Heald - Minuteman
My 3rd Cousin, seven times removed
Daniel Heald born at Concord, Mass., married Abagail Wheeler December 25, 1760, a daughter of Thomas Wheeler of Lincoln, Mass. Daniel Heald was one of the patriot soldiers of the early colonies, who at the Concord bridge contested with King George's Red Coats the passage of the bridge, while his wife and children who had fled from their home on the approach of the Red Coats, viewed the battle from a neighboring hill. He, with his family, emigrated to Vermont about the year 1776, and settled in a small sparsely settled town, then called New Flemstead, afterwards named Chester, in Windsor County, in the southern part of Vermont. He built a frame house about 1790 that is still occupied in 2008.
Member of "The Wild Bunch" - My 8th cousin once removed
LAURA BULLION Laura Bullion (1890s) was born in Knickerbocker, Texas near Mertzon in Irion County, in 1876. The actual date of her birth is ...
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My 3rd Cousin, seven times removed Daniel Heald born at Concord, Mass., married Abagail Wheeler December 25, 1760, a daughter of Thomas Whe...
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Revolutionary War militia officer. He was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill, fought on Breed's Hill. Months before the outbreak of w...





