Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Least Information, Most Questions: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Least”

 

Teens Missing for Over a Week in 1957: No News Update on Homecoming

Theresa M Kendall: 1941-2007 (Maternal Second Cousin)

 

Sometimes news articles leave the reader with more questions than answers. Such is the case with a short news article from the September 7, 1957 edition of the Salem, Oregon Capital Journal. The headline reads “Sheriff Seeks Missing Girl” and reports that a fourteen-year-old girl from Dallas, Oregon was reported missing from her home on August 28, 1957, which means she’d already been gone for ten days. After describing her and the clothing she was last seen wearing, the article notes her parents were offering a $50 reward for her return.

Then comes the link to my family tree:

“She may be accompanied by Theresa Kendall, 15, who also has been reported missing.”


Theresa Kendall was born in Minnesota on December 11, 1941, to parents Nellie Laird and Charles Kendall. She was the oldest of their six children, and grew up in Polk County, Oregon.

So what happened in 1957? Fortunately, the two girls must have returned home after the news article came out, although the newspaper didn’t mention their return. However, both girls appear in school photos the following year, and move on to marriage and jobs as they entered adulthood.. They seem to have run away from home that August for some unknown reason, but were able to work things out with their families upon their return.

Theresa's junior year yearbook photo

What really strikes me is the difference in the way the sheriff’s office and newspaper treated Miss Slagle, the other missing girl, and Theresa. The sheriff is seeking only one girl, not two. Why doesn’t he seem to be concerned about Theresa’s fate? And why are her parents not matching the reward offered by the Slagle family or at least pleading for Theresa’s safe return? Why was there no description of Theresa and her clothing? If the girls were friends and had apparently run off together, why were they treated so differently by everyone in authority?

And where were the girls? Were they hiding out on their own, or were they with someone? They were too young to drive, so did they hitchhike, or did the sheriff and the girls’ families have a good idea who they were with—boyfriends perhaps?

Today there are still disparities in how missing children are treated by law enforcement, depending on their race and socio-economic status. Well-to-do, pretty young white girls get plenty of press attention when they have disappeared, but missing black or Latino girls or unattractive poor white girls don’t get the same coverage on the evening news or the newspapers, and the police don’t spend as much time investigating. I suspect something similar was happening in 1957 Dallas, Oregon. Perhaps Theresa was from the wrong side of the tracks, or perhaps she had run away before. Perhaps her parents were not comfortable dealing with law enforcement. Whatever the cause, the police did not treat her disappearance with the gravity that they treated Miss Slagle’s.

This article provides the least information about poor Theresa, and it leaves me with the most questions. I wish I knew why the two girls left home, when and why they returned, and where they were and who they were with while they were missing. At least I know Theresa survived her runaway adventure and went on to have many more---she ended up with at least five husbands!



Sources:

“Sheriff Seeks Missing Girl” The Capital Journal, Sept. 7, 1957. Accessed through Newspapers.com.

“Police Hunt Polk Girls”. Sunday Oregonian, Sept. 8, 1957. Accessed through Newspapers.com.

Friday, August 30, 2024

RAF Pilot to Boxing Promoter: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Planes”

 

From World War I Bombing Runs to NYC Boxing Matches: the Life of Edward Whitwell

Edward Horton Whitwell: 1879-1942 (Husband of Second Cousin 2x Removed)

 

Edward Horton Whitwell landed in my family tree when he married opera star Florence Macbeth, my second-cousin 2x removed. He deserved a post of his own, however brief, due to his amazing career change following his marriage. Captain Whitwell was an RAF pilot in World War I, became a military recruiter of sorts for the British Empire, and then turned to promoting boxing matches at the New York City Coliseum. From wings to welterweights, from flying to fighters: Edward Whitwell led an interesting life.


Edward Horton Whitwell was born May 29, 1879 in Kendal, England. His parents, Isaac Whitwell and Hannah Martindale Whitwell, had eight other children; Edward was the fourth oldest.

Edward appears on the 1881 census as a one-year-old; his father was a bootmaker. By the 1901 census, Edward is living on his own as a boarder while working as a plumber and gasfitter.

As World War I began, Edward apparently joined one of the precursors to the RAF—the RAF didn’t really become a separate service branch until April 1918, and was built from the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. The only record of Edward’s service I have found so far is a card from the “UK WWI Pension Ledgers and Index Cards, 1914-1923” database, which merely confirms his ranks as Flight Lieutenant and then Captain in the Air Force.


He seems to have been older than the average World War I pilot—he was thirty-five when the war began. All I know of his flying career is a paragraph in a 1918 newspaper article in the Brooklyn Eagle describing an event called Allies Day the Brooklyn NY YMCA:

“…Captain Edward Whitwell of the Royal Air Forces of Great Britain, who represented the British Government (at the event). Captain Whitwell, who has seen three years of service, gave thrilling accounts of several battles in which he took part. He told of the tricks used by aviators to get the enemy into a tight corner and for extricating themselves if they are caught in the same positions. He also described bombing raids and dangerous photographic work.”

From this account, it appears that Edward had served as a pilot from 1914-1917, and flew a variety of missions from reconnaissance to attacks and dogfights.

So how did he end up in the United States giving lectures to the public? Edward apparently was sent by the RAF to the New York area to serve a recruiting function as part of a program called the British-Canadian Recruiting Mission (BCRM).


The program targeted British and Canadian citizens living and working in the United States, encouraging them to enlist in British or Canadian units. The Mission handled all the transportation and visa details. The program was apparently surprisingly successful, recruiting 33,000 volunteers, most in 1918 when Edward was part of the effort. One article states that Edward was the aide to Brigadier General Kenyon, the British head of the BCRM.

British Canadian Recruiting Mission poster--1918

Edward’s name appears in various articles in newspapers in the New York City area as the organizer of various military pageants and events. He arranged for opera singer Florence Macbeth to perform at one of these events, and the two fell in love. They married after the war on December 8, 1922. He was forty-three years old, and Florence was thirty-three.


Edward remained in the United States following his marriage. While he occasionally travelled with Florence (see the article below mentioning them attending a dinner in Florence’s honor in California), he spent much of his time in New York City, where he became involved in the professional boxing world.


He became the boxing impresario for the New York City Coliseum, arranging bouts. In the article below, he is referred to as a "matchmaker"-- quite the clever pun to reflect his role in pairing up boxers for a match. 


I have no idea if he had any previous boxing experience or if he was just a fan of the sport and used the organizational skills he developed in the BCRM to begin planning boxing cards and schedules.



In his late fifties, Edward suffered a severe stroke that left his health impaired. He and Florence moved to California. He died there at age sixty-two on April 12, 1942. He was buried in Florence's hometown of Mankato, Minnesota.

Photo from Findagrave, by RB Hall-Gallea and MS Gallea.


 

Sources:

“Allies Day at YMCA.” Brooklyn Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. Aug. 19, 1918. Accessed on Newspapers.com on August 30, 2024.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force

https://www.fold3.com/image/689533587?terms=kingdom,edward,i,war,world,united,whitwell&xid=1945&_gl=1*fu9exw*_gcl_au*NTAxNTc4MDUuMTcyMjgxNjQ1NA..

Richard Holt "British Blood Calls British Blood: The British-Canadian Recruiting Mission of 1917-1918." Canadian Military History 22, 1 (2013) https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1679&context=cmh

Edward Whitwell headstone. Photo provided by: RB Hall-Gallea & MS Gallea on Findagrave.com

Ad for Patriotic Rally. New York Tribune. NY, NY. Aug. 14, 1918. Accessed on Newspapers.com on Aug. 30, 2024.

Society News: Macbeth feted at reception. Oakland Tribune. Oakland, CA. Oct. 3, 1926. Accessed on Newspapers.com on Aug. 30, 2024.

Photo of Edward Whitwell. New York Daily News. NY NY. Jun. 16, 1933.

Thursday, August 29, 2024

The Minnesota Nightingale: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Creativity”

 

Florence Macbeth’s Soprano Voice Carried Her from Mankato to the World

Florence Macbeth: 1889-1966 (Maternal Second Cousin 2x Removed)

 

Florence Macbeth’s lovely soprano voice led her from rural Mankato, Minnesota to opera houses around the world. Her musical creativity won her admiration from varied critics and audiences.

Florence was born January 12, 1889 in Mankato, Minnesota to parents Charles James Macbeth and Alice Amanda Monfare Macbeth. Charles Macbeth owned a meat-packing company and traded in livestock, and it appears the family was reasonably well-off. She was their only child.

Her parents noted Flossie’s (Florence’s nickname) exceptional singing voice and hired a local voice instructor named Nettie Snyder when Florence was eleven. In an interview years later, Snyder recalled, “I’ll never forget the first time I saw Flossie. Her father came to me, leading a little girl, and said, ‘Mrs. Snyder, here’s a little girl we think can sing. Won’t you listen to her?’ She had on a little plaid kilted skirt that came to her knees, for she was only 11 years old then. She sang, and she sang high F, I might add, as perfectly then as she sings it now.” (From MankatoLife article cited below).


In 1902, the Macbeths enrolled Florence in a rather exclusive girls’ boarding school in Faribault, Minnesota. St. Mary’s Hall offered a curriculum that qualified graduates for admission into elite colleges such as Wellesley and University of Chicago, and promised “superior advantages in Music and Art,” which must have pleased the Macbeths and twelve-year-old Flossie.


Florence graduated from St. Mary’s Hall in 1907. She was accepted at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and in 1909 her parents drove east to drop her off for her freshman year. En route, the family stopped at a friend’s home for dinner. Florence was asked to perform for the dinner guests, one of whom was a professional voice teacher, Yeatman Griffith. He was impressed with Florence’s voice, and persuaded her parents to defer college and have Florence train with him instead.  

The gamble paid off. As Mnopedia reported, Florence “made her concert debut in July 1912 in Scheveningen, the Netherlands, and her European operatic debut in 1913 in Darmstadt, Germany.” Her proud parents were there to see her debut. She sang in several countries, including a performance with the London Symphony at Queen’s Hall.



Florence returned to the United States and was signed by the Chicago Grand Opera Company. She made her American debut singing the part of Rosina in Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”. She performed with the Chicago Grand Opera for fourteen years while also traveling for additional engagements across the United States and Canada. Her fame as a coloratura soprano spread, and she became known as the Minnesota Nightingale. She made several recordings with the Columbia Grafonola Company in 1916—a precursor to the Columbia Record Company. Recordings of some of her performances can be found on YouTube today. I have cited two such recordings below.


World War I impacted Florence’s life in a unique way: she met her first husband during the war. Years later in an interview with the British press, Florence recalled learning that a British officer, Captain Edward Whitwell, part of the British War Mission, was looking for a lady to sing at a recruiting event in New Jersey in 1918.

“’There’s only one I can recommend,’ said Mr. David Bispham, of Covent Garden Opera, who was assisting him, ‘and that is Miss Macbeth. I think she would be very pleased to do it.’”


Florence agreed to sing, and she hit it off with the former RAF pilot. She married Edward Whitwell in La Porte, Indiana on December 8, 1922. The couple never had children, and Florence continued to travel and perform while Edward built a career as a boxing promoter in New York City. Sadly, he had a stroke in the late 1930s, causing them to move to Los Angeles for Edward’s health. Following another stroke, Edward died on April 12, 1942.


Florence had retired from performing by the late 1930s. She continued to live in Los Angeles following her husband’s death, working as a singing teacher. According to the Schrader article cited below, Florence met a rather famous fan of hers at an L.A. tea party: novelist James M. Cain. Cain was the author of renowned novels including Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Mildred Pierce, all of which were made into very successful movies. Cain married Florence September 22, 1947.


The couple moved to University Park, Maryland. Florence’s health began to suffer, and for over a decade she rarely left home. She died on May 5, 1966 at the age of seventy-seven.

While Florence Macbeth’s talent and creativity took her around the world and while she socialized with the wealthy and famous, she continued to love her hometown of Mankato, Minnesota. She asked that her body be returned there, and she was buried next to her first husband in Mankato’s Glenwood Cemetery. An article quoted Florence as writing in 1952, “It is all home, the place where I was born, where I dreamed dreams that came true, and where, when my time comes to pass, I shall come to sleep near dear ones and dear friends, and that is a serene comfort.”

 

Photo by Alan Brownsten on Findagrave

 

Sources:

Gardner, Leroy. "Macbeth, Florence Mary (1889–1966)." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnopedia.org/person/macbeth-florence-mary-1889-1966 (accessed June 10, 2024).

Photo of  Florence Macbeth at piano, taken c. 1915-1920. Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ggb2006006178/

Publicity photograph of Florence Macbeth taken on June 24, 1913. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014693507/

Publicity photograph of Florence Macbeth taken on June 24, 1913.Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ggb2005013535/

78 rpm recording of Florence Macbeth singing When I Was Seventeen. Columbia Exclusive Artist. Aug 1922.(Accessed June 10, 2024.  https://archive.org/details/78_when-i-was-seventeen_florence-macbeth_gbia0413959a

78 rpm recording of Tarantella Napoletana (Rossini) by Florence Macbeth. Columbia. 1923. (accessed June 10, 2024).  https://archive.org/details/78_tarantella-napoletana_florence-macbeth-rossini_gbia0210416b

“Florence Macbeth, the Minnesota Nightingale” by Julie Schrader. Mankato LIFE. Feb. 11, 2019. https://www.mankatolife.com/february8-schrader/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7767629/florence-mary-macbeth?


Thursday, July 4, 2024

Orphaned Daughter Last Family Member Left During Civil War: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “End of the Line”

 

Young Mills Daughter Loses Both Parents and Brother in Single Year

Gehial Hiram Mills: 1833-1863 (Maternal Second Great-Granduncle)
Helen Egleston: 1839-1863 (Maternal Second Great-Grandaunt by Marriage)
Gehial Mills Jr.: 1863-1863 (Maternal First Cousin 3x Removed)
Hannah Amy Mills: 1856-1945 (Maternal First Cousin 3x Removed)

 

Orrin Oliver Mills (see previous post) was not the only Mills son to serve in the Civil War. His older brother, Gehial Hiram Mills, usually known as Hiram Mills, also served in the Union Army. However, unlike Orrin, Hiram did not survive the war. He was sent home wounded but never recovered, dying in Wisconsin in September 1863. However, Hiram was not the only member of his family to die that year. His wife and infant son also died in 1863, leaving his young daughter, Hannah Amy Mills, an orphan. She was the end of her father’s line.

Gehial Hiram Mills was born October 29, 1833 in St. Lawrence County, New York, to parents Joel Mills and Orpha Pratt Mills. He was the third of their five children. The family moved to Wisconsin in the 1840s, and that’s where Hiram met his wife, Helen (often recorded as Hellen) Egleston. The couple married November 4, 1855; Hiram was 22 and Helen was only sixteen. Their first child, a daughter named Hannah Amy, was born a year later on December 26, 1856.

By 1860, Hiram was farming near Marcellon, Columbia County, Wisconsin. The census record indicates he was renting a farm, as the census form shows no value in the real property column. 


Perhaps that was why, a year later, he enlisted in the Portage Light Guard, a cavalry unit that was formed in the area near Hiram’s farm (Marcellon was ten miles from the town of Portage). Soldiers often received or were promised bounty money for signing up, ranging from $20 to $60, which was a considerable amount in that era. Hiram may have dreamed of using his military pay to buy farmland of his own.


Hiram’s name appears in the unit roster in the Wisconsin State Register on April 27, 1861. The article also notes that the Light Guard was “accepted by the Governor for the second regiment of the Wisconsin Militia.” A full roster of Wisconsin volunteers lists Hiram as a “wagoner”, which was a soldier who drove a wagon that carried supplies or regimental baggage. The wagoner was responsible for the draft animals—usually a team of four horses or six mules—and the wagon itself.

Hiram Mills at time of Civil War

With Hiram gone to war, and the farm likely rented to someone new, what happened to Hiram’s wife and daughter? I believe they moved in with Helen’s parents, Benjamin and Hannah Egleston, who lived nearby in Columbia County near Pardeeville.

2nd Wisconsin Cavalry regimental flag

The Second Wisconsin Cavalry finished training and organizing in Milwaukee in March 1862 and were sent to St. Louis March 24. Hiram probably had at least one furlough home before being shipped out, because Helen Mills became pregnant, delivering a son either late in 1862 or in early January 1863. Tragically, she died shortly after the birth on January 7, 1863, leaving her two young children in her parents’ care.   

Helen Egleston Mills

Hiram’s regiment served in Missouri and Arkansas until January 1863 when they were moved to Memphis, Tennessee. By June, they had pushed south to Vicksburg, and then were assigned to General Sherman’s Jackson campaign in July.

Hiram Mills headstone at Pardeeville Cemetery

At some point during 1863, Hiram was injured and became seriously ill, for he was furloughed in August 1863 and sent home to Wisconsin. By the time he arrived in Wisconsin, his young wife was already dead. Her parents must have cared for her little son, Gehial Jr., very well, for he had survived nearly eight months, long enough for his father to meet him. Little Gehial Jr. died September 4, 1863, and his father, Gehial Hiram Mills, died in Pardeeville just six days later on September 10, 1863. Helen was 24 and Hiram was only 29 at death. Their remaining child, Hannah Amy Mills, was only six years old when she was orphaned. Hiram, Helen and Gehial Jr. were all buried in the Pardeeville Cemetery, but only Hiram’s gravestone has been photographed.

Pardeeville, Wisconsin during the 1800s

Some family trees claimed Hiram died from war wounds. However, I discovered that Hiram wasn’t listed among the Second Wisconsin Cavalry’s war casualties, so his unit commanders didn’t treat his injury as a battle wound. The only regiment records I found merely stated that Hiram died in Pardeeville, Wisconsin.

I would have been left in the dark about Hiram’s true cause of death if I hadn’t discovered his pension file—35 fascinating pages that recount how his daughter’s guardian, her grandmother Hannah Egleston, fought to receive a dependent’s pension for Hannah Amy. Her initial application stated that Hiram died of illness contracted in war, which led the pension department to initially deny the application—a disease could have been unrelated to Hiram’s service, after all. However, Hannah Egleston persisted, explaining that Hiram’s illness was caused by an injury he received while on duty. She contacted officers and soldiers from his regiment, begging for affidavits that would support the pension application.  

Part of Hannah Egleston's pension application on behalf of her granddaughter

The army demanded that she provide an affidavit from a commissioned officer in Hiram’s unit. This turned out to be impossible. Hannah submitted a new affidavit stating that she was not able to provide proof of Hiram’s injury from his cavalry unit’s officers because “at the time of the said injury said Mills was on a scout under the command of Sergeant Hewitt and no commissioned officers was present and knowing to this said hurt…”

However, she did obtain the affidavit of two other regiment members, George Hewitt (presumably the sergeant leading the scouting party) and George W. Ames, who stated that they were also in the Second Wisconsin Cavalry, knew Hiram and  “in the line of his duty as a soldier near Helena Arkansas the said Mills was thrown by his horse rearing and falling over backwards and on to him and his left-side badly injured so that from that time till the next August when he was…furloughed he did but little duty, was a great deal of the time in hospital and continually complaining of the injury to his side.”

Obviously from his comrades’ description, Hiram was no longer a wagoner by 1863, but was a regular cavalry soldier, riding on scouting parties and participating in battles. The injury sounds horrific—I can imagine the horror as the huge horse fell on top of Hiram.

The doctor who attended Hiram in Wisconsin, Orin D. Coleman, testified that he was called to the Egleston house to help Hiram on August 25, 1863 and “found him very sick with inflammation of the bowels (peritonitis)” and that he continued to attend to Hiram until his death. He reported that he read the affidavit supplied by Hiram’s cavalry comrades about the injury Hiram sustained and “that such an injury…might have been and probably was the precipitary (I think that is the word—hard to read) cause of the inflammation of which he died.”

Poor Hiram. He must have suffered some sort of internal crush injury that left him with an intestinal rupture and infection. The pain must have been agonizing. How did he manage to get back home from Arkansas in such a state? And how did he manage to survive for nearly three weeks after he made it home?

The additional affidavits were apparently persuasive, for on September 11, 1866 the army approved the pension application. Hannah Amy received a pension in the amount of $8 per month back-dated to the date of her father’s death, and continuing until December 28, 1873. I’m sure this money must have been a godsend to Hannah Amy’s grandparents.

Pension approval record

As Hiram’s daughter grew up, she went by her middle name of Amy. She was still living with her grandparents at the time of the 1870 census, along with their two youngest children. Her grandmother and guardian died a few years later. There are no further records of Amy until she appears on the 1880 census in Meeker County, Minnesota, married to Harry Porter. The census form records that they had married in 1880. By the end of that year, they were parents.

Amy Mills Porter, husband Harry, and three of their children.

Amy and Harry went on to have six children. Following Harry’s death in 1895, Amy supported her children first as a seamstress, and then by the 1910 census, Amy was operating a restaurant in Sanborn, North Dakota, and her three youngest daughters were teaching and working as telephone operators. She ended up moving to Washington state, and died September 1, 1945. She was eighty-eight years old.

Amy Mills may have been the end of Gehial Hiram Mills’ line, but her children and grandchildren carried on the Mills family legacy into the future.  

 

Sources:

Wisconsin Volunteers: War of the Rebellion 1861-1865. Arranged Alphabetically. Compiled under the direction of the Adjutants General, published by the State of Wisconsin, Democrat Printing Company. 1914. https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/tp/id/36915/rec/3

US, Civil War "Widows' Pensions", 1861-1910. National Archives. Case Files of Approved Pension Applications of Widows and Other Veterans of the Army and Navy Who Served Mainly in the Civil War and the War With Spain, compiled 1861 – 1934. Record group 15. https://www.fold3.com/file/280249850/mills-hiram-us-civil-war-widows-pensions-1861-1910?terms=mills,war,us,civil,hiram

FindaGrave entries for Gehial Hiram Mills, Helen Egleston Mills, and Gehial  Mills, Jr. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/45710095/gehial-hiram-mills?_gl=1*192jxs4*_gcl_au*MTg1NTA3NTEwOC4xNzE1MDM0MzIy*_ga*OTczMjY1MzMyLjE3MDQ4NTI3MzQ.*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*ZDc1MjVjMWMtYmU3MC00ZjUyLTg1NDUtNmFmZGRiY2NkYzkzLjI0NS4xLjE3MjAxMjIzMDguNDkuMC4w*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*ZDc1MjVjMWMtYmU3MC00ZjUyLTg1NDUtNmFmZGRiY2NkYzkzLjI0Ni4xLjE3MjAxMjIzMDguMC4wLjA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Wisconsin_Cavalry_Regiment

Wisconsin Veterans Museum: 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry. Photo of Standard, 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry V1964 219 7.  https://wisvetsmuseum.com/2nd-wisconsin-cavalry/

 

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Orrin Mills’ Eventful Civil War Service: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “War”

Civil War POW to Dakota War to Civil War: Orrin Mills Journey with the Third Minnesota Infantry Regiment

Orrin Oliver Mills: 1840-1917 (Maternal Second-Great-Granduncle)

 

I knew that Orrin O. Mills was a Civil War Veteran, but until I recently started researching his regiment and unit, I had no idea what a wild, eventful wartime experience he survived. The Third Minnesota Infantry regiment was a volunteer unit that, between its formation in 1861 and its demuster in 1865, had served in the Civil War, been taken as prisoners of war by Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry, had been sent to fight the Dakota War back in Minnesota, and then sent back to serve in the Civil War. The Third was also the Minnesota unit with the highest casualty count--due to disease, not battlefield injuries.

Orrin Mills' Civil War Regiment Pin. Photo courtesy of  June Marcus on Family Search.

Orrin Oliver Mills was born July 7, 1840 in Hermon Township, St. Lawrence County, New York, to parents Joel Mills and Orpha Pratt Mills. He was the youngest of Joel and Orpha’s five children, and he also had two older half siblings. At some point before 1850, father Joel moved his family west, settling first in Dodge County and then moving to Jefferson County, Wisconsin. Joel Mills died January 31, 1858 when Orrin was 17 years old.

Some Mills family members, including Orrin, moved further west to Minnesota, settling in the Blue Earth County area. On October 1, 1861, just months after the start of the Civil War, Orrin enlisted in the Third Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He was twenty-one years old. His company, Company I, was formed from volunteers from the Blue Earth/Le Seuer County area, so the unit probably included many of his young friends and acquaintances.

Civil War photo of Orrin Mills, courtesy of June Marcus on Findagrave 

According to histories of the regiment, the Third Minnesota organized at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis, and was then sent to Louisville, Kentucky in November of 1861. They guarded the railroad line in Louisville, and protected Military Governor Andrew Johnson. In April 1862, the regiment was sent to Murfreesboro, Tennessee to join the 23rd Brigade of the Army of the Ohio. On July 13, a Confederate Cavalry brigade commanded by Col. Nathan B. Forrest conducted a surprise attack on the Union forces in Murfreesboro.

According to Mnopedia, the Third Minnesota “encountered and repulsed two attacks by the Second Georgia Cavelry…before being overrun by Forrest, who burned the officers’ tents.” The Union commander of the 23rd Brigade surrendered, and the entire 3rd Minnesota Regiment, except for one company that had been assigned duty elsewhere, became prisoners of war. They were marched to St. Louis where they were held in the Benton Barracks until late August when they were paroled and sent back to Minnesota to fight in the US-Dakota War.

Orrin's Civil War Record

The regiment faced the more of the ugly reality of war in Minnesota. One of their first assignments was burying settlers who had been killed by the Dakota warriors. The regiment then fought at the battle of Wood Lake, described by one of the regiment’s soldiers in a letter to a family member:  

“We saw any amount of Indians on every little knoll. They seemed to be on almost every side of us…They undertook to turn our left flank & get between us and the camp. Major Fowle rode up in front of the men & told them that Col. Sibley ordered them back to camp & told them to get back to camp the best way they could. He seemed much frightened & turned & rode back to camp as fast as he could…Soon everything was in confusion & every man on his own hook. As soon as the Indians saw the retreat, they came pouring in from all quarters, firing into our crowd as fast as they could. We kept retreating, loading & turning & firing as fast as we could…On the top of the hill we made a stand while the Indians took possession of the ravine…”


Ordered to retreat, the 3rd Minnesota disobeyed, and charged the Dakota warriors, helping to turn the course of the battle. The Minnesota forces prevailed; it was the final battle of the Dakota War. The 3rd Minnesota lost four men in the battle.

Following that battle, the regiment “foraged” upon the town of New Ulm which had been attacked by Dakota warriors. I am not sure what that phrase meant—did they try to resupply by forcibly taking goods from the settlers they were supposed to protect, or is there a more innocent meaning?

The Third Minnesota was then ordered back to Fort Snelling, where they expected to be paid as other regiments fighting the Dakota War had been. However, the Army for some reason withheld their pay. The men of the Third Minnesota rioted in St. Paul in protest. I can find no record indicating how serious the riot may have been, or whether the pay dispute was resolved, but by January the regiment was on the move, marching back to the Civil War.

The Third Minnesota was sent to Tennessee where they helped to retake Fort Heiman on the Tennessee River early in 1863. They conducted counter-guerrilla operations against Confederate troops along the river. Colored Troop units were being organized at the fort, and the Third Minnesota contributed 82 officers for these new units, making it among the top ten sources for USCT officers in the entire Union Army.

In June 1863, the Third Minnesota was sent to Vicksburg and helped to take the city. They were then assigned to the “Arkansas Expedition” to seize Little Rock. They were the first infantry regiment to enter the city. Stanley M. Arthurs painted the regiment entering Little Rock over a pontoon bridge. The painting now hangs in the Minnesota Capitol. They spent several months serving as Provost Guard in Little Rock protecting the state’s constitutional convention.

"Third Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Entering Little Rock" by Stanley M Arthurs. 

In April 1864, most of the regiment re-enlisted, lured by both patriotism and the promise of bonuses. Orrin re-enlisted as well. The regiment then became known as a “veteran unit”, staffed by experienced soldiers.

The Third Minnesota was sent to Pine Bluff, Arkansas that spring, where the heat, mosquitos and contaminated water sources were devastating. Many of the troops fell ill from malaria. The regiment had no quinine (the only treatment for malaria at the time) despite repeated pleas to headquarters from their officers. At one point, so many troops were ill that there weren’t enough healthy troops to bury the regiments’ dead; soldiers from other regiments had to be brought in to handle the burial detail.  One of the regiment’s colonels wrote in desperation to Minnesota’s governor and Senator Ramsey, which finally produced results. The state sent the regiment a surgeon carrying a large supply of quinine. Some of the troops were sent home on furlough to recover—many boarding the train home on stretchers-- while the others were sent to a healthier site in Arkansas. Over one hundred soldiers from the regiment were buried in Arkansas.

I can’t imagine how a young man like Orrin who had grown up in the cooler states of New York and Minnesota dealt with the debilitating heat, humidity and disease. He must have been so afraid, watching the suffering and death of his friends and comrades and fearing for his own health. Somehow Orrin survived.

At some point during the final years of the war, Orrin was promoted from private to corporal. He mustered out at war’s end in September 1865 in Arkansas. The regiment headed back to Minnesota, where they attended a celebratory dinner in Red Wing before heading to Fort Snelling. Eager to return to their homes, they turned down St. Paul’s offer of a parade and banquet in their honor and were discharged from service on September 16, 1865.

Orrin Mills' Civil War pension record

Orrin was only 24 years old when he was mustered out of the army. He went home to Blue Earth County and began farming. He married Harriet Jane Britt on April 21, 1868, and their daughter, Carrie Belle Mills, was born a year later on July 6, 1869. Tragically, Harriet died six days later from childbirth complications. Eight months later, Orrin married Harriet’s sister, Martha Isabelle Britt. They had six children of their own.

Orrin and Martha Mills and six of their children, circa 1887. Photo courtesy of totapaint on Findagrave.

In 1891, Orrin and Martha and five of their children moved to Kitsap County, Washington where Orrin started farming in the Port Orchard area. Eventually their eldest son, Olney Orrin Mills, moved to Port Orchard as well.

Orrin died October 31, 1917 at age 77. According to his obituary, he was still a vigorous, active man up until the moment of death:

“Up till 2 o’clock he had been working on his place picking apples, after which he took his gun and went out hunting. Returning in the evening, he took his milk pail and went to the barn to do the milking.” He collapsed “just as he had taken the milking stool in his hands” and was found dead of a heart attack by one of his daughters. Orrin was buried at Bethel Cemetery in Kitsap County, Washington. His headstone bears the inscription:

Life’s race well run,

Life’s work well done,

Life’s Crown well won,

Now comes rest.”

Photo by Mick Hersey on Findagrave.

A fitting tribute for a veteran of a renowned Civil War regiment.

Sources:

Union Regimental Histories: Minnesota. Third Regiment Infantry.  http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unmninf1.htm

3rd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. http://Libguides.mnhs.org/cwmu/infantry3

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-soldiers.htm#sort=score+desc&q=orrin+mills

Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment. https://www.mnopedia.org/third-minnesota-volunteer-infantry-regiment

Photos of Mills’ Civil War Pin and Mills in Civil War, posted by June Mills Marcus n Ancestry. https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/46986934/person/24020284640/media/04ebe18b-62d3-4cf5-b198-6ce5280d12ed?_phsrc=Acy5398&usePUBJs=true&galleryindex=3&albums=pg&showGalleryAlbums=true&tab=0&pid=24020284640&sort=-created

Painting- "Third Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Entering Little Rock" by Stanley M Arthurs. https://collections.mnhs.org/search/collections/record/10413809?__hstc=98931905.c78978b6bb3504b2a5ad823a719f44a0.1718063865104.1719612820147.1719630157282.6&__hssc=98931905.2.1719630157282&__hsfp=2678111119

Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars 1861-1865. Charles E. Flandreau. Minnesota Board of Commissioners on Publication of History of Minnesota. https://archive.org/details/minnesotacivil01minnrich/page/164/mode/2up

Drawing of Battle of Wood Lake, by Colonel Alonzo Putnam Connolly - Minnesota Historical Society - https://www.usdakotawar.org/history/multimedia/wood-lake


Tuesday, June 4, 2024

The Language of the Old Country: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Language”

The Fiction that Our Immigrant Ancestors Quickly Learned English

People who are hostile to new U.S. immigrants often complain that immigrants cling to their home country’s language and prefer to live with other immigrants. What happened to the idea of the melting pot, these people gripe. Our ancestors learned English right after they came to America, and quickly adopted American culture, they claim. They chide today’s immigrants, demanding that they learn to speak English!  Now!

But did our ancestors really embrace American culture and the English language right after they landed in America? I’m sure there were a few people who did, but most of our immigrant ancestors did the same things that modern immigrants do: they took decades to truly learn English, and they preferred to live with other people from their home country, speaking the Old Country language, eating Old Country foods, and worshipping and reading newspapers in their native language.

Examples abound from my own family. My father’s grandparents all immigrated from Norway, and joined other Norwegian immigrants in Minnesota, forming a Norwegian community in Brown County. Nearby was a German community, and a few miles away, a Swedish community. Each community set up their own churches that used their home country language. Newspapers were printed in their home country language. My father, born in 1917, nearly fifty years after his Syverson grandparents immigrated, spoke with a strong Norwegian accent. Why? Because his parents, who had spent most of their lives in America, spoke Norwegian at home as well as English.

An example is this postcard from my great-uncle Siver Syverson addressed to his mother Ragnhild. While my photo cut off the postal cancellation date, the company that made the post card did not begin producing them until 1909. I am guessing Siver travelled to Canada and sent the postcard sometime between 1912 and 1915. Siver was born in the United States in 1882. His parents immigrated in 1868, so Ragnhild had been in America for at least forty years by the time this postcard was written. But her American-born son was still communicating with her in Norwegian.



My father’s family attended a nearby Lutheran church that continued to offer services in Norwegian well into the 1900s. Here is the parish register for my father’s 1917 baptism. The headings are in Norwegian. Most of the ministers that served such churches came directly from Norway to serve American congregations.




My grandmother, Nora Hoffman, was the child of German immigrants, and attended a German Lutheran church in Mankato, Minnesota. Many of the forms they used, like wedding, baptism and confirmation certificates, were written in German. Hymns and services were conducted in German into the 20th century even though the German immigrants in the area had arrived at least thirty years earlier. Below you can see my grandmother’s 1900 baptism certificate in German. 



No matter how eager immigrants are to start new lives in America, they still take pride in their home culture—and they should! I take pride in my Norwegian and German roots, after all. And it is perfectly natural that immigrants would seek to settle near other immigrants from their homeland—it offers a built-in support system and a sense of community. Our ancestors did the same. In addition, English is a complex and difficult language to master, so it is perfectly natural that adults would take decades to become comfortable and fluent, often being forced to rely on their children, who attended schools taught in English, to act as translators.

We accept that we need to examine historical records to trace our ancestors. We also need to look at what historical records tell us about American immigration before we make unfounded claims about our immigrant ancestors’ embrace of American culture and language.

 

Sources:

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives; Elk Grove Village, Illinois; Congregational Records. Church Name or Description: Lake Hanska Lutheran. Births: 1917. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60722/images/41742_314248-00282?pId=776547