My Famous Relatives: Jaakko Ilkka

The 1978 premiere of the opera Jaakko Ilkka by Jorma Panula, with Tuomo Häkkilä, center, in the title role

Most people in the USA won’t recognize the name Jaakko Illka. But in Finland he’s a well-known folk hero, the leader of the Cudgel War of 1596.

I know the name Jaakko Ilkka because he’s my eleven-times-great grandfather, at least according to research by a Finnish cousin of mine. Finnish church records, which have been the legal repositories of birth and marriage announcements, are all that researchers have to rely on. Those records seem to confirm two lines of descent from Jaakko Ilkka to proven ancestors of mine on my mother's side.

One line of descent comes down through my great-grandfather Wilhelm Hirvi, who I’ve written about on this blog before. You can hear a recording of him singing here. 

The other line of descent comes down through my great-great-grandfather Matti Uhmusberg Hietanen, who I’ve written about on this blog here.

Sigismund III by Pieter Claesz. Soutman

In the late 16^th century Finland was a part of Sweden under King Sigismund III.  Sigismund lived in Poland, which he also ruled, so to oversee Finland he appointed a governor, Klaus Eriksson Fleming. At the same time Sweden was overseen by Sigismund’s uncle Kaarle. Governor Fleming of Finland and Duke Kaarle of Sweden did not get along. They vied for power, often at the expense of the poorest of the Finnish peasants.

The people of the Ostrobothnia region of central Finland resented the feudal military tax imposed to help pay for Sweden’s war with Russia. The Ostrobothnians had been legally exempted from this tax during the reign of Sigismund’s father, in return for their defense of Ostrobothnia against the Russians. But when Sigismund took the throne, the exemption was ignored. Crushing taxation—collected, often brutally, by Governor Fleming’s military—only added to the Finnish peasants’ woes, which already included the loss of men drafted to defend the border and poor harvests of the little ice age.  In some places the peasants faced starvation. Small rebellions broke out from time to time, but the taxation continued.

In 1585 Jaakko Ilkka (1545-1597), a farmer, lived with his wife and son in Ilmajoki in Southern Ostrobothnia, Finland. He bred cattle on his farm and became a merchant, shipping his cattle to Sweden. From 1586 through1588 he served as the second sheriff of Ilmajoki. This position increased his prestige and his income. He flourished and became the seventh richest merchant in Southern Ostrobothnia, managing shipping to Sweden, Estonia, and elsewhere.

His first wife died about 1588. He re-married and eventually had three more sons.

In 1591 Jaakko Ilkka joined the army. As a member of the military he was tax-exempt and collected feudal taxes. He participated in three expeditions in Sweden’s war with Russia. By 1593 his military activity stopped. He collected no more taxes from his peasant neighbors. In 1592 Governor Fleming declared a trade embargo in the Gulf of Bothnia. Merchant shipping in the Gulf of Bothnia virtually ceased. Ilkka concentrated on cattle farming.

By late fall of 1594 Sweden and Russia began negotiations to end their war. To support the negotiations Governor Fleming had Swedish troops transported to Finland. The Finnish people, already crushed by military taxes, refused to pay the Swedish forces’ costs. Fleming ordered the military to force collection.

On May 18, 1595, the Treaty of Teusina ended the twenty-five-year Russo-Swedish War. Despite the war’s end, Fleming’s militia continued to collect the feudal tax. Fleming wanted the revenue in order to combat Duke Kaarle’s efforts to take the Swedish crown. But this meant little to the Finnish peasants who lived in fear of being robbed, tortured, and having their homes burned if they could not pay.

Duke Kaarle, later King Charles IX of Sweden.

By late 1595 Duke Kaarle of Sweden was denouncing the oppression of the peasants by Fleming and his military. Encouraged by this, the entire population of Finland’s Ostrobothnia region refused to pay their butter tax.  A small force of Finnish peasants approached Jaakko Ilkka with the idea to take back the grain that had been collected as tax since the end of the war. He agreed to lead them.

On December 24, 1595, while the military was preoccupied with Christmas celebrations, the rebels attacked the Swedish cavalry in Isokyro and Rautalampi. They recovered their grain and drove the soldiers out of the region. But by mid-January 1596, the Swedish military had suppressed the rebellion and arrested Ilkka. He was imprisoned in Turku Castle in Turku, Finland.

Ten months later he escaped. One story says that a draft in his cell led him to a sewer duct that he crawled through to freedom. But the actual duct at Turku Castle is too small for a man to fit inside. Another story says he used a concealed knife to pick mortar from between the stones of his cell wall. He used the holes to climb the wall, then let himself down the other side with a rope made from his coat. A more plausible explanation is that friends, sympathizers, or possibly his second wife’s relatives used their influence to free him.

Unrest among the Finns grew. On November 15, 1596, St. Catherine’s Day, Duke Kaarle sent an emissary to a gathering at the church in Isokyro, Finland, urging the people to fight for their rights. He also sent a shipment of distilled spirits. The men at the church decided to stop paying the feudal tax and to defend themselves with arms. They gathered a small resistance army from all over Finland and named Ilkka their leader. In mid-December three groups of these fighters set out marching south by different routes toward Turku. Jaakko Ilkka and Yrjo Kontsas led the main group of about eight hundred, looting and burning soldiers’ farms and crown-owned properties and gathering adherents along the way.

The spiked cudgels carried by many of the peasants were effective weapons in piercing soldiers’ armor. These instruments gave their name to the rebellion, the Cudgel War—or as it’s known in Finland, Nuijasota.

On December 26, Ilkka and his men, now about 2500 strong, defeated a party of two hundred cavalry soldiers and set up camp in Nokia. On December 31, Governor Fleming attacked the rebels with his army of over 3000 professional soldiers and several cannons. The rebel army defended themselves successfully.

During the night Fleming, having failed to defeat the rebels and realizing that other groups of rebel reinforcements were coming, sent emissaries into Nokia to treat with the rebel leaders. The emissaries offered an end to the feudal tax and safe passage home for the rebels. In exchange they demanded the rebel leaders, particularly Jakko Ilkka. Fearing betrayal, Ilkka and several others fled on horseback into the night.

Now unable to fulfill Fleming’s demands, the rebel army broke up and began to flee. Fleming’s cavalry attacked the fleeing peasants and a massacre was on. Other groups of rebels were also defeated by the military. Peasants were slaughtered until one local governor pointed out that dead peasants could not pay taxes.

Jaakko Ilkka returned to Ilmajoki where he was captured by his neighbors. He was turned over to local governor Abraham Melkiorinpoika, who had orders to transport Ilkka to face Fleming in Turku. However, Melkiorinpoika feared that rebels would succeed in freeing Ilkka during the long trip to Turku. He staged a quick court martial in neighboring Isokyro. Ilkka and five other rebel leaders were sentenced to death.

Jaakko Ilkka’s exact method of execution on January 27, 1597, is unknown. The standard method of the day was to have the hands and feet crushed, the right arm cut off, and then the head severed from the body.  Ilkka’s parts were publicly displayed in Ilmajoki before the rebel army buried him honorably in the local cemetery.

The rebellion continued. The climactic Battle of Santavuori on February 27, 1597, was a disaster for the peasants. Many were brutally slain. The Cudgel War, one of the largest European peasant rebellions, ended in failure for the oppressed. Governor Fleming died a couple months later. Duke Kaarle, who had given lip service to the rebels’ cause but provided little in actual support, eventually became King Charles IX. But little changed in the lives of the peasants.

Duke Kaarle insults the body of Klaus Fleming in 1597, painting by Albert Edelfelt, 1878.

Jaakko Ilkka, the first Finnish freedom fighter, was hailed as a hero.  His example of a common man rising up to lead the fight against injustice has continued to inspire Finland as a nation.

Jaakko Ilkka monument in Ilmajoki, Finland.

Among the memorials to Jaakko Ilkka is a large monument raised in his home town of Ilmajoki in 1924. In 1978 Jaakko Ilkka, an opera by Jorma Panula with a libretto by Aarni Krohn, was first performed at the Ilmajoki Music Festival. A recording of the opera was released in 1979.  A Finnish television production of the opera was broadcast in 1982. The legacy of the Cudgel War has continued in literature, art, and academic studies. Each year since 2003 The Cudgel War has been reenacted at a camp in Kavalahti, Inkoo, Finland. In 2004, viewers of the Finnish television show Great Finns (Suuret suomalaiset) voted Jaakko Ilkka number 75 of the 100 greatest Finns of all time. 

I have no means to double-check the genealogical research that says Jaakko Ilkka is my forebear since I don’t speak or read Finnish and don’t have easy access to the records. But I’m happy to accept my descent from Jaakko Ilkka as true. 

Dropping Bombs

Lucille and her mother Dell.

I love my grandma. She’s a calm, matter-of-fact, generally happy woman, who laughs easily. She’s ninety-eight years old, and she plans on making it to one hundred.

Grandma’s not a secretive person. I’ve spent time with her discussing her life and our family. And she’s willing to tell me her stories. Yet not too long ago, when I was asking her about family matters, she dropped a bombshell.

For years I’d known the general outline of Grandma’s early life.

My paternal grandmother, Verna Lucille Evans Shanower Cote—called Lucille—was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1916, an only child. Her parents, Joseph Edward Evans (1884-1943) and Adella Cecil "Dell" Grandy (1888-1974), divorced when she was just four years old. Lucille and her mother Adella moved in with Adella’s parents—Millard Curtis Grandy (1867-1941) and Bertha May Flora Grandy (1868-1942)—at their home in Cleveland. For the next few years, while Adella worked as a telephone operator, Lucille was basically raised—along with her aunt Helene Grandy (1907-1987) and first cousin once removed Elva Flora (1907-unk)—by her grandmother, Bertha.

The Grandy Family, l to r: Clayton Curtis Grandy, Verna M. Grandy Lundberg, Elma Helene Grandy Haylor Humes, Bertha May Flora Grandy, Grace L. Grandy Draper, Millard Curtis Grandy, Inez Irene Grandy Balcomb Kolinski, Adella Cecil "Dell" Grandy McElroy Evans Hundhammer.

So much for the outlines, but I wanted to get some detail out of Grandma. “How much did you see your father after your parents divorced?” I asked her.

Joseph Evans and Lucille, c. 1917.

“Oh, he came by once in a while,” Grandma answered. “He’d send a card at Christmas. But I didn’t see him again after he married his second wife and moved to California.”

Whoa! Hold on! Second wife? Moved to California?

My uncle, Lucille’s son, who happened to be in the room, did a double-take.

Trying to process this revelation, I said, “Grandma, I don’t remember hearing this before. Your father re-married and moved to California? I thought he was buried in Cleveland.”

“They shipped his body back,” she said.

This was news to everyone except Lucille—including my dad, who I phoned to tell soon after. Was this the first time in over seven decades that she’d bothered to mention it?

Maybe. She wasn’t keeping it a secret on purpose. Until I asked, there just hadn’t been any particular reason for her to talk about it.

But what did my great-grandfather Joseph Evans’s second marriage mean? Did my grandmother have half-siblings out there somewhere?

I started research.

Grandma’s information was right. She’s in her late nineties, but her mind is unimpaired. On October 29, 1930, more than a decade after his divorce from Adella Grandy, Joseph Evans married Elizabeth Prosper (1891-unk) in Cleveland, Ohio. I uncovered no children from this marriage, so no half-siblings.

Sarah Jane Hopton Evans and Jonathan Rapier Evans, c. 1940.

It’s unclear when Joseph moved to California. The 1940 census, ten years after his wedding to Elizabeth, lists him living in Cleveland with his Welsh immigrant parents, Jonathan Rapier Evans (1860-1944) and Sarah Jane Hopton Evans (1860-1948). But California death records confirm that he died three years after that, June 12, 1943, in Los Angeles. His body was shipped back across the country and buried in the Monroe Street Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

Elizabeth Prosper, Joseph’s second wife, had been married twice before. Before 1910 she married Harry J. Damme (1889-1923) in New York and they had four children. First husband Harry died, leaving Elizabeth a widow. In 1923 she married a second time to Turkish immigrant Steve Totolidis (or maybe Fotolidis) (abt 1894-unk) in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Perhaps Steve Totolidis died, although I suspect he and Elizabeth divorced, leaving her single to marry Joseph Evans in 1930.

That’s all I know about Elizabeth Prosper Damme Totolidis Evans. One of her four children with Harry Damme, Harry John Damme Jr., had descendants, but I can’t find any who might be able to provide further details about Elizabeth.

After learning about the second marriage of my great-grandfather Joseph Evans, I asked my grandmother whether she had any other deep, dark family secrets that she hadn’t told anyone. She laughed and told me that she didn’t, that her father’s second marriage hadn’t been a secret, there’d just never been a reason to mention it before.

No more family secrets. Right.

While doing more genealogical research some time later I came across the marriage certificate of Lucille’s parents, Joseph Evans and Adella Grandy. No surprises there—but, wait! What was that listed with Adella’s information? A previous marriage? Whoa, another bombshell.

I immediately e-mailed my dad and my uncle. What was this about their grandmother Adella’s marriage to a Charles E. McElroy (1888-unk), who she’d divorced before marrying Joseph Evans? Did any of them know about it?

No.

So my uncle asked his mother Lucille about this first marriage of Adella’s. Lucille explained.

After Lucille graduated from high school in the 1930s, a man she didn’t know paid a visit to her mother Adella. Lucille asked her mother who this stranger was. Adella explained that he was her first husband, Charles McElroy. Today Lucille suspects that if Charles McElroy’s visit hadn’t prompted Lucille’s curiosity, Adella would never have revealed to her daughter the fact of her first marriage.

Marriage record of Charles E. McElroy and Adella C. Grandy, May 9, 1911. Charles's first wife is listed as deceased. As always, you may click the image to see it larger in a new window.

My uncle told me that Lucille got a good laugh out of the idea that she’d kept this bombshell a secret on purpose. Actually, she hadn’t mentioned her mother’s first marriage to me simply because she’d completely forgotten about it.

(An aside: I should have discovered Adella’s marriage to Charles McElroy earlier. Another family researcher, a McNaughton cousin, had Adella and Charles’s marriage recorded on his family tree. I’d seen that information there, but I’d dismissed Charles McElroy’s name as being an error.)

Adella Grandy and Charles McElroy had no children together, so Grandma remains a single child. However, Charles McElroy was married both before his marriage to Adella on May 10, 1911, in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and again after their divorce in October 1913.

Lorriane F. McElroy Pecka, 1927.

Who was Charles McElroy’s first wife? I can’t find her name recorded anywhere, but in 1906 a daughter was born from their union, Lorriane F. McElroy (1906-unk). When Lorriane married James Pecka (abt 1901-unk) in Cleveland on June 1, 1927, she listed her mother on her marriage license as Anna Voelker (1886-unk). But Anna Voelker was Charles McElroy’s third wife, not his first wife who was Lorriane’s mother. Charles's first wife was recorded earlier as deceased. But is that true? Was third wife Anna listed on Lorraine’s marriage license as a matter of convenience, since she was Lorriane’s step-mother? Or was Charles McElroy actually married to Anna Voelker twice, both before and after he was married to Adella Grandy? Who knows?

Another question remains. Why did Charles McElroy pay that visit to his second wife Adella after Lucille had graduated high school in 1935, more than twenty years after Charles and Adella had been divorced? Was Charles trying to re-ignite their relationship, despite the fact that his third marriage seems to have been intact? Lucille doesn’t know, so there’s little chance anyone does.

Aloysius "Ollie" Hundhammer.

After marriages to both Charles McElroy and Joseph Evans, Adella Cecil Grandy McElroy Evans married a third time in 1924, just after Lucille turned eight years old. I knew about this marriage to Aloysius “Ollie” Hundhammer (1894-1964), since there had never been any secret about it. Ollie moved his new wife Adella and step-daughter Lucille to Mentor, Ohio.

According to Lucille, Ollie was a mean man. He was also Catholic. My Protestant grandmother Lucille for decades looked unfavorably at Catholics, partly because of her mean stepfather Ollie. Ironically, however, following the death of Lucille’s first husband, my grandfather, Stanley Raymond Shanower (1917-1987), she married a Catholic, Rene Cote (1906-2002), as her second husband in 1990.

After the bombshell revelations about her parents’ marriages, I asked Grandma again whether there were any more family secrets that she was keeping. She laughed and told me no.

But she hadn’t thought her father’s second marriage was any big deal, much less a secret.

And she hadn’t even remembered her mother’s first marriage.

So who knows what other secrets she may hold?

Grandma and me, 2014.

Mildred's Memoir

Nora Mildred Roberts Smith

I recently acquired photocopies of a short "memoir" written by a Kirkpatrick cousin, Nora Mildred Roberts Smith. I met her a few times when I was very young, but I don't really remember her other than that I found her name kind of neat - she went by Mildred. It was a very different name and it was fun to say; it sounded quite regal! I will let Mildred introduce herself in her own words:

My name is Nora Mildred Roberts Smith. At the time of this writing [1977] I am seventy years old, and the only living descendant of the Roberts/Kirkpatrick family.

Columbus Benton Roberts (1862-1939)

My mother was Nora Mason Kirkpatrick and my father was Columbus Benton Roberts. They were married April 18, 1886. At that time my mother was 19 years old, and my father was four years older, 23. They were married in Gainesville, Texas. During the next ten years six children were born - Effie, Wayne, Lyndon Kirk, Cleo Inez survived, with William Martin and Leta only living one day.

The Roberts girls with their mother: Wayne, Effie, Mother (Nora), Mildred, Inez

Lyndon Kirk died of blood poisoning and lockjaw at the age of ten. He died at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, January 1, 1905. This was a very tragic time for my parents for Lyndon was the only boy, and according to their reports, was the 'apple of their life.'

The story of Lyndon's death came down through my branch of the family as well - though with a few additional details. My grandmother, Edna Claire Kirkpatrick Mott (Lyndon and Mildred's first cousin), was very close to Lyndon.  According to my grandmother the circumstances were even more tragic as the blood-poisoning came about through Lyndon burning himself with a new cap pistol he had received on Christmas morning which resulted in his death six days later on New Year's Eve. My grandmother always got a very alarmed look on her face if I was playing with 'caps' and would usually take them away from me.

Lyndon's gravestone reads: "O how much of love and joy is buried with our darling boy." Let's continue on with cousin Mildred's writing:

Two years after his death, I was born, February 10, 1907, in Bridgeport, Texas. The entire clan of Kirkpatricks were living in Bridgeport, Texas. My grandfather and grandmother [William Henry Kirkpatrick (1840-1908) and Mackarina Bridges Hunt Kirkpatrick (1841-1921)] my Aunt Lillian, Aunt Willie, Uncle Louis and their husbands and wife, and children.

My grandfather died when I was an infant, so I did not get to know him, but I did know my grandmother, in fact I was a favorite of hers, for in her words I 'was the only one who would listen to her!' 

Mackarina Bridges Hunt Kirkpatrick (1841-1921)

I will try to tell one or two of the stories she told me of her youth, and of the civil war days that she and my grandfather experienced.

As my grandmother told me, when the war between the states broke out, she was young (I think she said seventeen) [she was actually 20] and living on a plantation in Tennessee. They had a number of slaves (I don't know how many) and she said her mother - my great grandmother [Penelope E. Bridges Hunt (1813-1873)] would give the slaves supplies each day. My grandfather [William Henry Kirkpatrick] lived on a plantation also, with slaves, and they [the two plantations] were near enough for my grandfather to visit (and 'court,' as she said) my grandmother.

My grandfather's father [Anderson Kirkpatrick (1808-1887)] raised blooded horses on his plantation, and my grandfather owned a very fine horse, a jumper, on which he rode to visit my grandmother. He was a little young to enlist at the beginning of the war, but before it was over he was in it. [In fact, William Henry Kirkpatrick signed up almost immediately with Company K of the 18th Tennessee Infantry.]

Their respective plantations were raided, occupied, and finally burned by the Union soldiers. My grandmother said [the Hunts] fled to a small place on the edge of their property, and there they stayed until the end of the war. They managed to salvage some of the family silver, and they hid it from the soldiers under the hens' nests in a chicken coop. The Union soldiers would come by fairly often, and they would take whatever suited them. They were always foraging for food, and my grandmother said they had one hen left. The soldiers decided they would catch that hen. My grandmother's sister became very indignant, and she decided they would not catch their only hen, so she picked up a broom and chased the soldier that was chasing the hen, and every time he would bend over, she would swat him with the broom! My grandmother would chuckle then, and so would end that tale.

Another time, my grandfather came on a hurried visit to my grandmother. As the soldiers did come by frequently, they sent her younger sister to the top of the hill nearby to watch out for them. My grandfather's parents had suffered the same fate as the Hunts and their horses had been confiscated by the Union army, with the exception of my grandfather's horse. During this visit, my grandmother's sister [the lookout] ran to tell them the soldiers were coming, and my grandfather ran out of the house and jumped on his horse. The soldiers were in sight, and they spotted him and gave chase. My grandfather, knowing the area so well, jumped his horse over fences that they had to take down to get by - he was able to elude them and rode to safety.

And another time he was not so lucky, for he was captured and put in a prison camp. [William Henry Kirkpatrick was captured at the fall of Fort Donelson in February 1862.] However, while in prison, his father came to see him. When they shook hands, his father [Anderson Kirkpatrick] pressed a bill into his palm. With this money my grandfather was able to get different clothes, and one day they were marching in line, and he managed to step over the barrier. He then made his way to the railway station, bought a ticket and boarded the train for home. He had quite a scare however, for the C. O. [of the prison camp] boarded the train, and sat in the same coach with him. He was very afraid he would be detected. [The escape occurred June 20, 1862.]

A letter home from W. H. Kirkpatrick mailed from Prison Camp (May 1862)

Other tales I know concern [the Kirkpatricks'] life in Texas. After they arrived in Valley View in covered wagon, Mama said Grandpa Kirk built their first cabin (her words). Grandma Mack was pregnant, and that their only son, [Louis Dillard Kirkpatrick (1873-1951)] was born shortly afterward. Mama said very hard birth, due in fact to long wagon ride. They came from Arkansas where Grandpa had operated a General Store and ferry on a river.

After Louis's birth, they moved to Gainesville, where Grandpa bought and operated a two story "hotel." They served meals, too, And both Mammaw and Willie (her sister) acted as waitresses. That is where Mammaw met Daddy. Mammaw did not tell many tales. I think she wanted to forget some of them!

Hietanen Reunion, June 2014

The 2014 Reunion of the Hietanen Family is scheduled for June 21. All descendants of Matti Uhmusberg Hietanen and Liisa Kristina Herttua Hietanen and their families are encouraged to attend. The gathering will begin at Concord Woods Nature Park, 11211 Spear Road, Concord Township, Ohio 44077. No end time has been scheduled, so that'll be pretty casual. Everyone should bring a dish for his or her immediate family and a dish to share.

I'll be attending this reunion. I'm really excited to meet family members I've never met, especially those who I've only corresponded with. And I'm looking forward to seeing family members who I haven't seen in a long time. See you in June!

I'll Get to Scotland Afore Ye

Andrew Campbell & Mary Gemmell Campbell

One of my first blogs on here was about my Campbell ancestors and how I'd been unable to go back any further than my great-great grandfather Andrew Campbell who immigrated to the United States about 1870.

But thanks to a distant cousin, the Scottish census, and some superbly detailed record keeping in Scotland, I've been able to push back two more generations and fill in some interesting details, too.

The journey back begins with my great-great grandfather's baptism record showing his birth date of September 27, 1845 (which I knew from family records and his grave marker in Newcastle, Texas). The baptism certificate gives Andrew's father's name as John (which I had not known) and most importantly lists his mother's maiden name, Helen Ramage, which I had not known at all.

Baptism record of Andrew Campbell (October 19, 1845)

The baptism record also gives Andrew's place of birth as Clackmannan, which is also new information, though Clackmannan is very close to Dunfermline, which is where family stories said we were from. With the names of Andrew's parents, one finds their marriage took place January 13, 1845. And with that it is fairly easy to find the family in the Scotland census, which offers a wealth of information.

In  the 1851 Scotland Census John Camble [sic], age 26, and his wife Helen, age 28, were living at 110 Store Row at Forth Iron Works in Carnock. John was a coal miner. In 1851 they had three children: Andrew, age 5 (my great-great grandfather); Margaret, age 4; and Janet, age 2.

In the 1861 Scotland Census the family is living at 83 Blair Row in Carnock. The children are listed as Andrew, age 15; Margaret, age 13; and several new children: John, age 9; William, age 7; Alexander, age 2; and Thomas, who is two months old.

Birth Record of Alexander Campbell (1858)

You may have noted that the youngest child listed in the 1851 census, Janet, is missing. Alas, she is listed in the death registry for January 1859.  A final child, Catherine Campbell, was born to John and Helen in 1865.

My great-great grandfather Andrew was 22 when he married my great-great grandmother Mary Gemmell in 1867. Both list their residences as Blair Row in Oakley.  The certificate also gives me the names of Mary Gemmell's parents (my 3rd great grandparents), James Gemmell, a labourer, and Jean Stewart.

Marriage record of Andrew Campbell & Mary Gemmell (1867)

Now comes a bit of a surprise. According to the marriage record above, they were married on October 7, 1867. But in Mary Gemmell Campbell's obituary from March 15, 1930, we find a marriage date of October 16, 1866. Regarding the discrepancy between the date of the 7th versus the 16th all I can assume is the child that wrote the obit failed to recall the anniversary correctly. The mistake in the year is more interesting, and I suspect the couple pushed the date back a year as their first child, Jean Campbell [Hardy], was born March 21, 1868 - less than six months after the actual marriage date.

Jean Campbell Hardy was a prominent resident of Newcastle, Texas (where this obituary ran). She had married Samuel Hardy who had in fact named the town and developed and financed several of the coal mines in the area. I am not sure if even Aunt Jean knew she had been conceived three months before her parents wed (I doubt it), but it is more than good reason for a fudging of the dates.

Andrew and Mary had two children in Scotland before they emigrated to the United States in 1870. Jean was the first (born March 21, 1868), and I just found a birth record for their second child, John Campbell, born July 30, 1869, in Carnock. You can read more about the thirteen Campbell children  in this earlier post.

Catherine Campbell, the youngest of John Campbell and Helen Ramage's children, married John Forsyth on December 31, 1886. They went on to have at least seven children. According to the 1891 Scotland census, her father was living with them, age 66. Helen Ramage Campbell seems to have died before 1891 - but I can't find a source thus far.

My great-great-great grandfather John Cambell died of pneumonia a few months after appearing in the above census on November 16, 1891, aged 67. I'm sure his life as a coal miner contributed a bit, too, to his death. He was living in Dunfermline, County of Fife, when he died.

John Campbell Death Record (1891)

His death certificate (above) survives, and thanks to the superb Scottish record keeping, allows me to push back the Campbells one more generation still. The death information includes the names of his parents, (my 4th great grandparents) Andrew Campbell (another coal miner) and Janet Allan. I believe I have found their marriage record, too, showing they married May 13, 1820, in Dunfermline, County Fife, Scotland.

I am deeply indebted to Alex Johnston. He is a first cousin, twice removed of the John Forsyth that married my great-great-great aunt, Catherine Campbell. He supplied me with much of the information above. In exchange I was pleased to give him a good deal of information on what happened to my Campbell ancestors that came to the United States in 1870.

The Over-the-Rainbow Connection

What relative peeks over Harry Doll's shoulder?

This blog post could fall into the My Famous Relatives series as well as the Cousins in Common series. How does that work, you might ask. Read on.

Margaret Williams Pellegrini died three months ago on August 7, 2013. Margaret was one of the last surviving little people to play a Munchkin in the 1939 MGM motion picture version of The Wizard of Oz—you know, the famous one starring Judy Garland. I learned of Margaret’s death that day when my cousin Vikki Colgrove Young posted the news to my Facebook page. Along with her post Vikki, who’s also interested in family genealogy, commented about us being related to a Munchkin. I thought she was kidding. She wasn’t.

Vikki didn’t mean we were related to Margaret Pellegrini. That would have been amazing. I knew Margaret a little bit from Oz conventions we’d both attended. In the early 1990s I’d sat next to her at dinner at a Winkie Con in Pacific Grove, California, and told her about turning The Wizard of Oz movie into a drinking game. (There’s only one rule: every time the word “wizard” is said or appears, you take a drink.) Margaret wasn’t particularly charmed. But she didn’t hold it against me. The last time I saw her was at the International Wizard of Oz Club’s Holland, Michigan, convention in August 2012. But I’m not related to Margaret—as far as I know.

Margaret Williams Pellegrini works the crowd at Oz-stravaganza! 2011 in L. Frank Baum's birthplace of Chittenango, New York. I'm in the background, cracking up with everyone else. Notice the "Deadly Poppy Field" lurking behind us. Photo courtesy Marc R. Baum. Used with permission.

The Munchkin actor that Vikki meant was Carolyn E. Granger (1915-1973). I had never heard anything about being related to a Munchkin actor before Vikki mentioned it, but once I found out it was true, I wanted to know more. It turns out that my family connection to Carolyn Granger is not by blood. It's pretty tenuous. The connection is on my mother’s side. Here’s how it goes:

My great-great-aunt Selma Marie Hietanen Filppi (1892-1978) married Victor Michael Filppi (1893-1966). Victor Filppi’s first cousin Arvo William “Chill” Filppi (1915-1987) married Maxine Julia “Mickey” Granger Filppi (1914-2005). Mickey Granger Filppi’s sister was Carolyn Granger. To recast that more concisely, Carolyn Granger’s sister married my great-great-uncle’s cousin.

The matter gets more interesting. You might recall that in a blog post a few months ago I explained how Vikki Colgrove Young and her sister Becki Colgrove Siler are cousins both to my partner David Maxine and to me. Vikki and Becki's great-grandfather was the Victor Filppi I mentioned above. So that means David also has a family connection to Carolyn Granger. What are the odds of both of us being connected to the same Munchkin actor? Here's David's line of connection:

David’s great-great-grandfather was David F. Sellers (1845-1927). David Sellers’s great-great-great-grandaughter is Vikki Colgrove Young. Vikki’s great-grandfather was Victor Michael Filppi. Victor Filppi’s first cousin Arvo William “Chill” Filppi married Maxine Julia “Mickey” Granger Filppi. Mickey Granger Filppi’s sister was Carolyn Granger.

Even more interesting, I found a second family connection to Carolyn. Yes, that’s right, a completely different connection, this time on my father’s side of the family. It goes like this:

Carolyn Granger’s eight times great-grandfather was John Howland (abt. 1591-1672/3), a passenger on the Mayflower. I have no idea whether Carolyn Granger was aware she was a direct descendant of a Mayflower passenger. Other descendants of John Howland include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Brigham Young, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Humphrey Bogart, and Sarah Palin. The list goes on. Anyway, John Howland’s great-granddaughter was Patience Howland (1749-1791). Patience Howland married Benjamin Rider (1733-1804). Benjamin Rider’s great-grandfather was Samuel Rider (1601-1679). Samuel Rider was my nine times great-grandfather. I know that’s a very long chain of connection. If you want the details, you can click this link to The Maxine Family website or the link on the upper right and trace the generations for yourself.

The Wizard of Oz is a classic motion picture based on a classic book by L. Frank Baum. It’s a movie loved by millions. But really, you might ask, despite the movie’s celebrated status, why are David's and my tenuous relationships to a minor actor in it such a big deal? The big deal is that both David and I have been major Oz fans since we were kids. I’ve been reading, watching, drawing, writing, listening to, and playing Oz since I was six years old. Half my career has had something to do with Oz. I’ve won three Eisner Awards and made the New York Times graphic novel best seller list because of Oz. Many of my closest and longest-lasting friendships were formed because of Oz. I met David because of Oz.

So finding I have even a tenuous family connection to Wizard of Oz actor Carolyn E. Granger was exciting.

Carolyn was born exactly ninety-eight years ago today on November 8, 1915, in Chardon, Geauga County, Ohio. Her parents were John Horace Granger (1881-1972) and Niona F. Halsey Granger (1886-1974). Carolyn had ten siblings, six of whom lived to adulthood.

When Carolyn wasn’t performing elsewhere, Chardon, Ohio, remained her home all her life. That was another startling revelation. For all my life I’ve had relatives in Chardon. I can’t count the number of times I’ve visited there. By the time Carolyn Granger died in 1973 I’d been a diehard Oz fan for three years. If I’d been able to meet a Munchkin actor during a family visit to Chardon back in the early 1970s, it would have meant a great deal to me. This lost potential—this ships passing in the night situation—was frustrating to realize.

In the early 1930s Carolyn Granger joined the Harvey Williams midget troupe. This was a group of little people who traveled around the country and performed vaudeville revues in venues such as county fairs. In 1938 all the members of the Harvey Williams troupe were hired to play Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.

The Harvey Williams midget troupe, circa late 1930s. All these people played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Carolyn E. Granger (1915-1973) is second from the right, as her name at the bottom says. Ruth Robinson Duccini, one of the two little person Munchkin actors alive today, stands in the center of the group. The leader of the troupe, Harvey B. Williams, stands third from left. His wife Grace Gould Williams, stands second from left. Harvey and Grace were married at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair while the troupe was performing there.

Another member of the troupe was Ruth Robinson Duccini. Ruth is one of two little people still alive who played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. I recently spoke with Ruth on the phone. Back in 1933-34, the Harvey Williams midget troupe performed at the World’s Fair in Chicago. Ruth had a chance to see them perform at another venue in Chicago, so she went. They asked her to join the troupe and she eventually did in 1937 after graduating from high school. Carolyn was already a member.

Ruth sang and danced with the Harvey Williams troupe, although she says she didn’t do either very well. Singing and dancing are what Carolyn did, too, although Ruth doesn’t remember specifics about Carolyn’s performances. Ruth says that Carolyn was nice, but that she sometimes didn’t feel too well. When I told Ruth that Carolyn died at age fifty-eight, Ruth wasn’t surprised. I guess Carolyn’s health was delicate. Maybe it was a family trait—four of her siblings died before they were out of their teens.

In 1938 MGM studios hired Leo Singer to supply 124 little people to play Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Singer managed the largest troupe of little people performers in the USA at the time, about thirty. He scrambled to find more little people to fulfill his commitment, and still he fell short of the quota. Singer contracted with the members of the Harvey Williams troupe, and they all traveled to Hollywood. Many of the little people working on the film stayed at the Culver Hotel in Culver City, California, but the Harvey Williams troupe stayed in a private home in Culver City. The men slept in back of the house and the women, including Ruth and Carolyn, slept in the front. That house is gone now, turned into a commercial property.

Members of the Harvey Williams troupe and others stand in front of the Culver City, California, house they stayed in during work on The Wizard of Oz in late 1938. Carolyn Granger stands left of center, indicated by the red arrow. Ruth Robinson Duccini stands on the far right. Photo courtesy Ruth Robinson Duccini. Used with permission.

I’m not going to give yet another history of the filming of The Wizard of Oz and the Munchkin actors’ participation. That’s been recorded elsewhere. If you’re interested, Steve Cox’s book The Munchkins of Oz is a good general account of the little people’s experiences on the movie and afterward. (Thanks, Steve, for all your help researching Carolyn Granger.)

Some of the Munchkin actors have also written books detailing their Wizard of Oz experiences, including Memories of a Munchkin by Meinhardt Raabe, who played the Munchkin coroner—several times Meinhardt mentioned to me at Oz conventions that the name Shanower was of German origin and I wish I could tell him now that I’ve discovered the name goes back beyond Germany to Switzerland—and Short and Sweet by Jerry Maren, the other of the two little people still alive who played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Jerry played the Lollipop Guild member that hands a lollipop to Dorothy.

Carolyn Granger stands on the left in the front row in what appears to be a color test of the Munchkins in costume on The Wizard of Oz Munchkinland set. Jerry Maren stands center, to the right of Carolyn. The original of this picture is in the Technicolor Collection of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Leo Singer wasn’t always on the legal up-and-up with the little people he contracted with for The Wizard of Oz. In mid-November of 1938 MGM asked for a revised contract with many of the little people. Carolyn’s signature is the first one on the revised contract.

The revised contract between many of the Munchkin actors and MGM (Loew's Inc.). Carolyn's signature appears first. Ruth Robinson Duccini's signature is the second one on the right. Most, if not all, of the signatures on this first page of the revised contract appear to be from members of the Harvey Williams troupe.

I don’t know how long Carolyn Granger stayed with the Harvey Williams midget troupe after her work on The Wizard of Oz was finished in late 1938. She and Ruth Robinson Duccini both continued performing with the troupe for a time, since a newspaper article in the Mason City, Iowa, Globe Gazette mentions them both singing, tap-dancing, and cavorting across the stage in May 1941. One particular performance in the Ozarks stands out for Ruth. The people in the audience were so surprised to see little people that they stared at the performers as if they’d appeared “from under a rock.” During the early days of World War II the troupe performed in army camps in the south. Ruth left the troupe when she got a job with Douglas Aircraft during the war and then married in 1943.

Carolyn Granger is listed in the 1940 US Federal Census with her family at 106 Huntington Street in Chardon, Ohio. The Granger family appears in the census immediately after the family of Roy Robert Grant (1897-1988), my second cousin twice removed. (You can see a young Roy in the Grant photo I discussed in the blog post here.) The Grants lived about a block away from the Grangers on Town Line Road, which I believe is now Grant Street. Surely the Grants would have been aware of their neighbors the Grangers, and especially of Carolyn, then in her mid-twenties. As a little person she would have been noticeable.

The 1940 US Federal Census for Chardon, Geauga County, Ohio, lists the Granger family immediately following the Grant family. Remember, you can click on any picture on the Several Times Removed blog to see it larger.

I wanted to notice Carolyn in The Wizard of Oz after I learned of my family connection to her. I’ve seen the movie many times and can recognize Munchkin actors that I’ve met. But which of those many Munchkins dancing and singing to Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road was Carolyn Granger? I located a couple photos of Carolyn in books about The Wizard of Oz movie and tried to impress her features into my brain. Last September the movie was re-released to theaters in a newly developed 3-D version for IMAX. David and I drove up to Hollywood to see it at Grauman’s Theater, where it premiered back in 1939. The movie looked beautiful. The new 3-D was tastefully done. But I didn’t spot Carolyn.

David and I saw the movie again a week or so later in San Diego at the Mission Valley Center AMC theater. It was sloppily framed and didn’t look as bright and shiny as the Hollywood screening. But it was still The Wizard of Oz. As usual, just after the Lollipop Guild finished welcoming Dorothy to Munchkinland, the Munchkins surged forward, singing “tra la la la la.” Suddenly there was Carolyn, just to the left of Judy Garland, jumping up and down with a big smile on her face. I’d recognized her.

Carolyn E. Granger plays a Munchkin in the 1939 MGM motion picture version of The Wizard of Oz. There she is just right of center, standing in the front row of the Munchkin crowd. The red arrow points to her. In the picture at the top of this blog post Carolyn Granger is peeking directly over the shoulder of one of the Lollipop Guild members, played by Harry Doll. Her face is just to the right of his.

At home afterward David and I watched the Munchkinland sequence again on dvd in order to make sure I’d been correct and so that we could pick out Carolyn in the rest of the scene. She stands in the front line of the crowd of Munchkins all during the Lullaby League and the Lollipop Guild songs, although she’s often obscured as the singers move back and forth. She’s fleetingly visible a few more times. But the moments where I’d first recognized her just before the Wicked Witch of the West arrives are the moments she’s most visible. Despite her death forty years ago, our distant cousin-by-marriage still looks so happy in those moments. She’ll look that happy as long as the 1939 motion picture version of The Wizard of Oz lasts. That ought to be a very long time.

If you’re an Oz fan, the journey over the rainbow never has to end. Oz has so many aspects, so many branches, there’s always something more, something new, something fascinating to discover and learn about. For me Carolyn Granger has been yet another fascinating aspect of the Oz phenomenon, but one that’s very personal because of my family connections to her.

Many of the Munchkin actors autographed this copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Carolyn's signature appears about halfway down the right hand column. Margaret Williams Pellegrini signed two names below Carolyn.

My Gay Relatives: Sally Balcomb and Betty Rodgers

Decaying sign for Bal-rone's Ashland Airport, 1967.

Time for some females in this series of posts on My Gay Relatives. In previous entries here and here I mentioned how the past doesn’t always reveal its secrets and that determining whether a past relative is gay is often difficult in a culture that historically tends to erase the fact of people being gay. But sometimes secrets are hidden in plain sight. Sometimes the people surrounding those secrets just don’t want to see them.

That seems to have been the case with my first cousin twice removed Sally Balcomb (1927-2007) and her longtime companion Betty Jean Rodgers (b. 1929). Sally was my paternal grandmother’s first cousin. My father recalls his family speaking casually and matter-of-factly about Sally and Betty—their two names together formed a unit. But it wasn’t until I was an adult that Dad finally put two and two together and realized that Sally and Betty were lesbians.

I can’t imagine that my father’s parents, Stanley Raymond Shanower (1917-1987) and Verna Lucille Evans Shanower, Sally’s cousin, didn’t recognize the situation. I believe they just chose not to think about it. My grandfather Stanley Shanower discussed homosexuality with me when I was twelve years old. I don’t remember how the subject came up, but I remember what he said about it. His understanding was that sometimes mothers dressed their sons in female clothing when the sons were young and those sons grew up to be homosexual. Even at twelve I thought this sounded a bit ridiculous, but I wasn’t about to argue with Grandpa on what I found to be an uncomfortable subject. Notice that he didn’t even begin to address female homosexuality. I bet it didn’t cross his mind at the time.

My grandmother Lucille knows that I’m gay. She’s met my partner David plenty of times and always mentions him in letters and when I speak to her on the phone. But I’ve never brought up the subject of my being gay with her in conversation. What I think is this—that Grandma can handle it if she’s not confronted with it.

And that’s what I think the family attitude was toward Sally and Betty.

Sally Balcomb was born in Elyria, Lorain County, Ohio, the daughter of my great-great-aunt Inez Irene Grandy Balcomb Kolinski (1892-1996) and Nelson Henry Balcomb (1888-1932). When Sally was five years old her father died. One afternoon Nelson Balcomb left in his car for a hunting trip. That evening his car was found burning, his body charred, the two shells in his shotgun discharged. His death was labeled a homicide. I have no idea whether Nelson Balcomb’s killer was ever caught, but it’s likely Nelson was a victim of the gang violence of Prohibition because of his job as a court stenographer. He’d been the stenographer during a highly-publicized libel suit two and a half years previous, in which William Peer sued Lorain Journal publisher David Gibson for labeling Peer a bootlegger. It was the longest trial of any kind in the history of Lorain County, Ohio, to that point. That case, or cases like it, brought Nelson Balcomb into contact with men who killed in ways similar to Nelson’s death. The police at the time acknowledged the similarity.

In any case, the 1932 death of Nelson Balcomb left five-year-old Sally fatherless. Sally and her mother Inez spent a lot of time visiting their friends, Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Gregg. Inez married again, in 1939, to Gust Kolinski (1879-1952), insurance salesman and real estate agent. Gust died of a heart attack in 1952.

Sally’s greatest enthusiasm seems to have been for aircraft. They became a major focus of her life. She learned to fly at the Ortner Airport in Birmingham, Ohio, and in Kansas City.

In 1954 Sally formed a partnership with Daniel Terlaak to purchase airplanes. They bought and sold airplanes and airplane parts. Eventually the partnership developed legal troubles. Workers sued them and Sally sued Daniel. After several years, the partnership dissolved. Sally went on to bigger things.

Bal-rone incorporates, 1959. Sally's signature is barely legible.

On February 13, 1959, Sally formed another partnership with Gary Mucciarone and Norman Cougill, both of Cleveland, Ohio. They called the company Bal-rone, Inc., a name formed from the first syllable of Balcomb and the final syllable of Mucciarone. Sally, as company agent, planned to lease the private Ashland Airport, in Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio, just off US Highway 250. Lawyer Kenneth R. Kolinski (1902-1975), Sally’s stepbrother from her stepfather’s first marriage, represented Bal-rone’s interests. In 1961 Sally purchased the thirty-year-old Ashland Airport, which had seen a lot of aviation history.

At first things went well for Bal-rone Inc. and its small airport. Sally continued to buy and sell aircraft and aircraft parts. She formed a local chapter of the Experimental Aviation Association and in 1963 the association gave her an award.

On September 2, 1965, tragedy occurred. A pilot crashed a Bal-rone airplane in Perrysville, Ohio, and died. A confidential report noted severe mental depression of the pilot and other indications of suicide.

This accident may or may not have been a contributing factor to Sally’s next step, distancing herself from Ashland Airport. More likely she was influenced by the growing desire of Ashland County to build its own county airport. On April 1, 1966, Sally leased Ashland Airport to the American Tower Company, Inc., of Shelby, Ohio. But when the one-year lease was up on March 31, 1967, American Tower declined to renew it, citing lost revenue. Ashland County, meanwhile, proceeded with its plans for a county airport. There were delays to those plans—including a lawsuit to stop the county from going ahead. There was also talk of turning Ashland Airport into the new county airport. But eventually the Ashland County Airport was built elsewhere.

Ashland Airport's final days, 1967.

At the end of 1971, Bal-rone Inc. filed dissolution papers with the state of Ohio.

I don’t know where or when Sally met Betty. Unlike airports, gay couples didn’t start to make the news until comparatively recently. But Sally and Betty were together for decades.

I met Sally Balcomb and Betty Rodgers only once that I know of—at the Methodist Church memorial service for my grandfather Stanley Shanower in Mentor, Lake County, Ohio, in May 1987. After the service there was a reception in the church hall. Two older women approached me and introduced themselves—Sally Balcomb and Betty Rogers. I’d never met them before, but as soon as they spoke to me I vaguely suspected that they were the two relatives that Dad had realized were lesbians.

I’m sure Sally and Betty suspected strongly that I was gay, but they didn’t talk to me openly about it. They were cleverer than that. They communicated indirectly. They knew I was a cartoonist, so they brought up Howard Cruse, the most famous gay cartoonist in the USA. I hadn’t met Howard then, but I was well aware of his career and said so. I was also very uncomfortable. It would still be a little over six months before I finally faced head-on the fact that I was gay. So I didn’t really talk with Sally and Betty about anything of substance. Now I wish I had. I may be projecting in retrospect, but the sense I got from them was that they were secure and content with who they were.

I mentioned Sally and Betty to my grandmother when I saw her last year. As far as Grandma knew they were still alive. I’ve subsequently found that Sally died in 2007. In Sally’s obituary, Betty is called Sally’s sister. Sister?—whether that’s coy, obfuscating, or just ignorant of the facts, it indicates Betty was still alive. Yet I can’t find her. The telephone number Grandma gave me is no longer in service. I assume I won’t be speaking with Betty ever again.

But at least I talked with Sally and Betty about Howard Cruse.

Cartoonist Howard Cruse and some of his creations.