I have met the Alphabet Challenge, so where do I go from here....

Dear Blog Readers....

I started this blog when I found the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge.   It has been a great way  to turn my research into short stories about the grandmothers in our family tree.  I have told 26 stories  so far, but  I want to continue telling the stories  of our grandmothers. 

My grandmothers didn't  change the course of history, like the famous women in the poster here,  but they sure made history: their own history  and it is worth remembering and retelling.  I am eternally grateful to the women before me  without whom I would not be here.    It is a joy to lift them up this way so that their lives are remembered by all of us.

I will try to post at least once a week.    Stay tuned.  Maybe I'll even throw in a grandpa along the way!
 

Z is for Zilpha Estep

My grandmother, Zilpha Estep was the youngest of the ten children of Charles and Helen Estep.  Here she is sitting in her father's  lap.   Her older brothers nicknamed her "Zip" or "Zippy"  when a small child  because they said she was always running  around.  The name stuck and she was called by that name all her life.  In fact, her grandchildren often referred to her as Gramma Zip.

 

She grew up on Armenia Mountain and in East Troy, Pennsylvania.  Twelve year old Zippy is in the front, right side with her older sister Wilma behind her to the right.  Not sure who the others are in this picture.  Looks like the girls were dressed  for a special occasion.

 As the Roaring Twenties  Era was about to begin Zip and her friends  were sporting the latest fashions.  That's Zip on the left. Eighteen year old Zilpha is enumerated on the 1920 census with her sister Wilma, 19 years old, at the Cottage State Hospital in Blossburg, Pennsylvania where they were taking their nurses training.  They may have been the first generation of women in the family to attain higher education.

In December of that year  she and Richard Hughes were married in Williamsport,  Pennsylvania.    Dick and Zilpha made a  very handsome couple and enjoyed the fast paced lifestyle of the prohibition years.   Children  came quickly to the young couple.  My father, Richard Lyle Hughes, Jr. was born November 1, 1921.  Loreen arrived on March 19, 1923 followed by Nina Marie on December 29, 1924.    Nina died before her second birthday on November 16, 1926 and soon after that problems complicated their lives and they found it difficult to keep the family together.  It is unclear when they  were actually divorced.  Dad remembers the four of them living together at different times during his youth;  Loreen believes they divorced about 1939 when she was 16 years old.  Even though they separated and finally divorced, I believe they always held strong feelings for each other.  I have fond memories of my grandmother being at Grampa Hughes' lake at Tioga in the summer when we came from Ohio to visit.  He always made her welcome when the family was together. (Gramma Dorotha, his second wife must have been a very understanding soul.)

             
        Zip with her son, Dickie and daughter Loreen, 1927.

One of the few pictures of Nina, about 1926.   She is buried  in Elmira, NY with her mother Zilpha along side her.

Zilpha Estep Hughes was trained as a practical nurse.  Her life time career took her into the homes of her clients where she lived with them providing around the clock nursing care as long as they needed.  Sometimes this was for the remainder of a clients life.  Her children, Dick and Loreen,  and Nina before she died,  were taken care of in the homes of Gram's sisters and parents. 

At about age 40.                At about age 55.                        

                                      

 Zilpha was married a second time to A. Norman Lawrence.  She is buried along side Nina in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York.  Zilpha was born on July 23, 1902.  She passed away on August 15, 1978 at the age of 76 years.

                                 

                                                    This page and all contents © 2012 Cynthia H. Smith
                                                                      Email  to chsmith47@yahoo.com
GENEALOGY IS A WORK OF HEART Your comments and suggestions are appreciated. It is with pleasure that I am able to present this information here for you to enjoy. If you discover a relationship here, I would very much enjoy hearing from you.

                Email address--- chsmith47@yahoo.com

Y is for Camelia Engler ... WHY?

WHY?  Well for one thing I don't have a Y grammie, but  why not talk about Camilla and how I went about researching her story. It is always a challenge to find a women's birth name and determine the names of her parents.  Often her maiden name is lost and it takes some detective work to search for records that will provide clues to the names of her father and mother.

Camilla is Ron's great, great grandmother Smith.  Her name had been passed on to me in the Smith family reunion records kept by his grandmother Beatrice Graver Smith.  This awesome picture of Camilla at work in her garden was given to me by her granddaughter and namesake, Eva Camilla Smith Bartholomew.

I knew her last name had been Engler, but I did not know her father's first name. Using the online obituary index for the Easton Newspapers available at the Easton Library in Easton, Pennsylvania,  I located an obituary for Camilla Smith in the Easton paper on microfilm.  The date for the obituary was a close match for her death date, April 7, 1922.  The obituary provided good clues in the hunt for her family.  Among her survivors was one brother, Frank Engler of Carlton, Oregon. 

Using that information I searched Heritage Quest online for a census record.  I was looking for a family  named Engler with a daughter named Camilla and a son named  Frank.  Searching all Englers in the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania area on the 1860 census, I finally found the family of  Michael Engler, age 53, Bethlehem twp. Northampton Co., PA.  Camilla is listed as a 14 year old in this family (this age fits for her birth date of October 6, 1845).  Her brother Frank is listed as  Franklin, age 10.    I also learned that Camilla's mother was named Dorothea.  Additional  internet research, for an obituary for Micheal Engler  proved  that Dorothea's  maiden name was Kocher.  VIOLA!!!  Found another  "Grammie"  tree to climb and so my research efforts are never ending...  but on to the story of  Camilla.

By 1870 Camilla was married to Edmund Smith.  Like her, he grew up on a  farm.   Both of their  families  were hard working German speaking people known  as the Pennsylvania Dutch.   Pennsylvania Dutch  was spoken in their homes  through out their lives.   Some of the older members of the family still have the "Dutchy"  accent in their voices today.   Speaking English was a noteworthy  item on census records.  The 1900 Census  reports that Camilla could not write or speak English, but could read it.  Also it is learned that she was the mother of two living children in 1900 and  that she and Edmund had been married for 30 years, which figures to a marriage date circa 1870. 
         

I have not located a record for their marriage.   However they are listed  as sponsors at a baptism in 1868, so they were a couple by then.  On the 1910 census record, Camilla reports that she was the mother of three children.  Burial records at  St. Thomas church, Altonah cemetery  show an infant, Edmund Smith, who died in 1871. This could very likely be their son.  The baby's grandparents, Valentine and Caroline Smith,  are also buried in the Altonah cemetery.  

Camilla did have two other children.  Her son, Arthur, who married Estella Kunkle,  was born on October 18, 1874.  Camilla's daughter,  Florence Mae,  was born May 11, 1879.  At a time when women had one baby after another, as we have seen with so many of the grandmothers whose stories I have told here, I wonder  why Edmund and Camilla only had three children.

Edmund and Camilla Smith   instilled strong religious values in their children, Arthur and Florence.  They enjoyed attending the Moorestown Reformed Church once a month for a high German  service.  Uncle Franklin once told me that he remembered when he  and his father and mother attended those services with them.     Camilla lived to be  77 when she died  in 1922.   Edmund died  three years later at the age of 90.

They are buried in  Greenmont Cemetery on Rt. 248 in Bath, Pennsylvania.   Her name is spelled COMELIA on  her gravestone.  Don't know WHY.

 Edmund H. Smith Sept. 27, 1835 - Dec. 18, 1925.  Comelia  Smith  Oct. 6, 1845 -  Apr. 6, 1922.

                                           This page and all contents © 2012 Cynthia H. Smith
                                                                   Email  to chsmith47@yahoo.com 
GENEALOGY IS A WORK OF HEART Your comments and suggestions are appreciated. It is with pleasure that I am able to present this information here for you to enjoy. If you discover a relationship here, I would very much enjoy hearing from you.

                Email address--- chsmith47@yahoo.com