Posted: May 8th, 2009 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Childhood Memories, Ohio | Tags: goldie, Homer | No Comments »
Here’s an 8mm home movie still showing my grandparents (on dad’s side), Homer and Goldie Stevens. The movie in question was taken on one of our vacations to Columbus, Ohio, probably around 1955 or ‘56, which would explain my absence in the footage. (that’s our shiny new ‘55 Chevrolet in the background) My only memories of my grandfather are from these 8mm films, which have been viewed many times over the years. It’s really a miracle that the film has held together so long, but they’ve now been transferred to DVD, so they won’t be subjected to further wear.
I was too young to remember Homer, but I remember Grandma Goldie well. Goldie was a good person, and clearly the source of my dad’s sense of humor. I was a big fan of the Peanuts cartoons as a child, but our local paper didn’t run the Peanuts comics in those days, so Goldie would mail them to me each week. Neat lady.
I’ve thought of creating an area here at stevensfamilytree.com to house the home movie collection, to make them viewable to visitors online. I would have to transfer the DVDs to MP4 files, and then either put them on YouTube (which would make it easy to embed them here), or embed them directly to a page where they could be viewed with a QuickTime player. I’ll do a little research and see what I can do.
Posted: January 2nd, 2009 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Ohio | Tags: goldie, parker | No Comments »
Fragments of family history can be gathered from a number of sources, but one can’t underestimate the value of word-of-mouth. Anecdotes handed down through the generations can be informative, inspiring, even humorous, and contain data that would otherwise be forgotten.
My aunt Dorothy Jean Murray is the “go-to person” when researching the Stevens’ family in Ohio, and she mentioned something recently that I thought was rather amazing. Almost as an afterthought, D.J. mentioned that a bit of confusion accompanied my grandmother’s birth. It seems that my grandmother, born Goldie Irene Parker (shown here with my father, Doug Stevens), had the wrong name put on her birth certificate. That’s right, the story goes that her birth certificate read Madge Parker. I don’t have to tell anyone with genealogical experience that records are often peppered with errors, but this is major. What prompted the mistake, and how was it resolved? It’s thought to have been some sort of clerical error, but that is, I believe, supposition. Over one-hundred years has passed, and the details of these events were not preserved with any clarity. I would think that the name would have been promptly corrected, but that didn’t stop me from searching for public records pertaining to Madge Parker. While I was unable to turn up anything, I can’t help but to wonder if a copy of that birth certificate exists somewhere. Who knows, Dorothy Jean might come through again.
Posted: December 12th, 2008 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Ohio | Tags: goldie, mcmurray, parker | No Comments »
I can’t believe it. I didn’t think that any photographs of my great-grandparents (Goldie’s parents) existed, but then these two, over 140 years old, turn up courtesy of my aunt Dorothy Jean. The photos, studio portraits of Henry Graham Parker and Emily Robinson McMurray, are said to have been taken around the time of their wedding. Having decided to wed prior to Henry leaving to serve in the civil war, they were married immediately upon his return, on August 25, 1865.
These photos add nothing to the nuts-and-bolts of the family tree, but there’s an undeniable significance to connecting a face with a name. It makes the people come alive. Remember my earlier post about the father learning of his daughter’s death from a Ouija board? This is that man, Henry Graham Parker.
One bothersome aspect of the photos are the dates notated on the back, indicating their date of marriage as August 25, 1865. This contrasts to the data contained in the family outline, which gave the date as October 25 of the same year. That’s something I’ll need to quiz Dorothy Jean about. For now I’m still having trouble getting very far beyond Henry Parker on the family tree, and the marriage date doesn’t provide any clues regardless the date used. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 17th, 2008 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Ohio | Tags: goldie, ouija board, stevens | No Comments »
Had this tale reached me a couple of weeks earlier it would have been perfect timing for Halloween, but better late than never, right? Sure, I could have kept it under my hat until next year, but this bit of family weirdness can’t wait. There’s not much to the story, really, and certainly everyone has heard more eerie or horrific tales, but I’m absolutely floored that this sort of thing took place in my family. Dad’s side of the family consisted of miners and farmers, conservative Ohio folk that were known for their dignity and moral propriety. It’s their upstanding demeanor and quiet reserve that makes this tale of the occult truly extraordinary.
My grandmother, Goldie Stevens (born Goldie Parker), was almost seventy in 1957, the year I was born, but I got to know her well enough to see her as guiding force behind dad’s strength of character. Goldie passed on in 1979, and my grandfather, Homer Stevens, died in 1961. I was too young to remember my grandfather, but from all accounts he too was possessed of a character that was beyond reproach. Not much was known of the Stevens or Parkers beyond my grandparents generation, and no prospects for further information were in sight until a few weeks ago. In the course of doing our genealogy research my sister Carol has corresponded with our aunt Dorothy Jean, hoping to add a generation or two to the family tree. Little was gained in that regard, but instead what surfaced was a number of priceless family anecdotes. This one, set somewhere around the year 1900, is centered around Goldie’s childhood and the family pastime, playing with a Ouija Board.
Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s an 8mm home movie still showing my grandparents (on dad’s side), Homer and Goldie Stevens. The movie in question was taken on one of our vacations to Columbus, Ohio, probably around 1955 or ‘56, which would explain my absence in the footage. (that’s our shiny new ‘55 Chevrolet in the background) My only memories of my grandfather are from these 8mm films, which have been viewed many times over the years. It’s really a miracle that the film has held together so long, but they’ve now been transferred to DVD, so they won’t be subjected to further wear.
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