The Susie Situation - Episode 6 - Hot For You

This can be viewed as a YouTube video (below) or read as a blog post (below that.) Accompanying documentation is at the end.

How far would you go for your Significant Other? Would you eat the food she likes? Move to the city he loves? Would you change religions? If your man were big into blackmail, would you participate? 

If you are joining us for the first time, this is Episode 6 in a series. Kate, Melody, and Nancy have been exploring a family mystery involving Aunt Susie, whose family house and barn burned down in 1912, soon after she was shipped off to a school for girls. We found out that Frank Hamilton was arrested for harming Susie, but was there a trial? We think all of these things are related, and we think this fire marked the beginning of this family’s downward spiral into intermittent homelessness. We’ve hired a genealogist to help us find out more, and we’re anxiously awaiting her findings.

We've also taken a look at my grandfather, Orland Carver. Grandpa Orlie. We don’t like what we see. But what about his wife, Annis Hubbard Sholes Carver? How does Grandma Annie fit into this equation?

It's 2018. The MeToo movement goes global. Sears and Roebuck goes bankrupt. And I receive a 54-page packet of court papers in the mail. The genealogist tells me they are preliminary court papers. Most are handwritten, in a really fast scribble, chicken scratch legalese, and they are incomplete.

What does she mean by incomplete? Well, they do suggest that a trial occurred, but they do not say what happened at the trial. There are papers about the original arrest, about the trial being rescheduled to a later date, subpoenas for witnesses to appear, and some curious pre-trial testimony from Ruth Hamilton.

I have to switch glasses, magnify the writing on a big screen, and reread this really bad handwriting several times, but fortunately, I have some experience reading chicken scratch.

It's 1978. The TV Show Dallas debuts on CBS. Everyone at school is singing "You're the one that I want" after watching Grease for the 3rd time. And The Reverend Jim Jones shocks the world, leaving us all with a new saying, "Don't drink the Kool-Aid." I'm 19 years old, working my first college job, grading freshmen comp papers. These are handwritten. Scribbled. Chicken scratch. I get a lot of practice reading really bad handwriting.

Throughout the semester a parade of young men come through the English Department doors in search of homework help. One of these boys asks me out. I change college majors because of him, follow him to another town, even get a job where he works. One Saturday night he takes me out to dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant. He says he has something important to discuss. He reaches into his pocket. Is he about to propose? I hold my breath as he extends his hand and opens it to reveal ... his key to my apartment. He says he needs to give it back because he has just proposed, to his other girlfriend, and she said yes. That's when I realize, my man-picker is malfunctioning. Broken down. In need of an upgrade!

Like grandmother, like granddaughter. And now I wonder, if I had married that man, after changing my major and following him to another town, how much would I have been willing to do to keep him happy? Watch his TV shows? Raise kids his way? Blackmail the neighbor of his choice?

It's 1888. Imagine Annie Hubbard, 19 years old, at a neighborhood barn dance in Mars, Nebraska. Chet Fields plays the fiddle. His brother Ed is there too. When the Fields brothers play, all the young people come. The air crackles with a mix of nerves and excitement. Annie tugs at the faded ribbon in her hair as she watches him across the rough-hewn dance floor. The new boy, with his sun-streaked hair and the beginnings of a shy smile. He glances her way, then quickly down at his boots. The music breaks off, replaced with the dance caller's booming voice. Annie turns to her friend, swallowing a surge of disappointment. But then she sees him, shouldering his way through the crowd. "Hello, I'm Charley. Would you like to dance?"

I don't know if that's what happened, but dances were popular in the area, and so was Chet Fields. By March of 1889, Annie Hubbard and Charley Sholes must have found a meeting spot much more private than a public dance hall. According to her divorce papers, Annis and Charles got married on October 9, 1889, and he then deserted her, on October 9, 1889. Daughter Florence was born on December 31, 1889. It looks like Annie and Charles never planned to live together. I don't know if Florence ever met him or his 2nd family.

And you know that little voice I mentioned last episode, the one that says, "You're no good; you should be ashamed; you need to know your place?" How loud do you think that voice gets in the head of an unwed pregnant girl in 1889? Or a divorced lady with a small child? So when Orlie Carver came along, willing to marry her, did Annie feel like she had many choices? Don't you just want to travel back in time, take her by the shoulders, and shout, GRANDMA, THINK THIS THROUGH?!!

What do we really know about Annie? Not a lot. Childhood stories suggest that the Hubbard children were playful, with a tendency towards mischief, and that they all had a solid education in Vermont before arriving in Nebraska. Not a college education, but good for the times. 

Dad said Annie was not particularly demonstrative. Orlie was more affectionate, when he wasn't being violent. He also said that Annie had a lot of anxiety in later years, and that once she almost gave up on life. It was some time after the fire, in a little spider-infested stone house in Kansas, the house that leaked like a sieve, where she tried to hang herself from the rafters, but Uncle Bob cut her down. Bob would have been quite young still, perhaps 9 or 10?

Bob also tells of her calmly removing my dad, little Willie, from the middle of the bed when he was a toddler, so that she could shoot a rattlesnake that she saw hanging from the rafters directly above where he slept. 

And Dad wrote about Annie's actions during the 1918 Influenza Epidemic, when she spent countless hours caring for sick neighbors.

We’ve heard that in the years after the fire, Annie’s children were often dirty and unkempt, that she was often sick, and that she had a tendency to forget what years her children were born when reporting their ages to school authorities, or to coroners.

And what was her relationship with Orlie? From Dad's description, Orlie was in charge, and Annie's job was to follow along. 

At the end of her life Annie lost a fight with colorectal cancer. She was 56 years old, and when the kids visited the hospital, they report that she was incoherent, probably from pain medication. I don't think that's how she would like to be remembered. I'd rather remember her as the lady who shot down the rattlesnake. Annie, get your gun!

But now we have a new story from Ruth Hamilton. Ruth paints Annie in a very different light. Of course, just like that dance story that I made up a few paragraphs back, we have no idea how much of Ruth's story is true. 

It's 1911. September 12. Annie is a mother of eight. She’s been living with Orlie for 14 years. The Hamiltons are neighbors. And here is what Ruth Hamilton says in her pre-trial testimony. She says that Mrs. Carver came to the Hamilton home after dinner and asked to speak with her husband, Frank, who was upstairs resting. He came down. Then Mrs. Carver said, "I am going to send you over the road for having Susie out all night, but I am willing to settle if you will give me your grey team."

Ruth asked Mrs. Carver if Frank had done anything wrong or harmed Susie in any way, and Mrs. Carver said that he had not, but that he had Susie out all night, and that was against the law, and that she would send him over the road for it unless Frank gave her that grey team. 

According to Ruth, when the Hamiltons turned Mrs. Carver down, she then said that she would be willing to settle for the bay colts, which were inferior to the grey team, not worth as much money. And when they refused to part with either the greys or the bays, Mrs. Carver proclaimed in a loud and angry voice, "I will make it hot for you and send you over the road."

Ruth goes on to testify that Carver and his wife live on a Kincaid homestead not far from the Hamilton's, and that on several occasions they've offered to trade the entire homestead for that grey team.

And finally, Ruth says that she ran into Mrs. Carver in front of the drug store in O'Neill on the same day after the preliminary hearing in this case, and she said to her then, “I hope you feel better since you swore to all those lies!" 

Whereupon Mrs. Carver started to cry and answered, "I had to do it, and if you were in my place, you would do it." 

Where do I start?

Everybody seems to agree that Frank had Susie out all night. Had her out where? What would a middle aged neighbor-man be doing all night with a 13-year-old girl that falls into the category of “not harmful”? Astronomy lessons? Feeding homeless cattle? I've wracked my brain. 

And what about the language here? Would somebody with Grandma's education level use phrases like "I will make it hot for you" or "I will send you over the road"? Maybe. 

Then there's this whole thing about the horses. The Carvers would do anything to get those greys. Would a set of horses really be worth an entire 600-acre homestead? And I'm remembering comments Kate used to hear from the family years ago, "The Carvers were nothing but a bunch of horse thieves." I didn't think they meant literal horse thieves, but ... maybe they did?

And finally, back to the language. 

• I will make it hot for you. 

• I will send you over the road. 

Doesn't this sound like something we should put on a set of travel mugs?

2018 was an eventful year, with all these court papers, and this new story about Grandma. Newspapers started to be digitized at a faster and faster pace. And I talked to Cousin Melody for the first time. You know that surgery I mentioned back in Episode One? It's Melody's fault I got that surgery to start with. If you want to hear more, check back next time!

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Thanks to Amy Johnson Crow for providing a framework for people who don't know what to say next when writing about genealogy. We're loosely following her 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks framework. 

Photo Credits From the video

Annie Oakley Poster is in the Public Domain in the United States

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Miss-Annie-Oakley-peerless-wing-shot.jpg?uselang=en#Licensing

The Pre-Trial Testimony of Ruth Hamilton

I am going to put this in a separate post here.

Florence's Birth Year

We have several documents to help understand Florence's birth year. When put together, the evidence suggests December 31, 1889 as the logical birth date. Further evidence in the future may prove this incorrect; however, it is a reasonable conclusion at this time.

Birth Certificates, Announcements Etc

Unfortunately, no birth certificates were issued for this time frame, and so far I've found no church records or announcements in local papers. The Neligh Leader was publishing quite regularly at that time and seems to have covered the Mars area fairly well. I see a number of references to Cyrus and Mary Carver in 1889. In next door Knox county the Niobrara Pioneer was also in print. But, nothing about this birth, so far.

Whenever her birth month is listed, it is always listed as December, so I'm going to assume December is correct.

Divorce Papers for Annis Hubbard and Charles Sholes

These state that Charles and Annis were married Oct 9, 1889 and that he deserted her on Oct 9, 1889. They further state that daughter Florence is 6 years old. This was initially filed on January 14, 1896 and then finalized on June 5, 1896.

Obvious thing here: it is all handwritten, and the 5 and the 6 look very similar. So I could be wrong in how I am reading that handwriting. But the part that says when they were married and when he deserted her is very legible.

Marriage record for Florence Sholes and Clarence Carey

This is in April of 1906 and states that Florence is 16. It is signed by Florence, Annis, and Orland. This would put her birth year in 1889 if birth month is December.

1900 Census Record

This was enumerated on June 28, 1900. It says that Florence is 10 and was born in December of 1889. The birth years and ages of the other children are correct, although I cannot tell you why Clarence is called Admiral here.

1910 Cen1910 Census Record

This was enumerated on May 10. It states that Florence is 19, which would put her birth year in 1890 if birth month is December.

1920 Census Record

Taken in January 1920. Age 30 in January 1930 puts birth date in 1889 if birth month is December. Note that this record is extremely accurate. All 8 children's ages are correct (according to the birth information I have for them) including the 3 youngest, whose ages include number of months. 

Florence Sholes Carey's death certificate

This gives a birth date of Dec 31, 1890, provided by husband Clarence. It wouldn't surprise me at all for Clarence to get the birth year incorrect. He's got 9 kids, no wife, and a funeral. He's getting ready to pack the whole bunch up and drive them all to Grandma and Grandpa's house so they can try to fit 10 more people into a 3 room abode where some of the Carver kids are already camping in the back yard. When does he have time for the finer things in life, like remembering what year his dearly departed was born?

Gravestone

Says "1889 - 1890" age 30. Since 2 out of those 3 facts are incorrect, I don't put much stock in the gravestone. It is wonderful that somebody put it there that, but it is not a good source for factual info. Probably put there later by one of the children?

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The Susie Situation - Notes - Ruth Hamilton's Pre-Trial Testimony

This is a transcription of several pages of handwritten testimony provided to me by Holt County courthouse. It is a sworn statement from Frank Hamilton explaining in (excruciating) detail while his wife Ruth cannot come to trial. (Honestly, Frank, you could have just said, "She is very pregnant and cannot travel." You did not have to go on and on with the embarrassing details. Do you think Ruth wanted you to do that?) Then it goes on to detail what he says is Ruth's testimony that she would provide if she could come to the trial. 

I'll provide all of the transcription first, followed by copies of the handwritten pages after that. At some point in the future perhaps I'll figure out how to provide the entire document with transcription in a PDF. But for now, this is it.

PAGE 36-Now comes the defendant Frank Hamilton and moves the Court to continue this case until the next regular term of this Court, for the reasons set forth in the Affidavit hereto attached, marked "Exhibit A" and which is hereby made a part of this motion.

PAGE 37- Exhibit A - Frank Hamilton being first duly sworn upon oath deposes and says that he is the defendant in the above entitled cause that Ruth Hamilton is the wife of the defendant and is a necessary and natural witness in defendants behalf in the trial of said case and without her testimony the defendant cannot safely proceed to trial that she is at this time sick and confined to her bed and is unable to leave it. That on the 2nd day of June 1912 she gave birth to a child. That her labor pains were most severe and she was unable to give

PAGE 38- birth to said child until she obtained assistance of doctors Hooper and Battis of Butte Nebraska. That it was necessary for said Doctors to use forceps and other surgical instruments in the delivery of said child. That by reason of these facts she became physically weak and exhausted and was subjected to a great nervous shock from which she has not as yet recovered, that she is also at this time and for some time past has been suffering from a large tumor of the womb and that as soon as she recovers sufficient strength to endure an operation it may be absolutely necessary that she be operated on for said tumor. That affiant knows from her present condition that it will be impossible for her to

PAGE 39- go to O'Neill the place of trial for at least two months and probably longer. That her home is 35 miles from O'Neill and that her means of conveyance will have to be by team. That she could not go to O'Neill at this time or within the time heretofore specified without placing her life in danger, that if this case is continued to the next regular term of this court that affiant will have said witness present in court for the trial of said case. That if she were present in court she would testify that on the day following the night the crime is alleged to have been committed that Mrs. Annis Carver mother of the prosecutrix Susie Carver came to the home of affiant after dinner on said day. That at the time 

PAGE 40- she came and for about a half hour prior that affiant was upstairs in his dwelling lying on his bed. That Mrs. Carver asked affiant's wife where affiant was, that she told her where affiant was and that she then had one of the children call affiant. That affiant came down ? To where his wife and Mrs. Carver were. That Mrs. Carver said to affiant in the presence of his wife that she (Carver) wanted to talk to affiant privately, whereupon affiant's wife said Mrs. Carver he is my husband and if you have anything to say to him why don't you say it my presence. That Mrs. Carver then said, "I am going to Send you over the road for having Susie out all night, but I am willing to settle it if you will give me your grey team."
 
PAGE 41- That affiant's wife then asked Mrs. Carver in substance if her husband (affiant) had done anything wrong or harmed Susie in any way, that Mrs. Carver said that he had not but that he had Susie out all night and that that was against the law and that she would send him over the road for it unless affiant would give her the grey team, that affiant and his wife both said that affiant had done nothing wrong to the girl as she herself Mrs. Carver had stated and that they would not give her the team because there was nothing to settle, that Mrs. Carver then said that affiant and his wife would ----- it that she would be willing to take the bay colts. That said team of bay colts were inferior to the grey team and were not worth near

PAGE 42- so much as the gray team. That affiant and his wife both refused to give her the bay team or anything else. That Mrs.Carver then in a loud and angry voice said, "I will make it hot for you and send you over the road."

That Carver and his wife lived on a Kinkaid homestead not far from affiant's place, that on several occasions prior to the time specified in this affidavit and on different occasions offered to trade their Kinkaid homestead to affiant for the aforesaid grey team. That affiant's wife will testify that both Carver and his wife have done everything in their power to get ahold of affiant's grey team. That affiant's wife in O'Neill and on the same day and right after the preliminary hearing in this case

PAGE 43- met Mrs. Carver in front of one of the drug stores in O'Neil, Nebr and said to Mrs. Carver, "I hope you feel better since you swore to all those lies." Whereupon Mrs. Carver started to cry and answered, "I had to do it, and if you were in my place you would do it." That affiant's wife then immediately walked away from Mrs. Carver. That this affidavit is not made for the purpose of delay but is made for the sole purpose of obtaining justice and further affiant sayeth not. Signed, Frank Hamilton.

Page 36-37

Page 38-39

Page 40-41

Page 42-43

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The Susie Situation - Episode 5 - Stale Old Stories

You can watch this on YouTube (below). Copies of news articles are in the written version (below that.)

If you’re joining us for the first time, we are cousins investigating a 100 year old family mystery. We call it The Susie Situation. This is episode 5.

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The Susie Situation - Episode 4 - Sensational Testimony

If you're joining us for the first time, we're investigating a family mystery from 1912. It centers around a homestead fire in Nebraska. One word of caution, this week's content does include references to historical events that contain sensitive information, so discretion is recommended.

This can be watch as a video (below) or read as a blog post (below that). 

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The Susie Situation - Episode 3 - Follow The Clues

If you're joining us for the first time, we're some cousins trying to unravel an old family mystery. We call it The Susie Situation, and this is Episode Three.  You can read here, or watch on YouTube (below.)

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The Susie Situation - Episode 2 - A Name on A Page

Last week we talked about Fires and Farts. This week? Seventh Grade and Scams. We're investigating a 100-year-old mystery that we're calling "The Susie Situation." This is episode 2.

This is available as a video (below) or in written format (below that.) At the very end are some news clippings and one transcribed news article.

Imagine 7th grade. I know, you don't want to. It's such an awkward year. You're 13, maybe 12. Your complexion is staging this full blown rebellion. The other kids are all edges and elbows.

But let's say you have a teacher with a flair for the creative. "Gather round, class! Your maternal grandmother, that's your mom's mom. Do you know her first name? I want you all to seat yourselves alphabetically by that. If it was Alice, you're in the front. If it was Zelda, you're in the back. Shuffle it up! Let's go!"

There's a buzz in the room. It's almost as exciting as Harry Potter's sorting hat. The kids begin to sort themselves into rows while they keep up a steady banter.

"My grandma's cookies are better than yours."

"So what?"

And as they jostle and joke, you burst into tears, because it feels like you're the only person in this classroom without living grandparents, and you realize that not only do you not know what kind of cookies your maternal grandmother used to make, you don't even know her name.

This is how my cousin Melody first became interested in family history, there in her seventh grade classroom, thinking about her grandmother and wondering where to sit. She had a million questions she wished she could ask this unknown lady with the unknown name. So Melody went home that day and just started asking her parents questions about their parents.

Melody's mother told her that her grandmother's name was Sina Belle Carver. Her mother remembered spending a lot of time playing outside as a child — running wild, as she called it. And she didn't recall any specific cookie memories, but she did remember that sometimes she would get in trouble, and then she would have to sit on the stairs — sort of an old fashioned time out — but then Sina would feel bad about it afterwards and give her ice cream.

Sina was my father's sister, and Dad said that she was named after his father's former girlfriend. Now, why did Grandma go for that? I mean, it's a pretty name, but his former girlfriend? Sina Belle's brothers used to kid her about her name.

"When Congress sends a bill to the president, what do they want him to do? Sign a bill! Ha ha ha!"

Future tellers of dad jokes, right there. But Dad claimed they were very loving about this, because you couldn't help but love sister Sina. She was little and sweet and gentle and kind.

Sina and her siblings were all born in Nebraska, where her ancestors moved in hopes of rich farmland and a fresh start. Back in 1877, her father's Carver family came from Wisconsin with a group of other settlers to form a small town called Mars. Her mother's Hubbard family came from Vermont to settle in a nearby village called Venus.

These towns are kind of hard to find now. If you pull up Google Maps, you can see Venus. It's part of Walnut Grove. And then, Mars Campground is a few miles southeast of that, and that's most of Mars, right there. Our shirttail relative, Dick Haskin, lives there, on the old Haskin Homestead. This is right near where the old Carver Homestead used to be. Dick hosts family reunions there, and many Carver and Hubbard family members have been back to visit.

 I haven't been to one of these reunions yet, because I'm just not a very good traveler, but the last few years I've gotten better at traveling. At the Mars campground, Dick gives tours, and I'm kind of excited about this, because there are these dugouts that my great uncle stayed in while they built the house for the family to live in, and it seems like everybody's seen these except me.

So, to speed things up, a few months ago, I sign up for this special airline credit card from Bank of America. It claims to get me extra airline points so I can fly places for free. The card comes in the mail. And then, two days later, I get a letter from Bank of America. It says, "We're shutting down your account due to suspicious activity", and I'm like, What?

The letter says I have 25 days to sort this out or else, poof! And I'm thinking, goodbye airline points, no free trips to Nebraska, no tours with Dick to see the dugouts, unless I make this call.

I call the number on the letter and get a recording that says, if you're over 50 press 1, if you're under 50 press 2. That seems really weird, but I press 1. A woman answers. She doesn't say anything about suspicious activity or credit cards. Instead, she tries to sell me a Medic Alert Bracelet.

Help! I've fallen for a scam, and I just need to hang up. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised because my family's been falling for scams since at least 1877, when those Carver great grandparents migrated to Mars.

Here's an article from the Neligh Independent from January, 1878. (See below.) The editor recounts a trip to the area to visit a homestead. He says the grass rivals Kentucky bluegrass, perfect for fattening cattle, splendid groves of trees, fine meadowlands, four tons of hay per acre, "many others to be had in this immediate neighborhood."

I wonder what kind of commission this guy got for each homestead that was settled. I showed this to Dick Haskin. He laughed and said, "This soil is sand, gravel, and volcanic ash. Nothing grows well here. Nothing."

So, back in Wisconsin, some excitable farmer reads a glowing article like this, and then he goes around to his relatives and neighbors and gets them all worked up about Nebraska. Free land. Tons of hay per acre. Fat cattle. And they all get scammed into moving to Mars.

The article goes on to mention several homesteaders, including Wallace Haskin and Mr. Carver. The Mr. Carver in this article was Sina's grandpa. That's Melody's two times great grandpa. And despite the bad soil, he did figure out how to scrape a living out of his homestead. But, it appears that it was a constant scrape.

We know a few things about Cyrus Carver and his wife Mary from old newspapers. We know that in Mars they were called Grandma and Grandpa Carver, that sometimes they were called out in the middle of the night to help care for the sick, and that he donated part of his land to be the first cemetery.

These old newspapers weren't available for Melody to search back in 7th grade. They've been scanned in recent years and put online, some of them just in the last couple of years. And when Melody was in seventh grade, we also didn't know each other. I was aware of her mom, but really only as a name on a piece of paper.

And sometimes with family history, that's really all you have to start out with, a name on a page. And for some people, it seems like that's the whole goal, a collection of as many connected names as possible, going back as far as possible, and maybe highlighting as many connections to famous people as possible.

But we're still trying to understand just a few people a couple of generations back. And honestly, we want to know a lot more than just a name on a page.

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The Susie Situation - Episode 1 - Things That Burn

My family left us many things - a predisposition to cancer, diminutive stature, a distinct lack of generational wealth. They neglected to leave photos. We don't know what Grandpa looked like, or two of our three aunts. Those three aunts died way too soon and really needed to meet more men. That's what we've decided from where we sit -- three nieces and grand nieces, learning about Dad's three sisters, while we unravel a 100 year old mystery that we're calling "The Susie Situation." Our story starts with a fire.

This is available as a video (below) or as a written work (below that.) 

I wake up most mornings thinking that I'm getting old. Why is this at the forefront of my thoughts at dawn? Who knows.

Last year I had surgery to remove various body parts before they had a chance to acquire cancer. My father's family gave me the gift of being genetically hospitable to certain types of cancer, and I don't need those parts anymore, so it seemed like the thing to do, but ...

Something happens when they re-arrange all those parts inside of you. It must create free space for trapped air? After years of gas-free living (except for the summer of '69 - and we don't know what was going on there) I found myself waking up at 3am with copious amounts of excess flatulence.

My morning routine the first few weeks after surgery involved waking up, thinking about getting old, noticing which body part hurt most, remembering that I'm not going to be around forever, and then telling myself to stop whining, because I've outlived many women in my family. This series of thoughts might take anywhere from 3 minutes to 3 hours, after which, resolving to go about my day with dignity and grace, I would roll over, sit up, and fart.

Do I recommend this surgery? Well, it might have prolonged the lives of some of those women I've outlived. Even a little bit of standard medical care might have helped. I mean, I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure aspirin is not the best and only painkiller for breast cancer. Uncle Clarence, I'm talking to you.

My father's three sisters all died before I was born. I don't even know what two of them looked like. Sometimes I hear rumors of photos. "My sister might have some, but she isn't speaking to me and won't share" or "My uncle had all the photos, and then his house burned down."

Things that burn. There's actually an old family story about a house and a barn burning down on the same day, back when my father was two years old. He wrote about this in a manuscript he left me. 

He says, “We were living on this homestead near Spencer, Nebraska. And Dad was away from home."

I guess the rest of the family was out getting the cows. Except for his sister Susie. For some reason she wasn't there. On their way home, a thunderstorm came up on the prairie.

"There was one really bright flash and then a hard clap of thunder. Then we saw smoke coming from our new barn. It was on fire, and we couldn't save it. Before we got to the barnyard, there was another really bright flash and another deafening roar, and smoke came pouring out of our house -- our new house!"

Now, when I was a kid, I noticed that if I asked the wrong question during a family story, I would often get an illusive answer.

"Dad, what are the odds of lightning striking two structures on the same land on the same day, catching them both on fire?"

"Well ... I couldn't say."

"Dad, where was Grandpa during this time?"

"Well ... sometimes he was away."

"Dad, where was Susie?"

"Well ... you know, I was only two years old."

As I got older I discovered that this lightning story was the official story, but there was an underlying suspicion. Subtext. Family lore. A suggestion that this fire was set on purpose. Why? Nobody explained. They hemmed and hawed and said, "Well ...."

So I set out to find other sources of information. For years I searched through newspaper listings and other resources in Boyd county, near Spencer. I got negative results. That's what the professional genealogists tell you when you hire them to look for things, and they don't find them. "I searched. I got negative results. That will be four hundred and fifty dollars, please. I prefer a check."

Then one day I broadened my search to Holt county, a few miles south of Spencer, and that's when I discovered a tiny little news article in the Atkinson Graphic, dated July 12, 1912: "Orlin Carver of Phoenix had the misfortune to lose his house and household goods last Friday night by fire. Mr. Carver lives on a Kinkaid homestead and the loss will be an especially heavy one for him."

It didn't mention a barn. And Grandpa's first name was spelled wrong - Orlin instead of Orland - but I've often seen it misspelled in this fashion. My dad was born in 1910, so he would have been 2 in 1912. I had no idea where Phoenix or Kinkaid were, but a quick look at a map showed that Atkinson is 41 miles south of Spencer. The dates are right. The place seems right. There were not many Carvers in the area. This looked like my family. Now what?

I reached out to my cousins, Kate and Melody. "HELP!" They were patient, letting me bury them in research, listening to my dramatic overshares and sighs of confusion. They passed information back and forth between me and their aging parents, adding information of their own, and suggesting new avenues for research. Over the last year we've pieced together large parts of this story while our own stories unfolded in parallel..

If we were writing the script for a movie, we would have to admit that the script is not complete. We're hoping that if we release some updates, a bit at a time, we'll figure it out as we go. Perhaps more of our cousins will provide feedback and help us add depth and clarity. Perhaps the final family narrative will be crowdsourced.

And perhaps I can change my morning routine. Wake up and think, yes, darn it, I'm getting old, but at least I've shared what I know. And also, finally, thank heavens, that farting has subsided.

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