Mam-ma's Southern Family

    Today would have been the 60th anniversary of the my parents wedding.  Lela Nell Johnston and William Joseph Hork were married on 19 April 1953 in Concord, Contra Costa County, California at Queen of All Saints Catholic Church.     The accounting of the wedding was in the Contra Costa Times on 23 April 1953.  Lela wore "a street-length dress of antique white taffeta with unpressed pleats fashioned in the full skirt. The bodice was designed with three-quarter-length dolman sleeves, Peter Pan collar and self-covered buttons. She chose an ice-blue lace picture hat with open crown and matching silk gloves. Her white shantung slippers were adorned with tiny flower sprays on the toes."     She also "borrowed" pearl earrings belonging to her aunt, Mrs. Hal Johnston.  Her maid of honor was Barbara Boyenger, a friend who lived in Concord.  Barbara wore "a dusty pink silk shantung dress and white linen slippers. Her corsage was white ...

Six grandchildren, c. Summer 1967 Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family

Randy Seaver, a blogger at Genea-Musing, has created a wonderful blog theme called Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  Here is today’s mission: Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to: 1) Determine where your ancestral families were on 1 January 1913 - 100 years ago. 2) List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible). Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist? 3) Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status or Google+ Stream post. ______________________________________________ Here is the location of my family in 1913.  This is my mother's side of the family.  I have no photos of their homes.  Most of the sources are from the 1910 census. My grandfather, Tom Johnston was living with his parents, Thomas Newton Johnston and Nell L Hutson in Com...

My grandfather, Tom J. Johnston Jr was born one hundred years ago on 7 October 1912 in Gustine, a town in Comanche County, Texas. [1]   His parents were Thomas Newton Johnston and Nell L. Hutson.  He was the third child of five, having two older sisters, Beryl and Mildred, and two younger brothers, Hal and Luther.  His mother, Nell died 14 Jul 1919 at the young age of 31.  Tom was only six and half years old and his youngest brother, Luther, was only eighteen months old.  It must have been very hard on his father to raise five children without a mother. He married my grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster, on 15 December 1933 by the Justice of the Peace in Gustine, Comanche County, Texas. [2]   They had one child, Lela Nell Johnston. He served a short time in the United States Navy, leaving after four months with a medical discharge due to an ulcer. [3]   The family was living in Idaho at the US Naval Training Center, Farragut, Idaho.  T...

Randy Seaver's "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun" is always a blast to read and do.  Today's post is about listing your Matrilineal Lines.  This is my mother, my mother's mother, her mother's mother, etc.  When one has their mtDNA tested, this is the line that is tested and whose genes are passed down to me. Me: Lisa Suzanne Hork My mother: Lea Nell Johnston (1934-1992) My grandmother: Pansy Louise Lancaster - Living My great-grandmother: Lela Ann Loveless (1896-1951) My gg-grandmother: Eliza A. Ro(d)gers (1854-1907) I had my grandmother tested and her halpogroup is U5. My mother's father's matrilineal line is: My grandfather: Tom Johnston Jr (1912-1973) His mother: Nell Hutson (1888-1919) His grandmother: Sarah Helena Selman (1858-1916) His great-grandmother: Amanda Deborah Oldham (1822-1880) I have not had this line tested.  My mother had no brothers, so I need to have one of her male cousins do the y-DNA test. My father's mother...

     I could title this post, “On These Days,” and try to post it halfway between the 26 th of September for the anniversary of her death and the 27 th of September for the anniversary of her birth.       Sarah Helena Selman was born on 27 Sep 1858 in Cherokee County, Texas [1] , probably somewhere near Rusk [2] .  Cherokee County is in eastern Texas, two counties away from the Louisiana border.  Her parents were Greenlee Bean Selman and Amanda Deborah Oldham.  She was the youngest of the three children of Greenlee and Amanda.  Both Amanda and Greenlee had previous marriages, resulting in Sarah having four half-siblings.      She married Peter Hayden Hutson in Hood County, Texas on 11 Sep 1879. [3]   They had 8 children, seven girls and one boy.  My great-grandmother, Nell Hutson, was number 4.  Three of her daughters, Lillie Violet, Myrtle, and Winnie Oda, died before reaching adulthood....

Mam-ma's Mercury Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family