2018 Road Trip #2 (Kid Tours with Mary)

fhdiiiLeave a comment

Second road trip of the year, and this one was different than any I have taken before.

Because…

Wait for it…

I went with my fiancé!!

1308
Mary and Frank

Meet Mary Martini.  We are planning on getting married on August 10th this year, and celebrating with a cruise to Alaska.  That will be a trip with lots of pics I am sure.

And now I also have a whole bunch of new genealogy work to do.  I will have to live to my 90’s to get it all done, if genealogy research can ever get done.

On this trip we visited Chris, Lia and Emma and had a great time and watched Emma play a great soccer game. Then traveled to PA to see Brian, Amy and Sammy for another great time and to watch Sammy play baseball (and break his hand in the process).  Then traveled to Virginia to spend some quality time with Stephanie and Steven, along with Steven’s parents.  Then back to Columbus for a night and finished the trip off with a visit to see Ron and Pat Guoan and Bill and Judy Black, including a rousing game of 6 player Sequence, and on the morning we headed home we stopped and visited Anna Mae Wires along with Rick and Norma.

We visited a prison in Mansfield Ohio where they filmed Shawshank Redemption.

We visited the Indian Echo Caverns in Pennsylvania.

DSC01188

And up to the Star in Roanoke (after visiting Black Dog Salvage).

IMG_20180512_132548

2018 Road Trip #1

fhdiiiLeave a comment

Short road trip with Mary Martini over to visit her sister and family in Holton, Michigan.  First we visited the Frederick Meijer sculpture gardens and butterfly exhibit in Grand Rapids.  We were greeted by the Michigan marching band (see pic below).  Of course later that evening we also had to endure Michigan getting smoked by Villanova.

Go Blue!
Butterfly
Butterflies
Sculpture1
Sculpture2
Sculpture?
My personal favorite

 

On Tuesday we visited the White River Light House and museum (not open yet unfortunately) before heading back home through a beautiful cold, rainy and snowy day in April.

White River Light House 1
White River Light House 2

George Thomas “Mickey” Davenport

fhdiii1 Comment

Uncle Mickey is my only living Aunt or Uncle.  And the one that I know the least about. But I have learned a bit through my research and chat with his daughter Kristine.  So here you go:

Uncle Mickey was born George Thomas Davenport on 10 February 1933 in White Bear Lake, Ramsey County, Minnesota.  He was the youngest of 6 six children and born 4 years after my father Frank.  He had four older sisters Olive, Lois, Barb and Marian.  His dad, our grandpa, died in 1945 when he was 12 years old so he would have probably lived with his mom Muriel, our grandma, in Minnesota.  There are some stories of him being in Bay City for a bit but at some point he moved to California, because:

He married Loretta Mae Stone in Butte County, California on 9 July 1952.  They have a son Robert Allen Davenport born 3 November, 1953 and a daughter Teresa “Terry” Lynn Davenport born 8 May 1957 in Salt Lake City, Utah.   Teresa passed away on 8 August 2003.  Kristine has confirmed this to me as good information, so lo and behold we have two more first cousins that we never knew about (or at least I never knew about).  Here are a couple of pictures I found of Uncle Mickey, one of which is a picture of him with Loretta.  And also a yearbook picture (top row, 4th from the right) with Loretta in it:

Uncle Mickey and Loretta
Tom & Lorry July 52 – Frank II brother and his first wife
Uncle Mickey
Uncle Tom “Mickey” & Sniffy

Chico High School yearbook - Loretta

I am not sure how long he lived in Salt Lake City, and I did not find a divorce record from Loretta, but I know that he married Juanita Lois Urbano about 1963 and she is the mother of Kristine.  Here is a yearbook picture of Juanita:

Juanita Yearbook

I have some somewhat conflicting information regarding his divorce from Juanita, but I have a marriage record between Uncle Mickey and Mary Lou Limon on 6 October 1979 (this is also confirmed by Kristine). I do not believe they are together anymore and I am unclear on any other information.

It would be fun some day to actually meet my first cousin Robert Allen.  And I do know that Teresa did marry a Paul Evans and they appear to have had two children born in the 1980’s.

I guess I need a road trip to California!

Olive Anne Davenport

fhdiiiLeave a comment

My Aunt Olive was the oldest sister of my father.  She was born 9 May 1920 to Frank (36) and Muriel (24) in Russell, Manitoba, Canada.  She would move with her family to North Dakota around 1922 and then to White Bear Lake, Minnesota around 1928, where our Grandpa Frank would minister at an Episcopal church called St. John in the Wilderness.  Our grandfather Frank passed away in 1945.  I have attached a PDF copy of portions of a history of that church with pages pertinent to our grandfather.

St Johns History with Frank only

From that history I discovered that Olive was first married to James Bernard Baine.  James had enlisted in 1941 and served in the U.S. Army Air Force during WWII.  Olive and James married 21 May 1943 in Jacksonville, Florida.  Staff Sgt. James was killed in action on 24 January 1944 (only 8 months after they were married) and was buried at the Cambridge American Cemetery (plot F, row 3, grave 77) in England.  He received the Air Medal and Purple Heart awards.  Olive was working as a defense worker according to the marriage certificate and still listed her residence as White Bear Lake, so I am not sure how the Florida thing figures in.

Olive and Blaine marriage certificate

Olive married Donald John McArdell 17 March 1945 and they had four children; John, Susan, William and Thomas all living and a part of my first cousin clan.  That first cousin clan is larger than I thought but more about Uncle Mickey and that subject on another post.  Olive passed away on 4 August 2002 and Don passed away 29 June 2003.

One last interesting fact about Olive and Don: Olive and Don are sixth cousins two times removed, according to a formula I found and the following information linking them both to a common ancestor:

8 Thomas Davenport 1681-1745
m. Catherine Woodworth 1673-1729		 ≡ Thomas Davenport 1681-1745
m Mary Pitman 1684-1740		 6
7 Oliver Davenport 1714-???? Gideon Davenport 1738-1810 5
6 John Davenport 1735-1809 John Davenport 1766-1822 4
5 Humphrey Davenport 1773-1859 Gideon Davenport 1803-1850 3
4 Oliver Davenport 1799-1870 Joseph Davenport 1831-1907 2
3 Paul Dudley Davenport 1823-1888 William E Davenport 1860-1938 1
2 Irene A Davenport 1845-1899 Frank H Davenport I 1884-1945
1 Minnie Emma Wilkins 1869-1913 Olive A Davenport 1920-2002
Raymond J McArdel 1896-1965
Donald J McArdel 1923-2003

For ref. here is the formula:

“There is a mathematical way to identify the degree of cousinship shared by two
individuals. In the description of each individual’s relationship to the most recent
common ancestor, each “great” or “grand” has a numerical value of 1. The
following examples demonstrate how this is applied.

Example: If person one’s great-great-great-grandfather is person two’s grandfather, then
person one’s “number” is 4 (great + great + great + grand = 4) and person two’s “number”
is 1 (grand = 1). The smaller of the two numbers is the degree of cousinship. The two
people in this example are first cousins. The difference between the two people’s
“numbers” is the degree of removal. In this case, the two people are thrice (4 — 1 = 3)
removed, making them first cousins three times removed. “

Highbanks Hike in February

fhdiiiLeave a comment

Who knew in February that I could get a walk in 75 degree weather!  We went to a park called the Highbanks which is on the north side of Columbus, Ohio and had a great walk with myself, Lia and my granddaughter Emma leading the way.  There were many trails to explore and we took the overlook trail.  Will have to hit some of the longer trails on another day.  Here are a few pics of our walk, which I am sure will be much prettier once the leaves and foliage turn green.

Highbanks Sign
Information Sign
Highbanks Lia and Emma
Off on our journey
Highbanks View
A view along the way
Highbanks Emma
Emma getting a view of an occupied Bald Eagle nest
Highbanks Overlook
A view from the overlook

Hike with Brian & Sam – Dec 2017

fhdiiiLeave a comment

Final hike of the year with Brian and Sam to see their deer hunting location north of Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Off we go on our hike after parking the truck.  Beautiful chilly day with a hike that was about 3.5 miles long.

Brian_2

Sign with information about the land we took the hike on.

Brian_1

The view looking south from their hunting spot.  I see at least one wild animal.

Brian_3

The view looking west with Sam keeping watch for the all elusive squirrels.

Sammy

Lester Burton Davenport

fhdiii2 Comments

I have run many times into “brick walls” in my genealogical research of my family, and this man, Lester Burton Davenport is what I finally found behind one of my walls.  I had heard through my cousin Tom McArdell in Minnesota that our great grandfather William Edgar Davenport may have fathered a child early in life before marrying our great grandmother Mary Anne Hyde and fathering our grandfather Frank Howard Davenport and many other aunts and uncles.  As noted in an earlier post William also divorced Mary Anne and ended up marrying again (Jennie May Richards) across the country in California, where he passed away in 1938.

In my search I found a reference to a Lester B Davenport listed as a grandson in a 1900 census of Pawtucket, Rhode Island (14 Browne Street). Joseph (Darling Davenport) and Amanda M (Burton) are the parents of William and John Graham Davenport is a brother of Joseph.  This had to be the break in the brick wall!

1900 census data with Lester1900 census with Lester

I know it says Daneport on the data but this has to be Davenport.  William married Mary Hyde in April of 1883 about a year after Lester was born, so I am guessing that Lester was raised by his grandparents.  I have found other sources of information for Lester which confirm his middle name was Burton (which makes sense because William’s grandmother was a Burton).  Here is the other information I have been able to find:

Born: March 20, 1882 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Father: William E. Davenport (b. 22 Aug. 1860 in Pawtucket, d. 13 Jul 1938 Glendale, CA)
Mother: Clara Jencks (Have not found any more information other than her name)

Married: Ella May Horton Oct 1, 1900 (who passed away in 1918 at 38 years old)
One child with Ella: Estelle Burton Davenport, born 13 Nov 1900, (date of death?)
In 1910 census only Ella is listed with Estelle and her status is single so it appears their marriage did not last long.  Still searching for more information on her.

One child: William E Davenport born Dec 17, 1917 (Date of death??)  It is unclear who the mother is (so far in my research), but he is listed as a son of Lester and Catherine in a 1930 census in Lincoln, Rhode Island.

Married: Catherine Meehan Aug 22, 1921 (date of death?).  Marriage occurred in Manhattan, New York..

Died: 4 Sep, 1932 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.