Uncle Peg’s Chronicles
August 31, 2023
“His Loathsum and Beastly Demeanor ”
This photo made me smile this week. This is my nephew,
Joseph Booth, taking a deployment break in Jerash, Jordan. Joseph is in the Charles
R Holmes line.
I am grateful to Jane Williams for sending me a copy
of a document which is, for now, anonymous, at least until I can find the
source. I have seen it before but couldn’t find it in my papers
(understandable). Perhaps Fen sent it to me. The document and transcription are
down a few pages. I’m also grateful to Jeanni Worster and Celia
Anklesaria for their pancake replies. And, glad to know that Celia makes
buckwheat pancakes, too. Neither of them tasted Mum’s, though.
Featured this week are Kristin Holmes and David
MacKillop.
I’ve known about Kristin for many years, and I
was pleased to meet her at our 2016 family gathering. In corresponding with her
uncle, Fen Holmes, he gave me lists of his nieces and nephews, and recommended
Kristin to me as one who was interested in our family history. She still is.
Kristin is owner of Swan Interiors, an interior design gallery and studio in
Maui. And yes, her shop is intact after the recent devastation of Maui,
although friends, acquaintances and clients were certainly affected by it.
Kristin is in the William Holmes line; she is the daughter of Jerome K and Alma
K (Vincent) Holmes and sibling of eight.
I’ve known about David’s family for many years,
as my mother was close to his grandfather, Raymond L MacKillop, and as you
know, Mum had a great memory and a great many stories to tell. Raymond David
MacKillop is in the Charles R Holmes line, the son of Ray MacKillop and Brenda
Miller. He is married to Autumn Rene and they have a six-year-old daughter who
must be in grade one now. They also have a young fluffy, curly-haired standard
poodle named Gus. David and I share a birth date – but not the same year. In
June, Autumn wrote of David on Facebook, “he is now a two time special place
finisher of his age group in two different 5ks. This year his goal is to run
one 5k a month from April – October. I believe he works in insurance, is a
volunteer fire-fighter, and preaches part-time.
~
My genealogy goals for this week were:
- Chronicle
several times, and publish on Thursday morning.
- Keep
writing my next article for Generations, which is about the will of
William Lotham. Francis Holmes is mentioned in his inventory both as owing
money and being owed money.
- Continue
indexing old New Brunswick obituaries and death notices for the NBGS
website project.
- Spend
a bit of time on Moore family research.
- Think
about and make lists for a welcome back in person party for our genealogy
society branch in October. It will have a book theme – old
genealogy/history books on a popup library display, and a for sale table
for books we longer need. Two short speakers, five to ten minutes each
tops. Leftover time will be for reacquainting and meeting new people, and
looking at books.
- In
the evening, after chores are done, edit the Fanny Holmes Ballantyne
family (first daughter of Daniel and Charlotte) the same way I did the
Louisa, William and Carrie lines. No rush on that.
- Plan
a cousin visit.
William Lotham’s story is coming along.
Although he is not in our family, he has no descendants, so why not Peg to tell
his bit of a story? After all, he and Francis Holmes were at least associates,
if not friends. I am currently working on the criminal element of Puritan
society. Punishments were harsh. Bedle was sent for a time to Fisher’s Island.
I cannot locate much information about early Fisher’s Island, and whether or
not criminals were sent there. Perhaps Roger and Bonnie can tell me.
Robert Bedle
was a criminal. A record of Hartford County says of Bedle in March of 1644,
“for his loathsu[m] and beastly demeanor is adiudged to be brought forth the
next lecture day to be seurely scourdged and to be keept in the House of
correctio[n] a fortnight longer and then brought forth againe to be publiquely
whipped, and then to be bownd to appeare at euery quarter Court to be whipped
vntill the Court see some reformation in him & shall see cause to release
him.”[1]
In December, 1644, shortly before Lotham’s death, he was sentence to restore
double for his thefts to Mr. Blakman for gunpowder; to Widow Foote; to Thomas
Welles for two sacks; to Richard Myles, for a blanket; and to Thomas Tracy, for
a sack. He was also branded on the hand.[1]
This is the person who Mr. Robins transported to Fisher’s Island before
Lotham’s death. In later years, he is found in company with other seemingly
unsavory characters. I did not see much reformation in him. (See also Latha[m]
and Mr. Robins.)
~
I worked on the James and Fanny Ballantyne
family. As it’s a review, it is coming right along. As I researched, I found a
cousin on Ancestry and contacted him. For you, Marvin, I did some
digging into past emails. You have two closer cousins in our Facebook group,
Brenda and Leanne, although I don’t know that either of them is working on
genealogy right now. Back in 2017, I asked Paula to assist me to research
Charles Rex Goodenough – a great grandson of Daniel and Charlotte Holmes. Paula
is not in your Ballantyne line, but she enjoys a good, deep, challenging
research, including rabbit trails. I had already been in touch with Brenda
about him, so I am including some info from both of them. Our Facebook group is
private, so this information does not go awry. I made a few changes – omissions
of what did not relate, and punctuation.
From
me to Paula in 1917:
“Hi Paula,
I wonder if you have some time to do a
bit more digging. This is a nephew of Jessie Ballantyne who we sort of figured
out a couple of years ago. No hurry.
Charles Rex Goodenough, born c. 1892 in
Hardy, Iowa, to Charles Henry Goodenough and Anna Louise Ballantyne. (Twin of
Jessie). Death unknown. We think he is aka Rex Gordon Goodenough.
Other siblings: Grant (died young);
Frances/Fanny (1889 - ?), married Arthur Davis; Nellie June (1985 - 1981), did
not marry; Myrne (1897 - 1994) married Waldo F Seiler.
He married Edna Rachel Malin c 1910, a
prim and proper lady. They had two daughters:
1 Frances Patricia, known as Patricia, 1916 - 1999
2 Rachel Louise 1917 - 1922
They (Rex and Edna) never divorced to my
knowledge. But, divorce records are few and far between.
In 1924, he allegedly left a suicide
note and disappeared. His wife said that she had a secret and would take it to
her grave.
I find a California marriage certificate
between Rex Gordon Goodenough (son of Charles Goodenough and Anna Ballantyne)
and Vera Rozelva Meyers in 1934, Los Angeles. In 1940, I find a California
marriage certificate between Vera and a Hastings.
Brenda (a Ballantyne descendant)
and I are trying to figure all this out and find some newspaper articles and
sources and a death date, and anything else. She attached these notes to her
ancestry page. We'd appreciate any help with this mystery.”
From Brenda’s ancestry page (back in 2013 – I haven’t
looked lately).
“The run off to California was my
gr. Grandfather . . . he did not commit suicide - he left his family. My gr.
grandmother came from a predominate family and to avoid shame, they said they
believed he committed suicide. So, my grandmother never knew her father but
kept in touch with her aunts who moved to California; when my grandmother went
out to visit is when she learned that he was alive. When he went out to
California, he ended up marring eventually a woman that was the age of his
daughter (my grandmother). Brenda M”
Added later:
“Charles left wife and daughters . . .a newspaper article in Iowa states
that Charles Rex Goodenough, after threats of suicide, has disappeared and has
not been found. The Goodenough family all removed to California. My
grandmother/his daughter said she will go to her grave with a secret. I believe
when my grandmother and grandfather traveled to California in 1940 to visit the
Aunts Myrna and June, she found her father. As I was searching documents, I
came across one I believe is the same man: a marriage license for a Rex Gordon
Goodenough and a Vera Rozelva Meyer listing Charles H Goodenough and Anna
Ballantyne as parents of the groom. Records were not electronic and harder to
verify so it would be easy for him to switch up his name. I believe this is the
secret my grandmother took with her to her grave.”
Paula’s
research recap: email dated March 7, 2017.
“My conclusion is that Rex did not die, he was just
abducted by aliens.
I don't think
that I have ever run into a person who just cannot be traced by some
means. I tried using his wives' names, his three sisters, his surviving
daughter-- I can't find one obituary for any of these people, and I know pretty
much about where they were living and when they died. Anyway, I don't
know how much of the rest of the family you want to know about, so I will focus
on what I have for Rex, and I am sure this will duplicate what you already
have.
Charles Rex
Goodenough, b. Hardy, Iowa, 5 Sept. 1892.
Sisters are Frances A "Fanny"
1889-? m. Arthur E. Davis; Nellie June b. 1895 or 1898, d. 1981 in
Los Angeles; Myrna (Mina or Myrne) E. b. 1897, m Waldo F Seiler, d. 1994
in Los Angeles.
Rex married
twice that I could find: (1) Edna Rachel Malin (1889-1960), born and died
in Iowa; two daughters with Rex. (2) Vera Rozelva Bachman
(1915-1998).
Wife
1) Edna Goodenough: 1925 Iowa State Census, "Widow",
servant boarding in a house and she had 2 yr. of college; 1930 Census,
"Married", teacher, boarding in a house in Missouri; 1940
Census, "Divorced", teacher, boarding in a house in Nebraska.
Seems that she thought he was dead, found out he was not, then either got a
divorce or declared herself divorced. Their younger daughter Rachel
(1918-1922) died from scarlet fever, and Rex was still around when Rachel
died. Other daughter, Francis (ces) Patricia was born in 1916 in Iowa and
died in 1999 in Minnesota, married Donald Wayne Wilson in 1940.
Wife
2) Vera. Vera was married very young to a FNU Meyers and was
divorced quickly. Possibly had an annulment. Her second husband
was "Rex Gordon" Goodnough (that is the spelling on the
marriage certificate), and they married in Los Angeles 17 June 1934, so she was
only 19. Then in 1940 she married Gilbert Hastings in Los Angeles.
On this marriage certificate she said she was a widow, but this might not be
true.
In 1934, Rex
Gordon is listed as living at 139 Burger Avenue, Los Angeles. On his
marriage application, he said this was marriage #2 and that he was
divorced. Vera said that she was single and this was marriage #1.
So, it is possible that her first marriage was annulled, or she lied. As
noted in the previous paragraph, on the occasion of marriage #3, she said she
was widowed and that this was marriage #2.
Please go to
the following web page and you can read about Vera and see why I said she might
not have been a widow. https://gatheringgardiners.blogspot.com/2013/01/vera-rozelva-bachman-hastings-1915.html. On this page she stated that she and
Rex/Charles were divorced. So, clearly she was mistaken or was lying at
the time of marriage #3.
I cannot find
any of the sisters in the 1930 census, nor can I find their obituaries, which I
hoped would mention Rex. He just vanished after 1934. I am not
convinced that he died before Vera married for the third time. I think he
could have changed his name again, although I have tried various iterations of
the Charles, Rex, and Gordon, as well as just a dummy 'blank' variable, using
his birthdate plus or minus a few years. I have tried various
spellings: Goodenough, Goodnough, Goodenough. Nothing works.
There is one
more final thing that I want to check. There was a "story" written by
the same person who wrote Birdman of Alcatraz that was published in a paper in
California. The story is about a person who assumed a false identity,
strangely enough it was someone named "Charles Goodenough". I
could only pull up Part 2, so I couldn't tell if this was written purely as
fiction or if this is somewhat of a real account of someone who was in
prison. I have to find Part 1 because it should have an explanation at
the beginning.
Paula”
That blog post
link is still available.
Here’s the
genealogies of our two Fanny descendants. You know to draw some charts to see
the relationships, if you so desire.
Brenda – Carol
– Patricia Goodenough – Charles Rex Goodenough – Anna Ballantyne – James W
Ballantyne and Frances Holmes.
Brenda – Carol
– Patricia Goodenough – Edna Rachel Malin – Dr. Edgar Malin and Susanna E
Glasgow.
Marvin – Merle
– Frances Goodenough – Anna Ballantyne – James W Ballantyne and Frances Holmes.
Leanne,
another descendant of James and Frances (Holmes) Ballantyne, descends from
Jessie, twin of Anna.
I haven’t done much research on that
family since 2017, although I do check every family line once in a while to see
if anything new pops up. I am currently working on the twelve children of
Daniel and Charlotte (Hoyt) Holmes. The genealogies of Louisa Holmes
Ballantyne, William Holmes, and Caroline Holmes Steeves are complete for now,
as I worked on them for the Lincoln, Maine, Historical Society. I decided to
start my review with child number one, Frances Ann (Fanny) Holmes Ballantyne,
wife of James W Ballantyne, to make it standard with the others. More
information in general is added online all the time.
Here is the most basic article. The
child who was injured was Edna Rachel Malin, daughter of Dr. E. C. Malin and
Susanna E Glasgow, and future wife of C. Rex Goodenough. Her sister, Alice, was
the child who died in the accident:
~
The following document is a handwritten
family history; for now, anonymous. I have transcribed this as best I can. If
you see a transcription error, let me know. (Misspellings are not transcription
errors.) The phrase “Daniel & ? burned in a pit” has annotation beside it
which I cannot read, but perhaps it is a correction of some sort. In the
sentence, “Daniel Holmes was born on L. I.” the L. I. is struck through and an
annotation provided but I don’t know what the annotation says. Could be W. C.
or N. S., but I can’t tell. Along the right side of the letter is
printed “This was written in pencil – This must be the letter you ____. On the
bottom, “(Grandma)” and “˄the poem I sent?)” are annotations.
Daniel Holmes’ mother was
Elizabeth Fountaine.
“
“ father “
Samuel Holmes.
Daniel Holmes brothers were
named James,
Stephen, John, Samuel,
Zoribbaal. Daniel & ____
burned in a pit. ____ ____ ____
His sister’s names were
Nancy, Liddy, Phoebe,
Lizzie, Debby and Sally.
Maria Holmes ^
formerly Marie Antoinette McElmon brother’s
names were Benjamin, Spiller,
Dobson, Robert, James and
William.
Her sisters were Elizabeth,
Abby, Peggy, Pamelia, Leah (?).
Daniel Holmes’ father was a
blacksmith & came
with family from L.
Island ^ Westchester NY to Nova Scotia. His name
was Samuel Holmes and his
wife was Elizabeth Fountaine.
Daniel Holmes was born on L.
I. His wife’s father was
Peter McElmon. Came from
North of Ireland & was Scotch,
when 9 days old. He married
Margaret re Peggy Fillmore in
Nova Scotia. Her parents
the Fillmores came from the States.
Daniel Holmes’ brother
Stephen was a doctor and lived &
died in Boston. His brother
Samuel married Betty Mc-
Elmon’s sister to Marie
Antoinette McElmon, in Nova Scotia
and went to Lake Ontario to
live. The brother John
lived in Minudie, N.S. His
sister Debby married John
Boss. Sally married Fawcett
& lived in Parrsboro.
Stephen Holmes married
Sarah ____ a friend of
____ Buffam ____ ____ ____
(Grandma) (the poem I sent?)
~
From last week’s chronicle: “Looking
forward to brunch/lunch on September 7 with our distant cousin . . . Who is
she? That’s your first clue – she! The second clue is that we have never met.
She is in our Holmes group. Anticipate.”
This week: Third clue is that she lives
in Ottawa, Ontario. Fourth, is that we share hair genes. Fifth, she descends
from Zorobable, brother of Samuel Jr. I do like saying that name, which is
spelled many different ways.
We must get a photo.
~
This week’s chronicle is sad. Bedle may
have been a criminal, and what he stole was probably quite dear in the 1600s.
Oh my, the punishment. And Edna Malin had a sad life. The accident must have
traumatized her. But, she was a trooper. After her youngest daughter died and
Rex left her, she went to teacher’s college and got her degree, and made a
career of teaching. She did not remarry.
I wish I only had “lived happily ever
after” stories about our ancestors, but life is not like that. Some did live
happily ever after, but not most. Life is full of ups and downs. We can be
proud of most of our ancestors, but some didn’t leave wonderful legacies.
Question – what did you like best about
going back to school? Or, did you like anything about going back to school?
Me? New blank notebooks and writing
utensils. Hated to make that first mistake in them. But, it was also an
intimidating experience for me, as I was once upon a time shy.
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