Deaths at Cloutierville - Ancestors in Neighboring Newspapers

Today's post highlights one of my favorite tips for searching for ancestors among old sources - in this case, newspapers.  What I like to remind everyone is not to assume that just because your ancestors lived in one particular location, that information on them will be limited to that location!  Since newspapers were one of the best ways to spread information about ones' friends and neighbors, newspapers located outside of the actual hometown of an ancestor may provide you with better information, since they're meant for the people who didn't keep up with that person on a daily basis.  Check surrounding towns' newspapers for mentions of your ancestors, or even the papers of the towns where their families lived in other counties or states.

Today's news clipping comes from the Opelousas Courier, a weekly paper in both French and English editions published in Opelousas, Louisiana from 1852 to 1910.  Opelousas is the parish seat of St. Landry Parish, which is located three parishes away from Natchitoches, where the people it mentions were from.  The notice is of a list of recent deaths at Cloutierville, located along the Cane River in Natchitoches Parish, and states that among the deceased are also "names who are well-known in our Parish".

• The Opelousas courier. (Opelousas, La.), 05 Nov. 1853. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83026389/1853-11-05/ed-1/seq-1/>

Of particular interest to this blogger are the names Eusèbe Deslouches, Hyppolite Rachal, and Mmes. P. S. Compère and Julien Rachal, which match names in my own family tree.  The Eusèbe Deslouches in my records was the son of Appoline Rachal and Landry Deslouches, and the nephew of Hyppolite Rachal, who also appears in the list.  Hyppolite was, like Appoline and my ancestor Cyriaque, a child of Sylvestre Rachal and Marie Rose Michel-Zoriche.  If they are the same people as mine, Eusèbe Deslouches was about 9 years old and his uncle Hyppolite was about 28 years of age at the time of their deaths.  As neither of them could be found on the 1860 census, I think it likely but not 100% confirmed.  Also here in this list is an additional corroboration for the death of my 5th-great grandmother, Mme. P. S. Compère (née Lolette Rachal, daughter of Julien Rachal and Marie Louise Brevel) who died September of 1853, according to my records, which cited her succession filed with the Natchitoches clerk of court as the source for that date.  The Compères' elder son Joseph Maximin had married Clara Dejean of Opelousas, and so their name would indeed have been familiar in Opelousas.  The name in this list that precedes Lolette's, Mme. Julien Rachal, is not her mother, who died in 1815, but is probably instead her sister-in-law, Marie Melanie Lavespere, the widow of Mme. Compère's brother, Julien Jr.  Two of their sons were also married to Dejean sisters, so the Rachals would have been known in Opelousas as well.

The next column on the newspaper page (link in the caption above) contains a letter from the bishop at Natchitoches which may be relevant to this list.  In it, he laments the devastation brought upon the communities at Cloutierville, Shreveport, and Alexandria by a recent outbreak of yellow fever.

The Bitterman House

This picture probably dates from the same time as the family portrait taken in/about 1903.  The members of the extended Bitterman family are gathered at the Nuecestown home belonging to Levi Bitterman, who can be seen seated on the front porch of the home in this photo.  The matriarch of the family, Esilla (Rachal) Bitterman, is dressed in black on the upstairs gallery, standing between two of her Wright granddaughters.  A photo of the same house belongs to the General Photograph Collection in the Special Archives and Collections of the Corpus Christi Public Library, corroborating the identification of the photo as another image of the Bitterman family.

James Thomas O'Reilly in Dublin and America

In addition to my great-great grandmother and some of her O'Reilly nephews, I've found evidence that another member of the same family also left Ireland to come to America.  This was my great-great grand uncle, James Thomas O'Reilly.

James Thomas O'Reilly was born 17 May 1854 and baptized the 24th of the same month at Bekan, Mayo.  The sponsors to his baptism were Francis Treston and Anne O'Reilly, presumably relatives of his parents, Laurence O'Reilly and Bridget Treston.  He was likely named for his maternal grandfather, James Treston of Cottage, Mayo, in accordance with the popular naming conventions of the time.

James appeared again in the records at the age of 19, when he married Margaret Rothery 2 November 1873 in Dundrum.  James's address is given as Bride Street, which is right in the Dublin city centre, though unfortunately no occupation is given.  Margaret's address is given as Dundrum, as are the addresses of both parents.  James's are given as Laurence and Bridget O'Reilly and Margaret's are Isaac and Sarah Rothery.  From the 1884 marriage record of Margaret's brother, Isaac, in Rathmines, we learn that their mother's name was Sarah Doyle.  The Thom's Directories list Isaac Rothery, their father, resident in the Churchtown area for many years as a cattle dealer.  This was also around the time Laurence O'Reilly and his family had moved from Mayo to Dublin following the death of James O'Reilly there in 1872, and the Rotherys lived very close by and certainly would have known them.  As the marriage record doesn't state James's mother's maiden name, we can only look to the evidence in additional documents, but I have since concluded that this was the same James from the Bekan parish baptism register.

The church records show three children born while James and Margaret lived in Dublin: Laurence, born 19 August 1874 in Churchtown; Isaac, born 10 Jan 1876 in Churchtown; and James, born 18 January 1877 in Roundtown.  At this point their trail went cold in Ireland.  I was able to find an obituary for Margaret's mother printed in Freeman's Journal in January 1884, with the request that American papers please copy (commonly requested when relatives have moved abroad).

Based on the request in Sarah Doyle Rothery's obituary, a check of American records under their names turned up Margaret's death certificate in 1920, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.  We had the right Margaret... but what about James?  As mentioned above, the marriage didn't conclusively state he was the son of Laurence O'Reilly and Bridget Treston.  I also didn't turn up a death certificate in Pennsylvania for him, and since he also doesn't appear with the family on the 1910 census he likely died sometime between 1900 and 1906, when the state officially started issuing death certificates.

However, two documents among the Pennsylvania records provide links back to the Bekan baptism.  The first is the 1900 census.  Included in the census data for that year are the month and birth year of the respondent.  James, listed here as James O'Riley, gives his birth date as May 1854, exactly matching the Bekan record.  The second is the Philadelphia death certificate of James and Margaret's son, James, the one whose baptism was recorded in St. Joseph's Dublin, in 1877.  The younger James died in 1908 of cancer at the age of 31.  His parents are recorded as James T.  O'Reilly (T as in Thomas) and Maggie Rothery (name transcribed incorrectly; see image).

So, to conclude: we know from the Pennsylvania records that the James O'Reilly who married Margaret Rothery in Dublin was named James T. O'Reilly and that he was born in May 1854.  The Dublin marriage tells us that James's parents were named Laurence and Bridget, and the Mayo baptism of Laurence O'Reilly and Bridget Treston's son shows that he was born in May 1854 and his middle name was Thomas.  Taken together, I think it is a reasonable conclusion to draw that the Pennsylvania, Dublin, and Mayo records are all referring to the same person: James Thomas O'Reilly.

(Additional fee-based church records I am unable to provide links to were found on RootsIreland.  Freeman's Journal can be accessed for a fee from either Find My Past or the British Newspaper Archive.  Thom's Directory is also available via Find My Past.)

The Case of the Missing Irish Anzac

Today, April 25th, is the annual observation of Anzac Day, the remembrance of the Allied troops from Australia and New Zealand during WWI.  This particular Anzac Day is a very special one, as it marks the 100th anniversary of the Anzacs landing at Gallipoli.

Researching Anzac relatives is easy from any corner of the world now, thanks to the joint efforts of the Australian and New Zealand governments, who have put the service records of these soldiers online.  You may research them yourself, at the Discovering Anzacs site.

One example is a distant cousin of mine, Joseph Michael Lavan of Ballyhaunis, Mayo (it shouldn't be a surprise that many were Irish born).  Joseph Michael was the youngest son of Susan Treston of Cottage, County Mayo, who was a first cousin of my great-great grandmother, Adelia O'Reilly.  Susan's father was Hubert Treston, the younger brother of my great-great-great grandmother Bridget Treston.

Joseph Michael's service record tells us is that he signed on relatively late in the war, in 1917.  He was sent from Australia to England, and from there to France, where he survived several gas attacks.  It is here that the record acquires a bit of a mystery.  It was while recuperating from the last of these that Joseph Michael was invalided to hospital in London and mid-May 1918 granted a furlough until the end of the month, which he failed to return from.  On 31 January 1919 he reappeared in Waterford, in civilian clothes, and rendered himself to the civil authorities.  What the record can't tell us (or doesn't, at any rate) is why Joseph Michael disappeared when he did, what he was doing in all that time, or why he was found back in Ireland.  A possible reason emerges, however, based on clues contained both in the service record and in existing Irish records.

What the service record does say is that sometime before his record was closed, his family contact back home had changed.  It had been his mother, Mrs. Susan Fallon of Ballyhaunis, but her name was crossed out and his brother, Bernard Vincent Lavan, a resident of Ballinlough, Roscommon, written in.  When Joseph's furlough was up and he didn't return, a letter was sent from the Army to Bernard rather than to Susan.  Looking at the Irish records, specifically the will calendars in the possession of the National Archives in Dublin, we learn that Susan Fallon had died sometime prior to the end of 1918, when the administration of her estate was granted on 24 December to Mssrs. Patrick Costello and James Lyons.  Susan had a cousin named Patrick Costelloe who lived at Graigue Lodge, Tuam, Galway; it is unclear if he is the person referred to here or not.  James Lyons is also an extremely common name throughout Mayo (Lyons is one of the most numerous surnames in the entire county), but the 1901 and 1911 Irish census tells us that a James Lyons was a merchant in Ballyhaunis, and ran the Commercial Hotel (Susan and her first husband, Michael Lavan, had run the Railway Hotel in Ballyhaunis).  James Lyons had a daughter, Annie, who had married Bernard Lavan, mentioned above, in 1910.  It is reasonable to conclude that it is this James Lyons who helped administer Susan's estate.  Could Susan's death have had something to do with Joseph's disappearance in those months between his leaving the hospital in London and turning up again in Waterford?

Regardless of the disciplinary mark on his record for his unexplained absence, Joseph Michael did receive recognition for his military service by being presented both the British Medal and Victory Medal, as indicated by the stamps and medal numbers recorded in his file.  He certainly hadn't had an easy time in the short duration of his active service, as the number of times the word "gassed" appears in the notations for his file indicate, and his disappearance and reappearance coinciding with his mother's death back home in Ireland certainly adds an intriguing, and very human, element to the story of a young Irishman far from his home.

Dr. Charles Henry DeWan

Way back when I first started researching my grandfather's Irish ancestry, I asked my grandmother what she knew about his family.  One of the things she told me was that her mother-in-law, Kathryn DeWan Fagan, had a brother who was a pathologist.  This was Dr. Charles Henry DeWan, as my research would uncover.  

The youngest DeWan sibling, Charles was born 18 August 1892 in Herrick, Pennsylvania.  Their father, Patrick, had come from Ireland sometime before 1862 and their mother, Anna McGovern, had family roots in Counties Armagh and Longford.  Charles graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, where his brother-in-law Dr. Peter Edward Fagan had also earned his MD, and returned home to Bradford County as an intern in 1917 to join the staff of the Robert Packer Hospital.  During a 45 year medical career, Dr. DeWan was a deputy coroner for Bradford County and director of the pathology department at Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pennsylvania.  Under his supervision the pathology lab grew from one room to an entire hospital floor, and his death in 1963 garnered a front page headline in the local paper (plus an additional page).  The following photograph is of Dr. DeWan.

Dr. Charles Henry DeWan
Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine

It is my belief that the image above, being created prior to 1977, is likely in the public domain as classified for works created between 1923 and 1977 as laid out here and additionally that fair use applies, as I have provided a commentary on it by adding details on the life of its subject which were not published with the image.

The USGA's "Photo" Pietzcker

While not a household name today, a number of iconic images of the country's most famous golfers of the 1920s and 1930s were photographed by my 2nd cousin 3x removed, George Sealy Pietzcker.   George was born in Sour Lake, Hardin County, Texas on 18 January 1885.  His father, Ezra James Pietzcker, was from Massillon, Ohio and was the son of Mary Ann Biedermann/Bitterman (sister of my 3x great-grandfather Levi) and Dr. August Pietzcker, a Moscow-born Prussian who family tradition said had been taken from Moscow to St. Petersburg as an infant to escape Napoleon's invading army in 1812.  Family tradition also held that Mary Ann and Levi's father, Joseph Biedermann, had been a member of that invading French army and was one of a small fraction to survive the Russian winter and make it back alive.

George's mother, Veturia Elizabeth Merchant, came from a family that had resided at Sour Lake since at least the 1840s.  Possibly not entirely coincidentally, some of her husband Ezra's Bitterman cousins had also been born in Sour Lake, and he may have ended up there while on the trail of his missing uncle Levi in Texas, a Herculean task given him by the family back in Ohio.  Ezra traveled a lot for his work, including stints in Houston which allowed him to stay in touch with his Texas Bitterman cousins (once he succeeded in finding them!), and we all probably owe cousin Ezra a great deal in particular for a letter, now part of the pension file of Esilla Bitterman in the Texas State Archives, which details to his cousins some of the history of the Bitterman family as he knew it.

Eventually the entire Pietzcker family relocated to St. Louis, Missouri.  George started a photography studio while they resided there and although golf photography was his chosen specialization, he also on occasion photographed other events.  A collection of photographs he took in 1910 documenting an aviation meet feature photos of Wright planes and Theodore Roosevelt, and are now part of a special collection at Duke University.  Throughout the next couple of decades, George traveled the country working as a photographer for the USGA.  His original photos are extremely rare now and sell for thousands when they come up for auction.  A selection of reproductions of some of his most famous subjects are available through the USGA Museum, and many are republished in the book Golf's Golden Age.  George appears on the US Census records with the rest of the Pietzcker family through 1930.  During the next decade, George relocated to Miami, Florida, with wife Julia and retired there.  He died in Miami on 1 December 1971.  

Bitterman Family Portrait, ca. 1903

Three generations of Bitterman descendants are depicted in this photograph, dating from around 1903 (based on the ages of the infants in the photo).  From the groupings in the photo I've been able to reconstruct a pretty good idea of who everyone is.  The white-haired man near the center of the photo is Levi Bitterman, with daughter Mary Ann and wife Esilla (Rachal) sitting to either side of him.  On Esilla's other side, wearing a plaid dress, is their daughter Emma with husband William Woodson Wright Jr. and their children seated and standing around them.  At far left in the center row is Levi and Esilla's son Fred, with wife Mary Susan (Elliff) and their daughters.  On the other side of Mary Susan is Milus Polk Wright, Mary Ann's husband and brother of Emma's husband W. W., and the four boys sitting on the ground and the girl behind them belong to M. P. and Mary Ann.  At the back row is Lee Bitterman with wife Hester (Clark), married about a year at the time this was taken, and the identities of the next two young men in the photo would be either Ulyses or Edgar Bitterman (but I'm not certain which one is which).  On their other side is their niece Mabel Wright, her brother Earl, and sister Ghaskye.  Their brothers Will and Harry are seated on the ground in front of their parents, The small girl with her hair in ribbons, immediately behind Harry and being held onto by their father, is my great-grandmother Pearl Anais, who was around three years old.