Mam-ma's Southern Family

In the nearly one hundred years that my grandmother, Pansy Louise (Lancaster) Johnston, lived, she experienced great technological change. Born in 1913 and died just two months short of her hundredth birthday in 2013, many technical advances happened in her lifetime. Growing up on a farm in Erath County, Texas, transportation was likely horse and wagon into town, and walking on her own two feet to school. Later, they lived in the town of Stephenville and her father was a self-taught auto mechanic. In her lifetime, planes progressed to jets, and her brother, R.D., was an Air Force pilot in World War II and Korea. Her husband, Tom, and her younger brother, Wayne, served in the Navy. Pansy was independent and drove a car up until the last decade of her life, when a minor heart attack put a stop to her driving. Their family did not have a radio in 1930, but it was likely they soon had one. Once television was widely available, the Johnston family had one, as I have heard stories ...

Sometimes I take these themes literally. I searched in RootsMagic genealogy database for the word “steps” and found this article about my first cousin, twice removed, Lovetta Loveless. Her father, Zachariah Loveless was a son of my maternal great-great-grandfather, Ebenezer Loveless. Lovetta (1929-2011), never married. She lived in Little Rock, Arkansas and worked as a legal secretary. A January 6, 1977 newspaper article from the Arkansas Democrat gave an account of her trip to a Club Med location in Playa Blanca, Mexico.       “It was a fabulous vacation for Lovetta Loveless when she spent a December week at Club Mediterranie at Playa Blanca, Mexico. The village is situated on a hillside on the Pacific Coast between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanilla. ‘My bungalow was next to the top--86 steps from the main area. Even though I tried to eliminate trips up and down, it was almost necessary to make four or five trips a day,’ she said.      ...

My mother lived with her parents in the 1940s and 1950s in Walnut Creek, California until she was a junior in high school, and then they moved to a house they purchased in Pleasant Hill. Both communities were rural or small-town in nature. There were local shops to purchase goods but no large department stores. Perhaps Sears or JC Penney had catalog stores where one could order something.  So if you wanted to do shopping in larger department stores, you had to drive or ride the bus into Oakland or San Francisco. Oakland had an H.C. Capwell and a Sears Roebuck store, plus many other fine shops along Broadway and Telegraph. It is likely that my mother and her mother traveled into Oakland on the Greyhound bus and shopped in the stores. It would have been a big deal, one where you put on your best clothes because you were going into the city. How do I know this? We have in our collection a photograph of my mother and grandmother walking down Broadway near the Paramount Theater. From th...

I currently have four people in my genealogy database named Hazel Loveless. Three are men, all born before 1820, and one is a woman, born in 1914. I wonder about the popularity of the name in the 1700s. I decided to search the 1800 U.S. census on just the first name of Hazel. I got sixteen hits, with half having spelling variations. My ancestor’s brother, Hazel Loveless, b. about 1770, turned up in Newberry District, South Carolina.  Others were found in New York, Vermont, Maryland, Connecticut, North Carolina, and New Hampshire. I thought it was a southern thing to name boys Hazel. Census Year No. with Hazel as First Name 1810 26 1820 33 1830 66* [1] 1840 84* My Hazels Hazel Loveless was born about 1770. He was an older brother of my maternal 4x-great-grandfather, James Loveless, who was born about 1771. Both may have been born in North Carolina or South Carolina, b...

I come from a line of women who loved clothes and loved posing in them. Previously, I shared some photos of my great-aunt, Beryl Johnston and you can find that post here . There are many more shots similar to those that I will share here. My grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster Johnston, also liked posing for photos in her favorite outfits, some she made. Pansy "Johnnie" Johnston & Beryl Johnston Russell Posing in Johnnie's backyard Pansy showing off her new dress she made My aunt loved posing for the camera in her home and I have boxes of slides of her in different outfits such as these two. I think Hollywood influenced her poses. My grandmother and my great aunt were not related, but got along well. Beryl was my grandfather's sister. She lived in Sacramento and came often to our holiday get-togethers. Such fun seeing all of these photos and appreciating the change in fashion over the years. This is my fourth year working on this year-long 52 Ancestors in 52 Wee...

Martha lost her mother when she was just three years old in 1872. Besides her, she had four siblings under ten: John E, Mary E, James R, and Daniel K., who was just eighteen months old. It is likely that her older sisters, Sarah “Sallie” Coor and Irma Anna Coor, took care of the younger children. Her father, James Madison Coor, was a farmer. By 1881, he moved from rural Copiah County, Mississippi to rural Erath County, Texas. All eight of his children who lived to adult moved to Texas, too. He died in 1889, leaving two children needing a guardian, which was done by their uncle, Samuel O Durham, husband of their sister, Irma Anna. S.O. Durham reported annually to the court in his capacity as guardian for DK and Doll Coor. In December 1894, he reported that Doll Coor married Cary Lancaster on 9 March 1892 and that she sold her entire interest in the Coor Estate to A.A. Chapman. [1] Her husband’s full name was William Carlton Lancaster, son of George W. Lancaster and Martha J. Polly...

For many years, I did not know what had become of my 2x-great-grandmother, Martha Jane Polly who married George W. Lancaster. She was with their family in the 1880 census and then gone. Also gone were their two children, Lonnie and Margaret. I assumed she had died and searched for clues to her death and burial, but never found any records. I couldn’t find any records of the two lost children either. Then I received an email from a descendant of one of George and Martha’s children. There had been a divorce and a remarriage, and Martha died in Tulare County, California in 1932. [1] Life Before the Divorce George W. Lancaster married Martha Jane Polly on 25 Oct 1871 in Kaufman County, Texas. [2] Twenty-two years and six children later, they were divorced on 23 December 1893 in Pima County, Arizona Territory. [3] They had six children, all born in Texas, except Reginald, who was born in Phoenix, Arizona Territory: William Carlton, born 21 July 1873, Rockwall Co, Texas [4] Lonnie O...