Saturday, July 26, 2008

Lyn's Hobsons

Not quite Monroe research but given my link to Johnson Monroe is via Ellis L. Hobson married Alma Monroe I assume my recent contact with a second cousin via Hobson makes this post fit here quite nicely. My "new" cousin Judy's grandfather Orlando K. "OK" Hobson is my grandfather Ellis' older brother. I have a couple of letters OK wrote in early 1900s. In these letters OK has some of the most beautiful handwriting I have ever seen. OK was the Methodist minister who married my grandparents. I have references to him in my grandfather's 1910 obituary and in letters written by one or the other of my grandparents.

Judy never heard of me or my grandfather. I knew her father's name but not much more. A couple of days ago I received photocopies of several items Judy owns. I thank her publicly for being so generous. One item was our great-grandfather Minos Russell Hobson's will. I didn't know it existed. My mother and her sister didn't receive anything but they both were mentioned. I was happy to see that. Judy also sent some obituaries which were very interesting. I did not know OK's wife Bessie Harlow was a licensed Methodist minister. I couldn't tell from the articles when the General Conference of the Methodist Church authorized women to preach but it must be much earlier than I ever imagined. I have only begun to absorb this new information and new information always creates questions. I will likely drive Judy nuts asking questions in the next few weeks. Hopefully she will be willing to put up with me. All this has me thinking I should do more work on documenting descendants of my Hobson great-grandparents. I made a teensy start by asking a high school classmate who lives in Wichita to look up some obituaries at the Wichita Historical and Genealogical Society I found in the WHGS on-line index. She agreed to do so as she plans a visit there for her own family research but it may be a few weeks. Thank you Eve! I've also done some census work and found some "my Hobsons" related World War I draft cards. And then... I set up a private Picasa Hobson photo album and uploaded some pictures. If anyone is interested in seeing this album, please let me know. Finding a "new" cousin is a wonderful experience - but it surely makes me see a zillion holes in my research and reminds me of all the projects I need to work on.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Family Myth Busted!

For years I can remember being told that Highland Methodist's church land had been donated by my Monroe Ans., but the other day I was in Glasgow and stopped by the courthouse for a quick dig regarding a house up for auction that I thought might have been tied to Nathaniel and Alethea's land I came across the deed for Highland and lo and behold Franklin Overstreets estate donated the land! Since Franklin is tied to my branch of the family to both my Shaw family and is also the father of Laura who marries one of Issac West and Phobe Monroe's sons I guess it still works, but now I wonder how in the dickens the story was created that the land came from a Monroe? I wonder where all the old records for Highland are? Anybody know?