Torn and Ragged

About a week ago, I got the email that every family historian dreams of. 

It happened. It really happened.

A man in Illinois (for privacy reasons, I will simply refer to him as Mr. Illinois) had discovered a piece of my history, a piece of my family; one we did not even know was missing. He found it in his Grandmother’s attic, in a trunk, with a few other odd items. No one in his family, not his mother or any of her siblings, had any idea why Grandma possessed these items. No one knew they were there. No one knew that she had held onto them, carefully wrapped, gently placed. How did she obtain them? Why? The answers are still to be discovered, perhaps we’ll never know.

Torn and Ragged
The Bible that originally belong to
Adam and Carrie (Brown) Carlyle of
Orting, Washington. 

It came to me torn and ragged. It felt I was living out some kind of alternate space. It all happened so quickly!

You see, Mr. Illinois found part of the answer to his many questions on his search engine. A quick look at the oldest name in the Bible sent him to my blog, to this very site, to me. He realized that he needed to contact me, to find out about Oscar F. Brown. Yes, my Oscar. My most challenging brick wall ancestor. The one I have written about over and over. The one I will continue to write about until some of the mysteries are solved. 

(Tell me again that genealogy blogs do not need to utilize search engine optimization! He found me easily and quickly!)

So, that phone call came. A conversation of discovery, matching names, dates and locations. Enough that both of us were satisfied: yes, it’s a match.

What he found in his Grandmother’s attic was a collection. Two Bibles, a letter with photographs, and a photo album of Civil War soldiers; all members of the unique Mississippi Marine Brigade. In one evening, I went from hopeful to elated: the family in Illinois had decided to send me the Bibles. The photo album will be copied professionally, then sent on to the Civil War Museum in Virginia. Where it belongs, because, truly, the collection is a national treasure. It is not just for my family alone. That is very satisfying.

Back to the Bibles. One was property of Carrie (Brown) and Adam Carlyle, my great aunt and uncle. The other belonged to their eldest son. Their descendants are my 2nd cousins, and after a few years of research in their own right, they have passed on their own family collection of letters, photos and other heirlooms to me. I have referred to this vast collection before, and have coined it, "The Carlyle Collection."  The decision was made that I should receive the treasure, and that I did.

Surprisingly, Mr. Illinois sent it rather quickly, in a simple U.S. Post Office box. He had either had it long enough that his curiosity was sedated or was ready to get rid of them. Either way, within a week, they were sitting on my dining room table. It is not lost on me that the table belonged to my own Grandparents originally, and here I am, using its surface to photograph the penmanship of Grandpa’s aunt. Oh, how the wheel of life turns…

I am sure that future posts will detail all I learn from these precious gifts. For now, it is enough to say that my family is incredibly grateful to another family in Illinois. We have regained a piece of us; we have been able to connect with another part of us that makes us who we are. For that, Mr. Illinois, I will never forget you.

Both Bibles, side by side.

The inside cover of the oldest Bible, belonging
to Carrie (Brown) and Adam Carlyle. The writing
lists the lineage of Adam.
The copyright is 1895. 

One Photo at a Time

I randomly chose a photo from my "unknown" collection for this post. Here is an image of four males, ranging in age from around 15 years to mid-30's. (That's a big guess by the way, I'm really not very good at guessing ages.)  I have no idea who they are or why I own their photo, but I absolutely love this image. It certainly looks to me like four decent guys, trying to look tough. 

The image entered my collection via a distant cousin. He is a descendant of Carrie (Brown) Carlyle, who was my great great aunt. Her husband, Adam, carries some Canadian heritage into our tree, and I believe this to be a picture from that line of folks. 

The original is cut into the shape seen here, and this is a scan, not a photo, so the image is not quite as good as it could be (see this previous post for more information on that!). There is nothing on the back to indicate who these gents might be. 

The image is simply priceless, and they look to me like they are sharing a good private joke. If it weren't for the youngest of the four, you might almost believe them to be tough and threatening, but he gives it away. 

Silent Sunday...mostly: Unknown Couple

These photos are in our family collection, along with others, that belonged to a C.C. Christie. To be honest, the relationship is vague at best to the Christie family, and I have done little research on them to date (leaving that for this coming winter.)  

The images eventually came to us through my great-grand aunt, Carrie (Brown) Carlyle, who lived in Carnation, Washington. 

I think it is quite apparant that they were taken on the same day, by the same photographer. The mats and image quality are identical. There is no writing and no dates anywhere on either image.

The Diary

Last year I was entrusted with a family collection of photos, letters, documents... even one reproduction Civil War medal. You know how this works. You get a huge box of unidentified memorabilia, some of which is garbage, some of which you already have (somewhere) and some of which are pure gold. As in, "this should really be in a museum but I'm probably going to keep it for a while anyway" gold.

The Diary is one of those pieces of gold.

The "Carlyle Collection" as I have named it all came to me from my great grandfather's sister's family. Carrie Brown, daughter of Oscar and Frankie (previously mentioned in several other posts) married Adam Carlyle, and Carrie was good at saving things. So were her daughters. I have certainly gained the honor of becoming the family curator, and eventually the collection ended up in my lap. A title I will gladly carry through to the end. The collection had been organized, to my great delight, to a certain degree by a member of the Carlyle family more recently. He even labelled some of those unknowns for me, which is nearly unheard of.

But no one told me about The Diary.

I had spent days documenting, digitizing and doing my best to filter through the collection. It came contained in seven binders and several other collection devices: boxes, plastic bags, loose pieces. The process had been long and tedious - and I still had to go through and translate all those letters, find where all those pieces belonged. I was really just beginning, but the cataloging was dragging on and on, until I was just done. Done.

Then I found The Diary.

In a very plain looking brown bag. On the front was written, "Diary of Carrie E. Reid 1895 Given to Lizzie Christie (1),  Jean Mouat (2), Helen DeVries (3)." In the top left corner a address label was placed for William DeVries of Bellingham, Wash. (Can you say 1940 US Census?) The back of the bag had a printed label for "PayLess: We're Your Mall in One... We've Got It All Together." Obviously, a modern addition to The Diary. The handwriting on front I recognized from some of the photos I had seen in days previous. Even the pen used was the same. One of the names, Helen DeVries, was familiar, but other than that, I had nothing.

Carrie E. Reid wrote The Diary.

Inside the bag was a dictation notebook, similar to the commonly used white and black notebooks seen across colleges everywhere. The front cover, brown with black and gold embossed lettering, reads "Cyclopedia Book, Exercise and Dictation". The back and inside covers are littered with helpful information, such as "How To Tell the Age of Any Person", in chart form, the "Strength of Ice" and "Origin of the Dollar". Held together with a piece of blue tape along the spine, obviously an attempt made several decades ago. The first page entry is dated Tuesday, Jan 1, 1895, by C.E. Reid, "Diary".

               "This being the 22nd Anniversary of Mother's and Father's wedding we 

                  wished to have some enjoyment so we decided on having a little party."

I was immediately obsessed.

Inside were a few items, other than the script of Carrie Reid. She appears to be writing from somewhere in Canada, so a program from the Grand Opera House in Ottawa (Canada), for Tuesday, February 18th, highlighting Madame Albani in performance, made sense. A color print, on thin paper, slightly torn in the corners, of "The Doctor", published by J.A. Austen & Co., Chicago. A small scrap of paper, written in pencil, "July 4th, 1896, Saturday night..." along with a very fragile sample of hand crocheted lace, folded several times over. The last entry is from Jan. 1st, 1896, "Leap Year".

I hope to find out who Carrie E. Reid was, and where her family ended up. How is she related to me? How did this diary, this very precious item, end up in my hands? The trust my family places in me... wow.

Some of the entries are long, involved stories. Some are very simple, one sentence, maybe two. The transcription will hopefully be completed this year, and the storage of this item for preservation carefully considered. It is a treasure, a family heirloom, yes. But more than that, it is a historic artifact. One for the museum, perhaps.

The Diary.