I have filed for the medical records of my great grandmother, Carrie Bybee Agnew, who died in the Madison State Hospital for the Mentally Insane, in 1916. She was admitted sometime after the 1910 census, where she was still living at home, a widow of 4 years. I know from cemetary records that she died of some sort of “brain hemorrage” and was returned to New Albany to be buried next to her husband, my great grandfather, James Agnew, who died in a fall off a ladder, while painting a house with one of his sons, in 1906. This all takes place where they lived out their adult lives, southern Indiana.
great grandmother Carrie Bybee Agnew
August 14, 2011Vansandt Morgan
August 12, 2011I am having a series of quick breakthroughs on family history, to the extent that I cannot even keep up with it! It is jumping ahead at light speed. I have no doubt that Aunt Lucille is helping from the next world, since she just got there. I also feel certain that eventually, all the family lines will be able to be traced back to their origins. It is so exciting to put the pieces together.
On my husband’s side, through his grandmother Julia (Morgan) Black, “Vansandt Morgan” was traced thru his mother’s line to the American Revolution & beyond. So my daughters can now join the D.A.R. organization (not that they would ever want to).
Immigrant on the Vansandt family line was: Gerrit Stoffelse Van Sandt, married to Lysbeth Gerretze, immigrated 1651 to New York. That’s a very early immigration, folks.
Going back to the John Morgan who married Dolly Haniford, the Haniford side, we now know, came to America from Cork County, Ireland, in 1853, Thomas Haniford (sp. Hanaford) placed an ad in a Boston newspaper searching for his brother, Timothy, who had immigrated a year earlier with 3 sons.
poem for my father-in-law
August 10, 2011Life Sneaks Up on You
Life sneaks up on you,
You’re not thinking about it,
You turn around,
And your kids are grown,
Your kids, in fact, have grandchildren,
And they are telling YOU
what to do,
You wouldn’t listen to them,
except you’re having trouble
getting out of your chair,
Your neck is in a 24-hour brace,
And they can’t figure out how to cure the infection
That sends you running to the bathroom,
Just yesterday, you took your wife
on a Caribbean cruise,
Drove out of state for family weddings,
Walked 2 miles when you felt like it,
Now, there are more pills to take
than you can remember,
Your body aches from constant pain,
You leave the house with a diaper on,
Your friends and siblings
Disappear,
One by one, they desert you,
You spend more time at the funeral home
than you do in your own living room,
Inside, you feel like the same young man
who years ago, returned from the war,
married the pretty young girl you loved,
and started your own home,
Hopes and dreams melt into
days gone by,
You turn around
And the years are gone,
You have no idea how this happened,
Yet, in everything, there is a season,
a time for every purpose under heaven,
the less time we have, the more we value it,
— the more precious the hours we are given.
CF Black, 7-30-2011
going to the doctor
August 9, 2011I am going to the doctor today. Nothing is wrong, at least that I know of. It’s just that I am approaching my 58th birthday and I never go to a doctor— like ever. I figure it’s the responsible thing to do.
Having never been to a doctor except for less than a handful of times since I had my kids (yes, really), I have a certain great amount of trepidation about going! I don’t like doctors, have never liked hospitals, but I realize a lot of this is irrational fear. At my age and with the history just mentioned, I refuse to see a male doctor for a gynecological exam. It just is not within my being to do so, to have some random strange man looking at my body parts. I know this is also based on irrational worries, but I don’t care. The point is to get myself into a doctor’s examination room and have a check-up.
I am going in this morning only for them to draw blood. The appt. is actually next week. And it’s taking me forever to take a shower and get going.
My last 2 kids were actually home births, as in “in our home”. I definitely saw a doctor all through the pregnancy, who knew of our plans, and also a lay midwife. Everything looked 100% and all turned out well. I just don’t like hospitals. They are impersonal, bureaucratic, and we know today that infections are rampant in them. You have to tell every shift of nurses the same things you told the last shift of nurses, they wake you every few hours, you hear noises and can’t sleep in hospitals. At any rate, at my age I want things checked out, see how I’m doing, check the heart, check the sugar levels, etc. There is zero incidence of cancer in my family. I know of none. No diabetes either. However, there certainly is heart disease. I’m getting to the age where arteries could be blocked & it’s just time to check things out.
I walk 3 miles a day, take an occasional swim, do not crave sweets, feel pretty good. I’m starting to have a few aches & pains out of nowhere but nothing major.
Morgan family history
August 8, 2011This is on my husband’s side, through his Grandma Julia Black’s father’s side.
Found some more on the Morgans today.
John Morgan married Johanna “Dolly” Haniford (parents of Julia).
–John Morgan’s parents were: James Watson Morgan and Rebecca Jennie Wagoner.
–James Watson was called “Watt”.
–I have a picture of Watt and Jennie, from Aunt Lucille. — not good quality, but it is something. They are fairly old in the picture. “Watt” and Jennie Morgan had 4 kids: Sue E., Harrison, JOHN (who married Johanna), and Edward.
——“Watt’s” parents were: Joshua Morgan and Susan Jacobs. Susan was Joshua’s 2nd wife. They had 4 kids, James Watson being one of them.
——Joshua and Susan Morgan are buried in Bethel cemetary in Attica.
Joshua was supposedly born in OHIO in 1820.
Susan was born in OHIO in 1827.
————Now, I have to research MORE to check on this, but JOSHUA’S FATHER, supposedly, was named: VANSANDT MORGAN and was born in Pennsylvania……….in 1785 ?? AND died in ————-TIPPECANOE COUNTY INDIANA in 1840. Fascinating.
————Vansandt was married to Nancy Murrell, born in Tennessee in 1788 and died in Indiana.
Mary Reid Agnew’s roots
August 6, 2011Been researching more Bedford Indiana relatives of my grandma Mary (Reid) Agnew today.
Following her mother’s line, her mother was CORA OWENS. Cora married Charles Reid. I have a picture of them engaged. Charles worked for a stone company (go figure — southern Indiana).
Cora’s parents were Solomon Jordan Owens and Margaret Lemond. They were still born in southern Indiana.
Solomon’s parents were: Owen Owens born in Tennessee; and Frances “Fanny” Hunter born in KY. They are the ones who migrated north to southern Indiana & the Bedford area. They migrated to Indiana sometime between 1810 and 1840.
Margaret Lemond’s parents were John O. Lemond and Rachel Moore. They came from Rockingham County, North Carolina. They migrated to Indiana in that same time period.
— Going back to Charles Reid and Cora Owens, tracing Mary’s father’s line, Charles Reid’s father Alexander Reid was born in KY. His mother, Nancy SMITH came from southern Indiana. NANCY’S PARENTS, Peter Smith and Margaret Ford are buried in Bedford, but Peter came from North Carolina and Margaret from Tennessee. Peter and Margaret would have come west and north to Indiana in that same time period, sometime after 1810 and before Peter’s death in 1849.
Peter Smith’s roots go back to Germany on both his parents’ sides. So from my Grandma Mary Agnew, some of her father’s roots trace back to Germany also. “Schmidt” would be the name there.
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?? It means on my family’s side there are strong roots in southern Indiana, & most all of them migrated there during the 1820s-1840s, from NORTH CAROLINA, TENNESSEE AND KY. And it means one side goes back to Germany. But not the Agnews. They will be Irish, English or Scottish eventually. And then there’s my other side: the Dutch.
— Some of those who migrated to southern Indiana have gravestones showing up in Bedford cemetaries online. But a lot of them are not found so far.
unemployment
August 5, 2011My husband is unemployed. Though he got employee of the month twice in the past 6 mos., he was laid off. He was a remote recruiter for a medical management program at a university in Missouri. New management decided to do away with all remote employees. And that, as they say, was that.
We live in SC. Filing for unemployment here in SC, where he worked from home and paid South Carolina state taxes, they say the university never paid any money into SC unemployment. This is not surprising, since they only had one employee who worked from home in South Carolina: my husband. However, it is not our fault, and we should not have to suffer, due to their negligence or ignorance or ineptitude in handling THEIR financial affairs. Of course, that is not how things work. We are suffering, because neither South Carolina nor Missouri will take the responsible step, and give us an unemployment check.
We do not have the ability to wait it out while they fight over who pays the unemployment check to ONE employee who happened to work from home in one state for a university in another. This is the technological age, the 21st century. He is not the ONE SOLITARY EMPLOYEE who worked remotely from home this past 2 years. But we are dealing with the government and bureaucracy of the state of South Carolina.
At this point, he has been without work for 6 weeks, and there is no unemployment check in sight, while they do an “investigation” of his employment at said university. We are letting our bills accumulate to being 2 months due, and then things will begin getting shut off. Thank you, great country and state, for looking out for the working guy, for putting people first, for caring.
I am saying my prayers and begging God for money. Yup, no qualms here. All I want to do is pay my bills. I figure God knows that. There is one job prospect in the near future and if it works out, we may expect a paycheck in, oh, let’s say a month. But that is only a hope at this point. So what we have right now, is a hope & a prayer.
Grandpa’s Thanksgiving prayer
August 3, 2011My grandpa George Plantenga always said the Lord’s prayer memorized, faster than anyone I’ve ever heard say it. He had one other prayer, which he said at Thanksgiving. I just found a copy of it. He never read these, he said them from memory.
Oh mighty God and Heavenly Father,
again we draw nigh unto Thee
on this noon hour this Thanksgiving Day,
We thank Thee for the many bountiful blessings granted unto us,
We thank Thee that Thou hast prepared us for the life given unto us,
the health and strength to accomplish our daily tasks of life.
We pray that Thou will bless the food which has been prepared for us,
and that Thou will lead, guide and direct us,
and forgiveth our sins.
We ask it in Jesus’ name,
Amen.
Mary Reid Agnew family history
August 3, 2011My dad’s mom, Mary (Reid) Agnew, grew up in Bedford Indiana. We went there on the way home Tuesday. It is a beautiful spot in southern Indiana with beautiful, rolling green hills and valleys. She grew up on some farmland somewhere around Bedford, with her sister Margaret and brother “Noyes”. Yes, that was his name, Noyes. Funny. We found the gravesite of:
her father’s mother’s parents.
Mary Reid’s father was Charles Reid & her mother was Cora Belle Owens.
Charles’ parents were: Alexander Reid and Nancy Jane Smith.
Nancy Smith’s parents were Peter Smith and Margaret Ford Smith. Peter was born in 1793 in Rowan, North Carolina (!) and he died in 1848 in Bedford, Indiana.
Margaret, his wife, was said to have been born in Tennessee and died in Bedford, Indiana. No idea on the rest of their life stories, BUT! The interesting thing is:
Their gravesite was a big huge monument! So they must’ve had money.
So it was Peter and Margaret’s graves that we found, in the form of a big monument. True to form, my camera ran out of battery JUST AS I GOT THERE, so we took a picture on Dad’s phone, which has an excellent camera. Now I have to figure out how to get the picture off the phone and into the computer. The monument was about 8 feet tall.
It is amazing to me just how much of my family history is southern Indiana. On both the Agnew side and my Grandma Reid side (who married my Grandpa John Agnew) we are in Southern Indiana since before the Civil War. In Peter Smith’s case, I have no idea when they arrived in Indiana. That’s a next-step to research. In James Agnew’s case, my great grandfather, all I know is he somehow arrived there in the 1860s (probably coming down the Ohio river from Cincinnati). He was a painter; my grandpa John Wesley Agnew was a Monon RR man. Peter Smith, I don’t know yet. Probably a land owner.
LASTLY, I FOUND A LOVELY PICTURE OF MARY REID AGNEW as a child at her older sister, Margaret’s wedding, AND a WONDERFUL photo of Mary & Margaret’s parents, Charles and Cora Reid, in a family history book done by Margaret Reid’s children. Margaret, my grandma Mary’s sister, married into the LEECH family. This book is a history of the LEECH family, and coincidently, contains their mother’s REID family.
James Agnew – link to Underground RR
July 31, 2011There is always something more to learn.
James Agnew’s FIRST wife, Mary Caroline Gross, died at a young age of 31. She was a member of the 2nd Presbyterian church. Turns out, this was an underground railroad stop. It had a large clock tower that could be seen from across the river in KY. It is officially recognized as a stop on the Undergrd. RR. It had a basement & a tunnel that went under Main St., New Albany, IN. Anyway, it had some black church members back in those days. TODAY it is a 2nd Baptist (Black) church! Interesting, isn’t it.
Church was built in 1852, she died in 1874. I want to find out if people were buried at the church because I haven’t found any burial record for her yet & don’t know what she died of. Church was sold to the 2nd Baptists in 1889.
What this means is, it is possible our James Agnew & his 1st wife or her family were involved in the undergrd. railroad. Very interesting.
Doctor Grandma 