Sunday's Obituary - John Franklin Ross

This is the obituary of my 2nd great grandfather, John Franklin Ross. Unfortunately there is no publication information on the source document. It was likely written by his family and published in the Rockwell City or Lake City newspaper near his home in Iowa, in the days following December 13, 1934.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Vilas Parker's Missing Air Crew Report

Cropping of crew list from MACR 4882

Last fall I purchased the Missing Air Crew Report (MACR) that pertained to my 2nd (oops) 1st cousin (twice removed), Vilas Parker. The twice removed part just means that he was my grandfather's first cousin. I wrote about his loss in World War II in this article from August 2010. Just to recap, Vilas was a Staff Sergeant attached to Merrill's Marauders. He was killed, along with 6 others, on May 22, 1944 when the C-47 he was on crashed in bad weather in the Kachin Hills, a mountainous area in a remote part of Burma. The aircraft was found accidentally in 1987 and some remains of the crew were returned to family in the US.

The story is interesting to me in several respects. First is the family connection to the famous Merrill's Marauders, which was a special forces unit during World War II and is connected to today's US Army Rangers. The story of the aircraft being found over 40 years later is also amazing to me. Another twist of fate is that the aircraft was lost on May 22, 1944, which was also Vilas's birthday.

A C-47 drops rations in Burma in 1944

The actual transaction to get the document went very poorly. I decided to pay $10 and go through the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to receive scanned microfilm on CD. All I had was the MACR number, which was 4882. I had to bounce this number off the microfilm catalog M-1380. MACR 4882 was listed as being on microfilm number 1742. Fiche 1742 was supposed to contain MACR 4880-4882, so I ordered it. Unfortunately, I received fiche number 576 that included MACR 1740-1742. Apparently there was some confusion between the MACR 1742 and fiche #1742. I followed the instructions for ordering and I'm pretty sure I did it correctly, so I think the problem was on their end. NARA apparently doesn't staff their phones very well and they don't monitor or respond to e-mails. I spent hours on hold and sent several e-mails requesting clarification, but I received no responses and never got someone to pick up the phone. I sent a couple requests via their web inquiry form and that was finally what it took to get a response. After about a month, I finally received MACR 4882, but I received a printed version rather than the digitized records on CD that I ordered. Honestly I felt lucky to receive anything. I'm glad I got the documents, but I doubt I will be ordering too many more documents from NARA.

Click read more to see the documents I received...

Wordless Wednesday - Frank and Clara Fowlie with flowers

This is a scan of a slide from my grandmother's collection showing my great grandparents, Frank and Clara (Ross) Fowlie, on a visit to Elvis Brassfield's farm in Reeseville, Wisconsin.The photo dates to the mid-1960s.

Some thoughts on the 1940 Census launch

Fortunately I didn't spend much time dealing with the 1940 census on launch day. The site was bogged down and I'm sure many people found it difficult to find anything. I was able to find the first few on my list mainly because they were all in the same enumeration district in rural Calhoun County, Iowa. I knew I was looking for Lake Creek Township and the census map told me that it was enumeration district 13-19. Since the site was severely bogged down, I simply downloaded all 16 pages of the district to my computer and looked through them manually. At this point the site has been so slow that you may as well look for the map and go straight to download rather than "quickview". I've yet to see a map or sheet in the flash viewer the way they had intended them to be viewed.

I've uploaded one in case you haven't seen a census sheet from 1940 yet:

Lake Creek Township, Calhoun County, Iowa, Page 5B (E.D. 13-19)

The image above contains the Harold Whitted residence and lists his wife Helen (Ross) Whitted as his wife. Also living at this residence, according to the census, was his mother-in-law Mary (Stotler) Ross and her son Oliver Ross. The document also contains two spots for supplementary information and as a matter of luck, Harold Whitted is in block 68, so there is some supplementary information about him. Mary (Stotler) Ross is my 2nd Great Grandmother. Not really expecting to see any ground breaking information, but Oliver apparently was visiting from Sioux City. (at the time of the census at least) If you click the image above you should be able to take a closer look at it.

Of the 16 sheets in the Lake Creek township, I found 3 more sheets that had relatives including the Clara and Frank Fowlie family, the Mason and Daisy Ross family and the John Ross Jr. family. I'm expecting to find Floyd Brassfield in Lake City, but I don't have the patience to wait for the website.

Today is 1940 Census Day

Posting has been pretty slow lately. I guess I have been letting other hobbies take priority over genealogy. At 9 AM Eastern on April 2, the 1940 Census will be released. I'm not sure what to expect from this data, but it should help to narrow down where some of my ancestors were living in 1940. It should also help narrow down death dates for a few of the people in my database that I don't have death dates for. 

There won't be a searchable list of names at first, so I'll probably start by flipping through the sheets for Calhoun County, Iowa and Marquette County, Wisconsin.

http://1940census.archives.gov/

Wordless Wednesday - Ross sisters

This is a scan of a slide from my grandmother's collection showing my great grandmother Clara (Ross) Fowlie on the left with her sisters Mary (Ross) Gillespie, center, and Helen (Ross) Whitted on the right. This is at the same location as last Wednesday's photo. Late 1940s / 1950s time frame, possibly at the Ross farm in Calhoun County, Iowa.

Update: I found a very similar photo in a different album captioned October 17, 1954 at the Whitted farm.

Wordless Wednesday - Frank and Clara Fowlie with flowers

This is a scan of a slide from my grandmother's collection showing my great grandparents, Frank and Clara (Ross) Fowlie. I think it dates back to the 1950s or late 1940s. I am not certain where the photo was taken, possibly the Ross farm in Calhoun County.

Update: I found a similar photo in another album that says this is from October 17, 1954 at the Whitted farm. Helen Ross-Whitted was Clara Ross-Fowlie's sister.

Wordless Wednesday - Fowlie Brothers in Wisconsin

This is a scan of a slide showing three of the Folwie brother's visiting Elvis Brassfield's farm in Reeseville, Wisconsin. Alex Fowlie (1886 - 1974 aka Alec Foley) is on the left, George Fowlie (1878 - 1967), center and Frank Fowlie (1892 - 1977) is on the right. This photo dates to between 1964 and 1967. Frank Brown Fowlie was my great-grandfather, George and Alec were his brothers.

Wordless Wednesday - Fowlie Siblings

This photo was taken prior to November 1961 at the Frank Fowlie residence in Lake View, Iowa. George Fowlie (1878 - 1967) is on the left next to Frank Fowlie (1892 - 1977). On the right side is Alex Fowlie (1886 - 1974 aka Alec Foley) and his wife Jessie (Crawford) (1897 - 1961 aka Jessie Foley). They must have been visiting from Minnesota at the time of the photo. I cropped the photo from a larger scan from my grandmother's set of slides.

Frank Brown Fowlie was my great-grandfather, George and Alec were his brothers.

Wordless Wednesday - Elvis on the farm

This is a scan of a slide showing my grandfather, Elvis John Brassfield (1920 - 2006), on his farm in the Town of Portland, Dodge County, Wisconsin in the late 1960's or early 1970s.

Wordless Wednesday - Fowlie Barns

Frank Fowlie barns c. 1940s

Here are some more photos of the Frank Fowlie farm from the 1940s. Frank and Clara (Ross) Fowlie were my great grand parents. None of these buildings are extant and as of 2011, only a grain bin marks the location of the farm. I put the grain bin and aerial photos in too for comparison... I would add that except for the car in the next photo, this scene is not much different than what can be found somewhere in Iowa, even in 2012.

Wordless Wednesday - Fowlie retirement home then and now

117 Denison Beach Drive in 2011

This is a series of photos of Frank and Clara (Ross) Fowlie's home in Lake View, Sac County, Iowa. They were my great grand parents. As you can see from the current photo, the color is different, but the floor plan appears to be the same. The oldest photo shows the home without the dining room and porch, which were added later in the 50s and 60s. As I've mentioned before, we always thought of the green color shown below as "Grandpa green". Click read more to see the rest of the photos...